I AM TRIANGLES

[thedeathbird]

I personally second Naesr. On both of his recent suggestion-posts.

i read the posts and i agree.

[thedeathbird]

I'm a new reader. Hooray for me and for you!

>Move to the right.

Bittage >Can you hear me? We're hear to help!

i dont think bittage can hear us, i think he mechens that after reading the book.

[hero122]

>Let's be Bittage! I mean, come on, Wouldn't it be cool? At least, not in the ghost Mind Control/Flipout way.

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Hey guys, is it just me or do you guys have this "Text Enhance" thing coming up on the site? You know where you scroll over some text that has nothing to do with anything and it's like a link to winning "UR PHR33 1POD8??ONE?" I keep seeing it coming up, but it's not an add on, so I'm wondering if it's the forum ._.

[thedeathbird]

>Let's be Bittage! I mean, come on, Wouldn't it be cool? At least, not in the ghost Mind Control/Flipout way.

whats the point? he's still there with triangles. we'l need a reson to be bittage other then it being cool.

[hero122]

whats the point? he's still there with triangles. we'l need a reson to be bittage other then it being cool.

We'll know what he's thinking. Lots more knowledge.

[Xindaris]

>Let's. Not go to the tower. Please.

[Godbot]

> Quit being such a goody-two-shoes and leave the bioweapon for dead. She tried to kill you, idiot.

[Midtime]

Main body of post collapsed for length.

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> Record your empathy for her. Apply empathy to bioweapon. (Not in a brain-washy way, just to give her the ability to feel empathy)

> Do the same thing with your free will as well, just to cover all the bases.

On the question of 'how to deal with the Bioweapon', I think this old suggestion would be an excellent choice—as long as it seems that the Bioweapon has no mind or freedom of its own; in which case it cannot do harm to try, at any rate. If she already possesses these faculties, then attempting to instil them in her should have the same effect as applying the regeneration memory to TRIANGLES.

Of course, the complaint against it cannot be ignored:—

You briefly think about RECORDING your EMPATHY or perhaps FREE WILL to give to the BIOWEAPON, but you decide against it. You don't know why, but doing something like that just sort of feels... wrong. You don't want to rewrite the way she thinks, you were hoping you could just talk to her. You want to know why she was trying to kill you, and you want to know the meaning behind the words all the DRONES have been saying.

You might save that option as a last resort, though.

[ . . . ]

Perhaps, you think, BITTAGE has found an IDENTITY for himself now. You think that when you first met him, he didn't really have much of an opinion about himself, or at least he didn't think about it too often. But now there are parts of himself that he's proud of, that he wouldn't want to change no matter what. You wonder what could have caused him to find an IDENTITY?

You think about the BIOWEAPON again, and you think you understand why you didn't want to change her. You wonder if she has an IDENTITY for herself too?

If you asked her who she was, what would she say?

—it must be thoroughly refuted. By enabling the Bioweapon to think for herself, what wrong is Triangles doing? In giving her a choice—to obey, or to disobey—to change, or to remain the same—what is the moral error?

Who is better off, a slave, or a free man who may choose to serve or not to serve? If a child had been blind from birth, would it be evil to give him sight? If he had been lame, and we could let him walk, or poor, and we could make him wealthy, how would it count against us? Will we call a teacher a monster, because he builds reason in young minds? Does it make a philosopher a villain to hate ignorance and the illusion of wisdom?

And if there is anything but ignorance that the Bioweapon will lose by gaining a new sense of thought, or a new motive power, then I cannot think what it is; but if such a thing does exist, it can always be returned. That is the very definition of Triangles' power: not to destroy, but to create.

“If you asked her who she was, what would she say?”

BIOWEAPON: WE MUST ACT NOW, FOR EVERYTHING IS READY. WE STAND HERE NOW AT THE END OF ALL THINGS, WHEN OUR SINS MAY BE JUDGED BY THOSE WHO PRESIDE OVER SUCH THINGS. VEREOR. VEREOR. VEREOR. VEREOR VEREOR VEREOR VEREOR VEREOR VEREOR VEREOR VEREOR VEREOR VEREOR VEREOR VEREOR VEREOR VEREOR VEREOR VEREOR VEREOR.

