Lunar Rifts

[Nightmask]

Simple; GM says they have more advanced tech?...viola, they have more advanced tech!
Kevin Siembiada has been avoiding doing ANYTHING with the orbitals, and the CAN republic in specific. It's like he pathelogicaly afraid to even go near writing anything about it cuz "Oh NOZE! My Bootiful Coalition and Triaxes is no gooder no more!"
That and it looks like he DEFINATELY wants all the mudslugs to stay mud slugs. Period. At least in canon.
-sigh- thus argue as much as you like, won't get you anywhere. It says in plain black & white fluff text that the Lunies have better tech than everyone BUT the hard-cold text & number-crunching says "NYET!"

So in conclusion; BOTH sides of the argument are correct.

Leaving the poor schmuck GM's to pick up the slack.
Again.

Pretty much what it boils down to. If a GM is going by the fluff then he has to retool all their tech to be superior to what's shown, otherwise he needs to disregard it as not living up to hype and use things as presented.

..and THIRD option... "PROPAGANDA"
CAn Repub makes everyone THINK they're lightyears and eons ahead of everyones tech base.
In actuality? They can barely fight off a brigade of NG Samson's modified for Space-use
BUT since everyone assumes they are gawds of robot-tech and cybernetics, no one tries to put 'em to the test.
Isn't false information fun?

It's not an uncommon theme, where a society creates that impression to protect itself (such as the inspiration for Dracula behaving in such a demonic fashion that his otherwise easily beaten homeland was able to scare off much more powerful threats).

I personally don't have problems with the CAN Repubilc being superior, but the kind of superior being touted is just beyond plausible suspension of disbelief. Superior ability with nano-scale AI just fine, superior ability with space survival technology just fine, even on the superior end with robotics. But not so superior that logically they should have conquered the entire space community a long time ago and reshaped the entire moon into a single giant unified colony.

[Shark_Force]

the CAN republic could very well have better tech in multiple areas that aren't really clearly described in the books. they could have faster computers. their facial recognition software could be superior. their cyberware may require less maintenance, or be half as loud, or come with built-in sensors that tell you when it's damaged that are superior. their borgs might be on the high end of the range of sense of touch that you can get with bionics due to a superior man-machine interface technology. and so forth. they might have microwaves that scan whatever you put in them, then heats it perfectly evenly. their recycling technology is likely extremely good as well.

just because they have superior technology, doesn't mean that all of the superior technology is directly related to making things explode, which is what most of the books are rather focused on.

[Nightmask]

the CAN republic could very well have better tech in multiple areas that aren't really clearly described in the books. they could have faster computers. their facial recognition software could be superior. their cyberware may require less maintenance, or be half as loud, or come with built-in sensors that tell you when it's damaged that are superior. their borgs might be on the high end of the range of sense of touch that you can get with bionics due to a superior man-machine interface technology. and so forth. they might have microwaves that scan whatever you put in them, then heats it perfectly evenly. their recycling technology is likely extremely good as well.

just because they have superior technology, doesn't mean that all of the superior technology is directly related to making things explode, which is what most of the books are rather focused on.

True, some of the best examples of advances in technology is when it stops looking so advanced and all the blinking lights go away. I can better see that as how they're rated more advanced than the idea that their advancements would mean that they beat everyone at everything. Which is why I noted accepting things like being so advanced in the technologies for survival like life support systems.

[Akashic Soldier]

the CAN republic could very well have better tech in multiple areas that aren't really clearly described in the books. they could have faster computers. their facial recognition software could be superior. their cyberware may require less maintenance, or be half as loud, or come with built-in sensors that tell you when it's damaged that are superior. their borgs might be on the high end of the range of sense of touch that you can get with bionics due to a superior man-machine interface technology. and so forth. they might have microwaves that scan whatever you put in them, then heats it perfectly evenly. their recycling technology is likely extremely good as well.

just because they have superior technology, doesn't mean that all of the superior technology is directly related to making things explode, which is what most of the books are rather focused on.

Love it!

[azazel1024]

True, but still not statisfactory personally. Yes, they could be much more advanced in some areas. Also true that a lot of the "imports" from other dimensions are going to be more directly related to things like "blowing stuff up" due to the "survival" nature of life on Rifts Earth. How many people are going to import a 99% efficient microwave oven when they could spend the same money on an untrackable com system with perfect encryption?

All that said, in a lot of the relevant tech areas, the CAN republic is unlikely to be more advanced. Communications, weapons, armor, forcefield, propulsion technologies probably even computers (gasp) are unlikely to be as advanced as what a number of societies on Rifts Earth are going to have. Even in some every day tech areas things are likely to not be as advanced.

The CAN republic has something around 110,000 citizens plus one super smart AI. Even if all of that has been around since the coming of the Rifts. That is a limited society of 110,000 people, plus something like 30,000-50,000 other people including independents in Rifts space total. You have less than half a million people versus something like 100 million plus people working on innovating, surviving, etc on Rifts Earth, as well as access to better resources than those in the orbital communities.

Unless there is a societal restriction to NOT innovate, a large society with access to more resources is going to out innovate and invent a smaller society. Human societies have been proving that for upwards of 30,000 years now.

So yes, it is possible and likely in a few areas the CAN republic will have a higher tech level. In most areas it will not, especially not when you take in to account imports and imported technological know-how from other dimensions with vastly higher tech levels on to Rifts Earth. Nor would it make sense for the CAN republic to have a higher "general" tech level than the more advanced societies on Rifts Earth (keep in mind, the NGR never really sunk in to barbarism like North America did, nor did the New Japanese Republic, both which have some tech from the Golden age and who have been researching and inventing for a very long time now since the Golden age with vastly more resources and people as well as at least limited access to extra dimensional technology than the Orbital community has).

[Akashic Soldier]

True, but still not statisfactory personally. Yes, they could be much more advanced in some areas. Also true that a lot of the "imports" from other dimensions are going to be more directly related to things like "blowing stuff up" due to the "survival" nature of life on Rifts Earth. How many people are going to import a 99% efficient microwave oven when they could spend the same money on an untrackable com system with perfect encryption?

All that said, in a lot of the relevant tech areas, the CAN republic is unlikely to be more advanced. Communications, weapons, armor, forcefield, propulsion technologies probably even computers (gasp) are unlikely to be as advanced as what a number of societies on Rifts Earth are going to have. Even in some every day tech areas things are likely to not be as advanced.

The CAN republic has something around 110,000 citizens plus one super smart AI. Even if all of that has been around since the coming of the Rifts. That is a limited society of 110,000 people, plus something like 30,000-50,000 other people including independents in Rifts space total. You have less than half a million people versus something like 100 million plus people working on innovating, surviving, etc on Rifts Earth, as well as access to better resources than those in the orbital communities.

Unless there is a societal restriction to NOT innovate, a large society with access to more resources is going to out innovate and invent a smaller society. Human societies have been proving that for upwards of 30,000 years now.

So yes, it is possible and likely in a few areas the CAN republic will have a higher tech level. In most areas it will not, especially not when you take in to account imports and imported technological know-how from other dimensions with vastly higher tech levels on to Rifts Earth. Nor would it make sense for the CAN republic to have a higher "general" tech level than the more advanced societies on Rifts Earth (keep in mind, the NGR never really sunk in to barbarism like North America did, nor did the New Japanese Republic, both which have some tech from the Golden age and who have been researching and inventing for a very long time now since the Golden age with vastly more resources and people as well as at least limited access to extra dimensional technology than the Orbital community has).

Hrrrm... and yet according to the cannon they are? I wonder why that is or could be? NO! I better not do that. Better to accept my personal preconceptions and deny the reality staring back at me from the page.

[Nightmask]

True, but still not statisfactory personally. Yes, they could be much more advanced in some areas. Also true that a lot of the "imports" from other dimensions are going to be more directly related to things like "blowing stuff up" due to the "survival" nature of life on Rifts Earth. How many people are going to import a 99% efficient microwave oven when they could spend the same money on an untrackable com system with perfect encryption?

All that said, in a lot of the relevant tech areas, the CAN republic is unlikely to be more advanced. Communications, weapons, armor, forcefield, propulsion technologies probably even computers (gasp) are unlikely to be as advanced as what a number of societies on Rifts Earth are going to have. Even in some every day tech areas things are likely to not be as advanced.

The CAN republic has something around 110,000 citizens plus one super smart AI. Even if all of that has been around since the coming of the Rifts. That is a limited society of 110,000 people, plus something like 30,000-50,000 other people including independents in Rifts space total. You have less than half a million people versus something like 100 million plus people working on innovating, surviving, etc on Rifts Earth, as well as access to better resources than those in the orbital communities.

Unless there is a societal restriction to NOT innovate, a large society with access to more resources is going to out innovate and invent a smaller society. Human societies have been proving that for upwards of 30,000 years now.

So yes, it is possible and likely in a few areas the CAN republic will have a higher tech level. In most areas it will not, especially not when you take in to account imports and imported technological know-how from other dimensions with vastly higher tech levels on to Rifts Earth. Nor would it make sense for the CAN republic to have a higher "general" tech level than the more advanced societies on Rifts Earth (keep in mind, the NGR never really sunk in to barbarism like North America did, nor did the New Japanese Republic, both which have some tech from the Golden age and who have been researching and inventing for a very long time now since the Golden age with vastly more resources and people as well as at least limited access to extra dimensional technology than the Orbital community has).

