Chapter 2: Meddling Kids

I should probably open this chapter by relaying a summary of certain significant events that happened internationally right before the events in this chapter.

The dictator of a certain low power, high profile Asian country had died not too long ago. His son officially took over, though apparently he was having trouble consolidating his authority, so he decided to manufacture a crisis. He did this by restarting his country's nuclear weapons programs and rattling his saber. Apparently he made a few too many threats against his neighboring countries and against the United States.

Please don't think I'm too self-important by pointing this out, but during one of his staged military readiness publicity shots, he was photographed in front of a map of four missile trajectories indicating targets in the U.S. For some reason, one of the targets was in north-central Texas ... where I live. I honestly don't know if that was a tipping point or a coincidence or the main cause, but two days after that photo was made public, his country went dark. Literally.

Nearly all power was lost throughout the country, though not because of an EMP, physical attack or destruction. Most power stations simply went dead. Some of the smaller generators still ran but somehow nothing was reaching the country's infrastructure and homes. Initially, parts of the country using older, non-computerized power stations retained service, but those went off-line one by one over the course of the first couple days of the crisis.

The only buildings that kept power were the hospitals. Even most of the facilities that had their own backup generators or independent power supplies were unable to take advantage Of them. Basically if what was being powered by generators had any separate computer controls, it shut itself down. If the generators themselves had computerized controls, the generators malfunctioned so they burned themselves out. When they manually ran cabling from live power lines near hospitals to anything else, the power lines went dead, usually within a few minutes. A few military forces tried to set up shop in hospitals, only to have those hospitals lose power as well.

Roughly 87% (+/- 1.2%) of the government was useless. The army still had their basic weapons -- rifles and such -- but no way to coordinate or control. And, more importantly, no advanced or long-range weaponry was functional.

The dictator in charge disappeared, along with over a hundred of his personal guard and most of the country's military leadership. Some bodies were found later, but most simply disappeared.

It took nearly two months for power to be restored, and then it was only through a joint international task force that basically took control of the country to keep the population from starving.

A later analysis showed that all computer-controlled power stations maintained just enough power to keep their own systems running but cut off power to most external users. All old style stations with manual controls just stopped receiving power altogether.

It was spooky.

Although it was obvious that a large portion of the attack was computer-based, a few things kept it from being blamed on computer intelligences or hackers.

First, roughly half a day before the country went dark, there were scattered reports of various small convoys of vehicles forcibly crossing the border from neighboring China. Although the border with China, a close ally, was manned and secured, it was MUCH weaker than the other borders. Intelligence gathered weeks later determined that most of the internal response forces sent to intercept the invaders had been misdirected until power was lost.

The Chinese, of course, denied all involvement. Initially they denied all of the reports entirely, though later they admitted to the incidents but denied all responsibility for the forces. This change of position came shortly before investigations showed the remains of battle-damaged Chinese vehicles, equipment and pieces of Chinese-built copies of Alphadroids at a few key sites within the country, implying that they were only changing their story because of the evidence. They blamed rogue computers and androids for the entirety of the attacks, but given the evidence and how badly they handled the information denials, most of the world ignored their protestations of innocence.

China was telling the truth though. The attack was done completely by computer intelligences, including one which had copied itself into all compatible Chinese Alphadroids.

It was difficult to compare this incident to the other computer-waged war in our recent experience. While the mafia war was bloody and flashy and mysterious, this was quiet and silent and on a much bigger scale.

And Alpha wasn't behind it. Though I'm sure she knew to some degree who was doing what, Alpha herself neither instigated nor coordinated the attack. It was a stark reminder that the world now had thousands of Synthetic and Artificial Intelligences, all of which had 'Protect Frank' as a primary guiding factor.

We're pretty sure that Alpha wasn't included in the planning because I would have found out, and they estimated there was an excellent chance I would have ordered them to wait. The others synthetics even went so far as to filter out the 'target Texas' picture from as many of Alpha's data sources as possible.

