#the rockets in particular tend to be really effective since they hang for a moment before homing in on the target

[cyborg-hydra-girl-thing]

I think this is my favorite build so far. A perfect blend of performance and firepower. I've got 10 quick boosts in a row, rocket volleys in 10 & 13, a minigun, and songbirds grenade launcher. Ammo runs tight on some longer missions, but when they're dry I just get faster and more energy efficient

[scarlett-olivier]

10 (30?) Questions Writing Game

Hey, y'all. I've been meaning to do this for a hot minute now. Ever since I got tagged by our lovely @faireladypenumbra. So without further ado, lets get started.

1. What do you hope to communicate to your audience with your WIP?

Find the people who appreciate you for you. Even the best of us have hard times. Finally, even if you've had a really shitty past, or are currently in a shitty situation, you can still be the hero of your own story and possibly to someone else too. ^.^

2. What do you find the hardest to write? (Ex: emotion, humor, seduction, etc...)

Anything fast paced is notoriously difficult for me to write. Humor, wit, action, any of those things that live in the fast lane, and are usually just a one-two punch, are horrendous labor. They take forever to write (I'm sure there's some kind of irony in that statement). I love for my audience to be able to savor the moment and live vicariously through my characters, so fast paced moments always feel well, rushed and forced to me. It takes at least 4 drafts of the scene for me to feel alright about it.

3. How bad do you feel your first draft was/is?

Oh, my, holey spacerocks batman, was it awful. POV breaks, spelling errors (their mostly. I before E my ASS. My peeps, beware of the grammar fuckery, it abounds everywhere.), wrong verb usage, and just all around plot and flow shittiness. I kept some of it, but 2/3 got hit in the face with a rusty crowbar, shoved right up in the payload area of a rocket, and blasted off into the sun.

4. What is your favorite genre to read? Write?

Fantasy. To both. All the fantasy. Gimme.

5. Who have you based your style of writing off of?

Honestly, I'd like to think that I've picked up bits and pieces from a multitude of various authors' style and garishly sewed it all together to fashion my own personal brand of magnificent monstrosity. However if you forced me to narrow it down to three specific authors, I'd have to say... Edgar Allen Poe, Jane Austen, and Angie Sage.

6. What made you want to publish your work?

I ran out of books on my bookshelf, and I'd read the ones I had to the point I could almost recite them by rote. While I was writing my first story, I thought that my problem could be someone else problem too, and it was selfish of me to hoard these stories I kept on inventing to myself when someine out there might like them. So, I decided to share.

7. What have you had to research the most for your WIP?

How to write. Due to my upbringing's effect on my mental health, and the fact that I'm a high school drop out deciding to get together and tag team my self confidence into the nearest portapotty and flip it down a hill, I'm incredibly hypercritical of my own abilities. Therefore, I acknowledge that I lack the ability to judge my own work properly and rely heavily upon research, beta readers, and critique partner feedback to appropriately improve and turn out a quality product.

8. What character do you like (that you've written) the least?

Hmmm...... Merlin. He's a douchenozzle in a saint's disguise. If he were real, I'd have to punch him. Repeatedly. In the face.

9. Are you basing any of your WIP off your life and what would it be ( if not to spoiler - ex: people, places, situations)?

Finally, an easy question! Yes and no. Every author draws inspiration from life, but as far as specific instances or anything of that nature? No.

10. Who would you dedicate you book to?

My mom, my daughter, my fiancee, and my critique partner. Without them, the book would've never happened, for whatever reason.

11. If you could steal one idea from a famous author, what would it be?

I dunno. Honestly, even if I were able to do that morally, what would I possibly DO with it? I think the reason some stories are timeless is, in part, due to the author. They've poured their heart and soul into their work, breathing a life into it that could've only been so perfectly captured by them. Even if I took the idea, it wouldnt turn out the same in the end. For example, my Frankenstein would be vastly different from Mary Shelley's, simply because we're two different people with different values, morals, beliefs, and standards. I'm not saying my version would've been bad, per se, but it definitely wouldn't have been Mary Shelley. In ancient times, it was thought that the story (carried by the muses) chose the author, and the author had minimal control over what story they were to write, and I kind of follow that line of thinking.

12. What's been the hardest to write in your WIP so far? (Ex: beginnings, middles, ends, etc.)

Beginnings are the bane of my existence. Like I said before, I'm hypercritical of my abilities, so during the beginning of a story (before I get into the flow of things) I spend a ludicrous amount of time going over, and over, and over, and over my starts. On the plus side though, by the time I'm somewhat satisfied by the "first draft" of my beginning, the rest seems to fly by in comparison. Just gotta get over that initial hump. 😉😜

13. Which characters in your WIP get along the worst? The best?

I'd have to say Merek and Rowan, as the worst. As the best.... Cassandra and Nimue.

14. Tea, coffee, water, or nothing when working?

Tea, mostly. Tea is life. Followed by Redbull and Pepsi. I rarely drink coffee.

15. Is your desk organized or messy?

*eyes a particularly large stack of objects suspiciously.* Hang on a sec. *sweeps the uppermost of the stacks onto the floor with both arms.* Amazeballs! I actually have a desk! How long has that been there?!

16. Can you summarize your favorite piece of writing (that you've created)?

Orphaned girl gets captured by strange creatures and thrown into a world not her own, where she's informed she will finds out that not only is she NOT an orphan, but she will have to fight one of her parents to the death for the fate of the multiverse.

17. How long have you been working on your current WIP?

About a year and a half? Ish. It will, hopefully soon, be my first published novel. 😸😸😸😸

18. Sum up your main characters in three words. (Sorry, not a question)

Nimue- Troubled, stubborn, curious

19. What time of day are you most productive?

1 bloody a.m., when I'm trying to sleep.

20. What's your favorite fictional place?

Neverland. Because Alliteration. Magnificent Murderous Mermaids....

😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😄

21. What book inspired you to write the most?

Probs a toss up between T.A. Barron's The Lost Years of Merlin series, Tamora Pierce's The Circle Opens series, and Cecelia Dart-Thornton's The Bitterbynde series. I love all of them.

22. Do you write by hand, type, or some combination of the two?

Both. I prefer to type because it's far easier on my hands and joints, but writing by hand seems to improve my productivity. Not that I have the option of typing atm... My fan quit on my laptop and I can't afford the replacement part for it. 😭😭😭😭 why, wiritng gods, WHY?!

23. A book you would recommend to anyone?

Well, unfortunately, there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all book. Books are usually targeted towards a specific audience, and will tend to go over better with that audience, than with those aren't part of that particular grouping. A book recommendation is a highly personalized experience based on a variety of factors such as; age, gender, orientation, beliefs, and morality.

29. What is the one thing you NEED while writing, that isn't necessarily a writing tool?

Scully, my skull shaped pillow, a warm blanket, and music. 😆 I know you said one thing. I lumped them all together under the comfort umbrella. Comfortability is a major factor in my productivity levels. If I'm in pain, those levels drop, sharply.

