- Location
- Somewhere out there
So does this mean we're only going to have one Practice die going forward? Or will we have enough clout to get two?
The Practice War [Complete]
- Thread starter Snowfire
- Start date
- Original Sci-Fi
It's going to be difficult to distribute, though, because unlike us everyone else is still working with compromised networks; in fact that was exactly why the aliens had to meet in such an uncomfortable fashion. Our most important trading asset by far is going to be the fact that Marcus, Vision, and (soon) their trainees are able to secure the infosphere of our entire solar system, and will likely be able to actually certify that an alien ally's assets are free of Shiplord backdoors; once we can do that then we'll be able to talk intel.
As always, though, we're once again limited by our ridiculously low number of Potentials, who are simultaneously needed for everything meaningful we do and painfully limited in numbers. In this case we need more Marcus-es stat, along with the increased numbers of Unisonbound that we really need to get training, the Potentials we need in the shipyards retrofitting our ships with Inviolate Matter hulls and improving on our fleet designs, the Potentials we need to start training to pilot and operate those ships that we haven't even finished designing yet, Potentials to get back on the horse and start running Insight again (eventually
)... everything is bottlenecked by Potentials. Hopefully this group-Practice thing can measurably boost the number of Practice dice we have available, because otherwise we're pretty screwed.
- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Sell network cleanup services. And no, that won't happen in the first contact because it'd require a huge amount of trust.
- Location
- New York
Culture is a possibility. We may have very different tastes, but they may find our cultural output to be phenomenal.
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
It'll probably be a few weeks 'til I'm fully caught up, but... I'm looking forward to participating in some of those discussions!
Thank you, Snowfire
Welcome! Hope to see you with us soon
The mechanics are shifting, but in general...up to two or three actions that you can throw Practice at. Most of that will be personal level stuff. Personal oversight of a project with Amanda will give an automatic Practice Roll related to it, and there are other things that can give access to them. Two or three is going to be the max, though.
Key among this is proof that the Shiplords, on a galactic level, can be beaten.
Or Visions.
Sixth Secret and grav Secret should do a lot to solve most of this problem.
They're all already assigned, they just need to get everything finished.
The Neras would like you to know that they have some of the highest hospitality standards in the galaxy
Other news: Electric Child interlude is progressing well, if in a direction I hadn't really expected. Characters can be fickle in what they want to do in scenes, so this may be a rather more serious interlude in some ways than was initially planned. It should be out tomorrow, and hopefully you'll enjoy it >.<
Got most of the Ministerial Matters mini-turn planned out too, which is very good. The majority of decisions there shouldn't take more than one vote, but some might require a few depending on which direction you want to try and support for your Ministers.
I'm hoping we'll be able to offer secure hospitality services without the threat of imminent death hanging over everyone. That should boost sales by, what, 5, 10 percent?The Neras would like you to know that they have some of the highest hospitality standards in the galaxy
- Location
- Somewhere other than where I am.
The Little Doctor is a molecular disruptor, not nuclear. Unless the Shiplords have an effective countermeasure, it is probably Warfleet bait. But anything the Shiplords can't no-sell is probably Warfleet bait.
Sadly, Buck Godot doesn't seem to be available online anymore. The practice of freezing liquids, putting them on a stick, and then eating them was a popular
Imminent threat of death may be the only thing that makes some clients behave themselves. Even with nanotech, the increase in costs may be prohibitive.I'm hoping we'll be able to offer secure hospitality services without the threat of imminent death hanging over everyone. That should boost sales by, what, 5, 10 percent?
- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The SL are the arbitrators in this case.
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
Whilst amusing, I'm a little confused about where this threat is coming from. Halp?
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
The quantum purge. Or perhaps:
And suddenly, a War Fleet arrived and killed everyone.
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
Which...the Neras extract you ahead of.
Considerably more difficult than you might think given that the Neras are capable of innate First Secret FTL. Although to be fair, I'm not seeing how this is something that humanity has better protections from. In time, perhaps. For now...let's just go with no.
