Re: ULMF the Third (RP Thread)
Host's head snaps back with an "Oof!" from the punch - Sinful's fist felt a skull that was as thick as his previous actions would make her expect - Then forward again as she grabs the demon and holds his neck against the blade. "Glerhk.." The Lurker, however, after a brief moment of shock, only looks her in the eyes, unflinching as the others act around them... at least until he suddenly winces. "Oh, hey... the radio synced." He announces, using the radio itself, just before Sinful releases him. Her parting words, though, got a chuckle from the demon, unable to resist the chance to mock.
"Oh my, getting a person on contract to kill the Lurker’s diplomatic representative, instead of using an ULMFer directly? Not a one of the Lurkers saw -that- possibility coming.” A smirk, and he walked out to the truck. “Really, what do you think we are, some kind of goody-two-shoes, registered organisation? We’re evil. If we wanted to kill you, we would – so you can presume that, at the moment, nuking ULMF isn’t high on our list of priorities. That could change if, say, something untoward happened to the Lurker’s diplomatic representative while he was in ULMF’s care – whether or not an ULMFer actually did the deed.”
His piece said, the demon hauled himself into the truck. It was a shame that he couldn’t give more away… they needed to know where they stood - but anything more, and the Lurkers might put his loyalty into question…
When everyone was on board, the truck rolled off, moving them along a road towards the complex. “So, with the exception of Suri and Shade, I know most of you have fought bots… but how much do you know about them? Tell me, what’s the difference between a bot, robot, and addbot?” Host looked around, gauging at least one or two confused faces. “Alright… a robot is a machine built by another creature to move around and perform tasks - I doubt I really need to go into much about them. A bot… well, it sure as hell isn’t built by a creature, not in any sense the Net understands.”
They passed by the first few trees, the road becoming less strictly defined as the truck entered the forest. “Sure, they look like machines, they work like machines, and they’re made of metal… but they come from whole different places. Bots can only ever be created by a hacker or programmer. They have some form of unidentifiable ability to create certain things, bots included, out of… as far as anyone can tell, nothing. Given how rare hackers and programmers have become, bots are quite an uncommon sight. …Well, alright, the addbots make up about… what is it they’re saying now, 70% of the known Net? –But they move slow, and nobody’s dumb enough to try fighting them anymore, so actually encountering a bot is rare.”
The road, as it was, was now nothing more than a particularly wide gap in the trees where less grass grew. “I suppose you’re thinking, ‘big whoop, they get pulled out of thin air rather than built’… but there’s more to it than that. Bots have some… undefinable quality that makes most machines totally unable to recognise them. Automated targeting systems can’t see the things at all, or go absolutely haywire. Video feed can be blank, static, random images… even thermal imaging will fuck up a good deal of the time. The R n’ D of absolutely everywhere has been trying to figure out why this is, ever since the addbots showed up… but nobody’s got the slightest. And this is before we get into the freakier shit – scripts, which could be anything from machines, to weird machine-ghost essence things, to fake humans… to the addbot’s signature dick move – possession scripts.” With steeled features, he looks to Sinful, and then to Rapture, the only two others in the truck to have gone through Tentacle Haven’s assault from the addbots. “Anyone who has had to go through any extended fight with the addbots will tell you that possession scripts are among the most horrifying thing they can possibly imagine. Myself included.” After a moment, the sombre atmosphere dismisses itself. “The addbots, for those of you who live under rocks, are the big ball of ‘consume everything’ that marks the middle of the Internet. They’re just bots like any other, supposedly created for the sake of advertising… but things were apparently done a little incorrectly and so while they do advertise, they’re also genocidal maniacs. At some point in history, so long ago that almost no record of the actual date still survives, the addbots were strong enough to defeat everything an alliance of all civilised forces on the Internet could throw at them… and they’ve only been getting more numerous since. Any questions? Yes, there will be a test…”
