In the corner of the exhibition room, a shabby combat robot was displayed.
Most of its armour had been last, exposing its sensors and drive mechanisms.
Its limbs were missing with the exception of its right arm, which was suspended from the ceiling by a wire because it couldn’t stay attached on its own.
“It’s in bad shape.”
“This robot was popular in the early days of the Galactic Era.”
“Around 1000 years ago?”
“Around 1000 years ago.”
How did they manage to find it?
“At the time this robot was made, autonomous weapons were not yet widespread. The concept of this robot was revolutionary and caused a change in the very nature of war. It was widely used for long period of time. It’s a masterpiece of a weapon.”
But no matter how great it was, it was still swept away by the passage of time.
Only its remains were left here.
“One of the characteristics that set it apart was that it was the first autonomous weapon in history. It was one of the weapons that defined an era. Another characteristic was something that could be seen from the records.”
“What was it?”
“Its singing.”
“Singing?”
“Yes. At the time this robot was developed, artificial intelligence was still in its infancy. Because of that, the basic AI of singing androids, which had reached a high degree of perfection at the time, was used for this purpose……”
When she operated the exhibition panel, sound began to flow from the speakers.
It was an unstable scale, like a broken music box.
One note was played and, after a short pause, another note was played, as if it were remembering something.
If you wanted to call these sounds a song, you could call it a song.
It was a vaguely sad sound.
“This is a recorded ‘song’. Maybe it is an issue with the basic AI, but when the robot started to break down, it would start to make such sounds using simple machine language. At the time, this sound would be heard by soldiers across the battlefield. It became an occupational diesease that plagued soldiers on the battlefield. ‘This song never leaves my mind.'”
A song sung at the end of its life.
Maybe it wanted someone to hear it.
The ‘song’ that played from the speakers was short, only about a minute long.