Multiversal travel can be disorienting, but there’s no need to worry! All side effects are temporary and lessen with each trip. Your body may experience several sensations at once: being pushed forward as if a hand is resting on your back, momentary and startling blindness, a gentle ringing in your head. You may have difficulty discerning whether it is hot or cold, but where you have been prodded is noticeably warmer than the rest of you. Some may suffer dizziness while others are perfectly fine. You notice that the area you are in is filled with a soft cerulean light and feels slightly humid and dark despite the glow around you. Regardless of your current state, however, the stress of transit forces your body into unconsciousness.
Waking up is another story. Or maybe it isn’t.
You find yourself in a nondescript room; sometimes with others who have found themselves in the same situation, sometimes alone. Welcome to Avagi Station, your new home.
Avagi
That First Step, it is a Doozy:
There are always risks to exploring new environments and Avagi is rich with new nooks and crannies to explore. You’re checking out a new corridor that’s been opened, though there have been signs warning that there are areas where structural stability has been weakened by neglect and the passage of time. But maybe things have been going well, you’ve found a few interesting things of note and you’re ready to head back to your bunk for the day.
Except when you turn to leave, the floor is giving way without a screech of metal. Hopefully you’ve got some good reflexes and can catch yourself before you topple down a shaft that seems to go down at least thirty or forty feet. Do you call for help or struggle to handle it on your own? And more importantly, how are you getting around this giant hole in the floor now that it’s there?
The Buddy System:
In order to help new arrivals find their bearings the more experienced residents on board have decided to try out the buddy system in order until the new arrivals get their space legs. The guide is responsible for answering any questions, showing them all the important facilities and making sure their new friend doesn’t wander anywhere too dangerous. And what better way to get to know your buddy than to try and help them find all the supplies they need to be comfortable in their new home? Hopefully the barter blocks have some clothes in your size or else it could get a little bit awkward come laundry day.
Shining Bright:
The Observation Station is the best place on Avagi to get a look at the storm that rages all around. However today when you stop by there’s something strange and new to look upon. It’s not clear if it’s a change in the environment or perhaps an effect of the living energy that opens the portals but the entire room is filled with softly glowing floating lights. If you venture into the room and dare to touch one of the lights you’ll find that you find a song playing in your mind that fills you with a deep and abiding sense of peace. What you do with that feeling is up to you but it seems that these lights aren’t going to cause any harm then why not let yourself relax in a beautiful space for a little while?
Kaittos
This month there is a portal to the planet Kaittos, a peaceful world containing one large land mass and a scattering of lived-on islands across a clear blue ocean. On the mainland, a large city-state occupies the central region and southern coast and resembles what some travelers from some versions of Earth might know of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
Bustling and lively, the city is clean and well provided-for due to the temperate climate and the bountiful natural resources found on its northern side; orchards, farms and forests extend into the distance, butting up against a small mountain range. The technology level is low compared to Avagi, with carriages and candles in place rather than cars and electric lights, but the craftsmen of the world have managed some very impressive mechanical feats.
Kaittans, the local residents of the world appear somewhat humanoid, but the bipedal race has hooves rather than feet, silvery skin and three eyes with vertical pupils. Although there is no sign of any other sentient species in the world, the locals are nonetheless excited to meet their guests, rather than suspicious or afraid; for some reason, they are not surprised that aliens exist, merely that they are here.
Visitors are encouraged to explore the city and partake in an exchange of goods and ideas, to share their culture and stories with the locals. Perhaps there’s a merchant willing to trade a bauble for a story or you want to try something entirely unknown to your palette in the culinary quarter. The possibilities, while not quite limitless, are enough to keep the curious busy for quite a while.
Silence, except for the ever rumbling growl. Is that a quirk? A glitch? Does it serve some function or is it merely an extra add on like his own ability to whistle? Given what he's seen of the security program so far, the last doesn't seem likely. The limited circuits, from what Ram, familiar with far more complex circuitry systems can infer, suggest stealth. To have a constant noise would counteract that.
Seems like the conversation is over, conveniently when getting to the currently relevant questions. Ram sighs and looks around the corridor again, still no sign of where they're going. 'If we were playing twenty questions, I've still got five,' he mutters.
