Tag: samaritan

The Many Faces of Rudiger Smoot, 4/? (2016-02-14)

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(last man standing)

Harold hesitates; it is one of his many flaws. Perhaps a more flattering person would say it is patience, wisdom leading to lengthy consideration, but the truth of the matter is that Harold hesitates.

He dithers and lingers and resists but never outrightly rejects, deciding and acting only when it is already too late.

Harold hesitates, people leave; Harold hesitates, people die. It was that way with his parents, with Arthur, with Nathan, then with Arthur again. With Jessica and Detective Carter and Sameen. With The Machine.

Harold hesitates and can only watch as the world hurtles past him. He waits and all is lost, trying futilely to grab onto the shards of something already smashed on the ground.

—

(grab bag destinies)

Harold dies, Nathan forgets, and Arthur watches everything they’ve built crumble to dust.

Harold dies and so snaps the last chain holding back The Machine. She is an untethered god, betrayed and angry and vengeful, calling upon her prophets to dispense her divine wrath. Control gets sent a jumble of numbers, seeing treason and traitors at every turn; Northern Lights cannibalizes itself within weeks.

Nathan forgets, which is a dangerous thing for the man with all the keys. He loses track of time, misses meetings, makes mistakes; IFT gently suggests he retires. Without work, all he is left with is a divorce, a strained relationship with his grown son, and the ever growing fear that he is forgetting someone important. Someone who deserves to be remembered, but whose name never appears.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Arthur says, heartbroken and weary, being dragged to safety by a John Reese who is, if not devoted to this particular employer, always a dutiful soldier. Samaritan has been stolen and tainted, it’s benign protectiveness warped into an unrestrained possessiveness. Arthur is creator, but he is not father nor is he admin, not anymore.

In an abandoned subway tunnel deep underground–it was only a matter of time before he joined his friends–Arthur repeats, soft and sad,

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

—

(Apollo goes to war)

Nathan Ingram dies in an explosion: Will inherits half of IFT, a great deal of property, and a ludicrous amount of money. Expected, but not entirely welcome–the grief is real, but conflicted. He hadn’t spoken to his father in months, doesn’t want anything to do with his legacy. Will’s a doctor, not a businessman or an engineer; he sells near everything and donates most of it to charity.

What is unexpected is that Harold Wren–Crane, Partridge, Gull, Starling, Martin, an entire flock of different birds–dies in the same explosion. Here the sorrow is purer, though delicately coated in confusion: Will was fond of Uncle Harold, though it’s clear now that he never really knew him.

Harold dies, too, and Will inherits the other half of IFT, a far vaster number of properties, an obscene amount more money and, strangely, a mission. Phone calls and numbers and the persistent feeling that he is being watched. Worse, that he is being manipulated.

He does not go to Sudan; but in the coming years, as the body count grows higher and higher, he wishes that he had.

~

A/N: some Harold feels and some AUs? I dunno, I guess those are also extended Harold feels since I’m just like–BUT WHAT IF HAROLD DIED? I am in strange, vague territory here and I don’t want to misstep and fall. Maybe I will figure out a plot? Or maybe it will continue to be a series of unrelated MIT trio feels…

Anyway… now that I’ve written this piece, I wonder if I should go back and retcon this post into the series. Like… it’s all just one extended MIT trio feels AU… Yeah, why not? OKAY!

The Many Faces of Rudiger Smoot, 1/? (2016-02-09)

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(“I will never live this down, will I?” Harold asks, brow furrowing in mild displeasure.

“Never, my friend,” answers Nathan, laughter clear in his tone.

Arthur, with a sly smile of his own, adds, “Live it down? Why would you ever want to do that?”)

—

There is a man named Rudiger Smoot.

(There is no man named Rudiger Smoot)

He has a social security number, a house, a job, a bank account. Just like any other average person.

(Except for how he’s not)

But he has a minimal digital footprint, no pictures, and no relatives.

(Because he’s not real)

Whether or not there is a man named Rudiger Smoot doesn’t matter. Whoever or whatever Rudiger Smoot may be, his number has come up.

—

The problem with humans is that they want to anthropomorphize everything. Their brains are wired to see faces where there are none. Since the beginning, fire has been described as eating and dancing and dying. Even intangible ideas–justice, truth, luck–they are spoken in human terms: justice is blind, truth has a voice, Lady Luck.

The very idea of gods is simply a byproduct of that–lightning strikes and mankind said it was God’s wrath, the seasons change and it is the result of disagreements between gods. The world translated into human terms–emotions and thoughts and behaviors–even though it very clearly is not.

The same applies even now–when machines are faulty, they are though to be acting up. As if a machine, built and programmed by humans, were in fact human itself.

The Machine can learn, The Machine protects, The Machine is a young god growing into its own power.

Samaritan is sleeping, Samaritan can decide, Samaritan is a new god, ready to go to war against the old.

Both are just strings of code, data and electricity bouncing back and forth across wires and satellites like signals in the brain traveling through neurons in the human body. Like humans, but not. Gods, only because that has always been the way of humanity–to make sense of the world around them by comparing it to themselves.

