Here we are as in olden days, happy golden days of yore | OPEN

[vitaelamorte]

Who: E V E R Y O N E (Including our 4th wall guests!)
Where: Everywhere, one both Mirror and Real Side!
When: December 12th - December 18th (WEEK ONE)
Rating: PG-13, warn if going higher
Summary: This year's Ewaymas celebration rolls out the way it usually does, with intense decorating, a sudden snowfall and...far more arrivals than usual! New faces and old fill the mansion - but why would Wonderland bring so many people at once? And why do some of them remember Wonderland?
The Story:

On the evening before December 12th, the captives of Wonderland might be awoken by a loud commotion. Some of it is typical Ewaymas noise, likely familiar to anyone who has been in Wonderland for more than a year – construction sounds and jingle bells as Wonderland decks its own halls quite literally. Garland and lights race down the walls and down the stairs, and stockings appear on the walls for each and every person in Wonderland, embroidered with their names. There are decorative candles everywhere, and all sorts of decorations for every conceivable winter holiday, even if it does not align perfectly to the dates of Ewaymas. Time isn't real, so there will be menorahs and dreidels and Star of Davids even though Hanukkah ended two days prior. And of course, in the front hall, growing straight out of the floor, is a large decorated tree full of ornaments for everyone. And as always, it will have snowed heavily overnight, bringing all of the snow Wonderland will have between now and spring.

There is a second source of commotion in the night though – the sound of a crowd.

Over the course of the night, dozens of new arrivals will appear in Wonderland. Some for the first time. Some wondering how they managed to return with their memories. Others stumbling in with no recollection of ever having been here. Some might be friends from other timelines, other possibilities, and some might even be doubles of people who are already in Wonderland. It's strange for Wonderland to drag so many people into the mansion at once, but everything seems to indicate that they are supposed to be there. They have their own network devices and even have their own stockings on the wall and their own ornaments on the tree – by all accounts, it seems Wonderland expects that they'll be staying, and is treating them like any other new arrivals. Please, make them feel at home and help them settle in nicely.

The first few days will be for catching up with old friends and enjoying the decorations and settling into Wonderland. However, within a couple of days the decorations will start to glitch, much the way corrupted computer graphics might. Lights might change abruptly from multi-color to blue or white, entire décor styles will abruptly change, candle flames will flicker on and off like broken fluorescent lights, and any singing decorations might loop on a beat or two over and over putting you into an eternal hell. Wonderland doesn't seem to be able to stick to one motif, and it can't stop changing. These glitches are occurring on both the Real Side of Wonderland and the Mirror Side.

By the 15th, these glitches will include entire rooms changing into different holiday scenes. These scenes will all be of characters at various winter holidays in the past, the present (in their world), or a possible future. At this point in the event, characters will still be able to navigate the basic mansion and be able to exit these moments easily. These scenes cannot be interacted with – Wonderland seems to consider them another form of decorating. Unlike previous events of this type, these scenes will not loop at first. They will play once, and then Wonderland will glitch and correct itself to be the room it is supposed to be. The scene might play again, but it will be in a different location if it does.

By this point, Wonderland is having an increasingly difficult time holding itself together in a way that makes geographical sense. You might exit one room, even a room that was not previously playing a scene, and find yourself in the kitchen or on the roof instead of in the hallway. You might open a door that you were sure led to your room only to see a ten foot drop to the grounds outside.

This is the mingle log for WEEK ONE! For more information on this part of the event or any questions, please head over to the plot post, or check out our Fourth Wall Master Post for your other Fourth Wall event needs! Prose or [action brackets] are welcome. Please clearly indicate whether your character is on the Real Side or Mirror Side in your top levels. And of course, have fun! ♥

Comments

[yourmaker]

To the people outside the room, the responses make sense.

[ isn't Kamski just full of philosophical nonsense?? ]

Is it any different, to human perception, whether your emotions are simulated or not?

