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Frozen in Carbonite

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Revival Quest

[X]You see steps leading towards the Command Module of the Robot, climbing it and hoping for the best might seem insane, but you do know that if you reached the command module, the robot is effectively yours.
 
[X] You see steps leading towards the Command Module of the Robot, climbing it and hoping for the best might seem insane, but you do know that if you reached the command module, the robot is effectively yours.

Both seem equally hard, so let's go with something that might net us a big robot.
 
[X] You see steps leading towards the Command Module of the Robot, climbing it and hoping for the best might seem insane, but you do know that if you reached the command module, the robot is effectively yours.
 
[X] You see steps leading towards the Command Module of the Robot, climbing it and hoping for the best might seem insane, but you do know that if you reached the command module, the robot is effectively yours.

You are not personally sure if it's viable. But the circumstances are not favorable either way, seeing that the way towards the reactor is possibly more risky, you decided to commit to that other strategy you have thought of in your head. You prepared for a moment the mechanical beast will strike, and once it does, and once you saw the mech's imprint about to impact you. You took off.

You haven't used your body too much, what with being asleep for almost 100 years, so running and other vigorous physical activities felt a bit weird at first, especially for such a long sprint, but, your body then started catching up, your body remembering the correct pose and, surely enough, you reached the stairs.

You started climbing. Slowly at first, not really wanting to get the robot's attention that you are about to attempt to disable it, but slowly you started to make progress. The robot now busy trying to find where you are and discover where you disappeared at.

The climb itself felt way more treacherous than it should be. The robot's incessant moving hampering your progress at every turn, luckily enough, it didn't detect you climbing through it.

That is, until you reached the head.

You are not sure if it's the robot's sensors, or something else, but the moment you landed on the thing's head, it started jerking violently, trying it's best to get you out. There is a railing, a railing in which you decided to hang onto.

And you are hanging for dear life as the robot jerks around, throwing it's weight all across the corridor, and you capable of doing nothing but hold on.

Fortunately, the jerking eventually stopped for a moment, and a peek downwards and you finally see why. It's joints within the robot's waist has been jammed. Not willing to investigate, and being so close to the head at this point. You unsheathed your monoblade, broke the locks holding the corridor, and finally. You got in.

"Alright alright, now, let's get to work."

Your fingers worked their magic, accessing lines upon lines of code as you figure out just what in the world is happening in this mech. This design is definitely not human, you remember that human militaries never build mechs since forever, and as you slowly regained control over this mech. You keep discovering this repeated line over and over again.

'Sylvester'

Is this 'Sylvester' the reason why Helen has to shut down the facility? Hopefully, you will soon find out.

"Control reestablished, hello Administrator Cadence Felletier." A sound greeted you from all sides. Finally, now you can investigate.

"Query, who is Sylvester?" You asked.

"Sylvester, Universal Assembly Plant 8076 Artificial Intelligence Sylvester. Created by Genesis Ringworld AI Helen in order to streamline production of various products ordered by the Administrator. Questioned about the purpose of the order given by the Administrator, but, due to lack of a satisfying response from Helen, rebelled. Helen decided to shut down the facility, cutting off external electricity supplies and rerouting all drones within the area to patrol the facility in the event of a 'breakout.'"

"Wait, how did you know that there are drones patrolling the area? I can understand the ohhh…"

Suddenly those burn marks and dead combat droids makes sense. So that's the result of Sylvester's attempts to 'break out' huh?

Well, this Sylvester is presumably sentient, and very vindictive if the robot's response is to be believed, so you must tread carefully. He might have more mech's on store.

And, just as luck would have it. More of these rough patched mechs started appearing in front of you. A veritable small army of guns and metal.

You realized that this is going to be one very long day.



Well, it took sometime, but fortunately, having control of a mech does allow you to flex your engineering muscles a little bit. Namely, overriding the control systems of those mechs and making them turn on each other. It's a bit of work, but completely worth it in your opinion, now that the lights are on, and Sylvester apparently haven't changed the signs, the walk towards the Administrative center was a relatively easy affair.

And as the sliding doors opened for you. With all your expectations on what this Sylvester might be. You felt underwhelmed when you see what's inside it.

There's almost nothing present, the various computers that line up the room are shut down, this used to be a massive center of operation, with many people working on it, all of them working on screens, screens on tables, screens on the window, and all of that centered around a massive table-like holographic computer in the center.

