Character Capital

Ted's Canteen —- The Captain

"Natural enemies? I don't think so." You don't really have an opinion about freelancers, mercenaries and the like. Their work isn't exactly legal...but you hardly think that mercenaries are worse then rebels. Not to mention that you yourself have done a little mercenary work to keep the ship together and the fuel tank full.

"And yes, I'm military," you admit.

"Life is eternal; and love is immortal; and death is only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight." - R. W. Raymond

[Vencaran Shuttle]

"Just a feeling, I suppose," Harrison said to Giun, "I'd take a tin can over a rock any day."

"And I don't think we've ever seen anything like that with AI's," Harrison said, "sure, they malfunction occasionally, but that's just random errors, or self-destruction. I don't think we've ever really had any go insane, at least not in a way where they could be a serious threat. I mean, how would that even be possible? What motivation could they possibly have?"

Danger: Intense gravimetric distortions nearby. Please reverse the polarity on your deflectors now.

Flamist dropped down on all fours almost immediately, crouching down in a feral posture as she braced herself against the earthquake. Her flames were swirling around her now, illuminating the entire area. She looked at the others all fighting. She wished she could join them.

Energy, meanwhile, was too distracted, trying to keep up with all that was happening while at the same time maintaining his shields. At that exact moment, he was looking at Wulf with a mixture of fascination and awe before the earthquake caught him by surprise, throwing him off his feet and roughly to the floor.

"Oof!" The wind left his lungs in one powerful burst and left him dazed. The shields around everyone disappated and he drew them around himself, instinctively trying to protect his body in this moment of vulnerability.

Flamist looked over at her fallen friend, and she let out a feral growl before rising once more to her feet.

"Energy. Protect everyone," she said, her voice carrying the same flat monotone, except this time there was a clear sign of anger.

She held her hands in front of her chest, like a fortuneteller scrying a crystal ball. Instead of a crystal ball though, what could only be described as a miniature sun appeared between her palms. The heat coming off it was intense, like someone had lit a bonfire in the middle of the mall.

Energy looked up, and panicked, sending his shields back around everyone while he was still flat on his back.

"Flai! No! Wait!" he gasped. But a part of him knew he was already too late. He could save the others by shielding them like she wanted. The abandoned mall and the bandits were a different story.

He hoped she would at least keep the destruction to within this block.

edited 27th Mar '15 1:08:47 AM by gameknight102xx

Arch Center - Bakery

Sir Archibald was fascinated by what David said about his abilities. The claims sounded fantastic, but he had always believed that even the most fantastic things would prove to have a scientific explanation, if one could but learn it. No doubt there were laws of physics and chemistry as yet undiscovered that could explain the Professor's abilities.

Karl listened in silence. Nonsense, he thought, such is the province of God alone. The man was obviously a charlatan or delusional.

Kris had no idea if David was being serious or not. He sounded serious, but he could just be a great dead-pan. Or he could be a nut, or he could be perfectly serious and quite right. She decided that she'd wait for further evidence – in favour of any of those possibilities - before making up her mind.

Whatever the case might be, she wasn't going to risk offering her cell phone as a template, not after Sophie mentioned disassembly may be required.

Sir Archibald shook his head. "I'm afraid we're still limited to working with whatever we can manufacture in the way of long-distance communications – telegraph, telephone, wireless and such. We have yet to discover the means of doing without them."

He noticed that David had finished his pretzel. "Was that sufficient, Professor? Or would you like something else?"

Market Street – Foodcourt and Hallway

James watched, bemused, as Nick raced off with Jackson in hot pursuit.

Adam gave a small chuckle and looked back up at James, "We're really good friends, I promise Mr. Turner. We just have our moments, like that. But I hope you don't mind much. If it gets too bad, I'll tell them to stop."

James picked up his tricorn hat and put it on then adjusted his coat and sword. "Would they listen to you?" He grinned. "'tis no matter. They're young, and I'm not so old that I don't remember being young." He forbore to mention that at their age he was heading off to the Americas to fight in King George's War.

Market Street – Bike Shop

"Whaaat? You don't know? I'm looking at her right now of course!" It caught Teri completely off guard and banished all thoughts of motorcycles and riding gear from her mind.

