fishesoutofwater | TEST DIVE #2

Entry tags:

test dive

TEST DIVE #2

PREMISE & NAVIGATION ✦ RULES ✦ MOD CONTACT
TAKEN ✦ RESERVES ✦ APPLICATIONS ✦ HIATUS & DROPS
FAQ ✦ BASE ✦ BIOMES ✦ URSULA ✦ URSULA CONTACT

TEST DIVE MEME

For information about the animals and locations, be sure to check out the BIOME and BASE pages!

A: There’s a Storm on the Horizon
A brainstorm. On advice about the ingenuity of multi person parties, and from admitted lack of understanding of many needs of organics, URSULA has selected you and a partner (or partners) to go to one of the observatories with food, beds, and recording devices to have a jam session for ideas about missions.

You are not to leave the room until you have some good ones. So get cracking! Start suggesting to one another what the base needs to do.

Or get horribly, horribly sidetracked and possibly a little crazy at being locked up together with the ocean staring at you. Judging.

B: The Abysmal Sea
You’re stranded.

One of the planet’s troublesome signal-interfering pulses has just made your communication devices 100% nonfunctional. No matter how you try to call URSULA for help, she isn’t able to respond. The database strapped to your wrist is just a useless chunk of metal now, leaving you without a useful library of knowledge to survive off. If you were driving any underwater vehicle prior to this point, it’s broken down. And unless you’re a mechanic, it’ll be pretty hard to get it jumpstarted again.

Don’t fret! The communication systems always come online eventually, so if you stay put, it’ll boot back up and give you directions straight back to base so you can finally get home. But can you really afford to stay put? The sunlight’s slowly streaming out of the sky, leaving the waters darker and darker with each passing second. Soon, you won’t be able to see five feet in front of you, and the only warning you’ll get of any approaching threat is through sound, if they even make any.

You have a few choices: take a daring risk and try swimming back to base, but on the off-chance you don’t remember the directions correctly from before you were cut off, you’re going to get even more lost, in the darkness of the night no less. Or, you could huddle in, with any friends if they were unfortunate enough to be with you, and start focusing on getting warm. Because spending the night out here in the vast oceans with the entire world against you is becoming a very, very real possibility.

C: It’s dangerous to go alone. Take them!
URSULA’s technology is breathtaking. With enough materials, she could make practically anything: weapons, vehicles, all those human comforts and entertainments she forgot to build... or perhaps she could expand the base to give everyone even more leg room. But there’s a catch: you need to get those materials to her in the first place, and scavenging can be a monumental task.

The planet Iniidae has a plethora of materials to provide, but you’ve got to go find them first. Some are easy enough to get, by plucking off the ground or breaking a rock. But some are a bit more challenging, such as Crash Powder, seeing that the Crash defending it will literally explode in your face if you get too close. And then there’s materials such as Blood Oil, only harvestable within the Blood Kelp Caves several hundred meters underwater in the pitch-black darkness… remember, you have to gather resources with your two bare hands. No such thing as driving around and conveniently collecting them within the somewhat-relative safety of an armored vehicle.

Since it’s so dangerous to go alone, URSULA will encourage you all to leave the base in pairs or groups if you’re going to try collecting some of the more precarious materials to harvest. She has heard that most lifeforms find being reconstituted from nanites traumatic, so try not to die in front of each other!

D: Almost, but not quite, Entirely Unlike Tea
The droids, URSULA promises, will do their best to make anything you want. Go on! Ask them anything! She’s excited. This seems like a great way to test out their capacities.

Of course, you need to be very careful what you wish for. Maybe you ask for Hamlet by William Shakespeare, and they do their best but only know so much, giving you a book with some… creative changes. Maybe you ask for a puzzle box, but you weren’t specific enough and things went awry.

Maybe you made the mistake of asking for tea..

No matter what, you were given something that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike what you asked for. Now what do you do with it?

E: CREATURE FEATURES (possible body horror)
As more data is collected on the creatures of the deep, DNA can also be gathered to allow URSULA to research how to integrate it into her crew members in useful and hopefully unintrusive ways, unless of course permission is given first for more obvious or exhausting additions.

Well, that's the idea, anyway.

Unfortunately, something malfunctioned while URSULA was researching. Her incomplete serum was injected into you through your devices while you slept (or maybe you were knocked unconscious by the sudden change to your body). Now maybe you have the temperament of a Stalker or the thirst of a Bleeder or Gasopod pods on your back that trigger when you're startled. How this genetic malfunction works and what it is can be up to you but while URSULA assures you it's only temporary, you're stuck like this for now.

Have fun?

F: The Caverns of Dream
The ocean calls you. Of course, it's much easier to dismiss it as nightmares. You'll probably think that's all it is after you have them. Flashes of screaming sea creatures writhing in agony, pleading for help, but these creatures can't ask for help, can they? Something huge, beyond the scope of imagination, moves in the ocean of your dreams and calls out to you to go deeper into the darkness. It pleads and begs but not with a voice you can hear or words you can understand.

You wake up in a sweat with the unrelenting desire to take a swim, even though it's late and everyone is asleep. Or maybe someone else just had the same nightmare as you? Are you willing to take a swim and try to understand the dream?

BASED ON CODE BY TESSISAMESS AND SUPERSUITS

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Processors doesn't make sense in that context to her, but she makes herself consider the overall statement. One processes things to understand them. This young man is saying he's altering how the metal golem processes so that it can handle more tasks than it already does.

... He's teaching it, or improving it's capacity to learn? ]

Will that leave 'him' capable of performing those tasks well, or simply performing them? [ She's not being entirely serious, though she's serious enough that the upward lilt of the question doesn't erase the fact it's still a genuine question. ] I'm not familiar with the way you're speaking, but it seems like increasing the capacity of the metal golems here would be a service to the group as a whole.

[To her joke, that isn't quite a joke, these impassive sunglasses show no visible sign of mirth. But there might be some. It's a Mystery.]

You can't be too hard on a child if it needs time to learn how to walk well. You have to give a toddler props for crawling first.

[And he mimes the little droid....Toddling along.

It's a baby bot, Ellana.]

[ She does find the miming of motion somewhat amusing. The point isn't lost on her, but... one doesn't need to be an infant in reality to have a steep learning curve. ]

True enough. We all start somewhere. [ Followed by a brief pause before: ] One relies on the teachings of those around them for more than how to take those first few steps. Is what you're doing assisting with that as well, or is it more increasing the capacity for him to learn and adapt on his own, based on feedback from those around him?

[ Is this metal golem going to get more complex in its interactions, or simply able to do more while remaining a simple creature itself? ]

[But baby bots are cute.

He gives a little nod.] The droids are pretty simple right now because they lack the hardware to do more, but they're also programmed to only do so much. In terms of golems, I'd say it's like they only have so much magic to work with, and the runes they use are basic. I'm upgrading their processing power so that they'll have more energy, and I intend on getting into their programming so they'll be able to learn and adapt. I'll also be giving them voice boxes. They'll be able to communicate to ask for clarification and learn from corrections they're given.

[...And may give out replies in rap.]

[ So rapping is just like spoken poetry, right? It'll be like some weird Orlesian thing? (No, Ellana, no.)

She nods in turn, interested that in the mix of terms she's unfamiliar with, he's also using ones she does know. She chooses not to remark on it for now. ]

Not so much the golems I'm familiar with. More like... a spirit choosing to enter the waking world on their own.

[ Cole comes to mind with a mix of fondness and a pang of... something. Worldsickness? Compassion was something they could all use more of here, she thinks. She gives a small, dismissive toss of her hand. ]

Not to say that's what your talking about, but I'll admit those are terms I'm more familiar with.

[Yes, Ellana. Embrace rap.

Even though he's still tinkering with his little bot bud, fixing a little chip into place, he is thinking over something she said.]

I guess that depends on what a 'spirit' is, as far as your world goes.

[ She makes a considering noise. It's not a simple question depending on who was approaching it, and with what understanding. Might as well admit as much. ]

That's a subject of centuries long debate, depending on who you ask. The simplest explanation could be that spirits are emotions given form in the Beyond, the world of Dreaming. Also the source of magic, kept separate from the waking world by a barrier called the Veil. It's... a more flexible barrier than many expect, like a resistance that holds the Beyond back and leaves the waking world as immutable as it wishes to be.

[ To Solas' dawning horror, once he realised what the Veil had done in a practical sense. ]

Though emotions alone aren't the only things spirits embody. Spirits of Wisdom are collectors of wisdom, as their title might suggest, but wisdom is less an emotion than a state of being, or an idea, or even an ideal. Where-as Rage, or Pride, or Envy are easy to recognise from their emotional source. They're generated by thought, a reflection of the waking world, and start off focused primarily on the one concept that defines them. Gaining more complexity is less a spirit's natural state and more a physical state... that being said, it's possible for spirits to willingly take on physical form and learn and grow, beyond what they began as in the Beyond. Or the Fade, as most of Thedas refers to the dreaming world.

