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The Arachne System (SPIDERLIV 3)

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QTesseract said:
I am not an anarchist - at best a fellow traveller - but I do know some revolutionary socialists, and given Liv's mention of Lenin just below she's at least considering similar lines. Because the world right now is awful, you know? And if you don't believe electoralism will work, because capital stacked the deck from the start, and you don't have faith in peaceful reorganization, because they've never hesitated to try and murder people who do that... Well. Revolution is awful, and bloody, and never clean. Full drawn out civil wars are worse, and they often follow. But if they cut off every other method of making things better, and they're murdering you in the streets, and grinding you under oppression and poverty, sometimes you start weighing your options. And in that kind of light, holding a city hostage might stop seeming completely unreasonable.

Speaking personally, I'm not ready to give up on other options just yet, but I do understand it.
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It's been years since I've been in a civics class, but I'd swear the Founding Fathers included some lines about how the people should absolutely tear down the US government if the government is no longer for/of/about the people or whatever. Not saying Liv's America has reached that point, but it's not invalid as an option iirc.
 
Raiseth said:
Ooookay, I realize my question might be incredibly offensive, but are anarchists really that down for terrifying millions of people by threatening to blow stuff up? Cuz, you know, there's being a criminal, and then there's just being an asshole.
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Aside from actual discussion of anarchist politics...

On some level, I think the answer to your question is "it doesn't matter." This is Liv being tempted hard, and trying to explain the rationalizations and impulses that come with the temptation. Whether or not she's accurately depicting the political philosophy of the median anarchist, or a specific faction of real anarchists, or even some stereotypical 19th century bomb-throwing anarchist is beside the point.

She's trying to explain "this is why I have seriously considered supervillainy" to her girlfriend.
 
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[X] Contact Loki. You have their phone number. Maybe they can help. Not sure how, you have no idea what they'll do, but if anyone can solve this...
 
[X] Complain to your girlfriend, tell her everything. Nothing else you can do. It's yet another secuirty hole, but you can't protect her if you're freaking out.

I'm going to be the dissenting voice. Athena's girlfriend is out of the way and has no reason to talk, and the secrets must be weighting on her.
 
If we tell the girlfriend, do you think there's a chance that she's a superhero/villain too? Like she's Bloody Mary (or maybe one of her headmates is? I've never followed Daredevil comics).

Digital protections probably won't make a huge difference. People are the weak point in their security. Like, maybe if Athena did some Orwellian surveillance of May and co, she could do something, but the effort doesn't seem worth the reward.

Fuck it. Athena needs more of a life outside of Liv. So, let's do something stupid.

[X] Complain to your girlfriend, tell her everything. Nothing else you can do. It's yet another secuirty hole, but you can't protect her if you're freaking out.
 
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I agree with the above about security. The problem is people.

In the end, the question is whether we trust Athena's girlfriend or Loki more, and that's an easy one :V
 
Eh, I personally trust them both about equally. I'm voting to tell the girlfriend mostly because I'm kinda uncomfortable with just how much of Athena's life revolves around Liv. Like, as the update says, she was literally made to keep Liv safe, and I want Athena to become more of her own person.

From a practical perspective, that's a really bad idea. But I have a soft spot for the AI-kid.
 
[X] You're going to need to double down on digital security and prediction. Which means you need more computing power. You'll have to... borrow... some...
 
I do have some small concerns that Athena's girlfriend may not take it so well. There is a bad history of shared secrets there. There are many differences, but some similarities too, and people can be very unpredictable in how they react to things. I do not think it particularly likely, but "I didn't think you were the sort of person who would betray trust like this" is a sentiment that could rise up to smite Athena's gossiping even if she does desperately need it.

Of course, as far as bad outcomes go, Athena's girlfriend is very unlikely to swap Athena and Liv's minds, or turn one of them into a marmoset, or invade the world with an army of pretty frost giants...
open_sketch said:
"At least." she said. "I do have an update on the Boyfriend Saga though. It's... a lot."

"Oh boy." you said, leaning back in your chair. Well, not really, but you animated your little digital puppet to lean back in your chair to make it look like you were steeling yourself for the tale.

"So, when I switched in this afternoon, not five minutes later our phone rings, and it's Francis." she starts. "And he sounds like such a... a jerk. He called her babe right off the start, like hey babe... urgh."

"Oh no." you said neutrally. Walker was always very critical of Mary's boyfriends, but... given their history, it was understandable. Besides, they usually were jerks. "You didn't break them up again, did you?"

"No... that wasn't great of me last time, and I don't want to risk her doing anything risky to get him back or anything. So I tried to tell him I was busy, and he recognized me."

"What?"

"Yeah! Turns out Mary fucking told him about us, spilled the whole thing. Which, great idea, last time she told somebody we got... we got institutionalized, hooked up on haloperidol while doctors tried to kill us." she said, pausing a moment, biting her lip, her eyes despairing. "I'm so scared, I've been glancing out my window waiting for the police sirens, and it's like she didn't even think about it. Like she doesn't care..."

"I'm so sorry, oh my god." you said. "What did you do?"

"I hung up, I couldn't deal... that's why I had to put off the test until I levelled out. And I had to write her a note, of course."

