Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 10-07-2014, 01:52 PM   #11
marvin
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Cydonia
Default Re: Transhuman Space in Infinite Worlds

Quote:
Originally Posted by vicky_molokh View Post
What requirements? THS encryption is strategically secure even against government-level THS cryptoanalysis. A byte is a byte, and you can trivially ensure data integrity with trivial increases in the amount of data sent. I really don't understand in what way TL10 transmission protocols are worse than TL8 ones.
Well...neural net computer needed (hand wave, hand wave). And Ghosts and SAIs require special (cough, cough, mutter, mutter). Finally, I think we're all fully aware that these unique digital entities have issues regarding...Holly crap!!! What is that over there?!!!
marvin is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-07-2014, 01:54 PM   #12
johndallman
Night Watchman
 
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
Default Re: Transhuman Space in Infinite Worlds

Quote:
Originally Posted by marvin View Post
Yes and I've decided that the newly inserted hardware requirements (on both ends) for high level digital entities precludes their being transmitted by long range wireless transmission, especially through a radiation rich environment.
While you may well have bandwidth difficulties with long-range radio, a group of lasers at carefully selected frequencies gives all you could plausibly want. TL8 labs have demonstrated fibre optics at 100petabits/second, which seems like a plausible figure for space links at TL10.

If your environment is very noisy, then transmission gets slower, but space-to-space paths that don't go close to the Sun should allow at least a tenth of you theoretical bandwidth.
johndallman is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 10-07-2014, 02:05 PM   #13
johndallman
Night Watchman
 
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
Default Re: Transhuman Space in Infinite Worlds

Quote:
Originally Posted by marvin View Post
Given a Point of Divergence between the THS and RoS realities of about 90 years (I'm sticking with setting dates of 2100 and 2064 respectively) from the THS perspective how compatible would the software and the computer hardware be at this point? Surely, given the tremendous computing power available to THS spacecraft they could come up with something. But how difficult would it be? I don't want an easy walkover.
Well, while both sides can probably emulate Windows Zenith[tm], they probably aren't going to be very compatible. It would be a lot easier to crack the protocols, instruction sets, and so on with example computers. Picking up neglected space probes may help, but stealing some systems while staying totally covert will make for adventures.
Quote:
Also where would the best place be for the task force to appear to avoid detection? I was thinking a joint operation taking place around Jupiter or Saturn. A quick system survey would let the THS people know something is awry. So how do they get to Mars without lighting up their drives?
If they're in orbit around Europa or Titan, with their drives shut down, it seems unlikely that anyone will notice them. As for getting to Mars, you probably don't move the big ships until you're prepared to go overt. You use your minifacs and bush robots and so on and you build slow probes. You xox your AIs - the situation clearly justifies it - and send copies.

Last edited by johndallman; 10-07-2014 at 02:15 PM. Reason: tm
johndallman is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 10-07-2014, 08:44 PM   #14
DAT
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Idaho Falls, Idaho
Default Re: Transhuman Space in Infinite Worlds

Aren't at least two of the Zone Minds focused on Space - One SETI focused and one paranoid about alien invasion?

If so, then one of them may catch site of a engine lite anywhere except the far side of the sun.
DAT is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-10-2014, 02:33 PM   #15
jbalsle
 
Join Date: Dec 2004
Default Re: Transhuman Space in Infinite Worlds

Quote:
Originally Posted by marvin View Post
Well...neural net computer needed (hand wave, hand wave). And Ghosts and SAIs require special (cough, cough, mutter, mutter). Finally, I think we're all fully aware that these unique digital entities have issues regarding...Holly crap!!! What is that over there?!!!
Lol. That's a good response to someone nitpicking your design choices. :)


Not that I care much for them -- I do think that removing the ability to beam SAI or LAI Shadows to Mars to stand in for you at a symposium is a cool idea -- but it is your game and you shouldn't be grilled on how it works.

Another good answer -- Sure, you can beam an AI using advanced error correction to Mars, but do you really want to tie up a transceiver for multiple hours/days/weeks/etc to ensure that the error detection and correction algorithm has sufficient bits to ensure the AI makes it to Mars in one piece. It may be more economical to just send the computer housing the AI to Mars in that case.
jbalsle is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-10-2014, 02:56 PM   #16
johndallman
Night Watchman
 
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
Default Re: Transhuman Space in Infinite Worlds

Quote:
Originally Posted by jbalsle View Post
Not that I care much for them -- I do think that removing the ability to beam SAI or LAI Shadows to Mars to stand in for you at a symposium is a cool idea -- but it is your game and you shouldn't be grilled on how it works.
I think maybe we need some terminology for styles of using THS. There are people who like it with all the numbers that tell you what you can and can't do. There are also people who don't care about all the "hard science" stuff and want to use it as a setting where the plots work about like Star Trek. These two groups don't communicate easily: the first thinks the second is missing the whole point of the setting, and the second thinks the first is making a huge fuss about things that nobody really cares about.

How about THS(Hard) and THS(Soft) as names for these styles?

Quote:
Another good answer -- Sure, you can beam an AI using advanced error correction to Mars, but do you really want to tie up a transceiver for multiple hours/days/weeks/etc to ensure that the error detection and correction algorithm has sufficient bits to ensure the AI makes it to Mars in one piece. It may be more economical to just send the computer housing the AI to Mars in that case.
It isn't weeks. A Complexity 8 AI, which is a big smart one, is 100TB (THS, p143). A laser at 1000GB/minute (p147) can transmit that in 100 minutes, and the relatively unsophisticated error correction algorithms of TL8 will get you it there correctly with less than a 50% overhead. If you can send a physical computer to Mars for less than that costs, you're way beyond THS technology.

