Destination Void - Pandora Sequence, Prequel Author:Frank Herbert In the future, humankind has tried to develop artificial intelligence, succeeding only once, and then disastrously. Little remains of the first experiment, except for a transmission from the remote site, garbled but for the words 'rogue consciousness!'. The site is now an empty hole. — The project has been moved to the m... more »oon, where the scientists have cloned themselves. These clones, identified by the middle name 'Lon', are kept isolated and raised to believe that they are the crew of a spaceship that will colonize another planet. The spaceship will be multi-generational, needing only a crew of six, and carrying thousands of other clones in hibernation. As the original crew dies off, other clones will be awoken. The clone crew is really just a caretaker: the ship is controlled by a disembodied human brain (known by the euphemism 'Organic Mental Core', further euphemised as "OMC") that runs the complex operations of the vessel and keeps it moving in space.
But the brain dies, and when the backup is awakened, it dies as well. After the second backup fails, the crew is faced with a choice: turn around, or build the computer systems that will enable the ship to continue. Their orders from the moon base are to continue at all costs; if they turn back, they will be destroyed. The clones have been bred and carefully selected for psychological purposes to reinforce each other, as well as to provide various specialized skills. As the crew deals with their situation, they come to understand the dilemma they're in: build an artificial intelligence to carry on the mission, or die.« less
Boring, tedious, science fiction that explains in detail the scientific workings of an "intelligent" ship, but has no plot and goes absolutely nowhere.