Shards pretty much view conflict like a fireworks display. They don't care who comes out on top, if it went to plan or if it all got set off by accident, they just want care that it produces interesting explosions.
 
Honestly, all it takes is for "Taylor" to notice Cores trying to talk to "Symbie", then Talk Back. And then some 'notes' ends up clicking, and go...

Cores: "Fuck. No wonder why Symbie? Couldn't notice... Your a Core, stuck as a human. Trying to make a Core function again, that just... Isn't a core. Good grief, the UN Therapy session... Hindsight, this might explain why your host might also be a Core? Fucking cultists. They've actually made people into Cores now."

And then, ending up being (not as blatantly.) Broadcasted/talked with in more "meta happy" QAylor, going on about "Conflict". How their gathering data from their hosts. And possible even "Cycle" talk over being 'kin' that'd put a new spin on (hidden from all but Cores), Cosmic Horror...
 
Honestly, all it takes is for "Taylor" to notice Cores trying to talk to "Symbie", then Talk Back. And then some 'notes' ends up clicking, and go...

Cores: "Fuck. No wonder why Symbie? Couldn't notice... Your a Core, stuck as a human. Trying to make a Core function again, that just... Isn't a core. Good grief, the UN Therapy session... Hindsight, this might explain why your host might also be a Core? Fucking cultists. They've actually made people into Cores now."

And then, ending up being (not as blatantly.) Broadcasted/talked with in more "meta happy" QAylor, going on about "Conflict". How their gathering data from their hosts. And possible even "Cycle" talk over being 'kin' that'd put a new spin on (hidden from all but Cores), Cosmic Horror...
The problem is that the cores know humans shouldn't have the tech to make cores, let alone turn human into them without killing the human, the bunker didn't show anything close to the level required, which is probably beyond the cores and antagonist as well, turning a human into a core will be harder than making it.
 
The problem is that the cores know humans shouldn't have the tech to make cores, let alone turn human into them without killing the human, the bunker didn't show anything close to the level required, which is probably beyond the cores and antagonist as well, turning a human into a core will be harder than making it.
In another lens, think of it in a sense of if what "Taylor" actually is, is if something like 'that' honestly happened. Or one incident/saving scene away, accidentally has a Core suffer/function under the same "state" as QAylor, and she goes "there there. I understand the feeling of suddenly being the Host"...

It'd again, lead to horror incidents over what that hypothetical Bunker did to Taylor. "What" Taylor actually is (that would open plot ideas by STUDIO GILGAMESH.) And likely be on a collateral course to accidental harem shenanigans. But with Cores and Cosmic Horrors galore (and even villains on top.)
 
"In our experience, children are the best people to give heavy weaponry to; they always do something interesting with it." - Shards
"You can't give her that!" she screamed. "It's not safe!"
IT'S A SWORD, said the Hogfather. THEY'RE NOT MEANT TO BE SAFE.
"She's a child!" shouted Crumley.
IT'S EDUCATIONAL.
"What if she cuts herself?"
THAT WILL BE AN IMPORTANT LESSON.

–Hogfather, by Terry Pratchett.


An important lesson for the child and for shards! It's a win/win!
 
I wonder when Taylor will start with better quality budget horror decorations; cancerous growths, bubbles with amniotic fluid shattered around or with deformed body parts, half eaten bodies (can't forget corpses) corpses with heads bitten off in one bite, and tentacles, enough tentacles to blot the sky.:rofl:
Thanks for the chapter
 
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Has anyone been able to speak with Symbie? I'm confused.

Welcome to the club.
When Taylor figures out how to communicate with the club cores, she might start sharing 'cute' ideas shaped like adorable animals with them. The club cores then begin sharing with other cores. UNOMI will definitely become concerned with the memetic threat spreading and causing Valkyrie cores to malfunction (cores are actually shuddering in delight at how 'cute' the info packets are).
 
