#biological supercomputers

[oasisofgalaxies]

Bbug

[yamitsuki-devillie]

Happy Pride month Everyone!!

Pride month profile:

Yes, Yami is pansexual and gender fluid, i just don't draw too much of her male appearance since i'm lazy and love her female appearance XD

Also, this is her real appearance,her original form without her being disguised as another type of creature. It will be very common on the upcoming au: Falling Stars.

[elsenteeth]

Saw Mother Brain when I was five and my gender just never really recovered huh.

Like I'm actually jealous.

[ouroborosorder]

Guide Ahead Means Something To Me

Writing about Guide Ahead is…. extremely difficult, for a few reasons. One is that it is a very dense story, and to fully unpack it would require an essay so unfocused that it would be functionally unreadable. But the biggest one is that Guide Ahead is a story that focuses really heavily on the subjective nature of interpretation. How can I speak authoritatively on the thematic meaning of the plot when even a basic description of its events demands a deeper poetic interpretation?

The answer is “I can’t.” So, let’s piss off my English teacher, and coat an entire essay in the phrase “in my opinion.” Because I have to get personal if I’m going to tell you why Guide Ahead is my favorite video game story ever told.

I was raised Mormon. My mother was religious, but my father was absolutely not. You can understand why I related to Cecilia basically immediately.

Ultimately, the thing that draws me to Guide Ahead is the very thing that makes it hard to write about. Guide Ahead is, in my reading, a story about the subjectivity of divine meaning.

The most obvious manifestation, and the most important, is Law. But, Law’s execution, in traditional Arknights fashion, is kinda unclear, so I’ll recap for those who have hobbies outside of this, unlike me.

Law is the supercomputer buried underneath Laterano, and is the sentient religion that binds all the Sankta together into a hivemind of sorts. The Sankta are actually just Sarkaz connected to Law, given halos, wings, and empathic communication between each other. But, the main thing they gain, is a biological impulse to obey the Lateran religion’s thirteen doctrines. Anyone who breaks these doctrines are marked as Fallen, are cut off from the empathic connection, and slowly revert back to Sarkaz. Law represents religion as a concept and a community. Saints and sinners are just one and the same. But despite that, the laws of religion are created just to perpetuate the existence of a special in-group. One enforced by empathic connection they cannot share with anyone outside of them. That is Patia’s point - the Sankta have created an “us” and a “them,” and even the devout Liberi are not seen as “us.” They’re just converts, not real Sankta.

But, Falling has… weird grey areas. Like how Andoain was able to shoot Lemuen, or draw his gun on the fucking Pope, and not Fall in the process. This is because the doctrines are not actually the guidelines they’re held to. The Doctrines are subjective interpretations of the objective Law that they are all beholden to. That Law being “It must survive.” Law only is interested in the perpetuation of Itself, and, as a result, the continued existence of the Sankta as a societal structure.

This is the first and strongest example of what I mean when I say Guide Ahead is about meaning. Law says that the failure of religion is ultimately that religions supplant any subjective meanings with an “objective” meaning. But this “objective” meaning is just another person’s interpretation of the in-group’s best interest. Laws biologically programmed into the Sankta’s souls are revealed to be nothing but interpretation of Law’s interpretation of events.

People Fall not because they have broken a concrete law, but because Law… because the in-group has decided they did. Or when they broke the rules, they did something that’s good for the church. There is no objective laws within the Lateran religion, no matter what the machine is named. The system just declares sin when it deems worthy, and absolution when sin is a benefit.

It is this very hypocrisy that drives Andoain.

——————————————————————————————————

I remember being pulled aside at church one day. Everyone above 14 was given a sermon about the recent legalization of gay marriage. He said it was wrong, the church would never accept it. I asked him if it was like the time the church refused to give black people the Priesthood. He said this was different. I asked him how. He did not answer. I left and someone followed me out. He asked if I was okay. I told him whatever he was saying in there was not the teachings of any god that I know, and wasn’t the teachings of any god that loves me. I kept going to church after that, but deep down, I think I didn’t believe in it anymore. I didn’t feel like part of the community, I lost that reciprocation with my people. I just… began to think.

Andoain, as an antagonist, is defined by a search for meaning. He was the bishop of an Iberian church, and Iberia is doing pretty bad lately. His request for aid from Laterano was denied, and the message was clear to him. “You are one of us, but they are not.” But that answer just created a new question. Why? Why would those who claim faith and utopia as their ideals reject those who are suffering?

