The Mobiles and Wizardry

[Birdhead]

*nods* That makes a lot of sense.
T

Tuibird in Aotearoa
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Spelling Freak and Typo Queen

I doubt that Dari will ever lose her connection with the mobiles -- she's Aunt Dairine! Seriously, though, they're her children ("sort of," as she so elegantly puts it), and even the Winged Defender knows it (c.f. the oft-quoted "get a mother" line).

She's probably more comfortable, though, with doing wizardry in a more "slowlife" fashion nowadays. Now that she's back on Earth, millions (billions? trillions?) of light-years away from the motherboard, I bet she finds it difficult to "slip into machine time" and do her wizardry there. After all, she is human, even though she became a mobile (again -- "sort of") towards the end of High Wizardry.

I'd love to hear from Gigo again. I hope we hear about Dari's "kids" in Holiday!

Oh! rowan tree.
How fair wert thou in simmer time,
Wi' a' thy clusters white,
How rich and gay thy autumn dress,
Wi' berries red and bright.

[jen26]

maybe her newly activated hormones have something to do with it - just a speculation

"Deceit shall have its reward." - Timeline

[PK]

*laughs* That's certainly possible, Jen, given what Nita and Kit were told in HW... Oh, dear, and Dairine's just the type to overextend under such circumstances, isn't she?

...And man, the mobiles and motherboard have a neat Creation/Choice story, don't they? I wonder whether they have their own names for the Powers, or use the ones the Defender gave, or... good grief, if the Manual is excerpts from the Book of Night with Moon, and they got the whole thing, they may have all of them listed in their own names in the Speech.

It'd be great to hear more about them; I wonder what their interactions with other worlds are like.... And Gigo's fantastic. "With!"

[Lee Enfield-Burke]

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[Birdhead]

PK: now wouldn't it be great to actually KNOW your creation story? And not have all this angst about whether it happened, and how long it took, and whether it's a metaphor, or wheterh it's just a great story... (I myself fall in the latter category)

And you're right: that is cool. "When we were born, we got to save the universe and temporarily enact Olbers' Paradox!"
T

Tuibird in Aotearoa
Conservationist, Scientist, and proud of both!
Chocolate lover extraordinaire...
Ahahahaha, ahahahahaha, ahahahaha...
My mission: Bringing Maori to the world!
Spelling Freak and Typo Queen

[FireWitch]

Interesting...but you wonder how future generations will react...(assuming there are future generations and not just the existing mobiles?)...according to some people, there were witnesses to the beginning of the world, and the future generations just chose not to belive them...(not my view...I like to call creation stories fairy tales, but still...)

Hillary Wan Kenobi
The first-ever Jedi Ewok

Loyal reader of Harry Potter and Young Wizards books

There will be future generations -- or at least Dairine believes there will be. Remember that "illegal function call"?

They'll all be wizards, though, so they'll be able to read about Dairine's Ordeal in the Precis section of their (electronic) Manual. Weird, huh? "Hey, that's my dad being possessed by the Lone One!"

Not to mention that a whole planet full of wizards wouldn't be inclined to disbelieve a tale about the Winged Defender and the Lone Power. And they'll be hooked into Dairine until she dies. Now that will be one of those things that the old torment the young with. "When I was your age, I had a conversation with the Creator and the Lightbringer every week!" "Sure ya did, Gramps."

I think I'm officially On A Tangent now . . . . Zipping my lip!

Oh! rowan tree.
How fair wert thou in simmer time,
Wi' a' thy clusters white,
How rich and gay thy autumn dress,
Wi' berries red and bright.

[Birdhead]

But will they be children in the same way that we are? Computers don't really grow up. They can get smarter, or updated, but not actually grow.... can they?
T

Tuibird in Aotearoa
Conservationist, Scientist, and proud of both!
Chocolate lover extraordinaire...
Ahahahaha, ahahahahaha, ahahahaha...
My mission: Bringing Maori to the world!
Spelling Freak and Typo Queen

[Nico]

Good point, Nico. It's anyone's guess as to how that would affect the motherboard.

Birdhead, I don't know if we can consider them computers the way we know them. It's hard to imagine my Toshiba laptop quaking at the thought of entropy, know what I mean? I don't think they'll get any bigger, but they will mature. I think.