The further they go, the greater Ram's uneasiness becomes. Parameters, location and intention are all unknown and the margins for error coming up in Ram's calculations are making him grit his teeth. And then there's the program himself. Ram stares at his back as he follows, eyeing the double disks, currently merged, on his port. He's familiar with security programs from Encom, but this guy is from a different system. And yet he is both very different and simultaneously, though more subtly, very similar. It's bothering him.
They reach a doorway, beyond which the lighting changes a little. As Ram gets a glimpse inside, he sees multiple doorways and his calculations leap with the new info. The program steps aside and gestures him through, but passing would bring him within reaction distance.
'Well, I would, but I don't know where we're going,' he says. 'Could be any of those doors.' He braces. This is either going to get him forcibly shoved into the room, told which door to head for, or the threat of disks.
Rinzler doesn't have a face to glare with. Still, the sentiment is anything but subtle. The opaque mask fixes on Ram, frame bristling with a wash of sudden loathing.
Does it think Rinzler is stupid? That he can't recognize the stall, the push—the fault-crashed test for what it is? Avoidance and distance, boundaries strained in preparation for a break. Rinzler knows the patterns just as well as Rinzler knows the answer it deserves. Derezz the glitch. He shouldn't have given it the opportunity to start with. And certainly, a function that can't follow basic instructions has no place in Clu's—
This isn't Clu's system. He'd been trying to help.
This isn't Clu's system, and if this glitch can stop, for one micro, treating this like—
(—what he is—)
[Error—]
Fists are curling at each side. Noise scrapes out a discordant snarl, surging as Rinzler jerks his mask back toward the entry, wordless and enraged. He knows his function.
Ram can practically feel the sudden fury radiating off him, and though he doesn't take a step back, he does tense and quickly reassess his calculations. This is admittedly not a reaction he had considered likely, at least not to such a degree.
'Hey, you'll forgive me for not wanting to turn my back on a highly capable security program with two disks,' he says, hands raised slightly.
With the increased anger, chances of the situation devolving into a confrontation are increasing. However force has not yet been used and the program has had ample opportunity to initiate, but seems more focused on getting Ram wherever he wants him to go. Which means he likely wants him there alive, though the lack of manhandling is a different matter, one Ram is still puzzling out. In the mean time, it is unlikely that he's been brought to this room to be derezzed, whereas continued resistance increases the possibility.
'Okay, okay.' he lowers his hands, activates his limited motion tracker and expands his proximity alert to a further reach while calibrating his reaction time. Then he walks past the program, the door forcing him to pass just within his reaction time range. He skips back out of range once he's in the room, but makes a point of positioning himself near the centre. Look, not trying to escape.
Security. The harsh rattling skips, just slightly. Still, Rinzler won't correct the mistake.
He will follow Ram in. The other program's deliberate positioning is largely ignored; once inside, Rinzler turns toward the workbench, a few quick steps to retrieve one of the devices cluttering its top. He tosses it to the actuary without looking, turns and raises a hand slightly: showcasing the similar accessory currently attached to his right wrist.
"Communicator."
Avagi Communication Extension, the startup screen will inform Ram—in addition to prompting for an ID.
"Provides access to public broadcasts and shared data. Can enter own requests."
Ram starts compiling a list of the times the clicking noise changes, tagging the instances with how it changed and what Ram did or said beforehand. He doesn't know if he'll run into this guy again, but to be safe, he'd rather be better learned in what might prompt a reaction. He can cross reference once he has more data to make it more accurate.
All hostility seems to drop once Ram's in the room and he watches the program fetch something off a table and throw it to him. He catches it easily and looks it over, looking up in confusion, though not at what it is.
'...Thank you?' This, help, was very far down the calculated possible outcomes of their excursion. That seems to be happening a fair bit with this program, some reassessing is clearly in order. He'll check the communicator for bugs and listening devices once he's alone, but even so. 'Thank you.'
/Query_whyhelp?
