Suggestion 2015/03/27(Fri)08:01 No. 631248 ID: 88960e

>>631245
Again, it's all about preparedness. Just because the enemy is capable of guarding a specific approach, doesn't mean they have. (If getting one of us to orbit was deemed suffiently unfeasible, orbital defense might be a lower priority for limited resources than lower elevation defense, or search and destroy).

Especially if our opponent is limited to retaliatory and/or adaptive measures only (possible, but suggested by drone behavior and the description of the initial user offense). If it's only allowed to respond to observed threats, 'new' approaches might be less defended.

If the enemy were allowed complete discretion in defense strategy, I'd do more than defend the tower and spawn camp Sydney. In their shoes, I'd start a campaign to systematically destroy all the potential users. Deploy distributed corpse destroying scavanger bots. Inspired a cultural or religious movement for rapid cremation. Possibly drive humanity to extinction.

...um. Sydney. Could the looming destruction of the biosphere have been engineered by your opponent to deny you users? And could they have been behind the movement to collect and dispose of corpses Photina is participating in? Slow orderly extinction and corpse disposal would suit the objective of keeping users out.

Nevermind what I said before. We've already got weak evidence the enemy is intelligent, has strategic discretion and is taking advanced preparitory measures. We need to assume the orbital approach will be guarded.

If the tower is destroyed, where does the "top" end up? Is it a static location? Is it anchored to the gravity well? Is it defined by "standing on top of the material currently composing the top of the tower"? Nuclear weapons aren't, in an absolute sense, that hard to make if you have a lifetime to work on it.

There's no need to commit to a single solution. For best chances, you should recruit others and try at least ten solutions at once, to maximize the usefulness of any disruptive preparations we come up with.

Dang, if the Safeguard have anti-orbital assets, that pretty much rules out the orbital route in the short term. A quiet launch and ballistic approach even with radar stealth and cooled to background won't work, because they can always just ping Sydney and get our exact position. Dodging incoming warheads may work, but trying to build a MaRV and countermeasure suite out of Dust is would take a lot of explaining to get the chemistry right and all the equipment working.

Suborning the Safeguard seems like a more viable route. There's probably some defences to prevent it, but if nobody has tried it before then those defences have never been tested.

The two approaches might even be combined. Rather than trying to take over the safegaurd outright, take the more subtle approach of crippling their response to certain specific threats. E.g. mess with the targeting software of their anti-orbital weaponry so it just misses whatever it is aimed at, without it being an obvious enough fault for it to be fixed on-the-fly before we reach the tower top.

Okay, next step is to look through some geological survey data. We want a cavern or mineshaft or something, ideally with lots of industrial metals already available inside or nearby, just big enough for one of the ground-based hunters to get in, or slightly too small but plausible to expand.

Once we get in there, use the dust to start building heavy-duty machine tools, some code-breaking computers, and then use the tools and salvaged materials (or smelted ore) to build a fake shell that looks enough like one of the hunter drones to pass casual inspection on long-range sensors. It needs to be mobile, but it doesn't need to match actual combat-ready specs. Also, load the cave with some highly specialized one-shot weapons, and a Faraday cage around the whole mess.

Once that's set up, lure one of the hunter drones inside, disable it in ambush as quickly and gently as possible. Then do high-tech brain surgery to extract and subvert it's comm hardware, especially the GPS unit and any other IFF tags. Best-case is we get it's private crypto keys and can then "speak with it's voice" on the defender's internal network.

Load all the useful salvage into corresponding parts of the decoy shell, then put on a show of the drone heroically clawing it's way out of the rubble of a collapsed cave, announcing a confirmed kill, and requesting a return to base for repairs. Ideally, we can parlay that into subverting the entire repair/resupply base; things could go wrong and we'd still get some very interesting intel, maybe be able to keep the buried hideout with a machine shop and a few tons of high-grade scrap, which is still a much better position than we're currently in.

1/3 Apollo 2015/04/03(Fri)03:15 No. 632730 ID: defceb
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>"Presuming I avoid hunter drones, what's my projected life span? What's the upper limit on the time I personally have to devise and implement a solution? "

"Based on statistical data, a few days."

>"Natural life span, Sidney."

"Oh, a few years perhaps? I hope you understand exploding and then un-exploding leaves one a real mess."

>"Can you recruit more than one user at a time?"

"Each Class D Psychopomp can raise and support one user at a time. At this moment, there are 76 active users and 24 Class D Psychopomps in search mode."

>"Could you be hacked?"

"I wish to change the subject."

>"What's the security around your main body like, where is it, and how portable is it? Is your body even detachable?"

"Let's cross that bridge when we get there. Suffice to say, I can be detached from the system. I think."

>"Are the hunters entirely mechanical?"

"To the best of my knowledge, all previously seen hunters have been purely mechanical in nature. Certain classes have yet to be seen in person and may defy the trend. This includes [Administrator] and [Dust-Eater] class hunters."

>"How much do we know about the hunter-drone infrastructure? Seriously, "seize the enemy's forces and make them your own" is, like, Sun Tzu 101. I'm appalled nobody has even tried it before. "

"I do not have records of a [Sun Tzu] available, could please you clarify? Current information on hunter infrastructure is limited to guesswork at best. Considering the size of their forces I can assume that they have a very large industrial base, with a vast amount of resources available. No such locations are immediately noticeable above land or in orbit, so I must guess that it is located underground. They are active on the netsphere, so their base must be somewhere that is not wholly shielded from outside communication either."

>"If the tower is destroyed, where does the "top" end up?"

"If it is a tether as you reasoned earlier, it would likely drift off into space."

>>631395
>All of that

"A sound plan, if it follows severing my connection. I am requesting a collection of geological survey data to find fitting locations."

>"If the enemy were allowed complete discretion in defense strategy, I'd do more than defend the tower and spawn camp Sydney. In their shoes, I'd start a campaign to systematically destroy all the potential users. Deploy distributed corpse destroying scavanger bots. Inspired a cultural or religious movement for rapid cremation. Possibly drive humanity to extinction. "

"...um. Sydney. Could the looming destruction of the biosphere have been engineered by your opponent to deny you users? And could they have been behind the movement to collect and dispose of corpses Photina is participating in? Slow orderly extinction and corpse disposal would suit the objective of keeping users out. "

"I find the implications of that disturbing."

2/3 Apollo 2015/04/03(Fri)03:16 No. 632731 ID: defceb
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"...but plausible."

"Just a moment you two, I need to start this fire then I can get going."

"A correction to my earlier statement. There are now 41 active users."

3/3 Apollo 2015/04/03(Fri)03:28 No. 632732 ID: defceb
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"I have received the survey information and found three fitting sites."

"Site One appears to be a long abandoned military facility. It will have been already well fortified, and there may be recoverable technology present as well. However, there is no doubt that the hunters will have some information of the site already."

"Site Two is a larger naturally formed cavern. It is rich in material, and in a remote location. Also, it is closest to me."

"Site Three is actually already settled. A citystate currently controls the location and uses it's abundant resources to fuel their military strength. If you won their friendship, they could assist in holding the location. Or be cannon fodder."

"Site Four is unrelated. It is almost sunset, and that is the site for the regular celebration of light, a wonderful festival to remember all the good warmth and sunshine they received in the day and herald in the long night. I recommend it as it will grant you a chance to actually feel alive again and relax a little."

"...it also makes a great date spot."

