Amelia, Worm AU [Complete]

[TanaNari]

Best solution: Trick the AI into thinking it's in a virtual reality where it's being observed to find out if it's evil... and let it go free. NOW its options are be good for the sake of being good. Or be good for the sake of tricking its captors into letting it go free.

 

[Daunmi]

Best solution: Trick the AI into thinking it's in a virtual reality where it's being observed to find out if it's evil... and let it go free. NOW its options are be good for the sake of being good. Or be good for the sake of tricking its captors into letting it go free.

Click to shrink...

A few bajillion years later: "Waaaait a minute..."

 

[Sheaman3773]

his author's notes made him come across as an ass with a huge ego. I could perfectly understand Tananari not wanting to talk about him.

Click to shrink...

This sentence amuses me so much.

I don't have a good way to describe it. It's just something in the inner voice of the various characters, and the way they all feel so ofset in their social contact. Aspergers is all about having to be reminded that everyone around you are, infact, people and not robots following a script. I get that feel from his writing. I can see how that just doesn't connect to many people.

Click to shrink...

Considering that the Harry Potter in his fanfic is said to be somewhat modeled after himself as a child, and there are points that explicitly emphasize how Harry fails to realize that other people are, in fact, people with something to add, I'd say it's something he's aware of.

Of course, he also has parts in the fic where the lesson he's trying to teach is "you shouldn't act like a robot following a script," so...

WoG is Dragon's Trigger was for a Thinker power, not a Tinker one.

Click to shrink...

Which WoG was this? I ask because that was the conclusion I came to, and then I remember running into a WoG of the opposite content.

It's interesting, that Crystal isn't talking about leaving atm. It could just be that it didn't come up, but unless I missed something, her thoughts flowed like she was staying. Just inertia, maybe.

Poor GL

Why are people blaming Lisa for that, though? I mean that seriously. More preparation wouldn't have helped, and the Empresses already said they'd have ordered the raid to go on regardless, since the power interaction was unpredictable, especially given they hadn't realized that the pocket dimension was there. The characters are allowed irrationality after the dead of a loved one, but why is the audience feeling that way? I must be missing something.

 

[Argentorum]

A few bajillion years later: "Waaaait a minute..."

Click to shrink...

Why do you care what happens a billion years later. You're dead, or Amy's made you all synthetic bodies that have processing speed equivalent to Dragon.
Problem solved.

 

[B.B. Rain]

...I don't suppose GL's still around, just injured?

Or that they'll get confirmation/information from Contessa by way of Cauldron?

 

[theBSDude]

Of course, he also has parts in the fic where the lesson he's trying to teach is "you shouldn't act like a robot following a script," so...

Click to shrink...

Nah, it's "If you accept that you're currently a robot following a script, you can alter that script and be a better robot."

 

[hellgodsrus]

Poor GL

Why are people blaming Lisa for that, though? I mean that seriously. More preparation wouldn't have helped, and the Empresses already said they'd have ordered the raid to go on regardless, since the power interaction was unpredictable, especially given they hadn't realized that the pocket dimension was there. The characters are allowed irrationality after the dead of a loved one, but why is the audience feeling that way? I must be missing something.

Click to shrink...

Eh, we'd be getting into my views on the reality of character's existences or not if we trod that particular path. It's more that before the only consequences for Lisa's actions were political - things that could be worked through with time, effort, and elbow grease. Killing someone - even in a world where backup copies exist and are updated regularly - is considerably harder to undo.

 

[dasstan]

A/N- Umm... good news for Zach/Crystal shippers... Emma can't be backed up, either.

Click to shrink...

Bad news is that she can be once they unchain Dragon... Of course, once Dragon gets to the point that backing up spacewhale bullshit isn't an issue, death has probably been conquered.

...I don't suppose GL's still around, just injured?

Click to shrink...

I hope so.
I liked him and Crystal. I was hoping that they'd manage to build him a body he could inhabit full-time.

