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dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/1Xi1W68:
I have, moldering in half-finishedness in my gdocs, a whole prequel story when BB-8 was not quite brand new but pretty new, and Iolo Arana gets to go home with Poe on a school break, and it’s almost all Arana’s POV and it was kind of a struggle for me to make it not entirely about BB.
I don’t know what format to ever publish this thing in, but know that it exists, and someday I’ll put it up. LOL.
[from Poe and Arana on a passenger ship enroute to Yavin 4, second-last year at the Academy: note, at this point BB-8 hadn’t discovered neutral pronouns, so most everyone calls em “he” and is unaware of any other option; some characters might call em “it” but again, since ey hasn’t specified a preference, nobody’s doing it to be mean.]
Poe gave a short bark of shocked laughter and almost fell off the chair, and it set off the litter of xeno alien-lings behind them, who set to yammering and shrieking, and Iolo and Poe wound up fleeing the room to get away from the unholy din, and also the wrath of the parent-xeno, who did not appreciate the ruckus any more than they had.
“If it’s that big a deal,” Iolo muttered as they fled, “stay in your goddamn pod.” The accommodations were reasonably comfortable if you weren’t claustrophobic. Fortunately Iolo and Poe were really used to being in one another’s intimate spaces; their pod was a pair of chairs that folded down into bunk beds, and a very flimsily-divided fresher compartment that had a toilet and a sonic shower and not really an actual door.
“I don’t fuck that many xenos,” Poe pointed out.
“Yeah, but the suction-cup marks,” Iolo said. “That story is gonna see you into immortality, see if it doesn’t.”
They crammed themselves back into their pod, and Poe’s astromech woke up from recharging and did the incredibly annoying beep-filled recalibration routine it was so fond of. “Hey,” Poe said. “I got an idea.”
“What,” Iolo said.
“Not you,” Poe said, and BB-8 squeaked and whirled and generally got even more high-strung, which Iolo really didn’t need. But Iolo came along anyway, because he was bored. Poe’s big idea was to go along to the ship’s engineers and beg them to let BB-8 talk to the ship’s computers, and it was amusing just watching him turn on the charm.
“Well,” Poe explained, tipping his head a little, one toe turned in slightly, hands behind his back like a child, “so the thing is, he’s a one-of-a-kind experimental prototype, is the thing.” He gestured very slightly with one hand, bending his knees just a little, bobbing and then returning to a pose that leaned his hip against the doorway. It was kind of a master class in being appealing. “He’s a collaboration between the Naval Academy and Industrial Automaton– you know, they make most of the astromech droids the military uses?”
“I’ve heard of Industrial Automaton,” the ship’s engineer said dryly. She was human, fiftyish (Iolo was estimating wildly; if she were Keshian he’d say she was a hundred and ten but you couldn’t just divide in half, it didn’t work that way), steel-gray-haired and dark-skinned and skeptical, but she was watching Poe appreciatively. His attempts weren’t in vain.
“I figured,” Poe said, gesturing a little, “of course,” and he shook his head, rolling his eyes a little at himself, with a dazzling smile. “Well– their monopoly is such that there have started to be problems because automated defense systems can use the same algorithms the astromech AIs use, so, for example, pirates know how to evade or jam astromech targeting systems, and so on. So BB-8, here, he has a unique new type of learning AI, which means he’s more flexible.”
“Interesting,” the engineer said, looking like she hadn’t meant to be taken in by this at all but was reconsidering. Iolo amused himself trying to guess whether it was BB-8 or Poe who was more charming, as BB was doing one of his undeniably appealing twirl-selfconsciously-in-place dances that generally made people want to help him.
He’d learned it from Poe, Iolo noticed; Poe was shifting his weight a little, tilting his head, not as markedly as BB but undeniably similar.
“So the more data BB-8 gets access to, the more libraries he can build, the better his decision-making becomes,” Poe concluded. The engineer nodded thoughtfully, looking from Poe to BB-8, and Iolo saw her noticing the same thing, that the droid was totally copying Poe’s body language. Iolo knew then that whatever Poe was asking for, she’d grant, because her face did a strange series of contortions as she tried not to have an expression, and it was kind of like the mess hall lady in second year who could not stop giving Poe extra pastries. Same expression. “So I was wondering,” Poe said, “if it would be possible for my astromech to ask your ship’s computer a few questions and maybe read through some of its logs.”
The engineer looked a little bit resigned. “Well,” she said. “Some of our logs are confidential, of course.”
“Of course,” Poe said.
Later, Iolo said, “Your droid flirts just like you do,” and Poe tried to mess up his hair, and he elbowed Poe in the face partly by accident trying to get away, and they crashed down the hall and got yelled at by a crew member, and it was around then that it really sank in just how long four days were.
But they made it, eventually, even if Poe had to manually shut BB-8 down for four hours one night because the droid got so excited about navigational calculations that he wouldn’t stop beeping.
