not_a_whiner: (kaidan: just a quick drink)
[personal profile] not_a_whiner
"Hey," Kaidan greeted the class, "This is gonna be your last class-- and probably mine." Alliance command willing. Wasn't that he disliked this place, but there was probably something more useful he could be doing. "So let's make something of it. I want to see your projects-- everything you've been working on these past few weeks. Did they turn out the way you wanted? If they didn't, why not?"

He crossed his arms. "Oh, and we're going to put them through something of an obstacle course," he added, looking lightly amused. "If it doesn't work... you have my permission to roll it."

They were teenagers. They'd appreciate that, he was pretty sure.
not_a_whiner: (kaidan: leaning against the window)
[personal profile] not_a_whiner
Today was gonna be...

...Today was gonna be interesting. Sure, the Alliance was making it pretty clear they didn't want Kaidan talking about the Reapers, and he was... well, he wasn't happy with that. But right now there was little he could do about it. On the other hand? He was also the only Systems Alliance representative on the island.

And people did need to be told. Maybe even moreso here, when they still had a couple of centuries to prepare, if anything.

"I'm going to show you a movie today," he started. "Next week you'll get to finish and show-off your drones, but this week... we're looking a little deeper into synthetic lifeforms where I'm from. This is a short documentary covering everything we know about the geth and the recent geth war. Afterwards... we're going to talk for a bit."

He'd picked this movie for a reason-- after the initial discussions about the geth and what they were, it was going into the war with Saren, which meant it was going to talk about Sovereign. Which was important.

It also meant Kaidan was forced to listen as the narrator talked about Shepard in the present tense, like he wasn't-- gone. By the end of it, he was rubbing at his arm, feeling like something was missing-- something he hadn't felt this strong, this powerfully, for... at least a couple of weeks now.

He coughed.

"Okay," he said, once it was done. "So, I'm not supposed to be talking to you about this - my superiors would rather I don't, anyway. They just don't happen to be your superiors. But I want to talk about it. You see this ship here?" He rewound the tape until they got to that giant, disturbing image of Sovereign approaching the Citadel. "Sovereign? Yeah, we found out it's not just a ship. It was actually one big synthetic lifeform... and it wasn't too happy about the idea of any of us living past the day."

He sat back. "We've been talking a lot about making these things like it's... like it's something we've invented, like we were the first people to do it. We're not. This thing was living proof that synthetics existed well before humanity did. Not only that, but there might be synthetics out there that can reprogram organic people like ourselves the same way we can reprogram them."

He rubbed at his forehead. "And I don't know if your galaxy is going to wind up anything like my own," he said, "but just take it from me, this is worth looking into. This is worth studying. This is worth discovering. Go out and figure out how things work, and how they used to work, and, hell, how we can make them work in a way that's friendly instead of hostile, because one of these days it might be our lives on the line and we'll be caught with our pants down."

His eyes darted briefly to Victor, but he didn't say anything.

"Okay," he said instead. "That's it. You can stick around and work on your drone or get out of here."
not_a_whiner: (kaidan: omnitool)
[personal profile] not_a_whiner
You wouldn't be able to tell by Kaidan's face now that he'd spend the majority of the past few days in bed feeling like hell; you wouldn't even be able to tell that he wasn't feeling completely right yet. His mind still felt seven feet up in the air, though, and he was vaguely marveling at his hands' ability to function again.

On AIs and VIs. )
[identity profile] nomutineer.livejournal.com
Kaidan wasn't feeling completely like himself today.

Or maybe it was that the island didn't feel like itself. There was something in the air, a tense note that reminded him strangely and painfully of Shepard and the last days of the struggle with Saren.

He wasn't able to concentrate.

And that bothered him-- he didn't like feeling out of control, and he didn't like not having his focus which kept that control.

"You'll be watching a movie today," he started. "I'm... sorry about this, but the lesson plan's out the window for now. Thanks."

He switched on the film and sat down.
not_a_whiner: (kaidan: leaning against the window)
[personal profile] not_a_whiner
"I've been showing you a lot of different synthetics over the past two weeks," Kaidan began, "But the truth is, they're not all so flashy. Even in this time period, synthetics-- robots-- are put to good use in all kinds of places, and they don't necessarily have to look like anything you know. The food industry, for example, uses robots to help with packaging, and they're going to move on to do much more in that department over the next few decades. Cars are put together by robots specialized into one task, running on a simple script. Robots defuse bombs and mix our drinks and do all kinds of things that might be dangerous or difficult for a human being."

No pressure, Victor.

"Some of you already know how they work," he continued. "For the rest of you, maybe you've been poking at your schematics unsure what to do or what things are, so I'll give a brief explanation. Basically, every synthetic is made up of three components."

He tapped a few buttons on his omni-tool and displayed a very simple food-processing 'bot. "The power source. Usually a battery of some kind. That gets it going. Then--" He pointed on the picture, "The actuator, which turns the energy from the power source into motion." Another tap of his omni-tool, and the image started moving. "And the sensors, which pick up cues from the outside world and translate them, so the robot can run its script.

"You go a little beyond that, you've got the end effectors - the hands of the robot - and the manipulator, the arm. Some synthetics will have wheels or mass effect fields to get them moving. You can give a robot speech recognition programs, or build them to interface with humans through simulated facial expressions and interaction scripts..." He trailed off.

