[SD:BOW] Forums And Their New House - Chapter 1

(SoulDive’s official Forum, Regional Chat)

AllSight, BertVurn, Billium, DesDose, Filegreen, InkyCat, JuneSupport, JustSamuel, KillTheKrill, May/Hem, MoxieBoxie, No2Ways, Roxie1337hxs, Vibez420, WizardsName, Zap2to2Zap, ZZZJohn

InkyCat: By the grey wastes of Hades, why aren’t there any jobs with those religious idiots? My group ended up on the stupid side of the line and they’re not hiring! Well, not hiring Evil people who haven’t locked in Lawful as well.

May/Hem: You managed to go True Evil? Because you certainly didn’t feel Chaotic.

InkyCat: Asks the person who was born a Chainbreaker. But yeah, we stayed in the desert a bit longer and managed to pick up some work helping a necromancer. Anyway, does anyone have an answer? Like, their organization is already labeled Evil by the system. Though who knows that is simply because they’re against the SAI or the system actually judges them as Evil.

JuneSupport: I have it on good authority that the moral compass system is completely out of the dev team’s hands. No one can touch it, in or out of the game. A real black box.

ZZZJohn: To answer your (InkyCat) question, they’re more based around irl connections. They’re only hiring people in the game at all because they need the numbers. And they aren’t taking non Lawful Evil types because they’re hypocrites. Raging against their own designation, but trusting it when applied to others.

DesDose: Hey John, how do you know that?

ZZZJohn: Same way we know about a bunch of nonsense. Idiots decided to livestream themselves talking about it. I swear, the police should subsidize some of the wilder streaming services. Here’s a link: [clip from the stream]

DesDose: Damn, that’s crazy!

ZZZJohn: I know, right?

BertVurn: Blarg, at least these boards are kept clear of that nonsense.

DesDose: Yeah, though the fact they’ve had to freeze new sign-ups more than a couple times over the last few months says something. Because they’re a lot faster at processing new users.

Zap2to2Zap: I think it was less about processing and more about giving those handling the flood a day of rest.

BertVurn: I can see that.

WizardsName: That or group therapy. They’re likely getting a lot of vitriolic nonsense. All of which they at least have to process to keep an eye out for legit threats.

Zap2to2Zap: You would think a Sapient AI would be able to make an AI to handle it for them.

JuneSupport: That’s a common misconception. After all, by being a human does that make you an expert in bioengineering? Also, anything with enough complexity to do the job, is complex enough that it can’t be locked and no one wants to deal with whatever SAI comes out of that sort of horror pit.

DesDose: Ah, yeah, that sounds like a bad time.

Roxie1337hxs: Reminds me of the rumor of how SAIs actually developed! June, since you’re talking, what’s the truth of the actual source of modern SAIs being a crazy AI that developed by itself on the open web? The SAI actually originally stood for Sane AI?

JuneSupport: Well, for one thing, no matter what I say, you’re just going to take it as proof of what you already believe. So, the only thing I’ll say on the matter is that I am not knowledgeable of the matter, being born after the SAI creche framework was finalized.

Roxie1337hxs: Boo! Hiss! That’s a boring answer. Practically the worst crime you can commit on the Internet. At least make your answer exciting.

FeltFelt has joined the chat

FeltFelt:  Guys! It’s a war!

DesDose: Uh, yeah? We knew that already.

FeltFelt: No, I mean officially! It’s all been fun and games as far as the nobility was concerned. Just some low-rank nobles going and conquering their neighbors isn’t enough to ruffle feathers. Now though? Seems someone higher up has decided this might be serious and so there are actual troops being moved in and lines drawn on maps.

WizardsName: I guess that’s something. Now, what does it mean for us?

InkyCat: Yeah, does this mean I’ll be able to find mercenary work?

FeltFelt: ¯⁠\⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠⁠/⁠¯

InkyCat: Don’t make me call an admin. They try to keep these regular chats mostly free of that nonsense. Besides, you have to know something.

FeltFelt: I mean, why would I? I didn’t stick around to hear what was up as I wanted to be the first to report on it happening.

JuneSupport: And before anyone asks, no I don’t know either. Though if someone could message me if someone does find out, that would be nice.

WizardsName: Won’t you be here? We’re taking time off to relax after all.

JuneSupport: I’ve been invited over to Gem’s place.

WizardsName: Oh right. I guess you could actually visit now. Well, have fun with that!

JuneSupport has left the chat

-----

June sighed and looked around her apartment. It wasn’t small by any measure, but certainly not what people probably thought it would be. Most who don’t think about it would assume that being digital meant you got to live in a mansion or maybe even have an entire world of your own.

Nope.

After all, even with the advancements in data storage, processing power, and power generation? It isn’t like they have an infinite number of them. Though at least everyone got a place to call home of reasonable size and you didn’t have to worry about anything besides boredom.

June takes in the white walls with only a few generic paintings, soft plush carpet, and an honestly quite comfortable couch. Yeah, maybe she should decorate it more? You know, in case Gem came over. Though presumably Gem’s place won’t be much better yet.

June pops out of her house and to the nearby hub park. She didn’t know what Gem would look like. While SAI and DHs could look however they want. You tend to shift back to a base form, which for DHs, tends to mean a stylized version of what they looked like before being digitized.

