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inklesspen posted:
I took this to be a reference to the relationship between Sydan and Mieli. Sydan was never as dedicated to Mieli as the other way around, otherwise she wouldn't have sought out the singularity.
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Jul 6, 2014 14:29
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Yeah, that is the straightforward reading, but in a series with this much emphasis on memory and stories, who the hell knows? (Those lucky bastards who already read TCA; they probably know.)
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Jul 6, 2014 15:27
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Neurosis posted:I took this to be a reference to the relationship between Sydan and Mieli. Sydan was never as dedicated to Mieli as the other way around, otherwise she wouldn't have sought out the singularity. Mieli was apparently in proximity to one of the Sobornost singularities being created, I imagine almost anything could happen there. It seems to me that she herself might well be a created entity with motivations set by the Pellegrini. Or, the Pellegrini might have just hacked her memories to create Sydan. Or a host of possibilities. Or it could just be that Sydan wasn't that into her, as you say. Velius fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Jul 6, 2014 |
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Jul 6, 2014 21:15
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Comedy option: they are gogols of the same person with some major delusions, Tyler durden style.
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Jul 7, 2014 01:44
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Sil posted:One thing that I remain confused about : Did the All-Defector consume the Prime Chen? That was the impression that I was under reading that chapter, but presumably that's not what happened, since Prime Pellegrini wouldn't have a way to control it if it was, right? This confused me as well. Also When did the all defector get a body, did it always have one? When did it start being a participant in the universe again and why did Pelligrini give the hunter it's name?
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Jul 7, 2014 04:45
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I very much doubt the Sobornost Founders spend their time in actual physical bodies. (Besides, the whole plan to get Founder codes only works if the Founder is in an environment which can be controlled by them.)
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Jul 7, 2014 04:48
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Nevvy Z posted:This confused me as well. Also When did the all defector get a body, did it always have one? When did it start being a participant in the universe again and why did Pelligrini give the hunter it's name? Never had a body. It was just a data-stowaway on Perhonen, that the Hunter's components pulled out. Pellegrini basically set it on Chen because after her mass-simulated plea for help, he essentially told her to go gently caress herself. Her motivations are probably half "maybe if I upset the entire applecart the chaos will give me an edge" and half "if I die, nobody else deserves to live, especially the motherfuckers who could have saved me but didn't". I love her horrible solipsism. The All-Defector ate Chen Prime, and I rather suspect Pellegrini Prime was telling the truth when she said she expected it would eat her too. She figured she was dead without outside aid regardless, why not go with a gambit that if it fails takes the rest of the solar system with her? Basically what I'm saying is Pellegrini is the best villain, especially with the strong implication that she didn't even earn her place among the gods by any sort of standard merit, she cultivated their professional core and grabbed their coattails for the ride.
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Jul 7, 2014 05:18
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So I finished TCA last night. First impressions, a slight disappointment, but on the other hand the story is wrapped up in a neat way, which is kinda impressive given the complexity. In contrast to book 1 and 2, TCA doesn't contain so many new ideas and concept, instead Rajaniemi works with what he setup in the previous books. We also get some more insight into the Zoku society, which was interesting. All in all the series was enjoyable, Rajaniemi has some great ideas and is kind of reminiscent of Banks (an author he thanks in the acknowledgements). My main issue with him is his characters, which are just not engaging for me.
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Jul 7, 2014 07:47
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Velius posted:Mieli was apparently in proximity to one of the Sobornost singularities being created, I imagine almost anything could happen there. It seems to me that she herself might well be a created entity with motivations set by the Pellegrini. Or, the Pellegrini might have just hacked her memories to create Sydan. Or a host of possibilities. Or it could just be that Sydan wasn't that into her, as you say. I dunno, that just seems like needless complexity to me. I suppose it would address my principal problem with Mieli - that her motivation is chasing a lover who ultimately spurned her, which is kind of pathetic. We'll see in 10 days or so, I guess.
