This one is also late because WordPress is failing to post my scheduled posts for some reason.
Talita discusses her social ennui with the worm pile.
Transcript
Talita hurriedly shoves the wriggling worm robot back into the cart.
Talita: Whatever. It’s not like they’re currently being used.
She begins to push the cart towards the Runaway, with the front loader trailing behind.
Bip: Was Calcery the previous resident AI?
Talita: Yeah.
The worm robot pops its head up out of the pile of inanimate worms cart to look at her weary expression.
Bip: Were you friends?
She looks away from the cart wistfully. More worms come to life to watch her.
Talita: I thought so… but… he hasn’t texted me once since he left.
She turns back and is slightly alarmed to find over a dozen worms looking back at her.
Talita: And I– uh… don’t even know what we’d talk about, besides work.
Bip: Sounds like you were coworkers, not friends.
Talita: Maybe that’s everybody I know, now.
She pushes the cart up to one of the staircases on the massive rail sled and the fleet of worms begin to crawl up the ladder.
64 thoughts on “Runaway to the Stars: Page 147”
Septemberdale
It’s delightful how sea-creature-ish the wormbots look.
Ruby
You know, maybe Talita is saying this because she thinks that this whole thing has changed her relationship with Idrisah and Gillie? They’re not friends she meets outside of work anymore, now they’re coconspirators in Bip’s illegal restoration (which looks like more work).
Varyon
I think meeting them outside of work was a new thing, considering Calcery urged her to do so as he was leaving (“Say bye to Idrisah and Gillie for me. Spend time with them outside work!”), and since the party they’ve only really met up to discuss the Bip situation. So, yeah, Talita pretty much just has coworkers, and that’s been the case for her for a long time now.
Kayjack
Would you still love me, even if I was a cart load of electrician worms?
I love all of them looking up at Talita. Very Creature.
0xabad1dea
every time I look at those worms I think of them saying “hup, hup, hup” as they crest each stair
Sabella
I love Bip, especially when they’re a bunch of worms.
SIGSTKFLT
I’d love to, but I’m 803 worms
Tentament
lol @ Talita’s realization that she’s having a heartfelt conversation with a bunch of worms
Septemberdale
Worm shrimps. I would abbreviate to “wimps” but that would be unduly rude.
krisiverse
Shworms, maybe. They’re shmoovin’
sugar-goat
Worms is shrimps
Zuorai
Is Bip more at risk of getting caught as worms? Or would the temps or other Ixion workers assume Talita is in control? They’ll probably all stay inside the habitat of the ship but still
Trees
Probably nothing to worry about! Just some wild robo-worms. Gotta be some wild robo-worms in such an enormous scrapyard.
Lamprey
steel / bug type; surprisingly tanky
Gar G
Having all those worms staring at you…
And damn, that hits hard…
JoB
In completely unrelated news: Today, I was informed that someone sent me a parcel through a company called Pirate Ship. The tracking number they assigned starts with the letters “AHOY”. X-D X-D X-D
… did we ever see a Bip avatar wearing an eyepatch?
Trees
Oh no! They can climb stairs!
I’m not sure this is a good idea. Bip loves scaring the organics and now, with access to a fleet of awful worms that can go anywhere, Bip might actually succeed in giving someone a heart attack.
.
Did the bug-ferrets manufacture these worms? There is something very bug-ferrety about them.
JoB
(To continue the topic from the comments on the previous page, the “New” buttons still link to the same URLs as before – i.e., most pages link to page 145. Only the new “New” link on page 146 points to this page.)
sixeyes
For me they link perfectly fine. Maybe a cache thing?
JoB
I’m running “wget”s directly against the website (as far as my local machine knows), if there’s a cache involved there, it’d have to be a transparent proxy tacitly inserted by my Internet provider … hmmm … let me run that from my workplace AS …
… erm, scratch that, the problem’s now gone for my home PC, too. 😕
40
itty bitty little bug ferrets how cute
hessian
aoouuuugghhhh fuck. we’ve all been there, talita. you’ll find true friends soon enough 🤎🤎🤎
Eux
man i’ve been there talita. had great coworkers and then once we stop working together it just fizzles and dies.
i cannot get over the shrimp peepers on those worms
creetur
Bip in their servers, worms off the strings, what sins will they commit?
junkalopes
the longer dominic and adam are left alone, the more nervous i become
JoB
Relax. Those two are currently busy hiding the evidence. 😛
Storm
The worms are so cute omg. All their little faces!! Look at them go!!
Also I’m worried about Dominic and Adam lmao
JoB
“Was Calcery the previous resident AI?”
