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PICA updates

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PICA updates
Post by ETathome   » Sat May 16, 2015 10:36 pm

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If I understand Merlin's problem with the high-speed interface, it is because of the way the software was hacked in his unit. Now that Owl has figured out how to make a PICA, and has done so successfully. Isn't it possible to record his current personality, and update the PICA software?

Thoughts, anyone?

Ethan
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Re: PICA updates
Post by n7axw   » Sat May 16, 2015 11:01 pm

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ETathome wrote:If I understand Merlin's problem with the high-speed interface, it is because of the way the software was hacked in his unit. Now that Owl has figured out how to make a PICA, and has done so successfully. Isn't it possible to record his current personality, and update the PICA software?

Thoughts, anyone?

Ethan


The difficulty might be that what Owl did was conduct his own research and then proceed from there. The would mean the PICA he made for Nimue wouldn't be a duplicate of Merlin's. It would be close in most respects, I am sure, especially on the physical side. Where the problem might occur is on the software side. When Dr. Proctor hacked the original PICA, it was an inadvertant software issue that shut down his high speed interface. Owl didn't have access to Merlin's software package, so he had to come up with his own design to accomplsh the same thing.

Given that unfamiliarity with his software package, would Merlin be willing to take the risk of shut down, or equally undesirable, undo Proctor's work and set the PICA back to the 10 day limit and everything gets dumped. Given the fact that Nimue, Owl and Nahrman can all operate in compressed time mode and Owl can produce other AIs at need, I doubt that Merlin would find the risk worth it.

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Re: PICA updates
Post by Kytheros   » Sat May 16, 2015 11:14 pm

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It's probably technically doable, assuming that Merlin can find the time. However ... there is no certainty that the high speed interface can be safely reenabled on Merlin in a short period of time.

Remember, Nimue was designed and built without the time limit. She's different from Merlin, although similar.

Restoring the high speed interface, without reactivating the time limit, on Merlin is likely to be a slow process, and Nimue may well need to assist. I am doubtful about them finding the necessary time in the middle of this war.
There may be time to do so after this war is finished, assuming they have time between this one and the next one.

It may be possible to download a copy of the software and OS from Merlin, and work out how to safely reenable the high speed interface in VR while Merlin is out doing things, and then pull Merlin to restore the high speed interface only after you're confident in the fix, which will probably have Merlin offline/out of action for the least total amount of time.


However, there are also narrative reasons why Merlin doesn't have the high speed interface, although between Nahrmah and Nimue, those reasons are not as strong as they used to be.


In other words, sure, technically possible, but probably won't happen for a while, if ever, for narrative/plot reasons.


And I see I may have gotten ninja'd.
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Re: PICA updates
Post by Undercover Fat Kid   » Sun May 17, 2015 3:14 am

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IIRC, in OAR Nimue seemed reasonably confident that she could fix it herself, but in light of the fact that she couldn't be certain, and because the price of failure was irretrievable oblivion, she opted not to taper with it.
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Re: PICA updates
Post by Forestfire   » Sun May 17, 2015 3:57 am

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At one point Merlin admitted/postulated that it would take months to record himself at the speeds available. That was the reason he gave for not giving Niume an identical personality. I'm not sure how many of his friends realy bought it. I think both Nahrmah and Sharleyan have mentioned that it was a poor excuse to hide his guilty conscience
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Re: PICA updates
Post by DrakBibliophile   » Sun May 17, 2015 7:30 am

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I suspect that Merlin's statement was correct but it's obvious that if he could done a "fast copy" of his complete personality, he still wouldn't want to have loaded his complete personality into another PICA unit.

Forestfire wrote:At one point Merlin admitted/postulated that it would take months to record himself at the speeds available. That was the reason he gave for not giving Niume an identical personality. I'm not sure how many of his friends realy bought it. I think both Nahrmah and Sharleyan have mentioned that it was a poor excuse to hide his guilty conscience
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Re: PICA updates
Post by Tanstaafl   » Sun May 17, 2015 4:28 pm

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Forestfire wrote:At one point Merlin admitted/postulated that it would take months to record himself at the speeds available. That was the reason he gave for not giving Niume an identical personality. I'm not sure how many of his friends realy bought it. I think both Nahrmah and Sharleyan have mentioned that it was a poor excuse to hide his guilty conscience


This means a few month out of the running to make a back-up of Merlin, some time for owl to fix Merlin's PICA. And this is the best case scenario.
Worst case, no-luck with restoring the high-speed interface, but personality wiped. Add an extra few month to restore Merlin's back-up to his PICA.

Merlin could be half a year or longer out of the running. I think they will not take such a big risk for so little gain.
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Re: PICA updates
Post by Kytheros   » Sun May 17, 2015 4:44 pm

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Tanstaafl wrote:
Forestfire wrote:At one point Merlin admitted/postulated that it would take months to record himself at the speeds available. That was the reason he gave for not giving Niume an identical personality. I'm not sure how many of his friends realy bought it. I think both Nahrmah and Sharleyan have mentioned that it was a poor excuse to hide his guilty conscience


This means a few month out of the running to make a back-up of Merlin, some time for owl to fix Merlin's PICA. And this is the best case scenario.
Worst case, no-luck with restoring the high-speed interface, but personality wiped. Add an extra few month to restore Merlin's back-up to his PICA.

Merlin could be half a year or longer out of the running. I think they will not take such a big risk for so little gain.

At least, not for the time being.

The time to download Merlin post-wakeup, which is really all that's needed, is significantly shorter, but still substantial.


I would expect that they won't try until after they've established a peace that will hold for a while before the next war is expected to start. Or Merlin's PICA somehow takes massive damage, necessitating him being out of action for a time anyways.
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Re: PICA updates
Post by Isilith   » Sun May 17, 2015 4:44 pm

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The obvious answer is to make the tools/modules that will allow OWL to replace the depleted materials from making Nimue... then just make another "new and improved" PICA for Merlin.
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Re: PICA updates
Post by Kytheros   » Sun May 17, 2015 10:53 pm

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Isilith wrote:The obvious answer is to make the tools/modules that will allow OWL to replace the depleted materials from making Nimue... then just make another "new and improved" PICA for Merlin.

It'd still take a while to transfer Merlin out of the original PICA, it doesn't matter whether you do a complete download, or just the post-wakeup, and graft that onto a copy of the original Nimue-personality-pre-wakeup.
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