"Yeah, of course." you said. If you had a heart, it'd be breaking for her. "That's a huge violation of trust."
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[X] Contact Loki. You have their phone number. Maybe they can help. Not sure how, you have no idea what they'll do, but if anyone can solve this...
I'll be honest: I don't think this is the optimal choice for maximizing happiness/minimizing drama. I do, however, think that this choice will be the most interesting. Loki also clearly needs someone to interact with, so two birds one stone and all.
 
I do love Sketch's Loki, especially since they're closer to the gender-fluid mythology than the Marvel verse version.
 
Nyvis said:
Athena's girlfriend is out of the way and has no reason to talk, and the secrets must be weighting on her.
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I'm not sure if I've properly kept track of what's going on in Athena's girlfriend's head (IIRC her name was Walker? Or at least her pseud is Walker Zero for some reason). But doesn't her headmate Mary think she's a symptom of unwanted abnormality/insanity? And isn't Mary able to remember what Walker experiences?
Telling her such a crazy story sounds like a recipe for disaster, because it's an OpSec leak not only to the girlfriend, but also to this whole other person who has not been portrayed positively so far and who really wants to live a "normal life". She probably won't take this well at all.

And of course there's the risk that Walker will be less than happy about the whole "you lied to me and pretended you were someone's headmate just like I am, when in fact you're a machine who absolutely could run in a cyber-body if you made one". Or that Walker will completely disbelieve this whole crazy story.
 
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TalonofAnathrax said:
I'm not sure if I've properly kept track of what's going on in Athena's girlfriend's head, but doesn't her headmate think she's a symptom of unwanted abnormality/insanity? And isn't the not-girlfriend (forgot her name) able to remember what the girlfriend experiences?
Telling her such a crazy story sounds like a recipe for disaster, because it's an OpSec leak not only to the girlfriend, but also to this whole other person who has not been portrayed positively so far and who really wants to live a "normal life". She probably won't take this well at all.

And of course there's the risk that Athena's girlfriend will be less than happy about the whole "you lied to me and pretended you were someone's headmate just like I am, when in fact you're a machine who absolutely could run in a cyber-body if you made one". Or that Athena's girlfriend will completely disbelieve this whole crazy story.
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No, I'm pretty sure their memories don't transfer. It's something she complains about to Athena since her cover story of being a plural identity herself comes with better memory sharing.
 
Nyvis said:
No, I'm pretty sure their memories don't transfer. It's something she complains about to Athena since her cover story of being a plural identity herself comes with better memory sharing.
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I thought that she complained about it being one-way in Mary's favor, actually. I'm going back to check now, but my search-fu is weak.
Also, I edited my post for clarity quite a bit while you were responding.

EDIT: I searched, and I think I was misremembering. You are correct.
 
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Spider-Liv: come for the Marvel shenanigans, stay for the like-minded community of leftists you didn't know you needed.

[X] Contact Loki. You have their phone number. Maybe they can help. Not sure how, you have no idea what they'll do, but if anyone can solve this...

As if sketch could dangle Loki in front of me and then have the audacity to imagine I'd choose anything else -- for me, if the question is "Loki?" the answer is always a resounding YES.
 
[X] Contact Loki. You have their phone number. Maybe they can help. Not sure how, you have no idea what they'll do, but if anyone can solve this...

Aesir problem solving guide:
Step One- Grab Loki. Either this is somehow Loki's fault and you need to know what Loki did, or Loki is the best one to fix it
 
[ x] Contact Loki. You have their phone number. Maybe they can help. Not sure how, you have no idea what they'll do, but if anyone can solve this...

Loki really makes the most sense in terms of just needing someone to talk to about it, because they already know who liv is, so there's no additional security whole. And they might actually be able to help somehow.
 
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[X] Contact Loki. You have their phone number. Maybe they can help. Not sure how, you have no idea what they'll do, but if anyone can solve this...
 
[X] Contact Loki. You have their phone number. Maybe they can help. Not sure how, you have no idea what they'll do, but if anyone can solve this...

Raiseth said:
Ooookay, I realize my question might be incredibly offensive, but are anarchists really that down for terrifying millions of people by threatening to blow stuff up? Cuz, you know, there's being a criminal, and then there's just being an asshole.
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no, this group always been a minority in the anarchist movement... but since they're the ones who throw bombs into cafes and assassinate presidents, they're usually the ones who get remembered, especially if other tendencies aren't making progress
 
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[X] Complain to your girlfriend, tell her everything. Nothing else you can do. It's yet another secuirty hole, but you can't protect her if you're freaking out.
 
[X] Contact Loki. You have their phone number. Maybe they can help. Not sure how, you have no idea what they'll do, but if anyone can solve this...
 
I'm very torn on this, but....


[X] Complain to your girlfriend, tell her everything. Nothing else you can do. It's yet another secuirty hole, but you can't protect her if you're freaking out.

Athena needs a win. And there's also the balance in their relationships to consider? Athena's had to be lying to her girlfriend about more things than Liv has, and that can't feel great when Liv is finally able to open up. It's a risk, but...
 
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[X] Contact Loki. You have their phone number. Maybe they can help. Not sure how, you have no idea what they'll do, but if anyone can solve this...
 
[X] Complain to your girlfriend, tell her everything. Nothing else you can do. It's yet another secuirty hole, but you can't protect her if you're freaking out.
 
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