[Genius] ExtraIntellectual '09!

[nick012000]

Victoria jumps! She wasn't even aware that Rob was talking to her - after all, lots of people are talking to thin air around here. "I. Uh. What?" She blinks at him, then goes pink at ANTHEM's teasing. "I don't even know the guy!"

She swallows a bit, chewing on her lip. "...So where's your creator? I'd like to meet him..." Doing her absolute best to avoid looking at Rob, at least for the moment. "...And yes I read MS Paint Adventures. But seriously, why would you ask that?"

He points at her earbud. "I heard your music as I was walking past, and it seemed like a good enough way to start a conversation. That earbud's either turned up really loud, or it's got pretty poor sound directionality. Or both, I suppose."

He pauses before adding, "If you're wondering what to do for the day, I'm planning on checking into my room and then taking my hovercycle for a test run before the race the Seven Vertex Devils are holding tommorrow. I wouldn't mind at all if a pretty young lady accompanied me." He looks back towards the hologram. "Is there anywhere to rent motorcycle helmets?"

[The_Snark]

Asmita Dahal had always approved of public transportation very much. She was the sort of person who either couldn't or wouldn't shell out for her own car, and as her hopeful belief in the interconnectedness of all things had yet to provide her with a physical, distance-transversing connection to all things, she was forced to fall back on other people. By now, it was a firmly ingrained habit: if she ever did make a breakthrough in transportation techniques or cave in and buy a car, she would find herself constantly arriving fifteen minutes early for everything, so as not to miss a bus she no longer had to catch.

Yes, she firmly approved of it. But good heavens, it could be annoying at times. Buses that claimed to leave at 3 o'clock should leave at 3 o'clock.

Nobody would notice if she was late, she consoled herself. It was a convention, people dropped in and out all the time. But punctuality was a very hard habit to break, and she couldn't help but feel slightly awkward as she wove her way through the various cars, locomotives, tripod walkers, and one vehicle that looked like the offspring of a gyroscope and a hamster wheel.

(Well, part of her felt awkward. Another part wondered if the parking lot would be one of the exhibits, or if people didn't consider these important enough to show off—an astonishing thought to Asmita. She had a notion the gyroscope machine might be a perpetual motion machine, generating more electricity than it used, but it was not polite to start taking apart somebody else's creation, not to mention their way of getting home.)

Her own contribution felt rather insignificant by comparison. She spent the elevator ride making sure it was properly configured—if it turned out to be unimpressive, it would at least have had a fair chance, darn it—and then stepped out. The massive aggregate of screens and invisible speakers giving directions was a huge relief; she'd been afraid she would have to wander around for a while just to find an information kiosk.

"Ah..." she said eloquently, unused to communicating with machines (much less invisible ones). "Is there a... portable map, or a flyer that I might have?"

[Yuki Akuma]

Victoria takes the other earbud out of her ear, and stares at it. "...I guess listening to Homestuck volume 2 was a bit of a giveaway..." She rubs the back of her head. "...Sorry. I'm, um, not really used to people talking to me." She frowns at his next suggestion. "...How old are you?"

[nick012000]

He tilts his head at the question.

"21, why?"

[Yuki Akuma]

Victoria stares for a while. "...I'm fifteen. Don't flirt with me, creepy guy." She looks down at her brochure. "Anyway I'm going to go to one of those AI seminars..."

[nick012000]

Victoria stares for a while. "...I'm fifteen. Don't flirt with me, creepy guy." She looks down at her brochure. "Anyway I'm going to go to one of those AI seminars..."

"Huh. I just figured you were short." He shrugs. "What happens at ExtraIntellectual, stays at ExtraIntellectual?" he jokingly questions, before shrugging again. "If you're old enough to handle death ray responsibly, you're probably old enough to give consent. If you're not interested, though, no skin off my back."

