Post by Warrior on Mar 6, 2023 20:30:13 GMT -8
#s://i~imgur~com/Pth93Lo~png
" ... "
Realizing that it was alien-related tech -- and digital alien at that -- helped to narrow down its source. It immediately eliminated the recently discovered Wave Beings from the equation, while her familiarity with it would also eliminate the possibility that this was a completely new race of alien than the groups she'd already known about.
That only left the Stardroids and Duo to be the possible origins of this object.
Given the New Forces' rapid technological developments, it was fair to assume that they'd salvaged it from whichever of the two were its original hosts. The Stardroids had been radio-silent for years now, Faith's last known trace of them being from a classified NIA Report implying that WWW had captured Terra while the rest had been gradually taken down. It was uncertain if that information was still up to date, but when Faith had asked Tuttle -- a mole in the WWW -- about some mysterious data that she had come across, he didn't mention Terra or the Stardroids.
That could have implied any number of things: either the report was inaccurate, or it was true and the WWW disposed of them when they were finished, or they were discretely released and had further activity censored, or Tuttle simply didn't know anything surrounding that possible event. In any case though, WWW undoubtedly had strong awareness of the Stardroids while they were active; if mysterious data would have invoked any interest in them, there was a good chance that Tuttle would have shown as much.
However, the same could be said of Duo. Neither were strong assumptions, but given the higher likelihood that WWW had taken care of all of the Stardroids before the New Forces began taking action, it seemed more reasonable to assume that they had retrieved it from Duo instead -- likely by force. The only remaining considerations were how long the New Forces had been active before recent revelations, or if they'd acquired the Stardroids in spite of everything that was known.
" ... "
All of that was just to narrow down its origin. When it came to the logic circuits being overridden, she could surmise that this modification was made to essentially control the creature rather than to allow it to act on its natural instinct. The sound that it emit was probably related to how it was controlled -- or if this was an "Alpha" of sorts, how it could control inferior subordinates under its command. Low frequency sounds typically had longer range than higher frequencies, so it could also be beaconing out to a listener somewhere.
When it came time to experiment with ways she could actually utilize this object, she was pleased to discover that her dagger worked as a foil of sorts, but by the time she had understood its nature she wasn't entirely surprised by that.
She'd initially assumed that the barriers used by Rosso and Nero would have a similar nature to what was described to her about the Hassmallim's, but her dagger didn't work there, so it seemed they were still quite different after all.
Now came further prying on two fronts. First, she would make record of the low-frequency sound the device was causing while studying it a little longer -- if she could find a way to disrupt that frequency, assuming that other enemies shared it, then she could create an exposure by severing whatever communication that it was trying to establish the next time that she encountered one. If she could manage to replicate and manipulate the frequency to her liking, then that would be even better.
Secondly would be gauging its reactions with other key items: she had a Dark Chip to put near it, something she'd expect it to react strongly to if it really did have any correlation to Duo. Next would be testing its reaction to one of the Reaver Minerals that she hadn't refined yet to see if anything special happened.
And lastly but most carefully: one of the Ashen and Apex Fragments that she still carried. She'd given Grom one of each to study, but still held 3 of one and 1 of the other to experiment with herself. Given how poorly her last interaction with these had gone, she was ready to immediately pull out if things started going south again. If this mysterious object happened to disassemble each of those items like it did everything else, then at least she'd have learned something more about it all the same.