Skitterdoc 2077

[Aineko]

Hmm, curious thing: it seems like Taylor didn't realize that Gran has higher Kerenzikov performance than she does, running at 5-6x. Presumably without Tinkertech. That's something Taylor would surely want for herself!

Also possibly a hint as to why Taylor can handle her own Kerenzikov better than most.

So with Taylor well set up for money and freedom, on the edge of having too much of both to be ignored by the big players, and apparently not real interested in playing their game, I hope we start seeing her think a bit more about what winning looks like to her. What is her endgame? Not for everyone else she wants to help, for her. What are the markers that tell her she has accomplished her goals and can now fck off to retirement? What does she see herself doing in retirement, assuming that we can specify it must be things for herself that make her happy?

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I question whether Taylor has any real concept of retirement, for good or ill.

Certainly it doesn't seem to be a thing she'd be getting from her borrowed-from-local-Taylor corpo side.

Though whether one looks at it as retirement or not the question of what Taylor does when establishing security and survival isn't a main focus does seem like something perhaps not too figured out, or at least not much focused on. She has some interest in trickling out QOL improvements for the world (which was a motivation for the fuel algae, if not the main one), but hasn't seemed to make it a defining ambition. Similarly she's got a bunch of research projects (including biological immortality) but it hasn't seemed like any of them are especially driving ambitions.

 

[Glau]

So it seems.

I worry that she's being reactive rather than making plans, during the downtime right before she is going to be forced by events to be a lot more reactive.

I'd like to see her not completely write herself off in favor of the greater good for the larger world, but this IS Taylor, so...

 

[Dakkah]

Also possibly a hint as to why Taylor can handle her own Kerenzikov better than most.

Click to shrink...

I believe she mused about it early on: Combination of her getting it while young (and her sleep inducer further helping with neural plasticity/adaptability/learning speed), and that she eased herself into it (remember how utterly frustrating it was when she didn't dial it down far enough)

I question whether Taylor has any real concept of retirement, for good or ill.

Certainly it doesn't seem to be a thing she'd be getting from her borrowed-from-local-Taylor corpo side.
Though whether one looks at it as retirement or not the question of what Taylor does when establishing security and survival isn't a main focus does seem like something perhaps not too figured out, or at least not much focused on. She has some interest in trickling out QOL improvements for the world (which was a motivation for the fuel algae, if not the main one), but hasn't seemed to make it a defining ambition. Similarly she's got a bunch of research projects (including biological immortality) but it hasn't seemed like any of them are especially driving ambitions.

Click to shrink...

TBH she doesn't need to 'consider' retirement, she can always live life like it, (with one body atleast, or cycling each bodies 'vacation time') She has plenty of ambition, but she also knows that she has plenty of time.

Time enough to lay her foundations, to grow more powerful, wealthy and connected. So that at the end of the day she has more palatable options when it comes to negotiations, the moves she makes, and life in general.

There is the 'I want to remain unfettered', but the nasty secret there is that the only way to maintain perfect freedom for one person is for no one else to have any: if you can do anything you want to, then everyone else necessarily needs to change their plans to accommodate yours. I think she's smarter than falling into that sort of a reactive doom loop, but I might be wrong; a ton of villains and dictators fall into the spiral of needing more power to stave off (real or imagined) threats to their power.

So with Taylor well set up for money and freedom, on the edge of having too much of both to be ignored by the big players, and apparently not real interested in playing their game, I hope we start seeing her think a bit more about what winning looks like to her. What is her endgame? Not for everyone else she wants to help, for her. What are the markers that tell her she has accomplished her goals and can now fck off to retirement? What does she see herself doing in retirement, assuming that we can specify it must be things for herself that make her happy?

Click to shrink...

At a guess: She will set up multiple fiefdoms and because its spread out with different interests and connections, she can grow each powerbase without drawing quite as much ire than if she expanded as aggressively under a single banner, incidentally it also allows her to grow a far more widespread information network, simply due to how many pies she has her fingers in and is a part of.