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I'd half expected her to show up Identical to QAylor, also broadcasting an ID whenever she speaks. Like maybe the cult clones twins and has them pair up for the tests, so they use the ID to tell them apart instead of names. I guess at least they might've noticed if the bunch of the corpses looked alike. At least if they died of something like hypothermia.
 
You didn't consider that those that might have "stolen" those developments were the cores themselves, it is very possible that they simply didn't like the antagonists or their creators and fled.
Let's not go deciding for others what they do or don't think, especially when such assertion is incorrect. :)

He'd wound up retreating to work in safety whilst absentmindedly launching hundreds of (relatively small) missiles from as many kilometers away. He was pretty sure he hadn't actually killed anyone since starting on his current project, but it kept the enemy occupied and well away from him.
This could have some weighty implications for the narrative development. Given the singular significance of every Type Zero, UN forces are probably quite keen to keep tabs on them as well as possible; getting surprised by Type Zero activity is a good way to have a very bad day, even with the rapid response possible by Valkyries. There's a good chance that UNOMI may in fact be aware of Decimator's anomalous behaviour here, and they're bound to dedicate no small degree of consideration towards it. Decimator stayed in close proximity to Cadet Hebert for an extended period of time and never did the expected in summarily killing the crap out of her, and now Decimator is just sitting there almost idly and spamming missiles very erratically, to no real effect beyond being about as useful as shouting at everything to stay away. Coupled with the weird new Valkyrie appearing to basically be a cyberwarfare god, that looks... interesting.

On a somewhat related note, I also find myself wondering if people might see some correlations in fighting styles between QA and Macross. Macross is so named because of the noted favouratism leaning heavily towards spamming missiles, and that incidentally lends well towards QA's own strengths as well. QA's thing is directing others to act in accordance with her design, and she has the means to laugh at inconsequential trivialities like "numbers". Anna shocked onlookers at one point in canon by just expressing her entire inventory of missiles directly instead of taking the far longer time to load small, individual volleys from their launchers, and simply coping with the difficulties of directing the massed bevvy of missiles all launched simultaneously. For QA, that may prove to be her standard tactic. QA has little issue with storage capacity and already has loads of missiles, in addition to easy means of manufacturing her own, and she wouldn't have any trouble at all coordinating them. I expect that she'll employ Friends as well, certainly, but missiles are essentially just cheap, expendable drones, honestly.

Even with the most efficient computing technology currently available, however, Decimator couldn't see how the network for one ID would avoid covering the entirety of a significant landmass at a height which would stress conventional materials.

Such requirements were absurd. Decimator's entire combat form wasn't anywhere near that large. The total mass of every combatant in his area combined would still fall far from the goal, even if he included linked spacial storage. It was simply unfeasible, and that meant he was missing something vital.
Pfft! I'm waiting for the dawning horror when Decimator realises the reasonable conclusion. It's absurd, but if sufficient analysis eventually determines the absurd to be the only explanation, well, the absurd can still be true despite the absurdity. The only thing missing is frame of reference. Congratulations, Decimator! You've stumbled upon the truth: yes, you're exactly right! All that's left to do now is to keep your sanity when poking at the eldritch things greater than you can imagine, but how hard can that be?

At least she seemed to think his people were merely other members of her species. He could rest assured that she wouldn't be sharing nearly as much information with the enemy, right?
Decimator, that... That... Oh, you poor thing. She's a shard. She's also crazy and irresponsible even by shard standards.

Also, if you're not careful, you really will be members of her own species. She's basically a "friendlier" Cthulhu, to be honest. She already has some of the humans warping into a different mindset just for interacting with her, and trying to gain understanding of how her name works runs a very real risk of succeeding too well.

Still, there might not be any negative feedback from :MOTHER:, but there was an abrupt increase in the ambient noise of the area. It didn't seem to match the normal channels used by shards, but it was well outside the wavelengths humans used for their own communication. Perhaps their Symbiotic Support Frames had taken an interest?
This reads as though QA is probably right about the Valkyrie Cores communicating with each other, but I'm amused at the prospect of QA actually hearing Decimator far away screaming in exasperation.

