#301 - Freak

[Tychomonger]

#301 - Freak

So Kaye did steal the Chou-chunk. I wonder if she used a slime to cut the glass.

[Alikat]

Nice one, Jenny, Uncle Thomas the Janitor. I bet when the humans are around he's all "Yassuh!"

[Ashes]

Hopefully the next comic will feature Triuli. She's been enigmatic so far, with only glimpses of her in the first few strips.

[AMundisGuy]

So she stole her Chou bit... damn I hope you didn’t have that terrible pun in mind... from an exhibit at the Institute? But where did they get a “preservd frament”[ sic] of Chou in the first place?

[EvilMidnightLurker]

This is... weird. Kaye exists as a recognizable Kaye despite post-dating her splay's Chou by... long enough for a Stormfall reconstitution?

Are Kayes repeating phenomena, a result of the could-have-been clockwork universe modified by human interference?

[Jennifer Diane Reitz]

So she stole her Chou bit... damn I hope you didn’t have that terrible pun in mind... from an exhibit at the Institute? But where did they get a “preservd frament”[ sic] of Chou in the first place?

As we learned earlier in the story, there is big, if illegal, business to be had bringing things back from the forbidden Stormfall side of reality, especially from the far future or the distant past. To do this, Mover crews must find a way to get around the built-in limits of Movers which the Krawlni wove into the very design so as to prevent such travel. There are various methods, we have seen one described some time ago.

Virtue is the result of such an illegal expedition: he was born from a woman brought back from the Stormfall side to the non-Stormfall side.

Why are such expeditions both illegal and profitable?

As we have learned earlier in the story, they are illegal because there is a recognized danger that tampering with the super-critical Stormfall side of things could potentially wipe out humankind altogether, an effect that could ripple outward erasing the non-Stormfall side as well - which is one of the goals, as we have found, of Kaye.

Yet such is risked because there is great profit to be had. Far future Stormfall offers super-advanced HumanoJellese technology, from the 'floaty buttcover' age for example, and far past Stormfall offers the hope of clues to the origin of human beings... the hope that some clue about 'Earthenland' might be gained, or even some precious artifact that may have actually come from Earthenland. There is, of course, great value in trying to understand the history of the Stormfall side; to know that is to know what path leads to Singularity, achieved by the HumanoJellese. One crucial nexus of history that has been identified is the impact of the historical figure of Chou Yaru Kazemahou. Without her, there would not have been any human survivors of the Stormfall, no HumanoJellese, no Singularity, just failure.

We can instantly and easily imagine, then, that of the key historical places to raid on the Stormfall side, her worldline would be a high-priority option. Anything about her could be useful, or at least profitable, to some museum, or research institute, or private collector, in some Splayport, somewhere.

Clearly, someone in our Kaye's home splay must have successfully landed a Mover in the cave at the center of Gryrnu, where Chou committed suicide by chemical bomb in order to save everyone from the mutated crystal basilisk embryo inside her. One can only imagine what kind of monster that would have been, had it finally escaped from her dying body... all the power and hunger of a crystal basilisk, with very likely human-level, if totally alien intelligence, and no morality whatsoever. I would imagine it would be the death of that entire splay, and every living thing on it... like the Thing being set loose.

One must assume that some intrepid raider dared to go to that cave, and arrived just after she had blown herself up. They would have looked for whatever they could find, and must have stumbled across an intact bit of her forehead crystals, probably laying in a gobbet of mashed human meat and bone. We can picture our little Mover pirates donning protective suits and picking the crystalline lump up with tongs, only to place it in a jar of electanic fluid, so as to preserve it. Doubtless they took recordings, any other artifacts they could find, and whatnot as well.

Ending up on Kaye's splay sometime in her history, they would have exchanged these historical artifacts for local wealth and fame, even if they had to spend some time in prison to pay for their crimes. With immortality being common to Splayports, prison time is frustrating, but in the long view just a slap on the wrist, really. Afterwards, they likely settled down to enjoy their wealth and fame, and the jar would have ended up in the Institute of Precosmologic History, where the origins of Man, studies into Earthenland, and research into possible futures is done... a place where our Kaye became a tenured professor of archeology, which is where we meet her as the story first begins.

[Anna]

I always knew, you americcans are different.
especially the way you live in the time, once it was the future, now it is in the past
Moon Day October 19th...
I've got October 20th, Monday, hm, Moon Day is certainly different.
... freaky ...

[Jennifer Diane Reitz]

This is... weird. Kaye exists as a recognizable Kaye despite post-dating her splay's Chou by... long enough for a Stormfall reconstitution?