 

[Aineko]

I believe she mused about it early on: Combination of her getting it while young (and her sleep inducer further helping with neural plasticity/adaptability/learning speed), and that she eased herself into it (remember how utterly frustrating it was when she didn't dial it down far enough)

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Yes, but do we know those are all the factors?

Her ancestry on this side literally has a tendency to esoteric powers. It's not proven, certainly, but it seems quite possible that they also have better than typical Kerenzikov adaptation.

TBH she doesn't need to 'consider' retirement, she can always live life like it, (with one body atleast, or cycling each bodies 'vacation time') She has plenty of ambition, but she also knows that she has plenty of time.

Click to shrink...

Can you slip into retirement by accident? Deliberate action has consideration as a prerequisite.

I'd like to see her not completely write herself off in favor of the greater good for the larger world, but this IS Taylor, so...

Click to shrink...

So far she doesn't seem to be doing that. She does look out for herself. She just doesn't seem to have a big mission either.

Safe, supplied, and free to mess around with her personal projects (largely in world-changing biological and medical technology) doesn't seem a bad personal trajectory really. Even if it's not specifically pointed anywhere.

 

[Dakkah]

Yes, but do we know those are all the factors?

Her ancestry on this side literally has a tendency to esoteric powers. It's not proven, certainly, but it seems quite possible that they also have better than typical Kerenzikov adaptation.

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Ofcourse we don't know all factors, just the things provided in the text. (Like how Mr. Davies mused that he doesn't believe he is build different, just that he listens to his doctors, that he keeps to a regular sleep routine etc.)

Can you slip into retirement by accident? Deliberate action has consideration as a prerequisite.

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Not quite what I was meaning, I meant more that she can have her cake and eat it too, without 'losing' her position or powerbase etc.

 

[Endymion]

Appreciate having someone with expertise here, thanks Aineko.



I'm curious what ends you see her doing this for? It seems like an implicit 'take over the world' plan, but tbh I don't think we've ever seen that level of ambition or domineering behavior out of Taylor. She seems like she mostly wants to just have friends, do stuff herself with her hands and brains, and make life better for everyone anonymously.

There is the 'I want to remain unfettered', but the nasty secret there is that the only way to maintain perfect freedom for one person is for no one else to have any: if you can do anything you want to, then everyone else necessarily needs to change their plans to accommodate yours. I think she's smarter than falling into that sort of a reactive doom loop, but I might be wrong; a ton of villains and dictators fall into the spiral of needing more power to stave off (real or imagined) threats to their power.

So with Taylor well set up for money and freedom, on the edge of having too much of both to be ignored by the big players, and apparently not real interested in playing their game, I hope we start seeing her think a bit more about what winning looks like to her. What is her endgame? Not for everyone else she wants to help, for her. What are the markers that tell her she has accomplished her goals and can now fck off to retirement? What does she see herself doing in retirement, assuming that we can specify it must be things for herself that make her happy?

Click to shrink...

Her retirement would probably just be more of the same, play with the edges of life and cybernetics. I think her Endgame is a world left better for everyone despite the Corps. Fix the environment, create bodies she will be happy living in for thousands of years, ensure that the average person doesn't end up in a life that's nasty brutish and short. She's probably going to keep doing secret terraforming to get the planet back to a point that it can support billions more then it currently does. If another Corp happens to profit, who cares? It's just more jobs and value in the system.

Not sure if I mentioned it before here or on SB, but soil remediation through spreading bacteria and nematodes, etc. Use bird shit as the dispersal mechanism. She doesn't profit directly, but more arable land is value for values sake. With little cost to her beyond the initial generations and release.

Maybe a combination of kudzu and tumbleweed for heavy metal leaching from contaminated areas. With the results being stored in there root systems for processing. CO2 fixing using Azolla. A plant that has already proven to be of use to do so.

