Ibrahim Vaughn Holtzman: the machine mind of Liesco

Ibrahim Vaughn Holtzman (7593 BG to 108 BG) was a son of a planetary governor of Liesco II who became a thinking machine, a human brain wired to a computer aboard a ship that circled his homeworld on a centuries-long orbit. In his isolation he worked out theories and discoveries of immense consequence, among them the phenomena that carried his name into the sciences of the Holtzman effect, and he transmitted them to humanity during his periodic returns. His story ended near the close of the Butlerian Jihad, when he was hunted down as the last of the thinking machines.

Early life#

Holtzman was born on Liesco II during the Great Dark Ages, the son of the planetary governor. The world he grew up on was ruled by House Holtzman and had a vigorous scientific culture with advanced medical sciences. He proved a mathematical genius from an early age, and his deepest interest lay in the suspensor-nullification effect, a problem that had occupied the best minds of the preceding five thousand years.

He was also one of the earliest sport ornithopterists, flying in an age when the ornithopter had yet to win wide acceptance. That enthusiasm nearly killed him. In 7565 BG he was seriously injured in the crash of a racing ornithopter, an accident he survived only because of the advanced medicine of his homeworld. Holtzman became one of the first individuals whose brain was transplanted into a prototype axolotl tank wired to a computer. The union of flesh and machine gave him a thought-processing speed at least thirty times faster than that of a normal human, and with it he contemplated and learned more about the suspensor-nullification effect than all the minds of the previous fifty centuries. The same transformation marred him with psychosis and paranoia that never fully left him.

Escape into the Void#

Convinced in his paranoia that he was persecuted, Holtzman wanted nothing so much as time to think in isolation. Working through the production network of Liesco II under the guise of the chief engineer of House Holtzman, he ordered the construction of a spaceship of a new style. In 7562 BG he presented release papers that summarily discharged him from the hospital where he was interred, had himself placed aboard the new vessel, and procured takeoff clearances by tricking the scheduling comp into queuing his ship ahead of the others waiting on the line. Before anyone could stop him, he disappeared into the Void.

He settled into a cometary orbit that would reach perihelion in 7556 BG, nine years distant. Through those years he covertly copied the data of the planetary library comps into his own storage, absorbing everything they held and causing unexplained interruptions in their transmissions. He then sent an anonymous message by Holtzman Waves to his imagined persecutors, a strange amalgam of random accusations. Later he used the planetary mass of Liesco II itself to carry his messages, explaining his discoveries to the excitement of the planet's academic community.

Pursuit and the gift of the Waves#

Governor Holtzman feared that his insane son would become dangerous. For nine years he sent patrols to sweep the Liesco system for the ship of "the Mad Holtzman". In 7556 BG a patrol scout caught a radar image of the vessel and, joined by two cutters, moved in to destroy it. Holtzman answered with a distress wave message to the six nearest inhabited systems, detailing an instantaneous interstellar comm device, information his father had allegedly intended to keep for himself. Every system save one replied at once.

The pursuit cost him dearly. Two extremely long-range shots ripped apart the manipulators of his suspensor-nullification field, and the stern of his ship blew apart. Unable to maneuver, he was thrown into an uncharted orbit. With his remaining power he transmitted the data for constructing Holtzman Wave transmitters in a quick wave pulse to every inhabited star system he could aim at. Then, crippled, he placed himself in an inactive state, scheduling a wake-up procedure after 1862 years, when his new and highly eccentric orbit would carry him back into the Liesco system and within panel range of its star.

The silent second return#

The gift he had scattered across the stars transformed the worlds he left behind, though not as he might have hoped. His contributions drove the rapid development of Holtzman Wave generators, and those in turn brought on the Wars of Reunification, ferocious and long-lasting struggles that raged through the inhabited worlds. When his orbit returned him to Liesco in 5694 BG, the fighting was so savage that Holtzman chose not to reveal his existence at all. He used the visit to make what repairs his damaged servos allowed, and in his work he discovered the curious existence of the point-source nodes before falling silent again.

The prison world and the Planar Effect#

By his third return, around 3832 BG, Liesco II had been remade as a prison world administered by a few orbital comps. Detecting no malevolent activity, Holtzman sent a brief wave message to the planet. The machines that caught it sent emergency calls to the office of the Provincial Warden on Maktiun III, and the Warden, assuming the prisoners had built a transmitter, dispatched technicians to investigate. Still fearing that they would move against him, Holtzman published his discovery of the Planar Effect, couched in what was by then the archaic speech of the Great Dark Ages, and dropped back into quiescence.

The technicians suspected a hoax, since every account had Holtzman dead in the skirmish centuries before, yet no malfunction could be found in the comps. A historian contacted by the Warden recognized the archaic speech in the recordings and judged them plausibly legitimate. The proof came from a theoretical wave mechanic named Staivan, chief engineer of House Varrik, who followed the instructions in the transmission and generated a Node for the Planar Effect, producing the first manufactured shield. Staivan reported to the Warden that the messages were no hoax. When the Warden sent a wave to Liesco demanding more, Holtzman broadcast a brief biography, promised to be back in the next millennia, sent one last message to the systems within range about his latest discovery, and powered down. From the Planar Effect, spreading like wildfire, came in time the Defensive Shield.

The truce at Liesco XI#

His fourth return, in 1970 BG, found the worlds at war once more in the Second Reunification, with Liesco itself a battlefield. Yet such was his legend that the combatants at the Battle of Liesco XI made a two month truce to welcome him, bracketing the perigee of his approach. Holtzman published his Unified Effect Theory, linking the various effects he had discovered into a single hierarchy of phenomena. During the visit he seemed communicative and less insane than before, though he refused to discuss a "work in progress" in which he said he could "see the end", claiming he needed only a few more days. He also refused to make his orbit known, and warned that a Planar Field booby-trap would trigger if anyone attempted to capture him.

The last thinking machine#

Holtzman's final return came in 108 BG, near the end of the Butlerian Jihad. The worlds that had once welcomed him as a legend now regarded him as the last thinking machine in existence, and he was expected back only so that he could be destroyed. Pilgrims massed in space around Liesco to witness the elimination of the final symbol of the old order of the machines, in such numbers that many of their ships suffered collisions. The Jihad fleet made no attempt to communicate with him, and located his ship after three days.

Viana Kellis won the lot cast for the honor of sacrificing herself to kill him, a death that rendered his measures of self-preservation useless. She suited up and infiltrated his ship, presumably triggering his Planar Field device, and the resulting mass-conversion reaction was witnessed by the whole Jihad fleet. The explosion destroyed both Kellis and Holtzman. Whatever he had glimpsed at the end of his final work perished with him, and his last discoveries were never made known.