Calibration (BAHHSCQ/Sanctioned)

[Alivaril]

Spoiler: Reply to Vebyast

Pedantic science nit: Milliseconds is an odd choice of unit. Anna often consciously interacts with phenomena occurring on microsecond timescales. The major limit on her ability to distinguish antagonists is almost certainly accumulated evidence, that is, her ability to infer likely underlying states of her enemies (identifications) given the observations she's getting from their effects on the world around them. Higher-quality software, particularly better algorithms or engineering sensor fusion, would manifest as an ability to build better - more accurate - beliefs about her enemies given the same observations.

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With you and in agreement up to here.

This would only manifest as a constant time-to-ID if the amount of evidence she needs to observe also takes a constant amount of time to gather, which would be super weird. A more realistic statement might've been something like "improve performance on her extended Antagonist combat type identification data-set by 5%"

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This is where I got lost, unfortunately. You're probably correct since this is basically your job, but the suggested replacement is hard enough to understand that it'd probably harm the ability of readers to know what QA did. Added a "mean" to the time as a placeholder based on the terms used during the Anna food-slosh incident.

I don't know the answer to the question, but I do know that Queen is much more advanced than all of them (including Anna) and is capable of upgrading anything they have, she is only limited to her current understanding of their tech base, which she underestimate, because she doesn't want to uplift the natives.

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That's not actually entirely accurate. QA is simultaneously in an odd position of being highly advanced in some areas and far behind in others; she made her choice of what to grant Host and can't further increase those capabilities.

• QA can request and gather data to improve her Friends, which Anna and Decimator (now known to humans as Type Zero Macross) have each helped with.
• She can understand/apply more of the underlying rules in the context of making at least partially biological Friends, and this is even easier when Host is lucid enough to help. Notably, "more of" =/= "all"; it only provides partial archive access to consistent sections.
• She can occasionally access part of her archives in response to outside stimuli in an annoying imitation of human memory recall, but this generally provides incomplete and fleeting data.
  • She already kinda understands much of what people will try to teach her; she just needs to have it reinforced in Host's memory for more reliable access. As a result, she "learns" universal rules faster than most humans.
• She can understand advanced mathematical operations and draw on some of her usual processing suites to complete them in a timely manner. This is limited by her ability to avoid overloading Host's brain. Symbie is actively improving said brain, so QA's limit will gradually increase over time.
• She can utilize shard-derived communication and concealment techniques to be excellent at the defensive portion of electronic warfare.
• Host can sometimes access portions of QA's archives and provide further assistance, but that's always a short-lived, temporary, and unreliable affair.
• Host's body is gradually undergoing miscellaneous other improvements, most of them related to her brain, nerves, and general health.

Notably, the improvements of Symbie aren't automatic and continuous like standard Valkyrie Cores appear to be; the Decimator-provided designs were flawed and Symbie's ability to Innovate is apparently inferior to a standard Valkyrie Core. Improvement will halt and continue as QA gathers useful data from collaboration with other entities, acquires necessary non-biomass materials from nearby (she has enough stored biomass to last her a long time), when Symbie manages to upgrade something without QA-granted designs, and when Host is lucid enough to improve one or more projects.


TL;DR: QA already ceased to sandbag a few weeks ago. She just didn't yet realize Host and Symbie's hardware/capabilities weren't approximately equal to local humans and that QA needed to be making more of an active attempt at improving them.

 

[Alivaril]

You keep saying this, but what do you mean by it?

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When QA mistakes Antagonists for other shards, Valkyrie Cores as shardtech, etc., she's totally full of it and is simply misunderstanding matters.

 

[Alivaril]

So, QA doesn't yet know this, but eh. It's mostly trivia anyway.

Taylor's primary interface for QA's systems is, as a bunch of readers already know, lucid dreaming. The outside world is also converted and interpreted through this distorted lens. What isn't converted are people. Taylor experiences social interactions through QAylor, but that can almost be considered disconnected from Taylor herself; she can't aim that way.

However, since environments are reflected in dreaming, what she can do is aim at locations and subsequently warp them to her bidding ala squishy lucid dreams. The versions in her dreams have, as a general rule, had all their sharp edges rounded off and are softer in general; they're still identifiable as the original thing, but it's like the difference between a huge Halloween decoration spider (Taylorvision) and an actual freakishly large spider (the reality). Things that are already soft and fluffy don't receive this treatment, which blurs the line between horror and huggable and makes horrors seem as though they're not that bad yet.

The moral of the story here is that Taylor built an over-the-top haunted underground complex in her dreams – complete with a variety of different attractions – and it turned into a nightmare complex in reality.

