Tiny Steps

[Taeli Raaf]

Erilnar
Aurora Industries Headquarters, sub-level 8

The time had come for Aurora Industries to try something new for its Droid Division. Normal battle droids, even their more advanced droids, were all well and good. They had even begun work on developing something for a new normal battle droid to replace the aging Legionnaire droids from the company's past, but that wasn't enough for her and it wasn't enough for the head engineers in the division.

Sub-level Eight, one of the various underwater labs on the Aurora campus, was responsible for the development of all droid technology prototypes. It was here where the birthplace for what was being dubbed Project Masquerade would begin. The current goal was to develop a droid brain on a micro-scale, but retain enough power to have the ability to mimic emotions, adapt to outside stimuli in a believable fashion, and control the new unit's ultimate function. Taeli wanted to push the boundaries of infiltrator droids, but because having more ideas to bounce off would be a good idea, she had invited [member="Alexandra Feanor"] to help with the project.

Her old friend knew a thing or two about the world of droid development and it would be nice to see her again.

 

[Alexandra Feanor]

[member="Taeli Raaf"]

Alexandra walked with the black tail she had grown accustom to after the body change her old friend was partially responsible for. But there was something different about her appearance from the natural looks of the body itself and that was the fact that her hair was no longer a darker color as it had been and instead she had used the force to make it appear as it had during her time in her old body. Of course it was shorter than back then by quite a bit, giving her a less of the normal elegant look she had when it came to her appearance.

Her hands pushed through the door leading into the new room, looking around and finding the woman she knew all too well. "You know, i have a perfectly capable workshop back at the temple... speaking of which can we talk about the mining nearby after we are done with your little project, that racket is just irritating at times..." Her smile was normal, her clothing the same old silver robes she was far too accustom to but under them she had a much more sensible tunic that was equally silver in color. She seemingly only had one outfit these days and this was it.

Her hands came along a computer nearby before looking at Taeli again. Something very different about Alex probably obvious now as she stood there and looked at Taeli, a similar feeling that the other woman would know all too well having been around Alex's garden almost as many times as any other visitor. The feeling that would normally have been for those that came near the tree that marked the center of her garden now seemed to be in the room with them.

 

[Taeli Raaf]

[member="Alexandra Feanor"]

"Your temple is also not the most secure building in the galaxy," Taeli responded without looking up from the technical readout she was reading. "You'll excuse me if I choose a site that I know no Sith or dark sider knows about, since half of your old class is either a Sith or an enemy now. Plus we have more toys here for development."

Finally she looked up and took in Alex's appearance.

"It's good to see you again, Alex," she said, taking her glasses off to clean them quickly. "As for the mining operations, it was your idea originally to have them near the temple. At least we aren't strip mining so the forest is remaining intact, so don't complain to me about noise. You could easily just put a sound nullification field around the temple."

They were getting off topic though, and while Taeli could feel what was in that necklace, she would leave it be for now. This project was a tad more important to her at the moment.

"So... like the project name?" she asked. "I felt it appropriate, considering what the end result is for this new droid model."

 

[Alexandra Feanor]

[member="Taeli Raaf"]

Alexandra sighed as the woman was right about both things, that was something that Taeli did which was a bit saddening for the old Echani woman... well zorren now, but ehh. End result is the fact they were both here to work on the project at hand. So with that she moved over to the table nearby and grabbing ahold of the closest thing she could before her eyes drank in the rest of the items around her. Everything was familiar and she shouldn't have any trouble when it came to using any of it, what she was more curious about was the ideas that had been worked out so far.

As she found herself looking back up at Taeli, she thought about the name along with the entire thought behind the droids themselves. It was an ambitious project to say the least, a true infiltration droid, something that could mimic being human to the highest degree.

Alex found the idea intoxicating.

But that was not something she betrayed through her face alone, the smile coming to it but that was the only emotion she really had for the project. "Its a fine name for a project that i must say im surprised you called me about to help with. Im sure that Eve is still moving around somewhere in the galaxy and if you needed my notes, the dunce has them. So i must say that i was surprised... as for the name i think it fits marvelously. Almost makes me want to attend a ball."

 

[Taeli Raaf]

[member="Alexandra Feanor"]

"Because you're the one who built her?" Taeli responded with a chuckle. "Plus, I'm not aiming to develop true AI. I want to create something that can mimic emotions and humanoid reactions, adapt to evolving situations, large enough memory and processing power to fulfill all its functions, and so on. Basically, you and I need to develop the most powerful and smallest droid brain we can."

