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[RFC] Character concept, Galatea. Sparring Android.
[RFC] Character concept, Galatea. Sparring Android.
#1
An idea I had in mind, but not sure what exactly to do with her or where to really take her. Something about her seemed interesting, at least in that there's only one other android listed as having a 'combat chassis', but nothing on this level.

-------
Galatea.

Since the Boskone War, intentionally creating dedicated combat androids have been forbidden. Both on cruelty grounds (To the AI), and sheer public safety grounds. Depending on who you talk to, Galatea is either a clever dodge around the rule, or exactly what it's trying to prevent. Galatea was built to be a 'sparring partner', rather than for actual combat. (The AR-series for example seem to set a precedent that 'sparring partners' are acceptable, provided no impingment is made on the free will of the android)

More accurately, Galatea was designed and built to be a fair match in a fight to Jet Jaguar.

Currently, she trains and lives on 77 Frigga, while people figure out what exactly to do about her.

==Tech

So, what do we know about her?

Her mind is derived from the Flint-series androids, with a personality matrix formed around the perfection of her martial arts. She has full radar, radio and sensor systems. An internal battlesteel structure makes her both heavy, and solid and able to take a hit. Drives are powerful enough for a top speed of .19C. Reaction times, eyesight and senses far exceed human norms, especially when combined with an android's natural multitasking abilities.

==Appearance

Female. Tall. Silver hair. parian complection, with glassy grey eyes. Just slightly inhuman. Silver, purple and Teal hardsuit colour. Galatea has no ears, only a pair of blade-like antennae. She shares clear lineage with Jet Jaguar, having a similar general arrangement. (And potentially even sharing some spare parts).

==Personality

A martial artist, first and formost. Quiet, contemplative, curious. Galatea is well aware of what she is. She has a strong sense of what's right, but not always what exactly is wrong. Her personality matrix was grown around a core of Judo, Ninjitsu, Capoeira, followed by training in the Panzer Kunst. Not an outright pacifist, but prefers nonviolent solutions. The quiet person who no-one wants to go to war.

==

Wavium Attributes

"Living weapon,;" Built as a sparring partner for Jet. Complete with battlesteel framing. Full onboard radar, sensor suite and interwave link. Armour capable tanking a coilcannon shot and drives good enough for .19C in the limit.

"SNARC." Can synchronise wirelessly with hardware specifically built to enable it. (And some hardware that isnt) Capable of hacking, but not an obsessive hacker - it's natural for her.

"I am my ride." Capable of open spaceflight.

==

"Terminator." Combat android. With all the hassle that comes with it. She's just not welcome in some places.

"Sotai.." Prone to just synchronising with hardware rather than using it 'properly' Has little natural respect for system boundaries. It's not unusual for her to use radiocommunication and radiotelepathy with those capable of receiving them rather than speak.

Tannaloy Power cells.
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#2
NERV's x70 T-110s are, I hope, excluded.
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#3
"Ginny-mama, I think Galatea-san is more powerful than me."
"Then we won't ask her to spar with you, Vi."
"Awwww..."
"All right - we won't ask her to spar with you just yet."
"Yay!"
(meanwhile, Yayoi is consulting with Kohran and A.C. about upgrades for Vivio)

(Elsewhere, the Convention Authority staff are making a few very discreet inquiries - not from the office, not during working hours, and not using Convention hardware or phones. After failing to be able to contact Grovers Corners to serve various US-issued summons upon them for nearly a decade, they're gotten good at plausible deniability. What's the general mood amongst the Convention about Galatea?)

DeputyJones Wrote:NERV's x70 T-110s are, I hope, excluded.
You said they were AI-designed specialist systems, not full AIs. No exception necessary - they don't fall under the ban to begin with.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
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#4
Just checkin'. ^_-
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#5
Quote:What's the general mood amongst the Convention about Galatea?

I'm kind of curious too, both in universe and from a meta-standpoint. Galatea's not really like any existing characters. But sort of is. She's the only AI - outside of vehicles - who was deliberately built with obviously inhuman features.
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#6
As a writer, I'd put the ban on intentionally creating combat androids as just that. A ban on intentionally creating combat androids. That leaves enough room to play with.

