Comic 1155 - Call a meeting about mecha
Posted on 27th Dec 2018, 10:38 PM
in Like a Bullet from Behind
Average Rating: 5 (3 votes) /
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Author Notes:
"Gah," she laughs, turning to face you. "I must be gettin' slow, lettin' people sneak up on me. You doin' alright?"
You nod, and hug Fuse, as well. You tell them that you've been thinking about the biomech--and that, instead of building a full blown exoskeleton around a pilot, you could possibly run nerves or wires through the red... allowing someone to run an empty shell or surrogate by remote, basically.
"That's... yeah," Fuse replies, thinking about it for a second. "Yeah, that could work. One end in the bunker, the other in the mech, the middle in the red."
"You'd have to keep a portal open for that, though," Michelle remarks. "That gonna drain you?"
You're... not really sure. You haven't tried keeping blood in 'portal mode' for an extended period, yet.
Michelle nods. "Might be somethin' to mess with, then. If keepin' portals open like that wears you out, we'll have to go with pilots in the suits."
You also suggest talking to the Proto-Juries about it. They at least know enough to build and repair themselves--that could go a long way, especially if they know more about how their robotics actually work.
"Oh, hell yeah," Michelle replies. "Yeah, as long as they ain't gotta leave their bunker, they shouldn't have a problem helpin' us."
You decide to call a brief meeting--get everyone together to discuss the biomech project in general, and what your plans are moving forward.
You send the message to everyone mentally, and eventually, everyone gathers in Bunker A.
You fill in Caius and Dr. Finch on what you were discussing outside--about wiring through the red and remotely piloted shells.
"Controls are still gonna be a pain in the ass, even remotely," Fuse states. "Especially remotely. Translating any sort of like... grip squeezing or toggle flipping into anything close to human movement... it's gonna be some complicated controls, or we're looking at a meat tank instead of a meat mech."
"I've considered it further," Dr. Finch begins, "and I believe with Mine's help, I could get a much closer look at the technology underlying Caius's phone. It may be difficult for us to comprehend, but we could still reverse engineer it--and with a sort of... simplistic, prefab brain in the mech designed wholly for handling movement and balance, we could just wire that to the pilot's brain directly. Well, not directly, but through the red as Mine suggested."
"So..." Fuse pauses. "To clarify: we're talking about alien tech we don't totally understand, that we're gonna make ourselves, wired straight into our brains. Alright. Moving... past that, 'cuz that's a whole different conversation--even if Blondie can get a look at stuff that small, building it's a different problem. We don't have the tools or the resources to deal with... what's probably nano-tech type shit."
Liz's head shifts--she glances from the monitor, as though she's about to say something, but stops herself.
"What is it?," Michelle asks.
"No," Liz replies simply. "It's absurd, and grossly oversimplifying the matter, I'm sure. Pretend it didn't occur to me."
"Well, now I gotta hear it," Caius chuckles.
Liz gives a small sigh, and turns toward the room. "You mentioned earlier--the androids are capable of building more androids, with sufficient materials. They were built at some point when Zone Fifty was still active... surely technology has advanced since then, and technology for the most part has become more compact as it's progressed. Right? So what if you just... provided them the resources to build a smaller android."
"A Micro-Jury," Fuse mutters, fighting back a smirk. "Fun to say out loud, but I don't think anything they could build would be small enough to work with brain phone wires. We're talking real damn small."
"Wait." Caius holds up a finger. He squints. "What if tha smaller Jury... made an even smaller Jury?"
"Like a nesting doll," Dr. Finch says with a smile, shaking his head. "Just keep building Juries until we have a... a..."
"A Nano-Jury," Fuse finishes, no longer able to restrain his own grin. "Okay, I wanna like this idea, but if we could cram an entire Jury's worth of programming into a body that tiny we'd be millionaires. Processing power's gotten slimmer, but it's not a whole android at the microscopic level slim."
"Man," starts Michelle, "it IS fun to hear people say Nano-Jury, though."
"What if we jus' ghost ride it?," asks Caius. Everyone stops... and turns to stare at Caius. He shrugs. "We're talkin' about a human size shell or whatever, right? You power up a ghost, they can move stuff, but they can go through walls, too. So, when you're a ghost, you can decide if you wanna move stuff or not. Ghost ritual, power up ritual, get in the mech, boom. Ghost in tha shell."
There's a brief silence across the room.
Dr. Finch is the first to speak up. "It's not... the worst suggestion. At the very least, it would save us any complications regarding wiring and whatnot--we'd simply need the body, and and and the strength in astral form to maneuver it. ...Though, astral forms are still quite vulnerable to electricity, among other things. It would be risky."
Michelle shrugs her shoulders. "What're the odds Thale knows how to make bioelectricity?"
Another silence.
