34 - Crew
Faith
Some idea of what I'm doing.
- Location
- Land of Waves and Warmth
Well I'm glad you think so 
I actually kind of forgot about the Nanoha Spiders. I'll have to revisit them at some point.
In the meantime, have a chapter.
34 - Crew
In the end, I decided that the best solution was the simplest one - simple AI.
I was nowhere near confident enough to create a realistic or even remotely human seeming intelligence from scratch - but I realized I didn't really need to. No one was supposed to be on the ship for extended periods of time anyway, so they didn't need to be particularly lifelike.
And even without copying the advanced AI software from the Commander level AI, designing a program to perform basic tasks and react to common stimuli was easy enough. A few changes to the Dox AI was all it took.
In this case, I developed the AI with a few simple routines. Each of the five AI was different in specifics, but they all operated roughly the same. They would sit at the operations console of their designated room, tapping away at the touch screen. It wouldn't do anything, of course, but it would look like they were doing something, so it was good enough. Besides that, they would also occasionally stand up, wander around the room or walk to one of the various comfort rooms - the rec room, the kitchen or the bathroom.
They were also programmed to acknowledge people they identified based on three categories - crew, friendly, and enemy. The automated responses were... minimal, at best. Nodding heads, exchanging a brisk "hello", etcetera. But it would be enough, I suspected. Not like I intended to let anyone on board long enough to notice anyway.
I assumed direct control of my body and made my way through the ship, admiring the smooth silvery white materials of the interior. I'd learned from the first Pioneers - the walls and floor were done up to look like panels, as opposed to being flat and textureless metals. The light fixtures looked like actual light fixtures, instead of exposed bulbs, and the doors had actual control consoles.
Admittedly, the Pioneers and Voyagers had those as well, but they'd been added afterwards when one of TSYGAN's Rats had asked how to lock the door in the toilets.
Each of the doorways was decorated by a nameplate and icon - the majority were icons ripped straight from FTL - two missiles for the weapons room, an engine for the... well, engine room, a camera for the sensors, and so on, with the nameplates identifying the rooms as well. The 'comfort rooms' as I'd taken to calling them had their own icons - a bowl of food, a toilet, a couch and TV for the kitchen, bathroom and rec rooms, respectively.
Once I was done admiring the central corridor of the ship, I set about looking for my new crew members.
Ajax, a dark-skinned male with a buzzcut, had taken the helm. Which is to say, he sat in the pilot's chair and pushed a couple levers back and forth. Every now and then, he would reach above his head and flick a series of three switches mounted on the overhead console. None of them did anything, but it reminded me of Firefly, and that was good enough for me.
Dante, aka generic video game protagonist number 130193, sat in the weapons room. A trench coat hung over the back of his chair and a heavy revolver - the designs for which I'd taken from the Bright Foundation, - sat on top of the console. The android didn't need the handcannon - he had an SMG of the same origin slung across his back, like all of the 'crew', but I thought it was a nice extra touch.
The final 'male' of the crew was Byron, designated engineer. He was dressed in cargo pants and a sleeveless jacket over his vacuum suit, a futuristic welding mask of sorts hanging from his belt. Short blonde hair stuck up from his head in tufts, giving him a distinctly 'messy' look about him. I'd have given him goggles and grease stains, too, but goggles were pointless with the mask and there was nothing on the ship that leaked grease, so that would have been dumb.
My next destination was the shield bay, crewed by a dark-haired lady I'd chosen to name Veronica. She sat silently in the swivel chair, alternating her attention between the shield console screen and the PDA in her hands. Both screens were covered with scrolling Lorem Ipsum style text, flashing past almost too fast to read. For Humans, anyway. Unlike the others, who wore at least roughly functional clothes over their vacuum suits, I'd dressed Veronica in a plain white sundress. Admittedly, the silvery-grey skintight suit underneath kind of ruined the effect, but it wasn't really much of an issue.
The last member of my merry android crew was Melissa, designated sensor operator. She was curled up on the seat in the sensor room, a hoodie and loose jeans disguising her figure. An (empty) coffee mug was held in the cup holder mounted on the side of the terminal.
Most of the minor details were totally unnecessary, in terms of functionality. And by most, I mean all. But they were the same 'little things' that made them seem more human, and I was hoping that it would stave off suspicion for the short periods people were to be boarding the ship.
Once I'd finished the rounds, checking all the rooms for anything that seemed out of place, I walked to the ship's bridge. Ajax was sitting in the front left seat, leaving one seat open looking out through the ship's front window.
Rather than sit in it, I chose to stand, lingering over Ajax's shoulder and resting an arm on the back of the chair to either side. And then I gave my first command as Captain Drake of the PCF Starsong.
Which also happened to be a Star Wars reference.
"Punch it, Ajax."
