Forging Ahead (GURPS Interstellar Wars/Celestial Forge)

[gammoregan]

Regardless, this isn't the direction Cliff is taking the story so I'll leave it at that.

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If you think further discussion of the nanobots would be off topic due to no longer being possible in the story, I'll go along with that. But I will say two things: one is that there's more I could say on this in support of why not destroying them would likely lead to extinction.

Secondly, making a statement as part of an argument and ending that statement with the suggestion that continuing the argument could be against forum rules is something done in bad faith to give yourself the last word in a debate.

 

[mpbjunkie]

Excellent chapter. Best one yet, IMO.

Pity that she destroyed that sample, but she did the right thing. Doomsday weapons shouldn't be left laying around the desperate. There should always be limits to what's allowed, even in self-defence.

 

[ryune]

Secondly, making a statement as part of an argument and ending that statement with the suggestion that continuing the argument could be against forum rules is something done in bad faith to give yourself the last word in a debate.

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I said nothing about forum rules though? Just that I was going to drop the line of argument myself. You are free to discuss it and put forth your own reasoning. I just felt that I had made my argument to the best of my ability and didn't want to take it to a point of derail.

 

[omegasrevenge]

The powergamer in me is crying over a bunch of burned CP, but the pragmatic part realizes that all CP is given by the author arbitrarily - if more CP is required for the story to progress, then excuses will be made to produce the CP.
Not only that; the Celestial Forge is powerful enough, and the Vilani sufficiently low-advanced, that Sophia is always exactly one good perk away from ending the entire empire.
In other words, all suspense, all time pressure, all CP limitations are arbitrary and can at any time be immediately removed from the equation.

Just lean back and enjoy the ride as the Celestial Forge rolls over everything. Don't be mad at any "bad choices" or whatever they might seem at first, none of it matters. If the author wanted to, he could make Sophia get a thousand points for reaching an arbitrary milestone, make her buy a completely ridiculously busted tech tree, and immediately roflstomp all opposition within minutes.

 

[protoss16]

I personally would be satisfied just from the basic idea of how crysis nanotech works.

 

[Domar7431]

Aw, I was looking forward to MC making blackboxed Crysis Nanosuits

 

[ryune]

I personally would be satisfied just from the basic idea of how crysis nanotech works.

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Oh that is for damned certain. Ceph nanospores have a massive computational ability and gather energy from heat. Just being able to go directly from "make thing hot" to electricity would be amazing considering pretty much everything we've ever done on that front is "rotate magnet with water pressure."

Computationally... she has the makings of either a bacteria computer or molecular computation depending on how she wants to go about it.

She could even conceivably make a nanosuit equivalent even without the nanotech if she tries at it using synthetic muscles based on the materials from the nanospores.

 

[TroyX]

A hard-hitting chapter there.

I can see a case for studying it longer before burning it, to eke more knowledge out of it, but honestly? She was throwing away temptation. If she'd kept it any longer, she risked the temptation overcoming her at some future point, and she knew that would both be wrong and utterly destroy her emotionally afterwards.

It was an emotional moment, and she made the best decision she could with the information and maturity available to her.

I also enjoyed the party scene at the beginning. The dialogue was fun to read. Also the section about Peraspera's future basically opening up an entire new world even now, decades before it's actually terraformed, due to economic interests and so forth, was really uplifting.

Even if Sophia was a one-hit wonder for some reason (and we know she's not), she accomplished something wonderful here.

 

[supermou3ad]

NOOOOO, sophia why, you could have done our glorious emperor of mankind beloved by all proud, you could have followed in the footsteps of the honored inquisitor cryptmen and purged the xeno tainted mutants for the greater glory of holy terra, but in you're naivety you dessided stop asking yourself "how can i do this" instead of "how can i afford not to do this".

Ps: my reaction after spending the last two weeks bringing 40k audiobooks.

