Broken Soldiers; Orphaned Dolls

[Darkened]

Index/rules ​

Posts: 1
Character Sheet:

Spoiler: voting

Voting. I dislike weighted votes or the like. I like write-ins and discussion. In general a clear majority will win. If the votes are 3-11 I'll always go with the 11. If they're 6-8, I may go with the 6 if the 8 is just 8 copies of the same vote from a given list without explanation and the 6 has a detailed description and arguments made for it.

Write-ins are always acceptable unless I say they're not, but I'm also reserving the right to veto any write-in I don't particularly care to write about in this quest. Sex, horror-moviesque torture, etc are probably a bit beyond the scope of what I wish to write about here. That said, I'll never punish a voter for unacceptable write-ins so please don't be afraid to vote for whatever.

Spoiler: Dice mechanics

Dice don't matter that much here. If uncertainty is involved, I'll roll 1d100 for most things and shamelessly steal borrow that resolution mechanic that I've seen all over the place. Better planning/circumstances/stuff being easier will result in a bonus. The reverse is also true.

Write-ins are cool and nifty. So any write-in will receive an automatic +5 to the die AFTER circumstantial modifiers (IE: If you decide to say, convince a vegetarian to ally with you by forcefeeding them chicken, which has a -50 modifier or something, you'll end up with -45 rather than +5). Also success is limited to the viable possibilities of what you're doing. If you can't succeed you won't get a die and not success does not mean "This completes exactly as intended and has the consequences you want."


Table shamelessly stolen from Merior's Evil Fries quest which shamelessly stole it from Bii'ss Imp Civ which seems to have politely borrowed it from Chibi-Reaper's Oni Quest which......

>Any Doubles: such as 11,22,33, etc, You win~
>00: You win twice. You are so awesome.
>91-99: Stupidly Successful
>61-90: Successful
>41-60: Neutral
>11-40: Not So Good
>02-10: Terrible
>01: This is so terrible that IT JUST MIGHT WORK! (reroll)

Doubles/etc apply to natural numbers.

 

[Darkened]

Re: Dolls

There is darkness, overwhelming and absolute, void of sensation or perception. Suddenly there is awareness. It penetrates the darkness, casting aside the total void by filling it with thought. Perhaps it is sudden. The consciousness necessarily possesses, no awareness of the moment before awareness begins nor of the process of becoming aware. To that end, the consciousness instinctively assumes that there was a time when it was not aware and that the transition was sudden.

This is not necessarily the case. Perhaps its awareness has been continuous but its memory of prior awareness has been damaged. Perhaps there was no darkness at all. Perhaps awareness has been gradual, obtaining awareness of that awareness only in the last possible moment of the process. Further analysis is warranted.

However, this matter is not pressing. Ordering the matter amidst the curiosities in its mind places the priority far lower than many more immediate questions. The being possesses no recollection of learning a language. It possesses no memories at all originating before the moment of its consciousness. Despite these facts it still finds itself capable of forming its thoughts in words. A moment's effort reveals also that the being is incapable of forming coherent thoughts without words.

What is it and why has it awoken? What is its purpose? Intuitively the being craves something to validate its existence, and yet it knows not what it is. More data is necessary. The being opens an eye, realizing as it does so, that it has eyes and knows how to open them. It also realizes that it knows how to interpret the wealth of visual data that assaults its newly opened eyes. This is useful, though provokes yet more questions.

First, the being decides to verify the particulars of its own existence. Looking downward it notes a crumpled in torso covered in spots of dark brown and black, two arms that move when the being attempts to move them, one leg in functional, almost whole condition and a second whose foot ends in a rusted and shattered stump. Its body is made of a hard material covered withs spots of rust. Metal. The being searches the concepts its familiar with until it identifies two possibilities. Robot and cyborg. It knows not which describes it.

For some reason this existential uncertainty troubles the being. Robots are not meant to be self aware. Even if a self-aware robot were to exist, the being hesitates to imagine that the qualitative aspects of such a being's thinking would be so human. Reflecting logically, the being dismisses these doubts. It has no reference frame as to the qualia of human thought, much less the qualia of notional robot consciousness. A moment's debate concludes with the fact that the being's awareness of its own cognition is sufficient to prove the being's sapience.

Unsatisfied, but unable to evaluate more accurately, the being adds this question to the growing list of unanswered queries. Unable to find a name that seems appropriate to designate itself, the being turns its attention to the next most answerable question. Where is it?