The android grunted and pushed the big blue button on his command console. The engines and FTL drive emitted a low whine, and a shudder ran through the ship.
Seconds later, we were hurtling away through hyperspace.
---
Meanwhile, back at my newly reinforced asteroid base, fleet building was really getting into motion.
The few ships I had were mainly focused on building more Orbital Factories. I had six, so far, and fourteen more on the way. Once those were all complete, then I could begin production of my Tracker Fleet in earnest.
It would be a thing of beauty - two thousand cutting edge Corvettes with shields, armour, engines, and weapons like nothing the Rebels had ever seen. I had no doubts that, once complete, the Tracker Fleet would have no issues in disarming the entire Rebellion. And once that was done, I could figure out a nice, peaceful way of sorting out their stupid squabble with the Federation.
Since I wasn't patient enough for that to finish, I was going to go ahead and do some other stuff whilst I waited.
Namely, spying on people. The Starsong had been designed to blend in - it was one of the larger ship types, but nothing particularly unusual. Some more tech-savvy people may have realised it didn't match any Federation designs, but frankly I didn't really care about that, and it was likely that the relevant authorities would care even less - after all, who gives a damn about one mysterious corvette flying around when the galaxy is embroiled in the midst of a devastating interstellar war?
Bloody no one, that's who.
---
The Starsong emerged from FTL about six thousand kilometres from the long range jump beacon, in the midst of an asteroid field.
Well, 'midst' made it sound worse than it was.
In movies and games, the asteroid fields all seem to be densely packed, with asteroids bashing into each other every couple of seconds, and fighters zipping through chunks of rock, bobbing and weaving.
In reality, the asteroids were scattered far apart - really far apart. It was less an asteroid field, and more a large number of asteroids in roughly the same vast empty sector of space.
The asteroids weren't the only thing my ship's sensors picked up, however. There was another ship, one approaching the beacon with its engines flaring. My shiny new FTL Sensor Tech told me that the ship's FTL Drive was charging to activate, and that it would be jumping imminently.
And it did, but not fast enough to escape a full scan from my full suite of hypertech sensors. I had a very good picture now of the ship's shape and size, and it was familiar.
The Kestrel.
The default ship for FTL players, and, if my guess was correct, the 'canon' ship, as far as this universe was concerned.
Well. If I wanted to spy on people and steal loads of cool technology, following the protagonist around at a nice safe distance seemed an easy bet.
Of course, as soon as I said that, I started wondering how long it would take for everything to go to hell for the both of us.
I actually kind of forgot about the Nanoha Spiders. I'll have to revisit them at some point.
In the meantime, have a chapter.
34 - Crew
In the end, I decided that the best solution was the simplest one - simple AI.
I was nowhere near confident enough to create a realistic or even remotely human seeming intelligence from scratch - but I realized I didn't really need to. No one was supposed to be on the ship for extended periods of time anyway, so they didn't need to be particularly lifelike.
And even without copying the advanced AI software from the Commander level AI, designing a program to perform basic tasks and react to common stimuli was easy enough. A few changes to the Dox AI was all it took.
In this case, I developed the AI with a few simple routines. Each of the five AI was different in specifics, but they all operated roughly the same. They would sit at the operations console of their designated room, tapping away at the touch screen. It wouldn't do anything, of course, but it would look like they were doing something, so it was good enough. Besides that, they would also occasionally stand up, wander around the room or walk to one of the various comfort rooms - the rec room, the kitchen or the bathroom.
They were also programmed to acknowledge people they identified based on three categories - crew, friendly, and enemy. The automated responses were... minimal, at best. Nodding heads, exchanging a brisk "hello", etcetera. But it would be enough, I suspected. Not like I intended to let anyone on board long enough to notice anyway.
I assumed direct control of my body and made my way through the ship, admiring the smooth silvery white materials of the interior. I'd learned from the first Pioneers - the walls and floor were done up to look like panels, as opposed to being flat and textureless metals. The light fixtures looked like actual light fixtures, instead of exposed bulbs, and the doors had actual control consoles.
Admittedly, the Pioneers and Voyagers had those as well, but they'd been added afterwards when one of TSYGAN's Rats had asked how to lock the door in the toilets.
Each of the doorways was decorated by a nameplate and icon - the majority were icons ripped straight from FTL - two missiles for the weapons room, an engine for the... well, engine room, a camera for the sensors, and so on, with the nameplates identifying the rooms as well. The 'comfort rooms' as I'd taken to calling them had their own icons - a bowl of food, a toilet, a couch and TV for the kitchen, bathroom and rec rooms, respectively.
Once I was done admiring the central corridor of the ship, I set about looking for my new crew members.
Ajax, a dark-skinned male with a buzzcut, had taken the helm. Which is to say, he sat in the pilot's chair and pushed a couple levers back and forth. Every now and then, he would reach above his head and flick a series of three switches mounted on the overhead console. None of them did anything, but it reminded me of Firefly, and that was good enough for me.
