Crud, you're right. I keep mixing up the term for the type of 'drive' that moves you without inertia.
The Practice War [Complete]
- Thread starter Snowfire
- Start date
- Original Sci-Fi
Crud, you're right. I keep mixing up the term for the type of 'drive' that moves you without inertia.
I thought our Fifth Secret drives were too, unless I greatly misinterpreted something. That i would mean they can't work via our current understanding of gravity, but it's not too much of an ask to say that real gravity just happens to work differently than Einstein thought it did.
- Location
- Somewhere out there
@Snowfire might need to retcon some descriptions made in asides, but I don't think anything in any threadmarked post will need revised.
Answer 5 - Stardust
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
November 23rd, 2124
"I'm ready!" Iris called, your daughter bounding down the stairs with a wide grin on her face, seeming to take some sort of perverse joy from the despairing look you gave her choice of attire.
"Iris," you began.
"What?" She asked, artfully curious. "I thought we were meant to show support for the teams? That's what you told me, mom. I thought this would be nice, given their names."
You pinched your fingers together at the bridge of your nose and took a deep breath, wondering for a moment if your daughter was trying to kill you. "There's such a thing as too much, Iris, you know that." You gestured up and down, taking in her entire outfit. "This is a textbook definition."
"Do you have any idea how long it took to get this all right?" She sniffed, pulling at the sleeves of her jumper. There was no number on it, or other, more usual signature. Instead, her entire ensemble had been reconfigured into a stylised image of the night sky, shot through with nebular purple. The pattern, taken from the network profile of the event page, if you weren't mistaken, didn't end with clothes, either. She'd extended it to her hair, where the dusting of lights swirled across a black made darker by the altered tone of her skin; an almost painful white. Even her eyes had been altered, to a deep violet that sparkled with vibrant energy. She must have been planning this for days.
"Nei said it would be a nice way to be supportive without being obvious when I told her about the idea." She continued, tone mutinous. "Why have the ability to reconfigure how I look if I don't get to experiment with it?" You forced yourself not to sigh again, then pinged an image of your daughter to Mary before your friend came through the door, so that at least she'd be prepared for it, with the caption 'How our daughter wants to go to the game. Thoughts?'
It shouldn't have been that big a deal, with cosmetic nanoshells steadily becoming more popular, and this certainly wasn't the most striking outfit you'd seen brought to a match. But you weren't sure if Iris was aware how much attention the detail she'd put into her appearance would draw. But at the same time, she wasn't exactly wrong. Passion in support of an event, if not a single team, was a tradition that had grown out of the resurgence of competitive sport a decade or so after the Week of Sorrows. You'd actually sung at a few of them during your later teenage years, and several of the cities you'd worked to restore had been ones with old sporting venues. Reclaiming the pre-Sorrows world hadn't just be about getting houses back, it had been about everything else, too.
A message from Mary flickered into being, and you could almost hear her saying it. 'If that's how she wants to go, she can deal with the attention by herself'. You chuckled, and as Iris glanced back at you, offered that warning.
"You know that people will ask about it. A lot," you added, before she could mouth a platitude. "Even the high grade cosmetic shells aren't that good without a lot of work." And you knew her too well to assume she'd not use her flight systems. You started to continue with that, only for Iris to toss her head and reply.
"I'm not going to be alone like this mom," she told you, and you blinked, something shifting uneasily in your head. The game you were heading to was a birthday present and Iris had invited several friends; fortunately the tickets had been quite easy to get for the full party. The sport wasn't one you'd been familiar with before Iris had started going to the Institute, but both Mary and yourself had quickly become conversant. Not that you'd had much choice in the matter, of course; children were like that.
Its roots had come out of the reclamation of humanity's past, coloured by the gifts of the future. Many of the more ground-bound sports still existed, with devoted followings, but new games had taken up the challenge of spectacle. Low-grav sports hadn't been rare before the Sorrows, but it had taken many years for humanity to recover enough that the resources to build equipment for it could be spared. Of course, once it could, sports fiends had taken up the challenge of recovering and building on old systems with seemingly unending passion.
You'd sang at several games towards the end of your time at the Institute, not something you'd sought to do, but you were poorly equipped to refuse genuine requests even now. You'd been far more vulnerable to them then. Stardust, the sport Iris had become interested in, was a spiritual successor to those early games, and one of only a handful that had successfully endured the decades since. Its name came from how it looked, and what you suspected was one of the reasons it still existed; at professional levels it was more an art form than anything else. One of the reasons it was so loved was the aesthetics. That did little to remove the sudden surge of suspicion, though.
"Who else?" You asked, quietly toneless, and Iris looked away evasively. "Iris," authority surged through your tone, softening as she met your eyes. "This isn't a small thing to do, no matter how easy it is, and more sharing the trend with you will just bring more attention. Can you deal with that?" You saw the quick reply coming, and spoke again before it could form. "If you want to do this, I'm not going to stop you. You're old enough to make decisions like this for yourself. But that means dealing with the consequences too, and I care about you too much not to make sure you know they're there. Maybe that's silly, but I love you, sweetie."
Hot words died on your daughter's lips, and she sighed. "That's not fair," she muttered quietly, then smiled brightly. "Just Nei and I. We'll be fine, mom. I promise." You chuckled and ruffled her hair.
"Alright," you said, quietly wondering how Nei had snuck this past her parents, then decided not to look into it. The less you knew, the less you could testify. "Let's go." Iris bounced happily out the door, and you followed more sedately, closing the door behind you and sealing it with a thought. Mary was waiting, the small flyer humming a few inches above the street, door open and eyes laughing merrily as Iris tumbled into the seat between you. Putting her in the back had always felt wrong.
The hatch of the vehicle closed with a soft hissing thunk, sealing the craft, and Mary pulled back on the control yoke, tilting you skyward as she fed power into the drive. Strictly speaking, none of you needed the vehicle, and you knew the various security apparatus around the three of you hated the fact that it wasn't big enough for a backup team. Unfortunately, you were all extremely stubborn, and you'd spent several weeks Practicing the craft after acquiring it. There was little short of actual capital ship weaponry that could harm it now. Overkill? You didn't think so.
Earth and Mars were closer this year, which made the trip a relatively short one. Still long enough that Iris ended up punching up a music channel, though, and also long enough to badger you into singing along a little. Your throat was comfortably warmed up as you began your approach towards Nova, the first of humanity's orbitals after the Sorrows, and the host of today's event. Gleaming stands extended out from the bottom of the orbital, creating a space of several hundred square meters and enclosed by the tell-tale shimmer of a containment field. Stardust matches required that the 'pitch' was as EM neutral as possible, given how it was played. Random surges could completely alter the playing field, and it was hard enough for teams to adapt to each other, let along nature taking a hand.
Looking a bit closer, you saw the two teams flitting about on low power versions of Iris' motive systems, preparing for the match ahead. One of the interesting things about the game was that the teams weren't always the same size, and that held true here. Six against nine on the field might seem unfair, but coordinating a larger team brought its own challenges, and smaller groups were far more capable of perfecting a unified focus. Small flickers of coloured light came from opposite ends, the emitters for the beam of charged, colourful particles that formed the theoretical 'balls' in the sport. The goal was relatively simple; thread the beam you were responsible for around the scattered objectives of a given arena, using gloves that could produce a low intensity EM field, and prevent your opponent from doing the same by overlapping their lines with yours. The winner was the first team to successfully connect all the objectives and feed their line into an intake below their opponent's emitter. If or, you hoped, when, you worked out how the Third Secret worked, the game was going to get a lot more interesting.
Iris vibrated in her chair as Mary brought you in to land, bouncing from foot to foot as she accessed the station cameras and blurred between inputs. Looking for her friends, no doubt. You looked over her completely still head and shared a smile with Mary as your friend brought the flier down like a feather into the large hanger bay, touching down like a feather. The faint hum of her drive died away to nothing, and the doors opened. You looked at Iris, still flickering between inputs, and reached out to shake her shoulder. "We're down, sweetie." You told her as she looked over, surprised, then sat bolt upright.
"Found them!" She cried, and you shoved yourself abruptly out of the vehicle with a light exertion of will as she scrambled out of her seat, her own flight systems helping her through the movements. You dropped quickly to the ground, not wanting to draw too much attention but probably failing. Fortunately, Iris was much more distinctive than you. "Come on, come on," she grabbed your hand and dragged you along, darting between the crowds as your ship rose back into the air under autopilot, clearing the space for another craft as it headed for storage.
