Star Destroyer.net with Star Destroyers (RAR!)

[CaptainChewbacca]

I'm joining, and signing up with the PRFY with the stipulation that we consider assisting in Operation: Earfuck. Bringing to the party-

-Twelve Imperial-class ISD-IIs
-Thirty Six Acclamator-class transports
-One hundred twenty Carrack Class Cruisers
-The rank of High Admiral

Greetings, homies. Let the bikini inspecting begin.

[Kodiak]

Read the sig, mang. I'm in wit PRFY for LIFE. Until I get another dozen posts and hit 1000 I'm posting my starting assets.

-One Imperial-class Star Destroyer
-Three Acclamator-class Assault Transports
-Twenty Lancer Frigates
-The Rank of Commadore

I also name my ISD the PRFY Vader Was Framed and begin collecting protocol/translator droids so that we can talk our way out of (or into) any situation we may or may not wish to be in or out of.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Right now, counting those that have actively posted, there a little over 100-ISD's currently in play.

The original post clearly states that every non-banned member is coming. That's about 10,000 ISDs, 30,000 Acclamators, 200,000 frigates and maybe a handful of Executors (sucky fleet mix but hey). The people who have bothered to post in this thread are account for only 1% of the forces present; a good fraction of the Imperial fleet at its height crammed into one sector. If we appear randomly over the 25 inhabited planets, each will have 400 or so ISDs commanded by a couple of hundred different board members over it. It would be a madhouse, and you just know that someone is going to start shooting at someone within the first ten minutes.

The cloning facilities are the most obvious initial prize to go for (though it's not clear what personalities these fast-grown clones are being flashed with), so expect some conflict over securing those from the get-go.

Yes well, I've always felt it best in these variety of RAR's if we make the assumption that the only people who will actually be participating, are those that post. Thus keeping away more chaotic and unpredictable elements such as people who'd simply have no wish to do any of this.

As for the matter of the Lancer Frigates, you can have Q exchange them for Carrack at a rate of two Lancers per Carrack.

Zor

DEAL! even half the amount of Lancers still give me 60 Carracks. Thats 10per ISD, or more reasonable, split 30/30, I could have 5 Carracks defending each ISD and the other 30 for home gaurd duty. I can even drop the number to 50 Carracks, and still keep a personal force of 20 Lancers for ISD support.

[Starglider]

The original post clearly states that every non-banned member is coming.

Yes well, I've always felt it best in these variety of RAR's if we make the assumption that the only people who will actually be participating, are those that post. Thus keeping away more chaotic and unpredictable elements such as people who'd simply have no wish to do any of this.

Take it up with Zor. Otherwise I am assuming that my fleet is actually an Arc Hammer escorted by six Harpan Nova-class cruisers. Also I brought my wife and we are both now S'kytri (as are all the crew). Because I say so.

[Littlefoot]

Im joining in with OEF. I will give 2 of my acclamators over to defense, my ISD II and 10 carracks to whoever is leading the fleet. The last acclamator will be gutted of all non-essential equipment and crew quarters, making more room to act as an ore or fuel hauler until we can build or buy better bulk cruisers. I name this ship the Fat Man.

[avatarxprime]

The original post clearly states that every non-banned member is coming.

Yes well, I've always felt it best in these variety of RAR's if we make the assumption that the only people who will actually be participating, are those that post. Thus keeping away more chaotic and unpredictable elements such as people who'd simply have no wish to do any of this.

Take it up with Zor. Otherwise I am assuming that my fleet is actually an Arc Hammer escorted by six Harpan Nova-class cruisers. Also I brought my wife and we are both now S'kytri (as are all the crew). Because I say so.

Considering Zor is finally responding to "can I change out x for y" responses you might be able to pull off your earlier request of getting an Arc Hammer analog.

[Samuel]

My worlds for a fleet of World Devastors (but without the kill code accessable in memory banks).

[Zor]

Take it up with Zor. Otherwise I am assuming that my fleet is actually an Arc Hammer escorted by six Harpan Nova-class cruisers. Also I brought my wife and we are both now S'kytri (as are all the crew). Because I say so.

Considering Zor is finally responding to "can I change out x for y" responses you might be able to pull off your earlier request of getting an Arc Hammer analog.

No he won't, and no on the World Devestators.

Zor

[Darth Yoshi]

To bring up again Kyp Durron and our need for Force-trainers if we end up taking in Force-adepts, that's one of the reasons I initially suggested recruiting some Dathomiri Witches. The problem is impressing them enough to secure their cooperation as equals, since if we had Force-adepts to counter them we wouldn't need their assistance in the first place. Although I suppose the ysalamiri would be enough to force a more favorable outcome (from what I remember of the pre-Praxeum Witches and Nightsisters, their abilities were half-assed even compared to Luke's own half-assed training, but enough for our purposes).

Anyway, I suppose I'll volunteer as a liaison between OEF and the Mess. Also, since it's been brought up, I'll swap out 2/3 of my Lancers for Carracks, and take ISD-IIs.

Jumping ahead a bit, since others are hashing out the logistics, what do we consider as pivotal events that must be changed? Presumably Dark Empire is going bye-bye, and I remember someone mentioned that the Caamas document scandal will need intervention as well, if for no other reason than our presence will alter the events leading up to it significantly.

Along those lines, what sort of approach are we (OEF) taking to diplomacy? Will we pull a Hapes and seal ourselves off from the galaxy at large until we're ready to fuck up the YV? Or will we go for, say, a humanitarian approach (like during/after the Krytos plague) or something?

[Samuel]

Take it up with Zor. Otherwise I am assuming that my fleet is actually an Arc Hammer escorted by six Harpan Nova-class cruisers. Also I brought my wife and we are both now S'kytri (as are all the crew). Because I say so.

Considering Zor is finally responding to "can I change out x for y" responses you might be able to pull off your earlier request of getting an Arc Hammer analog.

No he won't, and no on the World Devestators.

Zor

I will, of course, have you arrested by COPRAR on chares of treason against the Empire.

Anyway, how hard could they be to build? As an Imperial admiral I can simply request the plans from the Maw (if I can get in... know where the black holes are and maybe I can have a computer punch out the only possible route given time). And then have them all shot. Anyone who produces the Sun Crusher is incruably insane.

or slap something together and give it a run.

