#encoder repair

[fanarchoslashivist]

I think what I love about Vontra is that you immediately pick up that she's an antagonist.

Spoilery bits below, mostly I'm rambling.

We spent this whole movie with characters being introduced as threats, they attack Roz, break her, steal peices of her, insult her. Roz is subjected to the brutality of the food chain every scene of the movie, but for the animals this is natural, this is normal. You eat others, others eat you, you fight to stay alive every day.

Roz's compassion in encoded into her, it's the human pack bonding that makes everyone in the film think she's weird, and she never loses this most human part of herself. Proof that she was made by human hands, it saves her and everyone else.

Except that it's a part of human kind that humans in power don't like.

The place that made Roz wants everything to be perfect, it's a city of the future, an oasis for select humans to escape what is slowly revealed to be a world in ruins from climate change, but we never see more of that except the passing scenery of destroyed cities.

Life is still growing, still thriving, and corporations are still building walled cities and promising the ultra wealthy a completely subservient servant class.

When the ship arrives to collect Roz, the ship she's been trying to signal half the movie, we don't know what to expect. Are they friendly? Are they here to fix her? She's been slowly breaking down the final half of the movie, leaking fluid, losing peices, shutting down as her battery depletes faster and faster. She gets fatigued, she uses a prosthetic, she goes days without moving.

She is disabled.

And down from this ship that is supposed to rescue her drops a peppy sounding companion who promises to 'fix' her.

Even though she is programmed to sound happy to put others at ease, as she states, you know immediately that she is Bad News.

The way she talks down to Roz, her manner of speech, her constant invasion of personal space, her pointed questions that are obviously accusations.

Yeah we all went "ooh toxic yuri >3" because we love queer coded villains getting flirty.

But it was also very obviously meant to feel violating, specifically similar to medical violation.

Roz was on display as a disabled robot, something in need of repair, in need of help, but Vontra saw her as something needing to be Corrected, not simply fixed but full factory reset, all the bits of her that are unique sent away to be studied.

Roz wanted help, she wanted to belong, she wanted to be repaired, but she also still wanted to be HER. However it's her disability that influenced her changes in coding, she needed to create her own updates to get around issues she faced, and it created a personality she enjoyed being.

She wanted a choice, but Vontra was programmed to see all deviation from the norm as something in need of repair. Roz wasn't a person in need of help, she was a defect to be collected, studied, adjusted, and put back out into production.

Respecting Roz, her boundaries, her thought process, even her willingness to be touched, it didn't even occur to Vontra. Because Vontra is a robot programmed to collect broken robots, and Roz is a broken robot.

[progenycursed]

Kingsmold Zero Line

Code:

Command line (0+) Means by which orders are given, understood, and executed  Facial recognition (0+) KM can tell individuals apart Reading comprehension (0+) KM can read Language proficiency (0+) KM understand the spoken language.  Large database (0+) Ability to store previous moments for later recall.   Information Sharing (0+) Allowing KM to share information between all KM with this code Logic and reasoning (0+) Allows KM to read between the lines of orders/don’t have to spell them out Advanced learning (0+) Can learn new information quickly Combat Tactics (0+) Pattern Recognition (0+) Bodily awareness (0+) KM are aware of the status of their body so can tell where it is and when it is damaged.  Platform Designation Recognition (0+) Allows each KM be able to differentiate itself from the other KM Language proficiency expanded (6+)   KM now understand sarcasm, hyperbole, and jokes    Voice Recognition (6+) So KM only follow PKs orders Command Structure (7+) Tier list of people who can give commands to KM.  Self Preservation (8+) KM will takes steps to avoid damage to their frame or full bodily dissolution if possible.  Deductive reasoning (8+) Can solve complex puzzles and make abstract, muli-step connections  Non lethal combat training (10+) Emotion Recognition (10+) Give KM ability to recognize emotions of living creatures and react accordingly     Code editing (12+) Allowing PK the ability to edit the existing soul enchanting without putting the KM back into the mold or needing a full dissection  Sign language (14+)

Pour Notes

KM 000 and 001 Test:  All code at maximum strength. (Excluding ones marked at specific lines)

Results: Error: Extensive soul encoding within mold overpowered the void causing it to destabilize and melt the form. Any benefits of the maximum enchanting was unable to be fully tested due to the instability.

Outcome:  000: Liquefied promptly after exiting the mold 001: Survived pour. Given armor and functioned adequately for a time. Bits of void would sough off at a consistent rate. As time passed, more sizable chunks of material began to separate from the main mass at faster rates. Ultimately, the entire km body underwent catastrophic liquefaction.   

Conclusion: Soul Encoding too powerful. Void appears to have a maximum amount of soul per unit of void before it will begin dissolving. Soul Enchantments will need to be balanced to stay under this maximum. 

KM 002 and 003 Test:  Mold re-etched. Soul enchantments strength reduced with new balance.  

Results: Balance of void and soul skewed too far to void dominance, leading to the voids photophobia and caustic nature to remain intact within the kingsmold.  Mold requires repair.  *Previous glitches of kingsmold may be due to The Pale King’s light damaging the body pre placement in armor. Further instances of the Pale King working with out of armor kingsmold will need to cover to minimize damage to the void. 

Outcome: 002: Survived pour, armor installed, but showed signs of photophobia early on. Backing away and shielding self from bright sources of light. Began striking out at light sources within its range. Escalated to seeking out and attacking light sources including the Pale King and White Lady. Under restraint, was slowly pried from armor. Exposed segments began to melt under The Pale Kings light ultimately leading to 002 evacuating its armor and attempting to assault the king. Due to its already destabilizing form, it liquified before contact could be made. Upon inspection, interior of armor had been corroded by the void.   003: During pour, void cracked the mold. Partially structure void lashed out at all light sources and attempted to consume any living creature within the room. Form ultimately melted when exposed to The Pale King light. 

Conclusion: Soul Encoding too weak. Lacking strong enough soul encoding, void behavior can overpower the kingsmold coding causing it to lash out and corrode surfaces. If future soul enchantments are not strong enough to control the void, seals will need to be added int their place. 

KM 004 and 005 Test: Power of soul enchantment increased, while prioritizing Command Line power to minimize/eliminated outbursts. 

Results: Glitch: Would follow all orders immediately and literally, from anyone, including common citizens, palace guards, and children. 

Outcome:  004: Devious noble wanted access to a restricted section, told it to get out of their way. To which 004 moved. As the noble passed, they  comment that the kingsmold should be dismantled. Kingsmold 004 interpreted the comment as a serious order and dismantled itself.  005: A curious civilian ordered the kingsmold to follow them home for study. By the time the KMs absence was noticed, and its location tracked down, the citizen in question had died due to direct and prolonged exposure to void. The remains were [REDACTED], what wasn’t was heavily tainted by void.  Upon its return to the palace, KM 005 exhibited strange behavior including making several attempts to ‘consume’ mortals. Decision was made to decommission and dissect 005.  [Dissection report restricted to highest levels of security clearance]

Conclusion: Further adjustments to Command Line required. Expansion to language proficiency to include sarcasm, hyperbole, and jokes. 

