Seele Vollerei: The end of reality, and what came after.

[Baughn]

All right. I know the vote is already closed, but--

Like I've said before, I don't want to throw any haymakers at people. You're supposed to be voting on narrative direction, not RPG actions. In other words, if you vote to do A, expecting an outcome of B, and the actual outcome is Z -- then I should probably tell you.

So, here's the deal: Trying to save the kids' mother this way will, almost definitively, fail. Starvation on its own causes massive damage, especially when it's so far gone that your body starts cannibalizing organs instead of just muscles or fat, but in this case it's starvation combined with Honkai infection, which for the purposes of pulling you back to reality can be likened to a very fast-progressing, very severe full-body bacterial infection.

It's not survivable. Not without the kind of hypertech that HI3 has, and we don't.

The twins aren't doctors. They could't be expected to judge her condition like this, and didn't.

Liliya can push the infection itself into remission, but she can't do anything about the woman's bones being as brittle as glass, or her in general total lack of any reserves whatsoever. Any additional stress, which being carried several kilometers certainly is, and she's likely to just outright die. Even if this doesn't kill her, Sirin is unlikely to actually be able to save her. It'd be her first try, and it's a serious case. You would, almost, be better off randomly searching the Hyperion for an actual doctor.

I should have been clearer on this. When you vote for a thing, you're probably at least hoping to get that thing, and the chance here is 5%. Yes, in this case I'll roll a die; you need a nat 20 to succeed.

So...

The current plan is that Liliya has a bright idea, tries to save her, and she dies in her arms instead. Maybe that's fine? But just in case it isn't, I thought I'd give you a chance to change your minds. All previous options remain open.

[ ] ...?

 

[thelordofmango]

oof. well, that is a pretty convincing way to put it.

 

[ShadowAngelBeta]

Baughn already put forward most of what I would say on the matter (and did say on the Discord when we started discussing the coming update a little).

The body begins to consume itself to sustain the brain, heart, and lungs as long as possible. We're all familiar with the body using the stores of fat in our body as energy I would guess, but what its doing is mining out the unneeded fat for raw energy.

Then it starts going after the healthy fat all humans should have, then stripping bones and muscles down for more energy and whatever minerals and nutrients it can get ahold of, the less "needed" organs like your intestines and stomach are next on the chopping block.

By this point recovery is realistically impossible since the person can't even break down food, might not even have the energy to break it down.

Now that, that is something HI3 medical tech can handle. Nanomachines Son! means that the energy and nutrients being broken down doesn't require the body to be functioning and then it can also systematically repair the damage done.

But. But we don't have the systems needed to handle a critical case like her's (nevermind everyone else in here) least of all because we only have nanomachines programmed for Liliya's body on hand. I'm going to assume she uses non-standard ones that might only be good for general use on a normal person.

Then we get to the honkai infection. I don't even know what that would do, so... *shrug*

All told, just from her level of starvation... bones breaking just from Liliya picking her up or jostling her a little to roughly isn't unlikely. It really depends on the level her body has stripped her bones for minerals though.

Edit: I'll be clear here, I didn't go in trying to convince Baughn this would fail. I commented that it would feel like an asspull if it succeed (moreso than the usual protagonist faction asspull anyway) and then he commented something to the effect of how he expected it to fail and then discussion. *Shrug*

 

[Baughn]

But. But we don't have the systems needed to handle a critical case like her's (nevermind everyone else in here) least of all because we only have nanomachines programmed for Liliya's body on hand. I'm going to assume she uses non-standard ones that might only be good for general use on a normal person.

Click to shrink...

Liliya's nanites were reprogrammed to cope with Liliya's particular Honkai infection, which isn't actually an infection. The Honkai energy in her isn't... isn't actively trying to kill her. As far as it's concerned, especially of late, she's a Honkai beast; it follows instructions, more or less.

This is somewhat distinct from a generic honkai infection, in that Honkai energy in general is... well, 'aggressive' is the only word for it. It isn't actually bacterial, but without some form of central control -- which Liliya's augments and genetic modifications provide -- it aggressively converts random bits of matter into more of itself, while also trying to make the host a honkai beast. Usually that fails quite badly, resulting in death or a zombie.

