after the Waking World log

[claudiometer]

Hoo boy. I realise this phrasing may be treading on thin ice right now, but strange things are afoot at the Aratta Skyhook.

First things first. Leah took the news that she was chosen to be the first Conductor deliberately... about as well as we figured she would. She has a theory as to why and asked me to run it by you guys. [And so she does, letting the memory play out from the linked point until Leah says she'd like to talk to the Oracle who uncovered this.]

So yeah, Thace, if she hasn't found you already, find her.

Second. I made sure to get a planetside view while I was out and about. Alexandra had never bothered before, and apparently wouldn't have understood what she was looking at anyway, and for an uninhabitable planet there's a shitton happening on the surface. And, uh, I found the source of the mysterious ticking noise, probably.

They're building a computer chip the size of fucking WYOMING.

Comments

[truerevelation]

... are they cute ones?

[eldritchwheelies]

Wouldn't know. Haven't had those particular fluffy Basilisk hacks shoved into my brain.

And I agree with Claudia that this is probably what we're dealing with - that the state of being a Conductor is cognitohazardous, something we literally don't want to know if we want to avoid taking on th- shit, becoming a Conductor.

Unless, of course, we can get ourselves some Insulators, ways to touch that current without getting shocked with a bjillion volts.

[truerevelation]

... fluffy basilisks. That's gotta be weird. Dunno if I'd wanna pet them. [Who are you kidding, Kanji Tatsumi?]

And you mean like the brain equivalent of gettin' rubber gloves on it?

[eldritchwheelies]

That's a really damn good metaphor. Psychic Protection helps, but it only gets you so far; try also to specifically avoid using their memeplexes.

[truerevelation]

Memeplexes? Like ... complex memes? Ain't worked on my psychic protection for ages... should really'a thought about that after the shit in the Vale, huh.

[eldritchwheelies]

Memes referring to other memes. Memeception. Matroyshka dolls of sci fi and anime references. Yeah.

[truerevelation]

... You lost me after the 'referrin' to other stuff' and until 'sci fi and anime references'.

[eldritchwheelies]

If we get Sara out of her dungeon, we need to show y'all Inception. And Pacific Rim. Assuming those aren't things she watched at the base, the way that fighter pilots get together to heckle Top Gun.

But you got all the stuff that actually matters; the rest of it was just commentary. Though I can show you a Matroyshka doll if you want; one of those Russian dolls containing a doll containing a doll, shit, it's dolls all the way down.

[truerevelation]

- Oh, those things! I getcha. They're pretty neat.

[helborn]

I can tell you for a fact they are.

[No he's not explaining how he knows that.]

[eldritchwheelies]

I'm going to need to teach you Cognitohazards 201, aren't I. At least I know from the dungeon you've passed 101.

I still can't fucking believe Renee Bowman was a goddamn pony and I lived through banishing that tulpa.

[helborn]

I'm still amused I bypassed the magical lock by just smashing the door.

But I have psychic protection, I put my mental condom on.

[eldritchwheelies]

Consider the possibility that psychic protection isn't a brain condom, but rather makes you immune.

Consider also the possibility that you're infected but immune.

Take my damn lessons, Casper.

[helborn]

Fine. Let's proceed with the Matrix sequence.

[Casper no.]

[eldritchwheelies]

You get that one from them?

I think we need to make our own memes. Better memes. Harder, better, faster, stronger ones.

That we don't use around them, but rather in our heads to overwrite theirs. Because them adopting them - us adopting their memeplexes - is what shifts you towards their state of mind.

Think of Batman humming Frere Jacques to get the Scarecrow out of his head.

[helborn]

No, I've just been alive after 1999.

Also that one's a reference I don't get but I know the song way too well because Quebec.

[eldritchwheelies]

So. Since you're immune, you're in a unique position. This is risky as hell, but you're already wearing SOMETHING made of rubber, anyway; you're nonconductive. Find out what memes they have, and translate them into English for our benefit. Find out what they signify, so we can cut the bullshit and avoid the signifiers. Hack the Darmok.

For example.

[there's the mental equivalent of a deep breath, and the crackle of Psychic Protection going up.]

"Taking on the Silver" means "Becoming a Conductor." So we ALWAYS use the latter, not the former. Because the former may as well be the loving gaze of a basilisk, except instead of turning us to stone, it turns us into extras on the bridge of a starship.

[helborn]

Don't use the term for the thing you're hacking, then. That's definitely one of them.

I wonder what it is that made me immune... I guess we can figure that out later.

I'll do what I can. I don't get all of their memes, but I think some of them are kind of... after my time.