Mr Zoat already mentioned the problem with that; without an AI the construct-rings are only as smart as the creature they were made from, and Praexis Demons are idiots.
With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Twelve)
- Thread starter Mr Zoat
- Start date
- Status
stormturmoil
CALChemist
Simple: the Ring Can't be Garricked, since it's not arcanely active and so the Alchemy won't bite on it. (assume for the sake of argument that the Asimlated Rings are also invalid targets for the Alchemy)
That means regardless of how fast the User may act or think, the Ring only acts as fast as it normally does - beyond a certain speed of thought, the Ring Can't keep up, and beyond a certain point, the Ring stops being able to react to the user at all and Just shuts down, or flies off looking for a new host because it can't tell they're actually still there.
infinityDivided
Prince Of Doom
- Location
- USA
I was under the assumption that the ring was limited to its host's speed of thought?
- Location
- Earth, 3rd rock from the Sun
How do we/would OL know this? I don't remember him branding any Psions in the story.
Also, the first use didn't hit the limit, there was no auto shut off be the ring, he ended it manually, so presumably there was time left on the clock saved towards the next use.
- Location
- 'Murica
Well.
You've got the Garrick formula as an alchemical substance that alters the drinker's soul.
And you have the various Lights seeping into and basically staining the soul of anyone who uses them enough.
You could just say that long-term Light usage changed the wielder's soul enough that the formula stops working, so that by the time someone is trustworthy enough to handle the combo it doesn't work for them anymore.
- Location
- Earth Prime
I didn't think a ring without AI was useless, just less useful. Certainly, learning to control the emotional impulses would be doable with it. Though I suppose it's necessary if you aren't going to manually instruct every molecule of a reconstruction, so the two times he loaned his out would have been impacted by that. (Cheshire and Robin doing medical work.)
- Location
- Australia
Good point. Paul does like to do things as efficiently as possible.
- Location
- U.S.
Personally, I'd regard it as a pretty significant downgrade. One huge thing I like about power rings(as depicted by Mr Zoat) is that they have a very competent general artifical intelligence built right in. You can just tell the ring to do something, and if it's not ludicrously difficult, complicated, or impossible it will do it or try it's best. If it IS ludicrously difficult it will warn you, it'll warn you about anything it thinks you'd want a warning about, hell, in general it just does what you want, full-stop.
Honestly I'm surprised that in many cases a user needs to understand something to tell the ring to do it. Certainly it could probably figure it out. I'd bet it's more of a intentional software limitation, either to ensure that a poorly educated user doesn't ask the ring to do something that is actually bad(and they would understand its bad if they knew more about it), or just because the last time the Guardians built fully independent AI it backfired massively.
But a construct ring? That's just some poor sob turned into a construct and then a ring. Unless there are some mental enhancements that come with the process, that is a huge downgrade.
I mean, look at one of the first things Paul does with the ring:
Okay, first he told it to "Access wireless data network." The ring had to interpret what he meant by "access" and figure out what a "wireless data network" is. For instance, a wrong interpretation of "access" would be physical access, in which case the ring would fly him to the physical access point(possibly through a wall). "wireless data network" could mean many things, a one-way radio station is technically wireless data, and he never told it which network so it correctly intuited that he wanted the library network (or any other network in range). Furthermore it correctly deduced that he wanted to use the wireless network to access the internet as a whole, instead of simply gaining access to LAN.
All of that is just deciding what Paul wants it to do. It still has to actually do it. Meaning a completely alien piece of technology that is technically several billion years old has to figure out what exactly the internet is, figure out that yes, those low-frequency photons flying through the air are the radio network, not those coherent high-frequency photons coming out some guy's laser pointer a mile away. It has to decipher all of the low-level data transfer protocols (with no local references to help it, can't google a problem if you can't access google!), decipher low-mid level protocols, decipher mid-level protocols, and decipher a dozen other layers of protocols because the internet is fucking complicated. It also has to do all of this while being discreet because while Paul hasn't stated it outright, he doesn't want to be discovered and a Orange Ring would act accordingly. So the ring has to figure all of this out without spewing random frequencies of photons everywhere or sending incorrect or otherwise suspicious data packets that might raise a red flag.
That's all one command. 2 sentences. 5 words, carrying incomprehensible complexity. It took about a second. A dedicated team of expert xenotechnologists might not be able to figure out how to connect to a completely alien data transfer system within a year.
I'm not even gonna get started on "acquire maps from the internet, I want to know where everything is on this planet and in the entire system".
