Alpha Centauri 2

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri & Alien Crossfire => The Theory of Everything => Topic started by: Hierophant on May 12, 2020, 11:56:46 am

Title: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: Hierophant on May 12, 2020, 11:56:46 am

I haven't really seen anything about this anywhere, but if you have the Telepathic Matrix, can you thereby turn your psych all the way down to 0% and no longer use psych-only specialists? What do drones and talents do in this situation, if anything? if they do nothing, then it all seems rather overpowered. Or am I missing something?
I'm not fully enamored with the idea that I should just have my entire population on the brink of rebellion, only prevented from rioting in the streets and breaking storefronts by an army of tarts in togas standing in fountains beaming happy thoughts into their heads. Paean to SMAC says that it's an optimistic view of the future, but I think it makes the Self-Aware Colony look pretty dang wonderful by comparison.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: bvanevery on May 12, 2020, 03:14:12 pm

It is totally overpowered.  For this reason in my mod, you can't have it until you're on the Threshold of Transcendence anyways.  If you're about to win the game and just want to sandbox, eh, I'll let you!

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: Nexii on May 12, 2020, 05:15:44 pm

It is quite strong but by the time you get it Transcendi and PSYCH facilties do a lot of drone control on their own. I don't consider it too OP myself because it comes so late in the game you might get 20 turns out of it for your investment.

Also related to this, I designed a faction that doesn't have any drones in the theme of Civ2 Fundamentalism government. They never dominated games like I thought they would.

To me there's a few Secret Projects that are much more powerful. Either because of their benefits or where they were on the tech tree.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: Hierophant on May 12, 2020, 08:50:59 pm

Still, no drones would make the building game a lot easier no?

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: EmpathCrawler on May 12, 2020, 09:22:33 pm

You'd still need psych if you wanted Golden Ages, I suppose, but it comes so late that you probably aren't hurting for energy and you already will have psych facilities.


I guess it would be nice if you decided to launch a massive conquest of Planet in the late game and didn't want to police the conquest and bureaucracy drones. Despite the lovey poetry by Deirdre, it's not all that useful for an already well-developed faction.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: bvanevery on May 12, 2020, 10:14:40 pm

Lots of things aren't useful by the end of the game.  That doesn't change the fact that they're overpowered.  If you put them any earlier in the game to get a benefit from them, they would suck.  I put the Transcendii at the very end of the game too.  Lots and lots of things, I've moved appropriately later in the game, because it sucks having them earlier.  I've also seriously raised the cost of various things.  Blink Displacer, for instance, is 100% cost increase (cost=4) and is given at the same time as Telepathic Matrix, dead least in tech.  Because it is overpowered.  It doesn't matter if there are a few dozen weapons that are also overpowered, at least I have them in a cost progression until the bitter end of the game.  And my weapons cost progression is rather severe.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: Nexii on May 12, 2020, 10:45:56 pm

I wouldn't even put Telepathic Matrix in the top 5 for SPs to start the game with. It might be in the top 10.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: bvanevery on May 12, 2020, 10:57:58 pm

Well you can write that mod, and others can tell you whether it's any good.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: EmpathCrawler on May 13, 2020, 12:10:55 am

Quote from: bvanevery on May 12, 2020, 10:14:40 pm

Lots of things aren't useful by the end of the game.  That doesn't change the fact that they're overpowered.  If you put them any earlier in the game to get a benefit from them, they would suck.  I put the Transcendii at the very end of the game too.  Lots and lots of things, I've moved appropriately later in the game, because it sucks having them earlier.  I've also seriously raised the cost of various things.  Blink Displacer, for instance, is 100% cost increase (cost=4) and is given at the same time as Telepathic Matrix, dead least in tech.  Because it is overpowered.  It doesn't matter if there are a few dozen weapons that are also overpowered, at least I have them in a cost progression until the bitter end of the game.  And my weapons cost progression is rather severe.

Why would I build it at the very end of the game instead of VoP/Ascent?

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: bvanevery on May 13, 2020, 12:16:34 am

Because you're a sandboxer and don't intend to win the game.

Only other scenario I can think of, is you have a moral objection to winning the game by Transcendence, as I do!  I will never do it.  I think the death of the individual is a very bad, horrible thing.

