[TEXT]

[serialmurderbot]

NICE SUGGESTIONS TO NOT FUCKING DIE

[Thanks for the name suggestion Arcade; SecUnit clearly didn't take to heart any of the other parts about not being able to tell people what to do.]

1. Never leave the Convoy [Convoy defined as the main trailers plus the radius of the shield and additional vehicles, approximately 80 meters] alone. Survey and scavenging groups should consist of at least 2 members.

2. When leaving the Convoy always inform someone outside of your party of your intended itinerary and duration of travel.

3. Perform regular check-ins during the excursion [ideally every 15 minutes] via the radio.

4. Bring a method of defense that you have training and certification in. This should be used as a LAST RESORT, if unable to avoid aggressive wildlife. Call for backup before engaging.

5. In an emergency situation safety of survey personnel is priority one. Abandon all equipment if necessary. Yes, even if that means the aggressive fauna will destroy it. Or eat it.

6. Never operate a vehicle or weapon while any of the following: Intoxicated, sleep-deprived, distracted, experiencing physical illnesses such as migraines, gastrointestinal symptoms, blood loss, etc.

7. Do not consume or touch unfamiliar plants or other food items without first confirming their safety for human ingestion. Licking counts as consuming.

8. Don't startle your SecUnit.

Comments

[guidemyway]

Do you want to see it?

[serialmurderbot]

[It should see the way it's about to stick its metaphorical foot in its metaphorical mouth coming. It doesn't.]

And does your dad have a cert in combat?

[serialmurderbot]

Fine.

By the sleeping trailer.

[It's mostly agreeing to see if it can somehow confiscate it. Wildly impractical weapons are fun on shows, but humans are already too prone to hurting themselves with their own weapons without something as decidedly impractical as a scythe involved.]

[serialmurderbot]

Send it to me.

[Of course it's going to take more detail. It just might have to process it later because it's trying not to get into some kind of shitty feedback loop in its non-organic parts about Synth societies.

It doesn't change anything, anyway. Just because V exists doesn't mean the Corporation Rim doesn't. It doesn't change Preservation.

It doesn't change this place, where it's reasonably certain that they're the only two in quite this situation. Serph doesn't count, he wants to be human. Is human? It doesn't know what the fuck is going on there.]

Fine. So no space travel experience. But survivalism and resource management.

[faceguy]

uh I dunno?
he never really told me much about his life before
but he spent like a decade as the champion of the battle nexus

[constantvrunning]

[Boop
And while V sends that along, they respond to SecUnit's next statement.]

Yes. Dealing with people is - not more difficult, as such. But it has a much less positive history for me than reverse-engineering old tech.

[hexrot]

[ good ]

I'll leave you to security and you'll leave me to hammering.

[serialmurderbot]

What the fuck is the battle nexus

[faceguy]

whats it sound like??
you do fights there while people watch and make bets and stuff
like
uh

gladiators

[airskate]

You first.

[ Shadow doesn't have a weapon to drop, and he's guessing that whatever weapon SecUnit does have isn't one that it can actually drop. But the point still stands! Shadow's not going to stand down first. ]

Roger. If you don't want a fight, then leave while you can.

[serialmurderbot]

[Oh, SecUnit snorts at that. Yeah, it knows exactly what V means. It's already got the skin on its organic parts crawling with just how many people are here, and that's after the understanding and acknowledgement that most of them aren't going to be terrified of the big scary SecUnit.]

No combat experience?

[serialmurderbot]

[It takes 1.2 seconds for SecUnit to work through how much it hates that idea.]

Fights to the death?

[serialmurderbot]

[Another novel thing - usually when it's threatening people, they're trying to yell at people to control their SecUnit. That doesn't make it any more happy about the situation, though, because - gun.

Stalemate - there's no fucking way it's about to drop that arm, though. Realistically it should be trying to de-escalate, but it's angry about this. It doesn't expect people to be nice to it, but that doesn't mean it's happy about being treated like a dangerous weapon again, and that bleeds through in its retort.]

If I was going to kill you I wouldn't have given you an ETA.

[faceguy]

[Leo realizes he’s never really considered if any of the fights are to the death. The ones he saw didn’t seem to end that way, but he only saw two and one was against a kraken.]

I dont know

I think he was fighting monsters most of the time

even if he was here im not sure how I would ask

[“Hey Dad, did you have to kill people after your girlfriend kidnapped you underground?” No way.]

[constantvrunning]

[V flinches.]

While I- understand what the soldiers were trained in, how to operate their weapons, the Empire- didn't want all of their workers to be able to fight back.

[The Red Empire was not interested in all its 'acquired assets', human or otherwise, being fully independent.]

[guidemyway]

See you there!

[And true to her word, Ruby is waltzing along with a mechanical scythe that's taller than she is.

Which isn't saying much as she's a 5'4" teenage girl. But still.

Either way she's looking around for whoever she was texting with.]

I uh... Probably should have got their name... or what they look like.

[thelastb1]

[Leaving is a good idea, he thinks, but he is too startled to even do that. There's a good chance he gets blasted just trying to get to the door. Besides, he's not sure if he would ever see the blaster again, and although he thinks there is a good chance he would be better off without it, overall the benefits of having a weapon like that in the situation they're all in outweigh the risks it has posed. Besides, he'd like to think that at this point he's above calling Shadow into a fight and then abandoning him to it.]

That... makes sense. [He sets the jaw weapon onto the ground and slowly rises out from the bar with his hands raised.]

[serialmurderbot]

I guess that's fractionally less shitty.

[serialmurderbot]

[Fortunately for Ruby, the scythe that's also a gun makes for a very easy identifier. SecUnit is waiting by one of the doors of the caravan trailer - Ruby will catch a glimpse of a person in drab, unremarkable clothes and a motorcycle helmet. First it probably stands out because it's the only one just standing around doing nothing, at least in eyesight - but it makes this more obvious by abandoning the door it was standing next to and approaching her.

It's hard to tell where it's looking with the helmet, but from the angle (it's definitely looking above Ruby's head) it's probably staring at the scythe.]

It looks even more impractical than I thought.

[serialmurderbot]

[Another point in favor of 'the Corporation Rim would never.' Middle management is exactly the kind of thing that they would leave either to humans, or to an automated bot program - a construct, or a synth, would be way too expensive for a job like that.

On the other hand: The CR definitely doesn't want its disposable labor being able to fight back, either. It's a common theme in some of the more fantastical shows it watches, set in a fictional section of space or a fictional pre-CR planet, a controlling Empire and the brave humans who fight against it.]

And they marked you.

[faceguy]

the point is
he knew how to fight
and taught me

[constantvrunning]

No.

[V shakes their head.]

I saw it happen to others - people I had met before, and strangers. I never saw my family again one way or the other, though. But the process itself, and the pain - even the possibility of inflicting the brands myself - that was something the Empire held over me.

[They looked down, remembered shame pressing on them.]

So that my 'superiors' could always make things worse. Keep me complicit.

[airskate]

[ And... Roger's not leaving, is he? Shadow's swivel and tilt back, and his expression loses a few shades of anger and gains a few shades of annoyance. Because while he's still completely willing to do this whole fighting thing right now, the relative lack of hostility on SecUnit's part is making it increasingly more likely that an actual fight wasn't on the table in the first place. ]

Roger.

[ Shadow hasn't dropped his guard just yet, but his tone is now flat instead of aggressive. ]

Why did you think a fight was about to start?

[serialmurderbot]

[Yeah, SecUnit would also like an answer to that question, particularly when it thinks it knows something of the answer. It gives a few more moments of remaining on guard, but when Roger has finally lowered the makeshift weapon and Shadow glances back, maintaining its current stance would be needlessly aggressive and risk restarting the conflict. So it finally lets the hand fall to its side.

It doesn't bother repeating Shadow's question, because that's the same one it would have asked. If it didn't think that just walking away would be seen as a chance to get it in the back.

As the two wait for the bot's response, SecUnit practically radiates angry disapproval.]

[thelastb1]

[Roger's hands stay raised in surrender, but lower somewhat to be in front of his face in a more defensive posture. He slinks back a few steps.

He directs his answer to Shadow's question to the SecUnit.] You said startling you was dangerous, and then you asked where I was. And then you came in and immediately got startled. So I thought I was in danger.

[Of course, it should have been obvious that bringing weapons would be startling, but he certainly didn't trust the SecUnit enough to leave them behind. Even so, their only effective use would be a deterrent. The cobbled-together experimental weapon was unreliable, the blaster was empty, and the small melee weapon wouldn't be that useful in his hands.]

... I panicked.