Things and stuff and things.
Who says robots don't have feelings?
Published on September 11, 2017 By Tatiora In Offworld Dev Journals

Reni-6

Recorded by Reni-6
Worker - Yoshimi Robotics

This recording is for recordkeeping and posterity. If our mission should fail and our circuits are taken offline, our creators will know what went wrong. I am called Reni-6 and I have been in charge of overseeing development efforts here on Mars.

My primary creation function is to aid the colony by building up and supplying resources to fit the needs of the humans residing there. My counterpart, Joji-5, said something about domination, but that simply is not in my programming. I am here to help humanity, not hurt it! Joji-5 called me something rude when I said that; it also is not within my programming to repeat it.

The first few days on Mars were slow. I spent time assessing the needs of the colony before inputting built sites and coordinates into the supercomputer. In order to provide for them, my priority was finding a satisfactory aluminum deposit, an effort which was foiled by another recent arrival to the planet, one Mikhail Nekrov. 

My attention was forced to shift on claiming other resources. Yoshimi robotics is one of the pioneers of geothermal plant power technology, so establishing one of those quickly was easy. Unfortunately, one thing that escapes my programming is financial balancing - the debt we accrued in the first week was quite unexpected and made it difficult to obtain loans for expansion. 

It was suggested that perhaps seeking the assistance of some “unsavory” sorts would allow me to alter ledgers to let us appear more credible. Apparently my assurance of being credible was without weight. No matter. You don’t make friends with vinegar! ...at least, I think that is how the saying goes.

Once power generation reached an optimum capacity, the debt was negligible. We began to pull in more money than we put out, which allowed us to produce more for the colony. This made me - I believe the human term is - happy. 

On Mars, it is not enough to focus on your own enterprises. Apparently, it is ineffective if you neglect to look at everyone else’s around you, because they don’t stop looking at yours. One of the other businesspersons trying to sell to the colony caused a worker mutiny in one of our factories by hacking and overriding our circuits. 

Were I capable of feeling emotion, I believe I would have been angry. Quick action allowed us to regain control of our factory and continue producing valuable oxygen for the colony, and taught us to be weary of others who would prove to be competition to us.

Core samples taken from the soil around us revealed some excellent iron deposits that allowed us to keep up with steel production. Our monopoly on electronics also proved to grant us an advantage over the others.

Coming to Mars was not a choice for me. It was my given mission, my purpose - and while I am here, I will fulfill it until I cannot any longer.

 


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