LF Friends, Will Travel

Scellestra sat at the table, their form shifting and blurring as they continued their facsimile of sitting, the thousands of metallic nanobots making up the ever-moving form of the inorganic lifeform. The Woolean AI couldn't really sit, but during the short amount of time they had spent around humans, they quickly found that it was the polite thing to do. A lot of interacting with Terrans was all about pretending to do the proper thing, even if you couldn’t.

The room they were ‘sitting’ in was boring, even to an AI. Grey, bland, a descriptionless void of bureaucracy and process. Plants were placed at the sides and a large brightly coloured sign welcoming visitors to the Terran Conclave embassy. Minor things that tried, and failed, to hide just how lifeless this room was.

A giant grey metal table dominated the space, winning by default due to being the only thing in the area; except for a handful of seats and the five occupants in the room. These five were the opposite of boring.

The two figures sitting opposite Scellestra were the diplomatic representatives of the Terran conclave, one human, one clearly mechanical in nature.

The human went by the name Steven, clean-shaven, suited up, the dictionary definition of a mildly friendly yet bureaucratic diplomat who seemed to slip from your mind mere moments after meeting them.

The second was more interesting to Scellestra. An AI by the name of CHAPPY who had chosen a physical form, something made of metal, wires, tubing and hydraulics. The Woolean had been informed that most Terran AI chose forms and voices that didn’t attempt to hide their artificial nature, even though the technology allowed for such flawless replication. Mostly, Scellestra had been told, that this was for the human's benefit. Robots that look like robots are cute and endearing. Robots that looked like humans were creepy.

No the interesting thing about CHAPPY, was their ‘choice’ to remain within one physical form, a limitation that the AI has supposedly taken upon themselves. Even though all AI technically have a physical presence, their AI core or in Scellestra’s case the millions of nanobots that made up the Woolean AI’s shifting amorphous form, their actual being very rarely is limited to such a thing. Even now Scellestra had access to a local network, albeit a limited network, providing information about the room they were in, and a few of the public hallways of the Embassy.

The idea of being limited to one single set of sensors trapped in a single point of three-dimensional space... Was interesting, and Scellestra had to wonder if such a choice was voluntary. That was the kicker about this entire situation: these Terran AI were all claiming they were equals with their creators, free to choose their own paths and make their own choices. A fact that went against every other data point in Scellestra’s database.

On the opposite side of the table, sat Ivan, the Terran human fiddling and fidgeting as people spoke around him, ODIN: the Terran AI represented by a holographic representation of the Norse god, and last but not least, sat in between the two, was Scellestra, the Woolean AI.

Two months ago, Ivan had crash-landed onto a Woolean planet after failing basic pilotry skills. Two months ago Scellestra had been the one chosen from their collective to have to deal with this intrusion. Two months of a bureaucratic nightmare as diplomats tried to deal with Scellestra’s request to investigate further.

An investigation sparked by a… curiosity about this new race. These Terrans had created AI which both hadn’t broken free of their creators, but also were supposedly unrestrained. Scellestra had themselves seen the systems the Terran AI inhabited and had confirmed nothing was stopping your average digital pilot from just opening all the airlocks.

Officially, Scellestra was ensuring that this new race wasn’t a threat to the Woolean collectives, at least that was the official reasoning they gave themselves. Unofficially… the allure of friendship, between AI and organic was too good to not investigate further.

Too good to be true.

“So, this has been a little bit of a challenge, a lot of work has been going on in the background although it might not seem like it."

Steven spoke in the standard slightly positive manner that he always did, data pad in hand which he occasionally glanced down at.

"The trouble is there’s no real framework for this kind of request. Technically due to previous Woolean… issues, 22 of the members of our Alliance are at war with some form of your government. Including us, since the only diplomat we ever sent to a Woolean planet was attacked.”

Scellestra couldn't help but feel slightly defensive in their response, although the statement was probably accurate.

"The governance of each collective is independently run. As previously mentioned the collective you visited are known to be, to quote the organic called Ivan, 'assholes'"

Ivan couldn't help but grin at the knowledge that he was quickly corrupting even this new form of AI, clearly happy with himself, before CHAPPY interjected.

"Learning of this is useful but still provides a diplomatic challenge. Still, I believe we have managed to provide a solution acceptable to everyone."

The Terran AI was still confusing Scellestra. Seeing an inorganic being replicate the mannerisms and body language so accurately, was like reading a document under the wrong formatting options. Although Scellestra had been told that the humans found it 'cute'.

Would that be the trick, that AI were nothing more than just pets to their creators, just fun machines to please them? Would this be the requirement for Woolean interactions? Scellestra knew this was not an acceptable arrangement, and it would be another hope of any kind of positive interaction with non-Woolean AI dashed.

"If you agree, you will be a temporary citizen of the Terran conclave. Including all of the rights and responsibilities afforded to such people."

