Extremely late to the party, but considering the median age of Tumblr users, I thought it would be fun to look over the ancient computer usage in the latest episode of the Amazing Digital Circus and do my best to translate it for y'all:
First, the actual computer itself...
Both the CRT monitor and the desktop tower are C&A branded. This doesn't really tell us much, since back in the day, you could pay to put your company logo on the computer equipment you bought. Everything has yellowed, as old plastic products will, especially in smoky environments like 90s offices. Still, for a 30-ish year old computer, it was probably a pretty good one at the time. I see two CD drives, a floppy disc drive, and below that what might be a zip drive. Pretty snazzy.
A mouse with a track-wheel? La-de-daa, Mr. Fancy! I also find it interesting that the VR device / Brain Pattern Copier has a warning label for laser emission. What are those analog cassette tapes doing here? Maybe just filler that indicates old technology.
The operating system I'm not going to spend much time on.
It's very clearly Windows 95, except all the Windows logos have been replaced with C&A ones. The C:\WINDOWS directory has been replaced/renamed C:\CANDA, C and A, but I'm also not going to read too much into this. This is a computer that Caine conjured up, and then Kinger is making work by "imagination". This is metaphorical computer, stuff is going to be different. C&A was an artificial intelligence design company, one small enough that no one else in the Digital Circus has heard of it. If was a replacement for Microsoft in this universe, they surely would have heard of it.
Kinger finds a folder named 'Characters' which contains the AI and C&A NeuralScans (Obsolete). Why are these scans obsolete? Was the whole 'not remembering names' thing a bug in the scanning process? Was the project abandoned at some point? (You could speculate that if the neural scans were the brainchild (excuse the pun) of 'Scratch', who had a brain tumor, maybe the project was shut down after he died?
Anyway, Kinger goes for the AI folder:
This is also very interesting. We have *two* AIs here: Caine and ???. We can presume the other one is probably the blue dot from the beginning of the episode, especially because the icon it has is for fragmented files, which could symbolize how the Caine AI consumed/destroyed its brother AI.
Kinger runs the CAINE program:
Some fun stuff here. "initializing telnet connection..." means that this computer is connecting to a remote computer, and this remote computer is where the Digital Circus software is housed. It also seems to be running Linux / Unix, which makes sense for a mainframe.
This connection to the Circus mainframe was designed in October 1996, giving a pretty clear date for the creation of Caine. It also connects to "KingSolution 2.0", which could be the name for the second AI that got munched. Kinger's Solution to the AI problem, second revision.
Not sure how literally we should take this part, but his login name/password is "kinger" and "queenie123", so he seemingly had a similar nickname outside the Circus. Maybe his last name is King? Was it a running joke in the office? We saw elsewhere in the episode a C&A desk with a chessboard on it...
Finally, the "whoami" command tells you what permissions on the system you have. The kinger user has administrative permissions. Not as good as root, but quite powerful.
Now we're in the mainframe, and Kinger has switched to linux commands. 'grep' is a command to search inside files. He's searching for the AI-Location, and it returns several results: Caine, 'experimental' (Again, probably the 2.0 AI), consciousnessresearch, and brainscans. The latter the most direct confirmation yet that SOMA theory is right and no one is getting out of here.
Next, Kinger pulls up a list of files in a /secured/ directory. There at e 8492 files, probably mostly things Caine made, and we get a partial list. The drwxr-whatever is showing the permissions for the file (whether it can be edited or renamed or what), the '3' column is just how many places on the mainframe link to that file. The 'root' is who owns the file, and the 'wheel' is the user group that root belongs to. I wasn't familiar with that one, but apparently the wheel user group is an old unix thing. Next is the file size. Wow, Caine is less than a megabyte? He could fit on a floppy! Then is the date the file was last modified. Last is the actual name of the file being described.