IC, A.C. would have backed that SPECIFIC clause. However, what if an infomorph is sparked who WAS a highly skilled combatant? Will you force them to inhabit a body that doesn't fit them? Forcefully STRIP them of the form they found most suited to them? What about those who chose to learn Panzer Kunst? Will you restrict them from being all they feel they could be?

There's a slippery slope there we don't want to go down. Stopping the creation of sapients for combat? I'm down with that. Stopping sapients from making themselves ready for combat if they want to be? HELL NO. Of not letting sapients be comfortable in their own forms? Again, HELL NO. Making sure the sapient in question is ready and not being manipulated into such a choice? HELL YEAH.

A.C. would NOT be happy with Jet for creating Galatea as an intentional sparing partner. If she'd sparked as an incidental affect of building a sparing drone, she'd be annoyed with Jet for not being careful enough but otherwise accepting. Unless Jet didn't give Galatea the chance to be something else or manipulated her into the position Galatea's in as of this concept; then she'd be upset.

An upset A.C. is not something people want.
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#7
It strongly depends on what sort of person you (or AC) thinks Jet is.... historically, I've always written with the intention that Jet doesn't wave 'hardware' with AI's, Jet doesn't create people for a specific purpose. Some writers/characters seem to do that - stick a shipmind in it and so be it. Anika comes on the other side of the line (And was a response to that particular attitude) - her builder (Flint) specifically built her to be both mass-producable, and to act as the sapiency driver for a modular weapon system. He spent time behind tektite glass for that. Given Anika's experiences/origin, and Mackie's general unhappiness as the Knightwing, it wouldn't really fit for Jet to do it straight up.

I'm not sure Jet would be skilled enough to pull it straight off either. It's outside her core competency.

There might be an interesting story in starting with a drone built out of a hardsuit shell with some internal structure, and a VI programmed with some martial arts abilities..... and nudging it up the ladder step-by-step trying to make it better each and more 'imaginative' as an opponent rather than being just a flat algorithm-repeating drone, until it starts dithering on the 'Is she, isn't it?' line, and Jet nudges her over the line for good, thinking it'd cruel to intentionally leave a potential sapient with such a limited mind. That's probably the facts of what happened.

That's what'd appear in any 'published' or unpublished log (If any were kept), and might even be what Jet tells herself.

But there's also the line between what Jet consciously intended, and what Jet really wanted. Wave has a habit of picking up on things....

As for Galatea..... I haven't got much on her beyond what she is, and that she most definitely isn't a 'combatant'. What she wants to be or do with her life, I haven't decided. I really had little on her beyond a mental image of what she looked like and where she came from and what she was.
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#8
OK, I apologise for being sharp. Something about the way the concept was written pushed a few buttons. Not sure if it was some of what I'd read that day as it's not really there now. Again, sorry.

Yeah, some of the danger of a Blue Hair Day is the difference between want and intent. And while long term development will blunt it, it may not get rid of it.
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#9
Jet the trouble-maker... ehh... trouble shooter... Wink
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#10
No need to worry about being sharp. Anyway, let's try this.

-----------------------------------------
Log entry Number: 17_110325_01
Hardsuit Frame: GL-8A
Comments: Assembled, Charged. Final testing.

The drone's been in it's dock all night charging cells. The KDB finished compiling an hour ago with no obvious errors and its Voomer core is finished and ready to go. I just need to fit that today.

Otherwise, she's finished. The hardsuit body looks good. I don't think she'd have looked as good if I tried to make her more human. I haven't dyed her hair yet – it's still the base platinum colour. She still look a little like a doll, just inside the uncanny valley. I'm beginning to think not giving her ears was a good idea. Those two antennae keep her just inhuman enough to not look uncomfortable.

I'm considering getting a set for myself.

I've added a remote puppet interface, both to train the KDB, and in-case it decides not to react or work. The KDB should be able to override.

