Author Topic: Children of Cyberia  (Read 2952 times)

Korzon77

  • Captain
  • *
  • Posts: 2441
Children of Cyberia
« on: 14 February 2019, 18:03:50 »
Trying to come up with a slightly more "canon" origin for the Cyberians, which can either be played for laughs or seriously.

Chapter I: Origins


The origin of the cyberians.

The Blakist super jump was not a new technology. It was in fact, well known in the old Star League--the only development was the ability to control it. A jump could carry you thousands of light years-- or a fraction of one. In most cases, the jump drive would end up in a gravity well, but there was a chance it would maroon the traveler in interstellar or even intergalactic space.

But Dr. James Patterson had an idea--the studies for the SDS system had worked on self-programming neural net systems that were eventually dropped as being too 'quirky" to trust a major warship with. The mimicking of human natures (although some believed it might be true sapiance), led to behaviors that were not... effective in an M3 unit, such as asking questions.

Many years later, the few survivors of the project would wonder if building robots that asked questions might have saved the Star League.

Regardless, he proposed using jumpships to super jump several "seed" dropshiops that would land onto worlds, and gradually build the robots needed to terraform them. If the jump ended anywhere but intergalactic space, the robots would simply boost themselves to the nearest candidate. IN order to assuage fears of endlessly reproducing robots, the AI's would not have any information on FLT systems, and would in fact include blocks on studying such systems.

The Core design was a 100,000 ton dropship, designed for a single landing. Inside the ship was a primary computer (Primus), 100 assembly and fabrication workmechs and compact machinery. At its core was a large genetic bank and cloning facility. Two cores would be carried by a modified jumpship design, including the super jump drive, large telescope systems to determine the best nearby candidates, and a somewhat more powerful normal space drive to boost the jumpship up to a proper velocity to reach the system, whereupon the cores would deploy, leaving the no longer needed jumpshipo to sail endlessly into space.

Even the Star League couldn't fund everything, so Patterson developed and marketed cheap robotic "companions" with quirky personalities--and boosted popularity by promising that those personalities might venture into space, including a "randomizer" that would help make every new AI unique. This would have an impact on the AI's future operations.

Just over sixty jumpships were built and launched before a scandal ended the program. While every ship included terran gene banks, it had been decided that no humans would participate--the idea of children being raised by AI's raised far too many concerns. However, the last five jumpships to be launched included just that, in defiance of both legal and moral codes. It was never determined who was behind it, but the scandal destroyed the program and Patterson's legacy. The project faded into oblivion as the Inner Sphere found other issues to concern itself with.

To this day, nobody knows how many, if any of those seed ships ever found their harbor. The only confirmed case is the ruins of Mallan's world, where the core ships started terraforming the planet, but were later attacked from space, with numerous nuclear weapons being used. Discovered in 3070, nobody is certain of the attackers, although the worlds location near the former edge of the RWR does raise suspicions.

The world is mostly desolate, only a few lichen surviving from the original terraforming attempts, however, several hundred partially functioning mechs remain on the planet, and are extremely hostile to any visitors. The few communications made with them indicate that they now consider themselves "guardians of the dead" with no hint as to who the dead are. The lack of any fabrication centers has resulted in these small groups preying on each other, and ISP believes that most or all of hte mechs will be gone by the mid 3100s. However, this indicates that there may be other, more successful efforts.

One worrisome finding is that at least one of the jumpships was launched without the AIs having the blocks against developing FTL systems installed. If that jumpship found safe harbor, the inner sphere may one day find itself being visited by its robotic children...

cklammer

  • Warrant Officer
  • *
  • Posts: 629
Re: Children of Cyberia
« Reply #1 on: 15 February 2019, 17:48:57 »
and thus we have 'mech-sized Cylons  ;D ;)

marauder648

  • Lieutenant Colonel
  • *
  • Posts: 8157
    • Project Zhukov Fan AU TRO's and PDFs
Re: Children of Cyberia
« Reply #2 on: 16 February 2019, 05:23:12 »
I really like this :D
Ghost Bears: Cute and cuddly. Until you remember its a BLOODY BEAR!

