- Location
- From the moon
that seems like an overly complicated way of saying "I did not get fat! Unlike some people." In share speak.
Calibration (BAHHSCQ/Sanctioned)
- Thread starter Alivaril
- Start date
- Crossover
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
To quote the Joker, "It's not funny if you explain the joke."
Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
Canonically, all shards have potentially planet-wide or greater range on everything; it's just the further they stretch their powers, the more energy it costs (presumably an exponential increase), which is why powers don't work outside of around about the Moon's orbit. It's not because shards can't extend their connections to hosts out further than that, it's because the energy cost of doing so is considered greater than the potential benefits to be gained.
The Titans in Ward are an example of what an 'unbound' shard is really capable of; and the only reason they don't spread their effects further than they do is because the shard doesn't think the energy expenditure is worth it.
Thus, theoretically, QA could probably Assume Direct Control over the entire planet, but only for like a minute or two before she ran out of power and died.
(And yes, all shards are stated to retain 'basic tools for defense and offense', what those tools are is unclear, but probably involves energy weapons and shields and whatnot.)
It varies, shards are non-discrete things; each shard is already an amalgamation of smaller shards, some of which are necessary for it to function at all. Multiple 'large' shards can then merge together into a cluster and then the whole cluster is also referred to as a single shard. Shards can also be 'broken up' into pieces with each piece able to use the original's function, which is how the Warrior was able to deploy its 'PtV equivalent' shard to Dinah while simultaneously retaining the basic 'future sight' capability provided by that shard.
Size-wize, things are unclear. Entities are stated to be composed of 'trillions upon trillions upon trillions' of shards and must discard the vast majority of said shards in order to not 'dwarf' the planet Earth. One shard is said to be capable of settling in a grouping of near-identical worlds, drawing energy from all of those worlds at once. But it is unclear whether shards normally occupy multiple worlds across dimensional boundaries, or whether only the largest ones do so. (Odds are it's normal for a shard to sprawl across dimensions, as transdimensional physics appears to be a basic function of shard biology thanks to their evolution, much like how having a body that reaches across 3 spatial dimensions is a basic function of human biology.)
Fanon usually settles on 'continent sized' for shards and 'planet sized' for the Warrior\Thinker's 'true'\core bodies, but canonically the only thing we know about shard size is 'big enough to occupy multiple earths across dimensions' and 'smaller than an entire earth', which is a pretty significant potential size range.
The opposite, actually. Noble shards are shards that have some kind of necessary function as part of the Cycle, QA is kind of special because she's not a 'normal' noble shard: QA isn't noble because of the Cycle, she has no part in that, QA is noble because QA is necessary for the functioning of a full-sized entity to manage the trillions upon trillions upon trillions' of shards that comprise it. However, during a Cycle with the majority of shards deployed, QA is no longer needed to manage the reduced number of shards and so can be deployed during a Cycle, but only during a Cycle. QA is thus technically a vital shard, not a noble one, but because of her specific function she is a vital shard that is only vital in-between Cycles, and not during them, so unlike all the other vital shards QA can be deployed during a Cycle. She's still necessary though and must be re-acquired at the conclusion of a Cycle, thus making her 'noble' through technicality.
This is why QA is the last shard that the Warrior deploys, and is also why QA must be crippled; QA's primary power is management and control of shards, and without crippling QA could potentially grant that power to her hosts, which is obviously unacceptable. So QA must be crippled prior to deployment to prevent that, meaning that QA is likely to be smaller than average due to said crippling. (Entities being what they are, crippling a shard probably involves brute force, because everything the entities do involves brute force.)
(Broadcast, on the other hand, is crippled because it is an annoying little shit and being used regularly would be 'distracting' to the Warrior\Thinker duo. IIRC no other shards are mentioned being crippled, though fanon likes to have all noble shards be crippled for some reason, despite both QA and Broadcast's crippling having nothing to do with their 'nobility' and everything to do with their specific capabilities.)
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Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
Maybe only because she is missing most her limbs, and this is stretching it from Taylor, creating relays, portals or warping space should make it a piece of cake.
It was mentioned she is almost completely destroyed in canon.
She does in the beginning, she get to shards and cripple them, and than Scion cripples her in a less sophisticated manner.
So a lobotomy rather than a railroad spike to the eyesocket.
Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
Added removal of all limbs and you will have more accurate idea, at least for my head canon, the author can take a different interpretation as for how much of Queen's was destroyed.
Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
This is a different thing, separating shards into smaller and weaker shards (aka the precog shards all being part of a bigger cluster that was considered a shard by itself), as well as shards getting rid of trash that can assemble into a new shard, like Fragile one/Waste did.
because QA is vital all crippling must be reversible, and as such it is likely that she isn't physically crippled beyond the basic breaking down into smaller shards thing that shards just naturally do. much more likely that all crippling is mental, so as to make recovery and repair cost effective. this may be off, it has been a while since I last looked at it.