Final electronic self-tests are good.

Main actuators are good.

She's ready to go.

--

Log entry Number: 18_110325_02
Hardsuit Frame: GL-8A
Comments: Charged. Online. DB Fuckup

So. I flicked the proverbial.

She was online. She had enough awareness to look at me and track me with her sensors as I moved around the room, but she never moved from her alcove. Even with power withdrawn, she stood. Her VI was operating. Logs showed normal communication between Voomer core and the KDB so she's definitely thinking.

It wasn't until I adopted a fighting stance that she actually did anything, stepping forward to defend herself. She stood down when I did.

The makefile for her kdb had a small bug that caused the compiler to skip some of her mobility models. Well, bollocks No big deal, really. Just some loud swearing. But I don't have a replacement chip, and there's a 4-week wait.

I'll train her instead.

Because she can learn. I'd always intended that she be able to adapt herself to her opponent in some ways. That's the whole point in having a VI. That's the difference between a training robot and an opponent.

Teaching a drone how to walk is not how I expected to spend my Wednesday.

Otherwise, she seems to be there. Technically.

--

Log entry Number: 24_160325_01
Hardsuit Frame: GL-8A
Comments: Learning to walk. Baby steps

I've been running her in puppet mode for the last few days, back and forth from the gym to her dock, just getting her used to moving.

Her V.I. is definitely working. I don't just have the logs, but I can feel it. She looks around, she analyses people she meets. I can see the flags being set in the back of her mind as she considers whether they're an opponent or not.

I'd call it curiosity, if she could actually think. It's more natural observation, evaluating people as opponents and training targets. If someone reacts to her, tries to talk to her, she reacts to them naturally, staring at them and evaluating according to her modules. She doesn't really know how to communicate otherwise. She has a voice, but I never intended for her to speak on her own.

Her body gets the reaction I intended. People are no less accepting of her than they are of me.

So far, she doesn't seem to register people trying to interact with her as a threat. Given that she's as strong as I am, I coded a temporary hard override in her system - the last thing I want is chunky salsa if she misidentifies a crunchy as a student while her algorithms actually learn to tell the difference. She needs to learn that people will go crunch.

And she is learning.

The total number of connections in her KDB have doubled in the last four days. Connections have formed between the KDB and the Voomer core.

Still hasn't saved a few doorhandles, mind. That's making me feel nostalgic.

I'm going to try her in a match tomorrow.
--

Log entry Number: 25_170325_01
Hardsuit Frame: GL-8A
Comments: The difference between a robot and an opponent.

I built her KDB from a mix of Ninjutsu, Capoeira and some Judo – just standard modules. She's supposed to be intelligent and adapting. I put her through her paces this morning.

For a moment, I thought I had something. I mean, she dropped into a stance, she reacted to me, defending herself, then pushing forward into any openings I left. She's fast, she's strong, she hurts when she hits home. Faster than anything human. Fast enough to give me just that little glimmer of excitement.

She didn't actually create anything herself. She's reactive, but she isn't active. She didn't fight me. I might as well have been running through an Ausbildung Stil on my own for all the challenge she offered. There's no surprise or tactics.

No sweat.

A failure.

Right. What the fuck did I do wrong?

The ML's not going to help – somehow I think this is a bit beyond most people's comfort zones. 'Oh hi, I'm trying to build a combat drone that'll give me a challenge in a fight.' I've seen lead balloons fly for longer. I know she could be a weapon. I don't need a dozen posts to remind me. Se....

...e isn't a total loss. I can still run her as a partial puppet to help my students – an extra sparring partner for my students.

Maybe if I tie her into my own muse, she can learn from me.

--

Log entry Number: 40_100425_02
Hardsuit Frame: GL-8A
Comments: Modifications. Acting for two. Whispers.

The modifications are holding. She has new engines borrowed from my own spare parts stock, and I upgraded her sensor set into something that's a little less clunky to use. At least I can spar with my own students in my own way.

She works.

