Kinkajou chances upon 
Vorian Atreides within the Sigma Psi veil.
The Dune Interviews: Dune series (Brian Herbert, Kevin Anderson)
Kinkajou: Tell us Vorian about the Genesis of the machines.
Vorian Atreides: The fall of the old Empire initially began when a group of 20 humans masterminded the formation of a revolutionary movement that took over the old Empire. They called themselves the Titans after one of the ancient Greek gods.
The programming expert named Barbarossa, who was one of the group, devised a scheme to convert the empires ubiquitous servile machines into fearless aggressors by giving their AI brains certain human characteristics such as the urge to dominate, control and conquer.
Some human resistance groups rallied their defences on the fringes of the Old Empire. Forming their own Confederation – “The League of Nobles” – fought the 20 Titans and after many bloody battles retained their freedom. They stopped the tide of the Titans and drove them back.
Over the next century the Titans dominated the galaxy. Two of these Agamemnon and his lover Juno had their brains surgically removed and implanted into preservation canisters that could be installed in a variety of mechanised bodies, thus extending their life, their versatility and their power. One by one the remaining Titans felt the spectre of age and vulnerability , eventually all converting themselves into Cymeks, machines with human minds.
One of the hedonistic Titans known as Xerxes, anxious to have more time for its pleasures, surrendered too much access to is pervasive AI network. The sentient computer network seized control of the entire planet followed quickly by others. The breakdown spread like a virulent infestation from world to world, and the computer “Evermind” grew in power and scope.
The intelligent and adaptable sentient computer Evermind named itself Omnius. Omnius and his minions proceeded to rapidly conquer all the Cymek controlled planets before the Cymeks even had time to warn each other of the danger they faced. Agamemnon and his fellow Titans became reluctant servants of the machine “Evermind.”
Omnius was prevented by his programming from harming his creators outright, but always sought an opportunity to allow them to destroy themselves.
Dune Shield Tech
Omnius and his thinking machines held all of the “Synchronised Worlds” in an iron grip for over 1000 years. Whenever the machine servants of Omnius attacked and sought to dominate, the remaining humans clustered around the “League of Nobles”. The humans were thus able to defend themselves effectively, remaining a thorn in the side of the “ Evermind.”
One of the early Bene Gesserit sisters quoted “when humans created a computer with the ability to collect information and learn from it, they signed the death warrant of mankind”. Many felt that the machine is an evil genie, escaped from its bottle.
...
The Omnius planned a massive robot attack on Salusa Secundis, home of the Parliament of the “League of Nobles.” It used the Cymeks (living human brains with the bodies of machines), to bypass the Holtzman Scrambler Shields designed to fry the gel circuitry of the machine AIs.
Because the Cymek brains were organic and human, they were unaffected by the automatic shield defences of the planet. They landed upon the planet in crash down pods, which opened revealing the fearsome mechanical monstrosities driven by surgically detached human brains located within.
When the articulated legs and augmented weapons clicked into place, the Cymek bodies lurched out of the smoking crashdown pods, resembling crab- like gladiators half as tall as the damaged buildings around them.
The Cymek warriors marched forward as individuals not an army, in effect an agglomeration of mad dogs bent on a rampage of destruction. Cmdr. Xavier Harkonnen analysed their attacks and realised that the true target was the Holtzman Scrambler Shields. If the shield generators were destroyed the planet would lay open to the attack of the machine armada.
It became obvious that the rampage of many of the Cymeks was merely a distraction designed to lure the human defences away from the Holtzman Shield generators .
Cmdr. Xavier Harkonnen’s plan was simple. The Cymeks were not invulnerable. The human military forces would undertake coordinated strikes. They would select a single target and crush it, one Cymek at a time until they were all destroyed. The Cymeks fled by ejecting their brain canisters into space, leaving their machine bodies behind. The robot fleet launched a swarm of missiles at the planet, but these were quickly destroyed by the human defences when there gel circuitry brains were destroyed by the Holtzman shields.
The thinking machines recalculated their chances for success, didn’t like the odds, and decided to retreat, leaving swathes of debris of the battle fleet in orbit around the planet.
Kinkajou: I can see that the destruction of the human city would have been horrendous, once its defenders were retasked to defend the shield generators, abandoning the defence of the city. I hate to admit that I am impressed by the doggedness of the Cymeks. It is one reason that humans in my era have been drawn to the concept of Mech Infantry. What do you think?
Vorian Atreides: The success of the Cymeks raises the issue of how useful this type of battle constructed can be in future conflicts. Using machinery to enhance human capabilities would seem logical direction for the enhancement of future warriors. Humans in my world are horrified by the development of artificial machine intelligence and the prospect of conflict with such machines. It may not even be the machines who choose to come into conflict with humans.
