I have a proposal for you....

[Julius Sedaire]

Ijaat had been locked away on beskar'yaim again, after a few projects here and there to build up his funding again. There had been a few black market sales - nothing too illegal - and even some legitimate commissioned armor and weaponry jobs. Beskad or two, a set of crushgauntlets, modifying a lightsaber, all kinds of fun and expensive tasks that he had made more than enough off of to begin perhaps his most ambitious project to date. Honestly, it was likely something that would prove his undoing financially, but he had to try.

See, he had begun to realize in the building of suit after suit of armor, with all the latest toys and systems..... He had begun to realize that he couldn't keep up... His attention span and reaction time were insufficient to deal with all the various onboard systems and devices. Even various droid logic processors and brains weren't enough, as they were stiff, static and unyielding in their approach and execution, and such behavior in combat was far too easily exploited. And that was a risk he was unwilling to take.

Help was needed, that much was for certain... Speed of thought became insufficient even with the most powerful stimulant or upper. And he couldn't know everything about wind speed, trajectory, flight paths and more to make a calculated jump on a repulsor lift system like the one Razorhawk system he had modified AND still manage to fight during it. It required the thought process of a computer at speed, and yet the freedom and free thinking of something more than just a simple program or positronic brain.

As the tegaanalir class patrol ship landed on the surface of the planet, Ijaat stepped out of the craft and down the ramp, his hand tracing the curve of the green and white painted craft. There was a moment allowed for sentimentality and a fond gaze at his craft, which although new, had already seen him through much, and cost him a pretty penny to boot. But it was time to begin this next step and move beyond the mundane. More and more he realized that while a warriors skill mattered most, he still needed a better moustrap to beat the cat, so to speak.

So with that in mind, Ijaat swallowed his almost vomit-inducing distaste and stepped down off the ships ramp in his full armor, freshly repainted and repaired from the scars of war. As his boots clacked to the landing pad, the ships ramp closed swiftly and locked with a hiss, defense protocols in place. Nodding, the mandalorian clipped his helmet to his belt and looked about the sweeping surface of the planet as a delegation approached him. Good, they had gotten his holo after-all.

The first to reach him bowed it's long spindly neck respectfully, eyeing him with almost surprise. And Ijaat was surprised too. He had limited himself to simply his long handled beskad, his haymaker, and foregone his massive suit of power-armor for his normal beskar'gam. Nodding in return to the Kaminoan, Ijaat ran his hand through his hair as the spray soaked it and dropped it down into his eyes.

"Mr. Akun, welcome to Kamino, it is a pleasure to do business, as always, with the Mandalorians... Please do come inside, I believe your project is best conducted out of the weather and in comfort."

The Kaminoan, who had offered no name and seemed to know he wouldn't care to remember it, turned and departed immediately down a short ramp over the ocean surface to a closed building, and Ijaat followed with heavy footfalls, regretting almost not putting on his helmet to keep the weather and wet off his face, but certain prices would be paid. And this was a business dealing, not a kill mission or such. It was imperative to drive home who he was, but just as much not to threaten them. As they entered the building, he was bid to sit, and did so, clearing his mouth to speak.

"Shall we dispense with pleasantries and discuss the specifics of the project I briefed you on over the holorecording?"

 

[Julius Sedaire]

Sitting in the chair almost uncomfortably, the mandalorian eyed the long necked almost unsettling envoys of the Kaminoan cloners as they sat and indulged in mindless chatter about their facilities. The efficiency of their various training methods and cloning procedures, and a hundred other things Ijaat had little to no knowledge or understanding of when he had started this project. But he had studied it. Hours and hours, just as determinedly as he had ever studied anything on metallurgy. There were even some orders and studying with several programmers at MandalTech, to understand how this project would work. And it would pay off now, as he patted his helmet on his knee and cleared his throat to interrupt the droning voice of the Kaminoan.


"Begging your pardon, but that relates little to my request. I need a brain... How physically strong the specimen can be made, or how agile, is of secondary importance really. Though it does carry import.. The more cerebral abilities are the main worry. I will be using this specimen for a neural mapping project to devise an Artificial Intelligence unit. Particularly I would like focus of emphasis on medical, physics, chemistry and engineering and other STEM fields and aptitude for them, which I know is within your vaunted abilities. The unit that will develop from this project will be used to control my ships, assist in large scale forge and weaponry projects, man a very complex collection of my armor suits and more... I will need a mathematical and scientific genius basically."

The Kaminoan blinked, and then registered what Ijaat could only suspect and peg as surprise across it's vaguely fish like features as it spread it's hands and sputtered in apparent shock. Ijaat could only guess that, when a Mandalorian had contact them about a cloning project, their mind had went to the ancient days of Jango and Boba Fett and assumed he wanted some sort of super-soldier son. Allowing himself a faint smile, Ijaat nodded and gestured to the envoy as if to continue, and watched with a small smirk as they struggled to convene privately before they spoke to him again.

