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Future Genders

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Mon, 2012-03-12 21:42

Axel the Chimeric Axel the Chimeric's picture

Future Genders

One of the major questions of Eclipse Phase and transhumanism in general is how you define yourself when your body is easily reshaped or exchanged. Age, ethnicity, sex, all become as easily cast off as an old haircut - even more easily if you're an infomorph. You don't need to be in the transhuman future to get a preview of the issues this naturally creates and questions it brings up. We already live in an age of the intermixing of old cultural norms, mass propagation of ideas, where a simple google search can show you someone who is transgendered, or transexual, or born a hermaphrodite, or who has simply chosen to otherwise snub traditional social roles assigned based on whether you have an extra Y or X chromosome. While most of us live in a homogeneous society, more or less, that follows fairly consistent guidelines on social roles for the sexes, the extent to which they are followed or flouted varies even by the neighbourhood you're in, yet alone which city. Now, the thing that's most interesting here is just why gender hasn't disappeared as a concept. It's actually quite useful, as with any sort of generalization (probably the greatest strength and weakness of the human mind is the ability to make generalizations), to be able to break people down into readily distinct categories. Gender is just a generalization along sexual lines, reinforced by societal stigmas. A great deal of social rules exist around the division, whether they have merit or not. This makes it fairly inevitable that interesting, unusual, and, in many cases, extremely local groupings are likely to arise to cover all the varied numbers of new and unusual biological/ideological groupings that will no doubt arise in the wake of morphic freedom. Hence this thread to discuss it. No doubt the Scum will feature heavily. Some proposed examples include... [b]Mother/Father gender[/b] While steadily diminishing in societies that support sexual equality, there are some notable cultural differences in male/female parental figures. Even if sex becomes an effectively arbitrary concept, how a person parents might determine their "parental gender". A parent who focuses on providing economic support for their charges and acts primarily to give a form of structure might identify as more fatherly, while those who provide emotional support and a more active role in providing opportunities for development might identify as more motherly. Naturally, such differences are likely more pronounced in cultures with strong backgrounds of extremely strict sexual roles that are suddenly released. [b]Vagabond/Settler[/b] The desire to keep moving or settle down has, in many cultures, been identified with gender. Men, historically, are the wanderers, women settle down. This, of course, is not necessarily the case now, nor is it likely to stay that way in so transitory a time as the transhuman future. However, it is a core difference of personality, and might be incorporated into any number of gender identities. A vagabond falling in love with a settler might get the same tutting and shaking of heads as two people of the same sex get today. "Have you seen Scarlet? She's been around with... One of them." "Oh, I know. It won't last. And in the meantime, it's the community that suffers. I want my children to have structure, not to have their minds filled with ideas by one of those... Freaks." I'm sure there's more possibilities than this. I deliberately avoided anatomical differences but I can't begin to imagine how many of those might be integrated into this.

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Mon, 2012-03-12 21:51

Prophet710 Prophet710's picture

Re: Future Genders

I don't know why but this kind of reminds me of the Jove from EVE. Where they attempted to dissect and change the basic blocks of our deeper genetics and ended up worse than when they started. The underlying deciding factor then would be consciousness, based on something like a scale from masculine on one end to feminine on the other. As of today we have masculine women and feminine men regardless of race, age, sexual preference etc. Settling down on gender might be just another coming of age event that a person experiences through their earlier years in life. Obviously other more 'T' type personalities can cope and even accept or thrive in change but I really don't see even a Near Extinction Event changing millions of years of evolution over the course of even a millenia.

—

"And yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this Earth with envious eyes. And slowly, and surely, they drew their plans against us."

Tue, 2012-03-13 07:50

Decivre

Re: Future Genders

[b]Protector/Breeder[/b] The classic pride configuration. One gender is expected to take care of the social group, while the other gender's primary function is to serve as a breeder. This generally works optimally with the breeder being male, but could theoretically work with female breeders (albeit having either a reduced population growth, or a collection of breeders shared amongst the pride). This gender structure is fairly flexible with regards to the status of a breeder, with them potentially being given a higher status (in which case the structure of the pride is similar to a harem, and could be the basis for a patriarchal society), a separate status (where the social group affixes little responsibility or purpose to a breeder outside of breeding, and is the template for an ant colony), or even a lower status (where the social group treats the breeder as effectively a slave or property... which could likely be the basis for a strict matriarchal society).

