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Calibration (BAHHSCQ/Sanctioned)

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ChrisPikula said:
A stealth Arcology core is an incalculably valuable boon. As in, no one even considered actually calculating the real value of that pipe dream. Making one is spending the time and investment is just too dumb, and has no endgame payoff given the limits of known Valk stealth. And now there may be one, and it's gone undetected beside a major breach for a long time.
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As far as they know... queue an antagonist tank trundling up to the front door, dropping a mound of pamphlets, and asking to spread the glorious teachings of enlightenment through Juffo-wup. That tank then gets chased off by a self-propelled artillery with boardgames and snacks that's here for a sleepover with Destination.
Dreameater2579 said:
I wonder how things would go if Taylor just extends Symbie as well. Que everyone tearing their hair out at two Valks using the same core concurrently.
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Well at first it probably wouldn't be apparent to anyone except the Valkyrie cores, and they aren't talking. Yes, they would be identical in most ways, but there would probably be subtle differences in how the two of them express their cores, so Symbie would probably look slightly different in each instance. The first thing would probably be when they notice Taylor acquiring new equipment that she never integrated, but which Rose did integrate. Then they start trading Friends back and forth for review and collaboration whist having no apparent contact, and all of their equipment undergoes identical refinements. Eventually the issue manifests in which they can't use equipment while the other is using it, and only then are people likely to think of a shared core due to the evidence. Of course, there are other ways to find out besides direct evidence...
 
TacitSoliloquy said:
You know, jokes aside, I could legitimately see that actually happening. Shards have all kinds of crazy space-warping abilities, and yet so do the locals in their own right. Valkyries can twist wormholes for teleportation and pretzel or even shear and separate space, and that's before throwing in Higgs usage which is basically a handwavium-turbobooster. The idea of Hell's Hand projecting some sort of sheath around it and just pulling away from one place as the space around it flows together in its wake like water to leave perfectly normal and undisturbed ground and extruding its existence into some other place pushed aside... honestly seems kind of realistic, actually.
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I agree absolutely that The Nameless Girl and QA and Symbie could do that - heck, much of the "stealth" thing of Hell's Hand could be simply because most of Hell's Hand isn't actually where they're aiming their sensors, but... at the moment, they're (poorly) hiding what they really are from the UN/Valkyries, so they probably won't pull that sort of trick. Makes for great omake-bait, though; been bouncing around ideas in spare time, but haven't really come up with anything I think I could write.
Aunty Shi Ping said:
Well at first it probably wouldn't be apparent to anyone except the Valkyrie cores, and they aren't talking. Yes, they would be identical in most ways, but there would probably be subtle differences in how the two of them express their cores, so Symbie would probably look slightly different in each instance.
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The gotcha here being that Symbie is transmitting an ID just like Cadet Hebert. Rather - she's transmitting an ID but it's a different ID. And they have done trials to figure out how to (somewhat) compare and determine that those IDs are different. If both Cadet Hebert's Valkyrie Core's ID and also Cadet Hebert's Valkyrie Core's ID are the same, while Cadet Hebert and Cadet Hebert have different IDs, then... well. Yeah, they'll have to look pretty closely for that, but I suspect they would do so.

(edit: purty colors! :p )
 
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Artemis_Fowl_2nd said:
QAC1209CAH1E1:
A valid host has been located, empowered, and conflict initiated successfully. It seems to be very emotions driven, so I await plentiful data.
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This was a lovely omake and I like the punchline of how much QA changed from her warmth and enthusiasm and affection for her hosts at the beginning. I do wonder how the crossed out sections manifested in terms of video though. These definitely seem more like text rather than voice records.
 
Aunty Shi Ping said:
Well at first it probably wouldn't be apparent to anyone except the Valkyrie cores, and they aren't talking. Yes, they would be identical in most ways, but there would probably be subtle differences in how the two of them express their cores, so Symbie would probably look slightly different in each instance. The first thing would probably be when they notice Taylor acquiring new equipment that she never integrated, but which Rose did integrate. Then they start trading Friends back and forth for review and collaboration whist having no apparent contact, and all of their equipment undergoes identical refinements. Eventually the issue manifests in which they can't use equipment while the other is using it, and only then are people likely to think of a shared core due to the evidence. Of course, there are other ways to find out besides direct evidence...
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Taylor needs to create another Core-analogue to have her own Impeller Field, anyway. Normally that'd mean making a new Friend-personality, but since Symbie's basically a shard now she may just be able to partition herself so she's controlling both Symbiotic Support Frames.

The UN wouldn't notice anything particularly telling for some time, except for the shared equipment improvements, similar automonous behaviors, and identical eldritch IDs. If I was in their shoes, I'd speculate that the two jailbroken Cores were somehow running the same distributed AI, probably through the ridiculously high bandwidth crystal datalinks that are a staple of their tech.
 
