"Why are you still alive?"

munroburton wrote:I see no reason for those practices to not have continued. Indeed, they would have accelerated as humanity went from one Earth colonising hundreds of systems to thousands of systems doing the same, especially after the hyper-capable colony ship came along. That means they need lots of scout ships.

And if we take into account how some transtellars operate it's entirely possible that survey data from "interesting" systems have been doctored, just like how it was done when survey data indicated there where a wormhole in the Manticore system.

Nobody is going to re-survey a system listed as "worthless". Now, there's a wrinkle to this - if Galton's official survey data says it's "worthless", that doesn't seem to correspond to reality. If someone makes that connection you have suddenly a search-criteria for systems that you might want a closer look at if you are so inclined. I should note that this reasoning hinges on the fact that the Galton system was actually officially surveyed to begin with.

cthia wrote:

cthia wrote:Which is where I think the wind beneath Lewis and Linda's wings came from.

tlb wrote:To give credit where due, Linda and Lewis did not derive the results, they only got to present them; it was the "tea-leaf readers" who generated the report. They would be the analysts of Naval Intelligence reporting to Rear Admiral Victor Lewis, Director of Operational Research, and his boss Vice Admiral Linda Trenis of Bureau of Planning, as Jonathan_S told you

At any rate, I suppose there is a chance the tea leaf readers didn't have access to the predictive model that top brass ordered up and which was obviously created. Or that there was a reason to deny them access.

I don't think so, but, "To agree to disagree" should be easy for you and me. And everyone else makes three.

Jonathan_S wrote:Well the text ev about the predictive model simply said the analysists don't have good one.

I'd quibble that that does not necessarily mean it was obviously created. There are two ways I can see that statement being read:
1) They developed a model but it wasn't good.
2) They didn't have enough to develop a good model so they didn't waste time developing one they knew wouldn't be good.

My first read through the passage when the book still had its new smell, I had no doubts that a model was created.

Here's the thing. I am beginning to think nobody here has any experience using an expert system. Not only did I once work for a company designing them, I have designed my own and I continue to use it, using Lisp as I have shared many times in the forum. I am well aware of their capabilities and shortcomings. Expert systems become much better with time. The more you use them, the better they become. They learn. Think of chess programs and chatbots.

Here are undisputed facts:

[
Honor and Eighth Fleet was raising hell in Haven's backyard. Something had to be done to stop Honor.

An order was given to try and analyze the pattern. When an order is given in the military, you can best believe it is carried out. They didn't have anything else to rely upon. There was absolutely no other option.
]

Tea leaf reading

When I first read this, it actually reminded me of my mother and sister and a mixed race family who had moved into our neighborhood before I was a teenager.

He was a Japanese man who had married a Chinese woman. That was very taboo during those days. She never felt comfortable. She had this odd looking tea set that she used to peer into after she drank the tea. (She performed this ritual of dropping tea leaves into the cup, preparing the tea and drinking it.) I thought she was worried that it had been poisoned, until my sister asked her. She explained it to us and gave my sister a similar set that she cherished. My mom had the habit of asking us "Did you get that silly notion from drinking your sister's tea?"

But the practice is as scientific as any type of fortune telling using tarot cards, astrology, or that of a bone oracle.

RFC was simply using the term loosely to suggest that the tea leaf readers used intuition (and as far as I am concerned) for the most part.

Because, even tea leaf readers need tea leaves to perform their magic. The tea leaf reading is accomplished by reading the pattern of the tea leaves in the cup in conjunction with the symbols around the cup. Probably all fortune telling use patterns.

The analysts were trying to predict any patterns to Honor's swashbuckling.

We could assume that a predictive model was not made after the order was given to do so. I can not believe that the order was not carried out when it was mortally important and when there were no other options.

And I cannot believe that something so important would be entirely left up to fortune telling. So, the expert system which surely exists in the HV would have been consulted.

It is nearly impossible to get good results with an expert system without enough data to feed it. It is also almost as impossible to determine when you do not have enough data beforehand. Expert systems usually surprise you.

