Title: The Difference Engine
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Pairing: John/Rodney
Categories: AU,
Length: long
Warnings: canon character deaths

Author on LJ: copperbadge
Website: Sam's Publishing Page

Author's Summary: Sheppard remembered dying in Afghanistan, but since he was still walking around he didn't pay that memory too much mind.

Review:
On one hand, other than the fact that Sheppard now had a machine (which Rodney built!) for his brain, everything pretty much stays the same as canon. On the other hand, that changes everything.

This is an incredibly well-written robot!John story with great characterization of the main and supporting characters. The writing is a on the minimalistic yet effective side; some characters may only a few lines but you will like remember them for a long time. The scientific premise of this story is somewhat iffy, but some of the analogies are very interesting, such as compiling data is like dreaming, dumping memory buffer is like sleeping, and writing new basecodes is like forming original ideas – all worth some sort of further discussion, even if it’s only on a purely philosophical level. Robot!John is so very human-like, although he seems to lack some of the most common basic human instincts. Maybe there isn’t a so called ‘norm’ for the average human being and we are all ‘flawed’ in one way or another.

An interesting and thought-provoking read!

The Difference Engine (pt. 1) (pt. 2) (pt. 3) (pt. 4)