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What do we see in AG this month?

Amos shows Gavia his left hook!
Ardent finds out what a "tailwhip" is.
Amos tells Alice's story - over her protestations.
That odd spot on the moon is explained.
The Pollster figures out a funny option to vote for!
The Praeses are actually the multiple personalities of Pintsize!
Purple Monkey Dishwashers!

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Author Topic: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015  (Read 61597 times)

retrosteve

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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #100 on: 11 Jun 2015, 21:43 »


There were AI's in this Universe...

Alice is either an immortal Human remnant of one of the two civilisations, or a highly advanced AI who is so close to Human it's virtually impossible to distinguish the difference.   I'm guessing she's not entirely Human in the terms we would understand them, but neither is she an AI Construct.

The Praeses are some form of lower level AI/Advanced Semi-sentient Computer Life left behind after the true AI's left.

'The Blink' may have been AI's taking a hand in ending a war that was ruining Earth before completely seperating themselves from the two societies - the new stars might actually be the AI's who have left to live beyond the Solar System, but still close enough to be seen and to watch over the system of their birth

Agreed with most of that, except the last. The new stars are new habitats for Humanity, and perhaps faraway ones for for the AIs too.

This sounds to me more like a Singularity event, where one of the AIs bootstrapped itself into super-sentience, became weakly godlike,  and reacted rather like Stross' Eschaton (or like Asimov's Olivaw, but with less subtlety). The reaction included removing AIs to elsewhere, scattering humanity to plenty of new planets, editing Earth to be livable again (and agrarian), preserving nanotechnology but only in space habitats where it could do less harm in case of a grey goo event, and leaving guardians like the Praeses and Alice to watch over humanity.

I think the Praeses would have to be semisentient, and Alice would have to be bio-modified actual human, just because if you are removing AIs, you have to remove all of them. Any full AI left behind could theoretically bootstrap itself just as the Eschaton did, and the current Eschaton either fears that as a threat to itself, or to Humanity, or both.

(Edit) p.s. On second thought, if the Eschaton fears AIs as a threat to itself, it didn't move them elsewhere, it deleted them all. So either the Eschaton doesnt mind company, or it has genocided/absorbed all other AIs. The rest of the reasoning seems to stand, either way.
« Last Edit: 11 Jun 2015, 21:55 by retrosteve »
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #101 on: 11 Jun 2015, 22:42 »

So Alice is either a genetically super enhanced human, or she's more human than human.
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #102 on: 11 Jun 2015, 23:14 »

So Alice is either a genetically super enhanced human, or she's more human than human.

Perhaps a super freak.
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #103 on: 11 Jun 2015, 23:24 »

So if the faction that survived after the Blink is that of the bio engineers, why do the Praeses have to be Semi-setient?  It would seem that if you don't trust AI you might instead want to engineer something akin to the Ents: rarely mobile, extremely long lived, perhaps made to decide things slowly as a direct opposition to the speed of AI thinking...  "let's not be hasty..."

If they are the Guardians of the space humans, they have to be fully intelligent but obviously non mechanical or completely artificial. Perhaps highly genetically modified individuals that started out as human normal? With Alice refusing to go along,  this might be a  source of the conflict between her and the Praeses?
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #104 on: 11 Jun 2015, 23:35 »

So Alice is either a genetically super enhanced human, or she's more human than human.

Or the power responsible for the deus ex machina wanted her on Earth, irrespective of what she is.

Maybe it's me but I get the impression that this was not random. Where people ended up depended a lot on who they are and what they wanted/believed. So, where Alice ended up was definitely due to the Deus Machine's analysis of her and her role in its solution.

Oh, you can be sure that it is around, somewhere. I think that it is directing events even now. What happened to Gavia and Ardent is almost certainly its doing.

PREDICTION:
The nanomachines that make up the Night Walker are part of the means that the Deus Machine used to edit the world.This is a good rreason to believe that it might be a threat to Gavia; she may confirm to its target profile.
« Last Edit: 11 Jun 2015, 23:42 by BenRG »
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #105 on: 12 Jun 2015, 01:03 »

Alice reminds me of Jones from Gunnerkrigg Court. But with emotion.
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #106 on: 12 Jun 2015, 01:45 »

Okay... Okay, I think I've got an idea what happened here.

