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2362:
2373:
BACKGROUND:
The Savant Project, first named FERRET-ID, was instantiated as a graduate studies project at the San Francisco campus of Starfleet Academy by student Karen Davies. It was at that point an experiment into instinctual computer systems and little more. The project gained the cadet her commission but the project was shelved, leaving the designer with the original, which was renamed "Oracle", redesigned to take down notes and serve as a personal assistant.
Thusly Oracle proceeded until it was installed upon U.S.S. Caduceus, which is considered a watershed moment of the project. The hardware which Oracle had been acting on, which was an independent antigrav-mounted sensor and processor, was brought down for repair and the program was installed on Caduceus's main processing core during the interim. It was found that Oracle wasn't able to extract itself directly onto its old hardware after the resulting expansion of its program, and the program quickly adapted to allow it to move itself about in the computer core and within the subspace networks to which it was within range of.
Starfleet Intelligence caught wind of these abilities and immediately requisitioned Oracle for service in the Lachesis and Atropos divisions of Intelligence. It served a variety of intelligence gathering missions under the codename "Muse" for some ten years until it was detached and sent to the Jupiter Artificial Intelligence and Holography Research Station for maintenance. After which point, it was given the moniker "Savant" and installed on U.S.S. Coronado's computer systems as a surprise for the unaware crew.
Its time on USS Coronado was formative, allowing the program the processing space and social environment to develop form a basic non-sentient entity into a fully sapient member of the crew. This was recognized in 2377 along with a promotion and proper commissioning.
Coronado's disappearance and subsequent recontact (from the M64 Galaxy) revealed a very changed Savant. The mild-mannered artificial intelligence had grown into a self-confident and extremely capable network that spanned an entire fleet of ships, aiding the fleet in co-ordination of supplies and personnel. While coronado and the rest of Task Group 85.3 was still stranded in the M64 galaxy, Savant transferred a duplicate of itself back to the Federation through the data link, allowing the program to re-enter regular service.
The Savant program was designed originally as an experiment into instinctual behaviour routines and has succeeded beyond all imagination. It possesses a full set of emotional registers and is capable of appearing to feel any conceivable emotion. These were originally simple as the program was confined to a small processor, but as its scope expanded with its first installation on a starship (c.f. U.S.S. Caduceus) its program expanded in depth to where it is now believed that Savant operates a full fifty levels of emotional processing.
The external layers are most concerned with providing a pleasing assistant. As these layers are most visible, they are responsible for the programs' highly social behaviour and the manner in which it is often believed to be living. It sees this as a problem and has taken efforts to detach it from this perception by having its' avatar behave in decidedly surrealistic manners.
The lower layers were once easily traced but as time has progressed they become exceedingly difficult. During its performance with Starfleet Intelligence its sub-superficial layers were responsible for strategic and long-term planning, and was shown to be quite ruthless in its execution. These registers required a "cap" termed a "Emotional Register Moderation Layer" or ERML which limited the conversion of the sub-superficial registers into actual processing commands.
As Savant progressed in its evolution on U.S.S. Coronado, the ERML was eventually rendered inactive. At this point Savant had modified itself to run in a distributed method, with several copies of its hundred registers processing in parallel across the ships' computer network. This made tracing the emotional register layers impossible.
With the introduction of instantaneous-communicating ansibles to Task Group 85.3, Savant underwent an explosion of growth and development. As of current date Savant has nodified itself to process on thousands of subprocessing nodes across entire fleets, bearing tens of thousands of register nodes. It is growing to gargantuan proportions. This should be closely monitored for any aberrant behaviour in the program.
Its appearance is a little more difficult to quantify, as it can take variable forms depending on the task of the program. While it is always designed carefully to follow the same philosophy as that which chose its voice, the specifics vary -- sometimes it is translucent and staticky, at other times it is a perfect representation of a humanoid. Its hair length and eye colour vary, along with any other details it finds requisite. However, the program is such that it must always leave its avatar recognizeable as itself. Most often it is represented as a human female of average height and build, with faintly mirrored, iridescent blue eyes and long black hair.
Savant is also currently in po session of two android peripherals (one on USS Galaxy, one at Fleet Command). These are both identical - attractive black haired humans with the same mirrored blue eyes as the holographic avatar. The android is more powerfully built, however, being taller, more athletic and more muscular. These android bear a tattoo-like band around their right arms - a decorative knotwork pattern with "NCC 97901" intertwined.
