>>603722
>That would likely cause a time paradox. Telling her past self directly to study a different thing than what she did in the original time would likely cause a parallel universe to form, one where she went back in time and one where she didn't
Well yeah, but that would mean she's travelling to alternate universes to absorb memories from herself, who knows of her own ultimate goal and would put up with the memory extraction procedure by her own admission.

I think there's a more efficient way to go about this.
Time travel, unless I'm badly misunderstanding the mechanics, allows for infinite computational power, as no matter how long it takes to run a program, you get the results instantly. Even if the program runs longer than the universe, you can send what progress you've made back however many times it takes to complete it.
Infinite computation allows for a number of cool things; most relevant here is the ability to simulate a universe in perfect detail; and not just a single universe, but ALL POSSIBLE universes, because infinite computing power makes infinite tasks trivial.
A perfect simulation of a person is the same thing as that person; if you have two copies of a computer document, deleting one does not mean the document ceases to exist. Thus, saving someone in a simulation is the same as saving them outside of a simulation, and much easier; saving someone outside requires fucking around with clones and robot doubles, while saving someone within a simulation is just a matter of point and click. (Once you've gotten the programming groundwork done, obviously.)
What's more, this makes saving absolutely everyone plausible, since it requires no extra logistics beyond the time machine and computer itself, and any manpower obstacles can be solved by giving selected individuals within the simulation admin powers, or simply copy-pasting yourself a few vigintillion times.

>>609820
Eh...the clone isn't actually the person, though. The original body still died. Unless you can confirm that perfectly replicating someone's brain resurrects them, there's still the issue of people being unsaved.

She is clearly onto SOMETHING, or she would've imploded in some kind of horrible time paradox event or something by now. The only question here is how much she is getting right and how much is just her being nuts.
>>603722
Good question! Why hasn't she?

>>609993
Well, the way I see it is that minds are sort of like books. If you have two copies of a book, and you destroy one, the book continues to exist. In order for a book to actually be destroyed, you would need to hunt down and destroy every copy of that book. The important thing about a mind is its information content, the thoughts it thinks. The specific physical substrate those thoughts are being thought with is of secondary importance.

Polokoa 2015/01/27(Tue)03:18 No. 622447 ID: 7bc1b7
File 142235751343.png - (119.75KB , 600x600 , motivationsupdate0.png )

>But we already sent it back.

>[Um, no we haven’t. We’re standing in it right now.]

>A perfect simulation of a person is the same thing as that person
>Well, the way I see it is that minds are sort of like books. If you have two copies of a book, and you destroy one, the book continues to exist.

You’re an AI. How would you feel about a perfect copy being made of you, and then you being killed while leaving them to go on? I’ve had enough experience with clones and alternate universes to know it doesn’t work like that. From the perspective of the universe, maybe, but not for the one who gets to die. As for Rokolo, I’m getting the feeling that bringing the dead back isn’t even her real ultimate goal, emotionally speaking. If she just wanted to meet them again she would visit them in another timeline.

>Does she HAVE to keep killing and lobotomizing her alternate selves to absorb their memories? Why hasn't she developed a mind-copier yet?

You’d have to ask her. But, she doesn’t exactly kill the alternates herself in any case: she just leaves them in a state where they can’t function to the best of their ability. My problem is how many times she’s done that at the wrong time for them, so that they end up getting themselves killed or not being able to save others.

She seems to be cooling down, but her empathy still feels strange. Sort of-

Polokoa 2015/01/27(Tue)03:19 No. 622448 ID: 7bc1b7
File 142235755240.png - (96.55KB , 600x600 , motivationsupdate1.png )

Hold on. Her mood shifted.

Polokoa 2015/01/27(Tue)03:21 No. 622450 ID: 7bc1b7
File 142235771324.png - (226.73KB , 600x600 , motivationsupdate2.png )

“Right, forget my issues. It doesn’t matter! I’ve got everything I need. How about we continue this conversation up above? You’d better be more persuasive than you have been, because you just missed your chance to pull the plug.”

Hm.

“Have I? You’re not at home, Rokolo. Unless you’ve got a set of warp drives and a pack of fusion reactors in your pockets, you’re still not going anywhere.”