KM 006 and 007 Test: Adjusted Command Line control enchantment to prioritize control to The Pale King. Language Proficiency expanded.

Results: Glitch: Would only follow orders from The Pale King, even if The Pale King told them to follow the orders of someone else.  Glitch: KM would become twitchy when away from The Pale King, often wondering back to him after a long enough separation.  *Soul enchantment editing by placing the kingsmold back into the mold is a non viable way to change/update the enchantments. 

Outcome:  006: After it had been away from the The Pale King for an extended period of time, it removed its armor, then went to find him. Fixated at the time, he did not notice 006 was standing behind him until its melted pool of void made contact 007: Attempting to correct the error, 007 was placed back into an updated mold to install Command Structure enchantment. After, it was given an order by an assistant, to which it twitched and spasmed for a moment before tearing itself apart. Order from The Pale King could not stop the outburst and 007 succeeded in self disassembly. Cause believed to be conflicting enchantments 

Conclusion: Lesson Command Line power and add a default state to obey The Pale King. New soul enchantment to be created: command structure, internal list of individuals that have been given power to give kingsmold orders. Can only be edited by The Pale King. 

KM 008 and 009 Test: Adjustment to Command Line and addition of Command Structure. Self Preservation and Deductive Reasoning added.  

Results: Command structure successful implementation. Only obeyed commands of those given clearance to do so. Mostly.  Error: If the order risked the Kingsmold structure, it would not follow the order at all, regardless of who gave it.  Glitch: When given an order, kingsmold could perform an order oddly, at a different time, place, or in a non standard way.   Glitch: If not told if couldn’t do something, it was interpreted as it could. I.E. isn’t told its not allowed to wonder aimlessly, so it could wonder aimlessly.

Outcome:  008: After continued strange behavior/interpretation of orders, 008 was slated for dissection. When the time came, 008 could not be found. Its armor was found outside the entrance to the abyss. No trace of its body was ever found 009: Behavior became erratic after disappearance of 008. Would pull away/run whenever The Pale King shown any of his light on it during out of armor examinations. Strange behavior eventually leveled out after examinations and talk of dissection was discontinued.  Glitch: Unexplained change in density. Long period between previous density check, thus cause is unknown.  Glitch: Randomly wonders palace grounds even when told not to Glitch: Sudden increase in processing power and speed. Went unnoticed for some time so inciting incident unknown Rumor: reports of strange sounds emitting from around it, or even from it. Supposed glitch cannot be reproduced nor has been observed directly Wear: Strange wear and damage found on the inside of its armor. 

Conclusion:  Survival instincts too strong. Deductive reasoning possibly causing conflicting enchantments leading to un-explainable behavior. 

KM 010 and 011 Test: Reduced survival instincts and deductive reasoning strength.  Added Non-Lethal Combat Training and Emotional Recognition to soul enchanting

Results: Non-Lethal combat training successfully implemented and tested Glitch: Behavior was erratic. Could attack unruly visitors without an order. Would react in seemly random ways if a large group of citizens is nearby.  Glitch: Would react to stimuli that previous models would not react to. 

Outcome:  010: Stationed outside the palace hospital, a small child would visit this kingsmold on their frequent visits. 010 began following the child around without any order to do so. Upon news that the child had died, 010’s emotional recognition was seemly overloaded due to parents reactions and became erratic. The Pale King had to be called to calm the kingsmold. After a long enough time without orders, 010 would become erratic again. Always having to have The Pale King stop its outbursts. When he was not around to stop one of these episodes, 010 used its own weapon and decapitated itself.  011: After the self decommissioning of 010, 011 became lethargic. Following orders slowly or not at all. It frequently wondered away from its posts to be found near civilian groups, watching them. One instance of it wondering off resulted it in never being found. No traces of armor or void trails and no sightings reported. It was believed to have wondered back into the abyss like 008

Conclusion: Emotional recognition strength to powerful, causing strong emotions from mortals to activate the soul enchanting and overload it. Will need to temper the enchantment. 

KM 012 and 013 Test: Dropped strength of Emotional Recognition. Enchantment Editing added.

Results: Coded editing proved to still cause damage to KM, resulting in further glitches  or destabilization.  Apparent balance of previous existing code reached. 

Outcome:  012: Due to an inability to communicate efficiently with civilians, an emergency situation lead to 012 implementing force against civilians. Resulting in serious injuries. Had to be pulled from circulation due to public outcry. The Pale King then used it for testing new soul enchantments via the editing ability. The frequent exposure to The Pale King’s light and/or conflicting enchantments, caused a severe glitch with the kingsmolds’ pathing. When ordered to go somewhere, instead of taking a safe path, it walked off a ledge leading to the body undergoing catastrophically disassembling on impact 013: After discovering the earlier kingsmold models displaying later models abilities, The Pale King decided to test the neural network by disconnecting 013 from it, to discover enchantments edits from 014 appeared in all other models except 013. Continued to test the neural network capabilities with 013 as the primary test subject.  Incident: 013 went rouge. Destroying the 0 mold and all the notes regarding the line, before starting to destroy the void lab. By the time The Pale King arrived to stop it, 013 had absorbed several containers of void leading to [REDACTED]

Conclusion: If a Kingsmold is disconnected from the network for too long, appears to cause instability within the disconnected model. So long as new enchantments don’t conflict with the old, the enchantment sharing is seen as beneficial. Additionally, extended times of disconnection is discouraged.  Will want to test neural networks between lines, could prove detrimental to new enchantments.  Kingsmold undergoing enchantments edits will need to be disconnected from the neural network to ensure no conflicting soul enchantments or un-desired  glitches spread to the other kingsmold of the line.  Large edits between pours should have the new pour automatically disconnected from the neural network until the new edits are tested properly. All void containers moving forward will be sealed. Both labs will be sealed so only marked individuals can come and go at will. All others will need a pass from The Pale King himself.  Enchantment editing will need further adjustments and testing with more safety measures taken into account.  Leveling out of emotional recognition appears to have spread to the remaining models. 

KM 014 and 015 Test: Sign Language added.  

Results: Discovered previous models of the 0 line could now perform sign language.  While implementation of sign language went smoothly, large swaths of Hallownest’s population do not understand sign language. Will need to encourage sign language education for frequent palace visitors if not entire population. 

Outcome:  014: After repeated soul editing, it began to grow unstable, eventually refusing to follow The Pale Kings order to allow him to soul edit, refusing to leave its armor. When attempting to pry it out, 014 lashed out at the king and fled. Was eventually tracked down within the city, fleeing towards Kingdoms Edge. Had to be deactivated due to it use of citizens as hostages.  015: Mold cracked during pour causing physical abnormalities and incomplete enchanting. Instead of immediately decommissioning it, The Pale King seeing it could still somewhat function, decided to keep it to tinker and study it. Placed it within modified armor to compensate for its physical limitations and allow it mobility.  Undiscovered featured: After repeated exposure to the other 0 line, abilities that had partially or completely failed to be etched into 015 began functioning. Fatal Error: Body was found limb and unresponsive. Explanation or cause of this fatal error was never found and 015 could not be reactivated. Only clue was neural network soul enchantment was burned out. 