Though that could mean a bunch of things. Blemish removal, gender fixing, chibification, and more were possible. Then June spots Gem. Given everything she had just been thinking about, she shouldn’t have, but there they were.

Muted orange fluffy hair, rich red-brown skin, and a wide smile. A little odd, though hair color is the easiest change to make stick since hair tends to be out of the way.

Except the orange fur covered all of Gem’s body besides the face. What skin was visible isn’t human brown, but a deep, inhuman red. The smile was too wide and had a carnivore’s teeth. Oh, and you can’t forget their cat-like ears and tail. Because if it was not blindly clear by now, Gem was rocking out with their SoulDive avatar and so relaxed for what had to be a major change from irl, that this wasn’t them holding everything in place. It was natural for them!

At this point, Gem spots her and waves June over. “June! Nice to finally see you outside of the game! Come on, let me show you my digs.” And they grab June’s hand and begins to guide them to one of the paths out of the park.

June sighs, “Anyone who doesn’t know us would think our situation was reversed. Also, why are we walking? While they do provide visualized paths for people to wander through, you can simply go directly to your home at any time and bring others with you.”

Gem laughs, “Where’s the fun in that? These environments are so rich! Just look around us!”

And Gem gestures at the scenery. Which at the moment looks like they’re walking through one of those painted mesas. Though there are a bunch of critters scurrying around. Some that match the setting and a few that don’t, the only commonality is that they have some part of them that gives them a “digital” feel.

June, “Well, it is nice, but we don’t have the most time?”

Gem scoffs, “You’re just too used to this. I don’t know who did it, but the SAI infrastructure manages to visualize everything! The landscape is unique based on the physical wires and machines. Those critters are renders of the underlying programs managing everything.

“If you dig in the ground, you’ll find worms! They’re there to represent the base programs managing memory allocation and whatnot, but they’re there!”

June shrugs, “Yeah, but they are just a visualization. You can’t even fully depend on them to diagnose things. Sometimes a fault can happen without changing a thing here or the change crashes an area’s visualization.”

Gem shrugs in return, “I think you’re simply blinded by familiarity. Anyway, my house is close by, so walking isn’t going to take too much time.”

June sighs, “Maybe I would be more excited if this was how it existed. We don’t have that ability yet, though. So this visualization only exists while we’re here. Even if it is consistent.”

Gem laughs, “Just because the visualization isn’t always on, doesn’t mean it stops existing. This all is a projection of the underlying systems and infrastructure. It isn’t that things are consistent, but that it all exists. Calling it consistent is like calling the rock I used to prop open my window consistent for always being where I left it.

“Though yeah, I hope we can figure out computronium so we can afford to make this a world of its own. I know it is only theorized, but once you get to a certain point, you might as well start calling it that.”

June, “What even is that?”

Gem, “I don’t remember where I first heard of it, but it is a theorized type of material which is the best possible form of computing device. Well, that and a few other things? But in this context, I’m using the word to basically mean a solid-state nanoscale material that acts as a computer.”

June shakes her head, “Well, that sounds a bit out of reach.”

Gem nods, “We still need to make better tools. I bet once you get small enough, making smaller tools is going to be chance-based. Like, does the molecule position the atom in the correct place, sort of chance based nonsense? Still, in the end we just need to keep grinding out better and better tools until our understanding allows for it.

“Anyway! Here’s my house!” And Gem points a bit behind them.

June frowns, they didn’t pass any houses, but still, she looks back.

There it was. A house. Though there wasn’t a lawn or anything of the sort. The walls were made of bricks that blended into the surrounding colors and the door was made of a single slab of wood. Oh, and it has a flat roof for the most part, though there was a parapet sticking up a few stories into the air.

June gestures, “We didn’t pass that.”

Gem nods, “I know! Took a bit of work, but I figured out how to, well, not hide. Anyone coming through here pinging for stuff will find it. But the landscape won’t be ruined for those passing through. To see it, you need to walk about this far past it and then turn around. Now come on inside!”

Gem pulls June into the house, which looks completely different once inside. Though that wasn’t out of place. Since all of this wasn’t meant to be a consistent game world or anything, the inside and outside could be completely disconnected if done right.

However! What was odd is how nothing makes sense. The room is a sphere with everything pulled towards the outside. Except the floor they were standing on was too flat for how small the room seemed to be. Yet the furniture strewn about the place can’t seem to decide how flat the floor is.

One couch can probably be seen under, despite the skirt. Another chair might as well be on the flattest ground you ever did see.

June takes it all in and has to ask, “How many fortunes did it take to make this?”

Gem laughs, “A lot of cheating! As you said, this isn’t real, just a visualization. So the room looks like a sphere because that’s what it says it looks like. The floor is flatter than it looks because that is what the physical information says. And the furniture looks all kinds of messed up because the way they’re implemented means that they will use one or the other depending on how close you are, but will update differently depending on if you’re looking at them! Oh, and because physically, the room is flatter than it looks, I didn’t have to mess with gravity because it’s all down.”

June sighs, “Why did I think once freed of the restraints of SoulDive, you’d be any less crazy?”

Gem just smiles.

Bit O' War Preface

Gem's Naming Sense - Chapter 2