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[Story] Roleplay
[Story] Roleplay
#1
Note too sure about this. It might be a little too cut down... or creepy. Just an idea I had, considering what the VOOMER core is.

Quote: Ford sheaved through the papers.

"Hey Jet"

"Yeah"

"Where did this come from?"

"Where did what come from?"

"Drawings. A load of attractive women in some pretty fancy lingerie."

Some of home she even recognised.

"Mackie probaby printed them off, you know what he's like."

"No. These're done in pencils."

There was no answer.

"Jet?" Ford turned around, papers still in hand. "Jet?"

There was no sign she'd ever been in the room.
------------------

The engine shuddered as it died.

"It's fine at low RPM, but it starts getting choppy at high speeds," Daryl explained

"I thought you hated bikes," said Ford, giving it a quick glance to make sure there was nothing obviously wrong with it.

"I didn't, that's the funny part. But then with the motoroids and once I started it was just...." She stopped, giving an embarrased smile. "It sort of felt right."

Something was wrong, and Ford just couldn' put her finger on it.

"It might be.... leave it with me and I'll take a look when I get the chance."

Daryl dismounted from the machine, stretching in her jacket. "Thanks. I own you one."

"No problem."

The firecracker-red Ninja tink-tinked to itself as it cooled.

----------------------

"Oh this?" Kotono pointed at her new headband 'It helps keep the hair out of my eyes when I'm...." hs was interrupted by her chirping wrist-com. She glanced at it, a gleeful smile illuminating her face. "Gotta run. Later Ford."

"Later."

Ford sighed. Back to work.

-----------------------

"It arrived, it arrived It ARRIVED!"

Anika was in full-blown Frankenstein mode.

"What did?

"My new uniform of course. I thought since I did such an important job." She unfurled it from its packing. Pink braids fell on the floor.

"It looks like the police one from Bubblegum Crisis," said Ford. "Did you copy it or something?"

She pouted "I designed it myself from scratch." Anika glanced at it. "Now that you think of it, it does sort of look the same. Funny that."

------------------------

The lights in the hardsuit bay punched on, illuminating the equipment inside. The motoroid were parked up in their bike forms beneath tarpaulins to keep the dust off. The computer terminal all the wall showed only a blank screen.

Her footsteps echoed on the tiled floor.

In the back of the room, the Four hardsuits stood. Meticulously maintained and polished to a deep shine. Ford held one of the pencile drawings up to the Blue hardsuit.... comparing them by sight. That confirmed the first part of her theory....

The same hand had drawn them. They both showed the same eye for the female form with the way they seemed to flow with the body's natural curves. It began to make her slightly uneasy, a bubbling nausea rising in the pit of her stomach.

She stepped over to the hardsuit checking it over but not really expecting an answer. The metal was cold and dead to the touch. She took the helmet in her hands, heavy and smelling faintly of that coconut shampoo Daryl insisted of importing. Inside, the metal spots that formed the neural induction gear.

Maybe...

She checked the backpack of the hardsuit. Printed on a label on a small access flap beside the computer interface ports: VOOMER core Image "Priss".

"Hey Ford, what's up?"

She nearly jumped out of her skin. Mackie was standing in the doorway with a shit-eating I-just-saw-sister's-puppet-naked grin on his face.

"Just checking something is all."

"Well, just letting you know I finished the Falcon. It's running pretty good now."

"We'll make a real mechanic out of you yet. Now clean the shop before I get back and you can test drive it."

"Can I? Sweet!" He almost made a sonic boom as he left.

Ford sat herself back on the workbench behind the hardsuits. It creaked under her weight. She turned the helmet over in her hands, as she turned the possibilities over in her mind. It might just be a consequence of playing the part... that wouldn't be too unusual would it?

Then again...

Mackie Stingray to Mackie 'Jaguar'

"It can't be that. Can it?"

Alone in the SilkyDoll Ford hoped above all else that it really was just a case of actors internalising the role.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
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#2
"Dr. Katsuhito Stingray is the father of Sylia and Mackie. In a metaphorical sense he is also the father of boomers. Once a brilliant scientist for Wiz (Uiz) labratories who spear headed the revolutionary designs of robotics and genitics he died in a lab accident. Rather than allow his research to fall into Genom's hands he chose a select few to inherit it. One of which was Sylia. Genom would later use what they could find to continue his research and create the modern day boomer."