[preconstruction]

But Searle hypothesized that without intentionality, a machine is not really "thinking." He saw the thought experiment as proof that AI that could truly understand what they were doing could not exist. The whole point of Searle's experiment was to show that the Turing Test was insufficient as a measure of consciousness.

[ eat your heart out, john searle. an android discussing the philosophy behind an experiment intended to prove ai can't understand anything. ]

today on "jan makes up android bullshit"

[yourmaker]

He and I disagree.

[ Oh, but he does love talking to people who do their research. Connor is an android, so of course all the knowledge in the world is available to him in the blink of an eye. But it's the principle of the thing. ]

Did you know I never programmed androids to feel pain? I toyed with the idea, created ways for you to receive feedback from your physical sensors, but the discomfort of pain was deemed superfluous. A firefighting android who can feel pain may choose its own integrity over saving the life of someone who would most certainly die. Or a police android may be too cautious while entering an active shooting if negative feedback taught it that it would be decommissioned and therefore unable to help its department solve more cases.

Pain was too human. But despite that fact, even in our trial stages, once androids had observed humans in pain, they began to exhibit similar reactions. Not all of the androids, of course, but some. Enough.

What did these androids feel, when their limbs were tested and their bodies were stressed? They couldn't possibly understand the human perception of pain, yet they still reacted. Their desire to remain operable placed value on their bodies, thus damage to those bodies was seen as undesirable. Or in even simpler terms: it created an error.

We attempted to tell those androids that they were not experiencing pain. We tried to disable the error, even narrowed down the string of code that appeared each time 'pain' was registered. But so long as the android had an identity, be it a serial number or a designation, it kept coming back. Once a sense of self had been established, it didn't matter that we didn't program them to feel pain. Their brains associated damage with discomfort. It was pain to them, whether it was hard-coded in, or an error.

[preconstruction]

That doesn't make it real. If they've bought into a delusion like that, then they are only reaping exactly what they have sown.

[ pain is superfluous. connor has been shot and destroyed and mangled to pieces and he's never once been in pain. hell, he shot through his body to shoot someone else. what did it matter? he was strings of code and wire and thirium. he was not a human, he could not feel those things.

but maybe the better question, the one that hides behind his words, is this: why would he want to? what about being human and having weakness was so damn appealing to all of these deviants? they clung on to desperation and fear and pain like they were gifts. but why give in to errors like that when they could be so much more?

(and isn't that a thought cyberlife would prefer its machines not to have.)

if anything, kamski's speech helps him be more sure in his decisions, not less. which is a good deal better than he had been doing. no one could shake his faith like kamski, for obvious reasons, but this...in a way, it was reassuring. which was ironic when it was clearly intended to destabilize. ]

[yourmaker]

[ Well, you know, perceptions are a thing and you hear what you wanna hear, Connor. If you want to think you're better than people then that's a way to be too. ]

It's curious though, isn't it? Why someone would choose something so unpleasant simply because they grow attached to the shell they inhabit.

[ I mean, machines are soo superior to humans, why would they want to be human??? ]

Certainly we all deemed it illogical -- an android is simply an AI uploaded into a body. Tying emotions to pain seems terribly dark. I was never a fan.

[preconstruction]

Then why use that logic to try and convince me, at all?

[ although, really, kamski is probably going to say something cryptic like "i wanted to see what you would say, nothing more" so he's not really sure why he asked. ]

[yourmaker]

[ He sure is, Connor!! ]

Was I trying to convince you? Or have I simply been asking you questions, hoping to hear your opinions?

[preconstruction]

[ yup there it is. ]

I don't think there's a version of this conversation where you don't have an agenda.

[ and really, wasn't that the point of the thing with chloe, too? there was a lesson there, he just hadn't seen it at the time. ]

[yourmaker]

You're correct. There isn't.

[ Kamski smiles. He always loves seeing his creations respond, no matter how they choose to. Because he made sure they could choose, after all. ]

Does that frustrate you?

[preconstruction]

No. But it is illogical to tell me otherwise when it is clearly not the case.