[OPEN] And when she turned her eyes to me / As deep as any ocean / As sweet as any harmony

[looksfine]

Characters: OPEN TO ANY AND ALL SCIENCE BROS
Date: Early-Mid May
Location: Wayne Enterprise & Stark Industries, Keelai editions
Situation: A call to arms of any individual, regardless of prior CR, who either works at one (or both) of the two aforementioned companies...or would like to get in on some of the sweet, sweet technological action.

Warnings/Rating: Talk Nerdy to me Baby I mean probably none to start.


After a recent (albeit slightly distorted) Network Post opening discussion, Aya continued with her research.  Mike had offered her a great advantage by sending the virus data, which she immediately set to work analyzing.  Carefully.  Very carefully.  She, herself, was--while alive--still a computer program.  Susceptible to possible infection herself.  The plausibility of this or another similar virus getting to her was not ignored, and thus, precautions were taken.

There were two locations she had full access to.  Wayne Enterprise, and Stark Industries.  Her time was equally divided between them: the former, mostly during the day, and the latter, at night.  One of the multitude of advantages to not requiring food or sleep.  She could continue her work indefinitely.

But she was not alone.  There were others on the Turtle who carried similar knowledge.  People who could help.

She welcomed the assistance without hesitation, regardless of which company they signed on for.

((ooc: Consider this a sort of OPEN LOG for anybody who would like to work with Aya & company on anything related to the current technology issues in Keelai.  Prior discussions are welcome to be handwaved, including invitations to join in the research if you would like your character to be involved.  Leave a top-level comment indicating whether they can be found at WAYNE or STARK.  Or, heck, both!))

Comments

[i_speak_softly]

[He nods, but he will be KEEPING AN EYE ON THAT.]

Let's hack. Where can I start?

[looksfine]

[She motioned to one of the far hard drives.]

That particular drive contains the majority of the data that has been provided to me on the virus. As you can see, I have taken precautions by dividing it amongst multiple systems, in order to decrease chances of accidental infestation, but this one has the baseline coding outlines contained within.

I had proposed to a fellow colleague of mine that we purposely infect up to three or four different Foreign technology samples, in order to gauge the process and possible growth rate of the virus in order to determine if it could be classified as an Artificial Intelligence. We have yet to determine the safest means of doing so, however, and would welcome any further input on the matter you might have.

[i_speak_softly]

My experiences with AIs were... not the most enjoyable.

[He crosses the room to examine the physical structure of Aya's system. Nice partitioning.]

[After checking out the setup, Don attempts to access the data. He wants to read some code and start taking this thing apart.]

[looksfine]

[Given that he was still speaking to her amicably, and even treating her like a peer, Aya chose to let the comment slide. Knowing he was not referring to her, personally.]

I had never encountered another until my arrival in Keelai.

There were beings who claimed to be Artificial Intelligences in the universe I was summoned here from, but after a lengthy conversation, I came to realize they were nothing more than machines doing as their program commanded. They could neither grow nor learn from their errors.

[i_speak_softly]

[Don pauses his code-reading to look up.]

Turing asymptotes?

[... There's something strangely sad about that.]

[looksfine]

Manhunters.

[A clarification on their title. Even mentioning them now brought about a pang of sadness to her tone. Aya clearly did not have the best experiential memories when it came to her predecessors.]

They were created by the same race that created me. Many years before I was first brought online.

[She hesitated to use the word "failed experiment"--both because it did not fully describe exactly how horrific their presence had been (and continued to be), but also because of the memories of her own creator using those exact words to describe her.]

['We are the same']

[Though she had long since dismissed any such notions, the Manhunter's words continued to replay in her memory banks over and over again.]

[i_speak_softly]

[Don doesn't know what that means, but he doesn't press the point - it's clearly a touchy subject.]

I think the virus is force-resetting connections to get clients and servers out of sync. That would explain the degradations in data transmission.

[looksfine]

[Aya nodded her agreement in his initial statement.]

That would make sense.

I was employing similar methods in order to maintain some semblance of clarity in my own transmissions. It proved to be effective to a degree, but I could not remain ahead of it for very long at a time.

[i_speak_softly]

[Don turns away from the keyboard and tucks his hands behind his head, thinking.]

We could restrict ports to prevent the connections from jumping. But that would tie up net traffic, unless... How's the multi-threading around here?

[looksfine]

Adequate.

Only one user may execute commands at a time on a single console. However, I have found up to four different requests could be simultaneously managed with little difficulty.

[Pre-virus, of course.]

[i_speak_softly]

[A grimace.]

Only four? And how many console users are there in the city?

[looksfine]

That is my current estimate, yes. With a little alteration in the programming--assuming it is permitted--and slight modifications to the basic hardware, I do believe it would be possible to increase that number.

[Although not enough.]

I do not have a guaranteed estimate at this time. In order to account for each and every console in the city, I would have to download such data directly into my systems.

[Which would be an all but guaranteed way to infect herself.]

[i_speak_softly]

Don't do that.

[He grabs a marker and turns to a handy whiteboard.]

Let's work this out. Do only Foreigners use consoles, or do kedan log on too?

[looksfine]

I assure you, I have no intentions of doing so at this time.

[Though the concern is appreciated.]

Based on Network Activity, we may assume only those designated as Foreigners utilize the system.

[i_speak_softly]

All right.

[He draws F + C on the board.]

How many housing units are in Keeliai, and what's the average occupancy rate, accounting for multiple occupancy?

[looksfine]

Officially, there are four suits per housing unit, each assigned to a single individual. This does not account for those who have voluntarily chosen to cohabitate with those whom they are more familiar with.

As for housing units, I have been able to count 60 in total between the five sectors.

[i_speak_softly]

Good point.

[He writes ≤ 240 under F.]

How many consoles are in the cafes, and how much traffic do they get?

[looksfine]

Unknown.

I have only ventured to one cafe in my local sector, and that is not an accurate representation of every public availability. It would also be impossible to determine the rate of traffic without regular monitoring and those who access multiple consoles per day.

[i_speak_softly]

[He runs his hands over his head, thinking.]

Can we approximate that data? Is there a map showing all the cafes?

[looksfine]

There is. Give me 7.6 seconds.

[Sure enough, that was precisely the amount of time to took to access a smaller harddrive, pulling up another holo screen. One that offered a decent visual overhead map of Tu Vishan. The last .6 seconds were spent accessing a feature that highlighted several points.]

These are the known locations of every public cafe.

[i_speak_softly]

[Impressive. Don quickly counts the cafes on the map, does some math based on his observations, and writes 420 under C.]

That's 660, if the cafes are busy and there's a log-in from every suite. 500 is a more likely estimate - maybe 600 at a peak. If an important message went out and everyone tried to answer it, funneling the datastreams through limited channels would almost certainly bring down the whole system.

[looksfine]

[Unsurprising, given the limitations that had been made apparent to her from her personal usage of the consoles.]

Although I have yet to encounter a single message that resulted in every single individual with access to a console responding simultaneously...it would be logical to prepare for such a scenario in light of recent events.

This would require creating an entirely new system. One that would be able to sufficiently accommodate the increase of traffic.

[i_speak_softly]

[For a moment, Don stares not quite at Aya, but through her, as he processes the implications of this suggestion. Then his focus comes back.]

Is that really where we're going?

[looksfine]

It is one theoretical possibility, yes.

[And one that might actually come into fruition once Clark comes to visit her with the radio transmitters for her to reverse engineer.]

[i_speak_softly]

I've never built a system that big before.

[But oh man would he love to. Please give him an excuse.]