Forging Ahead (GURPS Interstellar Wars/Celestial Forge)

[Ovid]

...wait a minute. How does this version of the Celestial Forge handle fiat-backing, especially of items? Because a lot of the SB/QQ jumpchain community usually includes item respawning features (since early jumps didnt include it, but later jumpchain trends started to).

I wonder if this scene was all for character growth, but the reason the forge didnt react to the Sample's destruction is because it knows the sample is coming back in 24 hours/1 week/month/year/decade.

Which, say for more nanotech studies, but holy shit, the MC would be a nervous wreck waiting for that damn nanotech bomb to pop up again and again.

 

[cliffc999]

...wait a minute. How does the Celestial Forge handle fiat-backing, especially of items?

Click to shrink...

In the way the author finds most convenient for their story.

 

[EJH]

Never mind the MC, I'm a nervous wreck waiting for it to show up again…

 

[Ovid]

In the way the author finds most convenient for their story.

Click to shrink...

so, the Ceph Sample comes back, the CF speaks up in the most Clippy voice it has, says "I see you are trying to destroy that purchased item, would you like some help with that? Points will not be refunded", then removes the sample from existence?

I mean, it's kinda funny haha, but would also kind of dilute the big morals moment Sophia just had.

 

[Vrenze]

or alien its aurface aesthetics were.

Click to shrink...

aurface -> surface

basics of its progoramming language

Click to shrink...

progoramming -> programming

Also to get ahead of the dunce-wagon: YoUr Mc DuStRoYeD pOiNtS aNd A mEaNs Of MaKiNg FrEe AbUnDaNt FeWd, ShE iS tEh SaTaN aNd DuMb!!1!!1!!!

 

[Blaflaix]

Anoint myself the First Horseman of the Apocalypse. And the Fourth Horseman as well.

Click to shrink...

And putting 2 and 3 out of business.

 

[gaouw]

So, the Genius Patrol totally bugs her lab time, right?

They might not get her raw data and the Ceph nano-stuff, but they should know that she destroyed something with extreme prejudice.

After all, they already missed her "turtling" steps.

 

[Vrenze]

They might not get her raw data and the Ceph nano-stuff, but they should know that she destroyed something with extreme prejudice.

Click to shrink...

That someone ran the device as high and as long as possible is likely something that is recorded. Whether or not someone setup a report system for her time in the labs is another thing. I can see them being as likely to do it as not. They believe she is outside her 'turtling' so would have no reason not to show off what she's done so they may not consider the need to be so close over her shoulder, trusting that she will submit any findings to her teacher/mentors/whomever relevant.

Another thing to consider is that everyone else thinks they are headed into peacetime so there is little to no need, as far as they are aware, for super weapons which the nanobots explicitly are. Even if they did catch her notes, results, examinations, etc. they may come to the same conclusion and note her as being very forward thinking while wiping their own reports. They already believe her to be someone that thinks incredibly far ahead even from a young age based on their interpretation of why/how she suddenly aces the big exam while having shown 'merely' good academy scores.

 

[protoss16]

The text for Bolthole Protocol (Honor Harrington) since it is not on the perk list yet "While coming up with unbelievably advanced new designs may not be exactly your forte, what is is the reverse engineering of the same. You need only spend a few moments working at something to get a basic idea of how it works, and only get faster from there. No matter how advanced or obscure the technology, you can eventually work it out, with a thousandth the time and effort it would take anyone else."

 

[cliffc999]

The text for Bolthole Protocol (Honor Harrington) since it is not on the perk list yet

Click to shrink...

Agh, I knew I'd forgotten something. Putting it up now.

 

[A/N]

That went in an unexpected direction, though with hindsight of course she'd do this. Though I guessed she'd have bought a 'safety' perk before messing with the alien nanotech.

I assumed she'd be trying to improve Jump technology, using the nanotech to better study and rapidly construct and test prototypes, what with the focus on Terra's trapped position. If they could Jump further, suddenly they aren't trapped, have greater strategic mobility and the capacity to run away effectively. Clearly I wasn't thinking with nanotech because a plague to end all plagues sure beats the hell out of that.

