

   Players: The A.I. War - Fragments




                                                                          
 
                  Copyright 1994 by Daniel Keys Moran.
                            All rights reserved.

     I, Daniel Keys Moran, "The Author," hereby release this text
         as freeware. It may be transmitted as a text file
    anywhere in this or any other dimension, without reservation,
        so long as the story text is not altered IN ANY WAY.
    No fee may be charged for such transmission, save handling fees
          comparable to those charged for shareware programs.


      THIS WORK MAY NOT BE PRINTED OR PUBLISHED IN A BOOK, MAGAZINE,
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    EXISTING OR WHICH MAY IN THE FUTURE COME INTO EXISTENCE, WITHOUT
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       PURPOSES ONLY. ALL OTHER RIGHTS ARE RESERVED BY THE AUTHOR.



DESCRIPTION: Fragments of the novel, "Players:  The AI War.",
             released on the continuing-time mailing list in
             no particular order

        


&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Orders of abstraction:
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    The Crystal Wind of Earth's InfoNet had been too fast for humans to
navigate within, unaided, for nearly four decades. And as the hardware got
faster and the software smarter, the problem only grew worse. Increasingly
clever approaches were used to address the problem -- Images were programmed
to deal with most of the grunt work of navigating the Net; tracesets freed
humans from keyboards and pointing devices and the need to speak aloud; the
first real Players, the greatest of the webdancers, subjected themselves to
surgery, had InfoNet links implanted within their skulls, "in-skin," to
provide them with greater integration with their Images; and finally, in the
year 2069, Tytan Labs had shipped the NN-II, an experimental nerve net
designed to offload biological thought processes into the nerve net --
making its recipient smarter, able to think faster; Trent had had one
installed in late '69. For ten years the biochip nerve net had been growing
inside his skull, making ever deeper and more intimate connections with
Trent's neural system. It would have killed him to remove it; but even so:
 Stopgap measures on the way to the Promised Land. The problem was that there
was an absolute limit to the speed at which protein-based neurons could
process information.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Trent had solved the problem.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    For most of the last five years, Trent the Uncatchable had been a
replicant AI.
 


 
Chris Siebenmann says:
I never got a clear feeling for why Trent went to the space
station in the first place -- to prevent the Earth Datanet being
crashed? To do strange things to it himself?


 
Give that man a cigar. In "AI War" Trent ends up back on the InfoNet
RelayStation, four years later, pretending to be someone else. One of the
people there comments about how Trent the Uncatchable had his hands on it
for three straight days, how Trent must have done *something* to it (though
they've been checking it for four years now) ... Trent agrees. "I bet he
did."

 
From the book:
 
 
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "Hello," said Trent politely.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    A polite, gender-neutral voice said, "Hello, M. Yovia."
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Trent felt himself smiling, muscles in his cheeks moving.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    He said via inskin, MAN THE IS THIS. PAYS CRIME. CLOTHES
MOTHER'S HIS WEARS GENERAL SECRETARY THE. He waited five seconds, and said
softly, WAKE UP.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    There was a pause so short Trent was not sure it was not his imagination.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    The InfoNet Relay station said, "Hello, Boss."
 

 
 Mike Long ponders:
Something to ponder:  Could an AI see Storyteller or Camber while they
are in "fast Time"?  AIs do live 20000 times (or something like that)
faster than people.  Of course, the AI would have to have the right
monitoring device, like an X-Ray detector--a regular holocam won't do.


 
If you remember, many months from now, check the first conversation between
Ralf and Trent, in "AI War" --




In AI War, Chandler talks with Trent:
 
 
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Trent watched the man's casual attitude, watched the tossed-off
question. "You have people inside the PKF, don't you?"
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Trent smiled at him. "I know you think I do."
 


Sol said:
Another thought: The Chained One is common to the entire Great Wheel,
right?  Could you find (or make?) a spacelace tunnel right out of the
Continuing Time?


 
The following scene is currently in "AI War;" it may very well be taken out,
though, since it's has absolutely nothing to do with the flow of "AI War"
and it breaks up the action in a Really Big Way -- and then doesn't get paid
off at all.
 

