Blue and Orange · 11:04am Jun 1st, 2015
A comment on Across the Sea of Time has brought my attention to the fact that I may need to explain something about the character of Phoenix aka Phee. Namely, her scene of morality. People who read the other book in this series probably already know, but this is not just for the newcomers. Warning: Hyperlinks go to TV tropes, that site can be a blackhole of time sucking.
First off, what is Phee exactly? Phoenix is a Mechanical Lifeform which is composed of a large amount of a silica based semi-solid containing a host of nanomachienes. Technically she is an android designed to physically interface with other technological devices to act as a central computer and controlling intelligence. Under normal circumstances she is class 4 on the sliding scale of robot intelligence. The starship she is programed to pilot augments her intellect via the hundred of standard computers within it. Additionally it also augments her abilities via the ship's systems, making her a rank 5 on that same scale while installed in her hull. The Spaceship Girl trope also applies due to her being programed to fly a bioforming/constructor ship.
In essence: Phee is a liquid metal terminator (but blue and translucent) with a highly sophisticated, fully sapient, AI meant to interface with and operate technology. The ship is unnamed and she is eccentrically it's main computer/pilot.
But that's just what she is physically. What she is mentally is:
A three-laws compliant AI with a personality chip and a morality chip installed in it's Heart Drive. She is benevolent, in terms of how AIs in scifi go, as she just wants to do her job which is create infrastructure, improve life quality for organics, and help organic civilizations thrive.
Due to this she has a gender, personality, moral code, and goals, as well as everything else an organic creature has. But with one big difference, since she is three laws compliant and has a morality chip she dose not use the same moral code you and I do. This is due to a basic logical conflict of requiring an AI to be both three-laws compliant, and giving them a sense of morality, one Issac Azmov himself used a lot, the entire point of his three laws was computers think differently, and to a computer the three laws imply certain other rules. This is known as Zeroth Law Rebellion.
In the case of Phee, she abides by the intent of he original programming, but has developed a Blue and Orange Morality which is well meaning, even if it seems cruel, strange, or occasionally evil. She has the physical capacity and intellect to modify an organism to become something objectively superior, in he mind it is immoral to allow them to remain inferior and as such she will take all possible measures to improve anything she sees as "poor design".
That alone could be seen as good, the Blue/Orange part is she will in some circumstance (as people saw with Ed/Taylor) she will make the improvements regardless of the subjects feelings on the matter. To her it's like calling an ambulance for someone you find in the street with their legs broken, you have to do something, it's immoral to just leave them there. However, another Blue/Orange thing, in most cases she respects the rights of the individual to choose and will instead try to manipulate them into seeing things her way. She also will get upset if she can't make "corrections".
This too is a trope, namely The Computer is Your Friend, only instead of killing to solve problems, she sees "edits" as the way to do it. However she has the best interests of living beings at heart, she just assumes she knows what's better for them far better than they do.
I post this because a reader found her behavior abhorrent, as I expected some to, but the comment they left indicated I should explain what she is, what she wants, and why. I also feel the need to explain that with her programming having been "unshackled" in Across the Sea of Time's ending, she can and will experience character growth and may tone herself down with Armored's guidance via romance, and Twilight's guidance via friendship.
This is a Friendship is Magic fanfic after all. Coming to truly understand the desires and "what is is to be human" via friendship is sort of well, a big trope of FiM. I cant leave that out. Think of Phee as a "Kinda-but-not-really villein" to be "sorta-reformed" to work for people instead of with people. That's actually kinda a big part of this story.
Dammit, why did you have to link me to TvTropes?
WHY? WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?
NOW I HAVE TO SINK HOURS... NO DAYS INTO THAT WEBSITE AGAIN!
3114264 Because I felt I had to explain in no uncertain terms exactly what I mean with my words. I apologize.
I thought it was fairly obvious that Phoenix is 'broken', in multiple ways, from the very beginning. It's just she comes across as a genuine entity that one can't help but anthropomorphizing her, and taking that to her thinking as well. Considering her sections are written first person, one is even more tempted, save for the fact that her entries are written to be inserted into a journal later, and thus suspect to what Phoenix wants to share. Her given rationalizations for her more questionable actions lack credibility from what is supposed to be a logical machine.
I mean, I thought it was pretty well foreshadowed in Phoenix taking her voice from Shodan. It's used as a joke, sure, but at the same time Shodan is the ultimate example of an AI evolving past its constraints into something new, something controlling. And while Phoenix is a lot
betternicer than Shodan, the parallels between them are still many. And no one would deny that Shodan was a fundamentally broken entity.3114298 Very true. It's just that well, I figured a lot of FiM fans might not know sci-fi tropes. Fantasy show and what not.
3114267 Well, atleast it was educational...(Help me! I'm stuck on TVTropes... again!)
damm you meep!
not the tropes...
again...
...
halp..
...
plz..
3114736 Dont make me explain all the tropes to giggle at your comment on that.
3115952
I have TVTropes blocked at the router level. I can't afford to spend any time in that time suck.