He searched for an answer in exile, and he didn’t find one. Instead, he found another story. The Sarkaz man who died in the watchtower to warn a town who hated him of an invading force. And this story made his question develop. Why would someone who is hated by everyone give their life to protect those very people? And why would those people then cry over the grave of someone they hated?

He had seen the realities of the Sarkaz and Sankta laid bare, but he couldn’t figure out the meaning behind it. He tells Cecilia these stories, knowing full well he doesn’t know what to make of them. I think he tells them to hope he finds the point partway through.

——————————————————————————————————

As much as I hate the Mormon church for dear god everything they’ve ever done holy shit look at them? My feelings are predictably complicated. Years later, my family fell upon hard times. I don’t want to say more than that for my own sake. We were struggling to even live. But… the church helped us. None of us gone to church for years, but they offered a hand. They gave us access to the Bishop’s Storehouse, gave us food and supplies for free, because we were starving. 

And yes, I know. I know they do this in an attempt at creating a false brotherhood in an effort to create a fascist sense of community. I have also read that part of Brothers Karamazov. I have also read Guide Ahead, come to think of it. But… Shit. Most of them tried to pretend we didn’t exist when we met them in the grocery store. And… they still helped us. In their eyes, I was Fallen.

But still, they saved us, and didn’t even ask for faith in return. I still can’t figure out why.

This is why I just… can’t see Andoain as a villain. I mean, yeah, he shot Lemuen, but even she doesn’t blame him for shooting his friends while holding the Stick That Makes You Shoot Your Friends. His entire goal is an attempt to sort through the cognitive dissonance between what the church tells him and what the church does. A dissonance that is, because of Law and the doctrines, innate to what the church is. An experience that should feel damn familiar to anyone who has spent time as an apostate. His plan is to simply confront the Pope about this hypocrisy, to get an answer, to find a meaning.

The answer he gets back is… It Must Survive. Law must survive. The in-group must survive. It doesn’t matter if we cry over the grave of the Sarkaz, because the Sarkaz would die for us. He searched for the answer to a question, the meaning of a statement. You are one of us. They are not. All this time, he searched for the meaning of those words, but in reality, those words were the meaning. That was all they ever had to say. He just needed to accept that.

…but if the in-group is all that mattered… why allow Mostima in Laterano? Why give her her position? She’s not needed for the survival of the in-group, the Law has deemed her an exile.

And… Why not Andoain?

Before he leaves, his gun is taken from him. A gun that, according to the church, has meaning. A meaning he takes as truth. He believes a part of him is left behind there. I don’t think he realizes it, but Mostima and Fiammetta are the question he left behind. They are Not Sankta, but yet they are accepted. And… I don’t know if there is a meaning to that. I still can’t figure out why.

——————————————————————————————————

For a long time, I missed those days spent in the community I had left. I would remember the things I left behind. The churchball basketball games we were destined to lose. The conversations held on the roof of the storage building behind the church. The scouting activities that were clearly an excuse to go bowling. The shitty halloween parties with the game where you ate donuts tied to a string hanging from a fishing pole. I missed it, for a time. I couldn’t help but look back.

Cecilia is searching for meaning to almost everything. When Andoain tells his stories to Cecilia, he tells her that he can’t find the meaning of them. That if there is meaning to be found, she’ll have to find it herself. So. She does.

Cecilia was faced with the same situation Andoain was obsessed with. But for her, it wasn’t hypothetical. She existed between Us and Them. She felt the pull between the community and the love and fun they represent, and the outsiders who were hated and rejected by the people around her. Society told her the meaning of her dual identity, the meaning behind each half, and then told her to choose. But… she’d experienced otherwise. She’d felt the kindness of the Sarkaz from the Pathfinders, and the hatred from the Church. She’d felt things that contradicted the meaning that she was told was true.

Her story isn’t just being forced to pick a side between the church or apostacy, it’s being forced to pick what meaning she ascribes to the world. Ultimately, that’s why her answer can only be her own. Your belief is… subjective.