Very little about this program is making sense. From his strange sounds, to his difficult to predict behaviour, to his voice, which is nagging at Ram's processor the more he hears it. This time, it's a segment long enough that he has a chance to record the last sentence and mull it over.
Ram's ping will bounce back unacknowledged. Unread, though the specifics might not be apparent. The user world doesn't carry proper signals. The program he's transmitting to isn't configured like Ram is. There are plenty of reasons why the effort might have failed.
Connection rejected is just one among the set.
Static rustles behind Rinzler's shell: recycled air, exhaled in derision. The actuary's stare is just as obvious as its bewildered courtesy, and plenty reason to ignore the latter. It has what it needs now to bother anyone but him.
Ram manages to keep the frown off his face when he gets no response but his own, unopened ping. He quickly lists through the possible reasons for this and quickly determines that there are enough that there's no sense in dwelling on them, and instead moves to a method he knows will at least be heard.
'Why are you helping me?' There is curiosity and a hint of confusion in his tone. It's not often he meets someone who acts so unexpectedly as to maintain such high margins of error in his calculations after this long.
The last one was Flynn.
'What's your designation?' Users, he doesn't think he's ever asked a Red Guard their name before.
Why. Of course the program has to ask. Rinzler tries to keep from bristling too much as he retorts.
"Threat assessment."
That had been his first priority, certainly. Plus, it hardly helped the system to have confused functions wandering the halls. Anything else... shouldn't matter. Not here.
'Threat assessment?' That gets a raised eyebrow. He won't ask what the result is, it would only waste time. 'I'm not familiar with the section of threat assessments that involves communication providing.' Skepticism? Maybe. But, glitch, this guy has been doing things his own way so far, so who knows.
"Rinzler" turns up no results when he runs it through his data banks, which he should be surprised by, and yet a small part of him is. There's no reason he should know this program, being from a different system with his double disks and minimal circuits.
Ram blinks, but the four small squares don't change. This doesn't make sense. But the voice... No, stop. It isn't the only possibility. Don't jump to conclusions. It takes him a few more picocycles to find his voice again.
So much for that not-bristling. The actuary's flippancy prompts a glower that sharpens as it speaks; if it objects so much to the assistance, Rinzler will be sure not to repeat the fault.
But then it lags. Then it continues. And Rinzler doesn't need the needling flickers of [Warning—] to recognize the danger here.
"Enforcer."
The word snarls out in a clatter of static: the ticking growl suddenly loud enough to feel through the metal floor. It's joined to a fluid step. A twitch of fingers: up and back. If the motions before had broadcast predator, the faceless regard is much, much sharper now.
Enforcer implies something or someone he is enforcing. Although there are obvious similarities with security, enforcer does not hold the same possibility for independence.
Ram turns his hands palm outwards, raised slightly, trying not to think too much on the rattle vibrating up through the floor.
'Not necessary,' he says, shifting to put himself in a slightly submissive pose, that also gives him a chance to analyse the curve of Rinzler's back. He's too short for Tron, but he's hunched. Once he has the angle he calculates Rinzler's potential full standing height and-- it matches.
The time doesn't match up though. Rinzler had said he'd been out of his system for 3.68 cycles, Ram saw Tron only last microcycle.
Could he be a copy? Not the Tron Ram knows, but the same program on a different system? He thinks back. The height and voice match, albeit the latter has some... changes. Ram was too caught off guard by the double disks to analyse the style, but he remembers Rinzler had merged them in his left hand. Tron was left handed. And of course, the identifier. Tron's markings were unique in a way other programs' weren't, a sign of his independence. An enforcer wouldn't share them. Unless they had been there before the enforcer code was.
Ram swallows.
It's still not certain, but the physical evidence matches up and Ram wants to do a system purge because, if this is--frag--if this is Tron, copy or not, he shudders, how did he end up like this? Tron would never go red. Willingly.
The submissive pose is warranted. The continued processing is not. Rinzler can see it hesitating on the program's features, twitching in the small motions of its throat. Like questions looped and cancelled; like a truth Rinzler had always looked for, but never wanted to find out. He should kill it. He should leave. But Rinzler too, hesitates.
And then it's much too late.
