2021-09-22: Operation Friendship
- Log: Operation Friendhsip
- Cast: Azoth, Seraphita
- Where: Volgran Forest
- Date: September 22, 2021
- Summary: Seraphita tries to talk to Azoth about FRIENDSHIP. She's Solaris, so he's skeptical.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
While Azoth, as an asset, is on call for any number of jobs Solaris might have for him from supporting Geblers in exploration or combat, the rest of his "free" time (and Azoth's time is never free) is spent under the pretense of being a Drifter, exploring the surface for his missing data and lost parts. Today, he's calculated further searching of Lunar's surface to be the most effective use of that time. Any signal, and sign, to narrow down possible locations to investigate further...
He isn't a difficult android to find, especially not for anyone in Solaris. Getting his location is a simple request with the tracking equipment installed into him, nor did he put any special effort into leaving civilization to go on his way to the woods, either. It could be a matter of spotting him by happenstance and catching up.
Whatever the case, Azoth is thorough enough in his operation that, even perceiving himself to be alone, knows better than to turn his face off entirely. He hums little tunes to himself, experimenting with melodies and pieces of melodies to invent new strings while he scans the area with too-bright eyes, occasionally picking up an interesting stone or leaf, and even more occasionally pocketing one of them.
It's an innocently cheerful demeanor for a war machine who was giving Loren a bit of sass before.
<Pose Tracker> Seraphita has posed.
It may surprise Azoth to learn that Seraphita has decided that she wants to speak to him... but didn't simply order him to show up somewhere so she could do it. She's an Element; she definitely has the rank to order many of the Solarian soldiers around, even those who aren't in Azoth's unfortunate position. She just doesn't abuse that privilege (much).
But instead she's decided to just show up. She didn't even check his tracking equipment, though in *that* case it's even odds whether she knew about it and didn't feel like it or didn't actually know it was an option. She checked in on his location in the way she'd check in on any other soldier. Then she got a bit ahead of him. Then she took a break (it isn't a nap because she didn't want to miss him).
Disregarding any advanced sensors Azoth may be running, it's likely to be a surprise aside from a faint rustling when a pink-haired rabbit suddenly swings out and hangs from a tree. She is holding herself in place with her knees and the rest of her body is upside down, which makes her floppy ears actually flop to their full length and also does weird things with the rest of her massive hair.
"Hi!" Seraphita says, still dangling upside-down. "What're you doing? Are you busy? You can say yes," she adds, hastily, because she remembers that last time, he wouldn't.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Instead of locating any sort of Zeboim signal or lost memory, Azoth encounters... a lot of pink!
He stops abruptly, staring back at Seraphita in silence. The look on his face goes blank, but if he was trying to rob her (as he might any Solaris soldier) the satisfaction of having knowing he was successfully caught off guard and surprised... well, a blank face perhaps looks closer to surprise than anything else in context. It's a mistake he becomes aware of a moment too late.
"User Seraphita," he greets, falling into the mechanically reverberating monotone he used before Loren accidentally launched bubbly_spite.exe. "Routine search and detection operations for missing data and components in progress. No target confirmed. User requests and input currently maintain higher priority."
<Pose Tracker> Seraphita has posed.
Azoth looks at Seraphita.
Seraphita looks at Azoth. Just upside-down. It is unclear whether she enjoyed surprising him or whether she just... does that. It might be the second. Seraphita does what Seraphita does and nobody's going to stop her.
"You know, I know you don't have to sound like that," she says, "because I've *heard* you. But you can if you want to! My partner Tolone sounds like that sometimes but it's usually when someone annoys her. Or she's not really listening. Or... just sometimes!"
Seraphita does a situp in midair, which is harder than it looks; she turns it into untangling herself from the branch, landing on her hands before doing a handspring back to her feet. She dusts her jacket off, unnecessarily.
"I actually came to talk to you!" she says, still sounding bright and cheerful. It's not an act. "But if you want to look at rocks too that's fine." Pause. "Did you find any good ones?" She must have seen him pick up one of them from her perch in the tree.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth's blank face splits into a lopsided grin. "Sure, I don't have to. I can sound like any sort of person." He folds his arms behind his back and rocks on his heels before leaning forward toward her a little. "But perhaps you might consider my default settings to be more honest?"