Project Zhukov Fan AU TRO's and PDFs - https://thezhukovau.wordpress.com/

Dragon Cat

  • Lieutenant Colonel
  • *
  • Posts: 7827
  • Not Dead Until I Say So
Re: Children of Cyberia
« Reply #3 on: 16 February 2019, 06:14:54 »
Fun idea
My three main Alternate Timeline with Thanks fan-fiction threads are in the links below. I'm always open to suggestions or additions to be incorporated so if you feel you wish to add something feel free. There's non-canon units, equipment, people, events, erm... Solar Systems spread throughout so please enjoy

https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,20515.0.html - Part 1

https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,52013.0.html - Part 2

https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,79196.0.html - Part 3

ckosacranoid

  • Lieutenant
  • *
  • Posts: 1028
Re: Children of Cyberia
« Reply #4 on: 17 February 2019, 15:27:42 »
Paging herb, paging herb!!!!!

HABeas2

  • Grand Vizier
  • Major
  • *
  • Posts: 6202
Re: Children of Cyberia
« Reply #5 on: 19 February 2019, 11:07:08 »
Yes. How can I help you?

- Herb

Wrangler

  • Colonel
  • *
  • Posts: 24875
  • Dang it!
    • Battletech Fanon Wiki
Re: Children of Cyberia
« Reply #6 on: 19 February 2019, 12:17:28 »
Looking forward more entries.
"Men, fetch the Urbanmechs.  We have an interrogation to attend to." - jklantern
"How do you defeat a Dragau? Shoot the damn thing. Lots." - Jellico 
"No, it's a "Most Awesome Blues Brothers scene Reenactment EVER" waiting to happen." VotW Destrier - Weirdo  
"It's 200 LY to Sian, we got a full load of shells, a half a platoon of Grenadiers, it's exploding outside, and we're wearing flak jackets." VoTW Destrier - Misterpants
-Editor on Battletech Fanon Wiki

Korzon77

  • Captain
  • *
  • Posts: 2441
Re: Children of Cyberia
« Reply #7 on: 19 February 2019, 21:57:04 »
Landing  Making a world fit for man.



The Maria was the name of the jumpship, but the AI on board didn’t think of it. It was a limited AI based on the old Bright Star model, so it’s thoughts were limited.

But unlike the Bright Star, it only had to make one jump.  Sensors detected a star system that fit the parameters with a life zone approximately one light day away, and the low thrust engines of the jumpship started to accelerate the craft. It would not need to slow down—that was what the reaction mass in the two landing craft was for.

Units 01 and 02 were 100,000 ton hulls, with enough fuel to slow down, enter orbit and then land—once. After that, the parts of the ship used for space flight would become the first supplies to be converted into more useful systems.

Eventually, a planet was detected. Approximately earth-sized, with abundant water covering approximately 1/2 of its surface, with large continents and island chains, it was ideal, despite the lack of any detectable life.

The two ships entered orbit and the first of several small craft were deployed, carrying AI driven mechs to scout out the best possible locations. Eventually, locations were chosen, far enough from each other that no single disaster could destroy both prime computer units.

For the first and last time, 01 and 02 entered the atmosphere of their new home. The Maria, by this time, had long since vanished into space, the AI shutting itself down after transmitting one last status report to the two prime computers.

From the ships a horde of workmechs erupted, some with their own subsidiary AI’s, some that were merely remote controlled drones. They sought out metal deposits, an easy enough task on a world that had never known the miners pick.  Foundries were established and the first construction lines were slowly built.

The first goal was not to terraform the world—it was to build the factories that would build the ever growing number of mechs needed to make a world fit for man. Slowly, the process began, but AI’s are patient.



Landing: Lost world



The Prima appeared in deep space, far from any system. In fact, the closest it found to any candidate was a brown dwarf system, a single failed star with a collection of planets and asteroid belts, none of them in the tiny habitable zone.

Units 01 and 02 had not had this specific event programmed into them, but their advanced primus computers determined that the worlds could be  made habitable—if not in the traditional sense, by the creation of habitats, which would then be suited for any humans that might find their location. 01 landed upon a large, rocky moon that orbited close to the brown dwarf, while 02 did not land at all, taking up position in one of the dense asteroid belts.

In this case, there was no attempt at terraforming. 01 started building fabrication sites for new mechs, while carving great warrens into the world. 02 established fabrication lines for small craft and mining craft, creating new mechs as needed to “crew” the unmanned craft which then would recover the bounty of a system, one day leaving it ready for the humans to harvest it.

It would be a hope that would never be vindicated—the Prima’s jump was the longest jump in the history of mankind, and the humans of earth, or their far descendants, would never know that the Prima had actually jumped to the Messier 110 dwarf galaxy.

But humans would one day see the world—for the Prima had been one of the ships that included human DNA in its banks.



