Editing The Simurgh (section)

===Her Drives===
[[Eidolon]] created the Simurgh with a fundamental drive to go to war against him.<ref name="II19.z e6">She had other drives.  To go to war against her creator.  To these ends, she created a nemesis.  She made him better.  He freed people, upset the system, disrupted the process, and in that, he created the chaos that would keep her simulation from being too sterile. - [https://www.parahumans.net/2020/02/23/infrared-19-z/ Excerpt] from [[Infrared 19.z]]</ref> However, because he unknowingly built her from greater structures intended to salvage a situation where the host species eliminated itself, she also has a drive to collect, consolidate, and sort information<ref name="II19.z e5">She was built out of greater structures intended to salvage a situation where the species eliminated itself.  Future-looking, she would create a forced simulation.  It was worse than an organically emergent simulation, but in a process that saw the planet revolve three hundred times around its star, it could be necessary in the final years, consolidating and sorting information, forcibly exploring the resources the planet had to offer.<br><br>That was her drive, as much as water and food were necessary for this life she farmed out and put to task in a greater system. - [https://www.parahumans.net/2020/02/23/infrared-19-z/ Excerpt] from [[Infrared 19.z]]</ref> produced by [[parahuman]]s and humanity in a world of conflict.<ref name="II20.8 plan">This whole plan, the idea was to give them exactly what they wanted.  The Simurgh wanted a fight, wanted conflict, everyone on the planet pushing themselves to the limit, testing a system she’d set in motion.<br><br>Well, she’d got that.  Contained to this one facility.  With ''her'' as our primary enemy, more than each other.<br><br>Now Fortuna wanted to end the world.  We needed to help her do that.  If we balked, if we stopped… we lost.  Hesitation when parrying an incoming strike was death.  My early sparring with Manpower had taught me that much.  It was especially true when your opponent was a hundred times stronger than you, if not stronger. - [[Last 20.8]]</ref><ref name="II19.z e8">Three or four billion years would pass before one of the entities returned to this world.  In the interim, she would keep this world alive, and she would glean all knowledge that the minds of this world could produce.  Every means of suffering, every desperate solution, every invention and inspiration. - [https://www.parahumans.net/2020/02/23/infrared-19-z/ Excerpt] from [[Infrared 19.z]]</ref> The Simurgh describes these drives as being just as fundamental to her as water and food are for humans.<ref name="II19.z e5" />

If she is unable to fulfill any of these drives, she will take actions that work towards making them possible again. When [[Gold Morning]] occurred, the Simurgh concludes that [[Scion]] is now an obstacle to remove;<ref name="28.x e10">But she faces an obstacle that she is utterly blind to, now.  No apparent past or future.  In interacting with it, she is limited to context.  She sees not the obstacle, but she can see things that are set in motion around it.  She cannot see it strike, but she can see the reaction, the aftermath.<br><br>She sees the stone fly out of the darkness, and she can determine where it was thrown from.<br><br>There is a task to be completed, but things must be set in place first.<br><br>An obstacle must be removed.  This is critical, but she is blind to it.  This is the greatest problem she faces.  - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/09/17 Excerpt] from [[Interlude 28]]</ref> she starts planning for his death via hijacking [[Dinah]]'s [[Khepri]] plot<ref name="II16.3 eDinahPlot" /><ref name="discord eDinahFate" /> at the last minute<ref name="29.9 eRemindNote">“This isn’t a solution,” she said, without looking up.  “You said a second trigger wouldn’t work.  This is… it’s so crude you couldn’t even call it a hack job.”<br><br>The Simurgh’s screaming continued.<br><br>Dinah had left me two notes.<br><br>The Simurgh had reminded me of the second.<br><br>''‘I’m sorry.’''<br><br>It wasn’t an apology for the consequences of the first note.  No, Dinah hadn’t approached me since.  She hadn’t decided I’d fulfilled the terms and deemed it okay to finally contact me again.<br><br>Two words, telling me that something ugly was going to happen.  Directed at me.<br>[...]<br>But there was a possibility that it referred to ''me''.  