snowblindrpg | [network] @hotstud_xxx; text; Night 337 [open] (threadjacking encouraged)

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[network] @hotstud_xxx; text; Night 337 [open] (threadjacking encouraged)

hello snowhellions
and fellow band members

one of your fearless lead guitarists coming to you live from the norfinbury amphitheater with a report and a philosophical question
relevant info first:
the houses around here were apparently built with high entropy alloys
those are metals who know how to stand the heat and take a beating
funny things is...
they don't hold up so well in a geothermal reactor

[House will send over two pictures. One is of a piece of rubble. Another is of a melted piece of rubble.]

so that piece caught fire
and then melted in my hand
which leads us to the question:
what the hell are those heat suits at the power plant made from?
because that's the only reason i didn't make like old smooth and skippy in pic #2
if you have thoughts
pls share
consequently
my tablet also melted
tastes like plastic and wires
the rubble tasted like metal before and after the test
significantly smoother after melting, tho

which brings us to our philosophical question:
what is your definition of an extrovert and an introvert?
feel free to use concrete examples
divide up your fellow band members
as you understand those terms
if you don't understand those terms
then look around at other people's definitions

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Ask Beckett, someone is god and they ended up with an unfathomable disaster.

Those little nanites are all AIs. They learn, improve. One of the things the collective told me is that the nanites have exceeded their intended purpose. It's HAL 9000 or Colossus. But with a hive brain, maybe.

[ For a long moment, Will was silent but he definitely looked as if he were wrestling with himself about something he wanted to say, but wasn't sure he should.

In the end, the sheer curiosity got the better of him and his face lost some of it's pinched 'every minute is a struggle for survival' expression. It left behind the wonder of a much younger man. ]

As horrific as all of this is, there is something extraordinary about that idea.

[House is a man who loved sci-fi, the future as a kid. As an adult, he's spent his life on the cutting edge of medicine, both diagnostics and treatment. He's seen the technology and techniques evolve. Even if he's an advocate of using what works, he still marvels at the new stuff because it's so much of what they could only dream of back in the 70s.

It's probably why there's something lighter in his voice, maybe a little hopeful and excited. Not that House would ever acknowledge it.]

I know. Think about what Asimov would do with a place like this in his stories. Clarke, Wells, Bradbury, Verne, Le Guin. All of this. It's freaking insane. It's a mess. It's a sci-fi horror movie on steroids. But just imagine.

[ When House didn't look at him as if he'd grown a second and third head, Will set aside the horror of the town, just for a moment, and allowed himself to imagine. ]

I have to admit to wondering what it all might have been like, if it hadn't gone so wrong. I mean, I know that most of the data we have access too is already alluding to something being off kilter. But what I've been told, about Winter and Andromeda ... the nanomachine technology, even what has us trapped here.

If it hadn't gone wrong...

[ He let the idea hover between them, lower lip caught between his teeth. Of course they could argue that such actions, even with the best of original intentions, were always going to go wrong.

But somewhere, someone must have dreamed of it all going right? ]

The first time I died here, I got my leg back. [House taps his thigh.] I was completely blind, didn't have my meds, and had to have someone direct me via tablet, but I had my leg. I was trapped overnight for lockdown and the first thing I did was run around the morgue like a moron until I slammed into the drawer I'd been lying on.

[This isn't something he's shared with anyone else. He'd been happy, grateful even. As much as it grates to think of that, he really has been. It had been one of the highlights of the last year of his life in Norfinbury.]

If this place hadn't gone sideways, you could wipe out disability, cancer, heart disease, a million different diseases. And then you'd get to the next level of medicine, the things the nanomachines can't fix. [The passion he typically masks is starting to peek out.] What would that even look like? The first step would always be ruling out a bad set of nanomachines. Or someone hacking them. [His tone says this would be fun, not to mention exciting.] And after that, after you rule those out, you're looking at a disease that the highest level of tech can't understand to treat. Machines are only as smart as you program them to be. Humans are the most complex machines on this planet.

