Well of Souls Forums

Page 154

Now, what could possibly go wrong?

Ok this page is Damned COOL!

The Historian is probably going to discover the internets true purpose porn and by then it will regret leaving its trashcan.

H'mm. How'd that show up on the Pad's desktop screen before the message was opened?

(I spy the Emissary's visage)

Wups! That's not supposed to be there!

Thanks for catching that.

I'm not a patreon, so my opnion maybe or maybe not be a spoiler:

Is there any context for what "guardian of the garden" means?

It is what Alexander Jardin's name means, or at least what he told Stillstorm on the bridge when the Historian representative was present.

hi hi

I would not be surprised if, while the Tempest's crew was trying to figure out what some of the artifacts did on their own, the historian construct on the bridge was listening to wireless signals and doing its own figuring out.

If I were Alex, suppose I might do the same thing, although I might not have pressed the button quite so quickly. Still, if there's enough spare parts from the other non-functioning pads to replace the hard disk and memory if it got corrupted, there's way more potential reward than risk.

Next scene:

"Wherein Jardin finds out that executable had more than one meaning and the Historians now have a loose end tied up."

~Fin~

One word:

Historigotchi



But, honestly...

• The AI decoded an alien technology from the grounds up.
• It either spied on Alex and Beryl, had prior knowledge or decoded the English Language, which with all its spelling inconsistencies is not an easy feat.
• It bypassed the device's airplane mode.
• It must have bypassed any firewall/virus checking/spam filer/countermeasure on that device.

And it still didn't manage to make that message auto-executing or outright install something on the device?

Well, me thinks it is already running, and just officially requesting permission before making contact.


Also, yay! It's my birthday, and I'm turning 184 apparently.
Whelp, time's flying when you're busy waiting for something to happen.
(Also, only 8 days since the Bellarmine entered Naam system? I would've expected more time to have passed...)

The real question is, can he play chess against historian AI?

Well, don't press that button!
It activates Skynet, and then Humanity is DOOMED, doomed I tell ya!

To sum up what we know so far, it appears that the Historian AI/VI, while in standby mode inside it's bucket (it's obviously not registering on the shuttle's displays since everything's supposed to be offline to reduce emissions), is aware that Alex is alone in the cargo bay and has obtained a tablet, and has managed to reverse engineer the tablet's hardware and software, AND placed a file on it, while the tablet itself is in standby with wi-fi physically disabled.

That is, for a lack of better words, amazing, and one can only guess, what else it has done or can do... I wouldn't be at all surprised, if the Historians are happily rolling around all Loroi computers without them even suspecting anything

Well, according to the Insider, Humanity is rated at Tech Level 9 / on the cusp of TL 10. I doubt the tablet in question is the bleeding edge of the available tech, so I'd bet it is TL 9.

Loroi / Umiak are early TL 11. We've seen, basically, how big difference is there between (I assume) mature TL 9 and early TL 11. Now, Historians are guessed (by the Loroi) to be somewhere in TL 12.

That's 3 tech levels above Humanity. Assuming the progress is constant, they're as far above TL 9 human tech as we in early 21st century (seems TL 7 we got pretty much covered, and in everyday use - a few elements of TL 8 are here, but rather in early stages. Others are not there yet) above late Renaissance / Colonial TL 4 Era.

And that's before we consider that:
1. TL Scale might be not linear,
2. Historians might be above TL 12 (remember, it is just what the Loroi do estimate. They might be right about it, but they might be wrong as well).

So... a Historian (assumed) TL12 computer (AI-capable one) making short work of a Human TL 9 pad? I believe it to be a safe bet. Very safe bet, if we compare the ordinary TL 7 computers we're using to write on this forum to what was available at TL 4. If memory serves me, the common computing device of that time was still an abacus (a very useful and versatile tool in a skilled user's hands), with slide ruler being pretty much cutting edge and requiring some advanced knowledge to operate effectively.
While mechanical analog computers existed before that, they tended to be very purpose-specific (orreries, astrolabes) and not really common...

entity2636 wrote:To sum up what we know so far, it appears that the Historian AI/VI, while in standby mode inside it's bucket (it's obviously not registering on the shuttle's displays since everything's supposed to be offline to reduce emissions), is aware that Alex is alone in the cargo bay and has obtained a tablet, and has managed to reverse engineer the tablet's hardware and software, AND placed a file on it, while the tablet itself is in standby with wi-fi physically disabled.

That is, for a lack of better words, amazing, and one can only guess, what else it has done or can do... I wouldn't be at all surprised, if the Historians are happily rolling around all Loroi computers without them even suspecting anything

Depends what it's standby mode actually means, and how much energy it actually uses and radiates. Or that the shuttle actually have some monitoring system equipped, and they are currently operational.

folti wrote:

entity2636 wrote:To sum up what we know so far, it appears that the Historian AI/VI, while in standby mode inside it's bucket (it's obviously not registering on the shuttle's displays since everything's supposed to be offline to reduce emissions), is aware that Alex is alone in the cargo bay and has obtained a tablet, and has managed to reverse engineer the tablet's hardware and software, AND placed a file on it, while the tablet itself is in standby with wi-fi physically disabled.

That is, for a lack of better words, amazing, and one can only guess, what else it has done or can do... I wouldn't be at all surprised, if the Historians are happily rolling around all Loroi computers without them even suspecting anything

Depends what it's standby mode actually means, and how much energy it actually uses and radiates. Or that the shuttle actually have some monitoring system equipped, and they are currently operational.

I was assuming based on it being called "quiet" mode that it meant it wouldn't broadcast, not that it couldn't receive. While that might be functionally equivalent to turning the WiFi off if it were interacting with other human devices (which would probably want IP address information or something before sending any messages), I doubt that means the receiver has been turned off as it would be a passive system anyway. If something sent a message through the receiver and didn't care about getting identification from the device (because that something was an AI that had its own means of determining that) then it could work without involving any transmissions from the pad.

RedDwarfIV wrote:

folti wrote: Depends what it's standby mode actually means, and how much energy it actually uses and radiates. Or that the shuttle actually have some monitoring system equipped, and they are currently operational.

I was assuming based on it being called "quiet" mode that it meant it wouldn't broadcast, not that it couldn't receive. While that might be functionally equivalent to turning the WiFi off if it were interacting with other human devices (which would probably want IP address information or something before sending any messages), I doubt that means the receiver has been turned off as it would be a passive system anyway. If something sent a message through the receiver and didn't care about getting identification from the device (because that something was an AI that had its own means of determining that) then it could work without involving any transmissions from the pad.

Oh, there are going to be a whole lot of levels of standby involved, ranging from the various sensors and communication sub-systems, to the core system running the AI itself.

I'm pretty sure, that the core can change it's processing speed itself like modern processors here on Earth, and can even suspend it's operation handing control over to a dumb* subsystem running the sensors and communication modules with an order of "wake me up when something interesting happens".

As for how it worked out how to talk to the PADs, well, it might have a few sensors that don't need even a turned on and broadcasting PAD, which could be unknown, and undetectable even for the Loroi (remember, even the Loroi don't know how their sanzai and telekinesis actually works and they had a few milenia of technical society to throw resources at the problem). Something like the effectors from Iain M. Banks' Culture novels.

* dumb compared to the core AI. It can be a high level, but non-sentient AI too.

Pad CXII ?

Does that mean its an emergency pad?