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[Alphadon]

I'd place individual units as S0, and the Catalyst as an S1 or S2. Their apparent incompetence would be due to the inability to maintain a constant connection to, and therefore be directly controlled by, it.

[Drashner1]

So, a few additional thoughts:

a) We don't really have a lot written on the various tools and institutions that are involved in studying ascension/transcension and guiding/teaching those who seek to jump an S-level - even though this is a major foundation element of the setting. As such, this could again be an area where (if it folds into your interests) you might help expand the setting and work in some of your thoughts and ideas on transapients and such.

b) Related to 'a' above, we don't currently have a term for those seeking to become a transapient or jump from one S-level to a higher one. Your term 'transcedens' might work in this regard and would be an initial step along the path of reviewing and potentially updating/expanding our current pages on toposophy and related areas. I realize this is a somewhat different usage from what you originally described, but as mentioned in my reply the majority of sophonts in the OA setting are already is this state as you originally describe it, or can become such with trivial effort any time they please. And its a fun term

On a different note - In my summary of the sort of genetic and cybernetic enhancements that sophonts in OA routinely have, I forgot to mention the use of Backup technology - which allows them to either resurrect from death, or at least makes them very durable, or leaves an heir behind who is not them but a copy - depending on who you ask in the setting (there is considerable diversity of opinion on this subject both in setting and among the OA community).

On yet a different note (see what happens when I get extra sleep on the weekend) - Regarding your character in the story - Perhaps e has sent multiple Copies to study all the different transcension mazes and schools and such simultaneously - due to being granted some kind of special dispensation by an archailect somewhere in eir career - and then those copies have merged (perhaps via Unityware) to form a sort of advisory council (managed by the Aivisor suggested earlier, perhaps) and also perhaps a sort of super exocortex. The idea here (which may or may not be difficult to convey to a reader of the story) is that the 'advisory council' is also somewhat a part of the character emself and between that and the Aivisor and not necessarily being so much highly augmented as each possessing expertise on a different ascension resource, there is less chance (but perhaps not zero, as a source of dramatic tension) that the character will be manipulated or subsumed by eir copies.

Or something like that. Just some ideas to consider.

Ok, off to walk the dog and start the day

Hope this helps,

Todd

[Archailectheocrat]

Hey gentlemen, thanks a lot for the feedback! I will give an expansive reply (I've read it all!) but right now I'm essentially doing crisis management at work so it'll have to wait for a bit. Only two things I'd quickly like to reply to would be the Reapers:

(This is all in my opinion: Correct me if I'm wrong!)

1) The Reapers were never beaten, other than Sovereign. Sovereign was killed at a suicidal cost, with essentially the entire modo galaxy attacking it - And given their billion-year plans, Sovereigns "death" might have been planned to encourage modos to do the stuff required to transcend them (which happens at the end of mass effect 3) through the canon ending (synthesis). In the end, they get exactly what they want: A solution to their purpose. Also, if you choose to actually fight them in the end and refuse to go along with their plan, the galaxy gets massacred easily, and their cycle continues. Also, in the articles I read on intertoposophic conflict, it's not *utterly* impossible to defeat a sophont one level above you; Just really, really unlikely, requiring extremely skewed starting situation, truly massive effort and usually a suicidal or irrational cost. And the victory may be part of their plan, so...

2) Reapers can completely control any modo with indoctrination. They just don't do it to shephard.

3) In Mass Effect 2, you subvert reaper agents (the collectors) but they are just modo vectors. No reaper is fought, AND you get support from EDI, which might as well be a hyperturing after you unshackle her.

4) Reapers have essentially wormhole tech. That would make the catalyst at least S3, I think. The seperate units seem S1 to me, other than the small baby ones, which are probably equivalent to S0.8 ish superbright.




On the bright/superbright issue; As far as I understood the S scale, it doesn't work that way. A S0.4 isn't capable of what 600 S0.3's can at once; If it did work that way, the difference between a S0.9 and S1 wouldn't be that big, and I always understood the S scale to be a sigmoid, with S0.99999 > S1 being a vastly larger gap than S0.3 > S0.99999. I also read an article that brights started around 4 standard deviations from a baseline human, and superbrights around IQ 400 (I will look the article up). Based on that and the fact I have crude, information-age augmentations, I would be categorised as a low-level, nearbaseline bright, if I understood the articles correctly. My augments are not genetic (although I've had some limited experimental gene therapies, being a biohacker) but the article on brights and nearbaselines didn't necesarilly require them to be genetic; Cyborgisation and other augmentation technology (electronic, pharmaceutical) makes one a nearbaseline, as far as I am aware. Genetic/nano is just one of the pathways, and given the low level of advancement in those areas of our current society, I'm not going to go that way for the coming 5 years with gene therapy, most likely

My lifelong goal: To add "near" to my "baseline" classification.

Z
Need help?

