acatalepsy_logs | ( world #2

( world #2 - the storm. )

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a storm approaches.This log is for everyone who signed up for The Storm investigation. Feel free to use the here to plot further on how you plan on approaching The Storm, and the issue. The mod questions thread is also open, if you have anything you would like to run by us.

the investigation.

It takes a day of preparation, and a day of discussion, before you are led further down into the tunnels. It's pitch black, but one of the BGs who you have become familiar enough with turns on a low light and continues further. You walk for ten, fifteen, twenty minutes, and then turn a corner into a large, open cavern. The BG explains that at one time, this had been an underground transportation system - old and unused for centuries, now, but still in working order.

They file each of you onto a single car - it seems to be large enough to fit nearly a hundred, possibly more, bodies - so everyone has a space. The BG explains that they have already input the coordinates into the system, and that once they close the door, you will be transported to the last known location. The car will be programmed to wait for 72 hours, and then will return to this location. There is food and water supplied, and already packed, in the car. If you are not back in the car by that time, it will leave you behind. They then give their farewells, thank you for your help and readiness, and step away from the door - letting it close behind them. The car travels down a pitch black tunnel, and while the inside is dimly lit enough for the Circle Members to see each other and move around without hinderance, you can see nothing through the windows. It continues for a few hours at this rate - nothing to see, no idea where you are going. That is, until it seems to break through the surface, the track running through buildings and another, unknown area of the city.

The streets and buildings are abandoned, the tech old and outdated, windows broken out and dust filling the street. The sky, like back in the city you knew before, is cloudy and grey. But these clouds are different - these clouds are dark in a way you haven't seen before. You travel for another half hour above ground before the cart comes to a stop, and during this time it happens twice. A low rumble, seeming to come from everywhere at once, and then a few heartbeats after, a disasterous flash of lighting - miles away, yes, but threatening and gigantic, brighter and more violent than you've ever seen lightning before. The crash shakes the ground under you, and the damage is immense.

But the buildings are abandoned, the streets empty save for crates, old mechanical bits, dusty remnants of a society long forgotten by the Struxta you came from just a couple of days prior.

This is The Storm you've been warned about.

the storm.

You have been asked to find out information that will help the BG's, and Struxta, to stop The Storm.

From what you can gather, it does seem to be a naturally occurring weather phenomenon, as far as weather systems seem to work on this planet. However, rather than scattered thunder and lightning strikes, it seems to almost recharge and strike with epic proportions. It can damage, or destroy, buildings. It shorts out any and all items (and people) who depend on electricity in any form to function (Sorry Daylight and Conner, sorry to anyone who brought along technology) within a three mile radius.

The 'darkness' the BGs were talking about does follow this storm, but they seem to have been referring to this electrical shortage that comes from the storm and it's strikes. If this storm does reach any of the still-occupied areas of the city, it will shut down the entire grid, as well as any of the robots, androids, or electrically based figures that exist there - essentially ending the life of every Struxta citizen that is effected.

Plot, plan, theorize, and see if you can find a way to stop The Storm. If not, be back on the train car in 72 hours time, to return to the BGs and report what you have found.
PROMPT IDEAS
1.) Discussions on the train - do you have any ideas for what to prepare? Any discussions you may want to have? You and your fellow Circle Members are caught here together for a few hours, driving into a situation you know very little about. What do you want to make sure you're prepared to handle?

2.) Scouting missions - the heart of The Storm is very much in the distance, and it is not moving quickly, giving Circle Members plenty of time to set out and check out the surrounding city. What you will find won't be much - this is a robotic ghost town in every turn of the phrase. Buildings have been abandoned for hundreds of years, covered in dust and left entirely undisturbed, except for the breeze that now seems to flit through this entire area. There are stores, warehouses, apartments, and buildings you can't even tell what they were used for, cleared out. Whenever, or whoever, lived in this part of Struxta had evacuated, quickly but efficiently.

3.) The Storm - The Storm is still a distance away from where the cart has dropped you off, enough that when your 72 hours are up, the heart of the storm and the lightning strikes shouldn't reach the car, or the track. This does mean that to do any closer investigation, you will need to go to The Storm itself. But be careful - the electrical output from these lightning strikes are dangerous, and can have all sorts of effects on both natural and mechanical beings. The wind, the closer you get to The Storm, will also pick up - making any kind of flying or air travel impossible.

4.) Planning - the car leaves everyone off at an old train station, which a large room attached. This room can be used as a kind of home base, as well as a meeting location. What do you plan on doing? Simply taking down information, or trying to take the storm head on? How do you plan on doing that? Will your abilities help? This room attached onto the train station is a safe location - no effects of The Storm will make it inside. Use as you would like!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[The part of Connor that is programmed to read changes in microexpression and tone strains to apply these functions right now, as A2 explains. But the darkness and, more effectively, the other android’s placid way of explaining makes it difficult to glean more information. Subtle implications he could learn, brought on by changes in barely-there emotion.

