The fire may well be a side effect, not the main effect.
The Voyage Without
- Thread starter Hiver
- Start date
As pyrokinesis it probably is just regular fire/plasma. The psionic affect being anomalous heating of material rather than something like, say, warpflame.
Nitronorm5688
The Armchair Reader
- Location
- Oakdale, CT
Zephyr feels like his head is on fire, but its all good!
KillerFish
Grumpy Owl, Bird Lawyer
This is why I don't eat spicy F-Rex steaks anymore … that and the IBS
Tawsnrrtsyip
Rick's Law Enthusiast
- Location
- Terra, Sol System, Orion Arm, Milky Way
- Pronouns
- Nice/Try/FBI/Pricks
Related, how good are the fire suppression systems on the holodeck? I figure that's the safest place to get used to his fire breath...
Fire is just energy and the holodeck is made of forcefields, so. Perfectly so until you get to naval weaponry.
What it is supposed to be made of is just a factor of opacity, gloss, and texture.
Nothing's firePROOF. You just might need a bigger fire.
Lordhighalnder
Student, smarter than some.
- Location
- Long Beach, CA
30
The universe contains some massive things. Like the Great attractor that seems to be pulling large amounts of galaxy clusters in its direction.
Or the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall, a section of the cosmic web ten billion lightyears across.
All of which paled in comparison to the size of my current migraine.
But do you know what made my migraine look weak in comparison?
The absolute red hot burning rage at what the Kazons had done to my stuff. They had been left alone with my stuff for twelve hours and in that time they had managed to break a matter synthesizer power coupling.
It's a solid chunk of metal, I didn't even know they could break! They also couldn't be replicated.
Apparently they had used it as a hammer, trying to get into one of the shuttles.
And if whomever is cutting that metal beam with what sounds like an angle grinder doesn't stop, my anger will manifest as a fucking rage elemental!
But instead of eating whomever was making my migraine worse, I took slow and deep breaths, eyes closed beneath my helmet.
"It's worse than it looks," Carey said as he walked up to me, carrying a PADD, "We should have the last shuttle space worthy in twenty minutes or so and should be ready to get things loaded around that time. We'll be taking off in an hour or so, sir."
"Very well," I agreed, "Leave the fences and other non-critical components. We'll blast them from the air to not leave any tech behind, but they take too long to pack away. Captain Janeway wants us off the surface asap. They can all be easily replaced."
"That'll cut our departure time by at least twenty minutes," he agreed, "I'll get people on it."
"Please do."
He wandered off before I had to make an excuse to leave.
This was way worse than when I learned to fly. Those psionic nerves learned to slowly take the strain, leaving me with a headache. Apparently, the fire breathing thing was an 'all at once' thing.
Which gave me a migraine of 'would it be worth it to cut my own head off?' levels.
My rage at the Kazons damaging my stuff kept me from going away into a corner until it was time to leave, but monkeys jabbering at me did not help my mood. Or migraine.
At least dimming the view through my helmet by something like ninety percent kept the local star from burning holes straight through my head. Or at least that's what it had felt like.
Luckily for them, when Voyager shot down their airborne shuttle, the Kazon on the ground had been smart enough to not pile into their shuttles and left. Instead they did what we had done and evacuated into the forest.
So all my shit were still here, they had not actually managed to steal any of it.
No, they just broke a bunch of it.
They're lucky I could barely move or I would be hunting them right now.
Pirates. They're pirates and should be treated like pirates. I had already rigged charges to their shuttles, they'll detonate on a signal. Purely to stop them from trying to intercept us on the way up from the surface of course.
Someone poked at my chest and I growled, looking down to find that Dinah had ducked down and was poking my chest scales with the probe of a medical tricorder, "...What in the world are you doing?"
"Making sure you're not cooked."
"...One of those doesn't work for me. My skeleton caused a disruption effect on sensors."
She glanced up, "I don't need to go that deep, it works just fine on your surface layers. Actually, this would be way easier if you laid down or something."