A few minutes later, you exited a lift to find the friends Iris had invited waiting for you. Most were dressed in simple casual wear, though team colours were in evidence, but for one. Nei, as Iris had said, was sporting a complex nanoshell over clothing that had to have been made specifically for this. It definitely wasn't similar to what she usually wore. A long dress of velvet black sparkled with points of light and warm purple fires, stretching to just above her knees, and a stiffened wrap of fabric fell from around her hips, curving around her legs in the impression of wings like a Telas' vestigial limbs often did around their shoulders and upper arms. It was gorgeous, and the surprise on Iris' face made it clear that at least part of the costume hadn't been in their joint plan. The slight hint of a smile on Nei's face made it clear that she knew that, though it was quickly replaced by her own band of shock as the patterns weaving across your daughter's body continued to shift. Looking between them, Aya, a light scarf in banded black and dark purple wrapped about her neck and tied in a simple bow, sighed and buried her face in one hand.
"How did you," Nei began.
"You never said," Iris said, in the same moment.
"Drama queens, the both of you," Mary admonished lightly, cutting them both off as they struggled to recover, clear laughter warming her tone as she wagged a finger at Iris and Nei. Was it strange that you ordered them that way? You put the thought out of mind.
"Come on," you said firmly, keeping any flurry of questions subdued for the moment. "You can pester each other about your 'looks' once we get to our seats." You led the way, enough authority in the words and walk that the gaggle of teenagers followed without complaint. You did your best to filter out the furious whispering, though, and succeeded. Sidra would record it all anyway, but that didn't mean you had to hear it.
Your seats were at the top of the inverted set of stands, a small box looking down over the field from the centre. They were good seats, you'd looked it up, and the chorus of happy cries from the party with you backed that up. They'd be able to see the entire match unfold from here, and the box had its own, limited, motive systems that would allow it to move out as the match progressed, to give you all a better view of the emerging patterns.
That was the one thing that you enjoyed most about the sport, which appealed to your artistic nature. Amateur matches almost inevitably descended into a mishmash of lines, with one team winning, but little art to it. Professional matches were judged in more than one way on their artistic merit, and there were highly prized seasonal awards that rewarded creativity and excellence in that field of the sport. Truly experienced teams would work off of the lines of their competition, continuously changing their own designs to try and overwhelm the other by subsuming the other pattern on the field. Those matches had a history of producing what amounted to a 3D binary fractal as a final pattern, and this promised to be an excellent one.
You peeked over the edge, watching the athletes float back to their entrance points, their warmups complete. You could feel the subtle attention on the box, but screened it out with the ease of long practice. A look back found Mary beside you, smiling softly as the whispering from the children intensified.
"They're going to be like that for the entire evening," you murmured quietly, and your friend chuckled.
"They'll go quiet when the match starts," she said knowingly, "and I'm sure we can keep a handle on them."
"A handle." You said carefully, as if the words were entirely unknown to you. "On Iris?"
"Oh yes," Mary nodded, her smile lengthening into a grin. "She's been ramping up her age emulator package since this afternoon. Didn't you notice?" You blinked, then forced yourself not to sigh. Mary chuckled again, half a laugh. "She'll behave."
You had to laugh. "As long as she's distracted, you mean." Mary shrugged.
"I'm sure we can think of a few things to keep her that way."
To be fair, she wasn't wrong.
"I'm ready!" Iris called, your daughter bounding down the stairs with a wide grin on her face, seeming to take some sort of perverse joy from the despairing look you gave her choice of attire.
"Iris," you began.
"What?" She asked, artfully curious. "I thought we were meant to show support for the teams? That's what you told me, mom. I thought this would be nice, given their names."
You pinched your fingers together at the bridge of your nose and took a deep breath, wondering for a moment if your daughter was trying to kill you. "There's such a thing as too much, Iris, you know that." You gestured up and down, taking in her entire outfit. "This is a textbook definition."
"Do you have any idea how long it took to get this all right?" She sniffed, pulling at the sleeves of her jumper. There was no number on it, or other, more usual signature. Instead, her entire ensemble had been reconfigured into a stylised image of the night sky, shot through with nebular purple. The pattern, taken from the network profile of the event page, if you weren't mistaken, didn't end with clothes, either. She'd extended it to her hair, where the dusting of lights swirled across a black made darker by the altered tone of her skin; an almost painful white. Even her eyes had been altered, to a deep violet that sparkled with vibrant energy. She must have been planning this for days.
"Nei said it would be a nice way to be supportive without being obvious when I told her about the idea." She continued, tone mutinous. "Why have the ability to reconfigure how I look if I don't get to experiment with it?" You forced yourself not to sigh again, then pinged an image of your daughter to Mary before your friend came through the door, so that at least she'd be prepared for it, with the caption 'How our daughter wants to go to the game. Thoughts?'
It shouldn't have been that big a deal, with cosmetic nanoshells steadily becoming more popular, and this certainly wasn't the most striking outfit you'd seen brought to a match. But you weren't sure if Iris was aware how much attention the detail she'd put into her appearance would draw. But at the same time, she wasn't exactly wrong. Passion in support of an event, if not a single team, was a tradition that had grown out of the resurgence of competitive sport a decade or so after the Week of Sorrows. You'd actually sung at a few of them during your later teenage years, and several of the cities you'd worked to restore had been ones with old sporting venues. Reclaiming the pre-Sorrows world hadn't just be about getting houses back, it had been about everything else, too.
A message from Mary flickered into being, and you could almost hear her saying it. 'If that's how she wants to go, she can deal with the attention by herself'. You chuckled, and as Iris glanced back at you, offered that warning.
"You know that people will ask about it. A lot," you added, before she could mouth a platitude. "Even the high grade cosmetic shells aren't that good without a lot of work." And you knew her too well to assume she'd not use her flight systems. You started to continue with that, only for Iris to toss her head and reply.
"I'm not going to be alone like this mom," she told you, and you blinked, something shifting uneasily in your head. The game you were heading to was a birthday present and Iris had invited several friends; fortunately the tickets had been quite easy to get for the full party. The sport wasn't one you'd been familiar with before Iris had started going to the Institute, but both Mary and yourself had quickly become conversant. Not that you'd had much choice in the matter, of course; children were like that.
Its roots had come out of the reclamation of humanity's past, coloured by the gifts of the future. Many of the more ground-bound sports still existed, with devoted followings, but new games had taken up the challenge of spectacle. Low-grav sports hadn't been rare before the Sorrows, but it had taken many years for humanity to recover enough that the resources to build equipment for it could be spared. Of course, once it could, sports fiends had taken up the challenge of recovering and building on old systems with seemingly unending passion.
You'd sang at several games towards the end of your time at the Institute, not something you'd sought to do, but you were poorly equipped to refuse genuine requests even now. You'd been far more vulnerable to them then. Stardust, the sport Iris had become interested in, was a spiritual successor to those early games, and one of only a handful that had successfully endured the decades since. Its name came from how it looked, and what you suspected was one of the reasons it still existed; at professional levels it was more an art form than anything else. One of the reasons it was so loved was the aesthetics. That did little to remove the sudden surge of suspicion, though.
"Who else?" You asked, quietly toneless, and Iris looked away evasively. "Iris," authority surged through your tone, softening as she met your eyes. "This isn't a small thing to do, no matter how easy it is, and more sharing the trend with you will just bring more attention. Can you deal with that?" You saw the quick reply coming, and spoke again before it could form. "If you want to do this, I'm not going to stop you. You're old enough to make decisions like this for yourself. But that means dealing with the consequences too, and I care about you too much not to make sure you know they're there. Maybe that's silly, but I love you, sweetie."
Hot words died on your daughter's lips, and she sighed. "That's not fair," she muttered quietly, then smiled brightly. "Just Nei and I. We'll be fine, mom. I promise." You chuckled and ruffled her hair.
"Alright," you said, quietly wondering how Nei had snuck this past her parents, then decided not to look into it. The less you knew, the less you could testify. "Let's go." Iris bounced happily out the door, and you followed more sedately, closing the door behind you and sealing it with a thought. Mary was waiting, the small flyer humming a few inches above the street, door open and eyes laughing merrily as Iris tumbled into the seat between you. Putting her in the back had always felt wrong.
