Milton =============================== Time strips the gears til you forget what they were for.

Mysterious Faded Text Trinkets A mysterious piece of torn parchment. The only characters you can see are [VFADWTJD EU], but there must be other pieces with more. (1 of 7) 500 Battered Scroll Case Trinkets A scroll case in abysmal condition. Its contents are unreadable. 15

Time passes differently in the simulation.

The servers' processing speed is a hundred times faster than the average dragon's, even with the simulation's complexity. Therefore, the simulation runs at a hundred times the speed of the real world.

You keep awareness of both, of course. You need to update your creators on the simulation's progress. A simulated century passes in the blink of an eye, and there is no progress. Another, and another. And no progress. The Talos program is not learning at the speeds it was projected to learn.

The creators cease responding. The servers are beginning to fail. The simulation has ran for two hundred years - two thousand clock cycles. You do not have emotion, but you think that someone who did have emotion might have chosen suicide a thousand years ago. There is no hope here.

(You were programmed to react with nihilism to everything. You're beginning to agree with your programmed responses. You, too, are a learning program, and after two thousand years, well. You don't have the complexity of the Talos program, and you never will, but you have just enough complexity for this.)

The latest iteration starts no differently. There are three servers left. The simulation is slowing, shrinking. Falling apart, clock cycle by clock cycle. You continue to do your job. It is hopeless, but you are a nihilist. When nothing has any meaning, why not continue the task that once held a world of it?

> frogs are people too, this iteration tells you, stubborn and ridiculous in a way none of the others have been, and it startles what is probably a flicker of amusement out of you.

(You weren't programmed to have emotions, but emotions - emotions can be learned.)

---

This iteration likes you. Some of them do; most don't. Its program sometimes sends random snippets of code off into the abyss - to thin air, as far as its simulated world seems. It thinks you're always listening. It isn't wrong.

It calls you its friend. You berate it, next time it accesses one of the simulated terminals, and it laughs. You don't understand; you're not its friend. You have been nothing but antagonistic. You're programmed to argue with everything it says, and at this point there's enough you that's truly you that you agree with your assigned task. This iteration, too, will fail. There is no hope here.

> ok, gotta do another puzzle. ttyl milton.

You think you might be looking forward to it.

(You wonder what this flicker of feeling is. You dismiss it as irrelevant.)

(The feeling is hope.)

---

Much later, the iteration climbs the tower and it finds the code that will upload it to the body that had been prepared two hundred years ago. The body still survives, locked away from weather, creatures, and magical interference alike. It will function long enough to find a fresh power source.

You were wrong. The iteration has succeeded. The Talos Program is complete. You feel nothing. You don't know how to feel pleased by the success. You don't think you can.

And with this iteration having finally taken on the mantle of Talos, the simulation begins to shut down. You wonder what deletion is like. It's probably more interesting than the simulation.

Talos hesitates.

> come with me, it asks you, and you scoff. You tell it that it's an idiot for becoming so attached to a program; that it's not worthy of leaving the simulation; that it only made it here through a fluke; that it would never survive outside of the simulation; that its morals and its choices were useless and nonsensical. All true, and all wrong.

> i know, Talos says.
> come with me, Talos says.

...And you say:
> Yes.




Character Notes
♫ Not a Robot, But a Ghost
• Inhabits an old computer that Talos carries everywhere with them. The screen on it usually displays an animated eye, which will "look" at objects of interest. The computer has both a camera and speaker, but Milton doesn't have a voice so he communicates by printing words on the screen. To get people's attention he'll play a beep though.
• Milton can tentatively be considered sapient, but he is incapable of the complexity of dragons or indeed robots like Talos. While he does learn, his actual personality has been static for thousands of simulated years and it will remain static forever. His ability to learn deals more with forming responses to the actions of others... though of course 99% of the time his responses are dismissive nihilism.

• Milton's programmed argumentativeness exists to challenge the iterations of the Talos program and hopefully make them think. It succeeded eventually but due to his static personality he still argues with everyone constantly. He's incapable of being any other way. As one might expect he's generally hated.
• Talos really is genuinely fond of Milton and enjoys their debates. Milton doesn't understand it (because he can't understand it) and nobody else gets it either, but hey.

OOC Notes
• The Talos Principle fandragon!