MENAGERIE #41 - WE'RE IN THE FUTURE, LET'S SPLIT THE PARTY!

Video/Audio:&nbsp;&nbsp; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmztloPR_7Q" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmztloPR_7Q</a> Recap! LEO is still in the virtual world with Pneuma. ALYCIA is sharpening her teeth and muttering Jason's name over and over again. HARRY is pondering his future self's absence, possible demise. CHARLOTTE is fleeing the scene of the factory atop one of the World Wounds. CONCORD was going to check on Leo, but his ears pricked up at Charlotte's "Cheese and Rice!" Concord & Charlotte Concord: Time to go rescue Charlotte. [Freak! 13!] Charlotte: Where does Charlotte go? NOT to the Quill Compound. To the "Has Beans". She's in a shadowy storage room. Where is she? Well, a coffee shop. Concord shows up. Light flickers on (motion sensor). All the stuff is branded "Deja Brew". Not where Charlotte had been thinking of going -- the back room where they had talked, but this doesn't look like that. Door from the front opens and someone enters. Charlotte grabs Concord and fades back into the shadows. Person in a futuristic Deja Brew outfit. Charlotte - the place has a weird, scoured feel to it. No life -- dead soil in an old planter in the sun. Space here feels weakened -- an effect over the whole city? Is the factory tapping the potential out of Vyortovia? Isn't that a finite resource? Alycia Christmas was a horrible disaster; the Yule Cat ate several JHHL types / Irregulators, the Menagerie was a horrible mess, but Rook security intervened and helped. Jason had previously aligned with Rook -- after Leo had left in a huff. Rosa extended the olive branch, and Jason / Menagerie took the offer up. Which accelerated the cemetery discussion / alliance. Leo is facing -- the Menagerie, allied with Rook and the two Rossums. Jason here pithed Leo (Bot) the same time about when Jason back home pitched Byron and Achilles. (In the middle of the city -- found footage. Looked like it was a desperation move on Jason's part.) Vyortovia succeeded in getting some Keynomes -- and have been gone since. Jason, since then ... he's been in public, but very overt with the nanotech bodysuit stuff, for a few years. Ever since, he's still clearly using the nanotech, unsubtly, unwilling to set it aside. No sign of any version of Alycia. Including Ol'ycia. (Not narcissism, threat assessment) Haven't seen the loss of "potential" like in the Sepiaverse. Quill + Rook = Apple, Microsoft, Blackwater, Google, Walmart. They make the best toys ... which keep people in order. [Assess the Sitch! 10!] - How would one best end this quickly? Cyberpunk without the punk ... no real rebellion. An autocracy with a democratic veneer over a technarchy. This system should not be working as well as it does. Any time something acts up that might throw a monkey-wrench into things -- it all resolves in Q-Rook favor. Keynome. Or Probability Control from the rift. They're cheating. Seal the wound. Question 2 ... [[Never really addressed]] ["What here can I use to ... seal the Wound in the World?"] Harry, et al. Charlotte said, "Cheese and Rice!" Concord blipped out. Talk to folk on comms? "Uh, guys? Charlotte? Concord?" Charlotte -- the girl looks like JC. Updates people on the comms. Factory / power source over the apartment rift. Had to flee here. Al - "We're going to have to close that rift. Discuss." Ha - Are you two safe? Co - I think so. GG - (Want to discuss with this young lady. Also, the sword -- Lucius and JC. Where Lucius is, or Armiger.) Al - The Yule Cat ate Armiger. Discuss. GG reaches out in a non-startling fashion to get JC's attention. JC strikes a defensive pose. "This is Charlotte -- but not the Charlotte you know." And there's a 4-5' claymore in her hands, lit up. GG restrains / informs Concord. JC sees Concord -- eyes widen, then narrow, "YOU!" and leaps. GG shoves Concord in the shadow space [Defend! 