Dagny (
dagnyology) wrote in
futurology2016-05-14 07:00 pm
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Entry tags:
- !alastair npc,
- achilles (iliad),
- alice liddell (american mcgee's alice),
- archer (fate/),
- ashraf salib (original),
- ban (the seven deadly sins),
- chrollo lucilfer (hunter x hunter),
- dipper pines (gravity falls),
- evan friave-goodlace (original),
- gilgamesh (fate/),
- gintoki sakata (gintama),
- giovanni (dogs: bullets & carnage),
- hellboy (hellboy/bprd),
- kida (atlantis),
- king (the seven deadly sins),
- koltira deathweaver (world of warcraft),
- magnus bane (shadowhunters),
- mikleo (tales of zestiria),
- motochika chosokabe (sengoku basara),
- olivia (fire emblem: awakening),
- papyrus (undertale),
- rick sanchez (rick & morty),
- rin tohsaka (fate/),
- riza hawkeye (fullmetal alchemist),
- sakura kinomoto (cardcaptor sakura),
- sieglinde sullivan (black butler),
- sorey (tales of zestiria),
- stiles stilinski (teen wolf),
- tsukuyo (gintama)
VIDEO -> TEXT. UN: DAGNY.
[ Dagny's face appears on the network. Behind her are snowy plains, where small gnomes are jumping and playing. Her face is flushed from the cold, but she smiles. ]
Hello! I hope you're all doing well! The Timeline has finally computed your mission objective — sorry it took so long! Sometimes he gets a little slow. Now, I know he may seem— different, but he's always been correct! Just... ah, be careful when talking to him? He's a learning machine, and all he really knows is about missions, so sometimes he says some strange things when he goes off topic. But don't worry! He tries his best. I'll connect you to him now.
TIMELINE.EXE IS PROGRAMMED TO RELEASE MISSION PARAMETERS. MISSION OBSERVATION IS COMPLETE AND RESULTS FOR MISSION: Nalawi ARE AS FOLLOWS:
Hello World ( ゚▽゚)/ Take the hassle and confusion out of the
Mission,
Try this One Weird Trick!
To help NALAWI, you will need to DEFEAT the GODDESS NALANNI so the energy can return to the world.* In doing so, the people of NALAWI will LOSE THEIR POWERS but the world will continue on. If this objective is not reached, NALAWI will BURN OUT PREMATURELY.
*NOTE FROM TIMELINE.EXE: Giant squid of the Sea, too
2 or 0 Not 1! Thank you
[OOC NOTE: This will serve as an IC discussion post. The OOC discussion post is here!]
Hello! I hope you're all doing well! The Timeline has finally computed your mission objective — sorry it took so long! Sometimes he gets a little slow. Now, I know he may seem— different, but he's always been correct! Just... ah, be careful when talking to him? He's a learning machine, and all he really knows is about missions, so sometimes he says some strange things when he goes off topic. But don't worry! He tries his best. I'll connect you to him now.
TIMELINE.EXE IS PROGRAMMED TO RELEASE MISSION PARAMETERS. MISSION OBSERVATION IS COMPLETE AND RESULTS FOR MISSION: Nalawi ARE AS FOLLOWS:
Hello World ( ゚▽゚)/ Take the hassle and confusion out of the
Mission,
Try this One Weird Trick!
To help NALAWI, you will need to DEFEAT the GODDESS NALANNI so the energy can return to the world.* In doing so, the people of NALAWI will LOSE THEIR POWERS but the world will continue on. If this objective is not reached, NALAWI will BURN OUT PREMATURELY.
*NOTE FROM TIMELINE.EXE: Giant squid of the Sea, too
2 or 0 Not 1! Thank you
[OOC NOTE: This will serve as an IC discussion post. The OOC discussion post is here!]
video; un: king
no subject
The best I can come up with is to say I really think we should attempt Ryba first. Splitting up our forces? Lord knows what kind of chance we have even with our combined skills, certain cocky members of our ranks aside.
[Evan is fretting hard and it's making him terse and nervous.]
Christ, this is such a mess. I'm starting to think ALASTAIR has no more idea what we're doing than we do.
no subject
What we can depend on is for those cocky members of our ranks to make enough noise to buy the rest of us time.
no subject
...you might have a point.
Christ, there's a hell of a thought. Grim, but a hell of a thought. [He's definitely thinking more 'cannon fodder' than 'jaunty distraction'.]
no subject
no subject
I think, perhaps, that you're onto something. I mean, I am sure as hell not going to be arguing anyone down.
But I suppose that means the rest of us had better get on planning what we're going to do during the grand distraction, and judging from some of the reactions around here we may not have long before the fireworks begin to go off. Only, how do you even plan for something like this?
no subject
That's exactly what it means. Think of anything you can do, and how you can make use of it. Without knowing what's effective, we may just have to try everything.
no subject
[That thought is starting to stir Evan up into fretting again and it's visible in the way his shoulders hitch upwards. He huffs, frowns hard enough to wrinkle his forehead, and blows out a sigh.]
God, that sounds awful. That sounds... we should at least try and coordinate. Except that trying to get all of us in one place is like herding cats! Nobody has any interest, really, unless there's booze and a beach party involved.
[If he sounds a bit tart, that's because he is.]
no subject
I can't say I have any experience with that, but I can say the same thing my captain told me once. [Not that... it's terribly helpful.] We don't know what we're up against, but they don't know what they're up against either. If you want to coordinate, let's do it with a small group and share just enough information with everyone else that we don't get in each others' way.
no subject
Hell, you're probably not wrong, that's probably the best we're going to get here. Ugh, this whole decentralized leadership concept...