It’s not unsatisfactory, per se, but so much has Connor relied on it in his short existence that he has to take an extended moment, thinking, on how to reply. He believes he can ascertain reluctance in that last statement, if nothing else.]

And therefore it’s the network that dictates that they be violent? Thoughtless?

[That would be the most straightforward conclusion to draw.]

I can see why you would harbor a bias against the androids of Struxta, then, given your experiences. [But Connor is always apt to point out a contradiction.] Yet you’re choosing to help regardless. Is it because it’s our given mission?

[The first question is one that A2 finds she cannot answer. That had always been the assumption, true. She had never had cause to care about whether or not machines were thoughtless. But Pascal had willingly parted with the network, hadn't he?

...She frowns a little, instead, uncomfortable again all of a sudden, and chooses to let the subject drop. Mention of her helping turns that frown into a scowl in mere moments.]

There's nothing better to do.

[Technically not a lie.]

[The lack of an answer is hard to take as a confirmation, and so Connor decides to go with what it is on a surface level -- no answer at all.

Besides, the prominence of that scowl, coming from A2, is definitely impossible to miss. Connor, being how he is, wants to prod at the little consistencies that he perceives.]

You could have stayed in the city. [It's big enough, bustling enough, that the reasoning of there being nothing else to do seems... flimsy at best. But he seems quick to add an addendum.] Not that the aid is not appreciated, of course.

[She looks at him, eyes narrowed, not appreciating the pointing out, it seemed, of what was simply common sense.]

... I hate it up there. [At least down below she was useful, the lack of violence and strife more familiar to her in this solitude, rather than being in the city where the peace was, like everything there, manufactured. ]

I see.

[Makes sense, he thinks, if her disdain for the androids of this world really was so acute. But if Connor wishes to press the issue, he doesn't; better to turn it into encouragement, to applaud her for helping even if it was because there was 'nothing better to do', than to potentially make her stop because he's tossing too many queries at her. Even Connor isn't so oblivious, nor does he have a horse in this race, to turn this into an interrogation.

He bends down, picking up another piece of rubble.] I- [It's heavier than expected, and he can't even lift it. Womp.]

At least other members of the Circle can make for... [Lift with your knees, Connor! ...Nope, no go.] ...good company in the interim.

[This android is dry and analytical in a way that reminds her of Pod, and she isn't too poorly socialized to not recognize that she is, in no way, "good company."]

Whatever.

[Like she cared what some random android thought of her. She is tempted, in a petty sort of way, to continue to watch him struggle with the piece of rubble, but then she walks over anyway, and kneels to lift it without much effort, her own flagging energy aside.

As she walks over to toss it with the others, she says, flatly, without turning in Connor's direction:] You aren't a combat model.

[It's a request for information without actually asking for information. Sorry, Connor...this is what you have to put up with.]

[Connor possesses an indelible sense of pride, buried somewhere beneath the amicable mannerisms and sociable programming, but none of it has to do with his own physical strength. Even back home, he was far from the strongest android created; it simply wasn't in his design, instead made to harbor other traits to compliment his purpose.

He doesn't so much as frown as the rubble slips past his hands, picked up by A2 with enviable ease, to be tossed aside with the rest. It lands with a clatter and a upward puff of dust. Connor straightens and watches her back.]

No. I'm not. [He continues without missing a beat, treating this as an introduction. The implied request for information is easily noted and he's happy to supply.]

My name is Connor. I'm an RK800 unit -- a prototype. I was created to assist law enforcement, and my main functions exist to compliment the processes of investigation, interrogation, and negotiation.

"Law enforcement..." [She repeats this softly, to herself. There's a moment where she tries to glean the context for these unfamiliar words — Earth was lawless, and there were rules from YoRHa and machine lifeforms both, but no one really, to enforce anything resembling a law.

Investigation, interrogation and negotiation made sense though, from the military-esque background she had. "Prototype" is the more troubling word to her, though. She grows quieter than before. Eventually:]

So you're going to get tossed when they make another version.

[Rude, A2.]

[Rude, but... not incorrect.

Connor knows inherently that this is the purpose of a prototype. Released for field testing -- admittedly for a very important reason -- for the sake of seeing how he performs, and Cyberlife would proceed from there. It's strange, the feeling of something clenching his chest as A2 puts words to this reality, though.

It wouldn't have mattered just months before. Now, however, how hesitation seems to flood the few moments in-beween his reply.]