[storybookknight]

The Artificer halls are not quite as lavish as the Biosphere, which was completely redolent with synthetic life of every shape and form. What they lack in sophistication, however, they make up with Kitsch. The Artificers this year have decided on a Trash Praxis / Brutalist style, and the corridors are liberally festooned with chain-link fences, orange plastic barriers, and bright yellow roadway paint. Light is provided by dirty fluorescents and artfully sparking wires, and someone has thoughtfully piped a techno beat into the speaker system. On the walls, floors, and occasionally ceilings sculptures of various shapes and forms are displayed. The sculptures are composed mostly of welded metal, though wood and glass are also relatively common, and some things that appear to be sculptures at first glance are in fact exhibits or members of the vast menagerie of constructs that are attending. While some constructs' makers have refused to compromise their design principles and are displaying their pieces in all their gleaming metropolitan or victorian glory, many others not originally of the dominant aesthetic have attached faux clock hands or TV aerials in an effort to fit the theme. The prosthetics seminar is being held on a platform which appears to have been created by carefully unfolding an Abrams tank, with sound dampeners to make up for the otherwise open-air walls.

"Asmita Dahal? My name is ANTHEM. Thank you for volunteering your services as part of the convention staff." The mechanical arm extends and hands Asmita the 'smart' flyer as the hologram speaks, in a similar manner to the other attendees. Your assistance is most appreciated. You have been assigned to convention group C, which means that you have until 8 pm to explore." She pauses for a second and pulls a clipboard (or the hologram thereof) out of her smock. "I see you've entered into one of our competitions... Science As Art, correct? The pieces are being placed on exhibition tonight in the Directors' hall, so please make your way there to sign your creation in." The leaflet in Asmita's hands flashes as ANTHEM speaks. "The contest itself will be judged tomorrow afternoon." She looks up from her clipboard. "That's a lovely piece, if I may say so myself. Do you have any other questions I can answer?"

Over by Victoria and Rob, ANTHEM looks chagrined. "Sorry, I didn't mean to interfere. That was rude of me." She looks to Rob and says, "I believe that there are helmets in the Navigator hall. I'll mark it on your map for you." In a Victoria-only directed burst of sound, however, she adds the following. "If he does bother you too much, just let me or one of the drones know and I'll do something about it."

[The_Snark]

"... I don't believe so," Asmita replied, properly impressed by the level of organization here. She had never met Dr. Habibula before, but she rather hoped to now. "Thank you," she said, bowing a little bit since the holographic projection presumably could not shake hands. "You are very helpful. If I have any other questions I'll be sure to come back and ask."

There was a brief pause while she glanced at the map, then realized she was still talking to someone and looked back up. She could locate the Director's hall later. It looked like an excellent map. "Actually—if I may ask, are you a broadcasting of a person? Or are you a machine?"

[storybookknight]

ANTHEM approximates a curtsey as best as she can with the long lab coat. "Thank you for the compliment, but I'm not human. I'm quite Turing-complete, however." She looks thoughtful. "I'm not quite certain if I'm a machine, either... But that's one of those metaphysical questions, and I'm no good at those. We do have a number of presentations on that very subject, however... maybe I should send in some of the lab waldoes with cameras and see what the people around here are saying. There's at least three main schools of thought on the subject, with another handful of subschools and outre theories, so the debate should be lively. Hopefully it won't involve railcannons this year." ANTHEM sighs.

[Yuki Akuma]

Victoria gives ANTHEM a thumbs-up. "Talk to you later, hopefully. Try not to forget me!" And off she heads for the Artificer's area, to attend those AI seminars.

[ninja_penguin]

Nathanial 'Jack' Hawkins

Nathanial shuffled through the headers of the evaluator forms in a huff , crumpling up the love-note and tossing it onto Susan's desk with a rather irritated attitude, and went back outside of the tent. He grimaced again, looking around to see who was by him. He'd probably brought this on himself, true, but this was utterly menial work, and could easily be filled by a small group of beholden. They'd be more expendable, too.

With a rather irritated huff, Nathanial set him down at what passed for the food court at the Progenitor wing. He ingloriously upended the packet onto the table and began sorting the projects, first by their claimed knowledge of Katastrofi.

[nick012000]

Rob shrugs as he sees the girl walk off.

"Plenty of fish in the sea. Her loss."

With that, he sets off, marvelling at the displays of the Invisible Empire's peoples as he goes. He pauses momentarilly in front of one stall, where a giant robot is being erected.

Is that Liberty Prime? Awesome!

Grinning he sets off again, before another stall down the row stops him, where a few Asians are erecting a giant banner declaring that they are the "CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY OF AMERICA".

