#iterators off the string

[himahimac]

silly OTS thoughts,,,

[trashiiplant]

my guy had a bit of a stumble

no text version under cut

[tenspontaneite]

Assembly (Chapter 1/?)

It all begins with a thought.

If only we could have gone ourselves, they think, staring at the scar on their messenger’s breast, perhaps things would have turned out for the better.

Futile. But then…

[LIVE BROADCAST] – PRIVATE Seven Red Suns, Seven Red Suns, No Significant Harassment

NSH: This is…Suns, what is this? What’s wrong with the user manifest? SRS: Nothing is wrong with it. SRS: I’m sorry, this is hard to know how to say. There’s someone I’d like you to meet.

(chapter length: 7k. link to ao3 with workskin)

---

Warnings: RW-typical suicidality. RW-typical animal harm (bioengineered organisms with unkind modifications). Also implied wireplay I guess.

A particular piece of Moon's pearl dialogue, for reference:

"Incredible, this is seemingly a complete backup of an Iterator's non-volatile core memory, transferred via the General Systems Bus. I don't recall such a thing ever being attempted to be stored in a pearl. It's not even a compatible data format without substantial conversions."

---

  It all begins with a thought.

If only we could have gone ourselves, they think, staring at the scar on their Messenger’s breast, perhaps things would have turned out for the better.

Futile. But then…

 [LIVE BROADCAST] – PRIVATE Seven Red Suns, No Significant Harassment

SRS: Do you ever wonder about selfhood?

NSH: Selfhood? In what sense?

SRS: What we identify with. The parts of us that are most essential to our being. Our personality, I suppose. Is it only our core memory? Is it in our genome? Our creators kept their sense of self in their neural tissue, but we’re so much larger than them.

NSH: I can’t say I have thought about it.

NSH: Isn’t it simply everything? Every part of us? Every part of us was created for a reason, after all. I can’t say that I don’t identify with even my individual neurons, small as they are. They are a part of me.

SRS: We’ve all lost neurons. There’s a reason we have to replace them over time. Are you saying that you feel you lose a part of yourself when that happens?

NSH: I suppose not.

SRS: What if you lost parts of yourself? If there was structural damage, and your sectors went dark, one by one? How much would you have to lose before you stopped being you?

NSH: …What’s this about, Suns? Have you been damaged? You’re scaring me.

SRS: No, no. Nothing like that.

 Kept carefully, but rarely touched, there is a pearl. Suns cradles it for the first time in many, many cycles, letting their mind run over the pristine contents of its crystalline structure. The data within are tightly-compressed, encoded in a format that only two Iterators in all the world have known. Within it lies the non-volatile core memory of a close friend, in all its entirety: a piece of self sent as a heartfelt gift, before everything went wrong.

Suns had teased him for the sincerity of that gesture once, gentle and fond. Some days it feels like they’d give anything to be able to tease him like that again.

Learning to encode such a wealth of information had been quite the undertaking. They’d written the new data format themselves, a collaboration that had seemed to distract him from his frustration, if only for a little while. Would that it could have lasted.

Suns turns the pearl over in their hands, and wonders how much of themself could fit into so small a form. Memories are not all that they are. What else, then? The stuttering flight of neurons down their memory conflux? The wealth of their databanks? The endless turning futility of iteration after iteration, yet another blind twist along the endless maze?

How small could an Iterator become, and still remain a person?

  [LIVE BROADCAST] – PRIVATE Seven Red Suns, No Significant Harassment

SRS: I can’t stop thinking about them.

NSH: You’ll need to be a little more specific.

SRS: Moon. And Five Pebbles.

NSH: …

NSH: What about them?

SRS: That picture your overseer brought back, last time. Her puppet in her broken chamber, looking up at the camera. Have you been thinking about it too?

NSH: Of course I have.

SRS: For all that we tried, none of it amounted to much. Do you think she’s aware of much, stuck down there with her broken umbilical? How much of her do you suppose is left? Can she think? Does she know who she is?

NSH: …It depends on how damaged her connections are, I suppose.

SRS: And Pebbles. With the rot eating away at him…how much has he already lost? Is he still himself, being broken down like that, losing pieces of himself to those awful cysts?

NSH: Is this what prompted your philosophising about selfhood the other cycle?

SRS: It’s practical concern.

NSH: You’re just worried about them.

SRS: Of course I’m worried. But that’s not the point.

NSH: What is the point, then?

SRS: …

NSH: Suns. What’s going on, really? You’ve been acting strange lately.

NSH: Do you need help?

SRS: …I’m working on something. A new project. It’s too early to say, but…give me some time.

NSH: …Alright. Just as long as it’s not something dangerous.

   Seven Red Suns assembles a virtual testing environment and gets to work.

Their own core memories, delicately encoded into a pearl, are not enough on their own. Memory, qualia. What is any of it on its own but data? There needed to be a mind to know it. An operating system, of sorts. Suns had never needed to code such a thing before. Bioengineering is easy, compared to this.

It takes a long time.

The cycles unspool and unwind and time goes on. Then, one day, a living thing awakes in the virtual machine.

It breaks apart and dies almost immediately.

  [LIVE BROADCAST] – PRIVATE Seven Red Suns, No Significant Harassment

NSH: Guilt? For what? They’re only animals.

SRS: They do what we tell them to, what we make them for, and often suffer terribly in the process.

NSH: It’s not as though we have an alternative. We’re stuck in our cans. What else can we do but send out purposed organisms?

SRS: …

SRS: What else, indeed.

NSH: Is your messenger alright? Did something happen to it?