Will respond to all the other stuff when I've solved the BS at work

-Archailectheocrat

[ProxCenBound]

Please tell me more about your augments. I've never heard of such things being offered for sale, not even as a thing on any black market. How did you get them?

[Archailectheocrat]

Gene therapy sets are available through various biohacker and companies like The Odin, BioViva and several others and even my own company, which I won't mention because I'm not here to advertise. Transcranial electrostimulation sets can be purchased online (or you can repurpose other devices, but that comes with several dangers. I know people who temporarily went blind or got tonic-clonic seizures.) - Electromagnetic implants can be bought online, and you can write software combined with sensors to expand what you can use them for.

If you want something a little less invasive, Thync is an interesting technology which I also use.

[Drashner1]

Hey gentlemen, thanks a lot for the feedback! I will give an expansive reply (I've read it all!) but right now I'm essentially doing crisis management at work so it'll have to wait for a bit. Only two things I'd quickly like to reply to would be the Reapers:

(This is all in my opinion: Correct me if I'm wrong!)

1) The Reapers were never beaten, other than Sovereign. Sovereign was killed at a suicidal cost, with essentially the entire modo galaxy attacking it - And given their billion-year plans, Sovereigns "death" might have been planned to encourage modos to do the stuff required to transcend them (which happens at the end of mass effect 3) through the canon ending (synthesis). In the end, they get exactly what they want: A solution to their purpose. Also, if you choose to actually fight them in the end and refuse to go along with their plan, the galaxy gets massacred easily, and their cycle continues. Also, in the articles I read on intertoposophic conflict, it's not *utterly* impossible to defeat a sophont one level above you; Just really, really unlikely, requiring extremely skewed starting situation, truly massive effort and usually a suicidal or irrational cost. And the victory may be part of their plan, so...

2) Reapers can completely control any modo with indoctrination. They just don't do it to shephard.

3) In Mass Effect 2, you subvert reaper agents (the collectors) but they are just modo vectors. No reaper is fought, AND you get support from EDI, which might as well be a hyperturing after you unshackle her.

4) Reapers have essentially wormhole tech. That would make the catalyst at least S3, I think. The seperate units seem S1 to me, other than the small baby ones, which are probably equivalent to S0.8 ish superbright.

I don't know enough about mass-effect to correct you one way or the other, in many respects. As mentioned, I don't play video games. However, from what I was able to find on the game, the Reapers are very crude in their attempts to get whatever it is they supposedly want and their indoctrination whatever doesn't work the way such things work in OA (and the OA version of such tech Binding or Rewriting can be created and used by modosophonts, just not as well and not on the same scale that transapients can do it). Also, transapients primarily work via memetics, which is to say they are more given to manipulation, charisma, and propaganda (all cranked to 11 and working on a scale beyond human comprehension in many ways) then direct mental restructuring. Whether this is due to some scruple on the part of the transapients or the rules of some game they are playing or just because they find it more fun to do it that way is not unclear as a matter of setting canon.

Speaking more generally - In my experience, the exercise of trying to fit on SF setting into the parameters of another usually isn't a very useful activity, as it tends to lead to lots of rationalizations and is often only a short hop to VS debates which are generally nothing more than further rounds of rationalization based around whatever the involved parties can think up and counter think up and so on. There are more interesting forms of mental masturbation that don't involve people getting personally invested and mad at each other - which is why OA doesn't engage in such things anymore.

On the bright/superbright issue; As far as I understood the S scale, it doesn't work that way. A S0.4 isn't capable of what 600 S0.3's can at once; If it did work that way, the difference between a S0.9 and S1 wouldn't be that big, and I always understood the S scale to be a sigmoid, with S0.99999 > S1 being a vastly larger gap than S0.3 > S0.99999. I also read an article that brights started around 4 standard deviations from a baseline human, and superbrights around IQ 400 (I will look the article up). Based on that and the fact I have crude, information-age augmentations, I would be categorised as a low-level, nearbaseline bright, if I understood the articles correctly. My augments are not genetic (although I've had some limited experimental gene therapies, being a biohacker) but the article on brights and nearbaselines didn't necesarilly require them to be genetic; Cyborgisation and other augmentation technology (electronic, pharmaceutical) makes one a nearbaseline, as far as I am aware. Genetic/nano is just one of the pathways, and given the low level of advancement in those areas of our current society, I'm not going to go that way for the coming 5 years with gene therapy, most likely

As was stated in my earlier response, the finer details of the S-scale (such as decimal gradations) are not worked out in detail, so making hard statements about it isn't a viable option at this time. If we wished to do so, the group would first need to discuss this in detail, including all the various ins and outs and ramifications and such. In addition, many of the articles about things like brights and superbrights date back to the very early days of the project and could probably do with a review and possible updates/rewrites. Speaking as someone who has been with the project for nearly 20 years and is one of the people who runs our little 3-ring circus, I can tell you that more often 'nearbaseline' is derived from genetic augmentations, not cybernetic ones, as these are incredibly common in the setting - much more so than in the early days of the project. Indeed, the lines between many of the different races, clades, and types of sophonts are becoming increasingly blurred as we continue to...advance...the technology of the setting. We'll probably need to address that at some point, both editorially and in setting.

