SDN Worlds 4 Commentary Thread I

[Shroom Man 777]

Very nice, Steve. Kara can be the Ana Midzic of SDNW4!

[PeZook]

Though she seems far creepier for some reason. I know it's silly, what with the torture and dick-stabbing Ana indulged in, but that's the vibe I'm getting

EDIT: Also, what's to stop de la Poer from bringing a swarm of police to the port? It's not like Kara would be able to just fight her way out of Pendleton, even if it is the equivalent of a 3rd world country.

[Shroom Man 777]

Well, Ana wasn't some psychosexual bondage freak. She was a professional.

And she had the awesomest buddy-cop partner ever!

[Siege]

It's the whole dysfunctional sexuality vibe she's got going that makes Kara creepier than Ana. Regardless of circumstances, at least Ana had the decency to fall for the Prime Minister, instead of indulging in... Well, what can only be called a peculiar form of sadistic torture-bondage. Ana was just a straight-up killer/enforcer; Kara on the other hand is headed for Dark Eldar territory.

Edit: beaten to the punch by Shroom. Curse you, Shardik!

[Shroom Man 777]

I wonder if in the grim darkness of the far future, SHROOMSCHACH'S JOURNAL would've been discovered and then PRIME NOIR gets turned into a 'based on a true story' movie.

[PeZook]

Nobody would believe it, anyway

[Simon_Jester]

Only weapons-grade fog is truly dangerous. Other types of fog, especially the most ordinary one used for homes, transport, furniture, etc. is pretty generic and not really that dangerous. Self-replication capabilities are very limited or nonexistent, nanites are not resilient to heat and other types of damage. In clouds, self-replication is limited, but accessible (as a life-saving mechanism which activates when the cloud's life is at stake, and as a way to form new nanobots during assimilation). In military-grade fog, the capability is often limited by programming alone.

The catch is that there's "truly dangerous" as in "eats people alive," and then there's "truly dangerous" as in "accidentally produces carcinogenic byproducts." There are a lot of ways for a cloud of nanites to make life unpleasant for the neighbors without even meaning to, and while we're sure* the Commune has done rigorous testing to ensure that their nanite clouds (including both citizen bodies and utility fog) are non-hazardous... we still take the potential for unknown or unexpected side effects seriously.

Also, bear in mind that I was only discussing Umerian nanotech in terms of performance- Umeria doesn't produce full-up utility fog. Programmable assembly nanites, yes, but they're mostly used for industrial chemistry and the like, not for making tables appear out of thin air.

*Literally "sure." If MiniWell wasn't sure, they'd have conspicious teams from the Umerian equivalent of the CDC following cloud citizens around with air quality monitors and high-intensity UV lamps whenever they show up.

To be fair, I'm sure the small initial supply could be rationalized as "testing of medicine", much as it is in our times. And after that... the tech's fairly simple, so civilizations already using some limited NM-scale manufacturing (Umeria, Central Alliance) wouldn't have a problem with reverse-engineering what they got.

Hopefully not. Much depends on how open-source the commies are, but once we can get the nanites under an atomic force microscope, we've got a fairly good chance of working out how to duplicate them within a decade or two, I'd think.*

*Anything much less would be overly optimistic.

[Coyote]

I'm less optomistic about the ability of the human body to retain it integrity after a century-plus of patches and repairs; I've always written it so that even despite the best efforts of the CA nanites an organism just reaches a point of diminished returns and decay sets in.

The typical human lifespan in the Central Alliance lasts just over 120 years, and that's about 110-115 years of healthy vitality (so they're fit and energetic, not some decayed old buzzard loping around) and then towards the end the decay of age sets in and they go downhill quickly and keel over.

Part of my rationale for that is that people will have to adjust socially to such lifespans. With 120 years of fit & healthy life expectancy, that's two 60-year lifespans as we know it now. I'm working on a social model where people are expected to have a first, "normal" span as we know them and then maybe a second where, once free of children, they are free to indulge in career, or travel, or othe rindulgences. They are still expected to work, but the notion of major career changes is accepted as normal.

