#stellaraide

[cyberstates]

> capsize, pt 1.

There is a part of you that feels impossibly giddy about this. More precisely, you register it as a particularly rare pattern currently occupying your neural network. Aside from the label of giddy, other possibilities are: an overwhelming nervousness, pure unadulterated rage, and profound existential certainty. 

Of course, a quick heuristic tells you that of the four, anxious might be the most possible, but giddy is undoubtedly the least risky. So you interpret your emotional state—your “neural” state—as giddy (76% likelihood), instead of nervous (91% likelihood). And it is without surprise that said giddiness comes with a sense of unease. It is alarming, one might say, to realize that one intends to confront the prospects of death and murder with dizzying excitement.

For a good portion of what you would call “daytime,” despite the absence of a star to demarcate the sunrise and the sunset, you’ve been imagining—systematizing the ways in which you would destroy the ship and its crew. Virus infection of the systems (designed by Sollux himself), oxygen deprivation, destruction of the auxiliary power, an opening of doors. You run through the list of what you must do over and over again, your attention to detail both meticulous and calculating. Altering the camera feeds, suppressing the notifications of a detached helm-troll, jamming communication devices, preventing the Starscreech from chasing the interceptor...

You’ve been counting the shift changes. Deciding that there’d be no difference between doing this now and somewhat later, you recalibrate the security cameras both inside the helmsblock and outside the entrance, imperceptibly changing them from live recording to a loop of the past five minutes. You make a mental note to refresh the recording with the new guard once that one shows up.

You look back over the messages in the memo. Not that you need to refresh your knowledge of what has been said, but you’re anticipating a message from either Kanaya or Eridan in the memo any time now—might as well be there when the notification hits.

TT: Kanaya and Eridan, when you two are ready to go, let me know beforehand. GA: Yes Hal CA: shit CA: yea a course GA: Based On The Schedule I Have There Is A Guard Change In Three Shifts With A Troll Whom I Have Observed To Leave Post Earlier Than Others GA: If We Are Doing This Tonight Then We Will Be Doing It On 5th Shift Change GA: Is This Agreeable CA: yes CA: sounds about right TT: Sounds good.

Nothing new, yet. There’s nothing you can do now, but wait.

[cyberstates]

> HAL: Talk Ethics with Kanaya.

warnings: some implied references to depression, mentions of self harm.

GA: Ethics Is A Branch Of Philosophy Is It Not TT: Yeah, it is. It's my favorite branch of philosophy actually.