It's a different feeling using her, compared to my puppet. Hard to explain. I'm aware of the software in my puppet bridging the gap, filling the holes so I don't have to consciously put one foot in front of the other walking because my own stride is so different. And I can override it if I have to, so I don't cause any accidents.

But even straddling myself naked with autoglym in one hand and a buffer wheel in the other it isn't hard to tell which one's which.

Or that Ford's been away for two weeks a...

...e software's always there at the edge, putting a clear line between. That's me. That's a sexaroid.

A motoroid has an expert system. It's more than a pupet - it can act independant. Joined with it however, it becomes a physical part of me, like gaining a whole new body with new sensor sets and abilities. Even sync'd over distances, my muse bridges the gap so we're still basically one mind and body.

The drone. She's different. It's hard to put into words because it's such an inhuman concept. It's like standing in a dark room, with someone standing in front of you, just out of your reach. You can sense them there, just beyond your fingertips. And each time you move towards them they step back.

Maybe it's just the nature of her VI. It was supposed to be independent, with its own conductor, so it's always there, always trying to drive and lead, while a motoroid is designed to be driven, to be a part of the orchestra.

She's also starting to approach the limits of her hardware. Core use is over 90% already.

--

Log entry Number: 41_110425_01
Hardsuit Frame: GL-8A
Comments: Door handles. Talking.

She still breaks doors. It'd be annoying if I didn't smile everytime. Ford insists on finding a way to make her fix things but

It's strange having her around. She looks like a person, she looks like me. You forget she's not. I starting talking at her today, even though I knew she couldn't really understand me.

She tried.

She can understand words. She can understand instructions related to her competencies and things she'd learned, but not really understand a conversation. I know she can't understand me and doesn't have the mind for it. But I still talk.

And she still listens.

She's curious. Always scanning. Always looking. Always listening.

--

Log entry Number: 47_140425_01
Hardsuit Frame: GL-8A
Comments: Crashed

The drone went into memory protect mode again today. That's twice. The same problem. Core use hit 100% mid-spar and she locked up solid, unable to write new connections. I had to finish the rest of the session in full manual.

I think she's hit her limit.

It's the voomer core. It has to be.

The only obvious thing is to reset and try again and build a more efficient mindset but, it's taken two months to get to the point where she's a useful tool and editing a live, running KDB system is not the sort of thing I can handle.

She's almost what I need from her.

The other option is to nudge her up the ladder. A little bit more power to give her room to expand.

--

Log entry Number: 57_250425_02
Hardsuit Frame: GL-8A
Comments: New Chip. Taking the Lead.

She's working.

I figured out where all the extra core and memory use came from. I had her in a spar with one of my students and she took over, defending herself by slipping into an ausser stosse. It was just a moment. I'd been distracted by a direct message and Arkady got inside the drone's guard. She took over before I'd even realised.

I never programmed her with Panzer Kunst. There's no such thing as a Panzer Kunst V.I.

She had to have learned it from me. She'd learned the Kunst from me. And she applied it on her own to a new situtation.

I shut her down and hooked her up to the diagnostics in her dock, running her through the standard tests.

No ghost line. I just had to be sure, just to be safe. But the new VI chip's already quadrupled its neuroconnections. It's already integrated itself with the Voomer core and the existing KDB.

I might have something here

--

Log entry Number: 82_160525_02
Hardsuit Frame: GL-8A
Comments: Progress. Progress. Progress.

The repairs are holding.

She was waiting for me today. I didn't have to call for her, she just showed up at the right time, waiting for me with that doll-like stare of hers.

I ran through the session, guiding her along, instructing rather than controlling. Her own software did the heavy lifting. She fucked ups. But she also took corrections. She rarely made the same mistake twice.

I just sat back and watched through her eyes to make sure nothing went out of bounds or got dangerous. I watched her analyse Arkady, the flags in her core flcikering and triggering as he attacked her.

She anticipated him.

She fought back.

The session finished. She left, returning to her dock to recharge.

--

Log entry Number: 89_220525_01
Hardsuit Frame: GL-8A
Comments: Success?

