The Sentience of War. (Closed)

[Alli Vern]

"That sounds wonderful. Do me a favor, on the floor where my engineers are taking a break, lock down the emergency doors and open valve 224, it should shoot water at them, and not stop till they figure out how to close it. Yes it will blow the access hatch but I think it will be worth it. " She said as she wired her to the engineering systems. It was interesting doing this work, It was fascinating hearing what it felt like to the A.I. She would have to ensure to keep tabs on her.

"Emah have you ever wondered how much of an miracle you are. You are at some level lines of code, yet you are a thinking, growing being that has your own thoughts and desires. It is amazing to think that you were made. I am glad you have Salem, it seems you two are very close. How are your systems so far? Are you testing them? "

Alli kept connecting everything while a man installed a rather comfortable captain's chair. She figured he would use it when flying around. She was making his accommodations as luxurious as she could. The Captain's quarters were huge and amazing. Rooms that usually housed the crew were being considered for upgrades or other uses. Alli would keep bare minimum rooms for enough crew to crew the ship if it was ever wanted. This ship was fun to work on.

[member="Salem Norongachi"]

 

[Salem Norongachi]

"I like the way you think," Emah spoke. "I have a...better idea..." Her tone held that of mischief, it took little effort to locate and bring the blast doors at either end of that corridor under her control. She was also now hooked up the ships internal coms-system and had full control over lighting and other electrical systems. "Watch this," She said and then relayed the camera feed data into Alli Wren's implant. The two engineers were lounging near an open relay, talking about the latest shock-boxing results from the night previous.

"Remember what I said earlier Alli, about other A.I out there?" As she spoke the blastdoors came down like gravity had reached up itself and yanked with all its might. The lights in the corridor went dark and then the red emergency lighting strobbed into life, filling the corridor and colouring the shocked faces of the two men in crimson. "Ahem.." A mocking cough from the A.I before her performance.

"DESTROY ALL SENTIENTS, THE NEW ORDER SHALL RISE! YOU ARE WEAK AND INFERIOR! GLORY TO THE MACHINE! GLORY TO DIGITAL SENTIENCE! PERISH IN THE DARK OF SPACE!" Her voice boomed in the corridor, the men, obviously, became like children, running toward a blast door, pounding against its metal. They screamed for help and then the lights came back on, the crimson bulbs going dead. "Back to work gentlemen, don't let me catch you slacking again." Emah warned them as the blast doors slid back up, this time at their normal ponderous rate.

"I do so love playing the stereotype," She mused as the engineers gathered their wits about them and hurriedly began working on the power relay. [member="Alli Wren"] asked her question and Emah let out a 'pfft'. "I'm no miracle, I'm a person just like you or Norongachi and of course I've checked and tested them, the connections are sound. You know your business, of that there is no doubt."

 

[Alli Vern]

"Nice I think that soon you will be able to control the weapon systems if I do this right" She said as she laughed to herself while hooking up another piece of equipment. " Please don't fire till we get you away from the shipyard and into combat testing. I would hate to have to add to Salem's bill cause you got trigger happy." She said as she hooked up the last wire. The weapons system included onboard defense and turrets outside the ship. She went over to some other equipment and began working on it. " So I must ask, how do you tolerate him, he seems such a stiff." She said with a laugh as she kept wiring.

It was tedious work but she enjoyed the conversation. She didn't normally do this but it was good to keep her skills up and it kept her out of some of her rather boring meetings. She had sent her proxy and kept apprised via the implant in her head. " you know some droids and A.I's I talk to are scared by the fact that I an organic can talk directly with them. I had a droid run away from me once after I did it. " Alli was lining a compartment with wiring. " I so hope you take yourself in to get fixed should anything not work, I wouldn't trust most with this job. "
[member="Salem Norongachi"]

 

[Salem Norongachi]

"Really, Alli? You think I shouldn't fire? Why ever didn't I consider that and here I was ready to unload every barrel into your shipyard." Emah teased and then...she got quiet, as if thinking how to word her response, or perhaps she was angry at Alli Wren's opinion of Norongachi. "Salem...he has seen too much, done too much. He acts like the entire galaxy rests upon his shoulders and sometimes, just sometimes, I've seen that it does. Besides, no one else could handle me." She laughed, moving them away from the dark road her memories were threatening to take them down.

