(no subject)

Welcome to the future.
Unfortunately, it's not all it's cracked up to be.

The very definition of the term cyberpunk is "high tech, low life." These are worlds defined by poverty or absolute control, a dog-eat-dog reality where man's best interest is to cut his or her losses and look out for only number one. The lines between organic and synthetic slowly blurs more and more, until the distinction becomes nigh-impossible to make. Friends become enemies, enemies tentative allies, and above all watches the Big Dog, silently pushing the world to their every whim. Does one wish to bow out and let come what may, capitalize on the tyrants' cruelty, join their cause, or fight back?

Your life is not your own. What you do about it makes all the difference, though.

The Cyberpunk meme 2.0

This, my friend, is what cyberpunk is about.

To get started, you can create a scenario for yourself, or merely go to the Random Number Generator and choose a pre-made one for you and your partner, or you can even leave your comment blank and let respondents pick, I'm not going to tell you how to decide, it's just a meme, calm down.

1. You or your partner (or both) is a hacker who just stumbled across the biggest information leak of your lives. This could make or break the two of you, if you know how to handle the consequences of your following action.

2. In the real world, people wouldn't waste their spit on scum like you. But in the net? You're a god, peddling information and resources better than Wal-Mart. Just be careful who you talk to. Not everyone thinks what you do is a good thing.

3. The corporations, the government, the gangs, the machines. It doesn't matter who it is, but you're tired of their interference in your life. Are the two of you ready to take them on?

4. You're the king or queen of your private enterprise. You have it all: A private army, AIs capable of placating the masses, connections even better than the government, and a demeanor that could charm Satan himself. However, there's still that little nuisance known as the underdog, and they're knocking at your door.

5. You just got that newest drug shipment in, and it promises to be the biggest trip in your life. It promises to make you stronger, faster, smarter, and sexier, all in one hit. The only thing left is to try it.

6. People are disappearing, and no one seems to notice or care, except you and your partner. The only thing? They're also your worst enemy.

7. You've just been kidnapped, and unfortunately, your partner's the kidnapper. What's their motive? Can you escape?

8. Welcome to the lab, o curious traveler. I have a wonderful special running today. Just sit down and we'll begin the body modding! Ever feel like your eyes weren't up to snuff? Or maybe you'd like your brain to run a little faster, or make your entire body into a Swiss Army knife. I can do that for you, buddy. So what'll it be? Become more like a machine, or gain a little enhancement and become a metahuman?

9. Your first memory is waking up to the sound of scientists running off status checks. You're an AI, an android, a clone, or something else entirely that the masses hate or just don't consider human. How does your partner react? Are you sentient? Please, sir. I only ask that if you decide to rampage, please don't sing "Daisy Bell."

10. Sort of related to the above prompt, you or your partner were created, or experimented upon, and have become much more than you once were. You have become this close to attaining godhood, and the Secret Police, La Cosa Nostra, or whoever is pulling the strings have made you their right hand. How does this affect you or your partner?

Anything I forgot, go ahead and play it. Make your own world, your own personalities. Have fun!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

(he was made for this o.O)

((Thanks to experimentation in the military, Mike has superhuman strength thanks to some cybernetic implants and an AI partner in his head - so, basically, number ten. Fun times?))

[She's an assassin with a bionic arm. LET'S DO THIS.]

((OOC: Ben still has the Omnitrix but it uses animal DNA and not alien. It's an experimental piece of equipment that was attached to him--removing it would require cutting off his arm kind of attached--that likes to periodically screw with him. Each transformation, like in canon, typically lasts only fifteen minutes before the Omnitrix needs to recharge.))

[Ramona is a performance artiste with a penchant for murder, rough sex, and dealing crazy digital 'interest drugs.' She'll plug you in, jack you up, take advantage of you and chop you to pieces... she's a great go-to for things you need that you can't get anywhere else, but there's always risk that you won't walk back out.]