Dante, aka generic video game protagonist number 130193, sat in the weapons room. A trench coat hung over the back of his chair and a heavy revolver - the designs for which I'd taken from the Bright Foundation, - sat on top of the console. The android didn't need the handcannon - he had an SMG of the same origin slung across his back, like all of the 'crew', but I thought it was a nice extra touch.
The final 'male' of the crew was Byron, designated engineer. He was dressed in cargo pants and a sleeveless jacket over his vacuum suit, a futuristic welding mask of sorts hanging from his belt. Short blonde hair stuck up from his head in tufts, giving him a distinctly 'messy' look about him. I'd have given him goggles and grease stains, too, but goggles were pointless with the mask and there was nothing on the ship that leaked grease, so that would have been dumb.
My next destination was the shield bay, crewed by a dark-haired lady I'd chosen to name Veronica. She sat silently in the swivel chair, alternating her attention between the shield console screen and the PDA in her hands. Both screens were covered with scrolling Lorem Ipsum style text, flashing past almost too fast to read. For Humans, anyway. Unlike the others, who wore at least roughly functional clothes over their vacuum suits, I'd dressed Veronica in a plain white sundress. Admittedly, the silvery-grey skintight suit underneath kind of ruined the effect, but it wasn't really much of an issue.
The last member of my merry android crew was Melissa, designated sensor operator. She was curled up on the seat in the sensor room, a hoodie and loose jeans disguising her figure. An (empty) coffee mug was held in the cup holder mounted on the side of the terminal.
Most of the minor details were totally unnecessary, in terms of functionality. And by most, I mean all. But they were the same 'little things' that made them seem more human, and I was hoping that it would stave off suspicion for the short periods people were to be boarding the ship.
Once I'd finished the rounds, checking all the rooms for anything that seemed out of place, I walked to the ship's bridge. Ajax was sitting in the front left seat, leaving one seat open looking out through the ship's front window.
Rather than sit in it, I chose to stand, lingering over Ajax's shoulder and resting an arm on the back of the chair to either side. And then I gave my first command as Captain Drake of the PCF Starsong.
Which also happened to be a Star Wars reference.
"Punch it, Ajax."
The android grunted and pushed the big blue button on his command console. The engines and FTL drive emitted a low whine, and a shudder ran through the ship.
Seconds later, we were hurtling away through hyperspace.
---
Meanwhile, back at my newly reinforced asteroid base, fleet building was really getting into motion.
The few ships I had were mainly focused on building more Orbital Factories. I had six, so far, and fourteen more on the way. Once those were all complete, then I could begin production of my Tracker Fleet in earnest.
It would be a thing of beauty - two thousand cutting edge Corvettes with shields, armour, engines, and weapons like nothing the Rebels had ever seen. I had no doubts that, once complete, the Tracker Fleet would have no issues in disarming the entire Rebellion. And once that was done, I could figure out a nice, peaceful way of sorting out their stupid squabble with the Federation.
Since I wasn't patient enough for that to finish, I was going to go ahead and do some other stuff whilst I waited.
Namely, spying on people. The Starsong had been designed to blend in - it was one of the larger ship types, but nothing particularly unusual. Some more tech-savvy people may have realised it didn't match any Federation designs, but frankly I didn't really care about that, and it was likely that the relevant authorities would care even less - after all, who gives a damn about one mysterious corvette flying around when the galaxy is embroiled in the midst of a devastating interstellar war?
Bloody no one, that's who.
---
The Starsong emerged from FTL about six thousand kilometres from the long range jump beacon, in the midst of an asteroid field.
Well, 'midst' made it sound worse than it was.
In movies and games, the asteroid fields all seem to be densely packed, with asteroids bashing into each other every couple of seconds, and fighters zipping through chunks of rock, bobbing and weaving.
In reality, the asteroids were scattered far apart - really far apart. It was less an asteroid field, and more a large number of asteroids in roughly the same vast empty sector of space.
The asteroids weren't the only thing my ship's sensors picked up, however. There was another ship, one approaching the beacon with its engines flaring. My shiny new FTL Sensor Tech told me that the ship's FTL Drive was charging to activate, and that it would be jumping imminently.
And it did, but not fast enough to escape a full scan from my full suite of hypertech sensors. I had a very good picture now of the ship's shape and size, and it was familiar.
The Kestrel.
The default ship for FTL players, and, if my guess was correct, the 'canon' ship, as far as this universe was concerned.
Well. If I wanted to spy on people and steal loads of cool technology, following the protagonist around at a nice safe distance seemed an easy bet.
Of course, as soon as I said that, I started wondering how long it would take for everything to go to hell for the both of us.
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