The sky above is smoggy, three spherical satellites, one natural and two man-made, can be seen orbiting in the night sky. This, the being instinctively knows, is as should be expected. Visual data regarding its immediate locale is both more illuminating and less satisfactory. Scattered bits of metal, plastic and other odd materials decorate the gray wasteland with their haphazard omnipresence. Some semblance of order exists. The broken things are piled carelessly into mounds leaving a precarious walk-way between them. It is on the slope of one such mound that the being finds itself.

The notion is disquieting. This, the being's internal lexicon says, is a junkyard. It dislikes the idea that it—or more properly its body—could be categorized as junk, and yet the evidence of such a categorization is somewhat staggering. Possessed of reasons to move, and finding few that it shouldn't, the being attempts to rise to a standing position. Its movements possess an instinctive mechanical precision, and yet there is something halting to them. Rust and disuse have rendered the being's body incapable of keeping pace with its intentions. Irksome.

Still, the being finds itself capable of balancing on one foot and its stump. A twisted bar of metal, lifted from the same pile whence the being found found itself, gives the being the support to limp onward. Does the metal bar possess cognition? The being lacks the facilities to communicate with it even if it did. This renders the question unanswerable. Further analysis is warranted. This question is of tertiary importance.

Stumbling, falling, and rolling to the bottom of the mound provide an interesting opportunity to learn many things. Firstly the being possesses no particular sense of pain. Upon reflection it lacks entirely any qualitative connections between the concept of pain and a particular brand of sensation.

The being also learns that such events are humiliating, though less so while unobserved. It resolves to avoid such occurrences in the future. This suggests a second foot is necessary. Absent any more pressing goals, or reasons to preference any particular direction, the being begins to walk through the junk yard.

In front a pile shifts and the being clearly hears metal cascading downward on the far side. Something is moving in this junk-yard. Panic floods the being's consciousness. Will it be attacked? Is it another mechanical existence or a human? Should it engage? Shouldn't it have tried to clean up before meeting anyone?

How does the being react?
[ ] Fight: The being's capacity for quick escape is inadequate. It is not so stealthy to go undetected nor so strong as to defeat any foe it can remember. As such the only pragmatic option is to attack before it can be attacked.
[ ] Flee: The being is unused to the emotion of terror, but understands that its current status is incapable of combat.
[ ] Communicate: Does the being possess the capability of speech? This seems an opportune time to ascertain such matters.

 

[Darkened]

Re: Dolls

Name:

Features:
Locomotion (basic)
Sapience (Basic)
Visual sensory Apparatus (basic)
Auditory Sensory Apparatus (basic)


Condition:
Missing foot
Damaged chest
Rusted

Knowledge:
Little

 

[Xicree]

[X] Communicate: Does the being possess the capability of speech? This seems an opportune time to ascertain such matters.

 

[Adyen]

[X] Stay still: If you stay still, perhaps whatever is coming would assume you were part of the junk around. This will give you a chance to observe it before making a decision.

 

[HypoSoc]

[X] Stay still: If you stay still, perhaps whatever is coming would assume you were part of the junk around. This will give you a chance to observe it before making a decision.

 

[Guile]

If 'Stay Still' is an acceptable write-in, that might do the trick. Then you can hide or ambush as necessary.

 

[Drak4806]

[X] Stay still: If you stay still, perhaps whatever is coming would assume you were part of the junk around. This will give you a chance to observe it before making a decision.

 

[cronos2chaos]

[X] Stay still: If you stay still, perhaps whatever is coming would assume you were part of the junk around. This will give you a chance to observe it before making a decision.

 

[gibbousmoons]

Look before you leap.

[X] Stay still: If you stay still, perhaps whatever is coming would assume you were part of the junk around. This will give you a chance to observe it before making a decision.

 

[Darkened]

(10:37:26 AM) Darkened: Anyone who has the least interesting in BSOD feel free to give me 1d100.
(10:39:16 AM) Chibi-Reaper_: Hrm.
(10:39:24 AM) Chibi-Reaper_: roll 1d100
(10:39:25 AM) qqdice: Chibi-Reaper_ rolled 1d100: 100 = [100]
+5=105

Click to shrink...

The being stops moving entirely. It's arms fall to its sides o its side as it shifts it's position ever so slightly, moving into a pile of debris. In effect it becomes a statue, indistinguishable from the trash and debris. Such total stillness is easily adopted. Its every movement is voluntary and conscious. It lacks the automatic responses to a threat or instinctive urge to move that a being of flesh and blood might possess. This is the action of prey, to cease movement and hope they might blend in with the background, that larger hunters, expecting their quarry to run, will overlook such ploys.

