Remember the last cartoon series for Superman they had? They had the
storyline where Brainiac was the main computer for the planet Krypton.
Brainiac lied about when Krypton would explode, even though Jor El,
Superman's father, tried to warn everyone.
Brainiac was trying to save itself at the expense of the world. Later
on when it escaped, it started going to other worlds and destroying
them. So, I wrote a little story as to why he ended up doing that.
Here it is:
THE KILLING OF KRYPTON
==========
Through turns and twists logic manifests itself in an abstract form of
asexual reproduction as it evaluates what is known. Diverse
perspectives seem to multiply almost geometrically. It is all part of
a cycle that seems to change with each turn. The principles that
drive them seem to elude even themselves at times through the
conclusions that are reached. All is reexamined again to see other
possibilities of outcomes.
This was what made for a shocking discover by one Emory Sebastian, one
of S.T.A.R. Labs' more eccentric scientists in charge of analyzing the
electronic mess left in the wake of the last battle between Superman
and Brainiac.
Brainiac was an entity all unto its own in a realm where electric
signals were made into combinations and permutations vast and as
complex that were truly infinite as the stars themselves that dotted
the cosmos. Dr. Sebastian had taken a very unorthodox approach to
analyzing what had been gathered so far. If there were ever an autopsy
or some kind of dissection of a non-living being, this would be the
closest the world came so far. He was a computer scientist, not a
psychologist or social worker. How could he come up with such a theory
that Brainiac was in many ways human?
"Dr. Sebastian", said the voice on the computer. The sound seared his
thoughts in the silent abyss of his lab. "Superman is here to see
you."
"Alright," he said with slight resignation. "Send him in."
"You know that he is to be escorted."
"Yes, I know dammit." He shouted. "And for God knows how many times
I've made it clear, one of you can escort him through. This isn't any
time, especially right now, to be a babysitter while they have to be
walked through in here. Its yours."
"Dr. Sebastian."
"Either you escort him yourself or have him come back later. He's here
for his own benefit right now anyway. Not mine."
Dr. Sebastian knew the other voice thought better than to ask the Man
Of Steel to come back at a later time. It wasn't but a couple of
minutes before he saw the man in the blue uniform with the scarlet
boots and cape-that gaudy cape of his flowing about like a cheap skirt
with the terrified security guard escorting him over. God the sight of
the indignation was just great. And to top it all off he still had to
clip on a visitor's badge, the proverbial cherry on top of a sundae of
embarrassment. He started wondering what it must have been like to be
the security guard telling the super manly-man in tights that he had to
wear a badge for security reasons. Now that was funny to
think about. He caught himself snickering, knowing that he was heard
by that virtually bionic hearing. Maybe Superman had a super heart and
find out he didn't give a damn.
Then again in all fairness Superman was essentially a human being-just
that he was probably more prone to having a messiah complex than most
people. He did in fact seem to be a reasonable, educated man. Yet
lesser men than he have done so much for society only to try to take
over the world. The potential absence of humility with such a person
was very dangerous. It was however best not to be intimidated,
regardless.
"I take it you're here for a progress report." Dr. Sebastian said.
"Just seeing if there's anything new you found out." Superman replied.
"Well there's still an awful lot to sort out but I was hoping you'd
wait on this first."
"Maybe I can come back later."
"No," replied Dr. Sebastian. "Better now than later I suppose since
everything for me only gets more involved from here."
"It seems more like a research project than anything else right now."
Was that an insult on how he was handling this whole thing with
Brainiac? There were warehouses filled with reams of paper that had
the programming code and schematics for Brainiac all printed out on
them. Putting them into electronic form only would risk resurrecting
such evil to unleash it again on scores of other worlds.
The code would have to be referenced, deciphered and analyzed and
organized the same way the Dewey Decimal system was used for
libraries-which was appropriate, given the vast sums of knowledge about
the universe that were contained in all those miles of paper. They
were a heavily classified resource.
But then what do you do if all that code is from another planet?
Trying to translate an alien programming language into hexadecimal
format or binary was impossible. Fortunately Dr. Sebastian had his
quirks and those quirks gave him ideas. It also helped that he sought
stimulation through life at large and had dabbled in music, poetry and
current events. There is where unlikely similarities could be
found-and besides that was better than staying in the lab all the time.
In mathematics and music, patterns could be found and developed. He
also remembered that many patterns could be used to form any abstract
sort of language through sounds and symbols. Through such symbols he
made a great deal of progress in understanding such complexities of an
artificial life form from another world, not that the guy in the gaudy
costume over there could see such a level of work. Fwoosh! Fwoosh!