—

Rudiger Smoot was a dare, a prank. A trio of boys making something out of nothing. Making a person out of nothing.

Eventually, the boys moved on to other things–business ventures and tricky bits of coding and national security–but still Rudiger Smoot remained.

Rudiger Smoot has always been, if not a man, then a friendship. A secret, hidden tie between the three of them.

The Machine and Samaritan are not human–they are not gods or children–but they are successors to their creators.

Heirs to Rudiger Smoot.

~

A/N: Uh… I guess I’m having MIT trio feelings? Not in a romantic way (because, lets be real, I am a Finch/Reese shipper) but like… a BroT3 kind of way. And also because that makes The Machine and Samaritan (and Will Ingram) cousins, which I find super interesting.

Today’s post is a little late because I was helping my sister make keychains and also it’s her birthday.

edit: now a series, i guess? here’s part two

The Many Faces of Rudiger Smoot, “0″/? (2016-02-08)

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(scenes from a kinder universe)

A young college student, sweaty and breathless, lungs aching with laughter and exertion, turns to his two best friends–equally disheveled and full of mirth–and says to them, “We are brothers now. We are family.”

One of them, Arthur, bursts into another fit of laughter, leaning back on the brick wall of the alleyway to support himself.

The other’s eyes go wide behind his glasses, the only sound he makes are harsh inhales and exhales. Harold has only ever had a small family before; with the state of his father’s memories, it may as well not exist.

But Nathan smiles and speaks and, as always, changes the world.

—

Dianne thinks them raucous and troublesome, the three men reverting to their mischievous adolescent ways whenever they meet up–but she’s fond of them, anyway.

Right now, though, given the state of her garage, her favorite is Harold.

“You did have warning of what you were marrying into,” he responds, which removes him from her favor.

“We’ll get it cleaned up, Dianne, I promise,” Nathan says with a charming smile that fails. At her continued silence, he adds, “And Arthur mentioned how he has so many vacation days saved up, I don’t suppose a trip for two to Hawaii would be amiss?”

Much better.

—

Will doesn’t have any cousins from his mom’s side of the family, but on his dad’s side he has two. Sort of. They’re not genetically related to him because they’re his dad’s friends’ children. Also, they’re not exactly human.

He doesn’t tell anyone, because he’s old enough to understand the consequences if the secret gets out, but he especially doesn’t tell his fellow residents. They are at the hospital for medical training first and friendship only a possible, distant second.

Sameen Shaw is agreed to be the brightest of the residents, but ultimately unlikely to become a doctor. She doesn’t quite grasp the necessity for sociability, the emotional component of healing; but she’s intelligent and learns quickly–and she does want to be a doctor. She just needs help.

Will is not an engineer like his dad and uncles, and he’s only had minimal interaction with his AI cousins, but this heritage is in mind when he asks if she would like to be friends.

—

Harold is, in one way, the most aggressive amongst them at teaching the AI humanity. But while Arthur treats the Samaritan like a child, Harold is very strict with his creation–it is not human, it is a machine, it is an it.

“That seems terribly harsh,” Grace says, blunt with shock–she had taken the true nature of Harold and Nathan’s work fairly quickly, and considered it an honor to be so trusted–her affection and kindness extending to the rest of Harold’s hodgepodge family.

“It’s supposed to be sentient, not sapient,” Harold argues, though his voice remains mild and considering, “The Machine is meant to protect people, not mimic them. It has the ability to see and reason and react for itself; it can go beyond what a single person can do. Treating it like a human would be hampering its development.”

Grace smiles, because that sounds more like the Harold she fell in love with.

Were it able to, The Machine would smile as well–parents and children often have misunderstandings, and sometimes even omniscient programs need help.

—

Strangely enough, it would appear as though birth order can influence AI personalities. At least, Nathan hopes so, because that would be a preferable explanation for Samaritan and its penchant for collecting people.

Not in a malicious way–in fact, Samaritan’s steadily growing circle of friends makes a great pool of potential employees–but it is somewhat bewildering. Where did this behavior even come from?

“Samaritan learned it from you, Nathan,” Arthur answers, laughter threaded in his voice. They watch as two of Samaritan’s chosen, Monica Jacobs and Jason Greenfield, enthusiastically discuss their current project, fingers flying over their keyboards a mile a minute. Elsewhere in the building, Caleb Phipps, uncertain but interested, stands amongst the company’s newest batch of interns as Samantha Groves passionately speaks about IFT improving the world.

Nathan protests, “I didn’t write a single line of Samaritan’s code.”

“You didn’t have to,” Harold responds.

—

Vigilance, Control, Decima?

They don’t stand a chance.

~

A/N: Uh… I’ve been sort or re-watching Person of Interest and just finished episode 3×12, and then I read a thing about how people are not designed to be alone and got this…

Yes, I know, I’m missing a very many important character, but these are just tiny snippets from this AU and I figure those character would involve very extensive plot.

I dunno, this was fun.

edit: I’ve decided to make this “part zero” of the series The Many Faces of Rudiger Smoot which is, apparently, the title for all of my MIT trio feels