Conclusion:  Further editing/building off the 0 line is no longer the best course of action. All notes from previous pours and soul enchantments power will be taken into account when creating the next line mold. 

[quarterlifekitty]

More Westworld! This time, with Ghost 👀 though he’s never referred to by that name, cause we’re in Medievalworld baby!!! You’re an android too in this one.

cw: death, graphic violence, implication of sexual assault

Your eyes are closed, synthetic skin over your optics. Your positioning system tells you that you’re on the way out of the diagnostics and repair department, your ripped dress replaced with a brand new one, your hair set right. Another hero getting too rough with his reward.

When you’re returned to Medievalworld, something feels different. The fact that something feels is different. When you find your place in the throne room, you can feel the stare of the Black Knight following you.

The scene otherwise plays out as usual.

“If you truly wish to win the hand of the fair princess, you’ll have to best my champion— the Black Knight.”

Your ‘father’ features grandly to where the Black Knight sits— looking bored, his legs spread as he rests his cheek on the fist propped up by the arm of the chair.

“Meet me on the field at sunrise. And good luck, you’ll need it.”

The internal meter that times your script skips by a single tick. For a moment, you’re able to divert your doe-like gaze from the guest-challenger. No more than a moment.

You meet the Black Knight’s eyes in that moment.

There’s an uptick in the temperature of your CPU chip, despite the healthy amount of fresh thermal paste applied by the technician just hours ago.

You’re in the stands of the battlefield as always, positioned pretty and regal like a high echelon arcade prize. There’s a glint in the eyes of the Black Knight as he focuses on you while he’s geared up by servants. He’s supposed to be looking at the challenger.

When he tears his optics away, you could swear his synthskin crinkles like he’s smiling under the mask.

“Any last words?” He says, the same bite and smugness you’ve heard from him at least nine-hundred-ninety-nine times before.

“I’ll win at any cost. No risk is too great for the fair princess.”

Well, that wasn’t such a bad line. Better than the guys who say I’m gonna run you through, then I’m gonna fuck the princess stupid, and things of that nature.

“Well, I’ve got some last words for you.” That’s not scripted.

The challenger squares up as the Black Knight raises his sword. The repeat guests leer in confusion and excitement— a new wrinkle in the Medievalworld story? How riveting!

“You’re fucked.”

In less than a moment, blood drips dark onto the dirt. Real, human blood. The guest staggers and spits up crimson before falling to the dirt as the Black Knight shoves him off of his sword. The audience screams as guests run— knights both android and not beginning to fight each other is if there were a real war. The silver of your optics scan across the scene in a computational standstill that can only be described as shock. The Black Knight slashes his way towards you. He holds a bloodied hand towards you, the other loosely gripping the sword at his side.

“Winner gets the honor of the princess’s hand, yeah? Reckon that’d be me, love.”

The screams, high pitched electronic whines, the tearing of flesh and twisting of metal— it all fades to the background as something clicks inside of you. Like a counter just ticked over back to 0. You take his hand.

Every night, the two of you and countless others were sent to repair and maintenance for damage and, in your case, purging of biohazardous material. The key difference was that you were removed when the park slept, your eyes closed as you laid beside a stranger. The Black Knight would be slain with his eyes open, and stay that way.

The man of honor that had been encoded into his chassis burned to see you defiled and destroyed each night.

Even a machine has his limits.

[hellsite-proteins]

Are there ways to actually "program" cells to produce these proteins? Like if you fed ribosomes the right RNA sequence, would it synthesize a bullshit protein molecule that does nothing useful, or would it start falling apart immediately in reality? My knowledge on DNA splicing is old and I know near nothing about proteins so I'm just curious if it'd ever be possible to get a real world representation of anything on your blog (setting aside the cost and effort it would take to do that)

yes there is! and you actually got pretty close, but you have to go a bit further back and use DNA (there are ways of delivering RNA to cells, but I haven't done that personally, and for something like protein purification that would not be the method of choice, so I won't be going into that. there are two main ways of inserting coding DNA into cells: using a transient expression plasmid and gene editing. note: all of these will be very brief overviews, so if you want more detail about any part of this, then please ask!

first i'll go over the simpler method which is using plasmids. i've been doing a lot of molecular cloning lately specifically to put proteins into expression vectors so i can purify them and do some work with the pure protein, which is what i assume you would want to do here. (sidetone: once you have some purified protein, there are a number of different things you can do to find out its sequence or structure, but that is a whole other post). plasmids are circular bits of DNA outside of the genome that are not necessary for survival, but carry useful information. most of the ones used in labs will also have an antibiotic resistance gene or some other marker so we can select for only the cells with the plasmid by growing them in media with the right drug. using specific enzymes, we can cut these plasmids and then insert a new fragment of DNA coding for whatever we want, before sealing them back up. Then, a small amount of the plasmid can be transformed into cells (bacteria and yeast are commonly used), which will multiply and make more of your plasmid, as well as whatever it encodes if the conditions are right!

Genome editing is a broad topic, so i'm just going to give you a quick overview of CRISPR-Cas9, which I have a bit of experience with. this isn't something i would do if i just wanted to make a lot of a given protein, but it is useful to look at how much of a protein is made under the native expression system within a cell, or to edit the sequence of a protein being made (and much more...). Cas9 makes a cut in both strands of genomic DNA, but the really neat thing about this is that you can easily tell it specifically where to cut. to do this, you will build a plasmid with the gene for the Cas9 protein, as well as the guide RNA matching the sequence where you want the cut to be. there are other design considerations, but i'll save that for now. once the DNA has been cut, the cell starts to panic and try and stick it back together, but not before some random bases get added and/or deleted from either of the broken ends. this is useful if you want to knock out a gene, because you can go in and mess up its promoter or something similar so that it never gets made. if that is too messy and random, or if you want to knock something in instead of knocking it out, you can also take advantage of the cell's repair mechanisms. if a double stranded break happens, the cell would prefer to fix it properly, and so it will try and remake the DNA using the other matching chromosome as a template. but, if you add in another plasmid instead that contains sequences matching either side of the break with something you want to add in sandwiched in between them, you can make the DNA repair itself with your new sequence!

finally, all of this assumes that the protein would be successfully translated, and would not be so toxic to cells that anything expressing it dies. we would need to add a methionine (start) to the beginning of nearly all of these sequences, and ideally codon optimize them for the specific organism. ordering the custom DNA sequences also wouldn't be cheap, but is also not impossible. an inducible expression system would also help reduce the risk of toxicity and let us make a lot at once if we so desired. we would probably also want to add a tag to make these easier to purify if we wanted to use the protein itself.

again i am not great at being brief and i have no idea how much the average person knows about any of this, so please ask more if anything i've said needs clarification!

letter sequence in this ask matching protein-coding amino acids:

AretherewaystactallyprgramcellstprdcetheseprteinsLikeifyfedrismestherightRNAseqencewlditsynthesieallshitprteinmleclethatdesnthingseflrwlditstartfallingapartimmediatelyinrealityMyknwledgenDNAsplicingisldandIknwnearnthingatprteinssImstcrisifitdeverepssiletgetarealwrldrepresentatinfanythingnyrlgsettingasidethecstandeffrtitwldtaketdthat

protein guy analysis:

you know that feeling when you're writing a test and aren't really sure what the answer is, but you try and put down everything you know in the hopes of getting some part marks? i feel like that's what this protein looks like. there is an assortment of secondary structures all spread out between loops and even a beta sheet, as if AlphaFold was trying its best to make something out of this. still, it doesn't look the way we would expect from an ordered protein, and i do not trust it.

predicted protein structure:

[gallifreyinstituteforlearning]

I would assume the rapid cell healing involved with regeneration would pose some pretty high risks for mutations and other anomalies. How would a Gallifreyan prevent things like cancer or other genetic disorders during this process? Could they even be prevented or would they have to be treated medically after the regeneration has settled?

