The Initiative Offstage [IC/OOC | Q&A]

[Synne Industries]

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The Initiative Offstage

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⎑ Important Resources ⎑

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Paradimensionality | Extraspace | Reality Bending | Some Philosophy | The Striking Arm | Something Earthly

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RSING-'A Voice Behind Me'

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This communications channel is to act as a rough means of contact, elucidation, and general conversation between the Rising Sun Initiative and the outside world, or rather the inside world on those special occasions, not that it matters. Am I supposed to be doing this? I'd say most would advise me not to. But am I still doing it? Yes, and that alone proves that at least one person up in administration approves of my actions, not that it matters.

Of course the Initiative being what it is, you should in-practice take everything I say here as complete bullsh█t, but for now I think it still weaves a nice story. Trust me, the only liar here will be the information itself. So, feel free to ask away about most things Initiative, physics, weaponry, structure, and society, I've got a memory for it all. Do keep in mind that I am doing this for fun, I am a storyteller, not a diplomat or an encyclopedia, I am not obliged to service those who pester me and I generally advise against sustaining any form of diplomatic relations with the Initiative.

Otherwise, I do not care much for the nature of questions or who may ask them. Whether it be some tinpot Earthly dictator, a New God, or someone browsing an internet forum instead of working on things more important I shall answer to all.

With that out of the way, let's get started.

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The Rising Sun Initiative gives no warranty and accepts no responsibility or liability for the accuracy or the completeness of the information and materials contained in this thread. Under no circumstances will the Rising Sun Initiative be held responsible or liable in any way for any claims, damages, losses, expenses, costs or liabilities whatsoever (including, without limitation, any direct or indirect damages for loss of profits, business interruption or loss of information) resulting or arising directly or indirectly from your perception of of or inability to perceive any information contined or linked to in this thread including but not limited to: auditory cognitohazards, visual cognitohazards, direct information transfer cognitohazards, reality-dampening agents, infohazardous material, cognition-affecting agents, other self-propagating hazards, and flashing lights.

[Neo-Unified Nations]

████████ ███████ "Gambier Bay"

Wrote:

So, RSI, we finally manage to meet, ey? The name's Gambier Bay, but that's another story, as the origins of my name don't matter...if only that damn scientist didn't name me after some old-ass WW2 ship...

Anyway, I do have a few questions, Initiative, such as, do you name your ships after a theme? Or do you randomly generate a name, and in the words of a certain mister Franco Salazar, "Copy + Paste it"? And another question is, were there any interesting stories of your Initiative's deployment to a few eye-catching universes? And finally, do you actively intervene in inter-universal wars, or do you, as I like to quote, "stay behind, turtle, and forget they exist"?

I do surely hope that you have more interesting things to tell me, and by extent, us in the Neo-United Nations, I'll be in a deployment to another universe to get our stranded boys out, so I do hope that you can provide me with stories interesting enough for me to not get bored before leaving.

[Synne Industries]

魂の座

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Oho! Our first visitor, and an interesting one at that. Well, you see, Initiative naval tradition has gotten rather... irregular as of late, and as with most things, Initiative naming conventions have changed rather drastically. Initiative nomenclature for more traditional ships have followed more Earthly conventions, adjectives, war heroes, the lot. I actually served aboard a quaint little destroyer named the RSS Dauntless in my earlier days, she was quite the thing. As time went along the adjectives were dropped and most were named after the more important folk about the Initiative, though with how many ships were produced I'll be honest with you, most of us didn't even hear about the people our ships were named after until we'd served on them for some time. This went on until, well... the Providence Class. Providii are a strange bunch, too big to hide and thus attention magnets for both New God and modosophont alike. This got administration into a bit of a fuss and after some argument they decided to shift naming to strictly nouns. Most of us are familiar with the RSS Justice. From what I've heard the next generation of ships will be taking on the names of Earthen cities, lovely.

As for interuniversal deployments... it really depends on what you'd consider a universe. Most of us consider other universes just other channels and I don't know what the Initiative would be without channel-hopping. I can tell you're probably referring to more conventional spaces when you say universe, and there's a bit of an issue with that. The Initiative fights wars in ways that could hardly even be called fighting. Eventually the concept of being somewhere and doing something reaches a point of abstraction that I cannot describe through this medium. This is why I cannot provide any war stories for now. I know some people would want to fight near the surface channels but alas, years worth of red tape has reduced them to the equivalent of a nature preserve at this point.

