THE THIRD TRIAL

[strangerpeople]

THE THIRD TRIAL
(~SK. 17-18)


[When the investigation ends, the D O N G rings throughout the ship, followed by Zero's voice.]

It is time. Everyone, come to the theater. Time is...wasting.

[And so it is. The seating has once more changed to reflect the fallen-Moriarty and now Brain's podiums are draped in black. And, of course, there is no food-

The screens come up, and the mask of Zero appears, ever inscrutable. Their instructions are brief.]

Your Brain is gone, I'm afraid. Cut into pieces and cast aside...and someone here knows why. Now, it's time for you to discover the truth as well...if you can.


[The trial for the murder of Brain, the Blue, has begun.]

Comments

[onychomance]

I wouldn't know, to be honest. I don't have much knowledge of hackers.... the most technology I carry is my cell phone.

[autonomousthought]

[Oh hey this is her area of expertise-]

A skilled hacker can breach any system, with enough time and effort, much like a skilled lockpicker can pick any lock - it's only a matter of how much trouble they have.

AI such as myself are far more difficult, since we can respond to the attack in real time, but it's still possible. Even I've been hacked before. ...It's very...violating.

[onychomance]

[Kira nods, it seems like he could potentially be on the right track. ...He still doesn't want to think about these implications in Hermes' romantic framing though.]

What tools would be needed to do this?

[yesorwoof]

When I think about the timing of his behavior, it seems to me there's another explanation.

Perhaps Hermes regained an upsetting memory shortly after B Deck opened.

[onychomance]

That would explain his mood... but not why Hermes was sleeping in the training room when he typically would not sleep at all.

[Kira will briefly explain the conversation.]

[yesorwoof]

You're right, it seems that his "sleeping" would have been observed earlier. The red music note obviously wouldn't have caused sleep either. [Hahaha, sleeping with music.] Perhaps he really did get hacked.

But Brain-kun was trying to connect to the TV on the very first day when we arrived. I don't see how he would have regained the capability to do so with Hermes. Should one of us try to hack Hermes all over again now? Much like you, Kira-kun, it's not my area of expertise.

[onychomance]

Oh? Didn't know that about him, but that's exactly why I asked if there were tools that could have been used to accomplish it the usual way. If not, I'll consider it disproven.

[somuchshipping]

...But I never lost any memories.

[Poker face!]

[yesorwoof]

What's that? No recollections? I don't believe that's the case. If it were, surely you would have brought it up as a commonality with Zack-kun, like never finding a familiar item.

[somuchshipping]

[Hermes scratches at one of his front legs.]

Hope! No memories lost. AndIJustDidn't WantToSayAnything SinceYouAllMovedOn! Why would I lose memories in the first place? What good is a tutorial that doesn't know the mechanics or every Greek and Roman god of the game they're from?

[yesorwoof]

...Hermes.

List all twelve of the main ones then.

[somuchshipping]

Main ones? You mean first-gens? Or do you mean the Limbo gods?

[Video game mechanics. Whatcha gonna do about it?]

[yesorwoof]

I believe there was a legend of twelve Olympians. Hermes was one of them. Ah... What was the rest? You may omit the one in the Hearth and the significant one who was somewhere else. I believe that Hermes should still be included in a list that has a total of twelve.

[somuchshipping]

I mean, if we're talking about purely Greek AIs, then...

[Hermes lists them all by name and what type of god they are, except for one, which he only refers to as "the sun god".]

[yesorwoof]

[For reference she was expecting the list "Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, Demeter, Aphrodite, Athena, Artemis, Apollo, Ares, Hephaestus, Hermes, and Dionysus for a total of twelve" on the grounds of Hestia at the Hearth and Hades in the underworld, so it appears Apollo has been omitted.]

The sun god?

That's extremely strange.

Of course there'd be a sun and moon god.

There's a myth of that god and Artemis being closely connected. That you cannot have one without the other.

Isn't there?

[superstylishsquid]

I think she means the Olympians.

[valkavian]

By limbo do you mean cthonic, or...

[ Just wondering, yanno. ]

[somuchshipping]

They're ones like The Singer, or The Helper, or The Poetnix. THey're more based on concepts and the universe than us Greeks and Romans. Like the Singer is Sound and Silence and the Poetnix is War and Peace.

[autonomousthought]

A computer of some kind is the most straightforward, although there are many kinds of gadgets for various uses. However, that kind of hacking would require Hermes to be on a network, which even if he is natively he would almost certainly be cut off from here.

Otherwise...the hacker would have to be able to access his internals. That is, opening him up and tampering with the wiring or circuits - I'm much less familiar with this kind, and he's different from me, so I'm not completely sure what tools specifically would be needed for this.

[voidseeing]

[HMM.]

Do you think a hammer and scissors could work?

[autonomousthought]

Hm... On their own, I don't think they'd be terribly effective. It would take an extremely improbable level of skill to pull something off - the kind of precision Sensei had. I doubt that's what the tools were used for. If we saw signs of blunt force damage or impaction, or could check for cut or spliced wires, then we might come back to this.

[voidseeing]

[A nod.]

I'll defer to your expertise on this, then.

[valkavian]

Any chance this shit can just...deteriorate?

[autonomousthought]

By "this shit", do you mean implements of hacking, or computers in general?

Because if the latter, absolutely. Hardware is subject to wear, tear, and the passage of time, like anything else.

[valkavian]

Yeah, the second one. Like whoever made him deliberately had a set time in the future he'd break, so they could just...

[ Nah, she doesn't want to think about it. ]

Or the ravages of age. That works too.