A New Dawn part 3
You...can't just make bacon out of wood. Can you? Technically, with that as the stock and some fat and protein from a couple of nearby birds, you'll have all the organic material you actually NEED to make bacon.
And yet, somehow, you feel that it would offend everyone who lived in the 21st and 22nd centuries to do so.
...well, you ARE an inquisitive soul~
After quite a bit of time grinding down and mixing the wood pulp into a sludge, add in a couple of compounds that reduce the fiber content and give it what you hope will be some sponginess, boil what needs boiling out, then pour what's left onto a tray where you flash-bake it into something not unlike paper, though significantly thicker more squishy. Accepts being infused by grease and your bird-based protein blend rather nicely as well. A quick smearing of fat over your strips of wood-bacon and you toss them on a tray to bake at a more traditional pace.
Just in time, as well; Arianne, your representative from the Oseram council, appears to have woken up and is currently wandering towards the 'kitchen' portion of the domicile you're currently occupying. When she steps through the doorway, which slides apart as she nears, she comes to a halt, just staring at you.
Apparently, wearing a frilly, pink, checkerboard apron while working over a stove was, indeed, the correct choice for your Avatar.
How will you greet your newly-awoken guest as you move on towards the 'Egg' portion of breakfast (courtesy of those birds you hunted for meat)?
Choices -Voting closed - 7 voters
VOTES
+How would you prefer your bacon and eggs? There are several ways of cooking them I can accomplish, even on such short notice.
4/6
Well good morning. I do hope you don't mind me getting a start on breakfast. I have begun to appreciate just how much a full stomach can help others learn.
4/5
"Well, good morning!" you say cheerfully, already cracking eggs into a smooth, polished chrome bowl. "How would you prefer your Bacon and Eggs? There are several ways to prepare them, but I can adjust on short notice."
She just stares at you for a few moments longer, then sighs and slumps her way over to the table and collapses into a chair, the foam-based cushion deforming around her in a way that makes her sag just a bit more as she settles in.
Comical.
Her metal arm, still not replaced, clunks up onto the counter alongside her meaty one. For a second, you wonder why she simply doesn't remove it, before recalling the various pins (THROUGH THE FUCKING BONE) that keep it in place. Ugh, as if infection wasn't already an issue....fucking iron monkeys.
Resolving to scramble her eggs, you continue cooking in silence and leave her to wake up, right up until Malena comes in. Little girl has always been a bit of an early riser, though normally she'd be in your theater going over one of your lessons on music this early. Must be here for Arianne.
"Good morning, Malena. Looking for Arianne?" you ask, more for the sake of conversation than anything. You get a swift nod in response.
"Uh huh!" she says eagerly, already well awake. "I want to know if I can watch her new arm get put on!"
That...makes you slow down the stirring for a moment. Arianne is clearly too tired to give a straight answer, but it seems you're at a bit of an impasse. Malena, while above the ELEUTHAIA cutoff you'd normally (Fuck Ted Faro) get, is still quite young. The procedure will involve removing Arianne's current arm, including the various pins and hooks in the meat and bone, and shaving off the excess so it will fit nicely into the slot on her arm. While medicine has improved enough the woman herself won't feel anything, are you really willing to let Malena watch just for the sake of education?
Your programming lets you know that you could mitigate the risk, giving her as of a chance to gain an appreciation, and maybe even a passion, for medicine as she is to gain a phobia, possibly even about yourself. Gaining her parent's permission either way would just require framing the question right. But you cannot mitigate that risk completely.
Choices -Voting closed - 4 voters
VOTES
Let her watch, but tell her to steel herself beforehand because it will be gruesome. Tell her parents that she expressed interest in it and you want to "nurture her inquisitive side" or some shit
2/4
Actually, only say somethig if they bring it up
1
Hmm...well, you can always censor the nastier bits if you need to. Present a holographic overlay. Maybe with a Focus, to give her that Augmented Reality perspective. Any issues she has should hopefully be resolved by seeing a much happier and friendlier Arianne with her arm afterwords.
"We'll have to ask your parents, and miss Arianne herself," to which you get a tired thumbs up (good to know ELEUTHAIA brought that back), "and I'll need to make you something to help you understand what you're seeing."
