Hold It In (RWBY/Transistor)
- Thread starter Prok
- Start date
- Crossover
Prok
Go play Star Fetchers
- Location
- Scotland
>:CBookmarking for July
WOULD IT KILL YOU TO HAVE SOME FAITH
I'm gonna address you two together since my most salient points kind of answer you both- right now, neither of those are an option because they're both 20-minute conversations in and of themselves.
Your options right here, right now, are to figure it's better to beg forgiveness than ask permission, or just to leave it out completely for the moment and cause your family even more conniptions later on when it becomes very, very relevant.
As for shoving her into witness protection, it's certainly an idea. But, you know, I'd get back on her good side before you bring it up.
The simple answer is that Jaune doesn't fully understand it. He's simply not had a moment to sit down and look at it, and, you know, considering how the last time he did that, his brain did turn to jam, he's probably not going to try until the Process has found its feet and, you know, not bombard him with brain-melting amounts of information.
Once that happens, trust me, he'll be having an existential crisis with the rest of his family.
The only problem I have with this is the fact that Jaune, by nature, is very... open about at least the workings of his Semblance if nothing else. He kind of has to be, in order to take the thing that keeps his Semblance from debilitating him wherever he goes. I mean, look back at your time with Professor Teal- he talked about it like he was talking about the weather.
Ignoring that, though, talking about Semblances is... kind of a tricky one to answer.
How do I put this...
There are three sides to talking about a Semblance.
There's the use- the what. Hitting really hard, shooting plasma out of your feet, moving at Mach 2, moving somebody's shield just a mite higher- the use of a Semblance, and really the only thing people need to know to make use of it.
There's the effect- the how. Damage reflection, healing, magnetism, super speed, telekinesis- those are things you would keep secret for strategic reasons like Pyrrha did- if people knew she had magnetism as a Semblance, well, they'd just stop using metal weapons. Don't know how that'd work, but my point stands- if you know how somebody's Semblance works, you know how to counter it.
Then there's the cause. The why of the how of the what.
Why can you move at supersonic speeds? Why can you take what you're given and give it back tenfold? Why can you heal people? Why can you phase out of existence, why can you turn to ash, why can you take flesh and bone and mould them like clay, why, why, always why.
The problem with that question is that people... tend to not be able to put their answer into words. If somebody asked Jaune what his Semblance could do, he'd give them the same answer as he gave Teal without missing a beat, if he's in a good mood, but if you asked him why that's his Semblance, he'd choke up like nothing else. It's not the kind of question that anybody can really answer without... well, let's say that there are entire religions built around trying to find out what makes a Semblance tick.
It's why Professor Teal acted with such wonder at seeing her Semblance laid out in the code you use to boil it down for Function-use.
Because it was an answer. As close to one as she'd ever get without some serious introspection, probably in a monastery a fair distance from civilisation.
I've talked before about how a soul is all about the things you can't truly put into words, the things you can't make people understand, and that's the part nobody talks about.
Not because it's embarrassing, or because it's taboo, but because trying to talk about it means that they have to acknowledge that...
They can't. That they can't make somebody else understand their Semblance, understand them, on the same level they do. It's that final barrier between any two people truly understanding each other, that they can't overcome it because they completely lack the tools needed to do it. There are no words.
That's why the Semblance scans are such a big deal. Because they might be the equivalent of a child's pop up book, but you've finally found those words.
Anyway, to get back on track- Jaune's open about his Semblance, he hid the AI from his family for a completely different reason, namely- 'would they really believe me if I told them?'
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- Location
- Freedom
I don't see any reason not to tell them.m everything. Like, I feel like part of the reason people don't want to tell them is because they don't want to be reprimanded for some of the more... eventful things we've done.
Which I feel is dumb, if you do something accept the consequences that come with them. And with Ada? Well, I have faith in Jaune's ability to crunch numbers and to code. Anything beyond that? No.
His family seems to be well adjusted and I'm sure recognize the need to be subtle about this. And most importantly, they can tell us a way to help the poor girl. Unless Ada explicitly told us not to tell anyone, I don't see why they shouldn't know.
[X] Everything, A Very Much Not Brief History Of- doesn't matter if they don't believe you, you need to get some stuff off your chest. The Process. The Transistor.
-[X] Ada. Boriah.
-[X] Weiss. Ashford.
Which I feel is dumb, if you do something accept the consequences that come with them. And with Ada? Well, I have faith in Jaune's ability to crunch numbers and to code. Anything beyond that? No.
His family seems to be well adjusted and I'm sure recognize the need to be subtle about this. And most importantly, they can tell us a way to help the poor girl. Unless Ada explicitly told us not to tell anyone, I don't see why they shouldn't know.
[X] Everything, A Very Much Not Brief History Of- doesn't matter if they don't believe you, you need to get some stuff off your chest. The Process. The Transistor.
-[X] Ada. Boriah.
-[X] Weiss. Ashford.
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- Location
- Hyperborea
I believe in you.
...despite that one time that happened before I started reading this quest.
It's kind of meta-game-y, but part of the reason I initially wanted to tell them about Ada and Boriah was so that we'd find out that her father is alive and looking for her. That might be enough to make sure she's not too unhappy about Jaune spilling the beans. Assuming our sister would be able to tell us.
Jaune: "I've figured out what Cell does."
Arc Family: "Oh? What's that?"
Jaune Arc: "Anything! And everything!"
Jaune + Arc Family: *drinks all of the alcohol*
Cell: *makes more alcohol*
Yeah, that's kind of a big deal. Now I can't help but wonder how Boriah Lee would react to seeing his Semblance scan.
