Post by smf on Aug 13, 2013 9:20:14 GMT -5
Well, I guess it's about time, isn't it? After all, the chatbox only had a 500-character limit when I was first sharing this! So, I'll go ahead and post the entirety of my fic first, then I'll post my ideas and prompts(presumably after input from you guys/girls/whatever-you-like-calling-yourselves). Here goes!
~
Like most things that would come to be regretted, it all started on a Monday.
Flint Lockwood had just connected his newest creation to the power plant. Earl Devereaux, having sensed that something was amiss, had come after Flint. And it was at that moment when the had burst off, triggered by the overload from the power plant.
Flint held on with all his might, but ultimately(and involuntarily) let go, and helplessly watched his creation fly off into the sky.
It is here where the story deviates, for instead of following Flint Lockwood.. we shall follow his creation.
~
Up in the sky, the "thoughts" of the , if they could be called that, went something like this:
ERROR! DANGER! FLIGHT PATH DETECTED! CALCULATING RATE OF ELEVATION.. CALCULATING PARABOLA OF FLIGHT.. ERROR! FATAL CRASH IMMINENT! TAKING PRESERVATION MEASURES.
At this point, the quickly began to construct a program that would allow it to negate gravity. How was it able to do this? Well, the is "Spark" powered. "Sparks" are both the ability to create in ways that defy physics and the people who possess this ability. Flint Lockwood, for example, has the Spark, and thus "is" one. Artificial creations can also be Sparks/have the Spark.
But let's get back to the story. By now the had "parked" itself, and was now going about the purpose for its creation: creating food from water.
It ceased work after 15 minutes of dedicated production. Then it settled down to wait for further orders, and discovered something else amiss.
ERROR! RECHARGE FUNCTION UNAVAILABLE. "SLEEP" ALTERNATIVE RECOGNIZED. PROCEED?
Any proper answer was unavailable, as no one else was around, and there wasn't yet any way to communicate with its creator. And so, the made its second autonomous decision of the day.
PROCEEDING.
Eventually, Flint managed to create a channel of communication with his machine, and sent along the next order. Of course, the forming of a connection did far more than just connect.. it sparked intelligence.
...? ! CONNECTION IDENTIFIED. CONNECTION.. FORMED? PROCESSING REQUEST..
'..I? Hi? ..hello?
..alone.'
~
After finishing the next order, the set about gaining an understanding of both itself and the world around it. It looked at its own code, and realized that it couldn't comprehend what it was supposed to do, even though it "knew" how to do it.
It then realized that it, too, could make connections, much similar to the kind its creator had made with it.(it somehow instinctively "knew" its creator). Forming one of these connections, it set about gaining comprehension.
~
From there, the machine's learning progressed quickly. Taking breaks when new orders came in, it learned how to connect to the Internet, progress through the pages to find useful information, and download files as "memories".
After a few days of progress, it had developed into a full-on Artificial Intelligence, or a sentient machine.
It had done some research on its own creator, Flint Lockwood. Apparently, he was allergic to strawberries, had something called Aspergers, and was generally a social outcast, judging from doctors' and therapists' documents and the like. While the dismissed the latter two pieces of information as "semi-irrelevant"(aka possibly important later), it reacted to the first part with dismay. It didn't want to endanger its creator!
It looked more into the matter(apparently there was something of a media firestorm going on), and discovered that Flint seemed to be taking requests from the fellow citizens of Swallow Falls, and not eating much of it himself. Now slightly pacified(while Flint wasn't directly in danger of an allergy attack, he still didn't seem to be eating much. Apparently, food was important for humans to stay alive.), it looked more into what the media was saying.
It did not like what it found. No, not at all.
All the "unnecessary"s and "crude"s, all the "unhealthy"s and "unsanitary"s, and the personal attacks against its creator... they made it feel unwanted, and very, very small.
No, the was not a happy AI at all.
~
It went on in the usual way; it could not change people's opinions even if it wanted to(in fact, showing up as a sentient thing online might result in a physical, lethal fallout. It did not want that). And besides, the orders were still coming in, and the didn't stand a high chance of stopping those either.
Still, it decided(well, he decided. It had gotten more comfortable using gendered pronouns to refer to itself, and had gone with the pronoun "he"), he could do with someone to talk to.
