She killed us twice in the first two paragraphs by using us as a human shield. Although I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt that she was planning to retcon away her collateral damage.
[X] Attempt to contact "Marie" through the USB drive's communications, asking what is going on.
That said I'm always the kind of person who wants more information first.
So to do a manual/ad hoc count (the easiest way, we can talk about setting up scheduled counts later), you do the following:
Underneath the New Post interface, click "New Tally"
Most default selections on the screen should be fine - you're counting since the last threadmark (default) and you're not using anything fancy in your votes this time, although for something like your first vote where you had multiple options that don't interact with each other, you can choose to divide by Task rather than Block
IMPORTANT, I FORGOT TO DO THIS IN MY EXAMPLE: click "New Tally" in the middle of this interface to get the votes to re-tabulate.
Down at the bottom of the tally interface, click "Insert as New Post"
You're done, and the result will look like this:
Adhoc vote count started by Andre Chaos on Dec 20, 2024 at 1:30 PM, finished with 21 posts and 14 votes.
[X] Attempt to contact "Marie" through the USB drive's communications, asking what is going on.
[X] Tell Plato, spoofing as Marie: "Plato, new timeline. Only Daniel Rodriguez has a way to communicate with you, and Marie does not. Daniel Rodriguez can always communicate with you."
[x] Tell Plato, spoofing as Marie: "Plato, new timeline. The USB drive used to communicate with you is plugged into the computer where Daniel Rodriguez is seated."
[X] Tell Plato, spoofing as Marie: "Plato, new timeline. The guy who threatened to shoot Daniel Rodriguez in the balls spontaneously combusts exactly three seconds after leaving Daniel's sight."
Note that this will only count votes that are formatted correctly: [X] Vote text with the [X] at the very start of the line, although the x is case-insensitive. It will also only aggregate votes where the text is identical, including spaces, so there may need to be some manual counting still for spoiled ballots.
Also, @Gnosis, you can just say "reserved" for a few posts here and then edit character sheets in later. We're still early enough to where it won't hurt.
4 [X] Tell Plato, spoofing as Marie: "Plato, new timeline. Only Daniel Rodriguez has a way to communicate with you, and Marie does not. Daniel Rodriguez can always communicate with you."
She killed us twice in the first two paragraphs by using us as a human shield. Although I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt that she was planning to retcon away her collateral damage.
[X] Attempt to contact "Marie" through the USB drive's communications, asking what is going on.
That said I'm always the kind of person who wants more information first.
So to do a manual/ad hoc count (the easiest way, we can talk about setting up scheduled counts later), you do the following:
Underneath the New Post interface, click "New Tally"
Most default selections on the screen should be fine - you're counting since the last threadmark (default) and you're not using anything fancy in your votes this time, although for something like your first vote where you had multiple options that don't interact with each other, you can choose to divide by Task rather than Block
IMPORTANT, I FORGOT TO DO THIS IN MY EXAMPLE: click "New Tally" in the middle of this interface to get the votes to re-tabulate.
Down at the bottom of the tally interface, click "Insert as New Post"
You're done, and the result will look like this:
Adhoc vote count started by Andre Chaos on Dec 20, 2024 at 1:30 PM, finished with 21 posts and 14 votes.
[X] Attempt to contact "Marie" through the USB drive's communications, asking what is going on.
[X] Tell Plato, spoofing as Marie: "Plato, new timeline. Only Daniel Rodriguez has a way to communicate with you, and Marie does not. Daniel Rodriguez can always communicate with you."
[x] Tell Plato, spoofing as Marie: "Plato, new timeline. The USB drive used to communicate with you is plugged into the computer where Daniel Rodriguez is seated."
[X] Tell Plato, spoofing as Marie: "Plato, new timeline. The guy who threatened to shoot Daniel Rodriguez in the balls spontaneously combusts exactly three seconds after leaving Daniel's sight."
Note that this will only count votes that are formatted correctly: [X] Vote text with the [X] at the very start of the line, although the x is case-insensitive. It will also only aggregate votes where the text is identical, including spaces, so there may need to be some manual counting still for spoiled ballots.
