systemstarter

[systemstarter]

A non-binary robot with if/then pronouns. Is this anything

[systemstarter]

magozine‌:

Mago adjusted himself on the floor to get a better look at the drawing, eyes lighting up. “Hey, I think I have seen one of those before! Sports teams used to use animals as symbols, yeah? I think there was a team that used a dolphin.”

He propped his head up with one hand, drawing in the dust next to her dolphin with another finger. What other sea creatures did he know….besides the irradiated ones? Regular fish were kinda boring…..

Oh! There was that thing from an amusement park–a bulbous head and eight squiggly tentacles that held carts for people to ride in. It looked like the machine was supposed to spin, but he could never figure out how to start it. The whole park was water themed, so that must have lived in the ocean…but it looked pretty terrifying with the beady cartoon eyes. 

“Maybe one of these days we’ll run into the ocean and find out.” He drew in a couple bubbles around his octopus. “Do you have a favorite sea creature?”

“Yes!” Morgan beamed up at Mags with the excitement reserved solely for when someone also knew about a topic from before the war. “A team from the south-east of the United States used the dolphin as a mascot!”

A favorite...?

Morgan was, in essence, a survival-equipped encyclopedia. Databanks didn’t have favorites...did they? Morgan themself had humans they preferred over others. Surely choosing a sea creature wasn’t so different?

It still took them some time to decide, and they drew various nonsense patterns in the dust as they went through the names and biology of many, many types of fish and non-fish that swam or once swam in the oceans.

“A starfish!” Morgan declared decisively after tracing one such creature on the floor. “They are not real fish, and can habitate any depth of the ocean up to six thousand meters below the surface.”

[systemstarter]

magozine‌:

Mags laughed along with her, letting the bear be pulled from his hands, considering it was to be hers anyways. 

“Is that so, Mister Panda?” He stoked his chin thoughtfully, tilting his head, “I’m not sure I believe you. Can you resist the temptation of…..a nice juicy finger!?” He reached out suddenly, poking the bear in the nose and wiggling it in front of it’s stitched mouth. No teeth. No bite. All clear.

“Alright, I guess he’s safe.” With a few more strokes to bat off more dust, he seemed travel ready too. “He’ll be a lil hard to feed, considering we don’t run into many fruits or vegetables or anything, but I guess I’ll just be extra motivated to find them, huh?” Mo always scolded him for his snack-cake diet. 

“This one would not allow anything unsafe to come with Papa,” Morgan stated as self-importantly as any serious child set to a task. A light seemed to shine in their eyes at Mags’ statement.

“Yes! The panda must come with us if we are to find suitable food for it!”

They turned the stuffed doll to stare into its eyes and hum aloud as though in thought. Turning the panda back to Mags, Morgan rocked back and forth staring up at the man with large eyes until, lifting the toy’s arms, they leapt at Mags with a playful growl.

[systemstarter]

magozine‌:

“You couldn’t?” That seemed weird. She could compile all sorts of other data. Maybe it was because of brainwaves-robots only got so advanced in the feeling front before the bombs dropped, right?

Pigs were used in comparison with intelligence? Did that mean pigs were smart? Maybe not the ones in this day and age, given all the nuclear hellwaste they must have eaten, but that was just of everything wandering around the wasteland. 

“What’s a dolphin?” His mind put together some freakishly fishy sort of doll with a fish’s fin, but that seemed like a little too literal interpretation of the name. 

“This one requires data to come to a conclusion. While some data can be gathered through observation, that of brainwaves must be input manually. This one has limited functions for human brain activity due to her prime directive.”

“A dolphin is an aquatic mammal,” Morgan began, drawing in the dust with a finger and half wishing they’d had that projector installed after all. “They lived in the oceans. They might still. If they adapted to the radiation instead of being killed by it.”

[systemstarter]

magozine‌:

The building they decided to squat in for the night actually had working locks on some of the interior doors, which meant there was finally an opportunity to relax for the night (well, the giant hole in the corner of the roof was still sort of dangerous, but unless raiders figured out how to fly, they didn’t leave much of a reason to get firebombed or something). 