The tea leaf readers did not raise their hands to the god of fortune telling and chanted. They needed their version of tea leaves as well. Their tea leaves would have been whatever data they had on Cut Worm's operation to date. Now, these readers could have had brains that stored all of this data and had total memory recall. But that is a long shot. And they could have been irresponsible and risked screwing up by the numbers by failing to at least consult with the predictive model. But I don't think so. And they may have had the inclination to use their intuition even knowing a predictive model was being prepared, and without knowing what the results would be. And they may have had time to play with their tea sets when all hands were ordered on deck and a scientific method had been ordered up. And they may not have had duties to assist in that endeavor. I don't think so.

What I think the author is saying is that the predictive model wasn't much help in the end and that the analysts had to wing it and use the tea leaf readers' intuition. But I think that intuition was intuition from inference. Which often happens when using expert systems. The expert system couldn't give a definitive answer. But the tea leaf readers took it from there. Hmm...

Jonathan_S wrote:But even if we say the first case is true I wouldn't give a such a model much credit for predicting Honor's next targets; not when the best they seem to be able to say about it is that it is not "a good predictive model".

I agree. As you said I think the author wanted to infer that. But, I hardly think Linda and Lewis was willing to leave the entire thing up to fortune telling without having consulted an expert system. The expert system was simply unclear or incomplete. I wouldn't be surprised if the predictive model would have come up with the solution had they had more time refining the data and asking it the right questions. They just didn't have the time. They had enough data. Because the data that their intuition worked on (the tea leaves) existed.

Jonathan_S wrote:However, that text ev is specifically about what the analysist had (or didn't; as the case might be). And that's the only predictive model mentioned -- so there's definitely nothing there even hinting that their bosses have access to any model the analysists don't. (And remember; they're saying the analysist "really don't have a good predictive model" after the analysts report is complete and passed up through their bosses to Theisman. There's no room to argue that the model started out bad and they made it good enough to pick the targets -- they've already put their bets down on Honor's next strikes before making the claim they couldn't make a good predictive model.


It seems to me that RFC is trying to be very clear that it was in large part human intuition that led them to winnow down the entire Republic to a list of 10 most likely, and 15 more still likely, target systems that Honor might try for.

So, I'd say if anything was the wind between Linda and Lewis's wings it was their hard working, and intuitive, analysists - and not any less than good predictive model those analysists might have used to assist in their work..

I agree that RFC was trying to convey that it was human intuition. But purely intuition? Without access to any of the known data? Intuition works on data, even if subliminally. Intuition isn't "conjured up" out of thin air.

Would top brass have been quick to accept this fortune telling-astrological-tarot reading-tea leaf solution without at least having consulted with the expert system as well? They had bosses too. And shit rolls down hill. I can just imagine the paint being blasted off the bulkheads of every ship in the fleet if the fortune telling didn't go as planned, after the debriefing ...

"You mean to tell me you counted on some kind of fucking fortune telling without at least consulting with a system in which we have invested billions of credits and man hours to create!?"

"It wasn't fortune telling, sir. It was intuition."

"Tell that to Congress you fucking idiot!"

So, yes, a predictive model was ordered. And being the Navy and considering the importance, you can bet your naval ass one was created.

And I think the tea leaf readers at least had the common sense to study that model in the very least. After all, they were Linda's tea leaf readers.


But! We are missing the forest for the trees arguing about the little bees. My original intent was that an expert system might be very useful in searching for Darius.

Unlike when trying to get into Honor's head, they have the time to search for Darius. They have a lot of data. And they will continue to get more.

I think the Ghost Hunters will share their data and it will be cross referenced, using a common everyday expert system.



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munroburton wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Dedicating 10000 long-endurance ships for 5 years is not going to happen. The cost for that is prohibitive.

I think that dedicating 100 ships is going to be the absolute upper limit.

I can't agree with that. First, we know the League and its non-member neighbours have been severely underspending on defence for centuries - that the colossal SLN was actually quite diminutive for the wealth and resources available to that region of space. Consider that Manticore(outperformed in absolute output by several dozen League systems whilst outperforming them in GDP per capita) produced and threw away something like three hundred old-fashioned wallers in barely fifty years, with the leaner and meaner Republic of Haven getting over 1,000 SD(P)s built in barely a decade.

Second, it's been clear since OBS that the Diaspora never ended, that even as Earth collapsed into its Final War, the first colonies were sending out their own colony ships. We may not have seen them, but there has to be a huge number of long-endurance scout ships constantly looking for new systems to sell the rights to.

