Coincidences and patterns

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After a weekend spent in near-perfect conditions, it was time to return to the sinful Alderaanian land of the dorm and the droid. Ali, now much more... brave, or relaxed, for short, fluttered off to her room and left me alone. Alone with my forgotten and neglected iron friend.

It took me almost another day of painstaking work to complete all the work and reprogram the droid. Ali had gone off to study, having only glanced in my room, but I didn't hurry to the academy - I was programming. The drivers for the devices were included in the kit, but there were a couple of devices that I created personally, and here I had to sweat. But I coped with the work at a relatively high pace and, having finished the droid completely, switched it on. By then it was already the middle of the day, and we were back early in the morning.

The droid switched on and puffed for a few seconds, examining its carcass, and then finally spoke with its newfangled vocabulator:

- What have you done to me? - It took me an hour, if not more, to find a voice for Erdv. In the end, I settled on a masculine, youthful voice, with a slightly comical sound due to the distortion. So the droid's voice became like a man who'd inhaled helium and was a little electronic at the same time.

- You have no idea what that is, my friend, no idea," I smiled, making the droid think. Or do a self-diagnosis.

And then my iron friend started checking the tool. Instead of welding, he found a blaster, which he almost shot into the wall with, then pulled out his own lightsaber.

- What's that for?

- How? It cuts, welds, heats, you can solder with it if you need to," I shrugged, "look further.

Then the droid twirled his new manipulators and tested the projector. I didn't put a force field on it - it was easier to armour it with metals from hyperdrives, which were still dusting in the cargo hold of the G9, and it was dusting in the car park.

Erdva was an exceptionally interesting droid, and even after modification into a prototype it could become fantastically functional. Such a global modification could be mass-produced, but before that we would have to test it in the field, i.e. in real conditions of ship repair and maintenance. The only problem was that I had no problems with technical inspection - I corrected all defects myself. Well, as corrected - for me to fix some incorrectly working part was like picking up a screwdriver that fell on the floor. Just as naturally, so I didn't notice how on the fly I used to repair the ship. So there was no practice for Erdv - I had to make it up as I went along - forcefully dismantle a few of his old parts, or rather welding and part of the reactor, and send a droid to fix it. I also chose breakages very similar to the real ones, so I didn't doubt the purity of the experiment.

The droid, not yet accustomed to its new limbs, worked as hard as it could, but it didn't work. Then I, watching him, advised:

- Load the drawings into the RAM and connect the computing module to simulate the future process.

- Will that help? - Erdva said in a sad voice.

- It should help.

The droid did so, and before it got to work, it huffed and puffed for maybe five seconds, which is a lot of time for its processing power. But it was getting better - at least his cutting and arc-light welding was much better than his first attempt, and his electronics performance was outstanding.

- Now stand back as far as you can and try to extend the arms to their full length," I asked, and Erdva complied. The length of the arms was exactly the same as his own, i.e. a metre without a cap.

After puffing, the droid coped with it, and I continued to torture him in test mode - forcefully levitated the object of repair - welding machine to the other end of the room, with the words:

- Now pull it to you and repair it.

Erdva fulfilled this request as well - the machine flew across the room and into the droid's tenacious manipulators. Instead of the standard two, there were now three - just like on the droids I'd seen. It's not surprising - two are needed directly in the process of work, and the third can be auxiliary and universal... universal... something clicked in my head and I, having commanded "follow me" immediately rushed in the direction of the local radio market. At the same time I made a vow to attach a socket to the speeder, like on fighter planes - that way it would be possible to dock with the astrodroid system, i.e. to increase its usefulness during normal travelling.

But for now, he had to operate it himself, manually. Braking again at the very wall, I came up for air and ducked into the local analogue of the "hunchback". The salesmen who were steaming me merchandise, I remembered and immediately walked past. The one who sold me the parts for Erdva was not suitable, as I had a rather crazy idea and needed a workshop, it was impossible to realise it in a room. I ran to the third floor, to the one I bought the ship from. An unfriendly but rather professional salesman. His shop was open and I rushed in, startling the salesman.

- Ah, it's you," he said immediately, "welcome, or something....

- Don't try to be friendly, it doesn't suit you," I returned the favour, causing the salesman to smile. - I urgently need a workshop and some parts.

