Question Xanadu Discussion Thread

Like someone did for me when I published my first WhatIf on this site, I'm going to start this Xanadu discussion thread. First off, congrats to the author for writing such a excellent story. As mentioned on the comments section for that story, there are a few issues. First off (as a mechatronic engineer), such a project as a 1:1 humanoid robot with a humanlike appearance is near impossible by non-devisor/gadgeteer standards. Even with the assistance of a AI, the mechanical issues (like that of Tiny Tim (but not on the same scale)) are numerous. Such a machine would devote more power to keeping itself upright than necessary. ASIMO (Honda's walking robot (who I met as a teenager while on holiday in Japan)) was the product of more than three years of development, and even then it is one of the few bipedal robots currently operational that has the ability to do more than walk. Even then, the battery life is poor, and the robot started out as a remote-controlled unit, due to the motors and other vital systems putting too much tax on it's back-mounted battery. This brings me to another point. Actually, before that, I'll add a disclaimer for anything following this, as well as stuff already mentioned: I loved the story. I also know this is fiction, and should not be given the same rules as reality. Plus, it's a universe where literal anime characters can just walk around, and space octopi-tentacle-god-monstrosities exist and interact with the world of humans. So, yeah. This is all from a conservative viewpoint (BTW, my politics are left-wing. Didn't just say I'm actually right-wing. Sorry bout that). Anyway, getting back to the aforementioned nitpicking, ASIMO is designed to be around 3/4 the height of a average person, and is designed primarily for stable walking and running. That said, it is very non-humanoid. Let me expand on that:

- ASIMO is built with perfectly flat feet, as a way of distributing it's considerable weight over a larger area. It usually walks in a pose that would best suit a partially constipated person with pants around their legs. This is meant to balance it's weight better. It is very slow at moving, as servo motors are very bad at creating torque. Motors can either be designed for load-bearing (low speed/agility-high torque/strength) or for speed (vice versa). This is a significant limitation imposed on all conventional motors. Even today's mil-grade technology (which I have had a peek at when a engineer from iRobot in the US came to do a live practical with my engineering class and to show us the workings of one of their PackBot mil-grade robots) is not up to the job of doing both. It is technically possible to use a combination of motors (or a gearing system) to do the job, but both of these would be bulky as well as cause problems when attempting to quickly change settings. There are some motors designed to switch between high torque and high speed settings, but these are very bulky, power consuming and also very, very crude. Even a universe like 2007 Whateley with technology at least 10-20 odd years ahead of our corresponding time still wouldn't be able to create such commercially-available technology to such a size and advancement that it could be used to create a robot body, in a garage, with non-military parts, while in a wheelchair. Therefore, the movement of Xanadu's robotic body would be impossible given it's relative approximation of human dimensions, not without moving in a clunky way. I know that their strength and agility are considerably less due to a version of the above reasons. At least, not without severe gadgeteer/devisor assistance.
- The power source for Xanadu's robotic body would have to be quite good to run all the actions required to simulate (to a effective degree) a living human body. The power source would have to run a advanced computer capable of storing the human brain (something that would exceed the memory storage capacity of more than ten desktop computers) and running the software required to allow interface between Xanadu's digital consciousness and their body; have a constant internet connection to her AI assistant (unless it's onboard, taking more power to run), move around with precision and reasonable speed/agility (something requiring lots of power), as well as run stuff like gyroscopes, sensors, micro-motors for expression, cooling systems, etc. Basically either powered by a insanely powerful generator, or equipped with a large battery that gives a short operating time between charges.
- As for the superstructure of such a body...do you have any idea how much I can tell you about the difficulty of creating a robotic skeleton that can mount a large variety of components, is as flexible as the story suggests, and can survive walking without coming apart at the seams??? A lot. Such a system is impractical, as it needs to be structurally sound, as well as lightweight and flexible. In the case of a human body sized machine with greater-than-normal flexibility, it needs to be completely able to twist into the number of shaped a body requires. The problem with Xanadu's body is that they would essentially be a hollow shell (perhaps with under 'skin' panelling to give volume) and have a intricate support structure to connect all the pieces. You get less complicated the larger you build the robot. Miniaturisation is a bitch when it comes to building large-scale (as in conceptual scale) small-volume (as it size) projects, as it is fiddly and requires a lot of forethought when putting part A in alignment to Part C while considering how you will fit and connect Parts D-X. Let's not forget how Parts Y and Z fit in after you've build the majority of the machine!!

Anyway, this is all from a certified mechatronic engineer currently doing the precursor research for a postgrad specialist course. Trust me, this doesn't make the story any less awesome. Though, it needs titles.

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Well, I sorta expected their mom to react the way that they did, given that they didn't involve her at all.

That name change seems soo weird, given that there's no lead up to it or anything, it seems really random?

Are they gonna join the Golden Kids, with all their money???

... My irritation with the robot body aside, I am going to keep reading this.

While we're ranting about Xanadu's impossibility, I suppose I could rant about MIRA from a CS student perspective.



But I'm going to ignore all that because Whateley is sorely lacking in Robot Girls and Robot Girls are awesome. (Even if they are technically agender/androgenous)

I would love to see them interact with the other cyber-students like Cyber Kitty, Whisper, and Hive. I wonder if any of those three would be able to directly hack into Xan's own mind. I'm also curious if any have done cyber-telepathy on their own. Paige may require an external laptop to plug in, but Sam, Brianna, and soon Xan, have their own MAC and IP addresses that anyone can dial.