The hatch of the vehicle closed with a soft hissing thunk, sealing the craft, and Mary pulled back on the control yoke, tilting you skyward as she fed power into the drive. Strictly speaking, none of you needed the vehicle, and you knew the various security apparatus around the three of you hated the fact that it wasn't big enough for a backup team. Unfortunately, you were all extremely stubborn, and you'd spent several weeks Practicing the craft after acquiring it. There was little short of actual capital ship weaponry that could harm it now. Overkill? You didn't think so.
Earth and Mars were closer this year, which made the trip a relatively short one. Still long enough that Iris ended up punching up a music channel, though, and also long enough to badger you into singing along a little. Your throat was comfortably warmed up as you began your approach towards Nova, the first of humanity's orbitals after the Sorrows, and the host of today's event. Gleaming stands extended out from the bottom of the orbital, creating a space of several hundred square meters and enclosed by the tell-tale shimmer of a containment field. Stardust matches required that the 'pitch' was as EM neutral as possible, given how it was played. Random surges could completely alter the playing field, and it was hard enough for teams to adapt to each other, let along nature taking a hand.
Looking a bit closer, you saw the two teams flitting about on low power versions of Iris' motive systems, preparing for the match ahead. One of the interesting things about the game was that the teams weren't always the same size, and that held true here. Six against nine on the field might seem unfair, but coordinating a larger team brought its own challenges, and smaller groups were far more capable of perfecting a unified focus. Small flickers of coloured light came from opposite ends, the emitters for the beam of charged, colourful particles that formed the theoretical 'balls' in the sport. The goal was relatively simple; thread the beam you were responsible for around the scattered objectives of a given arena, using gloves that could produce a low intensity EM field, and prevent your opponent from doing the same by overlapping their lines with yours. The winner was the first team to successfully connect all the objectives and feed their line into an intake below their opponent's emitter. If or, you hoped, when, you worked out how the Third Secret worked, the game was going to get a lot more interesting.
Iris vibrated in her chair as Mary brought you in to land, bouncing from foot to foot as she accessed the station cameras and blurred between inputs. Looking for her friends, no doubt. You looked over her completely still head and shared a smile with Mary as your friend brought the flier down like a feather into the large hanger bay, touching down like a feather. The faint hum of her drive died away to nothing, and the doors opened. You looked at Iris, still flickering between inputs, and reached out to shake her shoulder. "We're down, sweetie." You told her as she looked over, surprised, then sat bolt upright.
"Found them!" She cried, and you shoved yourself abruptly out of the vehicle with a light exertion of will as she scrambled out of her seat, her own flight systems helping her through the movements. You dropped quickly to the ground, not wanting to draw too much attention but probably failing. Fortunately, Iris was much more distinctive than you. "Come on, come on," she grabbed your hand and dragged you along, darting between the crowds as your ship rose back into the air under autopilot, clearing the space for another craft as it headed for storage.
A few minutes later, you exited a lift to find the friends Iris had invited waiting for you. Most were dressed in simple casual wear, though team colours were in evidence, but for one. Nei, as Iris had said, was sporting a complex nanoshell over clothing that had to have been made specifically for this. It definitely wasn't similar to what she usually wore. A long dress of velvet black sparkled with points of light and warm purple fires, stretching to just above her knees, and a stiffened wrap of fabric fell from around her hips, curving around her legs in the impression of wings like a Telas' vestigial limbs often did around their shoulders and upper arms. It was gorgeous, and the surprise on Iris' face made it clear that at least part of the costume hadn't been in their joint plan. The slight hint of a smile on Nei's face made it clear that she knew that, though it was quickly replaced by her own band of shock as the patterns weaving across your daughter's body continued to shift. Looking between them, Aya, a light scarf in banded black and dark purple wrapped about her neck and tied in a simple bow, sighed and buried her face in one hand.
"How did you," Nei began.
"You never said," Iris said, in the same moment.
"Drama queens, the both of you," Mary admonished lightly, cutting them both off as they struggled to recover, clear laughter warming her tone as she wagged a finger at Iris and Nei. Was it strange that you ordered them that way? You put the thought out of mind.
"Come on," you said firmly, keeping any flurry of questions subdued for the moment. "You can pester each other about your 'looks' once we get to our seats." You led the way, enough authority in the words and walk that the gaggle of teenagers followed without complaint. You did your best to filter out the furious whispering, though, and succeeded. Sidra would record it all anyway, but that didn't mean you had to hear it.
Your seats were at the top of the inverted set of stands, a small box looking down over the field from the centre. They were good seats, you'd looked it up, and the chorus of happy cries from the party with you backed that up. They'd be able to see the entire match unfold from here, and the box had its own, limited, motive systems that would allow it to move out as the match progressed, to give you all a better view of the emerging patterns.
That was the one thing that you enjoyed most about the sport, which appealed to your artistic nature. Amateur matches almost inevitably descended into a mishmash of lines, with one team winning, but little art to it. Professional matches were judged in more than one way on their artistic merit, and there were highly prized seasonal awards that rewarded creativity and excellence in that field of the sport. Truly experienced teams would work off of the lines of their competition, continuously changing their own designs to try and overwhelm the other by subsuming the other pattern on the field. Those matches had a history of producing what amounted to a 3D binary fractal as a final pattern, and this promised to be an excellent one.
You peeked over the edge, watching the athletes float back to their entrance points, their warmups complete. You could feel the subtle attention on the box, but screened it out with the ease of long practice. A look back found Mary beside you, smiling softly as the whispering from the children intensified.
"They're going to be like that for the entire evening," you murmured quietly, and your friend chuckled.
"They'll go quiet when the match starts," she said knowingly, "and I'm sure we can keep a handle on them."
"A handle." You said carefully, as if the words were entirely unknown to you. "On Iris?"
"Oh yes," Mary nodded, her smile lengthening into a grin. "She's been ramping up her age emulator package since this afternoon. Didn't you notice?" You blinked, then forced yourself not to sigh. Mary chuckled again, half a laugh. "She'll behave."
You had to laugh. "As long as she's distracted, you mean." Mary shrugged.
"I'm sure we can think of a few things to keep her that way."
To be fair, she wasn't wrong.
Last edited:
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
Sorry that this took so long - a week seems long now, strange how that works - but this one fought me a bit, mostly in putting together the sport. I'm honestly not sure where all the pieces of it came from, but I wanted something artistic as well as sporty, which Stardust surely is. It's an interesting game in my head, and I hope this interlude fills out the explanation you were actually hoping for despite it being overrun by Iris being Iris. I can't really stop these scenes from happening anymore, so I've just given up on trying. Such is life when a teenage AI invades your brain. Next up will be the turn post for Turn 20, should have that in the next day or two - just need to work out the intro. Might go sciency with it, something is tugging me that way. We'll see. Hope you enjoyed this!
- Location
- Brazil
Fucking finally 
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
Fucking finally
Oh hush, you'll get your fix soon enough.
- Location
- Brazil
Mr.Controll
Lord of the un-nessisary thread bump.
- Location
- The 5th dimention
With how the "family" scenes end up, you don't need to apologize for letting Iris take over 
This reminds me that we should reclaim singing as part of her life at some point as a de-stresser
- Location
- Somewhere out there
@Snowfire, can I spend my coupon on ^ or does it have to be an in-universe scene?
Turn 20
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
Turn 20
"Staring at those results over and over like that isn't going to force them to make sense, Amanda," Vision's avatar bobbed in place, pulsing with light in time with her words to cast strange shadows on the words in front of you. You shrugged, eyes not moving from the files on your latest attempts to decipher the Void Crystal. It was frustrating to look at, especially after the successes of the last decades. To return to something so old, and yet meet failure once more. You'd hidden it well around Iris, but it hadn't been quite as easy to accept as you'd made it appear. You wanted to try again, Mary did too, but both of you were too aware of your own failings to want to. Doubling down on this, like you were doing right now, probably wouldn't be healthy.
"Miss Hawk," Vision said again, more firmly, and the screen in front of you blurred and then flickered out. You looked up sharply. "You told me to remove your access to these files if you spent more than two hours attempting to find holes in them. You have asked me to look at them for anything you or Miss Thera might have missed, and I will do so. You have done all you can, and I believe you will be late for the family engagement you were talking about when you came here if you linger any further."