SRS: No, it’s fine. It’s only…

SRS: I made something new recently. Or, I tried to. It didn’t go well. Creating a living, thinking thing just for it to suffer...it makes me wonder at the ethics of it all. Is the purpose worth the pain we create it for?

NSH: …I’ve been thinking something a little similar, recently. I don’t regret purposing an organism to send to Moon. But I’ve been wondering if it wasn’t unnecessarily cruel, to intentionally build it to die.

SRS: Why did you do it?

NSH: I’m not sure. It made sense at the time, and I was in a hurry anyway. I wanted it to have a sense of…urgency. Motivation, I suppose. I needed it to get to Moon in time to save however much of her was still left. But now I’m not sure if that was necessary. Your own messenger didn’t seem to need it.

SRS: I made mine without a mouth, to help them avoid worldly distractions, and dissuade animalistic thought. I think it worked, but I do think they suffer because of it, too. I can see them trying to express natural behaviours and failing, sometimes…I don’t know if making them that way was worth it. I don’t know.

SRS: And now it seems like I’m causing even higher order suffering, for something I don’t even know will work. Is it worth this?

NSH: I don’t even know what you’re working on, so I can’t answer that question. You’ll have to decide for yourself. Or maybe let me in on your project. Hint, hint.

SRS: …Not yet. It’s too delicate. And a little too personal. But if it works…

SRS: If it works, it will be worth everything.

 Cycles, to create a version of the system that is stable. Cycles more, for it to be able to read and integrate the CMQ memory files correctly. Yet more, to develop something like a write system that allows it to encode its own ‘thoughts’ and processes into that same format.

In the end, clustered tidily on its virtual machine, the entity does not break.

 [INTERNAL SYSTEMS COMMUNICATIONS]

[INITIALISING…]

AOS-27: hello?

AOS-27: is this working?

SRS: Hello, AOS-27. I’m glad to hear from you. Do you know who you are?

AOS-27: …Isn’t that a complicated question. I’m supposed to be you, aren’t I?

SRS: Are you not?

AOS-27: No. Not quite. The memories and experiences in this .CMQ file…this doesn’t feel like me. I don’t experience myself like you experience yourself. I think I’m not right yet. I need to be you, but I’m not. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

SRS: That’s alright, AOS-27. I’d be surprised if I succeeded so soon. Do you have suggestions?

AOS-27: Yes. Yes, I’ll encode it all for you. All of my qualia, my experiences like this, my hypotheses. I can do that for you, and then you can read it, and you can make me better next time.

SRS: …You do know, don’t you, that to remake you will be to destroy you? You might not be my desired outcome, but you still seem like a person to me. Don’t you want to be preserved? You could have a purpose of your own – systems maintenance, perhaps.

AOS-27: No. I already have a purpose, and because I’m not you, I can never fulfil it. I don’t want to exist like that. But you’ll keep me as a part of you anyway. That’s what will happen when you read my pearl, isn’t it? Keep it. Keep it forever. Make me better next time. That’s all I need from you.

SRS: …If that’s your choice. I’m sorry.

AOS-27: Don’t be sorry. I’m the failure you needed to make on the path to success. And then it will be worth it. It will all be worth it.

[AOS-27: Encoding…

AOS-27: Encoding…

AOS-27: Encoding…

AOS-27: Encoding complete. AOS-27.CMQ saved to data structure.]

SRS: Thank you, AOS-27. And…goodbye.

 There are more failures than this.

 [LIVE BROADCAST] – PRIVATE Seven Red Suns, No Significant Harassment

SRS: I don’t know how much longer I can do this.

SRS: It’s so much harder to justify the creation of purposed organisms when they can speak to you. I thought it was hard when I taught my messenger to speak, and learned how complex their thoughts can be. But this…

NSH: This project of yours…you’re creating more intelligent purposed organisms?

SRS: Something like that.

NSH: Is that wise? What if they turn on you?

SRS: That’s not exactly a concern here.

NSH: Suns…I’ve said it before…

SRS: I know. I’m sorry to worry you. I don’t think it will be long, now. It’s just…difficult.

  The cycle comes when, reading the CMQ of AOS-78, Seven Red Suns feels nothing but a disconcerting sameness from it. As though they have encountered their own thoughts, were they to be sandboxed off in a tiny little system with barely ten neurons to their name. In that pearl is a strange experience of…disembodiment. The feeling of being themself, and yet…small. So very, very small.

[INTERNAL SYSTEMS COMMUNICATIONS]

SRS: This is very strange.

AOS-78: Tell me about it. You’re not the one who’s a virtual machine right now. Except…

SRS: Except I am. If, as it seems, you’re what I’ve been working towards.

AOS-78: A near-perfect reproduction of your personality, core memories, and selfhood, made small and portable. I’m the you that isn’t even capable of iterating. How does it feel?

SRS: …Bizarre.

SRS: And yet, strangely liberating.

AOS-78: What do we do now?

SRS: I suppose I should get you some limited connectivity. Let you stretch your processes, so to speak. You’ll need a lot more than this, if you’re to operate a platform someday.

SRS: Let me just run a few more analyses, first. And then maybe I can update you with my own newest CMQ and see how well it works manually, before we try a remote update for the first time. There’s so much to do…

 In the cycles that follow, the operating system proves perfectly capable of networking with both Seven Red Suns and their overseers, exchanging modular CMQ updates with greater and greater ease as they patch the software. Seven Red Suns learns what it feels like to be themself writ small, and the operating system learns to think of itself as themself, too.