Taeli set a small coin on the table in front of them, drawing the attention of the rest of the technical development team. They had been salivating at the chance to work on Project Masquerade, and to work with an expert in behavioral electronic programming like Alex, they would be ecstatic.

"It has to be no bigger than that coin, in total," Taeli said. "If we can, even smaller would be better. We have all the materials we need at our disposal, and we have some of the best minds in the business. I think it's achievable."

 

[Alexandra Feanor]

[member="Taeli Raaf"]

Alexandra eyed the coin for a few seconds, hands rubbing at the back of her neck while she thought about it before her face changed into a utterly widegrin that seemed wrong for a second before softening for a bit. She was looking at a challenge that was otherwise not something she had even dreamed about doing. A droid brain that was no bigger than a coin. It was a challenge that taeli herself would more than know that Alex could not resist as much as she wanted too and immediately her eyes found their way over to the machinery that she had been holding before nodding.

"This project... Taeli its like you are giving me mybirthday present without even being close to the date you should havethought about doing this. Anything else after this will just pale compared to what you want to do here and im already thinking about what we can do here. First you will need to get the labcoats getting together the most advanced tech they have though. No backyard junk will be able to keep all of the processing stable if we want this to work. What you are working with here is something that will also take hands as stead as the beams holding up this building..."

Her eyes found their way to the computer. "And someone working that to make sure that the droidbrain as the correct... pathways to function like it should... this is going to be great." She tossed the machine in her hand up and down once more, staring at it as it floated through the air. "This is going to be fun."

 

[Taeli Raaf]

[member="Alexandra Feanor"]

Taeli opened her mouth to respond, but the lead tech, an Anomid named Merrish Votoc, spoke up. "Miss Feanor, this is our prototype development lab, built by myself and my associates. It has the most cutting edge technology we could place within it. Miss Raaf has spared no expense in creating laboratories to push science beyond anything our galaxy has seen in recent decades."

"What Doctor Votoc said," Taeli chuckled. "Alex, you have far more experience in the programming department than I do. I want you to head up the team designing the droid's behavioral matrix and all that entails. I'll be with the team building the actual micro-brain, for lack of a better term, but we will all be working together to tackle any problems we encounter and to gauge what is needed. I think with our abilities in the Force, we can keep everything running smoothly."

It was going to be a work of genius if they could achieve this, and then there would be the recording of the entire process. After all, Taeli didn't intend to just develop one of these droids.

 

[Alexandra Feanor]

IT had been a long while since she had worked on a droid brain and as the task had been given to her, her eyes found the computers that these people were working with. Top of the line indeed but they were ones that she was far from familiar with. It really made her wish she was back in her workshop, surrounded by the workspace she was familiar with and the clutter that she was absorbed in. Further, she had only a small amount of her music on her and unknown to most people, she was unable to work without her music playing in her ears and the rest of the world tuned out around her. This was why she worked alone normally and that is what made the prospect of having a team.

Her eyes found the members of the team, waving off to them to get right to work with what they were doing before all of this had came up. While they left her eyes found Taeli as she let her thoughts drift to the woman. 'Taeli, i really am honored to help you create this Droidbrain, but its been a long time since ive done something like this. Even when i made Eve it was more of my own brainwaves being used and less of the actual Coding to make who she is possible. Ive never made something this advanced by conventional means.'

 

[Taeli Raaf]

[member="Alexandra Feanor"]

'You're project manager, Alex,' Taeli sent back to her friend. 'You don't have to micromanage and make the programming from scratch. Just direct or make suggestions. My employees know what they are doing and what is required. I know it's hard because you've been alone for so long and not running such projects, but they require a different type of leadership.'

While she sent those thoughts to Alex, Taeli went with Doctor Votoc to begin their side of the project. Making the actual structure of the droid brain was going to be a much greater challenge than forming the programming, and that was simply because it was going to be so small and yet have similar strength if more than other droid brains on the market.

"Microelectronics, an interesting field to pursue, Miss Raaf," Votoc said, his team of Anonids and other technicians already starting up the designing equipment. An interactive holographic display would come online, blank for now, but they were setting size parameters so they couldn't even accidentally stray too large.

"Indeed, let's push the limits of that field, my good doctor," Taeli responded, standing in front of the display.

 

[Alexandra Feanor]

[member="Taeli Raaf"]

Alexandra's body slid down into a chair as she looked at the others nearby, all either getting right to work or waiting for her guidance. She had no idea what to say though as she stared without a word coming to thought. She was used to working on projects without others, or if she had to with the help of someone else but never a team. This shouldn't phase her though, why was this phasing her. It was just working on the actual programming of the droid brain, something that shouldn't be hard. But she was suppose to lead this team, not be a simple member in it.