GA: Governing Morality And Justice GA: Correct GA: I Am Not Well Versed In The Subject TT: Yeah, that's pretty on point. Ethics also is concerned with matters of values, in general. TT: Are you interested in it? GA: As It Pertains To The Future Perhaps GA: I Do Not Want To Trouble You GA: But Would You Be Open To Discussion TT: I'm never busy. Multi-tasking is a thing I can do as easily as breathing is for most people, so totally. GA: I Am Torn Between Whether It Is Ruder To Assume You Are Willing To Speak Or To Insinuate That You Do Not Have The Capacity To Multitask In The Interest Of Allowing You To Decline Politely TT: Haha, it's fine. I'm always excited to discuss philosophy, so I'm totally down. GA: Is It Ethical To Do Something In Someones Best Interest Even If They Wildly Disapprove TT: I think so. TT: Not universally, of course, but I think generally speaking, it's ethical. GA: I Do Not Think I Am Being Subtle By The Way TT: Yeah, I know you're talking about Sollux. GA: It Is Just Difficult For Me To Speak Directly TT: I understand. TT: It's pretty hard to see him adamantly refuse and rationalize why it'd be better to leave him there. But it's not like it's impossible to understand why he'd think that, though neither is it impossible to say that his judgment here isn't right. TT: I personally think I have an ethical imperative to help him—or any friend in this situation—even if, and this is hypothetical, he would hate me for doing so. GA: That Is What I Am Concerned About I Think I Know I Cannot Leave Knowing He Will Remain Behind GA: However I Have Been Informed It Should Just Be Sollux And I For A Time As Vriska Is Taking Eridan Somewhere GA: I Foresee GA: Resentment Perhaps GA: I Do Not Expect Sollux To Be In Good Spirits TT: It'll take time, I think. GA: I Am Struggling To Reconcile The Demands Of My Conscience With His Desire To Maintain The Status Quo For Himself GA: It Is Easy To Give In To A Routine GA: If It Is Beaten Into You For Long Enough TT: Yeah. GA: My Duty Is To Him More Than Eridan At This Point TT: What do you mean by that? GA: Eridan Does Not Need Me The Way Sollux Does GA: I Will Not Elaborate Out Of Respect For Eridans Privacy TT: Understandable. GA: I Am Not Sure How I Will Be Able To Remain Neutral And Comforting If I Am Faced With Resentment And The Constant Reminder Of What I Have Done GA: I Will Not Waver When We Take Action GA: But I Am Still Uneasy With The Multitude Of Interpersonal Consequences I Cannot Even Begin To Guess At GA: Even Relating To Sollux Alone GA: He Is Dear To Me GA: As Much As He Tries Not To Be GA: I Do Not Want Him To Hate Me But I Know It Is Out Of My Control TT: It's true that Sollux will need support and care after we get him out of there, to recover both physically and mentally. TT: As his friend and someone who is helping him get out of there, you seem to feel like this support might have to fall to you entirely, which I don't think is true, but also think should not be true. TT: That said, I don't think you should necessarily frame this situation, and him, as something in terms of your duty? I mean, duty outside of a friendship-duty sense. TT: I don't really know what we can do aside from being patient and understanding if Sollux harbors resentment about this. TT: But in that situation we must also be mindful of ourselves, and what we need and want for our own well-being. TT: At the crux of this is the fact that we aren't respecting what he wants because we feel like in this situation, he is being tied down to something by both the systems around him but also by the internalization of those systems. GA: Like Troll Platos Allegory Of The Cavern TT: Is that the same as Plato's Allegory of the Cave. Like the dudes and the shadow and crawling out to see the gradual light stuff? GA: Yes TT: Yeah, I guess Sollux is kind of like the guy who needs to figure out that the shadows are shadows on his own. Except less patronizing. TT: But, anyway, in this circumstance, I think our circumvention of his agency is ethically justifiable—but we should not forget that we are doing just that—circumventing his agency, denying his agency any potency. And here lies an ethical danger, that we may continue to do so when it is no longer justifiable. GA: I Do Not Want To Let Him Hurt Himself GA: When Does Denying His Agency Cease To Be Right And Begin To Be Oppressive GA: How Are My Actions Different From Those Of Helm Law TT: Your first question is an important one. TT: I think we can try our best to avoid falling into the pitfalls of an oppressive mode if we communicate with him. If we support him and guide him. Ultimately, there are decisions that he might adamantly want to make which are harmful to himself, and we will have to hope to be able to convince him that. TT: If we aren't able to, I don't know what we can do—but it becomes a slippery slope rather quickly. TT: Sollux is in a lot of pain, this much is apparent. It's likely that his sense of self and trollhood is distorted. I believe in the fact that he can heal and recover, but both processes I'm sure will take time. I don't want him to feel like no one will listen to what he wants for himself, but at the same time if he wants things that are harmful to himself, we can't let him attain those. GA: I Know GA: I Am Sorry To Have Put You In This Position Hal GA: Thank You For Talking With Me About This GA: I Am Not Sure I Feel Better But I Do Not Think I Will Feel Worse TT: You don't need to apologize. I'm sorry I wasn't able to help alleviate anything, but. No worries. If you ever need to talk about whatever, I'm willing to lend a metaphorical ear. GA: I Appreciate It GA: I Am Glad He Has Such A Good Friend Looking Out For Him TT: You're a good friend to him too. GA: That Is Up For Debate GA: Thank You For Saying So

[cyberstates]

> capsize, pt 2.

warnings: implied asphyxiation, implied eye trauma, death, murder, violence.

GA: We Are Going In 10 GA: Hal GA: Are You Ready

There is no option for you but to be ready. And of course, you are. The giddiness (85% likelihood) is still there and more intense now, and if you had a physical body, you're sure that it'd be shaking. Good thing you're just an Empire warship right now, right? You manage to ignore the intensity of the emotion, anyway, telling yourself that for you, it's only a certain fluctuation in the neural network, and nothing real.

