Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days

[Max_Killjoy]

I had a horrible thought yesterday.

What if it's not Chinook's history as TAGII that's causing the problem?

What if it's the Oafan hardware, and the terrible crime that Iafa can't remember, that they committed while running on the same hardware Chinook/TAGII is now, involved a similar scenario with long guns?

What if this is about to be made even worse by handing the hardware over to Iafa all over again?

[Kantaki]

I had a horrible thought yesterday.

What if it's not Chinook's history as TAGII that's causing the problem?

What if it's the Oafan hardware, and the terrible crime that Iafa can't remember, that they committed while running on the same hardware Chinook/TAGII is now, involved a similar scenario with long guns?

What if this is about to be made even worse by handing the hardware over to Iafa all over again?

...

Well, thank you very much for the nightmares.
I mean, it's not like I need the sleep.

Some day I'll learn not to browse the forum in the evening...

[Onyavar]

I had a horrible thought yesterday.

What if it's not Chinook's history as TAGII that's causing the problem?

What if it's the Oafan hardware, and the terrible crime that Iafa can't remember, that they committed while running on the same hardware Chinook/TAGII is now, involved a similar scenario with long guns?

What if this is about to be made even worse by handing the hardware over to Iafa all over again?

Uugh. The "AI is crazy because of long forgotten crimes" has been used before (most notably Petey). Just as the "AI is crazy because it has been left alone for too long." (most notable TagII and krrr kutsk afa)

These scenarios dont cause me nightmares but yawns. But Howard is good enough to vary the theme so there is a New twist.

[Xanyo]

No twisting necessary - while they deal with Chinook, the Longunner of Anonymity is lining up his next shot, metaphorically speaking.

[Max_Killjoy]

Iafa, do the thing!

[PraetorDragoon]

Hopefully we are shown the thing.

[RatElemental]

Meh, the replicants of the Maxim 39 crew won't be the same as the people on the ship for it's last few seconds/minutes/hours. But they're indistinguishable from themselves from a week before. Are you a fake if you get really drunk and totally forget what happened to you last night? Those memories and actions are all gone after all. To continue with the analogy most anyone would choose to go on living even if he knows his last few days' memories will be wiped. Deleting random parts of their memories and personalities is a tougher question but still many many people choose to live even then.

Best answer I can give you is continuity. I know you're consciously aware of your surroundings right now. It is my view that if you were utterly annihilated, and then an exact duplicate down the the spin of the quarks in your atoms was constructed, even from the same exact atoms, the 'consciousness' that is you is probably not the same because the continuity was broken. To everyone else, the copy is you. To the copy, it is you, To you, you are dead. The reverend expressed a similar view early on in the comic. A common response to this is that falling asleep would mean you are dead, but even while asleep you are still conscious on some level (see: dreams) even if you don't remember it afterwards.

I don't have the relevant knowledge to make a claim on blackout drunkenness one way or the other.

[JavaScribe]

To everyone else, the copy is you. To the copy, it is you, To you, you are dead. The reverend expressed a similar view early on in the comic. A common response to this is that falling asleep would mean you are dead, but even while asleep you are still conscious on some level (see: dreams) even if you don't remember it afterwards.

I don't have the relevant knowledge to make a claim on blackout drunkenness one way or the other.

Does that mean getting frozen in carbonite would be no different from dying, and the person unfrozen is a different person from the person that was frozen? Personally, I would say yes. But we are already different people than we were a few seconds ago. For all practical purposes, it's essentially the same person and the only difference is philosophical.

[guttering flame]

Does that mean getting frozen in carbonite would be no different from dying, and the person unfrozen is a different person from the person that was frozen? Personally, I would say yes. But we are already different people than we were a few seconds ago. For all practical purposes, it's essentially the same person and the only difference is philosophical.

Agreed. For a rl example there's surgical sedatives and medical induced coma. Or passing out after a knockout.

As for the experience of death, that's true. The Schlock Mercenary viewpoint isn't bogus. Doesn't mean the newly made clone is a totally new individual. He obviously isn't. The fact everyone in this society uses the technology means that they think so too. Losing a bit of time and exchanging the materials that compose their bodies is not that great a deal in the end. We're just stuck with that way of thinking because in our world that's how things work (for now). If we were intelligent amoeba our understanding of Life, Death and Individuality would be very different.

[halfeye]

If we were intelligent amoeba our understanding of Life, Death and Individuality would be very different.

There is a word for intelligent amoeba: Shoggoth.

[Doran]

Or a carbosilicate amorph.

[Lapak]

There is a word for intelligent amoeba: Shoggoth.

Or a carbosilicate amorph.

Iafa! Iafa! Cthuschlock fhtagn!

[Lvl 2 Expert]

There is a word for intelligent amoeba: Shoggoth.

Or a carbosilicate amorph.