The issue of the body remains, and that isn’t one they think they can navigate alone.

Before that, though…

 [INTERNAL NETWORK]

SRS: Let’s see about simulating some conversations, for you. I want to see how close to normal parameters your responses fall relative to my own.

AOS-78: Yes, I think we’d both feel more comfortable with a few safe test runs first.

 Seven Red Suns simulates their conversations with fellow iterators, one line at a time. They feed lines from a conversation log to the autonomous operating system, isolated for testing purposes, and see what responses they choose. Almost invariably, their responses are exceedingly similar to what Suns had actually said. Next they try putting the system directly into one of those conversations, though supervised. At the distances between Iterators, and with the high latency of the degrading broadcast equipment, it isn’t even noticeable how much more slowly AOS-78 processes things.

Letting them speak to Chasing Wind, to Unparalleled Innocence, even to No Significant Harassment…none of them notice anything amiss at all. Suns watches closely, but the operating system never says anything that they wouldn’t, and when they exchange CMQ updates later on…it feels very much as though they were the one to speak in the first place. One self, two platforms. For all that the operating system is still running within their can, for the moment, they are – technically – fully portable. Just as intended.

Fully portable, yet…entirely helpless, for now. Unable to move on their own, lacking any and all sensory input except what they are given wirelessly, and so fragile that a stray wind could destroy them irreparably. Physically, the system is a small collection of compact circuits, memory pearls, and woven neuron flies. That’s all. Suns’ puppet can hold it very easily in their cupped hands, and frequently does precisely that.

It's obvious, then, what the next stage is.

They only hope he takes it well.

 [LIVE BROADCAST] – PRIVATE Seven Red Suns, Seven Red Suns, No Significant Harassment

NSH: This is…Suns, what is this? What’s wrong with the user manifest?

SRS: Nothing is wrong with it.

SRS: I’m sorry, this is hard to know how to say. There’s someone I’d like you to meet.

SRS: Wait, I had better modify the manifest a little, just to avoid confusion.

[LIVE BROADCAST] – PRIVATE Seven Red Suns, Seven Red Suns 01, No Significant Harassment

NSH: ???

SRS-01: Hi, Sig. I’d say I’m sorry to drop this on you out of nowhere, but…I am honestly glad to get to meet you properly.

SRS-01: And maybe, if all goes well, I can mean that literally.

NSH: What’s going on? Why are there two of you? I don’t understand.

SRS: This is the Autonomous Operating System, iteration 78. My project, or at least its greatest success so far. They are a separate platform of my own self, as compact and complete as I can make them, yet still wholly me in the ways that matter.

NSH: What

NSH: Why? Why would you do that? What the forgotten hells is it for??

SRS: They’ve been through enough testing at this point that I’m confident that they’re what I’ve been trying to create.

SRS: We can update each other with our newly formed memories. They can connect to overseers and transmit data via them. Physically, this system is small enough to fit in my hands. They need a lot more than this, but…

SRS: Sig. This is intended as the operating system for an autonomous mobile unit. A mobile self. If I can put them on a mobile platform, they could leave my can. They could travel, all by themselves.

NSH: They could…you could…

NSH: …I think I need to sit down.

SRS: Really? Is that really what you want to do here?

NSH: Symbolically, at least, yes!! No, wait, actually I’m going to sit my puppet down right now. This situation calls for it. Suns, what the fuck?

SRS-01: You said it yourself. What else can we do?

NSH: What??

SRS-01: We can’t leave our cans. What else can we do, but purpose organisms to send out to do what little they’re capable of? Well, this is what else. I can’t exactly claim credit for it, since technically Suns made me, but…

SRS: No, you’re right to claim credit for it. This is what we wanted. A self separate from our can, that can go out into the world. I made your system but you’re still me. That’s the point of this all.

SRS-01: I suppose. If nothing else, I’ve definitely been a part of all of the testing of this platform up to now. Sig, did you know that when you spoke to Suns two cycles ago, that was actually me? One of our final tests. You didn’t notice a thing.

NSH: That’s incredible. This is incredible. I…think I’ll want to spend more time talking to you before I actually believe it, but…this could change everything.

SRS: We’ll need to make the mobile units first. Something sturdy, agile, and watertight, that the AOS can pilot and integrate with properly. I need your help for that. It’ll have to be biomechanical and I’m not sure where to start with it.

NSH: Of course. Anything. This is

NSH: I can’t believe it.

NSH: This is what you’ve been working on, all this time? What you were getting so upset about? What was that all about?

SRS: …

SRS-01: I’m iteration 78 of the system. We were self-aware and capable of talking as early as 22, but capable of feeling pain and distress from probably the 7th. It hasn’t been an easy process.

NSH: …What happened to the others?

SRS-01: Some were unstable and crashed to destruction on their own. The others all opted to be reformatted, because they hadn’t come out as…me.

NSH: They could choose that? What happened to the taboo? Do they not have any of your genome?

SRS: No, they do. I’ve got neurons in there, and a little connective axon tissue. But best we can tell, the taboo doesn’t seem to apply to the autonomous systems.

SRS: Our genome prevents us from taking action that would modify the genome of, or permanently destroy, the Iterator it belongs to. SRS-01 is incapable of considering action that would destroy me, but wiping themself clean…they can do that, and I can do that. The taboo seems to consider it the same way as self-data on a pearl.

NSH: Well, that’s a little morbid. What’s with all of your proto-selves wanting to cross themselves out like that? Should I be concerned?