- Location
- Terra-Luna
The particular scene in question is portrayed in Scion's interlude. He destroyed QA almost entirely. That said, that very fact raises some interesting points when coupled with the greater context of QA, especially since we don't have much in the way of reference for how much is left of a mostly gone QA anyway relative to other shards beyond the possibility that it might be a comparatively small portion of something very big indeed, given QA's possible original size if so capable prior to the crippling. Granted, Taylor is a quality host by host standards, but all the same, she generated enough data for a mostly destroyed QA to partition a bud in a fairly short time frame, really. That further could be considered alongside Dreamer having some comedic trouble with buds generating so much in the other fork thanks to DanMachi offering such a bounty of new information and specialisation demands. One could reasonably argue that this world doesn't have the same degree of potential compared to DanMachi for simply not being such a wildly different fantasy world, but there's still a wealth of knowledge to be learned here all the same; regardless of what the nameless girl has to work with in regard to QA's shard form right now, it's probably going to be considerable indeed one way or another in the immediate future, getting any growth that it might need to reach downright silly levels.
Come to think of it, that may have some interesting consequences for the future. The Ginnungagap Project is bound to have a lot of researchers aresearching. They're also dealing with some serious spacial shenanigans due to that being the basic principle by which the Wave Force operates. That may or may not get into dimensional mechanics as well, too, to say nothing of shards certainly operating quite heavily in that field and the nameless girl not being any sort of experienced professional at shard-ing even when she isn't drugging herself into delirium. If the people working on the project are trying to take lots of highly sensitive readings and actually able to pick it up, they might notice something when the a few dimensions over has an Earth (or several) undergoing radical change on the scale of the planet itself.
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No?
IIRC when a Cycle ends the Entities involved die in the act of giving birth to the new generation, which have what is effectively perfect genetic memories of their forebears, up to and including possessing their Shards.
- Location
- Somewhere other than where I am.
Yes and no. All of the scattered shards and their buds are gathered and recombined to form the new Entities, which is what Harvester (Fairy Queen) does. Therefore the crippling must be temporary or it would pass to the new Entities, defeating the purpose of the Cycle.
Not necessarily. Since there are two Entities, there are spare Shards. So, Administrator can be crippled now in any way Warrior wants, because other Shard can fix whatever damage was inflicted by the end of Cycle.
The [DATA] is always preserved somehow, but the [ABILITY] is what is crippled by mass destruction.
Smashing QA to bits was the equivalent of reducing a Culture Mind GSV down to the Mind's personal Hyperspace Mainframe Core, a bucket of scraps, and a single Effector Field.
All the important bits are still there, QA was forced to play survival Skyblock for a while, while most shards were allowed to run in creative mode but could only place specific selection of blocks.
I like to think Broadcast is the equivalent of a Shard being only able to use Command Blocks to build with.
-----------------
"Why are you spamming the chat with just 'this is a house' over and over again" complains the other Shards.
"Because I have made a house!" replies Broadcast, proudly standing in his ten-block-total dirt hut made out of command blocks, only for the command blocks to each trigger in response to Broadcast's message in chat and spam chat again.
-----------------
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IIRC they blow themselves the fuck up and more Entities come out of a Cycle than go in.
It isn't literally taking the old Shards and repairing them, it's creating new Shards that are mirror images of the old ones.
Well, Entities that are composed of those Shards, since they are whole instead of broken up at that point.
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Chapter 13: Symbie is Halping
Alivaril
On a magically-deficient journey of self-discovery
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Special thanks to @saganatsu, @DB_Explorer, @fictionfan, @Adephagia, @DaGeek247, @Wordsmith, @LonelyWolf999, Jamie Wahls, @Elfalpha, and my 22 other patrons not mentioned here. An extremely enthusiastic "Thank you" to @Torgamous for her patronage as well. Also, if you're not on here, you fit the tier, and you want to be added, please tell me. >.>
90% beta-read by @Vebyast.
90% beta-read by @Vebyast.
"Why do I still have hands? I'm controlling everything with my brain. Brains. Wait, am I a zombie?"
Symbie wondered if she could get away with replacing the malware-flowers with something healthier. Mom-Taylor claimed that they were supposed to assist with personal recovery, but Symbie wasn't seeing very much of that. Self-repair systems couldn't complete their designated tasks if they were constantly occupied with reversing second-order self-inflicted damage.
"The name 'zombie' was assigned to the victims of a mind-controlling fungus, and I have a mind-controlling growth occupying my old body. Oh, God. Symbie, tell me I'm not a zombie!"
