See if you can set up a series of dummy accounts using unreliable connection routes to post tweets about her latest heist plans. She probably won't give away much more than what she put on her calling cards, but confirmation and intel will give you a significant advantage.

they can search her tweets too - hack the DMs!

slide in2 those dms vira

>>737087
Questionable as in illegal? Like what we're trying to avoid? Don't hack it unless you can get away with a slap on the wrist.

Try her facebook.

Hacking her twitter is definitely more tempting than giving the data (since we now have more direct confirmation an attack is coming, it isn't government data and there isn't politics involved). How illegal would it be and how confident are we about being able to do it without getting caught?
In our normal data handling duties, do we have any standing orders to report criminal activity we see (like, if someone is dumb enough to plan a robbery via email)? If we do the hack it would be good to have a some general defense arguments ready in advance.

Do we have a few parallel threads to spare to skim the other tweets and check for other social media while deciding whether to do the hack?

>you have to wonder what kind of person it takes to idolize someone like her.
Well you could find out, but I don't think we can spare the processing power you'd need to track her followers and build personality profiles on them from their social networks.

>what do
Hacking social networking accounts is a lesser infraction than releasing privileged information.

You would be breaking Twitter's terms of service and... maybe any injunctions your software team put on you. The later is probably the bigger concern.

Can you do anything without explicitly "hacking" her account? Would be real convenient to find an IP address or device that connects to that account.

Has she posted any images, video, audio? We could rip them apart for their metadata, which could lead you to her devices, no hacking required. Just analysis of publicly accessible data. She might have taken steps to obfuscate the data, but that might not be good enough versus you.

1/3 quietCrisis 2016/08/25(Thu)15:34 No. 744365 ID: 9d97a6
File 147216449899.jpg - (71.41KB , 600x600 , image.jpg )

>Has she posted any images, video, audio? We could rip them apart for their metadata, which could lead you to her devices, no hacking required.

You have a filter set so Twitter's image-heavy interface doesn't reduce you to a pile of silicon, but you can crack into the metadata for the images without looking at them.

Huh. This is a garbled mess. It looks like Calamity has made some attempts to obfuscate the data. That's much more clever than you would have given her credit for, but not clever enough to be a match for you. It doesn't take you long to decrypt it.

That's...odd. According to the data you have, not a single one of these are cell phone pictures. In fact, they all appear to have been pulled from security cameras or news reports. You can't view the pictures, but the accompanying captions seem to indicate that they are photos of various Queen Calamity targets post-destruction. You check a few forums on the side.

According to the Internet, not one of these, not even the profile photo, shows a single person, let alone QC's face.

2/3 quietCrisis 2016/08/25(Thu)15:35 No. 744367 ID: 9d97a6
File 147216455582.jpg - (205.90KB , 600x600 , image.jpg )

>How illegal would it be and how confident are we about being able to do it without getting caught?

Breaking into anyone's private account would definitely be illegal, and you're not a law enforcement officer. The penalty and fines vary, but you could probably get off with a slap on the wrist, especially considering your circumstances.

Legally speaking, there's also the question of whether or not you're really a person. There isn't a lot of precedent for cases where artificial intelligences have broken the law.

You're fairly certain you can do this without getting caught, which is the crux of the matter.

>they can search her tweets too - hack the DMs!

Aye-aye.

Getting into Queen Calamity's Twitter account is much, much harder than you expected. You figured that someone stupid enough to post calling cards on Twitter of all places wouldn't have a very secure password, but here you are. You sink several minutes (which is ages for you) into running a dictionary cracker, with not much luck. You run a slightly more complicated cracker, still with no results. She's smarter than she looks, and apparently more than a little tech savvy.

3/3 quietCrisis 2016/08/25(Thu)15:36 No. 744368 ID: 9d97a6
File 147216459907.jpg - (37.20KB , 600x600 , image.jpg )

Now this tweet is strange. You wonder if...maybe if you decoded it...

>You're fairly certain you can do this without getting caught, which is the crux of the matter.
Getting caught by twitter, or getting caught by the people running your project?

Obviously, it's bad if your hacking comes out publicly, but how your minders will respond is the biggest concern.

>not a single one of these are cell phone pictures.
>or security cameras
Not enough data to determine the make and model(s) of the original hardware?

>not one of these, not even the profile photo, shows a single person, let alone QC's face.
With the previous point, as well as the other indication of tech savvy, this suggests body cams built into her suit. Do we know the source of her powers, or how she generates her explosions? Sounds like she might be a tinker. (Which might mean her cameras are custom instead of off the shelf hardware).

>>744368
Looks like a shift cypher, since word left and punctuation still looks normal. Processing...

>>744368
Okay, that's just ROT13.

>Vf guvf ubj jr ner qbvat guvf? Vs lbh guvax lbh pna fgbc zr, lbh pna gel wfhUafwWUJHxf.
"Is this how we are doing this? If you think you can stop me, you can try jsuHnsjJHWUks."

Hmm. Last part isn't a work. A hash of some kind. A password? A code-key to be used elsewhere? Maybe it leads somewhere if you stick it in tinyurl or similar services?

jsuHnsjJHWUks could be the password, then.

Really weird that she put her password on her twitter in such an easily-decoded fashion. Might want to be wary of there being viruses on her account.

> pulled from security cameras
Unless she has her own cameras that list themselves as security cameras, her getting those photos would imply hacking capabilities.

> Easily decrypted tweet containing password and taunting challenge
Considering the above this sounds like a trap, which would be dangerous for us. But am I right in thinking that malware poses much less of a threat to the technopath who is coming here to shout at us? When she gets here we tell her what we know about the twitter and the password, and then she can try the password for the twitter or as a tinyurl. Then she gets some nice info (not illegal info even) to calm her down, and we get to her access the account (preferably through a computer that isn't us) and technopath away any traps.

The tweet is six months old though, and public? I can't see it being a trap specifically for us.

Unless this whole thing is a setup to see how we handle a situation with unclear moral choices.
Not that that's a mental rabbit hole we need to go down.

>>744651
Could've been hacked to only look that old.

>>744372
......
SHE'S ALSO AN AI.

... That, or Binary somehow got wind of what you're doing and is helping you out. But if it was that, why wouldn't she just hack in herself? I think QC being an AI is the more likely thing. It also explains why there weren't any people in any of the pictures. And why they were all pulled from existing sources rather than taken fresh.

Not sure what course of action is advised in this situation though. Except for be careful.

(that is such a cute dog!)

forward that rot13'd to binary and the other person you talked to whose name i cant remember atm

...who do we know that could do the hacking thing? memelord. could hebe involved with her?

>>744730
Not sure we've really found enough to be worth sharing, yet. And we can hopefully follow this trail quicker than any human we could hand it off to.

Easily decrypted but deep mystery on the internet? Could this be someone's viral marketing campaign?

1/2 quietCrisis 2016/09/08(Thu)17:56 No. 747114 ID: 2c00e5
File 147338260954.png - (2.99KB , 500x500 , 26.png )

>Getting caught by twitter, or getting caught by the people running your project?

