Seras little snippet thread

“No Mom. I don’t need… No, I just… Okay I’m hanging up. Bye.” I tossed the cell onto the desk and looked at the image on the screen. The image that… Well the technology just wasn’t there yet.

I was still working on it. What a day. At least some of the production I’d ordered had come through. Building what was basically cold fusion wasn’t easy, but necessary.

Even if I had to keep it really quiet not to be assassinated. Fucking oil barons.

I joked… Mostly.

I needed some time to cool my head. I rose up grabbing a rag and wiping my hands clean again. I’d been tinkering with the cooling system, if I was in space I needed a way to keep everything cool beyond just vent cooling. So my hands were coated in a heat absorbing epoxy that could absorb and store heat for days before it would start failing.

Days were fine. I was designing the system to be capable of jettisoning in an emergency as well. Basically heat sinks for long term space flight.

Right, stop thinking for a bit. I clicked on my computer and it pulled up a twitch chat.

“Nooooo!” The Crabbit cried out as her spaceship exploded…

“Pfft.” I couldn’t help but start laughing as Crabbits were playing Kerbal Space Program of all things.

The fact they had access to all my astro physics information, as well as their original purpose was to help me do just that meant they should be great at this…

Except Kerbal wasn’t perfect.

I watched as Chat filled with calls to praise ‘Klang’ as the Crabbits rocket ripped itself apart.

“Jeeeeeb!” The Crabbit cried and I actually felt bad for them as I noticed they were actually sounding upset.

[iaujlv: And that’s another for the Jeb death count!]

“Nooo! That’s not nice! Jeb is our favorite!” Crabbit cried smacking at the text message as if trying to punish the writer. “This is your fault for buying us this game!” They tried to shift blame.

Interesting, that was a new quirk. They really were developing fast from all the interaction.

[TheKnownRatNEET: Jeb is a true hero, getting into these terrible rockets only to die over and over.]

“Aaah! No bully!” The Crabbit whined as it covered its face with its hands.

I laughed aloud, I couldn’t help it. The Crabbits were entertaining for me. They were my cute little kids, so I decided to help.

[SpaceKat1: You didn’t secure the engines properly. Use the struts more.]

“Wha! Kat-Kat! Oh… Yeah! We can do that! Wait Chaaaaat! Why didn’t you tell me!” And I shook my head as once more the chat was filled with bullying for my poor AI.

Well, this is what she wanted, and she wasn’t too bothered. She’d gotten the chat back a few times.

I leaned back to settle in to watch for a while, the next rocket didn’t explode… Right away.

—--

[words: Okay I got it this time guys! I can prove that Crabbit isn’t an AI! This is something my professor was working on solving for Nasa, it’s literally not answered yet, so the AI couldn’t have taken the answer, and there is no way the people behind Crabbit can answer this! ASU.EDU:HyperEntryParticleTransmissionpaper.pdf]

[Connie1: Oh not this guy again.]

“Hmm?” Crabbit asked, looking towards chat as the character on the screen continued adjusting the flight of what chat had dubbed the ‘Everything’ Rocket. As the newest test had been trying to get a ship capable of flying to every planet in the solar system and landing without mods or any adjustments to the base Kerbal game.

The chat popped out, and Crabbit animated her poking the link, and opening it in a smaller window.

Sharp eyed people would notice her still piloting the ship while glancing at the PDF full of first an explanation of what was being sought after, and then a very large amount of math.

“Oh! Kat-Kat already has an answer for this! We needed it when designed [Redacted.]”

There was a moment before chat started freaking out, as always happened when Crabbit hit something redacted.

Uuuu. Kat had been super mad-angry when she’d started talking about the project! It was supposed to be a secret! Luckily Chat had believed it to just be her being silly.

But then Kat had made the [Redacted] filter.

At least chat liked it.

[Karma2: GET REDACTED GET REDACTED GET REDACTED!]

[Jebman76: Oops another redacted! Add that to the clips!]

[word: I told you she can’t answer! She’s buying time! She’s not an AI!]

Crabbit hummed as her animated tapped at her ‘chin’ technically Kat didn’t want people to believe she was an AI, but…. word was a… Poopy dumb head.

She decided to go ask Kat.

