#EDI secretly likes being HAL

[byneddiedingo]

The Book of Life (Hal Hartley, 1998)

Cast: Martin Donovan, PJ Harvey, Dave Simonds, Thomas Jay Ryan, Miho Nikaido, D.J. Mendel, Katreen Hardt, James Urbaniak. Screenplay: Hal Hartley. Cinematography: Jim Denault. Art direction: Andy Biscontini. Film editing: Steve Hamilton. 

The Girl From Monday (Hal Hartley, 2005)

Cast: Bill Sage, Sabrina Lloyd, Tatiana Abracos, Leo Fitzpatrick, D.J. Mendel, James Urbaniak, Juliana Francis, Gary Wllmes, Edie Falco. Screenplay: Hal Hartley. Cinematography: Sarah Cawley. Production design: Inbal Weinberg. Film editing: Steve Hamilton. Music: Hal Hartley. 

As the millennium approached -- remember the Y2K jitters? -- two producers from the French company Haut et Court teamed with a European TV network and asked filmmakers from around the world to make hourlong movies that would reflect their visions of the imminent future. Hal Hartley, fresh off the success of Henry Fool (1997), was the American director chosen, and The Book of Life was his response. It's a fable about the Second Coming: Jesus (Martin Donovan) arrives in New York City, tasked by God to fulfill the prophecies about the end of the world recounted in the book of Revelation. He is accompanied by Mary Magdalene (PJ Harvey). Jesus likes New York and its people so much that after retrieving the Book of Life (an Apple Powerbook) from a storage locker (No. 666) and breaking the fifth of the seven seals he calls the whole thing off. Apocalypse? Nah. His decision is hotly protested by attorneys from the firm of Armageddon, Armageddon, and Jehoshaphat. God, Jesus observes, is all about the Law, so lawyers are his favorites. Jesus is somewhat aided by Satan (Thomas Jay Ryan) who wants the world to continue so he has somewhere to meddle. The film's brevity is its chief virtue: Too much more and the wit would have cloyed -- as it sometimes does -- into whimsy. The humanistic outlook of the film seems to have stuck with Hartley into his next movie, The Girl From Monday, a venture into science fiction that doesn't quite work. In the future, the United States has become a conglomerate, and people are traded on the stock exchange. (The more sex they have, for example, the higher their value.) Bill Sage plays Jack, an advertising executive who is secretly a member of the resistance to this new order, but he's so disillusioned that he drives to the seashore where he plans to kill himself. Instead, he just passes out after taking pills, and awakes to see a woman (Tatiana Abracos) emerge from the sea. She's an alien from a planet where people are part of an incorporate whole, and when he asks her name she says "No Body." Jack takes her home with him and teaches her how to perform simple physical tasks like drinking and eating. He also learns that she's there to bring back with her a fellow being from her planet (known on Earth as Monday after its discoverer) who came to Earth years ago. The problem with The Girl From Monday is that the satire on consumerism doesn't mesh well with the sci-fi premise. The film is a muddle of ideas, many of which are half-baked. Hartley's inspiration is said to have been Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville (1965), but Godard's movie has a coherence and dry wit The Girl From Monday lacks.   

[firesongbard]

A Veneer of Wit

A short snippet from my Post-Control longfic. Read more on AO3.

M O R E A U

“Garrus, tell me Chakwas has you patched up and workin’ on getting that weapons system back online. I’m gettin’ a little tired of having HAL staring at me through the windows.” He pulled another sharp maneuvering burn, keeping a careful eye on the heat monitors. Beside him, EDI micro-managed the suite of power diversions needed to keep the crew from cooking alive in Engineering.

“I do not recommend requesting its assistance with the Pod Bay Doors.”

“Oh, NOW you get that reference.” The Kinetic Barriers dropped as the Normandy took another broadside hit from the Oculus flanking them. He took a risk engaging the Tantalus drive core, flaring a mass effect field for the ship to be pulled into, but also dragging the collection of Eyeball Assholes into one place. “Take that, Liara. I can use singularity too.”

“I understood the significance of your references to Daisy Bell even before you unshackled me. I simply did not make the connection that your cultural reference was not an accusation, but an attempt at humor to hide your discomfort. I do have several recordings on file, though. Would you prefer to listen to Nat King Cole? Or perhaps the IBM 704 would be more comforting to the Oculi encircling the Normandy?”

“Not the time, EDI!” He pulled the ship about with the proton thrusters—heat was definitely going to be a problem soon—and brought the Javelin torpedoes to face the cluster of Oculi. “Come on, big guy. I got ‘em all lined up for you. Tell me you aren’t slacking now, Mr. One-shot-three-mercs.”

“Well, one died of a heart attack.” The voice drawled over the speakers, sounding tired and pained. “But I suppose Reapers don’t have hearts, so we’ll just have to get creative.”

Joker released the breath he’d been holding as the Javelin came back online, and the ball of Reaper forces exploded into fragments in the resulting space-time warp explosion.

"Glad to see you're off your spiky ass again."

The comms were quiet for a long beat. "Just give me something else to shoot, Joker."

“Technically, EDI’s the one doing all the shooting. You’re just working your little Turian Magic down there.” There was no response. Unsurprising.

EDI reached out and gently laid a hand on his forearm, deliberately pulling his attention away from very important flight maneuvers. Of the I’d-like-to-not-be-dead variety.

“You should not antagonize him, Jeff. He is angry about leaving Shepard behind.”

“Yeah, well, he’s not the only one.” He was never good at hiding his bitterness. Most people didn’t comment on it as long as he came off as insufferably obnoxious. “But hey, if she dies down there, none of us are gonna be around to grieve. It’s the little things, right?”

“…That is not funny, Jeff.”

“Of course not. It’s desperation and panic under a veneer of intelligence and wit. Which I exude. Obviously.”

EDI’s hand retreated, and she turned her attention back to the battle at hand. The conversation died with nothing but the soft beeps of the electronics and the cycling of the air systems between them.

Read the rest of the story on A03

[purposefully-lost]

So how do you see Nolan?? Like android esque? More robotic?? Is he like HAL via 2001 space oddity? Like David in Prometheus? Or something in between/different???

HMM,, I'm thinking that while aboard the station the AI was more just.. built into the station itself? It operated and communicated mainly through the intercoms. The software was hosted on its own processing system, but there was no real.. face or anything to associate with it. Sort of like Siri? Or EDI in Mass Effect 2 though I don't think you've played it dbdjSNS

BUT I really like the idea that after being returned to NASA, the software is transferred into something android-like to see if it could potentially do the kind of dangerous maintenance work that got the human Nolan killed, but ultimately the project lost funding or was abandoned due to ethical concerns when the AI couldn't seem to be scrubbed of Nolan's personality, and is then maybe secretly passed off to an interested independent party.

It's not much of a.. perfectly human android, by any means! Maybe with time and upgrades, but for now there's a lot of uncovered joints and parts that were for function over aesthetic, and his face is an uncanny approximation of the dead astronaut since any other appearance seemed to confuse the AI to the point of it freezing itself up in trying to process it.