Stuff to See!
Council
"So he turned the tables on those bastards, did he," said Prefect Creel. "Good show, that. I guess it was good that we had a spare command drone on hand."
"That's the thing," Tran, the Vice-Prefect, replied. "This drone 1826 had no preexisting command subroutines." He pointed toward a pair of program manifests, one representing the 1826 drone at construction, one confirmed by tests after he returned to base. "According to this production manifest, anyway. But our engineers swear up and down that he has them, now. More than that, they're not part of any standard set."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that this drone, on his second combat mission, somehow altered his paradigm. He, he, what's the right word, he GREW these advanced command subroutines out of nothing. That can't happen, but the engineers say they've found no sign of tampering. And yet he's a different product."
"And why? How? I thought the 1800-series drones were supposed to remain servile. That, in fact, they were unable to act without commands, even to survive. I thought this was done in order to preserve OUR rule."
"There are no structural anomalies in build or in program to explain this. We're at a loss to explain this. Should I have this drone destroyed?"
"Perhaps. But let me see him...first."