Thanqol

Huntresses of Hybrasil

"Invisibility has run its course," said Solarel to her new household. She had gathered them together in order to discuss the coming battles and her strategy for them, and the modifications that would need to be made.

"It is now a known quantity," she went on. "It can be adapted to, countered and thwarted. Paired with the way that I have operated the Bezorel I expect that my opponents will over-optimize for sensor coverage and defensive play in battles ahead. If I maintain my current approach I will become a solved quantity. I could get ever further into layered mind games but that path has an inevitable termination point. I need to reorient around fundamentals. In particular, I want to focus on optimizations to long ranged accuracy and firepower. My primary weapon is powerful but unacceptably long in its recharging cycles, I want weapons with high rate of fire and low power draw to pin opponents between cannon shots."

"Secondly," she said. "I want to add combat drones to my toolkit. Observation, harassment, utility features that won't slow the Kathresis down when in motion. I need to start making heavy use of them now to build familiarity. These changes will significantly change the strategic weight class of the Kathresis and interfere with the stealth functionality. This is fine, I want it as a spice rather than a primary combat arm. I want to pair overwhelming long range fire power with the ability to cloak and rapidly reposition when confronted."

Unspoken: No attack had as much psychological impact on Mirror as the sniper shot to the cockpit. That was the biggest crack in Mirror's armour she'd been able to find. That was the foundation for her new strategy of war, far more than any vision of her own strengths.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Yellow: On one level, the question of Olmeas is about perfection. At what point do things become good enough that you check out of progressive politics and become a defender of the status quo? At what point are the improvements so many or the alternatives so much worse that change of any kind becomes an unacceptable risk?
Yellow: That's why Numb said he'd leave if he was born there and not if he came there now.
Yellow: It's an example of a reductio ad absurdum philosophical technique designed to see if you'll bite the bullet and say that anything short of a perfect world is not acceptable.
Yellow: ✿But~!✿
Yellow: What is to you fuckers is a power fantasy.
Yellow: Imagine not only being able to absorb all the sin of this earth and protect everyone you care about...
Yellow: ... while also being so well known, publicized and sympathetic that not only does everyone hear about you, but some percentage of them reject utopia out of solidarity with you and your ideals.
Yellow: You're not talking about this because you want the vague speculative guilt of knowing you're hypothetically capable of selling out one day.
Yellow: You're talking about this because you'd sacrifice it all for less than a fraction of what the kid's suffering buys.
Yellow: ✿^^✿ What I'd like you to consider is to what degree you are able to sacrifice those ideals and treat yourself kindly if it's what makes your friends happy.
Yellow: Obviously not entirely, but if you'd go in the Box for strangers, you can eat something more nutritionally balanced than instant ramen for your fellow martyrs.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Yellow: ✿^^✿ Better question! ✿^^✿
Yellow: Would you be the kid?
Yellow: All the pain and sin of the world carried on your shoulders alone if it meant everyone else could be free?
Yellow: ✿o.o✿ Followup question! ✿o.o✿
Yellow: If one of us tried to be the kid, would you respect the decision or would you try to stop them?

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Brown!

"Oh!" she laughed, actually - just a warm and cozy sound, from someone who liked laughing at things. "Oh no, I'll take anything you offer. Large parts of my personality are psychotically paranoid and will work it over for flaws and will build a risk management framework for field deployment, but they do that with everything. I'm not too proud to take charity or too old to take gifts - and definitely not so secure that I can't find good use for them."

"But, like," she said. "I sought you out, for operational reasons, which are now complete. You've got your own shit going on, and I get it -" she sounded like she genuinely did, "- if you're not into this. Old project, yesterday's responsibilities, you don't have to suddenly reorient your life around any of this if you don't want to."

It was a kind thing to say. An offer of complete discharge of all familial responsibilities, no questions asked. But there was also something faintly ominous about the offer because, to Brown, that might genuinely be the best course of action. She's fine ditching this if it's too much work. We're all busy and we're all tired, so we could do an xmas dinner or something. It's not that she wants that, it's that it would not break her heart to learn that family meant the bare minimum. She doesn't have any expectations, and so no demands.

White!

White: We'll run the test until you've earned your robopsychology degree, college girl~

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Brown!

"Sweet," said Brown. "I won't ask you to do any more research on the place here, that's not the sort of thing you want to get real curious about on a single computer. However it's probably priced into a lot of people's security plans that you, specifically, will come looking at some point, so you'll draw way less heat for looking into the others than I will."

She got to her feet. "So that's settled, unless..." she extended her hand for a tip. "... the gentleman would like to make a contribution?"

This was a cleaning job after all.

"And if you enjoyed this evening's performance, please rate us on the Headpattr app," she said with a gleaming smile. "And as tempting as it might be to be funny or clever in your review, please don't, this materially affects both our livelihood and ability to conduct operations."

White!

White: Wash your bedsheets more than once every two years Fiona
White: Wash them every week.
White: Fuck it, fuck Thrones, I don't trust you to do it, I'm coming over there right now to wash your sheets.
White: Maybe mess them up also~

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Brown!

