We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

New series by Denis E. Taylor from the perspective of a Von Neumann probe. An engineer/programmer gets his head frozen, and a hundred years later it's digitally scanned and uploaded into a robot. Once he passes training, he's moved over to a probe, where he moves off to explore the galaxy while building copies of himself. A couple of those probes eventually return to Earth to try and rescue any survivors (a world war was kicking off when he left), while the others have to deal with a rival, Axe-Crazy probe containing a ruthless military mind.

Anyone else reading this? I just finished the first book, and it's great. Hard sci-fi, with just enough softness for unexpected technologies to be developed. Next book is coming out in April.

Has a page.

edited 27th Feb '17 4:47:52 PM by Discar

I've just caught up on this and book 2 (We are many) - really good.

Only quibble is that he sometimes repeats himself with exposition, revisiting and reiterating previous points. Also, there's an almost hypnotic phrase of "He materialised a cup of coffee" and a lot of navel VR gazing.

Overall, really really like it though. The Bob's aren't that imaginative about warfare though and theiy aren't that efficient as Von Neumann's (Intentional I think) due to the fact they don't strip mine systems or mass produce.... unlike the Brazilian probe (Medeiros).

The book is good at showing that whilst Bob was very well suited to RUN a probe, he is not well rounded to be amazingly strategic or particularly cunning. And he is limited by the fact that, whilst his clones are different they are still all, ostensibly, minor variations on HIM. So, whilst he's a great engineer and planner, he isn't great at strategic planning, military manoeuvres (Despite doing well enough in engagements) and seems to not quite adapt as well as he thinks he does.

So a good, flawed character, an interesting universe and a nice underlying variety of plots around a post human, near singularity character.

Also, keep in mind the books have been written as a trilogy (Or, arguably, should be seen as ONE book split in three) so the endings are MASSIVE sequel hooks.

This is only the second Sci-Fi series i´ve read (more or less only read fantasy before) and i really enjoied it. In the second book there was a really heavy gut punch Homer suicide. It was just so sudden and i just found it really relatable and understandable...

Want to guess Bills plan for the Others? My guess setting an at least moon sized object onto a collision course with their homeworld. The Other so far haven´t shown the technology to move/stop objects of that size, although the could maybe break it up with their planet mining technology, i´m not quite sure

Given their technology, they might be able to deflect it. I'm wondering it might be more like accerlating an asteroid to c-fractional velocities and use that as a kinetic impactor.

And you don't need to use spoilers for guesses.

On a different note, is anyone else of the opinion that given that the two books are currently split across two separate pages, that they should be consolidated into a single "Bobiverse" page?

I think so, as it was conceived as a single book split in three (For publishing expeditiousness)

In terms of counters - gamma ray emitters the Bobs could use? Drones? (Yes, their Busters are that - but maybe they should try it on a larger scale - maybe drone vessels equipped with direct fire weaponry)

They really need someone with military chops in the team - Also, Bob needs to move onto a serious manufacturing footing - if he wants to match the Others. Throw some asteroids at their dyson sphere to distract them and whilst they're reconciling that, work on some armour piercing busters with atomic payloads, to get their death star expies.

It's clever though - whilst Bob is critical of "Star Wars thinking" about space combat, his direct approach is to enlarge the tonnage of his ships, but not really change up his fighting style much.