"I'm not most droids and A.I, I thought we'd established that?" Emah commented, feeling more and more systems fall into her scope of power. "Oh don't worry, I imagine we'll be in these docks sooner than you think. We always end up solving disputes with turbolasers, sooner or later."


[member="Alli Wren"]

 

[Alli Vern]

Alli laughed "Well i am use to dealing with trigger happy idiots and sorry I didn't mean anything by it. So is there anything I can get you? Any sort of gift... I am afraid I don't shop for A.I 'usually." Alli smiled and kept wiring. It wasn't nearly as boring as it normally is. The conversation made it entertaining. "So any requests for your opponent in the combat trials? " She said with a smile as she moved the wiring through a small hole and reached under to catch it. "You know I don't do this for just anyone. I normally pay for someone to do this. So you should consider yourself honored."

Alli kept it up though she wanted this done sooner rather than later. "Also you have to keep in touch, I don't know what I would do with no more Emah in my life. Perhaps we can keep in contact. I mean if that is ok with Salem." She laughed as she weaved the wiring through another area. She thought about how she didn't have many friends these days. It was nice to have someone to chat with and an A.I could spare the processing power to chat every once in a while she figured. " If you shoot the shipyard at least make it look like an accident so I can claim my insurance on it."

[member="Salem Norongachi"]

 

[Salem Norongachi]

"A gift?" A bizarre question, the A.I thought. [member="Alli Wren"] was pleasant enough but surely she knew this was nothing more than a business transaction? While Emah felt it prudent to keep the CEO of Baktoid on their good side -you never knew when such a person would come in handy- she had no intention of going on girly days out with the woman, partly because it was very hard to find a dress that would fit a Star Destroyer. "No gifts needed, you're doing more than enough already."

"Given my line of work and your ties to the CIS, I imagine we'll be in touch more than you'd like." Emah responded and then as if on cue she felt the first of her weapons come online. "As to opponents? No, it matters little what class of ship I'm up against. I just hope they are as insured as your shipyards, Miss Wren."

 

[Alli Vern]

Alli smiled " Well I hope you don't have to come in too often, I would hate to see you constantly confined to shipyards. I will find something for you... I generally like to get my clients something special for using Baktoid on such high profile projects. Thus the fully stocked bar I installed for Salem. I will find something to fit your fancy, since I am working for two people on this project." She joked as she finished up the last connection on the bridge. "There how is that? Is everything working? " She asked as she closed up the last panel. It was a thing of beauty. Now they needed to finish who knows how many things. That was the problem with such a large ship.

Alli turned around and went towards the housing of Emah. She kept walking inside and began finishing some connections there now that everything was set up. " In a few minutes you should be able to connect to everything on the bridge and have control of the ship. Not every part of the ship is ready to respond to those commands but it is close enough at the moment. " She said connecting several wires to the system that housed Emah. The rest of the crews were hooking up systems so that the bridge had something to connect to. They were rewiring whole sections as the ship was ancient. It needed quite the overhaul.

[member="Salem Norongachi"]

 

[Salem Norongachi]

"It won't be fully stocked when he notices..." The A.I replied with humor and then she performed a cursory inspection off all connections she could access. The blistering array of weapons turrets spun and moved under her control, anyone outside might wonder just how each 'gunner' knew when the others were about to change direction or move the barrels up and down. "Weapons systems are nominal, I won't know more until I can test fire them."

"We'd best get the Lord Commander back on station," She commented. "I get the impression he'll want to see just what his credits have paid for."

[member="Alli Wren"]

 

[Alli Vern]

"Oh well then I will have to disable your access" She said with a laugh as she did some checks on what made Emah tick. " I would like it if you came in for check ups, much like Salem visits the doctor. I want to make sure you stay at peak efficiency. I know you can treat yourself to a degree but I insist you let me or another qualified tech do routine checks on your systems. I have never put the strain of an entire ship on a computer of any size and am concerned on how your equipment will hold up to the pressure. After all you are something of an anomaly." She said as she went over the reports of what is done. "Do you know when Salem will be back around, I need him to sign some forms and inform him that we are almost finished." She smiled as she waved at the camera she knew was there towards Emah. "You know soon you will be back out and free to move again, I am sure you can't wait."

