Tigereans and Weres - The puppet
May. 2nd, 2011 11:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tigerY'all are super lucky- tonight's a twofer, although both are somewhat intertwined.
(This takes place during and after the events of the Matsuri-Ren Faire)
February 25th
I had been working on this idea even since I had become 'acquainted' with the telepresence drone that T'grlf had lent me for use to make Katholos appear as a separate person during the mating ritual. While I knew that the drone itself was what they termed a 'mark 1' drone, I had seen references to a Mk. 2 and Mk.3 drone. I had expressed my desire for a loan of the Mk. 2, but T'grlf had refused.
"However, if you can construct a Terran replica of a Mk. 2, you can keep it, and I will count it as your masterwork project, apprentice. As a precautionary measure, I’ve locked out the detailed blueprints for the Mk.2 and 3 drones from your account; you shall only get access to the specifications for the Mk. 1 and 2 drones. Seeing as you already had some detailed knowledge of how the Mk. 1 operates, I can't withhold that information from you. Good luck."
The week after the wedding were spent ransacking pretty much every engineering, medical, and special effects library and database I had access to (and a few that I didn't, until T'Grlf caught me snooping) for the project that was taking shape in a partitioned off area of the shop. The hardest part was designing and building some of the prostheses and artificial sensors that I had found in the Tigerean medical databases from Terran materials. Getting the materials was not a problem- I was a mage after all. No, the major problem was engineering the chassis to withstand 2 gravities, be able to lift the maximum amount that a normal tigerean would lift, AND still look/feel like a tigerean when I was finished. The past two weeks had seen a tremendous amount of CNC work, and a lot of secrecy on my part. The one day that I was not in the shop had the area with a jet black privacy field surrounding it like a black sun.
The drone, or puppet as I began to call it, was a marvel of human engineering, with a lot of reverse engineered control and sensor electronics from the plans I had of the Tigerean's Mk. 1 drone and some of their more esoteric prostheses. The mechanicals of the puppet resembled an animatronic team's wet dreams; cables, hydraulic and pneumatic systems, and at the center of it all a very terminator-esqe skeleton made from both cast and milled titanium, armor plating in certain sections with appropriate indents to simulate bone-armor, a skin/flesh layer made from a silicone RTV product that was generally used for human prosthetics for the right 'feel', with a mage-created fur skin attached. It all took shape over a week with the torso frame attached to, of all things, an engine hoist. The largest sections were the quickest to get assembled; The major limb bones and joints were assembled in the space of a couple hours, with an afternoon dedicated to building up the neck and head.
I had made a lot of the sub-assemblies modular, like hands, feet, and the head itself. While they simply clicked into place, they could be released by applying pressure to certain areas on the frame in a specific manner. Control for all these various modules was done via a master control processor (MCP) and add-in cards to it, although the head had some additional computing power for visual pre-processing and a few other goodies I had put into the design that were not present on the Mk. I drone. There were also a few other assemblies that took time by themselves- I spent nearly a day debugging a problem with the 'skin' sensors, for example, but once I got that done, a lot of things practically fell into place, including some of the more 'ahem' naughty bits of the puppet.
My goal was to make the puppet look and feel as closed to a flesh and blood were-tiger as possible, so it made sense (in a perverted manner) to make the puppet anatomically correct. Katholos did question my sanity and reasoning when I remarked that the crotch area was a singular, swappable module. My response of being able to swap genders with no, uh, tooling requirements or swapping any other panels was not all that well received, although when I mentioned that I had made it so that each set of breasts were size adjustable (upper and lower rack!), she started to giggle, so much so that I had to take a break. Her comments as I was putting a pair of panties on the puppet the previous night did not help a lot, either.
I was completing the last part of the build- attaching pieces of fur to the remaining detached access covers and the rear torso plate- when T'Grlf walked around one of the curtains and stopped dead. I looked at him as he looked at the drone’s exposed mechanics, controller modules, and the vacant space for the microfusion pack I had just finished and hot-tested the night before, which was sitting on the ground next to my chair. He then started questioning me quite extensively, or more to the point, grilling me on every single decision I made when I started the build. I answered as best as I could, even as I started putting the finished armor plates and covers on.
It was about 20 minutes later when I finally interrupted his interrogation and bluntly asked that if he was going to stay and continue, the least he could do was to help finish the assembly. I asked this of him largely because the working area was cramped already, and I needed the room to finish installing the power plant. He shrugged, and started grilling me some more as he handed me tools and parts I asked for.