10! Successfully defend, add Team to the pool.] Concord -- feels the crackle of a dangerous source of power ... but the Keynome feels a harmony. JC - Why are you helping one of them?! ('Starfield Bastards') GG - Different timeline! I know you and your father Lucius, and you helped me with the rift.(establishes her bona fides / knowledge of the past) JC - Okay, you're not the little bitch fiddling behind the scenes. Why are you here? GG - Fled the factor - closest safe place I thought of. ... Lucius used his sword to help us close the Rift. ... (teleports JC back to the base) Leo Subjective time ... trying to ease Pneuma out of isolation. She leans her head, takes a hand ... still needs to be moved around. One day, he goes to her safe space ... and she's not there. She's taken on the routine, and taken on her own motive power. Routine, and now she's responding. Leo takes a break. Aria and Otto had plans to talk with Bot. Otto - wants to have his older self be accountable. Oh, actually, he was "lost", not a deserter. So Otto will distract himself from that and help from a techncial standpoint. Ends up just *talking* to Bot. (Who is never quite comfortable with Aria.) Leo shows up. ... [Comms were down] ... Aria heads down to talk with Pneuma. Bot is looking at Leo very ... ashamed? Unsplitting the Party! GG and Concord and JC port back in. Harry is there. Alycia is there. Otto. Bot. Leo. So they are using the Wound in the World to tweak probability to hold onto power, that Jason hasn't been super-Jason-like since then. JC - Known Grail Knights and other extant orgs have been methodically eliminated over time: the Starfield Bastards have been responsible. She's only escaped that by having been so new she wasn't part of the roster. Her goal is to stick her sword into the skull of ... the Starfield Bastards. Sablestar. The Void Shadow Collective. Sablestar is the one involved in disappearing folk. Low ghost activity everywhere, and they're draining the life out of the world. Primary goal: taking down the Wound. And the regime is waaaaay too reliant on that probability control. Whatever happened to Harry? Or Charlotte? Harry Where would you find yourself? Or anyone from the Legacy? Trying to track vibration patterns? Device back at the Gale household. [Freak! 2!] Leo Leo ... people are making plans, comparing notes, making odds, arguing about the use of C4 vs metaphysical claptrap. Gets Otto to get Bot to another room. Leo has some emotional distance, having spent subjective week inside. L - She's now showing signs of initative. On rails, but responding to stimuli. B - That's ... good. L - She can make some definite progress, so we'll take her back with us and do what we can. B - You're what now? L - Of course. Starting to make progress. I think we can do better than you have back in my time. [Provoke (to make him explode)! 10!] [Insert wonderful dialog here.] L - I'm going to take her away from you. How does that make you feel? [More dialog] B heads down toward where she's at. Insert Cutscene&nbsp; 41.1 "Bravo" here. L heads to the others. Harry Gale Estate ... is now the Gale HHL Memorial Museum. Night. Secret elevator shaft. Harry speeds down. ... all of the stuff has been moved to the side, in the center is a big Faraday Cage. Permanently vibrating person inside of it. Alarm go off. Guns pop put. Three Vectors step out of panels in the wall, and then blur toward Harry. "Dammit Jason!" Wrap-Up! Alycia - Image of Self -&gt; +Superior, -Mundane Harry - Image of Self -&gt; Charlotte - Image of Self -&gt; Concord - Closer to Team (Charlotte) -&gt; +Mundane, -Superior Leo - Image of Self -&gt;

