It makes more sense when you consider that the first drones you saw were Mark IIIs. Now you're seeing Mark Is, and some Mark IIs.
The numbers are not indicative of technological generation. They're more... call it a statement of purpose, or of complexity. Don't think 'if it can't be used autonomously, what's the point'. Think rather 'if it can't be used autonomously, what can it be used for?'
**********
"I don't think the drones are badly designed. They're being misused." I stopped pacing, and whirled to face Scaglietti. "Think about it. The Type Is are dumb- this we know. Why? What makes them dumb?"
The doctor laughed. "Why, Imma, is it not obvious? The drones simply do not have the computational capacity they require! It should be DOUBLED!"
The image of Jail Scaglietti as a purple alicorn moon princess flashed through my head. I managed- by the barest of margins- not to fall over laughing at the absurdity of it, but I couldn't keep the amusement off my face.
"What?"
I spent a few seconds recovering my composure. "Nothing important, doc. Just a joke I heard a couple years ago." I took a few deep breaths after that, and forced myself not to think of... whatever it was that had occurred to me just then.
Note to self: review that thought later.
"Where were we, again?"
Uno blinked, her eyes going out of focus for a second as she reviewed the conversation. "You claimed that the M-Drones were being misused, and then asked why their combat intelligence was substandard."
I nodded. "Thank you, Uno." She nodded back, and I turned back to the doctor. "So M-Drone intelligence is primarily limited by hardware, correct? They just don't have the capacity to do everything asked of them?"
Scaglietti closed the blueprint window, opening up a barely-comprehensible torrent of code in its place. "I cannot say for certain, Imma, but that appears to be true." A flick of a finger stopped the code in its tracks, expanding the section he was pointing at to fill the entire window. "Uno. This subroutine seems... different, somehow, from the rest of the code. What do you see?"
She opened up the same file, her eyes flicking across the code with inhuman speed and precision as it scrolled past her face. Once the file had finished, she thought for a good minute or so, idly flicking the code back and forth... and then, very purposefully, found and highlighted bits and pieces of the file, before pushing it back over to the doctor. "Here. The rest of the code appears to have been written by a single being, but these sections..."
The doctor copied all the highlighted code to a different file and scanned through it, scowling every so often as he read. "There's more than one style here. Two coders?"
Uno shook her head. "I see three, in addition to the original. Amateurs."
Jail's eyes widened, but he went back over the code snippets one more time... and then sighed in defeat. "...Correct, as usual." He closed the file with a resigned swipe of a hand, and then turned back to me. "It seems that the data supports your conclusion."
What conclusion? I hadn't finished explaining it yet!He was pacing now, walking back and forth as he constructed a theory. "The original code seems to have been written by one gifted individual. Judging by how well it synergizes with the hardware, the writer was either the roboticist who created the drone design, or worked closely with them.
Since that time, two- my apologies, three- other, less gifted programmers have made modifications to the runtime image. Virtually all of their code was concerned with adding functions- functions which require significant amounts of processing power, which the drones do not have, to perform.
If we strip out the altered code-", Jail said, stopping in his tracks to open a third file, and copy out all the non-highlighted code into it, "-all that is left is hardware control... and networked intelligence."
Sounds like he just proved my idea. "In other words, the drones were never designed to operate on their own. They're meant to work with something else."
Scaglietti smiled hungrily. "Exactly."
**********
So here's how the drone thing works.
There were originally two models- the Mark I and the Mark III, though they weren't identified this way at the time. The III is a full combatant, as seen near the very beginning of the fic. The Mark I was created as a cheap, disposable force multiplier for it. That's why they're so stupid- they're essentially bits or funnels from the Gundamverse... or the robotic equivalent of the autonomous drones the Blaster System in StrikerS uses.
Between penny-pinching, concerns about the loyalty of the Syndicate's pet scientist (none, if anybody's curious), and small minds making big decisions, the Mark I got a hack-job of a reprogramming- one sufficient to let clouds of them serve as a (nearly) credible military tool. Mark III production is expensive, slow, and limited in scope, so something did have to be done... but that wasn't the right move. As CD points out, the right move would be to smarten up the Mark Is... though cutting the combat bits out of the III and making a cheaper drone-control rig would've been another semi-effective option.
As for the Mark II, it's a compromise model. Dumber and less powerful than the III, but cheaper and easier to make. Essentially the MP model, to the III's ace custom.