Unlike a Starfleet-style centralised exploration model, the commercialised version sees multiple companies competiting against each other. The consequence of that should be that survey ships are forced to use the best hyper technology possible. In the past such scouts were prepared to spend 20 years in hyper, without Warshawski sails or sensors, just to survey systems like Manticore - and then another 20 years back to sell their data.

I see no reason for those practices to not have continued. Indeed, they would have accelerated as humanity went from one Earth colonising hundreds of systems to thousands of systems doing the same, especially after the hyper-capable colony ship came along. That means they need lots of scout ships.

Unfortunately, most such existing scout ships are possibly up to 20 years away at up to 3,000c(60,000 light years, covering a vast chunk of the galaxy) and of course there is no way to recall them. But they should exist and infrastructure to produce them should exist. If the League really, really wanted to actively search for threats lurking within a certain radius of Solarian space, they absolutely could get it done.

I suppose that's the sort of thing Galton's sacrifice may avert, although I'll continue to argue that the way Galton's initial survey was falsified should be all the proof they need to order a re-surveying of local stars.

I've mentioned a few times over the years, that any cryo ships which left Earth in the years just prior to the invention of the Warshawski sail and sensors are just NOW passing Manticore (or have just reached ~625 light years from Earth in some direction.) most still have a couple centuries on their clocks, as the current settled area runs to ~900 light years from Earth. There have to be hundreds, if not thousands of cryo ships still in flight.

Midguard was mentioned to be an area just settled in the last 50-150 years, and Smoking Frog was settled by a group that had migrated further out every centaury or 2, trying to avoid big government's slow outward creep. So yeah, colonization is still going on, and scouts are probably still busy mapping the fringes of man's space.

cthia wrote:We could assume that a predictive model was not made after the order was given to do so. I can not believe that the order was not carried out when it was mortally important and when there were no other options.

Agreed. Theisman would have ordered such predictive models created on Honor the moment it became clear they were going back to war, before Operation Thunderbolt. Even if at that time she was in disfavour with the High Ridge Government, he knew her and knew how good she was. He'd have needed to know what the best the Manticore Alliance could throw at him would do.

What I think the author is saying is that the predictive model wasn't much help in the end and that the analysts had to wing it and use the tea leaf readers' intuition. But I think that intuition was intuition from inference. Which often happens when using expert systems. The expert system couldn't give a definitive answer. But the tea leaf readers took it from there. Hmm...

I agree again. They did use the predictive models. The analysts are there to evaluate the output of the systems and give a level of confidence that the actual strategists can use.

And I agree that the system couldn't give a sufficiently precise answer. That's where human intuition came in... and it still fell short. The textev posted a few pages ago show that they had mispredicted where Honor would attack on the last attack before the conversation happened.

The problem they had was that the cost of obtaining more data was too high. Each of them was a system devastated by Eighth Fleet and more time for the Alliance to get the Python Lump in space.

I agree. As you said I think the author wanted to infer that. But, I hardly think Linda and Lewis was willing to leave the entire thing up to fortune telling without having consulted an expert system. The expert system was simply unclear or incomplete. I wouldn't be surprised if the predictive model would have come up with the solution had they had more time refining the data and asking it the right questions. They just didn't have the time. They had enough data. Because the data that their intuition worked on (the tea leaves) existed.

They most definitely did not have enough data, if you define "enough data" as "enough data to accurately make a prediction." Since we know they hadn't accurately predicted until then, it was by definition not enough. The conversation in question is explicit that they didn't have enough for the next prediction either.

The fact that Giscard was in the system where Honor did attack next included a not small contribution of luck. Plus, the field was narrowing, because the Alliance was escalating which targets it would attack. And we also discussed last year (or was it 2020) that the RHN probably had other commanders in other systems, all while preparing for Beatrice. So if she had chosen a different system, she would have come across a different admiral or none at all.

But! We are missing the forest for the trees arguing about the little bees. My original intent was that an expert system might be very useful in searching for Darius.

Of course it's useful. But it still suffers from the lack of quality and quantity of data. Garbage in, garbage out.

And I'm arguing that almost all clues gathered so far will lead only to Felix, not to Darius, because a wormhole is a break in the function, where it jumps from values that could be predicted to an unpredictable one.

Don't get me wrong: finding Felix is very important. It cuts off a major strategic advantage and it does force Darius to use hyperspace if they want to continue participating in Galactic events. That could cause more data to be generated and gathered, which in turn could lead to Darius itself.

