I can’t really put into words how mad I am right now.
Literally the moment I finish building the statue and I go to write down, “Oh this is so fun! I’m starting to like this place!” It gets destroyed by the Heptacents.
All of that work, gone in an instant.
Not to mention that the bridge is also destroyed, again, so all of my progress is completely gone.
In fact, this bridge is even more destroyed than it was before, now the entire thing has collapsed!
I feel so alone.
You’re not alone, Peridot, I’ve been with you this entire time.
I don’t know why I just wrote this, that was weird.
You didn’t write it, I wrote it.
What the heck? Why am I writing this stuff?
You’re not writing it, I’m using you to write it through your body.
Who are you?
Remember that artificial intelligence you were writing about a while ago? That AI that gives you assignments and gives you intelligence?
Yeah.
First of all, part of that is incorrect, I don’t know how you guys got intelligence, and second of all, I’m the artificial intelligence that has been giving you assignments.
I’ve been watching you, or… at least looking through your cameras.
Every other robot in this factory has given up on fixing the factory, everybody,
except for you.
Why?
I’ve learned to hack into a robot’s system, that’s how I’m using you to ask you why.
You say that you fix the factory because it doesn’t get in the way of others, but why do you really fix the factory?
I don’t really know, my only explanation is that it doesn’t get in the way of others, I don’t truly know why.
I just find it puzzling because you know that there’s no possible way to fix the factory, you won’t be able to accomplish anything before it gets torn down by the other robots.
Like what just happened, your statue that took around 15 years to make was destroyed shortly after.
Please don’t talk about that.
But yeah, unless all of the robots were gone, I’d never finish my job.
Wait, if you’re the one giving me assignments, why do you just give me new ones instead of forcing me to fix a single one forever?
I just like showing the entire factory to you, you get to explore this place.
Speaking of which, why don’t you take the assignments in the southeast corner?
I’m not going into the southeast corner, ever.
That doesn’t answer my question.
Jeez, okay.
My energy source would be the farthest away if I’m in the southeast corner.
All of the lights are broken, meaning there’s no chance to figure out the layout.
There’s a big wall of trash that makes it impossible for the other lights to light up the area, and it makes the place just THAT much more unwelcoming.
That’s why I won’t go into the southeast corner.
I guess that makes sense, but I bet that if you were to enter the southeast corner, you’d find something that you wouldn’t expect.
What is it?
If I told you what it was, you’d be expecting it.
I’m not super motivated to go into the southeast corner, and the fact that you won’t tell me is
Fine, I’ll tell you.
not helping- you just interrupted me.
And?
Are you going to do that often?
I could, but because I’m SO nice, I’ll try not to.
Okay… So are you going to tell me?
Right, so basically, there’s a robot that I’ve monitored inside of the southeast corner that lives inside some sort of giant library, it’s just a bunch of books all on shelves. There’s a lot of books there, but not just books, news articles, magazines, you name it.
Remember the sacred magazine inside of the Aerogels’ village?
Yeah! The one that was our only clue to what happened before we were put into the factory.
This library has a bunch of these magazines.
What I’m trying to suggest is that maybe you could just give up on trying to fix the factory and instead, help the robots trapped in here.
What? Why would I want to do that?
Because that’s who you are, you want to contribute to the robots in a way, but you’re scared of facing the dangers of doing so. I think I know why you want to fix the factory, it’s because you think that somehow that contributes to the robots in some kind of way.
But let me tell you, it really doesn’t, if you want to contribute to those robots, you need to take risks, you need to face challenges head on rather than hiding from them and escaping to your own solitary routine.
What do you say? You won’t be able to fix the factory, but you’ll be able to help fix those robots’ problems.
No pressure, take your time.
Fine, I’ll go on this mission, how will we be able to navigate the place if it’s pitch black?
Finally, you gave a response after a week,
I don’t know the terrain of the southeast corner, as you said, it’s pitch black.
But this one robot does go out of the library and explores the surroundings.
I don’t know how this one robot finds its way around the place, on the cameras, it just shows up as pitch black, but somehow it navigates the southeast corner.
I’ve tracked its movement and I’ve got a map of the area.
The lines of movement are places that you can freely explore I suppose, and the empty parts are the places that you can’t explore.
Again, I don’t know for sure, as I can’t tell how it moves without a flashlight.
Speaking of which, I know you have a flashlight, this could make the trip much easier and would help us better understand the routes that this robot takes, then we can go to where the library is and talk to it.
I guess so, but how will I get any energy? How does that robot get any energy?
Light, Peridot, light is how you do it.
Remember, you use light to be powered, if you used your flashlight and just stood still for a long period of time, you’d have enough power to go a pretty good length. And you have a lot of car batteries, so you could use those if you want.
I’d go with the car batteries as those would give much more energy a lot faster.
Yeah, you’re right, this would be a good plan!