Consider your reaction to this argument. If it's meaningful, you're tending to the THS(Hard) style, if not, then not.
johndallman is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 10-10-2014, 03:22 PM   #17
vicky_molokh
GURPS FAQ Keeper
 
vicky_molokh's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
Default Re: Transhuman Space in Infinite Worlds

Quote:
Originally Posted by johndallman View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by jbalsle View Post
Lol. That's a good response to someone nitpicking your design choices. :)
I think maybe we need some terminology for styles of using THS. There are people who like it with all the numbers that tell you what you can and can't do. There are also people who don't care about all the "hard science" stuff and want to use it as a setting where the plots work about like Star Trek. These two groups don't communicate easily: the first thinks the second is missing the whole point of the setting, and the second thinks the first is making a huge fuss about things that nobody really cares about.

How about THS(Hard) and THS(Soft) as names for these styles?

Consider your reaction to this argument. If it's meaningful, you're tending to the THS(Hard) style, if not, then not.
Indeed, this isn't nitpickiness for the sake of picking nits. It's an attempt to make sense of the way the setting works. Changes like the one mentioned have consequences. And Transhuman Space is very much about cause-and-effect. The tactics available to the PCs depend on how stuff works. The workarounds that the technicians will use depend on why this or that is easy or hard to do. (You probably missed the moment when declaring Ghosts impossible by an altered setting's laws of nature [cause] results in meatbrains becoming super-Turing machines by definition [effect].)

Quote:
Originally Posted by jbalsle View Post
Not that I care much for them -- I do think that removing the ability to beam SAI or LAI Shadows to Mars to stand in for you at a symposium is a cool idea -- but it is your game and you shouldn't be grilled on how it works.
Problem is, in this case infomorphs aren't. The big point of an infomorph is that it is mostly platform-agnostic (for a definition of platform-agnostic that includes adjustments to the external layer due to differences in 2100 that are similar to the modernish RISC vs. CISC). As long as it's on a turing-complete machine (with a finite but reasonable amount of RAM), and the appropriate wrapper software is available, it can run.

Hardware-based robots are not a thing in THS, and trying to enforce all AIs (and Ghosts) to be hardware robots will break the setting in ways that take tens or hundreds of pages to analyse and summarise.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jbalsle View Post
Another good answer -- Sure, you can beam an AI using advanced error correction to Mars, but do you really want to tie up a transceiver for multiple hours/days/weeks/etc to ensure that the error detection and correction algorithm has sufficient bits to ensure the AI makes it to Mars in one piece. It may be more economical to just send the computer housing the AI to Mars in that case.
This is a case of Has No Sense of Proportion. Error correction doesn't work like that.
__________________
Vicky 'Molokh', GURPS FAQ and uFAQ Keeper
vicky_molokh is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-10-2014, 03:38 PM   #18
Flyndaran
Untagged
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
Default Re: Transhuman Space in Infinite Worlds

Quote:
Originally Posted by vicky_molokh View Post
...

Hardware-based robots are not a thing in THS, and trying to enforce all AIs (and Ghosts) to be hardware robots will break the setting in ways that take tens or hundreds of pages to analyse and summarise.

This is a case of Has No Sense of Proportion. Error correction doesn't work like that.
I don't see how it would break the setting rather than just alter/strain it a bit, as long as N.A.I. are platform-agnostic. (an odd choice of words)
An easier way to reach the same goal is my idea of not thinking mass suicide for zero reason is good or legal.
That would make ghosts a bit rarer, but I refuse to believe many healthy sane humans would up and kill themselves for any ideology.

Also I like pushing singularities further into the future to avoid depressing, as I see them, settings. I want an upbeat THS darn it.
__________________
Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check.
Flyndaran is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-10-2014, 03:42 PM   #19
Flyndaran
Untagged
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
Default Re: Transhuman Space in Infinite Worlds

Even using terms like hard and soft would lead to even more sub-bickering.
We should have a list of defining features. Of the top of my head these stand out as major features:
Advanced near perfect medical/genetic tech, novel species creation, bioroids, uplifts, Ghosts, S.A.I.s, terrarformed Mars, Gas planet He3 mining, Fusion power, massive space presence, 3d printing of nearly all materials...
__________________
Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check.
Flyndaran is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-10-2014, 03:52 PM   #20
vicky_molokh
GURPS FAQ Keeper
 
vicky_molokh's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
Default Re: Transhuman Space in Infinite Worlds

Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
I don't see how it would break the setting rather than just alter/strain it a bit, as long as N.A.I. are platform-agnostic. (an odd choice of words)
An easier way to reach the same goal is my idea of not thinking mass suicide for zero reason is good or legal.
Mobility. Things like fully-sapient infomorphs willing to go to faraway places has done stuff for the space industry that might not be very obvious at first sight, but it's there. Ditto for the ability of e.g. SAI scientists live in EU but work offworld to produce Neat Stuff.
'Commute' has a different meaning to an Infomorph than to a meatperson.

Plus, on the metagame level, forbidding infomorph PCs to have the definitive infomorph trait - Possession - is kinda mean.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
That would make ghosts a bit rarer, but I refuse to believe many healthy sane humans would up and kill themselves for any ideology.
Different issue entirely.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
Also I like pushing singularities further into the future to avoid depressing, as I see them, settings. I want an upbeat THS darn it.
And yet I want an upbeat THS darn it, without vaguely-justified superstition disguised as quantum mysticism. (I do have an idea of a setting where mysticism does coexist with transhumanism, but I call it Reign of Souls, not THS.)
__________________
Vicky 'Molokh', GURPS FAQ and uFAQ Keeper
vicky_molokh is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
infinite worlds, transhuman space

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 05:03 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.