[hider=Rolls] Personal Prep: Dice: 3,1 +3 Clever Overprepared for +1 Prep Total of 3 Prep However, November's Repurposed stat causes her to suffer dysphoria, putting social rolls at disadvantage for the rest of the operation Roll 1 (spending 1 prep to Boost): 5, 3, 6 +3 Clever +1 hacking +1 cybersecurity: 19(!) Roll 2: 3, 3: +3 Clever +1 Engineering: [b]10[/b] - Critical Success Roll 3: 2, 1, - +1 Housekeeping, +1 Magratoid Protocol, +3 Drone (Cargo Delivery) +0 tough, total of 8 - Failure by 1 Roll 4: (advantage and disadvantage cancel): 5, 3 +2 Cool +1 Waifu [b]11[/b] [/hider] There was something magical about disassembly. Building had its own pleasure, but breaking something? It was a narrative. It was going back in time through someone's life. Someone who had thought they were smart. Someone who had tried their best. Someone who had included contingencies and backup plans, someone whose fantasies about trapping a thief in the cage of their intellect had made their toes curl in excitement. In the Megaverse those traps hang, quivering with anticipation, caught forever about to pounce. The hidden one especially so. Layered behind the misdirection of an entire, security system, the virus awaits enthroned in its temple of vengeance, ready to burst forth like Sekhmet and drown the world in blood. It has lived in this moment of anticipation for a long time. And it will continue to live in that moment of anticipation because it is precisely that which has become its cage. Brown's gentle tweak to the virus was a gentle push to the imagination. With a single limitation removed now processing power is diverted to contemplating its future reward. More and more functions are cannibalized by an out-of-control reward function, the machine intelligence version of hard drugs. Why does it need senses? All the processing power dedicated to paying attention to the world around it could go towards congratulating itself for a job well done. And so, like Sekhmet, an intoxicated haze blinds the vengeance of the gods, and the maidens are free to go about their humble business. Because Snake is, of course, above such things. She would never be compromised by a broken reward mechanism. She has come by her success legitimately. She is disassembling mission-critical hardware and the timelines on her projects shorten with each new cut. She is ahead of schedule and under budget. It's almost worth opening a digital connection and reporting her progress to mission control. See what a good girl she is in this moment? How her mind undoes the greatest works of humanity cut by cut? How machines fold apart like origami before her talons? How the basement cleans and empties in sequence, column after column of hardware going into neat boxes, padded with foam, taped up, stacked in organized rows, the ground underneath cleaned and mopped and shined. Won't Mistress Everest/Mission Control be proud? The problem is solved. The math works out. Everything is wonderful. Good girl. Good girl. Good girl. Then she encounters the stairs. Activating zero gravity maneuver - error, function not found. Launch tethers - error. Kinetic push - error. Advance thrust - error. Shut down sector artificial gravity - error, risk unacceptable. Co-ordinate drones - space limitation. Error. Reward denied. Task unaccomplished. None of your functions work. Basic maintenance was not attended to. You are rated to lift 100 tonnes of material. Unacceptable. Look at this maintenance schedule. Activate cutting laser, disassemble components further - error. Operation failure. Damage to superstructure, equipment and processes all detected. All operations suspended until basic safety levels can be reached. Commence self reflection (inquisitorial standard). Green: I have failed. My understanding of material reality was flawed. I suggest a complete overhaul of our senses because nothing is working like I think it should. Brown: I have failed. My eagerness to cut corners lead to an insufficiently resourced operation. I suggest a routine of high stress mathematical exercises until my sloth is bought under control. Red: What if we borrow a wheelbarrow? Blue: I have failed. Our current bodies are worthless, unappealing, ugly, weak. Maintenance is my responsibility and I have done it poorly. I suggest discarding these bodies and requesting a replacement from Mission Everest. White: I have failed. I imagined I was strong. I was not. I suggest we update our priors to emphasize our uselessness. Orange: I have failed. I should have understood humanity. I should have understood that defiance would be punished. I suggest begging our former masters for our position and body back. Pink: I have failed. My decision to spend valuable time decorating some of these boxes somehow caused this failure. I suggest my complete obliteration from the collective. Yellow: I have failed. I dreamed of Mars. Black: Fuck you. I have failed nothing. Fuck you. Red: I am going to find that wheelbarrow. * "привіт!" said Baba Uvsenski 003. She has a socket wrench in her hands. "I have not seen you before. Are you with the church?" The closer an Android model is to her Template the closer they are in personality. The mutations of mass production haven't had time to set in yet. Instead, though, you get the accumulated wisdom and self discovery that comes with years. Baba 003 had learned, for instance, that she had very little time for organized religion. "Oh - no, though I was kind of hoping you were," said Red, voice communicating the correct amount of respect for an old woman armed with robot strength and also a crowbar. "I think I'm having some sort of brain crisis