#timeless lawlu dumpster fire

[trellwords]

halo au chatlog, for later reference.

18:54 [trell]: so, law (of course) 18:58 [trell]: is part of the UNSC. specifically i think he is an orbital drop medic (and i haven’t decided whether this is conceptually realistic or not. surely even the specialest of the special forces and paratroopers must sometimes bring medical support, especially when somebody like an orbital drop shock trooper represents a massive investment by the military that employs them?) because i want the opening scene to be aboard in amber clad over delta halo, right after they hitch a ride through slipspace on the tail of the solemn penance when it jumps in-atmo over mombasa 19:01 [trell]: anyway: around 2548, luffy goes to reach 19:01 [gregory]: I AM INTENT 19:01 [gregory]: ALSO SPACE TRUCKIN 19:02 [trell]: perhaps specifically to take part in the AI program, as his personality is deemed particularly suitable to the development of a military AI 19:03 [trell]: since: anarchist streak aside: he’s extremely adaptable and just DOES NOT BACK DOWN, always picks a third option 19:03 [trell]: ideal traits when developing a supercomputer for MURDER 19:07 [trell]: law (who has been very close with luffy for a long time) successfully requests to be assigned to reach, despite the fact that UNSC high command is at that point already considering pulling the fuck out of reach and leaving it defenseless to secure a military victory over the covenant 19:08 [trell]: so: luffy’s brain is flash cloned and is one of the two that survives, the other being the one made off catherine halsey and turned into cortana 19:09 [trell]: and they develop the AI but don’t turn it on, perhaps because cortana is already active and AI this smart only have seven years before they go crazy, right, better to keep this one in reserve, especially if something happens to cortana mid-life span 19:09 [gregory]: fair 19:11 [trell]: meanwhile, in the three years between their arrival on reach and the fall of the planet in 2552, luffy finds out law is in love with him, ends up reciprocating, they wind up in an actual relationship rather than whatever the hell the thing that’s been between them for years and years qualifies as 19:14 [gregory]: does Luffy die in the fall 19:14 [trell]: bingo 19:14 [gregory]: Luffy dies in the fall doesn't he 19:16 [trell]: the covenant arrives, and luffy gets killed by a sangheili strike force in front of law’s eyes 19:16 [trell]: so, you know, not traumatic at all 19:17 [gregory]: Normal Couple Things 19:17 [trell]: specifically this is probably when the covenant has their first victory on reach at sword base 19:18 [trell]: law ends up hiding out in the underground lab with halsey and cortana, makes it to the pillar of autumn and escapes reach with them 19:19 [trell]: and of course the pillar of autumn follows the cole protocol but cortana secretly crams the covenant sequence into the navcom and they all end up jumping to the first halo 19:20 [trell]: WHICH, SIDENOTE, I THINK HALO MAY BE ONE OF THOSE SCI-FI UNIVERSES WHERE, LIKE ENDER’S GAME, FTL TRAVEL MEANS TIME IS SUPER FUCKED 19:20 [gregory]: or traveller tbh 19:21 [gregory]: "THE BIGGEST PROBLEM WITH INTERSTELLAR COMMUNICATIONS IS IT TAKES A GODDAMN WEEK TO GET FROM ONE SYSTEM TO ANOTHER" 19:21 [trell]: slipspace essentially allows ships to travel through our universe but crumpled up so there’s more dimensions, and this combined with the ebbs and flows of slipspace can mean that a jump to the ark outside the milky way takes very little time while getting from earth to reach takes for fucking ever even though they’re close together, right 19:21 [trell]: except. EXCEPT 19:21 [trell]: the games strongly imply that jumping is instantaneous for the people doing the jumping 19:23 [trell]: when in amber clad jumps in regret’s grav field over mombasa there’s clearly no lag at all between being thrown into slipspace and keyes being thrown forward in her command chair by the inertia as they come out the other side 19:23 [trell]: which to my mind suggests that if you jump somewhere and jump back you might still be age 26 but the people you left behind are gonna be 50 19:24 [gregory]: GOD 19:24 [trell]: ANYWAY. ENDER’S GAME-ESQUE DIGRESSION ASIDE 19:25 [trell]: they jump to installation 04, and UNSC decides that, okay, this is actually a pretty good time to activate that second AI they rescued off reach along with cortana 19:26 [trell]: and of course UNSC and commander keyes have absolutely no intention whatsoever of giving AI-luffy to law. who would give a military supercomputer to a medic, even a really good one 19:27 [trell]: except. (hang on going to go inside and wrestle off boots) 19:34 [trell]: EXCEPT, when they turn luffy