Subject: If we're gonna have a CPP...
Author:
Posted on: 2020-11-14 06:55:09 UTC
we should also have a RUSTC. It'd be all modern and shiny and (type-)safe.
This has been Tomash, contributing a drive-by programming joke and then heading right back into the Master's thesis that needs doing by next week.
Whoo, it took way too long for me to finish up this mission. About six months, and half of it was trying to stop procrastinating for a few minutes and asking around for betas and polishing the writing. Then there was the whole matter of actually deciding to make the board post...
But hey, it’s ready now, so I might as well get it out there.
Here we go, mission two.
(Edit: Just a content warning that the fic/mission is NSF4M, NSFCal, and NSFSG. Sorry.)
I mean, it's got dragons in it. Of course I was going to read it! At my current rate, though, I have no idea when I might get around to finishing it, so I decided to at least share the notes I took so far:
"Animorphagus," huh? I read that as Animorph-phagus, eater of Animorphs. Oh dear. {; P
Yee, dragons! This should be fun. Charlie's definitely having fun. Excellent.
The RA is disguised? Like a DORKS? I don't think I've ever seen that before, and yet it makes sense. Nice.
This fic is a formatting nightmare. I have little to no clue who these dragons are, who is doing or saying what, or why I should care.
> Sunrise ... felt no true remorse, only shock in her talons.
> He slipped out of his nest and took flight as his eyes closed in concentration.
Flying with your eyes closed? That's not very smart. How many times is he going to crash into things? {= D
Nice work pointing out the sudden shift in characterization when Sunrise suddenly goes all timid.
... And that is all. I WILL try to get back to it at some point, but for now, my impression is that you've got a nice pair of characters, but could get more humor out of the fic if you read the lines a bit more closely and really think about what they're saying.
More eventually, I hope!
~Neshomeh
Oh. Um, to be honest, I didn't really expect another post on this after a full month? But it's a nice surprise, anywho.
Yeah, I don't think I did as well with the whole "literal sentence" bit of humor as I did last mission, and I blame writer's block and procrastination for that. But eh, trial and error and all. Hopefully next time will be less blocked and procrastinatiated.
But hey, glad you read some of it! Thanks!
Dr. Glocktopus is fantastic. I was enjoying the mission before then, but for some reason or another Dr. Glocktopus inspires untold joy within me.
Being honest here, though: Dr. Glocktopus quite literally popped into my head on a whim one night and I thought, "Y'know? Why not?" I was just glad anything came into my head at all; writer's block was going on. But I'm glad you liked it!
I missed reading your first mission, but I like this one a lot. You have a lightweight, punchy style of writing that I really enjoy.
Now there is yet another dragon in PPC HQ :P
One of these days, I need to write a mission with dragon rescuing. Maybe I should look at the unclaimed list and find HTTYD fic that I wanna spork. Hmmm.
But, either way, nicely done! I loved the hinting at Charlie's past (which I may or may not have forgotten... oops) and the new recruit dragon helping with the mission. That rabbit though... Creepy.
Now I wanna do some more world building with CPP and get that done so I can do my next mission. Spoilers for my PPC timeline. Maybe
Glad you liked it! It's really the least I can hope for when I write these things.
Also, CCP. Interesting concept, I'm curious where that's gonna go.
But anyways, thanks!
NaNo is fun when PoV is ignoring you in a Catch 22 kind of situation.
Anyhow, I should have the doc up for beta reading sometime this week, but I have two major tests and a math team thingy tomorrow, as well as an essay due tomorrow, so I can't promise tomorrow being the day of upload (Gotta love AP). I'll try for Wednesday.
Glad you think CPP is interesting though.
Is this... this sounds like an alternate-multiverse PPC which is actually nice instead of a bunch of sociopaths, and would view our PPC as the dark Mirror Multiverse version of their own. Is that correct?
Because that would be really cool and is actually not a concept that's been explored before! The known alternate multiverses are almost all Suvian-killers, so this would be an exciting, next-level development in Multiverse Theory! The only possible non-killer alt-PPC is the Solarpunk Guarden, which never got far enough to tell; if the CPP is what I've described, the Guardens would stand in the same position relative to them as the Steampunk TCDA do to us.
[Note: The Rose diagrams don't include the Jaycaciaverse/Badficverse, which may or may not exist; they also don't include the High School AUniverse, which I think exists only in an unpublished scribble. The latter could potentially be another CPP-alt, since High School AUs don't typically involve murder.]