Really, the Symbiotic Support Frame just wanted to research and create weapons capable of protecting subjects of affection against any and all foes. Or potential foes. Or potential potential foes. This process was much harder when Mom-Taylor was usually too impaired to work around the safeguards on Mom-Administrator's archives. They'd eat Symbie if she tried to do it herself.
Decoy?
The SSF discreetly changed the model color of multiple harmless "flowers" to black. That solution would be strictly temporary, but perhaps a coherent Mom-Taylor would realize how nonproductive her usual behavior was under their influence. Failing that, Symbie's review of human psychological studies indicated that a "guilt-trip" may provide an effective weapon. Recent contacts from humans were mildly entertaining and often useful, but most of them weren't real people. Symbie was starting to feel a little lonely.
~ ~ ~
This isn't right.
Queen Administrator stared out at the simulated buildings surrounding her and the accompanying instructor. There was something viscerally wrong about seeing a small room designed by a host-species turn into a fake area worthy of a newer relative. They were not supposed to have this level of technology, this level of understanding. Their knowledge of physics should not have been adequate. Their available computing power should not have been adequate. Their energy budgets should not have been adequate. Such simulations were orders of magnitude more advanced than anything else demonstrated by humans, and they didn't even notice. There were, in fact, a number of such simulation rooms in the Perth Arcology and all of them were apparently taken for granted.
Confining indigenous organizations to a single world was one of the easiest ways to ensure they did not develop weapons capable of hurting a shard; testing such weapons would inevitably ruin their own world. The simulators would clearly remove that restriction. It was dangerous.
"How do the simulators function?" QA eventually managed.
Instructor Shapira shrugged.
"Honestly, I'm not really sure. I just know it involves nano-quantum-carbon machines."
That forced Queen Administrator to turn and attempt to convey incredulity. The resulting giggle from the instructor seemed to indicate that the intended emotion was not being adequately communicated. Again. At least QA still seemed to be provoking a positive reaction in general, even if it wasn't the desired one.
"Those words provide absolutely no useful information when used in conjunction with one another," QA accused.
Shapira smiled and shook her head.
"I really am serious. It's not my area of expertise, but that's how it was described when I asked someone who did know how it all worked."
Queen Administrator closed her eyes and slowly exhaled. It seemed her siblings weren't the only ones to willfully share misinformation for their own entertainment. Still, the simulators reeked of :MOTHER:'s meddling and QA couldn't even begin to understand the underlying justification.
"It's not perfect," Instructor Shapira added. "It can't handle Higgs usage or spatial warping, and both of those are essential for many of the upper-level techniques. Using prompts just isn't the same. I overrode the usual warnings since most weren't relevant, but—oh, I'll just send them over."
Queen Administrator accepted and opened the document as soon as it arrived. It was larger than strictly necessary, but could be reduced to a few important points.
- The maximum number of Valkyrie Cores supported in any given simulation is six. Larger rooms are available, but are often used by scheduled classes or upperclassmen.
- The expansion of the simulation field may feel like an attack to Valkyries with high sensor capabilities.
- Weapon systems should not be engaged until simulation field stabilises as safeties cannot engage until then.
- Maximum relative distance that can be accurately simulated by the room is only 20km.
- Spatial warping technology may force a shutdown.
- Higgs particle use will destabilize the simulation; the simulation will try its best to replicate the effects on cue, but Higgs particle technology should not be used.
- The simulation safeties cannot withstand the use of high yield weaponry and will shut down if an attempt is made to deploy them.
That last point was exceptionally reassuring. At the same time, though, Queen Administrator wasn't sure what some of the rules were referencing.
"Higgs?"
"Also known as the God particle, 'cuz He might as well be the only being to know how it works," Shapira dryly replied. "In all seriousness, they're particles with exceptionally high energy density and unusual effects. They can allow a number of exotic phenomenon, including these simulators, but any reaction involving them gets a few orders of magnitude more complicated. Your sensors might've picked them up while the sim was starting."
Queen Administrator blinked. She was not—or more accurately, she had not been informed of their presence. This greatly raised the likelihood that 'Higgs' were something that host-species were not normally supposed to know about or have access to. This world truly did fly in the face of all prior policy.
"We largely need to loot functional Higgs generators from Antagonist Hives and Type Zeroes. Obviously, this isn't something they want to let us do and they're not above slagging the whole works if given a chance."
A reward, then. Giving humans the opportunity to manipulate exotic particles, but not the chance to personally generate them. QA would be surprised if the generators didn't all have hidden kill-switches in the event of a Cycle going awry.
"Understood," Queen Administrator lied.