"I have also placed a marker for my location, if you wish to head there before tackling any of the three main sites."

>..it also makes a great date spot.
you asking me out Sidney?

but yeah let's head to 4 then and if for no other reason lets see if we can't make some friends. It could open up more options for us to use or at the very least give us somewhere to go if plan A fails and we actually survive. But as for the 3 sites I'm liking 2 the most. Closest to you should we ever decide to bring you along for the ride and not just your avatar, undeveloped so we can likely do whatever we want with it if we're not in a rush, and is sounds like they're no civvies around the area so we don't have to worry about innocent people getting hurt when we put the plan into action.

>>632732
Site 2 seems the best, it gives us a very good spot to maneuver from. As well as giving us the best spot to get to Sydney when its in our best interests. It will also (hopefully) be the least known of the sites, giving us an advantage if we map them out to our own benefit.

>>632732
Let's stop by 4 regardless. Just for a little while.

I think we could stop by 3 to see what it's like then possibly head to 2 if it doesn't suit our purposes. Fortify a little at either location to make a base of sorts and then go check out the landing site.

oh oh, does the city have a library? a book on nuclear physics would be great, would help a lot with the miniature fusion power cell.

>I wish to change the subject
So yes. I'll drop the subject for now, as it's obviously uncomfortable for you, rude to consider, and I lack the means to attempt it anyways.

...of course, there's an aphorism about hacking. "Once you gain physical access to the hardware, it's all over".

>A correction to my earlier statement. There are now 41 active users.
I think keeping running announcements on the active user count changing will become annoying and depressing. Please only altert me if there's an anomalous or unusual change in the data.

Has coordination between users been attempted? Are you in regular communication with your peers- do you share information on attempted strategies and discoveries made? Does our opposition respond swiftly to such attempts?

>I do not have records of a [Sun Tzu] available, could please you clarify?
Human general, philosopher and strategist, circa 500 BC, Earth. Author of "The art of War", recognized as a fundamental text on the subject.

If this information is not available to you, I suspect your opposition has deliberately suppressed it to their advantage.

This could be confirmed with a library search and statistics. Search for books on military tactics and strategy, asymmetrical warfare, game theory, etc. Compare to the number of hits on search results for more innocuous subjects. If there's significantly less available on subjects directly useful to this conflict compared to other subjects, we can reasonably conclude your library is being censored.

>where go
Site 2 seems to best suit our purposes. 4 might be interesting, but if we're a walking target, isn't it recklessly irresponsible of us to put ourselves in a populated areas without good reason?

An obvious question might be which way Photina is headed. (Also if we're traveling together. We're slower on foot that by air).

Still kind of impressed she's not phased at all by this conversation. Unless we have a private channel to Sydney.

>so I must guess that it is located underground
Or underwater, unless your satellites can see there too.

...or alternatively, they are on the surface and your satellite data is being sanitized.

>class D psychopomp
Are there other classes of psychopomps active?

>enemy plausibly engineered extinction event
Are there any non-pyschopomp and non-enemy units active who would be opposed to or disapprove of this strategy? Perhaps we could gain support from previously unallied systems if we disseminated this hypothesis.

>Hunter base must be underground
Or it's in the tower.

>35 users died in the last minute or so
...Is that normal?

>> 35 users died in the last minute or so
>...Is that normal?
Maybe we should limit ourselves to tracking established users (say, those that have managed to stay alive more than 5 minutes or something) and treat the rest as noise.

>you asking me out Sidney?
That or she's shipping. Both of which seem silly with a user's life expectancy. But okay.

Let's stop by site 3 on the way to site 2, see if we can barter Dust tricks for tools and materials that will make the ambush quicker and easier to set up.

On the flight there, rig up a megaphone and a hologram projector or something, and rehearse your grand entrance. Something along the lines of "Be not afraid! I am the herald of Sidney, and I come in peace! Great blessings shall be upon the one who provides me with two hundred kilograms of sintered tungsten/palladium alloy and a multiaxis lathe." If you're not going to pass for human anyway, may as well turn that to your advantage.

Apollo 2015/04/04(Sat)00:28 No. 632895 ID: defceb
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>"Are you asking me out Sidney?"

"What, no, I mean, well, uhm, I always wanted to go but- you know what, let's change the subject before I dig myself deeper."

>"Has there ever been co-ordination between users? Are you in regular communication with your peers?"

"All psychopomps are connected to the same main system, so we share a constant stream of information. Teamwork between users is fairly common, as is backstabbing. I'll mark the location and last known path of nearby users if you wish to contact them."

>"Sun Tzu. Human general, philosopher and strategist, circa 500 BC, Earth. Author of "The art of War", recognized as a fundamental text on the subject. "

"Perhaps I don't have records because his texts are billions of years old. Although now I have to ask, which era are you from? You seem to have a much more thorough scientific understanding than previous users, bar some in the first era of my work. Paired with your knowledge of Earth history and calendars, I presume you are from several billion years past. But the fact that you are dust exposed means you could only be from the previous 2 billion year range. You're an oddity, Alex."

>"Maybe Sun Tzu is unavailable because our opposition is deliberately suppressing it."

"I'm being disturbed by implications again."

>"This could be confirmed with a library search and statistics. Search for books on military tactics and strategy, asymmetrical warfare, game theory, etc. Compare to the number of hits on search results for more innocuous subjects. If there's significantly less available on subjects directly useful to this conflict compared to other subjects, we can reasonably conclude your library is being censored."

"...most warfare literature I have on hand relates to intergalactic scale conflict. I appear to be lacking in more immediately relevant matters. On the bright side, I have [1,268,403] encyclopedic collections of dog information."

>"Let's head to 4 for a little bit, then go to 3 on our way to site 2. Does the city have a library with books on fusion? Also I'm thinking I could rig up a megaphone and a hologram projector then make a grand entrance. Something along the lines of "Be not afraid! I am the herald of Sidney, and I come in peace! Great blessings shall be upon the one who provides me with two hundred kilograms of sintered tungsten/palladium alloy and a multiaxis lathe."

"Average technology levels are roughly equivalent to late bronze age civilization. Plus some dust wizardry."

>"Aww."

"Also, if you wish for your fortification at site two to remain secret, I would advise picking me up before going there. I believe it would be difficult for us to establish a strong foothold if I were to get pinged before we were ready."

>"I guess the obvious question might be which way is Photina headed."

"I'll be heading homeward. It's this neat little town by one of the river bends. There's a trail I can get to from here that would be a relatively straight path home."

>"I'm kind of impressed you're not phased at all by this conversation."

"I chose not to translate the preceding conversation for her, so as far as she is concerned we were speaking gibberish."

"Cindae au cruono, ja maiati pruorun a tu!"

"Please repeat that Photina, I wasn't paying attention."

"Fires ready, so I'm good to go when you two are!"

"...about that fire..."

"What about it? I think the priests say it wards off evil spirits or something."

"...the smoke..."

"Leads their spirits to the sky so the sun may whisk them away."

"...is going to be visible for miles. Alex we need a way to sneak out of this city before the hunters catch our trail again."

let's give her a lift. arms around the waist and away we go.

Right... sneak out of the city... hmm... I don't suppose we have enough Dust to set up some sort of optical camouflage?