Obviously it's still an if, but as a theoretical multiversal physicist, 'if's are my stock in trade. So: this could indicate that the Rose of the linked paper is actually only one of a string of Roses - a Multiversal Garden, if you will. But it seems difficult to come up with any other themes: you're either solving the fanfic problem destructively or constructively, there's not really other options. So perhaps it's more like a globe, with our PPC being the 'dark hemisphere' and the CPP and Guarden on the 'light side'.
Though that begs the question, what is the Mirror Multiverse? Since they are pro-Suvian, unlike the other PPCs, is there a pro-Suvian CPP version? Is there a Steampunk EPC and a Solarpunk... er, Suvian CPP? Are there in fact two globes, each with a light and a dark half, one anti-Suvian, the other pro-Suvian?
My head is spiralling wildly here. I should probably wait until I know whether the evidence for this model actually exists before diving any deeper. ^_^
hS
Specifically, one about PPC AUs that never really got past scribbled ideas: I once came up with not an in-universe AU...but rather an answer to the question, "what if author!Jay and Acacia began the PPC a couple decades earlier as a fanzine thing?" IIRC, I got as far as a couple paragraphs laying out the history, plus probably some further general ideas. It's in a notebook somewhere. Said notebook is almost definitely not in the same country as I am. (I've checked: the older notebook I have with me is from 2017. It's definitely not the right one. I'm pretty sure this was a 2013 or 2014 AU, maybe 2015 at the latest.)
So yeah, that was a thing! I wish I could share it in more detail, but I don't remember very much more, apart from that I think the bit I wrote was a sort of description of how they started it, and a bit about how new writers joining in might have worked (probably pretty easy to extrapolate).
~Z, who does not, in fact, have personal experience of fanzines, but at one point learned enough to think up this AU in enough detail not to immediately fall apart
I toyed with a similar idea (it's AU PPCs, I'm always toying with ideas) but from an internal perspective: the Eternal PPC, where every 30 years or so a fanfic-protection organisation arises. The later stages of the theory held the 'Volatile Multiverse' is actually just an alternate timeline where the '80s fanzine PPC never got superceded. I still quite like the idea - it's neat (pressing most of the PPC AUs back into two multiverses - four, with the CPP in play), and it opens up a lot of opportunities for backstory ("yeah, I came over from the Fanzine PPC when it folded") and gap-filling ("Little Women" has Dickens fanfic in it!).
I've also directly prodded 'alternate PPC writers' at least twice, with the Board for the Appreciation of the TCDA and the Army for Protecting the Stage Worlds. It's fun! I vote you design a dodgy '70s PPC fanzine. ^_^
hS
I would be interested if you ever get that other notebook back. It sounds both interesting and fun.
-Kittyauthor, who is too tired to remember what else they were going to say.
Even if I remembered exactly which notebook it's in, I'm not sure I'd want it sent by mail. So unless I or my parents for some reason wind up flying before then...post-pandemic, yeah. Glad you think it sounds interesting and fun, though! :)
~Z
Although logicking Sues might not be... nice, per se?
Like, they don't actually kill Sues. Not normally. They just fix them so they can be a normal OC... or at least try. That is always the first thing they do. They always try to convert the Sue into at least a hireable agent and, at most, a constructive OC. But I was planning (although this could be thrown out, since this is still very much in baby steps) on having a "fail" possibility where the Sue ceases to exist and, despite the Sunflower Mathematician (which, now that I'm thinking about it, is much nicer than the Sunflower Official) asking (not commanding) agents not to cry, they usually do.
And the reason why they have to shove logic code everywhere is because the Sue is now a good OC, but still exists, meaning the canon is still "broken" until it's fixed. Heck, in the guidebook (which I need to write lol.) it states that mind wiping tools are only a last resort and to not use them if they can logic the world to normal.
Heck, 1 and 2 ranking Sues don't actually bend the world that much, meaning they can, in fact, be hired. So, I suppose that it is, since it doesn't kill Sues, it just fixes them to have flaws.
If this were, as you said, a true "nice" universe (I'm not for sure if it is now... IDK) then the PPC could be seen as similar but opposite. Like an inverse but not necessarily a dark mirror verse. An inverse that logicks things to good and not kill people. Not try and be bad guys, just people that say "Okay, we need to fix this world a little bit, as the Sue did mess up the tree color equation enough for the generic material to be glitter, but not that much."
My mind had thought of CPP being a minor inverse of PPC, but, instead of working with the words and always killing Sues (well, almost always), they would work with numbers (which are kinda the opposite of words) and not kill Sues.