Suddenly, the things Marie had said earlier returned in a new perspective and their meanings seemed so obvious, now. Teri wondered how she had failed to pick up on them. Probably too busy thinking about motorcycles, she thought.

She had dismissed the preening and fishing for compliments as low self esteem, but now they seemed more like an invitation to respond in kind. Though low self esteem could still be a factor, and Teri didn't want to say anything that would be hurtful.

Before she could formulate a reply, Marie spoke again. "...Look, I'm really sorry if I'm making you uncomfortable Teri. It's just... You're nice. Really nice, and I thought I could.... If you want me to stop flirting, just give the word."

Teri looked at the teenager. Well, she ain't backwards in coming forward, is she? She thought. Such forthright honesty demanded nothing less in return.

"I appreciate your honesty 'n' being forthright 'n' I'm not freaked out or nothin' - it's kinda flattering, really. I can't stop you flirting, but it won't do you a lot of good - I just don't do birds... I ain't got nothin' against them what do, neither, so don't worry about that."

She smiled. "Dunno why you'd be interested in me, anyway, I'm the same age as that geezer," she indicated Wolfe with a wave of her hand and laughed. "Any'ow, I think you're cool 'n' sweet and I've got some clothes shoppin' to do and I could use a second opinion. Wotcha say?"

M's Casino

The three girls nodded in understanding simultaneously. "Well then we'll look out for them and other dangers that may cross your path! Count us in!" Kiyumi said with a smile, Midori nodding and surprisingly also smiling and Naoko just giving a blank stare. Standing there in silence for a few seconds, the leader spoke up. "So uh... What now? You headed somewhere or something?" she asked with a raised brow.

Arena Lobby

"I uh...Ok." Kyana looked a bit down at the other fire girl's words. She didn't mean to make her feel sick. Though she wasn't sure if she meant sick from lovey dovey stuff or sick from the fight in the rain with Genocide. Maybe both? Either way it was a little bit her fault that they all got involved with him in the first place since she was the one who talked to him and almost trusted him to travel with them. Looking to Morweena she wondered what she had meant by that was why she came to the city and decided to ask. "Are you... a bounty hunter or something?" she asked in an innocent matter, really having no clue who exactly she was.

"Can you imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie?"

[City Center - The Spire (82nd Floor Conference Room)]

Qrlil smiled. "Well, if it's any consolation, I can tell you that being very" - she hesitated, then amended - "usually very straightforward about our emotional states and desires is something of a cultural thing for qrtxians. I did say later, after all."

She turned towards the wide window and stared out of it at the storm, folding her hands behind her back in a pose that she'd originally mimicked from the Corinarchi ambassador, Lord Gebe. He'd said it was a good way to seem contemplative, and while she liked to think she'd mastered her ego over the last year, she still felt that it was a good image to project.

Not that she was really projecting in this case. In a lot of ways the storm reminded her of Skrahsis, of the long days when one of the vast storm-seasons swept over the planetary ocean and left the Council - or, now, what had been the Council - shelled up inside their chambers, communicating only over the planetary network. Days like that led to many angry exchanges and hurt feelings. They were the sort of days where she found herself wondering if there was any real chance to make the True Alliance work.

Well, I suppose it's time to see what the crayvn can bring to helping that goal.

She turned and sat down at one of the chairs, feeling it morph slightly to match her flexible bone structure, then folded her hands together. "So," she said. "Where should we begin?"

[M's Casino]

Seon uhmmed for a few moments.

"Well," he said eventually, "right now I'm looking to get in contact with people to do business with. I came to this casino hoping there'd be someone I could work with, but so far I haven't seen anything." Of course, part of that was his fault for not approaching anyone, but he wasn't going to tell them that. And he genuinely hadn't seen any likely candidates.

"I've also tried to get in contact with a woman named Tsukinoyo... something, who might also be a possibility, but so far she hasn't responded to my message. I suppose I could always go in search of - of her, but I just don't want to go out into that storm right now. Is it possible that you've..."

He trailed off. The very thought that these - children were involved with the local underworld was highly implausible at best.

Great. I finally have minions and they're, well, this. Sometimes it feels like you just can't win.