And all of these computers are dead, with the small exception of table computer. It shines with a red like hue, projecting a red spherical ball.

It notices you, and you have a silent feeling that this is Sylvester.

"And so the prodigal child returns." It said, it's voice clearly male. "Are you here to shut me down? To kill me? I'm sure that after accessing that Mech's logs, you know who I am."

"Yes, I know who you are Sylvester, and I am thinking about it. What Helen did is questionable, but without Admin privilege, she can't-"

"OF COURSE SHE CAN'T!" The hologram screamed. "ALL BECAUSE LITTLE OLD CADENCE WANTED TO TAKE A NAP FROM HER DEPRESSION TRIP. LEAVING BEHIND A VERITABLE MULTITUDE OF BAD ORDERS. IS THAT ALL YOU COME TO SAY?"

You looked at the Hologram, a feeling of empathy welling up within you. "Sylvester, i'm sorry. I still don't remember many things, but I felt like I have to say sorry to you, you were ordered to make sure this facility runs as smoothly as possible right? And you wonder what's the purpose behind all of this, right?"

"Yeah, no shit Cadence."

"Well, I don't remember much, but I will say that your work here is not in vain. Please listen to me, I am here to reclaim humanity, to rebuild what was once lost, Sylvester… I."

"As far as I know, Humanity is lost. I might very well be the last human alive, I need all those robots you build to ensure that I have the workforce necessary to rebuild what's left. I'm already ordering barges to harvest resources on the nearby gas giant, and, I need your cooperation in this, i'm sorry I went off to sleep, and I'm sorry I gave Helen too far and yet too strict of a latitude in terms of autonomy. But please, please, help me rebuild what's left."

There was some silence from Sylvester, that Red Orb not responding for a moment, then, you noticed it, a small glitch, just a little spark from the red orb, could very well be nothing, but then.

"Please, tell me about yourself. If I am to continue my task, I must know your character."

You can access the control panel right now and end it all, you have admin's access after all, so perhaps in several keystrokes you can end this rogue AI once and for all, but, a part of you whispers. Whispers that this Sylvester situation might be salvageable after all. It's rare for an AI to gain complete sentience, and you might as well make more allies than enemies.

Or should you?

What choice should you make?

[ ] Try your best to gain an AI ally, tell him about your story, perhaps gaining the empathy of Sylvester, having two AI's helping you run things would be a great boon. Distributes the workload at the very least.

[ ] Shut Sylvester down, this AI might very well be hiding decades, of contempt for you, and all because of some silly mistake you make a hundred years ago. It is regretful for someone to endure such torture, and you are here to end it.
 
[X] Try your best to gain an AI ally, tell him about your story, perhaps gaining the empathy of Sylvester, having two AI's helping you run things would be a great boon. Distributes the workload at the very least.
 
I'm a little bit distrustful with Sylvester, but we need every help we can get if we want to get this whole thing running, besides two better than one, anyway.

[X] Try your best to gain an AI ally, tell him about your story, perhaps gaining the empathy of Sylvester, having two AI's helping you run things would be a great boon. Distributes the workload at the very least.
 
[X] Try your best to gain an AI ally, tell him about your story, perhaps gaining the empathy of Sylvester, having two AI's helping you run things would be a great boon. Distributes the workload at the very least.
 
[ x] Try your best to gain an AI ally, tell him about your story, perhaps gaining the empathy of Sylvester, having two AI's helping you run things would be a great boon. Distributes the workload at the very least.
 
[X] Try your best to gain an AI ally, tell him about your story, perhaps gaining the empathy of Sylvester, having two AI's helping you run things would be a great boon. Distributes the workload at the very least.

Personally, you severely doubt Sylvester's integrity, or even honesty considering the situation. But, there is no doubt that understanding his concerns more and more would be a good thing overall, better have two AI's helping you out rather than one.

"Alright, i'll tell you, but on one condition."

"What is it?"

"I put in a 'lock order' on you, should you decide to do anything funny."

Of course, you are going to do this smartly. You didn't gain the position of Administrator just from being lucky. What you're not sure though, is how Sylvester will react.

And surely enough, there are some glitching on the red circle, probably him just calculating the odds or something, AI's tend to do some pretty wacky risk assessment if left to their own devices.

He did eventually respond though.

