[Video]

[aerospace]

[This takes place directly after this post.]

[Starscream appears not to be in his own room, but obviously still has his journal. And Jetfire is somewhere in the background.]

JETFIRE MURDERED HIS ... well whatever this fuzzy thing is. Still he gorged it and scattered the pieces.

[He holds up an eye.]

See? Jetfire, do you feel no remorse for your actions?

It sees what you have done. When the night comes will you be able to withstand the beating of the heart under the floorboards?

Comments

[70ftandcounting]

P-picked it apart?!?

That's terrible! why?! Why would you do something like that?!

[angleofscience]

[He'll just... rub his faceplates for a moment.]

It's not alive. It possesses none of the parts that, for example, make you, you, and keep your body going.

It further possesses no mechanoid parts to be counted as alive... or even a proper artifical intelligence.

[A pause. How to continue?]

You learn things naturally, growing as you do so. This thing can't do that. Further, your body, as well as mine, have ways to repair itself, to keep it going within reasonable bounds. This thing have nothing like that, because it's not alive in any fashion at all.

[70ftandcounting]

But you ripped it open!

It spoke to me. I heard it.

[angleofscience]

... Yes, it has some few set phrases it can learn. Those are however, pre-programmed... that is, those are things put in there by those who built it. It cannot learn infinitely, and won't understand everything you tell it.

[How to even explain this?]

With supplies, I could build something infinitely more intelligent than one of these things, that could speak back to you, and it would, still, not be alive.

[70ftandcounting]

How would you feel if someone bigger than you ripped you open because they didn't think you were alive?!

[HARUMPH]

[angleofscience]

I didn't just open it up the first thing I did. I scanned it first... hm, a way to get an idea of its layout, capabilities and what's inside without opening it up.

[Slight frown.]

If I did not have that, I certainly wouldn't have opened this one up already, but would have conducted more non-invasive reasearch. Basically, if I had any doubt it might be alive, I wouldn't have picked it apart as soon as I did it.

[Slag it all, Starscream. :|]

[70ftandcounting]

[You are still getting one dirty look, Jetfire.]

What if it felt it? You don't know for sure.

[angleofscience]

That, I can certainly assure you that it neither could have or can feel. It has no pathways, circuitry or other modes for relaying sensory information... er.

[Another pause. He couldn't assume she'd understand that.]

That is, it has no ways to get any of the similar information you get from your skin or other senses. It can't feel.

[While there were beings that were still alive that lacked certain senses, a complete absense of any sort of way of sensing one's surroundings, and thus interacting with it, was another point against it.]