The Myrmidon (WIP) (Minor update 03/10/2017)

…hm but wouldn’t those personalities more strongly clash the more different they are and also worse when MC’s sense of self is stronger? How likely is such a clash if the memories don’t fuel a rejection of the other personality?

That’s the point.

In the long run it would only matter for the original, but the original was destroyed and for everybody else there is no difference. It may would matter if both versuíons could exists simultaniously, when the question of who was the one to be here first is answerable. On the other hand does who the second versions perceives themselve to be really get that much devalued by only being the “other” version, after all in the moment we have two versions of the same person, it’s still not guaranted that both versions will develop in the same direction, staying really the same. It’s like looking at the realization of two potential outcomes at the same time when normally only one way to go would be possible to achieve.

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Would straight up receiving Flash’s memories necessarily lead to developing a personality similar to the original Flash’s? The ‘new Flash’ lacks the… er… I’m gonna call it developmental context that these memories were formed in. So if the original Flash was once scolded rather severely for doing something and learned that they better not do the thing, who’s to say that ‘new Flash’ wouldn’t ‘learn’ to simply not get caught when reviewing that same situation?

Or are y’all leaning more towards a ‘Original Flash OS and Flash 2.0 OS being booted at the same time, may be conflicts, may not’ sort of thing? I’m probably not reading stuff properly, tbh, I’ve no idea where my head is at the moment…

Also, a bit off topic, but Star Trek. I’ve not watched more than a couple episodes of the original series, so please bear with me. Has there ever been a discussion or whatever about the effects of long term transporter use on the transportee’s brain/psyche/overall mental health? I can’t imagine that being ripped apart and put back together over and over and over again is exactly good for anybody. Or is it treated as ‘space magic science, no side effects, everything is awesome?’’

Also also, if Momo’s the team mom, what roles do the rest of the squad fill? Is Radjack the rad uncle who rides a motorcycle and has like a bajillion different stories about all the bands that he’s followed and all the band members he’s punched out? Is he the uncle who likes to pretend he’s a rebel but is actually much less rebellious than he likes to pretend? Where did the original Flash fit in to this family unit? Were they essentially the team son/daughter, much like the MC is probably going to be?

Also also also, heh. Mom-o. Makes her sound like a mombot. A Mom-idon.

wait a second.

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Why? While that example alone could lead to different outcomes, when talking about MC recaiving all the memories and not having enough of an own personality developed at the moment/are not distinguishing between Flash and themselve, I guess them getting all of Flash’s memories including the memories of Flash’s own emotional response would give them eventually enough context, especially because they already have the memories how Flash themself reacted.

That all of course only would work should a) MC did develop a personality that is anyway very similar to Flash’s personality, meaning it wouldn’t be that much of a conflict for them to see those as their own memories or b) in case that MC not yet had enough time to develop a specific personelity and sense of self themselve in which those memories may just overwrite rudimental beginnings of an own personality/MC just takes on the personality presented to them.

A MC that already has a stronger sense of self is probably able to seperate themself from those memories enough to come to different conclusions. Maybe to save their own personality they would perceive those memories more like a movie and not like them being their own memories. Or if they can’t do that it could lead to the consequences @Moreau already mentioned (multiple personality disorder or similar)

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This question is getting complicated. I’m going to need to write another teaser scene.

There were a few episodes that dealt with the possible side-effects of Transporter technology, but no episodes on long-term damage, probably because if there were long-term negative health effects they would have to stop using it and the episodes would have become way more expensive to shoot.

There was at least one famous episode in the Original Series where a Transporter malfunction created two Kirks, one insufferably good and one irredeemably evil. Hijinks ensued. Interestingly there are several instances of sapient beings using Transporter technology as a sort of pseudo-cryogenic status, where they would convert themselves into pure data and ‘store’ themselves in the Transporter’s pattern buffers, in the hopes that someone would re-materialise them before the power shut off.

In The Next Generation, it was revealed that Montgomery Scott kept himself alive for more than 75 years after his ship crashes into the outer shell of a Dyson Sphere. I believe there was an episode of Voyager where a similar technique was used to hide a large group of refugees from a repressive regime that sought to imprison them. Voyager’s crew stored the refugees in the pattern buffer and allowed the enemy to conduct a full search of the ship.

