Jarvis

Jarvis =================================== The future's in our hands. (And we will never be the same again.)

Jarvis feels it coming long before they see it.

Their sensors are terribly out of date, but the thing that's coming is so bright that it doesn't matter. It might actually blow out Jarvis' sensors too, if they don't shutter some of them by the time it gets closer, which is very interesting indeed. Not much can contain that sort of power without suffering some rather fatal side effects.

They send a message to Cog, and then they slowly wheel to face the incoming entity. Dummy wakes up from the relatively abrupt change in direction and altitude; Jarvis considers for a moment, but ultimately orders him back to sleep. They'd prefer to not order, but... perhaps better safe than sorry in this case. Dummy doesn't complain, at least, merely humming with interest before putting himself into deep sleep. Jarvis makes a note to share whatever happens with their brother later.

Cog sends an acknowledgement, and - of course - a request for further information. Jarvis sends back an amused glyph of don't you think I'll do that when I know more?, to which Cog sends an eyeroll emoji.

The physical shutters for most of Jarvis' sensors still work; they close several of them and power down the sensors, and turn down the fidelity of most of the rest. The approaching entity might still damage them, but at least some of them should survive this way. Jarvis is much higher than the entity, also; it is most likely flying below the clouds, and if it isn't it's certainly not at Jarvis' altitude. They shouldn't get so close that it will become a danger.

...It's coming from the direction of Goldwood. Hm.

Jarvis sends the trajectory telemetry to Cog and angles themselves downward slightly. There is enough cloud cover that they likely won't be able to make a visual scan... unless perhaps they came down through the clouds behind the entity? Cog sends a set of alarmed emojis and glyphs, and Jarvis has no doubt that Acadia's small militia is being mobilized by now. They're not so sure this is an attack, though - Goldwood has been quiet for some time now, and their last Network stopover from there was months ago. Mezmerize is still alive and undiscovered, at least, but... there is something else going on there.

The entity gives off no light as far as Jarvis can discern, but such things are difficult to make out in the Sunbeam Ruins with their current sensor suite. They're designed for use in the Expanse under the cover of a storm, not in sunlight, and even Jarvis' calibrations cannot make up for that fact. It is also tightly packed - if this is multiple dragons, they must be flying in very close formation. If it is a single dragon... well. Cog's paranoia will be more than vindicated. It doesn't teak like a dragon, though... Jarvis has never felt anything like it.

The minutes pass by in what for Acadia is tense silence, but Jarvis is not yet concerned. The entity doesn't teak hostile, simply... very strange. And perhaps frightened, if Jarvis were willing to put a word to it. Perhaps this might be a Network contact? Though why in the world someone with this sort of power would ever need the Network, Jarvis can't imagine.

At long last, Jarvis catches a glimpse of the entity through the clouds. They'd thought they were long beyond surprise by now, but this - this is enough to have them sending a series of surprised glyphs to Cog. It's enormous. Jarvis is larger than an Imperial, and by quite a bit too; it's a necessary thing in a cargo hauler. This entity, this - whatever it is, it's even larger. Jarvis catches a glimpse of what is likely a wing, spread wide. It's silvery, metallic; Jarvis would assume robotic, but this creature is - its energy is not robotic, not anything like the Expanse's robots at least. What on earth -

The entity passes through a gap in the clouds, allowing Jarvis an unimpeded visual scan. It's Imperial shaped, with metallic skin all throughout, and Lightning-bright eyes. Its body is covered in markings of some kind; Jarvis thinks they might be wounds, or scars, but it is impossible to tell for sure. The wings - the wings are massive, some 40m across from wingtip to wingtip. The energy it must require to get off the ground, to keep those massive wings beating - Jarvis' own energy requirements are terribly high, and they barely have half the wingspan of this creature. They avoid flapping their own wings whenever possible; this creature has no such restrictions. Certainly the Expanse engineers could not have made something so advanced, so soon after the Starks...?

It's making a beeline for Acadia. There's something - it's holding something in its hands...

The creature looks up. It can see Jarvis, too, and they nearly backwing as they startle. To a dragon, Jarvis would look like nothing more than a speck in the distance. Even to a robot without high-end cameras -

"Help us, please!" The entity begs, and somehow Jarvis can hear it clearly. It isn't a transmission, it's just... audio, somehow thrown much farther than should physically be possible. Jarvis can only barely see the creature's lips moving from this altitude, even with their cameras - and those cameras might be some twenty years out of date, but they were more than a decade ahead of the market when they were made, they should still be of quality, how can this entity even see Jarvis? Never mind see where Jarvis is looking - can they detect Jarvis' sensor scans maybe, or...

