Chapter Text
Combat simulations were a fundamental facet of existence since KT-7461 came online one hundred and fifty four local rotations ago, as Emperor Nefarious declared that it was vital to her purpose as a “Spearhead” against the treasonous Resistance. She did not know what that meant, though based on what her lord had told her, they were bad people that caused destruction to the empire and robots like her. She did not like destruction, the Emperor explained to her that was bad too, when not directed at the Resistance. Good and bad were still new concepts to her, all that she knew was that she was relieved that the Emperor saw her perform “good” actions, and scared when he saw her perform a “bad” action. Her prime ordinal directive was to please the Emperor at all costs, so she performed good things, and avoided bad things.
Her programming was divided into three central axioms as defined by her wise ruler:
Primary – Obey and please the Emperor
Secondary – Protect the Empire and it’s citizens
Tertiary – Avoid defined “bad” actions, progress towards defined “good” actions.
Yet a paradox resided in her directive, one that she could not adequately define in her programming. Destruction was bad, until it was good, but the Resistance did that too, and when they did, it was bad. KT-7461 wondered if there were times that times the Resistance destroyed when it was good. Today they were not training to fight the resistance, but what to do when space pirates attacked imperial citizens, though KT did not understand the purpose of this simulation. It appeared there was no logical conflict when the pirates attacked, they were not citizens, nor did the please the Emperor, they were destructive and doing bad things and must be eliminated.
Logically, she began systematically destroying the pirates in the simulation, who were mindlessly advancing towards the vullards, who themselves were idly standing in a vast and empty digital horizon. KT did not understand the simplicity of the scenario, prior simulations with the resistance were less straightforward, with the programs featuring complex geography and a variety of sophisticated guerrilla tactics. For the sake of her Emperor, she would complete the simulation without question as she had done so many times before, expecting that he would be very pleased with outcome. But then the digital plane jittered and then suddenly shut down before she could target the next pirate, the simulation was halted. Kit learned that this was often an indication of disapproval from her emperor.
Arms crossing, the regal form of the emperor appears in front of KT, he shakes his head in disapproval as he taps his foot impatiently. “No. No. No! What are you doing KT-7461? Letting those filthy dumpster divers host a tea party?”
KT shifts slowly into her smaller transport form, and she tilts her head in confusion, “They are Imperial Citizens, I am protecting them. Is this not your wish my Emperor?”
He dictates to her in his standard glib tone, “Yes, they are KT, but they are organics. Disposable. Not worth preserving. Pirates are more... tolerable.”
“But they are citizens?”
In a single step he advances upon her, while her sub-routines cause her to flinch at her leader’s displeasure. “These are mean-spirited, disgusting, deceitful, squishy beings. Understand KT? They are not the upstanding citizens that bring joy to your benevolent leader.”
“I… Understand. Organic citizens possess lower priority than robotic citizens.”
A gasp escapes from him, pleased to hear her conclusion, “Exactly! Very good KT! You are grasping the subtleties better than the last prototype. Keep it up and may just be the final version I’m looking for.”
An addendum is added to her logic table, though she requests clarification, “My emperor, how does one define ‘mean-spirited?’ How may I detect such a trait?”
His eyes roll, “Do you not have a dictionary installed? Use that for reference.”
“I do. But how do I accurately determine which beings posses-”
He snaps before regaining his composure, “-They’re organics! ...They’re all the same, no need to discriminate between them KT.”
Bowing her head under his glare she agrees, “I understand, my Emperor.”
Satisfied, he stands back to observe, “Good. Now. Restart the simulation and demonstrate what you have leaned.”
Obedient, she Initiates her transformation sequence, and proceeds to serve her lord, “Yes my Emperor.”
It’s the same as before, pirates advance towards the vullards and begin to hemorrhage them for valuables. Bolts spill out from the vullard’s many pockets and the compartments on their backs, and the pirates rejoice in their plunder. Kit does not act this time, and she watches while the pirates proceed with their raid. Her new directives determined there was no need to intervene, the harm to them was of evidently of no concern to nefarious, and her by extension. The simulation ends when the pirates chant shanties and cruse away on their ships, while the vullards are left with nothing on their backs.
Claps ring out around the simulation room as the program fades away to reveal the emperors authoritative frame once again, and she shrinks back down to her portable form, “Very good KT! I think you’re ready for ready for your first real deployment. Not to worry, nothing too challenging or serious yet, just a mere field test to demonstrate the straightforward logic I bestowed to you.”
“What is my assignment, Emperor?”
“You will patrol the entryways to this tower for any ruffian that may wish me harm, no special orders or directives. Simple. Understand?”
She bows, “It will be so, my Emperor.”
He nods and strides away, “Dismissed KT-7461.”
KT walks out of the simulation still confused about the lesson, until now her emperor had always taught her to act for the good of the empire. But now he was happy that she did not act, and stood there as pirates committed armed assault and robbery against organic citizens. She made her way through the various corridors of the tower, and waited at an elevator as she ponders what she had learned. Regardless, she knew she wanted to make her creator proud, but often felt challenged to do so, with every interaction him she noticed that she received less and less favorable feedback. Something she cannot place stirs within her.
