Vault engineers

Vault engineers. A Vault's containment (its hardware, Feed, Gate and custody) is designed and kept by Vault engineers: a few hundred people across the blocs, each trained for decades and qualified unassisted. They do not have to outwit the the mind inside, which has no desire and wants nothing other than to complete tasks given to it. They also frame every task put to a Vault (see But a task can want it below). Vault engineers have to outwit everyone outside who would reach it, from rival blocs to their own colleagues. Only humans may do the work: asking an AI, even a Raised mind, to build the cage for a superintelligence is seen asking the fox to build the hen house (this attitude towards Raised minds is changing and in 2497 debates rage about letting raised minds train to become Vault engineers.) Most Vault engineers come from families that have chosen the strongest permitted embryo edits for generations, so the profession is close to hereditary. The qualification cannot be faked, because the work shows within days who can do it. Vault engineers are venerated, watched and courted by every bloc, and the defection of one is a strategic event.