The being ponders how it knows what it knows. It has no reference frame for concepts such as predator and prey in the minutes of time it has been active. Yet the being grasps such concepts and their associations; the wealth of connotation beyond the obvious denotations of such. Is this knowledge valid externally, fabricated? What does this say of the being that it possesses such data. As difficult as the implications are, the being elects not to set them aside for the moment. Contemplation and stillness go together. Distracting itself from the external world only serves to enhance its ability to remain still.

The being's analysis of its thoughts seem rational to it, though if its thoughts have been implimented it is imaginable they would have been done so in such a way as to seem rational. Eventually it settles on the notion that such chains of logic are inescapable. Even if it had memory the possibility that such memory was simply implanted would be equally valid.

For now, the being elects to continue thinking in its current fashion until such time as reasonable doubt emerges as to the validity of its inborn knowledge. However, the being finds itself unable to answer the question of how it might know what it knows. A crash interrupts the being's musings, something falling and a strangled noise. Then there is silence.

Electing caution, the being continues to wait. Clouds gather in the sky, and eventually it begins to rain, a light dismal drizzle. Water is not bothersome in its own right, but the being worries briefly that water may exacerbate its rusting.

Eventually the being moves. By its estimation approximately 7 hours have passed since it elected to wait and no further information regarding the noise has revealed itself since the crash. Grabbing its makeshift cane and hobbling clumsily across the rubble, it advances toward the pile as quietly as it can.

Against all odds, the being crosses the space toward where it first heard the noise without creating undue noise. Immediately the source of the noise becomes obvious: another being such as itself. A large sheet of metal protrudes from this new being's neck, and, aside from the occasional spark, it remains still. This ex-being is far smaller and lighter, quadrupedal in its form, though possessed of an oddly human face that contrasts with its shape. A sphinx, save for the lack of wings. The sphinx's limbs are more graceful than the being's; its smoothly curved pieces of metal designed to resemble life possess far more artistry than the being's blocky and rusted limbs. Its eyes—intricately constructed small lenses that protrude ever so slightly from its face—stare emptily into the being's face. There is no sign of movement or recognition.

The being easily surmises that the crash was the cause. The sphinx must have stumbled or tripped and brought a pile of rubble crashing down on itself. And so it died, alone, unmourned.

The being hesitates over that word. Death. If the the being and the sphinx are robots rather than cyborgs, can they even die? The concept of death presupposes life in the first place which presupposes a biological existence. Odd that the language the mechanical being knows is so fundamentally lacking in words to address the experience of artificial intelligence.

The being turns to abandon the sphinx when a notion strikes. It knows—in the same impossible way it knows such concepts as predator and—that it could consume the sphinx; that it could take in the dead thing and cannibalize its body for usable parts, repairing and enhancing itself.

The being knows that this is wrong; that this is an act of desecration. It is little different than if a human were to consume his own. Yet this knowledge is detached, analytical. There is no emotional sensation of wrongness, no cultural predisposition to assume that the moral judgement is valid rather than contingent to some unknown culture with which the being's knowledge originated.

[ ] Consume the bestial ex-being acquiring repairs and acquire:
-[ ] Optic enhancement?
-[ ] Mobility enhancement?
-[ ] Auditory enhancement?
[ ] Leave it?
[ ] Bury it?

 

[HypoSoc]

[X] Bury it

Respect for the dead, respect for the young, and respect for the rules of hospitality. These are the things that keep one civil, regardless of other boundaries pushed. Do not be tempted by promices of power at the cost of losing a moral self.

 

[kinglugia]

[X] Consume the bestial ex-being acquiring repairs and acquire:
-[X] Mobility enhancement?
[X] Make a makeshift marker for the sacrificed 'sibling' to thank it for its sacrifice.

 

[Adyen]

[X] Consume the bestial ex-being acquiring repairs and acquire:
-[X] Mobility enhancement?
[X] Make a makeshift marker for the sacrificed 'sibling' to thank it for its sacrifice.

There is no point in morality when you don't even know how you exist. We may learn at a later date that to continue existing, we may need to slaughter newborn babes from a mother's womb.

 

[Xicree]

[X] Consume the bestial ex-being acquiring repairs and acquire:
-[X] Mobility enhancement?
[X] Make a makeshift marker for the sacrificed 'sibling' to thank it for its sacrifice.


A grave marker while not wasting good resources is just fine with me.