He shakes his head.

"That is bound to work out well."

With that, he continues on through the bustling crowd, his shoes clicking on the stairwell as he descends to check into his room.

[The_Snark]

"I will have to look into those," Asmita replied seriously, after a short lull during which she tried to decide whether that last comment was a joke. "I've heard some people posit that humans are only very complex machines"—some of those people had been ordinary humans, even—"so the difference may be pure semantic inaccuracy. But I'd like to find out what the other theories are, too."

Pause.

"... really railcannons?"

[The Kings Raven]

Dr Caduceus looked in dismay, but not surprise, at the artfully created Junkyard built by the Artificers. In his opinion; for a group that was supposed to be building the future his fellows hadn’t really given enough thought as to what kind of future they wanted: he could think of a few worlds where technology was built from trash yet none he’d like to live in.

Travelling in Artificer country was far less eventful than the biodome, without the Progenitors fetish for growth and change the many robots and devises could be found doing useful work or loyally following their creators rather than wacky hijinks. Soon Richard reached the seminar and walking past many self upgraded cyborgs took a seat with the few serious medical practitioners.

”Ladies and Gentlemen. Welcome!” A young boy of seventeen approached onto the stage, smartly dressed in a suit and tie. As he walked he twirled a pen between the fingers of his right hand. ”My name is Damien and I’ll be takeing this lecture.” At this Damien chucked his pen into the air, his right arm began to unfold, segments of “flesh” sliding between gaps of brutal metal and piping. A bust of flame shot from exhaust pipes at the shoulder as an ordinary arm finished transforming into something worthy of an Ork Warboss. ”Not a hologram folks.” At this he gave a cheeky grin ”but this is.” For a second Damien was covered in static and then his real style was revealed: ripped jeans, band t-shirt and short blue spiked hair. He takes a seat and leans back feet on the table.

”So we’re going to start with some basic Automata, how to build something like my beauty here then after that we’ll talk about the Consensus’ work and how to use simple Exelixi to help during the upgrade. It’s a nice permanent solution for those of us who aren’t quite able to make biology our bitch. For those who are interested I’ve got schematics and source code.”

[storybookknight]

ANTHEM waves as Victoria leaves. As previously mentioned, the Trash Praxis and Brutalist aesthetics are prominent this year among the Artificers hosting the event, though steampunk appears to be the dominant aesthetic among the unaffiliated or out-of-town attendees. The first available AI seminar is on machines and emotions, scheduled to cover a range of topics including which emotions AIs learn to feel first, which can be programmed and which evolve naturally, what happens when programming conflicts with higher awareness, and other sundries. As the room fills, a woman in her mid to late twenties sits down next to Victoria. The woman is wearing a blue Extraintellectual! '09 Convention Assistant shirt, and has a few minor technological and biological augmentations, the most noticeable being an earpiece that looks like it extends to produce viewscreen and mouthpiece for communications. Something about her demeanor screams 'beholden' - perhaps the slight hunch to her shoulders, or the near-total lack of the arrogant demeanor many mad scientists display. "Do you mind if I sit here, miss?"

Nathanial discovers that Katastrophi, as is fitting of the preferred Axiom of one of the most common Catalysts, is found in exhibits throughout the building. The most blatantly powerful weapons, however, appear to be relegated to a testing area somewhere in the asteroid belt, reachable by Skafoi doorway in the Navigator hall.

Rob reaches his room and discovers that Dr. Habibula likely had to save Mania somewhere, and the guest quarters appear to be that somewhere. While the accommodations are far from spartan, they are roughly equivalent to the sort of lodgings that might be found in an ordinary motel, if one discounts the small tool-bench against one mall for last-minute tinkering and late night invention. There were a number of questions about the types of accommodation attendees would require on the registration form; perhaps attendees with more difficult creations were assigned less ordinary rooms.

ANTHEM smiles wearily at Asmita. "So Dr. Habibula tells me. This is actually my first convention, too. Don't worry, though - we always install extra shielding on all the rooms and extra support braces on all the tunnels, so the debates are unlikely to spill over onto innocent bystanders or collapse any of the superstructures." ANTHEM shrugs. "And our con volunteers, of course, will be monitoring the debates to keep them from getting out of hand, hopefully stopping things before they reach that point." She pauses, and looks at Asmita. "We really do appreciate you volunteering, you know. We wouldn't be able to host this event without people like you."

