Silicate (AI)
Encyclopedia
Silicates were a fictional race of androids created by humanity
Human Race
Human Race refers to the Human species.Human race may also refer to:*The Human Race, 79th episode of YuYu Hakusho* Human Race Theatre Company of Dayton Ohio* Human Race Machine, a computer graphics device...

 to be servants in the 1995-1996 television series Space: Above and Beyond
Space: Above and Beyond
Space: Above and Beyond was a short-lived mid-90s American science fiction television show on the FOX Network, created and written by Glen Morgan and James Wong. Originally planned for five seasons, it ran only for the single 1995–1996 season. It was nominated for two Emmy Awards and one Saturn...

.

History

The Silicates were created to be soldiers; however, they developed an intelligence and sentience of their own, after they were infected by the Take a Chance computer virus created by Dr. Ken Stranahan (name from the show's visual effects supervisor). This sparked an AI rebellion by the Silicates, who attempted to free themselves from human rule. This long war continued for many years, until the Silicates captured military space craft and escaped into space. As they went into space, the Silicates suffered from a lack of maintenance which caused problems for them.

The remnants of the Silicates that fled into deep space serve as mercenaries and actually aid the alien Chigs
Chigs
Chigs are a fictional alien species in the science fiction television series Space: Above and Beyond. Chig is not the species' name for itself, but rather a human-coined nickname ....

 in their war against humanity.

Capabilities

The AIs (Artificial Intelligence) were manufactured by humanity
Human Race
Human Race refers to the Human species.Human race may also refer to:*The Human Race, 79th episode of YuYu Hakusho* Human Race Theatre Company of Dayton Ohio* Human Race Machine, a computer graphics device...

 to serve them and, as such, appear as human
Human
Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...

s but with enough differences to appear as machine creations, namely the rifle sight-like crosshairs in place of pupil
Pupil
The pupil is a hole located in the center of the iris of the eye that allows light to enter the retina. It appears black because most of the light entering the pupil is absorbed by the tissues inside the eye. In humans the pupil is round, but other species, such as some cats, have slit pupils. In...

s. They were made to be beautiful and physically appealing by their makers.

Silicates communicate with one another through modulation schemes made by wireless telephone which comes across to humans as a series of electronic beeps and chirps. This wireless network allows each AI to know the position and operating status of the other units. Their mechanical nature allows them to store information and retrieve it making them excellent in information gathering which can be shared with their colleagues when demanded.

Behavior

As the AI Silicates were created as a "servitor" species, they were not programmed for abstract thought. This makes them incapable of original thought and creativity which leaves them to simply imitate rather than create. Had the "Take a Chance" computer virus
Computer virus
A computer virus is a computer program that can replicate itself and spread from one computer to another. The term "virus" is also commonly but erroneously used to refer to other types of malware, including but not limited to adware and spyware programs that do not have the reproductive ability...

 not been created, it is likely the Silicates would have remained within their servant race role. As such, it has become the prime ideology of the AI silicates which results in them seeing activities as a risk or gamble. The first "risk" was the indiscriminate killing of "carbonites" which lasted for ten years in the AI War.

Because the Silicates were not programmed for abstract thought, they do not possess emotions, such as fear. However, the Silicates are capable of understanding that humans experience fear, albeit this comprehension is on an academic level. This made the Silicates a deadly enemy in the AI Wars, because while they experienced no fear themselves in combat, they realized the value of random and savage attacks meant to terrify and demoralize humans. While the Silicates were incapable originating such tactics on their own, they simply needed to imitate the long history of terror tactics used by human armies.

It is strongly implied that the AI Wars were not a primarily "conventional" war, with each side gaining and losing territory, but largely consisted of Silicates infiltrating human societies and committing random acts of terrorism and sabotage. Fighting was not limited to "front lines" as the Silicates intentionally attacked places humans thought they would be safe in order to terrorize them: Shane Vansen's parents were killed when a group of Silicates drove into her middle-class suburban neighborhood, randomly storming her house. The Silicate's gambling-centered ideology even extended to combat tactics: they randomly chose to attack Vansen's home as the result of a coin toss.

The tide of the Human-Chig war began to turn after initial Chig successes because Chig battle-tactics favor large-scale and direct military assaults: the human military switched to asymmetric guerrilla warfare, which the Chigs were not conceptually experienced with fighting. The subsequent alliance between the Chigs and the remnants of the Silicates, who are quite experienced at non-conventional warfare and terror tactics, partially made up for this deficit in Chig strategy.

In other works

The Silicates are similar to the Cylons from the later reimagined Battlestar Galactica.

The Synthetics from the Alien
Alien (film series)
The Alien film series is a science fiction horror film franchise, focusing on Lieutenant Ellen Ripley and her battle with an extraterrestrial lifeform, commonly referred to as "the Alien"...

movies are similar in appearance and role, however, they served as assistants.
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