playing with matches [video] [set during time ripples and before Mind Slayer]

[googledox]

[Klaxons suddenly start blaring through Legion World, due to certain alarms set in the lab complex. Something has exploded. Somethings, plural, judging from what's visible on the screen when Brainy's message broadcasts. Half the lab is trashed and smoking. Fortunately for Brainy's labmates, anything that isn't Brainy's experiments is apparently shielded, but he has no problems with destroying his adult self's work.]

[It's not really that he's doing it on purpose so much as he's reverted to a time where blowing up labs was part of his standard methodology.]

[He's ten, and even the small amount of self-control and restraint he had as a teenager is now gone. What isn't gone is his intellect, which means his capacity for destruction is...extensive.]

Ignore the alarms. My idiotic adult self seems to have developed a more limiting view regarding lab safety. Philistine.

[His voice is colder now, almost robotic.]

There's only a 1.4563 % chance this experiment will destroy Legion World. So all of you little people can simply carry on with your mundane existence.

[The experiment he's working on is glowing ominously and throbbing, making a strange WOMMM noise that keeps increasing in volume and frequency. He doesn't seem to be alarmed by it, though he does pull goggles down over his eyes.]

[ooc: Anyone can respond to this but the action thread to stop it has already been promised to Wash and York.]

Comments

[pinball_wizard]

Brainy? When you decided to do this, did you calculate the other possible catastrophes it could cause? Like, I don't know, moving us out of our orbit, thereby allowing the remains of the Moon to crash to Earth?

[googledox]

I'm not an imbecile. Of course I did.

[He really did.]

If Legion World is destroyed by my experiment, the wreckage would cluster enough to allow its mass to continue keeping the Lunar debris field in orbit.

[pinball_wizard]

While that is good to know, it isn't what I asked.

I was asking what the chances of my ship suffering a localized containment breach that forces us out of orbit were.

[googledox]

I've made myself very clear, but since you're being so dense, I'll repeat myself.

The chance of a containment breach forcing us out of orbit is 0%. As I said, if Legion World explodes, the debris will remain in orbit in the same position.

The chance of a containment breach in general is the 1.4563% I already mentioned.

[pinball_wizard]

...you're actually running an experiment where the only failure point will result in our deaths.

Yeah, no. Shut it down Querl.

[googledox]

1.4563% is hardly worth being concerned about, and I'm monitoring it closely.

It would be impractical to shut it down. It's highly doubtful that there are many other facilities that are as advanced as this, for me to run my experiment in.

[That's all he cares about, of course. The experiment. The science. The results. Other people are, as always, an afterthought.]

[pinball_wizard]

Just remember I gave you the chance to do it on your own.

Any available Legionnaires, please go to Brainy's lab and shut down his experiment immediately. I'll see what I can do to stop it from my end.

[googledox]

You won't be able to do anything from your end. [Beedly boop.] You may have helped design this base but I designed everything from the sensor arrays, to the comm network, to the security protocols.

I can see my own fingerprints all over its operating systems, and I can subvert them however I wish.

[If it sounds threatening...it is. It isn't that he's evil, or that he wants to hurt anyone, but he's certainly amoral. He doesn't care about right or wrong, he just cares about getting what he wants.]

[It's very childish, and normally it wouldn't be that much of a problem, but he's no normal child.]

You can't stop me. Especially now that you have no security clearance.

[pinball_wizard]

I designed the infrastructure required to set all of that up in the first place. If you honestly think a little thing like a revoked security clearance is going to stop me, think again.

[steelandtemper]

Yell if you want a hand. He won't be good enough to keep me out 10 years from now. He's certainly not good enough now.

[Yes, antagonize him further, Cortana. That will definitely help.]

[googledox]

Highly doubtful. I may not have the capacity to outmaneuver an AI now, but my future self apparently invented a species.

[steelandtemper]

Organics invent things that get away from them all the time, kiddo.

[Future you is terrified of her, look it up.]

[googledox]

Future me also apparently has a measure of positive regard for other sentient life. I don't suffer from the same limitations.

[He really is an amoral lil' shit.]

My work presents minimal chances of danger or complications. Purposefully obstructing my efforts would require a concerted effort on my part to remove the obstruction, one that you'll likely find...trying. It would be prudent to stay out of my way.

[steelandtemper]

[She laughs.]

You're threatening me. Ha. Regular you is going to be so embarrassed when this is all over.

[googledox]

My adult self will be embarrassed because he's apparently suffering from the delusion that AIs are people.

[Of course he's robo-racist on top of just being admoral and bratty.]

[legionnpcs]

And now we're gonna have to purge this entire thing from the records so Babbage doesn't see that. Can you please take care of that, Cortana?

[steelandtemper]

Yeah, I'll take care of it.

[She's totally keeping a copy for blackmail purposes.]

[mirror_soldier]

I'm curious to know; what were the chances that your experiment was going to blow up the lab?

[pinball_wizard]

1.4563%, apparently.

[mirror_soldier]

The chances that it was going cause as much damage as it already has, is the same as the odds of it blowing up Legion World?

That certainly is reassuring.

video

[fourstars]

That's kind of mean...

[googledox]

Irrelevant.

[fourstars]

That's also mean.

S8 Wash because everybody is happy in this conversation, right

[unrecovered]

Shut it down.

[He is having exactly none of this.]

[googledox]

Make me.

[unrecovered]

Fine.

[And he's on his way. He has zero time for this bullshit.]

Re: S8 Wash because everybody is happy in this conversation, right

[pinball_wizard]

Yeah, that's not going to work. 10 year old Brainy is apparently very good at not listening when people tell him things.

I'm trying to turn it off remotely, but someone's probably going to need to physically shut it down.

Private

[unrecovered]

Can you walk me through the physical side? Even a basic idea would be helpful.

[Trying so hard not to be terse at the guy who's actually trying to help.]

Re: Private

[pinball_wizard]

I managed to get a look at the specs before he locked me out. It shouldn't be too hard.

[legionnpcs]

Brainy.

There are children on board.

[And him being that quiet doesn't usually bode well.]

[googledox]

Also irrelevant.

[Yes, he is just that cold.]

Isn't it the United Planets' usual philosophy that all sentient lives are equal? Why then would the lives of children be more valuable than the lives of adults?

It's worth the risk -- which is minimal anyway. I'm onto something.