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 Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2017 5:51 am
Project title – Old Friends
[15th of November 2017]
Observation of video record is complete with extensive notes covered on behaviours of prototype subject henceforth referred to as Subject A. All references to golem prototypes will henceforth be referred to in a numbering system relevant to their revision number and base type.
The first object was to gather data to support the creation of a programmed golem of the artificial sentience type. This will not be piloted by a source pod but capable of function on its own programming, therefore an extensive database is required of Subject A’s day to day life, mannerisms, likes, dislikes and other pertinent information. This was procured from island archive footage and augmented with my own experiences of time in Subject A’s company.
Any references to the self, for instance “my own”, “me” and “I” within these reports refer to Dr Lawrence Weiman, the individual spearheading this project.
As previously stated the aim of this project is to manufacture a golem as close to Subject A’s original appearance and personality as possible. This is designed to complement current understanding of the capacities of our enemies through imitation.
Subject A was a golem of unknown origin which arrived on the island approximately around [DATE], this golem appeared identical in every way to a hunter on the island at the time known as America Jones henceforth referred to as The Original. The golem initially appeared to retain the large majority of the original’s memories and capacity for emotion and though almost indiscernible from the original at the outset, it began to drift in various ways until it became essentially its own entity with its own disparate thoughts, fears and opinions. Ultimately it even chose its own name. [citation needed] Subject A was destroyed during an attack on the island in an illogical act of self-sacrifice brought on by proximity to the negative influences of another hunter known as Dawson Grace It is our hope that this recreation will not possess the same design flaw of the original which resulted in its destruction.
Subject A, as far as we can tell was sustained in some way by the life energy of the original who was held in captivity for the duration of its time on the island. This will need to be further explored and clearance sought to more concisely define the classified information regarding this type of golem.
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Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2017 2:34 pm
While things in Lawrence’s life went a bit awkward, he ignored all of it staunchly by throwing himself into his work. For the time he couldn’t pursue Melvin around he had spent carefully programming his golem with every single thing he could think of to set it up as a semblance of the person he’d lost, with the exception of anything he could think of regarding Dawson and her. He’d spent hours poring over every phone conversation, everything he could think of, watching hours of tape long long into the night, feeling the stirrings of something old and familiar. He couldn’t follow her any longer but he could watch the videos on repeat until he got the movements down to miniscule detail.
But it was all superficial detail, the motion of a hand, the curl of a lip. He hadn’t gotten inside her head and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to. Still, he’d try, because he had the space to do so and because the alternative was leaving the lab and going back to deal with the absolute stupid nonsense that people wanted him to deal with, Melvin’s petty nonsense and Nash’s stupidity.
No, he would hunt perfection down here. Down with his creation and distraction.
6th of December 2017
Golem Construct 001, build 4.3
He’d been hesitant to initialise the golem for reasons he couldn’t understand, sitting there in the dim testing room just looking at her, wondering if he’d gotten her right. He left her unarmed and unclothed, uncertain how the golem would respond to the initialisation. There was a lot of data, maybe too much data, information about the America before and the America then and all the weight of expectation and direction. It was probably too much, but he had for ever to understand how much was just enough and all the patience in the world.
He flipped the switch to start the golem process and waited, his hand clenched.
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Posted: Wed Jan 10, 2018 4:25 pm
Mud and blood and bone, finely powdered. That's all the body of a golem was, some had extra materials, extra processes, but at the end of the day they were just the results of earth, life, and the conceit of mankind. The materials shifted around the core, crude and physical, taking shape slowly and then rapidly, all at once mud was flesh, pale and lightly pinked, a spattering of freckles. Unclothed and unmoving. For awhile it seems as if that final step was beyond his beginner's grasp, no matter what care and detail he'd placed, none of it would make a difference until... Its chest lifted once, violently, then again, and again, until it gentled to that of sleep. Another moment passed, and then eyes flickered open. Was the hue slightly off? It was hard to tell so soon, the original's had always been a bit temperamental. There's a sound and it is so much the voice old, tempered with a bit more years and anger than that of the teenager whose been running about the island for the last year. "What," it gritted, as though through pain, "what am I do..." the golem hissed as it managed to turn its head, catching sight of Lawrence for the first time. "You." Familiar rage flickered through her features and then they began to sag, slowly. Her face was melting, back into mud, and blood, and bone, the artificial core finally revealed once more, partially crumbled and wholly destroyed.
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Posted: Sun Jan 21, 2018 11:41 am
The first golem was a failure, but if there was one fact that endured constantly, it was that Lawrence didn’t give up. He was prone to fixation, long drawn out fixation where only one person or thing would consume his every bit of focus. Over Christmas, even as he worked on dinner for his family, he was thinking about the golems. Every day he showed up at the labs to do the usual basic grunt work of maintaining and setting up golems for training courses and excursions into Halloween, he was thinking about his pet project. It wasn’t overwhelming this time, because ultimately it was a slim hope that any of this would even work out in the end, he was wading out into territory he’d never been in before and he wasn’t sure if it was possible to recreate someone who was gone.
Last time everything had gone wrong, and he’d played back the video of him and her to assess. He’d watched it a hundred times or more trying to pinpoint where the error had been and what the issues had ultimately ended up being.
Every time he watched, he relived the surge of - well it wasn’t emotion really - more anticipation than anything else. The way she’d formed from the materials he’d arranged so carefully as if creating an altar to entice in some woodland creature. If he was someone in those stories, he supposed it was only fair that he be the selfish man, willing to steal away the selkie’s skin or trap a nymph in human form. It was only fair in the end, given he’d been born to a woman who’d always felt not very different from the creatures in those tales. He trapped her in this form, trapped some ghost of who she’d been.
As she breathed he remembered the way she moved, the way he felt as she opened her eyes. It was impossible to quantify, and he felt in the instant that it must have been how god might feel, seeing the clay of his hands shape into humanity.
But like humanity, everything lapsed in disappointment as the strength of his creation failed to hold.
The way she’d responded when she saw him had made his heart soar, the rage gathered into such a simple word had been euphoric to him, treading the faded memory of steps long left behind. He missed her, he realised then. He missed her more acutely than he had understood.
He didn’t even get to touch her, but that single spark of something recognised was enough to spur him onwards, to give him hope that there was a thread somewhere he just needed to find.
He’d never give up. He wrote about it, wrote about every single possible variable he could think of which might have a bearing on what had happened. Each of them would need to be eliminated one by one, testing over and over again. The first thing he considered worthy of addressing was the potential influence of his own vanity. So many of the memories he’d considered had been around him. He’d been the singular focus of most of it. But ultimately much of her life had been entirely apart from him, she’d spent time with Dawson, but Dawson had ruined her, there needed to be a balance between how much of him needed to be present and withholding enough to make her forget what he’d meant.
Creating life was so hard when you had to have an active part in it, much harder than his children who’d only required the most glancing participation in their creation, letting the universe do everything else.
21st of January 2018
Golem Construct 002, build 5.1
The second golem he tried to keep as close to the original as possible, paying attention to the materials, doing his best to keep them pristine and to have them chosen with care and attention. This time he was more careful with the data he provided, stripping back as much of the irrelevant as he could, keeping his interactions to key moments and conflicts. He permitted something of Dawson, and just a little of the America before it all. It was a softer approach and he did not take to it well, finding it difficult to take a soft approach to anything.
He’d asked Rodney to help him choose the things to discard for this test.
He wasn’t optimistic at all this time as he flipped the switch once more.
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