RanmaTronic, chapter 5

[Kadunta]

*Deleted*

[Xon]

Right now, I'm not certain how Nabiki should react. She doesn't know what is going on, but there's nothing she can do about it either. The only clear action is to keep on going towards the IO tower, but she knows that it's not going to help her with whatever is going on with her. Any opinions?

Nabiki experiancing Melancholia/Sadness, Anger, Jealousy/Envy in that order would be appropriate :D And maybe a comment by a program about her going rampant or rampancy in general. :lol:

Am I moving too fast with Nabiki's infection? It will have to be apparent before they reach the IO tower, though, and the insertion of the Ukyo et co. -scene between the infection and the first symptoms is only to give illusion of the "incubation time" being longer than it is.

A virus can move as damn fast as you want it to. Both in computers and real-life there are viruses which can take ages between initial infection and when it blows up in the infected person's face.

Should DMA and PIO be explained better already here? Although, I think I'll have to explain them at some level once the four are attempting to make their way out of the system (even if DMA is likely an anachronism).

To most people, no mater how you explain it those terms are just technobabble or magic words. Just make sure you use them moderately correctly and in a consistent way (not that means much in software).

I realized only a few days ago that I've made no humor at all based on the skintight body suits; not one call of "Pervert!" or such.

The wrong types of characters are the major players in this fic at the momemnt for that to work without being forced.

Should there have been such to make this feel more like a 'run-of-the-mill' Ranma fanfic?

Accept that this isnt a 'run-of-the-mill' and add the right type of humor. More in-jokes about programming would be good.

[Kadunta]

Not certain how jealousy/envy fall in here (unless you meant 'why did this happen to me and not the other two' or something similar)... and I'm pretty fanon-tainted in my views, so she'll probably keep from showing M/S outside as much as most would, but a bit of anger maybe seeping through.

As for the second question, I meant how fast the virus should activate in terms of storytelling. I'm not going to stretch it as long as Reservoir Dogs had the one guy bleeding, but making it as instant as the "rage" in 28 Days Later isn't right either. I guess this is something I'll have to decide by myself based on the significance of the infection and so on, but at least the solution won't depend on any chapters beside this one.

The last two points: you're right

In general: comments that were blunt and to the point. Excellent; thank you very much.

[TerraBull]

Am I incorrect in thinking Nabiki has caught a virus? If so, what type is it? What would be the ways of dealing with it? Would anything that Ranma knew about Ki healing be applicable?

On diffrent subject.

I am curious, as Ranma and the others are currently, programs and information, could they be contaminated or even re-written if they appeared in a game, or some Online RPG such as Final Fantasy, World of Warcraft or even a Halo tournament? I had thoughts of something like ReBoot.

Just had the thoughts to share.

[Kadunta]

You are correct, she has the virus. Its effects on Users are for the most part the same as with normal programs, but the effects show up slower. I have already figured out how to deal with the virus (something that is a matter of chapters 5 and 6), and what other problems will follow from it (chapter 6 and onward). With respect to the disease, Ranma will be pretty much helpless.

Right now, I have no plans to revisit the game grid, or at least not with the three digitized Users. This means that there won't be any more games played in this story.

Another thing is that in spite of the numerous anachronisms already present, I'm trying to keep the story somewhat set in the early 1980s. Online RPGs are hence pretty much excluded. Playing such games even with 18,400bps speed isn't fun, I'd wager, and there's no universal network available for common consumers. I'm also trying to keep too much real-life technical detail out of this... as much as I'd like to say Haruo and Eiko have at home an MSX or a VIC-1001.

[Xon]

Not certain how jealousy/envy fall in here (unless you meant 'why did this happen to me and not the other two' or something similar)... and I'm pretty fanon-tainted in my views, so she'll probably keep from showing M/S outside as much as most would, but a bit of anger maybe seeping through.

Those 3 set of emotions are the stages of Rampancy from Marathon/Halo, which is basicly when an AI (or an intelligent being hosted in a vast digital enviroment) out grows it's initial function and becomes something which isnt defined by its initial function.

Any way you look at it, those computers from Tron sure as hell provide a massive computing enviroment (They effortlesly stuff several humans in it, without any information loss!).

[Kadunta]

Ah. I never really played Halo or Marathon. In any case, that won't be the way AIs change here. I see this contradicting the model I had set up for MCP in the first chapter as a being of logical rules (MCP was originally a chess program, if I remember correctly) and one hardcoded condition too many.

That aside, I feel adding elements from Marathon/Halo would feel out of place here, and they won't be included in this story even for the Users.

And as for your last comment... yeah. And they all fit on small diskettes (Jet even visited a PDA in TRON2.0, but at least the system couldn't support two Users simultaneously.) (Haruo and Eiko better have a big bunch of diskettes or cassettes with them...)

[Kadunta]

Okay... the chapter draft (updated in the first post in this thread) is now as done as I can get it. I know the dialogue is bad and the characterizations vague, but I don't expect to be able to do any better on my own, and I need to get this chapter out of my mind. I will be very busy this spring and summer with my education and the tight schedule that goes with it. That is why I cut this chapter earlier than I had originally planned and left the database semaphores to chapter 6.

If you have still any comments or critique, I'll be happy to revise the already uploaded chapter as necessary.

The English translation of A History of Algorithms by Jean-Luc Chabert et al. claimed that the 'ju' in 'ju-jitsu' comes from the Chinese 'shu' meaning "rule, process or stratagem" and with this in mind, 'ju-jitsu' could be interpreted as "procedural rules for suppleness" or "algorithms for suppleness." I failed to find corroborating evidence on the web, but decided to draw minor parallels with exercises and algorithms anyway.

The keyboard Ukyo used could've probably used katakana, but I cut corners and let it use Latin characters instead.

Don't read too much into Nabiki's behaviour and classify this as a Ranma/Nabiki pairing, at least for now. A lot of it is the virus talking (and a very good argument why I should never ever try writing romance).

As for MCP's thought processes: bear in mind MCP was programmed with too strict assumptions. In his world, you must represent a person's gender with one bit.

If the ending with Nabiki's line feels strange, I can extend the scene to the point where they leave by the portal Dumont opens, if you want that.

Is the word "multiload" also present in English as I described it? I recall reading that term in the 1980s' Finnish computer magazines, IIRC in the meaning I've given in the fic. A Google search showed that it's used at least in a similar meaning, meaning not all data is loaded from the tape at once but in pieces as the game progresses.

The last question I'd like your input on: the "dialogue" with Ranma and Eiko/Haruo/Ukyo. Right now, Ranma has successive lines that do not end in a quote; this is a method I've seen on FF.net somewhat often when the same person keeps speaking in the next paragraph:

"Oy!
"Hey, I'm talking now!
"You're one who don't want to be disturbed when you're on the phone!
"Whaddya mean it's not the---Ow-ow-ow!"

In this case, I also want to emphasize the small time gap between the separate lines, which is why they're not all in one paragraph. Any suggestions how to make this dialogue as legible as possible, without the need for additional information on what the formatting means, is welcome.