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Tue, 2012-03-13 08:28

Xagroth

Re: Future Genders

If you are asking about physical genders, there is a limited number: female, male, neuter (no gender at all), hermaphodite, and mixed (a mix of male and female characteristics). The point is that Eclipse Phase is TRANShuman, not POSThuman, meaning that, while things might change in the future, in AF10 I'd bet the 2 gender is the core (so, not going to go down to 1 gender, or up to 3, for example), keeping the other 3 options I mentioned before as mere derivates. As for gender-related roles, even today we have more "options" since the traditional family model has evolved into something else fo a few decades now. Traditionally, we had the two figures mentioned in the OP (mother that stays at home and raises the children, and father that provides security and resources that require more than just shepherding or gardening), but nowadays it's usual to see both parents working and the children either being by themselves (or with a sibling, or other relative that acts as a caretaker) or in specialized centers (nurseries, extra-scholar activities, etc...). The question in Eclipse Phase is how this things evolve. I'd say that the "poorer" (or less sophisticated) habitats, like the martian settlers, tend to go to the traditional system, while the hyperelite have few "human contact" with their offspring: having an heir because that's expected of them, in a custom-designed morph tailored by an artist and grown from the fetus stage inside a extrauterine system, then raised by maids and other servants. Also we have variations and everything in the middle. Remember that merging two different ego-cores can be considered a way of reproduction, "programming" an ego from scratch, or alpha-forking... Anyway, I think this stuff mostly applies to NPC's only (and by that I mean the "background NPCs" that usually don't even have a name unless they are somehow relevant to the story), so there shouldn't be much need of a deep view of things.

Tue, 2012-03-13 10:35

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Future Genders

I once tried to come up with a third gender that didn't fit into the assumptions about traditional male/female genders and ended up with... a cat. For example, males are supposedly socially hierarchical while females are socially egalitarian. Cats don't see the point: they are naturally individual. The male stereotype of seeking sex while females seek bonding leads to cat wanting brief but ultra-passionate flings. Males form friendships based on mutual interests, females for mutual support... so cats do it for economic gain or to do projects together. Men are stoic, females emotional, cats are intellectual. Men express anger, females express love-fear, cats express curiosity. And so on. Cats seem to be natural atomist libertarians, probably perfectly suited as consultants on extropia and in the less hierarchical hypercorps.

—

Tue, 2012-03-13 11:54

nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture

Re: Future Genders

Xagroth wrote:
If you are asking about physical genders, there is a limited number: female, male, neuter (no gender at all), hermaphodite, and mixed (a mix of male and female characteristics).

Firstly, the term you're looking for here is the individual's physical sex, or primary sexual characteristics. Gender is a bit more ambiguous, and there's a strong movement among psychologists and sociologists to say there's not two genders, but a 'gender spectrum' (which even then seems incomplete, because it implies there are only two poles). There's more than two sexes too. You have male, female, neuter, hermaphrodite, "mixed", tentacle, cone, inverting (i.e., sex-changing), multi-pronged, three-pronged, cat, depositor, "psexchics", abstract/imaginary, and by mail-order, to just name a few.

Tue, 2012-03-13 16:31

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Future Genders

Not to mention even trickier sexual preferences - which interact with sex and gender in really complex ways. One of the best moments in my game was when a PC in a pleasure pod morph tried to figure out the preferences of a person they wanted to interrogate so they could switch to the appropriate gender... but it turned out that he was mainly turned on by simspace sex with AIs in high-dimensional mathematical manifolds. The PC realized that they had met their match and gave up.

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Wed, 2012-03-14 08:46

Xagroth

Re: Future Genders

Well, I tried to stay on mostly human conception about physical gender (sorry for the misuse of the word early, its just not the same in spanish than in english ^^), because I think that usually it stays that way (there can be exceptions, of course, like the math-lover mentioned earlier) being EP a transhuman society.

Wed, 2012-03-14 15:07

King Shere King Shere's picture

Re: Future Genders

A "Mentor" gender,could exist, Forks that has diverged from the original (and other created minds ) -might refer to its "parent" as its mentor.

—

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Fri, 2012-03-16 15:51

#10

Xagroth

Re: Future Genders

King Shere wrote:
A "Mentor" gender,could exist, Forks that has diverged from the original (and other created minds ) -might refer to its "parent" as its mentor.

