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Hey everyone, it’s Matt again. I’ve got a bit of a headache at the moment, so I can’t guarantee this is going to be a long entry at all. I kinda wanted to touch on something that ties in with what I was talking about last time though. Today, I want to talk about the creature.
So, the one inhabitant of Ailuros that isn’t created by your mind is the creature. Don’t panic, you won’t necessarily encounter it. The creature is designed to be a proxy for the most destructive behaviours you’ll be suppressing. Basically, there are cues in the load up of the Alleviation Sim that will allow your brain to project these onto a non-human entity if playing out the behaviours with human characters would be too painful for you. It’s like a failsafe to protect your mental wellbeing.
This one, I can lay claim to.
My instructions were to create something that fit with the thinking behind Ailuros. In other words, something with enough familiarity to feel real, but enough fantasy to remind the brain that it’s not.
I did a lot of research for this one. It has elements of everything from bats and spiders to bacteria. It’s designed to be cruel and inhuman, but to behave like a predator you might find here on Earth. It’s also built to live in the microgravity setting.
Oh, and an earlier incarnation of it may have appeared in some of my fiction before.
I’m sorry. I can’t tell you more. It’s one of those things that I’m allowed to mention, but not to detail too much. That and my head is pounding. I’m going to check out for now. I might have to speak to my line manager, Sarah, and ask about testing for Neg-Vac side effects. Anyway. I’ll write more next time.