Open Gen Post

[mundaati]

OPEN POST



-my muselist is here
-mention who you want in the subject line
-leave me a prompt/picture/whatever
-???
-profit

Comments

[epsilol]

Oh, it was super fucking illegal. If it wasn't the end of the world the Director never would have gotten away with it. If Enduring Victory had worked he would have been charged as a war criminal.

[ Because smart AIs were a valuable resource, and more than that they were thinking, emotional beings and torturing them was unethical. ]

I was the last piece of Alpha. All the other fragments were in the field when I was cleared for service.

[igniting]

So they tortured you. That's...

[She trails off, shaking her head in disgust. It's unthinkable.]

[epsilol]

They tortured Alpha. I'm just a byproduct.

[ Epsilon appears again just to shrug. He repressed the memories of the torture, picked at his own code until he could function properly again. ]

It was war, people do shitty things when they think it's justified.

[igniting]

Yes, they do, and that's what got us here in the first place.

[#TedFaroSucks]

[epsilol]

[ Epsilon hums a few bars from a song that's been forgotten for hundreds add years now. Something about war and what it's even good for. ]

So, are you always this cheerful?

[igniting]

Do you want me to be more cheerful while we're talking about something like this?

[Does she sound just a tiny bit defensive? Definitely not.]

[epsilol]

Uh-huh. You weren't exactly all smiles before we talked about AI torture. Come on, you can't have a stick up your ass all the time.

[igniting]

I don't.

[Rude, Epsilon.]

You just haven't said anything worth laughing at.

[epsilol]

How am I supposed to know what you'd find funny?

[ You'll learn to love his rudeness. Probably. ]

Do you even know any jokes?

[igniting]

[Aloy considers that as she heads out of the cleft in the mountains the ruins are in, towards the nearest road. This place probably looks utterly barren to Epsilon.]

What sort of jokes are you used to?

[epsilol]

Usually dark shit, but then again I was working with soldiers who knew they were gonna die sooner rather than later.

[ As they make their way across the landscape Epsilon catalogs the environment around and uses the data from the focus to supplement what he's seeing. A whole new world, huh? Weird. Still remnants from the old world poking up through the surface but the meaning is mostly lost. ]

You probably wouldn't like it. Gallows humor doesn't seem like your jam.

[igniting]

[Aloy doesn't respond immediately as she adjusts her focus on her ear. It's hard to know what to say, so she finally gives in to curiosity.]

What was it like? Before the swarm?

[epsilol]

I didn't really exist before the swarm. But everything I learned said even if it wasn't perfect, there were people trying to do something good. People usually do when they aren't being shit awful to each other.

[ Don't tell him about the Mad Sun King yet, Aloy. Let him have a little hope that the future is doing a little better on the shit awful behavior. ]

[igniting]

[She's not sure what answer she was looking for, but what he gives her is almost comforting, in an odd way.]

That's still true. Mostly.

[epsilol]

Sounds about right for humanity. There's always an asshole somewhere who wants to ruin shit for everyone else.

[ #fucktedfaro ]

85 years later

[igniting]

One? That would feel like a break. At least no one's managed to best Faro yet.

[epsilol]

And you jinxed it, thanks. I get pulled out stasis and now someone is going to go restart the apocalyp-

[ There was a whole bit he was planning, lots of snark. Except his passive scanning of everything around them finally pinged movement. ]

WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?

[ That was a fucking giant fucking robot... tiger? What the actual fuck! The future is fucking ridiculous!! ]