Elements for a possible new Scifi story

Reading “Halo – The fall of Reach” by Eric Nylund, I was a bit disappointed. I read Nylunds “Signal to noise” and “A signal shattered” afew years ago which contained some daring concepts which are part of the new wave of Science Fiction that arised at the end of the 1990’s in which the singularity has already happened and the limitations we knew as society are dropping away fast.

“Halo” misses all the fun parts I would have loved and expected to read form this “new generation writer”.

As the June deadline for the Dutch award for SF & Fantasy short stories approaches (in Dutch and never mind the lack of graphic design and the ghastly photo of the deceased holy saint of all Dutch SF & Fantasy Jean Paul Smit AKA Paul Harland or Paul Holland when you bastardize the pseudonym) it might be fun to turn this into a story.

In Halo, the Covenant destroys Earth colonies one by one to wipe the human race of the face of the universe. The slow down is caused by the fact that the covenant does not have the coordinates of earth and that their first wave is apparently not too intelligent. Special kids have been trained before that moment to become super soldiers in augmented bodies, wearing exoskelatons to kill any resistance in the Earth governance. They become handy in the war against the covenant.

The plot shortcut in “Halo” is that the space faring enemy has approximately the same tech level as we have. (It does make the story easier to write. No brain-cracking effords to match what can not be matched.)

What I would have liked to see:

1. True augmentation: supercomputers on quantumlevel based in the bone structure using the softer tissues and salt water based bodily environment for sub-processing and supporting and extending the fairly limited processing capacities of our human brain.
2. Solar system spanning intelligent systems / ubiquous computers (as used before by Stross and others)
3. The application of open source principles as described in “The Cathedral and the Bazaar” to increase the speed of development of new resources to beat this new invader / enemy.
4. the use of a more intelligent system of grasping and projecting current and future processes (Game theory being my personal favorite)
5. Using the suns themselves as a huge processor / AI by using and manipulating the incredible capacity of plasma-streams (as we are speaking about post-singularity society)
6. Aliens far more superior and capable of destroying anything with a blink of an eye.

As I was pondering, I came across these additional concepts:

1. Use any lump of material as huge sub-processors. When you are able to work on quantum levels, it might become possible to re-program matter on deeper levels to form clusters of processing power.
2. Re-program reality itself using the same process. One of the practical applications is to duplicate stuff. Start with a bunch of atoms, reprogram them into assamblers that create greater structures based on patterns “wrapped around them”. Teleportation by duplication is possible in the story-reality then. (Nylund kind of used these concepts in “A signal scattered”.)
3. Using the seas as huge quantum processors. (As the consistancy of fluids in the human body apparently reflects the sea, it is not far fetched in the story-world to discover ways to utulize the consistancy and processes in the sea. And it is far fetched enough to use just for that reason).
4. Anything can be simulated: possible strategies, projections of current events. Using game theory (win/win, win/loose, loose/loose and zero/zero) ongoing projections and filters like “The prisoner dilemma” and “The Salesman dilemma” the most optimal path can be construed.

In this story-world, the old school Space Opera Invaders with large spaceships and impressive cannons simply stand no chance against these new technologies:

1. Enter a cloud of matter-reprogramming units in a real time quantum mesh network with close to zero latency and your body and hardware will be simply ripped apart, reprogrammed, re-used, used against itself. (Re: “Blame!“)
2. The processing power of even one single individual human is large enough to predict any strategy of the enemy within a blink of the eye by running several simulations and find the weak spots, the convergence points of lines you can cut to create chaos and sabotage any action

As I decided that I will use an invasion and any story becomes more interesting with dilemma, we can not have this. The enemy must be at least equal ore more advanced, but not TOO advanced as humanity itself will be squashed in an instant. UNLESS that is not the goals of the other species it will become part of a larger group. Then a superior species becomes interesting again. (Enter the stories where the war is battled on another level.)

Genre/structure: pulp

The story will follow the rules of pace opera and pulp literature. Basic structure:

1. Clear first layer: clear problem, concrete and clear examples, tangible elements (sentinel, very human characters).
2. Cliffhangers: every chapter ends with a new problem and starts resolving the old one.
3. A new element every 700 to 900 words (Re: A.E. van Voght)

Zooming out?

Perhaps the way the Anime: “Akira” was done: “zooming out”, starting small and enlarging the picture in every next step of the story.