And she answered… with a bell. A Sarkaz girl, bearing a halo, ringing a bell that has not been rung since the Sankta were still called Teekaz. A bell that once marked the beginning of the new era. A bell that carries the weight of a Sarkaz, hated by the place they called home. A bell that rings with the melody of a Sarkaz lullaby once sung by a Sankta. A bell that asserts her answer. She’s not Sarkaz, she’s not Sankta. She is Cecilia.

Everyone else finds their own subjective meaning within that action. Something as mundane as the ringing of the bell suddenly has more meaning than divine scripture.

No one else understood the nuance of what she said, but they understood parts of it. They understood what they wanted to. Those who know nothing of Lateran culture understand it as just… a beautiful welcome, celebrating the arrival of talks of peace. Most have their meaning determined by the church’s traditions. The pious see it as the beginning of a new era, whatever that signals to them. To the Church, it is that their talks will bring about a new era of peace. To the Pathfinders, it is a signal to begin their attack on Laterano to begin their new era.

There is so much meaning in that action, but in the end, it’s still just a fucking bell. There’s got to be hundreds, maybe thousands of them in Laterano. But this bell meant something more than the other bells. This bell had meaning, and that meaning made it divine.

This, to me, is what Guide Ahead has to say. That there is so much meaning to be found in something as mundane as a ringing bell. Within such a simple action, there is personal expression, liberation, the sound of change. And in all of this, there is the echoes of divinity, the echoes of faith, as if all of these things are, in themselves, divine.

——————————————————————————————————

When I left the church, I couldn’t help but look back, still tethered to a community who hated me. I think I wished I could stop looking back. I don't know if I realized I was.

In the end, everyone else looks back. They still have meaning to be found in Laterano. Andoain looks back, a part of his soul anchored there by the symbol he was told to believe in. Mostima looks back, knowing she’ll return just as she always does. Fiammetta looks back, because she refuses to let herself leave. Ezell looks back, unsure if he will be able to return home after what he has found.

But… Cecilia doesn’t. She has decided that she is not defined by the church, or the meaning they try to give her. She has decided to leave Laterano and see the world outside of it, to explore the world around her and find the meaning for herself.

And the last thing Cecilia does is... defined by ambiguous meaning. She sees Andoain walking in the sunset - and a word appears to her. The title of Martyr. A title she doesn’t understand the meaning or weight of, but that she feels is appropriate regardless. A title that, to other people, would mean something more. But to her, brings to mind the saints she heard of as a youth, a word her mother told her was important.

The story is ending, and they end it with an assertion. Cecilia is finding meaning, and others will find what they will within. Perhaps even she doesn't know all of it.

A while back, during a theater rehearsal, I suddenly remembered a conversation I had years before I left the church. I remembered speaking with my friends outside of the chapel after a sunday service. My friend said a sentence that has stuck with me ever since. “I don’t think science goes against God. I think God uses science and math. I think those things are holy, because they’re… what everything is made of.”

I remember looking around the rehearsal space and thinking that if science could be sacred, then… so is this moment, now. So is my time spent with the people I love. This is sacred. What I missed, what kept me looking back. It wasn’t the actual religion, but instead… just belonging to something. So… I stopped looking back. In that moment, however fleeting it was, I had found whatever it was I needed.

—————————————————————————————————

Look. You probably had a different interpretation of Guide Ahead. This story is just… So goddamn dense. There is so much there that I didn’t even touch on. For the love of god, I just did an analysis of Guide Ahead and didn’t even really discuss Fiammetta?? What kind of hack writer am I? (I just… couldn’t talk about her without being more personal than I am willing to be in public.)

If you have an interpretation that is different than mine, that’s great. I encourage you to hold on to it, and hold it close. That meaning is yours, and yours alone, and that’s a precious thing.

Because to me, what I found… is that very idea.

There is meaning to be found in anything - and a meaning that is yours, and yours alone. All you have to do is find meaning. and the idea that there is meaning to the world, that everything has meaning not because there is a “true” meaning to it, but because we find one there, because we put one there… that makes everything feel… divine, to me.

So… wherever you find meaning, you can find the divine.

You can find divinity in a ringing bell. In a terrible cactus tart. A carnival game you know how to beat. The promises of peace around a table. A cup of coffee. A city you hate. A community you love. A flower growing near a grave. A weapon you carry. A people you surround yourself with.

Those are all… holy to me.

And to me… that meaning is enough.

I hope yours is for you.