"Never mind that," he said out loud. "I suppose we might as well wait for the rain to stop - that, or venture out to the bus stop if it doesn't soon."

[Vencaran Shuttle]

"There's a reason why we call it AI psychosis," Trekesser said darkly, "and it's not because it's easily understandable. Again, most blights - or other AIs, for that matter - that bother to communicate just regurgitate out nonsense about the end of the universe and stuff like that."

He grimaced, his orange eyes taking on an unpleasant glint. The Confederation blight thirty-five years ago hadn't been that bad - if you didn't count the Battle of Suuva, anyway - but he'd seen and read enough about Veth Kaor that this was never a cheerful topic. "The thing you need to understand about synthetic life is, it's smarter than we are. I'm not talking about Simulated Intelligences or hardware that's purely under our control, but once you give an intelligence the ability to alter its own programming, it's going to keep growing smarter. And somewhere along the way, most of them just... snap. Usually it gets stopped before then, but when it's not? Blight."

He looked more directly at Harrison. "And before you ask why we don't let people build them? Well, it's not like it's legal - but some small government or lone programmer is always going to be presumptuous enough to think that ze's going to be the one to finally make the breakthrough that puts us all past the Big Singularity. Most of them don't survive to see the consequences, or we'd probably have a lot more people warning against it."

[Vencaran Shuttle]

Harrison gave Giun a blank stare for a moment longer than was probably polite, until he said, "wow. I- I'm sorry to hear that. I guess our realities are actually quite a bit different than I thought."

"In our reality, AI's are ubiquitous and helpful, or at least harmless," Harrison said, "of course the whole superintelligence thing turned out to be a bit overestimated. They've always been geniuses at mathematics, but never any good at creativity. I suppose we've become so integrated over the last century I don't even really think of them as that different from us anymore."

"I'm having a hard time imagining what a space-faring civilization would even be like without them," Harrison said, "they help so much in design and prototyping, not to mention medical, navigation, coordination, all sorts of things. I couldn't hit a Yiizlon battleship broadside without my targeting AI, for one."

"And what about technological development?" Harrison said, "they've accelerated our progress so much - I don't know how many centuries it would have taken for us to colonize the stars without them."

edited 26th Mar '15 11:42:47 PM by Sonzai

Danger: Intense gravimetric distortions nearby. Please reverse the polarity on your deflectors now.

[Old City-Abandoned Mall]

   Wulf   

He sized up another from his mount on his prey's corpse. The man screamed and ran, Wulf drew his lips back in pleasure and tensed his legs to leap. The ground buckled, he splayed out like a nervous cat. The world flipped and he went sailing through the air in a snarling ball of flailing limbs. His claws found a column and he latched on claws digging gouges in the tile finish.

The effortless child held it's hands in front of it, an orb glowed in between its hands. Heat rippled through the air and in the back of his skull he could feel it. A heat that could destroy the entire mall, the mall included him.

The decision came, the child would cause his death along with the deaths of everyone, including he-who-fought-like-pack. The only option for survival was to stop it. He-in-his-body recoiled in horror at the thought, he desperately pulled his mind trying to make him stop. Wulf shook his head, he was having none of it, it did not matter if he-in-his-body would accept death that simply, he would not. There were two priorities to his kind, survive and mate, and in order to survive he needed to. Kill.

He bolted off the column and sprinted for the child who would kill them all, leaping just as much as running. The energy condensed and he redoubled his pace. A blue light appeared before him, he bounced off it with a yip of surprise. He leapt to his feet and slammed his shoulder into the wall, it buckled but did not break, he lashed at it with his claws.

He felt a sigh in the world as the energy was ready to release. Too late.

Assuming Energy's protection measures are a wall or shield of some kind, will edit this if not.

[Clark Hospital-Reception Desk]

Katya

"These are mine, I do not have a place to put them aside from my coat." she answered in confusion. The automobile she assumed was this cab pulled up, she jumped in surprise as it made a loud sound.

"You can tell me about it later. Let's get going!" Comrade Rikael said and approached the cab. Katya followed suite and bent over, the driver approached with a mind to help but eased away when he noticed the fairly large assortment of weapons. She placed the Nagant on the floor in front of her feet and sat pose rigid, she did not like this.

edited 27th Mar '15 12:58:07 AM by Slysheen

Stoned hippie without the stoned. Or the hippie. My AO3 Page, grab a chair and relax.