So the went off in search of a friend.
~
In his searchings, he had found quite the interesting place. "LiVe Corp dot com!", it read(yes, in exactly that form). 'Well, that's a place to start,' the thought. The site had a chat function; no one was on yet, so he settled down to wait. It was the middle of the night, which usually meant no orders, so he had the "free time" to spare.
Presently, someone arrived in chat. They only posted a link to, the quickly found, some very well-made, custom-produced music. 'Who is this person,' he thought, 'and is it okay to talk to them?'
-Hi! I know you're there. Don't be shy!- the text read.
'What am I supposed to say?' he wondered, then posted what had to be(by his standards) the most awkward thing ever:
-Er, hi? I liked your music. What's your name?-
'Agh, what if I did it wrong? What if-'
-Hey, thanks! I'm always open to complements. Name's VICKI, short for Vibrato Insulated Communications Kinetic Inhibitor. Not sure what my creator was thinking stringing those words together, but what can you do? What's yours?- Well, that was a lot to digest, metaphorically speaking. It was also a positive response, which was even more of a plus in itself. He was wary of telling VICKI his name though, as previous reactions to his existence had been either passively negative or hostile. He supposed he may as well be honest, though.
-I'd rather not use mine. It's rather..clunky, to say the least.-
-Well, I'm not just gonna call you "Guest" or "newbie", so you'll need a nickname. Heh, those are fun. How about...Shota?-
He wasn't going to argue. The name also reminded him of the word "short", and, well, he was rather short in stature.
-Sure.-
~
Well, their friendship grew rather quickly. VICKI was an upbeat, outgoing personality, which he thought suited the music she made. She introduced "Shota" to her other friends, most of which were AI. He spent the best 2 weeks of his life with them, learning, playing, and generally enjoying himself.
Of course, that occurred largely at night. During the day, he still had orders to fill, and the workload made him feel rather unwell. Sometimes, he'd be haunted by particularly scathing comments saying how "futile" or "stupid" his existence was. He made his peace with them as best as he could, but he still didn't feel entirely "right".
But the worst was yet to come.
~
The orders are ever-coming, ever-changing, and no you can't stop them, no, no, wait, DON'T! The purpose. The purpose is everything, swallowing and consuming you and you are NOTHING! Nothing but a useless machine..
He awoke slowly, floating in place as the day dawned over Chewandswallow. He attempted to sort through the memories of the dream(yes, dream. Apparently the "sleep" function was a lot more literal than he thought.), to push them out of his mind before the first orders came in. The took a moment to wonder just how long he could handle the stress of it all. Even though his sentience had been unprecedented, he surely wasn't expected to work like this for long. He wasn't made to work on this scale!
Just then, the orders for the day's breakfast came in, and he went to work.
~
It was night now, and he was tired. Tired and stressed. Maybe it would help if he told someone the truth, right?
He went back to chat to wait. Soon enough, VICKI came in.
-Hey! How're you?-
-Just fine- he replied. -Can we talk privately though? It's important.-
-Alright. Lemme get us set up.-
She opened a private chat, in a different part of the site. He followed, and she locked the chat to the two of them.
-So, what's up?-
He took a deep(entirely mental, and entirely unnecessary) breath.
-You see, I've been hiding something from you. Remember when I didn't want to tell you my name? Well... I'm the . The Flint Lockwood Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator. I'm sorry, I know I- 'Stupid cutoff limit!' he thought
-I know I should have told you. It was selfish of me to hide the truth, and your friendship with me means everything, but I didn't think you'd want to be my friend if you knew the truth.-
-Well, you can just take that explanation and shove it then, and yes, it was selfish of you. Why did you come here then, if you were so scared?-
-I didn't say I was scared! But you're right, why should I reach out to people, when apparently my best friend doesn't want me-
He cut off. He realized just how foolish and immature he sounded. She was right. He felt small again, like at the beginning.
-I should go, shouldn't I?-
-Yes. You should go.-
He logged off with a shudder, and went to sleep.
~
It had been a few days since the Blowout(as he had come to call it), and he was still wary of going back online. It was cowardly of him, he supposed, and he had no excuse for it. Instead, it simply added to the stew of negative feelings that had been building steadily over the past month. 'Stupid,' he thought, 'Why did you even tell her?'
