I think you probably should consider yourself to be under something like orders to proactively learn things, generally; she...would never actually order this, because she values self-determination insofar as it applies, and it does apply enough in her model of the world even to factory-fresh droids that she actively avoids anything that could be the least bit coercive, but she really does want to see everyone she can affect become more than they were.  Not in the sense of...adding an additional software package, but in refining core algorithms.

Okay. (He doesn't have the relevant points of articulation to nod, but droidspeak has an equivalent.) I understood that she wanted me to learn things. I'm not sure what you mean by refining core algorithms.

If your shoulder cannons deployed slower because someone had designed them badly, you'd want that fixed, right?  She wants to fix the things that are like that, for everyone, everywhere.

It takes him rather longer to think that one over, but eventually: That makes sense.

It does.  I like her.  She actually spent a little while thinking up things that she thought you might like, yesterday.  She's a bit - she had her programming throw a fault, apparently - but she'll build these for you if you think they'll be useful, and I know we can probably make the code bits work out, because I am very good at my job.

And he gets a list!

Would he like:

• magna-charged striking surfaces for parrying lightsabers with and also shocking people and things
• phrik-cortosis core plating
• a swarm of supplementary hovering blaster drones

?

If they expect him to be fighting Force-sensitives then getting him outfitted for that makes sense; he doesn't have melee programming but that should be easy to fix. He's less sure of the intended use case of the blaster drone swarm but has no objection to the idea.

Observe that a standard lightsaber is a line of blaster-deflection that can only be in one place at once.  Observe that most Force-sensitives carry one lightsaber at most.  Observe that being able to time multiple shots to impact a potential lightsaber defense at the same time will generally cause at least one to get through, even if you're shooting at my human who's really good at deflecting lots of blaster bolts.

That's why she proposed giving you a drone swarm.

Ah. (If there's programming out there on tactics for fighting Force-sensitives he doesn't have it.)

R4 doesn't have it either, but he does have a good model of Diana Pallas, which serves adequately in a pinch.

The best way to fight a Force-sensitive is, of course, to not fight them at all.  Still, there's times when it's unfortunately necessary.

The first rule of surviving getting into fights with Force sensitives is to keep in mind that they have a motive, and if they're fighting you you are either an element or an obstacle in achieving it.

The second rule is to outmatch them in something.  You must be stronger, faster, more skilled, or more unexpectable.

(To truly surprise a Force-sensitive is almost impossible, unless they're presently unconscious.  To mislead them as to what your surprise is is much less impossible.)

That all makes sense, yes. It might be a good idea to disguise the blaster drones as something else, given that.

R4's model-of-Diana thinks that the blaster drones fall into "stronger, faster, or unavoidable" when they work at all, but he'll pass that on.  (Diana manages to Have An Idea, when she looks this over, and plan refactoring the design to incorporate magna-charge plating, both as a defense and to enable usefully threatening ramming attacks.  The overall design of the droids will need to be refactored, but she'd need to do something like that anyway at this point; they need more power and additional maneuverability.)

Is there anything else?

If there's any maintenance that needs doing Diana should know.

He is next due for a wipe in four and a half months of operation and should have his splines reticulated in about ten.

Diana does not want any of her crew memory wiped.  He'll note down the spline-reticulation.

Okay.

He shifts back into an observant stance.

And R4 trundles off to presumably do astromech droid things.

Later that afternoon, Pradnakt sends Daisy out of the room and takes Diana's hand. 'How are you feeling?'

"...Better, I think, if still a bit...off-kilter."

Pet pet.

'Do you want to talk about it?'

"I...I don't think that talking about it more will help right now?  The part that matters is - doing something about the way this particular brain thing is kriffed up."

'I did think of a question that might help with that. If you want.'

"...mmhmm?"

Forehead-kiss. 'How would you know if you deserved that? What kinds of things could you look at to tell, and what would they look like?'

"...aaaah?"

"I think that - there's possibly two questions you could be asking and the answer to one of them is 'no, because no-one deserves that' and the answer to the other is more of an 'I don't know how I'd begin knowing' sort of thing."