Remove ads

Panopticon: A Game of Posthumans, Perniciousness, Paranoia, Politics, and Plasmaguns

Reader mode
NonSequtur said:
Speaking of Nephandi, I wonder if anyone has looked at the patterns of barrabi, and whether a good deal of them came from that paradigm breaking jump. That realisation that tyranny might be required for safety, and that your beliefs are no more true than anyone else's.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Hm. An interesting hypothesis. Let's have Jamelia dissect Nephandic brains to see if they had Enlightenment/Arete 6 once she gets enough Prime or Primal Utility to be able to tell. You know, if we have some spare time in which to compile statistics.

They must be fresh, of course.
 
Last edited:
[X]Write In.
Farewell

The tears come easily, even as she smiles at the thought. When the fight comes, when she's in there she won't have time to think of what to say, less to even say it. So now she's here, in a sprawling Etherite bathroom, with one mirror taking up some five meters of space, with gold etched taps and fawcets, and marble countertops and floors. Wasteful, just like the Etherites. But here, now, it's wasteful in a way that gives her the space she needs.

"We could have been so great together," Henriette says to the recorder, speaking the words for her sister- the sister that was, that could have been- the sister she should have had, if only...

But the time for if only's is past, and that thing out there, it may have been her sister, but now it's gone where she can't follow.

"It should've been you and I, Mom and Dad, not lost out there to the Computer, to those monsters. We should've stayed home and invested in the future... instead of being so c-caught up in the past..."

"I don't know what I should say... there's no textbooks for this, and it's not something even I can wrap my mind around. How do you apologize to the sister you never knew, for all the ills of the world done to her? How do I say how I'm sorry, that I wish... I wish it could have been better? Because it could have been so much better..."

She trails off and crosses her arms, holding herself, just letting the tears come.

"I guess what I want to say is goodbye. I'm your big sister, so it's up to me to see this through. To see you to the end of it. So for what it's worth, I'm sorry it had to be this way..."

"Goodbye Henrietta Mari Langley. I love you."
 
Last edited:
MJ12 Commando said:
But the distances in space are something else entirely, especially when one is trying to turn an atomic-powered titan into a stealth fighter. It takes hours to get anywhere important, and engagements

...of course, the actual engagement itself lasts a lot less time,​
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It just cuts off. Should there be an ellipsis or something?

​
Henriette's Last Message:
Henriette says something to her sister. The tone of that message is:
[X] Apologetic

Henriette was regretful when she was composing the Monster Movie Mashup Message or whatever Aleph called it, and she's probably regretful now. After all, she's the one who did this.

[x] Confrontational/Pitying

Because we need the WP.

Kessler's Choice:
[X] "I choose to live. I choose pain, and death, and tragedy. I choose bloody hands and the possibility of making everything worse. I choose the Ascension War. I choose understanding what I am and what the hard truth is. I choose seeing the people I love and care for die. I choose loyalty to people who will disappoint me. I choose this knowing that eventually I'm going to be back here again and I won't have this choice."

Time to stand up, soldier.


Also, I just noticed the new thread tags. Planning something, MJ12? Or is it something we've already done?

...Or are you just trolling us?
 
Last edited:
[x] Confrontational/Pitying

[x] "I choose to live. I choose pain, and death, and tragedy. I choose bloody hands and the possibility of making everything worse. I choose the Ascension War. I choose understanding what I am and what the hard truth is. I choose seeing the people I love and care for die. I choose loyalty to people who will disappoint me. I choose this knowing that eventually I'm going to be back here again and I won't have this choice."
 
Last edited:
Henriette's Last Message:
Henriette says something to her sister. The tone of that message is:

[X] Apologetic

Henriette knew very well that her sister was gone, and that even if there was something left pretending to be her, it was just a dumb submodule, a limited facet designed for human interactions. No more human than the limited AIs which manned help desks and telephone support hotlines. A Chinese room built by an exhuman monster.

But she still had to say it. Not for the thing in front of her. For herself. The things she'd wished she'd been able to say before, rather than what she'd transmitted to drive Henrietta to self-destruction.

"I'm sorry."

That's all she could manage. That's all she could say. How do you tell someone that you know that if things had gone just a little bit differently, all of these horrors would have been avoided? How do you express the sick brew of amazement that someone so mutilated had managed to turn against the Computer with the horror at what she'd done to herself? How do you express the guilt that you'd deliberately taken everything left to an abused little girl to push her into self-destruction - and the certainty that you'd do it again, because her existence had been a sham and a mockery?

