Chapter 5: Page 8 - Heart to Heart -

Jan 2015

Chapter 5: Page 8 - Heart to Heart

Posted by Daniel Sharp / in Comic / 35 comments

Happy Thursday! :D

I’m back from my trip (albeit tired still from all day Tuesday in airports and airplanes). The weather here is not as nice as it was in California :( But it was a good break. Hopefully you all had a good holiday season too :D

For those of our readers who are tired of people talking instead of blowing things up, you’re just gonna have to deal for a bit ;) Go re-read Chapters 1-3, or as we like to call it: “Volume One: Lots of Blood”. Now we’re developing more of the singularity and psychological aspects of the story for a bit. Don’t worry, there will still be blood and action in this chapter and the next :P

As always, please vote, and consider supporting us financially so we can keep paying Seba :)

Adriano #WR

Poor, poor little Jane.
Come hugging me !
Andy P.

“Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world’s first bionic man. He will be that man. Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster.” -The Six Million (minus inflation) Dollar Man.
- Hornet
  
  Oh, so he’d be the 50,000 dollar man?
  - Daniel Sharp
    
    Well, if we convert it to Minerva Credits, he’d be at least the 6 trillion MC man, if not more.
    
    We could also go the route of the Russian team over in the DA wargame (http://thedemonarchives.freeforums.net/ ) and convert it into workds (like work-day equivalents or something), which would probably also be in the billions or trillions.
    
    Cause if we’re gonna spruce Tenzin up, we’re gonna do it in style :)
    - Dusty Coyote
      
      Super Tenzin! Faster than a java applet, more powerful than a quad core chip set, able to bounce all of your emails back to you as soon as you send them…
Matt [in Middletown]

“How is that possible?”

Because unlike Doc Kavi, you have a sense of humor?
As the Doc is currently experiencing out in the elevator?
Rakshasha have no fury like an AI insulted?
- Daniel Sharp
  
  You know, I think it might be canon now that Jane might consider playing a prank on Dr. Chandan :) It’ll depend on how his work with Tenzin turns out, of course.
  - Matt [in Middletown]
    
    Probably a small prank as she doesn’t strike me as the spiteful prank type, just the “ha ha, you messed up” prank type.
    Like making doors do the fail noise for the good doc.
    - Daniel Sharp
      
      Let’s go with that ;)
      - Matt [in Middletown]
        
        Lol!
  - Adriano #WR
    
    Awesome !
    Cannon stories from Matt are always fun !
    - Matt [in Middletown]
      
      Cannon tales.
      [About cannons, cannoneers, and beautiful downtown Fort Drum.. in the sand pits..]
      One fine day, just off Alexandria Road in the beautiful scenic sand pits of Fort Drum, our section chief pulls out our toilet paper roll and finds that it has become a solid block.
      “Issue” toilet paper is of this unique quality not seen anywhere else.
      It is thin, and when it gets wet it solidifies upon drying.
      [This is opposed to the single sheets you get in your MRE, those are completely useless and best used as ammo for rubber band slingshots.]
      So we, being industrious busy beavers, found that the dried, dessicated, and now completely solid roll of toilet paper fit inside the powder casing of our 105mm round.
      Almost as if designed for this.
      We all looked at each other and got the same odd look on our faces.
      And then it happened.
      Those words that artillerymen live for.
      “FIRE MISSION!”
      Shell HE, Fuze PD, charge 5.
      [deflection, quadrant, yadda yadda.. boring.. oh, fire when we are ready?]
      Well, what do you know, we had that right here in our hands.
      With a toilet paper tamper.
      OOops.
      
      Boom.
      “Gun one shot.”
      
      I noticed some bits of paperish chunks drifting back at me as I notified FDC that we’d sent our round down range.
      Everyone else was looking at the tiny bits scattered in front of us.
      The majority of the flaming husk flew down range never to be seen again.
      I do often wonder where it went.
    - Matt [in Middletown]
      
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=npTGqg5v-mc#t=207
      Skip ahead to the 3 minute 21 or so mark.
      You’ll see the ammo type I worked with, and then you’ll see an example of my baby.
      An M119 light towed 105mm howitzer.
      *wistful sigh*
      Video starts out with the M777, a system I am unfamiliar with, it was brand new in 2001 or so.
      Picatinney Arsenal was messing with it around that time.
      - Adriano #WR
        
        Being in artillery sure must be fun :D
Hipopótamo

Jane is questioning her reasoning? Sentient AIs can spell trouble! Well, she does care for Tenzin
melaredblu

