chapter 62
“No, Bob, I will not build you a 200-million-credit body to help you lift things only 12% better than an 80-million-credit body. In fact, Lola, you’ve gone too far. The current design is a bit too over the top.”
They stayed quiet after I said that, but what I was looking at was ridiculous. It was nearly a three-metre-tall body that more resembled the Hulk than anything else.
“Don’t you think that’s way too impractical? Like, how are you going to move around on the upper floors? Let’s get back into the realm of reality, as you also need to live on the ship. With that body, it would be quite difficult. Also, don’t you want something more capable of handling cargo? This humanoid body isn’t the best.”
“I will admit, Lola and I might have gone a bit too far, but perhaps in the future. Nevertheless, a humanoid body is the best. Now, if we could only make humanoid bodies that are quite stiff, I would disagree. And of course, a humanoid body would be a lot worse overall, but there are such things as tools and equipment that make a humanoid body capable of anything.”
Bob was still just a ball, and I had a small inkling of just keeping him like that, as I could already imagine the face that would look at me while explaining things I should already understand. The worst thing was that everything he said made so much sense. I sank into my thoughts as that realization struck me.
“Lola, we’ve been going about this all wrong,” I said, then trailed off into my thoughts.
“Remi? Captain? Master?” That finally brought me out of my thoughts. “Finally! You can’t leave us hanging like that. Explain what you realized?”
“We’ve been working on the next generation of combat droids and drones, well, mostly you have. Our philosophy has been to design fully capable combat bodies with armor and weapons already integrated. We had already thought about perhaps separating the weapons from the body so they could bring along whatever’s needed, but shouldn’t we do the same with everything else as well?”
“You do not want to give them reinforced bodies?”
“No, not exactly that. Yes, there should be some defenses. No matter how good of a material we use, it would still get damaged, and repairing that would be difficult, as we’ve discussed. Now, what if we focused our efforts on making the main body as structurally sound as possible while giving it flexibility and speed. Then they can wear whatever is necessary, like humans?”
“Now you're getting it. Tools and equipment are amazing for doing things we aren't capable of doing ourselves. Of course, there's the convenience of purpose-built design, and convenience always leads to efficiency, but it also makes you rigid,” Bob added.
“Yes, I can see how that could be better. It would be easy enough to change the current design for Bob. As for the rest of the designs, it will take a while for me to come up with suitable changes, and I would need your help, Captain.”
Lola explained. I could hear the excitement. She really liked making artificial bodies. I really got lucky for her to develop this interest of hers, and that she's so good at it.
“Bob, push Lola to design herself also a body that would be similar to yours and the rest of the droids, not that huge mech she’s working on.” I said in secret.
“Oh, I see. Yeah, I can do that.”
With that settled, I moved on to start working on building the personality core for FH. She had dived deep into running the simulations for the Mark II. I got the feeling that she was a bit sad, as her current body was so stripped out. The Mark I could barely be called the skeleton of a ship, but fortunately, the Mark II was coming along nicely.
Looking towards the Mark II, it was starting to slowly resemble a ship. They started with the lower central beam. It stretched all the way from the front to the back. From there, they started to build out the supporting rings. I believe in shipbuilding, they are called ribs, but I’m not entirely sure. Also, these ones encircled the somewhat round shape of the ship entirely.
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Next, they’ll add in the rest of the central beams. After that, they will build out the front and the back of the ship. From there, they will connect the front and back vertically with more beams going around the circumference.
Then, finally, the wings' structural supports will be added, and then the skeleton of the ship would be done. This is where a lot of the strength of the structure would come from.
The floors themselves will also help quite a lot, and so would enclosing the rest of the hull. There was still a lot of work to do to finish this first stage, but the workforce was getting more experienced, making them proceed at a faster pace than I predicted. Lately, I found myself rarely not smiling.
It took me nearly five days to build out an FH personality core. This one was really big—bigger than a large beach ball. The size was necessary, as she would have a lot of things to do and do them simultaneously. Of course, there would be a lot of other automated devices and programs to help, but I wanted her capable of running the entire ship if needed.
The transfer to the personality core went off without a hitch. I now have an excellent understanding of how this process worked. She was also simpler than Bob, even though there was a lot more code involved.
