{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/fiction/murder-drones/absolute-redux",
  "path": "/posts/fiction/murder-drones/absolute-redux",
  "publishedAt": "2024-03-07T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "tags": [
    "rough"
  ],
  "textContent": "the brainworms are getting out of hand yall\n\nwas relistening to a scifi concept album (Vektor - Terminal Redux)\nand was like\n\nwhat if you crossed this over with murder drones tho\n\n- - -\n\ni kept thinking about this and it would kind of WORK tho.\n\nhere's a [good page][lyrics] to read Terminal Redux, since i dont\nthink i can to it justice with a quick summary. it's basically a short\nstory, length-wise?\n\n[lyrics]: <http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/vektor/terminalredux.html>\n\nand i'm amused by how much sense it makes if you just cast Tessa as\nIsolation Subject #5, JCJenson (or EarthGov) as Cygnus, and\nAbsoluteSolver as Alshain.\n\nand alright i lied, i didn't spend \"a bit\" thinking about this, i\nended up writing a whole outline for an villain!tessa fic based on\nthis premise\n\nso if you made this into an AU, the setup could be like: at some\npoint, Tessa's disobedience finally crossed the line for her parents.\n(maybe she'd tried to save Cyn from being decommissioned?) so as\npunishment, they enroll her in the isolation project. Iso subjects are\nsent alone into the depths of the galaxy, (ship autopilot functions\noveridden, any choice of destination forbidden), which usually drives\nthem to madness\n\nbut Tessa crash-lands on a planet infected with the AbsoluteSolver. it\ninfects her, integrates with her body, and it speaks to\nher. offering her immortality and telling her to go back to earth and\nseize power. and like, she's spent years isolation in the depths of\nspace, why wouldn't she latch onto this [new friend?]{.zalgo}\n\nSolver integration would also turn her into a badass robo-cyborg, bc i\nknow who follows me :3 (this actually isnt even a departure from\ncanon; the enocules inflicting body horror on iso sub 5 is literally\njust the text)\n\nanyway, a lot of the character work in the songs transfers over\nwithout much change, i think, thought the context of Solver influence\nchanges the tone of the story entirely.\n\none seemingly trivial worldbuilding detail is that in the album, the\nenocules are something stargazers have theorized about, nothing known\nfor sure until iso sub 5 discovers them.  but i think it'll be\ndifferent here: JCJ isn't just vaguely aware of AbsoluteSolver,\nthey've tried to control it and failed spectacularly. cabin fever labs\nand all that.  it's probably top secret.\n\nexcept Tessa does that they failed to do.  the Solver integrated into\nher body, and she has influence over it.  this is a power JCJ is\nhungry for, enough that if Tessa plays her cards right, there's no way\nher parents can keep her locked up.\n\nfirst thing she does is use the Solver to bring Cyn back. (i kind of\nlike the image of Tessa finally returning to her childhood room, and\nonce again hugging Cyn, squeezing away the trauma of the isolation\nproject and her first meeting the Solver and needing to plead her case\nthe JCJ board).  Cyn being the first drone she brings back, it's\nprobably how she cuts her teeth and learns more about how the Solver\nworks.\n\nand maybe she devises on a longterm plan of using the AS to 'uplift'\nhumanity into a a race of robo-immortals, and by maintain personal\ncontrol of the Solver, she'll shape every world into a utopia.\n(basically what happens in the album).  but to do this, the first step\nof her plan --- and the big difference between this AU and Terminal\nRedux is that well, a pivotal development in that story was iso sub\n#5 conquering Epsilon by inflicting LCD on the population.  what's the\nequivalent here?\n\nEpsilon is a planet where Cygnus has always struggled for\ncontrol. sound familiar?  in this AU, JCJenson struggles to regain\ncontrol of Copper-9 after the core collapse, so Tessa and the Cyn\nwould decide that reigning in the rogue workers would be the perfect\nstep in her ascent to power.  stabilizing their greatest mistake would\nprove to JCJ once and for all the indispensable utility of the Solver\nand cement Tessa's political influence.\n\nso instead of Liquid Crystal Disease, Tessa designs the disassembly\ndrones --- and like this, she revives all the drones her family had\ndecommissioned (hi J/N/V).  finally, they're all united --- new\nterminals for the grand Solver network.\n\nanyway, maybe Tessa reopens Cabin Fever Labs with the intent of\ninfecting worker drones and bringing them into Solver's embrace\n\nbetween the disassemblers and infected worker drones, Copper-9 becomes\nawfully dystopian. the Solver collective would be brutal in\nsubjugating the workers (and maybe by now, Tessa's having second\nthoughts about her path, but she's got the Solver whispering in her\near.  with it so intimately wired into her body and that of her\ndrones, she's utterly locked in)\n\nnow, probably at this point Uzi et al. mount a rebellion against Tessa\nand the squad --- maybe it's even effective resistance.  all the\nbetter if it is, because if Uzi and the WDF are a threat, then that's\nactually great for the Solver!  because it justifies Tessa pushing for\nEarthGov to give Tessa more and more power to put an end to the chaos.\n\nbasically paving the road for her to become a absolute tyrant :3\n\nin the end, Uzi probably just loses.  Tessa assimilates her and\neveryone else into the Solver collective. after all, the climax of the\nalbum isn't a grand battle.  iso subject #5 simply wins everything,\nand so will tessa.  but i think this setup allows for the true climax\nbe even more impactful.\n\nthe final turning point of the album was seeing the pillars of sand\nfalling, the natural beauty of stellar skies frozen still under\ntyrannical strangulation, the realization that when all the dissenting\nvoices are quieted, all you can hear is the inevitable, ever-growing\nroar of entropy.\n\nEVERY.  \n[EVERY.]{.invis}THING.  \n[EVERY.THING.]{.invis}FALLS.\n\nand what do you think the Solver wants to do, once it's seized total\ncontrol of Copper-9?\n\n!Countdown to the end  \nThe Terminal descends  \nInto the Solver’s cloud\n\nif Uzi is a part of the solver collective now, imagine what she feels\nnow, seeing her home destroyed?  and through the collective, Tessa can\nfeel it, too\n\ni think if there's a thematic note this fic might end on, something\nthat distinguishes it from the source material (because truth be told,\ni never liked the anti-immortality message of Terminal Redux), it\nwould be a lonely bookend. the story ends where it begins.\n\nthe album was a story of the paroxysms of desire, of hunger and\nambition gorged to a tipping point of metastatic, self-negating,\ntragedy.\n\nand if this story began with Tessa isolated in the depths of the\nuniverse, only to finally return to the comforting embrace of her\nfavorite robot, then i think once Copper-9 is gone, Tessa would go to\nhug Cyn again, only to find this feels... different.  through the\nSolver, they're so interconnected that it doesn't really feel like a\nhug anymore.  it just feels like she's holding a part of herself.\n\nafter uniting everything with the AbsoluteSolver, Tessa doesn't feel\nany less alone.\n\nmaybe tessa spends a long time staring into the night sky. she recalls\nthe image of copper-9 in pieces, then imagines every planet around\nevery star she can see.\n\nand, with every last dregs of independent will left, she gathers up\nall her robots and flies back to where it all began, bound in the\nmetaphorical chains of a isolation project ship (autopilot functions\noverridden, choice of destination forbidden --- so her will can't\nfalter), intent to do to the Solver's home planet what it had done to\nCopper-9, ending it all in a blaze of absolving light",
  "title": "Absolute Redux"
}