Jane’s expression makes me sad. She looks lonely and forlorn, like she’s not just missing him, but something of herself is missing as a result. I suspect her very sense of purpose has been damaged in this, having been unable to protect him in the first place. This must be horribly traumatic for her as well.
- Adriano #WR
  
  So, basically, she has the same trauma than Tenzin (Indiraaaaaaaaaaaaa !!!!) ? Very interesting.
- Matt [in Middletown]
  
  I am betting they shared in jokes, and her purpose was to keep watch over him, monitor important items, etc.
  She currently feels purposeless.
  Hence her open antagonism towards certain people out of fear as she is not certain others are doing what is best for her charge.
  Understandable.
  Makes me wonder how she was created.
  - Adriano #WR
    
    Well, a woman, Angeline, and a male (Tenzin ?) were loving themselves very much ! They went together in the bed, and BAM ! Nine months later she was born. #BasicScience
    - Matt [in Middletown]
      
      *Hmm*
      And how did she get poured into the computer?
      (Great, mental images of Caroline from Portal 2..:-0..)
      - Daniel Sharp
        
        Ya’ll are weird :P
        
        You do know that Angeline (correctly) thinks that Tenzin is a selfish, masochistic jerk, right?
      - Matt [in Middletown]
        
        Yes.
        LOL.
      - Adriano #WR
        
        That’s how she likes her men !
      - Adriano #WR
        
        I’m thinking of some weird kind of numerization by destroying the original body and pasting it into a server/bio-computer.
      - Matt [in Middletown]
        
        The Tron effect!
        Direct digitizing of corporeal beings.
      - Daniel Sharp
        
        If that’s what’s going on here, what do you think happened to the corporeal Jane?
      - Matt [in Middletown]
        
        If that was the case, we are seeing the corporeal Jane in Jane Vision.
        I doubt that is the case, though.
        But makes for interesting discussion.
        Also, as previously mentioned, with a sufficiently advanced enough mind machine interface, you could copy someone into a machine.
        Done young enough, and the copy would have no idea of its own origin.
        One reason to do such would be: fatal congenital birth defect.
        So, in that case, we are seeing the ghost of someone who passed away two years before and rapidly matured due to the unique nature of her current existence.
        If true, whose daughter would she be?
        Angeline’s, which adds a secondary layer of sadness to the situation.
        
        We still haven’t seen where and how the AI’s, as it is implied that there are more than one with more than one captain, came to be.
        I know you will eventually get to it.
        But, it’s fun to speculate until then.
      - Anonymous
        
        Well… About Jane origin…
        It’s more likely that official version (Pure AI) true.
        Technically, even if you will write human mind into computer chips - it will be just a bunch of data, imprint of that people mind and/or memories. One chance against million that it will reorganise into personality.
        And the whole Oracle project is not likely to be old enough to allow Minervan scientists to set up big enough number of experiments.
        
        P.S. Why ever bother with AI and powerarmors? Purpose-built mechs or even assembled-in-field drones is all you need.
        Modern (non-human) soldier does not need Artificial (Or Abominable, as some call it) Intelligence. Artificial Instinct is all it need.
      - Daniel Sharp
        
        Why? For Glaucus, because they could. The development of their research was not guided by the military aims or the government, but by what individual Glaucus researchers wanted to do. That’s part of the history of Minerva, how it was founded, how they view knowledge and research (kind of covered in the Lore articles under the Extras tab). Just the free pursuit of knowledge, even if it isn’t the best or most efficient option :)
        
        Plus a little bit of I wanted to tell a story with a guy in powerarmor with an AI assistant :P
        
        Thanks for the comment :D
      - Anonymous
        
        It would be much less interesting if you decided to write a story about Aegis operator that sit’s in the truck and types general commands like “Group 6, go to the point *coordinates*, kill on sight” all the time.
        Well, except variant where suddenly truck is blown up and he stays in the middle of firefight with both sides hostile. Then it would be interesting. And short.
      - Daniel Sharp
        
        Hehe, exactly!
        
        Although we will see a little bit of this tactical approach later on in the story. Although slightly different/more interesting :D
      - Matt [in Middletown]
        
        Truck gets blown up, but he stays in his seat, now out on the ground in the open air, and he keeps on speaking over the radio.
        “What was that noise? Uh.. nothing. It was the AC turning on. Honest. Now, about that drone I told you about?”
      - sebasp
        
        Im sure Minerva has or had a drones program, but for some reason it isnt the main militar force.
      - Adriano #WR
        
        Yes, that ! ^^
Citrus Reaper

Birds and the bees, but with power-soldiers and artificial intelligences?
So, is that, like.. Drones and …Smaller, bee-shaped drones?
I don’t science.