Search Space
Feb10
on 2018-02-10
at 14:28
I’m sure Gina might know a few pointers.
↓ Transcript
na-B’Lili: «Just one question. How do you kill someone? It wasn’t covered in any of the Purist seminars that I took.»
Countess K’Aya: «Ah... Watch the Dirt People. They kill each other all the time!»
na-B’Lili: «That could take a while. Do you suppose there are any instructional videos?»
Countess K’Aya: «Excellent idea! You spy on them and I’ll check Archives.»
na-B’Lili: “Google” «might have something, too.»
Countess K’Aya: «Ah... Watch the Dirt People. They kill each other all the time!»
na-B’Lili: «That could take a while. Do you suppose there are any instructional videos?»
Countess K’Aya: «Excellent idea! You spy on them and I’ll check Archives.»
na-B’Lili: “Google” «might have something, too.»
Not the brightest stars in the sky.
Isn’t that typical of Purists?
Of pretty much any stripe.
I hate Illinois Nazis.
Thank you Jake Blues. Wherever you are.
Ah so we’re dealing with a bunch of ambitious incompetents.
Huh. Maybe it’s just me, but I’m pretty sure that search terms along the lines of “how to commit murder” or “how to kill someone” would (or should) trip all kinds of security filters.
And that assumes that they’re not already under more or less constant/active surveillance.
I’m sure they are huge red flags. The question is, how will the authorities on Earth find them?
Well, those are things that ought to trip security flags on Orion systems too. As such, they’d trip Orion shipboard security systems before any Terran security flags got triggered. They don’t need to be found or detected by terrestrial authorities – standard Orion security would suffice.
And that assumes that they weren’t already under active surveillance – which they might well be, considering their apparent lack of discretion and competence.
Also, I’m pretty sure that there’s an Awakened AI running the Roddenberry. Even if there isn’t, even if it’s using legacy non-awakened code, “how do you kill someone” is the sort of phrase that pretty much any security system worth installing would pay attention to.
For that matter, it’s entirely possible that they’re being actively monitored by some sort of Orion internal security/investigative agency trying to have enough evidence to nail them sufficiently to the wall to get them to flip on the rest of this “Purist” network, or get additional leads on other Purists.
The Roddenberry is under the control of the former Rod Serling AI, Roddy. The Serling was to damaged to bring back to service in a timely manner so rather than have a perfectly good AI sitting around going insane, they were transferred to the Roddenberry.
OK, we all know they’re not going to get very far on their own. My concern is that these two will become pawns of Lady Banshee.
They most likely already are. A good plan needs patsys.
You’re assuming that they aren’t already? Admittedly, cousin Farah isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but her role in the previous incident suggests that Lady Banshee may have been messing with elements of Orion society already. It’s more likely that she isn’t the grand chessmaster that she claims to be, and is merely good at capitalizing on opportunities that present themselves, but if she did engineer all of the events that Ace didn’t, then aim the purists at her preferred targets would be simple.
Yeah that search string won’t raise any red flags.
Wait. They are actually aboard the ship, and saying these things out loud.
They presume the ship is stupid. I mean, REALLY stupid. And that’s kind of a stupid thing to presume.
Even if this particular ship isn’t among the Awakened, a few phrases they used yesterday, and today’s “how do you kill someone” are the sort of things that I’d expect a standard shipboard security program to pick up and mark as being worth looking into, don’t you?
Considering they think Awakened golems like Rusty are “Abominations” They probably don’t realize that Roddy is even around.
That’s kind of the thing. They may have no idea that Roddy’s there, but even if he (she?) wasn’t, wouldn’t a standard shipboard security program be calling the lions right now?
I mean, given the fact that Roddy’s listening, and likes Ace and Peach and the whole extended family a lot, and everybody on board considers Ace and Gina to be some kind of legendary heroes… these two are so screwed, regardless. But they shouldn’t even have to *know* that the ship is Awakened to know that. They’re assuming it’s even more stupid than an ORDINARY ship.
The only reason I can come up with at-present is that Roddy is recording all this as evidence for their trial. The longer they talk freely, the deeper the hole they dig themselves into. Besides which, these 2 don’t sound to me like the “Leaders” of this coup. Further eavesdropping may reveal/implicate other members of this group, who might otherwise “go to ground”, to evade capture, if arrests are made prematurely.
As long as they’re just talking, recording is sufficient to deal with them. Taking preventive measures against whatever they plan is therefore easy. Once they actually attempt to carry out murderous/treasonous plans, that is soon enough to step in & make arrests (making sure to thwart those plans, of course). At that point, they’re up a brown creek with no paddle in sight: not only have they been caught red-handed, they can’t even weasel out on “I didn’t mean it” excuses because there’s recorded evidence of premeditation (as long as the surveillance is legal).
