How old?!

Posted on Sun May 1, 2022 @ 1:19am by Lieutenant Commander Elli-Navine & Crewman Apprentice Meme

Mission: S3 M1 Into the Targ Pit
Location: Main Engineering

Meme had been a lone for a long time. She had maintained her own systems and thanks to her advanced matter relocator she'd been able to repair or replace much of her 'dumb' components and she had been lucky that her 'smart' parts had been well built in the first place.

Meme still kept the stuffed toy her first family had given her as well as the photos, they had been and still were kept in stasis as much as possible. But she was starting to see those item degrade. This, of course was not something she wanted to happen, and if she couldn't avoid it she would have to replace them somehow.

Right now she was padding her way towards main engineering to enlist the help of friend Elli. Meme had read a paper in which someone had copied a written letter and sent the pattern to their partner. The part that had peeked her interest was that the pattern had included the smells of the paper and the ink. Meme wanted to know if friend Elli could do the same with the stuffed toy.

The doors on the Potemkin had been reprogrammed to 'see' her so as she approached main engineering she hardly had to slow down before they had opened. She extended her optics and looked around for Friend Elli.

Running a mid level diagnostic, Elli was humming a tune to a popular song that had been caught in her head ever since she'd heard it back at a bar on her shore leave on Obsidian Command. She caught some motion out of the corner of her eye and turned to smile at the little bot scampering towards her.

"Hello, Meme!" She greeted her. "How are the new shoes working out?"

Meme was excited to see friend Elli and it was visible from the way she scuttled, her whole body kind wiggling from side to side and he feet pattered across the carpeted deck of main engineering. As she approached friend Elli her manipulators gathered in front of her and optics stared up at the Engineer, while blank in expression thee was just something about the small robot that gave the impression of expression!

With surprising grace Meme sprang up onto a chair, spinning around a few times she settled down and reached out a memory stick to Elli with her plan detailed on it. Not for the first time she wished she could 'speak', but there were just too many problems with getting that to work.

Elli took the chip and plugged it in. It was a fairly common way for them to interact on a daily basis with regular ship maintenance and updates and Elli assumed it was more of the same. So when a detailed schematic and material analysis of meme's bear loaded up, Elli was a little caught off guard. "Oh." She set aside her own work and sat down, motioning for meme to come and join her at the station, with room on her lap to share the seat.

Meme dropped to the floor. She was covered in sensors and while she didn't process data from them the way that an organic person did she was still comforted by the warmed of Elli's lap and so rushed over, climbing up her legs and settled down like a dog would sit, her forward manipulators tapping idly on the console which she sat before.

"I see you have a materials problem. It's impressive that your little creature has lasted as long as he has." Elli said as brightly as she could. It was clear the momento meant a great deal and it was coming to the end of life in spite of meme's long time efforts at material preservation and refurbishment.

Meme motioned for her to scroll down through the surprisingly detailed and lengthy proposal. The small robot had been learning as much as she could from the ships library. Like her organic counterparts she still had to read everything, it was like her cyborg friend Johnny 5 who would just absorbed stuff! She briefly mused at how helpful that would be; but then psychically shuddered when she thought of how he had gotten that ability and decided it was not worth it!

As Elli paged through the analysis of the bear's every part, stitch, button, and stuffing and each associated sensory detail, right down to the volatile organic composition of the original matter that had long since evaporated from the original and faded into nothing but meme's memory banks, her expression melted into empathy for her little friend. The level of detail of the scans and schematics seemed to Elli to express the kind of obsession of a child over a beloved thing. Clearly Meme would not be able to handle the loss of her beloved bear, and it was quite nearly spent.

"Let's have a look at what's left of him." Elli suggested. "I'll put it in suspension to prevent any further degradation."

Meme stretched up and forward, not willing to break contact with Friend Elli but needing to interface with the computer. While it was true she could plug in directly she had quickly developed a need to work the console the way her friends did, so she pressed a preprogramed button that configured a miniature version of a full station at the bottom middle of the screen so she could access it.

She stretched some more, now only on the pads of her back most legs, her middle ones holding onto the station for stability and her forwards ones where now flashing across the tiny console. Within moments, on top of the station an equally miniature transporter effect swirled a containment vessel, with in was her bear.

The miniature toy Elli remembered from having first met Meme, when she had gone back to her charging alcove to bring the beloved item with her. Being very sentimental herself, Elli very much appreciated the lifetime and personality the individual gesture betrayed in the mechanical being. Elli had been thinking of the toy as a "bear" as it was often what terrans used in standard to refer to plush toys. But in truth the stuffed creature really wasn't much bear like, besides being composed of a body, head and four limbs. It had three eyes, and two antenna, elongated ears (like her own) and a very pleasant grin.

Considering the distance from Earth, both in light years and years the bear wouldn't have been out of place in an Earth Child's bedroom. While badly faded with patches of 'fuzz' missing the bear was still clearly purple and remarkedly well taken care of. Meme looked up on the bear with great fondness. It was the last gift her first friend had given her.

Elli looked down from the bear to Meme, considering that there were many centuries of longing contained in the toy. Meme had experienced love and loneliness. The engineer stroked the back of her friend comfortingly.

If Meme had tear ducts she would be unsuccessfully holding back tears. Instead she leaned into Elli's embrace for a moment. Her warm helping to heal her pain. After a little time she resumed her tapping and explained her plan. She wanted to use the deep scans, as well as her memories to recreate the bear as new, but in keeping the 'flaws' that had developed as Meme and her First Friend had played. She also wanted to keep the scents of her First friend that had faded with time.

"Replication can't really do that, though. It can create a reasonable facsimile. Even one with flaws, but that sort of detail is what makes things real and not replicated." Elli tried to explain. "It's why even now that we can replicate so many things, 'real' ones are even more irreplaceable and important to us."

In response, Elli watched as Meme accessed the computer logs, bringing up a record from a mission some months ago. It had been when the Potemkin had answered a distress call... her own distress call... and ended up discovering a parallel Potemkin crashed on an Ocean planet. "What does this have to do with—" Elli began to ask before it dawned on her. Elli remembered how insatiable her curiosity had been to look into the quarters of their alternate selves. she'd found the other Elli had her own husband and children. She had married the alternate version of someone Elli even knew. the possibilities had knocked her for a loop. Among the lost positions of the alternate Elli were letters, handwritten and perfectly replicated in all their imperfections, right down to the scents of paper, ink, anti-antiperspirant, and the oil of the hands that had written them. The device that had sub-spaced the identical replicas had been the development of her alternate, and Elli had secured the blueprints to it. Although she herself had no one to write letters to. So the device plans had just sat in the computer.

"You want me to build the hyper-real replicator?"

Meme had been watching Elli as she had read and then remembered the details. Upon being asked she nodded, well it was more her optic nodded but it was clear that the tiny robot had much excitement in her. Of course she knew the implications of building such a decide, what it could mean to so many officers through out the fleet, but Meme wanted her bear back. She didn't dear cuddle it anymore for fear of damaging it beyond her ability to repair it.

Elli rubbed her left hand with her right, obviously thinking through some of her own feelings. It wasn't exactly her technology to create. But then again, it sort of was... Mostly she found her thoughts straying, as they often did lately, to Tobias and how during her shoreleave Elli had just seemed to get in her own way, never really managing to get to know him thanks to multiple awkward missteps. In her own reality, she didn't have a relationship with Tobias, was what it came down to. But she did have a friendship with Meme.

"I'll build it," Elli said, hugging her six-legged friend. "I'll build it for you."