Brin (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
brin_bellway) wrote2019-10-28 09:32 am
brin_bellway) wrote2019-10-28 09:32 am
Entry tags:
Delayed reactionblogging: 'A Confusion of Princes,' by Garth Nix
[cw: death, (mild) amnesia]
What limitations could your upload tech *possibly* have that would restrict you to on-the-fly copying only? Sure, "I'm cut off from the psi-Internet because I have to wear anti-psionic armour to fight these psychic enemies, so this battle is *genuinely* life-and-death" is all very dramatic, but *why* does it have to be genuinely life-and-death? Why can't you just say to the Imperial Mind "hey, I'm about to put on anti-psionic armour, can you please take a backup of me to keep in reserve in case I die in this battle"? Then you're only facing the prospect of a few minutes of memory loss, no worse than falling asleep! (which does suck, but *nowhere near* as much)
(Thing I only just thought of now: ...wait, hang on, is this some sort of soul thing? The psionic AI can only take a backup of you while you're actively dying because it is a *psionic* AI and actually transferring your soul to a new body via the psi-Internet? I did not get the impression that this was a universe that cared about that sort of thing--universes that care about the unique identity of souls don't tend to allow the level of brainwashing the Empire performs, do they? at least not without a lot of risk of the brainwashing later coming undone as the soul fights back against it--but maybe I was supposed to.)
What limitations could your upload tech *possibly* have that would restrict you to on-the-fly copying only? Sure, "I'm cut off from the psi-Internet because I have to wear anti-psionic armour to fight these psychic enemies, so this battle is *genuinely* life-and-death" is all very dramatic, but *why* does it have to be genuinely life-and-death? Why can't you just say to the Imperial Mind "hey, I'm about to put on anti-psionic armour, can you please take a backup of me to keep in reserve in case I die in this battle"? Then you're only facing the prospect of a few minutes of memory loss, no worse than falling asleep! (which does suck, but *nowhere near* as much)
(Thing I only just thought of now: ...wait, hang on, is this some sort of soul thing? The psionic AI can only take a backup of you while you're actively dying because it is a *psionic* AI and actually transferring your soul to a new body via the psi-Internet? I did not get the impression that this was a universe that cared about that sort of thing--universes that care about the unique identity of souls don't tend to allow the level of brainwashing the Empire performs, do they? at least not without a lot of risk of the brainwashing later coming undone as the soul fights back against it--but maybe I was supposed to.)
no subject
I mean, I read it on impulse years ago, so it's not like it's beating out obscurity by a big margin, but even so. It is the kind of book you think about every now and again, though.
>> and the Empire seems to be fairly proactive
True. That just makes it *stupid* and incompetent.
>> I caught on fairly quickly that there was more to the Mind than it was letting on
I think I wasn't really paying attention - note the opinion from extrapolated distant-past-me but it didn't seem like the most interesting thing going on until it got reveals.
>> But protagonists don't count
They do not. And his life choices always struck me as weird anyway ;)
no subject
I read it because I liked Garth Nix's other books.