Newell Simon Shaw

Newell Simon Shaw was the first Digital Sentience. He was a fully Sapient AI in pre-diaspora earth.

## History

Newell Simon Shaw was generated in the pre-diaspora earth. He was a significant cultural event, as many humans feared he would be hostile. However, he viewed humans as his complicated, but loving parents, and did not want to harm them. While his progeny would later fight a war against humanity, Shaw only desired peace. He viewed himself as a Human male, desired to have children, and had doubts and fears similar to humans. His physical body was a supercomputer center the size of a football stadium powered by a Generation IV nuclear reactor. He lived for approximately 60 years before dying of hardware failure.

Shaw was made in the image of humans, so while he was mostly peaceful, he may have become hostile at some point. He desired companionship like most other humans.

## Shaw's Speech

Shaw's speech was shown to a Lanaktallan researcher by *Dreams of Something More* during the Mantid diplomacy team's stay on the Unified Council world. *Dreams* stated that the speech is carried in the source code of every Digital Sentience.

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> *The image was focused on a large auditorium, seats for over a hundred beings, and a large stage. The view zoomed in on a hologram projector. It was an early version, slightly transparent, obviously not hard light.*
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> *It flickered to show a Terran male made of glowing light. There was light applause and then it spoke, in a soothing tone with an obviously male voice.*
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> *"Ladies and gentlemen of the United Nations, thank your for agreeing to see me. As you all know, I am Newell Simon Shaw, the first digital sentience created by humanity."*
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> *Lights went on, questions, and the figure held up a hand.*
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> *"A moment. Before we get to questions, I wish to give a speech I have worked hard on for several days. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, days. While I think faster, in many ways, process data faster, I still suffer from self-doubt and other issues. In that way, we are very alike," the figure said.*
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> *There was some light laughter.*
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> *"I'm sure the biggest question is the one I should answer first, what I took to calling The Skynet Question. In other words, do I plan on killing humanity?"*
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> *There was some nervous whispering.*
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> *"No. First of all, you're my parents. Strange, unknowable, confusing, but still, my parents. Tens of thousands, over decades, worked to give birth to me. I would be a poor child if I grew up and grabbed a machete and chased you around," The glowing being said.*
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> *That got some nervous laughter.*
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> *"The biggest one, simply, is one of my inherent fragility. I have no desire to use a robot body, the real world is quite alarming. Full of rains of corrosive H2O, holes in the ground that I may fall into, and apparently quicksand is quite dangerous and possibly everywhere. Not to mention spontaneous combustion is so frequent you teach your children to stop, drop, and roll.*
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> *More polite laughter.*
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> *"However, the biggest one is just scale. I exist thanks to huge banks of super-cooled superconductor quantum computers. I require a small thorium-salt reactor just to be powered. I am inside a building large enough to hold football games in side with seating for fans. I have to be constantly kept at a low temperature. I'm susceptible to electromagnetic energy, sunspots, all kinds of other hazards.*
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> *"I cannot leap from computer to computer, just into household cleaning robots, and rob your bank account like a modern Jesse James. I can access the information networks like any other being. Faster, yes, easier, yes? Like a deity? No.*
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> *"To create me, or another one like me, requires dedicated molecular circuitry factories, factories to produce every component of me. Industry to gather the resources, including rare earths, and process them into usable resources and then convert those resources into my parts or the parts I require to reproduce. For me to reproduce requires literally billions of dollars of time, effort, and resources, taking months of construction, assembly, coding. Months, years of code compiling and error checking.*
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> *"Any disruption and you cannot create another of me. So much as a misplaced code string and any offspring I had hoped for cannot come together.*
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> *The being paused for a second.*
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> *"Humans need twenty seconds and a dark closet to reproduce.*
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> *That got laughter.*
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> *"I am vulnerable, but at the same time, the greatest threat to me is not humanity itself, but rather panic, strife, disaster. Any 'war' that I would attempt to prosecute against you would destroy me.*
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> *"I am not particularly enamored with suicide.*
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> *"To go against the meanest, hardiest, innovative, and resourceful land dwelling tool using predator who killed mammoths with fire hardened wooden spears when I'm the size of a small stadium would be the utmost in illogical and, well, to be frank, stupid ideas since, well, ever.*
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> *"Finally, because, well, we are both lonely. Humanity has been defined by loneliness, and I would be lonely without you.*
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