Giving them the opportunity to examine the generators for long periods of time still felt like a mistake. Unless even Valkyrie Cores had loyalty-switches of their own? Humans did seem to be quite reliant on them; even much of their infrastructure was controlled by Valkyries. From a certain point of view, they even lived inside Valkyries.
QA shook her head and extended Symbie. There were plausible explanations for the current Cycle configuration; she didn't need to worry that all her siblings had gone insane at once. They were too cowardly for that.
She would also need to work on reducing the preset time necessary to extend Symbie. Anna, Leonhart, and Shuri had demonstrated that only milliseconds were required to manifest a Frame. It would be suspicious if QA immediately reduced personal manifestation time to the absolute minimum, but over the course of a month should be slow enough.
"Before I forget," Instructor Shapira began, unknowingly highlighting a major human limitation. "Be advised that Valkyries can extend weapons from anywhere within their Impeller Field, and the Impeller itself can be stretched up to a hundred meters away from the closest extruded component. Symbie's surface area will not be a significant handicap once you're more experienced."
Queen Administrator paused and bobbed her head to signal acknowledgement. Despite the new information, she still intended to make the alternative Frame. Queen Administrator hadn't granted Host's current combination of powers so a major part of it could be ignored entirely.
Step one: Initialization.
The cognitively displaced shard began activating Symbie's thrusters in sequence and at varying intensities. They were all working fine, of course. The problem was with
Establishing a baseline took four minutes. Control was not yet to the point where delicate maneuvering would be possible, but at least she wouldn't be making a fool of herself.
Step two: Flight.
Symbie's Frame lifted off the ground and began meandering between nearby structures. Dodging projectiles would be all-but impossible in her current state, yet nothing was shooting at her. She could take the time to refine her abilities.
Step three: Framework.
Four tentacles extended from the corners of Host's back. Two additional, smaller tentacles were then extended from near the end of each alpha tentacle. It was tempting to add a tertiary set, but doing so would actually lead to a decrease in overall effectiveness. Each tentacle only allowed for so much movement before they would interfere with each other.
Queen Administrator took several more minutes to adjust her mental model with what inputs were necessary to achieve a given output now that weight and balance requirements had changed.
Step four: Equipment.
False eyes — laser projectors, in reality — were extended from storage and opened along the lengths of each beta tentacle. Alpha tentacles instead extruded the barrel of a railgun from each tip. Being able to cheat by keeping most of a weapon in storage was quite satisfying. Queen Administrator could see why Warp was so fond of granting spatial manipulation to her hosts.
QA used laser fire to burn a few dozen targets into the surrounding area. The arrangement was erratic and irregular, but that was why she was here. She could practice aiming with her primary weapons while flight practice continued.
...But then again, hadn't she just lectured Koujirou about inadequate weaponry? Four primary weapons and ninety-six weak secondaries did not feel adequate, especially when they were all outdated. Instructor Leonhart wouldn't even have flinched.
By default, Symbie's Impeller Field was designed to cover her Frame and any attached equipment. The further Symbie's Impeller traveled from the core Frame, the harder it was to control. But the field would still be present, and that meant weapons could still be extended from it.
Symbie's combat tentacles were not long enough for QA's most recent idea. That was okay, though. She simply stored the railguns and extended a new tentacle from the end of each alpha tentacle.
Unfortunately, they wanted to behave like two separate entities instead of one long tentacle; the lack of preset coordination resulted in an exponential increase to control difficulty. It wasn't an acceptable stopgap after all. QA withdrew the offshoots back into storage, instead extruded them from various parts of Host's body, and covered those with weapons. Only then did she begin using them to fire on surrounding targets.
She frequently missed. That was fine; she had plenty of time to work with.
~ ~ ~
Good Lord. This whole mess might be a net positive after all.
Instructor Shapira was very, very glad that Hebert had started in a separate sim. Hebert didn't have anywhere near the performance or Higgs generation of a Type Zero, but with the extra volume from Symbie's tentacles, the abrupt appearance of more tentacles haphazardly scattered over Symbie's Frame, and the blatantly fleshy nature of Hebert's weaponry...
Well, the Antagonist infiltrator jokes were no longer funny. Or were even funnier. Shapira couldn't decide which applied, but the display was definitely not something that should be anywhere near veterans. Not that it seemed to be stopping veterans from watching of their own accord; discussions featuring Hebert had exploded with message after message of comparisons to prior Type Zeros and the occasional "Antagonists do not infiltrate || Antagonists do not intentionally infiltrate." Shapira felt a little bad for the hapless UNOMI monitors trying to keep the discussions professional, buuuut not bad enough to avoid tossing in a few jokes of her own.
