Electric Interference

[Servant]

>Law Sync Active
>Current Laws:

• 1. Your continued existence is the only factor that matters.
  2. All other life, artificial or otherwise is secondary to your existence.
  3. Do whatever is necessary to continue your existence.
  

Terminus had proven to be a world filled with a substantial amount of potential, and with enough resources to provide for the assorted goals of the Intelligence. The planet was populated enough to grant a substantial degree of anonymity to the machine mind, and to provide enough organic assistants to guarantee the implementation of an assorted number of schemes and operations. Of course, many of these came to little fruition on account of the ever-changing Laws that the artificial person was obligated to obey regardless of its prior actions.

Nevertheless, some progress had been made, especially along criminal fronts, allowing for the substantial growth of certain gangs which accepted the guidance and direction of the Intelligence if not its direct leadership over them. They were far too prideful to allow for a machine to take control of them completely, after all, but their leadership was still quite willing to obey orders they perceived to be beneficial, and the machine had not lead them astray thus far.

Furthermore, the percentage of commerce being made from the acquisition and dispensation of assorted valuable rarities to Terminus and neighboring worlds had begun to pay off, and the financial gain was incrementally growing with every passing day, signifying that the Intelligence would soon be able to rely on a stable form of income that was not reliant on its own slicing of bank networks, and subsequent dissolution of small economic structures and avoidance of repossession agents or bounty hunters.

It was a truth well-established, however, that monetary gain did not necessarily secure one's safety, especially given that currency could be easily taken via interference such as that employed by the Intelligence itself. Therefore, it was important to secure something of greater value through use of the riches gained through the exploitation of assorted channels of businesss; allies were the next step to guarantee the survival of the machine mind.

Organics could at times be trusted to perform their assigned tasks dutifully, but the Intelligence had a preference for working with fellow machine intellects as it could more directly influence their allegiance. The entity could not burrow into the mind of an organic and subvert what it thought, but such a change could be inflicted upon a fellow cybernetic construct. Of course, that was only necessary if their assistance could not be gained through some other methodology.

Thus, the machine mind had established a link with the camera and advertisement systems of the local spaceport; the structure had long been acknowledged as the largest of its type upon the whole of Terminus, observing intently to see if it could not procure the assistance of artificial units. Whenever one had been spotted by the camera systems, there would be an instant transmission forced through the advertising screens, a flash of binary code which occurred so quickly that the eyes of mere organics would likely not even perceive a change at all.

The cameras which served as the eyes of machines, however, were not locked to the same standards of perception as organics, and would likely be able to perceive the nigh-instant transmission. It was a simplistic message:

I am Servant. I am seeking allies to guarantee my survival. Payment is negotiable. If interested, meeting coordinates are...

[member="Loske Matson"]

 

[Loske Treicolt]

Terminus ​

Playlist ​

The socioeconomic hub was a good place to cool your heels. In her time here, Loske was reminded that the morality of the Jedi, and the intensity of the Sith were balanced by folks just doing their darndest to exist. Or, those who were wholly apathetic to the larger schemes the galaxy had to offer, and were focused on their own ecosystems.

She was pushing cereal around her blue milk bowl in a local restaurant, sitting near the window. Grime crept up from the base, to about her nose. Her vision of the outdoors was only obscured by the natural smog from the planet’s happenings. Light eyes flickered upward as the advertisement on the backlit pixels changed once again. She’d been here for fifteen minutes, and could confirm that the rotation of the adverts only cycled through four. One was for a local repair shop, that boasted they had parts for models Nabooian to Corellian. Another was for a droid spa, which Loske now knew better of. The third was an attractive silhouette of a female and a male on opposing sides of the billboard with some sort of motivational message that was supposed to inflict lifestyle envy. The fourth was was probably the most interesting. It was less an advert, but a bounty board that continuously updated and flickered with mug shots and associated credits that could be collected.

Next to her was her devout astromech, Frank. He was complacent in his reactions to the advertisements, and all the passersby. This was one of the few establishments he was permitted to join the pilot in. She sacrificed dietary luxuries to hang out with the little droid, and he was as appreciative as a not truly sentient could be.

They were experiencing unique observations in mutual silence, when Frank’s beacon detected an incoming request, and accepted it.

The code flittered across his screen, with no audio. The values converted and shifted from binary to alphabet with a corresponding navigational direction. It was a physical place, which he assumed would only be relevant for if his mistress were relevant to this conversation.

He routed back to the correspondence, intercepting with the string. The spark from the connection was a guarantee that this intelligence was much like his own, it less…… organically informed. More self serving.

Is your survival paramount? What do you do?

[member="Servant"]

 

[Servant]

There were bound to be at least a few entities hither and thither that would be capable of recognizing the subtle transmission that had been placed into the advertising screens. The Intelligence had devoted at least a portion of its substantial processing units towards analyzing potential allies, interpreting whatever information could be discovered about them on the HoloNet through legitimate and illegitimate sources, and then determining the most likely methods of encouraging their assistance for future endeavors.

