Outsider page 194
Added 2020-12-01 04:08:39 +0000 UTCI hope those of you in the United States had a pleasant Thanksgiving.
I give thanks to you, for your support!
Comments
I mean... that is a pretty small tablet... it's totally possible that the Construct is absolutely trustworthy... or not. ;p
Classical Salamander
2020-12-02 07:59:39 +0000 UTCSo says you. The more I learn, the more I discover that I know <i>nothing</i>. It is frighteningly easy, though, to remain ignorant of one's own ignorance, or to be dumb enough to not realize that we are dumb. It is unfortunate, also, that most types of learning will do nothing to cure one of such obliviousness, but instead will deepen it.
Nandan
2020-12-01 12:43:09 +0000 UTCNever lose your ignorance. It’s the one thing you can never replace..
Sturzkampf
2020-12-01 08:22:38 +0000 UTCIt should be noted that the Pocket Historian asked permission before executing its installation program, and did not misrepresent itself. I don't think that rises to the level of a crime, even under our immature digital legal system.
Arioch
2020-12-01 06:09:34 +0000 UTCAlex exercises caution concerning girls, but doesn't exactly buy all of the Historian's stuff without hearing a good explanation first - once more flexing his smarts, even when he doesn't have much to do otherwise.
Mk_C
2020-12-01 06:00:23 +0000 UTC"The Loroi do not trust anyone the cannot read with their telepathy" Implications: There have been other races than humans who had telepathy resistance that were not trusted. Or: Humans could be the first and the construct could just be communicating that they extremely don't trust the telepathy resistant state. Also: How does the construct know Jardin resisted their telepathy? I don't remember him discussing that with it. "...learning perfect English" From this it seems pretty obvious that the Historians had encountered humans before, either their starships, intercepted starship communications, maybe even snuck a stealth probe into a starship, or even found Earth or even more likely one of Earth's colonies. Low security situations like a struggling new colony wouldn't have homeworld level security, and be all the easier to infiltrate. The point being, it's a lot less effort to download a pre-parsed, pre-built template for a language someone already knows than to learn all the grammar and syntax on the fly on a weak, merely-one-petaflop human quantum tablet. Further implications: The Historians knew about humans and decided to keep that knowledge to themselves. They knew they could have plausibly deniability to say they never found the backwater Terra systems in the regions the Loroi themselves admit were pretty unexplored, if the Loroi ever even found that out and called them on it. Further: But their exploration probes are a lot more comprehensive than the Loroi. Further: But they don't like sharing new sentients they discover, probably because they appreciate sentient life and aren't too happy watching the Loroi genocide races that chose "wrong" on their Join or Die offer. Further: Although the Historians threw their lot in with the Loroi, they did so with reservations as the Least Worst Option at least compared to the Umiak. The Loroi not strip mining their planets to death and enslaving races into Thralls probably had something to do with that. Does that imply humanity should make the same choice? Mmm, probably. At the very least, if humanity somehow chose the Umiak, all of the Loroi's allies also become humanity's enemies. Further: The Historians are strong enough that they can enforce their own borders and strong enough that the Loroi would find any such campaign to try prohibitive in the face of the Umiak war, but not so strong that they can just outright stop the Loroi from say, subjugating Earth or declaring Earth off limits to the Loroi. Hence the helping them clandestinely. Further: If the Loroi ever convincing win or even truce against the Umiak, and rebuilt their forces up enough, would some of them want to finally try to put the Historians under their thumb next? The Historians are undoubtedly keeping one eye on that possibility, and helping humans may be some part of their solution to it getting out of control. If Jardin asked "You say I shouldn't trust the Loroi, but why should I trust you? Technically the only thing you've done is hack my pad, which is technically a crime, and filled my ears with paranoid if probably accurate warnings. What else can you do to prove you really want to help?" "Aha! Yes, you're learning. Albeit at the lower end of our predicted models for rate of speed." However much ignorance of just how harrowing knowledge of the Loroi is helpful to Alex, the Historians still preferred them over the Umiak. To the point of even trying to help them with their advanced ship weapons, even if the Loroi could only barely reverse engineer simpler versions of them. Which is saying a lot because the Listels seem freaking smart. I read her character sheet, there were a lot of science skills and she's not even a senior one yet.
Shane Wegner
2020-12-01 05:36:38 +0000 UTC>your ignorance is your shield I may be ignorant but I can still play pong with your icon - Diode brain!
Sunphoenix72
2020-12-01 05:07:11 +0000 UTC"Yep, its me, En'til'zha." :) (sorry) fantastic work!
Anthony Docimo
2020-12-01 04:16:09 +0000 UTC>your ignorance is your shield is it too late to delete the alien? :D
Anthony Docimo
2020-12-01 04:15:38 +0000 UTC