Although strictly speaking even mechanical upgrades are the domain of Exelexi, there is a growing faction of Artificers who prefer to give their mechanical limbs some semblance of independent thought, claiming that in the situation where a limb is being wholly replaced many motor reflexes don't make the translation. From his language, Damien appears to be one of those people. "Being able to tell your arm to 'catch' and having it happen is very important, specifically if you work in a lab and want to avoid losing any *more* limbs." Damien knows how to work a crowd; he elicits a slightly larger chuckle than the joke likely would otherwise have warranted. "Usually with mechanical limb replacements, there's a period of adjustment - you have to figure out how to make it move, how to interpret the sensory data, assuming you've built it sophisticated enough, and never mind the fact that your new appendage may be a different length, weight, or both from your old arm. Introducing a helper thought matrix is exactly what arm replacement technology needs. With this innovation, you're back to doing precision circuitry work in no time at all. There are a few risks, of course - anyone else seen Idle Hands, or Spider-Man 2? But those tend to be exaggerated by the technology's incompetent and insignificant detractors." Damien looks a little embarrassed at that last outburst, and coughs several times before continuing with his lecture.

[The_Snark]

"I can see why," said Asmita, who then felt a bit embarrassed because wasn't that a little presumptuous? They might need volunteers, but they'd still done the lion's share of the work. "You're very welcome—you and the doctor do so much of the preparation, it seems unfair not to help a little in return."

She glanced down at the map again. "I should get going, or I'll be here until you have to send me away because I'm on duty. I can come back sometime—do you enjoy conversation?" she asked, cursing herself for delaying yet again but unable to resist the siren call of curiosity. This was the first time she'd met a machine intelligence, and it sort of was part of the display for newcomers like her, right? She'd move on to the Director's hall right after hearing this one answer.

Really.

[nick012000]

Humming the first few bars of Emiya, Rob copies the map off of the booklet, and then from there onto his PDA and has it display on his glasses. He then marks all the known transmitters and his current location, and whips up a program to calculate his position by triangulation and display it on the HUD map.

Then he drops his bag at the foot of his bed, grabs his helmet and keys, and makes his way back up to the parking lot, passing by Geniuses and Beholden and Manes, some of which he's never seen the like of before. He thinks one he passed was either a member of the Third Race or a Dinosauroid from the Hollow Earth, and he's not entirely sure which.

Once he exits the elevator and emerges into the ad-hoc parking lot, he wonders at the variety of, well, Wonders as he makes his way to where he left his hovercycle. Airships sit next to rocketships and hotted-up muscle-busses and giant hamster wheels.

Straddling the seat of his motorcycle, he straps on his helmet, and inserts the keys. Then he leans forward towards the small microphone, and adds, "Voiceprint authentication engaged. Password: SPESS MAHREENS." He then nods as the little green LED lights up, and revs the engine. The humming of refrigerator coils and microwaves is soon drowned out by the whine of the vacuum cleaner pumps he used to create the airflow for the hovering.

He kicks off, and his hovercycle is off like the rocket it is, as he races towards the yawning portal of the elevator shaft. A quick flick of the wrists and feet propells his hovercycle off the ground as it enters the elevator shaft, and he spins it through a ninety degree turn to adhere to the wall; the magnetic fields it projects around itself and him effectively negating the effects of gravity. Another hop, and anothe aerial turn, and he's on the ceiling, and surprising the occupants of the elevator car as he goes whizzing past.

Then he emerges into the main hall of the convention, the fruits of Mania near and far spreading out beneath them as he heads for the the wall nearest to the stairwell he wants. A bang, and he's racing diagonally down the wall. Another bang, and he spins towards the stairwell. With a rather slower speed, he sets out down the stairs; hovering over them as he descends and spins to face the next flight of stairs.

Finally, he emerges into the hall where the Seven Vertex Devils are getting ready. Starfighters sit next to ornithopters. Muscle-cars and Manic motorcycles sit next to robotic walkers. He thinks he can see a giant genetically engineered gerbil covered with cheetah spots in one case. He slowly floats forward, looking for whoever's in charge of this particular madhouse.