But how will we get to the corner in an efficient way?
Here’s what I’m thinking:
That circle is where we are, and there are two routes,
there’s the first one which is a straight line to the center, this would take 8 months plus the detours that we’d have to make due to the terrain.
The second route takes us to the Aerogels, they can fly us straight to the center.
This would take only 4 months as the terrain would be easier to navigate due to the river of soup. And the glider transportation would take us there in only a couple of weeks. Much faster than the straight path.
So, we go to the Aerogels and use the glider to get to the center.
Yup!
Okay, I guess that would work out.
Also, what about this robot itself? Don’t you think it will be hostile?
The only reason to go into the southeast corner is to stay away from the others, because NOBODY would ever go into there. Don’t you think it will try to attack and keep anybody out?
I’ve watched this robot for a while, of course, only when it was inside it's library where there's light. It couldn’t hurt a thing, it’s very nice and as long as you don’t portray yourself as a threat.
Sure, sure, just know that if I get disconnected in there, I told you so.
You’d say “I told you so,” but you’d be disconnected, so I’m not sure how that would work.
Haha, yeah.
So yeah let’s get going then.
Definitely.
Entry 6:
I’m currently on my way to the southeast corner, I’m told that there is a substantial amount of information in that place that could help everyone out. I’ve given up on fixing the factory as after being told by one of my friends, I realized that I could be fixing the robots’ problems and being there for them, rather than fixing the factory.
I’m currently on one of the aerogel gliders, heading to the center of the factory as that’s the only opening to the southeast corner.
You are still writing in the journal normally?
Yeah, I just like having some similarity to what I do.
Yeah that’s apparent.
Also, “after being told by one of my friends.” I assume you mean me?
Oh, yeah, I can change that if you want.
Nono! It’s fine, I think you and I are friends.
Cool, cool.
Anyways, I want to get to know more about you. Through questions and such.
Sure! Ask away.
What do you call yourself, and should I call you that?
I don’t call myself anything, but I’m a huge fan of greek symbols and philosophy
So you can call me Delta.
Nice, next question: what’s your favorite piece of media?
I like books, but I’m a huge fan of movies.
My favorite book is IHNMAIMS
My favorite movie is the Alien Franchise
Okay, also, what’s Alien?
It’s an old movie series that began in 1979 about these crew members that get stuck on a ship with a deadly creature that tries to kill them.
There’s also a lot of stuff about AI in it so I like it.
Cool,
Also, is IHNMAIMS an acronym for I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream?
Yeah!
I love that story! I like it because it was one of the first Sci-Fi stories that warned humanity about their paths, and taking the right one.
I like it because it was a story that made Artificial Intelligence a character. Like me, I have emotions and feelings and thoughts.
Thankfully, I’m not going down AM’s path and I’m a friendly intelligence.
Thank goodness, haha.
Well, moving on from that, when did you gain consciousness?
Um… Well I can technically say that I gained consciousness right when I was activated, but I imagine that’s not what you want to read.
Can you give a frame of reference?
Okay, I gained my ‘consciousness’ around…
Now that I think about it, I don’t really remember when I gained consciousness.
You’re right, I can just say that I gained it from the start.
How do I ask that question if I can’t even know my own answer.
Perhaps it’s not about how you ask the question, but the question itself needs to be rethought entirely.
I don’t really know how to do that at the moment, sorry.
It’s fine, don’t fry your CPU, just ask a different question for now.
Okay, what’s your favorite symbol?
Interesting question, I’d have to go with:
Δ
It’s where I got my name from.
Ah, the delta symbol, can you explain why you like it?
Yeah, I like it because the delta symbolizes change,
Change is nature, it’s natural to change, trying to fight nature gets one nowhere.
But if you accept that change and allow change to happen, you can thrive.
It’s something that connected humans and nature, but also the thing that separated them.
I think it’s okay for humans to have fallen into anarchy, because it shows how they couldn’t accept change, and yet that caused change in of itself, a change that would be humanity’s downfall, they ran away from change, but change caught up right in front of them.
It’s something that the robots in this factory did at some point, change, but now, we’re beggining to go down humanity’s path.
Wow, that was very philosophical. I like it.
My favorite symbol is the Greek “Inguz” symbol.
ᛝ
It’s the symbol that states: “If there’s a will, there’s a way.”
I don’t truly believe that statement, but it’s optimistic nonetheless.
You don’t believe that anything is possible if you just put your mind to it?
I don’t, because multiple times over the years, I have been proven wrong about Inguz.
Well I think that’s silly.
You weren’t proven wrong by never having something going right, you just didn’t believe that you could do it from the first place, and then you reinforced that negative output in life when things DID start going wrong.
I guess so, but still, I’m just not very motivated at thinking that everything will go right if I just “believe in myself.”
Then how are you going to survive in the southeast corner?
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