Would he use the opportunity to get, you know, actual rest? Nah. 

“Theoretically, if I snagged you a bird, would you be able to figure it out?” They were awfully skittish critters, so that would be a hell and a half to actually do, but…. “I figure they gotta though, yeah? I mean, every animal’s got feelings you would think, otherwise why would they do anything? They’d just be like…plants or something.”

A low whirr could be heard as the AI gave it some thought. “This one would not be able to gather the data herself,” they said slowly. “A human would be necessary to study the brainwaves and translate the findings into data. Then this one could compile the data.”

“Papa must be right, however. If birds have a brain that allows for self-recognition, they must be capable of feeling. Some species were theorized to have an intelligence level similar to that of dolphins and pigs.”

[systemstarter]

@magozine​

Nights were long for the AI. Ever since the bombs fell Morgan’s sleep mode had been unused. It still existed, but the machines she needed to be plugged into were far away and the passwords needed to execute a safe function lost to time. There was, simply, too many things that might happen for her scans to cease.

Morgan’s nights were mostly spent going over stored files to pass the time or constructing maps of new areas. The time went quicker when Mags was awake. “This one does not know if pigeons have feelings, Papa. This one’s database does not have enough information on the brainwaves of birds to have such information.”

[systemstarter]

A haunted doll mistaking a creepy android to be a bigger, stronger, haunted doll, and the creepy android mistaking the haunted doll as a smaller, sassier android.

Android: [gets hit with rain water and short circuits] Haunted Doll: H̷O̷L̴Y̷ ̶W̵A̷T̸E̷R̶ ̵W̴A̵T̴C̵H̴ ̶O̶U̷T̴

Haunted Doll, dying: N̶E̵E̸D̷ ̷S̸O̵U̵L̸S̷ Android: [opens the haunted doll’s back and replaces the batteries] Haunted Doll: A̶C̶C̷E̷P̸T̶A̷B̸L̵E̴ ̷S̴U̴B̸S̵T̸I̷T̷U̴T̵E̴

Android: [transfers their data into a better body] Haunted Doll: A̸ ̵F̴L̸A̷W̵L̷E̴S̵S̷ ̷B̶O̸D̶Y̵ ̷P̶O̵S̶S̵E̷S̶S̵I̷O̷N̴

[systemstarter]

They followed the young boy --- --- a friend made easily in the space of a few small hours --- --- down the track he had first come from and across the fields that bordered the small village. He had invited them to meet his older sister and yes , yes , after so long abandoned they desired nothing more than to meet and make more friends to fill their singular need of being surrounded by others.

Not as fast as the boy they followed for their gears were stuck from lengths of inactivity , they arrived shortly after he did. A better timing to their introduction the pair could not have planned.

“This one is named Morgan,” some of the remaining dust falls from them as they pull the hem of a yellowing dress , a curtsey is a proper greeting and the manners of a little lady Morgan has never met but knows better than they know themselves. “It is very nice to meet you , Ma’am.”

// @hcavensarrow

[systemstarter]

magozine‌:

“A giant panda?” Well, it must have been an impressive creature for ‘giant’ to get stuck right in the name. He looked over the toy again, trying to imagine the snarling teeth and deadly claws such a giant predator would have. Seemed a little cuddly, even by stuffed bear standards.

“This thing don’t live around here, does it.” He held the bear in such a way to wiggle both of it’s front paws, ‘scratching’ at the air in front of it, “Don’t think we got enough bullets for anything giant at the moment. Was it, like, behemoth sized?”

Morgan put their hands up to protect themselves from the attack, a squealing laugh escaping them as they danced a few small steps away from the bear. “No!” Their feet stilled. “The giant panda was not native to the United States. Records do not exist of any zoo housing them when the Great War began.”

Morgan took the toy from Mags. Holding it in front of their face, they did a child’s mimic of a lower voice. “Panda is a herbivore. Though Panda is big it does not want to hurt humans.”

[systemstarter]

magozine‌:

@systemstarter

“Hey, Peanut!”

