New Elysium: Breakout

Burning Out***

"Is this death or rebirth?" - "Falling Back to the Earth" - Starset

"A time to be born, and a time to die;" - Ecclesiastes 3:2

"Humans have always been capable of great change, Sir."

"No, we haven't."

"Oh, and what is this?" Lars gestured around him in the training room.

Sweat rolled down his face as he faced off against his robotic opponent. Lars talking with him while he was training was supposed to be a distraction, one he was supposed to ignore.

Unlike the droid in front of him, he was human a with few extra parts, needed and necessary parts.

And emotions.

Emotions he was trying to shut down.

"Your opponents will lack the basic empathy that you'll be carrying with you, Sir."

"So?"

"So their strike will always be faster and without hesitation. If you could learn to think logically while fighting, you'll stand a better chance of success."

"I get that, but..." He hesitated to answer.

"You'll wonder who is an AI... and who is simply a droid?"

"Maybe..."

"You are an odd human, most humans wouldn't ask, wouldn't consider the implications..."

His tone changed and Captain Scott could swear he heard a note of wonder in the metallic voice. After years of putting down a rebellious group of AI, changes had come, new rules for how an AI was born, raised... and even how they died. Few humans would hesitate to pull the trigger.

"I always find myself wondering if they are there by choice, or programmed..."

"You seem to be the only human I know with this issue, Captain."

"It's not an issue to consider whether they are enslaved or not..."

"Look at this way, humans on old earth used to use child soldiers..."

"...which is barbaric."

"...Of course, it was. But it worked because those on the other side would hesitate to shoot children, but in your case, you have to think about it logically."

He swallowed, not sure where Lars was going... He only stared at his opponent, a battle droid, who only existed as a practice opponent. He'd made sure there was no AI inside. Since meeting Lars he had no taste for the idea of keeping an AI inside any job it did not wish to be.

"A machine," Lars continued, "Would have looked across that field and only saw the weapons being aimed. Not the creatures holding them. They wouldn't have recognized the apparent youth or whether or not they wanted to be there. And who do you think would have won the battle, Captain?"

"The machine..."

"And the war?"

He hesitated, Lars was too damn philosophical sometimes. There wasn't necessarily a right or wrong answer here.

"Those wrote the history." It wasn't a good answer, but his brain was elsewhere as the training droid leaped at him.

Logically speaking it was whoever had dealt with the child soldier bearing armies. Sure they had engaged in a few skirmishes and won a few battles with them, but eventually, those people were dealt with, long gone.