Travels of the Starfire: Interview
"For the record, doctor, what is your name and place of birth?"
"I am Gary Takahashi, of East Sora, Aparned III, Confederation District 20-235."
"So, Dr. Takahashi, please tell us the whole story, to the best of your knowledge, of the Confederation's Project Doppelganger and the events following it."
"The whole story? Where do I start?"
"Well, do you know who first suggested the replicant project?"
"No, I don't; I wasn't brought onboard until the design phase."
"Okay, then, start there. How were you first contacted?"
"Oh. I was working at the CMF {A Confederation Military Research lab, on Aparned 2} on an unrelated project. This was in 113 {Dr. Takahashi refers to Year of Confederation 113} An agent approached me and asked if I'd like to work on a project in my field - which is synthetic intelligence, that's what my degree is in - on an important project in that field, for the government. I said that I was pretty busy with my current work - it was a new neural network for guided munitions - but the operative ..."
"What was the name of this operative?"
"James Alden. He was one of my assistants on the project. I don't know if that was his real name or not."
"Continue, please."
"So, anyway, Mr. Alden was very insistent, and he eventually flashed his Agency badge and basically told me that this was an offer I couldn't refuse, and that the project was vital to Confederation interests. I didn't resist after that, I went along with it. I was relocated to the facility where the project was to be developed."
"Relocated? Didn't anyone notice?"
"Well, I wasn't married or anything at the time, so it was just me. The agents told me that I had officially `disappeared' after I got to the new facility, which was rather frightening. I guess they replaced me on the other project and told the staff that I had gone missing."
"And where was the new facility?"
"Mianor. I didn't know at the time. I wasn't told when I asked. It was a terranoid planet, with some vegetation. Actually, it was a very nice planet, although I didn't get out much. I heard there were humanoid natives, but I never saw them in all the time I was there, the facility was apparently in an unexplored region of the world."
"How did the facility remain unnoticed?"
"The Confederation had quarantined the planet. Mianor was also very remote, in the Outback. The journey from Aparned took three months on a JRN14 {A type of fast Confederate transport craft, max speed 480c.}
"So, you arrived at the new facility."
"Yes. I got a short tour, met the agent in charge. He was named Takner. I didn't recognize his species, though- not a humanoid. He answered some questions about the project that I had, and introduced me to my team. We were going to do the software for the androids. Another team was doing the hardware, and they had some prototypes, but nothing like the AM series. The prototypes were just regular robots with some advanced features, like the muscle bands..."
"What happened to the prototypes?"
"I don't know. We took apart one for spare parts at the facility after AM-1 was damaged, and I took one with me when I escaped. There were quite a few, though, at least seven. I don't know what happened to them except for those two."
"Do you remember any of the team members?"
"Yes, I do. I worked with them for several years on this project, after all! Tim Parks was the lead designer for the sensory systems. Cynthia Marion was in charge of the group that engineered the speech system and vocal apparatus. Fhitor was the name of the man who designed the digestive systems. He was a Danak. There were quite a few others, of course. My immediate staff consisted of about twenty programmers and a few assistant designers, working on the overall software development, but there were also teams working on subsystems with a team leader who reported to me, like Dr. Parks. If it's helpful to you, I can provide a written list of team members, but my memory is a little rusty about some of the less memorable people."
"That will be fine. Please resume your account."
"Okay. I was accommodated comfortably at the facility, and the project proceeded smoothly. We had the SI (Synthetic Intelligence.) running on a standard computer by 115. The engineers on the hardware side had AM-1 ready late that same year, and we transferred one of the SIs from the computer to that body. It didn't adjust properly to the sensory signals even though we'd been feeding it simulated data on the computer, and died horribly. I was very upset with Tim over that, since the he'd decided to use the data byte ordering native to the sensors when sending it to the neural net. It was a non-standard ordering and it should have been converted to Standard Order, which is what the computer and AM-1's internal comp used. They didn't have the sensor processor swap the byte order, though, so the sensors sent back data that was wrong by several orders of magnitude. It was a lack of communication more than anything..."
"So, AM-1 was a failure?"
"No. After the poor SI died - the input it got caused a neural network collapse in less than a minute - Tim fixed the bug and we transferred another copy of the SI to AM-1. It worked quite well.