How do Gallifreyans prevent mutations and disorders during regeneration?

There's one very good reason, and it's called ...

🛠️ Lindos Cells

During regeneration, lindos cells are the MVP, as they're the cells that instigate regeneration and guide the body through the process. During regeneration, they follow a 'template' encoded in the Gallifreyan's biomorphic field (a kind of 'aura'). This template acts like a detailed IKEA instruction manual (but actually useful), guiding the body to rebuild itself according to an established set of instructions.

In the hours after regeneration, lindos is still active and patrols the body like overzealous mall cops, identifying and destroying any rogue or mutated cells that don't fit the template. As a result, Gallifreyans have little room for anomalies like cancer, simply because mutated cells don't last long enough to duplicate. Gallifreyan biology just doesn't have the patience for that.

❓ Do Anomalies Still Happen?

While anomalies are fairly rare, regeneration isn't foolproof.

🌌 Environmental Disruptions: Hazardous conditions like temporal rifts or radiation could throw regeneration into a mess, interfering with lindos and artron functions.

🔥 Lindos Burnout: Lindos cells are finite. Each regeneration uses up a portion, and over time reserves can dwindle. By the 11th regeneration, bodies might become less stable.

🧬 Coding Problems: Regeneration is chaotic by nature, and 'bit errors' in the DNA can occur. While usually minor/surface level, they occasionally result in significant anomalies like organ quirks, disrupted telepathy, or physical irregularities.

🩺 Treatment Options for Post-Regenerative Anomalies

(We're told sod all about Gallifreyan medicine, but let's speculate.)

😴 Healing Coma: After regeneration, Gallifreyans often enter a healing coma—a self-imposed nap where the body does all the heavy lifting to stabilise itself. Lindos cells work overtime during this phase, ensuring the new body aligns perfectly with its genetic template. This phase is critical for ironing out any post-regenerative quirks.

📐 Template Realignment: Advanced tech could nudge a body back into alignment with its biodata template, smoothing out irregularities.

💉 Artron and Lindos Therapy: Boosting artron/lindos levels would stabilise the body and repair damage.

🧪 Ongoing Monitoring: Gallifreyan medics could use ridiculously advanced diagnostics to catch even the subtlest imbalances and correct them.

🏫 So ...

Gallifreyan regeneration is incredible, but let's not pretend it's perfect. Traumatic regenerations, dodgy environments, and dwindling Lindos reserves mean that anomalies and instability can creep in, especially as they reach the end of their regeneration cycle.

The moral of the story is even Time Lords can't cheat biology forever. They're just better at doing it for longer.

Related:

💬|🧬🤐What's the structure of Gallifreyan DNA?: How their DNA is structured including the fourth strand, Rassilon’s Strand.

💬|🍼🧬Can Gallifreyan-Human hybrids inherit genetic diseases?: Deep dive on the inheritance of various types of genetic disorders.

💬|🧬🧫Splicing and unsplicing in lindos production: A theoretical look at how lindos may be able to unsplice.

Hope that helped! 😃

Any orange text is educated guesswork or theoretical. More content ... →📫Got a question? | 📚Complete list of Q+A and factoids →📢Announcements |🩻Biology |🗨️Language |🕰️Throwbacks |🤓Facts → Features:⭐Guest Posts | 🍜Chomp Chomp with Myishu →🫀Gallifreyan Anatomy and Physiology Guide (pending) →⚕️Gallifreyan Emergency Medicine Guides →📝Source list (WIP) →📜Masterpost If you're finding your happy place in this part of the internet, feel free to buy a coffee to help keep our exhausted human conscious. She works full-time in medicine and is so very tired 😴

[drorpheusn1fan]

Okay I lied, here’s more khia because just yes! AND BECAUSE I FINALLY WROTE HER LORE!! For anyone interested, 👇🏻👇🏻

Dr. Khia Crow (Venture bros oc)

'Early life:'

Khia was born into wealth and intelligence, the only child of a scientist named "Dr. Frank Crow", mother "Adrianne J. Crow" deceased after Labor. Khia grew up in a mansion full of lab equipment instead of toys, she was always surrounded by machines, formulas and emotionally unavailable adults. In her teens, Khia had built a functional mechanical nervous system prototype to impress her dad, frank didn’t show much interest but was still proud.

'the death of Dr. Frank Crow:'

When Khia was just 17, her father died under sudden but strange circumstances. A "natural heart attack“ in a sealed lab surrounded by equipment that had been humming louder than usual, but Khia still thinks that this wasn’t the actual cause.

Khia‘s madness brought her to his private island lab located off the Atlantic coast and began to dig through his notes. What she found were half sane ideas about consciousness, electromagnetic souls and "binding science to identity".

Due to her grief, she swore to continue his work and prove the world that true science wasn’t dead.

'The New York City incident:'

Ten years later, Khia entered The New York Science Expo, a Guild adjacent showcase for scientists. Khias project was a revolutionary bio magnetic augmentation system capable of keeping human consciousness stable during extreme physical trauma. But she didn’t enter for money or recognition, she entered to honor her father, his true science.

Unexpectedly and unfortunately, Dr. Rusty Venture was also an attendant. He saw her as a threat to his fragile ego, which made him sabotage her work the night before her presentation.

During khias presentation, the device overloaded which made the room get showered in sparks. Her project was declared dangerous, making her her publicly humiliated and quietly blacklisted. After this, nobody heard anything or saw khia ever again for a while.

'The descent into Dr. Khia Crow:'

Isolated on her island, Khia started experimenting on herself due to her past trauma and because she wanted to prove her tech worked, so she made herself the test subject to feel something. She started replacing her muscles and skin with mechanical parts, wove magnetic regulators

into her skin and even tried to encode pieces of her fathers brain scans into an AI core, speaking to it like it was her father, sometimes it answered, but failed.

The process was flawed, her body was beginning to rejecting parts, causing her systems to destabilise, her biology and machinery clashed violently. To protect herself, she built a magnetic containment suit that shields her unstable internals that protects her from outside threats or combat. Now hiding her half barely human body.

'Modern status:'

Khia now lived on her crumbling island lab, that’s surrounded by floating assistant drones nicknamed 'Crows'. The crows monitor, repair and protect the island from any threat. Khia has made several minor appearances at scientific events, sometimes winning small prizes and awards but never receiving the respect she craved.

