Calibration (BAHHSCQ/Sanctioned)
- Thread starter Alivaril
- Start date
- Crossover
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
As a QM, I was/am literally the reason a number of my players stayed up to Oh-God-Really-Guys-O'-Thirty, so it was a reasonable concern to raise. Yes, fics don't have the same perceived time-sensitivity or heavy debating or anything, but habits are habits.
That's... a really hard question to answer? I literally seldom plan anything in advance of more than a chapter or two, if that; my background started in DMing/GMing, then QMing, so planning ahead didn't really work out. However, its led to my character-driven style and people seem to enjoy that, so I'm pretty happy with it despite the usual stigma against not planning.
So, I want to tentatively say that you'll likely get most of the comedy of interacting with non-CC characters and even members of the CC when they're not communicating en masse, but will miss out on the causes of many of the gradual changes in QA's character that'll inevitably occur, a healthy number of brick jokes, and obviously, scenes with both non-QA/Non-CC characters and the CC itself.
I don't think you'll really miss out on any major plot points that you can't easily pick up on afterward, primarily because there isn't much of a real plot as people usually think of it.
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- Location
- Salt Lake City, UT, USA
"Mental harm" is usually understood as verbal abuse, but the idea of verbal abuse being so severe it induces memory loss? Yeah -- they're thinking she was punched in the head until she stopped "being disobedient" now.
- Location
- Dhaka, Bangladesh
OH Fucking wonderful. Someone give me the Big Sisters' POV because THIS, this right here is how you set fire to a bee hive.
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Actually, the next chapter is QA's therapist reviewing Taylor Hebert's extended case file, so you do kinda get a look into Big Sister's heads by proxy.
I generally really liked the chapter, however:
Even in a 2070s society that seems a highly implausible amount of material for even a militarized crafting club to have available. We're talking enough material to build a flotilla of Star Destroyers. If they can casually throw around that level of production they could just build arks and evacuate the planet.
This is completely implausible. Assuming any reasonable density you're talking about something within a magnitude of a billion tons of material.
Even in a 2070s society that seems a highly implausible amount of material for even a militarized crafting club to have available. We're talking enough material to build a flotilla of Star Destroyers. If they can casually throw around that level of production they could just build arks and evacuate the planet.
- Location
- Mi
Bleh, and character development is one of the main reasons I enjoy fics like this.
*sigh* I really feel bad about dropping a fic I like just because I can't parse some dialogue, but I feel like it's probably best at this point.
I really have loved my time with this, and you have my sincerest thanks for answering my questions to the best of your ability.
I'll see you whenever the muse stikes to start posting on your Danmachi cross again
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
*reads reply*
*rereads quantity I apparently wrote*
...I'm just going to declare temporary insanity, because that amount of material wouldn't even fit inside the fabber's storage dock that QA collected it from.
EDIT: Changed to thousand cubic meters, which is what I think I meant to write.
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- Location
- Salt Lake City, UT, USA
In your defense, Perth Arcology has a Valkyrie Core, who could very easily have been indulging the babbycore.
Kai Merah
Hound Hearted Hedonist
- Location
- Somewhere in the corners of my imagination
I await this chapter with great anticipation. An outside POV with all collated info on QA? Confirmation of what backstory they're starting to interpret all these pieces of info into? I am so, so psyched for this.
- Location
- United States
Alvaril as the author is doing all the work. You as a reader, reading fiction someone else makes as their hobby, should be more adaptable in your hobby as a reader to take the good with the bad. The Crafting Club's hodgepodge of word vomit speaks a lot about their dynamic and also reminds us that as Valkyries they CAN regularly communicate at speeds and volumes that would give us humans headaches. To serve as counter to your opinion, I will state that I think the OP's choice of dialogue with the CC is a good thing and should be embraced.
In addition, claiming that the format gives you headaches and threatens migraines is silly. If done as an attempt to garner sympathy and/or browbeat the author into conforming to your request then it is shameful.
Kai Merah
Hound Hearted Hedonist
- Location
- Somewhere in the corners of my imagination
As additional evidence for QA's terribly tragic and abusive backstory, I'd like to point out this bit.