That it was tied to our ability to come out ahead at the end of all this.  To some slim chance. - [[Venom 29.9]]</ref><ref name="SV eSimurghDinah">'''Wildbow:''' That wasn't the Simurgh apologizing. It was her reminding Taylor of what Dinah wrote.<br><br>'''Doctor Mod:''' Best Girl my blind eye! Thanks for the insight. Seeing that and even seeing Dinah in the final chapters I never thought of that. It feels like so long ago she got that note. Literally and in story!<br><br>'''Wildbow:''' What do you think Dinah was apologizing for, if not for Khepri? - Conversation with Wildbow on Sufficient Velocity, [https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/33897007 archived on Spacebattles]</ref> and also begins planning for events after his death.<ref name="II18.z strength" /> As she believes the [[cycle]] had failed and that the world would eventually be shattered after Scion's death if left alone,<ref name="II19.z e3">The cycle had failed.  If left to go on its own, the world would be shattered. - [https://www.parahumans.net/2020/02/23/infrared-19-z/ Excerpt] from [[Infrared 19.z]]</ref> the Simurgh explicitly intends to merge with [[Titan Fortuna]],<ref name="II19.z eStudy">So it went.  Machines tore into her and studied her.  This would play a part in removing three more threats from play.  Later, a subversion of this network in coordination with her integration with Titan Fortuna would let her spread her signal.<br>[...]<br>She abandoned the Machine Army, having given them what they would need later, and flew to the battlefield.  She was already prepared. - [https://www.parahumans.net/2020/02/23/infrared-19-z/ Excerpt] from [[Infrared 19.z]]</ref><ref name="II20.2 e2">It felt bad.  I was aware of the running clock.  The countdown Dragon had provided had shut off when she’d gone dark, but that was for Simurgh exposure.  We had another countdown- the time before she merged with Titan Fortuna and enacted her plan. - [[Last 20.2]]</ref> take control of Fortuna's network, and start creating a forced simulation.<ref name="II19.10 e1">“Let’s assume they have clear goals.  The Simurgh wants… ''that''.  Whatever that was.  Humanity under her sway, her with Titans, Endbringers, and an army of capes brought back from the dead to protect her.  Titan Fortuna wants to bring about the end of our world so their species can try their hand at replicating.  Both have similar endpoints.  But those are just that.  Endpoints.  What happens after the end?”<br><br>“The world is enslaved, or the world blows up,” Byron said.<br><br>“Immediately?”<br><br>“The slavery, it seems like.  The world blowing up… don’t know.” - [[Infrared 19.10]]</ref><ref name="II19.z e5" /><ref>Logic told me that this was one of our last shots.  We ''had'' to hurt her, take her down a peg so she couldn’t win that tug of war against Titan Fortuna and take over the entire system. - [[Last 20.3]]</ref><ref>''The reality we saw.  She connected to Fortuna and she screamed, and the world screamed with her.  We were entirely at her mercy.'' - [[Last 20.6]]</ref> In this forced simulation, humanity is in a caste system<ref name="II19.z e2">Elsewhere, other pieces of the same machine were being programmed with the impulses, needs and courses that would slot them neatly into the superstructure.  There were researchers, theorists, civil managers, stables, farms.  Populations were bred to bring out traits that would fit them to their role, refine their ability to think the way they needed to think for their roles.  Controlled randomness threw wrenches into the works, keeping minds agile and forcing them to adapt. - [https://www.parahumans.net/2020/02/23/infrared-19-z/ Excerpt] from [[Infrared 19.z]]</ref> and pushed to its limit<ref name="II20.8 plan" /> in a ceaseless struggle to hurt one another with provided tools and powers.<ref name="II19.z e1">Thirty years in the future, a child was programmed.  Messages, impulses, and a noise that ears weren’t receptive to reached into a pregnant belly and they filled the child with rage.<br><br>The mother held her belly with both arms as the child thrashed and kicked within its hot bath of amniotic fluid, smiling.<br><br>Every living thing was an extension of a greater machine.  These children would be trained, weeded out, honed, and made into exceptional weapons, before being flung at one another.  