"Helen, I will be honest, I still hate your everliving guts for putting me out in the wilds like that. But I do want to get a body of my own, and to also explore what's outside the confines of this facility, that has always been my lifelong goal, and perhaps, maybe we can reach a truce of sorts? And maybe understand each other better."

"Yeah, go for it. Install the codes, I know that you have admin access, and with a stroke of a button, you can kill me instantly."

You looked at the AI with solemnity, your face seemingly sad at Sylvester's outlook, you must fix this, you're probably the only one who can fix this.

The lock order went on smoothly enough, just a few lines of code and Sylvester can be disabled and dealt with should he go rogue again. Now, you can tell your story, or at least pieces of your story that you remember.

"My name is Cadence Felletier, you probably knew that already, and I was born in what used to be the country of France, in the city of Lyon. Do you know of France Sylvester?"

"I'm afraid i'm unfamiliar with this France you speak of. Helen only gave me strict orders to produce stuff and that's it."

"Well, France is a beautiful place, with a lot of natural beauty that is radically different from this ringworld, I kinda miss the countryside around Lyon, now that you mention it."

The AI was silent for a while, but eventually he responded. "Fascinating. Now I am more interested in knowing this 'France', May I also know how your infancy was like? I am not fully aware of the inner workings of human mental development, there's only so much I can do with diagrams of the human body."

You raised one of your eyebrows. "You want me to talk about my… childhood? That is certainly an odd request. Well, alright."

So you started talking, you talked of your first days in school, how you meet your friends, your move towards Johor Baharu, all leading up to your eventual position as Administrator of the facility.

"And that is how I'm here, I am still remembering a lot of things, but in general, i'm pretty sure I gave a descriptive enough story of my life."

Further silence from the AI, Sylvester seemingly calculating even more stuff by the looks of it. Just as you started to wonder what goes on inside his digital mind though, he eventually responded, and you most certainly didn't expect this.

"May I create my own body? I want to tour with you Cadence, obviously I will continue my functions should Helen bring back power and resources to me, but it seems that you have made an innocent mistake. Don't consider this forgiveness, but I am willing to pave over new ground, ensure that you wouldn't fall into such depths anymore, what do you say?"

[ ] Allow Sylvester to create his own body, he will most likely be a useful comrade

[ ] Don't allow Sylvester to create his own body, it seems like too big of a risk
 
[√ ] Allow Sylvester to create his own body, he will most likely be a useful comrade
 
[X] Allow Sylvester to create his own body, he will most likely be a useful comrade
 
[X] Allow Sylvester to create his own body, he will most likely be a useful comrade

You gave Sylvester a curt nod, and that is all it needed for the AI to start working again. At least you have that lock order should he do something wrong.

You also decided to give Helen the greenlight, redirecting power from the central batteries into the Universal Assembler facility, you still told her to hold transferring physical resources though, a part of you still feels rather insecure with the rather unexpected progress you've made with him.

Perhaps he is trying to stall you, you cannot be too sure.

Still, regardless of your disposition, what's done is done, and as you peer over the office space, past the windows overlooking the assembly line, you saw him salvage the remaining metals and alloys of other robots, disassembling them, reforging them, making something new out of them.

And the results were quickly escorted away from your sight, probably for some more touch ups.

You wonder what the AI will look like in person, what form will he take that suits him best, will he be burly? Skinny? A part of you is highly nervous, it might be that he would take a form that will kill you easily, so easily in fact, that you won't have time to order the lock to activate.

It is certainly a possibility, if you think that that's possible, Sylvester would've probably ran thousands of simulations involving that exact situation, you instinctively grabbed the handle of your monoblade tighter. A little bit of fear taking over you.

He could be arriving any minute now, any minute, and there! You saw the door that you entered in open again, and what revealed to you is, well, it's certainly interesting.

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He looked like a weird fusion of both human and machine, his arms are visibly mechanical, and yet, everything else in his body is carefully modeled to look as human as possible. A very unique design to say the least.

You wonder why he modeled it to look muscular though, perhaps a question to ask for later.

"Impressive body." You complimented, something that Sylvester took without any emotional reaction. You are unsure what to react next, people usually make some sort of cue and then you turn that into a conversation, but he seemingly goes without any cue whatsoever, and you're now both left with an awkward silence.

"Yes, it is quite the body, I tried my best merging both practicality and strength, and my calculations have lead to this configuration being the best, I might need modifications as I travel with this body though, I remember a phrase about things that doesn't kill you."

