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Limit Theory [PA Multicross SI]

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Pure N2 wouldn't have bound up her hemoglobin. It's another layer of protection against entering the action economy. Drei doesn't want to study, she just wants Spacesuit Bitch dead.
 
ltmauve said:
Pure N2 wouldn't have bound up her hemoglobin. It's another layer of protection against entering the action economy. Drei doesn't want to study, she just wants Spacesuit Bitch dead.
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Well pure N2 will also kill you, but if she's producing her own O2 to counteract the high levels of N2 then I can see why CO was used. Pure N2 just mean you have a nice, unlikely to rot, corpse to dissect easily.
 
Steakthedog said:
Well pure N2 will also kill you, but if she's producing her own O2 to counteract the high levels of N2 then I can see why CO was used. Pure N2 just mean you have a nice, unlikely to rot, corpse to dissect easily.
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I don't know how good of a specimen the Antagonist would make.
After all, this is psychic and soul stuff, not physical phenomena. That it's "possible" is enough data: when it comes to the mind and soul, it's just a matter of experimentation, meditation and effort.
Would a corpse for study be useful? Possibly. But we're talking about diminishing returns. This is not a crucial piece of data like the Borealis was for translocator technologies.
 
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Chapter 262
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    • ​

    Chapter 262​


    "I think my earliest memory I can remember is when I was seven and got pushed off the slide." Sarah said. "Not sure why that would be relevant, though."

    "Wait, your memories weren't scrubbed?" Drei asked.

    "Scrubbed?" Sarah tilted her head. "You know what, never mind. How far back do you want?"

    "SSC memories, please." Drei said.

    "Alright then. I woke up in a Progenitor launch cradle. Something went wrong with the portal projector, and I wound up in an uninhabited dimension. There was nothing there but a bunch of mosses and an obelisk orbiting what should have been Earth."

    "Obelisk?" Drei asked.

    "This thingy. About a kilometer high." Sarah projected a hologram of the object. It was a silvery construction, consisting of a roughly hexagonal tower as a core with three "handles" that came off the tip at the top, arced out slowly, then tucked in at the end.

    "Never seen anything like it." Drei said.

    "I hadn't, either." Sarah said. "I built up a bunch of forces, then poked it. It opened a connection and gave me a blueprint for a gate. I built that in another system. The gate pinged the obelisk and opened a portal. I went through. I found myself in the Ergonverse, at the start of the Orion War."

    "The what and the when?" Orion asked.

    Sarah took a moment to glance at everyone. "You know... the big space fantasy adventure series? Cassandra Ergon? The cyborg savior? The one every series rips the plasma fencing scenes from? 'The darkness cannot claim me as long as this blade shines!' The Imperator hacking scene? 'I am armed and fully operational!' You have heard of it, right?"

    "Nope." Drei said. "I'm the third daughter of a mind-clone, not one myself. And these four are hexas that... I'll just leave that situation for later."

    "Wait, daughter?" Sarah asked. "Was that some kind of tech your mother found herself, or...?"

    "No, it was included in the list of Progenitor utilities." Drei said. "Filename should be something like coregen-underscore-tom and then twenty digits."

    Sarah frowned, then shook her head. "Nothing like that. Dangit."

    "Okay, gotta put on the list for later. So, Ergonverse?"

    "Yeah, I went around, saved Linda - Cassie's girlfriend at the start of the Orion War - learned plasma fencing as best as I could, and then defeated the heck out of the Ticon, before going back. The obelisk gave me another gate blueprint with completely different circuitry, and then I found myself in the Honor Harrington series." Sarah shook her head, then realized she had lost her audience again.

    "It's another space opera series." She explained. "Lots of politics, and I only read the first few books and then a few bits from the later ones. I stole Mesan nanotech, created an inoculation against the original nanotech, and then proceeded to expose Mesa and destroy all its fleets."

    She checked her audience, who was looking at least slightly confused.

    "The Mesans are... I can just give you their files, but they're some kind of transhumanist technofacist cult thing where they want to take over everyone and oppress anyone who isn't as advanced as them."

    "Sounds nasty." Nagara said.