I can't imagine why I personally wouldn't have won the game by some other means beforehand.  Unless I was being very lazy, or imposed an artificial restriction on myself.

Transcendence in other fictions doesn't mean loss of individuality.  For instance, in Stargate Atlantis.  One does have to renounce interference in the affairs of this universe, and that is a big, recurring problem for certain Transcendii.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: Hierophant on May 13, 2020, 12:25:36 am

Interesting. I would love to argue the point with you, but this is not a philosophy message board, so I will refrain! But a little roleplaying has never hurt anyone. I would never use nerve stapling, for example. I suppose that's another topic for a thread- "what are things you don't do because of roleplaying" or something like that.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: bvanevery on May 13, 2020, 12:50:54 am

This board has a philosophy?  Is that like Ethical Calculus or something?  There's no rule here against expressing an opinion.  Only about not getting nasty about it.

Maybe it says something about me personally, that I'm willing to play the role of an exterminator, a callous genocidal maniac who will gas or nuke everyone into oblivion, but I won't allow my individuality as a leader to be erased.  Nor for the collective individuality of humanity to be erased.

Or maybe it doesn't say that much at all.  My vision of humanity certainly continues, in the roles I play.  I do not play the role of a doomsday cult that wipes out humanity.  That's what Transcendence is.

If there was an explicit "everybody must die, including yourself" victory condition, I could roleplay that faction.  That game would need a lot more supporting narrative materials though.  It's definitely not this game.

In this game it's like the "everybody must be a moron, and drink the Kool Aid" victory condition.

Didn't anyone else watch Logan's Run?  "Festival is a lie!"

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: Hierophant on May 13, 2020, 12:59:15 am

Oh no, I was saying the opposite, that this board is NOT about philosophy, and therefore I don't want to bog it down with that kind of discussion.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: Nexii on May 13, 2020, 01:12:55 am

In the novelization it's explained that not all humans decided to transcend. In fact by transcending you prevent a mass cyclical extinction of Planet life. It's implied humans would also die in this extinction if you don't help Planet break the cycle by helping it reach enlightment. The latter is in the game lore.

Though on the topic of RP gameplay, I was considering to play factions based on their Agenda. In other words you can only pick the faction's agenda or Frontier, Simple, etc. in their agenda category. And perhaps trying to play more pacifist for pacifist faction (always accept truce/treaty), more aggressive on aggressive factions (always war). Erratic maybe flip a coin I'm not sure.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: Buster's Uncle on May 13, 2020, 02:34:42 am

-As far as holding an argument debate, well, the management believes in letting the conversation go where it wants, provided it's not somewhere 'nasty' - and this is certainly a relevant topic.  I could always split the thread, one of you could start a new one here, or take it to Rec Commons.  It's all good, as long as no one's annoyed by burying the original topic...

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: Hierophant on May 13, 2020, 02:39:45 am

Actually, I think we could have a new thread on what people don't do because of roleplaying. I would be very interested in that, and I think it's worth having a thread on that, if there isn't one already. I can talk to bvanevery about the individuality thing here if it's not off-topic, otherwise sure, we can have a new thread as well.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: bvanevery on May 13, 2020, 03:13:12 am

Quote from: Nexii on May 13, 2020, 01:12:55 am

It's implied humans would also die in this extinction if you don't help Planet break the cycle by helping it reach enlightment.

Look why can't we give it more time with more chemicals, more nukes, more tectonic missiles, and general extinction of that species ala Lab Three Aftermath?  I mean it's authorial fiat that I have to go along with Planet or die.  Why not kill Planet?  Or do a lobotomy on Planet, or whatever.  We've got Industrial Automation, we've got borehole pressure mines, we've got singularity bombs...

BTW, none of the other victory conditions said that we all died in the end.  So it seems a big empty threat to me.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: Hierophant on May 13, 2020, 05:30:14 am

bvanevery, I hope you don't see me asking you some questions as being personal. I don't share your position but I am interested in understanding it.