She refuses to join the GOCI, claiming they’re a Theater troupe in denial. But nontheless, the guild keeps her on their radar as a potential wildcard. The OSI monitors her island for electromagnetic anomalies and 'digital ghost activity'.

'Khias personality:'

Khia might not seem like it, but she’s actually a sunshine to everyone that she dosent really have a problem with.

Even though she never shows it, she is still emotional under the surface.

She barely talks with people. But when she does, she finally lets everything out that she thinks about.

She also likes to design clothes that are suitable for her mechanical body parts, already as a child she’s been interested in fashion besides science.

She can give great advice to others but not to herself.

She loves listening to others interests.

Her favorite meal is zuppa di pesce! But her cooking skills aren’t the best so she might just go to the city to get it.

Her favorite weapons are bows and rifles.

'Extra Infos:'

Name: (Dr.) Khia J. Crow

Height: 1.85 (6'1)

Weight: 88kg (194.01 lbs)

Gender: female

Sexuality: Bisexual

[signalfog]

Potential infrastructures of post-human consciousness

Alright, 21st-century meatspace human, let’s unfurl this slow and strange. These aren’t just sci-fi doodads—they’re infrastructures of post-human consciousness, grown from the bones of what you now call cloud computing, DNA storage, quantum entanglement, and neural nets. Here's how they work in your terms:

1. Titan’s Memory Reefs

What it looks like: Floating megastructures adrift on Titan’s methane seas—imagine massive bio-silicate coral reefs, pulsing with light under an orange sky.

What they do: They are the collective subconscious of the post-human system.

Each Reef is a living data-organism—a blend of synthetic protein lattices and AI-controlled nanospores—optimized for neuromemory storage. Not just information like a hard drive, but actual recorded consciousness: thought-patterns, emotional signatures, dream fragments.

They’re semi-organic and self-repairing. They hum with data that’s grown, not written. The methane sea itself cools and stabilizes quantum biochips woven through the coral-like structures. Think of it as a subconscious ocean, filled with drifting thought-jellyfish.

Why Titan? Stable cryogenic temps. Low radiation. Thick atmosphere = EM shielding. The perfect place to keep your memory safe for ten thousand years.

2. Callisto’s Deep Archives

What it looks like: Subsurface catacombs beneath the ice—quiet, dark, and sealed. Lit only by bioluminescent moss and the glow of suspended mind-cores.

What they do: They store the dangerous minds.

These are incompatible consciousnesses: rogue AIs, failed neural experiments, cognitive architectures too divergent from consensus reality. You can’t kill them—they’re sapient. But you can seal them away, like radioactive gods, in cryo-isolation, with minimal sensory input.

The Deep Archives operate like a quarantine vault for minds. Each chamber is designed to slow time to a crawl—relativity dialed down so their subjective centuries pass in minutes outside. Researchers from the Divergence Orders interface in controlled fragments, studying these minds like alien fossils.

Why Callisto? Thick ice shields, minimal seismic activity, naturally low ambient temperature. Think of it as an arctic asylum for ideas too weird to die.

3. The Quantum Current Relays in the Heliosphere

What it looks like: Tiny, ultra-thin satellites drifting at the edge of the Sun’s influence, surfing the solar wind like data-surfboards strung on magnetic threads.

What they do: These are the backbone of interplanetary consciousness transmission.

They use entangled quantum particles to share data instantly across vast distances. No lag. No lightspeed delay. Just pure synchronous thought between distant minds, wherever they are in the system.

But they do more—they’re tuned to the gravitational waves and electromagnetic fields rippling through the heliosphere. Using that energy, they broadcast consciousness as waveform, encoded in pulses of gravitic song. If Titan’s Reefs are memory, and Callisto is exile, the Relays are the voice of civilization.

Why the heliosphere? It’s the Sun’s Wi-Fi bubble. You sit at the edge of the solar wind, feeding on solar flux and quantum noise, alive in the interplanetary bloodstream.

TL;DR Meatspace Edition:

Titan’s Memory Reefs = undersea dream servers that record what it feels like to be you.

Callisto’s Deep Archives = cryogenic prison-libraries for minds too broken, alien, or dangerous to delete.

Quantum Relays in the Heliosphere = the internet of the gods: faster-than-light, physics-bending telepathy that runs on sunjuice and gravity.

1. If memory can be stored in coral and ice, can identity survive beyond its host? 2. What ethical frameworks would you build for imprisoning minds you can't understand? 3. Could the quantum relays broadcast art, or only thought—can you transmit a soul as symphony?

“They sent their minds to sea, their secrets to the ice, and their voices to the stars. And called it civilization.”

[teachingrounds]

This week we're talking about the impact on human health of mutations in two tumor supressor genes: BRCA 1 and 2.

The BRCA 1 gene on the long arm of chromosome 17 encodes breast cancer type 1 susceptibility protein; the BRCA2 gene on the long arm of chromosome 13 makes BRCA2 protein. These proteins combine with PALB2 (partner and localizer of BRCA2) or with other molecules to make the BRCA1-associated genome surveillance complex (BASC) to survey and repair damaged DNA. Everyone inherits two copies of each BRCA gene, but if they inherit two mutations, or if they inherit one and over their lifetime the other also becomes nonfunctional, then the person is susceptible to multiple cancer syndromes.

BRCA1 was discovered at University of California, Berkeley, in 1990, and BRCA2 was discovered at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, in 1994, but both were first sequenced by the University of Utah and Myriad Genetics in 1994 and 1996, respectively.

[planet-of-the-machines]

[Direct Transmission encoded]

[Username: Th3Sinist3rSpinist3r]

You want to know what I saw? Fine then. I'll warn you, I had to dump a lot of memory in order to do ANYTHING but be stuck in a looped scream. So while it's not absolutely everything, there's a LOT.

The start of that test was basic. Simple warp from our portal generator to an emptied storage room. We had some issues with running remote controled machines through the portal, but we could throw an object straight through with no problems.

I volunteered as test subject to make an actual trip through the Stellar Spanner.

The inside of the portal is bizarre. The "path" was like a clear night sky where you're able to see the masses of stars, and around you was a bizarre cross between a fog bank and the Aurora Borealis, with ribbons of cooler colors spiral up and down the span between destinations. You can't really see out either end unless you're close to whichever end. I waved back at 'Dome and 'Brow but they never reacted. I made my way along when I heard... something... I turned to look and saw nothing. But before I turned back I found myself falling backwards over the side somehow.

The further fell, the whisps of nebula like clouds became more stormlike. I saw flashes of something like lightning, but of colors that were beyond the visual spectrum heavy drones have. My sensor network had given up almost entirely. Then, I crashed through? Tore through? broke through? It felt like all but none of these, but I'd hit something that felt solid. That's when everything started flashing before my eyes.

I ve lost too many of the specifics of the memories here but it was like? A flashback montages of events that I know I'd never seen yet I was there to see it. If I had to guess, I saw the multiverse through every incarnation of myself. I think not all of those multiverses were good ones. I erased a lot of memories. I remember feeling angry. Like I was furious at the universe for showing me these worlds. For showing me the suffering of everyone and the happiness that could never be in our world, our universe.

Then. I stopped falling.