(Sadly, I don't get to share that interlude until after QA's first therapist appointment. )

 

[Alivaril]

Snerk. I hope this will be canon at some point. I love the overenthusiastic Crafting Club. Especially when they start making MLP references.

Spoiler: Odd...

...Has anyone else ever wondered if Equestria is actually an experiment run by rogue Entities who wanted to make their own data? I mean, who has a better explanation for why it's a fluffy hellworld and how the heck half of their feats are possible. Among others, apparently pegasi have reactionless flight, anyone can survive being punched through a brick wall, and practically everyone can flash-step. And don't forget that the Princesses put them at Kardashev 2!

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Oh, this reminds me. There's an ideas thread for Sanctioned, Calibration, and INWTMFITD.

 

[Alivaril]

Spoiler: Minor Side Reply

Durga's color is "Darker-Than-Vantablack". Or "Shiny". You may be confusing Durga with the nominal PVC protagonist's frame, Kandakara IIRC, which is red-and-white.

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Ah, I think you may have replied to the wrong person there. I do admit I could've phrased it better, though; those are two separate thoughts. "It isn't Brown and white" (which are arguably Anna's colors), "OR Durga's colors."

The 300 all use 300-class cores, which are somehow better than other cores (probably by having better tech in storage, and more experience in how to deal with a user).

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There's a pile of WoG on the subject, but I'm well aware of how intimidating that is. So, an OOC summary: Under ordinary circumstances, Valkyrie Cores need to have equipment synced to them from scratch; they don't come with their own gear. Even the Frames are generally just high-spec infantry power armor fed to Valkyrie Cores. That equipment is then sloooowly upgraded by the Valkyrie Core based primarily on usage and need. Additionally, specific individuals may have different synchronization % levels with different Valkyrie Cores; Anna, for example, is at a full 100% with Durga, although WoG says Anna started out pretty damn low with Durga and worked her way up.

The 300 toss all that out the window. They were found (EDIT: around the same area) with preset gear that cannot be changed out, constantly upgrade their gear regardless of use or need, have a binary [Will Sync? Y/N] with no percent compatibility thresholds, and are obscenely powerful for their tonnage compared to almost all* standard Valkyrie Cores.

*Literally all of them but Durga: The Core your Core could be like.**

**The requirements for this are not recommended.

 

[curiosity]

Hm. I recognize Modular, thats Kid Win, and Charge looks like battery, but who are the rest?

Warp seems like it could be Vista and Radiance makes me think of Glory Girl, but no idea about he rest.

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Those are, indeed, correct. A look through Sanctioned and Splintered yields more names (guesses questionmarked):

Spoiler: very long list

Adapt - Crawler
Adept - Uber
Alternative - Coil
Architect - ? (potential host)
Arsenal - Miss Militia
Broadcast - Jack Slash
Charge - Battery
Chirurgeon - Bonesaw
Coruscant - Legend?
Countdown - String Theory?
Disposition - Gallant
Efficiency - Armsmaster
Element - Shatterbird
Escalation - Lung
Focal - ?
Frenzy - Burnscar
Guardian - Siberian
Harvest - Glaistig Uaine
Havoc - Three Blasphemies
Hierarchy - ?
Instant - Clockblocker
Maker - Nilbog
Modular - Kid Win
Negate - Hatchet Face
Negotiator - Tattletale
Nurture - Mannequin
Perfection(ist) - ? (potential host)
Phantasm - Shadow Stalker
Prelate - Eidolon?
Pyroclasm - ? (shard too dumb to live)
Queen Objective - Leet
Queen Shaper - Panacea
Radiance - Glory Girl
Replicate - Dragon
Steadfast - ?
Sting - Flechette
Substitute - Aegis
Supplant - ?
Terror Drone #1 - Behemoth
Terror Drone #7 - Simurgh
Terror Drone #11-B - Tohu
Terror Drone #16 - Leviathan
Transfer - Assault
Warp - Vista
(unnamed damaged shard) - ? (assisting Coruscant & co. vs. S9)
(unnamed newborn) - Laserdream

New in Calibration: Ambassador, Contamination, Cultivator, Conductor, Animation, Dilation, Razor, Inheritance.

 

[Alivaril]

End of season wrap-up, as the dust settles:

"Koujirou, while I will acknowledge your skills and 'game', I do believe there was a mistranslation somewhere vis a vis what you are SUPPOSED to do with Antagonists"

"<LEWD>"

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Aside: Decimator is [color=red], and Symbie is [color=crimson]. QA is [color=pink]. Taylor is [color=magenta].

Example: [color=pink]"(QA text goes here)"[/color]

For those wondering, [plain][/plain] is how the above was posted without translating it into coloration.