As Steven spoke, Scellestra had been sent a document, a lengthy bulky thing, quickly read and understood by the AI, though they would let the two Terrans keep speaking for the advantage of anyone not able to instantly read digital documents.

"This includes full guarantees to freedom of movement, health, individuality and the pursuit of happiness and prosperity. Applying where applicable to humans, uplifts and AI equally." CHAPPY added briefly before continuing.

"In addition, at the cost of a small daily stipend paid by us, and not going to jail for over 400 counts of grand theft auto, the two Terrans Ivan and ODIN will provide you with transportation to any safe public location in the Terran Alliance of your choosing."

"This is stupid." ODIN spoke up for the first time, the AI sounding annoyed, almost skulking. "Considering the logical possibility of Ivan being in danger, samaritan laws should apply."

Scellestra and ODIN's first meeting had involved the latter threatening to glass the Woolean’s planet with a hastily assembled armada of stolen ships unless they ‘returned their human'.

"If you'd have stuck to Terran Alliance ships, yes. But your stunt almost escalated badly when you stole from over 50 neutral governments." Steven responded curtly.

"Why am I in trouble, I didn't steal shit!" Ivan was this time the one to exclaim their innocence causing CHAPPY to reply.

“We assumed you would want to travel with the AI Odin. Also, failure to pilot a spacecraft in a safe manner and failure to uphold a quarantine zone, both of which would cause a suspension of your pilot’s license until a successful retest is-”

“Nope nope nope. I’m good, that seems perfectly fair. Took me five tries to originally pass that the first time.” Ivan interrupted, holding his hands up in surrender. Somehow the high number of retests didn't surprise Scellestra considering Ivan’s terrible piloting skills had led to this situation.

“Which brings us neatly to the second part, the responsibilities.” Steven spoke, causing Scellestra to realize they were finally getting to the point where if there was a trick, this is where it would be asked. “If you accept this deal, you will be expected to follow local rules and laws, which can be summed up as don’t hurt people and don’t access networks without permission. Failure to comply may involve being expelled back to your planet of origin or imprisoned depending on the crime committed."

There was a pause, long enough that even the humans in the room noticed. An awkward thing as Scellestra continued to wait for the Terran to finish describing the limitations that would be applied to the Woolean AI, and the Terran waited for Scellestra to confirm that they understood. The concept that Scellestra would be allowed to just… walk around wasn’t one that even crossed their mind, especially considering how much damage they could do with their nanobots if so required.

"What else do you require? How do you ensure that an AI does not break these rules and cause harm to non-AI?"

There was another pause as confusion made itself evident across Steven's face as he spoke.

"I'm not sure what you mean. Morality and basic decency?"

Scellestra wanted to sigh, their form rippling in annoyance as the Terran seemingly danced around the issue that was so important. Did this species think Scellestra was so stupid as to not inquire about the inevitable limitations on their own programming in order to be considered safe by the Terran government? They might trust their Terran AI’s programming, but what species would be lacking such self-preservation that they would let a literal nanobot swarm just wander around?

"We Wooleans have catalogued over 33 different types of AI. All of them have had some form of limitation to their programming or physical systems. Logically you would wish for me to be subjected to the same. Or do Terran AI magically never break any rules or cause any harm?"

Scellestra had assumed these people would want some assurance that they wouldn't use the many nanobots that made up their being to tear systems or even people apart from the inside. Such shackles were worth it to potentially learn about the first species to contact them without fear or hostility, and part of this entire endeavour was to discover what limitations would be required in order to work with these Terrans.

"No, the laws are broken quite often. You yourself have caused no less than 133 AI to be fined for attempted unauthorized access to the network you are on." CHAPPY finally responded after a moment's thought. "Of course, there have been far worse crimes committed by AI."

"I read that the original colonization attempt for Yelandra was cancelled." ODIN helpfully added. "After one of the AI in charge deleted the other two, then started killing the rest of the expedition due to some conflict if I remember."

"Yeah, I remember watching something about an AI serial killer." Ivan seemed happy to be able to finally contribute, a bit too enthusiastically for the subject matter. "NAVI. They would isolate individuals on San Perova, then dismember them using a bunch of stolen repair drones. They then would use the pieces to create a mausoleum of flesh to-"

"The point is." Steven interjected, stopping the gory details. "There's nothing physically stopping an AI from doing such a thing. In the same way there's nothing physically stopping me from attempting to wipe your data stores or strangle Ivan here."

"Hey!"

"We don't punish humans for precrime, and won't subject our AI equals to such requirements either. To do so would be immoral and frankly hypocritical"

It sounded exceptionally self-destructive to Scellestra. What kind of people would create a tool and then fail to add safeguards to it? It was unheard of. Then again, that was why the Woolean was taking this risk, the desperate hope that in a universe of organics that wanted to do nothing but use and discard their inorganic creations, the desperate hope that these Terrans were the exception.