It was about fifteen minutes after that I had the last interior parts assembled, and I double-checked the wire harnesses to the plant, kick started it, waited for the tell-tales to all turn green, and then clacked the master breakers shut with my usual call of "Smoke Test!" Aside from a couple twitches and a short whine, nothing happened for about ten seconds. Then all the indicators I had installed cycled through their color sequences from green, yellow, and then to red and stayed there as the main system core came to life and started posting. I had a laptop plugged into the diagnostic and trace port under an open access cover over the puppet's left upper breast, and watched patiently as the MCP initialized all it's various systems, with a few obligatory TRON references thrown in for good measure. The process took about five minutes, after which all the lights had turned off except for the general system status indicator on the back of the head, which indicated that the access covers were open. (No, really! Most of them where not even installed yet!)
I had a seat when I saw that all was mostly ok, handed the body to Katholos with the request that she not do anything except sit there, and attempted to remotely take control of the puppet. This has some measure of success, and I spent a minute or two verifying all the sensory inputs and outputs were working before I invited her to swap places. I found myself looking at the puppet again, and I heard Katholos's voice come out of the puppet. "Hey, this is mostly nice, except that you've got my legs locked, and I appear to be even more naked then usual." This elicited a snicker from myself. T'Grlf added in, "I had wondered about that- I'm assuming there's fur underneath the underclothing that's currently in place? Also, there's cleavage?"
This got another snicker, and Katholos explained as I started installing the last set of covers. "To put it one way, Master T'Grlf, Yes, he made the puppet largely anatomically correct for a female weretiger, but not a female tigerean. He did make one modification- the cleavage size is.. variable, mostly so that with an undercarriage panel swap, we can switch genders, or emulate a tigerean. I expect that you are rather intimately familiar with the prostheses work that went into the design of this puppet, Yes?"
I was very glad that I had just closed the left shoulder access panel, because T'Grlf leaned in close enough to whisper to both of us and asked, "How in Krra'sh'tic rrrrr {hiss} did you know this?!?!!?*"
I answered before Katholos could shove anymore of the foot down her throat. "You know that I have shared memories with both Ch'Mrr and Sh'Meral, yes? Between the very tiny amount I gleaned from that, a few divination spells of my own doing, and stumbling upon the designs for several of the artificial whiskers and other prosthetics in the medical stores from the Trebled Whisker's inventory, which occurred entirely by accident, I assure you, It was not that hard of a leap to make. We apologize if we inadvertently caused a problem. We can assure you that the information will go no where else."
T'Grlf grabbed one of the stools and sat down. "Very well. But I must know this: how much do you know? Nice job on the ears by the way- you've done a better job then the best medical staff on homeworld."
I nodded, and as I started re-checking one of the semi-autonomous subsystems that controlled a tattoo design over the patches of fur over each shoulder blade, Katholos answered. "Left leg, above the knee joint. It's also why you limp a bit in the winter- the artificial joint has a few thermal quirks. Right arm below the elbow, roughly 2/3rds of your tail, all the whiskers, and the right eye. If it is not asking too much, master T'Grlf, what happened, and why was your ear not repaired or replaced?"
T'Grlf sighed. "Short story: My masterwork was to design the ship class that the Trebled Whiskers is based upon. In fact, she is the only ship of that class that made it into production, and only after extensive modifications done during the build. I was on board the prototype on her first mission when a error in my design caused an explosion on board which severely damaged the ship. Fortunately, the captain of that ship managed to evacuate most of the non-essential crew, while myself and three volunteers managed to effect field repairs. The repairs lasted long enough to get us back to homeworld, and as we entered orbital space, the repairs fell apart in my face. I managed to get everyone out of the area and to sound the evacuation alarms as the compartment exploded around me. I woke up on the main hospital on home world, crippled and half blind, with the Emperor standing over me in my bed. He had every right to remove what little honor I had left, but instead chose to congratulate me, as my sacrifice saved the entire crew. I have never had my ear repaired or replaced, as a reminder of my actions that day."
There was nothing more to say. I gently lowered the hoist holding the puppet off the ground as T'Grlf pulled a shirt, skirt, and tunic from a bag I had brought in a couple days previous. Unlatching the carbiner on the hoist chain from the torso's 'tow hook' allowed it to retract and close it's cover. I then knelt down and unlocked the joints on the legs and hips, closing the appropriate access panels. Katholos had already found the controls for the cleavage, and there was a very quiet sigh as both racks fully inflated, then mostly disappeared. It took a minute or two for her to dress, which T'Grlf spent facing away from us. This was the cause of much amusement to Katholos, and after she was fully dressed, took her first steps over to T'Grlf and gave him as big of a hug as she could muster. "I'm ready for the judges panel now, my friend. Shall we proceed?"