"How these components are used, which ones you put together, that's going to depend on the purpose you're looking for. A food processing machine isn't going to need wheels or a human face to do its job, and it can get by on a simple script. You want a mech to patrol an area, though, you're going to have to work in some rudimentary human interaction skills, find a way of locomotion that fits the environment, and come up with one hell of a script."

He closed off his omni-tool. "I want you guys to partner up and do two things," he said. "First, think about some form of industry you know of that could benefit from robotic assistance. What would a mech or a machine like that have to look like? What extras would it need? How complicated would it be? And second of all... think of what you want your drone to do. What are you going to need with that? Maybe your partner has some ideas."
not_a_whiner: (kaidan: talking w/ sideways glance)
[personal profile] not_a_whiner
"Last week, we gauged your, uh, experiences with technology," Kaidan began. "Obviously I'll be working from examples from my world, so I thought... maybe a lesson on mass effect physics might be useful. I'll talk about that for a bit, then we'll talk about some simplistic mechs, and you can use the last fifteen minutes to start work on your drone."

The classroom had been appropriately outfitted with the materials and gadgets required. He figured most of these kids knew their way around. "You're allowed to help each other out," he added.

Then he took a breath, and dove right in. "We discovered mass effect physics... just a couple of decades ago. Until that point, we thought FTL - faster than light - travel was completely impossible, never mind a lot of the tricks in space craft maneuvering and biotics that we know today. In fact, my people are using mass effect fields in a wide range of ways these days."

He smiled briefly. "Essentially, we rely on a substance called element zero. Eezo's rare, but it's worth getting, because it has an interesting quirk: if exposed to a current, it can change mass. A positive current increases mass, a negative current decreases it. Basically, we can make things heavier or lighter... and that way, we affect gravity, because gravity is the force exerted by any body dependent on its mass. So you can see why it's very useful."

He activated his omni-tool by running his hand over his other arm. "One area in which we employ mass effect fields is production," he said, "creating alloys, for example. Which brings me to the topic of mechs - some of you would know 'em as plain robots. We use mechs for a variety of jobs, like running security or helping us doing the heavy lifting."

A few presses of the button, and an image appeared. "This is a LOKI mech. It's designed to resemble humans - though not too closely. You might've heard about the uncanny valley effect, which inspired designers to stay away from trying to build too human-like bots. Anyway, LOKI mechs are there to run guard duty or security."

"They're simple, easy to build, and they can handle a whole variety of tasks. Not just that, but they're easy to network, and maybe even easier to program - so they're ideal for new colonies that need a defense force fast." He paused. "Of course, because their programming is so simple, they're easy to fool and easy to take down, too."

He waved the image away.

"Another example. The FENRIS mech. They're equipped with extra sensory equipment--" One wave of his omni-tool, and the image displayed some details on that equipment. "They are supposed to replace the class drug-sniffing dog, but they're also equipped with defensive measures just in case. Again, though, their simplistic programming means they're not always as effective as they could be, and they're easy to hack into."

If you were Kaidan, anyway, or a quarian.

"That's just a few ways mechs can be designed and used to be effective support tools," Kaidan continued. "These are relatively simple. No AI, and only rudimentary VI. Imagine a computer on legs with a set of hands and a short script plugged into its processor." Beat. "Actually, a lot of the programs used in mechs like this evolved from the discipline of programming behavior for characters in computer games."

He waved the schematic away.

"But that's all for today," he said. "If you want, you can come over and check some of the construction schematics--" They'd been censored to keep the kids from building anything quite like a LOKI, though, "--and otherwise you're free to start working on your drone. If you need any help, you know where to find me."
not_a_whiner: (kaidan: omnitool)
[personal profile] not_a_whiner
A classroom full of teenagers. That was going to be... something.

Kaidan stood at the front of the class, a datapad in his hand and his eyes trained on the students. "Good morning," he said, "And welcome to Introduction to Robotics. I'm Lieutenant Commander Kaidan Alenko of the Systems Alliance, I look forward to meeting the rest of you." He cleared his throat. "Over the past year, my... universe--" It was weird, okay? "--suffered under an attack that involved advanced robotic AIs - that's artificial intelligences - called the geth. Much has been said about the geth and what level of sentience they've got. It's something we'll be talking about later down the line."

He put the datapad down on the desk. "But not yet. I'm given to understand most folks here aren't from the same place, though," he said, "and as we're going to be talking about advanced technology, I'd like to know where your worlds are at, and what experience you might have had in dealing with robotics, virtual intelligences, things like that. So let's start off there."

Fandom High RPG



About the Game

---       Master Game Index
---       IC Community Tags
---       Thinking of Joining?
---       Application Information
---       Existing Character Directory

In-Character Comms

School and Grounds
---       Fandom High School
---       Staff Lounge
---       TA Lounge
---       Student Dorms

Around the Island
---       Fandom Town
---       Fandom Clinic

Communications
---       Radio News Recaps
---       Student Newspaper
---       IC Social Media Posts

Off-Island Travel
---       FH Trips

Once Upon a Time...
---       FH Wishverse AU


Out-of-Character Comms

---       Main OOC Comm
---       Plot Development
---       OOC-but-IC Fun





Disclaimer

Fandom High is a not-for-profit text-based game/group writing exercise, featuring fictional characters and settings from a variety of creators, used without permission but for entertainment purposes only.

Tags