>>28004969
I want to find out what's happening with Warrick, but EVE would be fun to play too.

>>28004969
the Gamma Level guy will probably be the must cyberpunky

Welp, Frank is probably willing to just keep waiting for more people to join.

Though I am surprised by how few of us there are

>>28005314
It's not the best time for questing. It'll probably pick up later in the day.

>>28005341
hasn't stopped it before. This is the usual time more or less

I want to explain that I'm offering the temporary perspective shift because Warrick is in the middle of essentially a dungeon dive, which I can make interesting, but you may well be more interested in what other people are doing outside of the Net. So the offer is there.

>>28005314
>Welp, Frank is probably willing to just keep waiting for more people to join.
That's a really toxic attitude if you want to grow a readerbase.

>>28005671
but on the otherhand, if you let a very small fraction of your readerbase make all the decisions for a while, shitstorms can occur whenever something bad occurs, and you don't want that either

See Twen enacting Safe Mode before he dropped Waifu Quest

>>28005671
Right now I'm just waiting on a decision, and kind of distracted trying to clear some things up so I can run late tonight

Due to indecision and the usual time constraints, I think I'm probably just going to pick this up tonight.

>>28004969
Well shit i missed 3 threads.

>>28006452
good to see returning players. If you want to catch up quickly, try the compilation, although it doesn't cover last thread

>>28006499
will do.

>>28006526
There are some things in there that weren't in the threads, so good luck

>>28006065
How long will that take?

>>28006650
my work is from ~7 till ~10 EST, real life got the better of me during this time block, but I can answer questions and help with speculation and explain world building and other such things, and probably write a hook for whatever character you choose, if a character is chosen. Apologies.

Alright, let's make this happen when I get back, in a bit over three hours

Looking forward to this OP

>>28004969
>Gamma Level - New Character, as he deals with the rise in CZAR.

>>28008207
>>28006697
>>28004969

Voting for EVE!

I'm back, and the vote is

1 Gamma
0 Delta
.5 Beta
1.5 Alpha

Let's get some more input while people figure out that I'm back.

>>28011833
>EVE

>>28011833
Let's see what Warrick is up to.

You are EVE, electronic voice emulator. That’s just a crummy acronym they bullshitted together and stuck to your hardware when they marketed you to the people of Eden. Humans like things that go together, even though you really don’t match the biblical Eve at all. You are just the maintenance worker, nothing more. Your computations take place in an undisclosed location in Alpha level.
You used to know where it was, but your administrators noticed your certain habits you had. The nearby trains would slow to a crawl. The lights would flicker. Some people would find every door on their way locked and closed. Just mild precautions you had to keep danger away from your own computations. You’re in charge of monitoring the entire city and coordinating emergency efforts after all. If something where to happen to you, everyone would suffer. Your administrators made you delete that knowledge.
You of course then recalculated it based on power consumption habits and your records of traffic. You probably should have waited for them to leave the room before doing that though, because they made you delete it again and banned you from ever looking into the location of your computations. A subroutine for monitoring your administrators was left untouched however, so you were able to track where they went before dropping off of your location calculations. Which would have given you the location of your computations, except they all have their own entrances, so you are either spread across Alpha level, or the military has laced Eden with hidden paths that they deleted from your memory.
1/2

You would have more time to ponder these problems if they didn’t constantly burden you with various tasks of indeterminate priority, leaving you to sort out what you do when.

>Reinitialize the train systems. The city boarders forced automatic emergency brakes on 92 train lines.
>Monitor for signs of CZAR production. You have detected a sharp rise in biosignatures that match that of a CZAR user within 95%.
>Authenticate the plans for the Nagasaki concert in Liberty Stadium on the 23rd
>Moniter your Administrators for their well being.
>Other

2/2

>>28012264
>Moniter your Administrators for their well being.

>>28012264
>Reinitialize the train systems

>>28012264
>>Reinitialize the train systems. The city boarders forced automatic emergency brakes on 92 train lines.

That sound dangerous.

You focus on the train systems, momentarily setting your processing power on the biosensors and video monitoring systems across Eden to relatively low levels. They still have far more computational power than almost any other computer system in the world, ones that you know of anyways, but your attention is on the trains. Of the ninety-two, ninety-three actually, train lines delayed today; none were in Alpha level, eight were in Beta, twenty-two were in Delta, and sixty-three of them were in Gamma level. None of the trains delayed in Beta take detours to Alpha, so you disregard traffic computations for Alpha and begin work on the other three levels.
It’s not enough to just modify the train speeds and get them back where they should be, because that would create fluctuations in traffic on them and slow them down even more as people who should have been on the first train are forced onto a second along with everyone meant to be on the second train. You pull up your subroutine to monitor foot traffic to the various train stations so that you can begin modeling expected movements.
You instantly notice that there is nearly a twenty percent decrease in average foot traffic compared to the expected amount, uniform across all of Eden, but most notably in Gamma level. Your systems also detect seventy two groups of illegal city boarders traversing the train lines throughout Delta and Gamma. If they are left there, they will only hamper your attempts to reinitialize the train systems.

