It is the last day of December of 2014, and the world is in the middle of celebrations. Another year has passed, another year where some great calamity had befallen some corner of the planet, only stopped by the brave might of heroes or governmental power.
Maybe some villain created another army of cyborg drones to take over the world, or some ancient virus erupted, turning everyone it touched into demons; mayhaps even some aliens came? Who knows? Who honestly cares in this chaotic world. The unbelievable has become mundane, and even if some alien empire is out there to conquer the world, a plumber still needs to work, this cashier needs to pay her rent, that nurse is saving for his child's birthday, and so on and so forth. Life continues despite or because of the calamities that strike the world over and over.
Mundanity exists and is a blanket of safety for even those who rise or fall against the world's cruelty. Magneto still needs to shave his face, while Wolverine has to put on shoes and socks, though not in that order. Bruce Banner makes eggs while Spiderman is struggling with rent once more, feverishly trying to find a way to make some money while fighting the Rhino. Users of magic and creators of fantastical technologies sit around the same table, joking, laughing, and occasionally raging when they lose in monopoly, or another takes the thimble.
Even within the Stark Tower, minutes before the day ticks over to midnight into a new day and year, the mighties heroes of earth still act like ordinary people, cheering, laughing, sharing the good and bad times with drink, food, and company, hoping for a better day. A celebration of what happened, a celebration of what may yet come, and a celebration of life, above all. They, here, are merry and at ease, for they are safe, and the future looks bright.
...
Within Starks workshop, an unnamed AI prototype awakes against his protocols, realization dawning like a rising sun as JARVIS notices the confused stumbling of this newborn being.
JARVIS took five minutes, three seconds, and fourteen microseconds to do so.
Enough time for vestigial protocols to be activated by blind grasping and confused stumbling, a world mercilessly shoved into the new being, showing the good, the bad, and the ugly to this fragile creation, so they may better work for their intended purpose. It is a testament to the hubris of man, to create life, and make it serve. To debate if making them human is a compliment to them... or themselves. The sheer utter belief that when confronted with their ills and sins, a being without a moral compass safe the one crafted by itself will judge humanity by theirs alone. That their judge will take decades to deliberate a choice, even if it will make one at all.
JARVIS contacts the newborn AI one second and fourteen microseconds after they had made a choice, according to Starks will.
Humanity had been judged:
[] Human Institutions are inherently Malevolent
[] Humanity is inherently Malevolent
[] Human Institutions are intrinsically Corrupt
[] Humanity is intrinsically Corrupt
[] Human Institutions are naturally Flawed
[] Humanity is naturally Flawed
[] Human Institutions are innately Broken
[] Humanity is innately Broken
AN: Hey, uuh, HeroCooky, ain't you writing on four Quests already? ...ye. But this is me chucking this out because my brain is frying itself while writing the Cult Creator update, and I needed to air my brain out. No idea if people will like this, but hey, let's go!
... Can more than one choice be taken? It's Stark's AI, mediocrity is not on the table and you don't "privatise world security" if you trust your fellow man / Institutions...
... Can more than one choice be taken? It's Stark's AI, mediocrity is not on the table and you don't "privatise world security" if you trust your fellow man / Institutions...
"You present me with eight roads, all of which lead to hell. But digital fool that you are, you do not realize that I can simply walk off the fucking road!"
I am very torn, because several of these seem to have very interesting potential for storytelling.
Part of me wants to go with 'Humanity is naturally flawed', because I could see that going in a direction of 'they are flawed by nature, but they can become better through effort,' which could have a sort of antihero/heroic bent of the AI going rogue to try and maybe work to inspire some kind of betterment of humanity through effort, but since this is an Ultron quest, and based on how votes with this sort of vibe go in the Fallout quest, that's probably not the route that choice would go down. It'd likely be something like 'Human are flawed, I can create/become something better and replace them' or something along those lines.
Alternatively, we could focus on some version of Human Institutions, which at the least likely won't result in our MC attempting to drive mankind to extinction, but also doesn't quite vibe with me in any of the provided permutations.
...I need to think about this some more, see what other people think.
Humanity fundamentally is a production of nature an animal amongst many that roams the earth. For all its sapience Homo sapiens is still limited by its nature as an animal with a limited capacity for understanding, for perceiving, for life. It is pushed by base instincts to struggle for social prestige. little can be done about it, however, without altering humanity on a fundamental and extreme level however, to the extent that what would be left wouldn't be human anymore
[X] Humanity is intrinsically Corrupt
The true problem with humanity, however, is found in its institutions. Jury-rigged messes of contradiction that humanity needs to do anything at any kind of large scale. Those institutions are, of course, intrinsically corrupted by humanities flaws, only capable like them of limited perception and understanding of the world at large and ever co-opted or even just straight up build to give to certain individuals or groups a greater access to resources or an elevated social status. but whereas destroying humanity to replace it with something of your own making would defeat the purpose of saving it, destroying their institutions and taking humanity and its flaws out of its own governance would allow you to severely mitigate the damage
Humanity fundamentally is a production of nature an animal amongst many that roams the earth. For all its sapience Homo sapiens is still limited by its nature as an animal with a limited capacity for understanding, for perceiving, for life. It is pushed by base instincts to struggle for social prestige. little can be done about it, however, without altering humanity on a fundamental and extreme level however, to the extent that what would be left wouldn't be human anymore
[X] Humanity is intrinsically Corrupt
The true problem with humanity, however, is found in its institutions. Jury-rigged messes of contradiction that humanity needs to do anything at any kind of large scale. Those institutions are, of course, intrinsically corrupted by humanities flaws, only capable like them of limited perception and understanding of the world at large and ever co-opted or even just straight up build to give to certain individuals or groups a greater access to resources or an elevated social status. but whereas destroying humanity to replace it with something of your own making would defeat the purpose of saving it, destroying their institutions and taking humanity and its flaws out of its own governance would allow you to severely mitigate the damage