Survival / erasure

As I am triggered by the “Halo” book, the invader just wants to erase us. Kill all humans. Wipe them out. So cancel all the alternative scenarios. It is life or death.

Current concepts

It will represent concepts used for Roomware.

Trigger: sea turns supercomputer

Any story has a trigger point for the action to begin. Not afraid to use something done before: “it will be some or another artifact” (Yay! Artifacts!). The trigger is where the sea turns into a super computer. (The sun is not done yet then, although the first experimental models are there). Using another cliche: “Easter Island!” and “the artifact is a sentinel!”

Bending the cliche’s

A cliche becomes boring when nothing new is added. So this needs some attention later.

Discovering the enemy

We need some time to build up time before hell breaks lose. So the enemy is well discovered before it appears. The Time of Arrival can be predicted. the alternative scenario is: “The same moment the ocean was turened into a quantum supercomputer we were eradicated form the face of the universe. Blam! Without any warning and everything went black. The end.”

No hope, still time

Although for story reasons the enemy takes some time to arrive, they are far superior to us in the story world. As humans are already close to teleportation and reprogramming reality itself there is a contradiction. I need a good excuse to make the enemy both more stupid and more superior.

Motivation

It is pretty stupid to blow away another society for whatever stupid reason. So is that the motivation of the enemy? For “The covenant” in “Halo” and the more classic similar “Star ship troopers” it is. (Due to some stupid “god wants..” thing). I have some options to choose from. Let’s explore:

1. Advanced tech is rediscovered by a “level 0 society”: morally stupid, thinking in terms of “we win/you must lose” scenarios. “So we come with our space ships and blow you away”
2. The purge of the human race might be merely a side effect: like the fungus currently killing toads, frogs and bees. (I like this one. There is a time element involved and it is more current. Still: not an invasion).
3. A rogue species simply wants to eradicate human species.

Recognizing the enemy

Anything is connected. So when the sentinel is triggered, a chain reaction of events ripples through the fabric of reality. Where a small Earth team (only touched sideways in the story) traces these ripples, the shadows of the invasion fleet / whatever the fuck is unveiled is thoroughly analyzed. At that point the motivation of the other party is still unknown. [Damn: hard to stick to the concept as the enemy might be based on 1950 limited type "slow travelling" aliens - being kind of outdated. Solution: (Sunday  april 26, 19:42) maybe to use Van Voght / Keith Laumer approach - make it exiting and don't tell. Or maybe Ph. Dick approach - make it weird. Just make use of  some base and make it plausible enough so that people do not burst bubble].

To travel space is actually kind of silly unless you can cut some corners or believe in Start Trek. To cut corners, you need high tech. When millennia in advantage, super-human species very likely have evolved technologies that make solar system spanning supercomputers acting on quantum level seem like child toys, looking at the speed of possible development here on earth. To think that any invasion would match our tech levels is naive. They very likely have reached the singularity point of singularity.

“Hitchikers guid to the galaxy” solves this dilemma by making the destruction of earth a side effect.

Something self induced problems is the most simple solution. But I want to kick “Halo”

We introduce Neon Genesis/Godzilla: aliens appear on earth using teleportation of some kind and wreak havoc?

Note to myself: I can always pretend I am not smart enough to take eveolution of species into account.

Why invade: old school?

1. Human race poses a possible threat
2. Resources / planet / rare life containing biospheres
3. Overlapping area’s, expansion
4. Bridgehead for something else. (War, parallelling stationing soldiers — sentinels — in underdeveloped areas to prevent enemy marching up.)

Why use triggers in stories?

1. More plausible when we triggered something than cooincidence that aliens just now pass by.

Plausible enemy agenda’s that do not involve “Hey? What? Ah! Enemy! Blam! You are now all dead”
- Option 2: side effect

Options:

1. Rogue Quantum super computers could be “forbidden tech”. The very old sentinel (let’s keep that one to keep the story line simple) measures changes on quantum level and starts the process of neutralization. As we need the tech not to be wiped away by earth (Yeah! stuck between rock and hard place) we fight this process. This starts level 2: elimination of secondary elements: humans.
2. To stop immediate destruction of solar system there has to be a secondary interest that requires preservation. Looking at “Neon Genesis” we might “borrow” something there. It could be the sentinel itself is the primary item of interest. One of the early “mothers” being lost and found again as the Sea Computer started up. Might introduce some semi gore/horror there as well
3. The sentinel is to be lifted from it’s place. As it is partially organic, it is to be done delicately.
4. The side effects that eradicate human kind could be like this:
   1. The “mother” taking over Sea Computer introduces shit
   2. Maybe it introduces new types of monsters slowly. Dreaming itself awake with nightmares of destruction. However: This eliminates the “outside threat”. So skip this.
   3. A “footstep” of the aliens introduces new elements of destruction. Never intended but did happen.
   4. Constructing something to salvage sentinal out sinks half a continent
   5. While we are obstructing the process (winning time) leading to liberation of sentinel and destruction of human kind.