Do you notice a pattern? TQM controls the drones. If they have any will or self at all, it has been trapped and bent to whatever purpose he has for them; he, to whom it makes no matter whether he kills them, or puts them to death for ever. Or, if the power he has over them is really through VEREOR, who has a separate intention, I can just imagine how much benevolence is likely on his part.

That is a further worry—if we wake the Bioweapon, there is no reason for her to say anything but what she has already said, or do anything but what she has already done; that is, try to kill Triangles. Perhaps, if he takes enough care in securing her, she wo'n't have a chance; but she will never change her purpose if she has not the capacity to decide it. I mean that, if she has not got her own will, either in the first place, or because it is given to her, then she cannot be convinced or persuaded; and so must be forced. Then, in fine, Triangles must either kill her or bind her.

I don't believe in the evils of provision. If it turns out that the Bioweapon has no free will, then I submit that Triangles give it to her. If she is incapable of understanding another living being, he should enable her. If it happens that she is incapable of joy, or forgets everything she knows when she goes to sleep, or lacks something else that a living being ought to have, then I submit that she be completed. If she is injured, let her be healed. And to that end:

> Record your empathy for her. Apply empathy to bioweapon. (Not in a brain-washy way, just to give her the ability to feel empathy)

> Do the same thing with your free will as well, just to cover all the bases.

Supported. Some amendments I suggest:

>Not any one's free will in particular, which could create a second Triangles, or a second Bittage. Record the concept of free will itself, the ability to choose one's path, to obey or to disobey.
>The empathy should be similarly conceptual; but it should be your all-inclusive compassion, rather than Bittage's more childish and specific. Just as if you were granting her vision, give her both eyes instead of only one.

[Snowyowl]

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Hey guys, is it just me or do you guys have this "Text Enhance" thing coming up on the site? You know where you scroll over some text that has nothing to do with anything and it's like a link to winning "UR PHR33 1POD8??ONE?" I keep seeing it coming up, but it's not an add on, so I'm wondering if it's the forum ._.

I don't see anything like that, even with Adblock off. Nor can I find any mention of it in the Forum Questions and Answers forum (which is the place to ask about this sort of thing). Get your computer scanned.

[thedeathbird]

>Let's. Not go to the tower. Please.

stop being a pansy wheres your curiosity? dont you want to know whats inside?

[Professor zobot]

In response to Midtime's post: If Veror can influence and control drones, what if it's able, to some lesser extent, influence things like Circles or TQM? I can see an argument that could be made for it...

[Helnae]

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And here's another reader to add to your growing pile.

[Midtime]

stop being a pansy wheres your curiosity? dont you want to know whats inside?

What is inside may be Triangles' death, or Circles'. I think we would all like to know the secret of the Tower; but mind what the author said—that entering the Tower at this point will make the adventure instantly more difficult, which is all very well for gamers, but in terms of the story means not 'harder' so much as 'more perilous'.

I think I have said this before, but the present situation is quite, quite serious for Triangles. We can go to the Tower at any time; we have the memory in storage, and if we did not, we could always record it again—the materials are with us. For the decision to go there now, or not to, we have an advantage in knowledge: we know the things in the Tower are more dangerous than anything Triangles has ever faced; we know that a powerful entity once lived there; we know that once we go there, we wo'n't have the choice to return and pretend that we did nothing.

Our good reasons for going to the Tower are: curiosity. Our good reasons for not going to the Tower are: Triangles' safety, Circles' safety, keeping our chance at rescuing the journal-writer, a guarantee of evil consequences if we do go there. As far as I can see, it is a foolish thing to do.

Better a pansy than a suicide.

In response to Midtime's post: If Veror can influence and control drones, what if it's able, to some lesser extent, influence things like Circles or TQM? I can see an argument that could be made for it...