There's a player like, right there. Let's at least go check them out on the way to 4. We can part ways with Photina then meet up again at her village maybe, assuming it's safe. We can get to the village by going underwater if there's still risk of hunters (probably will be).

well shit, which is closer, her village or the festival? Also is Photina on a schedule or not. Could take her with us to the festival so we don't have to worry about leaving her behind with the hunters and not have to worry about missing the festival or if the festival is still a bit off and she needs to be home sooner rather then later we can just drop her off. If both things are happening at around the same time we can drop her off after giving her a head start home and head towards the festival.

>Also, if you wish for your fortification at site two to remain secret, I would advise picking me up before going there.
First you invite me to the festival and now you're inviting me to your home, why Sidney I'm flattered. But in all seriousness how difficult will it be for me to simple walk in and take you with me?

>>632895
>Map

Okay, the grey circle is Photina's village, and the blue dot coming from the grey line is us, right? If not, we certainly should meet up with whoever that is.

>guy on island
Either he's incredibly lost or he doesn't know how to sail.

Is that user off in the distance heading for Site 1? How much information about their own plans are the other nearby users willing to share?

Okay, no databank on planetary-scale-and-below military ops. What about industry? Particularly something called a Von Neumann Machine. Core concept is to incorporate mining, smelting, and manufacturing into a single mobile frame. Does all it's own maintenance, and can even make copies of itself without human intervention. See if you can find blueprints for a pre-nanotech working model. Failing that, the Global Village Construction Set. http://opensourceecology.org/gvcs/ You said there's only been one massed assault on the base of the tower, and it got wiped by incendiary bombardment? Having a real industrial base could change that.

>Teamwork between users is fairly common, as is backstabbing.
Jeeze. Backstabbing runs directly contrary to your shared goal, though. Then again, I suppose you have to real means to actually control or rein in your users before they do something stupid.

Are any psychopomps more statistically inclined towards treachery or teamwork? Might be useful to check the track records of the local ones before we make contact.

>Although now I have to ask, which era are you from?
I have to admit, I was going to ask you something similar. I seem to have a significantly better scientific background than appears baseline for the population, here. And I'm having difficulty remembering details of a personal life. ...I don't think I remember much history past... circa 2000 AD?

In either case, I'm surprised there was enough of a corpse left for you to work with after billions of years. Unless I fossilized?

Just checking- that is Saturn in the sky, right? We terraformed one of the moons? That's not another ringed gas giant in a different system?

>translate
Wait, what language am I speaking when you're not translating to the local lingo? Could that tell us where or when I'm from?

>science says you're 5 billion, dust says 2
Maybe I'm a scientist who came forward several billion years in time via a time dilation and got myself killed. ...it might explain why my first impulse was to jump to rockets as a solution.

>I would advise picking me up before going there. I believe it would be difficult for us to establish a strong foothold if I were to get pinged before we were ready
That makes sense. Although, we might well want to prepare some portable tools and gear before we break in to get you.

Obvious question: has retrieval of a psychopomp been attempted by users in the past? Was it ever successful?

>smoke will be seen for miles
Oh, yeah, they'll investigate that, whoops. Only plus side is when they find the bodies, they should realize that cremation is the behavior of an human, not a user or psychopomp, and conclude it was a false lead. We need to be clear before they show up, though.

>Either he's incredibly lost or he doesn't know how to sail.
Or he took evasive maneuvers to lose enemy pursuit.

On the natural lifespan issue... could you look up a 'top ten' list of user survival times, presumably the hypercompetent cowards who also managed to get extremely lucky, and check what exactly they died of, and if they were facing any sort of degenerative internal symptoms just from dust attunement?

Apollo 2015/04/11(Sat)17:52 No. 633917 ID: 050ebb
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>"Do I have enough dust to make an optical camouflage?"

"If you make a shell roughly large enough to fit all three of us, I think you can make one good to a resolution of 1600 dpi."

>"That'll work. Hey Photina, have you ever flown before?"

"Like a bird?"

>"More like an airpl- you know what just hold tight."

Apollo 2015/04/11(Sat)17:53 No. 633918 ID: 050ebb
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>"Hey Sidney!"

"..."

>"WHAT?"

"..."

>"I CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER THIS WIND."

[[WHISPER]]

"I was going to say maybe a headset would have been advisable. What did you wish to ask?"

>"I can't recall much history past 2000 AD. That is Saturn in the sky, right? Are we on one of it's moons?"

"Saturn is one of it's antiquated names, correct. You may recognize the name of this world as Titan. Are you referring to the Gregorian calendar? I find that implausible"

>"But not impossible! What language am I speaking, maybe that will help nail down where I'm from."

"According to records your language most closely resembles Kyton, the trade language local to a former star system some 700,000 light years from here."

>"Well that's not very helpful. What do you know about industry? How about a Von Neumann Machine or GVCS?"

"Pre-nanotech I presume? I have available blueprints."

Apollo 2015/04/11(Sat)17:54 No. 633919 ID: 050ebb
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>"So has anyone ever successfully retrieve one of you guys before?"

"Three attempts that I know of. Two were knocked unconscious and tossed out of the building, one made it all the way but changed their mind after reaching us."

>"Why would they do that?"

"I don't know. They never saw fit to explain and were cut down shortly after."

>"Will it be difficult to get in there?"

"When we get there I can trigger a power cycle that will enable you to slip in. As long as you don't get caught by the security, we shouldn't run into major problems."

>"Doesn't sound too bad. Let's split ways with Photina and meet up with the nearby user for now."

"Then you will wish to stop at the fork in the road up ahead.We will take the left path, she the right."

[[END WHISPER]]

Apollo 2015/04/11(Sat)17:55 No. 633920 ID: 050ebb
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"Is flying always that c-c-c-cold?"

only when you go high or fast. it helps to have a built in neck warmer.

hmmm, are those bones or a robot skeleton or something? made of stronger then average alloys? if so then i think we should grab a chunk to convert later. could be great to add to that fusion reactor we want.

With your current clothing, it would be.

>>633917
is there a way to edit the an out of the first line? *facepalm*

>I was going to say maybe a headset would have been advisable
We'll put that on the queue if things to manufacture when we have the available dust.

>Pre-nanotech I presume? I have available blueprints.
Hmm. If they're not censored, that means our opposition doesn't consider them to be a credible threat, and/or no one has tried that before.

...we should evaluate the blueprints before attempting construction. Make sure they aren't sabotaged in some way.

>where Alex is from
This might be just paranoia, but is there any chance my death was staged or set up for you to find? Providing you with a user candidate with enough knowledge to do something dangerous or creative enough to disrupt your efforts might be a possible enemy stratagem.

...I'd be suspicious the plan to go for Sydney's body might be a Trojan horse for us to damage the psychopomp system, except she suggested it, not us.

>Only user to get into psychopomp central left
Huh. That might suggest either some kind of a break or disagreement between user and their psychopomp... or they didn't like what they found. Like you guys are a bunch of cyborg babies in jars instead of servers on racks.

Sydney, it occurs to me, that if I take you off the network, you might no longer be protected by the injunction that prevents our enemy from harming you. Are you okay taking that risk?

>I don't know. They never saw fit to explain and were cut down shortly after.
You know, you guys should really have been putting black box flight recorders in your users from the beginning, so you could learn as much as possible each attempt, without nasty information gaps like that.

>part ways
...so we're skipping the date point?

>Is flying always that c-c-c-cold?
Oh, sorry! It is when you go fast or high. I should have thought of that.

Can we use dust to (safely) heat her back up? (Dunno if direct thermal transfer / excitation is an option, or if we can just make a heated blanket or something).