...If I perform well enough, I see no reason why they would completely decommission me. A newer model will likely be released, but I'd still be perfectly useable.

[There is the part of her that has been hardened to be cruel, that wants to press at this, the weak spot she's found. But even in the dark place her thoughts are trapped in, she can't bring herself to do this.]

If that's what you think.

[She had performed beyond the expectations of even herself, and look where she was.

He wasn't a combat android, and some sort of "prototype," and didn't have the look of YoRHa, anyway. No dark visor or dark clothing, no weaponry, no Pod. He didn't look like the Resistance androids either, those older models with patched-together bodies.] Who made you?

[Good that she doesn't prod at it; this whole world has been nothing but various ways of trying to shatter through the walls of comfortability that Connor's stubbornly tossed up for himself. Full of cracks and holes and other badly-placed weaknesses that would require very little effort to make it all come apart. Her choice to avoid pressing at it is a kindness to him, perhaps more than she realizes.

Not that her response is purely... satisfactory. But it leaves room for him to avoid arguing the point, room to leave it be and attend to the other question.]

CyberLife. A large corporation focused on the design and manufacturing of various models of androids.

[There was no single person who created him; he was a project, a group effort, many hands and minds applied to his very existence.]

No one in the Circle I've met knows of it, however.

[She's barely talked to anyone within the Circle to know whether or not YoRHa was commonly known. The ones that knew 9S were aware of it, but other than that she couldn't say.

CyberLife, though. She goes over her memory data, trying to set the term in place somewhere in her scattered and incomplete archive of human history, and finds nothing.]

That's not surprising. [That no one knows about it, that is.] Various models, huh.

[Not unlike YoRHa.] Not just investigation models?

Edited 2018-08-17 20:27 (UTC)

No.

[His tone has fallen into more ease than before. This is simple to talk about; it's like reciting bullet points off a list of information.]

There are other models made to assist the police, but not those who specialize in investigative procedures like myself. I am unique, in that respect.

[But that's not so much pride as it is, again, just reciting what it is he does.]

Beyond that, there are a multitude of other models that have been created to make life easier for humans. Companionship, security, labor, caretaking, et cetera.

You live alongside humans? [She seems startled by this, though it is difficult to tell with how subdued her delivery tended to be. Immediately some part of her is curious, wants to ask questions: what were they like? what sort of lives did they lead? did they think the androids in their world were useful, were they proud of them? It's a longing a hundred times worse than missing an old friend, an ache that she can't quell.

She does not ask these questions. She doesn't really know how to start asking them, and some part of her is afraid to do so, besides.]

[Her surprise is easily noted, and yet Connor oddly does not looks so surprised himself. He remembers what 9S told him, about how he had never met humans at all until he left Earth; it doesn't take a detective android to put two and two together, and assume that her experience with humans is just as lacking.]

I do. My work partner is a human. [A gruff and grouchy human, but human nonetheless.] The CyberLife headquarters which I return to when I'm not working is operated by many human hands. Earth's population is in the billions.

[He could keep going, but he instead decides to watch her reaction. To allow time for questions to come forth, because surely she has a few, he thinks.]

...Billions.

[Said after a considerable delay, soft and baffled. An Earth filled with life, she's imagining. One without a machine plague swarming it like a cancer. What sort of life could that be? She tries to picture it and the thought is so alien that it frightens her to envision for long. What was she, without a war to fight?

What was she here? It's too overwhelming to consider for long, a question too big to hold. She retreats into herself, letting the blank shock on her face fade into distant neutrality. It would be better to let the conversation taper off into nothing, but — she's curious. She can't help but be curious.]

What is it like?

[“What is it like” is such an open-ended question that it’s hard to know how to begin, and it’s indicative of her not having any experience with mankind at all — further proof that this aligns with his conversation with 9S, he thinks, and it opens up even more questions in his mind. But Connor was made to please, and as a result he’ll almost always tend to her own queries first; especially since she seems to have withdrawn into herself, and he wonders at all if his own questions would even land.

His consciousness has only existed in his own world for three months. And most of that time had been sequestered to CyberLife when he wasn’t working; waiting in standby, alone where they kept him stored and stoic.

But his time in the city was more poignant, enough to inform his experiences. Interactions with humans, in which he learned better how to respond to them. Cases he worked, ingraining themselves in memory, moving little pieces of his core programming here and there, adapting and changing.]

…Humans are hard to quantify. Some are inclined to dislike me, others will interact normally with an android. Personalities are varied and dictated by circumstance and history; I suppose you don’t need me to tell you that.

[Detroit, then.]