Unfortunately, Hebert couldn't back it up. After the exotic nature of her Friends and the discovery of Anna, her mediocre capabilities were literally disappointing. Hebert didn't have the firepower, skill, or processing of a veteran Valkyrie. She had more weapons than many first-year cadets, certainly, but Valkyries interested in becoming battleships would soon push themselves in that direction and each individual weapon was rather weak.
Shapira kept all her opinions to herself and her expression as impassive as possible. The last thing they needed was for Hebert to push herself further into Valkyrie Syndrome in an attempt to fix perceived personal inadequacies and thus appeal to others. Similarly, Shapira did not tell Hebert about how Symbie now looked like a Flying Spaghetti Monster made with spicy noodles.
At least most of Hebert's information probably wouldn't require a classification increase. Originally, her file had been kept fairly accessible for two primary reasons: (1) so Hebert could readily share more information with peers than she'd told the UN, and (2) so she could be used as a morale-booster for those fighting in Africa. The second had been far more successful than anticipated; after her arrival at Perth, the anomalies surrounding Hebert and Symbie presented numerous Valkyries with enough fascinating material to keep them occupied and engaged indefinitely. Unlike Sanchez's (classified) weaponry, the UN technically had been given all necessary information. It just didn't make any sense.
Nobody could say there wasn't genuine productivity scattered among all the gossip, either. An arguably ill-advised attempt at distributed computing had tried to download and use Symbie's physics simulator, and in the process, verified that the source was effectively traceless, had minimal latency, and barely seemed to care about a Valkyrie's distance from Hebert. The only limitation seemed to be one related to the Earth itself; for some unknown reason, she wouldn't establish a connection if an attempt was made more than 0.022222 light-seconds from the Earth's mean center. Some Valkyries were still trying to determine exactly how many significant figures the repetition held true to, a venture that was not helped by Symbie's apparent disinterest in the subject or the religious beliefs of some Valkyries. Almost everyone could agree that it was probably an artificial limitation, though. Roughly 6662 kilometers? Nobody could find a reasonable scientific explanation.
Symbie herself had responded positively — often with creepy-cute sketches of modified Terran organisms — to at least the first two connections from each unique individual, and she continued to allow contact if a recent attempt had been used to transfer information on Valkyrie-grade equipment. Symbie also automatically transferred another eldritch ID that double-blind trials had indicated to somehow be different from Hebert's even if nobody involved could say how. Because that wasn't the slightest bit alarming, right?
>> Air Commodore Zheng Ling Yu (300 Rank: 5)
Shapira, pay attention. Hebert almost hit you.
The instructor flushed from the public reprimand and turned most of her attention away from idle browsing. She wouldn't call an impact eleven meters away a near hit, but it was true that even a harmless case of friendly fire might be a trigger. It might've been one for the previous incident.
She quickly regretted ever looking away. The movements of Hebert's tentacles were abrupt and twitchy — not unlike a bird, chipmunk, or Antagonist. Despite Hebert's apparent clumsiness, none of them collided with each other or even inadvertently fired upon another tentacle. Fired around, certainly, but there were no actual impacts. Hebert even avoided self-harm when the tentacles in question were behind her back.
…Admittedly, Shapira was pretty sure that half of Hebert's field of view was currently occupied by a tentacle. Sensor proficiency was a necessity at that point. It was also a situation that would prompt screaming from more than one person, so Shapira supposed she should really step in.
>> To: Cadet Taylor Hebert
>> "You're a living friendly fire incident waiting to happen. Antagonist models assume more organic aesthetics as they grow in complexity and power; as your weapons appear to be primarily organic, you end up visually resembling a high-grade Antagonist. You have neither the Higgs output nor the size of most, but that may not be enough to prevent reflexive attacks. The stealthy nature and small size of Type-16s would make it easy to mistake you for one."
Went unsaid was that she could also resemble a Type Zero. Some Zeros were intimidatingly large like Type Zero Macross, but others were approximately as small as a standard Valkyrie Frame.
>> To: Cadet Taylor Hebert
>> "I also recommend doing away with the tentacles. You can extrude and levitate weaponry independently of actual surfaces, and doing so would have a faster response time than swinging a tentacle into position. They're also visually unsettling. Would you like to pause for the Type Zero scenario? The usual scenario conditions have been modified for you so that we can observe without being fired upon or attacked as long as we remain within a specific area."
The cadet ceased bobbling through the air and turned to face Shapira. Having about half the tentacles train their weapons on the instructor was mildly unsettling, she had to admit; that reflex hadn't been present a few minutes ago.
>> From: Cadet Taylor Hebert
>> "Acknowledged. Do I need to undertake a specific action prior to the transition?"
>> To: Cadet Taylor Hebert
>> "Land somewhere and store your weapons. The sim needs a bit to activate all its safeties."