Hrrrm... and yet according to the cannon they are? I wonder why that is or could be? NO! I better not do that. Better to accept my personal preconceptions and deny the reality staring back at me from the page.

But you are denying the reality of the page, because what we actually see shows they aren't more advanced than everyone else and can't be.

[azazel1024]

Exactly. There are effectively two sentences in two different books that say the CAN republic has a higher tech level. All other evidence says they do not have a higher tech level (even within those books).

On top of that is common sense and past human history, which sure, you can throw out the windows for a role playing game, the name of the game is not Reality, its Rifts. However, when all evidentiary findings run counter to those two sentences, combined with real world logic, common sense and several thousand years of history to show us how societies innovate and that bigger, more diverse societies with access to more resources innovate faster...well those two sentences make absolutely no sense.

It would be like saying that somehow, we don't know how, those bedouin who have seen a picture of a sailboat once over there are better seamen than that group of the King's saliors with 30 years on the high seas sitting next to them. All of the evidence says that isn't the case, but sure, make the statement, it'll make it true.

Something to keep in mind, Kevin himself has said on several occasions, if you don't like rules or things in the books, house rule or modify. Well, those two sentences (CAN being more advanced) make absolutely no sense in the context of the setting (if they were so advanced and so much more numerous, they should have taken over the entire Rifts space community, or knocked KLS/Freedom station in to its place long ago) or in the context of real world logic or in the context of all of the evidence in the books. So, unless you want to blindly toe the line on everything that is written in the books, you'd throw those two sentences out.

"All evidence, logic and human history says the CAN should be less advanced than some of the societies on Rifts Earth, but those two sentences say they are more advanced? Sure must be all that hidden stuff that the CAN refuses to use in case any prying eyes might ever see it, so they must keep it hidden in secrete vaults away from the eyes of their citizens lest one of them is a spy" is following everything blindly all author statements from the book.

"Hmmm, maybe they have a couple more advanced things that are too minor to mention, but otherwise at best they are somewhat more advanced in most ways than the Rifts SPACE communities, but nothing compared to some of the Earth powers based on the evidence, logic and human history." Is you know, using logic (and continuing to make the setting work) and discarding those two sentences.

[Akashic Soldier]

I think the problem here is coming out of assumption. For one, they don't own space because they're not anymore interested in doing that is than the US is in taking over Australia. It's 4:40am so I'll keep this short but yes, you are right, but if their society works like their military than numbers are not important. Innovators are not important because A7 innovates for them--day and night, 24 hours, 7 days a week.

[Nightmask]

I think the problem here is coming out of assumption. For one, they don't own space because they're not anymore interested in doing that is than the US is in taking over Australia. It's 4:40am so I'll keep this short but yes, you are right, but if their society works like their military than numbers are not important. Innovators are not important because A7 innovates for them--day and night, 24 hours, 7 days a week.

ARCHIE-7 doesn't innovate, it manages the moon colony and has limited tactical ability it certainly has zero evidence of possessing the kind of creativity of a human being let alone capable of substituting for the many thousands required to push forward. ARCHIE-7 isn't some magic genie that one can toss out to cover all the plot holes with 'well ARCHIE-7 did it!'.

They don't own space because they can't. It would be even more absurd than the CS's victory over Tolkeen. They barely have any population at all compared to the rest of the community and a point you skip over is that if they were so advanced they should have a much larger colony than we see. They've had centuries to expand in yet are quite small compared to what they should be.

Their medical technology can't even eliminate the medical problems caused by growing up under such low-gravity conditions, and as has been pointed out they simply couldn't be as effective combatants and fighter pilots as others used to higher gravity conditions because biologically they simply aren't capable of it. They're so superior and yet can't even deal with that? Just doesn't make sense.

[Akashic Soldier]

I think the problem here is coming out of assumption. For one, they don't own space because they're not anymore interested in doing that is than the US is in taking over Australia. It's 4:40am so I'll keep this short but yes, you are right, but if their society works like their military than numbers are not important. Innovators are not important because A7 innovates for them--day and night, 24 hours, 7 days a week.

ARCHIE-7 doesn't innovate, it manages the moon colony and has limited tactical ability it certainly has zero evidence of possessing the kind of creativity of a human being let alone capable of substituting for the many thousands required to push forward. ARCHIE-7 isn't some magic genie that one can toss out to cover all the plot holes with 'well ARCHIE-7 did it!'.

They don't own space because they can't. It would be even more absurd than the CS's victory over Tolkeen. They barely have any population at all compared to the rest of the community and a point you skip over is that if they were so advanced they should have a much larger colony than we see. They've had centuries to expand in yet are quite small compared to what they should be.

Their medical technology can't even eliminate the medical problems caused by growing up under such low-gravity conditions, and as has been pointed out they simply couldn't be as effective combatants and fighter pilots as others used to higher gravity conditions because biologically they simply aren't capable of it. They're so superior and yet can't even deal with that? Just doesn't make sense.

I'll deal with this in the morning. Night guys.

Oh, grab sourcebook 1 revised and checkout what an ARCHIE level AI is capable of. Then give it 300 years of evolution.

Again, their population is exactly what it needs to be. With A7 governing their lifestyles they are exactly what they need to be. If they wanted to grow more they could override her but it's clearly been unessary.

I'll say it again.

You can expend resources curing everyone of an adaption to enviroment.
Or
You can expend resources enhancing your elite military pilots.

Which is more efficient?

Most people don't mind. These guys that need to resist the Gees from piloting can be made into borgs. Then they're even better than they were before and it is much less a strain on the Lunar body.

Think like an ARCHIE.

[Nightmask]

ARCHIE-7 doesn't innovate, it manages the moon colony and has limited tactical ability it certainly has zero evidence of possessing the kind of creativity of a human being let alone capable of substituting for the many thousands required to push forward. ARCHIE-7 isn't some magic genie that one can toss out to cover all the plot holes with 'well ARCHIE-7 did it!'.

They don't own space because they can't. It would be even more absurd than the CS's victory over Tolkeen. They barely have any population at all compared to the rest of the community and a point you skip over is that if they were so advanced they should have a much larger colony than we see. They've had centuries to expand in yet are quite small compared to what they should be.

Their medical technology can't even eliminate the medical problems caused by growing up under such low-gravity conditions, and as has been pointed out they simply couldn't be as effective combatants and fighter pilots as others used to higher gravity conditions because biologically they simply aren't capable of it. They're so superior and yet can't even deal with that? Just doesn't make sense.

I'll deal with this in the morning. Night guys.

Oh, grab sourcebook 1 revised and checkout what an ARCHIE level AI is capable of. Then give it 300 years of evolution.

Sorry but no, you just can't hand it 300 years of evolution. It's not special and if you hand out 300 years of evolution you hand it out to everyone and given the entire rest of the space community started as Golden Age technology then they too must be so far ahead of everyone else on Rifts Earth as to have Phase World level technology, yet they don't. Same goes with Earth, there are places with Golden age or higher to start who would also get that 300 years (ARCHIE-3 is Golden Age AND has incorporated advanced alien technology into its knowledge base) yet no one is showing the level of tech you'd expect in such a case.

Again, their population is exactly what it needs to be. With A7 governing their lifestyles they are exactly what they need to be. If they wanted to grow more they could override her but it's clearly been unessary.

ARCHIE-7 doesn't control their lifestyles, it's task is ensuring the lunar colony remains functional and survives. It controls all the myriad systems necessary to ensure everyone has food, water, heat, and all the other necessities of life. What you're describing is a stagnant, closed society that's actually actively contrary to innovation and expansion of technology. Without motivation to expand and grow they just lay around doing various menial tasks without contributing anything.

I'll say it again.

You can expend resources curing everyone of an adaption to enviroment.
Or
You can expend resources enhancing your elite military pilots.

Which is more efficient?

So basically you're resorting to the logical fallacy that 'it can only be one or the other', when in fact both are essential. Because you keep ignoring the stated medical issues and acting as if 'well we can just chop off more body parts and that'll fix the problem' when that not a solution. Butchering your population is considerably LESS efficient than seeing to it that they no longer have the medical issues in the first place. Also curing the problem caused by living in low gravity is in fact enhancing your military personnel and it's a lot more efficient to simply fix that problem of growing up in low gravity than borging everyone.

Most people don't mind. These guys that need to resist the Gees from piloting can be made into borgs. Then they're even better than they were before and it is much less a strain on the Lunar body.

Think like an ARCHIE.

Think like a human being, because 'well we can just borg them' isn't logical or reasonable. Turning someone into a borg is costly, in actual money and in the toll it takes on the human being, unlike developing medical treatments or developing technology like artificial gravity so you can actually cure the problem because 'just borg them' isn't a cure, it's a short-sighted response to a long-term problem. Much easier to take a whole human being and train him up as a pilot than turn him into a borg and train him as a pilot.