Are Kayes repeating phenomena, a result of the could-have-been clockwork universe modified by human interference?

Actually, our Kaye was born about 80 years after the Chou of her splay lived, her 'Chou' was just called 'Amalthea', and was never infected by a crystal basilisk, and still lives a boring, normal life on her splay. They have immortality, after all. Babies of either species are very rare, and only permitted after someone dies permanently due to accident, or otherwise vanishes from reality (say on a Mover trip).

Kaye's 'Chou' works as clothing designer, though not a particularly famous or important one. 'Amalthea Yaru Fashions' is a budget concern, and never really took off. Basically, she is a failure. She lives with her mall-cop husband (an alternate version of, you guessed it, Lymcit Pho... isn't that romantic?) in a flat on another Worldplate altogether.

However, our Kaye did check her out in doing research for her great plan, which is why she knew to focus on Pho, first. Or at least why she chose to.

There are no 'Chou's' in non-Stormfall splays. It is rare for a human to be infected by a basilisk, it is unheard of for a human to survive if they are infected, and it is almost unimaginable that a human immune system could exactly balance the mesocrystalline replicators of a basilisk. Thus the existence of Chou is rare upon rare. That said, Amalthea becoming infected changed everything, as a human she is quite dull, but blended with a basilisk, she becomes the most ruthlessly intelligent being ever, and that is what it took to save humanity from the Stormfall after it had fallen so far into relative barbarism.

However, as we have seen, events in one splay affect other splays, the events ripple outward to parallel universes. The impact of humanity surviving Stormfall and achieving Singularity changes the Tryslmaistan cosmos fundamentally, because of this the impact is tremendous. The effect ripples out, making more and more Stormfall splays have the same causal accidents, until the majority of Stormfall splays have Chou in them, and not just Amalthea.

That is also why it is so incredibly dangerous to tamper with their worldlines. Even the worldline of just one such splay.

[Jennifer Diane Reitz]

I always knew, you americcans are different.
especially the way you live in the time, once it was the future, now it is in the past
Moon Day October 19th...
I've got October 20th, Monday, hm, Moon Day is certainly different.
... freaky ...

Sorry. I am terribly ill with a very, very nasty cold or...something. I'm having a hard time of it and am likely to make mistakes. Goddess am I sick right now.

[Fooly Cooly Dreamer]

It's nice to hear about Triuli again. Given what we've learned about the human-jellese culture of our Kaye's home splay, I find it both interesting and reassuring that Tri never refered to Kaye as a boog in the early strips, even when Kaye was out of earshot. Here's to hoping that she(or he?) is definitely one of the white hats, as it were.

[Alikat]

Sorry. I am terribly ill with a very, very nasty cold or...something. I'm having a hard time of it and am likely to make mistakes. Goddess am I sick right now.

Sorry about that, some of my self-replicating nanobots got loose and now they're all over the Western Hemisphere, they just love mucus tissue since they can only work with carbon, water, and proteins. Don't worry, though, because I designed them big enough to be vulnerable to leukocytes, just in case.

[Jennifer Diane Reitz]

Sorry. I am terribly ill with a very, very nasty cold or...something. I'm having a hard time of it and am likely to make mistakes. Goddess am I sick right now.

Sorry about that, some of my self-replicating nanobots got loose and now they're all over the Western Hemisphere, they just love mucus tissue since they can only work with carbon, water, and proteins. Don't worry, though, because I designed them big enough to be vulnerable to leukocytes, just in case.

You and your damn nanotechology. I've told you and told you about those things, but do you ever listen? No. Grey Goo, I'm telling you, Grey Goo some day. When your eyeballs are being repurposed as more and more nanites, you just remember I told you so.

Of course, if you ever get the immortality configuration going, I was behind you from the beginning, right?

[Alikat]

I already have a product on the market that provides immortality, but it only lasts a few microseconds because the limited Periodic Table in this primitive universe just doesn't support long-lasting elements with more than a few dozen protons in the nucleus. As you can imagine, that makes my Vaxamortal a rather difficult sell...

[Zev]

I'm interested in what you said about babies in Kay's splay, why a rare thing? Is it because people don't have the desire for kids or a law to prevent a universe overpopulated by immortals? I woulda thought with movers and all, extra people could just move to a new splay.

[strange_person]

Reminds me of the first seventeen words of this.

[Jennifer Diane Reitz]

I'm interested in what you said about babies in Kay's splay, why a rare thing? Is it because people don't have the desire for kids or a law to prevent a universe overpopulated by immortals? I woulda thought with movers and all, extra people could just move to a new splay.