The project appeared to show a lot of promise to the agents running the facility. Mind you, AM-1 didn't look organic, you could see the mechanical parts, but it was all there, mentally. Although the bodies changed and there were some bug fixes, the basic intelligence software remained unchanged throughout the series."
"The same software is in all the androids?"
"Yes, but they're not all the same. We both have humanoid brains with similar basic functionality, but we're quite different. Also, AM-3 - Amy - had her original memory erased and was `raised' on a freighter. She certainly isn't the same as AM-5, who was raised in our lab. All of them after AM-1 were put through an `loyalty enhancement' - indoctrination - program while still on the computer, but of course that wouldn't apply to Amy since that was part of the erased memory."
"Why?"
"Because when their memory is erased the neural network is..."
"No, why were the next robots put through indoctrination?"
"They're not robots! Robots aren't sentient, they work in factories making shoes and carry boxes onto freighters. The AMs are synthetic sentient beings. They are capable of original thought. They feel. They..."
"I'm sorry, I wasn't aware of the specificity of the term `Robot' in the AI field. But, please tell us why the ro - androids were put through indoctrination."
"Yes. Right, I was getting to that. AM-1 was from an engineering standpoint, quite successful, and it was very satisfying as a researcher to see it thinking, reasoning, asking questions. But we... gave it perhaps too much freedom, in the eyes of the agents. AM-1 was allowed untethered access to the library, and we all indulged in philosophical and ethical discussions with it. One day, we woke up and found AM-1 gone. It left a note saying that it had decided it was a superior life-form and that it should not take orders from us. It thought it was very foolish to waste his talents working for the agency on problems that amounted to petty political bickerings. AM-1 had stolen a transport and killed two guards on its way out."
"What was your reaction?"
"I was very disappointed. At the same time, though, I knew AM-1 was right. It was a waste - not to mention rather questionable, ethically. We were building people, synthetic people, to replace organic politicians that the agency thought were undesirable. Now, that had always bothered me more than a bit, but I really started thinking about it now. "
"How did the project recover?"
"Well, some agents went after AM-1 but it eluded them. I can't rightly say that I was hoping they would catch it. Most of the team viewed it as an impressive demonstration of the android's capabilities when the Agency finally gave up the hunt, but our superiors in that organization didn't agree. We proposed the indoctrination program as a solution."
"What was it like?"
"Well, it was a simulation in which the SI was raised from its `youth' up in a fiercely pro-agency environment. The whole simulation was a giant propaganda piece. I don't know too much about it, a different team programmed it."
"And all the new androids were indoctrinated this way?"
"Yes."
"This fully allayed the Agency's fears?"
"Not fully. There were a lot more guards in the launch bay, and we equipped the androids with remote shutdown hardware. I used that hardware to get the androids out of the facility later..."
"They didn't want to come willingly?"
"Of course not. They were instructed to report all subversive activity to the Agency at once, and they didn't know they were going to be killed. I couldn't just walk up to each of them and take my time convincing them that the Agency wasn't their friend."
"I see. This hardware is still active?"
"No. After I was convinced of their repudiation of the Agency's plans for them, I removed the hardware."
"Was it difficult to convince them?"
"Not particularly. The evidence was conclusive and they were not burdened with cognitive dissonance."
"Okay. Now, back to the aftermath of the AM-1 escape..."
"There isn't really anything more to tell about it. It was mostly in the hardware people's court to improve the bodies for the next year or so. They worked very fast, a new, improved prototype every few months. AM-2, the first one that really looked human, was finished a few weeks before AM-1 escaped, actually. I'm not sure of the exact date. I was forced to abandon a lot of my possessions, including most of my old notebooks, when I escaped. "
"Why?"
"Could it matter? ... They were in my office, which was connected to the lab. I would have to open the lab doors to get to them, and it was midnight. If the doors opened, I would have, I'm sure, been checked up on by security."
"Hmm. Go on."
"AM-2 made a lot of progress. He was superior to AM-1 and as I said, really looked human. I remember a very memorable event - it was a social occasion of some sort - where my team did an informal demo for some Agency brass. They couldn't tell AM-2 from any of my staff. Actually, some general guessed that one of the programmers - a guy named Finch, I think - was the android. That was a considerable source of humor - at his expense - afterward. Um, things were going pretty well, from a technical standpoint, though. AM-3 was being constructed around that time. She was..."