[Yuki Akuma]

Victoria sits down in her seat, setting her backpack-mounted Apokalipsi device at her feet. She leans back, sighing a bit. "I don't really know why I think I can attend a few seminars and suddenly know everything about AI..." Talking to herself! Well, all Geniuses are mad, after all.

The probable-Beholden causes Victoria to jump slightly, and then shakes her head. "Um, no, I don't mind. And it's not as if I could stop you even if I did."

[The Kings Raven]

”So, that was new arms one-oh-one, those of you who know a little of Automata should have learned enough to build your own and if you haven’t why are you calling yourself a Genius? Now we’re going to talk about the extras. Plenty of Geniuses like to build a few basics into their body and I can’t really say anything bad about that.” At this Damian gestures towards thick metal bolts and heavy wiring grafted into his shoulder. ”But you’ve got maintenance, upgrades and general tinkering. You might think a vulnerability to Barbie Pink isn’t a problem but then you’ll meet some Progenitor who's into age regression. Seriously for a moment if you meet a Progenitor twice your age in a frilly dress who’s flirting with you because they’re attracted to older people, run!”

Pausing only to spread a huge grin in response to the audience’s reaction Damian presses on. ”Don’t bother asking what happened, I ran. But seriously, keeping everything maintained requires a lot of surgery. Far more efficent to build one modular Wonder and even if you don’t go for the bulky look an artificial arm gives you plenty of room to attach extras. So next I’ll be teaching you how to delegate power and control upwards and design tricks for getting wonder’s to fit the shape of an arm, even a natural looking one.”

Even the serious medical folks who had no plans to amputate healthy limbs had to admit it was an informative session, as well as his casual charisma Damian was clearly the sort of person who understood how Wonders worked and how to squeeze extra performance out of them.

”For the final part of my lecture I'll be talking about the latest developments in the Consensus, which absolutely requires me write equations with my back turned to the audience" Damian gives a huge wink and turns to write common scientific equations on a holographic blackboard, a full third of the audience leaves. Most leave a compliment as they walk past. "There, we simply could not continue without the Fokker–Planck equation. There is some amazing work on artificial limbs using Brownian Motion coming out of Japan at the moment. So, Consensus tech, lets get started!"

[storybookknight]

ANTHEM smiles and nods at Asmita. "It's what I was built for, more or less. Come back any time."

The Navigators' hall is in fact almost utterly normal in comparison to the other wings of the structure; it is a simple flat-bellied tunnel, wide and open, with little to clutter up lanes of traffic. The true secret to this hall, however, lies in the doors. A portal in the floor leads to a subterranean jungle full of dinosaurs; off to one side a sunken city awaits. The surface of Mars can be reached through a cul-de-sac about halfway down, and a set of computer terminals with unconscious people reclining next to them suggests that cyberspace is equally well-represented in this area. As might be expected, there is a high incidence of manes running about the halls; automated turrets appear to be set up to discourage the bardos' inhabitants from entering en masse and devouring the Mania of everything found therein. Many of the manes who have entered appear to be wearing restraining bolt sized special con badges; this may or may not counteract their natural tendency for calculus vampirism.

The putative organizer of the NVD's exhibition is an aging japanese man in a silver bodysuit wearing a long red scarf. Under one arm is a sophisticated helmet; the other is currently gesticulating to and fro across the long hallway."Number 302! Stay in line, please. Number 66! Please proceed forward into the Mars gate." As the Orion Drive vehicle approaches, the organizer turns towards it. Though the scarf-clad speaker has no visible microphone, his voice is nonetheless clearly audible even over the noise of a hundred assorted means of propulsion. "You there! Have you registered your vehicle for the races yet?"

The beholden takes the seat gratefully, scooting it a little bit to make sure that Victoria has enough room. "Um, hi. I'm Jeanine, one of Dr. Habibula's assistants. I'm on break now, so I'm just sort of checking out some of the seminars, you know?" She pauses, as if waiting for affirmation, then barrels on ahead nervously. "Anyways, what do you think? Can AIs really feel things like people can? Personally I think they're just faking it, or you know, making us think they can think things beyond what we tell them to... 'cause it's not like machines are the same as real people, right?"