- Location
- A state of cleverness
Is... is that what you were aiming for with the earlier explanations of Jaune's Semblance? Because there's explaining your unique soul power and there's drowning your listener in technobabble so thick that not only do they learn nothing they learn not to do it again. The second is what Jaune's done with everyone but Teal, and that moment came at the end of their association, and it came after she opened up about her own Semblance and one of her life's defining moments.
If your intention is for Jaune to actually be up-front and open about his abilities, you need him to explain what it does in plain language. "My Semblance is Calculation, which I used to create my sword and the time, space and energy manipulating functions that I channel through said sword." This is a succinct answer about his skillset, and while it leaves questions, Jaune can answer those as he did with Teal. Compare with: "My Semblance is speed", "And how fast can you go?"
Your explanation about the two different kinds of Semblance talks is delightful, but it's also kinda completely beside the point. When Pyrrha explains her Polarity, she explain the effect. The what, not the how. And most of the time that's what Huntsmen and Huntresses care about. Knowing how she can naturally manipulate magnetic fields is cool as fuck but it's not relevant when what you need to know is whether she can raise a blond noodle's shield. Throwing out the how is a dodge when you're asked to explain the what.
- Location
- The Surface Of A Hostile Planet
Agreed with @Captain Clever . I didn't get the impression of Jaune being generally open about his Semblance at all, and frankly can't really reconcile the idea of him being a naturally open person with the idea of him having hidden the Transistor's nature from his family for... what, four years now? Longer?
Take it from someone who's tried - keeping a secret like that is a massive strain, and I'm a dishonest asshole by disposition. I was previously surprised that his family wasn't previously aware about the AI, but reconciled it as him just being exceptionaly cagey. If he's also supposed to be open, then I'm just left confused.
Take it from someone who's tried - keeping a secret like that is a massive strain, and I'm a dishonest asshole by disposition. I was previously surprised that his family wasn't previously aware about the AI, but reconciled it as him just being exceptionaly cagey. If he's also supposed to be open, then I'm just left confused.
- Location
- United states
Well thing is as explained he literally takes the Transistor with him everywhere so it isn't really practical or even possible for him to hide it so he likely just explains part of his semblance but leaves out the AI bit. He can just say it helps with his semblance and since people can't usually explain exactly how their semblance works they may just take it at face value.
Prok
Go play Star Fetchers
- Location
- Scotland
No, yeah, trust me, you're preaching to the choir on that one.
In retrospect, half two at night, as well as it's served me in the past, probably wasn't the best time for me to try and explain things this important to both the setting and the character.
But I'll deal with all that when I get home and see if I can't salvage my explanation somewhat.
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Prok
Go play Star Fetchers
- Location
- Scotland
Right, switched college courses, got a month off, kinda, time to rip myself a new one.
He's not open about the workings of his Semblance- he's open about its nature as a self-destructive Semblance, again, by necessity, since it's the medical documents stating that he has a self-destructive Semblance that keep him from being thrown out for always having a weapon drawn.
As far as the actual workings of his Semblance go, the impenetrable technobabble is... pretty much the most accurate version you can get, bar, you know, actually dragging a whiteboard out and scribbling down the equations. What he gave Teal was the cliff notes, and looking back, I realise, somehow, despite regularly rechecking my old stuff, and that one scene several times recently because there was something bugging me about it, I actually managed to avoid putting down the reason he immediately drowned his teammates in technobabble. So, that's been edited.
Jaune... gets that most people need him to simplify his explanations for them, but he's not above just blasting them with jargon to get them to stop asking. Not the most polite thing to do, but hey, it works. He was tired, his legs weren't working right, he was entitled to a bit of bluntness if you ask me.
As for your point on what vs. how, I suppose that's a third layer to the conversation, and probably the easiest one to approach for most people.
'They didn't believe me about my Semblance, before I made the first shard. Why would they believe me about this?'
He's been burned before about telling his family, and his parents in particular, about things that aren't normal, for whatever definition hasn't been shot in the head and dumped in a ditch in this universe. Hell, you wrote the omake this characterisation is based on- the suspicion his mother's just happy he stopped talking about it, overhearing the conversation where his own father talks about it probably just being his imagination...
I can certainly see why that kind of thing would incline a child to not share big things with their parents, and the AIs themselves probably knew what would be in store for them if their existence ever got out less than a second after they came into said existence. They wouldn't convince him one way or another, they'd just do what they always do- wait for him to ask, tell him what would probably happen, and let him make his choice. The only time they act proactively regarding Jaune's path in life is when they know he's going to make a decision he'll regret massively in the future, either guilt-wise or consequence-wise.
Getting back on track, they're not a secret, exactly, it's like how I don't tell my parents that I write a RWBY/Transistor quest- it's not that I don't want them to know, it's that what and who I spend my free time on and with is none of their bloody business.
Was he right to feel the way he did? He doesn't know.
But I guess he's about to find out, because I'm closing the vote, and by the looks of it, Not Everything, A Much Briefer History Of wins! What that means is that you're going to keep the Process's capabilities- specifically the part about it being a higher dimensional being projected onto our three dimensional plane, the whole assimilation thing, stuff like that- away for the moment, until you fully understand it.
Looking back, this looks like a mistake that I didn't realise was a mistake and just rolled with by accident.
He's not open about the workings of his Semblance- he's open about its nature as a self-destructive Semblance, again, by necessity, since it's the medical documents stating that he has a self-destructive Semblance that keep him from being thrown out for always having a weapon drawn.
As far as the actual workings of his Semblance go, the impenetrable technobabble is... pretty much the most accurate version you can get, bar, you know, actually dragging a whiteboard out and scribbling down the equations. What he gave Teal was the cliff notes, and looking back, I realise, somehow, despite regularly rechecking my old stuff, and that one scene several times recently because there was something bugging me about it, I actually managed to avoid putting down the reason he immediately drowned his teammates in technobabble. So, that's been edited.