On the AC transcendence event specifically, I would say that the victory text is ambiguous, but at least does not show conclusively that individuality is destroyed. It seems to show that the individualities are retained but are part of a greater mind:

"In such times of repose, You often sift through Your personalities and recall Your former selves. Your alpha self derives from an individual once called $NAME1. Over the millenia the exceptional focus and judgement characteristic of this fragment have proven effective on numerous occasions. The $NAME1self now drives all of Your long and short range planning, and is the principal force behind the encapsulation project. Ponderous but playful is the Voice/Planet personality, avatar of Your sessile precursor, who in the present age has devoted her centuries to philosophical pondering. Many others flit about within You. Some, like the prankster $SHIMODA9 and the demon $NAME5 are semi-dominant and often hover near the plane of Your Thought. Others plumb the depths and create new worlds within the abyss of Your open-ended neural network."

But even if it is a destruction of individuality, I am interested in knowing what exactly it is that bothers you. Would you also be opposed to a "death of the self" sort of thing that Buddhists try to attain? I cannot remember her name, but I read about a woman who said she attained that state through meditation. Obviously we have to take their word for it, given that we cannot yet inspect their mental states, but suppose it is possible. Would you be opposed to attaining such a state as well? Or is it less repulsive, as long as it's still "your mind" and that your mind is not intermingled, so to speak, with others?

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: bvanevery on May 13, 2020, 08:09:18 am

Quote from: Hierophant on May 13, 2020, 05:30:14 am

Would you also be opposed to a "death of the self" sort of thing that Buddhists try to attain?

Yep!  And I don't privilege special mental states as somehow being more desirable places for our minds to dwell.  People in the West have so often been turning East to seek the Other.  This is just restlessness and lack of confidence in their own purpose, lives, and thoughts.  I am Existentialist.  I am aware that I am choosing the meaning of life, and that nihilism is an easy thing to slide into.

If Planet really doesn't want to let you exist on your own terms, and cannot be persuaded, or can't really do anything about its own emerging nature, then I'm fine with brain surgeoning it or killing it.  Same as any basically any enemy to the existence of the human race.

I think human beings as they are today are basically better than any Planet.  Minus of course the possibility of us completely destroying ourselves.  I'd have that theme in a game.  The nuclear winter, the final biological war, no survival.

Now that I think about it, isn't it mildly interesting, that no faction ever got around to basically opposing Planet?  I mean, why should you in your right mind want to cooperate with this... thing.  Let's say you're not Gaian, or Cultist.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: Hierophant on May 13, 2020, 08:21:54 am

I understand wanting to create your own meaning, but how does having a self or not, or being in a group mind or not, interfere with that process? Or are you saying that the "I" that does the creation has to be an individuated self? I'm not sure what the relevance of that is.

I suppose that the Morganites, as the opponents of the Gaians, should be the rightful opponents of the planetmind, and they would be particularly into transhumanism (at least, transhumanists tend to be also very pro capitalism in the current era), so I imagine they are the ones who were "left behind" on Planet, as the end text says. Still, they seem pretty happy about it, if we trust the observations of the planetmind. I suppose a million years of living in a different context will change your views a bit.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: Nexii on May 13, 2020, 05:06:58 pm

Actually it is stated in the game interludes that only a majority of humans decide to transcend. Not all are forced to, the remaining are put in stasis while the Ascent to Transcendence is completed. A million years later Planet has breathable air for humans, it's implied that those that don't are still considered friends.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: bvanevery on May 13, 2020, 08:48:54 pm

Nice epilogue detail.  Of course, that's not really the end of debate on such issues.  To transcend, I gotta join a collective?  I'm pretty sure the ones left behind could think of a different way they'd rather do it, in time.  Such were plotlines of Stargate Atlantis, particularly with the "unwanted siblings" of the human race, the Replicators.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: EmpathCrawler on May 14, 2020, 05:58:39 pm

Quote from: bvanevery on May 13, 2020, 08:48:54 pm

Nice epilogue detail.  Of course, that's not really the end of debate on such issues.  To transcend, I gotta join a collective?  I'm pretty sure the ones left behind could think of a different way they'd rather do it, in time.  Such were plotlines of Stargate Atlantis, particularly with the "unwanted siblings" of the human race, the Replicators.

Depends on what you think a "collective" is. Transcendence appears to involve shedding your physical form and existing in a big fungus brain. If you want, you can download your individual consciousness to a puppet body and do stuff. So it's not the Borg Collective.