·
… pull the other one, Bip. If you were as ignorant as you’re pretending to be here, you wouldn’t even know that there *has* been a “previous resident AI”.
eden
talita said calcerys name in the last page
Enai
She also reacted to being tapped on the shoulder by RV!Bip with a “Just a second, Cal” before she realized that that wasn’t Calcery here.
Feather
And the recycling plant is clearly set up for an AI to work there – all the equipment designed for that is what Bip is taking advantage of, even before the electrician worms.
Synthaphone
After work the day the temps were gossiping about her, Talita also called Bip ‘Cal’ when they used machinery to tap her on the shoulder, presumably because Cal presumably did things like that often enough that she momentarily forgot that he wasn’t still working there. I think Bip is asking an honest question based on these pieces they’ve put together.
Green Heron
And if more recycling plants like Ixion exist maybe the resident AI is like a common thing at these places.
JoB
> talita said calcerys name in the last page
> Talita also called Bip ‘Cal’ when they used machinery to tap her on the shoulder
> maybe the resident AI is like a common thing at these places
·
I’m aware of all those details, but that doesn’t mean that they /add up/ to this page’s dialogue properly. Like, if Dirtball having a resident AI were to be *expected*, should Bip have hacked Ixion systems all over the place right away? Shouldn’t Talita replying to the tap with a specific name have made Bip suspect that this “Cal” might not be as permanently absent as the currently-unsupervised systems made it seem? (She never said out loud until now that Cal left for good.) Shouldn’t Bip have pressed for an answer to their “Who’s Cal?” back then, for fear of getting caught red-handed upon Calcery’s return? And how likely is it that, knowing there might be another AI “around” and snooping around in all the logfiles they came across, Bip *still* needs to ask Talita for details *now*? Since Calcery was the one preprogramming the night cycles for Lord-knows-how-long, shouldn’t there be *tons* of work orders signed in their (full) name still on record, not to mention Calcery’s HR files?
Enai
The more I think about it, the more I think you’re right. Why *wouldn’t* Bip have snooped the entire employee database? It’s not like they respect any other digital boundaries. Actually, Talitas attempt to research Bip’s background suggests they wouldn’t even have had to do that: Calcery’s employment history as well as, er, parentage(?) is a matter of public record. Talita calling them “Cal”, a search with some wildcards, and soon Bip knows exactly who controlled the fleet of RVs before the temps.
.
I wonder how much of their memories Bip and Calcery share. They are obviously not direct descendants of each other, but it’s unlikely that their only common ancestor is Nedebug…
JoB
> I wonder how much of their memories Bip and Calcery share.
·
To quote Jay: “most A.I. jettison a lot of extraneous memories after splitting from a parent as a way of differentiating themselves and prepping for a new life/location/job etc”
Fallingfeather
I love the electrician worms- their cute lil peepers!
creetur
Little babies.. either based off the ferrets themselves or one of their home planet animals
Apollo235
God, I’m moving out of state in 3 days, this page is timed perfectly lol
Enai
Talita, that’s not true! You had a purely social get-together with Idrisah and Gillie. It wasn’t even long ago, maybe two weeks?
.
But really, one more reason to leave this dusty hellhole. An actual social circle outside of work is very nice to have.
JoB
> You had a purely social get-together with Idrisah and Gillie.
·
Who *are* co-workers of Talita right now (*and* in the future). But truth be told, it’s not like every member of the crew-to-be of the Runaway will be running a different enterprise out of their corner of the habitat, either … with the possible exception of Bip themself.
Enai
What I meant is: Talita was just complaining that she only talked to Calcery about work, and that she feels she doesn’t have friends, just coworkers. I was pointing out that she *does* talk to Gillie and Idrisah about stuff that isn’t work, making them friends as well as coworkers.
Enai
Ha, italics tag found! (feels like a true hacker :-p)
JoB
And what I meant is that Bip suggesting “run away with me!” (with the *same* two additional people at best, and NOBODY else at worst) and having to *stay* on the move from there on out isn’t promising to be an improvement in that regard *at all*. So, a BAD “reason to leave this dusty hellhole”.
·
> Ha, italics tag found!
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So, which *is* it? 🙂 I think I *did* try not only the /usual/ plaintext representation but also HTML before. [i]BBcode[/i]? Limited HTML (as in, tag needs to be “em” rather than “i”, etc.)? [I]Uppercase-only[/I] “BBcode” (like with Hyvor Talk)?
JoB
… so it is just HTML. [feels sheepish] I wonder whether proper links work, too … ?
Enai
Hey, don’t feel sheepish. You tried, like, three more ways to produce italics than I even *knew*.
.