on—luffy, who has all of luffy’s memories up until his brain was flash cloned, for whom those three years that never happened are superficially more akin to an amnesiac gap—and tell him what happened, that the person he’s based off is dead, realizes how devastated law would be 19:34 [trell]: and more importantly realizes that if he doesn’t do something first law is liable to do something catastrophically stupid, like try to steal him from UNSC 19:35 [gregory]: also fair 19:35 [trell]: and so REFUSES TO COOPERATE, UNLESS THEY GIVE HIM TO LAW 19:35 [gregory]: Law would do that 19:35 [trell]: i mean, he must have stolen that submarine from someone, right, and probably from the government, 19:36 [trell]: somewhere in the one piece canon there is a grand sub heist we never got to see 19:36 [trell]: grand theft u-boat 19:36 [trell]: anyway: idk if you remember from halo CE, but in halo people can have neural interfaces built into the back of their head 19:37 [trell]: all UNSC ship commanders have CNIs (command neural interfaces) linked to their ships, without which you can’t activate the auto-destruct sequence while the captain remains living 19:38 [trell]: obviously not everyone has these given that they’re literally attached TO YOUR BRAIN, FOREVER AND EVER, AND ARE EXCEEDINGLY DIFFICULT TO REMOVE SURGICALLY 19:40 [trell]: (i think john-117 probably also has one; we see him insert cortana into his helmet and you see her on the hud, but at one point she says “i KNOW what you’re thinking. i’m in your head,” which suggests she’s actually jacked into his brain stem as well) 19:42 [trell]: but anyway: i think it’s feasible that a specialist medic that runs around after ODSTs trying to keep them in one piece would have one. need your medic to suddenly know all there is to know about this one freak depressurization accident so he can save a million dollar investment shock trooper in a sort of similar situation? boom, shove it into his brain, done 19:43 [trell]: (so like. imagine a medic that carries around an entire medical research library worth of information on disks that can be matrix’d up at any time) 19:44 [trell]: EXTREME TL;DR, before they land on installation 04 and all the shit with the flood and thel ‘vadam goes down luffy gets UNSC to let him hitch a ride with law instead of wherever they would have preferred to put him because they need another AI operational and mobile and don’t have a whole lot of options 19:46 [trell]: which, at the very base level: leaves law sharing a brain with a version of his dead lover to whom reach never happened, and who, perforce, never...actually fell in love with him, and in fact doesn’t even know that happened between them 19:47 [trell]: and i think it’s reasonable to assume that when cortana can hear what john’s thinking it’s because he’s thinking it REAL LOUD 19:47 [trell]: in his internal monologue voice that has Made A Decision 19:48 [trell]: rather than assuming she can also hear things that are really vague and indefinite, like memories, which don’t occur in the same tangible way as internal monologue thinking 19:48 [gregory]: Tru 19:49 [trell]: which is to say, they put luffy in law’s brain, but all this shit’s going down on halo and anyway just then law’s real, real good at not thinking about those three years on reach 19:49 [trell]: given how they ended. 19:49 [gregory]: I honestly feel like Master Chiefs internal monologue is somewhere along the lines of 19:49 [gregory]: GODDAMNIT I HAVE TO SAVE THE UNIVERSE. AGAIN. 19:50 [gregory]: IF I FLY THIS SHIP INTO THAT SHIP I WILL CAUSE 45 TRILLION DOLLARS IN DAMAGE 19:51 [trell]: HONESTLY, MAYBE HE TALKS SO INCREDIBLY LITTLE BECAUSE HIS RUN-ON INTERNAL MONOLOGUE IS JUST 98% PROFANITY 19:51 [trell]: “THIS, AGAIN,” 19:51 [gregory]: I JUST FIXED YOU 19:51 [gregory]: WHY ARE YOU ALL FUCKED UP AGAIN 19:51 [gregory]: FUCKING GRUNTS. 19:51 [gregory]: CORTANA I NEED A FUCKING DRINK 19:52 [trell]: “FUCK THE COVENANT FUCK UNSC I’M OWED 90 YEARS OF PAID VACATION TIME BY NOW” 19:52 [gregory]: Internal monologue in Samuel L Jackson voice 19:52 [gregory]: "Say what again motherfucker" 19:52 [trell]: absolutely 19:53 [trell]: (talking to the prophet of regret) say WHAT AGAIN 19:53 [trell]: [i dare you i double dare you etc] 19:53 [trell]: the point is, law doesn’t TELL LUFFY, because honestly, who wants to get into something that emotionally complicated and awful, especially when space horror starts hardcore going down [[extended unrelated discussion of halo CE, multiplayer]] 20:07 [trell]: but, okay. (a) consider the fact that perhaps, if you hook a hyper-adaptable military AI into a doctor’s brain, you can probably get an AI that can scan and compute so quickly that it can project everything the doctor can’t actually