Meanwhile continue to make cybernetics and bioware that push the boundaries. Living plasma pistols, oragnelle level shield system (or hell just a cyber implanted shield system in general), biological quantum computers that can tackle the Black Wall.

 

[Glau]

At a guess: She will set up multiple fiefdoms and because its spread out with different interests and connections, she can grow each powerbase without drawing quite as much ire than if she expanded as aggressively under a single banner, incidentally it also allows her to grow a far more widespread information network, simply due to how many pies she has her fingers in and is a part of.

Click to shrink...

I guess that's the core issue I have: what you are talking about seems like building a powerbase simply to build a powerbase- recursive pursuit of power for it's own sake that has no goal.

But having a powerbase means having something worth taking or breaking, so it's kinda foolish to build one unless you have Reason to play that game. Otherwise, stay under the radar.

 

[Dakkah]

I guess that's the core issue I have: what you are talking about seems like building a powerbase simply to build a powerbase- recursive pursuit of power for it's own sake that has no goal.

But having a powerbase means having something worth taking or breaking, so it's kinda foolish to build one unless you have Reason to play that game. Otherwise, stay under the radar.

Click to shrink...

Thing is, in a setting like CP if you don't have enough power or weight behind you, you are not actually free to pursue anything.

Put it this way: If Taylor hadn't been a mere piece on the board,* she wouldn't have had to practically give away her antibiotics, wouldn't have had to setup a new ID, and she wouldn't have to grit her teeth and smile when a megacorp inevitably offers her a pittance for the sleep-inducer.

And lets be honest, this Taylor would've never been able to stay beneath notice: So that leaves her two choices, to either rise above her station, or to just give up and waltz into a gilded cage. Edit: Because eventually, someone is going to make that decision for her.


*And not even that, not really.

 

[Aineko]

Thing is, in a setting like CP if you don't have enough power or weight behind you, you are not actually free to pursue anything.

Put it this way: If Taylor hadn't been a mere piece on the board,* she wouldn't have had to practically give away her antibiotics, wouldn't have had to setup a new ID, and she wouldn't have to grit her teeth and smile when a megacorp inevitably offers her a pittance for the sleep-inducer.

And lets be honest, this Taylor would've never been able to stay beneath notice: So that leaves her two choices, to either rise above her station, or to just give up and waltz into a gilded cage. Edit: Because eventually, someone is going to make that decision for her.


*And not even that, not really.

Click to shrink...

Absolute freedom means being able to beat everyone else up simultaneously, yes.

On the other hand, Taylor has been free to:
- Release fuel algae upsetting the world economy and political situation.
- Make significant bank releasing her sleep inducer.
- Turn herself into a three-body hive mind.
- Accidentally unleash a possibly-growing population of shard-controlled animals.
- Carve out a both geographical and business territory in LA.


You can do a lot without achieving absolute freedom.

 

[Glau]

Indeed. There's more freedom to be had being under the radar than being a second ranked player. If she wants to not be a piece, she needs to be able to take on nation-state/corp fusions on her own. Which is a looooong way away even if she attempts it, and leaves her with the worst of both worlds in the meantime when she does.

 

[Dakkah]

Absolute freedom means being able to beat everyone else up simultaneously, yes.

On the other hand, Taylor has been free to:
- Release fuel algae upsetting the world economy and political situation.
- Make significant bank releasing her sleep inducer.
- Turn herself into a three-body hive mind.
- Accidentally unleash a possibly-growing population of shard-controlled animals.
- Carve out a both geographical and business territory in LA.


You can do a lot without achieving absolute freedom.

Click to shrink...

I never said absolute freedom, nor that she needs to be able to beat everyone at the same time. Or any nonsense like that. Having a seat at the table would be nice, but baby steps, currently, she is nothing more than a loot Piñata, and people will treat her like it, until she stops being one.

As for Hasumi, sure she is successful, and made bank and all that good stuff: Hasumi is also soon getting blackbagged.

So if Taylor hadn't been more than meets the eye, she would've had to abandon that identity and start over again. Speaking of which, there is a hard limit to how many bodies she can have at anytime.

AKA that would not be a sustainable cycle.

(Even if she drops everything as soon as she starts drawing Corporate interests, eventually she will lose that roll of the dice. Not to mention, even now Granny is a potential sword of Damocles hanging over her head. And yes, she could abandon both 'known' identities, and all the relations she made etc. Again, not something she could or would want to do repeatedly for the rest of her extremely long life.)

 

[Glau]

I never said absolute freedom, nor that she needs to be able to beat everyone at the same time. Or any nonsense like that.

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Then you missed the point of our responses. Being able to beat everyone else at once IS the pre-req for freedom as you are describing it.

Miltech and Arasoka execs still get blackbagged. They aren't big enough to be free of that, or strong enough to be safe from it. So that's the bar if you want to not be a loot pinata. Because they still are.

 

[Dakkah]

Then you missed the point of our responses. Being able to beat everyone else at once IS the pre-req for freedom as you are describing it.

Miltech and Arasoka execs still get blackbagged. They aren't big enough to be free of that, or strong enough to be safe from it. So that's the bar if you want to not be a loot pinata. Because they still are.

Click to shrink...

I (clearly) disagree, but this isn't going anywhere, so have a good one!

 

[Jinx999]

Then you missed the point of our responses. Being able to beat everyone else at once IS the pre-req for freedom as you are describing it.

Miltech and Arasoka execs still get blackbagged. They aren't big enough to be free of that, or strong enough to be safe from it. So that's the bar if you want to not be a loot pinata. Because they still are.

Click to shrink...

It's being able to carve out a niche where you have enough money not to have to work for other people and can beat the people coming for you. That doesn't require being able to beat everyone, but does require the ability to fly under the radar. Most ripperdocs and fixers would probably qualify. "Unfortunately" for Taylor, she's got some golden eggs that will attract the REALLY heavy hitters.

 

[Placid Raccoon.]

Appreciate having someone with expertise here, thanks Aineko.



I'm curious what ends you see her doing this for? It seems like an implicit 'take over the world' plan, but tbh I don't think we've ever seen that level of ambition or domineering behavior out of Taylor. She seems like she mostly wants to just have friends, do stuff herself with her hands and brains, and make life better for everyone anonymously.

There is the 'I want to remain unfettered', but the nasty secret there is that the only way to maintain perfect freedom for one person is for no one else to have any: if you can do anything you want to, then everyone else necessarily needs to change their plans to accommodate yours. I think she's smarter than falling into that sort of a reactive doom loop, but I might be wrong; a ton of villains and dictators fall into the spiral of needing more power to stave off (real or imagined) threats to their power.

So with Taylor well set up for money and freedom, on the edge of having too much of both to be ignored by the big players, and apparently not real interested in playing their game, I hope we start seeing her think a bit more about what winning looks like to her. What is her endgame? Not for everyone else she wants to help, for her. What are the markers that tell her she has accomplished her goals and can now fck off to retirement? What does she see herself doing in retirement, assuming that we can specify it must be things for herself that make her happy?

Click to shrink...

Because in the sort of antagonistic lawless world that Taylor finds herself, you either are the one who can step on others or the stepped on. Taylor needs enough power to do what good she wishes. Having not fought her way up the psychotic corporate ladder she has at least the inclination to be a very benign despot vs the typical corpo leadership. A very small amount of that Corpo class is worth the air they breathe in this kakistocracy led dystopian hell scape.
Taylor doesn't ever need to retire, she will never get infirm or lose her facilities hopefully. So Taylor may get to pick the next leader if she doesn't want to do the job herself.

Edit-- Taylor has a functional soul killer program that can completely replicate someone and she can build new bodies, she can kidnap an enemy and send that body back with some modifications to take actions that destroy them from within, i.e. release her flesh eating bacteria in the control room during an op meant to take Taylor out. or copy part of the corp data base or assassinate the CEO. Her other techs are scary as well. No one is scared yet because Taylor has not turned a battalion of soldiers trying to take her down into goup yet, but she has the capability. They just don't know.