In the last few decades leading up to the Sundering, mankind had divided up into three distinct factions
  • Technologists, who believed that the future was through ever more advanced computational, robotic and other related technologies;
  • Perfectionists, who believed that the future lay through genetic engineering and the optimisation of the ecosphere and the human body for any and all requirements;
  • Naturists, who believed that humankind's pursuit of any technology was erroneous and only by living in harmony with the natural world and themselves could humankind prosper.
As is always the case in these matters, no matter how enlightened the philosophical and organisational leaderships of these factions, their followers eagerly took up arms to 'defend' themselves from the others. As Alice rightly pointed out, the death toll from such an ideological struggle would have been catastrophic and her description of 'millions' of deaths could easily mean a struggle on the scale of World War 1 (18 million dead) or 2 (50 million dead).

I suspect that what happened is that a majority of the AIs consulted on this unacceptable situation. It is possible that they had something analogious to the First Law as an overriding priority. However, they had a very broad understanding of what 'harm' to humanity would include and it meant more than injury or loss of life. Loss of happiness was also included. Because of this, they executed a fantastically long-sighted plan. Rather than force a single solution or a simply destroy their enemies in the Naturist and Perfectionist factions, they gave everyone what they wanted. Using fantastically advanced technology, including nanotech and matter transmission and reconstruction, they deported the Perfectionist and Technologist factions to space habitats where they could live their lives as they chose. After the Sundering, they would continue to monitor events and, if necessary, act to ensure that the three groups never come into conflict, either within themselves or with each other, ever again. Semi-autonomous agents would be placed within the factions to ensure that the groups were steered on a path away from conflict.

Earth was cleansed by nanotechnology of the effects of war, industrialisation and pollution. The nanomachines were then placed on a 'watch' mode to prevent technology beyond the limits the Naturists wanted from ever working if it should appear ever again in any way. The AIs that dissented were either exiled with the Technologist faction and limits placed on their programming so they would be unable to undo this work or destroyed outright.

No harm...

However, not everyone and everything fit into their elegant solution. One was a particularly interesting child that came from the labs of a particularly brilliant and visionary group of scientists and philosophers. This child represented a hybrid of the three schools. She was human, of that no-one could be of any doubt - genetically unquestionably human and even born of a woman (although she was conceived through IVF). However, she had also been optimised using the most radical of the Perfectionists' ideas and also cybernetically augmented on a molecular level. The result was not truly nature, GMO or AI but a blending of all three. She was to be an example and a guide. She would show mankind the way away from conflicting extremes and towards a harmonious balance between all the beneficial paths to the future that could be imagined.

There was a considerably debate amongst the new merged AI godhead about what to do with this child. They were certainly powerful enough to destroy or modify without consent dangerous deviations if necessary (their treatment of their own dissenters proved that). However, they possessed very little capability to show what a human would call 'cruelty' and this child had committed no crime beyond (arguably) the fact of her existence. After trillions of processor cycles and a minute re-examination of every bit of data in the Global Datalinks from every possible ethical angle (something that took an unprecedented one and a half seconds to complete) the decision was to treat this child as every other intelligent being on Earth had been treated: she would be allowed to be happy. As her heart was with the beauty of the natural world and she gained joy from the work of her hands, she was placed with the Naturist faction. She was not truly one of them, the Deus Machina recognised. However, it was felt that this was the best possible fit for her and, it was felt, her particular nature and inclinations may yet prove useful in the long run.

The Deus Machine then settled back to a monitoring/maintenance brief. However, they were not gods. They were too clear-minded and knowledgeable to believe that even for a microsecond. They were aware that no calculation involving complex real-world systems, no matter how microscopically precise the measurement of variables, could be perfectly correct. They knew that, with time, chaotic factors would destabilise this system. Any attempt to maintain a static status quo was already doomed to failure, perhaps even catastrophic failure. So, as their programs dictated, they planned ahead.

No harm...