The panel of judges consisted of three Tigereans and two humans. The humans were already involved in the uplift project as consultants, much like myself, except that their areas of expertise were with cybernetics and bioengineering. (I had no area of expertise except in diagnostics, and as a generalist.) The interview and examination took several hours, and they said that they would give me a passing grade IF (and only if) the puppet was still fully serviceable after 3 months of real world use and after several trials. I nodded, and agreed. They said that they would consider the first week a break-in period, and small problems would be exempt from this, such as loose connectors or fit and finish problems. This was ideal, as this weekend would be the first practical field test.
We had ran into one problem during the last couple hours of the Matsuri festival, and as it was an easy fix, had Katholos sit on my lap once we got in the shuttle and started back to the embassy. Katholos complained that there was a grinding sensation and a sudden limit to her left shoulder joint, yet the on-board diagnostics all showed green. I nodded and explained that would look at it on the shuttle trip back to the embassy.
I popped the access cover latch for the left shoulder joint, and with a small amount of difficulty, peeled the cover up and away from the joint mechanism. This caused some gasps from the other humans and tigereans on board- We had not told them about the new puppet at all. It looked I was ripping the skin and top layers of flesh from her shoulders- in reality, I had run into the cause of the problem. The cover had a small pneumatic lifter to automatically boost the access cover open when it was unlatched. The lower arm of the lifter had popped loose, causing the shoulder's lower rotator cuff to bind up. T'Grlf got up and came over, seeing that I needed a third arm, and held the cover open as I re-seated the lifter arm back on it's peg. Fortunately, the retaining clip had fallen in my lap, so it was a simple thing to put it back in place, only this time with an additional keeper from my small stash of repair parts I had in my bag. As I reseated the cover, the looks of horror slowly went away, and I realized it was time to explain again.
By the time we landed at the embassy, both the repair and the explanation were finished. The question and answer session, however, were not, and it took me and Katholos about twenty minutes after we landed and unloaded the shuttle to get everything settled. Fortunately, I had 'commuted' to work via what I referred to simply as a gate- a better, more technical term would be an artificially created stabilized hyperspatial tunnel with a fixed size and endpoint. Yeah, too many big words there. In any case, Katholos and I spent a couple minutes moving the diagnostic and support framework I had constructed from the shop to the spare bedroom at the house that I used as lab and assembly area. Katholos politely asked how I was holding up, as she knew that the telepresence link had to have had some affect on me. I replied that it did, but the drain was much less then maintaining the 90/10 morph that I had done in the past. She was glad, and as Sh'Meral and Ch'Mrr came through the gate we welcomed them home with open arms and hugs.
March 6th
The second, longer field test had gone without a hitch- this test was a full day at the ren faire, and Katholos had gone all out with the puppet. Between the way she was dressed** and her behavior overall, the puppet had stood up a lot better then my nerves. Especially when she was talking with some of the crofters and comparing notes to her memories of Victorian life and from stories and memories her mother and grandmother had told her during her youth. Ultimately, I had nothing to worry about- She as well behaved as the rest of the other ~20 people in the group, so the only real damage that was done was to my wallet. Fortunately, she carried most of her own stuff, after she stopped laughing when she noticed that I was already weighed down with carrying Sh'Meral's pile of things.
All in all, the mechanical and logic systems worked wonderfully. One of the only other worries had already been dealt with earlier that week when we decided to test the waterproofing seals on all the access covers and control boards, and I was in control when we had the puppet jump into the pool. Fortunately, the seals all held, and the hollow air spaces did their thing and the puppet, despite it's 300 pound mass, just floated. Katholos had some snide comments about 'deploying the airbags', which pretty much brought everyone at the house to helpless laughter. After I regained control and got the puppet out of the water, Sh'Meral and Katholos (who was in control of the meat body) were both kind enough to help dry off the puppet's pelt that night.
A few days later, I finished getting a few other parts and, uh, accessories made for the puppet. It took a day or two to fit things, which involved a bit of hilarity with Sh'Meral who had volunteered to help with handing me tools and parts.(fnord!) There were also a few additional gadgets and devices that I put in that required testing as well. One of these devices was an enhancement to the on-board control systems to provide a proper HUD, and internet access via the built in comm-node. It took a while to get the interfaces customized for both of us, but we got it all settled and were very pleased with the results.