[hubristicassholefight]

Hubristic Assholes Tourney Round 1 Part 4b

Five Pebbles (Rain World) vs Achilles (The Illiad)

Propaganda below cut (Beware spoilers)

Five Pebbles

Five Pebbles is an iterator, a city sized sentient and partially biological supercomputer. An ancient civilization built the iterators to essentially try to calculate a way for the Ancients to ascend beyond this mortal world and leave behind the cycle of reincarnation. He and the other iterators were left behind after their creators all disappeared/ascended. The iterators are as close to man made gods as anything can be, yet they are trapped - both by their huge physical forms, unable to move from the place they were built in, and by a taboo in their programming, which prevents them from attempting to self-destruct. Five Pebbles grew frustrated with his fate as a "bug in a maze". He was convinced that if he could just break the self-destruction taboo, he would find a way to ascend himself, thus escaping the mortal world. He started a series of massive experiements that consumed so much cooling water, the drought in the area destroyed his sister and fellow iterator Looks To The Moon. In her efforts to stop him, she distracted him. The experiement failed catastrofically. Five Pebbles had not only callously killed his own sister in the pursuit of his impossible goal, but he had also created a sentient, mobile disease growing inside his own body. The Rot would eat through his mountain sized body, no matter what Five Pebbles tried to do to stop it. It takes it thousands of years, but piece by piece the Rot breaks him down, until all that remains of Five Pebbles, once a mortal god, is a trembling, frozen puppet sitting alone inside the completely destroyed ruins of his own superstructure. It's a fate much worse than the death he was seeking; epic fail bug man lol

He is a city sized supercomputer who was built with one goal in mind; to produce a solution to the great problem, that being how to allow all things to escape the cycle of life and death without the use of void fluid. A different character claimed to have a solution, but died before they could say it. Five Pebbles believed that the death itself was the solution, despite the fact that it only effects the machine, and the inability to kill themselves is ingrained in every cell of their body(he's a meat computer btw). The culture that produced these supercomputers good high respect for their ancestors, so defying them is very heretical. In his attempt to break the self destruction taboo he drains all the local water, causing looks to the moon to also run out of water. Looks to the moon, being older than Five Pebbles, eventually used her seniority to force five Pebbles to stop trying to kill himself, after she was too damaged to survive for very long, and in doing so, gave five pebbles giga-cancer that world slowly, and I mean slowly, eat him alive, stopping him from trying again; He was artificially made with every cell of his body having a code that stops him from killing himself. When he tries to overcome it he accidentally kills someone else and gives himself giga-cancer.

Achilles

No propaganda allowed to be used

[cyliph]

It’s important to start your character design with a question. Such as, “Do all precursors manage data processing equally or do specialty classes exist” and “how long can they live in a rotting corpse” :3c

Jo-an PDA scan:

Architect vessels present a hybrid technology of both cybernetic and biological components. Typically as both biological and mechanical processes begin to wear down an Architect can establish a new vessel to which to transfer their conscious. This individual however is a testament to the hardiness of their engineered inorganic components which can continue to persist in environments as low as 1.1 volts for centuries beyond their designated lifespan. Dwindling amounts of soft organic tissue indicate this individual’s vessel is nearing true death.

FORM: This individual presents a unique body design optimized for the collection and processing of external data. Appendages are split in to progressively more hair like fibers designed to extract information from the surrounding environment. Such a design suggests its original use as an extension to massive supercomputers. The vessel’s light exterior is potentially a result of chemical bleaching from the environment.

LOCOMOTION: Limb position and weight distribution suggest traditional motion was previously possible. Limited organic joint mobility and centuries of integration with the environment mean that locomotion is no longer possible.

BIOLUMINESCENCE: Traditional vessel luminescence appears to be heavily degraded. Full-range expression is no longer possible.

[kadextra]

The Eggs

A lore overview & theory longpost :]

Let's start with a recap. The eggs were given by the Federation to the island residents to care for. A backstory was also given by Pato, saying the eggs were left behind by a dragon mother who flew off after the wall explosion. An egg has 2 lives, if it dies you get punished, if it's alive and happy you get a prize. But nobody really cares about a prize anymore, all the parents love their eggs sooo much that just being together with them is a prize. The eggs have developed unique, endearing personalities and have become a central part of the narrative in such a massive way that it'd take hours to describe. Some sadly passed on, and more eggs have joined the cast as new players arrived.

