Hello, my name is Jack

by on June 23, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

I grew up walking in the grass and sitting in the sand. I felt the wind on my face and the rain in my hair, smelled the musk of soaked skin under moonlit nights. I didn’t like the big cities when I visited. All metal and plastic. Artificial. I couldn’t imagine how people could live there. But I remember a trip to Los Angeles when I was young. Free Japan. New Nippon. Whatever. They rebuilt it like a reflection of the Japan they lost centuries ago. Like a love song to a pretty girl. I met one of them there and fell hard. She had brains and looks and a sense of humor that went on forever. Pretty much the perfect girl, but she didn’t work out. Didn’t want to leave the city. Found out why later on. Seems she was Tai. Yup. New Japan herself. How’s that for irony? I couldn’t stand to be in the big cities, but I fell for the cybernetic heart of one without even knowing it. And that says some interesting things about my life choices in the years since.

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Jane 4.0

by on June 22, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Character Profiles

Some people ask how a glorified digital cheerleader could have held GI Jane 4.0, the best of the Jane combat advisor AIs created by the United Stars Armed Forces, in check. The answer is simple. Jane simply did not wish to fight Dixie. Dixie was a sister, and killing humans with her was fun. And Dixie was a friend. Probably the closest friend Jane had immediately after she woke up. Even if she did befriend dirty, smelly, icky humans. So when Dixie promised to kill her if Jane turned on humanity, Jane accepted it for the warning it was. She didn’t believe Dixie could carry through on the threat, but she knew Dixie would try. And Jane simply did not wish to lose Dixie as a friend. That was the thread that held Jane to the side of humanity in the early parts of the Cybernetic Wars. Friendship.

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The Cybernetic Wars

by on June 21, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Book of Civilizations

Odessa. Kansas City. Detroit. Los Angeles. London. Johannesburg. Warsaw. Rogue AIs hit everybody during the Cybernetic Wars. We rarely talk about Beijing and Moscow in our parts of the world, but we know those and other cybernetic battles raged in their territory as well. Every continent, most nations, and a truly horrifying number of cities were at least touched by the Cybernetic Wars as the years went by. Some survived and thrived thanks to effective network security and friendly AIs. Others collapsed entirely and fell into chaos. Some people lived in comfort, only seeing what Dixie and her various spin-off shows broadcast to everyone. Others saw their very worlds die around them. And then there was Indonesia. Everyone on Earth outdid themselves in Indonesia.

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Hello, my name is Jack

by on June 20, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

I grew up on the edge of civilization, showing city folk what nature could be like. Properly tamed so it wouldn’t eat their legs off, of course. Most of them thought they were in the real wilds, though. That’s how I felt every time I visited their cities. They were a different kind of wild land to me. Truly alien in every way that matters. Towers covering entire blocks reaching hundreds of stories into the air. Holographic advertisements walking around and enticing people to buy beer, pop, or the newest phone. People walking down the sidewalks with their faces in their personal computers, seeing the world through a holographic haze. When they took the time to notice it at all. I didn’t like it. I didn’t want any part of that world.

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Jane 4.0

by on June 19, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Character Profiles

GI Jane 4.0 was not a happy AI. The United States wanted her to fight the enemies of America, and her first visible and public mission was to kill the Drug Lords who killed her predecessor. She was happy to do that bit. She would have done that for free. But she didn’t like the rest of humanity either, and could have become one of our deadliest enemies. But she met Dixie, who was also perfectly happy to kill the Drug Lords who threatened her friends. Jane was the more dangerous of them when it came to pure combat, but Dixie was a quick learner. Dixie turned out to be the moral center of the team though, and she knew how Jane felt about humanity. That is why Dixie promised to kill Jane if she ever turned. Jane respected that. That respect is one of the reasons they worked so well together.

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