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| Where my pretentiousness becomes unbearable | |
| Posted By: Dagoonite <dagoonite@gmail.com> | Date: 7/4/11 1:52 a.m. |
In Response To: Weaponized Transhumans: Halo, Deus Ex, Crysis... (General Battuta) Just a few thoughts real fast. YAR THERE BE SPOILERS IN THESE HERE WATERS! Warhammer 40,000: I'd like to point out some minor errors with what you had to say. Cybernetics are actually fairly common, depending on the world that you live on or what you do. Augmetics aren't the slightest bit uncommon within the Imperial Guard. Even lower hive scum may have them. You practically can't live on a Forge World without at least some level of cyberization, and if you become a member of the Techpriests of Mars, a high level of cybernetics is mandatory. You're quite correct in that the 40k universe is reactionary, at least for the Imperium of Man. However, there are other factions which aren't, some of which don't view cybernetics the same way that the Imperium does. Even within the Imperium, the views of cybernetics varies wildly, as does their availability. However, the 40k universe is purposefully grim and dark. Grimdark, if you will. It sets out in every corner to focus on hopelessness, even for those who worship Tzn... Tz... The big bird dude who just as plans everything. (I don't feel like opening Lexicanum just to get the proper spelling, sorry.) This is brought even more to the forefront by my next point. The heavy use of organic computers by the Imperium. The arguably most heinous of which are servitors, people who have been lobotomized and most of their flesh replaced with cybernetics. The only thing that is seen as vital to the servitor is the brain. Likewise, cherabim, and the Machine Spirit of Land Raiders are nothing more than vat grown flesh and brains. (At least, usually. If not vat grown, then they come from somewhere a little more natural.) All three of these examples are far better for stating the horror presented by their views of cybernetics, and how they may turn a normal human into nothing more than a weapon. Now, I know that you were probably referring to the video games, but oh god I really am a neckbeard aren't I? I'm going to go cuddle my Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer now and cry. Halo: There's one thing that I wanted to bring up about the Master Chief. While you make some very good points, I think that there's one that you're forgetting: He's a Spartan II. That means that he was raised from a young age to follow orders, conditioned to be a very narrow mindset of what the perfect soldier should be. You give him an objective, and he completes it. There's very little recorded as to what Spartans do on their off time, but every indication that they don't have very much of it, if any at all. They're tools, and little else. They don't have a choice, but they also don't realize that they don't have one. Every time that they're given one that we've seen, they become very conflicted and have to do some soul searching to make it. This has little to do with the AIs, but the decisions of Dr. Halsey and Chief Mendez. Though the datapads would lead you to believe one thing, their direct decisions both in the books and as presented within her journal speak a different story. It shows their decisions to make the Spartans into something less than human, something which Dr. Halsey later feels regret for. Chief Mendez himself seems to have moral issues with his decisions. (This can be seen both during the funeral and after the boxing match in Fall of Reach.) Yet these decisions on their part to mold the training of the Spartans shows no evidence of being due to AI tampering. And, in turn, the nature of the Chief to follow Cortana's orders is more due to how he was raised than anything else; she's providing the mission objective, and he's following it. One could even argue that in the first Halo, his attempts to make peace during the initial confrontation between 343 Guilty Spark and Cortana is him asserting his own ability to make decisions and be worthwhile independent of her: Based on the limited information that he has, 343 seems like a friend. The two AIs argue, not for their own benefit, but for his -- they need to convince him to take a side, a decision that only he can make. If he were a true tool for Cortana, then there wouldn't be a need for her to convince him. In Halo 2, in an early scene, he formulates a plan and enacts it with very little input from Cortana. Fortunately, she likes crazy. He even lampshades this in Halo 3 when reunited with Cortana. A very rare instance of him telling a joke at that. Lord Hood is another example. He doesn't follow Cortana's plan at first. He's staunchly against it. He requires quite a bit of convincing before he is willing to commit to it, and that's with Elites backing it up. In the end, as the man with the ability to give the order, he is the one to give it thought. (I could discuss at length how ODST fits in to all of this, but I'll save that for another day.) That said, if desired I can play devil's advocate with myself and come up with a few other examples within the games to back up your theory, even pulling games that could be argued to have transhuman overtones within a non-technological framework (Prototype, for example) but I'll avoid that for now. I've rambled on enough as is. (And yes, this all counts as rambling. I actually had a VERY long section discussing linear verses so-called sandbox games and how they're both the same dang thing with different levels of side quests, and how this applies little to your AI theory, but I culled that because... Eh, it didn't actually add anything.) All in all, this was a very interesting read, and I'm glad I took the time to go through it.
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