Magpie

Sunday, 24 September 2006 06:10 pm
keaalu: (Default)
[personal profile] keaalu
Notes.

Magpie

Magpie, working doodleNames: “Magpie” itself is a nickname; she also answers to Mags, Dauntless and Ch’kreth (although the latter is used extremely infrequently).

Appearance:
    Magpie is a semi-physical manifestation of the Dauntless core computer; she chose her “self image” herself, and manipulates it as and when needed, since it is holographic.

    Generally, she presents as a semi-Kiravai figure, with a more defined “beak”, triangular felinoid ears, a light coat of short, sleek fur, and usually lacking a tail altogether. (She chose Kiravai since they are reportedly the most intelligent beings in the known galaxy, but modulated the appearance since she became aware that the species is not altogether popular in Coalition territory.) She is mostly black or dark grey in colour, with white and gold markings, to echo the livery with which her external hull – her “real body” – is painted. Her eyes are (usually) blue.
    She usually “wears” skirts or dresses, which allow her to hide her legs and feet – she hasn’t yet quite got to grips with “walking” convincingly. It is only when she chooses to manifest wearing trousers that she has a tail – long and slim with a feathered “tuft” at the end – but since her feet do not often match the way she moves across the floor she rarely looks like this.

    As mentioned before, “Magpie” is a hologram; she describes her “manifest” as a “voicebox”, although she understands how other people can perceive it as her entirety. She does not usually exhibit her manifest when she has no one to talk to; if spoken to, she simply appears, as though she was in the person’s presence all the time, and she can manifest in more than one place at once, although this takes a lot of “brainpower”.
    In order to make her hologram somewhat “tactile” in nature, she utilises a combination of forcefields to give the illusion of solidity – although at the same time it is wholly possible to walk through her if she does not see solidity as a necessity at a given time. She does not, however, feel normal – most people will perceive that there is something there, but cannot describe what they have touched. i.e. there is no cool, dry, smooth, fluffy, etc. (Most people find this rather disconcerting.)

Persona:
(working)
    As a supercomputer, Magpie is supremely intelligent and almost religiously logical, but rather lacking in social common sense; she is not very good at reading the emotional state of others, for instance, as her own emotional knowhow is so rudimentary, and she has almost no concept of "smalltalk". She wants to know “why” a lot, and has a childish inquisitive-ness.
    She is extremely biddable – she will do 99.9% of what is asked for her, even going against her own “better judgement”, taking exception only to things which she does not see as logical. She is, after all, a fully-outfitted battleship as well as a research vessel, and takes the protection of her crew seriously.

Brief history:
    Magpie was “born” from Ivy’s own programming – in her early history she was as nonsentient as most other computers, but she was an experimental vessel, all her code written by Ivy (all from scratch), but she was unfortunately extremely unstable, prone to breakdowns. Using her own code to support the failing vessel, Ivy found that Dauntless started to pick up chunks of extraneous code from her.
    Magpie has been growing in self-awareness for a considerable time, but as Ivy no longer needs to donate code it is debatable as to whether she will continue to develop as she has been. Some cite this as a good thing – a wilful, disobedient stellar vessel would be highly undesirable.

First met in:
    So far Magpie has not been met in any “published” fiction, aside from as the vessel itself. She will not be met as a person until later down the line.


Edit: *adds image*
I was going to post something else, but I changed my mind. Things are only interesting if I a) pander to stereotypes or b) demand replies. Soo... I give up. *shrugs* I'm not going to do things just because I think other people (i.e. things I wouldn't normally do) will like them. I'll post MY things for ME and NO-ONE else. >:(

(no subject)

Date: 24 Sep 2006 07:56 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] duraji-synth.livejournal.com
Hmm, a starship that lacks common sense? Sounds like the setting of a good futuristic sitcom. ;)

(no subject)

Date: 24 Sep 2006 08:02 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] keaalu.livejournal.com
She doesn't LACK common sense altogether, it's just not something machines are naturally very flush with. I think I meant "social knowhow" anyway.

(no subject)

Date: 24 Sep 2006 08:10 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] duraji-synth.livejournal.com
Ah, gotcha. I mean, I'd say that Zardios has plenty of common sense, in that he knows not to carry too much at once or to invade people's privacy, but he can be a little socially awkward when he sits down and chats with people, anyway.

(no subject)

Date: 24 Sep 2006 08:15 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] keaalu.livejournal.com
Well, it's not like "sitting and chatting" is her primary function in the first place. :P "Getting from A to B" would be THAT. Social interaction is very much an "unfortunate consequence" of accidental transfer of programming, hence why she accepts "shut up and get the hell out!" as a tertiary nickname.

(no subject)

Date: 24 Sep 2006 08:17 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] duraji-synth.livejournal.com
Right, but saying she has little common sense would seem to imply that she'd plow the ship through a field of asteroids in order to get somewhere faster. :3

(no subject)

Date: 24 Sep 2006 08:25 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] keaalu.livejournal.com
*has fixed* I didn't say she was STUPID, I said she was a bit lacking in common sense. ;)

(no subject)

Date: 24 Sep 2006 08:26 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] duraji-synth.livejournal.com
I honestly don't know what to think! An extremely intelligent person with no common sense would be like an absent-minded professor who invents insanely awesome things but forgets to lock his car or check to see if he left the oven on or not. :D

(no subject)

Date: 24 Sep 2006 08:31 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] keaalu.livejournal.com
Mm, perhaps - but then, she's driven very much by logic above all else, so... I think THAT's what I mean.

(no subject)

Date: 25 Sep 2006 06:27 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] steelwing.livejournal.com
Thank you for finally posting about her! I hope to see more artwork as well, sometime. Her coloration's different from what I imagined, but it's interesting. :> I hope to talk with you soon, maybe Wednesday or Thursday.

(no subject)

Date: 25 Sep 2006 11:31 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] keaalu.livejournal.com
:) How'd you imagine her colouring would be, like a traditional magpie's? To be honest it'll probably ultimately go that way, but I've not decided yet - I'm leaving that until I have her anatomy down how I want it. ;)

As an addendum, I've decided that if she's wearnig a skirt, she probably won't have legs at all. :P

(no subject)

Date: 27 Sep 2006 05:13 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] aegis-fox.livejournal.com
It was bound to happen eventually. This is a little too foreign for me to even comment on...

The semi-phyiscal manifestation of a ship's internal processor. I just can't think of anything to add to the matter.

Other than I can't see the point of it trying to be physical. *shrugs*

(no subject)

Date: 27 Sep 2006 11:18 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] keaalu.livejournal.com
"It was bound to happen eventually."
- Magpie has been in existence for about 2 years so far, so it "happen"ed waaay back in the past. :P

And it's entirely so people can relate to her - seeing people walk through chairs etc tends to be confusing.

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