dire wrote:
Kendrakirai wrote:
Warior4356 wrote:
Still the whole broken wind charlie foxtrot came from not trusting the AI enough to give internally gravy manipulation. It easily had the gravy to crush all the invaders but because of TAG they did not allow this ability. So ultimately Tagon and Co's fault
Actually, every ship they'd properly LOST except the Kitesfear was because of AI, many of them some level of insane.
Petey was subourned, crazy, and subourned again before self destructing.
The Serial Peacemaker was stolen by Ennesby and promptly lost in battle.
The Touch-and-Go wasn't actually lost until Tagii went crazy and took it over, but it's AI did suffer what amounted to a nervous breakdown and refused to boot back up, effectively crippling the ship until it was repaired and refit.
Bristlecone was effectively lost at Eina-Afa directly because of a currently insane ancient AI.
Even the Scrapyard of Insufferable Arrogance was destroyed by direct action of a 'friendly' AI - once again, Petey.
At what point do YOU think 'we should probably have safeguards against the AI going crazy and killing us all' enter the picture?
(I have the distinct feeling I'm missing a ship in there somewhere....they had the refit Athens during the Scrapyard, but that was more Breya's ship than theirs...)
To quote Howard,
Quote:
Note: For those keeping score at home, Kitesfear (TT01), Post-Dated Check Loan (TT02), Scrapyard of Insufferable Arrogance (TT04), and Serial Peacemaker (TT03) were all destroyed. Touch-and-Go (TT05) was broken in half and completely rebuilt (TT05-06), and later damaged beyond repair, so yes, it's being counted twice. Bristlecone (TT07) was also damaged beyond repair, and Broken Wind (TT08) was gutted, and her interior completely rebuilt (TT08-11)
Cindercone (TT09) is not being counted because it wasn't lost. It was sold back to Eina-Afa. Neosynchronicity (TT10) is also not being counted because it was under Captain Murtaugh's command (a detail which she left out of this conversation.)
Kitesfear was the 6TT explosion, probably supplied by the Gatekeepers, designed to both kill the Toughs and probably sterilize a good portion of human civilization. When a troublesome primitive civilization arises, the best solution is probably to knock it back to the stone age, in their opinion.
PDCL was an insane AI to begin with. I don't see how Tagon ever expected to keep the ship, and HE was crazy to turn the AI -on- and start trusting it. "Just flip this switch and it'll be loyal only to you forever, Captain. Honest."
Scrapyard was lost during enemy action, directly traceable to the enemies Tagon had made with PDCL.
Serial Peacemaker, Petey again. I honestly wouldn't put it past Petey to hack Ennesby and let Ennesby think it was all his idea to begin with.
TAG, that was Credomar, the station with the massively oversized annie plants that Tagon simply ignored until they started shooting his tanks down.
TAGII, also Tagon's fault. If he hadn't taken the suicidal contract on Oisri to begin with, he probably would have been in more survivable circumstances when his officers figured out that their new robot-assist was a plant.
Bristlecone, also Tagon's fault. He just really enjoys flying into situations blind where it turns out that he's massively, horribly outgunned. To be fair, at this point he was being manipulated by all and sundry, and he was a "captain" without a ship. So he commandeered the first one he came across and got it blown up like the true strategic pioneer that he is.
I'm actually pulling a blank for Broken Wind. That was the boarding action, right? Where Tagon was actually carrying the munition that gutted the ship?
They had two options for the PDCL; not turn on the AI, which meant their newly no refundable purchase was completely unflyable unless they hired about ten thousand more crew members, at a time they could barely afford a ship that would let them work again, or turn on the AI, find out what was wrong, and hopefully fix it. Which they did, as well as was even possible.
The scrapyard was lost DURING an enemy action, yes, but the missile that killed it came directly from Petey.
The serial peacemaker, even if Petey DID hack Ennesby to make it sound like his idea, it was still AN AI THAT CAUSED IT.
TAG on Credomar was a mess that nobody could have predicted, and the fact Tagon was able to get out of it while only losing Brad, despite literally EVERYBODY IN THE STATION being against him in some manner, and having a rather sizable supply of antimatter in the mix (and there being a fire, set by people entirely put of his control, which set the antimatter off in the first place) is remarkable. The Annie plants on the stationwaist SHOULD have been okay and ignorable, but the no-fly defenses were automatic.
TAGII on Oisri was yet another time when he couldn't POSSIBLY have known what was arrayed against him, in the form of internal spies, almost the entirety of the Gavcorps being subourned, a BATTLEPLATE arriving to clean things up, a friggin' PAA'NURI hatching from the station, and the AI going murderous because of something a subordinate did that Tagon wasn't told about until he thought he had an out-of-the-blue mutiny.
Bristlecone, as noted, was yet another 'couldn't possibly have known what the hell was actually going on' scenario. No amount of research beforehand could have clued them in to the fact there was an insane, ten-million-year-old AI in that can, that it would be defended by said AI fervently trying to keep the DMEs from finding the station, etc.
The only time having an AI on their ship HASN'T turned out terribly was with TAG, who they caused to have a nervous breakdown because they cranked his loyalty up so high he couldn't make a decision on his own without breaking.
EDIT: Also, the Toughs had, even with restoring Petey to function, only BARELY beat their deadline to LEAVE THE SYSTEM OR BE ARRESTED OR DESTROYED. There was no time to do anything BUT turn Petey back on and hope they could in-crazy him.