 

[Dormouse]

Hmm, I was initially disappointed at the loss of power and potential. It is entirely in character for her to act the way she did, and the most viable path toward the future she desires.

I was initially of the opinion that I would act differently. However, after considering things, I decided that in that position I would likely do something similar from a pragmatic point of view.

I suspect that the way human society would develop after the extinction or near extinction of the Vilani subspecies as a result of a bioweapon based genocide on this scale would be against my wishes. Paranoia and panic would flourish and the event would be used to excuse all manner of horrific scenarios.

A brutal totalitarian government arising from a political group taking advantage of this is more than likely. Shady secret organizations throwing away morality and ethics "For the Greater Good" is also likely.

That's not to say that the genocide of so many people would be a good thing otherwise, but it would be a secondary concern to the future of those that survive.

The main question I would be faced by is how long to research the nanotech and if I should destroy it or merely render it truly inert for when I would need it at a later point in time. It becomes a risk/reward decision with high stakes either way.

I suspect I would have been too paranoid to investigate it in a lab whose security, informational or otherwise, I had little certainty about. However, I would have tried to obtain the maximum benefits possible from it, from research and creating any unique organisms/nanostructures that would be especially useful. It is likely that I would destroy it once I had a reasonable ability to recreate it from memory or hit diminishing returns on it.

I look forward to future developments of this story. I am curious about what she will choose to do after MIT. Improving sensor technology seems somewhat likely, seeing as incredibly small structures, high precision, and advanced software are all very relevant to it and it is militarily relevant. It is also something that has previously been considered in the story, as a means of accomplishing her forge given quest.

 

[Prince Chrom]

"When the survival of humanity is at stake, there are no principles so sacrosanct that they cannot be violated."

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If you violate your principles then they aren't principles at all.

 

[Amrynel]

My heart, already down around my shoetops, sank right down into the floor as I realized that there was no Forge prompt in response to the very significant decision I'd just made. No Achievement, no Hidden Quest, nothing. Not the slightest bit of recognition that I'd just faced the bitterest temptation of my long life and made an irreversible decision.

So. The Celestial Forge had no interest in the ethics of my choices. It responded to what I did, and offered me tools and prompts to shape my actions in broad, but it was demonstrably indifferent to morality.

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Even super-geniuses overlook things, especially when they're upset? "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence", even if it's often considered close enough for many things. Maybe the Forge already anticipated that Sophia would make that choice*, maybe her decision has begun a new Hidden Quest, maybe her decision has affected its future menu offerings, maybe not making that decision would have terminated the connection, maybe... etc. Also the Forge has so far avoided providing her with information on its inner workings, why would that change now?

*Some choices can seem very hard at the time not because you might go either way but because you won't; it's not actually the choice itself that hurts but the existence of a situation that required you bear the responsibility of making it. I hope that makes sense.

Also I like how realistic Sophia is behaving. The Forge's power is a lot to dump on someone.

P.S. Thinking on it some more, it's probably a good thing that Sophia doesn't get into any habit of (directly) relying on the Forge for morality answers when making decisions on what to do with such massive potential, in which case one might ask, "did the Forge deliberately accomplish this by doing nothing at all?" /cue Twilight Zone music

 

[Faralis]

I was calling the Planet/project Pera's pera instead of Per Aspera... shame on me, I couldn't understand the name at all ^^

I like the result of her first attempt at a weapon, I don't agree is a waste of a 100 points ( she got several things from it ), but even if it's a waste, she is a human being trying new things. And getting really scared about what she discovered. And that makes the protagonist more believable.

 

[litaispe]

Aw, I was looking forward to MC making blackboxed Crysis Nanosuits

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The problem with Crysis nanotech is you can't blackbox it.

The chapter only briefly touched on it, but Crysis nanotech is fully capable of mind raping/control and as the chapter described being capable of spreading without symptoms. This means that you need Star Trek-style super-science sensors and rigorous isolation of population bodies to safely use.