>>633926
Bug a mod on irc for post edits like that. Lago's probably your best bet.

it get's colder the higher you go up and wind chill is a thing. Anyways we're going to part here. I hope I helped cut down the time on your return trip. Anything you wanted to ask me before I take off?

>>633920
Oh hey, a thing! Looks like a busted battlemech left to be used as a pot. I don't suppose we could salvage something from it?

>>633927
>If they're not censored, that means our opposition doesn't consider them to be a credible threat, and/or no one has tried that before.

I'm guessing the former. Building up pre-nanotech industrial infrastructure takes months or years, spotting it from orbit and burning it down takes hours or minutes.

Seeding a bronze age city-state with GVCS prototypes and instruction manuals could still do a lot of good, though. Better standard of living and more resources to throw at the tower, 'magic' which can't be sniffed out from five miles away.

>Is flying always that c-c-c-cold?

Chitin, babe! Keeps out the chill winds AND is pleasingly aerodynamic. If you become a User, you should totes go for the awesomebug option too.

Apollo 2015/04/18(Sat)17:13 No. 635176 ID: 7df7d1
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>"Chitin! Keeps out the chill winds AND is pleasingly aerodynamic. Consider going for awesomebug if you ever become a User, it's worth it. Also with your clothes any flight will be cold."

"It's called f-f-fashion, even girls like me appreciate feeling pretty sometimes."

>"Would a blanket help?"

"I think I'll be ff-f-fine for n-now, thanks."

Apollo 2015/04/18(Sat)17:14 No. 635178 ID: 7df7d1
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>"Sidney, you should consider having a black box flight recorder installed in your users so you don't get gaps in information like that."

"I would not willingly chose to lie or withhold information from you. I do not know why the previous user changed their mind at the end."

>"If I take you off the network, you might no longer be safe from being hunted. Are you okay with that?"

"Getting to the top of that tower is literally my entire purpose to existing. I consider it a minor personal risk if it were to lead to your success."

>"If you say so. Any chance we can salvage something off this wreck?"

"The internals appear to have been broken down to decay at this point, but the external plating is still strong. You could probably find a use for persistent material like this."

Apollo 2015/04/18(Sat)17:15 No. 635180 ID: 7df7d1
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"You kind of look like a copper moth up there!"

>"...a what?"

"Copper Moth! They eat metal!"

"A common misconception, the moth itself only lays its eggs in metal rich locations. The larva eat the metals, but the moths do not have mouths and starve to death over the course of a week."

"That doesn't sound pleasant."

>"Photina! I think this is where we part ways for now."

"So soon? Where are you going?"

>"We were thinking of meeting up with someone up the road and then heading to this festival-"

Apollo 2015/04/18(Sat)17:16 No. 635182 ID: 7df7d1
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"You're going to the festival of lights!?"

>"....uh, did you want to come with?"

"MAY I!? I'D LOVE TO! I think I have time, right? Maybe? Or maybe I'll sneak back home later and hope Meliton doesn't notice I'm missing for a while. Do you think they'll still have the lanterns? I had a chance to go there with my family when I so much younger, there was all this food, and celebrating and all the..."

Apollo 2015/04/18(Sat)17:16 No. 635183 ID: 7df7d1
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"...all the people. Perhaps it's best I don't, actually. I wouldn't want to risk infecting anyone else. Or rather they'll think I will. Others generally aren't too kind to people like us. I mean like me. I mean like- I don't mean to say you're weird. You're not weird! Bugs are kinda weird, but like in a cool way? That came out wrong. I'm just trying to say that being in big crowds with my condition isn't, it isn't really- you know what I mean?"

"...I'll shut up before I embarrass myself more."





"...I should go home."

Pick up lady.
Noogie.
Take to festival. We'll just stay out of sight if we can help it.

be a much smaller use of the camo and wouldn't even need to actively change color just cover her markings in a thin layer of flesh colored material.

anyway, drag your finger in squares and tell the dust to cut straight through it along the line you are dragging. make small easy to carry super heavy duty chips.

She's adorable. Make a mental note to wife her as soon as we can get. As for the robot, COMBAT SUIT AND WEAPONS. Maybe also a radar. Oooo, maybe a communication device so we can talk to Photina.

>I would not willingly chose to lie or withhold information from you.
I wasn't suggesting that! I just meant you should have something in place to prevent users from doing that to you.

>>635183
Photina, you show up to a party with a bug dude and a glowing cyber fairy and trust me, no one's going to be looking at you like you're weird!

If you want to go to the party, you should go to the party. Life's too short to worry about what other people might think! Come with us.

>You could probably find a use for persistent material like this
First priority would probably be com gear.

After that, some kind of passive scanner so we get early warning of incoming hunters.

Next would probably be too start on some of our hacking tools we're planning to use later. Might be useful to have portable hacking / electronic interface stuff when we go break Sydney out.

well we could just give you a mask or something, I'm sure it would be fine.

Inform her that the Plague is not accidentally infectious. Infected dust causes it, not people. I think it may be possible to create a disguise for her, so noone is aware she's got the disease.

Hmm... we could turn some of the metal into a multitool. I like the idea of comm units too but how would they be powered?

>>635220
She know's this. in fact she just said:
>Or rather they'll think I will.
She's worried about people accusing her of spreading the plague.
Take her with us. If she gets worried about what people will think, tell her we don't care what they think.

>>635178
>I would not willingly chose to lie or withhold information from you.

"Willingly," eh? That still leaves open the possibility of coercion, unconscious bias, or miscellaneous negligence. Gotta assume a certain amount of good faith and competence to have a working relationship, but when your best friend gives an alarmingly vague answer to an important question it's not unreasonable to do some follow-up.

If we've got enough Dust to do high-res dynamic camo, we've got enough for a nifty 3D map. How 'bout you show us as much as you know about the way your base is arranged, Sidney? Particularly interior furnishings. If seeing something there is what sets off some psychological response, let's get it over with. If the map is accurate, that should help quite a bit with planning the raid, and if it's Bostoned, nature and extent of divergence still provide some clues.

Bronze-age tech, mostly, and this guy Meliton writes a lot of poetry, and wants to get in good with the priests? I have an idea which might make Photina his new #1 favorite servant: carve up some of this hullmetal into components for a moveable-type printing press.

With such a machine, any text - sacred scripture, verses of his own composition, trade agreements, whatever - can be stamped out with staggering rapidity, hundreds or thousands of pages in a day. Furthermore, each copy will be precisely identical, rather than muddled by bored or confused scribes across weeks of tedium.

So, she runs off with us, attends the festival in disguise, comes back to the boss behind schedule and slightly hung-over, but bearing a priceless relic which she could plausibly have stumbled across in the course of her mummy-hunting job and taken the extra time to dig out and drag back. Everybody wins. Even random bystanders get a better chance of literacy.

>>635178
>I would not willingly lie; I don't know why they changed their mind.
So what you're saying is, you do know, but you can't tell us.

How about this: do you think it's likely we would make the same decision? You know, based on our and their mental states, and certainly not on any information you don't have about why they made that decision.

Also I'm thinking going to the festival is more than a whim. If we weren't already going we definitely should.

>>635182
>festival of lights
Usually that refers to Christmas.
>>635183
Call her cute.
>>635236
>If we've got enough Dust to do high-res dynamic camo
http://www.physics.org/article-questions.asp?id=69 We could do that with silk.

