2022-09-11: After, In Shevat
- Log: 2022-09-10 After, In Shevat
- Cast: Lan Lilac, Marivel Armitage
- Where: Shevat Residential District
- Date: September 11, 2022
- Summary: Marivel shares some choice information about Azoth.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
It's been a long time since Lan last visited Shevat. Not a long time at all in the way Marivel figures such things, of course, but for Lan it's been several months, which may as well have been ages ago.
She's just happy that the sky nation-city is more welcoming than... others.
Since she was cleared by the medical team to go get a little exercise, she's doing just that - taking a walk in the residential area, doing a little sightseeing, that sort of thing.
Lan still gets lightheaded easily, so she's taking it a little slow. (And treating herself to an ice cream cone because she nearly died and so she deserves ice cream.)
She ought to sit down somewhere nice and work on that shawl for Hicalu. If she'd had that while she was bedridden and trapped in a the setup for a cheap five-gella romance novel, she definitely would have gotten it finished by now. She wanders closer to the window of a shop that sells clothing, peering in. ...Is that the kind of thing people are wearing now? It looks uncomfortable!
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Marivel Armitage doesn't visit Shevat often herself. Much like certain other folk, Marivel hasn't forgotten Shevat's betrayal. To most that's ancient history. To Marivel it's the equivalent of like a hundredth of the time. Lots of problems happened because of that betrayal. If they feel guilty? Good. Marivel will make the most of that guilt.
But the sad truth is, Shevat has parts that are particularly rare to find anywhere else. And so she has to come even if she'd rather just let them exist without her. She is not an empath, though, so she really has no idea that Lan is going to be here.
Marivel is also walking through the residential district however, carrying a bag of parts that she was able to procure. She has needs for her golems soon and one in particular is difficult to repair without the correct inventory. But she spots Lan peering through a window and she approaches.
"Ah, it seems you are no longer in need of assistance then? I wasn't entirely sure if I had the timing right if I'm being honest. Even for me that length of time is difficult to keep track."
She pauses a moment before adding, "If you didn't need the help yet, ah, pretend I didn't say anything."
She tries to get a feel for the Hounds but doesn't feel anything. "Okay, I think we're good."
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
She's in the middle of trying to figure out just how exactly that scarf is supposed to be worn when Marivel pipes up. "--Marivel!" Lan completely forgets about the window and everything beyond it, barely stopping herself from throwing her arms around the engineer. One, Marivel doesn't know her that well, and two, she still feels a little fragile. She isn't, Lan knows this - it's just. Brains are funny that way.
"No no, you timed it just right. So you really were dreaming from the past..." Which isn't impossible - Lan knows this, too -- but that's... a really really super long time. "I can't believe you remembered it at all. I mean yeah of course you did, you saved us! But..." She blathers on, until getting ahold of her train of thought.
"--What I mean to say is, 'thank you'. Loren and I both owe you one big time." They had been so hungry. The (deeply gross) nutribars were nearly gone, and Loren had been ensuring that she ate most of them. "We didn't waste it, I promise."
The shaman pushes some hair out of her face with the non-ice cream hand and watches Marivel. "...Good for what?"
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
"Well... I didn't usually get guests back then." Marivel admits, glancing away. "Course I had no idea at the time that guy was Solarian. The Empire wasn't called Solaris when I was a kid. Still, that is why I stored the memory in empathite so I could pick up on it later. Holding onto something like that for five thousand years would have driven me crazy so I just remembered to check on the Empathite periodically."
"And technically," Marivel says. "It was and wasn't the past." That's maybe the weirdest part of what she's saying. "In the Memory Maze, there is no time. EVery moment is today. Every moment is an eternity ago. Even the future is present there. But in a sense, it was that long ago for me all the same."
She cracks a cheeky grin. "I suppose that makes you one of my oldest friends, mm?"
But she nods once, "I wasn't sure what kind of food you needed but soup and sandwiches are usually safe though if you were actually starving it might've been troublesome if you ate too much. There is a danger if you haven't eaten in a while and try to eat your normal intake."
Those nutribars may have been just as neccessary as Loren felt they were.
"Ah, well, I have to make sure time proceeds in a mostly linear sense. Timeloops have to be closed or those Hounds of Tindalos might chase after me and one false touch and poof, i'm gone in a fit of causality."
She glances away again. "Well, if you are safe then it was worth the risk. And your connection to Loren might make interesting things happen. The Emperor hunted my people to the edge of the wilderness so I'm not too fond of him."
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Memories are funny things. Once, she had thought that the idea of memory transfer was a little farfetched. But it turned out to be just as real, and as dangerous, as anything could be.
