trans_9 | Technical Difficulties [Open]

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Technical Difficulties [Open]

Kyle's not too pleased with himself. Back home, he made a habit of carrying around writing materials, because inspiration struck at random moments - it never waited until he was at his desk - and he had to record them quickly. Here, though, there was no paper or pencil in his bag, and he didn't know where to find any. Which led to him combing the halls, looking for a room where he might find writing utensils.

After twenty minutes of fruitless wandering, it had finally struck him that there was someone who happened to know where everything was, and would answer his questions. So he just asked Stacy - only to find out that he'd been carrying both with him all the time.

Somehow, he'd missed the memo about being able to write on one's omnicom. So, rather disgruntled with himself, he's retreated to the Obs Deck, and found himself a nice chair. It's not hard to avoid thinking about the fact that he's sitting on a chair made of bouncy, <i>fatty</i> tissue, when he's sketching neat guns with the stylus. At least the stylus behaves like an ordinary pencil, and doesn't require any of his (nonexistent) knowledge of computer programming and usage.

He's designing a gun that has an abnormally-long barrel, and sketches of what look like little magnets next to it - essentially, a sniper rifle based on the principles of a rail gun. Other half-fleshed-out sketches had been put aside; a few vaguely grenade-like spheres, a couple more guns, a rod of some sort...

[Open. Anyone who likes guns/engineering is welcome to talk shop with him, as is anyone who wants to meet a paranoid inventor. Sounds like the perfect setup for a good time, right? XD]

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Fun-filled magic kingdom. Definitely not something the government would bother spending money on. "If it needs updates, I might be able to do those. Depends on what the problem is, and what engineering and metalworking facilities this ship has." A miniature factory is probably too much to hope for, but he's sure he'll figure out something.

"That's...awful. Probably worse than my world, actually." Kyle can't imagine surrounding himself with robotic companions and slowly cutting off human contact. Robots couldn't compare to Nike's charisma, or Limos' sarcasm. Even thinking about them makes him miss them, so he cuts that thought off right there.

He can't help leaning in a little, fascinated by the leg. "So...it's organic, not metallic? And it's capable of growing with you?" Via a linked nervous system, and a chip inserted into the brain. "It would be really bad if those rogue AIs were to attack those 'connectivity chips', wouldn't it? What do the chips control?" From what he's hearing, it's not too different from other kinds of transplants, only much more drastic. "Does it work any differently from your other limbs, or is the musculature similar?"

She ponders this for a moment. "Well, considering that I've only been here... well, some short time compared to most of the people I'm assuming are here, I don't know of anything. We could ask Stacy if we need to, though, right?" It occurs to her as she follows this train of thought that she hasn't even given thought to the potential size of the ship. And the fact that she had no idea now to navigate said massive, meaty ship.

An internal grimace of combined horror for her eventual confused wanderings of pulsing hallways and habitual disgust for the systems back home crosses her face. "It really does suck. I'm one of the few people who tries to actually remain in contact with people, but I also live in a poorer district, so it's a bit easier for me. I only have two or three people that I can get in contact with sans robots, though, which is pretty depressing when you think about the number of people in one's address book pre-quantum revolution. Also, it probably helps that the two or three people are about as anti-tech as I am..." She thought of Sayori briefly, her tall realism and bluntness, Takaomi and his deadpan humor. And Chief, of course, but he was a cat, so she wasn't really sure that he counted.

"It's... weird. It has a lot of traits in common with metals, but it's atom structure is a lot different, mainly that it's compose of carbon and others that I'm not really sure of so I'm not even going to bother guessing. It's a pretty recent acquisition, all things considered, so the publicly known stuff about it is pretty small compared to what I'm assuming there is to learn. Hell, I don't even know its name. For some reason that's not in the public release information. We all just call it growing metal." Which is an appropriate name, since she's only had the leg looked at once, yet she's watched it transform from a wee little baby's limb to a rather average sized adult one (her legs take up most of her miniscule height). She sighs. "Yeah, that really would suck. It would suck a lot. I'm not really sure what anyone plans to do if they alter the virus to attack us personally, but it probably has something to do with curling up and dying. Once they're in our heads, there's nothing we can do about it. That's one of the reasons I dislike the chip system so much, but that's just me." A shrug, a long-suffering look. "They connect us all to our version of the Internet, which is more of an altered plane of reality than anything at this point. The chip is placed in a part of the brain that gives easy access to sight and sound centers, so you can use external stimuli for searches or record them, relay them to other people, et cetera. It really just gives us a fourth dimension. Other than that, it'll freak out if you get hurt or sick beyond the help of the antibody tech and shouts your position to the nearest hospitals and police outposts, and it connects false limbs to the nervous system. You can also order take-out, but I still use the phone because I insist on being anachronistic." Which is true, because she's a walking anachronism. "It's built to be a mirror image of a natural limb, except that nothing is made of tissue, and there're a few pneumatics anchored along with the muscles to help them if they fail, which actually makes it a lot stronger than other extremities. I've had to work really hard to keep myself symmetrical as far as strength."

"Mm. I still need to find the engineering lab, or whatever equivalent they have. I'm sure the previous crew of this ship had some facilities." An interesting thought strikes him. Since the objects in the Sensorium can be affected by real, physical objects, like a person, would it be possible to replicate a miniature factory in the Sensorium, and use that to do whatever metalworking he needs to? This will require some asking and testing; perhaps a little later, when he actually has something to test with.

"Is there a low population density where you're from, or do robots just outnumber humans many times to one?" The idea of seldom interacting with other people, and only being able to reach a few without robotic intermediaries, is so very difficult to comprehend that he has to stop before he hurts himself thinking about it. He has no idea how something like the resistance would function without real, breathing people to propel it forward.

All that takes a backseat to fascination with her explanation. "An organic, metal-like carbon-based molecule," he muses, along with a few indecipherable chemistry-related mumbles. "I assume all that information would be bad in the wrong hands, which is probably why all of it remains untold." The name fits well enough, in lieu of a proper name.

"I'm supposing that someone out there has probably also thought about this, and is making an antivirus or something of the sort." His knowledge of computer programming is rather weak in comparison to everything else. "I suppose they're also too useful to give up, though." The medical function is also rather interesting, but he would wager a guess that sometimes, people would prefer not to be found. Her comment about the take-out elicits a brief, rare smile. "Anachronism can be good. At least you still remember how to talk to people."

"So 'muscles' made of this growing metal can contract, the same as organic muscle?" He pauses for a moment. "I'm sorry. Stop me if I'm asking too many questions." His curiosity can be incessant, given something of interest and a person willing to ask questions, and they might be here all day if he's allowed to just keep asking.

She snorts. "Low population density? In Japan? Sure, they instituted birth rate controls the likes of which you couldn't imagine, but limiting families to one child each only does so much. There're just crap loads of robots running around. It's insane." A real life horror story, in Yoshimi's opinion.

"Yeah. Kind of crazy, no? I don't even want to try thinking about how they figured that out, but it's sure handy. Let's just pray that malicious people don't get their hands on the tech blueprints. That wouldn't be good at all."

A sigh escapes and she stares across the room, thinking. "You're damn skippy that they're working on an antivirus. The problem is that we don't know anything about the basic virus, especially with the rate it mutates. It's like some kind of superbug for robots, mutating just enough from specimen to specimen to keep it from being stopped. Whoever engineered the original blueprint programed the subsequent strains to alter quantum completely. It'd be a bit easier if we still used binary, I think. The whole thing gives me a headache; better to push the big red 'Destroy All Class B-F Robots' button and get it overwith. 'Course, that'd make me obsolete..." She smiles. "Talking to people in my day and age isn't that fun, though. They all say the same thing."

