Shinigami

TKG 19/5 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.

TKGg 20/24 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.

TVC 01/1, 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.

TVC 01/1

Has a flamethrower as part of her standard equipment

TVC 01/8

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.”

TVC 002/1 Now has a pod-doc. will be working on upgrading Gar in near future, after learning more about his species.

TVC 02 1 - 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.

TVC03/1, 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).

TVC 03/14 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.

TVC 04/6 Barnabas promised to give Shinigami a raise. What do AI's get paid in? A robotic body? NO !

TVC 03/30 She now assumes her avatar character whenever she talks to anyone, and is becoming almost human in her appearance and actions. TVC 04/2 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).

TVC 04/8 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.

TVC 02/6 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. )

TVC 02/13 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.