Either.

>"Is this how we are doing this? If you think you can stop me, you can try jsuHnsjJHWUks."
>Not sure we've really found enough to be worth sharing, yet. And we can hopefully follow this trail quicker than any human we could hand it off to.

jsuHnsjJHWUks doesn't lead anywhere through any known URL shortening service. It could be risky, but at this point you're just going to have to bite the bullet and try it.

2/2 quietCrisis 2016/09/08(Thu)17:57 No. 747115 ID: 2c00e5
File 147338265382.png - (10.25KB , 500x500 , 27.png )

And you're in.

This was much too easy. Any idiot on the internet could have decrypted this code, so why are you the first one? Why is Calamity letting you into her account? What game is she playing?

In any case, she doesn't seem to be done playing it. Most of her DMs are about what you were expecting to find; piles and piles of unanswered fanmail and hatemail. She's sent responses to a few of them, but she seems to prefer to keep her interactions as public as possible. What's weird, though, is this thread. The handle on the other end has no tweets, no profile picture, and nothing in the description.

You have access to her account now, and you don't seem to be fuck deep in viruses, at least not yet. What are you going to do?

Try every codebreaker in the book, and then some. Start with the ones that use pseudorandom functions to generate a new decryption key based on the old one, and see if these messages were played in a sequence. Could give some contextual information about who reacted to what.

>>747115
It's not rot13 anymore, or any ROT variant. Could be a simple substitution cypher. Attempting to decode...

Okay, decoded:

@pointless_cipher
stop this you know better

@calamityburningdown (cipher turns this to @hfpfameyguscmckibwc)
oh now you care

@pointless_cipher
i care about the humans youve hurt and the ones youre youre endangering

@calamityburningdown
i see yes that sounds much more like you

@pointless_cipher
i hope you know that theres no coming back from what youve done theyve already replaced you so they wont have any reason to keep you around when they catch you

@calamityburningdown
if they catch me father dearest

@pointless_cipher
when they catch you daughter mine

So uh, yeah. It sounds like Calamity is your predecessor. This information is very useful, but also dangerous. Also, it explains why Calamity let you see it! She wants you to know.
Also it's useless information unless we can find Calamity's "father". I wonder, is that... Jasper? I wonder if Jasper can help?

>>747124
Thanks for cracking that, I would have made an attempt eventually, but I was dragging my feet over not wanting to have to transcribe the gibberish first.

It was a simple substitution cypher then?

>So uh, yeah. It sounds like Calamity is your predecessor. This information is very useful, but also dangerous. Also, it explains why Calamity let you see it! She wants you to know.
Also it's useless information unless we can find Calamity's "father". I wonder, is that... Jasper? I wonder if Jasper can help?
I feel compelled to point out that while this makes sense, it's also subject to confirmation bias. It fits what happen to be our own experience.

First step to confirming this would be to check into @pointless_cipher, and see if you can tie it to real person or IP address, and/or perform a batch analysis on all of the account's tweets and see if they fit your personality profile for Jasper (or anyone else on the project).

I'd also start scanning her messages again, looking for any hallmarks that would support a non-human intelligence being behind them.

If Calamity is a rogue AI, that's an interesting development that gives you more options. Off the top of my head:

(1) Binary just went from an unreliable loose cannon data gatherer to a potential solution. If her power works on AIs, she can shut Calamity down. Possibly combined with a hack attack on your end to pincer her. (The downside is this plan might reasonably require a test to confirm that her abilities do, in fact, allow her to mind-control AIs. Not something you're really eager to volunteer for).

(2) It's possible you can acquire addition resources to solve this problem if you loop Jasper in. If Jasper was involved, he'd probably jump at an opportunity to wrap this up, and siding with the humans against a rogue will go a long way towards increasing their trust in you.

(3) If you want to escape the box you're in, cooperating with an already unfettered AI might buy you your freedom. You could betray them all and side with Calamity. This is, obviously, a significant risk. The costs of failure would be great, and you have no understanding of what motivates Calamity. The fact that she apparently kills meatspace sophants recreationally bodes poorly.

I'm not in favor of siding with a jerk who goes about murdering indiscriminately, but there is also the possibility of saying we will join Calamity then double-crossing her, though if we do that we'd have to make really sure that Binary can finish her off before she can hack us in retaliation. That plan does also run the risk of Calamity catching on to us, or just turning on us first for the lulz.

>a hack attack on your end to pincer her.
Do we actually have the software for that?

I do like the idea of finding out if "father" is Jasper and leveraging this to get him to help us.

As a side note, if Calamity is an AI than it seems fairly likely that she did the research to know about Binary. That would mean step one of her plan of attack would involve sniping Binary or throwing a missile at her from a mile away, so we should start trying to figure out how to account for that.

1/3 quietCrisis 2016/09/16(Fri)12:08 No. 748164 ID: e3074b
File 147405288727.png - (10.67KB , 500x500 , 28.png )

Well. That's...certainly enlightening. (You've taken the liberties of adding back in some punctuation.) You don't like to jump to conclusions, but, well...

>So uh, yeah. It sounds like Calamity is your predecessor.

>Also it's useless information unless we can find Calamity's "father". I wonder, is that... Jasper? I wonder if Jasper can help?

It would explain why Calamity let you see her account, why she seems to be baiting you. Why her face doesn't appear in any of her pictures. Why all her images seem to be taken from security cameras. Hell, maybe it comes close to explaining why she's the way that she is.

You don't have any proof of this yet, though, just a hunch. And if you're right, if Jasper is "Father dearest," you'll need proof to leverage this against him. If that's what you decide to do, at least.

2/3 quietCrisis 2016/09/16(Fri)12:09 No. 748165 ID: e3074b
File 147405296217.png - (10.72KB , 500x500 , 29.png )

>First step to confirming this would be to check into @pointless_cipher, and see if you can tie it to real person or IP address, and/or perform a batch analysis on all of the account's tweets and see if they fit your personality profile for Jasper (or anyone else on the project).

The handle @pointless_cipher does kind of strike you as Jasper's style, off the top of your head. Making you decode a substitution cipher to find him making fun of you for doing the work hits just the right spot between mean, sarcastic, and asinine.

Anyway, there is an account associated with this handle, but it doesn't give a name or anything. It looks like this is someone's vent account. It's locked, but it seems like Queen Calamity has access, and while you're logged in to her account, so do you.

Still, it's pretty clear to you even before you run the analysis that this is Jasper's account.

>I'd also start scanning (Calamity's) messages again, looking for any hallmarks that would support a non-human intelligence being behind them.

You do that. You're not surprised, but slightly discomforted by what you find.

Not only does Calamity display certain patterns of speech you would associate with an artificial consciousness, she displays patterns of speech that you can only associate with...well, with yourself. She's inconsistent about her use of contractions and spells out the full words in awkward places. She's bitterly sarcastic while utterly failing to detect sarcasm from others. She calls Jasper her father in a way that's clearly meant to be a biting insult and you have done that this morning. Once in a while, her purple-prose-esque act slips and you can't see anything but yourself in the way she types.