see as overlays and predict all sorts of possible issues 20:08 [trell]: so you can have a surgeon actually see the inside of an organ they are cutting into, they never have to hope they got it right 20:08 [trell]: even in a shit triage situation 20:08 [gregory]: also consider that one would also be able to know EXACTLY WHERE TO SHOOT 20:08 [gregory]: to have the intended effect 20:08 [trell]: WOW. YES. 20:09 [gregory]: Imagine a surgically precisely placed sniper shot 20:09 [trell]: “i’m not MILITARY PERSONNEL! I’M NONCOMBAT!” “LEGOLAS SHOOT THAT MOTHERFUCKER ON THE OTHER ROOFTOP OR I SWEAR TO GOD” 20:09 [gregory]: "IT IS SEVEN MILES AWAY" 20:09 [trell]: i LIKE THAT. maybe this saves law on installation 04 20:09 [gregory]: "I DO NOT CARE, LOBOTOMIZE THAT MOTHERFUCKER BEFORE HE SHOOTS ME" 20:10 [gregory]: "THAT IS A HORRIFICALLY INVASIVE PROCEDURE" 20:10 [gregory]: "BULLETS ARE HORRIFICALLY INVASIVE" 20:10 [trell]: he’s trained, since he has to not be a dead weight to the ODSTs he jumps with, but he’s still not really a combatant, just trained to have functional self defense 20:10 [trell]: cornered by flood on 04, can see where the fuck the brain is located (NOT THE HEAD) 20:10 [trell]: HEADSHOT 20:11 [gregory]: oh jeez, can you imagine him with an energy sword 20:11 [trell]: THAT IS NOT A PRECISION MEDICAL INSTRUMENT 20:11 [gregory]: IT IS NOT 20:11 [gregory]: BUT IT IS COOL 20:11 [gregory]: HE WOULD COMPLAIN THE ENTIRE TIME 20:12 [trell]: two (2) things still give me the echo of a heart attack 10 years later and that’s (a) honor guard elites with fucking energy swords in the compound where regret is on delta halo and (b) DEALING WITH A PAIR OF HUNTERS IN A SMALL ENCLOSED SPACE ON HIGH CHARITY 20:12 [trell]: honestly. basically bones mccoy with an energy sword 20:12 [gregory]: fair 20:13 [trell]: i always got stuck in one of the double doorways that had a wall “island” in the middle with them 20:13 [gregory]: "THIS IS NOT PRECISION MEDICAL EQUIPMENT" 20:13 [gregory]: "NOPE" 20:13 [trell]: and whilst trying to ensure i didn’t get rushed from behind walked the fuck around a corner INTO ONE 20:13 [gregory]: "GUT THAT MOTHERFUCKER OR I WILL GUT YOU" 20:14 [trell]: BUT, (b) 20:14 [gregory]: god 20:14 [trell]: suppose hooking an AI into someone’s brain gives that AI, especially one that’s absorbed a library worth of medical data, the ability to manipulate brain chemistry to some degree 20:14 [gregory]: I can imagine Luffy's internal voice 20:15 [trell]: scream. so cheerful while, the flood, 20:15 [gregory]: "In your hands everything is a precision medical device" 20:16 [trell]: i feel like with luffy it’s be more like “with me EVERYTHING is a PRECISION WHATEVER” 20:16 [trell]: but that’s to say, it can (for example) suddenly reduce whatever chemical is making you angry or stressed 20:16 [trell]: luffy does this to law without asking, once 20:16 [trell]: ONCE. 20:17 [trell]: law probably nearly rips out his neural interface, love of his life and irreversible brain damage be damned 20:18 [trell]: after which time luffy never, EVER does that again, and it’s only because he’s based off someone law really would trust with his life that law gets himself to believe that luffy isn’t screwing with him 20:19 [trell]: but it is VERY useful when utilized with consent, since, like, you don’t even need pills or whatever, JITTERY BEFORE AN ORBITAL DROP? “do you want me to turn that shit down” 20:21 [trell]: actually in retrospect now that you’ve got me thinking about brainshare luffy’s combat applications maybe he does it not when law’s angry but when they’re in serious danger, to give the necessary jolt of adrenaline, etc? or once during combat and law doesn’t notice it the first time but notices it very sharply when it happens later when they have a fight 20:22 [trell]: (which, obviously, LOCAL MAN YELLS AT CLOUD, when there isn’t a projector available luffy’s image is only projected into law’s irises) 20:24 [trell]: and finally, (c) at some point between getting back to earth (maybe they also serve on station cairo, maybe not, ultimately they end up aboard in amber clad at mombasa) and mombasa law takes shore leave and just gets absolutely wasted because of course he’s still wracked with grief and hasn’t had time to process ANYTHING and is 100% primed for a breakdown 20:24 [trell]: you can guess the result, i’m sure 20:25 [gregory]: drunkenly confessing one's love to an AI 20:25 [trell]: NOT QUITE   20:25 [trell]: but compartmentalizing your memories of your dead lover doesn’t go so well when you’re getting wasted in honor of their memory 20:26 [trell]: so AI-luffy finds out, which is very problem, especially given that because reach never happened LUFFY NEVER FELL IN LOVE WITH HIM, and, disaster.