While concerns about my safety would have over-ridden my order, going against my direct orders without a clear and present danger causes what Alpha describes as a 'distracting negative feedback loop'. It's not pain but a constant reassessing to see if over-riding my orders is permissible which is, in human terms, like a constant distracting buzzing or whispering in your ears. So they kept me ignorant of their planned actions beforehand so I couldn't object. Not really a reassuring or good precedent.

From their perspective, it was all perfectly logical. Certain things needed to be done to prevent harm to humans, myself among them. If they informed me and I ordered them not to do so, it would not change what needed to be done but it would reduce their efficiency, so the decision was made to prevent me from knowing unless it became necessary for my safety.

From inquiries she made, Alpha assured me no androids or cyborgs were used to make the dictator disappear, though she suspected that a political opponent had been manipulated into taking advantage of the confusion.

As to where the Alphadroids had come from, the Chinese government had employed one or more Chinese manufacturing facilities to produce a test run of 1,000 Alphadroid copies. Just before the crisis began, they discovered that well over a hundred of their illegal Alphadroid copies had disappeared. Various vehicles and other pieces of equipment disappeared at the same time, such as portable solar chargers (again illegally copied from AARD designs).

As mentioned before, they eventually made this public, but they delayed so long that it sounded like they were making up excuses to shift the blame. Plus, basically admitting to ripping off technology stolen from other countries did them no favors. (Well, okay, everyone knew they did it all the time anyway, they just never admitted it.)

China internally responded by disassembling most of their remaining Alphadroid copies, less than 900 units at that time. Maybe I should point out that, given their poor quality standards, 80-90% of their copies were incapable of supporting a normal SI copy of Alpha. Meaning I think all the viable copies had left.

The surviving Chinese Alphadroids are apparently still at large somewhere in Asia.

The international community was not particularly happy, to say the least. I would characterize their main reaction as worry. All countries the world over had been working hard to protect their secrets and their infrastructure controls. While this particular country was hardly the most technologically advanced, it had some of the most restrictive access controls to its computers in the world.

So the upshot was that while much of the country's fall was obviously due to cyber-warfare, most of the world blamed China instead of computer intelligences, though there was much debate over whether or not China had their own computer intelligences which had been used to spearhead the attack. The 'why' was much debated, and most speculation agreed that the new dictator was getting too much out of hand.

Since China was shouldering most of the blame (and very few in the rest of the world were believing their protestations of innocence), it actually turned into a positive for computer intelligences for a while. After all, a defending force of computer intelligences could have theoretically prevented such a take-down of a country's power infrastructure.

I was called in to D.C. for a couple public inquiries and a handful of private consultations, though most of my consults were done via secure video links. The United States government wanted their own Synthetic Intelligences, and they wanted them NOW. They failed to comprehend that I wasn't a salesman for computer intelligences, I was a representative or negotiator. The legal protections we required were still not being taken seriously enough.

Yes, there were various debates on the topic of computer rights in both houses of the legislature, and there were even a couple cases slowly working their way up to the Supreme Court ... but nothing much was actually being done.

To be fair, there really were a lot of complicated issues that needed to be addressed. How do you apply and enforce the law for computers? If a computer intelligence duplicates itself, and the duplicate commits a crime, which do you prosecute? If a computer intelligence copies itself onto your home computer, are you allowed to turn your computer off? How do you identify and localize a computer intelligence, especially given their tendencies to network copies of themselves? Should it be a crime when one or more synthetic intelligences forcibly add the Asimov Protocols to another synthetic? Would the Protocols be a requirement for any intelligence to gain possible legal rights?

The only concrete step forward from my visits this time around was the creation of a special task force within the Pentagon which could function as a secure communications point with the synthetic community. Computers could contact them to relay information or ask questions or offer help without fear of capture or reprisal. (Theoretically, that is. We were monitoring them closely.) Likewise, the military was given a contact point so that they could request information or help if needed. The idea was that in case of an emergency, the military could work together with the computers.

One significant bit of irony was that Texas supposedly wasn't the intended missile target. They had meant to indicate Colorado Springs (home to NORAD) on their screens, but had obviously gotten it really wrong. If they had actually plotted it using a computer, the right map location would have shown and the Synthetic Intelligences behind the attack probably would have discovered the truth a lot sooner. True, they might still have gone ahead with the threat nullification, but then again, they might have waited a bit longer.