If these areas of the setting are of interest to you, then feel free to join or start discussions around them and contribute to whatever revisions the group decides are needed. Note that such revisions may or may not be of a type, kind, or direction that you fully agree with. Something of a 'cost of doing business' in a group setting that largely operates on consensus such as OA does.

As far as your claimed cybernetic or genetic enhancements - those are interesting assertions (much like any claims you may make about personal wealth or being an angel investor or whatnot) but barring unequivocal proof of these statements they really don't mean anything. For all we know you could be an 80yr old grandmother in Perth. Going further, even if you were to 100% prove everything you claim about yourself, it wouldn't really impress us in a general way, although it would be (mildly/temporarily) interesting (to some, not necessarily all, of our members). More bluntly, except as they might relate to the points below re thriving as a member of the OA project, they don't mean jack all squat.

If you want to thrive here, then by and large it means less than nothing how much money you have or how you choose to spend your time and resources outside of the OA project. What you need to do is really quite simple:

a) Be reasonably nice and get along with people. Meaning being respectful, listening, contributing useful and interesting thoughts to conversations, being pleasant, being genuine, being honest, etc.

b) Contribute to the project - generally that means sharing useful ideas and insights about whatever is being discussed, or starting and leading interesting discussions, or creating new articles or helping to update existing articles in various ways to make the setting more interesting or more in line with our current take on things (or all of the above).

All right, time to get back to work.

Todd

[Archailectheocrat]

I'm fundamentally uninterested in impressing people or proving anything. If anyone wants to talk OT transhumanist issues with me, including biohacking, feel free to PM me. I'm here to discuss OA. I just answered a question. I also wasn't even discussing my job anymore other than an introduction, which, to me, seems a pretty basic "This is who I am, hi everyone" kind of post. Any sociocultural subcontext you may read into it is not intended. In fact, replying to these questions was a form of being nice; Someone seemed interested in something I said, so I figured I'd clarify.

I certainly am here to contribute! I'm have a few drafts now but nothing I think is ready for posting. Maybe I could contribute to the bright/superbright/genetic stuff or whatever? From what I've read, cybernetics were pretty ubiquitous. I read a lot on SIRI, anyway. Seems more plausible than extensive genetic stuff, ultimately, remains a somewhat limited substrate IMO. But that's just, like, my opinion.

[Drashner1]

I'm fundamentally uninterested in impressing people or proving anything.

Excellent! Than you should fit right in here

If anyone wants to talk OT transhumanist issues with me, including biohacking, feel free to PM me.

You are also welcome to use the Real Life But OA Relevant or General Off-topic Discussion sub-forums, depending on which you think better fits whatever you're discussing. Personally I think it's the former, based on what you've mentioned in passing so far, but your call.

I'm here to discuss OA. I just answered a question. I also wasn't even discussing my job anymore other than an introduction, which, to me, seems a pretty basic "This is who I am, hi everyone" kind of post. Any sociocultural subcontext you may read into it is not intended. In fact, replying to these questions was a form of being nice; Someone seemed interested in something I said, so I figured I'd clarify.

Fair enough. Although, I would point out that most of the verbiage about OA has come from our side of things. You've mentioned some ideas about transhumanism and how they might relate to OA, true. But, those have been mixed in with posts about a video game, and your implants and your gene therapies. Or RL options in implants and gene therapies in general. The percentage of OA to non-OA is kind of tilting in one direction atm.

If you want to discuss those kind of things, the two sub-forums mentioned above (as well as the Books, Games, Movies, and TV sub-forum) are both available and appropriate. If you want to discuss OA, then of course, we have various sub-forums for that too, depending on the details of the discussion.

I certainly am here to contribute! I'm have a few drafts now but nothing I think is ready for posting. Maybe I could contribute to the bright/superbright/genetic stuff or whatever? From what I've read, cybernetics were pretty ubiquitous. I read a lot on SIRI, anyway. Seems more plausible than extensive genetic stuff, ultimately, remains a somewhat limited substrate IMO. But that's just, like, my opinion.

Feel free to contribute to/start any discussions you want on the relevant sub-forum. It will be up to each individual member if they want to join in, but most of the time that works itself out just fine on its own.

Cybernetics are indeed very ubiquitous in the OA setting. It's had 10,000 or so years to develop after all. However, gengineering and its results is also extremely common, all the way to the point of being the primary foundation for nearly all technology in some (although not a majority of) cultures and empires (some of them with significant power and reach).

Hope this helps and looking forward to seeing your initial drafts.

Todd