"Quincy is the world leader, or at the very least his company is, through his leadership Genom now dominates all fields of technology. But, let there be no doubt why his company dominates, Quincy is ruthless. He is willing to go to all lengths to ensure his companies role as an industrial leader, including illegal means. He has enough power that he dictates and manipulates the Japanese government, while attempting to do so with other nations as well, especially with those that resist Genom's influence. Over the decades, he has systematically bought out, or brought to ruin, those companies that have had made breakthroughs in robotics and biotechnologies. Including one company, Wiz Laboratories, that lead the development of boomers with Dr. Katsuhito Stingray, a technology unique to itself, being neither robotic or cybernetic. After which Genom held the patents for this technology that would change the face of human society forever, giving themselves an advantage over it's closest competitors that they couldn't hope."

"Brian J. Mason is Quincy's "secretary," in other words the words second most powerful man in the world. He is also a visionary, ambitious and frankly, as ruthless as his employer. Mason climbed the corporate ladder, like his colleagues around him, except he was willing to step over the line, to do acts that his colleagues wouldn't even dream of, such as murder. After acquiring Wiz Laboratories boomer projects, his position was sky rocketted in Genom. Mason answers directly to Quincy, and plays what could be a very dangerous position within the company, one as public relations, the other as illegal operative. Mason leads several illegal operations within Genom, including the development of millitary and super boomers, and a related operation to force MegaTokyo citizens to sell their property to Genom. His latest operation was to infiltrate USSD and retrieve the 'black box' for Genom's newest boomer creation."

(Data from: http://www.bubblegumcrisismovie.com/ )

Does this mean that handwavium is going to try and cast "Dr Stingray", "Quincy" and "Mason"?

Is Kotono going to have a friend "Irene Chang" killed by boomer minions of Mason to 'motivate' her?

It might suggest that AIs around Jet will need to be really, really, careful what they do...

"Jet, I Am Your Father." [harsh breathing sounds] "And the ruddy handwavium keeps trying to kill me!" [grin]

Does Katz Schrödinger need to be really, really, careful? [grin]

GENOM might map to CHOAM, which would suggest O'Niell as being pegged to be Quincy (would he use robot doubles for public appearances?), and imply CHOAM is behind the UBM?

So, Mason of the UBM is implied to work for CHOAM, who are trying to leverage control of mining in the Belt?

Continuing the logic, you might look for engineered 'accidents' among mining robots in the belt, that could be traced back to their manufacture by CHOAM...

And some kind of Over Mind Control (OMS) system based on a special chip/module which allows control of WMD in the Belt. Or, even control of all CHOAM-supplied robots...

Someone who was suspicious about these trends might start circulating open-source code to let owners of CHOAM-supplied robots "jailbreak" them... Not to mention taking a really hard look at any CHOAM-supplied modules in defensive weaponry deployed across the Belt... If they are really unlucky such a person might have a fiance who was in an aerobics class shared by Kotono...

Is it just the VOOMER cores, or is it a question of how far will handwavium go in trying to manipulate the Plot?

Poor Ford looks to be being set-up to be "Fargo"...

Just saying...
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind
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#3
Probably not....

And avoiding 'Irene Chang' scenarios is part of why the Sabers keep their identities so secret.

The Boomer problem is exactly why Jet is really, really careful about what she does around systems that might be capable of awakening. Shinji was a result of obsessively careful isolation....

The original VOOMER idea was to replicate Mackie's accident in a controlled fashion with android bodies and have a set of actual Knight Sabers who would see Jet as having the same relationship with them as Sylia did, and vice-versa..... with the obvious flaw in the plan that if the process with Mackie repeated with each, Jet would ultimately see herself as Sylia. The damage Mackie's accident did was mild enough that Jet can easily see around it, know where it happened and reconstruct the damaged parts with little trouble. It was still enough for the more knowledgeable out there to call her a moron and caused a detectable shift in her worldview and self-image.

