Difference between revisions of "Computers"
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Cheaper on industrial worlds, and more expensive at agricultural worlds. A premium-priced product. | Cheaper on industrial worlds, and more expensive at agricultural worlds. A premium-priced product. | ||
| + | |||
| + | == Lore == | ||
| + | More specifically, [[User:Disembodied|Disembodied's]] lore: | ||
| + | {{QuoteText|Text=That's the great thing about fiction: it's very stretchy. | ||
| + | |||
| + | *Electronics leads to automation. | ||
| + | *Automation leads to AI. | ||
| + | *AI leads to strong AI. | ||
| + | *Strong AI leads to technological singularity. | ||
| + | :*Bad news: technological singularity is NOT the Rapture of the Nerds; it's a pack of hyperadvanced machine intelligences going berserk before collapsing/ascending/subliming/fill in your answer to the unanswerable here … | ||
| + | :*Good news: the machine intelligences do disappear. | ||
| + | :*Bad news: at best, they leave behind a ravaged global economy and a society struggling to rebuild its industries and networks pretty much from scratch. At worst, along with the economic destruction, millions - even billions - of sentient beings have been absorbed by these things, and are left mindless/insane, or have simply vanished. | ||
| + | |||
| + | This process seems to be as inevitable as stellar evolution. Cultures who survive this come out the other end with a strong aversion to automation and to electronics in particular. Our multi-species society, held in loose alliance within the Co-operative, has managed to develop organic computation: it's slower and squishier, but every computer-node has a short and finite lifespan, and is guaranteed not to gallop away over the eschatological horizon. | ||
| + | |||
| + | These organic brainlets are what we call "computers". They are vat-grown on an industrial scale, and all have the exact same properties. Because they are mortal, there's a constant demand for them, and because they're identical there's not a whit of difference between a computer from a TL-15 world and a computer from a TL-5 world. A Rich Industrial planet can grow them in bulk, making them a little cheaper: price is the only difference.|Source=([http://www.aegidian.org/bb/viewtopic.php?p=273533#p273533 Disembodied])}} | ||
== Links == | == Links == | ||
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*[[Oolite Trading]] | *[[Oolite Trading]] | ||
*[[Commodities]] | *[[Commodities]] | ||
| + | |||
| + | === Vaguely related === | ||
| + | *[http://www.aegidian.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=17065 Ambitious Idea: Ship's AI] (2014) | ||
[[Category:Commodities]] | [[Category:Commodities]] | ||
Revision as of 17:14, 12 October 2021
A commodity found on the F8 markets screen.
Intelligent machinery, positronic AI's, NavCon electronics.
Traded in TCs & stored in the Cargo Hold for trade.
Cheaper on industrial worlds, and more expensive at agricultural worlds. A premium-priced product.
Lore
More specifically, Disembodied's lore:
That's the great thing about fiction: it's very stretchy.
This process seems to be as inevitable as stellar evolution. Cultures who survive this come out the other end with a strong aversion to automation and to electronics in particular. Our multi-species society, held in loose alliance within the Co-operative, has managed to develop organic computation: it's slower and squishier, but every computer-node has a short and finite lifespan, and is guaranteed not to gallop away over the eschatological horizon. These organic brainlets are what we call "computers". They are vat-grown on an industrial scale, and all have the exact same properties. Because they are mortal, there's a constant demand for them, and because they're identical there's not a whit of difference between a computer from a TL-15 world and a computer from a TL-5 world. A Rich Industrial planet can grow them in bulk, making them a little cheaper: price is the only difference. |
| (Disembodied) |
Links
- Ambitious Idea: Ship's AI (2014)
