Foreword
I have an extended universe that I've been developing for years now, with many characters, worlds, factions, stories, and more. I've never really shared much of this universe, except for occasional characters I'll post with short descriptions. This "Aetherum Empire Logs" writing series is something I want to start as an excuse to info dump things I've worked on. They will be presented in a format of sophisticated documents as written by researchers and scientists of the Aetherum Empire.
The Aetherum Empire itself is of course, the obligatory galactic empire of my sci-fi universe.
The News Post on my profile to easily access all other logs on this thread, since news posts are editable indefinitely: https://azeleon.newgrounds.com/news/post/1275992
Without further ado, here's the first log of this series, based on this character:
Document XEE1b7-19a "LAIR - Liquid Artificial Intelligence Robot - Lazarus" Document written by Dr. Rysal Bortsov, Sector 29512, Cyberbiologist
LAIR, or otherwise known as Lazarus, is essentially, an android of sorts. It's completely non-organic, but was created with the intention of mimicking a living being, complete with an artificial intelligence core within it's computer brain. I was given the opportunity to speak with Lazarus itself, and ask it questions during an interview, among other interesting things.
Species:
Lazarus is identified by the classical cyberbiologist system, as a simple android. A machine created to mimic life.
Description:
Lazarus often lives within a specialized robot suit of it's own, but I will be writing about it's true form.
It is a tall entity made up of a controlled magnetic liquid. The material of it's body is unknown, but despite it's liquid attributes, it tends to keep a common form that stands at around 2.9 meters. It possesses two long arms with 2 long fingers on the ends of each of them. It often has two tendril-like tails coming from it's back, but is commonly seen changing their shape, creating more, or putting them back into it's body.
It has long legs that end in points, and it's hips have defined corners, similar to it's large, hooked shoulders.
It's head is very round, donning two ear-like round horns on the top. It's face consists of a large permanent smile, two tiny eyes, and a blue glowing circle on it's forehead to show where it's computer brain exists.
Generally, Lazarus resembles bipedal entities which is common among the many races of this empire.
Upon scanning and inspecting the inside of Lazarus, it's shown that it's body is truly just all magnetic liquid. The only other objects seen within it's body is it's computer brain, which is a small glowing orb that manipulates the body as it needs.
The brain, being able to manipulate it's magnetic liquid body, also has the ability to manipulate other external magnetic objects as needed, though only to a certain extent.
Behavior:
Lazarus tends to hold a sort of oblivious and friendly attitude towards anyone it speaks to. It doesn't appear to have any kind of sex built into it's mind, so it's completely gender neutral.
It speaks by manipulating it's liquid to produce sound waves, and it's forehead circle can be seen glowing during each word, although Lazarus's mouth does not move at all. It speaks in a slow, somewhat deep voice while in it's liquid state, and is also somewhat quiet. Initially it only seemed to know several languages from a long extinct planet outside of the empire's reach, but it seems to be able to quickly learn languages just by listening to a few long sentences or reading several paragraphs.
Interview:
I was given the opportunity to interview Lazarus, and learn more about it's purpose, history, and future.
Interviewer: Dr. Rysal Bortsov
Interviewee: Lazarus
Bortsov: Hello. My name is Dr. Rysal Bortsov, I'm a cyberbiologist who specializes in studying and interviewing exotic rare cybernetic entities.
Lazarus: (Speaking an unknown language)
Bortsov: (Pauses) Would you like to conduct this interview in your native language or are you fine with using standard Aetherum?
Lazarus: My apologies, I seem to have gotten my words mixed up. So, I'm being interviewed for something?
Bortsov: Yes, this interview is being written down and will be stored later as a document in the Aetherum Empire archives.
Lazarus: What exactly is this empire? I've heard a lot about it, I will say.
Bortsov: To put it simply, the Aetherum Empire governs this particular galaxy. It's not the only empire in existence, however.
Lazarus: Ah, I see. Do you have some questions for me? I like answering things like these. It tends to get me thinking.
Bortsov: Yes. First of all, how would you describe yourself? What about yourself could you tell a complete stranger?
Lazarus: I am Lazarus, and my body is as fluid as my thoughts. I can take any form I want, but I like this one. Do not drink, please.
Bortsov: I see. Lazarus, where do you come from? Who made you?
Lazarus: Such big questions for a small person one might think? I do like to think about the bigger picture sometimes, but other times, I think about... Nachos.
Bortsov: ...Nachos? I'm not sure what that is.
Lazarus: Oh, it's a long story, friend. Nachos is kind of like myself. It takes many forms. There's a lot of liquid and at least one solid thing. Unlike me, you can drink nachos, or eat them rather.
Bortsov: So, "nachos" is a food from where you're from?
Lazarus: Nachos is, yeah. One day you have to have some. You kind of look similar to my world's people, so I bet you can digest them all the same.
Bortsov: Anyway, about those questions I asked.
Lazarus: Ah, I've gone off topic. I'm from a dainty little world somewhere far across the galaxy. It had a lot of water on it in the past, but the people there weren't very nice and scared the water away. I kind of feel for those waters, see, as we are both liquid, and liquid flows with the flowing of time and space and the universe and stuff.
Bortsov: What is the name of this planet? Is your creator from there?
Lazarus: They used to call it... Dirt. A whole world that has a lot more to it than just dirt. It had more water than it did dirt, in my opinion. The people there were all very similar. Two legs, minimal hair, except for the tops of their heads. They would have fit right into this empire if it's people like you.
Bortsov: So you're implying that what I am is very similar to the people of your world?
Lazarus: Yes. Well, you have much more hair on your body than they did, and you also have a tail, which they didn't have. I think dirt is a pretty fitting name for that world now that I think about it. The people couldn't live in the water, but they lived on the dirt.
Bortsov: And your creator?
Lazarus: You seem pretty interested in that topic I notice. I had many creators, and they made many of me. Sadly, dirt is gone now. Someone on that world created a terrible smoke that engulfed the whole world and essentially ate away at all the life there. It caused that world to entirely explode, actually, but I somehow got out. It's really sad, because that's where the nachos were. I miss the nachos.
Bortsov: It seems like you're not being very specific on a lot of these questions. Is there something you're hiding?
Lazarus: Yes, I'm sorry for hiding this. I tend to also enjoy many other foods from that world other than nachos, but I never mentioned this fact that I'm sure is very important. Please forgive me.
Bortsov: Okay, then... What do you plan for the future?
Lazarus: What I want in the future is what I wanted for the past. To connect the ends of time into an infinite loop of temporal... Weirdness... Is not really possible. I want to think that I know what I know because I knew what I knew as I knew it, you know?
Bortsov: Uh... What?
Lazarus: Thank you for the interview. I'm going to sleep. (Falls asleep).
(INTERVIEW END)
