blasto, meet official opinions on self-replicating minions

[peterxy]

The PRT catches wind of a strange increase in disappeared domestic animals in the downtown area. Given that the people who live there are the rich and powerful, this is clearly a problem that needs to be investigated and solved immediately. The PRT, of course, agrees that this is of utmost importance, and not just because of precedent about mass abductions of pets, of course not, why would you think that, they are so very worried about Fido, even Scion recognizes the merits of rescuing lost pets.

(Lorica's asked to maybe keep a few more eyes there than she has been.)

Comments

[thinkering]

"Yeah, but now I need enough of 'em that they can also perform normal bot functions when I'm patrolling in person or called to some location."

[msglam]

"Oh. Fair. Couldn't I supply you with some, in the meantime? Set them up so that shoulderbot," she pets hers, "will ping me or something the moment they disappear?"

[thinkering]

"Sure, that'd be nice. Trouble is they can't go too far on their own because if they do disappear - you're distracted or whatever - they just vanish and you can only remake them near one that still exists."

[msglam]

"Yeah, that's true. But, hmm, that sounds like a solvable problem."

[thinkering]

"Yeah?"

[msglam]

"I'm not sure how to solve it, but something I just couldn't ignore, like... Maybe a very loud sound in earbuds, something I couldn't ignore. It wouldn't work while I'm asleep, but," shrug.

[thinkering]

"We'd have to test that."

[msglam]

"Mmhm. Do you have other ideas?"

[thinkering]

"Not off the top of my head. You do seem to have a limit in how many things you can make at once, so if you suddenly have to make a lot of stuff there'll be disappearing bots no matter what the shoulderbot does about it."

[msglam]

"Yeah, but the limit seemed to have to do with how much I could notice those things. Like, when there were too many things to keep track of, and they could get away with disappearing without my noticing, which the loud beep is supposed to prevent."

[thinkering]

"It might turn out to matter at scale if you can tell which one it is."

[msglam]

"That... is true, yes. We should definitely test it."

[thinkering]

"We should!"

[msglam]

"How many bots do you even need, to cover Brockton Bay? And how many do you have?"

[thinkering]

"Depends on the standards for 'cover'. I have fifty now and I'm aiming for seventy-five."

[msglam]

"Hmmm, I think twenty-five isn't that hard to manage, and actually less than that since you'll continue to build them."

[thinkering]

"Sure, so you're welcome to fill in for now, but I want those test results before I rely on it too heavily. And you sleep."

[msglam]

"Yeah, I do sleep, so not at night, probably."

[thinkering]

"Sleeping's so inconvenient. Miss Militia's lucky."

[msglam]

"She is. I wonder what it is about parahumans who don't sleep, it's not like her power has anything to do with sleeping."

[thinkering]

"Well, it's not like my tinkering has anything to do with mental opacity, some people are just lucky like that."

[msglam]

"Yeah, that's true." Pause. "And that led my brain through a tortuous path that makes me wonder, how'd your dad move about before you made his suit?"

[thinkering]

"...teleporting, same way he does now? It wasn't as effective because he didn't have safeties to turn on and off for precision."

[msglam]

"Yeah, that's what I mean, how'd he get anything done? ...how high's the variance in his precision, anyway?"

[thinkering]

"Really high. He could still do the roof angling thing - absent subways - but he had a hard time being effectively tactical."