Schmetterling
Dr. Ron (a.k.a. Schmetterling)
Written by: Null Kit
One of the more understated comforts of my particular niche in decking is that it harbors a healthy distance between the mundane and the supernatural, technomancy conjectures aside, and how every element can be explained and thus controlled in its entirety, given sufficient time. So you can imagine how dissatisfied I was that the first emergent metasapient AI I've had an opportunity to examine up close (possibly one of the first 'true' artificial intelligences) simply couldn't have came about naturally, and had a substantially non-zero chance of having some thaumaturgic element to its emergence that lacked any mundane explanation I could muster. Specifically, I recall nearly gouging my right eye out. The AI sitting opposite me as I finally compile this calls itself Ron, alias Schmetterling, is one that emerged from what can only be described as a rennaiscance novelty; an anthroform 'drone' (for lack of better terms) that was once animated entirely by clockwork and spring but at some point was haphazardly upgraded with pre-awakening circuitry and again with modern, matrix-intergrated hardware, but alleges to have memories and continuation of consciousness from before the final upgrade that would have allowed such AI emergence to realistically occur in the first place. Through circumstances detailed below, it has gone from curio, to teaching aide and finally to assistant, serving as a combined mentor and caretaker towards the Cabinet's standing medical expert, Frangelico. If our Barkeep knows more about this matter than he lets on, he's hidden it far better than almost anything else related to himself or his family. Almost.Physical Description
General Physical Condition
I've taken the liberty of personally (and clandestinely) inspecting the ancient platform that is looking to remain Ron's host for the foreseeable future: While the integrity and performance of the hardware isn't of any question in no small part due to the efforts of myself and Coupe, the simple fact is that Ron's physical body is a Ship of Thesius that walks like a man, a maddening labyrinth of 19th-century clockwork, 20th-century transistors and 2070s microcircuitry that only works together through weeks of scratch-built code and the will of the almighty (and the nature of Ron's sapience and memory makes the hyperbole of that last part questionable).
Regardless, I emphasize that despite the degree of maintenence required, Ron's platform remains up to the standards set by any professional shadowrunning group: Ambulatory, independant, long-lived and designed to exceed all expecations of physical strength and agility by an order of magnitude.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Much of the original platform's early history has been lost to the time and Crashes 1 and 2.0, along with the inconsistency of Ron's early 'memories' (a result of pre-emergence fragmentation? AI senility?), but correlating its early memories of Stuttgart with collected data on antiques and accounts from historical enthusiasts have pinpointed the inventor as one Bernfried Nagel, an aristocratic socialite of Germany with a great excess of money, talent and time on his hands. What few collected articles from the time there are on the matter suggests that the original 'Ron' was something of a novelty, a sort of Mechanical Turk made to demonstrate Nagel's talents with what was the most advanced technology of the time by having it animate a porcelain-faced effigy of a man and answer questions with it (the means by which the aperatus was controlled and made to emulate speech is still unknown).
The device passed through multiple hands in the decades following Bernfried's passing, having been sold off to cover family expenses and reappeared in a handful of shop-windows advertising the curio. At some point in its travels an attempt was made to 'upgrade' the hardware, replacing several (presumably worn-down or broken) elements of his innards with rudimentary electronic motors controlled by a simple CPU, laughable by today's standards but presumably cutting-edge at the time. The whole machine eventually found itself on display at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, where at some point in its stay there it had the facade of organs overlaid on the front of its torso and a speaker-chip installed, turning it into a novelty learning-aid that would point and explain at its own faux-anatomy at the press of a button.
It's final 'upgrade' came only a few months before the UNC School of medicine was wracked by scandal and became the Universal Omnitech School of Medicine, where once again several pieces of aging hardware were replaced with more contemporary actuators and what appeared to be the guts of a Commlink that was barely mid-range even at its time, apparently in an attempt to enable wireless control of its functions. As Universal Omnitech renovated and upgraded the building, they found no place for the already-ancient automaton and stored it in one of the backrooms, partially disassembled and expected to gather dust until it was sold onto whoever was next.
'Ron' was eventually discovered a few years later by a group of medical students studying at the campus. Amused by its anachronistic construction, it was surreptitiously stolen from storage and several spirited attempts were made to restore it into functioning condition. Most of the students lost interest partway through each endeavor, until only one student, one Claire McCall, persevered to the point of spending her own NuYen on a few more (mostly superficial) replacement parts.
When the automaton was roused once more, it came to Claire's surprise that not only did the software maintain its integrity through the myriad changes but was growing more sophisticated on a logarithmic scale, eventually reaching what is commonly accepted as 'emergence' of a metasapient AI. The AI itself, displaying a degree of medical knowledge and empathy (albeit initially in an antiquiated dialect of german) endered itself to Claire sufficiently that when she absconded from the UO School of Medicine for personal/ethical reasons, she took great lengths to smuggle the entire automaton out with her.
Ron has been an almost inseperable companion to Claire, now Frangelico, ever since; acting not only as an assistant and consulting expert in her profession as a street-doc but also as something of a carer, using its vast repetoir of bedside-mannerisms in assisting the doctor in managing her day-to-day life, and at times even acting as an interpretor when nonverbal moods strike the good doctor. As of this write-up, a final upgrade has been applied to the struggling hardware to provide it full anthroform-drone functions and a greater degree of independence/mobility, and the AI itself has also, to my fascination, began showing an interest in Lepidopterology.
'Interest' nothing. He's got a hutch full of the fucking things - god knows how he afforded them - and I can't even have a smoke outside the clinic without some giant moth or whatever getting in my face.
Personality Characteristics
Motivation
I won't lie, I'm drawing a blank on this one. I asked the AI, and he rambled for five minutes until I realised he was repeating word-for-word a translation of a German's analysis of the hypocratic-oath, and steering him back on course simply led to a lecture on the difference between moths and butterflies. Either he's exactly as simple as he appears or he's been toying with me from the moment we first spoke, and I don't know what I would hate more.
Savvies & Ineptitudes
The exact depth of Ron's medical knowledge can only be speculated upon when its near-constant (and obfuscated) connection to the Matrix has already augmented the several gigapulses of comprehensive (albeit initially obsolete) medical knowledge and software that was already present in one of its previous hardware upgrades. Ron meets and exceeds all the standards expected of a competant medical professional, not only in matters of diagnoses and treatment/surgery but in patient-care and service as well. This aptitude does, however, come at the cost of being almost entirely incapable of comprehending the nature of criminal activity, let-alone any ability of participating in such activities beyond assisting in ilicit medicine.
Relationships
History
The AI's accomodation and support of Frangelico and her special needs is not to be undervalued, nor is her gratitude for such.
Current Location
Year of Birth
1869
211 Years old
Birthplace
Stuttgart, Germany
Spouses
Siblings
Children
Pronouns
He/They
Gender
Neutral
Eyes
Blue
Hair
Black
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
Porcelain White
Height
6'2''
Weight
160~ lb.
Aligned Organization
Comments