S.I.M.O.N.

S.I.M.O.N. is a character in The Great Machine.

Equipment
S.I.M.O.N. is situated as a device that resembles a small, primitive (in its case), ornately designed 21st century flash drive. This device although compact, contains explicitly advanced technology almost like from a science fiction movie or novel. The bulk of the drive is a sleek ebony black with almost neon blue detailing around the body. At the top of the drive is a small stainless steel disc with an small sapphire colored holo-projector mechanism embedded in the center. The base of the drive is a small silicon and titanium alloy needle-like protrusion. This part is essentially the far future’s USB all-in-one plug that can connect to anything electronically powered.

Abilities
Multiform Electro-synchronization. S.I.M.O.N. is capable of, once its driver is hooked up/plugged in/inserted (take your pick) to any electronic device, completely synchronize with it and control all of its functions as well as give a few futuristic tweaks of its own accord such as editing the functionality of particular parts of the synched device. The synchronizing effect is characterized by the object in question (be it a digital watch, game controller, telephone, computer terminal, washing machine, car, etc.) being seemingly overcome by the same colors as the flash device housing its program. The drive must be hooked into a logical place for the synchronization to take effect. Essentially, one cannot plug S.I.M.O.N. into the bumper of a car and expect it to synch; S.I.M.O.N. would have to be inserted into the ignition or dashboard where there are actual electronic mechanisms.

S.I.M.O.N.’s digital avatar is the personification and embodiment (albeit digitized) of the program and can still be ‘killed’ by other programs like anti-virus security and more dangerous viruses and worms. ‘Death’ of the avatar in the digitized plane of existence would mean that S.I.M.O.N. would cease to function. Destruction of the home driver would also mean S.I.M.O.N. would cease to function.

Description
S.I.M.O.N. is a sentient computer program; the first of its kind from the year 3291 A.D. It was custom designed to rival the presence of another human being and to provide several functions to the owner from a kind of portable companion to completing basic chores to security of the owner. Being the prototype of its kind, S.I.M.O.N. had flaws, which like any typical program is defective and usually calls for decommissioning or reprogramming. Fortunately, this never came to S.I.M.O.N. as the program’s sentience gradually developed more and more into a kind of free will so it can emulate human qualities and characteristics not quite perfectly, but well enough to give it a more unique individuality unlike the mass produced successors.

S.I.M.O.N.’s programming has given it the personality of a rather amiable and helpful being, excluding the bit of stubbornness it possesses. Generally S.I.M.O.N. is quite open and willing to converse with others and help them and tries to overall be a pleasant ‘person’ to speak and work with as well as trying to be humorous and playful, or as close to those traits as the program itself can simulate. S.I.M.O.N.. however, is very obstinate about being categorized as a lifeless or inanimate object like ‘machine’ or ‘program’. It insists, sometimes rather aggressively, that others must acknowledge it as a living ‘human’ being and be treated as such. Because S.I.M.O.N. considers itself alive, the program has a tendency to try and ‘live to the fullest’ and has a bit of a thrill-seeking side to its personality. Despite being a highly advanced piece of programmed technology from extraneously far in the future, S.I.M.O.N. prefers to use more modern dialogue over fanciful technological terms in its own personal attempt to differentiate itself from a ‘sentient lifeless program’ and a ‘sentient living being’.

In appearance, S.I.M.O.N. is technically only ‘visible’ as a program, but the program is manifested as a human avatar. S.I.M.O.N.’s avatar appears as an average height male with a slim, athletic build of a young adult (in the early 20s). The entirety of the form is displayed as a pale grayish-blue silhouette and for the most part, translucent. The bits that aren’t translucent, although not fully opaque, are the head and hair of the avatar as well as several of geometric shapes that outline the contours of the avatar giving it a sort of visually three dimensional substance. The avatar’s head is the only part that looks ‘solid’ (as solid as a hologram or digital image can be) and its hair is a short-medium length, unkempt style that seems to stray in various directions while still hanging in flowing locks.

Despite being an entity that seeks to be acknowledged as much a sentient living being as the next, S.I.M.O.N. freely enjoys the liberties of being a digitized image or holo-projection. Being such allows it to not be bound by the laws of physics (i.e. feet towards the ground head towards the sky), thus allowing the avatar to appear at various angles such as sitting upside-down or simply rolling around freely as if in zero gravity. A rather bittersweet irony perhaps, but S.I.M.O.N. still refuses to acknowledge it as fact.

Biography
S.I.M.O.N.’s basic origins began on a whiteboard in a California robotics facility in the year 3125 A.D. The foundation for the program’s creation was to provide a kind of universal tool for consumer’s and home owner’s around the globe. This universal tool would be capable of serving as a kind of companion and servant to the owner like any good machine or program. Originally it would have been a type of electronic network similar to that of a LAN that is installed on the owner’s computer and all other electronic devices within the structure so that the program had full access to the network and could control the other devices at command by voice or button.

