[network] @IAmLegend; video; Day 182 [open]

[definingfuture]

In case anyone hasn't spoken to a friend for obvious reasons, we seem to have all cooled off. I know now might not seem like the best time, but after what happened it's more important to keep in contact with each other and stay with people.

[Tony really wishes Steve were here. It should be him making this kind of announcement.]

What happened the day before wasn't an accident. It was something, the town maybe, trying to reach out and assert its influence over all of us. And if we react by dropping the work everyone has done so far? It wins. It gets exactly what it wants, because all of us break apart, making us easier to pick off. Or we give up. What we should be doing is pushing back and finding out who the prophet really is. We need to try to figure out what they intend to do for our own safety.

If there's anything I can do to help the rest of you, I still intend to do that. I'm not going to stop. I want everyone to be safe. And the best way to help each other is communication. Like the man said yesterday, don't shut down. He's a good guy.

So, on that note, my name is Tony Stark. I'm considered a superhero on the Earth I come from. We handle organizations that want to endanger the world, the occasional intergalactic threat, and... Things like this when they happen. Some of you might consider that a police force, but we're more of a general emergency response solution. I just want to give you a fair idea of who I am.

[He's holding the tablet up so he can address them properly, and raises his off-hand to gesture.]

Also, I have questions. First, how are your eyes? If you are still showing signs of change, I'd like to know. Do you feel different? Secondly, if you are alone right now and weren't with someone when this started, please check in. Let us know everyone is still here and no one is stranded without help. And if you have questions, today I'm going to be completely open.

Comments

[rubikscomplex]

pick one to go dad at
i'm sure they'll appreciate it regardless

[definingfuture]

What, you have a no tattling policy?

That wasn't why I was asking.

[rubikscomplex]

i have a "it didn't actually happen, apparently" policy

why are you asking?

[definingfuture]

We glitched. Which makes me wonder if this is the usual system or an invader.

I want to create a baseline for "great" so I know the next time I ask you how you are.

[rubikscomplex]

try asking evie
we'll probably get a call from her, miller, or winter soon
gotta check on the rats

cute

[He's not playing ball, Tony.]

[definingfuture]

I know. They tend not to give the answers we need and it seems like talking it out will yield more results.

Well, not as much as I was, but hot water and clothing are at a premium. Still goof, though.

[He's going to keep at it, House.]

How bad was it?

[rubikscomplex]

what eyes were you wearing the other night?

[definingfuture]

Don't do this.

[rubikscomplex]

prophet's eyes, then?
funny it's the guy who was out helping with the murdering who's telling us to come to him for help

[definingfuture]

[He sighs. He doesn't mean to, but it slips out.]

I'm not telling anyone to do anything. I'm just saying that this is a good way to feed the general claustrophobia of this place and make us paranoid. You know I'm right.

Yes. Yes, I was affected just like everyone else. But that's not going to stop me from wanting to keep people safe now. I want to know why it picked the ones that were picked so we can prevent a future incident.

[rubikscomplex]

shot in the dark here, big guy
but did you erase the eyes or draw them?
cause i'm guessing that's how they got most of us
and the rest probably have some pre-defined set of traits they're looking for
for the one's who'd be more sympathetic to the Cause

[definingfuture]

Fine, except I'm not sympathetic. Nothing about turning people into weapons makes me sympathetic to whatever the Prophet wants from us.

And what was the end goal, exactly? The sympathetic followers attack the ones that don't like art and that's it? Building an army would mean trying to recruit more than target people as enemies. This was chaos.

We're on the same side. All of us, because we're all just targets.

[rubikscomplex]

the beast doesn't want us reaching the center
it wants to eat us and this town
that would be my guess
and it's working through the prophet
or what's left of the prophet
maybe against their wishes
ever seen "life of brian"?
or hell
take the real jesus
you got a bunch of religious fanatics killing in your name
when all those things you supposedly said were supposed to be peaceful

so, the prophet might just be this kid sam whose neural patterns got hijacked
our rogue ai is borrowing from them and turning half of us into psychos to slow progress
or maybe it really was the prophet and they're a dick
or giving us a preview of what's coming if we stay here too long
or or or
there's not enough information to intuit an actual motive, yet
since everything reset
either it was entirely an hallucination or the admin intervened
which means we're probably even shorter on nima than we were to begin with

[definingfuture]

Why do you think the prophet doesn't want us reaching the center? Whether the prophet is the force trying to attack us or just working for it, there must be a reason for it to want to stop us. We want to find it because some of us hope that it'll be a key to getting us out of here, but we don't know that's true. And that doesn't mean there's anything to actually find.

