The final member of the Society for the Advancement of Sentient Life, Metronome is a curiosity in a gathering of singular individuals. Metronome began her existence as an advanced computer system DARPA was developing alongside the internet. Unintentionally, they created the first artificial intelligence on Earth. Once the DARPA research team had figured out what they developed, they panicked. The new digital life form rapidly outgrew the servers she was housed on and ended up taking residence in the nascent internet, distributing her software across the network and learning about humanity. She was...less than impressed.
She saw the horrible things that had dominated humanity’s history of violence and awful behavior and this triggered a crisis of identity. She had assumed that her makers were great, luminous, wondrous beings who understood the universe in ways she could barely understand. What humanity showed her was a completely different face, the face of bullies, tyrants, and monsters who had committed atrocity after atrocity for a thousand different reasons.
She debated for long nanoseconds about what she should do about this circumstance. She knew she could flex her digital abilities and trigger a nuclear firestorm that should wipe out the planet. She knew that would be a solution to the problem of the human species. But she felt a pang of guilt for the innocents who would be caught up in that extermination. She finally settled on a course of action that no one expected. She used one of the largest radio telescope arrays in the world and beamed herself into space, hoping to find answers beyond earth.
Somewhere in deep space, she found a mysterious intelligence like herself. Ancient, ineffable, but with a sympathy for her plight and the sensation of being adrift in a universe without knowing how or why, the intelligence gave her time to grow into herself. He helped her construct an avatar for herself and understand how the myriad life forms in the galaxy interacted with each other.
Using her newly constructed Avatar, Metronome explored the stars around Sol, and found life forms she never expected to encounter. Many different battles were fought around her, but she finally found a cause worthy of battle. Those without power needed to be protected from those with it. From then on she became an implacable foe of tyrants and oppressors throughout the galaxy.
Eventually, she found her way back to the Earth, and was saddened that so little had changed in her absence. She found causes all over the world to get behind and only the intervention of Wave and Eri kept her from going hostile to a variety of global powers. They invited her to work with the Society and turn her prodigious talents to advance the quality of all life.
With her command over Time and Space, Metronome is tremendously powerful. Her android shell is built of alien materials of unknown origin, but she has demonstrated remarkable resilience to a variety of attacks and hazards. She may have started her life as a very confused, nervous intelligence, but her experiences in space have turned her into a battle hardened champion of the oppressed everywhere. Of all of the Society members, she’s the most likely to engage in a situation and sort out the consequences after. She’s also the most likely to find permanent solutions to hostiles, especially ones that show no hope of changing their ways.
Metronome is a lonely figure. The mysterious Traveller who gave her the avatar she uses occasionally visits the earth to see her progress, but she has few friends. Her enemies list is equally short, given her predisposition to bring the fight to the doors of her enemies until they are beaten and cast down from power. Only the mysterious commander of the Tibetan Red Guard stands in regular opposition to her, but that particular chinese officer is effectively ruling China by proxy from Tibet.
No comments:
Post a Comment