She's shielding her food, like she expects someone to try and take it from her. I'm going to assume that Taylor is doing that because her mum's lasagna was especially precious to her, but it sure does look like something else when it's self-admitted brain-damaged QA doing it, doesn't it?
She's shielding her food, like she expects someone to try and take it from her. I'm going to assume that Taylor is doing that because her mum's lasagna was especially precious to her, but it sure does look like something else when it's self-admitted brain-damaged QA doing it, doesn't it?
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
...Dude. I get you're trying to defend me and all, but if I need defending, the mods are good at that. Your response actually made me far more irked than Viper's politeness. Medical conditions are a thing. I should know; I have several and received so much shit from the local school district growing up as a result of them.
Highlights include needing a doctor's note for every single day of absence despite possessing extensive records and notes saying I had chronic acephalgic migraines and that the frequent doctor's visits were making me sicker so could the school district please stop, eventually being warned that I'd need to attend or go to truancy court even though we complied with that bullshit requirement, and... yeah, I'll stop talking.
EDIT: *cough* So, anyway, yeah. I can sympathize with the health thing. @Viper5delta was perfectly polite and was more asking for information than demanding I change my ways/format.
EDIT 2: >_>; or it could've been exaggeration after all. Welp, now I feel thoroughly awkward in general.
EDIT 3: I do know someone for whom eye strain is a migraine trigger, though, so the point about "don't accuse people of being manipulative without actual evidence" still stands.
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- Location
- Mi
Ok then. I have a feeling you didn't read the rest of the dioluge, but whatever. Jumping strait to me being a manupalitive ass because I'm expressing my opinion politely (if with some vulgarity and a smidge of exageration) and seeking further information so I can make an educated judgement seems extreme. Granted the fact that you jumped strait to that gives some indication that you're the type of person who's opinion I honestly give 0 shits about so whatever. At least I have fewer regrets about dropping the story now.
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Pandora
Gotta say, blood IS as tasty as I make it look~
- Location
- Brazil
Hey Alivaril, have you perchance heard about or seen "Love Death & Robots"? Because Khanivore looks like the exact sort of thing that Pure-chan would think is a great idea to produce or have her Friend copy!
Edit: yes, this is a blatant attempt to not get a staff to put a warning on this post by infighting! Let us all be FRIENDS
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- Location
- Salt Lake City, UT, USA
Now that rant brings back memories. Chronic cluster migraines for me started when I was seven. Doctors couldn't work out what was going on until I was in my early twenties. I ... missed a very great deal of schooling due to being physically debilitated for no good reason. Only reason the schools didn't pull more stupid stuff was because my father took it upon himself to drive me in to the school regardless of my physical state. After sending me home due to non-responsiveness a dozen times or so, they just gave up.
I still had to deal with teachers who believed I was "faking".
- Location
- Canada
You can do it Pure-chan! Make those friends!
Yeah, instinctively trying to protect your meal has never been a good sign of anything, ever. That sort of reaction is so universal its not even limited to humans.
You know, that would make a great outline for her expressed 'frame'
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Kai Merah
Hound Hearted Hedonist
- Location
- Somewhere in the corners of my imagination
I wonder if it's not just that the lasagna is precious to Taylor, but also that they are currently in a cafeteria, and Taylor's hindbrain can't stop expecting that because she is holding something precious in a cafeteria, any moment now, Emma and Co will be coming around to fuck things up for her and ruin her precious thing.
- Location
- Dhaka, Bangladesh
Yep this can only end well. Excuse me while I get my buttered popcorn and a breathing aid. This will be GLORIOUS.
- Location
- Salt Lake City, UT, USA
So I'm wondering when Symbie's playing with its food is going to start seeing meaningful progress. It'll be interesting to see what happens when she starts expressing weapons the Simulators don't know how to accommodate. Exotic principle mechanics after all are a subject that QA understands quite well. Imagine all of her missile payloads suddenly turning out to be impossibly efficient bomb-pumped X-Ray lasers. Or, worse, hardlight flechette fragmentation rounds that exist on multiple dimensional layers, thus partially ignoring Impeller fields. Why didn't Pure-Chan have an Impeller field? Because her known techbase showed they were nothing but a vulnerability.
