Scene Listing || Scene Schedule || Scene Schedule RSS
Owner Pose
Starbound Flotilla     SOME TIME AFTER THE EVENTS OF TRUE PSYCHIC TALES ISSUE 431...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__oZ-LYZ8pU

    There are efforts underway to get everything geared up on the way up Maslow Peak, certainly. But right now, things are a bit more calm. With full access to this decayed, damaged husk of a Psychonauts facility, August has plenty of shelter and protection to give him a good point to teleport in and out of his latest foothold on the peak.

    But, notably, there's something a little ways up. Between some sparse trees, where woodlands are starting to give way to rocky, brush-ridden mountain peaks, another little log cabin can be found. It's... It's really exactly like the one August encountered at the base. The same oven within burns, the same smoke creeps into the sky, the same warm lights can be seen through the windows.

    Maslow Peak has recently stopped being so... Angry? Stressed? Red, at the very least; the rumbling has died down a little, meaning August has a better chance at making it to the top soon, and meaning now's a good time to check around.
August Kohler August is at the mountain tonight to try and scout it out a bit, see what he can find/what leads he can obtain. This is mostly his mess to solve, so he hasn't requested the presence of the others involved, since he doesn't expect a fight (and even if there was one, he could handle himself). The fact that the peak's stopped rumbling has made it a very good time to do so.

And then, as he's climbing a little, dressed in a shirt good for hiking and a pair of cargo pants, jacket tied around his waste, August notices the cabin. He immediately knows who the cabin belongs to, because why else would there be a literally matching cabin? Moving to the doorway, August moves to knock on it. "Hey, George. It's August." He'd raise his voice so that anyone inside the cabin can hear him. If welcomed in or anything like that, he'd do so, making sure to wipe or remove his shoes wherever that'd fit, because he certainly wants to ask some questions about the mountain's freakout.
Starbound Flotilla     "Oh, hey! With ya in a moment." There's George's voice, friendly and agreeable behind the door. After a few moments, George -- seemingly amid cooking something -- pops the door open. "Heya, Gus. Glad seeing you. Maslow's looking quieter, was thinking I'd invite you if you didn't drop by yourself. C'mon, take a load off. I got some good seasoned psychic venison, great flavors. Want a bite?" The interior of his little cabin is homey, warm, cozy, things like that. All hard wood and carved furniture; an amateur-carved dining table dominates the center.
August Kohler Moving to enter the cabin once the door's open, August nods to George, his expression calm and curious, glancing around the cabin's interior. "Yeah, when it calmed down I thought I'd take a look around. I'm up to trying it, sure, thank you." Looking briefly for some idea of where to sit (August is assuming the dining table), he'd move to take a seat and talk.

"Hey, I'm curious. Last time we talked, you mentioned finding the right targets to go after, right bullseye to shoot and all that. I still haven't figured that out, though admittedly I don't think things over like that as much as I should. You willing to give me a hint on how I can solve all this? You seem to have a good idea." Despite the casual word usage, August's tone seems pretty serious, like he really wants to figure out how to solve this problem. "The sooner the mountain gets off my neck and stops trying to murder me and the people I work with, the better."
Starbound Flotilla     "You don't think things over like you should. You ever think maybe that's what she's so stressed out about?" George says, peeking back from the stove. "A hint's about all I can give you, but sure, kiddo. You look like you're floundering in the wind, and that's not a good thing to do so close to the top of a mountain. Whatever whatsherface is, she's probably some of the bits of you that are supposed to be thinking on stuff like this."
Starbound Flotilla     George made some kind of Korean venison BBQ over spinach and rice noodles, an unspeakably delicious-smelling dish. He heads on back over and slides August a plate. "So, I'll run ya through a sort of situation -- a hypothetical -- and you can tell me who or what you think you ought'a blame. 'Cause there's someone -- something -- worth blaming in it. Tell me if you can pick 'em out."
August Kohler "I'm too busy to be sitting down thinking about stuff. Got work to do, two mouths to feed, and don't have a job or a college education to help me. Chose to be a terrorist, freedom fighter, vigilante, call it whatever you want, for a living. It's part of the job to live in the moment. I can think when I'm dead." August replies, having, well, considered thinking, at the least. He's going to add something else, when the food is brought out, and George has his own situation to present.

