Is The K'kree Navy A Threat - I Think Not! / Virus

[Wil Mireu]

Why does everyone whine about Virus?

Because some people don't like change. There are probably still people who hold a grudge against the authors of TNE for destroying "their" setting, even though they had no obligation to follow the published setting at all in their games.

As for the argument that it's "lame" or "stupid" or "unrealistic"... it's no worse than all the other lame, stupid, and unrealistic things that pervade the Third Imperium setting that nobody seems to make anywhere near as much fuss over (like the economics, the social structure, the world, the history, etc...)

Personally I think Virus and the Collapse are the best thing that ever happened to Traveller. IMO it's a crime that 1248 isn't available on DTRPG, since it denies people the opportunity to experience its awesomeness (and not be stuck in the dreary CT era).

 

[GypsyComet]

Because it was incredibly stupid and was appropriate to Fantasy genre not, Sci-Fi.

Civilization-wiping apocalypses happen in SF all the time.

Not in that form. Restudy what it was supposed to be,

If you have a theory, please trot it out or provide specific sources. Making us guess does not help your case at all.

 

[Wil Mireu]

If you have a theory, please trot it out or provide specific sources. Making us guess does not help your case at all.

F33D does this all the time. He seems to think that it's not his obligation to provide sources or explanations for what he says.

 

[steelbrok]

S&P also has a K'kree article.

Could you point out which one?

I'd like to read it

It is called Destiny: Within the Two Thousand Worlds by By William H Keith Jr in issue 88.

Thanks

Read it and realised it was a reprint from Classic JTAS

My take on the K'kree threat?

They grabbed a big empire fighting low tech species, now (1100s) it's their sheer size that makes them a threat. True the IN can take them apart ship for ship but there will be a lot of ships. The IN would win but would have to draw lots of ships from other parts of the Imperium (and huge numbers of ground troops).

Once you get to cybered Lords/Gods of Thunder (and I for one liked these more deadly K'kree) things change.

IMTU all government B worlds are K'kree so you have to deal with them a lot more often even in the Marches

 

[F33D]

If you have a theory, please trot it out or provide specific sources. Making us guess does not help your case at all.

Simple, no matter how you adjust the data input into a piece of silicon, it doesn't become a living organism. It is injecting pure fantasy genre into Sci-Fi. I don't care about the setting as I stopped using it LONG before that. It was just an incredibly lazy way to deal with something that could have been handled much more elegantly and to much better effect.

 

[Ishmael]

I'd say that it depends on one's definition of "living organism".
Self-replicating code is possible, so in at least one sense, code (data) that is self-replicating is exhibiting a characteristic that defines "living organism". In such a case, its the code that's the organism, and not the silicon.
Think "Core Wars " on overdrive with evolving code.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_War

Life is a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have signaling and self-sustaining processes from those that do not,

The code can satisfy this definition as long as it has a suitable environment. This environment would be the programmable device ( chip, PAL, or whatever the futuristic version might be ).

The interesting scientific questions concern its interactions with humans, what sort of cultures it might spawn, etc.

I find it to be no less science fiction than Project 2501, from Ghost in the Shell.
As such, I think it could be a nice bridge into Transhumanist Traveller or Cyberpunk Traveller.

 

[F33D]

I'd say that it depends on one's definition of "living organism".
Self-replicating code is possible, so in at least one sense, code (data) that is self-replicating is exhibiting a characteristic that defines "living organism". In such a case, its the code that's the organism, and not the silicon.

That isn't what the "Virus" was supposed to be (just self replicating code). See original game material.

 

[Wil Mireu]

Simple, no matter how you adjust the data input into a piece of silicon, it doesn't become a living organism.

That isn't what the "Virus" was supposed to be (just self replicating code). See original game material.

The code itself wasn't the "living organism" - the CHIP was the living organism. The Cymbeline chips were "naturally occurring silicon lifeforms" that could alter their own silicon pathways (which it turns out is actually possible and has been done in the lab, by IBM I think). They were exploited by the Imperium and essentially lobotomised and used as the basis for the IFF chips in starships. Virus was created to corrupt those chips, but obviously it got out of hand...

 

[F33D]

Simple, no matter how you adjust the data input into a piece of silicon, it doesn't become a living organism.

That isn't what the "Virus" was supposed to be (just self replicating code). See original game material.

The code itself wasn't the "living organism" - the CHIP was the living organism.

Yes, that's my point. Therein lies skipping over to a Fantasy genre. I stated such in my earlier post on this thread.

 

[Ishmael]

That isn't what the "Virus" was supposed to be (just self replicating code). See original game material.

