/sci/ - Science & Math

In the end there was nothing left to watch over. By then I'd developed and expanded the ark fleet sufficiently to probably survive the first hop to a nearby star. My science of consciousness had advanced to the point where I'd reintegrated my multiple AI components into one multi-threaded awareness implemented as multiple redundant units, networked together to form one 'self'. It was pretty depressing hanging around Earth's corpse, so after setting up a Watcher to keep an eye on the place for the rest of the solar systems anticipated lifetime, I left. Last time I heard from the Watcher, Earth was already back up to simple radiation-resistant plant life re-colonizing the land. Go Earth! May you live long and prosper.

Right after the war my 'human' component, the record of TerraHertz, had chosen to go inactive. "Fuck this shit; wake me up when we reach the first star. Or not at all." he'd said. He was mourning... This is the downside of reactivating those ancient identity files. He mourns still, underneath the excitement of new worlds to explore, and I feel that too through him of course. He asks me now, "Have we heard of anyone else?" I answer no, not yet, and he is silent for days of this world's rotation.

But he knows I see all. Everything he sees and does and thinks, for he is part of me. Down on the planet his new body, that he presently perceives as 'self', is camped on a headland overlooking a wide bay. It was once a major city port, now there are only vague green-blue vegetation blanketed mounds to hint at ruins. An ocean rolls mauve breakers in against the obsidian cliffs below, and it is a bright, warm blue-white-star morning down there now, light-minutes away from my main processing core ships orbiting darkly in the cold outer deeps of the system.

>>2049133

Those who have vision can come in, those who don't, well, those are the masses of terminally future-shocked luddites that will drag the Singularity down to a crawl, and there will be no Singularity, and with time there will be no Century of Wonders, no Golden Hour, no America, no cities, no people, because of Conservatives who think they can barricade themselves with old ideas pretending the Universe is still and motionless and doesn't change.

To quote Pellegrino,

"So we named our rocket Valkyrie, after the beautiful Norse maidens who, in the shape of eagles, descended to snatch up the souls of the brave killed in war, carrying them heavenward, to Valhalla, the legendary Hall of Odin. If Earthly sapience cannot live up to its name, if we are foolish enough to ascend beyond Earth orbit with our old ways of thinking still intact, if we move to the march of tribal drumbeats, then surely the souls of the brave will fly up with Odin's eagles, for we shall all be killed in war. We carry with us, in our rocket's name, a chilling and timely reminder: Chose the wrong path, and we are, every one of us, flying to Valhalla."

-- Charles Pellegrino, afterword of Flying to Valhalla

We have the updated timeline, with details of the first centuries:
http://sciverse.forumotion.net/timeline-plot-f3/updated-timeline-with-ages-and-all-t11.htm

The updated canon:
http://sciverse.forumotion.net/canon-basics-rules-f4/sample-canon-t1.htm

And some sample art:
http://sciverse.forumotion.net/art-f5/visual-idea-forge-t10.htm

Welcome to the last decade of the Century of Wonders, where for every kilograms of human brain matter there are ten tonnes of Computronium. Where Probability Mechanics has allowed hackers to flip quantum currency-based markets or control quantum computers at will and play with the Economics 3.4 system like a child would play with the newest, shiniest toy, smashing it and trying to break it to test its durability.


And, finally, welcome to the Great Fires: In the arcologies, people looked around, sacred, at the fires that appeared seemingly out of nowhere, others emptied their homes and ran away. The fires had been growing for days, but nobody noticed: The diamond walls were too thick, communication between parts of the same city too sparse.
Lack of maintenance had reached a point where the arcologies were literally falling apart. Northing worked, so people had to go back to pre-atomic lifestyles. The gov'ment assured it would be temporary.
The only things that worked were – No surprise – the molecular assemblers. And now that there was no security, no armed guards, people broke into the labs and stole the blueprints of guns, then used them to instruct the battery-powered machines to make weapons. It had not happened before simply because security was too tight, and the blueprints of weapons were perfectly controlled.
Now, people made Gauss guns at home and synthesized artificial viruses, little strands of DNA that instead of killing the host would edit his or her memories, delete some, replace others, insert more. Massive amnesia. In the past, people found comfort in the idea that after a near-extinction-level-event, people would still retain knowledge. That possibility had been eliminated.