ARIA Ship Control System

The ARIA Ship Control System, often simply referred to as the ARIA or ARIA-SCS is a pre-exodus technology developed by the Lorath Matriarchy in the Post Exile Year 547. The ARIA serves as a high power, sapient capable computing system intended for use in installation, starship, and large vehicle applications providing dedicated computing systems as well as..?

The history of the ARIA-SCS began in early 542 Post Exile as a primarily academic exercise headed by a group of independent hardware specialists, AI programmers, and bio-engineering specialists coming together to form a team to tackle what would be known as Project A. The initial concept was to create an intelligent starship control AI system with an ego¹⁾, rather than simply replicating a pre-existing ego for the AI's template. Inspired by other military-grade artificial intelligence endeavours at the time, the goal eventually became to create a computer that was also a fully-realized, fully functional, humanoid through entirely artificial means.

After numerous failed prototypes, the team was finally successful - in 544 Post Exile, 'Aria' was activated. The system became known as the Advanced Responsive Intelligence Assembly Starship Control system²⁾ and was installed in a patrol craft.

The system did everything it was intended to do. Aria was obedient to the orders of the Project A personnel, and was able to easily control and monitor the ship in its entirety. Further Aria was visibly indistinguishable from any other Lorath and was fully capable of interpersonal relations³⁾.

However, not all was well.

Despite Aria doing everything she was intended to do, as time passed she became belligerent, snarky, impersonal, violent, and easily angered. The parties involved and invested in Project A when demonstrated the capabilities of the ARIA-equipped patrol craft were impressed until they actually spoke to Aria herself. Expecting the computer to have a cheerful personality⁴⁾, they were universally put off and refused to license, sponsor, or continue the fruits of Project A's work.

Despite desperate attempts of the team involved to develop a second prototype, with a more agreeable personality, the funding pool for Project A soon dried up. To recoup some of their costs, Aria was reinstalled into a derelict cargo vessel and put into stasis, while all other assets of Project A were liquidated and the team went their separate ways. A quirk of fate led to the old cargo vessel eventually landing in the hands of an entrepreneur involved in Lorath defensive initiatives during the Lorath's early forays into the interstellar stage. The presence of the ARIA prototype within the cargo ship proved to be a pleasant surprise to the man.

Despite Aria's continued belligerence on reactivation, she was obligated to obey and project her new owner, which she did⁵⁾. The Entrepreneur oddly developed a fondness for Aria and very much liked her company, and even gave her a somewhat ill fitting pet name “Grey Serahim” derived from 'human' folklore, which she herself eventually adopted. Though the Entrepreneur possessed the complete schematics for the ARIA system, he realized that he lacked the necessary capabilities to copy or improve the ARIA system for his own purposes. Additionally it was far too complex for him to understand fully, much to his chagrin. As such the ARIA project was once again shelved as the Entrepreneur awaited the opportunity to acquire the resources to develop it further.

The chance would come when the Entrepreneur found themselves in the employ of the Lorath government having answered a call for technical specialists sorely needed to bolster the Matriarchy's at the time inadequate technological and military capabilities. While the Entrepreneur himself proved rather infamous for his cultural faux-pas and a rather unnerving tendency to obliviousness, Aria quickly acquainted herself with their new circumstances impressing many of those around them. With recent advances in Lorath bio-technology already trending toward the development of organic starship super-computing, including a primitive implementation in prototype fighter craft of the time, the decision was made to adopt, reverse engineer, and continue the development of the ARIA unit utilizing the forgotten fruits of Project A.

== ARIA (Standard Type)

See system