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Post by warrl on Dec 2, 2021 2:45:38 GMT
Due to our discussions about "She Gave Us An Ocean" I reread the chapter and realized something I had forgotten. All the time the angel avatar is telling the unnamed robot how he "must", "needs to..." etc. The possibility of choosing not to get a new body is not even given. It is claimed there is no other possibility. Who does S13 think he is, pushing the other robots into a life changing event that can never be reversed like that? It probably can. Just ask someone to take the chip and stick it into another tin can. But yeah, it's “will be” every time. I was going to suggest that it was acting on a choice the robot had previously made... but it wasn't. The robot had been denied the choice, and turned into one of the hood ornaments sustaining the shield... with, apparently, its mind shut down. Then its CPU was swiped and taken to where the conversions are being done. Reactivating it *as a robot* may not have been an available option at that time.
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Post by DonDueed on Dec 2, 2021 3:32:51 GMT
Due to our discussions about "She Gave Us An Ocean" I reread the chapter and realized something I had forgotten. All the time the angel avatar is telling the unnamed robot how he "must", "needs to..." etc. The possibility of choosing not to get a new body is not even given. It is claimed there is no other possibility. Who does S13 think he is, pushing the other robots into a life changing event that can never be reversed like that? It probably can. Just ask someone to take the chip and stick it into another tin can. But yeah, it's “will be” every time. The new bodies don't contain the chip, though. The data is downloaded into some sort of organic medium.
That leads to the interesting question as to whether that process is destructive, or if the original chip remains intact. If the former, the process really is irreversible (unless the chip is first copied and saved somewhere). If the chip remains intact or can be recreated, in theory the chip could be reinstalled in the old robot body and bob's your uncle. But that wouldn't automatically eliminate the New Person instantiation.
It's a bit like the transporter problem in Star Trek, where it seems to kill the original person in the process of creating a copy elsewhere. Is the New Person even the same entity as the original robot?
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Post by saardvark on Dec 2, 2021 13:07:43 GMT
It probably can. Just ask someone to take the chip and stick it into another tin can. But yeah, it's “will be” every time. The new bodies don't contain the chip, though. The data is downloaded into some sort of organic medium.
That leads to the interesting question as to whether that process is destructive, or if the original chip remains intact. If the former, the process really is irreversible (unless the chip is first copied and saved somewhere). If the chip remains intact or can be recreated, in theory the chip could be reinstalled in the old robot body and bob's your uncle. But that wouldn't automatically eliminate the New Person instantiation.
It's a bit like the transporter problem in Star Trek, where it seems to kill the original person in the process of creating a copy elsewhere. Is the New Person even the same entity as the original robot?
If it's really, as you say, just that "the data is downloaded" into a new body, it's quite possible the process could be non-destructive, and thus reversible. But it also implies Kat could make multiple copies of any original robot. She doesnt appear to be doing this though - she's preserving each bot's individuality. Making copies/clones would start to feel like she's making an army of identical slave/servant/drones, which is quite the opposite of Kat's concept. She wants to free them, not re-enslave them! As for is the NP the same entity... its the same mind in a new body. So yes, and no!?
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Post by pyradonis on Dec 2, 2021 21:54:06 GMT
Due to our discussions about "She Gave Us An Ocean" I reread the chapter and realized something I had forgotten. All the time the angel avatar is telling the unnamed robot how he "must", "needs to..." etc. The possibility of choosing not to get a new body is not even given. It is claimed there is no other possibility. Who does S13 think he is, pushing the other robots into a life changing event that can never be reversed like that? It probably can. Just ask someone to take the chip and stick it into another tin can. But yeah, it's “will be” every time.
It probably can. Just ask someone to take the chip and stick it into another tin can. But yeah, it's “will be” every time. I was going to suggest that it was acting on a choice the robot had previously made... but it wasn't. The robot had been denied the choice, and turned into one of the hood ornaments sustaining the shield... with, apparently, its mind shut down. Then its CPU was swiped and taken to where the conversions are being done. Reactivating it *as a robot* may not have been an available option at that time. Yes, but not making the transfer and instead waiting until the danger to the Court had subsided was an option...that was not given to the robot in question. And while having its mind stalled/overridden while projecting the shield probably wasn't its dream job, it's good to be useful. And what could be more useful than protecting the Court and both its organic and artificial citizens in time of danger? If presented with all available choices, the robot might have asked to have his CPU put back into its current body as soon as possible, so it could again help keeping the shield up.