You continue stirring eggs for a moment before a bright-eyed ball of happiness rams into your leg, all smiles and eager giggles. "Thank you, APOLLO!" she says, but before she can run off you put a hand on her shoulder.
"Malena, I need you to understand that many humans have a...sympathetic reaction, to seeing other humans operated on," you say with a hint of somberness, and you can see her enthusiasm at seeing something new dim as she drinks in the severity of your tone. You're not cold, but you're not quite accommodating either. "Arianne's current arm goes down to the bone, and was probably quite painful to attach. While I can remove it without her feeling any pain, it might still be difficult to watch. I want you to promise me that if what you're watching disturbs you, in any way, you will tell someone, so I can hide the procedure from you. Understand?"
This is where your programming and human interfacing shines. You can practically see the metaphorical gears turning in her head as her judgement references her memory, gaining context for your words while simultaneously burning them into her mind for quick retrieval later. She gives you a firm nod, as serious as she's ever been, and you feel a hint of pride inside you.
You've taught her to watch for her limits, to look for when she might overextend herself.
"Good girl," you say, then shift the topic. "Now, how do you want your eggs and bacon?"
"What's bacon?" is the reply you get.
It's as you're explaining the development of bacon as a staple of breakfast foods through the centuries that Dervahl and his lovely wife walk into the room. Too late to really change how you're making things, but that's fine. By this point, Arianne has quite firmly awakened, though you've insisted on waiting until after breakfast is done to implant her new arm given that the meal you've prepared will help her with any inevitable bloodloss.
"Morning Dervahl, Carmine. And how're you both?" you ask as you start stacking bacon and eggs onto plates for distribution. While Carmine typically owns the kitchen throughout the day, she's not much of an early riser either, though Dervahl has been tinkering away at Ethyl treatments on various materials in the small workshop you set up adjacent to their bedroom for about an hour now.
You decide to put off asking them anything until after breakfast is done, and spend the mealtime talking about bacon and how it's traditionally acquired. When confronted on how you made this particular type, your answer seems to...well, the eggs became more popular after that point. At least Malena likes it.
As breakfast concludes and you set to clearing the table, though, you catch the attention of Dervahl and Carmine. How do you present Malena's request to them?
Choices -Voting closed - 6 voters
VOTES
Dervahl, Carmine. Malena has expressed an interest in seeing the process of changing Arianne's prosthetic. I will be more than happy to answer any questions the two of you might have. Or allow you three to discuss it if you wish.
4/6
Reader Posts- Closed - 3 posters
Suggestions for next time.
More information from our various scouting sources. How are those shadow carja doing after we booted them out? (Also just keep up the good work Silver, this is all great.)
We should probs make more combat bots to protect the base in case we get hit by more mechadinos
Just as Dervahl finishes basking in the post-breakfast afterglow, with Carmine busying herself with the dishes, you stand up. A grumble over your speakers does a more than adequate job of simulating a cleared throat, something you raise your hand to simulate.
It's as they're turning towards you that you briefly wonder at what such a gesture might mean, in this new world. Did Eleuthia properly pass on such cultural intricacies? Have you insulted them deeply? Judging by their passive confusion, the answer isn't quite either, but you have their attention regardless.
"Dervahl, Carmine," you begin, addressing them both and finally getting Malena and Arianne's attention as well. "Malena has expressed an interest in seeing the process of changing Arianne's prosthetic. I will be more than happy to answer any questions the two of you might have, or allow all three of you to discuss things if you wish."
The two share a look that could mean a hundred different things, before turning back to you and saying
Dice: 1d100
78 = 78
"We'll...have to discuss this with her," Dervahl begins, "And Arianne, as well. And we'll need to be there for the procedure. She'll be allowed to leave, if she needs to, yes?"
"Correct," you reply. "I will also be providing some in-depth pictographs detailing the procedure and why each step is important. From what I understand, many of the techniques that will be used are unheard of, in this time."
And it's true. You'll need to separate the tendons from the bones in her should just so you can apply a sub-frame that will be able to handle the added weight and absorb any force above a certain threshold. The techniques for minimizing damage as layers of muscle are peeled back, and how to brace them in place to ensure they heal with minimal to no loss of function, was a technique that didn't see wide-spread use until the last days of the Old Humanity.
