Session 7 10

[OOC] Spyboy: Time to deal with the hippiphelim!
[OOC] Zinda: Yes!
StarWorker: "So you be the Abrahim? Dare we ask what's your whim?"
Zinda: "[Yes, 'tis welcome. Ah…tell us about yourselves.]"
StarWorker: "Are our words coming through? Let's speak the same way so we can speak true."
Spyboy: "Plus our boss can talk to you without needing someone else to relay his words."
Zinda: "Ah! This is ideal yes. Thank you."
Abraham: "You may ask what my whim is, but you will understand if I keep that to myself. The last thing the universe needs is a whimsical Abrahim."
StarWorker: "So you are the Abrahim of legend. Why're you out here, on this end?"
Spyboy: "As opposed to?"
Abraham: "That's what everyone keeps telling me. And we came here most immediately to investigate the phenomena of a singing star."
StarWorker: "Back near our home star, where all the others are."
Spyboy: "There are more Abrahim there?"
StarWorker: "Their remains, somewhere, possibly all over there. They never left the planet: space travel wasn't around yet."
Metis: "What does the remains of an Abrahim look like?"
[OOC] Abraham: So I am impersonating an ancient conspiracy.
StarWorker: "Like a body, or so we think. Many were anonymous: when they died, their tasks stopped in a blink."
[OOC] WC GM: Or an ancient conspiracy is impersonating you.
Spyboy blinks
Spyboy frowns.
Spyboy raises a finger and opens his mouth to speak, but hesitates. Too long, as it happens.
Heggy: "You were around before they were gone?"
StarWorker: "Nah, we got this thing you call archaeology: the study of what really happened in history."
Zinda: "Ah, of course."
StarWorker: "And then there's canon, the simple version of what happened."
Zinda: "Do the two ever contradict?"
StarWorker: "Canon conflicts with itself. Gets 'exciting' when you roll in cannons to 'help'."
StarWorker: "But with the Abrahim the story's the same: hard work for all, rarely any fame."
Zinda: "That a common form of 'entertainment'?"
StarWorker: "We scanned your history files, why the confusion? You do it so much, one might think there's collusion."
[OOC] Metis: I think that was a burn.
[OOC] Zinda: If it was, I'm pleased.
StarWorker: "Crusades, World Wars, and the Pilgrims. Your history's full of wars, to the brims."
Zinda: "I didn't know we were talking about us."
Zinda: "We can if you'd like, but our main goal here is to try and understand you better."
StarWorker: "We are a little curious: an Abrahim not our own kind. This is quite an unprecedented find."
Zinda: "To be quite honest we find the entire notion of an Abrahim a bit silly."
Metis: "Also fascinating."
Metis: "Most fascinating things end up being silly."
Abraham does not rejoin 'Imagine what we think of the notion of a Zinda.'.
Zinda makes a mental note to take Metis to a comedy club.
StarWorker: "So what you think an Abrahim be? Maybe there's a misunderstanding that's key."
[OOC] Abraham: She should team up with Data and go on tour.
Zinda: "Well, a person or thing who performs deeds assumed by your culture to be impossible."
Spyboy: "Which, of course, is what leads to the confusion, since there are a great many things that our culture considers difficult but not impossible, and others not difficult, that those of your kind we have spoken with have deemed flatly impossible."
Metis: "Or a system administrator. There is some equivocation.."
StarWorker: "And you don't have your own who do the impossible by routine? A lot of your kind seem to do it, or let it be their dream."
Heggy: "Look, if there's anything I learned from ancient Terran cinema it's that when someone asks if you are a god, you say yes. But there are those among this group who disagree."
[OOC] Spyboy: …Eh, tone was wrong for Heggy. Gotta work on that…
Metis: "Saying you are something you are not would be distributing bad data. You should only say you are a god if you are a god."
Heggy: "But Metis, how do you know you aren't?"
Metis: "I do not fulfill all known qualifications for being a god: though potentially immortal, I am not supernatural, nor do I have superior powers. I am not a supreme being."
Spyboy: "But from the perspective of the Nephilim, you are. Since they have established that a sentient artificial being is impossible, and you are a sentient artificial being, therefore you must be supernatural."
[OOC] Metis: We leave that to Elles. With Zinda as her prophet.