 

[SemiSaneAuthor]

The Forge not giving her a reward for morality? I know your MC isn't you, Cliff. But I feel the need to say this to her:

To use an analogy that as a Star Wars fan should know if she's branched out into probably now open source video games? Just because you're playing KOTOR and didn't get Light Side Points, it doesn't mean that if you'd made a different choice that then you wouldn't earn Dark Side Points for making that different decision. And in the final battle in KOTOR?

Spoiler

You don't get Light Side or Dark Side Points for killing the Jedi in those cylinders on The Star Forge before Malak can consume their life force to heal himself.

Whether The Celestial Forge has morality or not, is still a mystery. Or if it can be brutally pragmatic when making choices. As just because it's being silent, doesn't mean it's making no moral or ethical choices. The Forge chooses what options it is giving her, and by making this choice it may be very well more inclined to give her options it wouldn't otherwise do so. As now it may trust her with the more morally questionable choices after that decision.

She has too little information to make such judgements on The Forge. And I look forward to whatever happens with The Forge and her when it's nature gets revealed to her. Whether she's right or not with her IC opinion is going to be interesting.

 

[Vrenze]

I assumed she'd be trying to improve Jump technology, using the nanotech to better study and rapidly construct and test prototypes,

Click to shrink...

What I understand from the chapter is that the nanites are (only?) focused on biology and she'd have to redo their entire programming if not structure to handle non-organic builds. Unless I read it wrong and the whole "you could throw nanites and carbon in a hole and get X" thing was talking about these specific nanites rather than the ideal nanite.

 

[Doc Sithicus]

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."

 

[Mechatrill]

You know, now I'm wondering if that extra year of credit on her basic service for contributions is one of those hands that the genius patrol had placed on the tiller specifically for her.

I mean, I can see it either way. The chapter before, they prefaced their meeting with the fact that Sophia will be taking off soon and that they need to make a decision right away on her, and she had already already made her big contribution to the project, so they may very well have decided to get the extra credit in the works as a way to get her back on Earth and making progress right away. That said, it's also true that they noted that Sophia was very much thriving, developmentally speaking, on Peraspera, so it's just as possible that they could have decided to do nothing and let her continue on there, and that the extra credit ended up happening without any particular action or effort on their parts.

So yeah, could be either way... Although, if I were a betting man, I'd be putting money on the genius patrol having at the very least placed a finger on the scales, as it were.

 

[Vrenze]

Good chapter but I'm disappointed with purging the Ceph sample.

Click to shrink...

The good they could do was never in doubt, the problem is how massively, uncompromising terrible they could, and arguably inevitably would, be. She can still make them (seemingly) and would likely do so if necessary but she doesn't want them in play or possibly sitting around for now is how I took it.

Yeah you could say she should only use them for terraforming. That means fuck all to the other people in the universe that look at that and say "hmm, yes I SHOULD play God and decide if whole swathes of people get to live or die..."

 

[Kyrin Fireheart]

Really enjoyed the chapter. Now for my two cents.

So, regardless of whether or not the Ceph nanos could be everything a nano could or was just biological, regardless of what more she could have gotten from them, I think some(or even a lot) of you readers are forgetting something very important. Being a genius doesn't preclude having emotions. This is a 19 year old girl who is drowning while trying to save the world by herself. She just "created" a weapon that would kill trillions of sentients, not just the Vilani but all the other alien races they've come in contact with, that would never stop spreading. One who also KNEW that if the higher ups found out about it they then SOMEONE up there would use it. Was she panicking? Yes. Was she right to do so? Very much so.

And as to the questions about fiat backed items showing up again, the general rule is if it's destroyed it shows up in the next jump if on a jump chain or is just gone if destroyed purposefully by the MC. Though of course Cliff can do whatever the hell he wants since, ya know, it's his story.

 

[protoss16]

I have been reading the traveler wiki, and right now the Vilani are at technology level 11 or tl-11 but dry nanotech starts at tl-19.
Edit: Logistics win wars.

 

[cliffc999]

I have been reading the traveler wiki, and right now the Vilani are at technology level 11 or tl-11 but dry nanotech starts at tl-19.

Click to shrink...

That's the Mongoose Games Traveller rules version, IIRC. In GURPS terms the setting is at TL10, and dry nanotech is a 'superscience' technology off the regular tech track. (So are contragravity and jump drive, for that matter, but obviously this setting's tech tree has those optional modules plugged in.)

