02 . text

[systemize]

[The comm tag reads Stormer and is untraceable.]

Someone asked me recently how I'd define moral and immoral, but I think my perspective's a little skewed. How do you define it?


> private to Magicman
I need to ask you for a favor. Do they have you listed as an adult here? I wasn't sure what your official age would be.

> private to Isaac
I think I have your software finished. I can send you the file to download and you can check if it needs troubleshooting.

Comments

[hypnotherapy]

It's a trade of information, that's all. [ At least, it helps if he thinks about it that way. It's safer if he just handles it that way - in this world, it's not nearly as devastating a reveal. ] You're friends with Hiro? That's good. He needs more friends around his age - and intelligence level, too. [ HE'S SUCH A PARENT... ]

Of course.

I can show you how viruses from my own world work in their natural environment, if you're interested in that - I have the virus breeder set up now.

Everything that's out in public is one more thing that can be used against you...or something like that. Anything can be a weapon if wielded with sufficient intent and force, so arming potential enemies unnecessarily is a bad idea. I've never understood people who are transparent about everything, but perhaps they have the luxury of not needing suspicion. Good for them. [ Good luck, he's behind 7000 aliases. At least in hacking circles. Though anyone who knows him will probably connect the dots, the amount of people he'd allow to know about his less than legal activities is a very, very small pool. ]

If you release information correctly, you can lure people into thinking one way or another...but even that's risky. [ He has experience in baiting, though. One of his favourite hobbies. ]

[systemize]

If that's what you want to do. Yeah, we've been working on a couple projects together. I can't say I don't know what that's like, needing friends of my age and intelligence.

I wouldn't say no.

You can't take it back once it's out, either. You can only play that card once. And we don't know what the intentions are of everyone here-- there's records of malicious people as well as benevolent ones. If they think they don't need suspicion, it just means they've never lost something from it before.

[Luring people-- in other words, manipulating them-- is Cadel's foremost talent. He just tries not to use it unless absolutely necessary, these days.]

[hypnotherapy]

Oh, you've been working on things together? Now that is something I look forward to seeing the results of. Hiro seems to attract all types of technology. [ Including his.... ]

We seem to be getting quite the mix of people. At least you weren't here for the Hornet data leak. My, that caused quite the stir. It would have been bad if you'd gotten caught up in that.

[systemize]

At first I was just teaching him how to do DNA wiring so he could do things on the micron scale instead of nano scale, but we had a few ideas.

I read about that. Do you know anything about it that wasn't public on the network?

[hypnotherapy]

Whatever you come up with is going to be very interesting, I'm sure.

It was caused by Hornets attempting to spread some kind of virus to the imPort population, but that was just conjecture. I don't know if it was confirmed. The affected imPorts were made more violent and destructive, which manifested in different ways, but you've likely read about that already...the data smearing was an attempt to 'prove' that imPorts were dangerous or otherwise unfit for combat due to past trauma, and needed total control to be managed.

That got quite a few people angry.

[systemize]

It was a mess. I don't know why they'd have thought the government would listen to that-- they have files on all of us already. They know how dangerous everyone is. If they intended us to be managed further they'd have done it already.

As an incendiary tactic, though, it was effective at uniting everyone to finally take out the Hornets.

[hypnotherapy]

Their intention was to release the information to the general public, I believe. A fine way to get mobs on your hands. But the Hornet who was responsible seemed to have been wavering in their beliefs, so who can tell what they thought they were doing.

It certainly succeeded in getting everyone angry! A few friendships got a little broken up, I saw. [ Not his problem tho. ]

[systemize]

Just because you're wavering doesn't mean you're willing to act against them. It's all useless speculation at this point, though.

That's not difficult to do. Sowing discord is one of the easiest things to pull off but it's not as useful as you might think. It's hard to direct. There's always unanticipated outcomes.