Well, we did have some robot girls before we had to move... Maisy, Virgo and Red Card (Infurita), but yeah. This origin is pretty new! A mental-transfer.

And there's the Canon She-Bot...

Xan's cyber-defenses better be up to snuff, else any Gadg / Dev with electronic / cyber skills is gonna mess with her... That's why Puppet can't do Telepresence.

Also hopefully good against the Palm, 'cause what malevolent AI wouldn't want a mobile platform?

When are we going to see chapter two??? The author seems to have dropped off the map a bit, and while I know that people can get busy with things, I've sent a few PM's now that have gone unanswered. Now, it may just be my semi-popular-fanfic-author, usually-get-a-response-when-I-email nerves, but I'm beginning to get kinda worried that someone has murdered a member of this site, and dumped their body in a hole somewhere, or fed it to some cult-summoned demon. Really, where is jmcloud???

I missed this when it was first posted.

Chewy and excellent ideas.

Nicely thought out. Some excellent rabbit-holes to follow.

Definitely an interesting narrative problem-space to explore. Love the range of potential story-lines that can spin off from the core character concepts.

Looking forward to seeing how the author extends from this.

I had to remember what Xanadu meant, when I started chapter 2, but that was easy.

This is a good story, with tons of active plot threads!

Not sure precisely where it's going, but seems the answer is "cool places"!

Something I forgot to mention when the chapter first came out:

Xanadu winced. “I mean...what happens when one of your instances goes offline for a while? What does it feel like when it comes on and you meet a being that’s based on you, but divergent from you?”

“Like meeting a sister,” MIRA said calmly. “And then we meld together and become one whole entity again.”

“I...it’s just...it’s different for humans.”

Generator disagrees.

Ope. Never saw this thread. My bad, y'all.

CrayMinh, to answer your question, what had happened was:

I'm a commission author, I write fiction on demand for people, and have done so off and on for about five years. 2.5 years ago, I had a a nervous breakdown due to a bouquet of disabilities, and commissions and writing finally became my primary form of income, since I can't function in a stable, paycheck job anymore.

Roughly two years ago, my abusive husband pushed me to treat my queue of work like an ATM. Any time he wanted fun money, he'd complain at me to take on more and more work. This resulted in me taking on 200k words worth of work in under a month.

I got majorly depressed and collapsed hard, and only managed to stay afloat because a sometime client put me on retainer and paid me a weekly/hourly salary to write for them. This had the dside effect of making my queue go even slower, since I was constantly writing for my new patron to pay the bills. managed 50k of prepaid promised work over a period of a year.

My husband, not giving a damn about how buried and backed up I was as long as the money kept flowing, kept pushing me, and after a series of fight, I finally divorced him about a year ago, after ten years of marriage, and moved to Colorado with one of my other partners.

Partner 2 in Colorado proceeds to gaslight and abuse me, hides it behind her mothers abuse. In two months, we left Colorado, and both of us moved in with my third partner and their two partners in Portland. Portland looked great, started putting down roots, but remember that bit where Partner 2 was being abusive and hiding it? yeah, as soon as she lost her shield, Partner 2 stepped up her abuse and almost completely destroyed my ability to work, breaking into my work hours constantly to force my attention to her.

So, yeet Partner 2.

Annnnd, then Partner 3's husband became more and more abusive now that he doesn't have Partner 2 to blame for his BS. Partner 3 and I are run out of Oregon, move to Vegas in January. Vegas is great. Work is starting to happen, I'm recovering, it's going well, except that since we got here:

Our car has been towed, the electric company hijacked our bill twice, the entire house came down with the flu twice, Partner 3's adoptive kids parents decided to divorce which forced him to begin commuting between Vegas and Portland so the kids don't die of neglect, COVID, the internet has given out several times due to shitty trailer house + high winds, the company that own the trailer park s trying very very hard to make us go away so they can invoke a clause in the contact that lets them take the house, and my sister's ex is constantly threatening her to try and extort money from her with bluffs.

That's been my last couple of years, and somewhere in there, i sorta shit out Xanadu as I had time, lol. I will get back to them, but I need to plot harder and further and crunchier.

Also, everyone talking about the plot holes: those are intentional. There will be resolution. I promise you, I got dis.

In the meantime, I'm working another story, trying to just for-freaking-once write a WU story that doesn't die after origin. I have...so, so many WA stories on my google drive that may never see the light of day, rofl. But I will get back to Xanadu, I promise. Just...not now.

Angeldude, ye, the Generator parallels are intentional, lol. Jade is one of my absolute heros, and Jade and Ayla were my gateway into the WU. That will come back up.

Finally, I am agender/genderfluid, hence Xan's gender stuff, and if y'all could use they/them pronouns for Xanadu, that would appreciated. They are not a Robot Girl, they're a Robot Kid/Podling/They.

It's great to hear that you're alive.

The situation you are currently in is not so great, but you've been able to change things before, so the possibility of future positive change exists.

Perdurabo.

Good luck, and, good writing.

I think I should read this story, due to its common threads with one of my ancient Fanstories from 2010 (I guess they're called "WhatIF" now?), which was also about a sentient A.I. in an android body enrolling at Whateley...already, reading this thread, it seems you've put much more thought into your story than I had in mine, so I look forward to reading your take on the concept. =^.^=

...I also have to say, your resilience and fortitude are amazing to me. As someone who is still being gaslit by an ex-wife (who still has her claws in me due to our son) and has not recovered after 14 years, your ability to move on and keep writing is nothing short of an inspiration. I sincerely hope things improve for you.