I growled at her, "I'm fine."
"And I have nothing to do, my people are already covering the surroundings and I do have some medical training, so I think I rather see that our chief engineer is not medium rare."
"And nobody else dared try it?"
"Oh shut up and roll over."
I growled at her before I sighed and did like I was told. Not like she was wrong after all, "I'm fine. Scales took it."
She was quiet for a couple of moments, working the probe across my chest, "...I think you're right, the damage only seems to be surface level on the scales. Damn, you took a plasma charge to the chest."
"I doubt it was on full charge."
"No," Dinah mused, "But it would have gone straight through me. And the one inch steel plate behind me."
I snorted and rolled onto my stomach, "Well, humans are small and squishy."
"So we are," she agreed and eyed me, "You breathed fire."
"And still regret it," I grumbled, "I have an outright apocalyptic migraine."
Dinah nodded and patted the side of my neck, "You're wounded, all we need you to do is stay out of the way and get onboard a shuttle before we leave. Until then, just sit tight, alright?"
I grumbled at her, "Very well."
Not like she was actually wrong, I wasn't of very much use for anyone like this. This fucking migraine made it hard to think and made me even more irritable than I should have been my the situation.
You know what made it even worse?
Knowing that if I wanted to be able to use my fire breath, I needed to train up those parts of my brain and those nerves. By using the fire breath.
Which each time would hit me with another migraine.
If anyone asks, I was not laying on the ground, sulking and hating the universe.
I was reviewing reports.
"Lieutenant, the last shuttle is almost fully loaded," Lieutenant Carey said as he walked up to me a little while later.
"Well done," I said and pushed myself onto my paws, "Let's get off this miserable mudball."
"...You okay, sir?"
"I got shot with a plasma weapon and have a migraine the size of the local galactic cluster," I answered him honestly, "I've been better."
The ramp soon closed behind us and I kept an eye on the sensors as we lifted off.
I waited until we were a couple of kilometers away before I triggered the charges mounted on the shuttles. The explosion wiped out the shuttles and what remained of the camp, throwing dirt and dust high into the air.
"And boom."
Dinah was sitting with her back against one of the crates, arms crossed as she frowned slightly, "We are stranding them on a primitive planet. Doesn't feel right."
"Their people will pick them up," I said and then snorted, "Or not. Either way, they tried to kill us, so I don't particularly care."
Dinah frowned but didn't say anything.
Or the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall, a section of the cosmic web ten billion lightyears across.
All of which paled in comparison to the size of my current migraine.
But do you know what made my migraine look weak in comparison?
The absolute red hot burning rage at what the Kazons had done to my stuff. They had been left alone with my stuff for twelve hours and in that time they had managed to break a matter synthesizer power coupling.
It's a solid chunk of metal, I didn't even know they could break! They also couldn't be replicated.
Apparently they had used it as a hammer, trying to get into one of the shuttles.
And if whomever is cutting that metal beam with what sounds like an angle grinder doesn't stop, my anger will manifest as a fucking rage elemental!
But instead of eating whomever was making my migraine worse, I took slow and deep breaths, eyes closed beneath my helmet.
"It's worse than it looks," Carey said as he walked up to me, carrying a PADD, "We should have the last shuttle space worthy in twenty minutes or so and should be ready to get things loaded around that time. We'll be taking off in an hour or so, sir."
"Very well," I agreed, "Leave the fences and other non-critical components. We'll blast them from the air to not leave any tech behind, but they take too long to pack away. Captain Janeway wants us off the surface asap. They can all be easily replaced."
"That'll cut our departure time by at least twenty minutes," he agreed, "I'll get people on it."
"Please do."
He wandered off before I had to make an excuse to leave.
This was way worse than when I learned to fly. Those psionic nerves learned to slowly take the strain, leaving me with a headache. Apparently, the fire breathing thing was an 'all at once' thing.
Which gave me a migraine of 'would it be worth it to cut my own head off?' levels.
