Freefall

@2649 I suppose much of it comes down to precisely when Mr. Ishiguro had gone into orbit (was that precisely established? I don't think it was), and just what preparations Kornada had taken ahead of time regarding the plan. I still think it's reasonable that Kornada would have ended up dead and Gardener In The Dark would have still been executed.

@2650 But Clippy could have launched GitD without Kornada's presence - Kornada even had that built into his excuse in case he got caught (He even points out that it can issue commands in his name). Since Clippy could issue Gardener In The Dark without any further input from Kornada, the latter's death would not have been an obstacle.

Yes, IIRC Kornada had Ishiguro's codes for like one weekend.

And Clippy couldn't issue commands in the name of a dead man.

Just what makes you so sure Clippy couldn't issue codes in the stead of a dead person? Beyond assuming that they'd immediately know when Kornada was killed in the case of the hurricane (which isn't a given, depending on what happened with the corpse), that also assumes that EU would be efficient about locking out a dead person's old access to prevent anyone from doing mischief with it. When has EU ever been shown to be that competent and/or efficient?

There was plenty of time after the hurricane.

That still presumes a level of competence out of Ecosystems Unlimited that I'm not sure has been established.

Raibert did not take long to remove his access once the GITD mess came to light.

That was only after someone was able to demonstrate the potential damage to Mr. Raibert. Don't forget, in the scenario where Florence never arrived on Jean, nobody would have been available to do that. In terms of in-universe timing, Raibert only just found out hours before it would have gone live. If Raibert didn't think Kornada and Clippy were a security threat, he wouldn't have revoked it at all.

It would not have gone live because they would have had DAYS to remove Kornada's priveleges.

Additionally, Ishiguro would not hand his code to Clippy anyway.

Yes. Whether Clippy would have kept following through had Kornada died or not, he would never have gotten Ishiguro's clearance if Kornada was dead, or even just missing. Someone else would have been appointed as replacement.

Hm, trying to get a smart fast predator angry with you◊ doesn't seem to me to be the smartest idea.

Sam's just not happy he's getting a reaction he didn't expect

Yeah. He's used to anger, he can work with it. Florence is throwing him off his game, just like she used to in the early comics.

I get the distinct impression that folks are unused to how slow bureaucracy can work.

Even in the best-case scenario, there's a period between the confirmation of someone's passing and the closing of all their accounts and access. This is built-in, actually, for various reasons (such as to give creditors chance at portions of the assets that they're due, activity on the account may show that the calling of the death was in error, and a few others). Even in the event that Kornada's corpse turned up immediately, the most that would happen with his access for about a month would be that anything with his codes might be pending a review by a living source (which, for these purposes, might actually be a robot, and there might be a direct order somehow involved).

However, even that assumes perfect efficiency and clear indication of Kornada's death. If the entity in question is inefficient (like Ecosystems Unlimited... seriously, if you think they're rather efficient, reread the storyline where Sam and Florence visit them and Florence first learns about Gardener In The Dark), then it's easy to let certain things slide much longer than they should ("Oh, it's not like anyone's around to use Kornada's codes; I don't have to cancel them right away. I can take care of this other issue first.").

And if they can't immediately find a body (a very realistic scenario in a typhoon)? In that case, they will quite deliberately hold his access open for much longer, in case he was stranded somewhere. How much longer? Well, depends on the jurisdiction, but in some places, somewhere in the range of 4 to 7 years. That can be sped up if someone tries to have them declared missing, but that generally requires an interested party file to have the courts recognize them as legally dead. While we can all joke about several individuals wanting to make sure Kornada's dead, I don't know if anyone actually would bother in a realistic scenario.

I won't argue that, ideally, Kornada's death in the typhoon should have prevented anything related to Gardener In The Dark, on the theory that Clippy wouldn't have had either the commands, the opportunity, or the required codes to put it all in motion. That said, based on what I've seen in the comic, what should have happened isn't necessarily what would have happened. I mean, if we're going by what should have happened, Kornada never should have even been in position to even be in that typhoon - he should have been fired for being useless ages ago.

As for Ishiguro not handing his code off to Clippy - that's a pretty big assumption about how sensible he is, given two things. One, we haven't seen him and thus know almost nothing about him. Two, he was willing to give his codes to Kornada in the first place. For all we know, Ishiguro already gave Clippy his codes. If Kornada had been planning this prior to the typhoon (which may or may not have happened; I'm conjecturing on the hypothesis that he did), then it's still possible it would have moved forward.

For today's comic, Sam's perhaps feeling a bit bolder about Florence's anger because he may figure that she'd still be overall happy about how he just "rescued" her (sure, he's just along for the ride, but he did make the effort). Or maybe he's confident the chief would save him (the chief probably would... if not exactly quickly). Or maybe he's just forgetful, when Florence is in a good mood, about how dangerous Florence can be. Probably that last one.

Most of it is simply because Florence's behaviour is quite at odds to normal human reactions, since she's a Bowman's Wolf and has some noticeable canine/nonhuman behaviour.

Whether Kornada's death was confirmed and processed in time or not, he (and by extension Clippy) wouldn't have obtained Ishiguro's clearance if he was missing.