April 15th
While we had proven the basics were sound and fully operational, there were two additional features that I had partially built. It had taken some extra time to create the support hardware and firmware interfaces for these features, along with some fairly extensive alpha and beta testing using one of the spare backplane modules and a simple tracked off the shelf robot wired to it for movement testing. It didn’t help much that Ch’Mrr caught me while I was testing one of the boards, and hearing my voice emanating from a speaker wired to a bread board caused him a bit of concern, especially as Katholos had the body and was filling in for me at one of the many Worldnet meetings.
"What are you doing!? Your body is a good 20 krath away!" he exclaimed. The softly glowing set of crystals mounted on the two additional boards I had built increased subtly in brightness as I replied.
"Actually, according to the GPS on my comm and the GPS mounted in this chassis, my body is 23.4 miles north and 5 miles west of here, which is a good 10 miles past the threshold connection for a mark 2 telepresence droid, and 5 miles past the mark 3. However, as Katholos has the puppet with her, she’s using the commnode in it as a backup bridged link in the event that this experiment didn't work so I could return safely to at least a body, if not my body. As for what I am doing, this is the first practical range limit experiment for a pair of new features I'm adding to the puppet- the ability to house consciousness, and a techomancy interface to allow the puppet access to the energy to power whatever abilities the user may possess. For example:"
I commanded the robot that was wired up to run through the motions to create a standard magelight, which promptly appeared in the heavily modified 'hand' of the 'bot, and in my signature orange color. Ch'Mrr gave the collection of wire, crystals, and kludged-together systems that represented where I presently resided a look, and then I felt the ever-so-familiar ping of his mental probe. [Yes, I really am in this collection of scrap parts, wire, and assorted rejects from a robotics factory.] {This is an interesting breakthrough, my brother- I don't think even our scientists or researchers have managed this. I can only assume you have a good power supply running the hardware, and that it's stable?}
My speaker emmited a burst of howling laughter for almost a minute before continuing. "Yes, my brother, in addition to mains voltage, I also have a battery backed UPS and a separate, independent feed from one of the two big generators in the back yard. As for stability, I've been in here for about three clock hours so far, which is a very strange time differential as it feels like I've been here for three-four days. I'm probably going to have to under-clock this rig a bit, or explain to Katholos when she moves in about that, although I think she's used to it with the whole partially residing on the spirit plane thing. In any case, she appears to be driving back here, so unless she wrecks the jeep, we should be seeing her in about twenty minutes or so."
May 20th
The last three months had been interesting, mind expanding, and overall, very enlightening. Between Katholos and myself, we had spent a great deal of time in the puppet, exploring it's physical capabilities and limitations. However, it was time for the panel to review the puppet, so Katholos dutifully hucked the MCP into diagnostic mode, and we met the panel once again in the same conference room that we had used three months previous. There, we spent another couple hours reviewing every single little niggling change, tweak, and adjustment. The last ten minutes was the most harrowing as I waited outside the room for their decision.
The door to the room opened, and Katholos waved me in with a smile on her muzzle. The judges had initially looked to be a grumpy lot, and after I sat down in the chair placed in front of them, they all gave a small speech. The two humans had little to say except that I had exceeded their expectations and created something akin to the very finest animatronics that all the special effects shops combined would have trouble duplicating. Dr. Kth'Nal noted that my use of prostheses in the design would make for an easier time with routine maintenance, at the slight expense of some realism, but stated that the rest of the design and armature was in line with the current peak of human technology, and comparable to their own artificial limbs. Tha'Mokh started by stating that over the 40 Terran years that he has been a trades master, he has passed judgement on many people's masterwork, and that only a few had passed his muster for cybernetics- He was, after all, the designer for the Mk.3 and Mk. 4 telepresence drones, which were his masterwork. T'Grlf went last, and he stood up along with the other four members of the panel. He merely said to me "You pass with the highest marks. I stand here impressed at your grasp of not only your own world's technology, but how to integrate ours as well. Congratulations."
* Translated, the entire phrase would be equivalent to "How in the 13 fucking levels of hell did you know this?!", but lacks the impact of the original. That, and tigereans don’t have a 'hell' or 'heaven' as we know them.
**Garb had never intended to deal with someone with four breasts, but we had made a minor modification to how the size adjusters on the puppet operated. Hence, she had a sizable 'rack' on up, and a smaller rack underneath which helped to support the top rack. Making a corset which fit correctly and comfortably was absolute hell and required a bit of design work and some more CNC time to get the boning and support structure done correctly.