My rage at the Kazons damaging my stuff kept me from going away into a corner until it was time to leave, but monkeys jabbering at me did not help my mood. Or migraine.
At least dimming the view through my helmet by something like ninety percent kept the local star from burning holes straight through my head. Or at least that's what it had felt like.
Luckily for them, when Voyager shot down their airborne shuttle, the Kazon on the ground had been smart enough to not pile into their shuttles and left. Instead they did what we had done and evacuated into the forest.
So all my shit were still here, they had not actually managed to steal any of it.
No, they just broke a bunch of it.
They're lucky I could barely move or I would be hunting them right now.
Pirates. They're pirates and should be treated like pirates. I had already rigged charges to their shuttles, they'll detonate on a signal. Purely to stop them from trying to intercept us on the way up from the surface of course.
Someone poked at my chest and I growled, looking down to find that Dinah had ducked down and was poking my chest scales with the probe of a medical tricorder, "...What in the world are you doing?"
"Making sure you're not cooked."
"...One of those doesn't work for me. My skeleton caused a disruption effect on sensors."
She glanced up, "I don't need to go that deep, it works just fine on your surface layers. Actually, this would be way easier if you laid down or something."
I growled at her, "I'm fine."
"And I have nothing to do, my people are already covering the surroundings and I do have some medical training, so I think I rather see that our chief engineer is not medium rare."
"And nobody else dared try it?"
"Oh shut up and roll over."
I growled at her before I sighed and did like I was told. Not like she was wrong after all, "I'm fine. Scales took it."
She was quiet for a couple of moments, working the probe across my chest, "...I think you're right, the damage only seems to be surface level on the scales. Damn, you took a plasma charge to the chest."
"I doubt it was on full charge."
"No," Dinah mused, "But it would have gone straight through me. And the one inch steel plate behind me."
I snorted and rolled onto my stomach, "Well, humans are small and squishy."
"So we are," she agreed and eyed me, "You breathed fire."
"And still regret it," I grumbled, "I have an outright apocalyptic migraine."
Dinah nodded and patted the side of my neck, "You're wounded, all we need you to do is stay out of the way and get onboard a shuttle before we leave. Until then, just sit tight, alright?"
I grumbled at her, "Very well."
Not like she was actually wrong, I wasn't of very much use for anyone like this. This fucking migraine made it hard to think and made me even more irritable than I should have been my the situation.
You know what made it even worse?
Knowing that if I wanted to be able to use my fire breath, I needed to train up those parts of my brain and those nerves. By using the fire breath.
Which each time would hit me with another migraine.
If anyone asks, I was not laying on the ground, sulking and hating the universe.
I was reviewing reports.
"Lieutenant, the last shuttle is almost fully loaded," Lieutenant Carey said as he walked up to me a little while later.
"Well done," I said and pushed myself onto my paws, "Let's get off this miserable mudball."
"...You okay, sir?"
"I got shot with a plasma weapon and have a migraine the size of the local galactic cluster," I answered him honestly, "I've been better."
The ramp soon closed behind us and I kept an eye on the sensors as we lifted off.
I waited until we were a couple of kilometers away before I triggered the charges mounted on the shuttles. The explosion wiped out the shuttles and what remained of the camp, throwing dirt and dust high into the air.
"And boom."
Dinah was sitting with her back against one of the crates, arms crossed as she frowned slightly, "We are stranding them on a primitive planet. Doesn't feel right."
"Their people will pick them up," I said and then snorted, "Or not. Either way, they tried to kill us, so I don't particularly care."
Dinah frowned but didn't say anything.
Last edited:
And air?
Well, it would have done, but people usually don't notice that part directly.
Yzarc
The Spark of Madness
I mean Politicians do it all the time with hot air so why not?