The would be the same as a bacteria talking about its progenitor as a "father". Asexual reproduction (cloning, or in EP, Forking) involves only one gender, after all.

Fri, 2012-03-16 23:26

#11

King Shere King Shere's picture

Re: Future Genders

Example for the mentor I was also considering the "Asexual" reproduction that was touched on in the end of Ghost in the Shell. And inspired somewhat from the situations that create new types of viruses.

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Sat, 2012-03-17 00:19

#12

Decivre

Re: Future Genders

King Shere wrote:
Example for the mentor I was also considering the "Asexual" reproduction that was touched on in the end of Ghost in the Shell. And inspired somewhat from the situations that create new types of viruses.

Except in the case of Ghost in the Shell, there was no parent remaining. In fact, there was no real reproduction... two beings became one. It was the inversion of normal parental structures, a decrease in population count as a byproduct of... whatever it is they did.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Sat, 2012-03-17 14:01

#13

King Shere King Shere's picture

Re: Future Genders

Isn't this thread about new future genders and thus "new" parental structures, not our old "normal" gender ones. In nature there exist reproduction that produces orphans. For example the Argiope_aurantia, The male becomes a meal for the mated female, and the female dies while protecting her still unborn eggs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argiope_aurantia

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Sat, 2012-03-17 14:52

#14

Decivre

Re: Future Genders

King Shere wrote:
Isn't this thread about new future genders and thus "new" parental structures, not our old "normal" gender ones. In nature there exist reproduction that produces orphans. For example the Argiope_aurantia, The male becomes a meal for the mated female, and the female dies while protecting her still unborn eggs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argiope_aurantia

I wasn't arguing that, I was arguing that it's hard to call something reproduction when it decreases the population count. Even in scenarios where animal species die off during birth, they generally add to the total population by creating more spawn than had died in the process. Motoko and the Puppetmaster both ceased to exist, creating one child in the process. It's the inversion of reproduction. If every human "bred" in this manner, we'd eventually be left with one human.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Sat, 2012-03-17 18:13

#15

King Shere King Shere's picture

Re: Future Genders

True, but several EP societies have access to forking & that would fix that issue. The reproduction that fused new individuals would perhaps be similar to the sexual reproduction that creates zygote cell. Its intended to fork and multiply itself (zygocyte divides though).

Quote:
A zygote or zygocyte, is the initial cell formed when two gamete cells are joined by means of sexual reproduction. In multicellular organisms, it is the earliest developmental stage of the embryo. In single-celled organisms, the zygote divides to produce offspring, usually through meiosis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zygote

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Sat, 2012-03-17 21:47

#16

LatwPIAT

Re: Future Genders

Decivre wrote:
I wasn't arguing that, I was arguing that it's hard to call something reproduction when it decreases the population count. Even in scenarios where animal species die off during birth, they generally add to the total population by creating more spawn than had died in the process. Motoko and the Puppetmaster both ceased to exist, creating one child in the process. It's the inversion of reproduction. If every human "bred" in this manner, we'd eventually be left with one human.

The conversation in the animated movie is a shortened version of the one in the graphic novel, where it's stated that the merged form will fork and mutate itself to create a form of "offspring" that carries it's "genes". Furthermore, the sequel shows that a variety of Puppetmaster/Kusanagi "children" exist,

Spoiler: Highlight to view

in addition to the merged parent

, so as such the population count definitively goes up in the sense that more individuals exist.

—

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Sun, 2012-03-18 04:11

#17

Decivre

Re: Future Genders

King Shere wrote:
True, but several EP societies have access to forking & that would fix that issue. The reproduction that fused new individuals would perhaps be similar to the sexual reproduction that creates zygote cell. Its intended to fork and multiply itself (zygocyte divides though).

True to an extent, but then the process of forking is the reproductive function. Merging still is a negative-output process contrary to reproduction. And truth be told, if any of you people can't stand me, you'd better start praying that fork technology never comes about. For I will descend upon this planet like a horde of locusts....

LatwPIAT wrote:
The conversation in the animated movie is a shortened version of the one in the graphic novel, where it's stated that the merged form will fork and mutate itself to create a form of "offspring" that carries it's "genes". Furthermore, the sequel shows that a variety of Puppetmaster/Kusanagi "children" exist,
Spoiler: Highlight to view
in addition to the merged parent
, so as such the population count definitively goes up in the sense that more individuals exist.

Actually, the movie and the manga didn't really follow the same exact plot. In my opinion, the second movie more implied that Motoko-2501 is multipresent... one person capable of being several places at once. Though I will agree that the manga seems to lean in the direction of forking.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Sun, 2012-03-18 04:12

#18

CodeBreaker CodeBreaker's picture

Re: Future Genders

Decivre wrote:
And truth be told, if any of you people can't stand me, you'd better start praying that fork technology comes about. For I will descend upon this planet like a horde of locusts....

I am hoping that the army of Arenamontanus' that will hopefully arise will be enough to offset my horror. :D

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Sun, 2012-03-18 05:39

#19

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Future Genders

CodeBreaker wrote:
I am hoping that the army of Arenamontanus' that will hopefully arise will be enough to offset my horror. :D

No guarantees on the horror, but we-legion promise to make the world much more interesting... Forking as reproduction is a bit slow, since the forks will only slowly diverge. Some copyclades might even deliberately prevent them from diverging too far or police themselves... others will happily become anything. There is also the option of deliberately randomizing a few things each time you fork or reinstantiate yourself. A PC has this as a feature to stave off ennui: each time he dies he comes back "regenerated" with slightly altered personality and outlook. I doubt it will catch on.

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Mon, 2012-03-19 08:39

#20

Xagroth

Re: Future Genders

Using forking to increase population reduces variety. Merging forks (in a pre-calculated manner to optimize divergence and avoid as much as "inbreeding" as possible) would eventually produce a very homogeneous society, negating the purpose of reproduction (hint: evolution of the species). WARNING: GHOST IN THE SHELL POSSIBLE SPOILERS As for the Ghost in the Shell example... Oh dear XD. I have (and watched/seen) the original movie and the second movie (in 3D, with Batou as the protagonist), which are on one "continuity", and both seasons of the animated series (Stand Alone Complex & SAC: 2nd GIG), the Solid State Society movie, and the three books published (Ghost in the Shell, Manmachine Interface, and the one "inbetween" which is 4 short stories related to Section 9). With all this baggage, I'd say: - The puppeteer & Kusanagi integrated themselves into one being. - They "forked" themselves "off-camera" - The forks were released in the world, and merged with other people (then forking themselves, and repeating). Eventually, those forks would go to the original 2501-Kusanagi fork and merge (thus increasing the amount of knowledge). - Sometimes, the forks end fighting among themselves without knowing it. Other times, they know one another. In any case, I'd say that Manmachine Interface is posterior to the Solid State Society movie, where Kusanagi is still close to be the "her" in GITS and SAC, and she is surprised to see a fork of herself as her antagonist (probably an accidentally fork, produced by too much spreading of the ego forcing to copy parts of itself into some of the puppet-socks, eventually producing one pseudo-complete fork with a concrete set of priorities that were only a part of Kusanagi's). As for her capability of running several bodies at once without penalty and directly, you can do that in EP with ghost rider modules or multitasking implants (or the one that allows for the creation of forks of short duration). She is just limited to bodies... at that time.

Mon, 2012-03-19 09:36

#21

Decivre

Re: Future Genders

Xagroth wrote:
Using forking to increase population reduces variety. Merging forks (in a pre-calculated manner to optimize divergence and avoid as much as "inbreeding" as possible) would eventually produce a very homogeneous society, negating the purpose of reproduction (hint: evolution of the species).

You are assuming that evolution is still necessary once artificial improvement becomes a possibility. When a factory randomly throws out products with mutations, we don't call it progress... we call it a defect. The same will be true once we can alter and improve ourselves. The "evolution" of a transhuman is less about nature, and more about technological progress. Whereas the natural species "adapts", the transhuman "upgrades". Evolution becomes unnecessary. And when evolution is unnecessary, variety may be unnecessary as well. Why have a thousand minds with a thousand different professions when you can merge them into one mind with a thousand different professions?

Xagroth wrote:
WARNING: GHOST IN THE SHELL POSSIBLE SPOILERS As for the Ghost in the Shell example... Oh dear XD. I have (and watched/seen) the original movie and the second movie (in 3D, with Batou as the protagonist), which are on one "continuity", and both seasons of the animated series (Stand Alone Complex & SAC: 2nd GIG), the Solid State Society movie, and the three books published (Ghost in the Shell, Manmachine Interface, and the one "inbetween" which is 4 short stories related to Section 9). With all this baggage, I'd say: - The puppeteer & Kusanagi integrated themselves into one being. - They "forked" themselves "off-camera" - The forks were released in the world, and merged with other people (then forking themselves, and repeating). Eventually, those forks would go to the original 2501-Kusanagi fork and merge (thus increasing the amount of knowledge). - Sometimes, the forks end fighting among themselves without knowing it. Other times, they know one another.

One of my favorite elements of Shirow's work is that he loves to make his fiction open to interpretation. For instance, we never find out who the Puppeteer of the Solid State Society was. It could have been any number of people, including Kusanagi herself. In that same vein, many elements we are talking about here are interpretable. You might see Kusanagi as having forked and merged multiple times, but I never saw any reference to such actions in the movies... so I'm going to assume that within the context of the setting it is either impossible or unnecessary for her. After all, the Puppetmaster displayed the ability to control people without having to possess their bodies, so I have no doubt that Kusanagi had the same capability after they merged. In the manga, I agree. There were instances where Kusanagi would come in conflict with herself (this may just hint at psychosis, however, and does not necessitate forking). The same could be said if Kusanagi was also the Puppeteer in Solid State Society. But otherwise, there isn't much that hints at forking in the series proper.

Xagroth wrote:
In any case, I'd say that Manmachine Interface is posterior to the Solid State Society movie, where Kusanagi is still close to be the "her" in GITS and SAC, and she is surprised to see a fork of herself as her antagonist (probably an accidentally fork, produced by too much spreading of the ego forcing to copy parts of itself into some of the puppet-socks, eventually producing one pseudo-complete fork with a concrete set of priorities that were only a part of Kusanagi's). As for her capability of running several bodies at once without penalty and directly, you can do that in EP with ghost rider modules or multitasking implants (or the one that allows for the creation of forks of short duration). She is just limited to bodies... at that time.

Nah, I find that there is a vast difference in the capabilities of Kusanagi, depending on which version of the series you are talking about. Stand Alone Complex Kusanagi tends to be the least capable, but still a damn fine hacker. Manga Kusanagi is vastly powerful, but seems to be struggling with understanding her capabilities. Movie Kusanagi is a veritable god, and has hints of being a virtual Dr. Manhattan (get it? virtual?!), only being mildly interested in the events surrounding Batou, if only so she can help (which shows she still cares about him).

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Mon, 2012-03-19 17:35

#22

Xagroth

Re: Future Genders

The puppeteer in Stand Alone Complex is showed to be one of Kusanagi's "puppet morphs". What do you find more difficult, a residual part of Kusanagi's ego acting like that, or a hacker being able to get inside her defenses, erase her ability to notice she "lost" a body, and keep her in the dark and out of the computer system there? Also consider how strong is the similarity between GitS and SSI endings... both end with the antagonist in the ground, dying, and Kusanagi tries to interface with him, and the sequences are too carbon-copy. Sure, Shirow recycles a lot between his works, but one can think that the part of her that started that was more part of 2501 with some of her motivations than any other thing, and that episode showed her that she needed to sort her mind (placing her on the Manmachine Interface position in orbit, with full access to all her capabilities). You could say that she was still integrating 2501 in her psyche (a slow process, since we are talking about a merge of really different egos wihtout much desire to rush it and risk insanity). Also, she is shown in the beginning as a darwinist of sorts while at the end she looks a lot like a Singularity Seeker.

Decivre wrote:
Nah, I find that there is a vast difference in the capabilities of Kusanagi, depending on which version of the series you are talking about. Stand Alone Complex Kusanagi tends to be the least capable, but still a damn fine hacker. Manga Kusanagi is vastly powerful, but seems to be struggling with understanding her capabilities. Movie Kusanagi is a veritable god, and has hints of being a virtual Dr. Manhattan (get it? virtual?!), only being mildly interested in the events surrounding Batou, if only so she can help (which shows she still cares about him).

You are talking about "Innoncence" Kusanagi (the 3D movie that follows the first GitS movie), where she is called "the holy ghost" by Batou at the end, when she finally shows up. In Manmachine Interface she is shown as a composite entity of two egos, while the protagonist is a third ego that is, in fact , a fork that merged with other egos (or a previous version of herself). At least, in EP terms I think it would be like that. In the intermediate book that collects about 4 histories (Human-Error Processor 1.5) she just shows up as an operative of sorts, and I'd place it even before Solid State Society. Also, remember that forking and merging might have been discovered by her... (while we are talking about a different continuity, she mentions to Batou that those dolls didn't had enough capacity to contain her well, so she had only copied basic parts of herself... so you can interprete that she sent a really limited Beta fork, or even a Delta one...). Anyway, I'd like to say that, translated to EP, the PuppetMaster is using mainly Psychosurgery to "hack" people in both the movie and the manga (that people gets their memories altered, after all). The hacking capabilities are required to get inside the cyberbrain, and the process can be accelerated a lot thanks to the cybernetic augmentations. On the contrary, Kusanagi uses almost only electronic warfare, especially in the finishing phases of the Laughing Man metaplot in the first season (they don't go as wild in 2nd GiG, however, and I'd like to mention how closely the ending of that series resembles the first pages of the old manga).

Mon, 2012-03-19 20:09

#23

Decivre

Re: Future Genders

Xagroth wrote:
The puppeteer in Stand Alone Complex is showed to be one of Kusanagi's "puppet morphs". What do you find more difficult, a residual part of Kusanagi's ego acting like that, or a hacker being able to get inside her defenses, erase her ability to notice she "lost" a body, and keep her in the dark and out of the computer system there?

Considering how skilled the Puppeteer was, it's a possibility. He did after all hack into her mind after she jumped into his honeypot to find out about what was going on. Remember, Kusanagi isn't nearly as capable in the GitS:SAC series as she is in the original or movie series. She never gained the vast powers of the Puppet Master. She's just a damn skilled hacker.

Xagroth wrote:
You are talking about "Innoncence" Kusanagi (the 3D movie that follows the first GitS movie), where she is called "the holy ghost" by Batou at the end, when she finally shows up. In Manmachine Interface she is shown as a composite entity of two egos, while the protagonist is a third ego that is, in fact , a fork that merged with other egos (or a previous version of herself). At least, in EP terms I think it would be like that. In the intermediate book that collects about 4 histories (Human-Error Processor 1.5) she just shows up as an operative of sorts, and I'd place it even before Solid State Society.

You can't really place Solid State Society and Human-Error Processor in the same timeline. It's two different universes. It's like Ultimate Spiderman and 616 Spiderman... one's dead, the other isn't. Two different characters.

Xagroth wrote:
Also, remember that forking and merging might have been discovered by her... (while we are talking about a different continuity, she mentions to Batou that those dolls didn't had enough capacity to contain her well, so she had only copied basic parts of herself... so you can interprete that she sent a really limited Beta fork, or even a Delta one...).

Actually, I saw it as being interpretable in a number of ways. She may have been able to separate her ghost and core personality from her skills, effectively using them as skillsofts per se (hence why she complains that she couldn't even transfer her combat protocols into the gynoid... it couldn't handle her vast skills and the amount of memory it would require).

Xagroth wrote:
Anyway, I'd like to say that, translated to EP, the PuppetMaster is using mainly Psychosurgery to "hack" people in both the movie and the manga (that people gets their memories altered, after all). The hacking capabilities are required to get inside the cyberbrain, and the process can be accelerated a lot thanks to the cybernetic augmentations. On the contrary, Kusanagi uses almost only electronic warfare, especially in the finishing phases of the Laughing Man metaplot in the first season (they don't go as wild in 2nd GiG, however, and I'd like to mention how closely the ending of that series resembles the first pages of the old manga).

Definitely, but I think it should be noted that the mind seems to be far easier to hack in GitS than it is in Eclipse Phase. Ghost editing is a common hacker skill in GitS, and it tends to be as easy as getting past someone's cyberbrain barriers and modifying files. In EP, the process of editing a mind is vastly complex because you are essentially editing a digital brain model, and you can't even do it without trapping their mind in simulspace. Plus, brain hacking doesn't even require a full cyberbrain. Togusa gets hacked and controlled by the Puppeteer despite having a fairly small amount of modification. It seems that so long as your mind can access the net, you can be controlled by a skilled hacker in GitS.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Tue, 2012-03-20 08:27

