| Infoplague zombies! |
[Dec. 7th, 2004|12:15 pm] |
Had a dream this morning before waking (about 20 minutes ago) that was rather detailed and interesting.
It started out as a regular zombie movie. I was some sort of scientist who had created a virus that got out of control, made people into zombies who wanted to try and eat things. Especially brains, for some reason. They weren't exactly the living dead, but it was still creepy.
Myself and my partner did a lot of running around and shooting up the zombies in a confusing building that looked like the house I grew up in from the outside. Even the backyard and fields beyond it were pretty much the same.
Then the situation changed. There were two zombies we were trying to kill that were hiding together underneath a car in the backyard. My partner was overly trigger-happy, but I started listening to the zombies talking. Suddenly I knew I had to stop my partner...these two zombies must not be killed. The virus had mutated to the point where it no longer needed the host to consume vast quantities of information (brains), instead it formed itself a peer-to-peer wireless network that had the potential to connect everyone in the world.
I locked myself in a blank, empty room in the house with my partner's bazooka so he couldn't do more damage, then I snuck out the side window into the backyard to converse with the infoplague zombies.
I ended up getting the new virus from them, and I was connected. The plague did interesting things not only to the brain as far as connectivity (telepathy), but also somehow gave some measure of control over the cellular structures in one's body.
In the later stages of half-awakeness (where all good dreams come from), I found myself riding my bike down a country road in my hometown, and speculating on the plague that I still had. I wanted to spread it. I flew down this hill and passed the road that I wanted to turn onto, so in turning around on a patch of grass, I noticed two girls having a picnic lunch nearby with some muffins...
That's about where the dream dissolved into rampant speculation...turning the brain into a wireless telepathic network would require the use of mental firewalls and possibly virus protection. Private thoughts would be hard to keep if there was accidental transmission. It would be like a peer-to-peer network...you'd get a better connection to anyone close by, and a tenuous one to someone halfway across the world. Closed-off systems might evolve, intellectual property would be even more of a commodity--or maybe, impossible. Would originality cease if anyone could steal ideas from anyone else?
Weird things come out of my unconscious brain. Maybe it's related to seeing Strangewarp in person for the first time. Come to think of it...the infoplague virus I dreamed is a lot like a more benign Strangevirus.
I'm beginning to think this thought-sharing already exists on an unconscious level... |
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| Only partly off-topic |
[Nov. 18th, 2004|12:40 pm] |
Does viewing this on a virtual terminal inside a virtual dreamworld make it more dangerous?
Nah...unless thinking makes it so.
Anyhow, it's debatable if Strong Bad's emails ever really had a fourth wall--he gets emails from real people and answers them in his own world. The flash-animated cartoon world has always been pretty subjective (in the sense that comedy based around randomness always is)....but this time it's gotten weirder.
I like this one because it goes weird and Meta: StrongBad gets a virus...and so does the entire world. His computer infects and destabilizes the computer-animated world. Characters turn into ASCII or their component parts, the background ends up HTML, and other weirdness.
One can hope the virtual breakout of this virus was contained in the Flash file and not spread to my computer, my body, or this world.
Nah...that's what I've got the SDG for. *grin*
This...gives me evil ideas. Maybe...a new drug.
Bad. Stop thinking that.
--Chris out. |
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| Linkables |
[Oct. 24th, 2004|04:06 am] |
A beautiful summary of Puzzlebox aesthetics: this would make a very nice t-shirt
A rather funny vignette on mad scientism. Done with, how appropriately, an otter! What's that green stuff?
On a complete side note, it's sad to see the comment section of the otter comic buried in replicating advert posts. Except of course the wise advice of Mr. Penis Enlargement at the bottom that actually fits the comic:
There is no great genius without some touch of madness.
Posted by: penis enlargement at October 15, 2004 01:07 AM |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 17th, 2004|03:41 am] |
"The control space is one-dimensional; bifurcation set is made of only one point. The fold catastrophe is similar as the 'all or none' law; its bifurcation set is the all or none threshold."
"A topological theory describing the change of a system's structure along a continuous "morphogenetic landscape" including occasional jumps."
The moment at which one feels tired enough to go to bed yet attention is still desired or required. Combining factor of the utter horrible lateness of night/earlyness of morning. The lip of the catastrophe point is reached when one nearly dozes off but instead suddenly regains some measure of alertness. Prior to catastrophe point, sluggish brain functions and gradual disinterest in remaining up.
The cusp is passed. Fatigue dives into a feedback loop and produces new complex energy and attention, heightening/exciting the mindstate. Complexity is simplified, overriding minor details. The mind flirts with disregard for lack of sleep in a bright spiral of strange attraction. Scintillating words such as 'scintillating' enter one mindside and out the other, with a new meaning-tag attached. What was deficit in meaning now is clear. Things make sense.