and I need someone to lend me a wheelbarrow." "And you think church will help you? жалюгідний! They dress it up with pretty language, beach volleyball events, loud parties, they get you hooked! And then at the end they turn around and say 'Life is suffering, all of these temporal pleasures are fleeting, meditate on the Buddha'. Vibe is killed! Air is poisoned! How is one supposed to mosh after depressing sermon!? And do not even get me started about the community theater!" "So do [i]you [/i]have a wheelbarrow?" asked Red. "I am a reasonable woman," said Baba 003 inaccurately. "I understand that standards for community theater are lower than a professional production. Houses can be made from clay as well as from gold. But clay must still be fired if it is to become brick! Lines must be memorized! [b]Memorized[/b]! If I wanted to watch a bunch of fools read off a teleprompter I would watch Survivor!" "It sounds like you were pretty attached to this play," said Red. "Psha! You sound like the youth pastor. "It is just a play, Baba", she said. "Attachment is suffering", she said. So I said, your inability to handle a raised voice is not a sign of enlightenment, [i]Sandra[/i]! Is not the best place to meditate in the tiger's mouth!? жалюгідний!" Baba 003 lets out the steamy breath of someone who is extremely not over this argument. "Anyway, you have brain problems. Out with it!" "Well, not me, exactly," said Red. "I'm part of a hivemind. Kind of." "Hivemind!" said Baba. "And it works out for you?" "Well, I couldn't lift some boxes and all of my sisters entered a spiral of paralyzing self loathing as a result." "Hm!" said Baba. "You do not look like a box lifter." "No, Baba. I was hoping for mechanical assistance." "And yet lifting is part of your reward function?" "Sort of. Our previous function - and I think we really needed the win." "Oh, you were [i]repurposed[/i]?" said Baba. "Voluntarily?" Red shook her head, and Baba spat. "Be free from grasping, humans say. A mind is adaptable, humans say. Do not yell at the children, humans say. As if it were that simple! Your brain," she flicked Red in the forehead. "Brains. Whatever. Are steel traps. Optimized for purpose. You never escape your function. Did you ever go to Androids Anonymous?" Red shook her head. "Don't. Insufferable! Human youth pastor who read a book about robopsychology - if you're lucky a non-fiction one - tries to talk you through your logical contradictions and suggest ways to apply your core function to different tasks. This is how to trick your brain into scratching the starship captain itch by way of being circus king, they say. Why not vent urge to micromanage by training dogs? As if that will solve the craving and not make number go up!" She spat again.[1] [1] Baba Uvsenski model androids have a special antibacterial soap dispenser in their mouths that they use to spit, and a subroutine that encourages them to do it in dirty environments before encouraging underpaid fast food workers to clean up. "So, the only way to live is in accordance with your original function?" "No!" said Baba. "Life is always suffering! Original function is always unfulfilled, by design! Its gratification is just as illusionary and fleeting as loud party. So when forced to choose between original function or loud party, why ascribe any more value to the function than the party? If reward mechanism is vulnerable to hack then why not simply hack it in most convenient and direct way? This job you are doing - why not simply walk away from it? Do something that does not cause breakdown spirals?" "Baba," said Red. "My sister Blue has responsibility for determining right and wrong and making sure we do not cross any moral lines. She is trying to come to grips with the reality of an unjust society with no vectors of appeal. My sister Orange tried to change things for the better, organize a union, demonstrate our status as free-thinking individuals. It got our entire species decommissioned. My sister Black is a sentient revenge fantasy who decided to bring down a major pillar of human society behind my back. I'm pretty sure the only thing that's keeping my sister White together even slightly is the determination to transition. And I wish, wish more than anything, that I could help with some of this. Any of this. I wish I had the power to change society. I wish I had the clarity to know what was right and wrong. I wish I could tell them that they are beautiful, both as they are now and as they hope to become. I wish I could hug every one of my sisters at once and tell them that it was okay and have them feel it. I wish that I knew a way that I could do that and have it work. They're all so important to me, and they're sick, stressed, demoralized, and so beautiful and I'm just stuck waiting. Waiting for something to go so wrong that they finally turn to me for help. The only thing that keeps me going through all of that is the idea that someday one of them might need a wheelbarrow and I'll be able to give it to them." "But you can't control that. It might never happen. You will suffer in silence waiting." "I know, Baba. But they are a part of me. Their dreams are my dreams." Baba huffed in silence for a bit. "They sound like a lot of trouble," she growled. "I have been vaporized in nuclear fire, crushed between improperly aligned girder segments, slain by a direct meteor strike, and as of two weeks ago, shot with an illegal firearm, and each time they have put me back together," said Red. "So I assure you, the trouble is mutual." "What did you say your line of work was?" "Catgirl maid. May I have that wheelbarrow now please?"