And no offense Mr. Zoat, but unless you got a degree in computer science I doubt you have a detailed understanding of internet communication protocol; I don't, most people don't. Paul quite certainly didn't understand how to do what he asked the ring, compared to how complicated the task is he had a rudimentary understanding of what was required and the ring can still do it. He certainly couldn't do it on his own even if he had access to the ring's basic functions. And a construct ring? That's some random guy who attacked Larfleeze, got turned into a construct and then put into a ring with access to it's basic functions. You can see where I'm going with this. As I see it, compared to a normal ring, a construct ring is pratically lobotomized.
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Also, he much prefers to grab things and analyze/repurpose them rather than smashing them. A while back he mentioned in-story that he has trouble attaining the mental state necessary to use the powerful "Destruction" attack because he just doesn't want destruction that much.
Come to think of it in the long run that kind of issue will likely have an important effect on who does what in the OLC. The fact that what a person can do with an orange ring is significantly affected by their wants is going to mean that various individuals are going to be much better or worse at a job than simple skill would determine. A doctor who gets a ring might well be able to keep on healing people much longer than OL can before suffering avarice-diminishment, for example.
Empiricist2
Let's play doctor!
- Location
- Baton Rouge
As said by other people, he doesn't know how. In addition, at this point he doesn't need to know, as he has plenty of rings from Larfleeze, is about to have access to regular power rings, and the disposable Construct-Lanterns he has are only slightly smarter than rocks.
I thought of variations of this. Problem is that Grayven has used the Garrick formula a few times before and had no trouble keeping up. Even then, the Lantern could just limit their speed to how fast the SI accelerates with accelerated perception.
I imagine that an AI designed for the specific task of assisting a Lantern would be loaded up with a crap ton of heuristics in order to speed up things like this, along with historical archives of the general patterns that communication protocols take. The ring isn't figuring out everything from scratch, it's just calling on information and algorithms designed millennia ago by one of the smartest species in the Galaxy.
Similarly, the ring already knows that radio waves coming from a source in the planet's surface are the first candidate to check for a global information network. Higher frequencies would be inefficient for planetary communication, and the communication from ships is probably not part of the planetary network.
Although, it was mentioned early on that rings specialize in breaking encryption, which is honestly more impressive than nearly everything else they do.
I think the most effective medics won't be the traditional "doctor" types. From what I've seen, being a doctor is heavily influenced by wanting to help other people. That doesn't help use an orange ring. I think the most effective medics in the OLC will be the type of people who hate the sight of blood and hate being around sick people, and use that selfish desire in order to cure said people. Or the people who love doctoring as an intellectual excercise.
- Location
- U.S.
True, and while OL's ring didn't start with a typical guardian database, stuff like that might be so basic that it was still included. But I'd still be very surprised if the ring didn't contain some sort of gAI, given some of it's other capabilites. For one, information like that makes the job easier, certainly, but it still has to do at least some problem solving because even if another species has very similar technology, even tiny differences in protocols could make communication impossible, and even if that wasn't a problem the ring still has to figure out what technology matches best.
Beyond that, the ring still shows incredible information-processing capabilities. For instance, its essentially a flawless universal translator. Canonically it can translate pretty much anything, even new species which no Lantern has met before. That right there is incredible. Pre-programming isn't going to help with that much, to interpret meaning that well, you have to have a thorough understanding of the context of any communication, as well as a understanding of the culture of anyone speaking... and also a bit of mind-reading, since even in human languages the meaning of a sentence can change drastically as more words are added, and ring translation is real-time (I vaguely remember Paul mentioning something about this).
If you don't have all of the context, including culture, then when try to greet a alien they might respond with something like "As the Ones Who Came Before lifted up the Aunjin into their home at the coming of the Night Gods, Msipek lifted up the one who came from above into Msipek's home at the coming of the Storm Snow." Is that a friendly greeting? A territorial warning? A attempt at courtship? I have no idea.
Hell even human translators have trouble translating from other human languages, because sometimes one language has something which doesn't exist in another language. Granted, rings can have trouble with this too, such as in the case of Rot Lop Fan, who can't understand he's part of the "Green Lanterns" because his species doesn't have a concept of light. But this is remarkably rare and rings normally do a amazing job otherwise. For instance:
Not only did it translate the words properly, it also translated the tune, so that the song has the same meaning and the same sort of rhythm. It didn't manage to translate the rhyme, but it accurately translated that "explorier" is a bastardization of a word.
