Conviction Chapter 9 [Spoilers]

[lapland]

What if, instead of a full biogenic computer, what was stolen from Exile by the consortium and later by others, was a mundane biogenic device that has been studied for centuries and made into an Oracle system. Would explain why you can't really ask it for best case senerio or how to make a specific battle winnable. All the Kerines that found themselves on Exile were regular Fay, but they did have the headpiece (can't remember the name). All Kerines were probably inhanced, even the non generations. Cybi was able to detect all biogenics after her sensors where restored. But by then there wasn't enough left. Over the centuries those Kerines that where taken and their headpieces have been altered but still in limited supply. They can't reproduce the headpiece but they may be able to augment them to some extent. The only problem is that someone can't use another person's headpiece, but since they are regular Fay maybe they can be reset for the next generation of Fay prisoners.

[SoronelHaetir]

I find it highly unlikely that the oriacle is a sentient computer. Only the Karinnes, that we know of, have succeeded in creating sentient computers through biogenics. That computer would also not only be sentient but also have physic abilities. Again, thats something biogenics is capable of but i doupt the syndictate could build anything like that.

The dots align too well for that single light in a sea of darkness to be anything but that so called oracle system, whatever form it may be in reality. But lets see what happens next.

As a side note, if humanity were to understand how a brain truly works then I believe that we could even implement some sort of sentient intelligence on our current technology. But we don't. It's like we look at a train and know that it moves by turning this cog and what materials it is made out of but we don't really understand how it allows us to actually think.

Or perhaps we would rather not know, allowing us to keep believing in things like souls or reincarnation - whatever religion you want to ask. Heck, just

I suspect the main impediment to understanding how the brain works is how incredibly difficult it is to study at that level (although I've seen some fMRI results regarding vision that make me suspect the neural net models are fairly close on that score). However, I see memory being a far less understood process (that is how brain cells save any information at all). As for vision, the results I am thinking of were in regard to reading, at the vision level there is a tiny region that triggers on some very basic shapes (lines and curves with reference to angle of presentation but not surroundings - so that for instance a capital 'A' starts off being seen as three discrete parts and the bar part initially triggers the same bit of the brain that a dash does - those bits feed forward into a higher level recognizer that triggers on the assembly of the three and afterward it is an 'A' regardless of size or font or color, or even to a degree angle of rotation, if rotated enough a different recognizer sees it as an 'A' and that is a lot of why upside down or backward writing takes so much time to think about, we just don't train ourselves to do that, not nearly so quickly at least). And in the case of writing, if the initial shape is clear enough it may well trigger just a single cell in the initial recognition step. This is also why people can manage to pretty much instantly recognize that a set has none, one, two, three, four, fewer five and fewer still six items. Very few people can look at a jumble of seven or more items and recognize how many are there without counting, and the larger the set the greater the danger that the person will lose track of their position.

I do think MRI pretty much demonstrates that there is no quantum-level component to thought, that if there were such a component that being subjected to an MRI would completely scramble the brain.

[SYED]

There is a slight idea, that since the shamans were able to detect something we believe to be part of the oracle system. Then the system is not a telepathic power, but potential a shaman like ability. So I wonder what would happen if an Oye tree was brought into the mix.

[kyli]

There is a slight idea, that since the shamans were able to detect something we believe to be part of the oracle system. Then the system is not a telepathic power, but potential a shaman like ability. So I wonder what would happen if an Oye tree was brought into the mix.

Of course its not telepathic power. It is precognition. Both are physic abilities. The Shaman also have physic abilities though what exactly that ability is, we do not know for sure. I also suspect that the Oye trees are sentient trees that also have physic abilities. The point is, just because the shaman can detect this person isn't that big a deal, in fact, if this person is a prisoner that doesn't crave power like the syndicate, then its expected that the shaman would detect this person. The shaman can detect the syndicate as a darkness, so it should be easy to see the light, which indeed she did.

[SYED]

Do you guys think we will ever see non Parri shaman? It seems more of something that is taught, instead of being born with. It would be kinda cool if the generations decided to learn to be shamans, jus a way to help make best use of their unique ness.

The faey are the best telepaths around due to their large numbers, allowing them so much extensive experience. We guess something similar occurred with the benga.

