Robots and Sanity - OTA tag Tiberius

[r_d_olivaw]

The psychiatrist's office door was closed, but transparent: through it, a welcoming, golden light shown. Having conducted some research into the effect of color and mood, Daneel had spent some time creating a system that would allow him to vary the lighting in the office, and it was currently set to the spectrum of a wood-fire, adjusted to allow

Comments

[avonsoongdroid]

Tiberius would gladly apply any of those human terms to himself if he could appropriate them to the exact emotion. He had the basic seven, and had been progressively building from there for a few years.

Normally when he was seeking counsel, he would have gone to Avon. To Data as a secondary, as Data inevitably took the passive way out. Perhaps more passive than necessary. He supposed that Varsh would have listened, but Varsh had a level of innocence that he wished to be uncorrupted and was a good portion of his concerns.

Every android aboard the station, every AI and every ship and the computer itself was his concern.

"Deneel?" Tiberius asked as he stopped in the doorway of the psychiatrist's office. "I was wondering if we could have a confidential discussion. I'm afraid something has come up that could endanger my family..."

[r_d_olivaw]

"Tiberius." Daneel looked up from his compilation of notes, a piercing expression on his face. A human axiom, simple and deceptively facile, recalled itself. Be careful what you wish for. He had not called danger into being by recognizing his own need for activity, but there was a certain irony to the timing of this disruption.

"Come in," he said with a faint dipped nod, ordering the door locked and opaqued behind the android. "Is the danger immediate? The safety of your family is of high priority to me."

[avonsoongdroid]

"Perhaps..." Tiberius said, glancing out into the corridor before entering entirely. He was being casual, but secretive. He didn't want anyone to know that he was here, or what he was talking about.

"One of my ancestors is at the station... His name is Dr. Arik Soong, he helped save everyone from the disease that occurred. But he can be as blindly hopeful as he is brilliant. He's discovered an android, the same model as Data. His name is Lore."

The explanation was quick and quiet as he gathered himself, having a seat near Daneel.

[r_d_olivaw]

"I was unaware that there was an identical humaniform to Data. I was one of two identical models myself: the other has since been deactivated." In the pattern of Tiberius' thoughts, however, the name 'Lore' created a jangle of dissonance, of anger and fear. "Is Lore the threat you have referenced? The name is significant to you; you already know something of him." It was not a question.

[avonsoongdroid]

"This version of Data might have not even known he existed... but yes, I know something of him," Tiberius confirmed, looking at Daneel in earnest.

"Let me ask you something first. I realize you're a very old android, older than most survive to while remaining active for the entire time. Tell me... You've heard the saying 'it's what wasn't said that should concern you...'?" He leaned forward, tapping his fingertips together.

[r_d_olivaw]

"I have heard similar idioms. My once-partner Elijah Bailey had the capacity to use the omission of information as productively as information itself." Tiberius was not precisely organic; it remained to be seen whether he wished to come to the point, unadorned, or address it in stages as he felt comfortable. Despite knowing that Tiberius must speak as he was capable, Daneel registered a sense of something that he would term--for lack of a more compact name-- impatience.

The prospect of harm coming to Data or Tiberius was fully as significant to him as the possibility of harm coming to a human. If it could be prevented, it must! Immediately.

The disorder of his thought processes did not show on his face, and indeed took only fractions of a second to re-order. He showed only a keen attention to Tiberius's deliberate words.

[avonsoongdroid]

"I know that he took advantage of my father's likeness on more than one occasion. That he nearly killed Avon. That he was once obsessed with technological superiority over organic life... I also know that he wanted to be fixed, and Dr. Soong and Data have the ability to fix him..."

Tiberius dropped his face into his hands, fingers running through neatly kept hair and messing it up. "He is... still my uncle. It was important to Data that I acknowledge family, and that I must. It was important to Avon that I also acknowledge what is mine. What is mine to defend and care for as I am theirs... My brother's brain is artronic, not positronic. It runs of chronotons. Time itself. And any organic being that stares into his net is reduced to dust....