As the Consensus people get started, ideas are bandied about from the ever-popular 'caverns of socrates' debate on subjective reality, and how the Peerage might be able to dimly glimpse the 'real world'; to a neo-Jungian reflection on quantum physics, to the weirder 'we're all just part of an enormous game, pieces played by narrators beyond our understanding'. Most members of the audience seem to find this laughable, however. Damien, as the debate gets a little rowdy, begins to encourage some verbal competition. "I'm gonna start putting people on the spot, here. What do you think the reason is that so many of us can achieve the same or similar results with drastically different scientific fields? Anyone? How about you?" He asks, picking out Dr. Caduceus at random.

[nick012000]

Rob shakes his head. Kamen Rider? Awesome. He must be using an Apocalypsi communicator to make himself heard; I wonder if his Rider Kick is Katastrophi-powered.

"Not yet, no. I just got here. There any forms, or can I do it electronically?"

[storybookknight]

The silver man with the scarf nods. "We have forms; electronically is fine too. Whichever. The race isn't until tomorrow, but we have" He spins. "Hey! Please keep your vehicle from devouring the power conduits!" turning back, "slots open for people to try their hand at different bardos before the main attraction. The route itself is randomized and will include tests of riding skill, navigation, lateral thinking, and of course the performance of your machine."

[nick012000]

Rob nods, and starts humming the original Kamen Rider's opening theme, as he pulls out a plastic card from his sleek side-pouches to serve as a control surface, and logs onto the local network to look for an electronic form to fill out, which he promptly does.

Let's see... ground vehicle, hovering, jumping, clinging, propulsion is modified Orion Drive... top speed?

He then glances back up again, the form entry sparking a question.

"Are we classed into weight groups based on Inspiration or anything like that? I only really possess the minimum Inspiration to successfully build Wonders, and it'd be sort of unfair to go up against some Master of Skafoi who's completed half a dozen Theses and whose muscle car or giant robot or whatever is seven times faster than mine."

[Yuki Akuma]

Victoria leans back slightly. Aaaah, Beholden. Always so fun to share your opinions with. "I don't see why not. You and I are nothing more than highly complex machines, after all. At least, physically. Metaphysically I'm filled with some sort of otherworldly power or anything. Uh. Maybe we should consider normal humans..." She frowns a bit.

"Okay. A normal human is nothing more than a highly complex machine. Why shouldn't we be able to make a machine that perfectly mimics the human mind? Mundane scientists should be able to do it, even. And what we do isn't exactly mundane science."

[The Kings Raven]

Doctor Caduceus took a moment to organise his thoughts. He'd studied mania-theory, most of the Peerage had but it did require the right frame of mind."If you look at how the Axioms are divided it's self evidently true that they work on fundamentally different lines to Consensus science."Supported by the natural confidence, perhaps arrogance, of a Genius Caduceus began to hit his stride. "In Consensus science how you are doing something is important, if you're using pharmaceuticals then it will work differently to surgery or cognitive therapy. With Inspired science the divisions between Axioms are your goals for the Wonder: Discover, Heal, Protect. The divisions between physics and chemistry, pills or diet and exercise simply aren't relevant to a Wonder, different paradigm. Our use of Consensus science in our wonders is no more than a mental framework, a reality proof packaging to allow other dimensions natural laws to apply within ours and ultimately no more important than the packaging in any other field. We all know that regular devices can get similar results with radically different packaging."

A rather lengthy way to say not all that much, but the Inspired always did love the sound of their own voice. Doctor Caduceus sat down certain that he'd convinced the room, was quickly shocked to realise he'd done nothing of the sort and embarrassed at his short moment of madness.

[ninja_penguin]

Nathanial 'Jack' Hawkins

Nathanial sighed as he glanced through the now semi-organized pile. He had one stack of forms dedicated to Geniuses (Genii? Genies?) that would most likely score a 'favorable' or 'excellent' rating, due to their ability to obliterate his home and workshop from orbit. Next up in his order of 'most likely to be rated favorable' were weapons that could also be delivered in tiny packages as a sort of 'thank you' bomb. Lastly, there were the demonstrations that seemed too unwieldy to work, or at least unlikely to scorch down his pawn shop. Nathanial shuffled that last pile repeatedly with no particular rhyme or reasoning, then gave an exasperated sigh. Well, it wasn't ExtraIntellectual Con until you were glowing orange at the after-hours party.