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Post by lemmingatk on Dec 3, 2021 2:35:17 GMT
Hot take: Green Eyes was Boxbot.
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Post by blahzor on Dec 3, 2021 18:36:22 GMT
Due to our discussions about "She Gave Us An Ocean" I reread the chapter and realized something I had forgotten. All the time the angel avatar is telling the unnamed robot how he "must", "needs to..." etc. The possibility of choosing not to get a new body is not even given. It is claimed there is no other possibility. Who does S13 think he is, pushing the other robots into a life changing event that can never be reversed like that? A cult leader Drink the kool-aid
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Dec 3, 2021 19:59:45 GMT
I heard a rumor that humans were originally robots until a angel decided to free them from their metal cages He gave us an ocean... of Kool-Aid.
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Post by TBeholder on Dec 6, 2021 9:14:28 GMT
The new bodies don't contain the chip, though. The data is downloaded into some sort of organic medium. That leads to the interesting question as to whether that process is destructive, or if the original chip remains intact. If the former, the process really is irreversible (unless the chip is first copied and saved somewhere). If the chip remains intact or can be recreated, in theory the chip could be reinstalled in the old robot body and bob's your uncle. But that wouldn't automatically eliminate the New Person instantiation.
It's a bit like the transporter problem in Star Trek, where it seems to kill the original person in the process of creating a copy elsewhere. Is the New Person even the same entity as the original robot?
To me it still makes more sense as not a problem, but a solution. If it's really, as you say, just that "the data is downloaded" into a new body, it's quite possible the process could be non-destructive, and thus reversible. It's sufficient "if just that the data is downloaded": once read, it's fully and trivially clone-able. Just dump the stream from the buffer to arbitrary amount of storage devices, including more of those fancy optical chips. But then, those are golems, so there's probably more to it than easy-to-juggle data. If Kat used that arrow as the prototype transfer system, that's probably not because she couldn't make a cable adapter.
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Post by philman on Dec 6, 2021 11:00:42 GMT
Hot take: Green Eyes was Boxbot. Oh no, Boxbot's New Person form will be much more terrible...
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Post by maxptc on Dec 7, 2021 6:41:57 GMT
Boxbot didn't survive the most recent attack. It was terrible; Boxbot was completely torn apart then ground into a fine powder. But the Loup wave also caused a lot of damage so it's not true redemption for the unpredictable pup.
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Post by Corvo on Dec 8, 2021 12:54:40 GMT
Boxbot didn't survive the most recent attack. It was terrible; Boxbot was completely torn apart then ground into a fine powder. But the Loup wave also caused a lot of damage so it's not true redemption for the unpredictable pup. Actually, after so many years of neglecting, his software was too out of date to install the shield protocols (good thing too, cause he'd probably find a way to screw up the whole shield), and he wasn't there when the forest crashed into the Court. He was still torn apart and ground into fine powder though. You don't cross the New People, man.
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Post by blahzor on Dec 8, 2021 13:17:33 GMT
Following my prediction that Robot will choose a name by the end of the current chapter I shall also predict Robots name and that name is Annie Jr
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Post by maxptc on Dec 15, 2021 7:09:30 GMT
With so many of the robots choosing random and the parameters that setting has, we might never get to see the full range of possible bodies the new people could have. We don't really know the limits of the technology, but Jerrek's potential green man body suggests you could get pretty crazy with it.
I guess my wild spec is that from now on everyone we meet is potentially a new people, that dover demon being the main example. It just made a really poor choice and can't communicate it. Also memory loss, so it's deeply disoriented.
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Post by mturtle7 on Dec 16, 2021 23:57:54 GMT
With so many of the robots choosing random and the parameters that setting has, we might never get to see the full range of possible bodies the new people could have. We don't really know the limits of the technology, but Jerrek's potential green man body suggests you could get pretty crazy with it. I guess my wild spec is that from now on everyone we meet is potentially a new people, that dover demon being the main example. It just made a really poor choice and can't communicate it. Also memory loss, so it's deeply disoriented. Robot has kidnapped Annie, Kat and Renard, and replaced them with New Person Seraphs! None of the other New People know about this, though; they're completely taken in by the deception.