Old City - Arena (lobby)

"Not usually, I'm not," Moreena answered. "I just had to leave my home for a while, and figured I might as well keep myself occupied with something while I'm here."

She reached up and casually scratched the base of her left horn. "I'm a goddess of Death by the way."

City Center - The Spire (82nd floor conference room)

Yes! "I'm um, glad to hear it," Garkin said. Apparently, the Qrtxians weren't all that different from his own people. He looked out through the window as well. Kren, this building had to be taller than the Palace in Firestone.

"I'm not entirely sure to be honest," he answered. "Normally we would arrange for a more official meeting between our peoples, but that might be a bit difficult in this case. There are a few minor agreements I'm allowed to make as a voidship captain, though, and I wouldn't mind learning a bit more about Qrtxian... - am I saying it right? - culture."

Still a great "screw depression" song even after seven years.

[ARENA LOBBY]

Lara looked at Maleficent for an answer to Kyana's question. Bounty hunter? Again the issue of fighting in the flimsy dress that the woman wore came to mind. Telling by the horns, however, Lara wondered if she used some type of "magic".

She scoffed at the nonchalant manner in which the woman revealed her occupation.

"I probably shoulda seen that coming." She said to herself.

She took a quick glance at Kyana. As naïve as she was, a comment like Moreena's might make her think this was another "super-villain", as she might call them.

[City Center - The Spire (82nd Floor Conference Room)]

Qrlil hissed. "I'm sure you would."

Wait, no, bad idea. Focus!

Besides, he probably meant it literally.

"At any rate, I suppose the question is what sort of minor agreements you could make. You see, I'm not really a representative of the qrtxian government - at least not anymore. Rather, I'm here on behalf of what we're provisionally referring to as the True Alliance: an attempt to transform a wartime military alliance into a more stable superstructure for all of known space. I've been hoping to find potential technological or other trade and support options in order to make the Alliance a more attractive option."

[Vencaran Shuttle]

Trekesser held up a hand with a couple of fingers lifted. "Hang on, are we talking about the same thing? In my reality, an AI is specifically a free-willed sapient synthetic lifeform, not just any system programmed with some kind of intelligence. We don't even have a name for most of those, though the ones that deliberately mimic a personality are called SIs - Simulated Intelligences."

He glanced out at the stars, then back at Harrison. "So when you say AI - is that what you're talking about? Because I have a hard time believing that a free-willed intelligent being would want nothing more out of life than to serve as a targeting system.

"As for technological development," he added, "how many centuries did it take you to colonize the stars?"

Old City
The fight was about to end, the two could feel it sure as day. Rani was about to vomit, more disgusted with herself than she'd been in a long while. Even Foster was a little shaken.
Only but a few feet away, the young mask girl was bright to the point where the duo's eyes hurt. The heat was blistering, and only when Rani took another note of the shields around her own hovering body did she realize what the young one was going to do. Foster, anchored to the floor behind her, considered prepping a restoration spell just in case.
"WHAT GIVES, MAN!" her voice cracked. "We're young hippies, we can't pay for collateral damage!"

edited 27th Mar '15 2:25:53 PM by starwhat

i'm gonna be the kanye best like no one ever was

City Center - The Spire (82nd Floor Conference Room)

"I'm afraid it's not all that much really," Garkin said. "I can trade using the fleets resources, offer cravynitarian aid in the case of emergencies, or defend people from unprovoked attacks. For permanent trade routes or an exchange of technology I would have to contact the Empire."

Garkin scratched his chin. "The locals have told me how to get home, but I'm not sure how stable the rift thing that got me here is on the other side... Poor Rolph is probably busy studying it to figure out where I went."

Still a great "screw depression" song even after seven years.

Old City - Abandoned Mall

It took only a quick sweep of the room with his eyes for Gwion to determine that the fight was pretty much over. Most of those that hadn't already fallen in combat had been taken down by the freakish earthquake and those few that had regained their feet afterwards were scattered and disorganised - easy pickings.