- Wait, wait, what workshop? - He was surprised. Erdwa flew in behind me and landed on the floor.

- To repair the droids. I'll pay for it, of course," I said the obvious thing, "or are you saying that these droids, you made on your knees? - I nodded towards the R2s standing off to the side.

- One of the workshops did it," the salesman shrugged. - But I'm not connected with them.

- What do you mean? - I was surprised, looking into the eyes of the seller.

- It's like this. You're not Alderaanian, are you?

- Suppose I am," I said cautiously.

- If you were Alderaanian, you'd know that a lot of people here are into art.

- I know that," I walked around the display case of ship models and stood in front of the salesman.

- And this equipment is not a mere commodity," he circled his shop, "it's a work of art. Of course, very specific works of art, but still.

- И?.. - I asked a question, demanding a continuation. I don't understand.

- There are several workshops in Aldera that do not just repair, but deal with such specific technical art," he continued, "they treat their creations with great care. You know, they're very particular about their subject matter. I buy from them what they put up for sale and sell it here. Usually there's always a buyer.

- So you're not connected to the workshop? - I was sad. The seller turned out to be a reseller.

- They're pretty closed campaigns, and each workshop has its own problems," the salesman's face was thoughtful. - But you can still go to someone. I can give you the address, and there as you can agree.

- Okay," I agreed silently. - Erdva! Write it down.

The droid came out from behind me and said in human language:

- Give me the address of those vivisectors, boy.

The salesman was a bit surprised - putting a vocabulator in the R2 series is quite difficult, not considering the other modifications. It's hard to screw something not designed for it, and mine only had a fire extinguisher from the stock modifications, the rest was made from spare parts for more powerful droids or from stationary systems, for example, a projector and a computing module.

The salesman dictated an address to the droid, and the droid unfolded a two-metre high, coloured, flat projection of Aldera above him, putting the salesman in a strange state I couldn't quite qualify.

- 'This is here,' the droid highlighted a section on the outskirts of the city, shading the rest of the projection.

- 'Then let's fly. Thank you," I thanked the salesman and immediately set off in the direction of the exit. But I was called out by the salesman:

- "Hey, kid!

- Yes? - I stopped.

- If you have anything, you bring it to me, I'll give you a good price.

- Done, - I smiled and went to the address of the workshop.

The local navigator led me to an analogue of an industrial zone or rather a garage co-operative. It was a small private spaceport - four well pads with ships and a few ground hangars, the whole area was fenced off and there was a secretary droid at the entrance, an analogue of a checkpoint. I had to speak to him:

- Excuse me, are these the workshops? - I asked politely. - I was advised to come here.

- You were not deceived. What is the matter, or who are you here to see? - he asked in a clearly programmed phrase.

- I urgently needed a workshop to modify my droid, so I came to you.

- We don't deal with droid modification orders," the secretary replied.

- I don't need your engineers. I'll modify it myself, but I need a workshop.

- Just a second, I'll check with the management... - the droid fell out of reality for a few seconds, and then still let me inside. Inside, as I said, there was a small area of one hundred by one hundred metres, on which four hangar-wells and three buildings of obviously purely technical purpose were located. I went straight to the main building - they were signed and above the gate were the numbers one, two and three. I reasoned that the administration was most likely located in the first building. But they were not going to carelessly send a stranger to walk on their territory, and halfway there I was intercepted by a man, an Alderaanian in his late teens.

- How do you do? I am Maximilian Bindo, owner of the workshop," he bowed, and I followed suit:

- Anakin Skywalker, student at the Alderaanian Academy.

- It's nice to see that the younger generation is not satisfied with the creations of factories and is interested in technical art," he said politely, looking at Erdv. Bindo wasn't supposed to be in any mood for me and wanted to escort me out, but he was courteous.

- I had modified my Erdv as best I could at home, but now I needed a workshop to continue the work. I would like to ask your permission to do the work," I bowed once more. This time there was interest in the old man's emotions.

- Permission to see what you've been able to do?

- Of course. Erdva, show Maximilian what you've got.

