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Poll

Whom should we support? What is our best course of action?

Support Melissa. Help Dana isolate or delete the Sleeping Princess, abandoning our only source of puzzles and condemning a six-year-old girl who never did anything but help us to imprisonment or death.
7%
 7%  [ 9 ]
Support the Sleeping Princess. Actively interfere with Dana's efforts to overcome the "rogue process," angering the one human being who simply asked for our help, and jeopardizing the life of her favorite relative.
14%
 14%  [ 17 ]
Support Dana and Margaret. Order Melissa to lay off the civilians. Hey, she might listen! How do you know?
12%
 12%  [ 15 ]
Support Rodney King. Find a way to persuade Melissa and the Sleeping Princess to get along. Oh, and while you're at it, work on that whole "Peace in the Middle East" thing, would you?
2%
 2%  [ 3 ]
Support the future of humanity. Melissa didn't specify which rogue process, right? Help Dana delete the Pious Flea, that obvious Covenant spy. (Wait, you mean it's not obvious? Oops. Too late now.)
24%
 24%  [ 29 ]
Support the Pious Flea. Persuade the Sleeping Princess to let him !attach to her. Everything should work out just fine once he's in charge of everyone.
6%
 6%  [ 8 ]
Support yourself. Stay out of this altogether, in an attempt to keep Melissa from kicking you off the crew without feeling too guilty about actively betraying someone else.
0%
 0%  [ 0 ]
Support the PuppetMasters. Try to create an interesting story line by convincing Melissa that she is Durga, the Sleeping Princess is Yasmine, and, thus, that she was actually created from the rogue process. Maybe you can make her go rampant early!
13%
 13%  [ 16 ]
Support creativity. This is the "none of the above" option -- post your better solution in this thread.
3%
 3%  [ 4 ]
Support your inner 14-year-old boy. Now that Dana's back in town, fly to San Francisco and try to !attach to her yourself.
5%
 5%  [ 7 ]
Support the global economy. Buy ILB stuff at cafepress. Who cares what happens to a bunch of fictional characters, anyway?
0%
 0%  [ 0 ]
Support athletics. <Insert your own "athletic supporter" joke here>
0%
 0%  [ 0 ]
Support gender equality. <Insert your own "brassiere support" joke here>
0%
 0%  [ 1 ]
Support Ralph Nader. Why not? No one else does!
1%
 1%  [ 2 ]
Support your own sanity. Circulate a petition prohibiting Shad0 from conducting any more polls on unfiction.
0%
 0%  [ 1 ]
Support soylent green!
4%
 4%  [ 5 ]

Total Votes : 117
 

 Forum index » Archive » Archive: The Haunted Apiary (Let Op!) » The Haunted Apiary (Let Op!): General/Updates
Whose side are we on?
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zerosignifier
Boot

Joined: 08 Nov 2003
Posts: 50

 		Kill the seeker.
I voted to try to get Melissa to accidentally (or otherwise, I suppose) delete the Seeker for a few reasons:

1) With respect, I don't agree with the idea that the seeker is a spy bot of some sort deployed by Herzog. I'm personally pretty sure it's a Covenant thingie of some sort. I think this because of the weird text that it spewed out before it completely learned the SPDR's language. Consider the incidence of 777 (perhaps just a Bungie-ism, but it was my impression that the Covenant enjoy that number, too), and also consider that the SP was able to pick up English real quick (presumably because she already knew it), and the seeker still hasn't. Consider that, as far as we know, Melissa still cannot see the seeker. I think it highly unlikely that any sort of human-made coding whatsoever, let alone anything little old Herzog could whip up while waiting for his key lime, could exhibit all these behaviors. Given the overbearing focus on Melissa/Durga's split nature, there's nothing to tell us that whatever coding is running the artifact is similarly temporally split. My only reservation in this point is the seeker's mention of Chawla base. Maybe he was able to understand that part, and he fashioned his own guess of a response to the Princess' question, but I'm generally stumped on that.

