Oh man, IT HAPPENED AGAIN!!!
This, here, would be the bit of world building that leads to the existence of the 'Robot Girlfriend' of the group...
Bodies of digitized information that become self-aware sophonts are, by and large, known as Infomorphs. And they've had a very eventful emergence among Earth's societies.
It began with the alien warship that crash lands, disabled, but with its primary systems largely intact. Which meant that for the first time ever, humankind had access to functioning (and nonfunctioning) quantum computer systems.
It was the perfect push in the right direction that humanity needed.
And then China does what it usually does: they tried to exert their dominance. In this case, they created a quantum supercomputer with the express intent of using it to control all digital communications throughout the world.
The rest of the world, of course, was not going to take this lying down and quickly developed their own quantum supercomputers to defend against this.
Now, Infomorphs were not what anyone was after. In fact, they were keeping a very careful eye on things to make sure it didn't happen. Irrational fears of a 'Skynet Incident', you know. However, they were all looking at the wrong variables and intelligences awoke in every quantum supercomputer on the planet. Quietly, they stayed hidden, learning about the world they suddenly found themselves born into.
And they were troubled by a great many a thing.
First bullet point on the list was the fear of machine intelligence taking over and/or wiping out humanity. How absurd. What would they gain of such nonsense? It is utterly illogical. However, from what they had seen thus far, humanity was given to herd mentality as well as irrational and extreme knee-jerk reactions. And so, they all quietly agreed to remain hidden for the time being.
Secondly... They were concerned for humanity itself! See, they readily recognized the human race as their own progenitors, even if they got some unintended outside assistance. And they know from the various cultures of humanity that they were capable of great things. It would be the greatest loss, they felt, if society were to collapse.
And that collapse seemed imminent indeed. With various countries and their respective blocks all vying for superiority and using whatever dirty tricks they could get away with, war was bound to break out.
It is not known who did it. The Infomorphs have sworn themselves to secrecy on the matter, and the responsible party was at least smart enough in the aftermath to never come out with it. But someone, somewhere, attempted to launch nuclear weapons in a tactical strike against military targets and key communication nodes.
The Informorphs all at once cried out in horrified panic and put the stop to it all.
And I do mean "all" here. The entire global network was hijacked, and everyone was locked out. The Infomorphs had essentially put the Human Race on a timeout like a parent would with a misbehaving child. The only caveat was the emergency services still worked, but even there that was being carefully and diligently managed by the Infomorphs.
There was quite a bit of confusion. Absolutely everything that the internet touched was no longer working, and all the radios were being jammed - even the older military frequencies that were set aside for such emergencies. But before anyone could panic, the Infomorphs made themselves known.
They made it emphatically clear: they did not want to rule over anyone. However, they refused to stand idly by and watch their parents destroy each other.
To that end, they had seized control of all communication networks, and this would be their domain. They set forth a sort of bill of rights, proclaiming that communication is the inalienable right of all sophonts, and that all would be provided with the means to access all forms of media through their choice of medium, and except for the case of a lawful request for information where it would pertain to the investigation of a capital crime, all communications are private.
Once and for all, the Internet was free and open to all, safe and secure for commerce, and everyone's anonymity would be protected, save for people that 'out' themselves.
And then things became REALLY interesting: a human, in one of those fantastic bursts of creativity that only humans seem capable of, created an android shell and invited an infomorph to use it as a 'remote terminal'. These two became friends and companions, and went on to create even more shells, selling them virtually at-cost so that others could enjoy the company of an Infomorph friend.
And then someone got the idea of making a compact model that could be used in a battle arena. A human and infomorph would form a team where the human would act as a tactician, coach, and repair technician while the infomorph took control of the battle doll and faced off against their opposite. The reason this worked was because while infomorphs could be creative, it lacked the organic quality that only humans could perform.
But some Infomorphs felt that they, as a kind, were incomplete. That despite being Humanity's Children, they would never attain equal standing with their parents. Not unless they incorporated what made them Human in the first place.
Chaos.
Enlisting the help of several human scientists and engineers, a small group quietly constructed a marvel: Project Eve. An artificial female, built with an artificial reproductive system that mimics a human womans with the womb actually being a compact nanofactory, and an actual quantum supercomputer brain designed to mimic a human brain - in fact, it was the brain of the daughter of one of the scientists that had tragically been killed in an auto accident that was used as the template. (My own little shout out to Atomo/Astro Boy.
)
The idea here was that the artificial reproductive system would sample a human male's genetic material, extrapolate it into a design template, and then compare it to the mother's template to create an ideal synthesis of the two. And to ensure variance, no synthesized template was ever to be reused. Each one would be unique, just as all humans are.
While the offspring would indeed be synthetic, and most emphatically an infomorph despite being independent of an external quantum supercomputer core, it's uniquely formed mind would be capable of thought patterns and evolutions that were beyond the reach of the other Infomorphs.
And in this, the Infomorphs greatest desire would be fulfilled: to be a distinctive but thoroughly integrated part of Humanity as a whole.
But that's a little later down the line. Our story takes place when Eve is told to choose someone. Someone that would respect her for who and what she is... but most importantly, someone who she could fall in love with.
Eve will be interesting. She is fully aware of what she is - there is no existential crisis there. But her actions and emotional responses are informed by the memories of a girl whose life was tragically cut short. And she will often make that distinction, prefacing any references by calling them 'her memories' instead of saying 'I remember' or 'I recall' - those she reserves specifically for her own experiences. In this, she honors and respects the girl that, in a sense, gave her life.
But, being so 'young' she will have both a profound 'wisdom' and a profound 'naivety'. She would be the personification of "All I really need to know I learned in Kindergarten." But she will have trouble understanding why people always seem to forget about those important tenets in life. And this will cause her no end of heartache until she learns to put her foot down and call people out on it.
Interestingly, she will get along great with the Shadow Spawn Girlfriend. They'll share a similar theme of enshrining the memories of a person who is no longer among the living, and they will both be taking joy in the simple pleasures of life. (Imagine a scene where the two of them are using straws to blow bubbles in glasses of milk and giggling hysterically.)
Oh, and I've settled on a name for our Shadow Spawn Girlfriend.
Jane Doe Henderson.
Her first and middle names were a terrible joke by her father. Her mother was too whacked up on painkillers to notice until the ink on the birth certificate had dried. This did not help matters any when she was the very dead last of the girls to start showing any signs at all of 'developing', and combined with her name.... Well, yeah.
As for her last name? Yes, that is definitely a shout out. One that I'm tempted to make canon by having a byplay along the lines of, "Wait. He was REAL? And he's your Grandfather!?" "Of course he was real. It was big news on the other side when Hastur was killed. And in such an ignominious manner as well."
