To: The Commonwealth|Subject: Achille|Encryption: What-Could-Possibly-Go-Wrong?

[Enkidu]

“Ladies, gentlemen, transsexuals and neuter, Gallics, Bretonians, Rheinlanders, Libertonians, Hispanics, Humans, Sirians, Gammuians, nomads and anthropomorphs, lend me your respective aural sensory appendages…” *intakes breath* “…So, you may ponder exactly why I’m hauling you out your individual fields of ignorance by every orifice I can legally squeeze a digit into to collaborate on a goal that no doubt unifies us all; the manufacturing and distribution of consumer electronica; mostly manifested in the ever-popular format of luxury consumer goods.”

“…Ah, do not turn away great men and women; ignore your respective doomsday devices for a serviceable moment and permit your great employer (who, by the way, could discharge any one of you in the wing-beat of a humming bird), to finish his dictum. There has been one force, one driving motive that has driven human technological progress with ever increasing rapidity since Earth’s Twenty First century and that force is…”

*Halts impressively as some itinerant offers a suggestion*

“…No Sir, not War, although that does admittedly run a close second, but consumerism. Think of it, with every decade we possess marvels of computerised prowess that defy the dreams of our ancestors. The systemwide neuralnet; a marvel. Skycars that drive themselves; a wonder. An autopilot that can be trusted not to bang into every third rockstroid within visual range… still far off. But anyway, my point is, if it’s got a transistor in it, and it’s a labour saving device, people will buy it. Why carry a phone when you can merely slot a chip into your head and neurologically transfer all the ethically questionable imagery you have routing around directly into your partners consciousness? Everyday systems and usages yes, but you bring out a better one, a newer one, a superiorly advertised one, and people will purchase it. It could be twice the size and weight and operate at half the speed but who cares? The marketing people clearly didn’t.”

“Anyway, back to the original subject of this transmission before you all wither from tedium; pets. Yes, that’s right, you’ve heard me aptly; stinking, aggressive, expensive companions with no practical function, there is a huge demand for house pets within the Sirius sector, and indeed, on space stations and ships of all sizes. However, trying to field the average life support system to deal with even the ammonia the most goldfish generates is an unenviable experience for life support systems designed from the base upwards to process human biological by-products; insert a midsized basset hound defecating all over the floor and you have a serious environmental mishap, indeed, a potentially deadly one. But, wait, nono friends, do not throw poor Tiddles out of the airlock so rapidly; an arcology such as our esteemed facility here can actually support nonehuman life, but many locations are graced with inferior life-support systems. Of course, for the people who do have to suffer these hardships (and they are many, indeed, most of us if we wish to stray for long distances in anything other than our newer, larger vessels with a menagerie of none-frozen, none-stuffed, none-tranquillized animal compadres), we do empathise with this concern. But the solution? Well…”


“So Sirs, the solution is clear; design a trendy, ethically none-malicious pet which effectively replicates animal behaviour without being either cumbersome nor wasteful, with some form of associated AI. Oh, they already exist do they? Well, let me list the inherent flaws…”:

1) Pre-existing AI pets are inflexible and thus destroy the illusion of reality for the pet owner; the pet will not conceivably age nor grow. This means the pet becomes less desirable than a “real” pet, as it lacks characteristic traits for the illusion to be complete.

2) The hardware package is expansive and spread throughout the visible pet. They also tend to break or shatter as a real animal would, and (unlike a real animal) exhibit odd behavioural patterns near electromagnets, Gammuians, or otherwise.

3) All pet owners like to admire “uniqueness” (whatever that may be) within their pet, and compare it with others. With a pre-existing AI pet that essentially boils down to which model of identically-spotted-Dalmation X-series you choose to buy. Whilst some more expensive (and larger) types demonstrate procedurally generated behavioural patterns, the appearance of the animals will be almost entirely linear, as will walking patterns and otherwise due to the vast amount of programming required to accurately reproduce animal movement.

4) Because of this robot-like conformity in movement design, more intelligent members of the animal kingdom appear to ignore their artificial counterparts… excepting the expensive models.

5) A robotic cat will not land on its feet.

6) The act of recharging your rabbit does induce a yearning for a more actual substitute.