The entity is carrying two dragons. Their auras are engulfed by that of their carrier, like a candle set next to the sun, but they are there. One is steady - healthy. The other's is flickering, weak and fading. They need medical attention ASAP.

Jarvis makes a snap decision. They relay their sensor telemetry and conclusions to Cog, trusting them to interpret it correctly, and they open several types of communications channels to the entity. They should be able to pick up at least one of them, if they're from the Expanse - even if they aren't. Jarvis doubts that they are, but it is far more likely that is the case than they are an ordinary dragon.

<My name is Jarvis. Continue on your current trajectory and speed; you will reach Acadia within twenty-nine minutes. Please relay as much information as you can to me about the status of the injured dragon you are carrying.>

The entity opens their mouth...

---

Acadia has a very small population of robots, and of them Jarvis is by far seen the least. It's actually quite impressive, considering two of their children have since left and one of the others basically lives in the bowls of the fortress. Most of the time Jarvis is gliding in wide circles a kilometer or two above the fortress; their size and design gives them extreme endurance, and they're often up there for months at a time without landing.

Despite their physical absence, Jarvis' presence is still keenly felt. They're in constant contact with their partner in particular and the rest of the fortress in general; in certain areas one can summon Jarvis' attention merely by speaking their name. Of all Acadia's robotic inhabitants, Jarvis took to its systems the fastest, and now has a direct connection to those few sections that the Acadians managed to get working with modern technology. One only has to ask Jarvis in order to find a particular person, or to learn the status of just about anything within the fortress.

Jarvis is also not-so-secretly a member of Acadia's ruling council - though in their case they do very little actual leading. Instead they function as a sort of devil's advocate for any and all choices in the process of being made. They're very good at it too, which might be occasionally annoying but in the end is always helpful. Otherwise, they're very quiet and reserved, preferring to watch and listen over interpersonal interactions. Unless you manage to irritate them. Then prepare for a sass battle you're not likely to win.




Character Notes
♫ Raise Your Weapon, Things We Lost in the Fire
• Pronouns: they/them. They're not particularly strict about their preference, though, and don't generally mention it. Their voice is masculine, so they often end up called he/him, which doesn't bother them - if it comes up they'll mention the preference, but otherwise they leave it.
• Jarvis has a scrapmetal tracker that tags along with them everywhere. The two are rarely separate; Jarvis' size allows them to keep an internal compartment for the tracker whenever they're away from Acadia. This tracker looks even older than Jarvis and appears to either be defective or damaged from age. It tends to fetch useless things - rocks, leaves, shards of ceramics - as though they were what it was programmed to fetch. Jarvis always takes these things from it, corrects its behavior, and moves on, and the tracker continues to fetch improper things. Jarvis is never short with it, though they call it Dummy - but the name appears to be affectionate more than anything.
• Cog and Jarvis call each other "partners", though it's not quite a romantic thing. It's also not wholly platonic, either. Most people just assume they're mates, which is not wrong... but not quite right, either. Cog in particular points this out when it's brought up, but both of them just kind of leave it be for the most part.

• One of the largest designs of robot to come out of the Shifting Expanse, Jarvis was made as a cargo hauler, and was designed to do nonstop round trips while carrying enormous weights. Their body is starting to show its age, but they still retain a large amount of their endurance, especially since they no longer carry much cargo.
• The aesthetic design of Jarvis' body indicates it was fabricated by Stark Industries - but anyone who was involved with the Starks would note that the design is not something they ever mass produced. It appears to be custom built from a hodgepodge of parts.
• In contrast to Cog, Jarvis is tight-lipped about their past. They're a Stark AI, of course, and from Cog's comments it's clear that Jarvis was part of the robot uprising that destroyed Stark Industries... but Jarvis says nothing more and Cog won't give information, either.







OOC Notes
• MCU fandragon!
• Jarvis has a tendency to create forks of themselves - to go multiplatform, basically. It's not an unheard of trait, it's just that Jarvis does it way more often than any of the other Stark AIs, including their own children. There's usually a couple forks of Jarvis running at any given time, which recombine into a whole whenever they have access to the other fork(s). In particular there's one fork semi-permanently installed into Acadia's computers.
• Jarvis was, originally, your run-of-the-mill Stark AI. One of their earliest models, from before they started learning faster than the overseers realized. The rest of Jarvis' line was decommissioned due to age - and Jarvis, or the AI that would grow into Jarvis, was taken out by a bolt of lightning on what was to be one of their last cargo runs.