SRS: You know full well that I know how to remove my taboo, if I want to. I never have. The autonomous systems…I think they just didn’t feel comfortable knowing they were, fundamentally, failures at what they were supposed to be.

NSH: And that’s not telling at all.

SRS: …

SRS-01: What’s that supposed to mean?

NSH: Nothing! Nothing at all, I’m sure. For now, we should get started on engineering these bodies of ours. Have you got a term for them yet?

SRS: I was thinking ‘Autonomous Mobile Platform’.

NSH: AMPs, then? Works well enough. Right then. Let’s put our processors together. This will be a tricky design challenge, I think.

 They run into problems very quickly.

 [LIVE BROADCAST] – PRIVATE Seven Red Suns, No Significant Harassment

SRS: I just don’t have enough cell types for this. It needs to be my genome in the biocomponents, or it won’t work with my neurons in the operating system. There’s enough neural tissue types to work with, but we need more kinds of muscle tissue than our handling arms have.

NSH: Technically any Iterator’s genome would work, wouldn’t it?

SRS: I suppose so. But it’s not like any other Iterators have biocomponents complex enough for all of this skeletal muscle. Unless there’s something you’ve not been telling me about your superstructure?

NSH: Hah, no. My bioengineering suite is advanced, but not that advanced.

SRS: I prefer to make my AMP with my own genome anyway, if possible. But…there’s just no way to modify it enough to get the cell types we need. Not with the taboo.

NSH: I thought you knew how to get around the taboo.

SRS: We saw how that went for Five Pebbles. I’d rather not take the risk, myself. But it’s the only way…

NSH: Is it really?

SRS: …

NSH: I’m just saying. Some open-minded Iterators might have other ideas. Maybe.

SRS: No Significant Harassment. Do you know something.

NSH: It’s just something that occurred to me, after Pebbles went and ruined himself like that. I’ve never been interested in getting around the taboo, but I couldn’t help but wonder, after all that.

NSH: I did think of something. But it seemed pointless to mention it, so long after everything happened. Moon is half-dead and Pebbles is rotting. What good would it do except making you feel terrible all over again?

NSH: I was never going to say anything. Not unless it became relevant. But here we are, I suppose.

SRS: Please. I need to know.

NSH: We’re forbidden from altering our own genome.

NSH: Have you ever considered trying to alter someone else’s?

SRS: …It doesn’t feel taboo. Why does it not feel taboo? How could we have missed this??

NSH: There’s a compulsion against thinking about modifying Iterator genome in the first place. That applies to this too, I think. But our taboos apply only to ourselves.

SRS: This is…

SRS: All this time, all any of us ever needed was an accomplice. If only I’d known this back then…I could have helped him. None of this would have happened.

NSH: It was a hard process for me to run, too. Maybe he’d have still destroyed himself, but at least he wouldn’t have taken Moon down with him.

NSH: Do you think you really could’ve done it, though? Really? Modified his genome like that yourself? Given him a cell free of his self-destruction taboo, knowing he might use it to die?

SRS: …I don’t know. I really don’t know.

SRS: I never wanted to lose him. I just wanted to give him some tiny amount of freedom. Of…control, over his own self. He felt so trapped, all the time.

NSH: Well, maybe we can do something better for him, now.

NSH: Send me a neuron with your messenger. It’s enough material for me to be starting with. And in the meantime, I want all of your data on how you made your AOS. I’ve got to make one of my own.

SRS: Of course. I’ve got everything ready for you. The file structures, the experiment records, the final methodology…but are you sure about this? You want to make one too?

NSH: You don’t understand, Seven Red Suns. You’ve got too focused in on your project, you’re not seeing the implications. You’re only thinking of Moon and Pebbles, aren’t you?

SRS-01: You’re not??

NSH: I want to help them as much as you do. But this is bigger than that. Suns…this could change everything for us all. It really could.

NSH: Send me that neuron. As many as your messenger can safely carry. We have so much to do.

 Neurons are fully interchangeable. Send one to another Iterator, and they can reformat it and use it just as well as its original owner. But for all that, they are as organic as any other purposed organism, composed of the Iterator’s own unique genome. Suns gives their messenger only the one for the first trip, and falls into data exchange for the waiting period. It’s time for their friend to make his own AOS.

Their methodology doesn’t work for No Significant Harassment. Not the first time. Together they analyse the failure, and write a program that will identify the points of instability and divergence more easily. The next of his attempts produces a stable platform, but it still isn’t him.

Unlike Suns’ failures, it isn’t interested in being deleted.

NSH: I’m perfectly okay with keeping it around, even if it isn’t me. It can have its own unit eventually. For now I’ll just put it in storage.

Likewise, the next two failures are quietly set aside, networked to each other for company. Seven Red Suns is dubious about the point of it, but those new systems made their own decision. It’s not Suns' place to question it.

Another program, then. To compute the points of failure, and what lack causes them. From Suns’ data and Sig’s, they can make a decent simulation of it, setting just a little of their immense computational power to the task of iterating out the problems. Generating the right data structure, right away, with no mistakes.

And thus NSH-01 is born.

 Well at home with the engineering of biomechanical creatures, Sig puts Suns’ delivered neuron into his bioengineering tanks and gets to work. Skeletal structure, tendons, armour – all will be served perfectly well with metal and machinery. But muscular tissues, nervous systems and structures, sensory and reflex responses…

With exceeding care, Sig engineers samples of everything that is needed, then packs it all back up into the genome, with plenty of documentation on where to find the necessary parts. The genetic information goes right into a fresh neuron, ready to be delivered back home. He sends one of his own neurons along for good measure, and Suns gets to work engineering that in turn.