The city I’m from is called Detroit. There are more than half a million humans who call it home, and the buildings downtown are what you would expect from a large city — tall, multi-storied skyscrapers. Crowded streets. Lit up at night. Prominently, it is known for its art, music, and architecture. Though I cannot speak with authority on any of these subjects, unfortunately.

[A2 listens, for once not irritable or angry. Instead she looks thoughtful, trying to envision it. A city not unlike the one they were under, she's thinking, but with life and conflict. She's seen remnants of human civilization in her world, bombed out "apartment complexes" and streets torn apart by centuries of war, flooded over ruins, skies choked so dark with smoke they would never again be blue. Connor's own world, in contrast, seems almost alien, or better, fantastical. Like a comforting story handed down generations.

...It's nice to imagine. Even with the mention of humans sometimes disliking him (and she imagines, androids as a whole), the other things...music and art, architecture, those are only snippets in her database, fragmented pieces from whatever human's memories she had been given on her activation. Scraps of history, haphazard and disconnected, made soft and rose-tinted by the androids' collective worship of humanity.]

...It's hard to imagine.

[Said quietly, almost to herself.] The cities are gone in my world. Bombed out by machines. [And androids too, but she won't say this right away.

This information is delivered bluntly and without much emphasis, but it's clear she's trying...her best...to have a conversation. At least to exchange information.] Humans are gone too. [She turns back to her work of removing rubble, having determined she's rested long enough, and unaccustomed to having a conversation for the sake of it. It's easier on her to be working as she speaks.] They fled to the moon after the first war started.

[And by contrast, the picture that A2 paints for Connor is more than dreary — it is practically apocalyptic, the idea of cities completely swept away by bombs, by machines, by war. But it isn’t difficult to imagine for him. Crumbling structures fallen to dust, devoid of life. Empty streets, technology and electricity stuttering out and dying, never to be reactivated again.

A bit like the ruins of this place.

The light of his LED circles at his temple as he watches her return to moving rubble. After a moment, he decides to do the same, so not to look like he’s avoiding contributing, even if it’s already been proven that Connor will be unable to do any of the heavy lifting.]

…What do the machines have against humans?

[It’s the first question that slips out, among many. His mind briefly wanders to the thought of the burgeoning android revolution back home, and while this and what A2 has described were vastly different degrees of uneasy, it still makes Connor frown, mostly hidden in shadow.]

[It's a long story. But she has nothing better to do, surrounded by the ruins of a world that looked very much like her Earth. And he had put up with her attitude, had given her information about his world, which seemed dreamlike and intangible to A2 but surely must exist.

She focuses on the tedious repetition of picking up rubble, pushing it off to the side. Rinse and repeat.]

There was an alien invasion on Earth, a long time ago. [Long before YoRHa had ever existed.] They were responsible for creating machines, which overpowered humanity. After that, androids were made to stop the machines.

There's been fighting since then.

I see.

[An alien invasion. A parallel that he couldn't run alongside his own home; his worries had been focused solely on the woes of a city, a nation. Likely the world, in time. But nothing as grand of a scale as having to worry about a literal invasion from the far reaches of space to threaten life on Earth.

Though this does give leeway to ask a follow-up question, one he had been wondering about for a few moments now.]

So you were created by humans, but you've never seen one before?

[It's the first time she's been asked that question, and it causes a pause, a brief blip in her thoughts. YoRHa, even herself, existed on a combination of blind devotion and lack of questioning. Even when she'd cursed humanity, laid low in the depth of her grief and loss, this held true.

...She answers, after a moment.]

Yeah. This place...this is the first I've seen them.

[Connor is an unfortunate mix of two mindsets — made to question, and by way of being an android, made to obey. Often the two clash, perhaps more so recently than before, but it’s the former that takes hold in this conversation. Mere curiosity, prodding instincts to investigate setting forth the follow-up question.]

Why is that? Didn’t you have a human you reported to? Or a handler of some kind?

[She doesn't look up from her work. The rubble is lifted, tossed. Lifted again. This repetition seems to soothe her, eases the ever-present tightness along her shoulders and back.]

No.

[Lift and toss. And again. There's light at the end of the tunnel at last — the entryway begins to reveal itself, slowly.]

When they fled Earth, they formed a council on the moon. They communicate with YoRHa via broadcasts.

[Or had. Who knew what would happen now, with YoRHa torn apart and destroyed?]

[The entryway isn’t lit, so it’s a bit like slowly unearthing the maw of a some sleeping creature, revealing it piece by piece. But Connor works the best he can alongside her own efforts, even if the pieces he carries are smaller, and more effort is required on his part to be efficient about it.

They’re making ample progress, at least.]

Your situation is so opposite from mine that I suppose I just find it strange. I was surrounded by humans when I was activated.

( world #2 - the storm. )

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