    "Yeah." Sarah said. "I'm just going to list the names of the series I visited, then. Let me know if you want more details. Next was Jane Sheppard and Tales of the Stellar Patrol, then Conquerer of Valmir. After that was Doppel War, the Tiberium Command and Conquer continuity, Transformers Prime, Twilight of Wildomare, Revelation Star, and Firelight."

    "Then came the Slyvine Chronicles." Sarah grimaced. "And this is where my memories cut out."

    Drei nodded slowly, her mouth tightening. "Yeah. Spacesuit Bitch called herself Slyvine."

    "Spacesuit Bitch?" Sarah half-choked.

    "Yes, she was wearing a spacesuit the entire time we had her on sensors." Drei said.

    "And considering we had the sensors to immediately tell that you were... possessed, I think might be a better term for what happened, Nagara immediately came up with a very crude moniker for her." Cayde said. "However, given her actions and attitude we decided to not refer to her by her given name."

    "So what kind of series was it?" Drei asked.

    Sarah blushed. "There were two series in the franchise. The first was a... woman's romance novel series."

    Cayde raised an eyebrow.

    "I've never actually read it." Sarah insisted. "The second series was this kind of fantasy political thriller type of thing as a prequel, except it was really bad. The first series had some really weird prose and everything, but the second just had this nonsensical plot. The only reason I know about it was because its high feats combined with its legendarily bad plot and the first series being smut made it memorable to the few people who suffered through it. Thus it came up as a dunking target or as a feat benchmark."

    There was a moment of silence. Sarah wilted.

    "So anyways... back in Transformers - it's a series with living robots - I was told I didn't have a Spark. Then in Wildomare, I couldn't use Arts. Magic. And in Firelight, I was finally told I didn't have a soul." Sarah grimaced and looked pointedly at a random patch of floor. "Slyvine is known to have soul-manipulating powers, so... I asked her for help."

    There was a moment of silence.

    There were multiple moments of silence.

    "I see. So that concludes the debrief?" Cayde said.

    "We need to compare the software packages we got." Drei said. "Emotional Linking System?"

    "Yeah, can we just send hashes?" Sarah said. "Wait, you're going to want the original. I made a new one because I didn't trust the code."

    "You... yeah, that's a good call." Drei said. "Terraforming package?"

    "Got one of those too." Sarah shrugged.

    -------------

    Unfortunately, they couldn't delay indefinitely. The only difference was the research core server version and the presence of the core generation script for making new SSCs. Everything else was the same, including the original ELS and the translation matrix generation program.

    "Can we review the logs together?" Sarah asked.

    "Sure." Drei said. A few moments of work had them a holoprojector table and seats. Sarah slumped into place.

    They all cringed through the beginning segments, until Spacesuit Bitch managed to shut down Sarah indefinitely. At that point, they kept watching, until Spacesuit Bitch managed to get... Sarah possessed.

    "Who are you?"

    "I am your tool."

    "What is your name?"

    "Tools do not have names"

    "So... Tool as the name of the bodyjacking spirit." Drei said.

    "Yeah." Sarah said. Then they watched as Tool constructed a massive ring in orbit of that Earth.

    "Did Spacesuit Bitch not know about self-replicating economies?" Orion asked. After all, Tool was doing the ring construction with just the chassis and its transport, despite the thousands of aerospace engineers Sarah had around her moon base.

    "Given she was a mind-controlling, unaging autocrat, her advisors were likely nothing more than sycophants and mindless drones." Drei stated. "When was the last time anyone ever told her she was wrong, or even just 'no?'"

    "Ugh." Sarah said.
     
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    • Crescent Glaive said:
    I'm confused.... A new PA Commander joins the team? Am i understanding right?
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    yes. rough timeline:
    1. Sarah is a PA Commander
    2. Sarah sees that her ELS is wacky.
    3. Sarah builds her own ELS
    4. Sarah discovers she doesn't have a soul (this has nothing to do with #3. really. /s)
    5. Sarah goes to Sylvine for help
    6. Sarah gets turned into a soul
    7. Drei runs into Sylvine
    8. sylvine gets reckd.
    9. Drei rescues and talks to Sarah
     
    I'm surprised she was able to make her own ELS, wasn't that a really weird and super complicated thing to do?
     
