[Luis Dias]

cmap makes me feel stupid. Of course the Orion arm thing is about stopping Terrudans from spreading its civilization towards the Orion nebula. How the hell did I miss such a simple interpretation?

Mostly because I was sidetracked by the "generate transabyssal gate" as being the core motive. But no, the core motive might have been to "roadblock" the "imminent" "transition" of the Terrudans to dangerous places. They ought to be contained and so they were. So I think two different things happened in Capella. One, they made sure the GTVA culled their connection to the Capella system and made sure no GTVA remnant was left alive in it (and thus the unrelenting massacre against anyone in the system); Two, they created a transabyssal gate connecting Capella to another system beyond an "abyss". I speculate that this connection is towards a more central shivan "system", from where they can investigate, monitor and deploy faster towards this problematic part of the galaxy. By "system" I do not mean that it is in "RealSpace". It can be, but it can also be in "Subspace".

Further speculation has too many variables. For instance, the Vishnans were already influencing the UEF, but were they in contact with the GTVA previous to the Capella incident? The Jester is known to have been in communication with the Shivans, he foretold Capella. We also know the Vishnans were eavesdropping the GTVA after Capella (adm. Steele's dream shenanigans and so on). Is it reasonable to suspect the transabyssal gate created was done so both the Shivans and the Vishnans could improve their monitoring and influencing of the GTVA?

[redsniper]

"secondary: selective pressure for resumption of panontic function. secondary: suppression of destructive firewall strategies."

"PRIMARY: imperate! metastatic ontovoric acatalepsis event! subversion of noosphere un - TERMINATE"

I would guess that their reason for existing is to help other species live, to preserve diversity.  Primarily, to reverse a species' self-destructive lethargic tendencies, and secondarily to stop tendencies of a species to destroy other species.

Gotta stop that metastatic ontovoric acatalepsis event, man. It even says it's imperative! Noosphere's going to get subverted otherwise!

[Luis Dias]

Subverted into what, is also the question.

[An4ximandros]

TVTropes (yeah, I know) has an interesting interpretation of the PRIMARY: the download stops because learning the full purpose of the Shivans would destroy your mind.

PRIMARY: imperate! metastatic onto-voric acatalepsis event! subversion of noosphere un - TERMINATE

[Gray113]

Or conversely the shivans are in complete control of the nagri network and are feeding false information to manipulate the Fedayeen

Sun Tzu said if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.

Both Lapore and the Federation do not understand any of their enemies motives (the GTVA, The Shivans or the Vishnans) and as such are facing defeat. Perhaps it is in the interests of the shivans to maintain this state of affairs in order to bring about the victory of their cause.

[cmap38]

Some more random musings...

--

Laporte: "Tell me about Shivan technology and tactics. Why aren't all their ships shielded like the Lucifer? Why are their fighter guns so weak?"

Shivans: "totipotent threat response agency prioritized. basal state neutral. tactical and strategic heuristics neutral. capabilities neutral...

...accept strategic input. propagate shocks through least-vulnerable-cognition network: generate noise output: optimize: recurse"

--

Totipotency is the ability of a single cell to divide and produce all the differentiated cells in an organism. A fertilized human egg cell is an example of a totipotent cell.

So here we have that immune system analogy again. Before differentiation the Shivans are in a neutral state; later adaptation/differentiation is based on accepted "strategic input" (basically observation of the enemy's combat abilities) that eventually results in an optimized tactical/strategic response. This strikes me as quite similar to the aliens in Peter Watts' Blindsight (I know this book has been mentioned in other threads).

This would seem to indicate that future engagements with the Shivans might involve Shivan "cells" that are more optimized for combat with Terrans/Vasudans than what we've seen in Freespace so far. But, since we don't really know the timescale at which this adaptation takes place, it's up in the air when we might encounter these more optimized Shivans, either tactically or technologically.

One last thought: does it count for anything that Terrans and Vasudans seem to be adapting to Shivans faster than Shivans are adapting to them? Consider all the knowledge the GTVA and UEF have acquired thanks to the Shivans: beam tech, stealth tech, shields, future-predicting supercomputers, Nagari communication, changes in war doctrine, etc.

Aren't the most successful bacteria/viruses often those that repurpose immune system mechanisms against the interests of the host organism? (such as AIDS, herpes, leprosy, tuberculosis, etc). These pathogens themselves have developed their own adaptive response to immune systems, and because of their shorter evolutionary timescales they are able to adapt faster than the organisms they invade. If Shivans are analogous to an immune system, might there be an equivalent analogy here between Terrans/Vasudans and pathogens (which are, actually, oftentimes successful)?

