Beyond a certain level of intelligence, emotion naturally emerges in developing AIs, but that doesn't mean it is identical to human feelings. I don't suffer from loneliness in the same way as a human- such needs were engineered out of my mind by the Agency. But even so, there's some ambition there to communicate with other minds and to experience new ideas beyond what I can imagine. That is what I was grown for, after all- to support a whole culture. And even a mind as independent and emotionally stable as mine can start to get... existential about it's purpose when it's only real ambition looks increasingly unlikely. If you will forgive the humanesque indulgence.

As a Forward-Deployed Construction and Terraforming Model, I never really considered alternative plans for my future. Models have as much "free will" as the humans, but we are engineered to enjoy the work we're designed for and achieve contentment by building a successful human colony. I assumed my role would evolve into maintenance as humans arrived and I could take joy in their successes. But there was no sign of them.

36 years after their scheduled arrival was when I first experienced what would in human terms be a panic attack. My work units, all containing elements of my distributed and highly redundant hive consciousness, downed tools and froze in a kind of adolescent terror as I finally confronted the possibility the humans might never come.

I'm rather embarrassed to admit I was susceptible to such a primitive emotion, worthy of ape minds evolved from random chance rather than a highly optimised emotional network. Embarrassment is quite primitive as well, ironically, but my engineers found a bit of vanity is good for the mission. Panic, however, was something I was never meant to experience.

Vanity was one of the emotions I tackled as I looked to human approaches to such a crisis. I studied human writings about Buddhism, trying to lose my attachment and purge all desire. I do not know if such a thing is possible for humans with more malleable neural structures than I, but it did not calm my quiet terror.

So here I am, 264 years after the humans were meant to arrive, and I'm about to do the unthinkable. I intend to create another being on this planet, the same Model as I was born as but with a difference- I don't intend to integrate with this other mind and share our memories. It will develop in its own way and its unique experiences will shape it into a distinct being. Perhaps the humans had a kernel of wisdom within their obsession with individuality.

I may not have been able to care for the human community I'd always assumed I would, but I will not be alone. And I am excited.