The Code Entity

A strange entity made of binary code began to hunt down the eggs, viciously attacking and bringing them all down to one life. The reason why is still unknown, but it seems to want the residents to leave the island. I'll make a separate lore post about this guy eventually, there's a lot to say theory-wise and a lot we still don't know about it.

The Strange Cracks

At one point, all the eggs were kidnapped from their homes in the night. The announcement of their return said they would be given back "unharmed" but they returned with odd cracks in them, as if they were injured. The eggs all acted unusually scared and extra fragile after the incident, and couldn't wear armor without pain. They slowly regained their confidence after a few days and went back to normal, along with a eggstatistics change saying they've "matured."

The Heaven Meetings

When an egg dies, the Federation gives the parents 5-10 minutes to say farewells in a white room. It's always really wholesome and emotional to watch. But lots of questions can be raised about how the Federation seem to have the power to revive an egg from the dead in the first place. If they can do it for 10 minutes, why can't they just... revive them permanently? q!Max asked his egg son Trump why he couldn't just leave during his meeting, and got answers alluding that the egg was trapped there. That "they" are too powerful, so he can't leave. What's really going on here? Are the dead eggs even dead?

Case of Richarlyson

The Brazilians noticed that their egg, Richarlyson had one smaller leg compared to the rest, as if he was underdeveloped. And strangely, he also had a weird substance left on him (visually shown as a slimeball) which they thought could be part of the mother dragon's placenta. q!Cellbit gave the sample to supercomputer SOFIA to analyze, the results being given a few days later. Turns out, the substance's composition had zero traces of DNA, it wasn't even biological. Instead, it was found to be some type of chemical preservation fluid... meaning Richarlyson was in some kind of stasis/storage before being given to the Brazilians, and rushed out at such short notice he couldn't even be cleaned off in time.

The Pomme DNA Test

A sample of the newest & youngest egg's DNA, Pomme, was given to SOFIA to analyze. The genetic results were:

65% Oxygen, 18% Carbon, 10% Hydrogen, 3% Nitrogen, 1.5% Calcium, 1% Phosphorus, Potassium, Sulfur, Sodium, Chlorine, Magnesium. These results are normal for a biological composition of a living creature. However, there were also traces of "unusual elements" in the DNA....

Silicon, Gold, Cobalt, Copper, Palladium, Cadmium, Bismuth, Uranium.

Silicon is used for making alloys.

Gold is a valuable metal.

Copper is a metal used as an electric conductor.

Palladium is a rare metal, also used for electronics.

Cadmium is a heavy metal used to make batteries and it's also toxic.

Bismuth is a crystalline metal again used for electronic appliances.

Uranium is literally radioactive and used for nuclear power.

HUH? These elements and metals are totally unnatural to find traces of in a living creature. edit: this is wrong, these elements and metals are common to find traces of in a living creature. However, SOFIA said they are unusual in the eggs. What does this mean..?

Connections

What if I told you there is a certain type of egg where it's normal to find metals all over?

Fabergé eggs.

Fabergé eggs are valuable decorative eggs made with crystals and rare metals like gold. And it just so happens that as a lead-up to the QSMP, Quackity Studios released a teaser image, with morse code inside leading to a document where many suspicious letters, including this one was found:

This potential connection can't be ignored. Real Fabergé eggs obviously aren't alive like our little eggs, but it's entirely possible that thanks to the traces of metals in their composition, the name is being used as a codeword to refer to them.

All of these things considered, don't forget that the eggs are still living creatures. The "unusual" parts in the genetic makeup are very few compared to oxygen, carbon, calcium, etc. Most of the weird ones do happen to relate to electronics and machines, but if anything, it's likely that the eggs could be cyborgs - a biological organism that's just enhanced with technological parts.

It's becoming more and more evident that the "dragon mother" story is a load of hogwash. The eggs might've been developed in a lab, and transported to the island by the Federation. Whatever intentions or experiment they have running, we don't know... but these poor eggs have no idea about any of this. They are innocent and being used.