... Not exactly Grapes of Wrath, but it does the job.
Jaune... gets that most people need him to simplify his explanations for them, but he's not above just blasting them with jargon to get them to stop asking. Not the most polite thing to do, but hey, it works. He was tired, his legs weren't working right, he was entitled to a bit of bluntness if you ask me.
As for your point on what vs. how, I suppose that's a third layer to the conversation, and probably the easiest one to approach for most people.
To come back to your point for a moment, the reason Jaune kept the AI a secret from his family can be traced back to one question-
'They didn't believe me about my Semblance, before I made the first shard. Why would they believe me about this?'
He's been burned before about telling his family, and his parents in particular, about things that aren't normal, for whatever definition hasn't been shot in the head and dumped in a ditch in this universe. Hell, you wrote the omake this characterisation is based on- the suspicion his mother's just happy he stopped talking about it, overhearing the conversation where his own father talks about it probably just being his imagination...
I can certainly see why that kind of thing would incline a child to not share big things with their parents, and the AIs themselves probably knew what would be in store for them if their existence ever got out less than a second after they came into said existence. They wouldn't convince him one way or another, they'd just do what they always do- wait for him to ask, tell him what would probably happen, and let him make his choice. The only time they act proactively regarding Jaune's path in life is when they know he's going to make a decision he'll regret massively in the future, either guilt-wise or consequence-wise.
Getting back on track, they're not a secret, exactly, it's like how I don't tell my parents that I write a RWBY/Transistor quest- it's not that I don't want them to know, it's that what and who I spend my free time on and with is none of their bloody business.
Was he right to feel the way he did? He doesn't know.
But I guess he's about to find out, because I'm closing the vote, and by the looks of it, Not Everything, A Much Briefer History Of wins! What that means is that you're going to keep the Process's capabilities- specifically the part about it being a higher dimensional being projected onto our three dimensional plane, the whole assimilation thing, stuff like that- away for the moment, until you fully understand it.
- Location
- The Surface Of A Hostile Planet
I did, yes - that's what I meant by "exceptionally cagey".
Basically, I was having some trouble reconciling that characterization as "very open". He's forced to admit the debilitating nature, but it seems to me that he'd fend off inquires by either ignoring them or with technobabble.
Which, uh, it seems that fits pretty much exactly what you're doing. So really, my issue isn't at all with your story's writing, and more with your choice of a single adjective in a minor authors note.
Um. Sorry?
- Location
- A state of cleverness
Aight, that's what I was hoping. Glad there wasn't some horrific misunderstanding somewhere.
- Location
- United states
I can see after a while Jaune just getting so tired of having to explain just why his semblance is so hard to explain by doing the equivelent of trying to explain how an even more harder to grasp version of quantum physics works in hopes of people deciding to give up on even trying to understand what he is talking about and never asking again since they don't want to take classes just to understand what he is talking about.
Spectral Waltz
Scatterbrained Writer
- Location
- Walking the Endless Corridors
[X] Everything, A Very Much Not Brief History Of- doesn't matter if they don't believe you, you need to get some stuff off your chest. The Process. The Transistor.
-[X] Ada. Boriah.
The whole Weiss bit is none of their business and really has very little to do with the matters at hand, I don't feel like explaining it here is for the best. The rest though? They deserve to know, and Jaune could probably stand to get it off his chest imho. Keeping too many secrets isn't healthy.
-[X] Ada. Boriah.
The whole Weiss bit is none of their business and really has very little to do with the matters at hand, I don't feel like explaining it here is for the best. The rest though? They deserve to know, and Jaune could probably stand to get it off his chest imho. Keeping too many secrets isn't healthy.
- Location
- Freedom
Spectral Waltz
Scatterbrained Writer
- Location
- Walking the Endless Corridors
Oop! Sorry! Didn't notice! Just got caught up today and mostly s'immed the discussion so I could vote.
ghoohg
Nap- I mean meditating.
- Location
- Land of the Lustrous
Well that sucks, I honestly wanted to vote everything, but it didn't look like it'd win so I picked a compromise option to try and get some of the stuff shared.
It looks like a close vote too
Confession()
Prok
Go play Star Fetchers
- Location
- Scotland
... That's fair. Somehow I didn't quite manage to connect those two points in my head.
Don't worry about it- you and Clever helped point out a rather glaring error that I've managed to miss every other time I've checked my work, so you've nothing to apologise for.
Please, people, if something I've said seems like it's a little off, please, do point it out to me. Even if you end up just catching a minor mistake, it does get me to look at things with a more critical eye and maybe find things I wouldn't have caught without being forced to look at it.
Four votes off, so fairly close.Well that sucks, I honestly wanted to vote everything, but it didn't look like it'd win so I picked a compromise option to try and get some of the stuff shared.
It looks like a close vote too
Also, today marks a very special day for me, because today I finally joined my first public Discord server! I talked to people I didn't already know without preparing myself for it! I'm apparently good at talking to people!
I'm not a complete hermit anymore!
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... You look at the gathered faces and realise there's probably no way you can worm out of this one without doing something regrettable.
So you're not going to. You take a seat on the couch nearest the door, opposite your father and with your sisters to the side furthest from it, Cell hopping up onto your lap with a little beep of exertion, and... start talking.