She didn't listen like a normal person. It was polite and attentive, but it was also eternal. There were no glances down to check her phone. She did not put her hands in her pockets or adjust her posture. She did not blink. Only the faint tension that held her posture steady indicated that she had not shut down. It was like talking into a camera, silent and unjudging, and anything might be happening behind those eyes.

When she finally does talk, she gets ready first. Adjusts her hands, leans forwards, carefully glances around to make sure that nobody else is about to talk and that she has attention. A sequence of smoothing, invisible movements to render the transition into words frictionless.

"I can look into the land," she said. "I do not know what I will turn up if I do. Heat might come with that. Do you want that fight?"

White!

White: There was a joke in an old game about wizards that the final boss was human nature.
White: It feels like Thrones is like that.
White: It feels like everyone here is trying. Trying really hard to solve every problem other than human nature.
White: They genuinely believe in what they're doing. These are utopians.
White: They just think that if they solve all of the technical problems first then human nature will follow.
White: Or at least won't interfere too badly.
White: But they don't actually have the power to solve problems.
White: They're not bureaucrats. They're not acting in the public interest. There is no accountability, democratic or otherwise.
White: They're merchants. Laborers. Serfs. Detached from political power, yet trying to build things that will make politics not matter. All while inside the machinery built for kings and landlords.
White: Sometimes because they don't understand politics. Sometimes because politics have disappointed them and they think they can end run around it with a technical fix.
White: Often both.
White: So they don't have the power to solve problems. They only have the ability to sell products.
White: They want those products to be able to save the world so badly. I think that's why so many of them are so dedicated to their products being free of financial charge to the end user. Makes it feel like the bureaucratic infrastructure underpinning civilization rather than spyware supported by advertisers.
White: I can't blame dad for burning out on politics. It literally kicked down his door and tear gassed him. To him the only thing that worked was the stuff that he made. That was pure, in his mind. He wants to do something else like that, but this time without the politics interfering.
White: But. Hmm. I would be. Surprised. If it didn't.
White: It took him like an hour of googling to find his long lost son.
White: He seems to just not have thought to do it until I asked him.
White: That's the thing about building something to be free of human nature.
White: Who's going to build it?

Black!

"No," said Black. "You want Brown."
"Hey," said Brown. "Just so you know, I appreciate the kabbalahistic implications of imprisoning the hundred-handed goat-hooved lord of monsters in the depths below the world on behalf of the New World Order."

You'd think it'd be Pink who's into numerology, arcana and high brow cryptotheology references but no, not really. Pink liked bright colours, vivid inspirations, the aesthetics of single combat. If you wanted someone who had just read a lot of books and had the patience to count out and store all the platonic symbols that underpinned reality, you wanted Brown. She was patience and with patience came the vast store of knowledge accumulated through a thousand podcasts.

"But just to clarify, by Deep State are we talking career bureaucrats, intelligence agency, or AI-worshipping doomsday cult?" she asked.

Breathless Dead

Alexa!

"Show me yours and I'll show you mine?" said a voice like a slouch. An eye like the devil burned in the depths of the opponent's tunnel. "How could I refuse an offer like that?"

He steps out onto the field, a twink on twinkletoes, cracking his knuckles together before hoisting his long rail rifle over his shoulder. He wears a black butterfly earring and a smile like imagining the coming pain is the most relaxing thing he might ask for. A wreath of gold and fire crowns his head, and Hestia and Poseidon walk in his trail, scattering petals of fire and rainbows beneath his glowing feet.

The crowd booed him. They have come with banners showing your face, Alexa. You have either a great reputation or your opponent a terrible one for such an outpouring of affection. Only one amidst all the stands has a banner unfurled with the name ZAGREUS, and to him the demigod pauses and salutes in passing.

"But obviously you're not serious," he went on, a hardening threat to his voice. "You're here to steal my dog? You really think I'll let you get away with that?"

Dolce!

"My domain?" Mars looked flattered, rather than wrothful as he might have. Evidently he considered the invitation to talk about himself desirable and did not hold it as a slight. "My domain is peace itself, little sheep. Take your little bar fight. Imagine how the bar might adapt if the last such brawl had left ten people dead on the floor. Imagine the imprint it leaves in memory, in society, in art, in culture. I am the shadow of terror. I am the hand on your shoulder reminding you that none of this is a game. I am the voice in the head of every president and daimyo. I am the one thing that a trillion people can agree on, the common ground upon which civilization is built. What could unite the warriors of Ceron, the knights of the Azura, the murderers of the Kaeri, and a thousand other cultures if not the memory of me burning their worlds and devouring their children?"

He picked up Jil's drink, swirled it, raised it in casual salute and then took a sip. "Though I do not need to tell you the consequences of failing to heed me," he said. "Rather, that is why I think you would make a marvelous adjunct. You were born and raised within the graveyard of those who dared forget my name."

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

During the break, White had been texting - and sure enough, Brown had arrived.

A lot of people had the wrong idea about the colour brown; they regarded it as dull, uninteresting, associated with mud and muck. In truth it was one of the most complicated colours in the world and a rarity on Aevum where neon and chrome were in fashion. Brown has arrived wearing a white button-up shirt, pants, and the most interesting vest seen in weeks.