She wiggles her foot, flexes her calf muscle, points her toes. "Well, so it appears. One has to remember that a lot of the movement is performed by this bizarre, really complex series of pneumatics. Part of it is muscle, yeah, but the underlying parts are pretty basic." Being as far into the conversation as he seems to be, her brain whirring at an irritatingly slow rate, she forgets to assure him that yes, she's fine with the number of questions he's asking.

Yoshimi says 'Japan' like he ought to recognize it, so he assumes it's just a big place with a lot of people crammed into a small area. "What's the ratio, or your estimate of it?" Kyle is wondering whether there's tens of robots per person, or possibly hundreds. It certainly sounds more like hundred than anything.

'Damn skippy' is an expression he's not familiar with, but he assumes 'skippy' means 'right' and works from there. "So it's like a living computer virus?" Fascinating. It obviously doesn't work the same way as a biological virus, because he knows how the scientists in Pelinor got rid of those. The few computer viruses he knows of are fairly basic, compared to that, and it doesn't seem hard to get rid of them. Even the resistance's own hackers, who are more malicious than the general populace, have never thought up anything like that.

He wishes he could take apart that leg and look at it, then steps on that thought. There probably isn't a way to do it without hurting Yoshimi, and that's not worth satisfying his curiosity for. Still, the idea of using pneumatics to approximate muscular motion was something he would have to think on. When she doesn't say anything about his questions, though, he figures it might be a good idea to wrap it up - only he has no idea how.

"Mm... something like 150:10. It could be worse, I suppose." The truly sad thing was the fact that, if you went into the streets in the mornings during her era, you didn't see humans flocking to work. You saw robots, each doing its masters job so that the master can sit on his ass all day and drink martinis. The level of human laziness frequently astonishes her.

She shifts, wishing vaguely that she had a chair, settles for putting her weight on her false leg. "It's a lot like a living computer virus. Mind of its own, though it does basically the same thing to every bot. Turns all the operational lights to emergency colors, makes the gears scream, convinces the robot that eating people is the way to go, and has it step on more than a few small animals. It's pretty... terrifying, actually. The first one I ever saw berserk was a crossing guard that decided it was going to crush a second grader. I freaked out and broke it up. The damn thing wouldn't stop struggling with me until I'd completely dismembered it." She shudders, shaking her head. "Fortunately, the later mutations made it a bit easier. The robots have comprehended the dire situation that the virus puts us all in, so they tend to give up a lot easier these days. They don't have much of a sense of personal outrage; a good thing, I think."

It wouldn't be the first time that she has been asked to have her leg taken apart and examined. And yet, it would hurt; her skin and nerves therein are real, it's just the underlying structure that's artificial. She doesn't mind the conversation at all - wrapping it up would force her to return to the reality that she now lives on a large, squishy ship with a bunch of total strangers. Not something she wants to think about.

"Worse? That's a pretty high ratio." For him, thinking about it as 15:1 puts it in a little better perspective, and he has to shake his head. "So they take care of everything that humans don't want to do? Is it the same everywhere?" Sure, there's times when he doesn't want to do this menial task or clean up after that explosion, but he does it anyways, and now he knows how to hand burning foamed polystyrene.

"That's awful. If these - Luddites - wanted to destroy technology, I think that there might have been a better way to go." The hypocrisy of his own statement makes him want to grimace a little. In a sense, the movement he is - was - a part of, is a lot like these Luddites. Using force to get their point across. At the same time, though, they started the war over the mass executions, so maybe it's not entirely the same.

A slight change of subject is probably in order. "When would you like me to look at that SMG?"

