Independent Logics

Independent Logics are given various other names: AI (artificial intelligence), An Intelligence, A Sentience, Self-Aware Ships, Free Ships, Logics, Complex Logics, Autonomous Logics, Autonomous Intelligences, Non-Organic Sentient Beings, etc.

AIs & Free Ships

Free ship Bechimo

(For a comprehensive list of all nature of space vessels, see Ships, a master list.) This page lists the self-aware ships who serve as key characters. Many logics are Free Ships. Some unknowns are likely in hiding, built for the Terran AI War and subsequently declared illegal, Wanted. (See Standing Orders for that story.)

• Jeeves -- He's a bit more than a butler (see Intelligent Design) ,
• Tocohl Lorlin - recently born daughter of Korval, seen by the delm, created by Jeeves
• Bechimo and his comm officer Joyita
• Admiral Bunter -- a self-aware small freighter ship, an offshoot of Bechimo

Admiral Bunter has been satisfactorily reestablished in a fitting and stable environment. He currently travels with the Free Ships.

• Disian - She's a fairly young self-aware trade ship, born at the Carresens’ Margate Yards, kidnapped before awakening by Lyre Institute agents, mentored in childhood by Tolly Jones, and currently associated with the Carresens (See Wise Child)
• Tinsori Light -- an entire self-aware space station in disrepair
• Ren Stryker — a self-aware fabricating unit (vessel) who can break things down to component parts to build something new. Disian’s friend. He comes to help repair Tinsori Light after the fall.

Inkirani Ro and Tocohl Lorlin speculate that one instance of The Uncle is a Free Ship:

“Nor would it surprise me at all, were I to learn that an instance of the Uncle is the motivating personality for at least one Free Ship.”

Old Tech / antique ships

Old Tech and Free Ships, Accepting the Lance cover art

For centuries The Scouts arrested / confiscated old tech, including smart ships. Many self-aware Old Tech ships were infiltrated by The Department of the Interior. Others remained free by hiding. Several smart ships are mentioned by name in Accepting the Lance:

• Aberthaz Ferry - sentient ship, hero of the old universe, timonium powered and made with Old Tech, but not by the Enemy:

"Aberthaz Ferry, for an instance, was known to the Pathfinders as a war hero."

“.. . none so old as Aberthaz Ferry, who is barely younger than the Great Light at Tinsori.”

Aberthaz Ferry was suborned to The Department of the Interior until it broke free:

“This was the ship from beyond time, the ship from old Solcintra itself, the secret ship the DOI had discovered and nurtured, the brightest gem of all the Old Tech.”

• Bechimo - not Old Tech, but antique, as proven by Jeeves and Val Con
• Eltoro — he was an old tech ship from the old universe. He was friends with Disian until kidnapped and brainwashed and/or gutted by Lyre Institute agents. Not part of the Ship Assembly. Now he (it) carries Lyre Director Formyne.
• Kordele Orgham — old tech. Voice of the Assembly, Group One, returning to DOI headquarters to correct error in command
• Pfrannik Doz - old tech ship. Pfrannik Doz was also legendary, but not, so Val Con gathered from Jeeves’s notes, in particularly benign legends.
• Stone Ronin - (f) not old tech, but several centuries old, yet younger than Bechimo, made at the same shipyard (Margate Zone Works, Carresens). Stone Ronin is/ was a space probe for the Gilmour Agency “. . .resuming active service. Probe Stone Ronin asserts rights of unfettered passage, navigation, and exploration within this system as a unit of Surebleak Power Minerals” A small tender ship who gathered a cloud of timonium. “The Voice of the Assembly, Group Two is Stone Ronin.” Group Two will all find work, advised by Joyita and Bechimo

“Stone Ronin has intelligence. It may not be of a high order, but he is himself and no other. Tender craft are capable of not only doing the repairs, but assessing damage and deciding if repair is feasible…”

• Strumfalkin - The device that was adjusting its form factor on the fly was labeled strumfalkin”

Ship Assembly

!! SPOILER !! - first read Accepting the Lance

More than 36 old ships and mobile devices of all sorts assembled around Benoo Three, in Surebleak space. All were sentient, to some degree. Several spoke old Yxtrang, the language of the Troop in the old universe.

"Those of the Assembly were old, most— if not all —predating the Migration. They were, therefore, the survivors: the smartest, toughest, and most versatile of the war machines created by the Great Enemy—and some of those few built by the defenders."

“Not ghost ships,” he said quietly. “These are. . .old ships and devices of mayhem. They are here to kill Surebleak, if no one convinces them otherwise.”

Possible Logics

Speculation, mostly.

• ??? Arin's Toss, courier ship piloted by Theo Waitley but owned by The Uncle. The Toss must be more than just a "mere ship" else why does The Department of the Interior want it?? Maybe they just want it to lead them to Uncle, whom they do want. (See comment)

• WildeToad?? It had a fractin-brain built by Arin, using Old Tech (decaying fractins). Arin --Jethri's "father"- "had worked out what he figured to be an auxiliary piloting computer" for the ship WildeToad, but "the fractin-brain merged in with ship's comp" and took malicious control, so the captain forced a crash to destroy the fractins."Then Toad went down with the tilework overridin' ship's comps"

• The unknown ship Bechimo encountered twice, hiding in the dusty Brulilt System? "It may equally be a pirate ship, or one such as myself" Bechimo knows of other "Old Ones in hiding" but no details are given

• Is Spiral Dance a sentient logic? Prolly not, since Bechimo — while not calling Dancer a “mere ship” — does not interact with it as with smart ships. See comments. Nonetheless, the text hints that Cantra’s courier from the old universe, with timonium-based tech planted by the Enemy, seems to have a mind of her own:

“Despite Dancer could’ve called out to the Enemy twelve dozen times or more and brought destruction and worse down on them—she’d never done that. And as Cantra knew, deep down and personal, it was those things you didn’t do, maybe more than those you did, that counted out a true comrade and friend.”