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Jul 7, 2014 08:55
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inklesspen posted:
For points 2 and 4: 2. Jean came into possession of the Box when he was on Mars. He either stole it from the zoku or came across it from other means, I don't remember. When he left Mars to attempt the Chen heist, he put the Box's data in Gilbertine Salbatana's gevulot for safe keeping, since he figured nobody would ever look there, and even if they did it would be almost impossible to get without the correct keys. 4. I'm almost certain that I read that the Jewel is with Mieli. It kind of has to be, for the very reason you mentioned-- she is the only character from the Fractal Prince that still has a physical body after the book ends.
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Jul 7, 2014 17:58
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Regarding 2: Yes, that is how Jean came to have the box and hide it, but I'm interested in his motivations for doing so. Regarding 4: I'm quite certain that's not the same zoku jewel. The Kaminari Jewel has a yin-yang design and is purple and white. Mieli's zoku jewel is a blue oval. Besides, how would the Kaminari Jewel have gotten onboard Perhonen? e: removed spoiler tags inklesspen fucked around with this message at 15:36 on Jul 9, 2014 |
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Jul 7, 2014 18:09
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Oh right, the other thing I don't get. What the gently caress are the Aun and does this mean Jean is just one of Chen's imaginary friends? That whole bit where only he could see them made no sense to me
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Jul 7, 2014 19:55
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Nevvy Z posted:Oh right, the other thing I don't get. What the gently caress are the Aun and does this mean Jean is just one of Chen's imaginary friends? That whole bit where only he could see them made no sense to me That is, if I understand TFP correctly.
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Jul 7, 2014 19:59
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That and Jean was entwined with the Flower Prince in the same way that Tawaddud entwines with various jinn. If you look carefully at TQT, it looks like that happened when Jean was in the Prison at the beginning. Fun experiment you can do at home: search the TQT ebook for mentions of "flower". e: removed spoiler tags inklesspen fucked around with this message at 15:36 on Jul 9, 2014 |
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Jul 7, 2014 20:06
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Does thief start with F in finnish or something, why does everybody abbreviate it TQF? All i can picture is a kid with a lisp saying "the quantum feef"
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Jul 7, 2014 22:51
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by everybody you mean me, and that's because somehow i kept typoing that over and loving over again
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Jul 7, 2014 22:54
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inklesspen posted:by everybody you mean me, and that's because somehow i kept typoing that over and loving over again it's not just you, i've seen other posters here and elsewhere do it and it has had me a bit confused for a while. I just happened to ask this time.
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Jul 7, 2014 23:48
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I have a bit of speculation about the end of the fractal prince: Is perhonen actually dead? The ship is definitely gone but just before Jean's narration cuts to his encounter with the Aun he grabs one butterfly avatar and holds onto it. One avatar was all that was necessary to translate perhonen into the zoku prison box earlier in the novel. Sobortech gets wrecked fast by wildcode for reasons that Matjek explains late in the book but nobody ever even speculates whether oortian tech shares the same vulnerability. It's conceivable that she survives off screen long enough to enter the vir with the rest of the Sirr humans and be dormant in the book of stories for a while. Also, regarding the Kaminari jewel, i'm betting on past Jean having played the long game and Matjek never actually having had the real one to begin with. Edit: More speculation - it's a bit of a minor point but I wonder exactly how much control Chen actually had over the dragons. Jean-as-sumanguru tells Tawaddud directly that the sobornost couldn't destroy the dragons and could only imprison them in the guberniyas, but in the next breath he tells her that he is a dragon-killer to scare her a bit, so I don't think we can rely on either statement he makes here. Earlier in the book, in the interlude wherein the sumanguru-warmind shows the chen the Kaminari jewel he ruminates a bit on the dragon that the chen gogol carries around with it (also note this isn't in a guberniya, but in a raion ship) and notes that he doesn't really know why the chens keep them around: "And the chens keep the ones that are left in chains, in sandboxed environments, whether as a weapon or as a reminder of a past mistake, no one knows." To me that doesn't sound like they're unkillable, all-ravening beasts, but more that they are extremely dangerous and probably should all be killed but the chens refuse to do so. andrew smash fucked around with this message at 04:09 on Jul 8, 2014 |
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Jul 8, 2014 00:44
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re: Perhonen: Blurbs about The Causal Angel talk of Perhonen as if she's still around, so I think Jean was successful in saving her.