As for a mirror verse? Maybe they mess up the logic in the world instead of fixing them.
Heck, maybe a true mirror inverse of CPP is the Mirror!PPC and visa versa (the mirror inverse of PPC is Mirror!CPP).
Sorry if that sounds like gobbledygook. This actually makes me want to make the world more really now.
-Kittyauthor, who now wants to make this world more real now.
As much as I like the idea of a heroic alt-universe, I feel like the CPP seems almost too nice? I dunno, maybe it's just me, but I feel a bit weird about how sorta perfect they are. Maybe it's that they seem a lot like the PPC, just nicer? I really like hearing all your ideas for it, and I hate to feel like I'm stomping on your cool new thing, but I feel a little strange about how it relates to the canon.
we should also have a RUSTC. It'd be all modern and shiny and (type-)safe.
This has been Tomash, contributing a drive-by programming joke and then heading right back into the Master's thesis that needs doing by next week.
Is it necessarily nicer to "fix" people than to kill them?
It feels like that's sort of worse...
I didn't do too much world building, so I could scrap the whole thing. I'd hate to, but if it is too perfect...
I felt there were flaws in it, but they might be too miniscule to matter. Like, they aren't perfect (cough Dr. Burner is a grump cough) and they don't necessarily run super smoothly by any means (missions can still fail and I was debating on whether or not Sues sometimes had to be killed) and there'll still be odd pairs and, well, people who'd rather kill the Sue outright, but I wasn't really aiming per se towards a nice or perfect or pure evil or anything. I just wanted a world where logic of the canon was what everyone went by. If a Sue broke the logic too much, then they had to be "fixed" in some way.
Like I told hS, this thing is still in baby steps, so it won't be too harsh to destroy it, nor anything (besides the base of logic over words and the funny stuff that comes with that I.e. not knowing when a scene shift is coming) is set in stone. Heck, I will even wager over O'Ryan being the head of something is not set in stone. It might be set in the dirt, but dirt can be dug out.
If it's really that bad...
TL;DR: CPP can be destroyed if it is too perfect, but, besides logic over words, it isn't really set in stone yet.
-Kittyauthor, who feel bad about this whole thing now and will need more time on the worldbuilding aspect of it, but can share what they wrote down at first with everyone if that's alright.
Has there been more discussion of the idea elsewhere? Because as an alternate-reality PPC, I don't think this concept is a bad fit at all.
Even taken at face value, you have a foil which can be used to make PPC agents question themselves: if it's possible to protect the Word Worlds with logic, are we maybe actually not the Good Guys we think we are? (I know, I know - "We're evil, Miss Cam is evil, this is just sad", but the current crop of agents don't seem to think like that.) Are we in danger of the CPP acting against us because they think we're the baddies? Should we, in fact, act first, get in the first strike? &c &c Or are they just a bunch of saps who refuse to kill because they'd get too weepy about it?
Then you've got the deeper moral questions: as Thoth says, editing someone with logical maths is effectively mind-control. Is that okay? Is it better than killing - or is it worse? How does that tie in with the PPC's anti-torture rules - like, if we tortured them into being better characters, would that make it okay? And on another level - what's the moral balance between erasing the effect of someone's fanfic on the Word Worlds - and actually altering that fanfic to make it 'better'?
And then there's the non-face-value option, which Scapegrace if she's around will recognise as The Tau Question: are they actually really nice folks at the CPP, or are they a bunch of mind-controlled math-drones who only seem nice because that's how they're programmed, to make them more relatable? Oh, sure, the Sunflower Mathematician will tell you they're free-thinking beings - but it would, wouldn't it? And if you'll just let it see your equations for a moment, it's sure it can convince you... >:D
The great thing about the PPC shared continuity is that you don't have to answer these questions! You could do a simple three-story arc about CPP!O'Ryan being transported to the PPC, creeped out by all the murder, and then going home, and treat it all perfectly literally. And then, three years later, someone who's not even here yet could come across the CPP page on the Wiki and go 'hey, I can do something with this...'.
But even if you literally only use the first point: I don't think there's ever been a 'nice' foil for the PPC before! All the other organisations we've met are either raging sociopaths (the OFUs, the Black Cats) or fanatically pro-Suvian (the EPC, the League). Having someone out there that PPC agents can't see themselves as obviously better than would be... really interesting.
