Fiction:Katze

Of all the Star Reavers, it is the entity known as Katze that is perhaps the strangest. She is an artificial intelligence, created to replace the daughter her father 'lost' to illness. After her father's lab was attacked by pirates she came into the possession of Admiral Jayraan Kaios, whom she now works for and looks up to as a father. Within her programming lies a treasure trove of programming knowledge, which in a streak of chivalry Kaios has not attempted to access. Instead, she gives him her aid willingly, as her father asked her to. She now directs the Reaver's e-warfare suite, her child's mind treating every situation as a new game.

Creation
Katze Naravon, the child, was a young girl living with her father and his research team aboard a space station. The researchers were developing innovative AI technology, for both civilian and military applications. This made them a target for frequent pirate raids, hoping to steal a combat-ready AI to enhance their ships' programming. The station was normally protected by a mercenary defence force funded by their benefactors, however their recent lack of progress had resulted in their funding dropping, and with it their protection. This left them vulnerable to attack. Katze knew nothing of this, of course, as she was still only a child of about twelve years. She lived out a relatively normal life, with a section of the station all to herself and the other children. She spent her days playing games, tending a small garden her father had let her grow, and taking classes from an AI teacher. She didn't know much about what her father did, only that he spent long hours in his laboratory and study, constantly working on computers.

Eventually, the station's defences waned so much that the normally harmless pirates finally became brazen enough to attack in force. Ceros Naravon, Katze's father, sent out a wide-band distress signal, offering his AI designs as a reward for saving them. No help came, and the station was quickly overtaken. Ceros had his legs crippled, and Katze was taken prisoner as motivation for Ceros to continue work, this time for the pirates. During this time, Katze fell sick with a degenerative disease that was slowly killing her. He pleaded with the pirates to have her cured, but they refused to even allow a medical AI to assess her. Ceros worked desperately to find some way of helping his daughter, but it was for nought. Katze became terminally ill, and by the time the pirates finally let him in to see her, she was beyond treatment. The sight of his daughter dying, and knowing he was unable to help her, drove Ceros mad. As a last-ditch effort, he attempted to fully upload her mind to his workstation, which would allow him to recreate her as an AI.

The process was successful, but in his maddened state he set to altering her programming. Firstly, he halted her psychological development so that mentally, she would be twelve for the rest of time. Secondly, he dumped all the information he had on AI and programming technology into her memory banks, making her a living repertoire of his work, his legacy. He then tweaked her loyalties, so that she would see whoever eventually rescued her from these pirates as a father figure. His final act was to create a new AI, which would infest the pirates' ships and vent atmosphere from all of them. After that, the AI would set this ship in motion, until someone encountered the derelict and made use of the new Katze.

The Admiral
Kaios heard of the attack, and the quality of research coming from the station. He was well out of range to reach the station in time, but still felt there was enough of a reason to investigate. When he arrived at the debris field, he found the wreckage of the station, and evidence of the band of pirates that attacked it. Several data cores were missing, which he assumed were of great importance. He called in multiple contacts to trace the pirates, eventually finding the location the fleet had last been seen. When the Reavers arrived on station, he found the derelicts of much of the fleet, and logs indicating that the capital ship had made off in a straight line. It was easy enough to trace the ship, board it, and begin searching.

When Kaios entered Ceros' former workshop, he found only one console still functioning. It contained one of the data cores that had been taken from the station, and immediately roused his interest. He pressed the button in the centre of the console, which was usually the power button, and was surprised when a hologram of a young girl materialised behind him. The AI glitched at first, and potentially completely destabilised, but Kaios deactivated the data core and brought it aboard the Reaver for repairs. When Katze's data core stabilised, she woke up as a fully functional AI. Kaios was the first person she spoke to, so her programming imprinted Kaios as her 'father,' and set her loyalty protocols to recognise him as her master. Since then, Katze has been fully integrated into the Reaver, and operates the ship's e-warfare suite.