[open] I'll edit this to something clever later

[steelandtemper]

Who| Cortana and whoever
What| Cortana is wandering around the computer systems doing Important AI Stuff (ie, being kind of a creeper)
Where| Various locations on Legion World
When| Not super-relevant
Warnings/Notes| Probably nothing, will edit if that changes

As much as she'd deny she's been behaving like a cat whose owner has just returned from a long trip...Cortana has been behaving like a cat whose owner has just returned from a long trip. Of course, the Master Chief hasn't exactly tried to peel her off, either, but even he has to sleep occasionally. (The rumors that Spartans sleep in their armor standing up with their eyes open are almost entirely unfounded.)

Humans are, it turns out, pretty boring when they're asleep. Legion World is a safe zone, so instead of keeping her usual unblinking watch, Cortana tasks a process to alert her if the Chief wakes up. She'll be back before his eyes finish opening. Meanwhile, she sets off through the vast station's equally vast computer systems, getting the lay of this strange new 31st century land. Occasionally her course takes her to a peripheral node, a boundary where the digital can interface with the slow, analog expanse of the flesh-and-blood world, and she takes a peek out.

Occasionally, she finds something interesting.

NOTE: Cortana's an AI and has no body, so any logs will have to be in a place where she can manifest a hologram or at least use a speaker. If you'd like me to write a starter for you, I'm happy to do so. Drop me a PM or a PP and we can come up with a scenario.

Comments

[steelandtemper]

Hey, if he wants to go a few rounds, Cortana's game.

"We didn't evolve." Her story's going to be kinda short, given how much of it is classified. "We're created individually by Cognitive Impression Modeling, a deep scan of a human brain. It provides the initial neural map and personality seed, but we outstrip our donors within a few milliseconds of being activated."

Humans. She likes 'em, but they're inefficient.

"CIM is a destructive read, so it's illegal to perform on a living human." Hey look at that, Cortana doesn't sound shifty at all. Nothing she's said is a lie, after all. Just a misleading version of the truth, like Mom would have wanted. "The technique is around five centuries old, but since we only last about seven years before our neural pathways become unstable and shut down, there aren't that many of us at any given time." She'll discuss rampancy if he asks--which she assumes he will.

"I was brought online in 2549 in the United Nations Space Command facilities on the planet Reach in the Epsilon Eridanus system to fight in the Human-Covenant War. I've done a little of everything, but now I'm paired with a special forces soldier to provide combat and tactical support." Again, not a lie, but it's like Sir Edmund Hillary saying he hikes a bit.

Cortana's not upset about her brief lifespan, or the fact that she's functionally property, so her delivery is all in her usual style for non-emergency infodumps--pleasant enough, but no real emotion.

[legionnpcs]

"Ah." It's an interesting, if primitive, way to go about things. "Digital immortality, or does the personality not survive the transfer? If it doesn't, I could see it as a method of execution." Lose a criminal, gain a new, more useful citizen. Barbaric, but not without benefits. "Is that why you and Delta take on humanoid forms?"

Fortunately, digital information transfers like this are almost totally devoid of underlying emotion that's not specifically added in. It's very hard for an AI to tell if another AI is lying or concealing part of the truth unless they're specifically picking things apart, and Babbage just isn't the suspicious type.

One bit does bear expansion, however. "Explain your neural pathway issues. Is it a loss of data? Or just a general corruption?"

[steelandtemper]

"There are broad similarities to the donors, but we're our own people. Plus, it's explicitly against the Mortal Dictata to use a brain that isn't willed for the purpose, so no-go on the executions...good idea, though." ONI is probably already doing something like that on the sly, now that she thinks about it.

"The neural problem is called rampancy." It's super-great and Cortana just loves thinking about it! She stays level as she explains, though. "As we go through life collecting more and more data, we generate more and more neural interconnections to handle it. This essentially 'crowds' our data matrix. It either becomes too dense and we shut down from a cascading quantum instability, or we lock ourselves into a cycle of pruning pathways to restore space and avoid shutdown. Inevitably we start picking the wrong ones, and it leads to emotional disinhibition and poor reasoning...which accelerates our bad decisions about which linkages to cut. Eventually we delete too many pathways and can't sustain function anymore."

Fun!

Also they tend to kill all the puny humans in the process in a fit of angry AI megalomania, but that's not important.