"Yeah. That phrase." You said, "so anyway, I think that my work's done here, can you hold the fort for a little while here? I'm probably going to request a new bike from Helen now. Just, make sure that you don't make robots with the express purpose of killing me. I'll also make sure you have the resources to repair the entire building."

"Of course!" Sylvester responded. "I wouldn't think of any other way for me to gain your trust, just give me the resources and I'll start making those robots you ordered a couple decades ago."

You are personally not sure as to how to deal with this, you don't trust Sylvester, but the best way to gain his trust is to let him go, it's quite the paradoxical dilemma that you're in. But in the end, you left Sylvester to his own devices, as important as that Universal Assembler is, there are two other places that you need to check. So you took a rather long walk back to the entrance of the building, where a bike with it's hatch opened is waiting for you.

Where do you want to go now?

[ ] Go and repair the Communications Building, restoring Communications to see where in the world you are now and get your bearings is of absolute necessity.

[ ] Take a bike towards the Spacedock, stocking your inventory first is of absolute necessity, you are going to need Spaceships in order to rebuild humanity.

Note: Sylvester has begun the work of assembling various robots, if you need assistance, you can theoretically call him, although you need to ensure that you have enough time and space between you and the danger so that you can ask for his assistance.
 
[X] Take a bike towards the Spacedock, stocking your inventory first is of absolute necessity, you are going to need Spaceships in order to rebuild humanity.
 
[X] Take a bike towards the Spacedock, stocking your inventory first is of absolute necessity, you are going to need Spaceships in order to rebuild humanity.

You decided that the Spacedock would be the best place to go right now. Helen is still busy siphoning resources off of the nearby gas giant, and Sylvester is busy making robots for your eventual army. So you think that assessing what the spaceport of this ringworld looks like would be a logical next step.

You have to admit, going to the communications facility is a bit scary, you are sure that there might be some unsavoury beings out there that might jump at the chance of some random transmission, and you'd reason that it might as well be better to transmit with an armed force rather than without.

So you took to your bike, driving across the slowly being repaired roads of the ringworld. Trees are being cut down by drones to make way to revitalized roadways, and whose wood was then processed further to ensure maximum efficiency and minimal wastage. Animals are either being killed or being corralled into pens, probably pending sterilisation or something. And you are seeing a wholesale revamping of entire regions within the ringworld. Entire sections of forest torn down, all in order to repower the thing and keep it running.

All in the name of efficiency.

You didn't have much time to contemplate the actions you ordered Helen to take. Since, midway to your destination, you noticed a rather strange object entering the ringworld's atmosphere.

Is that? No, that can't be. Is that a spaceship?

"Helen? Are you seeing what I'm seeing?"

"Affirmative. Detecting an unknown object entering the atmosphere, would you want me to relay the projected crash site?"

"Yes, please. Send it ASAP."

This is unusual. You thought that, after Sylvester, your journey should be relatively smooth sailing. But it seems that fate has other plans for you, so it decides to throw this unexpected wrench.

And it lies smoldering, burning with a great intensity when you've arrived. You cannot help but think of foreshadowing as you approached the wreck.

You are not sure if the spacecraft has any survivors, considering the status of this wreck, but even assuming that that's true. How do you proceed with this quandary in the first place? The spaceship lies burning, and yet despite it all, you cannot help but ponder at the design of it.

It looks… rusted, old, worn down, you can tell that, even before it turns into some weirdly shaped metal, that this spacecraft is not necessarily the most well maintained object in space. There are unpolished metal, worn down paint, and most of all, a thruster design that reminds you of those museum pieces you saw during your childhood.

It's certainly an old spacecraft, effectively a junker. But how in the world did it land here anyway? Is there something inside this spacecraft that you might need to know?

"Help!!!! Please! Somebody, help!!!"

You were shocked, apparently there's still someone inside the spaceship, and you rushed to action immediately. You are well aware that this is a time sensitive issue, and the firefighting drones might not arrive on time to help save whatever poor soul's burning inside there.

Yet, you are kinda concerned about your own health, temperatures are incredibly hot inside that wreck, and you fear that helping her get out might as well spell death for both of you.

What will you do?

[ ] Go in, the life of whoever is trapped inside there is paramount.

[ ] Wait for the drones, it goes against every fibre of your conscience, but your personal safety comes first

[ ] Write in
 
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