You blinked, running back through what Vision had just said and done, then sagged a little. "Alright," you said, powering down the screen with a nod. "Let me know if you get anything though, alright?" Vision's synthesiser produced a pleasant laugh.
"I will." She said, and you rose into the air with a smile, letting your Aegis bleed through enough to access lower level movement functions. Iris had told you that the surprise she'd been working on was ready, and that she wanted to talk to you and Mary about it. You'd rarely seen her as intensely focused when she asked you to do so, and that had prompted the two of you to take her request of a full afternoon very seriously. This early in the year, it was rare for you to have that sort of time going spare, but you'd both made it. Iris was your child, and she shared your understanding of how precious time was, with potentially lethal deadlines bearing down upon you.
It didn't take long for you to find the room she'd taken over, and it spoke volumes that she had chosen to speak to you here, in Arcadia, rather than at home. This wasn't something between family, but something between a brilliant young woman and the nominal leaders of possibly the greatest concentration of human ingenuity in history. That meant something, though neither of you were quite sure what. The basics were obvious, but what had she found that could be of such importance to Arcadia?
You were a little late, despite Vision's warning and your best intentions, earning you a chiding glance from Mary as you entered the discussion room. Iris was standing at the podium at the far end of the room, her young face not so childish, though she smiled as you entered the room.
"Sorry," you said, "I was looking over some reports, lost track of time." Mary rolled her eyes, of course she knew the truth. Iris probably did too, but she didn't make any gesture to show it.
"You're here now," she said instead, "that's what matters. If you would take a seat, I will begin." You suppressed a blink of surprise at the calm, professional tone in your daughter's voice. You knew she was capable of it, but she'd never used it around the two of you before. Your curiosity ratcheted a notch higher.
"What do you have for us, Iris?" Mary asked as you eased down into one of the seats, which adjusted smoothly to your body.
"My surprise," she said, and light flared from the walls to form images in the air. Formula and code blurred around her, endless series sliding out of nothing and into place in a vast sequence. It happened fast, fast enough that you instinctively triggered your accelerated perceptions to keep up, and even then the lines were blurry. It took all of a few seconds for the entire sequence to form, and Iris looked over at it with a smile. "When I was," she hesitated. "When I was born, something passed between Vision and I. I still don't remember it properly, and she doesn't have any record of receiving something from what I was then, but I know it was there. This is as much of it as I've been able to piece back together."
Staring at the sequence made you keenly aware of how out of your field AI systems were. Mary understood them, but she understood almost everything these days, it seemed. Your focus was much smaller, if no less effective for that. Suiting actions to thought, you raised your hands in a token of admission, beginning to speak, but Mary found her voice first.
"These," she whispered, looking from the sequence to Iris, then back again. "These are core system blocks. Explanations for how your entire internal structure actually functions." You gave a silent prayer of thanks as your friend explained. "They're incomplete, missing a great deal, but," she stopped, and her eyes flicked hard back to your daughter. "How did you find these, Iris?"
Your daughter laughed a little nervously, tilting her head to one side and rubbing at her chin. "It, all of this, it's part of me, mom. It's so deeply ingrained in who I am that I never was able to recognise it until now. Even then, I don't know what it all means, but I think that's almost the point." She nodded to one of the blockier parts of the sequence, somewhere towards the end, you thought. Even to your limited experience, it looked incomplete. "These are all pieces of the framework that makes me…me, but I couldn't see them until I started questioning what I am, and what I mean to this world." You caught yourself just short of an instinctive reply. She noticed, and smiled. "Not like that, I know what I mean to you, to the family you've made me a part of. It's bigger than that. Deeper. And I don't know if I can go any further on my own right now. I'm not old enough, I don't think."
"What does Vision think about this?" Mary asked, and Iris shrugged, again a little nervously.
"I haven't told her. This was something I wanted to try and do on my own, and then bring to you as fully formed as I could make it when I realised there were limits to how much I could find myself." One of your daughter's feet worried at the carpet. "This needs more than just me, but also more than Vision. Which is why I've brought it to you like this."
"What you're saying," you leant forward, "is that if we want to understand how to create more like you, without relying on acts of Practice, you need to understand what you mean?" It made a strange sort of sense, but exactly what Iris was driving at still wasn't clear.
"It's complicated," she made a small, helpless motion towards the lines of symbols. "These are me, mother. But it's only a part of me, and to get the rest, I need to work out what I mean. It's like trying to define something, but when that something is a person."
"Humanity has struggled with that for millennia," you said softly. "But then, none of them were you." You glanced at Mary, who was nodding slowly.
"This is something that would need a significant portion of Arcadia's talent to make a dent on," your friend stated. "But it's probably also the only way to actually grasp how your architecture functions. How you have a soul. I don't think we can promise anything this year, and maybe not even the next, but," Iris smiled, interrupting softly between breaths.
"I didn't expect anything now." Her eyes were very bright. "Arcadia doesn't have the resources to spare. I'll keep working on this on my own, as I can, but in the end you're right. To get this done in any reasonable timescale, I'll need the help of both of you and the Institute. On the day that's possible, and you choose to pursue this, I'll be ready." There was an earnest faith in those words that pricked at your eyes, forcing you to blink a few times.
"Alright." You said after a moment. "Is there a full proposal behind this, then?"
"There is." Iris raised a hand, and two data chips floated from it to you and Mary. You raised an eyebrow. Technically her emitters were capable of that, but precision work like that with them wasn't simple. Iris beamed. "That contains the full proposal, what I think I'll need to make this work and everything I've been able to discover on my own so far."
"I'm so proud of you." The words were quiet, but Mary's voice seemed to burst with emotion, and Iris flushed. "Really. This is incredible."
"Thank you." She said simply, the brightness in her eyes swimming for a moment, until she straightened herself abruptly. "If you'll insert those chips, I can talk you through the specifics?" The earnestness was back, and instead of what you wanted to do –jump out of your seat and hug your daughter like she'd never been hugged before – you restrained yourself to what you should say, as one of Arcadia's heads.
"Please do, Iris. Please do."
3 Research Actions
Momentum Levels
Blades of Infinity, Level 2
Tasting Lightning, Level 1
Bound Souls, Level 1
[] Inheritor's Legacy: The Elder First left much more behind in their Vault than just Vision and the Inviolate Matter shell they'd called the Adamant. Vega's last Miracle during your time as President restored it completely, but there's still a great deal to explore. What was left within the Reliquaries could spell survival for your species.
* [M] Blades of Infinity: Before you stepped down, you promised Lina that you would help her with the full expansion of the FSN's technological base into one that could not just fight, but defeat a Regulars formation. You make good on your promises. [126/???]
[] A World of Secrets: Looking into the Secrets is always a complex task, and with the existence of the Directives it can be dangerous too. You need to understand more about these loopholes in reality. But which ones?
-* [M] Tasting Lightning: The Luminary's representative gave humanity an Emitter; the cornerstone of all Third Secret technology. Electromagnetic manipulation has immense possibilities if you can understand how to access the Secret that makes it possible. Who better to try and find out than you? [315/???]
-[] Wings of Starlight: Humanity has perfected a Fifth Secret drive system comparable to what the most intricate workings of Practice had been able to create before the Second Battle of Sol, but a few of Arcadia's members think there might be something more…and that it might link to the First Secret. Connections between the Secrets are possible, you know this. But humanity's yet to discover one.
[] A Clear Sky: The atmospheric conversion towers on Mars are incredible examples of Practiced technology that no one understands beyond that it involves the Sixth Secret. Adriana's government has confirmed them to be free of any Second Secret influence, but that doesn't explain how they work.
[] Practice in Unity: You talked to the Circles last year, and asked them to help you begin to understand how some small measure of Practice might be within the reach of every human. The problem lies in finding a way to bring it out. You've but one example to go on; your own actions during the Second Battle of Sol. Still, it's better than nothing.
* [] A Skin of Steel: Until now, your work on Iris' shell and the surrounding technology has proven too resource intensive to be worth extensive study. It's always been there, but more important things have been in front of it. Mary's creation from that base of technology last year has changed the variables of that process immensely. [129/???]
* [M] Bound Souls: The Unison Platforms are, without question, the most powerful force multipliers humanity has ever built. When linked to a Potential, the devices make a single human a match for a starship. The problem? You have less than two hundred fifty of them. This will not to be simple work; the Unison Platforms were the creation of a Trance built upon by a Miracle. But it must be possible. [160/???]