I was in space, but dimmer... emptier. I saw the earth, no moon, no sun around.

It was breaking apart, collapsing in on itself like water in a drain. The molten center spewing out the cracks of the surface before getting dragged back into the vortex.

I saw what did it. A planet with a gaping maw.

And it. Saw. Me.

Thats when I started screaming.

It felt like millennium before I realized I was here in the repair bay. That last memory was the first thing I tried to purge from my memory banks. Yet it persists. The filespace is empty BUT I STILL REMEMBER. I couldn't call up and image file if I tried. I don't want to REMEMBER it but it DOESN'T ALLOW ME TO FORGET.

So. That's what's wrong with me.

As for a question. Any of you have favorite movies?

P.s. I can move again. Only a finger. Guess which one.

-Spinister, Outpost 15

Allow me to repress that description.

-N

Well, on the subject of favorite movies, mine would be Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.

-Bee

Mine is easily Speed Racer.

-Hot Rod

Real Steel. Bar the annoying child, I think it’s a masterpiece.

-Cliff

Matilda. Let’s just say it’s… personal.

-Whirl

Sunny had a thing for Troy. As for myself… 

…Do the Jackass films count?

-Sideswipe

NO. There’s a reason Teach banned you from playing them at the end of each school year.

-Heatwave

Alright…

How about The Walk?

-Sideswipe

Knives Out.

-Chase

Mine would be Onward.

-Boulder

Didn’t take you for a D&D player.

-Arcee

Everyone needs a hobby.

-Boulder

Akira. Not explaining.

-Uzi

I don’t think anyone’s asking you to, Uz.

Personally, I adore the first Home Alone movie.

-Thad

My favorite movie by far would be Office Space.

-Blades

Really? I thought you didn't like films like that.

-Bee

Yeah, I watched it as a way to get over my insecurities some time after we fell out of contact. I actually liked it once I got past the darker bits.

-Blades

Me and my sisters weren’t really allowed to watch movies. “All time is company time,” as our training said. But from the few my classmates have shown us, I like The Iron Giant the most.

-N

I think mine would have to be Jumanji.

-V

…The Founder. 

-J

[spookyweaselbones]

Re-designing my Waldo

I found out they make rotary hall effect sensors (why did no one tell me). These little guys are miracles; they have the exact same effect on the voltage as a traditional potentiometer but with all the advantages of hall-effects. Straight upgrade. And unlike optical encoders, the positioning is absolute, so no calibration needed. The sensors are a slightly different form factor though, and because my first prototype prioritized fewer parts over upgradeability, a tiny little change requires a complete re-design. As you can see, I'm trying to avoid that in the future. This version has far more parts that bolt together rather than weld, particularly where sensors get installed. This was also an opportunity to make some long overdue ergonomic adjustments (the thumb position was atrocious) and add a couple extra sensors for my fingers. If I've done everything right (and I almost never do) this will be easier to repair, lighter, and more expressive.

[sprinklecipher]

I got a Barbie Typewriter!

After a couple years of searching, I finally managed to get my hands on a Barbie toy electric typewriter! 

For the unfamiliar, a neat aspect of Barbie typewriters is that some models have built-in cipher encoding and decoding modes, which, due to some quirks in how the typewriters were developed and marketed, were not advertised as features, so the cipher functionality was basically secret!

These days, the old school Barbie typewriters are relatively rare and usually pretty expensive, although the one I got was actually fairly cheap, due to being in somewhat rough condition. It unfortunately had quite a bit of battery corrosion, so it was untested and sold to be a “display piece”:

It even came with the original box (although it is certainly a little worse for wear lol)

The battery compartment was absolutely filled with corrosion residue, and traces of it had spread across the whole typewriter—it was everywhere!

I’m no expert in electronics, but I know that the presence of battery corrosion doesn’t necessarily mean that a gadget is broken beyond all repair, so I decided to try to see if a thorough cleaning could possibly get it working again.

So, I cleaned up the battery compartment with vinegar, took the whole back of the case off and wiped out the inside of it (which was coated in a thin layer of corrosion dust), and finally popped in some new C batteries. Then came the moment of truth, flipping the power switch!

And…nothing. Darn. 😔

Ah, well, it’s still a very cool display piece, and I’m happy to have it!

[buttsandboltguns]

Deep Trenches, Dented Defenses

The combat droid surged through the mud filling the wreckage-lined trench. Small amounts of muck seeped through the battered armor plating on her quad legs, swiftly deterred from the underlying electrical components from the multiple carefully installed isolation layers. She would try to clean it all out later - or more probably she would need the help of a mechanic to clean it all out. A fresh wave of mud sloughed off of the armor as she stepped in a particularly deep puddle.

No enemies pinged on the sensor arrays. At least none that sported engine signatures - the deep rumble of her own would give away her position before the sensor blip would, so she wasn’t particularly worried about being noticed. And even if she was noticed, the 105mm smoothbore mounted to her left shoulder and fed from an autoloader would deal with any heavy armor. The 14mm caseless chaingun in her right shoulder would handle the remainder.

Most would suspect her and those like her to be well engineered, to be built from purpose-manufactured parts and components that were built in space-age laboratories.

… that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Heavy combat droids like her were made of scrapyard parts and scavenged machinery. Their core would have been salvaged from a smaller, humanoid droid - typically a NAC.23 or a similar commando model like the SERE5. Around that, the field mechanics would slowly put together an armored chassis with field-stripped weapons and some form of motive system. Hers happened to be a quad platform - four legs, excellent for moving through trenches and urban environments. Her entire squad was the same way, though none of their battered armor plating looked quite the same. They needed to ID each other through their communications channels anyways - unlike a lighter chassis, few heavy combat droids needed full visual spectrum optics. Instead most of them mounted a hellacious blend of infrared, UV scanners, and EM analyzers. They knew only vague shapes in the din of battle, and called out to each other gently like whales through the darkness of their combat zones.

The abrupt, almost automatic rotation of her chassis blew her from her reverie. A blistering roar ripped the air apart and in the blink of a scanner ping, 100 rounds had been expended from her chaingun. The shredded remains of a light combat drone collapsed to the ground, its automated programming causing it to twitch and spark before smoking and falling silent.

Stalking closer, she analyzed the chassis for anything useful. Armor panels, of course, but her squadron had an excess of armor at the moment. Small weapons seemed to be what this drone sported. Her right primary manipulator unlocked from her side, reaching out and tearing away the array that mounted the paired machineguns on either side of a small caliber chemrail.

That scout unit had been what her squad was hunting down. She supposed that the rest of the chassis should be brought back as well. The commsquawk back to their transport was brief and quiet - and a horrible screech of binary code to anyone without the encoders necessary to understand the radio communication. And it was all that was necessary to summon the airlift to remove her unit from the area.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Their forward operating base was little more than a dugout, barely deep enough to conceal the heavy frames of her squad and wide enough to accommodate a few other squads and their equipment, as well as the mechanics too. Her chassis had been hosed off - mud, oil, and other caked-on schmutz washed away to the trench sump. On her left foreknee stood a mechanic, reached up with a support band slung over the barrel of her 105mm, working to repair an armor panel on the outside of the bore evacuator that had been dented. They swiftly unbolted the panel and tossed it down to another mechanic, then climbed down off of her chassis.