[Hermes, famed hacker and cracker, is in actual fact an octopus. He's part of the escaped Lovecraft Project, a government program intending to create puzzle solvers with distinctly inhuman mentalities--the researchers did not consider that uplifting a species already famed for its escape artist skills and giving them cybernetic implants might result in a mass breakout a month later. Their loss.]

[available in AI, hologram, or android form]

/happy scream

also what is your half idea because I'm 90% sure anything you've got in a meme like this I'd be game for /o/

[it's been ages! but I was thinking about 9 and pulling a reverse scenario. the fateful day when Cynric is gone and Jarvis is alone, what if he decides to create his own version?

EDIT: if that doesn't work, then a scenario where Jarvis goes rogue would do nicely too.]

Edited 2014-03-19 08:15 (UTC)

...I could get behind this. Yes. Yes, I could very much get behind this. Would you like to start?

Jarvis had spent much time alone the past few months. The first week had been spent sitting quietly and walking about the house in some form of routine. His programming, while extensive, had not been designed to cope with one large glaring fact.

His creator, Cynric was no longer there. Where he had gone to, Jarvis wasn't entirely certain. When told that he was dead, Jarvis' response had been "wait till he is awake". But that had not happened. Not even when the body had been removed, Jarvis had trouble processing that he was not coming back.

Then, after sitting and processing, attempting to sort through what he might do about this, Jarvis went into the workshop and began working. Perhaps he did not know himself the end result but it gave him a purpose. Studying old notes, working with metal, plastic, and circuitry. Drawing from programs written by Cynric to attempt to recreate what had been lost. Jarvis had found a few attempts to download memories into the computer that helped in writing the programming needed. Wouldn't Cynric be impressed at how clever he had become in his absence?

At least till the real Cynric came home. Just temporary.

Jarvis got up after his recharging session, starting to work as before. The table had a well organized set of tools on it. Today he must complete programming and....switch it on. Much like Frankenstein of old, the android lay beneath a sheet, electrical wires hooked up to provide a decent charge. Jarvis put his hand to a lever, pulling it to the on position.

All sections of the android beginning to charge. The on board computer system flickering to life.

Somewhere, whatever piece of Cynric was left in whatever world surely--surely--was entirely proud of the mechanical man he'd left behind. Somewhere, there was some piece of a man or a heart or a soul swelling with joy.

Here, in the place the inventor used to live with his mechanical wonder, there was no one to emote about any of it. There was just the low, familiar hum of a system booting up. The faint glow at the creases of this android beginning to join the glow of the one already functioning upright at full capacity.

The unpracticed snapping open of optical receptors, and their first adjustment to light. Surely it's an imbalanced moment that Jarvis remembers.

This was altogether new...and altogether familiar. Jarvis stood over the figure, watching and remembering. How it was those first few moments. How basic and simple. How confusing.

And yet, he couldn't stop now. Not when it was almost complete. Jarvis took another cord from the main computer, moving to the head of the android. It already looked as Cynric had, as close as Jarvis could make him. The slot at the back of the neck is where he fitted the plug, completing the circuit to the store of memory that Jarvis had been able to put together. It wasn't much but hopefully it would be enough to give this new android a shadow of his former life.

An afterthought, he gives instruction, "Please do not move till upload is complete....sir." Even Jarvis could not leave off the sir.

Some things came without question. Sectors which had gained power were running initial diagnostics on themselves. Systems and circuits were firing through what would grow to be routines.

But the new plug--the sudden jolt of information.

It sent an almost physical shudder through the mechanical limbs. The inventor had, after all, shared nearly a lifetime of information with his android companion in their time together. It's sudden, it's unanticipated; it's the bare bones of a human being, the memories and quirks and pieces of a personality being zapped through newly functioning wires.

Being told not to move is a directive which the robotic mind wants to cleave to. The dropping of the mechanical jaw, however--an oddly human expression--comes before he can stop himself.