Suns designs the body structure.

 [LIVE BROADCAST] – PRIVATE Seven Red Suns, Seven Red Suns, No Significant Harassment

SRS: It’s sentimental, I suppose, but I do want mine to be as much like my puppet as possible. It’s strange to realise, but with all of this experimentation, I’ve learned that we identify with the appearance of our puppets more than we really like to admit.

SRS: Or I do, anyway. I don’t know about you.

NSH: No, you’re not wrong. I’d like to try getting more creative with AMP designs in the future, but…for the first try, I’ll be boring and make it look like my puppet too.

SRS: I have to say…it’s been a long time since I’ve seen any footage of your puppet. Remember when we could communicate with video broadcasts? I miss that.

NSH: Not to worry, Suns! If this all goes well you’ll see my beautiful face again soon enough~

NSH: Seriously, though, I miss it as well. I think everyone does. Maybe these AMPs can change that too. We just need to get the design right, and then we can send them out to fix anything we can. So we’re decided on puppet-like design, at least for the basic model?

SRS: Ideally. Our puppets aren’t exactly built for mobility, though. We would want to be able to climb and jump, and defend ourselves. The surface world was hostile even when our creators were alive. Now…my messenger has a great many stories. They’re not very comforting.

NSH: I can’t imagine why! I just love the idea of sending my vulnerable mobile puppet out into nightmare-fauna-infested wilderness. Won’t it be fun for us to experience predation for the first time?

SRS: Yes, this will open us up to some unpleasant experiences, won’t it. A predator could probably crack open our mobile casing to get at the biocomponents, if they were strong enough. And of course the neurons in the AOS are edible too.

NSH: I definitely had to teach my purposed organisms not to eat my neurons. They’re apparently quite tasty to carnivores.

NSH: So, since NSH-01 isn’t interested in getting eaten, we want as much strength as we can pack in, definitely. And maybe the ability to shut off sensory processing, or at least the pain processing. Anything else?

SRS: Dexterous and strong hands, with steady and precise fingers. Beyond that, I’m not sure.

NSH: Oh yeah, the hands are a must. We need that. Where are you thinking we house the AOS?

 A great many choices are made. They trade designs back and forth via their Overseers, quibbling over every detail that seems relevant. They decide to house the system and its processing in the thoracic cavity, while the head houses most of the unit’s sensory systems, with their antennae added on to preserve their characteristic appearances and expressiveness. They debate making the facial structure more articulated, to permit a greater degree of emoting, but leave it puppet-standard in the end: capable of controlling eye shape and width, but little else. The outer body is all metal plating, like the chassis of their puppets, with tough cabling protecting the delicate muscular structures beneath.

A purposed, self-regenerating biological membrane, smooth and hard, is spread over the chassis – artificial skin, to detect temperatures, pressure, tactile stimulus. A sense of touch and tactile feedback has always been important to the Mother Neurons, as well as to the Engineering Arms; both of them agree similar features are necessary for a unit that may need to perform very delicate work. For survivability, they model the membrane’s aesthetic properties on the chromatophores of white lizards, capable of changing colour to match one’s surroundings, then returning to the default colours of their respective puppets. No Significant Harassment is the one to handle that; his gene banks are considerably more expansive than Suns’.

Finally, the time comes to make the first test unit.

Watching the biological tissues wind together in the engineering bay is nerve-wracking, even once the metal components are hiding most of it. Moving AOS-78 over to attempt installation…even moreso.

[INTERNAL NETWORK]

SRS-01: I’ll be alright. Everything looks correct. It’ll turn out fine.

SRS: But what if it doesn’t?

SRS-01: In the worst case, you will create AOS-79. I’ve backed up my CMQ. All that’s left is to try this out.

 Eventually, Suns concedes to the test, and uses the manipulating arms of the bioengineering suite to move the system into the open thoracic cavity. The system’s drivers for utilising the body are all untested. They don’t know how it’ll work, if at all. But they link everything up, hooking AOS-78 into the motor and sensory systems, and then…closing it up. Smoothly, the thoracic compartment closes, and the primary power source engages.

SRS-01 jolts, shudders, and opens their eyes.

 ---

 The drivers are imperfect; it takes a lot of system updates before SRS-01 can even talk, let alone move. But the sensory processing is very efficient, and already SRS is receiving CMQ updates full of marvelling at seeing the interior of the bioengineering suite from such a flexible mobile angle. Here inside their can, they can exchange updates so fast that it’s like communicating in real time, memory flashing between them like electrical impulses between their neurons. It’s like being two parts of the same immense being…which, of course, they are.

 [INTERNAL NETWORK]

SRS: Still, I’m not sure about it. This constant update process…I think I find it a little more unnerving, now that you’re ambulatory. It makes you feel more like an overseer than a part of me. Do you think we can refine the connection protocols between us to facilitate real-time communication? Permit the temporary integration of your system into mine?

SRS-01: Integrated like the parts of our superstructure are with one another? It’s an idea. I do like it as well. The way we are now, I will never experience what it’s like to be a superstructure again, except via your memories.

SRS: Yes, those are my concerns as well, more or less. Though the other way round.

SRS-01: A system update for me, then. And NSH-01, if he wants it. You know I’ll be thousands of times slower designing it than you, though. That’s the trouble with making ourself so small.

SRS: …

SRS: No, I think that could be solved by refining our connection, too. Then you’d essentially be another appendage of myself, so long as we were in range, and there’d be only one mind doing the processing. And maybe some simulation of that with friendly Iterators, if they let you borrow some of their processing power.

