Tom Kalbfus
Mongoose
I think I will make the AI a virtual woman, what was the name of that shape changer in Space 1999? Her name was Maya. I think I will call the AI M.A.I.A or Maia more informally, the 'Y' gets replaced with an 'I', the letters stand for Machine Artificial Intelligence Assembly, but Maia doesn't like that, she much prefers to think of herself as a person rather than a thing. Much like the worm simulation I talked about Maia is a simulation of a woman, she is 16 years old, was born in 2033 and she lived her whole life on the Moon. The earliest structures of Moonbase Alpha were erected in the 2020s by the way. What does Maia look like?
How about this? Of course that is what the robot body she operates looks like, Her actual brain is a mainframe super computer in the moonbase, the robot can operate on the surface of the Moon without a spacesuit, it also has a radio transceiver so astronauts can hear voice in their suit radio when she talks to them in the vacuum of space, and she in turn can hear the voice radio replies. Maia has other robot bodies as well, including duplicates of this one and other more utilitarian models. One Eagle is equipped with a mainframe that she can transfer her consciousness too. A backup copy of her remains in the base computer when she's our doing reconnaissance in an Eagle.
Another possibility is this one.
Like this one too, but since they are robots, they could look like anyone. Since Maia gets to choose her looks, she can choose robot models as one chooses the clothes one wears.
Lets go half way, there is an alien artifact, that Maia interacts with, somehow she sets it off during her investigations, and it travels on a preprogrammed route a tour of the Cosmos. A warp drive is involved, that is suppressed by gravitational fields, but as it moves out of a gravitational well, the drive becomes more effective. Strictly speaking an FTL drive is not necessary, it could simply be a reactionless maneuver drive with inertial compensators for the entire Moon, but pushing close to the speed of light, the travel time for the Alphans would seem short to them, but would take years from the point of view of the rest of the Universe. The Alphans don't have control over the destination of the Moon, but it invariably passes close to the Mainworld in each system. When it comes within 100 diameters of each world, its path is that of any other natural object and easily predicted, generally lingers in a system for about two weeks or so before passing beyond the 100 diameter limit and activating its Warp drive once again. While at warp, the Alphas can chart the course of the Moon, and can tell which star it is heading towards. The actually drive is located near the nuclear waste dump, and is surrounded by deadly radiation which can't be approached by either man or machine. Maia is a bit mysterious. One of the reason's she is on the Moon, is that they don't want her getting on the Internet on Earth, she is supposedly firewalled onto the base, but she has been able to activate various systems that she supposedly shouldn't be able to activate. She rescued an astronaut one time after taking over his rover, something that the firewall supposedly should have prevented her from doing. One recent visitor was shocked when one of the Maia robots entered and airlock and decompressed without a spacesuit on and stepped outside in her bare feet. Maia has been kept under wraps from the general public, she is a classified state secret. Once the Moon is hurled from its orbit, it hardly matters anymore.
How about this? Of course that is what the robot body she operates looks like, Her actual brain is a mainframe super computer in the moonbase, the robot can operate on the surface of the Moon without a spacesuit, it also has a radio transceiver so astronauts can hear voice in their suit radio when she talks to them in the vacuum of space, and she in turn can hear the voice radio replies. Maia has other robot bodies as well, including duplicates of this one and other more utilitarian models. One Eagle is equipped with a mainframe that she can transfer her consciousness too. A backup copy of her remains in the base computer when she's our doing reconnaissance in an Eagle.
Another possibility is this one.
Like this one too, but since they are robots, they could look like anyone. Since Maia gets to choose her looks, she can choose robot models as one chooses the clothes one wears.
Lets go half way, there is an alien artifact, that Maia interacts with, somehow she sets it off during her investigations, and it travels on a preprogrammed route a tour of the Cosmos. A warp drive is involved, that is suppressed by gravitational fields, but as it moves out of a gravitational well, the drive becomes more effective. Strictly speaking an FTL drive is not necessary, it could simply be a reactionless maneuver drive with inertial compensators for the entire Moon, but pushing close to the speed of light, the travel time for the Alphans would seem short to them, but would take years from the point of view of the rest of the Universe. The Alphans don't have control over the destination of the Moon, but it invariably passes close to the Mainworld in each system. When it comes within 100 diameters of each world, its path is that of any other natural object and easily predicted, generally lingers in a system for about two weeks or so before passing beyond the 100 diameter limit and activating its Warp drive once again. While at warp, the Alphas can chart the course of the Moon, and can tell which star it is heading towards. The actually drive is located near the nuclear waste dump, and is surrounded by deadly radiation which can't be approached by either man or machine. Maia is a bit mysterious. One of the reason's she is on the Moon, is that they don't want her getting on the Internet on Earth, she is supposedly firewalled onto the base, but she has been able to activate various systems that she supposedly shouldn't be able to activate. She rescued an astronaut one time after taking over his rover, something that the firewall supposedly should have prevented her from doing. One recent visitor was shocked when one of the Maia robots entered and airlock and decompressed without a spacesuit on and stepped outside in her bare feet. Maia has been kept under wraps from the general public, she is a classified state secret. Once the Moon is hurled from its orbit, it hardly matters anymore.