#24

Xagroth

Re: Future Genders

Keeping with the derailment... XD Togusa has a cyberbrain, like all the characters in Section 9: it is required of them. The cyberbrain provides a bridge between digital stuff and the brain, so if you hack the cybeerbrain you can access the brain. While in EP it takes more (real) time than in GitS, the use of psychosurgery is almost the same in both: in GitS you need to hack your way to the brain (same in EP, but you will usually bypass this thanks to directly plugging, sometimes needed because Mesh Inserts don't qualify as cyberbrain, so you might need an ego bridge). However, if the target has a cyberbrain, you can trap him inside his mind, accelerate time inside it, and use psychosurgery at an accelerated rate (the same way people try to make blueprints faster) and get the same results. As for the continuity, I'd say that it goes as follows: Anime: Ghost in the Shell -> GitS Innocence Series: Standalone Complex -> STA 2nd GIG -> Solid State Society Manga: Ghost in the shell -> Human Error Processor 1.5 -> Manmachine Interface However, given the amount of recycling and reutilization Shirow uses, you can say that Human Error Processor takes place between 2nd GIG and Standalone Complex, and after that comes Solid State Society, then Manmachine Interface. Also, consider that you don't really need to place the GitS manga as a whole in a place of the continuity, it is, after all, comprised of different chapters that don't need to have a direct relation between them save for the characters involved, unlike what we see in Manmachine Interface,, where the whole tank is a single, long story. Also, the "godly powers" Kusanagi has in GitS and not later points simply to actualization: she was ahead of everybody else, but for a time her advantage shortened. Then, in MMI we see that Motoko Aramaki is considered to have the speed of an AI as her most definite advantage (plus her endless experience in all that set of operations that allows her to stay one or two steps ahead of everybody else)... and then she ends being curvstomped by the Kusanagi on orbit, despite having several AIs on her side and the most powerful computer on Earth... If that is not to have godlike powers... XD

Tue, 2012-03-20 09:24

#25

Decivre

Re: Future Genders

Xagroth wrote:
Keeping with the derailment... XD Togusa has a cyberbrain, like all the characters in Section 9: it is required of them. The cyberbrain provides a bridge between digital stuff and the brain, so if you hack the cybeerbrain you can access the brain. While in EP it takes more (real) time than in GitS, the use of psychosurgery is almost the same in both: in GitS you need to hack your way to the brain (same in EP, but you will usually bypass this thanks to directly plugging, sometimes needed because Mesh Inserts don't qualify as cyberbrain, so you might need an ego bridge). However, if the target has a cyberbrain, you can trap him inside his mind, accelerate time inside it, and use psychosurgery at an accelerated rate (the same way people try to make blueprints faster) and get the same results.

Sort of. Psychosurgery in GitS is a bit more clean, and it doesn't seem too hard for someone to erase and edit memories in such a way as to leave the target completely fooled. Eclipse Phase hints that memory editing and erasing isn't nearly as clean-cut, and erasing any given memory risks accidentally deleting others. GitS's psychosurgery actually has more in common with editing someone's mnemonic augmentations, which record memories as files and can be altered in a similar manner. Then there's the forking and merging. GitS mostly avoids the concept of forking altogether, because of the inherent problems with ghost dubbing. Kusanagi, if she has the ability, is the sole exception, not the rule. Eclipse Phase has the opposite view of this, and assumes that forking is a largely painless affair. On the other hand, Kusanagi and the Puppet Master merge into one being near-seamlessly, within a split second as their heads are being souped by snipers. Merging isn't nearly as elegant in Eclipse Phase, and so far as we know is pretty much impossible to efficiently do between people that aren't forks of one another, let alone forks that have been separated an extended time. Granted, Kusanagi is the only person we ever see merging with another mind, so this may just be another instance of her being exceptional. So there are quite a bit of differences.

Xagroth wrote:
As for the continuity, I'd say that it goes as follows: Anime: Ghost in the Shell -> GitS Innocence Series: Standalone Complex -> STA 2nd GIG -> Solid State Society Manga: Ghost in the shell -> Human Error Processor 1.5 -> Manmachine Interface However, given the amount of recycling and reutilization Shirow uses, you can say that Human Error Processor takes place between 2nd GIG and Standalone Complex, and after that comes Solid State Society, then Manmachine Interface. Also, consider that you don't really need to place the GitS manga as a whole in a place of the continuity, it is, after all, comprised of different chapters that don't need to have a direct relation between them save for the characters involved, unlike what we see in Manmachine Interface,, where the whole tank is a single, long story.

Recycling is a common thing for many artists and even groups. Marvel comics recycles plots for its Ultimate universe quite often from the original one. It doesn't mean the two are interconnected. Besides, Shirow admits that the three different series are largely just different vehicles for the same philosophical statements he has. That's really what the whole series is about anyways... giving him a soapbox for his futurist views.

