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Calibration (BAHHSCQ/Sanctioned)

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...wat. Two posts this week? WOOHOO! Thanks, Alivaril - this is awesome. :D
Alivaril said:
"Heyyyy, uh," an idiot intruded.
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My first reaction was "Hah. Keep being QA, QA." My second reaction was to hope QA learns her terminology correctly - he's not an idiot; he's a moron. :p :)
Alivaril said:
Have there been any successful attempts at understandable my ID?
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'understanding'?
Alivaril said:
<ALERT,> QA warned, embedding her intentions and asking if she wasn't supposed to correct them.
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...yeah. Legit. "Hey, tell me if I'm not supposed to do this. (pause) Sweetthanksappreciateitgottagonow!" Can't decide if this is commonly done as an attempt to get away with things she can't get permission for, or if it's just an efficiency thing by using asynchronous communications. Either one is possible.
Alivaril said:
Even Queen Shaper thought tricking QA was funny. It wasn't.
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Not even being tricked into calling shards 'faeries'? ...I suspect the readers found it funny, even if QA completely missed the joke. But if the 'feeling' from that far back is still somewhat canon (even if the events aren't - different story and all), then it seems like Queen Shaper is teasing rather than tricking in a mean way. At least some of the time. And that even so, poor QA just doesn't get the joke.

...As far as that goes, have we ever seen QA laugh or think something is funny? We've seen quite a few emotions and reactions out of her, but I begin to wonder if "funny" is something that QA just doesn't understand. She seems to have a somewhat academic concept of "funny" in that she's going to inform Queen Shaper because Queen Shaper might find it funny, but...
Alivaril said:
"Is there anything else you can tell us about your old home?" Instructor Shapira asked softly.

"No."

"Really?" Instructor Shapira persisted.
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They already suspect that she's holding back on weapons creation, and are being surprisingly gentle about that. If they didn't already suspect that she's hiding information, this would do it - she gave her name as 'Taylor Hebert" originally, and is now stating her name is 'Queen Administrator'. She was deliberately hiding that, before, and isn't now. And they surely noticed her reaction to "Queen Shaper", as well. That she didn't try to hide that she knew of "Queen Shaper" is..curious. She was hiding her name, before, and now she isn't. Does she just trust them a little more in order to tell them that? Or is there some other reason?
Alivaril said:
Liz stared with horror as misused medical nanomachines destroyed part of a girl's brain right in front of her.
(snip)
>> "There are still some inert 'bots in the used tea packets.
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Symbie...really outdid herself, here. This fits multiple goals. Off the top of my head:
  • Heavily implies The Nameless Girl doesn't remember the bunker, thus limiting the questioning they'll do regarding that.
  • Continues to showcase the level of carelessness and capability the inhabitants of Hell's Hand have.
  • The tea packets match up with The Nameless Girl's repeated self-medication. The Valkyries may think someone else tricked her, but the multiple tea packets make that unlikely. Given the info they have and the processing speed, they should pretty quickly realize that it's likely that The Nameless Girl deliberately did this to herself. Which pushes all sortsof trauma buttons.
    • And also hopefully means they'll help her not want to do that in the future - which is a definite Symbie-goal.
 
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Alivaril said:
.

"Queen Shaper's Concept deals with the manipulation, modification, and improvement of life. Mine pertains to efficient control of information, sources of information, and general authority. She also seems to think that deliberate misinformation is funny. It isn't. She's ruined more than one project by deliberately inserting errors I did not find until later."
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I wonder how QA would describe [Broadcast]'s concept in english? "The creation and distribution of propoganda"
 
I'm honestly kind of dreading when Taylor gets introduced formally. I remember how she essentially drove the other story for a while with her antics and poor QA was driven into the background (of all places, the travesty!). Here, I'm more interested in QA and the people around her's adventures than what happens to Taylor. At most, I'd like it if the two protagonists never meet in-story so we can follow different storylines.

Keep up the great work!
 
Alivaril said:
The robots appear to be targeting sections of the brain responsible for long-term memory recall, fear, and pain. Partial functionality for each remains intact, but there is also some collateral damage.
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So that's what eating black flowers look like in meatspace.
I wonder if only some of the teabags have the malware nanobots in them, since Symbie hid the black flowers among a bunch of normal-but-colour-changed ones.


Kellcat said:
The tea packets match up with The Nameless Girl's repeated self-medication. The Valkyries may think someone else tricked her, but the multiple tea packets make that unlikely. Given the info they have and the processing speed, they should pretty quickly realize that it's likely that The Nameless Girl deliberately did this to herself. Which pushes all sorts of trauma buttons.
  • And also hopefully means they'll help her not want to do that in the future - which is a definite Symbie-goal.
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For another level of Valk fridge horror, they then catch Pandora occasionally summoning tea for herself. Sometimes it contains... familiar nanomachines.
 