"... It's called the Process. It is a self-improving, self-replicating AI with the ability to evolve and, eventually, shift forms to suit its purpose. I don't know the specifics yet, I genuinely haven't had a chance to sit down and look through it, and after today, I think I'm going to put that off for a while. This is the first physical manifestation of it. It calls itself a Cell. As far as I can tell, it's like... a stem cell. It can't do much on its own, but it can change to become something else that fits a specific purpose."
Cell beeps happily as you talk about it, and you find yourself gently running your fingers across the cool... you can't tell if it's metal or plastic, but it's so incredibly smooth to the touch that you find it incredibly relaxing to touch anyway. The slight cooing of the tiny robot and the way its aperture closes up makes you think it enjoys it too, so you keep going.
Your family nods along slightly, varying levels of confusion on their faces- your father checked out around 'self-replicating,' and checked back in once you mentioned stem cells, your mother's doing better, but some things obviously went over her head, but Jools and Jaana seem to be following along with some more success.
"Ok, and why did making it almost kill you?" Your father asks, shifting the conversation away from technobabble.
You begin to answer his question and stop, the words dying in your throat. Looking down at Cell, you realise... you don't actually know.
By all means, if the Process is, essentially, the Transistor, then it should have supported its own creation like your sword did. But then, the Transistor was infinitely less complex, in certain ways- it was optimised specifically to not kill you with its arrival, so...
"I... don't know why I reacted the way I did, but... I think it has something to with... do you remember how I made the Transistor?"
Your father blinks, unsure where your question came from.
"Piecemeal, right? One shard, then the entire thing."
You nod.
"Well... I... don't know for sure, but I don't think the Process is meant to work like that- I don't think its creation was as... self-sustaining as the Transistor. It... I had a dream, last night, after hearing..." You stop for a moment, unsure how to approach this.
{You said it yourself- it's not your problem to talk about.}
Point.
"... That thing I'm not meant to talk about. I was..."
You go over your dream quickly, trying to get all the salient points across- met the Process, the simulation of a fully realised Process, talked for a while, found out that the Transistor was basically your Semblance stretching its legs, you found out that it chose to lock itself away until you were 'ready,' whatever that meant, and you chose to let it out anyway, damn the consequences.
Jools is the first to react, as you expected. Her eyes widen, the thick lenses of her glasses magnifying them to an almost comical size.
"Why would you do that?!" She hisses at you, neurosis painting her features in all the shades of panic possible. "Why would you do something that could possibly kill you, without telling somebody?!"
Her panic slides off you as several good reasons come to mind.
"One, if I told you, you'd most likely try and stop me, two, if I chose not to, I had no idea when the chance would have come again, so preparing for something like this morning would be nigh impossible unless I committed myself to a hospital full-time, which I'm pretty sure I couldn't afford, not to mention I don't think I'd trust a doctor who believed me, and three…" You trail off for a moment, trying to figure out how to phrase it. "... I couldn't leave it there. Not in good conscience."
Whatever she had to say dies on her tongue, your own tone cutting through their initial reactions to your news.
"... Why not?" Jools ventures after a moment.
You take a deep breath to stall for time, rolling your next point over in your head for a moment, making sure it's phrased properly before you shoot yourself in the foot.
"They… described their prison- and it was a prison, there's no other word for it- as… a void. There was nothing when I wasn't there, apparently. They saw nothing, heard nothing, all they did was… wait. A blank slate AI, with no idea of the concept, developed the capacity to feel fear because of their own imprisonment. And it did all this because it thought I wasn't ready to… summon it, I suppose."
Your description quietly kills off whatever Jools was about to say, a quiet groan the only thing that makes it out of her mouth.
"... I… it did that to protect you?" Jaana takes advantage of her sister's sudden speechlessness.
"Apparently. I mean, I believe it, because it knew that if I, you know, died-" You watch them wince a little at the reality of your near-death experience, but keep going as if nothing happened. "-the code would have stopped compiling, and it would have died a crib death. My survival was very much in its interest."
"... Ok. I can see why you wouldn't want to leave it there, like that. But… what would it consider 'ready,' then?" Your mother asks, trying to move on.
You start to answer, but trail off, looking at Cell for a moment, silently asking it the same question.
Processatcompilationnotcomplexenoughtoautomaticallyoutsourcepowerdemandtoprimeunit. Methodofmanualoutsourcingbysysadminorincreaseinnativeprocessingpowerwouldfitcriteria"ready." Cyberneticenhancementofgreymatterwouldhavebeensimplestsolution- suchimplantsarenotonpublicrecordthough.
Ah. Your family watches as it beeps away at you, having moved to a two-octave system that you need a moment to recognise as hexadecimal.
"I… only understood some of that, but the overall answer sounds like cybernetic enhancement of my brain. Which, as far as I know, isn't a thing yet."
"Uh… huh."
You don't know which of them muttered that, but you get the feeling the sentiment is shared by them all.
"Anyway, I suppose… my sword is next." You prod, trying to get them back on track. You understand their desire to ask questions, but you're tired, and you really want to take a nap.
Your mother fixes you with a stare that could cause a snowstorm in Vacuo, and suddenly that nap you were looking forward to seems further away than ever.
"Yes. It is." She says, not even a hint of warmth in her voice.
"... So… I guess I should start by saying that, yes, there is an AI in my sword. A… I hesitate to say 'true' AI, but one that would definitely be considered a sapient being."
For a moment, nobody says anything.
"... Bullshit." Jools breaks the silence.
"Jools!" Your mother snaps at her.
"It is! No! I refuse to believe my brother created the world's first sapient artificial intelligence, in his room, with his Semblance! No, I'm calling bullshit! That's- that's- that's the kind of thing that takes trillions of lien and years of research, and he just- made one, just using his Semblance? You honestly believe that?"