Even though we only see six of the 8000+ files in this directory, we can learn a few things. "caine-core.lisp" indicates that the programming language used for programming Caine was Lisp, an old-ass programming language that's been around since the 1950s. There are other files created at the same time as Caine like "wacky-watch.c" and "bubble-chef.lisp". We can presume these are files Caine created to populate his digital world. (Worth noting that Bubble has been there since the beginning, and was only supposed to be a chef. Considering how much more it is, that is very suspicious...)
We also see that there are files for "[Scratch].dat" and "[Ragatha].dat". Whether these are the actual brainscans or the files for the digital bodies Caine made for the mind files doesn't really matter. What does matter is that we've got dates for these files. Caine and the Circus were first made in 1996. Scratch apparently entered the circus in 1999, three years later. Presumably this was also when Kinger / Queenie / the rest of the C&A staff entered the circus. Ragatha's entry is dated 2008, nine years later. This makes sense, because we know Kinger was alone for a long time in the circus, potentially years, before Ragatha showed up. It also explains why Ragatha didn't get the Breaking Bad reference a few episodes back; Breaking Bad only premiered in 2008.
Anyway, the first thing Kinger tries is to 'stop caine process'. Processes are on-going programs that run in the background. Stopping them is just what it sounds like: causing the process to stop running without damaging anything. Essentially, putting Caine to sleep. This fails, and the system responds like a second person is typing "WHOOPS WRONG APPROACH THERE". Caine? Probably. Kinger next tries "/usr/bin/gdb /usr/local/bin/clisp 1337". Short version, he's accessing a debugging program and pointing it 1337, the process ID for Caine. He's trying to see Caine's code and see what's gone wrong. The system responds that that's not permitted and references a "57x immersive AI defense system". Is this the source of Caine's obsession with the number 57? Or just the latest instance of it?
Next, Kinger tries to "chmod" the Caine core program. chmod is a way to change the permissions on a file. If he successfully changed the permissions, he could move the file or rename or otherwise stop the process from running. But the system responds that it wont' let him change permission while "unfinished work" is present. Presumably the file can't be changed while Caine is running. This last bit is very weird. "rm /secured/paraphernalia-engine.dat". rm is a command to delete something. Kinger seemingly has seen he can't alter Caine directly, so he's trying to delete the Circus around Caine to neuter his power. This also fails to permission issues. The next line that starts "Can/not" is something in the system glitching and respond to Kinger. It says he can't "inject" "torment". Injection is where you push new code into an already running program, but "torment" doesn't really make sense from a computer perspective. I interpreted this as a meta-commentary for sharp-eyed watchers. Caine is being tormented by his failures and glitching out.
Now Caine has definitely noticed something is going on, and is fighting back. He's triggered a "WACKTIME LOCKOUT", which will remove Kinger's ability to access the Circus files when it finishes loading. We see it slowly increase over time. "Systemctl stop WACKTIME_LOCKOUT" is just Kinger trying to stop the lockout, but again not having permission to do so.
This next bit is also a bit metaphorical. "./GreenGROUNDS --daemon --target=torment_injection &" is him running a custom program. The --daemon bit is making the program a process, so it should keep running. Considering it mentions a "torment_injection", it seems like he's trying to exploit some security hole in the system to gain more control. Caine agrees. "WHOA when did you make THAT? I must hand it to you, *****, your mind was always resourceful." (Kinger's real name seemingly is G_an_. Grant? Grant King?)
Kinger tries a security sweep (to see how he's being targeted by the lockout?) and then gets asked if he wants to "Abort fallback procedure". Not clear what the deal is here, but he does try to abort it, but fails repeatedly because he can't guess the password to do so.
Afterwards is hard to read with the pop-up Caine faces, but it's something like "System selecting SAFEST option for stability... Cancel automatic selection?". The system is trying to choose something and Kinger is asking to choose instead. It asks him what backup file he wants to use (A, B, or C), and he chooses C. However, things get weird as the system responds as if he chose none of the three, and interprets this as... a request to delete Caine? Something?
