>>FROM:@AEGONNER

[northerndragon]

Tell me about your gods.

If you don't have that kind of faith, then tell me what else you believe in. There must be something.

And if not that, tell me what you think of when you know a battle is coming.

Comments

[mylawn]

Hard not to, when you've been at this as long as I have.

[northerndragon]

How long is that?

[mylawn]

Let's just say this isn't my first rodeo.

[northerndragon]

Rodeo? Another word for battle?

Not mine either, but there's a difference between someone who's been fighting for a year and someone who's been fighting for seven and someone who's been fighting for twenty. What's the hardest fight you've ever been in?

[mylawn]

More or less.

The first war I fought was for humanity's survival. It doesn't get much harder than that.

[northerndragon]

No, it doesn't. My war is the same: if we lose, everyone in the world dies, and there have been some days when hope was small.

What did you fight against? Would it be better not to speak of it on the BCE?

[mylawn]

No, it’s fine. It was robots. Automatons.

[northerndragon]

Like the little stewards here?

[Does he need to worry about a small bot mutiny now?]

[mylawn]

Bigger. Smarter. With guns.

[northerndragon]

Your people armed them as soldiers — why? So there would be fewer human casualties?

How were they able to rebel? They're not the same as slaves. They don't even seem to be the same as beasts.

[mylawn]

No, they armed themselves. Couldn't tell you why they turned on us.

[That's what happens when artificial intelligence gets away from you.]

[northerndragon]

What was their purpose before they armed themselves?

[mylawn]

It varied. There's still a lot we don't know about what happened. On some level, it was the programming centers that did it. Started pumping out mechanical soldiers whose only purpose was to exterminate us.

[northerndragon]

Who controlled the programming centers? Was no one watching over them, or were those who were watching them untrustworthy?

[mylawn]

Self-sufficient. Easy questions to ask in hindsight.

[northerndragon]

It always is.

For us, people forgot what the watchers were supposed to be watching for.

[mylawn]

Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it, I guess.