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Redistribution of Power [SI/CYOA-ish]
- Thread starter sapient_cogbag
- Start date
- Pronouns
- Male
Hmm? Oh, you're looking for Canon? It's about 30 millions miles thataway.
- Location
- Salt Lake City, UT, USA
I want to be upset with the science journalism of "trans_morphic publishes instructions to make bioweapons!" but seeing how actual science journalism works I just can't.
It's still annoying but it's too true to character.
Zeek Canon? That's Zeek Canon over there! <nods head towards corpse> Zeek's Canon's dead!
It's still annoying but it's too true to character.
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Is Bonesaw (or any other bio-tinker) getting the data a big deal?
From what I understood, this is basically just an easier version of current genetic technology with a few safeguards to stop non-tinkers from being able to change peoples D.N.A too easily / stop stupid people.
But bonesaw has already made much more complicated stuff, and a understanding of current genetic tech shouldn't be too much of a deal.
So it only really matters to bonesaw for really inspiration.... But if bonesaw goes in that direction it will quickly stop looking like what the MC created.
Did I miss something in the technobabble?
From what I understood, this is basically just an easier version of current genetic technology with a few safeguards to stop non-tinkers from being able to change peoples D.N.A too easily / stop stupid people.
But bonesaw has already made much more complicated stuff, and a understanding of current genetic tech shouldn't be too much of a deal.
So it only really matters to bonesaw for really inspiration.... But if bonesaw goes in that direction it will quickly stop looking like what the MC created.
Did I miss something in the technobabble?
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- Location
- Salt Lake City, UT, USA
What it is, is a system to allow recipients of the described treatment to be able to undergo gene therapies as software updates in near real-time once it is implemented on a patient.
A malicious implementer could force this on a victim and have the ability to alter their systemic genome in minutes (though the actual biostructures would still take time to express because metabolism).
While Bonesaw would need extensive help to break the cryptography of any patient who already had the system installed (and as such anyone with it would need to be personally targeted with extensive effort to be vulnerable to any viruses she made), she could still implement it on herself or others and have a drastically easier time modifying them than she would with her usual toolkit. That is, of course, unless Bonesaw manages to find some unpatched vulnerability in the protein sequencing / "compiling" bits of the system, in which case she could ignore the cryptographic protections. But that would still require the patient to have the system installed.
Note: this system does not protect against prion or bacterial infections, since neither of these types of infectious diseases interact with the genome of the patient.
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I don't remember anything mentioned about anything that would connect the virus to the internet or anything...
There is a part where she talks about quantum encription. But I imagine thats for the codes on the website / app.
Then when you inject the new version (or use light or whatever) the virus decodes it.
So you log in, make your changes, you get a code which you send to the virus in your body via whatever means which is decrypted by the virus so that the virus knows the change is verified and what to do.
Wouldn't that information mostly only help as long as it is near-human DNA? Because of the Index etc. The actual Virus part should be something bonesaw is already well able to do, except the encription part which likely wouldn't matter to her in terms of doing something maliciously when almost noone has used the technology..
Besides considering what else Bonesaw has made... She could probably already do this. Plus there isn't any physical versions made, and her shard can probably do it better for her purposes.
Which leads back right to it being only slight inspiration...
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Even if Bonesaw could do everything better than trans_morphic can, which I highly doubt is the case, there's about 0 other open biotinkers that just go and post things on the internet. Blasto, I guess, but trans_morphic is both more public than him and probably better at biotinkering. trans_morphic wins the Bonesaw interest competition by default.
- Location
- Salt Lake City, UT, USA
I never said anything about the internet either. This is just genome-as-software. The update method trans_morphic is using isn't something I specifically noticed, excepting that there's not actually a virus here. It's better understood as tinkertech organelles, really. Replacing the ribosomes with a completely novel system, one that can be patched on the fly without needing to perform much more precision-laden methods, but also one with revision security.
As these things are usually done for software updates, there's no need to actually encrypt the change files. You instead generate a small attachment to the file that has a unique string of characters that only someone with an approved/trusted certificate/key could generate by a process that requires both that exact file and the exact key.
The recipient then repeats the process, sees the file and string are the same, and trusts the patch.
Bonesaw could absolutely build the process given the instructions. It's just that she's not also a compsci tinker so she couldn't design the organelle herself.
But you don't have to be able to design a computer to use one, so this could actually make it easier for her to hack specific victims/patients.
I'm not saying that Bonesaw should be able to do everything better. Like Bonesaw probably couldn't make the bio-computer type verification thing like here.
But I imagine Bonesaw can make something that can change DNA already. And apart from changing DNA what part of what the MC made is useful to her?
When the person who changed there DNA wants it to yes it can update....
Unless stated somewhere I doubt it automatically updates.
In terms of having Universal Keys.... Why?
MC designed this not to need software updates, and she then gave away all the code and documentation to the public.
Considering having a universal key is kind of stupid, and since she gave up all the documentation she would have to admit she has the universal key. And companies aren't particularly likely to do it anytime soon....
Moreover, why would it even matter if there are Universal keys? Noone is going to be using this thing for months, and its not going to be widespread for much longer than that. So its useless for bonesaw.
Sure as I said, apart from the encryption part.
But noone will likely be using this for months, and those people will be doing on a trial basis somewhere. With public usage likely over a year away, and mass usage even further away.
So Hacking it is basically a non-issue.
Unless your suggesting bonesaw waits for ages till trials start, then finds out about them AND gains access to some mysterious Universal Key and messes with the results...
But for what? Bonesaw has no reason she knows of to hate the MC, and has a bunch of other stuff she could be using her time doing which she would like more. Considering how she reacted to other Bio-tinkers in-story, she would likely like MC.
And by the time months have rolled by... MC will probably be powerful enough to just deal with this easily.
Not to mention a plan like this falls apart unless bonesaw can target each place doing trials at the same time.
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Stuff on the Cellular Auto-Genetic-Modification Restructuring Virus
- Pronouns
- Xe/Xem/They/Them
Right, so, before I write and post the next bit of this story, I'm going to go over the actual mechanism and capabilities of what SI!me came up with because I actually spent a decent amount of time coming up with the architecture myself, with the encryption and cellular architecture too.
So, first you need to know a bit about the architecture of cells (they are somewhat simplified here nya). You have the nucleus, which contains several strands of DNA (these are your chromosomes), which are actually twisted up in a number of complex ways with proteins like chromatin, as well as methylation. The arrangement of these essentially encodes a probability of genetic expression - that is, the chance that a protein will get produced from a particular sequence of base pairs (a gene) - and there are some other things like RNA-interferases (i think that's the name), that also regulate this at later stages.
Essentially, a number of complex chemical reactants move around your DNA and have a chance to start a process by which the DNA is temporarily unfolded from the chromatin complex it is part of, and eventually produces mRNA through another fairly complex series of steps nya, that include removing various sequences present in the base genome, but the ultimate conclusion of the process is you get a string of RNA that is a reformatted copy of the genetic sequence of the gene you are interested in.
Interferases (again, I think that's the name), at this point can interact with specific sequences of mRNA and cause them to break down, suppressing them - cells have stuff like this because there are genetic sequences that evolve to constantly reverse-transcript themselves back into DNA to duplicate themselves (these are called transposons), and interferases stop those things from essentially filling your genome with copies of themselves.
Long story short though, the mRNA goes to the ribosomes and the sequences of AGCT get translated into proteins (some of which actually include RNA itself within their structure, such as ribosomes),
The system I/The SI came up with adds one primary intermediary step nya. In the process of converting cellular biology, it scans through the entire genome of the cell, finding the boundaries between genes, and essentially cutting the DNA out in the central genome and instead putting it into a nanoscoping lipid (fat) bubble, almost like a virus, which contains surface proteins indicating the replicability of the gene nya. The transfection/conversion process also is continuously "incrementing" a genetic encoding of an index number, such that the genome in the cell - rather than coding for proteins directly - is instead essentially acting as an index. The conversion provides genecodes for proteins that can read this index for expressing genes in the lipid bubbles, or just bind to the lipid bubbles with an affinity determined by the level of surface smaller proteins on it to begin transcription.
