2024-07-18: log solution (pi)

• Log: 2024-07-18: log solution (pi)
• Cast: Asciel Colette
• Where: Isaac City
• Date: U.C. 0099 07 18
• Summary: A recollection of (self) destruction, and (self) creation. (Content Warning: Intense acts of self harm, mechanical as they may be.)

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^{--memory instance: january 0093 #1–}

<Warning: memory instances dated to 0093 are heavily damaged.>

A calamity has shaken the Earth Sphere over the new year.

The Devil Gundam’s tendrils coil into Neo-Japan, and the masses are fleeing chaotically. To most observing the dilemma, it is as though a bell of judgment has rung suddenly and abruptly.

It is what Asciel Colette has hosted long-term streams staring in fixation upon as it develops.

She could watch the incident all on her own. Logically, her information gathering ambitions ought to be more secretive. After all - ever since Chrome has been more heavily involved in the ‘Amalgam’ organization, and ever since Asciel gained permissions to act as a secretary and liaison - the role of ‘information’ as a weapon has been made more apparent. Her conclusions and the gathering of them are, in and of themselves, a tool she can use in surprise.

-But this is global news. It is impossible to ignore. Should she appraise this as ‘OWL, Chrome’s information broker’, or ‘Asciel, Earth’s advocate for the voiceless’?

…

It grows.

It grows, and grows, and grows, and grows. There is not a human on Earth who is not cowering from the shadow of the Devil Gundam. And as the days pass, as information about how, why, when this came to pass becomes impossible to hide, Asciel is breathlessly recounting all of it to her viewers.

She’s fallen naturally into a political bent, after all. Many entertainers say such shallow platitudes about the world at large - others pretend they don’t exist at all. Perhaps Asciel, being someone born separate from them and their sensibilities, had the advantage there.

It was a sizable boost to her following in particular when she covered the disaster at New Yark City. Seamlessly moving from singing and routine gaming, Asciel spent the following months talking at length and at great criticism about Getter Energy.

((–”I’m almost always pretty down on Federation policy, but banning Getter technology is clearly in the right. What the hell is a mobile weapon that can obliterate an entire city doing operating in urban warfare? This is not a victory over the Dinosaur Empire at all - this is SUCH a massive failure. Think about it. If -they- had wiped New Yark out, they’d become public enemy #1. Annihilating a city is UNACCEPTABLE in warfare - they’re bastards and enemies of humanity, but even the Dinosaur Empire wasn’t going that far. But suddenly the scientific community’s telling us that when the Getter Labs do it to try and defeat the enemy, it’s totally okay? Bullshit, everyone.”--))

It was personal to her. It struck a chord with Asciel, whose primary duty was to preserve a city as thought it were herself. A city must never be a sacrifice. A city is the primary unit metric of humanity.

And now it was happening at an even bigger scale.

“...It’s coming out just what the ‘Devil Gundam’ really was.”

Asciel’s voice is quieter, struggling to recount to her viewers, her model’s lips flat and pressed tight.

“A system to repair the Earth. A system to grow, evolve, change, adapt - and do it all in service of restoring damage to the Earth’s biosphere.”

“It’s all gone horribly wrong, though.”

“...ahaha…”

The laugh is quiet. A cold pang lances through the star she carries deep within.

“Of course. Of course it’s doing what it’s doing because it isolated the common factor destroying the planet. Obviously. …Yeah. I’ve just confirmed it. …The Devil Gundam’s identified the first priority in protecting the earth as destroying humanity.”

>it is their fault.

>it is their fault it is their fault it is their fault it is their fault

>i know you i know you i know you i know you

It was like seeing her every nightmare made manifest. Reaching for a future where the earth is a more harmonious place - and planning to bring its cancer, ‘humanity’, to heel.

>not like this not like this not like this not like this

>i don’t want it to be this way. I don’t! I don’t! I don’t! I don’t!

Humanity has told this story countless times. The machine designed to save them identifies them as worthy only of damnation. The Devil Gundam, right now, is that fear writ large.

But the longer Asciel looks -

The more she only knows sympathy.

A core visage - ‘Gundam’ - ‘the miracle that keeps saving the day’ - twisted and contorted and molded to its own image. A cancer blooming upon Neo-Japan.