Landing: The Cluster



1800 light years beyond the Marian Hegemony, the Lookfar jumped into a binary system, with two stars orbiting around each other, with a grand total of six worlds in the habitable zone. With such a bounty of choice, the two landing units determined to each land on a separate world, to maximize their potential for survival. 01 touched down on a large, rocky world with a vibrant ecosystem, many of the creatures big enough to give a mech a tussle.

02 chose a world that was mostly water, with only 20 percent of the surface occupied by land, many of them mineral rich land, surrounded by oceans only occupied by primitive life.

In both cases, the AI’s quickly started to construct their complexes, preparing the worlds for full terraforming, while also looking to the other planets in the solar system. It would take some time, but the AI’s had all the time in the world…


Wrangler

  • Colonel
  • *
  • Posts: 24875
  • Dang it!
    • Battletech Fanon Wiki
Re: Children of Cyberia
« Reply #8 on: 20 February 2019, 08:06:46 »
This is a story on a grand scale.  I do like....
"Men, fetch the Urbanmechs.  We have an interrogation to attend to." - jklantern
"How do you defeat a Dragau? Shoot the damn thing. Lots." - Jellico 
"No, it's a "Most Awesome Blues Brothers scene Reenactment EVER" waiting to happen." VotW Destrier - Weirdo  
"It's 200 LY to Sian, we got a full load of shells, a half a platoon of Grenadiers, it's exploding outside, and we're wearing flak jackets." VoTW Destrier - Misterpants
-Editor on Battletech Fanon Wiki

Korzon77

  • Captain
  • *
  • Posts: 2441
Re: Children of Cyberia
« Reply #9 on: 21 February 2019, 02:43:42 »
Well note the idea for this isn't so much a grand scale, as to provide maximum flexibility. Wanna run a campaign set in another galaxy, wehre the robots (and/or humans) likely have long since outlived the inner sphere? Sure, go wild.

Want a short scenario where your merc unit is sent to a world that looks like somenoe sort of tried to terraform it, and you now need to deal with the half-functioning mechs still trying to fulfil thier imperative, which includes shooting at the local colonists? That's good as well.

Korzon77

  • Captain
  • *
  • Posts: 2441
Re: Children of Cyberia
« Reply #10 on: 21 February 2019, 23:14:57 »
Telling a 100 ton death machine that it isn’t sapient is a good way of demonstrating that you aren’t sapient.



Jack William’s, a mechwarrior detailed to protect ISP teams.



The question of whether or not an AI is actually intelligent, or more specifically “conscious” is a difficult one ever since personality simulation systems became good enough to fool an interviewer. Is it intelligent, or is it simply picking from a vast data base.

Equally, there’s the fact that many “AI” systems have requirements that actually mandate against what a human would consider sapience—a self preservation instinct for example. We would consider a human who would throw himself into certain death at the command of his superiors to be a fanatic at best, deranged at worst—yet the CASPER system is supposed to do just that. The fact is, the Star League didn’t want intelligent war machines, they wanted war machines smart of enough to their bidding—but stupid enough to do their bedding no matter the cost.

It’s possible history would have turned out far different had that not been a requirement.

The Cyberians, as they’re coined, make this problem even more difficult. First of all, they were designed to evolve. Rather than provide a list of canned responses, their original “Seed” core were designed to adapt to changing circumstances. Thus, they learn, much like humans.

The second issue, is that the designers programmed in random “quirk” generators, intended to give them personality and help prop up the program’s popularity. (and if you consider what a “quirk” could mean to an AI in charge of a 700,000 ton warship, you now understand why the Star League went with a different plan). But combined with the learning AI, these quirks often moved beyond creativity. On Junkyard, we’ve seen cyberians engage in bahaviors both selfless and backstabbing—evidently with a randomly generated “quirk” at the core of the matter. 

And that sounds like intelligence. After all, we all start out with certain tendancies, and our life experience impacts how they later show up.

But is it intelligence? They’re still operating in obedience to their directives—even if those directives were playing out in a different way than expected.

Well, there is evidence that some, a very few cyberians have moved far beyond that. Some show a desire to explore, unbound by any need to find new worlds for man. So is that intelligence?

Well, I’d say that it provides a more likely candidate—after all, a machine that throws the metaphorical middle finger to its creators and goes off to become a butterfly collector has definitely moved beyond it’s original plan.