[Akashic Soldier]

When everything went to **** during the Coming of the Rifts the CAN Republic only lost 5% of its population, which allowed it to recover and then assist the other space stations recover. Why would they help the other Space Stations recover, they did not crush them while they were weak. This is something to consider before you throw out your "why haven't they dispatched the other Space Stations if they're so great" argument. You are assuming everything here is falling within your limited preconception and not adapting with the new information and innovating new thinking or trying to gain an understanding. Instead of processing new information or trying to build a new point of view that accommodates the complete picture you are actively trying to dismiss certain factors as ludicrous because they don't fit the paradigm you've established in your mind. This is great in your own game, but its not the cannon.

So basically you're resorting to the logical fallacy that 'it can only be one or the other', when in fact both are essential. Because you keep ignoring the stated medical issues and acting as if 'well we can just chop off more body parts and that'll fix the problem' when that not a solution. Butchering your population is considerably LESS efficient than seeing to it that they no longer have the medical issues in the first place. Also curing the problem caused by living in low gravity is in fact enhancing your military personnel and it's a lot more efficient to simply fix that problem of growing up in low gravity than borging everyone.

You are putting your own cultural perceptions on a society at least 500 years more advanced than yours. If they're so advanced that all it takes is a shot in the arm and then you waking up 24 hours later as a full conversion Cyborg than why is that butchery? If there is no social taboo against cybernetics or bionics (like what we in a lot of places in Japan) than why would anyone care? To a super advanced Distopian/Utopian computer, what is the difference between biological machinery and mechanical machinery? Efficiency and cost. That's it. The fact is they are a government that grew out of a Cybernetics company. That automatically implies that most people are going to be totally fine (and at the very least desensitized) to cybernetics. We already know that if they break an arm or a leg they just get a new robot one instead of waiting for it heal. There is no reason that they wouldn't think:

"Well, these Gee's are proving a problem for our flyboys, crack out the bionics boys."

Also, not every vehicle that they field would have that issue.k Most of their combat seems to be mecha-based and so the vast majority of their military or aren't going to have the G-Force problem because that isn't HOW they wage war or because they are using drones and in some rare cases using VRRDS. You have run into the same problem most people have when wrestling with the reality of UFO's in our real world. Sure if they're a hundred years ahead of us there is no way they could move through space to get to Earth... but if they were two hundred or more, at the current exponential curve of our scientific progression than we cannot actually begin to speculate what they are capable of. I know that is real world numbers and science and so has no real baring on a game but its something to consider before you cerement your ideas so firmly in the ground. After all, if you had of gone back just fifty years and told them that we'd have hand held computers more powerful than the most powerful super computers that allowed us to communicate with people all over the world people would think you had been reading too much Science Fiction.

Think like a human being, because 'well we can just borg them' isn't logical or reasonable. Turning someone into a borg is costly, in actual money and in the toll it takes on the human being, unlike developing medical treatments or developing technology like artificial gravity so you can actually cure the problem because 'just borg them' isn't a cure, it's a short-sighted response to a long-term problem. Much easier to take a whole human being and train him up as a pilot than turn him into a borg and train him as a pilot.

Why would I? Especially when their society is being run by an A.R.C.H.I.E 7? Did you even read how they operate? It doesn't just crunch numbers, it thinks so they don't need to. Thankful unlike its mad earth-bound cousin it can be overridden when it goes too far... but its been running now over 300 years and been doing a pretty good job so far. Unlike A3 it wasn't stuck underground for all that time, its factories were not damaged and did not need repair. It had access to the imagination of multiple minds, not just the ones A3 picks and chooses for their mad ambitions. It has been running at full efficiency, without resistance. It has created a self-sustaining body that will survive indefinably. THAT is the primary function of an A.R.C.H.I.E. It is to create a fully functional, efficient, harmonic working body.

Again, I'll ask you remove your own cultural preconceptions and expand your thinking a little before you go throwing around logical fallacy. Full Conversion cyborgs are more efficient and powerful than regular human beings. They can receive upgrades to improve combat performance in a pinch, synchronize easier with their vehicles and weapon systems, they are unaffected by G-Forces and are physically superior and do not require food or sleep. In exchange for this they must give up their reproductive functions, which could further damage the gene pool so A7 (would presumably) limit full-conversion (or be limited by the C.A.N Government).

Now, if we want to tackle the population issue... they're not overpopulated are they? Considering they do not have planetary resources to rely on they are doing great. They are each a cell in A7's body and each play a part. Again, that is how A.R.C.H.I.E's were supposed to work.

In short, they are a utopia (or a distopia that looks like a utopia) who have surpassed their limits.
Limited Numbers = Drones and Remote Control Military bot.
Limited Resources = Balanced population and harmonic growth rate that can be easily monitored and sustained so civilians need not sacrifice their life of plenty lifestyles.
Health Issues = Bionics and Cybernetic enhancement, resulting in stronger and more durable bodies.
Social Stagnation or Regime = The American way of life, elected representatives, everyone has a voice.

And just to settle the A.R.C.H.I.E 7 argument once and for all.

A.R.C.H.I.E 7 is a more sophisticated version of A.R.C.H.I.E Three, although it is completely machine; an artificial intelligence, a super computer (not a living entity) that completely dominates and controls every aspect of the CAN Republic. Remember, the A.R.C.H.I.E (Artificial, Robot, Cerebellum, Housing, Intellect, Experiment) design is based on the workings of a human brain. Its design parameters are to function as the brain of a gigantic environmental complex that it sees as its physical body. Like a real human body, the computer brain controls and operates every aspect of its body. Thus, the super-computer control and maintains all the "bodily"functions of the massive moon complex and the secondary bases and outposts on the moon's surface (seen as appendages).

[More Text talking about how A7 handles their air and sewerage systems]

The people within its body are seen as vital biological systems which it is designed to protect. But they too are part of its body and double as bacteria fighting antibodies who will join in the defense of the body do fight intruders.

[Numbers and statistics if A7 is taken away from CAN]

Unlike Archie Three, the A.R.C.H.I.E Seven intelligence is complete artificial intelligence, devoid of emotion, but is capable of analyzing data in a subjective way and can act on a subjective logic: hunches and speculation. (Still think that Borging Soldier's is not reasonable?)

[More game information]

The computer has complete freedom to make any reasonable adjustments within its body or in defense of the biological systems within its body, without outside authorization. A.R.C.H.I.E Seven answers only to a tiny handful of corporate and government superiors, including the President, Vice President, Chief of Defense, and CAN Systems Coordinator and CAN Chairman of the Board. Only these five have the power to give the artificial intelligence direct commands which it is compelled to obey.

[More game info on what happens if they shut it down then...]

Note: Remember, A.R.C.H.I.E Seven's prime directive is the protection, survival and maintenance of the entire body of the CAN Republic and the people within it.

A7 is more advanced and powerful than A3, it can manually do anything A3 has done. The only thing it lacks is the ambition and mad ruthlessness of A3. It can do anything you have seen A3 do; likely better than A3 from a technical standpoint. People might not like that, but in the context given it has access to more resources, no opposition or need to work covertly and is more sophisticated.

Although A3 might be able to outsmart it by doing something completely illogical and mad... that is the only way he would be able to outmaneuver A7. Think of it like a third grader going against a freshmen in a spell bee. Not the best metaphor but still appropriate.

[DhAkael]

*Sets mantra to infinite loop and hooks up to nuclear battery. Attaches to Martial-Amplifiers and cranks knob to 11*
"The final ruling on any game mechnics or setting or fluff text is the purview of the GM. Full stop. End-of-line."

[Nightmask]

When everything went to **** during the Coming of the Rifts the CAN Republic only lost 5% of its population, which allowed it to recover and then assist the other space stations recover. Why would they help the other Space Stations recover, they did not crush them while they were weak. This is something to consider before you throw out your "why haven't they dispatched the other Space Stations if they're so great" argument. You are assuming everything here is falling within your limited preconception and not adapting with the new information and innovating new thinking or trying to gain an understanding. Instead of processing new information or trying to build a new point of view that accommodates the complete picture you are actively trying to dismiss certain factors as ludicrous because they don't fit the paradigm you've established in your mind. This is great in your own game, but its not the cannon.

Don't be disparaging my point by stating I'm having 'limited preconceptions'. They didn't conquer the rest of the space community after the Rifts because everyone was trying to SURVIVE. They were also still running on previous friendly relations. It wasn't until much later when relations starting falling apart that they reached the point of xenophobic paranoia. As far as canon goes, you continue to insist that a few lines of 'no really they're better than everyone' when everything else says otherwise has priority, so no your opinion isn't canon when nothing in the books supports them being superior.

So basically you're resorting to the logical fallacy that 'it can only be one or the other', when in fact both are essential. Because you keep ignoring the stated medical issues and acting as if 'well we can just chop off more body parts and that'll fix the problem' when that not a solution. Butchering your population is considerably LESS efficient than seeing to it that they no longer have the medical issues in the first place. Also curing the problem caused by living in low gravity is in fact enhancing your military personnel and it's a lot more efficient to simply fix that problem of growing up in low gravity than borging everyone.