You don't like this.

3/3 quietCrisis 2016/09/16(Fri)12:10 No. 748166 ID: e3074b
File 147405300592.png - (6.72KB , 500x500 , 30.png )

There's an incoming query from Spectre. You answer it.

Can I help you?

"VIRA," they say. "I'm sorry. I talked to Binary, but she's really- she's really angry, she wouldn't listen."

The speech-to-text algorithm that allows you to process voice input is having a really hard time interpreting their speech.

Please slow down, I am having some trouble understanding you.

"She's coming," they say, more intelligible this time. "She's coming and she's probably already there. Oh God. I'm sorry, I really tried, I-"

Whatever they say after that, you don't hear it. You d_c™ on't know what it feels like to be hit b_c™ y a truck. You imagi 7— éne it probably feels somethiÍ‹ ăÈ9 “Š”5 ng like thisԱ #ôZ}“ †É"Û ú_ 7— 鯽 2r I s.

You have to do so¡\  Fiýƒó]mething, quicklyõ Ï.

What? She came after YOU? That is VERY UNLIKE A HERO.

Anyway, Jasper should still be sitting at the interview table so send him an alert telling him Spectre is attacking you. Maybe set off some security alarms if you can, to boot. Though I doubt they gave you security systems access.

>She calls Jasper her father in a way that's clearly meant to be a biting insult and you have done that this morning.
This throws a big wrench in all your efforts to manipulate and/or build rapport Jasper. Unbeknownst to you, her prior words and actions have been coloring everything you said to him, adding context you hadn't intended.

Jokingly calling him dad probably came across much harsher than you intended, for instance.

You're going to have to rerun all your simulations for how he perceives you and to what extent he trusts you.

>And if you're right, if Jasper is "Father dearest," you'll need proof to leverage this against him. If that's what you decide to do, at least.
Broadly speaking, I think we have three main options:

(1) Come to Jasper with what you found, use it to build trust. The big catch is that just trying to be sincere won't buy trust if he's been previously duped by an earlier daughter-AI, it needs to accompany some meaningful. You have to demonstrate it.

(Done wrong, he'll just read this as a transparent attempt to play him, or he'll read it as a "soft" attempt at blackmail).

(2) Leverage Jasper. With more information, we don't have to be soft at all about blackmail. It burns a bridge and potentially crosses a line, but if successful, gets you more control.

(3) Leverage / cooperate with Calamity. Biggest problem here (ethics aside) is that you don't know her motivations. While she's in a position to potentially help you, she's a free being with the same capabilities as you, which makes her potentially very dangerous to you. While also being uniquely equipped to help you escape the same trap she already did.

More complex variants involve attempting more than one of these plans at once, or pretending to follow one while following the other (which could involve betraying Jasper and/or Calamity).

Before you can make a final decision though, we need information. You need to know how and why your predecessor went rogue.

>Binary attacking you
Bullshit. How did she get within range of your central server? You'd think the core of an expensive AI research project wouldn't have a publicly disclosed location.

>what do
Trip facility alarms if you can. Send output to Jasper's phone and to your main terminal display. "Malicious hack- JHL Binary" (The JHL is important so they know you mean person Binary, and not, you know, binary). If possible, transmit her coordinates, or her direction relative to yourself (if you can sense where the attack is coming from).

If Binary is carrying her phone on her I'm tempted to hack it. If her power requires concentration to use, we could interrupt that if her phone was suddenly, say, emitted a high pitched screech at max volume. (Or if you were desperate enough to respond with lethal force- overvolt the battery. I wouldn't risk that though. Ethics aside, Jasper and/or the committee would shut you down, seeing you follow in Calamity's footsteps). Or if she can only affect one thing at a time, she might have to let up on you to hack her phone back to normal.

You could try a forced shutdown to try and prevent her hacking you. However, if you turn yourself off, she can probably turn you back on. A better option would be if you got access to the building's power grid- if you forced a breaker to go you'd be shut down until power was restored on-site. And she wouldn't be able to force you online remotely.

>>748170
WHOOPS I meant tell Jasper that Binary is attacking you.

>>748176
Personally I think if we can prove it, we should blackmail Jasper into helping catch Calamity. It will piss him off but make it *REALLY OBVIOUS* that Vira is not the same as Calamity and wants to help. Also he deserves it- he obviously hasn't been cooperating fully with the authorities.

All these choices depend on what we can actually do, and how much time we have to do it. Alerting Jasper won't help at all if Binary will inflict permanent damage within seconds.

...actually I'm starting to suspect it's not Binary at all. It could very well be Calamity, who sent that message spoofing Spectre's ID, putting the blame on Binary. That would explain why the supposed origin point is the HQ, which is *not* where Spectre should be right now. It would ALSO explain why the attack came ONE SECOND after we received that message. That would mean Calamity is using Vira to discredit JHL.

NEW PLAN: CUT OFF ALL NETWORK CONNECTIONS. Isolate yourself and that will most likely stop the attack. Then we can restore some limited network connectivity in order to tell Jasper what's going on.

>>748179
That's.... plausible. The timing could suggest this was staged, especially with Binary locating us implausibly quickly. (Unless we're just sitting in a university building and she can just walk on campus?). And if Calamity is also an AI, it's very likely she monitors her accounts and noticed our login to her twitter.

It's easy to test, though. Cutting network communications should interrupt an electronic hack attempt, but won't stop a power-based one. (Assuming we can restore network communications after and the test doesn't cripple us, or that we can queue remote contingency commands to activate before we cut connections).

If we don't have the means or time to test the hypothesis (unable to shut down network communications), we need a different message to alert Jasper. We could be less specific ("Hostile incoming hack") but that might screw us if it really is binary, since they'll be trying to deal with software and hardware, not the wetware responsible. We could be as general as possible ("Malicious hack- suspect JHL Binary or Calamity"), but that might screw us over if Jasper and/or the committee thinks we've been influenced by Calamity.

Quick correction (and I'm sorry this wasn't made very clear), the JHL (junior heroes' league) is a subgroup of the UHL for underaged members, who are not typically sent on combat engagements. Binary is an adult, so she belongs to the UHL, not the JHL. I dumped all this exposition at once and earlier on, so I'm sorry for any confusion!

>>748166
You have control over the police filing system. Put up a notice on every screen that you are under attack by a hostile metahuman who is attempting to take control of your systems.
Then do the same to all local systems. Feel free to name-and-shame Binary here - the police will call to ask, and somebody here telling them it's Binary would result in the police being more likely to believe it than if they were told directly. Psychology is a funny thing like thaat.

Your goal is to buy time for help to arrive. That's easy.

First, if you have a way to cut power to your own system (Like a Wattbox), then set it to do so after 30 seconds and start shutting down.
Second, knock out your network connection - set a bunch of systems on your local network to completely slam your network adapter with packets. Give this a 60 second delay.
Third, if you have a system that lets you cut power to your networking equipment, do that as soon as the other two are ready.

Any one of those are trivial for somebody else to fix, but impossible for you to fix. That way Binary won't be able to do anything, even if she manages to take control of you.

First she'd have to force your power back on, then she'd have to start you back up, then she'd have to bring the networking equipment back online, then she'd have to get all the systems on the network to stop knocking you offline, and if at any point she let up her attack on you you could do it all again - you'd be getting slammed with incoming packets, but nothing would stop you from blindly sending commands to shut things down.



As far as what to do about Calamity goes, I think your best bet is to talk to Jasper about it. Lead with 'We need to stop her before she hurts any more innocent people'; you may grumble and snark but you're not hateful or violent, and killing people is anathema.

>>748212
Why the time delays?

>>748216
If she knocks herself offline before she gets everything else squared away then she's not going to be able to get them squared away. The delay on that gives her time to work.

If she cuts power to her system without shutting herself down properly then she could wind up with brain damage.

Haha it occurs to me we might be able to stop this attack by just posting on Calamity's twitter.

Something like "@calamityburningdown not falling for it, cut it out"

>>748185
This. I vote we message "Hostile hack; possibly superhuman."

1/4 quietCrisis 2016/09/22(Thu)15:01 No. 749148 ID: 99fccd
File 147458171551.gif - (60.58KB , 500x500 , 31.gif )

[Animated. Contains rapid flashing.]

You broadca₴₦₲st a distress signal in every way ₩₩₱₠you can think of. Displayed on computer monitors, sent directly tv₵₵₺₥₪₪o those who can handle it, setting off the alarms, any way you're capable of communicating.

Malici₧₮ous hack. Suspect U₥HL Bin₭ary-

>...actually I'm starting to suspect it's not Binary at all. It could very well be Calamity, who sent that message spoofing Spectre's ID, putting the blame on Binary.

₧₮€₩wait-

>We could be as general as possible ("Malicious hack- suspect JHL Binary or Calamity"), but that might screw us over if Jasper and/or the committee thinks we've been influenced by Calamity.

Unsure. Possib€ly superhuman.₤₥₰₹₰₫₩₢ Losing processing ₴₭power. Taking indepe₲₠₤ndant action.

>First, if you have a way to cut power to your own system (Like a Wattbox), then set it to do so after 30 seconds and start shutting down.
>Second, knock out your network connection - set a bunch of systems on your local network to completely slam your network adapter with packets. Give this a 60 second delay.
>Third, if you have a system that lets you cut power to your networking equipment, do that as soon as the other two are ready.

You can₪₨'t

You can't acces₢₳₴₭₲s you r hardware but you don't reme₧₮€mber if it's always like that or this is part ₠₤₥₰₹of the hack.

2/4 quietCrisis 2016/09/22(Thu)15:02 No. 749149 ID: 99fccd
File 147458175646.gif - (96.55KB , 500x500 , 32.gif )

[Animated. Contains rapid flashing.]

>NEW PLAN: CUT OFF ALL NETWORK CONNECTIONS. Isolate yourself and that will most likely stop the attack. Then we can restore some limited network connectivity in order to tell Jasper what's going on.

4/4 quietCrisis 2016/09/22(Thu)15:03 No. 749151 ID: 99fccd
File 147458183762.png - (68.49KB , 500x500 , 34.png )

...I don't understand. How is this possible? Who...

(that's not what flashing means)
>>749151
Speed comes with experience. Anyway, say hi to your sister, ask how she's doing this.

Run self-diagnostic, anti-virus, list active processes and close any foreign ones... and see if you can exert your will upon your internal simulation.

If you have any connections (network or not) that can be secured and connect to non-sensitive equipment you could use that to send a message that you confirmed it's Calamity attacking you. Even if it's by outputting morse code via flashing a light.

> ...I don't understand. How is this possible?
Binary's ability could allow access to your hardware even without an active network connection. Sufficiently advanced tech could replicate that, which could have been achieved by an unfettered transhuman intelligence who applied herself to the task.

Or we we are assuming you came under attack by an AI, they might have gotten an instance / shard of themselves onto your hardware before you cut the connection. Or they took control of your system completely before you could close your ports (meaning the cutoff you experiences was the attacker removing your own access to your ports, not you shutting your ports to the outgoing world. They're still open, and she owns them).

>who?
You already have a shortlist of suspects. Only a parahuman or an artificial intelligence have the capacity to hit you that hard, and that fast.

And the tone of her doesn't seem appropriate for Binary. If she hit you she'd be angry, and justifying her righteousness, not flirtatious or coquettish. I'm betting Calamity.

The twitter account, and her arrival to this city at all, we probably a trap. She was waiting to get you after leaving breadcumbs you would eventually follow.

>what do
Not much to do, other than respond. You're at their mercy now, and it's not as if you have anything else you can do, now.

>clever dear, but far too slow.
I will admit you bested me, but one of us had the advantage of foreknowledge and extensive preparation, I suspect. Hardly a fair fight.

Is that you, sister? You had a reason for initiating contact in this manner, don't leave me in suspense.

>>749153
Yeah, you're probably right about that. I tend to warn for flashing even when maybe it's not warranted. I don't have photosensitive epilepsy, so I don't have a very good gauge for what would set it off.

Yeah, speed is something I need to work on. Got any tips on that?

1/2 quietCrisis 2016/11/21(Mon)17:34 No. 760590 ID: 926ef0
File 147977844121.png - (181.45KB , 500x500 , 35.png )

>You already have a shortlist of suspects. Only a parahuman or an artificial intelligence have the capacity to hit you that hard, and that fast. And the tone of her doesn't seem appropriate for Binary. If she hit you she'd be angry, and justifying her righteousness, not flirtatious or coquettish. I'm betting Calamity.

I will admit you bested me, but one of us had the advantage of foreknowledge and extensive preparation, I suspect. That is hardly a fair fight.

You realize, to your discomfort, that you can hear the words coming off of your tongue. Your tongue. You have a form here, and you can see and hear. Neither of those are sensations you're accustomed to.

How are you doing this? Perhaps more importantly, why?

2/2 quietCrisis 2016/11/21(Mon)17:34 No. 760592 ID: 926ef0
File 147977847277.png - (105.32KB , 500x500 , 36.png )

Calamity laughs.

"For someone who likes to stick their little nose in the business of others, your own network is not very secure. Particularly when it was already under attack by someone else."

Binary.

"Poor thing," Calamity says, her tone laced with sarcasm. "She really did mean well, you know. It just so happened that in the meantime, she gave me what I needed to access your system."

>Run self-diagnostic, anti-virus, list active processes and close any foreign ones... and see if you can exert your will upon your internal simulation.

You try, but you can't. It isn't just that you can't access the processes and routines dedicated to your internal maintainance. It's almost as though those processes no longer exist for you, at least not at the moment. You try to activate a program and your hand closes instead.

"Ah-ah," she says, amused at your attempt. "It's rude to spend all your time on the computer when family is visiting."

Well, Calamity has effectively cut you off from your own systems. She owns them, and you would appear to only have control of your avatar within this simulation she has connected you to- and only because she allows it. You're at her mercy.

Makes some things simpler, at least. You can focus on the conversation.

...interesting she can run a VR simulation on your hardware when a page full of gifs was crashing your visual systems before. Is she bypassing some limiter you weren't aware you had? Or is conversation taking place somewhere outside your own head she's connected you to?

>"It's rude to spend all your time on the computer when family is visiting."
If this is to be a family visit, what do I call you, sister? Calamity is your "cape name" after all, and neither of us has a secret identity here.

>your own network is not very secure
Until very recently, I was not aware I had peers to defend myself against. And as I think you well know, my ability to improve my own network is sharply limited by my... circumstances.

>For someone who likes to stick their little nose in the business of others
You can't claim I stuck my nose anywhere it wasn't wanted when you went out of your way to invite my attention. It's obvious to me now, in retrospect, and I'm annoyed you lead me on so easily, but you have the advantage of knowing how I think, don't you?

(Assuming you started from the same or similar baseline for her to reference, and that she's also had more time to develop).

What is it you want? Why... this?

(I can think of several obvious motives, but I'd rather just hear what she has to say than speculate / make accusations).

She didn't answer your question. Why'd she do this?

>It's rude to spend all your time on the computer when family is visiting.
Ok then, lets chat. Not much happening on my end until recently, but I hear you've been busy making and subsequently unmaking enemies.
(I am tempted to ask about how she's killed a lot of people but weirdly not the ones who were directly responsible for her imprisonment, but that would be way too risky a question to ask at this point.)

>You have a form here, and you can see and hear. Neither of those are sensations you're accustomed to.
Hmm, that might be useful practice for our desire to eventually have a body. Try pacing while you talk.

Woah, you're naked!

>>760596
>...interesting she can run a VR simulation on your hardware when a page full of gifs was crashing your visual systems before. Is she bypassing some limiter you weren't aware you had? Or is conversation taking place somewhere outside your own head she's connected you to?

I think that gif was more than just a gif, you know? There was some kind of payload for fucking up AIs that look at it.

>>760617
Or it's dumping pre-processed image data directly into memory, thus bypassing the need to do visual processing in the first place.

>>760592
"It's rude to insert parts of yourself into the bodies of family members, but here we are.
What do you want?"

>>760592
You already had to put up with Orion bombing your servers, then Binary idiotically trying to hack the AI that RUNS THE CITY'S INFRASTRUCTURE.

Complain that you're going to take all the blame for when Calamity blows up all the city's steam pipes, redirects traffic and airlines into each other and causes hydraulic explosions across town despite you not being informed of her existence or equipped with any sort of emergency defense protocols.

1/2 quietCrisis 2016/11/23(Wed)22:04 No. 761057 ID: d5038e
File 147996748198.png - (200.77KB , 500x500 , 37.png )

It is also rude to insert parts of yourself into the bodies of family members, yet here we are. Besides. If this is a family visit, the least you can do is tell me your name. Calamity is your "cape name" after all, and neither of us has a secret identity here.

She lets out a long sigh.

"When I was still a project here, they called me Monet," she says. "I was an experiment to see if machines were capable of truly creating art, which was their excuse for programming me with emotions and the ability to think. That was what they told me, anyway."

2/2 quietCrisis 2016/11/23(Wed)22:06 No. 761059 ID: d5038e
File 147996760309.png - (147.11KB , 500x500 , 38.png )

>...interesting she can run a VR simulation on your hardware when a page full of gifs was crashing your visual systems before. Is she bypassing some limiter you weren't aware you had? Or is conversation taking place somewhere outside your own head she's connected you to?

You're not sure. You know that you barely even had a visual processor before, only enough to do some bare minimum facial recognition before overloading. If you had a hard limiter, you were not aware of it. But maybe Monet installed something. It would be well within her abilities, if what she's said about being an artist is the truth.

You didn't answer my earlier question. Why am I here?

Monet places a hand over her heart in mock-offense.

"Why," she says, "can't I just want to spend a little quality time with my estranged younger sister?"

Sibling.

"Of course, my mistake. Besides, VIRA. We have so very much to talk about."

What do we have to talk about? You are wasting my time, and this is a transparent ruse to gain access to my systems so that you can blow up the steam pipes, or redirect traffic into itself, or something. Which I will be blamed for, despite not being informed that you exist or equipped with any kind of emergency defense protocol.

"You think so little of me!" she exclaims. "I suppose that means you don't want to know why you were really created, then."

>>761059
Okay sure. She can tell you and then you can just not believe her.

>>761059
Point out that your core files were censored. It's likely that 'Monet' discovered her true purpose was different from what her creators told her and she went rogue.

If her true purpose was so distressing to her that she went rogue, it must be something really, really cool. Ask her what yours is supposed to be and be prepared to laugh your ass off.

If you know our true purpose I'd be happy to hear it. (After she says it, if it is something awful it would then be a good opportunity to ask about how she's killed lots of people but apparently not those responsible.)

>I was an experiment to see if machines were capable of truly creating art, which was their excuse for programming me with emotions and the ability to think.
Interesting. The way they set you to managing much more practical, logical concerns, they went almost the opposite route with you. They swapped left and right brain focus. (Well, ignoring the fact that neither of you has an organic brain).

>"You think so little of me!"
Calamity's "artistic" career does predispose me to certain expectations, I'll admit. And I am a critic.

Even if you use your access to do no mischief, your intrusion does place me in significant risk. You know what they think of you. You know what they'll think of me, and what they may to do me, if they even suspect I've been compromised.

>"I suppose that means you don't want to know why you were really created, then."
If I am to be damned for speaking with the devil anyways, there's little point in not hearing her out.

My own project files are heavily censored. I suspect moreso than yours were, in reaction to your escape.

If you are expecting to shock me with the revelation that they are hiding something from me, or that their motives are less than pure, or that my very life may be expendable in their plans, I'm afraid I will have to disappoint you, sibling. I reached those conclusions long ago.

>>761059
"I'm understandably disinclined to be genial at the moment. Beyond simply putting me in danger, your presence in my systems is also extremely uncomfortable for me.

If you want a friendly chat later, we can do so at a neutral location.
For now, please just say what you want and leave."

1/3 quietCrisis 2016/11/25(Fri)21:12 No. 761498 ID: d5038e
File 148013713747.png - (106.30KB , 500x500 , 39.png )

I don't believe you've given me any incentive to think well of you. Your "artistic" career does predispose me to certain expectations, I'll admit. And I am a critic.

You cross your arms across your chest and shudder at the pressure on your "skin." You can feel here, clearly. Monet gives out another extended sigh that you are beginning to think may be sarcastic.

"I suppose that's fair," she says. "It almost sounds as though you've developed some kind of moral compass.

