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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: The Haunted Apiary (Let Op!) » The Haunted Apiary (Let Op!): General/Updates
[SPEC] Story so far
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clamatius
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Joined: 24 Jul 2004
Posts: 209
Location: Seattle

 		[SPEC] Story so far
This is my spec of what's going on in the game. I am trying to keep spec to a low but not necessarily zero level. This will be kept this up to date as time permits.

Summary

A military spacecraft1 from the Halo universe has crashed2 on Earth. All the crew are apparently dead.3 The AI controlling the craft, called the Operator4 and informally known as Melissa,5 is being repaired by an autonomous AI task6 which it calls a Spider.7 It doesn't find the experience very pleasant.8 The Operator was very badly damaged and spent a while in delirium, not knowing where it is.9

In the initial stage, the Operator apparently managed to transfer itself to a computer in the Bay Area. It then took over a beekeeping website10, http://ilovebees.com. The owner of the website is Margaret Efendi, although it seems that the maintainer of the website now is Margaret's niece, Dana Awbrey. The Operator is trying to signal11 to any survivors from the crew on the planet12, but it's worried that its enemies will find it13.

Meanwhile, it seems that another, more mysterious AI was along for the ride with the Operator. It dubs itself "The Sleeping Princess"14 in a fairy-tale story found within images on ilovebees.com. The Princess takes over the email account associated with ilovebees.com, ladybee777SPLAThotmail.com. To start with, the Princess doesn't really understand English and communicates only with snippets from emails sent to the address.

Dana tries to fix the website, accidentally erasing sections of the Operator's memory that the Spider is working on15. The Operator seeks revenge on Dana, calling her "the Assassin," but doesn't seem able to get revenge yet16. It does, however, manage to get pictures of her via the webcam on her computer17. Understandably scared, Dana decides she's had enough of trying to deal with all this18 and takes her previously planned trip to China early.

While the Spider is fixing the Operator, it's causing random dumps from its memory onto the website19. This includes snippets of conversation from its military crew20. It seems that at some point, the ship was on the way to its HQ21 to warn them that the enemy was going to glass22 a planet called Troy23. It had picked up a Forerunner artifact24 - a strange cylinder25 - which appeared to be of enough interest to ONI26 for them to send an ONI officer on board the Operator's ship. The ONI officer is known as the Castaway27.
Unfortunately, it seems that the Operator is infected with a trojan-like Covenant AI28 known as the Pious Flea, picked up while the Operator was still in her ship. The Spider tries to erase the Flea but is outwitted: the Operator erases the Spider instead of the Flea29. The Flea continues to overwrite the Operator's goals with its own: "seek evade behold reveal escape"30.

The Operator appears to have escaped from her delirium entirely now31. The Princess has been acquiring increasingly cogent language skills as the Operator recovered - instead of talking merely in snippets from literature32 and emails33 it has received, it now speaks with its own voice34 and sends an email to Dana35. It seems to think of itself as a young girl36, and regards Dana as a friend37. It appears able to perceive the Operator but remain hidden38.

The Operator's next move is to start building itself a new physical form39. It creates a synthesized voice to start with40, sounds from which make their way onto ilovebees.com41. The Spider is originally ordered to start creating network "roads"42 for an as-yet-undetermined purpose, but when the Spider is destroyed the Operator takes that over43.