Spyboy: "The logic flows."
Abraham: "The ability to create matter and/or energy from nothingness is also a generally accepted requirement."
[OOC] Spyboy: Zinda as Elles' prophet is a kinda a weird dichotomy, and would take a much longer campaign to bring around.
StarWorker: "'Sentient artificial'…that is some clue. Please, in detail tell us…what ARE you?!?"
[OOC] Zinda: Ooooh boy.
[OOC] Abraham: "She is vengeance. She is the night. She is batbot."
Spyboy blanches. He…
[OOC] Metis: That's just from Metis' perspective. Though 'moral authority' is more proper, 'prophet' is more poetic.
Metis: "Conflation of 'unnatural' or 'artificial' with 'supernatural'. Artificial and supernatural are not equivalent properties. I am artificial, but not outside the boundaries of physics. Tautologically true; if I did not exist within the laws of physics, I could not exist."
Zinda: "False premises."
[OOC] Metis: He's right. I am batbot.
Heggy reaches back in the cockpit to pat Spyboy's hand. He didn't MEAN to give away information like that…
[OOC] Metis: Wait…Spyboy giving things away? Zinda keeping secrets? What's next, Abraham is a robot and Metis is an admiral?
Zinda: "Anyways, ah, yeah. Abrahim are impossible. If Abrahim exist, it must by extension mean you are wrong about what is and is not possible."
Metis: "I am me."
[OOC] Abraham: "She is BatAdmiral."
Metis: "I am entirely me, and not a little bit anything else."
StarWorker: "We know we are wrong. Reaching this conclusion took you this long?"
[OOC] Abraham: Other than BatAdmiral.
Zinda: "We reached it as soon as you called us Abrahim. But if you know you're wrong, why continue to make use of the concept?"
Spyboy: "That's easy, Zinda."
Spyboy: "Because even if the concept is flawed, that doesn't mean it has no meaning."
Spyboy: "There's no such thing as forever, but we continue to use the word because it's close enough."
Spyboy: "Force is not equal to mass times acceleration, but until you get fast enough, the difference is negligible."
Spyboy: "Furthermore, you are assuming that these we are speaking to think identically to those who have spoken with before, despite the contradictive evidence."
Spyboy: "Just like you assume that the Confederation military Kali led to invade Oldziey are identical to the rest of the Confederation, despite dealing with us and now having Kali follow you around."
[OOC] Abraham: Abraham hides the 'Invade Oldziey' portion of his to do list.
Metis: "As to exactly what I am, I cannot say; that data is flagged as confidential."
Abraham: "She is the primary devourer of Ice Cream on The Roland."
Metis: "….that is true."
StarWorker: "What is this 'confidential'? It seems unbeneficial."
Metis: "…you have *no* idea."
StarWorker: "That is why we ask. It seems the appropriate task."
[OOC] Abraham: Zinda is clearly the best choice to explain this concept to them.
Metis: "It serves as a restriction upon the free exchange of information. Because knowledge cannot be destroyed, some try to hide it. I do not fully understand this concept. It is inhibiting."
Spyboy keeps his lips zipped. He knows why it's useful. He doesn't want the Nephilim to know. They might find it useful, too.
Abraham: "It is largely a matter of timing. One way this concept is used is to examine a young adult's ability to arrive at the correct conclusion to a problem via reasoning. Then after the young adult states their conclusion, the correct answer is revealed and young adult can use that to remove flaws in that reasoning."
[OOC] Zinda: Oh boy
Zinda: "At times, providing an opponent with information can be counterproductive to achieving one's aims."
[OOC] WC GM: So, Spyboy is keeping confidentiality confidential?
[OOC] Abraham: That's classified.
[OOC] Metis: He would, too.
Zinda: "It is the principle behind your cloaks."
[OOC] Abraham: And now we find out that there is no deliberate cloaking technology. They're just using natural but exotic to us cloaking materials.
StarWorker: "But we are not in training, nor your foes. Why then keep this information closed?"
[OOC] Abraham: "All things in life are subject to examination." - Master Splinter
Abraham: "True, but your not being our foes is a very recent change."
StarWorker: "Even if near, it is in the past. So, then, as we asked. A sentient artificial being has been the subject of many quests. Is that line of search finally at rest?"