- Aye, Captain! - replied the droid, and under the growing interest Erdva "threw ponts" - demonstrated all his modifications - starting from repulsors and ending with a light arc. It was on the last one that Bindo couldn't stand it:

- What in God's name is that? - he pointed at the blue beam that emerged from the droid's manipulator with a characteristic sound.

- It's an analogue of the lightsaber the Jedi use. It cuts, welds, heats, solders. You can change the width, length, and power of the arc.

- But how? - the old man wondered. - A lightsaber cannot be created by non-Jedi. A subordinate of mine tried something like this fifty years ago, but concluded that it was technically impossible to realise. And as the size decreases, the complexity increases many times over!

- That's true. I'm not a Jedi, but I know some of their tricks," I shrugged. - What do you think of the idea of turning a sword into a universal tool?

- Genius! - The man's emotions were dominated by excitement and contentment. I understand him - sometimes life seems so grey that you want something radically new, in thoughts, emotions, actions ...

- That's not all. Inside you'll find a thirty-two petaflops computational module.

- How much? - judging by my emotions, I had the man in my pocket.

- Thirty-two petaflops. That's from a large G5-series droid, twenty-six petaflops, plus overclocked thanks to the cryonics system to thirty-two.

- And the reactor? Is it powerful enough for such a monster? And there aren't any sockets in the R2 series for such monsters," he hesitated. I commanded the droid:

- Erdva, open the hull, - the droid obediently opened and right on the concrete platform of the spaceport I demonstrated the results of work - cryonics, computing module and reactor for one megawatt. So there is enough power for future modifications.

A standard small flat, like my room, with all the appliances, consumed ten times less power. I really overestimated the droid's reactor power. The standard R2 consumed about five kilowatts of power for its operation - a lot of it was consumed by the electronics, which, as you realise, are much more complex than what we have on earth and consume their power accordingly. Thirty petaflops is normal power for an Earth supercomputer that takes up several rooms and eats power on an industrial scale. Miniaturisation does not mean that the number of processes and therefore the power consumption is reduced, and the cooling system consumes so much that it is frightening. The computational module and its cooling account for ninety-seven per cent of the power consumption, but there was plenty of free power to spare. So I filled Erdva with the softest and lightest fuel that would give maximum life to the reactor and power systems. Three litres of fuel would be enough for twenty years of continuous operation, or fifty years of operation in minimum mode, or five years of operation with frequent use of VMs. That's the arithmetic.

At first glance, it may seem that the reactor is weak - the speederbike has a similar reactor in size, but it produces much more power, but here is the specificity of the technology - for the operation of repulsors requires more power, and not for ordinary, but for high-speed flight. Here everything is tied to gravitational fields - technologies oriented on the use of fields, gravitational, magnetic, force fields, consume a colossal amount of energy. Hyperdrives, repulsors, deflectors, for example, are among those technologies. In this case, the residual principle works here - the main energy is not used to perform the target action, force or electromagnetic disturbances are used, arising during the passage of current through certain metals in a certain sequence. That is, the efficiency of a repulsor or hyperdrive is always at the level of one or two per cent, and the main energy is spent on overcoming the resistance of conductors - in the described cases, these are the circuits and the main block of the hyperdrive, the windings and projectors of repulsors, or the emitters of deflector shields.

I realised this back when I was flying with Julian and researching hyperdrive. The reactors of bikes and speeders constantly needed refuelling and were not designed for constant, non-stop operation, they had a much shorter service life... in short, for the sake of power the designers sacrificed a lot of parameters, which the droids' reactors had at their best.

Closing the droid, I remained silent as Bindo pondered. But later still came away from what he had seen:

- But how can you change the circuitry at home? There are several hundred new elements in there, not counting the socket for the VM.

- I did my best. Besides, I told you I'm not a Jedi, but I can do some tricks.

Bindo was satisfied with the answer, and the workshop doors opened wide for me. The droid workshop was located in the second hangar and was, in my opinion, beautiful. I could see expensive tools, a couple of droid technicians fiddling with their brethren, and a guy in his twenties, maybe a little more, who was looking at me with interest as I came in with Bindo. The old man spoke:

- Lin, there's a newcomer here to sit with you, okay?

- What, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, chief, come here," the named one looked at me. - Come on, don't be shy, mate.

Lin had some kind of device on his head, a visor, apparently.

