I just recently realized that the plot of Terry Pratchett’s “The Last Hero” was stolen from the Dragonlance Legends trilogy. A former hero sets out to kill the gods, but doesn’t realize this will also end up destroying the world. Another group sets out to stop him, and in the end (spoiler warning) the former hero redeems himself by giving his own life to stop the problem he himself created. And the gods try to put him in one afterlife, but he gets a different one. Weis and Hickman should totally sue the Pratchett estate.
Actually, It wouldn’t have surprised me if you were serious. Mr. Pratchett, particularly in the early part of his career really *was* a very enthusiastic…let’s call it “borrower”. His first Discworld novel had not only Cohen but also expys of both Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser and Terry Pratchett himself would have been the first to tell you that Ankh-Morpock was likewise his expy of Lhankmar… (to be continued)
And Death was likewise also based on Fritz Leiber’s version of Death in “The Sadness of the Executioner. Likewise the first version of the Patrician in that novel really wasn’t much more then a more competent then normal version of Lhankmar’s Overlords. I wouldn’t say that “The Color of Magic” was a fanfic set in Newhon. But there was enough borrowing that it wasn’t that far from it either….
…It was a good novel but if you’ve read the entire series you can see how much Pratchett improved. His borrowing tendencies could still be seen in “Moving Pictures” since Victor, the hero of that novel, was also very much the expy of Fred Cassidy from “Doorways in the Sand” but to the best of my knowledge that seems to have been the last time he was that blatant about helping himself to other people’s characters. Which is just as well because his own characters were almost always pretty cool. ^_^
Whenever this subject comes up, I’m always reminded of an interview with Neil Gaiman. A lot of fans had noted the similarity between a certain cupboard-dweller and the several-years-earlier character of Tim Hunter, a bespectacled, neglected youth destined to be the greatest mage of his age, in Neil Gaiman’s Books of Magic. Asked if he felt that Rowling was plagiarizing his work, Gaiman, always a class act, responded, “Honestly, I always thought we were both cribbing from Sword in the Stone.”
Yep, one’s a time travel epic in which the world is turned to a blasted wasteland because of the emptiness in the godslayer’s soul (and where he actually succeeds, but it gets unhappened), and the other is a pastiche of heroic sagas intermixed with clockpunk space opera, in which the world would have simply stopped existing (picture of a skeletal A’Tuin aside) because of the disruption to the magical field, but those are just details.
Lovelace has already been zapped once. She’s not going to find out. Oh, and there’s a big difference between mind control software which Whimsy knows about and mind control software she doesn’t know about.
Nick and Aimee both agreed that Whimsy absolutely should NOT have access to mind control.
Aimee in particular was so against it, she resigned herself to permanent isolation and/or suicide by deletion, just to keep it away from them.
And here we have Lovelace, an AI created by a mad scientist, who was exploited and even once “murdered” by humans, and whose only stated allegiance so far is to her fellow AIs.
And now she has the mind control software, which is potentially not a threat to AIs, but which is absolutely a threat to actual humans. And she seems quite ready to hand it over to Whimsy in order to protect Nick’s AI clone… but with no qualms about whether it might be used to harm non-AI Nick or other humans.
So I ask you – what are the odds that Lovelace has gotten wind of the brewing war between humans and non-human sapients, and that she’s decided to choose a side rather than try to prevent the conflict?
Well I mean, we really have no reason to trust Lovelace, aside from nostalgia over her prior appearence in Narbonic.
It kind of confuses me as to why Nick and Baron trust her at all. Neither of them has any prior experience with her. She’s a total stranger who Whimsy arranged for them to work with, for reasons they aren’t truly privy to. They don’t trust Whimsy, so why do they trust what is essentially a Whimsy subcontractor?
Because in D&D terms she’s flashed the “I’m a Player Character too!” card at them perhaps? Then again, Nick already did have experience with “The Daughters of the Air” and while he loathed them for self-righteousness that wouldn’t keep him from assuming that one of their agents would be trustworthy. Especially since he still has “I identify more with machines then I do with people ” problems. But yeah, apart from that I would say your speculation seems reasonable and quite likely you’ve nailed it. Worth remembering too, that Whimsy herself may have developed the mind control technology with that war in mind rather that from any desire to use it should things stay peaceful. Given how much her daddy obsessed over such a war this might seem logical.
You’re quite right, apart from the parts where it’s not a threat to AIs (Mistycorn was certainly affected by it) and the part where it’s a threat to humans (it was a threat to humans when it was part of an upcoming VR game).
Hopefully this means that Aimee is out of the Whimsy VR sim now. If not, the next words out of Nick’s vocoder should be “Lovelace, we fucked up“, or he isn’t as smart as I thought he was.
too bad we missed that offscreen moment of awsome, I bet it would have been good.
Damn, Lovelace don’t fuck around.
Yeah, she’s a good girl.
Woah! How did this happen?
Narrative imperative.
A pep talk to build personal confidence and overcome self hatred, followed by smooches. Possibly goinking as well.
Nice to know Aimee has good literary tastes. ^_^
I just recently realized that the plot of Terry Pratchett’s “The Last Hero” was stolen from the Dragonlance Legends trilogy. A former hero sets out to kill the gods, but doesn’t realize this will also end up destroying the world. Another group sets out to stop him, and in the end (spoiler warning) the former hero redeems himself by giving his own life to stop the problem he himself created. And the gods try to put him in one afterlife, but he gets a different one. Weis and Hickman should totally sue the Pratchett estate.
Parody is protected speech.
Actually I’m pretty sure plot and concept are not protected.
I don’t think it’s particularly original with them, either, but I can’t pin it down.
Sir Pratchett stole nothing, those themes are centuries old.
By your standard every single author is a thief.
….Dude. It was a joke.
Actually, It wouldn’t have surprised me if you were serious. Mr. Pratchett, particularly in the early part of his career really *was* a very enthusiastic…let’s call it “borrower”. His first Discworld novel had not only Cohen but also expys of both Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser and Terry Pratchett himself would have been the first to tell you that Ankh-Morpock was likewise his expy of Lhankmar… (to be continued)
And Death was likewise also based on Fritz Leiber’s version of Death in “The Sadness of the Executioner. Likewise the first version of the Patrician in that novel really wasn’t much more then a more competent then normal version of Lhankmar’s Overlords. I wouldn’t say that “The Color of Magic” was a fanfic set in Newhon. But there was enough borrowing that it wasn’t that far from it either….
…It was a good novel but if you’ve read the entire series you can see how much Pratchett improved. His borrowing tendencies could still be seen in “Moving Pictures” since Victor, the hero of that novel, was also very much the expy of Fred Cassidy from “Doorways in the Sand” but to the best of my knowledge that seems to have been the last time he was that blatant about helping himself to other people’s characters. Which is just as well because his own characters were almost always pretty cool. ^_^
Meh. “Doorways in the Sand” should read “Doorways in the Sand by Roger Zelazny”.
Whenever this subject comes up, I’m always reminded of an interview with Neil Gaiman. A lot of fans had noted the similarity between a certain cupboard-dweller and the several-years-earlier character of Tim Hunter, a bespectacled, neglected youth destined to be the greatest mage of his age, in Neil Gaiman’s Books of Magic. Asked if he felt that Rowling was plagiarizing his work, Gaiman, always a class act, responded, “Honestly, I always thought we were both cribbing from Sword in the Stone.”
Yep, one’s a time travel epic in which the world is turned to a blasted wasteland because of the emptiness in the godslayer’s soul (and where he actually succeeds, but it gets unhappened), and the other is a pastiche of heroic sagas intermixed with clockpunk space opera, in which the world would have simply stopped existing (picture of a skeletal A’Tuin aside) because of the disruption to the magical field, but those are just details.
I have this sneaking suspicion Lovelace is holding a reasonable faximile.
It’s software. There is no difference between identical items.
Really. I have this file called wrar55b2.exe I’d love to share with you. Don’t worry, it’s just a winrar installer.
Sure! Just let me run a diff first.
I really want to know what would happen to the program if i bent that flopy bit back up
Lovelace has already been zapped once. She’s not going to find out. Oh, and there’s a big difference between mind control software which Whimsy knows about and mind control software she doesn’t know about.
Solo, if Lovelace was able to get the crown, why did she need the other two again? Oh, right, introductions.
So where’s Aimee? With Other!Nick (Fyter?) exploring the machine collective?
I’m guessing we’ll find out Monday.
Maybe Nick and Baron M. are complicating things needlessly?
The end of the world is coming! The corporate finger is hovering over the delete button!
Better than Mell’s finger on the button that ends the universe.
Also…Chibi Nick flies again!
Huh. Nick gets cuter, but I guess the Baron is already as cute as can be.
Nick and Aimee both agreed that Whimsy absolutely should NOT have access to mind control.
Aimee in particular was so against it, she resigned herself to permanent isolation and/or suicide by deletion, just to keep it away from them.
And here we have Lovelace, an AI created by a mad scientist, who was exploited and even once “murdered” by humans, and whose only stated allegiance so far is to her fellow AIs.
And now she has the mind control software, which is potentially not a threat to AIs, but which is absolutely a threat to actual humans. And she seems quite ready to hand it over to Whimsy in order to protect Nick’s AI clone… but with no qualms about whether it might be used to harm non-AI Nick or other humans.
So I ask you – what are the odds that Lovelace has gotten wind of the brewing war between humans and non-human sapients, and that she’s decided to choose a side rather than try to prevent the conflict?
…ouch.
Well I mean, we really have no reason to trust Lovelace, aside from nostalgia over her prior appearence in Narbonic.
It kind of confuses me as to why Nick and Baron trust her at all. Neither of them has any prior experience with her. She’s a total stranger who Whimsy arranged for them to work with, for reasons they aren’t truly privy to. They don’t trust Whimsy, so why do they trust what is essentially a Whimsy subcontractor?
Because in D&D terms she’s flashed the “I’m a Player Character too!” card at them perhaps? Then again, Nick already did have experience with “The Daughters of the Air” and while he loathed them for self-righteousness that wouldn’t keep him from assuming that one of their agents would be trustworthy. Especially since he still has “I identify more with machines then I do with people ” problems. But yeah, apart from that I would say your speculation seems reasonable and quite likely you’ve nailed it. Worth remembering too, that Whimsy herself may have developed the mind control technology with that war in mind rather that from any desire to use it should things stay peaceful. Given how much her daddy obsessed over such a war this might seem logical.
You’re quite right, apart from the parts where it’s not a threat to AIs (Mistycorn was certainly affected by it) and the part where it’s a threat to humans (it was a threat to humans when it was part of an upcoming VR game).
Does it have the same MD5 and SHA3 and BLAKE2 sig than that one over there? If so, I’m happy to take it – it IS the same thing.
Curse the Comment Gnomes… that was supposed to be a reply to @Chameon!
Dragonlace? *Googles*
Help! now I can’t get out!
Hopefully this means that Aimee is out of the Whimsy VR sim now. If not, the next words out of Nick’s vocoder should be “Lovelace, we fucked up“, or he isn’t as smart as I thought he was.