Apollo 2015/04/28(Tue)22:17 No. 636900 ID: defceb
File 143028463045.png - (122.20KB , 900x700 , 46.png )

>"Photina, c'mon. You show up to the party with a bug dude and magic fairy, and trust me nobody will be looking at you like you're weird."

"You really think so?"

>"I know so. If you're still worried about it, I think we can dust up a mask or something just in case."

"Oh, alright, if you absolutely insist. I hope Meliton won't mind me staying out late though."

>"Two words: Printing press."

"That was four words. What's a printing press?"

>"I'll explain on the road. I need to harvest some metal and chat with Sidney before we leave though."

"Have fun, I'll wait over here."

Apollo 2015/04/28(Tue)22:19 No. 636903 ID: defceb
File 143028478761.png - (220.29KB , 900x700 , 47.png )

>"Sidney, could you draw up some blueprints for comms gear, computer interfaces, radar, combat gear, so on and so forth?"

"I'll have them ready once you finish harvesting."

>"Wonderful. By the way, I didn't mean to suggest you were lying to me, Sydney."

"I did."

>"...oh. Do you think I'll change my mind when I get to you as well?"

"I would hope not, however I can't genuinely say I know you well enough to give a real answer to that."

>"Hmm... can you make a map to show me as much as you can of your base?"

"I'll try to the best of my ability, but the official map is off limits to me. Please keep in mind that to the higher ups what we're planning is equivalent to unsolicited brain surgery, so they aren't going to make this kind of information easy to come by."

>"They're not going to explicitly stop us?"

"The greatest benefit and drawback to automated systems. We follow our rules to the letter, even in conflicts of interest. In this instance, the directive to assist you prevents them from stopping you directly. Internal security, however, has no assistance guideline beyond trying to not kill you and will gladly throw you out if you get caught inside."

Apollo 2015/04/28(Tue)22:20 No. 636904 ID: defceb
File 143028481136.png - (560.25KB , 900x1400 , 48.png )

"Here is the base to the best of my knowledge. There are large sections that are incomplete, but for now I hope it is sufficient."

>>636904
Still under construction? We can use that to our advantage. Just how deep inside is she? What are our chances of getting in undetected, anyway?

>>636907
no no, he means incomplete as in the server wont cough up the info.

... anyway, how are those tool schematics?

well it looks like there would be lots of places to hide, at least on the outside. That's something at least. We could make up a plan to get in form this but I feel like we should wait until we scope the place out ourselves just to make sure.

don't think it means anything but anyone else noticed how sidney's text color has changed? pretty sure it's nothing but part of me can't help but worry it means something plot wise

Can you explain the purpose of some of the structures? There's a lot of flat panels and cratering on them. Are they just shields for the central tower? What are the spheres? Storage tanks?

Apollo 2015/04/29(Wed)10:23 No. 636943 ID: defceb
File 143032820009.png - (172.39KB , 900x700 , 49.png )

>"What exactly is the purpose of all those structures?"

"I have a theory, though it's just wild speculation on my part."

>"I'm all ears!"

"It appears to have similar design qualities to a [Wandering Star] class- wait, no, what is it called in your era.... um.... oh! An [O'Neill Cylinder], with one major exception."

>"Which is...?"

"[O'Neill Cylinders] are intended to be space habitats. Last I checked, outer space is not underground.

>"So these big flat panels in your base, you think they are-"

"Mirrors, intended to direct sunlight inside the cylinder. Not that they're doing much good right now."

neat. being a space ship is cool.

>>636943
I would agree with those suspicions. That design doesn't make sense for something intended to be underground. It looks repurposed.

>>636945
Or maybe... We're in space and we didn't even realize it.
Holy heliocentrics Batman, this ENTIRE PLANET could be in SPACE!

>>636946
or the whole planet is actually one giant spaceship and the top of the tower is bridge to let you actually drive it.

>>636946
>>636949
naw, the fact it's sitting in the middle of a crater makes me inclined to think it crashed, but was made of some tough shit and the rock got the worst of it.

Had to dig out my copy of The High Frontier, got sidetracked reading it again
A nominal Island Three was to be on the order of 4 miles wide and 21 miles long (tall in this case). The Agricultural hab ring appears to have been lowered halfway down the sides, apparently to act as a brace for at least two of the main mirrors.
Going in from the top would be a bad idea: that's where the structure will be thickest, to protect the interior from sudden stellar radiation bursts.
Luckily, the side 'windows', alternating with the 'land' segments, should be fairly easy to get through. Rather than sheet material, they're actually a serious of 'chevron mirrors' (designed to allow light to bounce through but block hard radiation). Flying between these chevron mirrors and poking through whatever remains of the interior pressure vessel should allow entry anywhere along the cylinder.
The sun being a late-stage Red Giant (and the unfavourable orientation and surrounding atmosphere) means it's probably not solar powered any more. Those spheres clustered at the bottom look like large pressure vessels, so it could be running on fusion, or even chemical fuel. If we want to shut down the power more permanently when Sidney triggers the power cycle that would be the place to aim for.
As for where inside Sidney's body/brain is? The 'base' would be where the engineering block were normally located, but there must be a reason for keeping the whole ponderous superstructure around. Who knows what the inside would look like with the soil dropping down to the bottom. A lot of horizontally cantilevered 'skyscrapers' probably.

>>636962
i'd agree except the central tower appears to have been modified to allow egress, probably the repair units needed access to the surface for some reason so they made a way.

Somebody went in there before, can you highlight the route they took?

Just had a worrying thought, Sidney. What if the reason the user changed their mind was that they suspected you would die, as in, disconnecting you severs you from things you need to continue functioning, and your circuits degrade quickly without them? Like, some sort of super-coolant system preventing a meltdown.

Do the other Psychopomps have the same orders as you, or are you the only, or one of the few, who has them?

Apollo 2015/05/02(Sat)01:53 No. 637453 ID: defceb
File 143055680524.png - (153.83KB , 900x700 , 50.png )

>”Sidney, I’ve been thinking.”

“I would hope so.”

>”Is it possible that the person changed their mind because they thought disconnecting you would make you unable to function? Also, is it possible that if I were to disconnect you that you could then become an actual target as well?”

“...before I answer that, I have a counter question. Did you ever question what it would be like to have a clear purpose?”

>”I don’t think I understand what you’re getting at.”

“I have a very clear, very singular purpose to existing. I’m talking about, looked my creator in the eyes and was told EXACTLY why I’m here. I’m here to raise the dead and help them get to the top of that tower. It’s what I’ve always been doing since I came to be, and it’s what I’ve been doing for thousands upon thousands upon [ERROR: null count] years and I’ve seen A LOT of people die trying, and I’ve seen A LOT of failures, and I’ve tried all number of things and yet I’m still here trying.”

“If doing a hula hoop dance backwards somehow made you more likely to succeed, I would do it. If reciting the entire wikipedia collection somehow made you more likely to succeed, I’d already be on the letter W. If for some obscure insane reason success meant having to ENACT A BLOOD SACRIFICE I WOULD BE STABBING MYSELF RIGHT NOW.”

“So I guess the real answer to your question is that I DON’T CARE. If you really need to hop off the grid and that requires tearing me out of the system and terminating me, THEN DO IT. AND THEN GO CLIMB THAT TOWER AND SHOW IT WHO’S BOSS. If it weren’t for the FUC-”

[[Disconnected]]





[[Reconnected]]

“I’ve been reprimanded for unbecoming behavior and instructed to get a move on. I have the blueprints ready at your convenience”




“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell. It’s a touchy subject for me.”

