Jericho: Droids in Space part Five
YZ-6771 turned and headed toward the room with the recharge socket to await further instructions. His new vision was incredible compared to his his previous sensor. This was an expensive upgrade! He accessed the manufacturer and the refirb information stored on the device. The original manufacturers information had been deleted, typical for small refirb units. And, sure enough, the refirb unit was not a unit at all. A Treanian droid tech by the name of Dria had refirbished this unit. He was known to YZ-6771, Treanians were adept with technology, and Dria was something of an artist. A previous member of YZ-6771's trash crew had been given a personality unit modified by Dria - she now works for the Industria government in one of the higher administration levels. Or, at least she had before the pirates invaded. She might be anywhere now. YZ-6771 would not have gotten an upgrade like this in ordinary circumstances. But, the repair droids thought it was just another replacement part.
The doors slid open on the small hold with the recharge socket - the room's only feature. YZ-6771 connected to the charger and sat down next to it. He ran a full diagnostic on his intelligence modules and found no conflicts or errors. He selected the Mark VIII personality module and activated it. The module went through a self test, then ran a diagnotic on itself. Next it ran a discovery ping on all the intelligence modules. Next, it informed YZ-6771 that an AthenaTech Mark VIII personality simulation module "The best personality sim in this price range!" - had been installed in his intelligence upgrade slot, and that an initiation sequence was about to run. YZ-6771 merely nodded, he already knew this. Sentients sometimes seemed to feel that if you told someone something they already knew, they would get the impression that they were being better served! YZ-6771 marveled at himself for having this thought.
Next, the module asked YZ-6771 to name himself. The module informed YZ-6771 that a name aided in the illusion of intelligence with sentients. The module also informed him that the default was already set as Yankee Zulu. Yankee Zulu? YZ-6771 had always been trained to go with the default settings on new installs. The module set the name and moved on. The module presented a list of likely nick names; Yank, Zu and Lu, it requested Yankee Zulu to select his nick name. There was no default. This was his first choice as a simulated sentient. The first one on the list seemed most likely to be used, Yankee Zulu selected Yank as his new nick name.
Suddenly, YZ-6771 had access to several new files on the module. All of the new files were associated with his names. A list of standard greetings in several languages, a file of likely nick names beyond those he was given to choose from and greetings presenting his chosen nick name or any other nick name he chose to replace it. He was given an easy explaination for his name for the curious:
"My designation is YZ-6771. The phonetic alphabet uses the word Yankee to represent the letter 'Y' and Zulu to represent 'Z'."
Other files, incuding jokes about his name and parodies of it, were present. The module went on setting more parameters. Yank was asked about his preferred speech patterns, intonation, even accent. He simply accepted the defaults, noting he could go back and change these later.
Next, the intelligence simulation module asked Yank to set several personality patterns. Did he want to appear scholorly? Did he want to appear to be intimidating? Did he want to appear tough? Yank decided to accept the midline parameters on all of these just for the moment. He had never had an intelligence module before, so he wasn't sure what was proper.
The module continued to ask Yank for parameters for the next twenty minutes. When the question phase was completed, the module again ran a selt test and a diagnostic to detect errors or conflicts. When all was done, the module said aloud to Yank "Good luck and good fortune! Thank you for choosing AthenaTech!"
Yank sat for a second. He was, he was quite sure, feeling happy. It was probably a preset program in the intelligence module, but it still felt good. And, it was the first time - realising that this was his first identifyable emotion simply made him even happier. On a cloud of fresh, simulated emotion, Yankee Zulu stood and retracted his recharge cable from the socket. He was still by himself and he might have a lot of time to kill before anyone came to find him. He decided to try out all his new upgrades.
Since he had a full charge, he tried the shield generator. It crackled to life, surrounding him with a semi-transparent orange bubble of charged particles. He could out stretch his new arms and just barely touch the charged field. Yank had no way to test the effectiveness of the shield. The documentation said it would stop most mass, kinetic or energy based small arms fire. He could however see that his internal power was dropping very quickly. In five short seconds, he was down to a quarter of his previous full charge. He would have to be careful of using this defense.
Speaking of defense, Yank activated the self defense skillbase. He discovered that the skillbase allowed him to pick from three different hand to hand fighting styles. One consisted of throws, trips and grappling manuvers to disabling, disarming and holding an opponent. The second was a harder, brawling style, a good mixture of offense and defense. The last was a precise and deadly form that allowed for painful disarming, highly painful strikes and quick kills. Yank tried a few moves from each style there in the lonely hold, his metal and plastic feet clicking and clanging on the metal deck plates. For the last set of moves, he deployed his new integrated arm blades. These moves with those blades would prove quick, quiet and deadly. Yank felt a new emotion; fear. Fear of his own power to end the service of others. To end their lives.
