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Post by atrahasis on Sept 30, 2015 20:32:22 GMT
Note: I am aware that nothing resembling this would ever happen in canon, simply for out-of-universe reasons. (It would destroy any drama, it would contradict a lot of the main themes, and it's a little bit silly.) This isn't a guess about what's going to happen, it's a "hey, what would happen if..."
Okay, a few things about GC we know to be true, are heavily implied to be true, or are more-or-less accepted as true by most readers.
- The powerful beliefs of the dead, when they are dissolved into the Ether, cause reality to subtly change to match those beliefs.
- These reality alterations are capable of inducing divinity and power in mortal creatures.
- The robots of the Court believe that Kat is a divine being, a common theory (with a lot of evidence to back it up) is that this belief is shaping the Ether and transforming Kat into a god.
- Robots have their minds created from scratch to the specifications of the builder, something not stated in the comic but pretty obvious to anyone with a little common sense. (The Court doesn't just build robots that spontaneously develop personalities.)
- When robots are shut down, they die, and when you reactivate them, you raise them from the dead.
- An expert at building robots and a psychopomp are the best of friends.
Using this knowledge, I've figured out a theoretical way for the Court's mission to succeed and for Man to become God. You have Kat build a whole bunch of bodiless AIs that believe to the bottom of their hearts that X is true (X being something you want to be true.) These AIs would be incredibly simple, the artificial equivalent of animals, only complex enough to believe that X is true. This minimizes the potential unethicalness (I'm 99% sure that's a word) of what you then do to them. You then shut down the AIs, "killing" them. Then, you have Annie guide the disembodied minds of the "Dead" AIs into the Ether, who take their limitless belief that X is true into it, shaping the Ether. Then you turn the simple AIs back on, and you repeat the process until X is true.
This would essentially give the main characters limitless reality-warping abilities, though it would take some time to warp reality. Even if shutting down an AI or robot isn't a "true" death and doesn't create a disembodied mind to guide into the Ether, all you have to do is destroy the AIs and build new ones instead of cycling them on and off. A little less efficient, but ultimately just as effective.
The most obvious thing to make "X" would be "All sapient beings (All sapient beings, not just human beings. Wouldn't want to leave the Forest denizens out of utopia.) are omniscient, omnipotent, deities" (except with a lot more clauses and detail in case the Ether is like a dickish genie that gives you what you want in the least helpful way.) Thus, Man becomes God.
So, what do you think? Were this to be attempted (It's not), would it work? Would it be ethical? I think it would be "yes" on both counts. It's the metaphysical equivalent of a videogame exploit. It takes control of the universe from the mindless, capricious force of nature that is the "Ether" and gives it to sapient life. It's the ultimate victory of reason over chaos.
Also, I know I'm overthinking this in a myriad of different ways, no need to point that out. |
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Post by Jelly Jellybean on Sept 30, 2015 23:13:59 GMT
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Sept 30, 2015 23:24:28 GMT
Welcome to the forum, atrahasis! Leaving aside the ethical issues for the moment, I think the missing components would be that the AIs would need some sort of ether in their construction/operation, they'd need to be around long enough to have their own individual stories, and that they'd need a guide to bring them into the ether. Anja could potentially build such things, they could be programmed to believe in each other and that Kat is a goddess, and that they could all should commit suicide or something, and then Antimony could bring the residue (assuming everything was built to spec) into the ether. But the amount of ether that accumulates on Kat would only be a small fraction of what was being used in the operation of the AIs, so it wouldn't show results... at least not the first few dozen times this was done.  |
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radia
New Member
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Post by radia on Oct 1, 2015 1:03:59 GMT
Just wanted to point out that you can't really have more than one omnipotent being. |
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Post by atrahasis on Oct 1, 2015 1:09:02 GMT
Welcome to the forum, atrahasis! Leaving aside the ethical issues for the moment, I think the missing components would be that the AIs would need some sort of ether in their construction/operation, they'd need to be around long enough to have their own individual stories, and that they'd need a guide to bring them into the ether. Anja could potentially build such things, they could be programmed to believe in each other and that Kat is a goddess, and that they could all should commit suicide or something, and then Antimony could bring the residue (assuming everything was built to spec) into the ether. But the amount of ether that accumulates on Kat would only be a small fraction of what was being used in the operation of the AIs, so it wouldn't show results... at least not the first few dozen times this was done. First of all, thanks for the welcome. Why would the AIs need the Ether in their construction? Perfectly normal non-Etheric humans are completely capable of affecting the world with their beliefs. Unless biological minds work differently... Maybe Kat's organic robots are the key? |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Oct 1, 2015 1:42:48 GMT