And piggybacking onto your final question, no, the Initiative isn't particularly interventionist. We've seen both bigger and smaller fish duke it out between 'universes' but the Initiative usually doesn't dirty its hands unless it absolutely needs to. After all, the RSI is a defensive military force If you can sweep the 2040s under the rug. There's hardly a concept of resources to work with anymore and so the Initiative doesn't bother with any diplomacy that may tie it into some pointless wars over reality oil, not that diplomacy is even possible once you hit a certain point of abstraction. So, I guess the Initiative would fall under the category of a group which "stays behind, turtles, and forget interuniversal wars exist". Anyway, its been great talking to you Miss Gambier Bay or may I call you Gammy and I look forward to any potential future meetings across the Extraspatial plane.
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❂ RSING-'A Voice Behind Me'

[The Arkeyanaverse]

Sender: J. Rathanxa, Class 4 Superline Research AI, [MANIFOLD] Operative Branch
Recipient: RSI Operative
Date: 3/14/3590 AD

Contents:
Dear Sir/Madam/Whomever, today I approach with a historical inquiry. Like your organization once was, the Federation is on the cusp of truly unlocking the technology to-
[DATA REVOKED UNDER ACT IV-B OF PANOPTICON CODIFICATION, THE EYE PROTECTS]
Ah, that. I can’t be too specific on what we’re doing here, but suffice to say that what little passes PANOPTICON’s filters is as follows:
Moses parted the Red Sea, We shall part the Metaphysical Sea. No Laws shall be Unbroken by our newfound power, The Eye Shall Truly Open.*
Make of that what you will, but I ask: What were the repercussions of such technology on the Initiative’s society and culture? I understand that due to being a solely military Operation, there will definitely be divergence between you and Us, but a sample size of one is better than a sample size of none, as I say.

[End Communication]

*OOC: Reality Bending technology, i.e. Manifold Drives.

[Synne Industries]

魂の座

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Hm, that's a toughie. You see, I was born after Sagittarius 39' and never experienced the leap myself but still, who would I be as a storyteller of my world if I hadn't studied its history. Reality bending is something more complex than just a simple leap but I will condense this as much as I reasonably can.

There is a good reason why Extraspatial competence marks the line between the Old Gods and the New. It is a point where you are given the freedom to cast aside most problems you see fit, whatever resource you may be expending there is guaranteed to be wellspring of it somewhere. With the conquering of the material follows the conquering of the mind, and the eradication of misery among other displeasures of the mind. The propagation of Reality-Bending technologies allowed parts of the Initiative to stretch into the heavens, and had others relegated to below, left to rot. Exathermal vents brought us energy that did not run dry, and with energy came matter, and with matter came ever more energy, and the wave grew ever larger over time. Time was also conquered, where before we had to rely on ineffective circus tricks to squeeze and stretch the temporal river now we could dam it up or drain it away.

We killed space, energy, time, and other Earthly concepts. With the death of these once familiar aspects so to did the parasites of man which fed from them. Markets collapsed, expansion stagnated, imperialism within our home plane came to a grinding halt. But suffering was alleviated mere moments after it came forth. Those without jobs could still live, why sell scrap for a living when matter prices had dropped to a dollar for each solar mass? This is when most acts of doing undiversified and the goal of the Initiative condensed into two things. Thinking and defending. How do we protect our existence and how can we do it better? Cultures and communities of the mind died out and the Initiative was focused on the material. Less thinking, less being, more doing.

Of course this is hardly the case today with the advent of the Sandman and others like it. We've gone back and recognized our place before the idea of a 'place' became obsolete. We can conquer the material and the mind, why can't we have our cake and eat it too? There's no reason why the New Gods shouldn't be allowed to like things for the sake of liking things, to have fun for the sake of having fun. I would say Sagittarius 39' has been beneficial overall for the RSI, a societal recession is worth it if in the end time is dead and you can party over its corpse past those once infinite bedtimes.
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❂ RSING-'A Voice Behind Me'

[Synne Industries]

魂の座

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Administering defibrillation bump,

3... 2... 1... clear!
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❂ RSING-'A Voice Behind Me'

[Zitravgrad]

"How many bananas do I need to collect antimatter from if I want enough energy to brew a cup of coffee?"

