Bankor

R4 wandered into the Republic hangars, hoping to find Garth and continue their conversation of the day before. Ze had heard something about this 'Jizz night' and suspected The Garth would be better at explaining it to ze than many others. However, ze had wandered around the hangar, to the annoyance of their escort and seen no sign of him. It was inefficient. If only ze had his comm. R4 decided to employ a more conventional search pattern and if unable to locate him on this pass, ze would leave and try again later.

Standing at the foot of a ramp that belonged to a fairly aged Dynamic-class frigate was the slim doctor with the blonde curls, talking to a Xexto in a pilot's jumpsuit. Cole's expression was serious, but the Xexto seemed cheerful, eventually offering his lower right hand for the doctor to shake.

They exchanged what was probably a farewell, and Cole turned away, running a hand through his hair. His path out of the hanger would cross R4OXY's search pattern in just a few steps, and he paused to let the droid with its put-upon escort pass.

The droid looked up and saw someone who looked to possibly belong to the Republic. *Are you aware of the location of The Garth? I am in search of him.*

Cole cocked an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth turning up in a rare smile, the Garth? "Ah, no, I haven't seen him," looking to the Republic escort, who did not seem to be happy about his current assignment, "relieved, Private, I'll stay with," Cole looked back to the droid whose designation he didn't know.

*My designation is R40XY. I prefer if you must shorten my designation, that you shorten it to R4. I do not wish to be referred to as ROXY or OXY.* The droid has plainly had to give this speech more than once.

"Right, Ar-for," Cole slipped his datapad from a pocket and checked the duty roster, "It says here that Ensign Wayne is on assignment. Perhaps there is something I can help you with instead?" The doctor figured it was unlikely, but he offered anyway.

The droid gave a few clicks in frustration. *I had hoped to ask some questions about my continuing observations on human dance and mating rituals, but if he is occupied, I will have to locate him at another time. I appreciate your assistance.*

Cole frowned thoughtfully, "mating rituals?" He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, and finally closed it firmly. Running a hand through his hair, connecting Garth with 'mating rituals' had struck a little close to home, and extra processing this required seemed to have shut him right up.

The droid booped an affirmative. *Yes. He was endeavoring to explain the phenomenon of various forms of dancing when last we met but his explanation was incomplete. He had mentioned that certain dances are considered more indicative of a desire to mate, but my data requires extensive observation, including that of multiple gendered couples.* A short pause for processing and observation of Dr. Cole and then ze returned to the topic at hand.

*I was only able to observe two pairs, neither of which was a male/male identified pair or a female/female identified pair, at least as far as I am aware. I did not ask for their identifications. I must endeavor to do so at my next opportunity.*

Cole pushed up his spectacles to massage the bridge of his nose. "why are you studying this, exactly?"

The droid trained ze's optic port on Cole. *It seems to be a preoccupation of organics. Competition, mating, aggression...I wanted to understand why such things were so important. Many of the conversations I have had have revolved around conquest, battle, even rivalry. There seems to be little room for cooperation or peaceful coexistence. Yet, mating also occurs and no organics die in the process. I wondered how this was so.*

"An organic species must procreate or die," he answered simply. "I think you will find that sentient species' preoccupation lies in pleasure-seeking behaviour. Conquest, battle, rivalry, all appeal to a sentient's need to be better than others Being the best is pleasurable."

"Do you have the function of hormones in your databanks?"

The droid spins ze's head chassis. * I possess knowledge of them, but no experience, obviously. I have learned that pheremones and hormones are part of the mating process. But why would conquest be pleasurable? It sounds...inefficient. One could work in unison and achieve far better results.*

"Organics will never be efficient. They are not designed like a droid is, so they must make do with the chemical reactions that drive their existence." He ran a hand through his hair, "many organics, but especially sentient species, produce serotonin and dopamine. These hormones induce feelings of pleasure and satisfaction. Adrenaline can also be highly pleasurable to organics, and oxytocin engenders the sensation of comfort and familiarity."