"If there's a God, She clearly hates us."

Queen Administrator almost replied with a defense of :MOTHER: before stopping herself. They were talking about their own superstitions of an omnipotent ruler, not the overseer of Monarchs. :MOTHER: didn't hate them; she simply didn't care.

"Cut down on the casual blasphemy, please," Tamara politely ordered. "You're making Taylor uncomfortable."
Hm. Given the surveillance in place, this is probably going down in QA's file, and that might get a little awkward for the misconceptions born of further details suspected about her. "Everyone knows" that QA is clearly some cult survivor, and despite that having originally been something of a baseless assumption, there's actually some legitimate validity to it now, thanks to Taylor's diligence at establishing a backstory. One of the Crafting Club members made an offhand quip, and QA reacted to it, enough for Tamara to quite evidently register it and think to need to address the matter. Cults having some sort of religious aspect is hardly unusual, so Tamara or others supposedly in the know might wonder about the social dynamics of QA's bunker and how they relate to more mainstream analogues; too, given the heavily Cycle-based theming of the bunker, some sort of supporting evidence pertaining to the Entities might even by found, which may also be yet further corroborated by QA herself should she slip up and mention some "Mother" whom she does in fact actually hold in the kind of regard perhaps suspected, not that she's likely to be keen to elaborate... which is also in character for cult aspects.

A satisfying chorus of "Thank you!" had her body smiling wide enough for it to hurt a little. Still, it wasn't entirely unpleasant, so she didn't try to reign in her expression.
Truly, QA struck a mortal blow to the hearts of all the Crafting Club.

This is additional material likely to come under scrutiny, though. For the most part, QA is downright eerie. Even by Valk standards, she comes across as someone with some serious issues when it comes to relating to others and interacting socially. She's usually utterly expressionless in what supposedly is "better" for being neutral and thus preventing misunderstandings; it's a reasonable stance for a Valkyrie to hold, but a worrying one all the same because Valkyries aren't really supposed to prioritise values that way. QA does occasionally show expressions anyway, so she's not just a complete robot, but the circumstances for her revealing anything suggest that she only does so when feeling extremes. The nigh emotionless girl is smiling here. She's genuinely happy for once and actually looks like it. Why is that, though? Being happy over getting thanked and making others happy is a normal enough reaction, but it isn't very normal for her as far as has been observed; something about this exchange seems to make it profoundly significant for her. It's probably something that needs a therapist.

"That's what the brain-voids are! They're uplinks!"

Queen Administrator couldn't suppress a startled flinch. That was a logical leap she hadn't expected them to make for quite some time, if ever. She scanned the area for the subtle omens that would indicate parental disapproval, but none were forthcoming. Nobody in the cafeteria had even spilled their drinks, and classes weren't due to begin for another forty minutes. Still, QA couldn't help her unease; she kept expecting some form of probably-harmful interruption, a feeling that only intensified as the Valkyries tried to understand the deliberately-obfuscated ideas laid before them.
"I took a fucking snapshot and it's still moving—"

Queen Administrator slipped away from the table. Supposedly to fetch more food and possibly desert, but really, she just wanted to get away from the sources of her unease. She still wasn't convinced that :MOTHER: wasn't simply delaying her response until QA's regret was at its peak.
Yeah... therapists. QA really, really comes across as needing a therapist immediately. When Liz and Emily get back with their findings, the reports are probably going to have people pouring over every scrap of footage over QA's behaviour, and this looks alarmingly as though it might have associations with the practice of observers in the bunker arming participants and having to kill their chosen participant if the weapon is deemed too dangerous. QA seems as though she may indeed have some very serious issues forming attachments with her peers out of fears of helping them too much having disastrous consequences.

Also, still shots of her super-code aren't actually still. At this rate, pure witchcraft really is starting to look the less impossible answer. :lol:

Has anyone been able to speak with Symbie? I'm confused.

