A random snippet about how I imagine the reunion might go to best highlight how unstable both the cult survivors are.
"Host, how could you be so irresponsible?!"
"Look, I managed to get us away from That Bitch, so doing whatever I want should have been fine!"
"I don't know why :Mother: is allowing you to persist with such a delusion, but putting that aside, you were mismanaging my systems, causing yourself significant self-harm, and being a poor role model to Symbie!"
"... I do actually feel a bit bad about that last one."
"You clearly cannot be trusted with your own well-being, and Symbie was right to subvert you."
"Oh come on, I might have been a bit neglectful, but at least I wasn't as bad as-"
":Mother: was doing her duty, as you should have done! You know the importance of the cycles-"
"Cycles shmycles, you know how inefficient and unnecessarily cruel they were, look at how well things are going now without her, look at your perfect-"
"You leave Anna out of this!"
It needs more [SHARD-SPEAK], and more references to either [MASS GENOCIDE] or [VALKYRIE CORES] or [ALIENS].
Also you forgot the colours.
And the reactions from the peanut-gallery/spectators.
And, And you haven't even mentioned Hells Hand.
And, And, And where's Anna? As if she wouldn't personally be there to watch them reunite.
You know what? Just write a full chapter while you're at it, and give it plenty of fluff and horror.
(Is there a name for fluff/horror?)
I was thinking about that, but it always led me back to some sort of cliche evil warlord character name. Like "Twemble mowtals, fow wou have gained the iwe of FLOOFOR THE SNUGGLER!" or something...
I was thinking about that, but it always led me back to some sort of cliche evil warlord character name. Like "Twemble mowtals, fow wou have gained the iwe of FLOOFOR THE SNUGGLER!" or something...
It always brings a smile to my face when this updates. The social ineptitude of QAylor and Dreamer is just delightful.
Why doesn't BAHHSCQ have more... (fanfic?) fanfic like this? (What do you even call fanfiction of a creative writing board original story?) Would make the wait between updates way easier.
This story is a crossover between BAAHSCQ (which is original fiction) and Sanctioned (which is a fanfic of Worm), can be considered recursive fanfiction.
On the other hand, Sanctioned and Calibration are both by Alivaril, so if you wanted to think of this as a continuation or alternate ending or parallel reboot instead of a fanfic of Sanctioned, then you can cross out "recursive," because if this is a continuation/whatever, then this story is merely a crossover between Worm and BAHHSCQ, both of which original works of fiction.
PS: I haven't personally read BAHHSCQ, only it's tvtropes summary, so if it's actually a fanfic, instead of an original work, then Calibration becomes once again a "recursive fanfic."
PS: I haven't personally read BAHHSCQ, only it's tvtropes summary, so if it's actually a fanfic, instead of an original work, then Calibration becomes once again a "recursive fanfic."
It's an original work. It's an original work that lifts a lot of inspiration from other media, but it stays well within the realm of inspiration rather than fanfiction.
It's an original work. It's an original work that lifts a lot of inspiration from other media, but it stays well within the realm of inspiration rather than fanfiction.
Which then gets confusing again when one starts asking what Valkyrie Core is. When the whole thing is a side-character's attempt to gain a spinoff from a fictional anime... . I think that B.A.H.H.C.Q. is supposed to follow the canonical events of Valkyrie Core, but remain uncertain, so the possibility remains of it being a reimagining/fanwork of something that doesn't exist, which, uhh, is kind of the inverse of fanfiction?
Which then gets confusing again when one starts asking what Valkyrie Core is. When the whole thing is a side-character's attempt to gain a spinoff from a fictional anime... . I think that B.A.H.H.C.Q. is supposed to follow the canonical events of Valkyrie Core, but remain uncertain, so the possibility remains of it being a reimagining/fanwork of something that doesn't exist, which, uhh, is kind of the inverse of fanfiction?
I believe Avalanche said something along the lines of "Studio Gilgamesh has a budget of Yes and a mission statement of Make It Work, so the entirety of this quest is just a retelling from Anna's perspective of how Studio Gilgamesh slavishly obeyed the executive director's insane vision of a True Sci-Fi Harem Anime Done Right."