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Marius opened the closet leading to the store room, and moved aside a bolt
of cloth that had been propped up against the far wall. The Page frame had
been placed a tenth of a centimeter over the surface of the wall; Marius
leaned into it. Had he been surprised in the act, it would have looked as
though he were attempting to push his head and shoulders through the wall.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    The frame resisted for a second; it was only the fourth time the frame had
ever been activated, and it was still weak. Left to itself it would vanish
within another three or four months. Then the frame opened up all at once
and Marius took a quick, off-balance step, and found himself inside the
pager Ken Selvren, sitting in the gray maelstrom of intertime.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    His inskin Praxcelis unit came to life. After four months with no input
except that provided by his five senses, the sensation was strange. The
webslingers -- Players, Marius corrected himself -- of this timeline had
come up with a particularly apt word for it: datastarve.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    LIGHTS, said Marius. GRAVITY. The pager's gravity came up around him, and
Marius glanced at the the reports the pager's data banks had stored during
the last four months. Nothing of note; no pagers had passed through this
section of the Great Wheel since he had approached this Page, and inserted a
Page frame into it.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    That was not surprising: so far as Base Timeline knew, only Base Timeline
and the Walks-Far had technology that allowed them to cross the Pages of
Time, to navigate the Great Wheel of Existence. Base Timeline was north of
the Page -- the very odd Page -- where Marius had spent the last four
months; and the Walks-Far were further north yet. Base Timeline would not
have sent a pager after him -- he was not due back from this scouting
expedition for another two months -- and the Walks-Far would have had to get
by Base Timeline to get a pager this far south.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    In which case Base Timeline would no longer have existed.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Marius sank into the command chair. Acceleration webbing wrapped itself
around him automatically; he thought briefly that the impact fields this
timeline had developed should be imported to Base Timeline, promptly.
His eyes dropped shut as the pager disconnected the frame that had floated
inside the Temple of Eris's store room for the last six months, and began
composing his report as the Ken Selvren's transfer engines warmed up.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Report to Page Force Intelligence, on Anomalous Page 202:
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    This Page, situated well within Probability Arc .64, possesses a temporal
probability that wavers between .986 and .987. The implications of this are
nothing less than profound: for reason or reasons at which I cannot
 speculate, on this Page, located well within the Wild Zone, the Time Wars
have ceased.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    The Ken Selvren swept north across the Pages of Time as Marius
d'Arsennette, Commander, Page Force Intelligence, wrote his report.
 


From AI War (Trent's pretending to be someone else in this scene; Melissa du
Bois is being Melissa du Bois):



&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "Everything is under control," Trent said. "Everything is cool. In fact,"
he said, "we are cool. Cool, young, hip, and in control."
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Trent could hear the quote marks around the word. "`Hip'? I don't think I
know that slang."
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "It's like cool," said Trent, "but it requires more work."
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "More work," Melissa said.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "Well, that's not accurate actually," said Trent thoughtfully. "Being
cool requires no work. Mostly it requires detachment. You can be cool and
not care about being cool. Being hip requires both style and effort. You
can't be hip without working at it."
 


In a description of quantum data storage, from "The AI War:"


"The Beast stored information by raising electrons through the quantum
shells of atoms; read data back in the photons emitted when the electrons
crashed back to their base state."




The following is from "AI War" -- Trent's being someone else, briefly:



&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "How are we doing, Chief?"
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "We have True Wisdom, Divine Speed, and Maximum Justice."
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "What does that mean?"
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Trent opened his eyes and looked at her. "We are, this fine diurnal
period-"
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "Morning."
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "-kicking serious ass. We are green across the board. The system likes me
a lot. And I am awful damn fond of it, too. We have Total Mutual Respect
and Admiration."
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Melissa looked amused despite herself. "You computerists are such . . .
such . . ."
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "Nerds," Trent said. "I think that's the word you're looking for."
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "You are not a nerd," said Melissa.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Trent laughed. "Of course I am. You think anyone spends the tens of
thousands of hours I've spent doing work like this unless they love it?"
Trent looked at the board, green all the way across, and grinned again.
"I'm a nerd and you bet I love what I do. I am so damn good at it."
 


