gbaba speculation

I had a thought last night about why the gbaba don't actually show any sign of ticked logical change. The gbaba (as in the beings that inhabit the spaceships that are fighting the Terrence Federation) aren't actually the sentient species. They are the immune system of a far larger organism spanning light years, and they regard anything that emits electricity as a disease to be hunted down and destroyed. Has this idea come up before?

Tararoys wrote:I had a thought last night about why the gbaba don't actually show any sign of ticked logical change. The gbaba (as in the beings that inhabit the spaceships that are fighting the Terrence Federation) aren't actually the sentient species. They are the immune system of a far larger organism spanning light years, and they regard anything that emits electricity as a disease to be hunted down and destroyed. Has this idea come up before?

This idea... just too fantasy-like, for more o less realistic point of view.

P.S. And yes, the TerrAN Federation.

Assume the entity is an AI and it inhabits a network connected by FTL com. Is that acidity enough?

Dilandu wrote:

Tararoys wrote:I had a thought last night about why the gbaba don't actually show any sign of ticked logical change. The gbaba (as in the beings that inhabit the spaceships that are fighting the Terrence Federation) aren't actually the sentient species. They are the immune system of a far larger organism spanning light years, and they regard anything that emits electricity as a disease to be hunted down and destroyed. Has this idea come up before?

This idea... just too fantasy-like, for more o less realistic point of view.

P.S. And yes, the TerrAN Federation.

This concept is similar to the Arachnids in the Starfire universe.

Don

Immune systems need to change and adapt, though.

Tararoys wrote:I had a thought last night about why the gbaba don't actually show any sign of ticked logical change. The gbaba (as in the beings that inhabit the spaceships that are fighting the Terrence Federation) aren't actually the sentient species. They are the immune system of a far larger organism spanning light years, and they regard anything that emits electricity as a disease to be hunted down and destroyed. Has this idea come up before?

Frederick Brown wrote a short story called "The Waveries" in 1945 that had an alien life form that consumed electricity at the source. Set initially in 1957, the world society had to retreat to steam power as the maximum technology. A utopian ending had a gentler 1890s type of society where bicycles were a vehicle of choice locally and the Chataqua Circuit was revived.

So, your answer is yes as far as a society forced to survive without electricity (or lightning)!

Tararoys wrote:I had a thought last night about why the gbaba don't actually show any sign of ticked logical change. The gbaba (as in the beings that inhabit the spaceships that are fighting the Terrence Federation) aren't actually the sentient species. They are the immune system of a far larger organism spanning light years, and they regard anything that emits electricity as a disease to be hunted down and destroyed. Has this idea come up before?

An intriguing idea, although I doubt it's the path RFC took when inventing the Gbaba. I certainly see how you could come up with this idea based on the textev.

From OAR, in referring to the Gbaba's scientific and cultural stagnation RFC wrote: "So perhaps the Gbaba no longer were sentient in the human sense of the term. Perhaps everything—all of this—was simply the result of a set of cultural imperatives so deeply ingrained they'd become literally instinctual."

It appears that the automatic response of the Gbaba is "If it thinks, exterminate it!" Beyond that, scientific advancement doesn't appear to be a priority (although I suspect that they glean what they can from the races they destroy, which would indicate that humanity was the first race they'd encountered in thousands of years.) Or maybe not, if what they have is good enough to kill off whatever races they've battled so far, there's no need to waste time on military research when they could be soaking in the breeding vats or whatever a Gbaba does for a good time...

McGuiness wrote:

Tararoys wrote:I had a thought last night about why the gbaba don't actually show any sign of ticked logical change. The gbaba (as in the beings that inhabit the spaceships that are fighting the Terrence Federation) aren't actually the sentient species. They are the immune system of a far larger organism spanning light years, and they regard anything that emits electricity as a disease to be hunted down and destroyed. Has this idea come up before?

An intriguing idea, although I doubt it's the path RFC took when inventing the Gbaba. I certainly see how you could come up with this idea based on the textev.

From OAR, in referring to the Gbaba's scientific and cultural stagnation RFC wrote: "So perhaps the Gbaba no longer were sentient in the human sense of the term. Perhaps everything—all of this—was simply the result of a set of cultural imperatives so deeply ingrained they'd become literally instinctual."

It appears that the automatic response of the Gbaba is "If it thinks, exterminate it!" Beyond that, scientific advancement doesn't appear to be a priority (although I suspect that they glean what they can from the races they destroy, which would indicate that humanity was the first race they'd encountered in thousands of years.) Or maybe not, if what they have is good enough to kill off whatever races they've battled so far, there's no need to waste time on military research when they could be soaking in the breeding vats or whatever a Gbaba does for a good time...

I believe that some form of time travel/COGA AI = Ghaba storyline is eventually going to emerge

Tararoys wrote:I had a thought last night about why the gbaba don't actually show any sign of ticked logical change. The gbaba (as in the beings that inhabit the spaceships that are fighting the Terrence Federation) aren't actually the sentient species. They are the immune system of a far larger organism spanning light years, and they regard anything that emits electricity as a disease to be hunted down and destroyed. Has this idea come up before?

Yes, the idea has come up. Only not called the 'immune system' but the 'automated defense system' left over by some civilization.

Thendisnia wrote:
I believe that some form of time travel/COGA AI = Ghaba storyline is eventually going to emerge

Hahaha - in the old Gbaba speculation thread I posted the idea that for the Gbaba time is running backwards.

So each race would think it is just responding to and defending against an invasion that is in their own past.

The future (from a human point of view) counterattack by Merlin and company would happen in the Gbabas' past and form the justification and reason for the Gbabas' own attack on the humans in Nimue's past.