[OPEN MINGLE]

[justscribing]

WHO: Everyone! It's a mingle!
WHAT: Discussing recent reveals about the simulation
WHERE: Pairidaeza Architectural Studio
WHEN: Feb 3rd morning to evening
WARNINGS: Potential existential crises, discussions of death, memory manipulation, basically everything to do with their actual situation in a simulated environment.




[The actual setup within the garage-turned-studio is away from all the actual workbenches.

On one folding table are copies of multiple documents available around the X: The main document is a summary of a resident from a prior iteration that's clearly been redacted via scanning copies with stuff blocked out. Additionally are copies of the most recent newsletter with the memo on the back and photos of the hotel journal printed in black and white.

Lined up on another folding table away from the one with the documents is an array of finger foods: hummus, chutneys, and yoghurt dips with a variety of sliced vegetables, cheeses, cold cuts, and fresh pita bread. cardamom cookies, panipuri, and both vegetable and chicken samosas take up the other side. Mint water and fresh juice are in pitchers to the center. It's actually a little crowded.

Chairs are set up in small grounds and around the document table. And finally, a whiteboard has been rolled in for people to make use of in group discussions.]



((This is a mingle, so everyone is encouraged to threadjack, make toplevels, etc prior plot mingles have been done. Alhaitham and Kaveh will be around and participating but not taking the lead beyond making sure people stay orderly in the studio and have enough papers.

If you character has discussed the simulation with either Kaveh or Alhaitham, you can also handwave they texted them directly about it.))

Comments

OTA

[keepgodwaiting]

[ Johanna's been sitting and frowning at the whiteboard for a few minutes, a notebook open in her lap and her arms crossed over her chest. When she finally speaks, it's as much to herself as anyone around her. ]

I wonder if they abandoned it after 47.

[justscribing]

We're in iteration fifty. If they abandoned it at forty-seven, that's three iterations the system has been left running in cycle. Assuming all of this is automated, of course.

[keepgodwaiting]

Yeah, Alhaitham, I can do the maths.

In that diary they say something about how there are reserves running out. Something was happening out in the world where they're running this -- it could be whatever crisis they were trying to solve with all this shit caught up to them.

What exactly that means for us ... I'm not sure. If it's just running on autopilot, maybe we just live here now.

[justscribing]

It could be. It could also be that the crisis was already there, and this researcher is among many dying to it because they personally failed to obtain the resources to weather it. We know too little about what's actually happening outside of this place.

[keepgodwaiting]

So we're back to trying to communicate with them. Or else looking for more leftover data, more of the ghosts in the machine.

[justscribing]

So far the data we've found is documentation, but do you think they'd keep the manuals for the upkeep of this simulation on the same servers?

[keepgodwaiting]

[ Her eyes light up in interest. That's an angle she hadn't thought about. ]

Maybe. Why not? Whatever-- [ She waves a hand in the air. ] --cloud storage bollocks or whatever they've got in 3064, why wouldn't they store it all in the same place? The people who collect the data and the people who fix the problems are all going to be working in the same place, right?

[justscribing]

"Cloud storage". [There's a new term.] But you're right. Whatever physical device is used for this will probably be in the same area as the actual experiment. Since they've decided to put everything else on their servers, perhaps there's a way to cause a leak of some sort of manual or program we can use from the inside.

[keepgodwaiting]

Right, what all do we know about ways things have gone wrong for them in the past? Data that's leaked?

[ Time for her to pull out her notebook! ]

There's the photo of the research team someone in 47 found in the science museum ... and the dissolution photos, those weren't originally supposed to take you -- take you inside them. That was some kind of glitch. Maybe that whole place is a little fucked up.

[fussiest]

[ like a machine left to run in perpetuity. though kaveh of the kshahrewar knows better than anyone that perpetual motion machines don't exist. ]

I've been wondering about that. It seems that decommissioning is an active process on their part - if the simulation were simply left to run since the 47th iteration, then who or what has been decommissioning the people here?

[keepgodwaiting]

How do you mean "decommissioned"? Like the people who've disappeared?

[wordchain]

[ It is odd that the focus has primarily been on CE-47 and the exhibit of dissolution events didn't include anything for CE-48 and CE-49. ]

Yet the newsletters have occasionally acknowledged community-wide events organized by current residents, and the attempted resistance around the time of the Halloween experiment triggered a response.

[ Though that doesn't necessarily require the presence of human overseers... ]

Are you suggesting that an AI, for example, has replaced them?

