On Mon, 13 Apr 1998, Matthew Lewis <maybeso@ican.net> wrote:

To celebrate the one year anniversary of its first release, the first
fic, actually my first post of anything, I sent to the FFML.
	There's been a few changes.... What do you think?

	Hmm, looks good. You've increased the time frame which is a good 
idea considering the ammount of inovation that must have gone into making 
something of that levil of sophistication.  I'm still not sure that 
Iffurita could have reached the capability she demonstrated in the OAV's 
in the short time you have her active but that's just an opinion.

	"I begin with the jin, artificial, roughly humanoid constructs 
used to free us from dangerous jobs, such as deep mining operations, 
undersea exploration, and such. New areas both on and off El Hazard can 
be explored with no loss of human life."

	Of course the entire reason for human form is to enable people to 
relate to them.  The Sea and underground areas could be studied more 
effeciently by more specialised non human looking designes.

	The image of Ammar flickers and is replaced by that of humanoid 
shapes with arms ending in tools, or pincers, and weird sensory 
apparatus instead of eyes or ears, performing various tasks, such as 
mapping the ocean floor, or refueling a craft outside of a space 
station.
	Ammar reappears, and begins to talk again, the former images 
having disappeared.

	"Of course, the models you have just seen were relatively simple, 
single-purpose ones; we are now several generations away from these, 
having made more life-like ones."

	Images of handsome men and beautiful women flash by, dressed in 
clothes which are both revealing and covering at the same time.

	"These jin have more interaction with people, so it was decided 
that we try to make them look more human. We have found that this makes 
them easier to be around, and by making them beautiful," Ammar smiles, 
"it makes them much easier to be around.
	"The previous models were unable to speak. Instead, they had modem 
ports." Ammar chuckles quietly. "There are stories, modern myths, that 
talk of people communicating and giving orders to jin by whistling. 
Impossible, of course. For one, the sounds are above the human range of 
hearing (for close range, in an atmosphere environment. Long range 
communication or out of atmosphere environments use specially reserved 
wavelengths on the EM spectrum).
	"The stories persist, and few people whistle around the jin 
anymore. Why takes chances? is the logic," Ammar shrugs.

	Cute commentry.

	The image of Ammar flickers again. He is still wearing the same 
clothes, but lines are starting to mark his once youthful face. 
Obviously, this part of the recording has been made several years after 
the original.

	"Salaam aleikum, my friend. Ten years have passed since my last 
entry on the jin. Now, I am wazir to his most gracious Amir Amalik 
ibn Musa, whose slightest frown causes his enemies to quail in fear, 
and his smallest smile his friends and subjects to rejoice for one full 
seven-day. Enough of me though, for I have the job of recording our 
greatest technologies. 

	"The uprising of the Northern Quarter in the last five years has 
caused us to make many new generations of jin. The latest generation 

	Hmm, so this period of the holy wars was actually a civil war.  
Hmm, Was El-Hazard Unified or was this during a bout of peact with the 
hated enemies on the other side of the River of God?

now have the ability to make creative decisions to effectively complete 
their tasks, not relying totally upon programmed instructions anymore. 
As such, these newer models are often used for covert missions instead 
of humans. The success rate of these missions have increased five-fold, 
as the new generations now learn from their past actions.

	Ah, you mean the early generation AI's were that sophisticated?  I 
suspect that in actuality they were sent in paired with human opperatives, 
the human's providing the brains and the jin the firepower.  The supperior 
AI's would enable the Jin to follow orders and improvise in incidents when 
necessary, but I seriously doubt they would be anywhere near good enough 
to handle the task of infiltrating the area, carying out the mission and 
escaping.

	"The latest model jin is the Ifrit class, currently a prototype, 
developed at the Ahriman testing grounds and laboratories."

	A three dimensional representation of Ifurita, with her Power-key 
Staff, appeared and began to slowly rotate in a full circle. Makoto 
shook at the sight, almost losing contact with the player. Makoto's eyes 
became more intense as he looked upon the Ifurita's form. The image was 
quickly replaced by Ammar, who began to talk again.

	"The Ifrit class is meant to be our elite force in our armies. In 
terms of raw power, the Ifrit is one of the most powerful of jin, but 
its ability to duplicate any force which acts upon it means that each 
unit will only become more powerful in time. The Ifrit is the first to 
use a new type of processor, largely organic in nature; traditional 

	Hmm, would you consider Ura and the Bugrum evidence that the 
Ancient technology was very advanced in genetic manipulation as well as 
mechanics?

processor types do not have the flexibility needed to utilise this 
class' unique abilities."

	So Iffurita was a collection of major engineering advances.  I 
assume that there was another sometimes hostile nation on the other side 
of the river of god then?  I really doubt that they would have pushed 
foreward the use of so many new technologies together unless they had a 
clear need in the future, IE a potential invasion from the other side of 
the River of God while they were recovering from the Civil War.

	Ammar flickers in and out of vision, and then reappears, perhaps 
three years older. 

	"Further addendum to the notes on the Ifrit class. The Ifrit 
prototype performed beyond all expectations, and was more powerful than 
we were prepared for. The prototype Ifrit is single-handedly responsible 
for taking out two major rebel cities, along with many bases and such. 
Mention of her coming was enough to cause seven different cities to 
surrender before she arrived; I say her because the prototype's form was 
female, I really should say it. A failing of mine that I often refer to 
them as I would a human. 