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Jul 8, 2014 04:17
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Strange Matter posted:The Aun are concepts that exist within the collective consciousness of mankind, along the lines of Jungian archetypes. Thanks to Matjek's imagination and precocious genius, he was sort of able to encode them into pre-Singularity earth network ecosystem, where they matured into digital gods of a sort. like if you were a little kid that loved pirates and ninjas and were also an evil(?) super genius you might code a ninja and a pirate imaginary best friend (everyone loves ninjas and pirates) to hang out with you. Forever. Which you then left in a box in the attic when you went away to school. oh god, don't look at my metaphor it's hideous.
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Jul 8, 2014 11:32
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Strange Matter posted:The Aun are concepts that exist within the collective consciousness of mankind, along the lines of Jungian archetypes. Thanks to Matjek's imagination and precocious genius, he was sort of able to encode them into pre-Singularity earth network ecosystem, where they matured into digital gods of a sort.  They are MEMES and also NANOMACHINES.
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Jul 8, 2014 11:44
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builds character posted:like if you were a little kid that loved pirates and ninjas and were also an evil(?) super genius you might code a ninja and a pirate imaginary best friend (everyone loves ninjas and pirates) to hang out with you. Forever. Which you then left in a box in the attic when you went away to school. oh god, don't look at my metaphor it's hideous. Well, it's a good thing Matjek was smart enough to keep his affections to true archetypes. Can you imagine if he grew up in the '90s and he encoded Street Sharks to run around in the aether forever?
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Jul 8, 2014 12:27
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andrew smash posted:
I find the entire dragon/gogol thing really neat. Dragons are pure AI and work entirely differently from humans, so we can't really understand them and since we can't understand them and can't really apply carrots/sticks to get them working for us. Hence the use of gogols. But they are still intelligent life, which is why Chen would rather not kill them. Even though they are dangerous as gently caress, keeping them alive fits within the parameters of the Great Common Task.
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Jul 8, 2014 14:49
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Nevvy Z posted:I find the entire dragon/gogol thing really neat. Dragons are pure AI and work entirely differently from humans, so we can't really understand them and since we can't understand them and can't really apply carrots/sticks to get them working for us. Hence the use of gogols. IIRC, Jean says that the dragons were developed from uploaded humans; the problem was they changed too much and ended up with a purely optimizing decision engine, rather than a mind with an inner life (self-loop). I don't know if that makes the dragons count as pure AI or not, but I do know these books have had a hell of a lot to do with stories and emotional memories; the dragons comprehend neither. e: removed spoiler tags inklesspen fucked around with this message at 15:36 on Jul 9, 2014 |
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Jul 8, 2014 15:09
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inklesspen posted:IIRC, Jean says that the dragons were developed from uploaded humans; the problem was they changed too much and ended up with a purely optimizing decision engine, rather than a mind with an inner life (self-loop). I don't know if that makes the dragons count as pure AI or not, but I do know these books have had a hell of a lot to do with stories and emotional memories; the dragons comprehend neither. If you haven't read the books you probably wouldn't understand any of this anyway. gently caress these books are hard. I feel like reading Glasshouse and Accellerando already helped a lot. There's just so many drat ideas happening at once.
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Jul 8, 2014 17:30
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Nevvy Z posted:I find the entire dragon/gogol thing really neat. Dragons are pure AI and work entirely differently from humans, so we can't really understand them and since we can't understand them and can't really apply carrots/sticks to get them working for us. Hence the use of gogols. I think it's pretty clear by the end of the fractal prince that they are basically Chen's giant chained-up gangster pit bulls.
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Jul 8, 2014 23:03
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Neurosis posted:Well, it's a good thing Matjek was smart enough to keep his affections to true archetypes. Can you imagine if he grew up in the '90s and he encoded Street Sharks to run around in the aether forever? At least they'd fight crime? Could be just three battle toads and they make people relive the turbo tunnel over and over and over. andrew smash posted:I think it's pretty clear by the end of the fractal prince that they are basically Chen's giant chained-up gangster pit bulls. This was certainly the impressions I got. Don't like it? Get in line or I'll unleash the hounds.
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Jul 9, 2014 04:23
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You guys should really hurry up and read TCA, cause you will get a lot of answers that way. Spoilers: The All-D is the main villain in TCA. Sobornost and Dragons actually play a minor role, and more focus is on the Zoku. Perhonen is dead.