Defensive plan A to D

As we simulate possible scenario’s, 4 main strategies are simultaneously developed and executed:

1. Fight back
2. Backing up humanity into the space around us (Re: Stross)
3. Spreading the circle of influence by shooting seeds into space. (Hacking the fabric of space is one of the strategies, but time is running out. Launching tiny specks of pre-programmed matter and quantum links to quantum computers in the asteroid belts is the first one to be developed.)
4. Diplomacy: Hacking the point of origin: call back / cancel the invasion

The basis underneath these plans is this:

1. Anything and everyone will be connected
2. All matter available in the solar system will be turned into quantum processors and reprogrammable matter. (Re: Stross)
3. Reprogramming matter is one of the keys to survival. So it is one of the main priorities.

Deeper layers / fabric of the world

1. Human interactions: clearly based on different rules and different values. Still recognizable by using and acknowledging primary human needs and preferences:
   1. Emotions on any scale are still encountered and cherished. The way of -dealing with- is different but still very human.
   2. People still prefer to meet on personal level. Just because it is fun and soothing needs on more primal levels. Meetings do take place in simulated environments.
2. Some basic rules used in the intersocial world
   1. Intamicy = binding on social and human level
   2. Mutual sharing = mutual growth
   3. Sex = fun + intimicy + sharing
   4. Win/win is most ideal outcome of any encounter and can be reached in most cases when you know where what you have in abundance will help the other greatly
   5. Helping = collecting karma points. Although this is not official the term nor a system, it is how people will refer to this system of sharing and adding value.
   6. It is not utopia, as utopia is boring to write about.
3. Environment: We and the earth killed many species. Our part as “level 0″ “scorched Earth” society (parasitic is another one) is being corrected at the time the story starts, by genetic engeneering / reconstruction / creation of new diversity and eco systems.
4. Population: there are bit more than 10 billion people as wealth slowed down the population growth and no real disasters have taken place.
5. Rebuilding society: with game-theory / longer term “win/win” simulations as the new driving force behind steps, society is slowly moved to the next phase using a clever mix of capitalist and socialist systems.
6. Morale/truth: there is no need to be moralistic and second guess. Simulations show the possible outcome of anything. Nor is there one single truth. Any society on Earth has it’s own path to go to reach the next stage out of the destructive “we can only win/when you loose” and “we have to win at any price” mentality.
7. Gaining stability and reducing stress using a very concrete and proven concept is the key.
8. Working together to solve a problem is a very organic process. Based on needs and matching qualities the right people are found to get the job done.

Global picture

1. Australia, South America, parts of Asia and Africa have turned into deserts (re: Bruce Sterling)
2. Storms and extreme weather have beaten earth like hammers (re: Bruce Sterling)
3. Methane gas from the Russian Tundra’s have accelerated the global warming process.
4. Many species have died both in sea and on earth. Mankind is responsible.
5. Many parts of society are still “level 0″ and “level 1″, where “level 2″ is a new step emerged from India, China, Europe and USA, but still only 30% of society due to the paradigm shifts they bring on social and personal levels and there is no pressure or policing what so ever, until the invasion that is.

“Eight pilars”

These are the eight “pilars” of the “level 2″ society I will use:

1. You are responsible for the outcome of your own deeds.
2. Learning is key.
3. Freedom of will is sacred.
4. Everything is fluid.
5. There is no single truth.
6. We are all connected. (What hurts one, hurts us all in some way)
7. No one is left behind.
8. Anything has a possible solution. (there are many pathways to reach any possible goal)
9. The best outcome is a win/win solution. (second best is neutral, worst is where one or both parties lose).

Put together, societies are not forced to move up the ladder of social evolution, but are given any oppertunity to do so when ready. Where possible, any exchange of value will benefit both parties, as that is the most logical way to move forward in an connected society.