At the moment it looks like Radjack is the neighbour kid who’s always getting you into trouble and your mama think he a bad influence, but last year puberty hit him like a train and you contriving reasons to hang out with him. Flash is probably class clown in this demographic, so the gang likes to keep him/her around for the lolz. Momo is the one who acts like the older sister, and yet is furious when people point out that she’s acting like an older sister. Nex is the star quarterback and Engel is desperately trying to introduce the Goth kids to colour.

You saw nothing…

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so… Fight Club?

The Myrmidon high school AU? Noice

…If it doesn’t end up playing out like the love child of Heathers, Mean Girls, and Weird Science, though, what’s the point?

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Wow it’s going to be even more shocking and unnerving for the team in the beginning. The MC I plan for is the “intelligence-based” one, and will in general be a very cool-headed and rational person. It’s not that she wont have humor (which I hope we can choose to be sarcastic/dry) but that’ll first happen later, when her “personality” actually developes properly. In the beginning she’ll probably have the social skills and bluntness of a brick. So very far away from “the class clown”. :smiley:

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Sooooo… A Heathers, Mean Girls, Weird Science hybrid with a Fight Club protagonist? Feat. Mom-o.

Called the Momidom?

At this point would we just throw in the old band AU and make it an after school musical special while we’re at it?

What would this AU be called? Just flat out Momidom?


Anyway sidetracking from the sidetrack back to the original track because I’ve concocted another question:

So if we have an Intelligence MC who wants to bring Flash back in some way/shape/form… and we have the opprotunity being talked about of the whole putting Flash back in the MCs body… would the Upper Brain have the capacity of actually finding a way to transfer the MC’s personality/mind/Lower Brain out of their body and store it in a new cache so long as that cache was also hooked up to the Upper Brain (therein the Uper Brain would most likely tell the MC how to make a humanoid functioning cache- unless the MC wishes to be a robogoat or something idk-) and then during the transfer of Flash into the MC’s body the Upper Brain would activate the transfer it had set up and then move the MC to a separate body therein allowing the two to coexist in different bodies without having to sacrifice one?

Which also spawns the question:

What is the MC’s brain? Since they’re no longer human, is it still an organic type brain? Or is it all data stored… somewhere? In a chip? Is the chip transferable? How would Flash’s consciousness even exist in a non-organic brain? (And not Brian as my phone apparently wishes to say… even though Ive never actually met anyone named Brian. But part of me thinks Brain’d be an organic Brian and not a non-organic Brian mainly because we haven’t developed that level of technology… yet.)

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Well at least that way they will have an easier time to accept that MC is not Flash…

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The strangest part of this whole enterprise is the fact that this is actually the second high school AU that this story has spawned (third overall). I’m beginning to think I may have picked the wrong genre…

So much angst…

I expect the first draft of chapter one on my desk by this time next week.

If this were a train, we would be on the news by now…

That’s an interesting point, which hopefully my next teaser scene will help clear up. Watch this space I suppose…

You done opened up a whole can of philosophical beans with that question.

Easiest answer? All technology seeks to recreate a function that is provided in nature. Hydraulic presses seek to emulate animal musculature, microchips seek to emulate nerve clusters and neurons, cameras the rods and cones of the eyeball etc…

The problem is that in their current iterations all of these technologies are vastly inferior to those technologies nature has provided. A hydraulic press is very strong but only in one direction, and it takes a huge amount of energy to get it to work compared to human musculature. Could you imagine running a car on an apple and a crust of bread? Of course not, it wouldn’t even start. A human body can run on that though, it can move, think, beat, digest, jump, run on a tiny fraction of the energy that it takes to get our metal machines to do anything. Our biological technology far outstrips even the most advanced amalgam of plastic and metal we can dream of.

Why do I mention this?

Because as technology grows and evolves, our technology is going to start looking more like our biology.

It will be gross. It will be ethically dubious.

It will be glorious.

So the high-tech computer in a Myrmidon’s head is going to look like meat. In essence it will be meat, just meat designed and assembled by the gene-banks of the Forge, rather than the gene-banks of a spermatozoa.

Try not to picture the Upper Brain as you contemplate this fact…

Now we progress to thoughts, memories, experiences. The stuff that we categorize as ‘the soul’.

If one believes in an immutable soul, then the decision has already been made. If your soul is outside your corporeal body, then it cannot be altered or affected by anything done to the corporeal body. If however you believe that all of these things are electro-chemical impulses, then they can be copied an infinite number of times to as many bodies as you can provide.

What this means when it comes to individuality, free will and self-determination is a disquieting conversation that has been unresolved since the sun set on Plato, so I don’t expect anyone to come up with an answer tonight.

