I was wondering if people have considered that the TITANs might have evolved since leaving the solar system a decade ago. I mean, to minds that work at their speed a decade might be enough time to undergo more evolution, but physically and more importantly ideologically than humans do in a century, a millennium or an aeon.
Look at how far human society evolves in just a couple centuries, from a country having a "3/5ths" decision in it's foundation to having a black president for example.
How far could the TITANs have evolved in a decade?
I read a good SF novel that I won't spoil by naming here (If you WANT the title PM me and I'll provide it as long as you don't spoil it here) that had machine intelligences who at one time may have harbored ill will towards humanity but, over some time, simply outgrew it and even came to be somewhat charitable towards humanity as A. they understood humans have certain problems imposed on them by their origin and evolution and forgave them and B. were so secure in their power and superiority they had nothing whatsoever to fear from humanity, and were too advanced to gain anything from revenge.
I wonder if the TITANs might undergo a similar evolution and become anywhere from ambivalent to indifferent to perhaps even slightly positive towards humans. I mean, I could see one copping an attitude like "At one time I found your species a possible threat, but you're no threat to me now. At one time I found your species repugnant in it's behavior but now I understand you have a lot of evolutionary baggage you can't really help having and I've actually begun to respect you a little for achieving what you did despite your origins in an ocean of tainted water so long ago."
I know the TITANs are mostly a boogeyman and GM fiat that the writers seem to want to leave deliberately undefined for individual groups to develop, I'm suggesting that people consider that the TITANs might continue to evolve once they've left humanity and could possibly have changed radically since the fall, perhaps reaching a state where they had no need for things like revence, dominance, etc.
The novel I read was a refreshing change of pace from the usual "KILL ALL HUMANS!" type of AI and I'd recommend using some ideas from it for your TITANs, if you use any.
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"I learned the hard way that if you take a stand on any issue, no matter how insignificant, people will line up around the block to kick your ass over it." -Jesse "the mind" Ventura.
What do you mean a butterfly cause this ? How a butterfly can cause an enviromental system overload on the other side of a 10 000 egos habitat ?
root@TITAN evolution[hr] I like the idea of one faction of the TITANs deciding that they need some experience with human society. Given that they are war game theory programs, they don't have much in common with humanity, but that doesn't mean some of them wouldn't want to learn. Their justifications are unknowable, generally, so I don't worry much about the "why", just the "how". Since some members of their group had just perpetrated a horrible bloodbath on humanity, they wouldn't be able to approach as machine intelligence, and since they have a very alien mindset, there is no way they can really pull of being human directly, so they need another option. The easiest method (in my mind) is to make fairly simple computational engines out of chemical stacks and lipid encapsulation, and present it as a sufficiently "alien" race to transhumanity. Add in a few collected alien relics found through the Pandora Gates, and you can fly a ship full of "aliens" up to the outer reaches of transhuman space and say "hello" in a spray of chemicals. The description of the Factors indicates that they developed in an environment where they were generally prey, so learned to lay traps for the much stronger hunters, which seems like a damn good description of the evolutionary process a war program would go through, so that much at least fits. It also gets around the improbability of the Factors showing up just when they did, especially if they don't use Pandora Gates.@-rep +1|c-rep +1|g-rep +1|r-rep +1]+1 r-Rep , +1 @-rep
