Lander studies

Bars are for drinking. Bars are for laughing. Bars are for carefree revelry, for meeting new people, for having funny stories about getting completely smashed that don't really have endings. For the most part, this bar is no different, save for the far corner.

Sprites has installed himself in the far corner with a towering glass of...fruit juice. He's got his papers out, and his pen, and judging by the barren bubble around him has managed to establish his own brand of a no-fun no-parties zone. At any rate, if he's enjoying himself, it's in a rather peculiar sort of way. He's busily observing Lander and Lander-Adventurer interactions. And yes, he's taking notes.

Schneider is, it seems, a note-taker also. Or at least his pack has a bunch of squarish outlines that are almost certainly books. He /does/ approach Sprites over in the corner, curious about what he might be studying? "Good evening," he calls to the studious fellow. "Mind if I join you?"

Invited or not, he'll sit down on one of the other chairs at the table and see if he can't read what the titles of those books are.

SpritesHero looks a bit startled at being so accosted. But once the daze wears off, he offers a pleasant smile and gestures towards the open chairs. "Please, be my guest," he offers, inclining his head in welcome. And then it's back to note-taking. There are no books in front of Sprites, just papers. Four are already filled and set off to the side. One is rapidly filling in front of him. Of those currently set aside, half appear to be matching a numerical value to verbal cues. The others appear to be a list of directions--up left, down left, up right, down right, up, etc.--again paired with shorthand statements.

Schneider peers at the papers, then, and considers them. "Doing some kind of translation?" he wonders. He'll order a round of drinks from the bar. Beer for him, and a refill of whatever Sprites is drinking for him, and he introduces himself, "I'm Dark Schneider. But call me Schneider, everyone does. I suppose I'm not that Dark, here." He chuckles. "I haven't really got the RP thing worked out, is the thing."

"Naww," is all Sprites offers for a long moment, the silence filled with the sound of scratching pen. Once the thought has been completed, he sets his pen down and, with a whoosh of exhaled air, brings his drink to his lips for a deep swig. "Trying to get some sense for whether body language analysis can be applied to Landers," he explains, once he's swallowed. "And say, I think I know you. Weren't you that fellow who was looking into documents around the Scrapped Princess War?"

Schneider blinks at body-language-analysis. "What's that?" he asks, confused. But he nods about researching the Scrapped Princess War. "Oh yeah, finished my notes, wrote a sort of summary book that kind of rolls it all into one actually coherent whole." He explains, "I found a ton of stuff in bits and pieces, and sadly, a lot of it was propaganda after the fact. Sorting truth from fiction was the hardest part."

"Yeaaaaah." Sprite's response is a long, drawn-out noise of agreement. "Hell. I bet a lot of it was propaganda even before and during the fact. So it always has been, so it always will be. Sorting out fact from fiction is not a task I envy you...though I can see how it would be fun." He takes another sip of his drink, then, thinking over how to best describe what he's doing.

"In the real world," he begins, "body language--well, body language, storyanalysis, and language structure analysis put together--can be of inestimable use if you are, say, interrogating a suspect. It's not as simple as being a lie detector per se. But it can help guide where questions go." A pause. "For example! Have you ever been terrified of something? Like, absolutely terrified. What did it feel like? Or if you haven't, how is it described in novels?"

Schneider nods slowly, beginning to understand. "All of it complicated by the fact that they're just programs, so it's all based on how well-written their code is. If the programmers half-assed it, the results could be anything." He nods slowly. As to terrified, he says, "A soldier came into the store where I was working, and the show on TV triggered his PTSD. That's probably the closest I've come."

SpritesHero bites back a grin. "You're actually going to run into a similar issue with our current conversation," he foreshadows. "But back to absolute terror. How did it feel to you to be terrified? What was your body doing? Any sensations you remember?"

Schneider blinks? "Our current conversation what?" he wonders. But he shakes his head, "It wasn't me that was scared. A soldier was flipping out in our store, though. He was looking for his gun and for people to shoot before we turned off the TV, which was what was making him freak."

SpritesHero almost looks a bit disappointed. "Oh. I thought you meant you were terrified because he was having a bad reaction," Sprites explains. He pauses, then, before continuing onwards. "Well, maybe utter terror isn't the best example then. You've been happy before, right? Maybe you got a gift you wanted. Maybe you had a nice dinner with your family. Maybe a girl you liked smiled at you. You've been happy before, right?"

Schneider laughs, nods. "Oh, yeah, I've been happy before. A few times," he quips. He sips his beer and sits back in his chair, curious where this is all going. "I've done all those things, in fact," he says with a smirk. A veritable renaissance man of happy.

