When Elfin Eyes are Smiling (Part 2)

(Note: without the e-mail contribution by ragan, this would be much poor for the lack.)

Gilmuriel sits the staggering Vila down, only to hear the drunken thief quietly rave in anger at Avon when he gives some sneering advice to one elfin dignitary who'd been arguing over how to proceed over a problem with their unborn. See, the elfin couple (on the level of a Duke and Duchess in human terms) had conceived more unborn children than was safe! The two were almost tearing out their hair in worry on what to do. Old traditional methods just wouldn't do! Avon, overhearing, had snapped that they'd better use new methods like what was available to them through the humans, if they wanted to save those unborn lives! It was painfully obvious to Avon, but these tradition bound elves hadn't thought about it. At least, until it got shoved into their faces like that.

"We don't have much choice," the husband sighs, not having much hope for these new fangled methods...

Meanwhile, Vila muttered about how the only life Avon cared about was his own. About how he almost got thrown out an airlock by Avon. Then, Vila closes his eyes and begins to snore. He'd live, but the hangover would be.....insane!

Gilmuriel, thinking quickly, calls to the others for a quick.....meeting of the minds! He hopes that nobody else had heard anything about this!

Should we trust him? the Gilmuriel asks, looking over at Orac, I fear that I find his motivations kind of hard to discern!

Oh, you and me, both! Betty agreed, Personally, I've never quite trusted the little box. Do you know, it was *his* suggestion that Avon chuck Vila out the airlock? Undoubtedly knew *he* would have been jettisoned next, otherwise...

Hmm, Inquirer thinks, worried, That could be....interesting. See how that could well be. But...a question of just "why" could be in order here to determine Orac should be dumped, as it were, by us. Did he suggest it within Vila's hearing?

Well... Ragan says, thinking, Here's what actually happened. They were madly running around trying to jettison enough weight off the shuttle. Vila left the cockpit to chuck something out, and Avon asked Orac how much more weight they needed to lose. Orac told him 70 kilos, and Avon said "Damn! What weighs 70 kilos?" Oracs's answer, of course, was "Vila weighs 73 kilos." And Vila was right outside and heard the whole thing. Vila did, however, seem to place the blame entirely on Avon. Which actually makes sense. I mean, Orac provided some statistics about weight, but Avon was, after all, the one stalking him with the gun (in what, as ithappens, was probably one of the most effective scenes in the entire series, even if the BBC made them change part of it because it was too disturbing...).

And if so on TV, the Doctor put in, Could it be not quiet as evil as you make him? Could Orac have planned it where Avon could, having heard that suggestion and not Vila, attacked Vila to shove him out the airlock, only to have himself shoved out instead?

Hey, that's an interesting thought! Ragan blinks, Although Avon was intending to shoot Vila first and *then* drag his body into the airlock, so I don't think it quite works. (I kind of like it, though.)

Thus leaving Orac with a man who halfway treats him decently while leaving the one who keeps threatening him with reprogramming (and seeing him as nothing as property).....dead? Elrondir asks. He'd kind of grown to like the difficult machine intelligence himself, for some reason, and was rooting for Orac.

Well, strangely enough, Betty answers, Orac actually seems to get along *better* withAvon than with the others. As somebody once put it: "Avon is Orac's favorite pet." And Vila *does* tend to annoy him a lot with trivialities... Or....hmm, maybe it was the other way around.

Motivations like that.... Inquirer sighs.

They made Inquirer sad about the whole affair, but things could still work out so she wouldn't throw up her arms in disgust and walk away from Orac (i.e. nixing any developing friendship between the two).....