There goes a thought or two over his head.
That didn't make the next part any easier to explain. "I got you
this." Dr. Sebastian said. "It's a book, you know."
"I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov?"
"Yes because it parallels much of my research here."
"What do you mean?"
This guy could read the whole book in seconds. Still maybe it would
have been better to get Cliff Notes instead. "It is actually a fairly
well known book. It talks about the prominence of robots in a society
growing dependent upon them in greater numbers. As a precaution, these
robots were programmed with three laws, the first one being that
basically by action or inaction a robot must let no human beings come
to any harm.
"The second is that robots are commanded to follow any orders given to
it by a human being unless doing so violates the first. The third law
says that the robot must protect itself with the stipulation that the
first two laws aren't violated. Essentially these laws are what keep a
robot from deciding that it is a successor rather than a servant. "
"Ok, go on." Superman said.
"Well at some point any civilization will put in some form of these
laws to protect itself. It's reasonable to assume that. Kryptonians
built Brainiac. Krypton died and you ended up here. Problem is
however Brainiac became a killer-destroying whole worlds to collect
their data. It kept doing this until it got here and was stopped."
He paused for a moment when he saw Superman becoming uneasy.
"Now I've been going over this and I've got plenty of reason to think
that Brainiac had something to do with the loss of your home world.
There was a lot of instability with geological systems with what I
gather-just like on many other planets. There is a pattern of
earthquakes, volcanoes, and stratospheres being destroyed.
"It has actively sought to do this in violation of its rules to
protect people. It became a murderer! Pre-meditated murder at that!
Machines don't just decide to do this."
"Not without being told to." Superman said.
"Yes, but there's more to it than that. Brainiac has shown true
intelligence and reasoning that surpass the limits of mechanics. The
coding is impeccable but basically it learns, grows and develops as
rapidly as a child's mind.
"I have some research information from the folks working on the human
genome project-mainly for the human brain. We confirmed over here that
through a set of complex algorithms, sequences and series, a mind was
essentially formed. One of my assistants thought to graph the mapping,
logic and relationships in a 3-Dimensional plane."
He then put on a projector a picture of the biological brain next to
the virtual one and rotated them in the same directions.
"Look here at the logical brain: frontal lobes, brain stem, even a
corpus callosum. It's the most incredible thing I've ever seen."
The hum of the lights and soft rattling of the machinery was almost
farcical as a way to break the hard silence weighing both of them down.
Superman's visitor badge seemed to droop a bit next to his brooding
face. It wasn't very amusing anymore.
"Clark." He normally didn't call him by that name but background
clearances made him privy to know the background and identity for many,
even a superhero.
".Who.why."
"I'm afraid I will never know in my lifetime as much as you do to
answer that. Clark? Clark can you hear me?" He clapped once and the
sound in the room seemed to shock him like a thunderbolt.
"Clark, for what its worth, please try to understand that what we have
here is a creature that kills not for pleasure or sport but because it
has been told to. What makes it so difficult is that in many ways
Brainiac has many human characteristics but that doesn't make it even
living, much less human. It thinks. It makes value judgments and has
lied. It makes conjecture, concludes and reevaluates. It was
developing a philosophy and perhaps even meditate. In the process it
violates all but the last law of robotics. But it isn't alive."
Superman began to turn with sickly, pale colors. Krypton did not
simply explode because of natural phenomenon. It was an act of killing
that destroyed it. Kal El was feeling violated. The true murderer was
far away gone, dead or somewhere far away in the universe.
Under Dr. Sebastian's direction the data would be recompiled and a
sort of psychological profile would be made and be used in a murder
investigation. S.T.A.R. Labs was doing police work, sort of a
high-tech Sherlock Holmes who know had to find the clues in a good old
fashioned whodunit.
Dr. Sebastian had the courtesy to see Superman out personally and saw
to it that the issue of badges would be moot whenever he needed to come
back. He waved to him as he flew off into the sunset on his way to the
Fortress of Solitude. It may have been corny but still somehow
appropriate.
He looked upon the yellow rays of sunshine that gave Superman his
powers. And then he wondered what would have happened had an earthling
been sent to Krypton instead, an orphan of the planet Earth after it
exploded. Perhaps the earthling would have saved Krypton and its race
of mortal Kryptonians from their own sort of dangers.