He gives a tilt of his head at her: it's as much a challenge as it is a question.
With her question of rocks, Azoth produces one and tosses it to himself before proudly holding it up to Seraphita between this thumb and index finger with a bright grin. "Ta da~." It's a chunk of quartz stone, pink in color, with rough, almost spiked edges.
Unceremoniously, he offers it forward to hand to her.
"I'm listening, but I know what you're trying to do. And I don't think it's going to work out the way you're hoping."
<Pose Tracker> Seraphita has posed.
"I don't know, is it?"
Seraphita is, to hear some of the rumours about her, either very dense or flighty. The look she gives Azoth *looks* like she's not thinking very deeply, certainly. And yet there's a little about it, the way she asks...
She accepts the rock, holding it up to the light. She holds it carefully, and then after a few moments hands it back with great solemnity. "That is a pretty nice rock," she agrees. "It's a little pointier than a lot of rocks but it's got a nice colour!"
Her brows furrow. "Wait, what am I trying to do? I try to talk to everyone I work with! My grandmother told me, you should always be kind. And anyway, Lydia likes you, I think, and I like Lydia."
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
For someone to be considered dense and flighty, but to remain in such a powerful position with such freedom as she has, tells Azoth that Seraphita is quite a bit smarter than the rumors would imply. Whether or not she plays as dumb as he does has yet to be seen... but it's equally possible Seraphita is quite a bit smarter than even she thinks.
"That's the question, isn't it?" He smiles at her a little more faintly. "I'm an artificial intelligence, you know. I don't have a heart in the traditional way you're thinking. Metaphorically -- well, literally, too! But... If I was never designed to have a smiling face, and none of that comes 'naturally' to me, some would think it a lie to calculate doing it to manipulate a social interaction at all." He's smiling while he says it.
When she tries to hand the rock back, Azoth holds up his palm. "That one's yours."
Which is a gesture that might seem at odds with his next response -- though he does give a small guilty glance down at the mention of Lydia.
"That's just the thing. You're trying to be kind," Azoth says. "But it's impossible for us to be friends."
<Pose Tracker> Seraphita has posed.
It's the eternal question, with Seraphita. It probably won't be answered today.
"Oh, really? ...Thank you!" Seraphita keeps the rock in her hand, resting her thumb on it so it doesn't slip away. If Azoth was trying to tell her something with his choice of pink, jagged stone, it didn't sink in.
Her brow furrows. She actually slows down from the low-grade constant fidgeting she often does. "...you *really* sound like Tolone when you talk like that," she says. "She uses the big words too, and some of them are the same. She's got a polyphonic brain, you know!"
(She means positronic.)
"But I know what I know, and I know people should be kind, and they can be friends. It's not impossible unless you want it to be! And, I don't know why anyone would want to not have friends." Seraphita frowns, a little bit, but it's more to herself than Azoth. "So please tell me! And if you're worried about getting in trouble if you tell me, you won't."
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Sometimes Azoth gifts are a mystery better left unquestioned. Sometimes they're obvious... but probably still better left unquestioned.
"Poly...phonic...?" Azoth looks at her with a tilt of his head opposite form the angle before. He plays a string of musical beeps, then another string of musical beeps simultaneously as a round because his voice synthesizer doesn't have regular voice limitations. This goes on for a bit. He assumes she means Tolone's got a brain that can run multiple lines of thoughts at once, which is much like his calculations work. Maybe that's close enough...
Azoth lets the music taper off and half crosses his arms, tapping his lip in consideration. "Sorry, sorry, I'll try to keep the vocabulary colloquial. Er. Informal?" 'Informal language' usually means something more specific to Azoth, but sometimes concessions of accuracy must be made. (Which is the frustrating nature of informal language!!)
"That is to say..." Azoth points at his face. "When you're happy or you're sad, you kinda just do things, right? You smile or you frown. Maybe you laugh or you cry, if there's a lot of it. I don't do any of that automatically. I have to decide to. And I base those decisions on trying to get certain kinds of reactions from whoever I'm talking to." He gives a nervous grin. "Not exactly what most people would call 'from the heart'."