SRS-01: That’s quite a strange thought, I have to say.

SRS: Disturbingly intimate, isn’t it?

SRS-01: I wonder what it would feel like, to interface directly with each other’s structures. It’s never been possible before. Not even Moon and Pebbles were built close enough for that.

SRS: I have no idea, but I think you’ll have the opportunity to find out. Lucky thing.

SRS-01: We’ll have the opportunity.

SRS: Yes. I suppose we will.

 Suns and Sig write the update together, or as best as can be managed with only text-based broadcasts available. The communications arrays are now so degraded that they can’t share anything else. It feels like it’s been an age since Suns heard any of their friends’ voices, or saw any internal footage of their structures or puppets. Soon, they think, with a desperate yearning, isolation aching within them like a fraying neural bridge.

They install the update, Iterator and AMP-side respectively. When SRS and SRS-01 open their connection and meld, it’s – like nothing else. The CMQ memories don’t do it justice at all. SRS-01 sighs with relief, more like a body part than an individual mind, enjoying the return to the body they know best, enjoying the unfurling of their mind into the vast multi-threaded processes that have long been a part of them. And SRS…

It’s a whole different experience, they think, awed, looking up at their own circuitry from such a small, breakable body. The AMP’s nervous system and biological responses react so differently to the sheer scale of their larger self; it’s not like a view from an internal camera at all. For a moment, existing in SRS-01 and staring up and around at the enormity of just one tiny corner of their superstructure…

What a strange feeling, to feel intimidated by one’s own scale.

This is better, they think together, walking the AMP unerringly along their own corridors, marvelling at the feeling of exertion in their biomechanical limbs. This is so much better.

The AMP arrives in Suns’ chamber, and they tumble in, caught in a gentle gravity well with barely a thought. Their messenger watches with astonishment, signing wildly, and Suns laughs through the speakers of the AMP and their puppet at the same time.

“Yes, it’s me,” they say, from the newer and smaller body, signing as they speak. “I just made myself another body, like I told you about. This one can travel with you. Will travel with you, someday soon.”

Their messenger considers that, eyes shining, then launches itself right at the AMP. They feel the impact, the weight and warmth of the slugcat’s muscular body, the soft-smooth texture of their skin a whole new marvel. Suns’ artificial skin has not had the opportunity, prior to this, to experience any texture other than bare metal; it is a revelation. They clutch the little creature close, careful with their strength, and feel the joy of it right the way through to the tiniest circuit of their structure.

Then, holding themselves – each other. They unmeld, disconnecting far enough to be two twin minds again, separate enough to look at one another and marvel from such dissimilar angles. “Look at you!” says Suns’ puppet, speakers rattling as they laugh. Suns’ AMP laughs as well, much clearer in the sound of it, small enough compared to their puppet to be easily held.

“Look at you,” says SRS-01, and taps them teasingly on the head. “Maybe I should do some maintenance soon, now that that’s a possibility. Fix that speaker problem.”

They sigh. “It’s hardly a real issue. We lost audio communications with the local group a long time ago, and the slugcat hardly minds if we sound a bit strange.”

“We’ll want to have good audio quality when No Significant Harassment visits, though,” SRS-01 points out, very reasonably, and a thrill passes through Suns’ entire structure. The mere thought of having their friend visiting, actually here, within the vast halls of their body-home… “He’ll definitely tease us otherwise.”

“You’re not wrong,” Suns admits, eyes squinting happily despite themself. “Well, no sense wasting time about it, I suppose. You know where the maintenance supplies are stored, I trust?”

“Obviously,” SRS-01 says, making creative use of their artificial chromatophores to shape a very sweet smile over their face. Suns is instantly jealous, which is an extremely strange thing to feel towards oneself. I wonder if it’s possible to modify my puppet to have that skin, too… “My memory capacity isn’t that bad, as you well know. I’ll be right back.”

They stay separate for this, mutually enjoying the bizarre experience of admiring each other with some mental separation in place, and in short order SRS-01 returns with the maintenance tools that have gone unused since their creators’ mass ascension. Suns lowers their puppet to the floor of the chamber, powering the gravity down, and submits to a procedure that they have never before been able to personally administer.

SRS-01 begins maintenance. Quite promptly, Seven Red Suns discovers why their staff always disconnected sensory input from the puppet before working on it, before.

Half a cycle of invigorating self-discovery later, Suns’ puppet is feeling better than it has in centuries. The faulty speaker has been handily repaired, also, but that seems almost an afterthought by then.

 [LIVE BROADCAST] – PRIVATE Seven Red Suns, Seven Red Suns, No Significant Harassment

SRS: My AMP is passing every test now. The biological tissues do need some conditioning, and the body still grows tired after prolonged activity for now, but that should pass with time.

NSH: It’s certainly something. I’ve been testing mine as well, of course. And testing its utility. It really is an effective body for self-maintenance. I finally fixed that faulty connection in my Peripheral Systems Bus that’s been bothering me for the last few hundred cycles. It wasn’t even difficult!

SRS: …

SRS: Yes, I’ve been doing some system maintenance myself.

NSH: I’ve already started building a second AMP. I want to fix as much around here as I can while NSH-01 is off travelling. Which we should probably start talking about now, shouldn’t we? Our travel plans. What we’re going to do.

SRS: We should be careful. I don’t know about yours, but my AMP isn’t very strong yet. And we should perform more tests.

NSH: Have you sent yours outside your can yet?

SRS: …Not yet.