[SYED]

Do you guys think we will ever see non Parri shaman? It seems more of something that is taught, instead of being born with. It would be kinda cool if the generations decided to learn to be shamans, jus a way to help make best use of their unique ness.

The faey are the best telepaths around due to their large numbers, allowing them so much extensive experience. We guess something similar occurred with the benga.

[Belgarion213]

For non Perri Shaman? Its discinctly possible. Jason was told that if he studied for it, he could become a Shaman. I think its a combination of a gift and study. Aka you need to be born with some psychic power but then study in how to use it.

We don't really know whats involved in Shaman training, or if every generation would be compatible with it. That said, I'm assuming at some point Jason is going to learn SOMETHING about it. His talk with the shaman and the almsot empathy he has demonstrated when dealing with the Tree's has me thinking in that direction.

We know some psychic talents need more than raw power. Fel mentioned this in the comments for...chapter 4 I think, that to use the branch of telekinetics called 'microkinisis' you needed a combination of being pretty damn smart and flexible in your thinking because you were opening yourself up to a new level of reality.

The powers of the Shaman are a entirely different realm from the 'normal' world and the world of particles that microkinesis' deals with so it might take something more than just a generation to do it. That being said, Generations having the combination of intelligence, the ability to divide their thinking and raw psychic power might help.

[SYED]

There is a Cbyi that has an Oye tree so a generation could merge with it and bolster potential shaman ability. We know generations can have their tele kinetics powers increased, so why not micro kinesics. We know that the Parri are growing more Oye trees, I wonder if every Cybi could get one. They might even grow one on the moon.

[baengi]

Some of you guys seems to have a problem with proportions. Like the problem of manning the super ships. Even if it takes upward 70k people to man one, and it will probably be less, once refitted, spacefaring empires would have no problem finding 70k people among billions of residents. the skaa, for exemple, could do it relatively easily.

Another proportion problem was the comment about a race of precog should be able to avoid getting captured. you do to many assumption with that. Maybe they didnt have the technology. maybe they just plain couldnt flee a galaxy-spanning empire, maybe they just didn't have the logistics to evacuate a whole planet.

Another one was about capture exiled or precog surviving to this day. hey guys, it would have been easy to clone them again and again if the consortium and/or the syndicate have that tech.

I also vote for the biological imprisoned in a dream state inside a giant computer. seems the most logical

[MartinK]

Some of you guys seems to have a problem with proportions. Like the problem of manning the super ships. Even if it takes upward 70k people to man one, and it will probably be less, once refitted, spacefaring empires would have no problem finding 70k people among billions of residents. the skaa, for exemple, could do it relatively easily.

I disagree. China has a total population of nearly 1.4 billion people. Their army is able to field 1.6 million soldiers. Thats the guys that just learn to point their weapons at the enemy and press the trigger. The chinese navy, however, is only able to field 255k people.

The relation of population to numbers of personal in the armed forces is a lot less of an influence than one might think. You can not just stuff bodies on a ship and expect it to work. The people working a ship, any modern ship, are the best and the brightest of their generations. The requirements to knowledge, training, personality and so on are enormous.

Then we come to the question of support. The cost of building a large naval ship can be considered high. But the cost and effort that goes into keeping that ship running and its crew healthy and motivated is equally as high. And you not only have to keep all pieces of the machinery running, you have to be able to keep them running in a war when the enemy isn't only targeting those ships but their supply lines as well.

I'm sure there is statistical data on how many millions of people you need to do the job of supporting just a few thousand well trained professional militaries in the field. But just saying 'hey, you have a hundred billion people spread out over a couple dozen worlds and stations, so take a few of them and put them on ships you took, no problem' is unrealistic at best.

Oh, just to compare how important the average level of knowledge is and that one of the most important duties of a country is to teach their next generation as much as possible, the United States has about 330 million people of which it can keep about 320k as active navy personal on a permanent basis. Naturally, the people providing support are not counted in it, those are considered civilians.

The Faey, one of the strongest empires in their section of the galaxy, populating dozens of worlds.. but I got the impression that their number of warships numbered in the hundreds, perhaps reaching a thousand at best. Those ships require much much less crew than those super ships. By your logic, shouldn't they be able to build and crew hundreds of thousands of ships?

Another one was about capture exiled or precog surviving to this day. hey guys, it would have been easy to clone them again and again if the consortium and/or the syndicate have that tech.

