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[SeriousConcentrate]

"So, what... delete all the individual memories, so it doesn't think of itself as anything but a ship?" Jim would've tilted his head to the side had he been in his normal form. "Not sure if we can do that."

[Lenglon]

((it really is quite frustrating that the people off-mission can't bet on which memory is the problem. I think i've figured it out, and... *sigh*))

[Parisbre56]

((Why not? Say... "Hey guys, remember that small-team mission which other people were going on? I bet that if they have reached a point of decision, it's plan C that would work best. Plan A is always discarded at the last moment and plan B tends to be shit most of time. Two tokens, what do you say?" ))

((I was thinking about something like that, but that would be influencing you with my opinion, however slightly and I want to try not to do that. I was going to say which I think is the right one when you had all decided, but then if you're lucky in your bad luck, you might get a second chance, so that again would be influencing you.))

[Knight Otu]

"No, definitely not. It should only be a single memory, maybe two... Black and white, see the world in absolute terms. The Altered are the Enemy. The UWM are the Heroes. What was it again that the people were told in the metal bench memory?"

[SeriousConcentrate]

"Something like this: your master is the UWM, your enemy is the Altered, you must always protect humanity, have loyalty to your creator. Stuff like that on loop. I don't think it's the problem."

[Harry Baldman]

((I was thinking about something like that, but that would be influencing you with my opinion, however slightly and I want to try not to do that. I was going to say which I think is the right one when you had all decided, but then if you're lucky in your bad luck, you might get a second chance, so that again would be influencing you.))

((Maybe any who wanted to try that could bet via PM to avoid any spoiling and such. Then, if they were right, they would receive tokens and such at the end of the mission, whether it is successful or not.))

[Knight Otu]

"But it could help us identify the problem... the ship didn't protect humanity in one or two memories. Definitely in the burning world one, and possibly in the embedded globe one. Out of loyalty to its creator. Is that the ticket?"

[SeriousConcentrate]

"If we knew it couldn't comprehend the greater good..." Jim would've shrugged.

[Nikitian]

Yes, exactly what you said... we have to find something which would compromise either the picture of the Altered as the enemy, or the UWM as heroes. Now, we don't have many memories concerning the Altered, and in all of them they are clearly the enemies.
-Wait a minute. Aren't the Altered a collective mind as well, or something like that? Could the Ghostship feel... kinship?
Now, I don't think the battle trial memory 'evidence' speaks to that, more likely that the Ghostship could come to that conclusion much later - hence the void memory; though it is suspicious that the void memory has no emotional response to the supposed discovery. Could it really be about something else? Or - could it have been denying that ever since?
If the latter -... damnation.
((Also, the origins of the Altered. But I am not sure how much of that is common knowledge in ERverse, so I'll skip that part. ))

[Caellath]

"If it sees things in black and white, it would make sense for the memory where it kills a bunch of innocent humans in a world that isn't part of the UWM to be problematic, although I don't know if it is the one. The ship must be loyal to the UWM, check; hate the Altered, which were moving towards the planet and would consume it, check; but there's also the compassion and protectiveness towards humankind, and the ghostship killed loads of people right then and kept watching the scene for a while." he says. If he had a head right now, he'd be scratching the back of its neck. "I mean, if you told a simple-minded thing to protect something and obey you and then told it to destroy the something it should protect, at least a bit of confusion should occur."

[Nikitian]

Yes, but it seemed more of a mercy run... mercy of swift death.
Yet, of course, that act might have set a dangerous precedent of turning arms upon humanity. Still, somehow it does not seem like something which could put the Ghostship into this cognitive loop, or it would have done it then and there, or at least much sooner - or, more likely, just outright cause the said Ghostship go rogue.
I am not sure.

[Knight Otu]

"The UWM is the master. Humanity is to be protected. The Altered are the enemy. Loyalty to the creator. The master says to destroy a part of humanity. Maybe the master says it is to protect humanity. But humanity is to be protected. But the master says to destroy a part of humanity. So it does. But humanity is to be protected... Our duty, our pleasure. A paradox, a cognitive loop, everything we've been told is the problem. And it was the memory that was apparently attacked the hardest, and after we left it, the attacks just... kind of dropped off. But what about the keyboard memory? It had the cheering that stopped when we approached, it was kind of... enshrined. It contains a memory that would hurt a normal human being. It... it was kind of too obvious the culprit, wasn't it? What are the chances that the ship knows what we are here for and wants us to delete that particular memory for whatever reasons?" Gorat sighs again. "This is headache-inducing."

[Nikitian]

By the same rate, we could say that the ship is focused on the syringe memory because we encountered great pressure while approaching it.
As he kept talking, Maurice's voice grew more distant and less focused.
No, I don't think we should take the blobs into consideration... just defence mechanism...
... it all started with the very first memory we visited, the destruction of the Altered fleet, which the was followed with elation...

Merciful Medicine, could the Ghostship have come to conclusion that the Altered and the humanity are but one thing?
Maurice flew erratically, as if shaking head.
No. Just... no. Or could it?

[Knight Otu]

Gorat mulls over Maurice's theory for a few minutes. "A terrifying thought...," he finally says, "but the only indication we have is the feeling of kinship and sadness at the first field test... and at that point, the heavy indoctrination should still have its effect, so these feelings would be to the human victims of either the field test or the Altered attacks that happened at the time. Without an additional data point, and we haven't seen one in the memories as I recall, I don't think it would change its... programming in such a fashion. What could have happened, though, is that the keyboard memory, the hatred and fear towards it, convinced the ship that it is some sort of Altered, because hatred is for the enemy, so if it is hated, it is an enemy, so it is an Altered... but I'm not quite working out a loop or paradox yet."

[Caellath]

"Yeah, that's the tricky part. It shouldn't just be something we think it's bad, it's something that should be a paradox for the ghostship. Maurice, back in the void memory, did you manage to catch something amidst its thoughts?" Milno comments before asking.