It is topology of sleep fold catastrophe that average factor finds one unable to cross cusp of fold, falling down to ground state bed rather than excitation. Further beyond curve those subjects colliding with responsiblity even while partways skirting it by being up late to begin with. Body redoubles effort and mind acquiesces, citing precedence of effects on mood/persona/mindstate/responsiveness of null>sleep>full. The correct path is chosen in rest. Rarer still, far end of distribution, induced insomnia via crossover of catastrophe lip, deriving/mistaking fatigue energy burnoff for awake, and ignoring all later physical signs to forge on ahead into the sunrise having forgone rest. This not ideal, as some sleep > no sleep.
Transient state, lasts no longer than body allows. While mind is afire, eyes pucker closed, eyelids regain mass, moving disconnected from sensation. But recording to do now, ideal time for sudden spurts. Of imagination. Lack of audience isn't bothersome, meaning/context/sense all but lost in subsequent reads.
This is of average distribution. Secondary energies applied, utilized, third-wave energy unwanted.
...
Bodily attention waning, one's eyes are gathering mass. Signing out, envious of too-brief momentary exercises in lucidity. Attention not engaged, has fled, mind cools off after its popcorn of randomistic thought flavors. Even words trail off into countersemantic space as also discrete portions of time lost to extended blinks.
Blinks...
Blinks..
Blink.
Bl.......
There. 30 seconds vanished when one looks up again. Time to make use before tertiary energies force one over second catastrophic fold ad infinitum or until systematic collapse.
Force one's own collapse in bed-attractor. Now. |
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| Potentialities and Portents (Primary Part) |
[Sep. 27th, 2004|04:14 pm] |
Nikolai, newly sane, discovers possible history and potential future. He's become a Gridshaman...or has he always been one without knowing what they are?
It's a perfect fit for him, at least. For what he is and has been.
I had to consciously keep myself from letting his grammar get too perfect. *grin* He's not all that mad anymore, but his diction was just so distinctive and more importantly, fun!
( Showing Induction-Coil the SparkTree... )
( Musings on magic ) |
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| Newsflash!! Giant Robots! Chaos! Destruction is NICE! |
[Sep. 14th, 2004|02:54 am] |
Newsflash! Mobile Strangeinfected lab has been spotted rampaging through the Downwarp area!
Random Bystander: Can mobile labs rampage?
Other bystander: Must be one of them new ones!
More newslog infofeed at 11. |
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| The attempted 'healing' of Nikolai |
[Sep. 6th, 2004|12:59 pm] |
A brief summary of the proceedings from the night before:
Nikolai was captured by the Strange Medical Corps, along with Trilogee who was trying to protect him. They were held in stasis and then processed in the depths of Papa Legba, the factory-like center of the SMC's operations. In the intermediate process, possibly because of Strange-tampering with his uplink/backup system, Nikolai's mind became two-way linked to his lost buried-away double. He knew where he buried him, finally, and tried to pass this knowledge to Trilogee discreetly, but the SMC's systems picked up the information anyway. Further along, Papa Legba strangely releases Trilogee, apparently deciding her strain was benign. Nikolai, on the other hand, was a mystery, suddenly having a mind in two places at once raging insanity compounded by double Strange infections...perhaps too much to handle. Nik managed to force his mind across the link to his sealed-up clone, and basically left his Mother-infected body to self destruct. Then there was a race to get to his old body before the SMC.
Here's the infodump, in its whole:
( Part One: Papa Legba )
From there it was on to Strangewarp, in the next entry. |
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| Small solutions, larger problem. |
[Sep. 3rd, 2004|01:02 pm] |
(Brief OOC notes for reference. )
I just realized something. Nikolai can be cured, sure. With the help of the SMC, he very well might (when we finish up with that RP, that is). But there's one small problem.
Nik never trusted the Muckwide backup system, never really used it, choosing his own methods. Except for coming in contact with Twin, which I believe he's only done a few times, and a fair bit ago at that, so that backup's old. Before any attempts at a Strange cure. His backup resided in a giant crystal in the factory of Darkunder. Then he was carrying it around with him. Then, during his trip to Strangewarp and the cutting off the statue's head, his backup crystal got taken and destroyed by Strange.
He went back to his lab, scanned himself a backup there, then hit reset....and the Lab itself is now infected. So, he can be cured....but the instant he forgets and returns to his Lab (and the urge to get back to work is always strong), he'll simply be reinfected. If killed, his backup resides with the Strangevirus, and it will most likely bring him back. So there's a temporary solution, but a bigger problem that the SMC and others will still have to face: getting rid of the infestation outside its home warp.
And I have some mad plans for the Lab, oh yes....