While it is true that the first Mover built and sent results inevitably and a slew of Movers showing up immediately after - a causal reaction to 'moving over one on the bench of reality' - this does not imply infinite Movers start to overflow the Worldplate. The average number of Movers at any given Splayport may range between none and perhaps a hundred, there are slow days and days where everyone just seems to show up at once.

The result is that there are waiting lists to reserve a Mover, especially since some travellers want to retain their Mover; they do not intend to stay and settle down yet, or they have cargo they want to keep for the next jump, or they just plain have their Mover the way they like it.

That said, imagine any world with universal immortality available - imagine our world! There is only so much land mass, and even without immortality, the earth is already bursting at the seams with human population, we are perpetually teetering on the brink of mass starvation right now. Actually, starvation is fairly common in poor nations in any case. There are just too many people, thanks to advances in agriculture, medicine and sanitation extending lifespan everywhere. That and people just keep breeding like flies, of course.

Tryslmaistan would become a Malthusian nightmare if there were not some strong counterbalance to the introduction of immortality. So to avoid war, destruction, or the total collapse of every ecosystem, everywhere, Splayport-level societies with easily obtained immortality must have strict, strongly enforced laws regarding reproduction. It is only reasonable; when immortality exists reproduction cannot be a 'right', it must be a rare and carefully controlled privilege. There is a strong argument that even in our highly mortal world this should be the case. It would end massive amounts of misery and horror.

Escaping to another Splay in a Mover solves nothing, because just after you leave, inevitably a handful of Movers will arrive with alternate versions of yourself stepping out - on their home splay they decided the very same thing you did and ended up where you left from. It doesn't cure a thing.

That is actually one of the more amazing things about Splay travel; in theory you only ever have to build one Mover. Ever. Your maiden exploratory mission results in more and more Movers showing up; first it is alternate versions of whoever left, but after that anyone could show up. 'The Mover Paradox' is great fun, and many people in Splayport civilizations may be found sitting in a local eatery debating the issue. It's the "Infinite Hotel" only for real. Actually, it's not really a paradox... it's just called that because it amazes people.

Splayport or no Splayport, the bottom line is that there is only so much land, only so many resources, but people can breed infinitely if they are immortal, and that means utter disaster unless something is done.

Some splayjumpers have actually told stories of landing on dead, empty Worldplates, where a scan showed no advanced life for as far as their Mover could reach. Every Worldplate filled chock-a-block with one gargantuan city filled with dead bodies, most clutching each other's throats, driven mad by hunger, crowding, and each other. Scut-Scuts crawl over the bodies, tearing chunks out of them to eat, while Slimes ooze about dissolving flesh and clothing equally. The Splayport sits idle, empty Movers with closed doors; inside, the crew has starved to death - they never bothered to jump, even though they could.

This parallels experiments with overpopulation done here on earth in the 50's and 60's where 'perfect environments' were created for lab mice and rats. These were entire rooms filled with toys and things to crawl through and on, tubes and hollows, constantly fresh nesting material, and always more than enough fresh food and water. The population, in rat paradise, soared, until the rats or mice were chock-a-block.

Even though they still had more than enough food and materials, the rodents became sullen, withdrawn, and neurotic. They developed stress syndromes and would isolate and refuse to eat, or attack each other for no reason at all. Within a few weeks, all that would be left would be a few deliberately self-starving animals that became vicious if approached; no effort could restore in them a will to live, or to associate again. They... just died.

I have every reason to accept that this would be the fate of any strongly social mammal, including Man. Or Jellese.

Splays with immortality that survive do so because they rigidly control their population.

Because babies are so rare, they are special events, and if one should be wrong somehow, say a Jellese who is a conical mutant, everyone takes it pretty hard, especially if they can blame the mother as being a secret flower addict. "Why should she get the chance, and make a twisted baby, when we didn't win the chance? We're better than that! It's unfair!". You can imagine the crap Kaye has had to put up with her whole life over just that alone.

[Volair]

Some splayjumpers have actually told stories of landing on dead, empty Worldplates, where a scan showed no advanced life for as far as their Mover could reach. Every Worldplate filled chock-a-block with one gargantuan city filled with dead bodies, most clutching each other's throats, driven mad by hunger, crowding, and each other. Scut-Scuts crawl over the bodies, tearing chunks out of them to eat, while Slimes ooze about dissolving flesh and clothing equally. The Splayport sits idle, empty Movers with closed doors; inside, the crew has starved to death - they never bothered to jump, even though they could.