Why are people blaming Lisa for that, though? I mean that seriously. More preparation wouldn't have helped, and the Empresses already said they'd have ordered the raid to go on regardless, since the power interaction was unpredictable, especially given they hadn't realized that the pocket dimension was there. The characters are allowed irrationality after the dead of a loved one, but why is the audience feeling that way? I must be missing something.

Click to shrink...

Because the audience's emotions are filtered through the view point characters. It's the same reason the audience views the Undersiders are sympathetic figures instead of the criminal scum that they are.

 

[Sagacitas]

A startled house of cards does not, strictly speaking, "bolt".

 

[dasstan]

WoG is Dragon's Trigger was for a Thinker power, not a Tinker one. What that power was, never elaborated upon. But an ability to think in ways to weave around her own restrictions seems to be a good place to start.

Click to shrink...

The only WoG I'm aware of regarding Dragon's power is...

Keep in mind that Dragon isn't a tinker, or if you want to be liberal about the definition, she isn't a tinker in the parahuman sense.

Click to shrink...

From the PRT quest and Weaver Dice, we know roughly what circumstance results in what type of power. We also know how long it took Dragon to trigger. She triggered a year after Richter died. So, for a tinker trigger -- Issue proves difficult to resolve, unsolvable problem, typically over an extended period of time (weeks or months). -- that makes sense. She labored under the strain of her restrictions for a year. It makes less sense to for a thinker trigger -- emotional or mental strain, reaching a crisis point in a short period of time.

I think the only way to reconcile the trigger guidelines with the WoG is to give Dragon a thinker power to understand tinker-tech. Which dovetails nicely with the other WoG I found.

Dragon doesn't invent, per se. Dragon co-opts, borrows and advances other tinker work. It just so happens she has access to the Guild and PRT databases filled with notes on tinker stuff.

Click to shrink...

 

[Prince Charon]

Eh, we'd be getting into my views on the reality of character's existences or not if we trod that particular path. It's more that before the only consequences for Lisa's actions were political - things that could be worked through with time, effort, and elbow grease. Killing someone - even in a world where backup copies exist and are updated regularly - is considerably harder to undo.

Click to shrink...

Given that there was no way for Lisa to predict this at all (if she seriously thought her plan to get fired would get someone, especially a hero, killed, I'm quite certain she would use a different plan), I'd say she's being unfairly blamed. It's not surprising, and it's understandable, but it's still unfair, IMHO.

 

[GiftofLove]

Given that there was no way for Lisa to predict this at all (if she seriously thought her plan to get fired would get someone, especially a hero, killed, I'm quite certain she would use a different plan), I'd say she's being unfairly blamed. It's not surprising, and it's understandable, but it's still unfair, IMHO.

Click to shrink...

Yes, but if she had done this the right way Crystal would have rejected GLs inclusion. They have team leaders for a reason, and one of those reasons is that you can't know everything about everyone.

 

[dasstan]

Yes, but if she had done this the right way Crystal would have rejected GLs inclusion. They have team leaders for a reason, and one of those reasons is that you can't know everything about everyone.

Click to shrink...

"Genius Loci, you should hold back," Citrine instructed. "We have no means of knowing what tech is inside the base, and they've had months to observe you. They might have a way to block your powers, and since you have no corporeal body that might prove fatal."

Click to shrink...

"Othello, we'll want to test if your power can cross through whatever dimensional barricade they have," Citrine continued. "You're under similar warnings to GL, we don't know if their dimensional tech will work on your projection or not, or what happens if that gets destroyed. Don't use your secondary power, in any case."

Click to shrink...

I'd say Citrine took every reasonable precaution. The power interaction was truly unexpected and unpredictable. What would Crystal have done differently? Tell GL to stay home?

 

[GiftofLove]

I'd say Citrine took every reasonable precaution. The power interaction was truly unexpected and unpredictable. What would Crystal have done differently? Tell GL to stay home?

Click to shrink...

Yes.

 

[dasstan]

Yes.

Click to shrink...

He was an entire world over. If he wasn't safe there, it would be unreasonable to assume that he would be safe anywhere.