As you can see from our history, it was humans infecting our machines with programming to change their capacities which resulted in the development of the machine Overmind.
However, the Cymeks (organic human brains located within machine bodies), also proved to be implacable enemies of humankind. In hindsight, we can blame the human drive for self-preservation for toadying to the demands of the Omnius. However, even machinery designed to enhance the average human is a source of consternation to us all.
Mechanised infantry may be a very clever idea. But, it opens a path to new horrors and new scenarios for conflict.
Spaceship Force Fields in Flight
MechInfantryTrue.html |
Herbert, Brian |
Vor Atreides |
The Butlerian Jihad :Dune Series |
Kinkajou interviews Dizzy Flores of the Starship Troopers
(movie series: Starship Troopers)
Kinkajou: Hello Dizz. Could you spare me some time before your next mission? I would like to know about your military technology, especially about your mechanised infantry and the technologies you use in achieving orbit.
Dizzy Flores: The true triumph of our civilisation is the mechanised infantry. Mechanised infantry has made many of us the men we are today. Humans have discovered conflict as they have spread through the galaxy. One of our most implacable foes are the bugs a.k.a. the arachnids.
They have begun to oppose us through the use of space-based kinetic energy weapons and with the presence of troops on the ground. Their ability to replicate at prestigious rates and to destroy the ecology of the planets they infest, means that ground once lost is difficult to regain.
The mobile infantry uses technology to enhance the power of the individual soldier. By using mechanisation the soldier can carry more armour, more equipment and heavier weapons/munitions.
They can travel faster, cover more ground and utilise more technology including communications and targeting systems. In much the same way that the rifle improved the combat efficiency of the common soldier in modern times versus a common soldier in Roman times by a factor of 100; so has mechanisation further improved the power of the individual soldier by another factor of 100.
Mobile or mechanised infantry is as much a specialty as fleet operations or intelligence. It requires specialised skills and physical resilience, the ability to function mentally under physical stress, the ability to tolerate horrifying sights and sense experiences and mental determination to succeed and to press the attack when other options seem so much more “sensible”.
I see that in your era there is considerable consideration for the role of mobile infantry in an aerial combat capacity. While we have not developed this capacity, I have seen the bugs use wasps as aerial attack vehicles.
They are devilishly difficult to combat due to their mobility within the aerial environment and their ability to travel swiftly across uneven terrain. Even mobile infantry is affected by geography. But in the aerial environment, the ground is always flat so to speak. It certainly seems to make some sense to me to consider the creation of a combat unit equivalent to the wasp with many of the features of the mechanised infantry in- built.
Cylon Soldiers
We use a number of orbital entry technologies. Space elevators are a common solution where the volume of traffic justifies the substantial expense involved. It is the ability to generate large amounts of energy in small spaces which makes many of our achievements possible. Our mechanised infantry require high energy density self-sustaining power sources to allow long-term operation in hostile environments. The miniaturisation of fuel cells is the order of the day.
To achieve orbit, a high energy density to weight ratio is critical in improving payload and reducing the amount of mass required to create thrust. Our entire civilisation would not be possible if we were limited to 20th-century rocketry techniques for achieving orbit.
I think early in our history the use of scramjets to enable orbital entry substantially reduced the cost of the 20th century space operations. But we have been able to improve on these technologies.
Starship Troopers
Kinkajou: Could you comment on the social aspects of the arachnid enemy force?
Dizzy Flores: The bugs have achieved similar successes through an organic / biological mechanism. Their brain resides within a single organism – the brain bug. It is these biological thinking machines that create the strategy that ensures the dissemination and dominance of the bugs. Without this intelligence capacity the bugs would be a simple foe to overcome.
However, their intelligence has been discerned in combat situations to be as good if not better than our own. Thinking bugs are capable of planning to use what to us are limited though plentiful resources to achieve their aims. We have greater physical technology but less biological technology than the bugs. It is in exploiting our advantages that we both approach the conflict.
The bugs utilise gene manipulation to create biological mechanisms capable of many diverse functions including organic artillery, massed infantry, armed aerial attack units, setting traps and infiltration/assimilation of humans.
We tend to use our greater average intelligence to press our advantage in the physical sciences in the implementation of battle hardened systems of attack and defence. Mechanised infantry, space vehicles, nuclear and artillery weapons and targeting systems are all components of our advantages over the bugs.
I think the bug social structure is also an advantage over that of we humans. The bug society is essentially a pyramid with the brain bug at the top. Once the bugs decide to do something, they attempt to do it regardless of the expense in lives or the expense of physical incapacity.
The individual is a meaningless quantity. For us the generation of cohesiveness of will is much more complex, since in our society the individual is paramount. To generate a single purpose across the entire human melange is indeed very difficult.
To maintain this purpose in the face of mounting casualties and deaths is extremely difficult for human populations. In fact, it is only the implacable nature of the bug enemy that has forced us to continue to fight long past the point when many human societies in the past had collapsed.
In effect the social design of the bug society makes them incredibly suited for combat and war. Human societies are more suited to sustained production and innovation.
The social engineering of the two societies is completely different. I can see perhaps there are some differences that are compatible. Perhaps one day maybe the two societies can coexist utilising the advantages of each, to create a society that is more robust and sustainable, in the face of overwhelming conflict.
To say that either social engineering structure is right is impossible. Each has advantages. Each situation has disadvantages. In a conflict situation, it is the employment of advantage over disadvantage that guarantees victory. Perhaps in the long term, a more compatible solution is the combination of the more robust elements of each of the societies into a cohesive whole.
Kinkajou: Can you comment on the concept of the “Paradise Game!”
Dizzy Flores: Humans have been drawn to explore and colonise the galaxy. To this extent our aspirations have brought us into conflict with the bugs. Is the universe a melting pot or a testing pot of ideas to test the mettle of the peoples that constitute it? Is the winning way the only right way?
Humans are spread through the galaxy looking for paradise. The bugs have only sought continued life. Why should these worldviews being conflict?
Kinkajou: Thank you Dizzy. Your points of view reveal much greater introspection and consideration than those of many average soldiers. The concept that some ideas are right and should fight to the death with other ideas which are wrong, is guaranteed to create misery and conflict. In human history this is most obvious in religious conflict, whether leaders say theirs is the right way and the others' way is the wrong way.
Throughout history, ideas have been the source of the greatest number of deaths. Perhaps we should think about the consequences of our ideas and allow more consideration and tolerance for the ideas of others. You would hope this would make the universe a better place.
Bye!
FuelCellMinituarisationTrue.html |
Heinlein, Robert |
Dizzy Flores |
Starship Troopers |
MechInfantryTrue.html |
Heinlein, Robert |
Dizzy Flores |
Starship Troopers |
Paradise Game |
Heinlein, Robert |
Dizzy Flores |
Starship Troopers |
Orbital EngineTrue.html |
Starship Troopers |
Dizzy Flores |
Movie |
SingularityTrue.html |
Starship Troopers |
Dizzy Flores |
Movie |
SocialEngineeringTrue.html |
Starship Troopers |
Dizzy Flores |
Movie |
Kinkajou interviews a number of anonymous Sigma Psi facets with consciousness
Kinkajou: So XB tell me your story. (Unknown book reference)
XB: I was born in an era, long following the day of the fateful meeting between humanity and the aliens. Humanity was just beginning to explore the galaxy. A small task force of our spaceships was discovered by the aliens. The aliens immediately launched an attack upon our ships and captured them.
Our technologies were very similar. No one who knows about the first contact, could ever help but wonder how history may have been changed, and had we only met the aliens just perhaps even 100 years into the future. At that stage our technology would have been in advance of theirs. We would have been the senior partner.
The aliens took over human civilisation and made humanity slaves of their empire. The injustice of the situation is that we were the engine for their success. The price we paid as a species as a result of this contact was high.
The aliens took charge of an empire. Humans were experimented on, and modified to fill many niches. Humans were genetically modified to form super soldiers or thumpers. The soldiers were further modified by the addition of machine elements, in effect creating cyborg warriors.
Human planets became staging posts for the spread of the empire. It was routine for spaceships landing at one of our human systems, to load up on water as fuel for ion engines. Over thousands of years, some planets were essentially stripped of their water resources. An ocean world became an ocean of desert. And humanity only a component or a slave of an alien empire.
Human beings are incredibly plastic. Genetic modification is easy. The tragedy of the situation is that gene modification for specialisation is an evolutionary trap. And the aliens needed specialists for many niches to run their empire. Humans became the feedstock for this process, in effect becoming components of the imperial machine.
I remember being at the location of imperial assault. Human gene modified cyborg infantry were landed and rapidly deployed on the missions. The advance was efficient and fast, overcoming all obstacles with ease. These mechanised infantry were the cutting-edge of technology, capability and of specialisation. Every civilisation needs its ground troopers. And humans were the tools of the empire.
As I’ve said, “You cannot help but wonder what may have happened had we met them just 100 years later”.
Reference: space? Unknown book.
MechInfantryTrue.html |
Lost Book |
X |
Human gene modified infantry |
MechInfantryTrue.html |
Lost Book |
XB |
Human spaceships find aliens: History subverted |