How do you apologise for someone's entire life?

"I'm sorry. For what they did to you. For what I did to you. If I'd been in your place, I'd have done just the same. I can't blame you. You never had a chance. Things... things should have been different. I... I... I'm sorry."
 
Last edited:
[X] "I choose death and never having to worry about all of this again. I choose peace. I choose to rest."

To: Memorial@HQ
From: Donald Sykes (LA-482-Gamma-5)
Subject: SSGT John Kessler

On our recent mission SSGT Kessler perished while fighting threat null. More information to follow once the Void Engineers finish deciphering his suit's combat logs.
Kessler participated in nearly every operation amalgam LA-482-Gamma-5 undertook since his joining, his skill and gallantry were exceptional even among the high standards of the Technocratic Union and Iteration X.
The world is poorer for his passing.
- Donald Sykes, Executive Financier.

------

Because as far as deaths go, fighting THE Dragon is a pretty good one. May he pass to an afterlife that lets him boss around all the dragons he's killed.
 
[x] "I choose to live. I choose pain, and death, and tragedy. I choose bloody hands and the possibility of making everything worse. I choose the Ascension War. I choose understanding what I am and what the hard truth is. I choose seeing the people I love and care for die. I choose loyalty to people who will disappoint me. I choose this knowing that eventually I'm going to be back here again and I won't have this choice."

This is the choice Kessler's been making for a long time. Maybe not with as much understanding as he has now, but on some level he knows that the side he fights on is imperfect. But he can try to make things better. And he has the choice now, to come back, and do it some more, until eventually death catches up to him. It probably won't be as epic a death as this would be, and that's another sacrifice he's making. But hey, if it were an easy job, they wouldn't need him, right?

Henriette's Last Message:
Henriette says something to her sister. The tone of that message is:

[X] Apologetic/Sorrowful

"I can't truly apologize for what I've done to you. Both because it's too much to just say "I'm sorry", and because if I had to, I'd do it again. I... I wish I'd had a chance to grow up with you, with our real parents, but that was stolen from us before we had a chance to choose. But even if I'd do it again, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything I've done that was a part of the cruel trap that was your life. And now, even if you're not really my sister any more, I can give you one final gift. I hope you find peace."
 
Henriette's Last Message:
[ ] Apologetic/Sorrowful

Kessler's Choice:
[X] "I choose to live."
 
Last edited:
kelllogo said:
[] "I choose death and never having to worry about all of this again. I choose peace. I choose to rest."

To: Memorial@HQ
From: Donald Sykes (LA-482-Gamma-5)
Subject: SSGT John Kessler

On our recent mission SSGT Kessler perished while fighting threat null. More information to follow once the Void Engineers finish deciphering his suit's combat logs.
Kessler participated in nearly every operation amalgam LA-482-Gamma-5 undertook since his joining, his skill and gallantry were exceptional even among the high standards of the Technocratic Union and Iteration X.
The world is poorer for his passing.
- Donald Sykes, Executive Financier.

------

Because as far as deaths go, fighting THE Dragon is a pretty good one. May he pass to an afterlife that lets him boss around all the dragons he's killed.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Nephanderry! :p

Why yes, the world would be poorer for his passing. That's why we're voting against his suicide.
 
Last edited:
[X] Write in: Henriette's Message

"I know there's probably little left of you that can even understand this or accept it, but I want you to know one thing most of all, Henrietta.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry it had to be like this. Mother... survived the initial attack by the Computer, after the Dimensional Anomaly. She got a message out with some of the survivors. She knew she was pregnant with you, and wanted to tell me, leave me a happy message of what would have been... just a few more months and I would have been welcoming my little sister.

We should have had the world. Our parents were stars, young and famous already in Iteration X. You and I would have been prodigies raised by the best.

We would have been amazing. The Langely sisters... Nothing could have stood in our way.

Instead the Computer ate you, twisted you, made you into its thing... a puppet on a string. It used you, abused you, and finally drove you to this.

...and I helped. I admit it, I goaded you, pushed you, tried to upset you. Because I had to. I have to protect the Earth from what the Computer and the rest of Control has become. That's what father worked for. That's what mother died for. You know it, don't you, that they've been gone for years, and the Computer just uses their faces and voices to manipulate you? Just another thing to torture us both with...

You were human. Never doubt that. I felt it when you did this to yourself. Something linking us, I couldn't even have put my finger on until you cut it off, but you and I were bonded together. No mere machine could have had that. You were really, truly human, and my little sister.

