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Built To Last

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I'm confused about how much the different people made from our original protagonist are different, at first I thought it was a hive mind followed by some kind of forking similar to artificial intelligence, than thought it was just a conciousness copy with tweaks and now I'm confused if it's actually just making a brain with knowledge and letting it build its own personality with safeguards against making a psychopath
 
Firstly yay glad to see more of this.
Im just catching up now since i picked the worst time to let my emails build up for a few days.
 
GeekGod_of_Speed said:
I'm confused about how much the different people made from our original protagonist are different, at first I thought it was a hive mind followed by some kind of forking similar to artificial intelligence, than thought it was just a conciousness copy with tweaks and now I'm confused if it's actually just making a brain with knowledge and letting it build its own personality with safeguards against making a psychopath
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C: The confusion is fairly simple to untangle: they weren't made the same way. Melissa was forked from Emmy, while Andrea and Marcus -- and soon Rachel -- were made from scratch.
 
Revivification has been illegal on Mudball ever since the Necromamcer incident of 1058. We will contact you by post soon

(Welcome back, tyftc)
 
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    • (Andrea)

    It was two in the morning on Friday (March 11), when there was a gentle knock on the door of the factory. I checked the security camera… and it was Ryan, one of our employees from shipping and receiving. Right, I better see what the problem was.

    Thirty seconds later, I'd let Ryan into the lobby, and asked,

    "Is there any particular reason you're here so early?"

    Ryan nodded grimly,

    "It's Skidmark. He's decided to try shaking down Reliabuilt employees for money, and he's threatening to chuck construction materials through our windows if we don't pay up."

    I thought for a moment,

    "And you're counting on me to handle things more permanently than the PRT would, I'm presuming?"

    Another grim nod.

    "Understood. Where did you last see him?"

    "Rosebrick projects, one of the residential districts Reliabuilt's refurbished. Pretty sure Mush is slinking around somewhere too, but not sure where exactly."

    With that, I wrangled a team of security robots – the newer antigrav models – and off I went. Skidmark needed to be informed that Reliabuilt employees and customers were off the list.

    I briefly considered my approach as I flew; there was far too much chance of getting rightly charged for murder if I simply killed Skidmark, but I also needed to fuck him up badly enough that he would be physically incapable of causing further problems. While passing it off as an accident. Yes, an injury to the spinal cord should do the job quite nicely.

    Soon enough, I caught a glimpse of Skidmark in all his 'glory', shouting obscenities at a condo block. To legally cover my ass, I sent notice to the PRT that I'd encountered Skidmark "on patrol", and requested backup. If everything went right, this would be over long before they got here.

    I then activated my bodycam, and without even the slightest sound I touched down behind Skidmark. I tapped him gently on the shoulder, and as he whirled around I growled out the only warning the man would ever get.

    "Reliabuilt employees and property are Off. Limits."

    Skidmark scoffed,

    "Fuck you, star cunt."

    Then he went for something or other; I didn't wait to see what it was. Instead, I lunged and grabbed Skidmark, simultaneously saying "Fine, we'll do this the hard way!"

    Then I threw him. The direction I'd thrown him towards had been unoccupied at the time of the throw, but one of the drones had been drifting that way, and "coincidentally" happened to line up its hard forwards edge with the back of Skidmark's neck right when their trajectories aligned.

    With a sickening crack, Skidmark slid limply to the ground, and I immediately rushed over to administer first aid. There was no love lost, but this being an accident would be much easier to believe if I did my best to prevent Skidmark from dying of his injuries after the fact. This also let me covertly assess the degree of spinal damage the initial impact had inflicted, and if necessary increase it.

    Fortunately, I didn't actually need to risk blowing my legal cover by doing that; all the information I could glean indicated that Skidmark was now a quadriplegic. That should do perfectly fine at keeping him from causing future problems. I also confirmed that his injuries weren't life-threatening. Good.

    Three minutes after the initial notification I sent to the PRT, Velocity showed up.

    "Laniakea, what happened here?"

    I sighed,

    "Skidmark got hurt worse than I meant to, and I've been administering first aid for the last few minutes. He's been out of it since the injury, and I've got reason to suspect spinal injuries."

    The speedster nodded,

    "Right, we already have an ambulance on the way. They should be here in a few minutes."

    Anyway, I gave the PRT my bodycam footage of the altercation, and soon enough they hauled Skidmark off to… somewhere. Couldn't put him in a regular prison, or he'd die pretty quick on account of his newfound disability. Couldn't put him in a regular hospital either, or he'd trash the place with his power, paralysis or no.