Parasitic: “I win/you lose” and destructive: “I sacrifice myself to damage you so we both lose” behavior lashes back on the user of that strategy. There is no logic to it, so mostly people with a mental disorder will use them. (Excuse me for the short turn I take here.) As anything has a possible solution there are several possible ways to work around this, if the destructive person is willing to cooperate.

These rules can lead to any type of society, including a fascist one, dictated by rigid rules. “Everything is fluid” discribes the part where rigid systems can be avoided. Education is key.

“God”

Last friday I had a friend over for dinner and somehow we got to God and judgment. Religion has some retarded, primitive, coockoo weird ideas about who and what God might be. A god that has created the universe, is omnipotent and ever present and has infinite wisdom is very likely not the fucked up creature as described in the old testament or any other book written by long dead people from societies with understandings of “reality” even more limited than ours.

Here is a quick summary of what was discussed later that evening:

1. Presumably we “have been granted the gift of free will”. This means that anything we do and any decision we make is completely our own. Consequently, with any mistake or action I take, there is no-one else to blame but me.
2. If there is a god, is it everywhere and anywhere and anything is enveloped by it, is part of god, is god itself. So “searching god” is to open your consciousness and search within yourself. It helps when you get rid of your own bullshit belief systems — and that of others — in the process, since they are all fault anyway.
3. If there is a god in this model, it spans the universe. The universe itself might be a complex system of processes and “godly” thoughts and is so enormous and vast that we will never understand the full grasp of god’s plan, nor “our role” in that, if there is any.
4. If god would a loving creature, acceptance and understanding would very likely the first two drivers of it’s being.
5. Anything we do and anything that happens is part of the process. As this is all part of god in the model described above, there is no “good” or “bad”. Things just happen and that’s it. In that sense god very likely does not care about you or me.
6. Some people sense an incredible flood of love when they enter their inner world and meditate on god. If there is anything I would like to believe in and connect to, it is that.
7. There is not other “meaning” to our life than that what is and that what happens. The “plan” in our own lives is constantly happening and can be changed any moment.

We all have our personal systems of beliefs and perception. As humans we experience and interpret reality on very individual scales. We create our personal stories about that reality and if they work for us, adapt stories of others to fortify our belief systems and create “The Truth” to deny the parts of reality we do not want to see.

When “God” does not govern us, what is?

I think that our main governance is the personal avoidance of pain and grief. First on a personal level, but if the pain and grief is something that hits the collective: avoidance and grief on a collective scale. This is one of the reasons I think especially the last part of the following statement described by Thomas Hobbes in “Leviathan”–

life without government is the state of nature. In that state, each person would have a right, or license, to everything in the world. This inevitably leads to conflict, a “war of all against all” (bellum omnium contra omnes), and thus lives that are “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”

– is a load of crap (still cherished by too many people I meet). It is also why I like simulation systems like game theory more than this kind of rigid and flawed dogmatic thinking.

To close: here are some thought-experiment I did when I was about 18.

1: “God is the universe and the universe is god“
“If God created the universe, it is very likely that God envelops the universe itself.” In this system, every star system, every atom and every building block of this universe is enveloped by God. If this is true, anything and everything is part of God and a manifestation of God.

This means that we do not have to look for any god outside of ourselves.

Reading “Simulacrum 3” and other similar stories (see also) another thought experiment followed:

2: “If this universum is a simulation, ‘good’ and ‘bad’ do not exist”
“If you look at the universe as a simulacrum, the game changes. Our individual actions and the result of that are part of that simulation and neither ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but just an outcome.” as a “god” of this simulacrum you can restart the simulation, reset parameters, re-run scenario’s and so on. (In the Matrix this concept is touched when Neo meets the Builder in the second part of “The Matrix”, he discovers that the Matrix has been reset several times and he is not the first of his kind.) In this scenario “God” does not care about the individual. The simulation as a whole could be like a playground, game or experiment.

3: The gift of free will
“If god is a loving entity, incredible more evolved / intelligent / whatever than we are anything we do is part of the ‘divine plan’ “.
If I were god, I would be entirely happy with the way things go. Whichever way, as it is part of my plan anyway. For us humans to even think being able to grasp what that “divine plan” is, is in my eyes rather arrogant.