"I'd be very worried for you if you haven't been," Sprites opines. He cradles his own drink in his hands, staring into its depths for a few moments. "So you know happiness tends to linger, right? You've got that happy little glow for a bit. Happiness doesn't just turn off like that." He snaps once, loudly. "So let's say you're talking with someone. They give you an answer, they're smiling and laughing. And then they're suddenly not. Chances are that smile is a lie. Now, why do you think happiness lingers? And not just happiness. Sadness too. Takes you a while to stop crying, even if you desperately want to, right?"

Schneider ehs to Sprite's question, and he says, "Well, just high school biology here, but it's to do with the chemicals in your brain that make you happy or sad or whatever, right? They don't all drain out all at once, once you stop feeling the emotion, they have to get used up or bled off or whatever, right?"

"Bingo," Sprites confirms. "And that's the point. The fact is that a lot of body language isn't an acquired skillset, though some of it is. A good chunk of body language--how often you blink, whether your mouth goes dry, where your eyes travel when you're remembering something versus making it up, is your chin lifted, is it down, are you protecting your exposed underbelly or are you expansive and open--is directly tied with biological and evolutionary processes. Can you be trained out of it? Sure. But the more pressure gets piled on, the more you revert." He sets his glass down on the table. "And the same goes for language. What words you use. How directly you answer a question. Whether you're fumbling for words or not. Whether what you're saying is more consistent with someone trying to get help for another, or what you're saying is there to establish an alibi. Is behavior going to change person to person? Sure. A lot. So really, you're not looking for any one specific thing. You try to establish how they normally act and talk. Then you talk to them more about things you want to know, and note where their behavior begins to change. Even a little. That lets you know where you need to start digging a bit more." He sits back once more, spreads his hands. "But as per your earlier comment, that again all depends on how much of this was coded into the system. Or, if it's an AI, how much the AI is able to pick up. So, here I am, studying Lander and Adventurer behavior to see how much carries over, if any."

Schneider boggles at all that. "Dude, what are you, Public Security Agency (Japanese equivalent of CIA)?" He listens and nods, though, as you explain. He seems to understand the problem, but wonders, "What will knowing all this help you discover? Are you going to start waterboarding Landers?"

SpritesHero laughs then, and shakes his head. "No, I'm just a policeman," he answers. Pause. "Well, I WAS a policeman. I wonder if I've been dismissed yet?" He pauses again, then sighs and shakes his head. "No, nothing dramatic like that. No grand spy rings, no rounding up of traitors. No waterboarding." He crinkles his nose, bites his lip between his teeth and rolls it back and forth. "Well, I figure it could maybe help with law enforcement here amongst the Landers, to start with," he begins, shrugging. "But after that, I intend to use it to start to understand this world better. You familiar with something called the Liar's Loop?"

Schneider ahhhs as Sprites explains about being a policeman. As far as dismissed, he says, "I guess it depends on your disability benefits?" He hrms about the police tasks, nodding slowly, and hrms about understanding Landers. "I'm not sure how much law enforcement there even is. It seems like most of the crooks are players." The Liar's Loop draws a shrug as well. "What's that?"

"Players are surely in a better position to commit crimes against Landers," Sprites concedes. "But I figure there's plenty of Lander on Lander crime. If human nature holds, crime'll be rife. Even if it doesn't, I figure there have to be a bunch of ex-quest NPCs who are still coded to commit crimes." Closing his eyes, he taps on the table, pensive. "Let's say you want to lie to me. There's a bunch of steps you need to take. First, you stop yourself from telling the truth. Second, you make up your lie. Third, you compare your lie to what you think I know--we call that deconfliction. Fourth, you sell your lie to me. I ask you another question. Maybe it's about that lie you just made. Now you're back to step 1, only you've already offered up even more information. And so it goes, on and on, getting more and more complex. Remember, this whole time I'm watching you and your body language, looking for anything that's amiss. Guilty people love to offer up little details. The think it makes 'em look innocent. It's always those little details where you can begin to pull, and watch the whole tapestry unravel. Now, compare that to how easy it is to recite what you remember. Lying? Is hard. Real hard. Well, lying well is. Any idiot can lie, I suppose. And it often seems like the easy way out to start with."

Schneider thinks about all that. "You're way deep into this, though. I almost wish you'd been with me when I interviewed the one Hero. He said some things that contradict the commonly accepted story of the Scrapped Princess War, and I didn't have any of that to go on. Just intuition. Have you even met Aschneriit?" he wonders.

SpritesHero blinks once, twice, his mojo interrupted. "Can't say I've heard of anyone called Aschneriit," he allows at last, confusion creasing his forehead. "Who's that? And don't worry too much. I've not had a chance to cross-reference observations with Landers yet. Could be none of my techniques carry over well whatsoever."

Schneider explains, his voice going quiet, "Ascheriit's the Spriggan Hero from the Scrapped Princess Wars. He's cooling his heels in Tolbana, last I saw of him. He's the one that gave me an entirely different perspective on what happened, and it contradicted the standard story that all the races pass down as standard history."