 

[Elwyn]

All I'm going to say is that it's entirely possible for something to be "real" pop culture... but still not turn up on her datasearch.

Click to shrink...

You can't be doing it the way I would, timegating things to things that were released before the setting the character's in – since Traveller's a 1977 release, and even the Vilani suppliment was 1990; years before the Honorverse – started up.

Makes me curious whether you've got a ruleset for it, a cut off point, or if it's arbitrary based on feel.

 

[ryune]

I can completely understand Sophia's reaction here even if I think she is going to be kicking herself in the ass for it the moment she actually revisits the tech with a clear head.I actually approve of the reasoning despite what I say later in this post but it's a lack of thought and imagination of a teenager getting caught up in the worst case scenario that is entirely in character for a teenager not used to making such harrowing decisions.

Could the Ceph nanotech become an absolute nightmare if used as a weapon? Very much so and if someone cracks the code it's kind of trivial to weaponize.

The thing is, the whole reason chemical and biological weapons are so reviled is because of their indiscriminate natures and their tendency to spiral out of control. But it's also because at least on the bio-weapon front... there isn't a way to fight them.

Except... right here, the Ceph nanotech could have provided that. A synthetic immune system that can communicate with other cells and be tools of war against any bio- or chemical weapon or even diseases that anyone cares to name. So yeah, it can totally be weaponized but it can also be used to build a shield against any such weapon ever being developed. Maybe not a perfect one but it would very much at least give people a way to fight such weapons in the future and r4educe the effectiveness of any attack considerably.

That right there is why I think that the Forge didn't give her points for destroying the tech. Just because it can be a weapon doesn't make it any more of one than a hammer or chisel are and just because she destroyed the sample here doesn't mean that the Vilani can't ever develop a human specific bio-weapon if they cared to.

 

[cliffc999]

That right there is why I think that the Forge didn't give her points for destroying the tech. Just because it can be a weapon doesn't make it any more of one than a hammer or chisel are and just because she destroyed the sample here doesn't mean that the Vilani can't ever develop a human specific bio-weapon if they cared to.

Click to shrink...

Ah, right. It's not a bit of in-setting knowledge she's had a reason to think about on-camera yet, so readers would not know it unless they were already setting mavens, but it is known in-story.

Vilani bioscience is behind Terran bioscience. There's all sorts of in-setting reasons for it, but the short version is the Vilani couldn't get an effective biowar program going versus Confederation medicine even if they tried.

 

[Potato and Chip]

Note: She still has everything she learned about nanotechnology design from studying the sample in her perfect memory, before anyone screams 'wasted points!'. But it's not a story where the protagonist doesn't make significant choices, even if that means she risks being wrong. And she was just never going to go for the 'push a button, kill all Vilani everywhere' solution and still be herself.

Click to shrink...

I'm hoping she still has the knowledge of how to build something like what she just destroyed because... well... call me optimistic, but from what she described I didn't really see a bio-super-weapon so much as possibly the greatest medical discovery in the history of humanity.

A cure for cancer, birth defects, dementia, schizophrenia, every illness known and unknown, every infection possible, and every single issue the human body might ever encounter. I mean, yeah, it could be used to do wide spread genocide, but does the fear of misuse mean that the cure for all the ills of humanity must be destroyed?

 

[ryune]

Ah, right. It's not a bit of in-setting knowledge she's had a reason to think about on-camera yet, so readers would not know it unless they were already setting mavens, but it is known in-story.

Vilani bioscience is behind Terran bioscience. There's all sorts of in-setting reasons for it, but the short version is the Vilani couldn't get an effective biowar program going versus Confederation medicine even if they tried.

Click to shrink...

Eh, you've mentioned it as one of the exports into Vilanti space and I was using them as an a stand in example over possibly the course of centuries. Basically the argument was that just because Sophia successfully put the genie back in the bottle for humanity... who's to say there isn't a polity of humanoids that wiped themselves out with a bio-weapon that's still active somewhere on a completely innocent looking set of worlds or that nobody will ever develop a weapon of similar targeted lethality or that it might have just evolved somewhere?

The argument is basically "better to have than to not have."

