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Sandy Harmony
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Palison begins to explain the NEURAL CONFLICT RESOLUTION RESPONSE PROGRAM.
>"This program is essentially another stage of the dream vision therapy program we've been using until now. It's kind of a prototype, but we have used it before! While the other is more of an observation and basic interaction tool, this version is designed to safely regulate potentially dangerous inner conflicts as they occur. As such, it locks certain restrictions in place around the parts of the host mind that are in contention, and allows us to indirectly manipulate the outcome by offering assistance to those parts that are on our side - the side of a healthy psyche, of course! Now, the long-term effects of such regulated conflicts are minor in themselves, since the "defeated" portion of the mind isn't gotten rid of so easily, just exhausted until it becomes more dormant. But the temporary effects can be quite strong, and open the way for breakthroughs to be made. In this case, we can stop the Rascal from alerting the Warden to our location, and force her to show the path to the next mind fragment we want to talk to!"
>"So, resolution takes place on the ACTIVITY FIELD. As you can see, each side has two rows of five positions for processing a mind fragment's activities through the program. Each fragment has rankings for their PRIORITY and their PERSISTENCE. The first measures how much they're capable of suppressing other aspects of our neumonos' minds, while the second measures how much emotional energy they have to resist being suppressed with!"
>"You can just call them DAMAGE and HEALTH," Arbiter comments.
>"Well, if you want to," Palison replies. "Whatever you call them, those two statistics come into play when one mind fragment ATTACKS another, which they can normally only do to enemy fragments positioned across from or diagonal to them, or in that arc. When that happens, each of the two fragments subtracts the other's PRIORITY/DAMAGE ranking from their remaining PERSISTENCE/HEALTH. If one or both of them loses it all, then they're DEFEATED and go DORMANT, and are removed from the field, unable to return unless they get restored somehow. The point of the whole exercise is to defeat all the opposing mind fragments without losing all of your own! That's simple enough, right? But be aware, most mind fragments need a clear line to attack along. They can't attack an enemy if there's another mind fragment in the way. In addition, a fragment in the front row can spend their action to DEFEND for a turn, protecting all friendly fragments in the rear row directly or diagonally behind them from attack. Now, here's where it gets a bit more complicated. Mind fragments can also have special qualities! These ABILITIES can do all sorts of things. PASSIVE ABILITIES are in effect all the time, or activate under certain conditions or events. ACTIVATED ABILITIES have to be activated, obviously! Some activated abilities are ATTACK-LIKE ABILITIES and are blocked by line of sight and defense, and some others are TARGET ABILITIES and can bypass those limitations. Polo, what abilities do you have?"
>"I... this is very strange," the Monster Hunter answers. "I think I have a PASSIVE: SILENCE ability that means I can't be specifically targeted by enemy attacks and abilities. I also have an ACTIVATED: SNIPER ability targeting myself, preventing me from taking damage when I attack for one turn. But... I feel like I have others, and I can't tell what they are."
>"That's ok! You're not used to the restrictions the program has put you under, yet, so you're having trouble telling what you can and can't do. Most of the mind fragments we meet are going to have the same problem! Just try to pay attention to what's going on, and you'll hopefully notice your hidden abilities when an opportunity to use them appears. Or if something just inspires you! The program can't cleanly regiment everything. In fact, apart from a few exceptions, we can't directly control the mind fragments to begin with, even if they're our allies. At the end of each side's turn, the mind fragments on that side all decide their own ACTION for that turn. They can move, attack, activate an ability, choose to defend if they're in the front row, and maybe more! But most of them can only do one of those things a turn. For example, they can't move and attack, or activate an ability and attack. A set of two turns, one for each side, represents a CYCLE, which is also our limit for how often we get our INTERACTIONS."
>"Ugh. Why do we have to take turns, again?" Sevener grouses.
>"As I was about to say earlier, there's a limit to how often we can directly interact with our hosts' neural material," Palison answers. "A neumono's physiology has a natural rhythm dictated by their Empathic Pulse, or just em-pulse. It uses the same basic system as what we'd normally call their empathy, but on a lower level of the spectrum, deeper down and comparatively very simple, and it doesn't even extend past their own body. You can think of it as a kind of metronome, ticking away to keep their various organs operating in time with each other regardless of whether their regeneration has shifted things around. If we tried to force our tinkering more quickly than the em-pulse can allow for, it would seriously mess things up! Different parts of their brains and nervous system would start to disassociate with each other and drive them insane, their heartbeats would begin to desynchronize and cause horrible blood pressure anomalies, and their usual empathy-"
>"Ok, ok, I get it!" Sevener interrupts, sighing. "Go to a college if you want to give a lecture."
>"You asked! Anyway, that's why, with two CAIs, we get two shots at direct interaction per cycle. To make it easy to understand, imagine we have two INTERACTION POINTS, which we can spend to do things! One point can be spent to put a friendly mind fragment onto the field, to take one off the field, to move them to a different position on the field, or to activate an ability and play its effect out. We can't use it to enable an extra attack, though. A mind fragment has to do that with their own action! And as I said, we can't control who they attack. But, since they're on our side, they'll probably listen to our suggestions. We can't control the opposing side at all, obviously! Because of the way they get linked together by the program, they can get one shared action between them in addition to their own individual ones, if they're clever enough."
>"So, in summary, the program's process goes down like this: First, we spend our INTERACTION POINTS, one after another. If we activate a mind fragment character's ABILITY, its resolution plays out then, if applicable. Then each mind fragment gets their own INDIVIDUAL ACTION, starting with the top of the front row, then down, then the top of the back row and down. Then the opposing side gets their turn, beginning by spending their GROUP ACTION POINT and going on the same way our side does. Then that's one CYCLE and we start again! We have to defeat all the opposing mind fragments and force them into dormancy to win. If all of ours get defeated, we lose!"
>"Any questions?"
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