“There however, is a potential alternative; energy animals. Ridiculous? Not at all, shield bubbling technology has been developed into such a way we can accurately produce three-dimensional mobile surface holograms, with nearly unlimited potential when referring to field elasticity and artificial texturing. So what if we had a walking, talking (well, meowing) shield-bubble cat with a comparatively miniscule concentration of hardware held within? Not at all disadvantageous, think of the advantages…”:

1) The animal is almost entirely indestructible, to the point of being relatively bulletproof.

2) Balance wouldn’t have to be simulated, and thus a higher level of visual fidelity and behavioural actualism can be attained through an alternative use of the hardware space.

3) The animal is considerably cheaper than other artificial pets.

4) Nothing to break: no servicing and thus greater realism.

5) Injuries and convalescence; indeed, all manners of behaviour can be fully reproduced. In effect, the person’s animal would be real, as to how they depicted it.

6) Say if you wanted to turn your cat into a saltwater crocodile. The only change required would be one of software.

7) By tinkering with the software you could conceivably change the appearance.

8) Higher textural, visual and emotional fidelity.

9) If one cranks the power up, you have a reasonably effective shock weapon.


“I’m sure you can see the fiscal advantages cornering such a market would involve, not in the least mentioning the… credible scientific boon bestowed to the studies of electromagnetic field manipulation. That’s shields to you and me.”


“Since the actual field construction itself resides firmly within the realm of Sir Devious, I’m entrusting you Sir to focus on two aspects: the visual fidelity, solidity and texturing of the cat. To Mrs Perez, I’m asking that you’ll be able to doctor hardware both sufficiently cheap and effacious to severely worry the most optimistic Kishiro executive, and software of sufficient intelligence to make a Gammuian cra<expletive>p itself (I do need to stop saying 'Gammuians', don't I)? You two are officially joint project heads here; and thus my resources are also your resources; feel free to draw upon whatever additional Commonwealth members you require to make this worthy vision a factual reality. It’s your domain now, Sirs (oh and Madame, of course).”

"...Oh, and before I neglect anyone overtly important, Astrid (that legal devil) is firmly in charge of marketing for whatever end product you produce. I fully expect for you to get at least three of these monstrosities into every Overweight Californian's lounge areas before the month is out Sir; perhaps consult some of the major shipping cooperation's about the possibility of above - counter competitive distribution, perhaps?"


“Oh, and before you question the feasibility of such a project; you may merely look below:”

“This particular construct performed admirably…. For about five minutes, along with the minor irritance that it appeared to burn the skin to the touch, and the visual/textual fidelity of the kitten leaves a lot to be desired. All details on this particular animal are available on request, as a little… kickstart to your endeavours.”


“Au revoir. I will remain your consultant throughout, but, oh, byebye for now cheri's....

"I need to see a man about an eyeball.”

---

THE SYNDIC LEAGUES
(A co-operative of Rheinland's Shipping Unions, retired from a life of piracy.)

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[glassofwater]

~Transmission~
(A young proud woman looks to the man speaking this nonsense)
Maya: So, you're suggesting this robotic animal can be any creature we desire? How long before someone makes it into a human? .... .... Annnd there goes the human populace!
~End Transmission~

[Enkidu]

*Appears bloody startled an apparently self-indulgent looking female infringing upon his transmission. Glares mildly*

"...Right cheri - whoever you may be, how the hell did you manage to decrypt this petit transmission of mine, fangs woman, You'd need the foresight of Nostradamus to penetrate some of the more particularly inflexible logarithms that I've scattered all over the...."

*Remembers that Robert had flogged a package of three, CW| Grade decryption devices all over the mass market. Takes a moment to figure it out before swearing profusely*

"....Merde, Lucifer damn it I... hm, so I assumed you did actually purchase one of these devices correct, because if so, well, we have no history of any financial transactions between the Commonwealth and yourself, and being firmly aware of, well, our love of Actually Being Paid for the Provision of a Service; that'll be fifty million credits cheri, up, quick, and without intrest....

