BE has been chosen. The brother's being brought here, but we now move to the blackmail situation.
Erin Quill recieves another phone call.
"I am aware that you will try to find me. Do not. I have associates willing to release the information should I be arrested. I will now demonstrate that I have the capacity and will to cause a public uproar using choice details of your weapons programs."
Before the connection closes Quill retorts,
"My name is Erin Quill. You will live long enough to regret messing with me. But only just."
A few minutes later the media appears to have gotten ahold of details pertaining to our bionic dogs program. That is, the extensive modifications made to their brain, our attempts to modify their bodies with venom glands and lyrebird voiceboxes, and their many gruesome deaths at the hands of the rebels. It is accompanied with gory pictures of dogs in surgery, dogs dead, dogs wounded, etc.
Animal rights groups are now camped outside the testing facility and various civic buildings in Antarctica, accusing us of using dogs as disposable weapons and giving them free will while still enslaving them. They demand that we completely stop research and deployment of modified dogs and turn over the ones we already have to them.
The dogs themselves think this is simultaneously hilarious and terrifyingly stupid as we literally
granted them sentience, they continue to help us out of gratitude and entirely from their own volition. They are more predisposed to loyalty, but that is a trait shared by all dogs - they do not forget debts easily.
How do you respond?
ERIN QUILL: "On the upside, my bird research program is revealing results. My parrot is 46.5% of the way to the First Metapsychological Horizon and will be fully sentient in around 13 hours."
"A quick primer on how uplifting works in this universe. Once a brain is large enough to therioretically support self-awareness, it begins a process of radical restructuring of thoughts and memories around the concept of self. This can take anywhere from minutes to days, depending on how rich the subject's life has been before they reached sentience."
"Upon the end of this period, the subject instantly achieves self-awarness, consciousness, and sentience. The subject's temperment and personality immediatly revert to those determined by genetics. This is, for example, why dogs retain their loyalty. The process can be quite jarring to those species not already evolved to it, and is obviously visible to experimenters when chemically induced. It has been termed the First Neurophychological Horizon."
"Dolphins, orcas, and elephants hit the Horizon at the beginning of their adult lives. Particularly gifted or lucky pigs, sheep, and monkeys also achieve it. Humanity has evolved neurochemical pathways to handle the shock of sudden conciousness, which tends to come at three. I suspect this is the reason for the so-called "Oedipus complex" - that three-year-olds experience a temporary reversion to monkey morals and monkey sexuality."
"And by the way, there is no Second Metapsychological Horizon. I mantain the 'First' in the name out of a belief that
more will eventually be discovered, ushering in a new age of human thought and development each. But I digress."
"Thirteen hours later we get a thinking parrot and there's nothing we can do about it."
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Topic: (SG) SPAMOVERLORD: Epilogue: Guest Week (Read 303547 times)