Functionally, anyone infected with Crysis nanotech has to be considered non-competent and non-consenting as the nanotech explicitly mindrapes hosts to compel them to spread it.

 

[Setras]

I like the result of her first attempt at a weapon, I don't agree is a waste of a 100 points ( she got several things from it )

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Absolutely agree, that CP was not wasted, there's no way that nanotech knowledge won't come in handy later on down the track.

And critically, she still has 400cp banked! Have you guys seen some of the crap you can get for 400cp in the forge? Even discounting the magic crap and the companions (and I am so happy someone is finally doing so) there's some completely broken stuff in that price range... 400cp could buy the entire transformers or starbound knowledge base, or even give you the processing power of a culture mind. Not that I expect Cliffc999 to take those routes unless he's looking for a quick end to the story lol. But the potential is there.

Great chapter Cliffc999! Looking forward to the next one already

 

[Marshall817]

The problem with Crysis nanotech is you can't blackbox it.

The chapter only briefly touched on it, but Crysis nanotech is fully capable of mind raping/control and as the chapter described being capable of spreading without symptoms. This means that you need Star Trek-style super-science sensors and rigorous isolation of population bodies to safely use.

Functionally, anyone infected with Crysis nanotech has to be considered non-competent and non-consenting as the nanotech explicitly mindrapes hosts to compel them to spread it.

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Hmm?, you talking about the Manhattan Virus?. That's not a natural aspect of Ceph nanotech that's a aspect of an engineered nanotech virus built to do that so the infected humans go to ceph areas and clump together for easier recycling.

All other instances I can think of Ceph Tech controling people is the Alpha Ceph directly influencing people through said Ceph Tech. which as it obviously dosen't exist here is a nonfactor and I pretty sure base ceph nanotech dosen't have natural impetus to recreate it or the hivemind so it never would.

 

[Acolyte]

This reminds me of Bloodtide from WH40K.

Good chapter but I'm disappointed with purging the Ceph sample. Ceph could be much more useful than using them as mere
bio-weapons - they could help terraform planets much faster. If Ceph technology could be retrieved from the computer this
could result if alternative FTL methods that would allow Terra to overcome jump-2 drive limits - Ceph mastered wormhole tech
and could build and maintain wormholes to other galaxies.

"When the survival of humanity is at stake, there are no principles so sacrosanct that they cannot be violated."

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Its wrong i two ways. First some principle are more important than mere survival.

Also its not survival, the enemy is human as well, its cultural genocide not actual one.

 

[SemiSaneAuthor]

Just, for anyone advocating wiping out the Vilani?

Basically, a character going, "I would do it!" on considering wiping out a whole branch of humanity like say ... Davros in Genesis Of The Daleks talking about a virus that would kill everything, is a character acting like Davros in in Genesis Of The Daleks. Cliff isn't writing a villain protagonist like Lex Luthor in Lex Luthor Triumphant so that the near complete annihilation of another civilisation of humans isn't going to happen.

Sophia, even with the indoctrination of her culture against the Vilani that she has broken through, isn't going to just jump off into the deep end and wipe the Vilani out.

This is not Warhammer 40K where you shoot every alien you meet in the face and keep a bullet for yourself in case you run into a Daemon. So, please, remember that.

 

[Dormouse]

Its wrong i two ways. First some principle are more important than mere survival.

Also its not survival, the enemy is human as well, its cultural genocide not actual one.

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The importance of survival, cultural or otherwise, in comparison to other moral principles is an individual metric. I personally hold some principles above survival, but if I was faced with a purely binary choice that guaranteed I would not survive along with those I care for if I did not end the Vilani empire through genocide, I would kill those trillions of people.

A cultural genocide, in terms of killing everyone of that culture, is an actual genocide. The fact that they are the same species is irrelevant.

I would say that it is a matter of survival, as it has been stated that Vilani war doctrine is to win by devastating your opponent to the point that they are incapable of posing a threat. They would wipe out every major population center and region of significance, then force any of the remaining population to join their empire using thorough cultural indoctrination practices.