- Location
- Pacific Rim
Zephyr placed the hunk of now useless metal on the table in the conference room. "I present evidence that the Kazon are less evolved then primates back on earth, non human primates to be clear. They have figured out the second stage of tool usage 'poke with stick' while the Kazon are traveling at warp with tool skills of 'beat with rock' I present this as presumptive evidence so if anyone in command tries to trade, barter, or willfully let a Kazon on board they will be relieved of command automatically by the ships systems for mental instability. The ships EMH has signed off as ranking medical personnel."
I think, technically, most people that are blowed up notice their lungs being ruptured by the shockwave, just sayin'
If the Kazon want to officially declare war on the federation they are welcome to do so, till then, it's not a warcrime, just close fire support. *rimshot*wonder if the surviving kazon will find the two who burned alive
could cause rumors of war crime's done by the federation hiding its tech and burning people alive
Uh.wonder if the surviving kazon will find the two who burned alive
could cause rumors of war crime's done by the federation hiding its tech and burning people alive
Do you think the Kazon have "war crimes"?
If so, do you think they aren't 'didn't war hard enough'?
(Also, the Federation has very much not been hiding weapons capable of burning people alive. It just usually burns them fast enough to not be counted.)
That has been the case in the few other Voyager fics I've read, yes.
- Location
- England
- Location
- zwolle
its a war crime if its against them
them fighting others is just rogue kazon or lies and slander
I believe this should be 'leave'.
as for the Kazon survivors, well, they'll have plenty of large carnivores to report on (Zephyr even noted a roar from the far side of the landing site while he was doing his 'stalk and hunt' routine).
I would like to read a voyager story where the caretaker abducts some terrans from warhammer 40k and they go around declaring exterminatus on the residents of the delta quadrant. Not just the fan favorites for that treatment like the Vidians either, but even the sympathetic fan favorite ones. I just get so tired of people frowning when the mc justifiably has the same fuck them attitude that I have.
I don't want to be moralized at, or read the mc be moralized at, with star fleet nonsense. These aliens are thieves, rapists, and murderers, who chose to make others suffer for their benefit, so if anyone is going to feel bad about stranding them, it had better be because they are worried we didn't finish them off before they could attack again.
I don't want to be moralized at, or read the mc be moralized at, with star fleet nonsense. These aliens are thieves, rapists, and murderers, who chose to make others suffer for their benefit, so if anyone is going to feel bad about stranding them, it had better be because they are worried we didn't finish them off before they could attack again.
Darth Cooter
(Verified Lord of Cooters)(Dark Proprietor)(AP)
- Location
- error -loc root/users/dcooter not found
Well at least the Kazon are now in the right frame of mind. Well if that frame happens to be the surrounding environment, and their mind is now the chunky salsa splattered across it
JmonsterNEO
Spouter of nonsense
- Location
- The quest forums
That depends on if there's anything other than ash left of the poor fucks. The stupid hair definitely didn't survive, that's for sure.
31
I studied the shape from over Huginn's shoulder. Shifting my angle slightly as I regarded the bundle of sticks.
Commander Tuvok waited patiently from across the small table as streaks of light passed by the window outside.
Finally I made my choice and marked it in my hud and its new location. Huginn reached out and picked the holographic gray stick up and moved it to its new location. Once in place, Huginn froze and let me adjust the position slightly before letting go.
The Kal-toh game shifted, forming a quarter sphere, the rest still a jumbled mess.
Commander Tuvok studied it for several long moments before he spoke up, "Impressive."
"Impressive?" I asked, tilting my head as I moved my study from the game to the Vulcan across from me.
"Indeed," he said, "for a beginner, that was an astute move. Most beginners attempt to balance the sphere, not place the pieces where they logically should be."
He moved a piece of his own, the orb shifting once more, this time to a half sphere.
Half done, but this is when things became the most difficult as the amount of pieces and locations went down by half, which meant that mistakes mattered a lot more.
And now it was my turn.
"I am intrigued by your assistant drones," Tuvok said, "I understand one of your designs is currently undergoing testing by Starfleet for wide scale use?"
I nodded and shifted a bit, eyeing the game, "The previous version," I agreed, "Specifically as personal assistants for people that require it. Primarily anyway. They could easily be used for other tasks as well. With some luck, by the time they return, them or a later version will be all over Federation space doing menial tasks."
