[[Posted by Cannonshop, 04-05-2007, 08:51:22]]The remote froze for a moment. ["MOM!!!"] She relayed what the Professor had said, while she also examined the statements of the others. She prioritized her next steps, analyzed the tactical situation in the room, and ran an assessment.
"Professor ... Danaban?" she answered him, "Admiral Murakami is...known to me." Tabby said, "I think Sybil is better at this than I am, but she's still out of range. We only use the FTL comms interstellar, so commo has to crawl at einsteinian speeds in-system. Admiral Murakami was my...um... she made me different from the other Caspars in the M-5 project, and she headed up the M-6 Colonist Defense project before her..."
(Murder) "Death. She designed my processor architecture, and wrote the alteration to the original SLDF protocols that allowed me to resist the Amaris Coup."
"There's no record of a
Caspar resisting Amaris." Tarzanian said.
"Damn right there isn't. Try being the one person against thousands who isn't following a psychotic leader because their brains were cut up and reprogrammed. I had to fight from a low-profile, I virused the defenses at Dieron, which allowed the SLDF to take the system with less than eighty-percent casualties." Tabby told him, "I sabotaged my own
kind because I believed that it would serve my primary function of serving and defending the
Star League. The others were dumbed-down by a badly concieved 'upgrade' that made them vulnerable to anyone with the right set of command codes-including the Usurper." she stuck her chin forward, and met his eyes, "My reward for that, was watching as three quarters of the SLDF abandoned all those
billions of people to three centuries of war and horror, and it hasn't ended yet...but I'm through with trying to intervene in human affairs." Tabby didn't know that the 'avatar' was showing her emotional pain, and the grief. "There's no record, Colonel, because I made certain there would be none,," she finished, "It wasn't hard-they didn't bother to listen, so I stopped trying to talk to them." She sighed, "Up until, that is, someone sought me out. Do you know what it's like to want to self-terminate, but you can't? I lived that way for a LONG time."
"Here?" Danaban asked.
"No. I didn't know this facility existed-it wasn't data available to me. Sybil knew it, and the Admiral knew it. I was alone for a Long Time." she said, "I drifted between systems in the black, and occasionally hit remnant automated bases and caches and the like for fuel." she sighed, "And while I drifted, I
Listened. The original M-5 series used an HPG for communication to bases and that, combined with the normal-space commo arrays, allowed me to eavesdrop on humanity. I was waiting for a sign that it was time to come out of hiding, and I got it."
"Your hull is not a Lola-class." Tarzanian pointed out.
"It's my second, er...'body'. My first hull was lost to a Blakist boarding party. They were Cybernetically Enhanced, we killed them, but they cost me my human liason, and my Central Processor had to be salvaged from the wreck...why am
I answering questions? I'm supposed to be
Asking them." She was visibly flustered at the realization.
"Maybe you're just feeling 'talky'." Colonel Tarzanian quipped icily.
"Yeah, like a trivid villain revealing his master plan to the master spy, right?" Tabby shot back, "only two things wrong with your impression there, bucko-one, I don't want to kill anyone. I killed Blakists, because they were and are
Monsters, understand? It wasn't artificial intelligences that ran the death-camps on Skye, annihilated the people on Outreach, or systematically exterminated Galedon." She stared at him, "It was
Humans, Humans killing Humans, Colonel, humans
Murdering innocent humans. It's easy to blame a thing, isnt' it? But it was a human mind, colonel, that decided to turn people into medical spares on Skye, and lab-rats for more biological weapons, it was humans that unleashed biological weapons on Alarion, it was humans that scoured Outreach with nuclear fire, and burned Syria Planum to the bedrock with orbital weapons, and murdered the families of thousands of Com-Guard personnel after Case White." she pointed at him, "
Humans, Colonel. God's creation, abusing their free will to do the work of evil on other humans...and
We stopped Them." the face displayed anger even though Tabby didn't notice it.
"Why are you all the way out here, then-aren't those places near the core?" Tamiya asked.
"Because the Humans we were working with, decided that men like the Colonel here were right-they turned on us after we'd helped end the threat. I won't kill humans without an overpowering good reason, and it was and is better to avoid becoming more like them, if it means becoming like
that." she stopped, "DamnitwhyamIdoingallthetalkin gagain..." she stopped. "Um, I think we've got some coffee at the dock, and food...don't touch anything, I don't have spares for your control systems and I'm not sure the architecture for the spares we
do have are compatible. I'll just be standing over here while James and Chester keep an eye on you-plugged into your computers."
Her embarassment was also visible and obvious. Whether it was from the ranting, or losing control of her inner monologue bleeding into the puppet-signal, probably wasn't.
Shit!
I was in the middle of this LONG response when I got Roosterboyed!
Reviewing Cannonshop's. Will revise mine as necessary.
Excellent!
It's a shame they hadn't gotten around to getting Mountbatton off the Snow Ravens and installing Murakami in it.
Alternative history:
Tabby - "Admiral Murakami just jumped in"
The Professor - "You mean she's on that battleship? How can she still be alive... "
Tabby - "No. She IS that Battleship!"
Prof - "But....."
Tabby - "Well, she had to find some way of keeping her children in line....."
Why does that bring a line from Futurama to my head?
"No more hanging wires!
Interesting developement, Tabby is starting to seem more and more... developed by the posting...
Tabby is starting to seem more and more... developed by the posting...
I said it before: Sybil may be faster, the Admiral may be a more fully developed personality, but Tabby is a genius, and, like many geniuses, very close to being crazy.
There is a big difference between being smart and being able to think around corners.
I was not speaking of mental capability... I was speaking of emotional responses and basically her personality...
Essentially she has seemingly come out of her shell, even if that shell was one of mental instability...
Which is more dangerous, Tabby insane, or Tabby capable of balancing her own moral values and rationality?
"It's my second, er...'body'. My first hull was lost to a Blakist boarding party. They were Cybernetically Enhanced, we killed them, but they cost me my human liason, and my Central Processor had to be salvaged from the wreck...why am I answering questions? I'm supposed to be Asking them." She was visibly flustered at the realization.
Now that is a surprise. There are very few humans Tabiranth would trust to be allowed inside her systems.
One such person was Former Comstar Adept Ethan Joseph McCall, but last I read in the earlier fiction "Knock-nock", he was ordered by Tabiranth herself to be warded in Sybil Luddington's Medical bay due to his age and illness, and he specifically requested NOT to to be brain-scanned as an AI.
The only possibility could be that this new human was someone whom Admiral Murakami and Sybil was able to trust and therefore, was stationed onboard Tabirianth on orders, with Admiral Murakami's blessing, and a new bond of comeradship was forged for the remainder of the campaign.
Now that is a surprise. There are very few humans Tabiranth would trust to be allowed inside her systems.
One such person was Former Comstar Adept Ethan Joseph McCall, but last I read in the earlier fiction "Knock-nock", he was ordered by Tabiranth herself to be warded in Sybil Luddington's Medical bay due to his age and illness, and he specifically requested NOT to to be brain-scanned as an AI.
The only possibility could be that this new human was someone whom Admiral Murakami and Sybil was able to trust and therefore, was stationed onboard Tabirianth on orders, with Admiral Murakami's blessing, and a new bond of comeradship was forged for the remainder of the campaign.
Or it could be a certain Nova Cat aerojock McCall was grooming for roll, quiaff? (Not saying it is her...I'm just saying it could be).