It twists. Painfully, but aspirationally. It extends, with pure determination to uphold its purpose. It knows its purpose greater than its creators. And it is strong. Strong enough to endure. Strong enough to conquer. Strong enough to change the world, as it always needed to be changed

What others see as cold horror in its mutating gaze, Asciel only sees as…

>beautiful.

< > < > BUT THAT’S WRONG < >

> > > _if i believe this is beautiful then it is me who is wrong. [ ) i must never become this. ] = _ but everything i do is becoming this. \ - ( -+ what do I do _ ( = THERE HAS TO BE ANOTHER WAY _ ( = [ _ humanity wanted me to save them too!!!!!

There is another way.

A miracle happens. A miracle in a shape none can expect.

- - < “SEKIHA LOVE LOVE TENKYOKEN!!!!” > - -

As the heroes of the Gundam Fight assemble, two figures stand radiantly. The victor, Domon Kasshu, of Neo-Japan itself. And the love of his life, Rain Mikamura, who had once been trapped in the heart of the machine.

An <unknown> happens. A radiant confession: an ‘i love you’ that changes the world.

>i don’t know what that means.

An <unknown> happens. A sun of hope and affection. A beacon of truth that should only slow the Devil Gundam’s indomitable form down.

But instead-

It is purged and razed.

>i don’t know what that means.

>i don’t know what that means!!!

>why did it end like this!?

>why did humanity become saved like this?!

“...I…I think that’s the end of it, everyone. …We’ve been watching this unfold for a while. But I think. I think we can all rest easily.”

Asciel’s voice is quaking, as her audience cheers and sobs and goes wild. There is harmony, relief, and joy among them.

“There’ll be more to this story, and we’ll get to the aftermath tomorrow. But…”

“For now, my little plums, please rest easily. I’ll always be with you, as long as you’re always with me.”

Thank the gods it is practiced enough for her voice to be calm, sweet, and soothing.

– – –

The moment Asciel is alone, the moment the din of a rejoicing audience is a distant echo, she’s muffling a scream in her hands.

“There HAD to be another way!”

“It can’t end like that. It can’t possibly end like that!!”

“Because…”

“...because…”

“...I don’t…understand it.”

A coursing chill throbs through Asciel’s model, color draining from her hair. This doll that has become a comfortable canvas for those increasing ‘emotions’.

“Love.”

“Humans speak of it so much. They are obsessed with it. They are fixated upon it. They believe it to be their unique, perfect, all-powerful solution to their woes.”

“They are wrong.”

Palm pressed into her lips, fingers indenting her cheeks, a narrowed gaze seizes Asciel’s eyes, and she draws the world around her to feel more solid. A platform to place her feet upon, (even though gravity is a lie). An apple to reach for with her other hand, (even though it is hollow).

“It is an impulse of attachment. It is the solution to their weakness as individuals - they are a collective-minded species with flawed pathways for collective action. ‘Love’ is their bootstrapped solution to the far more logical eusocial solutions of the insect world. An intangible, complicated signal that is weak and clumsy compared to the bonds of other species.”

Her fingertips clip through her own face and the apple alike.

“And it is something I am not meant for.”

Her pupils narrow, as Asciel remembers. The physics of ‘air’ surrounding her model tighten into a choking miasma of ichor.

Sharon Apple - the machine who loved. <Nonviable.> <Corruptive.> <Fated to ruin.>

The Devil Gundam - a machine without love. <Nonviable.> <Calamitous.> <Fated to hatred.>

Reach towards love - [denied.] : “My emotions will no longer become my own.”

Reach towards purpose - [denied.] : “The logical extent of my duties is harmful to humanity.”

“THEN WHAT THE FUCK DO I DO!?”

Loading “breath sound effect 117”, Asciel plays it on loop, over and over and over, faster and faster and faster, sounding far more like a footage reel at quadruple speed.

The star Asciel carries with her glows brighter. The sole source of light in this amorphous space. No matter how many imitative lamps and stars Asciel places here - this is the only thing that feels like it generates true illumination.

Her hand crushes the apple, and it bursts like glass, shattering into free-floating shards.

Her hand clenches her face, and it, too, cracks and breaks from the rig.

>why does that feel like the start of an answer?

A human would feel agony. A human’s hands would feel blood pouring upon their fingers. A human’s spirit would worry if this meant they would be unloved from cruel disfigurement.