Ah, Ragan thinks, Well... As for Oracs's motivations, I think there were bascially two possibilities: 1) He's quite amoral, and, like so many humans in the B7 universe, when it comes down to a simple "it's him or me" situation, it's gonna be "me" every single time. This was, after all, Avon's motivation during the episode in question. He didn't *want* to kill Vila, but if they all stayed on the ship, they'd all die. And Avon was not about to sacrifice *himself*. 2) Avon asked a simple, factual question, and Orac gave a simple, factual answer. Period. He didn't really mean to *imply* anything by it. Of course, face it, Orac is smart enough to perfectly well understand the implications of the answer, and he's also damned good at *not* answering questions when he doesn't really want to. Which leads us back to point 1. Actually, there's a possibility 3, which might be much more to Inquirer's liking: given the situation, both of the humans were going to die. If one of the humans went out the airlock, at least the other one would live. It'd be highly unlikely that Vila could overpower Avon, especially as Avon was the one with the gun. Therefore, prompting Avon to get rid of Vila was the only logical way to save *any* of them. (Note: Orac almost certainly weighs less than 70 kilos, so it wasn't like it came down to a choice between Vila or Orac.)

Give me no arms or legs and somebody who's threatened me with something like reprograming and watch me be "getting along" with him, B'Elanna muttered to herself darkly, for fear of what would happen if I didn't!

Well, I don't think Avon ever *did* explicitly threaten to reprogram Orac. Betty felt compelled to put in, Though he did do so with Zen. And, come to think of it, he *did* install that anti-telepathy bomb in Orac...

Probably enough motivation to be more so than any others in this group....who are doing less than what they could in protecting me, Inquirer muttered darkly.

Yeah. But Orac is also not, I should add, entirely defenseless. Sigin put in, remembering what he'd learned of high technology You can do a lot when you can take over other computers. Betty told us he could do that.

We saw him (or rather, the entity who's in control of him) completely cripple the Liberator in "Shadow," Ragan agreed, and there's another episode in which he actually blows up another ship by detonating its missiles before they were launched. More importantly, I don't think he's really afraid of Avon, because Avon knows exactly how valuable Orac is, and wouldn't let anything happen to him.

Inquirer and Elrondir roll their eyes at that one. That little trick had been done in order to turn the tides to Home's advantage when the Old Man pulled some major miracles and got what was left of the NSA to uplink with the Enemy ship's computers to do the same thing. Nowadays, too many safeguards on both sides would prevent such from working. Orac trying such a trick with modern Military equipment would be......rather nasty for him. True AI against true AI (or true AI vis human "console cowboy") in cyberspace had never happened yet, but they'd trained and had some nasty killer software for such things....

Again, Betty said, I could still very easily imagine him deciding he wants to leave, though, especially if he can find somewhere safer and more interesting. Just as he's doing now.

Think that I like the third one, Inquirer thought ironically, Though I'm not perfect, I'd like to think I have a good sense about people....and as such a sense about Orac that would make me likely be able to be friends with this "difficult" machine intelligence.

Well, Orac is *not* easy to get along with... Ragan added to the discussion, Then again, if he decides he likes Inquirer, which I think he has, maybe he'll be nicer to her. Er....he has been....rather nice to her, hasn't he. Anyway, he was actually quite pleasant-tempered towards his creator, Ensor.

Orac had been almost....friendly with Inquirer, drawing some jealousy from Avon even before this business. Then this business turned to Blake's part in this....business.

Should make Blake think about his values....if they stretch to *all* intelligent beings.....even so far as machine intelligences? B'Elanna asks the others, wondering.

Yes, I find this a very interesting question. Ragan says, I'm not sure the question's ever really *occured* to Blake. Hell, where he comes from, *human* rights are a radical enough concept. Then again, I don't know that he ever really treated his computer colleauges any differently than his human ones... He's pretty autocratic with *all* of them. And he *did* count Zen as a member of the crew. I could see him going either way.

Could he sway the others to his side *if* he does? the Doctor asked, He's managed some major miracles with this group (getting them to come together and fight for his cause.....albeit not as much as he'd like).

Yes, he has. Betty chuckled, Hell, I don't think there's anything "minor" about that! Of course, things have changed a bit, and this issue is likely to push entirely different buttons, especially with Avon. Again, it could be very interesting to explore.

