auroraexpress | INTROS + MONTHLIES

Entry tags:

INTROS + MONTHLIES

Who: Everyone
When: Day 51, evening
Where: the Aurora

[It's evening, and as the stars come out you get that text again:]

WELCOME NEW HEROES

[This round's newbies are waking up in their rooms, in the usual nondescript undies or team pyjamas.

Outside, the fog is gone. In its place is a pleasant evening, its beauty enhanced by tiny, softly-glowing flowers along the jungle paths. Unfortunately, should you peer closer toy may notice these flowers have blackened, curled leaves -- and the scent that wafts up when you step on them will either heighten or dull one of your senses.

But hey, why go in the jungle when you could eat questionable snacks in the lounge again? This time there are towers of round chocolates in varying colours, and sparkle blue and white snowflake decor on the walls and hanging from the ceiling. In typical Star Prince and Knights fashion there is a lot of glitter, and the chocolates definitely have a magical side-effect: in this case, transformation.

☆ Blue-wrapped chocolates cause your character to shift in age. They may get older or younger, and this transformation may be purely physical or may include mental shifting as well.

☆ Silver-wrapped chocolates cause your character to gain animal features -- anything from cat ears to fully becoming a cat is acceptable, and any animal real or mythical is game. It won't change you to a size that doesn't fit in the train, though.

☆ White-wrapped chocolates cause a transformation to a different physical sex.

☆ Black-wrapped chocolates cause you to take on the form of another person -- someone on the train or someone you remember from elsewhere. It won't turn you into anyone you don't personally know, however.

These effects wear off within a few hours, and you can combine more than one. Enjoy your icebreaker and make that fresh meat feel welcome!]

[[OOC NOTES: As the monthly prompt, the flowers will continue until next month's placements. If you have any questions, please ping the mods via the q&a. Thank you!]]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[this child would never lie about anything gosh!]

Oh, that is respectable, but um, Mister Dusk? I was wondering...what are you Bound to? I can't sense it.

[I LITERALLY FIGURED OUT YOU WERE IN MY BODY BECAUSE YOU WERE A GOOD ENOUGH LIAR TO PULL IT OFF.]

Bound to?

...oh, an elemental magic thing, right?

[wow!]

Yes? What else would it be?

That is a very complicated answer.

I'm not bound to anything. Short answer, I have technology in my body.

Yeah, but what does that have to do with magic? It can be both.

[ah wait, now she gets it]

Oh, but that's how you're so strong, you mean? Augmentations?

That's correct. I'm very augmented.

I wish I could take you apart and see!

[that

is certainly something that left a child's mouth.]

....

I mean, I know at least a little bit of the tech if you want me to draw schematics?

Well, I'd want to see those, but it's not the same! A scientist has to make her own observations, really understand how things work. It is the difference between knowledge and understanding.

[she still wants the schematics tho]

Sadly, I'm not exactly for cutting myself up without a really good reason and scientific study isn't quite that.

[Just, you know, to buy a shitty mansion.]

Well, if you do not want to, that's fine, but also kind of silly? Scientific study is always a good reason for anything.

[continues to pet sunset.]

Not when it's my own body being cut open. I've already been a science experiment enough.

[Purrpurrpurr, lightly nibble at fingers.]

[she looks at him in confusion

she...doesn't understand that statement whatsoever. she frowns thoughtfully, trying to puzzle it, but nope. it eludes her.]

...I do not understand that at all. [she frowns some more but this time she feels bad, like she got an answer wrong on a test.] Science grows and changes with the knowledge people get, so constant testing is required? But you say you've had enough, and I don't really get it.

I'm sorry.

[Gonna take a seat in the lounge now. Might as well settle somewhere.]

Science is good. It is. And constant testing is required, but there is also a bit of a balance required when that science involves people.

Like...

You like your hand, right? Because that hand let's you do things. You can pet kitties for one.

[when he sets her down she starts to swing her feet idly, but still very clearly paying attention. Mister Dusk is an adult, of course she's going to listen to him

but she also cannot get enough of petting Sunset. SO SOF]

I can pet kitties. [she nods enthusiastically and demonstrably pets the GOOD KITTY]

[Aww yeah, pets. Gonna curl up in this weird ice lady lap.]

Exactly. So your hand is something you want to keep.

But the thing about having experiments done with your body is there's risk. The reason you need constant studying is it takes a while to perfect and improve things and where there's room to improve, there's also room to mess up, and no process is ever perfect.

So if someone agrees to be a human experiment, they're agreeing for a mess up to happen to their body.

Like if you agreed to something like getting a bionic hand, you could lose your hand if they mess up and you'd be sad because you couldn't pet kitties. You see?

So if you're agreeing to be a human experiment, you usually need to be getting something out of it that's worth at least the same if not more of what you could lose.

[she sits and listens and ponders. she stops swinging her legs.]

Mother never makes mistakes.

[her hand pauses in petting sunset. she says this factually with a bit of...detachment? almost. but she comes back to herself.]