But like I said, Sophia made a decent choice considering the position that the commonwealth is currently in. I very much doubt that such tech wouldn't be put to it's absolute most brute force application by the government. That would limit damage certainly but it would also make the Vilani actually pay attention if planetary populations could just be noped out of existence.

 

[Domino]

I can completely understand Sophia's reaction here even if I think she is going to be kicking herself in the ass for it the moment she actually revisits the tech with a clear head.I actually approve of the reasoning despite what I say later in this post but it's a lack of thought and imagination of a teenager getting caught up in the worst case scenario that is entirely in character for a teenager not used to making such harrowing decisions.

Could the Ceph nanotech become an absolute nightmare if used as a weapon? Very much so and if someone cracks the code it's kind of trivial to weaponize.

The thing is, the whole reason chemical and biological weapons are so reviled is because of their indiscriminate natures and their tendency to spiral out of control. But it's also because at least on the bio-weapon front... there isn't a way to fight them.

Except... right here, the Ceph nanotech could have provided that. A synthetic immune system that can communicate with other cells and be tools of war against any bio- or chemical weapon or even diseases that anyone cares to name. So yeah, it can totally be weaponized but it can also be used to build a shield against any such weapon ever being developed. Maybe not a perfect one but it would very much at least give people a way to fight such weapons in the future and r4educe the effectiveness of any attack considerably.

That right there is why I think that the Forge didn't give her points for destroying the tech. Just because it can be a weapon doesn't make it any more of one than a hammer or chisel are and just because she destroyed the sample here doesn't mean that the Vilani can't ever develop a human specific bio-weapon if they cared to.

Click to shrink...

She didn't really purge the nanites because she was afraid of someone using them as a weapon, she purged the nanites because she didn't want them being used as a weapon on her conscience. The only reason the nanotech exists is because she chose it from the Forge (and, as far as I understand it, nanotech like that is literally impossible in the universe she's in absent the Forge creating it) so anything that it's used for she feels is ultimately her responsibility.

She wasn't worried about her cp total or getting a refund, she was worried that if she didn't destroy it and if she introduced even a variant with a more benign use, the genie would be out of the bottle and eventually someone would use it to it's full and awful potential. Or maybe someone figures out a way to use it to enforce loyalty to a regime? Or any number of nightmare scenarios that this kind of nanotech capability can allow to come to fruition. The nanotech, for all it's potential value, would have been an invisible sword of damocles hanging over our heroine's head.

 

[GAMB42]

My own 2 cents on the latest chapter is that Sophia was completely justified, in her own view and experience, about purging the ceph sample. Mainly because if it ever got out of her hands the results could easily become apocaliptic really fast and without anyway counters being viable. She was handling what amounts to a genie in a box in the form of extremely advanced superscience and trusting others to be "reasonable" in such a cenario is simply put bad policy. It is too easy for the decision taken to be the objective wrong decision. I'm reminded of how the real world cold war almost went nuclear hot several times from simple communication equipment failure or even singular actors almost triggering. Leaving the sample as it was would endup being too much temptation.

Also on the same line of thought and storyline the sample would either be forgotten, not happening for many good reasons, or somehow lost, which would turn the story into a hunt for the maggufin type story, which would make the whole purpose of tech and empire building a competitive storyline. So getting rid of it makes perfect narrative sense.

Now speaking ethically about making a nanoplague one can't depend on whoever ends up making the call to "make the right choice" as a matter so important without already established rules. Else there is no story or even character agency.

Finally Sophia isn't some battle hardened cold blooded and age weary operative who would make the "hard" choice. She is a young woman who got handled a mission and is trying not to cave to the pressure.

Lastly @cliffc999 or anyone else really, I'm not really familiar with GURPS and its "expansion packs". Is there somewhere I can get the information online ?

 

[gammoregan]

I can completely understand Sophia's reaction here even if I think she is going to be kicking herself in the ass for it the moment she actually revisits the tech with a clear head.I actually approve of the reasoning despite what I say later in this post but it's a lack of thought and imagination of a teenager getting caught up in the worst case scenario that is entirely in character for a teenager not used to making such harrowing decisions.

Could the Ceph nanotech become an absolute nightmare if used as a weapon? Very much so and if someone cracks the code it's kind of trivial to weaponize.

The thing is, the whole reason chemical and biological weapons are so reviled is because of their indiscriminate natures and their tendency to spiral out of control. But it's also because at least on the bio-weapon front... there isn't a way to fight them.