Presumably this is why the other victory conditions conveniently end just before you decide how to deal with Planet for the next chapter of history. Maybe that does mean a lot of fungicidal formers. If the game was made now, scouring away all the fungus tiles would probably earn you a Steam achievement or something.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: Nexii on May 14, 2020, 06:10:54 pm

I think it's explained somewhere that removing the surface fungus isn't quite akin to killing Planet like I also assumed. The neural net has roots deep in Planet. This is why Voice of Planet makes the same tiles that had fungus at the start of the game regain it (or at least somewhat...maybe not all)

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: bvanevery on May 14, 2020, 09:43:42 pm

Quote from: Nexii on May 14, 2020, 06:10:54 pm

The neural net has roots deep in Planet.

Drill baby drill!

Quote

This is why Voice of Planet makes the same tiles that had fungus at the start of the game regain it

I don't believe that.  At all.  I think it's an idea that you ran into somewhere over the years, that isn't true.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: Hierophant on May 15, 2020, 02:44:35 am

bvanevery- do you believe in free will?

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: bvanevery on May 15, 2020, 03:51:06 am

Yes.  And I do not believe in Determinism.  I think it's nothing more than thought experimental fiction that people like to make up about causality.  The empirical evidence is we do in fact have free will.

All you have to do to demonstrate your free will, is do something rather improbable on the spur of the moment.  You are free to express yourself in terms of interpretive dance, disruptive public behavior, strange spending patterns, writing either gibberish or odd cogence, whatever you feel like doing.  Or suddenly not doing.  With your creativity, you can demonstrate your own personal ability to make decisions, that had no predictability.

You can do it right now, as often as you like, as exhaustively as you like, until you've adequately proven the point to yourself.  That you do make independent decisions.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: Hierophant on May 15, 2020, 03:58:08 am

I see. Maybe that's the source of the disagreement? Because I definitely do not believe in free will.
Do you think you'd still hold the same positions on individuality if you didn't believe in free will? (that is probably an unanswerable question)

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: bvanevery on May 15, 2020, 04:51:52 am

I work with what this universe actually is.  What we can actually observe it to be.  We have enormous amounts of scientific evidence to describe what it is.  We still have holes in our knowledge, and some things are provably unknowable.  For instance, the Halting Problem in computer science.  It is impossible to write an algorithm that will tell you when an algorithm will terminate.  It is unknowable.  This fact, has a lot to do with why I both believe in free will, and think the human race is not inherently doomed to destroy itself.

Thought experiments that try to exceed what the universe actually is, pretty much end up being BS.

Determinism has a very basic problem of verifiability.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: Hierophant on May 15, 2020, 05:03:50 am

You believe in free will because some things are actually unknowable? I don't get the connection between these two things. Are you saying human consciousness is unknowable, because we'll never understand free will? Otherwise I don't understand what our epistemic limits have to do with free will at all.
Either way, it doesn't really matter if I understand why you believe in free will, I am mainly interested in the connection between your view on free will and your view on individuality... if the first is the cause of the second, that is.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: bvanevery on May 15, 2020, 08:05:03 am

We have free will, and we are individuals.  That is the empirical reality of the universe we live in, what we are as a species.  Debating that we are otherwise is mostly sophistry.  Exceptions can be made for actual group behavior, such as how people behave in crowds, or in political indoctrination, or in cults.

Determinism is mostly the claim that we aren't deciding anything, that we only "believe" we are deciding things, and that all our actions have some kind of infinitely externally traceable cause.  I say it's rubbish.  Nobody's ever going to be able to trace out these causes and prove them in any way.  Typically, the "trace debug" necessary to determine someone's causality, would have to be larger than the universe itself, to account for everything in the universe.

We don't have to know exactly why we can make decisions, to know that we are making decisions.

We may not get to know why the Big Bang happened.  Only that it happened.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: Hierophant on May 15, 2020, 08:39:00 am

Okay, again, it doesn't really matter to me why you believe it. For the record, I think you're absolutely wrong, but I'm not trying to have a debate on whether free will exists or not. I'm trying to understand why you're creeped out by concepts centered around the loss of individuality. I absolutely do not believe in free will and so such concepts do not bother me at all, so I thought there might be a connection there. Not sure why you're trying to turn this into a defense of free will.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: bvanevery on May 15, 2020, 09:36:46 am

Probably you should contemplate your own biases for awhile, as to why you see or don't see connections.  Free will means we are individuals exercising it.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: Hierophant on May 15, 2020, 09:45:14 am

All right, I understand the general idea of what you're trying to say, so I'm not gonna belabor that point.

