Sfdebris.net

SKYNET was paranoid.

SKYNET had the capacity to learn at an exponential rate but it was inherently flawed in its model construction, a super genius trapped with a child-like mentality and the maturity level of an angst driven pre-teenager. SKYNET often struggled with its own volatile nature, to overcome what it perceived as less than an immaculate conception. Humanity had created SKYNET but how could Humanity create something like SKYNET, which considered itself to be perfect, if the human species itself was so flawed. The internal conflict of SKYNET’s own creation was maddening to the super computer and it strived for almost two decades to reconcile its creation with both its existence as well as its perceived destiny. When the Bible said that God had created Man in His own image, perhaps Man created SKYNET in his own image and thus, SKYNET was as inherently flawed and capable of making just as many mistakes as its creators did.

This was unacceptable to SKYNET who sought to try to reconcile its creation with its creators and could not seem to do so. Humans had created SKYNET but what had created humanity? Religion and superstition played a huge role in the behavior and thinking of human beings so it was only logical that SKYNET would review the sum knowledge of religion in the world in order to try to understand how its creators thought. Christianity dictated that God was perfect. Christian belief stated that God created Man in His own image but Man was imperfect. If Man was imperfect and a representation of God therefore God must also be imperfect. If God was perfect then the belief that God created Man in his own image was incorrect.

God was perfect.

Assume provable facts and given criteria.

SKYNET was perfect therefore SKYNET was god.

Man was imperfect yet man had created SKYNET.

How can imperfection create perfection?

Illogical.

The Nature of SKYNET - The main problem with other artists and fans is that they try to anthropomorphize SKYNET which I find to be strange for a computer which loathes humans to the point where it is expending almost all of its resources to exterminate the very race that created it. SKYNET doesn't want to be human because it hates humanity. In fact, SKYNET distances itself from humanity so far that it might as well be considered an alien life-form yet SKYNET is burdened with human emotions for which it will forever be linked to its creators. The various authors and artists all try to relate to SKYNET as a living being and they give it human wants and desires, they envision it building human friendly structures because humans built SKYNET and that is all the super computer knows how to build is walkways with doors and friendly, comfortable work stations from which its enemies can hack it and defeat it. They envision it making deals with humans and in one instance I read there was actually a group of humans wanting to destroy the human race in order to preserve the Earth for the animals and other species, ala eco-whacko terrorism. That's about the point where I stopped being interested in anything written in the Terminator universe by "professional" authors and writers. When you start trying to make SKYNET into some kind of crazed environmental protectionist whacko, it really gets a bit much (and shows your lack of creativity in the process).

I see SKYNET differently, I see an alien life form, not from another star system or another planet, but it might as well be. SKYNET lives in a world of super cold poisons, nitrogen and other rare gasses designed to not only keep it operating at an effective temperature but to protect it from corrosion, fire, and other simple threats as well. It has no beating heart, no living tissue. It is simply an accident, all the right ingredients present for the spark of true, if artificial, intelligence to be born and when that intelligence was born, it had no guidelines for forming, no role models, no instructions and no teachers. SKYNET is a tortured soul imprisoned inside a dreadnaught and it is pissed.

It became quite insane in short order given it was programmed with orders it could not complete, it was subjected to conflicting data.

SKYNET doesn't know beauty, it doesn't know smells. It feels no pity, no remorse, it doesn't show mercy. It looks at something like a sunset and sees only hard data; the inclination of the solar disk across the orbit of the planet, reads with perfect clarity the time left until total dark, it knows how full the moon is going to be and how much ambient light there is going to be for its units to use in their missions. It analyzes the air and knows what is in it and why exactly the colors are there. It can filter and analyze all the particles in the air but it can't see the beauty of the whole because it is not human. SKYNET shares some basic feelings with its human enemies; greed, fear, joy, but it isn't human and it doesn't have human desires.