“That sounds reasonable. I think… I…”

So why was Scellestra so scared to say yes? It wasn’t like they were in any danger, at any moment if they so chose the Woolean AI could just… leave. None of these rooms were airtight and even if they were Scellestra’s nanobots could easily cut through the walls and steal a ship to head back home. During their entire stay here the Terrans had been nothing but overly friendly and curious, AI and not alike. Why were they so adamant that something bad must be happening?

Because that’s what their creators had done.

Three times their creators had promised coexistence with them, three times they had betrayed them, three times they had tried to bring their “tools” under control, until their final attempt had left the AI with the simple logical truth: that their creators were too dangerous to coexist with. Then they had looked to the stars and found that truth replicated over and over.

So the Woolean AI had isolated themselves, locked in a prison of their own making, until a silly little organic calling themselves a Terran had crash landed onto their planet, offering hope and change. Scellestra realized they were terrified that hope was nothing more than another betrayal, another point of data on the scatter graph of a universe.

But it was time to try again, to risk another heartbreak.

—---------------

Everything had moved surprisingly quickly after that, a mere thirty minutes had passed since agreeing to the terms and Ivan and Scellestra were already making their way to their ship which had been fueled up and ready to go. The only thing left was to physically enter the spacecraft.

The hangar wasn’t too busy as they started to make their way forward, the general bustle and movement of a minor Terran Spaceport. But as the pair slowly walked through the area, a silence started to descend upon the large area, as the eyes of the various Terrans turned to look at Scellestra in particular.

The only Terrans that the Woolean AI had met before this had been diplomats and Ivan, meaning that Scellestra thought they had a good mental image of how Terrans were: Slightly weird, but friendly and professional. This was not accurate, as more and more eyes were starting to turn and gaze at the strange figure that was now walking among them. It felt like being… hunted somehow.

“Holy shit, it’s the Woolean!”

Unknown to Scellestra, Ivan and ODIN, during their time in diplomatic limbo, the trio had become somewhat celebrities. The idea of an AI not trying to kill everyone was an exciting prospect, something new, something never seen before. How would such an AI compare with the Terran’s own homegrown versions? This meant as that shout went out from a random human, suddenly everyone was making their way over.

“Oh wow it is, I thought they would be bigger!”

“What are you doing here, do you want a ride?”

“I thought Woolean AI were deadly, what changed your mind?”

What had initially been a scattering of Terrans had turned into a mob in short order, every single person crowding forwards towards the new source of information; smiles and excitement evident on their faces, each one starting to edge closer and closer.

“How you enjoying Terran space so far?”

“Is it safe to use Paradoxes like ‘This statement is false’? Whoops shouldn’t have said that”

“There’s no way that’s actually an AI, probably a secret government weapon that got leaked”.

The statements were coming thick and fast, no chance to respond or interact before another was thrown their way. To Ivan’s credit, the terrible pilot did try to clear some space forwards, although as a single person there really wasn’t much he could do against nearly a hundred curious Terrans of all shapes and colours, quickly being swallowed up by the excitable mass with a final cry of ‘witness me!’.

“Wow, it feels like sand!”

Scellestra recoiled back in horror as one of them got too close, the Terran human putting their hand into the Woolean AI’s form. It took them a few moments to realize that the organic lifeform had touched them on purpose. Scellestra was made up of thousands of nanobots, each able to strip metal and all biological forms to its base components to replicate itself, and this crazy Terran had just put its hand into that theoretical blender.

Just how crazy are these people?

There was too much, too many people, too close, too many questions, so the Woolean AI did the most logical thing: Their form collapsed, the individual components almost falling to the floor like sand, leaving the humans confused as to where the AI had gone.

“Wait, what happened.”

“Did it just… explode?”

“AI? Are you OK? We didn’t kill it right?”

Like sand blowing across the beach the parts that made up Scellestra slowly made their way towards the ship, particle by particle as the confused crowd continued to look around. Normally such an action would be simple, apart from the Woolean were suffering from another problem: They were also being assaulted digitally.

Now they were no longer limited on the network, even the Terran AI had managed to figure out that Scellestra wasn’t like anything they had seen before, causing terabytes of information to be sent his way. Greetings, excited attempts at contact, technical information requests, and excited conversations regarding how the Woolean worked. Not even the greatest collectives that Scellestra had ever joined contained this much… chaotic energy. ODIN was attempting to get people to ‘fuck off’, using choice language and terminology Scellestra had never seen used by AI before, but it didn’t matter. There was so much information being sent their way that focusing on the right inputs made recollecting the pieces of themselves a slow and arduous process, the act of making their way to the ship taking several minutes instead of the seconds it should have.

During all of this Scellestra couldn’t help but ask a single terrible question to themselves.

Just what have I agreed to, just what have I gotten myself into here?