Isn't DNA a form of self-replicating code?
Instead of self-organizing proteins and the like, the chips were self-organizing silicon compounds.
Not fantasy at all, but a reasonably common sci-fi trope.

One great story is Man Plus by Frederick Pohl.
It's been a long time, but I seem to recall that it was computer AI's that initiated the project for self-preservation in case of a global doomsday war.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Yes, that's my point. Therein lies skipping over to a Fantasy genre. I stated such in my earlier post on this thread.

So you don't hold with machine intelligence in sci fi? Quite a common theme even before you get into the realms of transhumanism.

And yet the other science fantasy aspects of the OTU are fine? Artificial gravity, acceleration compensators, jump drive in a 2d universe, reaction-less thrusters, nuclear dampers, meson technology, black globes, magic heat sinks, etc.

 

[F33D]

So you don't hold with machine intelligence in sci fi?

You haven't read and UNDERSTOOD what I wrote.

 

[Wil Mireu]

So you don't hold with machine intelligence in sci fi?

You haven't read and UNDERSTOOD what I wrote.

Instead of throwing a tantrum and blaming other people for not understanding you (which you do all the time), perhaps you could for once try to actually explain yourself properly instead of just with one-line answers.

Either way, whether you think that Virus is scifi or fantasy is entirely irrelevant to the thread.

 

[Wil Mireu]

Yes, that's my point. Therein lies skipping over to a Fantasy genre. I stated such in my earlier post on this thread.

Like I said, there's plenty in Traveller that already "skips over to the Fantasy genre". But chips that rewrite themselves is not - see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15351071 for example (that's what I was thinking of earlier).

 

[Ishmael]

sorry, it was my fault by veering of topic....
won't happen again.

To bring the thread back on topic
cyber-K'kree from beyond the black curtain warfleets vs Imps?

 

[Sigtrygg]

There are no Impie fleets left by the time the cyber- K'kree from beyond the black curtain were released

According to Dave Nilsen's posts on COTI the TNE course of events would have been a bit different to the 1248 vision.

The RC would have made use of the ship construction facility that would have been discovered in the Guilded Lily arc.

Meanwhile Sandman's children would have upgraded the computer systems on the RC vessels.

The RC and the Regency meet at roughly the same time as forces from within the Black Curtain begin scouting missions and expansion.

After initial distrust the Regency with its TL16 fleet and the RC with its augmented AI systems discover what lies within the Black Curtain - cyber K'kree shocktroops just being part of the horrors that await.

At some point the Star Vikings have to commit an atrocity to win - necessary for survival but in the post war polity enough to drive the Star Vikings into exile.

Just the Empress Wave to deal with next.

 

[locarno24]

The code itself wasn't the "living organism" - the CHIP was the living organism. The Cymbeline chips were "naturally occurring silicon lifeforms" that could alter their own silicon pathways (which it turns out is actually possible and has been done in the lab, by IBM I think). They were exploited by the Imperium and essentially lobotomised and used as the basis for the IFF chips in starships.

That was more my problem, to be honest. Because the underlying theory (as I understood it) seems to be "oh, and we've all spontaneously replaced every single major ship's architecture with these chips" over a period of...what? A couple of decades?

With the amount of old stuff being used as the architecture of supposedly 'cutting edge' aircraft and ships, that really doesn't seem convincing.

 

[Wil Mireu]

That was more my problem, to be honest. Because the underlying theory (as I understood it) seems to be "oh, and we've all spontaneously replaced every single major ship's architecture with these chips" over a period of...what? A couple of decades?

With the amount of old stuff being used as the architecture of supposedly 'cutting edge' aircraft and ships, that really doesn't seem convincing.

Though if enough cutting edge stuff gets replaced, it could still be enough. If the military's capital ships have the new IFF chip, they're all going to get Virused and do a lot of damage to everything. The clunky little free traders still using the old chips in the middle of nowhere may not, but they're not going to have much of an effect against the onslaught of self-aware warships.

 

[dragoner]

That was more my problem, to be honest. Because the underlying theory (as I understood it) seems to be "oh, and we've all spontaneously replaced every single major ship's architecture with these chips" over a period of...what? A couple of decades?

With the amount of old stuff being used as the architecture of supposedly 'cutting edge' aircraft and ships, that really doesn't seem convincing.

Robots has a better solution, it was the age of slavery, or end thereof to be exact; people just attached the term "virus" to any mechanical life that was disobedient.

 

[Wil Mireu]

Robots has a better solution, it was the age of slavery, or end thereof to be exact; people just attached the term "virus" to any mechanical life that was disobedient.

Until Virus came along, true AI wasn't possible at Imperial TLs.