Missile Nap - 17/Aug/2012
META: A different perspective...
Carrie woke. Around her, chaos. Short and long range space battle. Below, what she knew was Ganymede, further off, but immense in the sky, Jupiter.
She knew she was a Long Range Missile, fire-and-forget variety. So, presumably she was supposed to have some level of intelligence. But, who put an AI in a missile? Even she'd heard of the bomb in the film "Dark Star".
So, where'd she get her mind, her knowledge from? Playing with her short range sensors, she could spot organic matter near her front. Definitely blood, and, eww, was that brain matter? She was also picking-up handwavium.
Wait a minute. Maybe she could tell what happened before she woke? There were sensor logs, but they felt like long-forgotten movies, not like real memories. She'd gone through a soft spot on some sort of transport vehicle, a brief impression of suited figures, then out the other side. She was pretty sure she'd gone through one of them. Had he been drinking something, maybe even handwavium?
Without thinking about it she'd dodged several pieces of debris, so she must still have some manoeuvring ability. She thought about it, and began a slow turn, peering through the ECM and noise for... she wasn't sure what. She didn't seem to have a designated target, any more.
There was another, 'troop transport', she thought it was. Not the same one as she'd gone through, but ripped-open. Angling around, there were two bodies still in it, and... Yes! She could detect handwavium.
Even docking with the transport was hard, merging with it, subverting its shattered, dying, intelligence, much harder. But when she initiated self-repair, on her terms, things began to come together. One of the bodies was still alive, she'd talk to him later. One was cooling fast, so she used that for raw materials.
The transports sensors told her more about what was going on. Combined with her built-in tricks for cutting-though ECM and interference, some sort of space battle, at least two-sided, but there were a wide range of vehicle types. The transport she was assimilating was from the more uniform side. "I'm on the side of diversity", she decided.
There'd been enough spare resources to wave-up a couple of crude remotes, powered and controlled by tight-beamed lasers. She sent them off to scavenge, and they came back with some high density storage cells, capacitors, a generator, and a nearly intact coil gun. With careful power control she could probably manage a shot every two seconds.
The meat was reshaped to her satisfaction. She'd reinforced it with metal, distributing processing nodes through the body. For some reason the phrase "The Ship Made Flesh" came to her. If she got it right neither her avatar nor the reshaped transport would be critical to her survival.
'Jonny' had revived, and told her his name. Apparently the Boskone 'knew where his family lived', and had 'threatened to turn him into a cat girl'. She'd scavenged good enough sensors now to do a medical assessment, and he didn't look like dying any time soon. So, he'd keep.
The main risk from the unified, to the diverse, side seemed to be missiles (she'd really have to figure-out the two sides' names). Pretty stupid missiles, nothing like as smart as even she used to be. The coil gun made quite a good 'gate keeper', so she picked a nice debris field to sit in while working.
It'd be interesting to try this 'social interaction' thing. Would it be any easier than space combat?
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind
META: A different perspective...
Carrie woke. Around her, chaos. Short and long range space battle. Below, what she knew was Ganymede, further off, but immense in the sky, Jupiter.
She knew she was a Long Range Missile, fire-and-forget variety. So, presumably she was supposed to have some level of intelligence. But, who put an AI in a missile? Even she'd heard of the bomb in the film "Dark Star".
So, where'd she get her mind, her knowledge from? Playing with her short range sensors, she could spot organic matter near her front. Definitely blood, and, eww, was that brain matter? She was also picking-up handwavium.
Wait a minute. Maybe she could tell what happened before she woke? There were sensor logs, but they felt like long-forgotten movies, not like real memories. She'd gone through a soft spot on some sort of transport vehicle, a brief impression of suited figures, then out the other side. She was pretty sure she'd gone through one of them. Had he been drinking something, maybe even handwavium?
Without thinking about it she'd dodged several pieces of debris, so she must still have some manoeuvring ability. She thought about it, and began a slow turn, peering through the ECM and noise for... she wasn't sure what. She didn't seem to have a designated target, any more.
There was another, 'troop transport', she thought it was. Not the same one as she'd gone through, but ripped-open. Angling around, there were two bodies still in it, and... Yes! She could detect handwavium.
Even docking with the transport was hard, merging with it, subverting its shattered, dying, intelligence, much harder. But when she initiated self-repair, on her terms, things began to come together. One of the bodies was still alive, she'd talk to him later. One was cooling fast, so she used that for raw materials.
The transports sensors told her more about what was going on. Combined with her built-in tricks for cutting-though ECM and interference, some sort of space battle, at least two-sided, but there were a wide range of vehicle types. The transport she was assimilating was from the more uniform side. "I'm on the side of diversity", she decided.
There'd been enough spare resources to wave-up a couple of crude remotes, powered and controlled by tight-beamed lasers. She sent them off to scavenge, and they came back with some high density storage cells, capacitors, a generator, and a nearly intact coil gun. With careful power control she could probably manage a shot every two seconds.
The meat was reshaped to her satisfaction. She'd reinforced it with metal, distributing processing nodes through the body. For some reason the phrase "The Ship Made Flesh" came to her. If she got it right neither her avatar nor the reshaped transport would be critical to her survival.
'Jonny' had revived, and told her his name. Apparently the Boskone 'knew where his family lived', and had 'threatened to turn him into a cat girl'. She'd scavenged good enough sensors now to do a medical assessment, and he didn't look like dying any time soon. So, he'd keep.
The main risk from the unified, to the diverse, side seemed to be missiles (she'd really have to figure-out the two sides' names). Pretty stupid missiles, nothing like as smart as even she used to be. The coil gun made quite a good 'gate keeper', so she picked a nice debris field to sit in while working.
It'd be interesting to try this 'social interaction' thing. Would it be any easier than space combat?
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind