Schlock Mercenary

Except they DO have an index in the nanites. That's where 1% estimate comes from.

edited 14th Mar '16 10:10:32 PM by Adannor

That's not an index; that's a volume estimate. It's not even precise (which is why Dr. Bunningus used the phrase "about 1%" rather than anything more specific).

I'm finding it hard to understand what the entire "we're giving people the secret of immortality" angle from the last arc comes in when a hole punched through a body to take out a brain is a huge problem. Even today, we use "raid drives" to store vital information where every bit of information is backed up multiple places over multiple drives, so you can lose one or more drives and still not actually lose anything once a clean empty drive is dropped in. Losing a bit of skin shouldn't create a problem here. I refuse to believe technology that can backup the brain across the entire body can't figure that out. Otherwise, any injury that takes out the head is going to create problems, anyway.

Plus, using the skin to back up something as vital as your brain is stupid. You back it up using the most secure place in the body, such as inside the bone marrow.

Just a thought.

edited 15th Mar '16 10:47:12 AM by JerryC

depends on the size of the data. most places with any kind of mildly sizable data can't fit 100% of things in one raid array; instead they shard the data into multiple slices across several machine nodes. You can take out a single disk and the raid array can recreate it, but if you take out the right subset of nodes, you can lose data (minimum is node_count / shard_count, probability states that if you are killing things at random, you can lose ~2/5 of your cluster before having to commit seppuku). i imagine something as long and varied as human memories would take up more information than a single nannie can fit alongside the actual routines, but idk how dense the storage is in THE FUTURE

Yeah, this is some pretty complex data they are trying to save. Plus it's going by the Lax levels, it is pretty redundant. Complete destruction of the brain (Laz 2) only results in losing more or less just short term memory, and those long term memories since the nannies did their last back up cycle.

Lax 3, destruction of the brain, and a decent portion of the skin and bones used for backup, is where you start losing thing, but given what they said about Murtough's condition, she lost a whole lot more then 1% of the total area the data was stored in. So it isn't a 1:1 issue, there is redundancy.

Actually it's more or less exactly like Schlock. He tries to make his memories as redundant as possible, so when he gets damage he doesn't lose anything but some mass, but there are limits to what he can do.

I seem to remember that the bradicor (Vog's people) even had to selectively forget things in order to be able to mentally cope with the results of massively extended lifespans. Maybe that 1% is necessary to lose as part of the revival process to make sure that the brain doesn't go into a psychotic rage. Seems to me that there are several factors that we might not even be considering here (and may not be immediately pertinent to the story at the moment, which is why they're not being brought up).

Was it stated anywhere that the idea of the skin backups were inspired by how Schlock works, or are the similarities purely coincidental ?

Coincidence, it's still different overall, Schlock doesn't have 'skin backups' his entire body is his brain. He has no actual organs other then his eyes, which aren't an innate part of him. I'm just saying, that if a being who is 100% made out of memory storage medium can still lose memories despite being redundant as possible, then it's no great leap that RED has the same issues.

As to the Bradicor, yes they had memory issues, but they also used a different system then RED, they simply the stopped natural aging process, what is happening now is way more advanced. The Bradicor had to try and stuff all that memory into their brain, without any room for it all, with RED it massively expands how much storage room there is.

Originally RED was designed by a lone Mad Scientist in a slum habitat who likely never had an amorph on the same ground until Schlock came along. It was unrelated to Laz'r'us. Which was also developed without any noted contact with amorphs.

However, Bradicor's NEW brains are made of the same stuff the amorphs are.

edited 15th Mar '16 1:34:14 PM by Adannor

Yes but still limited to one set size, which was the issue, there was only so much room for memories to be stored. Also, RED wasn't developed by the mad scientist, it was an outgrowth of Project Laz'r'us. What Professor Pau made were near universal blood nannies that could heal almost any condition at all quickly and effectively.

It turns out that whatever was loaded into the Archive of Regret, an accurate understanding of quantum mechanics was not part of it.

Hey, is that whatshername, the fem!Gav that survived REDHack with her personality intact?

I was wondering why would somebody be just walking around in laz'r'us combat monster mode.

If it's her, it's still the question of why didn't they put her back into the can to clean up and morph her back.

Found her! Her name is Danita. REDHack just didn't work properly on her.

edited 21st Mar '16 7:05:37 AM by Shinziril

So is it just me, or do these scientists have just enough personality now that they're definitely going to die before the end of the story? Because I'm pretty sure these guys are toast before the end of the story.

Ohhhh shit... just... damn..

Well that kind of explains some things

Did not see that coming, and yet, in hindsight, it kind of makes perfect sense.

......Well, the psychobears make a comeback.

Well at least that stockpile didn't have any long gun ships.

The way I'm reading it, the war being described is the one Petey ended a couple of years back (or maybe it ended before that when the Kssthrata got the teraport and upped sticks), and thus, the stockpile has long since been looted.

Also, I'm surprised to see Danita and Gasca on reasonable terms considering Gasca was the captain of Morokweng, and thus serving under Em, and with Krum and Kowalski.

edited 26th Mar '16 1:38:48 AM by MattII

Kssthrata bailing out only meant that the psychobears started fighting everybody else. So yeah it's on Petey (although last time we saw it mentioned it was a still ongoing process rather than a full victory).

And perhaps it wasn't a stockpile of ships but a shipyard foundry?

edited 26th Mar '16 1:30:35 AM by Adannor

The Fabber to end all fabbers?

THE POST DATED LOAN CHECK REDUX?!

If it's a fabber cum shipyard, it's probably less the PDCL II and more "The Scrapyard of Insufferable Arrogance II"

Oh right. I mixed those up.

It could have simply been a few Thunderhead Superfortresses, and with their power, and the ability to copy them the Obenn were able to build more after the initial supply ran out.

Thunderheads don't fit the Oafan profile. They aren't PTU-hulled, they aren't sleek circular designs...

But the gigantic annies on them, that definitely was a result of their discovery.