An introduction and a prologue
Well, hi! I am a new person, just got into Merlin when it began airing on NBC (though I'd heard plenty good things about it before), and I've spent the last week or so talking my friends' ears off about it and reading fanfic on both this lovely comm and the kinkmeme. On the meme though I misread a prompt for an American Idol crossover, my mind sort of ran with it, and this is the result. Whether or not making my first entry into a fandom with an epic AU was a massive miscalculation remains to be seen. As I said I'm watching as it airs so nothing spoilery will be included before it comes out on NBC, and while I do not have a beta reader everything is spell checked. I do hope I've got all the tags right, it's hard to tag for content on a work in progress.
Title: Indistinguishable from Magic (working title, subject to change)
Rating: PG for this part, (more like G for this part, may rise in future parts depending on how it goes.)
Warnings/Spoilers: WIP. Unbetaed. Exposition.
Summary: Modern AU inspired in part by but not crossed over with Iron Man. Arthur Penn, a talented programmer and inventor as well as the owner of Sufficiently Advanced Technologies Inc., has devoted his spare time to attempting develop a functional Artificial Intelligence.
Arthur sighed and leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers together and stretching his arms back above his head as he arched his back. He grimaced briefly at the popping sound and relaxed with a sigh. Then, he reached forward and pressed The Button. He couldn’t help laughing at himself silently for thinking of it in capital letters, especially when ‘The Button’ was really just the enter key on the keyboard, but it was the principle of the thing. Pressing the enter key had started up a program that he’d been working on for longer than he’d really have cared to admit to anyone at the office, but it had all been in what little spare time he had. It was a personal project, just to see if he could do it.
He’d wanted to see if he could create an actual intelligent, thinking computer.
He may have been the best programmer and designer at Sufficiently Advanced Technologies Inc., but this wasn’t something he wanted to go public with, even if he was the owner ever since the death of his father.
He sighed again, tapping his fingers impatiently beside the keyboard as he watched the flickering percentages rise in fits and starts. It was a slow process, but it was a large program. Nothing he could have accomplished without his own private bank of servers, even the average company wouldn’t have the computing power required to run something like this. More than once he’d considered himself insane for even trying.
Now he just thought that he might go insane from waiting for it to boot up. There was nothing left to check, he’d already checked and rechecked the microphones and cameras, he couldn’t do any further fine tuning until the program was up and running, and he hated waiting. He sighed impatiently yet again and spun his (expensive, leather) chair around in a circle. Then, feeling childish, he pushed himself up and wandered off to take a needed shower and find some food. May as well make use of the time.
An hour later, Arthur found himself back in his chair, his hair damp and a sandwich and beer sitting on a small table he’d dragged over. He was leaning back, feet kicked up and studying the whorls in the plaster of the penthouse ceiling when there was a soft chime from the computer. He nearly kicked over his beer when he jerked upright in surprise and he leaned forward to stare eagerly at the monitors as the final processes were completed. No image appeared on the screen though he was considering it, for now just a name to accompany the soft masculine voice that came flat and processed from the speakers.
“Hello. My name, is MERLIN.
Title: Indistinguishable from Magic (working title, subject to change)
Rating: PG for this part, (more like G for this part, may rise in future parts depending on how it goes.)
Warnings/Spoilers: WIP. Unbetaed. Exposition.
Summary: Modern AU inspired in part by but not crossed over with Iron Man. Arthur Penn, a talented programmer and inventor as well as the owner of Sufficiently Advanced Technologies Inc., has devoted his spare time to attempting develop a functional Artificial Intelligence.
Arthur sighed and leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers together and stretching his arms back above his head as he arched his back. He grimaced briefly at the popping sound and relaxed with a sigh. Then, he reached forward and pressed The Button. He couldn’t help laughing at himself silently for thinking of it in capital letters, especially when ‘The Button’ was really just the enter key on the keyboard, but it was the principle of the thing. Pressing the enter key had started up a program that he’d been working on for longer than he’d really have cared to admit to anyone at the office, but it had all been in what little spare time he had. It was a personal project, just to see if he could do it.
He’d wanted to see if he could create an actual intelligent, thinking computer.
He may have been the best programmer and designer at Sufficiently Advanced Technologies Inc., but this wasn’t something he wanted to go public with, even if he was the owner ever since the death of his father.
He sighed again, tapping his fingers impatiently beside the keyboard as he watched the flickering percentages rise in fits and starts. It was a slow process, but it was a large program. Nothing he could have accomplished without his own private bank of servers, even the average company wouldn’t have the computing power required to run something like this. More than once he’d considered himself insane for even trying.
Now he just thought that he might go insane from waiting for it to boot up. There was nothing left to check, he’d already checked and rechecked the microphones and cameras, he couldn’t do any further fine tuning until the program was up and running, and he hated waiting. He sighed impatiently yet again and spun his (expensive, leather) chair around in a circle. Then, feeling childish, he pushed himself up and wandered off to take a needed shower and find some food. May as well make use of the time.
An hour later, Arthur found himself back in his chair, his hair damp and a sandwich and beer sitting on a small table he’d dragged over. He was leaning back, feet kicked up and studying the whorls in the plaster of the penthouse ceiling when there was a soft chime from the computer. He nearly kicked over his beer when he jerked upright in surprise and he leaned forward to stare eagerly at the monitors as the final processes were completed. No image appeared on the screen though he was considering it, for now just a name to accompany the soft masculine voice that came flat and processed from the speakers.
“Hello. My name, is MERLIN.