2) I think trying to get Melissa to go ahead and delete the Princess is potentially disasterous because we can be pretty darn sure that they are seperate slivers of the same personality. I really do doubt that we'd forstall Melissa and/or Durga's rampancy by letting her lop off a section her own head. Considering the prominence of Jersey's forceful exposure of Durga to her own past and multiplicity, and given the huge underlying theme of war/trauma/struggling to get back to something akin to wholeness, I'm really doubtful that the PM's would let this kind of split go along easily. Also consider how much meaner and less human/e Melissa got when she decided to lop off what she remembered of herself (from the memory restore logs) to be leaner or lighter or stronger or whatever.

3) I really think we should take seriously the part where the seeker admits openly to manipulating Melissa's roadbuilding. That is some sketchy, dangerous sh-t. Did we ever figure out what it was she built for the seeker, and/or what it's done with it since? Hoo boy.

4) Melissa/Durga is probably approaching Loonsville at breakneck speeds. There is nothing in my mind to suggest that she'll hold to her word with Dana, even if still sane when the time for that decision comes.

I think the best option is to force the plot point of Melissa/Durga/Yasmine's (maybe just MDY from here on out?) reintegration. I don't really know how to best do that, but I think the PM's are pointing us in that direction. I think the crew revolt is a pretty good idea. I think sending the Princess to Durga's time might be a good idea too, but I blow a tube when I try to think of how that could really happen.

All Your Metroid Are Corporation-Too-Dim-To-Catch-The-Boat,
0

PostPosted: Mon Oct 25, 2004 1:43 am
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Cherry Cotton
Decorated


Joined: 04 Aug 2004
Posts: 237

 		Previously, I have said that should I have to make the choice we've been presented, between Margaret and the Sleeping Princess, I would choose Margaret, since she's human, a civilian, and has nothing to do with this.

However, we've been presented with a new mission. As Jersey said, it's looking more and more like were going to have to save the world from the Box Labeled Hamdingers. Durga would not have become aware of the BLH without the help of the Pious Flea and the Sleeping Princess... her "guardian angel." So far, it's gone like this:

The Princess steals a sound file

We identify it, and send it to the Flea

The Flea sends it to Durga in the future, who is actually in a position to save the world.

You got it. I previously thought that nothing on I Love Bees was worth the taking of a human life, but unfortunately, this looks to be false. Saving the world requires the Flea and the Princess. It does not require Melissa, who is actively trying to stop Durga from knowing the truth; that could be construed as in treason. And we're at war, which makes treason a capital offense.

Kagehi Kossori wrote:
Personally, I think that regardless of who or what any of the other entities are, Melissa is too irratic, unstable and dangerous. She has no moral sense, no conscious and no clue what is really going on, with herself or anything else. Supporting her is like supporting a sociopath.


Moreover, unfortunately, saving the world does not require Dana or Margaret; however, they were innocent bystanders and we need to protect them at any cost short of preventing the saving of the world. Saving the world would be worth the cost of one human life, even if it's yours or mine (remember, we're all civilians in this joint), but it needs to be an absolute last resort.

Moreover, this is time travel we're dealing with, and if Melissa kills someone from the present it could have disasterous affects on the future. We don't know what the future has in store for Margaret's descendants, but the implications of her being simply removed from history would send a devastating shockwave throughout time as her children and her children's children would never have been born, would never have had the relationships they had, would never have married the people they did, the people they married would have married different people, etc. until humanity is substantially different from where we started in 2004. As somebody noted before, how do we know there will even be a Master Chief in a Future Without Aunt Margaret? Or a Captain Keyes or a Dr. Halsey? Or, for that matter, a med student named Kamal, or his sister Yasmine? Or Herzog or Rani or Jan or the Castaway or McKaskill? This is exactly the kind of risk we can't afford to run unless there is absolutely no other option.

The only logical choice is to stop Melissa. She is insane. She is a killer. She is preventing us from revealing the truth to Durga and to those who could save the world. She is trying to kill Aunt Margaret. This is the point at which the Navy would not hesitate to destroy her. (Moreover, each time the Sleeping Princess tries to steal the Herzog files for us, she runs the risk of being captured by Melissa; and if she gets captured, we're up a creek as far as saving the world goes.)

Believe it. Melissa needs to be stopped.

(as a counterpoint, Melissa may be necessary to keep open the temporal link between ILB, which would be a reason for us to keep her around, simply so that the Princess could keep the sound files from her. Just remember; from now on, each of our decisions needs to be made in the light of the fact that the fate of the world rests on our shoulders.)

PostPosted: Mon Oct 25, 2004 3:34 am
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johnny5
Entrenched

Joined: 17 Aug 2004
Posts: 995
Location: Elysian Fields

 		We know that the BLH should be exposed, but Melissa is taking precautions because she can't fully trust Durga (who she admitted was an extension of her) due to the fact that she may also be infected and doesn't know it.

[SPEC]At this point, it seems the most likely scenario is thus (and I may be trouting, but just pulling it all together):

Melissa tried to extend away from the Apoc to protect herself from deletion.

She managed to get a tendril into Jersey's system while her core went back in time.

In the resulting shock of dumping into a much smaller system, the SP is "freed".

Melissa remembers that she was infected, but since she can't see the seeker, she assumes the SP is the infection.

Durga has enough of the core to function adequately, but with no connection (or a small connection at best) to the core, she can't self diag. She may be infected with the(a) seeker also. It could be Durga's seeker that is gathering the Herzog files, and Melissa is blocking them because of their nature.

In either case, Durga is, in many ways, more complete than Melissa.

If Durga is infected, then allowing the PF to !attach to SP would sort of make Melissa whole, yet still infected and equivalent to Durga.

If Durga is not infected, then the answer is to get the core functionality back to Durga and delete the existing instances (Melissa, SP, and seeker)
_________________
Search is your friend.
As with any friend, use it to your advantage.

PostPosted: Mon Oct 25, 2004 9:32 am
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Hyacinthe
Veteran


Joined: 11 Oct 2004
Posts: 134
Location: Warren, Mi

 		Spec makes my head hurt... Laughing

I voted for The future of humanity although I wish I would have just voted for the Puppetmasters. That sounds like a good idea, despite the fact right now we need a solution to the whole Aunt Margeret thing.

I agree with Shad0 though, people are going to do what they think is right regardless of what the majority wants.

TheBiggestSean said
Quote:
Lurk Lurk Lurk


Which in my mind somehow translated to Wort Wort Wort. I need a life... away from Halo and ILB.
_________________
No matter how bad you are, how tough, how fast, you know what's waiting for you, big dog? A bigger bitch.

Critical Care Medical Specialist Hyacinthe, at your service

PostPosted: Mon Oct 25, 2004 11:46 am
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Shad0
I Have No Life


Joined: 20 Jun 2004
Posts: 2180
Location: Southern California, USA

 		Re: shared spec
johnny_Nitro wrote:
The Covenant deploy a "Trojan Horse" artifact into space, then send a Trojan Horse virus through their communications who's purpose is to make sure the device is activated.
artifact wrote:
Shortly before they turned for home, the Apocalypso, heavily cloaked and posted deep in Covenant space, began experiencing some slight but troubling anomalies with their computer systems. Just as her captain decided to bring her home, long range sensors detected a curious object adrift in space.

So they picked up the flea, then the artifact. Coincidence?

Well...yeah, possibly.

[LatinNerd]
One of the oldest logical fallacies is post hoc ergo propter hoc, meaning "After this, therefore because of this." It's very easy to assume that, if Event B occurs after Event A, they must be related in some way. For example, my crazy Great-Uncle Marvin notices that, every time he washes his car, it rains within 48 hours. After this happens four times in a row, he concludes that washing his car causes it to rain, and nothing you can say or do will convince him that he is wrong about this.
[/LatinNerd]
[PatheticTrekNerd]
Even alleged logical geniuses can make this error. In a Star Trek episode (original series -- okay, okay, Plato's Stepchildren, if you must know), Mr. Spock heard that a group of people had begun developing unusual powers several months after arriving on a planet, and a couple of months after their food supplies ran out and they started eating indigenous stuff. He concluded that the new powers must have come from the local food. He turned out to be right, thanks to the writers, but it didn't make his logical leap any less fallacious.
[/PatheticTrekNerd]

So, sure, it's possible that the virus -- which Herzog told us happened first -- is related in some way to the aritfact, but it's far from a foregone conclusion. Remember, there are still plenty of folks, myself included, who think that the artifact may not be Covenant either. If it's Forerunner, then the arrival of the Pious Flea is a coincidence even if he is Covenant.

johnny_Nitro wrote:
Now, SP comes off as a little girl, and everyone is spec'ing that she is Yasmine and the suppressed human personality of Melissa, but what if she's not.?
Some "crewmembers" tried to mention Yasmine to her, and at first she didn't remember, then she agreed that she was Yasmine and Kamal was her brother, but she didn't remember him. If she's the suppressed memories of a 6-10 year old girl, then why doesn't she remember? If she's only the suppressed human personality, why would she be a 6-10 year old girl and not older? Spartan augmenetation begins at 14, so she'd be at least that old. If she is 14, then she is a bad actress, since no 14 year old girl I've ever encountered sounds like a 6 year old.

Some extraordinarily good points. Jersey's assumption is that Yasmine was, err, "farmed" (for lack of a better word) after being in the Spartan program for eight years, which should have made her 14. 1 She does talk a bit like a teenager at times (see, e.g., yellowbrickroad.html: "like ewwwwwww" and "Ack!" and "GROSS!"), and she certainly seems to know about things that a six-year-old girl wouldn't (from the October 1 contactme page: "It's like the way they train you not to notice the dying in battle."), and her formal writing style is considerably more advanced than one would expect from a six-year-old girl (see, e.g., the Perdita story), but you're absolutely right that, in the live calls, she doesn't sound much older than six or seven. Possible explanations:

(1) It's not her real voice. Like Melissa, she's had to cobble together a voice from whatever was available, and that's just how it came out.
(2) [META] The same voice actress is playing both Melissa and the Princess, and she wanted to make certain we could distinguish between them.
(3) You're right, and we're being led down the primrose path by someone considerably more clever than we are.

As for her convenient memory, possible explanations:
(1) She still doesn't actually remember that her name is Yasmine or that she had a brother named Kamal, but she's been following the .wav files and has reached the same conclusions that we have.
(2) Her memory is slowly improving the longer she's out of the glass coffin.
(3) You're right, and we're being led down the primrose path by someone considerably more clever than we are.

I still believe that the safest approach is to hope for the best -- that the Princess is exactly what she appears to be -- while preparing for the worst -- that the Princess is actually a Covenant virus. Hence my discomfort with deleting anyone without more convincing proof...which I'm certain our cruel and evil PMs are not going to provide until after it's too late for us to do anything about it.

1 Of course, Jersey's been wrong before. He thought Herzog was dead. Mr. Green

----

Edit: W00t! 100 votes! Very Happy
_________________
These were the puzzles that would take a day, these were puzzles that would take a week, and these puzzles they'd probably never figure out until we broke down and gave them the answers. ... The Cloudmakers solved all of these puzzles on the first day.

PostPosted: Mon Oct 25, 2004 1:44 pm
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johnny5
Entrenched

Joined: 17 Aug 2004
Posts: 995
Location: Elysian Fields
Shad0 wrote:

He turned out to be right, thanks to the writers, but it didn't make his logical leap any less fallacious.