If that is so, we wo'n't be able to tell, for we have only seen them in their present state; though neither one of them noticed anything out-of-place about the behaviour of the other. The purple-coloured voice suggests that VEREOR really can be directed without succumbing obviously to its influence, and as the creature seems only interested in its own survival, and shows little subtlety about it, I suspect that its influence, where it is not very slight, would be very obvious. Maybe it really is just waiting for a chance to escape, or to retaliate against its captor.

Then again—we have never yet heard it speak or act for itself, and it would be interesting to see TQM undergo a sudden change when VEREOR no longer controls him, or satisfying to read one of his effusions of self-justification dissolve into endless repetitions of “I worship”.

[Naesr Tazam]

...but in terms of the story means not 'harder' so much as 'more perilous'.

You say that as if it's a bad thing in terms of narrative tension.

[Midtime]

As long as our actions have any impact on the course of the story, it is possible that something more than narrative tension will result from making a bad decision.

[harmoniousExtremes]

Free will should definitely be given to everything. Everything. That can't possibly backfire.

[Xindaris]

stop being a pansy wheres your curiosity? dont you want to know whats inside?

*Ahem*
I am not being a "pansy". You don't go walking into the final boss corridor without having all the weapons and upgrades you can get. You don't go spoiling the big secret before everyone's ready to hear it. You don't go to the tower until you've got circles and realized TQM is kind of a jerk. We only get one shot at this, and some fictional characters' lives may depend on it, so no potentially disastrous sequence breaking. I remember sequence breaking link's awakening once. It was a lot of fun but you couldn't beat the final boss with just a fire rod.

[harmoniousExtremes]

*Ahem*
I am not being a "pansy". You don't go walking into the final boss corridor without having all the weapons and upgrades you can get. You don't go spoiling the big secret before everyone's ready to hear it. You don't go to the tower until you've got circles and realized TQM is kind of a jerk. We only get one shot at this, and some fictional characters' lives may depend on it, so no potentially disastrous sequence breaking. I remember sequence breaking link's awakening once. It was a lot of fun but you couldn't beat the final boss with just a fire rod.

You DON'T do that? O_o Where's the fun in that!? Everything spoilery is always hidden behind nigh-impassable curtains in games where sequence breaking is actually allowed as a part of a game anyway. There's almost zero chance of anything going wrong, except possibly death... but then, if we record our current location and combine it with teleport, we'll always be able to return to a safe location anyway.

Really, you kind of are being a pansy.

[Xindaris]

Nitro has made it completely clear that things will be different if we go to the tower. Things will be worse, more complicated, more difficult. It seems likely to me that, with a warning like that, we will probably be be put in a condition where we can't simply back out. There is a difference between being brave and being reckless. And going to the tower now is clearly a reckless move.

Keeping in mind that Triangles' abilities are rather excessively powerful in nature, I would daresay that using them to skip to the tower is less like sequence breaking in a game that's designed to allow it (like a Metroid game or something) and more like using the select glitch to skip around Link's Awakening, or the 4th day glitch in Majora's Mask. I mentioned the former for a reason.

[harmoniousExtremes]

Reckless? Hardly.

Nothing worth having is ever easy. Complicated, more difficult, all those things it might be... but knowledge, forewarning, hardship, and exposure to what lies in wait? These could well make us stronger. It's a decision either way. Believe it or not Safe is not always superior. Especially in the long-game.

[Xindaris]

Nothing worth having is ever easy.

A bit cliche and highly inaccurate. Being difficult to get neither improves nor guarantees the quality of something; and being relatively simple to get neither decreases the quality nor guarantees that it will be low.

Believe it or not Safe is not always superior. Especially in the long-game.

What I'm trying to say is that if we go this way we much more strongly risk there not being a long-game. What we're doing is already plenty unsafe without taking unnecessary risks. The "safe" option here isn't even in view, because that would be going back to the capsule, going back to sleep, and letting TQM enact his master plan to put the universe into stasis or whatever.

Being cautious is not an indication of weakness.