[Darth Hoth]

For those of you questioning the notion of large AI empires in Star Wars, at least one exists, and from what's known of it, short of Valley of the Jedi grade force-wank, it could spank the main galactic civilization like bitches.

Oh, yes, those spheroids that come from an ancient pulp novel and are never seen again since. There are probably other, similar things out there; off the top of my head, I can think of a biowank supership from Marvel Star Wars that could one-shot ISDs using something analogous to Culture CAMs.

You ready for the really staggering bit? They deployed all that to rescue one small 'droid member of their own civilization.

Since they were referring to each other as "the One, the Other, and the Rest" and thought that gathering together like that was akin to "a kind of ceremony, marking the passage of one epoch and the initiation of another," I somehow doubt that it was just a routine mission by one small task force. It sounded more like they gathered together everything they had for that one expedition. And of course, Vuffi Raa was not just any little robot kid, but an information-gathering probe that they had sent out thousands of years ago and attached an almost religious significance to.

Not only can they deploy staggering forces very quickly,

I saw no evidence in the novel that their hyperdrive was superior to high-end Imperial models. It took them hours to days to cross the galaxy, which is about the standard for the films. And they had taken an unspecified time gathering their host before they went to the ThonBoka Nebula.

these 'Silentium' are outright superior in technology too.

What is there to say that their power generation is overall superior? A 50-kilometre spheroid built using Imperial technology should also easily be able to one-shot an Imperial warship of any of the usual classes (Recalcitrant's class was, if I recall correctly, never stated); running some quick numbers, at that size it could be weaker per pound and still do that.

I'd rather have Jerec, thanks. At least as far as we know, he never planned to consume everyone's souls.

My post had its amount of sarcasm. Though a hive-mind is of course better than dominion by machines.

As for what I'd do in this situation. Mmm. Yeah. I'm going to Endor and defecting to the Alliance. I'll have no truck with genocidal lunatics in the Empire, thank you.

Given how utterly incompetent and hypocritical the Rebels/New Republic are, they brought more suffering to the galaxy than the Empire ever did by their inept handling of the Vong alone. As for genocide - tell it to the Caridans.

[Darth Hoth]

Supposedly that's due to jamming. Frankly it would have to be, because contemporary gunlaying technology (not to mention air defence missiles) is more than adequate to vaporise any fighter flying at the observed speeds and ranges. C-fractional missiles aren't going to benefit from capship jamming unless they are large and built with military technology, in which case they're no more useful or effective than a BDZ.

In the EU they routinely launch raids on heavily armed bases without any capship support. Either they carry the jamming equipment themselves, and the bases somehow lack more powerful counter-measures (in which case missiles could use the same technology), or that is not the whole of the explanation.

The Galaxy Gun missiles had implausibly good armor, shielding and weapon emplacements. This isn't too hard to rationalise; presumably they're made with the same kind of uber-expensive prototype technology that the Sun Crusher was, and only someone with the resources of a major galactic state can afford them.

Given that it is deemed feasible to use them for blowing up single transport ships ferrying 100K troops, it would follow that the unit cost is not on the same order of magnitude as the Sun Crusher (which supposedly cost as much as an entire Death Star by itself). Even if it were, single-Sector polities or smaller can build cheap Death Star knock-offs (Krennel's Ciutric Hegemony and their (hoaxical, but believable) Pulsar Station); although it would be beyond small terrorist groups, it does not require pan-galactic resources by far.

Droids and organics both exhibit exponential growth, it's just that the exponent is different. If you want fast growing organics, use Spaarti cloning cylinders.

Even Spaarti clones do not come off assembly lines. It takes three weeks or thereabouts to grow and inculcate them. And some sources have them suffering from dementia due to the flash-learning process.

Regardless the expansion of any droid empire will be checked by the same factors as an organic empire; nearby warlords taking exception to being invaded. A droid-based force will likely face a harder time of it, in that it's easier to unite people against the 'horrible soulless foe', and they can't subsume surrendering militaries into their own forces.

All space is not frequently patrolled or monitored; as canon evidence shows, it is very much possible to build vast militaries from scratch in complete secret in an obscure galactic arm (CIS forces, Death Stars, Darksaber, Mandalorians, &c). If you have a modicum of intelligence, you can build up a crushing superiority before anyone notices, given the galaxy's demonstrated undermilitarisation and relatively slow mobilisation times. It is the standard wankfest scenario: take a World Devastator at the time of DE, put it somewhere off the charts and let it multiply for twenty-odd years before releasing the result on the Vong.

Granted, but again suitcase-sized gigaton-yield 'seismic charges' are easily available on the outer rim, so the sad fact is that if terrorists want to blow up your backwater planet they will do so even if you have theatre shielding. Only rigorous security can defend against this; stopping and deep-scanning all ships before letting them in, enforcement of strict WMD bans, highly effective anti-tamper (and tamper-evidence) on all reactors and flight control components etc. Perhaps the Galactic Empire had the right idea after all eh?

Again, I am not disputing that this makes perfect sense, and it is ridiculous to be without it, just as opting not to buy a planetary shield is. The problem is that the EU shows absolutely nothing of this rigorous security (except, arguably, on the ultra-extreme high-security worlds such as Byss . . . and even those depend on smugglers to ferry essentials . . . ).

Yes well this is the problem with saying 'you are going to live in this universe', the scope of consistency required is much greater than for 'will ship X beat ship Y' or even 'will army X beat army Y'. As I said, I would prefer to ignore the EU wherever it is silly or ignorant.

The problem is, then we are forced to ignore most of it.

There is absolutely no way you can impose effective 'psychological and social blocks' across thousands of diverse species, millions of planets and quadrillions of individuals, many of which exist on the fringes and have little integration with galactic society as a whole.

No. I never pretended that it was realistic. But invoking magic or unseen mechanisms to explain every case of retardedness is stretching it. We do not let the Trekkies do that, do we?

You were talking about human supremacy. Don't try and change the subject, either retract your 'I want humans to be dominant over all others, forever' or admit that you subscribe to the same policy as the Empire.

In the context I was talking about my attitude towards "superintelligent" machines respective to humans, applicable in real life as well as in this fictional setting. If the idea that I place my own species above piles of microchips offends you, too bad. As regards the Star Wars universe, I have no problem with the various aliens there (with obvious exceptions made for the noxious or batshit insane ones, such as the Yevetha).