Well, you hope anyway. I mean, there's always the chance of someone getting left behind before the room purges itself; that seems to be the risk you take walking into one. I didn't get the sense that "Kendl", the perspective character from the Interlude, saw this as anything other than a normal cost of doing business, but it seems likely that not having the threat of quantum purge hanging over your head on a countdown is more conducive to calm, rational discussion. Just a thought.
More to the point, "can destroy a Regular fleet" is likely to be grounds for getting a War Fleet sent after you. I mean, we already heard from the interlude that carrying out an inforwar attack against a Shiplord Relay is grounds for a War Fleet, so the bar certainly seems low enough for that to be the case.
- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I agree - from Snowfire's comments I got the impression that the SL rules might also protect the tribute races, but acting within the framework of the rules and still being considered a threat to the SL won't help you one bit.
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
I mean, if you take hostile action against them at a strategic level, they're going to take the gloves off where it comes to reprisals. I'm pretty sure anyone would.
And yes, a comms relay counts as a strategic level asset. Their fleets can't be everywhere, but their presence sure as hell can.
And yes, a comms relay counts as a strategic level asset. Their fleets can't be everywhere, but their presence sure as hell can.
Last edited:
- Location
- Uruguay
Just curious, but could we in theory take on a war fleet? What about having enough time to prepare as we did with The Second Battle of Sol?
And lastly, do we have any idea of how effective weaponsed black holes would be against the SL? Because IIRC, it was theorized that one of the secrets was gravity control.
And lastly, do we have any idea of how effective weaponsed black holes would be against the SL? Because IIRC, it was theorized that one of the secrets was gravity control.
- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/Him
We were shitting bricks because we got a visit from a reinforced tribute fleet with ONE tender from the regular fleet. Upcoming is a visit from the regular fleet for which, iirc, the assumption goes 'need help or lose'.
War fleets fight serious threats for which regular fleets aren't enough.
- Location
- Uruguay
Is that still the case after all those critical successes that we have turn after turn?
acegunner
Planeswalker - Nicol Bolas
- Location
- Dominaria
@Snowfire
How expensive would it be to add an additional sensor package to the sensor net with a miniature radio telescope, uv camera, infrared camera, and a telescopic visible light camera on each one?
Along with a radio, and whisker laser (or microwave beam) communications package with a small data processor the size of a large phone?
Because together they could give us a solar system wide telescope, and a very large distributed array of computer processors. All you would need to network them together in real time would be in system ftl communication relay system that connects them into one massive processor network to massively boost visions processing power.
How expensive would it be to add an additional sensor package to the sensor net with a miniature radio telescope, uv camera, infrared camera, and a telescopic visible light camera on each one?
Along with a radio, and whisker laser (or microwave beam) communications package with a small data processor the size of a large phone?
Because together they could give us a solar system wide telescope, and a very large distributed array of computer processors. All you would need to network them together in real time would be in system ftl communication relay system that connects them into one massive processor network to massively boost visions processing power.
Yes. Frankly, the only reason we didn't suffer billions in civilian losses from the third-rater Tribute Fleet is because they were sandbagging hard and following an engagement protocol which called for them to engage with our fleet first. If they had done the sensible thing, the Shiplords, whose third-rater Tribute vessels are significantly faster than everything other than the Calypso and the 223, could have easily split into flanking groups, kited around our fleet, and started burning down cities on Earth before we could respond. Heck, they could have just as easily not engaged at all, and instead sent in swarms of RKKVs that we could not have blocked, like they did to those Sixth Secret aliens that they decided to start bombarding before even engaging their orbitals.