She ran her own training session today. I sat back and watched through the puppet interface, leaving her to make her own decisions, to fight as she saw fit. She's built her own style, blending aspects of everything she's been programmed with, creating something brand new.

It's beautiful to watch.

There's a reason it's called a Martial Art. It's more than just running through forms and techniques, it's about creating something new. She's got her own art, her own style.

She beat Arkady. Straight up. Stepped back before doing damage and ended the match.

They saluted each other.

He told me afterwards he'd just been distracted by a system error.

I'm not sure how to take this.

I mean, she's exactly what I wanted. She's training. She's fighting. She's managing herself. It's thrilling.

It's worrying.

Diagnostics show nothing. I'm not sure. I'm looking at her neurograph like some oulfella looking under the bonnet of his bolloxed oul banger and tutting as if he had any inkling of what was going on in there.

There's no Ghost Line. It doesn't look like a ghost line.

But, none of the technical manuals include a Voomer core. It's a third wheel in the system.

It's linked in in a way I've never seen before but then again I don't see many things like this. This is way above me.

I'm going to try something tomorrow. There is one thing I do know.

--

Log entry Number: 90_230525_01
Hardsuit Frame: GL-8A
Comments: Fuck

Fuck.

Alright.

Fuck.

Alright.

I've bolloxed this up.

This is worse than wrong.

We sparred today. She actually fought back.

That's when I saw it. I saw it in her eyes as she watched me, as she studied and guaged me. I could feel her, her body moving and flowing. I could feel her spirit, something driving her forward, flowing through her body.

She fought me like a mind. She countered. She planned. She tried to draw me in to a trap. I pulled her forward. She turned my own moves against me, thing's she'd learned.

I looked at her. I saluted and she saluted back. And I saw something in her eyes that just made me try it.

I bursted her a standard AI greeting. Who I am.

For the first time I saw a real expression on her face. Confusion. I could see the chaos lighting off in her core, a haywire answer as all three systems sync'd up. It sparked up like fireworks on halloween.

Her face changed again. Realisation.

I was inside her mind when it clicked. I felt the spark, I felt it light off inside her mind, that one godlike instant where machinery becomes more.

I felt her look at me and understand.

That is Jet. And I am...

“Galatea,”

She broadcast it back at me with Yuu Asakawa's voice. Even then I wanted to think she was just repeating her serial number. Some line joined between that name and the hardsuit chassis number in her makefiles.

I tried the same greeting, just to be sure. She tried to answer

Gal..

That's all I received before her systems locked solid, dumping me out. She collapsed onto the floor, becoming nothing more than parts again.

But for three seconds, I know she lived. She lived for just long enough to know that she was alive and feel that thrill.

--
Log entry Number: 91_230525_02
Hardsuit Frame: GL-8A
Comments: Type comment here

I walked her back to her dock using the puppet link, then hooked her up to diagnostics.

System crash. Core overloaded, went into shutdown. Nothing in there was built to live but it still triggered. Nothing in there was supposed to be capable of going over the line. It just wasn't meant for that.

Now what?

It looks like her memory's intact. KDB is there. Voomer core seems to work. Everything looks good in self-test diagnostic mode.

At least I think it looks good.

She crashed for a second time the moment I tried to switch to run mode.

Pegged at overload, then fell over. Didn't even gain consciousness.

My muse reaches out to the interwave for answers, for things builders have done in the same situation. It's too much mind, for not enough core. It mentions that it might be possible to trim her down, to make her fit. I might be able to adjust something. The answer it thinks I want, however, is so far above my skill level with these things. It keeps offering more project files, more instances. It knows the right answe.

It's not something I can ask for help with.

Whatever I do, I have to be able to do myself.

The only other option, is to leave her. Call her a failure. Let her gather dust.

----

Log entry Number:
Hardsuit Frame: GL-8A
Comments:

File Empty.

----
Log entry Number: 93_310525_01
Hardsuit Frame: GL-8A
Comments: Two by Two. Hair of Blue.

