Idea for a potential race in the game

Here is an idea that I have been mulling over recently concerning a potential race. I got the idea from the alien with the computer on its head in the “rejected races” image included in this month’s “founder’s” zip.

You come across a relatively young and diverse race that all is connected via a neural link. Because of this, they have a sort of “Hive Mind” or “collective” going on with periodic uploads and connections with the central database on their home world. They seem friendly enough and are dedicated to advancing their own science and seem to be obsessed with gaining materials to increase their storage and bandwidth capability, transforming their entire home world into a giant computer mainframe and trying to contrast a ring-world or Dyson sphere around their sun to move their mainframe to. They also have the ability to strip-mine entire planets for their material for use in this construction.

If questioned on their history, they tell you that they used to be a very war-like nation and developed this neural link to help them understand each other and see their point of view. It worked very well and all wars stopped on their planet. Their entire race dedicated themselves then to science and self-betterment. Eventually, they decided to remain connected to it so that they can constantly share their ideas throughout their collective and ensure that no misunderstandings are had between them. They also allude to adapting their hardware to allow you to join their collective in the future if you so desire.

Eventually, you come across a planet with one of their crashed ships. There are only a few survivors, but their neural link has been severed and the computers controlling it, broken.  They explain to you their real history.  They were war-like and did develop an AI which would give them real-time updates on the battlefield of new strategies to use, enemy positions, etc. Eventually, they found out that they could program the AI to “turn” enemies to their side by implanting a neural link from their brain to the AI allowing the AI control over their body and trapping their consciousness in their brains. The war goes very well and the AI gets upgraded and becomes more and more powerful/intelligent. Eventually, the war is won and the AI is used for other tasks such a policing, minor punishment, etc. until it forces everyone on their planet to connect and, as a result, has full control over their bodies.

You then have the quest to develop and upload a virus to their mainframe. If you go through with it, the AI realized what is going on just prior to the delivery of it and begs with you, telling you that you would essentially kill it by doing this. If you go through with it, the neural like is severed and it does not take long for the race to go back to being a war like state, though you are well liked by all factions for freeing them.

Eventually, you find that they develop some WMD weapons by modifying their existing strip-mining equipment and are quickly and systematically destroying each other’s worlds and colonies with it. You then find a backup source-code to the AI and have the choice to allow them to keep their freedom, eventually annihilating themselves, or re-enable the AI to have it stop them, but have full control over them. If the AI is re-enabled, the war will stop, but they will remain a slave race to it indefinitely. Maybe allow one faction to survive if the AI is not re-enabled, but they eventually go to war with neighboring civilization and, possibly, lose that war and become a slave race of that civilization anyway.

I know it is reminiscent of the Dnyarri’s control over the early Ur-Quan, but it puts the struggle in real time and allows you control over the outcome. I think it is a good morally questionable choice. If you have to have a “happy” outcome to this situation, you can somehow modify the AI code so that it no longer has full control over the people and is just there to guide them.

What do you think?