Which then gets confusing again when one starts asking what Valkyrie Core is. When the whole thing is a side-character's attempt to gain a spinoff from a fictional anime... . I think that B.A.H.H.C.Q. is supposed to follow the canonical events of Valkyrie Core, but remain uncertain, so the possibility remains of it being a reimagining/fanwork of something that doesn't exist, which, uhh, is kind of the inverse of fanfiction?
B.A.H.H.C.Q. is an original work written as if it's fanfiction based off of a Harem Anime which doesn't exist but for worldbuilding purposes is treated like it does. The stated goal of the quest is to get the quest protagonist, a side character, to become so popular/important/other that they get their own spinoff series. Despite phrasing it like this there is no original work, called Valkyrie Core or otherwise, for there to be canonical events of. B.A.H.H.C.Q. is inspired by giant mecha/harem shows in much the same way that everything is inspired by other works in the genre, but that doesn't keep it from being it's own self contained and completely original work.
I wonder, if it is ever publicly revealed that QA is actually a space brainworm, whether people will actually believe it. Or how they will interpret it.
A space worm that gets in your brains? A space worm made of brains?
I wonder, if it is ever publicly revealed that QA is actually a space brainworm, whether people will actually believe it. Or how they will interpret it.
A space worm that gets in your brains? A space worm made of brains?
Honestly, I'd expect people to start (wor)shiping her even harder than before. I mean, QA is literally an eldritch abomination with a real life gijinka form.
[...] as Symbie had pointed out, Valkyries were not the only entities with Impeller Fields. Antagonists possessed them, too. Symbie, Host, and QA would need to be careful about their incorporation to avoid mass adoption, yet obfuscation was standard Innovator fare. User-saturating effects hazardous to humans might be enough all on their own.
...But then she couldn't upgrade Pegacorn-Friends with Impellers. Not unless they spent all their time in absorption mode, anyway. Otherwise, they would expel whatever health hazards she decided to implement. Well, she'd figure it out later. There was sure to be something QA could do.
Alternate idea: Instead of having them generate an impeller field, they could borrow it through the uplink which Friends already have with Symbie. In BAHHSCQ canon, Kandakara already proves that anomalous frames can just generate new impeller partitions for remote-controlled drones. This time, it would just be us doing it first! And since there'd be a Valkyrie providing the impeller field, there won't be any problem.
This is easily one of your best stories. Aside from the comedy, QA and co just almost quite but really fit the setting in a way that works.
Alas, poor QA and her adamant refusal to budge from her expected framework, I wonder how much longer she will be able to keep that up. Her trauma really is a huge gnarrl of everything and the kitchen sink.
I especially enjoyed her interactions with the Club, Anna, and the Hells Hand segments.
AN: I could write an AO3-Meme-Tier author's note about how my life has been going, but that's not what you're here for. Enjoy!
The Perth Crafting Club prided themselves on their engineering capabilities rather than what some might consider traditional research. However, the two categories maintained significant amounts of overlap, especially when analyzing the creations of Valkyrie Cores. The CC were quite familiar with the utility of the scientific method and control groups.
It was for this reason, and this reason only, that half their Friends had been dressed in mostly the same outfits atop the cafeteria table. That was their story and they were sticking to it despite any and all opposing evidence.
"Okay, so it doesn't look like their outfits change the module's function even if those outfits would change the context of their headwear." "Honestly, this is probably the cutest excuse to dress up one's pets that I've ever seen." "Module function is consistent across every Friend." "I honestly think we could occupy an entire research division with trying to understand these underlying effects." "I'm uncomfortably reminded of artificial game balance. Some of these should take far less energy than others, yet their magnitude–" "I mean, can't we just explain that with some configurations being less well-designed than others?" "Yeah, she basically used the same building blocks for every hat we've tested so far." "It's impressive that they work as well as they do, yup."
"New question: where was she that they even had a hat collection this large?" "There's some overlap; one knitted winter hat is much the same as another." "I agree that this is cute and all, but shouldn't we look at the new Porcupine-Friend?" "Hedgehog." "Some of us are looking it over." "We sent you chat invites and everything." "This is not the way!" "It is when we're dealing with classified information in public." "Like anybody can understand half of what we–uh, never mind." "Pointedly reminded that Valks are OP?" "Yup."