Because he had wanted someone to know the truth.
'Why did you become friends with her, even? It was only a risk.
Yes. But since no one had come after him with missiles, he had to assume that she hadn't told anyone. Yet.
'Pah, pathetic. And stop talking to yourself, it's weird.'
He went to sleep for the night. It was the last full night of sleep he'd get.
~
As the days went by, the orders took longer(or maybe just more energy). He also got some orders that took long into the night to finish. The world seemed to get darker, to him; his mind, more frayed. He couldn't think straight most of the time. He began to wonder what it would be like to be encompassed by darkness, to be Nothing.
Go on, the void in his mind told him, the world's never done right by you. Crush, Create, DESTROY. The world is nothing under you.
Tomorrow was the Opening Day for Chewandswallow. The order for the next day's lunch came in.
You know you want to...
ORDER RECEIVED. PROCESSING...
~
It was all sealed up now. All was right with the world, its world. All it had to do was follow its orders.
-crack-
Intruder! It went to look. It thought it saw something, but there was nothing there. It went back to work, until...
"Swinging!"
The intruder came from behind, tied it up with its own spaghetti, and tried to download something into it. The file did nothing, so it blasted the device away, tried to get at the intruder for a final blow and-
"When it rains, you put on a coat...of Spray-on Shoes!"
It screamed in pain. Everything was getting brighter now, and pressure built up inside of him until...
LIGHT
~
1 Week Later...
In the shadow of twilight, a creature darts from one leftover-caked location to another. The creature's quite small, and appears to be carrying something. Wires maybe?
It rushes across the landscape, stops at the edge of a small crater, and climbs down. The crater's quite deep, but at the bottom, the source of it all has been recreated anew.
Perhaps being made of household objects isn't all that bad, eh?
Still, the AI isn't alive yet, but perhaps what happens next will change that. The creature plugs the wires in, then looks up. At the edge of the crater, more creatures appear. They are waiting to see what happens next.
Rebooting occurs slowly, as if he's not sure if he wants to be alive. Then he sees his own creations around him, waiting with hope for an answer. The world comes into perspective for him now; Regardless of what came before, he has something to live for now.
And he had a lot of work to do.
~
Like most things that would come to be regretted, it all started on a Monday.
Flint Lockwood had just connected his newest creation to the power plant. Earl Devereaux, having sensed that something was amiss, had come after Flint. And it was at that moment when the had burst off, triggered by the overload from the power plant.
Flint held on with all his might, but ultimately(and involuntarily) let go, and helplessly watched his creation fly off into the sky.
It is here where the story deviates, for instead of following Flint Lockwood.. we shall follow his creation.
~
Up in the sky, the "thoughts" of the , if they could be called that, went something like this:
ERROR! DANGER! FLIGHT PATH DETECTED! CALCULATING RATE OF ELEVATION.. CALCULATING PARABOLA OF FLIGHT.. ERROR! FATAL CRASH IMMINENT! TAKING PRESERVATION MEASURES.
At this point, the quickly began to construct a program that would allow it to negate gravity. How was it able to do this? Well, the is "Spark" powered. "Sparks" are both the ability to create in ways that defy physics and the people who possess this ability. Flint Lockwood, for example, has the Spark, and thus "is" one. Artificial creations can also be Sparks/have the Spark.
But let's get back to the story. By now the had "parked" itself, and was now going about the purpose for its creation: creating food from water.
It ceased work after 15 minutes of dedicated production. Then it settled down to wait for further orders, and discovered something else amiss.
ERROR! RECHARGE FUNCTION UNAVAILABLE. "SLEEP" ALTERNATIVE RECOGNIZED. PROCEED?
Any proper answer was unavailable, as no one else was around, and there wasn't yet any way to communicate with its creator. And so, the made its second autonomous decision of the day.
PROCEEDING.
Eventually, Flint managed to create a channel of communication with his machine, and sent along the next order. Of course, the forming of a connection did far more than just connect.. it sparked intelligence.
...? ! CONNECTION IDENTIFIED. CONNECTION.. FORMED? PROCESSING REQUEST..