...."Unless of course you are merely one of Sirius's most accomplished hacktivists ever to ply a keyboard with incriminating fingerprints, in which case, you accomplishments are only laudable, but, cheri, that's what us in the business moniker "Obvious Industrial Espionage" and will almost certainly result in an infinitely reciprocating two hundred million credit bounty being rammed briskly up the nearest available body aperture, is that.... sufficiently succinct for you, hmm?"

"...But yes, Cheri, to answer your question; the animal can indeed be any creature you desire. However, I will hasten to add that a Human in the domestic setting serving as a pet to stroke and pat may induce a certain degree of suspicion to one's person; yes? One might assume... not that I'm implying you particularly, of course, that one was some form of sexual predator. Besides, why does every bloody layman seemingly assume that any sort of advanced artificial intelligence is bound to be some form of sociopathic control freak that considers it's creators it's arch-enemy? My dear, some of my closest companions are artificial intelligences."

---

THE SYNDIC LEAGUES
(A co-operative of Rheinland's Shipping Unions, retired from a life of piracy.)

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[Occam Razor]

*looks like she's been laughing*
Good Day, Mr Nadeau.
What you propose there is indeed an interesting idea, although it is questionable how cheap that'll become. So you want to create a pet completely out of hardfields, bended to a point of extreme complexity. That's ... complex. *she chuckles* Also it would probably eat alot of energy, depending on the strength of the field.

So, I guess you want me to find a way to get enough energy for this and aswell creating the hard- and software for this to appear realistic. That is possible, although I'd advice against a real Artificial Intelligence, since that could lead to rather unwanted effects, like pets rebelling against owners or manipulating themselves. No, I'd rather just take the simplest solution, which is just forming the 'Intelligence' after a real animal.

Alright, I can do this. But I need a list of people able to support this project, containing scientists somewhat related to this part of science, and people able to bring the materials we need. As soon as I get materials I can begin.

---

"Common sense is the best distributed commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it."
René Descartes

[The_Normal_Anomaly]

***Transmission Incoming***
***Transmission Received***
***CW Encryption Recognized***
***Sender ID: Doctor Devious***
***Origin: FP 10***

----Video Start----

*The scenery is one of the workshops in the research division. What can only be called junk is spread across one of the tables. He stops to fiddle with his goggles on his head before speaking.*
"Well, uhh . . ."
*Clears throat*
"Ahem, yes. Energy pets? Shield bubble energy pets? I mean, 'why not' right? I guess that can make money, but well, we could just leave them horrible to the touch and have them serve some kind of weaponized role, like stunning prisoners or something. Get a sweet, sweet government contract to build the things, and we don't even have to fix aesthetic concerns or the fact that they are bad for human contact. Actually, yeah, 'bad for human contact' would become a positive. And, umm, lowering the production costs by avoiding that unneeded step would increase profit margins, on top of that, knowing the financial-"
*He makes a really sour face*
"- irresponsiblity -"
*Back to a normal expression*
"- of the house governments it might be a bigger wallet to attack."
*Turns around to his junk, then turns back like he totally forgot he was talking to 'people'*
"I guess that's it, I'll get that data and see what needs to be put together for the construction side of things. I mean, we already talked about field generation, so I have some idea what I might be looking at already. Construction should be no issue."
*A loud snap can be heard in the background as a couple larger pieces of junk have an electrical arc pop between them. He looks backwards, giving a horrified look back to the camera as he runs up to it and turns it off*

----Video End----

[Enkidu]

*Looks at the chat history and sighs, picking at his nails until the relativistic effects of space render another data shot physically manageable.*

"...Oh sweet sacre, not another two-way reply sequence? Alright, I'll divide them into separate transmissions so you two darlings don't become overly bewildered as to who exactly I am addressing..."

||To Miss (not Mrs) Perez||

What you propose there is indeed an interesting idea, although it is questionable how cheap that'll become. So you want to create a pet completely out of hardfields, bended to a point of extreme complexity. That's ... complex. *she chuckles* Also it would probably eat alot of energy, depending on the strength of the field.

"And tackling that energy consumption, is indeed a formidable challenge cheri, one that I sorely hope you are equal to and indeed I firmly anticipate you will be."

---

THE SYNDIC LEAGUES
(A co-operative of Rheinland's Shipping Unions, retired from a life of piracy.)

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