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To remind everyone, each sector has five Earth or Near Earth worlds, with at least one natural Earth-like planet (As many as three for Home Sectors) amongst its solar systems. The difference between Core, Midrange, and colony Sectors is that the other three-four worlds are at varying stages of terraforming. Core Sectors have all five worlds having long completed all necessary terraforming, as well as numerous smaller bodies like planetoids and moons being fairly terraformed where capable. In Midrange sectors, the three or four non natural Earth-like worlds are mostly terraformed, but may have a decade or two of "finish up" work left. Colony Sectors, being newly settled (or, in some cases like mine, the site of vicious wars in the past few centuries) have only their natural Earth-like world capable of direct settlement, with all terraforming still in early stages, limiting the settlement capacity for the moment as the long work of altering the atmosphere to be breathable is commenced.

I say this because I know at least one player has, on his wiki, claimed only three worlds in his midrange sectors, apparently believing each NCP directly translated into one full world; it doesn't.

On that note, the seventy two world claim on the Outlander wiki is greatly inflated. A shit ton of those worlds are just research posts, refuelling posts, small-scale private settlements and the like, rather than actual productive valuable locations.

loomer wrote:On that note, the seventy two world claim on the Outlander wiki is greatly inflated. A shit ton of those worlds are just research posts, refuelling posts, small-scale private settlements and the like, rather than actual productive valuable locations.

That's fine. The "five world" bit is meant to reflect actual fully livable planets of proper size that exist in a sector, as opposed to planets too far off norm to be terraformed but which have mining outposts or research stations or what have you.

Since ESPers as they actually exist in the Haruhi-verse would be a very untenable proposition here, what with their fighting extradimensional entities and all, I'll probably have to go for something different. I've always wanted an army of mind-linked electricity-manipulating clone soldiers...

Of course, the original Mikoto Misaka would be there too to lead the clones. And while we're on the subject of electricity manipulators, there's her nemesis, Commissar Yevgeny Borisovitch Volgin of the Imperium of Man! MISAKAAAAAA!!! IT'S NOT OVER YET!!!

Electrokinetics?

Steve wrote:Electrokinetics?

Yeah, that. Couldn't really recall the proper term at the time of my initial post, though.

So they basically use their minds to generate electricity? Like, say, Electro or Black Lightning?

Steve wrote:So they basically use their minds to generate electricity? Like, say, Electro or Black Lightning?

Pretty much, yeah.

In Toaru Majutsu no Index, the original Mikoto Misaka was a graduate of Academy City's Power Curriculum Program, which enhances the abilities of ESPers through rigorous training and medical enhancement. Her clones were initially meant for combat usage, but they simply weren't as strong as the original and were instead expended en masse as live targets as part of a program to develop a Level 6 ESPer (Academy City's ESPer ranking system goes from 0 to 5, with 0 being the absolute weakest and 5 being the strongest; the original Misaka was a Level 5, while the first-generation clones were Level 2s and Level 3s). Later on, a second generation of Level 4-ranked Misaka clones was produced for black-ops purposes.

With that explained, I still haven't figured out exactly how to reimplement Misaka and her clones for SDN Worlds, but I'm sure I'll think of something. SDN Worlds!Misaka definitely won't be a middle schooler, I'll tell you that much. Also, I do hope that there really is a Commissar Volgin serving with the Imperium of Man; Shroom would probably get where I'm going with that (best of luck to him with his nursing licensure exams, by the way).

MISAKAAAAAA!!! IT'S NOT OVER YET!!!

The Commonwealth has a few ESPers, although they are under a certain deal of regulation and a few of them are employed by the military. However, Psionics are not seen as things to be worshiped, but merely a demographic with some utility which is in all likelyhood going to be an evolutionary dead end in comparison with fusing man and machine together. Full Cyberization to Posthumanity has the effect of neutralising psionic abilities and complicates what information a psionic can detect from their mind as any thoughts or memories they had would come across as being garbled and hard to decipher.

Zor

Quick nitpick Shinn, unless I am mistaken isn't Mikoto from To Aru Kagaku no Choudenjibou the companion piece to Toaru Majutsu no Index? I've only read the first though so she may appear in both.

Dark Hellion wrote:Quick nitpick Shinn, unless I am mistaken isn't Mikoto from To Aru Kagaku no Choudenjibou the companion piece to Toaru Majutsu no Index? I've only read the first though so she may appear in both.

Mikoto is indeed in both works; it just so happens that she's the main protagonist of Toaru Kagaku no Railgun while she's merely a supporting protagonist in Toaru Majutsu no Index.

The Imperium employers psykers generally as warriors.

THe Imperium also has a cyber warfare division dedicated to using AIs etc. to hack and destroy beings who use way too much cybernetics for their own silly good.

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:The Imperium employers psykers generally as warriors.

THe Imperium also has a cyber warfare division dedicated to using AIs etc. to hack and destroy beings who use way too much cybernetics for their own silly good.

Do you honestly think that we would accelerate our evolution without taking conserns of cyber warfare into account and dedicate resources to address them into account?

And in any case, we have other uses for cybernetics, among them being systems to make those who threaten our posthuman citizenry see the error of their ways.

Zor

Zor wrote:Do you honestly think that we would accelerate our evolution without taking conserns of cyber warfare into account and dedicate resources to address them into account?

And in any case, we have other uses for cybernetics, among them being systems to make those who threaten our posthuman citizenry see the error of their ways.

Zor

Oh I dunno. Look who's busy wanking away as usual?

And Zor, please don't pull the same silly tricks in the SDNW2 again?

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote: Oh I dunno. Look who's busy wanking away as usual?

And Zor, please don't pull the same silly tricks in the SDNW2 again?

Except he's right in this case. AI hacking and cyberwarfare is merely another threat, not the ultimate solution to cybernetic and machine species, much like VX gas is dangerous but far from the ultimate weapon against organic soldiers. Anyway, cyberwarfare is just as much a threat to organic armies as it is to cybernetic ones, since they depend on computerized command and control systems just as much. Maybe even more, since organic armies need man/machine interface by definition, creating an automatic vulnerability to be exploited (the user).

PeZook wrote:Except he's right in this case. AI hacking and cyberwarfare is merely another threat, not the ultimate solution to cybernetic and machine species, much like VX gas is dangerous but far from the ultimate weapon against organic soldiers. Anyway, cyberwarfare is just as much a threat to organic armies as it is to cybernetic ones, since they depend on computerized command and control systems just as much. Maybe even more, since organic armies need man/machine interface by definition, creating an automatic vulnerability to be exploited (the user).

If you read Zor's earlier description of his nation, his nation so wholely embraces cybernetics, it's almost close to the "Ghost in the Shell" type, i.e. Mind = Machine.

That is if you so much as watched the anime that is.

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote: If you read Zor's earlier description of his nation, his nation so wholely embraces cybernetics, it's almost close to the "Ghost in the Shell" type, i.e. Mind = Machine.

That is if you so much as watched the anime that is.

Yeah, so? It doesn't change his point, that cyberwarfare isn't the ultimate tool of destruction for such a society, just another mean of waging the intelligence war (say, by poisoning commercial software patches with backdoors and exploits )

But just because you have a civilization of machines or near-machines, does that imply they have to be vulnerable to that sort of thing?

I think it does by default - you run on code, so you are vulnerable to code insertion etc.

How vulnerable is different. I mean, the Outlander's Machines aren't going to be affected by a virus targeting Zor's cyborgs thanks to entirely different language and structure.

Granted, but how are the Cylons going to hack a machine that doesn't have wifi, for example? I think this is a bit overrated, though I am admittedly biased due to having one of those societies myself.

loomer wrote:I think it does by default - you run on code, so you are vulnerable to code insertion etc.

How vulnerable is different. I mean, the Outlander's Machines aren't going to be affected by a virus targeting Zor's cyborgs thanks to entirely different language and structure.

What if you have no connection for them to hack in the first place or it opens only when needed in rapid fluttering micro second bursts on a semi random pattern? That would be nigh impossible to hack, but rather easy to implement.

Norade wrote:What if you have no connection for them to hack in the first place or it opens only when needed in rapid fluttering micro second bursts on a semi random pattern? That would be nigh impossible to hack, but rather easy to implement.

Unless the hacking is done by an AI running at such high clock speeds that 'micro second burst' translates to 'hours and hours of time'.

And every CompuBrain™ needs some kind of connection to the outside world, otherwise it's just a useless box. That connection might be a direct fibre-optic link, or a microwave relay, or some method by which input from squishy organic senses is converted into data, or something else entirely, but it's still a connection that could conceivably be exploited with the right tools.

Norade wrote: What if you have no connection for them to hack in the first place or it opens only when needed in rapid fluttering micro second bursts on a semi random pattern? That would be nigh impossible to hack, but rather easy to implement.

Obviously that makes it harder - but a robot, cyborg, or AI is going to need a connection if it's to do anything networked. It's really just a matter of targets - civvies are soft and squishy in information warfare but fucking useless unless they have access to something useful. Military systems are hard but valuable, etcetera - but is your average part-mechanical man going to avoid networking or use that kind of inefficient connection when all he wants is racy circuit diagrams (oh man, you can see right through her chassis!) and streaming radio?

Really, unless it's a completely isolated system with no means of access whatsoever, it can be hacked or otherwise tampered with if you've got the time, money and motivation. All depends though on the cost:gain ratio being high enough to make battering through the semi-random microbursts by constantly probing for hours or days, or even on infiltrating an organic into an organization to do it the old fashioned way with portable media concealed inside him (or, even better, by exploiting poor network administration to allow ongoing influence electronically.)

The Ascendancy doesn't do much with ESPers - the nobility, as a rule, doesn't trust them, and they're not specially employed by the military. Mercenary/security firms employ the pshycially gifted, but that's very catch-as-catch-can and not very well documented.

There are obviously always physical means of infiltrating a robot. SHoot some darts with the necessary computer AI viruses, or some means to forcibly establish an out link to the open, and allow for hacking by an AI.

No one ever said that AI hacking routes are limited by mere existing connections. Every wire in a system itself allows a connection to be infiltrated because it leads to the system bus and thus the rest of the system.

PeZook wrote:Yeah, so? It doesn't change his point, that cyberwarfare isn't the ultimate tool of destruction for such a society, just another mean of waging the intelligence war (say, by poisoning commercial software patches with backdoors and exploits )

The point of this is that Zor has a tendency for saying "RARRRR! My soldiers are superior! Perfect! And... Perfect!" And finally, you weren't always an active player in the last game, so you might have forgotten or never read of what he did in the last game.