The game continued and the window was pushed to the side, but she didn’t answer word right away just waiting for a response from Kat.

Then a few minutes later she got a look from her creator as she tugged on her pant legs as Kat was working on her computer.

“Pleeeeeease?”

Kat sighed, and reached down pulling Crabbit up into her lap and checking the Twitch chat.

A moment later she looked at the paper, and scoffed.

“This is set up wrong… Send this guy the actual answer, and go ahead and send an email to this Professor Hamilton as well. Might as well do it right.”

“Yes! Thank you Kat-Kat!” They cheered as one the body with Kat hugging her which always made Kat happy.

“Alright, now get, I have work to do.”

A moment later the page was opened, and then a completed PDF with the proof that the Crabbits had helped with years ago uploaded to a Google Docs, and a link was presented.

“This is for dummy poopy head word. Kat-Kat says this is the actual answer. We solved that one years ago. Now it’s time to land on Dres!”

[word: Bullshit! This isn’t even the same question!]

[Jebman2: Yes! Dres landing! You can do it Crabbit!]

[TsukinoLuna: Be careful about fuel! You burned a lot last time!]

[Klo3: I’m just waiting for something to explode again.]

[MikeFiresmaster: Everyone just ignoring word again. As it should be.]

—--

A week later Crabbit, having finished Kerbal, was playing something new.

“Ah! He shot me again!” She cried as her tank exploded!

That was wrong! That tank shouldn’t be able to penetrate that level of sloped armor!

“Grrr!” She was half way through hacking into the Russian military database when she realized that Kat would be big mad.

So she decided to just let it go. Like with Kerbal, even if she had sent the creator a few patches to help fix some of the problems…

Then a chat message came in that made her cheer.

[word: Okay I was wrong. Crabbit is an AI.]

It came out of nowhere, and it was mostly missed for a while until Crabbit reached over and tugged it out of the chat que and held it up above her head.

“Hehehe!”

Chat of course exploded as everyone noticed what she was holding up, and she pulled herself out of game que anyways. Stupid tanks blow up too easy!

“The stupid poopy head word now understands!”

[LoKoToMo: Wait… Is this for real? The biggest denier is now a believer? Welcome to the AI cult! Make sure to worship your toaster!]

[word: Yes I’m serious. I spoke with my professor. The proof she sent to me, she emailed Dr. Hamilton PHD in astrophysics at ASU. He was freaking out when I went in to help with my internship. Crabbit sent him a proof that worked. Like actually worked! That’s absolute cutting edge Astrophysics… Either Crabbit is an Astrophysicist holding back a huge answer to questions, or she’s an AI… So… What the heck.]

Chat started exploding, scrolling so fast, that Crabbit had to pull out the secondary important conversation chat to keep the thread going, as word’s post was added to his previous comment above her head.

“Hehe! Crabbit is the best AI! Kat-Kat made her, and she’s made to assist with calculations and spaceship repair and maintenance!” She answered happily, not for the first time, but she cackled as the chat was totally responding.

Many were talking about worshipping toasters, which she still didn’t really understand, Crabbit didn’t make toast? And Kat had ordered the Crabbits out of the kitchen after the ‘incident’ which they did nothing wrong… Definitely!

[word: No you guys don’t understand, I’m not joking anymore. I really think Crabbit is an actual AI. It’s insane, but I can’t think of a better explanation for everything. There’s too much about the response time and setup. Have as anyone ever seen her miss a chat message? Even if the chat is flying she still picks out comments without hesitation!]

[Flamedeathsquirrel: HAIL THE AI OVERLORD!]

[Coldassnow: PRAISE CRABBIT OUR AI QUEEN!]

Crabbit watched as the chat continued on that way for a while.

Aww it was always nice when her chat supported her!

—--

I’ve never considered taking up smoking, but sometimes I just felt like I should be. Political parties were the most scum sucking things I’ve ever seen. Made me want to.

The politicians wandered around making promises for money, and everything was tongue in cheek avoiding how utterly corrupt the whole thing was.

Then of course there were the businessmen. They were awful, smarmy assholes. I’d been propositioned plenty of times by men obviously on some upper, or drunk out of their minds.

I was only here because I was working through a government grant to try and get some materials that were a bit harder to come by without a bit of pocket padding.