[ There are all sorts of complexities there, but it's at least a place to begin. Getting into possessions, the desire for more negative emotion beings to press across the barrier, differing levels of intelligence, the complexities of the Nameless Ones, the Forbidden Ones, and so on... but who wants to hear all that. ]

[Complexity. It's his favourite thing. There is nothing Dirk enjoys more than nuanced and intricate explanations of esoteric topics! (He is his daughter's ectobiological father.)

[Being Dirk, however, his form of 'theorizing' comes in the form of making declarations instead of asking questions. Limited social skills here: he's a work in progress himself.] Even as concepts, Wisdom or even Rage isn't that simple. It sounds like Spirits could end up being deceptively complex to start. Setting an intangible existence into a frame that makes different demands on it seems both interesting in terms of setting alternate stressors and potentially extremely irresponsible if the original sentience isn't equipped to handle those parameters.

[...Although AR ended up happy, he guesses. Fucking Arquiusprite.]

Rage is simpler than you seem to believe. Unfortunately, that makes it... less capable of reason. Those in a rage often find seeing sense difficult. Spirits of Rage, or as they're more commonly referred to, Rage Demons, take that singular focus to a new level.

[ She turns her hand palm up; it's complex, but it's also simple. People invent layers, invent deceptions to themselves, have a stock in "accuracy" and so many conflicting traits that the spirits themselves are entranced.

Dirk would find Solas a far better conversational partner on this topic, for the breadth of his knowledge and his own perspective on spirits alone. Or perhaps Cole, for a confused, learning, firsthand experience. Ellana is trying to better understand a concept that she'd been taught to disassociate with as a matter of clan safety. Respect spirits, be aware of them, acknowledge them, but for the Creators' sake, don't invite them in, don't give them control, and don't attract human attention. Set the statue of Fen'Harel facing outward to drive the ill spirits away. She wonders how he reflected on all of that these days; if it amused him in a dry way, or only made him sad. The Dread Wolf is... a man much displaced in time, and she won't say he's handled it as well as he once might have hoped to. ]

Extremely irresponsible is how we end up with spirits of one kind being perverted from their true natures and turned into demons. Wisdom being twisted into Pride by those who make requests it cannot fulfill while remaining true to itself; forcing a spirit into the physical realm when it has no wish to be here, and it remains confused and prone to losing itself. No one, spirit or otherwise, should be forced to change without being able to make that decision for themselves.

[ ... so what are we doing with the metal golems again... ]

[Dirk's aversion to simplicity leads him to outright refuse the idea that emotions can be less than complex, and his pride rejects feeling talked down-to even when he himself can be obnoxiously condescending.] I'll accept that the demons themselves are like you say. They aren't in my sphere, and I wouldn't know. I would argue that the emotion of rage is open to as much complexity as any other. The heart often operates on the contradiction and multiplication of its splinters.

[This bratty teenager. (You can slap him, Ellana.)]

[He does, at least, appear to agree about change.] Their choices need to be respected. That would be a place where AI and spirits differ. Not that AIs shouldn't be respected, I mean; if anything, we have even more responsibility. From what you've said, I would understand a spirit to manifest without anyone's conscious will. An AI is always programmed by someone. There's always a creator that has an obligation to it.

[...we're casually giving those metal golems sentience? It's fine. He's going to learn to rap. HE WILL BE A HAPPY RAP BOT.]

[ She snorts, but in a sense, the debate is moot: it's only as relevant as the prospect of those spirits or demons she knows are likely to manifest here, and the tenuous connection she feels to the Fade makes it seem highly unlikely. In a strange way, being here is perhaps one of the safest removes for a practicing mage from the dangerous inherent to her own world.

... So instead she can focus on AI's (which she doesn't understand on their own so much as again, in comparison to what's familiar). And considering slapping the back of his head, but really, maybe she can just deposit the (seemingly human) child off with Korosensei. ]

People are the manifestation of those complexities, I agree.

[ Thus sidestepping demons and spirits as a whole for what she agrees to be true, and uh. Yeah. AI's.

... People still have an obligation to the spirits they are creating, or help create, but she uh. She won't get into that, not when it took Solas for her to even acknowledge that on her own. She was over thirty when she faced that world shifting perspective, and it was more relevant to where she was at the time. INSTEAD, FOR A FUTURE OF RAP BOTS...! Have a genuine (non-mocking) series of questions. ]

Are you a responsible creator, in that case? Willing to accept the faults and failures along with the successes? Bear the responsibility for them all?

[Ellana, clearly, is the better person here. Which admittedly Dirk would have probably acknowledged himself. But, the point: rap bots.

Little baby rap bots.]

In sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer. I, Dirk Strider, do take this extralegally modified droid on as my charge and obligations. From this day forward, I will be responsible for this little dude. I will give him an expanse of experiences to develop his personality. I will teach him a broad vocabulary to further his sick rhymes. I will build him little robot legs if he should wish to learn to breakdance while disgracing those who cross him in the fine art of rapping while dispensing increasing approximations of orange soda. Through emergent consciousness and malfunction, 'til bullshit plot shenanigans do us part.

[ She has very little idea what he's prattling on about in specifics (she even has a better idea of what Cole tends to ramble on about), but the gist of it boils down to a simple enough question: ]

I see. By any chance, you're not an author in your spare time, are you?

[ ... You know. The important questions in life. ]

[beat]

I do some creative work.

[ Beat. ]

Thought so. I have a friend who'd have loved to meet you, were they here.

[ Then with a clap of her hand against her thigh, she goes with: ]

What's your name?

[Dirk isn't entirely certain how to take this. He does think it might be cool to meet whoever this is, but even then, he's wary.]

Dirk.

[He should probably say, 'What is yours?' but doesn't get that far. His uncertainty has made him monosyllabic.]

[ Everyone should want to meet Varric. ... Or promptly get away from him. It's up in the air. ]

Nice to meet you, Dirk. Should I run into anyone with questions regarding your new protegee once they're up and moving on their own, I'll be sure to direct them your way.

[ Ah, said with a lopsided grin. She's not kidding, as it were, but she doesn't think it'll be necessary. Or if it is, getting tracked down over what one's misbehaving children have gotten up to is all part of the mutual learning curve. Probably. ]

Or if they're looking for, ah. "Sick rhymes?"

[ ... what did that really mean, though? ]

[He doesn't mind people tracking him down about a tiny little modded bot. It's not like he's going to turn any of them into the auto-responder. No, he's pretty sure that the droid series will just be nice, lowkey bots.

Who can and will rap constantly.

Which, on that subject:]

No rap in your world, then?

[Tragic. Absolutely tragic.]

[ A small shake of her head. ]

I suspect we don't when you ask like that. What is rap when it's not a physical action?

[ He didn't start designing boxing metal golems, did he. That's a terrible plan. ]

[...He didn't... start teaching these particular metal golems to box?

LOOK, ELLANA. HE HAD TO TRAIN WITH SOMEONE.]

It's a form of music. Specifically, it's a form of music that focuses on rhythm and rhyme as the primary vector for musicality. Melody takes a secondary role, if it's even present, to flow, which relies on cadence and rhyming to emphasize certain words in time with the accompanying beat.

[He doesn't feel it can be fully understood without a practical witness, but he respects that perhaps some lead-in would help.]

[ She'd have honestly been impressed to learn he built his own metal golems to hone physical skills! Just... less impressed if he built attack golems without informing everyone how to bypass their defenses. Or activation. ]

Sounds interesting. Would you be able to 'sing' me an example?

[ Sing meant in the loosest sense, but singing takes many forms. The control and use of the voice is capable of a great many things; melody can be secondary to the cadence of the voice in music she's heard before. She's totally got this. (No she doesn't.) ]

[Well, considering he was the only other living being... (Let's not talk about brobot.)

Just visible above the edge of his sunglasses, his eyebrows raise up.]

Okay. Do you wanna throw me a topic?

[ With zero hesitation: ]

Land.

[ Anything not underwater. Is it a good topic? No, no, it isn't. But it is heartfelt. ]

[A pause.

He reaches down into the innards of the droid he has been modifying. With a couple of adjustments, he gets a nice rap beat going to underline it.

And then he drops those rhymes.]

You ever looked out to sea?
Miles to see, miles of me,
Blue turned blacker eventually
Never known the feel of a growing tree.
Wonder what it's like beyond,
Does the earth sing a song? A song that keeps going on?
Wonder if I'll ever learn to sing along?
Or if I tried I'd sing it wrong.
Spring blooms; fall loss;
Flower buds and spreading moss,
Kelp forests underneath the soaring albatross
The grass is always greener when you can't get across.
I'm saying I will; I'm saying I'd kill,
I'm saying I'd lose my head just to have the thrill,
Of walking bare feet in the grassy earth.
But when I make land, I'm feelin' dead dirt.

[ It's different, but... it's an interesting kind of different. So once Dirk is done, Ellana finds herself quirking her lips up at the corner and clapping her good hand against her thigh for a version of applause. That sense of rhythm and the beat has a cadence she appreciates. Not really like the poetry or singing she's heard in Orlais, or heard out of Tevinter. Not like the songs she learned growing up with her clan, though the rhyming, that's similar. Almost nostalgic. She thinks she might like hearing more of this "rap." ]

Interesting note to end on. [ More to a point: ] Impressive! All that was off the top of your head?

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject