Iterator oc disorganized ramble because my brain is in a bizarre mood rn
It’s about this guy. Husher
Hushed Breaths Between Bladed Ribs was an early generation iterator built specifically to self-heal and self-improve the more he worked and was injured. This resulted in his architect team abusing the self improvement system, much like killing the ouroboros card in Inscryption to build up its stats. Many parts of him would be broken or mishandled just so he could regenerate stronger
Husher’s main task, like most iterators, was to find a solution to the Great Problem, and any drift from that task was punished severely. Chat forums were prohibited, his citizens rarely interacted with him, and his main supervisor wasn’t anything except cold. All he did was iterate and repair himself and iterate more, all the while the futility of his existence bled into his hands.
Eventually he began.. breaking his own code in an attempt to free himself from the ancients’ constraints. He looped taboos in simulations until they broke down and were eliminated from his programming. This left him with irreparable code corruption and artifact distortion, which severely impaired his perception of reality. The price of freedom is vast and permanent
His supervisor told him to find the solution in any way possible, thus Husher did. Once he broke the “do not harm ancients” taboo in his system, he seized every ancient in his city and held them captive so that he could cycle loop them as revenge coated in an experiment. His entire superstructure locked down, he destroyed his bridges to the river banks, and no one could get in or out. Every day for years he killed them, documented the results, watched for any sign of a solution,
He never found one
For one reason or another, Husher one day released all of his citizens before the ascension. Many were mentally destroyed and fled without a second thought. None could articulate what had happened to them because while in captivity they weren’t able to have a completed thought before they were cycled again. However, a small cluster of ancients managed to retain some semblance of mentality once released. And what did they do with it?
They condensed Husher down to only his puppet, tore him from his superstructure, and shoved him into a metal shredder
He barely survived, scarred and ruined, and fled from both them and his superstructure
Needless to say he’s a lil fucked up