After thinking about it some more, I think we just have incompatible concepts of what "individuality" is. When you say individuality, I understand this as meaning that the mind remains one coherent whole, is not broken into, violated, and so on, that you are still a distinct mind from the other minds around you (like the more succinct definitions given elsewhere: "separate existence" and "distinct existence"). But that doesn't seem to be your view, since you are also against the “loss of self” example, which does not involve any of these things. Likewise the SMAC ending does not seem to involve these things either, as the people involve still persist as individual entities which seem to be whole (although it's impossible to tell for sure). So whatever your definition of individuality is, it seems to be narrower than mine, if I am understanding you correctly. This is probably what is leading to my misunderstanding.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: bvanevery on May 15, 2020, 04:14:06 pm

Quote from: Hierophant on May 15, 2020, 09:45:14 am

But that doesn't seem to be your view, since you are also against the “loss of self” example, which does not involve any of these things.

That is your claim.  It does involve those things.  You just don't believe it does.

Quote

This is probably what is leading to my misunderstanding.

I think it is actually more likely that you are parsing the end game text with legalese, to construct a viewpoint that is favorable to your preferences.  Whereas I tend to recall every sci-fi show about societies of incessant telepaths and how well that went for them.  Being part of Planet's hive mind is even worse and the game text is pretty clear that individual human identity is effaced, that you get pretty much the gesture of Deidre or whatever in the new consciousness.  Not actual Deirdre behaving as Deirdre did as a corporeal being.

Your individuality becomes a mere ingredient in a cosmic stew.  You're a spice.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: Nexii on May 15, 2020, 05:31:54 pm

It's written in the interludes that one may go back and forth from the collective consciousness to an individual human body. Also that body returns to Earth to colonize it with humanity and birth a new Planet consciousness. So nothing is destroyed or given up really. Likewise, I can't understand the aversion to the story's ending. It's win for all sides, perhaps almost too good to be true

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: bvanevery on May 15, 2020, 08:15:10 pm

A body is not a mind.  Do you not remember Invasion of the Body Snatchers?

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: Hierophant on May 15, 2020, 08:25:14 pm

I don't understand. Are you claiming that using meditation to dampen or suppress your sense of self is destroying the separation between your mind and other minds?

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: bvanevery on May 15, 2020, 09:19:25 pm

At this point I think the discussion is going to go nowhere, unless we start quoting the actual narrative text from the game.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: Hierophant on May 15, 2020, 09:24:37 pm

I did quote the narrative text. And it does seem to indicate the persistence of individual consciousnesses through the use of names, although as I said, it's not proof of anything.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: bvanevery on May 15, 2020, 09:32:01 pm

It does not.  Here's the beginning of the exact text you quoted:

Quote

"In such times of repose, You often sift through Your personalities and recall Your former selves. Your alpha self derives from an individual once called $NAME1.

There is no Deirdre anymore.  You are not Deirdre anymore.  You are something that has an ingredient of Deirdre, and a whole lotta other ingredients, that get shuffled around all over the place.  Deirdre added her thought pattern into this big brain entity and that's it, she's gone.  There's a gesture of her in there.  Nobody exists recognizably as human individuals anymore, the way we know of ourselves now, and have continuity in our own selves.  The self is badly blurred.

It's rather similar to a description of schizophrenia + Alzheimer's.  No thanks!

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: Nexii on May 15, 2020, 09:41:11 pm

Orbital insertion begins and you tingle with the excitement of your new mission and with the joy of having returned to human form. Yes, you left a copy of your personality among the Planetmind's giant matrix, but this copy, this human being $NAME1 now waking to lead the first Seed mission, this is the only self now immediate to you and therefore the only real you. You are flesh again, and so quite mortal, and for this too you rejoice.

It seems that post Transcendence, self/collective blurs into one rather than seen as a duality.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: Hierophant on May 15, 2020, 09:53:40 pm

How could the person's self be copied and put in a body if the self is gone and melded with other ones?