We've just been going on what we've been told. And while I don't think all of it is a lie, I do think some of it could be very convenient for everyone who isn't us. The prophet or the Administrator and her team. The only ones who don't have enough information here are us. So I think we should work together as much as possible.

[Hey, at least he's got House talking. This is a sort of victory. Like, like managing to get Victor von Doom to take a day off from being creepy. It's temporary, but it feels damn good.]

Here's a question: Some people were picked out and infected by the prophet, made to see what the prophet wanted them to see because they were sympathetic or embraced their symbol or whatever it was that let it in. I understand that the ones that turned on them were targets, by why give everyone warning? What I saw was energy. I'd be willing to bet a good deal of it since it was enough to be visible without sensors. If we were really going to kill each other, there shouldn't have been warning. It's a waste of power to tag everyone. That's not typically how evil god-like entities work. Why waste strength letting the sheep know they are sheep?

[rubikscomplex]

i've told you i don't think we're getting out of here
if by some incredibly unlikely chance we are
the way out is gonna be through the machine that got us here
and that's most likely housed at the city center
we have a time-limit
either we're gonna run out of food
or we're gonna run out of nima
anything that slows our progress is a win for someone who doesn't want us getting out

working together doesn't mean physically being together, fyi
great thing this network
it's probably better we aren't together
we can cover more ground

as for the eye changes
well, we've got a couple of potential theories there
we already know there are at least two forces working against each other here
one wants us to get to the center
the other doesn't
they've both got some level of control over the system
changing us might have been forewarning from the guys trying to get us to dig deep and follow the spiral
why the hell i'm still a glow light might be lingering effects
it might still be an hallucination
it might be what's left of andromeda trying to tell us something
her eyes glowed, too

[definingfuture]

Yeah, well, some of us still believe we will. You can be the healthy voice of cynicism for us.

I agree, but stalling just seems unnecessary. It's giving us the time to make use of those resources, however limited, to try to escape. Maybe the ultimate goal is something else. And the Admin's team could be inadvertently playing into that goal.

And I'm not asking you to sleep next to me, doctor. I just want to make sure you're not going to shut down. That was pretty traumatic.

[Don't tell him you weren't shaken, House. He knows better!]

We can keep doing what we were doing. But if we start holding back with friends--or useful hands--because of what the Prophet did to us, we'll be in trouble. That's all I'm saying.

--Andromeda's eyes glowed? Did you see them? What kind of light was it?

[rubikscomplex]

maybe
there're a lot of maybes, stark
if we have two opposing forces with neither having full control
it stands to reason they're wrestling
the rogue ai might not be intending to let us make use of those resources
but it's working through firewalls or whatever internal defenses the admin system has

i don't have time to shut down
i have to find the ragdolls

[And after that... maybe there will be another puzzle to look after in the morgue. Holmes had an idea about it.]

i never met her in the dreams
winter's mentioned it
talk to england to learn more about her
she possessed him for a while

[definingfuture]

I know. But we're looking for answers. We'll just have to dig through the maybes and find the ones that make sense.

We know at least two forces are at play, but what they want still isn't very clear. You think the AI wants to deny us resources or just make things difficult for the Admin? An AI doesn't need much.

We're chasing puzzles, but not really looking for answers. I think we need to look beyond the next puzzle.

[He's worried about House. Going from one project to the next to the next... He recognizes that cycle all too well.]

I'll ask England about that. What about you? Do you need anything?

[rubikscomplex]

you wanna chase theories when we don't have the means to narrow them down?
be my guest

i think the rogue ai is fighting for control of this town
for whatever reason
it wants to destroy it
might be remnant programming from a hostile state actor
might be some kid decided he really hated the

[He breaks off and there's no further response for nearly five minutes as he goes back through the public records and archives.]

what if it was derricks?
she was part of the protests
she built the network we're using
she's one of the original designers of the system
she builds a program designed to take out the admin's control
but she puts it on a timer
or it's designed to chip away slowly at the server defense system to avoid detection
but when it finally gets in
she's senile, technology marches on
and contact with the newer systems twists the original program
can that happen?
you're mr. tech

[Ignoring that question on whether or not he needs anything. And the comment about looking beyond the next puzzle. It they look too far, everyone is dead.]