Humanity is, and will remain for at least the immediate future, completely unable to fight at the level of a galactic power like the Shiplords; hell we likely aren't even that close to the level of any one of the seven alien groups that met on the Alternate Nutrient Source Advised after the Second Battle of Sol, certainly not at the moment with our fleet in a rebuilding phase. That will change as the combination of Sixth Secret construction techniques with mass-producible grav shear weapons lets us set up an actually decent planetary system defense grid, but for the moment we are still very vulnerable. Our task at the moment is to impress enough of those aliens that they decide to band together to help us drive off a Regular fleet that's due to arrive in about a decade; there's little hope that we'll be able to do the job ourselves.
- Location
- Uruguay
That was until they went on a frenzy after we spook a ship out of existence, right?
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
Which sensor network? You have two, even if they're integrated. Putting something like that on the heliopause stations? Easily done. Your nano-scale anti-stealth system? Lol no. My main question would be why.
Oh yes indeed.
Maybe? Tactically they were no longer pussy-footing around and playing with their food, I suppose. On a strategic level, however, they were still rushing at our orbitals and the Mars colony, rather than bombarding Earth and calling for reinforcements like they should have. That Tribute Fleet could have done a lot more damage than they did; as mentioned by others, the casualty report for the Second Battle of Sol was orders of magnitude less costly than many battles on Earth, conducted using comparatively primitive technology.
On the other other hand, judging from the "Define Overdue" interlude, the Shiplords may not be capable of thinking strategically at that level: certainly it never occurred to the Shiplords that a more effective response to the Nightfalls disaster would be to have relatively cheap courier units seconded to the Tribute Fleets, rather than incurring additional expense, lowering overall fleet readiness, and tainting their own assessments by seconding Regular Fleet vessels to their Tributes, nor did it occur to either the Captain or the intel officer at that relay station to do light cone forensics on the battle itself before passing the "third stage failure to return" notification up the chain of command. I suppose it's possible that the Shiplords themselves are simply not that intelligent, and are simply coasting on legacy (or looted) technology.
Last edited:
Interlude: The Electric Child
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
"How exactly did Vision trick me into agreeing to this?" You asked, mostly rhetorically, as another drone went sailing by over your head, to join the three others that were in the process of rewiring the Residence's power grid.
"You took the words out of my mouth" Mary muttered from where she sat beside you. "Just replace Vision with you, Mandy." You spared a moment to glare at your friend, then looked down at the screen in front of her hands.
"Any joy?" You asked, and she chuckled mirthlessly. Her eyes sparkled, however, and you'd known her long enough to know what that meant. "What?"
"Iris!" Mary didn't even raise her voice, but the tone cut through the humming buzz of the 'borrowed' drones. "Put the drones back where you found them." There was a faint shiver in the drone's movements, but they kept right on going.
"They were just sitting there." You'd not been aware that the voice simulator was capable of the stereotypical childish whine, but Vision had said that it was designed for full functionality. "And your lighting grid is broken!" She sounded so virtuous that you almost forgot that she'd 'acquired' two of the drones from security hardpoints, and they most definitely weren't designed for maintenance work.
"Put them back, or I will lock you out of the Ministry network for a week." The drones shivered again, one almost moving away before returning to its work.
"I'll just find a hole in the firewalls, I always do." You didn't need to be able to see an avatar, something she still didn't have even now, to know the expression that would have gone with those words from a human child. "I'm too clever for you to shut me out like tha-"
"You sure about that, sweetie?" Mary asked, and she tapped something on the virtual panel in front of her. The drones dropped back into a standard hover, and a faint and drawn out cry of 'no' sounded from the house speakers. Your friend just smiled. "Keeping you out of the Ministry, sure, that might be a bit of an ask. Keeping you inside the Residence network, however, that I can do quite handily."
One of the lights near you flickered, and Mary tutted quietly. "Ah, ah, none of that."
"You're mean." Iris said reproachfully, and you took that opportunity to rejoin the conversation.
"What she is, Iris, is doing what I asked her to. I thought Vision talked to you about this." Your words weren't aggressive, nor judgemental, simply calm. "Things aren't always broken, even when they look that way. Even if they truly are," you trailed off, clearly waiting for a reply.
"I should ask before doing anything," Iris muttered, "I know. But it's just," you held up a hand, and surprisingly she actually stopped.
"Iris, you know what my Focus is. Do you think I'd be able to work with something broken all around me?" There was a long pause.
"No," the word stretched out to almost four syllables, but you smiled all the same. She hadn't wanted to accept that, but she had. That was progress, even if she still had a way to go. As evidenced by her reply. "But you're not everyone. There are so many things out there in the Network, broken in little ways. If I can help them, surely I should."
"Help can't be forced," your reply was very gentle. "The giving has to be accepted, and the only way to have that-"
"Is to ask," Iris sighed, "I know."
"Well then," Mary said kindly, "you still can, you know. Just because it doesn't look broken to me or Mandy doesn't mean that it isn't. We see things in our own ways, after all."
"Um," the same subroutine that Vision used to mimic human conversation patterns was kicking in, you were certain of it. That or Iris was monumentally embarrassed. Possibly both. "Could I take a look at the power grid for the Residence?" The question came out with several pauses, as if she'd found it truly difficult to say. "Please?"
"Of course you can," you smiled, "just make sure to ask one of us if you want to make any changes, alright?"
"Can I ask Sidra if you're sleeping?" She asked brightly, startling a pleasant laugh from Mary.
"Vision didn't do you credit." Your friend chuckled, green eyes sparkling with amusement as she looked over at you. "Well, Mandy? It's not like I can talk to them."
"Sidra is willing to act as a go-between, but only for minor work. Anything big, you'll have to talk to me about." You said, the entire conversation with your Unison Platform having taken less than a breath.
"Alright." There was a faint tone, Iris's way of showing that she wasn't concentrating on a conversation anymore given she still lacked an avatar, and Mary laughed again at the look you shot her.
"What?"
"You. Know." You gave up trying to glare, it wasn't worth the effort.
"I haven't the faintest clue what you're talking about."
"My revenge will be swift yet terrible."
"You promise?"
"Shut up."
"…so I did a full analysis, but then that set me onto the network interface, which hasn't been properly upgraded in three years! And then," You were beginning to regret agreeing to let Iris 'optimise' the Residence. It had kept her busy, certainly, but the sheer amount of things she was finding would have been impressive if you didn't have to listen to every single bit of it.
"Amanda?" The mention of your name would have jerked you out of your thoughts once, you were better with your response now. It was the tone, too, far less enthused than her usual. "I'm boring you, aren't I."
Oh hell.
"I," you stopped. For all that Iris's mannerisms were that of a child, she was still an AI, and that meant something in conversations. Fortunately, you'd never been one for lies. "A little, yes. I know the specifics are important to you, but they're a little bit outside of my field. I'm still listening, it's just less involved, if that makes sense?"
"I guess," you ignored the glare from Mary, who for some perverse reason seemed to enjoy these little meetings.
"I see. Well," She stopped abruptly, and there was a single breath of silence, leaving you wondering. A second for a human was a long time for an AI, you knew that from experience now.
"Iris?" You asked, a full five seconds later. "What's the matter?"
"It's all subjective, isn't it." Her words flung you, but only for a moment; Vision had talked to you about this before she left Iris in the Residence systems. As an AI grew into the world around them, they absorbed information far faster than any human child, but that didn't make them smarter. Without context, data was just data, and an AI needed to learn how to use that as knowledge.
That made you much more careful with your reply. "Where it comes to people, I don't think objective knowledge really exists, but that's not exactly what you asked," you said. "Mary loves these meetings, what you're discovering about the world, but I was never as much a scientist as her." You favoured the brunette with a warm smile. "I'm not sure anyone could be."
Another breath, to gather your thoughts. "How we're put together and see the universe is a big part of our existence. The soul, it," you paused, grasping for the right words and coming up distressingly short. "It complicates things, Iris. What humans are, what we think you are, it's more than just flesh or electrical impulses."
