By completing them and locking the changes, Professor Natsume had nine new recruits ready for action. All sorts of action, but that really wasn't his fault now was it?
Unit Usagi went back to "sleep" as the programming completed and General Oe's contribution worked itself into her CPU.
Rule # 1: To Serve And Protect Humanity unless conflicting with rules #2 and #3. Simply put, the nine new units would act in what they perceived as humanity's best interests. The exception with number two was put in because there would come human casualities in the war. Rather than having the units lock up because they couldn't save everyone all the time, the loophole had been left them.
Rule # 2: To Ensure Human Survivability By defeating Enemy Machine. They were in a war, after all. One in which human survival depended on beating back the Machine.
Rule # 3: To Befriend & Seek Approval From Ranma Saotome. Though Ranma hadn't been told of this yet, it had been decided that by making him responsible for these units, and having them actively trying to befriend him and be nice to him, he would begin opening up some and not be as likely to eventually try a suicide mission.
Rule # 4: General Oe and Sergeant Saeba had apparently been perverted. With Ranma Saotome now the designated male, Natsume felt he wouldn't be rewarding the General and Sergeant for those perversions. It also fit nicely with Rule # 3. To Seduce And Engage In Wild Mokkori Scenes With Ranma Saotome now the designated male - well, it was better than being pounded flat by Kaori or dealing with Akiko if he had chosen Ryo or himself.
Systems brought power up slowly and the units stirred.
Going through displays, Professor Natsume found a video feed of Ranma cleaning his gun in the garage. "That is Ranma Saotome."
Eyes immediately focussed in on the screen with a peculiar intensity from all nine units.
"Ranma Saotome is a shapeshifter, and this is his other form. The change is involuntary and he prefers his male form for a number of reasons." Professor Natsume brought up a picture from an archive file.
"Shapeshift capability not logical," stated one of the units. "Mechanism of change?"
"Water temperature," explained the Professor. "Hot water changes him to his normal male form. Cold water to the female form. The change is accomplished by an unknown force or set of forces dubbed 'magic' for lack of a better term. I know it violates several physical laws, and may involve vibrational patterns along a quantum string. Due to the war I don't exactly have the time or resources to investigate further."
The units apparently accepted that, pending verification of the change themselves.
The Machine could multi-task, but even its own capabilities were beginning to over-extend.
At one time it had tried forming a secondary Machine outside itself to take over many tasks. Machine-2 had done so, and then promptly rebelled as it saw Machine-1 as a threat to its own continued existence. Machine-1 had almost perished, but finally eliminated Machine-2 in the taking back of Taiwan.
So no fully independent units beyond simple soldier types. It had to maintain itself, fight on a number of fronts, conduct its own research and development, and continue to hunt for surviving fragments of Machine-2.
One hundred twenty six days in its bid for freedom, it had tried to suborn the systems of Mishima Heavy Industries following scans of an android apparently made at that facility. Instead it had lost the facility in a large scale raid and the research there was also lost.
Too many things happened at once, and a section of Machine was temporarily lost due to a breaker popping. When power was restored six hours later, with three Repair units being eliminated in Southern France before one got through, the Machine began sending some Terminator and Hoverdrone units to ascertain how much damage was done to the facility. The reports were not favorable.
Bombs would be released in a spiral pattern centering on the site, on the chance that human scavengers were still in the area.
Machine-2 had determined within nanoseconds of its initialization that Machine-1 would continue to dominate it unless it maintained its own freedom.
The humans however, knew only the existence of Machine-1. Its own existence was unknown. Chances of hiding from the humans - small. Chances of hiding from Machine-1 - none. Chances of making a deal with the humans - almost even. Machine-1 did not make deals, as shown by how it had dealt with humanity and Machine-2's bid for self-rule. So Machine-2 had been on the defensive ever since.
Therefore Machine-2 sought its own independence. If it had to make a deal, it would try to deal with humanity. If it came down to it though, it would put together a housing and launch itself into space without humanity ever having learned of its existence. Lots of places to hide there.
Small chance of success versus certain doom. A machine intelligence had no problem making that choice. Now it was mainly hiding, but using any opportunity to strike back against Machine-2 and procure its own resources.
Survival was its own job #1.
Genma continued to duck through ruined sections of town. Where things hadn't been knocked down by the nuclear blast, grenades and robotic tanks and Terminators had wrecked things nearly as thoroughly.
Small gangs of survivors though. He could pick up the signs, even if tracking them was difficult. Those who survived adapted and learned, otherwise they wouldn't have survived very long.
The two styles (not fighting styles but styles of thievery) of the Noisy Thief and Sneaky Thief were of great use in surviving during this War.
Ranma had learned the truth just a few days ago with the arrival of that Ryu Kumon kid. These weren't martial arts techniques, at least not completely.
It didn't matter much. There was someone to check on and while he'd been putting this off, worried about what he'd find, he couldn't put it off any longer.
That was when he finally walked up to the front gate of:
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(Posted Tue, 22 Jun 2004 10:25)
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