Theemile wrote:Midguard was mentioned to be an area just settled in the last 50-150 years, and Smoking Frog was settled by a group that had migrated further out every centaury or 2, trying to avoid big government's slow outward creep. So yeah, colonization is still going on, and scouts are probably still busy mapping the fringes of man's space.

Which means Darius might be accidentally found by survey ships now coming near it or by an unknown colony ship that was going for it all along and has been in transit for more than 2 centuries.

That's one event that cannot be predicted by either side, nor by us. It could be a way for RFC to give the GA the necessary data.

cthia wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:But even if we say the first case is true I wouldn't give a such a model much credit for predicting Honor's next targets; not when the best they seem to be able to say about it is that it is not "a good predictive model".

I agree. As you said I think the author wanted to infer that. But, I hardly think Linda and Lewis was willing to leave the entire thing up to fortune telling without having consulted an expert system. The expert system was simply unclear or incomplete. I wouldn't be surprised if the predictive model would have come up with the solution had they had more time refining the data and asking it the right questions. They just didn't have the time. They had enough data. Because the data that their intuition worked on (the tea leaves) existed.
[snip]

I agree that RFC was trying to convey that it was human intuition. But purely intuition? Without access to any of the known data? Intuition works on data, even if subliminally. Intuition isn't "conjured up" out of thin air.

"Purely intuition"? Of course not.
That's why I said "it was in large part human intuition that led them to winnow down the entire Republic to a list of 10 most likely, and 15 more still likely, target systems that Honor might try for.". "in large part" != "purely".

However I'm less convinced they had enough data for the predictive model to work with if only they'd had more time. It seems to me that the issue is identifying which system characteristics the Manties were looking at, and then how they were weighted.

However maybe I'm making a different distinction, or using terminology slightly differently, than you are. I'd view the expert system as the software that attempts to develop a predictive model based on training datasets and other input given to it, and the predictive model as the result of feeding the expert system such data. Yes the Republic Navy's intelligence analysist would have had expert systems to try to develop predictive models -- but in this case they didn't feel there was enough data to let the expert system come up with a good model. (But I don't know whether they made the decision by trying and seeing it gave poor results; or whether they knew by past experience how much data would be required and knew they didn't yet have that much data)

There had only been 2 series of raids before they were successful in ambushing Honor at Solon. And put together Cutworm I & II had hit only 9 systems out of the entire Republic. That's such a small data set that even if you'd perfectly identified the key characteristics the Manties were using for target selection there would be multiple different relatively weightings of those characteristics which would all give you that same 9 target set -- but which would result in quite different guesses as to the most likely next target(s).


Further, the initial report appears to have predated Cutworm II, since Marquette and Theisman were discussion the success at predicting Des Moines, Fordyce, and Chantilly -- all of which were hit in the 2nd set of raids. So the initial report only had the 5 targeted systems from Cutworm I to use as data points to try to work out where Honor's forces might strike next. From those 5 they worked out 10 primary targets (2 of which were correct) and 15 less likely targets (1 of which was correct).

So I was somewhat wrong before. They had called the model "not good" after placing their bets. But I'd missed that it was their bets for Cutworm II. With the additional data points of the 4 systems hit in that 2nd phase of raids they would have been able to try to refine the predictive model and it might well have been much better (possibly even considered good) before they had to make their (ultimately successful) bet on the target(s) for what turned out to be Cutworm III.

I don't think we know how many systems were on the more likely and less likely lists for that; but they obviously included Solon which was one of the 2 systems Honor's forces did hit. (Though why her other target, Lorn, didn't have an ambush of its own set isn't, to the best of my recollection, explained. Could be the analysists missed that one, or rated it too low on their list; or could be the RHN had other reasons for which systems they could afford to set their few concentrated forces at.)

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Theemile wrote:Midguard was mentioned to be an area just settled in the last 50-150 years, and Smoking Frog was settled by a group that had migrated further out every centaury or 2, trying to avoid big government's slow outward creep. So yeah, colonization is still going on, and scouts are probably still busy mapping the fringes of man's space.

Which means Darius might be accidentally found by survey ships now coming near it or by an unknown colony ship that was going for it all along and has been in transit for more than 2 centuries.

That's one event that cannot be predicted by either side, nor by us. It could be a way for RFC to give the GA the necessary data.