"Alright, sure, that's easy enough. -wow, that smells amazing. I'll have to grab the recipe later. Archer can grab me some deer anytime. Thank you." August moves to take a bite and try the food, and certainly looks like he's enjoying it, atleast.
Starbound Flotilla     "Thinking means you do your work right. Keeps you from having to do it a second time." George says, tapping the side of his head. "Or at least regretting it less." He takes a breath, like he's about to let out something substantial. "So let's say there's a company, let's call it Big Products Corporation." George says, getting some kind of... Nightmareish old-man vegetable smoothie drink together, and gesturing towards the minifridge so August can get his own. "Now, Big Products Corporation is a normal big company. They've got investors, a board of chiefs of whoever and whatever, they've got middle managers, they've got workers, the works."
Starbound Flotilla     "And one day, Big Products Corporation finds out, 'Hey, we can make a ton of profit off of Big Product Generation 9 if we just dump a lot of cancer in the lake that everyone lives around!' Now, nobody -- not the customers, nobody in Big Products Corporation, not the investors -- wants cancer in the lake, they all live on it right?" George gestures with a fork, as if these were real people living around a real lake.
August Kohler August stands up briefly to grab himself one of the smoothies, listening to the scenario in the process. "Right. I mean, the answer already seems pretty simple. You blame the person who thought dumping cancer in a lake was a good idea, yeah?"
Starbound Flotilla     George pokes his fork at August's direction. "Sure, that's what you think, right? But let's take a look. Nobody thinks it's a good idea. Nobody's pro-cancer. Everyone just wants something simple. The investors take their money to the brokers, and they say, 'grow my investment'. The brokers take the money to Big Products, and they say, 'make profitable decisions'. The chiefs take the money, and they say to the middle managers, 'there's profit here, get it'. The middle managers say to the employees, 'today, do whatever you got to get this profit'. They all do what they gotta do."
August Kohler August moves back to sit down, trying the veggie smoothie as he does so, and taking another bite of food. After he's done chewing, he sighs. "Well, if you can't blame the decision maker because they're just trying to make a profit, then what can you blame? The cancer itself?"
Starbound Flotilla     "Can't, not realaly. Well, sure, if you blew it up, maybe that'd solve the problem for a little bit, but not like you think." George says, shaking his head. The veggie smoothie is a lot less appealing, but hey, healthy!! "Now, they've all heard you can get some extra cash from cancer." George starts shifting his noodles around, wrapping them around chunks of beef, linking them to other ones. "The Investor doesn't want cancer, he wants investment growth." He links it to another chunk. "The Broker doesn't want cancer, he wants companies to look profitable." He links to another. "The Chief doesn't want cancer, he wants the company to turn a profit for its investors... So on. But..."
August Kohler Atleast it's healthy, so August will drink it, but focus on the meat far more. He just chews while George continues, clearly thinking it through his head. But there's a but, so he's waiting to see what the next step of it is.
Starbound Flotilla     George fiddles more with this ad-hoc visual aid. "Let's say an employee says he's gonna not dump the cancer today. Well, he gets fired and replaced." He takes a bite, unlinking the circle, then replacing a new one. "Let's say a middle-manager says he's not gonna organize the cancer-dumping today. Well, he gets demoted. Let's say a chief says he's not gonna order the cancer-dumping. Well, the brokers are gonna get him voted off the board of directors. The brokers, now the moment they're not maxing those investments, they get replaced by the investors. Even an investor, if they say 'I'll only invest in the companies that don't cancer-dump!' Well, they'll get edged out."

    The web of nodes interlinking in the korean BBQ is messy now, with long-stranded interconnections linking to nodes with messy, frayed ends, like nerve endings.
August Kohler August stirs his food around a bit, lost in thought. Then, he takes one more bite, and realizes. "The problem's the system that makes it profitable to dump cancer, then, yeah? Because they lose if they don't dump cancer, but if there wasn't something pushing them to poison everything, they wouldn't."
Starbound Flotilla     There's a bright red gleam that suddenly flickers in George's eye. "It purges all the self-interest until nothing but service to the whole is left in the links, Gus. It self-reinforces and self-rewards until there's nothing there but whatever keeps Big Products maxing out whatever hits the most simple reward mechanisms and whatever keeps it getting bigger, 'cause it's focused on survival. And it doesn't give a god damn about the little individual parts that get in its way; all it knows about them is, they're not complex enough to be as big as it is. A system of nodes that aren't as complicated as the whole thing, making something that doesn't care about whatever little nodes aren't a part of it, or a part of its allies."

    "Gus. What's that sound like to you?"
August Kohler "I don't know. I do know whatever it is, I hate that sort of thinking." August takes a drink of his smoothie. "There's more than just you and who you work with. There's who you fight for. The people on the street. Hell, it sounds like the sort of thing that doesn't care about the cogs in the machine, or the muscles in the man. Cares about the brain first and foremost. And a brain's good and all, but it's kind of useless sitting in a jar pretending to be important. If you were trying to get me to trigger on something specific...I'm blanking."
Starbound Flotilla     "Brain's good, yep." George says, prodding at the odd interlocked shape in his dish. Almost in a brain-like shape, where the little nodes are like cells. "Here's a question for you though. Just a... You know, total tangent. Nothing really all that related. You think the average filter-feeding fish cares much about a plankton when it eats? Or that its little immune system hesitates to kill off a cell," He pops a chunk of that meat into his mouth. "That decides it'd rather do business on its own moral standard, instead of helping out the whole fish?"
August Kohler "Not really. It cares more about survival." August considers whether or not George had some insight there, taking another bite of food himself, but actually considers something. "Pretty sure this wasn't what you're getting at, but maybe that's why pyro chick is. Some sort of immune system for my mind who thinks I'm risking the whole fish. What do you think?"
Starbound Flotilla     George seems to ponder adding further hints... And then leans back in his chair, a subtle, wordless decision not to. "Sure, there's some risk to the animal, I'll say. And some work from the immune system. You're thinking close, but you might benefit from a good push. I think you should chat with your lady friend. Maybe see what happens when you stop pushing her away so much, settle down a moment, and think about where the bullseye really is. I bet if you two put your heads together properly for once, you could solve it properly."
August Kohler August just sighs as he realizes he's not going to get an answer to any of the riddles tonight. "Alright, I think I will, if she doesn't explode in a rage again. Thanks, George." Once he's finished his plate and drink, he'll move to head off. He has plenty of thinking to do, and eventually, a psychic ghost to meet up with.

"Think I'll try that thinking thing. See where it gets me."