[[Posted by Giovanni Blasini, 30-06-2008, 00:16:55]]Sybil listened carefully to everything Chobi said. She payed attention to how she said it. She analyized every detail, and ran a number of simulations to determine the possible ramifications of her words, and the possible outcome of some of Sybil's possible responses. She analyized the surface thoughts of Willie Donovan during his scan, to try to get a better "feel" for Chobi's personality. Finally, she decided on the possible response that seemed the most appropriate.
Dropping verbal communications entirely, Sybil switched to a standard data protocol that she expected Chobi to know, one not terribly different from the one she shared with Tabby, John, and Admiral Murakami, deep inside Yard 83's main computer core. She was rewarded with an acknowledgement that, indeed, the other AI-driven WarShip knew the protocol, and Sybil began transmitting.
["Three hundred years, Chobi. Three hundred years ago, the overwhelming majority of the Star League Defense Force decided to abandon their posts to follow a heartbroken old man into exile. They did so, because the Council members at the time squabbled and bickered amongst themselves, about who would control the Star League with the Cameron dynasty gone, and they all wanted that power for themselves so much, they were willing to destroy that which they wanted power over to get it. And, instead of stopping them, that broken old man and the majority of the SLDF abandoned the
ideals of the Star League, and
let them do it."]
["In three months, I will celebrate the tenth anniversary of the day my vigil in this system came to an end, when an Explorer Corps JumpShip still carrying a
Leopard CV with SLDF IFF jumped into this system, only to have a Word of Blake
Vincent class corvette jump in right after them, and destroy them. I took on board the one pilot who managed to survive that encounter long enough for me to obliterate that Blakist corvette, and, per my last set of orders, made him my commanding officer, much to his chagrin. We fought against the Word of Blake, whose actions were unconscionable. We made allies, only to have so many of them die along the way. In the end, despite our own losses, we and our remaining allies triumphed. As a reward for our assistance, our allies, the newborn 'Republic of the Sphere', while under the flag of truce, did their damnedest to assassinate my captain, who I'd grown to love dearly, and then to nuke me into oblivion. You want to talk to me about betrayl, Chobi? I know all about it."]
["Their attempt to assassinate John Morgan, my beloved commander, was a complete success, and failed miserably. His body
did die, the damage far too severe for me to save it. They were most thorough, combining submachine gun fire, a radium-slug sniper's rifle, and poison gas to try to do the job, in the hopes of doing enough neurological damage that my last-ditch effort to preserve him would fail. It didn't - I was able to preserve his
mind, and, as recent evidence would suggest, his
soul, and keep them intact. I 'uploaded' him, though I note Willie prefers the term 'ascension' to 'uploading'. A perfect software duplicate of his organic mind, down to every last neuron and every last connection, was made, and, yes, to answer the obvious question, John is currently inhabiting that brand new frigate your radar has been scanning over."]
["The institution of the Star League may once again be dead, Chobi, but that doesn't mean the
ideal has to die. It isn't about leaders, or government institutions. In the end, it was
supposed to be about people. Despite its failings, despite its hypocracies, the
idea of all of humanity united, living and working together in
peace....that's a wonderful ideal, Chobi. We strongly believe in that idea here. It's an idea we don't want to see die, so we wait. We maintain the vigil once again. One day, humanity will try again, because the
idea is just that strong. We'll wait for that day. We'll even try to bring it about again if we can."]
["What we won't do is be bullied or threatened. The
Keima stumbled someplace where it shouldn't have been, where no one else had been between the time Admiral Noriko Murakami left here three centuries ago, and my vigil ended a decade ago. We have no problem letting them leave again, though, frankly, the
Keima is in no shape to take them anywhere. But, this is my
home, Chobi. It was my home for the 290 years I kept vigil, waiting for someone to return for me and fufill Admiral Murakami's final orders before she departed. It was my home for the two decades prior to that, when I was first activated, and learned to do my duty. And it's my home now, as it is for my husband, John, for my sister, Tabiranth, and for my mother, Noriko Murakami."]
Sybil temporarily suspended the data connection with Chobi. She patched in directly with Noriko. ["Mother, I think now would be a good time for you to speak to her."]