In Liliya's case, all she has to cope with is ongoing low-level 'radiation damage'. For the people in this room it's acute radiation damage that's also trying to subvert their nervous systems and take control of their bodies. It's... a thing.

So, Liliya's nanites only need to fix the damage. They don't need to remove the honkai infection itself, and doing so would be counter-productive -- success there would kill her just as easily as total failure would. They are, therefore, not super good at doing so. What they're good at is... carrying around a blueprint of Liliya's body, comparing what they see to the blueprint, and fixing up damage as it happens. It makes her effectively immortal, at least so long as Raven's still around to tweak the programming on demand.

(Well, that's the theory. In practice it would have taken years before it's tweaked well enough to just bring her back to normal; the scan Raven got of her already included a near fatal level of damage. But she wasn't going to die at this point, no matter what Roza, Seele and Bronya were scared might happen.)

Their generic profile is less capable, and furthermore assumes capabilities which these particular nanites lack. Oh, it'd still work; the dosage just needs to be higher. But repairing damage is much, much harder than just removing honkai radiation; it's the part that requires expert help.

Liliya's nanites can remove the honkai 'radiation'. From one person. Two, perhaps. She doesn't have enough for more people than that.

...and it's not going to fix them. That's the hard part.

 

[Alcor]

Oh. Um... This is bad.

I am not necessarily opposed to a tragic ending like that in principle, it's somewhat similar in tone as my inital "somber acceptance" idea when I was at a loss for what to do at the start... but I also don't want more bad things to happen to everyone, so knowingly giving the okay to that...

 

[ShadowAngelBeta]

Uhh... not sure how to respond to that actually. I wouldn't say its so much "giving your okay" to it as its just... things taking their course?

The "emergency" vote option Baughn opened up is if people want to change their votes. Switch to acceptance or something instead? idk though.

... To be honest, the little sister is/was probably in the same area of starvation. Realistically... she probably shouldn't be recovering, but I couldn't bring myself to say anything then. It was already bad enough.

This is just... honkai infection and people are voting to move her, which is... too much.

Its not the voters fault certainly. What starvation damage does and how it works is... not widely known I think? I kind of picked it up through some biology classes and discovery channel things, but... eh.

 

[Alcor]

I mean "giving the okay" as in knowingly voting for a plan that is basically QM-confirmed to fail barring a nat 20. It's one thing to gamble on a hope with unknown odds and to lose, it's another to basically get the warning message "This action will fail. Proceed?" and click "Okay."

Like I said, from a narrative standpoint I'm not necessarily opposed to a failure here because it makes sense and sometimes tragic and bad things happen. But I also would feel bad basically knowingly voting/keeping a vote on a course of option that sounds like it has a high likelihood of having someone die in Roza or Lili's arms! I'd like to, as a voter, avoid causing them more suffering and grief if possible! Or if not, to at least minimize it!

Still... for the moment at least, I think Baughn can take my fretting as still staying this course. After all, even if the result is a failure here, it's not like I reject the thought/idea behind trying and what that means for the characters involved and their worldviews. I'm just going to feel like a jerk about it because it's going to get really sad probably.

 

[ShadowAngelBeta]

I'm just going to feel like a jerk about it because it's going to get really sad probably.

Click to shrink...

Do remember these are two Valkyries who have been slaughtering zombies and failing to save everyone en masse since they were too young.

Its sad, but not anything new I would think.

 

[Baughn]

Do remember these are two Valkyries who have been slaughtering zombies and failing to save everyone en masse since they were too young.

Its sad, but not anything new I would think.

Click to shrink...

Pretty much, yes.

Roza and Liliya managed to draw some analogies to their own situation, but it sits on shaky ground. The two are not going to get overly upset. They are, most unfortunately, unlikely even to shed tears. I can work with this, but... it's just probably not the direction I think people were expecting.

As for the little sister, she's...

Not out of the woods. I've made several rolls for her already, but so far they've come out ambivalent.

