(no subject)

[wholeheaded]

Ah... hey everyone, it's Ambrose. I was Milo for a while there but I'm back to being me and one hundred percent less tree-like. So, I've gotta ask do we uh. I mean, some other folks've gotta be wondering too so--

[ a slight pause, then in a rush: ]

What's the least harmful way we can test for immortality? Cuz I wouldn't put it past the Arcana to leave people stuck with that.

[ he's totally not asking for a friend, okay. ]

Speaking of Arcana: I'd like to meet with all the folks who've been Marked by the Fool - he calls himself Don Orlea - so maybe we can coordinate or. Something. Dunno if we want to do it all together or what but either way, I'll provide snacks.

Comments

[highnoonsomewhere]

'Cause a his programmin'? He an omnic?

[wholeheaded]

...if 'omnic' can also mean robot, android, cyborg, or similar, then yeah. He's a humaniform robot. And the first law of robotics is to not injure a person, or through inaction allow a person to be harmed.

[ technically it's "human being" instead of "person" but Daneel's adjusted the parameters since he started Travelling. ]

[highnoonsomewhere]

Yeah, it means alla those things. [agrees, then adds, thoughtfully] Oh, yeah, Asimov's Law, right? From those books?

[wholeheaded]

Um. Maybe. Are there other laws?

[highnoonsomewhere]

I think so? There's 3 of 'em, I think, but damned if I can remember 'em all. Somethin' about obeyin' humans, I think, an' one other one. I ain't much inta 20th century scifi, sorry.

[wholeheaded]

A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second law.

[ well. ]

I'm from... a place called the Outer Zone, used to be Oz. I've heard from some folks it's a place in a children's book, so. I guess, in some worlds...Daneel's timeline could be fiction too. Maybe from some angles none of us are real.

[highnoonsomewhere]

You're from Oz? [McCree's voice is both startled and excited.] Well, hot damn! It's a bit before my time, but I know there's a mighty fine movie about it, with all sortsa singin'. Never read th' books myself.

[He'd never been much of a reader as a kid, especially not antique books about little girls and munchkins and witches.]

[wholeheaded]

A version of it, apparently. Elphaba's from another, but...technically I'm from around 2010 on Earth, my friend DG came over in 2007 and it's been about three annuals. [ pause. ] And then I've been Travelling for three years so it all gets complicated. But yes, Oz, shiny slippers and witches and all that. And we're fond of singing.

[highnoonsomewhere]

Lotsa people around here from the late twentieth, early twenty-first centuries. [thoughtfully] DG ... she didn't happen ta be from Kansas, did she?

[wholeheaded]

...it's complicated. She was born in the O.Z. but had to be raised in Kansas because her sister had been possessed by a wicked witch and yes she's named after her great-great-whatever granny Dorothy. But yes, before I started Travelling basically all I knew about the Otherside was Kansas.