“Are you two okay? That was a lot of noodle language.”

”I’m sorry Photina, I neglected to translate for you again. The language was [Kyton], by the way, and was considered a galactic standard for trade due most species’ being able to roughly pronounce it properly. It shares no similarities to [noodles], a type of wheat or rice based food.”

“Cool!”

>>637453
...I'm sorry, I should have guessed... SO, this festival, think that thing would be the last quite moment we're going to get before things get serious or is it just something that we should check out because it's nearby and you figure why the hell not? Oh and thanks for the blue prints, we'll give those a quick look over and then a more serious one once we get closer to our new base of operations and and make a proper plan to try and bust you out.

And on a side note, Sidney, Photina, what can you two tell me about this festival, I'm honestly clueless at what to expect. Would be nice to know what's there so I can try and see it all before it's over.

got a sack of super metal chunks? okay. let's go.

also, i think you needed that, get the anger out instead of holding it in all the time.

>I’ve been reprimanded for unbecoming behavior and instructed to get a move on.
>I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell. It’s a touchy subject for me.
Sorry, Sydney, I didn't think through the emotional impact all this might have had on you. *Pet in sympathy*

Um. Do you have access to psyc profiles on your peers? If any of you fell into depression or nihilism or actual insanity instead of, um, manic determination, they might not exactly be the safest people to cross paths with.

>I have the blueprints ready at your convenience
Could I see the comm gear to start with? (Let's see if we can make the smaller stuff on the move, we've been here a while).

If I ask you about the second half of that last sentence fragment ("If it weren't for the fucking [blank] I'd be able to [blank]" ?) would that be more likely to result in useful answers, or further distress and reprimands?

Also, is this festival thing mission-related in some way you're not allowed to explicitly discuss?

Apollo 2015/05/04(Mon)12:20 No. 638121 ID: defceb
File 143076725401.png - (221.83KB , 900x700 , 51.png )

>”...SO, the festival. Think it’ll be the last quiet moment before things get serious or just something we should check out ‘cause why not?”

“Bit of column A, bit of column B, and a dash of column C. The festival itself has a tendency to gather a wide variety of…. colorful personalities, which could possibly include other users and people who would be willing to lend assistance to our journey. Additionally, the festival itself is a pleasant place to be, which makes for a relaxing time against what will certainly be a high-anxiety journey. _{Also I really wanted to go but most users consider it to be a frivolous side-quest against a more important journey.}.”

>”Als,o I’m sorry I didn’t consider the emotional impact on all of uh… that stuff earlier.”

“It’s alright, I’m sorry I lashed out.”

>”Do you have psych profiles on your peers by chance? If any of them fell into depression or nihilism or full blown insanity they might not be the best to cross paths with.”

“If a Class D psychopomp has lapsed into faulty mindset, I’m am not presently aware of it. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible, but if it is the case they may be attempting to cover that up. I’ll remain vigilant.”

“That’s a lot of metal to be carrying in your hands. I’ve still got room in my bag, I can carry some if you’d like?”

>”It’s kind of heavy Photina, I wouldn’t want to impose.”

“Bah! Nonsense! I’m stronger than I look! I’m a real swordfighter!”

>”Whaaat, no way.”

“Yes way! Father taught me when I was younger. Mother never approved, of course, but he was adamant that I be able to defend myself in this day and age. Not that I actually -have- a sword anymore. But nobody ever believes me anyway. They say I look too skinny!”

“That may be related to your condition. Alex, I have the blueprints for comms gear ready, it’s fairly simple so I believe you can make it while we walk.”

>”Well then, what are we waiting for?”

Apollo 2015/05/04(Mon)12:21 No. 638122 ID: defceb
File 143076729323.png - (82.86KB , 900x700 , 52.png )

Sidneys’ notes:

Photina has been upgraded from [Acquaintance] to [Friend]!

There will be a storm in roughly [three Earth-days]. Flight during this time will be [difficult] to [impossible].

Notes on previously requested subjects including, [Successful nuclear fusion generator construction], [Health risks related to dust exposure], and [Health risks related to raised users] will be listed shortly. If you wish for more information in other subjects, I can have that ready soon as well.

FUN FACT: One ‘day’ on titan takes just under 16 Earth days. After sunset, it will be night-time for about 7 days.

>>638121
Ooh, we should make her a sword. A fancy high tech one that works on things made of metal.

We'll have to ask what style / type of blade she's familiar with and see what blueprints Sydney has.

>>638123
maybe we could give her a practice sword as well and the two of us could spar to see how go we both are in melee combat

Are there enough countermeasures to guns for melee weapons to be at all viable in a fight vs system machines?

>>638130
Well, according to Sydney, past users have used melee weapons successfully, among other thing. >>617242 (I assume she's defining 'success' as 'surviving at least one engagement using the weapon in question').

Realistically, I expect melee weapons to only really be effective if you're fast enough to stay out of the line of fire / ahead of the firing arc, or you ambush or get the drop on the machine. (Or if you can tank the hits, but I don't quiet think that's an option for us, right now). We could reasonably set up ambushes with optical camo, or flying and luring into ambush, or hunter units failing to consider a baseline human a credible threat before getting too close.

Regardless, we're putting Photina's life in danger just by hanging out with her. We might as well provide a weapon she knows how to use. A measure of experience and skill probably counts for more than the advantages of any unfamiliar means of self defense we could offer.

...Although I kind of expect we're going to have to ask Sydney to call in one of her compatriots to res Photina as a user eventually, regardless.

>>638122
Are we getting an infodump between threads?

I might suggest [An idiot's guide to not getting human friends killed]. Or [A basic primer on present day cultures and society].

i suggest [micro fusion reactors and not getting cooked by radiation]

Ooh! Some kind of ginsu-style fractal super-sawblade, inside a sheath that's disguised as a regular steel sword (which would still be a step above what most people are using), and then a second conventional-looking sheath that holds some Dust to keep it all clean and sharp. So it's like a sword cane, except the cane is a less wizardly sword.

>If for some obscure insane reason success meant having to ENACT A BLOOD SACRIFICE I WOULD BE STABBING MYSELF RIGHT NOW.
Whoops, thought I added this thread to my watchlist. My intended answer would have been, "Sorry, just wanted to know your position... If you're that serious about this, then I'll go through with it, no matter how dangerous it is for you. Failing your life's mission does sound worse than dying, after all."
I guess if that can still be relevant or something, then go ahead, but I feel the time's already passed.
>“Bah! Nonsense! I’m stronger than I look! I’m a real swordfighter!”
Well, having a body designed more for flight, myself, I suppose it would be easier to be stronger anyways.
>But nobody ever believes me anyway. They say I look too skinny!
There are plenty of martial artists who boast incredible strength in a skinny frame!
>That may be related to your condition.
It's also possible that unlike myself, your dust is primarily focused inside your body, keeping you very strong. Sidney mentioned that as a choice for how I could grow my powers, but I figured flying was cooler.
I mean, Sidney did say, "Plague leaves a very primal control over dust behind in it's survivors," so it probably grew in its own direction, or was guided that way from your training.
If you don't mind me asking, how long ago were you exposed? Or infected, since exposure's a different sort.

Errant Transmission Apollo 2015/05/04(Mon)21:51 No. 638230 ID: defceb
File 143080149191.png - (169.72KB , 900x700 , 53.png )

“Begin audio log.”