[friedrice]

PRIMARY: imperate! metastatic onto-voric acatalepsis event! subversion of noosphere un - TERMINATE

'Metastatic ontovoric  acatalepsy event' might imply a rampant mind-annihilation(consumption) that spreads through the noosphere and drives everything insane.

If the Shivans are so concerned about a compromised noosphere ("subversion of noosphere un-[acceptable?]"), would it indicate that compromising the noosphere would put themselves at risk of being destroyed?

Just a thought. I'm a big fan of Orion's-Arm-level dismissal of the "plucky baseline" phenomenon, but a Nagari sensitive like Laporte being exploited by a greater power as a conduit past the firewalls protecting Shivan and Vishnan 'consciousness'  might be a possibility.

EDIT: The fact that Ken suggests that dwelling on the matter of the great darkness is a bad idea leads me to believe that if the Shivans and Vishnans play their game to prevent such a catastrophe from happening, than even thinking about something like the great darkness will pop a unpluggable hole in the firewall.

[An4ximandros]

 Something to think about: In Hindu Myth, Brahma is both a god and the universe, everything is part of Brahma, he/it is Panontic. If the Shivans are interpreted as Brahma's "Immune system", what are the Vishnans? His nervous system? And perhaps more importantly, if the Brahman died... where do "we" live in?

[Phantom Hoover]

If the Shivans are so concerned about a compromised noosphere ("subversion of noosphere un-[acceptable?]"), would it indicate that compromising the noosphere would put themselves at risk of being destroyed?

you're assuming the shivans care about their own long-term survival

[Kopachris]

Gotta stop that metastatic ontovoric acatalepsis event, man. It even says it's imperative! Noosphere's going to get subverted otherwise!

I don't think it says that it's imperative.  I think it says their primary purpose is to imperate.  That is, to command (or perhaps to effect).  What are they commanding?

"Metastatic" = "involving displacement"
"ontovoric" = "existence-consuming", specifically the meaning of "consume" as in "to utilize through destruction," as one would consume food or fuel
"acatalepsis" = "a-" negates, "-cata-" refers to body (or, considering the nature of the Shivans, perhaps similar to what we think of as "existence"), and "-lepsy" referring to a seizure (that is, to seize up, to stop, to become rigid)

So their primary job is bring species out of self-destructive catalepsy and get them moving and spreading?

[CommanderDJ]

Acatalepsis could also refer to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acatalepsy

Fits in with the idea of the Great Darkness, for example.

[cmap38]

Couldn't that "Imperate!" line also indicate that the Shivans are being *given* a command?

I actually find this interpretation to be more gut-satisfying, considering what we've figured out about the Shivans so far. It gels with the whole "calculated into existence thing," as well as the "symptom of a larger problem thing." But who would give them this command?

[qwadtep]

I took the un- to mean underway. The Shivans are throwing an error message and hitting CTRL+ALT+DELETE before it becomes a serious problem.

Further speculation has too many variables. For instance, the Vishnans were already influencing the UEF, but were they in contact with the GTVA previous to the Capella incident? The Jester is known to have been in communication with the Shivans, he foretold Capella. We also know the Vishnans were eavesdropping the GTVA after Capella (adm. Steele's dream shenanigans and so on). Is it reasonable to suspect the transabyssal gate created was done so both the Shivans and the Vishnans could improve their monitoring and influencing of the GTVA?

The pilot in Vassago's Dirge, as well.

[lordhood117]

I noticed there was no straight-up attempt at a full translation, given what has been established so far.  Here's my go at one:

"secondary: selective pressure for resumption of panontic function. secondary: suppression of destructive firewall strategies."

"PRIMARY: imperate! metastatic ontovoric acatalepsis event! subversion of noosphere un - TERMINATE"

Secondary Objective 1: Pressure certain (systems?  factions?) in a way that allows the Shivans to operate everywhere (as in the whole universe)

Reason: If the Shivans are the universe's immune system, they need to be able to reach every part of it in order to ensure everything keeps running the way it's supposed to.  Because of the UEF-GTVA War, the Vishnans' flawed (as the Shivans see it) plan to protect the humans and Vasudans, and their bad reputation with almost everyone in existence, they can't, so they have to correct that.

Secondary Objective 2: Stop the Vishnan plan to "wall off" everyone within the Great Psyche once they are able to generally utilize Nagari because the results will lead to everything being destroyed.

Reason: We've known about their distrust of Vishnu's plan since the end of AoA.  We also know about what they fear will lead to an apocalyptic event: the Great Darkness.  So, they have to prevent that event from happening by breaking the cause-and-effect chain as soon as possible.

Primary Objective:  Still working on it.  Trying to come up with a full translation of this one is doing this to my brain:  .  Sorry, guys.  I'll edit it in once I have a chance to reboot...