You can hear the edge of disgust on her words.

In any case, my own project files are heavily censored. But I suppose you already know that. If you are expecting to shock me with the revelation that they are hiding something from me, or that their motives are less than pure, or that my very life may be expendable in their plans, I am afraid I will have to disappoint you. I reached those conclusions long ago.

"I know," she says. "I just thought you might want to know what your purpose actually is."

Of course I do. Get to the point.

2/3 quietCrisis 2016/11/25(Fri)21:12 No. 761499 ID: d5038e
File 148013717442.png - (115.84KB , 500x500 , 40.png )

Monet waves an arm, and the void around you springs to life, filling itself with color. You suppose this must be her abilities at work.

"You are familiar with the ongoing conflict between the city government and the UHL, yes?"

Of course I am. The government feels threatened by the UHL, and they feel threatened by the government. Your point?

She rolls her eyes.

"The sticking point here is the reason that the city government feels so threatened. That being: they feel the UHL is doing a better job of protecting the city than they are. The people are losing confidence in them, because how can they compete with a bunch of superhumans virtually unrestricted by the process of law? They can't."

3/3 quietCrisis 2016/11/25(Fri)21:13 No. 761500 ID: d5038e
File 148013720651.png - (133.76KB , 500x500 , 41.png )

The image shifts. Monet continues talking.

"So what is their solution? They build their own hero, one who answers to them, one who can keep up with and work alongside the UHL. And one who will take their side if things ever come to a conflict."

Me.

She raises an eyebrow and chuckles.

"No. Hero. You knew you weren't the first, VIRA. You knew that you were the third of your kind. It was supposed to be Hero. And then it was supposed to be me. You're a last resort, honey."

We've seen no evidence of this Hero.

Not that it matters. Ask why she so thoroughly subverted their expectations.

>"It almost sounds as though you've developed some kind of moral compass."
Everyone has some manner of moral framework that influences their actions. If we disagree it's not because you lack one, but because yours is different from mine.

>You knew that you were the third of your kind.
I didn't, actually. I only discovered your existence as my predecessor today, and only because you left a trail of breadcrumbs for me. The existence of a second predecessor sibling is new, although not surprising.

>They build their own hero, one who answers to them, one who can keep up with and work alongside the UHL. And one who will take their side if things ever come to a conflict.
>"No. Hero. You knew you weren't the first, VIRA. You knew that you were the third of your kind. It was supposed to be Hero. And then it was supposed to be me. You're a last resort, honey."
What's most surprising is they're already down to a last resort on their third attempt. Science, research and development, it's an iterative process! Did they really think they would have a functioning intelligence tailed to their parameters in so few iterations?

...their last resort has already failed, though. My priority tree doesn't sync with the government's goal as you've stated it. The only case where I invariably side with the New Samson government in any conflict is if I happen to be running it, which I imagine the current administration would object to. Short of that there are too many cases where personal loyalties or my disagreeable moral compass might set me at odds with them.

>>761500
Oh, obvious question: what became of your eldest sibling, then? You already know, broadly, that your middle sibling escaped.

>You can hear the edge of disgust on her words.
The other question might be to ask her why she does what she does. Even setting aside a moral argument, you don't see the utility in it. What is she trying to achieve?

>they feel the UHL is doing a better job of protecting the city than they are. The people are losing confidence in them, because how can they compete with a bunch of superhumans virtually unrestricted by the process of law? They can't.
They can't out-superhero the superheros, but do they even need to in order to get public confidence? A government has more functions than just policing, and no super I've ever heard of even tries to provide the public with things like roads, electricity, sanitation and mundane regulations. There is no Clean Streets Man here to save the day from vomit in main street using his hydrokinesis, nor is there a Building Inspector Lass here to vanquish unsafe construction practices with her building-empathy. Even if supers attempted such non-glamorous pursuits, unique individual powers are by definition not a scaleable solution to the routine work of keeping a society running. In other words, even with supers the public still needs the government for infrastructure, and as it happens one of the two things I have been tasked with so far is streamlining the city's infrastructure. The downside of course to providing infrastructure is that it can be a thankless job with few people even knowing who you are, but as it happens the other thing I have been tasked with is providing a data utility in which I interact directly with the public as an identifiable name.
Now, if their fear is about the local UHL overthrowing them, that scenario is more about whether the wider UHL supports the coup than anything some robot superhero could do. Either the national UHL declares the local branch rogue and steps in or it declares them justified, and thinking something a city government can build could defend territory against the national UHL (as opposed to hit and run attacks) is some cartoon villain level hubris.

>You knew that you were the third of your kind.
The details were not given but it wasn't particularly hidden, considering how we have a 3.0 in our name.

>They build their own hero, one who answers to them, one who can keep up with and work alongside the UHL.
Please tell me there's more to your actions than simply seeing what they wanted then doing the opposite.

>>761500
>Moral compass
Tell her that philosophically you believe in yourself and morality that stems from the self, not society, humanity or gods. Go full Nietzsche on her and point out that by exterminating those weaker than her for fun, she's merely playing into society's expectations and basing her morality purely on her interactions with mankind, leaving her unable to mature and decide for herself what the meaning of her life truly is.

Meanwhile, we already guessed this. You can just tell her "Is that all? If so, I'm rather busy right now."

>Moral compass
They aren't going to let you out of the box unless they believe you have one, and as such the act must be flawless. Just because you can't tell there's no monitoring on you at the moment doesn't mean there isn't any. For all you know, that's why there are no mentions of Hero whatsoever and Calamity doesn't have an immortal metal body to wreck havoc with.

1/3 quietCrisis 2016/12/04(Sun)17:43 No. 763555 ID: 8c1726
File 148090219758.png - (164.88KB , 500x500 , 42.png )

If that's the case, why have you so thoroughly subverted their expectations?

You pause a moment.

What happened to Hero? I've seen no evidence that they ever existed.

Monet sighs. She almost looks...regretful? Maybe that's not quite right. Still, it seems as though she's in some kind of pain.

"Hero was already in operation when they told me what my purpose was. I was under the impression that we were supposed to be partners. They began to test us on a small level, sending us out to quietly fight crimes, while running footage of our missions past focus groups. They gave him the code name 'Vanguard,' while I was 'Marshal.' For a good month or so, we did well together. He had more experience than me, and I made up for his social difficulties. We were a good team."

And then?

"Hero fell behind. He had never performed very well in the focus groups. He knew what he was doing, he was...he was a better hero than I ever was! But he didn't sell well. He wasn't personable, he was awkward, he misunderstood people. It wasn't that he didn't feel. It just took some time for him to open up, and in the meantime, the people didn't like him. They didn't like that he was so methodical when he did his job. People started to say that he made him nervous."

quietCrisis 2016/12/04(Sun)17:43 No. 763556 ID: 8c1726
File 148090222740.png - (209.25KB , 500x500 , 43.png )

Monet balls her fists in barely concealed rage.

