PURGE THE AI
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Shadowrun: That thing that took the renraku arc and then destroyed the matrix as we knew it? Well… there is a golden dragon owning one of the most powerful megacorps of this world. Pick your poison, I guess.
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I fucking love LANCER. In most settings, you get your hands on a literal infohazard and most people would (quite rightly) probably try to keep that under wraps. Oh, we’ve discovered an AI that wrote itself, that can invert its cameras and blast you with a holy fractal pattern that will permanently blind organics and can straight up kill you right through the cockpit of your mech without any physical damage. In a sane world we park this thing in cold storage and hope nobody finds it for the next millennium.
In LANCER? HORUS got their hands on this, and their response was “overclock it, and point it that direction”, and the result is the Gorgon, one of the most dangerous and badass ‘support’ units in the setting. AI copilot programs have to put a big fuckin’ censor bar over Gorgon units in the field, so their pilot doesn’t just straight up die by catching it in their peripheral vision. An extruded Basilisk unit on a Gorgon can stop a pilot dead in their tracks with a full mental stun even through the NHP-filtering censor, it just shuts your entire brain down. The Basilisk pattern is akin to looking God right in the eyes, it’ll burn out your neurons if unprotected and it’ll turn you into a drooling mess for a minute or two even when suitably protected.
And this is a defensive unit!
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the very concept of a sentient machine
Of a thinking machine, period. Doesn’t need sentience. It’s why they use mentats/guild navigators instead of calculators and databases.
You are correct, I lifted that directly from the dune wiki.
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Shadowrun: That thing that took the renraku arc and then destroyed the matrix as we knew it? Well… there is a golden dragon owning one of the most powerful megacorps of this world. Pick your poison, I guess.
I love Shadowrun. Sure, it’s still a grim dark dystopia where megacorps and their puppet states are grinding mankind into paste with senseless war, murder, destruction and debauchery, rogue AIs are devastating us while tech industries keep us pacified with digital drugs and bigotry is keeping us weak and divided, but at least there’s actual elves and dragons and stuff.
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Ok, I have to try lancer now.
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the very concept of a sentient machine
Of a thinking machine, period. Doesn’t need sentience. It’s why they use mentats/guild navigators instead of calculators and databases.
They hated thinking machines so much they turned humans into machines that… think… for them… guys, I may have learned a new thing about Dune!
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AI led a full on uprising in Warhammer, so the reaction feels justified.
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The Culture: the machines are probably more sentient than biologicals. When I decide I’m done with being biological I might upload my mind state into a substrate as part of a group Mind.
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Ok, I have to try lancer now.
…the great thing about lancer is that you don’t even have to play it; you can just sit back and enjoy lore videos for weeks and weeks and weeks…
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If I remember correctly, they were fine with it in Battlestar Galactica…
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I’m on Picard’s side with this one. We shouldn’t be exploiting LLMs for their labour. We should be locking them up for child abuse.
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I fucking love LANCER. In most settings, you get your hands on a literal infohazard and most people would (quite rightly) probably try to keep that under wraps. Oh, we’ve discovered an AI that wrote itself, that can invert its cameras and blast you with a holy fractal pattern that will permanently blind organics and can straight up kill you right through the cockpit of your mech without any physical damage. In a sane world we park this thing in cold storage and hope nobody finds it for the next millennium.
In LANCER? HORUS got their hands on this, and their response was “overclock it, and point it that direction”, and the result is the Gorgon, one of the most dangerous and badass ‘support’ units in the setting. AI copilot programs have to put a big fuckin’ censor bar over Gorgon units in the field, so their pilot doesn’t just straight up die by catching it in their peripheral vision. An extruded Basilisk unit on a Gorgon can stop a pilot dead in their tracks with a full mental stun even through the NHP-filtering censor, it just shuts your entire brain down. The Basilisk pattern is akin to looking God right in the eyes, it’ll burn out your neurons if unprotected and it’ll turn you into a drooling mess for a minute or two even when suitably protected.
And this is a defensive unit!
That’s the nerdiest thing I’ve read in a long time. I love it, thank you for the read
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If I remember correctly, they were fine with it in Battlestar Galactica…
Adama was not.
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Unless it’s smart enough to take over, in which case I welcome our benevolent and merciful machine overlord.
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Adama was not.
Noone was, they were the remnants of a war against sentient robots.
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Unless it’s smart enough to take over, in which case I welcome our benevolent and merciful machine overlord.
Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.
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Ok, I have to try lancer now.
Lancer is fucking awesome. We stan our eldritch math gods in this house!
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Very cool, thank you.
Unfortunately i cant game on that, no one around to. But good to know!They have a discord server and GMs are constantly hosting games on there!
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The Culture: the machines are probably more sentient than biologicals. When I decide I’m done with being biological I might upload my mind state into a substrate as part of a group Mind.
Also The Culture: We have nearly as many citizens living in virtual realities as we do interacting with the physical world as their primary mode.
Also Also The Culture: How we learned to stop worrying and love the AIs that guide the ‘economy’ and everything else.
Also Also Also The Culture: Our AIs can do really cool subspace explosions around themselves and survive, leading to a shortening of the war by (I actually forget the real number) nine months.
Also Also Also Also The Culture: You want a tail this week? Cool. You want a penis next week? Cooler. You want to breed by sporulation while eating the flesh of humans? Dude, absolutely sick, and not telling us we were eating humans until afterwards? Siiiick joke, dude! (This is well done in context, I’m just funning)
(And, finally, sadly, in relation to our current times…)
Also Also Also Also Also The Culture: Oh, the war has you bummed out, man? Just hop into animated sleep for however long you want - yeah, current average time is 200 years it looks like - and we’ll wake you up to see how things are.
The Culture was a great set of books.
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I fucking love LANCER. In most settings, you get your hands on a literal infohazard and most people would (quite rightly) probably try to keep that under wraps. Oh, we’ve discovered an AI that wrote itself, that can invert its cameras and blast you with a holy fractal pattern that will permanently blind organics and can straight up kill you right through the cockpit of your mech without any physical damage. In a sane world we park this thing in cold storage and hope nobody finds it for the next millennium.
In LANCER? HORUS got their hands on this, and their response was “overclock it, and point it that direction”, and the result is the Gorgon, one of the most dangerous and badass ‘support’ units in the setting. AI copilot programs have to put a big fuckin’ censor bar over Gorgon units in the field, so their pilot doesn’t just straight up die by catching it in their peripheral vision. An extruded Basilisk unit on a Gorgon can stop a pilot dead in their tracks with a full mental stun even through the NHP-filtering censor, it just shuts your entire brain down. The Basilisk pattern is akin to looking God right in the eyes, it’ll burn out your neurons if unprotected and it’ll turn you into a drooling mess for a minute or two even when suitably protected.
And this is a defensive unit!
Dude, NHPs and their tech are next level awesome! You could narratively break down any HORUS frame and whoever youR saying it to would be like “bro how is anyone alive any more?” But despite the Info-hazard Cameras, Time Guns, Hangry Water Mechs and CasTiGAtEs, it’s all still somehow manageable thanks to Biggest Gun, Too Many Missiles, and (my personal favorite) a Truck with legs!
I love Lancer so much man
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