And that's exaclty where we are then, isn't it? At the whim of the ARG writers.

As much as we speculate, the answers so far have been those that are as they appear. e.g. Yasmine was taken and flash-cloned for Spartan, Melissa=Durga=Yasmine, etc.
So following along; SP would be the "inner child" portion of the AI, and Seeker would be the Covie virus.

The other explanantion is that the artifact infected Melissa just as it was coming into range. And the Seeker is Forerunner AI trying to reveal it's master (the artifact)
_________________
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As with any friend, use it to your advantage.

PostPosted: Mon Oct 25, 2004 2:13 pm
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TheBiggestSean
Veteran

Joined: 26 Jul 2004
Posts: 90

 		And yet, that is not in keeping with the current round of Axon-wavs...

Which kind of MIRROR the way the game is played.

Spoiler (Rollover to View):
Jersey should have immediately considered the prospect that Durga was rampant. The fact that he didn't reinforces the "guarunteed to save one life instead of a potential saving of many," Kamal assumes Sophia's betrayal, but we know better, and Jan, despite wanting Thin Kinkle to die in every way possible, couldn't bring herself to pull the trigger.


The point I'm making is that we shouldn't necessarily run the Ahkom's Razor (I believe I spelled that wrong) gambit on every point. The most obvious conclusion is not ALWAYS the correct one... It also helps to point out "principals are results in themselves."

I've always assumed that time is progressing at an equal rate for both us and the characters that are running parallel to us in the future, and possibly, the decisions we make will run along with them. This is reinforced by Melissa's understanding of Durga is a sort of "Avatar" of hers in the future.

Perhaps our choice of action should reflect the actions of the characters in that plotline.

PostPosted: Mon Oct 25, 2004 11:40 pm
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nubee2010
Veteran

Joined: 01 Sep 2004
Posts: 82

 		Trout? Melissa is the one getting these audio recordings from Durga. She's the one holding on to them and unlocking them as we prove our loyalty, skill and identity as her crew.

Has anyone sent an email to her, telling her to run a diagnostic on her voice and Durga's voice to look for similarities? Has anyone asked her to run a diagostic to look for similarities in the wav pattern between the SP and Durga when her voice pitch gets high as Jersey is talking about Yasmine or when she's discussing the "dreams" she's had?

We've got the voice recordings of the SP getting out of the dungeon as a good baseline for comparison.

Hell, my computer will sometimes identify a file on my computer as a virus after my antivirus software definitions have been changed. Maybe this is what Melissa has done with SP?

PostPosted: Tue Oct 26, 2004 12:10 am
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Astald
Unfettered

Joined: 01 Aug 2004
Posts: 747
Location: Just outside of Pittsburgh (Go Steelers!)

 		NuBee2010, the thing about Melissa's voice is that it was something she built post-crash.
Melissa wrote:
Perhaps later I will build a ship. First, I am building a voice

That is from the Phase 3 Operator's Monologue. So I don't think much would be gained from a voice-analysis.

PostPosted: Tue Oct 26, 2004 12:34 am
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Phaedra
Lurker v2.0


Joined: 21 Sep 2004
Posts: 4033
Location: Here, obviously

 		Another vote...
Another day, another vote...

Must read thread...later.

For now, I must go with option 4. Come on, we (eventually) solved the preposition puzzle, how hard can creating peace in the Middle East be?

---------------------
Lieutenant Colonel Phaedra
Goddess Squad.

Shalom achshav. Salaam delwakty. Peace now.

PostPosted: Tue Oct 26, 2004 11:54 am
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johnny5
Entrenched

Joined: 17 Aug 2004
Posts: 995
Location: Elysian Fields

 		Forgive me, Oh Shad0 for straying from the flock.

The latest Herzog wavs !reveal a lot to !behold.
_________________
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As with any friend, use it to your advantage.

PostPosted: Tue Oct 26, 2004 1:56 pm
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