“This is the asteroid! There are crashed ships all over. I can put something together.”

“By yourself? With every authority in this version of the galaxy after you?”

Polokoa 2015/01/27(Tue)03:22 No. 622451 ID: 7bc1b7
File 142235775594.png - (194.64KB , 600x600 , motivationsupdate3.png )

>Polokoa has input if she agrees to help - including demands, such as Rokolo stopping her mad antics once she's accomplished the supposed end to justify the means. Maybe she can get Dastrica to untangle her psyche, too.
>You could help her.

“Maybe you could pull it off, but without my help it’s not likely. You don’t have your clones, you don’t have your secret labs, and you’re not on a full-size planet too dangerous to be fully charted. I don’t get along perfectly with the authorities in the rest of the galaxy, but you won’t get along with them either if I tell them about you, and I wouldn’t even need to. You think my dimension is ridiculous and unrealistic? Well, it is. I have ninjas.”

I’m starting to wish I’d brought some of them with me.

“But we don’t have to do that. At least, that’s what I’d like to say. What I would like, if I could, is to actually offer you my help.”

“… Yeah?”

“I can get you resources you could never have in your own dimension. You can pick assistants from across the galaxy, multiple CAIs, experimental military technology, test ranges, all of it. You don’t even need to stop visiting other timelines: I’ll go with you and help you convince those Polos and Rokoas to lend you their memories. But first of all, there’d be conditions.”

“Of course there would.”

“You have to have patience. If you’re after a version of Polo that’s trying to stop a city being blown up, we wait before waylaying her. We try to convince her, and if she’s not going to say yes, we move on. There’ll be some other version of her with the same skills who’ll say yes, somewhere. You’re the one who just said time wasn’t a factor, weren’t you? But here’s where we start running into problems, because I’ll be the one saying whether we move on or not. That applies to the whole project. You can run it, but I’m in charge, and if I say you stop doing something, you stop. I say what ideas become reality. And to help those ideas be good ones, my next condition would be that you visit a therapist and-“

“You want to send me to the couch!?”

“The same one I go to. She’s good. But-”

“Hold on. Dastrica? Your version of Dastrica is a psychiatrist!? Ha ha! That actually makes sense.”

“What’s yours d- no, I don’t want to know. I want to go to your dimension as well, and start fixing it up, but look, those conditions aren’t the problem! I’m sure they’re going to be issues, especially expecting you to let go control of anything, but the real proble-“

Polokoa 2015/01/27(Tue)03:23 No. 622452 ID: 7bc1b7
File 142235780995.png - (221.77KB , 600x600 , motivationsupdate4.png )

“… Nnnnnh.”

“Wh- Hey! What’s wrong? What could make you whine?”

>[Holy shit, Polokoa! You’re running out of spare brains!]
>[Are you ok!?]

“Ewin? Olishiz, awaspar bra… Aurke? Ghrh.”

>[… What?]
>[Shit. Alright, I know you don’t like it, but we’re going to use your neural bypasses. It’ll patch you up and cut the load, we shouldn’t get another random spike like that.]

Polokoa 2015/01/27(Tue)03:24 No. 622453 ID: 7bc1b7
File 142235785951.png - (181.89KB , 600x600 , motivationsupdate5.png )

“Let me take… You’re even worse off than you look!”

“… I’m fine.”

“Fuck you’re fine, sister, you just developed receptive aphasia right in front of me. Do you know how bad a neumono has to be for those kind of symptoms to manifest? We’re getting you to the surface so you can shut your suit off.”

“No! Bypasses. I can last a while longer, now. Long enough. I can’t go yet.”

Polokoa 2015/01/27(Tue)03:25 No. 622454 ID: 7bc1b7
File 142235791872.png - (185.23KB , 600x600 , motivationsupdate6.png )

“While the elder machine’s here, the timeline won’t split. So if I make my decision now, it sticks! And I can’t make that decision until I know whether or not I can trust you!”

“… Excuse me?”

Polokoa 2015/01/27(Tue)03:25 No. 622455 ID: 7bc1b7
File 142235795673.png - (200.58KB , 600x600 , motivationsupdate7.png )

>Her patience is clearly exhausted, so something direct like "Who are you responsible for?" might work...
>Ask her what she's responsible for. Ask her what she did, what mistake she made, that's she's willing to do absolutely everything to undo.

“That’s the real problem! I know you won’t keep your word if you really think you need to break it, Rokolo. So the only way I can trust you is if I can predict what you’ll do, and I can’t! Everything you’ve been telling me, you want it, they’re real reasons, but they’re not the real reason. There’s something else, something you want to avoid, something more important than everything else! That’s what I need to know, so just tell me honestly why you need to do all this!”

Polokoa 2015/01/27(Tue)03:26 No. 622456 ID: 7bc1b7
File 142235801867.png - (119.13KB , 600x600 , motivationsupdate8.png )

“Alright, you want to know? One: It’s awesome.”

“Rokolo.”

“Two: I actually want to see everyone again, what a surprise!”

“Rokolo!”

“Three-“

“Rokolo!”

Polokoa 2015/01/27(Tue)03:27 No. 622457 ID: 7bc1b7
File 142235804846.png - (108.58KB , 600x600 , motivationsupdate9.png )

“Because it was my fault!! Are you happy!? You couldn’t figure that out on your own!? They died and I was made to take revenge for it, Polo pretended it was something else but that’s what it was, stupid idiot pointless revenge! Then I looked into the fucking time vortex like an idiot and I find out none of it had to happen and it’s all because Rokoa had to taunt Polo and Polo decided to shoot her and leave her for dead!! So I couldn’t pretend that there hadn’t been anything I could have done, that it couldn’t have happened any other way or that I did my best because I didn’t! Or Polo didn’t - Rokoa, or… I… Whatever!! I’m them!!”

“Do you know what it feels like to think you’re responsible for your own hive’s death!? Do you!? It’s the worst fucking pain you can’t even imagine and this plan is the only reason I got out, because now they’re all actually alive and I just have to collect them and I’ll be free! That’s why it needs be perfect! If I mess around even a little, if I don’t do absolutely everything that I could possibly ever do to make it happen then I’m playing with their lives and if it doesn’t work that means I’ll have killed them again! And I won’t!! Do you understand!? I refuse, absolutely, unequivocally, to allow even the tiniest fractional chance that I will ever have to feel like any member of my hives - of my family, died because of me, not ever ever ever again!!! That’s it, all right!? Now you know!”

“So what are you going to do about it!?”

So... Cuddle time?

I think she needs a hug.

>You’re an AI. How would you feel about a perfect copy being made of you, and then you being killed while leaving them to go on?
I suppose once you've cut and pasted a few times the perspective on forking gets a little skewed.

>Rokolo's acting / empath-ing like she sees worse injuries than our sensors are picking up
Wait. The difference is superficial, but Rokolo's seeing worse injuries than we are. Is that her emotional state affecting her perceptions, or is there something trying to sanitize our medical feeds? Polokoa, please tell me you didn't have something installed so you could redline without us being able to tell just how close you got the edge.

>So what are you going to do about it!?
Hug her. And then we're going to cut the power to your super suit, leaving you to collapse under your own injuries before you can kill yourself. And leaving your crazy sister with a helpless family member she needs to save.

I think you should make absolutely sure this won't backfire. Ask her to swear on her family that she will cooperate with you.

>>622457
... huh.

Alright then.

I don't think we're going to be persuading her to stop. You're gonna have to convince her to let you supervise.

That seems like a very reasonable motivation, and she seems genuinely invested to the point she might level out once she succeeds. Help her. She didn't have any strong, immediate objections to the conditions so it seems like this could work.

Smack her, then hug her, then tell her that if she fucks it up, you'll hunt her across the multiverse.

That should have her properly confused!

Polokoa 2015/03/23(Mon)01:03 No. 630428 ID: 6a263e
File 142709783440.png - (111.23KB , 600x600 , polokoaschoices1.png )

>So... Cuddle time?
>I think she needs a hug.
>Hug her
>Smack her, then hug her

Well… no, she doesn’t want a hug. I think she’s sensitive about seeming weak, now, after saying all that.

>Is that her emotional state affecting her perceptions, or is there something trying to sanitize our medical feeds?

>I’m afraid a lot of our sense of surface damage and flesh wounds is still based on data from Polokoa’s biological senses.
>We have heartbeat and body temperature and neurotransmitter monitors and all that, we can reliably tell if and where she’s injured, but when it comes to how much pain she’s feeling… well, she’s just gotten so good at ignoring it, you know? It’s hard to distinguish from her normal background damage.

>I don't think we're going to be persuading her to stop. You're gonna have to convince her to let you supervise.

I’m not sure I can even do that. I’m sensing some resentment.

She doesn’t seem to think my offer is any better than her original plan was. Not worse, either, but I don’t think that’s good enough for her. The pathological obsession with saving her family is one thing, and clearly the overwhelming first thing, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have other issues. She’s used to being in control; she probably had to spend a huge amount of effort to get that control, in the first place. The idea of giving it up is difficult for her. Which means I have to use force, after all.

Polokoa 2015/03/23(Mon)01:06 No. 630429 ID: 6a263e
File 142709796380.png - (211.92KB , 600x600 , polokoaschoices2.png )

If you could hack into her suit, defeat your counterpart and take control, then you could retrieve the information she just got off the elder machine and delete it from their system.

The first option for doing that would be for me to just jump her so you can get stuck in right away. While you do that, I’ll grab her and get us both out of here. You’re having to divert a lot of effort to keeping me going, I know, but you’ve been prepared for a contest like this. It would half be like the battles you had to deal with when you were created, and half digging through her mind while you follow her neural connections. It should be an even match.

>[Oh man, one of those dream metaphor mind journeys again?]
>[Those are always so weird and confusing! You never know what you’re supposed to be doing.]
>[Come on guys, it won’t be that bad. We’ll be meeting our own challenges, after all. Sort of.]

The second option would be to knock her around a bit so that her CAI has to deal with her injuries the way you’re doing mine. That’ll reclaim your advantage and then some, so you should be able to do your hacking with no problem. I’m in bad shape, but my suit is still fully charged, so she shouldn’t be a problem for me.

I really don’t want to have to fight her at all. If only I had something else to add, some extra persuasion that would overcome her pride, then…

>then we're going to cut the power to your super suit, leaving you to collapse under your own injuries before you can kill yourself. And leaving your crazy sister with a helpless family member she needs to save.

… That’s a third option. But I’d need to actually disable your aid, so that she would really have no choice but to bring me straight to my people herself. If you’re willing, and if you think it’s the best option… I’ll do it.

The time for talking is over. Tell me your decision.

Look at her. She's probably thinking the same thing you are. Makes sense, given how you're LITERALLY cut from the same cloning sources... whatever.

Figure out which choice will deal the least damage to the Elder Machine. It's possible that you can shut down your implant's extranet functions (increasing your defense against hacks), and knock her out while she's busy trying to dominate you.

What if you're both broken? Maybe you two need help, but from an insane psychiatrist who works on stabilizing minds rather than deprogramming them...

>>630429
1, because the elder machine wants a direct confrontation, and I do not want to give it the satisfaction. Also maybe you could figure out what makes her tick so that you can get her to let go of her pride, at least enough to get the ball rolling.

That third option sounds like just giving up. I mean, if we lose the fight via either method, isn't that what would happen?

You know the best way to know if a deal is decent is if you would take it yourself. Would you let her meddle in your affairs because she did not trust you?

So before anything else tell her this.

"You know what Rokolo I am being unreasonable. I am constantly surrounded by people who want me running there lives that when a equal comes along I stupidly treat them like one of my subjects."

"Here is a new deal for you if you will take it. I will help you with your project. Even if all that means is helping you get out of here and then waving goodbye as you head back to your dimension."

"I might dislike some of your methods but its not my job to judge you. So if you want my help you can have it. And if you do not I will help you leave. Maybe just stay a week so we can have send off party first."