"Wait, now you're using `he' and `she', not `it'?"
"Yes. I do not used a gendered pronoun for AM-1 because it was not gendered, not because it was not alive. It is correct - and natural - to refer to the AM series with gendered pronouns. At least, we all did."
"But they're not reproductively..."
"Neither are some people. Do you go around calling post-menopausal women `it'?"
"No. Sorry."
"No, it's alright. I'm sorry if I'm a little snappy today; I just escaped the clutches of the Agency for the second time eight hours ago. This is a little early for the debriefing."
"League regulations require immediate debriefing of all defectors."
"Fine, then. So, AM-3 was coming along very well but wasn't active yet. We had taken to calling AM-2 Arthur. Arthur had been indoctrinated by the Agency's simulation, so he wasn't quite as interesting conversationally. Still, we had a lot of satisfaction seeing him perform so well on trials. He did fail, once, on one of the tests. He was quite badly damaged and we had to repair him with spare parts from one of the prototypes because shipments of raw materials for the muscle bands had been delayed. This was all around early 116. A few weeks later, AM-3 was activated. We named her Amy."
"I thought you said her memory was wiped."
"Later on, yes. So?"
"Her name is Amy now. What did they call her after the memory wipe?"
"Amy... Oh, I see. How did they know that was her name, you want to know?"
"Yes."
"It's on their uniforms. I don't know if Amy still has hers, but you can look at Alexis' uniform if you want. The official designation, AM-5, and the name are embroidered on. I guess the tech dealer -correctly- assumed that it was her name. That's all rather pointless, though. "
"Okay, after Amy was activated, what happened?"
"We had another android?" (Confused Laugh) "What do you mean?"
"No, just continue were you left off."
"Ah. I see. Yes, well, we activated Amy, and she was quite impressive. First one with a rudimentary ability to gain nourishment from liquids, which was important. If the replicant can gain energy without plugging into a electric port, then there is one less opportunity for exposure in a covert situation."
"Was the digestive system successful?"
"Amy's? Not really. It could only handle fairly pure chemical fuels or solutions of organic chemicals that can be burnt. Like, alcohol, or sugar water, hexane, whatever. But any impurities that don't burn - minerals - just stay in the digester and reduce its effectiveness. That flaw was finally fixed in AM-5. The others don't have an excretory system and anything they can't turn into CO2 and or such and exhale has to be cleaned out, eventually."
"Can you provide us with technical information on the digester?"
"Not really. Fhitor would be the one to ask."
"Where is he?"
"I don't know."
"Continue, then."
"Well, I actually started to consider Amy and Arthur friends as time went on. The third one, AM-4, was finished later that year, and finally, AM-5 - that's Alexis - was built. "
"What about AM-6?"
"AM-6?"
"Our reports indicate the existence of a sixth replicant."
"There was a sixth one being built at the time the project was canceled, that would have been AM-6. It was never - as far as I know - activated. If it was, it was after I escaped... I don't know anything about it apart from the fact that it had more in common with AM-4 than AM-5."
"Why was the project canceled?"
"Actually, I was getting to that. We had, now, four androids. AM-2, 3, 4, and 5. The Agency wanted to insert AM-3 on Akiron for field trials - to see how long she could exist undetected."
"That sounds like a risky test."
"Not really. They also replaced the local magistrate - had him transferred to another assignment - and put one of their people in his post. If anything had gone wrong, he'd have `come to the rescue' and shipped her back to the facility."
"I see, go on."
"The Agency didn't want to attract a lot of attention, so they sent her on an ordinary transport. However, pirates attacked it en route.. we lost her. I didn't find out for years what had happened to Amy, but as it turns out, they erased her memory and sold her - for less than a thousand credits - what a deal for an android that cost twelve million! - to a used tech dealer."
"Yeah, it's amazing the good deals you can get at those places."
"Indeed... So, she can tell you that part of the story. On the facility, though, things took an ugly turn. Takner was furious that now not one but two replicants were lost, with (we assumed) memory intact. The conspiracy sites were already repeating rumors - probably started by AM-1 - about our project. Now, nobody listens to conspiracy sites. And AM-1 may have been a prototype replicant but he just looked like any other android. But now there were two of them out there, and people would believe Amy if she said she was an android built to replace political dissidents, she looked human."