[Midtime]

[ . . . ] going to the Tower right now would be very dangerous. It would be like going to a late-game dungeon too early in a video game, like when John tried to fight his denizen too soon in Homestuck. If you attempt to get Triangles to the Tower, it will make the current arc of IAT much more difficult. There will be direct and immediate consequences of going there, that's all I'm going to say. But I'm going to leave the option to do it with you guys.

So, do you want to play IAT in easy mode, or hard mode?

There is a slight difference between a forum adventure, and a video game or something else with a fixed story. The possible problem is that what we do here can affect the eventual outcome.

There are diverse ways in which adventures like these can show harmful outcomes. In Homestuck, when John tried to fight his denizen too soon, he died. The timeline was irreparably altered, and ended in disaster. The story passed over all of that, and a second chance was given—but that need not come about; the story of failure can be as interesting as the story of success.

You DON'T do that? O_o Where's the fun in that!? Everything spoilery is always hidden behind nigh-impassable curtains in games where sequence breaking is actually allowed as a part of a game anyway. There's almost zero chance of anything going wrong, except possibly death... but then, if we record our current location and combine it with teleport, we'll always be able to return to a safe location anyway.

Really, you kind of are being a pansy.

“There will be direct and immediate consequences of going there”, as the author said. How do you know that any location will be safe after this? If Triangles should meet an enemy that can teleport after him, what then? If TQM be angry that he has gone where he should not, and decide to send VEREOR after him, what then? Or if the journal-writer is discovered and killed in the mean-time? Or if we stir some chaotic force and doom the universe to eventually tear apart? We don't know what could happen, only that it will be serious, and it may very well make some of our goals impossible to achieve. Nor is it certain that we will learn more than we would have otherwise—to the contrary, what if we can never talk to the journal-writer, and lose a window into the history of the facility?

Even if death is the only thing that could happen, will it necessarily cause a harmless reset, as it does in most games? What if TQM resurrects Triangles without any of his abilities or memories, in a place where he cannot do any harm to his designs? What if he is not resurrected at all, and Bittage is left on his own for a good part of the adventure?

This game is not of the kind in which we will necessarily get a second chance.

Maybe visiting the Tower will give Triangles an unforeseen benefit, or show us some kind of secret that cannot be gotten elsewhere. If that benefit were more valuable than everything Triangles can lose by going to the Tower, then the course is worth the while. That seems unlikely to me; that is why I am against it.

Free will should definitely be given to everything. Everything. That can't possibly backfire.

It is less likely to backfire, in this case, than not giving the Bioweapon free will. She may still try to kill us if we do; but if we don't she is certain to.

[harmoniousExtremes]

A bit cliche and highly inaccurate. Being difficult to get neither improves nor guarantees the quality of something; and being relatively simple to get neither decreases the quality nor guarantees that it will be low.

Your level of misunderstanding here is such that I'm forced to the conclusion it must be deliberate. A: Believe it or not... doing the more difficult thing DOES alter things, and generally in a positive way, no matter whether the outcome is a positive or negative one. People like you never measure the worth of lessons learned and experience gained. But this is not my point. What IS my point is, B: In this particular situation, it is not the difficulty which makes the choice desirable. It's all of the OTHER positive possibilities, dozens of them really, weighed AGAINST the possible difficulty. You're being a pansy because you're deciding that going through the tower would be 'too hard'. You don't think we, and Triangles, are up to the challenge the greater difficulty would provide. You don't think we're good enough, and you're not willing to try.

What I'm trying to say is that if we go this way we much more strongly risk there not being a long-game. What we're doing is already plenty unsafe without taking unnecessary risks. The "safe" option here isn't even in view, because that would be going back to the capsule, going back to sleep, and letting TQM enact his master plan to put the universe into stasis or whatever.

Being cautious is not an indication of weakness.

We have regenerative abilities... to an unknown extent. In addition, our teleportation will very likely take a great many entities by surprise. I doubt we would die... and certainly not permanently, unless, of course, the author of this fan adventure has grown bored of it. Even without meta thinking, however, we are currently HIGHLY skilled for our level of ability at running away. Death is, while not impossible, unlikely.