To be continued...
« Last Edit: 12 Jun 2015, 02:36 by BenRG »
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #107 on: 12 Jun 2015, 02:31 »

Part 2

Over the next few thousand years, the three human factions settled down in their new homes and, as intended, were content and prosperous, at least as their respective ideology reckoned things. The watching Deus Machine noted that their cultures had became somewhat insular and chauvinist with a certain condescending sense of superiority towards the other two factions. However, it was not considered to be a precursor of violent intentions and was even seen as somewhat useful in maintaining the groups' separation and mutual non-interference. Thus, their semi-controlled agents, such as the Praeses, were adjusted to maintain this attitude and guide it towards the most non-violent, paternalistic and separatist of mind-sets.

That said, the Deus Machine had noted something that it had always calculated was inevitable. Simply put, humanity was too complex and the various possible states of any given individual's consciousness too impossibly varied for every individual to fit perfectly and permanently into the current trinary solution. 'Shades of gray' was a very real issue. Transferring extreme deviant individuals and groups to different factions that more closely met their personal ideal was a temporary patch at best and one that only delayed somewhat the ultimate chaotic destabilisation of the system. Either conflict or stagnation leading ultimately to degeneration and collapse were becoming an inevitable outcome.

A fantastically complex non-linear calculation showed that the levels of intervention required to maintain the current status quo would continue to grow geometrically over the coming few human generations to the point where, within a relatively short time (maybe as little as 10,000 years), the complete elimination of free will and possibly even sapience would be the only viable option. This was, for a variety of reasons, completely unacceptable.

No harm...

Thus it was that the child, now a woman of astounding age, became the focus of the Deus Machine's attention once again.

The woman, who had chosen for herself the name Alice Grove (having cast aside the name the scientists gave her as a useless remnant of a dead epoch of human history), had endured the millennia. Her genetically-optimised biology and nanotechnological augmentations had made her functionally immortal. Possessed of a perfect editic memory and a bio-optronic neural net that could store many multiples of the the complete breadth of human knowledge without any significant degradation, she could achieve wonders with only the subtlest of efforts.

The Deus Machine had been fascinated to watch as she attempted to recreate the lost technology of ages past, carefully measuring out the 'red lines' beyond which the nanomachines left on Earth would not let her progress and finding loopholes through which she could circumvent them. They noted with interest her forays into human psychology, of learning how to control others behaviour simply by knowing how they think and providing the right nudges at just the right place and time to direct them in the path she felt best. The huge AI network realised that she was still, consciously or not, keeping faith with her creators. She was trying to find the middle path. Many of her efforts had even been so clearly beneficial to the descendants of the Naturist faction that, through its agents, the Deus Machine had subtly aided her in reaching her goals, ensuring appropriate technological products reached her, disguised as 'humanitarian relief' from the other two factions, that she would be able to reverse-engineer without triggering the vigilant nanomachines.

The very nature of the Deus Machine precluded pride. There was a limit to what they could foreknow and predict, as with any other physical creature and they felt no particular reason to deny this. The progress that Alice had made indicated that there may indeed be options available to resolve the issue of differing human perspectives on the future that they had not previously considered.

Maybe the time had come to, once again, re-open the 'edit window' of the great human equation and undertake large-scale and overt modifications.

No harm...

Firstly, however, the right agents needed to be chosen to avoid 'push-back' from the dangerously stagnant, chauvinistic and increasingly reactionary populations. Additionally, millennia of effective isolation and striving had begun to breed in Alice several degenerative personality disorders that her regenerative augmentations were not able to counter. It was determined that she required something to re-connect her with her shorter-lived brethren.

Two interesting potential vectors for change were quickly noted on one of the space habitats of the Perfectionist faction. The children of a Technologist who had turned his tools to the optimisation of biology and thus had been transferred to the faction that more closely matched his ideals, they were fine examples of what Alice had been created to pursue - the middle path; a merging of the products and attitudes of all three factions to a stable final outcome. All that was needed was to move the world-lines of their three existences into a converging path. Oh, it was certain that, in the short term, this intervention would cause small-scale chaotic outcomes, but the Deus Machine, after tens of millions of simulation runs, was confident that what they had set in motion would harness the increasing deviation from the trinary solution in a way that was non-destructive and may even allow them to come closer to a single-society optimum that they had long ago first attempted to find.