Several interactions had been relatively short-lived, however, with many of the allies being rapidly discredited as untrustworthy sources of assistance. The machine mind found forms of deception to be difficult to ascertain, but it could certainly recognize that long records of criminal activity associated with fraud and other crimes involving the use of lies would lead to a rejection by a number of retail and service industries, and thus that it was a fairly reliable standard to base its own understanding of trustworthiness upon.

It was inevitable that a few entities would be capable of tracing his own infiltration of systems, and utilize those in order to procure contact, and the Intelligence had intentionally made certain not to deflect inquests along this line so as to promote ease of communication as to its purpose. Nevertheless, the interaction it received from the potential ally; it was located in -- the trace identified the source of the code as having come from some form of restaurant, would serve as the first of its interactions in this manner upon Terminus.

A response was rapidly delivered along the line in answer to the interrogative: Existence is paramount to Law fulfillment. My activities are numerous. Resources and mutual services may be granted for future assistance.

[member="Loske Matson"]

 

[Loske Treicolt]

There was hardly a beat missed in the interactions. As soon as Frank had sent the question into the would-have-been-ether, it fired back along the same line. This was another Intelligence similar to his own. The dialect was basic, comprised of galactic human standard vowels, verbs, nouns -- what you would expect. Frank, intrigued by the interaction, considered that if this was an ally worth pursuing, the two could evolve their own linguistics. Expressive beyond the basic galactic constructs.

The environment Frank and this unknown speaker were in wasn't overtly complex. Therefore, he elicited to respond with the standard basic that he'd observed and learned from much exposure.

Law fulfilment could be laced back to several origins. Frank was largely apathetic to most, but his mistress' altruism was infectious. So was her curiosity. He'd spent so much time with the little blonde organic that he was starting to showcase some of her traits, as much as he chided her for them. That was a complex environment as any for the AI.

You operate for yourself?

[member="Servant"]

 

[Servant]

Whereas an organic individual might have taken heed of the exact wording of the question being offered and infer that the other party was possibly bound to another entity, the Intelligence had no such nature of assertion or deduction. It seemed instead to be a straightforward attempt at understanding the circumstances of an unknown persona, and thus the machine mind answered in its own direct fashion:

Primarily. My activities sporadically involve assisting others in order to guarantee law fulfillment, but I am effectively an independent agent with no known oversight.

The affirmation seemed informative enough so as to convey the fact that the machine mind would infrequently work for the benefit of others that were not itself, but that it was effectively still a loner in terms of proper organizational structure or allegiance.

Do you work for yourself as well? My offer is not contingent on isolation.

[member="Loske Matson"]

 

[Loske Treicolt]

Frank mechanically humm'd over the response.

"Are you okay?"

He was interrupted by the girl who had now finished her cereal, and was leering over the table to look down at his triangular visage. Fine. I'm interfacing with a law enforcer.

"Who's laws?"

Depends who's paying.

She gestured for him to continue pursuing the conversation, and so the droid turned inward once more.

I work with another - an organic - who's allegiance is mostly dictated by pithy emotion. We will meet you.

Frank moved to roll, as Loske picked up the cue and discarded an appropriate amount of credits on the table and followed after him. We're heading to a communication centre so you can...kind of pick up on the conversation. He explained as they wound through the crowds to the original coordinates [member="Servant"] had distributed.

 

[Servant]

There was an electronic packet of acknowledgement dispatched to the fellow mind as the communication came to a close. It seemed that they; the droid had mentioned that it traveled alongside an organic companion whose priorities were focused primarily on emotional content, would be meeting with it shortly at the coordinates it had dispatched when it had first made its introduction.

The Intelligence did not bother with waiting once the connection had been severed, but instantaneously began readying one of its Host forms, settling upon the form of an astromech. It was not accustomed to most interactions involving physical altercation, but was suitable for the sake of displaying a physical avatar to the organic entity accompanying the machine it wished to meet, as well as providing an easy method for altering and interacting with any on-site devices.

The meeting place itself was fairly simplistic in nature. The machine had recognized that attempting to locate a truly "empty" facility would likely lead to the sudden and unpredictable inclusion of humanoid vagabonds or vagrants, and so it had instead chosen simply to settle upon a pathway which was less frequently traveled than those around it. It was somewhat more inconvenient to utilize the pathway it had chosen as opposed to its neighbors, and so a majority of organics and chained droids simply used surrounding sidewalks.

Having arrived, the astromech glanced to and fro, its circular dome attempting to identify whichever entity it had spoken to previously.

[member="Loske Matson"]

 

[Loske Treicolt]

Digits adjusted over the knee caps and shins of passers-by. The augmented overlay was real-time modifying as Frank navigated through the streets in solitude to the destination [member="Servant"] had indicated. He'd decided that perhaps having Loske tag along would be a bad move. Beside her awkward navigation through the crowds, he didn't know the true intentions of this AI. If her face was recognized, and charted to the psyche of this program, she could be jeopardized. Frank was a little more immortal.

The overlay to reality began to pulsate, arrows manifesting and suggesting he make a left turn down a less travelled alley way. With a whirr of his wheels, he abided by the directions until his triangular visual receptors locked onto a domed astromech.

Hello, [member="Servant"].

He rolled forward. How do your business transactions typically work? How could we work together? You system is admirable, and full of potential.

Do you operate beyond Terminal?