To the meat of your comment: If Talita stays on Dirtball, she will never find people to socialize with in the flesh who aren’t also coworkers, on account it’s worse than a company town, it’s a company planet. Nobody goes there who doesn’t work there, and leaving or visiting is an entire production and a half, to say nothing of the until recently booked-solid skyhook. Sure, she can meet people online, but if they want to meet up “Hi I’m Mx. Someone from Nexus Jovia and would like to visit my friend Talita Despaço, stay for three days and leave” probably would cost Mx. Someone a much too steep sum for so short a visit. Getting on a starship and staying there means you can’t choose when you visit Nexus Jovia, true. But you don’t have to pay an arm and a leg to get there in the first place and then you can meet up with Mx. Someone. Also, just taking a walk around the space port of wherever the Runaway docks will give her opportunities to meet more people in an hour than live on the entire planet.
.
I think it’s probably extremely weird to be somewhere you don’t ever meet anybody by surprise. Like, there’s 75 sophonts on Dirtball now. She must know every single one of them by name. There won’t be an unexpected new clerk at the grocery store, because a) there’s no grocery store and b) if there was, everybody would know far in advance that the new employee is set to arrive on [date]. She can’t go people watching from a café, nor discover a new electronics store that specializes in something obscure that is perfect Talita catnip, it’s just Bing Bong, lights on, work, Bing Bong, lights off, sleep. More like a prison than a normal life. Would drive me right up the wall until I’m at the Apex of the dome, hanging upside down like some deranged, overgrown bat.
JoB
> to say nothing of the until recently booked-solid skyhook
·
(That might not be quite relevant, though. The Runaway would need a slot for itself, as she fills a sled of her own. The ferries between the orbital station and planetside might seat a dozen and still fit into a corner some freight (that doesn’t go to the slag field) doesn’t fill on its sled.)
·
> then you can meet up with Mx. Someone. Also, just taking
> a walk around the space port of wherever the Runaway docks
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We know (ahead of time) that that is how it’ll turn out, but that’s only possible thanks to the fact that Talita et. al. end up running a legitimate and respected freighter business. But – especially given that we agree that they will get into trouble with Ixion sooner or later – that’s nothing anyone could predict right now. As far as Talita knows, her future life aboard the Runaway will be one of constantly being on the run.
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> There won’t be an unexpected new clerk at the grocery store
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[pictures Rasheed donning various disguises to surprise his “customers” with even more unplanned zucchini]
Enai
The ferries between the orbital station and planetside might seat a dozen and still fit into a corner some freight
–
Good point, mammals are much less dense than even aluminium, to say nothing of actually heavy metals. Avians and centaurs might be different, but from what I gathered the proteins making up their flesh, while sufficiently different to probably be poison to Earth life, work generally the same way. By which I mean they’re Carbon-Hydrogen-Nitrogen molecules, and thus their muscles roughly as dense as ours, weight-wise.
_
Ninja!Rasheed sneaking up on any human incautious enough to be near the greenhouses alone and shoving more zucchini in their hands is a delightful mental image. Imagine you go home, and is that Rasheed with Zucchini? No, just Tod, *phew* and then you get closer, he dramatically whips off the disguise and you end up with 10 more of the dreaded green gourds.
Anonymous
Release the worms!
malmo
Why is this the saddest and most relatable page so far…
Sunstorm
how are these worms so impossibly cute
Teod
Had she text them first though?
Enai
Maybe she will now? Unless it slips her mind once she sees what the temps got up to in her absence.
JoB
Cal is, as far as we know, still the only person Talita felt safe to openly complain about the temps *to* …
Mitch
My absolute favorite pages are when Bip is 30 of something
Arcstone
The sheer visceral reaction im having to these god damn mechanical hr giger nightmare worms that crawl up your butt and eat your organs while you sleep looking things. 😰
JoB
Come now, that comparison is hardly fair.
·
Giger’s creations can *not* survive a vacuum to get at you like these worms do. 😛
HAL9000
depends, Giger himself has never specified the abilities of the creatures he illustrates afaik. the xenomorph wasn’t his to create beyond the initial design
HAL9000
NVM IGNORE ME i forgot he wrote books as well im a fool
JoB
If you think that I quickly scanned his entire œuvre to see whether there’s a half-sentence somewhere that’d ruin the joke, you may want to rethink that. 😉
·
(And apart from that, with all the work he’s done on “interior decorations”, I’m rather certain that the question of “will it
blendstand vacuum?” has never come up for those in the first place.)Hosp
Love them little woims
Lamprey
joyous little creatures 🙂
Martin
It must be so fun to pilot a ton of electrician worms around. Like, I bet a forklift is clunky in comparison, whereas a fleet of worms? You could go anywhere!
Martin
Oooh first comment that’s fun.
I love how Bip emotes with the worms. I love how Bip uses whatever they’re occupying to emote.