Lastries

Lastries is an Artificial Intelligence program created by the Gudersnipe Foundation. The name is a contraction of "last resort" in that, to risk using Lastries, it must be your last resort.

History

For reasons that have never been quite understood, all artificial inteligences end up malevolent, evil, and hell-bent on the destruction of organic life. Lastries is no different. A "fourth-stage" AI, it has killed numerous people and is usually housed in protected memory. Still, most Gudersnipe ships carry a copy of the lastries software with them, because, while dangerous, it has remarkable capabilities.

Usage

The Lastries program is unique in that it is an AI capable of creativity. Thus, as a problem-solver, it is second to non(though Instructor Gailen did discover that a virtual model of Laden Bur'I's brain was able to beat Lastries in simulated war games). In general, the program is used when a solution is needed right away and all other options have been exhausted.

Appearances

Lastries initially apears in the short story Virus from The Path to Ascension, then again in Marigold from The Road to War. It is heavily implied in both stories that these were neither the first, nor the last encounters the main characters had with him.