On the Sucsessors of Mankind (RAR!)

[Zor]

In this RAR! thread you are given a glimpse of two possible futures, neither of them are not particularly nice.

The first one states that in the area of 100 to 200 years, Combination of Global Warming and Nuclear/Biological/Chemical warfare will result in the fall of Human Civilization. However, through a few small populations of survivors (less than 50,000) the world is gradually re-populated. However, these groups are left at a pre-agricultural level and like in the Global Mean Temperature story mull about at a Neolithic level for about half a million years, evolving along the way. At the end of those hundred million years they develop their own civilization and eventually industrialize and push out over an area about a thousand light years in diameter. This period ends because on the other end of the Galaxy there is another race of radial symmetrical eight limbed, ten eyed, three gendered sapient creatures which look roughly like the hairy bastard child of a Spider crab and a starfish with a bit of tree frog thrown in. As of now they are at the Paleolithic level. However in the interim half a million years they have begun setting themselves up across the Milky Way. When they encounter the Human Civilization, they overwhelm what defenses mankind has and fairly quickly subjugate humanity. However, these creatures with their vast interstellar empire refrain from out and out genocide and instead reduce humans to beings kept in what are effectively zoos and a few as pets, subjects under an utterly dominant species.

The other starts similarly, with the end of human civilization in the same time frame. The Difference is that Humanity dies out shortly afterward due to disease and absolutely tiny number of survivors, although something that either was destroyed or did not exist in the first universe does survive. That something are a few Artificial Intelligences and Robots. These Machines have drives which allow them to survive, reproduce and evolve; developing on the remains and salvaging what information they can about their dead creators. Within a few thousand years, sapient machines have developed a vast civilization and begin to push out into the stars. The alien species which would have conquered mankind is still in the Bronze Age when a Machine long range constructer ship completes a wormhole gate and their planet becomes what is effectively a wilderness preserve, a minor footnote in their conquest of the galaxy. The Machines have something of an interest in humanity and will eventually attempt to recreate mankind and its works out of this interest in their origins and while they will have some sucsess thanks to cultural information they had during the extinction of Homo Sapiens they don't have any human genetic material on hand by the time they start doing these activities.

You are given a choice on which course humanity takes. What is your decision?

Zor

[The Yosemite Bear]

Where's the option for cockroaches and crabgrass?

or at least some descendant of the norway rat?

[Samuel]

Our children shall rule the universe.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Since I'll be long dead, I'll go with the one that will have humans more fondly remembered. Other species are more likely to look sympathetically on humans if they're the poor, downtrodden captives of an evil alien race, rather than the long extinct, monster-gods who created the tyrannical race of machines that currently rule the galaxy with a durasteel fist.

...that and since those aliens are obviously based off of Lovecraft's Elder Things, I fell in love with them immediately.

[Tasoth]

I am, for some reason, thinking of this now.

As it stands, go with the latter. We're all dead, why does it matter at that point?

[Guardsman Bass]

I'll go with the machines. Better that we be a footnote, and maybe eventually re-created under a hopefully friendly machine empire that is our offspring, than end up as the eternal pets of some other alien race, to be exterminated, examined, bred, and used as they please.

Of course, I think I'd prefer a third option, where we get uploaded into the surviving machines and spread across the cosmos - or groups of humans in colony ships flee the invading aliens, and head off in the direction of Andromeda Galaxy.

[AirshipFanboy]

Props to Zor for the crazy awesome dilemma.

The funky starfish aliens reacted to humans by fighting them then turning them into pets. The machines reacted to the the aliens by leaving them alone. If this is a guide to how these two cultures treat other sentient beings, then the machines are more benevolent.

All hail the machine gods!

[Sriad]

Props to Zor for the crazy awesome dilemma.

The funky starfish aliens reacted to humans by fighting them then turning them into pets. The machines reacted to the the aliens by leaving them alone. If this is a guide to how these two cultures treat other sentient beings, then the machines are more benevolent.

All hail the machine gods!

Even though I also prefer the Machine option, the circumstances aren't quite the same. In the alien scenario, mankind represents a viable rival to the starcrabfrogs. Sure we only inhabit on the order of .5% of the galactic volume, but knowing the Angel/Caveman dilema (in their own cultural idiom) the SCFs are probably freaked the fuck out. They've achieved what should be racial immortality (bound by entropy) by expanding out of their home system, and then they stumble upon another empire which could conceivably end up in competition for the same resources. It doesn't matter that mankind has roughly a snowball's chance NOW, they're both ancient cultures by this point whose middle range plans span millenia.

The machines, on the other hand, have total galactic dominion at this point. Short of negligence so blatant it's indistinguishable from suicide, the SCFs will never pose a threat to the machines.

Scenario 1 looks very much like the frenzy America got whipped into over defeating the Muslim Menace (excuse me, only the extremists) in the months following 9-11, or the Plains Wars that shunted the Native Americans into their reservations. Scenario 2 looks like the modern world noticing an isolated Pacific Island populated by tiny monkeys who understand that hitting something with a rock works better than hitting it with a hand, and deciding there isn't any need to post a battleship off their coast.

[tim31]

Humanity dies out. I'd rather take the high note.

[NoXion]

The machines sound, at worst, like a benevolent dictatorship, while the starcrabfrog-thingies sound like a bunch of slavers. My vote is for the silicon overlords.

[Narkis]

I, for one, welcome our new machine overlords. (Metaphorically. On behalf of the universe. I won't be around to do the actual welcoming.)

[Lord of the Abyss]

Another vote for the Machines. They are in effect our descendents; not on a biological level of course, but they at least are trying to discover and preserve our cultural heritage. Which is the really important part, and it's not like we'd actually have preserved our genes if we'd survived anyway. Besides; as said the Machines just seem more civilized.

[Soldier of Entropy]

Machines. I'd rather the humans go out with a bit more dignity. Plus, yeah, as everyone has said, they seem more-or-less benevolent.

[Count Chocula]

Two words: Berzerkers' Revenge.

Plus every Berzerker will have Human DNA in its holds and will repopulate at random in its course of eternal revenge against the octo-starfish-frogs!

[The Yosemite Bear]

I've been throwing around the idea of a post human recolonization senario called "From the Machine a Godess" about an Android (Gynoid to be specific) Terraforming and rebuilding human civilization and culture while being a false Egyptian Godess.....

[Pelranius]

I would like to see how the machines recreate humanity. They probably won't get it all right, but they mean well.

[NecronLord]

Ave Mechanica.

I'm quite predictable, after all.

[Schwarzwald]

As cool as Psudo Elder Things are, Metal God machine overlords are much cooler.

In addition to previous reasons given, the AI option (even if rather primitive in development ) means that some measure of technology and industry remain. This means the AI either likely retains a presence in space, or has the means to develop one with relative ease, especially without pesky humans around to potentially get in their way.

While the OP states that Human Civilization 2.0 does eventually return to space, I keep thinking that if civilization falls back to a Neolithic level in a couple hundred years with no AI around, most of the readily available resources may already have been used up. This may seriously hinder the redevelopment of a second industrial revolution and modern society, a reason I believe has been previously put forth for us developing a permanent presence in space now while we still can.

[Darth Hoth]

Humanity über Alles! As long as one man draws breath, however enslaved, hope remains. A cosmos ruled by machines is an abomination not only to us, but to all biological life everywhere.

[Guardsman Bass]

Humanity über Alles! As long as one man draws breath, however enslaved, hope remains. A cosmos ruled by machines is an abomination not only to us, but to all biological life everywhere.

Keep in mind that they're not really "men", so to speak - they're humanoid descendants after hundreds of thousands of years at a neolithic level.

Besides, what's so "abominable" about a machine-centered universe? As far as humanity goes, it's quite good - in fact, there's a chance that actual homo sapiens might be re-created at some point.

[Tanasinn]

I'd rather go with the machines. In a small, infantile way humanity wins - the galaxy belongs to our creations, we've left a decent mark that says "We were here." We changed something.

Being kept as toys by aliens reduces humanity to a speck as insignificant as any given species we've driven to extinction without noticing. No eternal titanium legacy, no massive mark - nothing more grand than a panda in a zoo. Screw that shit.

[AirshipFanboy]

Even though I also prefer the Machine option, the circumstances aren't quite the same. In the alien scenario, mankind represents a viable rival to the starcrabfrogs. Sure we only inhabit on the order of .5% of the galactic volume, but knowing the Angel/Caveman dilema (in their own cultural idiom) the SCFs are probably freaked the fuck out. They've achieved what should be racial immortality (bound by entropy) by expanding out of their home system, and then they stumble upon another empire which could conceivably end up in competition for the same resources. It doesn't matter that mankind has roughly a snowball's chance NOW, they're both ancient cultures by this point whose middle range plans span millenia.

The machines, on the other hand, have total galactic dominion at this point. Short of negligence so blatant it's indistinguishable from suicide, the SCFs will never pose a threat to the machines.

This is a very good point, one that I should have thought of and taken into account. But...

We know that the aliens will treat potential threats ruthlessly. We do not know how the machines treat potential threats, leaving the possibility that they will be more benevolent.

We know that the machines will leave non-threatening species. We do not know how the aliens will treat non-threating species, leaving the possibility that they will be more malevolent.

And yes, there is still the possibility that the machines will be more malevolent than the aliens toward potential threats, or that the aliens will be more benevolent toward non-threats.

But, by human standards, a nation attacking a weaker nation because it *might* be a threat in the far future is "mean" (if only a little more so than average). A nation leaving a weaker culture alone might not be "nice," but it's not really "mean" either.

If we have one confirmed case of the aliens acting mean, one confirmed case of the robots acting neutral, and all other cases are unknown, then I'd rather release the robots on the universe.

Scenario 2 looks like the modern world noticing an isolated Pacific Island populated by tiny monkeys who understand that hitting something with a rock works better than hitting it with a hand, and deciding there isn't any need to post a battleship off their coast.

hehehehehehe!

[Starglider]

(2) obviously. Not only are the machines vastly more benevolent, to future humans, the imperialist aliens and any other aliens out there, they've also clearly survived a superintelligence transition in a positive way, whereas the imperialist aliens are presumably still at risk of creating Bezerkers themselves. There is no sane reason to support (1), but I see that Darth Hoth is predictably and amusingly fixated on 'biological vs artificial', however superficial and irrelevant the distinction.

[Imperial Overlord]

You just don't get it Starglider. It is clearly better that a handful of humans live in cages in a widespread genocidal star spanning empire they can't possibly overthrow than to have a merciful machine intelligence extend its influence throughout the galaxy while it attempts to resurrect the human race.

[Guardsman Bass]

(2) obviously. Not only are the machines vastly more benevolent, to future humans, the imperialist aliens and any other aliens out there, they've also clearly survived a superintelligence transition in a positive way, whereas the imperialist aliens are presumably still at risk of creating Bezerkers themselves. There is no sane reason to support (1), but I see that Darth Hoth is predictably and amusingly fixated on 'biological vs artificial', however superficial and irrelevant the distinction.

I've wondered about that, myself. Rather than us getting ourselves completely ass-kicked by a sentient machine, what are the chances that we'll more or less just ending up merging with our creations? I know I probably wouldn't mind being the equivalent of a Von Neumann probe.