"Mister Akun, we make clones here, not computer programs, I am not su-"

Ijaat cut them off with a glare and a curt hand gesture as he slid a datapad forward. His intelligence was something he often didn't exactly advertise or show off. But Nyr had seen it, as had his late wife... The keen mind beneath all the layers of "Im just a blacksmith" he constantly put out to others who probed to understand him. With a few months study, he had become deeply and intimately acquainted with the idea, and had spent hours, maybe even days and weeks, with programmers from MandalTech and geneticists from Auron Helix, a subsidiary of Mandal Hypernautics. So it was safe to say he was quite intimately familiar with the process he would be undergoing.

"It's going beyond that. When you create a program for an Artificial Intelligence it is inherently limited by the mind of the creator. When you engineer a mind to be brilliant beyond natural human limits, and you then clone and map that mind to provide the framework and programming, if you will, of the unit, the only limits become it's speed and memory capacity, which we have the ability to make virtually limitless with various resources from MandalTech and Auron Helix. However, if you can't provide what I need I am sure those I met with at Spaarti Creations can.."

The effect his statement had on them was almost such you could taste the panic in them as it leaked into the air as if they had soiled themselves. A smirk grew even more so on his face as he imagined them seeing their profits vanish. They quickly conferred and then began to speak in quick words and sentences, apologetic overtones in their melodic voices. as if trying to soothe him to against taking his business to perhaps the only competitor in the game for them. Of course he hadn't contact the other company, but it helped to say he had. It helped to motivate and encourage the Kaminoans, along with the data in the slate he had just dropped onto the table.

"No no sir, we can.. It is just not often we meet with someone who is educated on the subject matter at hand, and we were unprepared for one such as yourself to be such. Now, if you would, we can proceed within the facility to see initial donors and recommendations for alterations to your test subject"

 

[Julius Sedaire]

Nodding slightly in agreement, Ijaat rose from the chair and clipped his helmet to the mag clamp at his belt with a slight hiss and clink, striding a few paces forward with his hand on his blade hilt, calmly wrapped about the pommel. Those especially observant, like the Kaminoan he spoke to, would not the precision with which he walked. It was not some random path chosen without a moments thought, each step was deliberate, obvious, and considered. It would, to some, reek of paranoia, and to others demonstrate a healthy dose of caution and wonder. Whatever their conclusion, it would be obvious Ijaat trusted the Kaminoan's about as far as he trusted the Sith, which is to say less than the distance he could throw them.

The Kaminoan who had just finished speaking, some sort of envoy he would suspect by the apparent age and 'wisdom' it tried to espouse, gestured politely with a horizontally swept hand for Ijaat to proceed along with him. The mandalorian merely grunted sourly, inclining his head to indicate that his host should be the one to lead the way. With some hesitation, the pasty-skinned fish creature stepped forward and began to walk down a hallway, finally entering a side port to which they had to enter a key code and scan several of them's palms and other biometric triggers. Ijaat almost giggled that cloners would rely on such easy to circumvent via their own methods of cloning. Then again, they probably knew this and had, hopefully, came up with some sort of method to counter such shortfalls.

Walking into the room, Ijaat saw he was in what amounted to a glassed in box overlooking a training bay set up almost like an ampitheater or sporting event stadium. The place was filled with young children dressed in all the same steel-blue tunic with odd headsets mounted on their brains as they calmly wrote on datapads in front of them. Ijaat recognized the process as flash-learning, and nodded as he observed them for a moment, the Kaminoans obviously off put by his patience and calm demeanor as he strode forward to place hands on a chair by the glass barrier of the box.

"Excellent... So, question on the speed learning.. Can it be any subject, within any parameters?"

The Kaminoan nodded, gesturing to the bowl below them with long fingers and an unreadable gaze.

"Every one of the specimen below you is engaged in a customized, tailored, and unique program. Was there a specific field of interest?"

Nodding, the aging smith turned and pointed to his own head, smiling.

"Beskar smithing and metallurgy... Things like that, that I would rather not be shared fully...I assume with proper demonstration, and help, at MandalTech with their technology we could flash train the knowledge?"

The Kaminoan nodded, obviously hesitant, but in agreement with the possibility.

"Ahh... Yes sir... It is entirely possible. The price involved and negotiated would need to be adjusted to account for specific tech, and we would need a representative present to bring the technology ba-"

Again Ijaat cut off the cloner curtly with a chopping motion of his hand.

"I'll double the adjustment, no representative, I will return the flash-training tech unaltered."

Nodding, the Kaminoan began to confer with it's others, and Ijaat practised the age old skill of any solider: hurrying up and waiting, standing watching the young clones in a symbolism of parade rest.