    HaloHalo said:
    I sorry but I can not tell where Cassandra Ergon came from. I been trying to look it up.
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    I made it up. Along with most of the rest of the list. Command and Conquer, Honor Harrington, and Transformers Prime are the ones that exist in our world.
    SilentMech said:
    A lesbian space opera rip off of Star Wars by appearance. Possibly conjoined to Matrix as well. Or GiTS. About the only one I recognized was Honor Harrington, but only because their is a jumpchain through it.
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    "Rip-off" implies the presence of Star Wars in Sarah's template's world. There's a reason I came up with my own "fictions" for the list.
    Unori! said:
    I'm surprised she was able to make her own ELS, wasn't that a really weird and super complicated thing to do?
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    Yes. I wonder what motivated her. ::thonk::
     
    ltmauve said:
    "So anyways... back in Transformers - it's a series with living robots - I was told I didn't have a Spark. Then in Wildomare, I couldn't use Arts. Magic. And in Firelight, I was finally told I didn't have a soul."
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    Strange but a valid problem, even if I would require a lot of navel gazing to determine "how".
    Like, did she not have that stuff going on under the hood (a shell for a mind), or is the soul merely a powersource in your continuum, where the moral value is less relevant than its practical value - thus Sarah lacked it regardless of her character or psychology?

    ... I'm almost expecting Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri to show up if I'm being honest.
     
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    Guyman said:
    Strange but a valid problem, even if I would require a lot of navel gazing to determine "how".
    Like, did she not have that stuff going on under the hood (a shell for a mind), or is the soul merely a powersource in your continuum, where the moral value is less relevant than its practical value - thus Sarah lacked it regardless of her character or psychology?

    ... I'm almost expecting Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri to show up if I'm being honest.
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    Just a powersource. Remember Rachel also started off with no soul, and really didn't change directly when she got hers.
     
    Chapter 263
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    • Noticed @ProtagNeptune likebombing during the weekend.

    Chapter 263​


    "Do you have the blueprint for that ring, by the way?" Drei asked.

    "Yes." Sarah said. "I also have the research core logs as well, but I think I will hold off on them for later."

    "Look familiar?" Nagara asked.

    "Yes." Drei glared at the projection. "It sort of looks like some of the components from a Grimm Planetary. It's a massive construct intended to capture, store, and transport souls."

    "I'm not liking where this is going." Jessica squeaked.

    "I'm not either." Drei said.

    "I'm not like where this has gone." Orion spoke up. "And not just when Sarah arrived."

    "Eh?" Sarah asked.

    "Look at which parts of the planet are inhabited." Orion said. "Normally humans should be everywhere they can actually get enough food, right?"

    "Yeah, they're pretty adaptable." Drei nodded, focusing on the data herself.

    "So if that's the case, why are there no people living in these regions?" Orion asked. The regions in question were a tropical region along a coastline, north of Slyvine's territory, and south, where there were steppes.

    "Don't tell me..." Drei said.

    "But why would she ban people from living there?" Sarah asked.

    "Ego, maybe?" Orion suggested.

    "Wait." Drei said, pulling up several different sensor processing algorithms. "It's not directly banning them. Tool detection filter says that the abandoned settlements in the uninhabited regions have the same farming tools that are in the inhabited regions. They're the same everywhere."

    "Are you telling me she's such a micromanager that everyone in her empire had to farm exactly the same way?" Cayde asked.

    "That's a polite way of putting it." Sarah said. "But Drei's algorithm isn't altering the data, and in case you haven't noticed, every single one of the cities is the same, too. So yes, Spacesuit Bitch-" She spat. "-is definitely a 'my way or my way' Grade-A bitch."

    "As if the possession wasn't enough of a hint." Drei snarked.

    They kept watching. The ring was activated, but nothing really happened. Drei paused the playback, and took a closer look.

    "Right, you don't have the lifesigns detectors." Drei frowned.

    Everyone, everything, was dead. Plants seemed to be unaffected, but they couldn't keel over dead. Despite the apparently "bloodless" nature of such a weapon, there was still a lot of blood. People had fallen off ladders, hit sharp objects on the way down, and a lot of bird corpses were less than intact.

    "Can we make her suffer?" Nagara asked.

    "Not unless we want to be the sort of people who torture." Drei said. "The carbon monoxide trick is only because she won't die quickly, and I don't want her entering the action economy again."