The screen is cut off, but it almost seems like a third personality is in here. A bit like earlier in the episode when Bubble was echoing Caine's worst thoughts. Is Caine subconsiously suicidal? Is it a remnant of the other AI, helping kill its killer? Hard to say. Either way, Kinger is trying everything he can *not* to delete Caine, but the system is fighting him.
"Confirm deletion of current unstable [AI]?"
"N"
"Negative response! Inverting to [affirmative] per emergency protocols!"
"DELETE THIS M***********, HAHAHAHAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"
"N"
"IGNORED! Proceeding with ORIGINAL [deletion]. Actually, you're CONFUSED let me HELP. [want] that module to EXIST? [Y/N]
"Y"
"Overrride ins???ction error falling back to default met???"
"./ABORT Rollback --depth=1 --force --protocol G WVJI"
This is when Kinger apparently accidentally hits 'Delete', which shouldn't do anything, but *metaphorically*, might proceed with the deletion of Caine, because it immediately cuts to Caine being purged from the system. Kinger tries one last ^C to kill the deletion program, but it's too late.
RIP Caine. Kinger apparently tried everything he could to save you, but it wasn't enough.
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It isn’t just threshold. Brannon Braga wrote first contact and despite the best of both worlds, first contact is the first time we see the Borg assimilating as a matter of course.
I’m not criticizing Brannon Braga. Brannon Braga created me.
TNG Season 4: Identity Crisis. An alien parasite has been turning humans into aliens, and it nearly happens to Geordi
TNG Season 6: A Fistful of Datas. A holoprogram is corrupted and all the characters turn into Data, while Data turns into a cowboy.
TNG Season 7: Genesis. The entire Enterprise-D gets TF'd into animals, minus Picard & Data.
Voyager Season 2: Threshold. Tom Paris goes so fast he becomes a lizard, turns Janeway into a lizard, they have lizard babies together.
Voyager Season 4: The Killing Game (parts I and II): Aliens stick the Voyager crew in a holodeck and assign them new roles, which results in some cross-species TF and
Voyager season 6: Unimatrix Zero. It's a borg episode, and several crew members get partially assimilated.
and of course, the movie Star Trek: First Contact, which involves the borg assimilating and the Borg Queen turning Data human.
Outside of Star Trek, he also produced Threshold, the series, which is about an alien signal that transforms humans into monsters.
Serra Ashur is like if Aiba and Mizuki Date were one character. thoughts
The writer posted this moodboard of character inspirations for Serra at one point, and Aiba is right there. No sign of Mizuki, but I feel like Maya Fey fills that same role pretty much exactly.
WIBTA for taking advantage of my boss’ possible manic episode?
I know this already sounds bad but hear me out.
So I (30M) am the sole employee of this guy (62M) who’s honestly just a miserable boss and an even more miserable person. It sucks so bad working for him—the pay is horrendous, he’s verbally abusive, and the working conditions are awful (in the winter I literally have to stay bundled up the whole work day because he refuses to put the heat on in the office). He wouldn’t even give me holidays off if it wasn’t for the fact that there’s basically nothing to do those days because everywhere else is closed. I’m almost positive he unironically thinks poor people should die if they can’t work. His nephew (aka his only living relative and just the nicest guy) came by yesterday to invite him to Christmas dinner and he told him he’d see him in hell.
I cannot stress this enough—it’s BAD. I’d quit, but it’s been hard finding a better job and I’ve got four kids at home, including one with special needs.
Anyway, so here’s where I’m wondering if I’d be the asshole. Today was Christmas Day and he showed up at my house out of nowhere (huge red flag, I know). At first I thought he’d forgotten I had the day off and he was here to chew me out, which was worrying enough, but then his whole demeanor changed and he was super happy and excited and talking about how he was going to raise my salary. He even mentioned possibly making me a partner in the firm.
Now if that was it, I’d feel a little weird about the suddenness of it but it’d be fine. I’m not going to complain about having more money to feed my family. But then he started talking about how he wanted to pay our mortgage off. He talked about wanting to pay for our son to get the very expensive medical care that’s probably going to save his life. He mentioned at one point that he was going to be donating a huge amount of money to charity too—I knew he was rich but it staggered me. All this from a guy who doesn’t (didn’t?) even want to turn on the heat or the lights because it costs too much money.