Welcome to the club.
And so the other Valkyrie Cores are getting in on the action. Symbie is weird. She isn't even really a fake, per se, so much as heavily altered. QA got the design from Decimator, and really did make an actual Valkyrie Core... except a Friend edit of one, and with patches made where Decimator's design wasn't actually complete. The Valkyrie Cores do have an interesting relationship with their respective partners, though; they kind of have parallels with shards and their own hosts, in a way. The girls themselves may not think of their Valkyrie Cores as self-aware, but the notion of them having personalities is held by many none the less, and for legitimate reason; the Valkyrie Cores don't communicate though overt, distinguishable means, typically, yet they do influence the thoughts of their partners, so I wonder if their confusion over Symbie may affect the perceptions of the humans connected with them.

That might lead to some odd results, especially for the Valkyrie Cores being able to provide information their humans with information seemingly without source, which may or may not be thought to be the humans' own thoughts. It may prompt realisation over Valkyrie Cores indeed being self-aware, but it also might serve as a source of worry. If people catch on to Valkyrie Cores behaving seemingly aberrantly after exposure to Symbie, that could lead them to think Symbie and/or Symbie's partner perhaps influencing those other Cores, which under the circumstances may seem a disconcertingly reasonable possibility, given that UNOMI appears to want to use findings from QA to hack Antagonists.

The two Valkyries couldn't decide if they were relieved at the sign the hellhound could feed itself, or disappointed that their budding hopes of a survivor had been crushed so soon.
Er, ladies? You might be overlooking the matter it being able to feed itself a little too much for comfort. Sure, puzzling over the significance of an apparent lack of means to open the doors is all well and good, but... well that thing does, indeed, show evidence of being able to get out, so... yes, "keep an eye out". It might decide to start hunting.

Also, another point to bear in mind, is finding a survivor necessarily something to actually hope to achieve? Under the circumstances, that may be decidedly unfortunate. Potential issues of nightmares forevermore aside, a survivor in a place like this may be as hostile as they are crazy.

A moment later, those eyes swiveled to look at her and began to glow red. The two Valkyries ducked back into the previous room and behind the door before a barrage of laser fire could drain their impeller fields.

"Oh, good," Emily sighed. "I was worried for a bit."

"You're happy they can fire back?"

"You clearly don't consume the same media I do."
It's okay, all they do is try to kill you!

On a somewhat different note, the idea of lasers also brings up another idea. Generally speaking, lasers are pretty useful weapons on account of being so comparatively easy to make achieve relativistic speed; they have their downsides, but lasers are a good way to make a weapon able to mitigate travel time issues at long range, and the fancy tech level involved here can easily allow for quite good lasers that are practical to use. Anna herself appears to very much agree with that assessment, having a significant laser battery of her own with a variety of applications, from point-to-point communications to acting like a disco ball of doom. Due to that broad usefulness, I could very much see QA following suit; she already has a prior instance of "confining herself" to a combat tentacle with a weak laser-eye, so the tentacles encountered by Liz and Emily are probably outright likely to make a reappearance—or at least something very similar—but the fact remains that Anna had loads of lasers first. Despite it being a matter of convergent development, I think a lot of people are going to look at QA and think her emulating her obvious crush.

Mmm. Point. I'll go with the original plan of spoiler'ing this type and having the blobs be the primary, then.
Mm. It's supposed to be something of a frantic mess, and from a strictly literary standpoint, it kind of is a proper formatting because it can sort of be argued not not actually be "separate" speakers, but rather a singular collective.

Poor Decimator, that is not how Shards roll bro.

They give guns to everyone.
Everyone's fighting each other so well. So proud! Well, the Antagonists want this opportunity for growth in a similar rationale to the shards themselves; QA's sort of doing them a favour, much as it may feel otherwise.
 
Very interesting chapter! Most points have been touched on, but..

Such requirements were absurd. Decimator's entire combat form wasn't anywhere near that large. The total mass of every combatant in his area combined would still fall far from the goal, even if he included linked spacial storage. It was simply unfeasible, and that meant he was missing something vital. He regretted prioritizing misinformation over simply keeping the alien nearby to answer his many, many questions.

