Toy Wars (2 page)

The Factories immediately discovered their first problem
—
the plans to their robots were destroyed or partially destroyed.
In place of the corrupted files lived the production files of toys.
Not that they knew what a toy was, but they were not the standard mining or control type robots.
These new forms also proved to be totally unsuitable to the environment.
Most of the new forms didn’t even have motile functions.
The Factories had to adapt,
but
being semi-sentient and well programmed for independ
ent thought, this didn’t pose, for most, an insurmountable
problem.

The Factories took the portions of the robot data
that
had not been corrupted and merged them with the new intrusive toy data.
As most of the toys were flexible in capability, it mostly worked.

Only 55471 failed to make the imaginative leap and continued producing only non-motile stuffed bunny rabbits until it ran out of raw materials, power, and
then
a will to continue.
It self-destructed its memory core.

All the other
F
actories were already producing robots.
But here divergence set in.
Each Factory took a different solution to its individual problems.
The solutions were varied and adapted to the terrain and ease of material availability.
Each
F
actor
y
began churning out
the
equipment it needed to be successful in its mission.
Mining robots took the form of Teddy
B
ears, gophers, toy bulldozers, toy dump trucks, and backhoes (still bearing the manufacturers
’
original labels or even the toy company’s logo displayed prominently on their sides).
The Factories created transport systems.
Some made them in the form of a large-gauge toy railroad, but at least one had a fleet of remote
-
controlled racecars
and trucks
.
For survey/scouting vehicles
,
most went the way of gasoline
-
powered toy planes or helicopters.
Factory
55466 used multicolored balloons filled with helium carrying disposable payloads.

The real diversity, though, lay in the choice of control, or warrior units
—
small toy tanks with real explosive projectile weapons, slightly scaled up plastic infantry men carrying real weapons, kamikaze bomb-carrying dress-up dolls, Teddy
B
ears with machine guns, and even giraffe snipers.

It has to be stressed that these initial units were crude and possessed no initiative at all.
If a unit lost contact with its Factory it would continue doing what it had been ordered to do until it lost that ability as well. At this stage of evolution the Factories were each one entity with multiple disposable bodies to control
—
similar to an ant colony.

Initially there was little need for the combat units, and very few were built, as there was little nearby local fauna to require such a force.
This changed abruptly as the first warriors of the now four Factories began meeting each other and fighting for control of the planet.
The first such clash began when 55466’s tracked tanks met the baby-doll infantry of 55474 at L+320d14h (320 days,
fourteen
hours after landing).
Both sides
annihilated each other
in an inconclusive battle.
The other two
F
actor
ies similar
ly
clashe
d
within days.
Now each of the
F
actor
ies knew
the
native life forms
fought back quite successfully
.

Each of the factories
adapted.
They changed priorities
,
rolling
h
undreds of tanks,
B
aby
D
oll infantrymen, scout planes, and other mil
itary weapons
off their production lines.
Guard units
were
posted on key
transportation
intersections and garrisons built to aid defense.
C
ombat units were immediately allocated as hunter/killer squads.
The Toy Wars had truly begun.

Low intensity skirmishes of squad size defined
L+1y and L+2y
as the
numbers of
units available to fight were small.
As combat populations grew, so did the conflicts until hundreds and sometimes even thousands
of units fought
for a goal none of them could reach without destroying
one another
.

Factories began to notice that they would have many units destroyed just by losing contact
.
Several networks arose to deal with this unacceptable situation.
The nets
,
all-purpose control system that carried power, instructions,
and
requests for information
,
grew rapidly along transportation lanes
.
The multiple nets were segregated into two forms, the WAN, or
w
ide
a
rea
n
et, and the
LAN
, or
l
ocal
a
rea
n
et.

Each Factory generated a
WAN on a very powerful carrier wave.
The WAN flowed through immobile devices called
n
et
c
oncentrators (NCs)
that
rebroadcast information or commands to far units.
The WAN
also acted as the
primary source of power for almost all units.

Local control units similar to the NCs generated the
LAN
that gave specific commands to each of the robots.
These LANs dealt mainly with local issues
,
such as quickly identifying friend and foe.
The
LAN
didn’t bother or interfere with the WAN in any way.

These networks helped but
continued to be insufficient
.
Even in the early days of small-scale combat, Darwinian selection set in.
The Factories experimented with different designs based on the toys and robots they still had.
Each make and model underwent often destructive field experience, sometimes within mere hours
of activation
being
thrown into a nearby combat.
Using probability studies, each
F
actory learned quickly which of their units fared well in combat, in what terrain, and
under
wh
ich
conditions.
Those units that didn’t make the cut in the field were firmly snubbed from production.
Toy Wars shaped quickly into a battle of
statistical mathematics
rather
than
strictly
the destruction of metal and machines.

Over
ten
years, the conflicts escalated.
Each of the
F
actories, again backed by rigorous mathematics, determined that a larger initial military expenditure would bring the local fauna under control that much sooner and thus would save resources
in the long run
.
The
impeccable
logic
fell flat because the “local fauna” it fought didn’t breed
.
Factories produc
ed an ever
-
increasing panoply of
war materials escalating
the conflict
to greater heights.
Competition became
even more
intensely fierce.

