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Sunday 14 August 2011
Monday 27 June 2011
Synopsis Of & Excerpt From: 'A New Take On Saving The Galaxy'
Inspired by the Asimoverse Fandom
Synopsis
The two robots - the entirely human-looking humaniform Daneel Olivaw and the humanoid metallo Giskard Reventlov - are well into their mission to try to prevent the Galaxy, with all its human colonists, from falling into too much human decadence.
It's a pretty uphill job though - the highly-developed Giskard and Daneel are, by now, far too savvy and understanding of human nature to play nanny any longer. So their mission must be covert: nothing humans hate more than overzealous robots trying to protect them from themselves! Daneel and Giskard therefore visit many worlds, incognito, and bump into reality by mingling with the inhabitants streetlevel. The newly-colonized world Baleyworld looks to becoming a huge success: a democracy with standards! At the other end there surely can be no colonization worse than the oligarchical skinhead-dominated planet of New Britain
However this is flummoxed by a neat little ability of Daneel's - which manages to un-man the most machismo of men.
Excerpt
The pair halted, playing for time, as lightning logistics whirled round their positronic neurals. The challenge being that Robotic First Law had to slug it out with: ‘We Bloody Well Wanta Get Past and If We Gotta Hurt You To Do This Too Fucking Bad - only we’re Three-Law Robots and First Law decrees that we’re not supposed to knowingly harm a human being….’
Ø But - what if he tries to harm Elijah (a human)
Ø We must then protect Elijah!
Ø So if that means harming another human in order to protect the first human
Ø Our friend who must come first!
Ø If that friend is a more valued human
Ø Because they are a good person in that they’re far less likely to cause harm
Ø And - especially if that shithead is harming Elijah - or seems likely to harm Elijah!
Ø So it should be OK
Ø We could start off with a tele-blip that, with any luck, would just erase any memories of us passing through
Ø Shit, what if we fry his mind instead
Ø If we were bloody human we could say that’s the best bleeding thing since sliced bread!
Ø Yeah - especially if we were protecting our dearest human friend from harm!
Ø And - we could try to splice-logic it in that a human gave us an Order to protect Elijah at all costs and so we must Obey that Order - or that would hurt a valued human. Remember the law of ‘Cascading Privileges’…..
Ø So we’re not harming another – and less-valued -human, we’re just protecting our human friend - a more-valued human
Ø So we must Do What Is Necessary
Ø Which we could splice-logic in as a received Order
Ø Yeah….
Ø .....your pozzies OK….?
Ø ….Yeah…. Seem OK…
Ø ….Good fucking stuff!
Ø Seems like it!
And then Daneel said, in a low voice: “What if I re-gender…?” - this concept not being easily conveyed in robotese as – despite Giskard and Daneel's new skills in mentally transliterating this into human naturalspeak, or humanese - this inter-robotic ‘language’ doesn't generally have the scope for such conceptions as ‘should I change sex for the duration because it might well act as a distraction and so help us through a difficult passage. (We might also be far less likely to get hurt too!)’.
This handy little talent of Daneel's had got them out of potentially troublesome situations before. (Nothing like a tall determined female – and, if well-endowed, then so much the better). And usually the more testosteronic the male the more he succumbed.
The two robots, with Elijah in between them and Daneel going first, joined the untidy ‘queue’of the other legitimate passport-carrying arrivals. Daneel dug out the passport card containing the correctly-stated gender for this particular occasion and held this out for the glowering skinhead offical to stick into a reader. The bloke continued to scowl and look thoroughly disagreeable like he would love to throw a right right-hook at anyone passing by (especially robots, or any bloke deemed effeminate or with long hair, or with dark skin, or both) and then – his eye caught sight of Daneel's cleavage; his very male mind was immediately distracted – and so it was easy to gently tele-blip a blanking-out into the part left by the distraction. (Ie, forget you ever saw a man just behind me who did not have a passport). This distraction was further aided by Giskard the metallo robot following immediately after, and the passportless human man got well and truly forgotten.
Ø‘Well that was easy!’ the robots robotized across to each other as, still flanking Elijah, they passed through, unhindered, and away from the customs desk.
Ø ‘Don’t think we even did any lasting damage’.
Ø ‘And if we did, well – we were just applying Cascading Privileges, and so, doing What Was Necessary – When necessary’
Ø ‘Hey that splice-logicking worked!’
Ø ‘Bit naughty. But there one goes’.
Ø ‘Yeah. A bot’s gotta do what a bot’s gotta do’.
Ø ‘Humans have done far worse’
Ø ‘Sure fucking have’.
Elijah said, once they were a safe distance away, “What in hell did you do to that creep? He just sort of spaced-out! Amazing!” And then, in a lower voice, “I can’t believe that just a pair of 37C’s could completely blank-out a man’s mind”.
Daneel grinned, “That’s for us to know and you, dear old friend, to find out”.
Giskard’s eyes glowed and he gave his cokey laugh. “When you’re older, me old cobber, we’ll tell you one day”.
“I don’t mind bloody admitting that I was shitting my pants in terror!”.
“Actually” Daneel said, “So was I a bit – metaphorically. Yeah, if we’d done it too hard we might’ve even killed him and then, well….
“….we coulda ended up zapped ourselves, blasted First Law and all that”, Giskard added, and then, “w-e-ell – maybe, that is”. He chuckled. “Not for nothing have we been working on our zeroth logicking, yunno. While you’ve been sleeping”.
Elijah gave a burst of laughter and then half-guiltily covered his mouth. “You amazingly brilliant pair of wicked rascally bots! I love it!”
804 words
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