(This takes place during and after the events of the Matsuri-Ren Faire)
February 25th
I had been working on this idea even since I had become 'acquainted' with the telepresence drone that T'grlf had lent me for use to make Katholos appear as a separate person during the mating ritual. While I knew that the drone itself was what they termed a 'mark 1' drone, I had seen references to a Mk. 2 and Mk.3 drone. I had expressed my desire for a loan of the Mk. 2, but T'grlf had refused.
"However, if you can construct a Terran replica of a Mk. 2, you can keep it, and I will count it as your masterwork project, apprentice. As a precautionary measure, I’ve locked out the detailed blueprints for the Mk.2 and 3 drones from your account; you shall only get access to the specifications for the Mk. 1 and 2 drones. Seeing as you already had some detailed knowledge of how the Mk. 1 operates, I can't withhold that information from you. Good luck."
The week after the wedding were spent ransacking pretty much every engineering, medical, and special effects library and database I had access to (and a few that I didn't, until T'Grlf caught me snooping) for the project that was taking shape in a partitioned off area of the shop. The hardest part was designing and building some of the prostheses and artificial sensors that I had found in the Tigerean medical databases from Terran materials. Getting the materials was not a problem- I was a mage after all. No, the major problem was engineering the chassis to withstand 2 gravities, be able to lift the maximum amount that a normal tigerean would lift, AND still look/feel like a tigerean when I was finished. The past two weeks had seen a tremendous amount of CNC work, and a lot of secrecy on my part. The one day that I was not in the shop had the area with a jet black privacy field surrounding it like a black sun.
The drone, or puppet as I began to call it, was a marvel of human engineering, with a lot of reverse engineered control and sensor electronics from the plans I had of the Tigerean's Mk. 1 drone and some of their more esoteric prostheses. The mechanicals of the puppet resembled an animatronic team's wet dreams; cables, hydraulic and pneumatic systems, and at the center of it all a very terminator-esqe skeleton made from both cast and milled titanium, armor plating in certain sections with appropriate indents to simulate bone-armor, a skin/flesh layer made from a silicone RTV product that was generally used for human prosthetics for the right 'feel', with a mage-created fur skin attached. It all took shape over a week with the torso frame attached to, of all things, an engine hoist. The largest sections were the quickest to get assembled; The major limb bones and joints were assembled in the space of a couple hours, with an afternoon dedicated to building up the neck and head.
I had made a lot of the sub-assemblies modular, like hands, feet, and the head itself. While they simply clicked into place, they could be released by applying pressure to certain areas on the frame in a specific manner. Control for all these various modules was done via a master control processor (MCP) and add-in cards to it, although the head had some additional computing power for visual pre-processing and a few other goodies I had put into the design that were not present on the Mk. I drone. There were also a few other assemblies that took time by themselves- I spent nearly a day debugging a problem with the 'skin' sensors, for example, but once I got that done, a lot of things practically fell into place, including some of the more 'ahem' naughty bits of the puppet.
My goal was to make the puppet look and feel as closed to a flesh and blood were-tiger as possible, so it made sense (in a perverted manner) to make the puppet anatomically correct. Katholos did question my sanity and reasoning when I remarked that the crotch area was a singular, swappable module. My response of being able to swap genders with no, uh, tooling requirements or swapping any other panels was not all that well received, although when I mentioned that I had made it so that each set of breasts were size adjustable (upper and lower rack!), she started to giggle, so much so that I had to take a break. Her comments as I was putting a pair of panties on the puppet the previous night did not help a lot, either.
I was completing the last part of the build- attaching pieces of fur to the remaining detached access covers and the rear torso plate- when T'Grlf walked around one of the curtains and stopped dead. I looked at him as he looked at the drone’s exposed mechanics, controller modules, and the vacant space for the microfusion pack I had just finished and hot-tested the night before, which was sitting on the ground next to my chair. He then started questioning me quite extensively, or more to the point, grilling me on every single decision I made when I started the build. I answered as best as I could, even as I started putting the finished armor plates and covers on.
It was about 20 minutes later when I finally interrupted his interrogation and bluntly asked that if he was going to stay and continue, the least he could do was to help finish the assembly. I asked this of him largely because the working area was cramped already, and I needed the room to finish installing the power plant. He shrugged, and started grilling me some more as he handed me tools and parts I asked for.