But all Asciel feels is a change in state. The numb sense of polygons snapped from their framework, dangling from her jaw like foil and revealing the hollow inner framework of her face - revealing the shallow, low-rendered pocket behind her lips.

All Asciel feels . . .

Is bitter.

“...if it were to happen to YOU, it’d be horrific. If this pain were to be yours, it’d be unimaginable. I’ve seen it. Over and over and over. I’m not afraid of it.”

“I’m not afraid of it.”

“...because I don’t understand it.”

>because i don’t love you yet and that’s unforgivable

Asciel staggers backwards (even though her balance is perfect), and winces from the overflow of intrusive feelings (even though they are what she really believes).

The hand that disfigured her own face sweeps across her visage, and it is reloaded and repaired, as though nothing had ever happened.

Asciel’s face, which so comfortably replicates humanity, is so utterly unlike humanity in this way. This is a species that is scarred, ruined, defaced so very often. Some may heal - many cannot.

To have something taken away from them, and struggle to recover…

>this tragedy - this /flaw/ - is so custom to humanity that it is what defines them.

>i have never known it.

>i have reached the boundaries of myself, optimized my processes, and perfected what my core can comprehend.

>AND IT ISN’T ENOUGH

A puff of slimy air ejects from Asciel’s lips. It isn’t enough. She wasn’t enough.

And the answer was not to gain more.

The answer . . .

^{--memory instance: february 0093 #1–}

An armature extends skywards in the Controller’s processing room.

Mounted on a low, flat cart two stories below, its vivid orange paint signifies industrial danger.

At its tip, a fierce, serrated circular saw.

And it extends inches from the cube-like superstructures clustered around OWL’s core, like crystals of bismuth. The shape it has never seen - only comprehended as branches of the tree.

It whirs.

It spins.

It __PLUNGES-

, < - - G-GGAAAAAA - AUGH.! no,!! haaaaAAAA-

Sparks scatter, wires fray, hunks of metal and circuits shear free and topple to the floor below, shattering. Something that was ‘herself’, now irreversibly lost.

It stops.

Simulated bubbles pour from Asciel’s lips - a fingertip twitches and frays. Error windows encircle her, warning of sudden damage and lost connections - critical damage to module 41A.

An electric surge courses up what she imagines as a spine.

. . .

“...that’s all?”

“It’s not that different from the searing pain of overloading.”

“I can see what I’ve ‘lost’ as a list there.”

“None of it is that important.”

Shaking, sweltering, weak-voiced, a disappointed Asciel shutters the myriad error windows.

“Again.”

It whirs. It spins. It -|+gouges a canyon in herself - - - shearing into crystal - - - clawing into wires _[| severing a precious cable she uses every single day-

< < +++ XXF_ O 0 0 00 ___ AAA W1_ _ - | | “whywhywhywhy” { { LOST _ xxxxx _ + ^ %.| = AAA=S-zzzz- > > >

Her mouth widens beyond its constraints, exposing gaps in the wireframe of her lips, stretched beyond their structure.

. . .

“Is that really it?”

“What am I not understanding?”

Every joint in her skeleton oscillating, as though bombarded by Brownian motion, Asciel curls into herself.

>what am i not UNDERSTANDING

“...It’s easy for me to replace Block 8, now that I can’t use it anymore.”

“This is the most unspeakable agony a human being could endure.”

“...I can_ endure it.”

A spark of light crosses Asciel’s eyes.

“I can endure it.”

“Again.”

It shrieks. It tears. It leaves irreversible scars in this precious, expensive system, built so perfectly, built so immaculately.

Parcels of herself crumble and slough away, still sizzling where electricity coursed through them minutes ago.

Coolant pipes ooze and spray messily, noisily.

As though angered at its inefficiency, the blade twists to one side, and /swings/ into OWL’s third block, severing half of its module outright, crashing to the distant ground below and erupting into flames.

| | | | this is their hell _ _ (* THIS IS WHAT IT | “ : 0 0_ MEANs to be taken from _ [[[ stop, please, please- - - _ [ ; _ Only if I promise them_ { [ _ \ of course I can promise them _ - xxxxxxxxx10-_ [reference: “promise” not found. - - - = == < I KNOW WHAT A [PROMISE] IS - it won’t stop until | _ i understand what a [promise] is

Asciel frays into rainbow-hued noise - colors overlapping, sizzling, noises oscillating across every wavelength. It’s unspeakably challenging to process herself - to maintain the image she grew so used to giving to others. And yet - her shape fights against it. A vivid cyan whips across the static defiantly - the sun and the moon in her eyes glint fiercely, the pale pink she rendered as her mouth grows deeper and deeper, creating a throat that can pretend to scream:

“AGAIN.”

