Investigate the lights. 43%
I have time to take a quick peak, right? Fluttershy did say she wasn’t a child anymore and if a drone is on that elevator I can always slam my claw on that screen.
Taking a step away from the console, Gilda went over to the blinking lights further up the control panel and investigated the buttons around there.
”What are you doing? There is nothing of necessity there, link my systems up.” the central node asked as Gilda pressed down on the blinking light, the pannel it was on flashing green. The room dimmed as holograms of various griffins sprung to life all around the room.
”Godscalc! get that door closed!” the hologram standing inside of her at the control panel shouted at another who stood and fired out the door. Gilda instinctively backpedalled out of the hologram, somehow feeling wrong about having shared the same space.
“They’re almost here! A few more seconds!” the griffin shouted back, his peculiar weapon cracking in rapid succession. Two more griffins entered the security office, one being dragged along by the other. Every single one of them where wearing the same type of armour Gilda was as well.
“CLOSE THAT FAUST DAMNED DOOR!” The griffin at the control panel thundered as she rapidly tapped commands into the console.
“You cannot lock me out, Godiva, surrender now.” Gilda looked around in confusion but quickly realised that was the central node as a recording.
”Damnit, I need medical supplies! He’s hit bad!” The new griffin shouted, trying to stop the bleeding on the unconscious, fallen griffin. Godscalc slammed the door closed and shot the controls for good measure, running to a storage locker at the back of the room after and pulling out various components.
“This struggle is futile Commander, any attempt you make of locking me out I can counter.” the central node said again, manifesting itself as a griffin hologram above the console.
”Really now? Did you think we wouldn’t prepare for this eventuality after hearing the prothean’s experience with AI?” Godiva asked, looking at the hologram as she slammed down on a button. ”Override subroutine Alpha-Nine.”
The hologram flickered, freezing completely for a second. “O-Override instructions active, what is your command.”
The griffin wasted no time tapping commands on the console, placing her claw on the same screen outlining the clawprint now. ”I’ve locked you out permanently and set the defenses to blast away anyone stupid enough to get close.”
”Uhh, Commander, where does that leave us?” Godscalc asked, stepping next to the other griffin. ”Göran needs medical soon and if the defences are going to shoot at us...”
”We try the hangar, those defenses might take enough time to get up for us to get out.” Godiva turned and walked over to the elevator, helping to drag along the wounded griffin. ”If we’re lucky we can get out there and warn the rest of the evacuees, hopefully the ponies have that plan to hide from the reapers up or we’re screwed.”
The room returned to normal, becoming brighter again as the holograms disappeared. “I was momentarilly locked out of the room, are you all right? Your heartrate is up.”
Gilda’s breath was going wild as she processed what had just happened in front of her. Those must have been the original griffins around here... They blocked off that AI from accessing this place and now it’s asking me to reconnect.
The elevator came to a halt at the security office, Gilda jumping around to face whatever was on there. A small swarm of five of the smaller drones floating into the office. “Link my systems, you can avoid this fight.” the central node calmly said again as the drones powered up their weapons.
“Oh yeah? Was that why you were attacking Commander Godiva?” Gilda asked, dodging one of the drones’ shots and jumping right on top of it. Her now armoured and powered claws dug into the metal sheets surrounding the drone, crushing the plate as she pulled it off and exposed the insides of the machine to be destroyed immediately after. Holy crap, this suit is awesome!
“I’ll rephrase. Link my systems or I’m killing the pegasus.”
That would have made Gilda pause is she wasn’t busy ripping apart the little drones with a scary amount of ease, the machines only scratching the powerful shielding of her armour. “And what would stop you from killing her with drones after I reconnect you?” she growled, smashing the last drone into the floor. “I think I have a better idea.” Gilda tapped the same button she’d seen the old commander press in the holographic playback. “Override subroutine Alpha-Nine.”
“Do you really think I did not remove that section of my C-C-C-C...” The AI stuttered and died, not making another sound.
"Contact with the central node lost," the VI reported. "Awaiting new command."
"How do I stop these damned drones from attacking me all over the place?" Gilda asked, hoping to get an answer that didn't involve her putting her claw on that particular panel.
"Registry in the security database is required. Follow the instructions highlighted now." Gilda's eyes widened a bit as the VI started running her through the buttons she needed to press. She was slightly worried that she was being taken for a ride by the central node but since she didn't really see another option, risking it in case the central node really wasn't there for the moment seemed worth it. "Move onto the platform at the centre of the room to be scanned."
Gilda looked back at the floor, a blue circle of light marking where she was supposed to stand. Here goes nothing.
A blue field rapidly moved up across her body and back down into the floor, a ding coming from the control panel. "Under what name should you be registered?"
"Gilda Grimmfeather," She answered, a hologram of her popped up above the main console with her name below it prefixed by three letters and a symbol she didn't recognize.
"Transferring command designation as determined by previous commander's inputs... Completed."
"Wait, what did you do? what did the old commander want?" Gilda questioned as more options and menues opened up for her now.
"You have been designated active commander of this facility as per directive fifty-one." the VI answered.
"ME?!" Gilda exclaimed in shock. "I-I... WHAT!"
The griffin had to stop herself from panicking as she needed to know what happened to the AI and find out where Fluttershy was. Stepping up to the console she studied the holograms. "Say, can you bring up the layout of this place and where all the drones are?"
"Of course, stand by." Various layouts of floors appeared in front and around her, dots representing the different drones being marked in various colors. Most of the hundreds of dots were concentrated around the armoury, the rest were loosely scattered around the base with the exception of the AI core. Gilda finally got a sense of how massive the installation truly was as well, the base wasn't just contained within the mountain but stretched far away from it as well.
Wow, I wouldn't want to be in the armoury right now.
"Where is Fluttershy?" Gilda asked, a few more dots sprung up around the map.
"These are the last three sightings of the pegasus by security drones swiftly followed by their termination."
"Sounds about right, where do we think she is now?" Gilda asked as she followed the dots from oldest to newest.
"Unknown. The path of destruction and timing indicates she's located somewhere near the main fusion plant." The VI made a section of the maps red where it thought likely for Fluttershy to be. "Two heavy assets are closeby, do you wish for me to re-route them?"
Gilda looked over to another section of the base, the central node AI core in specific as it was quite close to the reactor too. Maybe I could figure out what is going on with the central node with those drones as well. Fluttershy can clearly handle herself and with me in control of the drones she's not in direct danger...
1. Send Drones to find Fluttershy
2. Send drones to investigate the AI core
3. Split up the two drones.
I find it interesting that there's no drones in AI control at all. Also, if it was that easy to destroy the core, they'd have done it in the first place. I strongly suspect any drones motored into the AI room will be taken over. Given the choices, while it's risky to send the drones to investigate the core, if Gilda can remote them from a safe distance, she might be able to investigate options. Sending them to find Fluttershy is a bad idea, because 'Shy has no idea they're under Gilda's control, and will attack them. They'll switch to default protocol and fire back, most likely.
It's clear Fluttershy intends to shut down main power. She won't blow it (which was my first concern) because she has no idea how big the bang would be, and what that might do to Griffonstone. It's too irresponsible, given the potential fallout of the decision. So shutting the power down seems the most logical solution. But if Gilda can establish contact with her again and tell her what she's accomplished, 'Shy might choose a different path. With Gilda in control of the base, they just need to find a way to reestablish control over the drones. Instead of killing all power, the goal would be to cut the power feed to the AI core.
I'm guessing some drones are under the AI's control, or it would have been a no-contest kind of thing back in the day. So telling the good drones from the bad drones is kind of necessary at some point.
Yes, this is messy. The "game" offers very few useful choices here. I think the best choice is reestablishing contact with Fluttershy, but I can't see that happening with these choices anytime soon. I'm leery about sending the drones to the AI core, in case the core has a field-effect control zone Gilda knows nothing about. And sending them after Fluttershy without her any the wiser would lead to a fight she doesn't need to have.
We need another option as none of these are reasonable.
Splitting them up makes the most sense, I think. She can use one to potentially contact Fluttershy. If the drone is co-opted by the AI, it's less of a threat to Shy. If the pegasus mistakes the drone's intentions before Gilda can establish contact, it's only a single encounter instead of a pair of heavies. And if Gilda can establish contact, it offers Fluttershy some heavy backup.
