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THRONE//FRINGE: Normal Human Mech-Girl Quest

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Well. That was a thing. I there are many good arguments for both sides, both practical and ethical.

But for all his chivalrous fumblings, Don Hidalgo gave us Militarized Flamenco. That counts for something, in my books.

[X] Trust the Knight [Initiate Finale: The Last Joust].
 
[X] Trust the Knight [Initiate Finale: The Last Joust].

Let's say he betrays us. What does that help him accomplish? These aren't his allies. He might be still acting on orders of his master, but what does that help them accomplish to let someone else take the prize? Someone whom he is clearly opposed to.

Moreover, we have backups. We can restore, assuming our chassis survives in some form. This isn't a risk in the classical sense, so much as a moment to decide who we want to be. And quite frankly, that naïve idealism is a big part of what makes Arachne who she is. And committing to this- that's character growth.

Besides, if Don gets access to our soul, we get access to his.
 
HousePet said:
But what if he doesn't actually have a soul?
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Why do you think it's even remotely possible Hidalgo wouldn't have a soul?

Cetashwayo said:
In the Empire, the basic unit of existence is the soul. A soul is not a metaphysical concept but a mind-machine matrix that allows functioning within the architectural tapestry. It is a symbiotic, synthetic organism created by the Emperor that merges itself into your consciousness, allowing for the possibility of backups, patches and edits. An ordinary soul may be no more than an uploaded version of the self, a utility account stapled to an otherwise normal life-form, tracking daily life and allowing simple immortality.

An augmented military soul is far more powerful, a battle-primed construction with info-warfare suites, expert-combat subroutines and Tzu-Clausewitz programming for instant high-precision tactical decisionmaking. The cost of such extensive modification is the demand it places on reserves of processing power. The more complicated the soul, the more taxing to computational resources. The greatest souls are artisan-crafted deities that drain the processing capacity of whole civilizations. Celestial tithes, stellar matrioshka brains and cyber-serf server farms maintain this hierarchy of processing capacity from unspeakable titans such as the The Emperor and The Dragon down to the lowliest soul. Below that is the pitiful automaton, treated as less than sapient unless ensouled.
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The only things that don't have souls are considered automata, not even sapient beings. To decide that your kilometers-long self-directed war machine doesn't have any sort of collective soul-presence, whether it's an individual soul, some sort of legion-gestalt of its crew and major systems, or some sort of subsoul of a larger primordial hyperbrain would be exceedingly unlikely and come with actually fairly significant design compromises if you're offloading everything a militarized soul does to pure tangible hardware rather than taking advantage of programmable space.

I don't think there's anything we've seen which would suggest that Hidalgo is built from a philosophical techbase so divergent that he doesn't have an Architecture-presence.
 
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HousePet said:
Could be another simulacra.
As in, this might not really be Hidalgo.
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Considering that Ishtar was just resurrected from a backup after dying, there really is not difference between the copy and the original in this setting on any practical and cultural level. And even if he was an unthinking and unfeeling philosophical zombie, he would still have a "soul" because of its military applications.
 
Simon_Jester said:
Hell, we live in the barbaric aftermath of a fallen empire whose infrastructure, even in ruins, looks like something that must have been built by wizards or gods.

When, if not now, is it not a time for knights?
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The Knight-class zero-point lance was considered an antiquated weapon that failed to take into account the changing realities of the battlefield and became obsolete shortly after it was first fielded. I mean, yes, it looked impressive when it did work, it was just useless most of the time because you could spoof its targeting embarassingly easily and it was really straightforward to counter the worst of the effects once people figured out the operating principles.


So, I'd say the time for Knights is waaaaaaaaay past. Back when most people could still actually remember a time before the Empire, really.


:V
 
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It was quite intentional. A simulacrum is basically a text to speech device with a piece of a person's memories and personality. It has no real self awareness or true sapience and has a static personality with limited response variation. It is what Hidalgo used to talk to you when you first met.

The problem is that a simulacrum is also a snapshot in time. It cannot perfectly predict its source if that source does something unpredictable. It is a superego.

Basically Son Hidalgo was a snapshot taken at a moment when Hidalgo was serious, focused and direly aware of all the dangers. But by the time he bursts in he has worked himself up into a chivalric battle frenzy, head filled with how cool he's going to be, and then when he is actually really cool it gets even worse. It wouldn't have been so bad if you also hadn't had multiple stacks of soul eater proteins trying to suppress your warning signs about the envelope.
 
