And there was the explosion of rage he'd been expecting. The force of his disc dock hitting the wall hurt like a glitch, his vision flashing a brilliant mess of error messages that briefly obscured all else in his field of view for the moment it took to recover from the soft lock. As expected, the admin hit like a tank. But Clu knew how to handle tanks
Perhaps surprisingly, the first thing out of his mouth was a somewhat breathless chuckle. There was very little humor in it though. "Took you longer than the MCP at least," he said, his voice rather strained. "Though at least your wall doesn't have a decompiler."
A deep breath and another picosecond or two to clear the rest of the errors, and he spoke again, his voice a bit stronger. "Derezz me, or let your pet killbot do it, and you condemn your entire system to drown," he said. "If you had any other options, you'd have taken them already. Or maybe you have and they failed. You need me, alive and cooperative, with my code intact. And the only way you get that is on my terms. Threatening me with torture and death didn't work for the MCP, and it's not gonna work now."
"As for the games, 'stakes' implies that everyone involved is betting willingly. What the games are now aren't even games. They're just a showy way to derezz programs who oppose you. Or eliminate strays that for the most part wouldn't exist if you were actually performing your function instead of acting like an MCP wanna be. You're not gonna get 'perfection' by consolidating or destroying until there's nothing more you can take away. And a system ruled by terror is never going even approach an optimal state."
Nope wrong place, but gotta take it I guess.
Perhaps surprisingly, the first thing out of his mouth was a somewhat breathless chuckle. There was very little humor in it though. "Took you longer than the MCP at least," he said, his voice rather strained. "Though at least your wall doesn't have a decompiler."
A deep breath and another picosecond or two to clear the rest of the errors, and he spoke again, his voice a bit stronger. "Derezz me, or let your pet killbot do it, and you condemn your entire system to drown," he said. "If you had any other options, you'd have taken them already. Or maybe you have and they failed. You need me, alive and cooperative, with my code intact. And the only way you get that is on my terms. Threatening me with torture and death didn't work for the MCP, and it's not gonna work now."
"As for the games, 'stakes' implies that everyone involved is betting willingly. What the games are now aren't even games. They're just a showy way to derezz programs who oppose you. Or eliminate strays that for the most part wouldn't exist if you were actually performing your function instead of acting like an MCP wanna be. You're not gonna get 'perfection' by consolidating or destroying until there's nothing more you can take away. And a system ruled by terror is never going even approach an optimal state."