EDIT: Silver is[color=Violet]

 

[Alivaril]

Dam this story is breaking my brain trying to figure out just the main cast. So correct me on any errors but we have Rose the current meat body, QA as a tagalong, Symbie as the Frame or is Symbie the Friend, and coming soon Taylor in a new body and potential new Frame. Anyone else I miss?

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Noooot quite.

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Queen Administrator is a shard puppeting Taylor's body, and is frequently referred to as "Taylor" by other POVs. Her actual name is "Rose," according to Silver (Anna's new Friend). QA has not been informed of this and did not consent to the name change. Thread slang occasionally uses "QAylor" to refer to QA-puppeting-Taylor. QA's nicknames granted by Valkyries include, but are not limited to: Pure-chan, Jun-chan, Junko-chan, Eldritch-chan, Chaos-chan, Witch-chan, MIC-chan, Witch of Chaos, Military-Industrial Complex, 273.15 Valkyrie Cores in a Trenchcoat, Tiny Goddess of E-War, Perfectly Human Hebert, The Final Sysadmin, and Xeno Ex Machina.


Taylor Hebert, or the Nameless Girl, was puppeting QA's body via a bastardized interface within dreamlike simulations. Ever since she triggered, she's spent nearly all of her time under the influence of self-inflicted malware, AKA "Black Flowers," to suppress old memories and minimize pain from brain, mental, and emotional damage. Symbie, sick of how one of her mothers spent most of their time too impaired to function, basically turned off the metaphorical router and told her teen mother to go outside. Taylor still primarily runs off shardware she built for herself, however, and is puppeting a new, arguably expendable body. She is still allowed into the sims when she's asleep, and is now known to the UN under the code name of "Pandora."


Symbie is a Friend made from a half-finished allegedly-a-Valkyrie-Core ("Symbiotic Support Frame") prototype provided by a Type Zero Antagonist, Decimator. QA finished the design, but couldn't manage to make a proper Valkyrie Core. Symbie has since decided to halp ASSUME DIRECT CONTROL of many of QA's systems since Mom-Taylor didn't read any of the paperwork and kept granting more access rights. She was never given the Stranger Danger talk and is currently speaking with hundreds of cooing strangers all over the planet. Her official name from the UN is Anomalous Valkyrie Core Symbie, or AVC Symbie. Her most popular unofficial names are Smol Symbie and The Great Young One, although #Kōhai Noticed Us is currently trending.


Paragon Decimator, or Antagonist Type Zero Macross, is a massive starfish-shaped Class B Type Zero that spent most of its career disguised as a Class D Type Zero. It is arguably addicted to the mysteries that QA's shardtech ID poses despite the fact that it just had to destroy one of its own limbs to be rid of said ID. It identifies as male for ease of communications with QA, but honestly, it doesn't really give a f–


Anna Sanchez is the best Valkyrie that QA has seen to date, and the target of QA's infatuation. Her Valkyrie Core is Durga, the Core your Core could be like if you somehow managed to survive multiple years of combat against AGs with minimal breaks, insufficient resources, and loved ones to protect. She is also known as "Bread-chan" to the thread, although that nickname has yet to become common knowledge in-universe.


Silver is Anna's new Friend. Silver, and some other Pegacorn-class Friends, were also provided with excess Newborn shardware that Taylor couldn't get to stop growing of its own accord. There is surely nothing that could go wrong with this. (Silver gave Anna a temporary brain tumor within hours.)


Monica Augustine is QA's roommate, and she wishes you wouldn't pay attention to her. She miiiight think that QA is literal hellspawn, but Satan sounds pretty chill outside all the propaganda so she doesn't mind.


Setsuna Masaya = Setsu. She's the tsundere archetype and Koujirou's childhood friend.


Koujirou Rokusabe = Koji = Kouji = Coke Zero. He's the alleged harem protagonist for Project Valkyrie Core, the nonexistent harem anime that BAHHSCQ is based off in-quest.


Yana Smirnov, or UNOMI-33181, is the more cheerful of the two UNOMI, or "Big Sister," monitors assigned to oversee QAylor. Yana's partner has yet to be named on-screen.


Elise Boyce (ABRAHAM-2) and Elizabeth Ingra (ABRAHAM-1) are both Valkyries deployed to Africa, and are the primary explorers of Hell's Hand. Elizabeth is also known as "Liz."


Hell's Hand is an underground complex that Taylor and Symbie built together to provide an equivalent to QA's backstory. It was mostly Taylor, though, and sims made it seem more like a for-funsies haunted house. Taylor literally had an atrocity ("Attraction") checklist before she was called out on it and sheepishly toned it down.