Schlock Mercenary VIII: insAIne in the mAInfrAIme

[Onyavar]

I think what's being introduced is a consciousness speed limit, you can terraport this far with your 'soul', but not the distance that is planned for Virtual Embassy University. (Go VEU Jeopards!)

Teraports are limited by matter density. It has once been explained in-comic. Inside the galaxy, it's not a problem, but inter- and extra-galaxy ventures require an increase of energy that makes it virtually pointless. Hence Petey needed his core engine to make it possible.

We've had people transmitted to Andromeda before now, that ought to be much further than these all-stars or whatever they are.

Roughly a similar distance, I'd say.
Petey had his footholds in Andromeda: The Toahdfraugs, the tricameral assembly, the Kraken, the underwater civ... By my guess, Petey has not been able to reinforce their positions for a while, and can barely keep communications. Or if he HAS been able to strengthen these footholds, it has required an amount of energy that is on par with all his other efforts.

And "all his other efforts" means the domestic matters that have increased by a thousand times since he declared war on Andromeda. He was used to have "god mode", as he called it many years before... but he has expanded his "internal affairs" to encompass the entire galaxy, he needs to micromanage thousands of crisises without completely alienating everyone else, fend off various Pa'anuri attacks beside the sharpshooter ones, and still go forward. The longevity treatment and the struggle for fabricating enough PTU components have complicated matters. Basically, the various galactic powers have also achieved a limited god-mode and are encroaching Petey.

[HandofShadows]

I don't think that is exactly what going on. I think Kevyn is saying that the mind/soul gets teraported along with the body, and he's trying to create a mathematical model of something that can't be measured in a conventional sense.

I think this might be a path to true immortality. If you die, your mind could be teraported out and put in a new body.

[factotum]

I think this might be a path to true immortality. If you die, your mind could be teraported out and put in a new body.

Why do they need that? The nannies they have already give them effective immortality.

[The Glyphstone]

If the core components of the mind can be isolated to that degree though, it could be a route to making consciousness independent of corporeality. Even the AIs still exist 'in' their hardware.

[Grim Portent]

Spoiler: courtesy spoiler

Show

So Kevyn's recreating the tech the All-Star and Iafa used to preserve people's minds in a computer bank.

I'm not clear on why this is meant to be troubling? Consciousness is already able to be duplicated, bodies are already dissolved and rebuilt by the terraport, death is reversible and the boundary between man and machine is basically semantics at this point. All this represents is the ability to more efficiently transfer people from one body into another, but presumably the nannies in the body left behind can just restart it and now you're in a situation that's hard to distinguish from just having a brain scan in a computer.

[Max_Killjoy]

This is where I thought we were headed after the last few strips. Sucks to be right.

[Kornaki]

Grim, it's troubling because every data point we have says this will be used to commit a form of genocide, even if you didn't intend to when you started.

Maybe a better combination of facts to help convince you:

Petey thinks one of the more likely explanations for why the Galaxy keeps going extinct if sapient species is the ai goes crazy and kills everyone.

We have two examples of ai killing (for some definition of killing) everyone using this tool.

Petey says "oh, but they probably had a good reason for doing that. I want it too"

Kevyn.... Builds it for him? Is he not informed of how other people have used this?

You don't even need a crazy ai, just one that has slightly different morals. In the black hole bomb event if Petey had this available would he have risked everything trying to stop it or just slurp up the whole Galaxy then GTFO of there.

[JavaScribe]

So, why is this scarier than a normal teraport? Does it bypass teraport denial?

[Max_Killjoy]

So, why is this scarier than a normal teraport? Does it bypass teraport denial?

Because it basically sucks the target out of their body and uploads their mind into a cage.

[HandofShadows]

Why do they need that? The nannies they have already give them effective immortality.

Tell that to Tagon. You can't, not the original one anyway because he's dead. The nannies can only do so much and after that your immortality is a new person being built from your backed up memories.

[Grim Portent]

Grim, it's troubling because every data point we have says this will be used to commit a form of genocide, even if you didn't intend to when you started.

