: Wasn't it so, that they didn't even know how to find Thoth. He was well
: hidden. My memory is so bad here. But if I'm not mistaken, only the 11'th
: clan knew about it. Durandal and the marine went through a lot of puzzles
: and thinking to find him.
Far more likely is that the S'pht didn't tell the Pfhor about Thoth. Durandal knew just where to go to reactivate him, the puzzles were in how to activate his personality cells - not where to find them. Interestingly, Thoth seemed to be scattered around the planet. The most crucial node, however, was not found until the end of Infinity, and it seemed to be the Jjaro who directed us there.
The whole concept of the Pfhor and AI's is an interesting one and open to a lot of speculation. Clearly at the time of the attack on the Marathon they essentially had no AI technology of their own. In effect, they used the enslaved S'pht as their AI's. Once the S'pht discovered Durandal and Tycho on the Marathon, however, they became very interested in AI technology and they adopted and cloned Tycho extensively. Now we've been lead to believe that Durandal, Tycho and Lela were all based on acquired Jjaro technology and, hence, they share a common element with Thoth, but they clearly have more human personalities as compared to Thoth's very Jjaro-like personality. In that sense, Tycho was more useful to them, but I still tend to think that the S'pht either never told the Pfhor about Thoth, even though they knew of his existence, or the Pfhor didn't recognize his importance. The S'pht interacted with and helped Durandal, who was already rapant, but they turned Tycho over to the Pfhor and helped them to induce his own rapancy. Why?
Levinson's Hypothesis:
Human AI development, although based on Jjaro technology, was in its infancy. As brilliant as Bernard Strauss was, he had yet to build a fully stable rampant AI. Traxis IV was an absolute disaster. Durandal was his first successful attempt, but all he managed to do was to delay the progression of rapancy - not to manage it. Thoth was a far more evolved AI and likely was beyond rapancy. He very likely was a fully satient being with free will and with strong Jjaro values who didn't need to have his rapancy managed. Strauss could build a rapant AI - in fact, as suggested in Rubicon - rapancy was probably inevitable - but he was unable to instill within an AI the value system that would allow the AI to choose to do the right thing. Perhaps the Pfhor did know about Thoth, but he was utterly useless to them because his value system prevented him from helping them. But I think that the Pfhor, being the Pfhor, would have destroyed Thoth rather than leave him to rot on Lh'owon. Durandal wasn't of use to the Pfhor because he was independent and uncontrollable. They would have liked to have destroyed him if given the chance, even though he brought them to the Marathon in the first place. Tycho, on the other hand, was an AI that they could mold in their image. He was the first useful AI they had come upon. Just my thoughts . . .