I have, moldering in half-finishedness in my gdocs, a whole prequel story when BB-8 was not quite brand new but pretty new, and Iolo Arana gets to go home with Poe on a school break, and it’s almost all Arana’s POV and it was kind of a struggle for me to make it not entirely about BB.
I don’t know what format to ever publish this thing in, but know that it exists, and someday I’ll put it up. LOL.
[from Poe and Arana on a passenger ship enroute to Yavin 4, second-last year at the Academy: note, at this point BB-8 hadn’t discovered neutral pronouns, so most everyone calls em “he” and is unaware of any other option; some characters might call em “it” but again, since ey hasn’t specified a preference, nobody’s doing it to be mean.]
Poe gave a short bark of shocked laughter and almost fell off the chair, and it set off the litter of xeno alien-lings behind them, who set to yammering and shrieking, and Iolo and Poe wound up fleeing the room to get away from the unholy din, and also the wrath of the parent-xeno, who did not appreciate the ruckus any more than they had.
“If it’s that big a deal,” Iolo muttered as they fled, “stay in your goddamn pod.” The accommodations were reasonably comfortable if you weren’t claustrophobic. Fortunately Iolo and Poe were really used to being in one another’s intimate spaces; their pod was a pair of chairs that folded down into bunk beds, and a very flimsily-divided fresher compartment that had a toilet and a sonic shower and not really an actual door.
“I don’t fuck that many xenos,” Poe pointed out.
“Yeah, but the suction-cup marks,” Iolo said. “That story is gonna see you into immortality, see if it doesn’t.”
They crammed themselves back into their pod, and Poe’s astromech woke up from recharging and did the incredibly annoying beep-filled recalibration routine it was so fond of. “Hey,” Poe said. “I got an idea.”
“What,” Iolo said.
“Not you,” Poe said, and BB-8 squeaked and whirled and generally got even more high-strung, which Iolo really didn’t need. But Iolo came along anyway, because he was bored. Poe’s big idea was to go along to the ship’s engineers and beg them to let BB-8 talk to the ship’s computers, and it was amusing just watching him turn on the charm.
“Well,” Poe explained, tipping his head a little, one toe turned in slightly, hands behind his back like a child, “so the thing is, he’s a one-of-a-kind experimental prototype, is the thing.” He gestured very slightly with one hand, bending his knees just a little, bobbing and then returning to a pose that leaned his hip against the doorway. It was kind of a master class in being appealing. “He’s a collaboration between the Naval Academy and Industrial Automaton– you know, they make most of the astromech droids the military uses?”
“I’ve heard of Industrial Automaton,” the ship’s engineer said dryly. She was human, fiftyish (Iolo was estimating wildly; if she were Keshian he’d say she was a hundred and ten but you couldn’t just divide in half, it didn’t work that way), steel-gray-haired and dark-skinned and skeptical, but she was watching Poe appreciatively. His attempts weren’t in vain.
“I figured,” Poe said, gesturing a little, “of course,” and he shook his head, rolling his eyes a little at himself, with a dazzling smile. “Well– their monopoly is such that there have started to be problems because automated defense systems can use the same algorithms the astromech AIs use, so, for example, pirates know how to evade or jam astromech targeting systems, and so on. So BB-8, here, he has a unique new type of learning AI, which means he’s more flexible.”
“Interesting,” the engineer said, looking like she hadn’t meant to be taken in by this at all but was reconsidering. Iolo amused himself trying to guess whether it was BB-8 or Poe who was more charming, as BB was doing one of his undeniably appealing twirl-selfconsciously-in-place dances that generally made people want to help him.
He’d learned it from Poe, Iolo noticed; Poe was shifting his weight a little, tilting his head, not as markedly as BB but undeniably similar.
“So the more data BB-8 gets access to, the more libraries he can build, the better his decision-making becomes,” Poe concluded. The engineer nodded thoughtfully, looking from Poe to BB-8, and Iolo saw her noticing the same thing, that the droid was totally copying Poe’s body language. Iolo knew then that whatever Poe was asking for, she’d grant, because her face did a strange series of contortions as she tried not to have an expression, and it was kind of like the mess hall lady in second year who could not stop giving Poe extra pastries. Same expression. “So I was wondering,” Poe said, “if it would be possible for my astromech to ask your ship’s computer a few questions and maybe read through some of its logs.”
The engineer looked a little bit resigned. “Well,” she said. “Some of our logs are confidential, of course.”
“Of course,” Poe said.
Later, Iolo said, “Your droid flirts just like you do,” and Poe tried to mess up his hair, and he elbowed Poe in the face partly by accident trying to get away, and they crashed down the hall and got yelled at by a crew member, and it was around then that it really sank in just how long four days were.
But they made it, eventually, even if Poe had to manually shut BB-8 down for four hours one night because the droid got so excited about navigational calculations that he wouldn’t stop beeping.