The freeze is immediate. So is the flare of loathing, sick and sharp, the hate (hate) (fear) that flares so brightly through his lights. Rinzler is perfect; Rinzler is right, and Clu (made him) was right to make him (this way). There's no reason for the glitch's question. No reason at all for the struggling, surging pulse of something that rises at the words.
For the feeble flicker of blue-white.
NO.
Rinzler won't be wiped. Won't be replaced. Something crumbles, and with it, all cause for hesitation. His disk scythes free from dock in a violent slash—throws with the same motion. Rinzler is much faster than Tron ever was, but the interplay of words was never his first language. Rinzler was made to speak with violence, made for the choking grate of conflict and the swift, decisive moves that put it down. So few programs ever survived long enough to understand.
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thisavrou_ooc2017-11-17 07:40 pm
no subject
Seems like the conversation is over, conveniently when getting to the currently relevant questions. Ram sighs and looks around the corridor again, still no sign of where they're going. 'If we were playing twenty questions, I've still got five,' he mutters.
The further they go, the greater Ram's uneasiness becomes. Parameters, location and intention are all unknown and the margins for error coming up in Ram's calculations are making him grit his teeth. And then there's the program himself. Ram stares at his back as he follows, eyeing the double disks, currently merged, on his port. He's familiar with security programs from Encom, but this guy is from a different system. And yet he is both very different and simultaneously, though more subtly, very similar. It's bothering him.
They reach a doorway, beyond which the lighting changes a little. As Ram gets a glimpse inside, he sees multiple doorways and his calculations leap with the new info. The program steps aside and gestures him through, but passing would bring him within reaction distance.
'Well, I would, but I don't know where we're going,' he says. 'Could be any of those doors.' He braces. This is either going to get him forcibly shoved into the room, told which door to head for, or the threat of disks.
no subject
Does it think Rinzler is stupid? That he can't recognize the stall, the push—the fault-crashed test for what it is? Avoidance and distance, boundaries strained in preparation for a break. Rinzler knows the patterns just as well as Rinzler knows the answer it deserves. Derezz the glitch. He shouldn't have given it the opportunity to start with. And certainly, a function that can't follow basic instructions has no place in Clu's—
This isn't Clu's system. He'd been trying to help.
This isn't Clu's system, and if this glitch can stop, for one micro, treating this like—
(—what he is—)
[Error—]
Fists are curling at each side. Noise scrapes out a discordant snarl, surging as Rinzler jerks his mask back toward the entry, wordless and enraged. He knows his function.
Just step the fault inside.
no subject
'Hey, you'll forgive me for not wanting to turn my back on a highly capable security program with two disks,' he says, hands raised slightly.
With the increased anger, chances of the situation devolving into a confrontation are increasing. However force has not yet been used and the program has had ample opportunity to initiate, but seems more focused on getting Ram wherever he wants him to go. Which means he likely wants him there alive, though the lack of manhandling is a different matter, one Ram is still puzzling out. In the mean time, it is unlikely that he's been brought to this room to be derezzed, whereas continued resistance increases the possibility.
'Okay, okay.' he lowers his hands, activates his limited motion tracker and expands his proximity alert to a further reach while calibrating his reaction time. Then he walks past the program, the door forcing him to pass just within his reaction time range. He skips back out of range once he's in the room, but makes a point of positioning himself near the centre. Look, not trying to escape.
no subject
He will follow Ram in. The other program's deliberate positioning is largely ignored; once inside, Rinzler turns toward the workbench, a few quick steps to retrieve one of the devices cluttering its top. He tosses it to the actuary without looking, turns and raises a hand slightly: showcasing the similar accessory currently attached to his right wrist.
"Communicator."
Avagi Communication Extension, the startup screen will inform Ram—in addition to prompting for an ID.
"Provides access to public broadcasts and shared data. Can enter own requests."
no subject
All hostility seems to drop once Ram's in the room and he watches the program fetch something off a table and throw it to him. He catches it easily and looks it over, looking up in confusion, though not at what it is.
'...Thank you?' This, help, was very far down the calculated possible outcomes of their excursion. That seems to be happening a fair bit with this program, some reassessing is clearly in order. He'll check the communicator for bugs and listening devices once he's alone, but even so. 'Thank you.'