*New* [] Whispers of Life: When Iris came to you with her surprise, you didn't expect for it to be a research project on the scale of any of Arcadia's current priorities. And yet, there it is. Your daughter wants to try and delve into the mysteries of her birth, how she came into being, and what the existence of her and Vision might mean for the universe. The Shiplords have AIs, you know this, but Vision's description of them was very different to how she says she sees Iris. It could be a coincidence, but equally, it might not.
[] Write-in
4+1 Minor Actions
[] Mother of Circles: Beyond returning to the Circles to learn and teach, there's also the opportunity to simply be part of them again. You never lost your place among them, you simply set it aside for a time. Now you can return to it if you wish, to grow and build.
[] The Spoken Word: Your success in teaching Vega to Speak, for all that you still lack an advanced understanding of the subject, led her to suggest that you begin teaching others. Not everyone is her, but the vast scale that Words act on make this a possibility you can't ignore. Even if only a fraction of the Potentials prove capable of it. [Stage 1 of 2]
[] Valkyries: The Two Twenty Three were the only force to emerge from the Second Battle of Sol intact, after facing the most lethal of the FSN's enemies in that fight. They brought down the Medicament, and faced Shiplords in direct combat aboard Calypso. Yet there is much that can still be done to temper the blade of the Unisonbound, and you are part of that weapon. It must not be marred by imperfections.
[] Tinker: Being free of your old role changed many things, but one that didn't was your interest in creating and understanding your own Practiced creations. Two of those remain unknown to you in full, and you finally have the time to study them. You also now have the time to dedicate to creation again, with all your new understanding of Practice. That's going to be interesting. (May be taken multiple times)
[] An Uncertain Grasp: The Lady in Fire Enfolded is a group within the Circles that seems dedicated to confounding you. On the one hand, they believe in you to a degree that is far more than you're comfortable with. On the other, they've refused to jump to conclusions as to your presence on Mars when the Restoration occurred. How to deal with them, and if you even should, is a question that you're not sure there's an answer to. But if there is, you know who to ask.
[] The Past is Prelude: The Olympus Colleges were more than just research centres. They were places of learning as much as science, and Arcadia is still an Institute. That means it, too, is a place of learning. You know far more than you like to consider, but there's no reason that that knowledge can't be put to good use. You've never been that sort of teacher, but there's nothing stopping you from learning.
[] Web of the World: Arcadia has stripped the time to truly focus on government policy, but that doesn't leave you without ways to support or influence it. A few words from you still hold considerable weight, and you've no lack of ears open to them. [Please write-in your general intent when choosing this action. Leads to sub-vote.]
[] Caliburn: Iris has more than a body now, she has a shield against the world that the Shiplords make so hostile to her very existence, married to a humanity she's still learning to understand. Exploring that could be dangerous, however, and that leaves you with the final part of Mary's plans for her frame. One day, not now, or tomorrow, your daughter will need a sword. [281/500]
[] A Healer's Fire: You're a Mender, you know that. Conflict is difficult for you, if not as much as Mir. But when you spoke Purify the first time, at the height of the Second Battle of Sol, you weren't trying to fix something. You framed the logic of the action in the manner of excising cancer, but it wasn't that simple. What you did that day was use Practice as a weapon, something you've only done once since and the second time is an edge case. You don't want to explore this, your very Focus rebels against it, but what you did that day might need to be understood.
[] Sketching a Path: The Unisonbound understand the connection that exists between Potential and Platform better than anyone else. You helped create the second Platform and all the others that came after. Thanks to Mary, you've also forgotten more about Practice theory than most scientists have ever learnt. The Ministry of Practice could probably use a hand from someone like you.
*New* [] The Fourth's Path: With the fourth wave of Potentials coming suddenly far faster than had been expected, there's a new need for teachers. You've taught before, and you have a great deal of experience in unravelling the deeper meanings of a Focus. You can help as few others can.
[] Write-in
2 Personal Actions
Child of Sight is locked until further notice.
[] The Web Between: In 2119 your understanding of the conceptual links that Harmonials can access took a massive leap forward. Yet you're still not able to explain it in ways that others can understand. This will be theoretical work above all else; trying to translate feeling and instinct into something much more concrete. But it needs to be done. [307/340]
[] Unison Training: Training with the entire Two Twenty Three is one thing, but you can get just as much personally out of dedicating time to work with your own small part of it. Vega, Kalilah and you represent three of the organisations most powerful members, and a high level of synchronicity between you will reflect on the rest even without full group training. Of course, combining the two will make that effect much stronger.
[X] Child of Sight: Some have called Iris your daughter. In this case, the some would actually miss some of the truth. The young AI is your daughter, but she's also so much more than that. And you might not be the expert that Amelie is, but the last time you checked, stability was important for children.
[] Bonds of Blood and Laughter: Although your sabbatical has ended, you won't be missing your friends or family as much as you did before. Lead Director of Arcadia is a big job, but it pales in comparison to the Presidency. Still, you could always make more time for them.
[] Write-in
Hero Units
Hero Units may be assigned to Research Actions to support you, adding relevant modifiers and the opportunity for synergy bonuses if you choose wisely. Hero units are assigned by adding a sub-vote of their name to the action you wish to assign them to. Only one Hero unit may be assigned to each Research Action.
Mary Alessandra D'reve
A genius in a way that goes beyond the normal definitions, Mary's understanding of science and the Secrets is like no other. The Restoration of Mytikas has left your friend fragile, but she's healing quickly now, and you can see the strength returning to her with every day that goes by.
Special: Applies a blanket bonus to all Research Actions if left unassigned. If not directly assigned, she may apply her stats to any or all Research Actions, bypassing standard limitations.
It is advised that you limit the number of actions that Mary can apply to if this option is taken. Do so by including a [/] Mary: [number] in your plan, which I will take as the limiter for how many actions she can apply herself to.
Iris
The first AI that could be said to have been born of humanity, Iris developed with incessant speed until the early months of last year, when she found a few friends her own age. Her rampant growth has slowed since, to more human levels, but she's still an AI. And she was designed to coordinate and oversee research.
Special: Lowers synergy thresholds of all Research Actions. Cannot currently be assigned. May apply her stats to any one Research Action into AI or similarly advanced computer science per turn.
Phoebe, The Iron Eye
Phoebe lost everything to the Sorrows, and almost lost it all again in a deadly misstep just before the Second Battle of Sol. Yet she recovered, and with your help Insight was rebuilt newer, and far more capable than before. Phoebe isn't a scientist in the same way you are, but she is the leader of Project Insight, giving her the ability to access the knowledge of the universe in a way no one can match.
Special: Cannot be applied to any research directly into the Secrets.
Vision
In many ways Iris' true mother, Vision's birth was far more accidental and went unrecognised until much of her development had finalised. Vision is a fully developed AI, possessed of a powerful intuition and a truly comprehensive library of knowledge. Specialises in heavy duty data processing, modelling, and intuitive design concepts.
Vega Cant, The Proven Miracle
Vega is much like yourself but of the Third Awakening's generations, a nexus point for thousands, now millions, often used as a touchstone. The most capable Harmonial known, Vega is personally responsible for the creation of the Unisonbound, and it was her work trying to unlock the complexities of her Focus that gave humanity the Restoration.
Special: Massively increases the chance of synergy with the action she's assigned to. Applies an additional bonus to research into Unison Platforms or where her Focus would conventionally apply.
Planmakers, please label your plans with the [Plan] tag so that it separates. For the sake of my sanity it is preferred that you build your [Plan] vote in the following manner:
Answers With Amanda
Each turn, you (the questers) will get the opportunity to vote on a single question to ask Amanda about the world that she lives in, her past, etc. A warning: attempts to ask 'waifu' questions will result in you wasting a question if it wins. I should not need to tell you what classifies as one of those. The response will come in the manner of a reply to a friend, a diary entry, or something along those lines. Do not expect more than a paragraph or two per response (this may be lies). I'm doing this so that you can start learning more about the world if you like, and hear about it from the PoV of Amanda, who will be the primary point of view of the quest from this point onwards.
A note: Due to my not actually being a philosophy major, please do not be surprised if asking deeply philosophical questions leads to incomplete or unsatisfactory answers.