It was about fifteen minutes after that I had the last interior parts assembled, and I double-checked the wire harnesses to the plant, kick started it, waited for the tell-tales to all turn green, and then clacked the master breakers shut with my usual call of "Smoke Test!" Aside from a couple twitches and a short whine, nothing happened for about ten seconds. Then all the indicators I had installed cycled through their color sequences from green, yellow, and then to red and stayed there as the main system core came to life and started posting. I had a laptop plugged into the diagnostic and trace port under an open access cover over the puppet's left upper breast, and watched patiently as the MCP initialized all it's various systems, with a few obligatory TRON references thrown in for good measure. The process took about five minutes, after which all the lights had turned off except for the general system status indicator on the back of the head, which indicated that the access covers were open. (No, really! Most of them where not even installed yet!)
I had a seat when I saw that all was mostly ok, handed the body to Katholos with the request that she not do anything except sit there, and attempted to remotely take control of the puppet. This has some measure of success, and I spent a minute or two verifying all the sensory inputs and outputs were working before I invited her to swap places. I found myself looking at the puppet again, and I heard Katholos's voice come out of the puppet. "Hey, this is mostly nice, except that you've got my legs locked, and I appear to be even more naked then usual." This elicited a snicker from myself. T'Grlf added in, "I had wondered about that- I'm assuming there's fur underneath the underclothing that's currently in place? Also, there's cleavage?"
This got another snicker, and Katholos explained as I started installing the last set of covers. "To put it one way, Master T'Grlf, Yes, he made the puppet largely anatomically correct for a female weretiger, but not a female tigerean. He did make one modification- the cleavage size is.. variable, mostly so that with an undercarriage panel swap, we can switch genders, or emulate a tigerean. I expect that you are rather intimately familiar with the prostheses work that went into the design of this puppet, Yes?"
I was very glad that I had just closed the left shoulder access panel, because T'Grlf leaned in close enough to whisper to both of us and asked, "How in Krra'sh'tic rrrrr {hiss} did you know this?!?!!?*"
I answered before Katholos could shove anymore of the foot down her throat. "You know that I have shared memories with both Ch'Mrr and Sh'Meral, yes? Between the very tiny amount I gleaned from that, a few divination spells of my own doing, and stumbling upon the designs for several of the artificial whiskers and other prosthetics in the medical stores from the Trebled Whisker's inventory, which occurred entirely by accident, I assure you, It was not that hard of a leap to make. We apologize if we inadvertently caused a problem. We can assure you that the information will go no where else."
T'Grlf grabbed one of the stools and sat down. "Very well. But I must know this: how much do you know? Nice job on the ears by the way- you've done a better job then the best medical staff on homeworld."
I nodded, and as I started re-checking one of the semi-autonomous subsystems that controlled a tattoo design over the patches of fur over each shoulder blade, Katholos answered. "Left leg, above the knee joint. It's also why you limp a bit in the winter- the artificial joint has a few thermal quirks. Right arm below the elbow, roughly 2/3rds of your tail, all the whiskers, and the right eye. If it is not asking too much, master T'Grlf, what happened, and why was your ear not repaired or replaced?"
T'Grlf sighed. "Short story: My masterwork was to design the ship class that the Trebled Whiskers is based upon. In fact, she is the only ship of that class that made it into production, and only after extensive modifications done during the build. I was on board the prototype on her first mission when a error in my design caused an explosion on board which severely damaged the ship. Fortunately, the captain of that ship managed to evacuate most of the non-essential crew, while myself and three volunteers managed to effect field repairs. The repairs lasted long enough to get us back to homeworld, and as we entered orbital space, the repairs fell apart in my face. I managed to get everyone out of the area and to sound the evacuation alarms as the compartment exploded around me. I woke up on the main hospital on home world, crippled and half blind, with the Emperor standing over me in my bed. He had every right to remove what little honor I had left, but instead chose to congratulate me, as my sacrifice saved the entire crew. I have never had my ear repaired or replaced, as a reminder of my actions that day."
There was nothing more to say. I gently lowered the hoist holding the puppet off the ground as T'Grlf pulled a shirt, skirt, and tunic from a bag I had brought in a couple days previous. Unlatching the carbiner on the hoist chain from the torso's 'tow hook' allowed it to retract and close it's cover. I then knelt down and unlocked the joints on the legs and hips, closing the appropriate access panels. Katholos had already found the controls for the cleavage, and there was a very quiet sigh as both racks fully inflated, then mostly disappeared. It took a minute or two for her to dress, which T'Grlf spent facing away from us. This was the cause of much amusement to Katholos, and after she was fully dressed, took her first steps over to T'Grlf and gave him as big of a hug as she could muster. "I'm ready for the judges panel now, my friend. Shall we proceed?"