"An impressive accomplishment, Lieutenant. That will help a great many people."
I snorted, "A side project that turned out to be useful for others as well, so I sent the design in for evaluation and testing," I explained, "The previous version was the first that I judged good enough to be a real upgrade to the current systems for most people to bother with. They are in continuous development, trying to improve them."
"Considering our personnel shortage, perhaps we could use more of them."
I nodded, "I'm sure that would help, but they're dumb as a bag of hammers. My current ones are only as smart as they are because they integrate the same sort of biopacks Voyager does. We can't make more of those and the regular ones not using that for fuzzy logic are even dumber. They can follow orders and instructions well enough, but they can't deal with outside context problems, just like a hologram program."
Holograms could pretend to be people, but they just couldn't think for real. They could adapt a limited amount, but basically they were like those old generative AI models back from my time if a bit more advanced.
The light might look like it's on, but nobody's home and if you look closer the light is a decal stuck on the window.
"Even so, I can see a number of places where they could be quite useful."
"Knock yourself out, the design is in the database under Zephyr-Assistant-Public-One," I said and had Huginn move another piece, "I'll get around building some in my copious amount of free time."
"To my understanding, that has increased lately."
He moved a piece of his own.
I nodded, "Admittedly," I agreed, "For once, we're ahead of things. A month traveling mostly through interstellar space has helped."
We had not seen a Kazon vessel since the ambush at the hunting grounds. Voyager was back to spec, all systems functioning according to or above specifications. Mostly, one of the shuttles was still off the flightline due to some minor damage.
Hell, I even was able to get started on trying to figure out how to build more photon torpedoes, at least enough to confirm it will be a massive pain in the tail to do.
Likely possible, but damn. The big problem was the seekers, they had components that didn't replicate. Of materials we currently didn't have.
"As I can assume," Tuvok agreed, studying the game as I had Huginn move one for me.
"What about you, Commander?" I asked, "New position is always an adjustment."
"Indeed," he agreed and moved a piece, "It has been an interesting challenge."
"Our biggest problem as I see it is people," I said and snorted, "It's going to self correct eventually, but we can't wait fifteen years for them to start being somewhat productive."
Tuvok raised an eyebrow, "Agreed," he said, "I have discussed the matter with the Captain. We may be able to decrease the requirements by shutting down deck seven and eight, relocating everywhere there to other decks."
"Which would lessen life support a bit and nothing else. Waste of effort, things there will still break and need to be fixed," I countered, "No, what we need is more people or more automation. Drone assistants will help when we get time to build them, but the most important thing is the ship's computer."
His other eyebrow joined the first, "In what way?"
"It could do a lot more proactive than it currently is," I explained, "I want to start poking at it and load my own assistant software to run. It has significant amounts of processing power, enough to make my drones look slow without even affecting operations."
"You wish to try to attempt to turn it into a true AI?"
I shook my head, "Nothing so grand. But something smart enough to watch the sensors and logs and alert somebody for anomalies without being specifically told what to look for would save us an enormous amount of manhours, perhaps given the ability to make adjustments on the fly as well. Hell, Huginn and Muninn are already smart enough to do that by sitting at a console."
"Interesting," Tuvok said, "But it does not seem necessary to go as far. The ship's computer is already capable of these actions."
"You would fucking think so, sir," I grumbled, "But no. It's more than smart enough, but it has zero initiative. You have to actively script or tell it what to look for and what to do."
"And your drones do not?"
I reached out with a paw and pushed the metal cup that had once held his tea off the table. The cup went clattering onto the floor.
Huginn smoothly got up and collected the cup, returning it to the table and the tray it had been sitting on before walking over to the replicator.
A couple of seconds later it returned with a rag to wipe the drops of spilled tea off before going to dispose of the rag in the replicator.
Tuvok regarded it as it returned to its seat before me across from him, "And this was not programmed?"
