Hivers Manipulating Positronic Sophonts

[Enoki]

Here's an interesting twist I came up with. I invented a race called the Ginsharians.

Ginsharian - Traveller

wiki.travellerrpg.com

They are quasi-organic robots that are sentient. As such, Hivers find the combination fascinating and at the same time extremely difficult to manipulate. This poses a challenge to them, much like playing a Go or Chess master would. Since most Hivers find it impossible to manipulate a Ginsharian, they hire them to operate their starships as they are better than straight AI at it. At the same time, they don't have to deal with those crew if they don't choose.

The second way they interact is as a challenge to prove their prowess at manipulation. Having proof of being able to have manipulated someone as difficult as a Ginsharian is an mark of honor. Look who I got over on!

Straight AI one can 'cheat' the system by knowing the programming. A Ginsharian is virtually immune to being hacked so finding a way to manipulate one successfully means you had to actually think it through for yourself. Since psionics won't work them you can't go that route either...

 

[bookwyrm]

Wow! Ginsarians are right next door to the Gateway Domain! (just did some reading on them in the Wiki...)... took some notes for future reference.

my name says it all. bookwyrm. between reading & movies, I've seen robots that want to kill all other sentient beings (or just certain beings), robots that 'live' among their creators as equals, and robots that serve their creators. or even a mix of the three or others that aren't mentioned or thought of yet.

when it comes to Manipulation in general, most if not all intelligent beings have an ability to manipulate others of their kind, or even beings of other races to a lesser or greater degree. I get manipulated by advertising every day, for example. manipulation can be subtle or direct. Hivers prefer subtlety over forceful Manipulations, but ask a K'kree how 'subtle' the Hivers Manipulated them!

Spinward Flow, I see where you are coming from now. but you will have to do a better job of Manipulating me to believe that cars manipulated society to choose them over horse drawn wagons. now if you were to say that the car manufacturers Manipulated society to purchase cars instead of horses and wagons/carts or a rivals car, then you have me hooked!

thanks for all the different ideas and directions on this subject.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Spinward Flow, I see where you are coming from now. but you will have to do a better job of Manipulating me to believe that cars manipulated society to choose them over horse drawn wagons. now if you were to say that the car manufacturers Manipulated society to purchase cars instead of horses and wagons/carts or a rivals car, then you have me hooked!

Challenge Accepted! (click the link to learn about "peak horse" economics)

 

[Condottiere]

Generally speaking, you create a demand for a solution that only you (or your corporation), can readily supply.

If the desirability of the product isn't immediately obvious.

 

[Enoki]

Wow! Ginsarians are right next door to the Gateway Domain! (just did some reading on them in the Wiki...)... took some notes for future reference.

my name says it all. bookwyrm. between reading & movies, I've seen robots that want to kill all other sentient beings (or just certain beings), robots that 'live' among their creators as equals, and robots that serve their creators. or even a mix of the three or others that aren't mentioned or thought of yet.

when it comes to Manipulation in general, most if not all intelligent beings have an ability to manipulate others of their kind, or even beings of other races to a lesser or greater degree. I get manipulated by advertising every day, for example. manipulation can be subtle or direct. Hivers prefer subtlety over forceful Manipulations, but ask a K'kree how 'subtle' the Hivers Manipulated them!

Spinward Flow, I see where you are coming from now. but you will have to do a better job of Manipulating me to believe that cars manipulated society to choose them over horse drawn wagons. now if you were to say that the car manufacturers Manipulated society to purchase cars instead of horses and wagons/carts or a rivals car, then you have me hooked!

thanks for all the different ideas and directions on this subject.

Cars and automobiles in general replaced the horse for several reasons:

Horses are more expensive and labor intensive to maintain than a car. For instance, whether a horse is being used or not it has to be fed and cared for. A car can sit until needed.
Horses carry far less weight per horse than a vehicle.
Horses create more pollution than a vehicle. The mountains of excrement, and lakes of urine alone and the disease those cause in cities was reason enough to replace them.

It didn't take manipulating anything to convince people to switch.

 

[Condottiere]

I think the horse example is a bit wobbly, especially if you compare it with the current evolution, the electric car, and it's ongoing adoption.

You need the infrastructure to manufacture them in large numbers, maintain them, and allow them to move around efficiently.

If you recall, the Wehrmacht was mostly equinized, and I believe special forces used them rather recently.

A more relevant example would the invention of psychiatry, propaganda, Madison Avenue, and encouraging women to smoke cigarettes.

 

[Spinward Flow]

The challenge was to point out a "Manipulation" that transformed society in multiple ways.
I gave an historical example of that kind of societal transformation as a result of introducing a "superior technology" that became widely adopted within a decade or two.