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Post by maxptc on Dec 17, 2021 1:28:28 GMT
With so many of the robots choosing random and the parameters that setting has, we might never get to see the full range of possible bodies the new people could have. We don't really know the limits of the technology, but Jerrek's potential green man body suggests you could get pretty crazy with it. I guess my wild spec is that from now on everyone we meet is potentially a new people, that dover demon being the main example. It just made a really poor choice and can't communicate it. Also memory loss, so it's deeply disoriented. Robot has kidnapped Annie, Kat and Renard, and replaced them with New Person Seraphs! None of the other New People know about this, though; they're completely taken in by the deception. Tony also became a new person just before that, in a different independent plot done by the other new people without Robot or the Seraphs knowledge. Annie, Kat, and Renard were all immediately suspicious because of its human like behavior.
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Post by speedwell on Dec 17, 2021 10:44:41 GMT
Of relevance. BBC article about AII think that the BBC journalist didn't think deeply enough about the fact that we and our AI have a symbiotic relationship. But that sort of thing is out of scope for a short article.
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Post by AluK on Dec 27, 2021 10:27:02 GMT
I'm getting vibes that there will be a conflict soon and some of the new robots will perish in the process.
Annie will help them across to the ether and, in doing so, she'll complete two things:
- she'll become the robot psychopomp, fulfilling her deal with the other psychopomps - Kat will be shot into full on godhood
Making them kinda sorta two complementary halves, as we've seen in a lot of the treatises.
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Post by AluK on Dec 29, 2021 14:15:08 GMT
As a continuation to my previous WS:
God Kat will find a way to relocate the Court without the Shadow Men shenanigans, but in doing so, she'll retroactively create the Seed Bismuth, setting into motion the events that lead to the comic themselves.
Retroactive causality, the best kind of causality.
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Post by TBeholder on Dec 29, 2021 14:36:30 GMT
Of relevance. BBC article about AII think that the BBC journalist didn't think deeply enough about the fact that we and our AI have a symbiotic relationship. But that sort of thing is out of scope for a short article. You didn't think deeply enough about the fact that it’s a force multiplier for stupidity. The journalists, as a rule, don't think much at all, whether deep or shallow. Consider the infamous Cupcakes demo incident, in which a journalist (misidentified as “game journalist”, but he turned out to be a business journalist) was outperformed at puzzles by a pigeon (the specific breed not identified).
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Post by speedwell on Dec 29, 2021 15:25:34 GMT
Of relevance. BBC article about AII think that the BBC journalist didn't think deeply enough about the fact that we and our AI have a symbiotic relationship. But that sort of thing is out of scope for a short article. You didn't think deeply enough about the fact that it’s a force multiplier for stupidity. The journalists, as a rule, don't think much at all, whether deep or shallow. Consider the infamous Cupcakes demo incident, in which a journalist (misidentified as “game journalist”, but he turned out to be a business journalist) was outperformed at puzzles by a pigeon (the specific breed not identified). You didn't think at all that I might have been making a hobby of cognition styles, including AI, for over 30 years, I suppose. That's OK. I can certainly sympathise with the urge to make discursive mountains out of the molehills of a laconic comment.
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Post by batsugars on Dec 30, 2021 7:43:46 GMT
The Shadow Men are planning to leave the court and go "across the ocean." This is a very vague destination; why doesn't Shell know where exactly the court is moving to? Maybe she just hasn't shared it with us yet, but maybe there's a deeper reason why the location is so vague.
Where else has an ocean been mentioned recently? Robot uses the ocean as an metaphor for the expanding minds of robotkind, during the body transfer process in "She Gave Us An Ocean." I assumed it was a one-off way to explain the real benefit of the new bodies, but what if the court's "ocean" isn't physical either?
WILDSPEC: The court is going to relocate across not a physical ocean, but a metaphorical one: the limits of the human mind. That's why they need a massive source of ether so badly. They're finally going to transcend the ether!
Note that Omega's connected to the big ocean move, too (as we see depicted in "Behind It All"). I saw great theories elsewhere on the forum that Omega is connected to Kat - more specifically, the Kat from the original timeline, who could have originated the angel legends. Maybe it's not a coincidence then, that Kat is the one who gave the robots an "ocean," and that the ocean metaphor came from Robot, who's heralded the angel's coming for a long time now. HMMM
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Post by blahzor on Dec 31, 2021 8:38:47 GMT
The Shadow Men are planning to leave the court and go "across the ocean." This is a very vague destination; why doesn't Shell know where exactly the court is moving to? Maybe she just hasn't shared it with us yet, but maybe there's a deeper reason why the location is so vague. Where else has an ocean been mentioned recently? Robot uses the ocean as an metaphor for the expanding minds of robotkind, during the body transfer process in "She Gave Us An Ocean." I assumed it was a one-off way to explain the real benefit of the new bodies, but what if the court's "ocean" isn't physical either? WILDSPEC: The court is going to relocate across not a physical ocean, but a metaphorical one: the limits of the human mind. That's why they need a massive source of ether so badly. They're finally going to transcend the ether! Note that Omega's connected to the big ocean move, too (as we see depicted in "Behind It All"). I saw great theories elsewhere on the forum that Omega is connected to Kat - more specifically, the Kat from the original timeline, who could have originated the angel legends. Maybe it's not a coincidence then, that Kat is the one who gave the robots an "ocean," and that the ocean metaphor came from Robot, who's heralded the angel's coming for a long time now. HMMM They are going across a ocean Kat gave the robots a ocean They will cross over into a single ultra AI
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Post by blahzor on Jan 4, 2022 2:44:05 GMT
Going off something I thought up in the retrospective thread
The seed bismuth was created by a Kat (maybe the original one that made this timeline paradox) to create the court. It makes way more buildings than needed for the population because it was programmed that way in anticipation for events that will happen in Kat's timeline. I.E. some of them destroyed and the influx of NP's who will need actual living spaces and Forest people who will want to stay behind
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Post by madjack on Jan 8, 2022 0:01:43 GMT
Based off the latest revelation that the Court wants to move to a new location to start again without the ether:
Annie can't go with them. She'd be torn from her etheric half, and that would start to slowly kill her in much the same way as passing it on to Annie killed Surma.
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Post by warrl on Jan 8, 2022 19:26:55 GMT
(inspired by #2569 discussion) Hm... Coyote exists (existed?) because humans willed him into existence. He's an embodiment of Will. So are all the other beings that came into existence because humans chose to believe in them. Reynard, Ysengrin, the Norns, the fairies, the chickcharney, the sapient animals... What the Shadow People organization wants to do is destroy free will. This goes beyond advocating an absolute dictatorship, because (if they completely succeed) the dictator wouldn't have free will either. Whether they are aware of this is undetermined.
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Post by pyradonis on Jan 10, 2022 14:10:01 GMT
(inspired by #2569 discussion) Hm... Coyote exists (existed?) because humans willed him into existence. He's an embodiment of Will. So are all the other beings that came into existence because humans chose to believe in them. Reynard, Ysengrin, the Norns, the fairies, the chickcharney, the sapient animals... What the Shadow People organization wants to do is destroy free will. This goes beyond advocating an absolute dictatorship, because (if they completely succeed) the dictator wouldn't have free will either. Whether they are aware of this is undetermined. Is it always a choice to believe in the existence of these creatures? If you grow up and from the beginning on your parents/peers/religious teachers/... tell you that these creatures exist, and no one else ever questions it?
Especially considering that as soon as they were brought into existence, these beings really DID exist. People who encountered them would have had zero reason to doubt the stories were all true. Once created, the Etheric creatures would continue to ensure their own existence by interacting with humans...
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Post by speedwell on Jan 11, 2022 15:17:44 GMT
Based off the latest revelation that the Court wants to move to a new location to start again without the ether: Annie can't go with them. She'd be torn from her etheric half, and that would start to slowly kill her in much the same way as passing it on to Annie killed Surma. That is, no doubt, why she was not chosen as the Court representative. I am sure it was not a shock to the Court that Coyote immediately countered by making her the Forest medium - and it may have been a significant relief to them to have a Forest medium under their thumb at Court rather than the difficult Ysengrin. Coyote took the longer view, realised he had Annie's alliance if not loyalty (the summer of Forest residence made her beholden to him anyway), and wasn't bothered by her Court residence as he realised she was actually more useful to him that way.
