The end is here. The most fundamental human functions have now, officially, been augmented by technology. Reality will never be the same.
For the last nine universes, the Comte and his Invisible Clergy have been in retreat. Some Old Ones can be outrun (Tsathoggua), others can be directly opposed by the forces of truth and decency (Nyarlathotep), and a few can even be bargained with (the Cruel Ones).
However, some souls are sick of running away. There have been deliberate attempts, not just to prevent individual Ascensions, but to jam the very mechanism of Ascension itself. To deny the very idea of Gods, and simultaneously allow every human to merge with technology, becoming something more than human, rather than merely something different to go with a different world. To stand and fight and change the world, instead of throwing it out and starting over.
If that were to happen, if the cycle of cosmic death and rebirth were to be broken…
Talk to Spider about this one. That things on his way to something, maybe hes leading the herd!
Talk to my PCs about this one! I’ve got a mechanomancer obsessed with replacing her flesh with technology. But I wonder, would she, or a more modern transhumanist, escape Ascension, or would she just ascend as the Cyborg? Because, even if we do survive to Singularity and stick it out as immortal minds, the Clergy could still fill up. I guess it’s a question of whether ascension is something essential, fundamental – the way we thought physics were – or if even that can be outfoxed.
– FAR out
An interesting point. Since the universe is determined by consensus, could ascension be warped by the consensus viewpoint? If a series of digital minds now consider themselves humanity, might those minds now be eligible to inherit humanity?
Conversely, if such artificial minds rejected the very concept of archeypes…?
Transhumanists stop defining themselves as human, though, right? How can a transhuman collective be considered humanity?
Questions like this get into whether a mind is the person … if not, then the Clergy has nothing to worry about. But if a person who began life as a human is still part of the voting public, it doesn’t matter how transhumanists define themselves. We’ve always used tools. We’ll just be going a step further.
Also, the concept of archetypes has never been encessary for their existence. We elect them whether we know or not. To consciously reject archetypes, though – if we were all aware somehow of the Clergy – that might be something else!
BUT! HERE’s where it really goes of the rails! Now I get it! If every human comes to be something else before the 333 fills up, if we all do leave voting Humanity, how CAN the universe ever end? There’s noone to ascend new archetypes!
– FAR out
If the cycle could be broken then the Great Old Ones could catch up. The Stars come right.
Ok, this is going to be one of those things where an incredibly minor, passing note drives my opinion, but wasn’t there, in one of the books, a bit about how if Mankind wiped themselves out, the Comte would have to wait until a new sentient species arises? More specifically, in STATOSPHERE, it mentions that the first sentient species will give birth to the First and Last man (which also suggests that he might, in default appearance, be a bit hairy and maybe a bit slope-browed), so sentience is the key. As far as I can tell, the seats in the Statosphere tend to be defined in the ultra-macro consensus, but filled in the ultra-local. Everybody votes on what shape is needed, but it’s some schlub’s very specific behavior that lets him press into the opening.
That said, since it’s a matter of sentience, what I’d imagine would happen in the case of a singularity hitting the UA-verse would be A) some very, very odd and alien final avatars (the Quantum Unprogram, the Multiple Man, the Noble Daemon, the Starflux, the Internet) and replacement avatars (The True King becomes the Administrator, the Mother becomes the Developer or is overthrown by the Engineer, the Peacemaker by the Mod, etc), the possibility of virally generated or engineered avatars (through mass-brainwashing or infected nodes that carry archetypal concepts in them) and C) a weird new breed of adepts. Nothing can obsess like a computer or generate as many paradoxes. And people would catch on. What happens when your demi-sentient slave-machine starts generating bizarre reality-warping powers when it hits what SHOULD be a blue screen of death and NOT the ability to make images real. Depending on whether they have enough time to really study and exploit that, they MIGHT figure out a way to bypass the cosmic reboot, either accidentally bursting the bubble of reality by tearing too many magickal holes in it OR finally move out into a whole new weird universe of universes and become something new or maybe just finally hatch or twist the universe into something truly bizarre depending on how resilient it really is. Still, the way things would change so fast, it’s more likely that the first singularity would prime the next reality to hit singularity earlier when less archetype seats are filled, giving it (or the next or the next) time to industrialize magick and avatars with whatever above results.
