The Salvage Crew (Amber Rose's cameras and drones) | Database of Machine Vision in Art, Games and Narratives

Brief description

Amber Rose, the ex-human AI construct in charge of the mission, frequently engages various kinds of camera inputs in spiders and drones. Although his core is a metal box that is in the middle of the landing site, he often spreads his consciousness into other devices that he appropriates, or gets inputs from various sources. He expresses great pleasure in this.

The pull quote here describes him taking control over dozens of spider bots at one through a repeater he and the crew have built, and the rush of seeing through "over two hundred beady camera eyes". The sensation is described using sexual metaphors, "I slide in...", "The rush is orgasmic."

Pull Quotes

Anna extracts the little extension core that goes into the resource extractor. She approaches the thing. It hums and activates, spilling open to reveal a dull insert. She slides in the core and . . . ahh. With an almost sensual feeling I slide in among its idle processors, its circuitry, tapping into the eyes and hands and limbs of every spider it has deployed. Suddenly I am two. No, not two, but ten, twenty, thirty. The rush is orgasmic.

Boomerang dips briefly in the sky as the little repeater takes the load and staggers a little.

AHEM. TESTING. ONE. TWO, I boom from a small army of metal. Milo jumps.

“Holy shit, OC!”

Over two hundred beady camera eyes focus on Anna and Milo. How do I explain this feeling to someone with only one body?

I can’t. The only thing I can offer is my pity for those who are trapped with just two eyes and legs and hands. In these moments I am more. I am legion.

Wijeratne, Yudhanjaya. The Salvage Crew (p. 112). Aethon Books. Kindle Edition.