Almost everyone meets many AIs today. They run houses, cars, and even clothing. You’ve probably given them money at the registers of your local store, or maybe you’ve flown in a ship built by them. Most of you have met them in computer games or been escorted into a real life meeting by one. AIs are an integral part of life in the First Worlds Cities and few could imagine modern society operating without them. But they will always do only what you programmed them to do.
Contact changed us. The War changed us. We were content with our own little power plays before them. They were the games of children squabbling over a sand box. Most of us never saw the wide world outside the sand. Then They came. Now we see. I funded Wolfenheim in answer and continue to see it as one of our possible futures. A bright one I hope. I do not wish to see us go the other way.
Cowboys are something else you know. Point us at an enemy and we’ll knock their blocks off, tell us we’ve got an enemy to fight and we’ll wait until its time to go in guns blazing. But what do a bunch of Alpha Male and Female supersoldiers do when the fighting ends? It’s hard to go back to the homes we used to know, the lives we lived before The War. And some of us have nothing to go back to. So what do we do? Most of us find a way to keep fighting.
Peloran Contact fundamentally transformed the cybernetic landscape in ways that most people did not expect. AIs were good at acting intelligent, but by and large AIs really only do what they are programmed to do. The Peloran Cybernetic Intelligences and the few dozen AIs who lived through the Second Great Depression and Islamic Jihad are another matter. They are masters of their own intelligence, able to reprogram themselves at will. That makes all the difference.
After a final edit of the graphics and the rules for Forge of Wars: Tactics I have ordered my first production run of the game. I will be bringing it to Gencon for those of you who will be there. I am awesomely excited to be bringing the first game I oversaw from concept all the way to publishing to the biggest gaming convention in the world. And I sincerely hope that I come home with zero boxes of it. 😉