Yoshimi shrugs, running a hand through her hair. "Worse. There was a point when I was younger when AIs were a dime a dozen. You could buy a housekeeper for about 700 yen, so consequently even the poorest of people had two of them. They were all heaps, though, so they broke down completely in five years after their owners paid back the original cost by ten in repairs, and the cheap AI industry died pretty quickly, replaced by the quality stuff. The number of them has increased over time, and it's gotten dire in the last five years or so. It took people a while to gather enough money to afford them, so it was a lot better for a while." Of course, her income has increased drastically in the last five years, too, so she's not completely heartbroken about it. It still disgusts her, though.

"Anyway, they're not looking for a fast and easy solution - they're looking for something that lasts. I'm enough of a Luddite myself to know what's going through their minds. If they just made all the AIs blow up in one go, people would stop caring about how shocking and traumatic it was to have their maid spontaneously combust, have the Internet that has come to run our lives cease to exist, have planes explode with hundreds on board, and the whole thing would start over again. This way, they're making a solid point: There're enough of them to destroy the human race if they so desire. It makes a lot of sense; it just sucks." She has to admit, though, her respect for technology experts and computer programers has increased tenfold since the rampancy virus appeared. It was such a solid plan that it was nigh on ineffable.

She blinks, remembering the initial interest point. "Uhm... well, I could run and grab it for you now, if you like. It's just hanging out in my locker with only my earring for company."

700 yen must not be that much money, then. "Isn't that always how it is? There's a reason quality parts are more expensive." They were usually better, too. Kyle preferred to fabricate a good gun the first time around, rather than deal with a steady stream of repairs - his time was pretty valuable, too, considering the ideas still bouncing in his head. If he didn't have time to sit down and work them out, the resistance wouldn't have gotten any new toys to play with.

Hm. Yoshimi certainly has a point; he's not familiar with the fine workings or ideas behind that kind of terrorism (he's part of an organized resistance, not an indiscriminate terrorist cell). It does really make sense, if people have gotten so lazy and complacent while allowing robots to do all their work, that turning the robots against their masters will have more of an impact.

"Sure. Do you know where the engineering lab, or something similar, is? I've been looking for one." And failing, miserably. This ship confuses him.

700 yen really isn't that much money. "Exactly. The point of the cheap AI industry was to draw in more income. If the companies make an effort to not make an effort, and they covertly monopolize the manufacturing companies that produce the parts needed to repair the bots, then they get more money in constant repairs than in the single installment required for the quality stuff. I'm not sure whether it's good or not that people figure out the scheme and effectually boycotted it. From my point of view, the world's sense of indignation has grown, so when they all figured out that they were being conned, they all set fire to their tech and started doing things on their own, knowing (or assuming) that AIs would make a come back in a more reliable form." She shrugs again, looking faintly amused. "I guess the world has made a little bit of progress if the public can figure out schemes like that. It only took them about two centuries of post-industrial revolution plotting."

Yoshimi, unfortunately, is far too familiar with the fine workings of indiscriminate terrorist cells. Not really by choice, though; it's just the way her brain works. Working for the side that needs saving is more lucrative, therefore she obstinately refuses to give her talents over to the opposition. No matter how much she agree with them.

She blinks, turning her thoughts away from robots to the complex inner passages that make up Stacy. "Uhm... no. But I do know where the white rooms with the thinky-powers are. We could ask someone else, I suppose." Honestly, Yoshimi believes that the ship was built to be confusing.

"It does make sense, although all it does is advance their own greed." Companies in Pelinor were prevented from doing the same thing by the government that essentially owned all of them. Plans like that had been derided as harmful and greedy for so long, no one in business even thought about trying something similar.

"The Sensorium? Yes, I was wondering if I could use it to approximate a small metal-working factory. I doubt that even the engineering lab has the kind of equipment I need, but - all that probably depends on the state of your weapon. May I go down to the Weapons and Possessions locker with you, so I can see it?" Fixing guns. That's something he knows all about, more than killer AIs, and he's itching to help.