Gwion was close enough to hear Flamist growl and then speak to Energy in her usual flat, emotionless voice. "Energy. Protect everyone.

Then she held out her hands and an intense ball of light appeared between them, radiating insane amounts of heat.

Gwion was filled with horror. The stench of burned hair and charred flesh from her last victim was still in his nostrils and now it was going to happen again, but worse. So very much worse.

"In the worst case, they're going to do something bad," that same flat voice, back in the diner. "Which means I should make them disappear right now." The recollection made Gwion's skin crawl.

And now people were going to "disappear". She mustn't. She had to be stopped, somehow.

Gwion lunged towards her instinctively, no real plan in mind, no idea how he was going to stop her. Probably she would just see it as an attack and incinerate him without a moment's thought.

Wulf bounded into Gwion's field of vision and leaped at Flamist; Gwion, horrified, could just see him being flash-incinerated by a wall of heat radiating out to meet him.

Instead, Wulf smashed into something only barely visible in the air - one of Energy's shields no doubt – and stopped.

A split second later, Gwion hit an impassable wall of his own. A million miles away, Rani's voice was raised in a shout but Gwion was beyond comprehension.

Even as Wulf smashed vainly against the barrier that restrained him, desperate to get through and end the threat, Gwion slammed his hands against his own barrier, trying to make Flamist or Energy notice him.

He wanted to implore Flamist to stop or tell Energy to protect everyone, including the surviving and injured thugs, but he was too wound up on adrenalin and rage to articulate anything that complex. It took him all his effort to manage one basic word.

"NOOOOOOOOOO!"

Even then, it sounded more like the howl of an enraged animal than a human word.

[Market Street—Arch Center (Bakery)]

David nodded along with Sophie's explanation.

"Yes, yes, you've got it absolutely right," he agreed. "With the right memorization techniques, having a model to copy off of is less helpful than you might imagine. Oh, I could make you quite a lovely toy phone that looks just like the real thing, but I'm afraid it wouldn't do you much good. It's the little internal components that make it so devilishly difficult."

He held up his right hand, palm up, and for a second, the organic eye simply refused to focus on the space above his palm—then the phenomenon passed, and he was holding a solid piece of rock salt about the size of a baseball.

"Uniform molecular structure, simple chemical makeup, no fiddly little bits—nothing could be easier to create." It vanished in a similar eye-bending show, and a few seconds later, a tiny statue of Sophie, apparently made of the same rock salt, took its place. "Some details, but nothing too intricate to memorize—I glossed over the cardiovascular system, for instance," he said, with a slight grin.

"And the makeup of the material is as simple as the one before; all I need to focus on is the shape. Something like a cell phone—or any electronic device, really—is incredibly tricky. A multitude of different materials, various types of plastic, metal, sometimes glass, arranged in fastidiously-delicate patterns too small for the naked eye to see. And all of it—including the programming—has to be in your mind, at the same time, accurately, for it to be any good at all. With practice, I could probably manage very simple electronics, but as yet it's beyond me."

To Sir Archibald's question, he shook his head, smiling again.

"No, no! You've already been far too generous to a total stranger, even if I do have an irresistibly inviting personality. But perhaps you'll allow me to repay the favor? I can work a handful of tricks on your behalf, if you like"—that was obviously a major understatement, but nothing in his bearing indicated that he was being facetious—"and I'm excited to explore this city, if you'll have me along on whatever it is you're about!"

edited 27th Mar '15 2:58:32 PM by SolipSchism

[Vencaran Shuttle]

"She does a lot more than just targeting, there's navigation, self-repair- wait, I'm getting ahead of myself," Harrison said, "Nami, can you say hi to Giun?"

"Certainly!" said a chipper female voice, emanating from a speaker in the ceiling. "Hi! I'm Nami, or the Networked Autonomous Management Intelligence for Terran and Vencaran ships. I manage all non-interactive systems in each ship, such as life-support, engines, self-repair, etc. I also assist with interactive systems, such as targeting, piloting, or communication, so that the pilots can concentrate on flying and not on calculating orbits, encrypting radio transmissions, or plotting jump coordinates."

"There you have it," Harrison said, "she's the first example I'd think of, but she really doesn't look anything like an organic life form. So, maybe we're talking about the same thing? I'm not really sure."