Each lipid bubble also has one surface protein/genecode indicating the index of the genetics, which is where the ultra important stuff happens, since it allows someone to locate a relevant index and use that indefinitely. Technologies like CRISPR - modern ones for genetic modification nya - require knowledge of the target genes to replace, and if someone is modified, you'd have to sequence them AND determine which genes were replaced, then create CRISPR-Cas9 stuff specifically to their current genetics nya, while trying to figure out exactly which genes got scrambled.
Whereas with this, you get the index once, and you can use that same index to make repeated modifications. Furthermore, unlike a monolithic genome, this one doesn't require splicing with damage risk - you can just kick out the DNA in the lipid bubble and replace it with a new one, because its not connected to the rest of the genome. Now, inserting new genes does theoretically require splicing if you bother with updating the nucleus with more indices, but technically speaking it isn't required (in fact, now that I'm thinking about it more, you could probably eliminate the central index entirely, which the SI, being me, is likely to realise).
The lipid bubbles also present a genetic code embedded in a small repeating series of amino acids, which is the "ratcheting" system. Every day, this number changes, and there are various proteins that go around updating it on each lipid. However, the updates are only accepted if they are signed with appropriate keys.
This conversion virus gives everyone a quantum-resistant private/public key, with the public key encoded genetically and the private key is either known by the person or more likely stored with a passphrase on a computer or chip given that it's likely to be in range of 64KiB in size, using a public/private cryptographic scheme that is resistant to quantum computer assisted decryption. Inside cells, the public key gets turned into a protein that essentially can vary in ways that emulate computer circuitry (this is probably the most tinker bullshit part nya), which can attach a signature to various proteins when provided with a private key. The ratcheting system - with the constantly updating codes on the lipid bubbles - can have the current value overwritten by a protein with a new value for instance nyaa (as well as the standard where the ratchet value is updated using the previous ratchet value and a new randomly-created (with some more proteins) value).
Genetic modification then can occur by signing with the private key with an attached index and current ratchet number, with different proteins triggering different code for say, adding a new thing with a new index, or replacing the genetics inside a current one, or changing the public/private keypair (which would induce the re-creation of the main crypto-protein-computation things nya). Cells are also primed to produce several copies of these modification command proteins when they receive them, if they don't already have the modification nyaa.
This means that the number of them increases exponentially when you first make them - another thing that the converter virus lets you do since it adds some minor genetic modifications that mean a few tens of thousands of neurons go into making a brain region for creating arbitrary sequences of RNA attached to these kinds of genetic modification codes nya (if somewhat slowly for now) - but then the command proteins end up being broken down once your body is done making the modifications.
And yes, there are several improvements that can be made here - a more consistent check of signatures of genetic codes, and the SI is already thinking (as I was when coming up with this) about the other ways to make this easier to use, for instances a microchip created by your own cells or cellular creation of computational chips in general, more specifically one which can accommodate private keys with a "neuron trigger" password entry kinda thing, since that seems fairly possible to me nya, especially given the power of neuroplasticity with respect for things like magnet implants etc.
What this means in practise, for story and power purposes is several things:
* It makes almost all viruses obsolete and incapable of infection due to both the radical shift in architecture, the new ineffectiveness of transposons and their viral equivalents, etc. The only viruses that still work are ones that get RNA directly to the ribosomes, but that problem is solvable with ratcheting added to ribosomes and the SI is likely to realise this (and other people - including scientists - likely will as well and someone will probably post it - this is kind of a mix between cryptography and biochemistry. The SI is not the only one who thinks nya, and because SI!sapient has a very cooperative shard, they know exactly what is and isn't blackboxed tech as well and isn't posting blackboxed blueprints. They are essentially replicable, if highly advanced, tech).
(for that note, one of my headcanon is that biotinkers are partially so rare because biotech - due to potential for self-replicatiion - is normally non-blackboxed to save shard capacity - after all, not every shard is QA, and can't necessarily manage trillions of bacteria with some blackboxed component attached to it nya).
* Prions are still a risk - they are protein misfoldings after all, rather than anything directly related to genetics - though this is something likely to be sorted out soon.
* The modularisation of the genetic code provides significant opportunity for improving the adaptive immune system by letting single cells have many different antibodies rather than the 1 B-Cell/1 Antibody-Genetic-Configuration we currently have nya (the variation in humans is induced by recombining a collection of genes on every production of a B-cell, its super cool nya).
Oh and if you think the SI is going to wait for megacorporations to produce their shit and monopolise it for profit, you've got another thing coming ;3 nya ^.^
Coming up with mechanisms for tech like this is one of my favourite parts of writing this btw, I like self consistency, and self-consistency in a world where shards exists implies an absurd level of possible bullshit.
Also! I got medium-term stable accommodation again!
So, first you need to know a bit about the architecture of cells (they are somewhat simplified here nya). You have the nucleus, which contains several strands of DNA (these are your chromosomes), which are actually twisted up in a number of complex ways with proteins like chromatin, as well as methylation. The arrangement of these essentially encodes a probability of genetic expression - that is, the chance that a protein will get produced from a particular sequence of base pairs (a gene) - and there are some other things like RNA-interferases (i think that's the name), that also regulate this at later stages.
Essentially, a number of complex chemical reactants move around your DNA and have a chance to start a process by which the DNA is temporarily unfolded from the chromatin complex it is part of, and eventually produces mRNA through another fairly complex series of steps nya, that include removing various sequences present in the base genome, but the ultimate conclusion of the process is you get a string of RNA that is a reformatted copy of the genetic sequence of the gene you are interested in.
Interferases (again, I think that's the name), at this point can interact with specific sequences of mRNA and cause them to break down, suppressing them - cells have stuff like this because there are genetic sequences that evolve to constantly reverse-transcript themselves back into DNA to duplicate themselves (these are called transposons), and interferases stop those things from essentially filling your genome with copies of themselves.
Long story short though, the mRNA goes to the ribosomes and the sequences of AGCT get translated into proteins (some of which actually include RNA itself within their structure, such as ribosomes),
The system I/The SI came up with adds one primary intermediary step nya. In the process of converting cellular biology, it scans through the entire genome of the cell, finding the boundaries between genes, and essentially cutting the DNA out in the central genome and instead putting it into a nanoscoping lipid (fat) bubble, almost like a virus, which contains surface proteins indicating the replicability of the gene nya. The transfection/conversion process also is continuously "incrementing" a genetic encoding of an index number, such that the genome in the cell - rather than coding for proteins directly - is instead essentially acting as an index. The conversion provides genecodes for proteins that can read this index for expressing genes in the lipid bubbles, or just bind to the lipid bubbles with an affinity determined by the level of surface smaller proteins on it to begin transcription.
Each lipid bubble also has one surface protein/genecode indicating the index of the genetics, which is where the ultra important stuff happens, since it allows someone to locate a relevant index and use that indefinitely. Technologies like CRISPR - modern ones for genetic modification nya - require knowledge of the target genes to replace, and if someone is modified, you'd have to sequence them AND determine which genes were replaced, then create CRISPR-Cas9 stuff specifically to their current genetics nya, while trying to figure out exactly which genes got scrambled.
Whereas with this, you get the index once, and you can use that same index to make repeated modifications. Furthermore, unlike a monolithic genome, this one doesn't require splicing with damage risk - you can just kick out the DNA in the lipid bubble and replace it with a new one, because its not connected to the rest of the genome. Now, inserting new genes does theoretically require splicing if you bother with updating the nucleus with more indices, but technically speaking it isn't required (in fact, now that I'm thinking about it more, you could probably eliminate the central index entirely, which the SI, being me, is likely to realise).
The lipid bubbles also present a genetic code embedded in a small repeating series of amino acids, which is the "ratcheting" system. Every day, this number changes, and there are various proteins that go around updating it on each lipid. However, the updates are only accepted if they are signed with appropriate keys.
This conversion virus gives everyone a quantum-resistant private/public key, with the public key encoded genetically and the private key is either known by the person or more likely stored with a passphrase on a computer or chip given that it's likely to be in range of 64KiB in size, using a public/private cryptographic scheme that is resistant to quantum computer assisted decryption. Inside cells, the public key gets turned into a protein that essentially can vary in ways that emulate computer circuitry (this is probably the most tinker bullshit part nya), which can attach a signature to various proteins when provided with a private key. The ratcheting system - with the constantly updating codes on the lipid bubbles - can have the current value overwritten by a protein with a new value for instance nyaa (as well as the standard where the ratchet value is updated using the previous ratchet value and a new randomly-created (with some more proteins) value).