As for kids, I imagine that two of the 'bots can combine their DNA and create a new 'bot from the planet's surface that would start out with the entirety of the Manual in its "brain," but no experience or anything. It would probably be emotionally immature, but as it communicated with other 'bots and experienced new things (and went through its Ordeal . . . now what would that be like?), it would grow up. In a sense. I think.

Here's what's bugging me more than kids: elderly 'bots. How would they die? They get their energy from the planet. Would the 'bots eventually decide they'd lived long enough and shut themselves down? I can't see them getting diseases or wearing out. So will the planet be overpopulated in a couple of years or what?

Oh! rowan tree.
How fair wert thou in simmer time,
Wi' a' thy clusters white,
How rich and gay thy autumn dress,
Wi' berries red and bright.

[Quill]

Seems to me that the 'bots would have an easier time than organic life with population and aging problems. Their parts are easier to replace, and they could probably eventually replace all of their parts over time without suffering. They can possibly download themselves if they need to, even store themselves back in the motherboard, and then upload back into a new body.

Space would be the main problem with population; they aren't using resources the same way organic life does. And they could, I assume, leave the planet if they wanted to. With all of wizardry built right in, they are likely to be able to solve the problems that would arise.


-- Dex Lives No, I'm not the author. I just think you should read it.--

Does that seem right? They'll never die? I thought the outcome of refusing a Choice was that your culture would have no fear of death, not that no death would even occur.

Could they leave the planet? Don't they need the connection to the motherboard?

So many questions!!

Oh! rowan tree.
How fair wert thou in simmer time,
Wi' a' thy clusters white,
How rich and gay thy autumn dress,
Wi' berries red and bright.

[PK]

Well, often it seems to be a question of buying into the fear of death and, as Mrs. Callahan puts it in Dilemma, making one's life all about not dying. (Arguably in some circumstances this is a suitable priority... then again, arguably in such circumstances you're already in trouble. ) Still, it's mentioned a few times that there are creatures even on Earth that never seem to die without being killed, I think. Though I'm not totally sure how this works with the claim that the mobiles are the first species ever to reject the Lone Power's offer completely from the beginning.

The mobiles' choice actually was rather heavily based on that, actually.... Their timestop, had it worked as they intended, might have slowed down the death of the universe indeed -- except that there wouldn't have been any more living going on, just... pauses. And probably rather a mess. Hrm. Sorry, babbling again.

I don't know... the motherboard itself, star and planet, would presumably run down eventually. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if that's the only way they'd die without being destroyed. Do you think they actually have any compelling urge to reproduce? Some, yes, but... I'm not sure. The motherboard wanted to have them, but could easily refrain from making more than she could handle, I'd think. (That's an interesting point, come to think of it. The planet is part of their species, really....) And like Quill, I figure they could head off-planet if they wanted -- interactions with other species ought to be innnnteresting...! -- though I might worry about how much of the planet's surface might get pocked up for constructing them, I guess. Well, I suppose she can manage that too.

I wonder if there's a significance to Logo being the one the Lone Power 'borrowed.' Symbol, word.... Hrm.

And yeah. Reading back through the Manual must be interesting... heyyy. Do they get automatic updates? Spot does. Does the motherboard (or the mobiles independently, but I suppose that'd still get her involved) hook into the intergalactic internet? Are the motherboard and mobiles involved in the project mentioned in The Book of Night with Moon to put, er, the Book of Night with Moon (stated at the same time to be what the manuals are excerpts of) online?

[Birdhead]

Well, about the species on earth that never seem to die- I think, at a guess, they might be the members of a wider group- and the ones that live for so long are the ones that refused the LP's "gift." In this way... hum, I think the Galapagos turtles (tortoises?) might be an example? Well, they are the members of their group who refused the choice- but the smaller tortoises (turtles?) who die, er, more often are the ones that accepted it.

And of course the mobioles are in on the Intergalactic Internet..
T

Tuibird in Aotearoa
Conservationist, Scientist, and proud of both!
Chocolate lover extraordinaire...
Ahahahaha, ahahahahaha, ahahahaha...
My mission: Bringing Maori to the world!
Spelling Freak and Typo Queen