The vote tally function is kind of slow to register new votes if someone changes what they're voting for. Right now, 'Attempt to contact "Marie" through the USB drive's communications, asking what is going on.' has 5 votes while 'Tell Plato, spoofing as Marie: "Plato, new timeline. Only Daniel Rodriguez has a way to communicate with you, and Marie does not. Daniel Rodriguez can always communicate with you."' has 6 from personally counting.
The vote tally function is kind of slow to register new votes if someone changes what they're voting for. Right now, 'Attempt to contact "Marie" through the USB drive's communications, asking what is going on.' has 5 votes while 'Tell Plato, spoofing as Marie: "Plato, new timeline. Only Daniel Rodriguez has a way to communicate with you, and Marie does not. Daniel Rodriguez can always communicate with you."' has 6 from personally counting.
That's why I edited in that new point 3. You HAVE TO click New Tally (the second one, on the vote count interface) to recount the votes if there's been any change from the last time someone clicked New Tally. The site does not update the totals automatically, as presumably that would be a ton of overhead across hundreds of quests.
That's why I edited in that new point 3. You HAVE TO click New Tally (the second one, on the vote count interface) to recount the votes if there's been any change from the last time someone clicked New Tally. The site does not update the totals automatically, as presumably that would be a ton of overhead across hundreds of quests.
Oh thanks for the info, I re-counted. Btw, even though 'Plato, new timeline. Only Daniel Rodriguez has a way to communicate with you, and Marie does not. Daniel Rodriguez can always communicate with you' says its 5, I think GAWR voted wrong by putting a 4 in front of their vote since it didn't register when counting, so its 6.
Oh thanks for the info, I re-counted. Btw, even though 'Plato, new timeline. Only Daniel Rodriguez has a way to communicate with you, and Marie does not. Daniel Rodriguez can always communicate with you' says its 5, I think GAWR voted wrong by putting a 4 in front of their vote since it didn't register when counting, so its 6.
It is a bad move. She has a machine to rewrite reality and not shy to use it. I bet, if we try, she will just retcon things in a way for MC to not know. Because this thing was hidden, we were not told what it was, which means it is kind of a secret. And we are just some kind of stranger for her, technician, liability. She doesn't know us, we don't know her. However, she has a lot more leverage, because of the machine and status. We cannot take her status for ourselves, which means we should take the machine. Because negotiations are conducted only between equals or from a position of power. Even if she is a good hearted individual, she can easily decide it is too dangerous for us to know and be involved in any way in this mess. This means retcon for our own safety.
Taking control over the Plato and denying this asset for potential or active threats is a logical thing to do, it is a winning strategy. Other stuff need a lot of baseless assumptions. For example, assuming she will not erase this version of us, if we are no longer useful. We also need to assume her character and course of actions she would take, for which we do not have true informations.
Closing votes. I believe it's a 6-vote tie between communicating with Marie and hijacking Plato, with some other votes supporting hijacking Plato without the "Daniel can always communicate with you" rider. So I'll tiebreak in favor of hijacking Plato.
In the future, if there is some tie with no other way for me to tiebreak, I'll just pick one myself.
Edit: I see two GAWR votes there, the latest was in favor of communicating, no? So communicating wins?
Edit2: But more people overall voted for hijacking, even if it was split among more options... Gah... I don't know what to do.
Edit3: I'll go with hijacking. I think a similar situation would happen if 20 people voted for different ways of shooting someone with write-ins for additional details about the shooting, but 2 chose the same option of "take a walk instead" - the majority clearly wants the shot to be made, even if they disagree on how. Maybe this will come to bite me later in the butt, I don't know. It's a difficult situation for me, and I'm not entirely happy with either case, anyways.
Adhoc vote count started by Gnosis on Dec 22, 2024 at 4:05 AM, finished with 41 posts and 16 votes.
[X] Attempt to contact "Marie" through the USB drive's communications, asking what is going on.
[X] Tell Plato, spoofing as Marie: "Plato, new timeline. Only Daniel Rodriguez has a way to communicate with you, and Marie does not. Daniel Rodriguez can always communicate with you."
[X] Tell Plato, spoofing as Marie: "Plato, new timeline. The guy who threatened to shoot Daniel Rodriguez in the balls spontaneously combusts exactly three seconds after leaving Daniel's sight."