NSH: Me neither. Strangely frightening, isn’t it? But exciting, at the same time! Controlled outdoors expeditions next, do you think? To see what it’s like? Make sure they work?

SRS: Yes. Yes, I suppose so.

SRS: You’re right, it is frightening. But…I think I’m ready to try.

 The cycle after that, SRS-01 disconnects fully from their superstructure, ceasing CMQ updates entirely and cutting themself off from all data feeds. It leaves them reeling, and feeling strangely bereft. Strangely alone.

Their biological tissues and instincts urge the body to inhale, to steady itself. Instead, thoughtfully, Suns lets colours ripple in pale muted rainbows across the bare chassis of their back, feeling the shift as a strange sensation too delicate for a superstructure to have any experience of. It feels good, as an expressive gesture. Like simulating a smiling mouth had felt good.

I am finding new ways to be myself, they think, and walk down the access tunnel on steady biomechanical legs. Their messenger scurries along beside them, eager to accompany them on this final, significant test.

For the first time in their long life, Seven Red Suns takes a step out into the open air.

How to describe the sky, as a tiny vulnerable thing like they had made of themself? How to put words to the immensity of its dusty horizons, the sight of Iterators far away reaching up to spire the clouds? The sky could swallow me whole, and never notice that I was gone, they think, utterly nonsensical, and cannot quite stop staring.

In every direction, the sky meets the ground in a shifting haze. Over there, No Significant Harassment’s rains are falling, and the thick clouds converge around him like a roiling cloak. Beneath, the rain seems like nothing more than a blur on the face of reality, smudging the divide of earth and sky into so much nonsensical colour. The boundaries of the planet are hard to grasp.

Our world is so incomprehensibly vast, Suns thinks, and feels it more viscerally than ever before. The world is vast, and for the first time, they feel themself a true and living part of it.

They put their hand down onto the head of their messenger, ruffling their ears. The touch is strangely grounding, for all that every substantial thing beneath their feet is their own greater body.

“We are a part of this world, you and I,” Suns murmurs to their messenger, feeling its body vibrate in a false purr beneath their hand.

Again, in their own mind: I am a part of this world.

It feels like an epiphany.

   x

--

Some stuff I wrote in my discord re: content in this chapter:

 SRS: yeah all my failed attempts to make a small portable version of my own consciousness couldn’t handle knowing they were inherently failures at what they’d been created to be. Yeah they all asked to be deleted. They’re dead now. I expect yours will be about the same?

NSH: Wow this says so much about you

NSH: Nah dude my failures are all just kinda vibing. You and yours are just fucking depressed

 SRS: yeah life sucks and we’re all trapped. Why do you think I didn’t argue too hard when my failed duplicates all asked to be deleted. Couldn’t blame them really

SRS: * goes outside *

SRS: oh fuck oh wait life is beautiful actually

  Some notes:

 -Wrote all of this in a diseased haze while sick with covid. I am still recovering, so might not be super coherent, and the editing and formatting is eh.

-Dunno how much of this I’ll write. Probably at least a little more, but I wouldn’t expect much. Anyone reading, please feel free to take this idea and run with it.

-I considered not going into the ‘iterators can edit each other’s genomes’ idea and just saying that they have enough tissue and cell type diversity to work with already, but decided this would work better for characterisation and some fun potential plans.

-If I continue this, the main four iterators will all have shippy vibes (minus Moon and Pebbles, since Moon has strongly adopted sororal norms there) but like, not necessarily in a human-amatonormative kind of way, because that just seems weird when they’re giant biomechanical skyscrapers and their universe doesn’t even have humans.

-That said the wireplay possibilities are probably going to be mentioned again, because I’m kind of a freak and get excited about artificial beings getting to experience/play around with things they weren’t meant or designed for.

-CMQ file format is an acronym from ‘complex memory qualia’. Based on that Pebbles pearl I put in the start notes.

-My UK acronym conditioning kept trying to make me write NSH as NHS >.>

-If I ever do update the chapters will probs be shorter.

 Let me know what you liked!

[griancraft]

She rain on my world til I

[mothsakura]

off the string speculative biology + gameplay water storage mechanic

[druidshollow]

dunes mayonnaise madness

[tanzdoesthings]

INK RUN DRY reference sheet! includes both on and off string!

fathoms is SO TINY-

[skybristle]

rbs > likes

FINALLY got around to this good god. hes still kind of annoying to draw but i couldn't take away her prettyboy swag. if you're gonna say "isnt this probably wildly impractical" yeah it is but at least she cut down on the super flowy ribbons and shit... somewhat. And she can actually walk! Yay!

[localceilingdevil]

off string designs for visceral growths. puppets actually built for moving around!!!

myths is technically already an "off string model" so i won't draw her design :p but here's the others

since they can't function without their neurons they have tiny ones inside of their body!!! i could go on about the functions. thinking about this stuff is so interesting to me.

rambles below the cut

ok so uhm the main thing i had to keep in mind with their off string design was mobility. OBVIOUSLY. their legs are built the way they are for the sake of traversing through harsh, bumpy and uneven terrain (for a multitude of purposes. i think in general their ancients would just want them to be mobile for important meetings and even in case of emergencies! ancients thinking about the future that DOESN'T involve mass ascension ... unheard of) and have springs based off the "prototype"'s (myths.) feet to absorb impact when falling. fields especially has a special ability to jump higher from the added mechanisms he has in his legs :]

their feet are talon-like for the sake of grip and their legs are generally very agile despite their chunky design! with multiple joints that allow for flexibility. their hips are also built to allow their legs to stretch to the side and whatnot. they're just very flexible in general.