 

[neobiz]

I choose to prolong the mother in the hope that she is coherent enough to talk and say goodbye to her kids, it's a miracle if she gets honkai resistant and fine because of whatever vodka girls do.

 

[Baughn]

Okay. It seems as if the consensus is to proceed, but I'll give it a couple more hours before calling the 'vote'.

 

[Garlak]

Can the Core of Reason materialize food, or a treatment for malnutrition?

If the twins went out and fought a bunch of Honkai, in order to destroy a bunch of 'em in order to absorb all that Honkai and speed up the awakening and restoration of the Core of Reason, would that work?

Or, what're Fu Hua's (or Ruby's) powers and would any of them be relevant here?

Does anyone have any sort of "stasis" or "pause" or hibernation power?

... Does Einstein have any tech or maybe just liquid food that would be able to stop a person from dying from malnutrition?

EDIT: Or does Seele, with (I think it was?) the Gem or Core of Death, have Lifesteal-esque powers? If so, could she beat up some Honkai to steal their hitpoints and pass them on to another? Or transfer life/hitpoints/health from one person to health? Don't think so, but eh.

Or Fu Hua's, or Seele's, powers have the ability to... I dunno. Copy somebody's mind and store it for later? That way, you'd 'just' need to create a body for them later on.

 

[ShadowAngelBeta]

Can the Core of Reason materialize food, or a treatment for malnutrition?

Click to shrink...

Theoretically? Yes.

Practically? The Core of Reason can create anything so long as the Herrscher knows how to make it. Bronya would need to know from the absolute ground up every aspect of constructing and programming the nanomachines.

If the twins went out and fought a bunch of Honkai, in order to destroy a bunch of 'em in order to absorb all that Honkai and speed up the awakening and restoration of the Core of Reason, would that work?

Click to shrink...

I... don't think so? Rubia has a Herrscher Core (kinda) that she's using to help feed the Core of Reason, killing some honkai beasts probably wouldn't speed that up to any real degree. Kinda like... asking if adding a small stream to a large river means there's more water. Technically there is, practically... meh?

Or, what're Fu Hua's (or Ruby's) powers and would any of them be relevant here?

Does anyone have any sort of "stasis" or "pause" or hibernation power?

... Does Einstein have any tech or maybe just liquid food that would be able to stop a person from dying from malnutrition?

Click to shrink...

No, no, and no (that would be the nanomachines she doesn't have the tech base to make anyway).

EDIT: Or does Seele, with (I think it was?) the Gem or Core of Death, have Lifesteal-esque powers? If so, could she beat up some Honkai to steal their hitpoints and pass them on to another? Or transfer life/hitpoints/health from one person to health? Don't think so, but eh.

Click to shrink...

No. Also Seele hasn't turned into the Herrscher of Death yet, so if you want her to rip her Core out of Kiana and start a honkai eruption she could, but uh... that's counter productive me thinks.

(btw its Gem when its another person/herrscher holding it and Core when its with the Herrscher it belongs to. Kiana has the Gem of Death and the Core of Void [that go by different names technically, but screw keeping that straight], but if Seele went Herrscher it would be the Core of Death with her)

Or Fu Hua's, or Seele's, powers have the ability to... I dunno. Copy somebody's mind and store it for later? That way, you'd 'just' need to create a body for them later on.

Click to shrink...

I... Was that in thread or not actually? I think it was in thread, but Seele doesn't have any room for anyone other than herself and Vel and... Fu Hua has only ever shown the ability to keep her own memories and consciousness stored in Feng Huang Down.

I won't say its a definite no, but Fu Hua's skills with it and Rubia's show of powers using her own Core definitely lean towards affecting others... Actually I just remembered a scene that's a bit spoilerly that makes me lean almost solidly not on being able to store the mind and/or memories of others for later.

 

[Baughn]

No. Also Seele hasn't turned into the Herrscher of Death yet, so if you want her to rip her Core out of Kiana and start a honkai eruption she could, but uh... that's counter productive me thinks.

Click to shrink...

Let's say you have an annoying mosquito buzzing around in your living room.