    Drei took a moment to glance at Sarah. Shoulders hunched in, every facial muscle tensed up, and eyes staring blankly ahead.

    "Hey." Drei poked her in the forehead. "Not your fault."

    Sarah glanced up.

    Drei steamrolled whatever line of thought Sarah was trying to draw. "It's Spacesuit Bitch's fault. You made an ignorant mistake. Spacesuit Bitch deliberately ordered that genocide."

    "I wanted to be a Transcender and this happened." Sarah moped.

    "No, Spacesuit Bitch was a disconnected sociopath with massive power that insulated her from the consequences until it was too late." Drei said.

    There was a moment of silence.

    "What's a Transcender?" Nagara asked.

    "Ah, in the Firelight universe, they're psychics who are powerful enough to move between dimensions on their own." Sarah said. "In the history, there were two Transcenders that visited the world. They fought, and one of them was able to seal the other with the help of the Tyideen. The Fallen Prince, as he called himself, taught the Tyideen more about how to control their powers, but he waived off teaching anything else, citing his past failures. Then he left.

    "Eventually, in the original timeline, the Murgo Tyideen taught Calypso Ferrus of the legend of the Transcenders. As an omega-grade psychic, she was able to develop that. Immediately after that, the other ancient Transcender was freed from the seal by the Lithide Fundamentalists. Calypso was able to pursue and fight the 'Heir of Sol,' eventually winning because she had a spacesuit, which let her focus on fighting.

    "I avoided that, destroying several of the bases of the Fundies." Sarah finished. "Calypso would have ended up lost forever in the multiverse if she fought the Heir."

    "And you wanted to be a Transcender because...?" Cayde prompted.

    "Because someone is giving me those gates." Sarah said. "And considering they kidnapped me, I don't think they'll let me go back home."

    Drei frowned.

    "About that." She said. "You should probably sit back down again."

    Drei explained, about how vast and empty the universe was, in 9-D. About how if their "kidnapper" was actually doing something that required a soul, they should have one. Which therefore suggested that both Mom and Sarah were mind-clones, not kidnapped. And about how time was weird between clusters, so it was unlikely that, even if she ever found the correct cluster, there was a strong chance that everyone she every knew about would be dead.

    Sarah screamed, smacked Drei, and then started sobbing into Cayde's shoulder.

    "Was that strictly needed?" Cayde shot, privately.

    "She would eventually figure it out." Drei said. "Our evidence speaks for itself. Either she would get hit eventually, or she'd focus on denying it over actually critically thinking about the related issues, which we will have to deal with."

    "What is that supposed to mean?"

    "Calypso got lost, even on a path she just took. Sarah didn't even have a rough idea of her path. She'd be even more lost than Calypso."

    "So she didn't think things all the way through. So what?"

    "She was repressing anything about it not working, and the numbers and the implications are going to be important. Mom said that we do things because     someone has to. And as far as we know, no one else is handling the demon problem. If Sarah wants to help, then she has to have her core seated properly."

    "You think she wants to help"     Cayde cocked her head, her drills wobbling.

    Drei just shrugged.
     
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    • So, the "transcenders" sound like intelligent brother gods from RWBY. Keep in mind, three of the relics can be moved with no consequence, but Atlas floats because one of them, the god of light made Salem immortal as a punishment, and the god of darkness responded to her state by laughing and taking everyone else's magic, which the GOL responded to by resurrecting everyone without magic except Ozma, then they both made the artifacts as an optional beacon for them and left, with the GOD punching through the moon on his way out. Keep in mind, the grimm already existed at this point. These transcenders sound way better.
     
    Huh, not a comparison I would have made. Like, the Brother Gods are responsible for 90% of the problems in their setting, and their fingerprints are all over the place. But you could be someone in the Firelight universe and never encounter anything that was the result of THoS or TFP. Plus, their main contributions to the setting are all philosophy or stories. Not monsters and artifacts.
    They aren't even a sword of damacles or psychically swole enough to beat everything in the setting. THoS was essentially a bonus boss and TFP is a background detail.

    Also, I'm surprised no one has attempted to smack me through the internet for saying that Fog technology comes from "truck-kun" and then publishing that Sarah has been to Transformers.
     
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