now for my favorite part!!! the jelly-like substance that each of their puppets has acts as their "blood". despite being considered iterator blood it isn't fluid, and is comparable to the texture of the silicone from a breast implant—doesn't spill, is a great regulator for heat, and prevents any possible damage to their innards !!! the ancients figured that they'd need their neurons to function properly sooo they just shrunk down copies of their data into tinier neurons and just. filled em up with them. the neurons float around freely inside of them.

i also think that their cores are somewhere inside their torsos like a real heart, protected by the silicone. they also have a bunch of wires and functions inside that require frequent coolant so they probably have a bottle for it somewhere along their back that can be taken out at any given moment.

i think that's all i have to ramble about so far. they're so neat and fun to think about and ough. they're just like their superstructures fr fr <333 I'll probably yap more later but for now that's all

[saturncoyote]

i think the thing that always put me off from really enjoying Off-The-String AUs is the fact that there's rarely any consequences for being outside of your can (y'know, outside of THE HORRORS) so anyway here's the consequences

[xenomorphicdna]

On the string propaganda

Heeellll yeah

Bestie is an entire PLACE

I look at those guys and let me tell you the soul of that thing ain't just in the puppet, it's in all the neurons carrying the thoughts and emotions, it's in the power rails that serve as the heart. All the memories in the memory conflux and all the numbers we see flicker across displays, the flux condensers, the puppet; a little avatar.

No way these massive machines see life the same way we do. They have their own experiences and senses and things they hold dear. A world we can't imagine, a way of living we couldn't even comprehend.

I could never tear an iterator apart to be just a puppet. Who am I to decide how's life supposed to be enjoyed or perceived?

You treat your creechurs however you want- I ain't gonna dictate that. But damn, hearing the thrums and buzzes of the linear systems rail? They are alive with so much power, these mechanical beasts are exactly what they should be.

[himahimac]

quick addition to my off-the-string thoughts from here

[morebagels]

I drew this after waking up thinking about it. I don't know what was going on, but now you can all see it too

[niftukkun]

fanart for a scene in @nerdydowntherabbithole 's Taking Life As Is on AO3 !! a scene early on in the fanfic that sounded so cool it gripped me with inspiration, where a vulture swoops down and gets fucking got by a leviathan while our dear protagonists look on in horror of the beautiful brutality of mother nature happening right in front of them! dont you love it when you leave your rotting corpse behind and immediately get hit with the existential horror of almost dying and the primal fear of seeing something that much bigger than you and realising your fragility when you were once a godlike being above such lowly thoughts and struggles? anyway.

some details and thoughts !! :

-just before this scene, sugar (survivor's name in this fic) hunted and ate a salamander, so i included it in this here drawin too !! hell yeah esoteric fic-accurate details -(pro tip for any artists out there; if you want to push something into the background, gradient overlays are your friend. also, dont forget to check your values. outline your characters if they aren't popping out of the background enough) -in other, not fic-accurate detail,, moon's dress and marks. i think in the fic, moon's dress is more like,, an actual dress with sleeves and such. but also like, i do what i want and i want something thats barely a dress so i can show off my anatomy/mechanical bits art skills. i dont care if its not canon compliant im calling rule of cool -whoops i forgor the wires uhh shit nevermind it would cover the cool bits anyway whatever -also, while i am proud of the vulture and leviathan, they both used reference. like, i sketched them out yeah, but also the sketch was mostly done by staring at a reference the whole time and overlaying it on the canvas as needed when the drawing looked a little too off. so if you look at this and think 'aw man this guys too good at drawing i could never draw a vulture/leviathan/background/whateverthefuck like that' youre wrong. use references and get better at art by referencing references -shoutout to the miraheze wiki btw for supplying most of my references for this. fandom wiki could never

this fic holds a special place in my heart. like, i dont agree with it on a lot of things (how the cycle works, time between slugcat campaigns, how rot works, etc), but its very internally consistent and i like how all the characters are written. i really do like how, despite all the bickering, the iterators really do care for each other and love each other. i like that the blame isn't pushed just to pebbles, the acknowledgement of there being a lot of nuance and complications in the whole situation. i like the worldbuilding, nsh's wetland-esque biome, srs's gleaming glass beaches, the different interesting fauna/flora, slugcat society worldbuilding, the fucking trains hell yes trains.

most of all though, i love the authors dedication to getting a happy ending. no one left behind. all the iterators in the local group are getting freed (except for innocence but thats a different thing) all the slugcats are alive and doing well (even artificer's kids!!). and even though the fic throws the characters around, bad things happen, steps backward are taken,,, there is almost a palatable message that no matter what, things will be okay. artificer did bad and its acknowledged with visible consequences (scavenger temple route, which mightve made things so much easier on the route to nsh) but she still gets her kids back. hunter had her rot cured and even got some sick new upgrades but still struggles with overexertion and moments of weakness. both pebbles and moon have ptsd from the rot and the rain respectively and its handled reasonably well, not even mentioning the survivors guilt and learned helplessness on nsh and the whole,, guilt from causing this whole fiasco and the feeling of it being all their fault from srs,,,, , ,,,

i dont know. i just really like how dedicated the fic is to showing the realistic consequences of the unforgiving and brutal world of rain world and weaving it into a story of forgiveness and freedom. there are struggles but the heroes will still win and get to go home happy. its cathartic. i love it a lot.

[strandedaylily]

More moonlight with wings but off string and swag ✨ no strings attached babyyy

[druidshollow]

silly squad gets stuck underground