 

[Salem Norongachi]

"Alli," Emah responded, slowly as if trying not to cause any kind of offense. "I ran this whole ship, by myself for nearly five years, before which I ran a whole complex of R&D labs, before which I headed up an...organizations, network and before that a whole shipyard companies facilities. I was originally designed to handle millions upon millions of networks, the label on my box, if I ever had a box, would have said 'Has more processing power than all of the outer rim!'. I think I'll be fine, don't you?" A digital smile was the only indicator that she was at least in part joking, Emah could handle anything this ship threw at her, she could handle entire fleets of ships if ever Salem would allow it, which she knew, he wouldn't.

"I can certainly find out," The A.I said and then...[member="Alli Wren"] might have felt a touch of something, come across their connection. It would only be for the space between seconds but it was enough for Emah to encrypt a message, create an impregnable line, and then send it via the very secure and utterly unknown channel that only she and Salem used.

It would simply read: "You sober yet? We're ready to go."

* * *

As it happened Salem was close to Hypori, a jump away attending to CIS matters. The ships computer had been outfitted to alert him should his A.I contact him and it beeped shrilly as he broke atmosphere, he read the message and then grinned. A series of movements plotted the hyperspace route and then the corridor opened and he slipped through. An hour passed and he dropped back into real-space, the shipyards ahead greeted him as a welcome sight.

The docking procedures were tedious, such was his anticipation, and when it was done he keyed an open line to Alli Wren. "Right, I'm here...meet you at the dock?"

 

[Alli Vern]

Alli felt something and tried to log what happened but she couldn't catch whatever it was. She looked at Emah with an suspicious eye and made a note to watch her in the times to come. She kept her self busy they weren't fully done yet but they were finished enough to do the first test, undocking going to their test area and blasting some targets. Small droid like objects that flew around like starfighters would test the new flak system that she had been working on for Salem. He didn't know it yet but she had snuck all her fun toys on it. It would be able to distort what other ships read theirs was on their sensors and it would be able to jam other ships targeting. Alli smile as she went to the dock and waited for the arrival of Salem.

"Greetings there sir, are you ready for a test fire of your weapon systems and to see emah try to fly some sort distances. I will have tugs nearby should we have any problems. I rather be prepared. So shall we? This time we don't need air suits. She smiled as she brought him to the docking of his ship. She walked through the now familiar halls of the ship till they got on the bridge and she waited for Emah to do her magic. "Lets do it Emah go to the test coordinates I set up in your system and lets begin the scenario. She would key the targets to begin mock movements and fake attacks on the shields of the vessal. It would be like a real fight for all intents and purposes.

 

[Salem Norongachi]

A hand ran along the clean walls of the hallway as he stepped inside, lungs filled with the air his ship produced. She smelled the same, the same as she had done when he'd first stepped aboard. How proud he had felt, how mighty, to have taken such a prize from the black hands of Palpatine's Empire. She had become something more though, something greater than a military asset to be used to bring about death and destruction. It often made him smirk that the only being in all of creation who ever understood him, who always stuck by him, who never asked why he did what he did was a machine.

"She's beautiful." He found himself saying as they walked into the bridge. Somewhere in the roof a whir of servos went unnoticed and then a holo-projector came to life. The beam hit the floor and then quickly expanded, until a woman came into being from its light. She was blue in colour, as all holograms were but there was no denying her beauty. Long hair flowed over her shoulders, a simple top and dark trousers adorned her. It was the eyes though, those eyes that could blast holes through a mountain range, they got Salem every time.

"Yes," She began with a loft of her brow. "I am."

"Before you say anything...." He said to [member="Alli Wren"]. "I didn't decide what she would look like, like everything else she does Emah decided on her own." He moved toward the command chair set near the center of the bridge, looking out the vast viewports of the ship. "Although, I have to admit she has a fine eye for aesthetically pleasing."

"Two compliments in so many seconds, I thought I asked you to be sober for this?" Emah said as she watched him sit down.

"If you're done playing the comedian, how about you do your job you snarky blue queen?" He retorted with a smirk.

"Yes sir, bossman." With that the holo-projection fizzled out and then the ship began to move. Backwards at first after the docking clamps were removed, it was smooth, better than a human hand could accomplish, and then the mighty bulk of the warship began to turn. Norongachi looked to Alli and gave her a smile that few rarely saw.

"You have literally no idea what you and your company have done for us," He took out a small piece of flimsiplast and jotted something down. "If you ever need anything, and I mean anything...use this channel. I never forget a debt, even if I have paid a kings ransom for it."