All that being said, it is often a fallacy to consider a situation, especially one as complex as that, as a binary decision with guaranteed outcomes. There is almost always a better way of doing things.

In the case of the Vilani empire, it would likely be simpler to cause a civil war or some other circumstance limiting their cohesion and ability to destroy Earth's people. That in combination with greatly increasing the ability and technological development our faction would allow us to grow into a faction that is too powerful to defeat.

 

[Doc Sithicus]

First some principle are more important than mere survival.

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If you don't survive all your principles are meaningless at that point.

Also its not survival, the enemy is human as well, its cultural genocide not actual one.

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You can tell that to Uyghurs in China and see if it'll make them feel better.

A cultural genocide is an actual genocide. The fact that they are the same species is irrelevant.

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Thank you! This guy gets it!

Sophia should understand that much more than the average westerner as Poles endured 123 years of cultural genocide during the partitions, followed by regular old genocide during WW2 from Nazi Germany and Soviet Union, followed by 50 years of communism forced upon us by Soviets (which I'd consider also as another cultural genocide).

 

[Vrenze]

If you don't survive all your principles are meaningless at that point

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Principles only have the meaning we give them. Some people have conviction to believe being principle makes them good and therefore put value in them over themselves. Between you and someone like that I'd say they care more than you do about leading a "good" life. Assuming you both care about your own lives to a similar degree.

 

[Marshall817]

Also Ironically enough Ceph Nanotech has been blackboxed before in the Nanosuit it's nanites are locked in that form and can't do anything else other than Nanosuit stuff it has to be specially unlocked at a suit cradle to do special nanobullshit. So a logical extension of that is to just build them to only be capable of doing Nanosuit things and not be able to unlock.

The Nanities are also 100% mutation free so won't stop only being able to that except by outside interference said outside interference would have to be both knowledgeable enough to program new functions into a completely foreign field of technology but get that past it's security and anti deviation measures.

It's important to note Ceph nanities are actually very resisitant to people fucking with them. The Nanosuit 2 is an Anti-Ceph weapon built of the knowledge gained from 100+ years of continuous research and reverse engineering on them with an onboard reverse engineered ceph AI (SECOND) and even that wasn't capable of reprogramming the Nanospore to target ceph without assistance from a second thing Hargreve built. (The Tunguska Iteration)

 

[litaispe]

Blackbox means being preventing knowing about the internals of a system. Not a readonly flag for nanotech which is canonically highly resistant to replication drift.

 

[Lightwhispers]

If you don't survive all your principles are meaningless at that point.



You can tell that to Uyghurs in China and see if it'll make them feel better.



Thank you! This guy gets it!

Sophia should understand that much more than the average westerner as Poles endured 123 years of cultural genocide during the partitions, followed by regular old genocide during WW2 from Nazi Germany and Soviet Union, followed by 50 years of communism forced upon us by Soviets (which I'd consider also as another cultural genocide).

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Deciding that your personal ethics are universal, and should be shared by a character in a story you aren't writing is an expression of profound hubris.
In this case, cliff999 has written Sophia to disagree with you. And the fact that people here are also disagreeing with you seems to indicate that your opinion is not universal. So, going "Sophia is wrong to have made this decision" is a workable argument, but "Sophia is being written wrong in making this decision" is not, especially since cliff999 already indicated why he's going that way.

 

[cliffc999]

So, going "Sophia is wrong to have made this decision" is a workable argument, but "Sophia is being written wrong in making this decision" is not, especially since cliff999 already indicated why he's going that way.

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Sithicus has a valid point in that Sophia's internal monologue needs to take that particular bit of history into account at some point, as it would not only logically shape her attitudes but earlier in this fic its already mentioned in passing that it has, which is why I liked his post. However, the logic of her decision still makes perfect sense to me and still stands.