Xagroth wrote:
Also, the "godly powers" Kusanagi has in GitS and not later points simply to actualization: she was ahead of everybody else, but for a time her advantage shortened. Then, in MMI we see that Motoko Aramaki is considered to have the speed of an AI as her most definite advantage (plus her endless experience in all that set of operations that allows her to stay one or two steps ahead of everybody else)... and then she ends being curvstomped by the Kusanagi on orbit, despite having several AIs on her side and the most powerful computer on Earth... If that is not to have godlike powers... XD

Those are her advantages in the manga, but in the movies it has more to do with the fact that she was merged with a military AI weapon. She's the closest thing to a TITAN or Promethean that the GitS universe has by that point.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Thu, 2012-03-22 09:33

#26

Xagroth

Re: Future Genders

Mmmm I largely agree with all you say, but for the merging being done in a second. It would be more logical to assume that the process will take time, and that the puppet master decided to give Kusanagi the dominant part because she is much much better at survival in the real world than, well, almost anybody else. So the process might have already started, in microsteps, or might be waiting for the right conditions (that is, the setup of a place where she can lay down for some time without being turned into salami). Also, in the movie Kusanagi gets shot in the neck (thanks to Batou), while in the manga things happen in a more calmly way. Oh, regarding forking, I'd say that while Alpha forking demands a big price (see that "freedom fighter" in one of the SAC episodes, or in the manga...), creating a beta or delta is much, much more easy, at least for a limited amount of time and number of tasks (again, the manga). It won't be an ego per se, but close enough to be more than a vapor, at least.

Fri, 2012-03-23 00:11

#27

Decivre

Re: Future Genders

Xagroth wrote:
Mmmm I largely agree with all you say, but for the merging being done in a second. It would be more logical to assume that the process will take time, and that the puppet master decided to give Kusanagi the dominant part because she is much much better at survival in the real world than, well, almost anybody else. So the process might have already started, in microsteps, or might be waiting for the right conditions (that is, the setup of a place where she can lay down for some time without being turned into salami).

I say it was instantaneous if only because ghost dubbing is very difficult in the setting, and the amount of time that passed between Kusanagi agreeing to merge, the merging, and Motoko-2501 jettisoning to the internet (something that wouldn't have been safely feasible before the merge) was an extremely small window. We are talking seconds.

Xagroth wrote:
Also, in the movie Kusanagi gets shot in the neck (thanks to Batou), while in the manga things happen in a more calmly way.

That's true, but I generally speak about the movie. I didn't read all of the manga (never had a chance to, I was borrowing from a friend).

Xagroth wrote:
Oh, regarding forking, I'd say that while Alpha forking demands a big price (see that "freedom fighter" in one of the SAC episodes, or in the manga...), creating a beta or delta is much, much more easy, at least for a limited amount of time and number of tasks (again, the manga). It won't be an ego per se, but close enough to be more than a vapor, at least.

From what I remember, there are no beta or gamma forks. Most attempts at ghost dubbing are unsuccessful, and result in the equivalent of gamma forks. Puppetmaster (and Kusanagi after the merge) were the only two capable of truly transferring their conscious to the net, because Puppetmaster had the unique trait of being a digital ghost (which had never existed before him). Tough to say about SAC, however. Clearly the Tachikomas have ghosts once they become intelligent, but the series seemed to allow for ghost dubbing in a more safer manner. I remember one episode where they find a single box with a virtual world containing a movie theater where many people live inside and continue to watch a movie forever. That to me screams that ghost dubbing is possible, otherwise how would these people have been able to transfer their minds into this box? Of course, SAC had quite a few technological differences from the movie and manga (like the fact that the Major didn't need to be nude to be invisible, and the fact that everyone seemed to use stealth in Section 9... the former likely to tone down the adult content of the series). And besides OH MY GOD WE'VE COMPLETELY DERAILED THIS THREAD!!!

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Fri, 2012-03-23 13:06

#28

Xagroth

Re: Future Genders

Decivre wrote:
And besides OH MY GOD WE'VE COMPLETELY DERAILED THIS THREAD!!!

My job here is done XD About the fork, just to end this, It's a way in which Kusanagi escapes some problems. Kinda like the aftermath of the Laughing Man Case in SAC, in the rooftop. Just... different.