Each of the
F
actories tried special permutations to bring better units to the battlegrounds
—
built-in cannons, flame throwers, kamikaze scout planes with explosive payloads (the first crude missile on Rigel-3), and even mobile walking bombs in the shape of dress-up dolls.
A number of them worked well, but most failed miserably.
A classic example of a failed design came from 55467.
A flame-thrower was built around the outward form of a purple stuffed elephant.
This was just a modification of having a large caliber weapon in the chest of the otherwise fluffy war machine.
The fur ignited before the unit even got off the prototyping line.
It took most of 55467’s fire suppression units to quell the stuffed elephant’s exploding fuel cells.

Of all the Factories that still remained, 55466 (known as Six) had the most difficulty.
Its initial location was not as rich in minerals
and
resources, nor as easily defensible as the other three viable
F
actories.
Six was slowly losing ground to the local fauna, and its calculations showed that in less than two years
’
time its outer defenses would crumble.
The local fauna would run rampant, denying it control of the planet.
It would have failed its primary mission.

Six made a huge gamble to put a larger quantity of material and effort into researching better robots.
Soon Six began fielding units with semi-autonomous functionality.
Even if it lost control, they could make decisions that would allow them to continue to function.
Thus was born the third net, the
SAN
, or
s
pecific
a
rea
n
etwork.

The
SAN
was developed by the autonomous robots as a net that allowed units to converse directly to one another.
This happened as sentience and self-directing capabilities
grew in
each robot.
They began to work as a team.

Six certainly could
measure
the success
of
these units.
Within five months
,
Six’s boundaries firm
ed
and
started
expanding.
The other three Factories learn
ed
how effective these autonomous fauna were and began shaping their productions to do similar things.

Shortly, Six found
its
boundaries tightening again.
It was time for another desperate chance.
It used some of the local unclassified metals to produce an all-purpose control robot, with the highest level of self-direction it could construct and fill
ed
with the most information it would accept.

The chain of events that started with Janeen Fox and the Expansionist
c
oalition had now come to fruition
—
but in a way neither had ever expected.
True sentience and intelligence had been achieved.

Let there be life; and it was fuzzy.

Juvenile

A
fter
my
u
neventful manufacturing process, I woke up
.
Where was I before that sleep?
I
didn’
t remember deactivating my cognitive process
. M
y memory sump revealed no memories
that predated that moment.
Life must begin and end somewhere, just as a line must have two points that define its position in the universe.
My line started
when I awoke
.

My memor
ies
show only a notation of my origin.
“Activation occurs, L+13y224d1h0s.
Internal clock set to M+0.
Awaiting command from Factory 55466.”

“Stand
by for shape and color recognition patterns,” came the intense voice of the Factory itself
,
both auditory and over the net.
The voice vibrated deeply from the very walls of the
3
-
meter
-
high chamber
as the voice over the electronic network
mimicked
it
in tone and timbre.
A large video display in front of me carried the image of my body being laser
-
scanned from the top of my big saucer-shaped ears down to the bottom of my
broad
,
flat
feet.

“Basic unit makeup includes a height of
2.1
meters, a mass of
136
kilogr
ams, and a base color of purple,” Factory Six
said
. “
Pattern recognition marking includes belly color of white
,
and fur mottling of
b
lue diagonally over left foot.
Unit make is prototype S12 with serial number 1 of series
T
eddy
B
ear,”
announced
my benefactor and creator.
“
A
ssault weapon
M16A
and
.45
caliber long slide pistol are standard issue with eight clips of ammunition for each weapon.
Additional
ly
,
S12-1 to be equipped with one plastic expandable canteen, two sticks black and green paintsticks, combat knife, and gun cleaning kit.”
A tightly woven olive green backpack came out of the nearby wall and was placed over my shoulders
,
and a
n assault rifle was thrust into my hands.
Another mechanical arm came and thrust a
chromed
automatic pistol into a holster belt around my waist.

My right hand automatically snapped the holster closed.
“Basic load accepted,” I said, openin
g my mouth for the first time.
I must have sat there for some time examining myself, twisting my thick arms and flexing my fingers.
I jumped to the floor
,
my legs out at a natural and comfortable wide angle.
All s
o new, yet so known and understood.

“You are Teddy 1499,” the Factory decreed in a booming voice that again shook the room.
I
was
awestruck by its power.

“I am Teddy 1499.”
It felt peculiar to be moving, talking
,
and thinking.
At the time
I couldn’t even describe it adequately
,
even
to myself.
It
w
as
as
if I knew how to do everything because of some distant dream.
All my experiences and memories
flowed across my mind as
still photos in grays and umbers when suddenly, by
performing
an action, it was full of color
and
life
,
and no longer shrouded in opacity.

I knew
Six would give me more
information as I didn’t yet have a purpose.
I felt hollow, like I wasn’t
—
like I didn’t
quite
exist.
I looked around for something to fill that hollow.
 

