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.
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.