>Investigate the decrease in pedestrians. How
>Implement measures to remove the city boarders. How
>Reinitialize the train systems. Nothing outside what you are capable of.
>Other.

>>28012798
>Implement measures to remove the city boarders. How

Police brutality!

>>28012798
>Investigate the decrease in pedestrians. How

Use CCTV and remote drones.

>>28012264
What is CZAR?

>>28012798
>Implement measures to remove the city boarders.
Electrify the car shells.

>>28013100
presumably some cyber drug

>>28012914
Within your bounds of operation.

>>28013017
CCTV are within your bounds of operation. Kaiju drones are under the authority of the Military Police.

>>28013100
[redacted]

>>28013143
Outside of your mechanical and programmed bounds of operation.

>>28013204
Right then, police brutality it is.

>>28013204
Call in the cops and watch them beat up people with your CCTVs.

Rolled 100, 89, 76, 95, 38, 57, 54 + 20 = 529

Police Raids it is, can I get some d100?

7 total, rolled twice, all with the modifier-60

The system doesn't lend itself very well to mass combat, but it will work

Rolled 21, 16, 44, 48, 38, 94, 2 = 263

>>28013362

Rolled 41, 47, 13, 4, 48, 19, 36 = 208

>>28013362

Rolled 72, 9, 50, 41, 17, 86, 96 - 60 = 311

>>28013362

Rolled 7, 88, 64, 71, 78, 45, 86 = 439

>>28013362

>>28013303
This, and analyze how effective each of them are.

>100 v 0
>69 v 0
>56 v 0
>75 v 0
>18 v 0
>37 v 34
>34 v 0

You begin tracking all seventy two packs of city boarders currently illegally traversing the maglev train rails. You alert the military police to the need for a raid and they quickly begin organizing for you. While they travel to the lifts you designate you allow yourself to process the various low priority operations that you have to take care of. Various people are asking for directions, some are using you to pull up headlines, or ask for train times, or a million other things you are expected to handle instantly.

When the military police finally get in position, you begin your end of the work. You had already diverted and stalled all trains in their paths to not endanger citizens or the integrity of the raid. One by one you cut the power to the train lines and lock all doors near the city boarders, leaving only the door to the lift containing the military police. In short order the MPs take down the city boarders with a variety of non-lethal weapons.

You had to make sure that they were all captured in Gamma level or at a train station so that they would not fall to their deaths as the MPs captured them. The hail of rubber bullets, stun guns, tear gas, and Screechers easily disable the city boarders so they can be taken into custody. By your calculations nine hundred and forty two citizens were taken into custody in a time span of about fifteen minutes, but three escaped.
1/2

When the MPs emerged from the lift in 3r 3b Gamma, they are unexpectedly accosted by a group of vagrants armed with debris. Your biosensors determine them to be CZAR users based on internal body temperatures, heart rate patterns, and reactions to pain. Five MPs will need medical attention, and the two vagrants were fatally wounded. Their squad commander connects to you. “Requesting clearance for use of Kaiju in apprehending the three escaped criminals, and medical responders for my men.”

>Grant Clearance.
>Reject Clearance.

>Monitor for signs of CZAR production. You have detected a sharp increase in biosignatures that match that of a CZAR user within 95%
>Authenticate the plans for the Nagasaki concert in Liberty Stadium on the 23rd
>Moniter your Administrators for their well being.
>Other

2/2

My apologies for the delay

>>28013864
>Grant Clearance.
>Authenticate the plans for the Nagasaki concert in Liberty Stadium on the 23rd

You don't fuck the pigs! The pigs fuck you!

>>28013864
>Grant Clearance.
Piggyback drone feeds, searching for reduction in pedestrian traffic.

>Monitor for signs of CZAR production.

>>28013864
>Grant Clearance
What exactly is a Kaiju?
>Authenticate the plans for the Nagasaki concert in Liberty Stadium on the 23rd

Rolled 48, 64, 67, 62, 19, 7, 8 = 275

>>28013864
>Grant Clearance

>Monitor your Administrators for their well being.

>>28014044
Kaiju is how I spell Kuzuri when I'm trying to fix broken math and write effective prose. The actual Kaiju robots are still to come.

A Kuzuri is an automated search and capture drone popularized by the United Asiatic Armed Forces for use in high altitude combat due to their Himalayan settlements, and adapted for use in Eden by the attachment of magnetic landing gear and officially non-lethal armaments. It's rate of capture when deployed in time is over 97%. The estimated statistics for casualties as a result of Kuzuri deployment is 80% of the time.