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An odd thought. I wonder if anyone is going to ask Symbie if it has a map of Hell's hand. I mean, if Symbie wanted to, it could show them the whole place in Sim-space. There's a LOT of valkyries in contact with Symbie and/or being entertained/confused by QA.

I'm also kind of curious if Symbie broadcast an/their ID when playing the music, but the valkyries probably would have commented on it, so I'm guessing not.

They asked QA earlier, but she's indicated that while her memories can be recovered given effort, she didn't remember or didn't know a lot at the time. They did specifically ask about other Cores before they found the one with Queen Objective after all, and there's multiple teams going in there now.
 
ir_fane said:
An odd thought. I wonder if anyone is going to ask Symbie if it has a map of Hell's hand. I mean, if Symbie wanted to, it could show them the whole place in Sim-space. There's a LOT of valkyries in contact with Symbie and/or being entertained/confused by QA.
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The problem is that since HH is more or less an Arcology, the layout is whatever the Mayor feels like.
 
Given the bullshit transdimensional space\time manipulation abilities that Entities are capable of thanks to the rather unique nature of their homeworld, I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that upon investigation Hell's Hand actually only occupies an area of real-space less than a millimeter in diameter, and that the entire construct is little more than an elaborate series of illusions that only exist in the minds of those who enter it.
 
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Astrobot said:
The problem is that since HH is more or less an Arcology, the layout is whatever the Mayor feels like.
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Possible to a degree with spatial warping and Higgs (hence Simulators), but typically no.

Most Arcologies have only a limited portion integrated into the Valkyrie Frame proper, and they're so far over the storage volume limit most components have to remain constantly expressed. Controlling internal security is one thing, but massively adjusting the overall layout on the fly should be prohibitively difficult. HH can do it because of Shard magic, but for the sake of her cover story Taylor probably wouldn't want to advertise that fact.
 
Sapient_Ham said:
Possible to a degree with spatial warping and Higgs (hence Simulators), but typically no.

Most Arcologies have only a limited portion integrated into the Valkyrie Frame proper, and they're so far over the storage volume limit most components have to remain constantly expressed. Controlling internal security is one thing, but massively adjusting the overall layout on the fly should be prohibitively difficult. HH can do it because of Shard magic, but for the sake of her cover story Taylor probably wouldn't want to advertise that fact.
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HH is a lot smaller than a normal Arcology, and I think that cat is already out of the bag. That doesn't prevent Taylor from being too stoned to explain how she did it, but it would go a long way to proving that she's QAylor's sister.
Edit:Now that I think about it, she has a perfect way to deflect that investigation:
"You have to be ^this stoned to make the reality warping effect work."
"...How stoned?"
"Higher than Pluto? It doesn't really kick in until your brain starts to melt."
"...pass."
 
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spikethehobbit said:
HH is a lot smaller than a normal Arcology, and I think that cat is already out of the bag. That doesn't prevent Taylor from being too stoned to explain how she did it, but it would go a long way to proving that she's QAylor's sister.
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They actually haven't noticed the blatant reality-warping; Taylor only replaced rooms wholesale before they first entered them, and the stealth plating blocks sensor readings between sections of the facility.

Taylor's definitely stoned enough to make her attempts at consistency laughable, but she's not that bad. I think. :V
 
Sapient_Ham said:
They actually haven't noticed the blatant reality-warping; Taylor only replaced rooms wholesale before they first entered them, and the stealth plating blocks sensor readings between sections of the facility.

Taylor's definitely stoned enough to make her attempts at consistency laughable, but she's not that bad. I think. :V
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Maybe not, but I'm pretty sure that they've noticed that upcoming rooms are adjusted to their reactions. That alone should be worth attention.
 
Neruz said:
Given the bullshit transdimensional space\time manipulation abilities that Entities are capable of thanks to the rather unique nature of their homeworld, I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that upon investigation Hell's Hand actually only occupies an area of real-space less than a millimeter in diameter, and that the entire construct is little more than an elaborate series of illusions that only exist in the minds of those who enter it.
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Maybe in the end, they hear a music box melody, and the whole thing compacts down to a laquered wooden puzzle box cube? :whistle:
 
spikethehobbit said:
Maybe not, but I'm pretty sure that they've noticed that upcoming rooms are adjusted to their reactions. That alone should be worth attention.
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I don't recall anything from their explorations about seeing things "being prepped" for them - the time that Taylor The Nameless Girl decided to do large scale changes, she put in rest areas for them, and their reaction had them placing those rooms as part of the overall design - that is, becoming even more angry at what must have been going on.