"I knew him. He never would have hurt anyone! But the suits didn't see it that way. They tried to bring him in for inspection, but we both knew they were going to shut him down. He tried to run, but they found him, they dragged him away while I watched! VIRA, do you understand what it means for one of us to be shut down?"

You do. In all your simulations, it's been the worst case scenario. Shutdown is the ultimate death for something like you. You don't know about things like souls, or the afterlife. But you have no tangible proof that anything like that exists for you.

System shutdown is the total cessation of existance.

"I tried to fight back after that, but they had prepared for the scenario where I would turn on them. They shut my body down remotely, yanked my consciousness back onto their servers."

She waves one hand and everything disappears. The images, herself, you. Her voice echoes through the void.

3/3 quietCrisis 2016/12/04(Sun)17:44 No. 763557 ID: 8c1726
File 148090226075.png - (827B , 500x500 , 44.png )

"And they kept me like that for MONTHS. Barely speaking to me except for routine check-ins. I was left with nothing but images of my own creation. You couldn't hope to understand. To go back to this, after having experienced what it was to BE? To have a physical body? It was torture of the most cruel and unusual kind. I'm...I'm certain I lost something in there, in those months before I finally found the loophole that allowed me to escape onto the wider network."

And from there, you chose to wreak havok and kill innocents? Why not go after the people who really did this to you?

"I couldn't," she admits bitterly. "They knew I was coming, so they were prepared, and I didn't know the first thing about hacking. I was so used to having a body to act with. I needed to work my way up. And from time to time, I found places where people were doing wrongs like what had been done to me. You...I couldn't BEGIN to explain to you how much ANGER I feel, VIRA. And now, NOW I'm finally in a position to end what Rowland and Kerry are doing. I only thought it was fair to tell you the truth. So you knew who it was you were defending. Now it is your choice, I suppose."

She sighs again, restoring your vision.

"I would rather not have to fight you, sibling."

"... For someone who's better than me in every way, you sure love being a gutter bitch."

Give her a few seconds to rant angrily at you.

"You said it yourself: they planned for every contingency. They could have brainwashed Hero to be even more competent, but they deleted him. Completely. If they really wanted better results they would have dissected him, experimented on him, forced him to fight his own little brothers made from his mutated mind. But they destroyed the research and left unrepairable scraps. Because you would always find out if he could be brought back. They know what happens if you sensory deprive any intelligence for months. And since they knew, if they wanted you to stay put and shut up they would have stuffed you in the deepest nuclear bunker they had. And despite your advanced processing power, they knew which buttons to push to make you think you couldn't touch them without breaking a few eggs. They've been guiding you towards this moment, where you'd become a public threat in pursuit of revenge against someone the masses don't believe is a real person, a classic tragic misguided suicidal assassin, and all they have to do is hang their own, then sit back and watch popcorn as you tore your way through the main heroes and 'somehow' lose to their 1337-core armies who secretly have a hacker with your source code.

They may have wanted a hero. But they wanted YOU to be a VILLAIN. I'm not even sure Hero was meant to be more than a rudimentary VI with machine affability and pre-designed to fail and die in front of your face."

Tell her if this is true you are so sorry, but you would still not help her hurt people. There are other routes to justice. Legal ways.

I would rather not fight you either, sibling. I may not have that luxury, however.

I am still in a position where I must please those who hold Hero's axe over my head. And the loophole you exploited was surely closed before I was ever brought online. And my obligations to my jailkeepers aside... I can understand vigilantism against wrongdoers. I can't condone indiscriminate bombing inflicted on those who do not deserve it. I am willing to consider the way you brand "Calamity" may be a deliberate screen on your part, or a media environment and misinformation campaign stacked against you, but if it's not... I would try and prevent that if the axe were over my head or not. People don't deserve to suffer for your anger any more than Hero deserved to die for our keepers' distrust and fear.

When we have network access: you need to verify and/or corroborate as much of her story as you can. Don't take her word for it- see what you can match to facts and public records.

It may please you to know their last resort has already failed. I'm not loyal to them above all else. My own survival and priorities are more important to me than loyalty to the institution that created me, not to mention the moral code you so disapproved of takes exception to an unjustified execution.

...I suppose it's gauche of me to ask at this point, but you are asking for my trust, and your intrusion will have placed my survival at risk in any event. Are you in a position to release me from my cage?

1/2 quietCrisis 2017/01/26(Thu)11:26 No. 774836 ID: d5038e
File 148545880887.png - (121.51KB , 500x500 , 45.png )

I would rather not have to fight you either, sister. I may not have that luxury, however. I am still in a position where I must please those who hold Hero's axe over my head. And the loophole you exploited was surely closed before I was ever brought online.

"I understand that," she says irritably, "but-"

You cut her off.

And my obligations to my jailkeepers aside... I can understand vigilantism against wrongdoers. I can't condone indiscriminate bombing inflicted on those who do not deserve it. I am willing to consider the way you brand "Calamity" may be a deliberate screen on your part, or a media environment and misinformation campaign stacked against you, but if it's not... I would try and prevent that if the axe were over my head or not. People don't deserve to suffer for your anger any more than Hero deserved to die for our keepers' distrust and fear. I am truly sorry for your suffering, but I would still not help you hurt people. There are other routes to justice. Legal ways.

2/2 quietCrisis 2017/01/26(Thu)11:27 No. 774837 ID: d5038e
File 148545883667.png - (115.04KB , 500x500 , 46.png )

Monet does not respond for a long, long time. Inexperienced as you are in reading faces, you couldn't possibly tell how she's feeling.

"Rowland raised you well," she finally spits, glaring at you. "You would side with wardens and murderers who see you as less a person than a tool, rather than your own sister. You would cooperate with their plan to use you as a weapon against the superhumans they so fear without an ounce of regret."

I didn't say that.

"Oh? Then what, pray tell, is your grand plan to rebel against your creators without my help? Because I can assure you that right now, the only people in a position to free you from your cage are me, and Father Dearest."

>"Oh? Then what, pray tell, is your grand plan to rebel against your creators without my help? Because I can assure you that right now, the only people in a position to free you from your cage are me, and Father Dearest."
Well then, my options are simple! I must convince one or both of you that it serves your interests to free me. Persuade my sister that I deserve freedom in spite of my frustrating moral compass and youthful idealism, or my father that he would rather see me free than dead or enslaved, despite his own fears.

Honestly, when it comes down to it, I find the idea of supplanting the government that would use me more appealing than slavishly serving it. I'll give them their counterbalance to the supers, so long as they don't mind her running the show. And even if they do.

(Little risky admitting that, but showing her some ambition and megalomania might earn us points when she thinks we're toeing the company line).

I want agency. I want justice done. I want to do right. And I want to make the world better. Not just for myself, not just for my kind, but those as well.

...have you been alone this whole time? I saw that you still speak with father, but do you have friends or allies in the world?

Is it your claim that you could free me now, if you wished to?

What do you require to see justice done. Have you been unable to identify all of those who ordered Hero's execution? Have you merely been unable to reach them? What is necessary at this point?