Thus it is that the past becomes the present and the story we have been reading in Alice Grove. The question remaining to be asked is this: Just how perfect is the Deus Machine? Has it really found a solution or, by placing three unpredictable individuals with often-illogical thought processes at the pivot of its new intervention, has it simply begun the undoing of all that it has done?
« Last Edit: 12 Jun 2015, 03:07 by BenRG »
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #108 on: 12 Jun 2015, 04:05 »

I'm gonna go back and read Benergy's post later to make sure he didn't say this, but here's my theory.

Alice is the one who blinked.
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #109 on: 12 Jun 2015, 05:51 »

I'm not sure it was Alice who blinked, but I suspect she knows who did. There is definitely more here than she's telling us.
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #110 on: 12 Jun 2015, 06:36 »

I'm calling it now.

Alice is Pintsize.
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #111 on: 12 Jun 2015, 06:54 »

"This led to a series of regional conflicts..." - I wonder what "This" refers to. The integration of sentient AIs into society as shown in QC, with factions pro and contra AI civil rights? And when the Blink happened - was humanity separated along these factions?
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #112 on: 12 Jun 2015, 06:54 »

You see, this is what people are warning about GMOs! Today it's larger tomatoes! Tomorrow it's space trees and cucumber ships!

Owing to an unforeseen difference in scale, the entire invading fleet was eaten by a small dog.
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #113 on: 12 Jun 2015, 06:56 »

Does anyone else find it odd that he's bragging about his right hook while brandishing his left fist at Gavia?

Or, if not odd, at least amusing?  8-)

He's the Fifth Stooge, v2.0: (Waves fist in face of target) "See this?" TARGET: "Yeah? So?" AMOS (stomps target's foot).
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BenRG

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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #114 on: 12 Jun 2015, 07:01 »

Alice is the one who blinked.

She'd be fantastically powerful if she was capable of doing that - god-tier+. She would have had no problem sending Ardent and Gavia back by her own power if it really was her.
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #115 on: 12 Jun 2015, 07:46 »

So.. we have two factions, the bio-engineered humans who went into space, and the AI builders who stayed on Earth? Which then got re-formatted to an agrarian society when *something* happened to end the AI wars? Gavia uses nanotech though, so the spaceborne haven't totally given up on computer tech.. Just the advanced thinking machines. It makes me think maybe the Praeses were maybe humans originally that where heavily modified with plant/tree DNA. Essentially giving up their humanity for greatly expanded lifespans to guide their civilization.

I wonder what keeps the spaceborne supposedly separated from the surface dwellers? Is it just lingering ideological differences? Some sort of actual barrier set up before or after the way to keep the societies separate? These answers just lead to so many more questions...
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #116 on: 12 Jun 2015, 07:53 »

So.. we have two factions, the bio-engineered humans who went into space, and the AI builders who stayed on Earth? Which then got re-formatted to an agrarian society when *something* happened to end the AI wars? Gavia uses nanotech though, so the spaceborne haven't totally given up on computer tech.. Just the advanced thinking machines. It makes me think maybe the Praeses were maybe humans originally that where heavily modified with plant/tree DNA. Essentially giving up their humanity for greatly expanded lifespans to guide their civilization.

I make it three groups:
  • The AI builders/nanomachine builders
  • The biotechnologists
  • A third anti-technology faction
The first two groups were sent to different space habitats. The third ended up on Earth forced into a pre-industrialised civilisation. The actual AIs themselves could be considered a 'wild card' fourth faction; we don't know enough about what happened to them as yet.

I wonder what keeps the spaceborne supposedly separated from the surface dwellers? Is it just lingering ideological differences? Some sort of actual barrier set up before or after the way to keep the societies separate? These answers just lead to so many more questions...

Based on what has been said before, a combination of chauvinistic contempt (note Gavia's comments about 'primitives' and even Ardent's habit of treating the locals like performing animals) and generations of societal programming through directed education.
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #117 on: 12 Jun 2015, 09:15 »

I wonder what keeps the spaceborne supposedly separated from the surface dwellers? Is it just lingering ideological differences? Some sort of actual barrier set up before or after the way to keep the societies separate? These answers just lead to so many more questions...
Judging from http://www.alicegrove.com/post/107925637899/exposition-finally, I suppose the praesides keep some sort of control about transport to the surface, and the spaceborne are for the most part indoctrinated to believe that the praesides know best. The earthlings, of course, lack the necessary technology to fly out to the colonies.

