{VOICE OTA}

[rootandbranch]

[Today you feel a few strange pulses in your signets before you hear anything over Qri's network. It's fairly pleasant, exactly as the signet communications tend to be, and fortunately doesn't at all resemble the strange fluctuations that plagued everyone back on days 103-105. It's more like someone poking at the network to be sure it's stable and not going to do any more of that before they speak. They seem to conclude it's safe after all.]

Hello? Oh, hi-- hi, everybody. It's Geir. If you don't know me, I'm the dragon.

[He's very matter of fact about it. He's the dragon. You're probably aware, his tone seems to say.]

Listen, I don't actually care if you know me, you should just help me and Nines out! He knows all kinds of technology things, so I asked him what we could find out about the Hub with them. But the question is really, what does everyone want to find out? There's been a lot of weird to chew on!

Chew...on? [9S echoes this thought quizzically, for an instant quite distracted. But right, right, the matter at hand—] Er, anyway, like Geir said we’re lacking data on our surroundings. And to know what we’re dealing with, gathering more would be best, so I was thinking I can probably scrape enough parts together to build a pod for that job, once we know what kind of information it should collect. I mean, unless we want everything...

[Geir's tone is still bright and interested. he loves hearing about this, even if part of him is still skeptical.]

Nines isn't even the only person who knows how to build... robots. I know a bunch of you build stuff. Who wants to help?

[9S clears his throat, quietly tacking a little disclaimer on:]

...Not that pods should be mistaken for machines or anything.

[When your kind’s fought machines for millennia certain lines get drawn. Thin, confusing grey lines. (Geir doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just lets it stand.)]


((both 9S and Geir may reply to your toplevels, and also feel free to jump each other! this is the start of a player plot to get a little more technology on the island. ♥ more details here!))

Comments

Voice

[decipheringeye]

[Hey, it's two of Kosuzu's favorite dudes in the coven!]

I don't know how much I can help with something like this, but it sounds like you guys are up to something cool! What's a pod?

[rootandbranch]

Oh, hey, Kosuzu. I wish I could answer that! I was just telling Nines that I wanted everyone to have a way to find out more, and before I knew it, he was suggesting all this technology stuff.

[Geir sounds both pleased to hear from Kosuzu, and proud of Nines. imagine, being able to just think of solutions to problems off the top of his head like that! knowing technology certainly seems like it must be exciting.]

From what he said, I think it's a robot that'll go around and try to find stuff out. I'm sure you can help! You can't know less about it than me.

[decipheringeye]

Hahaha... I think we know the same amount. 9S tried to explain how those lights work to me earlier, and I was lost from the first sentence. I can't even imagine how you'd build something that goes and does things by itself.

[rootandbranch]

Nines is a something that goes and does things by himself! We didn't get into it that much, but he was built to do things. I don't know who built him, but whoever they were, they were incredible!

[Geir isn't quite sure in his own mind if he's saying that because he thinks of Nines as a cool person, or the idea of someone like Nines existing at all is incredible. maybe it's both. both are true!]

[decipheringeye]

I can't even imagie what kind of person would be able to just build something like 9S. You can't take the future lightly...

[rootandbranch]

The future?

[it never even occurred to Geir that some people are being brought to the coven from other points in time as well as other points in space. is that true, or did Kosuzu just mean that as an expression he doesn't know...?]

[decipheringeye]

9S and I are both from the same world, but I'm pretty sure he's from way in the future by comparison. Whenever he talks about what it's like back there, it's some crazy stuff I can barely understand.

[rootandbranch]

I didn't even know that could happen! People coming in from different times-- that's incredible.

[Geir can't even begin to get his head around the implications of that all at once, so he doesn't try. the past influencing the future is a chain of causality he's very accustomed to, but the future returning to influence the past...

that's not out of the realm of prophecy, and he can sort of see how it might work, but he does not feel up to sorting through all the things it could mean right at this moment.]

I'll-- I'll ask Nines if there's a way to tell that.

[decipheringeye]

If you ask me, people coming in from different, totally unconnected worlds is more amazing. Compared to that, moving through time sounds pretty straightforward.

[rootandbranch]

It's just the opposite for me! I'm used to the idea that there are a lot of realms and worlds, even if it's weird that they're not part of the Tree's branches. Traveling in time is completely new!

Does anyone have powers like that? I know that people who know how to travel between worlds are here.

[decipheringeye]

There's a maid who has the ability to stop time, so it doesn't seem like it'd be too much of a jump to move through it unexpectedly.

...Then again, Yukari can probably go to all kinds of different worlds, so now I don't know which is weirder...

[rootandbranch]

Are those things you're saying things that happen on your world? ...your home really does have a lot of strange things.

[Geir thinks long and hard about the request from the point of view of something collecting data. what could an outside observer use as an indicator about what happened here, without access to any oral history or other stories about whatever drove people out? he remembers a conversation he had with that one boy, Sorey, about ruins...]

...maybe Nines' pod could at least tell us about any abandoned human buildings on the island that we haven't found yet. That could be our first clue about history.

[decipheringeye]

Pods can even do that much? Sounds pretty incredible.

[deem]

Oh, a pod's a Tactical Support Unit. I guess it'd look like a floating box with arms to most people around here, but they can fly and gather data, and they're capable of logical thought and speech.

[He...he's trying to tone down the technojargon and yet it's in his blood.

His synthetic most likely oil for blood]

[decipheringeye]

Actually, I was talking a bit with Geir just now, and aren't you also some kind of robot who's capable of logical thought and speech?

[deem]

I'm an android. [This is an important distinction, if only to androids themselves] We make pods to assist us in the field, and they're usually assigned to a unit like me and defer to us if commands are issued.

[decipheringeye]

Okay... maybe I don't know the difference between robots and androids.

[deem]

Androids like me are made in the image of our creators. Robots don't have to have things like skin or hair for example.

[decipheringeye]

When you put it like that, robots sound pretty weird... [ She's imagining a skeleton. ]

In other words, it's basically about looks?

[deem]

Er, no...but you'd know the difference just looking at us.

Robots don't necessarily have self-awareness or—or feelings.

[He's YoRHa why is he justifying himself with emotions he's supposed to deny, what a day]

[decipheringeye]

Oh! So, robots are more like wild animals? Which I guess would make a pod kind of like a trained dog, or something...

[deem]

It depends on how sophisticated the machines' designs are, I suppose... But they don't take after humanity like we do. Not usually.

I think it'd be an insult to pod 153 if I compared it with a dog. Pods are capable of far more sophisticated thought than that.

[decipheringeye]

[So it's less like a dog, and more like...]

...Are you having another son, 9S...?

[deem]

[He sputters]

A what?

[Hold on let him recover here]

Androids don't—can't—

[So much for recovery]

[decipheringeye]

You made someone, who's smaller and less intelligent than you, but still definitely alive, so what else would you call it?