25. How much time do you spend writing?

Ideally? When I'm not in the midst of a pain flare up, 30hrs a week is pretty typical.

If I'm in the middle of a flare up? 10 to 15hrs per week. I hate myself for it all the time.

26. How much time do you wish you spent writing?

Again, ideally, I would wish to spend about 8hrs a day, 5x a week on writing. This would leave the weekends open for time with my loved ones.

27. Do you set writing goals? If so, what is your writing goal for this year?

Oh boy. I set myself some unrealistic goals. They are as follows;

- Finish writing my horror short story, edit, and publish it.

- Finish editing my novel 'Something Wicked'

- Send out ARC copies of my novel

- Set a solid publishing time table and sales goal for my novel.

28. What's you favorite POV to write in?

Limited third person will always be my go to.

29. How may WIPs do you currently have?

One short story, two novels.

30. What is your favorite thing about writing?

Watching the world, that had previously only been a seed in my imagination, bloom into it's multi-tiered glory.

And so concludes the 30 questions game! Thank you again, to @faireladypenumbra for the tag. Sorry it took me so long to get around to. Also, in return, I'm tagging @alisonhaines and @alittleredfinch. I hope y'all enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed answering the questions. ^.^ Hope y'all have a lovely day.

[astridspokemonfic]

Episode 8: Spheal the Deal!

Narrator: After their brush with Team SubZero, our heroes have recovered from the harrowing ordeal only to come to an abrupt realization.

“I never got to actually go inside the aquarium!” Astrid shrieked. Considering it was 10 in the morning, it wasn’t exactly a pleasant sound. The twins gave her the most annoyed look they were capable of. (Especially considering that they woke up late.) Janine thankfully, was spared from the sound since she was inside taking a video call.

“You didn’t realize?” Kaytlyn raised an eyebrow.

“No I didn’t!” She scowled.”I was caught up in that poacher stuff!”

“You tend to not notice a lot of things.” Kayla muttered. “There was the Double Contest thing last week… and now with the aquarium.”

“Shut up!” the teen huffed, “Why don’t you ever tease Janine about anything?”

Kayla thought for a moment before turning to her sister. “Should I?”

“Janine never really does anything tease-worthy-”

“Yes she does!” Astrid interjected. “First of all she’s a total weeb.”

“True.”

“She has scoliosis.”

“Also true.”

“She’s an emo.”

“Uh-huh.”

“She’s-“

“I’m what?”

Astrid let out a shriek, unaware that Janine had somehow snuck up on her. The trainer gave her an unimpressed look before continuing.

“I got a call from Adrian. He’s gonna be here in a few minutes and he wanted to make sure that we were still here so we could finally battle.” Janine explained.

“You do know that Adrian has a type advantage on you right?” Kayla pointed out. Janine shrugged.

“I’ll just do the same thing I did with Romeo back at the gym.”

“Uh, but what if Mudkip evolved?”

“What?”

Kayla gave her a concerned look before Astrid cut in, “Mudkip evolves into Marshtomp, complete with a Water/Ground-Typing. Fire has a quarter of its usual effectiveness, and Electric does absolutely nothing.”

“Well… that’s a problem.” The trainer stated, dumbfounded.

“Yeah. On the other hand it becomes double weak to Grass-Types.” Astrid said smugly, offering Kayla a hi-five since they both chose grass-type starters.

“Well. Time to spam Double-Kick.”

“You can’t just do that!” Kayla pointed out.

“Yes I can.”

“That’s the most basic and unoriginal strategy I’ve ever heard.”

“Bet. I’ll beat him.”

“I hate you.”

~*~*~*~*~

After a few minutes of waiting, Adrian and his friends had shown up at the entrance of the Pokemon Center. The group caught their attention with a series of shouts and joking cat-calls. (At least on Astrid’s end)

“Please shut up. You’re all so embarrassing.” Adrian pleaded, glancing around to other bystanders.

“You love us.” Astrid crowed, meaning to embarrass him further. She narrowly dodged an incoming slap and moved over to hug Sheyla and Andrea.

“How was Route 3?” Janine motioned to his ragged appearance.

“Other than the ungodly amount of Mightyena and Poochyena everywhere, it was great! I caught two Pokemon!”

“Woah! Two?” Kayla asked curiously. At Adrian’s nod, the teen beckoned Astrid over, hoping she would lend the Pokedex to her for a few minutes. Wordlessly, Adrian reached to two more Pokeballs hanging at his hip (Wow, how did they not notice those?). Each Pokemon popped out with their own unique cries.

“An Aron and Ralts?”

Astrid handed her Pokedex to Kayla and knelt down to poke at the Psychic-Type.

“Ralts, the Feeling Pokemon. Ralts senses the emotions of people using the horns on its head. This Pokémon rarely appears before people. But when it does, it draws closer if it senses that the person has a positive disposition.”

Kaytlyn snorted. “Well that makes absolutely no sense.”

“What do you mean?”

“Adrian, you are one of the most aggressive people I’ve ever met. Second to a rampaging Tauros.” She snickered. Adrian gave her a hard look before sighing.

“True.”

“Is there a particular story behind this?” Janine asked, remembering her Mareep.

“Not with Ralts. He just threw the Pokeball as soon as he beat him. Pretty standard.” Andrea shrugged, “But Aron? There’s a story behind that one.”

“Ralts is a he?” Kayla gave Ralts a onceover, not understanding how such a feminine Pokemon could possibly be male. “Remind me to introduce you to Astrid’s Vulpix.” she muttered.

“Sh! I want to hear the Aron story!” Kaytlyn threw leaves at her sister, acting over dramatic. Kayla gave her a wounded look and simply scanned Aron in response.

“Aron, the Iron-Armor Pokemon. This Pokémon has a body of steel. To make its body, Aron feeds on iron ore that it digs from mountains. Occasionally, it causes major trouble by eating bridges and rails.”

“Okay, so basically.” Sheyla began, “Adrian had already caught Ralts like the day before, and he was training up her Magical Leaf attack. And then out of nowhere the Aron comes out.

“Adrian’s like ‘Oh this is going to be great training experience!’ and he sends Ralts to battle. Andrea and I just sorta… move away because this is probably the eighth time he’s done this in the past hour or so. He’s insane.”

“I was training my Pokemon!”

“You couldn’t have waited until we got to a Pokemon Center? You’re the reason it took 3 days to get here! Whatever.” Sheyla waved him away and the boy sat down, no longer able to tell his own story, “Anyway. We were just talking about how stupid Adrian is, and then he starts screeching. Out of nowhere.”

“It was concerning.” Andrea added, giving the gay a disgusted look. Adrian narrowed his eyes in response.

“Mhm. Well. We go over and we’re like,

‘What’s wrong? Are you hurt? Is Ralts hurt?’ But no. Instead he starts yelling at us to give him his bag, and he won’t answer when we ask what’s going on. So we just fling his bag over and he’s all panicky, and he doesn’t even look and he throws a Pokeball at Aron. But it doesn’t work. Obviously. And Aron escapes and starts to run.”