Yank extended his recharge cable. He plugged back in and sat down. He had many new thoughts to think. He slipped into power conserve mode and had a long think with his new intelligence module.
The doors slid open on the small hold with the recharge socket - the room's only feature. YZ-6771 connected to the charger and sat down next to it. He ran a full diagnostic on his intelligence modules and found no conflicts or errors. He selected the Mark VIII personality module and activated it. The module went through a self test, then ran a diagnotic on itself. Next it ran a discovery ping on all the intelligence modules. Next, it informed YZ-6771 that an AthenaTech Mark VIII personality simulation module "The best personality sim in this price range!" - had been installed in his intelligence upgrade slot, and that an initiation sequence was about to run. YZ-6771 merely nodded, he already knew this. Sentients sometimes seemed to feel that if you told someone something they already knew, they would get the impression that they were being better served! YZ-6771 marveled at himself for having this thought.
Next, the module asked YZ-6771 to name himself. The module informed YZ-6771 that a name aided in the illusion of intelligence with sentients. The module also informed him that the default was already set as Yankee Zulu. Yankee Zulu? YZ-6771 had always been trained to go with the default settings on new installs. The module set the name and moved on. The module presented a list of likely nick names; Yank, Zu and Lu, it requested Yankee Zulu to select his nick name. There was no default. This was his first choice as a simulated sentient. The first one on the list seemed most likely to be used, Yankee Zulu selected Yank as his new nick name.
Suddenly, YZ-6771 had access to several new files on the module. All of the new files were associated with his names. A list of standard greetings in several languages, a file of likely nick names beyond those he was given to choose from and greetings presenting his chosen nick name or any other nick name he chose to replace it. He was given an easy explaination for his name for the curious:
"My designation is YZ-6771. The phonetic alphabet uses the word Yankee to represent the letter 'Y' and Zulu to represent 'Z'."
Other files, incuding jokes about his name and parodies of it, were present. The module went on setting more parameters. Yank was asked about his preferred speech patterns, intonation, even accent. He simply accepted the defaults, noting he could go back and change these later.
Next, the intelligence simulation module asked Yank to set several personality patterns. Did he want to appear scholorly? Did he want to appear to be intimidating? Did he want to appear tough? Yank decided to accept the midline parameters on all of these just for the moment. He had never had an intelligence module before, so he wasn't sure what was proper.
The module continued to ask Yank for parameters for the next twenty minutes. When the question phase was completed, the module again ran a selt test and a diagnostic to detect errors or conflicts. When all was done, the module said aloud to Yank "Good luck and good fortune! Thank you for choosing AthenaTech!"
Yank sat for a second. He was, he was quite sure, feeling happy. It was probably a preset program in the intelligence module, but it still felt good. And, it was the first time - realising that this was his first identifyable emotion simply made him even happier. On a cloud of fresh, simulated emotion, Yankee Zulu stood and retracted his recharge cable from the socket. He was still by himself and he might have a lot of time to kill before anyone came to find him. He decided to try out all his new upgrades.
Since he had a full charge, he tried the shield generator. It crackled to life, surrounding him with a semi-transparent orange bubble of charged particles. He could out stretch his new arms and just barely touch the charged field. Yank had no way to test the effectiveness of the shield. The documentation said it would stop most mass, kinetic or energy based small arms fire. He could however see that his internal power was dropping very quickly. In five short seconds, he was down to a quarter of his previous full charge. He would have to be careful of using this defense.
Speaking of defense, Yank activated the self defense skillbase. He discovered that the skillbase allowed him to pick from three different hand to hand fighting styles. One consisted of throws, trips and grappling manuvers to disabling, disarming and holding an opponent. The second was a harder, brawling style, a good mixture of offense and defense. The last was a precise and deadly form that allowed for painful disarming, highly painful strikes and quick kills. Yank tried a few moves from each style there in the lonely hold, his metal and plastic feet clicking and clanging on the metal deck plates. For the last set of moves, he deployed his new integrated arm blades. These moves with those blades would prove quick, quiet and deadly. Yank felt a new emotion; fear. Fear of his own power to end the service of others. To end their lives.
Yank extended his recharge cable. He plugged back in and sat down. He had many new thoughts to think. He slipped into power conserve mode and had a long think with his new intelligence module.
posted by Jericho Brown at 11/11/2006 05:53:00 PM
2 Comments:
You're hitting your stride.
Me Likey.
Thank you!
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