 

[Tamoline]

For my money, I don't think that Lisa is guilty... but I don't think she's innocent either. She deliberately pissed around with the team, putting additional stress on them, upping the risk to them, all for the purpose of making her position at Pantheon untenable. She *gambled* that the general risk to the team was low enough that even with the additional risk she was putting them under, nothing bad would happen. (And, again, like I said before, I view this meddling as an abuse of her authority and the trust vested in her by pretty much everyone. As far as we can tell at the moment, it was for the benefit of no one but herself.)

Put bluntly, her gambit failed and things went badly wrong. People died. And, yes, she deserves blame for that.

She's lucky in the fact that it seems that her meddling didn't contribute to the disaster. It's probable that if things had been done properly, things would still have gone badly and people still would have died. But it's that word probable that's sticking in my craw, and the fact that any benefit from Lisa's interference was purely selfish on her part. (And, if one wants to be cynical, the people doing the analysis that said it wasn't due to Lisa's fault had biases towards wanting that to be the case.)

And, honestly, I have a shrewd suspicion that Lisa is stuck far too neatly in the halfway house between guilt and innocence to be anything other than deliberate positioning by our beloved author.

 

[evildice]

A/N- Umm... good news for Zach/Crystal shippers... Emma can't be backed up, either.

Click to shrink...

Zach: "She sure can back dat a--"

Emma thwacks Zach with a Tinkertech paper fan.

Dragon: "I think we can solve that issue by treating Emma as a supercomputer."

Emma: "So like, I won't be a human brain which is backed up, I'll be ..."

Dragon: "Yes, we'll use an Emma~ulator."

 

[togan]

Really? The intelligence and talent of the person discussing a concept has no bearing on the value of his contribution to the discussion?

I... think there's something you're missing here.

I'm not saying his fanfic is bad. I have no ways of knowing that one way or another, as I've never read it- I'm not a Harry Potter fan, why would I read fanfic about it?

I am, however, aware of the whole "Less Wrong" idiocy- that kind of stuff is something I take the time to study (I also studied up on Scientology... which I actually find slightly less creepy than Yudkowsky's "ideas").

I'm saying that the guy doesn't know what he's talking about, and if someone wants to bring up other people to carry speculation on AIs, then he should use someone whose mind actually has *merits* for the subject. Clarke, especially. He invented the geosynchronous satellite, long before anyone bothered to build one- no one wanted to since they thought it would be a waste of money, y'see.

He's not. He has exactly no formal qualifications as a scholar or scientist. He's an intellectual in the same way Doctor Phil is a medical practitioner.

Click to shrink...

These are very popular views to have, even if there is no particular reason to hold them. I'm sure that they will serve you well in maintaining your in-group social status.

 

[Argentorum]

even if there is no particular reason to hold them.

Click to shrink...

There's no reason to put more stock in the input of a certified doctor than a random person off the street in regards to your health?

 

[togan]

There's no reason to put more stock in the input of a certified doctor than a random person off the street in regards to your health?

Click to shrink...

Just to be clear, I wasn't talking about 'Dr. Phil', and I include the analogy and comparison to him as part of the 'popular views to hold'.

You either 'get' LW, or you don't. It isn't a moral or intellectual failing if you don't, but I do think that it indicates an inability or unwillingness to think abstractly in certain ways. I'm not here to evangelize for LW, though, but to read a pretty great fanfic. It just makes me a bit sad to see the author of said fic fall for a certain category of mob-based emotional reaction to something that he clearly only superficially understands.

*edit for clarity:* the subtext of that last paragraph is 'I'm walking away from discussing LW in this context, because it is not productive'.

 

[hellgodsrus]

Just to be clear, I wasn't talking about 'Dr. Phil', and I include the analogy and comparison to him as part of the 'popular views to hold'.

You either 'get' LW, or you don't. It isn't a moral or intellectual failing if you don't, but I do think that it indicates an inability or unwillingness to think abstractly in certain ways. I'm not here to evangelize for LW, though, but to read a pretty great fanfic. It just makes me a bit sad to see the author of said fic fall for a certain category of mob-based emotional reaction to something that he clearly only superficially understands.