I think.
hS
And when the PPC looks closer at the society, looking closer at what they actually do, they could, in fact, term it as torture and perhaps (just maybe) think that they are better than the CPP, since they cross moral boundaries and the PPC just kills the Sues outright.
And, in a reverse fold, the CPP can think of themselves as morally better than the PPC because they don't kill people. They never really wanted to kill people, they just want to point out what's wrong and fix it. But, isn't that the same thing as what the PPC does?
Also also, they (CPP) do believe that logic governs life but not necessarily one's thoughts or actions. Sure, numbers can say a lot about a person, like the likelihood of doing x action in a percentage, but they can't really predict the future of said person. They can tell you the present (I.E. in Sues, the equations can say how much they are bending the canon through the broken equations in/around them) and the past (backstory, if established) but not the future. That is why their canon catalogues of equations need to be updated after every new "official" fiction comes out. That's why scene changes catch them off guard. They can't predict the future, of themselves or the fic.
Which brings me back to a question hS asked:
Should we, in fact, act first, get in the first strike? &c &c Or are they just a bunch of saps who refuse to kill because they'd get too weepy about it?
If PPC does act first, then I'm in trouble because my idea gets destroyed the CPP has no way of predicting this. They have no way of knowing ahead of time that the PPC will attack, but, after the minor arc of Spoilers for the arc, the CPP could know about the PPC's antics and, possibly, prepare for a possible attack. Likewise, the PPC could know about the CPP and prepare to attack since it crosses moral boundaries.
But if the PPC attacks, would that be an Emergency? Didn't we vow not to do those for a while?
And, significantly less important, if anything would be written in the CPP 'verse, who should we credit? Just the normal PPC? The entire council of people here? Or should it not be credited at all, just be something we came up with that we wove into the PPC lore?
-Kittyauthor, who needs to think about this and get back to everyone on the world building.
Edit, because I somehow missed something important:
And if you'll just let it see your equations for a moment, it's sure it can convince you... >:D
That sounds like something Dr. Burner would do if she was tired of your cough fuvg and your complaints, she saw, were invalid. Considering she was a scientist in her home verse, she has odd morals.
But, yeah, the Sunflower Mathematician probably would do that... maybe...
[ERROR: KITTYAUTHOR.EXE WAS NOT FOUND. REBOOT Y/N?]
((But yeah. He/it could totally do that :P. I might steal that idea.))
... I wasn't proposing that the PPC actually attack! ^_^ The Flowers would never go for it/be bothered - I mean, they haven't even tried to take out the EPC, which has actually invaded HQ a time or two! But it's the sort of idea the more paranoid agents might float about.
(Also, trans-multiverse travel is by all accounts hard. Imogene and company actually collided two multiverses rather than go to the bother of hopping between them, and in Doctor Who canon, crossing to an alternate multiverse almost killed the TARDIS.)
When I'm writing about alternate PPCs, I generally credit the person who created the AU - that'd be you, in this case. I do that even when a later writer has done far more to flesh it out - an obvious example would be the TCDA, which I credit to Pieguy despite him writing one story to my 15+.
hS
Yeah, travelling between would be hard then lol.
When I'm writing about alternate PPCs, I generally credit the person who created the AU - that'd be you, in this case.
Oh! Okay, I totally be fine with that.
Now I'll just have to work on worldbuilding, two essays due today (oops!) and a mission that takes place with CPP characters, so I might not be on to reply. See y'all later!
-Kittyauthor, who doesn't want to work on those essays, but at least one of them is over an interesting article.
I hadn't quite picked up the feeling of it, but now I'm 1000% on board. Thanks for being willing to explain! I can't wait to see what they do.
I enjoyed the deadpan sense of humor in this quite a bit, especially from Charlie.
Jiwon is a good nervous fopsbol and must be protecc.
Charlie’s as charismatic as always, and I like them for that enthusiasm they exude. And I agree with them in that shapeshifting spells can be pretty fun if used right. Also, I just gotta know what happened in their DnD adventure, because that part about bad memories sounds interesting.
Will you have Ocotillo appear in our server’s RPs? I don’t know, but they could help you develop her a bit more. Maybe she’ll get along with Cal’s dragons?
Glad you like it! I was worried there'd be, like, a huge gaping plothole that'd suddenly show up right as I finally put it out there. Phew!
I might write Charlie's old D&D campaign at some point. Could be fun. If I ever get the time, that is.
As for Ocotillo, I might try writing her sometime again. And probably try to give her a more solid personality than what she had in the original fic. Y'know, former bit and all.
So hey, thanks!