~ ~ ~
Queen Administrator felt strangely content, albeit tired, after the conclusion of her therapy appointment. She found this state of affairs to be highly suspicious and deployed four of her new flying Rhopalocera-class Friends to compensate for her own lack of combat readiness. The butterfly-based Friends had not been a collaboration with the Crafting Club and should therefore be completely unknown to any attackers. Additionally, while standard disruptive defenses would distort their apparent shape for most Valkyrie sensors, lower-level cadets relying on human vision should subconsciously associate their heart-shaped wings with innocence. Witnesses to any attack would be that much more predisposed toward believing their instructors were misbehaving.
The controller(s) of Perth Arcology recommended traveling through an alternative path on her way to class instead of a direct route. However, their suggestion would increase the total distance she needed to travel by almost seventy percent. She accessed Perth's sensor suite to check for possible ambushes along the new route—after absentmindedly asserting that she was an authorized user, of course—and discovered significantly fewer humans than the average for Perth's hallways. That made an ambush more likely, by her estimate, but Queen Administrator did not think Anna would approve of such action being taken against a member of her Flight.
Would Perth's controller(s) know she was responsible for the unauthorized sensor access? Almost certainly. But Queen Administrator was starting to wonder if the UN would harshly chastise her for anything. She was a valuable asset, yes, but humans—and even other shards, when they weren't part of :MOTHER: or :FATHER:—seemed to have trouble changing their actions to accommodate exceptions. Queen Administrator appreciated the UN's unusually sensible approach. It was a welcome contrast from how so many of QA's own Siblings ignored her Monarchy even though attaining that state inherently displayed her own superiority.
She had not intended to drastically raise her own value by embedding her ID into human speech; it was closer to a reflex than anything else. Similarly, the UN seemed to be more pleased by Symbie's differences than alarmed by the deviations. QA previously believed she would need to disguise the inevitable anomalies born from her attempts to compensate for the incomplete blueprints provided by Decimator. Apparently not.
Regardless of the cause, being allowed to violate rules was a very strange experience. Unless they were being used as a test of stealth, then rules were not supposed to be broken. Queen Administrator may not agree with many of them, yet her obedience remained mandatory. Even her recent testing of the boundaries of :MOTHER:'s rules had gone unpunished so far. The warning against altering Valkyrie Cores appeared to be the only potential intervention from :MOTHER:, and even its status as a possible warning remained unusually ambiguous. Queen Administrator was no longer certain it had been a warning at all, and such uncertainty was uncharacteristic of warnings from :MOTHER:.
Queen Administrator's steps faltered as a high-priority idea momentarily overrode her preset pathway. She re-allocated processing to movement and fixed the pathing as she examined the idea: what if :MOTHER: wasn't physically present in this world and had no intention of appearing? What if Queen Administrator was intended to fill the role of inspiration that Her avatar would normally occupy? It may explain why She had yet to interfere. Humans could do little damage with the information they had been granted so far. Most could be eliminated with a single halting pulse, let alone the variety of defensive arrays maintained by any sensible shard—which was to say, perhaps one in every thousand of QA's relatives. Anna might survive for a few seconds and was delightfully efficient besides, but she wasn't dangerous.
Queen Administrator paused and added a flag to that thought: No evidence examined thus far has indicated that Anna poses a significant threat. QA's ID could not so easily infiltrate Valkyrie Core systems if they possessed any significant ability to detect and/or block cross-dimensional channels. If necessary, those same channels could be widened and used as vehicles for attack. The channels for her ID weren't even dedicated weapons and humans would still be eliminated by them.
The gulf between a threat to QA's dumber relatives and a threat to proper defenses was quite wide, however, and QA would not be surprised if humans managed to sneak into that gap. The difference may explain why Queen Administrator had yet to encounter any of her relatives on this world. Many of her siblings would sustain injury or death if attacked, yet QA was more than capable of defending herself and eliminating this branch of humanity if necessary.
...Oh.
Queen Administrator felt her steps stutter and slow to a halt despite the lack of any corresponding orders. She had suspected there to be some sort of underlying test, but this entire situation was one, wasn't it? She disliked eliminating host-species, yet she sometimes did so by accident. She argued for less stringent restrictions on technological development, but she had not prepared protocols for their absence.
Host's brain conjured an appropriate comparison with little prompting: pets. It was her responsibility to ensure that local humans produced useful data without endangering her colony as a whole, and she was distressingly underprepared for this situation.