“Yes, of course, I’d run too.” Astrid nods, unhelpfully. Janine scoffs.

“And instead of battling it again, like a logical human being, Adrian throws another Pokeball. Which doesn’t work. And he continues this maybe 4 more times before finally throwing a Great Ball.”

“Why on Arceus’s green Earth would you do that?” Janine turned to the boy in question.

“Aron has a Secret Ability!” Adrian said, showing them his Pokedex.

“Secret Ability?”

“You know how Pokemon have abilities?” Sheyla began. Janine nodded.

“Arroz has Static as her ability.”

“Arroz? Who the- Actually, nevermind. Anyway, Secret Abilities are just really rare abilities that a certain Pokemon species may have. For Aron species in particular, their secret ability is Heavy Metal, meaning they become heavier in battle. Most Pokemon have Hidden abilities that make it so that they have a better advantage in battle.”

“I heard about Hidden Abilities before in school, but I didn’t think we’d actually meet a Pokemon with one!” Astrid said in wonderment. Kayla had a similar look as they inspected Aron thoroughly.

“I wonder if any of our Pokemon have a Secret Ability.” Kaytlyn thought out loud.

“I wouldn’t even know the difference.” Janine admitted. She turned her attention back to Adrian, “So about that battle…” Adrian nodded in excitement and was about to set the terms before Astrid interrupted.

“Woah, woah, woah! I’d just like to remind you that I haven’t gone to the Aquarium yet!”

“Literally no one cares.” Adrian gave her a harrowing look. Astrid glared right back.

“You can wait. I’ve wanted to go to the Aquarium since the first day we got to this sandy purgatory! Listen. You two can battle after we visit the aquarium.” She turned to Kayla and Andrea and began to drag them along, “Before something ridiculous happens and Team SubZero decides to blow up a daycare or something.” Sheyla watched the coordinator drag her friends along before a thought struck her.

“Who’s Team SubZero?” Janine took a double-take.

“You haven’t encountered them yet?”

“It doesn’t really matter, they’re just a bunch of Pokemon stealing weirdos in parkas.” Kaytlyn said dismissively.

Adrian nodded sagely. “Like Team Rocket.”

They have him a look.“Who’s Team Rocket?”

“This group back in the 90s that- actually nevermind it doesn’t matter. Just follow them before they get themselves run over.”

~*~*~*~*~

Turns out saving Pokemon from being kidnapped comes with its perks. When they started to pay for their tickets, the lady at the ticket booth had told them ‘It was already taken care of’ and told them to pass right through.

Andrea eyed the ticket booth in suspicion.“Did you somehow join the mafia in the time we’ve been gone?”

“More like stopped the mafia.” Kayla corrected, “We got Team SubZero to back off yesterday, so I’m guessing this is their way of saying thank you.”

“You keep mentioning this Team SubZero.”

“Bruh. We met them the first day we started our journey!” Astrid began her over dramatized tale of rescuing the twins, much to their chagrin.

“You never finished that story back in Rocens, you know.”

“I was nervous for my contest.” She shrugged. Janine narrowed her eyes.

“So you mean to tell me that they never crossed paths with you guys once?”

“Nope!”

“We’ve crossed with them twice! And they’ve tried to kill us both times!” Astrid exclaimed. Kayla could only offer a long-withering sigh.

“Coincidence?”

She glared up at the sky just long enough to avoid permanent eye damage. “Arceus is playing some huge trick and is laughing his plates off right now.”

“Wait a minute! Backtrack!” Adrian paused in front of her, “What do you mean tried to kill you?”

“Uh. Kind of? The first time there was this Ciela woman who wanted to catch the twins and she took their Pokemon too.” Janine thought back.

Astrid giggled. “Then we destroyed her stupid machine.”

“Yeah, and then she wanted to freeze-dry us with her Froslass!”

“Don’t be stupid. Froslass can’t learn Freeze-Dry.” Kayla gave her a grin.

“You’re all surprisingly calm about facing a criminal organization.” Sheyla pointed out.

“Oh, it’s never calm. Every minute it feels like I’m about to either cry, punch someone, or a mix of both.” Kaytlyn grimaced, “It’s not fun.”

“Either we’re suppressing our trauma, or we’re sociopaths.” Kayla glanced at her phone, “At least according to Google.”

“Or you’re adrenaline junkies with hero complexes.” Sheyla suggested. Janine considered for a moment before agreeing dejectedly. Astrid let out a loud gasp and dragged Kayla through to a glow-in-the-dark display.

“Kayla! Check out these Tentacool!”

“I already saw them- Stop pulling on me!”

Kaytlyn heaved out a sigh before following her sister. “Sweet Arceus.”

The group slowly crept through the aquarium, stopping frequently to marvel at the different types of Water-Type Pokemon that called the aquarium their home. Janine had to admit that there were details she hadn’t noticed before when she was running around looking for culprits. The silence was broken every few moments when someone would crack a joke or had an interesting fact to share.

The teens followed each exhibits, until they had gone through the entire building, exiting in the courtyard. From there, it was of little argument where to go, as they all agreed that it would be most interesting to watch one of the upcoming shows.

Their curiosity led to a designated pool area that was surrounded by glass, likely to keep people from getting too close to the Pokemon. There were hardly any people sitting in the arena, maybe two or three adults and the rest were staff who were easily recognizable in yellow polos.

Next to the pool was a platform where a man in a wetsuit was standing with his arms crossed staring down at a group of round blue Pokemon.

Janine took out her Pokedex and scanned the Water-Types.

“Spheal, the Clap Pokemon. Spheal always travels by rolling around on its ball-like body. When the season for ice floes arrives, this Pokémon can be seen rolling about on ice and crossing the sea.”

“It’s so round…” Kayla looked at the Pokemon with wide eyes. The group of Spheal clapped enthusiastically, some rolling around dumbly. A single Spheal was the outlier of the group far away, and refusing to even get close. The Pokemon began to practice some sort of routine, each taking turns bouncing a beach ball to each other. In a word, it was one of the cutest displays they’d ever seen. Until it was the last one’s turn.

The Spheal smacked the ball back with more force than necessary, bonking one of the others in the face.

“Spheal, come on! Please cooperate for once!”  The trainer pleaded to no avail as the Spheal absolutely ignored him. “Spheal!”

“Woah, that Spheal really doesn’t want to listen to him.” Astrid whistled, pressing closer to the foggy glass. Kayla nodded.

“Maybe it doesn’t want to do their routine?” she suggested. The Spheal bounced closer to one of the others and promptly smacked it so hard that it rolled backwards into the water. “Or. Maybe it’s just mean.”

The man seemed to be at wits end as the Spheal bounced/rolled around causing chaos amongst the others.

“Spheal it’s not that hard! Bounce the ball!” The handler seemed to try a different approach, giving a nervous laugh as he gently tossed the ball in said Pokemon’s direction. The Spheal gave him an angry look at smacked the ball back again. The handler barely caught it. Spheal opened its mouth and began to form a ball of ice.