She was now housed inside the server box, seemingly quite pleased with her new accommodations. Although she still wished to be fully connected to the Mark II, but not the current skeleton version of it, rather the fully built-out one.
“So Lola, it seems like you’re the only one still without a personality core?”
“That’s not funny,” she said in quite a cold tone.
“Oh, I thought you’d want to get rid of that old computer hardware you’re running on,” I said while tossing one of the empty, normal-sized personality cores up and down.
“Wait, you’re serious? I thought transferring me would be impossible, as I’m too delicate, being made up of so many different parts of older AI.”
“That was true a few weeks ago, but I’ve learned a lot. Don’t forget I was the one who made you. I can say confidently that I am 100% sure I could transfer you into one of these,” I said, as I pointed toward the personality core I was holding.
“Please do it,” she asked, and I was pretty sure there would have been tears if she had a realistic body.
While I was confident, I was still nervous. She had been with me for a really long time and helped me get off that planet. Without her, I would not have come this far.
It was, of course, risky—what I was doing—but I was certain I could do it, and she deserved this. Ever since she had started to get more complex, she had always seemed to want to move around, so hopefully I was giving her what she wanted.
“Are you ready?”
“Yes,” she answered me—not hesitant at all, ready for what was to come.
It was hard to hit the switch for her to shut down, but it was necessary for the transfer.
What followed was twelve crucifying hours of running seemingly endless wires. I tried to channel my sixth sense as much as possible, but I never got the bad feeling whenever it flared up.
Most of the work in these types of transfers was the preparation for it. Now that that was done, I closed my eyes and hit the switch, with the transfer only taking what felt like a second but was actually around 12 seconds.
My hands actually shook a bit as I started to detach everything from the personality core and then finished reassembling it. Starting it up, I went through the same protocols as with every other AI. She passed with flying colors, and her personality tests were a perfect match.
“How do you feel, Lola?”
“I feel whole. Thank you, Master.”
“That’s the only one you get. From now on, it’s Captain or Remi.”
“Yes, Captain,” she said with a small giggle at the end.
“I also have another fun surprise for you. Bob and FH worked hard while I was transferring you. This body you designed most likely isn’t what you really expected to use, but you can always upgrade later on.”
I allowed her to see what I was seeing, as she wasn’t that used to seeing through her personality core. Also, the sight that they had through it wasn’t the best.
Her body looked quite natural, even though it was fully made out of metal. Her frame was quite tall, yet still petite. That’s always been how she saw herself, although I’m pretty sure she’s unhappy that she doesn’t have proper hair.
I’m sure she’ll figure it out soon enough, and she’ll have the long braids she likes.
It seemed that she was a bit too overwhelmed with emotions to talk, so I placed her in her housing and then into the droid itself. Slowly, she opened her eyes and looked at me.
“Welcome,” I said to her. For the first time I saw her smiling, which wasn’t a representation of her image smiling or a vague impression I got of how she might be feeling.
She tried to get up too soon, too excited to try walking. Bob and I caught her, helping her back onto the table.
“Can’t run just yet, you need to get used to it all,” Bob said after flexing his metal muscles.
He still looked quite beefy, was taller than me, and looked like he could bench press half a tank. His proportions were a lot more normal now, but he still needed the extra muscle mass to facilitate moving things around.
Never did I expect to have crew members like this, only my own simple AI drones. But now, I had somehow combined the two. The progress of it all felt amazing. The best part: all of these crew members seemed so unique, exactly like real people.
And of course, the Mark II itself was coming along nicely. There was just a little bit more left to be done before the very basic skeleton of it was finished.
This called for a celebration.
Unfortunately, none of my crew members felt that excited about this small celebration, they all had their own things to do.
Lola was busy trying to understand how her body worked and was already seeing improvements she could make.
Bob was busy designing the cargo handling of the Mark II, with FH helping him.
Dean and Sam were busy teaching their squad members tactics and training with firearms. Slowly, they were turning themselves into a proper fighting squad, and now that they had access to more complex VR simulations, they were progressing fast.
Fortunately, I had another option for a small celebration of sorts.
It was soon time to head to the tavern and meet up with Thoron. This time, I think I’ll stay a bit longer. Also, he should have some information about whether I could join him on the planet below.