The VOOMER cores are supposedly safer. In practice, Ford's initial hunch might well be right. The cores perform better the closer the wearer is to the template installed.... and while the cores can adapt themselves and learn like any ANN, the wearer can also adapt and suit themselves to fit the image better as a natural choice rather than subtle hardware interference. It could be a slight glitch in the hardware. It could be a natural consequence of people adapting themselves to the system's chracteristics, or falling into the role like so many other fen.

Then again, all this technology warping identity stuff is just so cyberpunk, isn't it? It's also important that Jet's occasional short-sightedness with technology bite her shiny metal ass from time to time..... Mackie being the obvious example. Or the reflection in the mirror.

CHOAM depends on where people want to take it. Padraig and the leadership aren't above pulling some really nasty business deals on people and generally screwing them out of money with little compunction. However, they specifically never do anything that's outright illegal... it may be immoral but no regulations are broken. Anything that's done will be right there in the TOS, the EULA or in black and white at the bottom of the contract, obfuscated by legalese and generally you're reassured that it'll never actually come to that and it's just a matter of covering bases. If there's an OMS, it'll be in the EULA, and described as a remote shutdown capability in case of theft (Similar to an iphone).

Jet however has a personal reason to hate Padraig. He's a symbol of the corruption and greed that ruined a lot of decent people.... and the lack of accountability and control that saw most of those involved emerge unscathed.
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
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CHOAM robots
#4
These are the only CHOAM robots I'm familiar with:

Master Surveyor – 23/Aug/2012
The O'Niell organisation had Arthur design and build handwavium-based survey robots, called "Master Surveyor", for use in the Asteroid Belt, that could work with minimal supervision.  Arthur's comment was he was a little surprised as, "They didn't even need to look like cute girls".  This work was done mid-to-late July, 2009.
The logic behind using these robots was that being able to demonstrate that you had an accurate survey, done at your expense, of the astronomical body that you wanted at least exploitation rights to, should greatly improve your legal position.
The design of these robots is based on surveying tripods:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripod_%28surveying%29
Arthur had previously lucked into finding a (home-recorded) video of loads of adverts.  One of these was a stop-action animation of a number of surveying tripods, walking around, and apparently doing an effective job of surveying, without any humans being involved.  He took this and dissolved it in generic handwavium, along with training videos for surveyors, and some videos of really hostile environments, that might as well be in outer space.  This was enhanced with footage and animation of the Mars explorer robots, print-outs of all the information he could find on-line on the Asteroid Belt, and other non-Earth bodies in the Solar System, as well as speculations on extra-Solar bodies, in other solar systems.
Next Arthur obtained some old surveying tripods, which had actually been used by surveyors.  To these he attached a full set of surveying tools, articulated so that they wouldn't get in each others way, and an old mobile phone which included a SIM, and a memory card.  Also, each got a small plastic jet pack, from a spaceman toy.  Then waved the lot up.  This produced survey robots, which would cooperate, preferably with a minimum of two others.
The robots were a bit confused to be on Earth, but worked about as well as Arthur hoped - he is sure they'd work properly off-Earth (they did).  As long as they are kept charged-up, which they only need every few days, they will work together to do a survey of whatever they are asked, walking, and in low-G environments jetting, around.  The survey details are recorded in the memory cards of all the robots involved, for redundancy, and these cards can be removed and replaced with an empty one, for the next survey.
Unfortunately, the robots will not work with humans.  In fact, they wont work if there are any humans in the area to be surveyed.  While they understand English, they don't speak, though they can communicate (with humans) via texts sent by their mobile phones, or be given instructions this way by authorised staff.  They intercommunicate far more effectively, but wont talk to other AIs or robots.  While they are highly skilled at surveying they can't change their, or each others, memory cards, nor can they plug themselves in to recharge.  Their general intelligence is probably about dog or smart bird level, and they are very loyal to their masters.
Arthur shipped the design, the assembly instructions, and the handwavium culture off to the O'Niell organisation, along with the waved robots.  As usual, he kept a sample of the handwavium.  Then, he forgot about this, considering it at best a minor project.
Edit: META: This is from "Arthurs Caught", and the story is "Master of All" (He Surveys).
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind
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#5
As a general comment, I'm pretty sure Uran, whether in a squish-bot or not, wouldn't willingly climb into a hardsuit with a VOOMER core in it. If she had to, for some reason, she'd be doing some really careful comparison work on her offsite backups, one before, one after.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind
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