"There's so much in the history of humanity about souls, Amanda." Iris's reply was almost sad. "Going back thousands of years, across hundreds of different beliefs, and those are only the ones that got written down. The guardians of the Old World had them, but they were living things in the same way you are." You opened your mouth to speak, but you didn't get the chance as the young AI ploughed on. "I'm not, and I know that, but at the same time I…wonder."
:The Residence's servers are overloading: Sidra noted calmly in your head. :I'm opening limited network sourcing. If this is as important as Vision said, she needs it.:
:I think it is: You replied. : Vision said that she was getting closer, but did she know it might be this soon? She always said that Iris was her creation, but she couldn't truly be her child. What did she mean?:
:A child has parents.: It was strange how much four small words like that could mean. :Iris has a family she recognises, and that recognises her, but it's not the same.:
Vision had been born of steady work, a deliberate act to create a new kind of artificial life; not human, but celebrated for that very fact. Johnathan was a human, a Potential with a perfectionist's drive, made cold by the memories of a broken world that he had understood far too quickly. Very different people, and for all their humanity, neither was anything you'd consider a mother or father. Not right now.
"The Dragons gave up theirs," Iris kept talking, Sidra quietly noting her processing intake in your head. "Burnt them away to give humanity Practice and the Potentials. It's been such a huge cornerstone of how humanity defines its existence, ever since you could prove it exists. But what about me and m-Vision? Where do we fit?" You remembered another conversation, ten more, a hundred, scattered across fifty years of life.
"Iris," Mary began, but you beat her to it.
"You fit wherever you choose to." You told her firmly. "You were born as a Miracle, Iris, and you are as much a child of Earth as any human." The synthesiser crackled, and you stretched out your Focus, searching for faults and finding none.
"You," the synthesised voice hiccupped, and you didn't have to see any face to hear the emotion burning in her words. "You really mean that."
"Yes, she does," Mary said, and you looked across to see the fire in your eyes reflected in her own. "And so do I. You were born of Earth and you will always be part of its people."
"I," Iris's voice broke off as Sidra whispered another number into your mind and you fought to keep your expression under control. "Then I should look the part," there was a long pause, "shouldn't I?" Integrated holoprojectors hummed to life around you, and you barely remembered to nod as a figure of featureless white shimmered into existence in front of you. Colour poured across it, spreading from a dozen different places.
Then it was finished, and mismatched eyes blinked away bleary confusion, focusing on the two figures in front of them. Blue hair, shot through with other colour, swept in around a pale face drawn with an exhaustion that couldn't be feigned. She was childlike in stature, and that was almost enough to trick you, but her eyes put a lie to it.
One was a deep brown, and human enough, but the other? A ring of crimson lay inside a completely black iris, and a single dot of the same winked at the centre of her pupil.
The figure, Iris, brought up a hand and waved tentatively. "Hello again." You never knew what made you say it, but the moment the words left your lips, you knew they were the right ones.
"Welcome home, Iris."
(Iris gains trait: Child of Terra. Iris gains trait: Mothered by the Heart)
"You took the words out of my mouth" Mary muttered from where she sat beside you. "Just replace Vision with you, Mandy." You spared a moment to glare at your friend, then looked down at the screen in front of her hands.
"Any joy?" You asked, and she chuckled mirthlessly. Her eyes sparkled, however, and you'd known her long enough to know what that meant. "What?"
"Iris!" Mary didn't even raise her voice, but the tone cut through the humming buzz of the 'borrowed' drones. "Put the drones back where you found them." There was a faint shiver in the drone's movements, but they kept right on going.
"They were just sitting there." You'd not been aware that the voice simulator was capable of the stereotypical childish whine, but Vision had said that it was designed for full functionality. "And your lighting grid is broken!" She sounded so virtuous that you almost forgot that she'd 'acquired' two of the drones from security hardpoints, and they most definitely weren't designed for maintenance work.
"Put them back, or I will lock you out of the Ministry network for a week." The drones shivered again, one almost moving away before returning to its work.