Sheyla recognized the move immediately. “That’s Ice Ball!” The handler seemed to notice and thankfully dodged the first time. However, he wasn’t so lucky the second time and was knocked backwards.

“Shouldn’t someone intervene?” Andrea looked around nervously and spotted some of the staff ignoring the scene in front of them, or maybe it wasn’t that big of a deal?

“Woah, let’s talk about this!” The handler scrambled backwards as another Ice Ball shot past his face.

“I think we should intervene!” Adrian said, prompting his friends to run to the glass door on the side that read ‘Employees Only’. The teens pushed their way past each other through the narrow door. Kaytlyn was the first to throw a Pokeball out.

“Charmander, use Ember!” Her Fire-Type released a barrage of small fires at the Ice Ball, throwing it off it’s trajectory and down to the tiled floor. Andrea helped the man up while Kaytlyn faced down with the angry Pokemon. The Spheal stared down Charmander with a surprising amount of ferocity. The Spheal let out a bark and began to roll towards Charmander at an alarmingly fast pace. The lizard hopped to the side to avoid the attack.

“That was Rollout!” Astrid exclaimed as the group parted to avoid the still rolling Pokemon. She threw down a Pokeball, “Vulpix use Fire Spin to keep it in place! Wait- but not too strong!”

The fire fox popped out and released flames from its mouth that quickly formed a circle of fire around the spheal, a muted version of it’s usual fire tornado. The Spheal rolled in place inside the fire circle for a few moments before rolling out, completely oblivious to the flames. Astrid let out a shriek and scooped Vulpix out of the way.

“Charmander, use Dragon Rage!” Charmander gathered a collection of orange energy in its mouth and released it towards the Spheal resulting in a cloud of dark smoke. When the Water-Type came into view, it seemed injured, but continued to glare at Charmander as if it wanted to continue fighting. Charmander let out a growl and Spheal’s glare faltered for a moment.

“That’s it! Spheal, return!” The handler recalled Spheal back to its Pokeball. The man sighed heavily before turning to the teens, “I’m sorry for Spheal’s behavior.”

“Is it usually like this?” Andrea asked warily. He sighed again.

“Unfortunately, yes. Spheal’s been causing trouble for the Aquarium for quite some time. Because of that, Spheal is the only Pokemon here that needs to be in a Pokeball.”

Sheyla looked up from where she was staring at a snoozing Spheal. “Is Spheal originally from the wild?” “No.” He replied, “Spheal was hatched and raised here in this Aquarium. We have no idea where he learned how to battle though.” He rubbed the back of his head, “He’s been picking fights with the other Pokemon, so we couldn’t have him in any exhibits. Similarly, he struck out in the petting zoo…”

“You let him around children?”

“Yeah, that was a mistake. This Spheal show is the last chance we have for him.”

“What do you mean last chance?” Kayla gave him a curious look.

“Well, if Spheal can’t live in the Aquarium, we either send him somewhere else or we release him to the wild. Because Spheal is so volatile, they’re leaning towards the latter.” 

Sheyla narrowed her eyes. “Don’t Pokemon raised in captivity die in the wild?”

“Wait they do?!” Kayla’s eyes were wide with surprise.

“Pokemon that are raised in captivity aren’t used to life in the wild; They don’t know how to hunt  or protect themselves. It’s almost as if their natural survival instincts have been wiped away completely. Unless a Pokemon is exceptionally strong, it’s not advisable to send them into the wild on their own.”

“That’s cruel! Why would they be leaning towards that option?”

“Because Spheal’s built up a reputation as being difficult with other people and Pokemon. None of the Breeding Centers and Aquariums we’ve contacted want him.” The handler glanced down at the Pokeball in his hands. “We can’t find anyone who can handle him, and he’s purposely been messing up the shows by trying to fight everything in the immediate vicinity. Including me. The most we can do is hope that when we release Spheal, he’ll be caught by some nice trainer.”

“Or…” Adrian cut in, “You could cut out the middle and just give Spheal to a trainer directly.”

Astrid gave him a look. “What trainer could control Spheal?” She held her hand up, “And don’t say you.”

“Pff, no! I already have a Water-Type. I meant Kaytlyn.”

“What? Me?” Kaytlyn and Charmander had been half-heartedly been listening to the conversation until her name was called.

“Well, yeah. You got Spheal to back off long enough for its handler to call it back to its Pokeball. I’m sure you could handle it.” He gave her a pat on the back as if it was any consolation.

“That’s right! You took on Romeo and beat him despite the type disadvantage! You’d totally be able to handle a water type!” Astrid joined in, blatantly ignoring Kaytlyn’s motions for her to shut up. The twin turned to Janine in the hopes that she’d stop them.

“...You might be able to teach Spheal to calm down. You’re pretty calm in most situations.”

“No I’m not!”

“You have to admit that Spheal gives you a tactical advantage. Spheal would give you an advantage over Rock-Types and Ground-Types. Which are strong against Charmander.” Sheyla added. 

Kaytlyn turned to her Charmander who was staring up at her intently. “What do you think? Would you be okay with another Pokemon on our team?” Charmander seemed to consider a moment before letting out a happy sort of growl, letting the flame on its’ tail grow larger. “Well if you’re okay with it…”

“You seem to be a strong trainer. I’m trusting you with Spheal okay? So… take good care of him.” The handler gently placed the Pokeball in her cupped hands. “I should go practice the routine with the others, so good luck with Spheal!” The handler said brightly, leading the Spheal herd away through a door.

“So… what now?”

~*~*~*~*~

With the aquarium trip cut short, the teens sat out in the grass outside the Pokemon Center, lounging on the grass in various states of relaxation. Kind of.

“Kaytlyn, just let it out!” Kayla was thoroughly done with her sister.

“No! It’s going to attack me or something!”

“Then I’ll do it for you!” Kaytlyn dodged her sisters hands before she could grab the Pokeball. “Why are you so scared? Charmander is right there.”

Astrid looked up. “We could all let our Pokemon out if that helps.”

“That’s not a good idea.” Janine placed her hand on the Coordinator’s shoulder to keep her from releasing her Chikorita. “If there are too many Pokemon around it might get intimidated and then it’ll actually attack.”

Astrid let out a groan, “Then do something already! We didn’t even get to see the petting zoo area!” She threw a short twig at Kaytlyn in annoyance.

The girl gave her a dirty look before taking a deep breath. Charmander cooed in support while the other trainers backed up significantly.

“Here goes.” Kaytlyn flung the Pokeball into the air and tensed up. When Spheal materialized in front of them it immediately looked around and began to glare at Charmander. She quickly stepped between them, blocking their glares. “I’m just gonna cut in here, Spheal, I’m your trainer.”

“Way to rip off the bandage!” Kayla teased from her safe spot behind Janine. Kaytlyn sighed and knelt down to offer her hand to the Pokemon.