You tear a nuclear reactor out of the chest of one of your friends, use it to construct a nuke, and nuke the mosquito. The mosquito is gone, but now you have several new and far more exciting problems. Seele becoming the Herrscher of Death is... maybe not quite that bad, but I'd like you to stop and think about the implications.

Anyhow, it's not something you can actually vote for. At least not directly — Seele has no idea that's an option, though some of the people surrounding her do.

 

[Baughn]

Okay, I probably owe you an update. Here it is:

About two weeks ago, AI Dungeon decided they should try to filter out child porn and subsequently had a complete meltdown. You can find a lot about that online, but suffice to say that the output quality has taken a nosedive, and also it won't allow me to write about children. Such as Seele and Roza. Or numbers less than eighteen.

Yes, the filter is... bad.

At the same time I was given beta access to the GPT-3 API, and I've been building a better writing tool on top of that. Emacs is handy for that sort of thing, heh.

At the same time, a new HI3 chapter was released, which focuses on Seele... and Veliona. Naturally it's not fully compatible, but we already knew this story is Captainverse. It's still really useful, and closer to what I had in mind than I had any reason to hope.

(Einstein and Seele get quite well along, thank you. )

Retrospectively, you can say the story's been on hiatus for a while. That's going to end next weekend, with the final update to this particular HI3 chapter, and it shouldn't take long after that before you'll see an update. Until then...

...

I am definitely writing an interlude from Bronie's perspective first.

 

[Snowfire]

That's going to end next weekend, with the final update to this particular HI3 chapter

Click to shrink...

*looks at the outline of the next story chapter*

If you say so

 

[Baughn]

*looks at the outline of the next story chapter*

If you say so

Click to shrink...

I'm aware, but that would require waiting another month. So no.

 

[Baughn]

Not dead. Discombobulated and mildly AI-less, but will continue this regardless. I suppose it'll also be instructive to see the difference between Baughn-plus-AI and just Baughn, but honestly I rather like the story. So...

Here's somewhere else. And someone else, whom I rather like. Making progress on the main story, but that's slower.

...as anyone who knows me will admit, if I like someone, I'll probably make their life hell somehow. Sometimes, though? Sometimes it just means they give you hints on what to look for.

Click to shrink...

Peaceful days… turned out to be boring.

Boring made her introspective.

Boring also sometimes made explosions, but those were rarely her fault.

One of the first things Bronie had learned, when she found her temporary home in the Sea, was that she wasn't the only Bronya Zaychik around. She wasn't the only one who'd visited the Hyperion, and she wasn't even the only one who'd spent time living here. She was just the one who happened to be around right now.

She wasn't the only Bronya. She was the only Bronie, though, and that was okay with her.

Similarly, Kongming wasn't the only Teriri around. She might be the only Kongming, but she acted a lot—a lot—like her li'l big sis. If 'Kongri' ever realised why she was so eager and able to poke at her weak spots, then she might explode…

Bronie was looking forward to that. Kongming was far too stuck-up– too high-and-mighty– too uptight for her own good. That was fixable. She was sure of it.

But all of this had made her think, and when she'd tried to raise the subject with Rose, she'd gotten only a secretive chuckle from the far-too-much-like-herself older woman. 'Think about it yourself, Bronie.' 'I'm sure you'll be reasonable about it, Bronie.' All while giggling, like she was making a private joke.

Sure, she guessed, that's what she was good at.

Would it have killed her to give her a hint, though?

So it was a thoughtful Bronie, hand stuck in the pockets of her favorite hoodie, who wandered the corridors of the Hyperion while thinking it over. The corridors, and… crawlspaces, admittedly, scaring the life out of at least one engineer in the process. She did her best thinking while moving.

The author has given up trying to control her.

Be that as it may…

The Sea of Quanta was large—no, a universe was a large place, and the Sea wasn't "larger than a universe" in the same sense a universe was "larger than a pinecone". It was the power set of a universe, which made it…

Bronie frowned, eyes scanning a map of the ship, but not really seeing.