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Alivaril said:
<ALERT,>
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Why is there a comma?
Alivaril said:
She also seems to think that deliberate misinformation is funny.
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This feels wrong, somehow...
Maybe I need to read Sanctioned more? I felt like Shaper wasn't one of the ones that liked to Deliberately Misinform QA...
Vebyast said:
I love how comprehensive QA's denial of reality is. She never makes mistakes even if she has to totally redefine what she was trying to do in the first place. "I meant to do that" taken completely seriously.
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I think it's more along the lines of "even if they aren't accomplishing what I intended, that doesn't mean creating them was wrong/bad. Everything created is useful, even if in a different way that original designs intended."
Which is a completely valid idea. Like how Post-it notes were the result of failing to make a stronger glue.
 
Norr said:
So that's what eating black flowers look like in meatspace.
I wonder if only some of the teabags have the malware nanobots in them, since Symbie hid the black flowers among a bunch of normal-but-colour-changed ones.
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Probably not on the latter. I imagine that, especially if this is Symbie's goal to make them get her some mental help, she wouldn't want to confuse matters by making the tea packets mistakeable for purposely-tainted ones. She'd want it very clear what was happening. Plus, as an allegory, adding the partial fix to the issue would confuse the whole thing, since the intended message is that she was deleting her memories. Not "has been (possibly intentionally) taking drugs that sometimes erase her memory, or maybe she can't remember the previous times so she does it again."

I am very hyped for all the upcoming big reveals. There have been some very interesting comments, and I'd love to see it happen. Especially the one where they "incidentally" find out that her Core is trying to stop her from upgrading herself further. :p
 
V01DRei said:
Why is there a comma?

This feels wrong, somehow...
Maybe I need to read Sanctioned more? I felt like Shaper wasn't one of the ones that liked to Deliberately Misinform QA...

I think it's more along the lines of "even if they aren't accomplishing what I intended, that doesn't mean creating them was wrong/bad. Everything created is useful, even if in a different way that original designs intended."
Which is a completely valid idea. Like how Post-it notes were the result of failing to make a stronger glue.
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Iirc, Shaper admitted to doing it intentionally, and implied it was partially because she had passed along bad data in the past. Also sarcasm, and actually finding it amusing. Of course, that was all in a different story, so ymmv
 
ROTH963 said:
Why, she didn't do anything but popping Hellhand into existence, outside of this she didn't do much of anything.
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Well, she is showing less restrain than QA.

Anytime a supposed human is more unhinged than a Shard... That's a really big trouble.

Second, she is basically a drug addict, has no self control, and has even more trouble than QA to understand humans.

Heck without QA and Symbie around she would basically have turned half of Earth into something out the Chaos Gods minds.

If your restraining bolts are a former planet destroyer computer and something created with the help of said computer, and both the former World destroying computer and her creation are more sane than you are, then you definitely are a huge problem.

Heck what if Symbie couldn't do anything to kick Taylor out of Dream Land? Then Taylor would basically become a a World destroyer... by accident.
 
V01DRei said:
This feels wrong, somehow...
Maybe I need to read Sanctioned more? I felt like Shaper wasn't one of the ones that liked to Deliberately Misinform QA...
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Right at the start, Shaper talks to QA while she is in the hospital and suggests that QA call the Shards, Fairies. That is the kind of thing that Shaper does, using sarcasm and technically correct terminology to poke fun, especially since QA is an OLD shard and doesn't grok the vagaries of language like more modern shards do. She is the "Back in my day" old lady working as your boss's boss, and she doesn't get your newfangled slang.
 
New chapter? I rejoice! Though I was expecting the punchline to hit this chapter; alas, we shall have to wait for one more update hopefully.

Alivaril said:
"It would be irresponsible not to take every available opportunity for improvement," Queen Administrator neutrally stated. "You will have approximately three years before your value as a combat unit is more important than your safety. Be lazy at your own peril."
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Though Instructor Shapira's reaction was not shown here, I like to think she and the other senior instructors are inwardly face palming. Of course this is what Cadet Hebert interprets Valk training as. Maybe they need to inform her that insufficiently skilled Valks are not sent to the frontlines to be killed, but just retained for remedial schooling?