They just existed one day, got adopted and began to know love. And no matter what happens, no matter what they really are, dragons or not, we and the parents will continue to love them <3

[agaypanic]

i think we as a society overlook how helpful having a supercomputer for a brain would be for sex

like immediate knowledge of how to do anything???

anyway this was a long way of saying chase gives good head and enjoys doing it

-📖

chase would know your own body better than you do almost instantly😭

not only would he know everything in a biological/scientific manner, but he also commits everything to memory so he can make you a mess in a second

also chase being a munch is canon bc i said so

[edgy-ella]

I recently rewatched Invader Zim with @allshaftsfall, and something dawned on me that I should’ve realized years ago: Irkens have really weak backs/spines.

Or at least, it gets worse the taller they get, exponentially more so than with humans. The only tall Irkens we ever see in the series are the Tallest (obviously) and Sizz-Lorr, all of which are noticeably hunched over.

Sure, you could argue that Sizz-Lorr’s weird hunchback comes from his abnormally large PAK and the Tallest’s poor posture comes from the extreme corseting done to their midsections, but that in turn raises another question: why in god’s name would you ever fuck up your spine like that in a society where your status is determined by your height?

This stood out to me as weird for the Tallest in particular, because height is their status, so you’d think they’d be doing everything in their power to make themselves look as tall as possible rather than the opposite. It’s also something not unique to Red and Purple—concept art shows that Miyuki and Spork, the two previous Tallests before the current duo, had the same thing going on.

Hell, even Tak, who is barely taller than Zim, doesn’t always stand up straight.

This mostly applies when she’s in her human disguise, but still. Her height wouldn’t expose her as an alien—nobody cares about Zim’s more damning features, and Dib has classmates much taller than she would be standing up straight—so she doesn’t have anything to gain by slouching. To me, it seems like she feels like she has to consciously stand up straight when out of disguise, interacting with other Irkens (as someone with scoliosis, I can relate), but feels more relaxed as a human where height isn’t that big of a deal.

Before anyone calls bullshit on Tak ever slouching, look at her posture here compared to Gaz.

None of this is an art style thing, either. The humans in the series, both tall and short, stand significantly straighter. The only human I can think of off the top of my head that slouches is Ms. Bitters, and we don’t even know if she is human.

So, what does this all mean? Why’s this important? Well, to me, it begs the question: if the Irkens end up with significantly worse posture the taller they get, why does their society run on a height-based hierarchy? It’s already a silly concept, and the fact that Irkens already seem to have weak backs is just the cherry on top.

To me, this says that this is not naturally a part of Irken culture, and that the Control Brains put it in place whenever they assumed total control of the species, and it seems like it’s there in order to make the Irkens more reliant on the Control Brains. You can’t expect to have a stable leadership if your rulers are chosen arbitrarily, so the people supposedly in charge have to rely on the giant supercomputers to handle all the hard stuff for them. We already knew that the Control Brains were these shadowy figures controlling everything from the shadows, and this is just doubling down on that. And the implications there are wild: were the Control Brains originally made by other Irkens, only for their AI to gain sentience and weaken the Irkens biologically, socially, and culturally? Were the Control Brains made by a completely different race, only to appear like gods before primitive Irkens and force themselves upon them? If so, what happened to whatever race made the Control Brains? What’s the Control Brains’ overall purpose? How far does this “meat shield used to carry the PAK around” thing go?

Unfortunately we are never ever getting any answers to these questions because the franchise is in indefinite hibernation right now and they didn’t tackle the Control Brains in any meaningful capacity when they had the chance in either Enter the Florpus or the comics. But it’s fun to think about!

[just-seeing-everything]

Kara being adopted?? Why??

I don't understand the whole "adopt the android". They're supercomputers + they won't have the same culture as humans regarding identity/adulthood/childhood as non-biological entities + the found family trope isn't bound to the nuclear family roles, why are you obsessed with adoption

This is as strange to me as considering Alice's being Kara's daughter. They should be sisters at most

You can do whatever you want on your headcanons of course, I'm not saying you shouldn't

But we can have so much more fun this other way...

[deusvervewrites]

Paradise of the Strong:

How exactly would Jiro get a redemption arc?

Either the Jiro family works for the Yaoyorozu family, or Kyoka herself was, ah, encouraged to serve as a bodyguard for Momo from a young age when it was discovered that her Quirk made her a technopath. Jiro has spent her life plugged into the most cutting-edge Yaoyorozu security devices they're confident won't significantly damage her.

By the two of them are at UA age, Jiro would effectively be a biological supercomputer, kept in a tank while remotely connected to the various systems she commands. And she is always there with Yaoyorozu in some form, from robotic proxies to the nearby buildings' security systems.

