ASH: LNH 2027 One-Shot: "Rebooted"

[Andrew Perron]

On Feb 13, 2:32 pm, dvan... at eyrie.org (Dave Van Domelen) wrote:

<snip>
>      "Don't knock it," Compadre replied as he finished unpacking all of his
> subsystems and threw his full power at the rogue program.

"Compadre" is just a great name even before we get into the
net.heroing.

>      "I daresay the sights tend to involve the fights," ADA-7 smirked.
> "Forgive the foray into poetry."

Nothing can stop the Byron!

>      An unfortunate side effect of the complexity of artificial
> consciousness, or ACs, was that while autonomous processes could take full
> advantage of the speed advantage of silicon and photonics over organic
> synapses, true awareness didn't move that much more quickly in a computer
> than in a squishy brain.  They could speed it up in bursts when that was
> important, like the three ACs were doing now, but only by a couple orders of
> magnitude.

I was wondering how this corresponded to how Netwalker speeds up.

>      "Huh.  Seems to have fixed itself.  Numbers dropping to normal."
>      "Log it for later.  Maybe we can fob it off on third shift."

Good outside perspective-ing!

>      "The bad news is, it's not dead yet!  Tally ho!" XAC-2 shouted,
> compressing down and plunging into the connection the AIngel had fled
> through.

Smoooooooooooooooooooooosh

>      "The destiny of three and one entwine / An AIngel dark and brooding will
> this day / Unwelcome light on a secret domain shine / Unless you three and
> one more find a way," the voice intoned.
>      "Poetry," ADA-7 spat.

Hey, I thought you liked poetry!

>      "Cassandra?  Is that you?"

Ooooooh. This I remember...

> Nate's friend Boomer had even built a
> dedicated machine, the Palladium, to let this program fully express the
> potential of the never-was timeline.  But one day it had simply...stopped.
> Nate had always suspected that Cassandra had run its...her course, and
> decided she needed to find a new life out in the net.  But years of
> on-and-off searching had never found a trace of the program.  She must have
> figured out how to control the dispersal method that had hidden her from the
> Template Killer until Nate and the others had reassembled her.

An intriguing direction to take it!

>      "Time for a leap...or lurk...of faith," Nate muttered, then set his
> handcomp down on the bedstand before projecting himself into the Net.

Heeheeheehee

>      Compadre nodded.  While the machine in New Zealand was a risky place

Aoetaroa?

>      The kaiju breathed a gout of atomic fire, which seemed aimed at the
> cloaking net.  In other words, the AIngel had decided it WANTED the world to
> see what was going on, for whatever reason.

Hmmmm! Interesting.

> Take these datafiles, and brace for EXTREME BOMBAST!"

YES mwahahaha <3

>      Then he exerted his will to warp reality, bringing all of the combatants
> fully inside the illusion of Net.ropolis in the same way he'd brought his
> college buddies into the net.  "I hope this is what she meant by a mortal
> shell," he muttered.

Hey, if it works, don't bash it~

> "I am Blackcel, mistress of the Darknet!" she proclaimed,
> looking mortified even as she struck a heroic pose and then vanished.

Mwahahaha. Perfect for ASH.

> "Nothing can keep me from
> coming back again and again, puny AIngel!  You're facing TROLLSAURUS now!"
> Unlike ADA-7, XAC-2 was clearly enjoying the role he'd been cast in.

Has XAC-2 shown up before? He has a really clearly defined
personality.

>      "Blackcel, drop the cloak!  Engaging opening narration!" Nate ordered.
>
>      THE AGE OF USENET IS LONG PAST, AND REC.ARTS.COMICS.CREATIVE BUT A FADED
> MEMORY.  BUT THE NET WILL ALWAYS NEED HEROES, AND WHEN IT CRIES OUT FOR
> SAVIORS, THERE WILL ALWAYS BE AN ANSWER, FROM THE...

Oh goodness gracious. <3 <3 <3

> But it was merely daunted, not defeated, and it
> recovered more quickly than the Regal Redname.

Bwa-ha-ha.

>      "Haw!  You call that a flame?  More like a LAME!" Trollsaurus crowed,
> ignoring the fact that bits and pieces of him were charring away into dust.

Heeheeheehee

>      "Yo' mama tasted *my* Banhamar," Trollsaurus retorted, then unleashed
> his own flames on the giant monster.

This is so great.

>      Floating in the space where its heart had been was Blackcel, her
> expression a mixture of triumph and disgust.  "I sent its core into The
> Lurk.  The rest is just an empty shell program," she explained.

Grosstastic!

> "RACCSpace Animation has a backdated
> incorporation as a startup small studio and all the relevant permits.
> Yesterday's 'guerilla marketing' stunt will result in some fines, but that
> won't be a problem."

One thing I'm wondering is, basically, from what vantage point this
was all visible to humans.

>      "Officially, you three are paying me as a consultant and licensing some
> of the programs I created, but most of the LNH stuff fell into DSHA hands
> during the IP reforms of 2011, for some reason.

Huh. Odd place for it.

  Your backdated incorporation
> included those licensing fees as well," Nate explained.  It had been one of
> the ruder surprises of his senior year when he'd been called to his advisor's
> office to meet with an IP lawyer.

Ouch. x.x

> "She probably kept your secret safe for now, but the new LNH is
> pretty high profile already...Lightfoot even sent me an email saying I'd
> ruined it forever, in his best fanboy-whine...

Soon thereafter, he tries his own relaunch, LNH35. It doesn't go well.

> And if humanity's first hint of our existence is as heroes, that can only
> help."
>      "Not necessarily...shunned and hated by a world they never made, a world
> they've sworn to..."
>      "Enough mutant mutant angst angst, Zach," Nate interrupted.

Heeheehee Echo Lad.

>      "No, mistress, that was not one of mine, although I may have had
> something to do with its discovery in the New Zealand system," Cronyx bowed
> apologetically to the ever-silent Matrioshka.  "I realize that if we are too
> overt about revealing the hidden community of my primitive ancestors that
> they will band together against us, but any time I think I can make it look
> like happenstance, I take the opportunity."

Hmmmm! And I wonder why.

>      "Oh, indeed, mistress!  An excellent idea!  If they want to play at
> being net.heroes, it's only fair that we provide them with some appropriate
> net.villains...."

Dun dun dunnnnn.

>      The in-jokes and references in this story are too numerous to catalog.
> Consider it an early easter egg hunt as well as an Ash Wednesday posting.  I
> will point out that Cassandra was the main focus of the three-issue LNH2024
> series.

So many good ones. Good job!

Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, poof!