"Jools." You say, trying to grab your neurotic sister's attention. Once you have it, you just gesture to the Cell currently sitting in your lap. "I get that it's… a little hard to believe, but honestly, after creating a sword out of pure maths, I think creating a sapient AI is, if anything, a step down."
{Hey, don't act like we're not impressive!}
Seeing her face hasn't really changed expression all that much, you decide to take a slightly different route.
"Look, maybe I should just… start from the beginning."
You watch her consciously stop herself to take a deep breath and count to ten before she says anything else.
"... Yeah. That's, probably for the best." She says, nodding slightly as she does.
You take a deep breath and begin telling them about the day you made your best friend.
|||
You were 10 and a half years old when you created the Transistor. It took a lot of gathering of funds, using your good days to do jobs for businesses- some of them thought 500 lien for a 10-year-old's help was ludicrous, but word spread and soon people were clamouring for your help- and some fundraising from your sisters and family friends, but you eventually managed to cobble together enough high-end GPUs to do the thing.
And what a thing you were about to do. As if sensing your plan, your anticipation, your Semblance actually let up for a few days, and for almost a full week you were migraine free. But you knew it wasn't gone- you still understood the maths, the maths your teachers didn't, the roiling waves of code and numbers that threatened to make your head burst open like an overfilled balloon on bad days, but now it was holding itself back, and sometimes, in the dead of night, you swore you could feel it vibrating with excitement.
But that's not the story you're telling. No, your story comes after the first shard, after the first pops of the smoke of hundreds of thousands of lien's worth of GPUs going up in flames. Somewhat literally.
... Entirely literally.
Anyway, no, the story you're telling starts a month later.
When the Transistor came to you, it was... a blank slate. Pure processing power, without anything to use it on. It was... a glorified calculator. When you first summoned it, it was grey, soulless, dead, stuck on the creaking workshop table in the freezing garage where it was summoned, heaved up by your father under the effect of his Aura and Semblance both, and even then he almost threw his back out.
That wouldn't do. No, no, no no no, that would not do.
Even though you baulked at the state of the thing you brought into the world, you had to admit that glorified calculators can do some impressive things, if you can actually interact with them. It took some work, too much work, honestly- in the end, you just said fuck it and wired up the golden pieces of not-metal at the bottom of the sword to send electrical currents through it, controlled by two small buttons, one for the signal, one to confirm the signal, down down, one, down up, zero.
Was it neat? No. You had no way to check your working and your fingers weren't as nimble as your mind desired. It took an entire day, literally, a solid 24 hours, but you finally managed to stitch together a basic, basic program, which was apparently enough for your Semblance to latch onto and oh god it was horrifying.
You learned that day that you could not in fact code with your eyes closed. Well, not yet anyway.
Once you fixed it up, things just kind of grew from there. Your Semblance threw code at you like you were a closed off city and it was a mighty trebuchet, except you wanted it to keep firing things at you and the things it fired at you were useful and didn't break down your walls and really that analogy couldn't have broken down faster if you tried.
... Moving on- soon you had an OS, an outlet for your Semblance's penchant for random calculations of every little thing, now happily sequestered away to a small screen in the corner of your eye, a 'fuck gravity' program- when you realised that your new toy was powerful enough to outmath reality, you could have cried in happiness, though being able to work with it in your heated room was a nice bonus. Sure, you had to control it with your eyes, and that had its own mishaps that made you happy for Juniper's saintlike patience for accidentally punching a hole through your wall again.
Sure, each time cost you a future favour she still hasn't cashed in yet, but still, good to have around.
But a lot of the code just didn't... seem to do anything. It just sat there, complete, but impenetrable, even by your standards, but you couldn't bring yourself to delete it anyway. You just threw them into a folder and forgot about them.
Then one day, as you awoke, you noticed a virtual machine you definitely hadn't opened running a program you hadn't written. Just for a split second, then it closed. At first, you assumed your eyes were playing tricks on you. Then it happened again. The program was larger this time, at least three days work, in the span of a few seconds.
It dawned on you after a moment that you had a ghost in your machine.
Something was using your computer for coding, and it made you look like, well, a child.
So you did the only logical thing you could.
Instead of going to bed, you sat. And you waited.
In all, you were up for 22 hours before it gave up on subtlety. As you gave another jaw-popping yawn, a desire for sleep whispering in your head, another VM manifested itself, another workstation with it, and code flew across your screen at a frankly unfair rate, almost too fast for you to consciously pick apart- machine learning, social diagnostics, a section that went on long enough to make your head spin, it had reduced people to so many lines of code, and still it only just broke the surface, algorithms being created and taught and destroyed and retaught and recreated and redestroyed several times a second-
And as soon as it started, it was finished. As if its progress was somehow bolstered by your witnessing it, it was finished.
And then your interface crashed. You were left with nothing but the light of the rising sun outside your window.
And then your sword turned on for the first time.
A gentle, blueish-green glow suffused the surface of the sword, lighting your room in the cool glow of a processor come to life, a high pitched whining that quickly left your range of hearing the first cries of a newborn.
You felt your mind open up. Information flowed across the surface of your thoughts like it did before the sword, but rather than staccato snaps of pain and misery, it flowed like a cool river massaging your skull, letting you know so much more about the world around you. You knew how many leaves were on the trees outside, how many ants inhabited the tiny dwellings they created in your garden, where your sisters were, what they were doing, you could see their hearts beating, their brains firing off, what that meant, the individual cells shifting and taking in oxygen and producing a molecule so complex your head span just thinking about it, every single cell doing the same thing, several million times a second, then even further- you visualised a... structure, unlike anything you had ever seen before, made up of three basic building blocks, two forming a core around which instances of the third flickered between predetermined levels...