Of course, if the cycle is broken and the Great Old Ones get in, well, they might encounter something they’re really really really not prepared for.
There’s something really hilarious to me in imagining the looks on the faces of disembodied corrupt abandoned semi-dead archetypal concepts as they finally crash through the shell of reality slavering with hunger and avarice only to encounter a giant, all-consuming quantum-nano-chrome octo-serpent-ant that grew out of the old human race.
Neville, you’re the man.
– FAR out
Thanks. I just do what I can.
Also, I like the idea that mankind could start to create archetypes purposefully to mold the world to its liking. Spread a program with an idea to everyone and BAM, suddenly some aspect of life is that much easier.
What’s also interesting is that post-singularity, the definition of one “Person” vs. another can get a lot more blurred. So what happens when part of your processing circle group-mind ascends and leaves the rest behind? If a fully-slaved sentience you budded off yourself to deal with energy management and are connected to by what is essentially an informational leash, when your self-induced functional schizophrenia has some of your artificially constructed persona ascend, how are YOU connected to the statosphere?
Maybe mankind would start having a lot more bizarre versions of “shamans” that see into the Invisible Clergy since part of their identity is already there.
The singularity? She makes life KOOOKY.
Wow … could a demisentient subroutine ascend as the Necessary Servant? Could AVG ascend as the Warrior?
Viral archetypes might work; it’s true also that people will be more likely to notice unnatural effects, although it might take whole seconds to figure out how they function, let alone why. It’ll be both easier to monitor anything, including unnatural effects, and clearer that they are unnatural (since machines are expected to have definable limits and boundaries). And I love the image of the quantum-nano-octo-serpent. That’s pretty deeply Lovecraftian, really. What he was really afraid of was just that: what we’ll feel when we understand what science can show us but the brain can’t comprehend. I think that’s what Nyarlathotep was, the Messenger who shows us the truth that is intolerable and undeniable and thus brings us to that truth – sort of half Arkane, half Macbeth. Anyway, sounds like Singularity to me.
I’m all the more excited for it. The singularity, she will make gaming amazing.
I just hope I don’t get hacked.
– FAR out
Juicy.
Neville, you aren’t related to Professor of Physics Nevil Kingston-Brown (born 2,518 AD) by any chance, are you?
By one of those co-incidences that isn’t, an NPC I’ve been writing up is a Serpent Man (Avatar of Yig) transhumanist opposed to some of the other GOO – he doesn’t want to break the universe until Yig is strong enough to Ascend. Now I know why he’s into transhumanist politics.
Of COURSE I’m not. Ahem.
I like the idea that Nyarlothotep, without meaning to, is pushing mankind toward the Singularity with his constant need to expose us to the undeniable and horrible truth and then his little hobby… gets away from him. The smug bastard won’t know what hit him. “Haha! Puny humans have such limited brains! They will never understand what I… show… them. Is… are they adding on to their brains? Shit! IT’S A QUANTUM-NANO-OCTO-A…” (because everything Lovecraftian has to trail off in their writing when they’re suddenly consumed). It’s like stress-testing a vehicle, sure it USUALLY breaks, but eventually they build one that doesn’t. And then it manslaughters you into bit of paste over the blacktop.
Same for the Yig. Won’t he be surprised when the Next and Future Man has grown whole new sets of bizarre passions that Yig can’t begin to fathom. And is then eaten by the QNOA.
Nonono! It’s not the QNOA, it’s the QNC-OAS.
Damn, you’re right
QNC-OSA