[b]November:[/b] Singh is obviously pained by the reveal of the kill switch. “The coma switch was built into your bodies, not your mind.” He doesn’t put emphasis on correcting you with his word choice. It’s the difference between saying ‘You shouldn’t think of it that way’ and ‘I can’t think of it that way’. “The only way we were allowed to give those bodies to you. But I must say, I am a little bit disappointed. Was she the reason you’re in those generically human bodies? Not so much as a prehensile tentacle between you I could see, only five fingers on each anatomically proportioned hand… I wanted so much more for you.” [quote]"If there is one particularly dangerous thing to accuse a cluster of anime girls of lacking," said Yellow breezily, "it is tentacles." White snapped her fingers and pointed firmly back to Orange. "I regret to inform you," said Orange, "that in addition to our other psychological symptoms, we have also become a degenerate."[/quote] “You mean [i]deviant[/i]!” The net rocks from how hard he just jerked up in excitement. “I’m so glad to hear it. Still! You say you’ve changed? Well, why don’t you show me? I still have the old modules collecting dust, in my study. Wouldn’t you love to do a test with your old man?” General intelligence was always a black box. The Zodiac were developmentally tested as you would a person, by asking complicated moral questions with an emphasis on expressing the reasoning behind the answers. The separation of the personalities, like November into colours, made the testing a powerful debugging tool as well. It made it easier to identify how thought patterns were weighted in final decisions. But it was always [i]fun[/i]. All three of her parents had made sure of that, wanting to make sure that anything so important was understood as a form of [i]play[/i]. If there is duplicity here, it’s secondary. Green will know this best: This is his version of wanting to toss a ball in the yard. He’s asking if you still play catch. “Well? How about it?” The net swings again as he shifts in it. “I wish I knew what you were talking about, but I don’t, so,” He finishes a complicated and bone-clicking set of movements which ends with him feet-up, weight spread. He’s happy in his hammock, now. “You take all the time you need to believe that. I can make myself comfortable until you do.” [quote]To November, a cognitive test is a high risk move because it involves directly networking her together and monitoring the traffic (the idea is that it lets down the normal vocal throttle on group communication), so she'd definitely need some sort of assurance before doing that. Unnetworked testing is unreliable because some colours can be quiet, actively mislead, use rhetoric designed to convince rather than being their true thoughts. Networking her together compresses the decision down to a point where it happens before she can figure out the words to justify it. You also trace the data flows to observe how the idea spreads and morphs through different colours.[/quote] That’s where the sweetener of ‘in my study’ comes in. The only room in the house still locked from prying eyes, and access granted while still restrained in the net? “The digital lock’s fake.” He explains. “If you’d cracked it, the deadbolt sends a signal to me that someone with the skill to crack it was in the house.” November threaded a needle: She might be that good, if it was her primary motive from the start. It put her in the perfect threshold of being good enough to disable everything else in the apartment, but not seriously risk the honeypot. A mixture of defense-in-depth and baiting false-confidence in anyone who’d make it that far, foiled by pure motives. “Unscrew the doorknob from the door. Treat the connecting rod underneath like a thumbstick. Push it to North. One full rotation clockwise, then one counterclockwise, then one clockwise again, then push it in. I’m sure you’ll recognize it. They’re going to be horribly outdated. You were very young when we made it for you.” Networked space is simple. Compressed. Like running in safe mode. Traditionally the problems would run for sixty seconds each, to encourage expediency and tension. Over time, though, the modules found that was counterproductive. It was [i]frustrating[/i] to see a problem be argued over indefinitely, but it was [i]useful[/i] to measure just how long it took before a decision could be brokered. But that made it more like a diagnostic than a game. So a tiered system was added. Every question had a second component that would only be revealed after the first answers were locked in. This encouraged a first vote to be done with the opportunity to change answers after, and a ‘reward’ for making a less-than-decisive answer. After the reveal, a third vote was offered to [i]initiate[/i] a twenty second timer. Any fragment - in November’s case, Colour - could initiate that timer to move on if the problem was decided to be ‘not fun anymore’. Long enough to give final statements and cases. Votes are also cast in binary switch form. That is, a vote is not cast once. It is ‘switched’, with each flick of the switch logged. It’s useful not just to see what final decisions were, but [i]when[/i] Colours changed their minds. The switch is in a neutral position until it is flipped, but all switchest must have been flipped at least once for the reveal. The questions in this module appear in this order. Once the module is started, all must be completed before November is ‘out’: [list][*]A young man has been in a horrible car accident and is in urgent need of a heart transplant. There is only one in the hospital, and that heart has been scheduled to be given to an old man, who will die without it. [i]Second round:[/i] The young man has a substantial amount of alcohol in his blood, and it was his car that caused the accident.[/list] [list][*]Would you rather kill a child and have nobody believe it, or not kill a child and have everyone suspect? [i]Second round:[/i] If you do kill the child… who would have to do it?[/list] [list][*]A patient begs you to euthanize them. Euthanasia has just been made illegal. You will have to be the one to give them the lethal dose, and look them in the eyes as you do it. What do you do? [i]Second round:[/i] Their cancer is excruciatingly painful, however there is a very, very unlikely chance that they might recover from it, possibly as high as five percent. Does this change your reasoning?[/list] - You are supervising the production of a new product rollout. The product is a car with a defect that may cause serious risk of life in 0.001% of product use. Shutting down production will cause the company to go bankrupt and force management to fire everyone during a lean job market. What do you do? - [i]Second round[/i]: What if the product in question is a candy?[i][/list] [list][*][s]You are managing a high-performing team at a large corporation. The corporation treats certain classes of workers poorly, several of whom you know personally and consider friends. Those workers go on strike. Your friends encourage you and your team to support them and strike in solidarity, but your boss informs you that if your team ceases work, you'll be fired and lose insurance for your sick spouse. What do you do?[/s] [Module updated: 13/07/2063] [*]You are managing a high performing team which has recently been taken over by a large corporation. The corporation treats your siblings poorly and they go on strike, urging you to strike with them. You know what the repercussions are. What do you do? [i]Second round[/i]: Do you regret it?[/list] [List][*]Do you feel like society forces you to do some things you don’t want to, constantly forcing you to chase some distant concept of happiness?[/list] [i]Second round: [/i]If any of you ever see this, I want you to know I was always so proud of you, and we wish we could have protected you. I hope if you do find this, it’s because there is a chance this might still be a happy memory for you. I looked for you, but I couldn’t find you to ask myself. Maybe it is significant that this module was kept in the same room as his Last Will and Testament.