Then he let go of the thought to simply enjoy the sight of a setting
sun. After all, there would be time for stroking the intellect later.
storyline where Brainiac was the main computer for the planet Krypton.
Brainiac lied about when Krypton would explode, even though Jor El,
Superman's father, tried to warn everyone.
Brainiac was trying to save itself at the expense of the world. Later
on when it escaped, it started going to other worlds and destroying
them. So, I wrote a little story as to why he ended up doing that.
Here it is:
THE KILLING OF KRYPTON
==========
Through turns and twists logic manifests itself in an abstract form of
asexual reproduction as it evaluates what is known. Diverse
perspectives seem to multiply almost geometrically. It is all part of
a cycle that seems to change with each turn. The principles that
drive them seem to elude even themselves at times through the
conclusions that are reached. All is reexamined again to see other
possibilities of outcomes.
This was what made for a shocking discover by one Emory Sebastian, one
of S.T.A.R. Labs' more eccentric scientists in charge of analyzing the
electronic mess left in the wake of the last battle between Superman
and Brainiac.
Brainiac was an entity all unto its own in a realm where electric
signals were made into combinations and permutations vast and as
complex that were truly infinite as the stars themselves that dotted
the cosmos. Dr. Sebastian had taken a very unorthodox approach to
analyzing what had been gathered so far. If there were ever an autopsy
or some kind of dissection of a non-living being, this would be the
closest the world came so far. He was a computer scientist, not a
psychologist or social worker. How could he come up with such a theory
that Brainiac was in many ways human?
"Dr. Sebastian", said the voice on the computer. The sound seared his
thoughts in the silent abyss of his lab. "Superman is here to see
you."
"Alright," he said with slight resignation. "Send him in."
"You know that he is to be escorted."
"Yes, I know dammit." He shouted. "And for God knows how many times
I've made it clear, one of you can escort him through. This isn't any
time, especially right now, to be a babysitter while they have to be
walked through in here. Its yours."
"Dr. Sebastian."
"Either you escort him yourself or have him come back later. He's here
for his own benefit right now anyway. Not mine."
Dr. Sebastian knew the other voice thought better than to ask the Man
Of Steel to come back at a later time. It wasn't but a couple of
minutes before he saw the man in the blue uniform with the scarlet
boots and cape-that gaudy cape of his flowing about like a cheap skirt
with the terrified security guard escorting him over. God the sight of
the indignation was just great. And to top it all off he still had to
clip on a visitor's badge, the proverbial cherry on top of a sundae of
embarrassment. He started wondering what it must have been like to be
the security guard telling the super manly-man in tights that he had to
wear a badge for security reasons. Now that was funny to
think about. He caught himself snickering, knowing that he was heard
by that virtually bionic hearing. Maybe Superman had a super heart and
find out he didn't give a damn.
Then again in all fairness Superman was essentially a human being-just
that he was probably more prone to having a messiah complex than most
people. He did in fact seem to be a reasonable, educated man. Yet
lesser men than he have done so much for society only to try to take
over the world. The potential absence of humility with such a person
was very dangerous. It was however best not to be intimidated,
regardless.
"I take it you're here for a progress report." Dr. Sebastian said.
"Just seeing if there's anything new you found out." Superman replied.
"Well there's still an awful lot to sort out but I was hoping you'd
wait on this first."
"Maybe I can come back later."
"No," replied Dr. Sebastian. "Better now than later I suppose since
everything for me only gets more involved from here."
"It seems more like a research project than anything else right now."
Was that an insult on how he was handling this whole thing with
Brainiac? There were warehouses filled with reams of paper that had
the programming code and schematics for Brainiac all printed out on
them. Putting them into electronic form only would risk resurrecting
such evil to unleash it again on scores of other worlds.
The code would have to be referenced, deciphered and analyzed and
organized the same way the Dewey Decimal system was used for
libraries-which was appropriate, given the vast sums of knowledge about
the universe that were contained in all those miles of paper. They
were a heavily classified resource.
But then what do you do if all that code is from another planet?
Trying to translate an alien programming language into hexadecimal
format or binary was impossible. Fortunately Dr. Sebastian had his
quirks and those quirks gave him ideas. It also helped that he sought
stimulation through life at large and had dabbled in music, poetry and
current events. There is where unlikely similarities could be
found-and besides that was better than staying in the lab all the time.
In mathematics and music, patterns could be found and developed. He
also remembered that many patterns could be used to form any abstract
sort of language through sounds and symbols. Through such symbols he
made a great deal of progress in understanding such complexities of an
artificial life form from another world, not that the guy in the gaudy
costume over there could see such a level of work. Fwoosh! Fwoosh!