I would have loved you. We were so happy together, mother, father, and I. Adding a bratty little sister.. we'd have fought, made up, fought... been sisters. I'd have love for you to have met Sanjeet. You'd have liked him, and I'd have loved rubbing my hot boyfriend in your face, because that's what sisters do. I'd have cheered when you found your own. I only had a few months with Sanjeet. You have no idea what love is like. I wish you could have known.

I'd have loved you. You'd have been family. And now I have to kill you.

I am so sorry. More than you'll ever know. But it has to be this way."
 
[X ] "I choose to live. I choose pain, and death, and tragedy. I choose bloody hands and the possibility of making everything worse. I choose the Ascension War. I choose understanding what I am and what the hard truth is. I choose seeing the people I love and care for die. I choose loyalty to people who will disappoint me. I choose this knowing that eventually I'm going to be back here again and I won't have this choice."

To fight is to live. To live is to fight.

[X] Apologetic/Sorrowful

"I wish things had been different."

That's it- No long-winded declarations of sisterly love. Just the actual truth.
 
Henriette's Last Message:
Henriette says something to her sister. The tone of that message is:

[] Apologetic
 
Last edited:
... wait a moment!

No, you know what? This sentimentality is a trap. Henrietta is dead. This thing is an exhuman monster. It doesn't understand apologies. It doesn't understand sorrow. Henriette can cry for what she did to her sister later, but right now there's a monster out there and it has no pity and it has no sorrow and it absolutely positively will not stop until she's dead. And then might revive her so it can kill her again.

The thing talking to Henriette? It's a puppet. A Chinese room made by a monster.

And Henriette needs willpower, baby! She lost willpower from the psychic shock of Henrietta's "death" - she knows her sister is dead. She spent willpower on the paint for two rolls. And she's just about to go into the fight of her life (apart from maybe Moscow). She needs willpower. And that means she needs to criticise.

What's Khornetta going to do? Try to kill her harder? That implies she wasn't already trying her hardest.

Competitor/Critic!

Henriette's Last Message:
Henriette says something to her sister. The tone of that message is:

[X] Confrontational/Pitying

Henriette knows very well that her sister was gone, and that even if there was something left pretending to be her, it was just a dumb submodule, a limited facet designed for human interactions. No more human than the limited AIs which manned help desks and telephone support hotlines. A Chinese room built by an exhuman monster.

She'll cry for her later. She'll feel guilty later. She'll add another name to the tombstone above the empty graves of her parents. Right now, there's no time for that.

"You idiot," her recorded message plays. It's a confused jumble of anger and sorrow and guilt, which she composed in the long drift towards her target. "I didn't want this. That's the saddest thing. You really were just a little kid. A little kid made into a weapon who didn't realise how inhuman things were using her, because she didn't have any real world experience. You were so stupid! You turned your back on Mum and Dad in Moscow! We tried to help you! And of course you couldn't accept it because you didn't even know what help was and I hated you and I pitied you and..." her voice fades away. "I wanted things to be different! You should have been my little sister!"

A cut. She'd patched these speeches together from different takes. Her voice comes back in mid-sentence, a little more collected.

"... but that's too late now. Now you're just another inhuman thing. You're not you. You're just... j-just an it. I'm sorry for what you were. I'm sorry for your life. I wish things had been different - and maybe they could have been. But when you did this to yourself, you gave up everything you could have been. I outsmarted you and I outsmarted the Computer and in the end it now comes down to me because..." Henriette's voice cracks. "You... you stupid... you... you were such a fool!"

[Virtue - Competitor - This is her moment. Her and the monster. She's already flying high - because of her, one Autopolitan HK is destroyed, another is crippled, and this newborn god-monster is maimed. She's outwitted it. She's gone up against the Computer and someone who's had more resources spent on her than modern Iteration X gets in a year - and she's ahead.]

[Vice - Critic - Maybe pointing out all the things the uber-powerful exhuman did wrong to its face isn't the wisest course of action...]
 
Last edited:
EarthScorpion said:
No, you know what? This sentimentality is a trap. Henrietta is dead. This thing is an exhuman monster. It doesn't understand apologies. It doesn't understand sorrow.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Henrietta can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't understand apologies, or sadness, or love. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until it can torture you for a subjective eternity for your imagined sins.

:(
 
MJ12 Commando said:
Henrietta can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't understand apologies, or sadness, or love. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until it can torture you for a subjective eternity for your imagined sins.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

She was such a fool.