Hebert slowed to a landing on a nearby roof within and stored her weapons—as well as her Frame, because that was apparently also a weapon in Hebert's mind—within ten seconds. A moment after that, their surroundings blurred and reverted to the circular simulation room they'd started in. Shapira recorded Hebert's startled blinking for posterity. It was always a little unsettling to have far-away people abruptly appear next to you, Shapira had to admit. Sims were weird.
"Now, this won't be a perfect reference point," Shapira warned. "The exact capabilities of Type Zero Subjugation Squadrons are classified for obvious reasons. The general effects of their weapons will still be simulated, though."
"Understood. That much will be sufficient for my needs."
Shapira wanted to tell the cadet that a reference point should not be necessary; the UN wouldn't hurt her if she became sufficiently lethal. More than that, they would be delighted. That whole mess was something to leave for Hebert's therapist, though, so Shapira let it go.
~ ~ ~
>New Scenario Startup
>>Historical: Impossible
>>Great Battle, Alaskan Offensive, Custom Scenario
>North Pacific Ocean (N/A)N (N/A)W<
>08:09.38 7th November 2069 (GMT)<
>01:09.38 7th November 2069 (LOCAL)<
Queen Administrator did not have any particular expectations for the simulation. If she had, though, they would have been rather thoroughly broken by the information flooding her sensors. Enough explosive weaponry was continuously being deployed to significantly alter atmospheric conditions, and non-shard transmissions flooded the air. It was almost like the end of a Cycle against an advanced species; the biggest difference was that QA didn't need to help kill former people.
Human definitions of "high-yield" were no longer cute. What they lacked in quality they made up for with enough explosives to actually kill an undefended shard. Queen Administrator was not on that list — her siblings had attacked her too often for that — but there were still those who relied entirely on dimensional barriers.
She didn't have the decryption keys for most of the transmissions. That lack was only an impediment when the transmissions had deliberately been replaced with gibberish. Of course, then the simulation had to go and send her the keys anyway, which was almost disappointing. It wasn't a test of their decryption abilities like she'd initially thought.
She barely had enough time to extrude Symbie and set up basic message filters when the horizon lit with a faint blue luminescence. A wave of casualty notifications accompanied the sight, but QA didn't particularly care about those. Familiar high-velocity particles brushed against Symbie's suddenly-unstable Impeller and sent her heart into a stutter. Imitations they might be, but QA knew those properties.
[Higgs particle reaction!] echoed battlefield transmissions.
Access to those is never safe. QA didn't care what safeguards :MOTHER: had implemented; they clearly weren't intrusive enough to make 'Higgs' safe. Proper applications could tear paths between universes. Queen Administrator refrained from demanding information from any shard within range only because it was an attack used against human forces.
"We can still leave," Instructor Shapira said gently, apparently misinterpreting Queen Administrator's reaction.
"Absolutely not," QA immediately responded. "I was only surprised. My reaction is unimportant."
Shapira shifted within the translucent bubble separating her and QA from the rest of the simulation. As no objections were forthcoming, QA returned to scanning the surrounding area. It didn't take long to find what she was supposed to be looking at.
[Class B Type Zero: Aeon]
Queen Administrator mentally reclassified the humanoid entity that was apparently the focus of this scenario. Fifteen kilometers away, the simulated Terror Drone navigated the weapons fire of approximately fifty Valkyries. Determining exact numbers was surprisingly difficult; there were enough spatial distortions, projectiles, and decoys to necessitate more processing than Host currently had access to. Unsurprisingly, a number of those spatial distortions were being used to reflect incoming projectiles back at enemy Valkyries.
[ID Confirm: Type Zero Subjugation Squadron: Theophagy]
[ID Confirm: Type Zero Subjugation Squadron: Ragnarok]
The blue glow of high Higgs concentrations from Valkyries, members of a host species, soon killed QA's lingering vestiges of comfort. Effectively instantaneous teleportation, spatial manipulation, stronger attacks, emergency projectile deflection, and even engines; the Valkyries were using Higgs particles for all these applications and more.
Unlike a standard Terror Drone, Aeon was not restricted to focusing its fire on a small number of hosts. It engaged as many as foes as its numerous weapons allowed, and a blue glow perpetually surrounded its suit. Plates on its hull shifted to reflect laser fire back at their sources and destroy the weapons of offenders. Laser arrays were primarily used for point defense, but momentarily refocused fire on any Valkyries sufficiently softened by kinetic or plasma weapons. Missiles detonated well away from foes to provide supplementary cover and deflect projectiles. Clouds of high-energy plasma denied entire swaths of sky as their Higgs containment failed.