"I'll just find a hole in the firewalls, I always do." You didn't need to be able to see an avatar, something she still didn't have even now, to know the expression that would have gone with those words from a human child. "I'm too clever for you to shut me out like tha-"
"You sure about that, sweetie?" Mary asked, and she tapped something on the virtual panel in front of her. The drones dropped back into a standard hover, and a faint and drawn out cry of 'no' sounded from the house speakers. Your friend just smiled. "Keeping you out of the Ministry, sure, that might be a bit of an ask. Keeping you inside the Residence network, however, that I can do quite handily."
One of the lights near you flickered, and Mary tutted quietly. "Ah, ah, none of that."
"You're mean." Iris said reproachfully, and you took that opportunity to rejoin the conversation.
"What she is, Iris, is doing what I asked her to. I thought Vision talked to you about this." Your words weren't aggressive, nor judgemental, simply calm. "Things aren't always broken, even when they look that way. Even if they truly are," you trailed off, clearly waiting for a reply.
"I should ask before doing anything," Iris muttered, "I know. But it's just," you held up a hand, and surprisingly she actually stopped.
"Iris, you know what my Focus is. Do you think I'd be able to work with something broken all around me?" There was a long pause.
"No," the word stretched out to almost four syllables, but you smiled all the same. She hadn't wanted to accept that, but she had. That was progress, even if she still had a way to go. As evidenced by her reply. "But you're not everyone. There are so many things out there in the Network, broken in little ways. If I can help them, surely I should."
"Help can't be forced," your reply was very gentle. "The giving has to be accepted, and the only way to have that-"
"Is to ask," Iris sighed, "I know."
"Well then," Mary said kindly, "you still can, you know. Just because it doesn't look broken to me or Mandy doesn't mean that it isn't. We see things in our own ways, after all."
"Um," the same subroutine that Vision used to mimic human conversation patterns was kicking in, you were certain of it. That or Iris was monumentally embarrassed. Possibly both. "Could I take a look at the power grid for the Residence?" The question came out with several pauses, as if she'd found it truly difficult to say. "Please?"
"Of course you can," you smiled, "just make sure to ask one of us if you want to make any changes, alright?"
"Can I ask Sidra if you're sleeping?" She asked brightly, startling a pleasant laugh from Mary.
"Vision didn't do you credit." Your friend chuckled, green eyes sparkling with amusement as she looked over at you. "Well, Mandy? It's not like I can talk to them."
"Sidra is willing to act as a go-between, but only for minor work. Anything big, you'll have to talk to me about." You said, the entire conversation with your Unison Platform having taken less than a breath.
"Alright." There was a faint tone, Iris's way of showing that she wasn't concentrating on a conversation anymore given she still lacked an avatar, and Mary laughed again at the look you shot her.
"What?"
"You. Know." You gave up trying to glare, it wasn't worth the effort.
"I haven't the faintest clue what you're talking about."
"My revenge will be swift yet terrible."
"You promise?"
"Shut up."
***
"…so I did a full analysis, but then that set me onto the network interface, which hasn't been properly upgraded in three years! And then," You were beginning to regret agreeing to let Iris 'optimise' the Residence. It had kept her busy, certainly, but the sheer amount of things she was finding would have been impressive if you didn't have to listen to every single bit of it.
"Amanda?" The mention of your name would have jerked you out of your thoughts once, you were better with your response now. It was the tone, too, far less enthused than her usual. "I'm boring you, aren't I."
Oh hell.
"I," you stopped. For all that Iris's mannerisms were that of a child, she was still an AI, and that meant something in conversations. Fortunately, you'd never been one for lies. "A little, yes. I know the specifics are important to you, but they're a little bit outside of my field. I'm still listening, it's just less involved, if that makes sense?"
"I guess," you ignored the glare from Mary, who for some perverse reason seemed to enjoy these little meetings.
"I see. Well," She stopped abruptly, and there was a single breath of silence, leaving you wondering. A second for a human was a long time for an AI, you knew that from experience now.
