AN: This is an omake fanfic of a Quest (fanfic) called
To Boldly Go, based primarily on Star Trek.
Just to say this right off the bat, I wasn’t really aiming for suspenseful court drama for this omake, more fanservice-dressed soapboxing. That said, it also isn't intended to be an in depth essay to defend AI rights. I’m sure there are dissertations worth of that stuff elsewhere on the net. I structured things to be centered more around interesting cameos and the POV they might be able to offer, and what would make sense from an in-universe and in-character perspective.
To give a bit of background, Mipek was an alien probe/AI found by the USS Odyssey, and joined that ship as an observer/crew for Captain Mbeki's last year or so before he retired to go into politics. Since then, it has been living in Sol without problems for 2+ years now. So what changed to suddenly create this conflict? Well, the obvious antagonist was the Daystrom Institute and its record of problems with AI in Trek, and they just happened to have started researching the latest gen of starship computer cores as of the last research vote in-game.
I suppose, in another timeline where they actually brought up the M5 in the court case, this court drama would be an actual drama with the big reveal being DI was trying to revive the M5 program and sneak AIs into starships. And then Vice Admiral Eaton would put her foot down. Here however, they were savvy enough to cut their losses. After all, losing this one research request wouldn't hurt them as much as being kicked off their research spot would have been.
Absent that, this is mainly going to be about Mipek, and whether it gets to be treated as a sapient life form. In light of that (and previous depictions), there wasn't much room for the plot to go. So I ended up picking the fanservice soapbox route. *shrug*
As another aside, I'm proud I managed to sneak "yudan sezu ni ikou" in there for my Tezuka expy. ^_-
( omake )Foonotes:
Anthony Haftel is a canon character from TNG. Hopefully he'll learn his lesson here and not try to take away Data's kid in the future. Or maybe he'll come back later as an antagonist when we find Data. Who knows.
Areel Shaw is a canon character from TOS. I flipped a coin to see if she'd be too old to show up. But anyway, the last org chart I saw for the JAG department didn't have many high ranking spots anyway, so I guess most people there just languish at lower ranks or something...
Aaron Satie is yet another canon character from TNG. He was required reading for Picard at the Academy (and that's coming up soon too!) so he should be a famous judge around the current time.
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