On the previous page, these 2 had already mentioned that an unwitting stooge had been given a “birthday-package for her Chief”, that would cause the ship to be destroyed. Wouldn’t there be enough in that conversation to warrant notification & preemptive action?
(of course that action would need to be stealthy enough to avoid any possible enemy counter-measures)
I can think of a documentary that they could watch. An episode of a classic TV show.
“Kill…”?
“It is a thing to do, like… like feeding Vaal. Vaal explained it to me; I will show you. *demonstrates using a heavy stick to smash a fruit the size of a human head* It is a simple thing!”
Star Trek TOS. An alian supercomputer (V’aal I think) was caring for a race of primatives, keeping them uneducated and subservient (like Adam and Eve). It trapped the crew and tried to make them servents also, when they resisted ordered it’s people to kill them.
Well everyone knows True AI is impossible (that came up as a cultural bias when Ace discovered the Awakened) so of course the ship is incapable of independent action. Fortunately not only is the ship Awakened, it is Roddie from the Rod Serling whom rather likes Ace and family.
You’d think staring at the footage of Rusty would remind them that “true AI” is a thing.
2 responses:
1)__If they’re not prepared to accept what they’ve seen, then they’ll simply not see it as we do.
2)__”Against stupidity, the very gods Themselves content in vain.”
[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Friedrich_Schiller]
DMC_Run: in item #2, perhaps the word “content” should be “contend”?
D’OH!!!?!
😛
You’re right — the typo snuck past me!
Well-Spotted, Good Sir!
Consider, there are people who believe that the Earth is flat, that the trips into space and landing on the moon were faked in a Hollywood film studio, and all kinds of other things that have massive amounts of evidence proving that these people are wrong. I have no reason to believe that these two Orions are any more willing to accept that their wrong.
Did you know there is an actual TV show called “How To Get Away With Murder”? It’s even on YouTube
There is even a clip called “HOW TO MURDER ON PLANET EARTH”
Barring that, they just need to watch the local news, it shows people trying to murder each other all the time
“Dumb & Dumber III” 😛
“Dumb & Dumber III: Dumberesterer”
they know how to make and/or plant a bomb to blow up the ship, but not how to kill some one? Also, why kill the woman in engineering? Won’t she blow up with the ship anyway? Killing her beforehand will just make people suspicious.
These two really are the dimmest bulbs on the tree! Of course they’ve never seen a tree because that’s a ‘dirt’ thing.
Explosives are just tools, like stone knives and hammers.
Depends on what kind of hole you want to dig yourself into. As in whether the hole is at the bottom of a gravity well with atmosphere or in the thin shell between you and vacuum.
Actually I was referring to tools like cutting tools that are used to make holes in things so that other things can be put in the hole. Explosives move things out of the way, and therefore should be readily available in Orion society. Since people with Y-chromosomes and testosterone are constantly under some kind of surveillance either for security or sexual availability, most of the time people who would misuse explosives can’t access explosives. It’s not like they don’t know how to make things that go boom. Remember young Sky’s prohibition against making rocket fuel and how she managed to weasel her way around it? Nitric acid is used in numerous commercial applications, and glycerine is used as a food preservative and in making fine soaps. Sulfuric acid just makes them mix together properly to make nitroglycerine, a high explosive and primary explosive. Glycerine is also a byproduct of making bio-diesel which uses H2SO4 as a reagent.
Lots of ways to make things go boom, if you really want to make things go boom.
1)__”they know how to make and/or plant a bomb to blow up the ship, but not how to kill some one?”:
—–Sounds to me as though they DIDN’T make/plant a bomb – they just issued orders & had their “menials” do it FOR them. The Countess in particular strikes me as more of a “delegator”, rather than a “hands on” type.
2)__”why kill the woman in engineering? Won’t she blow up with the ship anyway?”:
—–In all fairness, I see the sense of this. If their “patsy/stooge” somehow survived, then her testimony would implicate them. They’re just being careful to cover their tracks.
3)__”Killing her beforehand will just make people suspicious.”:
—–Agreed. This only works if the bomb’s detonation happens VERY SOON after the murder, to cover-up the evidence. If done discretely, then the body won’t be missed until it’s too late to matter.
Just for the record, I think that between Ace’s legendary good fortune & Roddy’s pervasive awareness of all (or at-least most) shipboard activity, any-&-all parts of their scheme will be intercepted & nullified.
So it is true. Our planet’s name does mean “dirt”.
I take it they don’t know about Roddy being Awakened? or else they’d not have said their plan to murder everyone on board out loud without some sort of anti-surveillance measures
What did you think ‘Terra’ meant? o_O
earth – the substance of the land surface; soil. So yes.
But 70+% of the surface is covered in water. So why do we call it “dirt” instead of “water”?
Because the name “Earth” predates our knowledge of how big the oceans are?
