Safe Acension for Baseline Bob

[Drashner1]

Thank you Todd, the answers have been very helpful. I realized I have a few more questions though.

Certainly See my responses below...

Once a human ascends, how does a post human maintain themselves?

Do they require other beings in order to maintain them?

I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'maintain' in this context, so will answer this a couple of different ways to account for possible meanings. If you actually mean something else, please let me know and I can respond to that. Specifically:

1) If by 'maintain' you mean keep the machinery that runs their mind (and is their body(ies)) operational (the equivalent of eating, drinking, and breathing) then they can either draw on municipal energy and feedstocks in a civilized area or extract resources directly from the local environment in the 'wild'. The machinery that makes them up is so advanced as to be essentially alive, but much more capable than flesh and blood - at least if they want it to be. They can redesign and remake their bodies and minds pretty much at will.

I would expect that newly minted transapients are somewhat treated like children in the sense that both the transapient overseeing their ascension and transapient society as a whole is expected to provide a certain degree of support and education until they are 'mature' and can take their place within transapient society.

2) If by 'maintain' you mean having a source of income or equivalent, then again, they probably are treated initially as a sort of child or apprentice with society providing support until they can fully take care of themselves.

I read that there are possibly different "mind paths" to ascension, such that everyone ascends differently. Is this process of different paths in ascension random, or is it possible to control how the mind ascends?

Early in the timeline the process was basically random, however over time a body of knowledge and experience has grown up around the process of ascension, although there is still a degree of uncertainty unless the process is being managed by a transapient at least two S-levels above that of the being wishing to ascend. Otherwise, Y11K ascension techniques can provide a high degree of reliability that the resulting being will end up in pretty much the desired part of the 'landscape', but there may be some surprises around the edges and there is some change of things going in a totally unexpected direction.

I read that posthumans sometimes have two personalities, a pre- ascension one (ex. Bob wants to stay home with family) and a post- ascension one (ex. Bob wants to study esoteric space field). I know that S1 minds are beyond are comprehension, but are there any common behaviors among post humans other than sounding relatable until they say or do something that is incomprehensible to us mere baselines?

Well, different transapients (most of them arise from AIs rather than humans or other biologicals) align with the different sephirotic empires and their memetics. So we might presume that they agree with the memetic of their empire and so would behave in line with the behavior that memetic propounds. Or maybe they are just very good actors

Likely there are common behaviors in the same way that human beings or other animal species display common behaviors in addition to their individual personalities. But how many of these would be noticeable to human level minds, or correctly interpreted by them, is unclear.

Beyond that, it's not something we've played around with much tbh.

Is it possible for a S1 post human mind to remain in their heavily modified bodies, or do they require a much larger mind/ body in order to work? I saw on one of the charts that S1’s are typically about the size of a complex or a large space ship, with tech from the transapients.

A 'self-ascended' S1 brain masses 55kg and is 25cm on a side. Such could fit in a human torso, but would be a bit heavy for human muscles to carry. Although a vec body could easily do it, or something like a Goliath bio body.

However, a transapient can configure itself (brain and body both) in a vast number of ways. Depending on its desires (or needs) it could use a body of approximately human size and shape, or something much larger. Or it could split its mind across a swarm of much smaller bodies all networked together. Or it could spread itself across hundreds or thousands of different bodies, all of different sizes and shapes and functions. Or it could use some combination of these. And it could switch from one type and configuration of bodies to another as it wished. Or it could exist entirely as a 'ghost in the net', living as a purely virtual being in the cybercosms of Terragen civilization and having no specific location/switching locations from moment to moment. And again, it could switch from this state to an embodied state, or exist partially in both states at will.

An S1 brain built using S2 technology would be about 1.5cm on a side and so could fit its entirety in a much smaller body.

How long does the ascension process usually take?

It varies with the individual and with the process they are using to ascend. A godseed might do the process in a matter of hours or days. A more conventional process might take years, decades, or even centuries of gradual augmentation and training to mentally restructure oneself to accommodate the augments and finally attempt the final jump to a higher S-level successfully.

In some ways, ascending might be thought of as similar to studying martial arts and achieving a black belt. Some people are able to go through the process fairly quickly, others take much longer to do it. In many cases, the speed of the process is the result of both circumstances and personal drive.

Do polities legally consider the ascended humans as the same people as their pre- ascended personalities?

Ascended beings are probably considered the same people, but transcended beings are probably considered to be different people. Details probably differ from polity to polity. Some might consider the transcended to be the heirs of the original, others might consider them to have no connection to the original.

If I wanted to make baseline Bob into an S1 transapient, what modifications should he be given so that he could begin the process?

Initially probably a much expanded exoself, as well as a suite of augments to increase intelligence in various ways that will help Bob in eir study/training to become a transapient. As the process moves along, additional augmentations (both hardware and software) would likely be added.

What is the success rate/ survival rate among modosapient humans who attempt an ascension properly supervised by transapients?

By Y11k probably quite high - in the 80-90% rate or better, I would expect. Earlier in the timeline, things would be much iffier.

Hope this helps,

Todd