Or if you want to think about it in a more Star Trek kind of way ... imagine the Hivers have heard of the Prime Directive ... and they have NO intention of following it. Kind of hard to imagine how that sort of thing would not fall under the category of "Manipulation" in all kinds of different ways.

Now imagine that the Hivers "offload" some of the means for that Manipulation onto their own robot creations.
If your head isn't hurting yet upon reading such an idea, that simply means you aren't paying attention (yet).

 

[Condottiere]

I thought that happened in the first season of Picard; we owe the Romulans a debt of gratitude.

 

[Spinward Flow]

I thought that happened in the first season of Picard; we owe the Romulans a debt of gratitude.

Let me put it this way ...

The Orville is a love letter to Star Trek fans.
Star Trek: Discovery is a ransom note.
And Picard is hate mail.

 

[mike wightman]

And Galaxy Quest is the best Star Trek film to date...

 

[Enoki]

I think the horse example is a bit wobbly, especially if you compare it with the current evolution, the electric car, and it's ongoing adoption.

You need the infrastructure to manufacture them in large numbers, maintain them, and allow them to move around efficiently.

If you recall, the Wehrmacht was mostly equinized, and I believe special forces used them rather recently.

A more relevant example would the invention of psychiatry, propaganda, Madison Avenue, and encouraging women to smoke cigarettes.

Actually, the electric car is a better example of manipulation. Here you have certain political groups with sufficient sway pushing the vehicle and driving propaganda, along with using heavy subsidies to get people to buy them. Alternatives are ignored or outright pilloried, like the fuel cell. Most people don't even know about a vehicle like the Honda Clarity running on liquid hydrogen.

It would be as if Hivers found some planet on the verge of adopting either battery or fuel cell technology for their vehicles and subtly pushing that world to take batteries because they want to laugh at everyone spending hours every day recharging their vehicle. Maybe at the same time, they manipulate the market so there's always going to be a shortage of charging stations and those available are inefficient...

 

[Condottiere]

I can't say what would or is the best option for us for a future transport grid, or if it turns out to be a hybrid solution depending on population density and frequency, but going by Who Killed Roger Rabbit, vested interests have always attempted to, one way or another, influence public policy.

 

[Fovean]

“Forget it, Jake. It’s Startown.”

 

[Jame]

I figure that a Hiver would try to manipulate an AI on general principles.

 

[bookwyrm]

Spinward Flow: Manipulation is an intentional act. cars can't do anything intentionally. by their very existence, cars & the combustible engine changed the world. people can choose the car over the horse, or the horse over the car, and they did. over time, as cars improved with technology, more people chose cars over horses. just because cars are now a superior form of transportation over horses (with a few exceptions) doesn't mean cars are Manipulating people to use them.

I want to thank everyone for their feedback so far. I wasn't expecting so much interest on this subject. not only do I have a better understanding of Hiver Manipulation, but I now have a better idea of Hivers ability/necessity to Manipulate Robots, and maybe a Robot Hivers ability to Manipulate Hivers or other sophonts. I also want to thank everyone who helped me to think outside the box on this.

 

[Enoki]

I want to thank everyone for their feedback so far. I wasn't expecting so much interest on this subject. not only do I have a better understanding of Hiver Manipulation, but I now have a better idea of Hivers ability/necessity to Manipulate Robots, and maybe a Robot Hivers ability to Manipulate Hivers or other sophonts. I also want to thank everyone who helped me to think outside the box on this.

Or, maybe the Hivers get Ginshar to make synthetic Hivers to do certain jobs they don't want to do. These quasi-Hivers appear to be Hivers for all intents, but have had their minds manipulated in the manufacturing process to make them amenable to doing jobs a natural Hiver would never consider doing. Added in are some subtle things either in terms of appearance or reaction that allow the Hiver leadership, and those needing to know the difference, know that they are 'talking' to a synthetic Hiver.
Thus, outside of being employed to do some specific job a synthetic Hiver can't get employment and doesn't recognize they're really sort of a second class citizen or even just a unaware slave. There's no way for them to know they aren't just the equivalent of unlucky or stuck with their lot in life.
Now, that would be subtle manipulation.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Spinward Flow: Manipulation is an intentional act. cars can't do anything intentionally. by their very existence, cars & the combustible engine changed the world. people can choose the car over the horse, or the horse over the car, and they did. over time, as cars improved with technology, more people chose cars over horses. just because cars are now a superior form of transportation over horses (with a few exceptions) doesn't mean cars are Manipulating people to use them.

The vehicles themselves, in vacuum, didn't manipulate anyone ... but the companies that made those vehicles (and the people who controlled those companies and their interests) sure did. The vehicles themselves were the means for change ... while the people involved in producing them were the "manipulators" of society in that instance.