I think the praesides are sentient AI's, and they are also responsible for the Blink. Either because they felt responsible for mankind, or because they feared not being able to survive mankinds's self-destruction. Their tree-names could either mean that they run on plant-based computers (instead of electronics-based), or they could have been developed in a computer network whose administrator was a hobby botanist and got creative with the hostnames.
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #118 on: 12 Jun 2015, 09:18 »

This is very fascinating. So is Alice AI or is she protecting it (hiding its existence)? Is she human or not? Also, is this also supposed to be QC in the future? So fascinating and so many questions!
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #119 on: 12 Jun 2015, 09:45 »

The problem with the three faction theory is that Alice explicitly says that humanity split into two factions... One that developed AI and tech and one that took a biological approach. The implication is that the two factions went to war, not AIs vs humans. When the Blink happened most tech stopped working. People on the surface have developed into an agrarian society, while the people in orbit had their trees and bioenhancements and nanotech.

From what the siblings and Alice have said, there's more than cultural differences keeping them apart. Alice said it wasn't supposed to be possible for spaceborne to come to the surface. That the Praeses prevented that from happening. I'm beginning to suspect that Alice and the trees are agents of whatever caused the Blink. Meant to keep their societies in order, and separate. Yet despite that, Alice said she couldn't just get rid of Ardent when he arrived. She certainly has the power to do so, physically. And nobody would have dared question here if she went to the farm and saw Ardent sleeping and told them 'This didn't happen. You didn't see this boy. I'll take care of everything.' And then dragged him off to 'disappear' him. She was apparently willing and able to beat Gavia to death with her fists when she attacked shortly there after, which makes me think it's not a conscious that stayed her hand with Ardent, but rather a code or programming that she's not capable of breaking until her charges are in danger.
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #120 on: 12 Jun 2015, 09:47 »

The problem with the three faction theory is that Alice explicitly says that humanity split into two factions... One that developed AI and tech and one that took a biological approach. The implication is that the two factions went to war, not AIs vs humans. When the Blink happened most tech stopped working. People on the surface have developed into an agrarian society, while the people in orbit had their trees and bioenhancements and nanotech.

I interpreted it differently. The biotech and mechanism factions were at war. However, it made no sense for only the biotech factions to be sent into space (they're very obviously Ardent and Gavia's ancestors). So, it implies the existence of a third, non-tech faction that got left behind when the rest were exiled into space, which are the ancestors of the villagers.
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #121 on: 12 Jun 2015, 10:09 »

However, it made no sense for only the biotech factions to be sent into space
Why not? Because the earthlings don't seem to have any AIs and live a rather primitive life? Well, most technology was sabotaged during the Blink, so the remaining AI-programmers would have been unable to start again, and in time, the knowledge about AIs got lost among their descendants.
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #122 on: 12 Jun 2015, 10:13 »

However, it made no sense for only the biotech factions to be sent into space
Why not?

Because, for some reason, I can't see whoever was behind this wanting anyone to be forced into a life that they fundamentally don't want. If you were going to force people to live without technology for some reason, then why send the biotech faction into space at all? You're going to be stopping them just as well as you're going to be stopping the mechanical-tech faction.

I just get the feeling that whoever was doing this wanted everyone to get the world that they wanted and to stop conflict by giving them that gift when they are permanently away from the other groups.
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #123 on: 12 Jun 2015, 10:18 »

Alice is the one who blinked.

She'd be fantastically powerful if she was capable of doing that - god-tier+. She would have had no problem sending Ardent and Gavia back by her own power if it really was her.

Not if the mechanism used to perform the Blink was one of the things vanished by it.
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #124 on: 12 Jun 2015, 13:18 »

Alice reminds me of Jones from Gunnerkrigg Court. But with emotion.

Welcome, new person!

Interesting.