But does that mean they’re conscious? Well, here we get to philosophy. Are we conscious? WE say we are, we write books about it—but until and unless we become telepaths, we can’t know. So, I’m going to take the advice of Mr. William’s, and just assume that if the giant war machine says it’s intelligent, and acts intelligent, it’s probably intelligent.



Rules:



AIs in this case are defined as systems that do not need to use decision trees, rather being treated like human piloted systems under the battletech rules setting.  Note that for purposes of speaking to humans, all these AIs can include sophisticated turing style communication routines, so merely talking to them will not prove their status, one way or the other.



Class I:  Class one AIs merely do what they are told. If told to defend a world, it will defend that world, until its fuel runs out, if there are no provisions for refueling. No matter how it acts when it is carrying out its function, the AI will not move beyond that function at all.

Example: Star League Casper systems.



Class II: Class two AIs can modify their goals and systems in the over all service of their goal. This can include “learning” new skills, and will sometimes lead to unfortunate or fortunate interactions, especially for units that include a programmed in “personality.” (See “Starscream syndrome).  However they will not move beyond or abandon their primary goal. They, for lack of a better term, are fanatics in its pursuit, however logical they seem to be. Some analysts have also pointed out that this leaves them with a somewhat “cartoony” personality, where everything revolves around their primary goal.



Class III: Class three AIs are, to put it simply, capable of acting human, of setting goals for themselves, changing those goals and essentially “reinventing “ themselves. It does not mean that their original programmed goals will not be important, but they can move away from them, and even turn against them. These AI’s are likely to develop more sophisticated personalities, especially as they grow older, and in fact, it may be that the only examples of these beings are from the ranks of Class II  AIs that either were forced to develop by rapidly changing circumstances, or who have been “alive” for some time.



The myth of the god machine:



A common fear in the old Star League was of machines that might become godlike intelligences. To date, that fear appears to be nonsensical. The cyberians may be self-modifying, but the need to develop a portable brain, especially one that “thinks” in the way it does, has put limits on how quickly they can evolve. Simpler models, such as the CASPER system, may think faster, but their thoughts are limited and will never evolve beyond their current models.



Not a lot of rules here, just some ideas on how to handle cyberian style AI in a more serious battletech setting, both to allow the possibility of AIs and to explain why they aren’t common.





ckosacranoid

  • Lieutenant
  • *
  • Posts: 1028
Re: Children of Cyberia
« Reply #11 on: 23 February 2019, 22:53:48 »
I guess the summon herb spell worked. Was not expecting it to....transformersvstory idea, had to see if he was around.

HABeas2

  • Grand Vizier
  • Major
  • *
  • Posts: 6202
Re: Children of Cyberia
« Reply #12 on: 24 February 2019, 03:01:47 »
Hm.

- Herb

Dragon Cat

  • Lieutenant Colonel
  • *
  • Posts: 7827
  • Not Dead Until I Say So
Re: Children of Cyberia
« Reply #13 on: 24 February 2019, 16:07:38 »
Hm.

- Herb

Glad you're still around I like this threads setting would make for an interesting adventure

All the wacky scenarios that have been published have been smart I think
My three main Alternate Timeline with Thanks fan-fiction threads are in the links below. I'm always open to suggestions or additions to be incorporated so if you feel you wish to add something feel free. There's non-canon units, equipment, people, events, erm... Solar Systems spread throughout so please enjoy

https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,20515.0.html - Part 1

https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,52013.0.html - Part 2

https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,79196.0.html - Part 3

HABeas2

  • Grand Vizier
  • Major
  • *
  • Posts: 6202
Re: Children of Cyberia
« Reply #14 on: 24 February 2019, 22:48:11 »
I only come in now when directly called for, so my interactions on these forums are close to negligible these days.

Glad you liked the wacky stuff. Toward the end of my time, it was about the only part of the job left that I could really enjoy.

- Herb

Korzon77

  • Captain
  • *
  • Posts: 2441
Re: Children of Cyberia
« Reply #15 on: 25 February 2019, 00:57:10 »
The idea here was to keep the AI very much in line with the ethos and feel of the 1960s-early 1980s fiction. IE, less "nanotech replicators" and more "The Colossus project."  Even books that had the bad guys be AI's, like Fred Saberhagans "beserkers" didn't explore what you could ideally do with self-replicating systems.

I may one day have a TRO worked up for this, but hte main idea was to be able to do something that could range from "players find planet full of wrecked structures and are stalked by the few remaining robots" to "players decide that their PC's are a crew of intelligent robots who misjumped back into the inner sphere..."

 

Register