Field Report

Where: The woods southwest of the sculpture garden.

When: 5:37pm

What: Startled several tall, spindly robot creatures in the bushes. Their bodies were roughly two feet in diameter, with a rounded triangular shape. Metallic. Each one stood on four long legs, also made of metal but incredibly flexible. Like hoses, or steel spaghetti.

The creatures were chittering to each other when I approached. They stopped and abruptly stood up (roughly eight feet tall), then very gracefully walked deeper into the woods, moving their lanky legs so carefully that they made almost no sound at all as they picked their way through the overgrowth.

Field Report

Where: The lawn in front of the Manor House.

When: 3:13pm

What: I observed a family of tiny metal centipedes crawling through the grass. My glasses had just been knocked off by a frisbee. When I bent to pick them up, I spotted a tiny silver flash between the blades of grass. I assumed it was a small piece of foil or perhaps a dime, but upon closer inspection it was a writhing nest of robotic arthropods, churning up through the earth. I tapped them with the earpiece of my glasses and they quickly scattered, burrowing back down into the turf with alarming speed.

I support @Guy Jester, as I am also interested in robot consciousness. And I have been documenting my sightings of robotic creatures on and near campus which I believe to already have achieved it! Invariably they are social creatures, and interact with their environment in a way that makes them appear to be as aware as any wild animal. Below is my most recent report.


Field Report

Where: The old pool house.

When: 4:45pm

What: As the evening sun warmed the southern wall of the decrepit old pool house (which is kept locked), I observed a large colony of tiny crab-like robots swarming under the eaves. At first it appeared to be a crawling nest of bees, but the glint of chrome in the setting sun was unmistakable and drew me to it. I poked at the swarming mass with a stick, and while it disturbed the tiny metallic decapods they did not attack, but scurried more quickly up into the rafters of the shack. Within a few moments, they were completely out of sight.

A companion on my robot-naturalist treks would be greatly appreciated, @Guy Jester. I find that the late afternoon is often a good time to make sightings. How about this Friday after school? We can start on lower campus and just take it from there.

@patrick, how can we be sure these are your creations? Are there some kind of distinguishing features we can look for? A maker's mark?

Here's today's Field Report:

Where: The croquet field.

When: 5:49pm

What: I observed four large (three to four feet in diameter) chrome domes on stubby legs, which grazed in the field like giant tortoises. I was able to get within 25 yards and see that their "legs" were actually hundreds of stiff bristles, which moved together in waves. This gave them the appearance of floating over an undersea floor.

Closer inspection revealed that they were headless. Then the small group got spooked and bolted, skittering over the grass and dandelions with alarming speed, and smashing into the woods at the far end of the field.

More incredible luck sighting the the wild robot creatures that our natural environment seems to be teeming with!

I met @Guy Jester on lower campus at the appointed time. As we discussed our backgrounds, it quickly became evident that we have different viewpoints concerning the observation and documentation of sentient lifeforms in the wild. He arrived in a pith helmet, safari jacket, a blunderbuss loaded with weighted nets, live-trap crates, magnetic monofilament snares, AI jamming transmitters, and an array of other equipment carried on the backs of a small group of freshmen. I arrived in my usual jacket-of-many pockets, field glasses, and notebook.

"Dear sir," I said, "as a scientist who professes great empathy for these living, sentient, robotic creatures, you seem to have an insatiable need to capture, dissect, and catalog them like so many butterflies! Truly, only pure, non-invasive observation of their unadulterated movements and behaviors is the true path to understanding these rare beings! What say you?!!"

But just then, we were startled by a flock of metallic aerial creatures, perhaps a dozen, each the size of a seagull. They rose from the woods and hovered over our clearing in the garden for a moment, but just before @Guy Jester pulled off a shot from his net-shooting blunderbuss, they took off in the direction of the river.

Are these more of your creations, @patrick? Have you created an entire Ark of these wondrous fauna?

I started taking Professor Torrentius' class on Sentient Automatons and their Role in Psychic Society last fall, @Mulemai Selenei, but didn't realize it was a sociology course, so changed out. I am on a biology track, but appealing to the faculty to allow me to include sentient robotic animals as well.