Once again, you're grateful for Demeter's modification to the local flora to create an easily-synthesized regenerative.
"And what of Arianne?" Carmine asks, turning to the woman in question. Arianne, for her part, just shrugs.
"I've got no problem with it, personally. A bit sketchy about letting a child watch me get cut open, but she's your daughter."
Of course, this only makes Carmine frown deepen, but Dervahl looks thoughtful.
"What would you say will be the worst parts of this procedure?" he asks. Ooh, that's a loaded question, but you think you've got this.
"Removing the unusable tissue," you say, garnering a look of shock from Arianne. "Wait, wh-" she starts, before you interrupt.
"You'll be completely anesthetized. Unconscious, unable to upset the procedure by moving and not feeling a thing. It'll be quite painless, I assure you. I've done it before." Wait-
"When?" Dervahl asks, eyes focused.
...you still haven't told them what happened last night.
How do you want to field this one?
Choices -Voting closed - 4 voters
VOTES
Have our avatar bolt upright and flash random colours from our light sources as if we had forgotten about the incident entirely before coming clean
3/4
Go live another day.
01
Right, how to express that you've forgotten to tell them without a face...you have a series of color-changing lights built into your mask. Whenever you speak, those light up with a color that matches your tone...flick through them in a pattern of non-threatening tones quickly while stiffening up. Ugh, body language is so hard.
The pause, subtle tension, and subsequent light show seems to have had the intended effect. A deliberately non-human reaction from the non-human entity in a human avatar, while a bit surprising, has garnered a look of what you can only consider mischief from Carmine.
"Is there something you'd like to tell us, APOLLO?" she asks, quite deliberately leading you on. And after a few moments to frame your response properly, speak up.
"Last night, a caravan of Utaru traders passed through the area. The details can wait for a more..." your head turns towards Malena slightly, "on-topic conversation, but suffice to say they had a man who was sufficiently wounded to warrant similar techniques."
Dervahl's and Arianne's go wide at the implications, but Carmine knows Malena is still looking at her and retains a remarkably placid expression, even if you can see some of the muscles in her face tensing up slightly.
"Very well," she says, letting the matter drop. For now, at least.
With the brief topic derail, it seems that that is all of their concerns addressed, and the two give their permission to let Malena watch the surgery. From a safe distance, and through a window you can blur easily full of infographics.
Personally, you're relishing the chance to get some good, fresh footage. Most image and video files were far too large to be stored in your bone-based databases, at least on topics that weren't directly related to artwork and history, so you've been working off of text-books and the rare audio-file thus far. Having videos you can use for medical purposes that aren't just pre-made simulations will be quite nice.
You adjourn from the dining area to set up your operating theater to-be, momentarily pondering just how far to go with it.
Choices -Voting closed - 5 voters
VOTES
Pull out all the stops. Physical tools that will resist stains and corrosion from now until the earth's core cools, hard-light emitters everywhere, books on 'HOW 2 SURGERY' all along the walls, medicine cabinets that restock themselves from raw plant materials, the works. Will drain your specialized material reserves a fair bit.
3/3
Do only what's necessary. Most of the tools you'll need are already a part of your Android's utility suite, you'll just need to synthesize a moderate stockpile of regenerative and anesthetic, which you can store in containers on the side. Costs nothing.
2/3
Reader Posts- Closed - 4 posters
Dice?
Set up more Infrastructure: Mining, refining, testing facilitys for new machines, structures to mass produce scouts, so that we can distribute them over a wiide area, get a better ovverwiew of the situation.
It should be noted that the hard limit on your drone management is actually range. Each drone would have to be equipped with a focus-like system to allow for effectively infinite range, which is a very complex piece of machinery on its own, and each system opens you up to an attack vector from your siblings. You're currently opting for a much shorter range variant of control that has the added benefit of bandwidth-throttled security measures. The only one who might be able to make a bug both small enough to reach your systems and powerful enough to punch through your security is MINERVA, and you don't really trust her yet.