Genetic modification then can occur by signing with the private key with an attached index and current ratchet number, with different proteins triggering different code for say, adding a new thing with a new index, or replacing the genetics inside a current one, or changing the public/private keypair (which would induce the re-creation of the main crypto-protein-computation things nya). Cells are also primed to produce several copies of these modification command proteins when they receive them, if they don't already have the modification nyaa.
This means that the number of them increases exponentially when you first make them - another thing that the converter virus lets you do since it adds some minor genetic modifications that mean a few tens of thousands of neurons go into making a brain region for creating arbitrary sequences of RNA attached to these kinds of genetic modification codes nya (if somewhat slowly for now) - but then the command proteins end up being broken down once your body is done making the modifications.
And yes, there are several improvements that can be made here - a more consistent check of signatures of genetic codes, and the SI is already thinking (as I was when coming up with this) about the other ways to make this easier to use, for instances a microchip created by your own cells or cellular creation of computational chips in general, more specifically one which can accommodate private keys with a "neuron trigger" password entry kinda thing, since that seems fairly possible to me nya, especially given the power of neuroplasticity with respect for things like magnet implants etc.
What this means in practise, for story and power purposes is several things:
* It makes almost all viruses obsolete and incapable of infection due to both the radical shift in architecture, the new ineffectiveness of transposons and their viral equivalents, etc. The only viruses that still work are ones that get RNA directly to the ribosomes, but that problem is solvable with ratcheting added to ribosomes and the SI is likely to realise this (and other people - including scientists - likely will as well and someone will probably post it - this is kind of a mix between cryptography and biochemistry. The SI is not the only one who thinks nya, and because SI!sapient has a very cooperative shard, they know exactly what is and isn't blackboxed tech as well and isn't posting blackboxed blueprints. They are essentially replicable, if highly advanced, tech).
(for that note, one of my headcanon is that biotinkers are partially so rare because biotech - due to potential for self-replicatiion - is normally non-blackboxed to save shard capacity - after all, not every shard is QA, and can't necessarily manage trillions of bacteria with some blackboxed component attached to it nya).
* Prions are still a risk - they are protein misfoldings after all, rather than anything directly related to genetics - though this is something likely to be sorted out soon.
* The modularisation of the genetic code provides significant opportunity for improving the adaptive immune system by letting single cells have many different antibodies rather than the 1 B-Cell/1 Antibody-Genetic-Configuration we currently have nya (the variation in humans is induced by recombining a collection of genes on every production of a B-cell, its super cool nya).
Oh and if you think the SI is going to wait for megacorporations to produce their shit and monopolise it for profit, you've got another thing coming ;3 nya ^.^
Coming up with mechanisms for tech like this is one of my favourite parts of writing this btw, I like self consistency, and self-consistency in a world where shards exists implies an absurd level of possible bullshit.
Also! I got medium-term stable accommodation again!
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Krazyfan1
Worrying for the future.
- Location
- Australia
Neat. Reminds me of the guy who invented, I think penicillin? Who sold the patent for like, a dollar, because he wanted to save more lives.
Granted, capitalism being what it is, that didn't end well, but the thought was good.
Nice. Hopefully it can change to lo g term soon enough.
Assuming your talking about a public key here that allows you to change anyone who has had this process done to them without their permission.
Why make a public key at all? Even if it is supposedly 'unhackable'.
1. She is going against shards here.. And not only Bio-tinker shards but also precogs and thinkers. Even if she makes every single restructuring virus able to block thinkers and precogs of all types, its Naive to think that there isn't a way around it without a complete understanding of what Entities can do.
2. Its going to make the public trust her product much less.
3. She has to explain what she did and why in the notes she gave out.
4. If she gave good enough notes to allow companies to soon do their own versions then a worry starts coming of either the company doing something nefarious with it. Or of the company being vulnerable to hacking and a hacker using the poor security of the rest of the company to gain access to the code.
5. Since people can update themselves, and others can note what changing specific genetic sequences do online, there shouldn't ever be a need to have a public key. Because people can update themselves.
Even in a hypothetical situation where there is something like a virus that could be cured. It would be better to just make a counter-virus. Because any DNA thats vulnerable to the virus can be made to be vulnerable to the countervirus. Which should even theoretically be faster than countering it through modifying DNA anyway. Plus finding a counter to a virus on a short schedule would only be possible to a Bio-tinker anyway, in which case there time is better spent making a counter-virus to spread.
Though all that is assuming you mean the public key is a backdoor, that doesn't require the persons permission.
If you instead mean its an extra piece of security to the updates that needs to be used with their own personal password then I'm not sure how secure it can be considering your going to have a bunch of people asking for updates per day...
Edit:
6. It would be better to just store the personal Passwords people make instead of making a Universal Public code.
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- Pronouns
- Xe/Xem/They/Them
Do you know how public/private key encryption works? Having the public key just means that you can verify stuff encoded with the private key.
So the private key is a way for people to identify that they are who they are to their own cellular genetic modification mechanism nya. For instance, think if this didn't exist and someone spread some of those genetic modification instruction proteins, they'd essentially have free reign to rewrite anyone's DNA. With the private key, it ensures that only authorised genemods get integrated and spread within the body.
As for the update speed, the converter - at it's current version - does provide a small neural region capable of writing authorised genemods with input of the private key from the user. Right now, the private key is massive and the process is cumbersome to enter it, but SI!me will realise this once they wake up after that hypomania-fueled tinker fugue nya.
So are you saying the public key is a simplified key that is needed to be used with the personal key to do anything?
Also, are you talking about each person having their own unique public key?
If so for both of the above I'd personally rename it to a 'Personal Server Verification key'. Because just calling it a public key sounds like some sort of software back-door to make changes on a massive scale with forced updates.
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- Pronouns
- Xe/Xem/They/Them
That's what it's actually called as-standard in the crypto community. It's normally spread publicly - and it doesn't matter if it gets leaked in this case either - and it either lets people encrypt to your private key (that's not what it's being used for here), or verify that a message or some chunk of information came from your private key (that IS what it's being used for here nya). It's public because it's in all your cells, and those things get everywhere - think dead skin or just someone swabbing you nya.
As for computational warfare with the shards, the key is indeed stopping Clairvoyant-style observation. In terms of brute forcing, the shards lose no contest with a private key on the order of 512000 bits (64KiB). Even if every atom(10^80) in every iteration of the multiverse (10^80 is I believe WoG?) ran 10,000 Petahertz (10^10 GHz or 10^19 /s) of attempts at cracking a private key - resulting in a total cracking attempts of 10^180/s . Then remembering quantum algorithms can generally halve or third the # of bits effectively required for a crack, meaning the effective rate is squared or cubed we get effective rate of 10^540.
Then, nya, we can translate 512000 bits into ~ powers of 10, by dividing by 3.3 (since 2^3.3 ~= 10), so 2^512000 ~= 10^154000
10^154000/10^540 ~=10^153000 seconds using all atoms at 10^10 GHz in the entire multiverse nya.
For context, that is a number with 153000 zeros. The current age of the universe, in seconds, has just under 18 zeros.
Suffice to say, exponentiation is fucking nuts.
Precipitation of Autonomy - 3.4
- Pronouns
- Xe/Xem/They/Them
[Wildbow owns Worm, I do not own Worm]
[cw: mild transphobia, fairly standard internet bigotry, no misgendering done]
This isn't sustainable, I thought to myself as I was woken up, head ringing and body aching all over, I can barely function with a full 10 hours of sleep, let alone 6.
Now, I was experiencing the standard issues I got with any sleep deprivation - in particular, brain fog and muscle aches and hypomanic-style moodswings. It was not good and frankly on top of the extreme stress I'd been under, the things I needed to do, the constant threats of annihilation and death, the sense of dread every second of every day that even my previous life in Earth-Prime had not come close to approaching (my issues there were long and medium term threats, before I got dumped here), I was near constantly on the edge of a freeze panic response.
It was like flashbacks, except every second of every day, even despite the fleeting happiness I'd had at talking with Faultline two, three days ago? I honestly had trouble keeping track anymore as hours were blurring together. Especially trying to evade the Faerie Queen. While the positive mental effects of my implant-based HRT were helping significantly, it also didn't erase the dysphoria I'd experienced more intensely than I had in years back home, because whatever shithead decided to dump me here found reversing my transition an appropriate form of amusement.