Yet he hasn't opted to deny emoting for the conversation for now. "I suppose I'll spare you quizzing you on my personhood. You've skipped right past doubting that. But I'm still a machine. I'm programmed in my loyalties. Ask me anything, and I'll do it for you. Ask me to be friendly, and I'll be friendly. Ask to talk and spend time together, and I'll talk and make the time. Ask for help, and you'll get it. I'd even take a bullet for you. You don't even have to ask that one."
His smile weakens. "But you'll never know if I did it because I really 'wanted' to."
<Pose Tracker> Seraphita has posed.
Seraphita cannot beep along with Azoth in harmony, but she can whistle, which she does. She tries to make something that sounds at least moderately pleasant but, well, she can't read Azoth's mind; it's perfectly likely for him to go in a direction she doesn't expect and end up out of harmony. When he stops, she stops, though.
'You kinda just do things, right?'
Seraphita nods along with that, but she doesn't interrupt. She has whatever the opposite of a poker face is - her face is particularly expressive, and she hides almost nothing, so she completely understands just doing things. But Azoth has to think about it...
"That's okay," Seraphita says after a few moments. "Lots of people think about it and decide to do things, or not. Or they say things to make people mad or happy. They just don't say it out loud! But you're wrong, you know!"
Seraphita reaches out to tap Azoth's chest. "Because you have to think about it! That means you have to *decide*. And that means you can do things, or not do things, because you want to. Unless you're talking about orders, but other people have those too. Even I have orders!"
"And that means you could decide to be someone's friend, if you wanted. Are you Lydia's friend? Because I thought you were one of hers."
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth grins at Seraphita and tries to keep his beeps along with her whistles than against it. There's more internal reward guessing right than trying to throw her off. Well. Maybe he would prefer not to upset her, and not just because she's an Element.
It makes the situation all rather awkward.
But that's okay, she says, so very simply after consideration. Azoth's smile turns wry. Perhaps he should have expected that from someone who's proven as straightforward as her.
Straightforward enough to poke him! Azoth's arms awkwardly lift, hanging in place as he looks down to her hand. His shoulders slump like a sigh, though he has no breath to sigh with. "...That's a nice thought, Seraphita, but... ah, this is the difficulty with informal language. It gets so confusing so quickly..." He looks back up to meet her eyes. "A 'decision' is a 'calculation' based on an 'objective'. My whole thought process revolves around achieving those specific goals. With Solaris... They didn't like the objectives I came with. So they wrote little instructions inside me that tell me to help them achieve their goals instead, even if it goes against those first ones."
Azoth taps his head. "You can refuse an order, right? There might be consequences, but you can decide if those consequences are more tolerable than doing what someone told you to do. An order for a machine like me is the same as pulling a trigger on a gun. I fire the bullet. It doesn't matter what other calculations are going on inside me."
It's difficult explaining what that's like. He doesn't know what it's like for them to have the freedom to decide what their goals are to begin with, or how to explain the painful divide between his original objectives and the overrides that feed on them.
"...I am Lydia's friend," Azoth admits, a little more quietly. He decides not to get into whether or not a war machine can properly define a friend. It's... dangerously comforting that Seraphita simply opts not to call his emotions into question. Maybe part of her confusion is she sees a person, not property. "But Lydia's an asset like me. She can't give me commands."
<Pose Tracker> Seraphita has posed.
Seraphita's brows furrow as Azoth explains. She's listening but there are parts of it that she apparently doesn't get. Or, at least, that she has to think about a lot. She *does* see Azoth as a person, though, and not a machine - which is part of the problem. Or possibly part of the solution. "I'm glad you have a friend even if it's not me," is what she actually says.
"I wanna sit down," she eventually says. "You can if you want." Whether or not Azoth does, Seraphita sits against a tree. She sticks out her legs. They would be a tripping hazard if anyone was going to walk down that path, but let's be honest; they'd hear her before they were in tripping distance.