Why would the AIs need the Ether in their construction? Perfectly normal non-Etheric humans are completely capable of affecting the world with their beliefs. Unless biological minds work differently... I'm guessing that there's heredity (for lack of a better term) involved. The human minds are grandfathered in because they're continuations of existing stories. We know ether is present in normal rain because ether can be extracted from it, so it should be present in normal humans even though they can't use magic and they appear gray in magic-vision. If you think of the Gunnerverse as a system of etheric flows (a theory that I developed from what we know about dying/haunting and that I bore the forum with once or twice per year) magic-using humans need not be physically different but they can ether flowing through them where humans, to the extent they have ether, just have it flowing in the normal materialistic processes. Think of it as a channel between their mind and the ether and then flowing out into the real world in whatever form their abilities might take; Zeta who can't control her abilities is a busted floodgate, to give an extreme example. A robot body could work a number of different ways, some would lend themselves to having more ether movement than others, and I suspect that the more complexity and etheric-containing materials (guessing that water would be superior to metal here) would be better suited to this purpose. Kat's tech could probably be modified to be useful if it isn't already. Just wanted to point out that you can't really have more than one omnipotent being. Not if you're talking about stories and the Gunnerverse is about stories. In different stories you can have all sorts of stuff. You can have one where the Easter Bunny is omnipotent, then another where the Coyote eats the Easter Bunny, and then have another story where he and the Easter Bunny deliver Easter eggs to all the good children of the world. |
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Post by warrl on Oct 1, 2015 1:56:46 GMT
Perhaps you could have deities who can do absolutely anything *unless* directly opposed by another deity. In which case there are various options for battle or negotiation to determine what happens. And then to minimize conflict they divide the world into areas of influence in some fashion...
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Post by Daedalus on Oct 1, 2015 2:32:59 GMT
atrahasis: I second the welcome to the forum!  In response to your original point: my headcanon has always been that the amount of "impact" your beliefs have upon the ether are proportional to the length and complexity of your life's "story" (represented by your final record, sort of). So if you made a bunch of AI and immediately sacrificed them to harvest their belief, you'd get very little return since they barely experienced anything before they left the world. Secondarily, I do think that robots' minds are not created by their builder, but rather arise emergently from their non-sentient components (with some help from the ether). Tertiary evidence is that, if it were that easy to achieve omnipotence, the Court would have done it years ago. They knew about Coyote's 'theory', and I assume they've tested it before. But your method is certainly possible, if my assumptions have been wrong
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Oct 1, 2015 3:39:34 GMT
{I}f it were that easy to achieve omnipotence, the Court would have done it years ago. They knew about Coyote's 'theory', and I assume they've tested it before. Perhaps not if it required a lot of resources or the use of critical equipment. That whole "not good enough if you can't explain it" attitude about using etheric tech suggests they don't make leaps and there are tons of "we can't explain it we just THINK this might be how this could work" in this theory. As in, there would be other things that they might not test before they would get around to not testing this. In addition to being looked down on as a theoretician Anja might be viewed as something of a mad scientist but a necessary evil for keeping Renard in check, for all we know. But on the other hand, all it would take would be one kook-burger in the Court with access... Perhaps you could have deities who can do absolutely anything *unless* directly opposed by another deity. In which case there are various options for battle or negotiation to determine what happens. And then to minimize conflict they divide the world into areas of influence in some fashion... I think my graduated dualism between ether and matter suits the Gunnerverse better and offers a built-in explanation for the RotD. That way there can be lots of causes, including material ones for the Court to find, and which one a character believes in is up to the character. Even to the point of fingerprints on the moon being caused by solar winds. [Holy crap, Proboards xeroxed and doubled the last part of my post. It's never done that before, must have read me bad-mouthing it earlier this evening.] |
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freeman
Full Member
That's what I said: blåkläder!
