The Nightstar Zoo

This is the point where we remember that Chinook is herself the backup copy of a dead AI. And her backup was not made in medically sound conditions, but hurried copying of an already fragmented mind. She isn't completely alright in the head.

That said I looked back and we do not have a view of when Chinook and Petey discussed starting this mission. The first we know of it is Chinook approaching Peri about her sister's message. But I don't see why Petey would have reason to lie, and Putzho is right. Editing memories isn't healthy.

It lends credence to the theory that this is a plot to send Chinook off the deep end so she uses her long guns to commit Armageddon. But I have no idea who would have access to the kind of information and motivation necessary to pull off that plan.

Petey maybe?

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Rule of thumb is that if you need to use a squeegee, they're at least Laz-4.

Sure he has the knowledge and ability, but what would be his motivation. If he wanted to kill everyone he's perfectly capable of doing it himself. Shoot if he really wanted to kill everybody he doesn't even need to do it himself. He could just stop fighting the Pa'nuri and let them roll in and sterilize all the planets with super novas.

Plus he hasn't shown a willingness to use his friends as pawns like that before. Manipulate them for their own good yes, not be able to help them because of other commitments yes, but not blatantly sacrifice them.

What about the Archive? It has knowledge and motive. However unless it somehow got access to Petey's long guns, it lacks means.

Oh that is a good possibility. What if the Archive that Petey found wasn't the only part of it. Another section of archive acting elsewhere could wreak havoc. And Petey is a fleet mind after all, even if we only see the bear, it's possible the Archive can influence parts of him to set up traps like this.

For all its craziness the Archive is considerably older than Petey, and just by talking to him it has the opportunity to influence him.

I think the missing key here is the reason for the shot that took out the superfortress. If we can find out why that happened we'll get a better handle on the goal of whatever plan is being put into motion here.

She isn't even a backup. She is remnants that were copied and re-imagined and altered by another and have continued to be altered since.

She's probably completely crazy. I wonder when the last time she was examined by an unbiased observer was?

Well presumably the Oafans and Ot-Skadat did before they agreed to let her control pretty much everything about their society.

That said what if we haven't gone far enough down this line of thought. Chinook has the means to carry out these long gun attacks, and Tagii has the motivation. Chinook has also refused to let anyone examine her long guns, and has apparently been editing her memories. What if some of Tagii's more murderous impulses slipped through and a fragment of Chinook took control of her long guns. This would allow the Tagii fragment to wipe out its hated former friends, while the oblivious Chinook could use it as an excuse to kill even more people.

Umm....
*edges away, gingerly strapping into her Hyper-Activator*
*switches controls to Expeditious Retreat*

I'm guessing that the old Oafan mainframe is suffering from more ongoing degradation of it's memory storage than people realized...

Or maybe there's some sort of virus infecting the memory areas? or just biological growth in that location?


We already know that the memory designs were subject to SOME failure over the last 10 million years...

Alright, here again after years of being lost in interstellar space. And I have some speculations about this all.

First: There is a third entity that has access to a long gun - the puny-pronoun-hating LOTA. LOTA's motives have always been a bit inscrutable to the Toughs and even Petey. Petey at some point offered LOTA "asylum" in the Fleetmind, which LOTA refused on the basis of "being the only known check on Petey's power". Not saying LOTA had something to do with this, but it is possible.

Second: The target of the latest shot was not Maxim 39 itself, it was Srabben and/or the evidence of his piracy. Don't tell Chinook that, having her friends described as "collateral damage" would not be wise at the moment.

Third: Since we don't know exactly how this scenario came about and how a decision was made - all we know is that Chinook at some point questioned it and Petey insisted on "it has to be done right rather than well": https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2017-10-18 So actually, yes, I would say Chinook has grounds for being angry at Petey here since it's obvious that it was his plan, and she didn't have to necessarily have rewritten her memories.

Fourth: Petey might have a motive and means - after all, with LAZ-5 gestalts, nobody is "dead", and everyone is merely "inconvenienced". So I wouldn't put it past him to put his friends in harm's way or even actively kill them if it advances his own plans; he can simply grow new copies and as far as he's concerned, that's the same to him, no harm was done.

In the end, I do hope that Putzho manages to somehow balance this situation properly in his capacity as the Ego - because the Superego seems to have just triggered the Id.

Except that the evidence is on the prize vessel, not Maxim 39. Thus it makes no sense to shoot the wrong ship.


What does make sense is waxing the only person on site that could figure out what is going on in real time and react to it.... if further Long Gun shenanigans are to commence there.

I was actually thinking that Srabben might be the target. Sure the evidence of the piracy was on the prize vessel, but that might not what the long gun owners care about. Someone tried to kill some of the corpses twice after all. Maybe there was some other activity that they are trying to erase all evidence of and Srabben was party to it.

And after all Srabben is probably the only one on the Maxim who can't be resurrected. So that naturally places some importance on him as a potential target.

And wasn't Srabben just about to squeal?

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Rule of thumb is that if you need to use a squeegee, they're at least Laz-4.

He definitely looked like he was about to start talking the last we saw him. Though he probably hadn't gotten to anything really juicy yet.

I like your theory because it would mean I was absolutely right about everything I said about her back at the beginning of "a little immortality".

Couldn't Petey just suborn Chinook if he needed to?

signs point to no. She's mirrored to her entire fleet.

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Rule of thumb is that if you need to use a squeegee, they're at least Laz-4.

I don't actually think that is what happened. Chinook is clearly furious and unstable, but I don't think she is running some kind of double blind kill them all operation. I was just adding to the epileptic tree of theories.



The only real issue would be him not knowing where all those ships are. He's shown that he's quite capable of suborning just about anything he sets his mind to. So it would depend on whether he suborned this instance of chinook and how paranoid she was about hiding the location of her ships. If she erased it even from her own memories then it might not work. But there would have to be a whole lot of memory editing going on.

Eesh, there's a thought. She's mirrored to all the ships - but the only way to keep ALL of those ships safe is to run them like nuclear subs. Quiet, check in once and a while, then quiet again. And maybe cut out the memories of the real-space locations from each instance, in case it gets captured by chance. (Or you know, suborned by Petey)


Which leaves an AI known to go unstable when alone, very VERY alone.

Either she learned how to occupy her time, or her ships may act as a sort of checksum. She's not afraid to delete memories because she can recover them when she's ready to process them.

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Rule of thumb is that if you need to use a squeegee, they're at least Laz-4.

Or her ships don't have an active full version of her running until needed. A stepped down version or other SI is running the show until the Doomsday Scenario is triggered...


Which is how I understood her to have set it up. Granted that's pure presumption on my part.

She mentioned destroying other long guns. How? She doesn't know where they are.

she'll find them. or "guess"

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Rule of thumb is that if you need to use a squeegee, they're at least Laz-4.

There is a reason this is being assumed by Petey to be a potential civilization ending event.