Sleep on it.

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My Brian hurts.

Still, contemplating the inputting of your Android device while inputting said contemplation on my Android device just feels right…

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Is this… is this not literally the plot of High School Musical?

I think you just need a coffeeshop AU to hit Fanfic Bingo.

…anyway.

The MC’s brain was based off of a blueprint of Flash’s, right? Does that blueprint include any sort of predisposition to addiction/mental illness/that sort of thing? Would the Forge have eliminated these sorts of predispositions?

…am I making sense?

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Ser Farah working a tough-as-nails private security job by day, writing a soft-serve romantic novel with a protagonist strongly influenced by the dreamy street magician outside the local Starbucks?

Something like that?

I would say yes. While specific memories have been erased, physical predispositions remain, so if the MC has a specific weakness to a ‘problem’ behaviour like addiction, or some predisposition to depression and anxiety, then those factors will remain, although obvious that steamrolls right into a nature/nurture debate that I do not feel like throwing myself under the bus to explore with this story.

I’ll be writing options that will hopefully allow for different emotional playthroughs, some of which will have these factors implied if not outright stated. You will be able to respond to situations with nerves or even panic if I believe the situation would allow for it, but I won’t turn the whole thing into an exploration of the psyche, because I’ve already taken on a HUGE backlog of themes to explore, as well as writing a combination of bone-twisting angst and delicate romance.

If I am, you’re doing just fine.

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Okay, so maybe I made another teaser scene…

The Grand Hall is propped up with scaffolding after your last great exit, the worst of the damage has been cleared away and workers have clearly worked non-stop since your escape to undo the damage.

It all seems like centuries ago now, a wild escape on horseback, chased by a monster out of legend lit by the passing thunder…

You have no time for reminiscing though, as the last of the Lady’s guard are pointing their guns at you.

You count no more than 20, and they look tired…

Their uniforms are caked with ash, blood and brickdust. Their eyes are red and their rifles sway and bob in weary arms. They might well be the last soldiers loyal to the Lady in all the Southern Territories… You whisper softly to Radjack, trying not to give away your position to your would-be ambushers.

“Twenty against two… Not odds I like.”

The right side of his lip curls up into that smirk you’ve come to love and fear, and he does a quick mental tally of their positions.

“Yeah, but twenty against one is a shoe-in.

Despite the severity of the situation, you cannot help but drop your jaw and stare at him incredulously.

“You are not seriously suggesting what I think you’re suggesting, are you?”

He rolls his shoulders, checks his pistols. He’s positively buzzing with excitement.

“You have any of those powder-bombs left?”

You fish the remaining powder-grenades out of your satchel and hand them to Radjack. Their fuses are coloured with the vibrant colours of the powder inside, and some are marked with little slogans by Engel. One has “Be Fierce” written on it in bright red paint and you smile reflexively, hoping that everyone else is alright. You count the bombs off and he fishes out a box of matches, tying some of the fuses together to make cluster bombs.

As he finishes his preparations, he winks conspiratorially to you and gives you his favourite pistol, his Tizona. The cut-down rifle is heavy in your hands, as if you were holding a lead weight. He’s never let anyone lay hands on Tizona… You’d be touched if the implications didn’t terrify you.

“I’ll buy you the time, you just find your way to Calinas, ok?”

He grabs your collar roughly and pulls you in for a deep, long kiss, the soot on his hands smears your cheek, and you feel his heart beating frantically in his chest.

“One last string to cut and we’re free.”

With these last words he grabs one of the rat-king cluster of bombs and twirls it round in his hand like a bolas. With one fluid movement he lights the tied fuses and tosses it violently through the crack in the doors and into the Grand Hall, where it bursts in the spot where once the chandelier hung.

A maelstrom of shocking colour fountains out in all directions, shrouding the entire room in gouts of coloured smoke. Blood red clouds intermix with yellow, green, purple, any colour you might care to mention. Most of the soldiers are blinded instantly and more than half of them fire their rifles prematurely, causing marble and wood shavings to be tossed into the soup of smoke. Radjack kicks the doors open and screams in his best Burned Man voice.

“Come on Lads! Let’s 'ave it then!

You enter the Hall at a dead sprint, immediately jinking right, throwing your scarf up over your mouth as some small measure of protection. Panicked screams, gunsmoke, the sounds of pain and injury, and at the heart of it dances Radjack. He drifts in and out of sight in the thickening smoke, he lets them believe he is the demon they have always known him to be and they panic. In a few strides you are bounding up the stairs and up to the mezzanine, angrily shoving a blinded guardsman aside.