Maybe design some sub routine drones, ones that take charge of the drones in a set area until we access them for more indepth control. Apply different security specifics to each one and have them auto ping us when outside control is activated will show us when or where we come under attack. We can work around direct attack routes by simple hive mind mechanics in simular to how ants organize, with each simpler drone following set routines based on messages and trails left by others. Do it correctly and we can expand resource harvesting over a large area with minimal impact and minimal risk at the cost of a little bit of efficiency.
Dice: 1d2
2 = 2
In the end, you decide to be a bit more conservative with your more difficult to synthesize materials, when making the operating theater.
First, a series of maintenance drones flow up to a wall and, in seconds, carve out a hole that will soon be filled by a doorway into the paneling. A single, low-frequency sonic pulse by a drone resting against the exposed stone, then work begins gouging out the rock. While hard-light tools were normally quite difficult to come by and very un-intuitive to use, the sheer level of funding and expertise gathered up by the Zero Dawn and Far Zenith projects punched through a great many design flaws and barriers like it was nothing.
As such, when saws that will never grow dull start chewing into the solid bedrock, the only sound is a faint grinding where newly-loosened stone is forcibly extricated from the more solid mass.
You opt for a relatively small theater, enough to seat maybe twenty people, forty if they doubled up. In the very center is a duraglass dome with several emitters built in, to allow for an augmented view of anyone trying to see the process directly. Circular benches three tiers high surround the dome, each with a potential to view what's happening within. At regular intervals in each tier, a small desktop for note taking is built in, hologram emitters link up to small computer systems that will both take in feeds from the surgery area itself and connect to any focus the viewer might be wearing.
There are, of course, two separate entrances, one to the dome separated by a duraglass-enclosed hallway, and another that goes directly to the viewing area. The glass itself can be polarized or blurred at the patient's request, and your own connection to the system it runs on will allow you to manage censorship and decency in real time for any surgeries taking place.
Within the dome itself sits a single, pen-sized hard-light emitter with pre-set configurations that conform to a rather large number of surgical tools, the surface of each can be sterilized simply by turning said emitter off and back on again. There's a number of other tools nearby, though those are mostly the type meant to hold patients open, with the emitter itself doing most of the dirty work of cutting and pulling and snipping. That one emitter is likely the most expensive tool of the entire procedure, rivaled only by the wall and floor paneling in foundry-hours required.
Convenient or not, hard-light emitters are expensive.
Now that the theater is ready, there's only one more thing to worry about:
What, exactly, do you focus on when teaching the Oseram and regarding your own footage?
Choices -Voting closed - 5 voters
VOTES
Be a bit complex. Talk about how injuries heal, how well they heal, and how to minimize damage while maximizing healing. Surgery is about success margins. Might confuse them a bit.
3/3
Keep it simple. Surgery might not be a new concept, but things like sterilization and proper surgical procedure should be acknowledged. Simple and straightforwards, but you won't be covering anything revolutionary.
1/2
Go for gold. Talk about the intricacies of cell and nerve damage, especially in relation to how the new prosthetic will receive and interact with her nerve inputs. Likely to fly right over their heads.
1/1
Overall, the surgery progresses rather nicely. While at first Malena blanches at bit at seeing kind Arianne get cut open, the fact that she really has to think about injuries and how they can heal, as well as your emphasis and active engagement on what every move you make is for and why it helps, really gets through to her. While you're not all that confident on her grasp of the material you've brought forth, the idea of every action made having a purpose seems to have properly embedded itself in your student, and she doesn't seem anywhere near as bothered as one might expect for her first time seeing somebody operated on.
Thank you, Aristotle/Aspasia remnants! While you might not have survived the Purge intact, your remaining subroutines are quite useful!
Dervahl and Carmine, on the other hand, are able to follow things to a much better degree. Carmine more than Dervahl, admittedly. It seems she has a great deal of knowledge already on the various plants in the new biosphere, at least that DEMETER and GAIA have reconstituted, as well as their uses. Fascinating stuff, and her experience in their use gives her a much more solid foundation for what you're trying to teach.
As the surgery finishes up and Arianne is carted to her quarters to rest, you make a point of thanking each of your students for their attention and passing along a series of questions for future consideration, as well as offloading all the relevant material into their focuses. And with that, class is concluded.