Because TroyX put his finger exactly on the reason that Sophia destroyed the sample as quickly as she did. She destroyed that sample because she was afraid that if she hung onto it long enough, she would eventually talk herself into using it. That is of course not the only reason she destroyed it, but it is definitely one of the reasons that dictated the timing.

 

[TroyX]

To expand on why I liked the party scene, it wasn't just the bits of good-natured humour (though it certainly included that). It was that it showcased reasonable, mature characters being reasonable and mature. Sophia is told not to drink any more and given a quick explanation why, and instead of putting up any fuss whatsoever, she agrees and abides by it. She cheekily asks if he's speaking from experience about drunkenness, and instead of getting defensive or trying to cover it up, he's just like, "Yep!"

Cliff has a tendency to write rational and mature characters, and that's something I really enjoy about his work. I can hardly stand immature, irrational, overly emotional people in real life, the last thing I want to do is read about them in escapist fiction, especially so for a protag.

Also, I meant to ask before, Cliff, but I'm curious why you chose a female MC.

 

[cliffc999]

Also, I meant to ask before, Cliff, but I'm curious why you chose a female MC.

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I flipped a coin.

 

[Serran]

Thank you for writing such an engaging story.

It is an interesting moral debate. Especially since she can not have it with anyone else. Bouncing ideas of other people, especially if they have other opinions helps avert tunnel vision. And despite her forge granted Genius I doubt Sophia is exempt from it. Morally speaking, I think that it would have been a good idea to get a second opinion. Also from the point of view that she might miss other important applications. Ceph Nanotech together with her abilitiy to program it could have been a straight up victory condition, even if she never uses it as a Bioweapon. Just using it for selfimprovement, faster healing, unaging, etc. would have been a major step. Not even talking about using the Grey goo to outproduce their enemies, a potential she took from the table for now.

On the political and interpersonal point of view: "Hey Professor, what would you consider about the ethical implication of a potential grey goo swarm that can be programmed as a Bioweapon against the Vilani. With a delayed kill switch to ensure we got them all." is not what you want to hear from a student that got herself noted as a Genius with a Major microbiological discovery and expertise as well as incredible programming ability to her name. Especially after she got unsupervised Lab time with top of the Line equipment. Even if you are in favor of it, the implication of what she got up to are kind of concerning.

Practically speaking she has the Celestial Forge. Discarding one option, even doing it in a final way like this shoudn't matter. Even just taking a short look through the forge in use here means that there are many incredible exiting things that could give her what she needs from the forge. I don't know the setting so I don't know how long she has before the war starts. Though I think it would be possible for Sophia to develop the Jump-3 Engine by the time she is finished with University. It would certainly be something very interesting to write her Doctorate over.

Regarding Sophia's studies, what is she nominally studying right now? It looks to be something like Microbiology given that she got unsupervised access to a University lab for it. We know that she has a wide pool of advanced scientific knowledge, but others might slot her into that niche. Also is there going to be any interaction with her peers beyond the second hand note we got?

Her decision what to do after, found her own company or take a job with the military or a company will be something I also look forward to.

 

[Ovid]

Random thought, I wonder how things would have gone if instead of Ceph Nanotech, Sophia had gotten something like the Red Faction nanoforge? Made by humans (mostly, RF Armageddon showed there might have been alien inspiration), and mostly used for construction/deconstruction, not biological stuff.
Problem is, I dont recall the exact wording of such a thing, or if we have a Red Faction Armageddon jump, with it's more versatile nanoforge. RF Guerilla just deconstructed stuff.

 

[cliffc999]

Aaaand, my writing is on hold until I can get in to see a dentist on a walk-in basis and he can do something about my sudden toothache in/under my prosthetic tooth which I've been dealing with for the past couple of days. Which is understandably distracting me from intellectual tasks like composition. It was bad enough finishing the last chapter, but now its just stressing me out.

On Thanksgiving week. It never rains but it pours.

We hope this is something that can be cleared up in the next several days.