milliways_bar | (no subject)

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tali'zorah

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Jean-Luc Picard enters the holodeck doors, decked out in his Dixon Hill outfit, ready to become his favorite detective. When he's dumped into a bar full of patrons that don't all look human or dressed for the era, he's confused, but decides to play along. That's why he'll be found by the fireplace, watching the goings-on with great interest.

Tiny!Tag: Jean-Luc Picard

(OOC: Due to migraine, this post is in auto-slowtime, and also taggable until it falls off the front page. Thanks!)

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"No, it's all right. I can see how AI would be frightening. I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable." Picard offers a small smile.

"It's all right." Tali thinks for a moment. "It is also possible that we don't mean the same thing when we say 'artificial intelligence.' We have virtual intelligences, which are capable of some very sophisticated functions including parsing languages, but they are not self-aware: they don't act on their own initiative."

"No, my world has androids and the like." Picard pauses. "What kinds of problems have you had with AI?"

"We were nearly exterminated and driven from our homeworld by the Geth - AIs we built to serve us," Tali says. "That was three hundred years ago. Every artificial intelligence built since - every one I've ever heard of - has turned against its creators."

Well, that's rather distopian.

"I have no idea what to say," Picard says, looking horrified.

Tali suspects that the newcomer probably doesn't want to talk about AI anymore. Neither does she. Since the whole topic of AI was a tangent in any case, she has a perfect excuse to change the subject.

"Back to what you were saying before, about your holo-deck," Tali says, stumbling a bit over the unfamiliar word, "I doubt you will believe me if I tell you that you're not actually there. After all, I'd be programmed to think I wasn't part of a simulation. But there must be some kind of override, naturally?"

Picard nods, and uses the code words to override the simulation. It, obviously, doesn't work.

"Strange," he says, looking more curious than frustrated.

"Maybe that will make me sound more believable when I say that you are not in a simulation," Tali says. Of course, the visitor could attribute the failure of his override to some kind of serious malfunction, and try something else: Tali certainly would, were she in his place. ~~And it's not like the Enterprise holodeck hasn't had some crazy-weird malfunctions before.~~ "There's no reason for alarm, though. Milliways is safe."

"Well, it's all starting to add up. I didn't expect to see aliens in my simulation, so that certainly makes it seem more reasonable that it isn't one."

"Nobody expects this place," Tali says. "Not at first, anyway. I've heard there's a Landlord who decides to pick people up more or less at random, but I don't know anyone who's ever met him. As you can probably guess by the population of the bar, he seems to have a particular fondness for humans."

"I had noticed the ratio being skewed in that direction," Picard says, thoughtfully.

"Lots of them are twenty-first century humans, too," Tali says. "But I know humans hadn't yet gotten past their own moon by that time, so you must be from much later."

"I'm from the 23rd century," he agrees. "From the Earth country of France."

"France, France...I do not think I've heard of it," Tali says apologetically, "but then again I know little of Earth. I am from the late twenty-second century myself. Tell me, do your ships use mass effect cores or something else?"

"We use warp cores," he says, and goes into an explanation of how they work.

Tali's able to follow most of the explanation. She's surprised that they've managed to harness power from matter/antimatter reactions: the technology of her own universe uses hydrogen fuel.

"We use something different," Tali says, "called mass effect cores. There is a substance called element zero that can change the mass of matter within a volume of space, without adding or removing atoms or affecting it in any other way. It's just a matter of applying the right kind of electrical charge. But anyway, it makes ships a lot lighter, relative to the rest of the universe, so they can easily achieve faster-than-light speeds. There are also the mass relays, which create massless corridors between them and can take ships from one cluster to another."

"That's very interesting," Picard says, and expands upon warp cores a bit more. He likes the exchange of ideas and technologies, but can't really implement any, due to the Prime Directive.

Tali can't implement warp drive because she can't exactly figure out how it's technologically feasible. Where would she get dilithium crystals, for instance? But it's certainly interesting to learn about the theory behind it.

"It occurs to me," Tali says, "that we've been talking all this time and I still don't know your name. I'm Tali'Zorah vas Neema. Just call me Tali."

"Excuse me, where are my manners, Tali?" He offers a hand. "My name is Captain Jean-Luc Picard."

Handshakes are not part of Tali's culture, but she's spent enough time with humans by now that the gesture comes naturally. "It's a pleasure to meet you," she says. "Captains are accorded a great deal of respect among my people - in great part because we spend our entire lives living on ships, first the one we are born on and then the one we join in adulthood."

"I see." Picard nods. "Your culture fascinates me. What happened to your home world, if I may ask?"

Tali sighs. "What happened to our world is the reason we fear artificial intelligence, Captain. We created the Geth, they turned against us, and took our worlds. We have been wandering the stars for three hundred years because of them."

Picard nods. "I can see why that would scare you."

"I've encountered them on the battlefield too. Not many quarians have: until recently, they did not venture beyond the Perseus Veil. They attacked a number of human colonies. In my universe, your species hates the Geth almost as much as we do."

"So they're trying to take over everything they encounter?" he muses. "That is frightening."