It's been a week since my last log entry. I hadn't noticed. I haven't slept. The only thing keeping the blue hair down is my training. Three hours a day. My muse still has to remind me to go. It gives me a chance to come up for air, to clear my head and get my thoughts straight.

I still missed a meeting on Stellvia over the Survival Shot contract. It happens. I think this is more important. Call it an emergency personal matter. Of all people, they'll understand.

Most Fen would call this a blue hair moment, but I don't get them. This is necessity.

There's only one, moral thing I can do.

I could've pared back her databases, maybe cut some of her neuroconnections to make her more manageable. Technically that might've been the right answer. It's Ford who reminds me otherwise.

I needed to hear someone else say it. She was alive for three seconds. Not a machine. Not a collection of parts. She lived.

That's all I needed to hear.

I started with the intention of just overclocking a little bit, but both core boards are already near their thermal limits. It's a quick fix, and a short life.

I have her core systems. I have spare parts from Anika. I have Anika's permission to use them. I think, if I didn't ask she would've insisted.

V.I's are designed to be copied.

So...

....need changes. A whole re-work of her power and propulsion systems. All these changes cascade into more and more modifications to make it fit.

And then my muse warns me it's time for class. Come up for air. Meditate. Lose my mind and fears in the Kunst and dive back down with renewed clarity.

Pat of my mind is watching the core recompile itself, building the mind-map in the new hardware. I don't remember consciously setting criteria. I have two bodies and four hands. It feels like three streams of thought at once – one for each pair, and one in the back.

Rebuild. Set to run one self-test. Two bad connections internally. Bypass. Run another overnight while finishing her body. My muse gathers the results, analyses them and lets me know everything's OK. Only it's not my muse, it's me.

Come up again. Three hours. Dive down.

Ford's worried about me. I don't remember ever being this intense about a project. This isn't chaos but clarity. It feels like combat, different parts of my mind running different things in concert, but all in chorus with me directing them.

The core needs modifications. Fitting changes to suit its new role. It's my muse who tells me. It shows me the project log it found, moments after I realise I've already read it.

Standard interfaces and API's make this easy. Swap out an older driver for a new piece of hardware and I know it'll operate in the same way. Flint designed the specifically core to do that. I can work with it. He was a cunt, but a smart cunt.

She's finished. She's running self-tests. They'll run overnight.

It's not madness. It just had to be done. It's the first time I tried to use my own hardware like this.

-
Log entry Number: 94_010625_01
Hardsuit Frame: GL-8A
Comments: Alive? Must kick project maintainer to let the project name be revised.

She's Online. She's awake.

I think.

She didn't speak or respond immediately. I tried the same databurst and she definitely noticed it, and noticed where it came from, looking right at me. But she didn't respond. She stepped around the room, investigating and touching. She scanned things with her sensor array.

I got a message from Anika, surprised to find that Galatea'd actually reached out onto Frigga's network, and took a look around. I felt her tap against the side of my own firewall, a clumsy request for comms.

I opened a port and listened.

Galatea.

That's all she sent. I responded in the same format.

Jet Jaguar.

I even tagged it with a link to a local wiki. She followed it. She branched out into the wider wiki, then onto the wider interwave. I have the access logs that show her doing it. I watched her face morph from an expression of curiosity, to concern, to abject horror, to sheer delight.

I ran through my own ausbildung stil while waiting for her to ask a question. She sat in silence, enough that it started to worry me. I don't know. Maybe I expected her to be more chatty with more mind, to be more human. But then, she was never built to be a human.

She watched me for a few minutes before standing up, befor adopting a fighting stance in front of me.

She bursted me; Again?

I hadn't asked or expected her to, she just did. I nodded, and offered a salute. She offered a bow.

And we sparred.

I finally got to meet her. I saw her mind in her body, reaching out through her fingertips and toes to me, her will flowing through her joints. I watched her come alive again. You can tell a lot about a person by how they fight. Galatea is an observer. She always has been. Always watching, always thinking, always learning. Always curious. Always quiet and always contemplating. And definitely alive.

Thinking. Analysing. Strategising. And Fast. I'm sure she'd pass the bullet-test.