You are putting your own cultural perceptions on a society at least 500 years more advanced than yours. If they're so advanced that all it takes is a shot in the arm and then you waking up 24 hours later as a full conversion Cyborg than why is that butchery? If there is no social taboo against cybernetics or bionics (like what we in a lot of places in Japan) than why would anyone care? To a super advanced Distopian/Utopian computer, what is the difference between biological machinery and mechanical machinery? Efficiency and cost. That's it. The fact is they are a government that grew out of a Cybernetics company. That automatically implies that most people are going to be totally fine (and at the very least desensitized) to cybernetics. We already know that if they break an arm or a leg they just get a new robot one instead of waiting for it heal. There is no reason that they wouldn't think:

"Well, these Gee's are proving a problem for our flyboys, crack out the bionics boys."

I'm not putting any cultural preconceptions on anything, and you're putting your own house ruling in there because the texts on cybernetic and bionic conversion are quite clear that conversion is not as easy or casual as you're stating it to be. It would be even worse for the weaker and medically more frail lunar colonists. It also doesn't logically follow at all that because they worked for a cybernetics company that they're just fine with being borged. It was a job with a paycheck prior to the coming of the Rifts, after which they didn't have any choice but ride things out and given they had bionics facilities of course they used them to compensate as best they could for the medical problems caused by living in low gravity.

You also keep inflating ARCHIE-7's role, referring to it as if it were the lord and master over the colony and everyone serves it which is not supported by the text. It doesn't give orders and declare 'we need more borgs get the chop shops going!' or anything of the sort.

Also, not every vehicle that they field would have that issue.k Most of their combat seems to be mecha-based and so the vast majority of their military or aren't going to have the G-Force problem because that isn't HOW they wage war or because they are using drones and in some rare cases using VRRDS. You have run into the same problem most people have when wrestling with the reality of UFO's in our real world. Sure if they're a hundred years ahead of us there is no way they could move through space to get to Earth... but if they were two hundred or more, at the current exponential curve of our scientific progression than we cannot actually begin to speculate what they are capable of. I know that is real world numbers and science and so has no real baring on a game but its something to consider before you cerement your ideas so firmly in the ground. After all, if you had of gone back just fifty years and told them that we'd have hand held computers more powerful than the most powerful super computers that allowed us to communicate with people all over the world people would think you had been reading too much Science Fiction.

Sorry but a graph chart isn't qualified as a certainty, just because we've had incredible advances in the last century does not mean it will continue along that course when it could just as easily plateau or drop due to changing circumstances like oh a cataclysm. So I'm not running into any problems at all, you are for insisting on things that aren't supported by the material like your views on how they're running combat. Of course they're running into G-force problems, any application where they're having to use these physically weaker humans they're losing out against the more physically hardy humans elsewhere.

Think like a human being, because 'well we can just borg them' isn't logical or reasonable. Turning someone into a borg is costly, in actual money and in the toll it takes on the human being, unlike developing medical treatments or developing technology like artificial gravity so you can actually cure the problem because 'just borg them' isn't a cure, it's a short-sighted response to a long-term problem. Much easier to take a whole human being and train him up as a pilot than turn him into a borg and train him as a pilot.

Why would I? Especially when their society is being run by an A.R.C.H.I.E 7? Did you even read how they operate? It doesn't just crunch numbers, it thinks so they don't need to. Thankful unlike its mad earth-bound cousin it can be overridden when it goes too far... but its been running now over 300 years and been doing a pretty good job so far. Unlike A3 it wasn't stuck underground for all that time, its factories were not damaged and did not need repair. It had access to the imagination of multiple minds, not just the ones A3 picks and chooses for their mad ambitions. It has been running at full efficiency, without resistance. It has created a self-sustaining body that will survive indefinably. THAT is the primary function of an A.R.C.H.I.E. It is to create a fully functional, efficient, harmonic working body.

Yes I've read how they operate and ARCHIE-7 does not have the level of control that you insist it does, and no where in the text does it begin to even remotely imply that ARCHIE-7 has the kind of information or creativity you claim it has. Nothing that says ARCHIE-7 has been given any neural interface programming from human minds like ARCHIE-3, and it didn't create a self-sustaining body the humans that built it did. They designed it and laid things out so it could take care of the routine tasks necessary to keep everyone alive, they certainly wouldn't have handed off all thinking to it as you claim. Your argument would have the CAN Republic's population as ignorant and menially-minded as the CS keeps its population, with ARCHIE-7 being their lord and master, obviously not the case.

Again, I'll ask you remove your own cultural preconceptions and expand your thinking a little before you go throwing around logical fallacy. Full Conversion cyborgs are more efficient and powerful than regular human beings. They can receive upgrades to improve combat performance in a pinch, synchronize easier with their vehicles and weapon systems, they are unaffected by G-Forces and are physically superior and do not require food or sleep. In exchange for this they must give up their reproductive functions, which could further damage the gene pool so A7 (would presumably) limit full-conversion (or be limited by the C.A.N Government).

And I'll as you to stop making out my position as being limited and dismissing it as 'cultural preconceptions' because I disagree with your insisting on your opinion of things being so right it can't be questioned.

Borgs aren't as efficient as you insist, they use up material resources in ways living beings don't including requiring external means of repair ('healing') because they can't manage so naturally. They're also larger and bulkier in many cases especially those designed for combat and that selects against them given the incredible need to save on space.

Now, if we want to tackle the population issue... they're not overpopulated are they? Considering they do not have planetary resources to rely on they are doing great. They are each a cell in A7's body and each play a part. Again, that is how A.R.C.H.I.E's were supposed to work.

They've got the moon, that's some pretty decent resources right there. They just lack when it comes to water. Again, the human population aren't cells serving ARCHIE-7, ARCHIE-7 isn't their lord and master, it's their servant tasked with acting as a coordinator to ensure all the things necessary for the moon's continued survival occur. You seem to have derived a distorted view on what ARCHIEs are meant to do. They are complex machines meant to act as managers coordinating the various tasks related to what they're intended to manage. ARCHIE-3 was designed to fully operate without human intervention a robotics production facility, ARCHIE-7's design is intended to fully coordinate those things necessary to maintain the Moon Colony.

In short, they are a utopia (or a distopia that looks like a utopia) who have surpassed their limits.
Limited Numbers = Drones and Remote Control Military bot.
Limited Resources = Balanced population and harmonic growth rate that can be easily monitored and sustained so civilians need not sacrifice their life of plenty lifestyles.
Health Issues = Bionics and Cybernetic enhancement, resulting in stronger and more durable bodies.
Social Stagnation or Regime = The American way of life, elected representatives, everyone has a voice.

So you think they're surpassing their limits when they're so incredibly limited, and that everyone has a voice yet ARCHIE-7 orders everyone around like little cogs in a machine to serve it.

And just to settle the A.R.C.H.I.E 7 argument once and for all.

A.R.C.H.I.E 7 is a more sophisticated version of A.R.C.H.I.E Three, although it is completely machine; an artificial intelligence, a super computer (not a living entity) that completely dominates and controls every aspect of the CAN Republic. Remember, the A.R.C.H.I.E (Artificial, Robot, Cerebellum, Housing, Intellect, Experiment) design is based on the workings of a human brain. Its design parameters are to function as the brain of a gigantic environmental complex that it sees as its physical body. Like a real human body, the computer brain controls and operates every aspect of its body. Thus, the super-computer control and maintains all the "bodily"functions of the massive moon complex and the secondary bases and outposts on the moon's surface (seen as appendages).

[More Text talking about how A7 handles their air and sewerage systems]

The people within its body are seen as vital biological systems which it is designed to protect. But they too are part of its body and double as bacteria fighting antibodies who will join in the defense of the body do fight intruders.

[Numbers and statistics if A7 is taken away from CAN]

Unlike Archie Three, the A.R.C.H.I.E Seven intelligence is complete artificial intelligence, devoid of emotion, but is capable of analyzing data in a subjective way and can act on a subjective logic: hunches and speculation. (Still think that Borging Soldier's is not reasonable?)

Yes I'm still quite sure that borging soldiers isn't reasonable, because ARCHIE-7 doesn't run the moon colony like you think and borging people isn't a reasonable way of dealing with the problems caused by low gravity. It's not going to be ordering people into the borging chambers to become soldiers in its army. Defense of the colony is going to revolve around the abilities of every individual not forcibly converting people into combat borgs.

More game information]

The computer has complete freedom to make any reasonable adjustments within its body or in defense of the biological systems within its body, without outside authorization. A.R.C.H.I.E Seven answers only to a tiny handful of corporate and government superiors, including the President, Vice President, Chief of Defense, and CAN Systems Coordinator and CAN Chairman of the Board. Only these five have the power to give the artificial intelligence direct commands which it is compelled to obey.

[More game info on what happens if they shut it down then...]

Note: Remember, A.R.C.H.I.E Seven's prime directive is the protection, survival and maintenance of the entire body of the CAN Republic and the people within it.

A7 is more advanced and powerful than A3, it can manually do anything A3 has done. The only thing it lacks is the ambition and mad ruthlessness of A3. It can do anything you have seen A3 do; likely better than A3 from a technical standpoint. People might not like that, but in the context given it has access to more resources, no opposition or need to work covertly and is more sophisticated.