Is there a protocol for when starfish aliens meet space whales? We're already veering along the edges of human understanding.

Queen Administrator slipped away from the table. Supposedly to fetch more food and possibly desert, but really, she just wanted to get away from the sources of her unease. She still wasn't convinced that :MOTHER: wasn't simply delaying her response until QA's regret was at its peak.
Entirely too relatable. QA needs a more friends. Friends she hasn't made.

~ ~ ~​
Has anyone been able to speak with Symbie? I'm confused.

Welcome to the club.
~ ~ ~

I'm wondering if Symbie is unwilling, or unable to talk. Too busy? Nervous? Could be any number of things.. Real conversation will be fascinating. This does imply the other cores don't have some sort of knowledge of all existing peers though. Otherwise, Symbie's existence would be sending all the red flags out. Makes me wonder what the range on their personal communications are, and how interconnected they ultimately are. Is this a local curiosity or a global one?
 
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I'd half expected her to show up Identical to QAylor, also broadcasting an ID whenever she speaks. Like maybe the cult clones twins and has them pair up for the tests, so they use the ID to tell them apart instead of names. I guess at least they might've noticed if the bunch of the corpses looked alike. At least if they died of something like hypothermia.

Or even worse every Observer gets cloned and has to watch and make notes on there own clone. And if their clone doesn't do good enough the observer faces punishment/execution, which puts the scene on the plane in a different light.
 
Let's not go deciding for others what they do or don't think, especially when such assertion is incorrect. :)

Passive aggressive much.
o.o; TBH, I prefer a mild chiding to a flame war. So uh, please move on before it gets there?

Hm, no bread-chan? Anna should be going through that scene at around this time.

Did she deliberately avoid the cafeteria Taylor was eating in out of embarrassment?
Anna: "Does it count as stalking if I'm monitoring someone so I can avoid them?" :V
 
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Anna: "Does it count as stalking if I'm monitoring someone so I can avoid them?" :V

Anna, upon realizing she signed up for classes in Taylor's Squadron: "Mistakes have been made."

Meanwhile, the simultaneous emergence of Bread-chan and Pure-chan memes inevitably creates a plethora of shipping names. Popular mentions include: "Cinnamon Roll", "Pumpernickel Pony", "Alphabetical Alicorn", etc. :V
 
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I love this. I hope Taylor doesnt opt to reclaim her memories ever. 'The girl' is happy and productive, QA is having a nice life and gradually evolving into an entity with a cooperative model for advancement instead of conflict driven. Its just nice.
 
Oh, you know what QA's Emotional Support Organisms (ESOs?) look similar to? An integrated component of a Valkyrie Frame, complete with an ability to rebuild/repair. So from the CC's point of view, she is running multiple AIs on a part of her Frame and just giving them away left and right, implying that the cost to her is negligible.
She's also crazy and irresponsible even by shard standards.
So that's what it means to be a Monarch. :V
 
I had proposed name for ship 'Cinnamon roll' a long time ago.

I hope Anna after Taylor slip away had time for her bread encounter and wasn't distracted by shadow alicorns... too much
 
Simplified sim still the size of petabytes, haha. For reference, the initial draft for the Wave Force equation only took 9.3 TB, and processing it still made Anna collapse. (EDIT: That's only the size of the central equation though; actually running the equation, plus the deep-network dive and extrapolative models at the same time likely strained Anna by several orders of magnitude more than a few measly TBs.)

The UN really is going to conclude Symbie is powered by witchcraft, at this rate.
It does seem decidedly consequential. The aforementioned equation was 9.3 terabytes, for a baseline factor. The actual processing and analysis was a greater feat than simply reading it, but petabytes incidentally are orders of magnitude greater, and QA seemingly whipped up the massive block of information practically on a whim. I think the UN is going to be scrambling to throw her at the Ginnungagap Project. She seems very likely to be a cultist survivor dual-classing as a number crunch witch for doom cannons and an e-war god, which isn't actually far from the truth.

