witchcraft and sorcery

[witchwatcher]

For a brief moment, in a certain part of fairyland there is a tear that leads to the cold sky above a snow-covered hilly forest somewhere in the mortal world.

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[witchwatcher]

"That storm showed up in the middle of o- Names. Some country names are used in other places. A densely populated country and started making little Neuroi that set fires and killed everything. This was 22 years ago. Everyone panicked, chaos and confusion on all levels. Witches and armies from all over the world eventually got organized into a defensive force, but not before they expanded quite a bit. They've been steadily pushing humans back since. And this giant storm messes with the weather all over the planet, makes farming a lot harder, so I wouldn't be surprised if they made more people starve than they ever killed directly."

[neuroihive]

Something BIG is approaching. It's probably larger than any moving thing Promise has seen before.

Scatter trails off in the middle of a sentence and looks a bit afraid, even knowing it's Promise's vassal.

[imeanforever]

Promise isn't scared.

She knows its name.

"Without extraneous consequences, say 'hello'," she attempts. This will be much less dicey if she can establish two-way communication.

[neuroihive]

'Extraneous consequences' includes potentially hurting the Witch nearby the winged one if it tries to speak in its usual way. It tries to use this fact to stay completely silent. Which doesn't work.

It rumbles a recognizable, quiet but still kind of screechy, "Hello."

[imeanforever]

"Answer all of my questions without extraneous action, honestly, completely, and succinctly. Operating under the assumption that I wish to minimize destruction to humans and resources of use to humans, what would I be best advised to order you to do?"

[neuroihive]

It tries to probe the limits of the orders, in particular investigating how much flex it has between 'completely' and 'succinctly'.

"Alter climate to suit human needs. Prevent or mitigate the effects of natural disasters." It tries to expand on the kinds of natural disasters it could prevent. "Such as earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, asteroid impacts. Prevent humans from harming humans or resources of use to humans. Defend this planet from all other Neuroi or help you use this command effect on all other Neuroi and issue similar orders."

[imeanforever]

"How many Neuroi are there that you don't directly control?"

[neuroihive]

"Exact number unknown. At least four hundred and fifty two. Likely to be at least one hundred thousand."

[imeanforever]

"How many of those are - central ones like you? Are you on the top tier of centrality?"

[neuroihive]

"Four hundred and fifty two. Depends on interpretation." The Twelve are followed willingly, not due to hard-coded instructions like its drones.

[imeanforever]

"Elaborate on the latter."

[neuroihive]

"There is a group of Neuroi with the same tier of authority as I that, collectively, has authority over all Neuroi. However, this authority is not absolute like my authority over the small ones. It is willing loyalty."

[imeanforever]

"Are any other Neuroi on your tier aware of the current situation with me?"

[neuroihive]

"Yes. I informed them the first time you affected a small one."

[imeanforever]

"On what time scale will they inconvenience me?"

[neuroihive]

"This depends on their decision. If they immediately decide to take hostile action, within hours. It is likely they will discuss for several days or longer before making a decision."

[imeanforever]

"What is the surest way for me to gain control of all of them without collateral damage?"

[neuroihive]

It's silent for a solid ten seconds. Then, "Insufficient information to produce a meaningful answer. In particular some details of your control effect and biology are not known to me. Any predictions of chance of success would be potentially inaccurate. The best plan given my current knowledge of the situation would be to establish mastery over them, order me to learn their current locations, order me or small ones to transport you to them, order me or small ones to make it so sound can successfully travel in their current locations, then issue orders. It may be impossible. There is a high chance they have disabled all hearing ability."

[imeanforever]

Promise looks at Scatter. "How hard would it be to get more witches who can do the telepathing thing? Enough to cover giving a couple orders to each of the other yea-big Neuroi within a span of hours."

[witchwatcher]

"Uh." She shakes her head. This is so surreal. "If you can convince anyone you're serious about this, not that hard. And I've got half a dozen 'ports left in me, and... Part of the reason we wanted gold is because it can store mana, I could have someone else give me some and keep going longer. But - different teleporters have different places they can go. It sounds like Neuroi come from space. I don't know if I can teleport to space. Or survive there."

[imeanforever]

"Are the other Neuroi your tier in space?" Promise inquires.

[neuroihive]

"At last update from them all Neuroi my tier were in space or in other places which are uninhabitable for humans."

[imeanforever]

"And telepaths can't reach that far?" Promise asks Scatter.

[witchwatcher]

"I don't know literally all Witches in the world. It's possible such a strong telepath exists, HQ might know. But- Ah, Chatterbox was her nickname. The one Copycat copied. She wouldn't be able to."

[imeanforever]

Promise thinks.

Then she asks Evil, "Is there any realistic chance of a cessation of the Neuroi's various attacks on humans and human-needed resources without further application of my control?"