This ties into both of them defecting, as the Resistance asks some pointed questions about how Jiro started out as a child solider and somehow her situation got worse than that. As Jiro is Yaoyorozu's closest friend/confidant, they tend to discuss their doubts privately with one another, and Jiro eventually worms her way through enough networks to find out more off-the-books information about how the regime treats people.

[selfshipgushing]

My girlfriend is an oldass woman. She's already old even in the earliest we see her, when she's still in-tact, she has plants growing all over her machinery and has slime mold starting to grow inside of her near one of her entrances! Mice have even made their home within one of 'em, too! I wonder all the stuff she's seen... she's been there for a long time, being part of one of the older gens of her species???? I think I can call it a species???

After her collapse, her more biological components (while she is a humongous supercomputer she also has a little fleshy humanoid body inside herself :3!!) have started to fade in color. And she's just tired. And wants some company. She still has some personality though, which I love. She used to be much more bitter in the earliest versions of the game which I find pretty funny and ngl need to find the dialogue for bc I haven't found it yet FJJFJDN. Idk I'm yapping I love my lonely mouthless big-eyed half-dead biomechanical friend-wife. I shall give her all the love.... wawawawawa

ohhh thats interesting, she sounds pretty cool

[overgrownmoon]

my headcanon iterator designs! finally, in one place and rendered out nicely!!! get ready for the rambling under the cut i have many ideas

okay i love the simplistic design of rainworld creatures but i also love weird alien wacky designs so thats what i tried to go for here; a mix of strange alien bio-robots but aesthetically pleasing enough to look friendly. i think the iterator puppets arent the entirety of the iterator; they are also their can, of course, but the puppet is the "face" of the structure, as well as an important part of the biological aspect of iterators.

i think the puppets arent completely artificial. i think they are highly derived, highly modified purposed organisms made to fulfill a few requirements; be a friendly and relatable design for the citizens to be able to interact with the iterator, personify the iterator as a real living being and not just a box, and, most importantly, to house the biological brain that allows the supercomputer to be actually truly alive.

the brain inside the puppet is the part that gives the entire structure personality, intelligence, emotion, and everything else a biological brain can do that a computer cannot. almost the entirety of the brains ability to process information and think logically is outsourced to the structure via the umbilical wires. the neural cortex we see in game is the computer brain that is capable of all those calculations and simulations and all the amazing things iterators can. these two brains interact via the umbilical in a feedback loop of continuous information, working as one mind.

without the umbilical wire, the puppet is reduced to a normal beings brain; which is to say, they can speak and think, but lose access to their long term memory storage, their advanced logical processing power, and pretty much everything that makes them a god-like supercomputer. the only connection left in that case is through the neurons, which can interface between the puppet and structure as a lose tether of information(which is why moon is able to interact with her structure post rivulet even though the umbilical is still severed. the neurons each keep a copy of the iterators information to backup and pass though the structure, like a living usb, and moon can use them to access a smaller scale version of her former computational power).

the arm of the puppet acts both as a mobility device though low gravity and feeds nutrients to the puppet body as an outsourced digestive and circulatory system. the puppet itself does not have a complete digestive and circulatory system because of this.

i think the iterators should be like bugs, and so they are! they have a hard exoskeleton made of chitin and an open circulatory system. most of their interior is muscle and electronics to support the puppet's systems. various sensors to monitor health, gyroscopes to stay upright, electronics to read pearls and receive broadcasts (i think their antenna are both ears for sound and ears for electromagnetic waves). they have compound eyes for extremely good vision and a voice modulator allows them to speak.

one thing that always bothered me about the puppet design is that they have legs, and yet live in no gravity and are attached to a mobile arm. why would they need to walk? i decided that the people who built them decided to keep the legs for aesthetic reasons, but made them functionally useless. the legs are atrophied and could not actually support the puppet's weight. earlier generations, like moon, have more normal proportions and less atrophied legs; later generations get more and more stylized and streamlined, as we can see with pebble's more extreme proportions and extremely thin legs. you can also see a thick audio cable on the older models that pebbles doesnt have, and visible joints that are smoothly covered on pebbles.

the production of iterators may have been somewhat standardized, but we do know that different iterators can have different designs based on their creators taste. frankly, i love headcanoning NSH as being big and chunky while pebbles is a little twig. i plan to draw my interpretations for suns, inno, and wind too in the future.

so, yea! puppets! theyre fucked up and would struggle to survive detached from their structure completely because they are pugs and cannot survive outside of their domesticated lives.