The panel of judges consisted of three Tigereans and two humans. The humans were already involved in the uplift project as consultants, much like myself, except that their areas of expertise were with cybernetics and bioengineering. (I had no area of expertise except in diagnostics, and as a generalist.) The interview and examination took several hours, and they said that they would give me a passing grade IF (and only if) the puppet was still fully serviceable after 3 months of real world use and after several trials. I nodded, and agreed. They said that they would consider the first week a break-in period, and small problems would be exempt from this, such as loose connectors or fit and finish problems. This was ideal, as this weekend would be the first practical field test.
We had ran into one problem during the last couple hours of the Matsuri festival, and as it was an easy fix, had Katholos sit on my lap once we got in the shuttle and started back to the embassy. Katholos complained that there was a grinding sensation and a sudden limit to her left shoulder joint, yet the on-board diagnostics all showed green. I nodded and explained that would look at it on the shuttle trip back to the embassy.
I popped the access cover latch for the left shoulder joint, and with a small amount of difficulty, peeled the cover up and away from the joint mechanism. This caused some gasps from the other humans and tigereans on board- We had not told them about the new puppet at all. It looked I was ripping the skin and top layers of flesh from her shoulders- in reality, I had run into the cause of the problem. The cover had a small pneumatic lifter to automatically boost the access cover open when it was unlatched. The lower arm of the lifter had popped loose, causing the shoulder's lower rotator cuff to bind up. T'Grlf got up and came over, seeing that I needed a third arm, and held the cover open as I re-seated the lifter arm back on it's peg. Fortunately, the retaining clip had fallen in my lap, so it was a simple thing to put it back in place, only this time with an additional keeper from my small stash of repair parts I had in my bag. As I reseated the cover, the looks of horror slowly went away, and I realized it was time to explain again.
By the time we landed at the embassy, both the repair and the explanation were finished. The question and answer session, however, were not, and it took me and Katholos about twenty minutes after we landed and unloaded the shuttle to get everything settled. Fortunately, I had 'commuted' to work via what I referred to simply as a gate- a better, more technical term would be an artificially created stabilized hyperspatial tunnel with a fixed size and endpoint. Yeah, too many big words there. In any case, Katholos and I spent a couple minutes moving the diagnostic and support framework I had constructed from the shop to the spare bedroom at the house that I used as lab and assembly area. Katholos politely asked how I was holding up, as she knew that the telepresence link had to have had some affect on me. I replied that it did, but the drain was much less then maintaining the 90/10 morph that I had done in the past. She was glad, and as Sh'Meral and Ch'Mrr came through the gate we welcomed them home with open arms and hugs.
March 6th
The second, longer field test had gone without a hitch- this test was a full day at the ren faire, and Katholos had gone all out with the puppet. Between the way she was dressed** and her behavior overall, the puppet had stood up a lot better then my nerves. Especially when she was talking with some of the crofters and comparing notes to her memories of Victorian life and from stories and memories her mother and grandmother had told her during her youth. Ultimately, I had nothing to worry about- She as well behaved as the rest of the other ~20 people in the group, so the only real damage that was done was to my wallet. Fortunately, she carried most of her own stuff, after she stopped laughing when she noticed that I was already weighed down with carrying Sh'Meral's pile of things.
All in all, the mechanical and logic systems worked wonderfully. One of the only other worries had already been dealt with earlier that week when we decided to test the waterproofing seals on all the access covers and control boards, and I was in control when we had the puppet jump into the pool. Fortunately, the seals all held, and the hollow air spaces did their thing and the puppet, despite it's 300 pound mass, just floated. Katholos had some snide comments about 'deploying the airbags', which pretty much brought everyone at the house to helpless laughter. After I regained control and got the puppet out of the water, Sh'Meral and Katholos (who was in control of the meat body) were both kind enough to help dry off the puppet's pelt that night.
A few days later, I finished getting a few other parts and, uh, accessories made for the puppet. It took a day or two to fit things, which involved a bit of hilarity with Sh'Meral who had volunteered to help with handing me tools and parts.(fnord!) There were also a few additional gadgets and devices that I put in that required testing as well. One of these devices was an enhancement to the on-board control systems to provide a proper HUD, and internet access via the built in comm-node. It took a while to get the interfaces customized for both of us, but we got it all settled and were very pleased with the results.