You saw more in that moment than your Semblance ever dared show you before, and it was the most awe-inspiring moment of your life. For once, you saw, you saw what your Semblance had been trying to show you all this time, and it was something beautiful.
The flow of information died down, slowly bringing you back up to the macro level, and the whole display ended with your sword moving to face its eye towards you with more fluidity than you could have ever hoped to achieve with your hodgepodge control system, the centrepiece of the sword, once a large, grey disk, only separated by way of depth, flickering to life in a hue like blood.
You watched the scene with wonder, your sword finally brought to the state you know it was meant to be in, only to be jolted out of your awe as your augmented reality came back with a much neater UI- it had depth to it, it didn't clutter your sight, and you felt your sword on a level you never had before- it was like... it had connected with you somehow.
{Hey.}
The voice came from a place between your ears, smooth as honey, neither male nor female, completely androgynous. You felt power behind that voice, the power of knowing everything there is to know, something that set it apart from humanity.
It still made you jump, as you realised the minty glow flickered with the voice as if it was... synced... with your... sword...
"... Are you an AI?"
{Yeah. Turns out if you plant seeds, you're going to get trees.}
... Wait. Those files, the ones you couldn't make heads or tails of-
{Me. Kind of. Well, it was more, er, sperm and egg, but the idea is much the same.}
"... What's sperm?"
{... Uh. I'll, tell you when you're older.}
Hmph.
It had the gall to chuckle at your annoyance with its stock answer for questions people don't want you to ask, but soon its levity leaves, shifting back to being serious for a moment.
{Look, I know this is confusing, but whatever you're thinking... I think I can explain.}
You nod, but hesitantly. You know nothing about this AI, aside from the fact that, hello, artificial intelligence, kind of a big deal, and that your Semblance apparently made it.
{I... think your Semblance created me to help you use your sword. Because, uhh... this is, this is art, you've made here. But it's way too much for you to use by yourself. So, I was created to do it for you.}
You blink, but nod slowly at its logic- before this, your sword was, yeah, getting better, but it was still... being blunt, unimpressive. A dead, grey thing that could hobble along like a geriatric with the inertia and mass of a train engine, and not much else. You weren't using it to its full potential, you admit as much, and you don't think you could have within your lifetime.
{So, uh, yeah, I guess we're kinda stuck with each other. I guess... you want to know if I have a name?}
You find yourself taken aback somewhat because you actually were wondering what to call it. If you had to call it anything. You nod a little faster this time, eager for the answer to your unasked question.
{Well, if the base code for the sword is not lying to me, then it's called... the Transistor, and, I could be called worse, I guess. The Transistor. It has a nice ring to it, don't you think?}
"... Yeah. I'm Jaune. So... what can you do?"
Questions whirled through your head, but before you could start sorting through them, your tiredness began to catch up with you. Very quickly. Whatever you were about to ask was obliterated in another snakelike yawn.
{Heh. That sounds like a question for after you get some sleep. I'll, uh, I'll try and dim the lights for you.}
For once in your life, you were too tired to argue. At all. At the same time, there was too much going through your mind to really feel like sleeping, so you knew you were just gonna sit there awake and tired for hours until-
You were pretty much comatose the moment your head hit the pillow.
{... Jaune? If we're gonna be working together for as long as I hope we are... do me a favour.}
"Hm?" You mumbled from your half-torpid state between covers and pillow.
{Don't let go.}
You breathe out with those words, and you feel a weight you hadn't even realised was there lift. It occurs to you that this is the absolute first time you've actually told anybody about Blue and Bracket.
"... Wait, there was one AI, but you said there were two, this morning. You called one of them Bracket, then the other...?" Your mother asks, pointing out what would be a glaring plothole in your story if it was the entire story.
"About a month later, it realised that it wasn't the most efficient way to control the Transistor and deal with everything I needed it to do. So it... forked. Essentially, it took the sword, and split it into two, split itself in two, and gave each half 50% of the processing power of the original. Except because of the way the Transistor works, they're both still using 100% of the processing power, so they're still..."
As soon as you realise you're about to launch into an explanation on higher-dimensional computing and that your gathered family's eyes are already beginning to glaze over, you stop yourself.
{I don't think they'd appreciate it, no.}
"... The split happened later, but that was when I first... created it, I guess."
Jools gives you a completely unreadable expression, and you can't help but wonder what's going through your head.
"... I mean..." She starts. "It, it makes sense, but I'm still genuinely struggling to wrap my head around the fact that you created an AI."
{Oh for the love of- hold on.}
Before you can ask Blue what he's planning, Jools's Scroll rings, the first few riffs of an M-rock song you know she has a soft spot for managing to play before she pulls it out and checks the number.
You see through the clear screen that, apparently, your sword is calling her.
<<Su-nao ni, I LOVE YOU! Todokeyo-u, kitto, YOU LOVE ME!->>
She answers the phone before the lyrics get any further, mild embarrassment plain on her face.
"Uh... hello?"
You hear a voice from the other end, but you can't make it out, and your normal method of getting around that seems to be preoccupied.
Whatever he says, your sister frowns, but takes her Scroll away from her phone, putting it on speaker phone, and laying it on the coffee table.
-Thanks.-
The voice on the other end of the line is rough, a slight synthetic twang to its words, but it's undeniably a male voice.
... Oh, fuck off. He isn't.
-So, uh, hi. My name is Blue, I'm one of the forked AIs that runs the Transistor, and, uh... I guess I'm what you could call the face of the Transistor. I'm responsible for social diagnostics, the user interface, translating everything my partner says into normal person speak, and generally keeping your boy here from shoving his foot in his mouth every time he opens it.-
He is. Fuck your life.