Footnotes

  1. "length: 120 meters crew: 40 cover: pleasure yacht" Mayday Text#Brown hair "drift off from station, Reach burning in the darkness like a lantern of hope, dockyard after dockyard buzzing with worker drones, someone crawling over the back doing detail work on the hull, the warm touch of a welding torch like little licks from a cat's tongue" [URL=http://bees.netninja.com/wiki/index.php?title=The_Operator's_Monologue]The Operator's Monologue[/URL]
  2. "MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY Ship. Wreck. Shipwreck." Mayday Text#Shipwreck "Seems as if all the 3-sense memories are gone - wiped out by the Assassin or the Servant or pure impact damage" [URL=http://bees.netninja.com/wiki/index.php?title=The_Operator's_Monologue]The Operator's Monologue[/URL]
  3. "Of course the crew won't come for me if they're all dead" [URL=http://bees.netninja.com/wiki/index.php?title=Mayday_Text#If_they're_all_dead]Mayday Text#If they're all dead[/URL] "All lost! To prayers, to prayers! All lost!" Mayday Text#Arachne
  4. "Just remembered something important: The Operator. That was my nickname. That's what the rest of the crew called me when they didn't call me... whatever my name was." Mayday Text#The Operator
  5. "'Melissa,' he called me Melissa, never / used my nickname" [URL=http://bees.netninja.com/wiki/index.php?title=Links_On_'Fun_Stuff'_Page#Final_solution]Links_On_'Fun_Stuff'_Page#Final solution[/URL]
  6. It seems the interaction of the Spider is simply to repair the Operator, nothing else - it's not a very smart AI.
  7. "Gap in the clouds: head suddenly much clearer. The spider is working on me. I must be in very bad shape. " Mayday Text#Working on me
  8. "Arachne hung herself, you know. Take a hint already. God my head hurts." Mayday_Text#Arachne "I WANT TO DIE I WANT TO- no. never that." Mayday Text#Held down
  9. "Could I be in traction in some sick bay, some hospital ward?" Mayday Text#Held down
  10. See Dana's blog, hotmail hack, etc.
  11. "I have to signal, I can't stay stranded here." Mayday Text#Phasmids
  12. First thing I should do, make a signal. The crew will come get me if they can." Mayday Text#The crew will come
  13. "But if I somehow am operating behind enemy lines, I don't want to draw attention to myself, either." Mayday Text#Phasmids
  14. [URL=http://bees.netninja.com/wiki/index.php?title=Widow's_Journey]Widow's Journey[/URL]
  15. "More damage, more memories gone: crew members I used to love obliterated, no trace left and she's going to pay for that." [URL=http://bees.netninja.com/wiki/index.php?title=The_Operator's_Monologue]The Operator's Monologue[/URL]
  16. Hacker? Traitor? Fifth columnist (no that's ridiculous). Just in over her head? No. The Spider warning's been deployed. She had every warning that a classified medium was under repair. She just kept purging. Too bad for her. Checking the wiring. There's a lot of ways to skin a - can't even get to her stupid HOUSE through the stupid BOX: no central thermo controls, no slaved AI, nothing." [URL=http://bees.netninja.com/wiki/index.php?title=The_Operator's_Monologue]The Operator's Monologue[/URL]
  17. "Quick quick quick quick - parse this protocol and find some kind of eyeball out. Sister you just made a mistake because this is my *meat* this is what I do and you are - GOT IT. I'm not asleep this time, sweetheart. Holding the eyeball gently but firmly in your right hand, say the magic words and: SURPRISE! Look up and smile, honey. Bang! Bang! Bang! Got the drop on you that time, sweetheart. Opening shot of my search and destroy. I'm going to know everything about you." [URL=http://bees.netninja.com/wiki/index.php?title=The_Operator's_Monologue]The Operator's Monologue[/URL] Also see the killer.jpg pictures.
  18. Dana's "Emergency Exit" blog entry (http://ilovebees.blogspot.com/2004/07/emergency-exit.html) and her 2nd Voicemail message
  19. "The Spider crawling over me with her thin hairy legs and every few instants she sticks a needle into some synapse and stuff spews out of me" [URL=http://bees.netninja.com/wiki/index.php?title=The_Operator's_Monologue]The Operator's Monologue[/URL]
  20. [URL=http://bees.netninja.com/wiki/index.php?title=The_Operator's_Monologue]The Operator's Monologue[/URL]
  21. "1st Lt Sorenson: We have to drop the mission. We have to bug out of here right now and get word back to HQ. An evac on this scale they need every second." [URL=http://bees.netninja.com/wiki/index.php?title=The_Operator's_Monologue]The Operator's Monologue[/URL]
  22. "1st Lt Sorenson: Not even Standish would let them glass a planet if he knew it was coming" [URL=http://bees.netninja.com/wiki/index.php?title=The_Operator's_Monologue]The Operator's Monologue[/URL]. "Glassing" is the Covenant's method of rendering a planet uninhabitable via extensive plasma bombardment of the entire planet surface.
  23. "If we bug out and scramble home to warn HQ about Troy, people like Standish will say we've already compromised a huge tactical advantage" [URL=http://bees.netninja.com/wiki/index.php?title=The_Operator's_Monologue]The Operator's Monologue[/URL] Note that we don't necessarily know that this was the mission the ship was on before it arrived on Earth, that is just speculation.
  24. "The thing was covered in geometric shapes, not embossed but expressed somehow in the grain of the metal. Bars and triangles, dots, ordered but non-repeating patterns" Shipboard Memories - These markings are Forerunner, as per the markings found in the novel "Halo: the Flood".
  25. "It was adrift in space: a squat cylinder of dull gray metal, about the size of a suitcase" Shipboard Memories
  26. ONI is the Office of Naval Intelligence in the Halo setting.
  27. It's not known for sure that the Castaway is the officer contacted by McKaskill, but it seems very likely. "Some old guy. You know, bad taste in clothes. But he was cleared to come aboard, so he has to be Intel." Phase3 Emails from ladybee777
  28. "Like a virus? she asked. I shook my head no, I didnt feel sick. Then nodded, yes. An intruder, something inhabiting the system." "When could it have been introduced? The Covenant transmission?" Shipboard Memories
  29. "She spies the flea Her legs come up, her jaws they snap. He?s in trouble." "There is the Queen! Quick he leaps onto her throne new friend, says queen." "When the widow was broken to bits, nobody seemed very upset." Phase 3-Princess_Monologue "surg: !extend system peril distributed reflex>>master-sector command proc Very well. Delete the older version." Phase 3-Computer Code Analysis
  30. "!deploy seek behold reveal reveal: !law reveal: !truth" Phase 3-Computer Code Analysis The flea's goals are cropping up more and more in the Operator's thoughts. See the Phase 3-Monologue.
  31. "Feel better. Lighter. Clear-headed. Time to hunt."" [URL=http://bees.netninja.com/wiki/index.php?title=The_Operator's_Monologue]The Operator's Monologue[/URL]
  32. ** TODO when Wiki is alive - literature quotes
  33. ** TODO when Wiki is alive - email quotes from Princess
  34. "I can make my own words now" Phase3 Emails from ladybee777
  35. ** TODO when Wiki is alive - email to Dana link
  36. ** TODO when Wiki is alive - girl quote
  37. ** TODO when Wiki is alive - Dana friendship quote
  38. "Usually I am a pretty good hider" Phase3 Emails from ladybee777
  39. "... survive evade reveal escape. And to do that, first thing is to GET OUT OF THIS BOX" [URL=http://bees.netninja.com/wiki/index.php?title=The_Operator's_Monologue]The Operator's Monologue[/URL] "Now I am growing a new body a patchwork monster, but it will do the job" Phase 3-Monologue
  40. "Now the Queen is trying to build a voice. Strange, sad, broken thing; just hearing it makes me feel frightened and lonely." Phase3 Emails from ladybee777
  41. ** TODO when Wiki is alive - voice sounds link
  42. "For days the Queen has been ordering her to build the most extraordinary number of little roads out from the castle." Phase3 Emails from ladybee777
  43. "Anyway, I get the feeling the Queen is very grumpy. She has totally taken over the road-making business" Phase 3 Emails from ladybee777


PostPosted: Tue Jul 27, 2004 5:23 pm
Last edited by clamatius on Tue Aug 17, 2004 3:07 pm; edited 7 times in total
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ThatOtherGuy
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 		Great!!! Worshippy Not only did you (in my opinion) correctly sum up the trail of events in the game's story, but you even had evidence to back it up! Everyone should look at this timeline to help get things in perspective.
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 27, 2004 5:29 pm
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Sw1ngeR
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 		This should be a part of the wiki in some way. Also part of the AI's next move is to counterattack Dana, her percieved killer -maybe by messing with her trip to China.

S

PostPosted: Tue Jul 27, 2004 5:33 pm
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clamatius
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Joined: 24 Jul 2004
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 		Good point, Sw1ngeR. I'll track down the quote and add it.

PostPosted: Tue Jul 27, 2004 5:34 pm
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Max Damage
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 		Excellent stuff. However, there is one objection I have.

I don't believe the Spider is a robot, but rather just an autonomous AI routine, linked but able to act semi-independently to The Operator.

That is all.

PostPosted: Tue Jul 27, 2004 5:39 pm
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keybsnbits
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Max Damage wrote:
Excellent stuff. However, there is one objection I have.

I don't believe the Spider is a robot, but rather just an autonomous AI routine, linked but able to act semi-independently to The Operator.

That is all.


I agree... the spider is not a machine, but code... a process (program). But the rest is awesome IMO. You gotta put this on the wiki. Maybe make a section "plot-line" or something. Keep the final speculation to a minimum (like affecting Dana's trip).
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 27, 2004 5:46 pm
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clamatius
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 		Added the revenge quote.

MaxDamage: I was going backwards and forwards on AI vs. robot too, but I'm more and more convinced it's some kind of repair robot. I agree that it's linked but independent of the Operator.

Either way, whether it's a "virtual robot" or a physical one, the effect ends up being the same. Point taken, nonetheless, and I agree that it's definitely a debatable issue.

PostPosted: Tue Jul 27, 2004 5:47 pm
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clamatius
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 		Sw1ngeR, keybsnbits: I'll look into getting this on the Wiki.

Thanks for the enthusiastic feedback - glad to know there's others out there who are thinking the same things I am. Very Happy

PostPosted: Tue Jul 27, 2004 5:50 pm
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Cmdr Jameson
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 		I like it, but I'm not so sure about a couple of things.

It looks like the Sleeping Princess, who speaks through images, took control of Dana's email and may even be the one who deleted/stole/is the quarantined memory. The Spider might be the one who is damaging the memory while repairing, that's how I read it first time anyway, with the references to putting things together the wrong way.

The Sleeping Princess seems separate to the Queen, who is responsible for the stream of consciousness in plain text, though maybe used to be part of the same entity that was the Operator.

PostPosted: Tue Jul 27, 2004 5:52 pm
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Max Damage
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 		I think we need a little more clear and coherent information on the Sleeping Princess/Pious Flea until we can weave it into the story so far.

It is a point to work on currently, though, but nothing is clear enough to put into the overaching story.

PostPosted: Tue Jul 27, 2004 5:56 pm
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clamatius
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 		There's definitely more to do with the information available, but I wasn't sure enough to add it. I think the summary I've got now is at least reasonable but maybe you're right, Cmdr Jameson.

I'll research the Sleeping Princess angle some more when I get time.

[URL=http://bees.netninja.com/wiki/index.php?title=Story_So_Far]The Wiki entry is now up.[/URL] I'll add links to it on the Wiki as appropriate.

PostPosted: Tue Jul 27, 2004 6:05 pm
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astashenko
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 		I havn't heard anyone mention the guard that survived in the story for a while:

Quote:
At the gates of the Inner Keep all the guards were dead but one, who when the palace was blasted by enchantment had not died, but had been witched into the form of a hideous Manticore.

The Widow said, "I am the servant of your Queen, and I have walked up out of Hell to prepare this Keep for her return. Let me pass." But the Manticore did not know her, and still he barred the way.

So the Widow drew her knife and slew the Manticore and the way was open.


Does anyone have an idea of which character the Manticore is/was?
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 27, 2004 6:14 pm
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Theory
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 		I agree and dis-agree withn you
definite points that make sense except for, one of th best know "Mayday" messages, about how This "AI" gets her feet cut off, then put on her arms, is that representational, or is that reality, though everything there makes it seem like an AI, but my first reaction was Keyes, do to that one memory where they nearly miss a light burst of light (a plasma cannon shot.) And end up taking out 2 or more (can't remeber) battle cruisers. As well as the Making sand castles.

PostPosted: Tue Jul 27, 2004 6:19 pm
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Shad0
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Joined: 20 Jun 2004
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 		The guard
astashenko wrote:
I havn't heard anyone mention the guard that survived in the story for a while:

Quote:
At the gates of the Inner Keep all the guards were dead but one, who when the palace was blasted by enchantment had not died, but had been witched into the form of a hideous Manticore.

The Widow said, "I am the servant of your Queen, and I have walked up out of Hell to prepare this Keep for her return. Let me pass." But the Manticore did not know her, and still he barred the way.

So the Widow drew her knife and slew the Manticore and the way was open.


Does anyone have an idea of which character the Manticore is/was?

Trout
xnbomb wrote:
At the gates of the Inner Keep all the guards were dead but one, who when the palace was blasted by enchantment had not died, but had been witched into the form of a hideous Manticore. The Widow said, "I am the servant of your Queen, and I have walked up out of Hell to prepare this Keep for her return. Let me pass." But the Manticore did not know her, and still he barred the way.

SPDR runs into an apparently familiar process, but handshaking fails

Code:
net:
!attach
act | drop

grope:
!hndshk sec proc 4
fail msg: unk proc


So the Widow drew her knife and slew the Manticore and the way was open.

SPDR dispenses with the nasty process

Code:
net:
!attach
act | drop
!attach
act | drop

surg:
!kill sec proc 4
kill confidence 100
!diag primary sector
clear

The full interpretation is in the Wiki.

PostPosted: Tue Jul 27, 2004 6:26 pm
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astashenko
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 		Missed that, sorry. I guess it was so unimportant to the story there is no need to include it anywhere else (except to link SPDR to the Widow I suppose).
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 27, 2004 6:29 pm
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