Energy, integration, mapping neural pathways. It all makes sense. You have an upward bar for how much you can do with just machines. After that, you need an organic system. This place started that. Maybe we're partway to the next step. Our brains are stored on servers somewhere. Our memories can get trapped in the machines. It's so cool.

[Horrifying on so many levels, but cool.]

[ Using his imagination like this, with innocence, was like dusting off a beloved toy from a long forgotten point in his childhood.

He could picture House running around and when the older man admitted he hit the drawer, Will couldn't help chuckling; but it wasn't at House. ]

I don't know how I feel about the idea of living forever, there is something inherently precious in the fleeting nature of our lives.

But buying us more time. Allowing some of the great minds that most precious commodity, time, in order to unlock the next puzzle. Open our world up beyond the mad scrabble to make the most of our short existences.

Open up our minds.

And the nanomachines themselves. To have exceeded their original purpose and continued to execute on their commands, despite the impossible situation. It's easy to call it is easy to point to programing but viruses are programs, in a way, that mutate and grow in order to survive.

That anything has managed to survive this place, even if we are suffering that survival, is still extraordinary and suggests someone had an incredible vision of what could be.

Screw living forever.

[That's one thing that House still feels strongly about. You should only get one life.]

Death's the only thing that gives life meaning. Otherwise it's just... this. No consequences, no stakes, nothing that means anything. That's hell.

[The idea is running away with him a little bit, and House pauses, pulls back, starts refortifying the wall he's letting crumble. He's annoyed with Will. They don't need to be getting into fun philosophical discussions. He probably shouldn't have opened the door to most of this, really.]

It was some American chick who developed the nanites. Wonder if she had something to do with the development of Andromeda, too. Maybe something to ask Winter the next time she turns up for one of her little check-ins.

[ This time, Will did genuinely feel a pang of regret when House retreated from the conversation and threw his walls back up. He'd been enjoying the brief break from the weight of the abyss on their shoulders and hadn't expected it to end so abruptly.

It stung. He'd survive. ]

Hannibal said almost exactly the same thing, about the importance of death to give life meaning; to give people something to strive towards.

[ That seemed to be the finish of that conversation, so ... back to work. ]

You guys with the Shadownet app will need to keep a lookout for that opportunity. Might consider starting to put together a list of top questions, and share it with your other club members. That way if someone dies, their good ideas don't die with them.

[The mention that Hannibal had said something similar makes House's brow furrow deeply for a moment. He has no idea how to feel about that. Uncomfortable. He's going to settle on uncomfortable for this moment in time.]

Mm... got any others you wanna add?

[ It was always a little difficult to realize you had something in common with the monsters. Difficult to have that sense of empathy, but also difficult to think that even monsters had human thought processes.

It made the lines a little wavery. ]

Not at the moment. I'm still in my sulking and petulant period when it comes to Winter. She never answers my calls, ignores my texts. [ Will shrugged.

He understood what he'd been told about Winter and her communications. He was just being a brat. ]

Women! Can't live with 'em. Can't find their server location and hack and/or destroy them. You're lucky you're batting for the other team these days. The rest of us suffer through.

[Manfully. Kicking and screaming and trying to press Winter's buttons in the right combination to get the info they want.]

[ Will looked up with an expression of, Really? That's the best you've got?Sexuality jokes? ]

Judgmental is an ugly color on you.

You look silly up ended in a barrel digging around in the bottom. [ This bit of childishness comes complete with hand and finger gestures. ] Your legs stick out and wave around [ finger wriggles ] and those pants aren't doing your butt any favors.

Your mom's pants aren't doing you any favors.

[This is where Ecks learned her insult styling from, Will. Be proud that House has had such an influence..]

[ Will looked up and his eyebrows arched. ]

Going for both the emotionally cutting blow and childish in one swipe. [ Really House? A mom joke? ] I bow to the superiority of the master.

[At least it's not a 'yo momma' joke. As Will has 'bowed' before him, though, House leaves off. Will can go back to stalking in peace.]

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