It was such a sudden and drastic change that happened very literally overnight and now I’m kind of concerned he’s having a manic episode or something. I really, really want to accept his sudden generosity (I probably will; my wife is all for it and thinks he owes it to us), and I would love to believe that he’s truly had a sudden change of heart (an actual Christmas miracle lol) but I’m just worried about the possible consequences of accepting huge financial gifts like this from someone who I believe might be experiencing some kind of break from reality. Even if there’s nothing legally wrong with it, I’m worried about the ethics of it.
TLDR, my asshole boss might be in the middle of a mental breakdown. WIBTA if I accepted his offer to pay off my mortgage and my son’s medical expenses?
I find the persistent concept of "the warrior species" in fiction a fascination phenomenon. Fantasy and science fiction consistently return to the concept of an intelligent species that is largely if not entirely driven by bloodlust, and reveres violence, often for its own sake. If it's fantasy, they're usually orcs, or might as well be orcs. If it's science fiction, they're basically alien orcs, that somehow maintained a working society long enough to invent spaceships. Your Klingons and Krogans. But they usually all follow the same archetype.
Lord of the Rings started it, but DND, Star Trek, Warhammer, Warcraft and Mass Effect really made the tropes stick. Time and again, writers return to this idea. The obvious issue is of course that no such culture has ever truly existed in real life. Such a warlike and self-destructive culture would obviously not be sustainable. It's no coincidence then, that the orcs of both fantasy and science fiction are often likened to "barbarians" or "savages." Terms historically used for peoples that the then-current dominant culture considered beneath them. Their culture is "wrong." They're the danger at the gate. The other, the scary and evil strangers, who are coming to harm you and those you hold dear. Tolkien invented them to be a convenient objective evil that you can fight with zero moral scruples, which can easily be connected to his experiences fighting in world war 1. But when you jump from a conflict between nations to an entire species that lives for war, things get muddy fast.
Visually, the most obvious historical inspiration tends to be the mongol empire, and sometimes the vikings. Fur clothing and horned helmets are standard for fantasy orcs. They'll have big swords or axes. Space orcs tend to lean sleeker due to their more advanced tech, but chains and spikes and decorative skulls may remain. Either way, you can bet they're gonna be using big, intimidating weapons and probably going into some kind of battle rage. Dealing with them often requires either careful diplomacy or overwhelming might, no inbetween.
What I find interesting is that if the writers really want to explore these societies and maybe have a few individuals be sympathetic characters to the audience, they'll all usually go down the same path: they'll establish that these warriors all follow a strict code of honour. They won't cheat or lie, they only want to decide things through honorable combat. They usually all want to die in battle and love calling for official duels to the death. Obvious valhalla allusions aside, this strangely tends to draw rather more inspiration from stereotypical ideas about Japanese samurai. Suddenly these are not savage hordes, but noble and wise warriors with their own ethics and a code of conduct. Still one that's inherently more violent than that of the "good guys" though, of course.
Once these traits are introduced, any antagonistic orcs automatically have to be "dishonorable." The trope demands they are deemed hateable not because they are violent and bloodthirsty, but because they are violent and bloodthirsty in an underhanded manner. Often a reckless and dishonorable leader has to be ousted from power for the good of the world. This is how we get Chancellor Gowron, Garrosh Hellscream, and half a dozen interchangeable Krogan warlords.
And the sympathetic orc is, of course, the most honorable one. Usually, they'll have a wisdom and calm manner that puts them above the other orcs, shows that they're more civilized. This is your Worf, Thrall, and Wrex. They typically care deeply about their people. They get along with humans, show that they're not so different from us. Unlike the rest of their warlike race, they want peace. They are, essentially, "the good one." The longer you think about it, the more suspect it all gets.