Doyce, only your voice appears in the video, I don't hear anyone else.

Which ... is sort of the opposite of the original problem we expected.

But I'm hearing other voices on the video.&nbsp;&nbsp; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmztloPR_7Q" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmztloPR_7Q</a> UPDATE: Okay, further on all the other voices seem to drop off.

Hmm. They might be there, but super faint on my system. I'll try listening on another device, I guess.

Sounds like everyone else's audio cuts out after a while.&nbsp; &nbsp;I hear multiple people at the beginning but if I skip forward an hour, the only person I'm hearing is Doyce.

Break at about 45:45, when Doyce was having audio/mic problems. Others up to that point, then it's just Doyce conversing with flashing circles.

Ahh, I didn't even check the early parts of the video. I was trying to catch up on some of the later recap stuff for the wiki. Eh, we'll see how it goes next week. :)

In positive news, let's welcome Jaysee to the wiki!&nbsp;<a href="http://wiki.menagerie.team/Jaycee" rel="nofollow">http://wiki.menagerie.team/Jaycee</a>

Suddenly envisioned the AltFuture!QuillFoundation: Good Lord ... does that mean AltFuture!Jason ...?

As usual, some actual science behind the "cheating" that Rook is doing with the portals: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_suicide_and_" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_suicide_and_</a>... And some fiction I wrote about the concept, a few years ago: <a href="http://astralfrontier.org/2015/09/04/fiction/uncer" rel="nofollow">http://astralfrontier.org/2015/09/04/fiction/uncer</a>... The real question, of course, is "if this thing makes events go well for someone, how is that someone chosen"? The story I wrote pinned it to the wearer's heart rate, selecting futures where that simple measurement continued indefinitely. If in the game we come across some similar mechanism, something tied to Rosa, we can either disable it or (perhaps more interestingly) re-tune it to someone else. Another interesting complication: if destroying the warehouse and/or shutting down the portal are bad for Rook, would it still work? If not, is there a way to do it in such a way that the event is a net positive for Rook, as the phenomenon "sees" it? Can we make it work for us?

Fun story. :-) The other unspoken question in both the story and the game phenom is how is the outcome selected? Even in the simple way it showed up before, how is the probability calculated by the phenom to be rounded up or down? If we assume a more sophisticated harnessing ("People plotting against Rosa Rook always fail"), what makes that failure something as simple as a car needed in the plot failing to turn over, vs. an alien invasion wiping out all the plotters (and half the population of Earth)? When Reality is so malleable, what does probability even mean? (At some point, this also be comes handwaving "It just works that way, like magic," of course. And, actually, the 'like" in that sentence stops meaning anything, either.)

Demonstration of the mechanics of the effect, with Rook, in your world indicated it wasn't giving bad luck to other people in the world, or good luck given to Rook, but odds rounding. 49.99999999999infinity% chance of success = 0.&nbsp; 50% or &gt; = 100%. Chaos theory simplified to 1st grade math. Also, the effect was (at the time) localized. Also also, I believe you guys theorized that any 'round up' that happened here, a round-down was forced over to the other side of the wound. So, even if there's only one Wound left (and it's certainly in Rook's interest to make that the case, if they can't control them), the other side of that wound is going to be a horrorshow though, again, it's going to be localized. Potential ally in the Sepiafolken who've been dealing with being the dumping ground of all Rook's bad luck? Maybe.&nbsp; Also maybe attacking from that side, or hell even closing things from that side.

Also worth noting that the Q-Rook folk seem to still have a blindspot for the Shadow stuff/magic/Charlotte's stuff.

Doyce T. said: Demonstration of the mechanics of the effect, with Rook, in your world indicated it wasn't giving bad luck to other people in the world, or good luck given to Rook, but odds rounding. 49.99999999999infinity% chance of success = 0.&nbsp; 50% or &gt; = 100%. Chaos theory simplified to 1st grade math. I still have a blind spot around this. :)&nbsp; If it's intended as a Macguffin and the plan is "go in, defend GG and JC while they do the thing, get out, enjoy ice cream in a Rook-free world", ignore everything below this line, I'm good to go. Rook's pitching medical treatments. Say there's a tumor in the body, anchored to some internal organ. We can't cut away the tissue doing the anchoring, because we'll hurt the organ. But there's a protein we can introduce that'll attack the tumor around that anchoring site. We inject it, wait for it to work, then do the surgery and remove the rest of the tumor. We only need it to lose a fraction of its total mass for this to happen, so most of the cells can survive and we're still good. That's good, because the individual tumor cells have a 60% survival chance. The treatment, overall, has been shown to work 75% of the time under normal conditions. If we do this in the presence of this wound, which of these odds gets rounded up? The 75% success rate? Or the 60% survival chance of the tumor's individual cells? In one case, the patient lives, but in the other, they die. Letting both odds hit 100% leaves us with a paradox. That's what I mean by who gets to ask the question about odds, or how is this effect targeted. If we're just considering the chances of Phoenix kicking holy hell out of a warehouse, it has really staggeringly good odds. Our team's also got excellent odds against Rook robots. Charlotte is one for one affecting wounds with the aid of a Grail Knight and their sword. Even if they're other factors, we've been successful at most of those before, and we only need these specific ones here to work. If these things are bound to succeed, then so are we. But it doesn't feel like we're expecting to just win automatically, without added help or preparation. That's what I'm trying to understand.