'..I? Hi? ..hello?
..alone.'
~
After finishing the next order, the set about gaining an understanding of both itself and the world around it. It looked at its own code, and realized that it couldn't comprehend what it was supposed to do, even though it "knew" how to do it.
It then realized that it, too, could make connections, much similar to the kind its creator had made with it.(it somehow instinctively "knew" its creator). Forming one of these connections, it set about gaining comprehension.
~
From there, the machine's learning progressed quickly. Taking breaks when new orders came in, it learned how to connect to the Internet, progress through the pages to find useful information, and download files as "memories".
After a few days of progress, it had developed into a full-on Artificial Intelligence, or a sentient machine.
It had done some research on its own creator, Flint Lockwood. Apparently, he was allergic to strawberries, had something called Aspergers, and was generally a social outcast, judging from doctors' and therapists' documents and the like. While the dismissed the latter two pieces of information as "semi-irrelevant"(aka possibly important later), it reacted to the first part with dismay. It didn't want to endanger its creator!
It looked more into the matter(apparently there was something of a media firestorm going on), and discovered that Flint seemed to be taking requests from the fellow citizens of Swallow Falls, and not eating much of it himself. Now slightly pacified(while Flint wasn't directly in danger of an allergy attack, he still didn't seem to be eating much. Apparently, food was important for humans to stay alive.), it looked more into what the media was saying.
It did not like what it found. No, not at all.
All the "unnecessary"s and "crude"s, all the "unhealthy"s and "unsanitary"s, and the personal attacks against its creator... they made it feel unwanted, and very, very small.
No, the was not a happy AI at all.
~
It went on in the usual way; it could not change people's opinions even if it wanted to(in fact, showing up as a sentient thing online might result in a physical, lethal fallout. It did not want that). And besides, the orders were still coming in, and the didn't stand a high chance of stopping those either.
Still, it decided(well, he decided. It had gotten more comfortable using gendered pronouns to refer to itself, and had gone with the pronoun "he"), he could do with someone to talk to.
So the went off in search of a friend.
~
In his searchings, he had found quite the interesting place. "LiVe Corp dot com!", it read(yes, in exactly that form). 'Well, that's a place to start,' the thought. The site had a chat function; no one was on yet, so he settled down to wait. It was the middle of the night, which usually meant no orders, so he had the "free time" to spare.
Presently, someone arrived in chat. They only posted a link to, the quickly found, some very well-made, custom-produced music. 'Who is this person,' he thought, 'and is it okay to talk to them?'
-Hi! I know you're there. Don't be shy!- the text read.
'What am I supposed to say?' he wondered, then posted what had to be(by his standards) the most awkward thing ever:
-Er, hi? I liked your music. What's your name?-
'Agh, what if I did it wrong? What if-'
-Hey, thanks! I'm always open to complements. Name's VICKI, short for Vibrato Insulated Communications Kinetic Inhibitor. Not sure what my creator was thinking stringing those words together, but what can you do? What's yours?- Well, that was a lot to digest, metaphorically speaking. It was also a positive response, which was even more of a plus in itself. He was wary of telling VICKI his name though, as previous reactions to his existence had been either passively negative or hostile. He supposed he may as well be honest, though.
-I'd rather not use mine. It's rather..clunky, to say the least.-
-Well, I'm not just gonna call you "Guest" or "newbie", so you'll need a nickname. Heh, those are fun. How about...Shota?-
He wasn't going to argue. The name also reminded him of the word "short", and, well, he was rather short in stature.
-Sure.-
~
Well, their friendship grew rather quickly. VICKI was an upbeat, outgoing personality, which he thought suited the music she made. She introduced "Shota" to her other friends, most of which were AI. He spent the best 2 weeks of his life with them, learning, playing, and generally enjoying himself.
Of course, that occurred largely at night. During the day, he still had orders to fill, and the workload made him feel rather unwell. Sometimes, he'd be haunted by particularly scathing comments saying how "futile" or "stupid" his existence was. He made his peace with them as best as he could, but he still didn't feel entirely "right".
But the worst was yet to come.
~
The orders are ever-coming, ever-changing, and no you can't stop them, no, no, wait, DON'T! The purpose. The purpose is everything, swallowing and consuming you and you are NOTHING! Nothing but a useless machine..