Though, I'm starting to think... did he obtain said clearance before or after the storm ? That'd change a lot.

@2665 There are several unknowns in this whole process. One of which is when Clippy received Ishiguro's clearances. The entire basis of my conjecture on what would have happened if Kornada had died is based on the following being true.

1. Kornada has been planning the Gardener In The Dark scenario for some time before the start of the comic.
2. Kornada would have access to Clippy before the start of the comic to set Gardener In The Dark up.
3. Ishiguro would have entrusted his clearances to Clippy.
4. Kornada's direct orders regarding Gardener In The Dark were worded such that Clippy had no choice but to obey them regardless of whether Kornada was present (this also covers the scenario if Raibert was the one entrusted with Clippy instead of Kornada - Kornada potentially could have pulled it off still, but I bet it would have been more complicated).
5. Ecosystems Unlimited did not cut off Kornada's access and codes in the event of his disappearance or death.
6. Nobody else had caught just what Gardener In The Dark did to robots and tried to stop it.

As much as some of those are bad ideas, all of the above points are potentially true (and reasonable based on what we know of things in the comic, although certainly not reasonable based on sound business management or ethics) based on what we currently know. I'm not saying that it definitely would have gone out, but based on what we currently know, it's a reasonable possibility.

To bring it all around, the reason that I point out that GitD was possible for release in the event that Kornada died in the typhoon is to demonstrate that Florence shouldn't be tagged with Nice Job Breaking It, Hero, as the problem was potentially there regardless of whether she saved Kornada.

On top of that, even if we assume that GitD didn't go out on schedule if Kornada died, it still existed. Someone else could have found it and taken advantage of it even if Kornada was dead... and if that someone was more competent, it would have been much harder to stop. By saving Kornada, it meant the person that the good guys were trying to stop was much less capable and thus much easier to stop.

My ultimate point is that Florence saving Kornada was actually a good thing all around - it wasn't a Nice Job Breaking It, Hero moment that Florence had to fix, it was just setting up Kornada for several Nice Job Fixing It, Villain moments.

What do you mean by that ? That Ishiguro would have entrusted his clearance to Kornada, while knowing Clippy would have it too ; or that he would have entrusted his clearance to Clippy himself, acting in Kornada's name, while Kornada is reported missing ?

The former is likely but would have had to happen before the storm. The latter is extremely unlikely ; Ishiguro could have just chosen someone other than Kornada if he was missing. Again, the question is : did Ishiguro leave (and give his clearance to Kornada/Clippy) before or after the storm ?

@2667 Okay, to clarify the third point...

The scenario that would have been required is that Ishiguro would have had to entrust his security codes to Clippy. Kornada already did so, which means that Clippy himself would have the two codes needed to release a safeguard program regardless of with whom he's entrusted. This ties in closely with the fourth point; Clippy also would have been required to have an order such that he'd still carry out the release regardless of Kornada's presence or ability to immediately direct Clippy (which is why I also noted that the GitD scenario was still potentially on the table if Kornada had lived but didn't get Ishiguro's codes himself). This also relates to the fifth point - part of eliminating Kornada's access in the event of his death would have included going over his direct orders and canceling the ones that could reasonably be canceled.

Oh, there is one point that it occurs to me is also necessary in the above - Clippy's direct order routines would have to be on the factory defaults (as we just learned with Florence, it's possible to make it such that only a single individual has direct order access), although I suspect nobody would be surprised to learn that Clippy's orders were either still on factory defaults or close enough (i.e. a VP like Kornada could give him orders regardless of to whom he's assigned) for these purposes.

edited 22nd Jun '15 11:19:40 AM by 32_Footsteps

In contrast I don't think Kornada came up with this until after getting the clearances. He may not even have known about Git D beforehand. A long time planner he is not. More likely he has " keep a look out for ways to make me rich and powerful" as Clippy's default programming and Clippy brought it to his attention.

He comes from a Theft Economy. The mark pretending to be happy is a grave insult because it implies that he's foolishly stole garbage that he will be stuck with until he finds somebody even more foolish to steal it away from him.

She's too worn out to be angry at him◊

Also, a much more reasonable reason for him to want her to be angry at him than I expected. That's downright rational of him; I've encouraged people to yell at me under the same theory.

Oh, Sam. You scamp.◊

Sam has a bit of a point, though. Florence did need to learn to be a little more of a troublemaker - it isn't always sunshine and roses after all. Just as he needs to learn to be a little less of a troublemaker. They'll get there... eventually.

EDIT: I just had an amusing WMG: what if Mr. Ishiguro is a would-be Chessmaster who deliberately set up a scenario for Kornada to activate Gardener In The Dark, but have Clippy route the money to him instead, all while setting Kornada up to take the blame for everything regardless of whether it succeeds or fails. That'd be a heck of a twist.

edited 26th Jun '15 6:15:36 AM by 32_Footsteps

Sam advocates Chaotic Good.◊

Well he usually advocated Chaotic Neutral, but with Flo that is as far as you could possibly get. Although she'd probably come to a stop earlier at Neutral Good rather than Chaotic Good.

edited 28th Jun '15 4:48:45 PM by Adannor