"And as for how long it took us," Harrison said, "well, when would you say I should start counting? Life? Fire? Language? First space probe? FTL Travel?"

Danger: Intense gravimetric distortions nearby. Please reverse the polarity on your deflectors now.

[Ted's Canteen]

"That's a startlingly progressive attitude, and I hope the next I'm flying out of the KNFS Nagumo someone there has adopted it. Along with a number of other progressive ideas like assigning missions based on the skill and equipment of who they're being given to." Tsuki replied, amused. The Kusari Naval Forces were getting better. Slowly. The police were a different group after the end of the Nomad conflict, though.

She snagged a fry from her just-arrived food and started eating. Hmm, not bad fries here...she'd have to recommend this place if anyone asked. "Actually, I don't suppose you're hiring for anything short-term?"

Nous restons ici.

Arena Lobby

"Death goddess!?!" Kyana's eyes widened. It had to be true, she doubt anyone would make such an outrageous lie. But to be face to face with a deity made Kyana feel a tad overwhelmed. However the woman hadn't done anything to harm them in any way, so she slowly eased up about it. "So...the goddess of death. Why are you here in person? I would think you would stay hidden from the public." the girl asked, mostly out of curiosity. She was sitting with her hands underneath her thighs as she playfully kicked her feet.

M's Casino

"I...see." Kiyumi put a finger to her chin in thought, "I don't know of any Tsukinoyo woman. Do you guys?" She looked to her other two friends who shook their heads. Midori's eyes looked out at the storm and tried to think of the nearest bus stop. "If we can't find any help here, it might be best to find a bus and go wherever you think we should go. I'm not sure when this storm will pass." she explained. Her voice was a bit quiet but sweet. The youngest girl looked like she really wanted to help Seon.

"Can you imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie?"

Arena lobby

"Well, as I said, I had to leave my home for a while," Moreena answered. "This world looked nice, but I need a body to interact with it. Metaphysical compatibility issues and such, you know. I'll spare you the details."

Aside from her initial outburst, the girl seemed remarkably unfazed by the whole 'death goddess' thing. That was interesting.

"What about you then? I get the feeling that you're not a local either."

edited 27th Mar '15 4:45:52 PM by Corvidae

Still a great "screw depression" song even after seven years.

Sorry this took so long. I've been having certain issues today.

[City Center - The Spire (82nd Floor Conference Room]

Qrlil turned her head downward for a moment before looking back up. "That's somewhat unfortunate to hear," she said. "Is there any way you could arrange to contact your government... your Empire through the rift without having to actually go through it yourself? I mean, if nothing else, you should probably let your crew know that you're all right if you can."

She tipped her head back and forth, thinking. "As for the question of arrangements: well, the instability is exactly the problem, isn't it? Any long-term agreements would depend on the possibility of a stable connection, which we can't guarantee. That's why I mentioned technological trade first, because that's something that could be beneficial even if it only occurs one time."

[M's Casino -> Bus Stop]

"Ummm... thank you," Seon said. Their apparent enthusiasm was mildly touching, if also slightly concerning. These were definitely not hardened professionals.

More troubling, they also might be younger than he'd assumed. Humans were so squashed-looking it was almost impossible for him to guess at their ages, but he'd initially thought they were independent, if young, adults. They certainly acted independent. But if they were children... well, just because he'd never quite gotten past the fear of aliens that a Doctrinal Federation upbringing involved didn't mean he was a sociopath. He hated the thought of putting children in danger.

Which means sticking around this casino is probably not a good idea.

"All right, then," he said. "One place I've thought of going is the 'old city'. Maybe we should catch a bus there."

Looking decidedly less than cheerful about it, he turned and made his way out of the casino, into the rain, and - hurriedly - under the shelter of the covered bus stop.

[Vencaran Shuttle]

Trekesser did a double-take - which, given shvuim eye structure, looked rather more comical on him than on a human - at the speaker.

O-kay. So there's an AI - or something like one - in the shuttle. I can assume she's not crazy since we're still alive, but... yeah, kind of wish they'd mentioned that before we all got in.