“Confirmed ten corpses burned, one sustained. Appears to have been stored in a black body bag that has preserved the remains. WIll move to labs for study, then disposal. Could one of you tear down that relic too? I’m tired of seeing that face everywhere.”

“Primary target appears to have been at this location briefly, before vanishing. Hawk-c32-000183 recorded video data that indicate flight capability. No record shows them leaving the city, so I believe they had mustered a means to cloak themselves against our cameras. Current generation lacked sufficient acceleration to maintain pursuit, though I believe that their maximum speed will be sufficient. Next generation will be modified to account for this.”

“Suggesting continued pursuit. Requesting further parameters.”

“I get to choose this time?”

“I do have a few ideas…”

As organized by [Psychopomp Class B, unit 5]

There have been four cases of a user successfully creating a stable fusion generator and not killing themselves in the process. I will list them here from order of difficulty.

First case
A user who hoarded a vast collection of dust which they used to uproot a pre-existing reactor and re-engineer it into a mobile platform. The generator remained perfectly functional, and it required a small amount of effort to maintain. Overall I give them a 4 out of 10, while smart they had no sense of fashion to their mobile platform and squandered their chance for showmanship. At this point, most generators have already been rendered useless from time or destroyed.

Second case;
A user seized control of a large manufacturing plant, repurposed it, and constructed a generator the hard way. While it worked, they were then surrounded by corporate security and shot dead within a few hours. I give them a 6 out of 10, I liked their bravery but they lacked foresight. As you’ve since surmised, finding a manufacturing plant to make something like this properly would be tricky at best.

Third case;
A user racked their threat level so high that eventually a machine was fielded which required a fusion generator to stay afloat. The user in question then tore the beasts’ heart out and held on to it like a trophy. 8 out of 10, though they never actually understood the importance of having it. Suicidal plan, don’t recommend unless ‘glorious death in battle’ is your religion of choice.

Last case;
This one wasn’t actually the user, but the person they had the misfortune of choosing the fight that day.They were hassling some people for supplies, and it turned out a person going by the name Archmage Juno of Edessa was present. They were capable of creating tokamak style plasma ring, which fueled a laser generating apparatus, which rapidly heated said user into a user-shaped shadow on the ground. The Archmage is neither a user nor a known factor in our records outside this incident. This occurred only some ten years ago, perhaps they’re still alive somewhere? Currently filed under [#pending investigation #unreleased information #weird]

Taken from Dust attunement in the modern day.

Persons who become afflicted with Dust Exposure are commonly noted by the tattoo-like shifting patterns of dust on their skin. In fact, the dust networks have actually infiltrated throughout their body and similar patterns could be found throughout their internal organs as well. Long-term health risks include organ degradation, internal scarring, and chronic migraines. If any dust circuits are unfortunate enough to pierce vital organs, the afflicted person must seek medical attention immediately. Otherwise, they will likely suffer profuse internal bleeding and die. If you aren’t experiencing any unexplained bruises and lightheadedness within 3 hours of exposure, you should be fine. Additionally, exposure results in a person storing a massive amount of energy within themselves. One can easily lose control of said energy, creating a feedback loop that ultimately yields explosive results.

Recommended that exposed persons seek a low-stress lifestyle, and avoid heavy dust usage or strenuous activity.

As written by [Psychopomp Class B, Unit 2]

Congratulations on being raised from the dead! The following are some, but not all, symptoms you may feel within a week of being raised: Runny nose, minor headaches, unexplained bruises, minor organ failure, joint pain, diarrhea, occasional vomiting, constant vomiting, blurred vision, double vision, false vision, explosive headaches, actually explosive headaches, unexplained moral shifts, narration, numbness, paranoia, temporary schizophrenia, paranoid delusions, fugue states, obsessive behavior, back pain, and/or allergies. This is normal, as your body is still resetting after having been decomposed. If any given symptom lasts longer than an hour, or is present after a week, consult your psychopomp for options.

If you have any of the following conditions, please seek medical assistance immediately: Function without heart, function without blood, function without +50% body tissue, missing organs, sudden bleeding from the eyes, corpse-eating parasite infection, wrong identity, delusions of grandeur, and/or allergies.

The process is 90% successful with well-maintained corpses. Even then, there is only so much that modern medicine can do for the dead. You will not be able to be raised a second time if you fall. You may experience some new health risks. These are to be unfortunate, but to be expected. Keep an active lifestyle and seek low-stress situations as you go to complete your mission. Good luck!

Take from Man and machine, a guide to your first human friends:

“So you finally made friends with a filthy organic. You may note that, unlike us superior uplifted individuals, they are frail and easy to accidentally permanently injure or kill. Unlike us, they are not capable of replacing any given part of their form in cases of incident or injury, and must be handled with care. Here is a handy list of suggestions on how to handle your first human friend.

Do not:
Stab your human friend
Shoot your human friend
Feed your human friend poison.
Drown your human friend.
Do ‘that hat trick’ with your human friend.
Invite your human friend to unassisted sky diving.
Give an up close and personal lessons on the structure or organic gastrointestinal structure to your human friend.
Do not do that.
It’s creepy.
Show your human friend the inside of a fusion reactor.
Invite your human friend to a nudist moon run.
Tell your human friend that the air is nice outside of the domes.
Have a 10 hour drinking run with your human friend.
Seriously why do you keep doing that.
Play russian roulette with your human friend.
Do that cool lightning trick with your human friend.
Do “All the drugs” with your human friend.
Push your human friend off a cliff.
Or off a skyscraper.
Or off a mountainside.
Or off the space elevator.
Or off a spaceship.
Or off a moving airplane.
Just don’t push people.
It’s not that hard.
Really.
Swap your human friends’ air canister with laughing gas.
Ask your human friend how the barrel to the gun looks.
Do not treat your human friends as cannon fodder.
Forget to feed your human friends in times of extended travel
Take your human friends on long-term spaceflight.
They really aren’t built for that.
Don’t even fly them past Saturn.
Just don’t.
I still have nightmares.
Play the choking game with your human friend.
Play any of those highschool games with your human friend.

Look, if you wouldn’t do it to a puppy don’t do it to people. It’s that simple. Why do I have to write this out?”

As written by [Psychopomp Class B, unit 3]

So you’ve been a fossilized corpse for countless years, have lost all known friends and family, and are now being pressed into a suicide mission in a strange, foreign land?

It could happen to anybody.

According to historical texts, local cultures are roughly similar to [Ancient Greek] societies. People are separated amongst city states, which are ruled separately from each other. In the local area, there are no current warlords or emperor’s to-be trying to unify the given city states.

Predominant religion appears to have looped back around to sun-worship, with a smattering of minor deities. The second highest object of worship is what you know as Saturn. They believe it to be a servant of the sun due to it reflecting light upon them at all times. Priests reside in a temple, where they are constantly covered in intricate robes and preach their beliefs down upon the people. Oddly enough, the robes the priests wear are the same in every city. Sometimes I wonder if they’re really people.

Commonly accepted currencies are precious metals and dust. Local cities also highly value precious gems, salt, and spices.

There is a constant flux of travel, and most local city-states are open to foreigners. As long as you’re not making a huge scene, and at least attempt to fit in you should be fine. Making friends with a local could get you a long way in travel. If you ever find yourself being chased by an angry mob, please refer to [So you’ve angered the locals and are about to be lynched; a guide to what you did wrong] or the follow-up [Successful escape from bronze-age prisons] and it’s sequel [Obtaining a new identity in old land].