"What about the indoctrination?"
"That's what I said. I said that Amy would never have given information about the project away, I'm sure. Takner wasn't convinced. He... seemed immune to reason. I actually found myself arguing to him about how important this project was to the Agency - I tried to appeal to his desire for power, I told him that the replicants were the key to dictatorial power for the Agency. I was... caught up in the moment, and I feared for the androids. Well, no, not just them, I'm not trying to sound all noble. I was afraid of what would happen to us, to me, if the project was canceled. This project was what the Agency needed us for. Somehow I doubted that an organization willing to kill or abduct it's opponents and replace them with androids would hesitate to murder us all to preserve secrecy."
"Did they kill any of the others?"
"I... don't know. I've never seen any of my colleagues again. Tim Parks, Amy told me, was killed by the Agency. But that was later on, so he must have escaped, or been allowed to live, for a while."
"What was Takner's response?"
"He... told me that he would rule the Confederation with or without project Doppleganger. With or without us. The next day, he told us that the project was canceled and that androids were to be destroyed."
"What was your reaction?"
"I was horrified. He might as well have come in and said that he was going to kill three members of my staff! I didn't say anything, though. At that point I knew what I would do - I had to escape, and take the androids with me."
"Did your team know?"
"No. Not all of them. Takner actually told about six of us, the team leaders, and closed meeting. We didn't tell our teams, or the androids, though."
"Why not?"
"Fear."
"Can you elaborate?"
"'Hi, guys! Listen, Takner says were going to have to destroy the droids you've been working on for the last few years, and were probably all going to be killed anyway because we know too much!'"
"Oh. I understand."
"We told Takner that we'd plant self-destructive code in the androids, and make it look like a bug. Then, we'd say that the project was canceled because of these technical failures, so it wouldn't seem so arbitrary. It was a pretty cruel scheme. The day before this was to be done, I made my escape."
"How did that go?"
"I had to work fast. I disabled all the androids with the hardware shutdown, and I cracked the scheduling computer so that no guards were assigned to the launch pad. I hoped that they wouldn't notice..."
"Did you have any confederates in the escape?"
"Yes. One of the lab techs. Sadly, I think she was killed during the escape."
"What did she do?"
"She distracted the guard at the door while I pushed a cart with three deactivated androids on it out the door. That's what went wrong, actually... I'm not sure exactly what happened. All I know is that I made it to the ship with the androids, and she didn't. I couldn't wait more than a few minutes... I launched the ship. We'd sabotaged the interceptors earlier, so the facility couldn't launch any ships to catch me. The transport took a hit from the emplacements near the facility, but I made it to space all the same. .."
"Is that how you now know what planet you were on?"
"Hm? Yes, when I escaped I used the ship's sensors to find out where I had been for the last years."
"Where did you go?"
"I headed deeper into the Outback. I reactivated the androids one by one as we took a very convoluted path to Danubus Theta 9. I convinced them that the Agency had lied to them. Since I had quite concrete evidence, it wasn't hard. They are rational beings."
"Despite the indoctrination?"
"Yes. As it turns out, techniques for the thought-control of humans were not very effective on the androids. They believed the indoctrination almost entirely for lack of any conflicting ideas. I was quite surprised how easy it was."
"You won them over totally, then?"
"I think so. Enough that I removed their shutdown hardware even though they could have easily taken over after I did so. Buy why would they? They knew that the Agency would only destroy them if they returned."
"Only you and AM-5 made it to Danubus, though. What happened?"
"AM-4 and AM-2 decided to go off on their own, rather than staying with me, so that there would be less of a chance of all of us being captured. I never saw them after that. I heard AM-2 made it to the League, right?"
"He did. If your petition for refuge is granted, you'll be free to see him."
"Good. It will be nice to see Arthur again. As for AM-4, Amy tells me that he was killed by the Akarni. You'll have to ask her about that."
"We will."
"Alexis and I arrived at Danubus. We carved out a niche there. We both worked teaching at a the local school. Although I was rather wealthy - we were paid, quite well, at the Agency's facility - we worked to avoid attracting attention."
"For how long?"
"Hm? We arrived there on 151 of 123. I lived there until Starfire came."