Machinery, tools, and dozens of mechanical arms all work
ed
on different projects
making the construction space appear much smaller than its true cavern
-
like dimensions. T
wo of my
fellow
units
l
a
y on the table with their legs off at the hip joint.
My sump and processor provided the descriptive
T
eddy
B
ear
.
From the images I observed during my manufacture I was a
T
eddy
B
ear.
Each
of us
had two thick
,
cylindrical arms that stuck almost straight out to
our
sides sporting manipulative hands with five short
,
stubby fingers.
L
arge circular ears stuck well above the height of the head.
Each wore a
dark black nose on
a
snout
that held an almost comical grin
underneath
.

One
of my fellows sported
vivid orange
fur
with blue spots and the other was pure green.
Several robotic arms reached in
,
attempting to connect a
pair of tank-like tracks
to the green bear’s torso in lieu of its discarded legs, 4 meters away
.
To my relief,
the green unit
was deactivated
during
the
maiming procedure.

All
that
time I remember
hoping
the Humans would give me a worthy mission.
I was so inexperienced back then.
I still believed in the Humans: creators of
T
he Factory and the
m
aster
p
rogramming.

“
Sector Alpha-4 compromised.
Your mission is to take command of units in
S
ector Alpha-4
and stabilize the situation
,” Six said over the network
,
emphasizing with the same verbal commands. “
Pursue and destroy any local fauna.
Ensure a strong defense line.”
Epiphany! My
simple task would prove my ultimate worth to Factory 55466.

Alpha-4 maps sprung to my mind like a memory of a memory.
“I will be victorious,” I said confidently to Six.
My
sump held
databases
of
tactical and strategic information dealing with commanding forces, deployment of resources, acceptable loss ratios, and decisions of great
Human
commanders (Alexander the Great, Hitler, Napoleon, Stalin, Kin Su, Admiral Hornblower
,
and more) in victories and defeat.
I would fulfill my mission in their image, for Six’s
pleasure and the glory of the Humans
.

“Complete your mission, Teddy 1499.”

“Affirmative
,
”
I repl
ied
as I
marched
proudly out of the Factory
dome
to the train station outside.

My first look around didn’t surprise me as my long-term memories
of m
ore of the gray picture filled in with pigment and motion.
Dominating the view
,
a 10.2
-
meter
crimson weeping-fly tree sway
ed
heavily in a stiff breeze only
43
meters from the main audience chamber of the Factory.
A
12
-
centimeter
-
gauge train, painted black and bearing “PACIFIC NORTHWESTERN” in yellow across both sides,
waited
for a crowding throng
of units
to board.

Furious activity flow
ed
all around me.
A squad of
elephants,
150
centimeters
tall
and sporting
brilliant multicolored fur, marched past in perfect time,
sh
aking the ground with every footfall.
Three
Tami
dress-up dolls, their
20-
centimeter
-
bodies nothing more than molded plastic explosives, walked by with exaggerated caution.
Eight tiny
Tommy Tank
s, in standard gunmetal
gray, rolled past my feet.
An
8
-meter
-
long python slithered directly behind me
past the station and
joined up with two drab brown gophers. The trio meandered
off into the foothills toward the mines
.
Two roadrunner birds, with their big saucer-like eyes, raced past on unfathomable errands.
I caught
a
glimpse of three bright-green balloon units launching into the sky.
I gawked at the chaos
around me
.

The countryside seemed equally busy.
Brilliant red light from the sun
bathed
the landscape
,
washing out nearly
any other color
that
dared to rear its head
—
my own purple got scrubbed to an almost burnt cinnamon.
The entire area looked as if someone had upended a can of wet
crimson
paint over everything.
Even those plants that attempted to make use of chlorophyll
wore a
scarlet
cloak
.
Brick
-
red, rose, carmine, maroon, and ruby were just some of the pleasing variations on the shades.
This was home.

Six’s units scurried all over the mountainous valley on missions
instilled
into them by Six and decreed
by our creators
,
the Humans.
A solitary dump truck
, a mere 40
centimeters
high,
carried an unidentifiable cargo toward the smelting plant.
A trio of plastic
-
bodied spiders
scuttled
off toward the eastern horizon.
The activities spilled all over the lowland in
a frantic, almost artistic
display of randomness.

Dozens of kilometers to the north
,
three mountain peaks
so
nearly matched the shape of
the
Factory’s triple redundant
net controller (NC)
towers that it made me wonder about the Humans and what they knew about that marvelous place.
The bright silver of the
Central
River
rushed by
,
only o
ccasionally
sending off a spray of liquid metal
in its haste to be over a particularly large rock
.
M
ercury globules land
ed
on the ground nearby, coalescing to roll back into the river as if the components had never been parted.

I spent some time looking at the creature that had given me birth.
A huge mottled pink dome
200
meters across and
80
high sat among several ancillary buildings
within
a
field of tall red and white hor clover.
A
r
i
sing
helix of
dense
black and blue smoke
distinguished
the
Factory’s
squat brown
smelting plant.
Six’s power plant, a nuclear reactor, blocked the entire view to the west, with pipes and miscellaneous equipment sticking out, giving it the appearance of a toddler’s
T
inkertoy creation.