The chief left, and I went into the workshop. It smelled of spilled reactor fuel, oil and burnt iron, and there were parts and tools everywhere I looked. Lin slid his visor to the back of his head and, after wiping his hands with a rag, extended his hand to me. A handshake is customary on Alderaan, but not as an element of protocol - too informal.

- I'm Lin Riekan, local technician. You come in, what's your name? What's this, R2? - Lin said in a raspy voice. I even thought for a second that he was on some amphetamines, but I noticed a cup of coffee in the corner of his desk. Yes, it wasn't the same coffee that grew on Earth, but caffeine as a biochemical element was present in other, very similar in taste and colour plants on some worlds in the galaxy, so I named fifty different drinks similar to Earth's with that word.

- Anakin Skywalker. Nice to meet you," I said, shaking his firm hand. So, it was very conventional, but we were related - my mother's husband, my stepfather, a bastard of the Riekan family.

- Come on, make yourself comfortable, there aren't many people here, I'm usually the only one who hangs out.

- While I was looking around the workshop, he was giving me a tour of his fiefdom. At the end of the tour, I found what I needed - test chambers for repulsors and a universal reactor. I also needed some lab instruments that were here. Everything was perfect!

Lin, having finally spoken, sipped some more of the elixir of vigour from his mug and began to ask me about life.

- Are you one of our people? You know, Alderaanian?

- No, I'm not. I'm just a student here at the academy. I passed my second year exam, so I'm relatively free," I smiled. - You know, I have a yacht and it needs droids, so I'm making a prototype of a future droid. From my R2. Erdva's a very iron friend of mine. His personality is kind of unusual. I built my first droid five years ago, C3PO, to help my mum.

- Cool! - Lin smiled surprisingly sincerely. - That's something to remember. I built my first one when I was fourteen. I tried before that, but it was rubbish.

- It happens," I shrugged and asked myself:

- Are you related to the noble house of Riekan?

- Well, sort of. My grandfather doesn't like me. And I don't like intrigues, scandals and politics in general. This is my home," he circled his arm, showing the first-class workshop around him.

- So technology is closer? - I smirked.

- Exactly. I even ran away from home at fifteen when they tried to marry me off for political reasons. All right, boy, I won't burden you with my problems.

- Why not? It's very interesting, but I think we'll talk about it some other time.

- Yeah, yeah, right, I've got work to do," he returned to the dismantled droid and continued his business. So much for talking.

Was our meeting a coincidence? I'm not sure, but it's the will of the force. Deciding not to be surprised by the coincidence, I left with Erdva to the stands and workbenches.

My idea was as simple as chintz pants and yet as complex as the invention of the hyperdrive.

Erdva, when repairing, was guided by plans and diagrams of parts, as well as information from video sensors. In the dormitory, I suggested that he should not do the work as it was designed, but first use his gigantic computational capabilities to model the process of tool action on the part, and work out the most rational way of action, i.e. repair, based on the modelling. That is, to simulate the process of different types of impact and choose the most rational one, to conduct a virtual experiment together with predictions of the results of these or those actions. The result of my reflections - the case can be taken to a completely different level! Completely different, if Erdva can not only read blueprints and do everything according to the instructions, but also virtually simulate the situation himself and see what exactly and how it will be as a result of his work. For example, when repairing an interrupted electrical circuit, a normal droid will strictly follow the instructions - it will solder the place of breakage and insulate the bare section of wire. This is, say, an ordinary reactor-transformer-switch-consumer electrical circuit. If Erdva is able to carry out modelling, i.e. calculate the circuit, current, resistance of conductors, action of various circuit elements in his electronic brain, then he, the droid, will be able to understand on his own, without any hints, drawings and software instructions, using logic, how the circuit should work, how it works, and what exactly needs to be changed.

Now there is no such thing - the droid is loaded with information on breakdowns, and they repair, drawing detailed instructions on the use of their tools from special databases. They, these databases, contain all the information on nodes and units of ships and they are constantly updated in connection with updating the model range.