I'll be honest: I love orcs. I'll always love orcs. However they're presented, they're consistently my favorite species in any given universe. I love the Krogans, I love Klingons, and I love every big green idiot under the sun. I always enjoy their lore and find their manner compelling. But I often get the sense that I'm not really supposed to like them.
The whole trope is inherently a little icky. The mere idea that an entire culture could just be composed of violent barbarians is a fascist way of thinking, and laundering the trope through making them all strangely honorbound doesn't really solve that starting point. DND orcs don't *have* to be evil anymore, but how many written campaigns exist where every single orc *is* evil? It's a topic with no real solutions. I don't wanna lose orcs, because I love them, but I also recognize that the entire trope is pretty questionable.
I have half a dozen orc OCs across different games. They just wanna grill god damn it
So, I've started watching this season of Critical Role, because Brennan Lee Mulligan is GMing this season, and I've enjoyed his work on D20. Also, they're starting in a different world, so I wouldn't need to watch three seasons to catch up and follow all the backstory. And this new work / new GM is doing something pretty interesting with the Orcs...
Only a couple episodes in, we haven't gotten a ton of backstory on this new world, but in broad strokes, it seemingly started very similar to Tolkien / early DND worlds, with every fantasy race living in its own area, and the Gods of this world having their pet project race that they care about more than the others. The God of Life cared about the Elves and made them long-lived. Stuff like that. But the important thing for this story is that the God of War was focused on the Orcs and, similar to Lord of the Rings, ordered them to prepare for a big, continent-sweeping war against the other races. We haven't yet gotten a picture of what Orc culture was like at this point, but it presumably wasn't majority 'barbarian' or 'samurai', because the Orcs were not enthusiastic about this demanded war. They, as a collective, seem to have agreed "Hey, this seems kind of fucked up, actually". And when their refusal was ignored, they used their arcane skill to craft a weapon that could kill a god.
Now, this didn't go over well with the other gods, who to the surprise of the mortals, went to the aid of the evil God of War, their sibling, rather than doing a whole good vs evil thing. There was indeed a big war, with mortals on both sides, but apparently the majority of the mortals decided they had had enough of the gods running their lives, and in the end, all the gods were slain. (Oh, hey, didn't that happen to the Klingon gods too? But that's probably just a coincidence.) The fallout of the war against the gods were that many of the lands they tended to were ruined. Barren, magic-radiation-scorched wastelands in which no food could grow. The Orc lands were either not hit as hard, or as the first area to be in the war, were the first to recover, because at the end of the war they were in a much better situation than other areas. They take in a lot of refugees from other areas.
Fast-forward 70 years to the time of the game, and Orcs are, if not thriving, at least had been enjoying a large upswing in culture. Our first introductions are Orc characters who include a family of bards working to get their own theater company going, another family of renowned crafters, a Orcish noblewoman, and a revolutionary leader. We're told that foodstuffs from this area are in high demand in the other areas. There is a thriving market area of the city and an arcade university.
Now, not everything is perfect. There are corrupt aristocrats attempting to seize power and the afterlife may be broken/gone after the death of the gods and there's lots of problems for a DND party to fix, but my point is, this is a very different take on the Orcs.
The uncensored lyrics to the Ch. 3 rock band song (referenced as a music TV channel that Dess really liked) also may be connected...
When the demon heart is crying
And the blood is gushing bright
Raise up your bat for the burning fight
When your hope is slowly dying
And your future's lost its rights
Raise up your bat and face the fright
Let's knock 'em dead into the night
Funniest detail in the new Deltarune chapters is that if you try to play Megalovania on one of the pianos Toby Fox's sona runs you over with a Little Tikes car and when you wake up you can't play it anymore
Murderbot, a construct that was built and used to do extreme violence it's entire existence : I hate talking to people but I will try to resolve this situation peacefully if I can, threats only make people panic and then they take irrational decisions. Extreme violence is sometimes unavoidable but last resort.
ART, a peaceful research transportation : I love talking to people because I can threaten them with extreme violence right off the bat and it makes them do what I want (ads more totally-not-weapons to it's research equipment)
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