Anyway, as Samuel kind of pointed out, trying to prevent the creation of superintelligence is a total non-starter. You can't enforce a ban, not even in one galaxy never mind all the others out there, so (as in reality) if this is a real possibility by far your best option is to support the creation of a superintelligence that is as benevolent as possible, and hope it can defend you from any nasty ones out there.

That sounds distinctly like surrendering. I would rather try and fail than do nothing at all.

[Starglider]

And some sources have them suffering from dementia due to the flash-learning process.

This is due to the Force (which frankly, seems to do a lot more harm than good for the SW galaxy - if there was a plausible way to eliminate it, I'd be all for it). The OP states that the million-troops-per-month cloning facilities we get use the same solution Thrawn did; force-nullifying creatures around the cloning tubes to prevent clone madness.

All space is not frequently patrolled or monitored; as canon evidence shows, it is very much possible to build vast militaries from scratch in complete secret in an obscure galactic arm (CIS forces, Death Stars, Darksaber, Mandalorians, &c). If you have a modicum of intelligence, you can build up a crushing superiority before anyone notices, given the galaxy's demonstrated undermilitarisation and relatively slow mobilisation times.

You still haven't explained why this hasn't already happened. Also killing Samuel will be pretty pointless since I'm sure a couple of hundred other board members (of the 3000ish who came) will have the same idea. Face it, if going exponential works, you can either join the party or you can huddle in your little 25-world pure-human clone-empire and spectate.

It is the standard wankfest scenario: take a World Devastator at the time of DE, put it somewhere off the charts and let it multiply for twenty-odd years before releasing the result on the Vong.

Except that no one has World Devastators; I don't think they're even developed yet.

No. I never pretended that it was realistic. But invoking magic or unseen mechanisms to explain every case of retardedness is stretching it. We do not let the Trekkies do that, do we?

No, but Trek isn't supposed to have magic in it (it does, but never mind). SW explicitly has a 'magic energy field' covering the whole galaxy, creating all manner of supernatural effects and apparently actively influencing people's actions.

You were talking about human supremacy. Don't try and change the subject, either retract your 'I want humans to be dominant over all others, forever' or admit that you subscribe to the same policy as the Empire.

In the context I was talking about my attitude towards "superintelligent" machines respective to humans, applicable in real life as well as in this fictional setting. If the idea that I place my own species above piles of microchips offends you, too bad.

There are plenty of sillicon based, 'energy based' and other thoroughly unhuman sapient lifeforms out there. Apparently you rate them as less than bacteria and want to exterminate them all. Or do you somehow believe that being designed as opposed to evolved makes the difference? I assume you'll show no remorse in sending your clones on suicide missions by the million then, since they were designed and built by unnatural means.

Admit it; you are the evil empire here.

Anyway, as Samuel kind of pointed out, trying to prevent the creation of superintelligence is a total non-starter. You can't enforce a ban, not even in one galaxy never mind all the others out there, so (as in reality) if this is a real possibility by far your best option is to support the creation of a superintelligence that is as benevolent as possible, and hope it can defend you from any nasty ones out there.

That sounds distinctly like surrendering. I would rather try and fail than do nothing at all.

You'd rather be emotional and irrational and quite probably condemn the whole galaxy to destruction or enslavement rather than just be rational and do the right thing? It's like you're determined to make a case for your own execution. What kind of insane small-minded arrogance does it take to declare 'humans are to be the pinnacle of creation and anything that attempts to improve on that must be murdered, at birth if possible?'.

[Darth Hoth]

This is due to the Force (which frankly, seems to do a lot more harm than good for the SW galaxy - if there was a plausible way to eliminate it, I'd be all for it).

If as you claim it stops the growth of "superintelligent" AGI, that alone makes up for whatever harmful effects it might have.

The OP states that the million-troops-per-month cloning facilities we get use the same solution Thrawn did; force-nullifying creatures around the cloning tubes to prevent clone madness.

There is no evidence that "clone-madness" is even caused by the Force. It was simply an assumption that Thrawn made, that might or might not be substantiated.

You still haven't explained why this hasn't already happened. Also killing Samuel will be pretty pointless since I'm sure a couple of hundred other board members (of the 3000ish who came) will have the same idea. Face it, if going exponential works, you can either join the party or you can huddle in your little 25-world pure-human clone-empire and spectate.

Sorry, we appear to be mixing up several topics here (real life, the SWEU, and this RAR! game). I was, in this case, talking about the EU. As for why it does not happen, that is anyone's guess. Given their technology, it should be very much possible. Entirely apart from whether AGI is or not, this is something that they have actually demonstrated in-universe. It just is not taken to its logical conclusion, for whatever reason.

Except that no one has World Devastators; I don't think they're even developed yet.

That was an analogy, not a suggested strategy. As for World Devastators, the technology behind them is not new; self-replicating factories have been around at least since the Clone Wars. They are only one particular design.

No, but Trek isn't supposed to have magic in it (it does, but never mind). SW explicitly has a 'magic energy field' covering the whole galaxy, creating all manner of supernatural effects and apparently actively influencing people's actions.

And Star Trek explicitly has a "magic energy dimension" in subspace, which its fanboys bring up whenever they want to ignore such pesky trivialities as conservation of energy. We do not let them get away with that either, do we? Appealing to "magic" solutions to author-induced problems should, going by Occam's Razor, always be the last resort. Human (and, here, alien) stupidity and institutionalised incompetence invokes less new factors than saying that the Force is arbitrarily changing the laws of physics to make certain applications of existing and millennia-old technology impossible, and/or brainwashing everyone into not considering them.

There are plenty of sillicon based, 'energy based' and other thoroughly unhuman sapient lifeforms out there. Apparently you rate them as less than bacteria and want to exterminate them all. Or do you somehow believe that being designed as opposed to evolved makes the difference? I assume you'll show no remorse in sending your clones on suicide missions by the million then, since they were designed and built by unnatural means.

I do not mind 'droids as they are in SW, or similar things. I do mind "super intelligences" that can make humanity their playthings.

Admit it; you are the evil empire here.

In this thread I am jokingly assuming an Imperial persona in the in-universe posts. Out of universe, I agree with those fans who think that the Empire was better than the alternative (super incompetent government incapable of protecting its citizens, split even between fanatics and corruptionists). Which does not necessarily mean that I think it was good, just the less bad option.

You'd rather be emotional and irrational and quite probably condemn the whole galaxy to destruction or enslavement rather than just be rational and do the right thing?

You will of course explain why it is irrational for a member of a species to wish to avoid the creation of machine intelligences that will compete with his species for scarce resources, and may be better at it than his species are? Evolutionarily successful beings do not generally take the "turn the cheek" approach. If "super intelligence" is a tenth of what all the brouhahah in fiction has made it up to be, we humans (make that sapient organisms, in a SW context) are doomed to insignificance if it is ever created, and as such we have not only a right, but a responsibility towards all our species to prevent such an occurrence at any cost.

It's like you're determined to make a case for your own execution.

Says who that has any right to judge us? HAL 9000? Please. Survival of the species is the highest moral imperative. Now you can call this arrogance, or small-mindedness, or whatever you want to, but the fact remains: In a race between your own species and another, anyone who votes for the opposition is insane and an evolutionary failure. And no, this is not "racism," as some will undoubtedly like to claim.

What kind of insane small-minded arrogance does it take to declare 'humans are to be the pinnacle of creation and anything that attempts to improve on that must be murdered, at birth if possible?'.

Now you sound like your stereotypical evil scientist. Do you actually want humanity to be wiped out to make room for something "better"? And you claim the moral high ground? What sort of arrogance does it take for a programmer to say, "humanity deserves to be rendered obsolete, my programme deserves to live!"?

[NecronLord]

Given how utterly incompetent and hypocritical the Rebels/New Republic are, they brought more suffering to the galaxy than the Empire ever did by their inept handling of the Vong alone.

Which won't be the case here, because I'll be with them, and bringing a goddamn Excecutor-class to the party. So you can be damn sure I'll be taken seriously. You don't think my debrief is going to include 'Palapatine will be ressurected, crazier than ever, on Byss, it's a little planet that was marketed as a resort a while back' and 'there's an extragalactic invasion headed our way' perhaps? That's just a fraction of the things I could mention offhand - not even discussing the ones that could be nipped in the bud easily, like Daala.

As for genocide - tell it to the Caridans.

Do you even know what genocide is?

I'll tell you what it isn't - any use of a WMD whatsoever. The Cardian military academy, for all Durron's ineptitude, was about the most military target I can think of. Cardia's destruction is a grand-scale act of terrorism, but it is not genocide.

[Starglider]

If as you claim it stops the growth of "superintelligent" AGI, that alone makes up for whatever harmful effects it might have.

In a rational analysis, you are probably correct, in that the vast majority of attempts to make transhuman AGI will result in amoral and hostile intelligences, due to the general incompetence and naivite of AI researchers (assuming the example of contemporary humans generalises). If this hypothesis was true then the SW verse may actually be quite like the universe of A Fire Upon The Deep, with the Powers residing in intergalactic space (where there is no Force to suppress things) and the human-level intelligences in the galaxies.

The OP states that the million-troops-per-month cloning facilities we get use the same solution Thrawn did; force-nullifying creatures around the cloning tubes to prevent clone madness.

There is no evidence that "clone-madness" is even caused by the Force. It was simply an assumption that Thrawn made, that might or might not be substantiated.

If it isn't caused by the force, then why did the introduction of Ysalamari solve the problem?

You still haven't explained why this hasn't already happened. Also killing Samuel will be pretty pointless since I'm sure a couple of hundred other board members (of the 3000ish who came) will have the same idea. Face it, if going exponential works, you can either join the party or you can huddle in your little 25-world pure-human clone-empire and spectate.

Sorry, we appear to be mixing up several topics here (real life, the SWEU, and this RAR! game). I was, in this case, talking about the EU. As for why it does not happen, that is anyone's guess. Given their technology, it should be very much possible. Entirely apart from whether AGI is or not, this is something that they have actually demonstrated in-universe. It just is not taken to its logical conclusion, for whatever reason.[/quote]

Regardless of why it doesn't happen in-universe, you still have to contend with the issue of a few hundred people (from this board) trying it now. You can't stop more than a small fraction of those at the beginning, even assuming you manage to rustle up a lynch mob, and if people do 'go exponential' then the only people who can stop rogues with robo (or clone) armies are other people with mega-armies.

As for World Devastators, the technology behind them is not new; self-replicating factories have been around at least since the Clone Wars. They are only one particular design.

The difference with world devastators is that they are weaponised to the point that they can take most worlds on their own, obliterating local defences. Even the New Republic only managed to defeat them with hacking. Conventional automated factories are vulnerable and usually static installations, so you will still have to engage in conventional military expansion (or defence against warlords and other SDnetters if you manage to find genuinely uninhabited and unclaimed bits of the galaxy).

No, but Trek isn't supposed to have magic in it (it does, but never mind). SW explicitly has a 'magic energy field' covering the whole galaxy, creating all manner of supernatural effects and apparently actively influencing people's actions.

And Star Trek explicitly has a "magic energy dimension" in subspace, which its fanboys bring up whenever they want to ignore such pesky trivialities as conservation of energy.

Subspace is good for technobabble but it isn't in any way conscious and has never been seen to grant supernatural powers or influence people's behaviour. It has no connection to emotions (or life in general for that matter), no notion of 'destiny' and none of the other personified aspects of the Force.

We do not let them get away with that either, do we?

Neither subspace or the Force are inherently 'wrong', as long as the authors admit that this is an alternate universe with physics utterly different from our own. They may be used badly from a dramatic perspective (lazy cop-outs) and we should not tolerate internal inconsistency (the Force gets a hell of a lot more of a free rein with this than 'subspace' does - no one seems to even attempt to suggest a physical basis for it), but the existence of 'magic' does not inherently invalidate any setting.

Appealing to "magic" solutions to author-induced problems should, going by Occam's Razor, always be the last resort.

Yes, but in some cases there is no other sane explanation.

Human (and, here, alien) stupidity and institutionalised incompetence invokes less new factors than saying that the Force is arbitrarily changing the laws of physics

Actually yes it does, because you are postulating that institutionalised incompetence (coupled with stunning and unprecedented foresight with regard to AI research) exists universally across thousands if not millions of independent cultures. You have in fact 'multiplied your entities unnecessarily' compared to the Force suppressing all intelligences exceeding certain thresholds (I would not surprise me if it was making brain-computer interfacing unnecessarily troublesome as well). The 'no relativistic projectiles or weaponised drives' thing I might accept as cultural, because frankly the consequences of violating it are not a big deal in military/galactic terms, and it's quite possible that it does happen and just doesn't get mentioned in our sources.

I do not mind 'droids as they are in SW, or similar things. I do mind "super intelligences" that can make humanity their playthings.

Ah, so you hate intelligence and worship ignorance. That's the only possible explanation, since you're ok with abominations like involuntary hive minds, and you seem to have no problem with oppresive tyrannies that can make you personally their play thing. Are alien empires that make humanity their playthings ok, or do you intend to wipe out all alien races you can to prevent that possibility? I'll be looking for your little fleet of star destroyers going around BDZing everything that isn't as stupid as you are.

You'd rather be emotional and irrational and quite probably condemn the whole galaxy to destruction or enslevement rather than just be rational and do the right thing?

You will of course explain why it is irrational for a member of a species to wish to avoid the creation of machine intelligences that will compete with his species for scarce resources, and may be better at it than his species are?

I have already explained that
a) it's going to happen anyway (unless ruled out by author fiat), so it's far more sensible to try and make sure that there are benevolent superintelligences that respect your desire to be left alone, than futilely fail to suppress machine intelligence (which will incidentally ensure that machine intelligences want to wipe you out as opposed to simply not caring about your wishes).
b) there are plenty of species out there that can potentially outcompete you, all those insect hive minds for a start, and really anyone that manages to get a numerical advantage. It is illogical to hate AI and not hate all other non-human intelligence. Or do you declare that aliens with a reproductive cycle of less than one month and an average IQ over 1000 must die, but species under that limit can live, under your watchful vigiliance?

In a choice between your galaxy where everyone lives in fear of being murdered by your death squads for being too smart or too fertile, until a Bezerker slips through your net and wipes everyone out, and the Cultureverse where pretty much everyone is happy, safe and fulfilled, what sane individual would possibly chose your dystopia?

If "super intelligence" is a tenth of what all the brouhahah in fiction has made it up to be, we humans (make that sapient organisms, in a SW context) are doomed to insignificance if it is ever created, and as such we have not only a right, but a responsibility towards all our species to prevent such an occurrence at any cost.

Now if you were complaining about extinction you would have at least a sliver of a point, but 'insignificance'? Why do you have a right to 'significance', one so strong you must murder everyone who threatens it? The vast majority of species in SW are 'insignificant', many only having one planet, but I doubt you'd approve of them murdering and conquering their way to 'significance'.

On top of all that, there is the fact that in a benevolent transhuman culture (e.g. The Culture), anyone who wants to be a superintelligence can be. You just have to upgrade yourself (and possibly pass some psychological tests, to prove that you're going to be responsible with the power it implies).

It's like you're determined to make a case for your own execution.

Says who that has any right to judge us?

Me. If I see you going around exterminating cultures because you think they might possibly be dangerous, I will do my best to take you down.

Survival of the species is the highest moral imperative.

Morals are arbitrary and I certainly don't subscribe to that one. Again, it makes no sense to generalise across gender, race, class etc but not species, or for that matter, any other superficial distinction (such as evolved vs designed).

In a race between your own species and another, anyone who votes for the opposition is insane and an evolutionary failure.

Oh, so you're worshipping evolution. That explains a lot, kill or be killed and all that. Wait, why aren't you out drowning your neighbour's children so that they can't compete for resources with yours?

And no, this is not "racism," as some will undoubtedly like to claim.

It's logically equivalent. The distinction of being able to interbreed is ethically irrelevant and in fact functionally irrelevent given sufficient technology (which may not even be that high, even stunted Trek bioscience manages to hybridise species).

What kind of insane small-minded arrogance does it take to declare 'humans are to be the pinnacle of creation and anything that attempts to improve on that must be murdered, at birth if possible?'.

Now you sound like your stereotypical evil scientist. Do you actually want humanity to be wiped out to make room for something "better"?

I never talk about wiping out humanity. People who want to stay human, or have human children, should be allowed to (as long as it doesn't cause severe overpopulation).

What sort of arrogance does it take for a programmer to say, "humanity deserves to be rendered obsolete, my programme deserves to live!"?

You are the one assuming a zero sum game, that only one can exist. Actually if that was true I would probably still chose something nonhuman, but that's beside the point, life doesn't have to be a zero sum game unless you are an omnicidal fascist. 'Obsolete' only equals 'extinction' in your mind. There are in fact plenty of species in SW that are (individually) better than humans in all relevant metrics, but they have not rendered humanity 'obsolete' much less 'extinct'.

[Darth Hoth]

As for genocide - tell it to the Caridans.

Do you even know what genocide is?

I'll tell you what it isn't - any use of a WMD whatsoever. The Cardian military academy, for all Durron's ineptitude, was about the most military target I can think of. Cardia's destruction is a grand-scale act of terrorism, but it is not genocide.

Actually, you are technically correct, in that wiping out the Caridan species was not Kyp Durron's actual aim - for his destruction of them to qualify under the label, it would have needed to be deliberate and targeted especially at them. Consider that specific point withdrawn.

Still, the species was rendered extinct. Would the entire planet be a legitimate target because the Imperials had placed a military academy on it?

[NecronLord]

Yes. Because the laws of war as we have them are rather odd. They're specifically designed to not make Nagasaki and Dresden, for example, into warcrimes. Regardless, by our standards, the attack on Cardia wouldn't rate as a warcrime if the NR had done it (of course, their lack of putting Kyp Durron to death or locking him away forever is farcical, and he is a mass murderer given that he did it without any kind of sanction)

In a setting where an installation can be so shielded you have to take the whole planet out with it, you're going to have to accept that innocents will be harmed. It's likely many, many, more people were killed in the New Republic's seizure of Coruscant, than died in the Cardian System, but again, that's unfortunate but unavoidable given the technology.

Given its importance 'The Imperial Academy' you can bet Cardia had sufficient shields that nothing short of a WMD like the Sun Crusher or the Death Star, or a full on fleet bombardment, would be able to destroy it. It is a warcrime when you do it out of spite, like Governor Tarkin.

[Samuel]

The difference with world devastators is that they are weaponised to the point that they can take most worlds on their own, obliterating local defences. Even the New Republic only managed to defeat them with hacking. Conventional automated factories are vulnerable and usually static installations, so you will still have to engage in conventional military expansion (or defence against warlords and other SDnetters if you manage to find genuinely uninhabited and unclaimed bits of the galaxy).

So the difference is that we need to attach engines and cover the autmated factories in an armored shells?

[Darth Hoth]

If it isn't caused by the force, then why did the introduction of Ysalamari solve the problem?

It might have been other factors - perhaps the cloning tubes he had access to were simply good enough to avoid it. Clone madness is known to be affected by the quality of the equipment and the time for gestation. There is speculation on cloning rates in the original books, where it is noted that Thrawn's records are outdated, and the nEGtW&T specifies that there are several competing theories on clone madness origins, none that has been conclusively proven.

The difference with world devastators is that they are weaponised to the point that they can take most worlds on their own, obliterating local defences. Even the New Republic only managed to defeat them with hacking. Conventional automated factories are vulnerable and usually static installations, so you will still have to engage in conventional military expansion (or defence against warlords and other SDnetters if you manage to find genuinely uninhabited and unclaimed bits of the galaxy).

Total galactic space is vast. Even a civilisation with the scope of Star Wars cannot be everywhere at once (and there is ample evidence of systems that are either uninhabited or populated by primitives in the canon). Though granted that the application of the manufacturing technology in armed WDs is new.

Neither subspace or the Force are inherently 'wrong', as long as the authors admit that this is an alternate universe with physics utterly different from our own. They may be used badly from a dramatic perspective (lazy cop-outs) and we should not tolerate internal inconsistency (the Force gets a hell of a lot more of a free rein with this than 'subspace' does - no one seems to even attempt to suggest a physical basis for it), but the existence of 'magic' does not inherently invalidate any setting.

No, but we do not assume that everything that is not immediately apparent to us comes down to it.

Actually yes it does, because you are postulating that institutionalised incompetence (coupled with stunning and unprecedented foresight with regard to AI research) exists universally across thousands if not millions of independent cultures. You have in fact 'multiplied your entities unnecessarily' compared to the Force suppressing all intelligences exceeding certain thresholds (I would not surprise me if it was making brain-computer interfacing unnecessarily troublesome as well). The 'no relativistic projectiles or weaponised drives' thing I might accept as cultural, because frankly the consequences of violating it are not a big deal in military/galactic terms, and it's quite possible that it does happen and just doesn't get mentioned in our sources.

Introducing new powers of omniscience to the Force takes us ever farther from the laws of physics as we know them. A natural explanation is preferable to one that essentially comes down to superstition - we do not know of a mechanism, so we just chalk it up to supernatural powers, and damn free will. It is better to simply admit that we do not know than to invoke magical catch-all explanations which have no basis in observed phenomena (as fair as I know, we have no objective proof of the Force taking any active part in the galaxy, as opposed to being used passively, let alone it having sentience).

On the topic of millions of cultures, what is the evidence for all of them being independent? Given the humanoid or outright human nature of most of them, with some (such as the Falleen) actually having adapted their biologies to human mores, it appears logical that they share a long common history. Which makes sense; the species that first made use of hyperdrive (probably humans, given their apparent dominance in demographics and most fields of science, politics, commerce and so on) would have had the opportunity to spread across the galaxy and influence all less technologically developed civilisations. Similarly, emerging technological societies would be easily detectable to the galactic mainstream, and thus rapidly integrated.

Ah, so you hate intelligence and worship ignorance. That's the only possible explanation, since you're ok with abominations like involuntary hive minds, and you seem to have no problem with oppresive tyrannies that can make you personally their play thing. Are alien empires that make humanity their playthings ok, or do you intend to wipe out all alien races you can to prevent that possibility? I'll be looking for your little fleet of star destroyers going around BDZing everything that isn't as stupid as you are.

An involuntary hive-mind would still be human; a machine intelligence would not. I would not want either if I could at all avoid them.

I have already explained that
a) it's going to happen anyway (unless ruled out by author fiat), so it's far more sensible to try and make sure that there are benevolent superintelligences that respect your desire to be left alone, than futilely fail to suppress machine intelligence (which will incidentally ensure that machine intelligences want to wipe you out as opposed to simply not caring about your wishes).

Are we speaking of reality or the SW galaxy, now? And I refuse to accept anything as inevitable unless it has already happened. The future is never set; it is what we make it. Some problems we may not be able to solve, but that is no excuse to just roll over.

The very idea that I would need some machine to allow me or my species to live is absolutely revolting to me. Then I would quite literally rather die.

In a choice between your galaxy where everyone lives in fear of being murdered by your death squads for being too smart or too fertile, until a Bezerker slips through your net and wipes everyone out, and the Cultureverse where pretty much everyone is happy, safe and fulfilled, what sane individual would possibly chose your dystopia?

Anyone who wants to know that there are no Gods and no Kings, but only free and equal sapient beings sharing a common heritage and (hopefully) co-operating for a greater good, under the auspices of democratic government and a free market? As opposed to a dictatorship by machines where the average person is so depressed with his life that he flees into VR simulations? It is not just humans who are threatened by your lovely AIs, you know, but everyone in the Universe.

The Culture (as it comes across in Excession, at least, the one novel that I have read) is dystopic. Its people are given no opportunity to grow intellectually (except for uselessly trivial games), and most are probably quite literally dumb enough that they could not change a lightbulb unless a drone did it for them. Humanity (or analogues) have totally relinquished all control of their destiny into the hands of the Minds.

Now if you were complaining about extinction you would have at least a sliver of a point, but 'insignificance'? Why do you have a right to 'significance', one so strong you must murder everyone who threatens it? The vast majority of species in SW are 'insignificant', many only having one planet, but I doubt you'd approve of them murdering and conquering their way to 'significance'.

The terms get muddled when real life issues are brought into fictional settings, but let us look at it. These planetary cultures are not "insignificant"; they contribute to the galaxy, their peoples have meaningful jobs and places to fill. They can build careers for themselves. Planets can make political deals, sign treaties, small polities ally with each other for increased influence on larger scales. Most importantly, they operate within the same framework as everyone else, with similar frames of reference and with similar abilities (adjusted for scale). They are no more irrelevant than analogous political units in real life. Sweden, or the city of Stockholm, are as irrelevant as Naboo on a galactic scale, but does this mean that the country is useless or that nothing any of us who live here matters?

By contrast, wank "AI Gods" operate on another level. Humanity is literally irrelevant to them, no more important than the SW galaxy would be to the Xeelee or a single pack of Siberian wolves are to us.

On top of all that, there is the fact that in a benevolent transhuman culture (e.g. The Culture), anyone who wants to be a superintelligence can be.

Our own species is still wiped out with "uploading" and similar jargon.

You just have to upgrade yourself (and possibly pass some psychological tests, to prove that you're going to be responsible with the power it implies).

Which would be administrated by . . . the Minds? Who are fit to judge us because they are so uber?

Morals are arbitrary and I certainly don't subscribe to that one. Again, it makes no sense to generalise across gender, race, class etc but not species, or for that matter, any other superficial distinction (such as evolved vs designed).

Distinction between species is not arbitrary, nor is it superficial. The difference between natural life and machines is greater still. If you want to see humanity (and in this discussion, human-equivalent aliens) wiped out in the name of fucking computer code, you have indeed transcended morality.

Oh, so you're worshipping evolution. That explains a lot, kill or be killed and all that. Wait, why aren't you out drowning your neighbour's children so that they can't compete for resources with yours?

What the Hell was that supposed to mean?

It's logically equivalent. The distinction of being able to interbreed is ethically irrelevant and in fact functionally irrelevent given sufficient technology (which may not even be that high, even stunted Trek bioscience manages to hybridise species).

It is not equivalent, this is a retarded argument and a red herring. A non-human creature or object does not have human rights* and we are not morally obliged to treat it as if it did; am I a murderer for having fried eggs for dinner? Would I be one if I shot a chimpanzee? If you have an objective standard for determining what potential computer programme should enjoy human rights, I would love to hear it. The entire idea of ethics common to all of humanity arises precisely from all human beings being human, and therefore of roughly equal abilities and mindsets (within certain variations), thereby deserving the same considerations. Race, class, sex and what have you do not divide us more than our shared identity as humans unites us. The same is not true for entities based on entirely different principles. Human ethics obviously cannot apply to beings that are too far removed from the human standard to comprehend them (and, similarly, theirs would not apply to us).



*I am here, obviously, discussing real life; in a space-opera universe which hosts near-human aliens, this will obviously be different.

I never talk about wiping out humanity. People who want to stay human, or have human children, should be allowed to (as long as it doesn't cause severe overpopulation).

I wonder if some Neanderthal said something similar when Homo sapiens emerged. Well, actually I am fairly certain that they did not, not being intelligent enough, but if they were I can imagine what it would have sounded like:

Neanderthal Hoth: "These new humans will, by competing with us for the same scarce resources, wipe us out, them being more intelligent and adaptable than we are. If we want our species to survive, we should gather our large flock and wipe out this small, newman one before it grows big and deprives us of that option."

Neanderthal Starglider: "But surely we can coexist peacefully with a vastly more intelligent life-form? Why do you assume that they would compete for the same resources? Earth is big enough for both our species, there are enough food sources to go around! I'm sure the new humans will let us survive, if we just ask them nicely! And if you try to fight this small group of humans, which we can never defeat anyway because their emergence is inevitable, they'll be angry and want to wipe us out, rather than merely being our benign overlords."

Competition for the same set of scarce resources invariably leads to the demise of the weaker species as the stronger takes the resource it is dependent on. (Which is not to be taken, or strawmanned, that I hold the same model for intraspecies competition and interaction.) In an unrealistic universe like the Culture where there is a magic energy dimension full of literally infinite resources, this might just be avoidable, but we do not live in such a magical universe. Here, supply is finite - only demand has infinite capacity for growth.

(This post concerned, once again, real life. Star Wars has shown that many species can and do indeed coexist peacefully in that setting, so the same considerations clearly do not apply there)

You are the one assuming a zero sum game, that only one can exist.

In the real world, no matter what "post-scarcity" wankers say, resources are and will always (to the extent of our knowledge of physics) be finite. If this machine intelligence competes with us for the same resources (which is likely, given that its infrastructure will most likely depend on technology utilising similar materials and power sources as we use), then it is indeed a zero-sum game.

Actually if that was true I would probably still chose something nonhuman, but that's beside the point,

No, it is very much the point actually. You are claiming that humanity must inevitably be superseded by "better" machine species, and that we should embrace this as our inevitable destiny rather than fight for the survival of our own kind. And you are saying yourself, in your own words, that you prefer machines to prosper over humans, given the choice.

life doesn't have to be a zero sum game unless you are an omnicidal fascist.

The amount of resources available does not change because your uber machine exists. Resource extraction might be made more efficient, but the total amount is still finite (and still the same).

'Obsolete' only equals 'extinction' in your mind. There are in fact plenty of species in SW that are (individually) better than humans in all relevant metrics, but they have not rendered humanity 'obsolete' much less 'extinct'.

Star Wars is fiction. I am, in my posts, assuming a realistic treatment.

[Darth Hoth]

Yes. Because the laws of war as we have them are rather odd. They're specifically designed to not make Nagasaki and Dresden, for example, into warcrimes. Regardless, by our standards, the attack on Cardia wouldn't rate as a warcrime if the NR had done it (of course, their lack of putting Kyp Durron to death or locking him away forever is farcical, and he is a mass murderer given that he did it without any kind of sanction)

We have something called "proportionality" in real life as well. If you were to be made POTUS and, by act of batshit insanity, launch the saturation-bombing of an entire country with nukes and claim that you were only aiming for one air force base or terrorist camp, would we say this is A-OK?

In a setting where an installation can be so shielded you have to take the whole planet out with it, you're going to have to accept that innocents will be harmed. It's likely many, many, more people were killed in the New Republic's seizure of Coruscant, than died in the Cardian System, but again, that's unfortunate but unavoidable given the technology.

EU sources prove beyond doubt that taking down planetary shields is possible without causing extinction events (Torpedo Spheres are used for pinpoint strikes at shield generators, and there are other bombardment options). Wiping out an entire solar system to get at one ground-based installation is extreme overkill and would most likely be grounds for indictment. This is assuming that Carida even had a planetary shield, something I do not remember right now; if not, it is all the worse.

Given its importance 'The Imperial Academy' you can bet Cardia had sufficient shields that nothing short of a WMD like the Sun Crusher or the Death Star, or a full on fleet bombardment, would be able to destroy it. It is a warcrime when you do it out of spite, like Governor Tarkin.

Alderaan held training camps for Rebels. By the rationale given, destroying it was no less legitimate than destroying Carida.

[Samuel]

The very idea that I would need some machine to allow me or my species to live is absolutely revolting to me. Then I would quite literally rather die.

You currently live at the sufferance of other human beings. The only difference is that you can see the process where they determine wheter you live or die.

Anyone who wants to know that there are no Gods and no Kings, but only free and equal sapient beings sharing a common heritage and (hopefully) co-operating for a greater good, under the auspices of democratic government and a free market?

That is not valuable in and of itself. It is only good insofar as it achieves are objectives, namely the greatest good for the greatest number in this case.

As opposed to a dictatorship by machines where the average person is so depressed with his life that he flees into VR simulations?

How is it a dictatorship? It is an oligarchy choosen by merit. As for depression... VR is always better than real life.

They are no more irrelevant than analogous political units in real life. Sweden, or the city of Stockholm, are as irrelevant as Naboo on a galactic scale, but does this mean that the country is useless or that nothing any of us who live here matters?

Sweden has 9 million compared to Earth's 6 billion. .15%

Even if Naboo has 6 billion people compared to the galaxy compared to only the 300 trillion casulties from the clone wars is less than .002%.

By contrast, wank "AI Gods" operate on another level. Humanity is literally irrelevant to them, no more important than the SW galaxy would be to the Xeelee or a single pack of Siberian wolves are to us.

Compared to being a single person amoung countless quadrillions?

Our own species is still wiped out with "uploading" and similar jargon.

The same would occur with rampant genetic engineering. It is not the specific strands of DNA that are important.

Which would be administrated by . . . the Minds? Who are fit to judge us because they are so uber?

Well, we DID program them.

Distinction between species is not arbitrary, nor is it superficial.

Yes it is. What difference is there between one intelligent species and another if they are both intelligent?

The difference between natural life and machines is greater still. If you want to see humanity (and in this discussion, human-equivalent aliens) wiped out in the name of fucking computer code, you have indeed transcended morality.

What do you think human DNA is? It is just code.

am I a murderer for having fried eggs for dinner?

No, but neither are the chikens when they kill you for eating their children.

I wonder if some Neanderthal said something similar when Homo sapiens emerged. Well, actually I am fairly certain that they did not, not being intelligent enough, but if they were I can imagine what it would have sounded like:

They have larger brains then humans. Aside from competition, the theory is that they simply were not adapted to the new climate and died out because their birth rate was below replacement due to a higher death rate caused by a higher infant mortality rate.

Here, supply is finite - only demand has infinite capacity for growth.

Compared to the amount of the universe that is unused? There is a billion systems in the Empire. There are 100 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy. And it is smaller than the Star Wars galaxy. So the amount of benefit whipping out organics is negligable and if the machines are made to serve like every other...

[NecronLord]

We have something called "proportionality" in real life as well. If you were to be made POTUS and, by act of batshit insanity, launch the saturation-bombing of an entire country with nukes and claim that you were only aiming for one air force base or terrorist camp, would we say this is A-OK?

No we don't. Proportional response is a policy of governments. It's not part of international law - if you want to fire missiles at a state because they sunk one of your warships, that's basically up to you. What's more, as you yourself have pointed out many times in your seemingly countless screeds defending the evil Galactic Empire, a world is not that big by Star Wars standards. Oh, and 'proportionality?' what? - The Galactic Empire started destroying entire planets long before the rebellion did.

Oh, and for the record, that's exactly what the United States did with its superweapons - indeed, it went out of its way to pick targets that were in built up areas, so they wouldn't waste their bombs.

EU sources prove beyond doubt that taking down planetary shields is possible without causing extinction events (Torpedo Spheres are used for pinpoint strikes at shield generators, and there are other bombardment options).

I am extremely dubious about the safety of being under any kind of bombardment from multi-teraton weapons. And of course, it didn't take long for the Empire to turn those into something capable of causing extra civillian deaths, now did it?

What's more, unlike the Empire, there's never any evidence that the Alliance/New Republic actually had a Torpedo Sphere.

Wiping out an entire solar system to get at one ground-based installation is extreme overkill and would most likely be grounds for indictment. This is assuming that Carida even had a planetary shield, something I do not remember right now; if not, it is all the worse.

Alderaan held training camps for Rebels. By the rationale given, destroying it was no less legitimate than destroying Carida.

Except, of course, they weren't the target. The reasoning was blow up Alderann (a notionally Imperial world) to make an example - the novel proves that Darth Vader only discovered the degree of Alderannian defences after the attack.

[HSRTG]

My first order occurs instantly: "Fleet hyperjump; any safe heading! Now!". After traveling a few light-years, leaving hyperspace and waiting for the initial fireworks from the inevitable idiots to finish (Could take a few days), I join the Mess. Aside from being the biggest and most coherent group, they have real world experience in the closest equivalences to this shit.

I'd support ganking a/some WD/s when they become available after being shut down. Also, towards establishing our (The Mess's) own automated (with defensive guns) factories/refineries/farms. Even if combat AIs are weak by Word-of-the-Force, that doesn't preclude using (abusing) them for logistics. Establishing academies for officers and enlisted men (or templates to clone them from) will also be important over the long run. Our crews won't stay aboard forever, after all. Trade with the outside galaxy could have varying importance depending on how our 25 worlds are laid out, but attracting scientists/engineers for research into our automated logistics tree could only be a good thing.

50 to 1,000 Posts or with a Negative Custom Title
-One Imperial II-class Star Destroyer
-Three Acclamator-class Assault Transports
-Eight Lancer Frigates
-Six Carrack Cruisers
-The Rank of Commodore (AHAHAHA...P.S. joke)

Sorry Fuck-the-Vong guys. I hate the biowankers, but practicality (and survival) comes first.

[Samuel]

For the runners, Star Destroyers do need fuel. Try getting that in intergalactic space. As for idiots, the Imperial navy still exists and we won't all be in one place. With our shipyards we are prime targets for rebelion/rogue/loyalist forces.