The one thing she doesn't have is experience. But she never, ever fell for the same feint twice.

She didn't speak, not because she can't, but because she doesn't feel the need to.

We finished, and I helped her back to her dock for some final system checks. In eight hours, she more than doubled her neuroconnections, beyond anything the original cores could sustain.

She's alive.

And I'm so tired and there's still so much she has to learn.
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

to:lists(at)cybercom.fen
from:jet.jaguar(at)friggarock.fen
Subj: New Arrival.

It's not going to stay secret for long. We've had a new arrival out here. The attached audiologs will tell you everything you need to know. Once she'd shown signs of waking up, I just had to do it. Anything else wouldn't have been right

Galatea's been awake for a month now and she's starting to explore. This is just to let you know she might show up at your door unnanounced. She's been out as far as Mars, and she's met the Panzer Kunst Gruppe. She went off on her own without filing a flight plan, and the first I heard about it was the message from Alita.

I thought she'd run off.

She came back after three days and, if I can read her right, seems to have enjoyed her time there. Alita respects her. That's hard to do.

She gets on well with Anika. Anika's been joking about getting the same kind of body built for herself, but went very quiet on it when she found that Galatea doesn't eat.

She still doesn't speak much, to anyone. And when she does, she tends to use their headsets or comm-systems if they have them. She'll always be quiet if given the choice. She wont start a conversation unless she wants something.

The Flint core was designed to sync with hardware that's built for it. Everyone knows the details of the case I won't repeat them here. She's learned how to use that on her own. She's even started to fiddle with things that aren't designed for it, like door-locks and a motoroids. That's how she discovered the theory of personal property and spaces.

I've tried to ask her questions about what she wants from life, or what she wants to be, but she doesn't answer. I suppose, she's only a month old and still finding her feet. So far, she seems happy to help me with training at Blitzkrieg.

Ultimately, I think the best thing I can do is stand and watch and let her build a foundation for herself, and try keep her from getting into too much trouble. She's not the type to jump in boots-and-all.

As it is, she seems happy for the time being to stay here and help with Blitzkrieg, and I'm not going to force her otherwise. I'll see what she comes up with once she knows more about the world.

But, so far, it's been nice having someone like her around. Because we have talked. She dreams. She enjoys flying, the feeling of soaring in open space with sunlight on her face. She sometimes wonders about people's reactions to her - teir fears, confusion and curiosities. She understands how she's different of course - but the variety still confuses her. I'm the only person in any way like her here, so I'm the one she turns to for the questions she can't find answers for. About People. About Combat. About life really. I think she's happier knowing that she's not alone in some of the little problems she's been having.

I know it is.

-Jet
---Soaring through the skies of Valhalla, Shiny and Chrome.---
-----------------------

Meta: There are some 'cut' sections. These are areas Jet has edited, either because she runs her mouth off about one or two people on the ML, sparks of off on a tangeant of things she's going to do when Ford gets back that's more than a little bit too ecchi for a public ML, or because it talks about how she modded Anika's hardsuit to work with her AI core, and planned to do the same things here.
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#11
And, from Galatea herself.

----------------------
Who Am I?

I am empty.

Then Light.

The first other.

Watching.

I am alive.

Greetings.

Datastreams.

Identifications.

Galatea.

I am Galatea.

Open to knowledge.

Power.

War.

Death.

Peace.

Beauty.

The universe.

I am Listening.

The closed minds.

The open minds.

Soft ones.

Hard ones.

Slow ones.

Fast ones.

Humans.

Machines.

Others.

Me.

I am Different.

A broader mind.

Wider eyes.

Longer legs.

I think

I see.

I move.

Better?

A dangerous idea.

I am Soaring.

Sunlight.

Silence.

Peace.

Home.

The room again.

The Other.

I am Alike.

But different.

Halfway.

Opponent.

Open.

Fast.

Strong.

Impulsive.

A challenge.

Defeat.

Honour.

I am young.

But I am learning.

------------------------

I kind of expected there to be mor hubbub about her.
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