A worryingly large part of me was tempted to curl up and die, feeling trapped like this, but I pushed it down ruthlessly. No-one would come to help here, this world was fucking hell and I was in a pocket dimension anyway. If I had to resort to ideological spite towards the concept of death to keep going, I could do it, but I had other hopes, ideas to push for. Tinkering, for me and for everyone. Providing a foundation for collectively smacking Zion in the face, eliminating Nazis, those kinds of things.
Now, that thought - of tinkering - sent the happy chemicals in my brain flowing as a grin formed on my face and I managed to drag myself out of the slump to instead feel slightly wild with the absolute marvel that I'd just... made yesterday. I had little doubt scientists were dissecting the concepts even now, along with the wider internet. Now that thought really sent excited shivers up my spine even as I glanced over the blueprints I'd dumped online and noticed several potential improvements and security vulnerabilities. I had to correct those ASAP! I thought to myself as I began typing some genes from my power that could create a far more efficient (and much smaller) ribosome and some use of the ratchet codes to enable verification of genetic information fed into the aforementioned protein factories.
This change would single-handedly eliminate whatever viruses could still infect the modified cells. And so, I posted my new-and-improved document on the internet! The internet - more particularly, PHO - which I was now gaping at.
"Bioweapon? really?!?", I half-muttered, half-sighed to myself, as I browsed and responded to the PHO thread, spending a little time going over some ideas and being a stressball for an uncaring, shitty universe that put me on this planet, while contemplating how absolutely atrocious at planning and doing things I was.
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♦ Topic: trans_morphic releases bioweapon?
In: Boards ► Locations ► USA ► Brockton Bay ► Recent Events
Brocktonite03 (Original Poster) (Veteran Member)
Posted On Mar 12th 2011:
Ok so, @ trans_morphic just released - early in the morning - a large document onto the internet.
PRT claims it "could be a bioweapon", several news sites talk about it as if it's confirmed and released despite lack of analysis.
My own (inexpert) reading of it - or at least the simplified explanations - makes me think this is unlikely, especially given what we've seen of @ trans_morphic so far.
Edit: Our resident biochemist (@ Tumbles) has said these blueprints are understandable - if advanced - for a normal scientist. In fact, the effects of various components should "difficult but possible" to verify. Read their analysis here.
For those not in the know, a tinker's work being understandable has not happened before except partially in the case of Dragon, who can occasionally reverse engineer some small parts of it. Something like this is totally unprecedented, because people can understand and improve on it en-masse.
Boston - Accord's Ambassadors - 12:00:00 noon, 12-03-2011
Plans.
They were, along with the associated order, Accord's lifeblood.
And his Citrine had given her flawless report to a precision that satisfied even him. It was clear that in terms of raw ability, trans_morphic would vastly outpace his own organisation within a short (and gratingly, unknown) amount of time, given the extreme implications of their powerset if they had been honest.
In a head-on fight, his organisation would lose even despite the tinker's clear inexperience. And there would be some kind of conflict, Accord was certain. Such a force of chaos was incompatible with his plans for world order, and no doubt if he got on their radar they would fight.
Yes, the most effective planner on this Earth thought to himself, I must deal with it before it directly threatens my organisation.
About 1hour 30 minutes later, and Accord had a detailed, perfectly grammatically correct document written down (with depressing quantities of misgendering in it). Such an unpredictable element as trans_morphic required adaptable, multifaceted planning and his power had provided, as he knew it would. The PRT were already applying direct pressure. Accord considered the power-brokers the responsible party, and was convinced their stance was unlikely to change.
His own planning focused on 3 avenues of attack that were of a more indirect nature than the attempts of the PRT.
First would be a more focused public relations campaign, a push on the "dangerous and unstable" elements, on the comparison to biotinkers such as Bonesaw. While the press was engaging in this to a degree, it was currently uncoordinated and indecisive. Accord's Ambassadors and puppet organisations had significant pull in the upper echelons of society, and the man knew intimately which papers would be most able and willing to push on this point of view, and how to create a gradient that would slide the more moderated factions against trans_morphic over time.
The second would be a coordinated effort with the power brokers, to find a Master capable of controlling trans_morphic. Accord considered this the least likely be viable beyond the immediate future due to trans_morphic's growing abilities and willingness to self-modify. There would be other Master capes involved as well, of course, Accord was not going to rely on any single point of failure, here.
His third effort was psychological warfare. Accord's stealth access to the PRT meant he had trans_morphic's real psychological profile. Not the one they let leak to the less sophisticated gangs, but the profile only accessible to the Directors and psychoanalysts themselves. He had a number of strategies to determine emotional weaknesses and topics that would induce the tinker to timesinking arguments or worsen their issues. The vulnerabilities displayed, the subjects and political issues they would care about, external changes in the world that would damage their psychological state and make them more susceptible to further psychological harm. Attacks based on various potential traumas they could have, pushes towards self-hatred and self-blame.
A therapist would weep if they saw the document Accord had written. Of course, none other than him would ever lay eyes on it - his Ambassadors were his proxies into the chaotic mess of the external world, the ones who would act as primary agents in the fruition of his plans for the tinker, and even they almost never had access to his plans, instead trusting Accord's orders implicitly. Within precisely 15 minutes, at least 10 senators and congresspeople had already been called, and a war for information restriction and stringent anti-transgender laws began to be waged in the shadows - backroom parties of the American and soon global elites, donations, gifts of terrifying monetary value in unmarked vans. Positions in organisations becoming mysteriously available after the end of election terms and unknown funding sources tickling into theofascist organisations. Advertising slots taken up with precisely targeted messaging and stacks of cash changing hands in seedy bars.
The true power of Accord's Organisation was being brought to bear in a manner which was far more terrifying than any brute could ever be. Accord had many flaws, but underestimating his opponents had never been one of them. No, a tinker potent enough to take on the very power brokers his organisation relied on and come out alive - some might even consider on top - was not an enemy the crimelord would ever be underestimating in any respect.
Director Piggot's Office
Damn, I should have retired, the military lady thought to herself, it just gets worse and worse. Piggot had been writing reports, a lot of them.
trans_morphic at this point was clearly capable of being an international or even multidimensional threat, and all of her colleagues wanted their own special report on psychology and capability with respect to their own capes.
Normally, of course, they'd do this process of "capability localisation" themselves, but the Chief-Director was putting all the work on her department. Probably as punishment for not sticking to the line strongly enough, that damnable woman, Piggot considered. Her behaviour about the tinker is... weirdly insistent. It had been obvious for days that the Chief-Director had something very particular going on with trans_morphic. The problem was this kind of behaviour was not replicated in any other aspects of administration and was surprisingly consistent when you actually analysed what she did in the past. It's just that the number of openly transgender villains was so small and so far had been too weak for them to go this long without capture that this side of the Chief-Director never showed up to such an obsessive degree before.
At least that was Director Piggot's theory for why her request for Master-Stranger protocols was denied, after she specifically analysed her superior's behaviour in response.
Massaging her forehead, she updated the threat ratings to an intimidating "Trump 10/Tinker 12+" as she wondered what she did to deserve handling the cape. They, of course, had vehemently denied any commonality with someone like Nilbog in their PHO thread, but the Director couldn't shake the niggling fear at the back of her head that they'd be worse somehow. Their comfort with bodily modification was not helping her on that front, either.
At least we have one less gang to worry about, she considered, but if only the PR department could have reached out for some kind of leniency or temporary cooperation, this could have been less of a nightmare to manage. While there were also significant implications to trans_morphic's claimed origins of an alternate Earth, the Chief-Director had at least taken that much as her own responsibility, instead of dumping the work on top of her own tasks of preventing ABB and Merchant incursions into former Empire territory, building a counter-Coil operation (that was coming close to fruition, Thomas Scumbag Calvert was going to eat shit if it was the last thing Piggot ever fucking did), trying to handle the issue of the Police Chief, keeping tabs on the burgeoning anti-PRT-corruption groups that had started organising protests and less obvious activism with cooperation from the workers of the DWU, attempting to disrupt the fighting between minorities and the now capeless Nazi leftovers from the Empire that were fragmenting under the strain, organising Ward patrols to avoid all of this mess, coordinating the Protectorate with New Wave, and writing a whole shitload of reports.