This parallels experiments with overpopulation done here on earth in the 50's and 60's where 'perfect environments' were created for lab mice and rats. These were entire rooms filled with toys and things to crawl through and on, tubes and hollows, constantly fresh nesting material, and always more than enough fresh food and water. The population, in rat paradise, soared, until the rats or mice were chock-a-block.

Even though they still had more than enough food and materials, the rodents became sullen, withdrawn, and neurotic. They developed stress syndromes and would isolate and refuse to eat, or attack each other for no reason at all. Within a few weeks, all that would be left would be a few deliberately self-starving animals that became vicious if approached; no effort could restore in them a will to live, or to associate again. They... just died.

I have every reason to accept that this would be the fate of any strongly social mammal, including Man. Or Jellese.

...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!

[Alikat]

Jenny, there IS another answer to the overcrowding potential of Malthusian life-extension technology: Carousel, and Renewal! After all, Kaye already has the pistol, she can become a Sandman and catch Runners.

[Relee]

The way I see it, humans will continue to reproduce past the point of the world to support them. We've already moved past the point for the world to naturally support us; if it wasn't for agriculture we wouldn't have nearly enough food. Now people are worried that we're using so much space for food-plants, that we're risking a shortage of air-producing plants and may actually risk destroying the global ecosystem. As humans we might be able to artificially stabalize the global ecosystem after destroying it's natural basis, but by then we've pretty much ruined earth, and we're only getting started.

The oceans. They're full of water and plants.

On the grand scale it might be possible for the whole planet to be transformed into massive hydroponic superfarms, with the entire ocean desalinated and used for growing both high-density feed-crops and air-crops. By that point all livestock is ancient history because it's more efficent to use plants modified to produce the nutrients that humans use. This is such a far-future place that humans are able to control a complete enclosed biosphere with the absolute minimum amount of animals, even down to single-celled organisms. Only humans and symbiotes remain.

At that point you've maxed out human population on the planet, and there can be no more. In order to increase the population in any way, you would have to become something other than human.

It's not likely that this would actually HAPPEN, that's just how it would work if it did. For that to happen, people would have to care more about eachother's lives than they do. More likely is that wars would break out, and people will kill eachother so that there's more food for them and their children. A lot of people are actually hoping for a pandemic right now, so as to take the responsibility of genocide out of their hands.

Besides all of that, transhumanism isn't a passing trend, it's the next stage of human evolution. Sooner or later a new people are going to arise that aren't human; or aren't just human. Life will be sustained in new and different ways, and perhaps the biological imperitive will be conquered.


You know, all of this reminds me of that film Pon Poko. It's just the same sort of tragic situation. There isn't enough food to go around, and they're desperately trying to keep their population low, but they can't help themselves. Many have children, but their world can nolonger support them. That film was so sad. :/



The farthest point of this scenario is called Pink Goo. It's very similar to the Grey Goo scenario, because that's what life really is. The main difference between Grey Goo and Pink Goo is that Grey Goo works together in harmony to turn all matter in the universe into more of it, while Pink Goo is competitive and constantly struggling with itself as it evolves more and more efficient ways of consuming all resources. Pink Goo evolved intelligent humans with the potential to travel to other planets and stars, and create new life with the powers of science and imagination. But the resources in this universe of ours are finite. It's only a matter of time untill they're all a part of some grand system, and then nothing will ever change again. A massive clockwork universe where everything is controlled and understood and nothing ever changes beyond the changes designed into it.

Perhaps? I don't really know. ^.^

[Ashes]

The way I see it, humans will continue to reproduce past the point of the world to support them.

A Pink Goo scenario seems unlikely to me. As living conditions improve, parents switch from a "have a ton of kids because most of them will die" strategy to a "have one kid and pour all our resources into it's success" strategy. There's also the fact that women in developed countries are more free to chose a path other than motherhood. In an ideal world this would halt the birth rate at exactly what it needs to be to stay even with the mortality rate (currently the birth rate needs to be about 2.1 children per woman).

A lot of the more developed countries in the world have declining reproduction rates. Japan is the most well known case, and are already all the way down to 1.3 children (not counting robots) per woman. The European Union has this problem as well, with Italy being the poster child of childlessness at 1.33 children per woman. The US would have this problem if they weren't constantly importing people from poorer nations, and their "shotgun" reproduction strategy.

Italy and the EU:
http://ellen0526.blogspot.com/2007/07/i ... risis.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2004/ ... nvironment

Japan:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7084749.stm
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/mar/05030309.html