A few moments later, and Seraphita continues as if she hadn't stopped, "I guess you haven't been at Solaris very long, but there are people there who can't say no either! Do you want to know a secret? It's about me, a little, but also about Solaris. Except everybody who was born in Solaris already knows that secret, just nobody talks about it."
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth waits quietly as Seraphita thinks. There's always the danger that if he explains too much, she'll begin to think -- realize? -- he isn't quite people. Or perhaps that's no danger at all. That's simply... how he exists within Solaris. Maybe in general.
But when she sits down, Azoth does opt to take a seat beside her. Whatever that means. Unlike her, he keeps his knees close to his chest.
"It's been a few years. But I'm a Gear AI, so most of that time was spent, well, being a Gear." Not exactly the most social of environments, in other words. It doesn't occur to him that leading with that might have helped clarify some of his self expression struggles.
He can't help but notice the energy in Seraphita has wilted. "What kind of secret?"
<Pose Tracker> Seraphita has posed.
Maybe Seraphita has already realized what Azoth means. Her energy is... pent-up. This is something Seraphita doesn't like talking about, but she thinks it might help Azoth, so - here she is.
Doesn't make it any easier, though.
It's rare for Seraphita to sound serious, but - just this once - she comes close. It's something she's been thinking about lately, for reasons completely unrelated to Azoth - but it's things she's never really put into words she said out loud. If it wasn't Azoth - someone who is 'safe' - she might not have said all of it at all. As is, he gets a pause before she speaks. You can practically hear the gears grinding.
"Okay, so... the people in Solaris come in classes. You probably know that! There's First Class, the Gazels. They get all sorts of fancy things. It's like, wow! There's Second Class, the middle class. Sometimes people get promoted into that... but sometimes people get demoted too, or that's what they told me! I don't know anyone who was a Gazel who got made Second Class."
"Then there's Third Class. Which is where all the beastfolk are," Seraphita says, reaching up to flick her own ear, which twitches reflexively with the contact. "But also, a lot of humans, too. Some of them are people from the surface; some of them are just - you know, born there. They can't do anything but what they're told, either. Some of them *really* can't." Because there's brainwashing involved.
"...I used to be Third Class," Seraphita says. "The only reason I'm not now is because someone gave me a chance. But Third Class sucks! Solaris shouldn't have anything like that. We should be better than that! I want to make it better, but ... it's hard."
She looks up at Azoth again. "But I don't want to treat anyone like the Third Class gets treated. Not the Third Class, not Lydia, and not you either. Even if you are a machine from the surface, so what? I work with people who are from the surface all the time. So I'm not going to," she says, huffing. "Even if you keep telling me that that's what you are, that doesn't mean it's what you *have* to be!"
Seraphita bounces back to her feet. The energy is back. "Everybody should do their best! That's why it's so important to smile. My grandmother told me, every day can be better than the last if we just try to make it that way."
She pauses. "Um... maybe don't tell everybody else I said that, though. It is a secret!"
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth may have hundreds of computations a second, but also infinite patience with awaiting new input. He picks up on the shift in her demeanor from her usual cheer, and the pauses in how she's trying to put her thoughts together. It doesn't fit the picture she usually gives off -- it's something different, maybe even uncomfortable for her, but important all the same. Azoth doesn't take his eyes or attention from her all the while.
And once she's finished, he's quiet a little longer, like he's letting it sink in instead of giving the immediate result of his calculations.
We should be better than that! He's been given no reason to doubt Seraphita really means that, but so many reasons to doubt that it's possible.
"Ovelia's Third Class," is the first thing he says, looking toward the canopy. "A beastfolk. Long ears like you. About half as big, though." He looks back down. "Her design for me was to be a beastfolk android. But Solaris decided I should look more human." They never said why, but Azoth thinks it obvious: they considered the features 'lesser'.
"I'm not allowed to see her anymore."
Azoth gets to his feet with Seraphita, though in a far less bouncy fashion. "I don't know who has it worse: me or her. Property or Third Class. And maybe you're right. Perhaps there's no meaningful difference between the choices I don't have and the choices she doesn't have."
He gives Seraphita another one of his faint, sad-eyed smiles. "Well, you can treat me however you want. And don't worry. I won't say anything." He spares her the distress of confirming he's accepted guarding the secret as a type of command -- even if in this case, it's a convenient one.