Let it never be said I am bored, Director Piggot mused to herself, as she began writing the threat response for trans_morphic's power which could be essentially summarised as "don't try and hurt the tinker in the first place, you fucking idiot". Not the kind of response she liked, but depressingly realistic in this case as far as she could tell.
Baltimore, USA
Two men in grey suits stood in the cafe.
"In an hour, there will be a jewelry store robbery here", the first said, pointing to a location on a map, "I want 3 female PRT troopers sent in response. They should be able to handle it. Ensure one of them has this envelope, unopened, on their person."
"And the money?", the second said.
"$50,000 here", the first gestured to a suitcase with notes, "and $50,000 once they're on route. Is that acceptable?"
"That seems good to me," the second said, "perhaps we should take our leave."
The two men walked out of the cafe and went their separate ways.
1 hour and 5 minutes later, the headline "Unknown Tinkertech Explosion - 3 Troopers Missing" was all over the Boston-local PHO subforum.
Near Montreal, Quebec, Canada
3 PRT troopers were ejected onto the floor of a large, rural compound, entirely unconscious.
By the time they were awake, they had been stripped bare and their loyalties lay only for one man.
The note on the second trooper was gone, of course. It's contents had been 500 $100 notes packed tightly, and 4 sentences.
"$50,000 and these three now, $5,000,000 later. Your son is Regent (also known as Alec), in Brockton Bay. A tinker going by trans_morphic is in Brockton Bay. Bring the tinker back to your compound as soon as possible, and you will get the rest of the money, and 6 more. -AO"
The man got ready to move.
[end of chapter - nyaa~]
worm is fucked up meow.
Sorry for the time it took to get this one out ;p
[cw: mild transphobia, fairly standard internet bigotry, no misgendering done]
This isn't sustainable, I thought to myself as I was woken up, head ringing and body aching all over, I can barely function with a full 10 hours of sleep, let alone 6.
Now, I was experiencing the standard issues I got with any sleep deprivation - in particular, brain fog and muscle aches and hypomanic-style moodswings. It was not good and frankly on top of the extreme stress I'd been under, the things I needed to do, the constant threats of annihilation and death, the sense of dread every second of every day that even my previous life in Earth-Prime had not come close to approaching (my issues there were long and medium term threats, before I got dumped here), I was near constantly on the edge of a freeze panic response.
It was like flashbacks, except every second of every day, even despite the fleeting happiness I'd had at talking with Faultline two, three days ago? I honestly had trouble keeping track anymore as hours were blurring together. Especially trying to evade the Faerie Queen. While the positive mental effects of my implant-based HRT were helping significantly, it also didn't erase the dysphoria I'd experienced more intensely than I had in years back home, because whatever shithead decided to dump me here found reversing my transition an appropriate form of amusement.
A worryingly large part of me was tempted to curl up and die, feeling trapped like this, but I pushed it down ruthlessly. No-one would come to help here, this world was fucking hell and I was in a pocket dimension anyway. If I had to resort to ideological spite towards the concept of death to keep going, I could do it, but I had other hopes, ideas to push for. Tinkering, for me and for everyone. Providing a foundation for collectively smacking Zion in the face, eliminating Nazis, those kinds of things.
Now, that thought - of tinkering - sent the happy chemicals in my brain flowing as a grin formed on my face and I managed to drag myself out of the slump to instead feel slightly wild with the absolute marvel that I'd just... made yesterday. I had little doubt scientists were dissecting the concepts even now, along with the wider internet. Now that thought really sent excited shivers up my spine even as I glanced over the blueprints I'd dumped online and noticed several potential improvements and security vulnerabilities. I had to correct those ASAP! I thought to myself as I began typing some genes from my power that could create a far more efficient (and much smaller) ribosome and some use of the ratchet codes to enable verification of genetic information fed into the aforementioned protein factories.
This change would single-handedly eliminate whatever viruses could still infect the modified cells. And so, I posted my new-and-improved document on the internet! The internet - more particularly, PHO - which I was now gaping at.
"Bioweapon? really?!?", I half-muttered, half-sighed to myself, as I browsed and responded to the PHO thread, spending a little time going over some ideas and being a stressball for an uncaring, shitty universe that put me on this planet, while contemplating how absolutely atrocious at planning and doing things I was.
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♦ Topic: trans_morphic releases bioweapon?
In: Boards ► Locations ► USA ► Brockton Bay ► Recent Events
Brocktonite03 (Original Poster) (Veteran Member)
Posted On Mar 12th 2011:
Ok so, @ trans_morphic just released - early in the morning - a large document onto the internet.
PRT claims it "could be a bioweapon", several news sites talk about it as if it's confirmed and released despite lack of analysis.
My own (inexpert) reading of it - or at least the simplified explanations - makes me think this is unlikely, especially given what we've seen of @ trans_morphic so far.
Edit: Our resident biochemist (@ Tumbles) has said these blueprints are understandable - if advanced - for a normal scientist. In fact, the effects of various components should "difficult but possible" to verify. Read their analysis here.
For those not in the know, a tinker's work being understandable has not happened before except partially in the case of Dragon, who can occasionally reverse engineer some small parts of it. Something like this is totally unprecedented, because people can understand and improve on it en-masse.
(Showing page 34 of 39)
►AnonymousDecree (Warning)
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
Alright, fuck this shit, I'm out.
First we have blatant transgender propaganda in this new cape, and now they're releasing abominations against nature.
I knew they were Nilbog 2.0, the PRT was right about them. This shitty city can rot in hell.
(Please tone down the transphobia, thank you. This is your warning - Tin_Mother)
►Tumbles (Veteran Member)
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
As a biochemist, I have some thoughts on this for the lovely folks in the thread.
Skimming through this, the first thing to note is that it is unlike most tinker works in that I can - even if with some difficulty - actually understand the contents. The principles are explainable (and have been explained).
The second thing, judging by the explanations of what this does, is that this is definitely not intended as a bioweapon. It's more a total re-architecture of the structure of human cells to enable cryptoverified genetic modification.
At least that's what I think, though if that was the intent I am not sure why there is no signature verification on the ribosomes. Or what the use of the central index is for at all.
The computational proteins are revolutionary in-and-of themselves though. Honestly everything about this is revolutionary. And we can ACTUALLY TEST AND REPRODUCE IT. You have no idea how excited this makes me, this changes everything, especially since this has now been repeated twice by trans_morphic.
It isn't just a fluke and honestly I wonder what the hell they're going to make next because the implications of this are that the technological revolution that was promised when the first tinkers emerged might actually come to fruition.
►Col_Xy (Temp-Banned - 2 days)
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
@ AnonymousDecree Wow, I'm not sure I could say something more stupid if I tried!
Did you even read the post or the start of the document? ITS NOT A BIOWEAPON.
(Ok, have a time out for a couple of days. - Tin_Mother)
►Chilldrizzle
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
Did everyone just forget that the Empire was destroyed in less than a day?
Oh wait, of course we did because trans_morphic did another completely ridiculous thing.
►why88? (Banned)
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
@ Chilldrizzle I'm sure Kaiser would like to know how ungrateful we are for him. We should at least be honourable and acknowledge their strength and service.
No, the Empire were not destroyed in just action, but by deceitful technologies and they must rise again or Brockton will fall to the filth.
(Have a ban for being a Nazi. - Tin_Mother)
►Thatdude
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
You know what I said a week ago? Kaiser will be out for blood and trans_morphic should not have antagonised the Nazi fucker.
Apparently that didn't work out for him, because portal tech is stupidly powerful and it took trans_morphic less than a day to take his little Empire apart. Fun times really.
On another note, our glorious tinker of chaos is apparently sending everyone in a panic by spreading more information and technologies. That everyone else can understand.
At this point I shouldn't expect anything less, tbh.
►Tin_Mother (Moderator)
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
Please try and keep the thread on-topic. For Empire discussion, see here, and for general trans_morphic discussion, see here.
►XixZiy
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
This is so fucking nuts.
Who the fuck just dumps random technological revolutions on the internet, really?
►Iblis
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
@ Tumbles That's a pretty cool summary.
The PRT seems to keep pushing hard on @ trans_morphic. At this point it seems a bit in bad faith.
►Mane Magenta
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
I've heard rumours of PRT transphobia?
Maybe that has something to do with it.