Although A3 might be able to outsmart it by doing something completely illogical and mad... that is the only way he would be able to outmaneuver A7. Think of it like a third grader going against a freshmen in a spell bee. Not the best metaphor but still appropriate.

[/quote]

You're crediting ARCHIE-7 with more ability than it has, it's definitely not freshmen vs third grader with ARCHIE-3. It's definitely not more powerful than ARCHIE-3, which can remain alive and functional without power, remotely control its bots due to it having enhanced versions of some human psionic abilities, and has access to technology ARCHIE-7's never seen. ARCHIE-7 has no ambition because it's not alive, it lacks self-awareness to go beyond its programming.

[Akashic Soldier]

opinion, opinion, opinion bias, bias, bias, etc, etc, etc.

Please show me in the text where anything you have claimed is true. You are stating your opinion as fact and ignoring huge swathes of text. I give you scientific facts from world renowned scientist Michio Kaku and you turn around and tell me his opinion is invalid because you don't agree. Its his job to know how quickly science will continue to advance. Maybe next time I will put my sources in quotes so you can ignore them too.

Nothing I have said goes against what is written in the information we have been given.

Your entire argument hinges on the fact that their tech isn't more advanced. You say I am giving too much control to A7 when thats EXACTLY what it says he has, quotes right out of the book. Now, you don't like it... thats fine. As Dark says, each GM can do whatever he wants in his own game. But don't tell me that they CAN'T or DON'T have technology more advanced than any nation of Rifts Earth because I can see many ways that THEY COULD or SHOULD and just because you (and you really are having a closed mind and limited perception here Nightmask, take a step back and look at the whole picture instead of your personal hangups) can't see how that could even be true or possible. Its not only possible but according to everything I have read here (and presented in quotes) it is the current way the CAN appear in cannon Rifts material.

Look up the dictionary definition of more and sophisticated and slap them together and look at what means. Then apply that as difference between A3 and A7. That is the TECHNICAL and MECHANICAL difference between the two machines. The only advantage A3 has is that he is INSANE and has PASSIONS and HATE and a prime directive that allows him more freedom than A7. In every mechanical way, he is an inferior model. Thats cannon. Thats written in stone. Arguing the point doesn't make you right or change the truth anymore than saying that the sky isn't blue.

[Nightmask]

opinion, opinion, opinion bias, bias, bias, etc, etc, etc.

So basically you're mocking everything I've said, derisively dismissing all of it as opinion and bias because someone can't possibly disagree with with what you've said without being biased?

Please show me in the text where anything you have claimed is true. You are stating your opinion as fact and ignoring huge swathes of text. I give you scientific facts from world renowned scientist Michio Kaku and you turn around and tell me his opinion is invalid because you don't agree. Its his job to know how quickly science will continue to advance. Maybe next time I will put my sources in quotes so you can ignore them too.

Nothing I have said goes against what is written in the information we have been given.

Let's see, you've argued that ARCHIE-7 can order full-scale borg conversion of the human population, something completely unsupported by the written material. That's your unsupported opinion, and whoever your scientist is whatever his opinions might be they really don't apply to a fictional society set in the future. You're not going to have any scientist who's going to declare that it's a certainty that what tech we have a hundred years from now is going to fall along a projection based on what we've had so far. Too many factors simply aren't known or predictable, and said scientific studies are based on the entire planet with a far higher population and access to shared scientific knowledge not an isolated colony. You really can't apply such a curve based on such a much larger population and insist it is going to apply to a tiny limited population as well.

Your entire argument hinges on the fact that their tech isn't more advanced. You say I am giving too much control to A7 when thats EXACTLY what it says he has, quotes right out of the book. Now, you don't like it... thats fine. As Dark says, each GM can do whatever he wants in his own game. But don't tell me that they CAN'T or DON'T have technology more advanced than any nation of Rifts Earth because I can see many ways that THEY COULD or SHOULD and just because you (and you really are having a closed mind and limited perception here Nightmask, take a step back and look at the whole picture instead of your personal hangups) can't see how that could even be true or possible. Its not only possible but according to everything I have read here (and presented in quotes) it is the current way the CAN appear in cannon Rifts material.

Akashic, I'm really not interested in getting another warning so I'm just going to point out insulting someone saying that they've a closed mind and limited perceptions because you feel someone should embrace your opinions as facts is really not wise. I'm looking at the entire picture, and the material as presented does not carry with it the expansive level of power granted to ARCHIE-7 you insist it does. As much as you say they could have tech better than everyone else or feel that they should have it doesn't mean that they do, and the tech we see for them proves that they don't.

Look up the dictionary definition of more and sophisticated and slap them together and look at what means. Then apply that as difference between A3 and A7. That is the TECHNICAL and MECHANICAL difference between the two machines. The only advantage A3 has is that he is INSANE and has PASSIONS and HATE and a prime directive that allows him more freedom than A7. In every mechanical way, he is an inferior model. Thats cannon. Thats written in stone. Arguing the point doesn't make you right or change the truth anymore than saying that the sky isn't blue.

It's canon please, not cannon. Cannons are for shooting cannon balls, and what's canon is that ARCHIE-7 has to manage something that's larger than a robotics factory so requires a greater level of technical sophistication to handle the extra information and processes involved. That doesn't mean it is in fact superior to ARCHIE-3. You keep speaking as if ARCHIE-7 is sentient and alive, directly contradicting the book. It's inferior to ARCHIE-3 because ARCHIE-3 has a level of creativity ARCHIE-7 can't have, that is where it fails. ARCHIE-7 can organize information and manage a limited amount of 'guesswork' (just playing the odds) but is highly inferior to what ARCHIE-3 can pull off.

In any case if you're going to continue dismissing what you don't want to hear as 'well you're just closed-minded and limited in your thinking', implying that anyone with an open-mind would have to agree with you I'll be done responding to you on this topic as I won't continue being insulted and told I'm limited in my thinking because I don't agree with you.

[Akashic Soldier]

Nope I just cut out what you said because its a ***** to edit it on my iphone.

Now... I am gonna come off sounding real Missouri here but...

SHOW ME WHERE IT SAYS ANYTHING YOU CLAIM IN A BOOK PUBLISHED BY PALLADIUM. ILL EVEN SETTLE FOR NON-CANON RIFTERS ARTICLES. SHOW ME PROOF OR EVEN THE SLIGHTEST BIT OF EVIDENCE THAT PROVES ME WRONG. I WILL HAPPILY ACCEPT THAT I AM. HOWEVER YOU HAVE NOT PRESENTED ANY FACTUAL PUBLISHED ARGUMENT FOR WHY WHAT YOU ARE SAYING IS TRUE OR SUPPORTED BY THE PUBLISHED MATERIAL. IN FACT YOUR ENTIRE ARGUMENT IS BASED AROUND A TARGETING STRATEGY OF CUTTING DOWN OR DISMISSING EVIDENCE AND ATTACKING THE INTEGRITY OF OTHERS. THIS IS NOT AN ACCEPTABLE METHOD OF PRESENTING NEW INFORMATION OR OPINION IN A PUBLIC FORUM. IT IS MAKING YOU LOOK LIKE A THOUGHT-NAZI. I DO NOT CARE IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH MY PERCEPTIONS BUT IF THEY ARE WRONG PLEASE SHOW ME. PLEASE.

I made it big because you've managed to annoy me.

Warning: And I made it smaller because it managed to annoy many others.

While I appreciate that a poster may feel the need to draw attention to part of their post, large blocks of capital letters and extremely large text is directly contrary to the spirit of discussion and debate.

Accent the relevant portions of your post only.

[Chronicle]

I think the real solution would be an up to date book on orbitals for rifts. Rifts Space book 1: (enter flashy title here) for instance.

Need it, Write it, read it.

Thats teh reality.

[Akashic Soldier]

I think the real solution would be an up to date book on orbitals for rifts. Rifts Space book 1: (enter flashy title here) for instance.

Need it, Write it, read it.

Thats teh reality.

Totally. Rifts Space would rock!

I had thought the space stations had been forgotten and obsolete but they appear again in Aftermatch which updates the setting to PA109.

[Killer Cyborg]

*Sets mantra to infinite loop and hooks up to nuclear battery. Attaches to Martial-Amplifiers and cranks knob to 11*
"The final ruling on any game mechnics or setting or fluff text is the purview of the GM. Full stop. End-of-line."

*Sets obvious response to infinite loop and hooks up to nuclear battery. Attaches to Martial-Amplifiers and cranks knob to 12*
"EVERYBODY ALREADY KNOWS."

[Nightmask]

Contrary to certain claims the material regarding the CAN Republic and ARCHIE-7 doesn't support the contention that ARCHIE-7 has dictatorial powers, is a creative super-genius, or the fluff text that they're superior to everyone on and off of Rifts Earth with regards to technology.

ARCHIE-7's stated purpose is to see to the maintenance of the moon colony and its defense and it has reasonable authority to give orders to others in pursuit of what it's intended for. So it tracks what's broken down to get someone repairing it immediately, turns on and off electrical systems as required, tries to predict what might fail and deal with such anticipated problems and so forth. Nothing in the text would reasonably lead one to believe it can order people forcibly converted into a cyborg or anything of that sort 'for the greater good'.

