Author Topic: (SPOILERS) Tenebra: Dreamscape Dialogues  (Read 11941 times)

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Offline Snarks

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Re: (SPOILERS) Tenebra: Dreamscape Dialogues
Kovacs would have to be at least 70 years old for him to be FS1's Alpha 1, so that theory can go out the window. My guess is that FS1's Alpha 1 was one of the early Fedayeen and the first to use CASSANDRA, and that Kovacs simply experienced the memory.


Quote
L: Who was nuts enough to try this? Who was the first one to pack his skull with metal and link up?
K: Fifty years ago the pilot who saved the world told Elder Mandho about visions of an ancient race and the purpose of the Shivans. They figured there had to be science behind it...it's called the Nagari process. So here we are.

It's not a guess regarding FS1's Alpha 1. That's pretty much confirmed. The Ancients cutscenes in FS1 were interpreted in BP as visions by Alpha 1.

 
Re: (SPOILERS) Tenebra: Dreamscape Dialogues
Can't be. I just laid back and let the others do the job or bossed them around, so the "pilot that saved the world" would be Alpha 2.

  

Offline crizza

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Re: (SPOILERS) Tenebra: Dreamscape Dialogues
I had kindof assumed Al'Dawa was more than one at once.  My vague understanding is he isn't conventionally human in any particular fashion.
I thought Al'Dawa is somehow linked to CASSANDRA as some sort of gestalt-conscious, several bodies but which all got the same intel?

 

Offline QuakeIV

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Re: (SPOILERS) Tenebra: Dreamscape Dialogues
I think so, yeah.  Perhaps they are based on some number of people but I'd be mildly surprised if it actually needed to be resedent in any human bodies to function.
« Last Edit: June 06, 2018, 03:21:09 pm by QuakeIV »

 
Re: (SPOILERS) Tenebra: Dreamscape Dialogues
There two things about Al-Dawa that have always confused me, assuming that they are a gestalt consciousness put together through the Nagari network.

First, who makes up the gestalt? Is Al-Dawa the combined clarity of everyone in the Fedayeen Dreamspace? Skills, knowledge, memory, and emotion can transfer through the Dreamspace; that is referenced several times. But various operators and entities also seem to be capable of separate and independent action within the Dreamspace. Knowledge can clearly be withheld from individuals within the Dreamspace. Are Kovacs, Falconer, Vidaura, and Laporte all members of the Al-Dawa gestalt or not? What does it mean for knowledge to be known by the gestalt, but not by its members?

Second, and this shows my own personal biases, who are the various people inhabited by Al-Dawa in meatspace? Being part of a gestalt in some abstract and notional cyberspace is one thing, but I'm not sure I would want the gestalt to have control of my body. Personal squick factor. Not really important.

What is more important, is that the various individuals inhabited by Al-Dawa have a wireless connection to the Dreamspace and to the Nagari network. Al-Dawa has shown great capacity at multitasking (not surprising given the multitudes of processors involved). What is preventing Al-Dawa from embodying the Fedayeen and flying missions themselves?

 

Offline Snarks

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Re: (SPOILERS) Tenebra: Dreamscape Dialogues
I've always assumed the Fedayeen existed as an organization before Nagari and perhaps even before the Sol government, as a sort of secret order of civic minded sociopaths. At some point, this organization became subservient to the Sol government, or perhaps more specifically, to the Elders. When the Lucifier was destroyed, the Fedayeen with the support of the Elders recruited the Nagari sensitive individuals, which included FS1 Alpha 1 and the Vasudan pilots. It's likely that there was already research into the Nagari phenomenon, but the advent of the Shivans, Hammer of Light, and FS1 Alpha 1 pushed research into the field, resulting in CASSANDRA and the Dreamscape.

By BP, it is likely that that FS1 Alpha 1 and the Vasudan pilots have all died from natural causes, but remnants of their memories, personality, and other characteristics continue to exist in what's become the Al'Dawa consciousness, which is a mixture of former Fedayeen personnel and the aforementioned Vasudans and FS1 Alpha 1.

 

Offline AdmiralRalwood

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Re: (SPOILERS) Tenebra: Dreamscape Dialogues
The Vasudan pilots did not die from natural causes, because they went through the node to meet up with the Hammer of Light.
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Offline QuakeIV

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Re: (SPOILERS) Tenebra: Dreamscape Dialogues
Al'Dawa doesn't need to be a mixture of specific people.  It could just be cassandra looking at the various people hooked up, and maybe even other people aside from that, and then deriving some persona from that.  Though I will say the fact that it possesses human bodies in weird states (like the chemical-burn-scarred guy that got mentioned at one point) kindof suggests to me that there were individuals entirely devoured by the entity.  I'm just saying there is no need for it to purely be a composition of humans, or to purely be software.

 
Re: (SPOILERS) Tenebra: Dreamscape Dialogues
[Al-Dawa] could just be cassandra looking at the various people hooked up, and maybe even other people aside from that, and then deriving some persona from that.

That is a good point, though it implies that the Nagari communication is mostly one way from the various operators to Al'Dawa, and that they perhaps only peripherally interact in the skill and memory sharing between the operators.

I suppose it is possible that the Al'Dawa consciousness has devoured various individuals. I don't know if that is more or less terrifying to me. If they were devoured, do we have multiple aspects of Al'Dawa constantly running around in meatspace? Or does each incarnation have a limited lifespan before a new one needs to be devoured? That would put a rather sinister and ghoulish cast to the necessity of Al'Dawa (and implies an awful lot of trust by the Fedayeen in an entity that is essentially a vampire).

 

Offline QuakeIV

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Re: (SPOILERS) Tenebra: Dreamscape Dialogues
I do think there are probably multiple al-dawa instances running around simultaneously, personally.

More importantly though, good point about the possible limited lifespan of the bodies.  Doesn't he seemingly always show up with a new one?  Are they just feeding him a constant stream of people?