	Well here it feels teaching someone to be a concert violinist in a 
week.  In the OAV's Iffurita has a levil of skill that dwarfs everyone 
else in close combat, in energy manipulation technique, she's an expert at 
aerial combat and aerial bombardment.  Well, the quality of her initial 
programing is a factor, but I strongly believe that experience is what's 
really responsible for that ability.  Three years could do that especially 
if the enemy had advanced Jin of their own to force Iffurita to inovate 
rather than just overpower, but it feels rushed to me.  Just an oppinion 
of course.  I guess I'll have to say that if the enemy she fought actually 
had a few weapons which exceded her origional capabilites it's beleivable.

	"There is a problem with the Ifrit however. Near the end of the 
quelling, the jin began to develop some glitches. The opinion of the 
developers that the prototype began to develop some form of emotional 
response. The Ifrit will still obey orders, that was hardwired into her, 
but this emotional response may hinder its effectiveness. 

	"Maybe it is not a failing of mine to refer to her as a human.... 
I digress though. A decision was reached to place the prototype Ifrit 
into storage until such a time as our researchers find a way to control 
the emotional response side-effect. Further units are not to be made 
prior to solution of this problem. Instead, we will continue to use the 
traditional inorganic processors for our jin."

	Hmm, Iffurita was sealed while the eye of god was half finished.  
What's more, her storage was basically designed so that she could be 
reactivated on very short notice.  Well assuming the two rival nations, 
they were at peace at the time, and they decided to store her in combat 
readiness so that when the peace came to an end they could activate her to 
deal with their opponents.  Only everyone's predictions about the 
destructive potential of the eye of god were way to low, and she was never 
reactivated.  Assuming the unified El-Hazard, the Eye of god was under 
construction, however it was decided that untill it was complete and 
tested Iffurita would be stored in combat readiness in case another 
rebellion occured.

	The player stopped, the disk was finished. Makoto looked up at Dr. 
Schtalubaugh, who was brimming over with delight. 

	"Marvelous! Simply marvelous! Oh, fortune has smiled on us today 
Makoto Mizuhara!" Dr. Schtalubaugh ended up dancing a little jig, 
unable to contain the joy of recovering this storehouse of knowledge.

	"Let's see what the next disk has on it doctor," said Makoto 
eagerly. Quite possibly there was information on the Eye of God, 
especially after what Ammar had said at the beginning of this disk.

	"No," said the Dean simply. "We have to record this knowledge 
ourselves, and make sure we do not overlook anything. I made a few 
cursory notes," Schtalubaugh waved a sheaf of about twenty pages, then 
continued, "but they were rather brief. Now, take a break, and when you 
return, I will have a few artists here to take sketches, and a scribe to 
transcribe what Ammar dictates; and Makoto, I want no arguments from 
you, you gave your word after all. Tomorrow we will try another disk."
Schtalubaugh waggled his index finger at Makoto in admonishment.

	"We don't want to overload ourselves after all, and we must be 
thorough. Now run along, before I have to call Shayla and Nanami to drag 
you out of my workshop!"

	Makoto actually barked a short laugh as he left the workshop, 
heading for the gardens. Dr. Schtalubaugh chuckled to himself as he 
watched Makoto's retreating form, then he looked at the player and 
laughed out loud at the find. The doctor, after Makoto had left his 
sight, went to get the artists, and the scribe; more importantly though, 
he went to tell Princess Lune what had happened.

========================================================================

	Well, it's been about a year since I first wrote and posted this, 
and here's a real, honest-to-God revision. I've even added a little 
bit.... Scary, no?

You may notice some of the names seem familiar, that's because they are. 
Just changing them back to the original, thus Ifurita maps to Ifrit (I 
previously used Efreet, but have decided to go to use this spelling, it 
being closer to the original).
	An ifrit is an evil spirit or jin. That thing about whistling? The 
language of jin was thought to sound like whistling, and so whistling in 
the desert was not encouraged, just in case.
	Arliman translates itslef to Ahriman (Ahriman is the evil 
force/god in the Zoroastrianism, which is a dualistic religion still 
practiced by the Guebres in Iran and the Parsees in India. The good side 
is known as Ormuzd or Ormazd, formerly called Ahura-Mazda. Does this 
mean that there should be another set of springs or something for the 
priestesses to go to? Perhaps a treasure trove of ancient technology is 
just sitting there at the companion site. An idea one might want to use, 
nothing more).

	I plan to have Makoto read/do two more disks, on the Bugrom, and 
on the Eye of God; most likely this is a three part story (although the 
story really just links the disks together, and is, as such, a fairly 
background thing). 
	Good news is that I've actually started writing the second disk, I 
was in fact hoping to put it out at about this time, actually. Bad news 
is that it is not going to happen. Too many other projects, too many 
commitments. Still, it is something (one of the delays was my losing of 
the outline for the second disk, which I have found).

Just out of curiosity, why are you still reading this? Why not go on to 
the next message, and/or reply to this one? My e-mail address you say? 
You want to know where I can be reached so you can comment on this? Why, 
aren't you just the nicest of souls! Of course I'll give it to you. 



Matthew "Maybeso" Lewis
Maybeso on IRC
Sojiro_Seta on Kawaiimuck
Warped, in Real Life
Member of:
FFML, FFIRCML, El Hazard ML
	maybeso@ican.net
___________________________________________________

Change is inevitable, especially if you pay with
large bills.
___________________________________________________