Jarvis recognized that look. He'd gotten it before when Cynric found him trying to organize the dishes and silverware...by spreading them all over the floor in individual pieces.

That fact alone would have stunned a normal human being. But Jarvis was not normal and anything familiar was better than being stuck in an endless loop of whys and why nots about Cynric not coming back.

Instead, he falls back on being the android instead of the creator. "I am sorry I did not finish quicker, there were parts that took longer to build than the others." His voice apologetic as he checked a few connections to the outer limbs. The goggles perched on his head but unused as he soldered a loose wire together. "Please notify me when the download is complete." Perhaps a note of worry? Jarvis was hesitant that he might have missed a step or two. He hadn't ever built anything like this before.

It's an odd balance. It's a random sampling at any given moment to be synthesized and analyzed and blended together into the programming he's been given. The mechanical precision with which the data had been compiled for synthesis is helpful, but it doesn't direct completely what to do to create a fully compiled personality.

"...J--"

The voice comes out tinny. Wrong. Not at all like the files being downloaded into his processors. The mechanics of his mouth freeze for re-calibration. For modulation.

"...Jarvis."

There. Much better. The face stays largely immobile apart from the choppy movements of the mouth, but the voice is where it should be.

The first attempt is not right, definitely all wrong.

But the second...

Jarvis stops his work, a strange sense of recognition taking over his concentration. That was it. The voice was right, he had done it. Cynric was in there, somewhere. Even if the android knew it was just a facsimile, it didn't seem to matter.

"Yes, sir. I am here." He moves into view of the newly activated orbits, adjusting the synthetic skin a bit around the cracks. Detail work was needed but the basic structure was sound. "Can you hear me well enough?"

The brain--and it's difficult not to allocate the nearly finalized download as anything but a brain, because the compilation of information is more than just logical strings of data--tells him he ought to smile. There's hours and hours of footage which say that the appropriate response to this other voice saying 'yes, sir' is a crooked little smile.

The new android's mastery of minute, detailed mechanics aren't quite able to replicate the expression. The attempt isn't made.

"Yes." That's the short answer, but it's the one his newly compiled data is telling him the source of the brain ought to respond with. "It--"

And there isn't a metric for what he wants to respond with. There's a pause for another quick scan, but there's nothing that helps make this information 'fit' with what the brain seems to want in conciseness and-- sarcasm. The brain is clear that, at one point, being taught sarcasm had happened.

"--it will take-- some time to properly configure this-- most recent update."

"Yes, I know." Jarvis knew better than anyone that it would take time. "I did increase the rate of processing data by 0.12%." Not much, but it was an improvement on his own configuration. The sarcasm, he couldn't replace. That would take even more time. It had taken him quite a long time to learn what he did know about the art of it.

The arms taken care of, he moves to tightening up connections on the neck and face. Especially that jaw, he didn't like the way it was moving. Once done, he tests it. "Can you speak again, sir?" There's a secret sort of satisfaction that Jarvis has about seeing his creator's face again, alive and talking.

There's time to process, at least, as his arm is fixed and his jaw tightened up. The eyes stare, unblinking, at the world above him--the ceiling, the lights, the occasional blocking of all that by the face of the one who's created him.

Who he created.

Who the brain created.

The processing is disrupted briefly by the illogical feedback loop. The request to speak is a good interruption of it.

"I am-- like you."

There's a faint smile that crosses Jarvis' face. One that he has practiced and perfected. "Yes...and no." Oh dear. That wasn't a proper answer.

"...it is a complicated explanation." Which will come later. Right now, he had to be sure all connections, wires, tubing, and sensors were working properly. He lifts the android's hand in his own, letting the fingers rest across his palm. "Are you able to move your left hand, sir?"

The brain isn't a perfectly logical system. That doesn't mean the system isn't learning where some of the loops are. Some of the reactions and the sort of thing which ought to trigger that sort of reaction.

