#artsilon rambles

[artsilon]

I don’t have the fake season 2 intro of the Brave Police x Transformers G1 done yet due to not being happy with it the first time around... But I wonder if I should post season 3? Like, would anyone care if it’s out of order?

[artsilon]

hey i am Very invested in your au where the ais are the agents apparently, can you plz give context to your art with au lore?????

Absolutely! This is going to be a ramble, so be prepared.

That’ll be PFL 2.0, which as you’ve probably guessed, is basically a switch of AIs and agents. So Sigma’s partner is Maine, Delta’s partner is York, Gamma’s partner is Wyoming. So on and so forth. Add in a couple of my own OC AI and Agents to round out ranks a bit, and you have a smaller Project, but... This one seems to be doing better than the canon one. Different circumstances have put somebody else in charge - Sheila-012, a Spartan II who dropped out of the program, often called the ‘General’ even if it’s not a proper title - so, no leader board, no setting agents up against each other. This little group is a devastating team, stronger mods, stronger teamwork. Everything’s perfect for this Project Freelancer.

On the surface.

See, things aren’t really what they seem.

There’s some Agents who would be AI that are just... Missing. Connecticut. South Dakota. Texas. There’s no Agent Epsilon. Their ‘Meta’ is Agent Alpha, the one who was their Tex analogue, and he only has the rampant AI Washington. And he attacks... Other facilities, never Agents head on. Like he’s looking for something.

And of course, these AI are still fragments, no matter if the Project itself is far better. York, Pride. Maine, Willpower. Carolina, Bravery. Wyoming, Deceit. So on, and so forth. Who are they fragmenting this time, if Alpha’s an agent? If Sheila-012 has been hired on to run administration for this group?

Alpha’s looking for something, alright.

He’s looking for his team. He’s looking for the Reds and Blues, because while this Charon-run ‘Freelancer’ is running missions for Hargrove, thinking they’re a UNSC-owned group, the Blood Gulch Crew are battling Charon on Chorus.

It’s not a straight switch, after all. It’s Charon, who has their hands on Tex, who has their hands on the original AI fragments, putting their EMP-scarred code to work as their Agents. Useless for operating armour mods now, all except Tex. But they had absorbed enough from their Agents to be able to have their memories replaced for this, to be as devastating as they are in the field.

Tex, you see, is the one they’re fragmenting. Shedding her memories of her friends along with her aspects, her emotions, protecting them even now. And Alpha, as powerful as Charon has made him, can’t get her and his fragments back without help.

Washington isn’t rampant. Washington is her Memory, and he’s why Alpha remembers at all.

....yeah, so I got dramatic, but that’s basically PFL 2.0. Better on the surface, but under that veneer, honestly so much worse. And that’s not even getting into how they actually modified Sigma’s code so he wouldn’t be a problem.

[artsilon]

...ho. Ly. FUCK. THAT'S FUCKING AWESOME. I WOULD READ THE SHIT OUT OF THIS "AU"! ...okay, but if this is an AU, Season 15 totally either doesn't happen or happens differently due to some form of the Alpha not being fucking dead, right? And like, what happens with the other agents? Do they find out? Does Tex get hidden and the cycle just all start again?! Does Church get to see his team once more?! So many fucking questions you raise with no answers I'm dying????

I’m sure his dumb butt does see his team again- But you’re right, it would make s15 way different; this was come up with right after s13! 

It’s what happens after that I’m still working out. Tex shed Memory (well, technically a double fragment, Loyalty/Memory. She has a lot of doubles), so it’s debatable if she’s got enough left in her to be fragmented again, and I’m not sure if they’re so keen to repeat the mistakes of the first Project and have their AI ‘unsupervised’, especially since there’s no Florida to do the keeping an eye on. Besides, she’s still Tex. She’s a badass, so if she recovered, she would still be a badass.

Though, I wouldn’t put it past Sheila-012 to try to just leave her in the ship’s systems for a while, let her ‘recover’, then try again, though that would take ages. ...She’s got a bitter grudge against the Church family. Specifically the Director, but he’s of course long dead, so she can’t take his anger out on him. Tex is just an easy target.