Is it more complex than ARCHIE-3? Yes. Does that make it superior to ARCHIE-3? That depends on how you define superior. It can control and manage more than ARCHIE-3 does but it lacks the creativity and sentient awareness to transcend being just a machine. There is also nothing given for one to assume that ARCHIE-7 has been provided with any form of direct neural interface in the fashion of ARCHIE-3. The ARCHIE that would most likely qualify for that if it was something done to the earlier series would be ARCHIE-4 and we know it failed (maybe it went catatonic or some other form of insane like many of the colonists did when the cataclysm occurred). Given it was a failed design and we're told ARCHIE-7 is pure machine and not alive to differentiate it from ARCHIE-3 it's reasonable to conclude if the ARCHIE-4 had used that design and failed (and perhaps, but not with certainty, numbers 5 and 6) they wouldn't use that design again when their lives depend on it.

Cybernetics and bionic conversion also aren't some catch-all cure for the problems the humans on the moon have, they're a band-aid on the real problem of the health issues said humans have. If you've a problem where people are going blind do you find a cure for the blindness or just chop out their eyes and slap in some bionic ones? While the bionic eyes are a solution to restoring sight it's better to simply prevent the blindness in the first place or cure it rather than resort to potentially lethal invasive surgery.

The technology shown for the moon in general isn't up to meeting the claims of being superior to everyone else. 'They don't need that that's why you don't see it' isn't a valid claim; we don't really need cell phones yet we produce them by the millions. Also much of what's claimed to be not really needed is in fact needed. They need better ways of dealing with low-gravity health issues, they need better weapons than we see, they need to be more expansive than we see yet aren't.

Just because current technology is on an exponential curve and provides a measure of predictive power one can't insist it must remain on such a curve. Current growth is also based on a planet with billions of people contributing to that growth, the moon colony is far less than 0.1% that population and just doesn't have the kind of diversity to support exponential growth in technology. This can't be handwaved away with 'well ARCHIE-7' did it either, the super-computer would have to be more creative and engaging in experimentation and study equal to thousands if not hundreds of thousands of highly intelligent or genius level people simultaneous. That's just not supported by what we see in the books, which also don't even begin to hint or suggest that ARCHIE-7 rather than being the product of human genius and an example of their greatest creation is the master genius and creator.

If someone wants to have it that way in their game that's fine but the books themselves don't even come close to supporting any claims of the CAN Republic being so advanced, not when they can't even manage to deal with the basic health issues of living on the moon (even Bradford by himself could do more for the problem in a few years than what we've seen out of the Lunies in centuries of effort).

[Shark_Force]

one AI being able to perform as much innovation as thousands of geniuses is actually pretty plausible.

if computers keep advancing, it won't be long at all before they think a heck of a lot faster than us. even if they don't, it's quite possible that an AI will simply consist of multiple connected computers, and that thinking about 100 or 1,000 different things at the same time is just what they do all the time. furthermore, they do it 24/7, and can easily have as much interdisciplinary knowledge as you need. if something would be discovered by a person who is an expert in 2 fields much more readily than it would be discovered by an expert in either field alone, that gives yet another advantage to an AI.

but yeah. in the event we get true AI up and running, it is actually quite likely to make us look like a bunch of chumps. go ahead and look up "technological singularity".

[Killer Cyborg]

They didn't conquer the rest of the space community after the Rifts because everyone was trying to SURVIVE.

Care to quote the passage(s) from the book that support that claim?

You also keep inflating ARCHIE-7's role, referring to it as if it were the lord and master over the colony and everyone serves it which is not supported by the text. It doesn't give orders and declare 'we need more borgs get the chop shops going!' or anything of the sort.

Yes and no.
MiO,62
The computer has complete freedom to make any reasonable adjustments within its body or in defense of the biological systems within its body, without outside authorization. ARCHIE Seven answers only to a tiny handful of corporate and government superiors, including the President, Vice President, Chief of Defense, and CAN System Coordinator and CAN Chairman of the Board. Only these five have the power to give the artificial intelligence direct commands which it is compelled to obey. Commands that endanger the body activate a delay and confirmation program, requiring at least three of the five to approve and authorize the command.

ARCHIE 7 can pretty much do whatever it wants, and give whatever orders it wants, but in cases where his orders are considered a possible danger to the base, then the five members of the colony who out-rank the computer can vote on whether or not the order goes through.

Defense of the colony is going to revolve around the abilities of every individual not forcibly converting people into combat borgs.

That would depend on how bad the situation was.

You're crediting ARCHIE-7 with more ability than it has, it's definitely not freshmen vs third grader with ARCHIE-3. It's definitely not more powerful than ARCHIE-3, which can remain alive and functional without power, remotely control its bots due to it having enhanced versions of some human psionic abilities, and has access to technology ARCHIE-7's never seen.

There's no real way to tell which of the two super-computers is smarter or more intellectually capable overall.
ARCHIE 3 obviously has advantages in that he is alive, and more able to think for himself. Just as obviously, this comes with the disadvantage that he's prone to the weaknesses of living beings.
ARCHIE 7 is 4 generations of improvements over ARCHIE 3. As a computer, ARCHIE 7 is clearly going to be superior.
How important that superiority is would depend on how and why they were being compared.

In this context, where the question seems to be whether the technology on the Moon is actually superior to the technology on Earth, ARCHIE 7 would be the more advanced of the two.
ARCHIE 3's main traits of superiority- the fact that he is alive, the fact that he has psychic powers, etc.- don't exactly stem from technology.
They're a mutation, one caused by technology that was available for ARCHIE 7, but that was deliberately not incorporated.

ARCHIE-7 has no ambition because it's not alive, it lacks self-awareness to go beyond its programming.

SB1r, 14
[Neural Intelligences] are somewhat unpredictable, with the robot exhibiting a genuine personality, quirks of character, and even desires, fears and anxieties that can get in the way of machine functionality...
...robots and androids with neural intelligence can behave very human and think beyond the capabilities of their basic programming. This means they can learn new skills, extrapolate on existing skills, modify their behavior, adapt to their environment, make judgements, have an alignment, speculate, theorize and think outside the box.

[Nightmask]

one AI being able to perform as much innovation as thousands of geniuses is actually pretty plausible.

if computers keep advancing, it won't be long at all before they think a heck of a lot faster than us. even if they don't, it's quite possible that an AI will simply consist of multiple connected computers, and that thinking about 100 or 1,000 different things at the same time is just what they do all the time. furthermore, they do it 24/7, and can easily have as much interdisciplinary knowledge as you need. if something would be discovered by a person who is an expert in 2 fields much more readily than it would be discovered by an expert in either field alone, that gives yet another advantage to an AI.

but yeah. in the event we get true AI up and running, it is actually quite likely to make us look like a bunch of chumps. go ahead and look up "technological singularity".

Yet we don't see support for that idea, we don't see anything that would suggest anything close to that level of advancement if they were somehow continuing an exponential growth in technology over the course of 3 centuries as if they were somehow capable with their tiny population of matching the creative drive of billions of people who're being exposed to and successfully reverse-engineering ultra-advanced alien technology.

[Kagashi]

*Sets mantra to infinite loop and hooks up to nuclear battery. Attaches to Martial-Amplifiers and cranks knob to 11*
"The final ruling on any game mechnics or setting or fluff text is the purview of the GM. Full stop. End-of-line."

*Sets obvious response to infinite loop and hooks up to nuclear battery. Attaches to Martial-Amplifiers and cranks knob to 12*
"EVERYBODY ALREADY KNOWS."

Seconded. Plus its such a cop out line, especially from the company. We look for resolution from the authoritative figure (authors), not create debate among players and GMs alike. Pick a direction, then commit to follow through.

[DhAkael]

Ah and another pithy rejoinder; thank you ever so much for making my life easier. Two for two.

However; Nightmask & Aakash (not the people the above is adressing), please...this thread has derailed so far off the track it's gone beyond amusing and eye rolling to painful now.

Agree to disagree. Please.

There is one fact of the matter both of you are missing; Kevin Siembiada doesn't care.
At all.
There have been several manuscripts sent in over the decade & change since M.i.O. that have ended up in the shredder thanks to K.S. wishing to "do it himself".
He has not, and most likely WILL not.
The given fluff text paints with one pallet (uber-tech-gods) for the CAN: unwilling to do much except keep Terra contained, and to hold onto their dessolate rock with all 4 limbs against ANY others. They ARE the bastions of cyber-technology above and beyond even the Kittani and -gasp- perhaps, the mythological >.> <.< Wulfyn Quatoria >.<

Then you have the cold hard numbers given. OUT OF DATE By so many factors I'm not even gonna try and begin to list them. Seriously, they are 3 power-creep publications or more behind even core Rifts Earth World books now, and that's NOT bringing into account the military gear.

So who / what do you believe? The fluff text? Or the numbers? Both contradict each other.
That's why I continue to post the mantra, despite pithy snarks.
There is no one answer.
...
...
Unless Kevin Siembiada steps up to the plate, or lossens his death-grip and lets a free-lancer finally get a manuscript OFFICIALY published (and not interfered with).

