u/AeitZean

I like the look of these, my mum is really into crochet. Do any of these books use AI, and is there any way to tell? She's been telling me about impossible AI patterns taking over her hobby, and I don't want to get this for her if that's going to be a big problem. Thanks

This is a short story I wrote based on a bluesky post I decided would make a good writing prompt. I am trans, and wanted to explore the idea of what if a machine could tell you you're trans. I wrote it in a about a day, so its going to be rough, but I'm always interested in questions or constructive feedback:

Pilot Compatability

By Sophie

Sam was fourteen years old, but short for his age and scrawny. It wasn’t for lack of eating though, his village produced enough food from the farms converted from the old park, and they topped it up with whatever the scavengers could find in the ruins of old shops and supermarkets. The village was relatively small, Sam was one of only 15 kids, who all went to school together regardless of age. Like many of the village buildings, their classroom was the emptied out chest cavity of a giant anthropoid robot, who’s twin fusion cores had been pulled out to provide power for the village. Still it was comfortable enough, the vents on the left and right sides of the torso made adequate windows, and it had been little effort to get the interior lighting back online.

Not all the buildings in the village were robot bodies, some of them were buildings from before that had either a few rooms that remained in tact, or had been easy enough to clear and patch up. Still, those ancient weapons had become a primary part of their lives. Weather it was the reactors that powered everything they had, or the body panels they used to build their houses and the huge fence around the village, there was no getting away from them.

Sam had difficulty focusing on many of his lessons at school, his teacher would be lecturing about mathematics or grammar, and his mind would wander off to think about the robots. He loved the robots. When they got talking about history and the robots it was like he was filled with energy, remembering details none of the others thought important, asking questions none of the others would think to ask. He’d read the few stories written about that time over and over. First hand reports were unfortunately scarce, because most who lived through the time did not want to discuss it.

Still what he could peace together went something like this. Men had always fought. They started wars over food, and land, and resources, even the most minor slight could escalate into a full feud lasting centuries beyond the life of the last person to remember what it was about. Eventually as technology had improved the scale of the conflicts had escalated. People thought nuclear weapons would be an end of it, a weapon too terrible to use, but if anything it just focused the mind. Countries and corporations had built giant mechs that could in minutes easily rival the destruction of a nuclear bomb, but were precise, controlled, effectively a more powerful infantry soldier. They were gods striding through cities, no conventional weapons could oppose them as they cut a swath through to their target.

Anything less than a nuclear weapon would be ineffective on such a machine, but no government is going to destroy their own cities to remove a single mech. There was only one solution, mechs of your own. Thus they had built mechs to oppose mechs, and cities were flattened beneath their fights just as surely as if they had been bombed, with only the small silver lining that at least the civilians had more time to run. Still, few were successful at running, the destruction was widespread and terrible. The final battle had escalated to the point where one countries leader had finally snapped, and the nuclear exchange had ended the world. Luckily for Sam, the ruins of the city where the village had been built was one of the few not levelled by atomic armageddon, but that didn’t make it safe.

The war robots and pieces of them were everywhere, scattered or half buried by collapsed buildings, some rusting and decaying but most holding their shape well despite the ravages of age and climate. The salvageable parts from the nearby mechs had been used to build the village, but some were so dangerous and unstable nobody was willing to touch them, in fact the village elders had expressly forbidden it. About a mile from the village there was a tall blue one that was particularly unstable. It was still somewhat upright, in a pose down on one knee, with its left arm plunged up to the elbow into a skyscraper for stability. It had worked, and whether the pilot had expired or escaped, the robot itself had been balanced there ever since. Slowly over time the skyscraper had decayed, and now while nobody knew how long it would be, everyone was sure it would collapse eventually.

Now you would think that because it was men who wanted the wars, and men who started the wars, it would be men who fought in the wars. You would be wrong. Something about the war machines that was never well understood, and never ironed out, was the neural interface. It allowed pilots to directly tap into the control systems, and coordinate everything from movement and weapon systems, to the very basic balance and poise of the walking behemoths. The problem was, it only functioned correctly for women.

Men had obviously stubbornly tried to control the things, overriding and ignoring low compatibility scores to use the machines for themselves, but it never went well. The best result had been a man called Serne, whom Sam had read about in some tatty research notes one of the elders held onto from before the war. To explain what happened exactly its important to understand the robots parked position, an almost squatting stance but with its butt providing a third point of contact with the ground, its arms by its sides. This position kept the robot stable, while allowing a competent pilot to immediately lean forward and stand up in one smooth motion ready for combat. That was not the case when Serne had tried.