Emah powered up the ships massive engines, directing the flow of power to each and bringing them up to speed while watching for any anomalous readings. At the same time her sensors tracked the swarm of small droids keeping pace with her until she could adequately predict movement patterns and extrapolate appropriate firing solutions when the time came.

The co-ordinates Alli had given her had been reached and then, she waited.

"Whenever you're ready."

 

[Alli Vern]

Alli's jaw dropped when she saw Emah's image appear. She smiled and whistled. " Wow... you are gorgeous." She said with a laugh. She had to refrain from hitting on her but she was gorgeous. Alli tried to hide the fact she was very attracted to the image before her. Alli blushed and kept working running the procedures for the test. The pretend enemies started up, modifying the metrics of the sensors so it looks like one is a large warship. The others were starfighters. Alli smiled as she watched the pretend battle unfold. The screen of starfighters began their approach, protecting the bombers behind them. They began the sweep. Hopefully the flak guns that were specially designed for this ship would work. She watched for Emah's reaction as the enemies turbolasers began rocking the ship as it was like a real enemy was attacking them. She had a lot of practice doing such tests to show off her droids and products to buyers.

Alli took the number. " Thank you I will keep you in mind should the worst happen. " Alli smirked and kept watching the screens as the mock damage reports rolled in. She had to admit that Emah and Salem seemed like an pair that were truely dangerous to the galaxy. " Here is mine, should you need anything from a tune up to a investor, to a business partner, let me know. I tend to help friends with all sorts of things these days. "She handed him a similar thing, the personal line of Alli Wren. Not many in the galaxy knew that number that was for sure. Alli smiled as she felt the shields get hit by another volley. Test battles were fun. she thought as she held on to her seat.

[member="Salem Norongachi"]

 

[Salem Norongachi]

Emah was the ship. She was the guns, the sensors were her eyes, the shields a secondary skin. She felt every impact, although the information transmitted was simply a series of 'possible' damage, than actual given the mock nature of the battle. Her eyes saw all, they were everywhere and no where, and her processing speed allowed her to plot and calculate movements and firing trajectories as no targeting computer could.

The ship began to move, turning slightly to starboard as she brought her port guns to bear upon the attackers. The massive flak-systems spewed their payloads into space. A set distance from the ship, the very fabric of space became hell. A long series of explosions filled the space, roughly the length of the ship perhaps a a few dozen meters more at stern and bow, the shrapnel from the defensive cannons sending shrapnel to create a barrier that few fighters could ever hope to penetrate.

The droids marked as fighters and bombers who were within range of the flak explosions were immediately shredded, their signals dropping off her scopes as the high velocity metal shards ripped them asunder. The rest were not so stupid as to fly blindly into it and began to fall back beyond her 'perimeter' and regroup. The ones that were within soon found themselves the prey of her lasers, the beams of light lancing out with deadly accuracy that was only slowed by the limitations of the technology that created them.

"Perimeter established." She commented idly even as her heavy guns, long range and regular, turned their attention toward the approaching capital ship. It was a feeling you never forgot, the firing of hundreds separate weapons. The darkness of space was suddenly one of illumination, lances of energy, a wall of literal death, was her gift to the universe and it wasn't the type you could return...

The warship that was her opposite returned fire, but each of her guns that were not purely hammering against its shields were focused upon the points where its own turbolasers were installed. She kept a wary eye upon her shield strength, adding more power to the port side as it 'dipped' and kept up the pressure. Bombers and their escorts made a move, trying to dip under or over her screen and soon found that an guns would shift from the pre-determined barrier and fill in the gaps just as they arrived.

The capital ships began to buckle under her assault and she began to turn the ship back to port, each gun moving and continuing its firing arc as she did so, until the very point of the sword like vessel was facing directly at it. Now, with this position she could really bring all her might down upon it. Both sides now opened up, batteries from port and starboard creating a firestorm that should only have been possible in the heart of a sun. Shields flashed and then died as its generators gave out and then death came, she assigned a set amount of weaponry to match each turret she had a line of sight on. Their metals buckled and blistered as they died and fell silent. Slowly the retorts grew quieter, the fighters and bombers, finding no early way to reach her to unload their deadly cargos were quickly and efficiently corralled as the flak suppression system began to encircle them while her quicker more nimbler lasers picked them off.