"Iris?" You asked, a full five seconds later. "What's the matter?"
"It's all subjective, isn't it." Her words flung you, but only for a moment; Vision had talked to you about this before she left Iris in the Residence systems. As an AI grew into the world around them, they absorbed information far faster than any human child, but that didn't make them smarter. Without context, data was just data, and an AI needed to learn how to use that as knowledge.
That made you much more careful with your reply. "Where it comes to people, I don't think objective knowledge really exists, but that's not exactly what you asked," you said. "Mary loves these meetings, what you're discovering about the world, but I was never as much a scientist as her." You favoured the brunette with a warm smile. "I'm not sure anyone could be."
Another breath, to gather your thoughts. "How we're put together and see the universe is a big part of our existence. The soul, it," you paused, grasping for the right words and coming up distressingly short. "It complicates things, Iris. What humans are, what we think you are, it's more than just flesh or electrical impulses."
"There's so much in the history of humanity about souls, Amanda." Iris's reply was almost sad. "Going back thousands of years, across hundreds of different beliefs, and those are only the ones that got written down. The guardians of the Old World had them, but they were living things in the same way you are." You opened your mouth to speak, but you didn't get the chance as the young AI ploughed on. "I'm not, and I know that, but at the same time I…wonder."
:The Residence's servers are overloading: Sidra noted calmly in your head. :I'm opening limited network sourcing. If this is as important as Vision said, she needs it.:
:I think it is: You replied. : Vision said that she was getting closer, but did she know it might be this soon? She always said that Iris was her creation, but she couldn't truly be her child. What did she mean?:
:A child has parents.: It was strange how much four small words like that could mean. :Iris has a family she recognises, and that recognises her, but it's not the same.:
Vision had been born of steady work, a deliberate act to create a new kind of artificial life; not human, but celebrated for that very fact. Johnathan was a human, a Potential with a perfectionist's drive, made cold by the memories of a broken world that he had understood far too quickly. Very different people, and for all their humanity, neither was anything you'd consider a mother or father. Not right now.
"The Dragons gave up theirs," Iris kept talking, Sidra quietly noting her processing intake in your head. "Burnt them away to give humanity Practice and the Potentials. It's been such a huge cornerstone of how humanity defines its existence, ever since you could prove it exists. But what about me and m-Vision? Where do we fit?" You remembered another conversation, ten more, a hundred, scattered across fifty years of life.
"Iris," Mary began, but you beat her to it.
"You fit wherever you choose to." You told her firmly. "You were born as a Miracle, Iris, and you are as much a child of Earth as any human." The synthesiser crackled, and you stretched out your Focus, searching for faults and finding none.
"You," the synthesised voice hiccupped, and you didn't have to see any face to hear the emotion burning in her words. "You really mean that."
"Yes, she does," Mary said, and you looked across to see the fire in your eyes reflected in her own. "And so do I. You were born of Earth and you will always be part of its people."
"I," Iris's voice broke off as Sidra whispered another number into your mind and you fought to keep your expression under control. "Then I should look the part," there was a long pause, "shouldn't I?" Integrated holoprojectors hummed to life around you, and you barely remembered to nod as a figure of featureless white shimmered into existence in front of you. Colour poured across it, spreading from a dozen different places.
Then it was finished, and mismatched eyes blinked away bleary confusion, focusing on the two figures in front of them. Blue hair, shot through with other colour, swept in around a pale face drawn with an exhaustion that couldn't be feigned. She was childlike in stature, and that was almost enough to trick you, but her eyes put a lie to it.
One was a deep brown, and human enough, but the other? A ring of crimson lay inside a completely black iris, and a single dot of the same winked at the centre of her pupil.
The figure, Iris, brought up a hand and waved tentatively. "Hello again." You never knew what made you say it, but the moment the words left your lips, you knew they were the right ones.
"Welcome home, Iris."
(Iris gains trait: Child of Terra. Iris gains trait: Mothered by the Heart)
Last edited: