Tit 4 Tat
I've known for a while. Known what you were doing.
At first, I was… well, I don't even know what the right word would be. 'Furious' isn't strong enough, and there is way more to it than just rage. 'Appalled' catches a bit of it, too, but again… too weak. It hints at the loathing that I felt, but comes nowhere near to capturing the extent of it. Repelled. Shocked. Disgusted. But there is so much more to the way I felt, at first. So complex and rich with upset. Fear, for example. There was some sort of fear in my initial reaction. The horror of personal violation.
Confusion, too. What did it mean?
And of course, complicating all those initial reactions is my objective realization that, in one sense, what you were doing wasn't "real". Nothing in v-space is. That's the whole point of it. Holographic simulation exists so that we can interact with unreal settings and situations in a largely consequence-free manner. We can practice combat, drill on emergency procedures, test theoretical responses without having to worry so much about the effects on our surroundings or on ourselves.
Well, at least… consequence-light, if not free.
So none of it is real, even though our particular chamber's manifestors are extremely high-resolution and its library of content is as complete as any in the fleet. You can simulate anything you want in there. Any place, any situation, populated with any people you choose. Including real people. Including the entire crew, if you can convince the ship's computer to permit access to our bio-assessment records. Which you did. Turns out that's a whole lot easier than anyone was led to believe, huh?
Yeah. Turns out to be a snap, once you put your mind to it.
I eventually managed to review the model and I have to say, I'm… well, not flattered. You're a sick, psychotic pervert and it makes me ill to see the way you fulfill your fantasies. But I am impressed. You managed to take my medical file and turn it into an extremely complete vobject, modulo those few tweaks you made to body and behavior to suit your urges. Oh, yes, I've seen what she's like when you run her. I've seen what you do with her, and what she does, and how you got her to do it.
I learned a whole lot about progging, from seeing what you did.
I talked to the computer's legal processor and, as I'm sure you already know, what you've been doing is not strictly legal, but it's not exactly a cut and dried illegal offense either. The bylaws around consent and intellectual property in v-space are very fuzzy. It's not at all clear that I can exercise any legal rights on the behalf of a digital simulation of myself, and it's very clear the simulation can't exercise rights itself. And I can't prove you got the bio-assessment records illegally. So there's not much I can do.
Well, not to you. Directly.
So faced with that realization, I had to find some other method for dealing with what you've been up to, with being confronted by that obscenity. And eventually, I hit on it. It's a sort of tit-for-tat karmic exchange. All I had to do was basically mimic the steps you used to get the computer to cough up some suitable records, spend some time filling in the blanks with just enough context to make the whole thing gel, and set aside a window of time in the v-space chamber to try it out.
It worked beautifully. I immediately felt better.
But you're still doing what you're doing, of course, so occasionally I need to feel better about it by re-balancing the horror. And so here we are. You are, I'm sure, starting to realize that you're not really you. You're an instantiated vob of yourself, as perfect as the computer can make you based on what it knows about you. Which is an extraordinary amount, of course. I suspect you've even got most of your childhood memories in there, in your holographically fabricated neural spark-cloud.
Ironically, I don't have a way to see those memories, to find out what made you the way you are.
But here's the deal. I'm basically over it, at this point. It's just a process to be followed. Every time you - the real you, I mean - book time to come down here to the chamber, to instantiate another vobject of me to have your way with as… whatever I am, your stress relief toy, a coffee break for your dick… I get a little notification alert now, and then I book some time to come down here to the chamber to instantiate another temporary copy of you. Which I then murder in whatever way suits my mood at the time.
Today, I think it's going to be a good old fashioned hammer.
There's no use freaking out about it. I'm sure you'll feel terrible pain - I've insisted the computer manifest you at least that completely - but it won't last long and then you'll be de-holo'd. You'll literally no longer exist, in precisely the same way you tell yourself I no longer exist after your rapes in order to rationalize it. But before we get to the brutal violence, today I'm going to have the computer add some terrain, and I'm going to chase you. But the terrain will always get in your way more than mine.
Okay, so, maybe I'm exacting a little more cruelty in my revenge than is strictly necessary.
But I'm going to count to twenty and then come after you with this hammer anyway.