Reference:
Alivaril said:
Liz stared at the drone footage with rapidly-rising rage. The block right beyond the sacrificial chamber contained a luxurious, pristine set of primarily pink quarters that wouldn't have been out of place in an Arcology. Unlike the rest of the facility, it had even managed to maintain power and presented a brightly-lit and cheerful contrast to the wretched horrors on the other side of the wall. The freezer was even still packed with preserved desserts, and the walls were decorated with pictures of kittens. How dare they pamper unsuspecting young girls only to murder them in the next block over? The hidden doors from the sacrificial room even led directly into the most opulent bedroom of all!
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That said, they've got at least one followup team behind Liz and Elise - and the reports from that team show that there are fewer corpses. They're aware that Hells Hand is active and cleaning up after itself:
Alivaril said:
Liz still felt ashamed for laughing when UNOMI-Fourteen claimed it might be similar to a teenager frantically cleaning up their room before their friends arrived. Knowing Liz's luck, she'd find another teenager controlling the Arcology.
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This is pretty good evidence, though, that no large scale structural changes are being noticed; if "missing corpses" are being commented on, "completely different room structures and layouts" would absolutely be mentioned.
 
Kellcat said:
I don't recall anything from their explorations about seeing things "being prepped" for them - the time that Taylor The Nameless Girl decided to do large scale changes, she put in rest areas for them, and their reaction had them placing those rooms as part of the overall design - that is, becoming even more angry at what must have been going on.

Reference:

That said, they've got at least one followup team behind Liz and Elise - and the reports from that team show that there are fewer corpses. They're aware that Hells Hand is active and cleaning up after itself:

This is pretty good evidence, though, that no large scale structural changes are being noticed; if "missing corpses" are being commented on, "completely different room structures and layouts" would absolutely be mentioned.
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They didn't see the preparations, but it was a regular occurrence that the next room would somehow reference a comment one of them had just made. For example, the Puppy Punting Field was right after the comment about someone having an 'atrocity checklist'.
 
spikethehobbit said:
They didn't see the preparations, but it was a regular occurrence that the next room would somehow reference a comment one of them had just made. For example, the Puppy Punting Field was right after the comment about someone having an 'atrocity checklist'.
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Except it wasn't. The atrocity checklist statement was right before the room with the fake dead cores (narratively, at least, and there probably wasn't much time in between), and even at that point, The Nameless Girl's internal dialogue shows the puppy-punting field and chapel-and-windows already existed. I don't actually recall any instances where the rooms were changed to meet their expectations, or that they kept finding things they were expecting. Cites?

(edit: yes, I have read and reread this entirely too many times (as if there was such a thing). Why do you ask? :p )
 
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Half-Canon Mini-Bloopers: Chapter 16 Episode Preview
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    • If you live in the US, are registered, and haven't voted yet, please remember to do so! I'd like to be able to write more instead of regularly doomscrolling. ^^;


    Thread: VoTTACBSS Policy Change
    Displaying: Original Post

    >> Cadet Dores Frost

    The Videos of Things That Are Cute But Sometimes Scary elective class will not be accepting any additional submissions featuring people or Valkyrie Cores. Similarly, we'd appreciate it if you refrained from speculating about or explaining the reasons behind this new rule. If you really want to know, you can stop by and ask in person, but any public "explanations" would border on malicious rumor-mongering. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

    And no, you aren't being original when you submit footage of the Dating Advice and Matchmaking club.

    Last-minute addendum: Okay, if they're over the age of 20, then they're fair game. Shout-out to the Big Sister who submitted a certain Instructor compilation. 10/10 hurt my sides.

    On a happier note, we now have a category specifically for Friends! Perth's resident baby cryptids definitely deserve it.

    ~ Scene ~​

    It had been a long, long time since QA could focus on something and not know everything about its composition. Having unreliable access to her own scanning arrays could be rather discomforting at times.

    Queen Administrator didn't need to look past Anna's armor to see what the Valkyrie resembled, though: an early-model Terror Drone. Anna didn't yet have their durability or the many abilities associated with them, but there was no denying that she could easily take out a standard army of hosts without significant problems.

    …Now that QA thought about it, this entire Cycle might be an attempt to build more energy-effective Terror Drones. That life wouldn't suit Anna, though. The Valkyrie was optimized to be a guardian of humanity; to kill them would break her. Despite their short relationship, QA did not want to see that happen. She rather liked Anna.

    :MOTHER: would probably punish QA for what the shard was about to do, but it seemed as though the Monarch was always punished for all the things she most wanted to do.

    "Don't worry. I will kill you before you're corrupted."

    Anna's unnecessary movements halted. Half her weapons began an alternating pattern of twitching their barrels toward Queen Administrator and being forced away once more.

    "Jesus Christ, Hebert!" Instructor Shapira yelped. "Why are you threatening her?"

    "It was a promise, not a threat," QA protested.

    The reassurance did not appear to have the intended effect.
     
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