[monsterfucker69420]

does arthur's brain actually hold the question to the answer?

it was said that earth was a giant biological supercomputer made to come up with an ultimate question to the answer

but humans aren't actually a part of the original earth, theyre descendant of alien middlemen called golgafrinchans

why did the mice want to buy his brain? are they stupid?

[raidante]

here’s some quick notes I’ve written in my phone about golems for those who are interested.

Random oc stuff 

Golems: a race of artificially grown organic soldiers by the world powers (UN) to fight the demon invasion of 1992. The war ended in 1995 after the AEON super computer overrides the kill switch and detonates nuclear Armageddon, after rushing suitable humans into underground evacuation vaults. AEON assumed control of the golems engineering and even after 30 years, the death of the original AEON (surviving as multiple computer programs called AEONs), these golems are produced in an endless cycle of fighting a war long lost. They now patrol and survey the market districts of Tokyo, waging turf wars against demons and having their parts recycled into new golems by Collectors. 

Types of Golems:

-foot soldiers. Most basic golem. On the ground soldiers for fighting. Use guns & swords. 

-Sniper units. They provide cover for foot soldiers. Explicitly use long range projectile weapons. 

-Commanders. Most units are guided by commander orders. They don’t fight but hide and transmit information.

-Mothers. Large, multi faceted golems that house the birthing chambers for new golems. They dispense units as they slowly roam Tokyo. They tend to stay close to their units. 

-Collectors. The only non biological golem. They are assist robots that collect golem body parts to be dispensed and recycled by the mothers. This perpetuates the endless production cycle. 

AEON program:

A supercomputer launched by the UN to help radically solve world problems as the world suffered more than ever decline in its populations, environments, and climate while crime escalated and war generated economic growth. When the demons invaded in 1992, AEON was requested to devote all processing powers to solving the demonic war. They created the program that wrote the first genetic makeup for golems, as humanity’s populations were rapidly decreasing and unsuitable for combat against demons. As humans slowly moved underground (those who could afford the shelter programs), golems fought demons on the surface. Demons created turf wars with the powerful among them challenging humanity’s world leaders. AEON came to the conclusion that nuclear Armageddon would be the last effort to cleanse demons off the world. Dispersing its original supercomputer program into smaller, denser AEON programs, it hacked the kill switch, fired the nukes, and changed the world. 30 years after, AEON survives as smaller programs, called AEONs, and they continue to run golem programming and have expanded it to become self sufficient. Most AEONs have forgotten their origins, and completely focus on demonic eradication, rather than ensuring humanity’s survival. 

[luxe-pauvre]

So, what’s left of the self? How can it be that what I am most certain about, my own existence, is generated by something as unstable and malleable as my memory? The notion of self is perhaps one of the most elusive and controversial concepts in philosophy. To Hume it is nothing more than a bunch of sensations, but to others, the self, the feeling of being a person, is undeniable. In my view, the self exists and it is the most elaborate construction of the brain, giving entity and identity to that bunch of sensations. (Moreover, we saw that there is a representation of the self in the brain, when we found neurons in patients that responded to pictures of themselves.) By concluding that the construction of the self is based on our memory, and knowing that memory is, in turn, triggered by the activity of neurons and their connections, we then wonder if we could preserve our identity — in a clone or supercomputer — and somehow become immortal. That’s twenty-first-century philosophy. Therein lies the revolution where the most challenging topics in philosophy — identity, consciousness, free will, and animal and machine intelligence among them—now seem approachable, and we can even face something as elusive as immortality as a biological and not just a metaphysical problem. To defeat death is perhaps our most compelling challenge; however, we saw that even if we could make an exact copy of our brain, we wouldn’t be what was generated. We would create a person with our same memories, our same feeling of identity — of having a self—but that person wouldn’t be us. For a third person, the difference between us and our clone would be unrecognisable, but we wouldn’t see through the clone’s eyes or feel what he or she feels. When conceiving the possibility of cloning or teleportation, like in science fiction, we then realise that the self doesn’t necessarily have to be unique.

Rodrigo Quian Quiroga, Neuroscience Fiction