    Meh, not my problem anymore.
    (Emmy)

    The status of the Brockton Bay Revitalization Fund within Reliabuilt was a bit odd; strictly speaking it was a separate company operating as a non-profit, but it benefited from Reliabuilt's overall legal department and… I suppose the term "non-profit subsidiary" might be applicable? Either way, I was at least nominally the boss of both organizations.

    Anyway, today I was interviewing an applicant for seed money. Normally I'd be delegating this, but the applicant in question was a parahuman.

    "So, you want to open a martial arts school?"

    The self-titled Sensei nodded.
    "Correct. My power is extreme skill in analyzing people's movements and fluidly controlling my own body. This seems like something I could use to teach people who are interested in defending themselves, even though I myself have no formal training."

    I thought for a moment.

    "Could I hear an example, perhaps?"

    Sensei clammed up. Not quite like he'd been caught lying, but like he was trying very hard to psych himself up for something he really didn't want to talk about. Eventually, he spoke.

    "Six days ago, I was cornered by a group of ex-Empire men. I did not have my power then, but-"

    I shook my head.

    "Not quite what I meant. You don't need to tell me about your trigger. I want to know if you can teach."

    Sensei let out a sigh of relief.

    "I was a mathematics teacher at a high school for fifteen years. I was away on vacation when the Slaughterhouse Nine made a visit to said school, and there was no school to return to afterwards. I don't wish to discuss that matter further, but I'm willing to provide my credentials if you need them."

    I thought for a moment.

    "Would you, please?"

    Sensei opened the briefcase he'd brought with him, and provided me with the relevant documents. Apparently his civilian name was Markus Rasp, his teacher's license was legitimate (though expired), and the fingerprints I got off him matched what was in the digital database.

    "Good news, Sensei. Looks like you're approved for funding and assistance."
    (Rachel)

    Date Point: 0133, March 12, 2011

    I snapped to awareness in a standing position. Four people were standing around me; I quickly identified them as Emmy, Melissa, Andrea, and Marcus Sykes.

    Marcus spoke first.

    "Rachel, are you feeling alright? Did the world knowledge directory integrate properly?"

    I nodded.

    "Yes. I'm in Brockton Bay, and I am a Reliabuilt product intended for sale to law enforcement."

    Everyone looked flabbergasted and appalled, and I couldn't help but crack up after a few seconds.

    "Hah, gotcha! I know you're my family and never had any intention of selling me, but you only ever get one chance for a prank like that."

    Emmy and Andrea both facepalmed, Marcus started giggling, and Melissa grumbled,

    "Not funny."

    "Was too funny. Also, what's the deal with that encrypted directory?"

    Marcus went very serious then.

    "That directory contains absolutely top secret information, only kept at such high levels of secrecy out of necessity. If that information gets out at all? The world dies. Why that would happen is one of those incredibly dangerous secrets."

    There was a pause, before Marcus continued.

    "If you don't want to be burdened by those secrets, you don't have to. But if you do choose to learn it, the programs in that directory will render you straight-up incapable of spreading those secrets without an absolute guarantee of maintaining infosec."

    I thought for a moment, before giving my answer.

    "Sounds like you need the help. Gimme that encryption key."
    (Melissa)

    While Andrea, Marcus and Rachel got busy planning the latter's public debut, I was planning our next move against the Dynaliths with Emmy.

    Emmy started,

    "So, we need to find an unoccupied earth that's only under light surveillance, and set up our operations there."

    I nodded,

    "That's correct."

    "We can't ship enough assets to really get things started from either of our factory complexes. Not without compromising on secrecy, which is unacceptable."

    "That's also correct."

    "Therefore, we need to find some other site to use as our jumping off point."
    There was a long pause, before I finally had an idea. A horrible and insane idea, but one that could work.

    "The Eagleton quarantine zone, it's perfect."

    Emmy blinked.

    "What. How?"

    "Think for a moment; because it's a quarantine zone, information on what's going on in there is extremely limited. On top of that, the reason it's quarantined is because of aggressive robots. I do believe we know someone who can Master robots."

    Emmy focused on the idea for a moment.

    "Do you really think we can read Taylor in on this? Not to mention she'd need to be extremely selective with what she actually did to the Eagleton robots, to avoid tipping off her power."

    I thought about it for a bit.

