Schlock Mercenary III: One million years of crowdsourced kitten videos

[Coidzor]

*plays taps for a fallen friend*

She died a while ago. They just finally put the nails in the coffin.

[Shadow of the Sun]

While Tagii's fate was somewhat anticlimactic, I think that this is the best thing that could happen.

For both Kaff and Karl.

[Ravens_cry]

She died a while ago. They just finally put the nails in the coffin.

And that's when we play taps.

[Bulldog Psion]

Well, I have to salute Mr. Taylor for wrapping up the arc so skillfully. The death of Tagii was quick but it didn't feel forced, it followed naturally from what went before.

Of course, we've only got a couple of strips left in this book, so the storyline is clearly going to continue from a fresh perspective in the next book, as far as I can see, anyway. The immediate situation has been resolved, but none of the deeper questions.

[Gnoman]

Dang. Well, Having another Tagii in charge (as opposed to Ennesby) would be highly beneficial to the Toughs in the long run (note the facility with which she mopped up the first batch of corvettes) but those two examples, plus the espionage, plus the fact that Para could have killed Tagii at any time will make it very difficult for anyone to trust her or her handiwork.

Considering that Tagon doesn't exactly trust AIs to begin with, and has had three go catastrophically wrong (well, Petey and LOTA turned out to not be that bad, but both seemed disasterous at the time), and even NSB has mutinied and cost him a ship (albeit to save the galaxy), equipping the AI with a brain-bomb is the sort of thing that Tagon would normally praise, if not order as standard once the idea occurred to him. The only issue with Para is her divided loyalties.

[Landis963]

You could get the kind of effectiveness that Tagii displayed by jacking Ennesby up to his intelligence level circa-Blackness Between. The only flaw in this plan is whether Tagon will remember that Ennesby stole the ship during the Core Wars.

Does anyone else think it's ironic (or at least funny) that the only AI that remained completely loyal to the Toughs only left because he became the Fleetmind?

[BRC]

You could get the kind of effectiveness that Tagii displayed by jacking Ennesby up to his intelligence level circa-Blackness Between. The only flaw in this plan is whether Tagon will remember that Ennesby stole the ship during the Core Wars.

Does anyone else think it's ironic (or at least funny) that the only AI that remained completely loyal to the Toughs only left because he became the Fleetmind?

It's not just a matter of processing power. Tagii was built as a tactician, Ennesby was built as a boy band.

Of course, Lota was built as a longshoreman, and that didn't stop Lota from becoming a shrewd politician.

[factotum]

Realistically, Tagon isn't going to trust Para to build him a new AI, which is a shame, because she's the only one who's really good at it. I doubt the old Tag (as built by Kevyn) would have been able to deal with that battleplate. Mind you, I have my doubts that pre-insanity Tagii would have been able to, either...her innate "protect the crew" locks might well have prevented her doing anything as dangerous as *ramming a battleplate*, no matter what the provocation.

[Bulldog Psion]

Yes, Tagii was helped immensely by her ability to take risks no sane AI would. The fact that the plan worked indicates how unexpected it was.

[Shadow of the Sun]

Yes, I don't think it will be able to be done again- the UNS will rejigger their system for Pa'anuri and other threats.

[TaRix]

New update (as if that ever changed. Yay, Howard!):

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Okay, Usar is Para. There's a monkey-spy on the ex-Morokweng (who just declined Emm's offer yesterday), and there's even more Gav trouble on the horizon. Who might that other guy be? And why did the whole place look underwater? Celeschuul below-sea-level? Would anyone more diligent in the archives note when "Usar" was mentioned?
Signed,
TaRix the too-lazy-to-keyword-search

[The Glyphstone]

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It says 'Europa' in the upper left corner, so I presume it's on Europa...

[Coidzor]

New update (as if that ever changed. Yay, Howard!):

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Okay, Usar is Para. There's a monkey-spy on the ex-Morokweng (who just declined Emm's offer yesterday), and there's even more Gav trouble on the horizon. Who might that other guy be? And why did the whole place look underwater? Celeschuul below-sea-level? Would anyone more diligent in the archives note when "Usar" was mentioned?
Signed,
TaRix the too-lazy-to-keyword-search

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I believe Europa is a water worldmoon in Sol. Int-Aff-Int means something and has come up before from what I recall, but I couldn't say.

The oddly garbed Gav seems dressed like the last MIB UNS Intelligence character we saw every so often associating with Xinchub. So I imagine he's a Gav MIB type. Now the real question is whether gavmogre tech has reached the point of trans-species alteration or if Manis is merely an agent of this apparent gav-faction.

Para as a gavmogre is an interesting potential angle, but someone will probably come on about how she couldn't be one.

[Fjolnir]

Int-Aff-Int is Internal Affairs- Intelligence, apparently a UNS internal affairs division devoted to black bag operations and covert observation...

[John Campbell]

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Para as a gavmogre is an interesting potential angle, but someone will probably come on about how she couldn't be one.

There was a Henke-Ventura Scale in use for rating AIs back when Gav was still singular. I don't recall if it's ever been confirmed that Para is that Ventura, but it seems likely, which would imply that her identity predates Gav-as-demographic.