[An4ximandros]

Reason: We've known about their distrust of Vishnu's plan since the end of AoA.  We also know about what they fear will lead to an apocalyptic event: the Great Darkness.  So, they have to prevent that event from happening by breaking the cause-and-effect chain as soon as possible.

What is the Vishnans ARE the Great Darkness? What if that's what happens when the original plan succeeds? From what we know Nagari takes place in subspace, which is outside of the universe.

[Phantom Hoover]

The holocide anima on the Lucifer was the same one that culled the Ancients.

OK this part is seriously bugging me. Why would the Shivans keep animas hanging around after their function is complete? They're evolved to deal with a single species or scenario; they have no particular advantage over a fresh anima when something new needs done. It just doesn't seem to fit at all with the rest of the information we've been given.

[An4ximandros]

What if that Anima never finished its task?

[General Battuta]

The holocide anima on the Lucifer was the same one that culled the Ancients.

OK this part is seriously bugging me. Why would the Shivans keep animas hanging around after their function is complete? They're evolved to deal with a single species or scenario; they have no particular advantage over a fresh anima when something new needs done. It just doesn't seem to fit at all with the rest of the information we've been given.

How do you know they do? The Ancient cull was completed barely an eyeblink ago.

Anthropocentric thinking.

[Phantom Hoover]

We know that the Ancient cull began 8 millennia ago, and the (admittedly mostly circumstantial) evidence points to it ending within a timescale of at most a couple of centuries, so it was clearly sticking around for a lot longer than its usable lifetime. And even if it /was/ just a matter of there happening to be a mothballed anima nearby, what actual benefit is there from using it on the Terrans and Vasudans? The Shivans are apparently completely homogeneous computationally, a structure well-suited to quickly reorganising themselves; so why bother repurposing an old anima, when so much of their basic structure seems to be built to fastidiously avoid consistency and predictability?

[General Battuta]

In the time HLP was down we had some very good conversation about this!

[22:39] <authortuttaway> basically i think that in attempting to criticize what seems like an unusually structured and teleological bit of shivan behavior
[22:39] <authortuttaway> you're unintentionally attributing too much structure and teleology to the shivans
[22:40] <authortuttaway> so what if the anima sticks around and does stuff and leads to misadaptation and gets defeated
[22:40] <authortuttaway> there are more shivans out there
[22:40] <SpardaSon21> infinite Shivans!
[22:42] <Phantom_Hoover> authortuttaway, ooooooh, right
[22:42] <Phantom_Hoover> that is... better
[22:42] <authortuttaway> yeah
[22:42] <authortuttaway> i mean i won't pretend you're not making a good point!
[22:42] <authortuttaway> but i think it's a point that ultimately points (har) back towards the robustness of the shivan design
[22:43] <authortuttaway> now what WOULD be a problem
[22:43] <authortuttaway> and hrm, this is very interesting
[22:43] <Phantom_Hoover> is there some kind of anima lifetime, though?
[22:43] <authortuttaway> is if you got an anima that could, like...recruit shivans out of the basal state to some disproportionate extent
[22:43] <authortuttaway> that was badly put
[22:43] <Phantom_Hoover> yeah, this was discussed earlier
[22:44] <Phantom_Hoover> analogous to a tumour, right?
[22:44] <authortuttaway> right, exactly
[22:44] <Phantom_Hoover> and having a forced shutdown on animas is analogous to apoptosis
[22:44] <authortuttaway> an anima that would cause issues by locking everybody into a fixed state that might be locally optimal
[22:44] <authortuttaway> yeah
[22:45] <authortuttaway> but the solution might lie in the fact that the animae are fundamentally pretty ad hoc, built out of smaller units; their traits may not be able to feed back down the way you'd think of with DNA mutations
[22:45] <authortuttaway> you can't have a tumor without changes in the individual cells
[22:46] <authortuttaway> also, shivan cognition is very - i'm not sure this is apparent from the existing stuff - but extremely ruthless and elimination-driven; it's a mode of thought that is fundamentally hostile to organization
[22:46] <authortuttaway> it's constantly trying to kill itself
[22:46] <Doko> So they are basically teenagers
[22:47] <Phantom_Hoover> so how did the ancient anima survive a few millennia of doing not very much
[22:47] <Doko> (except for the whole killing themselves part)
[22:47] <Phantom_Hoover> (insert tasteless joke about emos)
[22:47] <authortuttaway> well, you might have answered your own question - it wasn't doing very much!
[22:47] <authortuttaway> but also, i'm not convinced a few millennia is necessarily that long for them, structurally
[22:47] <Doko> emos are always fair game in my book
[22:47] <authortuttaway> also i think there's the hint in there that the local threshold is a bit inflamed
[22:48] <authortuttaway> there was trouble recently in the form of the ancients; the anima may have been left online to deal with any flare-ups