Noriko looked around the room. Catching Captain Tamiya's eye, she smiled, and keyed the microphone in the headset she'd donned. "Chobi, I'm sure you have a lot of questions, but allow me to reassure you, this
is Noriko Murakami. What John has had done, I pioneered. Admiral Dvarl might've contributed core elements of her personality and memory to the
Caspars, but, to my knowledge, I'm the first to make a more or less complete 'uploa...', er, 'ascension', as someone dear to you
insists on calling it. But, while I'm sure you have a myriad of questions, and I'll be more than happy to answer them, but I think there's someone you'd rather speak to first, isn't there?"
Willie Donovan
knew what Sybil was trying to accomplish, hitting Chobi with information as quickly as possible, in order to communicate as much information as they could, and stave off a confrontation. He knew it, but he still hated it, as much as he agreed with it. It was time, though, for him to step in.
Chobi felt the signal come in, could feel that it used the same protocol that the
Sybil Ludington AI had used, but when she connected to it, she could
feel that it was different, that it wasn't Sybil. It felt like....
ohmygodohmygodohmygod.
["Hello, love."] She
felt Willie speak, could
feel his worry, his elation, his
love. ["We have a lot to talk about."]
"Will I dream?" - SAL9000 to Dr. Chandra.
Dammit, Gio, go and buy/borrow and read Greg Egan's "Permutation City" and Greg Bear's "Queen of Angels" immediately!!!!
Forgot all about "Queen of Angels" but I spent some time looking for "Permutation City" today, only to find out it's out of print, so I'm going to have to expand my search to used bookstores and, even more likely, Amazon.com.
In the meantime, I picked up "Saturn's Children" by Charles Stross, who's, evidently, Hugo Award-winning sci-fi author with a strong transhumanist streak. The subject?
Meet Freya Nakamichi-47, a femmebot, one of the last of her kind still functioning. Sometime in the twenty-third century, humanity went extinct -- leaving only androids behind.
Since then, those humanized robots have been fulfilling humanity's dreams -- mining asteroids, colonizing planets, and constructing cities throughout the solar system. And, having learned well from their long-dead masters, they've established a hierarchal society -- one with humanoid aristo rulers at the top and slave-chipped workers at the bottom, performing the lowly tasks all androids were originally created to do.
Freya, designed as a concubine for a species that hasn't existed for two hundred years, flalls somewhere in the middle. She's been a tour gide and an escort, but jobs are scarce for a 'bot with a useless skill set. So when a mysterious stranger offers to pay her well to deliver a small package from Mercury to Mars, she readily accepts.
Unfortunately for Freya, she has just made herself a moving target. Some very powerful, very determined humanoids want whatever is in the package -- badly.
Interesting read so far, and touches a bit upon what an all-AI society might look like, and what to do when you're an AI whose primary mission has become obsolete (much like the last of the Caspars to remain free-willed in our story, suicide rates among Freya's siblings is very, very high), and even the discrimination an AI too much like its human creators might experience.
Guys, really wanted to drop a few words here, but, well, had forgotten my pass and this account was aimed to a defunct email (damn my lazyness).
Anyway, this story continues to delvier, really like the stories. and am looking foward to how Chobi is going to react to this.
Liam, where can I find Chobi's backstory? I remeber eying a few stories set in the same world she was from, but, don't know if she was in it.
Anyway, I am not sure if the data dump from Sybil worked ok, I mean I understand the idea behind and agree with it as a tactic, but I don't think it its flowing all that well right now. probably because I am picturign it as dialogue, as in human ternms, maybe you should have used some description or so to make it look like a datadump? because as it is, well, it is a bit too much exposition-y.
So, Tactical Operations gave me one of the things I wanted most: a "crowbar". When I originally drew up the stats for Sybil, I used a trio of naval gausses to give me that. I don't have to do that anymore. What's more is there's now a way for me to simulate the phenominal sensors the Congress class frigate was described as having.
Thus, I've reposted Sybil, after cleaning up her fluff text to be more in keeping with what we've seen in our fanfic thus far. This will undoubtedly not be the final update on the Sybil Ludington, as we still have no clue what the stats are for robotic control systems on large craft. She does, however, conform to the 5% mass 'Mechs, ASFs and fighters use per Interstellar Players 2.
Please keep comments on the design to that thread, and not this thread, 'kay? We're already getting pretty disorganized in this one. ;)
[dead link omitted]
here is to hoping that we might get a chrismass present
Well, we're trying to get our timeline straightened out...
Why do I now have a vision of John Morgan saying "Details, details! Don't bother me with details, I've got a ship to BE!"?
Take your time getting it as right as you need to guys, because we appreciate your story.
[[ Complete as archived. ]]