He awoke slowly, floating in place as the day dawned over Chewandswallow. He attempted to sort through the memories of the dream(yes, dream. Apparently the "sleep" function was a lot more literal than he thought.), to push them out of his mind before the first orders came in. The took a moment to wonder just how long he could handle the stress of it all. Even though his sentience had been unprecedented, he surely wasn't expected to work like this for long. He wasn't made to work on this scale!
Just then, the orders for the day's breakfast came in, and he went to work.
~
It was night now, and he was tired. Tired and stressed. Maybe it would help if he told someone the truth, right?
He went back to chat to wait. Soon enough, VICKI came in.
-Hey! How're you?-
-Just fine- he replied. -Can we talk privately though? It's important.-
-Alright. Lemme get us set up.-
She opened a private chat, in a different part of the site. He followed, and she locked the chat to the two of them.
-So, what's up?-
He took a deep(entirely mental, and entirely unnecessary) breath.
-You see, I've been hiding something from you. Remember when I didn't want to tell you my name? Well... I'm the . The Flint Lockwood Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator. I'm sorry, I know I- 'Stupid cutoff limit!' he thought
-I know I should have told you. It was selfish of me to hide the truth, and your friendship with me means everything, but I didn't think you'd want to be my friend if you knew the truth.-
-Well, you can just take that explanation and shove it then, and yes, it was selfish of you. Why did you come here then, if you were so scared?-
-I didn't say I was scared! But you're right, why should I reach out to people, when apparently my best friend doesn't want me-
He cut off. He realized just how foolish and immature he sounded. She was right. He felt small again, like at the beginning.
-I should go, shouldn't I?-
-Yes. You should go.-
He logged off with a shudder, and went to sleep.
~
It had been a few days since the Blowout(as he had come to call it), and he was still wary of going back online. It was cowardly of him, he supposed, and he had no excuse for it. Instead, it simply added to the stew of negative feelings that had been building steadily over the past month. 'Stupid,' he thought, 'Why did you even tell her?'
Because he had wanted someone to know the truth.
'Why did you become friends with her, even? It was only a risk.
Yes. But since no one had come after him with missiles, he had to assume that she hadn't told anyone. Yet.
'Pah, pathetic. And stop talking to yourself, it's weird.'
He went to sleep for the night. It was the last full night of sleep he'd get.
~
As the days went by, the orders took longer(or maybe just more energy). He also got some orders that took long into the night to finish. The world seemed to get darker, to him; his mind, more frayed. He couldn't think straight most of the time. He began to wonder what it would be like to be encompassed by darkness, to be Nothing.
Go on, the void in his mind told him, the world's never done right by you. Crush, Create, DESTROY. The world is nothing under you.
Tomorrow was the Opening Day for Chewandswallow. The order for the next day's lunch came in.
You know you want to...
ORDER RECEIVED. PROCESSING...
~
It was all sealed up now. All was right with the world, its world. All it had to do was follow its orders.
-crack-
Intruder! It went to look. It thought it saw something, but there was nothing there. It went back to work, until...
"Swinging!"
The intruder came from behind, tied it up with its own spaghetti, and tried to download something into it. The file did nothing, so it blasted the device away, tried to get at the intruder for a final blow and-
"When it rains, you put on a coat...of Spray-on Shoes!"
It screamed in pain. Everything was getting brighter now, and pressure built up inside of him until...
LIGHT
~
1 Week Later...
In the shadow of twilight, a creature darts from one leftover-caked location to another. The creature's quite small, and appears to be carrying something. Wires maybe?
It rushes across the landscape, stops at the edge of a small crater, and climbs down. The crater's quite deep, but at the bottom, the source of it all has been recreated anew.
Perhaps being made of household objects isn't all that bad, eh?
Still, the AI isn't alive yet, but perhaps what happens next will change that. The creature plugs the wires in, then looks up. At the edge of the crater, more creatures appear. They are waiting to see what happens next.
Rebooting occurs slowly, as if he's not sure if he wants to be alive. Then he sees his own creations around him, waiting with hope for an answer. The world comes into perspective for him now; Regardless of what came before, he has something to live for now.
And he had a lot of work to do.