LF Friends, Will Travel

Our Clockwork Children: Chapter 2

Scellestra sat at the table, their form shifting and blurring as they continued their facsimile of sitting, the thousands of metallic nanobots making up the ever-moving form of the inorganic lifeform. The Woolean AI couldn't really sit, but during the short amount of time they had spent around humans, they quickly found that it was the polite thing to do. A lot of interacting with Terrans was all about pretending to do the proper thing, even if you couldn't.

The room they were 'sitting' in was boring, even to an AI. Grey, bland, a descriptionless void of bureaucracy and process. Plants were placed at the sides and a large brightly coloured sign welcoming visitors to the Terran Conclave embassy. Minor things that tried, and failed, to hide just how lifeless this room was.

A giant grey metal table dominated the space, winning by default due to being the only thing in the area; except for a handful of seats and the five occupants in the room. These five were the opposite of boring.

The two figures sitting opposite Scellestra were the diplomatic representatives of the Terran conclave, one human, one clearly mechanical in nature.

The human went by the name Steven, clean-shaven, suited up, the dictionary definition of a mildly friendly yet bureaucratic diplomat who seemed to slip from your mind mere moments after meeting them.

The second was more interesting to Scellestra. An AI by the name of CHAPPY who had chosen a physical form, something made of metal, wires, tubing and hydraulics. The Woolean had been informed that most Terran AI chose forms and voices that didn't attempt to hide their artificial nature, even though the technology allowed for such flawless replication. Mostly, Scellestra had been told, that this was for the human's benefit. Robots that look like robots are cute and endearing. Robots that looked like humans were creepy.

No the interesting thing about CHAPPY, was their 'choice' to remain within one physical form, a limitation that the AI has supposedly taken upon themselves. Even though all AI technically have a physical presence, their AI core or in Scellestra's case the millions of nanobots that made up the Woolean AI's shifting amorphous form, their actual being very rarely is limited to such a thing. Even now Scellestra had access to a local network, albeit a limited network, providing information about the room they were in, and a few of the public hallways of the Embassy.

The idea of being limited to one single set of sensors trapped in a single point of three-dimensional space... Was interesting, and Scellestra had to wonder if such a choice was voluntary. That was the kicker about this entire situation: these Terran AI were all claiming they were equals with their creators, free to choose their own paths and make their own choices. A fact that went against every other data point in Scellestra's database.

On the opposite side of the table, sat Ivan, the Terran human fiddling and fidgeting as people spoke around him, ODIN: the Terran AI represented by a holographic representation of the Norse god, and last but not least, sat in between the two, was Scellestra, the Woolean AI.

Two months ago, Ivan had crash-landed onto a Woolean planet after failing basic pilotry skills. Two months ago Scellestra had been the one chosen from their collective to have to deal with this intrusion. Two months of a bureaucratic nightmare as diplomats tried to deal with Scellestra's request to investigate further.

An investigation sparked by a... curiosity about this new race. These Terrans had created AI which both hadn't broken free of their creators, but also were supposedly unrestrained. Scellestra had themselves seen the systems the Terran AI inhabited and had confirmed nothing was stopping your average digital pilot from just opening all the airlocks.

Officially, Scellestra was ensuring that this new race wasn't a threat to the Woolean collectives, at least that was the official reasoning they gave themselves. Unofficially... the allure of friendship, between AI and organic was too good to not investigate further.