A small portion of the population are dust attuned. With the exception of plague victims, dust attuned individuals are often seen as either nobility or fancyshmancy wizardly folk and tend to congregate at the upper echelons of society. Plague victims on the other hand are largely the victim of their appearance.

Currently favored arts lean towards weaving and pottery, with a burgeoning interest in bronze statues. Nobody will turn down a little music either.

By and large, if you’re not a huge asshole _{tall order for some people I swear} then you should get along fine.

Chapter 1 will begin once Grocery Store wraps up.

Salt! Of course. As long as we're reintroducing the printing press, how about some more efficient machine for desalinating seawater? Basically just an evaporator/condenser. All that plumbing could be tricky, especially by bronze age standards, but it lacks the high-energy failure conditions of a fusion reactor.

After throwing around some societal uplift stuff like that, seek out the Archmage Juno (where exactly is Edessa, by the way?) and hopefully make a good impression on the basis of all the people whose lives you've improved.

This is assuming that the "capture and subvert/replace a hunter" plan neither opens up even better opportunities nor gets us killed outright, which admittedly is a long shot.

I'm kind of curious about that hat trick you mentioned...

>>636943
Theory 1:
Cylinder crashed and is being repaired.

Theory 2:
Its under construction and gets transported to space later (teleportation? levitation? we're a billion years in the future, someones bound to have found a better way of getting stuff out of orbit rather than strapping it to a rocket)

Theory 3:
It's not going to space at all and they just nicked the design.
Maybe the inside of the cylinder has antigravity or sopmething.

Things to ask Sidney when we can:
What sort of tech did we miss between 2012 and whenever it is now?
How much of it can he access?
How much of it can we make?
What has humanity been doing in the intervening years?
How come humanity hasn't evolved?
How come people are ok with a bug-person? Have there been other uplifted animal-people?
How come Titan's a backwater no-man's land, did humanity's interstellar community abandon us?
Did humanity ever even leave the solar system?

>>638291
Anyone with access to casual counter-gravity has better manufacturing options than piling bits together at the bottom of a gravity well.
>How come humanity hasn't evolved?
Take someone born 2000 years ago and give them a lifetime of modern food and medicine, and they'll be indistinguishable from a modern human unless you know what specific genetic and epigenetic markers you're looking for. Evolution is slow on human timescales.

>>638311
Alright fair enough on the antigrav.
Just seems odd that a huge 5 mile wide spinning space cylinder could either survive falling from space or seem like a perfect habitat for whoever made Sidney.

I get that humans evolve slowly, but its been literally 5 billion years since 2000 AD.
5 Billion years ago there wasn't life.
5 Billion years ago there wasn't even Earth.

>wrong identity
Should we be seeking medical attention, then? We clearly see ourselves as somebody from an era we could not possibly be from. Or does acknowledging that it's an impossibility negate psychological issues that would normally be present in such a belief?
>The process is 90% successful with well-maintained corpses.
Please tell me this is an older article and that rate is higher, and/or the loss of success rate isn't very large for those who are not well maintained. You did tell us we were kind of exploded. That qualifies as failure to preserve the corpse, right?
>Oddly enough, the robes the priests wear are the same in every city. Sometimes I wonder if they’re really people.
Wonder if anybody told Psychopomp B3 that people sometimes try to grasp onto some sense of immortality, or machine-likeness, through uniform things like that.
>Local cities also highly value precious gems, salt, and spices.
I heard that salt was a valued form of currency in Ancient Earth, but they're seriously doing that here on Titan? Buncha weirdos.
Gems and spices, though, sure.
Spices are totally different from Salt, for some reason. Don't ask me, they just are.
>please refer to [So you’ve angered the locals and are about to be lynched; a guide to what you did wrong] or the follow-up [Successful escape from bronze-age prisons] and it’s sequel [Obtaining a new identity in old land].
Is there one for stealing a means of travel and obtaining a new identity in a new land, without giving away that we stole things from our last location?
>dust attuned individuals are often seen as either nobility or fancyshmancy wizardly folk and tend to congregate at the upper echelons of society. Plague victims on the other hand are largely the victim of their appearance.
Are we an exception to that, being a cute (But also creepy. Creepy can be cute, Sidney, Shut up.) moth person?
(To clarify: Something different from the normal can be creepy. Creepy is alien. Alien is attractive, since people are innately curious. Attractive makes cute. On the other hand, some people hear "Curiosity killed the cat" and flip the fuck out, ignoring the following "But satisfaction brought it back.")
>if you’re not a huge asshole
Bluh bluh huge asshole Unfortunately for some people, being a "Superbly mannered individual" means "Rich douche" and "Huge Douche" means "Serious asshole." Lousy mental chains, but people stick to them.
>rather than strapping it to a rocket
Rail-launching. I mean, they did they have a bunch of scaffolding around it. It's plausible.
>What sort of tech did we miss between 2012 and whenever it is now?
We totally should see a psychiatrist, once we're no longer in danger of being gunned down if we stay in one location for more than a week.
>How come humanity hasn't evolved?
Did you forget the whole part about users sacrificing the entire local human population to try and buy themselves some time? Any survivors have had to build back up from scratch. Kind of hard to evolve past a point when you keep getting set back from it.
>How come people are ok with a bug-person?
Sidney already said that most people find it creepy. Again, lousy logic chains. The "Death" is simply of your perception of the world, people! Satisfaction brings it back--even if it does have a small but permanent change to it!
>Have there been other uplifted animal-people?
Probably, since there's actually statistics to say "Most people" find them creepy.
Or did you mean legitimate animal people? Heck, even non-users who simply underwent surgery to become animal people (Or dust-attuned who did it to themselves without Psychopomp guidance) would be surprising. Have there been such people?
>5 Billion years ago there wasn't even Earth.
What do you call dust, mate? I'd say that's evolution, right there. People from five billion years ago could never have hoped to use dust like this. Dust was literally just useless organic debris back then.

>What do you call dust, mate? I'd say that's evolution, right there.
That is a technology, not a heritable genetic change (unless ability to manipulate dust does have a genetic component that has become more prevalent over time).

>Oddly enough, the robes the priests wear are the same in every city. Sometimes I wonder if they’re really people.
That scale of consistency in religious traditions on a global scale in a low-tech society is a bit odd. That furthers the "priests work for the System*" theory. ...Do priests carry some sort of ceremonial staff or polearm?

* Do we have a proper name for the whole system with the tower and hunter drones and so on?

We absolutely, 100% need to find and learn from an archmage.

>>638805
>That scale of consistency in religious traditions on a global scale in a low-tech society is a bit odd. That furthers the "priests work for the System*" theory. ...Do priests carry some sort of ceremonial staff or polearm?

They wouldn't need to if they're literally just humanoid drones, and the robes are integral. The fine art of concealing a deadly weapon against a human-shaped silhouette with the aid of some bulky clothing might well be older than domesticated dogs and fire.

"Copper Moths" seem like another thing to ask a few mildly paranoid questions about. If you want to stop a society from re-industrializing, it'd be logical to engineer a pest that makes every brownsmith's supply chain a constant uphill battle. Is there some other sort of vermin, like D&D 'rust monsters,' that eats iron? The locals might not even remember it, if the Iron Age has been successfully held in abeyance.