(Being such a fool when you're a teenage girl is a very dangerous thing to do. Risks include turning into a giant monster. And also public humiliation.)
 
EarthScorpion said:
She was such a fool.

(Being such a fool when you're a teenage girl is a very dangerous thing to do. Risks include turning into a giant monster. And also public humiliation.)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The lesson Panopticon Quest can teach you is that Madoka Magica was a warning to young female mages. Let's look at our stable of meguca!

Illiyeen al-Hallaq: Joined the Technocracy, fell in love with a dapper British superspy who turned Nephandi, ended up being brainwashed and turned into a meat-robot killing machine.

Henriette Langley: Ended up on Autochthonia in 2014, was nearly eaten by a grue her sister, was left a brain-damaged mentally unstable wreck.

Henrietta Langley: Turned herself into a witch posthuman god-monster when her hope was overwhelmed by her despair.

Melody: Defected to the side which seeks to crush freedom and human imagination because her hope was overwhelmed by her despair.

Rose: Entire life is suffering.

Serafina: Ended up being given 'treatments' to no longer see her best (imaginary) friend after the Boyfriend Incident. Is doomed to probably never find true love, just temporary companionship and lots and lots of empty sex.

And now you know. Being meguca is suffering.
 
On a side note - this is purely a mechanics question, because we have no means of doing this at all - but if you go back in time, make a braintape of someone, go forward, and then resurrect them, does that count for "lol time travel stupid paradox" or just normal vulgarity? It seems like a Technoparadigm justification for resurrecting someone without prior preparation to me, but I've missed mechanics questions before, so.
 
linkhyrule5 said:
On a side note - this is purely a mechanics question, because we have no means of doing this at all - but if you go back in time, make a braintape of someone, go forward, and then resurrect them, does that count for "lol time travel stupid paradox" or just normal vulgarity? It seems like a Technoparadigm justification for resurrecting someone without prior preparation to me, but I've missed mechanics questions before, so.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The braintape isn't actually a thing. It's just a focus for a Life 5/Mind 5 resurrection (possibly Life 4/Mind 4 if you have their body well-preserved and relatively intact). Traditions magi need Life 5/Mind 4/Spirit 5 to do the same thing, because they think the soul is important, which demonstrates why the Technocracy has semi-common resurrection of personnel and the Traditions do not.

So you wouldn't actually take any paradox from doing this-you'd just be giving yourself a valid focus for resurrecting someone.
 
MJ12 Commando said:
The lesson Panopticon Quest can teach you is that Madoka Magica was a warning to young female mages. Let's look at our stable of meguca!

Illiyeen al-Hallaq: Joined the Technocracy, fell in love with a dapper British superspy who turned Nephandi, ended up being brainwashed and turned into a meat-robot killing machine.

Henriette Langley: Ended up on Autochthonia in 2014, was nearly eaten by a grue her sister, was left a brain-damaged mentally unstable wreck.

Henrietta Langley: Turned herself into a witch posthuman god-monster when her hope was overwhelmed by her despair.

Melody: Defected to the side which seeks to crush freedom and human imagination because her hope was overwhelmed by her despair.

Rose: Entire life is suffering.

Serafina: Ended up being given 'treatments' to no longer see her best (imaginary) friend after the Boyfriend Incident. Is doomed to probably never find true love, just temporary companionship and lots and lots of empty sex.

And now you know. Being meguca is suffering.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Kessler's an honourary meguca because of all the magical kilt jokes! He even meets the suffering part, assuming "Stuck on Dragon Planet for 20 years" counts (It'd had better damn well count)
 
Last edited:
What ever happened to the Henrietta from Moscow anyway? Isn't she being taken care of by IBM? I know that the main Henrietta cut it off, but it seemed to be fully human on its own.

Also, who can say that they figured that choosing London political stuff would result in a psychic-dream-quest by our enemy and then a space adventure involving titanic clashes of gods (because the Computor is totally on the level of being a god)? Still not as epic as Moscow though, because the fate of the world doesn't hang in the balance in the same way. Reminds me of the D&D lore of Hell and the Abyss having an epic war that noone cares about.
 
Kessler:
[x] Life
Henriette:
[x] Relentless abuse of game mechanics Confrontational/Pitying playing on Virtue/Vice
 
MJ12 Commando said:
Henrietta can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't understand apologies, or sadness, or love. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until it can torture you for a subjective eternity for your imagined sins.

:(
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Well, yeah. The parting words are for Henriette's piece of mind, something she feels she needs to say to get closure. As much of an epitaph as Henrietta will every have, perhaps.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top