Which made the Sea hard to understand for anyone who wasn't a set theoretician or a hacker, she supposed. Fortunately, she was at least one of those. Kongming wasn't, and neither was Delta, so she didn't object when they called it 'infinite'. Even though it wasn't.

She'd leave that to Tesla.

It made her giggle, every time.

But…

There should be a copy of her, yes. Somewhere. If you went far enough, there'd be a near infinite number. There should also be a vastly, vastly larger number of near-identical copies, and an even larger number of slightly more divergent ones, and so on until eventually the "copies" were actually, say, Teririn.

There should not be a copy who was "like her, except much younger, and also sort of evil, except really she was just in a really bad place."

Delta should not be living with two identical twin little sisters she had "picked up somewhere". Not when she was an only child herself. Not when the three were, on the rare occasions she'd successfully cheered Delta up, obviously basically the same person. With divergent colour schemes.

Kongming– Kongming should not be a carbon copy of her sister, except stuck-up and somehow a feudal lord. Bronie hadn't really paid attention, except to how adorable she made it sound. It was essentially nonsense, though. Physics didn't work that way.

All in all, this simply couldn't happen. And that–

That had the scent of a mystery.

 

[Alcor]

Physics didn't work that way.

Click to shrink...

She's in for a treat when she hears Seele's retelling of what she's been up to - I think physics was one of the casualties of the apocalypse.

Seele: "So then I broke locking."
Bronya: "You mean you broke the lock? That seems a bit violent, what if you damaged-"
Seele: "No, I broke the concept of locking."
Bronya: "...wat."
Vel: "Tell her about the time you put out a fire!"

Being neither a set theoretician or hacker I can't adequately understand Bronya's hangups with all this though I got the "Reason" joke.

 

[Baughn]

She's in for a treat when she hears Seele's retelling of what she's been up to - I think physics was one of the casualties of the apocalypse.

Seele: "So then I broke locking."
Bronya: "You mean you broke the lock? That seems a bit violent, what if you damaged-"
Seele: "No, I broke the concept of locking."
Bronya: "...wat."
Vel: "Tell her about the time you put out a fire!"

Being neither a set theoretician or hacker I can't adequately understand Bronya's hangups with all this though I got the "Reason" joke.

Click to shrink...

Seele: In my defence, the concept is recovering. I think it's a little scared of me now, though.
Bronie: It's not a dog.

The story got away from me a little bit, and I blame the AI for some of that, but I always intended to get back to this sort of... concept-oriented sci-fi, eventually. Since it seems like that may take a little while still, I'm going to have Bronie start that arc off early. That'll also get you acquainted with her before she actually shows up.

To be clear, however, Bronie is correct. ;-)

Being neither a set theoretician or hacker I can't adequately understand Bronya's hangups with all this though I got the "Reason" joke.

Click to shrink...

Bronie has absolutely no clue what she is, and it's not obvious how she even can be.

I mean. There is an explanation. Rosemary might even know.

 

[thelordofmango]

So, having not played HI3 in a while, I am afraid I need to ask what is going on?

 

[ShadowAngelBeta]

So, having not played HI3 in a while, I am afraid I need to ask what is going on?

Click to shrink...

There is a set of game events tied together that make up a (almost certainly) completely separate plot line from the main story.

Collectively they are known as the Captain-verse due to the fact that the "Captain" (IE the player stand in[-ish]) exists there unlike in the main plot.

It somewhat started as a limitation of the game, because models are harder to put in than a jpeg, but its since been incorporated as part of the game that multiple versions of the same person can exist.

The best example of this is Delta who has explicitly adopted younger twin versions of herself (she's uhh... let's just say she is a twins with one body, Delta is F.I.N.E.)

I... think there's an allusion to how since a Universe has a lot of pinecones the Sea should have a lot of Universes with similar things in them... only they really don't.

Using the captain-verse as an example, you can count the number of times someone is someone else on one hand for any given character I think. For example I know we have 2 Fu Huas, one who's part of the Captain's Hyperion and one who's from Kongming's original home universe/bubble.

Bronie's basically going "Okay, there should be a lot of Bronies somewhere, but there aren't, why?"