“Spiral Dance was as much from the Old Universe as any other Old Tech device. If the Pathfinders arrived in such a ship, it would send a message to the gathering. . . army. However. . . “I recall from the Diaries that Spiral Dance had been built by the Enemy.”

“Yes, sir. The Diaries also state that she never betrayed her pilots.”

• Delgado university? Is the Concierge sentient? No, it prolly isn't:

“The Concierge had the whole Wall to take care of, and it hadn’t been sentient. . . You didn’t talk to a cargo ’bot, except to give simple orders, but a deeply programmed entity like the Concierge, back on Delgado, could hold up its end of a complicated conversation so well you’d think you were talking with a real person."

How about The Serpent of Knowledge AI at Delgado University?? See comments

Complex Logic Laws

CLLs. Sweeping laws condemning all machine intelligences to destruction, including smartships, robots, etc, on Liaden and Terran worlds. These laws were enacted after the Terran AI War, about 700 years ago.

"The Complex Logic Laws were the result of a war waged hundreds of years ago, when two human powers threw massive AI navies at each other and nearly annihilated themselves. Being human, they blamed the tools...and made it illegal to be, manufacture, or shelter an independent logic."

Mentor Tolly Jones explained the AI Wars and the CLLs to Disian in the story Wise Child:

"That war also gave us the basis for what we call nowadays the Complex Logic Laws. Because they finally did waken AIs and train them to be generals and admirals, to plan and to kill. And because we're nothing if not irrational, we decided to distrust those things we built and put into motion, rather than distrust ourselves. The AIs could and did kill us biologics, so AIs are outlaws."

The laws were written hastily and in irrational fear, in the wake of the war. As such, they have not been rigorously tested since their inception

The laws conflate Old Tech wrought by the Great Enemy sheriekas with all “self-aware, self-motivated machine intelligence” as if they were one and the same.

For centuries, by order of the Council of Clans, these laws have been enforced by The Scouts, including Scout Captain yos'Thadi, archivist in charge of hazardous and contraband technology, who calls independent intelligences "an abomination"

Quite recently, the laws have been appealed, with success.

Laws Appealed

The complex logic law had been successfully challenged in support of Jeeves two decades earlier, in the field judgment of Scout Commander sen’Lora, after she thoroughly examined the AI and found him harmless, and of social value

Twenty-some years later, when petitioned, Scout Commander Val Con yos'Phelium put Bechimo to the test

“to render a judgment regarding the assertion made by Captain yos’Thadi in pursuit of his duty, from the melant’i of a Scout archivist and expert, that the ship Bechimo is: one, created wholly or substantially of Old Technology, and two, that the ship Bechimo is motivated by a machine intelligence.”

His field judgments:

1. “My judgment, therefore, is that the ship Bechimo is provably of modern build and design, utilizing no elements of any technology originating in the old universe.”
2. “Scout Commander sen’Lora made her judgment for a single individual. My judgment merely expands upon hers and takes the next logical step. “I find, therefore, that any Independent Intelligent Logic who is an active member of society—who is employed or is an acknowledged member of a kin-group—shall be accorded the same rights as any other free person of their society.”

Allies of Logics

• The Uncle and his associates
• Carresens -Denobli Trading and Ship Building - joint family
• Clan Korval
• Some of The Scouts
• The Bedel (assumption, based on their aptitude for tinkering with tech, and their origins)
• Jeeves -- Intelligent Design describes Jeeves as an IAMM (Independent Armed Military Module). He's become a legally "free" independent logic of the highest complexity, Jeeves champions other awakening intelligences across the galaxy. He is the oldest known AI in the Liaden Universe, not counting senile Tinsori Light and decaying Old Tech ships from pre-migration, like Aberthaz Ferry.

Hunters of Logics

Various organizations hunt self-aware ships and other sentient entities, often with malice a forethought

• The Lyre Institute -- for their own nefarious designs
• The Department of the Interior -- to subjugate the Galaxy to Liad
• The Scouts -- to decommission the forbidden tech and destroy it or place in stasis storage
• Rogue Scouts - to employ for the DOI or to sell it to them, or to others
• see Old Tech

Free Ship Finances

• Tolly Jones tells Admiral Bunter (a complex logic) to invest the two cantra — a goodly sum — that Tocohl Lorlin gave the newborn ship:

“That money there will buy you some time while you come to terms with earning or growing more. You’ll want to be studying finance, maybe, and start making little investments here and there.”

• Free ships need docking fees

“So...you got two cantra, you can afford to dock...”

• Clan Korval now has Tinsori Light space station. Jeeves suggests making it a hub for Free Ships, and Korval ships and their allies. Delm Val Con yos'Phelium asked the dea'Gauss to consider how the station might profit the clan. Jen Sin yos'Phelium serves as chief Light Keeper at the station, ably supported by free logic Tocohl Lorlin, a daughter of Clan Korval