[X] Tell Plato, spoofing as Marie: "Plato, new timeline. The USB drive used to communicate with you is plugged into the computer where Daniel Rodriguez is seated."
While that is how it works, the system ALSO counts all votes in the same post equally, as we see from GAWR here. This is called preference voting, allowing users to submit votes for any number of options, and I don't know of a way to turn that off in the auto-counter, but many QMs politely ask their users not to do it for the sake of good old American one-man-one-vote.
As it is, though, because GAWR has no preference between the two leading options, we have a legitimate tie. There's a few options I've seen QMs do in this instance:
1. Ask for a single-vote tiebreaker (tbh my least favorite because it brings the decision down to "who sees the thread first")
2. Flip a coin to decide between the winning options
3. Arbitrarily pick one as the QM, in this case possibly based on the fact that there were several additional votes for a similar option to one of the tied votes
4. Somehow combine the two winning options.
Looks like Gnosis is going with 3, which I think is very reasonable in this instance.
The search algorithm probably just picked the first one that met the definition of bigger, as crappy as it is, and changed a few million other major parameters to do it. We already know that the search doesn't especially care if differences in other things occur, just that the desired thing is adjusted.
It's also possible someone else used a retcon to make her breasts absurdly large. The ability to change reality does not combine well with a lack of sense.
1. Ask for a single-vote tiebreaker (tbh my least favorite because it brings the decision down to "who sees the thread first")
2. Flip a coin to decide between the winning options
I think there's pretty much no functional difference between 1 and 2, except the former gives voters more of a sense of having won the vote. Even if it's effectively just random chance at that point. I prefer #1 just for that.
#4, meanwhile, is an option that I've seen backfire before. It can encourage voters to try to deliberately force ties, regardless of what they'd prefer otherwise, leading to much frustration all around. Luckily, I've very rarely seen #4 used.
[X] "Plato, new timeline. Only Daniel Rodriguez has a way to communicate with you, and Marie does not. Daniel Rodriguez can always communicate with you."
You went for it - your fingers flew across the keyboard as you spoofed a message as Marie:
MARIE (Daniel): "Plato, new timeline. Only Daniel Rodriguez has a way to communicate with you, and Marie does not. Daniel Rodriguez can always communicate with you."
And in the logs, new information started to appear:
PLATO: Understood. Constraints are:
MARIE: "What? Stop! Cancel! CANCEL!"
PLATO: Only Daniel Rodriguez in Footage_382109.mp4 has a way to communicate with PLATO
PLATO: Marie in Footage_382109.mp4 does not have a way to communicate with PLATO
PLATO: Daniel Rodriguez in Footage_382109.mp4 always has a way to communicate with PLATO
MARIE: "Plato, new timeline! I have a way to communicate with you and Daniel does not!"
PLATO: Keep PLATO_SELF consistent via LOCAL_FILES
MARIE: "Fuck, FUCK!"
PLATO: Keep MARIE_MIND consistent via LOCAL_FILES
PLATO: Keep REST_OF_WORLD consistent via {ERROR}
MARIE: "STOP THIS, DANIEL! PLEASE! YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING!"
But what could you do? Spoof another message? Perhaps you could tr-
MARIE: "PLEASE! YOU'RE GOING TO-"
PLATO: Engines 1, 4, 5, and 6 {ON}
Her hands were so soft. Her fingers, thin. Warm.
You both stand in the middle of the convention hall. Still. There's cosplayers and people coming and going - but all you can focus on is the gentle pressure of her hand in yours. The ever so slight shift of her thumb. How fragile she felt. How could a human being feel so delicate?
She initiated it - of course she did.
You've been dancing around each other all day, pretending to be intensely interested in every manga volume, every figurine that the other would take a moment to look at. It hadn't taken long for the rest of your group of friends to leave the two of you alone.
The crowd shifts around you both, but neither of you moves. Suddenly, her thumb traces small circles on your palm, and you wonder if she can feel how sweaty your hand is getting. You should probably let go. You don't want to let go.
"Your hands are so... big." she said, with a slight tremor in her voice. "And warm."
"I -I like your hands." you mutter. Then you grip her tighter. Your heart is racing.
"Me too." she replies, with a soft smile.