"Not directly. It runs an adaptive logic matrix inspired by those used by holodeck characters. In combination with a predictive algorithm, an extensive information library as well as base instructions to assist me, at any moment they calculate how best to assist me at that time and possible outcomes of their actions. For example, the spilled tea," I said, "This is not my quarters. It does not need to clean up. But someone can slip on the wet floor, and it was caused by me, so it moved to clean it up. As I did not correct it, it filed this away in the library as a correct action which will weigh its decision making in the future. In a word, they're less programmed than they are trained."
"An interesting approach," Tuvok admitted, "I will bring the proposal up with Captain Janeway."
"Also suggest the simple drone design," I said, "I may be able to spare some people to assemble a couple for testing. Maybe we'll find a use even for the dumb version."
Tuvok nodded when his combadge beeped and he tapped it, "Tuvok here."
"It's the Captain," Janeway's voice came through it, "Please report to my ready room."
"Acknowledged. Tuvok out," Tuvok said before he looked at me, "I am afraid we need to finish our game at a different time."
I nodded, "Of course. I enjoyed it."
"I as well," he answered as he got up and collected his game, "Good night, Lieutenant."
"Good night, sir," I answered as he left the mess hall.
Hmmm.
I studied the star streaks outside the window for several long moments before getting up and heading towards engineering. If we were to make any drones, I had some improvements from my current generation of prototypes I needed to merge with the design.
Commander Tuvok waited patiently from across the small table as streaks of light passed by the window outside.
Finally I made my choice and marked it in my hud and its new location. Huginn reached out and picked the holographic gray stick up and moved it to its new location. Once in place, Huginn froze and let me adjust the position slightly before letting go.
The Kal-toh game shifted, forming a quarter sphere, the rest still a jumbled mess.
Commander Tuvok studied it for several long moments before he spoke up, "Impressive."
"Impressive?" I asked, tilting my head as I moved my study from the game to the Vulcan across from me.
"Indeed," he said, "for a beginner, that was an astute move. Most beginners attempt to balance the sphere, not place the pieces where they logically should be."
He moved a piece of his own, the orb shifting once more, this time to a half sphere.
Half done, but this is when things became the most difficult as the amount of pieces and locations went down by half, which meant that mistakes mattered a lot more.
And now it was my turn.
"I am intrigued by your assistant drones," Tuvok said, "I understand one of your designs is currently undergoing testing by Starfleet for wide scale use?"
I nodded and shifted a bit, eyeing the game, "The previous version," I agreed, "Specifically as personal assistants for people that require it. Primarily anyway. They could easily be used for other tasks as well. With some luck, by the time they return, them or a later version will be all over Federation space doing menial tasks."
"An impressive accomplishment, Lieutenant. That will help a great many people."
I snorted, "A side project that turned out to be useful for others as well, so I sent the design in for evaluation and testing," I explained, "The previous version was the first that I judged good enough to be a real upgrade to the current systems for most people to bother with. They are in continuous development, trying to improve them."
"Considering our personnel shortage, perhaps we could use more of them."
I nodded, "I'm sure that would help, but they're dumb as a bag of hammers. My current ones are only as smart as they are because they integrate the same sort of biopacks Voyager does. We can't make more of those and the regular ones not using that for fuzzy logic are even dumber. They can follow orders and instructions well enough, but they can't deal with outside context problems, just like a hologram program."
Holograms could pretend to be people, but they just couldn't think for real. They could adapt a limited amount, but basically they were like those old generative AI models back from my time if a bit more advanced.
The light might look like it's on, but nobody's home and if you look closer the light is a decal stuck on the window.
"Even so, I can see a number of places where they could be quite useful."
"Knock yourself out, the design is in the database under Zephyr-Assistant-Public-One," I said and had Huginn move another piece, "I'll get around building some in my copious amount of free time."
"To my understanding, that has increased lately."
He moved a piece of his own.
I nodded, "Admittedly," I agreed, "For once, we're ahead of things. A month traveling mostly through interstellar space has helped."