Click to shrink...

Speaking as someone who doesn't see what all the complaints about LW are for, stop.

Seriously, stop. You're not making your case, you're not coming across as rational, you're coming across as angry and spoiled. No-one listens to people who sound angry and spoiled, even if they're saying that the sky is blue. Take a moment, maybe even a few hours, then come back with a rational argument to support your view. Be prepared for people to disagree with it, and maybe for it to have weakpoints you didn't expect. But don't fret about it, because for christ's sake this is a debate on the internet.

As I've said, I think LW's character interaction is fine - mostly because I'm a dyspraxic depressive with ridiculous academic qualifications, so it strikes me as pretty realistic. I know very little about his scientific credibility, so I cannot comment. I must say that the paperclipping thing sounds incredibly dumb - dangerously so - but everyone's allowed to have one shit opinion (which is what it is - until we have AIs we won't know if it's an opinion or not).

 

[evildice]

I must say that the paperclipping thing sounds incredibly dumb - dangerously so - but everyone's allowed to have one shit opinion (which is what it is - until we have AIs we won't know if it's an opinion or not).

Click to shrink...

Huh, that's interesting.

IIRC that one was an illustration of how a poorly-defined fitness metric could result in disaster, if that fitness metric is the only guide to behavior.

I read it not as a likely scenario, but rather as a commentary on fitness metrics -- which are IMHO all currently pretty poorly-defined. In that regard, it's also a commentary on utilitarianism in general, because "happiness" is poorly-defined.

But maybe I'm not remembering correctly. I certainly can't defend this position from someone who cares more than I do, so I'm just offering it as one data point.

~ ~ ~ Meanwhile, in on-topic land ... ~ ~ ~​

Zach: "Well, shit. I spent hours on that Lisa material, and now it's useless."

Emma: "Yeah, but now you have Dragon. You said you love computer science jokes."

Zach: "For whatever reason, computer stuff is a really easy target. Hard drives, software, floppy disks, silicone implants, root access... it's like shooting fish in a barrel."

Emma: "What if that's the plan? What if the fish in the barrel are intended as a distraction?"

Zach: "So it's like... a trojan barrel of fish?"

Emma: "You have to look a gift horse in the mouth, because it might be full of fish."

Zach: "Have I told you lately that I love you?"

 

[Togathrek]

Ugh, Less Wrong. I understand his shit just fine, and the abstract crap when I was in grad school for computer science was what I was good at (instead of the programming).

To be blunt: he bores me. His fic went on and on and on as a mouthpiece. It's not a story, it's a masturbatory ego-stroke. I get the feeling the people who really like him read his stuff and feel like they're unique, special snowflakes just like he is, and that they tend to be younger.

Mouthpiece stories only work when the authors are as smart/charismatic as their characters are. His voice that comes through in the writing screams of juvenile "I'm the first person who thought of this!" Less Wrong is not exactly Vonnegut, and as abrasive thinkers go, he's not Chomsky, though reading his fic, I get the feeling that he thinks he is.

---back to this fic

I don't actually blame Lisa, and I like that character a fair amount of the time. It just feels to me like she doesn't suffer the consequences of her choices. The weight of the hammer always falls on other people, and at worst, she takes a little psychological splash damage, even if she was the one who set off the trap.

Even granting that she can see all the shit that happens to other people, *it still happens to other people and not her*.

My request of offing Alexandria and bringing her back as a clone is a desire to see a nice dramatic FU to elevate Lisa's character past the kinda douche-y "you're not really you" thing she has going on.

BTW, Tananari, nice going on the story for holding my attention through so much text, and also, for your incredibly disciplined writing pace. It's interesting to think about how you'd be as a 'professional' writer if you decided to go for it, whether through trad or self-publishing.

 

[B.B. Rain]

To clarify my earlier post, I meant I hoped they would get Contessa, by way of Cauldron (or possibly GU, depending on the status of the April Fool's post), to use PtV to possibly find an injured or incapacitated, but still alive, GL, or confirm his death for sure.