Except... right here, the Ceph nanotech could have provided that. A synthetic immune system that can communicate with other cells and be tools of war against any bio- or chemical weapon or even diseases that anyone cares to name. So yeah, it can totally be weaponized but it can also be used to build a shield against any such weapon ever being developed. Maybe not a perfect one but it would very much at least give people a way to fight such weapons in the future and r4educe the effectiveness of any attack considerably.

That right there is why I think that the Forge didn't give her points for destroying the tech. Just because it can be a weapon doesn't make it any more of one than a hammer or chisel are and just because she destroyed the sample here doesn't mean that the Vilani can't ever develop a human specific bio-weapon if they cared to.

Click to shrink...

Okay, sure, but how would you develop a defense for both sides and spread it?

If the Confederation and the Imperium try and develop one together... the Vilani find out that Humans have technology that is theoretically capable of Vilani extinction, has had it for an unknown amount of time and has put an unknown amount of research into this. The only logical response for the Vilani is to quarantine themselves from Humanity, and then immediately destroy Human civilizaiton so any theoretical weapon can't be developed, or deployed if it has already been developed. Possibly also embargo their own planets that have had direct contact with Humans as well until they can be certain that no such bioweapon was released. All this without consideration to the cost in money and Vilani lives to accomplish these things, because anything less than going as far as possible is a risk to the existence of their species.

If the Confederation develop this on their own, and then release it and only let the knowledge out after - the Imperium's response should be the same. Even if the research team made a shield for the Vilani as well, then the Imperium would still wipe out Humanity and consider it a final "fuck you" if the Confederation lied and they have a sleeping weapon in their bodies, or as a preventative measure because some Confederation research team has infected all Vilani with a currently harmless weapon that they could make not so harmless at any point, as far as the Imperium knows.

And if you just ignore the potential of the Ceph nanobots and try to use them for peaceful means instead, that just means eventually other people will get their hands on them and study them. If those other people are Vilani that acquired them through spies and smuggling, see above. If its a Human research team, they should realize that eventually as this peaceful nanobot tech proliferates the Imperium will acquire a sample eventually, and see the outcome of that. Thus as a Human the logical response is to weaponize it as quickly as possible and use that weapon as fast as possible before Humanity is made extinct through conventional means.

The existence of Ceph nanobots, if they are in a position where either side could ever possibly see them and their potential, is like a mexican standoff. One where both sides know that the best way to not get shot is to shoot first, because nobody can put their gun down or see what the other person is doing with their own gun, and both people hat each other.

I still think that Sophia should have kept them until she learned as much as she could from them, or was leaving MIT. Whichever came first would be the best time to destroy them. But their existence would just make certain that only one side, at most, would survive.

 

[ranmatoushin]

Cliffc999,

Did Sophia destroy the Ceph nanobot becuase they are so advanced and designed for bio-manipulation?
That is would she be willing to imake some nanobots for other construction uses, or is nanotech as a field the issue?

 

[Sto Odin]

Very effective chapter. I think she was probably right to destroy the sample, and even if it may have been a bit hasty given the other potential uses ... hey, she's 19; occasional unwise actions pretty much come with the territory. And if the temptation was strong enough, taking decisive action to remove it right then was absolutely correct.

Typo/missing verb:

even a 200+ IQ didn't many options for logicking

Click to shrink...

 

[ryune]

Okay, sure, but how would you develop a defense for both sides and spread it?

Click to shrink...

Develop it pretty much the exact same way as you would a bioweapon. The same factors that would make it so utterly deadly would be a boon in this case. Make it infectious and wide spreading and have it in "sleep" mode for years, maybe even decades and then when it activates it takes over for the normal immune system. Ideally, nobody even knows it's going around or that it's active until people just... stop getting sick.

Ideally, this would be worked on by Sophia on her lonesome and hopefully her involvement with it is just flat never discovered. Depending on just how advanced she gets before deployment she can even get it to masquerade as it's own intelligent form of life or as a symbiotic organism similar to what is found in farmerbob's Symbiote.

Hell, if she just used it for herself it would have been a pretty decent boon for the CP considering just how fucking cheep it was. But then, she would always have had the temptation to make use of it as a weapon.

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