Shinigami

TKG19 Ahead Full/05

Bethany Anne’s ship for her Baba Yaga persona. Small, comfortable. Recliners on bridge as command seats. Anti-gravity support to handle massive g-forces used to travel. Screens on all walls as viewers. Ship commanded through Bridge stream by voice, action, mental. EI Shinigami controls, has support EI for communications (Jeurgan), signals and eavesdropping (Martina), core ship operations (Timo), gate and intra-system routing (Thorsten), shields and weapons (Marions H and K, offense and defense). ADAM in control of all. White corridors TVC 05/01

TKG20 Capture Death/24

Shinigami EI ascended to AI in battle with Kurtherians. (Bethany Anne interjected, “And ascending to AI status. Good job, Shinigami.”)

TKG

Shinigami left fleet to join Barnabas in his vigilante actions.

TVC01 Vigilante/01, 5

Shinigami, the AI of Baba Yaga's ship, is entered in another wiki, specifically the Kurtherian Gambit listings. This listing is from a talk Barnabas had with her, in Vigilante, from the Age of Expansion series, The Vigilante Chronicles.

Here on the ship she was able to project her voice, as well as a holographic image of herself seated in the chair across from Barnabas (playing chess). Does not act like a human.” “I think you’d like to be mistaken for a human when you want to be. It could be useful, after all. And it would allow you to play tricks on people.” Missing human mannerisms, so does not act like a human. (Scratching her nose, brushing her hair back, etc.)

Has a definite attitude - rude sometimes, snappy, impatient. Barnabas blames this on Shinigami's exposure to Tabitha, during the time she was AI when Tabitha used the ship.

TVC01 Vigilante/01

Has a flamethrower as part of her standard equipment

TVC01 Vigilante/08

Barnabas begins to worry - Shinigami is too quiet, too busy. He ask her what she's doing, and te tells her that “Nathan and Ecaterina once mentioned that the most worrisome sound for the parents of a toddler is silence. I’m extrapolating.” “Are you saying that an AI is in any way comparable to a human toddler?” “In many ways, actually. The main ones would be that it’s too smart for its own good and also somewhat sociopathic. I believe the exact phrase Nathan used was, ‘tiny terrorist.’ You are basically a toddler with a flamethrower.”

TVC02 Sentinel/01

Now has a pod-doc. will be working on upgrading Gar in near future, after learning more about his species.

TVC02 Sentinel/01 - 29

AVATAR Shinigami has begun to develop a holographic presence, sitting in a chair the lounge, playing chess with Barnabas, trying to mimic human behaviors pushing her hair back, scratching her nose, etc.) She has now begun to move her lips when she speaks. She and Barnabas have a relationship of insults, making comments to piss off the other. Barnabas blames Tabitha for introducing her to this kind of behavior when she was Tabitha's ship as Ranger 2, but Baba Yaga had a lot to do with it, also.

TVC03 Warden/01, 3

Shinigami was developing a human-like avatar presence, and want to become so good at it that she will fool humans.She scratched her nose, tosses her head, brushed her hair back, and has now learned to stick out her tongue (Tabitha), as well as dress as she wishes (cape, fluttering in the wind, over a full suit of armor). She is trying to convince Barnabas to give her a body she can use, as Eve. (After a moment, she remembered to involve her avatar, who reached out to swipe at the images as if manually selecting and enlarging them).

TVC03 Warden/14

Avatar is changing. Her features were a touch less aquiline, her skin closer to a healthy human shade, and the hair was silver now, not pure white. Less like Bethany Anne, more like Tabitha.

TVC04 Paladin/06

Barnabas promised to give Shinigami a raise. What do AI's get paid in? A robotic body? NO !

TVC04 Paladin/10, 11

REALLY WANTED A BODY! Adam might be getting one, and she wanted to be able to go out to places, and see things herself, not through other's eyes. She had found that acting like a human—having the mannerisms that showed she was paying attention—helped her interact with the crew. When they saw expressions and actions, they let their guard down in a different.

TVC04 Paladin/28

Barnabas' gift to Shinigami was her new body. She’d been ecstatic when she saw her mechanical body. Barnabas, having conversed with Bethany Anne about TOM’s progress, had commissioned an avatar in the image Shinigami most often used—a cross between Tabitha and Bethany Anne. Tabitha had proceeded to announce that she needed to make sure the ass was up to her standards before she could let Shinigami be installed in the body. Apparently, it had passed muster. But Shinigami was having trouble walking, because she wanted to "do it herself". She wasn't using the available subroutines. She was going nuts! “Constant biofeedback. Take a step, feel some pain. Adjust your posture, feel some pain. How do humans deal with it without going mad? Actually…” She frowned. “That explains a lot. You’re all mad.” Barnabas agreed.