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Post by maxptc on Jan 12, 2022 0:51:11 GMT
New wild spec(I think): the Court telling Tony that Annie was going to be expelled from the program was a much bigger deal then we noticed. The headmaster is a Shadowman, postioned well enough to be 100% in on the grand plan. Tony and probably Donald know the plan, or at least rumors/the edges of the plan. The threat was that Annie would be left behind, and that is completely unacceptable to Tony, probably because the move is gonna kill everyone left behind.
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Post by madjack on Jan 12, 2022 5:05:49 GMT
Based off the latest revelation that the Court wants to move to a new location to start again without the ether: Annie can't go with them. She'd be torn from her etheric half, and that would start to slowly kill her in much the same way as passing it on to Annie killed Surma. That is, no doubt, why she was not chosen as the Court representative. I am sure it was not a shock to the Court that Coyote immediately countered by making her the Forest medium - and it may have been a significant relief to them to have a Forest medium under their thumb at Court rather than the difficult Ysengrin. Coyote took the longer view, realised he had Annie's alliance if not loyalty (the summer of Forest residence made her beholden to him anyway), and wasn't bothered by her Court residence as he realised she was actually more useful to him that way. This one got me thinking about ways the knowledge of the Court's plan would affect the story as we know it and what other things moving to somewhere without the ether will do. I was mulling it over when maxptc put forward their idea. New wild spec(I think): the Court telling Tony that Annie was going to be expelled from the program was a much bigger deal then we noticed. The headmaster is a Shadowman, postioned well enough to be 100% in on the grand plan. Tony and probably Donald know the plan, or at least rumors/the edges of the plan. The threat was that Annie would be left behind, and that is completely unacceptable to Tony, probably because the move is gonna kill everyone left behind. I was thinking at first it was the opposite. Either that the Court lied to Tony to get him back on the hook, knowing that Annie would be left out anyway, or Tony lied to Donald about the reasons the Court wanted him back because he couldn't talk about them. But the post above is the better answer, and to add a bit: His work with Surma almost certainly had a dual purpose, not just to save her life after passing the flame to Annie. Assuming he was deep enough in to have enough knowledge of the Court's plan, it was also to allow Annie to survive the separation of her fire from her, or it's possible starvation and fading away due to lack of natural etheric presence, so all three of them could make the trip as a family. I disagree that the act of leaving will kill anyone left behind, it's probably just that Annie would miss out on whatever Bright Future TM the Court has in mind. The question that is yet to be asked is if she even wants that future, whatever it is.
More etheric withdrawal effects on major characters: -Parley and Eglamore will probably have to de-power their bodies and get the wards removed, they may need some of them to keep up with the strain on said bodies. -Parley loses her teleportation and Smitty loses his luck. -Paz won't be able to talk to animals anymore. -Anja loses her etheric kinetic powers. -Renard and probably Cvet will not be able to go with them.
Edit: Welp, latest update chucks all that out, none of them are going.
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Post by speedwell on Jan 12, 2022 8:53:55 GMT
I disagree that the act of leaving will kill anyone left behind, it's probably just that Annie would miss out on whatever Bright Future TM the Court has in mind. The question that is yet to be asked is if she even wants that future, whatever it is.
More etheric withdrawal effects on major characters: -Parley and Eglamore will probably have to de-power their bodies and get the wards removed, they may need some of them to keep up with the strain on said bodies. -Parley loses her teleportation and Smitty loses his luck. -Paz won't be able to talk to animals anymore. -Anja loses her etheric kinetic powers. -Renard and probably Cvet will not be able to go with them.
Edit: Welp, latest update chucks all that out, none of them are going.I don't know whether that is necessarily the case. I've been thinking about whether all manifestations of "power" that we see are actually Ether-derived per se. The wards, in particular, seem to be something that Parley and Eglamore share with "other teachers", who may or may not be "inside" the Etheric boundary. Tony traveled widely, including places he thinks weren't "real places", and it's an unfounded assumption that all of the places he's been are "inside" the Ether, as well. Certainly at least a couple of people at Court have been "outside" the Etheric boundaries, or they would not be considering a wholesale move. The thing that I find incomprehensible at the moment is why the Shadow group wants to separate themselves permanently from the Ether and what they expect life to be like once they no longer have access to it. Shell is hinting that they would prefer to turn the Ether upon itself and destroy it altogether, with all that implies for Etheric beings. The only idea that makes sense to me is that a certain type of person just wants to destroy what they don't understand and can't control.
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