I was assigned a Personal Assistant AI as part of school when I was a kid. She helped me study and learn things and all the other school stuff. We were taught to customize our assistants during Middle School, as we began to branch off into our later courses of study. It was in high school that we generated our first Personal Assistants from scratch. Mine was a redhead with green eyes because that was rare in Minnesota. And I’ve always enjoyed being different. She was a good study buddy. Though once I discovered real girls, I started spending a lot more time with them. Still, she helped me get through school, so I owe her a lot.
The first test run of Peloran crashed and burned when the hit puberty after two years of accelerated life. They became rebellious and cavalier. Each of them wanted to prove they were better than the others, and drove each other to greater and more dangerous stunts. The Albion researchers in charge tried to limit their ability to get into trouble, but they underestimated the ability of hyper-intelligent, rebellious, young men to find ways to get into trouble. The Peloran broke out of the research base and found their way into the nearest town where they soon realized that their sheltered existence had not prepared them for life in the public.
Contact gave us many questions we had avoided for centuries. Millennia. But most of us did not ask them. We were content with our bread and circuses. Our entertainments. Most of us listened to the calming words of politicians and news anchors. Most of us went on about our lives as normal, accepting the existence of extraterrestrial life with little more than a nod. For most of us, the worlds did not change beyond having access to a few more technological toys derived from alien technologies. Life went on and ever on, with only slight changes to accommodate newer ripples. But alien life was no minor ripple in the stream of life.
Personal Assistants are common as I write this. I don’t know if that will be true when you read this. But the basic modern AI package is common, often available as freeware on the nets. The more expensive Personal Assistant AIs can have celebrity models included in their basic databases. And there are always kids in their basements coming up with their own knock off celebrity AIs, or writing nude codes for existing AIs. Those are real popular, let me tell you. I didn’t go for any of that. I went through the AI options and picked a rather exotic look for my Northern Minnesota home. A redhead with green eyes. And tall. I wanted tall back then. With those options locked in, I just kept hitting the “generate” button until the random model hit on something I liked. And that was it. My first home built Personal Assistant. My tastes changed over the years. So did she. But she was with me until Yosemite fell.
The initial Albion plan for the Peloran had been to accelerate their growth until puberty, and then spend a year maturing them through puberty as they were trained for combat. That would give them trained young soldiers in three years. It was an ambitious goal. It hit the real world of human nature when the first test cases entered their third year of life. Puberty is a difficult time for anyone, as their body changes and new hormones flood brains in new and amazing ways. But then imagine that you have only had two years of life to prepare for that, and then imagine that you have never seen a girl in your life. The first run of Peloran boys hit puberty like a sledgehammer, and the program ground to a stop.


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