WEEK 1

[bathymetric]

Well, you've now met the brains of the operation, as well as the shockingly nice-looking young lady in charge of day-to-day business. Now all that's left is to get used to your accommodations - there's 24 other people in similar shoes to yours to meet in this building, you know! And who knows how much longer you might have them...

The daily routine in the facility quickly becomes obvious - the only way to tell time moment to moment is to check the strange device The Professor gave you, but at the same time every day the lights in and out of the facility go up, and at the same time every night they go down. Otherwise, it's almost maddening sometimes, how little happens in here. At least you have a few rooms with enough to hopefully keep you occupied. Who knows what secrets they might hold? And there's always that vending machine, if you can find something that fits in the coin slot...





MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY
FRIDAY | SATURDAY

[ ooc: Welcome to Peace Week! Enjoy it while it lasts. Remember, office hours for The Professor's Assistant are over here if you're interested, while regains can be deposited over here! ]

Comments

Re: library

[snackooed]

Well, yes and no.

[ As she pensively takes a sip of her (now long-cold) coffee...and tries to hide her disgruntled face when she realizes-- ]

I thought I might try and get a little more insight into the social science behind our...situation, we'll call it. But scientifically speaking, I feel like the effects should be obvious, so I'm not really seeing anything I didn't already know...

[mouflon]

Right? You don't need to be a professor of psychology to know that people will kill when you put their back to a corner. [ Rin sighs, and for her part, she doesn't try to hide her disgruntled feeling. ] I think he must have some sort of... personal stake in the results. The amount of money and resources that would have gone into setting all this up is crazy, and if he just wanted to see if he could make twenty people kill each other, there are cheaper and easier ways to do it.

[snackooed]

A personal stake, huh...

[ She mulls that over for a second, watching the remains of her drink sway in the mug. ]

It's not as though he just snagged twenty people off the street, either. I don't know what kind of mumbo-jumbo he used to pull each of us here, but I have the feeling that has something to do with this, too. There's definitely more to this than a social exercise, but I don't have the foggiest idea what the common thread is...

[mouflon]

We're all criminals? [ It's not exactly a joke, but her tone is pretty dry when she says it. ] Sorry, I know the "may have committed tax evasion" thing is probably misleading.

[snackooed]

A-ah, right, that...

[ She puffs out her cheeks at that statement and turns her head away. Whatever it is, she's made the executive decision not to comment. ]

Anyway, even putting that aside, if it was just a matter of criminality, assuming that everyone here is guilty of some kind of crime, I still don't see the need for him to pull from all of these different places...

[mouflon]

No, you're right. There's no way this was more convenient than bribing some prison for its inmates or something. And I can't even say that the common thread is that there is no common thread between us, because it looks like there are at least a couple of people here who are connected...

[snackooed]

Is that so? Maybe those people are worth looking into, then. If there was enough special interest in them that the Professor was compelled to take two from the same world, maybe there's something up with them, or where they came from.

[mouflon]

[ Rin nods, and gathers up her handheld from wherever she let it drop. ]

As much as I hate these creepy cheat sheets, they're some of the only information we have to go off of. [ She flicks through the profiles, stopping to point things out to Ema as she goes. ] These two both mention "Pink Diamond" and "Crystal Gems". And these two both mention the Church of Seiros. And... [ And this is where Rin hesitates, before she brings up Kirei Kotomine's profile. ] And I know him, sort of.

[snackooed]

Sort of, huh?

[ Sounds like there might be a story of sorts. But all of these people seem worth looking into, as she peeks over at Rin's screen; she hasn't spoken to quite a few of them yet, so she makes a mental note to herself to kill two birds with one stone later. ]

Is he some kind of famous priest, where you're from? Or is the parish he belongs to popular? It sounds like you know of him more than anything...

[mouflon]

No, it's just... We don't know each other, but I've met an AI copy of him.

[ It's Complicated. ]

[snackooed]

An artificial intelligence modeled after a priest?

[ Why on earth... ]

Of all the things...

[mouflon]

It was an administrative NPC, so its three functions were to tell us what to do, stand around creepily, and judge us. Makes more sense when I put it that way, right?

[snackooed]

NPC?

[ Okay, she was following before, but now Rin's lost her. She can't say she's heard the term-- ]

I think I kind of get the gist, but, what was the program for? And why would it be a priest?