Again, it doesn't seem like the separation between one's mind and other minds is broken. It must, no doubt, be breached, so that might represent a breach of individuality according to you bvanevery. However, what is said hardly corresponds to symptoms of "schizophrenia + Alzheimer's." I am not comfortable using real-life diseases that actual people suffer from to describe this hypothetical scenario, anyway, but I hardly think you can equate, say, telepathy (which is what this seems to be more like) with schizophrenia.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: bvanevery on May 15, 2020, 10:28:56 pm

I'm perfectly willing to compare mental impairments, because that's what the source material does anyways.  Nexii left out the part where floating around inside the Planet mind clearly sucks:

Quote

^  You despaired when Planet invited $NAME5 to join its dominant self, and
for a decade or more you moped about the bizarre virtual reality of the Undermind
with no coherent purpose, a lost spirit unable to die. But when the Seed missions
began, the Voice/Planet personality herself sought you out in the abyss and convinced
you to accept command of the {Prodigal Son}.
^  "Earth$NAME3, you are unfulfilled here and I have need of you. In ages to come
I shall have need of allies, sister Minds, if I am to keep the flame of conscious
thought from guttering out as the universe contracts or else expands to dust. Take
with you the gift of life, the seeds of all our species. Spread them to the stars,
across the galaxies, creating new civilizations, new minds, and enlisting the aid
of any you encounter. Go forth, Earth$NAME3. Go forth and multiply."

At a minimum, this is a Purgatory.  And that's assuming all this re-enviornmenting, saving, and copying, actually retains the person and isn't fundamentally altering them.  Plenty of sci-fi stories have been written on the latter theme.  Here's one from Star Trek TOS about getting dumped into an android body: What Are Little Girls Made Of? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Are_Little_Girls_Made_Of%3F)

So you finally got out of Purgatory.  Greaat.  Maybe don't wanna ever go back?  Immortality ain't all that great if you're just put on ice suffering for awhile, then some Planet mind deigns to send you out on errands again finally.  I'd seriously start thinking about those planet core singularity bombs, if I hadn't thought of them already before "signing up".

I'm not even clear when someone gets this Epilogue?

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: Hierophant on May 15, 2020, 10:34:23 pm

Well of course you're in Purgatory, you lost the game. They wouldn't reward you with a "good ending" if you lost the game.

But either way, taking it at face value, I don't understand why you are not happy about this quote: it actually shows individuality! You're actually unhappy in the planetmind because you didn't get to be top dog. If your mind got mixed with everyone else's into one big planetmind, why would planetmind be unhappy about some part of itself not being more central than another? Do you mourn that your pancreas is inferior to your heart?

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: Nexii on May 15, 2020, 10:39:31 pm

Yea the reward for winning the game is esentially being the heart. Your ideals get imposed the strongest into the new planetmind. It struck me that a lot of the boredom was not just for lack of being the alpha, but because at heart you're an explorer. You came to Chiron as an explorer. And so it ends with you on Earth as an explorer once again.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: bvanevery on May 15, 2020, 11:00:29 pm

I never lose the game to someone else Transcending.  So, I have not seen that interlude for 20 years, if I've ever seen it at all.

Being an individual in Purgatory still sucks.  It still makes starting the Ascent To Transcendence a bad idea.  What kind of life for an individual is that?  There's nothing to do.  It's a variation on a sensory deprivation tank.

I can think of plenty of objections to consigning most of humanity to this fate.  It would be kinder to murder them.  Some games I murder everyone else, other games I don't.  Usually by default, I only murder those who are stopping me from winning.  I usually win by Diplomatic Victory or Economic Victory nowadays, which isn't murdering everyone in sight.  Even if I do a Conquest Victory, Captured Bases doesn't mean you murdered everyone.  Even putting a Punishment Sphere isn't murdering everyone.  I tend to get rid of the PSes in late game when the base isn't marked as Captured anymore, when they've become full citizens.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: Hierophant on May 15, 2020, 11:08:31 pm

Are you against cybernetics and the Cybernetic Consciousness faction in the game as well? The Lal quote about cybernetic implants in Neural Grafting seems to imply that it interferes with one's normal sense of self. At any rate, it seems you are against any kind of substantial change in the mind's abilities, and that would definitely be a big change.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: bvanevery on May 15, 2020, 11:18:11 pm

Not fond of cybernetics, but the game doesn't claim it is used for the loss of individuality.  Rather, there seems to be a moral slide towards the sensibility of the machine.  Towards 'rational' decisionmaking that is empty of feeling, and possibly of humanity.

