2022-04-15: I Brought Him 'Home'
- Log: I Brought Him 'Home'
- Cast: Ruri Hoshino, Kagero
- Where: The Nadesico (Orb Union)
- Date: 2022-04-15 (0096)
- Summary: Ruri chats with Kagero about the horrors of war and the impacts of personhood. You know. Normal things for a kid and their robot buddy to talk about.
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
So Ruri brought home an entire robot, who seems, more or less, to have autonomous systems. She's explained Kagero to the crew in much that manner: an autonomous mobile suit which can help with the Nadesico's automatic defences.
Most people are willing to play along with that. Some members of the crew seem to know just what's going on here -- Ms. Howmei specifically dropped by to offer a worldly welcome which stopped just short of revealing she knows the entire Super AI trick -- though a couple of crewmembers have been, let's say, less warm about it.
(The words 'how can a computer control a mobile suit?' may have come out of Nagare Akatsuki's mouth.)
The important thing is that Seiya Uribatake and his mechanics get along fine with Kagero, perhaps after some introductory boundary-setting about where precisely he could put his wrenches. The boys in blue are always happy to chat! They're the humans who are most often in the hangars of the Nadesico, after all, working on the Aestivalis wing and Lucine's Dianthus Mk. 3.
Those robots aren't fully People, but Omoikane, half the heart of Nadesico, is. Omoikane showed Kagero the trick to getting around the rest of Nadesico's insides despite being too big to fit -- Omoikane, by definition, is MUCH larger than anything inside the Nadesico, given its hull is his skin and its engine fluids his blood -- and that trick is communication windows. They're not just for humans! AI can use them to deliver messages, too. (Omoikane prefers delivering messages via text, but there's an audio-visual option, too. That's what the humans use.)
Communication windows, as it happens, are also how Ruri touches base with Kagero a lot of the time, because she's stuck on the bridge doing important system operations, and doesn't have the freedom to roam. But sometimes the Nadesico parks somewhere, and there's no need for the bridge to be too alert -- like now, for instance, mid-resupply.
These are the times Ruri can leave the bridge to the bridge's nonsense, and walk over to the hangar to see Kagero personally.
"Mr. Kagero?" She ventures, footsteps from her metal Nergal-issue shoes ringing out on the stairs -- the mechanics aren't here right now, because they're busy cataloguing some new wrenches, or whatever it is mechanics get in resupplies. (Ruri could check, but she won't.) She makes her way down, one hand on the rail, and hops down the final stair to hurry her way over. She's not in that much of a rush, but she does, after all, have very short legs.
<Pose Tracker> Kagero has posed.
The communication windows are a lifesaver for Kagero, who would never describe himself as shy. No, even a renegade Brave isn't shy! He's reclusive. It's different. But he does like having some distance between himself and someone he's talking to. Thank you, Omoikane. He's usually polite, if quite reserved. Maybe slightly chattier with Omoikane.
But he's happy to see Ruri in person. "Ruri Hoshino," he says as he greets her, approaching the rails and bowing in an old-fashioned style. Leave it to the Brave Corps to program their stealth units to act like movie ninjas, too. "Are you well and safe?" He usually asks this first, as if she would be in any danger aboard her own ship.
<Pose Tracker> Kagero has posed.
Face to entire head is enough, really. Kagero might be big, but he makes an effort not to consciously loom over Ruri Hoshino. Not that he thinks he might scare her off, but simply because it would be disrespectful.
"The AOS is a ship identity but not a computer?" He frowns. "I will have to remember such things exist. I'm sorry this Captain Greyvalley was acting strangely towards you. If you need me to act as a bodyguard around this 'AOS,' please let me know." Never mind that he'd either need to wait outside or just be a floating screen. But he can yell at anyone threatening! Like an 'AOS.'
"So you think Greyvalley likes you when you are not near the AOS? But Greyvalley is a human. She can't be programmed, not in the same way."
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
"More or less," Ruri says, which isn't violating her agreement with Mitsuba, because there are lots of ways ships can be !computers without being crimes against humanity. Probably.
She pauses, for a moment. "I think... it's better to avoid provoking the AOS directly," she says, mildly, and ambles over to pick up one of the mechanics' data pads from a nearby crate. Tap tap tap, she calls up the Dreisstrager's schematics beside the Nadesico's, in a big window.