"They were absolutely perfect. Good cold weather food, and good for people who are hurt and need stuff that's easy to digest." She grins a bit. "You should've seen the look on Loren's face when he unwrapped the first sandwich. He looked like a meteor could hit and as long as the sandwich survived he'd be all right."
Is that... an actual expression?? But Lan continues, regardless. "Right! You can get really sick if you try to just hork a bunch of stuff down after going hungry for a while. It's why when you find someone who's been stuck in the desert for a while you need to give them water first, slowly, and then small bits of food until their bodies get used to it again."
People are fragile. Even the things that sustain them can kill them.
People are strong. They can do and survive so many, many things.
Lan finishes her ice cream, crunching the last bite of waffle cone with contentment. "Hounds of... you know, I think I'm really glad I'm not Dam Dairam's." Stars are simple. Sometimes they fall on people, who mostly deserve it. Especially if they've pissed off a shaman of Rigdobrite. Time sounds messy and complicated.
"Emperor... that Cain guy?" The one that's supposedly guided Solaris for... centuries, she guesses. "What kind of beef did he have with your folks?"
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
"The Emperor is older than me," Marivel says. "And I haven't had a run-in with him myself. I can only guess at his beef, but I do have a guess." She folds her arms across her chest. "My suspicion is that my people's memories were long and, as such, a threat but it is just as likely that we were not human. That difference alone is often enough. Especially, as you might recall, for Solaris."
She nods once on the matter of Cain being his name though.
"Mm, well, perhaps I can check the drone footage..." Marivel chuckles faintly. "But I imagine you'd prefer your privacy."
Lan clarifies further on treatment for people who haven't eaten in a while. As expected of a Baskar shaman, she supposes, regardless of how she obtained her tablet.
"Oh Dan Dairam isn't so bad." Marivel says. "But time travel is decidedly unpleasant. That I do not recommend." She pauses. "But, well, I did not exactly have a choice in the matter. Not really."
She looks to the window and looks through it.
"I talked to Azoth. I've done some diagnostics. Only the preliminary results so far but..."
She shakes her head. "It is a mess. I am surprised he's still standing at all, let alone sapient. I'm guessing that whomever first turned him on wouldn't have even known he had a personal identity of his own."
She cups her chin thoughtfully. "And ... perhaps he hadn't. Not originally. But souls are a tricky thing and exists in far more than just sapient entities. Perhaps in interacting with others, he gained one, or perhaps all that mucking around in his programming created the Azoth we know."
"But one thing I know almost for certain. Azoth's core and Azoth's body do not fit. They are not made to go together. Azoth is likely meant to be a Gear, one from the Zeboim Federation. One that violates treaties signed since, not that I expect Solaris to care about that."
She spreads out both her hands. "So the problem with returning Azoth's AI to its natural state, you see the problem, yes? Even if I could do that, what I would be doing is killing the Azoth you know and consigning his fate as a weapon the time of which is long past. There seems to be some code that is different from the rest of him, perhaps that is where he truly comes from, but I cannot be certain."
She exhales. "So in a sense--the problem is that Solaris is not misusing Azoth, but rather they are using him as most of Azoth is meant to be used."
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
She remembers how Beastfolk and demihumans were referred to, in the bases. Or in Etrenank, the one time she'd managed to step beyond the walls of the Voss estate. "...So was Cain just... playing a long game? Knowing he would outlive everybody's memories of... whatever?" she guesses.
"Uh... you sent drones? Besides the licky robots?" She didn't even know that a robot could lick. Who would make something like that? Lan rests her chin in one hand and thinks back. "I mean... I don't think I did anything embarrassing." Not after Marivel's care package arrived, anyway!
It's... kind of blowing Lan's mind that Marivel can be so cavalier about time travel. But then, Lan supposes you can grow used to anything! Especially on a long enough timeline, and Marivel's is longer than most.
She looks up quickly when Marivel mentions that she saw Azoth. "You did? Is he okay??" Even in the Dreaming, afterward, he'd seemed so... not dead. If he were human, she would have called it 'dead-eyed', maybe. But for most of the trip, he had been morose.
Which, okay, fair. He'd injured a friend and then that friend showed up in front of him with a giant hole in her psychic body. It's understandable!
"A machine's 'code' is its mind and soul," Lan repeats, a very truncated and percolated version of the many times Loren had tried to explain it to her (or worse, the Assyria base IT nerd she managed to corner with increasingly concerned questions about the terminals). "So you're saying that Azoth is in the wrong body. And if he were in his right body, he'd be even more of a weapon?" The way he had made that garbled scream and raked his claws down his own face, as though he were the one in agony. Lan stills remembers. It chilled her worse than the snow.