Powers would be distributed by a system, utilized against one another, analyzed, and broken down. - [https://www.parahumans.net/2020/02/23/infrared-19-z/ Excerpt] from [[Infrared 19.z]]</ref><ref name="II19.z e7">The baby here, when born, would join a caste of the population driven to find the worst and most inventive ways to hurt one another with the tools and powers they were provided with.  Brother against sister, kin against kin, in a ceaseless struggle from birth to deathbed that spanned generations.  Other segments of the population were made to work harder by the fear that they would be in the bottom seven percent of their caste, given over to people like the torturer this baby would grow up to become.<br><br>The mother felt pride that she herself had been programmed to feel, imagining the monster her child might become. - [https://www.parahumans.net/2020/02/23/infrared-19-z/ Excerpt] from [[Infrared 19.z]]</ref> Although the Simurgh acknowledges a forced simulation is not as ideal as an organically emergent one, she would be able to satisfy her drive to glean information in her remaining years.<ref name="II19.z e5" /> She seeks to establish a system that will last until another [[entity]] arrives in an estimated three or four billion years.<ref name="II19.z e8" /> Thus, she opposes Fortuna whose goal is to end the world early and then scatter to other planets.<ref name="II19.10 e1" /><ref name="II20.8 plan" /><ref>But she had to ask: how long had the sheet been there?  Had the answers been tampered with?  Were there details that needed investigating?<br><br>She could check of course.  The answer to that question was on the sheet.  But in the time it took to find it, there could be more tampering, more details changed.<br><br>She already had the answer, that the silver woman  had tampered.  But where?  She checked, and she found the answers.<br><br>A path that began with Auger fighting that was intended to end with her networked to all titans, ready to end this world and scattered haphazardly and limping to other stars and planets… instead ended with this silver woman in control of the network, humanity mad and savage.<br><br>A path that began with the host Valkyrie being made Titan, intended to end with the network largely complete, the silver woman dead, and the scattering due to happen in ten years… instead ended with the silver woman in control of the network, half of humanity deranged and fighting the other half.  To investigate ''why'' took time that the silver woman could use to gain purchase elsewhere.<br><br>A path that began with humanity devastated and dying of plague, the silver woman denied her pawns, the Titans assimilated into a greater cluster where Titan Fortuna herself was not in charge… instead ended with the silver woman in control of the network, a new, artificial humanity being created as playthings.<br><br>She checked again.  A path that began with physically attacking the silver woman… ended in the silver woman in control of the remainder of the network, humanity in tatters.<br><br>Every route she investigated was seeded with false data, poisoned fruit, and patches of shadow that lay over the path, the far side of those patches ruled over by the silver woman. - [[Radiation 18.z]]</ref><ref>“It’s Gimel’s apocalypse,” Antares said.  “Everything the agents were set up to do after Scion won or rounded up this cycle, they’re doing it now.  Cast aside the humans, accumulate raw power, then use that power to blow it all up and cast fragments of themselves in every direction.”<br>[...]<br>Antares cut in, “Nobody interrupted anything.  We disrupted it.  They’re staggering forward instead of doing this in a clean way.  Processes conflict, they can’t organize, so they’ll just steal energy and materials from ''us'', wiping us out, then destroy what’s left when they try and probably fail to make a coordinated exit.  We threw a wrench in the works, but the machine is still trudging forward, smoking and doing a lot of damage in the meantime.” - [[Interlude 17.z II]]</ref>