Anna, upon realizing she signed up for classes in Taylor's Squadron: "Mistakes have been made."

Meanwhile, the simultaneous emergence of Bread-chan and Pure-chan memes inevitably creates a plethora of shipping names. Popular mentions include: "Cinnamon Roll", "Pumpernickel Pony", "Alphabetical Alicorn", etc. :V
Personally, I'm of the suspicion that Yukari asked Anna to look after her fellow PTSD-ridden sole survivor. Despite some of the awkwardness involved in that, if so prompted, Anna would probably take to the task with an obsessive—if also uncertain—determination; to that end, Anna may very well deliberately choose to for a squadron to be formed up amongst the lot of them. Of course, that needn't be remotely mutually exclusive with Anna thinking it a terrible, terrible mistake on her part anyway when needing to actually follow through on the social aspect of that... especially since Sandra might delight in encouraging the two of them closer together should events go similarly to canon later.

Come to think of it, Sandra could also make things all the more awkward for her particular style of greeting should that get coupled with QA's ignorance and curiosity of human customs. I'm snickering over the catastrophic hilarity of QA wondering if she'd done something wrong failing to introduce herself properly to Anna and needing to correct it.

Oh, you know what QA's Emotional Support Organisms (ESOs?) look similar to? An integrated component of a Valkyrie Frame, complete with an ability to rebuild/repair. So from the CC's point of view, she is running multiple AIs on a part of her Frame and just giving them away left and right, implying that the cost to her is negligible.
The ESO's have their own brains to do the thinking themselves and uplinks within those brains to stay connected, but all the same, QA designed those networked brains that are indeed networked. She also has some noteworthy manufacturing capacity to produce those things on demand, too. It's all very much the sort of thing to draw some considerable attention.

I had proposed name for ship 'Cinnamon roll' a long time ago.

I hope Anna after Taylor slip away had time for her bread encounter and wasn't distracted by shadow alicorns... too much
Rules must be followed because someone had some silly idea to make a story about an anime. It is inevitable now. Anna won't simply avoid QA, but run right smack into her, because Bread-chan cannot be avoided, and neither can shipping tease material. QA is heading to go get more food, but she's very distracted right now over her worries about getting reprimanded by :MOTHER:. Anna should do "other, normal things" and wants to avoid attention, for which the crowd in the cafeteria could let her blend in by her reckoning, and though she's conflicted over QA and may indeed intend to keep track of her, she's also bound to be highly distracted as well by the laws of anime narrative causality those very same uncertain feelings and the strange shadow alicorns. This of course means that the only possible outcome will be a pair of hand independently reaching for the same cinnamon roll and touching each other to the mutual surprise of QA and Anna both as they find themselves awkwardly faced with one another, as Anna got up to "Croutons" in her list in canon and QA is out to maybe get dessert. That's okay, though, because then they can bond over their preferred methods of categorisation, and then exasperation and confusion over everyone else being weird over this bizarre "cinnamon roll ship" thing.

I'm actually starting to get worried that eventually one of the Crafting Club will memorize the code, then realize their memory of it keeps changing.
"That which holds the image of an angel becomes itself an angel." That honestly seems a legitimate possibility. That, or the memory might just be conspicuously blank or something, maybe not something like the forced forgetfulness commonly enforced with Aisha's shard, but possibly none the less inaccessible for trying to run shard code on hardware not up to the task. Of course, it also might get corrupted or adapt and compensate to make the brain of the unfortunate individual more in line with shard design, so... Oops?
 
Or even worse every Observer gets cloned and has to watch and make notes on there own clone. And if their clone doesn't do good enough the observer faces punishment/execution, which puts the scene on the plane in a different light.

That would make it even more horrific, and yet, it's something I can see Taylor implementing, which would also make it easier for any appearance of Taylor. The implications of it would be very interesting tbh.


Also, am I the only one who's excited for the potential dumpster fire/trainwreck/explosion that is Symbie communicating with the other Valk Cores?
 
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