This is a big part of the reason why I wanted to bring in my established fictional society-- to help flesh out a lot of the notions I'd had about the Central Alliance that have never been adequately developed. Dealing with a productive adult lifespan that is already twice the normal lifespan will require some changes to society to avoid stagnation. Old political leaders with old ideals never make way for new, younger leaders; people in their 40s and 50s will still be living in the shadow of fit and capable parents, generations of managers and CEOs may not retire or die and make room for people to get promoted within. And so on.

So I'm trying to make a situation where people are encouraged, really, to not get too attached to certain long-term goals or projects so that the jobs market, etc, keeps getting shaken up. Jobs and even marriage may become a series of contracts that are signed on for a few years at a time and then have "sunset dates" with options to renew, and so on. A lot of pop culture will focus on "shake up your life" and not getting stuck in a rut; higher-up jobs will require a much vaster range of experiences as a precursor to getting hired, etc.

It's stuff like this that I have been hoping to finally get down in the weeds with regarding my society. Folks here tend to be smart, have mindsets that would appreciate this sort of thing, and I can certainly rely on some curveballs being thrown from time to time to get me to think about things I would not previously have contemplated.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, some degree of life extension is likely to be the galactic norm- most people can't match the Commune's clinical immortality, but nearly 1500 years of genetic tweaks diffusing into the population and of advances in medical science are bound to have some effect.

That said, without something comparable to nanotech, or very sophisticated bioscience, you won't see all that much extension of youthful life: no antiagathics.

I imagine that to get true immortality, the Commune has to go for a much more radical program to beat the diminishing returns problem. It may amount to a complete rebuild of the subject's body, gradually enough to avoid the "growing pains" experienced by a cloud.

[PeZook]

Ah, the problems of biological life-forms

[Coyote]

That said, without something comparable to nanotech, or very sophisticated bioscience, you won't see all that much extension of youthful life: no antiagathics.

Yeah, the as I've written society in the Central Alliance the aging process is radically slowed down for the most part; people will seem to age normally through their mid to late 30's, but you don't start seeing noticeable aging until someone is into their fifties. A person who is about 90 will physically appear to be in their mid forties or fifties (it varies due to individual natural aging and metabolism, etc). Approaching 100-110 a person will appear to be a really healthy 60-year-old. Past 115 though and you've "hit the wall", so to speak, and you start to crinkle up, the skin regrowth is exhausted and the characteristic frailty starts to become the norm. By time the average person is put in the ground, they are about 120 years old and appear to be a typical 90-year old of today.

The Central government and business leaders could (and are) working to extend this, but they are being very cautious about it because, frankly, they don't have a plan on how to keep people engaged in the economy or what to do with what would be a burgeoning population of young people seeking resources and opportunity in a Galaxy where the older ones aren't even close to being done yet.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah.

Space colonization on our soft-SF scale allows for fairly rapid population growth in principle (and, more to the point, allows economies to expand fast enough to find new jobs for all the new people). But over very long time scales, clinical immortality does pose serious problems along those lines.

Not sure how the Commune is handling it.

[Shroom Man 777]

The No Child Policy!

[DarthShady]

Man these ladies of yours are quite interesting Steve. I have a feeling their existence will soon attract some unwanted attention.

[Thanas]

Damn this stupid browser. I just spent three hours writing the prologue for all my characters and what happens? The damn thing eats the post.

[Steve]

Since it seems people tend to skim some of my posts I figured I'd give a quick refresher course in the Pendleton concept.

Basically, the idea is that Pendleton is very difficult to actually hold for any hyperspace society. No matter what you must cross shoals to get to it; the Bannerman-Acker "Gap" is simply the shortest route and about the only one that a hyperdrive ship can traverse with very low chance of difficulty (depending on size: Kara's GT-1250 is not rated for such a trip, but, well, she's not exactly one to read safety labels if you've noticed). Because of this, the task and cost of occupying Pendleton has always proved completely out of proportion to what should be sensible for such a backwater planet. That's why New Anglia hasn't annexed the place; maintaining control on Pendleton is seen as costly in equipment and costs, since you must constantly run the shoals and wear down starships to maintain any presence or communication. I've considered the main issue being that this is the first time Pendleton has drawn Anglian wrath with a Liberal Government in control that wasn't part of a Coalition or faced with needing one, one willing to spend money - unlike anti-tax Conservatives - but also willing to employ disproportionate military force and the spending necessary for the annexation/permanent involvement, which is something Labour dislikes.

I am, however, going to make a storyline element of the last time New Anglia intervened in Pendleton, as New Anglia's withdrawal was due to things set into motion by the de la Poers which incurred costs.

[K. A. Pital]

Not sure how the Commune is handling it.

By sending out large masses of "pioneers" to new worlds where they can roam around protected by small personal-use utility fog units that function as housing and transport. And, of course, by extending clouding to a younger portion of the populace. Clouds are biologically infertile.

The pioneers are usually for a time being separated from the Commune's energy grid and stop being a weight on the Commune economy. Once the planet is sufficiently developed, the Commune switches it into the grid.

Birth rates are very naturally low, though - most Commune citizens passed the 200 year old barrier, and besides the obvious changes to human hormonal and biochemical properties that naturally occur, the most modern Commune anti-agathics also aid to subdue the child-bearing instinct. So whilst all biological humans are technically capable of child-bearing, there are no instinctive, biochemically driven urges to have them by this stage of development.

[Simon_Jester]

Since it seems people tend to skim some of my posts I figured I'd give a quick refresher course in the Pendleton concept.

Basically, the idea is that Pendleton is very difficult to actually hold for any hyperspace society. No matter what you must cross shoals to get to it; the Bannerman-Acker "Gap" is simply the shortest route and about the only one that a hyperdrive ship can traverse with very low chance of difficulty (depending on size: Kara's GT-1250 is not rated for such a trip, but, well, she's not exactly one to read safety labels if you've noticed). Because of this, the task and cost of occupying Pendleton has always proved completely out of proportion to what should be sensible for such a backwater planet. That's why New Anglia hasn't annexed the place; maintaining control on Pendleton is seen as costly in equipment and costs, since you must constantly run the shoals and wear down starships to maintain any presence or communication...

Note that most of the powers who condemn Anglia for not annexing the place are remote and out of touch with local conditions- the Byzantines and the Sovereignty come to mind.

It's not unreasonable for them to think that it must be "easy" to occupy Pendleton, especially for what we've built up as the foremost of the colonial powers (ignoring the UN).

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I wasn't advocating annexation.

I was proposing exterminatus.

[Lonestar]

Yeah.

Space colonization on our soft-SF scale allows for fairly rapid population growth in principle (and, more to the point, allows economies to expand fast enough to find new jobs for all the new people). But over very long time scales, clinical immortality does pose serious problems along those lines.

Not sure how the Commune is handling it.

Widespread application of HERV derivatives in the Grand Dominion means the life expectancy of the average Dominionite is well over 200 years, and quite a few are for all intents and purposes immortal(this also means that pyskers are few and far between).

The problem? Around 20%(increasing yearly) of the population are unable to produce fertile offspring with non-HERVed Humans. In other words, the Grand Dominion is gradually becoming a non-human state, although we would never admit it...

[Steve]

Self-induced speciation IOW?

Would probably more accurate that you've created an offshoot race of Humans. Homo Sapian Dominius?.... I'm not good at Latin.

[Siege]

Drakensis

In other news, tacticool hoo-ah sillyness!

[Shroom Man 777]

MARINES! HOOAH! Break out the tactical snacks and the OrGazmos!

[Simon_Jester]

And for occupation, the SHROOMIRVs...

But yeah, I like where everybody's going with this.

One question, though Given the sheer amount of prep work required for making the invasion of Pendleton happen, I'd expect it to take place in February at the earliest, possibly March. Even given that the core of the operation comes from nations in the immediate vicinity of Pendleton, it's hard to imagine a multinational coalition forming, sending ships across half of known space, and hammering out a joint strategy in less than three weeks. Make sense?

[PeZook]

Yeah. We are kinda of jumping around with the timeline...i might have to work out datestamps with Steve.