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
"That's my suspicion," Marivel says. "But I wouldn't take it as truth. As I've said I've never met the man, all I can do is theorize as to why he and his did what they did." She pauses. "The licky robots are drones, yes. I didn't build them but they're important to me. I wouldn't send them out without keeping an eye on them to that kind of location." Loren WAS present after all.
"At the moment Azoth is fine." Marivel says. "Emotionally, well, about as much as you could expect. Regardless, he has what's really important. So long as he has that important thing, I think he has good odds of being okay in the end though that is more philosophy, I suppose, on my part."
She focuses on that scarf in the window.
"More or less," Marivel agrees more or less with Loren's description. "But I'm not saying that."
"I'm saying that if I were to revert Azoth's code to before people started mucking with his code and adding more junk to it--he wouldn't be the Azoth you knew anymore. He'd just be a weapon. A gear, most likely."
"What I am saying about his core is that, due to it being in the wrong kind of chassis, it is likely painful for him to make use of it. While this is not dangerous in of itself so long as he's in control and not overusing it, it could destroy him if he was forced to--or decided to push himself irrespective of the danger. It is like being born with an enlarged heart, though perhaps not quite as hazardous as that because he is a machine not a fragile human. Still, that is probably a problem I could fix if given the opportunity to but he might prefer to have the option to self destruct."
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Important things... so the licky robots are Marivel's important things. But what about Azoth? What could his important thing be... Something strong enough to carry him through the hard times past and harder times that will surely come, with him under Solaris's control?
She thinks about it. There's that photon blade. She's seen him carry it, and use it. It seems strange for him to carry that when... well, he can make swords of light rain down from wherever. Maybe she's just thinking too much about it and there's no meaning behind it at all.
But back to his code, Marivel explains further. Or perhaps, deeper. "So, what-- he needs to get his original body back. Do you think that would fix at least one problem?" Because Azoth's messy code can't be fixed if he's, he's blown up into a million tiny pieces or burnt to a crisp or whatever happens to super advanced robots like him when they're destroyed from overwork.
"He mentioned once that he was looking for his lost memories. I said I would help, though I can't say I'd even know what one looked like if I saw it. But he talked as if they were physical, or maybe I just... imagined them that way." Like she could just pick up a sphere and Azoth could just slot it into his head or something and poof! Memory retrieved. She fidgets a bit. "What happens if he gets his memories back? Will it turn him into that 'Gear Azoth'? ...If he remembers them, won't that undo all the damage?" And turn him (back) into a weapon...
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Marivel can't read Lan's mind, but she suspects Lan knows the answer to what Azoth's important thing is. More or less.
But the answer was 'companions', for the reader in case they are curious. Marivel considers companions and friends to be different in subtle but important ways. Both are important.
"Well it is just a power core." Marivel says. "Naturally swapping out a 'power core is a challenging exercise but not an impossible one. It's just a power core. The difficulty is the AI--and not just because that is not my specialty! But because well once I start tampering with the AI I start tampering with WHO HE IS. Even if I odn't accidentally cause a fatal error--pretty likely considering how much of a mess it is right now--i could stop Azoth from being Azoth--the state without Azoth is the original default state, you see, so...one mistake and the best case scenario might be the equivalent of a factory reset. The worst case would be unleashing him on a rampage or just outright destroying him."
He was looking for his lost memories... "Apparently," Marivel says, still looking through the window. "He knew my daughter at one point but doesn't recall just how." She frowns thoughtfully. Did Kamui...create Azoth, perhaps? It's just a thought.
"Well," Marivel thinks. "I ... wouldn't normally think so? Because his prior state did not have a proper consciousness so if there are memories they shouldn't be strong enough to overpower his current identity. But it's such a mess. It could be a long time to really detangle that ball of yarn and get a feel for what might happen." Drama gotta happen on Filgaia, there's only so much Marivel can do about that.
"At the very least, it doesn't seem to be a 'Memory Bank full' situation like with Gami." Marivel adds. "Most AIs can't hold onto memories from as far back as the Zeboim era."
She waves a hand. "Anyway, either he can get into his old body or a body of similar scale that can endure the power core, or the power core gets swapped with something more suitable for his current body. That should solve that particular problem at least even if it wouldn't solve the programming."