EDIT: Oh. Dear. Symbie's going to wind up getting Golden Fuck You Beams. It's only a matter of time...
EDIT: Oh. Dear. Symbie's going to wind up getting Golden Fuck You Beams. It's only a matter of time...
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- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Anyway, uh, I'd prefer not to dwell on a budding flame war, so moving on!
*elementary school demands I be sent to a therapist for evaluation*
*complies, therapist says I'm doing surprisingly well considering everything else in my life*
*Mom passes along note*
School records: "{Alivaril's} mother has disclosed that he is seeing a therapist." (In a report that tried to use it as justification for BS / "it's all in his head", no less!)
I hadn't heard of it before, but yeah, that's right up QA's alley.
Oh, gods, yes.
*elementary school demands I be sent to a therapist for evaluation*
*complies, therapist says I'm doing surprisingly well considering everything else in my life*
*Mom passes along note*
School records: "{Alivaril's} mother has disclosed that he is seeing a therapist." (In a report that tried to use it as justification for BS / "it's all in his head", no less!)
I don't wanna rate this insightful lest people think that rating applies to the whole post (that's recurring >_<; ), but I will say that at least one thing in here has a high likelihood of being a problem later. Taylor is already needing to patch their Impeller Field Generator to avoid breaking the sims / having the sims break them.
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Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
Which leads to the conclusion that all the Valkyrie Cores they've found so far haven't been undamaged after all, and Symbie is in fact the first undamaged Valkyrie Core found. Cores are supposed to be sentient and have a massive tech-base, but most of them suffered crippling brain damage from the impact and were reduced to effectively mindless automatons with only the most basic 'civilian utility' functionality retained. That the 300 are compatible with basically anyone is actually a sign that they are more damaged than other Cores, as Cores are supposed to bond permanently to a single user to prevent the possibility of subversion by enemy forces. All the dangerous faults and flaws to users trying to muck about with their Core are the result of the Core lacking the usual intelligence, forcing the user to try and manually manipulate the Core's controls and variables without any proper understanding or safety features, which is why QA can 'upgrade' Symbie while merged just fine while other Valkyries cannot.
Cue shitstorm.
Also, Aesop on making assumptions about blackboxed alien technology that you don't understand; you have no way of knowing when your assumptions are completely and totally wrong.
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I believe that to be exactly what she is referring to. Granted, it is more like a body doing so to a cell, but when the cells transition back-and-forth between hive-mind and individual... it gets complicated. Q.A. was a good shard doing good work, whom the-collective/overmind/Scion then carved-up the thinking-parts of in order to prevent it causing problems for- or rebelling against- The Cycle or its parents/sibling-collectives/overseer-frameworks. I feel as though Q.A. needs that hug far more than she is willing to admit to herself.
Star destroyers have a greater volume than that. True, most of that is empty space, but there is a lot of empty space in munitions and armaments too, along with packaging and cargo transportation and such. Still a lot, but with the figure revised down(to a thousand megalitres, which would be quite a lot of material if it were micro-scale-solid) it is probably fine.
It is high-intensity subtle and complex data that requires extensive interpretation and induces compulsiveness that precludes a more measured intake. That it provokes mental efforts greater than more conventional text is largely indisputable. I would say that a capacity to exacerbate an existing mental-strain based headache would be obvious. To extend this into more serious expressions is just a matter of extending the circumstances one considers.
Rather more unfortunate is your use of the word "silly". It is easy to overlook, given that silliness is, by definition, frivolous, but when people use "silly" seriously? It is, ironically, one of the most serious of terms. It denotes an unimportance that prevents consideration, a lack of effort to be competent that precludes reasoning and awareness in addressing it, can evoke malice spawned of an inference of noncontribution, can evoke fears of dangers and threats born of recklessness... . When successful, it is one of the more effective means of disempowering, or even concluding, a minority. It is one of the warning-signs of social engineering that one should be very wary of if they see it.
Rather more unfortunate is your use of the word "silly". It is easy to overlook, given that silliness is, by definition, frivolous, but when people use "silly" seriously? It is, ironically, one of the most serious of terms. It denotes an unimportance that prevents consideration, a lack of effort to be competent that precludes reasoning and awareness in addressing it, can evoke malice spawned of an inference of noncontribution, can evoke fears of dangers and threats born of recklessness... . When successful, it is one of the more effective means of disempowering, or even concluding, a minority. It is one of the warning-signs of social engineering that one should be very wary of if they see it.