Here's some fun talking stuff from later on in AI War:



&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "Being rich is a bitch," said Trent.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "You're rich, now," said Chandler.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "Nobody's rich by comparison with you," said Trent. "They say you're a
billionaire."
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Chandler laughed. "Yes, I am."
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "What's funny about that?"
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    The amused look did not leave him. "When I was a boy, there were
billionaires all over the place. Couldn't take a leak without splashing one.
Of course, those were billionaires in pounds, or dollars, or some such, not
Credit Units."
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "Dollars and pounds," said Trent doubtfully. "Those are like ozzes, right?"
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Chandler said, "Ozzes?"
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Trent said, "Ozzes. Like, a man would weigh thirty stone and eighteen
ozzes?"
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "No," said Chandler slowly, holding a chunk of bread in one hand, "pounds
were money. English money. Well, they were also a kind of weight."
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "Like ozzes."
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "Ounces."
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "Sure, those too."
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "An `oz'," Chandler explained carefully, "was an ounce. It was an
abbreviation for ounce."
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "Oh . . . nothing to do with Dorothy, then?" Trent asked curiously.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "Not that I know of." Chandler paused. "You could look all this stuff up,
you know. In your case it wouldn't be hard."
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "Sure," Trent agreed. "But then what? There I'd be, with my head crammed
full of useless information." He shook his head, that was not crammed full
of useless information. "Limited protein storage capacity, Frank. You have
to keep these things in perspective."
 

 
And then a little later ...
 



&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Somewhere around his eighth GoodBeer, Jimmy Ramirez said, "So humanity is
doomed, huh?" Jimmy shook his head. "That seems a little pessimistic."
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "I didn't use that word," said Trent carefully. His lips were numb.
"Doomed. I didn't say that."
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Jimmy Ramirez nodded wisely. "Ah." He stared out across the Martian
tundra. He and Trent sat together in Trent's hospital room, out on the
patio, working their way through the GoodBeer. The patio was enclosed by a
bubble that gave them a panoramic view of the Martian landscape.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Olympus Mons soared up before them, off to the northwest, striking up into
the darkening sky as night fell around them. Stars were beginning to come
out.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    They twinkled. Trent hadn't seen twinkling stars in six years, not since
leaving Mars.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Trent sipped at his GoodBeer. "I miss Earth. I miss good coffee. I miss
the feel of the wind on my face. I miss smells."
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "You really think the AIs are going to wipe us out?"
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Trent blinked, a touch drunkenly. "Did I say that? I don't think I said
that, either. You're putting words in my mouth," he accused.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "You said they were going to try to."
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "I don't think I said that, either. What I said was . . ." Trent tried to
remember. "Something about dragons? There were dragons in it, I remember
that. The dragons were a good bit."
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "Check your inskin," Jimmy suggested.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "Uhm . . ." Trent thought about it. "All right." A moment later he said,
"I didn't say the the race was going to get wiped out. Just that it was
going to stop mattering, one way or another, in the sweep of history. Either
we're going to destroy ourselves, or we're going to survive; and if we
survive, our children will amazing. Project Superman didn't know what it
was doing; today we almost do. We could make real supermen. We could make
children better than ourselves. And that doesn't even take nanotech into
account. The AIs are getting better hardware all the time; and they're
already smarter than we are. The day is coming, Jimmy, sooner than you
think, when reality on the other side of Interface will be more complex --
more real -- than reality on this side of Interface. Our children aren't
going to look like us, Jimmy, but that doesn't mean they won't be our
children."
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Jimmy shook his head. "My children are gonna look just like me. Brown
skin, muscles, and handsome as Hell."
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Trent took a swallow of his cold beer, staring out at darkening slopes of
the huge mountain. "Something better than us is coming."




This is from my current novel, "Players: The AI War." It's set in the
year 2080--it's a history lesson buried about midway in. My hero, Trent
the Uncatchable, has been off Earth for about ten years, and he's just
returned--and he's just about to go across the Interface.



 
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Evolution of the Machine:
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    In 1945, the computer ENIAC is designed to calculate ballistic
trajectories. It can do in twenty seconds calculations that takes humans
three days.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    In 1958, Jack St. Clair Kilby creates the monolithic integrated
circuit at Texas Instruments. A year later, Robert Noyce, working at
Fairchild Semiconductor, creates monolithic integrated circuits based on
aluminum traces laid on a silicon oxide surface, laid on a silicon
substrate.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Doped sand has become the basis of computing: slightly more than a
decade later, in 1971, the first microprocessor is invented, the Intel
4004.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    In this, the dawn of the Information Age, Gordon Moore formulates
Moore's Law: silicon density, he predicts, will double every two years.
The implications of this are profound. As density improves, so does
power. As power improves, so does usefulness. As usefulness improves, so
does cash flow--
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    By the end of the twentieth century, chip fabrication plants are a
multi-billion dollar proposition; chip production, a hundred billion
dollar industry.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    And this was before nanotechnology and optical engines.
 
