text | un: Nero

[cadiastands]

[Did it take Mira like 20 minutes to enter a username because she expected the system to assign her one and then froze up in fear of doing it wrong when she had to choose it herself? Maybe.]

If someone is qualified to teach me the proper rituals for the use of these devices, I would appreciate it.

[tl;dr Mira, despite being from a space empire in the 401st century, thinks there are animist spirits inside her phone and terminal that will get mad and refuse to work if she does the wrong thing.]

Comments

[aleifr]

[Correct. Though there was the hurdle of him not HAVING an understanding of technology to climb.]

Mostly comes down to pushing the right buttons, really. Doesn't seem to be much more to it than that. Far as Misty tells it, all you have to do is keep it charged and not do anything that might give it a virus.

[Though how the fuck a phone gets sick is beyond him.]

[cadiastands]

Machine spirits can't get diseases.

[Are you sure this Misty knows what she's talking about?]

[aleifr]

Apparently they get sick if you do things with them that they're not supposed to.

[She probably does. Aleifr is working at about 35% here, being generous.]

[cadiastands]

They're not ill. They're just upset with you.

[This is definitely how technology works. Take notes, everybody.]

[aleifr]

In any case, it'd get slow and stop working if you go to the wrong 'sites'.

[cadiastands]

If there are places in the city where technology will stop working, there ought to be a map of them somewhere.

[aleifr]

That's what I thought.

[Just makes good sense.]

They're not literal places, though. There's this thing on the phone called a browser. You can look things up on it, and it tells you what you want to know. All it's knowledge is organized by 'sites', like acts in a story. Some of the sites are bad, and you need to steer clear of them.

[cadiastands]

["Browser" she sort of gets by the same process of analogy that led to the term being used for web-surfing in the first place, and she's familiar with the concept of digitized repositories of information...but she immediately heads in the wrong direction with that knowledge.]

Restricted files shouldn't just be left lying about like that.

[Mira's a little fuzzy on how data storage and non-totalitarian governments work.]

[aleifr]

Don't know if it's restricted. Just think they don't like it.

[cadiastands]

If they're being THAT finicky, usually you can just hit them on the table or a rock.

[RIP Mira's phone one of these days, I guess.]

[aleifr]

You're worried about pissing off the machine spirit, but your solution is to whack it on a rock.

[Seems counterproductive.]

[cadiastands]

[It's almost like everything the Mechanicus believes is absolute bullshit.]

I'm not a tech-priest. I don't know why it works.

[aleifr]

[Imagine that?]

It shouldn't. I'm not a machine spirit, but if someone tries to hit me with a fucking rock, I don't want to help them.

[cadiastands]

If machine spirits were like people, they wouldn't need an entire priesthood to tend to them.

[That statement is fractally wrong, Mira.]

[aleifr]

I've met more than a few people who wouldn't mind having swarms of gothi to kiss their asses, Nero.

[He'd bet damn near anything that she has too.]

[cadiastands]

[Wow, how did he learn about planetary governors so quickly?]

I'm not talking about noble egos, Aleifr. Machine spirits are fundamentally different beings to humans.

[aleifr]

Clearly.

[Even he's not so mystified by technology as to miss the glaring differences between a phone and a bloody human being.]

But they help you if you keep them happy, and foul you up if you don't. Just like other spirits, just like people.

[So at least some of the same rules apply.]

[cadiastands]

"Other spirits?"

[DON'T YOU BE CONSORTING WITH DAEMONS, ALEIFR.]

[aleifr]

Yeah.

[The fuck do you mean "Other spirits"?]

Everything's got spirits.

[cadiastands]

That's all right, then.

[It's just his feral world primitivity. That's fine, probably. The Space Wolves wouldn't let heterodoxy bleed over into heresy.

She does not see the contradiction here.]

[aleifr]

[There's a small delay before his next message.]

Alright.

[He's a bit irked by her reaction implying that his religious beliefs need her approval, but he's willing to pin that on a difference in terminology. Nobody here seems to believe in spirits, maybe she thought he was talking about wights.]

[cadiastands]

[Mira realizes, albeit too late, that she's been a bit high-handed, but, well...it's extremely important not to be snuggling up to daemons. In fact, it's fair to say that's the number one quality she looks for in friends.]

I can explain in person, if you'd like.

[No discussing Chaos in public.]

[aleifr]

Sure. The room, then? Or someplace else.

[cadiastands]

The room would be fine.