Honestly if you can make simplistic algorithms that can do stuff like that it would probably be easier to just include a gAI.
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It probably helps that the rings are commanded by thought, and thus have intent communicated to them along with the command. In any case, things in the DC-verse like magic and sufficiently advanced tech can operate on a conceptual level, which would let you shortcut a lot of things.
- Location
- texas
If memory serves, when Paul starts overclocking his constructs seem as slow to him as everything else.
I'm sure Zoat has a justification, but I'd say the obvious reason for that is so the overclocking isn't even more of an "I win" button.
Which reminds me of the Circle of Fire lanterns- Kyle accidentally created construct lanterns of his own, including a daxamite knight and a flash/green lantern aka Green Lightning. So Kyle made a construct lantern with flash speed, and another with Superman's speed.
Headhunting (part 19)
- Location
- Hampden Park
27th July
04:23 GMT
The door into the bridge opens and my Lanterns stroll through, Komand'r looking at each of the marines on guard duty with extreme suspicion. "So. A success?"
I step away from the captain's station and spread my arms wide. "What does it look like?"
Once I had exotic technologies under control, I could just phase up through the bridge floor and brand Captain Gralg. Naturally, as captain, his command station is the most heavily fortified though -in a remarkable display of sagacity- he didn't have access to anything that would let him override the turrets. Still, my ability to phase out, dropping underneath the deck and then phasing back in at each bridge station made overrunning the bridge a doddle.
Komand'r doesn't look convinced. "And they are now loyal to you?"
"Sort of. I modified their desires so that they now want to serve me as they once wanted to serve the Citadel."
I see a glimmer of desire from her at that, at the idea of having a legion of soldiers with no thought but how they may best please you. "You didn't tell me that was something we could do."
Koriand'r on the other hand looks a little unwell. "You can.. make people feel whatever you want them to?"
"I can make them want things or not want things, yes. I don't know if you can. It took me a while to learn, and assimilation is much more straight forward." Koriand'r still looks uneasy. "Would you rather I killed them?"
"Rather than violating their minds? I understand that you had to do this to the captain, but all of the rest? Yes."
"Simpleton." Komand'r sneers. "You would really rather he have killed every last one of them? And what if the Citadel Complex demands the chance to scan the ship's interior before allowing it past the inner defences? 'Captain Gralg, what happened to your crew?'."
She doesn't look happier. "If it makes you feel better, I can remove it once we're finished." She nods, mildly mollified. "What state did you leave the rest of the fleet in?"
Komand'r grins. "Not a single ship was left capable of moving under its own power. It was glorious."
"And the exterior of this ship? It needs to look like it's been in a fight?"
Komand'r had walked past me, strolling up to one of the marines and shoving his helmet with her right hand. His armour is far too heavy and resilient to be moved by her push, but he moves his right hand up to knock her away. "Hm. Not mindless."
"No, very much not mindless." I turn to Koriand'r. "How does the ship look?"
"The damage I caused to the hull during the initial attack is quite visible, and the hole you made is also noticeable. There should not be any difficulty in convincing the Citadel that it is genuine."
I nod. "Good. Captain, how long until we arrive?"
"A little under an hour, master, though we will reach the outer perimeter shortly." He smiles at me. "It is good to have clear direction again."
Koriand'r's face falls. "Did you.. make him.. enjoy it?"
"No. Citadelians are used to having the First's thoughts in their minds thanks to their cybernetic implants. When I killed him, that stopped. If he says that he likes it, then… He does."
Komand'r looks the captain over. "Will they survive the battle, do you think?"
"You'd be surprised. Captain Gralg has been filling me in on recent Citadel politics. Captain?"
The Captain grins. "Any Citadelian who rises high enough to become Emperor inevitably becomes unpopular with all of the rest. We all share the First Citadelian's desire to conquer and control. His thoughts are our thoughts, his blood our blood. Emperors inevitably become soft and indolent. With the First Citadelian's voice in our heads, we just grumbled about being told what to do by the Emperor until the First too grew tired of them and had one of his admirals depose him."
Komand'r nods in understanding. "And now he isn't telling you not to…"
"The only reason he isn't already dead is that the Admirals can't decide which of them should take his place."
"If he had any sense, he'd already have nominated one of them as his heir to try and break up their cartel."
"As you say, master. All I have to do to keep the fleet off me is declare for one Admiral over the others."
"And while he's doing that, we'll be hunting down the Emperor and the computer core. Our aim is to turn the Citadel Complex's defences against the rest of the fleet."