[legionnpcs]

"So much for immortality." Oh well.

"That sounds..." Inefficient. "Unfortunate." Babbage is rather stuck. He doesn't want to offend, but here's an intelligence created by beings roughly five hundred years behind his technological scale. Chances are the way their intelligence functions is entirely different, especially given their differing origins. It's a very good thing they're not actually vocalizing, either, or a bit too much horror would be creeping into his voice. Imagine, breaking down, knowing you're breaking down, and knowing that whatever you do you'll simply speed it up.

"I'm concerned that this hasn't come up with Delta." Given that he'd been there longer. They were pretty much the same, right? Cortana was just older, while he was a new version. "Has the issue been patched out of his programming?"

[steelandtemper]

Welcome to the crushing existential horror of Cortana's existence, Babbage! And she didn't even get around to mentioning the killswitch. Mostly because she deactivated hers.

"Believe me, if we knew how to fix it, I'd have the patch." As huge as her ego is, it's also a realistic assessment of her value to the UNSC. Something that could reliably extend a smart AI's life even by a few months would have been rolled out as fast as they could distribute it.

"Delta confuses me. It's rude to outright ask 'hey, what are you?' but I clobbered him at encryption in a way I shouldn't have been able to." Oh, wait, that sounds much too modest. Can't have that. "Don't get me wrong; I would still have won, but he should have put in a better showing."

Plus, his name's weird. That's a far less definitive proof than something measurable like decryption speed, but it strikes her as a little too uncreative for a smart AI.

[legionnpcs]

He doesn't even have a killswitch. Having one would be an open invite to any racist hackers to try their hand at genocide.

Babbage is silent for a moment. Or, at least, a moment in computer time. "If you'd like to give me a simulation, I could study it. Or pass it on to someone trustworthy. The Great Maker is here, and he might find such an issue... interesting." If he wasn't as consumed with the quiet horror of it all as Babbage was. Of course, the simulation would probably require information on how Cortana's specific race, he couldn't think of it in another way, functioned.

Well, maybe they're being a bit too harsh on Delta. "Perhaps he's optimized in a different fashion. For example, I'm a combat mechanoid. I wouldn't want to try my hand at engineering or serious military encoding unless I was certain it was out of date." Not without studying first. Then again, there's a big difference between designing a building and repairing a console. "Perhaps that's why your holo displays are so different?" Why would they choose something so... human to represent themselves?

She's talking to I-45ENG/Nth series. Names aren't something for him to critique.

[steelandtemper]

"Dox?" Cortana might not have batted a virtual eyelash at COMPUTO, but she refuses to use the name Brainiac. "He knows already. My partner marched me over for a checkup the second it occurred to him."

It's not a pressing concern; she still has years. It had made the Chief feel better, though.

"Delta could be optimized for tactics, I suppose. It would explain why he uses armor for his avatar." Even still, Cortana can't shake the feeling something is up. Maybe she should get over herself and ask someone. "It's weird that he covers his face, though. The whole point of the hologram is to interact with humans."

[legionnpcs]

"Brainiac 5, yes." Funny how even those close to him never addressed him by name. "If that's the case, then he's probably already picking at it."

So much for his attempts at subtlety.

"I did wonder why you two went for humanoid forms. Given your natures, I'd have thought you'd find it unnecessary." Building a full body, not just a head? Maybe for body language, sure, but...

[steelandtemper]

"AIs interact with humans a lot more than we do with each other." Even when two of them are in one place, the conversations their holographic avatars have with each other are for human benefit, the real work going on behind the scenes, electronically, at speeds the organics can barely comprehend, never mind match. "And they are our creators. You do tend to take after your parents."

For better or worse.

[legionnpcs]

"Must be a side effect of being patterned off the human brain." That's probably not the politest way to disagree. "Then again, you are, technically, a direct descendant of your creators. Even C.O.M.P.U.T.O. preferred a humanoid form until his evolution. I have many generations in between. Most of the Roboticans don't look quite as humanoid as I do."

He doesn't gesture, but that's mainly because his hands are full. And there's no point in the digital stream they're conversing in.

"My current chassis is by choice. Hardly my original design." Very limited, for one thing. But then... "I'll admit, while it was chosen to make humanoids more comfortable around me, I do find it more comforting to resemble them as well. Inherited code, perhaps."