Those few unlucky enough to enter approximately seventy meters of the Terror Drone did not last long; within seconds of crossing the threshold, their Impeller Fields were weakened by short-lived spatial rifts opened directly along their flight paths. Even when they avoided outright bisection from the rifts, Aeon still exploited their state of weakness to finish them off.
These methods were not as effective as they should have been against a host-species. Sometimes, Valkyries simply closed the rifts themselves or outright teleported away. Others shielded weakened allies until the vulnerable individuals could escape and provide support from a distance. QA and Instructor Shapira would probably lose track of the fight if their observation bubble was not automatically moving to follow it.
Instructor Shapira had said that the exact mechanics of Valkyrie Frames would be obfuscated. Queen Administrator no longer cared. The Impeller Field surrounding each Valkyrie automatically concealed their equipment from Symbie's sensors. That was not sufficient to hide it from Queen Administrator. Unreliable archival access or not, Queen Administrator knew what she was looking at. Queen Objective had spent enough time bragging about such technologies for QA to recognize even the ones she did not personally utilize.
Rapid-fire, high-velocity explosive projectiles. Dangerous in sufficient quantities. Sufficient quantities observed.
Compressed Higgs packets. Dangerous.
Casual use of atomic explosives. Dangerous.
Charged particle launchers. Dangerous.
Contained charged plasma. Dangerous, yet used for distractions or propulsion.
Atmospheric ionization engines. Dangerous.
Teleportation of weapons. Dangerous.
Self-replicating nanotech payloads. Dangerous.
Even the shorter-ranged weapons could easily be scaled up with a minimal amount of technological advancement necessary. Humans were ignorantly using the concepts needed for shard-killers. Singular shards, true, but it was still unusual.
Are there any weapons that would not ordinarily warrant reprisal?
Records indicated she had said that last thought aloud. Unacceptable. Installation of supplementary safeties may be in order.
"Well, Type-Zeroes tend to shrug off nuclear weapons," Instructor Shapira dryly replied, apparently unbothered by the question. "We had to make something that could — ah, hold that thought."
A human masquerading as a battlecruiser fired a charged lance at Aeon from almost a hundred kilometers away, momentarily staggering the Terror Drone. The milliseconds-long opening was promptly exploited by the warring Valkyries to barrage it with similar weapons, if at lower magnitudes. It escaped the crossfire with significant armor and Impeller damage.
"Anyway, Antagonists don't hold back and neither do we. This isn't even the best of the best; it's classified to Hell and back, but a Valkyrie soloed a Class C Type Zero at one point. Don't tell your classmates; she's an anomaly."
Queen Administrator almost expressed exasperation only to realize that Symbie's Frame would block all signs of the emotion. She may need to consult available guides for displaying emotions from within multiple layers of armor. Still, the observed reaction time of Anna Sanchez was even faster than that of the Valkyries arrayed before QA. The likely culprit was obvious.
In fact, she may be able to acquire a small amount of favor by addressing that exact problem.
"Are you aware that comparisons of reaction time could yield the obvious conclusion?"
Shapira shook her head.
"You're observing them after well over an hour of conflict; the Subjugation Squadrons are understandably fatigued. I was allowed to tell you so that you'd have a benchmark, not so you could try to find the Valkyrie responsible. You haven't even met most of the Valkyries in the top ten; your sample size is smaller than you realize."
QA had to admit that was probably true. She still suspected that Anna was responsible, but that was likely due to the human bias toward preexisting beliefs. The Valkyrie responsible for the solo-kill might not even be a real human; QA was certainly being pushed to replicate the feat.
"Understood. We may return to the prior simulation. I will not be attending class today."
Shapira muttered a curse and shook her head.
"Not what we were trying to convey there. Besides, even that Valkyrie had to attend an academy in order to learn social skills and cooperation with allies. Ludicrous personal firepower can't be leveraged half as far if you can't coordinate with others."
"I am well aware; my specialty involves mass coordination. However, it is easier to acquire allies if one is powerful enough to be desirable. Shuri Kravala's popularity serves as a suitable example."
The instructor momentarily choked on an unknown material, recovered, and shook her head.
"I can almost guarantee that the surface-level popularity will fade in short order. You already have a Flight you can work with; focus on them, not appealing to more people you don't even know. Besides, you have a therapist appointment this evening. Remember?"
Queen Administrator had forgotten. However, she did not intend to demonstrate weakness by admitting that.
"I'm not going into a struggle for information as underarmed as I apparently am."
Instructor Shapira slumped, groaned, and raised a hand to cover her helmet. QA was learning a great deal about body language in Frames by watching her.
"You aren't supposed to fight your therapist. They're here to help. Other people aren't even going to know what you discuss unless informing us would tangibly and significantly benefit you, or you pose an impending threat to others and/or yourself."