/Query_whyhelp?
Very little about this program is making sense. From his strange sounds, to his difficult to predict behaviour, to his voice, which is nagging at Ram's processor the more he hears it. This time, it's a segment long enough that he has a chance to record the last sentence and mull it over.
no subject
Connection rejected is just one among the set.
Static rustles behind Rinzler's shell: recycled air, exhaled in derision. The actuary's stare is just as obvious as its bewildered courtesy, and plenty reason to ignore the latter. It has what it needs now to bother anyone but him.
"Further queries?"
Or can he go?
no subject
'Why are you helping me?' There is curiosity and a hint of confusion in his tone. It's not often he meets someone who acts so unexpectedly as to maintain such high margins of error in his calculations after this long.
The last one was Flynn.
'What's your designation?' Users, he doesn't think he's ever asked a Red Guard their name before.
no subject
"Threat assessment."
That had been his first priority, certainly. Plus, it hardly helped the system to have confused functions wandering the halls. Anything else... shouldn't matter. Not here.
(Not like this.)
"Rinzler."
no subject
"Rinzler" turns up no results when he runs it through his data banks, which he should be surprised by, and yet a small part of him is. There's no reason he should know this program, being from a different system with his double disks and minimal circuits.
...Familiar minimal circuits.
/Warning: processor lockup detected
/System identified: logic_processor
/Rerouting
/Reroute successful//
Ram blinks, but the four small squares don't change. This doesn't make sense. But the voice... No, stop. It isn't the only possibility. Don't jump to conclusions. It takes him a few more picocycles to find his voice again.
'Are you independent security on your system?'
no subject
But then it lags. Then it continues. And Rinzler doesn't need the needling flickers of [Warning—] to recognize the danger here.
"Enforcer."
The word snarls out in a clatter of static: the ticking growl suddenly loud enough to feel through the metal floor. It's joined to a fluid step. A twitch of fingers: up and back. If the motions before had broadcast predator, the faceless regard is much, much sharper now.
More vicious.
"Demonstration required?"
no subject
Ram turns his hands palm outwards, raised slightly, trying not to think too much on the rattle vibrating up through the floor.
'Not necessary,' he says, shifting to put himself in a slightly submissive pose, that also gives him a chance to analyse the curve of Rinzler's back. He's too short for Tron, but he's hunched. Once he has the angle he calculates Rinzler's potential full standing height and-- it matches.
The time doesn't match up though. Rinzler had said he'd been out of his system for 3.68 cycles, Ram saw Tron only last microcycle.
Could he be a copy? Not the Tron Ram knows, but the same program on a different system? He thinks back. The height and voice match, albeit the latter has some... changes. Ram was too caught off guard by the double disks to analyse the style, but he remembers Rinzler had merged them in his left hand. Tron was left handed. And of course, the identifier. Tron's markings were unique in a way other programs' weren't, a sign of his independence. An enforcer wouldn't share them. Unless they had been there before the enforcer code was.
Ram swallows.
It's still not certain, but the physical evidence matches up and Ram wants to do a system purge because, if this is--frag--if this is Tron, copy or not, he shudders, how did he end up like this? Tron would never go red. Willingly.
'Who did this to you?'
no subject
And then it's much too late.
The freeze is immediate. So is the flare of loathing, sick and sharp, the hate (hate) (
fear) that flares so brightly through his lights. Rinzler is perfect; Rinzler is right, and Clu (made him) was right to make him (this way). There's no reason for the glitch's question. No reason at all for the struggling, surging pulse of something that rises at the words.For the feeble flicker of blue-white.
NO.
Rinzler won't be wiped. Won't be replaced. Something crumbles, and with it, all cause for hesitation. His disk scythes free from dock in a violent slash—throws with the same motion. Rinzler is much faster than Tron ever was, but the interplay of words was never his first language. Rinzler was made to speak with violence, made for the choking grate of conflict and the swift, decisive moves that put it down. So few programs ever survived long enough to understand.
Shut up shut up shut up—
no subject