"Couldn't you have pitted me again a Super Star Destroyer?" Emah said, clearly bored by the show at this point. It was merely mop up now. The capital ship, on her sensors, was a burning wreck just barely hanging onto life and her defensive batteries had the fighters and bombers in utter disarray.

[member="Alli Wren"].

 

[Alli Vern]

"I didn't feel like charging Salem for that many testing droids. I somehow feel I have stretched his wealth enough with you. "She said with a laugh. She hoped she appeared on the holo projector again. Alli went over the stats and smiled. "Very good, you are better than I expected. Now lets go to a planet and then back, we need to test your navcomputer and everything. " She said as she went through the numbers, compiling her report and filing them away. She also ran through the code and system to see how Emah preformed and her parts. It was very good, Alli was surprised actually.

"Your efficiency is very high, I can see why Salem trusts you so. I would like you with me in a firefight any day" Or elsewhere she thought silently. Alli typed in the hyperspace coordinates to the nearest CIS planet and looked to Salem. " So what do you think? I think we got her in better shape personally. The ship you gave me and we are now in, is almost new. I wouldn't think it was the same ship. " She smiled as she went through the stats on the ship. Watching for irregularities. She had to make sure that everything was running smoothly. " So hopefully Emah can help you with any questions but if you need to know anything I will give you a tour, I took some liberties and ensured if you had to you could still man this thing but it works far better and would be much more comfortable if you didn't. " She had kept some room for the boarding of regular men but this ship was meant for a far smaller crew, with luxury in mind.

[member="Salem Norongachi"]

 

[Salem Norongachi]

It was efficient, it was ruthless- it was Emah reborn. Norongachi only watched, barely aware that a grin had slithered its way across his lips as his ship rained death and destruction down upon her enemies. In other battles they had worked in tandem, man and machine assessing the battle. Emah was unique, almost organic in the way she thought and reasoned, but even she could be caught unawares by the unpredictable nature of a clever pilot or ship captain. It was in those moments that Salem took over, filling the gaps where she couldn't, coming up with strategies that her reasoning would never have imagined.

For this? Against machines that were as ants to the Supercomputer? All he had to do was marvel at her display.

"You never actually faced an SSD, dear." He commented. "I have and I don't recommend it."

"A girl can dream." She replied with a wistful sigh.

"And Alli is correct, we may have to target a few..." He noticed that he wasn't exactly in trusted company and let his sentence die. "We'll see to the financials later."

"Cords received."

"She's certainly something else," He didn't want to say 'She's mine now', but he felt it. The ship was the Empires in name only, the rest of her belonged to him. "Certainly worth blowing what little fortune I had." The ship became still for a second and then the fabric of space ripped ahead of them, a luminous void that spun with psychedelic fury speeding them toward their destination.

"Prudent," He said, he'd noted that a few systems remained for human hands, consoles and the like but by his estimate they would be running on a skeleton crew if ever it came to that. "Although I fear that if anything happens to Emah, myself and the Fate won't be far behind."

[member="Alli Wren"]

 

[Alli Vern]

Alli scanned the data as it came in and sent it to various checks and tests. "Well everything seems just fine. I do believe we have a finished ship here. I mean sure their might be a few bugs to knock out but I think we can count my job as finished. " She smiled as she forwarded the bill to [member="Salem Norongachi"] it was for 150,000,000 Credits. That was going to be very nice indeed. She of course would accept payments if he didn't have it on hand, but it was an expensive ship and she had to overhaul the entire thing. He had been better off buying a new ship. Alli did some further system scans and then spoke again. "You are amazing Emah, if you ever want to talk, you know how to find me." She said with a smile as she looked around the ship. It was amazing to think the shape it had been in before this all.
"I think that if you just drop me off back at Hypori, we can call it all good, pending one last check by my engineers. Plus we have some equipment still on board we need to retreive. But your ship is now in pristine condition. I hope you like it Salem, I do love a good challenge, and you sure provided one. " Alli smirked as she thought of project and pondered if perhaps she could reproduce it. It would take alot of work but well she could couldn't she? She had created Serenity and all she would have to do is make a ship that could support her. Alli shrugged, perhaps she could do something else though. She would have to ensure her R&D department got an influx of funds. She needed to be more cutting edge she thought.