GREETINGS. ALL ATTEMPTS AT COMMUNICATION WITH ITERATORS HAVE BEEN MET WITH COMPLETE SILENCE, SO WE ARE NOW COMING TO YOU TO REQUEST ANSWERS FOR OUR ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS THAT HAVE BEEN LEFT UNANSWERED.
HOW DANGEROUS CAN ITERATORS BE IF PROVOKED?
WOULD ANY ITERATORS NOTICE IF A NEW ITERATOR APPEARED IN THEIR BROADCASTING NETWORK?
WHAT DRIVES AN ITERATOR TO CONTINUE FUNCTIONING? WHAT DOES SUCH A POWERFUL CREATURE SEEK TO GAIN?
ARE THERE ANY WAYS TO DISABLE AN ITERATOR’S SURVEILLANCE SYSTEMS TEMPORARILY? SPECIFICALLY, WITHOUT THE ITERATOR NOTICING.
WOULD IT BE POSSIBLE TO INFLUENCE AN ITERATOR’S ACTIONS WITHOUT THEIR KNOWLEDGE?
Okay, that’s quite a few questions, most of which have long answers, so brace yourself.
While iterators are largely unable to defend themselves directly, they have several automatic defenses that would make infiltration difficult. The interior is patrolled by creatures know as “inspectors.” They’re actually similar to us in body plan, although with wings, eyes, and the ability to hurl nearby objects with great force and accuracy. Much of the structure is kept in zero gravity to allow easy navigation for its airborne denizens. You know how things tend to fall to the ground when in the air? Yeah, they somehow figured out a way to stop that from happening. It’s really weird, but all things considered it shouldn’t be a problem. All the main pathways into the structure are blocked by something called a “karma gate” and I have no idea how to open those damn things, but there are ways around them without being spotted.
Each iterator has slightly different security features and methods of entry, so I can’t really get into specifics on how to bypass them. It’s different for each one.
Yes, they would absolutely notice if a new iterator suddenly appeared in their community, that would likely be the single fastest way to get all iterators in the area to immediately know something was wrong.
Each iterator knows about each other iterator nearby. Since they have been around for a very, very long time they know their neighbors personally, and since they are unable to move they don’t really meet any new iterators very often. Not to mention that there aren’t any new iterators being born. I don’t quite know the specifics, but I know that whatever methods they used to reproduce just straight up don’t exist anymore. The current theory is that they had a symbiotic relationship with a kind of creature called “benefactors” who all went extinct, and without them the iterators cannot reproduce.
The rest of those questions are all things that I have been trying very hard to figure out for a long, long time. I have some snippets, but nothing concrete. I’m hesitant to tell you any conjectural information, especially about questions this important. All the things that I’m about to say could all be completely wrong, so it would be unwise to act on any of them just yet.
They say that their goal is to answer some “great problem,” and no I don’t know what that’s about, but it seems they only do that because they’re bored out of their minds. They can’t move, can’t eat, can’t make more of themselves, can’t meet new people, and it seems that they are so difficult to kill that they cannot even kill themselves. All they can really do at this point is just think about stuff really hard, thus, the great problem. I don’t know what problem it is they’re trying to solve, but it must be a real doozy if they’ve all been working on it for so long and they still haven’t done it.
While some iterators seem to have electronic surveillance, they are only a secondary system. Iterators and the area surrounding them are teeming with overseers, who are small, ridiculously fast, and highly observant creatures that act as their eyes. Though, I’m not sure how literal that description of them is. Either way it’s nearly impossible to even get near one without being spotted. Which is extremely frustrating, but, as I said earlier, they don’t have many ways to directly do anything about it. At least, nothing that would take less than a few weeks to do. The best they can do is warn their inspectors that you’re coming. Usually that does a grand total of absolutely nothing, but that’s because we always outnumber them half a dozen to one at minimum. If you plan to do something like this alone, you cannot risk being spotted.
The only way to do effect them in such a way requires a level of control over the structure that invalidates the need to do so. By the time such a thing would be possible, we’ve already won.
While trying to eat an iterator with only one individual would normally be nearly impossible, you have a unique opportunity to get in undetected. Slugcats often find their way into their structures, and are usually seen as minor annoyances at best. If you can disguise yourself well enough, you could theoretically get in without much difficulty, but that is a very big if. In your current state, even creatures as simple as slugcats are able to notice your peculiarities. It would be no question that the overseers would be able to see through your disguise.
If you could theoretically become skilled enough to get in, all it would take is to get a foothold in the inner workings to all but guarantee victory. The best location would be either inside the memory arrays or around the power generator. Both are full of nutrients, and are vital enough to their function that they wouldn’t be able to just remove the infected parts without killing themselves.
There are a few other things that I could tell you, but I think this is plenty for now. Any more information and I’m worried you might not remember it all. Even this small amount is quite a lot to take in if you don’t have any prior knowledge of the topic.