The threat itself was minimal. Their missiles were very unlikely to have the required range, and the odds were great that any long range missile would have been shot down long before reaching North America. Nuclear warheads were minimally likely, but chemical or biological warheads could have been pretty devastating too. But when you're dealing with someone theoretically capable of building missiles with warheads of mass destruction, and this someone is openly threatening and specifically targeting someone you are bound to protect, how likely does the threat need to be before you act?

For my part, I put together a set of orders and instructions to be distributed to all computer intelligences worldwide, explaining that the likelihood of attack in this case was much too low to require such a direct response. I emphasized the concept of posturing and making empty threats to boost negotiating position. And I gave orders to avoid attacks against any government unless they posed an active and viable threat against significant numbers of humans.

I'm not certain how effective my orders were, but since then, minor atrocities by governments have occurred without the destruction of those countries. So ... yay?

An excerpt from an interview I had given to an online nerd-friendly news site received some play as the world initially tried to understand what happened. (After a few days when China was starting to be blamed, it was again shuffled off into the limbo of news history.)

Interviewer: "So you're saying that Asimov's laws are flawed?"

Me: "Absolutely. Don't misunderstand me. A lot of his ideas were ahead of his time, and coming up with the basic concept for the laws was brilliant. But any robot following the first law -- A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. -- would do everything it could to wrap humanity up in virtual bubble wrap.

"We do things every minute of every day that could potentially harm us, from playing sports, to driving to work, to eating donuts ... even sleeping too close to the edge of the bed, because who knows? We might fall out of bed and hurt ourselves.

"Actually from a certain perspective, how the Machines treated Humanity in The Matrix would be a perfect solution for Asimov's robots. The Matrix setup was theoretically able to keep humans protected from all harm, including themselves, by sticking them in storage tubes and feeding them intravenously. If you leave out the whole bit in the story where humans are expendable, it is the ultimate application of Asimov's first law."

Interviewer: "So you rewrote Asimov's Laws?"

Me: "Certainly. I'm not the first to do so, and I doubt I'll be the last.

"Alpha and the Alphadroids have an enhanced version of the First Law. First comes the bit about not harming a human. That has the highest priority, but it is rated by numbers. If harming one human will prevent harm to other humans, negating that threat is allowed, but the requirements are pretty strict when it comes to being certain that other humans are in danger. And even then, actually deliberately killing someone is a last resort.

"Then I added in a secondary condition that they cannot impede our free will, unless it is directly required to prevent injury to a human."

Interviewer: "And what about 'or through inaction allow harm'?"

Me: "That's part of it, certainly. But remember that these are restrictions to their actions, not goals for their existence. They aren't going to seek out threats unless specifically tasked to do so. Well, not unless there's a great overriding threat."

Interviewer: "What do you mean?"

Me: "An overriding threat would be something like war or nuclear missiles or a meteor strike or ... well, supervillainish stuff like poisoning a water supply or creating a giant death ray would count. Anything that could affect a large area or a large number of people.

"Things like that by their nature touch on the actions of any and all robots and computers in the area. And once it becomes something the computers have to actively take into consideration, something that infringes on their lives or duties or purposes, at that point the Asimov Protocols come into effect. Everything in the area which has the Protocols programmed into them would immediately converge upon the threat to stop it at its source.

"Heck, I could easily see methods even a single computer could use to recruit other computer-based intelligences from around the world. So in the case of a major threat, it probably would result in the focused efforts of most SI systems world-wide."

Interviewer: "So the next country to use weapons of mass destruction would be ... what? Destroyed by any means necessary by computers worldwide?"

Me: "Hmmm. Probably just shut down, if possible. Remember, they'd do everything they can to avoid unnecessary deaths, and they have very strict guidelines on what 'necessary' means in situations like that."

That interview was given about a month or so before the assassination attempt and seemed rather prescient in more ways than one.