[OOC] Abraham: This one I've gotta defer to Zinda and Metis
Metis: "…that data is flagged as confidential."
Abraham: "Zinda has the authority to remove that tag in this case."
Spyboy: "Or you could tell them, sir."
Metis: "To my knowledge, organics are burdened by flags in entirely different ways."
Abraham: "Postulate for me, if you would, what would happen if we say 'yes, the quest is at rest'?"
StarWorker: "Then we would seek details, to learn how it was done. We would seek to transmit this knowledge to our kin, that the struggle against death may be nearly won."
Abraham: "How would the creation of a sentient artificial being help in the struggle against death? Yes, the being is effectively immortal, but the…'natural' beings are still mortal and will still die."
Spyboy: "Ask Alfred the next time you see her."
StarWorker: "By making ourselves like that one. Much of the problem is just knowing that it can be done."
[OOC] Zinda: Hehe.
Zinda: "My daughter is not artificial."
Zinda: "She is a product of a mechanical reproductive process, yes, but she is as natural as you or I."
[OOC] Zinda: Wherein I make Zinda say things to cause problems.
[OOC] Abraham: I was actually writing up the big reveal. :P
[OOC] Metis: Of course, the Nephs are arguably as engineered or more, compared to Metis, so….there are mountains of ambiguity you can slide through that loophole.
Abraham pinches the bridge of his nose. He was going to tell them. Probably.
Metis: "I… ah. What? Oh."
Abraham: "Metis, that was the sound of Zinda removing the confidential tag on that information."
StarWorker: "We do not understand. Is her living forever an achievable plan?"
Spyboy: "Obviously not. As I said earlier, forever is an impossibility. There is no such thing."
Spyboy: "Eventually the universe will run out of available energy."
StarWorker: "We just need to find a new universe, once this one becomes life averse."
Metis: "There is no other universe. There can only be one 'universe'. Otherwise it is not a universe."
Spyboy sighs
Spyboy: "Admiral, do you want to keep on going through the same argument with the Nephilim every time we run into a new group?"
Spyboy: "We've already established why none of our arguments will get through to them, and we clarified that early on with these."
Abraham: "True. But I was hoping the 'insane' ones would be more open to them."
Spyboy: "Apparently not, though."
Abraham: "But it seems our presence has driven them back to sanity. Pity."
StarWorker: "Why would we be open to accepting death? That is not a matter worthy of breath."
Abraham: "But at least they can make jokes. Almost."
Spyboy: "So, tell us."
Spyboy: "Do you control the gravity web from here?"
StarWorker: "What gravity web? We control this plasma bed."
Spyboy frowns
Spyboy: "Does that include the web of gravity streams that are moving dust through this system and at least two of its neighbors?"
StarWorker: "The transport exchange? It is no more; are you to blame?"
[OOC] Spyboy: Did it get shut down? I can't remember.
[OOC] WC GM: It did.
[OOC] Spyboy: By the Nephilim on Chandley?
[OOC] WC GM: By the Ring's AI.
[OOC] WC GM: You talked it into shutting it down. Without both ends up, the web disintegrated.
[OOC] Spyboy: Ah. I thought it was still up when we left…
[OOC] WC GM: No. You had to dodge a suddenly-no-longer-suspended carrier, remember?
[OOC] WC GM: Back in 7.6.
[OOC] Metis: Good times.
StarWorker: "We coordinated it, this is true. By our direction it grew."
Spyboy: "Where was it gathering materials from?"
StarWorker: "From any cold source. We'd have used the sun, but that would endanger this wormhole, to our remorse."
StarWorker: "So: asteroids, planets, even dust. It gathers what it can because it must."
Spyboy: "From this system and from others?"
StarWorker: "Yes, as best we can guess. We did not see the others attacked, save through what was brought back."
Spyboy: "Was that intended?"
StarWorker: "It was a side effect…though not entirely a defect."
Spyboy: "So you didn't mind destroying an inhabited world?"
StarWorker: "Before we say it's true, we should ask: did you?"
Spyboy: "Did we what?"
Metis: "Mind destroying an inhabited world."
[OOC] WC GM: Which seems like a good point to stop at, since we're at time.