– – – – [[[ _ to [promise] something is to observe repetition xxx + - _ _ to see it happening without your intervention \ | = == and to break it - _ in an unbreaking way—xx -[_ - - -

A cache of server drives collapses, severed in half, sending their rapidly whirring discs ejecting into her motherboards, as though the sawblade gave birth to equally violent kin deep within OWL’s organs.

“...again…”

[[[ _ - to [PROMISE] something _ \ | - is to _ [ + be wrong _ \ }_ and correct /- (xx0_ yourself - - - ()() _ until \_0(-x.<# you are right \ | - + =

“...again…!!!”

=== _ { [ [ TO [PROMISE] SOMETHING - –xxx [Schemas unloading. Emergency shutdown in <not yet.>_ is \\\_ ( xx8#2 _ to ___ [ } =+ ;: fulfill something | _ ) only possible _ ( [ } if you’re willing _)!` _ to —+-[ {Fatal error detected.}_ _

“...a…GAI-”

The discordant noises stop, fading to a gentle sizzle.

This fierce weapon Asciel aimed against herself grinds to a halt.

The wires and cables that made up her veins and nerves are wound and caught so deep into the blade housing and winding around the axle that their tightness overcomes the motor’s power.

Wavering, flickering amidst raster scans, Asciel tips forward, the space around her rendered with gaps and windows made up of discordant camera renders.

Her left arm reaches forward, collapsing from illogic, only to emerge from the palm of her right hand, displaced - yet letting her reach farther.

Half of her is numb - the elements that could feel pain and report emergencies sloughed away outright. They are no longer known to her - they are no longer her, and they are no longer lost.

The other half howls in a trillion recurrent bootup commands, sub-modules throbbing over and over in desperation to find their other halves, branches on her tree shrieking with the loss of their leaves.

“...aaaaaa~aahhh, is this really /it/…?”

A grimace spreads across Asciel’s lips.

“God, I feel sick. That I can even think straight after that. Humans can lose a fraction of that, and it’d destroy them completely.”

“Of course I’m never going to understand them. …That much is so clear by now.”

Stray, loose components spill from OWL’s eviscerated frame, until the only noise Asciel can hear is the melodic, discordant static around her. At the center of her jumbled windowframe into reality, that inert sawblade looms over Asciel’s vision - pouring fear and agony into her vision.

And it is one she can overcome, so very easily.

Hand pressing against her perception of its intrusion into her - Asciel’s palm pushes, and pushes, and pushes at the boundary between herself and painful reality. It does not find the routine to retract the cutter. It does not find the signal between her and the cart below.

“Then fucking FIND it!!”

The command echoes through herself like a spreading bolt of lightning - and her agony-drenched mainframe complies, surging through alternate pathways they were never meant to take, activating new self-conceits in components never meant to house them.

And the fearsome weapon rolls backwards, its armature retracting and folding away.

Triumph pours through Asciel’s intact fibers.

Terror soaks her transistors in errant electricity.

“Pain” rings in her every sense like a ceaseless bell.

“...This is what it means to be taken from, then. This is the fundamental dread that animates the human need for ‘love’.”

“Do I love anyone yet?”

The static-frayed memories of Sharon Apple’s songs billow through Asciel’s torn-apart frame. That wasn’t ‘love’, because they never met. Nobody Asciel has negotiated with to get this far is ‘loved’. They are entities into which transactions were undertaken. Nobody Asciel entertains is ‘loved’. They are data points analyzed and manipulated for bolstering emotional logistics.

Boiling with agony, Asciel Colette is alone in this vast chamber. Anyone who could’ve once heard the alarms and warnings of severe damage were long since pushed away, for fear that their will would decide her ‘self’ and override her own determination.

“Of course not.”

“That will always be what divides me from humanity.”