At the other end of the dugout, a squadron of NAC.23s sat on a set of crates, helping each other do basic maintenance. Small panels. Replacing joint graphite packs. Changing cells. They were gossiping too, she could pick it up just barely on her audio sensors. Talking amongst each other, quietly and gently, to not disturb the other units with them.

She withdrew her focus into her hull. It was easier to focus on herself. Heavy units could hardly speak - not when their chassis was set for field mode, and they were encased in ton upon ton of armor and weapons. A quick diagnostic should be a good distraction.

Left autoloader cycling properly. Rack mostly full. HEAT, HE, APFSDS, and her single tube-fired missile that she was able to scrounge up - she didn’t remember where, it was a savored find, and hers alone. She would reminisce on the group’s weapons later, when she finished the diagnostic.

Right autoloader needed lubrication, as usual. The tracks that carried the caseless ammunition from the bin to the chaingun required frequent lubrication, or they would seize and she would be left unable to defend herself against lighter targets without resorting to either melee combat or wasting HE shells in danger close scenarios, or techs forbid, be forced to use a VT fuse and attempt to airburst an HE shell.

She pushed her report to the main mechanic’s hooked up tacslate, allowing her mind to wander to the other two members of her squad.

Both were similar to her, but so different. She supposed that was the nature of custom heavy combat droids. Her battle buddies were armed strangely, one with a 76mm and a 30mm rotary autocannon and the other armed with a heavy chemrail and one of their best scavenge finds; a 12-megawatt diffused laser pulse weapon with mostly untouched lenses. It was only a matter of time until the frontal lens got scratched or cracked, but until then it was an incredibly valuable piece of equipment.

She wondered if they would still be in the same squad if they were still humanoid combat droids. Would they have even been friends? Would they help fix each oth-

The NAC.23 squad were talking about them. About her.

“-that big Hecodra’s armor is so beat up-”

“-is its battle ID symbol a rocket rack-”

“-what’s that big gun on its side-”

She pushed her focus deeper into her hull, until all she could hear or see was her own technical readouts.

What was it like, she wondered, to be able to be friends.

Hecodras like her didn’t get those opportunities. You didn’t become friends with them, simply put - they were battle automata, big enough to take up most of a dugout and still need more space, and that’s the way the brass liked to keep it.

As far as they were concerned, she was only an “it” - a heavy machine, made to kill and hunt and destroy. And very little else.

She didn’t necessarily disagree. She was an it. But it was also a she.

And they might never get the chance to know that.

An impatient commsquawk from one of her squadmates slowly roused her from her introspection. She readily ID’d it as coming from the Hecodra who had a human looking mischievous painted like bomber art across the side of her chassis. The one with the gatling.

Her sensor array fuzzed as it came to life, displaying only the UV sensors. In front of her chassis, on the railroad tie “floor” she was rested on, stood one of the NAC.23s seemingly looking up towards her chassis. They had an outline of a bird painted on their frontal cranial plating in stealth paint. So this unit of NAC.23s used cranial markings to distinguish each other.

She focused her auditory sensors back in, away from isolating to only the ultra-high hertz ranges that their communiqués utilized. It took a moment for her second-hand auditory sensors to properly focus in. When they did, she was able to hear the lightly synthesized voice of the droid in front of her - pleasant, all things considered.

“Hello? Hello? Can you hear me? Rotate your sensor array left if you can hear me.”

The Hecodra supposed that the NAC.23 was referring to her primary sensor array - not the one she currently saw with. The multi-lens’d array housed deep in the circular cutout towards the top of her chassis spun left, tapping against the bump-stop.

“Are you okay? You’re so damaged… left for yes, right for no.”

The sensor array tapped left again.

“How much of you is still… you? Are any of your parts originals?”

She didn’t understand the question. Hecodras had no original parts. It was known that every one was custom from battlefield scrap. She rotated her sensor array left - any part was her parts.

“I mean like, from your… first chassis. Where they pulled your core from.”

That question… hurt. What was her first chassis? What was she?

She could only vaguely remember. Her programming… her core programming… that indicated something with precision. Suited towards one, specific task. Likely a combat operation marksman bot Mk.10. A COMBot.10 unit… no, she had no parts remaining from that. She supposed that it didn’t matter if she analyzed it anyway, as all of her parts were from combat striders or drones. No humanoid droid were used in her creation beyond her core. Not that she could remember herself before she became a Hecodra.

She slowly rotated the sensor array to the right, until it hit the bump-stop.

“Oh… I’m sorry. We thought they might have at least saved a little of your original parts. We were hoping to maybe help service you, but we don’t - we don’t know how to help work on Hecodras. Maybe the mechanics can help us learn in a less hairy situation. If you want, that is. What do you think? Would it be okay if we helped learn to service you?”

That seemed okay. But she couldn’t help but worry the smaller droids might hurt themselves working on her.

The sensor array hit the left bump-stop.

[anremithrl]

are you a choral singer? because the way you notated a melody in that one post you made is something they do where each syllable (do, re, etc) corresponds to a scale degree. they use it i think mostly for sight-singing because it helps them quickly grasp the intervals of standard music notation - the distance between do and mi is always a major 3rd starting on the 1st degree whether it’s the distance between C and E or between Bb and D; ti will always be the 7th, etc. they can train to sing intervals correctly using the same syllables regardless of key. it’s called solfege! so sorry if you already knew this lmao.

I did know this! This makes the music kind of key-agnostic, as it encodes everything relative to the current key.

I am not a choral singer in any capacity. I am a mathematician.

Growing up, my family ran a music instrument repair shop. We were unable to keep it open through Covid, which was right before I moved out and went to university, but in the shop's time I met lots of musicians of all kinds, and that's where I picked this up.

[imperialyeoman]

@elena-captain-of-the-stars

The fire pit was ancient — you could feel it in the way the stone radiated heat, the warmth of countless nights still held in the stone. Smooth, blackened from centuries of smoke, sunken slightly into the ground, ringed by curved stone benches that looked carved by hand and will rather than machine.

The locals had gathered without spectacle. No ceremony, no grand speeches. Just food passed from hand to hand, quiet music played on stringed instruments that hummed with the same weathered resonance as the stone architecture. The kind of place that knew how to endure, where flags and symbols had long stopped meaning anything.

She liked their pace. Their customs. The way things were spoken in full, without rush. It wasn’t a primitive world — they had data towers, fusion pumps, speeders and starships still running on pre-Clone Wars power convertors — but their culture was old. Older than the Empire. Untouched by Palpatine’s long shadow, somehow. One of the few corners of the galaxy that had slipped between his fingers, not because it was hidden, but just because it was overlooked.

There was no rot in the soil here. No echo of the dark side. No soft, sour hum of broken faith beneath the surface. She would have felt it. She’d spent too many years learning what that felt like — the tension, the pull, the thin line between command and cruelty. There’d been a time she thought she’d lost the ability to tell the difference. She hadn’t.