*rubs hands and cackles*
Minor character note: Player's influences for Nikolai--Invader Zim, Professor Farnsworth, Dr. Frankenstein, Dr. Finklestein. |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 30th, 2004|02:09 am] |
<3 <3 <3 Indulgent retroactive background story editing...
From tonight, 'Mother' the Strangevirus entity speaking through Nikolai has an interesting conversation with GrayZero.
GrayZero smiles ...mockingly? Maybe. "You have no domain. You may have convinced others, but you do not own this place." She then narrows her eyes. "Toy or tool, it matters not. He will not have you and you will withdraw."
Nikolai says, "candle not snuffed until wax depleted. but oh, oh how he burns bright! "
GrayZero stares intensely at Nikolai/virus/Strange. "He is not yours to burn."
Nikolai trails a claw over his own chest. "oh dear, dear me. you are so *sure*, hm? what makes you sure he was ever *his own*?"
GrayZero smiles visciously. "He had an existence before you. Whence comes your right to subvert this existence? Souls learn in their own time and in their own way. You pervert this process. Thus you must and you shall leave."
Nikolai plucks another antenna from his skull. "so much you presume. this one has been tool longer than he can if notmad remember." He folds the long cord over and over into a ball. "taking gaining gathering hoarding knowledge, upstreaming back to where, hm? innocence with fangs, indeed. madcurious spy, always kept busy. would i lie? of course...but the factory Core does not. "
GrayZero shakes her head. "It matters not. His Lessons are his to Learn, not yours. You have no business here."
Nikolai says, "by whose right do you usurp Ours? "
GrayZero snorts. "I only seek to retrieve that which was not yours to begin with."
Nikolai slides a claw across his own chest, drawing a little blood. "that depends on your beginning."
Implication that Nikolai might have always been a spy/eyepiece/information conduit for the Library via his odd personal backup system...intruiges me for some reason.
But by far the best quote of the night was:
Nikolai waves his hands impatiently. "Words never friends, I stab dictionaries constantly. |
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| Poor, poor Doctor Nik. |
[Aug. 27th, 2004|02:40 am] |
Nik's Laboratory seems to be getting more popular as a place to fix things or just experiment. Recently he had some dealings with one Kehari, who was being hunted by StrangeInfected dragonness called Onya. Nik told her he would try to work out a reverse-infection virus for dealing with Strange on its own grounds. Several days later, he produced the antivirus, but it required testing. Leviathan-Chan and Parity expressed an interest in accompaining him on a tour of Strangewarp.
While down in Strange, Nik got his arm infected. Deep in the Periodical storage, his hand got stuck to a screen and erupted in silver boils, while Nik's mind got taken over by Glossolalia. However, the virus was stopped before total infection, and Nik lost his arm in the process. Leviathan and Parity helped him back to his lab, where he reset safely.
The antiserum tested, it was put to good use the next day. Roque and Onya had a fight, and Nik asked Kehari if he should use the antivirus on Onya herself, instead of on Kehari as a defense, which was the original plan. Nikolai ran off after Onya with a syringe, and managed to stab Onya with it while Roque stalled her. The antivirus did its work, incinerating the Strangevirus, damaging Onyas body but leaving her alive.
But Nikolai didn't leave this encounter unscathed....and in fact, was infected with Strangevirus himself, the same 'Mother' strain that the dragoness had. He's been working in his Lab since, on some sort of project. He has also gone on one excursion to Strangewarp to try and find his missing counterpart, which Mother told him was the otter statue in the main square of Strange. This prompted him to cut its head off to search for the uplink implant, then he got into trouble with Slight. Upon being killed and having to respawn, his uplink crystal that was with him was tainted and then exploded.
He started to chase after Sebkha, who took one shard of the crystal (will have to try to reclaim it later :-} ), and was restrained by ojou and shinsei. When he got free of them, he ran off towards his lab, running into Trilogee and Parity who also chased him down and tried to stop him. From resetting without a backup, essentially. But Nik finally saved a backup on some equipment in the lab and hit reset...
....except of course, his backup was still infected....and his Lab is now also infected....
Oh dear. *grin*
This is mirrored on Nik's Wiki Entry |
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| Proposed Concept: Continuity Be Damned |
[Aug. 23rd, 2004|05:49 pm] |
When I first tracked down the traces of Puzzlebox to see what it was all about, I read as much as I could find. I gathered that the world envisioned for the muck was a world in which literally anything was possible. One could do anything and have some reason for it built right into the concept of the world.
However, being on the muck for this long, I've noticed there are still rules to everything. People play by them or they don't...but it's usually easier to follow the guidelines to further the plot. Continuity, for example--one action follows another, and the previous action always affects the current action. What's done to a character goes into the character's history, most often. Transformation occurs, the character remains in the changed state until another transformation. The technology that is posited as working in this world works as described. We're often too tied to our character's desires and continuing history to so suddenly try something completely bizarre.