We had not seen a Kazon vessel since the ambush at the hunting grounds. Voyager was back to spec, all systems functioning according to or above specifications. Mostly, one of the shuttles was still off the flightline due to some minor damage.
Hell, I even was able to get started on trying to figure out how to build more photon torpedoes, at least enough to confirm it will be a massive pain in the tail to do.
Likely possible, but damn. The big problem was the seekers, they had components that didn't replicate. Of materials we currently didn't have.
"As I can assume," Tuvok agreed, studying the game as I had Huginn move one for me.
"What about you, Commander?" I asked, "New position is always an adjustment."
"Indeed," he agreed and moved a piece, "It has been an interesting challenge."
"Our biggest problem as I see it is people," I said and snorted, "It's going to self correct eventually, but we can't wait fifteen years for them to start being somewhat productive."
Tuvok raised an eyebrow, "Agreed," he said, "I have discussed the matter with the Captain. We may be able to decrease the requirements by shutting down deck seven and eight, relocating everywhere there to other decks."
"Which would lessen life support a bit and nothing else. Waste of effort, things there will still break and need to be fixed," I countered, "No, what we need is more people or more automation. Drone assistants will help when we get time to build them, but the most important thing is the ship's computer."
His other eyebrow joined the first, "In what way?"
"It could do a lot more proactive than it currently is," I explained, "I want to start poking at it and load my own assistant software to run. It has significant amounts of processing power, enough to make my drones look slow without even affecting operations."
"You wish to try to attempt to turn it into a true AI?"
I shook my head, "Nothing so grand. But something smart enough to watch the sensors and logs and alert somebody for anomalies without being specifically told what to look for would save us an enormous amount of manhours, perhaps given the ability to make adjustments on the fly as well. Hell, Huginn and Muninn are already smart enough to do that by sitting at a console."
"Interesting," Tuvok said, "But it does not seem necessary to go as far. The ship's computer is already capable of these actions."
"You would fucking think so, sir," I grumbled, "But no. It's more than smart enough, but it has zero initiative. You have to actively script or tell it what to look for and what to do."
"And your drones do not?"
I reached out with a paw and pushed the metal cup that had once held his tea off the table. The cup went clattering onto the floor.
Huginn smoothly got up and collected the cup, returning it to the table and the tray it had been sitting on before walking over to the replicator.
A couple of seconds later it returned with a rag to wipe the drops of spilled tea off before going to dispose of the rag in the replicator.
Tuvok regarded it as it returned to its seat before me across from him, "And this was not programmed?"
"Not directly. It runs an adaptive logic matrix inspired by those used by holodeck characters. In combination with a predictive algorithm, an extensive information library as well as base instructions to assist me, at any moment they calculate how best to assist me at that time and possible outcomes of their actions. For example, the spilled tea," I said, "This is not my quarters. It does not need to clean up. But someone can slip on the wet floor, and it was caused by me, so it moved to clean it up. As I did not correct it, it filed this away in the library as a correct action which will weigh its decision making in the future. In a word, they're less programmed than they are trained."
"An interesting approach," Tuvok admitted, "I will bring the proposal up with Captain Janeway."
"Also suggest the simple drone design," I said, "I may be able to spare some people to assemble a couple for testing. Maybe we'll find a use even for the dumb version."
Tuvok nodded when his combadge beeped and he tapped it, "Tuvok here."
"It's the Captain," Janeway's voice came through it, "Please report to my ready room."
"Acknowledged. Tuvok out," Tuvok said before he looked at me, "I am afraid we need to finish our game at a different time."
I nodded, "Of course. I enjoyed it."
"I as well," he answered as he got up and collected his game, "Good night, Lieutenant."
"Good night, sir," I answered as he left the mess hall.
Hmmm.
I studied the star streaks outside the window for several long moments before getting up and heading towards engineering. If we were to make any drones, I had some improvements from my current generation of prototypes I needed to merge with the design.