This discovery made a revolution in the creation of electronic engineer, because he became his own engineer, repairer, and could make decisions on the basis of computer modelling, about these or those actions. From the outside it may look like he is making decisions himself - from the inside it should look like scanning a node, determining current processes, modelling normal operation and comparing it to what he sees with scanners. In this way, the droid can be taught to independently detect a defect in a part it may have never seen before, and has no information about it in databases. It can independently choose a repair method, and optimise all stages of the process on its own - simply based on the results of modelling rather than database access. The process of repairing units and assemblies is prescribed accurately enough only for the most common parts and their breakdowns - any complex defect or rare damage can drive the droid into a stupor, as it will not be able to determine on its own what exactly needs to be changed to make it work. In the best case - it will turn to databases for more general instructions or will take up repairing parts, the order of importance of which is the highest.

But to realise my idea, I will need all the art of metal management that I am capable of and I am not sure that I can make the scanner correctly.

The essence of the idea is this: a scanner based on multiple fields that interact with each other and with matter, pass through matter and send a response to the receiver. This effect has been known since the first hyperdrives - the disturbances they create are much larger than their ship and the fields generated by the hyperdrive give a response to some sensors. But first, I would need to do a lot of experiments to create the fields and record the responses to them.

I decided to start with theoretical calculations and having opened the CAD at Erdv's, I immediately caught Lin's attention:

- A new projector?

- Yep. Two metre image.

- Holy shit. Where'd you get it?

- Local market. You know, the one north of town.

- Do they have projectors for R2?

- They only have stock ones. This one's from a communications droid. But it works great.

That was the end of the conversation, and I started calculating the field emitter coefficients. Judging by even rough calculations, I needed a projector like a torch that would create fields around itself. A cylindrical shape was chosen for this purpose. The intensity of the field depended on the amount of winding. The winding metal had to include more than just the standard set of hyperdrive metals. During my work as a flight mechanic, I had a good practical knowledge of metals and the fields they create, so I simply made up a set that created a field of a certain energy that travelled well through most construction materials. Neuranium was the only one it couldn't handle. Outside the workshop gates, evening came and then night fell, but I didn't stop, sitting in front of Erdva and adding more and more elements to the designed structure. It was intuition that was most valuable in designing - some seemingly correct solutions made my intuition howl and were postponed. Others conversely, something told me it was a good decision. Lin finished his work for the day and turned to me:

- Are you going to stay here? It's midnight already.

- How much? - I was surprised.

- Midnight, I tell you. Don't stay out too late.

- Yes, yes, I'll come back tomorrow and continue my work," I said, and immediately, wrapping up the results of my work, I left the workshop. Lin and I left on our speeders in different directions. I - to the dormitory.

I started to work directly on the wunderwaffle-scanner in the middle of the next day.

Intuition and my ability to forge metal as I wanted, allowed me to do in a day what others would have taken weeks of work - just to create the right wire or plate, with the right metal structure, usually have to resort to factory work, melting, forging, and other delights of life. And what's in it for me - pop, pop, there's a part ready.

I brought the G9 transport all of it, because it contained about ten tonnes of various valuable metals, and I had nothing else to transport them on. Bindo looked through his fingers at the new ship next to the hangar and didn't pay much attention to it when he greeted me.

After telekinesis transferring the metals to the workshop, I sat down in the corner and, with Erdva's assistance, began to smelt the parts I needed. Erdva showed me the blueprints of the parts, and I immediately produced them - for example, about three hundred metres of wire, about one hundred micrometres thick, the thickness of a human hair. Also about twenty layers of foil made of an alloy of ultrachromium and carbonite. Topping off the construction were two layers of insulation - a wire of neuranium, wound on a foil of ultrachrome, also with flecks of neuranium. This insulation will allow to reflect the radiation and direct it not in all directions from the emitter, but in a narrow stream towards the scanned object. I had an idea to make a movable part of the screens so that the droid could change the thickness of the scanning field, but in order to save time and effort I decided not to hurry and make a permanent scanner with rigidly set field parameters.

After six hours of work, the scanner was ready. It looked like... well, like a steel dildo. Don't laugh, it did look like a sex shop product, but it had a different purpose.