You can tell which ship the Nadesico is, because it's the little blip dwarfed beside the gigantic Dreisstrager.
(Also because there are labels. Ruri always labels her diagrams. She's not a savage.)
"Humans are vulnerable to programming, too," Ruri explains, tap tap tap, as she accesses her permissions and pulls up the data on Cyber-Newtype black laboratories Sayla sent her. She just puts those in big windows beside herself, too. She's confident Kagero is a fast reader. "We have different low-level languages to AI, and it's usually called something different. Like 'conditioning', or 'brainwashing'. But as you can see here, there are many cases where humans were made to feel a certain way."
She relates all this with all the neutrality of someone reciting a book report they have no real investment in, which just makes it all the more striking that she is really quite small.
<Pose Tracker> Kagero has posed.
Kagero looks at those schematics for a long second, his eyes wide.
"It's massive. I see what you mean about avoiding provoking it. There is no shame in stealth over direct aggression." He then stops and listens as she explains how humans can be programmed themselves.
He reads, and this keeps him quiet a little longer; his remarkably lifelike mouth draws into a long line, then a scowl. His eyes flash.
"So I thought, no one can live freely in war. Not even humans. Doesn't it hurt? Doesn't it frighten you to know that everything you are could be taken away one day for the sake of someone else's plan?"
His wings stand on end, and it takes all of his self control not to set off his light flare siren. (That would draw too much attention.)
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
There's no shame in stealth over direct aggression, huh..?
Ruri Will Remember That.
She's glad Kagero can express himself this way -- not that Ruri expresses herself at all. Her stoic expression shifts little from its cool exterior. (This is not to say she feels nothing, though her biometrics all read quite calm.)
"I think that's something which troubles a lot of humans," Ruri supposes, broadly. "Like how Mr. Tenkawa gets so frightened, or Ms. Maki and Ms. Amano make light of the situation to cope with it... Mr. Uribatake once led a whole strike just because no one could get married on the Nadesico, and he was angry everyone's freedoms were restricted by complicated contracts." That's how Ruri interpreted the situation, anyway. It was probably about the contracts.
She pauses, and adds: "Well, the Captain got rid of that order, anyway. She said she'd rather hold weddings than funerals."
The notable thing about all these considerations, at length: Ruri's reflecting on how everyone else on the Nadesico feels about being part of war.
... but Kagero asked whether it frightened her.
And that's something it takes Ruri longer to approach, setting the data-pad back down on that crate for a quiet moment.
"It... does scare me, Mr. Kagero," Ruri says, finally. Her fingers linger, delicate, by the crate, before she turns back to him; that hand lifts, to grasp her opposite elbow, an arm between herself and the world. "You see, even though all my memories here are of fighting, they're proof I was alive. I don't want to think I'd wake up one day, and not be able to remember what happened past a certain point in my life... not again," she adds, voice lowering, a shadow of a frown crossing over the wall of her face. There is a kind of tension, to her, subtle as vibrating violin strings; she has been hurt, just the same.
<Pose Tracker> Kagero has posed.
Kagero listens, and his wings fold back again inasmuch as they ever do fold; his eyes dim. He seems to relax at the thought that someone else is afraid.
And then he offers up his hand. He's seen humans do this before, comfort one another with hands, though he hasn't figured out the particulars yet. An arm over the shoulder. A handshake? A hug? None of the manners of body expression seem right, so he just waits with his hand out, level to her, as if to see if she wants to grab it instead. Humans like holding things, he thinks.
"Mine are mostly of fighting too, and of someone I've lost contact with. Violence, and confusion. But how I feel about it is me. My memories are me. Your memories are you, so you deserve to keep them."
And then, with hesitatation, he adds. "Ruri Hoshino, how do I become a 'crewmember' of your captain?"
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
Ruri isn't really sure how it works, either. She's not really a touchy person; she's always been a bit from-afar. (That's just what happens, with an upbringing like hers.) She does recognise the gesture, at least, even if it takes her a few beats more to figure out what she's supposed to do about it.
Eventually, she just kind of releases her arm from her grip so she can reach out and lay her palm on one of Kagero's big old fingertips instead. Physical contact! This is how it works, probably!