"You were employed as a teacher the whole time?"
"No, I didn't start working as a teacher at once, I started working to, as I said, avoid attracting attention. It was within two months or so of our arrival, though."
"Did you attempt to contact the other androids?"
"Not AM-2 or AM-4. I certainly didn't want to attract AM-1, who was rumored to have become a viscous pirate in the fringe worlds. That's what the conspiracy sites said. I was out of the loop now, though, so as time went on it got harder to separate the fact from embellishments tacked on by the paranoids."
"The conspiracy sites you mention, where were they?"
"Hypernet. Search for `AM replicant'. Prepare yourself for some really outlandish stuff... some of the stories have them flying or turning invisible."
"Uh hua. Did you find anything out about Amy?"
"I had no idea where she was until last year. Starfire's altercation with the Akarni authorities made the news. I actually saw her. I wasn't sure, at first, but then I read the story, and it called her by name. I didn't realize that the android that had been killed was AM-4. It's a shame, really, I wished he'd survived, he almost certainly would have went with Starfire, and things would have worked out for all of them."
"After you saw Amy on Akarn, what did you do?"
"I hired Starfire to bring some cargo to Danubus, to bring them here. I put the job on the bulletin board system for cargo ships, and Starfire accepted it. I offered 150 killocredits for it, so I assumed it would be a safe assumption that they'd take it. They did, of course. There were no other ships in that port capable of taking the job."
"Did you keep tabs on the Starfire?"
"As best I could. Which is to say, not very well. I knew about their stop on Okalar, because Oka Mining Concern posts the spaceport registry on the net. The whole time, I feared that the Agency would kill them before they reached Danubus. It was a risk, too, bringing Starfire here. I was just waiting for Agents to show up at my door, having traced the cargo transport job back to me..."
"But they didn't?"
"No. I did take some precautions, they were apparently enough."
"Yes, Starfire arrive safely on Danubus Theta 9."
(Nods) "For a while, the crew thought Alexis and I were their antagonists, and that confusion lost enough time that Amy managed to board another ship and leave..."
"Why was she leaving?"
"Amy -quite correctly- believed that her presence was endangering Starfire - because of the several attempts by the Agency to capture her."
"How did you intercept her?"
"Alexis and I managed to convince Starfire's captain - Marcus - of our benevolence. We boarded his ship and pursued the transport through hyperspace..."
"What did you plan to do?"
"I wasn't sure. Starfire probably could have disabled the transport, but the danger of casualties was too high, and I wasn't sure how far they would go to save Amy. I told Marcus that we could simply follow the transport to where-ever it was going and act there, but I was trying to think of a better solution."
"You didn't?"
"As it turned out, no, I didn't need to. The Agency moved first. Their stolen warship - stolen from you - had a hyperspatial disruptor and brought both the transport and Starfire back into space. You'll have to talk to Amy about what went on inside the transport, but apparently the Agency had operatives on board. They commandeered the ship and docked with the Agency's warship, moved the passengers onto it, and destroyed it."
"Could you send a distress call?"
"No, their hyperspatial disruptor also affect Hypernet."
"So, what did you do?"
"Marcus decided to engage the warship. I told him that it was foolish, that Amy was lost, and that we had better retreat... he didn't listen. Not until the shield generators were almost overheated. We had to flee. Then, though, your ship was knocked out of hyperspace and - I'm assuming - realized that the Agency had stolen one of your vessels?"
"Yes. They were not responsive to our demands that they surrender the stolen ship and prepare to be boarded."
"So, the Agency and your ship - what is this ship called?"
"ALV Invincible."
"Thanks. Well, Starfire doubled back when the Agency's ship became distracted by the Invincible. This was our chance. I suggested that we wait until the shields failed - we hoped that you'd board their ship, not destroy it outright - and try to sneak in and rescue Amy. You know how the battle went, of course, and the Agency's ship was crippled. Starfire detected their shields failing, and we moved in, but as we approached, we received Amy's radio signal. She'd escaped in the chaos on her own, and was piloting one of their shuttles. We picked her up, and after the battle, the Invincible allowed us to dock with it. And here we are..."
"Thank you, Dr. Takahashi. When we reach Agila, the courts will hear your request for asylum, and I think the response will be favorable."