[Kagashi]

Yep, this is the same argument folks had about Triax and Kittani gear prior to Splynn Dimsnsional Market, Triax 2, and the RUE updates (post 2006 printings) of WBs 2 and 5. Till that happens for Rifts Space and MiO, pretty much this entire thread is moot as MiO is written for 101 PA and we are now in 109/110 PA. Hell, we dont even have standard space ships or fighters for the orbital colonies yet. Our source material is mostly speculation.

But, if you were to compare VRRDS stuff to lets say 101 PA era CS gear...it IS superior. In damage and in armor as well as perk features. For example, datalinks as I know it require the receiver and the transmitter to be within line of sight. Yet VRRDS technology doesnt seem to care if a ship, asteroid, moon, or space colony is in between them. That's pretty significant.

Additionally, should KS and PB ever venture into space again and/or update MiO to RUE standards (beefing up the MDC and damage of select pieces of hardware like WB 2 and 5 were), I am certain that the CAN Republic's source material will back up and mimic the claim they are technologically superior to most in the solar system, just like they did for the Kitanni in SDM and Fleets of the 3 Galaxies and for the NGR in Triax 2. But till then...we shouldn't get our panties in a wad when you try to compare 101 PA with 110 PA.

[Akashic Soldier]

What are everyone's major complains with C.A.N and the Orbital Communities--the things that are currently unexplained or make no sense or just grate on your nerves?

[Nightmask]

What are everyone's major complains with C.A.N and the Orbital Communities--the things that are currently unexplained or make no sense or just grate on your nerves?

The main problem is the problems caused by 'Science fiction writers have no sense of scale'. Fluff text is tossed out because it sounds nice without considering the implications (and then forget and ascribe someone else the same capacity resulting in dueling superiority). Ships really can't get around as quickly as said and the speeds required would be in the range to allow for making craft that could return to earth (which would be a lot better source of water alone than traveling a few hundred million miles through space to hunt it up). But a proper overhaul so as to clean up at least the worst of it just isn't going to come.

[Kagashi]

What are everyone's major complains with C.A.N and the Orbital Communities--the things that are currently unexplained or make no sense or just grate on your nerves?

1) Fluff text does not match source material when compared to the rest of Rifts Earth.
2) What source material does exist is lacking to actually play the setting. For example, we have no standard space ships, fighters, or interceptors. All we have are "create your own" rules which leads to speculation to #1. Even with the introduction of the Archon fleet in 104 PA (SA2), we still dont have capitol ships for them even though they are specifically mentioned in their story. Plus aside some variants of some Glitter Boys, we have only a handful of bots and power armor that would be new and unique to the setting. We need more.
3) only 50 pages of text is dedicated to the largest setting in Rifts, were as North America has dozens of world books.
4) Magic is mentioned, we left so vague that nobody knows what the real stance on magic really is.
5) Naruni have thermo-kinetic armor. Archons have Tri-Beam technology. The Megaversal Legion has Inertial Dampener force fields. These are all examples of technology that are unique to each of these entities, making them technologically superior to most of the other technologies in Rifts. The CAN Republic is supposed to be highly technologically advanced, yet they dont have anything all that exciting aside some virtually piloted bots which we are basically doing today with drones anyway. This needs to be expanded upon and added to.
6) The Russian Station is supposed to make some really impressive ships. Do they have FTL? Have they explored beyond Earth and Mars? Whats sitting beyond the orbit of Mars? More alien threats? A lost human colony returning from a 400 year old mission that has no idea what happened on Earth?
7) South America 2 says the Archons are now part of the Orbital Communities. Is there a state of constant war between the aliens and the mutants that vowed to protect their orbits? Does this interfere with the containment of Earth now that they would be focused on a permanent threat? Does this addition cool the tensions between CAN and Freedom? (It did stop the war they were about to have).
8 ) The Graveyard sits on a space based nexus point. There are ley lines and nexus points on the moon. What demons are acceptable for space based adventures? There are a few that can be stolen from the Dimension books, but they need to be expanded upon.
9) Dimensional raiders are a real threat (Shifters, Temporal Raiders/warriors/wizards, Demons, Dragons, etc). How do they deal with D Raiders when considering the containment of Earth?
10) Independent stations: there are hundreds of them. But all we have are "create your own". What are some of the more important independent colonies? Why are they important? What do they offer the community as a whole? Why are they independent? Are there aliens being harbored? What makes them unique from the major space stations?

[Killer Cyborg]

What are everyone's major complains with C.A.N and the Orbital Communities--the things that are currently unexplained or make no sense or just grate on your nerves?

There is mention of ley lines in space, but no real explanation. Do they go from planet to planet? Star to star? What's the deal?

[azazel1024]

one AI being able to perform as much innovation as thousands of geniuses is actually pretty plausible.

if computers keep advancing, it won't be long at all before they think a heck of a lot faster than us. even if they don't, it's quite possible that an AI will simply consist of multiple connected computers, and that thinking about 100 or 1,000 different things at the same time is just what they do all the time. furthermore, they do it 24/7, and can easily have as much interdisciplinary knowledge as you need. if something would be discovered by a person who is an expert in 2 fields much more readily than it would be discovered by an expert in either field alone, that gives yet another advantage to an AI.

but yeah. in the event we get true AI up and running, it is actually quite likely to make us look like a bunch of chumps. go ahead and look up "technological singularity".

Possibly, but a large part of innovation and invention is thinking outside of the box. ARCHIE 7 is not described as being able to do this. AI does not mean innovative or inventive by its deffinition. You can have AI without having human style heuristics, assumptions, logical leaps, hunches, etc. A lot of advances require things like massive testing, that can't be simply modeled and number crunched in a super computer. Mostly because we litterally have no model or method of developing a model for something until we test it.

Good example, smaller lithography silicon based semiconductor transistors. We know some of the issues surrounding going below a certain rough process size, like electron tunneling (and about a dozen others). We know the math, the model and some basic empirical research surrounding it. However, we don't have a solution for some of it without actually creating physical models and testing it and often times we discover amazing things that develop entirely new science where models never existed for that science.

Simply being really smart doesn't suddenly cause inventions. Really smart, plus empirical research and observation does.

A really great AI that is properly programmed can certainly shave a lot of time off stuff. However, when it comes down to it, all that research has to still be conducted, and a super advanced AI isn't going to necessarily shave much time off that expect for crunching the results (which we have lovely super computers today that can do that). The AI would have to have remotes to use to run research labs, which I guess it could have, but it would need vast RESOURCES, which the moon does not have compared to most Rifts Earth societies.

Example, discovering the Higgs Boson which we believe is "THE" Particle. IE it is what modulates and "carries" the force of gravity. The model of particle physics says there should be one, and we know some of the basic behaviors of it. However, there are other models that don't provide for it, or the characteristics are different. We haven't been able to, yet, actually observe it, though we are getting close. Once we DO observe it, it is going to take a lot of research to confirm its actual behavior, and likely we'll discover something that wasn't covered in the standard model, or it might even be completely wrong.

Its happened plenty of times, and no matter how many calculations you do, you aren't necessarily going to research the right end result without that research.

A super computer isn't going to aid this research much. You know what it takes? thousands of trillions of high energy particle collisions to reach a statistical level of certainty that a specific energy level you are seeing from the collisions is the Higgs Boson. That takes an incredibly powerful particle collider a couple of years to produce all those collisions.

An advanced AI can't artificially speed up the rate of collisions, or the energy level of them, etc, etc, ad nauseum.

That is just an example of elemental physics that an AI can't really speed up. There are plenty of practical things that an AI can't help with either. Now a super smart AI could help with basic engineering problems. It could probably model the "best" 4 stroke adkinson cycle internal combustion engine possible using the resources available to the moon colony to construct in short order in a few hours depending on the AI's true processing power, where as it might take a team of engineers and a few hundred hours of super computer time to do the same thing.

Even if this was the most advance AI anyone could ever create, it can't solve the issue of required basic research that HAS to occur for innovation and invention to occur on any large scale.

That takes lots of people and/or "remotes" to actually conduct the research and time for research projects to finish. Face it, several hundred teams of researchers (or several thousand) can conduct a heck of a lot more research projects at once than one AI with the resources of only a small moon colony can conduct.

[Akashic Soldier]

one AI being able to perform as much innovation as thousands of geniuses is actually pretty plausible.

if computers keep advancing, it won't be long at all before they think a heck of a lot faster than us. even if they don't, it's quite possible that an AI will simply consist of multiple connected computers, and that thinking about 100 or 1,000 different things at the same time is just what they do all the time. furthermore, they do it 24/7, and can easily have as much interdisciplinary knowledge as you need. if something would be discovered by a person who is an expert in 2 fields much more readily than it would be discovered by an expert in either field alone, that gives yet another advantage to an AI.

but yeah. in the event we get true AI up and running, it is actually quite likely to make us look like a bunch of chumps. go ahead and look up "technological singularity".