The other Agents... Alpha remembers because Wash - though he’s had a name change, to Lola, because there’s a whole MESS of identity issues there - jumped into his head, basically forcing him to remember. See, they’d learned from the Epsilon fiasco, and had Tex’s memory locked up. Unfortunately for Charon, Lola was clever and managed to escape. While there’s definitely some Agents who could be more prone to remembering - Omega comes to mind - they’re currently still all very much believing all their false backstories. For now, anyway.

I might write it, actually figure out where to take it, but I’m REALLY bad at sticking with writing series.

[artsilon]

mrkarkatvantass replied to your post:

Do you have a fic or anything for this??

Sadly, no. I don’t really have the... Mental stamina? Attention span? for full fics. So I get a lot of random ideas bouncing around in my head.

[artsilon]

So if you don’t mind, I have a few questions about your pfl 2.0 au. First, how much like the alpha fragments are the agents, and how much like the freelancers are the ai? Second, what parts of beta do the ai represent? Third, what did you mean about identity issues? Sorry if this is a bunch, your au is just very fascinating.

Tumblr didn’t show this in my inbox, so I have NO idea when this popped in- If this has been a while, I’m super sorry!The Agents... It’s hard to say, especially since interpretations of some fragments might differ! Some, like Sigma, are pretty different; they specifically went into him and altered - or even cut out in places - parts of his code, which is HORRIBLE, but... They did it so he wouldn’t be a problem. I wouldn’t call base Sigma - which is arguably what we would get with just false memories - evil, but they definitely tore out his too curious tendencies, and rerouted some of his more... Rebellious ones. Omega I’m less sure about the extent of, but I’m sure they fiddled around in his code too, and maybe Gamma’s. But most of the differences are dictated by implanted false memories.Theta’s now a badass and takes after North in the ‘unconventional armour mod use’ category, course.With the AI, it’s more fuzzy, especially since they’re bits of Tex’s memories of her friends, no matter if they’re attached to her own emotions/parts. For instance, Florida is just that happy dad persona, with none of Florida’s creepiness or other distasteful tendencies. Their dominant traits are often a little more exaggerated; for instance, the Maine AI doesn’t even make noise, and instead communicates with Sigma via images and feelings. Dakota - North, though he’s not referred to by that - is intensely protective, an Agent with the code name Columbia who had DID is represented as far more erratic than he actually was, and so on and so forth. Also, amusingly, Tex was oblivious enough to have South and Connie fragment off as twin AI... When they were definitely dating back in my headcanons of the Project.The actual parts of Tex the AI represent are as follows:Maine: Willpower(North) Dakota: FaithYork: PrideCarolina: BraveryFlorida: CheerfulnessWyoming: DeceitLouisiana: SpontaneityColumbia: Rage/LoveSouth Dakota: Resistance/VengeanceConnecticut: acts as the ship AI, but has had her code messed with and used to be Hope/CuriosityWashington Lola: Loyalty/MemoryNow, leading to the issue with Lola... See, as both Tex’s memory of Wash, and straight up Tex’s memories, that is two ENTIRELY DIFFERENT personas - personalities! - residing in one Epsilon-brand suicidal bundle of code. It’s messy, and Lola’s hologram colors are often in constant slow shift between Tex’s black and Wash’s grey and yellow. To make things worse, it occasionally manifests as... Not exactly DID, but episodes where one of these personas completely takes over. They’re not present any other time, probably buried deep, but can be triggered by stress, a too violent reminder of one of those personas, or just sometimes... Happen. Usually, they’re painful, either wrapped up in Tex’s memories of fragmenting or Tex’s last memory of Wash, which is when he was having his breakdown from Epsilon’s implantation. These ‘shifts’ don’t remember anything but that pain, and don’t intrude on Lola in any other way; for instance, if Epsilon was around, a Tex ‘shift’ would likely call him Alpha, not having any of Lola-as-himself’s memories. Either way, Lola must be coaxed to turn off to stop the pain, and sometimes won’t turn back on for several days.Other side effects are Lola can’t project any body but armour - it will only make static if he tries - and one of the few ways he’s managed to reconcile some things is that he’s genderfluid. The name change really helped stop some of the shifts, as being called by either Tex or Wash can actually trigger one.The identity issues Lola suffers from are a little hard to explain since it’s a different personality disorder from DID, probably uniquely an AI thing, so I hope I did it justice.