Komand'r nods. "And the shipyards?"
"No guarantees, but we are aiming to kill everything. Once the fleet -present company excepted- is vapour, there won't be anything to stop us taking anything large enough to be worth keeping and towing it back to Tamaran."
"We just have to survive first."
"If you'd like to back out-."
Her face hardens. "Hardly. I'm simply trying to be realistic." She thinks for a moment. "What would you say to us-?"
The navigator turns towards me. "Master, we will be returning to subluminal velocity imminently."
"Understood." I turn and head towards the main bridge doors. "Your highnesses, if you wouldn't mind? The Emperor won't demand to scan the entire ship but he will want to look at the bridge."
I hear them fall in behind me as I pass through the doors and head towards the lifts.
Koriand'r rises off the ground and comes alongside me on my right. "Do you know the size of the fleet which the Citadel has guarding Citadel Complex?"
"Yes." I raise my right hand and generate an approximate diagram of their disposition. "Assuming that nothing has changed since yesterday, one dreadnaught, twelve battleships like this one, about two hundred cruisers and far too many smaller vessels. In addition, there will probably be at least one battleship-equivalent from the Branx and from the Psions, and perhaps a smattering of Gordanian ships. And at least eight times the tonnage in static defences. Not counting Citadel Complex itself or the anti-ship weapons on the planet below."
Komand'r comes alongside me on my left. "Far too many for us to fight directly. Unless you've been holding anything else back?"
"If I had to fight them directly, I would join with the Ophidian. I do know how to use more sophisticated constructs than I have shown you so far, but they require more specialist training. I believe-" I land in the lift. "-that this plan is sound." I swirl my right hand around, generating a new image. "I suggest familiarising yourselves-" A bolt of orange flashes from my ring to each of theirs. "-with the internals of the Citadel Complex."
They nod as I use my ring to access the bridge. We're out of FTL and the face of a Citadelian I don't particularly recognise is on the main screen.
"What are you doing back, Gralg?"
"We were attacked, Admiral. By Orange Lanterns. My ship is in urgent need of repairs and my fleet in need of reinforcements. Permission to approach and make my report to the Emperor."
The face on the screen snarls. "Granted. Maintain course and heading. I'll get a work crew in place and wake the Emperor."
04:23 GMT
The door into the bridge opens and my Lanterns stroll through, Komand'r looking at each of the marines on guard duty with extreme suspicion. "So. A success?"
I step away from the captain's station and spread my arms wide. "What does it look like?"
Once I had exotic technologies under control, I could just phase up through the bridge floor and brand Captain Gralg. Naturally, as captain, his command station is the most heavily fortified though -in a remarkable display of sagacity- he didn't have access to anything that would let him override the turrets. Still, my ability to phase out, dropping underneath the deck and then phasing back in at each bridge station made overrunning the bridge a doddle.
Komand'r doesn't look convinced. "And they are now loyal to you?"
"Sort of. I modified their desires so that they now want to serve me as they once wanted to serve the Citadel."
I see a glimmer of desire from her at that, at the idea of having a legion of soldiers with no thought but how they may best please you. "You didn't tell me that was something we could do."
Koriand'r on the other hand looks a little unwell. "You can.. make people feel whatever you want them to?"
"I can make them want things or not want things, yes. I don't know if you can. It took me a while to learn, and assimilation is much more straight forward." Koriand'r still looks uneasy. "Would you rather I killed them?"
"Rather than violating their minds? I understand that you had to do this to the captain, but all of the rest? Yes."
"Simpleton." Komand'r sneers. "You would really rather he have killed every last one of them? And what if the Citadel Complex demands the chance to scan the ship's interior before allowing it past the inner defences? 'Captain Gralg, what happened to your crew?'."
She doesn't look happier. "If it makes you feel better, I can remove it once we're finished." She nods, mildly mollified. "What state did you leave the rest of the fleet in?"
Komand'r grins. "Not a single ship was left capable of moving under its own power. It was glorious."
"And the exterior of this ship? It needs to look like it's been in a fight?"
Komand'r had walked past me, strolling up to one of the marines and shoving his helmet with her right hand. His armour is far too heavy and resilient to be moved by her push, but he moves his right hand up to knock her away. "Hm. Not mindless."
"No, very much not mindless." I turn to Koriand'r. "How does the ship look?"
"The damage I caused to the hull during the initial attack is quite visible, and the hole you made is also noticeable. There should not be any difficulty in convincing the Citadel that it is genuine."
I nod. "Good. Captain, how long until we arrive?"