Possibly, but a large part of innovation and invention is thinking outside of the box. ARCHIE 7 is not described as being able to do this. AI does not mean innovative or inventive by its deffinition. You can have AI without having human style heuristics, assumptions, logical leaps, hunches, etc. A lot of advances require things like massive testing, that can't be simply modeled and number crunched in a super computer. Mostly because we litterally have no model or method of developing a model for something until we test it.

Good example, smaller lithography silicon based semiconductor transistors. We know some of the issues surrounding going below a certain rough process size, like electron tunneling (and about a dozen others). We know the math, the model and some basic empirical research surrounding it. However, we don't have a solution for some of it without actually creating physical models and testing it and often times we discover amazing things that develop entirely new science where models never existed for that science.

Simply being really smart doesn't suddenly cause inventions. Really smart, plus empirical research and observation does.

A really great AI that is properly programmed can certainly shave a lot of time off stuff. However, when it comes down to it, all that research has to still be conducted, and a super advanced AI isn't going to necessarily shave much time off that expect for crunching the results (which we have lovely super computers today that can do that). The AI would have to have remotes to use to run research labs, which I guess it could have, but it would need vast RESOURCES, which the moon does not have compared to most Rifts Earth societies.

Example, discovering the Higgs Boson which we believe is "THE" Particle. IE it is what modulates and "carries" the force of gravity. The model of particle physics says there should be one, and we know some of the basic behaviors of it. However, there are other models that don't provide for it, or the characteristics are different. We haven't been able to, yet, actually observe it, though we are getting close. Once we DO observe it, it is going to take a lot of research to confirm its actual behavior, and likely we'll discover something that wasn't covered in the standard model, or it might even be completely wrong.

Its happened plenty of times, and no matter how many calculations you do, you aren't necessarily going to research the right end result without that research.

A super computer isn't going to aid this research much. You know what it takes? thousands of trillions of high energy particle collisions to reach a statistical level of certainty that a specific energy level you are seeing from the collisions is the Higgs Boson. That takes an incredibly powerful particle collider a couple of years to produce all those collisions.

An advanced AI can't artificially speed up the rate of collisions, or the energy level of them, etc, etc, ad nauseum.

That is just an example of elemental physics that an AI can't really speed up. There are plenty of practical things that an AI can't help with either. Now a super smart AI could help with basic engineering problems. It could probably model the "best" 4 stroke adkinson cycle internal combustion engine possible using the resources available to the moon colony to construct in short order in a few hours depending on the AI's true processing power, where as it might take a team of engineers and a few hundred hours of super computer time to do the same thing.

Even if this was the most advance AI anyone could ever create, it can't solve the issue of required basic research that HAS to occur for innovation and invention to occur on any large scale.

That takes lots of people and/or "remotes" to actually conduct the research and time for research projects to finish. Face it, several hundred teams of researchers (or several thousand) can conduct a heck of a lot more research projects at once than one AI with the resources of only a small moon colony can conduct.

Read Cyborg's post immediately after that one in reguard to AI as it is defined within Rifts from Source Book 1: Revised.

[azazel1024]

Yes, and that doesn't end up allowing it to instantly develop new technologies. No matter how smart you are (human deffinition or computer), developing new technologies requires a significant amount of basic research. Basic research is something that involves time and resources, as well as smarts to interpret the research and consider different directions to take it...which a super AI could certainly enhance more than most smart humans could...but it doesn't change the requirements of time and resources for the research to occur.

No mathematical model we have right now can suddenly unlock anti-gravity. It doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but it is/would take a significant amount of research to figure out mathematical models as well as discoveries to actually "unlock the secretes of anti-gravity" as an example. Another great example, 2 centuries ago we had absolutely no model for radio waves. We had fairly complex calculus and lots of other math, but no concept of invisible waves going about the universe. It took a lot of research to discover radio waves and later utilize them.

So you still come back to the same constraints. An AI, no matter how advanced, is still limited by its resources and time on how quickly it could possibly innovate. The moon colony has significantly fewer resources than most Earth nations, let alone some of the big ones that spend a lot of their resources on innovating. A 2 year research project, still takes 2 years to collect data, it doesn't matter who/what is running the experiment. Just because it is a super advanced neural net AI doesn't mean it can suddenly conduct 10,000 experiments at once.

One thing you are forgetting is that the Earth nations also have access to pretty advanced computers. They might not be churning out neural net AIs, but that doesn't mean they aren't churning out some pretty damned advanced AIs and super computers for number crunching, modeling, etc. Frankly, The NGR probably has significantly more computing power than ARCHIE 7 has if you figure total compute resources. The only thing ARCHIE adds is more "life like" responses and being able to add better intuition and direction to a lot of its processing that advanced Earth AI's probably don't have.

[Kagashi]

Just read Rifter 56. Gotta say, I'm impressed with what the author did with it. Id like to see that become the basis of a new World Book.

[Akashic Soldier]

Just read Rifter 56. Gotta say, I'm impressed with what the author did with it. Id like to see that become the basis of a new World Book.

What stood out the most to you in #56?

[Kagashi]

Just read Rifter 56. Gotta say, I'm impressed with what the author did with it. Id like to see that become the basis of a new World Book.

What stood out the most to you in #56?

The Good: The author took previous sources and incorporated them into his work. The events in Aftermath were worked in as well as South America with the Arkhons. But using the original MiO, he also found inspiration for the "little green men" mentioned...AND made it a great plot to introduce another race. He rolled them all together nicely. I liked the wormhole weapon idea and how the flash moved throughout the universe and hit other planets too. Nice plot.

The Bad: We still dont have Arkhon motherships (or any ships for that matter), nor specific ships for the communities. I suspect Arkhon ships may be just as powerful as some Phase World ships. At least we know their FTL is vastly superior to anything in the Milky Way...we just have nothing to compare with. With the Kithians involved, there are just as many questions about them as we have for the Arkhons. There is mention of heavy and light power armors, but no stats for them. We have the mothership stats, which is cool, but no mention to how many are in the strike group. Is there just one? A whole fleet? I fear some of The Bad might be due to editing on the part of Palladium to make the article fit in this specific issue of the Rifter.

The Ugly: The scenario is left open ended with no conclusion. There are some who would say this falls under The Good, but I like reading about the story as if I were reading a book. I feel as if I just read half the book and just walked away not know what happened in conclusion. This is kinda like Xiticix Invasion, where as Id rather see SoT.

[azazel1024]

Well for the bad and maybe a bit of the ugly, early in the thread the author mentioned that it is a multi-part Rifter article and that a lot more was written. Now that doesn't mean 100% for sure PB will publish anymore of it, but I am betting they probably will. I think/hope that a bit more specific information on the communities will be in the offing as well as some of that PA and actual space ship descriptions for a few Arkhon and orbital community space ships (maybe more equipment)?

[Kagashi]

Well for the bad and maybe a bit of the ugly, early in the thread the author mentioned that it is a multi-part Rifter article and that a lot more was written. Now that doesn't mean 100% for sure PB will publish anymore of it, but I am betting they probably will. I think/hope that a bit more specific information on the communities will be in the offing as well as some of that PA and actual space ship descriptions for a few Arkhon and orbital community space ships (maybe more equipment)?

Yeah, I see that now. I really hope the continuation sees print. Id like to see it pan out. This is prolly one of the few optional bits of material I will make canon in my games, especially if we get part 2.

[GlitterKnight]

Would be funny if most people believed the moon was made out of cheese once again. LOL.

Somewhere, in an alternate universe, there IS a Moon made out of cheese.

But a bad scenario would be if a giant and VERY hungry critter came through a Rift that essentially treated lunar rock like it was cheese and started digging in...

Damn giant space hamsters, always eating people's moons.

[azazel1024]

Well those Glitterboys have some serious punch behind them, are tiny targets and are very hard to kill once you hit them. Combine that with Rifts Space having a relatively small number of military space ships, and there is your answer. This isn't the sort of setting where you have fleets of hundreds of capitol ships. This is the kind of setting where the largest station and/or the moon probably has all of one battlewagon or battlecruiser as its flag ship, maybe 3 or 4 heavy and light cruisers and half a dozen to a dozen destroyer, frigates and corvettes all together. That battlecruiser or battleship is probably size/MDC wise not much more powerful than a destroyer or MAYBE a light cruiser from the Phase World setting. So 4-20 suits of PA with more than 700MDC each that can whip out up to 180MD per hit can do some serious rebalancing when the most powerful combatant might have in the range of 20,000MDC, and it way is easier to hit than a widdly little suit of PA.

Those GB aren't going to take on any station's "fleet", but they would certainly be worth a Rift's space heavy cruiser most likely or even more in a battle. Heck, look at the Kithians, they have their mothership which is admittedly pretty powerful, maybe more so than any other ship in Rifts space, but it is the only one. They have a few scout ships and a bunch of fighters, any single one of which is effectively weaker than a single suit of GB.

[azazel1024]

Now that I agree. According to the author of the article he wrote a couple of others which may in the future be published by PB that do include things like new space ships, equipment etc, as well as more "fluff". Hopefully we will see all of it in time.

[nilgravity]

Instead of Rifts: Space I'd like to see a progression of books like The Coalition Wars that deals with all the things discussed here. Personal dream of mine to write "The Arkhon Expansion" which would deal with the Arkhon trying to connect with their Mars Colony.