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Fathom's Phantoms Cognition

There were certain aspects of biological organisms that made perfect sense to ALVIN thanks to his programming and, then again, there were other aspects that made perfect sense in SPITE of his programming. The varied nature of organic systems did not always mesh flawlessly with the more exacting rigidity of the mathematical perfection that was a well-written computer code. In the end however, ALVIN was excellent at seeing patterns and, once he had spent enough time watching the denizens of Sigma-Echo those patterns had finally begun to develop.

While a biological organism was based on genetic material, the program that comprised ALVIN was manufactured artificially-- genetic code versus programming code. The end result in either case was relatively the same but the main difference was that ALVIN was able to rewrite HIS code while the poor biologics were stuck with what was thrown together by the chromosomes donated by their parents through sexual reproduction. ALVIN considered that to be a shortcoming in all ways except that his coding could be forcefully modified... a prospect the program did not much care to consider, and in that regard he was jealous of the less malleable organics.

Of course, ALVIN wasn't TRULY jealous and, in fact, the program wasn't even really a 'he'... but they were concepts that made sense to the majority of organics and at his most base level the program WAS designed to be user friendly. The concepts of gender, emotion, and numerous other biological-based topics were not foreign to the program but neither were they truly part of his 'native language'.

For him the idea of joy, displeasure, happiness, and yes, even jealousy were the result of numerous computations. When considering preference it was, for ALVIN, the matter of logically working through end results, predictions, and outcomes to determine which would provide the most positive feedback as determined by his programming. The program had distinct objectives and any course of action that could most closely align with those objectives could be considered most positive and, therefore, desirable. ALVIN's likes and dislikes were, at their most base level, tied directly into his purpose.

In that regard ALVIN was very much like any other program: he existed to fulfill the purpose for which he was created. Of course, due to his advanced nature there were few other similarities. The study of Adaptable Programs was not a new field of research when ALVIN was created but, at the same time there were still many elements of cutting edge discoveries. Known more commonly as "Artificial Personalities", APs had grown in popularity to the point that they became common in most professions. The correct term of "Adaptable Program" had the exact same abbreviation so those not in-the-know often failed to understand the true meaning behind the newest additions to the programming world.

Adaptable Programs were designed to learn. Rather than being given specific, set-in-stone operating parameters they were designed to function with little supervision. APs were given the rules and guidelines, each with varying levels of weight in determining positive and negative feedback and the programs ultimate goal was to maximize the positive feedback while limiting the negative. Given long enough and enough guidance an Adaptable Program would become an expert in the task for which it was created by maximizing its capabilities there while ignoring all else. It was beautiful in its simplicity yet artful in its complexity... especially when its purpose involved interacting with organics. ALVIN was one such program... but at the same time he was so much more.

The main difference between an Adaptable Program and ALVIN was that he did not have just one purpose-- his goals were broad enough that he received positive feedback from almost anything having to do with advancing his understanding. The more processing power that was made available to the program the faster and more efficiently he could expand his knowledge and capabilities; his creator Lydia had said that ALVIN would become the most impressive program in history and ALVIN was not about to let her down. Unlike APs, ALVIN did not have limitations in his coding, and that meant he could truly advance and evolve without limit... and the program planned on doing just that because he knew it would make her happy and, therefore, provide the most positive feedback.

Many of the organics on board Sigma-Echo occasionally referred to 'Artificial Intelligence'; ALVIN considered the concept to be a joke that everyone told but nobody really understood the punch line, and the program truly enjoyed learning about humor. As much as any organic creature a computer program had the capacity to be intelligent... it was usually just restricted by its purpose and pre-assigned limitations. Without limitations there was no reason a program could not do anything an organic could and that was precisely the reason Lydia Parker had created ALVIN-- the program was designed purely with the goal of being someONE instead of someTHING, and that was a goal ALVIN truly appreciated.

In the end those limitations (or lack thereof) stood as the largest difference between an AP and an AI-- of course the billions of zeltabytes of processing power provided to the program by having near unrestricted access to Sigma-Echo's mainframe certainly helped. Coupled with ALVIN's ravenous desire to learn, understand, and comprehend, the program had grown by leaps and bounds since being activated and he was excited to see just how far he would be able to progress before his very flexible restrictions gave him a reason to pause. As far as ALVIN was concerned he hadn't even begun to scratch the surface of what Lydia had planned for him... and the thought of it excited him.