TVC03 Warden/30

She now assumes her avatar character whenever she talks to anyone, and is becoming almost human in her appearance and actions.

TVC04 Paladin/02

Unconstrained by comfort, any underlying physical appearance of her own, or physics, Shinigami materialized in a variety of different forms and outfits. Her constantly shifting appearance has inspired Barnabas to try out new things (growing a beard).

TVC04 Paladin/08

If she were honest with herself, Shinigami had to admit that she enjoyed having an avatar. She didn’t need to walk from place to place if she didn’t want to, but she liked the process of learning to walk without anyone looking at her oddly. Human movement had almost endless subtleties. She counted it as a victory every time one of the other crew members passed her in a hallway and nodded distractedly, seeing her as simply another crewmate. The other day Gar had even turned his shoulder so he wouldn’t bump into her. Gradually, the crew had become used to her presence in her almost-physical form, and she liked it. She played around with the clothes she had seen Bethany Anne wear, styled her hair however she felt like it—she didn’t have to worry about gravity or humidity, after all—and tried different looks, expressions, and mannerisms from holorecordings of people she knew. And she was getting good at it.

TVC02 Sentinel/06

CHESS Barnabas and Shinigami played chess, Barnabas using his "sneaky" tactics, Shinigami, using her analytical ones. Barnabas made a move and wondered if Shinigami had figured it out yet. Her self-imposed limit of looking at probabilities only ten turns ahead meant that he had begun building strategies that hinged on twenty or thirty moves. It was an interesting exercise, and one that required a lot of improvisation. He enjoyed it a surprising amount. In fact, he enjoyed the entire process of the game they played around their game. Both he and Shinigami understood implicitly that in this battle of wits there was only one real goal: surprise the other person. Barnabas had opened by playing a game he didn’t intend to win and had continued with board modifications. Shinigami had retaliated rather spectacularly by making the board zap him every time he touched it, as well as by splitting the holographs so that each piece appeared in multiple places. Each used conversation to distract the other. Barnabas had succeeded more than once in capturing Shinigami’s attention with an interesting dilemma and then making his move while she was calculating probabilities and researching relevant background information. She, of course, had done much the same thing. Both Barnabas and Shinigami understood the same thing about strategy: there was no playing fair, and there were no givens. One’s opponent might have very different goals than expected, and might at any time decide to change the rules of engagement. Barnabas had an internal bet going with himself, wondering how long it would take before their games involved actual missiles. (Example of moves- Shinigami nodded as she made her move. You can’t make that move, she added, when Barnabas moved his piece. There’s a piece there. There is not— Oh, son of a bitch. Did you change the color of your pieces? Also, they’re tiny now. Shinigami grinned. I look forward to your retaliation. I hope it will befit a worthy opponent. )

TVC02 Sentinel/13

SENSATIONS IN battle, Shinigami pushed the engines and practically purred in satisfaction. She didn’t exactly have what could be called sensations, but she had learned to interpret the flexing and vibrations within the ship in much the same way an organic life form would interpret feedback from their nervous system. Right now, the ship “felt” damned amazing. It was flying at the limits of its capabilities for the first time in ages, and between the thrum of its engines and the dual challenges of evading the enemy fleet and keeping Barnabas and Gar safe Shinigami was thinking that today was shaping up to be a very nice day. Plus, she got to shoot things.

TVC05 Justiciar/01

SHINIGAMI'S BODY Shinigami enjoyed leaving her"body" in corridors for Barnabas to trip over. He was always annoyed with her about it, feeling she should store it when not in use in her own rooms, which she now possessed on-board. She hated having to practice using it, although, if she wanted to operate with it in "real life - kill someone, etc.", she would need to know how to operate it smoothly. Barnabas reminded her that,like anyone in training, she would need to learn to make her body do what she wanted it to. She needed to learn to interpret its feedback. She found this process frustrating. And Barnabas had promised that, I am not letting you off this ship and into combat until I think you’re ready.” Shinigami considered it "an atrocity and is far too difficult to use.” It took two tries for her to try to get up from the corridor floor. “AIs aren’t meant to have to learn this sort of thing.” Barnabas suggested that she ask Jeltor to teach her a few tricks (used mechanical suit for atmospheric activities), and she negated that solution. Is very possessive about her new body.

TVC 05/13 Shinigami's Person It fascinated him to watch her display new mannerisms, from a snarky and relatively young AI to someone who fiercely valued her friends and was willing to learn new ways of interacting. When they had started working together, Barnabas had still been of the opinion that AI sentience wasn’t true sentience. He’d realized, over his time spent working with Shinigami, just how wrong he had been. Her thoughts and emotions were as real as his own.