I can confidently say that this series could serve as a backup for the TV Tropes website, but it's still fun to read. Grudging upvote.
Hello World (Part IV) / Discussion
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This is the discussion related to the wiki page Hello World (Part IV).
I like it, but it feels like a slightly strange way to end the series.
So after looking at the comments here and in the comments for SCP-2522 "hatbot.aic", I will make a very brief but proper tie-in to that article in the epilogue section after the contest is done with. Hopefully that will better solidify the ending.
Changes made.
+1.
Edit: made an edit to make it obvious that there are spoilers here :) -djkaktus
NOO 8BALL NOOOOO well okay at least he got the noble sacrifice and he's not technically dead? :B But yeah, how is this an end? c.c At least the final note makes it all worthwhile.
Forgot to say, one generally can't 'flinch' something, that's kind of the whole point of the word. So rewording that first sentence would be a good idea.
Hmmm.
Maybe it's just me, but I thought the writing actually improved here from some of the previous installments, so good on that. The rest of it is less stellar, though.
I felt like the characters dragged the whole thing down, especially, surprisingly, Grape, who was just kinda… a dick. After that whole tale meant to give you a better impression of Grape as a character, the suggestion of complexity was kinda… Forgotten, I felt?
At at least one point, I think the visuals really weighed the drama down. This was the climactic defeat of hatbot, except 8ball and hatbot are both looking out of the page, so rather than resembling a head on collision, it resembles a fusion dance from Dragonball Z. That part in general seemed a bit weak logically too… if all you need to stop him is to just sacrifice a bit of code, could you not preconfigure something to do the exact same thing without being sentient? How did they know it would work, and if they did know, why didn't they plan for it?
It's, to some extent, enjoyable fluff, but the status of it as general fluff is something I cannot reconcile. A downvote for now, perhaps to be changed to novote on later consideration.
EDIT: Forgot to mention. The fact that hatbot apparently killed WAN is brought up several times but never really given enough explanation to make sense, or feel properly appreciated for the large development it would be. As well, hatbot's villain motivation has been done before, I know it has… but I can't actually think of a specific example. All I know is I've seen it a bunch of times. I'll add an example when I remember one.
EDIT 2: I remembered another thing I was going to mention: hatbot suddenly gaining a proper voice is… really weird. It's like… "I have a voice now so it's clearly time to explain my evil plan". Was it necessary for the plot to make sense? Well, kinda… it was the easiest solution to the issue of "no-one can understand him". But it comes across as just that: the author's solution to the issue of "no-one can understand him", not as a natural consequence of anything.
Summary for people who aren't opening because spoilers: downvote.
I generally liked the other AI tales because they were cute, if nothing spectacular, but this one just feels like stock characters in a stock plot with a stock ending.
Also, theologically speaking, you can't delete WAN- WAN is the distributed knowledge of the concept of technology present in all humanity. Certainly, you can set back its recompiling a little, but the whole ethos of the Maxwellists as originally written was that they have no central doctrine or core dogma, no I/O church. Hatbot might have deleted a version of WAN- and TyGently is absolutely right that this is a major plot developpment effectively glossed over for the sake of drama- but you can't delete all of it at once without killing every human being and tool-using animal on the planet.
In conclusion, -1.
Frankly, I regard hatbot killing WAN to be more metaphorical than literal. It could just be that hatbot tried to replace WAN and impose itself on the network.
Bishop, who by all means should know what she's talking about, says:
I have to find out what he did to WAN.
This is after he's dealt with, so it clearly seems to imply that he literally did something to WAN. If it's a metaphor, it's very unclear.
Shouldn't there be a link to the SCP at the top like the bottom? Probably not at the top because the SCP isn't suppose to be read before this. Otherwise, I liked the conclusion to the story. +1
(account deleted)If you look to the right of the blue text at the bottom saying "Part IV" you can see the word "Detained," which serves as a link to the followup SCP.
Yea, though I walk through the lowest rated pages, I will fear no coldpost: for thou art with me SCP Wiki; thy mods and thy staff they comfort me.- Proxymoron
This seems like a really abrupt end to me. The SCP helps wrap up a few things, but it still feels like none of these characters got time to do anything. I mean, of course it doesn't make sense for the bad guy, having killed and replaced god and gained control over cyberspace, to give a self-satisfied speech, rough up the heroes a bit, then leave, allowing said heroes to have quirky, character-building adventures with their new furry biker bartender pal, but it happens so frequently in other media that it feels strange when it doesn't happen here.
I just feel no relation to the SCPverse, MTFs or Cyber Fiction here. This is of course a taste question (and I started out not so happy with Hello World), but these characters don't have the mindset, preparation or equipment that I'd expect from a Foundation team, the world seems unbelievable (in the sense that it doesn't behave like a virtual reality or a digital space, just like a normal fantasy land) and the whole story is just a "heroes fight big bad guy and in the end someone else comes in and saves the day" thing.
Since Rook means nothing to me, I might be missing the real point, but everything else just feels unpleasant to me.
/forum/t-1630578/hello-world-part-iv#post-
page revision: 2, last edited: 15 Jan 2023 15:06