Given what happened to Galton, Darius might have been found by Jesssk's exploration ships and then downplayed in the database, or the data was altered and ship killed like Galton. who knows.

Jonathan_S wrote:However maybe I'm making a different distinction, or using terminology slightly differently, than you are. I'd view the expert system as the software that attempts to develop a predictive model based on training datasets and other input given to it, and the predictive model as the result of feeding the expert system such data. Yes the Republic Navy's intelligence analysist would have had expert systems to try to develop predictive models -- but in this case they didn't feel there was enough data to let the expert system come up with a good model. (But I don't know whether they made the decision by trying and seeing it gave poor results; or whether they knew by past experience how much data would be required and knew they didn't yet have that much data)

There had only been 2 series of raids before they were successful in ambushing Honor at Solon. And put together Cutworm I & II had hit only 9 systems out of the entire Republic. That's such a small data set that even if you'd perfectly identified the key characteristics the Manties were using for target selection there would be multiple different relatively weightings of those characteristics which would all give you that same 9 target set -- but which would result in quite different guesses as to the most likely next target(s).


Further, the initial report appears to have predated Cutworm II, since Marquette and Theisman were discussion the success at predicting Des Moines, Fordyce, and Chantilly -- all of which were hit in the 2nd set of raids. So the initial report only had the 5 targeted systems from Cutworm I to use as data points to try to work out where Honor's forces might strike next. From those 5 they worked out 10 primary targets (2 of which were correct) and 15 less likely targets (1 of which was correct).

So I was somewhat wrong before. They had called the model "not good" after placing their bets. But I'd missed that it was their bets for Cutworm II. With the additional data points of the 4 systems hit in that 2nd phase of raids they would have been able to try to refine the predictive model and it might well have been much better (possibly even considered good) before they had to make their (ultimately successful) bet on the target(s) for what turned out to be Cutworm III.

I don't think we know how many systems were on the more likely and less likely lists for that; but they obviously included Solon which was one of the 2 systems Honor's forces did hit. (Though why her other target, Lorn, didn't have an ambush of its own set isn't, to the best of my recollection, explained. Could be the analysists missed that one, or rated it too low on their list; or could be the RHN had other reasons for which systems they could afford to set their few concentrated forces at.)

Don't forget, the post People's Republic Haven is down to 75-150 worlds. Even 9 systems is a good % of the Republic, and since she used scorched earth tactics (iiinnn ssppaceeeeee....), every strike removed a planet from the list, making the remaining targets easier to determine.

If Darius is at a star just the other side of the Felix wormhole, then it is reasonable to guess that it was possibly the nearest and 1st star listed by the ship that either did the original investigation or the 2nd ship---one that was sent thought to see what was around that terminus if the original prospecting ship didn't do more than gather it's terminus data and go on the return trip as soon as they were confident of making the return trip.
Nobody has yet said Darius needed terraforming (or Mesaforming) to be usable by humans without infrastructure like Grayson.
The exploration process sounds like 1) find a possible wormhole, study the crap out of it then send a ship through. 2) the ship that goes through spends a bunch of time both gathering data on the other end of the wormhole and figuring out where the terminus is in relation to sets of known stars and things like pulsars. They also would be looking to see what is "close by" in terms of stars with habitable planets -failing that, what stars have planetary (or even just astroid belts) object that would be useful.
3) Presuming they had not suffered an engineering casualty such that they could not use their W-sails, they would make the return journey to deliver all the data to whomever was financing the expedition. If they could not use the W-sails but still had capability for hyperspace then they aim for whatever place they can get too for repairs and/or home.

If the explorer ship is working for the Alignment, nobody else will get any of the information....ever.

Jonathan_S wrote:However I'm less convinced they had enough data for the predictive model to work with if only they'd had more time. It seems to me that the issue is identifying which system characteristics the Manties were looking at, and then how they were weighted.

BTW, who says the targets weren't random?

The RMN had used randomly-generated codewords (Operations Buttercup, Cutworm, and Sanskrit, Projects Anzio, Apollo, Ghost Rider, Dragon's Teeth, Mistletoe, Lorelei, Keyhole), so why not insert a randomness in target selection? Come up with some 10-15 suitable targets according to strategic criteria, then randomly choose one or three.

That would mean Haven's predictive models were completely accurate...