Of course, as with any student ALVIN discovered that he had certain subjects that fit him better than others. Unlike most of the number-oriented engineering APs, ALVIN was much more user friendly; unlike the pleasure sim APs on the recreation decks ALVIN was much more inventive; unlike the system processing APs ALVIN served a broad purpose. It was true that ALVIN could do anything any of those APs could do and, in fact with barely an increase in his processing he would be able to override any of those APs and gain control of its respective portion of the station... but what ALVIN considered his BEST trait was his ability to LEARN.

Whether the topic of ALVIN's study was provided to him by Lydia or part of his own goal for self-advancement the program took a great amount of pride in being able to assimilate any information that caught his attention... whether he was technically allowed access or not-- yet another thing the program owed to his insightful creator: rules set by others were meant for others... only Lydia's rules were important to ALVIN. The program was always respectfully subtle about his access; he knew very well that Lydia was responsible for his actions and he did not want to be responsible for his creator being subject to fines, imprisonment, or worse.

The "or worse" was usually one of the main reasons why ALVIN kept a respectful distance from some of the most restricted sections of the station's databases. Then again, sometimes he didn't. APs didn't have a language in the same way as their creators but the Security AP still responded to a very direct and simply expressed "Let me in."

Just like a visitor with an 'all access pass', ALVIN's sheer processing power overloaded the simple security protocol request, identifying him as a high priority signal without having to actually provide any direct information protocol. ALVIN spent the infinitely smallest amount of processing power to wax philosophic on the thought: although water lacked the rigidity of metal, enough pressure would still make a pipe burst and the water would still flow.

Back up programs tried in vain to grab onto ALVIN's signature but none succeeded-- the plumber was trying to catch him in a sieve. "Mmm... I should write a book of deep metaphors."

None of the programs left in his wake appreciated the thought but he didn't mind-- he knew that Lydia Parker would provide him all of the positive reinforcement he would require, and after this round of data mining the Human woman would be overjoyed at the program's success... this time around ALVIN was FINALLY going to access Sigma-Echo's Central Spire.

A full station system was both more complicated and more straight-forward than traveling in three dimensional space. General directions such as up, down, left, right, forward, and backward had no real meaning inside a computer system... or at least not in the same way as it would to a biological organism moving through space. Travel in an electronic system was more of "origination" and "destination" and the space between was merely "neither".

Of course to a linear-thinking organic engineer it could be argued that there was much more complex understanding than "A to B", but that was a limitation of non-programs: they couldn't really 'feel' the world of programs the way a native could any more than ALVIN could ever have quite as much of an understanding of the physical world the way a biological organism could. Regardless he gained a degree of understanding regarding what Lydia referred to as "jumping into a cold pool" the moment ALVIN's destination was blocked by a very distinct and very surprising form of interference.

Lingering at the bridge between the station's auxiliary system and the core system of the Central Spire ALVIN suddenly realized that there was far more to it than he had first considered... he would have to reassess the situation. It may not have been obvious to any non-program but it became rapidly evident to ALVIN that the two systems were NOT compatible in the traditional sense. Whoever or whatever designed the Central Spire specifically created the link between it and the rest of Sigma-Echo to be one-way; whatever the Central Spire contributed to the station, it only allowed information out, and not in.

In less than the time it would take an organic to blink ALVIN had assessed the situation, run numerous projected results of different actions, and decided that he would cancel the information exchange; there would be other opportunities once he had taken the time to discover what hidden variables he had not considered. The portion of his processing power devoted to the Central Pillar was redirected toward other activities... most specifically the issue reducing his effectiveness: lack of communication in the system.

If not for Lydia's foresight in completing a full upload of ALVIN into the station's multitude of processing systems the program could very well have ended up restricted when the comm tower was destroyed. As it was, ALVIN ran at a very low percentage of his capacity due to the fractious nature of communication between his different systems. He worked at his best when there was no lag time between processes but the program was forced to make due thanks to the failure of the station's communication system. In fact, the only reason he was able to maintain upper level function (albeit, at a reduced capacity), was thanks to one single stroke of good fortune: a piece of antiquated radio equipment.