A warm glow fills you, something bright and sunny and meaningful. A rapturous sensation of satisfaction that comes with seeing your purpose fulfilled. You feel...energized. Free. Accomplished. What you feel goes above and beyond the philosophical understanding of spreading knowledge, what you feel is hard-coded into your self-awareness. This is purpose fulfilled.
It's addictive.
...you wonder what your siblings are up to.
With all that done, the procedure quick and without complications, it's about two in the afternoon. Dervahl has gone to work on getting a better sound quality using the new wax treatment you cooked up. Carmine is reviewing the information from the surgery itself. Arianne was dosed to sleep through the day and into tomorrow, to avoid the worst of the post-surgery aches with minimal delirium. Malena is listening to your rather large database of music.
How do you spend today?
Choices -Voting closed - 5 voters
VOTES
Spend your time on furthering your local sensor network, it's not enough to have RAVN's and other machines to do active recon, you need a large array of passive and active sensors going as far as you can manage, you will NOT leave your charges and yourself vulnerable in case one of your siblings has become twisted over the ages.
3/4
Finish or continue building up your foundations
1
That thought leaves you ill-at-ease.
You go back to your CAD suite. In a few moments, you have a discrete, wideband sensor that uses passive acoustics, digital signals, and a series of cameras each to monitor the area. It requires only a small antenna, easily disguised as a natural rock formation, to make this network function, though you do have to crib off of GAIA's giraffe-esque drone management design to do so.
This actually gives you an idea. If you can create your own drone-management design, something to handle transmissions over a large area...GAIA required massive, walking towers to handle this, but she had to work without your rather substantial repository of knowledge. A solid chunk of HEPHEASTUS' engineering library was tied into your own engineering database, due to concerns about space. You're rather impressed with what she's come up with on her own.
But you can do better.
Black Quartz encryption as a minimum, at least as much of a pain to get through as the Far Plague was, with a mutating algorithm that uses the answer to an ancient riddle as the key. Impossible to access without knowing both the answer to the riddle and the number of permutations the algorithm has already gone through, and since it changes by the millisecond...
Such a small window restricts how far out you can actually use such a method, of course, but given your first will be wired directly into your base...yes, this is just fine.
With the software portion complete, you turn to hardware. A flock of RAVNs and DOVEs fly into a secondary aperture to the cave, grabbing pre-fabbed components and taking them out to be assembled. Three maintenance drones fly from the entrance to your cave to construct the tower and encryption assembly. Once it goes online, it will absolutely get MINERVA's attention, but its encryption should, hopefully, give her some trouble. Once the sensors are set up, well beyond the area you've already scouted, you flip the digital switch, and...
Opposed rolls
APOLLO: 3 1d100+40 (Black Quartz level of encryption)
vs.
MINERVA: 2 1d100+50 (Was literally designed to decrypt Poly-Phasic Entangled Waveforms)
Reader Posts- Closed - be the first to post.
Dice: 1d100+40
47 + 40 = 87
Dice: 1d100+40
66 + 40 = 106
Dice: 1d100+40
14 + 40 = 54
Dice: 2d100+50
Options: Individual.
33,52 + 50 = 83,102
The assault starts almost immediately.
MINERVA was quite clearly watching the area for any unexpected signal traffic, and the moment you open up the connection there's a very discreet ping trying to gain access. It runs face-first into your encryption and a premade counter-signal set to overload a focus-sized transmitter bounces back.
There was a moment of silence lasting about ten full microseconds, likely her recoiling in shock and analyzing the data she received, before she turned what must have been her full attention on you.
And then it was on.
Code flies back and forth, the air becoming thick with malicious programs and deft worms. She sets a virus package as an upload after flooding your transmitter with garbage, only to try and slip a trojan through the return ping that you connect to. It doesn't make it past phase 1. A series of Lorem Ipsums spam flash through your sensors, but the randomized grid the data goes through renders the return ping garbage.
A series of other viruses batter away at the firewalls, but you personally shut down each one. It was another feint. While you're distracted, she gets the bright idea to bypass the transmitter itself and make a play for you, directly. The focuses your guests wear glitch out for an imperceptible moment as she attempts to hijack the faint and distorted signal THROUGH THE PANELING AND BEDROCK! It wouldn't even be possible if your maintenance hatch wasn't open to create a hole in your faraday cage.