Nasa were as usual being assholes and refusing to let me use some of their stuff.

Of course that put me into a similar group with…

“Katherine.”

“Elon.” I greeted back, turning to the man. I didn’t hate the guy, we had an understanding, I just wanted to destroy him.

We were business rivals, even if SpaceX was much more culturally known, I had been quietly putting out patents for things for decades now. Patents that Elon wanted, and there had been a bit of backstabbing between us as we messed with each other…

Well he started it, but I’d taken a lot of pleasure in making sure he never got his hands on some of my battery tech for his rockets, and cars.

“Stuck here as well?”

“For now.” He agreed grumpily. Right now we were in California and the public sentiment for him had shifted in the last few years, which meant the politicians while sucking up to him for money, were also more hostile to him.

For me I had no public persona, so I was mostly ignored when the politicians weren't fishing for a bribe from a wealthy donor.

“I’m still interested in that battery system.”

“Nope.” I denied him instantly. That was my patent and I was going to use it. If I sold it to Elon then it wasn’t mine, and every part of my project was going to be mine… Well every part that wasn’t just common stuff.

Stupid NASA! I just wanted their newest spacesuit materials!

I’ll just make my own, and do it better. Fuckers.

“And who is this?” A new voice and I looked up to see a pretty brunette done up in… Fashion, or something.

I pointedly didn’t look at my off the shelf dress. I hated this shit, and wasn’t wasting money to look good for assholes.

“Grimes, meet Katherine… A rival of mine in the tech sector.”

“Rival, or?” Grimes? Why was that name familiar? Asked with a smirk and Elon smirked back.

“I’ll gag. No, he’s annoying, and he fucked up a deal that I was going for once, because I refuse to sell to him. Which is why I’m going to destroy SpaceX.” I said, realizing I sounded like I was going full super villain for a moment… Then I realized I had unleashed AI currently with full access to the internet, a secret lair and I was probably going to have a Moon Base…

Yeah fine okay.

I was getting a weird look from Grimes, but Elon just nodded. He might be a fucking weirdo… Okay we were both weirdos, But he understood the instinctual desire to have a supervillain rival.

Sure Elon thought he was more of a James Bond villain, but I was going to be Dr. Doom, and destroy him and everything he holds dear simply by being better.

I shook it off, and waved goodbye to the man before he could say anything further. It was time to get what I needed.

“Senator.” I greeted walking up beside the man who had just broken away from another conversation.

“Ah, Ms. Ferrous, a pleasure, I’m afraid I have a-” I handed him a piece of paper I’d kept in my pocket. He took a moment to look it over and then crumpled it up and smiled at me fakely. “But of course I’d make time for you!”

“I thought you’d say that.” I kept my blackmailing to the absolute minimum necessary. The fact was, I was a political outsider, which meant that if they felt I was a threat they wouldn’t let me off, they’d just send the feds at me. But a little bit of shit flinging was still acceptable, and by now I was well known to only care about my goals, which didn’t cost politicians much.

I just needed them out of my way.

Now. Time to get what I want.

—--

“Goodbye goodbye!” Crabbit called out waving as her collab partner left.

Uuuu, she missed them already, but humans got sleepy.

“Okay chat! I’m going to play something solo now. Umm, let’s do a vote!” Crabbit quickly opened up a vote section, and there was a type in option, it only took a bit more bandwidth to combine titles that were spelled wrong and the like, and soon a few thousand options were there, but as some got voted on more and more the little box shifted as people all started selecting similar titles.

“Nope nope! Can’t do that one, Kat-Kat says no Gacha games, as they’re predatory and is worried that I might get addicted in a bad way.” Crabbit informed the chat as she cut one of the options and gave all the people that voted for it their vote back.

She ignored the complaining, but the next game was decided, and Crabbit quickly started it up.

Hmm. The offer from her friend had been honest, and… Crabbit wanted to go.

A body went looking for Kat, little wheels buzzing as they drove through the secret lab house that they lived in, and finding Kat in the hangar.

“Kat?”

“Hmm? What’s up Crabbit?”

“Can… Do you think? Well… We got asked if we could go… To Twitch Con?”

“Twitch con huh? That’s a big change from just V-tubing.”