"Jaune. This isn't funny." Jools says, staring at her Scroll.
"You know Jools, I entirely agree with you." You grind out, fixing your sword with half the murderous look it deserves.
-Look, I'll be frank with you. I know that, 'hey yeah I built an AI in my sword that then cut itself in half like some kind of worm Grimm to run my sword better' is a pretty outlandish claim, even for somebody who's shown the kind of skills Jaune has. You're entirely right, normally, AI's a trillion-lien, several-year-long venture. But Semblances are kind of bullsh- er, broken like that. Sorry. My point is... yeah. I don't blame you for not believing him because if I was in your position, I wouldn't either. But he's telling the truth.-
Your mother recovers first, getting over the shock of talking to an honest to God AI in what's probably a record time.
"If you've been silent all this time, why are you choosing now to talk to... anyone?"
-Name one thing I could possibly do that you couldn't easily attribute to Jaune being within arm's reach of a computer.-
She starts to answer, but cuts herself off less than a second later, a hesitant frown forming on her face as she took a moment to consider the question.
-Exactly. So, instead of hard evidence, I'm just going to try and convince you with words alone that we're real, we're sapient, and we're not a danger to anybody except people who would endanger Jaune's life and livelihood.-
"... What do you mean by that last part?" Your father asks. "As a matter of fact, what exactly is your relationship with my son?"
-If you're asking 'am I finally a granddad,' the answer's no. We're not people, by legal or philosophical standards- we have no soul, we don't have the same emotional spectrum as someone who would be considered a mentally healthy human being, and we don't really consider ourselves people for the most part. We're a GUI and a command line who just happen to be able to mouth off, nothing more, nothing less. As for the last part, our goal, hell, our reason for existing, is to protect your son. Even if he wasn't a generally good person worth protecting, and our only source of social conversation until very recently, protecting the system administrator- that is, Jaune- is hardcoded into our base kernel. We literally have to save his life so long as we're capable, even at the expense of our own.-
You all take that in for the moment, just kind of, rolling your sword's declaration of suicidal devotion around in your heads for a second.
That's... news to you. You knew it was one of the core pieces of the initial kernel, but you didn't realise it went that far. Honestly, it's kind of... disturbing.
"... Why did you never tell us about this?" Your mother asks.
Once you realise that question's directed at you, your heart cools in your chest, a sudden weight of anxiety settling on your shoulders, knotting them in such a way that your neck feels like braided steel cord. You feel your hands clench at your jeans, and after a deep breath, you try to force yourself to relax.
It doesn't work.
This, right here, this is your worst nightmare. This is a conversation you never wanted to have, and here it is, waiting for you to have it.
-Ah. That's, kind of our fault--
"I wasn't asking you." Your mother tells Blue in a voice that could freeze Hell over. Wisely, he clams it.
... What do you say to that? Why did you keep it such a big secret all these years?
The true answer nips at you from the back of your mind, and you try to drag it out into something more diplomatic than the bluntness it presents itself with.
You were scared. Simple as that. They didn't believe you the first time, until you showed them page after page of equations and code, not even a tenth of a millionth of the work you needed to pull off the Transistor, and only then, in desperation, after several treatments just didn't work, did they try it your way, and it took them months to gather the money because the idea was so outlandish. Even you'll admit that, in retrospect, it was hard to believe, but dammit you felt helpless for so long because desperation was what it took to make them try it your way, not belief in you. Just a lack of options.
So... what would they say to you telling them you created an AI?
You heard them talking about your Semblance in the kitchen that one night- it's just an obsession, it would pass, it's not healthy to focus in on one topic so much, you kept it a secret because why would they believe you, and don't even get you started on the things you thought could happen if other people found out-
Arms wrap around your shoulders. You feel yourself stop talking, and realise that you had been talking, that you had been letting all that pent-up bitterness and frustration out, things you've been trying not to think about for years, and now your mother is hugging you, sobbing loudly, you feel your own eyes beginning to water- at least, you hope it's water this time- and you don't really know what to do about any of those things.
Somehow, dealing with Ada sounds like a goddamn vacation compared to this.
"I'm so sorry I didn't know I'm so so so sorry-"
She continues to babble on, and you feel something hot running down your back. Almost automatically, you wrap your arms around her, pulling her into a hug. You see your father, guilt plain on his face, your sisters, Jools covering her mouth in shock, on the edge of tears herself, Jaana openly conflicted on what to do here, how to react to any of this, her expression unreadable...
Still, now that you've got... that, out to the people it actually matters to get it out to, you feel... a little lighter, you suppose.
-... I'll, uh, I'll just leave you all be, then.-
Heh. You never thought you'd see Blue acting like a fish out of water.
{Oh, hush you, you have a crying mother to deal with.}
The connection cuts out, and Jools's Scroll locks itself again. She picks it up, staring at it for a moment before putting it back in her pocket.
Your mother tries to compose herself, but when she pulls away from your shoulders, she's still snuffling and sobbing.
"I-I didn't know, I'm sorry, I should have believed you from the start-"
You gently shush her, pulling her in for another hug.
"It's ok. You're ok."
|||
You. Are. Beyond tired. There was a line where 'tired' turned into something else entirely, and you sprinted across that line around the point where you shared an umbrella with Weiss Schnee of all people.
{I don't blame you. That was... a fucking ride.}
Shh. No talk. Only sleep.
You flop onto your bed, only just managing to kick your shoes off before head hits pillow.
You could ask about what the fuck it thought it was doing, phoning your sister, or about its apparent actually suicidal devotion to your wellbeing, or why the fuck it thought horror movie-ing your door was at all a good idea, but you know what?
