Quirky Constructs

[The Devil's Advocate]

I've mentioned a great deal of my successes, and some of my failures. In this thread, I'm encouraging discussions of both. What have you done with your constructs that didn't turn out as you expected? This can be disastrous or it can be fascinating or both or even neither.

For my part (since I can't ask you to play if I don't play myself!), I was working on woven shields, especially good tight weaves, mostly because I wanted a flexible shield more than I wanted a rigid one. One problem I kept running into with this was well... they kept unraveling! Turns out I'd put too much energy into the CONCEPT of a weave and not enough into getting it to hold to gether, so it would 'snag' on whatever it was blocking and bits and pieces of it would tear out like snags on a loose knit sweater!

~DA (Note, this is informal usage of name. I am intending this to be relatively informal, at least from my end. Yes this means I promise not to bap with anythings stronger than a verbal nerf bat.)

[innerfire]

I got a good one:

Shield related too! In my earlier days of shields, I struggled with finding the best way to recharge them. One idea that was immediately thrown out afterwards, was using a kind of "bucket of water" visualization. So I'd pool together this little blob of liquid-like psi, and throw it at the shield. This worked ok for a bit, until I got to coating the top portion of my shield. Apparently I had given too much of the concept of gravity to the energy, and it went up, some hit the shield, but the rest fell back down on me. Which wouldn't be a problem if I wasn't using a lot of energy and was particularly sensitive at the time!

My liquid-theme did hold, and I could feel that I was drenched This gave a heck of a headache until I "dried off" -_-

[The Devil's Advocate]

*chuckles* Just a note: it doesn't have to be shield constructs for this thread. It can be psiballs, messanger constructs, or your psionic pet hampster that turned into the rabbit from Monty Python's Holy Grail.

~DA

[Fearn]

I had maintenance constructs repairing my shield (I have long since gotten rid of them, by incorporating them into my shield) and sometimes they would just disappear.

Yeah, I know, lame. I can't really think of anything particularly interesting.

[The Devil's Advocate]

No worries, Fearn, did you ever figure out why they disappeared?

~The Devil's Advocate

[confuded]

I had one with an alarm contruct. I had made it before going off to sleep. Wake up the next morning by my phone alarm and do look at the alarm construct. Its there and seems to have its programming, but it looked like it froze right before completion of it programing! I have no idea why that happened... I havent installed Windows on it, no ;D.

I had a hedge shield. It wasnt really a woven shield, but the way it was constructed was growing hedge with leaves by each strand on a plane smooth shield layer and intertwiening between each other... Hard to explain... But it untwiened every time i tied it! Like it someone hit the backwards play button! I think the reason for this is i didnt focus much on teing it good...

Thats about it. Dont recon any other problems...

[xpwarrior3]

My moment involved an attempt to make a fully-functional, stand-alone psi-pet/AI construct (The last psi-pet/AI construct I attempted to make... Its been years since I attempted to make another). Before the time I had experimented alot with psi-pets and AI constructs, but I never actually success with the AI part.

So for this situation, I decided to create the construct in steps. First I began by creating the psi-pet with the features of a small feline. I wasn't really going for a household, domesticated cat. I was rather aiming for something that would fit into that family. So I made the features and then I embedded the programs conceptually and part by part, giving each program time to be assimilated. After that, I decided to create a network within the construct that stored information (By this time, the construct was actually functioning as a psi-pet and I never let it leave my field range. Its programs included energy sensing/scanning, shielding, minimal energy manipulation, and telepathy).

I kept that information network dormant for some time and let the information that the construct receive get stored into the information network. Later on, after a few weeks, I added an extra program, which I kept dormant so that it could integrate properly into the construct. The program was more along the lines of a facilitator between the information network and the other programs within the construct. My intention was to have the construct learn from information that it gathered. So after some time, I activated the program, but I kept the construct within my field range. Then after a week or so, I let it go.

A month or so later, I was coming back home from a gathering I went to. When I got home and opened the door to my house to walk in, I immediately got this sense of some entity being in my house. I also notice my siblings say, "for some reason, the house feels different than when we left before" (not their exact words, but something along those lines). I didn't say anything. I went to bed and the sense consumed me. That's all I could think about before I went to sleep. I woke up the next morning (Saturday) still feeling that same presense so I decided to scan the house. As soon as I found the entity, I assessed it and called its attention. It came to me (Not physically, but on a psychic level). I felt the presense intensify. I then assessed it some more and attempted to read and scan it. When I did I noticed some "branding" that was very familiar to me. It ended up that the "entity" was the feline that I had created. For a while, the feline was okay and there was nothing wrong with it. After some time, it started to become hostile to me. Luckly I had a dormant termination program that I kept inaccessible to the construct. I activiated it and killed the construct.

Since then, I've only stuck to making constructs when I need them and only for specific purposes. I was through playing.

----Hope that's not too long.

[confuded]

Interesting story. I dont even dream of those levels of programing you described.

[wolfdancer]

Well, let's see. The one that comes to mind immediately is an occassion where a friend and I were experimenting with a programmed core inside the center of the construct and an amount of energy around it (sort of like an egg--yolk=programmed core). In one case it was given a command to collect what information it could and no restrictions were programmed in. It was frightening to see how adaptable an unintelligent construct can be. I'm not really sure the best way to explain it clearly. It became a stubborn invasive object that had to be destroyed.

On a positive note, there was a shield that I experimented with which proved to be more effective than anticipated due to the smooth interior and exterior with 'cracked glass' layer in between (inspired by a candle holder). The middle layer was effective in shredding and dispersing unwanted energy and telepathic messages.

~Wolfd@ncer~

[confuded]

Shreding and despersing? What does that mean? Exuce me for my wide range of vocabulary .

[The Devil's Advocate]

Shredding = taking apart into small pieces by a sharp object. (Not as tidy as 'cutting up')
Dispersing = Spreading out, Scattering.

~DA

[Fearn]

Mar 19, 2008 20:18:39 GMT -5 confuded said:

Shreding and despersing? What does that mean? Exuce me for my wide range of vocabulary .

Shredding
Dispersing

[seraphy]

I've got one:

My very first construct did not turn out the way I had hoped at all. I had attempted to program it to repeat the a word telepathically one time and then dissipate. What I got was a construct repeating the word "Popsicle" for 12 hours straight... It was 12 in the morning, there wasn't a popsicle in the house and I wanted one... Needless to say, I didn't sleep that night