Maybe a better combination of facts to help convince you:

Petey thinks one of the more likely explanations for why the Galaxy keeps going extinct if sapient species is the ai goes crazy and kills everyone.

We have two examples of ai killing (for some definition of killing) everyone using this tool.

Petey says "oh, but they probably had a good reason for doing that. I want it too"

Kevyn.... Builds it for him? Is he not informed of how other people have used this?

You don't even need a crazy ai, just one that has slightly different morals. In the black hole bomb event if Petey had this available would he have risked everything trying to stop it or just slurp up the whole Galaxy then GTFO of there.

That just makes it a mass kidnapping gun, one that generally plops you into a pretty nice virtual world based on the AI created virtual worlds for dead people. It's substantially less bad than what the Gatekeepers were doing, or the Pa'anuri are doing, or what happened at Oisri and happened again on Earth with nannie hacking.

In the two circumstances we've been shown the alternatives to using the device was probably to just let people die en masse, which if it really bothered them to be uploaded rather than dead, those ones could have just requested deletion after being uploaded, or ask to be put in a new meat body and then killed if the lack of meat was the problem for them.

As is Petey could kill an entire planet just by terraporting them into space, or blowing up their star, or vaporising their world with a long gun, he's more than shown the ability to destroy basically everyone, this is just a method that doesn't actually kill anyone.

[JavaScribe]

Because it basically sucks the target out of their body and uploads their mind into a cage.

Can't you already do that with a normal terraport and the upload nannies? This just skips a step.

[Kornaki]

In the two circumstances we've been shown the alternatives to using the device was probably to just let people die en masse, which if it really bothered them to be uploaded rather than dead, those ones could have just requested deletion after being uploaded, or ask to be put in a new meat body and then killed if the lack of meat was the problem for them.

Let people die en masse, according to the questionable ai that made the original decision. Notice they never let those people back into meat bodies after the threat was over. I maintain my point: if Petey had this technology during the black hole bomb plotline, he might have decided a better tactic than fighting would be to just schlurp the whole Galaxy up for their own good. I am starting to suspect that is exactly what keeps happening. Ai figures out how to do this, and does it as soon as a threat of questionably existential magnitude arises. All those world ships out there might be running from their own overly protective nanny ais.

[DeTess]

As is Petey could kill an entire planet just by terraporting them into space, or blowing up their star, or vaporising their world with a long gun, he's more than shown the ability to destroy basically everyone, this is just a method that doesn't actually kill anyone.

And I think that might actually be a problem, as it increases the odds of him actually deploying this weapon.

[keybounce]

Here is my take on this:

After you have used this consciousness teleporter/gatherer, is there anything left in the original body?

i.e. -- does this make a copy of the person, so now there are two versions of the ability to think/plan/decide, or does it remove (somehow) what makes it tick, so that what is left behind is, for lack of better terminology, a soulless copy that is more animal than thinking self-aware intelligence?

[HandofShadows]

Considering the look on Pete's face when he found out I'm not sure he likes this tech in any way. He's looking at it as a dead last resort when all else has already failed. Pete is keeping all this options open, even if he does not like them.

Hmm. I occurs to me we haven't seen any person who's had this thing used on them get put back in the meat body. They might control a meat body, but not put back in one. They should be able to do it... but maybe not.

[HouseRules]

Objects closer to source of gravity usually have shorter orbit, but dark matter and dark energy is what most modern scientist believe to be the cause for galaxies to have the same orbits. That is, starts closer to the center of the galaxy does not have shorter galactic year.

Teraport capabilities become more efficient with light matter and light energy, so expenditures focus more on the potential dark matter and dark energy. Thus, as Teraport technology expand, they are painful to dark matter entity because of the bias towards light matter and light energy.

[Grim Portent]

Let people die en masse, according to the questionable ai that made the original decision. Notice they never let those people back into meat bodies after the threat was over. I maintain my point: if Petey had this technology during the black hole bomb plotline, he might have decided a better tactic than fighting would be to just schlurp the whole Galaxy up for their own good. I am starting to suspect that is exactly what keeps happening. Ai figures out how to do this, and does it as soon as a threat of questionably existential magnitude arises. All those world ships out there might be running from their own overly protective nanny ais.

