Well, at the moment all Unity is thinking about is tearing Panoptica limb from limb. Disquieting to view, yeah, but probably not overly disturbing. I wouldn’t rule out this tactic yet.
I’m beginning to think Panoptica might be playing gambit roulette here. Iwouldn’t overlook the possibility that she read Yu’s mind as he foresaw the future and has some reason of her own for wanting Nick and Yu alive, healthy and *elsewhere*. ^_^
The way she’s propounding her “a good agent” philosophy would make that a sensible hypothesis. That’s not exactly the sort of thing you would expect a superhero to say. And she is a bit too la-de-da about the possibility of friendly fire as well. About the only thing in her favor at the moment is that it was never unknown for superheroes to act like utter jerks and completely out of character for no discernable reason at all because of extenuating circumstances that neither the reader nor the hero’s friends were clued in on until the end of the story. @_@
I’m going to second this idea. Panoptica probably justifies it as reducing casualties to “normal” humans in the long run, ignoring the cost in sentient lives in the process. Nick left, and Jonah flat out said no, so she is not considering them part of her team and therefore not under her protection. Otherwise known as fair game.
Dr. Lee’s the only one who had ever used Unity’s control phrase before, but it would work no matter who said it. That’s why Unity told Sweetheart not to go throwing her control phrase around. And since the same phrase later knocked out the Violet drone, it’s safe to assume that Nick’s control phrase is also the same thing. Let’s hope Panoptica never figures that one out.
You’re right. It was ‘Buttermilk Pancakes’. Maybe it has a more drastic effect than just suppressing Unity’s aggression patterns — like maybe it would shut her down as well. Or maybe Virginia just didn’t want Unity to know Nick’s and Violet’s shutdown code, just so she wouldn’t use it in a random moment of stupidity.
As far as we’re aware, Bubbles doesn’t have a shutdown. And even if she does, I’m fairly willing to bet that Panoptica wouldn’t want to deal with the Daughters of the Air, who are probably very proud of Bubbles.
A) Since Bubbles inhabits the Violet drone, it’s a fair assumption that the phrase that shut the drone down in St. Charlie would still shut her down now, since it is integrated into the neural interface that Virginia designed.
B) Why would the Daughters of the Air be concerned with Bubbles? They are the “Pure AIs” — those that don’t need a physical body. Bubbles has always required a body, has she not? Even when that “body” was a water cooler.
UNITY doesn’t use her brain to think. She’s a nanobot swarm inhabiting a rotting corpse. She can “think” while outside of a host body, devoid of any brain matter.
If Panoptica can actually read UNITY’s “mind” somehow, then logically she’d also be able to read the “thoughts” of any computer system. She could read Bubbles, or the Kill-Bots, et cetera. That’s stepping pretty solidly out of the realm of telepathy, and into the realm of reading (and somehow comprehending) electrical field patterns.
If we go with the notion that thought represents electrical activity then “machine telepathy” might easily be possible to a telepath. It opens the doors to other abilities as well but I doubt that many telepaths would turn those abilities down.
I can see why that phrase might be on Sweetheart’s mind, pretty much every time UNITY is in the vicinity, especially when she’s threatening to do violence…which is most of the time, now that I think about it.
I’m glad the Patreon mess is postponed, at least. My impression is that Patreon really does want to change their model, because processing $1 donations really is expensive in terms of bookkeeping and card processing costs. If someone is donating $5, but in $1 increments to 5 creators, it means more bookkeeping than $5 to a single recipient. If it’s really a donation of just $1 per month TOTAL, then a higher percentage of that dollar gets eaten up in bank fees.
Still, it would be nice if Patreon actually polled the patrons and the creators to find a model that works for everyone. Perhaps they will use this opportunity to do that.
This is getting a bit afield, but Patreon aggregates each user’s donations, which was a key part of the controversy: Patreon threatened to stop doing that, and actually do separate charges for each $1 donation. The basic issue here is that many, maybe most Patreon clients and users only need Patreon to charge the card and divvy up the money. That’s pretty much what Shaenon and Jeff seem to use Patreon for. I bet they’re not too worried about somebody scamming snazzy wallpapers. I would think low overhead for a straightforward service can give a profit. I’m guessing Patreon’s concern is that that is not the path towards becoming the next bazillion dollar Internet enterprise. If Patreon wants to charge extra to support in-site bonuses and traffic intensive hosting, that’s up to them, but unless they want the clients who came here for the modest surcharges to defect, Patreon also needs to retain cheap and lean as an option.
Actually, now that she has that control phrase it might be a good idea if she implanted a “Do not eat or kill any more of our members” compulsion in Unity given some of the things Unity has done in the past. >_>
This is looking more and more like at least Panoptica, and possibly AG-I in general isn’t really as incompetent as they’re presenting themselves to be and may actually be knowingly pursuing Anasigma’s agenda.
She survived poking around in Unity’s brain and didn’t loose any sanity?!? Panoptica is more impressive that I gave her credit for.
Yeah, I figured they’d defeat her by having Unity think at her.
Well, at the moment all Unity is thinking about is tearing Panoptica limb from limb. Disquieting to view, yeah, but probably not overly disturbing. I wouldn’t rule out this tactic yet.
Get Unity hopped up on brains and see how Pan fares.
There’s a match I’d pay to see. Smart Unity vs. Panoptica, both of them very much “in control” and neither willing to concede…
She probably got it from Sweetheart’s mind…
I’m not sure that’s much better considering Sweetheart’s preferred choice of literature, but at least it is likely to be more organized.