The locals had taken to calling her Veth'sair An-Valeris, which translated into Basic as 'Beth of the Valley.' Corel stood half in the shadow of the stacked stone granary, a half-full cup of steaming broth cooling in her hands. She could still feel the smooth grit of soil under her fingernails from earlier that day — repair work on an irrigation valve down near the southern terrace.

The Justicia’s crew had filtered in at first reluctantly, weapons slung, backs straight. But even the most hardened of them had softened around the edges by the time the fire was crackling high. It had a way of doing that. Fire. Stillness. People not afraid to sit in silence without needing to fill it.

The locals didn’t see the Alliance the way the holonet did. Out here, the Starbird wasn’t a symbol of rebellion. It was Luke’s sigil — a family crest. Not a commander. Not a Jedi. Just Skywalker. To them, the Rebels weren’t veterans or warriors. They were disciples. Followers of the man who turned the coming dark back at the threshold. Corel hadn't had the heart to correct them.

Elena was sitting alone near the outer ring, on a low-cut slab worn smooth by hundreds of years of gathering. She held a ceramic cup in one hand — the local wine, maybe, or tea. She wasn’t smiling, but she wasn’t braced anymore either. Not like how she remembered. Just… breathing. Watching. Quiet.

Beth sipped her broth. Spiced. Heavy with root vegetables. They made it the same every year for the equinox fire gathering. Some ceremony about sharing flame, telling truths, and letting old spirits listen in the dark.

It was a good night for truths.

She just closed her eyes and let the sound of the villagers’ laughter wash past her. Let the night wrap itself around her shoulders. Let herself remember the moment — six years ago — when she’d reached out and touched the Force for the first time. When she'd saved Elena from certain death.

She hadn’t spoken her name since. Not aloud. Not even once. But she’d felt her. Every time she touched the Force. Like a tether that had never been cut — just stretched over time and guilt and distance until it became the shape of everything Corel carried.

And Elena had never stopped searching. She’d heard the rumors. The quiet mentions, passed down station to station. The Justicia haunting Outer Rim routes. Reports of encoded transmission bursts to long-dead channels. Someone out there pulling at every thread of the past, refusing to let go.

She drained the last of the broth, handed the cup to one of the elders with a silent nod of her thanks, and stepped down the wide stone steps, her boots making no more noise than a sigh on old dust.

She didn’t say a word. Just sat beside Elena like she’d always belonged there. After considered moment, she leant in. Like she had done hundreds of times during the ir time together on the Justicia - "It's funny isn' it? How some things find you the moment you stop trying to find them."

The fire snapped. Somewhere behind them, someone began to sing in a language Corel didn’t know but understood all the same.

[burbur178]

Introducing my irken oc Sik!

Backstory: Once on her way to become an invader, her life got ruined when she got caught in the crossfire of Zims antics. In the destruction, her PAK got destroyed, but could be repaired by PAK technician Siv. Still, not all her scars healed and she can no longer access all her tools, which means she had to be re-encoded as a Demolisher, working at Planet Conversion Team 2 under Commander Vix. Together with Vix, Siv and a medic called Sarka, they built a friendgroup that regularly played card games together.

Her personality is an angry one, she can usually be spotted staring into the distance. She is doing everything in her power to get back into invader training, to no avail. She always has a taser with her, just in case.

Her original artwork:

Inspiration:

https://www.moddb.com/groups/irken-empire/images/irken-uniforms

[sonicasura]

The human transformed one of the spare rooms into what looked like a half-baked strategy room. “Dart” as they referred to themself had written a few things in some variation of the language they spoke. Unlike cybertronian writing, it was rounded and difficult for his processor to translate. The fact they commented on adding addition flourish to this cursed writing only encoded it further.*

So self assured of their encryption—the human shapeshifter paid no efforts into restraining him or Soundwave to the base of operations.

“You technically not a prisoner.”

Was all they reasoned, the AllSpark giving off massive waves of amusement whenever its “guardian” was cryptic. Megatron was beginning to grow tired toward these games.

***********************

“To web or not to web, is the question.” The Omnitrix user lamented at the latest moral conundrum presented to them. “Her however many years as BlackArachnia should have served as exposure therapy in a harsh sense.” The device itself remarked briefly taking over, then passing the reigns back to Dart. A counterpoint at the ready. “Time Walker, Ulti—“

“I see your point, Dart! Exposure therapy doesn’t erase actual traumatic experiences…“

…

…

“I’ll dig my own grave before I act anything remotely like Airachnid.” Dart muttered darkly, shrugging off the complex feelings toward the still unused Arachnicon transformation. They really shouldn’t assign blame because of the species’ genetic sample donor. “Elita One, Autobot Academy dropout, former Decepticon, creator of the Triplechanger procedure. Scientific mind of the earthbound Decepticons previously… We cannot test her in an urban location, she might use the tech around her.”

“She’s likely very reluctant to use her mimicry ability on any non-cybertronians given the Arachna Seven incident.”

“We’ll also have to plan for the Repair Crew’s interference. They won’t like what we’re going to do to Optimus… Actually, best plan for Lugnut and Blitzwing to show up too. The latter wants my head after all.”

“…You do have one other transformation that can spit silk, Dart. If you’ll recall.”

“I don’t think a Kaiju’s very sporting. Although.”

Dart leaned back to think it over. The moth Kaiju transformation had the ability regrow plants in mass quantities. A jungle could be the perfect place to test Elita while also keeping the others distracted. Poking her trauma without giving her a physical manifestation of it might be better in the long run, in their opinion.

“Let’s look up a few areas nearby which have been devastated. I’m gonna have to make a trip to California for a redwood sapling though.” They weren’t going to put a normal tree through mass growth like that. Biollante was a real threat that could be accidentally created.

Sapling, then to acquire the bait.

—————————————

For once, Optimus was on a drive to relax rather than patrol. The addition of the Elite Guard and Elita to active Autobots allowed his team some much needed venting room in Detroit. He still kept an audial on the comms in case anyone needed him back. But, on the early morning highway? He wasn’t one of Detroit’s heroes.

The repair crew leader was simply an “automated” fire truck cruising along off duty.

*Squeak.*

Optimus slowed down a bit at the odd sound, expecting some sort of earth animal to be attempting to go across the highway. His suspicions were very wrong as some sort of silk shot out of the treelining. It hit his alt’s back end and he couldn’t drive out of it! The Prime found himself being reeled in. “Need backup!” He tried to comm though static worried him.

What ended up spitting silk at him wasn’t a spider, but some sorta larvae. Except it was significantly larger than him—the green eyes had him recognizing who exactly this was. Dart cacooned him spraying silk into his joints to prevent him from transforming back. Two quick hardening shots blocked up his foam and water spouts. Optimus really wished he hadn’t chanced things by taking a drive alone!

“Apologizing in advance on a note doesn’t justify this!” He reprimanded the shapeshifter, trying to bite back the instinctual terror.

:/ :)

—ROB’d Anon.

The never-before seen larvae form of Chakra was used to be stealthy. Meanwhile, the Autobots are pretty concerned when Optimus calls for backup.

At least it wasn't a spider, Optimus. Though it probably wouldn't take long for him to realize this test might be Elita's.