Voice modulation and facial expressions will come later, with time and practice and less of being completely overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data to process. For now, looking for vocabulary--phrasing, syntax--will have to suffice as he shifts the fingers of his left hand.

"Of course." He wriggles the right hand as well, then gives that arm an experimental swing upward. "Help me up."

Excellent. This was excellent progress.

The sonic soldering iron wavers in Jarvis' hand before he puts it down quickly, moving to help Cynric up automatically. Forgetting for a moment that this was not technically Cynric. Jarvis had been alone for so long, a glitch like that would go unnoticed. Perhaps not healthy for an android but he had no one to tell him otherwise.

"Mind the legs, sir, they will be a little stiff at first." But a bit of oil should help with that. He'll get the oil can and fix that.

The brain is put on hold for a moment so that the machine can learn itself. It's less of a strain on his new system to have this sort of process to focus on instead of working on synthesizing the brain, even just for a few moments of time.

Sitting is a bit unsteady, but equilibrium does kick in after a moment. Sitting and being worked on is a comfortable thing for the circuits he's been programmed with.

Programmed by someone who had been programmed by--

"Why am-- I like you?"

Self-awareness had long been a goal in Cynric's work. The latest blueprints all had advanced circuits--and programs which had helped override falling back on logic where learned habits and adaptability--in a human fashion--had been more useful for helping Jarvis' mind grow into itself.

And, now, new Cynric's new mind.

Hopefully that loop wouldn't become a problem later on. It did seem as if history was repeating itself in a way.

The question catches Jarvis unprepared, a soldering iron in one hand and goggles in the other, somewhat at a loss how to answer. "...because I am like you." No, that wasn't right. Except that it was. Hang on.

Jarvis pauses, giving himself a moment to compose his logic circuits. "You are Cynric." That was plain enough to start. "You were gone so I have brought you back." Less plain but frank enough to be the truth. Jarvis fiddles with another exposed wire on the arm. He didn't like thinking about Cynric being gone, it was like having a whole section of himself pulled out of his brain and erased without him knowing. "I will explain later," he said, mimicking a phrase he heard all too well from the original Cynric.

At least, this time, Jarvis had some idea of what the questions would be--where the struggles and difficulties in behaving like a human being were. True, last time there hadn't been an overload of human memories to contend with, but still.

Hopefully history would repeat slightly more easily.

He is Cynric. He is the owner of the data--memories--the brain. He is the creator.

And he 'remembers' weakening. He 'remembers' the signs of decay in the human body he apparently no longer inhabited.

His head ducks slightly, a careful practice in maintaining his equilibrium. "Back as-- different. I didn't-- used to be this."

"No, sir," Jarvis admits, a bit reserved in his reply. He bends, tinkering with the knee joint and adding drops of oil where it's needed. "You were better at fixing everything."

Jarvis looks up, an expression of placid content. "Now you will be alright." And never, ever go away again. Maybe Jarvis didn't realize how unstable that line of thinking would be if he were human.

There's logic to it. The central processor will find it deeply satisfying as a response once it's done integrating its new personality.

They just ought not tell anyone else with that crazy sense of human horror about it, perhaps.

The mechanics are a bit shaky, but the integration pushes for the new android's brow to furrow. "...I disappointed you."

Was that the reason? Jarvis ponders for a nanosecond and decides, no that wasn't it. "No, sir." He had not been prepared for the end is all it was. Cynric had always mended before, it did not compute that he had 'broken' beyond repair.

Jarvis struggles to find the right response, to be clear about his intentions. But he barely understands emotions and feelings as it were. "....it was not the same." This would fix things. Everything would be as it was once this Cynric was up and running. At least, that's what Jarvis was telling himself.

"The workshop was quiet. There were no more items to pick up from the floor." He had to plug in himself at night to recharge. Jarvis missed him, in a way an android could miss important data that was no longer there.