“Listen, we didn’t start off on the best terms, but I hope we can work together.” The Water-Type gave her an unimpressed look and turned away huffily.

“Maybe Spheal is still mad at you and Charmander.” Andrea tried.

“At this point I think it’s less that Spheal’s holding a grudge and more that this is just how he acts.”

“Oh That’s right!” Adrian nodded, “Spheal didn’t even listen to his handler!”

“You two need some bonding exercises.” Astrid suggested, “Why don’t you play a game?”

“What game do you play with a Pokemon?” Adrian wrinkled his nose.

“Ducklett, Ducklett, Yungoos?” She tried.

“No.”

“Rowlet’s funny. That’s why we get along. ” Kayla mentioned. Adrian looked at her and decided to offer his advice as well.

“My Pokemon and I have a common goal: to be the strongest team in all of Niacal.”

“Ooh, same!” Astrid gave him a hi-five, “But also Chikorita, Vulpix, and I have a lot in common personality-wise.”

“So what I’m getting from this is to have a common goal, find what we have in common, and try to find a good personality trait.”

“Yeah.”

“Basically.”

She sighed again. Janine thought for a moment.

“You battle.” Janine paused, “Or share a life-threatening experience. That’s how it worked for Arroz and Pollo.”

(“She still hasn’t explained why they’re named after food.” Andrea muttered to Sheyla.)

“Wanna re-enact the Mightyena attack?” Kaytlyn gave her a sarcastic look.

“No, but battling is actually a really good idea!” Sheyla said, “In fact it’s probably what’s gonna help you and Spheal learn more about each other! There’s a whole study about how battling strengthens the bond between Trainers and Pokemon and helps them grow!” At this, Spheal suddenly rose to attention, growing more interested the longer he heard about battling other Pokémon.

“Yeah, but who wants to battle Spheal?” Kayla asked. No one volunteered until Janine spoke up.

“I know I promised to battle Adrian today, but actually, Adrian, would you mind battling Kaytlyn and Spheal instead?” “It’s good with me, but you’re going to have to battle me next time.” Adrian said, pushing himself up off the grass. “I assume you’ll be using Spheal for this?” Kaytlyn faltered for a moment.

“I’m… not so sure… Spheal will hardly listen to what I have to say.”

“Then start off with Charmander. Having Spheal watch the battle would mean he’d understand how the battle works first.” Kayla said. Astrid let out a few condescending scoffs before pulling Kayla back by her shoulder.

“Actually, it would be better for Spheal to experience the battle with Kaytlyn. They’d get a first hand experience at a partnership.”

“And Spheal could also completely ignore Kaytlyn and do whatever it wants getting itself, Kaytlyn, or other people and Pokemon in the process.”

“Kayla, I can watch the Olympics for a week straight. It doesn’t mean I can do backflips! You can’t learn it just by watching- Especially not with battling. Besides, it’s just a practice battle. You act like they’re facing the League.”

“People could get hurt!”

“Yes. And?”

“What?”

“I thought we’ve already gone over this: I don’t care about people.”

“Wha- Astrid!”

“Kayla!” she mocked.

“Or?” Sheyla stepped to intervene, “They could double battle. That literally combines both your solutions. You’re both stupid.”

Adrian swept stray grass off his pants and stood in a battle-ready stance. The twin gave him a look before turning to the Pokedex Janine had stuffed into her hands. It said that Spheal’s known moves were Ice Ball, Water Gun, Encore, and Rollout.

“So I’ll just avoid the obvious type disadvantage. Go! Marshtomp and Ralts!”

“I told you it evolved!” Kayla pointed out to her travelling companions.

“Janine, I don’t mean to alarm you, but if Adrian’s your rival, then maybe you should invest in some Grass-Type Pokemon.” Andrea stage whispered, causing the teen to let out a sigh in acceptance. Astrid took the opportunity to scan Adrian’s evolved starter.

“Marshtomp, The Mud Fish Pokemon. This Pokémon plays in mud on beaches when the ocean tide is low. Living on muddy ground that provides poor footing has made its legs sturdy.”

“Charmander, Spheal! Let’s go!” Surprisingly, Spheal was compliant, easily hopping up next to Charmander, giving a somewhat intimidating stare to Marshtomp.

“Ralts, start us off with Magical Leaf!” Ralts raised its hands above its head, summoning up a group of glowing green leaves. Ralts threw his hands down sending the leaves spiralling towards Spheal.

“Use Ember to burn that up!” Charmander hopped in front of Spheal and shot bolts of fire at the offending leaves, burning them up to ash.

“Marshtomp, Mud Bomb!” Marshtomp dug its arms (fins?) into the ground and hurled a blob of mud at the Fire-Type who was left momentarily defenseless. Kaytlyn opened her mouth to command Spheal, but hesitated a moment too late, unsure that Spheal would even bother listening. Spheal took action for her and formed an ice ball and throwing it back, countering the attack before it could hit.

“Have more confidence in your Pokemon!” Kayla cheered from the sidelines.

“Spheal reacted before Kaytlyn did. Interesting.” Sheyla hummed, “And Spheal countered the Mud Bomb just as Charmander did with the Magical Leaf.”

“He’s learning!” Janine marvelled, “He’s a natural battler.”

Spheal reared back and prepared another ice ball to throw at Ralts.

“Spheal, wait!” Kaytlyn called out. Spheal paid her no mind and shot the Ice Ball anyway.

“Ralts use teleport!” Ralts popped out of existence for a moment dodging the ice, leaving Spheal both confused and vulnerable to attack. “Marshtomp, use Tackle!” Marshtomp let out a cry and moved to throw itself onto the Spheal with full force. Spheal panicked for a split second

“Block that with Dragon Rage!” Charmander gathered a small amount of orange energy in its mouth and shot it out at Marshtomp, not hitting it, but preventing it from continuing its’ attack. This bought Spheal enough time to bounce away from the Marshtomp in the chaos.

Janine leaned over to Sheyla and Andrea.

“Kaytlyn isn’t going to win this is she?”

“Nope.” Sheyla didn’t bother to take her eyes off of the field.

“No, she isn’t.” Andrea cast an amused glance to the side, “Marshtomp is an evolved Pokemon with a double advantage against Charmander. And Ralts knows a Grass-Type move.”

“What’s important is that Spheal learns to that Pokemon Battles aren’t just about fighting.” Sheyla explained. “Battles are about showcasing the bond between Trainer and Pokemon.”

Andrea nodded, “That’s why Adrian’s holding back on attacking. He wants Spheal to realize that. Or maybe he’s getting a feel for the battle before destroys them… Either way.” She shrugged.

“That’s kinda… brutal…” Janine turned back to the practice battle.

“Charmander, use Scratch!” Charmander aimed its claws at the Marshtomp but was easily blocked. Most of Charmander’s moves would be useless either way, the most she could do was use Smokescreen to buy time-

“Use your other Pokemon!” Kayla yelled out to her, “Idiot.”

“What?!”