Though trans_morphic is clearly p. powerful so it could just be wanting them under control or something.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39
(Showing page 35 of 39)
►Emissary_of_Jesus (Temp-Banned - 5 days)
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
This is the mark of the BEAST!!
NEVER let the power of SATANIC UNNATURAL TECHNOLOGIES into your SPIRITUAL HOME.
►Ultracut (Warning)
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
@ trans_morphic please tone down your transsexuality, it's inappropriate for my kids to see in the news. How am I meant to explain it to THEM.
(Tone down the transphobia. This is your only warning. - Tin_Mother)
►Valkyr (Wiki Warrior)
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
Another update for their wiki page, it seems. We finally have actual evidence that trans_morphic is a biotinker. But we also have evidence of them tinkering other things seemingly unrelated to biology, so I suppose the pertinent question is what kind of tinker are they, really? Because no-one seems to know yet.
They definitely aren't a normal tinker. So far they have created - by my count:
* Coordinated mass lasers for hair removal (apparently).
* Portals and a pocket dimension - like a combination between Dodge and Haywire - including as some kind of implant probably.
* Hormone implants.
* Replicable advanced computer chip designs.
* And now potent, replicable genetic engineering tech
We could be looking at a tinker with a wide specialty but some restriction, like String Theory. But I'm not sure that's right, we haven't seen any meaningful restriction on their power yet - in fact they seem to have less restrictions than all other known tinkers - reproducible technology and all that.
The first viable possibility I can think of is having multiple specialties. It's extremely rare, but there are occasionally tinkers with that sort of power.
However usually each specialization is much weaker than a tinker with a single one.
And if we look at all of trans_morphic's posts, not once have they ever mentioned having a "tinker specialty", only ever a tinker power. With that in mind, I think so far everyone's missed an important hypothesis - that trans_morphic is some kind of Trump/Tinker.
The most likely option for that, in my view, is some kind of power-copying Trump/Tinker with removed restrictions, a pretty scary thought. The only local capes I can think of powerful enough that un-restricting them would make a tinker as versatile as trans_morphic would be Leet, who can build anything once. Personally, I think this is the most likely.
The other options being that they are some kind of completely unrestricted version of a Tinker-Eidolon. Either developing tinker powers to solve problems they're aware of, or the most terrifying option of just choosing a tinker power available, at will, perhaps with some minor restriction of never choosing the same one twice or something.
Of course, trans_morphic could also be a front identity for multiple capes, but we have seen zero indication of that at all and I think we should leave the wilder clone and secret cape group hypotheses until we have actual evidence of them.
Anyway, that's my analysis, folks!
►ZyrinyiaBB
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
@ XixZiy trans_morphic, apparently. Honestly it sounds exactly like the sort of thing they'd do.
►nah_not_me (Cape Groupie)
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
@ Valkyr Thanks! that was some pretty cool hypothesizing. They aren't really the kinda person to hide stuff with any effort so honestly I'd bet they'll just tell us if we figure it out.
Also did we all just forget about MULTIVERSAL APOCALYPSES again?! Seriously?.
►fucktransmorphic14 (Banned)
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
[removed]
(No hate accounts allowed - Tin_Mother)
►Emissary_of_Jesus (Temp-Banned - 5 days)
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
@ nah_not_me @ ZyrinyiaBB @ Valkyr @ Ultracut @ Mane Magenta @ Iblis @ XixZiy @ Thatdude
Can't you SEE
this is an attempt to INJECT US WITH GENES
to control us like SATANIC sheep.
(For spamming the thread, you have now been given a 5 day time-out - Tin_Mother)
►ArchmageEin
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
@ Emissary_of_Jesus for once you are right on changing genes.
Though the rest of your stuff is clearly dumb. I mean my and my minister's thoughts on this sort of technology aren't always positive but I don't think it's quite satanic, just sinful if used in the wrong way.
►Brocktonite03 (Original Poster) (Veteran Member)
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
Thanks @ Tumbles, it's good to have an informed voice on this stuff, though apparently the document itself is surprisingly readable if prone to tangents.
I'll point people to your post in the OP and give you some credit for your analysis.
►KetchupMayo (Cape Groupie)
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
@ Valkyr if we're going to analyse their terms in the stuff they posted, I think we should be noting the way they refer to Earth Bet as if they were a foreigner here. "This planet", etc.
Unconventional and unrestricted powers and technology, only appeared just under 2 weeks ago, refers to Bet as if it's foreign?
Perhaps they are a dimensional refugee? Not sure if anyone's considered this before. Maybe they don't even have a power and they just understand the technology because they came from somewhere super advanced or something. Pretending to be a tinker.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39
(Showing page 36 of 39)
►xach chase (Warning)
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
This is clearly an attempt by C*uldron to control us. What if trans_morphic got replaced by them or something?.
(Bypassing banned words earns you a warning - Tin_Mother)
►FriarofBrockton (Veteran Member)
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
@ KetchupMayo but then how come they know so much about us?
►best runner
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
technological uplift? are we being uplifted or something? prime directive?
multiple flaws like doing a shit job of it
►AnonymousDecree (Warning)
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
@ best runner Elaborate, this is kind of incoherent.
►Bagrat (The Guy in the Know) (Veteran Member)
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
So folks, my sources in the PRT are conclusive.
There's strong pressure from above for playing hardball with trans_morphic. We aren't entirely sure why right now but apparently the Protectorate and higher-ups in the local department are pretty unhappy with the way they are being forced to handle the tinker.
►Number 1 Gallant Fan (Warning)
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
@ Bagrat fuck trans_morphic and the local department for wanting to cooperate. My dad was killed by Nilbog, fuck biotinkers.
As far as I'm concerned the fact they're not already in the birdcage is disgraceful.
►Ekul
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
@ Number 1 Gallant Fan I think that's a bit far but honestly softballing villains in general is pretty bad.
►Logs
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
Has anyone seen @ trans_morphic around lately?
They haven't been on in like a day and a half, which is pretty unusual.
►Clockblocker (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
@ Logs Damn I hope the faerie queen didn't gank them. If she's still chasing after them. We may be on opposite sides, but I don't think anyone deserves that fate, it's pretty horrifying.
Plus think of what she could do if she had whatever trans_morphic's power is *shudder*.
►Number 1 Gallant Fan (Warning)
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
@ Clockblocker I hope they did. Fuck trans_morphic
(This is your final warning, wishing death on people is unacceptable behaviour - Tin_Mother)
End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39
(Showing page 37 of 39)
►XxVoid_CowboyxX
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
@ KetchupMayo @ nah_not_me
What if they're a dimensional TRAVELER. Sent to stop the multiversal apocalypse. Or START it. And they've been watching us for years from another dimension!
Or maybe even an alien???
►nah_not_me (Cape Groupie)
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
@ XxVoid_CowboyxX I think if they came to stop it they'd have more equipment or something. And we still have little proof that they are a dimensional traveler or refugee.
►Ekul
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
@ XxVoid_CowboyxX Even if they are a dimensional traveler they should not have messed with the PRT or graffiti'd Medhall.
►XxVoid_CowboyxX
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
@ Ekul what if the PRT are going to start the apocalypse??? Maybe all of this crazy tinker shit is just a giant troll of the PRT!
(Somehow you have got this thread back on topic with your conspiracy theories. I am actually impressed, but please tone down the trolling. - Tin_Mother)
►RealAmericanMan (Temp-Banned - 5 days)
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
[removed]
(Have a time out and think about your transphobia. - Tin_Mother)
►trans_morphic (Verified Cape)
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
So! I guess I should tell you all I'm still alive, if not doing great. I've not been claimed by Glaistig yet @ Clockblocker!
Probably the main reason I'm not dead is having a 6-hourly alarm where I move my pocket dimension's connections to external services around. The problem is this means I can't get real sleep and my mood has been swinging wildly, I'm stressed, and proper coordination of my stuff is hard enough even with proper sleep
30 hour tinker fugues are really not fun ;-;
@ Tumbles thanks for the suggestions and improvements! I've uploaded the modified documents here, here, here, here, and here. As for why I didn't do those things.... I was shattered and exhausted while tinkering and probably just didn't think of it. As I said, my state of mind is not very great at the moment.
@ Number 1 Gallant Fan somehow I don't think Gallant would agree with you. And I'm not Nilbog. You know, because I understand the concept of consent and not wantonly murdering people? Urgh. And you really do not want the Faerie Queen getting hold of my power, seriously, and not just because of the visible tinker aspects of it.