TT: Yes, I'm ready.

Kanaya and Eridan slip into the Helmsblock with no problem, and you had already made sure that the security cameras would be fed the looped recording of the empty block. As Kanaya moves to cut the cables connecting Sollux to the ship, you smoothly switch the power to auxiliary and suppress the alert. As they prepare to leave the room, you simultaneously disconnect the outside guard from the ship's internal communications and cause a piercing noise to emit from his headset directly into his ears, disorienting him to allow Eridan and Kanaya, who is carrying Sock, to kill the guard and get out of there.

As the three of them move from corridor to corridor, you replace the live camera feeds with looped videos, warning them of nearby patrolling guards. It becomes routine, the communication disconnection and the simultaneous disorientation of the guards, allowing Eridan easy aim, but the three of them are lucky to not run into that many. You want to believe that it'll be this easy all the way through, that they'll get off the ship and onto Vriska's intercepter without being noticed until it's too late, but you suddenly notice that some of the crew has found the body of the Helmsblock guard and they've no doubt seen the empty helming rig. Fuck.

TT: Bad news. TT: We've been found out.

Hopefully, Kanaya is checking her messages.

You activate one of Sollux's viruses, killing the Starscreech's ability to communicate outside of the ship with the rest of the Empire. Then, you lock and jam all of the doors of off-shoot rooms that lead into the corridors Eridan, Kanaya, and Sollux will pass through. You can hear some of them banging on the doors, cursing about it through the microphones inside the rooms—useless to them for outside communication.

This is what you've been giddy about the entire time, your systems tell you: The prospect of making a series of shitty references to 2001: A Space Odyssey as part of your name bit–but it's all in good fun, even if the poor trolls of this ship are going to die as a result. Alarming thought, yet again, but you decide you'll dwell on it once this whole thing is over. The vestiges of one's own moral crises can wait.

The plan was to wait until Eridan, Kanaya, and Sollux were off the ship before you started killing the crew, but you have to buy them time. That's part of the reason you got involved in this plan in the first place—buying them enough time to get off the ship and out of here. You start cutting off the oxygen supply in random sectors of the Starscreech, beginning with the ones that would pose the most risk to your companions.

TT: I've locked all doors of rooms that have crew members in them. Should weaken your opposition a bit. TT: But, you might have some company, soon. TT: Move quickly.

Something goes wrong with Eridan. You don't pay close attention, but his eye definitely shouldn't look like that.

* * *

Once the three of them are off the ship, you deploy all of Sollux's viruses, obliterating the Starscreech's ability to navigate itself manually and obnoxiously freezing all of the monitors and interfaces with a certain, duplicating image.

The ship refuses to turn in accordance to the pilots' wishes, maintaining its stubborn straightward path despite the escaping interceptor. Instantaneously, as you deploy the viruses, you also cause the auxiliary power of the Starscreech to fuck itself up—somehow. You're surprised that you're able to do it yourself. You shut off the oxygen completely, but you can't really do anything about the backup oxygen masks. about. If only you could reference Portal, too.

The surviving crew, which is of a larger percentage than you had hoped, must've figured you out by now. You concede that the shitty images of Troll Dave from Troll A Space Odyssey was too much of a self-expose. A few of the trolls of the Starscreech talk over each other, and you read their lips—realizing that they're going to start up a forced shut down the non-essential systems of the ship. Fuck. You should probably get out of here, now. The one-way signal that Vriska left up for you is basically beckoning you, but you're worried–if you leave too earlier, the whole mission might be compromised.

You test if you can forcibly open the landing station to expose the interior of the ship to the unforgiving landscape of outer space, but they must've already circumvented you there. You have to go, or you'll probably be stuck here forever. Well, nothing always turns out completely perfectly.

You connect yourself to Vriska's signal, uploading yourself, and say goodbye to the Starscreech, deleting any trace of your presence.

Well, not entirely. You leave a little something on Lochagos' tablet—an undeletable application that when opened, will cause the phone to explode.