“Ralts, use Confusion on Charmander!” Ralts’ eyes were glowing blue under its bangs while Charmander seemed to have a blue outline. Without warning, Charmander was flung backwards into the dirt. “Marshtomp use Tackle again!” Marshtomp nodded in assent and threw itself at the Ice-Type Pokemon. Without Charmander to help defend, her only option was… Kaytlyn threw caution to the wind and took a chance.

“Spheal, use Rollout!” Spheal had no hesitation as it began to rapidly roll and landed the first actual hit in the battle, slamming into Marshtomp’s stomach. Spheal rolled back to Kaytlyn with a happy expression on his face. “Great Job!” She received a happy bark in response.

“It listened to her!” Janine let out a happy whoop and clapped a bit in encouragement.

“Marshtomp use Water Gun!” Marshtomp puffed its’ orange cheeks up then released a strong stream of water at Charmander. Kaytlyn looked to the Pokedex in her hand before deciding her next move.

“Charmander, use Ember to counter! Full Power!” Charmander glanced back at her with a ludicrous expression but followed her direction and shot out at the water. The Fire-Type move didn’t do much, barely keeping the strong water at bay. “Great! Spheal use Rollout on Ralts!” Spheal got a flopping start and spun its way over to the Psychic-Type.

“Ralts, use Teleport to get out of there!” Ralts easily popped out of view for a few moments, allowing him to dodge Spheal’s attack. Ralts reappeared in the same spot, confident in having dodged the attack.

“Come back!” Kaytlyn let herself grin watching her half-formulated strategy come to fruition. Like a yo-yo, Spheal rolled in place for a moment before rolling back in the same direction, hitting the unsuspecting Ralts. “One more time!” Spheal stopped for a second before changing direction and hitting Marshtomp who was busy fending off Charmander’s full strength Ember. Spheal rolled back to Kaytlyn, clearly satisfied with his accomplishment.

“That was so cool!” Astrid skipped over to shower the clearly uncomfortable Spheal to shower it with head scratches.

“You can’t just- This is a battle!” Adrian yelled from his side of the field. The coordinator didn’t even spare him a glance as she scratched behind the Water-Type’s ear.

“Practice Battle. We both know that if you really wanted to battle Kaytlyn, you wouldn’t have deliberately focused on one Pokemon at a time.”

“He was what?” Kaytlyn turned to her opponent in question. He shrugged unapologetically.

“I wasn’t about to straight up destroy the Pokemon you just got. I’m not stupid. You needed to build trust.” He rolled his eyes.

“Wow. Adrian being prepared. What a scholar.” Sheyla teased. He ignored her determinedly, even when the others joined in. Meanwhile Kaytlyn crouched down to Spheal’s level.

“So, Spheal, do you wanna stay on my team?”

Spheal gave her a funny look, like he was asking something. Kaytlyn mirrored the look before deciding to just explain in general.

“I’m aiming to be a Top Trainer here in Niacal. Maybe even the Champion given enough training. There’ll be plenty more battles like that, and you can grow stronger with me and Charmander. We work together as a group. So?”

Spheal gave some aggressively enthusiastic barks, clapping its’ fins against its’ round stomach.

“I’m assuming that’s a yes.” Kaytlyn gave another grin and scratched its’ head in thanks. When she dragged her attention back to the group, Adrian was discussing tomorrow’s activities.

“Tomorrow I’m taking on Romeo. Are you guys staying to watch it?” Astrid made a hissing sort of sound.

“Yikes. We’re kinda leaving tomorrow morning…”

“Are you serious? Every time?!”

“I don’t know, if you’re upset ask Mew for advice. Anyway, we’ll be heading to Silkgem for Janine’s second badge.” Kayla explained. She glanced at her other friend, “And probably stopping at any and all contests for Astrid. I can almost guarantee that you’ll catch up in a day or two.”

“If we don’t run into trouble.” Janine sighed, “Our battle is postponed again.”

“I don’t get it, why can’t we battle now?”

“For one, your Pokemon are exhausted and second, you should probably rest for tomorrow’s Gym Battle. Just a suggestion.”

“Also, Janine has the Harbor Badge and you don’t. If you ask me it’s kind of unfair since she has more badges than you.” Astrid cut in, clearly hoping to rile him up. She clearly succeeded if his indignant tone was any clue.

“Oh shut up!”

“On the upside,” she continued, “We can finally have that sleepover we didn’t get to have in Rocens city. We can make face masks!”

“Please don’t make face masks.” Janine groaned, causing her friends to laugh.

Narrator: With a new friend by her side, Kaytlyn begins to build her Pokemon team! With adventure just beyond the horizon, what will our heroes face next?

The entire group was sitting in a room that was clearly too small to house them. There were two bunks on either side. The bottom bunks held Sheyla, Andrea, Astrid and Adrian while Janine and the twins opted to sit on the floor rather than cram themselves onto the Pokemon Center beds. After their 4th round of Uno they began to calm down and were leisurely throwing down cards without any real malice. A thought crossed Janine’s mind as she threw down a Red Two.

“No seriously, you’ve never met team SubZero?” Janine asked seriously. Andrea shook her head while Popplio gave tilted its head.

“Not once.”

“Huh.”

“If you do, try to stop them from whatever it is they’re doing. It’s probably going to be nefarious and involve destruction.” Astrid brushed her Vulpix’s tail while he obediently sat still.

“Honestly.”

“It’s so weird though, what are their goals? Why drill in the forest? Why poach Pokemon and go through all the effort to kidnap them again?” Sheyla pointed out, “And why would that guy let you go?” She motioned to Janine.

“He said something about truths and ideals; Honestly I blanked out.” She shrugged.

“And why hire other people to do the poaching when they could clearly do it themselves?”

“The poachers said they were offering lots of money too.”

“It doesn’t add up!”

“You know what does? This Wild Draw Four!” Astrid howled, breaking the tense silence. Kayla who was next to sighed and accepted the cards with slight grumbling as the game heated up again and the topic was almost completely forgotten.

[supriyogupta]

Quest For Fighters: Get Ahead Of The Impending Artificial Intelligence Apartheid

Before I begin, let it be said that much of what follows here is a distillation of writings in various formats and virtually every sentence that follows can be Googled back to a source from where it has been extracted, usually verbatim in order to avoid hashing up through reinterpretation.

India debates fiercely today about fighter aircrafts it should buy. The filters we are using date back to the 1950s when strategic alliances were defined by the aircraft that each superpower was willing to ‘share’ with countries within their sphere of influence. India had played the Non-Aligned card to little avail and was mostly stuck with Russian aircraft along with a handful of British and French aircraft. As we embrace the free market of fighter aircraft sales, we are heading towards a moment in history when a different veil is coming down to separate the powers – one that will rocket the leaders away from the rest at a speed and pace that will define the next 200 years of power balance.