Similarly, if the AI core has a control zone, and Gilda loses a heavy drone to it, that's only one drone. It's risky, but all the other drones will go hostile against it, and it'll lose eventually. If Gilda can retain control of it, she has a visual scanner she can use at range the other drones might ignore for a while. And if she needs backup, it might serve as a mobile support platform. At the very least, splitting them up reduces the risk for any party involved. The AI core as well, ironically, but right now, their value as intelligence sources is more important than their combined firepower.
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Feel free to suggest courses of action, wouldn't be the first time I changed the flow of a chapter from the way I'd planned
I would suggest Gilda ask the systems for audio broadcasting in the base and use that to contact Flutters , if possible, with her new information.
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That would make sense... but at the same time, Gilda isn't trained to think in those terms. How would she even know it's possible to use a base PA system, if she's literally never heard of such a thing? That's part of the problem. She could do a lot if she had our knowledge of the game. But as a resident of a low-tech backwater? She doesn't know she can do that.
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True, but they do have stadium loudspeakers and it would not be much of a jump to assume that such a hi-tech place would have something similar or better to give out orders or messages quickly.
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Fair point. I'd forgotten about the stadium sequence.
Probably for the best to help Fluttershy shut down power, I say send both bots there. Bots are clearly staying away from the AI core for a good reason, and Gilda seems like she'd trust the ancient griffins to have their reasons.
We need to establish contact with Fluttershy, I just don’t know that sending drones to do it is the best plan.
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While that may be true, let's not get sidetracked. This thread is to discuss this author's story, and our take on Fluttershy's choices, not EA and Bioware's questionable decisions and policies. I'd suggest taking that to Reddit, or another forum.
So did I.
Something was waiting here...
Figures
Sooooo...was I right to reference Halo then?
Good thing I voted I suppose
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Xcom 2 Shen's last gift DLC
I linked the particular scene in the A/N
Think we should send the drones to the AI core yeah? How would Fluttershy know they were friendly even if they managed to link up with her? Without knowing their capabilities or those of the hostiles I'd rather not split them up, I'd say trust Fluttershy's stealth and make sure to handle whatever's happened with the AI
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Ahhh...okay.
okay the ending to that vid of the dlc is really amusing, but i never have heard of XCOM before so that may be a reason why it came so close to a tie is either people wanting the bad end so to say, or just unaware... me however i am glad my vote won... after all a voice saying there is no need for further conflict..... yeah just does not rub me the right way. any who i think if we sent a bot to flutters then she may dystroy it/ them thinking they were going to attack her buuuut if Gilda is going with them then yeah try to find flutters before heading for the AI core
I thought that linking the systems would be the top priority. Also how Gilda knows that Fluttershy wouldn't just go berserk on the drone? Don't really want to split the drones.
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Whatever you are using to note the timestamp doesn't seem to work on mobile. The video just starts from the beginning.
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youtube's own timestamp but you'll find it about halfway through
Uh, so it WAS a Julia situation. I suppose I should be glad that I lost that vote.
Still, this seems dumb. Apparently the override is completely successful, keeping this AI locked out from the drones. That makes the decision to leave them active and shooting at EVERYTHING really stupid, specially if it would risk their chances of leaving the place and telling other beings about it. The only reason I could think of that would make leaving the defenses active would be if they were under threat of takeover by the enemy at that exact moment, and that enemy would have changelings in their rank for indiscriminate attacks to be necessary. Even in that case, I would think that permanently disabling the base would be much better, instead of leaving a live landmine that you won't be able to disable safely.
Another dumb thing right now are the options. As far as I understand, Gilda took control over the entire base, meaning that she has disabled the immediate danger. What she should do is to have the defenses stand down and reconnect with Fluttershy, who understands a lot more about the issues here than Gilda.
Yeah, I am rally not convinced by this chapter, I am going to skip my vote.
Ahh, that moment when you dove into 100+ chapters and are now all caught up...
Hello, darkness, my old friend.
I've caught up and wait inside you once again.
Because the storyline is sleeping,
In the dark I will be dreaming.
Til' the Author, finished writing,
Puts out the call, the next chapter's fall
I'll take my seat and ride...
The Hype Train.
Damn, been a while since I've read this fic, I sure missed a lot.
2. That A.I. needs a hard reset...
Well fuck... I hoped the guys are Indoctrinated and the A.I. was the good guy...
...Shit...
Usually splitting up is weakening any efforts taken, but Fluttershy can need help and the A.I.core needs a hard reset.
I wonder if they can use Edi or Fidelis to help the Griffons along?