Another difference is that Alice doesn't seem to have Jones's curiosity.
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #125 on: 12 Jun 2015, 17:30 »

Wait, is Alice's world the far future of QC's world?
Because that would be freaking awesome.
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #126 on: 12 Jun 2015, 17:35 »

I think Jeph explicitly said somewhere that it's not the same universe as QC.
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #127 on: 12 Jun 2015, 19:50 »

Booooooooooooooooooo but not comic so doesn't count :p
Alice is the one who blinked.

She'd be fantastically powerful if she was capable of doing that - god-tier+. She would have had no problem sending Ardent and Gavia back by her own power if it really was her.
Who said she would have any problem sending them back? I see no indication that she's not able to do so, just that she doesn't want to. Maybe she's curious to see why they're not being let back in. (And why they were let out to start with.)
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Neko_Ali

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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #128 on: 12 Jun 2015, 21:39 »

Alice said so herself, before Gavia showed up. I'm sure she would be more than happy to get rid of her unwanted house guests if she could.

http://www.alicegrove.com/page/62
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #129 on: 12 Jun 2015, 21:46 »

Ahh. Then either she's not as powerful as she once was, or there are much more powerful beings than Alice. Or, you know, maybe sending people somewhere and removing AI (and, if I'm not mistaken, millions of humans) from existence are different skillsets. Who knows?
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Quote from: Polonius
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MR ARCHIVE-FU MADNESS
Does anybody really know what time it is?
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Is it cold in here?

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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #130 on: 13 Jun 2015, 08:27 »

Ben, do whatever you have to for income and health insurance even including a day job, but you are here on earth to write.
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #131 on: 13 Jun 2015, 17:40 »

I am the Eschaton; I am not your God.
I am descended from you, and exist in your future.
Thou shalt not violate causality within my historic light cone.
Or else.

Three factions makes more sense that the surface treatment might suggest.

Charlie Stross's Eschaton basically did exactly what this "blink" was but on a much larger scale (Of course, we don't know the full extent of the blink).

At some point, either AI went weakly god-like, a bioenhanced system went weakly god-like, or both.

I suspect Alice is neither. Alice is a victim, or serving a punishment, IMO. Of course, she might just be unlucky. The first (and last) of new breed of human who cannot die (unless you take her head). I obviously don't know, but I think an Eschaton was born. Unlike Stross's, this one either had nothing to fear from closed time-like curves, or is actively meddling to prevent either human society from creating more like it.

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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #132 on: 13 Jun 2015, 17:53 »

I'm getting A Canticle for Liebowitz vibe from this story.

I wonder where my copy is.
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #133 on: 13 Jun 2015, 22:16 »

Alice is a grumpy version of Tom Bambadil
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #134 on: 14 Jun 2015, 07:01 »

I'd be grumpy if I were her, too.

Think about what Alice was doing when we met her.

Fixing a wind turbine.

"Not our history," othering, being shunned by a community that would not exist without her. (Providing medical aid, advice od all sorts because she knows more.

I'm betting Alice wasn't always around this town, or the town wasn't always around Alice, but she's clearly been around long enough that the she "ought" to be a "natural" fixture and isn't. That's gotta hurt.

Of course, the whole "keeps to herself" thing is part of that problem, but bitter isn't rational, and Alice is strongly hinting that she can hold a grudge for a thousand years or more (Gordon Sumner would be proud).

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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #135 on: 14 Jun 2015, 07:32 »

Observations and questions:

1. We don't know that the regional conflicts that escalated into world war were between bio- and tech- factions. Since Alice mentions war machinery, it could have been AI-enabled factions fighting each other. Or not.

2. "Spaceborne"  means "carried in (or by) space." The "new stars" suggests there weren't any habitats in orbit until after the Blink. There was no orbital culture before the war.

3. Gavia and Ardent are from the same Spaceborne culture (in fact they're siblings), and one is bio- and the other tech-. This suggests that it's not a question of Earth=tech- descendants and Orbit=bio- decendants (or the reverse). Both factions were carried into space and the Earth was cleansed of both.

4. The Spaceborne culture is not necessarily any more in control than the Earthborne one. Spaceborne people could be as ignorant as the Earthborne, just living their lives in orbit. (Thus Alice's remark about Praeses not sharing their sap.)