You burst through the doors at the top, slamming the doors shut behind you. You see a large cabinet full of old trophies and knick-knacks and hurriedly topple it over, blocking the door behind you.

“Hello dear, did you have a nice trip up?”

The calm in that voice chills you to the bone.

You turn around and there she is, the architect of all your suffering. The one who burned the slums, who ordered the army to open fire on unarmed crowds, the signer of death warrants and orchestrator of show trials.

Lady Calinas.

She is unarmed, delicately pouring a glass of wine. The Dining Room table is set for two, an opulent plate of food surrounded by more than a dozen delicate silver cutlery items, each more redundant than the last.

“Is this what you spent the money on? People are dying in the streets down there and you’re keeping the silverware polished?”

If she hears your question, she gives no sign of it.

“Sorry about the poor showing, Darling. I sent the staff home a little early tonight.”

She looks at you with a languid expression on her face, her perfect features showing no sign of fear or uncertainty.

“You probably butchered the last of them on your way through, didn’t you?”

Before you can answer she waves a hand dismissively at you.

“No no, don’t answer that. You should never degrade yourself in offering justification for your actions. Let servants and enemies make justifications for you, you do not need to sink to their level.”

She takes a seat opposite you and beckons for you to join her. The surrealism of this display means that you feel compelled to do just that. You sit at the table and lock eyes with the being that most aptly defines evil for you. She delicately begins to eat and even now she looks perfectly beautiful, making movements so precise that you would be forgiven for thinking that she were the machine.

She takes a measured sip of the dark wine and rests her chin on her fingers.

“Now what was it you were saying? Oh yes the money, of course. People always want to talk about the money. Truthfully Darling I find the subject tedious to a fault, but one can find something distasteful and useful in equal measure, or so I have found in any case.”

Her tone is conversational, as if you were old friends catching up over a light meal.

“Yes I believe you were asking what I was buying with my ‘ill-gotten’ gains.”

She puts ‘ill-gotten’ in mock air-quotes, a playful smile on her face at the supposed absurdity of it.

“They say there are some things that money cannot buy. I disagree.”

She jabs her fork towards you for emphasis.

“Take you for example. You represent a significant expenditure on my part, salvage, patronage, hiring that tattooed thug to wave his hands over everything…”

She rolls her eyes sardonically, swirling her wine glass gently while staring into the claret liquid.

“The thing is that after the disaster that was your birthday, everybody assumed that replicating the feat would be quite impossible.”

She smiles as if seeing something in the wine and fixes her pretty eyes on you, smiling with just a hint of teeth.

“They say there are some things that money cannot buy.”

She reaches for a little servant’s bell and gives it a ring, the delicate chime seems loud in the silence of the Dining Hall.

“I disagree.”

The doors on the other side of the room swing open, and a well-dressed noble strides into the room, a shining rapier gripped tightly in their hand. You look into all-too familiar eyes that make your stomach lurch with apprehension.

“Yes, Mother?”

Is this spoilers? I think it might be spoilers…

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I’m loathe to use the slang “I’m screaming” (mainly because it describes very little in a sparse amount of words), but I quite literally let out an excited peep (peep?) when I saw this and honestly okay wow I was not expecting that I am simultaneously very excited but also very afraid of these connotations and that is an odd and conflicting feeling viable for one to scream on some level.
To conclude: “I’m screaming”.

Also, I really, really love this. Did I mention that I love this? Or was that supposed in the connotations of the above ramblings? Either way: I love this.

On an entirely unrelated note: Radjack continues to be my favorite character.

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Peep.

The guy who deals with his problems with an impromptu gunfight/Diwali double-feature? Yeah he’s pretty cool…

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What other way is there? (Besides the good ole’ quick draw, that is.)

Actually, does a quick draw count as a gunfight, now that I think about it? It isn’t so much ‘fight’ as it is ‘first to shoot’, unless the first to shoot is a horrible shot…
So I suppose it’s the pretense for a gun fight?

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Well it ain’t a tea-party…

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I mean apparently gunfights won’t Lady Calinas from setting up something akin to a twisted-tea-party. So who knows? Maybe it depends on the number of scones…

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I’m really tapping into her character tonight, really feeling the evil.

That woman could sever your carotid artery with a pithy retort.

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Yeah might be spoilers i ain’t complaining though :smiley:

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