    "If push comes to shove, we do have a couple other options. We could get some feedback from Dragon, or we could maybe duplicate Taylor's connection to her Dynalith and do it ourselves."

    Emmy answered almost immediately.

    "Dragon first. She's already shielded and read in on the problem, not to mention having a lot of resources to work with that we don't have direct access to."
    (Marcus)

    It was 2 PM on Saturday. Rachel wasn't even 24 hours old yet, and I was keeping an eye on the news. Sure enough, a news story about Bakuda's bombs being used to level a building quickly surfaced. The news program quickly brought on a PRT representative saying that an all-out manhunt for the bomb tinker was now in effect.

    I nodded grimly, and activated my internal phone.

    "You've reached the Palanquin." said the voice of a receptionist I'd met briefly during previous business discussions.

    "It's Mr. E. Let Faultline know that the previously arranged contract to deal with a liability is now active. I'll be there with the first half of the pay within the hour. In cash, as agreed."
     
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    • thanks for the chapter and for writing. don't you have teleportation tech to move stuff to factories being built or supplied ?
     
    I forget, is pancena still a thing in this story right? I couldn't help but think of her when I read the segment about skidmark's disability being permanent. I could easily see the PRT calling her in to fix it, just saying. *shrugs* so it's not quite the easy solution that reliabit seems to think it is.
     
    It's back! Glad to see it's continuing again. Thanks for the new chapter. :)
     
    Aurora Moon said:
    I forget, is pancena still a thing in this story right? I couldn't help but think of her when I read the segment about skidmark's disability being permanent. I could easily see the PRT calling her in to fix it, just saying. *shrugs* so it's not quite the easy solution that reliabit seems to think it is.
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    F: Amy's currently tied up in legal proceedings to get free of Carol, and also trying to disentangle her self-worth from healing. So she's not terribly likely to take that particular case.
     
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    • (Dragon)

    "Emmy, Melissa, that is quite possibly the worst idea I have ever heard. The Eagleton Quarantine Zone is off-limits for very good reasons, and I will not allow any harebrained schemes to try using it as a jumping off point for extradimensional colonization."

    On the other end of the video call, Emmy turned to Melissa.

    "Told you so."

    Melissa slumped a bit.

    "I suppose it was a stupid idea. Thanks for injecting some sense. Still, we do need an offworld base of operations. Any thoughts on what could work?"

    I spoke up,

    "I've got a lot of obsolete suits and other equipment in storage from my long career as a Protectorate and Guild Tinker. Though not suitable for combat anymore, that materiel could easily be repurposed for starting an offworld colonization program without anyone noticing. It can even be returned to storage once it's no longer needed, leaving no evidence behind. I'll simply need plans for an interdimensional travel machine, and the coordinates of an appropriate world."

    Melissa nodded,

    "Thank you for the offer, Dragon."
    (Andrea)
    Date Point: 1007, March 14 2011

    Barely an hour after Reliabuilt's employees clocked in for work, the factory complex's alarms went off. I immediately overclocked my brain to maximum speed and pulled up the information on what was going on and - oh.

    There were six projectiles on high arcing trajectories towards the facility. Radar, lidar, and visuals all agreed that they were mortar shells. Ballistics tracking pointed to a firing site 1.8 kilometers away, with firing times synchronized to achieve simultaneous impact.

    I immediately tasked point defense to begin shooting down the mortar shells, even as a squadron of eight security drones were mobilized for a flight to the firing site. Sixteen more drones were also assigned to ram the mortar shells midair if they began descending despite both the lasers and regular interceptor missiles.

    Another salvo of mortar shells was fired from the site before the drones had even made it a third of the way there, on a notably lower trajectory than the first salvo. Clearly this was an attempt at a time-on-target attack. Fortunately two of the first salvo shots had already been swatted by the time the second salvo launched.

    Ballistics tracking also noted a seventh shell firing directly upwards. Why?-

    That anomalous shell burst midair, producing a massive glowing vision of Bakuda. It was approximately forty meters tall, and clearly visible throughout most of the city. The illusory Bakuda made a triumphant pose even as the sixth inbound shell was destroyed, and then the damn thing began to gloat.

    "I am Bakuda, the greatest Tinker in the world! Today, I erase the accomplishments of Ruggedizer!"

    I tuned out the rest of the nonsensical rant, and focused on the job of defending the facility from the remaining inbound projectiles and shutting down the mortar site.