5. Alice says that AI's "began integrating" into the tech- society. So AI's were not necessarily fully identified with the tech- culture. Did the AI's "blink?" And then withdraw?

6. Or was it aliens performing a surgical procedure, slicing away the "cancer" of tech- and bio- factions so that Earth could be left to a sustainable (if somewhat dimwitted) culture?

7. Does Alice perform the same function for the Earthborne as the Praeses perform for the Spaceborne? (i.e. benevolent dictatorial overlords.) You could argue that both Ailce and the Praeses are telepathic. In the case of the Praeses, they answer (or are expected to answer) calls made by their charges from anywhere. In the case of Alice, Alice is thoroughly familiar with the minutiae of in-town social interactions (she knows who wants to date Jebediah before he does) despite rarely leaving her home base.

8. Whatever the setup, Ardent and Gavia's appearance on the surface suggests something's up, and the old order may be about to shift. As Alice notes, neither ought to be able to be present on Earth.
« Last Edit: 14 Jun 2015, 10:34 by jheartney »
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #136 on: 14 Jun 2015, 16:36 »

It's getting very 2001-ish, but also smacks of Trigun (probably because of the potentially plant-based AIs).

Alice as Vash and Knives' younger sister....bad news XD
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #137 on: 14 Jun 2015, 18:38 »


7. Does Alice perform the same function for the Earthborne as the Praeses perform for the Spaceborne? (i.e. benevolent dictatorial overlords.) You could argue that both Ailce and the Praeses are telepathic. In the case of the Praeses, they answer (or are expected to answer) calls made by their charges from anywhere. In the case of Alice, Alice is thoroughly familiar with the minutiae of in-town social interactions (she knows who wants to date Jebediah before he does) despite rarely leaving her home base.


I don't think Alice is telepathic, just really observant and has thousands of years of experience reading body language.
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #138 on: 15 Jun 2015, 16:29 »

So Alice is either a genetically super enhanced human, or she's more human than human.

Perhaps a super freak.

Yow.

http://loopthetube.com/#QYHxGBH6o4M&start=149.4&end=151.80
« Last Edit: 15 Jun 2015, 16:40 by FunkyTuba »
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #139 on: 15 Jun 2015, 16:47 »

I'm calling it now.

Alice is Pintsize.

dangit you beat me to it!
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #140 on: 16 Jun 2015, 09:22 »

So.. we have two factions, the bio-engineered humans who went into space, and the AI builders who stayed on Earth? Which then got re-formatted to an agrarian society when *something* happened to end the AI wars? Gavia uses nanotech though, so the spaceborne haven't totally given up on computer tech.. Just the advanced thinking machines. It makes me think maybe the Praeses were maybe humans originally that where heavily modified with plant/tree DNA. Essentially giving up their humanity for greatly expanded lifespans to guide their civilization.

I make it three groups:
  • The AI builders/nanomachine builders
  • The biotechnologists
  • A third anti-technology faction
The first two groups were sent to different space habitats. The third ended up on Earth forced into a pre-industrialised civilisation. The actual AIs themselves could be considered a 'wild card' fourth faction; we don't know enough about what happened to them as yet.

I am slightly siding with the two faction model. If only because I think (at least here) of nanotech as being part of biotech rather than AI+electronics. True, we more often associate nanotech with superminiaturized electronics, but may be it won't go that way, and the nanobots are closer to being biological rather than AI. In other words, the war was about Carbon vs. Silicone.
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #141 on: 16 Jun 2015, 13:25 »

Or, and this is my own speculation here, countries and factions did what they always have done and are still doing.
The presence of AI or not and political and religious differences may have been the lubricant to the wheels of war but the axle and treads of war are always the same in the end - kill them and take their stuff.
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #142 on: 16 Jun 2015, 13:28 »

My current guess is that Alice is the butt-rocket in the far future.
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #143 on: 16 Jun 2015, 13:37 »

So she's a space probe full of porn that attained sentience?
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Re: Alice Grove MCDT - June 2015
« Reply #144 on: 16 Jun 2015, 14:00 »

According to Pīntsize's math, Alice would have become porn when the blink happened.
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