thisavrou | audio; march 7th

[The recorded voice that addresses the crew through the MID is affable and slightly apologetic.]

Hello everyone. This is Alan Bradley speaking. I have a couple of questions for the crew, and I think I might as well use this opportunity to introduce myself to those I haven’t met yet: As I said, my name is Alan Bradley, and I’ve been assigned as one of the ship’s MID Technicians. I’m afraid I don’t have any particularly interesting abilities outside of computer programming, but that should be enough for me to do my job here. Some of you may have already met Sam Flynn, my godson from back home, as well as Tron and Rinzler, two, ah, programs that I’ve written. [Is that how he’s supposed to introduce them? It’s quite clear from the misgiving in his tone that he isn’t completely sure. He isn’t even certain he can correctly refer to them as two programs if you want to get technical, but explaining that would be far too involved for a simple introduction, so he’ll have to settle for the potential inaccuracy.] If you ever need to contact me, I’m always available at my personal inbox. [A slight chuckle.] I guess we all are since these things are strapped to our wrists.

Introductions aside, I was hoping someone could tell me who I should see about getting a new pair of glasses? Mine seem to have been lost as I was coming through the portal here. And seeing as my job on the ship will probably require spending most of my day staring at lines of code, I’d like to get a replacement sooner rather than later.

Speaking of my job here, I’m also looking for suggestions for programs people would like added to their MIDs, or improvements made to the interface. I’ll admit, the technology here is quite a bit more advanced than what I usually worked with back home, so anyone with more technological know-how is welcome to offer guidance: other programmers, engineers, AI… I’d be grateful for any advice.

Just leave a reply if you want to get in touch. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[To be fair, “the complete opposite of a people person” does not sound like that inaccurate of a description based on what Alan’s seen of the program. All the other descriptors the respondent has used sound… rather more extreme.]

I take it you two had some sort of disagreement.

Edited (wrong header) 2016-03-12 01:36 (UTC)

i mean if you want to call him skulking around in vents and me innocently asking him what the fuck he's doing a disagreement then sure we had a "disagreement"

[ and this is church absolutely not touching on any of the finer points of their argument. yep, just a simple dispute over creepy skulking. ]

anyway i didn't want this to be a thing, i just wanted to let you know. [ though he is genuinely curious about one thing: ] btw why would you create a program capable of communication and then take away his ability to speak? that's sort of messed up.

[Skulking around in vents, while not necessarily good behavior, is also not generally something Alan would consider as grounds for calling someone an “abomination of nature,” but maybe the commenter just has a penchant for exaggeration. Alan lets it slide without comment.

He’s not able to dismiss the next question as easily.] I… I didn’t take it away. [There’s a knee-jerk impulse there to just explain everything: that he hadn’t -- that he wouldn’t knowingly do something like that to a sentient being and that it had been another program that had silenced Rinzler. But the commenter is a stranger and even if he wasn’t, it wouldn’t be right to announce what had happened to the program on a public forum like this. So Alan provides a more general, ambiguous explanation instead.]

The programs were made to function in a closed system -- a computer or a server. Actually, I never programmed either of them to speak, since I didn’t expect them to need to. The fact that they’re functioning on the ship at all shows both of them are developing past their programming. [Which doesn’t really answer the question, but hopefully the commenter won’t actually notice that...]

Edited 2016-03-12 03:34 (UTC)

[ good answer, alan! normally that'd be enough to sate church's curiosity. it wouldn't make sense to code complex functions like independent speech into an ai that was never intended to be sentient. either he's from a universe where ai sentience isn't possible, or it is possible and he always meant for rinzler to be a dumb ai.

or whatever it is that rinzler's supposed to be. church has no fucking idea anymore. what's even the point of him? rinzler called himself an enforcer, but an enforcer of what and why? ]

is that why he makes those fucked up sounds

[...Alan doesn’t actually know the answer to that one.] I’m not sure. It’s possible. To be honest, I haven’t met enough programs outside of a screen to know for sure.

[ damnit, alan, this is your devilspawn, you should know these things!! ]

because seriously he sounds like someone shoved a motor inside him and then completely forgot it was in there
it's not a friendly sound

[Hey, it’s not his fault everyone in his life decided to stay radio silent about the existence of programs as sentient beings until like a week ago!]

I wouldn’t take it personally if I were you. It seems to be involuntary. [Rinzler made the rumbling sound in Alan’s presence after all, and the program’s intentions there had been far from confrontational.]

i'm not taking the fucked up sounds he makes personally
but if he kills me and/or breaks any part of my body i'm gonna be slightly pissed at the inconvenience and i'll probably take that personally

[Alan can’t really argue with that line of thinking.] That’s fair. Has he actually threatened you?

[It’s a genuine question. Because with some of the other things people are telling him about Rinzler, it’s certainly not outside the realm of possibilities.]

[ mostly he just insulted him, but church is pretty sure he would've killed him if he'd stayed and talked to him any longer than he had, and that totally counts. ]

sort of? i mean yeah
he was definitely stalking closer and i don't know about you but stalking of any type is very threatening where i'm from

the guy was like a panther waiting for his moment to strike
a panther in a very tight jumpsuit

Edited 2016-03-15 20:23 (UTC)

[That is an interesting simile that Alan is now going to do his best to forget.]

You don’t know anything that could have caused him to become hostile?

[ church is here to fulfill all your fucked up simile needs, alan. also why does he feel like a child being questioned by an adult after a fight, he doesn't need this wordless judgment!!! ]

like i said i just told him to stay the fuck out of the vents
and well

well maybe
okay MAYBE i asked him why he couldn't speak but i think that's a perfectly reasonable question to ask someone when they're throwing you weird holographic texts

Edited 2016-03-18 05:11 (UTC)

[Alan doesn’t mean to come off like he’s blaming Church. It’s less about establishing judgment and more about establishing cause and effect. Can’t fix a problem unless you know how it happened.]

I see. I’ll speak with him about it. [It's the best he can do before he gets more information.]

[ oh, that was easy. ]

thanks

audio; march 7th

audio;

text

audio;

text

Re: text

text

audio;

text

audio;

text

audio;

text

audio;

text