001 [Video]

[missiondeterminant]

[For those who frequent the tops of the various climbable buildings in Hadriel, they might recognize that this broadcast is from the roof of one of them due to the angle; otherwise it's just a rapidly darkening cloudy sky for a backdrop, sun setting and rain clearly threatening to roll in at any time.

It's pretty, and that may or may not be the reason why Connor is out on a roof in the first place, but it's definitely not the point of this impromptu broadcast. He's just been wondering some things, and it's in his nature to actively search out answers rather than waiting for them to come to him, so he's decided to just go for it.]

Hello everyone; my name is Connor, and I just arrived a few days ago.

[Always good to start with introductions, and also to avoid saying exactly how many days or hours it's been since a given time when pretending to be human. He's getting a little better at this.]

I've been catching up on the situation at hand, and although the context is somewhat different, there are parallels to current events in my world that are difficult to ignore. Before I arrived, we were dealing with what might be the beginning of a civil war between humans and machines.

[He's trying to tread carefully, projecting enough genuine interest without sounding over-invested. He's just asking, after all, nothing more; there's definitely no personal reason why he wants to know.]

So I'm curious; I'm aware that what the Null have done is enough reason to be against them, but does what they are play any role in your feelings toward them?

Comments

text;

[missiondeterminant]

[Okay, this is useful information, and entirely new to him. Sure, it isn't exactly what he asked, but he's definitely not going to complain.]

I was unaware they had modified themselves to be more machine-like. That's good to know, thank you.

It does seem like the population here is quite diverse.

[And okay, treading a bit carefully on the last point so as not to give away anything he doesn't intend to--]

If the Null after very difficult to kill, what's the most effective way to deal with them comes to a fight again in the future?

[aroundthecoroner]

They have a core.
It's probably where their, like, brain is?
Not like a living brain, but like their... I don't know, motherboard or whatever.
The computer part.
Sorry, I majored in biology, I don't know anything about machines.
Anyway, that's the Null itself, the rest is just a shell.
You take out that, they go down.
But it's kinda hard to get to, to be honest, and they learned to armor it better than the rest.
I didn't have much of a problem with it because we just kinda took them apart?
By brute force, I mean, but that's not an option for everyone.

[That sure isn't confusing at all.]

[missiondeterminant]

That makes sense.

[Even if he feels an unpleasant twist of an emotion he can't identify at the casual discussion of just taking the Null apart. If it was really self-defense then Connor doesn't necessarily blame him, but it's definitely more cavalier than he would expect if they'd been talking about having to kill a human.]

If their core components can be gathered together into a single protected area, it would provide them an overall advantage. What kind of threat did they pose?

[Was it mainly brute force in return? Or did they have weapons?]

[aroundthecoroner]

[No, sorry Connor, that's just Michael. But naturally, Connor has no way of knowing that.]

I mean they're huge for one thing.
When we're both standing up they're almost as tall as me.
Wait, that's not true.
Sorry, this is confusing, I'm remembering it from a weird perspective.
They're probably, I don't know, 7-8ft? Really big.
And sharp. And really strong.
They had like, laser cutters, and they had some kind of shock weapon? I didn't see much of the second one.
They also had a thing that would kill anyone near it. I didn't get a great look at any of those for, uh, obvious reasons.

[missiondeterminant]

[Okay, that's... Definitely more of a threat than an android, at least in terms of immediate force. Specialized models like Connor are extremely dangerous, and even a standard housekeeping model can do a lot of damage if they have to, but they're still human-sized and with various weak points and often have to rely on standard weapons that a human would use. The Null sound quite different, although that's really no surprise.]

How did the people here manage to hold them off for weeks if they were so dangerous?

[He's genuinely curious about this, although he's also gauging threats. If the people here can kill these Null, then they'd definitely be a risk to Connor.]

[aroundthecoroner]

We had the gods on our side, but honestly, a lot of the people here are forces to be reckoned with.
Some of them can use magic, and some of them are soldiers and stuff.
I'll be honest, the fighting itself is kind of a blur to me.
I don't remember it that well.
I know at some point someone at the lab figured out how to reverse engineer their weapons.
And when one of the gods died, it messed them up long enough to turn the tide.

[It also messed Michael up enough to get killed, but he doesn't feel that bringing up that particular event is relevant.]

[missiondeterminant]

[Okay, definitely a risk, and that's actually sort of frightening. He makes a mental note to find out more about who can use magic and to what extent, as well as the reverse-engineered weapons, but for now he's going to just try to avoid looking suspicious by asking too many more details.]

I see. Thank you for the information.

[aroundthecoroner]

Uh, yeah. No problem.
If you think of other stuff you want to know, you can contact me again.