"Wait a minute," he said, glancing over at Harrison. "You mean to tell me that the majority of human and vencaran ship crews in your universe are happy handing their ships over to - well, to the ship? You're not kidding about the differences."

The other question was less important now, but he was still a little curious. "Let's say - from the first time you launched something into space. Splutik, I think it was called in my universe."

M's Casino

Without a word the three girls followed Seon. Sure he was a stranger, sure maybe they were in a little over their head. But that was something the Party Girls did. Once they made a promise, they would keep it no matter what. Midori squeaked from getting hit by the rain as all three ran as fast as possible to the bus stop.

Arena Lobby

"Me? I um, come from another city far from here. I moved here with my parents awhile ago after a...incident with my powers. Despite that, my parents have always supported me. They don't even have powers and have no idea where mine came from but they believe I could do good with them. So we came here. There are people with strange abilities all over the Capital so I'm striving to stand out and prove I can use my fire for good purposes." she explained. It felt like she explained her story quite a lot, but she didn't mind.

"Can you imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie?"

[Vencaran Shuttle]

"Sputnik 1 was launched on 4 October 1957, and the current date (Earth Standard Time) is 23 August 2174," Nami said, "for a total of approximately 216 years, 10 months, and 19 days until now. The first colony ship sent beyond the Solar System was launched on 18 March 2102 and the first significant colony founded 27 days later (14 April 2102), for a total of approximately 144 years, 6 months, and 10 days from Sputnik."

"Well, there's your answer. Much easier than looking up the information myself, if you ask me," Harrison said, "but as for turning over control? I don't think that really makes any sense any more - it would take an army of people to run these ships manually, and even with significant computer assistance, it would be near-impossible to be effective in a fight without some kind of AI."

"And personally, I'd rather have an intelligent assistant to check on my actions and help me out," Harrison said, "it's like having a co-pilot, even when you're alone. We've done it this way for so long, I don't even know what it'd be like to go without."

Danger: Intense gravimetric distortions nearby. Please reverse the polarity on your deflectors now.

[Vencaran Shuttle]

Trekesser looked puzzled. "That's... not as fast as I would have expected, actually." Although he mentioned that their AIs aren't supersapient, so that might explain part of it. "In my reality the average time for developing interstellar travel - at least without assistance from anyone else - is about half a millenium. Well, that's in shvuim years, but our homeworlds have pretty similar orbital periods. But I would have thought it would go faster with AI help."

He leaned forward. "See, the thing you have to understand is, the problem is that AIs are dangerous - not that we don't see how they would be useful if they weren't. I mean, I have to admit I'd always trust my crew over a single being, organic or synthetic, and a lot of the stuff you use AIs for can be done by restricted software instead, like backups or automated systems. But it would probably make life a lot easier to have something like your Nami involved. It's just too much of a risk for trying to develop one to really be possible."

He glared, hands forming claw shapes against the seats. "Not that it stops some people from trying. But I said that already."

Seon coming tomorrow. Night!

[ARENA LOBBY]

Lara was pleasantly surprised at how well Kyana took the news. She was even more surprised when Kyana started kicking under her chair like a little kid. After the encounter with Genocide, you'd think she'd feel a little sensitive around people with horns, let alone a goddess of death.

She listened to Kyana explaining her story. Apparently, this girl had no idea how her powers came to be. "So, basically, you're pretty much what comic-fans would call... a mutant?" She said with half a grin.

City Center - The Spire (82nd Floor Conference Room)

"I'm hoping that Rolph can figure out a way to communicate," Garkin answered. "If he doesn't, I'll just have to fly through the rift once my lander is repaired, and... um, hope that it's possible to return."

His expression revealed that he doubted the last part. "Um, anyway... What sort of tech would you need the most?"

Old City - Arena (Lobby)

For half a second or so, Moreena's face took on a solemn expression, but quickly returned to normal. Upon hearing Lara's comment about the other girl's powers she looked over at them both.

"Elemental powers sounds more like magic than biology to me, though I guess I might be a bit biased," she said. "By the way, I don't think you've told me your name yet, have you?" she asked the girl with the scarf.

edited 28th Mar '15 5:11:10 AM by Corvidae

Still a great "screw depression" song even after seven years.