"At bare minimum," Dr. Finch states, completely sidestepping the question, "Carpenter having energy weapons is extremely likely."
Michelle nods. "Yeah, I guess that's true. Carpenter havin' explosions is pretty much guaranteed, and if ghosts don't like fire..." Her thought trails off, interrupted by a totally unrelated one. "You made some kinda partial ghost outta intentions and stuff, right Blondie? Any way we can work that in?"
"Not... impossible," Dr. Finch begins. "Possibly a very odd route to take--if we manufactured a brain capable of understanding what it receives... we could find a way to imitate basic commands using normal electricity, and create a control system that sends... well, intentions. Combined with basic training pre-programmed into the mech, likely using the... the same technology that genetically engineered individuals are trained with... hm. Hm hm hm. Unorthodox, but less complex than our other options, I suspect--not unlike the miniature Mine we have hanging about, but with a control setup that imitates Mine proper."
Michelle crosses her arms. "Ehhh. We'd be gettin' dangerously close to accidentally makin' a person."
"Yeah," Fuse adds, "the mini Blondie we got freaks me out as it is, I don't wanna puppeteer some kind of... me sized... Meat Fuse."
Is there a way we can project *consciousness* without projecting the *entire* psychic self? Sort of like the difference between scrying a location and actually astrally projecting yourself there? Nilpenter may still be capable of messing with people via that sort of link, but it would be substantially safer.
Perhaps we should invite Pierce to the conversation and see if he has any input on the matter. His knowledge of the mechanics of magic might allow us to create a set of magical commands that can be activated by the pilots. Magic has to have some sort of mechanism for affecting things at a distance, after all.
We can also just ask the tradesmen how to make a remote-control biomech :P Hopefully it'll come at a discount as one of those "you'd learn this eventually on your own" sorts of answers... It'd be good to hear the cost of such a question, at least.
I think we're getting *somewhere* with the idea of a mini-Mine-style brain and/or imprint manipulation... we just need to pull it all together.
Maybe we should talk to the Silkwyrm while folks do some more considering/research. If the Silkwyrm decides to join us, then we might be able to sync some expertise from her that would be helpful, too.
(as an aside, I know we've got the whole wireless EM fields thing going on, so we won't likely have an actual phone charging cable, but whatever equivalent for the test will do. String or sumthin'.)
But if we can't work it out by then, he's got to have notes or _something_ that could help us along. Maybe make a small prototype and see what kind of recon we can do on-site?
Could we even connect with a mini mech past Nil's defenses?
Could we put mini-mine in a mini-mech?
Guys.
We really need to pick up some R/C aircraft/helicopter or drone mechanisms for ourselves. Operating them may require a license, but surely the innards would not?
First off, there's nothing wrong with a meat tank. However, as far as controls go, is there really nothing that can offer fine remote control? Motion tracking gloves, VR? Anything?
Maybe we could also practice altering space/time with isolated rooms. Faster time in the red would let us train more and we already have a bit of experience altering time.
Mine can handle it due to being "native" to to the place. Knoxstrocity could handle it by being brain dead. I'm sure we could make something work to shield normal humans from the worst of it, or portal people though quick enough to avoid lasting damage, but the Red will be weird and gross at the best of times.
If you make rooms in the red there'll be a layer of seperation between you (you > flesh room > red), or am I missing something?
We could send in a camera, and show the recording to the others, and ask if they wanted to try being inside it.
We need to be careful about our blood powers around the PJ's as they are guarding Lasker and he is a fragment or something.
Maybe we need to complete another sidequest. Destroy the remains of Lasker.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1R9mI9oBZJh_vSt1Byi9J4KOwBfzfKz023bQBeGycNP0/edit?usp=sharing
Maybe we CAN transfer Ghosts by the Red?
If we can, we can use the idea of Ghost in the Shell. And if things turns dangerous, we can not only move their Ghost to a safe place, we could even move them between different Shells at any moment.
Imagine it: You throw empty Shells everywhere during the mission, and when an Energy Attack is going to hit Caius, we instantly transfer his Ghost to a Shell behind the enemy.
It eventually moved to the subject of carbon ('diamond') nanothread. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_nanothread#Properties
We could probably make this in the red - it's just benzene, an organic chemical made of mostly carbon with some hyrdorgen, exposed to extreme pressure that is slowly let off. These crystalline nanothreads approach the strength of diamond without the whole 'easily shatterable' issue - they are still flexible. We could potentially make some crazy mech-armor with this stuff.
I feel like we should bring up the possiblity with Finch and Fuse, see what they think.
On a separate note, I feel something else we can train on is mimicked bodies. We already have an ability to 'scan' someone when looking for injuries to fix, so why don't we try constructing from the Red using a scan as a blueprint?
Why not drop the spare bunker door into the red?