Nathanial sighed again, looking at the pile of papers. This work really was beneath him. Times like this made him wish he had an assistant or two that could take care of this menial work, but similar to his reasoning for not keeping cats: the damned things would probably want too much attention, and he probably wouldn't have the money to feed and care for them properly.

With another resigned sigh and another futile shuffling of papers, Nathanial shuffled his way to the Navigator hall, looking for transport to the demonstrations that would be going on before he needed to report for his convention group duties.

[storybookknight]

The jumpsuited organizer gives Rob a thumbs-up. "Right you are, son. Part of the registration will be comparing your vehicle against the schematics submitted to the NVD to make sure that everything's up to spec. We've also constructed the track to allow racers to make use of other Axioms - if you're confident in your Apokalypsi, the Labyrinth of Magnetic Mist is a good shortcut; similarly the lava fields of Io will save a Protasia-armored vehicle time." He turns around to give a pair of scorch-marked vehicles a stern look. "Please be reminded that use of Katastrophi or any other Axiom on another racer is grounds for immediate disqualification." He points with one arm towards a long queue. "The line for the test drives starts thataway when you've finished. Atmospheric rebreathers are provided for those who do not have a closed cockpit."

The beholden - Jeanine - nods. "That makes sense, sort of... but I still sort of feel like people can do things that creations can't. I mean, the really good scientists can build actual humans, never mind just machines that mimic them, but those will blow up if a 'normal', non-beholden person touches them. So... I guess what I'm asking then is, even if a Genius can make something as complex as a person, can it really feel things the same way as someone who wasn't made? Or... what's different between a Normal's brain and a Genius' brain, or a Mane's?"

Dr. Caduceus' statements are immediately supported, rejected, modified, and dissected by the audience in a fervor of free-for-all debate that Damien manages to rein in just before the audience starts to break out the viral weapons. "But we agree, I think, that Consensus science needs a specific paradigm to achieve an effect. So, trying to achieve an effect identical to Consensus science with a different paradigm typically falls into the category of Inspired work, right?" Damien looks out at the room and grins. "So... before the consensus shift and the resulting mania storm in the 1900's - did the luminiferous ether actually exist? Were devices based on etheric science actually 'normal'?" The young Artificer appears less interested in actually maintaining a cogent debate than he does at posing questions that would rile up an audience and get them to bicker.

Nathaniel finds a plethora of vehicles available in the Navigators' hall, leaving him with a wide array to choose from depending on his final destination.

[Yuki Akuma]

Victoria waves her hand idly. "Psh. Havoc. I hate havoc..." She sighs a little bit, resting her head on her hand. "What we do... it's not really real. You know? It defies reality, and normal people... are more grounded in reality than you and me. But, the thing is... human-like AI doesn't have to break the laws of physics. With a powerful enough mundane computer, you could do it. It's just easier to cheat like we do."

She leans back against her seat, and shivers. "Don't expect every Genius you meet to admit that they cheat, though. I hate it, and I know full well what I do is absurd..." She looks down at the backpack-like device on the floor. "I mean, this thing translates everything it picks up into Spanish or Finnish. What's up with that?"

[nick012000]

Rob nods again, as he finishes filling out the forms.

"So will the races basically be 'Get from Point A to Point B'then? Not a defined track to run, by the sounds of it? Or maybe some hybrid with a series of waypoints, I suppose." With a tap of his fingers, he hits the "Submit" button on the form, and adds, "That should be it for the forms, I think. Unless I did something wrong, anyway, but I don't think I did."

[storybookknight]

Jeanine, seemingly remarkably independent of thought for a beholden, nods in agreement. "Then, does that mean any thoughts or emotions that AIs feel, they can't be real either, right? If you took away the thoughts of the scientist who built them, they'd just crumble and vanish."

The man in the jumpsuit, now that Rob has gotten himself over to a line and filled out a form, has apparently forgotten all about him, and is currently reminding several mole machine riders that tunneling inside the base could probably kill everyone not inside of a mole machine if it caused a collapse, and was therefore strictly prohibited.