He had dismissed all the errors and warnings from the lab team, and hooked himself up to the robot, determined to wield the power for himself. Naturally he couldn’t manage the smooth standing motion of the trained pilots, but he managed to rock the robot forward onto its hands and knees. The strain was already causing him to bleed from his nose and tear ducts, but he refused to give up. He gingerly managed to make the machine climb to its feet, at which point he passed out and fell into a coma. He never awoke, or at least the notes said he hadn’t by the time the bombs fell, and being in a primary deployment centre it was unlikely he was spared. Other than that, any man attempting to even boot a mech while connected would die from a brain aneurysm almost immediately, so the war had been fought exclusively by women pilots.

Of course traditional infantry had tried to get involved, but it was generally useless. When a robot warrior ten stories tall can sprint across a city in a few seconds, pivot on the spot and change direction in a heartbeat, you can’t even deploy your tanks before the objective is destroyed. Even when jets were deployed, the regenerative plating would heal too fast to damage the inside of the few robots without force shields, who would then simply swat the jets like flies or disintegrate them before they could finish their first attack run.

Sam had always looked up to those women pilots, bravely fighting to defend their homes and their people. If he was honest he’d always wanted to be like them, defending his village from the wolves and other less knowable threats that the scavengers described as lingering deeper into the wastes. What fascinated Sam the most was the technology however. The plating that repaired itself from damage, the giant servos and power junctions, the fusion cores that could power the whole thing like magic. He had collected several odd bits from the ruins outside the village and kept them in his room. Little bits like buttons and switches, a power coupler, and part of the nozzle of what looked like a rocket engine. He knew he wasn’t supposed to go exploring, only the scavengers and guards could venture far beyond the fence, but he had found a way.

Just before sunset and sunrise, the guards on the north gate nearest his home would rotate out. They were supposed to wait for the new guards to arrive before leaving, but after a series of arguments over lateness, the guards on post would now leave on the stroke of the hour with their replacements sometimes not turning up for twenty minutes or more. This gave plenty of time to sneak out into the ruins, and he could explore all night so long as he was hiding in view of the gate at sunrise, when the guard changed again. He had got quite good at his nighttime outings, he had even found a visor probably dropped by one of the doomed ground troops that allowed him to see in the dark.

This summers evening, the sun was lazily taking its time to set. The guards had already left their post, and there was no sign of their replacements. Sam made a quick dash out of the gate, across the rather wide four lane road that ran along the north side of the village, and into a gap in the rubble between the buildings. When out of sight of the fence he slowed down, wandering eastwards in a direction he’d never been before. Further down a major road that was cracked and covered with weeds, he spotted the legs of a huge green mech poking out from the side of a skyscraper. The mech was massive ten stories tall perhaps, but the skyscraper still dwarfed it. It was in fact so large that despite having the top half of the robot rammed into it, the building seemed relatively unbothered. The hole the robot had made was barely larger than the robot itself, which was puzzling. There is no way it fell into the building or the hole would be bigger he thought, it must have been rammed in there head first.

As he stared at the green robot legs in the slowly disappearing twilight, he heard a shout. The guards from the north gate had just turned into his street a few blocks down with a few of the villages scavengers, clearly this evening they hadn’t just abandoned their post early. Sam knew that if they managed to see his face he would be grounded to the village for life, never let out of an adults sight, maybe even made to wear a tracking tag. He quickly whipped around and sprinted through the door in the building with the machine sticking out, chased by shouts of “Hey come back” and “You’re in so much trouble kid.” Through a set of double doors he found what he was hoping for. The roof had collapsed in from the robot damage, leaving a crawlspace only a very small person could fit through, this was his lucky day. He crawled in and found his way through the rubble until the space opened up again near the robots head.

He could still hear muffled shouting from the guards on the other side, but he wasn’t worried anymore, there was no way they could fit through. “We can wait here all night,” as they had yelled wasn’t much of a threat when you know for a fact they had got gate duty to get back to, and they’ll be in serious trouble if they don’t turn up at all. Sam was patient, he could wait. While he did so he took out his night vision visor, and put it on. The head of the robot was impressive, some kind of green metal with a petrol sheen to it, and despite its age and the compromising position it found itself in, completely in tact. From what he’d seen outside, the whole robot was complete, there weren’t even any scars or scratches that he could detect. It wasn’t uncommon for otherwise in tact machines to have been lost when violent G forces turned the pilot into paste, the cockpit would be coated in red viscera but the machine otherwise unharmed, perhaps that’s what happened.