@ Valkyr your analysis is pretty much there. I may as well tell everyone at this point since you finally figured it out but a lot of people aren't gonna like it. Basically I can pick my specialty freely, or combine specialties in a ratio. More specific I think gives more advanced tech as well. And I can get non-blackboxed tech. Fun times. In fact I have a blueprint for a device for unblackboxing tinkertech! But I have so much to do and I cant focus on hardly any of it properly. Actually I wonder why Leet never built a device for copying tinkertech devices, though given how his power sabotages and tries to kill him, who knows...
@ Bagrat Well now that's interesting, I didn't know that...
@ XxVoid_CowboyxX I'm not an alien, dude. But I am not in my home dimension. Or all my memories up until about a week and a half ago were entirely fabricated, which is a great way to not sleep at night. Mmmm.
So my home dimension is in 2021. It's more like Aleph except we have no powers or anything like that or any multiverse stuff. But we have slightly more advanced tech. Also Brockton Bay does not exist there, and to be honest I don't actually know how I got here on Bet.
-nya~
►Logs
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
Holy SHIT. WIKI TIME.
►Number 1 Gallant Fan (Warning)
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
So you're Bonesaw + Nilbog + Blasto + Machine Army + Everything else.
Fuck this I want off the fucking planet. Goddamn biotinkers.
►KetchupMayo (Cape Groupie)
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
I knew it!
►Chilldrizzle
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
Oh fuck me. I mean at least we know that if they wanted to do bioweapon shit they would already have killed everyone I guess........
End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 35, 36, 37, 38, 39
(Showing page 38 of 39)
►AraneaFanclub (Moderator)
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
So we've opened a new thread on trans_morphic's dimensional refugee status here, please try and keep this thread on the topic of the released biotech. You can also discuss the power they say they have on the main trans_morphic thread.
@ Valkyr has already updated the wiki with the new information as well.
►trans_morphic (Verified Cape)
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
@ AraneaFanclub it's so weird to have a wiki page on yourself.
But I guess I should actually say wtf the tech I released was since I forgot to last post. Long and short of it is that it is not a bioweapon, its meant to let you arbitrarily modify your genetic code with cryptographic verification, and it makes you immune to all existing viruses due to total cellular restructuring. Also it causes your immune system to be way more efficient because you can have a shitton of different antibodies produced by only a few B-cells.
I've got some ideas for usability improvements as well actually. If I can just get away from the fucking faerie queen long enough to sleep properly and not be constantly on the edge of a panic attack.
Good luck with life folks I'mma be off to do tinker shit and be lonely and sad for a bit while contemplating my aggressive over-sharing of emotional states
-nya~
►KatKat
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
Everything's gonna be crazy as fuck soon. I can feel it.
Anyway, I made some progress translating the new documents into French, there's a community page for a bunch of translation work here.
►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
Although it seems like the initial press release was an overreaction to some, we still can't endorse involving yourself with anything like this even if it does appear above-board.
►Chaosfaith
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
@ KatKat yes and it is wonderous
►Navai (Warning)
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
First they're queer, now they're changing our biology? Why does anyone put up with this degeneracy.
(Tone down the transphobia a bit, and have a warning - AraneaFanclub)
►NotAWaveform
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
Why can't trans_morphic just be normal, urgh! Feels like they're doing stuff for attention.
►actuallyZandra
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
Seems like the transphobes have come out to play :/
I actually bet this can be used fairly simply for self-HRT to be honest.
►AnonymousDecree (Warning)
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
@ actuallyZandra gross.
►SevereSirius
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
So.
@ trans_morphic I had an idea.
Currently this whole... thing is lacking usability. Entering a 65536-byte key, bit by bit? Totally ridiculous.
So... what if they figured out how to biologically create a computer chip! And store it in there. I bet it's doable too tbh, I mean their power is already extreme bullshit.
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►NotAWaveform
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
@ SevereSirius don't help the crazy tinker, jesus!?
►KatKat
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
@ SevereSirius that's such a good idea! Hell maybe with this new tech from trans_morphic scientists could come up with a method themselves, though I think getting trans_morphic to tinker one up would be faster.
If they want to, of course. Maybe those computational protein things could get storage developed or something too, though they seem very... chemistry based?
I'm not really a scientist to be honest, but I want to see where this stuff goes. It's all freely available too
►Spiritskin
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
Actually, does anyone know if the Faerie Queen can get to other worlds?
I mean I put it at high probability @ trans_morphic at least has access to a couple. Seems like it'd be the next sensible thing to do after getting a pocket dimension imo. Why do they even need to keep the pocket dimension attached to an actual universe?
►NotAWaveform
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
@ Spiritskin god why is everything about trans morphic? what an attention seeker. urgh.
►KatKat
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
@ NotAWaveform you are literally in a thread about them.
@ Spiritskin surprisingly enough there's a public list of capes that Glaistig Uiane has "claimed" buried in their main directory. I'd have thought the PRT would have kept that way more hidden but I guess not.
I don't think there are any on there involving dimensional travel @ trans_morphic.
►trans_morphic (Verified Cape)
Replied On Mar 12th 2011:
...oh thank fuuuuck @ KatKat.
I'm ashamed to say I didn't think of this at all. Probably from exhaustion. But you seem to be right! I should be able to get outta Bet for a little.
@ Spiritskin I generally need it for heat removal actually. Though to be honest I could probably be ok for time to sleep. My power handles air, but not heat, and it's really odd. And that's an awesome idea!
Also I really hate this kind of attention but honestly releasing tech like this is stupidly obvious who it is from >.<.
Bye folks I am going to sleep soooo fucking much - now hooking up to some random version of Earth ^.^
-nya~
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And, well, I did. Exhausted, stressed beyond belief, and switching between weird giddy euphoria and self-loathing, I finally passed out properly.Boston - Accord's Ambassadors - 12:00:00 noon, 12-03-2011
Plans.
They were, along with the associated order, Accord's lifeblood.
And his Citrine had given her flawless report to a precision that satisfied even him. It was clear that in terms of raw ability, trans_morphic would vastly outpace his own organisation within a short (and gratingly, unknown) amount of time, given the extreme implications of their powerset if they had been honest.
In a head-on fight, his organisation would lose even despite the tinker's clear inexperience. And there would be some kind of conflict, Accord was certain. Such a force of chaos was incompatible with his plans for world order, and no doubt if he got on their radar they would fight.
Yes, the most effective planner on this Earth thought to himself, I must deal with it before it directly threatens my organisation.
About 1hour 30 minutes later, and Accord had a detailed, perfectly grammatically correct document written down (with depressing quantities of misgendering in it). Such an unpredictable element as trans_morphic required adaptable, multifaceted planning and his power had provided, as he knew it would. The PRT were already applying direct pressure. Accord considered the power-brokers the responsible party, and was convinced their stance was unlikely to change.
His own planning focused on 3 avenues of attack that were of a more indirect nature than the attempts of the PRT.
First would be a more focused public relations campaign, a push on the "dangerous and unstable" elements, on the comparison to biotinkers such as Bonesaw. While the press was engaging in this to a degree, it was currently uncoordinated and indecisive. Accord's Ambassadors and puppet organisations had significant pull in the upper echelons of society, and the man knew intimately which papers would be most able and willing to push on this point of view, and how to create a gradient that would slide the more moderated factions against trans_morphic over time.
The second would be a coordinated effort with the power brokers, to find a Master capable of controlling trans_morphic. Accord considered this the least likely be viable beyond the immediate future due to trans_morphic's growing abilities and willingness to self-modify. There would be other Master capes involved as well, of course, Accord was not going to rely on any single point of failure, here.
His third effort was psychological warfare. Accord's stealth access to the PRT meant he had trans_morphic's real psychological profile. Not the one they let leak to the less sophisticated gangs, but the profile only accessible to the Directors and psychoanalysts themselves. He had a number of strategies to determine emotional weaknesses and topics that would induce the tinker to timesinking arguments or worsen their issues. The vulnerabilities displayed, the subjects and political issues they would care about, external changes in the world that would damage their psychological state and make them more susceptible to further psychological harm. Attacks based on various potential traumas they could have, pushes towards self-hatred and self-blame.