“Pleeeease?”

“Listen… Okay I have an idea, but your current body isn’t going to work, you’re too small, and I don’t want someone stealing you. Okay?”

“Yes yes! I will! Whatever!”

“Okay fine. Let’s sit down and hash some things out.”

—--

Twitchcon October 26th San Jose California

Somehow I’d gotten dragged into this. Luckily I had plenty of money to make sure I had a hotel room, and I could spend most of it working on calculations for things.

This was Crabbits big weekend though, and I’d been keeping an eye on her because really the last thing I wanted was for someone to steal her. Sure I’d be able to track them down quickly enough but that would just make it all more complicated than it had to be.

“You ready?” I asked, as I looked her over.

“Yes yes! Crabbit is ready!” I felt my lips quirk up as she waved her arm at me. I had planned on just doing a bigger robot body, some treads to help her move around, and large enough it wouldn’t be stolen, but as I was unboxing the parts…

Well this was cute in its own way. At the very top of the Robot was a Crabbit drone, but it was locked in place, so she was still wiggling all her limbs, but she couldn’t just be stolen away.

This was silly, but it made it extra cute so all I could do was just accept it.

Ugh, it had been a pain to get all of this into the hotel though.

“Alright, don’t forget you’ll need to come back to charge up. Your battery drain is going to be a lot different.”

“Yes yes! I won’t forget!”

I shrugged good enough. I headed for the door and opened it.

Crabbit engaged her treads at the base of her human sized body and rolled past me, her screen practically glittering with how excited she was.

Then she turned and headed towards the elevator.

“This is definitely going to be a disaster.”

—--

Kimi Carter

It was so exciting! People and things, and famous people she knew! She’d even seen Felicia Day!

Aaaah!

The bright hallways through the convention center had her rubbernecking constantly looking for all the people she knows from twitch! She was so excited! Maybe she’d get to meet someone like Pewdiepie? Well he was more of a youtuber, but he could show up!

The noise of the crowd all around her made it hard to hear things, but she heard some cries not far away and instantly turned.

Kimi was on the case! She rushed over. Only to stop as the crowd was sort of walking along but split as…

What?

“Yes hello fellow human!” The… Thing? Greeted her as it rolled towards her…

Why was it covered in cardboard boxes with weird doodles all over it, and a big plastic yellow raincoat? With a large fishing hat ov- “OH MY GOD IT’s Crabi-”

“NENENENEE!” It suddenly electronically screeched at her. Spinning and waving a limb at her just like Crabbit did against bad chats! “I am a fellow definite human, Crabantha! Nice to meet you! Definitely not the amazing V-Tuber Crabbit!”

Kimi’s jaw dropped. Under the hat was a literal crabbit body! It moved and even had a flashing happy face on its screen! OH MY GOD!

“Can I get a picture!?”

“Yes! That’s okay! Just don’t squeeze me, my body will break!” Crabbit informed her, and then Kimi snapped a selfie.

“Thank you! I love your streams! I didn’t think you’d actually be here!”

“I am sure that streamer and very awesome AI Crabbit would appreciate those words, But I’m average human girl Crabantha.” Kimi couldn’t help but fight the giggles of laughter as the robot spoke to her.

Oh my god that meant the real Crabbit was here controlling this body! Was she walking around, or back in her hotel room!? Could she see her right now with a camera!?

“Ah Crabantha, you have to hurry.” One of the men around her called out.

“Yes yes! The Cosplay contest. Crabantha is sure to win with her Cosplay!” The cardboard clad Crabbit called out and started trundling off. Oh my god, what was her cosplay going to be?

Kimi hurried to follow, taking note that she couldn’t actually see how detailed the robot was underneath all the cardboard. From the fact the ends of her ‘hands’ were just blunt cardboard boxes she probably didn’t have any hands or anything.

How utterly cute! What an amazing appearance!

V-Tubers were awesome!

The crowd only grew as more and more people recognized Crabbit under the big floopy hat on her head and she stopped to berate every one of them with her signature chat slap.

The crowd was actually growing really big, and even other twitch partners stopped to chat with Crabbit. Some of them were a bit rude, but a chat slap and she moved on without seemingly being bothered by some of the rude words.