A morbid sense of curiosity came over Sam, and he decided he would just have a peek inside. The head of the robot was more like a helmet than a head, with no neck to speak of. The cockpit had an emergency access hatch visible on its side about halfway up, as well as the main access no doubt on the back of the head. The side hatch closest to him was right there staring him in the face, practically inviting him in. The head of the machine was resting amongst the rubble a bit like a pillow, meaning even with it laying on its back it wasn’t too difficult to get up to the side, despite his small stature. Running up the side toward the hatch he found small teardrop shaped flaps, that could be pushed in to act as a climbing holds. Certainly not as good as a ladder, but these were clearly in case of emergency, and were better than nothing at all.

Sam began climbing the relatively smooth surface, pressing in the pairs of flaps with his hands and feet was tricky, but he was slowly making progress upward. Just before the hatch he found a grip on the left side that wouldn’t open. He pressed it and thumped it, but it wouldn’t budge even a bit. He moved down to the pair below and, while pressing them in had a look inside. Just behind the skin of the robot off to the side was a thick bolt, just waiting to lock the flaps closed when the mech was in operation. Probably one of those had become stuck on the one above, there was no way he was forcing it open if it had. He just had to very carefully climb past it, hanging with three fingers from each hand on the open flap, and then the one foot he could fit as he moved past it.

It was in that precarious position with only one foothold he addressed the hatch. It was circular, just wide enough for a large adult to fit through, and had a rather worn symbol or logo of its previous owners the ‘Valkyrie Blades’. In the centre of the hatch was a red handle, that despite hanging his full weight upon it would not budge. His next thought was to turn it. It wouldn’t rotate to the right even slightly, but when he tried turning it left it moved smoothly for just half a turn, before pulling out an inch with a satisfying click. The door made a hissing noise of gas escaping, before pulling outwards only two inches, then sliding over to the right (or what from the robot flat on its backs’ perspective was up).

This was it, a real cockpit, Sam crawled inside, nervous about what he might find. Suddenly he was blinded as the pitch black cockpit lit up with light, and the night vision visor struggled to keep up. “Ow” he remarked, pulling the appliance from his face.

“Pilot detected, powering up. Welcome aboard captain” a friendly female voice said apparently coming from every direction. In the middle of the cockpit was a chair, that looked a bit like a thin bed sculpted to the shape of the human body. It was hard to tell if the pilot would be in a standing position when the mech was upright, or if it rotated to keep the pilot at a comfortable angle. Above him the front of the cockpit had been a blank wall when he entered, but now it was displaying a hologram of the underside of the rubble outside, as if the metal were actually glass. In the far corner of the display was a woman’s face, calmly but eagerly looking at him.

“Who are you?” he asked tentatively.

“I am Jenny, the Valkyrie Blades co-pilot AI, and you are my new pilot,” she said warmly.

“What? I’m not a pilot, I can’t be. Only girls can be pilots, I’m not a girl. Cant you see?” He said enthusiastically waving his arms at her.

“Scans indicate 98% compatibility, and yes I can see you,” the woman pictured in the corner of the screen waved back at him.

Just then alarms started blaring and the screen flashed red. A map popped up on the opposite side of the screen to Jenny, with a red dot in the centre, and two red squares some distance off.

“Two avenger class Skulker mechs have just been deployed towards your village. Their comms indicate that they had previously detected the village reactors, but the sudden power surge of this sentinel class booting up has made us priority one. They’re heavily armed and inbound ETA 26 minutes.”

“No no no, I’m not your pilot, why did you even wake up. Go away, maybe they’ll loose track.” He yelled up at her.

“If they already knew where the village is they are unlikely to lose track, but I cannot refuse an order from my pilot. Powering down.”

The cockpit was plunged into pitch darkness again. It took Sam several seconds to realise the enormity of what he had done. Some big mechs with lots of weapons were now headed straight to his home, who had no clue and no defences to such an assault. Could he really be like those women he admired and defend the village? It was his fault the Skulkers even knew they existed, even if it did blow his brains out, he’d have to try.

