Official "Discuss the latest page" thread

[charles]

I wonder if this was the AI plan all along, stir up a little war, make a nice conspiracy, get someone to play the hero and everyone singing Kumbaya my lord, signing trade agreements like they are going out of fashion! An Humanity get a few more centuries to solve the problem.

It seems no one is declaring war on the collective anyhow.

Well, not that we've seen yet. I imagine they'd at least be looking to free farhaven (again) and then the collective is stuck in the situation that it doesn't have the firepower and capability with it's current decision making restrictions to tackle the combined forces.

Their best tactic at this point is probably to go silent again. There didn't seem to be an indication that the saturation point of population would be reached soon. They already have some technological advantages and I imagine they could develop more while nations in peace tend to not advance their military capabilities too much.

If they continue espionage (granted, less effectively now agents of "wisdom" can likely be detected) I imagine they could push little things like agreements between the nations to restrict how they develop weapons (they already avoid ballistics, so things like mines, torpedoes, power levels on lasers and defenses, etc), push for leisure and civilian expenditure, fear mongering over certain technological advances, maybe sabotage of certain test/experimental/research facilities and they can push them into military and technological stagnancy or even decline.

The counter tactic from the nations would be to make sure they don't give them that chance and press an attack to cripple or contain the collective, maybe even free them from "Wisdom" or use some of "Wisdom's" restrictions against it in creative ways.

[Aegis J Hyena]

And this is how you do closure right. I bet Whisper's feeling really good right now.

[charles]

What Whisper's really saying is that she's now broke and needs a job... Hopefully they're still in business.

[charles]

I asked what the purpose of a government is in a philosophy group and it's amazing to see the vast variety of responses.

My own comes down to what a government is.

Apparently a government is the ruling class/body, enforcing it's laws over a geographic region.

For this reason, a government's first purpose is to ensure dominance over it's geographic region with regards to enforcing law. If others are enforcing their law then it's not really the government of the region.

Next is to enforce it's law in the region. If it can't enforce it's law then it's not able to govern the region either.

Finally is to make laws. This is mere practicality as it would need at least one law to enforce if it's doing that job.

Obviously this doesn't cover the numerous types of governments from forms of tyranny and dictatorship to various degrees of democracy. Nor does it say what kind of laws they're enforcing.

Now we might have opinions or beliefs on what we think a good government's purpose or purposes should be. But these are the purposes of every government, regardless of good, bad or desirable traits.

[charles]

Gee, I wonder where the relief fleet will find a ship willing to transport supplies to them...

Seriously though, It'd be insanely stupid for the previous warring parties to NOT finally free Farhaven for good.

Thats the Collective's foothold in all this. You don't want them to have a foothold and the longer they wait the closer they get to an entire planet being mind whacked, adding to their army and giving them a forward base to fortify with all those zombies.

...I suddenly realise something else... The battle of White Rim was supposed to be a great victory. They were supposed to jump in, catch the Cirins unaware and obliterate them. Instead they jumped into the middle of combat and almost got side swiped by a Sparrow full of fighters.... and I suddenly find myself wondering if the way their surprise battle didn't quite surprise AND the face the jumped unexpectedly into close combat, wasn't orchestrated by the Collective.

Certainly makes sense that they'd want the war prolonged to distract and wear down the fighting forces. Same with the Battle to free Farhaven. They show up late, after the Cirin fleets have been decimated and the commander is doing naught but ordering a suicide ram when the Collective choose that exact moment to show up and open fire... Gee, I wonder how they could pick that exact moment, almost like a fleet controller may have relayed what the Sparrow was about to do so they knew it was the best time to act and devastate the opposition before the Cirins lost too much in the battle.

[NefariousDrO]

Honestly, I'm kind of wondering why they need a "habitable" planet, given the technology we've seen. Find a stable star with a nice number of resource-rich asteroids and a Kuiper Belt or Oort Cloud and you can build a pretty big station for your people to live on and work from. Sure, the people who were planetside clearly prefer living on a planet than living on a station, but given the alternatives of refugee ships and a Nargun-sized station you'd think the choice would be pretty easy.

[CygnusX1]

Honestly, I'm kind of wondering why they need a "habitable" planet, given the technology we've seen. Find a stable star with a nice number of resource-rich asteroids and a Kuiper Belt or Oort Cloud and you can build a pretty big station for your people to live on and work from. Sure, the people who were planetside clearly prefer living on a planet than living on a station, but given the alternatives of refugee ships and a Nargun-sized station you'd think the choice would be pretty easy.

Sapphira + Refugee Fleet = New Golgotha?

[charles]

I suddenly recall that along with the theory that the Orion arm of the galaxy was likely the only place with planets suitable for habitation... There's theory that there's another such area on the opposite side of the galactic core which would take years to reach with modern FTL tech: https://www.davidcsimon.com/crimsondark ... rip_id=896

Seems like a pretty good bet on where they might be headed... An interesting thought is that all the refugees onboard are presumably the people who can't have neural augs installed as well. Beyond that, they're probably mostly planeters, not spacers.

But yeah, when everyone's rejecting you and the part of the galaxy you're in seems to be going to poo... voyage out elsewhere. I could certainly imagine the Farhaven people are pretty sick of it all after double occupation.

I guess thats how the story ends and sets up for a possible future pickup. What does the fleet find when they arrive in another zone of habitable space?

[CygnusX1]

I suddenly recall that along with the theory that the Orion arm of the galaxy was likely the only place with planets suitable for habitation... There's theory that there's another such area on the opposite side of the galactic core which would take years to reach with modern FTL tech: https://www.davidcsimon.com/crimsondark ... rip_id=896

That's instantly what I thought about when Daniel said about the very long journey.
But then, if it is a theory - they don't know if those planets exist there. And even if they do, they don't know if the situation is better there. What if there is another race doing weird stuff over there too? Human or not, if we assume that evolution governs any life development, those aliens are going to be driven by similar primary instincts as humans. This will mean distrust and war.

Risking the lives of everyone in the refugee fleet - I wouldn't risk such a journey, unless this is really the only option available.

However, maybe someone actually knows something? About some distant planet available for colonization?

[LeonT]

Sapphira + Refugee Fleet = New Golgotha?

Yeah, it that does seem likely.