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Evolution of the Interface:
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    In the Beginning is the Card.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    The Hollerith card is a piece of stiff paper. It holds room for
eighty rows of punched holes. Each hole holds a single binary: punched or
non-punched. Keypunch operators program them by punching holes in the
paper.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    This is the mid-twentieth century. Well into the twenty-first
century, the bulk of all computer systems will still default into an
eighty-column text display. Most users of those systems do not know that
their screens display eighty columns worth of characters because they
were originally designed to replace teletype machines--which were
designed to print eighty column Hollerith cards. . . .
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Hollerith cards are fed into the mainframes they service, in
sequential order. Complex programs--"complex" by the standards of the
day; they rarely reach eight kilobytes worth of instructions--are given
to the computer in a sequence of Hollerith cards, a "batch."
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Well into the next century, computer users will still perform basic
programming of their computers by listing series of commands in "batch"
files. Functions change: language persists.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Hollerith cards are, with the passage of time, replaced by magnetic
storage: "core" memory. Core memory consists of small, circular
electromagnets, cored out, which are switched on and off to store binary
information. Keypunches are replaced by keyboards whose keystrokes are
stored directly into random access storage, and from there to magnetic
storage--tape and spinning magnetic media. Teletype printers evolve into
monochrome cathode ray tubes: the green cyclops.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    A seminal event is the creation of the Xerox PARC. It has what macho
purists of the time call a "WIMP" interface--Windows, Icons, Mice, and
Pull-down menus. A company called Apple licenses it from Xerox; a company
called Microsoft steals it from Apple.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    But the key innovation here is not the interface: it's the use of
bitmaps to display data. Bitmaps are capable of presenting information
more densely than the traditional text-based interfaces prevalent at the
time. Monochrome bitmaps interfaces are surpassed by eight-bit color
bitmap interfaces, which are surpassed by true color bitmap interfaces,
which are surpassed by true color three-dimensional interfaces.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Screens and keyboards and voice. Rich data types proliferate--all
designed to mimic reality. Screens are replaced by goggles, and later by
holos; speakers are replaced by earphones. Keyboards are supplemented and
sometimes replaced by verbal input.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Early in the game, it's still possible for unaided humans to navigate
the Net manually. The hardware is faster than they are, but the software
is dumber.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    But hardware gets faster; Moore's Law. And the software gets smarter--
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Tracesets appear. Humans, webdancers, sink into a meditative state.
Complex biofeedback, and sometimes drugs, helps them to interpret the
signals those early tracesets pump directly into their forebrains. It
enables them to continue to function in the InfoNet, even as the Net gets
faster and the first replicant AIs appear. But they're chasing a moving
target--
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Since the dawn of the Information Age, webdancers have used programs
to help them navigate the Net. The programs get smarter with the passage
of time; they become agents. They interact with the Net as their owners
have instructed them. The agents evolve into Images.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    The Images help. For a while--
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    The target moves.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Inskins appear. The skin is breached. Neurons marry silicon.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    It's a stopgap, but it works, briefly. Humans become second class
citizens in the InfoNet that they built; only the greatest of the
webdancers, the Players, dancing the InfoNet through their Images, are
able to compete with the AIs who increasingly dominate the Net. Images
themselves become more and more like AIs, are invested with more
processing power, more ability to make independent decisions without
recourse to the far-too-slow-wetware sitting on the other side of
Interface.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    By the time Trent the Uncatchable is born in 2053, there is two
hundred times as much computing power built into his optical Image
coprocessor, as can be found in the entire world in the year 2000. Most
of that power is inaccessible to human beings: AIs and expert systems,
Datawatch and a rare few Players, make most of the use of that capacity.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    In 2069, Trent the Uncatchable is married to an inskin neural
coprocessor. It models the way he thinks, and then it tries to think like
him. Usually it succeeds.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    In 2080, Trent the Uncatchable has been away from Earth for over a
decade. He has been away from the Wind--away from the "unreal" world that
Players call the Inside--the world on the other side of the Interface.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    In the experiential world of humans, time is measured not by the
passage of seconds, but by the passage of events. Reality is measured by
its complexity.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    By 2080, cyberspace, the Inside, the Crystal Wind, is over a hundred
years removed from the hardware and software on which it was born.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Early in the year 2080, a milestone is passed.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    More events are occurring in the Wind than in Realtime:
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    The Inside has become larger than the Outside.
 