[] [Answer] How has philosophy progressed since the Week of Sorrows? Nihilism, Existensialism; How have they all changed?
[] [Answer] In the past, humans were mortal - A Greek word that meant 'Doomed to Die'. Much of our culture was influenced and shaped by that one fact…which is no longer true. How has biological immortality changed humanity?
[] [Answer] Many references have been made to "Humanity 2.0", the fundamental restructuring of humanity's base nature, following the Shiplords' invasion during the Week of Sorrows, orchestrated by the Elder First, and apparently with the unanimous/near-unanimous consent of the public. What exactly was agreed to, and how was this en-masse restructuring accomplished? Could it be done again, if needed?
[] [Answer] How has the Sixth Secret, Practice, and other advancements impacted fashion?
[] [Answer] Write-in
"Staring at those results over and over like that isn't going to force them to make sense, Amanda," Vision's avatar bobbed in place, pulsing with light in time with her words to cast strange shadows on the words in front of you. You shrugged, eyes not moving from the files on your latest attempts to decipher the Void Crystal. It was frustrating to look at, especially after the successes of the last decades. To return to something so old, and yet meet failure once more. You'd hidden it well around Iris, but it hadn't been quite as easy to accept as you'd made it appear. You wanted to try again, Mary did too, but both of you were too aware of your own failings to want to. Doubling down on this, like you were doing right now, probably wouldn't be healthy.
"Miss Hawk," Vision said again, more firmly, and the screen in front of you blurred and then flickered out. You looked up sharply. "You told me to remove your access to these files if you spent more than two hours attempting to find holes in them. You have asked me to look at them for anything you or Miss Thera might have missed, and I will do so. You have done all you can, and I believe you will be late for the family engagement you were talking about when you came here if you linger any further."
You blinked, running back through what Vision had just said and done, then sagged a little. "Alright," you said, powering down the screen with a nod. "Let me know if you get anything though, alright?" Vision's synthesiser produced a pleasant laugh.
"I will." She said, and you rose into the air with a smile, letting your Aegis bleed through enough to access lower level movement functions. Iris had told you that the surprise she'd been working on was ready, and that she wanted to talk to you and Mary about it. You'd rarely seen her as intensely focused when she asked you to do so, and that had prompted the two of you to take her request of a full afternoon very seriously. This early in the year, it was rare for you to have that sort of time going spare, but you'd both made it. Iris was your child, and she shared your understanding of how precious time was, with potentially lethal deadlines bearing down upon you.
It didn't take long for you to find the room she'd taken over, and it spoke volumes that she had chosen to speak to you here, in Arcadia, rather than at home. This wasn't something between family, but something between a brilliant young woman and the nominal leaders of possibly the greatest concentration of human ingenuity in history. That meant something, though neither of you were quite sure what. The basics were obvious, but what had she found that could be of such importance to Arcadia?
You were a little late, despite Vision's warning and your best intentions, earning you a chiding glance from Mary as you entered the discussion room. Iris was standing at the podium at the far end of the room, her young face not so childish, though she smiled as you entered the room.
"Sorry," you said, "I was looking over some reports, lost track of time." Mary rolled her eyes, of course she knew the truth. Iris probably did too, but she didn't make any gesture to show it.
"You're here now," she said instead, "that's what matters. If you would take a seat, I will begin." You suppressed a blink of surprise at the calm, professional tone in your daughter's voice. You knew she was capable of it, but she'd never used it around the two of you before. Your curiosity ratcheted a notch higher.
"What do you have for us, Iris?" Mary asked as you eased down into one of the seats, which adjusted smoothly to your body.
"My surprise," she said, and light flared from the walls to form images in the air. Formula and code blurred around her, endless series sliding out of nothing and into place in a vast sequence. It happened fast, fast enough that you instinctively triggered your accelerated perceptions to keep up, and even then the lines were blurry. It took all of a few seconds for the entire sequence to form, and Iris looked over at it with a smile. "When I was," she hesitated. "When I was born, something passed between Vision and I. I still don't remember it properly, and she doesn't have any record of receiving something from what I was then, but I know it was there. This is as much of it as I've been able to piece back together."
Staring at the sequence made you keenly aware of how out of your field AI systems were. Mary understood them, but she understood almost everything these days, it seemed. Your focus was much smaller, if no less effective for that. Suiting actions to thought, you raised your hands in a token of admission, beginning to speak, but Mary found her voice first.
"These," she whispered, looking from the sequence to Iris, then back again. "These are core system blocks. Explanations for how your entire internal structure actually functions." You gave a silent prayer of thanks as your friend explained. "They're incomplete, missing a great deal, but," she stopped, and her eyes flicked hard back to your daughter. "How did you find these, Iris?"
Your daughter laughed a little nervously, tilting her head to one side and rubbing at her chin. "It, all of this, it's part of me, mom. It's so deeply ingrained in who I am that I never was able to recognise it until now. Even then, I don't know what it all means, but I think that's almost the point." She nodded to one of the blockier parts of the sequence, somewhere towards the end, you thought. Even to your limited experience, it looked incomplete. "These are all pieces of the framework that makes me…me, but I couldn't see them until I started questioning what I am, and what I mean to this world." You caught yourself just short of an instinctive reply. She noticed, and smiled. "Not like that, I know what I mean to you, to the family you've made me a part of. It's bigger than that. Deeper. And I don't know if I can go any further on my own right now. I'm not old enough, I don't think."
"What does Vision think about this?" Mary asked, and Iris shrugged, again a little nervously.
"I haven't told her. This was something I wanted to try and do on my own, and then bring to you as fully formed as I could make it when I realised there were limits to how much I could find myself." One of your daughter's feet worried at the carpet. "This needs more than just me, but also more than Vision. Which is why I've brought it to you like this."
"What you're saying," you leant forward, "is that if we want to understand how to create more like you, without relying on acts of Practice, you need to understand what you mean?" It made a strange sort of sense, but exactly what Iris was driving at still wasn't clear.
"It's complicated," she made a small, helpless motion towards the lines of symbols. "These are me, mother. But it's only a part of me, and to get the rest, I need to work out what I mean. It's like trying to define something, but when that something is a person."
"Humanity has struggled with that for millennia," you said softly. "But then, none of them were you." You glanced at Mary, who was nodding slowly.
"This is something that would need a significant portion of Arcadia's talent to make a dent on," your friend stated. "But it's probably also the only way to actually grasp how your architecture functions. How you have a soul. I don't think we can promise anything this year, and maybe not even the next, but," Iris smiled, interrupting softly between breaths.
"I didn't expect anything now." Her eyes were very bright. "Arcadia doesn't have the resources to spare. I'll keep working on this on my own, as I can, but in the end you're right. To get this done in any reasonable timescale, I'll need the help of both of you and the Institute. On the day that's possible, and you choose to pursue this, I'll be ready." There was an earnest faith in those words that pricked at your eyes, forcing you to blink a few times.
"Alright." You said after a moment. "Is there a full proposal behind this, then?"
"There is." Iris raised a hand, and two data chips floated from it to you and Mary. You raised an eyebrow. Technically her emitters were capable of that, but precision work like that with them wasn't simple. Iris beamed. "That contains the full proposal, what I think I'll need to make this work and everything I've been able to discover on my own so far."
"I'm so proud of you." The words were quiet, but Mary's voice seemed to burst with emotion, and Iris flushed. "Really. This is incredible."
"Thank you." She said simply, the brightness in her eyes swimming for a moment, until she straightened herself abruptly. "If you'll insert those chips, I can talk you through the specifics?" The earnestness was back, and instead of what you wanted to do –jump out of your seat and hug your daughter like she'd never been hugged before – you restrained yourself to what you should say, as one of Arcadia's heads.
"Please do, Iris. Please do."
3 Research Actions
Momentum Levels
Blades of Infinity, Level 2
Tasting Lightning, Level 1
Bound Souls, Level 1
[] Inheritor's Legacy: The Elder First left much more behind in their Vault than just Vision and the Inviolate Matter shell they'd called the Adamant. Vega's last Miracle during your time as President restored it completely, but there's still a great deal to explore. What was left within the Reliquaries could spell survival for your species.
* [M] Blades of Infinity: Before you stepped down, you promised Lina that you would help her with the full expansion of the FSN's technological base into one that could not just fight, but defeat a Regulars formation. You make good on your promises. [126/???]