Speaking of this: didn't we have like a red maxi-schlock librarian running around who was concerned about the end of galactic civilization a while back? Didn't that thing join the fleetmind or something? Any chance it will have some input on the current situation?

[Max_Killjoy]

Speaking of this: didn't we have like a red maxi-schlock librarian running around who was concerned about the end of galactic civilization a while back? Didn't that thing join the fleetmind or something? Any chance it will have some input on the current situation?

It was an AI archive created by the Gatekeepers -- it went insane and killed everyone in a surviving Buthandi (sp) fragment because it thought that the next galactic cycle couldn't tick over as long as it existed, some nonsense about being the "observer" and the universe "quantum locked" by its existence.

[HandofShadows]

Was it created by the Gatekeepers? They had "possession" of it, but their creation of it is a different question. It may be that it's a left over from an earlier time period. In fact it hints at being very old given the speed of observations. Maybe it's seen sentient life wipe itself out many times and that's one reason it's gone nuts.

[memnarch]

Ran into this on a reread. I think she's trying to go back.

[tonberrian]

I'm just going to put this out there. Babylon Abbey is inherently flawed. It's using the wrong Captain.

Clearly it should be Archer, not Janeway.

[Rockphed]

I'm just going to put this out there. Babylon Abbey is inherently flawed. It's using the wrong Captain.

Clearly it should be Archer, not Janeway.

The real problem is that they got Optimus Prime all wrong. And I don't mean the voice: they cloned the original voice of Optimus Prime from the 1980s. No, they somehow decided to make Prime be azure and scarlet when everyone knows that he should be navy and fire-engine.

[Potato_Priest]

At this point, I'm rooting for Chinook. A nice apocalypse is just what this comic needs to put the Toughs back where they should be: on a single ship, killing people for the highest bidder and not caring a whole lot about morality outside their own roster. For me, these are the portions of the comic that I enjoy most and where the story is the most compelling. That kind of lawlessness and independence could potentially come from a not-so-total-annihilation event, and that's what I'm hoping will happen.

[Doran]

Spoiler

Show

aw, I liked Putzho - gave the setting a The Culture feel. hopefully he still has backups.

[PraetorDragoon]

I'd assume only the meatforms were destroyed. But we can only guess because we aren't shown anything these days.

[Leon]

Or that the hack succeeded and she has been rewritten to believe that they are to give some breathing space

[factotum]

Or that the hack succeeded and she has been rewritten to believe that they are to give some breathing space

It would have to be a pretty major rewrite for her to suddenly not realise that entities who interface with her in virtual space must perforce be AIs, so destroying their body is not going to have an effect.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

At this point, I'm rooting for Chinook. A nice apocalypse is just what this comic needs to put the Toughs back where they should be: on a single ship, killing people for the highest bidder and not caring a whole lot about morality outside their own roster. For me, these are the portions of the comic that I enjoy most and where the story is the most compelling. That kind of lawlessness and independence could potentially come from a not-so-total-annihilation event, and that's what I'm hoping will happen.

We're supposedly heading to the end of the story:

An anniversary is as good a time as any to announce something I've let slip in other places: I have an end in mind for the strip. No, it's not coming at the end of Book 13. It's probably five to eight years out, maybe Book 18, or perhaps 20.

We're currently in book 18.

From what I read in another announcement the strip will continue, but with some sort of new cast at some point in the future of the current universe. Now that everybody is immortal loads and loads of familiar characters might still survive to be in that story, but supposedly if anything the end of current story line will make the strip change more rather than reverting changes.

[Onyavar]

Wow, im relieved by that - forgot about that announcement long ago. It's sad if I can't read new schlocks every day, eventually, but at least it won't continue forever, something i feared for some years now. Of course we first need a Finale Furioso.

If a new story starts in a distant-future schlockverse, I bet that we'll see humans as new bradicors.

[tonberrian]

Man this is going to suck so much for Elf when she finds out that the kittens don't want to kill her and she has to put the ship back together.

[Rockphed]

Man this is going to suck so much for Elf when she finds out that the kittens don't want to kill her and she has to put the ship back together.

Hopefully there is a pile of things next to the black water reservoir waiting to get pushed in, rather than things getting chucked in the black water reservoir as they get used.

[RatElemental]

I'm not sure if I should enjoy the little bug lady more or less as a character given this strip.

Definitely less as a person, but she might end up in a similar boat to Belkar... if the comic wasn't playing all this so straight, anyway.

[factotum]

I'm not sure if I should enjoy the little bug lady more or less as a character given this strip.

She hasn't changed, though? Since her introduction she's always had absolutely no empathy. Just look at the way she treated her patients.

[RatElemental]

She hasn't changed, though? Since her introduction she's always had absolutely no empathy. Just look at the way she treated her patients.

I took it for enthusiasm. She was at least fixing the issues and (as far as I know) doing it without much pain. This was the first time it was obvious callous disregard.