On other matters, if Arachne survives this, I really want to start looking into Signature Applications. While we probably already have unique faction Perk(s) in the form of Arachne and Ishtar, as we just have seen Signature Applications can easily decide a battle.

If we get to pick and choose, I'd say that Militarized Blacklist Implementation and Daemon Manifestation would be pretty nice. Fill our Tapestry with invisible spidersilk-firewalls that tangle the invaders, while tiny multi-legged children of Arachne burst forth from hidden egg-sacks to nibble on them. Polymorphic Construction would also be nice for Arachne herself, being the single super-unit that she is. If she could also shuffle her combat stats around, combating her would suddenly become a lot more harrowing, especially after she gets the HYDRA online again. If she lives that long, that is.

Also, the following Perk seems like it would fit Arachne:
Perk: Military-Industrial Temple Complex - Your polity retains the knowledge to restore and maintain Tapestry Space, including its extensive driver and programming interface libraries. Your polity's Architecture is Tapestry Space, and your units and Reserves are more effective in Tapestry Space thanks to near-forgotten pre-Collapse optimizations and code. Choose one of your polity's Signature Applications - when the Application is used in Tapestry Space, it is significantly more powerful than the norm. Approval is required for an augmented Application.
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Ishtar is right, Hildago has failed us. We chose him and that choice did not pay off, picking him again is just falling for the sunk cost fallacy.

He's not our friend, not our ally, and hell he's not even our acquaintance. We don't owe him anything.

We have another card in the deck, better use it.

[X] Play the Card [Initiate Finale: Ace Up Your Sleeve].
 
Hm. Could we communicate to the King of Hearts that we have a line of communication to his rivals and we're not afraid to use it? He broke the rules and we can tattle if he doesn't leave us alone.
 
Olivebirdy said:
Hm. Could we communicate to the King of Hearts that we have a line of communication to his rivals and we're not afraid to use it? He broke the rules and we can tattle if he doesn't leave us alone.
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WC:: Toots, he isn't called the suicide king because of his ability to peacefully back down in the face of a major threat.
 
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I guess maybe zombie plague autocannibalism wasn't the greatest idea ever. But who hasn't stared at their own festering, rebellious limbs at some point and thought, "Hey, I bet I could eat those"?

Cetashwayo said:
Don Hidalgo Trait Disabled: Chivalric Chain-Limiters
Allow use of other traits only when Hidalgo believes in what he is fighting for. Otherwise, fight at half-firepower and all traits disabled.
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So he really was holding back against us before, because he didn't believe in doing what he was forced to do. This is him in his element. Except for the part where he gets the scrap kicked out of him, that was probably unintended. Ishtar was right though, he is a doofus for not going for the giant bomb thing while we played damage sponge. Firepower is doubled, but brain cells are sadly halved.

[X] Trust the Knight [Initiate Finale: The Last Joust].

I don't actually trust the knight altogether, here. The Concierge seemed quite convinced that Don Hidalgo was a serial con artist. I think the Don is being genuine with us, but I also think this is a triple bluff. He knows he's about to lose (not necessarily die) and is bluffing the Suicide King to throw him off, but he knows his employer assumed he'd do something stupid and need to use a trump card of some sort to win, which he's bluffing Arachne about because he doesn't want us to know he knew they knew (or suspected), but also he's bluffing his employer because he still thinks he can con his way out of this situation and loosen his chains a bit in the process, but he needs Arachne to play along to make it work.

Hopefully it works. Maybe we'll get lucky and his thingy runs on Cycles.
 
MooseHowl said:
I guess maybe zombie plague autocannibalism wasn't the greatest idea ever. But who hasn't stared at their own festering, rebellious limbs at some point and thought, "Hey, I bet I could eat those"?
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I would argue the disastrous turn of events had nothing to do with the auto-cannibalism, the Catalogue would've unleashed its super-attack regardless of what we did. Same with the Suicide King arriving.

So the lesson is the opposite, zombie plague autocannibalism is the right move. It just can't account for mostly unforeseeable variables.
 
Fourthspartan56 said:
I would argue the disastrous turn of events had nothing to do with the auto-cannibalism, the Catalogue would've unleashed its super-attack regardless of what we did. Same with the Suicide King arriving.

So the lesson is the opposite, zombie plague autocannibalism is the right move. It just can't account for mostly unforeseeable variables.
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On the one hand, it let us survive an unreasonable amount of time in the fight, and thus was pragmatic and effective.

But on the other hand, Metastasizing Sepsis gave us a grumbly tummy and a brain freeze. Like Taco Bell flavoured ice cream. 🤢

Is winning truly worth it at such terrible cost???
 
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