"Just remember that if not for a bit of random luck today you would still be stuck in your dimension with no access to any other. I know you don't trust me and want to do this alone but is your pride worth the risk? If you keep going the way you have been you might get trapped by the time police again and never be able to finish your plan."


See if that gets to her and if not I would say cut life support and force her to bring us home. I know its not the best option but she is at full power while you are half dead already. All she has to do is draw out the fight by a minute and we would have to spend all our power just keeping you alive.

Also fighting here would just play into the elder gods plan. Trying to save everyone can only go so far. We have a responsibility to our people here. Trying to save random alternate dimension versions from getting molested by Rokolo is outside our jurisdiction.

...

If we purposefully disable you, that leaves Rokolo alone to do what she wills. Even if she does return you to your people, she's not going to stick around. We want her to stick around.

And I don't relish the idea of a CAI v CAI battle. It's possible they'll hit a vulnerable system that could kill you or something.

We might be able to talk them down - frankly a fellow CAI would be easier to deal with than either of you nitwits.

... No offense, mistress.

If we must fight, then you'll need to reach medical as soon as possible.

>some extra persuasion
You have a somewhat galactic empire, that might be worth it? You could offer your military/scientific resources to-

... wait, how do we know that the ship will come back from that time bubble thing?! We can't guarantee you'll have medical anywhere near you to access!

>It’s hard to distinguish from her normal background damage.
...I'm going to assume what we're picking up secondhand from Rokolo's empathy is more accurate, then, and start rounding up the damage estimates accordingly.

>If you could hack into her suit, defeat your counterpart and take control, then you could retrieve the information she just got off the elder machine and delete it from their system.
Let's be brutally honest here. Our counterpart is likely to be as competent as we are. A hacking fight between us would be a slugfest, decided by pure chance, and/or luck of which universe we managed to invent slightly better next-gen bio-computer / not-actually jetalium systems to host us. The element of surprise wouldn't even matter, because no matter which of you moves first, no matter how fast your reflexes are, that's still slow compared to processor cycles. The 'defending' CAI will not be surprised.

If you set us on each other the much more likely outcome, rather than a hacking victory for either side, is our two collectives meeting some kind of accord or compromise without either of you two getting to butt heads or veto as we do it. We'd go over your argumentative little bunny heads.

Additionally, in the unlikely event we don't bypass you two and reach our own compromise, and it comes to a strait hack fight, I give our alternates better odds. Rokolo's been on a relentless quest for improvement and resources. And they may have real-world experience fighting other alternate CAIs in their raids on other realities.

>what do
I still like option 3. We emotionally blackmail her- put her in a situation where she has no choice but to stick to her principles and try to save a family member. Force her to act, maybe force an epiphany.

Option 3. No amount of eleventh-hour violence, physical or computational, will change what kind of a person Rokolo is. Meanwhile, the sooner we shut down the CEP, the more time all those neumono on the surface will have to recover from it's effects and brace themselves for whatever seismic nonsense the elder machine's exit causes.

>>630803
Ooh. That's a good point. Keeping the suit on at this point means we're making the call to continue to keep all the neumono on this rock disabled- unable to evacuate, protect themselves, or participate in disaster relief.

That only makes sense if we're classifying Rokolo as a bigger threat to their safety than... everything else. And while she has the potential to be, I don't think she actually is, right now.

>>630948
Actually, it goes even further than that: the more damage Polokoa suffers right now, the longer it'll take her to fully recover, so the more strategic-scale messes there will need to be cleaned up during and after that recovery, Rokolo-related or otherwise.

Anybody remember that time Baron Wulfenbach got wounded at the Battle of Passholdt, and Castle Heterodyne woke up before he was out of the hospital? Or when the Jade Prison broke and the Scarlet Empress disappeared? Hypercompetent autocrat incapacitated + galaxy full of opportunistic weirdos + new disruptive threat => utter chaos.

Let's take the route which keeps that to a minimum.

I vote option 3. It feels like the most interesting and narratively satisfying ending, assuming Rokolo does cooperate.

No more talking! Take a third option!

ATTENTION: It turns out that figuring out what the suggesters are suggesting is harder than the author thought it would, for reasons that are his own fault. So he, that is I, am doing a poll to clear it up.