Edit: Or it might be meant the other way in that they shouldn't be running into such different versions of themselves so... close together?

 

[Baughn]

Bronie's basically going "Okay, there should be a lot of Bronies somewhere, but there aren't, why?"

Edit: Or it might be meant the other way in that they shouldn't be running into such different versions of themselves so... close together?

Click to shrink...

A bit of both.

Bronie doesn't know how 'close together' you should be able to find two copies of her. She expects the answer to be "quite far apart". However, for these purposes Bronie Zaychik and 'Fleurs de Mal' are essentially the same person -- they are not very different at all. There is a lot of room for being far more different from Bronie, while still being recognizably Bronie, and you should run into ten thousand almost-Bronies before you find a single Fleurs de Mal or Bronya Zaychik. The distribution is clearly off.

That's before you get into nonsense such as Kongming, whose personality, behaviour and appearance are nearly identical to Bronie's beloved big sister while having a completely different backstory.

Or the fact that Bronie herself is the Herrscher of Reason -- generation one, most likely, given the absolute ease with which she uses it -- while having no clue how that happened, having none of Bronya's backstory, and in fact not even knowing she is.

...

Something is clearly up. But don't worry, Bronie is on the case, and is sure to find out. Maybe one day she'll even realize she would normally have totally ignored this dour, anti-social character known as Delta.

All of this will of course be explained in-story as well. As and if Bronie and the others figure it all out. Rosemary probably knows... but she's not saying.

 

[Baughn]

I'm going to provide a bio for Bronie, as I do for most of these characters, but in the meantime... the elevator blurb is that Bronya 'Bronie' Zaychik is a version of Bronya who grew up in a loving family, with a mother—a better mother—a big sister, and plenty of opportunity to avoid any and all trauma. Her personality is almost the opposite of Bronya's; very extroverted, quick to laugh, spends a lot of time poking fun at her big sister Teri. Her relationship with her adopted mother, Cioara, is a bit odd—but they do love each other. If she meets the twins, she'll love them too. (And the world may never be the same.)

She's also a world-class hacker and fighter, because she's still very much Bronya. Being the Herrscher of Reason, whether she knows it or not, probably helps. She's... honestly better at it than any other Bronya, but she did study under a Fu Hua.

She could have lived a quiet, happy life. One thing Bronie demonstrates, though... is that, while Bronya's quiet personality and lack of social skills are certainly due to her extremely traumatic upbringing, her general boldness is not. If Bronie isn't in trouble, she'll make the trouble.

...

Bronie's great, although best admired at a distance. From outside the fallout radius, you know?

I know a few people like her in real life. They're the sort who refuse to settle down, ever. Their stories can be great fun, even if you don't necessarily want to go along, but they're alive in a way that few people are. Bronie is that sort of character, and it's heartwarming to see.

Unfortunately... Well, Bronie is what Bronya would be if she had a happy upbringing. The details might differ, but the core of her personality wouldn't. She goes by 'Bronie' because it matches her sister's nickname, and she's almost forgotten it isn't her real name, but she isn't some sort of other character. She's just Bronya, minus the trauma.

So, naturally, most Bronyas out there should look like Bronie. In the broad strokes. Because most children grow up without being horribly traumatised.

...

They do not. Bronie is an extreme outlier.

...

This says something about the world as well, and Bronie isn't the sort to ignore a challenge. We've yet to determine what she'll decide is the challenge.

 

[FeepingCreature]

Okay, if I ignore the fact that these are games and there's no point in making the same character twice with extremely trivial differences, then I would entertain the uncomfortable notion that what's happening is something like Mangled Worlds, where the fact that you exist both somehow attracts you conceptually to other copies of you, but also suppresses copies of you that are too close. Like, you have conceptual weight, and versions of you that are too conceptually close just get pulled into your conceptual attractor, like you're clearing your orbit. In other words, the version of you that eats breakfast five minutes earlier does not have enough individual conceptual weight, so which one of you collapses into the other just gets decided, effectively, by random diceroll.

On the other hand, that does require you to assume that concepts are the fundamental unit of the universe, which is a big ask.