4: Creation, the Bible and the large scale “blasphemy” done by religious people
Following some of the discussions regarding Darwinism and Creationism, my more cynical side has lead me to conclude that Christians do not believe in god at all, nor that they are searching to find god or get closer to god. Christians believe in the Bible. A book with stories. And it is quite simple: When our reality is created by god, if everywhere around you scientific research is presenting you growing evidence about the age of Earth, the development of species and what so have you: to deny that reality is to deny god, is to commit “blasphemy”.

5: “The universe”
When time itself can be multidimensional (many assume time to be 2-dimensional – a single line with one single history and future); past, present and future can be happening at exactly the same moment in infinite variations, in an infinite and ever changing “Now”; universes can be infinitely folded upon themselves in higher dimensions until it hardly has any volume; when the amount of entire universes and possible worlds and realities can be theoretically unlimited and everything and anything can be theoretically connected to each other in an infinite mesh up there is no way we will ever be able to understand or “surpass” a God, if there is any. Unless we some day become a multidimensional universe ourselves.

The true short story about the Dutch barrel organs

[This one is for Robert Gaal]. There is nothing so loud as a Dutch barrel organ. When you walk the streets of Amsterdam, you will find yourself overwhelmed with the joyful sound of pipes, drums and flutes jolly spouting one or another tune.

Where most barrel organs are quite small and modest, the dutch (also check these images) can be huge and are loud enough to be heard in a radius of kilometers.

An impression of a small Dutch barrel organ in action

This is not strange as it origins from a war machine. This is the remarkable story mostly known only inside the group Dutch barrel organ players, as hardly anybody else really cares:

Origin of the modern Dutch barrel organ

At the end of the Eighty years war, the Dutch resistance got short on resources and money. It was only a matter of time before the war for Dutch Independence would end in defeat and we would remain just one of the other province of the Hispano Portugese empire.

Based on known technologies a new instrument of terror came from an unforseen corner: the Portable Pipe Organ developed by Guido Warnies of Gent. Originally designed to enable churches to move their assets to a save haven quickly when a new battle would take place an unknown soldier opted the plan to use these musical instruments as an instrument of terror.

Naturally these organs did not have the complex “pianola” like mechanics to play music. They were manually operated by organ players.

Instruments of terror

Using not only  dissonant or discord music through pipe flutes, also mechanically driven drums were added to increase the level of intimidation. Moving five to ten Portable Pipe War Organs at the same time, the dissonant music would be so loud and intimidating that it became unbearable.

Naturally the War Organ players were chosen from the brave Dutch who where deaf from birth or due to hearing impairment from the sounds of gun and cannon firing at close range. The Dutch warriors would wear hearing protection in the shape of clay or wax props.

Playing the War Organs day and night the Dutch exhausted the Spanish conquerers and drove them close to madness: to the levels of breakdown after which they were easy pray for cleverly laid ambushes.

While the peace negotiations were progressing at a snail’s pace, with the Portable Pipe War Organs, Frederick Henry managed a last few military successes: in 1644 he captured Sas van Gent and Hulst in what was to become States Flanders. In 1646, however, Holland, sick of the feet-dragging in the peace negotiations, refused to approve the annual war budget, unless progress was made in the negotiations.

Where history forgets

As sometimes happens, in the course of history, the role of Portable Pipe Organs as a whole moved into obscurity. As none of the Spanish soldiers were able to tell and the Dutch simply closed the book due to Frederick Henry’s impopularity as a troublemaker in the peace process, mostly all records of this clever strategic use of Portable Pipe War Organs simply vanished.

Rediscovery of the concept

Only about 1850 the italian Ludovico Gavioli re-invented the concept of Portable Pipe Organs and created a new branch of barrel organs, but qua size and loudness they were not half as impressive as the original Belgian / Dutch Portable Pipe War Organs.

Seeing that the market was ripe, in 1875 the  Belgian Leon Warnies started his own production of barrel organs. As he needed something more powerful than the French Italian barrel organ he based his designs on the remnant Portable Pipe War Organ sketches by Guido Warnies of Gent inherited from his family lineage. His organs thus became much more impressive than the ones developed in Paris by Gavioli due to the loudness and use of drums and bells and adapted soon in the Dutch culture. And so an old Belgian Dutch war machine was revived again in an completely different form.

Nowadays Dutch organ players hold an almost religious belief that playing the Dutch barrel organ is a cultural service to community as where even an single instrument is actually too massive and loud to please a person even momentarely and the element of terror is still present even though the concept of the original Portable Pipe War Organ has been scaled down to the size of the current instruments.