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]

[And he thought that he was off base with the Grid stuff.]

A what? The hell?

...You think you could give us a look?

[youandyoualone]

... are we sure they do not wish the Conductors to become the Programs to inhabit such a chip and make it work?

[Forgive him. All he knows of the internal working of computers comes from the Grid/ZODIAC.]

[claudiometer]

Vectors of whatever file it's running, definitely. Pretty sure creating Programs isn't something whoever built this would be capable of. [Claudia knows when to drop the 'that's not how computers do' battle, and that's when the person arguing the point is as stubborn as they are brilliant.]

I'm still not sure what they hope to gain from a processor this big, but if that's not what created the Conductors I will be very surprised.

[truerevelation]

It ain't-

- okay, now I'm wonderin' what sorta software you'd need a chip like that to run.

[claudiometer]

Sure thing. [It's easy to see how your average Hecatite wouldn't see anything unusual - or most space-age sentient beings, really, since computer chips have only gotten smaller over time. But for anyone who's seen one of Claudia's circuit boards out in the open, the resemblance is blatant.]

I didn't want to be right with the stupid golem virus comparison. But as it is, I was already thinking Conductor as in 'of electricity' more than 'of an orchestra.'

[truerevelation]

... So the question is ... what's the electricity. What's the ... ones and zeroes whizzin' around?

[youandyoualone]

I know that you can overhear the signals transmitted by electronic devices—if you are already coming to the Waking World to see what electronic surveillance has been put upon Leah, mayhap you could see if there is anything transmitted by this overlarge chip.

[youandyoualone]

Did someone not also say that Paraiba has been troubled too—I would not bet against there being a connection, given his Waking location.

[reallymean]

Terraforming on a massive scale - what we saw on Mars was very rudimentary. Or the creation of a massive wormhole generator without alchemy to power it. Or a weapon of incredible size and complexity.

I'm sure there are other possibilities, but those are the ones that come immediately to mind.

[claudiometer]

That I'm gonna have to punt to someone else. I've stretched Alexandra's travel permissions about as far as they can go, and the last thing we need is her getting in trouble.

[claudiometer]

There probably is, but I don't know what his whole deal is.

[truerevelation]

... Damn, yeah. That ain't a bad idea. I hadn't thought much about the other surveillance stuff for a while, but... Yeah, might have to wake up and go have a listen.

Tch. I think this might be a bit big to just Interface it to look at the code.

[truerevelation]

Computers in computers, huh. I wouldn'ta thought of a giant weapon bein' Hecatite style, but ... damn.

[youandyoualone]

Nor do I, merely that he is troubled--mayhap someone should ask him.

[youandyoualone]

So it may be, yes. I would not know. I do not enjoy Interfacing, so I have had to learn how to operate a computer in other ways--Lady Claudia has taught me the use of keyboards and mice.

[truerevelation]

... you'd have to have a mouse the size of a moon.

[youandyoualone]

And the board of keys needs must be even larger. Nor have we seen a monitor. And thus I am completely lost. 'Tis your ear for electronic signals that we need now.

[claudiometer]

It's very possible someone has and we haven't heard about it. [Hint hint, if that was any investigators out there. If it was infiltrators, they may just be out of luck.]

Gotta say, though, Raidou's pre-jaunt nightmare makes a little more sense with this context. 'There are also Conductors' isn't necessarily a bad thing, but if you take the nightmare as pointing toward 'there are only Conductors'...

[truerevelation]

[Kanji gives a mental laugh.]

Heh. Ya ain't gotta talk me into this stuff twice.

[youandyoualone]

[He gets a mental chuckle in return.]

So I do not. I suppose I was merely trying to emphasize how needed you truly are for this.

[Even if he does not know Kanji well and what he does know comes from the connections they share, he would wish the young man to have full confidence in himself--after all, Kanji is very important to Naoki.]

[eldritchwheelies]

Just to translate Leah's theory from meme to something effing understandable if you aren't knee-deep in the weeb, like me:

"Doofenschmirtz" is referring to a mad scientist that's gonna science madly, with a nasty habit of building doomsday devices like the Disintegrator, Decaffinator, Otakunator, or, as Leah guesses, a device that makes people into Conductors that she calls the Conductorator.

She thinks she was specifically targeted because she had anxiety or depression, walking it back from another problem she had that's her and Deedee Yeowoo's business to tell you about. Cause that would mean taking away her fear and sorrow is kind of a life-changing deal, one she'd want to talk about because of how lifechanging it was.

Cause for people who need that in their lives, it really is lifechanging, you know? I can't claim to have personal experience with it, but the difference between Addison Waite off pills and Addison Waite on them is the difference between being unable to do school and excelling.

From there, she thinks it's an idea that spreads like a virus. Or like a really good youtube video, or say, My Little Pony. First you send a clip to someone saying "this rules," then you get people asking to see the show, then you get fans... then you get Bronycon.

For the record, we have definitely gone Full Bronycon at this point.

[youandyoualone]

My own, of the automatons and their jokes, is beginning to make sense as well.




... blessed Elua, should we worry that Conduction is being spread through stale jests?

[claudiometer]

...oh jesus. Weaponised memes. Just what we needed.

Leah could've been targeted for that at least as much as her brain weasels, really.

[eldritchwheelies]

And what sort of software needs to be emulated on Dreamers.

Don't think that the Conductors are quite Programs, but they're definitely part of a distributed network. They even post cat pictures on it.

[truerevelation]

... are they cute ones?