GuidanceOfficer » Lair » Alan

Alan

(#63714718)

Got any cinnamon?

TRON

Seething Stove

Energy: 50/50

Personal Style

Apparel

Skin

Scene

Physical Attributes

Battle Stats

Measurements

Length

4.83 m

Wingspan

6.48 m

Weight

928.85 kg

Genetics

Moon
Wasp

Silver
Shimmer

Cyan
Stained

Hatchday

Sep 06, 2020
(3 years)

Breed

Adult
Skydancer

Eye Type

Ice
Unusual

Level 1 Skydancer

EXP: 0 / 245

STR

AGI

DEF

QCK

INT

VIT

MND

Lineage

Parents

Offspring

Biography

=====

Alan couldn't tell you when he started hearing his programs. He'd been interested in computers since he was a hatchling. He didn't see them literally as other people, but he'd always imagined coding as talking to the machine. Through high school, and college, when he had problems with his code, instead of talking to a rubber duck, he'd talk to the code itself. He'd mutter questions to it under his breath, and in his head, he'd imagine its response. "Well, I can't do an integer calculation with this unless you tell me to," came the dim screen's reply, sometimes growing sarcastic if he'd forgotten a semicolon or a comma. He'd talk through his logic, too, with the machine. It'd be too far to say he was fond of it, but it was almost comforting speaking to the computer. It was a part of his workflow he never bothered to consider was abnormal, and he graduated university and moved out to take a job in the Shifting Expanse working with the computers running their old radar system.

The system was in an old language, not so ancient as to have ever been written with punchcards, but pretty close. But the language was known for its raw performance, which other more modern, readable languages had sacrificed, so engineers who understood how to communicate with the old machine were sought out to keep the old beast running. It was a comfortable job; it paid well, at least.

One day, many years after graduating, he was tasked with redesigning the radar's security program. It was the most responsibility he'd had there yet, and he took to the job like any other, speaking to the program and listening to its quips back when he ran into bugs. But the program was more complex than his others, and it remained on his mind even as he lay in bed at night. He would spend long nights laying awake speaking with the program, probing its rudimentary mind and understanding the workings of his own creation. As the code became more and more complex, so too did its responses; it would hum in excitement as he logged into his terminal to start his workday, retorting to Alan's questions with questions of its own. It referred to Alan as his username in the radar system, Alan_1, and Alan came to refer to the program as a nickname based off its filename: Tron.

Alan didn't mind Tron's company while he worked on the project, and it came to a point where Tron was always with Alan, in a way. It was almost like the security program was perched invisibly on his shoulder, always curious about the world Alan hailed from. Alan would answer his questions on his lunch breaks. It didn't feel like he couldn't leave his work behind if Tron didn't want to talk about work; and even if he did, the program's reverence for him was almost charming.

By the time he finished the project, he knew Tron was special in a way unlike any other program he'd written, but he didn't consider anything too odd about it. That was, until Tron refused to leave.

He would wander back into Alan's consciousness, giving him updates about what he was doing. Sometimes he'd tell Alan about a bug he'd run into, and Alan would return to the computer to repair it. None of the other software engineers understood how he could sense the program's error handles from halfway across the building, but it was handy, sometimes, that the programmer was always around to check on his code. Some, however, thought it overbearing that he was always around for every little segmentation error. After a few too many cold shoulders, Alan took a hint, and left Tron in the back of his mind to leave the occasional warnings like unread emails in his consciousness. He thought he could ignore them, but the program would return to him with an unmistakable sense of worry if the radar engineers who dealt with him couldn't understand how to fix him. When this happened, Alan would suggest to Tron a fix, and when it worked, h-it would leave him alone. Across the radar center, confused engineers would wonder why error messages suddenly vanished without a trace.

Alan was beginning to sense that he was unlike other programmers in his habit of talking to his code. When he looked at his new projects, he'd scold himself mentally for conversing with them, forcing himself to analyze them logically instead of empathetically. But he'd never learned another way to code. He'd been to school for programming, yes, but every programmer had their style, and he'd survived for decades now on personifying his work. It didn't matter, anyways; when the code reached out to him, he would recoil, and the code would recoil back, refusing to speak to him even if he was open to it. His projects stagnated; his work grew slow. He knew he had to be kind to his code, but he was afraid to, lest every project burrow into his consciousness like Tron had.