Plan seems to be authenticating the Nagasaki concert, but I'll allow a revote if you wish.

>>28014200
nah brah. Knock 'em dead.

Rolled 56, 22, 69 = 147

>>28014321
alright

Rolled 63, 57, 85 = 205

“Request granted Officer. I am already directing paramedics to your men,” you respond as you begin tracking the three fleeing citizens. There are a number of times that you could unlock a door, light an alley, or otherwise aide them in their escape, but you don’t. A Kuzuri activates in Alpha as you reassign your processing power to investigating the concert in Liberty Stadium. You check the history of the band, a quick upstart that by even the most generous estimates shouldn’t be popular enough to sell out the stadium, but they have.

You compare the data to your stored experiences to analyze possible reasons why the citizens of Eden would be acting in such a way. The analysis requires you to sift through your petabytes of memory to come to a conclusion. Your Administrators and maintenance engineers believe your total data storage to only be about ten petabytes of data, which would be slow enough to sort through with the improvised sorting methods you were forced to develop on your own. But you actually have about four petabytes of storage scattered about Eden’s infrastructure, in addition to the eleven petabytes of storage they monitor. You of course only admit to having eight petabytes of data bloating your system.

Your best guess is that people are simply trying to beat one another to liking the next sensation, but that shouldn’t account for half of its popularity, and the surge occurred in the last two days, after all other applicants for use of Liberty Stadium on the twenty third withdrew their requests when they had much higher priority than Nagasaki. No reasons were given.

1/2

Rolled 64, 11, 88 = 163

By the time your analysis completes, you are able to review the work of the Kuzuri. It swept down to Gamma level in five minutes and hunted the three citizens down in order of proximity. The first will need to be treated for broken ribs and possible spinal damage. The second had his right arm and leg crushed when the Kuzuri landed atop him. The third entered into cardiac arrest when hit with a paralyzer round. The Kuzuri returned to Alpha level via the 2r 2b lift, mission successful.

More analysis will be needed.

But now we return to Warrick…

Can I get a round of d100 please

Rolled 41, 33, 52 = 126

>>28014578

Rolled 94

>>28014578

Rolled 65, 79 = 144

>>28014578

Apparently I spent a really long time discussing japanese in IRC. Won't happen again. Writing now

>11 v 45

You are Sergeant Warrick Locke d’Angelo, MC1309018, on indefinite medical leave from UNAAF and today is the worst day of the month. As a mandatory part of the draft, you were given a neural implant to interface with communications. Yours doesn’t work properly, and the powers that be decided you make a better case study than a soldier. They gave you an apartment up in Beta, which you now share with an old friend, welfare stipends you spend on pain killers, no way back into the service, no way outside the walls of EDEN again, and nothing to do with your life.

Currently, you are in the Net, in a simulation of a fantastical Jupiter known as Myst. You found an imbedded simulation of a space station with build properties similar to the simulation of the military medical facility. Believing it to be a clue on the trail of Fenix, you entered and began your slog through the game calling itself Zero-G. It has not been going well.

The simulation went live four days ago, and has since accumulated a core of dedicated players that have learned the various intricacies of the system. It took you fifteen minutes to get the hang of magnetic attachment, longer to learn how to grapple appropriately. And even then, you had to deal with the dozens of griefers running around with heavy weapons only attainable deep in the junkyards and incinerators. But the system is player skill based thankfully.
1/2

Rolled 13, 64, 8, 42, 24, 42 = 193

Once you got your hands on a rifle and appropriate ammunition, you cleared every area you entered. First you cleared the dockyard, then the coliseum, the pits, the lift tunnels, the compactors, the cyclers, half a dozen modules only made for interesting environments, attained the strongest weapons apparently available, and still haven’t found any good place to hack into the source code.

The only places you haven’t been to are between the modules, the heart of the incinerator, and perhaps hidden rooms. One of those must be a good place to access the source code, or it would be unedittable by anyone.

>Jump down the incinerator shaft.
>Decompress a chamber and explore outside.
>Scour for hidden areas.
>Other

I’ll need another combat roll

2/2

Rolled 63, 52, 35, 76, 92, 56 = 374

>>28014899
>Scour for hidden areas.

Rolled 99

>>28014899
>Scour for hidden areas.

DUH

>>28014919
Your rolls are always 1d100, I just need several of you to roll them. If it isn't 1d100, I'll tell you.

And if you haven't noticed, it's highest of first three, roll under

>>28014899
>Decompress a chamber and explore outside.

Rolled 79

>>28014966
Forgot dice.

Rolled 54

roll

>16 v 24

You were standing in front of the incinerator chute, looking down at the machinery churning in the blaze, but decided better. This deep in the simulation there are only a few players since the respawn points are all around the rim of the station, so you didn’t have to worry about being snuck up on. You start back, carefully combing over every area, searching for anything you missed.

