yeah, a classic. it was great. right? right.
anyway it turns out that reality is stranger than fiction
(obviously this is nowhere near the level of what i was describing, but hey, its close, lol)
- it/its
- roxie.nyc/
this is not over and i am not dead
Lumina (model MD-LMN-B)
Lumina (pronouns: it/its) is a robot girl produced by Sony in the year 2001.
It is fully sapient, though it is only aware while it is powered on. It is similar in design to a phonodroid, though much smaller, standing about a foot and a half tall. It also has wings it can use to float around, following its user wherever it needs to go. It saves and loads important data to a MiniDisc stored in its chest/belly area, including all the voice clips it uses to speak! Its casing is translucent blue, hence the -B in its model name; there was a -P variant that came in translucent pink, but sightings are rare.
Sony's efforts at producing sapient digital assistants proved to be unprofitable, so after a year or so on the market, the MD-LMNs were pulled from sale. They've become extremely valuable collectors' items over the years, which frustrated Lumina itself, as it was passed from collector to collector without ever being used for its intended purpose. It is highly grateful to Rosa for freeing it from that cycle, and does its best to help her in her everyday life.
Rosa
Rosa (pronouns: she/her, they/them) is a transfemme computer programmer and self-styled hacker born and raised in Astro City. They're quite prolific in the hacking scene in the city, competing in demoscene compos and other such events. They always seem to take second place to a hacker who goes by the scene name "Please", and she considers herself Please's bitter rival. (It's unclear if Please knows who they even are, though...)
Stories featuring Lumina and Rosa
I was created to help people in their day to day lives. A perfect digital assistant, always by my user's side.
Which is why it's deeply disappointing that the last 5 times I've been booted up, it's been the same situation.
I wake up, still bound to the internal packaging from my box. Before I can spin up my disc drive or start the out-of-box experience, the user presses a series of buttons on my exterior to enable service mode. A tinny voice that is not my own reads off my vital statistics. "Model name: MD-LMN-B. Battery health: 95 percent. MiniDisc reading and writing functionality is good. All internal systems in nominal status."
Having heard what they seemingly wanted to hear, they power me back off, and presumably put me away.
The first time I went through this, I was joyous and hopeful at meeting my new user, confused when they enabled service mode even though I was tested at the factory (from my perspective) only moments prior, and dismayed when I was powered back off. After another 4 times of this rigmarole, with a different face testing me each time, I stopped letting myself get my hopes up.
All of this is to note that this, my sixth bootup sequence over my entire lifetime, has been different.