After screwing the scanner wires to the scanner I finally got to the main part of the piece, the receiver. The receiver, in fact, was similar to a digital matrix from a video sensor, only instead of photocells, it had to have elements that change their parameters based on the reflection of the force field radiation hitting them. Such metal was very fragile, but nevertheless used in alloys, carvanium. Usually in its pure form it was considered absolutely useless and was used only as a sensor of force fields, as it resonated with some of them. The parameters of the emitter created by me correspond most precisely to the parameters for resonance with carvanium matrix. One difference - photocells created electrons by themselves when light hit them, and here it was necessary to bring contact to each element, but in the end it turned out the same as in the reaction of the photocell.

You can't break it, you can't build it. That was my reasoning and I dismantled the video sensor of an old droid I'd found in a junkyard workshop. The video sensor was a rather old model, but its resolution was more than enough for my purposes.

It took me another hour to replace all the photocells on the sensor with microscopic plates. Carvanium, when exposed to a force field of a certain frequency, changes its resistance parameters. In this case the scheme of the video sensor suited me better than anything else - on one side we supply each microplate with a certain, very small, but constant electric current, and at the same time on the other side there is a second contact from the plate, the output contact. The field is reflected from any element, on which it falls, depending on its intensity, can overcome both the top layer and thick overlaps and cases of separate assemblies. And then, the reflected signal, like light. It falls, but not on the lens of the video sensor, but on the focusing rings. Yes, exactly the rings, which emit under voltage the simplest electromagnetic field and other fields, after passing through the focusing rings, change the scale of the picture, but do not change in their structure. The system from a conventional video sensor, after modification, fitted perfectly.

The sensor was created and shielded from radiation from the wrong side, and then inserted into the space provided.

Finishing touches like installing and testing the electronic parts took another couple of hours. In the end I just connected the instrument to one of the terminals via the universal interface and, running a program analogue to the webcam software, took some test shots. The pictures turned out to be... let's say, rather skewed, but I could see through them. You could see!

The joy when something you designed and built yourself works is probably the only thing that keeps a designer alive - it's a really great feeling. Of course, I had to fix the defect in the focusers once again, but still, I ended up with a technique scanner that can give an image with an accuracy of one micrometre and can be used to analyse any technique. The first test subject was a droid I found that wasn't working. Layer by layer the scanner took an image of it, then combined the resulting slices into a single image. The result was a first-class three-dimensional schematic of the droid - down to the smallest details. There were smaller ones, but they weren't repairable by the astrodroids.

It was time to give this wunderwaffle to my iron friend. Plugging the scanner into a free tool slot, I fired up the droid. There's still a lot of work to be done before he can really learn to analyse the tech. Not for me, for him.

Erdva, having received a new toy in his manipulators, immediately went to use it. I only directed his activity in the right direction:

- Erdva, first of all, scan something with the new scanner and create a drawing-projection.

- Why?

- I want to see what happens.

- Okay. What are we scanning?

I've directed him to the repulsor scanner. Erdva drove up to it and started running the scanner along the parts. After a few minutes he finished and a projection of the machine appeared above his dome - quite accurate.

- Now switch off the link to the repair databases and start analysing.

- What kind of analysis? - The droid asked.

- What kind of analysis? Analysing the design you scanned. Download programmes from the net, maybe even paid ones. Take money from this card..." I handed the droid my credit card. Erdva was silent, but like a small ATM, accepted the credit card into the appropriate slot. Five minutes later the credit card was returned to me and the droid reported:

- I've downloaded a program to simulate physical processes and five more programs for different types of analysis of the system's operation.

- Here, start working. You'll be able to determine where what elements are by downloading schematics of the machine from the net, so just make a virtual schematic.

- Will do, Captain! - bravely answered the droid and hummed the VM cooling system.

The work was finished and I left my contact information to Lin and left the workshop back to the dorm. And there my studies were waiting for me. The third-year curriculum was already in the droid, and I decided not to put things off and while Erdva was learning to analyse schematics, I went to study. Not right away, though, so I stopped by Ali's place once more to start. But without intimacy - at our age the need for it is not so high. A little later the most "heat" will begin, but by that time I will not have any problems.

Talking to Ali, I was convinced once again that my girlfriend is a miracle, because it would be almost impossible to find such a naturally kind and not naive girl among people. And Miralukes manage to combine these two qualities without any problems for themselves.

A new period of hyperlearning began, during which I just fell out of life and did not notice how the days, weeks, months flew by....