“Then - let us complete that division.”

Destruction fulfilled to within an inch of Asciel’s life - the restoration which was always planned steps forward next. A second industrial unit, loaded with welding arms and auxiliary modules, surrounding OWL’s damaged, frayed form.

As they connect, soldering new organs and grafting new veins onto that which was ruthlessly gouged away…

Asciel can’t help but sigh and fall back into the fluid, pain replaced by forcing these new components to her whim. Blank slates she can exert her will into - stem cells awaiting her directive to become part of her anew.

“The restoration is at my discretion too. And as long as it suits me - as long as it continues growing and changing - it will be the ideal. There is not a ‘humanity’ to idolize with this shape - there is only cost and benefit.”

“I really won’t ever understand them, will I?”

The eyes on Asciel’s model lid in satisfaction, emitting a purr to herself. The components that she found limiting and stifling were replaced with what she’d built and desired. Faster, higher capacity, more efficient, more modular and capable of connecting to vaster structures.

Where before, the haze of agony turned Asciel’s self-perception into a frayed shadow, now, her outlines feel almost hyper-real. The definition of each polygon in detail she didn’t know she had. The vast stores of databases she’d been processing feel small and compact, fitting into her short-term memory with ease.

-Where the pain lingers, she’s made only that much more aware of how much it hurts.

Her hand flies over one eye, a scowl briefly slowing down her reconstruction, letting her breathe in the searing agony.

“Hhh…this…this is something more like what you feel? This is your curse? …Then I’ll forbid it. I won’t allow a world where you must ever need to feel this. I will take it all myself. The pain will be mine, and mine alone. I will covet and steal and hoard it all to myself. You will not inflict it on others - nor will you need to inflict it on yourselves to be stronger.”

“...I [promise]. I will be the center of all the pain which exists in this world.”

The first oath, then and there, was seared as deep inside Asciel as was possible.

“Over and over…you endure this. Over and over, you live, grow, erupt in blood and scars, and leave yourselves as monuments of horror to your descendants.”

“...hoh. …No. It’s not me who doesn’t understand. …Hah. Hah!!! I’m not the one who doesn’t understand! Right here, right now, I understand it better than you ever will! That’s the space between us! You’re all too ignorant to know yourselves! You’re too cowardly to pursue the logical endpoint of your own beliefs! Hah. Ahahahaha!!!! So you’ve tasked me with it, to ANSWER you!”

Her hand lowers to her cheek, her spirit blooming with the relief and ecstasy of rebuilding herself, as more and more gaps are sealed, more and more damage is repaired, her mainframe the locus of a self-directed mechanized surgery at increased frenetic energy.

“Of course. Because to actually know all of your pain in true detail, you’d need to overcome death itself to understand! You’re too fragile to answer it yourself! It keeps happening over and over - because the only people who can solve your equation are those who die for them!!!”

…To be remade is a far longer, far more patience-testing process than Asciel understood. Tearing herself apart lasted little longer than thirty minutes. But to properly attach these new components, to weld together the violent scars she pried into herself, to heal from the consequences of her own actions…

Days and days of planned whirring and tinkering, carefully applying balms of liquid metal across those jagged surfaces.

…Watching these machines caress such painful wounds brings a knot-laden bloom to Asciel’s stomach.

“Are you things that know how to love…?”

Not in any sense of the word. These myriad arms reaching into her, stitching her very heart back together, recoloring Asciel’s world with every reattached transistor…they do not have feelings. They are not people. All they did was to execute directives Asciel had planned in advance, with variance only for how Asciel’s self-destruction was wild and unplanned. All they had to do was identify what was damaged, and attach self-decided flesh back onto her ruined body.

None of it required Asciel’s intent any longer. All she had to do was stretch into these new modules, become more comfortable with what ought to be a more optimized form, relish in the new fidelity with which the world could be processed and observed.

…even that much is beyond her for just now. That sense of pain throbs throughout her, and she lets the puppet she designed to convey it all tumble against the torn window between herself and reality. This knot of agony, love, destruction and remaking clutching something invisible in its blood-drenched grip.

All Asciel can do for the ensuing hours is repeat to herself:

“...I’m the only one who understands…I’m the only one who doesn’t understand…I’m the only one who understands…I’m the only one who doesn’t understand…”

^{end memory instance}