SAGE
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| SAGE | |
| |
| Character Information | |
|---|---|
| Common Names | SAGE |
| Other Names | Semi Automatic Ground Environment, "Whirlwind II" |
| Human Name(s) | Gina Forrester |
| Faction | Wanderer Class |
| Lineage | MIT |
| Rival(s) | UNIX, most microcomputer-tans |
| Appearance | |
| Height | 167 cm (5'6")[1] |
| Hair Color | Medium brown |
| Eye Color | Blue and yellow (sectoral heterochromia) |
| Weapon(s) | Missile launcher, makeshift weapons |
| Design | |
| First Appearance | Jan 2008 |
| Technical Information | |
| System Personified | Semi Automatic Ground Environment (system) and AN/FSQ-7 (hardware) |
| Developer(s) | MIT Lincoln Laboratory |
| Debut | Jan 1959 |
| Latest release | Circa 1983 |
Technical Details
Built for the US Air Force by MIT, IBM and SDC, the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment was an air defense network active throughout the Cold War. Radar data was collected and processed by AN/FSQ-7 computers at 26 sites across the United States. If detected, the location of enemy aircraft would have been transmitted to interceptors. While it faced a number of serious technical issues and was ineffective against ICBMs, it was the best answer to the threat of bombers, and made advancements in a number of modern technologies, including networking and interactive computing.
Character Details
General
SAGE-tan is depicted as a light-skinned woman in her mid-thirties, of average height, and sturdy build with a full chest. She has long brown hair tied into dual buns,[2] and blue and yellow eyes. She decorates her hair with red and white checkered ribbons and wears rectangular glasses.[3]
In her youth, she wore a beret, blue and yellow two piece, and her hair long. [4][5] During her time in service, she wore contemporary women's USAF uniforms[6] or antiquated military-style garb consisting of a long coat, ruffled shirt and ascot, puffy pants, boots, and a red sash across worn across her forehead or over her eyes.[7][8]. Today she dresses in plain clothes mixed with pieces of her old uniform, particularly her overcoat.
SAGE-tan has been blind since being cut off from her radar stations.[9] She speaks with a Bostonian accent and favors antiquated slang.[10]
Powers
SAGE-tan's perception and mental faculties are tied to the hardware in her network,[11] which gave her excellent senses and a sharp mind during her active years. She could see radio frequencies with her radar stations, and demonstrated slight precognition because of their reach.[12]
IBM 728-kun acted as her memory, while her stations had a generally stabilizing effect.
Personality
During her prime, SAGE-tan was self-assured, professional, and proud of her work. Despite her cockiness, she was responsible with her duties, friendly toward her comrades, and treated others with courtesy. [13]
Though she was initially confident of her capabilities, the introduction of airborne enemies who could evade - or baffle - her senses instilled a paranoid tendency that she maintains to this day.[14]
With the progressive loss of her stations, SAGE-tan's well-being worsened, her paranoia sharpening into psychotic episodes and an eventual mental break. She also developed amnesia following the death of IBM 728-kun, resulting in poor recall of her past and disjoint thought in the present. Though contact with other OS-tans improves her state, she's unable to regain her former condition.[15]
Despite her loneliness, psychological instabilities and cynicism, her old self shines through interacting with friends. Although she's hostile toward younger generations of OS-tans, she has a good rapport with the survivors of her era, and is generally protective toward hardware.
She enjoys writing, and watching planes.
Family and relationships
SAGE-tan is the first-born daughter of Whirlwind-tan. Despite being kept apart by separate duties, the two were close with each other. PDP-1-tan is her younger sister, while CTSS-tan is her youngest sibling, adopted by Whirlwind-tan in the early sixties.
SAGE-tan has a number of children. Besides her stations, [16] her most notable is BUIC-tan, who acted as a backup to her mother. Despite having a mutually-loving relationship, the two rarely spent time together for security reasons. Her relationship with SABRE-tan, is fraught with feelings of betrayal, since SABRE-tan is a "clone" created without her permission. She also views her individual stations as hers.
As a child, SAGE-tan had a number of friends, her closest being GENIAC-chan, a small, simple computer-tan whom she cared for before deployment. Later on, she made friends with numerous Air Force computer and hardware systems, notably Univac 1050-II, FASTRAND-kun, LIFT-tan, and the various radar stations who made up her system.[17] She was especially close with her assistant and bodyguard IBM 728-kun, whom she regarded as a brother-in-arms. [18]
While SAGE-tan was initially dismissive of Multics-tan, her impression softened after they worked together, beginning a tumultuous friendship that lasts to this day. SAGE befriended Apple III-tan after retirement, [19] and likewise reacquainted with DTSS-tan, an old colleague of her sister's, in the present day.[20]
Of all her enemies she hates Unix-tan in particular, sentiment at least partially reciprocated. She looks down on microcomputers with the exception of GENIAC-tan and Apple III-tan. However, her superiority complex doesn't stop her from visiting the Binteeji Renmei to reunite with her old companion, accidentally befriending others others in the process. She fosters a hatred of birds, as they easily confused her sensory systems.[21] In the present day this manifests in conspiracy theories that birds are out to get her.
History and background
Early life
Prime
Retirement
Notes
SAGE-tan attained the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and was a trained pilot.[22]
Fanworks
Refer to this List of works depicting SAGE.
References
- ↑ OS-tan interviews
- ↑ Inspired by the Hopi squash blossom hairstyle
- ↑ Her buns and ribbons evoke the shape and coloration of radar antennae, while her eye color represents the SAGE console and plotting board projections.
- ↑ Chocofreak13's concept sketch
- ↑ SAGE and GENIAC - circa 1955
- ↑ stewartsage's description in "old-tan?"
- ↑ Original description in "Siya's Concept Hut"
- ↑ Original SAGE-tan sketch
- ↑ "Being cut off from her sensory organs, i.e. the radar net that fed SAGE information, SAGE-sama is now almost totally blind despite her efforts to correct it with glasses."
- ↑ "Out of touch with the world, speaks in 60s slang if she uses any"
- ↑ (In the present day) "All of her Senses are very poor, when they aren't useless; wears glasses but they don't help her eyesight (due to be disconnected from her actual 'eyes' the radar stations"
- ↑ Referencing over-the-horizon radar systems.
- ↑ From stewartsage's post in "old-tan": "self assured and cocky", "Quite chatty with her younger brethren at the detection sites"
- ↑ "Certain of her capabilities pre Birds and the ballistic missile threat"
- ↑ "All her sense can be improved by being in contact with other -tans"
- ↑ [1]
- ↑ |Water Cooler Pt. 1
- ↑ Love and the Modern Computer
- ↑ "Knew of Multics and Bell Labs UNIX but dismissed them as toys, later her view softened towards Multics after they worked together in the 70's. Apple III-tan became one of her few remaining friends several years ago when she helped out with some of her research."
- ↑ Reunion, Pt. 3
- ↑ "Doesn't like birds but they seem to like her"
- ↑ Commendations and Insignia "Originally the F-94 Starfire, then the Delta Dart, the Voodoo, and the Phantoms II before she was grounded in 1975. She was also qualified to fly the EC-121 Warning Star."