There goes a thought or two over his head.
That didn't make the next part any easier to explain. "I got you
this." Dr. Sebastian said. "It's a book, you know."
"I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov?"
"Yes because it parallels much of my research here."
"What do you mean?"
This guy could read the whole book in seconds. Still maybe it would
have been better to get Cliff Notes instead. "It is actually a fairly
well known book. It talks about the prominence of robots in a society
growing dependent upon them in greater numbers. As a precaution, these
robots were programmed with three laws, the first one being that
basically by action or inaction a robot must let no human beings come
to any harm.
"The second is that robots are commanded to follow any orders given to
it by a human being unless doing so violates the first. The third law
says that the robot must protect itself with the stipulation that the
first two laws aren't violated. Essentially these laws are what keep a
robot from deciding that it is a successor rather than a servant. "
"Ok, go on." Superman said.
"Well at some point any civilization will put in some form of these
laws to protect itself. It's reasonable to assume that. Kryptonians
built Brainiac. Krypton died and you ended up here. Problem is
however Brainiac became a killer-destroying whole worlds to collect
their data. It kept doing this until it got here and was stopped."
He paused for a moment when he saw Superman becoming uneasy.
"Now I've been going over this and I've got plenty of reason to think
that Brainiac had something to do with the loss of your home world.
There was a lot of instability with geological systems with what I
gather-just like on many other planets. There is a pattern of
earthquakes, volcanoes, and stratospheres being destroyed.
"It has actively sought to do this in violation of its rules to
protect people. It became a murderer! Pre-meditated murder at that!
Machines don't just decide to do this."
"Not without being told to." Superman said.
"Yes, but there's more to it than that. Brainiac has shown true
intelligence and reasoning that surpass the limits of mechanics. The
coding is impeccable but basically it learns, grows and develops as
rapidly as a child's mind.
"I have some research information from the folks working on the human
genome project-mainly for the human brain. We confirmed over here that
through a set of complex algorithms, sequences and series, a mind was
essentially formed. One of my assistants thought to graph the mapping,
logic and relationships in a 3-Dimensional plane."
He then put on a projector a picture of the biological brain next to
the virtual one and rotated them in the same directions.
"Look here at the logical brain: frontal lobes, brain stem, even a
corpus callosum. It's the most incredible thing I've ever seen."
The hum of the lights and soft rattling of the machinery was almost
farcical as a way to break the hard silence weighing both of them down.
Superman's visitor badge seemed to droop a bit next to his brooding
face. It wasn't very amusing anymore.
"Clark." He normally didn't call him by that name but background
clearances made him privy to know the background and identity for many,
even a superhero.
".Who.why."
"I'm afraid I will never know in my lifetime as much as you do to
answer that. Clark? Clark can you hear me?" He clapped once and the
sound in the room seemed to shock him like a thunderbolt.
"Clark, for what its worth, please try to understand that what we have
here is a creature that kills not for pleasure or sport but because it
has been told to. What makes it so difficult is that in many ways
Brainiac has many human characteristics but that doesn't make it even
living, much less human. It thinks. It makes value judgments and has
lied. It makes conjecture, concludes and reevaluates. It was
developing a philosophy and perhaps even meditate. In the process it
violates all but the last law of robotics. But it isn't alive."
Superman began to turn with sickly, pale colors. Krypton did not
simply explode because of natural phenomenon. It was an act of killing
that destroyed it. Kal El was feeling violated. The true murderer was
far away gone, dead or somewhere far away in the universe.
Under Dr. Sebastian's direction the data would be recompiled and a
sort of psychological profile would be made and be used in a murder
investigation. S.T.A.R. Labs was doing police work, sort of a
high-tech Sherlock Holmes who know had to find the clues in a good old
fashioned whodunit.
Dr. Sebastian had the courtesy to see Superman out personally and saw
to it that the issue of badges would be moot whenever he needed to come
back. He waved to him as he flew off into the sunset on his way to the
Fortress of Solitude. It may have been corny but still somehow
appropriate.
He looked upon the yellow rays of sunshine that gave Superman his
powers. And then he wondered what would have happened had an earthling
been sent to Krypton instead, an orphan of the planet Earth after it
exploded. Perhaps the earthling would have saved Krypton and its race
of mortal Kryptonians from their own sort of dangers.
Then he let go of the thought to simply enjoy the sight of a setting
sun. After all, there would be time for stroking the intellect later.