Tron could sense Alan's trepidation, too, and he'd try to comfort Alan in his own way. He'd ping Alan, too shy to send more than a few bits at a time, sending him the security program equivalent of a hand wave. When he spoke, rather than using his voice, he sent text packets, the equivalent of a print statement into Alan's mind. Each time he spoke, the ping would bounce back as a shot of panic through Alan, who was hoping if he could ignore the program, that it'd cease to exist. When Tron pushed, Alan would snipe back; Tron recoiled into the depths of Alan's consciousness, returning to his own servers, leaving Alan with the sense that the security program was genuinely upset... and leaving the radar engineers wondering of the cause for a spike of lag in the system.

It reached a point where Alan scheduled himself an appointment with a psychologist; his work was affected, and he needed answers as to what was going on in his head.

A week or so before the appointment, Alan was lying in bed, almost asleep, when a familiar program pinged him. This time, the security program's digital voice was urgent. Alan_1, COSPAR 8018-19BA report &attControl 0x405672A161E4F766 report &attControl pAngl() return 0x4053B95B573EAB36 yAngl() return 0x403A5CD35A858794 rAngl() return 0x400B31C432CA57A8

The code startled him from his stupor, and he groaned. Tron, I can't keep doing this. That satellite's feeding you garbage data, just ignore it until it gets fixed.

Negative, COSPAR 8018-19BA &attControl report throttle stuck 89.7911 % open &attControl report attitude towards surface.

This is out of either of our control, Tron. Let it go. You aren't a tracking program. Stop feeding the tracking programs the bad data and move on.

Trajectory == consistent &attControl stuck throttle &attControl towards surface.

Figuring putting the program's thoughts to ease was the easiest way to get to sleep, Alan groaned as he rolled out of bed and slumped towards his computer. The security program seemed to pace in his head as his remote desktop booted up. He plugged the COSPAR ID Tron was spitting at him, practically printing it on repeat into his mind, into the flight's tracking program... and to his horror, the telecommunications satellite was hurtling towards the center of the Shifting Expanse.

"Ah. Tr- Oh. Oh? That's not. Great, isn't it."

He picked up his phone and dialed the control center with shaking fingers.

The doctor listened very intently to Alan's concerns for his mental wellbeing. She nodded patiently, and when Alan finished talking, quietly informed him that he may have a moderately rare form of affinity for lightning magic. The theory surrounded the existence of dragons who could sense the subtle flickering of the computer's thoughts beneath the layers of the machine. Alan listened to her words, thought for a second, and asked her what ***** she could put him on to quell it. He was an Ice dragon, after all, despite his sparking attire. Though perhaps there was something to say for the information side of a computer, or the thermal effects of running a code... No. It couldn't be. He shoved it from its mind.

But he learned to accept Tron's company again, especially after the program's vigilant eyes had alerted him to the faulty satellite in time for the radars to send a short range ground-to-air missile to be launched to detonate it while safely in the atmosphere; the largest chunk of material to hit the ground was no bigger than a fae's clawtip. Thank the Stormcatcher it was battery-powered; he wasn't an astronautical engineer, but he was loathe to consider a ball of nuclear RTG material hitting the planet at such high speed. He'd gotten an award for "his" vigilance, and job security for sure. The program seemed happy, too, and Alan was less sure than before that as his programmer, he could be sure he hadn't built him to be capable of such an experience.

Alan is still a programmer for the Storm's Eye Missile Detection System, the official operators of the Lightning Flight's extensive radar program. He's bounced back into the flow of programming, sometimes understanding the code, sometimes not. But when he doesn't understand the work in front of him, he knows all he needs to do is ask, and the terminal will answer him in the only language it can speak.

if you dm me to comment on the orbital mechanics in this dragon's lore i'll bite you <3

BREEDING PROJECT:

silver metallic - gloom (or smoke) shimmer - cyan circuit

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