babel_hacker | Day 43

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Day 43 - [Text]

[One day, something shows up on the screen. It looks like a pixel sprite of something.

In the background, there seems to be falling poffins of many different colours. After a while, text begin to show up and a small Porygon is bouncing around at the corner of the screen.]

Poff Poff Poff!
Poffin!
Poff Poff Poff!
Poffin!
Press the BUTTON! Poke the Poffin!
Make more Poffins!_

[It seems like someone wants people to make more Poffins. And that someone is Fortran, Atsuro’s Porygon, who’s hijacking its trainer’s PokeGear. It has been a while since it did it.]

How many will you make?
But don’t cheat or I will know, you jerks!_

[It can totally make better stuff than whatever Atsuro’s making for that programming business.

After a while, his trainer may show up...]

(OOC: Poffin version of Cookie Clicker by Fortran. Warning: it’s easy to waste time on Cookie Clicker. Just let me know if you want Atsuro to pop up.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

But does he look like a quadrupedal robot? That's just as important as the type covered.

Nope. He looks like someone out of a fighting anime. Probably the main character if he keeps up with wearing his scarf and goggles.

Keep an eye on him. He might turn out to be the kind of hero that runs off by himself at the end of the series to go through new adventures with other people.

I dunno how to feel about that. On one hand, it's his choice. On the other hand, I'm also responsible for him as well.

I guess it depends on whether or not I get to pay the damage bills if he did go off on an adventure.

Now that depends on whether or not the owners of the damaged property can link him to you. Don't let him hand out your phone number.

Or my name, since I don't think there's a lot of Atsuro Kiharas in this world.

Yeah, with all the cultures represented around here seeing the same name twice isn't likely.

Definitely. It would be interesting to find another person with the same name as you, but the odds aren't all that great. Or they're somewhere on the other side of this world.

...If that's the case, wouldn't it also mean that people we know from home could also be somewhere on the other side of this world, on a different network?

Edited 2014-03-31 21:32 (UTC)

[Atsuro stares at the reply. That is a possibility, but he doesn't know if he should have any hope for it to come true.]

It's possible. We also have no ways of travelling out to other regions I heard about, so it's hard to confirm it.

This place needs planes. Plaves, foreign television channels, and the internet. Then we'd know for sure.

We need someone to start inventing planes. To be the Wrights of the Pokemon world.

Or we could skip the planes and go right for atmosphere-compatible spacecrafts. More impressive, more practical, and I could take care of the piloting, no extra training needed.

With how their technology development seems to go, that's just as possible!

...Are you going to offer lessons to any aspiring pilots?

Maybe, if I have the time. And if the aspiring pilots can be trusted not to get anyone killed on their first try.

That's what training is for. Simulations as well, if we can get that as well.

Why bother with training and simulations when you can just dump the potential pilot into the cockpit, preferably during a battle?

Which can either be a disaster or shows that our potential pilot have an unexpected skill in battle.

Bonus points if they somehow end up in a special model.

It's not a bonus, it's a necessity. The difference in maneuverability is important enough that super pilots are wasted on anything less than a custom unit adapted to their needs.

Right. And the army or organisation would do whatever it takes to keep the pilots on their side. But it usually depend on the pilot and possibly the unit they use.

Usually either out of necessity, duty/honour or debt. (Bribery/blackmail is an option, but that's not the most heroic reason to stay)

Why would the military bother with all of that when they can simply employ the pilot, pay their paycheck and finance their research and technological upgrades? Barring extreme ideological differences, that's plenty enough.

The main problem would be ideological differences. Or maybe a strong case of being too scared to fight.

[Skilled or not, no one would want to die anyway.]

Which can be ironed out via training or some experience on the field.

People that are scared of fighting don't get any braver if they're manipulated into doing it. It has to be a personal choice, for the sake of something important.

If that's always the case, yeah. But sometimes, people can end up being forced into fighting.

They shouldn't be. It just screws them up in the long term; even those who do wish to fight at first often end up changing their mind.

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