No they don't. An Imperial I-class SD is 1600m long, probably around a third that in width, and a fifth that in height of the main wedge. The bridge spire volume is pretty negligible. The volume of a pyramid is equal to (1/3) area of the base* height. That gives based on the estimates around (1/3)*(.5*533m*320m)*1600m internal volume on the order of 45 million cubic meters, or about 4.5% of a cubic kilometer of material. Call it 5% to allow for some margin for the bridge and other extensions for a decent approximation and that's still 20 star destroyers of volume. Even if you put in much higher estimates for how wide and tall the star destroyer is you're very unlikely to get an estimate above 10% of a cubic kilometer. 10 star destroyers would still be a respectable flotilla.
That's before we account for the empty space, which I'd argue is much higher in a star destroyer than typical munitions.
LostArchivist
Sane, unfortunately.
- Location
- The State of Confusion
I am dying over here. I chose "funny" admittedly, so I'm sure you can tell. Her misleading statements in some strange ways wrap around to being actually accurate, and the sheer confusion she's causing everyone is hilarious. Although they are probably going to watch her even more closely. Saying someone gave you amnesia to make you better behaved does NOT convince people to let you act unsupervised... not that she knows that.
I also look forward to the strange creatures she ends up making. A tentacle-spitting unicorn sounds awesome (bonus points if it flies, because why not). Smart missiles may also be amusing. I'm thinking of something like the talking Terapedoes from Schlock Mercenary. After all, she can store the minds once they blow up, and I can think of few things both more confusing (to everyone else) and useful (to her) than sentient guided missiles. She DOES have a lot of them to play with. Why not make her Friend-making ability focus on what appear to be standard Valkyrie tech to blend in? (I understand that the Cores are apparently rather organic in some respects [even though I have no idea what they are or even what they are from to look them up], so it may not be possible to actually build tech here, but it would be a fun contrast and also be funny.)
I want to see her launch missiles for such plebian things as hostage rescue, capture, or guidance of random lost classmates. And then have them blow up after completing their tasks. This could be a wonderful way to accidentally traumatize people! (Am I a terrible person?)
I really want to hear more about this ID system. Aside from the awesome and disturbing ability to compress (or decompress) to fit available space much like the laudable common goldfish (Well, they have the "expand" part down, at least), it can apparently go full Fafnir Assimilation Crystal on people messing with it?! It's like the best memetic virus ever! Electronic data with physical payload. Me likey.
Oh, and I love the C&C Club. It's like reading conversations with Gred and Forge. It's wonderful fun. Apparently this may be a divergent opinion, but meh.
I also look forward to the strange creatures she ends up making. A tentacle-spitting unicorn sounds awesome (bonus points if it flies, because why not). Smart missiles may also be amusing. I'm thinking of something like the talking Terapedoes from Schlock Mercenary. After all, she can store the minds once they blow up, and I can think of few things both more confusing (to everyone else) and useful (to her) than sentient guided missiles. She DOES have a lot of them to play with. Why not make her Friend-making ability focus on what appear to be standard Valkyrie tech to blend in? (I understand that the Cores are apparently rather organic in some respects [even though I have no idea what they are or even what they are from to look them up], so it may not be possible to actually build tech here, but it would be a fun contrast and also be funny.)
I want to see her launch missiles for such plebian things as hostage rescue, capture, or guidance of random lost classmates. And then have them blow up after completing their tasks. This could be a wonderful way to accidentally traumatize people! (Am I a terrible person?)
I really want to hear more about this ID system. Aside from the awesome and disturbing ability to compress (or decompress) to fit available space much like the laudable common goldfish (Well, they have the "expand" part down, at least), it can apparently go full Fafnir Assimilation Crystal on people messing with it?! It's like the best memetic virus ever! Electronic data with physical payload. Me likey.
Oh, and I love the C&C Club. It's like reading conversations with Gred and Forge. It's wonderful fun. Apparently this may be a divergent opinion, but meh.