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
"It... kind of sounds like there isn't a solution," Lan sighs, slumping. Just like Lydia's chains, just like the yoke around Loren's neck. No, that's not it. That's not the end. Even if someone can't be 'saved', they can be comforted, can't they? Until they can be free, they don't have to suffer as much. As long as someone is able to reach out, as long as they are able to receive help. She takes a breath and straightens up again. "But then, even if we can't fix the main problem, we can get him a better power core. So he'll be healthier and safer."
"And if his old memories shouldn't overwrite the Azoth that exists, then there's probably no harm in helping him retrieve them." Lan doesn't know enough about artificial intelligence to know if regaining those memories will cause any shiny Brand New Problems.
But it's one thing to know the Marivel is thousands of years old and it's another thing to know that she's actually a moom. She... she looks about Lan's age!! (To be honest, Lan looks a couple of years older, due to Being Tall.) "Your... daughter?" And how old must the daughter be now, if Azoth can't remember her?!
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
"Ah, well, I don't mean to say THAT. I do not care for giving up either, Lan." Marivel shakes her head. "For example... Someone put 'Azoth' in there in the first place, did they not? Whomever it is may still be around--or they might have notes left behind. I suppose it depends on when Azoth became Azoth. That is a question I still do not have the answer for but if someone can create an Azoth..."
She snaps her fingers. "It is possible they'll be able to help Azoth more than I can. Making someone like Azoth takes a true specialist in Artificial Intelligence. Because they'd know the parts of Azoth ARE Azoth and would be much more adept at managing that data."
"It is also possible he just emerged on his own. Ghosts in the machine have been known to happen. That would be an even better circumstance because that means he may just evolve beyond his programming." She bobs her head. "Right now, he is more weapon than man but if he continues to evolve... well, it is at least possible the programming may alter."
"So, right now--perhaps there is not a solution just yet, but in the future they may well be. Until then, if you are kind to him-- that will only help. But a lack of caution--I would not suggest that either, Lan. For both of your sakes." She grimaces though and admits, "I understand that is a difficult line to walk."
"I don't think so." Marivel admits. "I'd at least say the odds of him being hurt by them are less than they might be if someone else regained their memories. I suppose if he made them AS Azoth--then perhaps he was quite a different person in that respect, but as it pertains to him being a wewapon--no, it shouldn't."
Marivel isn't accustomed to getting this kind of look from a Drifter and in a show of bashfulness that might not entirely be performance, Marivel rubs at her neck and looks away. "W-well, you've met Kamui. I didn't build her exactly but ahh... But I helped. The true mastermind of her creation is long gone but... I do see her that way and she does call me mother sometimes..."
"If you see her, I hope you can be a friend to her. Perhaps you already are." She cracks a small smile htere. "She's also suffered a lot. Even ostensibly free machines have lived difficult lives on Filgaia."
"Much," Marivel adds. "Like humans. So alike they are, and yet..."
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
"..." Someone built Azoth. "Of course," Lan mumbles, blinking. She completely forgot - after all, she's been thinking of Azoth as a person, and people make themselves (barring some help from mom and dad). But machines and Gears are built. "I guess it's not impossible, right?? Something could still be out there. Maybe even the person who built him!" Hope, fresh and bright, surges through her veins like silver.
Evolving. "He... can do that, can't he," she realizes. Because he already had, according to Marivel. "He could do it again. And maybe even enough to throw off all the junk Solaris did to him." It had happened to Lan, sort of - or maybe whatever string had been wound tight around her mind finally just wore out and snapped.
Emperor Cain, Marivel herself... there are people who live long enough. What would Azoth's creator feel, knowing that their child is so messed up? How would Marivel feel, if Kamui were much the same?
"I have met her once or twice. She's a good kid." Lan doesn't know her well, of course. But she had been there, at Kattelox, trying her best. "If she calls you mother, then you're her mother." That, at least, Lan can be sure of. "I like to think I could be just about anybody's friend, if I tried." Most people could, if they tried!!
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
You might not have to imagine for Marivel. When speaking of Kamui, Lan can sense it as bright as any star--Regret, Worry, Fear, Hope--but mostly a quietly sad undercurrent. This is someone who wanted a better life for her daughter and feels they failed to provide one.
Failed to provide a better world.
Wasn't I supposed to...teach you something?
Wasn't I supposed to give you...something?
Marivel closes her eyes, her breath catching in her throat. For one who doesn't really need to breathe--well, a body is a body. It reacts as bodies do sometimes.
She takes a moment. When she opens her eyes again, she says, "Thank you for saying so, Lan. You're a kind woman. I'm sure that's why Rigdobrite chose you. If only more people tried as hard as you to be a friend to the world."