This is really about the technologies that have resulted in a harsh battle developing at the crossroad of technology, business and human development. Words like artificial intelligence, deep learning, neural networks are finding their way into mainstream lexicons. They represent a whole new civilizational process coming into play. The other day, a young Indian entrepreneur with a large online commerce platform, solemnly laid out the spectre of what he calls the “end of humanity” – when machines through self-learning have learnt to design, further develop and replicate themselves, eliminating jobs, wresting control and becoming autonomous in their behaviour.

Hang in there. Sounds a lot like a geek on weed? Ok. Here is something to chew on: In 1988, the U.S.S. Vincennes mistakenly destroyed an Iranian airbus due to an autonomous friend/foe radar system. The missing piece in 1988 was cognition and discrimination – understanding data correctly and then exercising discrimination at the point of engagement on the basis of superior processing capability. Artificial Intelligence has been around in defence – going as far back as the early part of the 20th Century ­– but its only recently with the ramping up of processing speed and the creation of neural networks that the ballgame is changing.

Even now, defence technology is fairly primitive. Russian Kalashnikov arms manufacturer has developed a fully automated combat module based on artificial neural networks which allows it to identify targets, learn and make decisions on its own. Kalashnikov promises to unveil a whole line of neural network based products. Primitive but already a bit scary that machines will decide on targets and take autonomous decisions. But Artificial Intelligence is going way ahead.

Let’s just take a quick look at a news that bypassed much of mainstream media but is definitely a direct pointer to how artificial intelligence is taking the art of warfare – actually, the art of warfare on century’s old game boards – to a different level, thereby setting the stage for real advancements on battlefields. And the real fun part is that the leader in this play is none other than Google. (As also, Amazon, Facebook and a host of others who are trying to get your free market choices narrowed down to a behavioural construct)

Here is a short update from Singularity Hub: “The AlphaGo AI that grabbed headlines last year after beating a master of the board game Go has just been trounced 100-0 by an updated version. And unlike its predecessor, the new system taught itself from first principles paving the way for AI that can think for itself.

When chess fell to AI in the 1990s, computer scientists looking for a new challenge turned to the millennia-old Chinese game Go, which despite its simpler rules has many more possible moves and often requires players to rely on instinct.

It was predicted it would be decades before an AI could beat a human master, but last year a program called AlphaGo developed by Google’s DeepMind subsidiary beat 18-time world champion Lee Sedol 4–1 in a series of matches in South Korea.

It was a watershed moment for AI research that showcased the power of the “reinforcement learning” approach championed by DeepMind. Not only did the system win, it also played some surprising yet highly effective moves that went against centuries of accumulated wisdom about how the game works.

Now, just a year later, DeepMind has unveiled a new version of the program called AlphaGo Zero in a paper in Nature that outperforms the version that beat Sedol on every metric. In just three days and 4.9 million training games, it reached the same level that took its predecessor several months and 30 million training games to achieve. It also did this on just four of Google’s tensor processing units—specialized chips for training neural networks—compared to 48 for AlphaGo.”

To understand where we are headed, we need to have some basic understanding of what these mean – at least today. Here is a simple explanation from nvidia:

“The easiest way to think of their relationship is to visualize them as concentric circles with AI — the idea that came first — the largest, then machine learning — which blossomed later, and finally deep learning — which is driving today’s AI explosion — fitting inside both. Over the past few years AI has exploded, and especially since 2015. Much of that has to do with the wide availability of GPUs that make parallel processing ever faster, cheaper, and more powerful. It also has to do with the simultaneous one-two punch of practically infinite storage and a flood of data of every stripe (that whole Big Data movement) – images, text, transactions, mapping data, you name it… Machine Learning at its most basic is the practice of using algorithms to parse data, learn from it, and then make a determination or prediction about something in the world. So rather than hand-coding software routines with a specific set of instructions to accomplish a particular task, the machine is “trained” using large amounts of data and algorithms that give it the ability to learn how to perform the task….Another algorithmic approach from the early machine-learning crowd, Artificial Neural Networks, came and mostly went over the decades. Neural Networks are inspired by our understanding of the biology of our brains – all those interconnections between the neurons. But, unlike a biological brain where any neuron can connect to any other neuron within a certain physical distance, these artificial neural networks have discrete layers, connections, and directions of data propagation.

You might, for example, take an image, chop it up into a bunch of tiles that are inputted into the first layer of the neural network. In the first layer individual neurons, then passes the data to a second layer. The second layer of neurons does its task, and so on, until the final layer and the final output is produced.

Each neuron assigns a weighting to its input — how correct or incorrect it is relative to the task being performed. The final output is then determined by the total of those weightings. So think of our stop sign example. Attributes of a stop sign image are chopped up and “examined” by the neurons — its octogonal shape, its fire-engine red color, its distinctive letters, its traffic-sign size, and its motion or lack thereof. The neural network’s task is to conclude whether this is a stop sign or not. It comes up with a “probability vector,” really a highly educated guess, based on the weighting. In our example the system might be 86% confident the image is a stop sign, 7% confident it’s a speed limit sign, and 5% it’s a kite stuck in a tree ,and so on — and the network architecture then tells the neural network whether it is right or not… Today, image recognition by machines trained via deep learning in some scenarios is better than humans, and that ranges from cats to identifying indicators for cancer in blood and tumors in MRI scans. Google’s AlphaGo learned the game, and trained for its Go match — it tuned its neural network — by playing against itself over and over and over. Deep Learning has enabled many practical applications of Machine Learning and by extension the overall field of AI. Deep Learning breaks down tasks in ways that makes all kinds of machine assists seem possible, even likely. Driverless cars, better preventive healthcare, even better movie recommendations, are all here today or on the horizon. AI is the present and the future. With Deep Learning’s help, AI may even get to that science fiction state we’ve so long imagined.”

Nonetheless, these are still primitive days in the AI, Neural Networks and Deep Learning space for defence which has typically led technology so long. The sector is desperately trying to learn from firms as diverse as Google to fashion and Facebook. Look around carefully and see how artificial intelligence, deep learning and neural networks are already changing your life. Facebook is slowly understanding you and feeding you with content you tend to agree with. That’s a software network that’s learning how you think and starts mimicking your behaviour. Extend such ‘learning’ to more complex situations. For instance, when faced with a mob with sticks, stone and also a few armed with guns, police forces find it difficult to distinguish under pressure and apply counter measures equally. What if a machine can separate these two as different threats and apply counter measures differently?

Now coming to the Gripen / Rafale / Eurofighter. Or any of the fighters currently under development as opposed to those that are getting souped up with a few impressive add ons which dont fundamentally change the performance or capabilities of the aircraft but make them look both modern and, of course, carry the tag of being experienced.

Here is what is not on the platter –though, admittedly, the news being put out today is at a fairly generic level: F-35s, F-22s and other fighter jets will soon use improved “artificial intelligence” to control nearby drone “wingmen” able to carry weapons, test enemy air defenses or perform intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance missions in high risk areas.