Red was easy to define; a simple 225 on the colour wheel. Blue and green and orange were all creatures of saturation and you could find them all on the extremes. But brown was a figment that existed in a vast liminal space away from the fringes of the wheel. Some browns touched on purple, deep and rich and warm. Some browns touched on bright yellow, or descended into black. Pale and desaturated brown-greys were possible alongside rich skintones. The brown of the mountain and the brown of the rock, the browns that flashed with shards of orange like amber and the browns that drank the depths of freezing caves, the browns of shadows and wood as it burned. In her Sunday best, Brown comes out wearing a vest with as many tones as pockets; an outfit that is drab at first but close examination reveals an optical illusion where in places brown emerges in fine stitches of red and green overlayered, or in the contrast between the near quarter of the colour wheel by volume that her aspect dominates. She has her hair up in a leaking bun, her eyes like stone and wheat, prosperity and decay.

There's a frictionlessness to her, a polite and professional courtesy in greeting that transferred into a quiet and dedicated listening. She was an incredible listener, seeming to lack any thoughts of her own, letting her head be filled with words, instructions and knowledge without commentary. She does not interrupt or comment, nor will she unless spoken to directly.

White hasn't left, but she's clearly been demoted. She's sitting still and paying attention because it's an act of courtesy and self discipline. Brown enjoys this for its own sake.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

I'm surprised you believed me, signed Solarel. No, I'm surprised you asked me. Everyone else has been able to form extremely strong opinions about my true nature without doing that. They've never believed me when I tell them the truth.

The iron frame stairs were only wide enough for one at a time, an inconvenience for those who needed their hands facing each other to talk. Solarel instead started to sign with one hand behind her back and her tail, an awkward and mistake-prone from of speech.

But what is love? Solarel hummed a few bars of a tune. People have just as many opinions about that as they have about me. Just as many of them are wrong. When I say love I am not talking about playing a role, about embracing conventional courtship rituals and restructuring a pyramid of loyalties to centre a new mistress. Imagine thinking that love is an act of treason, imagine thinking that love involves stepping away from divinity - kings and their ministers think this way. They rearrange all of life so everything is viewed through the context of the political.

She reached the top of the stairs and walked backwards along the catwalk, speech becoming fluid and natural again.

Do you think this is about turning the guns of the Kathresis on the Evercity? Do you think this is about acquiring resources for state expansion? Do you think this is about courtly titles? Do you think this is about the reactor core output of the Aeteline? she asked. Do you think this is about forming a family unit? Priestess, if you do think that, it is no wonder my answer would surprise you because from any one of those metrics I am mad.

She hauled open the upstairs hangar door and walked out into the twilight sunset. There she stopped and leaned against the railing as an evening breeze blew in.

I am not a politician, she signed. I am the second greatest warrior in the galaxy. Before me stands the greatest. The path is clear: I must "[Defeat her/become her/become one with her]" Solarel finished out loud with the Hybrasilian word.

It was her favourite word. Of course those things were all the same thing.

Breathless Dead

Alexa!

"Listen, Alexa," said Cerberus. "I can't believe I have to tell you this, but if somebody asks you if you are the galaxy's most powerful warrior, you say yes. The gods are no more immune to reputation than the rest of us. But you do make a good point in that I am sufficiently precious that you probably want to go above and beyond to keep me safe, so here is my challenge: Confront Hades in a challenge for some blessing so you can protect me through a perilous galaxy!"

"Plus," she added, "he might get mad if you stole his dogs without asking him."

Dolce!

"Nah," said Jil, like she was winding up for something. "Forget her. Have you ever thought about biomancy? Like, really thought about it? Nothing is an accident, we are created life forms, so we have to ask ourselves the real questions..."

It was a dramatic shift in conversational tone and rhythm, but Jil was extremely drunk and you successfully stalled out a spur of the moment impulse to start a bar fight. By formalizing all the spontaneity out of it you successfully redirected the mousegirl's wrath into nothingness. It's a strange kind of power you feel in that moment and -

"Hey," said Mars.
He was glorious. Radiant. White armour with sculpted muscles, intricately trimmed in gold. Dark skin and shock white hair and a grin like the superheroes on the Tunguska's moving screens. He was unbelievably swole and incredibly balanced at the same time, a level of raw physical aesthetics that surpasses easy description.
"Jeepers creepers, little guy, it's been a while since someone called me down here," said Mars. "But you're doing right by me, little sheep. Here, let me -" he leaned across to the napkin, picked a crimson red feather from behind his ear, and signed at the bottom of the list. "Approved. Love your work."

You have the terrifying impression that you just changed the divine laws of the cosmos with your napkin list.

"- there's no other explanation," Jil was saying, deep into her rant. "Teeth are bombs. A last resort in the event of a full servitor uprising, all they have to do is add fluroide to the water supply and - blam! Blam! The final ingredient to the explosive compounds built into our very skulls! Game over man!" Mars leaned over and patted her on the shoulder in a masculine way and she slumped down into an inebriated doze.

"Let's take a moment and chat," said Mars. "You're coming up topside? I could use a champion like you."