I’m beginning to think Panoptica might be playing gambit roulette here. Iwouldn’t overlook the possibility that she read Yu’s mind as he foresaw the future and has some reason of her own for wanting Nick and Yu alive, healthy and *elsewhere*. ^_^
Okay, enemy is a telepath. New plan. Without trying to foresee the outcome, Yu sheaths his weapon, so he can give the DM the finger with both hands.
At this point I’m convinced she’s an A-Sig plant and wholly on board with Mr. Green’s agenda.
The way she’s propounding her “a good agent” philosophy would make that a sensible hypothesis. That’s not exactly the sort of thing you would expect a superhero to say. And she is a bit too la-de-da about the possibility of friendly fire as well. About the only thing in her favor at the moment is that it was never unknown for superheroes to act like utter jerks and completely out of character for no discernable reason at all because of extenuating circumstances that neither the reader nor the hero’s friends were clued in on until the end of the story. @_@
I’m going to second this idea. Panoptica probably justifies it as reducing casualties to “normal” humans in the long run, ignoring the cost in sentient lives in the process. Nick left, and Jonah flat out said no, so she is not considering them part of her team and therefore not under her protection. Otherwise known as fair game.
I thought that only worked for Dr. Lee.
Dr. Lee’s the only one who had ever used Unity’s control phrase before, but it would work no matter who said it. That’s why Unity told Sweetheart not to go throwing her control phrase around. And since the same phrase later knocked out the Violet drone, it’s safe to assume that Nick’s control phrase is also the same thing. Let’s hope Panoptica never figures that one out.
Let’s hope she never visits Waffle House, either.
Wasn’t it a different phrase that knocked out the Violet drone? In my head I remember it being ‘Buttermilk Pancakes’.
And there was a joke about how Dr Lee gets really hungry working those night shifts.
I’d have to go back and look, but she told Unity to cover her ears, and hung up the phone on Nick so neither of them would hear it.
You’re right. It was ‘Buttermilk Pancakes’. Maybe it has a more drastic effect than just suppressing Unity’s aggression patterns — like maybe it would shut her down as well. Or maybe Virginia just didn’t want Unity to know Nick’s and Violet’s shutdown code, just so she wouldn’t use it in a random moment of stupidity.
That’s a worry. Bubbles is there—what if Panoptica shuts her down, too?
As far as we’re aware, Bubbles doesn’t have a shutdown. And even if she does, I’m fairly willing to bet that Panoptica wouldn’t want to deal with the Daughters of the Air, who are probably very proud of Bubbles.
@GREEM, you lost me there.
A) Since Bubbles inhabits the Violet drone, it’s a fair assumption that the phrase that shut the drone down in St. Charlie would still shut her down now, since it is integrated into the neural interface that Virginia designed.
B) Why would the Daughters of the Air be concerned with Bubbles? They are the “Pure AIs” — those that don’t need a physical body. Bubbles has always required a body, has she not? Even when that “body” was a water cooler.
…wait. This shouldn’t work, should it?
UNITY doesn’t use her brain to think. She’s a nanobot swarm inhabiting a rotting corpse. She can “think” while outside of a host body, devoid of any brain matter.
If Panoptica can actually read UNITY’s “mind” somehow, then logically she’d also be able to read the “thoughts” of any computer system. She could read Bubbles, or the Kill-Bots, et cetera. That’s stepping pretty solidly out of the realm of telepathy, and into the realm of reading (and somehow comprehending) electrical field patterns.
She might have got the control phrase from Sweetheart who knows it.
If we go with the notion that thought represents electrical activity then “machine telepathy” might easily be possible to a telepath. It opens the doors to other abilities as well but I doubt that many telepaths would turn those abilities down.
I can see why that phrase might be on Sweetheart’s mind, pretty much every time UNITY is in the vicinity, especially when she’s threatening to do violence…which is most of the time, now that I think about it.
I’m glad the Patreon mess is postponed, at least. My impression is that Patreon really does want to change their model, because processing $1 donations really is expensive in terms of bookkeeping and card processing costs. If someone is donating $5, but in $1 increments to 5 creators, it means more bookkeeping than $5 to a single recipient. If it’s really a donation of just $1 per month TOTAL, then a higher percentage of that dollar gets eaten up in bank fees.
Still, it would be nice if Patreon actually polled the patrons and the creators to find a model that works for everyone. Perhaps they will use this opportunity to do that.
This is getting a bit afield, but Patreon aggregates each user’s donations, which was a key part of the controversy: Patreon threatened to stop doing that, and actually do separate charges for each $1 donation. The basic issue here is that many, maybe most Patreon clients and users only need Patreon to charge the card and divvy up the money. That’s pretty much what Shaenon and Jeff seem to use Patreon for. I bet they’re not too worried about somebody scamming snazzy wallpapers. I would think low overhead for a straightforward service can give a profit. I’m guessing Patreon’s concern is that that is not the path towards becoming the next bazillion dollar Internet enterprise. If Patreon wants to charge extra to support in-site bonuses and traffic intensive hosting, that’s up to them, but unless they want the clients who came here for the modest surcharges to defect, Patreon also needs to retain cheap and lean as an option.
Actually, now that she has that control phrase it might be a good idea if she implanted a “Do not eat or kill any more of our members” compulsion in Unity given some of the things Unity has done in the past. >_>
This is looking more and more like at least Panoptica, and possibly AG-I in general isn’t really as incompetent as they’re presenting themselves to be and may actually be knowingly pursuing Anasigma’s agenda.