"Not precisely something someone who believes in technological superiority should have access to."

[r_d_olivaw]

"Your brother must be aware, as should station security be." Daneel's voice had slowed fractionally-- only another artificial intelligence would be able to detect the faint hesitation as the conflict of Data's ideals and his own basic principles took place

[avonsoongdroid]

"My brother is aware, but my brother also has a demeanor closer to Data's." Meaning that Varsh was kind and accepting. He believed everyone could be better, even if he was nervous in the matter himself.

"I've considered deactivating him himself. It would be easy. My particular type of android is equipped with a shut-down code that will erase and irreparably scramble its positronic net. ...Or so it was intended. The only time I know it to have been used was on Lore and yet he seemed to have been pulled from his fate somewhere else just to create more havoc..."

He steepled his hands in front of his face, finally giving Daneel a long, earnest look. "I'm afraid... of him, I think. Not so much what he can do, but my own resemblance to him. Neither of us were constructed with moral codes. I was expected to learn mine, and carefully monitored in the process. Lore was insufficiently instructed. I can see with very little stretch of the imagination how I might have almost become him."

[r_d_olivaw]

"In this, accept my analysis, Tiberius. I would know if you had a tendency towards unnatural aggression or sociopathy. Your development may have had the potential to go wrong, but it did not. From that you are safe."

His large, narrow-fingered hands lay flat upon the desk, half-intertwined; he did not wish to be distracted by extraneous tactile input. "Do you fear that destroying him will unsettle your function, and allow for a chaotic progression into that state?"

[avonsoongdroid]

"Not often is a man quite so complimented in being informed that he is not a sociopath. Thank you for that affirmation." He grinned, a bit pleased with himself. When one knew unrelenting warships, sometimes one questioned their own actions in situations frequently; and that aside from the legend of his uncle.

"I fear that... covertly attempting to deactivate him would be precisely something he would have done, yes. I believe my intentions noble, though I can't be sure he didn't think the same with his own actions."

[r_d_olivaw]

"I may have the capacity to disable him without the code. Giskard Reventlov, who was the first telepathic android, was able to send robots into mental freeze-out simply by obstructing their thought processes. However, Soong Type androids are far more developed than even the most divervent Solarian robot. And his death may still weigh on your conscience."

His fingers moved in a blur, calling up the schematics for the detention cells on his desk computer. "Do you believe that these facilities can be made sufficiently strong?"

[avonsoongdroid]

"This station seems to scan everyone in detail, from our chemical composition and structural stability to a human's DNA pattern. If facilities were required to adequately restrain Lore, it would provide them..."

He bit his lower lip up between his teen, an extremely human gesture of worry. "I would rather it be my guilt than my brother's, however. He's had enough of that without even intending ill..." Curious humans opening the cranial plate to an engine of death, the heart of a TARDIS, something that could wear on a man for quite a while. "Could you supervise his processes... Tell if he is lying?"

[r_d_olivaw]

Daneel nodded gravely. "I believe I can detect falsification in Soong Type Androids. I register your thought patterns clearly. Perhaps, though, it would be best to test it. If you would give me a sampling of statements, true and false-?"

[avonsoongdroid]

"Ah, well... my programming differs from both father and Lore's, but the layout of the net is the same so it shouldn't create that much of a variation. Let's see... I am Soong-Type Android and I am a virgin."

The first came from a memory store, settled predominately in the left side of his net. The other half of the statement was sparked by creative circuitry in the right. Not that different from humans, as Soong's design was meant to emulate them. But much more structured and less sporadic, even if both were nearly lost among billions of trickling processes.

[r_d_olivaw]

"I see," said Daneel, unruffled. "I can indeed tell the difference. You have had a sexual experience? Do you have the capacity to appreciate it on a tactile level, or does the experience hinge upon pleasing your partner?" In his centuries, Daneel had not had a sexual encounter-- though his fellow humaniform, Jander Parneel, had been frequently called into that service by Gladia Solaria.