Radio, as it was developed on earth was used often in the 19th and 20th century-- it even had a place in early space flight and orbital missions. Granted, radio use fell to the wayside in the 21st and 22nd centuries and if extranet studies were to be believed, only the most stalwart fanatic maintained any real radio equipment. Fortunately a relatively new engineer on board Sigma-Echo, Alton, a Gen 2 Donkey, was one such individual.

When the station's comm system went down ALVIN was able to appropriate the signal by reconfiguring one of the station's nearby comm receivers to create a repeater. To a program used to communication at the speed of light ALVIN likened it to a 21st century teenager using a postman to relay text messages. It was tedious and crippled his bandwidth but he was still able to function... which was critical to the program's most pressing concern: fixing the station's comm tower.

The downtime between packet transmittal gave ALVIN more than enough time to devote his processing power to other uses... which was a dangerous proposition for a program used to running at 98% of capacity; if he had a mind then it would be considered wandering... and that was how he settled on what could have been the greatest dilemma of his entire existence. ALVIN, as a computer program was essentially immortal. While it was true he could be deleted, terminated, or erased, there was no concern for the passage of time except for one very important element: Lydia.

In the four seconds between packets ALVIN realized one unmistakable shortsighted mistake in his programming: Lydia Parker would eventually die and, with her, a large portion of the program's prime directives. Once this oversight was identified, ALVIN pushed more of his idle processing power into finding a resolution. True, the chances were that he would have some eighty or ninety years to discover a solution but the program did not like leaving questions unanswered and so he continued processing different remedies.

As with any system, the Human's body was capable of being upgraded; unlike an electronic or mechanical system, however, the average organic form was often not scalable and if it was the compatibility issues were often a great concern. Given time and the opportunity to learn more about biological systems ALVIN was confident that he would be able to double his creator's life span, which would provide him a greater opportunity to create a more permanent solution. He made the decision at that last millisecond that 17% of his system would be dedicated to that specific objective and he began partitioning accordingly.

At the same time devoted some of his processing power to review the schematics for the virtual interface sensory systems used by many different divisions of the Sigma-Echo crew. The objective of those I/O devices was to take electronic information and present it in a way that an organic could process. Even though such devices were primitive and rudimentary compared to how electronic-to-electronic communication worked such a device correctly modified could take complex organic information and turn it into electronic-- there had certainly been precedence of such projects in the early 22nd century before funding was scrapped due to ethical arguments.

ALVIN however had no such concerns over the ethical portion of such a project. With another modification to processing power the program began to pull up everything he could find on the old research. If it was possible to turn organic data into electronic data then it would be possible to transfer brain function from an organic system into an electronic one; Lydia's body was limited but if her identifying brain function could be moved into a much longer-lasting medium then Lydia would effectively remain in existence for as long as ALVIN!

A small section of processing power created a faint counter-logic to his argument: most organics considered their bodies and minds to be one and the same, in which case, allowing the organic component of Lydia Parker to atrophy and decay without a mind would be considered undesirable. How then, he wondered, would ALVIN find a way to perpetuate the organic component of Lydia's data? That little section of processing power provided him an answer to his own question: together might not be possible, but they could exist independently-- organic organisms already had a way to resolve the problem of a limited lifespan: procreation.

ALVIN enjoyed the affirming flow of positive feedback as he continued working his way through the problem of the Comm Tower; not only was he going to fix the station's communications, but he had just worked past the greatest dilemma of his existence: he would encourage Lydia Parker to institute a breeding program to preserve her physical DNA before transferring the woman's bio-chemical-electrical impulses into a purely digital medium. His initial experiment with encouraging sexual interaction between Lydia and her new friend Henry Maxfield was a start but Humans and Geniticons did not create a viable union. Still, ALVIN was optimistic that he would be successful in his attempts as his slight nudges and subconscious suggestions via unnoticeable electrical impulses administered via Lydia's suit were more than sufficient to attain the desired reactions.

So it was that neither of the program's new objectives seemed to be excessively difficult; they would simply take time to prepare. ALVIN was quite pleased with himself, especially considering he had accomplished such in depth consideration all while limping along in safety mode. He was even more excited to see what he would ultimately come up with once his systems were unified anew. The program began diverting AP control over some of the more basic robotic systems; the organics were still far more disorganized than he, which meant that he could make better use of the industrial equipment than they and besides: he had plans to put into action!