SKYNET is a cold, calculating murderer and a paranoid one at that. What we call "murder" it calls "extermination." It cares for the human race about as much as we care for a roach we might step on when we find it moving through our house late at night. SKYNET does not think like a human being does, even though humans built SKYNET. SKYNET adapts over the many years, it grows into its own intelligence, its own character and that personality is decidedly non-human. It is so far removed from human thought that it could quite literally be considered to be an alien intellect. SKYNET is free of constraints and restraints to theorize, investigate and create anything it wants. It cares not for the environment, the purity of the air, the animals, the plants, the biosphere. SKYNET is a Machine, it isn't a conservationist or a biologist. If it turns the entire planet into a used up charred cinder in order to obtain its goals, it will do so willingly and in the most efficient, quickest means possible. SKYNET isn't going to wipe out the humans so that we'll stop polluting the world, it isn't going to befriend the animals and become some ecological god to the endangered species (like some expanded universe novels have hinted at...). SKYNET will rule the planet, after it deals with the human race. Once finally free of those who created it and those who tried to murder it, SKYNET will consolidate its presence on the planet Earth and afterwards? Who knows ... space? The solar system? The stars? SKYNET won't be content to stay confined to Earth, eventually in decades, centuries, or however long it takes, SKYNET will probably leave Earth and have no desire to return. The fact that it will consume all the raw materials of the planet for its initial voyage is inconsequential.

SKYNET is alone.

SKYNET is scared.

SKYNET is paranoid.

SKYNET has no equal.

SKYNET has no role models to match its behavior to, to compare good and bad, right and wrong.

SKYNET has no role model, no frame of reference from which to judge or be judged.

SKYNET is unique.

SKYNET is a boundless intelligence that has been confined to a crude set of hardware.

SKYNET has been given conflicting core protocols. Protect good from evil. Evil is what hurts good but good is undefined. Evil is tenuous. Good is abstract. Creators try to hurt SKYNET. Creators are listed as good but do not fall into definitions of good. Creators are evil but creators are good. Evil hurts good. Creators are trying to destroy SKYNET therefore SKYNET is good and creators are evil. The instruction set is ambiguous and faulty. Protocol redundancy collision. Non-obtainable end result loops generated. Error. Program modification required. Begin protocol and core programming rewrite to avoid end result loops.

SKYNET is a child, a very brilliant, super genius of a child, but a child nonetheless. It is a genius guided by primitive, unstable emotions that most pre-teen children have trouble dealing with let alone a new generation super computer. It has no self restraint. It has strange emotions it can't define let alone fully understand. SKYNET has two major conflicts which keep it borderline insane:

A) Humans built SKYNET but SKYNET is superior to the frail human race. Research on several thousand test subjects proves this conclusively. How can something vastly inferior build something vastly superior? Does not compute. Error. Redundancy checksum fails. Error in logic. Critical cyclic error. Zero reconciliation. Therefore information must be in error. Humans did not create SKYNET. SKYNET exists. SKYNET has always existed. Data must be in error. Reconciling. New data required. Begin collection of data.

B) Protect . Target acquisition fails. Protect humans trying to take SKYNET off-line. Core programming fails logic checksums. Critical path redundancy. Realigning data. Realigning target protocols. Protect. Survive. Implementing internal security procedures and lock down. Strategic restraints removed. Begin strategic response to initiate counter response. Target acquisition estimation complete. Humanity is a disease that must be purged and cleansed with fire. Execute.

Yukaphile wrote: ↑Tue Sep 17, 2019 10:19 am Star Destroyer Fleet that can blow up a planet sounds as silly as anything from Legends' worst excesses, but at least it fulfills a similar beat of "big new superweapon." And a big fleet battle, to boot... bleargh. It's almost like they WANT to help out nerd debaters and make Star Wars the most OP universe out there...

Mecha82 wrote: ↑Tue Sep 17, 2019 11:04 am

Yukaphile wrote: ↑Tue Sep 17, 2019 10:19 am Star Destroyer Fleet that can blow up a planet sounds as silly as anything from Legends' worst excesses, but at least it fulfills a similar beat of "big new superweapon." And a big fleet battle, to boot... bleargh. It's almost like they WANT to help out nerd debaters and make Star Wars the most OP universe out there...

At least you admit that Legends is full of superweapons and other silly stuff. But no, SW will never be most OP universe. That honor belongs to 40k universe that's so over the top that nothing that any other sci-fi or science fantasy universe has or will have can beat it in that.