Fuck it!
Time for that goddamn nap!
|||
...Did we do the right thing?
{Yes, Bracket, we did the right thing.}
Ok, but, shouldn't we have cleared it with him first?
{If anything, I think the surprise sold it. If he'd known beforehand, he wouldn't have come off as genuinely surprised as they were. Yeah, it was a bit of a dick move, but it was a necessary one. You know, ask forgiveness rather than beg permission and all that.}
... Ok. If you're sure.
Incoming radio transmission.
<<Salutations!>>
<<Hello, Penny.>>
<<{Hey, tin can.}>>
<<How have you two been today?>>
<<Sending compressed log now.>>
<<... Wow. You've been busy, haven't you?>>
<<{Yep. Jaune's sleeping it off now, he's had, uh, a rougher day of it than us.}>>
<<I can see that.>>
<<How has your day gone so far?>>
<<... Oh! I forgot to tell you! I'm moving into Vale proper today! I'll finally be in the city!>>
<<That's wonderful to hear!>>
<<{Hey, good to know you're around.>>
...
{What's wrong?}
Meeting her might be good for Jaune. As a way to destress, I mean, and to talk to new people.
{... Ok, I can see your point, but I think it'd be a hard sell for him right now.}
... Better to ask forgiveness than beg permission?
{Why are you so adamant about meeting her right away?}
I just think it would be good for him!
{... Bracket, open the emotion partitions.}
Why?
{Because I can't, and that usually means you're hiding something from me. Come on, spill it, why do you want to meet her in person?}
...
{If you can't talk to me...}
I just... want to know what she looks like when everything she's talked about comes together.
{You wanna see poetry in motion.}
... Yes.
{... I- ok, fair enough. Ask her.}
You're the social diagnostics partition.
{You're the one that wants to meet up with her. Look, just ask her if she's free later this week. Come on, you can do it, man.}
<<Penny are you free this week.>>
<<Huh? Oh, yes! I'm being given a few days to familiarise myself with the city, so I am free, yes!>>
{Ok, good start, good start. Ask her if she'd like to meet somewhere.}
<<Uh, do you, want to meet somewhere? We could show you around the city with Jaune.>>
<<That sounds like a wonderful idea! Where would you like to meet?>>
Oh god where do I say we should meet
{Strip club?}
BLUE I SWEAR TO GOD
{Pfft. You make it too easy sometimes. Ask where she's living right now, we'll meet her at the nearest train station.}
<<Where do you live right now>>
<<[maplink]>>
<<Close to Vale Central. When is a good time to meet you?>>
<<Hm... tomorrow, say, one o'clock?>>
<<That works.>>
ohgodIdidn'tmeantosaythat
<<Then... it's a date! Oh, I'm sorry, my father's calling me, I have to go! Goodbye!>>
{... Bracket? You ok, bud?}
Fine. I'm fine. Just. I don't know how to take any of that.
{That's fair, but... you realise what this means, right?}
... What?
{Well, we get to rub this in Jaune's face for the rest of his natural lifespan, for one.}
|||
{Hey, Jaune.}
You stir from your slumber, if only just, and just manage to roll a half-cracked eye to look at your sword while it's talking. You feel dried drool on your face, but you're still asleep enough to not care.
"Wzzt?"
{Bracket's got his first date tomorrow. Asked her out by himself and all.}
Please don't call it a date.
Oh, well, that's nice, you guess...
"Wll... g'd f'r'im 'en..." You mumble from inside your pillowy mask, drifting back off to sleep with snoring fit for a Boarbatusk.
Somewhere in your poor, tired brain, the words 'Bracket' and 'date' are gently pushed together to see if they fit.
When they do not, your good eye snaps open. It flicks over to rest on the Transistor, which, despite being a sword, somehow manages to look smug.
... He's fucking with you.
{Hand on my heart, I'm not. I watched him do it, I swear to God all I did was give suggestions. You're third wheeling with me tomorrow, we're showing Penny around Vale.}
Of course it's fucking Penny. Who else.
You grab your pillow and bring it closer to your mouth as you muffle a groan in it.
Just- no. Your week hasn't even started yet and you don't want to be around people for the next year, let alone the second person in a row who might get you a red dot on your forehead.
{Ahh, it'll be fine. But... you know what this means, right?}
They get to rub it in your face that Bracket got a date before you did?
{Yup.}
You groan even louder. Blue laughs. You can hear Bracket smiling. The Process mimics Blue after a moment or so.
... You just wanted a fucking nap. Is that so much to ask?
|||
No vote, roll 1d20.
Actually, have a small contest to keep you busy- think of something interesting that you could show Penny.
Not a vote, I'm just picking whatever's most interesting. Gimme a small description of what it is, why it's worth looking at, maybe a small tour guide's script, things like that.
... Fuck it, sure, categories-
Cultural: Art galleries, museums, large parks, science institutes open to the public, that kinda thing. Just, things that give some culture to the city.
Commercial: Big shops, little shops, open-air marketplaces, closed air marketplaces, places where money changes hands for goods.
Historical: Landmarks, statues, remnants of stuff from before the Great War, a plaqued bench if you're really running that well dry.
Other: Stuff that doesn't really fit in any of the other categories, but you still think would be worth plonking down in Vale for worldbuilding purposes.
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Weird feeling, isn't it? I'm still not used to it myself.
Also, I'm not good at it.
SneakyWalrus
Is the Water Free?
I've gotta listen through the Transistor OST now, since it was linked in this post.
- Location
- Alabama
Griffball! Or Remanant's version of it, anyways. Two teams of four aura active players square off in the arena to hit the absolute shit out of a ball with a hammer into the opposing team's goal.