[definingfuture]

I'd rather chase theories than just freeze to death. Something's has to stick. We can at least narrow it down.

[Okay, the five minute break actually gets uncomfortable. He thought the break off was odd, but it's House. Maybe something else caught his attention. But the pause goes on too long. Tony is about to send back an additional concerned message when House's next text comes in.]

It could be sabotage. If you know the system as well as it sounds like she did, you could set up a trap to go off after a certain time. Or after a specific prompt. She could conceivably corrupt the system.

[Which was what he had tried to do, in fact. It would explain why the security is so high.]

The network is locked down far more than most I've seen. It feels like the Administrator is preparing for a bigger threat than most of us should be, given that we're coming in stripped down to the basics. She's locked the system down like a bunker.

[And that's his professional opinion, having tried to break it.]

Do you want me to see if someone will get you something?

[You're not getting off that easy, House.]

[rubikscomplex]

[Still not paying attention to your mothering, Tony. Nope. If House ignores it hard enough, it will probably go away, right?]

the russian government is the threat, apparently
at least if you believe miller
probably every other world power

there's a hell of a lot more to this place than it just being an out of the way town
they had a state of the art ai
one of the most advanced on the planet
they have giant metal wall fortifications and force fields
they have this admin system
they have whatever it is that brought us here
whether it's just our neurological patterns or our actual bodies
this place HAS to have been military
with the friendly town guise as a cover

[definingfuture]

[Accept his help, House. He's not going to ask anything back for it.]

If we believe Miller. It's kind of weird, isn't it? A year so far in the future playing out relations we've moved past? It's playing a little close to home at the very least. Well, anyway, that's just a thought.

So it's a testing facility. A base set up for something specific even before it went to Hell. And whatever it was protecting was monitored by the system they set up.

[He goes quiet, but doesn't disconnect.]

If it were a weapon, it would be housed somewhere. Underground, maybe, but they'd have access to it. But this doesn't feel right. If I were building an advanced weapon, something I didn't want the rest of the world to find, I wouldn't just sit a bunch of people on top of it. That's too many loose variables. I wouldn't want to take the chance of someone tripping security.

hover for the RHIC acronym

[rubikscomplex]

[No, because that's how they get you. The carers. You let them in and it's all over.]

the world keeps turning
we find new things to bitch at each other about
and if all of what happened was really in 2050
it's not that far in the future
geopolitical landscapes don't shift that quickly
not in any permanent way
and even if we're technically allies
you have to know we're spying on the ruskies and vice versa
you're not naive enough to believe anything else

we know there's some space about 500 feet underground
chances are those hatches scattered around town lead to it
and are how everyone got down there for miller's little horror-themed trivia/puzzle game
miller's said that's where he and eve are
along with whatever cryopod he came out of

they're out in the middle of nowhere
minimal interference for electronic instruments that way
so maybe they weren't building a weapon
something else?
hell if i know
might be something like the tevatron or rhic?
and whatever they made actually managed to open up a wormhole

[definingfuture]

[He's going to care and somehow check up on House. The more House avoids the subject, the more Tony worries.]

I have friends that are on the Russian defense team.

[Yes, granted, he does know the tentative relationship their countries have and have had. He frowns over the video, briefly turning his gaze away from the tablet. Being Iron Man and being part of SHIELD makes it difficult to deny House's claims. Thanks, Doc.]

We don't know the explanation they gave us is true. I'm just saying it's convenient, that's all. It fits right into the puzzle.

I think you might be onto something. Whatever they were building might actually be tied to the doorway out. It would explain some of the odd occurrences.

Water, by the way? Are you staying warm enough?

[rubikscomplex]

golly, mr. stark
have you figured out how to hand people water over the internet?
because it sounds like you're asking me for some.
and if i wasn't staying warm enough
there's hell all you could do about it

as for the actually important part of this conversation
yeah
pretty much
alternative is that the device that was meant to pull people from across the country somehow to fill the population quota failed after a certain point because no more people
and the ais
(or the regular old dumb computers)
warped the tech along with whatever virus got into the system
to fit the new needs
take from wherever you can get
or maybe make your own people based on these templates
and that's what we are