 

[Glau]

Taylor needs enough power to do what good she wishes.

Click to shrink...

It'll all be worth it once she wins, huh?

That's Taylor for sure.

 

[Aineko]

It'll all be worth it once she wins, huh?

That's Taylor for sure.

Click to shrink...

Not so much this Taylor so far, though I could certainly see her winding up that way.

But right now she mostly seems to have what I'd call a healthier perspective that the big powers are better treated as inhospitable terrain than as adversaries. (I mean sure she's planning to stick a few in Biotechnica's eye, but even there she's not fighting them, she's doing things to the environment that will inconvenience them.)

 

[Placid Raccoon.]

I simply view the character of Taylor as a good person at heart who if pressed will make very tough choices. She is not weak and will not let herself be predated upon if she has any way to stop it, she has lived that life, she is not going back.
Therefore she will reach for power, and do good when she can, and when she has to, she will choke her enemies to death with bugs, and then go back to trying to make her world a better place.
A good friend and a really bad enemy.
In this last chapter she was prepared to kill her Gran if she had to, she didn't want to, but the trigger was there if she needed to pull it.

 

[timuzhti]

...viruses don't have DNA. They are basically RNA with an injector/shell. That RNA gets used like all other RNA, as a build order for the cell, but it builds a thing that changes the DNA. The new DNA is then copied into RNA

Click to shrink...

I see that I'm late to the party but, while that's close enough to how retroviruses replicate, but retroviruses are only one type of virus. For example, Herpesviridae is dsDNA and that's probably one of the most common viruses by prevalence. So are Adenoviruses, which are also a common upper respiratory virus. And of course, most ssRNA(−) viruses are still directly converted into mRNA. For further reading, Durmuş and Ülgen's "Comparative interactomics for virus–human protein–protein interactions: DNA viruses versus RNA viruses", in FEBS open bio 7.1 has a reasonably good summary, I think. (It's open access too so I don't think there should be any issues viewing it)

 

[Jordisk]

I see that I'm late to the party but, while that's close enough to how retroviruses replicate, but retroviruses are only one type of virus. For example, Herpesviridae is dsDNA and that's probably one of the most common viruses by prevalence. So are Adenoviruses, which are also a common upper respiratory virus. And of course, most ssRNA(−) viruses are still directly converted into mRNA. For further reading, Durmuş and Ülgen's "Comparative interactomics for virus–human protein–protein interactions: DNA viruses versus RNA viruses", in FEBS open bio 7.1 has a reasonably good summary, I think. (It's open access too so I don't think there should be any issues viewing it)

Click to shrink...

To you and all the others, given that we were speaking of updating to Human 2.0 using a virus, a retrovirus is what we were talking about.

 

[Aineko]

Tying the genetic code modification thing into the story a bit more, that stuff about Taylor's algae having an encrypted genome would make it a pretty safe bet that they also use a non-standard genetic code. Probably one that does some kind of ridiculous tricks to make it harder to parse than the nice consistent codons of real Earth life, too.

To you and all the others, given that we were speaking of updating to Human 2.0 using a virus, a retrovirus is what we were talking about.

Click to shrink...

I would certainly hope not!

Retroviruses, being RNA viruses, have a high mutation rate. That's not remotely acceptable for a self-propagating upgrade virus.

Using a DNA virus as your vector is at worst a negligible complication, and probably not even that because the kind of edits you want to make aren't the kind you could accomplish by just using a naturally genome-integrating viral vector.

 

[Ace Dreamer]

Using a DNA virus as your vector is at worst a negligible complication, and probably not even that because the kind of edits you want to make aren't the kind you could accomplish by just using a naturally genome-integrating viral vector.

Click to shrink...

I... don't think using a virus is a good idea. You'd be better off with something more complex, that'd fix health issues, repair human DNA, maybe hang around, for a while after the upgrade, running tests, checking all was OK, if needed doing further repair.