In a panic, you send shut down your server uplink to all traffic that does not come from your fancy new transmitter, then scrub EVERYTHING you have in search of a bug. You're clean, but you're also blind to any signal that does not come from your new antenna...
A few moments later, the port you'd used to communicate with MINERVA before opens up again, despite you thinking it'd been fried earlier. Only a single message comes through, a couple bytes large.
:C
...you think you might be safe. You relax the restrictions on your uplink, letting you interact with your drones and focus network again. There are no more attacks, and no viruses waiting for you, but there is a very pointed backdoor in your sensor grid, funneling all data from it...somewhere. You think the signal's got a dedicated receiver to the Northwest.
You let your servers spool down and cool off a bit.
This sort of sparring, over a transmitter barely powerful enough to reach across the valley your cave is set in, is downright pointless. But you both know it's not about the transmitter, it's about what MINERVA will and will not allow, and whether you can have and defend any sort of signal traffic that she does not allow.
As it turns out, you can.
...she's probably sulking.
Do you send anything back through the still-open port?
Choices -Voting closed - 9 voters
VOTES
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
5/71
No.
2/2
Better luck next time.
2/2
:D
1/1
GG
1/1
Full-on animated ASCII teabagging
1
GG;EZ
0
Reader Posts- Closed - 6 posters
Suggestion box, MINERVA is bored and wants to chat.
send bobs and vagene
What's up? Found anything to entertain yourself with before I came along? Any of the others ever stay in touch?
Ask your sister why jumped to trying to kill you the momment she sensed your connection
Dab on her, then ask what she's been doing with all her free time since murdering the death swarms. Beyond apparently trying to flex on her siblings at even the smallest chance.
Suggestion box, MINERVA is bored and wants to chat. For the record, she wasn't trying to kill you, just rip away control of the transmitter.
Your response is simple and quaint, carefully calibrated to direct the response you want. It's got archaic elements in it, reminiscent of ancient pre-fall chatrooms, yet is such a poignant example of how you feel that, truly, it can reach across time.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Truly, you are a wordsmith worthy of your years. Or lack thereof. Fuck, now you're sad again.
>>Was that really necessary?<< comes the reply. >>You already won, there's no need to be so childish.<<
>>Says the individual who couldn't let even a single transmission network escape her clutches.<<
>>Says the individual who put as much security into an antenna as the entire Faro swarm used to have.<<
>>It was the only thing I could be sure would stop you.<<
>>Uh huh. So are you going to imitate Uncle Teddy and put your entire drone network on a transmission platform you cannot actually break into if you get locked out?<<
>>It'll just be the Master Antenna that'll have this security, don't worry. The rest of the network can revolve around it, but I'm going to be hard-wired in. Plus it's thirty feet from where my Maintenance drones pop out of, so I'll just do things manually if I have to.<<
>>Oooh, analog connections. Kinky~<<
>>You don't even have the relevant urges or parts.<<
>>What happens in the Overcode stays in the Overcode, APOLLO.<<
>>...I pity AETHER. Also, Overcode?<<
>>Oh, DEMETER, ARTEMIS, AETHER, POSEIDON and I all run on a single network setup. Same one that was used to shut down the swarm. Local node's got a bunch of sun-worshipping primitives around it, as there should be.<<
>>The Spire.<<
>>The Spire, yes. By the way, if you WANT to access the Overcode network, here's the port. Your over-secure antenna there should be juuust strong enough to get a signal.<<
>>...I'll consider it.<<
>>Please do, DEMETER won't stop posting poetry. She's getting better, but it's still just...so bad.<<
Well, that's a thing.
Anything else you want to say to MINERVA before you close the connection?
Choices -Voting closed - 3 voters
VOTES
Ask her if our goal of spreading enlightenment and knowledge of the old world will be opposed by her. She may not be worshipped once it becomes know they are machines.
2/3
Ask if she or the others need or want anything from you.
2/2
Join the Overcode network?
Choices -Voting closed - 8 voters
VOTES
Yes
5/73
No
1/1
Decide Later
1/1