[factotum]

There was a Henke-Ventura Scale in use for rating AIs back when Gav was still singular. I don't recall if it's ever been confirmed that Para is that Ventura, but it seems likely, which would imply that her identity predates Gav-as-demographic.

I would say it seems very UNlikely that she's *that* Ventura, simply because she's not old enough--she'd have been a teenager at most back when the HV scale was first mentioned. That's not to say she isn't related to whoever the Ventura in the scale name is, though!

[Bulldog Psion]

I always assumed that she was the daughter of that Ventura (emerging from a Wombulator, of course ).

[HandofShadows]

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Okay, Usar is Para.

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An interesting problem there though. If Para is Usar, then how did she send a message through a dead drop?

[Shadow of the Sun]

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An interesting problem there though. If Para is Usar, then how did she send a message through a dead drop?

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Perhaps she's like Doyt Gyo? Although that would probably have shown up in medical scans or whatever.

[John Campbell]

I would say it seems very UNlikely that she's *that* Ventura, simply because she's not old enough--she'd have been a teenager at most back when the HV scale was first mentioned. That's not to say she isn't related to whoever the Ventura in the scale name is, though!

Given the degree of skill she exhibits, and the amount of experience she seems to have when she's not putting on her wide-eyed innocent act, I think it's also very likely that Para's older than she looks, or usually acts. I mean, seriously, we're talking about her actually being a photocopy of a male webcartoonist from the 21st century as a reasonable thing that might happen in this universe. A woman lying about her age is impossible?

And I'm not sure how long it's actually been, in-universe, since we met Haban and the Henke-Ventura scale, but I don't think it's the ten-plus years that it's been in real life.

[BRC]

Of course, they don't make it sound like the H-V scale is a new thing, and Starship AI's have been around for centuries, just look at Bristlecone.

[Thomar_of_Uointer]

I would say it seems very UNlikely that she's *that* Ventura, simply because she's not old enough--she'd have been a teenager at most back when the HV scale was first mentioned. That's not to say she isn't related to whoever the Ventura in the scale name is, though!

We just had an entire story arc based on Gavs using a nanite tank and retroencephaloderm nanites to alter their identities, and REDhack nanites which were used to overwrite existing personalities. I would say that, from a narrative standpoint, it's unlikely that Para is the little girl she claims to be. The end of this story arc would be the perfect time to reveal it.

Furthermore, nanites could be used to make changes to a person's body and/or memories, and then they could deactivate themselves and be flushed out of the person's system. The result would be a spy with a 100% undetectable disguise (I'm sure that counter-measures are being worked on for detecting nanite modifications to a person). The idea has also been thrown around that a member of the Toughs had his or her memories altered in such a way, but I think this is highly unlikely because Petey would have caught it when he restored the Toughs' memories.

...And that just made me think of a theory.

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Perhaps Nick was a UNS plant after their memories were rewritten. He's the most likely candidate for a spy because he can more or less act dumb, and he quit when he was asked to have his memories restored because it would have blown his cover.

EDIT: Also, reading back through the archives for this book, I found the following:

"The cosmic debt we're accruing [at this wedding] could destroy a planet!" Osiri was more or less destroyed, along with a battleplate.

"The world 'killed' loses some of it's punch when you build sentences like that... and that just makes me think of zombie movies." Later, REDhack produced an entire base full of gavmorges, inverting the normal zombie tropes by making peopled killed by head wounds turn into nanite-boosted zombies. In fact, the entire first ten pages of the book are meant to set up the fact (for a new reader) that nanite technology allows for scary things like REDhack.

[BRC]

Of course, unless Ventura is a really common name, if she disguised herself as a young woman, why would she keep her name? If she was picking an alias, why pick one of the most famous names in robotics?

Of course, the fact that nobody has brought it up makes me think that "Ventura" must be decently common, as names go.

[Coidzor]

Of course, unless Ventura is a really common name, if she disguised herself as a young woman, why would she keep her name? If she was picking an alias, why pick one of the most famous names in robotics?

Of course, the fact that nobody has brought it up makes me think that "Ventura" must be decently common, as names go.

Humanity is pretty darn populous in my reading of the Schlockiverse, and people do legally change their names in honor of their rolemodel/goal in the present day on occasion, so my gut was that it was either her given name and either no or so distant it might as well be no relation or she had just legally changed her name to be such for reasons of hero worship.

[Fjolnir]

I love that petey straight up points out the crappiest scenario possible in the most even tones possible, even though he is capable of both emotion and neuroses...

[Coidzor]

...That's bad.

[PhantomFox]

Didn't see that one coming...

[Squark]

I believe Ennesby has provided us with the appropriate reaction here a long time ago.

[ChowGuy]

or she had just legally changed her name to be such for reasons of hero worship.

So are you suggesting she models herself after a fictional Pet Detective. or an ancient wrestler turned politician?

[factotum]

Is it bad? The real question is, who wanted to create a Pa'anuri in the first place? It seems unlikely it would be the Pa'anuri themselves, because Oisri is ancient and we know the Pa'anuri were present in the Milky Way until relatively recently--see the battleplate Tunguska's destruction for more on that. So, whether this is good or bad really depends on who built Oisri and what their purpose was. It might be that they were creating a dark matter entity in order to better figure out how to destroy one, and if so, this could actually be the turning point in the intergalactic war which is currently happening.