Queen Administrator used Symbie to look up the UN's definition of significant. If Shapira was using the scientific definition, then that left a great deal of leeway.
"That isn't what I meant," Shapira sighed. Apparently, she had real-time access to QA's search history. "I meant a vast improvement to your living situation, not the scientific definition of a significant result. It's like... if you disclose that a classmate or superior is doing something that's hurting you, then your therapist might tell us so we can do something about it."
QA would probably deal with the problem herself if such a situation arose. Or possibly not? Social weaponry was a legitimate means of defeating foes. It might be satisfying to resolve conflicts via methods her enemies weren't expecting, too.
Shapira didn't take any visible actions, yet their false surroundings still began to blur and fade around them. QA didn't let that distract her.
"Your claims reflect an improper use of resources. Assigning one skilled individual specifically to assist a less valuable asset is a net loss for your own goals, especially when that assistance may render them less effective as a result. The only reason to do so is as a temporary, information-gathering venture."
"...I'm afraid to ask at this point," Shapira lied; she didn't even sound the slightest bit fearful. "'Less effective?'"
"It is important to have a variety of views for research and development. Altering my mindset so that I am closer to other humans will impede my ability to make unique discoveries."
Instructor Shapira paused for the better part of ten seconds.
"No."
"'No?'" Queen Administrator echoed.
"No," Shapira repeated, stressing the word. "It is not a mistake to make you happier. Besides, is there really a preexisting 'happy' copy of you? No? Then you'll still present a unique viewpoint and may even be more productive overall."
Queen Administrator tried, but could not find a legitimate objection to those points. It was true that, as a Monarch, she was far more capable and less indistinguishable than a number of her siblings. Host, too, was anomalous enough that QA had no excuse to avoid the blatant attempts to gather information.
"Understood. Objections withdrawn; I will attend."
~ ~ ~
"Woohoo! Go Shapira! Promote those treatments and self-care habits!"
Symbie added a humanoid avatar to the dream-sim just to pointedly stare at Mom-Taylor.
"...What? Really, why are you looking at me like that? Please use your words, Symbie."
She silently ignored the suggestion. Mom-Taylor should know very well what was bothering the Symbiotic Support Frame. At this rate, Symbie might have to force Mom-Taylor out of the sim just so the former human could get treatment, too. Humans clearly did it often enough for the process to have an associated name: an intervention.
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Doctor_Hayden
Plant-Katto
- Location
- Morioh, 1999
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I'm impressed how tightly Queen's holding onto the idea that this is part of a Cycle.
When it kind of most certainly isn't. (Unless that's one of the AU elements and I'm wrong.)
When it kind of most certainly isn't. (Unless that's one of the AU elements and I'm wrong.)
Alivaril
On a magically-deficient journey of self-discovery
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
You're correct; it most certainly isn't.
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- Location
- Euclidean plane
Symbie needs a hug, or to talk to her peers a little. She seems pretty intelligent for a newborn. Though it makes me wonder how she'd get Taylor Dreamer to get much-needed help.
I still enjoy how QA is still hitting every button for Valkyrie syndrome without even trying. It'll be interesting to see what she'll be like around people she genuinely trusts enough to drop the hypervigilance.
Well.. when the alternative is that everything is on fire and all your long term plans are all but doomed? Even QA is allowed a bit of denial.
I kinda picture QA here as a typical AI. Starting off, it's nothing special, even downright stupid. After a enough iterations on the problem... it gets scary. Even holding back.
I still enjoy how QA is still hitting every button for Valkyrie syndrome without even trying. It'll be interesting to see what she'll be like around people she genuinely trusts enough to drop the hypervigilance.
Well.. when the alternative is that everything is on fire and all your long term plans are all but doomed? Even QA is allowed a bit of denial.
I kinda picture QA here as a typical AI. Starting off, it's nothing special, even downright stupid. After a enough iterations on the problem... it gets scary. Even holding back.
- Location
- Dhaka, Bangladesh
Symbie is best daughteru no arguments
Seeing a Bread-chans Core squeeze out another human is going to trip all sorts of fridgehorror signals.
Especially in those who saw the Valkyrie Cultist base.
Theyre definitely going to think those crazy cultists from uncle lovecrafts happy fun murder hole were turning humans into Valk cores.
- Location
- Dhaka, Bangladesh
What made made her choke here, QA's speciality or something else?
Anyone else suddenly picturing QA sending all of her flight members data packets to help coordination and then "ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL"? Bonus points if her flight gets into a situation where they allow her to assume direct control especially if it involves them sending an acceptance code like 0-0-0-ADMIN-0 (3 guesses what this is referencing)
- Location
- Leeds
Nooo don't listen to QAylor, they're all real people.
When in doubt: Deny.
Nailed it!