A therapist would weep if they saw the document Accord had written. Of course, none other than him would ever lay eyes on it - his Ambassadors were his proxies into the chaotic mess of the external world, the ones who would act as primary agents in the fruition of his plans for the tinker, and even they almost never had access to his plans, instead trusting Accord's orders implicitly. Within precisely 15 minutes, at least 10 senators and congresspeople had already been called, and a war for information restriction and stringent anti-transgender laws began to be waged in the shadows - backroom parties of the American and soon global elites, donations, gifts of terrifying monetary value in unmarked vans. Positions in organisations becoming mysteriously available after the end of election terms and unknown funding sources tickling into theofascist organisations. Advertising slots taken up with precisely targeted messaging and stacks of cash changing hands in seedy bars.
The true power of Accord's Organisation was being brought to bear in a manner which was far more terrifying than any brute could ever be. Accord had many flaws, but underestimating his opponents had never been one of them. No, a tinker potent enough to take on the very power brokers his organisation relied on and come out alive - some might even consider on top - was not an enemy the crimelord would ever be underestimating in any respect.
Director Piggot's Office
Damn, I should have retired, the military lady thought to herself, it just gets worse and worse. Piggot had been writing reports, a lot of them.
trans_morphic at this point was clearly capable of being an international or even multidimensional threat, and all of her colleagues wanted their own special report on psychology and capability with respect to their own capes.
Normally, of course, they'd do this process of "capability localisation" themselves, but the Chief-Director was putting all the work on her department. Probably as punishment for not sticking to the line strongly enough, that damnable woman, Piggot considered. Her behaviour about the tinker is... weirdly insistent. It had been obvious for days that the Chief-Director had something very particular going on with trans_morphic. The problem was this kind of behaviour was not replicated in any other aspects of administration and was surprisingly consistent when you actually analysed what she did in the past. It's just that the number of openly transgender villains was so small and so far had been too weak for them to go this long without capture that this side of the Chief-Director never showed up to such an obsessive degree before.
At least that was Director Piggot's theory for why her request for Master-Stranger protocols was denied, after she specifically analysed her superior's behaviour in response.
Massaging her forehead, she updated the threat ratings to an intimidating "Trump 10/Tinker 12+" as she wondered what she did to deserve handling the cape. They, of course, had vehemently denied any commonality with someone like Nilbog in their PHO thread, but the Director couldn't shake the niggling fear at the back of her head that they'd be worse somehow. Their comfort with bodily modification was not helping her on that front, either.
At least we have one less gang to worry about, she considered, but if only the PR department could have reached out for some kind of leniency or temporary cooperation, this could have been less of a nightmare to manage. While there were also significant implications to trans_morphic's claimed origins of an alternate Earth, the Chief-Director had at least taken that much as her own responsibility, instead of dumping the work on top of her own tasks of preventing ABB and Merchant incursions into former Empire territory, building a counter-Coil operation (that was coming close to fruition, Thomas Scumbag Calvert was going to eat shit if it was the last thing Piggot ever fucking did), trying to handle the issue of the Police Chief, keeping tabs on the burgeoning anti-PRT-corruption groups that had started organising protests and less obvious activism with cooperation from the workers of the DWU, attempting to disrupt the fighting between minorities and the now capeless Nazi leftovers from the Empire that were fragmenting under the strain, organising Ward patrols to avoid all of this mess, coordinating the Protectorate with New Wave, and writing a whole shitload of reports.
Let it never be said I am bored, Director Piggot mused to herself, as she began writing the threat response for trans_morphic's power which could be essentially summarised as "don't try and hurt the tinker in the first place, you fucking idiot". Not the kind of response she liked, but depressingly realistic in this case as far as she could tell.
Baltimore, USA
Two men in grey suits stood in the cafe.
"In an hour, there will be a jewelry store robbery here", the first said, pointing to a location on a map, "I want 3 female PRT troopers sent in response. They should be able to handle it. Ensure one of them has this envelope, unopened, on their person."
"And the money?", the second said.
"$50,000 here", the first gestured to a suitcase with notes, "and $50,000 once they're on route. Is that acceptable?"
"That seems good to me," the second said, "perhaps we should take our leave."
The two men walked out of the cafe and went their separate ways.
1 hour and 5 minutes later, the headline "Unknown Tinkertech Explosion - 3 Troopers Missing" was all over the Boston-local PHO subforum.
Near Montreal, Quebec, Canada
3 PRT troopers were ejected onto the floor of a large, rural compound, entirely unconscious.
By the time they were awake, they had been stripped bare and their loyalties lay only for one man.
The note on the second trooper was gone, of course. It's contents had been 500 $100 notes packed tightly, and 4 sentences.
"$50,000 and these three now, $5,000,000 later. Your son is Regent (also known as Alec), in Brockton Bay. A tinker going by trans_morphic is in Brockton Bay. Bring the tinker back to your compound as soon as possible, and you will get the rest of the money, and 6 more. -AO"
The man got ready to move.
[end of chapter - nyaa~]
worm is fucked up meow.Sorry for the time it took to get this one out ;p
Isn't it only theoretically reproducible for now? From what I can tell its only been less than a day to 2 days, which seems a little fast for having actually reproduced this.
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- Location
- Salt Lake City, UT, USA
Or at least build an AI to randomize your dimensional anchor point's location. But yes, also definitely build a PR Engine.
The sleep serum is less of a thing; yes the tech is there and you don't even need tinkertech if all you want to do is skip the need for a single night's sleep -- the afinil series are literally right there. (Anti-narcoleptics. Adrafinil is a good example to look up.)
Combat-wise... Offense, Defense, Movement, Perception, Recovery -- a Tinker (or wizard) worth their salt should have an entry in each category before ever stepping out of the lab (tower).
A fun thought exercise for someone as freeform of a Tinker as our MC: Make a tinkertech engine to mimic Doctor Strange's basic magic. Go full Technomage, I mean.
First, create an engine to extract energy from the interstitial barriers between dimensions. Second, build a crystallization chamber that stabilizes that energy the same way crystallized photons stabilize light. Reimplement existing pocket dimension tech to attach pocket dimension to self. Utilize stabilized dimensional energies to create Turing-complete processing engine to operate the further extraction of dimensional energies and their crystallization or transformation into other energy forms. Include a program in Turing Engine to read brain activity from attached host.
Congratulations, you've invented magic. Yer a Wizard, MC! Or maybe a dragon. Whichever.
Point being, you can now go around slinging magic with a thought, generating mandalas to act as preprogrammed routines to shape that energy however you like -- though obviously this would start out with the basics like force fields, energy constructs, and sonar-like detection/scanning mechanisms. Self-healing is a bit tougher but you can at least do things like cellular scaffolding and energization.
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I honestly don't know why they haven't done anything like this. They keep getting hyper fixated on biotech instead.
- Location
- Salt Lake City, UT, USA
Because it matters more to them.
I love how cauldron has been looking for a solution to scion for so long that when one shows up they go out of their way to alienate them in every way they can think of. To quote a line from DBZ abridge if I don't butcher it "The MC is like a trump card, if the card literally flipped the table over and shot the other player"
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- Pronouns
- Xe/Xem/They/Them
They don't have access to other multiverses (at least atm ;p). Also abandoning people to die like that is not something they'd do nya.
Tinker blueprints - at least in this story - are usually filled with lots of incomprehensible nonsense with only a little bit of coherent components nya. The idea is that here, they have actual, sensible, scientifically-coherent blueprints and tech. And of course while they haven't reproduced it yet, they know they can even make the attempt in the first place because the blueprints aren't full of partially blackboxed information only understandable to tinkers. Headcanon here is that these symbols and information stuff that tinkers produce that isn't coherent essentially acts as an indicator for their shard when they build the stuff themselves as to which blackboxed components and stuff to put where nya.
The SI is doing stuff on the web because they enjoy it and want to distribute information and stuff nya, getting an AI to do it would both feel manipulative and kinda defeat a lot of the point (also ethical implications of creating an intelligent being solely to serve you, as far as I am concerned, is vile too, though the SI could create a VI). I practically live on the internet, so the SI is the same on that front ;p
Ahhh, well, you'll see soon. One of the reasons is that biotech is easier to make unblackboxed due to the fact that cells are kind of factories anyway. And it also means a lot of the results are going to be internal and stored within every cell. Much harder to take away. There are other reasons too.
This too nya.
- Location
- Salt Lake City, UT, USA
Have a headpat.