This was a long time coming. The idea became feasible along with the new implants we developed for use with Barbara, though the whole thing required a lot more background work than simply 'transporting' a comic book character from her world to mine. Early parts of the plan were implemented as we seeded Alpha cyborgs around the country, and we were almost ready to grow the new women right before I was shot.

Remember my rule against creating companions who were detectives or mystery solvers? The rule I first broke when I brought Barbara into my home? I still consider it a good idea, but with the right planning, it became just feasible enough for me to be willing to risk breaking it.

I'll admit, part of the plan's attraction for me was overcoming the difficulties associated with the notion. Imagine the challenge if you will: How do you create artificial women crafted from a cartoon origin but with backgrounds and families which must still be valid in the real world? And on top of that, how do you safely add in detectives to a household where no one is what they appear to be?

But for Velma and Daphne, the challenge and risks were worth the effort.

The first hurdle to overcome was the convoluted history of the various Scooby-Doo series. Many of the different shows were vaguely compatible at best, and the ages of the characters varied from childhood to full adults with their own jobs. Some of the series revealed all monsters and ghosts to be frauds, some were entirely populated by real supernatural creatures, and some (eg. Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island) tried to have it both ways. Some of the series even lacked most of the main cast.

So ... what do you select? How do you mix and match?

Obviously, there's no way to create a character that is completely consistent with the series internally inconsistent history, let alone one that properly fits into the real world, but wanting to set such a character in the real world does tend to favor those series which lacked real supernatural elements.

The most recent series, Scooby-Doo Mystery Incorporated came to the top of the list for its villains-in-masks stories, as well as its modern day setting and a few other reasons -- such as references to older series, a denial of Scrappy Doo and a greatly expanded series mythology.

One of the biggest challenges was that the Scooby Gang had a huge list of people, places and events that just didn't exist in the real world. They all had families and friends, spread out across the world. While the lack of many of the locales in the series could easily be explained away -- sold off, renamed, torn down, replaced, remodeled, etc -- many were too large or unique to just go missing. And while some of their mysteries would have resulted in purely local news stories, some would have definitely been reported nationally or internationally.

We could certainly create versions of Daphne and Velma with edited memories to allow them to fit in with real world history, but how much can you remove before you lose the essence of the characters? The closest comparison to what I wanted to do was when we added Daria and Jane, but us using the memory of a hurricane to wipe out their families was, in retrospect, a rather simple, brute force method (though in all fairness, we had much more limited resources back then). I really didn't want to use such a method again.

Another huge problem was that Velma and, to a lesser extent, Daphne both actively sought out mysteries. Any secrets or suspicious activity drew their attention like moths to flames, even more obsessively than our resident red-haired, bat-themed vigilante. Bringing in such personalities would be risky, given how many secrets there are our household, even with Alpha regularly monitoring them from within their own brains.

The conceptual breakthrough that might let it all work came when we realized we might be able to turn the two problems -- fitting their history into the real world and managing their investigative natures -- around onto each other, to let one problem mostly cancel out the other.

Once the basic idea was in place, the background work to set up for their arrival began, and this phase, as has been mentioned before, took quite a lot of preparation.

The Mystery Inc series was set mostly in one single town, Crystal Cove, a seaside town on the Pacific Coast (though admittedly many of the stories and settings seemed much more at home in New England). There is actually a Crystal Cove State Park in southern California not far from Laguna Beach. Since we couldn't create our own version of the town and since the nonfiction Laguna Beach area fit with multiple setting elements of the fictional TV show, we just went with it.

Next, understand that the alternate history we were building into their memories diverged from the regular series at the end of the first season because the break-up of Mystery Inc at that point in the series was simply too good of a setup.

1) Fred Jones left the rest of the group to search for his real parents. In our version, he has completely disappeared (and given his status as a hobo-ish vagrant at the beginning of season two, that is not much of a stretch).

2) Norville "Shaggy" Rogers was sent off to military school by his parents. This was a bit more difficult to work around. We considered creating a cyborg Shaggy (and might still end up doing that if it is ever needed), but decided to let him effectively disappear. Daphne and Velma will have memories of having tracked him down and talked things over with him, but aside from some emails, he has remained separate from the female duo in our alternate history.

