Mary didn't need to read her daughter's mind to see the gears turning as Nico made plans to upgrade her android army into an undying AI army. In a way that sounded an awful lot like the Arisen, who were more like ghosts in their equipment than living beings at this point, but she wasn't going to dampen Nico's daydreaming by pointing out that her idea was already in use.
Of course, it wasn't quite the same, as the implanted devices made each of them an individual, but in theory a secondary backup could be made and written if the original was destroyed.
Having a more capable command group for the Mecha was a good thing, and being able to reduce casualties to near zero was also a benefit to the entire species, so there wasn't really a good reason to stop her from implementing the plan, only the ethical concerns that she was sure to hear from countless other people.
Instead, Mary focused on the important part of the day, just spending time with her daughter and son-in-law.
"Why don't we get some cake and sit outside on the patio? It overlooks the city centre, and the view in the morning when the sunlight reflects off the buildings just right is quite something. We have spent too much time focusing on the rebuilding lately, just trying to get our combat strength back up after the heavy losses against the Great Enemy, but we also need time to ourselves." Mary suggested.
That was why Max had planned this outing, to give Mary some time for herself with at least part of her family.
Once they were moved out to the patio, and settled into the chairs, Mary turned back to Nico with a smile. "So, how much of his DNA do you have stored? You said forty-five minutes after fertilization to the laying process, so you could theoretically leave me with a grandchild in waiting right now." She teased.
Max could tell that she was joking, but Nico took her somewhat literally.
"I didn't keep any for that purpose, I used it all on the experimentation phase. How about I bring one back to you later this week?"
"Nico, she's joking. She's not in an actual hurry to get the grandchild, she just likes teasing you about them because you've always preferred Mecha to men." Max informed his dainty partner in crime.
"I think she's actually serious under that. You know, we've never done it in the back office of a government building." Nico replied with a smirk.
Mary looked offended. "On my desk? I think not, young lady. Just make sure that you keep coming back so I can tease you about it. Now that I know that you can, it's only a matter of time until the time is right."
Max enjoyed the view as he listened in to the thoughts of the other Ministers, who had just received the guidance letters, informing them of the best course of action on how to take care of their own issues and not foist them on Mary to deal with.
Felicity had taken the initiative once she got annoyed with the Ministers trying to alter the timetable for the day so that they could get more time to present issues to Mary, and the responses were predictably hilarious.
"What's so funny?" Nico asked as she noticed Max smiling.
"The Minister's responses to the not so official notifications. It's everything that Mary would have told them in the meeting, but processed in 300 milliseconds instead of a twenty-minute meeting where she had to explain it all to them.
You know, Mary would be a great test subject for your mental cloning technique. If there was an AI Mary to answer the questions without conscious input, she could be much more efficient." Max replied.
"That's not really how the device works. It doesn't operate autonomously, it's integrated into the operation of the body." Nico informed him.
"Well, that's a shame. An AI assistant would solve so many of the problems here, where everyone wants to do everything in person, even if it's not really necessary." Max sighed.
"Welcome to the world of politics. The face-to-face meetings are an integral part of the power plays between factions, and turning them down too often or sending an assistant to delegate devalues the bonds that keep the Council running. But, if we all had an assistant, we could have them sort and filter what needed our personal political sway to influence the outcome and what could be put in order without us seeing more than the review.
You can't trust that to a subordinate though because they can be swayed, and that only introduces another layer of politicians to be bought and bribed to bring issues to our attention. But the AI shouldn't be able to be corrupted, should it?" Mary asked.
"And you could each set the priorities for it, based on who you want to actually do favours for and who would be happy just getting a personal response and finding a spot in line." Nico agreed.
"Do you have some of these quantum computing cores that could be implanted with an AI assistant?" Mary asked.
"Sure, I've got a bunch in storage that we were going to give to ace pilots later, to record their neural nets, in case they were lost in combat. It also serves a secondary purpose as a medical device if the head is damaged. It will back everything up, and when the surgeries are done and the body is repaired, it can fix memory loss and other forms of brain damage, even if it's working with a mostly replicated product."
Mary sighed. "See, you should have led with that part instead of saying that it will let them essentially live forever in another body. Let them pretend that it's a way of hacking the medical device, and it will be accepted much more easily."
Max laughed. "This is why it's good to have a wise mother around. She can give you advice on all the topics that you glossed over in favour of answers that started with genocide."