You could argue that re-engineered tapeworm eggs (with improved distribution logic, maybe several vectors, like pigeons...) might not be a bad idea - I'm pretty sure Taylor could get all the required functionality into something like that... Including a micro-tech radio comms system, using bio-engineered diamondoid, graphene, etc., so it is a cyber-organism, might interest shard-chan in the project...

Could bring new meaning to the phrase, "My stomach's talking to me"...

 

[Aurora Moon]

now I'm thinking of that Futurama episode with the smart tapeworms. Parasites Lost, I believe?

Parasites Lost yeah, I got it the first try. XD

 

[Nyvis]

I... don't think using a virus is a good idea. You'd be better off with something more complex, that'd fix health issues, repair human DNA, maybe hang around, for a while after the upgrade, running tests, checking all was OK, if needed doing further repair.

Click to shrink...

The idea would be to have a virus that makes alteration to human DNA to get the organism to do those things itself, not to embed a symbiote permanently in humans to do the job. But that might be too much to encode in one virus.

I guess what you have is a compromise in the form of another lifeform that hangs around for a little while doing all the edits and repairs then dies and gets flushed out.

 

[corblimey]

Hmm hmm!

Lots of inner speculation about what forces would be mobilized/defended against in such a case... some ideas include:
- Subverted and/or deniable Miltech military assets, precise artillery strikes, etc.
- Subversion and/or 'down-powering' of her Miltech-brand security hardware (e.g. patrolling drones).
- A successful kidnapping and/or hostage-taking against Gloria and/or David. (Or some rank and file employees.)
- Arasaka! ...something?!
- Multiple 'fact-finding'/probing attacks, attempts, etc.
- Spoofed calls/requests from the Japanese embassy.

And what Taylor could utilize:
- Covert theft/acquisition/'fell-off-the-truck' purchase of some Miltech military-grade vehicles, weapons, hardware, etc.
- Creating/using 'suicide-bomber' variants of a Taylor-clone that gets 'kidnapped.'
- The 'special 4th body' that was rumoured/hinted at: an ultimate combat cyborg? Tweaked out Gemini chassis?! Modded mech?! A 'mini-me' cyber-ninja?!
- Some 'out of left field' creations, like new mutant flies variants?!
- Revising security hardware/weapons/defences to be hard-wired via FTL comms only, with a (required to not blow cover) 'facade' of normal, apparently hack-possible operating systems, wireless connections, etc.
- 'Hiding' the Hasumi Taylor-clone, and using FTL-comm-linked puppet bodies instead. Possibly multiple degrees of disposable and/or expensive Hasumi puppet-capable clones.
- Perfect/effective ambushing of attackers, turning them into meat-puppets, disposable/deniable assets, etc.
- Dispersed viruses/bacteria with various effects, continuously in/around all properties, with various effects, safeties given to employees, etc...

Any other ideas???

Click to shrink...

All fun stuff, but, what can Taylor deploy that doesn't expose bits of her capabilities she wants to keep covert? Puppets are nice (and shard-chan is likely enthusiastic) but that she can do this, unless she hides all evidence, not good.

Past a certain point is there a risk she'll scare the corps so much they start thinking 'nuclear'? Yes, she'll survive this, but the fallout, in multiple senses...

Getting Kiwi involved, so she can have her merc team remote run puppets might not be a bad idea. That'll mess-up any after-action profiling, particularly if Taylor can deploy hints that she's (just) using a clever new covert near-background level radio net. Fully dynamically encrypted, of course.

"Don't freak the norms" is advice that applies to dealing with assault by corps, as well as the general public...

Click to shrink...

Hasumi can't protect herself from the types of small armies, commando teams and spies her Grams warned her of. Lets not kid ourselves. It's impossible. She can, however, make friends. Taylor showed a talent for that. If enough politicians and corpos like her and don't want her and her company to disappear... she won't be blackbagged or bought out. Simple as that.