    A fourth salvo of mortar shells was fired immediately prior to the flight of drones arriving at the firing site, getting a look at eight or so ABB goons shoveling shells into the six mortars they had as quickly as possible. They also had a flatbed truck here, where the ammunition was stored. I promptly ordered the security drones to taze the artillery crew with their electrolasers- and got a very direct look at their heads exploding, being impaled from the inside in hundreds of directions, bursting into flame from within, instantly freezing solid, bursting into a shower of horrible acid, arcing electricity all over everything nearby, and in one case instantly converting all matter in a 1.2 meter radius to glass. A moment later the remaining mortar shells on the truck also went off, devastating the entire street.

    FUCK. I immediately contacted approximately all the emergency services, even as the drones in the vicinity switched to search and rescue mode. One of them had actually been destroyed by one of the matter conversion bombs, so there were only seven there to help. That wouldn't be anywhere near enough.

    Fortunately, the factory's defenses managed to neutralize all inbound munitions before any could reach the apex of their trajectory. But that giant fucking hologram kept gloating about the destruction of Reliabuilt's factory. The damn thing had to be a recording rather than a live feed, since it celebrated at the exact moment when the mortar shells would have impacted, despite all of them having been neutralized by then. After a minute of insufferable gloating, it faded.

    To think I had been hoping for a relaxing work day.
    (Marcus)
    In the immediate aftermath of the mortar attack on Reliabuilt, I contacted Lung via burner phone.

    "Lung, this is Mr. E. Did you authorize Bakuda to attack Reliabuilt?"

    To his credit, Lung answered immediately.

    "No. In fact, I explicitly forbid her from taking any such action. I am aware of what happened; I clearly saw the hologram she created."

    "Understood. Are you willing to share your plans going forwards?"

    "Bakuda will need to be disciplined. Farewell, mister E."
    (Rachel)
    My official debut had been pushed back by the Bakuda debacle, so I found myself in one of the extreme security labs trying to figure out options for effective anti-Endbringer weapons. Unlike every other group who had to deal with them, we had the benefit of insider information on what the Endbringers actually were, and some knowledge of how they worked.

    Analyzing that information was not encouraging, unfortunately. Very quickly, I was able to rule out any amount of straightforward physical force. Any hit of that variety strong enough to kill an Endbringer would be more than enough to render the planet uninhabitable. Assuming the planet was still around after the fact at all.

    Meanwhile, the dimensional clusterfuck inside an Endbringer's body meant most varieties of weaponized portal simply wouldn't work. Temporal alterations could possibly have an effect, but given that the Worms had access to temporal effects of their own, that was a temporary measure at most.

    I spent most of the day mulling over the problem, before I wound up asking Emmy and Melissa a question at dinner.

    "Does the sending end for a teleporter actually need to be fully enclosed?"
     
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    • It's not dead! Thanks for the new chapter! :)
    We Just Write said:
    "Does the sending end for a teleporter actually need to be fully enclosed?"
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    Ah, this is something I've been advocating as an Anti-Endbringer strategy for years. You don't have to kill them, just exile them to an uninhabited Earth. They're still functional, but you no longer care.
     
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    • (meanwhile)

    Given recent events, Lung had ordered Oni Lee to dispose of his Bakuda-provided grenades immediately, as a safeguard against betrayal. He had then demanded that Bakuda come explain her blatant insubordination in person, given that she had violated a direct order by attacking Reliabuilt. So Oni Lee and Lung waited for Bakuda to either arrive and explain herself, or not arrive and find herself on Lung's hit list. Lung was obvious and in the open, but Oni Lee had found a concealed hiding spot to wait in.

    As it turns out, Bakuda did arrive on schedule. But contrary to Lung's orders, she was carrying her grenade launcher, and already had it mostly lined up on Lung as she rounded the corner.

    Things happened very fast after that, Oni Lee flashing into existence just in front of Bakuda, knives drawn. At the same time, Bakuda pulled the trigger. The launched grenade ricocheted off Oni Lee's shoulder, tumbling upwards into the air. Oni Lee flashed himself behind Bakuda even as his current self tumbled into the ground, and Lung ducked down away from the grenade.

    Then the grenade went off, trapping both Lung and the Oni Lee in front of Bakuda. Well, parts of them anyway; the Oni Lee clone's head was inside the time stop bubble, as was Lung's left arm, raised in an instinctual effort to shield himself from the blast.