 

[TanaNari]

He was an entire world over.

Click to shrink...

Nope. He was guarding Anima while she went all out.

BTW, Tananari, nice going on the story for holding my attention through so much text, and also, for your incredibly disciplined writing pace. It's interesting to think about how you'd be as a 'professional' writer if you decided to go for it, whether through trad or self-publishing.

Click to shrink...

Thanks. The reason for creating this 'fic was to refine my skills before going on to my own works. That's why I'm experimenting so much with this story, allowing myself to make so many mistakes. Why I chose to run with a fanfic instead of original fiction.

And oh god have said skills been refined. My earliest 20 or so chapters are... if I had it to do over again, they'd probably be closer to 60 chapters. More character viewpoints early on, and more often. All those early multiple perspective chapters? I'd have enlarged them to a chapter each. List goes on.

And, no, I won't be "fixing" them. This was meant to be a more or less freeform writing project, and I'm keeping it that way. If it were my own original, I'd be compelled to do the rewriting to make my work as flawless as I'm capable of. As it's not, I'm allowed to step back and let it stand as is. In a way, a form of art unto itself, letting people see where I started and where I'm at now.

 

[dasstan]

Nope. He was guarding Anima while she went all out.

Click to shrink...

Oopz. Ah, well. He wasn't around long enough for me to grow really attached.

 

[TanaNari]

Alright. So ze girlfriend is planning to do an audiobook of Worm. Because she does that sorta thing.

Right now the hangup is she wants to do a bit of intro music for chapters, because, Iunno, I'm not a huge fan of audiobooks...

So looking for some kind of appropriate music- with the understanding that it must be A: public domain and B: not overwhelming.

The current top contenders are



If it's public domain.

And the first few seconds of Night on Bald Mountain.



If the peanut gallery has suggestions, I'll welcome them.

 

[evildice]

- Anything with eerie, mournful strings.

- Some kind of creepy spider-web plucked violin strings thing.

- A recording of a street fight, or traffic, or other urban noises.

 

[Ryan Bazana]

You know, I don't think Lisa being a douche is the entire issue here. Its part of it, along with all that nice psychological damage, but it isn't the main issue here. Its actually a very basic problem.

Lisa passenger can't read minds. Of course she can't you say, but think about it. Lisa has never inference-d something that she cannot personally perceive, that's a basic limitation that humanity shares. We process things form the physical up, physical books, physical letters, physical screens, physical bodies, and the last one is the most important.

So Lisa looks at a random person, she has no prior information about them, the first thing her power will focus on will either be his/her clothes, or their body language. She cannot read their mind, she's not actually a telepath.

So what does she see when she looks at anyone that has been restored? First, prior information, extensive, but not focused on and with someone in front of her, tertiary in nature. Second, objects on them, the suits don't really allow for much inferring, so they are mostly ignored as well. Leaving first, body language or physical status. The first thing Lisa gets when talking to a restored person is "not original", and of course they aren't, It would be stupid to think that's the original. The original body that is.

Lisa constantly gets an inference that the bodies of the people around her are "not the originals" and were "created recently", and they are. But Lisa can't just look into their minds to confirm to herself their "the original" because she has the natural limitation of only being able to read her own mind.

And if her normal power has that limitation, what's to say her second trigger power doesn't have it as well?

We've already seen this once, in the chapter 361, were Lisa reads the physical queues from Dragon, because they were there. The inferences were probably correct, considering how much Dragon longs to be human, but the passenger doesn't know that, it goes through the process of "Oooh body language! Time to inference!".

She's constantly getting a inference that may not be true, but how would she know, after all she relies upon her power for so much now, why would it be wrong on this?

Its the quintessential thinker trap, she assumes her power is correct, even when it might not be, thus leading her into her current actions.

 

[cosoco]

If it's public domain.

Click to shrink...

Don't think so. The song is Clockworks Bloody Elevators by Wendy Carlos.
http://www.amazon.com/Rediscovering-Lost-Scores-Wendy-Carlos/dp/B0009G3C1O