I'm not saying there's nobody who breaks the rules. A good deal of characters take a concept that's been accepted as being one way, and go an entirely different direction with it. That's usually the idea of Puzzlebox itself, trying to distort or reform the rules and canon of everything that already exists. But it's hard! Getting your mind wrapped around a concept, like Strangevirus, for example, is difficult even without trying to reinvent it.
So here's a proposition, in the interests of exploring a concept in some direction without any lasting consequences, or to have a fun time without worrying about 'Big Overarching Plot Significance'. Call it a Subjectivity Storm. Or a Dream Sequence. Or an anti-Causality Error. Or a Memory Failure. Or a Buffer Overrun. Or a Magic Flood. Whatever the case, be it a planned event or something randomly ocurring in time or spatial location, have a night/day where anyone can do anything, without fear of continuity. Nothing that happens will have happened, nothing that is done will have been done. Say the Puzzlebox suffers an glitch--temporal or possibily datasphere/backup related--which reaches into the future 24 hours. Everyone and everything is dumped into a temporary 'buffer' while the 'real' area or problem is repaired. For the duration of the glitch, all naturalistic physical and RP laws are suspended and everything is mutable. At the end of the period, the buffer is dumped and all are refreshed from the backup taken from the start. Think of it as a jam session, for the characters but as much for the players as well. Leakage of what happens may occur minimally, like the memory of a dream, knowledge of an event without change.
It would more effective to confine this effect to something locally. Puzzle Park, or a similar location, perhaps even randomized locations, like a weather effect. That way it would at least be opt-out, any character not wanting to have a chunk of time effectively erased could vacate the premises. For anyone staying, it could be like a drug trip or an extremely lucid dream. Magic, essentially, would be possible. Even stranger things that are hinted at in, say, otherMuck logs could and should happen. This is not to say that it shouldn't already be happening, but the main point is, making it a regular event gives a very justified excuse for being weird.
It could be a regular event, like Mardi Gras or some other Carnival. It could be a minor crisis Muckwide plot (Puzzlebox is losing control!), or some flurry of temporary localized problems. Or a particular room or area designed to suppress rules of normality. Or...here's another thought, it could be a user-selected function, like the OOC function.
Whatever the case, there are times when I just want to go all out without having to worry about creating a character that's always going all out. It could give old hats a change to stagnation, or newbies a chance to really dig into creativity and jam with the rest. Continuity be damned. |
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| Nikolai notes |
[Apr. 28th, 2004|09:38 pm] |
Just updating some notes of mine, figured I'd put it here for feedback and as an update of status for Nikolai. (and maybe testing of plausibility)
Added a section to his cinfo, Backups:
Nikolai, not trusting the Mess's more conventional backup systems, has opted for something a bit more extreme. There is a central location that holds his exomind, a collective but unconscious datadump for his active mind. He is upstreaming thoughts and experiences in realtime to this external source. When he is killed or the signal interrupted for a long enough amount of time, a new full-body copy is instantiated almost instantly at the same point of death. His new mind will be a snapshot of everything uploaded up to point of termination. This can lead to problems, however, in copies that cannot or refuse to die or cease transmission. Every time he dies there is a risk of the exomind-state being chaotic or unbalanced by something, thus affecting the latest enbodied mind. So he's, well, often quite mad.
There's also the remote possibility that his supposedly unconscious exomind is not, in fact, unconscious. Bodiless in darkness and living vicariously in spawning versions of itself that can walk around....and forever craving more information, more data.
Which is the idea that was in my mind about a week or so ago, my most recent RP'ing with Nikolai.
What happened was, he was doing some field work in the Park, investigating the Cube Tree. Nik stole a cube leaf, attached some monitoring wires from a datapad into it, then decided to put it back. Thus apparently connected to the storehouse of information contained in the Cube Tree's leaves. Images from it flashed on the screen and in hologram above the console. Nik was overwhelmed with the urge to hoard the information, gather it up into himself. He tore the plug from the console and jammed it into his own headtop antennas.
And basically cooked his brain. The problem is, he cooked his exobrain too. His body burned up, but when he rebirthed, his mind had been taken from the snapshot of the external mind which had been just as overloaded. (Granted, the exomind might have bad some pretty good mental defenses, but the sheer volume of influx from the Cube Tree, malicious or not, did damage) So his body arrives, lives for bare minutes, and dies of a stroke. And arrives again, manages to almost figure it out, then dies. Brain damage again. The cycle repeats...until finally he gets someone to put him in stasis.
That's where I am now, trying to figure out how to bring him back, or maybe search for where the external mind might be to fix it. |
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