Iafa's decision was checked out by an uploaded Oafan who then agreed with them, and the All Star is populated primarily by uploaded minds who collectively make decisions. In the former case the protective AI was deemed correct by it's overseers and in the second the decision was made by normal people* with a super computer for a brain.

The only problem I can see is Iafa for some reason felt guilty and so cut contact with their handlers and refused to ever give them bodies back and just mind wiped themselves, and the All Star is super paranoid about being discovered and are hesitant to let people leave in the state they arrived at a more appropriate time. Oh, and having made their decision to help people at a time that coincided with a powerful cult of religious fanatics who decided to genocide people rather than let them be uploaded.

*normal alien people anyway.

[Rockphed]

Iafa's decision was checked out by an uploaded Oafan who then agreed with them, and the All Star is populated primarily by uploaded minds who collectively make decisions. In the former case the protective AI was deemed correct by it's overseers and in the second the decision was made by normal people* with a super computer for a brain.

The only problem I can see is Iafa for some reason felt guilty and so cut contact with their handlers and refused to ever give them bodies back and just mind wiped themselves, and the All Star is super paranoid about being discovered and are hesitant to let people leave in the state they arrived at a more appropriate time. Oh, and having made their decision to help people at a time that coincided with a powerful cult of religious fanatics who decided to genocide people rather than let them be uploaded.

*normal alien people anyway.

Iafa was a "normal" person uploaded to a computer. I think his name was Maiaioufua before committing genocide.

[Grim Portent]

Iafa was a "normal" person uploaded to a computer. I think his name was Maiaioufua before committing genocide.

You are correct, I just went looking for the right bit, The original controller was an uploaded oafan archeologist called Mnelaelae. When she started uploading oafans Yaeyoefui, who was already dead and uploaded, was asked to overthrow her from within. Upon completing the usurpation Yaeyofui just started uploading oafans faster and then eventually mangled themselves into Broken Wind then became Iafa.

[Max_Killjoy]

Anyone else getting the sense that virtu-Kaff and virtue-Murtoaugh aren't "just friends"?

[halfeye]

Anyone else getting the sense that virtu-Kaff and virtue-Murtoaugh aren't "just friends"?

They're dead people walking, they might as well have fun while it lasts, it won't make a difference to their attitudes to the inhabitants of the vessel.

[Ibrinar]

dead people walking? Why wouldn't they stay in that simulation semi permanently?

[halfeye]

dead people walking? Why wouldn't they stay in that simulation semi permanently?

Yeah, they can do that, but they're not going home. Once their job is done, they're not plot relevant any more, they don't have bodies to go back to, or any way back to where they were.

Dead people walking may have been a clumsy way of phrasing it, but it had the virtue of being short, which I like a lot.

[HouseRules]

Maybe they will use Teraport to bring the copies back into the bodies to synchronize them.

[Max_Killjoy]

Take a look under the comic, Keliana Tayler has a kickstarter going.

[factotum]

Um, yes, in galactic terms three trillion kilometres is *incredibly* close? It's less than a third of a light-year!

[Xanyo]

Wow, looks like vTagon has developed some wit. Bravo for the inclusive "or".

[halfeye]

Wow, looks like vTagon has developed some wit. Bravo for the inclusive "or".

Yeah, that was funny. It may be usual in English that "or" is logical "xor", but in logic "xor" is different from "or".

[Onyavar]

Um, yes, in galactic terms three trillion kilometres is *incredibly* close? It's less than a third of a light-year!

Right.

Unless they are using the international long-scale definition of trillion, where a trillion comprises of 1000 billiards and 1'000'000 billions.
In which case, 317'100 light years is not close at all, and definitely not something Petey should be proud of.

So it must be the short scale at work here.
In empty intergalactic space, an intruder THAT close has not just entered your "very big lawn" around your premises. He is clinging to the upstairs window of your children dinosaurs.