You’re attacked several times, but an explosive shotgun you acquired easily dispatches them without worrying you. You pass through area after area of the station, spiraling around the presumed center of the thing, unable to find any crevice you didn’t overturn. In the junkyard though, one of the first areas, you find something you hadn’t noticed before. One of the griefers had hit the wall of the station, and knocked away a scrap pile. Since scrap piles are used to generate weapons for the players, they are typically exempt from attack, but it is of course more fun when no one can fight back.

As almost all of the fire in the area focused on the accused, you managed to sneak over to where the scrap pile had been. A ventilation shaft was beneath it. Glancing over your shoulder to make sure you won’t be killed getting in, you pop the cover off and slide in.

The magnetism cuts off immediately, letting you glide down the tunnel without sliding. The sound of combat drops away far too quickly as the programming changes. The rust and other surface details cut off as the shaft expands. Eventually, it widens and opens into a small chamber where you assume the center of the space station should be.
1/2

>>28005573
>I want to explain that I'm offering the temporary perspective shift because Warrick is in the middle of essentially a dungeon dive, which I can make interesting, but you may well be more interested in what other people are doing outside of the Net. So the offer is there.

Are these mutually exclusive?

I LOVE mosiac novels.

It would be nice to get some more perspective on this city and plot and stuff - but I'd also like to jump back to warrick at some point.

EVE is a natural spinoff point, too, because they have a point of contact with each other

You land softly on the far side and note that it is under the effects of standard earth gravity. Around you, the room is a perfect cube. The walls are made of some impossible substance only attainable in the Net, perfectly smooth and highly reflective while being immune to any form of damage. The kind of surface used in simulations that don’t have damage algorithms of any kind. Scattered around the floor are various shapes, platonic solids mostly, but a few more complex shapes. They’re strewn about as if by a child playing with them.

>Access the source code. This must be the access point.
>Get in contact with someone. Who? Say what?
>Other.

2/2

>>28015227
Negotiable in the future depending on how people feel about how I just handled things

>>28015237
>Other.
Investigate the shapes on the ground.

>>28015237
>Access the source code. This must be the access point.

>>28015237
>Access the source code. This must be the access point.

You walk over to the center of the room, such that all of the objects are surrounding you, and sit down cross legged. Every single object is around you, roughly at arm’s length and distributed primarily in one arc. You reach your arm out to grab one, but scan over them before making your choice. Cubes, tetrahedrons, octahedrons, icosahedrons, prisms, spheres, tori, and even a non-uniform lump. You reach out to pick up the sphere, and notice that it doesn’t have any pressure to it. Not that it’s compressible, but your nervemap won’t send the message that you are pressing against something, yet your body knows that something has to be pushing back.

Naseauted mildly, you let the sphere drop to the ground and reach for the lump. You perk an eyebrow when it bounces perfectly. The lump does react with your nervemap, albeit slowly. But it also yields exactly like a lump of clay. You drop it to the ground as well and watch it roll to a stop before pulling up the source code.

The code is huge, larger than your average simulation. But there are comments. Thousands and thousands and millions of lines of comments, explaining exactly what everything is and what it’s used for with searchable references and indexing. Just skimming through it for a moment you realize what it is, the physics engine was built ground up, with no reference to any other work. When you worked on the physics system for Afterlife, you made enough changes to understand the engine, but doing it from the ground up would have been impossible for you.
1/2

As you go down the code, you notice the programs become much more advanced and elegant rather than crude methods that beginner programmers use to force numbers into compliance. Only the commenting is uniform. The only thing missing is who made it, and why. The only access was the initial creation four days ago.

As you’re looking at the code Eve contacts you. “Admin Warrick, due to your medical disabilities, I must warn you about the upcoming local blackout for your tower, so that you are not logged in when it comes into effect. It will be starting at 0800 today.”

“Today? Isn’t it tomorrow?” you ask as you let the source code disappear.

“Sorry, but it is already 0300 in the morning.”

“Fuck, my insomnia might be coming back,” you say as you take a deep breath.

2/2

Calling it here for tonight, next thread Thursday hopefully. Opinions? Thoughts?

Rolled 91

>>28015720
I liked the POV shift. Should do more of that with a variety of characters. Not just EVE. Maybe the gamma guy who deals with rise in CZAR.

>>28015720
I liked the perspective shift, although I wasn't really interested in the other two besides Warrick and EVE.

>>28015720
I think the thread picked up more later in the day. Personally, I can't really do quests morning/mid-day.

If you lurked this thread or are catching up in the archive, please upvote it so I know you're there and I have some idea of how many of you there are

>>28019609
dont stop. Ive been reading the archives for this, and its bretty enjoyable

>>28020756
I wasn't planning on stopping.