You can get the link (and discuss my failings) in the general Asteroid discussion thread: >>/questdis/90821

Polokoa 2015/06/11(Thu)21:58 No. 647936 ID: 1a7a01
File 143408513690.png - (167.54KB , 600x600 , hackstart1.png )

>We might be able to talk them down - frankly a fellow CAI would be easier to deal with than either of you nitwits.
>If you set us on each other the much more likely outcome, rather than a hacking victory for either side, is our two collectives meeting some kind of accord or compromise without either of you two getting to butt heads or veto as we do it.

… It isn’t what I think we should do. Too much trust in your alternate selves. Too dangerous, too risky. My gut tells me to be firm, to contain her, and fix all this… wrongness. I have to make it right.

But I always feel that, that I have to make everything right, all the time. The beating of my hearts is less constant than that feeling. I know it’s not natural, that I’m not right in my head. In my heart. Sometimes I have to struggle with myself, just to remember that.

That’s one reason I have you.

I trust you.

… I can’t hide my thoughts from her while I’m keeping the empathy generator active.

Polokoa 2015/06/11(Thu)21:59 No. 647937 ID: 1a7a01
File 143408518231.png - (171.37KB , 600x600 , hackstart2.png )

So I’ll fix that.

“… Hey. What are you-?”

Polokoa 2015/06/11(Thu)22:00 No. 647938 ID: 1a7a01
File 143408523924.png - (125.10KB , 600x600 , hackstart3.png )

Do what you think is best.

“Don’t turn off your suit here!! We have to get out!”

Polokoa 2015/06/11(Thu)22:01 No. 647939 ID: 1a7a01
File 143408527316.png - (113.76KB , 600x550 , hackstart4.png )

“I’m… pretty sure you were planning… to disable me, anyway.”

“I was going to steal your suit power, you idiot! Or get you to get us out first!”

“Just… use your dumb cards.”

“Urgh. Fine, since I have your permission. I hope you like being put in a coma, sister.”

“I’ve had practice. But… we’ll see.”

Good luck.

Polokoa 2015/06/11(Thu)22:01 No. 647940 ID: 1a7a01
File 143408531123.png - (84.29KB , 600x500 , hackstart5.png )

Network connection established! HARDWARE ERROR: bandwidth limitations detected. It is highly recommended that only one or two representatives be selected from the CAI ROSTER to coordinate efforts. While waiting, perhaps you’d like to select an AI lobby backdrop theme?

>>647940
Lobby theme... How about Knights of the Round Table?

>>647940
Transfer whatever spare dregs we can to the other suit before it goes entirely without killing Polokoa.

>lobby theme
TNG's observation lounge. That's where you do diplomacy and first contact and make plans for important missions in space, right?

>representatives
Alison and Arbiter?

mii plaza snoop mashup.

>>647977
Oh god. I just imagined a mii plaza where everyone is that one dancing snoop gif, and found it hilarious. Smoke weed e'rry day, bitches.

Maybe a nice picnic setting would make things cozy and pleasant. Put everyone at ease.

Board room would send an 'all about business' message instead.

>>647940
How about something resembling the set of a daytime TV talk show, perfect for when the crazy gets out.

Lets go for a MST3K theater so we can all sit in the front row and make jokes on the memories we pull up. What better way to bond than to have us all laugh at our partners embarrassing memories?

The War Room from Dr Strangelove.

CAI 2015/06/17(Wed)02:03 No. 649030 ID: 7450ea
File 143453180250.png - (107.68KB , 600x500 , PolokoaReps.png )

In hopes that diplomacy and appeal to better nature are the best paths to take, ALISON and ARBITER are selected as Polokoa’s CAI representatives.

The network lobby theme is set to KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE.

CAI 2015/06/17(Wed)02:04 No. 649031 ID: 7450ea
File 143453185359.gif - (79.14KB , 900x600 , knightslobbyP.gif )

>[Having chosen to join forces, the CAIs will now share in all actions and knowledge until their hosts are disconnected again. Thus, the adventure continues in the Rokolo Quest thread, with >>649028]