The Cowboys are a bunch of alpha guys and girls that know we are the best of the best of the best. That can lead to some really energetic debates over who truly is the best. And sometimes we can be a little hard headed on the subject. Yeah. Those bar brawl vids that have been circulating recently? The ones where the bar falls down? The whole building? Yeah. We paid the bar owner for that one but the debate’s still simmering.
Very few AIs ever gained what we consider true awareness. That being the ability to recognize how they think and modify themselves in the way that other humans do. What most people think of as life experiences. The best AIs learned to integrate them into their base coding and began to change with the times. There were very few of them in existence to see Contact, but they were quick to recognize Peloran cybernetic intelligences.
I go to Gencon this week where I will do many things. Play some mech on mech combat in a certain game I’ve played for years most likely. Check out games I’m interested in certainly. Bring my own game and writing? Oh yes. I will bring the first run of my game Forge of Wars:Tactics and a special Gencon print run of the introductory short story for the game, the first actual dead tree format printing of any of my stories. Am I excited? You betcha. 🙂
We no longer live in the sandbox of our own little worlds. There is a far more dangerous galaxy out there and we must be ready for it. But we dare not lose ourselves in the process. How does a society prepare to defend itself from an enemy without becoming that enemy? The history of our civilizations shows how hard that question is to answer. So many great societies have failed. So few have weathered the test of time. I intend to weather well.
Some Cowboys stuck around after The War to train a new generation of Cowboys. A lot of us retired and found something else to do. We’ve done good in the extreme fighting circuits for one. Not me. I don’t like getting my white suit dirty. But I’ve dealt in the conflict business myself. Sometimes even with other Cowboys. We’re all kinda full of ourselves you know. Sometimes we get into it with each other. But all’s good as long as nobody gets killed dead.