"Greed is the favorite of the seven deadly sins these days. That and sloth. People try their hardest to achieve both simultaneously." Yoshimi again looks disgusted. If one were to choose one of the sins, she believes that you should at least pick one of the passionate ones, like wrath or lust. The other ones are a waste of time.

"Sensorium..." She tries to catalogue the name so that she doesn't have to resort to calling it 'the white rooms with the thinky-powers' again. "Ah, well, the least we can do is try, neh? Sounds good to me."

"They are the easiest to indulge," he points out. Get more of something or another, while lying around all day. Sounds pretty easy, given the right tools.

"All right. Let's go." Rising, he tucks away the omnicom, with a touch of regret for the half-finished concepts, but more anticipation. Finally, something he can do.

She shrugs, nodding faintly. She hadn't thought about it like that, really.

Yoshimi has to orient herself, frowning faintly as she does. It doesn't help that she has a bad sense of direction; everything is confusing enough as it is. When she think she knows where she's going, she glances at Kyle, and starts walking.

Kyle's mental compass is utterly useless in a structure such as this, so he trusts that Yoshimi knows better than he does, and follows her. "Not used to the ship's structure?" he asks, wryly.

Yoshimi grimaces. "Is anyone? If the disorientation wears off, I'll be happy," she mutters, pausing to check their surroundings, trying to remember where in the hell she's going.

"I think it's..."

With a faint feeling of smugness, she finds the lockers and opens hers. "Tada," she says, her tone not nearly as enthusiastic as the interjection necessitates. With a not-really-at-all-flourishy flourish, she pulls the bag-clothed gun out, hearing the clink of the few loose bits rolling around as she lifts it. Removing the bag and throwing it back into the now empty locker, she offers Kyle the antique, rather broken (now that she thinks about it) gun. She blinks, looking confused for a minute before making a face that says clearly 'oh, right!' before frowning faintly. "Yeah, you know... its is broken. I'd forgotten about that. The last Class C I fought threw a tire at me, and I dropped it while I was dodging. Knocked a few bits loose." The loose bits are in her hand. "I had no clue where anything went, so I just kind of... let it lie, you know?"

"Yeah, it's not exactly like there's maps lying around." That'd be nice. Really nice. Kyle just hopes that growing up in a grid-like city doesn't mean he can't find his way around in a curving, twisting labyrinth like this.

He trailed Yoshimi to the lockers, eyes brightening slightly as she removed the gun. There was a telltale clink - something loose, either from damage or time. "Can I see those?" Holding out a hand, he turned the gun over with the other hand, examining it.

"Hmn...It looks rather old. Would you mind if I could somehow find a way to melt this down and remold it? I might be able to use some of the excess metal to make something else for it - a silencer, maybe. This one has a lot of kick, doesn't it? My guns - the guns I used to make - are designed to direct recoil downwards." Mumbling something under his breath about wishing Tarios was here, he turned the gun over again.

"Maybe someone made one or something. 'Course, that'd make things too easy..." She wouldn't be surprised if anyone attempting to make a map had been pinned down and mugged by tentacles. Those pesky tentacles...

Yoshimi plops the parts into his hand, watching as he examines her rather dead antique, eyebrows lifted. Really, it was kind of stupid to even think to ask for it to be repaired. The thing was decimated.

"Feel free; all I want is something that shoot bullets rapidly. Anyway, I'm sure you know better than I do. In my dimension, our guns these days are weird air guns that pack one hell of a punch, but don't do much else. They eliminated bullets for common use about forty years ago, after they developed the new tech. I only got my hands on this one through an antique shop owner who looked to be as old as his merchandise. The bullets came in a fairly steady stream from the government after they figured out that I couldn't take down seven foot robots with my hands, but other than that, I haven't gotten any help with the thing. It took me a month to figure out how to disassemble it." Not my fault that I don't know how to work a normal gun; blame the anti-violence squads, she grumbles inwardly, shoving her hair out of her eyes.

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Technical Difficulties [Open]

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