April 15th
While we had proven the basics were sound and fully operational, there were two additional features that I had partially built. It had taken some extra time to create the support hardware and firmware interfaces for these features, along with some fairly extensive alpha and beta testing using one of the spare backplane modules and a simple tracked off the shelf robot wired to it for movement testing. It didn’t help much that Ch’Mrr caught me while I was testing one of the boards, and hearing my voice emanating from a speaker wired to a bread board caused him a bit of concern, especially as Katholos had the body and was filling in for me at one of the many Worldnet meetings.
"What are you doing!? Your body is a good 20 krath away!" he exclaimed. The softly glowing set of crystals mounted on the two additional boards I had built increased subtly in brightness as I replied.
"Actually, according to the GPS on my comm and the GPS mounted in this chassis, my body is 23.4 miles north and 5 miles west of here, which is a good 10 miles past the threshold connection for a mark 2 telepresence droid, and 5 miles past the mark 3. However, as Katholos has the puppet with her, she’s using the commnode in it as a backup bridged link in the event that this experiment didn't work so I could return safely to at least a body, if not my body. As for what I am doing, this is the first practical range limit experiment for a pair of new features I'm adding to the puppet- the ability to house consciousness, and a techomancy interface to allow the puppet access to the energy to power whatever abilities the user may possess. For example:"
I commanded the robot that was wired up to run through the motions to create a standard magelight, which promptly appeared in the heavily modified 'hand' of the 'bot, and in my signature orange color. Ch'Mrr gave the collection of wire, crystals, and kludged-together systems that represented where I presently resided a look, and then I felt the ever-so-familiar ping of his mental probe. [Yes, I really am in this collection of scrap parts, wire, and assorted rejects from a robotics factory.] {This is an interesting breakthrough, my brother- I don't think even our scientists or researchers have managed this. I can only assume you have a good power supply running the hardware, and that it's stable?}
My speaker emmited a burst of howling laughter for almost a minute before continuing. "Yes, my brother, in addition to mains voltage, I also have a battery backed UPS and a separate, independent feed from one of the two big generators in the back yard. As for stability, I've been in here for about three clock hours so far, which is a very strange time differential as it feels like I've been here for three-four days. I'm probably going to have to under-clock this rig a bit, or explain to Katholos when she moves in about that, although I think she's used to it with the whole partially residing on the spirit plane thing. In any case, she appears to be driving back here, so unless she wrecks the jeep, we should be seeing her in about twenty minutes or so."
May 20th
The last three months had been interesting, mind expanding, and overall, very enlightening. Between Katholos and myself, we had spent a great deal of time in the puppet, exploring it's physical capabilities and limitations. However, it was time for the panel to review the puppet, so Katholos dutifully hucked the MCP into diagnostic mode, and we met the panel once again in the same conference room that we had used three months previous. There, we spent another couple hours reviewing every single little niggling change, tweak, and adjustment. The last ten minutes was the most harrowing as I waited outside the room for their decision.
The door to the room opened, and Katholos waved me in with a smile on her muzzle. The judges had initially looked to be a grumpy lot, and after I sat down in the chair placed in front of them, they all gave a small speech. The two humans had little to say except that I had exceeded their expectations and created something akin to the very finest animatronics that all the special effects shops combined would have trouble duplicating. Dr. Kth'Nal noted that my use of prostheses in the design would make for an easier time with routine maintenance, at the slight expense of some realism, but stated that the rest of the design and armature was in line with the current peak of human technology, and comparable to their own artificial limbs. Tha'Mokh started by stating that over the 40 Terran years that he has been a trades master, he has passed judgement on many people's masterwork, and that only a few had passed his muster for cybernetics- He was, after all, the designer for the Mk.3 and Mk. 4 telepresence drones, which were his masterwork. T'Grlf went last, and he stood up along with the other four members of the panel. He merely said to me "You pass with the highest marks. I stand here impressed at your grasp of not only your own world's technology, but how to integrate ours as well. Congratulations."
* Translated, the entire phrase would be equivalent to "How in the 13 fucking levels of hell did you know this?!", but lacks the impact of the original. That, and tigereans don’t have a 'hell' or 'heaven' as we know them.
**Garb had never intended to deal with someone with four breasts, but we had made a minor modification to how the size adjusters on the puppet operated. Hence, she had a sizable 'rack' on up, and a smaller rack underneath which helped to support the top rack. Making a corset which fit correctly and comfortably was absolute hell and required a bit of design work and some more CNC time to get the boning and support structure done correctly.
