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The Secrets' Crusade

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Dmol8 said:
My objection comes more from the fact that I expect a penalty on actually learning what Mary's deal is because we learn how she interacts with the Consolat's home system instead.
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Reasonable, but honestly I think that's the more pressing question anyway, if they are truly separate questions. We can always figure out how she acts outside of it later, while what the heck is going on in-system is more important to the current situation.
 
[X] The risk is worth it. Prepare a space on the Consolat Origin itself to the best of your shared ability, and attempt to unravel the truth here. Just hope you don't get anything wrong, because if you do, there'll be no going back.
 
[X] The risk is worth it. Prepare a space on the Consolat Origin itself to the best of your shared ability, and attempt to unravel the truth here. Just hope you don't get anything wrong, because if you do, there'll be no going back.

Here we go once again.
 
Snowfire said:
I'm guessing you mean how long will the archive scrape take? It's a good ways in, but you've found that the sheer size of the thing is starting to strain your storage capacity. There's going to be an option next turn to expand the Magi's server farm, which is also expected to be of use when you get around to digging at the old university's archives.
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Do we have enough time to deploy an upgrade before we head out? Multitasking this is feeling increasingly enticing.
 
One interesting thing to note is it doesn't seem like the Consolat were ever actually attacked by anyone, even though they have absolutely absurd defenses. So the AI would probably have not been designed to open with immediate violence to unknown unknowns - too much risk of just shooting explorers, which doesn't seem to have been their style.

It leaves it as an open question, then, how broken the AI is and how it would react to waking up. We probably don't want to find out.
 
Oh, hm. Apparently the answer to my question is "no" because the previous vote already locked it down. That means that my idea to mitigate the downsides to taking longer doesn't work.

Welp. Full send, then.

[X] The risk is worth it.
 
Coda said:
Do we have enough time to deploy an upgrade before we head out? Multitasking this is feeling increasingly enticing.
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Given that I've already made all the rolls for this turn, I'd rather not mess with AP allocation, sorry.

Byzantine said:
It leaves it as an open question, then, how broken the AI is and how it would react to waking up. We probably don't want to find out.
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From everything Iris has been able to tell from very, very carefully observing the thing? It's not broken at all. The working theory is that it was dormant when the Consolat died, and lacked a response protocol for how that happened.
 
Snowfire said:
From everything Iris has been able to tell from very, very carefully observing the thing? It's not broken at all. The working theory is that it was dormant when the Consolat died, and lacked a response protocol for how that happened.
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That's both good and scary. I was worried when it was noted how the data storage got horrifically corrupted by (what appears to have been) the desperate attempt to shovel everything they knew about the Secrets into their archives, and how that would not be good for an AI that existed in there.

Good, because "we're here to find out what actually happened, here's what we've learned so far" is probably acceptable to the AI, even though we never want to be in a position to say it, scary because that means an intelligence controls enough firepower to obliterate the entire system on a hair trigger.
 
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Byzantine said:
That's both good and scary. I was worried when it was noted how the data storage got horrifically corrupted by (what appears to have been) the desperate attempt to shovel everything they knew about the Secrets into their archives, and how that would not be good for an AI that existed in there.
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Oh, it's very scary. You're talking about an AI built by a people who found a way to creating synthetic life without the Secrets. Which means it's far closer to what, well, I'll let Mary speak for me here:
"Iris has a soul," Mary explained. "And there's a Secret for AI. I'm sure of that, even if Practice made it unnecessary. But once, before we discovered the Second , there were attempts at constructing AI based purely in computers… That development is where systems like the VI your older sister has was built on. It never got further than that before the Second Secret made it irrelevant, but with enough time? Who knows what they may have done."
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So y'know.

That.
MTB said:
We are going to wake it up with this action, then it considers reactions, and then you roll the nat 1.
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The Consolat AI rolling a nat 1 in reaction to your presence would probably be really bad for basically everyone.

That is all.
 
Snowfire said:
You're not that special :p
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Your dice disagree. :V

[X] The risk is worth it. Prepare a space on the Consolat Origin itself to the best of your shared ability, and attempt to unravel the truth here. Just hope you don't get anything wrong, because if you do, there'll be no going back.
 
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[X] The risk is worth it. Prepare a space on the Consolat Origin itself to the best of your shared ability, and attempt to unravel the truth here. Just hope you don't get anything wrong, because if you do, there'll be no going back.
 
Snowfire said:
I think you may misunderstand how universal my statement of everyone there is meant to be.
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Ah, so that would be a "I have decided. It's everyones fault my makers are dead. Therefore, everyone dies." moment. As the AI extrapolates from the existence of practice to whatever records it has of what went wrong, and comes to the conclusion All Must Burn.
 
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Right, I should probably set a close date for this vote.

Let's give it a day or two for our later readers - I know you're out there.
 
[X] Too much is still at stake. Go outsystem aboard the Adamant for this investigation. It'll be safer, but it'll also take you away from the source of your accelerated workflow. And cost days of precious time away from the Consolat homeworld. (Will noticeably extend the length of the turn)

I am extremely worried and I am choosing to fall prey to my own paranoia.
 
Byzantine said:
Ah, so that would be a "I have decided. It's everyones fault my makers are dead. Therefore, everyone dies." moment. As the AI extrapolates from the existence of practice to whatever records it has of what went wrong, and comes to the conclusion All Must Burn.
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There's no fourth wall for the Consolat AI.
 
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