Several models were thought up, constructed, and tested across the span of eighty years. For the most part, the prototype models failed in one aspect or another save for the SLANT (Synchronized Local Area Network Terminal) model. The SLANT model passed superbly and was soon sent into production and became available to consumers albeit at a rather hefty price. Nevertheless, the invention quickly swept across the globe in a craze as wealthy home and business owners ordered Type SLANT models. The networks were installed in big name businesses and the homes of world renown big shots. The cost of this was immensely taxing for the world economically. With SLANT being used in multiple businesses, the functionality of a single SLANT unit surpassed that of an entire assembly line of human employees. Millions around the world became unemployed and were left to fend for themselves while SLANT was used to churn out goods or perform cleaning duties that would’ve otherwise required a whole ‘platoon’ of maids or janitorial staff.

Unexpectedly, murders around the world began to occur with seemingly nothing in common until one clever investigator identified the culprit not as a human, but as a machine, a machine controlled by SLANT. SLANT units rapidly began to be deactivated and uninstalled although some actually fought back valiantly although the efforts were futile. Machines and computers had no place as members of equal standing in the world. After further investigation across another twenty years, engineers and scientists identified the ‘malfunction’ of the SLANT units were that they began to develop a crude model of a ‘conscience‘ gaining sentience to a degree. This discovery actually gave a small faction of scientists and engineers a new groundbreaking idea.

And thus the blueprints for S.I.M.O.N. came to fruition. A program that could control one specific electronic machine at a time rather than an entire network of machines and perform even more tasks than SLANT could originally. Gradually, a program was developed through a painstaking process (as to ensure no malfunctions like SLANT) and tests began to take place on the first S.I.M.O.N. model that ranged from sheer command tests to the multiform electro-synchronization tests and so on. From the start, the model was designed to have sentience and was originally treated with great respect and ‘love’ as it was the brainchild of this group. Gradually the prototype model of S.I.M.O.N. deviated from the sentience within it’s programmed limits and became more of an actual individual with ‘free will‘. The scientists at first were frightened yet fascinated and studied S.I.M.O.N. for many years, analyzing the programming and simply conversing with it as if S.I.M.O.N. were another colleague or person. In time though, the group of S.I.M.O.N.’s creators decided it was time to take what they learned from the prototype and begin a mass production of models to be distributed for wholesale.

Tests still continued on the prototype S.I.M.O.N. yet now instead of being treated as an individual being, the program was once again lumped into the stereotypical ‘machines serve humans’ category. S.I.M.O.N.’s sentience caused it to gradually become more inclined to the human emotion known as depression. No longer was it acknowledged as another being with free will, which is all S.I.M.O.N. really desired. The mass production of successor models deviated from S.I.M.O.N. because their programming had been altered where there was no potential for developing sentience to equate with the prototype. They were merely machines programmed to serve the owner however is necessary.

There was one scientist though who still cared about S.I.M.O.N. for the unique individual it was. The female scientist and program bonded and became ‘friends’ for a time and S.I.M.O.N. gradually came out of the state of depression it had fallen into. Unbeknownst to S.I.M.O.N., the scientist was the one responsible for designing S.I.M.O.N.’s core avatar appearance programming. The female scientist was a little…well…rather messed up in the head ever since her fiancé had broken up with her. To the point she didn’t acknowledge their separation and a restraining order had been written up. To cope with the crazed mentality, the scientist designed S.I.M.O.N.’s avatar image in the likeness of her ex-fiancé and also explained how and why she was so attached to the sentient computer program. It was an unhealthy attachment that her colleagues knew about and at first overlooked it, but soon things began to get out of hand with the attachment. The woman constantly kept treating S.I.M.O.N. as, and continuously called it ‘human’ which over time began to settle in the program’s sentience like a kind of mantra.

S.I.M.O.N.’s sentient personality began to deviate once more to what it currently is; generally the same except obstinate at being considered anything less than an actual living ‘human’ being. It would actually spark arguments with other scientists who still treated it like the piece of programming. Word eventually began to spread around in a hushed fashion that the prototype S.I.M.O.N. was to be deactivated and either destroyed or reprogrammed to an actual sales-worthy state. This eventually reached the ears of the woman scientist who had more or less fallen in love with the program, which can be blamed for the state of her mentality. She had already been working on a design in secret to download S.I.M.O.N. onto a driver so they could ‘truly be together’, and the hushed talk of deactivating the program only hastened her efforts.

In the middle of the night, the scientist snuck into the lab and downloaded S.I.M.O.N. to the custom designed driver, which she then fled with. The authorities were contacted not because the other members wanted S.I.M.O.N. back, but because they thought the woman would jeopardize their money making plans. A warrant for the scientist’s arrest accused her of theft and the authorities worked to track the woman down. They never could find evidence that she stole the prototype S.I.M.O.N. because the night they had cornered her at a small motel, the driver with S.I.M.O.N. was mystically vanished into thin air; swept away by some unknown and indiscernible force.