“Come back” he yelled up into the darkness. No response. “Wake up. Turn on. Activate.” Nothing but silence.

He climbed out the hatch he came through, closed it and opened it again hoping to trigger the awakening like last time but no response. He climbed up onto the pilot couch, and started furiously pressing buttons on the panel in front of him. Nothing happened, not a blip or a light anywhere. He slammed the panel with rage and burst into tears, it was his fault and he couldn’t even do anything to help. Why didn’t he listen when he was told how dangerous it all was. It was now early in the morning, and exhausted Sam cried himself to sleep on the pilot couch.

* * *

Some time later he awoke. He felt a bit better from sleeping, but was still wracked with guilt. He had no idea how much time had passed, the cockpit was still pitch black as before, it could be minutes, it could be hours. Thinking clearly now he pulled back on his night vision visor, and searched around the cockpit. On the edge of the pilot seat was a small panel, that clicked open to reveal a key in a lock, like a car ignition. He’d never seen a working car, but they had seen pictures and videos that the elders had saved from before the war, and this was exactly the same. He gave it a twist, the hatch he had come through sprung shut, and the cockpit burst back into life.

“Good morning captain,” Jenny said sweetly.

“Where were you?” he yelled at her, perfectly aware of where she had gone but unwilling to be responsible for it. Before she could respond he blurted out “Morning? What do you mean morning? What time is it?”

“It is 9:03 am captain, and you commanded me to shut down.” She replied earnestly.

“What happened to the Skulkers?”

“They appear to have left already.”

“What about the village? Is everyone ok?”

“I cannot discern that from this distance, I recommend we take a closer look.”

“We cant do anything, I can’t take you anywhere because I’m not a pilot. I’ll, just have to walk.”

“I would advise against travelling on foot, even if they have all vacated, the possibility of mines or traps is high.”

“So what do you suggest then?” He replied sarcastically.

“You are a pilot. Disregarding your protestations to the contrary, you have a 98% compatibility score with…”

“Yeah yeah, I heard you before,” he cut across her. “98% score. But what if you’re wrong, and it kills me?”

“Then I would have killed every pilot that has ever sat in that chair. 98% makes you the highest scoring pilot I have ever had. Would you like to engage neural control mode now?”

Sam didn’t know what to say. He sat in stunned silence thinking about what she had just said. The most compatible pilot. Does that mean his brain was the most like a woman, or what? It wasn’t like he didn’t want to be like them, he wanted it quite a lot actually, but the thought of trying it was terrifying. After a second, Jenny repeated the question.

“Would you like to engage neural control mode?” She asked again sweetly.

“Uh, sure. Lets try it,” he said trying to sound calm and in control.

A second later, his body was giant, green, metallic, and buried under many tons of skyscraper rubble. He pulled and wiggled himself out from under it all, collapsing several more floors of the building as he went, until he was free. He got to his feet, and looked down on the city below him, it was like standing over a miniature play set. It was true, he had done it. He didn’t even have a headache, he felt better than he had done for a long time.

He, or should that be she, was a pilot. She looked down at her giant green hands, and felt powerful, unstoppable. She still had work to do, she turned towards the village and in a matter of moments was back at the north gate. Surrounding it were the bodies of all of the village guards. They were smashed and broken, scattered in pieces like the robots that surrounded them, and beside each their broken weapons. The village itself was a crater, just a large hole where once she had called home. She dropped to her knees and wept.

“Scans indicate the only bodies are those of the guards. I think the reactors and all the civilians were captured rather than destroyed.” Jenny piped in.

Sam tried to dry her non existent robot tears. “Then why would they blow up the village?”

“You would have to ask them that. If I were taking the civilians as slaves, I would not want them to think there is a home to escape to, it would permit motivation to escape.”

“Wow thats cold,” sam replied, “Why would you even think that?”

“You asked,” Jenny replied flatly.

Sam carefully stood his giant green robot body to its feet. “So you mean there is as chance we can save them?” she asked hopefully.

“I don’t have anything better to do, do you?” Jenny retorted.

Ive got an RGH 3 slim running Aurora, and some games that were from the store only and pulled (like Pacific rim, or goldeneye remake). My hdd is quite full of the games I use more often though. Is there a way to burn these games to dvd so that I can run them from there and not have to have them installed all the time? I know I could use a USB drive, but I've got a ton of DVD-Rs to burn, and flash storage is really expensive now.

Thanks