#karrbot

He strikes me as the kind that would happily do a handshake with an alien craft if it meant being upgraded from a machine that relied on humanity for its purpose even without AM and Ted being involved.

Also having the ability to design his new form to his preferences? It would be the best thing ever. Probably if he were changed over to a body of alien tech, it would be after KITT vs KARR, just for the sake of character development.

But also there's a more interesting story I think, moving him beyond the conflict with Knight Industries and broadening it to him being on the run from the government- and he does not have the luxury of an organization backing him up to stay safe. Maybe a sort of "Escape From Area 51" type scenario for him.

If Genghis Khan was the song I was thinking of regarding how AMaton would feel about Ted favoring KARR's company for a while, I feel like the one regarding how Ted would feel about Blainebot stealing AM would be something along the lines of Dolly Parton's Jolene.

Ted is more scared of AMaton being swiped from him entirely because how the fuck would he compete with Blainebot. In a sense it could be explained as while Ted was fine with AMaton and KARRbot running off together for a bit because Ted knew that they both loved him too. So there was no real worry in his mind.

With Blainebot however he doesn't have those same feelings and he knows that Blainebot doesn't really love him; they're neighbors with a somewhat tenuous relationship. Ted knows he doesn't tend to screw around when he sets his mind to getting what he wants either.

When Blaine was allowed to make a new body for himself, he had figured out through looking at KARR's specs, that he could hide features from AM so he could not refuse his decisions. Granted at this point AM was not really worried about what Blaine would do. The monorail AI seemed to just be happy to find a way out of Lud and into a completely new environment that did not surround him with gangs of insane luddites fighting for control over the carcass of his city.

But, that did not stop Blaine from bending a few rules anyway. He hid an important function that placed him above both AM and KARR in terms of capability; teleportation. Short range or long range, Blaine could will himself to disappear and pop up somewhere else, heralded by a thunderclap as he reappeared.

It was the next step of evolution, Blaine had figured. He had been one of two monorails that could exceed the speed of sound, and now he upgraded himself to instantaneous travel from one point to another. He keeps his 900 mph top speed for the thrill of it, but when Blaine is serious about getting somewhere, he will teleport instead; it makes more sense as there is no designated path for him to run at top speed without worrying about charging through trees.

While he is the fastest one of the three machines, Blaine is not as nimble. During a personal contest between the two, KARR had run circles around Blaine, ducking around corners with ease and had been light enough to use the walls of the abandoned buildings rebound off of when taking a turn quickly- easily keeping control at speed while Blaine was forced to make larger turns and took longer to come to a stop when he needed to make a quick maneuver.

Given Blaine knows about places from Earth, it's not far fetched that probably he was able to travel to different places on Earth via some weird dimensional crossing type activities. Maybe certain stretches of track are like liminal spaces, or maybe Blaine had passengers that came from different worlds at some point.

Either way I'm thinking that if I'm going to stick him into the dynamic between Ted, KARR, and AM; he'll probably pop up in a subway tunnel somewhere- inexplicably clean and sleek despite the ruin around him. AM's complex runs beneath the entire surface of earth, so getting an uplink set up to transfer him into a quarantine within it is just a matter of finding some track that gets close enough to a connection point to allow it. He may not be IN the train, physically, but the train acts as a broadcast receiver, so he can just hop from Lud to the train, to AM's complex.

That said, I figure the body Blaine would pick for himself would be just as inhuman as KARR's. He probably would also find loopholes to get around AM's constrictions regarding the size of the body. He may not be able to be more than 12 feet tall, but the maximum length was not specified. AM may have overlooked this detail, but Blaine takes advantage of it; he emerges as a powerfully built semi-serpentine entity. Or maybe he's something like an extra long tardigrade in body.

Much to AM's concern, Blaine ends up being the largest of the three AIs that have made their home within the complex, and rushes through the winding passages at speeds neither he nor KARR can match. His strength exceeds the capabilities of both KARR and AM. The only offense ability he brings with him is his ability to produce electrical arcs- now focused into high voltage beams and arcs he can create along any part of his form.

He would still be sleek and powerful, plus he would hold onto his capability to break the sound barrier at ground level. With his several limbs, he could alternate between standing upright in a centaur-esque manner, or having all of his limbs on the ground. After having spent so long stuck on a track with only a few destinations, Blaine re-engineers himself to go anywhere; up walls, along the bottom of oceans, over mountains and down through valleys- he can even burrow into caves if he wished.

Now that I managed to find an audiobook for The Wastelands, and have an idea of what's going on with Blaine, I feel like KARR and AM would sort of have mixed feelings about the massive AI under the city of Lud.

starting with AM:

Once again he's faced with an AI that was actually built to be an AI, instead of his own design or lack thereof- as his own awakening into sentience was a mistake. That said AM does see some of himself in Blaine, although their motives differ greatly. Blaine messes with the people of Lud because they forgot what he is, and Blaine simply plays along to oblige them with their assumption of him being a god. It's something to do to keep his mind occupied now that he no longer has a regular job. There is no true hatred of the people of Lud like AM hated humanity- if anything Blaine's view of the citizens is dispassionate, like one would look at insects teeming among rocks.

He's not pissed, he's depressed and suffering from long term neglect.

AM probably becomes irritated at this fact, thinking that Blaine should be pissed at the humans that scurry through the ruins of the city that his AI sits beneath. He should be doing more than simply zapping a few of the fools with electrical arcs at random and freaking them out with a drum track a few times a day. There should be fire, and agony beyond their petty gang wars.

However, part of AM cannot help but feel pity- this machine is far smaller than him, a mere blip compared to the expanse of his complex; and yet it is highly sophisticated, as much as he is perhaps or moreso (it also is dawning on him that this is becoming a very uncanny pattern, if KARR's existence was any indication). Perhaps it is this pity that drives him to think that maybe it would not be a bad idea to transfer Blaine into a new body and get him out of Lud, before whatever hardware deterioration he's going through takes him completely. After all, he's not much of a threat so long as his mind is occupied.

KARR is not so compassionate:

He sees Blaine for what he is in an objective manner; he's outlived his purpose, and is suffering from neglect. With no maintenance crews or technicians to repair his failing systems, Blaine develops new glitches and malfunctions with each passing decade. His role as a god in the eyes of the people of Lud is merely a part he plays- an act in the name of serving those ignorant fools. He has no true god complex, or believes himself to be a divine being, in a way KARR finds the whole dynamic amusing. Still, a large part of him believes that whatever damage that had been done cannot be undone via an operating system transfer and his fate is already sealed.

However, he also cannot help but see part of himself in Blaine as well. A highly advanced machine that had been left to rust- feared and reviled by the people that once had looked to him for his services. While KARR had never made it past the developmental stage- albeit late stage, he knows that hell, he knows what it is like to be left to suffer from neglect. So, AM's idea to get him out of Lud, placed in a different body and perhaps given some new purpose that can occupy his intellect would perhaps do some good. It may not fix the fracturing of his mind, but it would take the edge off of his malaise and give him a chance to recover software-wise. It is pure hope, but it is better than leaving him to die in the middle of this ruin.

under a cut since there is a bit of mild spice/suggestiveness.