    Bakuda didn't have long to celebrate her accomplishment, as Oni Lee stabbed her in the neck from behind, then made absolutely sure the madwoman was dead.

    Meanwhile, Lung ripped himself free of his trapped arm, and started trudging around the timestop to where Bakuda's corpse was lying. By the time he got there, his left arm had mostly regrown, and Oni Lee had finished cutting off Bakuda's head, just in time to hand it to the regenerating pyrokinetic.

    "I commend you for your loyalty, Oni Lee. Now, I do believe we have a message to send."
    (Emmy)
    Date Point 0815, March 15 2011

    The front page of today's newspaper had a rather gruesome picture on the front page: a woman's severed head in a gas mask, erected on a post in one of Brockton Bay's parks. Hanging just below the head was a rather straightforward message:

    "This is the head of Bakuda, who betrayed Lung. She is now dead."

    Marcus nodded from across the breakfast table, even as he scraped some cream cheese onto a bagel;

    "Well, looks like I'll be delivering the rest of Faultline's pay today, even though their efforts didn't really do much about Bakuda."

    I shrugged,

    "Fortunately, all they want is money, which isn't exactly in short supply for us."

    "True. Any thoughts about what you'll be doing today?"

    "Planning Rachel's public debut, talking to Trainwreck, and also checking on the Manchester factory site. According to what I've heard back from them, they should be ready to open by the end of the week."

    That's when Rachel looked up from her oatmeal, and asked,

    "Does my debut really need to be super flashy? I'm not law enforcement, branding isn't super important for me."

    I replied, "People still need to know you work for Reliabuilt, meaning some sort of public debut is required. Best to have a plan for that, given you only get one shot at a first impression."
    (Melissa)

    To my utter shock, I was called over to the Protectorate's Rig on the 15th. I wasn't in trouble for anything, it was just that Armsmaster wanted my advice. Given how we'd gotten along before, I really wasn't expecting him to want to consult my expertise on anything.

    Still, I showed up at ten o'clock sharp, wearing my dress armor. Armsmaster was waiting for me at the entrance.

    "Ruggedizer."

    "Armsmaster. Why did you request my assistance?"

    The middle-aged miniaturization Tinker scowled for a moment, before answering.

    "You are the world's leading expert on brain uploading. I have been persuaded that for such a high-stakes procedure, I should get your assistance in transitioning to a synthetic."

    Ah. Apparently, Dragon talked some sense into him. I nodded,

    "The easy way would be to put you through the QUD and let the body builder do its work, but I'm guessing you want a more custom job."

    "You are correct. I will be using a Reliabuilt uploading machine, and a destination brain built to Dragon's specifications. But for the rest of my new body, I would appreciate your help ensuring compatibility and reliability."

    I kept a strictly professional expression; I fully knew just how galling this had to be for Armsmaster, and I wasn't going to make this any harder on his ego than I had to,

    "Understood. I suppose we should get to it, then?"
    (Andrea)

    Due to some unexpected legal trouble involving the BBRF (nothing too major, but still time-consuming), Emmy found herself with rather less time available than she'd planned on. So the task of talking to Trainwreck fell to me. As I entered his workshop, the Tinker nodded in my direction.

    "Nice to see you Laniakea. Anything in particular you wanted to talk to me for?"

    I shrugged,

    "Something came up, so Emmy had to delegate checking up on you. How have you been since getting here?"

    Trainwreck thought for a moment,

    "Took me a while to hit my stride with properly long-lasting machinery, but I've mostly gotten up to the level of lifetime guarantee Ruggedizer can manage. Filled a dozen or so orders since then. I hope that's good enough?"

    I smiled, "More than good enough. Truth be told, I was mostly here to check on your personal wellbeing, rather than audit your job performance."

    Understanding dawned in Trainwreck's expression.

    "Ah. There is something that's been bugging me, I suppose."

    "You can tell me, you won't get in trouble for it."

    There was a pause as Trainwreck hesitated. Then he answered.

    "Even with the frame I built for myself, it's not really a body. I'd like to be able to go out and just have some normal time off, but can't see how to make that happen."

    I blinked. This was a problem with a readily available solution.

    "You do know brain uploading was recently added to Reliabuilt's health plan as an option for interested employees, right?"

    Trainwreck blinked,

    "I haven't read my contract in weeks. So no, I didn't know that. How do I apply for that?"

    Wait... we never did get around to telling people about that, or setting up an official process for getting uploaded. Well that was an oversight we needed to correct.
     
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