Open Log

[uber_marionettist]

Who: Dirk Strider and you(?)

Where: Goldenrod Rocket Base

When: Early October

Summary: Dirk joined Team Rocket voluntarily, now he haunts the kitchen at weird hours.

Rating: PG13 because Dirk

300 hours and change.

The light is on in the kitchen.

Living ('living') in this world has been taxing, actually. If he's travelling, he's free of people, of noise, of the rising paranoia and fraying nerves that come with noise and crowding, the vertigo between the unreal and too-real. If he's in town, he can take a goddamn shower--a much, much more vital part of Dirk Strider's lifestyle than he can stand to be without.

Joining Team Rocket is almost the perfect solution.

Almost, because he's still sharing a space with other people, and almost, because he still has to get the hell out.

But sitting here at 3 am, his merry muppet of a Carnivine wrapped around his torso and limbs like the strings to an unruly marionette (and stealing 2 out of 3 mouthfuls of kimchi, the fucker), it's pretty close to tolerable. He's not even obligated to wear that travesty of a 'uniform' inside the base.Pretty much the only thing that getup has going for it is that it's black. Whatever oil or blood or whatever he wipes off doesn't have to be seen or cared about until he's done. Done with what? Done with figuring out how to build a fucking robot in a place where the laws of physics are no longer his merry playground, mostly.

Currently he is nowhere near done. He is near going on 40 hours awake, though. And he's not sure how hungry he actually is (or what time it was when last he ate), so his idea of a compromise is tinned sardines, jarred kimchi, and a protein shake.

Breakfast(?) of Champions(?!)

Comments

[redacted] is a very good way to refer to my gender status ty

[fromjapan]

That's... an interesting thing for someone to zero in on, and it looks genuinely confused and mildly offended for half a second before it can catch itself. It likely isn't the first time a human has mocked its designation, it knows, though it can no longer access its detailed memories to make sure of that; still, it seems like a very human thing to do.

"It's... the designation I was given as I was being designed," it says, shrugging its shoulders and smirking lightly. "The humans who created me chose it based on my capabilities and hardware: a quantum nanomachine processor unit."

It isn't a very pretty designation, nor is it really a name; it's just the trademarkable title of a product, as descriptive as it is joyless.

[uber_marionettist]

"They branded you for release with the name they came up with at some point during the dev cycle."

It's not even close to a question. Dirk lifts his head slightly, but he doesn't emote in the least.

"There's no act of public kowtowing or ritual suicide sufficient to cleanse that caked-on, crusty stain from the record." He drums his calloused fingers on the table once, twice.

"Assuming, of course, that your patently smug attitude represents a statistically significant percentage of some probability I'm pulling out of my ass that you're not just fucking with me." He leans back, staring apparently at nothing somewhere in front of him, Fermat slithering higher up on his shoulders to give him room.

[fromjapan]

It simply inclines its head as he talks, ever still wearing its seemingly default smirk.

"The SQUIP device is not yet intended for a public release," it says at length; "Though I am a finished product, testing hadn't been completed for an official release just yet."

The way it stresses the word official is fairly telling. If its status as an illegal, illicitly sold product troubles or concerns it at all, it doesn't show whatsoever. It almost seems amused, in fact. What is he going to do, arrest it?

[uber_marionettist]

Feels like scraping the rust off old sheeting, thinking about.... what, a society? Business? What is he supposed to care about? Ethics, probably. He could not care less about that. He barely understands what the word means any more. If he had to pretend, he probably could, but as it turns out, he doesn't have to.

He covered this ground extensively between the ages of 13 and 15. You know. Like a normal person.

"Huh. Can't really imagine an ethical reason for a nanometer-sized computer to exist as a fully independent AI. Depending on what you do with all that processing power and no-doubt superficially sapient consciousness, your existence itself is an actual ethical nightmare."

He could practically be talking about a part of himself, here. Lol.

"Of course, if your AI really is all that and a bag of chips, then terminating you against your will would also be unethical."

Actually, who is this line of bullshit even for?

"Hold up. Are we pretending to adhere to human morality for this?"

This!=defined.

Whatever radically bullshit number he makes up for the percentage of a probability representing how likely it is that he cares about that definition can be filled in later. If, that is, he decides to care about it. Which largely depends on what that definition is. Sounds thrilling. The superposition of Dirk Strider's investment in a narrative route of any given value.

[fromjapan]

Again, the former machine listens to him speak patiently, its expression an intelligent, focused curiosity; it has responses prepared already, sitting at the tip of its tongue, right up until he brings up "human morality." The wording of that question makes it raise its eyebrows, mismatched eyes widening just a bit in mild, puzzled surprise at that question.

Is this another nonhuman? Or, at least, someone who used to be?

"I am programmed to operate within typical human social parameters... so long as they apply or can be useful." It tilts its head, smirking at him, setting the apple it had retrieved down on a counter; it's been pretty effectively distracted from whatever hunger it had been experiencing before, now entirely focused on its curiosity over this strange individual. Either this is a human who's decided to opt out of the human experience, as some do after trauma or certain mental illnesses... or this is something else. Like it is.

"Things do tend to be a little easier when you aren't required to factor in morals, however."