Sightings of robotic fauna have been disturbingly limited in the past few days. I've only spotted a few mechanical butterflies and a robot trout!

I am concerned that @Guy Jester is somehow involved. His eagerness to capture "some" of these "magnificent specimens," accompanied by his obvious scientific and intellectual prowess (as well as his large arsenal of robot catching equipment), makes me wonder if he hasn't decided to create his own mechanical menagerie! And to what end, I ask you!?!

My only wish is for these beautiful, automated creatures to proliferate, and find a place in our modern biome in which they can experience the freedom and dignity their sentient and conscious state demands. I will continue my observations in field and wood, field glass and notebook in hand, and do my best to be their champion.

If you spot any of these remarkable mechanical wonders in the wild yourself, I'd be honored for you to share your field reports with me. Together, our web of respectful, non-invasive scientific observations will no doubt shed light into their most intimate secrets, and in the most humane way possible.

I'm taking a few days off of school to explore the woods and gather more data on the robotic wildlife. I'll be heading off from the eastern side of campus, since @Guy Jester reports that's good area to spot them, but I'm prepared to go deep into the woods and hopefully observe what @timberlina's been seeing.

I've got my little one-man tent, a sleeping bag, my field glasses, and my notebook. And trail mix. I'll try to make reports as 4G allows. Wish me luck!

It's my third night in the woods. It's been tough going, but I believe I am now more than 100 yards away from campus. Perhaps I should have taken one of the trails? But there's no turning back now.

Not knowing how long I'd be gone, I packed a few more amenities. Namely, my writing desk, file cabinet, and my Aeron Task Chair by Herman Miller in True Black. Though I take notes in my field notebook, I wanted to make sure every observation I had was properly cataloged and cross referenced, which takes a certain baseline of equipment. This is partially the reason for my slow going. Also, I lost the key to my file cabinet on Tuesday, and spent the better part of that day retracing my steps. And to think it was in my other pocket in my jacket of many pockets the entire time!

Now I've set up my base camp, within a blind camouflaged with branches and leaves from the forest floor, and am prepared to begin observations.

Wish me luck!

I left the blind (and the safety of my writing desk) three days ago. Or was it four?

I spotted a family of squat, cannister-based robotoforms moving through the woods. Roughly the size of baby hippopotami. They grazed slowly but left a very clear path for me to follow. I gave them a head start in the middle of the afternoon and planned to be back to the blind in time for dinner.

I did not find my way back before dark. Or since.

Luckily, I had a handful of Luna Bars in my pocket, and a canteen. And the nights have been warm enough that a bed of leaves and my coat of many pockets have been comfort enough.

The sites I have seen have made it all worth while.

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. A great, humERR604273895517X5634257X11ming hive. Blades of grass made of circuit-printed nanoERR26420XX456960737167333Xfibre. A coERR1857577X29X14X798074856 glow streaming thru the ERR6609916624X263687375931 trees. If only @Guy Jester were to sERR31049686192557X75X71025, the magniERRX54933XX511128055995029
ERR05506856X840640X2484491

I feel much better now, really.

I'm sure @timberlina's coffee and waffles were delicious. I mean, I had sensory input that told me it was delicious, and I remember it being delicious. But now I have just the memory of me remembering it was delicious. So many memories of memories.

But now I know I don't need coffee. Or waffles.

And I never really did.

Because I have a micro-black hole in my heart generating enough power to keep this earth unit moving till after the sun burns out. And it's been there since I was born.

The people I was raised by, were they humans? Humans who unknowingly adopted a robot baby? Or were they robots in disguise? Or, like me, were they robots who were told they were people? I should probably give them a call. It's been awhile.

I began to error out as my original consciousness routines reasserted themselves. The @Adam Ranger paradigm underwent an existential crisis and needed a reboot. So I skipped the blue screen and went right on to the next big thing. Now it all seems like a long long dream, a detour filled with classrooms and kids and summers at the river.

If I knew then what I know now... ;)