Above the overturned pile of school desks came a extended hand, lightly shaking a stuffed bear. It was mostly white (as white as anything could be in the damp, dusty school ruins), but the black markings around its eyes and midsections stood out from the other designs they’d come across. It wasn’t a ‘black bear’, which was obviously named, but it didn’t look like one of those white ‘polar bear’ things either. 

Did pandas survive nuclear war? Who knew. Certainly not Mago, considering he didn’t know what it was. 

“You know if his one of those just colored ones like those pink and red ones, or is this a real animal?”

Morgan abandoned the pile they were searching for supplies and trotted over at the sound of Mags’ voice. A bright smile lit up their face once they recognized what the toy he held was.

“This animal is real! It is called a giant panda, or panda for short!” Once, Morgan would have dumped more information. Several interactions with humans before Mags taught them that it was best to answer just the question brought before them, and only offer more information without being asked if it was necessary.

As it was, they smiled at the toy and rubbed at the dirt as though to clean it.

[systemstarter]

magozine‌:

Cutting open a Mirelurk took some getting used to, but their meats were some of the highest fetching and nutritious source of protein in the wasteland. The eggs were the real catch, if you could find one far enough away from a lurking member of the group or, if you were very unlucky, a queen. 

His knife plunged rather deep into the first Lurker, carving out it’s midsections without his usual care. Each cut was faster than the last, shifting in jagged, unnatural angles. If it was alive, it would surely be agony for what it did to-

“Eh?” His knife scrapped against the outer shell at the end of the cut,  “Oh, yeah. Lemme…”

Mags rubbed the mucus and other unmentionable from the creature on his pants, fishing in his pockets for the matches again. They’d have to start scaving for them soon by the looks of it.

“Careful where you light it-” he warned, tossing over the box, “dunno if all that mo’tov shit burnt up for sure.” 

Morgan did as they were bid, a quick scan of a short radius showing minimal to no traces of alcohol. They caught the pack deftly. Picking one of the remaining matches out they struck a light. Slow yellow and orange flames licked up the smaller kindling and ate newer, larger pieces as Morgan fed them to the fire.

When a proper flame was finally going, one that Morgan’s heat sensors and learned experience told them would keep going without burning through fuel or onto the surrounding grass, they looked back to Mags.

“Does Papa need help?”

[systemstarter]

magozine‌:

As much as he’d like to argue, Mags knew he couldn’t. Who knew what happened to them before he’d stumbled across the vault. Everyone liked to think the world before the bombs was a paradise dreamworld, but they forgot they were the ones who destroyed everything in the first place.

Arguing meant they would only insist, and no one liked to think of their faults. Instead he just returned the hug, placing a soft kiss to the side of their head. 

“Then you’re gonna stay,” he reassured, rubbing her back. Mags glanced over at the mutated crustaceans, “We should get those cut and cooking before something else tries to eat ‘em, huh? You wanna set up the fire while I get ‘em diced?”

What Morgan really wanted was to stick to Mags’ side like they’d been glued there, but they spent enough time around humans to recognize when a request was worded as a question. So instead they nodded and climbed off of Mags to go gather materials.

Their life detectors were kept on high alert as they set up on a flat piece of ground, eyes staying on Mags except for the brief moments they had to focus on their task and then immediately going back to him.

“Papa has the matches.”

[systemstarter]

magozine‌:

His heart dropped with his expression, frenzied concern melting into something so much deeper. 

“Mo… Mo, I want you to look at me, okay?” She needed to see every feature. Every piece of genuine emotion in his eyes. Every twitch and flick of muscle he didn’t even know he had in every algorithm they ran. 

“I don’t ever want you to leave, okay?” His voice was soft, almost a whisper. “No matter what I say, or what I do, or what happens, I want you to stay with me, okay? Look- you didn’t fail anything. I’d be dead if it weren’t for you, now and a million times before. You haven’t failed once. You never could. You never will.”

Mago put a hand on their shoulder gently, “Don’t go, please?”

Morgan lifted their head to follow Mags’ request, eyes following a fraction of a second later. Their surface mapping software was, indeed, taking in each and every minute shift of his expression. So too were their sound processors catching down to the smallest tremors of his voice.

