When I really start thinking... amazing huh? Was it ever mentioned that the S'pht at all knew about Thoth? I mean, if they knew about him, why didn't they turn him on (no pun intended) when the Pfhor came and started messing up the place? Thoth could probably have found a way to create balance and prevent the S'pht from being enslaved, right? Maybe only the Jjaro knew about him. If this theory falls flat please make a mockery and a fool out of me :D
: 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 . . .
