09

May 2017

Chapter 12: Page 25 - Court Adjourned

Posted by / in Comic / 32 comments

Who’s that handsome little sneak…

Looking like 2 more pages (and thus weeks) of this chapter before starting a hiatus. And hopefully during that hiatus to get Nick in gear updating the site, Seba gets time to relax and build a buffer, and maybe I can get the Kickstarter ready to go!

  • Honza Prchal

    The lab tech security lass (lad perhaps by shoulder width viewed from behind, but the hair just screams techie punk rock girl to me) looks pretty rad.

    • Moxie

      She does sort of look like Lori Petty. Do you think tank girl is going to give them a lift?

      • Honza Prchal

        Nice simile. Of course, tired as I am, I first read “lorepetalum”.

  • Matt [in Middletown]

    ” And hopefully during that hiatus to get Nick in gear updating the site”
    Cue mad scientist laughter!
    We return to find that the Machine Song is in full synthesis, and the site has weird data strings throughout..

    • Moxie
      • T.R.

        The first 30 seconds of that song sound like they came from the soundtrack from Star Control 2. Haven’t played it in a while, so I can’t think of what race would match the tune… Any suggestions?

        • Moxie

          ::impressed whistle:: Now that really is a trip in the wayback machine! First PC, a 255 MB hard drive – I could install all the dozens of 3 1/2″ floppy disks of every game I’d ever get for the rest of my life and still have room left over. Back when a megabytes of RAM was 80 bucks.
          Seems to me this is pretty close. (Apologies Mr. Sharp… 🙇🏻😸)
          https://youtu.be/bE8rGLbTdEg

          • “Back in the day,” *rocks chair back and forth on porch*

          • Moxie

            Oh, my… The blessing and the curse of being me; among other things I was a DJ. - Monday through Friday midnight to 6 AM on WPNH, Saturday night at the Hong Kong Garden playing for 50 bucks and all the beer I could drink, Sunday 6 AM to noon doing a jazz and swing program. EVERYTHING reminds me of a song, In this case, Dolly Parton’s rockin’ years.
            https://youtu.be/CqN7N9-AHXs

          • You’ve seen our music page, right?

          • Moxie

            No, I was unaware. I’ll go find that immediately. I’m inspired to share Sarah Brightman & the hot topic’s “I fell in love with a starship trooper”… seems apropos, what with Jane & Dorje.

          • Moxie

            heh heh heh… it’s my off week, I just recently switched to unlimited data… this is gonna be fun. 😁
            Have you read John Ringo’s legacy of the Aldenata novels? He included a dandy playlist. A lot of spiritual parallels… I think I’ve got a rattling around in a text file somewhere if you’re interested.

          • Matt [in Middletown]

            Vic 20.
            Commodore 64

          • T.R.

            So so so so so resisting the urge to fire up the home PC and start playing The Ur-Quann Masters. (free - as in beer - version of Star Control 2…)

    • Moxie

      Aw, bugger. I keep forgetting I can’t post links here. I’m going to try it again. Remove the spaces before and after the period to get information Society’s ‘Where would I be without IBM’.
      https://youtu . be/dYBfdtMAD2Q

      • You can I just have to approve them manually (just takes a bit).

        • Moxie

          lol sorry to be a pain

          • Not a problem. I think the system eventually decides it trusts you, or I end up adding you to a whitelist or something XD

          • Moxie

            Merci beaucoup m’sieu. 😸

  • Moxie

    Thought you said who’s that handsome little smirk? The beard has spoken!

  • KBoysx1

    Okay Rick… Watch your flank… If he’s after you, pretend to fall backwards, then twist around and slam that object with Jane into his head! Otherwise, wait for Nightshade.

    Edit: I enjoy how as a character escapes, they’re always smirking…

  • Amberlight

    And the Dean of Glaucus is like “Meh, more boring crap. I’ll just play Candy Crush.”

    • Matt [in Middletown]

      She probably left yet another genetically modified monstrosity running in the hamster wheel in the lab.
      It may have gotten loose.
      Oh bother.

  • Oh Rick, you glorious SOB. I swear I like him more every time I see him. He’s so easy to underestimate until you see how much awesome he can actually pull off.

    • Sebastián Piriz

      Never underestimate the nerds, When they grow up they know LOTS more of stuff than you

      • KBoysx1

        Nerds rule the world

  • Xylas Incarnum

    Well, this is one way to get out of house arrest. I’d have said “Jail break” but the security just isn’t quite that high.

  • Henrik Svantesson

    Assuming the AI has a point with this plan, it’s interesting to note that this plan means that avoiding the court like this will not result in the worst result for her wearer. Considering how strong a case they have fighting this conventionelly in court, she must be expecting something scary.bad to happen if they do, OR this plan will result in the court and whatever its sentencing is to become completely irrelevant for her wearer in the future.

    If the 2nd plan is the case, it means that the entirety of the society they live in will be upturned, or she expects to still win the case with the prosecuted individuals being in-absentia. Considering that low likelyhood of winning the case without being present to argue your case, this means she knows some serious shit is about to go down.

    Or some really bad shit would happen if they had stayed to fight this battle in court, bad enough to outweigh all the consequences of a ruling against them.

    • Good thoughts, although you’re assuming this is Jane’s plan ;)

      • Henrik Svantesson

        Well, she does seem to have more or less completely unrestricted access to the city’s datasystems, and is a superhuman intelligence (even if that’s limited to “being as good as any human expert professional, in all areas of human knowledge, including all safety standards, best practices, psychological and therapeutic methods, etc) as far as we’ve seen so far, keeping something like this from her would be incredibly difficult.

        Additionally, she’s generally been acting extremely weirdly for a superintelligent being with access to the entirety of the lawbook and the complete record of all previous cases and any information about judges, jury and enemy accuser available on the web, which to me indicates that she knows something is up, and has a high degree of confidence that that something will have a better end-result than if she put her persuasive abilities to work in court.

        Bullets are hard to influence and in battle their effects are limited, but an savant or at least expert level therapist/psychologist/criminologist/lawyer/politician is extremely hard to beat in a social setting, or when faced with any threats that professionals would know how to mitigate.

        And that’s still just assuming a human-level intellect with access too all knowledge you can find in a public library, nevermind ones that can think on a superhuman level or have enough processing power that they can simulate all the people in a particular setting and thereby also predict their behavior, in their head, allowing them to repeat the conversation with them hundreds of times to find an approach that works before they ever speak with the real you.

        In short, tricking an AI is hard, even a very limited and distrusted one - humans generally cannot compete on that intellectual/social level, the same way that tribal humans cannot compete against power armored soldiers - you’d need a LOT of luck, surprise, and some way to actually get to them in their armor using stone age tools, while preventing them from instantly gibbing you if you get in their sights, and that’s if you know all their capabilities.

        Possible, but god-damn are the odds stacked against you.

  • Honza Prchal

    Speaking of machine songs, from an article in the WSJ entitled “Inside North Korea’s Accelerated Plan to Build a Viable Missile”, there’s this:
    “The government has composed songs about CNC [computer numerical control] machines and put them on postage stamps.”
    Also, kudos to Henrik Svantesson, though it’s possible the good guys are acting out of pique and/or pride … even Jane.

  • KBoysx1

    Smirk 😁