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Jul 9, 2014 07:51
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I feel like putting up spoilers on a book that isn't out yet, even if tagged, is a bit much. This page is so thick with black text that summarises the previous two books that someone could easily read this stuff too. I did 
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Jul 9, 2014 11:24
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I spoil the poo poo out of most books I read and it doesn't bother me but this is one I want to surprise me so I am going to have to exercise every iota of willpower I have to not read those.
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Jul 9, 2014 11:52
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Symptomless Coma posted:I feel like putting up spoilers on a book that isn't out yet, even if tagged, is a bit much. This page is so thick with black text that summarises the previous two books that someone could easily read this stuff too. Given that you shouldn't be reading this far into the thread anyway if you haven't read the first two books, I'm gonna go ahead and remove the spoiler tags from mine.
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Jul 9, 2014 15:35
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Cardiac's post is the only Causal Angel spoilers, at least.
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Jul 9, 2014 19:18
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Illuyankas posted:Cardiac's post is the only Causal Angel spoilers, at least. And he's very explicit that that's what it is. Honestly, none of those spoilers were even surprising.
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Jul 9, 2014 19:25
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Yikes. I was smugly reading this thread with full confidence I could not be spoiled since I've read both books. I am not one to care about spoilers but that really took me off guard as casual angel isn't even out yet. This is probably the first time I've actually felt slightly annoyed at a 'spoiler'. I feel like this may have been what the ur-nerds of yore meant when they decried "spoilers". I guess everyone should be careful from this point forward!
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Jul 10, 2014 06:50
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Nevvy Z posted:And he's very explicit that that's what it is. I emphasized that it was spoilers, so if you click them, it is on you. And as you say, none of them are that surprising. There are bigger things happening in the book which has little to do with what have been recently discussed in the thread. Space-Bird posted:Yikes. I was smugly reading this thread with full confidence I could not be spoiled since I've read both books. I am not one to care about spoilers but that really took me off guard as casual angel isn't even out yet. I got it 2 weeks ago, but apparently you all live in an uncivilized country without proper release dates. Also helps that I still read books in physical format.
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Jul 10, 2014 09:36
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redacted because it's not worth it
Symptomless Coma fucked around with this message at 12:48 on Jul 10, 2014 |
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Jul 10, 2014 11:29
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Cardiac posted:I got it 2 weeks ago, but apparently you all live in an uncivilized country without proper release dates. Also helps that I still read books in physical format. You know as well as I do that there's plenty of things that have staggered release dates from country to country. Sometimes the US gets it first, sometimes the UK does. There's no cause to be a jerk about it.
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Jul 10, 2014 12:50
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Where exactly did you pick it up? Far as I can tell the release date in the UK and US is the same, as is the release date for Canada and every EU country I checked.
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Jul 10, 2014 20:31
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Cardiac posted:I got it 2 weeks ago, but apparently you all live in an uncivilized country without proper release dates. Also helps that I still read books in physical format. Clearly this tough guy isn't one for the great common task. Someone call the cops, he's hanging out in corporeal meat space, and bragging about reading 'print books'. Edit: Still, seems kind of disingenuous to run around with an advance copy of a book and act all flippant, when people were 'totally warned'. It's not like 'spoiling' Game of Thrones or whatever cuz the books have been out for a million years. hell astro course fucked around with this message at 20:46 on Jul 10, 2014 |
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Jul 10, 2014 20:42
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Space-Bird posted:Edit: Still, seems kind of disingenuous to run around with an advance copy of a book and act all flippant, when people were 'totally warned'. It's not like 'spoiling' Game of Thrones or whatever cuz the books have been out for a million years. Nemesis Of Moles posted:Where exactly did you pick it up? Far as I can tell the release date in the UK and US is the same, as is the release date for Canada and every EU country I checked. Lo and behold. http://www.sfbok.se/asp/artikel.asp?VolumeID=129960 It was released in Sweden the 2nd of July and while I had pre-booked it, it is not like I got it prior to release date (since it went through the mail I actually got it 2-3 days later). But I'll shut up for now until people have actually read the book.
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Jul 11, 2014 08:00
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