[keepgodwaiting]

Oh -- shit, yeah, I'd forgotten they talked about the gala, right? [ Her frown deepens. ] They've got some sort of compulsion shit, and that could be automatic, but you're right that there's been some responsiveness already.

Could be an AI, I suppose. I don't know enough about computers to know what they're capable of. But all this always seemed like it'd be hard to run with just humans, in real time.

[wordchain]

[ He nods in agreement — for the possibility that the compulsion technology doesn't need anyone there to activate it manually, as well as the challenges that teams of human researchers would face over time. ]

Yes. Given the range of technology already available to them, the creation of a suitable AI to handle any task is equally feasible. And as CE-48 and CE-49 were outliers among the other iterations, you may have a point.

[keepgodwaiting]

You know much about computers? I'm not going to lie, I know about enough to work my laptop and not much else.

[ There are technomancers out there; she is definitely not one of them. ]

[wordchain]

To pursue the hypothesis that an AI is in use further?

[ It's entirely possible, not unfamiliar in the least. He and his colleagues were never truly AIs themselves, but he knows a former AI for whom supervising all of this would be in line with her past role, countless iterations over and over until the perfect outcome was achieved. ]

I am familiar with these concepts.

[keepgodwaiting]

Mm, yeah. Are they smart enough to make up new things, or just repeat things, you know?

[abit_ofboth]

[Loki has been quietly roaming the room, not really speaking as he’s read and re-read all the documents and considered everything laid out on the whiteboard. He absentmindedly snacks on a few of the foods around as he thinks. To the outside viewer he seems lost in his own thoughts, but when Johanna speaks he tunes in and has clearly been paying attention.

He scoffs slightly at the others around who dismiss her idea because he thinks, despite the missing iterations, she might be onto something.]

But what if they did abandon it after 47? At least officially? What if the research team went rogue, or what if the government or leading body who created this simulation in the first place failed at their goals but there was still a small group left behind trying again and again but they are trying to go unnoticed for some reason and therefore there is not paper trail.

I think AI could be apart of this. I am not overly familiar with it myself, but I do know of instances where it has gained autonomy. Perhaps it has run the last few iterations on its own after everyone else has stopped for whatever reason and we are all repeats of people who were here during 47?

[What Loki does not want to say outright at the moment is that he believes it’s possible that any person running this in the first place is long gone and that it has all been automated for the last few iterations. There is nothing for them to go back to and when this iteration ends, they will simply be recycled to start again.]

[keepgodwaiting]

[ Johanna is loathe to think those same thoughts. It isn't stopping her from thinking them.

However, also: ]

You know autonomous AI?

[ That doesn't seem very Norse! ]

[abit_ofboth]

Well, I know of an autonomous AI. It was created by a… [he pauses as he almost says enemy and corrects] by a friend of my brother. When I last encountered it, it was just a voice in the ceiling that operated much of the technology used by him, but I am to understand it later got a body and was a fully functioning person, for lack of a better term. I believe Thor said he was even in a relationship with a woman.

[Loki shrugs as if this is a completely normal thing. For all he knows it is. He never was well versed in life on Midgard.]

[keepgodwaiting]

Like a sexbot?

[ GENUINE QUESTION I'M SO SORRY ]

[abit_ofboth]

[Loki frowns slightly, but it’s more about consideration than being upset with anything Johanna has said. He takes it for the genuine question it is.]

I admit I did not ask about their sex life and am unaware if his body is anatomically correct, so I’m uncertain about that. From what little my brother mentioned, they did seem to be in love though, so at least he seemed to be fully able to have thoughts and feelings.

Though he was enabled by the Mind Stone, so I doubt anything we come up with here will be as good as all of that.

[keepgodwaiting]

The Mind Stone. Right.

[ Whatever that is. Sounds magical, maybe? If what was going on here was magical, maybe she'd have a shot at influencing it. ]

You hear a lot of stories about AI getting powerful and then, like, punishing humans for making it. That could be what's happening here.

[abit_ofboth]

Ah, right. You are not from a world that is aware of the Infinity Stones. They are rather difficult to explain quickly. Just know it aided in making the AI more independent. I assure you before that, it was still rather sentient.

That is a common story in your world? I suppose I could see how it might worry some, but I think it is one of your kind’s greatest creations.

[keepgodwaiting]

Yeah, there's loads of movies about it.

[ It is extremely possible that Johanna is conflating The Matrix, I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream, and that one time a tech guy she did an exorcism for tried to tell her about Roko's Basilisk, but whatever. ]

I suppose the stories aren't really about AI. We're scared of the future we're making for ourselves.