Cole pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose, "these chemicals are released into the brain when an organic species participates in what might loosely be termed 'survival behaviours', activities that, at pre- or low sentience, are geared towards longevity; that of the individual, or that of the species as a whole."

"With rising sentience, these behaviours become less necessary, but remain in our DNA."

The droid makes an approving noise. *It is efficient that I found you today instead of The Garth. He could not have explained it in this way. That makes a great deal more logical sense. So there are many different chemical components that drive organic minds? Like algorithms that interface with the logic centers?*

"Yes, you could put it like that, I suppose. Or perhaps you might consider that hormones are something like microchips. They slot into specific receptors in order to engage fairly specific instructions." He could have expounded that sentient brains, unlike droid programming, couldn't be reduced to such simple terms, not within the limits of current medical knowledge, but it seemed easier to stick with the analogy.

The droid pondered this for a brief second. *Organic brains seem complex. I am unsure of their logic. And maintenance must be difficult. *

Murmuring in agreement, “organics are like a droid that’s never been wiped. Lines of code, millions of years old, with new fragments piled on top. Most of the time it works, layers of redundancy and control coding keeping an individual organism viable even if part of its DNA is mutated or lost. But at the same time, a single missing fragment can cause catastrophic errors.”

A droid could not be shocked, but this seemed illogical in the extreme. *Thousands of year old code? But it would be filled with errors. The redundancies would be incalculable. The bugs....Who knows what they could become? How do organics function like this?*

For the first time in a long time, Cole laughed. Not a snort of humour or a restrained chuckle. He laughed, “sheer, stupid luck, Ar-for; stupid, dumb luck.”

*Luck is not a reliable operational modality. There must be some other way. Is there some mechanism that filters out broken code? Or some way of providing maintenance?*

The droid seemed very involved in this conversation.

The moment passed as if it had never occurred, Cole returned to his solemn self, running a hand through his hair. “It’s not viable, but the galaxy has been around for millions of years, producing millions to the million’s power of variations.”

He adjusted his spectacles, “take the common brown rat. A pest found on hundreds of worlds. On just as many worlds, intrepid or bored individuals have taken these rats, kept them as pets, and bred them. Over time, the variations in their genetic code began to exhibit differently to those rats living in the wild. One of these genes is dubbed Lethal Blue. A rat with the Lethal Blue genotype will be a handsome grey rat with no abnormalities to speak of. But the breeding of two ‘blue’ rats is forbidden by all conscientious breeding groups, because having two copies of the Lethal Blue genotype results in birth defects and non-viable embryos.”

Cole pressed his lips together, “in that we circle back to these ‘mating rituals’ you’ve been observing. In order to counter improbable natural of their very existence, organics must breed. Between unreliable genetic coding, long terms of infancy, and general mortality, raising a generation of sentients is not like manufacturing a droid to fill a specific need.”

The droid takes this information in and decides to look up more on the local holonet when time allows. *Fascinating. So genetics can lead to errors within the code of humans that can be lethal. It seems like a deeply fraught process by your mention of it. Are mating rituals designed for individuals to be able to ascertain whether one would be an optimal breeding partner for their code? That would seem logical.*

“A long time ago, fitness to mate was the primary drive behind mate selection. You see the behaviour in many organic species, birds tend to be especially straightforward to observe, displaying their fitness through genetically ingrained rituals specific to their species.”

“Sentient psychology has evolved to the point where complex emotions, of which individuals have varying awareness, interfere in the process. Or, in other words, sentients overthink it.”

*So there are algorithms that cause organics to feel that also interfere with some of their most basic required imperatives? That seems illogical.*

R4 was learning that organics were distinctly illogical. Ze had known this, but ze had assumed that there must be some logic to organics, since they seemed to be keep living and reproducing. Obviously, ze had been mistaken.