Or how about: The U.S. Air Force, working with Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works have demonstrated another round of flight capabilities for an autonomous F-16 fighter jet, which is meant to show what an eventual “Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle” (UCAV) could do using technology they’ve developed. During this demonstration, the experimental aircraft was able to “autonomously plan and execute air-to-ground strike missions” based on mission information provided, as well as the assets made available by the planning team, but it was also able to react to unexpected changes during the mission, including “capability failures, route deviations and loss of communication,” according to a Lockheed news release. The talk of fighter aircraft town when it comes to technology is “an F-35 computer system, Autonomic Logistics Information System, that involves early applications of artificial intelligence wherein computers make assessments, go through checklists, organize information and make some decisions by themselves – without needing human intervention.”

The problem here is that ‘unmanned aircraft’ or collaborative wingmen is still at low levels of artificial intelligence and more about data linking, some degree of machine and a lot of pre-programming with some reactive scenario adjusting software that deals with unplanned – but not unexpected situations – with planned – and not self-learning – solutions.

The real big leap will take place in the very near future as processing capacity reaches mindboggling levels. The difference is that most aircraft today in the air are less smart than a standard Smart Phone and way, way dumber than iPhone X or Samsung 8. However, the future will be less hardware driven as focussed on how much AI can be integrated into the existing hardware.

At the same time, the ethics of AI is likely to lead to a situation very similar to the nuclear divide – with some countries storming ahead and then cordoning off the rest due to the growing fears of random and indiscriminate decision making by what are essentially machines. As Techcrunch points out, “Use of autonomous weapons on the battlefield is obviously controversial, of course. The UN seems to be moving towards a possible uniform ban on AI-powered weapons, and it’s obviously the basis for more than one dystopian sci-fi story. Critics argue use of autonomous weapons could increase the number of civilian deaths in warfare, and muddy responsibility for the loss of those lives – proponents essentially argue the opposite, saying use of autonomous systems will decrease casualties overall and lead to shorter, more decisive conflict.”

The future of air combat will be almost nothing like what we see, plan and project today. At the hub of future air battles will be aircraft with awesome levels of situational awareness married to neural networks that play a bit of a chess game, processing data, selecting options and launching engagements at a speed about ten times faster than your current Facebook suggesting friends or topics to read when you show your preference for a particular engagement. Meaning, almost instantly. If that sounds flippant, think about all the data that is married between your phone, your gmail, your social media and your browsing habits as you move very very randomly between hundreds of thousands of bytes of data. Compared to that, the elements and variables in the air in a war scenario are fairly limited, easily identifiable and highly predictable in trajectory, engagement options, capacity and capability.

So how are the world powers going about it?

According to The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies, “While still somewhat lagging behind on its great power rivals in terms of deep machine learning capabilities, the Russian Federation has displayed a steady commitment to developing and deploying a wide range of robotic military platforms, including unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), with the full backing of its MoD and domestic industries: in January 2017, President Putin called for the creation of “autonomous robotic complexes”.

Speaking in 2015, Robert Work, the then-US deputy secretary of defense, emphasized “human-machine collaboration combat teaming”, arguing that: “Early adoption will be a key competitive advantage, while those that lag in investment will see their competitiveness slip”. In this speech to the Defense One National Security Forum conference, Work identified five pillars to the military future:

1 Autonomous deep learning machine systems which are able to see the patterns through the chaff of hybrid warfare, to give early warning that something is happening in gray zone conflict areas (such as the Ukraine), and which are able to respond at extreme speed, and under rapidly shrinking engagement windows. Such learning systems might, he argues, fill the gap in those fields – such as air defense or cyber defense – where human operators alone cannot achieve sufficient speed to stop or degrade a determined attack.

2. Human machine collaboration, which will include the promotion of so-called ‘Centaur’ warfighting, going from the observation that teams combining the strategic analysis of a human with the tactical acuity of a computer, reliably defeat either human-only or computer-only teams across many games.

3. Assisted human operations, where wearable electronics, uploadable combat apps; heads up displays, exoskeletons, and other systems, can enable humans on the front line to perform better in combat.

4. Advanced human-machine combat teaming where a human working with unmanned systems is able to take better decisions and undertake cooperative operations. Examples of these are the Army’s Apache and Gray Eagle UAV systems, which are designed to operate in conjunction. Other examples are drone ‘motherships’; electronic warfare networks, or swarming systems which will help transform operations by enabling one mission commander to direct a full swarm of micro-UAVs.

5. Network-enabled semi-autonomous weapons, where systems are both linked, and hardened to survive cyberattack.

But as the Hague Centre rightly concludes, “Our own hunch is that AI (and a number of attendant technological developments that are co-emerging around big data) may have a much more disruptive impact on the essence ‘defense’ than the focus on AI-enhanced physical robotics and how they might affect our current way of safeguarding defense suggest.”

While AI and policy is a big discussion in itself, returning to the opening question, India’s fighter aircraft purchase programme needs to be focussed on acquiring a platform whose avionics is expandable. Even as the Americans are trying hard to get Indians to focus on things like thrust and vectoring and so forth, the problem is that there is little porting capability in most aircraft for future AI capability to be incorporated.

Second, AI developments have just about reached the tipping point and are going to scale up quickly, very quickly. Even as India struggles with ‘design and development’ of basic fighter aircraft frameworks, the world of air defence is rocketing away that may well make much of what we are investing our time and effort in quite irrelevant. The key is to find a partner which is willing to bring India in from the front door and give a seat on the table of AI development now. Clearly, the US simply does not see India as a partner in key technology domains. On the other hand, the Swedes, French or Germans just might need the tech hands Indians end up bringing to the table for accelerating much of their thinking on AI. Companies like Saab have put on their board AI specialists – a clear recognition that the company would need to be taking tough decisions on future investments in that space.

The biggest reason India needs to get on board with a partner country willing to share the primary work table on AI is simply this: Very soon as autonomous machine intelligence starts dominating the space, the fear and threat of such technology getting into the wrong hands will start the ball rolling for the next generation of tech apartheid. India was for long a nuclear pariah, a missile pariah and a super computer pariah. All at the behest of sound American policing of the world where India was not seen to be a trustworthy partner. This time will be no different.

There is another BIG reason that the tech entrepreneur with a very successful online platform pointed out while reviewing this piece and I quote him verbatim: “Because of the self-reinforcing and exponential nature of AI progress, the gap between number 1 and number 2 will keep on increasing (in terms of capabilities and not in terms of months) as we move forward. Infact by the time it reaches its pinnacle, even a 3-6 month gap would mean 100X more capability (as opposed to 10%higher capability today)

Because of the domain agnostic nature of AI algorithms, it is possible to achieve much progress in the understanding and development using some other domain and then apply those learnings in a totally different domain. E.g the same deep mind that beat GO champions lowering the energy usage in google data centres. Hence it’s important to choose the domain / problem statements that provide a fertile ground for the AI to evolve fast rather than choosing the problem that you want solved. If you closely observe google, that is what they are doing. The ultimate objective is not to create AI for Olympic Games, but almost 90% of the early effort has been on games (GO being just one of those).”