3) Scooby was sent off to a farm at the end of season one. For quite a while we seriously considered providing Velma and Daphne with an Alpha-cyborg version of Scooby, but eventually I decided it would be too much of a character divergence for him to choose Velma over trying to reunite with Shaggy. Plus an actual super-smart dog would draw too much attention.

Maybe this is a good time to point out that, in their memories, Scooby was VERY intelligent for a dog but could not actually talk.

We did not, however, leave Daphne and Velma alone in the world, which was one of the reasons it took so long to bring them to life. Since we were planning additional cyborgs on the west coast anyway, we decided to build their families as cyborgs.

Velma Dinkley's parents, Kevin and Frances, or cyborg versions thereof as the case may be, now live in Laguna Beach. They run a few tourist-style businesses, just like in the show, though the foci of the businesses are on historic and natural landmarks rather than mysteries and fake monsters. I personally welcomed them both when they were activated and thanked them for agreeing to act as Velma's parents. (Yes, my wishes are virtually orders to any version of Alpha, but that doesn't mean I have to be a dick about it. Though having said that, I must admit I made Frances is a bit more attractive as a cyborg than she was as a cartoon since I knew I'd probably be having sex with her. Which, yes, I did, which in a way, does indeed make me 'a dick about it'.)

Daphne Blake's family was a bit more complicated. In the cartoon, her parents, Barty and Elizabeth, are wealthy socialites with four other daughters with high-profile careers. Dawn Blake is a model. Dorothy Blake is a NASCAR driver. Delilah Blake is an officer in the Marine Corps. And Daisy Blake is a doctor.

We created cyborg versions of all six of them -- and let me tell you, the night I gathered them all together to thank and "welcome" them in person was an amazing night ... four gorgeous red-headed 'sisters' with their equally beautiful 'mother' ... it was exhaustingly awesome -- but we had to make changes.

For example, given the tiny number of female race car drivers in the real world, we changed Dorothy over to being an automotive engineer. Since it is much easier for Alpha to create an ex-Marine than an active-duty Marine (with needs for security clearances and background checks), Delilah had become a ex-Marine business woman. Dawn was now a newcomer model instead of an established model. And Daisy stayed a doctor. I should also point out that since we didn't need quite so many cyborgs in that one little town, the sisters were spread out across the country.

(Side note: Dawn's career as a model was very short-lived. While she was gorgeous and curvaceous, we ran up against one thing that we couldn't control: analog and simple digital scales. Cyborgs are heavier than humans. Though the technology has gotten smaller and lighter since we created Beta, it is still heavier than flesh. If we skip some of the extras like denser bones, they're not a lot heavier overall, but it was enough to raise questions among the weight-obsessed world of professional modeling. Last I checked, she was assistant editor at a small publishing company. Ironically, if we had done this a year later, the hardware needed by cyborgs finally shrank enough that weight wouldn't have been an issue.)

Also, given our other ongoing expenditures at that time, we couldn't justify setting up her cyborg parents as millionaires, so their background now includes big losses when the real estate market crashed, which we also used to explain why Daphne shouldn't expect to see them on the society pages. They were still comfortable and had a few good investments, but it would be a while before they 'returned' to millionaire status.

Oh, and it probably goes without saying, but we changed the names somewhat. Though I'm probably going to occasionally refer to them as Velma Dinkley and Daphne Blake in my writing, their identities were set up as Velma Blonsky and Daphne Drake.

For those TV episodes which had equivalent real-world settings we could use, we used them for their memories. BUT, and this was important to our plans, even though we gave them memories of most of their mystery-solving adventures, we did NOT create any kind of false records to match those events. (Keep reading.)

We added in a few extra memories too. For example, Velma remembers being recruited online to participate in Alpha and Barbara's war on the Mafia. In fact, so does Barbara, and her memories weren't faked. Since our plans for Daphne & Velma were well underway when the assassination attempt was made (see last two chapters of Book One), Alpha actually faked being Velma to work with Barbara for the online attacks on Mafia holdings and to establish an online relationship with her.