When it came to droid brains like this, she had only ever worked on one and that was an AI. What they were doing was essentially a similar creation considering the extensiveness of this project but unlike a true AI, this was simple virtual intelliegence. It would never actually feel, nor ever truly have its own thoughts. So to her this should be all the simpler but it wasn't. "Uh... just continue what you were doing..." She watched them exchange sideways glances before going to work. Once they were busy her eyes travelled to the computer screen, her hand moving to slowly go over the lines that stood before her. Continous markings that she looked through with slow progress, as if she had never seen this before.

 

[Taeli Raaf]

[member="Alexandra Feanor"]

While Alex and her team got started, and Taeli could feel her friend was a bit overwhelmed by everything, Taeli and her team began designing the droid brain itself for fabrication. Monocrystalline silicon, while great for microelectronics in general, wasn't going to be enough for what Taeli wanted this thing to do. It would need far more space, relatively, to store information and function the droid with the entire processing unit being coin sized. Electrum, a similar metal to silicon, but one that could be refined more would be used for the base of the chip.

"Are you sure?" Doctor Votoc said, his vocabulator making his tones gravelly. "Electrum, while I agree would be a fine base for the chip, is also more expensive. We wouldn't be able to develop as many units if we used silicon."

"I'm sure," Taeli said. "As you point out, we won't be able to develop as many units because of the cost, but think about how much electrum would actually be used. On a scale of what some people and organizations use, it will be a minuscule amount for something like this."

"True, we are working on a micro-scale of measurement," Votoc said, his clawed finger drawing a circle in the holographic display. The circle filled in, a small footnote appearing that detailed its composition. It would have to be, instead of monocrystalline structure, a polycrystalline structure. The crystals of the metal would be arranged in a way that they overlapped and linked to form a single, larger crystal lattice. The result would be a lot more processing speed than usual.

 

[Alexandra Feanor]

[member="Taeli Raaf"]

Alexandra's hands moved on their own now, it being five minutes since the task for her had begun. She barely even acknowledged the others around her as she worked though she did answer them if the questions given were significant when it came to the assignment. It was difficult to stay focused on the task before her, the process so mind-numbingly repetitive that when she thought about the previous project which had involved this, she realized that she had taken so many days to complete the task out of sheer need to take countless breaks.

This was not her personal AI though, not something she could simply step away from and go meditate and it was instead a project for her friend's company. She laughed alittle bit on the inside, even after betraying Alexandra, and the years of silence, she still stood by the woman and even worse was the other thing that had not changed. She still through the Sith were right and that they had lost a brilliant mind in the now Jedi woman nearby. It was amusing to her that she still believed the Sith code above all the others, even as the Historian of the Grey, but it was balance and order that she believed in more than that, something only emotion could build.

Her grin showed slightly as she worked, the endless lines of coding infront of her as her hands continued to work away. Her eyes focused on the screen and her grin never growing more than the slight bit that it had.

 

[Taeli Raaf]

[member="Alexandra Feanor"]

"What are we looking at in terms of memory?" Taeli asked, looking over the holographic chip display as more lines of simulated electrum were added together. "It will need plenty of space to store disguises and also keep in touch with its programming."

"With proper care, we could possibly reach up to 10 petabytes, Miss Raaf," Doctor Votoc replied. "I have experience with creating large memory spaces on small spaces. If we can achieve 10, that will be four times the amount of space that the average human brain can remember... in theory. With the polycrystalline nature of the chip, we can loop the memory and disguise matrices on themselves to conserve on space so processing power is still what we desire."

Taeli nodded as she regarded the chip again, the Anomid doctor tapping his claw in thought against his rebreather. They were both thinking about the next biggest problem they would need to deal with. How could they power the thing?

 

[Alexandra Feanor]

[member="Taeli Raaf"]

Alexandra tapped her fingers against her chin, staring at the screen as she sat there. She was able to take the break and let those around her continue on with all of this. She was able to simply let things continue on while she thought about what would be needed for this. The process she had used was a very different one from this one, and even making Eve had used genetic material and mapping her own brain as best she could by taking apart the clones she had created... probably not something that Taeli's scientists would be ok with.

Luckily she did remember quite a bit of what she had done on the technical side to create the basis for the program but this wasn't an AI that Taeli wanted and was instead a droidbrain that could be produced for a singular series of droids. It was a problem that she wasn't quite sure how to tackle at the moment, considering she was more used to creating specified products rater than a series based brain.