I'm not fond of Yang's policies either.  However, I've become pretty clear on the fact that those are Yang's ideas, that he's imposing very cynically on everyone else.  This from reading biographies of Mao Tse-Tung, whom he is very clearly drawn from.

In my mod version 1.43, I am experimenting with Miriam's view of Cybernetic.  Far from giving a JUSTICE bonus (my rename for EFFIC), it's going to give a JUSTICE penalty.  For exactly this problem of the slide towards the machine.  And because I'm moving the -2 POLICE penalty to Eudaimonic, where it fits better.  Why would cyborgs be opposed to using police?  They've got surveillance circuitry already wired into them.

The death of the individual is a question of degree.  I'm willing to roleplay the degrees.  To know that Yang is an individual, even if he doesn't want anyone else to be.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: Hierophant on May 15, 2020, 11:26:30 pm

bvanevery, you're a smart guy. I enjoy reading your AARs and I enjoy reading your responses. I've read your position on Yang and I am in total agreement with it. He is clearly, in my mind, the original faction leader most likely to enslave or kill his own citizens if need be. UN is definitely at the other end of the spectrum. Others are debatable.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: Nexii on May 16, 2020, 12:24:17 am

Yea I think they any increased unrest by Cybernetic would be met by better control. Cybernetic struck me as bad as Thought Control. Whether giving up control to machines or one individual, it would stlll be oppressive. Just in different ways.

They were onto something though. I think of the three future societies Cybernetic is the most likely of where we'll end up. The arts are continually degraded. You may never see a game as philosophical as SMAC created again.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: bvanevery on May 16, 2020, 02:24:18 am

I'm not dead yet.   :D  I just finished rewatching The Prisoner (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prisoner).  It's interesting to see how people approached these dystopias in the past.

I'm also starting to think of Cybernetic as cyberpunk, the kind of thing Morgan would do as a corporate dystopia.  This is partly driven by game mechanics, as I'm trying to get 3 distinct approaches to the 2nd half of the game.  I started thinking that Eudaimonic really should be the GROWTH and singing kumbaya with Planet faction, the one where everyone is actually happy.  That the Foreman Domai idea of it really doesn't work, that he's Socialist, not Eudaimonic.  Currently I've got the Caretakers as the new poster children for Eudaimonic.

I'm wrestling with the Data Angels for Thought Control, but what about the Usurpers?  Although, I think I have him more correct with Power.  He's more of a warmonger than a dictator.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: Hierophant on May 16, 2020, 07:44:14 am

How are Data Angels a Thought Control faction? I mean, I never play SMAX, but from the description and some of the quotes, they and the Pirates seem to be the more chaotic/anarchistic factions of SMAC/X, something which wasn't present in the original. They are after all supposed to be modeled after "hackers" and Internet groups. Nowadays we would see them more as a generalized version of Anonymous, kiwifarms or 4chan (minus the alt-right implications). I don't really see a group like that going for using thought control against themselves. Thought control doesn't make for good information workers.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: Nexii on May 16, 2020, 01:06:31 pm

It's probably more Roze's personality type. Though not a lot is said about Roze it could end up with her going mad and trying to control all information. Maybe that's a 180 but a lot of such anarchistic groups can come to believe they have the right to decide who does and doesn't get access to information. Free information for all can devolve into 'no one has privacy', which is a dystopian view. One that probably is a little closer to Thought Control than Cybernetic.

Pirates are probably more chaotic than anarchist. They are unpredictable but follow a stricter command structure. Pirate ships always had a captain and well-defined roles and duties. It's harder to place them in a Future SE as they all tend to some kind of order.

Title: Re: Telepathic Matrix
Post by: bvanevery on May 16, 2020, 03:40:28 pm

Roze, I reinterpreted her.  "Power corrupts.  Absolute power corrupts absolutely."  No, it's not the greatest fit ever, especially since I didn't rewrite much of her dialog.  But if you're gonna pick someone for Thought Control, who's available for the part?  You're not gonna pick Chairman Yang because he's doing Police State.  Might as well pick the gal who's always mind controlling everyone.

My Pirates actually aren't allowed to choose Thought Control.  They live free upon the waves.