Grrl Power #1406 – Peeping super entity
Ooh, Harem’s got a secret…
This guy, let’s just call him Nthaniel for now, probably could be running some sort of “know what every quark in my vicinity is up to” field, but, maybe he’s bored with however many ages of never being surprised by anything. He’s got access to really incredibly comprehensively sophisticated advanced predictive algorithms running on whatever the next six steps past quantum computing is, being powered by the total captured energy of a violet dwarf, which is a kind of star I think I just made up that’s really good at outputting energy used for computations. And he has senses that are like a million tricorders scanning everything in… let’s say in one A.U. So it’s hard to surprise him usually. But apparently the branch of Causal Naturalism reality is taking is one of the less likely outcomes.
One of the cooler things I read about in Systema Delenda Est (though I’m not sure of the actual origins of the concept) was Summer Civilizations. Basically, you simulate a civilization in a ridiculously powerful computer, run that civilization forward at ten-thousand times normal speed, then you steal all their patents and weapon designs and cool ideas for the real world. (Or is it the real world!?) And I guess if they come up with any pithy philosophy or good, uh… movie ideas or quilting pattern or whatever, you could steal those too. Anyway, I mention it because if you have your own matrioshka brain, you could probably run a few dozen of those and crib some of the good stuff from them, including their own predictions about any number of events.
I spent a little time trying to write “I’m an advanced being therefore the concept of “I” is too simplistic to encompass my personal pronoun needs,” but really, in the end, that seemed sesquipedalian. I wasn’t going to write “This unit” or “Entity Alpha” or whatever, and a personal pronoun really only needs to be “I” or “we” if they’re some kind of group consciousness. Having multi threaded thought processes to the point that some might begin personality divergence may be a case for some sort of hybrid personal pronouns, but in the end, I just went with “I,” because if I used anything else, I’d really need to make room on the page to explain what “Vo,” or “Glim,” or “Schvarvelshooshisticoli,” meant, unless I wanted you guys thinking it was his name.
Ooh, look! A new vote incentive! And it’s updated with color!
Well, in progress, obviously. I have another one that’s actually a bit further along, but everyone was all, “Sydney Kobold vote incentive!” So I switched to this one. Plus the other one was a multi-character picture so it will actually take me longer to finish. I hope to have an update for this one each week, so stay tuned. There is a slightly higher res version on Patreon.
By the way, this gunmetal blue-ish background and teal pencils are how I draw the comic. I set it up this way so I don’t have to spend all day staring into a bright white blank page.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
My theory: 6th Harem is her original body, dematerialized so it never ages from whenever her powers first manifested (hence why it’s smaller, it’s from when she was 13-15?). Making her effectively immortal with careful management.
That’s a being not frequently surprised. To encounter Sydney, Harem, and Max — three very different/unusual/surprising entities — in quick succession/together seems like it would be quite disconcerting.
The” Unpredicted event density gradient trends concern-ward” suggests that Nthaniel was already a bit antsy before noticing Maxima…
It’s OK mushroom-dude… Maxima is a lot to take in at first… And you are taking her in first through ninth and a few dimensions string-theory has no idea about!
“Opposition assessment”? Is he looking at who Sydney has faced to get a read on her capabilities, or is he trying to judge how much of a hassle it would be to try to recover the Orbs? Considering his next action was to look at Harem, it could go either way.
speaking of recovering the orbs and opposition, I do think he means what Sidney has gone through, other forces that may try to take them, Realizing one of the potential conflicts may be mooted by his presence now. That at some point the Xevoarchy or another type/tier 2 civilization may try to take the orbs under THEIR laws about less advanced civilizations gaining access to technology above their level…in a hypocritical move because the orbs would also be above THEIR technological level as well, a conflict we’ve been expecting ever since learning about that law when Sidney was first on Fracture Station, and that they have been monitoring for Aethereum Causeways appearing. So chances are now, they confront Sidney, try to take the orbs, she calls them out on their hypocrisy, and originally figured either a tier 3 would show up and say, “no we know who made these” but now its more likely, “excuse me gents, I do believe THOSE are MY property and I would much prefer they stay in the custody of the young lady here”
Given the “Activity Log” display and the “User Choices” and “Unusual/Creative/Effective” comments, I think Nthaniel is getting a read on Sydney’s track record (including her assessment of opponents and coming up with tactics to defeat them).