The indication of weakness is not in your stance against this choice. It's in the way you dismiss it out of hand. But I digress. If we go any farther, it should likely be somewhere we don't take up threadspace, since I believe all relevant points are currently on the table.

[Professor zobot]

I tend to agree with Xindaris, if my voice counts for anything.

Think of it less in terms of hard vs easy and more in terms of what we've seen and what we haven't seen. There's a very REAL chance if we go to the tower we won't be able to go back, or if we can the repercussions of our visit will escalate our situation exponentially. That in and of itself isn't the part that's causing me to vote against it. Risk is worth taking... within reason.

But if we have the ability to go or not go at any time, why take that jump now when we can take it at some later point? You could argue that there's stuff to discover there, but that argument is pointless to make as we're still discovering things here. Given the paradox barrier, and the fact that most things around here don't have Triangle's powers, it's very likely that the person who wrote in that journal and the pages of the journal are still all around here. I dunno about anyone else but I want to see more about what the heck the journal was about. And who was writing in it that can think and talk like Triangles and the other Anchorpoints? Thus far the only other talker we've seen beyond Triangles, Circles, and TQM is Bittage. (The "We Must Act Now" talkers don't count because they're just repeating things over and over again like a parrot as far as we've seen) And who is TQM talking to? Unless they have a way of leaving the Facility, they've got to have been holed up in here just like Triangles and Circles were. Saying we should go to the tower to discover stuff isn't a good argument to me because there's a guarantee that we'll discover more about the details we've already seen here and no guarentee we'll do it there.

I never liked the "Hard Mode vs Easy Mode" comparison because as gamelike as I AM Triangles is, there's also a larger story to it that is part of what hooked me. Jumping to the tower just feels like skipping from page 30 to page 300 in a storybook.

Also, there's Circles to consider. Are we really ok with leaving him in a lurch? I'm not.

[harmoniousExtremes]

There is a slight difference between a forum adventure, and a video game or something else with a fixed story. The possible problem is that what we do here can affect the eventual outcome.

There are diverse ways in which adventures like these can show harmful outcomes. In Homestuck, when John tried to fight his denizen too soon, he died. The timeline was irreparably altered, and ended in disaster. The story passed over all of that, and a second chance was given—but that need not come about; the story of failure can be as interesting as the story of success.



“There will be direct and immediate consequences of going there”, as the author said. How do you know that any location will be safe after this? If Triangles should meet an enemy that can teleport after him, what then? If TQM be angry that he has gone where he should not, and decide to send VEREOR after him, what then? Or if the journal-writer is discovered and killed in the mean-time? Or if we stir some chaotic force and doom the universe to eventually tear apart? We don't know what could happen, only that it will be serious, and it may very well make some of our goals impossible to achieve. Nor is it certain that we will learn more than we would have otherwise—to the contrary, what if we can never talk to the journal-writer, and lose a window into the history of the facility?

Even if death is the only thing that could happen, will it necessarily cause a harmless reset, as it does in most games? What if TQM resurrects Triangles without any of his abilities or memories, in a place where he cannot do any harm to his designs? What if he is not resurrected at all, and Bittage is left on his own for a good part of the adventure?

This game is not of the kind in which we will necessarily get a second chance.

Maybe visiting the Tower will give Triangles an unforeseen benefit, or show us some kind of secret that cannot be gotten elsewhere. If that benefit were more valuable than everything Triangles can lose by going to the Tower, then the course is worth the while. That seems unlikely to me; that is why I am against it.



It is less likely to backfire, in this case, than not giving the Bioweapon free will. She may still try to kill us if we do; but if we don't she is certain to.

To all those, I say that, again, I personally stand in favor of teleportation because I believe we are up to the challenges it would bring; John dying was actually an incredibly positive thing for their game session... because without his death, we would not have ended up with Davesprite, who was absolutely beneficial... even if things had gone such that calsprite wasn't created, the sprite would have been lesser than davesprite was and is; and I was being sarcastic in my sarcasm on the free will thing. I actually think it's a good idea. I was just being a goof.