[Frowning, the young man looks at the even younger boy, wondering if he should be treating this person as a child or an adult. Being with ALASTAIR has done a lot to shake up his notions of age versus competence, and he's speaking with authority, but it's hard to get around the fact that he doesn't even look like he's hit puberty all the way yet. He decides to test the waters rather than admit his own incompetence right off the bat.]
I mean, you make it sound like you've had battle experience. Do you know how you're going to approach this fight? Have you ever fought anything of this magnitude before?
no subject
I've never fought a goddess before, but... I've battled my fair share of monsters and usurpers as a knight of the Seven Deadly Sins. Fighting as a group of seven is completely different from this mess though, and I don't have my power right now. [He pauses, looking away as if this fact still bothers him. He's been nothing but dead weight for this mission, a warrior trapped in a child's powerless body.] My best chance to fight may be to find someone with enough strength to wield my weapon and support them from a distance. Barring that, I'll have to focus on defense. Digging trenches, moving supplies...
[Or playing decoy.]
If we could find some way to cut off the goddesses' power... [Siiiiiigh.] I wouldn't know where to begin with that. Not without any inside information.
no subject
At the very least, King's measured and thoughtful response does a little more to convince Evan that the kid's level of life experience outstrips his apparent years.]
You and I and most of us, really. I don't think I could do much more than warm a cup of tea at the moment.
This is so absurd. [Evan is frowning, brows furrowed, trying to think his way around this very huge, very apparent problem.] You know, it occurs that the, uh, wording of our directive is a bit... wobbly. All it said was that we had to defeat Nalanni. I wonder if there's a way to do that without having to fight her? If there would be a way to trap her, or, or...
Lord, I don't know. This is going to be a debacle no matter what, isn't it?
no subject
[No sense in trying to understate it. He literally woke up in a dungeon cell beneath Oska's castle during an "exam" that included worsening natural disasters every day until fireballs fell from the sky.]
But this "Timeline," if it's even accurate, is pretty convinced our only choices are all or nothing.
no subject
As for "Timeline", I've got my own doubts. The nomenclature makes me think it's a computer program, and either not a very advanced one, or one whose creators had an awful sense of humor. [There's no way ALASTAIR uses Windows, after all.] I work with computers back home and they are certainly no more infallible than humans. They just fail in different ways.
[He pulls a face.] How did the mission before this one go awry?
no subject
I wasn't part of the prior mission. I arrived just after it finished. But apparently, the sun went missing, and a tyrannical king-
Wait.
Computers...? There's more than one of these "learning machines"?
[Oh, the face King pulls upon imagining that prospect.]
no subject
On my version of Earth, in my time period, computers are a fairly central part of daily life. Essentially everyone has at least one, and they are vital tools for most of the social and economic infrastructure.
I'd be shocked if ALASTAIR only had whatever machine Timeline is running off of, too. They seem to be a huge operation, and if that training room doesn't at least partially run off of something analogous to a computer I'll eat my hat.
You know, if I had a hat.
no subject
Like the communication jewelry?
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That's one of the niches computers fill, yes. In fact the network is very analogous to one of the major roles certain kinds of personal computers have on my world. [He sighs, considering how exactly to describe the utter ubiquity of computers.] Understand, the basic definition of 'computer' is simply a machine that accepts instructions from a user and executes them. There's a basic set of ways in which this is done, but beyond that, there's a near infinite number of uses that such a basic concept can be put to.
It's a bit hard to describe. On your world, there's magic? How does it get used? [There might be a parallel he can draw, if the example holds.]
no subject
Magic is primarily a tool of battle, though the druids do have healing magic. Even the rare magic ability that allows for long-range communication is used to give orders or survey enemy territory.
Your computers sound... similar but different.
[Super helpful, King.]
no subject
[He bobs his head, equivocating a little nonetheless.]
But computers do a lot more than just wage war, by a long shot. They're very ubiquitous back home.
Moreover, [and here he drawls with some half-serious tartness,] computers are entirely a human invention, the mechanics of which are well understood by any who care to sit down and learn them. I've never met a brand of magic half so egalitarian or transparent.
no subject
If humans are behind computers, they're probably more like the kingdom's Incantation Orbs. Because the magic has already been cast into the orb, anyone can activate it. The other clans aren't as interested in that kind of power.
[It must be another human thing, he doesn't say - a concept expounded upon and made reality through heavy passions and a short life span.]
Do all computers... talk like this one?
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But it's hard to tell. Thus one of the major dilemmas of computing. [He points a finger at the screen, rhetorical rather than accusatory.] What's the line between true intelligence and simply the seeming thereof?
no subject
So... this Timeline is an artificial intelligence... which is a computer... that can make more complex mistakes... than other computers?
no subject
That's, uh, not an inaccurate summary. Of one part of the equation.
Usually people who rely on computers rely on the fact that humans and computers tend to make very different mistakes. Uh, that is to say, their errors tend to be easier to catch.
Of course tendencies are not guarantees and I've no idea if whoever programmed Timeline knew what they were doing.
no subject
[He trails off with a sigh and finally shakes his head. Going down that road doesn't help them figure out what they can do about anything happening now.]
Either way, I'm pretty sure neither of these goddesses have any knowledge of computers. Would that... give us any kind of advantage?
you cool with wrapping this one up soon?
absolutely! no problem.
(no subject)
(no subject)