If you could just take a talent and clone it, why, just go take your best mindstriker, your best leader, your soldier with the best instincts, your best scientist and discard the rest. Clone the best and you get a truly mighty army. But... thats not possible. You don't get talent just by having the right body. It also depends on how you grow up, what you are taught, how your personality develops. Just go and look at twins, where one lived an extraordinarily successful life where the other just hung on and had a less than happy life. They were both born with the same body, so shouldn't they have had the same success by your logic?

[Wolfee]

....

I do think MRI pretty much demonstrates that there is no quantum-level component to thought, that if there were such a component that being subjected to an MRI would completely scramble the brain.

An MRI is not capable of this level of resolution. Physicists are only now proposing a quantum level MRI... capable of looking at one molecule at a time. (https://phys.org/news/2016-12-quantum-n ... ution.html)They hope this will let them create microscopes to study one molecule at a time... but there certainly won't be room in either machine to study a human mind for some time to come as they simply can't make the scanning area that large.

Remember what Albert had to say about quantum mechanics... "spooky action at a distance". I for one believe this "spooky action at a distance" is going to take a bit of time and work to figure out!

[baengi]

If you could just take a talent and clone it, why, just go take your best mindstriker, your best leader, your soldier with the best instincts, your best scientist and discard the rest. Clone the best and you get a truly mighty army. But... thats not possible. You don't get talent just by having the right body. It also depends on how you grow up, what you are taught, how your personality develops. Just go and look at twins, where one lived an extraordinarily successful life where the other just hung on and had a less than happy life. They were both born with the same body, so shouldn't they have had the same success by your logic?

To that i would answer that what you are talking about being succesful in life require personnality. being a good soldier only require you to be resonnably smart and be fit. An average soldier doesnt even require that, as long as there is a CO around, that's why they tried to clone Saelle. if they can clone talent, and talent is part of the genetic mock-up as told in the first book, and all you have to do is put the precog in a dream machine, she doesnt really need a personnality in my opinion.

as for the crew of the supership, i think that the way to alleviate the problem, they put a part of the support personnel directly on ship. didnt they say that they had farm and everything? each section being like small villages/cities where you can live your whole life without ever going out. so its not a full crew of active military, or maybe the support personnel is like a national guard or militia. its just supposition anyway. but it is true that just keeping a ship and crew this size active would bleed dry the finances of most little empires

[SYED]

In the karrine manned super ship, they could keep most of the man power on their home world's, and use the merge systems to use rockers to actually man the ship. A biogenic comm relay would be safe enough in the middle of an outfitted supership. That also would let them to deploy confederation assets, without allowing them access to karrine tech. It also gives them the added bonus of making them more secure from the benga telepathy.

I wonder about those powerful missiles. They were said to be heavy on the anti matter. If the benga has developed ways to more safely deal with anti matter that would be invaluable, both as weaponry and as an energy source. If combined with confederation tech, it would increase their ability to punch above their weight class.

[SoronelHaetir]

....

I do think MRI pretty much demonstrates that there is no quantum-level component to thought, that if there were such a component that being subjected to an MRI would completely scramble the brain.

An MRI is not capable of this level of resolution. Physicists are only now proposing a quantum level MRI... capable of looking at one molecule at a time. (https://phys.org/news/2016-12-quantum-n ... ution.html)They hope this will let them create microscopes to study one molecule at a time... but there certainly won't be room in either machine to study a human mind for some time to come as they simply can't make the scanning area that large.

Remember what Albert had to say about quantum mechanics... "spooky action at a distance". I for one believe this "spooky action at a distance" is going to take a bit of time and work to figure out!

I'm not saying the MRI would be able to 'see' any such quantum mechanical process involved in thought, instead I suspect simply subjecting a system that relies on quantum state would get screwed up by such a magnetic field.

Oh, and I found the comment I remembered regarding a psionic ability that drives people insane, from book 4:

�Clairvoyance? We've had a few documented cases of it through
history, but it�s exceptionally rare, and it never failed to drive the
subject totally insane,� Dahnai said.

So not necessarily precognition. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clairvoyance defines clairvoyance as the ability to see either past or future events or the ability to see current events that are outside the normal ability to sense. I'm not sure that Dahnai is actually limiting herself to only the last).

[D.F. Thompson]

Or the precog could be a older biogenic chip that has become aware like Rook