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Post by freeman on Oct 8, 2015 19:23:54 GMT
I'm feeling my hypothetical scenarios may be slightly controversial, so I decided to do something little different: veil them into a boring fake SCP that with some thought given reads even more offensively...
Item #: SCP-113-5925 Object Class: Safe Special Containment Procedures: SCP-113-5925 and its human host is currently housed in independent research organization GKC-113, also known as █████████ ████, Britain where she (the human host) attends "classes" like the most of the adolescent "students" of GKC-113. (See description.) Note, due currently effecting mutual cooperation and assistance treaty between the Foundation and GKC-113, SCPs that are "citizends" of GKC-113, may not be contained unless there's an imminent risk of K-class event to occur. (See list of Keter class SCPs currently housed at GKC-113 [FOR CLASS A PERSONNEL ONLY]). Description: SCP-113-5925 is a parasitic being of unknown nature, GKC-113 refers it as a "fire-elemental". Fittingly, this creature gives its host an array of abilities of supernatural nature, particularly assiciated with fire, including: - Setting things on fire that may or may not burn the item according to host's will.
- Controlling naturally occuring fire? [VERIFICATION NEEDED]
- Turning the host into a being of bright fire. (This is supposedly what a pure "fire-elemental" looks like.)
- Telekinesis.
- Astral projection.
- Abity to see and communicate with various "beings of aetherium" (GKC-113 term), including beings claiming to be psychopomps of various mythologies.
- [INSERT 01]: ability to partially disconnect from its human host / human host's ability to partially disconnect and de-sensitivize them from the effects of GKC-113-5925
SCP-113-5925 may affect the mood of its host, making them more agressive and impulsive. Procedures to quantify this effect should be deviced. SCP-113-5925 is "sexually transmitted", always reciding in human female host. After a host becomes pregnant and gives birth, she soon dies and SCP-113-5925 now inhabits her child, exhibiting uncanny family resemblance to her mother. SCP-113-5925's current host (A██████ C██████) is an adolescent human, attending class 9 of British education system (current year repeated). She has long currently short (bobcut with central parting) red straight hair, oval face, deep set eyes, small nose. Has previously woren pink eyshade and earth colored lipstick (habit currently abandoned with change of haircut). See pictures before and after. Her bodytype is slim and traight, with only slight bust. She's aproximately 5 foot tall. Note, her physical features may still change due on-going puberty.    1: Appearance in years 7-9. 2: Appearance in year 9 (repeated). 3: Incident 609, no further information available. Psychology-wise A.C. is assertive, mediating, but somewhat tempered and inattentive; her academic performance is poor though she is know to be fluent in several unlike languages, including Archaic Egyptian and Polish. GKC-113 psychologists reckon signs of parental neglect or possible abuse and related insecurities which may be used as leverage in Foundation-executed evaluation, these techniques must be implemented following the Leddis-Mot -protocol for humanoid subject with potentially deadly abilities, only carried out by specially trained class C personnel. Addendum 113-5925-01 Due recent events it might be possible that the Foundation may be able to contain SCP-113-5925 in its own facilities should it so will, but only periodic monitoring is fully sufficient containment procedure in the interim, for this host. Seeing this, Dr. Friman has compiled a set of working hyptheses to stydy or at least quantify this anomaly. Note, some of the above experiments may have been carried out by GKC-113 surgeon dr. A██████ C████ with her mother S███ S████. As of now, GKC-113 has refused to release any information. Agent ██████ ████ has found out that some of these experiments may have included presumably a minor SCP now only known as the "omega device" (GKC-113 codename). |
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Post by gunnerwf on Oct 9, 2015 5:48:56 GMT
The robots don't have a connection to the ether
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Post by warrl on Oct 9, 2015 6:30:14 GMT
The robots don't have a connection to the ether ... yet. |
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Post by Daedalus on Oct 12, 2015 7:16:32 GMT
The robots don't have a connection to the ether Check out the link in my sig. The possibility of future robots having an etheric connection has been explored there. |
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