The implications:
this “guy” was drawn here by the orbs, so the orbs are likely either “his” property or something his species produced. Since he personally detected them, probably his, just noticed a tab open on his computer going, “your gameboy has been remotely active for x amount of time”…
Harem apparently has a sixth body, so guessing either stays inside the others or is kept hidden just in case she needs to make a quick escape…or is the original body and the others look nothing like them (remembering very early theories from the name Harem was actually a guy with the power to create female clones of themselves)…although this implies either way faking a backstory to the point Archon bought the fake records..or they know they are fake and just let Harem think they have one over on them.
Maxima. Given Maxima is showing the colors of the orbs, the theory her “symbiote” is also Nth tech is looking likely, but isn’t what this entity detected, so either just not his, or was made by a different species or group but chances are they know what it is.
Onto the comments, how a Nth level being thinks and what their technology can do…and doing/describing both in a story without handwaving as magic or just saying, “beyond comprehension so I can’t describe it to you”., I have a personal view that just because something is beyond comprehension does not make it invisible or indescribable, there are a ton of things in reality that humans can’t really comprehend the size, scale, power, or the way it works no matter how much math they do, and images of it or anime and shows about it always shrink it down…which worked for me as a solution, also inspired by theology and mythology (dumb themselves down).
In my own stories the incomprehensible beings, the Amana, Amarian Amana, Architects, etc…when encountered are usually encountered via an avatar, forms that have physical and even biological limitations, the “true form” or “higher self” is being filtered through one or MANY layers of limited forms…sort of like non-local consciousness theory, but as a higher entity not a field. Done so for various reasons, because their true form is too disruptive/destructive to the area they want to explore, for amusement, curiosity, in all cases it usually comes down to, experiencing things first hand as the beings themselves experience them. Which all sounds simple but spent years creating reasons for this, mostly because I also made them extremely individualistic and encountering even what one may think is a government of their species is actually usually just a small group, most often related to each other…because the premise is entire sections of reality, galaxies, galactic clusters, even pocket universes and specific timelines could be their property or the equivalent of their backyards or parts of their homes.
So yeah for ease of storytelling giving them reasons to limit their own senses to relate to the other characters and thus also the audience. With the true forms leaking in from time to time, in an over simplification like playing a game, your character is limited by the game, and even their responses are limited…just expand that to real world variables and thousands of options based on other options…and try not to give yourself an existential episode that leads to questioning if freewill is real while exploring how biology and society limit choices due to physical and social needs.
I came up with this short some time ago to describe it in human terms:
https://www.deviantart.com/rhuen1/art/The-Rat-Avatar-Hypothetical-893105154
a more direct description:
They can observe externally (as Nthaniel here is doing,
or
Possess someone, have their senses but it is an invasion of a body, and still retain their own biases
or
manifestation: create a body to interact with, mind stays the same, body simulates the target species but is usually not in some fundamental ways. But does allow mixing in t observe and interact, most common method for Amana.
or
full incarnate: place a fragment of their conciousness, or have the true form “sleep” and experience life as a mortal from birth to death exactly as they would, essentially playing the part of a soul so they have full first person experience. However if they remember what they really are during this, the person they were might experience some existenialism on what is “self” biology, ghost, social expectations, vs their true form…Princess Kaguya inspired idea.
Actually, I wrote something more recent, as part of a sub-set of this species that made Heavens and Hells for various worlds, having a Vocational reason to incarnate as the mortal species of that world. Its a bit more mythological than the above sci-fi version, but was also a writing exercise to help illustrate a mental gap between humans/biological species and these beyond physical reality cosmic scale minded entities.
https://www.deviantart.com/rhuen1/art/The-Vocational-Reason-Celestials-Incarnate-1260066762
Harem didn’t start out with five clones. She had to build up enough strength that she could survive having her stats between her bodies, so this is probably a sign she is gotten strong enough to manifest a sixth clone or she has more control about how her stats can be divided than we though so has a sixth one out and having it resting while it has the bare minimum stats or mass
You put Maxima in that pose so her five super attributes would read like a pentagonal contest attribute display from Pokémon Ruby, didn’t you? Nice.
Hmm. Altus and Sydney aren’t colored. Interesting