I guess that makes sense...I will keep practising on cadavers and stuff until I get it right. I am still learning, after all. I wouldn't want to make mistakes on a live person.

[she's a bit disappointed that he won't let her see his insides, but he made an excellent point.]

...But you will still give me schematics, right?

Everyone makes mistakes. People just don't like admitting when they do, so a lot will pretend they don't. But everyone does.

After all, if perfection was possible, what's the point of science?

[Gentle, but also firm. Because fuck her mother, honestly.]

I'm sure given time you'll be excellent at that sort of thing. The kind where the mistakes are rare and fixable, but it's important to always know things worth doing usually involve some risk.

I knew what I agreed to had risks, there was a good chance I'd die, but the risk was worth it to me. Not so worth it just to be studied. Though maybe if I ever need surgery, I'll let someone film whatever is in there.

Of course. [Will ruffle her hair gently.]

Mother tests a lot but all her tests are really good, even the results she doesn't like. I don't always understand, but she is so very great and just gets better. She really is the smartest person in the whole wide world.

[Well.

There is one failure she doesn't like, but she can never call her sister that. she isn't one.

but sorry dusk, there's a fair amount of child worship there.

but he says she will be good one day too and she looks up at him. she starts to smile before something about what he says doesn't quite settle with her. oh, she figures it out.]

...You got to choose?

Even if there's good tests, ninety-nine percents still means something is wrong.

There's nothing wrong with making mistakes. Mistakes is how we learn to get better. It's how we learn new things. Do you know how many things are made using a good kind of bacteria? Not like our first instinct is something moldly might actually be good for us.

Sometimes it takes someone to mess up really badly to figure out something far more amazing.

It's good to get things right too. But you should never underestimate what good can come out of a mistake.

....well, yeah? I did. It was stuff that could kill a person. I mean, some people did get experimented on illegally, but when the job description is 'do this to be a better soldier and save lives,' having bitter people you kidnapped and experimented on is real likely to come back and bite you.

I do not have an exact figure, but I know it's a lot, yes?

[she says this like it's obvious and like she's confused because doesn't everyone know that you can use bacteria for good things?

but she listens to the rest of that.]

I dunno, in that case, can't you use behavioural modification or conditioning? If the people that do that get hurt because of their own mistakes or improper methods that is their own fault. It's sloppy and dumb.

[she's just being pragmatic and doesn't really...realise that this might be bad? maybe. who knows.]

It is. And most of the time, that was figured out through a mistake. Like I know one of the antibiotics was discovered because someone didn't clean up petri dishes and noticed that other bacteria was stopped from getting to a spot thanks to it acting as a blockade.

That's how it goes with bacteria, at least mold bacteria stuff. Someone doesn't clean something up or eats it or mixes it with something else and then realizes that oh, it's doing something that isn't terrible poisoning.

Speaking ethically? Population at large will always frown upon that and think any governmental group that does that as evil.

Speaking pragmatically? It's inefficient.

The situation I was in was a war. The enemy possibly had more in numbers than us. They certainly outgunned us. The government needed as many soldiers as they could possible get to fight those forces.

You could never condition enough people like that. The numbers alone would make it impossible.

The government needed to make it clear they were on the people's side. If they did anything the population would disprove of, it had to be hidden. They needed the people to believe their government, trust their government, and for that, they have to believe the government would not go out of it's way to screw them over.

Conditioning someone to be okay with being an experiment and kidnapped is not something that inspires trusts from the masses. And without that trust, the war is lost and countless lives are lost.

But if the people trust the government is at least trying to do right by its people, then you get a lot of people who are like 'yeah, I want to help protect us to' and then you get enough people volunteering for the army to fight the enemy and then you get people like me who are willing to go farther to win the war effort.

Yeah, penicillin.

[she says this casually like

DOESN'T EVERYONE KNOW THAT?

also what are ethics lol]

Can't you mass-produce implants? Though I think it would be best to limit it to a small team for better control.

[but she listens to the rest and...huh, okay that tracks the way he explains it.]

I think that makes sense...

[Oh good, that name is the same. And discovered in the same way apparently.]

Yeah. But you see, a mistake was made, and something better was discovered. People wouldn't have thought the bacteria was good until they saw evidence of it. It's like people always going back and forth if cholesterol is good and what kinds and all that.

There are no implants to control someone's mind. Unless you mean like bombs to constantly threaten them, but that is a million and one ways that can go grow and blow up in their faces. All it takes is one not working right and that could cascade into a whole thing.

And one not working right is going to happen eventually.

And there are small teams and it's a lot better when you can just get the people to agree. Like I did and my team. Then there's no later realization of being screwed over and going off the rails.

Really, the reason ethics are important is because the more unethical someone is, the more likely someone else is going to hate them and be willing to do whatever possible thing they can to destroy them. If you can get people to agree using good methods, the more likely things won't eventually blow up.

So an "ethic" is a good thing? The right thing to do?

[literally no one. NO ONE has taught her about goddamned ethics. she's putting that together from context, though. she's smart.

but she has never heard the word before.]

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