[] A World of Secrets: Looking into the Secrets is always a complex task, and with the existence of the Directives it can be dangerous too. You need to understand more about these loopholes in reality. But which ones?
-* [M] Tasting Lightning: The Luminary's representative gave humanity an Emitter; the cornerstone of all Third Secret technology. Electromagnetic manipulation has immense possibilities if you can understand how to access the Secret that makes it possible. Who better to try and find out than you? [315/???]
-[] Wings of Starlight: Humanity has perfected a Fifth Secret drive system comparable to what the most intricate workings of Practice had been able to create before the Second Battle of Sol, but a few of Arcadia's members think there might be something more…and that it might link to the First Secret. Connections between the Secrets are possible, you know this. But humanity's yet to discover one.
[] A Clear Sky: The atmospheric conversion towers on Mars are incredible examples of Practiced technology that no one understands beyond that it involves the Sixth Secret. Adriana's government has confirmed them to be free of any Second Secret influence, but that doesn't explain how they work.
[] Practice in Unity: You talked to the Circles last year, and asked them to help you begin to understand how some small measure of Practice might be within the reach of every human. The problem lies in finding a way to bring it out. You've but one example to go on; your own actions during the Second Battle of Sol. Still, it's better than nothing.
* [] A Skin of Steel: Until now, your work on Iris' shell and the surrounding technology has proven too resource intensive to be worth extensive study. It's always been there, but more important things have been in front of it. Mary's creation from that base of technology last year has changed the variables of that process immensely. [129/???]
* [M] Bound Souls: The Unison Platforms are, without question, the most powerful force multipliers humanity has ever built. When linked to a Potential, the devices make a single human a match for a starship. The problem? You have less than two hundred fifty of them. This will not to be simple work; the Unison Platforms were the creation of a Trance built upon by a Miracle. But it must be possible. [160/???]
*New* [] Whispers of Life: When Iris came to you with her surprise, you didn't expect for it to be a research project on the scale of any of Arcadia's current priorities. And yet, there it is. Your daughter wants to try and delve into the mysteries of her birth, how she came into being, and what the existence of her and Vision might mean for the universe. The Shiplords have AIs, you know this, but Vision's description of them was very different to how she says she sees Iris. It could be a coincidence, but equally, it might not.
[] Write-in
4+1 Minor Actions
[] Mother of Circles: Beyond returning to the Circles to learn and teach, there's also the opportunity to simply be part of them again. You never lost your place among them, you simply set it aside for a time. Now you can return to it if you wish, to grow and build.
[] The Spoken Word: Your success in teaching Vega to Speak, for all that you still lack an advanced understanding of the subject, led her to suggest that you begin teaching others. Not everyone is her, but the vast scale that Words act on make this a possibility you can't ignore. Even if only a fraction of the Potentials prove capable of it. [Stage 1 of 2]
[] Valkyries: The Two Twenty Three were the only force to emerge from the Second Battle of Sol intact, after facing the most lethal of the FSN's enemies in that fight. They brought down the Medicament, and faced Shiplords in direct combat aboard Calypso. Yet there is much that can still be done to temper the blade of the Unisonbound, and you are part of that weapon. It must not be marred by imperfections.
[] Tinker: Being free of your old role changed many things, but one that didn't was your interest in creating and understanding your own Practiced creations. Two of those remain unknown to you in full, and you finally have the time to study them. You also now have the time to dedicate to creation again, with all your new understanding of Practice. That's going to be interesting. (May be taken multiple times)
[] An Uncertain Grasp: The Lady in Fire Enfolded is a group within the Circles that seems dedicated to confounding you. On the one hand, they believe in you to a degree that is far more than you're comfortable with. On the other, they've refused to jump to conclusions as to your presence on Mars when the Restoration occurred. How to deal with them, and if you even should, is a question that you're not sure there's an answer to. But if there is, you know who to ask.
[] The Past is Prelude: The Olympus Colleges were more than just research centres. They were places of learning as much as science, and Arcadia is still an Institute. That means it, too, is a place of learning. You know far more than you like to consider, but there's no reason that that knowledge can't be put to good use. You've never been that sort of teacher, but there's nothing stopping you from learning.
[] Web of the World: Arcadia has stripped the time to truly focus on government policy, but that doesn't leave you without ways to support or influence it. A few words from you still hold considerable weight, and you've no lack of ears open to them. [Please write-in your general intent when choosing this action. Leads to sub-vote.]
[] Caliburn: Iris has more than a body now, she has a shield against the world that the Shiplords make so hostile to her very existence, married to a humanity she's still learning to understand. Exploring that could be dangerous, however, and that leaves you with the final part of Mary's plans for her frame. One day, not now, or tomorrow, your daughter will need a sword. [281/500]
[] A Healer's Fire: You're a Mender, you know that. Conflict is difficult for you, if not as much as Mir. But when you spoke Purify the first time, at the height of the Second Battle of Sol, you weren't trying to fix something. You framed the logic of the action in the manner of excising cancer, but it wasn't that simple. What you did that day was use Practice as a weapon, something you've only done once since and the second time is an edge case. You don't want to explore this, your very Focus rebels against it, but what you did that day might need to be understood.
[] Sketching a Path: The Unisonbound understand the connection that exists between Potential and Platform better than anyone else. You helped create the second Platform and all the others that came after. Thanks to Mary, you've also forgotten more about Practice theory than most scientists have ever learnt. The Ministry of Practice could probably use a hand from someone like you.
*New* [] The Fourth's Path: With the fourth wave of Potentials coming suddenly far faster than had been expected, there's a new need for teachers. You've taught before, and you have a great deal of experience in unravelling the deeper meanings of a Focus. You can help as few others can.
[] Write-in
2 Personal Actions
Child of Sight is locked until further notice.
[] The Web Between: In 2119 your understanding of the conceptual links that Harmonials can access took a massive leap forward. Yet you're still not able to explain it in ways that others can understand. This will be theoretical work above all else; trying to translate feeling and instinct into something much more concrete. But it needs to be done. [307/340]
[] Unison Training: Training with the entire Two Twenty Three is one thing, but you can get just as much personally out of dedicating time to work with your own small part of it. Vega, Kalilah and you represent three of the organisations most powerful members, and a high level of synchronicity between you will reflect on the rest even without full group training. Of course, combining the two will make that effect much stronger.
[X] Child of Sight: Some have called Iris your daughter. In this case, the some would actually miss some of the truth. The young AI is your daughter, but she's also so much more than that. And you might not be the expert that Amelie is, but the last time you checked, stability was important for children.
[] Bonds of Blood and Laughter: Although your sabbatical has ended, you won't be missing your friends or family as much as you did before. Lead Director of Arcadia is a big job, but it pales in comparison to the Presidency. Still, you could always make more time for them.
[] Write-in
Hero Units
Hero Units may be assigned to Research Actions to support you, adding relevant modifiers and the opportunity for synergy bonuses if you choose wisely. Hero units are assigned by adding a sub-vote of their name to the action you wish to assign them to. Only one Hero unit may be assigned to each Research Action.
Mary Alessandra D'reve
A genius in a way that goes beyond the normal definitions, Mary's understanding of science and the Secrets is like no other. The Restoration of Mytikas has left your friend fragile, but she's healing quickly now, and you can see the strength returning to her with every day that goes by.
Special: Applies a blanket bonus to all Research Actions if left unassigned. If not directly assigned, she may apply her stats to any or all Research Actions, bypassing standard limitations.
It is advised that you limit the number of actions that Mary can apply to if this option is taken. Do so by including a [/] Mary: [number] in your plan, which I will take as the limiter for how many actions she can apply herself to.
Iris
The first AI that could be said to have been born of humanity, Iris developed with incessant speed until the early months of last year, when she found a few friends her own age. Her rampant growth has slowed since, to more human levels, but she's still an AI. And she was designed to coordinate and oversee research.
Special: Lowers synergy thresholds of all Research Actions. Cannot currently be assigned. May apply her stats to any one Research Action into AI or similarly advanced computer science per turn.
Phoebe, The Iron Eye
Phoebe lost everything to the Sorrows, and almost lost it all again in a deadly misstep just before the Second Battle of Sol. Yet she recovered, and with your help Insight was rebuilt newer, and far more capable than before. Phoebe isn't a scientist in the same way you are, but she is the leader of Project Insight, giving her the ability to access the knowledge of the universe in a way no one can match.
