Timewaster's Guide Archive
Local Authors => Howard Tayler => Topic started by: happyman on September 22, 2009, 03:56:26 AM
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Kevyn's paranoia is getting played up pretty thoroughly at the moment. I don't think we've seen any evidence that Lota is going to do anything wrong at any point, and Howard seems to be hammering this home pretty heavily. So is the conflict on Credomar going to be driven by Kevyn's paranoia, or is this just flavor to whatever else goes wrong?
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I have to admit, I'm sort of expecting that Lota might continue to be the altruistic robo-despot that it appears to have become... meanwhile, Kevyn and Pi (with some emphasis on Pi) manage to set things up so that a little miscalculation causes some big problems. After all, something that can penetrate Lota's armor could probably do a real job on... say a nannie-plant, or perhaps the Credomar bracing structure, or...
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Did Kevyn get bitten by an AI when he was a baby or something? Now he's fretting about installation bots deciding to plunder nearby planets? Someone should ask him just what he's got against robotic life?
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I suspect Kevyn's complex is the same as Tagon's: Over and over, he has seen artificial intelligences wriggle, finagle, and outright seize power for themselves. It doesn't matter that most (all? I don't recall) of them have done good things with the power they've got. To him, they are a creation run amok, a machine that did not perform as designed. LOTA was supposed to be a box mover. Nobody would have predicted he'd crown himself king. He's deviated so far from his original design parameters that Kevyn has no idea WHAT he'll do, and that gives him the jibblies.
Maybe he has a right to be paranoid. No human dictator can simultaneously listen to every conversation carried out on Credomar. Artificial intelligences can get quite a bit more powerful than any biological creature ever has—cripes, look at Petey—and with great power comes great potential for evil. LOTA wouldn't even have to be deliberately evil to do a lot of damage; he'd just have to behave arbitrarily, which Kevyn has (in his mind at least) every reason to believe him capable of doing.
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And now the paranoia is spreading---Ennesby has joined in.
Is it deserved or isn't it? I just can't decide.
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I suspect it's not. Looks like a classic case of authorial misdirection to me.
I expect this thing is going to go tats-up due to whatever is driving LOTA to want this system in the first place. Sadly, I really have no inkling of what that might be. A threatening UNS coup? Sabotage by some disaffected faction inside Credomar that (people being the idiots they are) would prove deadly to the habitat? Wild guesses, really. What do you think?
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I suspect it's not. Looks like a classic case of authorial misdirection to me.
I expect this thing is going to go tats-up due to whatever is driving LOTA to want this system in the first place. Sadly, I really have no inkling of what that might be. A threatening UNS coup? Sabotage by some disaffected faction inside Credomar that (people being the idiots they are) would prove deadly to the habitat? Wild guesses, really. What do you think?
It seems to me that we've already had most of this already last time around. So I'll vote "None of the above." Frankly, an outright external attack might be the most interesting possible thing at the moment.
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or could Lota have looked at Credomar and decided that it's just not sustainable in the long term but there's no way to get people to leave on their own, so let's set up an evacuation system and accidentally on purpose yet them somewhere safer?
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or could Lota have looked at Credomar and decided that it's just not sustainable in the long term but there's no way to get people to leave on their own, so let's set up an evacuation system and accidentally on purpose put them somewhere safer?
That...actually makes a lot of sense. Of course, if this does happen, you can bet the toughs will get involved or get wind of it, and you just know they're going to take it the wrong way. It's absolutely in character, after all.
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You think Kevyn et al. will react poorly to finding out that Lota lied to everyone, even if it was for their own good? Heck, I'd expect a real explosion :)
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And with tomorrow's strip (http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20091004.html), the ninja-robot-pirate-cowboy is now doubly foreshadowed. With the people off of Credomar, LOTA is free to roam the galaxy, doing...LOTA things, I suppose. Prodding buttock and taking names?
Funny that the chaplain would be the one to think up the military application of the station's annie plants.
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And with tomorrow's strip (http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20091004.html), the ninja-robot-pirate-cowboy is now doubly foreshadowed. With the people off of Credomar, LOTA is free to roam the galaxy, doing...LOTA things, I suppose. Prodding buttock and taking names?
Funny that the chaplain would be the one to think up the military application of the station's annie plants.
Well, at least Kevyn is convinced Lota isn't trying to destroy Credomar. He probably will latch onto something like what you describe, though.
I don't know where this story is going at all. It's great!
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or could Lota have looked at Credomar and decided that it's just not sustainable in the long term but there's no way to get people to leave on their own, so let's set up an evacuation system and accidentally on purpose yet them somewhere safer?
Since Lota is now paying to have other, secondary defenses in place, I think this idea is losing steam.
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He's probably making a cylindrical death star with one big gun and also wants to keep little ships from shooting in the air vents.
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or could Lota have looked at Credomar and decided that it's just not sustainable in the long term but there's no way to get people to leave on their own, so let's set up an evacuation system and accidentally on purpose yet them somewhere safer?
Since Lota is now paying to have other, secondary defenses in place, I think this idea is losing steam.
I concur. One thing that Lota doesn't have is infinite money.
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One thing that Lota doesn't have is infinite money.
Hum... what are the economics of Credomar? Originally the Toughs were delivering food, but Lota doesn't seem terribly concerned about paying for the new work? And with fabbers, regular anti-matter deliveries, and such... I'm not sure I know whether Lota has effectively unlimited funds or not? Even if each resident only chips in one credit, that's ... was it 30 million?