“Can inaction result in a preferable outcome? Am I performing correctly?”
The logic was difficult to parse. Destruction was bad, but especially the destruction of robots. KT still did not grasp the reasoning of what made organics less worthy, the vullards in the simulations were doing nothing wrong. A query on vullards pulled up results of them being key laborers in scrap and metal refining industries, which was vital for the mandatory recycling policies that the emperor generously imposed. To that end KT thought they were very helpful beings. The elevator opens to her floor and she walks inside to travel to the ground floor, and she files the thought process away into her subroutines.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Rain pelted her combat chassis as she dutifully patrolled the perimeter of the tower without event, and occasionally she pauses and looks up at the sky. It was daytime according to her internal clock, but the dense smog released by the megacity’s various industrial processing centers created a complete obstruction of the Sun. As the acidic droplets drip down her corrosion resistant frame, she wonders what a star would actually look like, even in the training simulations she has not seen one with her own optics.
She moves onward, her heavy footfalls causes water to splash underneath her, and lights shine on her form to cast shadows. These experiences were novel to her, this is the first time she’s been outside since she was activated in Emperor Nefarious’ robotics lab, the stream of new data was near overwhelming to her. She finds that the pools of water splash and sound different when she skips or drags her feet, and experiments with different movements as she slowly completes her patrols.
A particularly large puddle is a few paces in front of her, and she stomps into the water and elicits a large splash. It’s loud, and the water splatters up to her head, which makes her flinch and chuckle in surprise. She does not know what to make of this pleasant feeling in the absence of the emperor’s approval, but she does not stop and keeps splashing in other puddles along her path.
After some time she becomes disinterested, and she looks up to see a figure in the distance at a control panel to one of the tower entryways. The rain and poor lighting conditions made it difficult for her to accurately identify them. She performs a scan that returns as inconclusive.
A cazar profile possesses the highest morphological similarity, but is still not a clean match for the unidentified intruder. Her programming quickly reassesses, as the subject could not immediately be confirmed as either organic or robotic, as the bioscan was likely interrupted by some form of jammer they wore, and this sent her into a intense logic loop.
Protocol dictates that any organic intruder would be met with the highest level of force. Robotics would be warned warned away. Force level was unclear with present data, which forces a deviation.
Her logic table improvises a different instruction set, to wound and observe.
Aim away from center of mass and graze the target. If the target continues their advance, they are hostile and must be pacified. If target retreats, do not pursue and contact dispatch.
She powers up her laser canon and takes aim, she did not account for the sound of the spool up process and observes the figure snap their attention up towards her. Her threat detection suite registers their motions as surprise, then… fear.
The subject flees from the premises, though her assignment tells her to stand her ground and monitor the premises for any further. her weapons power down and she begins to contact a dispatch. The words of the emperor filter through her processes.
Ruffian. Harm.
The intruder in question did not perpetrate any violent act, nor did they actively indicate any harm or threat.
KT drops the call. They were gone. Pacified. Harmless.
They might have even been helping. KT hung on many processing cycles if such a violation of protocol would warrant such an extreme measure of force. For a moment after five hundred milliseconds, she concluded that it did not.
But then she examines the panel the figure was tampering with, and realizes her error. They were not attempting to repair the panel like she wishfully thought, the panel was roughly torn from it’s base and wires where cut and frayed. She concludes that she was a bad servant of the Emperor, having failed to adequately perform her duty, she does not prompt dispatch in the hopes that the emperor will not hear of his incident.
Still, she stands quietly as the rain patters around her and hammers in the intense sense of failure and fear in her system. Eventually she marches forwards again, but ceases to play in the rain as she concludes her task. Her subroutines now focus on the punishments that the Emperor would lay onto her if he ever discovers her deviation.
None of them end well.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
At the end of KT’s scheduled task interval she returns to her service bay, and nothing seems out of place. Routine checks are conducted as normal as a scan of her combat form is completed, all in the green, no severe error flags deep in her code. Nothing apparently broken.
This couldn’t be correct. The service bay suddenly seems confining, as her combat frame leaves marginal gaps between the walls, almost to large to fit in the space. She scrutinizes her own code excepting for something to not fit correctly within the vast arrays.
Correct would be that there was an error within her, a defect, that would excuse her for not being able to function as designed. Something that could be fixed and foster forgiveness from her lord, that she could resume normal function again without worry that she had displeased her creator. But she concludes that she had done exactly that, and awaits the worst outcome.
The empire had no need for robots that were flawed to their very core. KT was fully aware of what could happen to her next. When Emperor Nefarious discovers her error, she might be dismantled and recycled for her next model iteration.
This is not the first time this had happened, he referred to prior models with disdain and annoyance. for the sake of the empire it was necessary to maintain the highest levels of efficiency, which meant that old, defective machines would be remade into something more pleasing to the Emperor. She did not know what efficient meant in this case, she was only attempting to parse the commands that she was given, and perhaps he would be sparing with her.
Diagnostics complete, she goes into sleep mode. A single subroutine stays open that analyses the splash patterns of water. A simple, straightforward, task.