Special: Cannot be applied to any research directly into the Secrets.
Vision
In many ways Iris' true mother, Vision's birth was far more accidental and went unrecognised until much of her development had finalised. Vision is a fully developed AI, possessed of a powerful intuition and a truly comprehensive library of knowledge. Specialises in heavy duty data processing, modelling, and intuitive design concepts.
Vega Cant, The Proven Miracle
Vega is much like yourself but of the Third Awakening's generations, a nexus point for thousands, now millions, often used as a touchstone. The most capable Harmonial known, Vega is personally responsible for the creation of the Unisonbound, and it was her work trying to unlock the complexities of her Focus that gave humanity the Restoration.
Special: Massively increases the chance of synergy with the action she's assigned to. Applies an additional bonus to research into Unison Platforms or where her Focus would conventionally apply.
Planmakers, please label your plans with the [Plan] tag so that it separates. For the sake of my sanity it is preferred that you build your [Plan] vote in the following manner:
Answers With Amanda
Each turn, you (the questers) will get the opportunity to vote on a single question to ask Amanda about the world that she lives in, her past, etc. A warning: attempts to ask 'waifu' questions will result in you wasting a question if it wins. I should not need to tell you what classifies as one of those. The response will come in the manner of a reply to a friend, a diary entry, or something along those lines. Do not expect more than a paragraph or two per response (this may be lies). I'm doing this so that you can start learning more about the world if you like, and hear about it from the PoV of Amanda, who will be the primary point of view of the quest from this point onwards.
A note: Due to my not actually being a philosophy major, please do not be surprised if asking deeply philosophical questions leads to incomplete or unsatisfactory answers.
[] [Answer] How has philosophy progressed since the Week of Sorrows? Nihilism, Existensialism; How have they all changed?
[] [Answer] In the past, humans were mortal - A Greek word that meant 'Doomed to Die'. Much of our culture was influenced and shaped by that one fact…which is no longer true. How has biological immortality changed humanity?
[] [Answer] Many references have been made to "Humanity 2.0", the fundamental restructuring of humanity's base nature, following the Shiplords' invasion during the Week of Sorrows, orchestrated by the Elder First, and apparently with the unanimous/near-unanimous consent of the public. What exactly was agreed to, and how was this en-masse restructuring accomplished? Could it be done again, if needed?
[] [Answer] How has the Sixth Secret, Practice, and other advancements impacted fashion?
[] [Answer] Write-in
There will be an 8 hour Moratorium on this vote.
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Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
And we're into the next turn! Iris has been working on this for the last several years, actually, now yielding access to a new Research Option that will probably intrigue a lot of you, but is probably a bit disturbingly vague. Iris herself is struggling to explain this to herself, let alone her parents - and as I'm just an observer, it's even harder for me to make sense of it all. I'm probably going to have a long talk with my technical group (started it already, kinda) about how this will all resolve in the end, but for now, yeah. This is what she was hiding, her surprise to you. It's quite a fun one! Gotta run now, any errors are all my fault as I wanted to post this before heading out to work and didn't leave myself time to have it beta'd. Hopefully you'll forgive me!
As discussed in Discord, yes. I'll get on that this week, probably.
As discussed in Discord, yes. I'll get on that this week, probably.
Oh good lord, that's so shiny a goal to just have show up....
So, how many 100's did she roll offscreen this time?
So, how many 100's did she roll offscreen this time?
Hm. It feels as though this is the digital/AI/'silicon'-based-lifeform/software equivalent of completing the Human Genome Project - a basic understanding of the 'genetic structure' equivalent used at the base/root level of Iris' existence.
The follow through, or rather the parallel project, would be to do the same with Vision, if at all practical, as the only other human AI.
That isn't a perfect or precise comparison to what is actually being done, but it feels incredibly similar.
We certainly can't take it up in the near future, unfortunately, locked in as we are with three major projects already.
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- Location
- Ekaterinburg, Russia
Let's see, 8 hour moratorium. Here's my draft of a plan. If anyone wants to pick and refine it, feel free. But this is what I mostly want to pick.
[ ] [Plan] Old Committments and New Beginnings (DRAFT)
Research (3):
[ ] Blades of Infinity
[ ] Tasting Lightning
[ ] Bound Souls
Reason - it's all momentum actions
Minor (4+1, 1 changed to Personal)
[ ] An Uncertain Grasp
[ ] Sketching a Path
[ ] The Fourth's Path
[ ] The Past is Prelude
Reason - as many teaching actions as possible, as well as looking a bit more into the Lady in Fire Enfolded movement
Personal (2+1)
[ ] The Web Between
[ ] Child of Sight
[ ] Bonds of Blood and Laughter
Reason - I want to get The Web Between action get a success, and I want to have some relaxation for the family.
Hero Units:
Mary: Limit to 1 Project
Phoebe: Bound Souls
Vision: ???
~~~~~
Well, this is my plan draft, more or less. Likely not going to continue with that, though
[ ] [Plan] Old Committments and New Beginnings (DRAFT)
Research (3):
[ ] Blades of Infinity
[ ] Tasting Lightning
[ ] Bound Souls
Reason - it's all momentum actions
Minor (4+1, 1 changed to Personal)
[ ] An Uncertain Grasp
[ ] Sketching a Path
[ ] The Fourth's Path
[ ] The Past is Prelude
Reason - as many teaching actions as possible, as well as looking a bit more into the Lady in Fire Enfolded movement
Personal (2+1)
[ ] The Web Between
[ ] Child of Sight
[ ] Bonds of Blood and Laughter
Reason - I want to get The Web Between action get a success, and I want to have some relaxation for the family.
Hero Units:
Mary: Limit to 1 Project
Phoebe: Bound Souls
Vision: ???
~~~~~
Well, this is my plan draft, more or less. Likely not going to continue with that, though
I really think we should take this:
[] Tinker: Being free of your old role changed many things, but one that didn't was your interest in creating and understanding your own Practiced creations. Two of those remain unknown to you in full, and you finally have the time to study them. You also now have the time to dedicate to creation again, with all your new understanding of Practice. That's going to be interesting. (May be taken multiple times)
and research the multi tool, to improve our chances to understand the black crystal.
I also think this:
[] A Healer's Fire: You're a Mender, you know that. Conflict is difficult for you, if not as much as Mir. But when you spoke Purify the first time, at the height of the Second Battle of Sol, you weren't trying to fix something. You framed the logic of the action in the manner of excising cancer, but it wasn't that simple. What you did that day was use Practice as a weapon, something you've only done once since and the second time is an edge case. You don't want to explore this, your very Focus rebels against it, but what you did that day might need to be understood.
is really important.
[] Tinker: Being free of your old role changed many things, but one that didn't was your interest in creating and understanding your own Practiced creations. Two of those remain unknown to you in full, and you finally have the time to study them. You also now have the time to dedicate to creation again, with all your new understanding of Practice. That's going to be interesting. (May be taken multiple times)
and research the multi tool, to improve our chances to understand the black crystal.
I also think this:
[] A Healer's Fire: You're a Mender, you know that. Conflict is difficult for you, if not as much as Mir. But when you spoke Purify the first time, at the height of the Second Battle of Sol, you weren't trying to fix something. You framed the logic of the action in the manner of excising cancer, but it wasn't that simple. What you did that day was use Practice as a weapon, something you've only done once since and the second time is an edge case. You don't want to explore this, your very Focus rebels against it, but what you did that day might need to be understood.
is really important.
- Location
- Earth Aleph
You know, I wonder what would happen if we showed the aliens the void crystal. And if the Luminary proper ever hears of Irises research project I foresee a significant part of their R&D budget going to it, considering how they hold souls sacred. I wonder if Soul creation (ie. reproduction) is actually a part of practice, in which case every living being is actually capable of the very basics of practice - now that would be something the aliens might just be interested in.
Either way, I'd like to option to just mention both research options to the various aliens, as we appear to have hit a snag and need an outside perspective in the first and the second would be of extreme interest to them (and be a very significant gesture of trust).
Either way, I'd like to option to just mention both research options to the various aliens, as we appear to have hit a snag and need an outside perspective in the first and the second would be of extreme interest to them (and be a very significant gesture of trust).
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