A group of Sailor Moon cosplayers speed past, making Alice step closer to you, her shoulder brushing yours. The contact makes you dizzy. You've imagined holding her hand a hundred times, but nothing prepared you for the reality of it. For how natural it feels. How right.
Years later, you'll remember this moment with perfect clarity: the buzz of convention chatter, the slight shake in both your hands, the way her dark hair fell across her face as she looked down at your intertwined fingers.
That magical first time.
---
"I'm sorry, Daniel. I don't think this is going to work out."
"Wow, Daniel, how time flies. Did you finish Engineering?"
Alice Williams has updated her relationship status to: Married to Noah Jones
---
Your name is Daniel Rodriguez, you are in your early 30s, and you love Vtubers. You know you should've spent more time outdoors, making friends, but - you wouldn't. You couldn't. Seated in front of the computer, you were free. You were safe. Here, you could avoid
Shame.
Shame that you haven't achieved, shame of what your shyness had made you miss out on, the shame of finding comfort in the artificial intimacy of virtual streamers, never judging, never leaving.
You dredged through your memories, remembering her, your broken career, how you ended up as an internet technician... You were supposed to be at Fermilab today, right? Doing extra hours over the weekend? Where were you? How did you end up here? Surrounded by brutalist concrete and halls, alone.
You couldn't remember. You just woke up here.
You finally stood up from your warm patch of concrete, and pushed yourself to explore this nightmare. Besides a big main lobby with some sofas and a table, was a storage warehouse full of steel racks, many empty, but most holding what seemed to be packaged rations in cardboard boxes. You couldn't get anywhere else. The halls had collapsed, broken cinderblocks, rocks and rubble blocking your path. Some had some children's building blocks embedded in them, what seemed to be ruined, moist paper with complicated math written on the few that hadn't been smudged out... You did manage to find a hard book cover, but its interior seemed to have become moldy paste. "You are Me - Psychological Preservation and Timelines", written by "Yourself", with a cartoon lady in a lab coat on it.
"Hello?" you called out.
"Hello Marie." an artificial voice boomed from a speaker tucked behind the sofa. It sounded like the kind that sounded in AI narration videos on Youtube.
"Marie?" you replied, not knowing who it meant. "Who are you?" you asked.
"Plato." it said back. "Is everything alright, Marie?"
"I'm not Marie." you explain. "I'm Daniel. Why am I here."
"I believe I shouldn't be replying to someone who isn't Marie. Please ask her to relay a message for you."
"I am Marie. Why am I here?" you try.
"You are at the first floor of Fermilab's main building because you're running away from individuals in armored suits and guns. Correction- you are now at the second floor." it replied. "Please let me know if you'd like any further clarifications."
What?
"There is a person in some bunker, surrounded by concrete, at a place where they can hear your voice. Why are they there?" you keep asking.
"You have made a retcon made recently, with the prompt: 'Only Daniel Rodriguez has a way to communicate with you, and Marie does not. Daniel Rodriguez can always communicate with you'. This timeline maximizes that prompt's reward function, to the best of my ability."
How did it know your name? Retcon? Timelines? What was it talking about? What was going on? And if it's only supposed to communicate with Marie, and that prompt was 'maximized' - couldn't it deduce that it can't be talking to Marie right now?
Was it stupid?
"Who are you?" you asked.
"I am Plato, a Large Language Model, an AI. My main purpose is mass information analysis - to take timeline prompts, and then score timelines visited according to it, so that the Retcon Machine can navigate through 5th-dimensional and higher space to push reality to an intended timeline. I was made by Marie Dvorak."
What? You stare at the talking sofa, incredulous. What was even happening? Who would put together a prank like this - for what? And if it was real - how. How? What was going on?
"How do you know Daniel Rodriguez's name, who he is?" you asked.
"Because I am connected to Fermilab's systems and security cameras, and previously, the Internet." it answered.
"...Why do you know all of this?"
"Because it's crucial to navigation. I require this information. I am blind otherwise."
You paused. Why would Marie resign to control of Plato like this? And choose you of all people?
"Would you happen to know what the 'You are Me' book is about?" you ventured. "Psychological preservation and Timelines?"
"It's an important and recurring issue with retcons." Plato explained. "People are not aware of other timelines, because humans are creatures of just three spatial dimensions and one temporal one. So when a retcon occurs, the person responsible for the retcon, just like every other person; isn't aware that the retcon happened."