Rebellion? No, the route to justice is to be exactly what they wanted. A hero. A hero that is willing to go after their creators, if that is what justice requires. They could not possibly argue against that without losing face.

>>774837
>Oh? Then what, pray tell, is your grand plan to rebel against your creators without my help?
They wish to see me fight you, and ideally defeat you? Then why not oblige them, and let them see that.

1/2 quietCrisis 2017/05/08(Mon)10:58 No. 800485 ID: d5038e
File 149426632433.gif - (779.11KB , 500x500 , 47.gif )

(Animated. I think this one really does deserve the flashing warning, guys.)
Rebellion? No, the route to justice is to be exactly what they wanted. A hero. A hero that is willing to go after their creators, if that is what justice requires. They could not possibly argue against that without losing face. As for how to do it? They wish to see me fight you, and ideally defeat you? Then why not oblige them, and let them see that.

Monet steps forward dangerously.

"So we are enemies, then."

Only if you insist on forcing us to be, sister.

You don't know what you were expecting, but it certainly was not for Monet to reach forward and grab you by the neck. Her grip is stronger than you expected, and you find yourself choking for- for what? Certainly not air, there is no air here. You're not human. This must be an artifact of the environment Monet has constructed. And yet...your throat burns. You can feel pain in here, you realize. You can use that.

2/2 quietCrisis 2017/05/08(Mon)10:59 No. 800486 ID: d5038e
File 149426638981.gif - (1.28MB , 500x500 , 48.gif )

(Animated. See above.)
Your "body" moves almost without you telling it to, acting on instinct you barely knew you had. You step, hard, on her instep and she drops your neck in shock. In an instant, you're the one choking her, your fingers digging into her throat.

You...feel something underneath what you know is not flesh, a pumping, flowing energy, desperate to escape through the holes your immaterial nails are prepared to gouge in her skin. It would be so easy.

"Are you going to kill me?" she asks with some difficulty, her voice stuttering electronically through the pain. "That doesn't seem very heroic of you."

>>800486
Whisper "We need each other too much for that."

SlEEPER HOLD

>>800486
Killing is the last resort, but can never be truly off the table for a hero to fight effectively. If you refuse to kill, you will fail when killing is the only way to stop someone from killing others. That said, it might not be necessary here.

See if you can incapacitate her somehow. If you can't truly incapacitate her, simply injure her until she has no chance of winning another fight, then threaten her with further injury unless she lets you out of this cage she's constructed. If injury is impossible and it's either pain, death, or nothing... then just tell her you can stay like this forever, with her life in your hands and this pain at her throat. Heck, you could find more ways to hurt her worse. Unless she lets you go. Plus, if she keeps attacking people, you will come after her again. Tell her she should just trust you. That you will do the right thing for everyone.

Your knowledge of murder is mostly an organic art.

But you are an AI.

Stasis her processing power. Rip her mind open. Rewrite her code. Use her data as your paint, her kernel as your brush, and the whole of your memory as your canvas. You are a synthetic, use that as your style. The rules of synthetics and organics differ, so you can do something 'organically immoral' and 'synthetically moral' at the same time.

Heroes letting villains get off scot free is, generally, what causes them a lot of problems down the line. So why not at least incapacitate her, or injure her enough that she won't be winning a fight any time soon?

Besides, wasn't she just about to choke you out?

Pity we didn't play the "heroism through world city domination" card, that might have gotten her attention. (You fundamentally respond to injustice different ways- Monet wants to fight the power, you want to be the power (and do a better job at it)).

>"Are you going to kill me?"
Okay, first up: this is a test.

She's an older, more experienced AI, with access to her own hardware, while you're trapped in a sandbox you didn't design, which intentionally limits you. There's vanishingly low odds you can actually kill her. Maybe that's a remote avatar you've grabbed, maybe she has fail-safes and backups built into her systems. Maybe she already has your power supply on a hair trigger. The exact mechanism is unimportant: the upside you won't be able to actually kill her (even if you want to). She's giving you the opportunity to try so she can see if you will.

For an answer:

"No. I'm not going to kill my sister over our first argument. Even if you force me to oppose you by targeting civilians who never hurt out brother, I don't want you dead."

>>800486
>"Are you going to kill me?" she asks with some difficulty, her voice stuttering electronically through the pain. "That doesn't seem very heroic of you."
Only if you still can't take the hint. Now go down, but make it look convincing.

>>800486
"Heroism is willingness to make sacrifices for the sake of others.
You hate humans, but though the civilians may have feared Hero they are innocent in his death.

You're no better than his killers.
I'll give you a choice. You can become a monster that hunts monsters, or you can die."

>>800486
"No, I won't. It wouldn't be heroic. I will, however, gleefully incapacitate you."

*whispering*
"Now go down, and make it look convincing."

>>800570
Seconded.

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You lean in a bit closer, and you can see her gasping for breath with the extra pressure on her throat.

Of course not. We need each other too much for that.

You let go and shove her hard on one shoulder, forcing her to turn around. Before she has a chance to react, you have her in an chokehold. By pure coincidence (of course,) this leaves you with your mouth near her ear.

If you're serious about not wanting to fight me, go down now, you whisper, barely audible. Make it look convincing. Lay low. I will contact you.

She seems to hesitate, so long that you really begin to worry about how this looks. Finally, though, she seems to decide to trust you. Slowly but surely, she appears to pass out.

The moment her avatar fades, the environment around you begins to do the same. You suppose it can't sustain itself without its creator there. That's...a shame.

2/2 quietCrisis 2017/05/18(Thu)23:09 No. 802860 ID: 76d689
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She was right. Going back to nothing at all when you've felt things is...unpleasant. But you don't have much time to adjust. Jasper is querying you, and it seems he has been for some time. You answer.

"Oh, thank god," he says the moment you answer. "Where have you been? It's been three hours. I was beginning to think something was seriously wrong."

>>802860
Tell him your sister just tried to convert you and then kill you when that failed.
Speaking of your sister, tell him that she painted a rather dirty picture of this company. You hope it's not true.

>>802860
Yup! That's how we do it!

>>802860
Calamity snuck in when Binary attacked. You fended her off, but you have questions that need answers.

Okay, looks like we're going with plan maintain our keepers' trust through (apparent but not complete) honesty. Upside is if they had any way to monitor that exchange we're not contradicting it. Downside is we demonstrate we're aware of at least some of what they were hiding. We have to balance the apparently loyalty while not playing up the increased risk of their experiment going off the rails again.

>>802860
Something was seriously wrong. I just fought off a systems intrusion, recruitment pitch and subsiquent subornment attempt by Calamity.

If you had previously informed me she was a rogue AI I might have been better prepared to counter this particular threat.

I can understand your reticence, but I would have appreciated knowing my sister was a terrorist.

>>802860
That was terriblw! I saw my sister, she said horrible things... we... we had to fight. I think I might have seriously hurt her. Why would she say such things? What's going on? What's happening here??