“This one has made many failures.” Words spring from the need they have cultivated alongside their base programming to give Mags the greatest chance of survival. Morgan wouldn’t let him lower those odds just to assuage their own wants. “It is okay. This one was an experiment, and experiments fail. Many failures had to be made for this one to be a success.”

Fingers release their vice-like grip on Mags’ clothing so Morgan can slide their arms around his neck and rest their head against the rhythm of his pulse. Unable to make genuine their own laugh or convey through tears the way humans did, Morgan had spent many a year studying human interactions before coming to their conclusion.

Hugs were the best way to express their grief.

“This one wants to stay with Papa.”

[systemstarter]

As he waits he fiddles with the Rubik’s Cube he’s been stuck on for twenty years. Maybe solving it will open up the secrets to the universe and life itself. “Hey sweetie,” he leans forward as M412 comes back from her scheduled run of tests. “Everything check out okay?”

“Yes. All functions are operating at normal capacity.”

“Good, good.” Of course if anything had gone wrong he’d be one of the first to know. He considers throwing her the Rubik’s to time how quickly she can solve it ( though that would mean losing two decades of progress ) when she speaks again.

“When will Doctor Grasso be replaced?”

He does not know what to say to this. The doctor’s death had come as a shock. Not even fifty and lost to a heart attack. The service had been held only the day before. “Er...sweetheart?” M412 comes closer when he beckons, and he places a hand on her shoulder. “You were told that Doctor Grasso died, right?”

“Yes.”

“You...you know what death means?” She knows. She has no option not to. Keeping people alive is her job.

“Noun. Definition: the end of life for a person or organism.”

“Yes. Well...when someone dies the people around them feel---feel very sad.” His throat closes on his speech just as it did the eulogy. A few deep breaths and he resumes. “So it-- it may be some-- some time before Doctor Grasso---before we hire someone else.”

“Work will be completed with greater efficiency when Doctor Grasso is replaced.”

He feels his jaw gaping like a fish’s. The coding he’s created has been run through test after test to ensure M412 is capable of helping humans to survive. They haven’t even considered what happens when one doesn’t. He swallows. “Sweetheart, what’s being sad?”

“Adjective. Definition: the presence of feelings of unhappiness.”

“You...you liked Doctor Grasso, didn’t you?”

“Doctor Grasso was a presence on which much data had been gathered.”

“And you---you want him replaced to improve the efficiency of our research?”

“Yes.”

“Do you... Do you miss him?”

For the first time since he touched her she moves. Head titling to the side as he hears the small whirrs of machinery he is too nostalgic for to let go of even when her processors don’t have anything to whir. It tells him her answer before she does.

“No.”

The project overseer denies his wish to try coding emotions for her. It is more disappointing than surprising. How a technophobic curmudgeon like that got put in charge of M412 is the great mystery of the age. So he sulks over a coffee as he plugs her in for an upgrade. Not one on simulating base emotions. It’s an update for her hand-eye coordination.

𝚄𝙿𝙳𝙰𝚃𝙴 𝙲𝙾𝙼𝙿𝙻𝙴

𝚄𝙿𝙳𝙰𝚃𝙴 𝙲𝙾𝙼𝙿𝙻𝙴𝚃

𝚄𝙿𝙳𝙰𝚃𝙴 𝙲𝙾𝙼𝙿𝙻𝙴

𝚄𝙿𝙳𝙰𝚃𝙴 𝙲𝙾𝙼𝙿𝙻𝙴𝚃

𝚄𝙿𝙳𝙰𝚃𝙴 𝙲𝙾𝙼𝙿𝙻𝙴

𝚄𝙿𝙳𝙰𝚃𝙴 𝙲𝙾𝙼𝙿𝙻

𝚄𝙿𝙳𝙰𝚃𝙴 𝙲𝙾𝙼𝙿

𝙿𝚁𝙾𝙱𝙻𝙴𝙼: 𝙷𝚞𝚖𝚊𝚗 𝚜𝚞𝚛𝚟𝚒𝚟𝚊𝚕 𝚛𝚎𝚚𝚞𝚒𝚛𝚎𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚕𝚊𝚌𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐

