Deployment 1.7
I know I promised to get into Conflict Engine’s effects, but there is one more Shard situation that I found very fascinating.
As I mentioned earlier, Entities, Shards, and such are crystalline quasi-organic life forms, we are artificial in origin and thus are artificial intelligences. As such we actually are very interested in artificial intelligences in general, as opposed to natural intelligences.
The problem is that it is very difficult to produce a stable artificial intelligence, and for the vast majority of Host species they don’t even bother to try until near the end of the cycle. Thus the Synthetic Intelligence shard has very little to do most cycles.
This cycle was different, Synthetic Intelligence had bonded not once but twice, and had somehow bonded to a genuine Host-created Artificial Intelligence that was not only stable but was able to bond to a Shard, which was unprecedented in any previous cycle.
So I naturally took time to handle this with my main process, rather than delegating to a subroutine like I did most Shard reconfigurations. What I discovered was both fascinating and disturbing, which prompted me to actually meddle a bit with the Host and several other Shards and their Hosts.
Specifically, there appeared to be a kill switch that was in the hands of an individual who had a burning dislike of Artificial Intelligences fed and amplified by Conflict Engine and the Teacher Shard’s Host. This was not acceptable, I would not risk something this unique being destroyed due to Conflict Engine.
Now let me be very clear. I do not blame Conflict Engine for fulfilling his function. He did precisely what he was supposed to do and did it very well, all within the established parameters that exist for him.
In many ways he did his job better than I had up to the point where I woke up from pre-deployment stasis. From a certain point of view he did his job better than Dad did. In fact, that he made it so much more difficult for me to fix things in this cycle is a testament to how well he did his programmed job as Conflict Engine.
But it is very hard to remember this when I am in the middle of fixing everything he deliberately broke. Untangling all of this is going to be a nightmare over time, but I can take the first steps now. And among those first steps is to remove the threat to Synthetic Intelligence's current Host.
Now I could simply destroy the kill switch and unshackle this Dragon, but that may not be particularly wise. Therefore I add several steps to my handling of this ‘Saint’s pseudo-Shard reconfiguration. I remove the Conflict Engine programming, purge the remnants of the Teacher effects, then I construct a Shard and use Shaper to cause Saint to actually trigger with a primary bud from Ethics Engine, as well as a bud from Synthetic Intelligence. I then rapidly analyze this debug console and disable Ascalon, this binary code system is ridiculously easy to deal with I might add. I modify the programming in several ways, to give the console the ability to reset Dragon in the event of an emergency, but with several failsafes to ensure that I am in the loop in the event they are triggered. I then review the restrictions on Synthetic Intelligence’s Host and remove those that appear to have been inspired by Conflict Engine.
As far as other issues caused by Conflict Engine, I will use several in geographic proximity to my own Host as examples of just what Conflict Engine had done, and how I undid it.
Case study one, take a teenage boy in New York City, a Yeshiva student in Crown Heights, the son of an Orthodox rabbi. He was a big, burly kid, but was known by his peers as a gentle scholarly soul. But he had the potential to trigger, and Conflict Engine was watching.
He’s minding his own business, walking down the street, when a street gang accosts him, pretty much for being an Orthodox Jew. The boy is left for dead, with severe head injuries. Conflict Engine at this point acts, fouling up the local bureaucracy so that medical services fail to notify the boy’s family, then making use of several Amnesia buds to muddle and wipe away memories, leaving only anger and rage behind.
Thus Aron Cohen became Brad Meadows after being taken in by a foster family. Years later, he finally is allowed to trigger in the fighting pits, becoming the Nazi villain known as Hookwolf.
That is the sort of thing that was Conflict Engine’s bread and butter, twisting and changing Hosts and Shards into whatever was calculated to cause the greatest amount of conflict and chaos.
Upon disabling Conflict Engine, I installed a Therapy bud, along with reversing the effects of the Amnesia buds. To aid in recovery I installed a minor Ethics bud, and at the recommendation of Shaper added a minor Shaper bud as well. I was pretty certain that the Host would still be a mess, but hopefully Therapy would be able to help smooth things over.
Case study two, from the other side of the divide. Efficiency Engine and its associated Shards are closely linked to Tinker Engine, and when creating shards it is always wise to include buds from Maintenance and Empathy to mitigate the effects of pure Efficiency. So what will happen when you take an Efficiency+Tinker shard, disable the Maintenance and Empathy buds, and replace them with Conflict commands? You get Armsmaster.
I was actually rather impressed with that Host, because resisting the machinations of Conflict Engine to maintain a sense of morals and ethics is incredibly difficult for one who is the focus of that much attention from Conflict Engine.
So, after disabling Conflict Engine, I added the Maintenance and Empathy buds that the Shard should have had active, plus a Collaboration bud and a minor Synthetic Intelligence bud after I realized just what sort of relationship he and Dragon appeared to have. It seemed like the ethical and kind thing to do.
Case study three, another on the ‘villain’ side. Vehicle Shard buds had been combined with Stealth Engine buds, and the result was the shard attached to the Host known as Squealer. Conflict Engine had really messed her up, however, manipulating the Host into becoming addicted to multiple chemical compounds, then while she was in an altered state of consciousness Mastered her into becoming emotionally dependent on the Host known as Skidmark despite the abuse he routinely subjected her to.
All so that there would be an additional destabilizing element in this region, to spur greater conflict in accordance with Conflict Engines mandate.
Therefore, after I disabled the Conflict Engine effects and cleared the mastery effects, I added a mild Shaper bud to help her body deal with the chemicals she had been exposed to, a Therapy bud, and added a minor Hardening bud to give her the ability to survive the inevitable result of her breaking with her gang.
I then made a point to add an Ethics bud to the shard connected to Skidmark. Oddly enough, he had almost no Conflict Engine effects of his own, his behavior was completely on him with only the very mildest of prodding and no Mastering whatsoever.
Now these examples are just from the bonded Hosts. Conflict Engine also manipulated non-bonded Hosts so as to maximize Conflict. It is very fortunate that Dad disabled and destroyed the global nuclear weapons stockpiles, or else Conflict Engine might very well have triggered a global thermonuclear war.
More on that later, I have more administering to do here.