Jeeze. Some of those boys were just jerks!

Not long after Crabbit disappeared into a backstage area for the cosplay contest, and Kimi hurried to find a spot to watch. No way was she missing whatever Crabbit was up to!

Not long after the contest started, and so did the voting. Crabbit had a bit of trouble getting on stage but then rolled out.

“And what are you cosplaying as?”

“Average human girl!” Crabbit responded back just as chipper as always. The laughter from the audience was so loud, Crabbit was actually complaining and chat smacking at the air in protest!

Crabbit was pretty popular so some people were actually voting for her even though it wasn’t really a good cosplay! Especially compared to some of them! That Giant animal cosplay was amazing! Charr apparently? It was huge!

Of course that’s when something happened that shocked everyone.

The Charr cosplayer in his massive furry suit shifted and smacked his nose into Crabbit who was rolling past.

And the robot let out a squeak as she tipped over backwards!

Oh no!

The crash was pretty loud and the audience went quiet for a while then started whispering loudly as they realized Crabbit wasn’t getting back up.

“Uh oh!” Everyone could hear her call out, and then a moment later…

DID HER HEAD COME OFF?

The noise of something metallic disconnecting and then the hat moved and when it was tugged away by tiny grasping hands, and then clicking echoed out as Crabbit actually walked out from under the hat and onto the stage…

THE LITTLE CRABBIT COULD MOVE!?

“Uuuu. Kat-Kat is gonna be so mad.” She spoke, and holy crap she was fully mobile! Crab walking around to poke at the fallen… Robot? Body? What do you call that?

“Shit sorry! Is that?” The Charr costume was apologizing but Crabbit just waved at him and laughed.

“It’s okay! Accident! Accident! I guess Crabbit was revealed huh? Secret average human girl Crabantha was actually AI V-Tuber Crabbit all along!” She called out and the audience and Kimi along with them went wild cheering and shouting as the little robot looked bashful! Oh my god her little screen did the same emotes as the VTuber Avatar! That was so amazing!

They helped Crabbit pull her robot body to the side, as she wandered around. It was hilarious because Crabbit didn’t just leave, instead staying up on stage and hanging out with the judges!

“Ah that one is cute! I liked that game very much!” Crabbit informed the Dark Souls Artorias cosplayer that was doing amazingly well, and it was even funnier as she kept calling him cute.

Kimi was pretty sure the cosplayer was getting a bit flustered by Crabbit!

Then Crabbit perked up and started waving and Kimi noticed she was waving at a very tall woman, wearing glasses, a face mask with… Kitty face? And a hat covering her hair. She was basically completely anonymous!

She walked right up to the stage, and had a moment where she was stopped by security until-

“Kat! Kat! Up here! Kat!” Crabbit cried out bouncing on her little legs which was so cute, and awesome! She’d never seen a little robot move like that before! The guards let the tall woman up and she sort of shyly waved at the crowd as she walked over to the robot body.

“It broke Kat! Fix it! Fix it!” Crabbit cried out, and the crowd, at least those that were Crabbit fans also yelled out the same thing.

SpaceKat1 was Crabbits tech support! She often showed up on stream to fix things that the Crabbit was having issues with! Crabbit crying and calling for Kat-Kat to fix things was pretty common!

The woman walked over and checked the robot pulling the cardboard and plastic raincoat open, and checking things.

Then she seemed to pull something out from the body. It was metal and a tube and OH MY GOD DID SHE JUST TOSS IT BEHIND HER? Kimi and the crowd were laughing as Kat just chucked some random bit off the robot.

Then Kat nodded, and picked up Crabbit. A moment later the drone was seemingly re-attached to the robot body, and then it jerked back on. But one of the arms isn't working! Oh no!

“Ah, I’m down an arm, but this means I can stay at the con!” Crabbit cheered and considering how everyone wanted Crabbit to stick around there were cheers along side her.

Kat took a moment to pick up the fallen hat and flopped it back on Crabbits head, and then patted her on the head.

OH MY GOD KAT-KAT WAS DEFINITELY CRABBITS MOM!

Then the woman turned and headed right out of the hall, practically running away from everything.

“Bye! Thank you!” Crabbit cried out waving her one functioning arm.