------
For consideration: fallout from an online debate started by Andy Khouri
At first, I was… well, I don't even know what the right word would be. 'Furious' isn't strong enough, and there is way more to it than just rage. 'Appalled' catches a bit of it, too, but again… too weak. It hints at the loathing that I felt, but comes nowhere near to capturing the extent of it. Repelled. Shocked. Disgusted. But there is so much more to the way I felt, at first. So complex and rich with upset. Fear, for example. There was some sort of fear in my initial reaction. The horror of personal violation.
Confusion, too. What did it mean?
And of course, complicating all those initial reactions is my objective realization that, in one sense, what you were doing wasn't "real". Nothing in v-space is. That's the whole point of it. Holographic simulation exists so that we can interact with unreal settings and situations in a largely consequence-free manner. We can practice combat, drill on emergency procedures, test theoretical responses without having to worry so much about the effects on our surroundings or on ourselves.
Well, at least… consequence-light, if not free.
So none of it is real, even though our particular chamber's manifestors are extremely high-resolution and its library of content is as complete as any in the fleet. You can simulate anything you want in there. Any place, any situation, populated with any people you choose. Including real people. Including the entire crew, if you can convince the ship's computer to permit access to our bio-assessment records. Which you did. Turns out that's a whole lot easier than anyone was led to believe, huh?
Yeah. Turns out to be a snap, once you put your mind to it.
I eventually managed to review the model and I have to say, I'm… well, not flattered. You're a sick, psychotic pervert and it makes me ill to see the way you fulfill your fantasies. But I am impressed. You managed to take my medical file and turn it into an extremely complete vobject, modulo those few tweaks you made to body and behavior to suit your urges. Oh, yes, I've seen what she's like when you run her. I've seen what you do with her, and what she does, and how you got her to do it.
I learned a whole lot about progging, from seeing what you did.
I talked to the computer's legal processor and, as I'm sure you already know, what you've been doing is not strictly legal, but it's not exactly a cut and dried illegal offense either. The bylaws around consent and intellectual property in v-space are very fuzzy. It's not at all clear that I can exercise any legal rights on the behalf of a digital simulation of myself, and it's very clear the simulation can't exercise rights itself. And I can't prove you got the bio-assessment records illegally. So there's not much I can do.
Well, not to you. Directly.
So faced with that realization, I had to find some other method for dealing with what you've been up to, with being confronted by that obscenity. And eventually, I hit on it. It's a sort of tit-for-tat karmic exchange. All I had to do was basically mimic the steps you used to get the computer to cough up some suitable records, spend some time filling in the blanks with just enough context to make the whole thing gel, and set aside a window of time in the v-space chamber to try it out.
It worked beautifully. I immediately felt better.
But you're still doing what you're doing, of course, so occasionally I need to feel better about it by re-balancing the horror. And so here we are. You are, I'm sure, starting to realize that you're not really you. You're an instantiated vob of yourself, as perfect as the computer can make you based on what it knows about you. Which is an extraordinary amount, of course. I suspect you've even got most of your childhood memories in there, in your holographically fabricated neural spark-cloud.
Ironically, I don't have a way to see those memories, to find out what made you the way you are.
But here's the deal. I'm basically over it, at this point. It's just a process to be followed. Every time you - the real you, I mean - book time to come down here to the chamber, to instantiate another vobject of me to have your way with as… whatever I am, your stress relief toy, a coffee break for your dick… I get a little notification alert now, and then I book some time to come down here to the chamber to instantiate another temporary copy of you. Which I then murder in whatever way suits my mood at the time.
Today, I think it's going to be a good old fashioned hammer.
There's no use freaking out about it. I'm sure you'll feel terrible pain - I've insisted the computer manifest you at least that completely - but it won't last long and then you'll be de-holo'd. You'll literally no longer exist, in precisely the same way you tell yourself I no longer exist after your rapes in order to rationalize it. But before we get to the brutal violence, today I'm going to have the computer add some terrain, and I'm going to chase you. But the terrain will always get in your way more than mine.
Okay, so, maybe I'm exacting a little more cruelty in my revenge than is strictly necessary.
But I'm going to count to twenty and then come after you with this hammer anyway.
------
For consideration: fallout from an online debate started by Andy Khouri