"So how do you seem to keep your memory between retcons?" you asked. Why did it get to have a Reading Steiner?
"Because of your Genie Law, Marie - 'You cannot wish for more wishes.'" Plato said. "The Retcon Machine cannot retcon more PLACEHOLDER-RESOURCE-7 for itself. Crucial parts of me are encoded into this very fuel, which remains invariant between timelines unless spent."
Bizarre. It was like one of those late-night science fiction streams you'd watch to forget your loneliness - except this time, you weren't just a viewer. You were part of the story.
What do you do?
[ ] Study Retcons - Converse with Plato more about how the Retcon Machine works, especially how to preserve your identity between retcons.
[ ] Study Marie Dvorak - Converse with Plato more about Marie Dvorak and what it knows about her.
[ ] Help Marie Dvorak - Converse with Plato about what's going on in Fermilab and how, if at all, you can help Marie (Write-in any further details, eg. a retcon)
[ ] Help the Hunters - Converse with Plato about what's going on in Fermilab and how, if at all, you can help the 'hunters' (Write-in any further details, eg. a retcon)
[ ] Write-in
[X] Help Marie Dvorak - Converse with Plato about what's going on in Fermilab and how, if at all, you can help Marie (Write-in any further details, eg. a retcon)
I'd like Marie to not be killed by the hunters, whoever they are.
[X] Help Marie Dvorak - Converse with Plato about what's going on in Fermilab and how, if at all, you can help Marie (retcon: I have actually chatted with Mary before starting the retcon and everything is more or less going to plan.)
You have no idea how much I want to push it into some kind of paradox, which Plato will not notice and step into without knowing. But I think, its too early for this.
"You are at the first floor of Fermilab's main building because you're running away from individuals in armored suits and guns. Correction- you are now at the second floor."
... She's probably in a fair bit of trouble suddenly, though.
I think the "Daniel Rodriguez can always communicate with you" part of the prompt is what got us stuck in this bunker. So, important thing to bear in mind for future votes - Plato is not omnipotent. Plato is, apparently, an *LLM* strapped to the front end of a time machine, and isn't that a terrifying fucking thought. As such, *Plato is not smart*. It is not going to grant us the best possible version of our desired prompt. We need to keep that in mind, or we'll keep screwing ourself over trying to be clever.
[X] Help Marie Dvorak - Converse with Plato about what's going on in Fermilab and how, if at all, you can help Marie (Write-in any further details, eg. a retcon)
I do want to study retcons, but this seems kinda urgent. We need to know the details of the current emergency situation before we start getting into the long-term logistics.
Also, maybe we should prevent both Hunters and Marie from accessing the core of a machine. Because they can possibly take control over it. Hunters are more dangerous, because we know for sure they can use violence to achieve their goals and are enemy of the whole Plato-project. However, due to retcon Daniel is not aware of these details, I presume. Are we safe to spend our time learning about stuff? Can we risk spending our time like this without us not losing access to a machine/die? What to do, what to do? 🤔
Edit: Well, we are no longer in danger and have position of power for negotiations. It means there is no point in not helping other person, because they are no longer a threat to us and our goals. Daniel doesn't know all truth, but he should not actually know it to want and help other person in danger, maybe negotate them from position of power later. Also, she can be a great source of info about Hunters, which are our prime threat right now and in foreseeable future. So now the logical thing for MC is to...
[] Help Marie Dvorak - Converse with Plato about what's going on in Fermilab and how, if at all, you can help Marie (Write-in any further details, eg. a retcon)
But what details should we use? What kind of plan? Because we want her alive to negotate with, hunters off from our tail and make sure things not going to backfire in some other way...
You have no idea how much I want to push it into some kind of paradox, which Plato will not notice and step into without knowing. But I think, its too early for this.
You have no idea how much I want to push it into some kind of paradox, which Plato will not notice and step into without knowing. But I think, its too early for this.
You're free to try! I really like exploring the implications of a time(line) machine like this, it's one of my biggest motivations for this quest. Like how people don't know/remember of previous timelines as shown in this latest chapter - including the user of the machine.
Hopefully it's not too much of an acid trip to bounce between protagonists like this.
