Cortana (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
steelandtemper) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
legionworld2017-02-25 08:58 pm
steelandtemper) wrote in legionworld2017-02-25 08:58 pm
Entry tags:
[open] Cortana gets a robobody
Who| Cortana & anyone
What| She got a body oh god like she wasn't bad enough when she couldn't touch things
Where| Various locations on Legion World
When| After Out With the Old
Warnings/Notes| none, will edit if that changes
Cortana had decided, perhaps not entirely without calculation, that the Legion's policy on accepting small favors meant it was fine if she jumped the queue at the body shop.
The literal body shop, mind you.
Projecting from her chip, Cortana looked at herself. A larger version of her hologram, solid and correspondingly lacking the decorative lines of scrolling code, looked back at her, sort of. Absent her control, the eyes focused on nothing and the body might as well have been a statue.
Well, time to get this show on the road. She reached out to the body across the data connection, and it reached out to her with its hand, picking up the datachip. Her hologram disappeared, and the body slotted its mind into place, the chip nestling into the base of the skull the same way it would in Mjolnir, and suddenly the body came alive, Cortana's consciousness turning it from an uncanny mannequin into a person.
Human senses. How...limited. Couldn't even see IR or hear radio. No wonder they needed AI so badly. Still, it felt familiar, Dr. Halsey's donated neural patterns taking over without Cortana having to think about it. Saved her having to learn to walk, at least. ...Probably.
She tried an experimental circuit of her quarters and didn't immediately go sprawling, her fingers trailing along tabletops and walls as she walked. The odd new experience of a blind spot made her strangely self-conscious despite knowing the door was locked and she was safe. Resisting the urge to query the door circuits via the network, she instead picked up one of her collection of Master Chief action figures, bending its right arm into a salute.
"Heh." Now he was the tiny one.
Never one to dally, Cortana put the miniature Chief back with his fellow toys. Time for a shakedown. She unlocked the door--with her hand--and set out into Legion World, a slightly-built woman with inhuman blue-white skin, gazing at everything as if seeing it for the first time.
Hab Deck
As she had immediately after arriving on Legion World, Cortana explored the various zones of the Habitation Deck. This time, she used a body to do it, wandering the forest and beaches and city streets physically. She touched brickwork, let sand trickle through her fingers, stopped and literally smelled the flowers. Fascinated and untiring, she paid no attention to whether she was trespassing, her attention fixed instead on the new sensations, and the strangeness of remembering them even as she felt them for the first time.
The Mess
In theory, she had a sense of taste. In practice, she had no idea what she was supposed to do with it. For lack of a better idea, endless memories of Dr. Halsey's abandoned mugs of coffee scattered across the base led her to order that, and she stared down into the brown liquid dubiously. The smell struck her as pleasant, at least.
The fact that she was standing there in the way of anyone else who wanted a drink, scrutinizing a perfectly ordinary cup of coffee like it was a particularly abstruse math problem didn't occur to her.
Observation Deck
Ignoring Earth for the view of the stars, Cortana finally understood why people could say they felt small without seeming to mind it. Later, maybe she could go EVA and see them without the noise. For the moment, she was content to lean on the railing and pick out the stars by name. Just luck the southern constellations were the ones visible at that point in Legion World's orbit, and Eridanus, the river of starlight, glowed in the night, its light steady without the interference of a planetary atmosphere.
"Alpha, Chi, Phi, Kappa..."
Even Cortana at her most poetic didn't have any use for the Arabic names.
Wildcard
It's Cortana, she's probably getting into trouble.
What| She got a body oh god like she wasn't bad enough when she couldn't touch things
Where| Various locations on Legion World
When| After Out With the Old
Warnings/Notes| none, will edit if that changes
Cortana had decided, perhaps not entirely without calculation, that the Legion's policy on accepting small favors meant it was fine if she jumped the queue at the body shop.
The literal body shop, mind you.
Projecting from her chip, Cortana looked at herself. A larger version of her hologram, solid and correspondingly lacking the decorative lines of scrolling code, looked back at her, sort of. Absent her control, the eyes focused on nothing and the body might as well have been a statue.
Well, time to get this show on the road. She reached out to the body across the data connection, and it reached out to her with its hand, picking up the datachip. Her hologram disappeared, and the body slotted its mind into place, the chip nestling into the base of the skull the same way it would in Mjolnir, and suddenly the body came alive, Cortana's consciousness turning it from an uncanny mannequin into a person.
Human senses. How...limited. Couldn't even see IR or hear radio. No wonder they needed AI so badly. Still, it felt familiar, Dr. Halsey's donated neural patterns taking over without Cortana having to think about it. Saved her having to learn to walk, at least. ...Probably.
She tried an experimental circuit of her quarters and didn't immediately go sprawling, her fingers trailing along tabletops and walls as she walked. The odd new experience of a blind spot made her strangely self-conscious despite knowing the door was locked and she was safe. Resisting the urge to query the door circuits via the network, she instead picked up one of her collection of Master Chief action figures, bending its right arm into a salute.
"Heh." Now he was the tiny one.
Never one to dally, Cortana put the miniature Chief back with his fellow toys. Time for a shakedown. She unlocked the door--with her hand--and set out into Legion World, a slightly-built woman with inhuman blue-white skin, gazing at everything as if seeing it for the first time.
Hab Deck
As she had immediately after arriving on Legion World, Cortana explored the various zones of the Habitation Deck. This time, she used a body to do it, wandering the forest and beaches and city streets physically. She touched brickwork, let sand trickle through her fingers, stopped and literally smelled the flowers. Fascinated and untiring, she paid no attention to whether she was trespassing, her attention fixed instead on the new sensations, and the strangeness of remembering them even as she felt them for the first time.
The Mess
In theory, she had a sense of taste. In practice, she had no idea what she was supposed to do with it. For lack of a better idea, endless memories of Dr. Halsey's abandoned mugs of coffee scattered across the base led her to order that, and she stared down into the brown liquid dubiously. The smell struck her as pleasant, at least.
The fact that she was standing there in the way of anyone else who wanted a drink, scrutinizing a perfectly ordinary cup of coffee like it was a particularly abstruse math problem didn't occur to her.
Observation Deck
Ignoring Earth for the view of the stars, Cortana finally understood why people could say they felt small without seeming to mind it. Later, maybe she could go EVA and see them without the noise. For the moment, she was content to lean on the railing and pick out the stars by name. Just luck the southern constellations were the ones visible at that point in Legion World's orbit, and Eridanus, the river of starlight, glowed in the night, its light steady without the interference of a planetary atmosphere.
"Alpha, Chi, Phi, Kappa..."
Even Cortana at her most poetic didn't have any use for the Arabic names.
Wildcard
It's Cortana, she's probably getting into trouble.