[mouflon]

It stands for "non-player character." An AI non-participant, basically.

[ She sighs, and at Ema's next questions, her shoulders jerk in a quick shrug. ]

I'm not sure there's anyone who can say why him, specifically. It's kind of a long story, but I can try to sum it up if you want.

[snackooed]

Non-player...so like, a video game, then? The guy who tells you, like, "Press B to attack," or "watch out for that bad guy"...

[ Her experience with those is a bit limited, but... ]

I'd appreciate that, though. You can go into as much or as little detail as you like. It isn't as though we don't have time...

[mouflon]

Something like that, yeah. It's tacky to call them that, like they're part of some game, but I'm not the one who decided that.

[ As for who did? Well... ]

Anyway, like I said, it's hard for me to say a lot of things for certain. The Kirei Kotomine I know was an AI created by the Moon Cell, which is itself something of a black box. No one knows who created it or how, just that it's a huge, hyper-complex photon computer that seems to exist to observe the earth. When it runs simulations, it bases the NPCs off of its records of existing people. I don't know why it picked him, but he was our Overseer, there to provide information and set tasks.

[ She explains all of this like it's extremely normal. ]

[snackooed]

[ Just hang on a second, she's trying to wrap her head around all of that... ]

I think I followed that, mostly... [ So there's a supercomputer that observes and runs tests, and she was part of one of these tests? Is that the run of it? ] So the computer itself is an enigma, but where exactly do these "simulations" take place? And what kind of tasks did the NPC make you do?

[mouflon]

It creates a digital space — virtual reality, basically. The working theory is that it can only record what it can see directly, so if it wants to collect data on human thoughts and emotions, it needs to be able to connect to our minds.

As for the tasks... Well, not many people would show up if there wasn't anything in it for them, right? So were competing for a prize. He would make sure we knew who it was we were up against next, any special conditions that needed to be fulfilled... And there was that one week where he decided he was bored and set up a monster-hunting challenge in the middle of it.

[snackooed]

So you volunteer to enter into this virtual reality and compete with other people for a prize with real value?

[ Hm... ]

I'm sorry I'm asking so many questions here, but this "digital space"...how exactly do you know when you're in it and when you're out of it? Is there some kind of a headset that you put on that takes you there, while your body is stuck in the real world? We have virtual reality of a sort where I come from, but it's not very practical, and it's really only used for games and thrill rides...in fact, from my understanding, a relatively significant number of people are pretty sensitive to it, and they get really dizzy after wearing the goggles for more than a few minutes.

[mouflon]

[ There's a small laugh that escapes Rin at the question of headsets. ]

Sorry, it's not anything as mundane as that. To access it, you have to have come from a magus bloodline — or, more accurately, be someone born with magic circuits. When I say it wants to connect with our minds, I mean that completely literally. A wizard is able to separate their mind from their body to interface with basically any piece of technology. What the Moon Cell does with that is just a little more elaborate.

You're right that doing so leaves our bodies prone on the outside, though. It's not something you should undertake lightly, for a lot of reasons.

[snackooed]

Ah, so it's magic...

[ She seems to deflate a little at that; not that she has anything against the idea of mages and whatnot, but she was kind of getting interested in the technology of it all. It's probably just her bias towards scientific exploration... ]

That system sounds kind of interesting, though. Almost like some kind of hybrid of spellcraft and engineering, since you're using it with technology...but you can't use it unless you come from the right family? Or is there another way to have this "magic circuit"?

[mouflon]

Magic circuits are what allow people to use magecraft to begin with. They're usually inherited by bloodline, so there are a bunch of lineages that go back centuries — but there are oddities here and there, too, like circuits suddenly emerging in a family without any apparent ties to magecraft, or disappearing from a pedigreed family in just a handful of generations. It's like... being able to roll your tongue. Either you're born able to do it, or you can't.

[snackooed]

And yours, Rin? Do you come from one of these long-standing mage families?

[ A skill like that sounds like it could be useful to the group, depending on what she can do with it... ]

[mouflon]

The importance of pedigree is a thing of the past. Best to leave it behind in the last millennium. [ looking at you, Leo ] But I'm one of the most talented wizards I've met, if that's what you're asking.