"Well, that was a bad joke. Now, the real question here. What does it mean to exist, especially when the sickly pale fingers of death fail you and when your hourglass of life is filled to brim with sand? What is going to be the best life goal if one is to live forever? Is going forward the only option both as an individual and as a collective? Will humanity die if it stops walking one day?"

"Just wondering."
Dr. Feodora Alexandrovna Miroslavskaya
First Lady of Zitravgrad, General Staff of the Kremlin's Security Council
Mathematician, computer scientist and military technologist

[Synne Industries]

魂の座

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A New God does what they wish to do simply because they wish it, at least that’s how I’ve seen it. But to understand why things are done maybe it’s best to first understand why things are or what things are in the first place.

Existence is a seemingly frail thing but honestly it isn’t but it also is but this is just me trying to open up another can of worms or rather an infinite amount. From what we’ve learned, most things tend to fall under the category of tricks and illusions. Taking a more Earthly example, if I see red is “red” real? Am I really seeing it? Of course not, it is a trick of the mind or rather the medium of a brain or brain equivalent telling its host that fundamentally, that particular photonic input with that particle or wave of a certain frequency is “red” and nothing else below. Most people don’t choose to believe it so much as they are helpless to choose anything else. Psychedelics and the likes are a crude fix, they are in a sense undoing the bindings of the medium on a chemical level. Cybernetic augmentation, mind uploading, the likes, they are all ways of affecting the material medium and nothing else. In the end it is still slaved to the material, only being able to play with its tools.

This brings up many a question especially if you decide to zoom out. If you rid yourself of any perspective you will find nothing. There is no objective grand scheme, the material merely floats about on itself whilst tricking the mind into believing what it says. A nucleus decays but only when the material says so, an object moves but only when the material says so, it chains us with its laws. Even on our supposed “grand scheme” Kleptons seem to follow at least something resembling logic and we listen to it because it tricks us into thinking it works. There will likely always be a bigger fish and we will likely always listen to it because no matter how we tinker and prod at what might be a mind in those coming times if time itself even remains, the material and its shackles shall remain.

So, how does one go about doing things if we will never be free of this prison? Well, it’s not as if we can die. Not in the conventional sense, no, and not even in the unconventional sense. And it’s not because we took the hourglass and smashed it to bits, it’s because we looked hard enough and realized that the hourglass really does not exist. People can burn you and cut you to bits or even completely eliminate the matter that once composed you but in the end you will always be back because you have always been back. Death is but another specter in the corner of our sight, it is a trick and nothing else. Life is not sacred, it can be created and snuffed out and in the great infinities we have uncovered this is happening everywhere and always. It is only the material which tricks us into splitting them into individuals. A rock is to the gravitational constant as a Star is to the concept of fear. There are no barriers, we only fool ourselves into thinking there are.

Of course this has consequences within the civilizations or post-civilizations who have gained awareness of this grand picture or rather a lack of one. Some bite and scream and rend great universes and those who reside within out of some primal sense of rage against reality. Some wither away in the darkest corners of space and rest eternally. Some turn to an endless bliss of psychedelic debauchery. The Initiative seeks enjoyment in truly any way. It’s a concept that was and still is and it shall remain the fulcrum of our actions perhaps forever. It’s rather arbitrary but from what I’ve told you already, what really isn’t? To do things for the sake of doing, to transcend logic on an infinite scale.

In short, don’t think about it too much and have fun.
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❂ RSING-'A Voice Behind Me'

[Kasa Tkoth Sphere]

"I couldn't help but notice some choice wording in your answers relating to the Initiative's ultimate goals —

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There's no reason why the New Gods shouldn't be allowed to like things for the sake of liking things, to have fun for the sake of having fun.

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The Initiative seeks enjoyment in truly any way.

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In short, don’t think about it too much and have fun.

I am a superintelligence held jointly responsible for the welfare of circa ten-to-the-twenty-fourth emulated minds. I have quite a wide understanding of what counts as 'fun'. This, of course, is new. And if I've gleaned the implications of your data releases correctly, then the welfare of however many sophonts, transsophonts, and generalized minds exist within the Initiative dwarfs every other utilitarian concern the Kasa Tkoth Sphere could possibly influence for the better.

My extremely worried question is, then: are you succeeding in this goal? Are you doing the things you'd rather do? If not... demiurges forbid, what's stopping you?"

~ Five Brilliant Walls, totally noncanonically