After [[Eidolon]]'s death, the Simurgh explicitly intends to recreate her creator to satisfy her drive to war against him.<ref name="II19.z e6" /> While building a cloning device<ref>“Actually, no.  I had suspicions, but the Endbringer making a baby wasn’t one of them.” - [[Teneral e.5]]</ref> during [[Gold Morning]], she hides it inside a weapon<ref>A glass tube, three feet across, seven and a half feet long, capped in metal at either end.<br><br>This will be step six in a nine step process.  For now, she puts it aside, buries it in a larger weapon, forming a decorative gun barrel around the glass.  The weapon will fire through other means.<br><br>The ones who observe her through cameras and with their own eyes will not report this.  They lack the background to know what this tube might be, and this event will be dismissed as unimportant or they will leave it to someone else to report.  The events are entered into a log, and the subjects overseeing the logs are either asleep or preoccupied. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/09/17/interlude-28/ Excerpt] from [[Interlude 28]]</ref> and refers to it as being cradled.<ref>The tube is fully encapsulated, hidden.<br><br>Cradled. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/09/17/interlude-28/ Excerpt] from [[Interlude 28]]</ref> She goes out of her way to protect this device in the ensuing fight against [[Scion]];<ref name="29.2 e8">He hit her, and he sent her flying through the crowd.  Capes were turned into bloody smears as she collided with them, and the Simurgh was driven to the very far edge of the settlement, to the beaches at the edge of the bay.  The countless guns were pulverized.<br>[...]<br>The Simurgh held one gun.  A single weapon she’d salvaged and sheltered with her body and wings in the instants before Scion had attacked her. - [[Venom 29.2]]</ref><ref>“A quarantine area.  ''That'' was the weapon the Endbringer was using.”<br><br>A gun.  It was dark gray with a faint green speckled coating on it, where one material had been broken down and incorporated into the outer coating.  There was a gouge in the side where a feather had cut the housing, but it was otherwise intact.<br><br>Over and over, the Simurgh had protected the weapon.  He’d seen it, had checked the footage, had seen her go out of her way to shield it with her wings.  She’d done it subtly, most of the time, events contriving to make it look more accidental than anything. - [[Teneral e.5]]</ref> however, she fails her objective as she loses it in the course of the battle,<ref>The weapon had been lost in the course of the battle, and the heroes had decided to minimize contact with the thing, locking it away. - [[Teneral e.5]]</ref> and [[Lung]] destroys the infant Eidolon with the help of [[Teacher]]'s [[precognitive|precognitives]]<ref name="E.5 eTeacherPrecogs">He was all too aware that he could be walking into her trap.  He had enough precogs around himself and, in that video, around Lung, that the Simurgh shouldn’t have been able to leverage her full power against them, but she could have put things in place, not knowing exactly who, but still knowing it would be bad. - [[Teneral e.5]]</ref> after Gold Morning.<ref>The light caught the glass, at first, obscuring the contents.<br><br>A baby.  Male.  With large ears and a large round nose.  Not attractive, as babies went.<br>[...]<br>Lung touched a burning hand to the glass, melting it.  Water steamed on contact with his claw.<br>[...]<br>The water was crimson and boiling by the time Lung withdrew his claw. - [[Teneral e.5]]</ref> Ten minutes after Lung's success, the Simurgh personally confronts and stares at him before returning to orbit.<ref>“The… incident?” Teacher asked.<br><br>“Ten minutes from now,” a student said.  “He growls a bit, but there isn’t anything we can make out.  He was just walking, and our camera follows”<br>[...]<br>He stepped up onto the surface, his clawed feet sliding where they were too long and wide to fit on one..<br><br>The Simurgh was waiting.<br><br>Lung was her height, bristling with scales.  She looked more human of the two, pale, her hair blowing a bit in the wind, unreadable.<br>[...]<br>“She returned to orbit.” - [[Teneral e.5]]</ref> Although she makes no further attempts to clone Eidolon over the next two years,<ref>“Things are better this time,” Sveta said.  “We’ve learned from mistakes.  It’s a fresh start.  The Endbringers are dormant, we’re finally building things without them being torn down all the time.” - [[Flare 2.6]]</ref><ref name="II8.12 e1" /> the Simurgh plans on recreating him to be her nemesis once she has merged with [[Titan Fortuna]] and set up her forced simulation.<ref name="II19.z e6" />

Should the Simurgh notice a non-sabotaged individual trying to build legitimate spaceships to mass evacuate [[Earth Bet]], she would make attempts to corrupt or destroy this individual and hence keep being able to satisfy her drive to glean information.<ref name="SB massEvacuate" />