"What's good for GM is good for America!"

That's an actual historical quote, by the way ... and it was certainly true for a lot of the 20th century. Some people would even say that it's still true today, although fewer would say it now.

Does THAT qualify enough as "manipulation" for you?

 

[bookwyrm]

Spinward Flow, my Manipulation of you has been a success!

Enoki, if the Hivers ordered up some Ginshar synthetic Hiver Robots, then they wouldn't need to Manipulate them, as they have already been manipulated with limiting programs. now if they were Ginshar synthetic Robot Hivers, with the only programming being that they are the best Hivers they can be, that is where the Manipulation Hivers are known for comes into play, either from Hiver to synthetic Hiver, or the reverse.

 

[Enoki]

Spinward Flow, my Manipulation of you has been a success!

Enoki, if the Hivers ordered up some Ginshar synthetic Hiver Robots, then they wouldn't need to Manipulate them, as they have already been manipulated with limiting programs. now if they were Ginshar synthetic Robot Hivers, with the only programming being that they are the best Hivers they can be, that is where the Manipulation Hivers are known for comes into play, either from Hiver to synthetic Hiver, or the reverse.

The manipulation comes in that the manipulating Hivers deliberately order up Hiver robots that think they're normal Hivers even as normal Hivers and the manipulators (one and the same?) can tell and know that they're not. It's like the manipulator / normal Hivers see it as they're in on the joke while the synthetic Hivers are the butt of that joke.
That's my take on how manipulation would often go with Hivers. They want varied stimuli from their manipulations and one of those is humor. At the same time, the synthetic Hivers are filling all sorts of roles in society that a normal Hiver would never consider doing.

As an example of this, I don't know if you're familiar with the cartoon meme "Polandball." It uses poorly drawn balls with the national colors of nations to poke fun at what they do. There are many stereotypical ones like Poland being a nation of plumbers, or the "Reichtangle" and wanting to invade countries, or the Americaball always wearing sunglasses and starting wars for oil, that sort of thing.
Same thing here in a sense. The normal Hivers have gotten synthetic Hivers to do all the crappy jobs they don't want but the synthetic Hivers don't know they're synthetic and are programmed to enjoy their crappy jobs. The normal Hivers look at the whole situation as a running joke that the synthetics aren't in on... Until one or more figure it out some how and then things get interesting...

 

[aramis]

Let me put it this way ...

The Orville is a love letter to Star Trek fans.

I agree about Orville, to a point.
First, it's not a tribute to Trek in General, but only to TNG and maybe also DS9.
Second, after About a Girl, we see it walking away from Trek. In Trek, the humanist view would have succeeded; in Orville, it fails. It fails in a spectacular manner. And it remains a background issue. DS9 gave in-series continuity a place in Trek for Story. The Orville has had series continuity beautifully melded to standalone viable episodes (excepting the 2 two-episode event stories).
Pria could have been shot just fine in TNG with naught but name changes. About A Girl (1.3)

would have become unrecognizable if shot for Trek, due to several theme elements. Including the internal union strife, and the humanist view failing to win the day. AAG is the standout of the first 6.
The 7th episode, Majority Rule, also goes about things in a way Trek would not have; the episode would have been about isolating the offending officer on sensors, then transporting him out (along with the others). There are a couple similar episodes in Trek... TNG & Voyager both have them, and TNG doubles down in Star Trek: Insurrection.
All the World's a Birthday Cake (2.5) also has a resolution that Trek never would have had...
And the Season 2 episode Sanctuary (2.12) leaves us with a PU on the edge of civil war while facing down a known external threat... and is a direct result of season 1's About a Girl (1.3).
It's less a love letter and much more a "inspired by"... because the premise pushes it onto a different trajectory.

Star Trek: Discovery is a ransom note.
And Picard is hate mail.

Hardly.
Picard is a very sentimental show, and a slow build, but a perfect expansion property - it brings familiar characters in very different circumstances. It's far more a love letter to TNG than was The Orville.
Discovery is strongly influenced by the look of the Kelvin timeline. It's also pretty clearly not the TOS→TAS→TOSMovie→TNG→DS9→Voyager→TNGMovies timeline. Too many retcons. It's also explicitly not the Kelvin TImeline...
It's worth noting that Discovery, Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks, and Picard all share a lot of visual elements... and are labeled "Prime Universe" or "Prime Timeline"... noting that in mathematical use, A and A-prime are not synonyms (A-prime is first variant).

Discovery is a good show... once you get to latter half of season one. Getting there, however... It is a Mary Sue in the form of Michael Burnham, and Michael contradictics the TAS episode Yesteryear. Which implies that it's not the same timeline. And given that S3+ are/will be a lot later...