The shrieking of mental brakes is nearly audible, the odor of metaphorically burned rubber nearly pungent. "He's alive?" Sprites wonders, before shaking the question off. He lowers his voice, then. "Dumb question. What'd he say about the wars?"

Schneider blinks at the reaction, but uhms, looking back and forth. But we're pretty much well apart from any of the Landers. "So, what he said was that the Scrapped Princesses, and he was wary about discussing it, was that the Scrapped Princesses weren't defeated by the heroes, which is the standard story. The Scrapped Princesses won, and -easily-, then vanished. The heroes then turned on Ascheriit and blamed him for them getting their asses handed to them."

SpritesHero frowns, brow furrowing hard down the middle. "Did he say why they needed someone to blame at all? Or why the Princesses vanished? Or whether he expects them to be coming back?" For his part, he doesn't bother looking around himself. His tones are low, but conversational. He's acting as naturally as he can, for someone receiving earth-shattering news..

Schneider shrugs to the questions. "He didn't like to talk a lot about it, so I didn't get much time, sorry. And ... I talked with Proph about it, and we're keeping that info under wraps for the moment. Limited in-Guild, but definitely not to Landers, because who knows what they'll do. But we expect them to freak." As to why they left or when they're expected back, he can only shrug. "No info, not even a hint, really."

SpritesHero hmphs, gnawing on his lips once more as he thinks. "Yeah, I'll certainly not be telling anyone that. Even if I did want to, I bet it'd be my head on the chopping block immediately anyhow. But it's all very interesting, isn't it." He pauses once more. "So much deception. But yes, I figure this whole world is one big lie. The key is to find out what sort of lie it is, and who or what controls that lie. That's where I'm eventually hoping to get."

Schneider blinks as the twistyness of everything comes full circle. "It is pretty weird, that they wrote the game with a fake history that you have to wade into to find the truth. But so much of the game doesn't make sense." He shrugs, nods about it being interesting. "I guess the whole point of it being interesting is to keep the players coming back. Not necessary when we can't log out, but I can see where that'd be the plan."

"If anything," Sprites supposes, "I would imagine that it'd be even more necessary if we can't log out. I wonder what happens to the mental state of someone who just...you know...gives up? Figures, heck, everything's just an illusion anyhow. The Landers don't matter. The players don't matter. It's just a prison with fancy walls."

Schneider sips his beer again, but says, "There's two ways to think about that. If we're trapped here, they don't need to entertain us, we can't leave. But if they care about us, why are we locked into the game in the first place?" He shrugs, "That's where it doesn't make sense. Maybe they made it up so that they'd get people really hyped in the beta? Because if they were bored in the beta, it'd get bad reviews and they'd have fewer people to go live?" He thinks some more. "But I heard that the playerbase for live was limited to ten thousand. That's tiny, compared to the number of actual gamers...."

SpritesHero gives Schneider what is, by now, a very funny look indeed. "Ten thousand?" he echoes, a bit dumbly. "That's odd. I'd never really looked into that at all, but...that wouldn't even account for the demand in a small fraction of Tokyo, let alone all of Japan. Are you sure? It was ten thousand? Not ten million?"

Schneider shrugs, nods. "Yeah, it seemed tiny to me also. But that's what I thought I heard. But now I can't recall where I heard it.... so I dunno?" he can only look blank. "Well, maybe it's just something I misunderstood? Don't take me too deep on that..."

SpritesHero scratches his head, apparently thinking very deeply on it in spite of just having been warned not to. "I mean, I think it basically shipped with the OS as a way to sell stability, so..." He trails off. Snags his drink. Downs it. "Maybe there were two tiers of subscriptions?" he hazards. But then he shakes his head again. "No, something's not right. I. Hmm."

Schneider sighs, admits, "I'm completely out of my depth on all this technical buisiness. I just play the video game and ... well, here I am now, no idea what's going on under the hood."

"Yeah. Same," Sprites concedes with a grunt. "But I suppose that's half the fun of it, right? Trying to figure out what goes on under the hood, I mean." A pause. "So, what's next on the research list for you? I heard the higher-ups have been asking us to take rubbings of ancient scripts?"

Schneider shakes his head. "Why do I want to get under the hood. The game is fun to play, but under the hood is work. It's like 10 months of basketball camp, with no off-season. It's pretty hard, even not going into weird stuff."

SpritesHero sighs, then, returning to nursing his now room-temperature drink. "I suppose," he agrees. "But for me, it stopped being fun to play when it stopped being a..." Pause. "Game," he finishes. "Well, can't say I disagree with your perspective, though. It seems viable enough. To each their own."

Schneider admits, "The game didn't change when I couldn't log out, so it didn't stop being fun. I actually play it like it was the same game as it always was, which in some ense it is, I guess." He says, "But I need to take off, so I'll see you around." He finishes his drink, then, and heads out.