It occurs to me that they’re speaking in “High Orion”, which means that using the words “Earth” or “Terra” would stand-out in their conversation like a sore thumb, in the ears of any eavesdroppers. The use of “Dirt People” is therefore just a literal translation of “Earth People” / “Terrans”, & the Author is TRANSLITERATING, rather than TRANSLATING, which makes very little difference until you get snagged on a slang expression.
By way of example:
If you wanted to say: “Don’t tease me”…
…an American would use the slang phrase: “Don’t pull my leg.”
…in England, they’d say: “Pull the OTHER one!”
…in Spanish, this TRANSLATES to the slang phrase: “No me tomes el pelo.”
…yet if we TRANSLITERATE, we get: “Don’t drink my hair.”
This is why computers are less-than-flawless translators — they must be taught EACH new piece of slang on a case-by-case basis, & have them “flagged” as being exceptions to the usual rules of the language. The alternative is to produce a stilted, “slang-free” translation, which would lack nuance.
I am not sure I follow you. Computers which translate accurately but have no concept of slang might provide text which confuses the reader, but is still an accurate translation. “Don’t pull my leg” should never translate into “don’t drink my hair,” since “leg” and “hair” and “pull” and “drink” are all words in both languages and should always be translated accurately.
What you appear to be describing is a mistake in programming in non-literate translations of slang, which to me seems like a nigh-impossible task given the rate at which slang evolves and how it can be expressed in so many different ways.
I recall as a child a grandparent of mine relating the story of how they had hosted a foreign exchange student, and had at one point asked of the student needed “a few bucks” and how that was very confusing to the student. Because it is a slang term, and taken literally might easily be heard as “Do you need a few male deer?” Confusing, sure. But still an accurate translation. Programming a computer translator to recognize every possible use of the word “buck” or “bucks” in place of “dollars” or “money” or “wealth” or whatever seems like an impossible task to me.
At the very same time this was my experience as a resident of the US East coast visiting Montana who had to do mental gymnastics every time I heard the word ‘pop’ used to describe a ‘soda.’ Obviously the speaker was not looking to drink their father… 😛 I didn’t even use ‘pop’ as the term for ‘father,’ nor did anyone I knew. But it was the only use of the work ‘pop’ that I was aware of, and so in context it was a bit confusing.
If you’re old enough, you might also recall some other terms for “soda”, such as “cola” (ca. 1950’s southeast US), or “phosphate” (ca. 1890’s Midwest US).
Feel free to correct me if I got any of this “worng”.
😉
🙂
Technically, the water is surface cover (above a “soil” layer on the sea floor). Then again, the “dirt” is surface cover as well, as the primary crust substance is stone, below which is magma (liquid stone), then (iirc) a metal core. So, technically, “rock” is as accurate as any reference to soil or water.
Hmmm “Watch the Dirt People…”
>follows instructions
>Watches Gabe get action with crew
>Likes what she sees
>Realizes a dead Gabe would be a bad thing
>has a change of (we’ll call it heart.)
I gotta say, about the one on our right… Her hair is too awesome to be wasted on such a defective head.
Seriously, doesn’t she have awesome hair?
Actually, I’m admiring the outfit on the other one, na-B’lili. It belongs on a runway in Paris! And her hair is pretty cool too.
Yeah, Egyptian Dreadlocks are cool, hope she survives and joins Ace’s ‘harem’
That’s the hair last seen worn by Cousin Farrah
Typical for a friends of inbreeding. The know what’s “right and wrong” but have no clue of anything else
Well, didn’t realize I’d have to re-register. Oh well.
So, who wants to bet that they don’t actually understand the concept of “killing” anyways? I mean, I’m sure they understand what death is, but I might wager that their idea of killing is like a 3 year old who gets angry and says “I’m gonna kill you!” because it’s something he or she heard on TV, not because they know what it really means.
Oooo, just thought of something: she looks like a silicone-implanted copy of Cousin Farrah, are we sure Farrah wasn’t just set up by this idiot? o_O
“Purist seminars.”
They have formalized their treason to an extent that Nazis would be proud of.
Indeed.
These “Purist Seminars” may very well require some…
…further…
…detailed…
…investigation.
2 (very) late-breaking thoughts:
1)__”They kill each other all the time!”:
—–What we have here may be just a mis-application of statistics. The Orion population is so very tiny compared to ours, that we could have less than a 5% murder-rate per capita, & STILL kill more people per day than Orions do in a YEAR. She may be looking at TOTALS, rather than comparing relevant PERCENTAGES. I’m also assuming that she doesn’t include disaster-victims in her totals…?
2)__”Do you suppose there are any instructional videos?”:
—–I’d like to refer them to a series from the [Spike] cable-TV channel:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1000_Ways_to_Die]
…And with just a few lines, the perceived threat level has dropped from “Red Skull & Nazis” down to “Pinky and the Brain”.