Myriad Universes 02_ Echoes and Refractions - Keith R. A. DeCandido [170]
Something about Turing evoked that experience, like seeing something that should be familiar but simply wasn’t or that was strange but still had a tantalizing sense of familiarity hidden beneath.
Sito glanced at A. Isaac, standing a meter or so in front of her. Nearly all the androids in the Federation looked more or less identical to him, built in the image of their creator, Noonien Soong. The older models had less lifelike pigmentation, perhaps, like Data, with an artificial quality to their skin and hair; but otherwise they were all cast from the same mold: all gendered male, all the same height and body type, and all bearing the same facial features.
But here…
Standing on the balcony, overlooking the crowded streets below, Sito could see androids that were gendered as female alongside the more familiar male variety, and even some that seemed to be an androgynous blend of both genders, and some that were neither, simply neuter. And instead of having the size and shape of an adult male, there were androids of all conceivable dimensions. Some were as small as children, while others towered overhead. Not all were strictly humanoid, either. Some weren’t even bipedal, instead employing tripedal or quadrupedal forms, while others crabbed along spider-like on too many legs to count; there were even some that hovered limbless in midair on antigrav fields.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Sito said in a hushed voice.
“Anything like what, Lieutenant?” Data asked, turning in her direction.
“I’ve…” She shook her head in disbelief. “I’ve never seen androids who look like anything but humans.”
Data cocked his head to the side, wearing a puzzled expression. “Curious. Even before I left the Federation, there were plans to explore alternate android morphology. It was my understanding that this has been pursued.”
“It has,” Lieutenant Crusher put in, coming to her defense, “but the designs have been used for fairly limited applications so far.” He glanced skyward as a thought hit him. “Although, there are early trials ongoing at Utopia Planitia to create starships governed not by computers, but by sentient positronic brains.”
Data narrowed his eyes suspiciously, but didn’t speak.
“I was not aware of this,” Isaac said, curiously. “Whence would the brains in question come, Wesley?”
“From androids who have volunteered for the assignment,” Crusher answered. “Having already established their aptitudes through service, and their loyalty to the Federation. Just imagine it. In a matter of years, it might not be uncommon for starships to sail through the heavens without a captain, the crew under the direct command of the ship itself. Or maybe without organic crews at all, for that matter.”
“There have been ships populated only by androids before, Wes,” La Forge said, his eyes still roaming around the crowded plaza below.
“As we all know full well,” Captain Picard said, a dark undercurrent to his words.
“Oh,” Sito said, nodding. “Wolf 359.”
The captain gave her a look, but didn’t speak. He didn’t have to. Sito knew what he meant. She’d been in her second year at the academy when a squadron of ships crewed only by androids had routed the invading Borg, disabling their cybernetic systems and rendering the invaders inoperative. There had been considerable debate during the late-night bull sessions in the academy commons that it had been tantamount to cultural genocide, stripping the Borg of their cybernetic components and performing long, arduous medical procedures on them to allow them to exist as purely organic beings. The resultant beings, confused and in disarray, transformed into individuals for the first time instead of components of a hive intelligence, had been settled on an uninhabited Federation