Alivaril said:
"Of course not. Symbie is upgrading their weapons, not removing them. Please do not attempt this on your own; it is likely that only Symbie can safely store them."
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So... hold on. Symbie is capable of vanishing people's Friends at any time for upgrading. And Cadet Hebert does not need to be anywhere near those Friends for Symbie to magically withdraw said Friends into her magical storage space. Witchcraft intensifies.

Alivaril said:
"More importantly, subjects are more likely to pursue personal combat improvements when they're exposed to weaponry and/or the perception of danger. They should be able to keep themselves safe; they won't always have superior Valkyries around to guard them."
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This one is a little unclear. At first, I thought "subjects" referred to Friends, it was only reading a paragraph or two later that I realised you meant the crafting club. Referring to subjects, and then "they" in the sentence right afterwards really made them sound like Friends at first.

Alivaril said:
"Not just combat ability," Queen Administrator protested. "Non-combat and likely future abilities are also important."

Instructor Shapira's face twisted oddly as she oriented both palms toward QA with fingers splayed wide. The odd gesture was dropped a few seconds later. QA's attempt to search for the gesture returned too many possibilities for the shard to sufficiently narrow it down.
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I think this is the gesture meaning, "See? Your personal worth is going to be judged based on how useful your abilities are, combat and not."

Alivaril said:
"Nothing that I can remember," Queen Administrator deflected. "Therefore, it likely isn't important."
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Such blatant lies. You were able to immediately recall Queen Shaper, that she was your friend, and she often ruined your projects. You definitely remember more than you're saying, but I'm pretty sure UN is just not calling you on it because so long as they're not actually interrogating you, you tend to offer up information unprompted.

Alivaril said:
Liz stared with horror as misused medical nanomachines destroyed part of a girl's brain right in front of her. That another nanotech subtype immediately started to repair the damage was of little consequence; information loss was inevitable after such reconstruction. Some Aces couldn't even remember their own names after surviving bad enough brain (and related emotional) trauma.
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I'm a little confused with the sequence of events here. Is this meant to imply Taylor drank the tea and knocked herself out immediately before the Valks found her? Or is it more like, since Taylor has been regularly "drinking tea", it means that her brain is constantly being destroyed and renewed? Coz I thought eating black flowers destroyed her memories in a more immediate sense rather than an ongoing process.

Also, if Taylor is asleep, who's supposed to be the Mayor of Hell's Hand? Is Symbie going to pretend the her in Hell's Hand isn't the her in Perth? Really looking forward to the story that these Valks are going to get in the end. Has to be one heck of a punchline.
 
Kai Merah said:
I'm a little confused with the sequence of events here. Is this meant to imply Taylor drank the tea and knocked herself out immediately before the Valks found her? Or is it more like, since Taylor has been regularly "drinking tea", it means that her brain is constantly being destroyed and renewed? Coz I thought eating black flowers destroyed her memories in a more immediate sense rather than an ongoing process.

Also, if Taylor is asleep, who's supposed to be the Mayor of Hell's Hand? Is Symbie going to pretend the her in Hell's Hand isn't the her in Perth? Really looking forward to the story that these Valks are going to get in the end. Has to be one heck of a punchline.
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It is meant to imply Taylor is regularly drinking tea, after all there are packets out from weeks ago. Just like how she probably eats flowers multiple times a week.

And while the process might not 1 to 1 be what happens when she eats black flowers, Symbie probably set it up so that it is a close enough approximation that people understand what Taylor has been doing to herself (destroying her memory recall, relieving herself of pain and fear). That way people might be able to address her issues.

Presumably Taylor is still thought to be mayor of Hell's Hand, after all evidence suggests she has been at the very least waking up for "tea" and she's set to automatically wake up in the next 10 or so minutes, which couldn't just be a response to people entering or it would have been much faster than that. They just walked in when Taylor was on a "sleep cycle" as it were.

That the "mayor" of Hell's Hand is in such a state… is frankly not completely out of the realm of the possible considering how horrible it is.

As for Symbie, I have no idea whether she'll pretend to be two seperate cores or the same one, however if I was to guess, since she has a better head on her shoulders than Taylor or QA… She'll probably at least for a while pretend to be two separate cores.
 
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fictionfan said:
I wonder how QA would describe [Broadcast]'s concept in english? "The creation and distribution of propoganda"
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Annoy the rest of us to near death. Distribution of information. Being Anoying. Forcefull conection. Being a loud bratt. Being a spoiled resource hogging bratt. Screaming loudly at close range. Anoyance. Propaganda. Daddys most favored kid. Being an asshole. playing loud "music" in the midle of the gosh darn night the day before tests...

There is a possibility that one, maybe two of those are QAs personal opinion, and not the oficiall definition
 
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