"A little under an hour, master, though we will reach the outer perimeter shortly." He smiles at me. "It is good to have clear direction again."
Koriand'r's face falls. "Did you.. make him.. enjoy it?"
"No. Citadelians are used to having the First's thoughts in their minds thanks to their cybernetic implants. When I killed him, that stopped. If he says that he likes it, then… He does."
Komand'r looks the captain over. "Will they survive the battle, do you think?"
"You'd be surprised. Captain Gralg has been filling me in on recent Citadel politics. Captain?"
The Captain grins. "Any Citadelian who rises high enough to become Emperor inevitably becomes unpopular with all of the rest. We all share the First Citadelian's desire to conquer and control. His thoughts are our thoughts, his blood our blood. Emperors inevitably become soft and indolent. With the First Citadelian's voice in our heads, we just grumbled about being told what to do by the Emperor until the First too grew tired of them and had one of his admirals depose him."
Komand'r nods in understanding. "And now he isn't telling you not to…"
"The only reason he isn't already dead is that the Admirals can't decide which of them should take his place."
"If he had any sense, he'd already have nominated one of them as his heir to try and break up their cartel."
"As you say, master. All I have to do to keep the fleet off me is declare for one Admiral over the others."
"And while he's doing that, we'll be hunting down the Emperor and the computer core. Our aim is to turn the Citadel Complex's defences against the rest of the fleet."
Komand'r nods. "And the shipyards?"
"No guarantees, but we are aiming to kill everything. Once the fleet -present company excepted- is vapour, there won't be anything to stop us taking anything large enough to be worth keeping and towing it back to Tamaran."
"We just have to survive first."
"If you'd like to back out-."
Her face hardens. "Hardly. I'm simply trying to be realistic." She thinks for a moment. "What would you say to us-?"
The navigator turns towards me. "Master, we will be returning to subluminal velocity imminently."
"Understood." I turn and head towards the main bridge doors. "Your highnesses, if you wouldn't mind? The Emperor won't demand to scan the entire ship but he will want to look at the bridge."
I hear them fall in behind me as I pass through the doors and head towards the lifts.
Koriand'r rises off the ground and comes alongside me on my right. "Do you know the size of the fleet which the Citadel has guarding Citadel Complex?"
"Yes." I raise my right hand and generate an approximate diagram of their disposition. "Assuming that nothing has changed since yesterday, one dreadnaught, twelve battleships like this one, about two hundred cruisers and far too many smaller vessels. In addition, there will probably be at least one battleship-equivalent from the Branx and from the Psions, and perhaps a smattering of Gordanian ships. And at least eight times the tonnage in static defences. Not counting Citadel Complex itself or the anti-ship weapons on the planet below."
Komand'r comes alongside me on my left. "Far too many for us to fight directly. Unless you've been holding anything else back?"
"If I had to fight them directly, I would join with the Ophidian. I do know how to use more sophisticated constructs than I have shown you so far, but they require more specialist training. I believe-" I land in the lift. "-that this plan is sound." I swirl my right hand around, generating a new image. "I suggest familiarising yourselves-" A bolt of orange flashes from my ring to each of theirs. "-with the internals of the Citadel Complex."
They nod as I use my ring to access the bridge. We're out of FTL and the face of a Citadelian I don't particularly recognise is on the main screen.
"What are you doing back, Gralg?"
"We were attacked, Admiral. By Orange Lanterns. My ship is in urgent need of repairs and my fleet in need of reinforcements. Permission to approach and make my report to the Emperor."
The face on the screen snarls. "Granted. Maintain course and heading. I'll get a work crew in place and wake the Emperor."
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Did he* get the Captain's name wrong, or is he named Gralg Grolg? Not like we've never seen weirder names.
* "he" in this case could be either Paul or the Admiral, depending on whether his name is actually Grolg or Gralg.
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"is on", I think.
- Location
- Hampden Park
Thank you, corrected.
To be consistent, shouldn't 'exotic' start with a capital letter?
- Location
- Australia
I'm guessing 'subluminal' or 'sub-luminal' instead of 'subliminal', unless you mean they are about to return to a velocity below the threshold of conscious perception.
- Location
- Hampden Park
Since I haven't done that so far, that would in fact be inconsistent.
Thank you, corrected.
Mea culpa. I hadn't realized that most of the instances of exotic technologies in the last update were still the start of sentences.
- Location
- England
Her orange lantern ring should be strobing like a warning light for how many danger signs she's giving.
- Status