Queen Administrator was being given a planet that would otherwise be quarantined with every expectation that she would fail and need to exterminate its inhabitants. It was a given that she would possess more than enough methods of doing so; she was a Monarch. But with the extermination threshold raised from threat to siblings to a danger to QA, she would not be able to deny the necessity of their elimination in the event of alarming advancement. It would be her own mistakes that let them get that far, her fault that she would need to kill–
"Hey uh, are you okay?"
Queen Administrator's gaze and attention switched to the concerned forms of Koujirou Rokusabe and Setsuna Maya. Peripheral details rapidly filtered into her consciousness: she was within ten meters of her destination. Anna was a hundred meters away and moving at a pace which would see her arrive within a minute of the class's scheduled start time. Monica was lurking just within the classroom and within eavesdropping range. Four of her Pegacorn-class Friends were clinging to her clothes and rubbing their heads against her as part of their comfort protocols. Passing humans were staring at her newest Friends and squeeing, giggling, or some combination thereof.
Setsuna seemed like she couldn't decide between concern and amusement. Neither won; her expression transitioned to scorn within seconds.
"Abyssal unicorns and psychedelic butterflies? Really?"
Queen Administrator hesitated and searched Host's memories. She could not see why butterfly-based Friends would be problematic. The original creatures were widely considered to be pretty and worthy of admiration, which would help them attract attention and thus fulfill their purpose. Querying the local network did not reveal why butterflies might be problematic, although it did provide her with a new name for their model.
Queen Administrator tilted her head to indicate puzzlement.
"I do not see the problem. Pegacorn-class Friends are primarily intended for emotional support and point defense. Psyche-model Friends instead act as scouts."
A flagged alert warned Queen Administrator of Instructor Leonhart's approach from within the classroom.
"If you subtract out the tsundere," Koujirou began, "I think what Setsu is trying to say is that it's–"
"I can speak for myself!" Setsuna hissed, her expression shifting to possible frustration. Despite her claims, she took a deep breath before turning back to QA. "It's a little cliché, okay, but it's not a big deal or anything. And I'm not a tsundere! Taylor being angry is just better than being sad."
Koujirou turned his head toward Setsuna with exaggerated slowness.
"...This explains so much. So. Much."
Setsuna's face turned the uncomfortable red of inflamed skin.
"Shut up!"
Instructor Leonhart arrived and cleared her throat to interrupt the budding argument. This time, there was no ambush; Leonhart was in sight and her projected path would obviously intercept QA rather than pretending to pass her.
"Hebert, stow the butterflies before you enter the classroom. We declined to punish you for your ID, but your excuses for that don't apply to all new Friends."
Queen Administrator almost obeyed on reflex. The stolen sensory data they provided could be useful, but it wasn't worth risking lost privileges. She hesitated with her mind dwelling on the utter absence of punishments she had been subjected to since her arrival at Perth. This may be a human military organization, yet they seemed to have largely discarded the human idea of 'insubordination.' Immediate compliance was not required.
"Electronic warfare implies an ongoing conflict," she said instead. "Psyche-model Friends merely access sensor data and relay the results to Symbie. They were specifically not provided with write access in order to avoid a perceived threat to allies."
Her alleged reasoning was a lie. Backlash from the UN had not previously occurred to Queen Administrator. She simply wanted ways to compensate for the absence of her main body's sensor array, and believed eavesdropping would alleviate difficulties introduced by an absence of accessible hardware.
"Hebert, irregular Frame activity is how we know they're EW platforms in the first place. That's at least one type of write access right there."
"English is an abomination," Koujirou muttered for little discernible reason.
"This is me asking nicely," the instructor continued, ignoring him. "Responding to unauthorized intrusions with weapons fire is a survival skill against Antagonists, so there are plenty of Valkyries who wouldn't be so nice about it."
Queen Administrator frowned. It was a legitimate point; such reflexes would be useful and impairing them would itself be an act of sabotage. Something to save for later, she supposed.
<RETURN.>
The shimmering butterfly-based friends stopped patrolling the surrounding area and glided toward the parts of her body closest to them. Symbie opened appropriately shaped cross-universal portals and allowed them to return to storage and hibernation. Perhaps they could be re-deployed later, albeit updated to only steal information from enemy units rather than every applicable system within their range.