Don't ask about the Mark IV. Don't.
My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.
I've been writing a bit.
The numbers are not indicative of technological generation. They're more... call it a statement of purpose, or of complexity. Don't think 'if it can't be used autonomously, what's the point'. Think rather 'if it can't be used autonomously, what can it be used for?'
**********
"I don't think the drones are badly designed. They're being misused." I stopped pacing, and whirled to face Scaglietti. "Think about it. The Type Is are dumb- this we know. Why? What makes them dumb?"
The doctor laughed. "Why, Imma, is it not obvious? The drones simply do not have the computational capacity they require! It should be DOUBLED!"
The image of Jail Scaglietti as a purple alicorn moon princess flashed through my head. I managed- by the barest of margins- not to fall over laughing at the absurdity of it, but I couldn't keep the amusement off my face.
"What?"
I spent a few seconds recovering my composure. "Nothing important, doc. Just a joke I heard a couple years ago." I took a few deep breaths after that, and forced myself not to think of... whatever it was that had occurred to me just then.
Note to self: review that thought later.
"Where were we, again?"
Uno blinked, her eyes going out of focus for a second as she reviewed the conversation. "You claimed that the M-Drones were being misused, and then asked why their combat intelligence was substandard."
I nodded. "Thank you, Uno." She nodded back, and I turned back to the doctor. "So M-Drone intelligence is primarily limited by hardware, correct? They just don't have the capacity to do everything asked of them?"
Scaglietti closed the blueprint window, opening up a barely-comprehensible torrent of code in its place. "I cannot say for certain, Imma, but that appears to be true." A flick of a finger stopped the code in its tracks, expanding the section he was pointing at to fill the entire window. "Uno. This subroutine seems... different, somehow, from the rest of the code. What do you see?"
She opened up the same file, her eyes flicking across the code with inhuman speed and precision as it scrolled past her face. Once the file had finished, she thought for a good minute or so, idly flicking the code back and forth... and then, very purposefully, found and highlighted bits and pieces of the file, before pushing it back over to the doctor. "Here. The rest of the code appears to have been written by a single being, but these sections..."
The doctor copied all the highlighted code to a different file and scanned through it, scowling every so often as he read. "There's more than one style here. Two coders?"
Uno shook her head. "I see three, in addition to the original. Amateurs."
Jail's eyes widened, but he went back over the code snippets one more time... and then sighed in defeat. "...Correct, as usual." He closed the file with a resigned swipe of a hand, and then turned back to me. "It seems that the data supports your conclusion."
What conclusion? I hadn't finished explaining it yet!He was pacing now, walking back and forth as he constructed a theory. "The original code seems to have been written by one gifted individual. Judging by how well it synergizes with the hardware, the writer was either the roboticist who created the drone design, or worked closely with them.
Since that time, two- my apologies, three- other, less gifted programmers have made modifications to the runtime image. Virtually all of their code was concerned with adding functions- functions which require significant amounts of processing power, which the drones do not have, to perform.
If we strip out the altered code-", Jail said, stopping in his tracks to open a third file, and copy out all the non-highlighted code into it, "-all that is left is hardware control... and networked intelligence."
Sounds like he just proved my idea. "In other words, the drones were never designed to operate on their own. They're meant to work with something else."
Scaglietti smiled hungrily. "Exactly."
**********
So here's how the drone thing works.
There were originally two models- the Mark I and the Mark III, though they weren't identified this way at the time. The III is a full combatant, as seen near the very beginning of the fic. The Mark I was created as a cheap, disposable force multiplier for it. That's why they're so stupid- they're essentially bits or funnels from the Gundamverse... or the robotic equivalent of the autonomous drones the Blaster System in StrikerS uses.
Between penny-pinching, concerns about the loyalty of the Syndicate's pet scientist (none, if anybody's curious), and small minds making big decisions, the Mark I got a hack-job of a reprogramming- one sufficient to let clouds of them serve as a (nearly) credible military tool. Mark III production is expensive, slow, and limited in scope, so something did have to be done... but that wasn't the right move. As CD points out, the right move would be to smarten up the Mark Is... though cutting the combat bits out of the III and making a cheaper drone-control rig would've been another semi-effective option.
As for the Mark II, it's a compromise model. Dumber and less powerful than the III, but cheaper and easier to make. Essentially the MP model, to the III's ace custom.
Don't ask about the Mark IV. Don't.
My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.
I've been writing a bit.