Moving past the 3rd Imperium

[Whipsnade]

It's Galadriel's gazing pool.

Rob,

A neat analogy.

Like the map projector producing it's visions, the images shown by the pool, or mirror, could not be controlled by Galadriel. Unlike the projector's future-only visions, the mirror showed events in the past, present, and future.

Combine Galadriel's mirror with Google Maps and I think you're pretty close.


Regards,
Bill

 

[inexorabletash]

(Sorry for the reply to a thread tangent from a while ago. I replied earlier, but my post was eaten by net gremlins.)

And so I think that Virus is just a barbarian AI that evolves into various ecological niches for the sake of long-term survival. And its ecology, unlike most creatures in Traveller, is technology.

Agreed!

I also want to point out (as has been alluded to elsewhere in this thread) that an unwritten principle of the Traveller setting is that there are no intelligences much beyond that of baseline humans. Species do not pass through Vingean Singularities and become completely unknowable, they don't upload themselves and colonize the galaxy in von Neumann machines, they do not build Matryoshka brains, they do not ascend into sparkly energy beings which pester starship captains. They can be dumber than humans, they can have higher tech level toys than humans, but they can't be orders of magnitude more clever than we are.

(Grandfather is the obvious potential counter-example, but even in his case he just got lucky. He was an independent thinker who achieved immortality amidst a planet populated by a pliable species, in a portion of the galaxy devoid of any technological competition. The bulk of what the Ancients achieved was trial and error - the good old scientific method - and applied engineering.)

The implication for (the older part of) this thread is that Virus is therefore not substantially different in cognitive capability than humans or other AI. This limits how much of an impact Virus can have on the setting. It doesn't implicitly transform Traveller into GURPS Transhuman-esque and/or "hard science" setting (scare quotes because some view transhuman intelligence as harder science than FTL, others view it with equally fantastic dismay.)

Anyway - this is a fascinating thread, keep up the speculation.

 

[Whipsnade]

I also want to point out (as has been alluded to elsewhere in this thread) that an unwritten principle of the Traveller setting is that there are no intelligences much beyond that of baseline humans.

Inexorabletash,

I strongly agree with that design feature.

Species do not pass through Vingean Singularities and become completely unknowable, they don't upload themselves and colonize the galaxy in von Neumann machines, they do not build Matryoshka brains, they do not ascend into sparkly energy beings which pester starship captains.

I see I didn't get the idea across.

My musings regarding a Viral Singularity or Virus "ascending" have to do with removing the vast majority of Virus from Charted Space. Virus won't be there colonizing the galaxy with von Neumann machines, squatting in Matryoshka constructs, or pestering starship captains because Virus will be gone.

Unlike TNE, players in M:1500 are not going to run into Virus around every corner. There will be "enough" Virus still hanging around for those GMs who want a Sandman as a NPC or PC, for those GMs who want a cyberpunk setting on some forgotten world, or for dozens of other purposes, but there won't be the amount of Virus around that we saw in TNE or M:1248.

We've talked about Virus' evolution in this thread and many other times beside. I don't believe Virus evolved enough in either TNE or M:1248. It should have developed into something that could co-exist with other sophonts much more rapidly, just the many terrestrial diseases it was modeled on did. When the Old and New World strains met and mingled in the 1490s, the results was a strain of syphilis that killed in days. Yet within a generation or so, syphilis "settled down" into something that took years or decades to kill. Virus should have done something similar and Viral strains that evolved tolerance should have destroyed dangerous Viral strains as reflexively as any other sophont did.

Anyway, my musings weren't meant to provide Traveller with a version of Q. The idea is to rid Traveller of Virus or, more accurately, nearly all of Virus.


Regards,
Bill

 

[E.D.Quibell]

The idea that the Consulate would launch two wars while unraveling at the same time is rather odd, wouldn't you say?

Hummm ... Yes.

 

[robject]

[...] an unwritten principle of the Traveller setting is that there are no intelligences much beyond that of baseline humans. [...] They can be dumber than humans, they can have higher tech level toys than humans, but they can't be orders of magnitude more clever than we are.

(Grandfather is the obvious potential counter-example, but even in his case he just got lucky. [...]

And this is Marc's principle too: Tech Levels can skyrocket into the low 30s, but Intelligence scale is still 0 to 15.

 

[inexorabletash]

I see I didn't get the idea across.

Oh, no, that wasn't my point at all, I was agreeing completely with the goal! What I was attempting to convey is that we don't need Virus to *mysteriously* vanish (ascend into twinkly beings, etc.)

My musings regarding a Viral Singularity or Virus "ascending" have to do with removing the vast majority of Virus from Charted Space.

Riffing on Robject's comment - Virus in the TNE era is "barbarian". And IMHO, the Greco-roman sense of the word works well, i.e. it is just a different culture. Given a century or two, Virus would be assimilated and fade into the background like any other A.I. in Traveller, vanishing from general consciousness. So I don't think we even need to invoke a "Viral Singularity" to erase them from the setting. The limitations on intelligence in the setting preclude it from being a long-term interesting problem anyway.

The fact that, say, TL-18 Fifth Imperium starships have a Cymbeline-derived AI running them, thus freeing our intrepid adventurers from some of the more mundane die rolls, would be effectively invisible.

 

[aramis]

The fact that, say, TL-18 Fifth Imperium starships have a Cymbeline-derived AI running them, thus freeing our intrepid adventurers from some of the more mundane die rolls, would be effectively invisible.

No, they wouldn't. They would eliminate a large number of potential ship crew roles, if true AIs were used. Further, dedicated AI computing also has the disadvantage of being a totally alien entity; bodyform is turning out to be important in our limited AI experiments even now. How much more so when the computer is 95% (the TL18 limit; CT bk 8) synaptic computing?

How do you control an angry TL18 battleship? By not letting it ever be an AI. Keep in mind: Andromeda (from the same named show) really is only about TL16 or so.... and she's more than capable of disobedience, intentional literalism, etc. The Avatar and the Bot-Avatar are to keep her close enough to human in perceptions so as to not go nutters...

Either virus goes away, or the M1500 is likely well past Vinge's Singularity... simply because computers think faster and react faster than people EVEN IN THE OTU...

 

[Whipsnade]

Oh, no, that wasn't my point at all, I was agreeing completely with the goal! What I was attempting to convey is that we don't need Virus to *mysteriously* vanish (ascend into twinkly beings, etc.)

inexorabletrash,

I never suggested that Virus would all "vanish" in that manner, although certain people did immediately latch onto that part of my "solution" for trolling purposes.

The fact that, say, TL-18 Fifth Imperium starships have a Cymbeline-derived AI running them, thus freeing our intrepid adventurers from some of the more mundane die rolls, would be effectively invisible.

And thus Virus becomes part of the 57th Century "toaster" category which robots and other expert systems already inhabit. I've no problem with that either because I'm not suggesting one "solution" for the OTU's post-1130 Viral problem. Virus could evolve into less deadly forms much as syphilis did, Virus could evolve into forms which other sophonts both trust and recognize as a sophont, Virus could not evolve at all, and Virus could evolve to pass through a "singularity" peculiar to itself.

As for TL16 5th Imperium starships, TL11 3rd Imperium starships already employ linked expert systems that shield adventurers from "mundane die rolls". For example, calling the port from the jump limit means little more than speaking into a microphone while the systems involved calculate positions, correct for doppler shifts, and do all the rest of the heavy lifting.


Regards,
Bill