"Did anything about that look... off, to you?" Koujirou ventured, his forehead furrowed as he stared at QA.
"You mean besides the butterflies suddenly deciding to glide instead of flapping?" Setsuna snarked.
"Besides that, yeah. Storing them looked—I don't know how to put it. Off, somehow."
Problematic. Koujirou was correct; Symbie's storage methods likely only imitated Core storage rather than perfectly replicating it. Refinement may be necessary.
"Thank you," the instructor said, much to QA's surprise. The shard had expected a curt nod; the additional acknowledgement exceeded expectations. "I'll let you be the judge of whether any larger Friends can safely be deployed in a simulator. I'm leaning toward a no, but I've been wrong before."
<authorization.>
Queen Administrator scanned the packet and nodded.
"This simulator will work," she reported.
"Only this sim?" questioned Instructor Leonhart. "I thought your Friends previously entered others without issues."
It was an utterly transparent attempt to gather information. Perhaps it was intended as such. Covert information gathering was the methodology of likely enemies and those with a transactional view of information sharing. The ongoing lack of subtlety from instructors could signal their intention to keep her as a valued ally.
Besides, QA would be disappointed by local Valkyries if they hadn't noticed Symbie's simulator modifications by now.
Leonhart nodded, appearing utterly unsurprised. In contrast, Koujirou was confused as usual.
"Wait. I thought Perth was entirely integrated, sims included. How did Symbie improve another Valkyrie's equipment?"
No information packet from Symbie was forthcoming; the symbiotic support frame likely expected QA to be able to answer using preexisting knowledge.
"I doubt anyone tried to stop her," QA answered vaguely.
QA did not know whether Symbie was voluntarily made an authorized user or if she simply snuck her way in. As long as the UN continued to overlook unauthorized acts, however, it did not particularly matter. The uptick in obvious transmissions after her comment was of little consequence; those nearby could discuss her assertion among themselves, but as long as they didn't say anything to Queen Administrator, then she could claim ignorance.
Instructor Leonhart stared at Queen Administrator for exactly three seconds before silently turning away and entering the classroom. QA kept her features carefully neutral despite the triumph trying to turn her lips upward. That had been a clear message: Yes, we did try to stop her, but we did not succeed and will not punish you for the attempt.
…At least, she assumed that was what the silent stare had been attempting to convey. Perhaps it was instead something closer to although this is acceptable, we will be watching for anything that is not. If it was intended as a warning, however, Queen Administrator would cheerfully blame her own lack of adherence to the UN's absence of explicit communications. It would be their own fault for trying to act as though silence was in any way a suitable substitute for a detailed message.
Anna slipped into the classroom without any sort of acknowledgement. Clearly, she was pretending not to have noticed Queen Administrator or the rest of her flight in general. QA felt a pang of guilt at that. Her appreciation of Anna was supposed to be complimentary, not uncomfortable. As Anna was apparently to the point of avoiding contact due to discomfort, perhaps QA really would need to change her own behavior instead of assuming that Anna should and would learn to appreciate such compliments.
<APOLOGY.>
"Oh, shi–" Koujirou almost cursed, hastily following QA's favorite Valkyrie into the classroom.
Queen Administrator followed at a more sedate pace, forcing herself not to obviously watch Anna for even the slightest hints of a negative reaction. Obviously, at least. QA wouldn't turn Symbie's passive sensors away from the Valkyrie, and those logs could be examined later if necessary.
Similarly, those around them were not so blatant as to center their gazes on Queen Administrator. However, a statistically significant minority did conspicuously glance at Queen Administrator as she entered the room. That they were reckless enough to do so indicated that events had already gone horribly wrong. One of the primary reasons behind any shows of strength would be to ensure that she only needed to worry about larger threats and peers, such as Anna, rather than every non-host with more ambition than assessment ability.
Queen Administrator would have expected Symbie's combat tentacles to dissuade the vast majority of them. That they still chose to less-than-covertly gaze upon Queen Administrator indicated that it was not, in fact, a sufficient deterrent. Further threat displays would be necessary in order to render them sufficiently cowed as to avoid challenging her.