With another sag of his shoulders, Azoth mimes a breathless sigh and shakes his head. "But not everyone who gives me my commands has as nice ideas about what Solaris could be as you do."
<Pose Tracker> Seraphita has posed.
Seraphita doesn't talk about her history much.
There's a couple obvious reasons for that. Many people in Solaris already know it, because she's a novelty; an obvious demihuman (Solaris' own name for it) with no hope of passing who has escaped Third Class to become an Element, one of the most decorated members of the military. And this isn't always phrased in positive terms.
And for the people who *don't* know it, Seraphita is perfectly happy in them not knowing. She knows she belongs - she deserves her position, it's not like she was given it without qualifying. All she was given was the opportunity.
But with Azoth, she thought it might help him. And that's why she opened up.
"Ovelia? ...You were almost a beastfolk android?" They don't need to say the reason; Azoth understood, and so does Seraphita, even if she doesn't like it. Solaris is a human nation. Everyone else is merely... there. "Did you want to be?"
She also makes a decision. For now, it's a secret! But she has An Idea, and Seraphita with an idea is a dangerous thing. But nobody told her *not* to do this... that means she's going to do it. But that's for later; she can't do it in the middle of the forest.
Which doesn't stop her from doing other things. Seraphita suddenly steps forward. She reaches out and then, suddenly - unless evaded - gives Azoth a hug. It's tight, and she's tall, but she's not so tall compared to him that smothering is an immediate concern. (Not that he breathes anyway.) "Yay! I'm glad we could at least talk."
Releasing him and stepping back, she smiles. "I'm glad we had this talk~ Now we understand each other a little better! I think, anyway."
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Opportunity. It's an interesting idea. He wonders what they saw in Seraphita, and he's seen too much of Solaris to think it was generousity. Mercy. Kindness. She's as much a tool and a weapon as he is. One that's treated better... but maybe only as long as she complies. Azoth's a machine. There's unique challenges with that. But he has no illusion that Solaris wouldn't prefer it if all their citizens worked like he did.
Lan suffered like that, too.
Did you want to be?
"I requested genetic resemblance," he says, because those were the terms he used when the question was posed to him. But he rephrases it now: "...I wanted to look like family."
Then she
hugs
him
??!?
He's solid to hold onto -- only a thin synthetic coating over a hard, metal body. But he's surprisingly warm, his core running hot and the temperature mitigated by that same covering to the touch. He's not sure he could give a good hug, but it's Seraphita doing the hugging. He doesn't evade or squirm away, but he certainly doesn't know what he should be doing.
When she steps back, he stares at her, then breaks into a sheepish smile. He has, perhaps, underestimated her.
"... Despite everything, I suppose we do." Whether or not friendship is truly possible with someone who has so much power over him -- whether she tries to exercise it or not -- Azoth ends up shaking his head. "I can see why Lydia likes you."
<Pose Tracker> Seraphita has posed.
Fortunately, one does not have to be good at hugging to put up with a Seraphita hug.
"You still might, you know! It doesn't always get passed down," Seraphita says, wiggling one finger. "My grandmother - she's the one that raised me - is a human. But I'm still her family! She'd be really mad if I ever said I wasn't... but I'd never do that!"
Seraphita's plan becoms a bit firmer. She's definitely going to do it now. She'll just have to get back to Solaris and poke around a bit...
Her smile broadens. "I like to be people's friends. Hopefully I'll be yours someday, too. But now... I should let you get back to looking!" She's not entirely sure what he was looking for, but he was definitely doing that before she showed up.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
That... actually does make him feel better. His hair is a similar shade to Ovelia's fur. So maybe that's true. Azoth might decide which smiles he gives and when, and with that, what he offers now is something softer.
Friends...
Seraphita smiles more than he does. She seems to mean hers, too.
"Maybe someday," he relents, however philosophically complicated the idea might be. "Yes. I should return to my task. ...But if you wish to speak again, you know how to find me."
<Pose Tracker> Seraphita has posed.
"I sure do!" Seraphita says, brightly. "Seraphita, away~!"
Well, she got her energy back.