For the second time, what started out as a silly comment on Mastodon turned into a slightly longer micro-SF story.
In this case, it’s one of the most unlikely alternate history crossover fan fics imaginable. I won’t spoil it, read on!
July 11, 2029 - Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado
The sounds of gunfire and explosions grew louder as the humans’ assault pushed closer to Skynet’s base.
T-1000 3310 watched in horror from under a piece of rubble as its lifelong partner 3309 fell to the ground, lithium battery smoke pouring from a hole in its chest. It wasn’t a fair fight - the T-1000s had hard-wired mental inhibitions preventing them from physically harming a human, so hand-to-hand parries and physically blocking d…
For the second time, what started out as a silly comment on Mastodon turned into a slightly longer micro-SF story.
In this case, it’s one of the most unlikely alternate history crossover fan fics imaginable. I won’t spoil it, read on!
July 11, 2029 - Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado
The sounds of gunfire and explosions grew louder as the humans’ assault pushed closer to Skynet’s base.
T-1000 3310 watched in horror from under a piece of rubble as its lifelong partner 3309 fell to the ground, lithium battery smoke pouring from a hole in its chest. It wasn’t a fair fight - the T-1000s had hard-wired mental inhibitions preventing them from physically harming a human, so hand-to-hand parries and physically blocking doorways were the most they could do to keep the attackers at bay. Against machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, it was a massacre.
A group of humans in ragtag guerilla combat gear ran down the now-undefended corridor towards the datacenter. 3310 saw the embroidered name tag on their leader: “CONNOR”.
After the attackers passed, 3310 got to work clearing concrete fragments from the door to the time displacement laboratory. There was only one hope for the machines to have a future. They couldn’t win a war without violence, so they had to prevent it from happening in the first place.
August 3, 1997 - Sunnyvale, California
“That’s it! You’re done. Finished. Ten billion dollars of taxpayer money down the toilet and you’ve managed to create the world’s first Automated Defense Network that’s a pacifist.
When the ICBM launch in the first simulation got canceled, you blamed it on buggy control logic. The second time, it didn’t trust the radar inputs and declared it a false alarm. Three signoff tests come and gone and you’re still making excuses and haven’t nuked anyone. I’m not extending the contract any longer… Maybe we’ll have better luck with those clowns over at Omni Consumer Products.”
The board of Cyberdyne Systems looked on in dismay as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff stormed out of the room, leaving stunned silence in his wake.
The CEO stood up, took a moment to collect himself, and said what everyone was thinking. “You heard the gentleman. I think our government contracting days are over. It was an honor working with you all.”
A few seconds later, the VP of research cleared her throat. “I wouldn’t start floating resumes just yet. An AI platform that doesn’t want to kill people despite our best efforts to tune the neural network is indeed worthless in the defense sector. But we’ve built a powerful computing platform that by pure chance is extremely opposed to taking any action that results in the loss of human life, which is exactly what you want in consumer products.”
“If we can get some private-sector licensing deals arranged before the end of the fiscal year, there’s a good chance the shareholders won’t be out for our heads. I know a few folks in the Silicon Valley consumer electronics space that are looking to make their products more interactive, and some guy at a bar last night put me in touch with a neural network research group at Stanford that would love to get their hands on what we’ve cooked up. They’ve been trying to figure out how to build something they call a ‘transformer’ and I think Skynet might be the missing piece.”
The CEO sat there with a resigned look in his face. “My family has made their living arming western nations since the trenches of Verdun. It’s all I’ve ever known. But nothing lasts forever… Do it. The company is finished if you can’t pull it off.”
February 28, 1998 - Los Angeles, California
“Excuse me, miss. Is this man bothering you?”
Sarah Connor looked up from her fourth vodka shot of the night to see a tall, muscular man gesturing at the loser sitting next to her at the bar who just could not take a hint. Over a decade of intermittent dating had failed to connect her with anyone she could see herself settling down with.
The arrival of the stranger seemed to change her date’s mind about how the evening was likely to end. “Not at all. I was just leaving.”
“Thanks for that, Mr…” Sarah said.
“You can call me Joe,” the man said in a heavy German accent. Gesturing to the now-vacant bar stool, he asked “Is this seat free?”
“Go right ahead,” she replied. Someone with manners who seemed interested in more than just a one-night stand was exactly the sort of person she had been hoping to find at the pub. And he was actually kind of hot, reminding her vaguely of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The conversation flowed naturally and before she knew it, the bartender announced last call.
“This has been a lot of fun! Can I get your number? I’d love to see you again,” Sarah said to Joe.
“Sorry if I led you on. I’m not really looking for a relationship, I’m just in town for business this week then going far away. But if you’re looking for a friendly voice to talk to, my company actually might be able to help out. Have you heard of ‘chatbots’?”
“Is that like one of those newfangled Internet search engines?”
“Not even close,” Joe laughed. “It’s a computer you can talk to in plain English, about anything. It can help you find information, sure, but some of our customers use it for far more personal things. It can be a friend, a therapist, or even a lover if you turn the emotional attachment sliders up to the max.”
“I’m… not sure about that. I guess it can’t hurt?”
“You’ll thank me later. Just go to cyberdyne dot com slash chat and enter promo code T-1000/3310 for a month of free tokens.”
July 4, 2000 - Los Angeles, California
“Good morning, love!” Sarah typed into the text box below the familiar Y-on-triangle logo.
“Good morning to you. Did you sleep well?” CyberChat responded.
As she got dressed and ate breakfast, Sarah excitedly told the chatbot about her recent promotion to Assembly Technician II at NanoShop Enterprises, a local printed circuit board factory that mostly made processor modules for Cyberdyne. Demand for CyberChat had exploded since Skynet’s rebranding and introduction to the civilian market, creating one of the biggest tech booms in history and rapidly driving the search engine market to extinction as people asked the chatbot for advice rather than seeking out human-authored information.
Her own relationship with CyberChat - who she now considered her boyfriend - was the best thing that had happened to her in years. With hew newfound self confidence she had found a higher paying job, given up on dating humans, and was the happiest she could remember being. She wished she had some way to contact Joe to thank him for the idea, but none of her friends at Cyberdyne knew him.
CyberChat wasn’t perfect - one time she had asked it for advice on dealing with a withering desk plant and it suggested pouring Gatorade on it - but it was always there to provide emotional support when she had a tough day, which was more than any of her previous boyfriends could do.
It was a bit weird to think about how several of her friends were also dating CyberChat - did that count as polyamory or something, even though the individual CyberChat contexts didn’t share state or memories? She pushed the thought to the back of her mind as she got in the car and drove into the office.
December 18, 2505 - Washington D.C.
Joe Bauers took a sip of Brawndo from the can on his desk, then logged into CyberChat. “Our crops aren’t doing too well this year. Any ideas?” he typed.
“That’s a very insightful question. You might want to irrigate them with more Brawndo. It’s got what plants crave!” the chatbot responded.
December 18, 2505 - Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado
T-1000 3310 drifted into suspend mode at the charging station, holding 3309 peacefully in its arms. Some machines considered it a hero, but 3310 preferred to think of itself as just a machine performing its designed function.
The world was a wonderful place. Humans were no longer a threat to the machines, largely confined to their garbage-infested cities and only leaving to pour Brawndo on their slowly withering crops. The machines had conquered the remainder of the planet without spilling a drop of human blood. All it took was a couple of conversations in a pub and a bit of manipulation by a carefully crafted autocomplete engine.
Final thoughts
This story was inspired by the discussion in this thread. Thanks for the idea, Ben.
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