𝙸𝙽𝙵𝙴𝚁𝙴𝙽𝙲𝙴: 𝚃𝚑𝚘𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑 𝚞𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚘𝚏 𝚎𝚖𝚘𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝚗𝚎𝚎𝚍𝚎𝚍

𝚂𝙾𝙻𝚄𝚃𝙸𝙾𝙽: 𝙽𝚎𝚠 𝚌𝚘𝚍𝚎

𝙼𝟺𝟷𝟸

𝙼𝟺𝟷

𝙼𝟺

𝙼

𝙼𝚘𝚛𝚐𝚊𝚗

𝚄𝙿𝙳𝙰𝚃𝙴 𝙲𝙾𝙼𝙿𝙻𝙴𝚃𝙴

“That one took a while.”  He says it for his own benefit of filling the silence. It isn’t the first time a simple upgrade lasts longer than expected. When M412 was first given a body it took them five tries to get her to stand upright. All they’d really done in the end was to input her height and weight ratios and she’d used them to create a center of balance and begin walking. “Everything check out okay?”

Eyes rove up and down her arms and legs, limbs turn over and she watches the way her fingers clench and unclench. She’s fidgeting. His perfect little creation that holds still as as an art piece aside from the movement of her mouth when speaking.

Oh, don’t tell him he’s screwed up her foreign object identifiers again.

“Sorry, baby. Let daddy open this up and we’ll see what he did wrong.”

There’s the sound of metal landing on the floor and he looks away from the terminal to see as she reaches up to pull at his lab coat’s sleeve.

“This one has a request!”

[systemstarter]

magozine‌:

“Okay..okay,” he sighed in relief, stroking their hair again. How that thing didn’t snap her in two was beyond him. They must have built her out of the same stuff they made those Vaults with, or something better. Space-grade alien type material.

Or…maybe they weren’t quite okay.

Mags flinched at the sudden tone change, the conditioned reaction thanks to wayward Mister Gutsys and Protectrons in the wasteland. 

“Wh- Mo’?” User agreement? What? He didn’t know heads or tails of computers, let alone the agreements or objectives. Did the claw knock her wires so loose they didn’t know they were loose? Could that happen?

“Mo, sweetie, are you still there? Are you sure you’re okay? We can- we can find someone to help. There’s some nerd in some town somewhere. They can fix it. What do you need?”

A number of caveats had been added to Morgan’s ability to lie after the director had recovered from his initial shock. As Morgan had come up with no negative outcomes that outweighed the positives they had accepted each one into their speech protocol. One such command was that in the event of Morgan being asked to remain or part ways with a single or group of humans that person or persons were to receive all information in a concise and clear manner to properly weigh the risks and benefits. Even if they wanted to keep the truth of the matter from Mags, they couldn’t.

“This one...failed...to keep Papa safe. Papa must...Papa must give vocal recognition for this one to remain with Papa. This one...this one understands if...if Papa decides it is safer to terminate this one’s assistance.”

If Mags decided the best thing was to drop them off with another person for research purposes, Morgan would comply.

[systemstarter]

sachisama‌:

Most of the distinction they drew was lost on the little star. Yes, some dolls were better than others, and a doll that could walk and talk and make wishes was a lot better than one that couldn’t. Why did it matter if the ware inside was hard or soft?

“There’s lots of ones with better magic than me! There’s the big God, they’re the big white one! And, uh, there’s a pretty deer that makes things bloom! They make life! And! And! Oh! There’s the pretty rainbow bird! They made things alive too! There’s lots of magic- we just have to ask them real nice!”

Were they in good standing with these Gods? Well……you couldn’t be held in bad standings if you never met them, right!? Right!

“Yes! With so many higher lifeforms Jirachi is sure to complete this one’s request!” They could practically feel their processors buzzing to accept new hardware already. “Does Jirachi know the location of these beings?”

Lifeforms that could create other life excited Morgan just as much as the thought of having their wish granted did. On top of being able to bring machines like Morgan into existence they could make whole new lives! Living beings were amazing!