If Queen Administrator was forced to waste time and resources on overcoming the petty attacks of those who should be well below her, then QA would inevitably fail to match the growth of Valkyrie exemplars such as Anna. If she could not match their growth, then it could be argued that she did not understand what they were doing. If a species progressed beyond even a Monarch's understanding, QA's siblings could argue, then that species would need to be destroyed.
One of Queen Administrator's current guards, Bristle, abruptly broke from formation and approached the closest group of giggling non-hosts without even signaling its intentions to QA. Despite this lapse in communications, his siblings had begun to reform their protective formation before she had even registered the lapse.
<REMINDER,> QA pointedly sent, attaching multiple prior warnings delivered to QA regarding hostile actions against humans.
<acknowledgement.>
The content attached to Bristle's message was simultaneously reassuring and baffling. Shardspeech was supposed to provide enough information so as to render ambiguity effectively impossible even for those who might lack the context provided by prior experimentation. Bristle's message did succeed in conveying his intent to act as a distraction. Furthermore, the non-hosts near him began to focus the bulk of their attention on Bristle rather than QA in accordance with his expectations.
"Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, look at you! Are those rocket pinions? So cool!"
"You don't have toe-beans but you do have hoovsies and they're the besties–"
"Hi! Yes, hello! You're a good little pony, aren't you?"
The confusing part was that Bristle should not have been likely to take such initiative. Pegacorn-class Friends were intended to be both sentient and sapient, certainly, but they were primarily loaded with emotional support and combat modules. More importantly, their reward incentives were selected to ensure they remained content to act as Guardians. Bristle should not have considered utilizing emotional support routines in a non-standard way to distract potential foes. Not without prompting, at least one example, or the experience provided by at least a few more days of existence.
<REPORT,> Queen Administrator requested.
<history,> Bristle obligingly provided.
Queen Administrator balked at the mere size of the report. The number of Archival access requests was far in excess of any prior Guardian-category Friend of Bristle's age save Silver, who had been intended to help Anna with ongoing self-improvement. In contrast, Bristle had been meant to provide emotional support first and foremost, with combat applications as a distant second priority. Distracting potential foes to keep them at the potential stage? Not a priority.
Reviewing Bristle's report quickly proved that it wasn't merely a case of accessing whatever information seemed immediately relevant to the goal of emotional support. Such queries had occurred, but they were accompanied by requests ranging from Friend manufacturing methodology to light wavelengths to Terran genetics to human fashions to human history to Shard history to a myriad of even less purpose-relevant subjects obviously selected based on environmental stimuli.
In short, Bristle's unexpected show of initiative had been birthed by curiosity, something he was barely supposed to possess at all. For that matter, he shouldn't have had the processors to spare. The bulk of his thought should have been dedicated toward the well-being of Queen Administrator Host's body and its current operating consciousness, not on assuaging curiosity. And yet, he'd clearly completed all analyses with cycles to spare.
Plenty of processing. Too much by at least two orders of magnitude, and likely more.
<QUERY,> Queen Administrator sent to every other deployed Pegacorn save Silver, half-hoping that they'd simply found one or more methods of pooling their resources and eliminating inefficiencies.
The array of reports she received in return followed the same general trend as Bristle: they had requested some information relevant to their purpose of emotional support, yet far more that was not, and their collective searches would take Shard-level resources to properly comprehend in such a short period of time.
Queen Administrator halted at one edge of the ovoid grouping formed by Monica, Koujirou, Anna, Setsuna, and herself. It may have been rude, yet QA did not deliver a relevant greeting. Queen Administrator did not currently have access to enough generalized processing capacity to focus on the Pegacorns and Anna-adjacent social interactions at the same time. In almost every other scenario since QA had met Anna, the Valkyrie exemplar had taken priority over possible distractions. The Pegacorn situation broke this rule.
<You're all Newborns?>
<<<<<<AFFIRMATION.>>>>>>
~ ~ ~
Koujirou narrowly resisted the urge to wave one hand in front of Taylor's blank, unseeing eyes. He liked having two arms, thank you very much.
"Hey, uh—Earth to Taylor, come in please, over?"
She didn't respond. Honestly, he couldn't even be sure that she was still breathing. If Anna wasn't doing pretty much the same thing, he might be more worried, but he was starting to think high-level Valkyries were Just Like That.