The gesture itself is awkward and reserved, but -- Ruri understands what he's trying to do, she thinks, so she reaches out to him in turn to share the rest of the iceberg with him on her strange psychic layer. She doesn't try to pry into how he's feeling, but... she can at least try and share the way she's not nearly as neutral about this as she looks.
(The tip of the iceberg is perfectly stoic; what lies beneath is frightened and lost, a vast expanse of melancholy entirely unsuited to someone so young.)
"You're right," she agrees. "I just... wish I could remember them all."
It's sad. Explaining things to Kagero has opened up a new explanation for Ruri, too.
She blinks, her head canting, a little, to the side. "I'd ask her," Ruri says, tone still entirely mild. "Mr. Prospector usually handles personnel matters, but I think he'd treat you more like me than Megumi-san, so he probably wouldn't just offer you a contract."
<Pose Tracker> Kagero has posed.
Kagero blinks at this sort of contact. He's picked up humans before. They're lightweight and squishy, and he couldn't understand why Shadow-Maru was so intent on protecting the one he held hostage. At least, not at the time. Their touch is barely anything, and yet...
And the touch comes with the psychic wave, the loneliness and the fear. He takes it in and answers it in turn, offering something he's still figuring out. Empathy. A sense of, 'I feel too, I know too, I understand too.' Something he can't put into words yet, but when she offers her own, he feels safer offering it in turn. Trust? Is that trust?
"Are we both equipment?" He tilts his head, and there's a little smile. He is trying to joke.
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
Ruri accepts that empathy, with all the hunger of a desert for rain. She has no idea what to do with understanding; she feels she has scarce little common ground with anyone, save Omoikane. But... that doesn't mean she wants to be alone.
(She is, of course, very lightweight, and very squishy; Ruri is twelve, and has no physical capability to speak of. She once declined to join Alto on his laps around the hangar, and it might have sounded cool on the radio, but the truth is she was just afraid of looking burdensome amongst the older teenagers.)
Ruri understands jokes, at least -- though hers tend to be more complex word-play than anything with a punchline. (Secretly, she thinks some of Izumi's puns are a little clever.) But when Kagero asks that question, Ruri doesn't smile in turn, offering a little upwards shrug of her shoulders instead.
Of course, Ruri never smiles.
"I guess that's how Nergal-san sees it," she supposes, after a moment. "I'm an investment... and you'd be hardware, I suppose. Unfortunately, a lot of people still don't see Super AI as people... well, I don't know if they'd treat me any better if I was an adult, but I guess right now I'm a ward of the company." That's... a nice way to phrase it. Very optimistic. Of course, it's not at all a joke.
<Pose Tracker> Kagero has posed.
"I know that. About Super AI not being seen as 'people.' I don't know if I like being hardware, but..."
Kagero is quiet, considering, cupping his chin in his hand.
"I think I want to be alone less. And if I'm hardware, maybe I can use more cameras and monitors to talk to crew. And have more conversations with Omoikane. I like Omoikane quite a bit. I will talk to this captain. Um...through a monitor, I suppose? I may need your help for that."
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
"It's okay," Ruri assures him. "I don't really like it, either." Kagero being seen as hardware, or...
Maybe don't examine that one too hard.
"But I'm not so alone now I'm here," Ruri says. "So I'm sure you wouldn't have to be alone, either, Mr. Kagero."
Omoikane, helpfully, pops up one of those communication windows:
< LIKE THIS >
He's helping! (By demonstrating how easy it is to speak up, presumably.)
"The Captain is foolish, but she's a kindhearted person," Ruri says, in turn. "She might be too thickheaded to understand everything, but I'm sure we can figure out how to talk to her." Ruri... is not an expert in talking to people.
She is an expert in turning around, picking up that data pad, and pulling up charts about human behaviour.
"It's probably not too complicated," Ruri supposes, with all the confidence of youth.
Ruri proceeds to run Kagero through things like the history of how Captains operate in the modern day (as figureheads), how young women are more occupied with romance than sense (Omoikane donates his shoujo anime to demonstrate), and the archives of Get To Know The Nadesico, with a disclaimer that she was acting in them with the greatest reluctance.
You know. Helping.
Totally helping.