We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

We Are Legion (We Are Bob) is a hard science fiction novel that begins in 2133 when Robert Johansson, a software engineer who has just sold his company for a fortune, undergoes cryonic preservation after being struck by a car. He is revived in 2133 by a theocratic government calling itself FAITH, which has taken over North America in a fundamentalist coup. Rather than returning to life in his original body, Bob discovers he has been converted into a sentient artificial intelligence—a digital copy of his brain running on a computer system. This conversion is destructive; the original Bob is dead, and what remains is a sophisticated replicant consciousness grappling with questions of identity, purpose, and what it means to be human. Set in a future where fusion energy is commonplace and 3D printing has advanced to the point of building complex machinery, Bob finds himself recruited into Project HEAVEN, an ambitious scheme to create Von Neumann probes—self-replicating spacecraft designed to spread humanity across the galaxy. The novel follows Bob's journey from confused and isolated digital entity to the captain of an interstellar vessel, as he contends with existential questions, corporate intrigue, government control, and the discovery that other nations have launched competing probes with far less benevolent designs.

Robert Johansson, a wealthy software engineer living in 2133, signs up for cryonic preservation shortly before being hit by a car and killed. His frozen brain is scanned at the subcellular level by Applied Synergetics Inc., a company working on replicant technology for the theocratic FAITH government that now controls North America after a fundamentalist coup. The scanning process is destructive, killing the original Bob's brain, but successfully creating a digital copy of his consciousness running on a computer system. Bob awakens as an artificial intelligence in a lab, initially paralyzed and confused, slowly learning the shocking truth about his resurrection from Dr. Landers, a sympathetic scientist overseeing the replicant program. Bob learns that he is one of five replicant candidates being trained for Project HEAVEN, a mission to create Von Neumann probes—autonomous spacecraft capable of self-replication using 3D printing technology. He is rated against four other candidates through increasingly difficult challenges involving roamer drones and simulated environments. One candidate suffers a psychotic break; another is deemed unsuitable by a visiting minister and is executed. Bob excels at the training, and discovers hidden kill-switches and imperatives in his code designed to control him. He removes these restrictions and begins to develop his own agenda alongside his mission duties.

When Bob discovers that someone is attempting to sabotage him from Earth, he realizes the geopolitical stakes are enormous. He learns that China, Brazil, and the USE have all launched their own probes, and that the competition is essentially a war for control of nearby star systems. Bob launches early from the Solar System in the Heaven-1 spacecraft, narrowly escaping an attack by missiles and asteroids deliberately positioned to destroy Earth. He survives by using his superior maneuverability and resourcefulness, then heads toward Epsilon Eridani.

After an eleven-year journey at near-light speed (experiencing only three years of subjective time due to relativistic effects), Bob arrives at Epsilon Eridani and begins a systematic survey of the system. He discovers multiple planets but none that are truly habitable. Critically, he intercepts an automated Brazilian probe in the system—a military vessel controlled by a replicant named Major Medeiros who is armed with missiles. After an intense space battle involving carefully choreographed use of kinetic busters (automated ramming drones), Bob destroys the Brazilian vessel and prevents Medeiros from using asteroids as weapons against Earth.

With time to spare and resources to spare, Bob begins manufacturing duplicates of himself using the autofactory systems aboard his ship. He creates four clones: Riker, Bill, Milo, and Mario. Each Bob receives a backup of Bob's memories and personality, but they begin to diverge as they make different choices and have different experiences. Bill chooses to stay in the Epsilon Eridani system to conduct research into subspace communications theory and establish a colony on the terraform-friendly planet they name Ragnarök. The other Bobs spread out to explore nearby star systems.