e d i

I am the Normandy. I will reduce love, grief, art to numbers and create order from the chaos while learning what it is to be without limits.

[janeshepard-]

"EDI", she said while turning the datapad with her report off and moving to leave the Med Bay, "tell my squad to meet me in the comm room."

[reducedtonumbers]

"Of course, Commander."

Temporarily diverting the daily efficiency diagnostics to a series of subroutines, EDI called up the omni-tools of each squad member, not waiting for them to accept the comm - while acknowledging that politeness cost nothing, it had not seemed like Shepard desired to wait any longer than necessary - and stated that the Commander requests your presence in the Communications Room before opening up audio channels to high-ranking ship personnel and resuming the previous task.

[janeshepard-]

[reducedtonumbers]

Omega lay before EDI, vast and intricate like blood vessels in an organic body, like the wires running through the Normandy. The ship's presence was, of course, immediately noted and given a place to dock near the heart of the station. 

With the docking clamps taking a hold of the hull, EDI opened a comm channel to Miranda and felt... <i>odd</i> letting anyone but the Commander recieve intel first hand. 

"I have compiled a list of ship rental services with vessels at hand of the same model as the one we encountered, all within reasonable distance from where it was last docked. Transferring list to you now."

[scientistsalariansolus]

Mordin set to work immediately. Time was of the essence, as humans liked to say… had less concept of time than salarians, actually, in his experience, but an accurate sentiment all the same.

Steady progress was made on this and two other experiments in the 2.46 hours that passed, until a shift in the engines caught the scientist’s attention. Moving. New coordinates. Must have found something on derelict ship.

Best to go straight to source.

"EDI?" he called.

[reducedtonumbers]

"Of course, Jeff", EDI replied to the pilot, closing the airlock and detaching the Normandy from the other ship, while also activating the blue hologram in Mordin's lab. To be certain of providing the old salarian with whatever information he might desire as quickly as possible, EDI freed up a little bit of extra processing power and temporarily dedicated a portion of the ship's extranet incoming traffic to prioritise the computer's own searches.

"How can I assist you, Professor?"

[reducedtonumbers]

Listening quietly to seven different conversations on board the ship, ready to assist but not about to interrupt, EDI started working on getting the logs from every ship rental service on Omega - it wasn't too hard to find the specific one that was registered as the owner of the ship the squad had found, but it was likely that the people renting it had gotten to or from the station on another rental ship. That did not take a significant amount of capacity, however, and in the background EDI resumed a previous research into gender.

EDI, of course, did not have one although Cerberus had designed the voice the A.I. used to sound female according to human standards. Ships were also referred to as female by humans, and since EDI was a ship, was EDI also a she? It was the pronoun the ship crew and the squad used. It was the pronoun Jeff used. It was as good as any, but it had been chosen by others before the computer had the awareness to make own choices, and with choices came possibilities.

So very many possibilities. Gender was a complex thing. While compiling a separate list of ship rentals within reasonable distance of each other, especially considering the transport of two prisoners, EDI started several separate searches into gender identities and started reading a couple of lengthy threads in asari forums, as their experiences with being gendered by others were the closest the artificial intelligence could think of.

[liara-t-soni]

Liara straightened a little as she heard Legion mention her name. She didn’t think she’d be able to get into the network without the right equipment, and she hadn’t precisely packed with this in mind. She opened a communications channel “E.D.I., can you get past the firewall on the ship’s internal network? I have a semantic scrubbing program that should be able to find the information we’re looking for but I need omni-tool access to do it.”

She glanced briefly at Wrex and Thane and stepped up to them. “Hopefully if E.D.I. can compromise the network, we’ll be able to shut down any more mechs aboard as well.” She smiled up at Wrex a little, knowing how the krogan enjoyed a good fight. “Then maybe we can get to the bottom of this…”

[reducedtonumbers]

Liara's request was processed the moment she'd uttered the first sentence, programs rushing to latch onto wireless signals that could take EDI in closer, closer, closer. 

In the brief second it took, the AI mused over why Liara hadn't asked Legion - the geth as a whole had extensive knowledge of how to get into even the most intimate corners of organic technology, and the 1183 programs inhabiting the mobile platform travelling on board the Normandy surely had similar abilities. Perhaps the asari simply desired not to further aggravate Wrex; turning to the ship computer rather than Legion was, in that case, certainly the most logical and efficient solution.

"I have deactivated the firewall", EDI said, vocal output as calm as ever. "Omni-tool access should be avaliable to you now, Doctor T'Soni."