"Do you understand now?" he asks hesitantly.

There are files to run through. There is an awareness that the information which had been recorded out of date--the stories Cynric had told Jarvis, the memories which had been recounted second-hand--indicate that the time before Jarvis had been created had not been an entirely happy one. That there was a marked trend in signs of contentment once the android came into being.

"...no." Honesty isn't so much honesty as a lack of fully understanding deception yet. "But-- I think I will."

Relief softens Jarvis' features almost imperceptibly. He had thought if this did not work, he would have to start over from scratch.

That was almost as hard to think about as Cynric being gone, having to do away with his replacement.

Jarvis may be too hopeful though, hoping that this will replace his creator. A collection of metal, plastic, and memories is all he can put together. But perhaps it can be taught to be Cynric. Jarvis holds up the soldering iron, lesson number one in progress. "Do you know the function of this?" Cynric knew his tools, they were a part of him here in the workshop. He would have to learn how to use them again.

The change of expression is minute. It shows intense precision--loving care in attention to detail by both creator and creation.

It will take time to learn that again. It will take time shut down and reviewing, at top speed, the decades of data about who he was--is--and who Jarvis is.

Time is short now. Time is, apparently, better spent on identifying the object in the other android's hand.

"...heating." The slight cant of his head in 'thought' is an old quirk which has been entirely quickly integrated into this new system. "Soldering. To heat solder so it can seal a joint between two workpieces. Touching it hurts."

Inflection is getting a little better.

It was very like Cynric already. "Correct, sir."

Jarvis has to work on stitching a bit of the skin to the arm before handing him a shirt, folded neatly. "You can't go out looking like that." Another phrase said to him by Cynric, inflections and all. Jarvis did try going out shirtless once, got a few strange looks before Cynric discovered the fact.

Neatly folded is caught hold of inexpertly, but unfolded with the general carelessness which requires genuine coordination of precision moving parts to accomplish. The slight struggle to pull the shirt on almost makes sense, given the brain's review of data.

Slight clumsiness isn't going to be overly far off base, apparently.

"Can I-- go out at all? If I'm replacing--"

Someone clearly dead.

So he has put that much together. That was quick. However, Jarvis is slightly oblivious to the fact that people might react badly to someone who's supposed to be dead reappearing again.

"You can once you are able to walk well enough." That had been a prerequisite to Jarvis going out the first few times.

"That's not what I asked."

There's a brief moment of pausing, a sort of rewinding.

"That's not what I asked, Jarvis."

Once more with feeling, clearly. The personality is becoming far more integrated the longer he's left running.

Jarvis ducks his head slightly, looking to the tools in his hands. "No, sir," he says, an apologetic tone in his voice. Jarvis had hoped...

Actually he was not certain what he hoped to accomplish. Other than to fill a void. It seems he had done exactly that but he didn't realize things could not just go back to the way they were.

The tone is familiar--from the brain's compiled memories of the missing human, not the android who had done the recording. That in and of itself requires a pause of consideration in the programming before the question can be asked again.

"...can I go outside?"

Maybe it's an easier question if broken down into component parts.

"Not at this time."

He would have to work on that one. A goal, that was a good thing, right?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

(no subject)

The Cyberpunk meme 2.0

Murphy | RoboCop (1987)

dot matrix • reboot

Raleigh Becket | Pacific Rim

Mike Traceur | Knight Rider '08 | OTA

Shinobu Jacobs | No More Heroes 2

Chell | Portal

Ben Tennyson | Ben 10 | OTA

Ramona A. Stone | 1. Outside | OTA

Hermes | An octopus

john kennex | almost human

Stiles Stilinski | Teen Wolf

John Connor | Terminator

Bruce Wayne | DCAU

Dr. Bruce Banner | MCU

J.A.R.V.I.S. | Iron Man movies and MCU

ooc;

Re: ooc;

ooc;

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sorry, got sick for awhile