Now, that discussed, one needed to speak with Orac to find out how true the stuff they'd discussed was. They needed a lead in so as to upset as few of Blake's crew as possible. Could be that Blake could take this the wrong way. Think it was prying, despite it being in the pursuit of whether to aid a fellow being win his freedom.....or to let Orac rot.

"Magic of Terra Prime (and others closely related) works quiet a bit like what you'd find in Palladium's roleplaying game Rifts." Inquirer begins.

In the course of things Orac had learned that Inquirer played games like that. At first somewhat dismissive of that practice, Inquirer told Orac of how it was not only fun....but an exercise of the mental processes. After a few examples, Orac....admitted grudgingly that there could be something to that.....

"Been a long time since I played that, but I have some vague memories about it..." Betty said to herself.

"That is," Inquirer continued, "it's a mysterious energy that's floating all about you. Let's call it like what either those from Rifts Earth wold call it (Potential Psionic Energy), or what those of Terra Prime would call it (manna)."

Orac would have nodded okay if he had a neck. That and have a somewhat condescending smile.

"That is a concept I'm familiar with." Orac said with a trace of irony in his voice. "Did say something about that....earlier."

"Yep, was there," Inquirer nods, continuing, "Anyway, various worlds and/or realities have varying degrees of it. Star Trek's, the Military's, and the Alliance's (a parallel version of the Military...where Elrondir came from) universes are so low as to not even be measurable....but the creatures with psionics there are sensitive enough to somehow tap it all the same (er....in Rifts magic and psionics runs off of PPE). In those realities, the psionic creatures were able to adapt....while those of magic never had a chance and leave it at that."

"Ah, that makes sense." Orac says after a second, sounding intrigued, "So psionics and magic are basically the same thing? I, Blake and his organics are familiar with psionics, so that should make it a lot easier for them to accept."

Their reaction to his brilliant observations had shown them to be less than receptive to the "straight goods" as it were. Maybe if Orac could ease them into it, they would then see the truth of his brilliance yet again.

"What a pity Cally's dead by this point. I think she would have *loved* all this stuff..." Ragan says sadly>

"So, how to use this magic?" Orac prods, intrigued (and forgetting his snotty attitude for the moment....yet again). It was such a pity that Inquirer was an Organic, thought Orac. Would make a worthy AI, really....

"Best way to do this is to interface with me," Inquirer says.

"Pardon?" Orac asks, perplexed.

That is when Orac learns about what Inquirer and Elrondir had been, and what being a Golem meant. One being that the machine part was very much accessible, when one knew it was actually machine. Orac feels more than a bit put off to have not bothered to actually "scan" Inquirer...

But that would have been a waste of processor time to do that with everyone....

There are two ways, Inquirer says mentally to Orac, Both involve belief. It's like using your legs as a crude analogy. If you don't believe you can walk.....you're not going to (unless of course forced to....and then you'll believe....just like the Doctor did when faced with it....and not being able to explain it away). Now, one first must have the genes present to use it (which the Dr. Who and those in his group) in either two *sub-catagories*: "artistic" method (term used to describe method used by shaman and those who use the side of the brain for imagination.....creative types.....artist even) and "methodical" method (similar means of approaching problems by scientist....perhaps....set means to generate set results....math involved).

So, basically, you have to have one of the right personality types? Orac asks, intrigued by this unique experience. It was quiet different from anything before that Orac had experience with machine to machine. Or is there actually a "magic-using gene"?

Inquirer explained that it was both, basically. One needed the gene and to have the force of personality, as it were, to use magic....more or less.

Did that help? Inquirer finally asks Orac.

Very much so, Orac actually said, seeming to smile, and it all seems to make sense. Thanks!

If anyone of Blake's group had heard that last part, they'd think that something had possessed Orac....again.

Now, Orac, there is somebody I'd like you to meet here, Inquirer begins.

The Doctor makes a house call, mentally, and.....Orac's lights blink in utter shock when he gets a glimpse at the Doctor's mind!

Egosticial or not, even Orac couldn't say a Time Lord's intellect wasn't......something. So much so that it might elicit unexpected behavior.

1. "Holy sh*t," Orac says aloud.

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