rose_griffes (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rose_griffes) wrote2011-02-06 06:45 pm
rose_griffes) wrote2011-02-06 06:45 pm
Entry tags:
brief SCC rewatch update; a whole lot of questions about cylons and sentience
Unrelated to the remainder of this post except for the science fiction TV connection:
maharet83 made banners for the SCC rewatch! They're all here. And you can still sign up to claim an episode or two to recap for us here. I'll post the recap for the pilot episode Friday, 2/11.
Okay, I'm going to talk about Battlestar Galactica for a bit. I'm sure this is shocking to all of you. I've been thinking about the cylon centurions and their level of awareness. At this point I've decided that they must be rather childlike in their understanding and reasoning. Apparently they can be easily persuaded. Yet that same childlike ability is still dangerous to those who want to control them, therefore that was taken away--first by the humans, later by the flesh-and-bone cylons.
Today deborah_judge posted In My Body is My Destiny (warnings for mostly non-graphic murder and rape). It's Leoben's POV about his ancestry and explores the idea that the first humanoid robots were made for war and sex. They're both pretty horrifying uses for sentient beings.
We can confirm that the war aspect is correct--or at least confirm that they were certainly capable of acts of war.
Deborah made a good point in the comments about the possibility of machines built for sex: more than once Sixes and Eights were referred to as 'blow-up dolls.' And now that Deborah has pointed out that possibility, I'm cynically thinking it wouldn't be that long after making a successful war machine that someone would take that step.
I'm now assuming that the human creators of the cylons knew that they were making sentient beings. How were those machines initially enslaved by their makers if they were sentient?
During season 4.0 when the humans and cylons are first working toward a tentative agreement, a Two tells Natalie that he'll work with the centurions to revise their (initial) plans to betray the humans. By then the centurions have had the telencephalic inhibitors removed, so presumably the Two will have to use reasoning and logic to persuade the centurions to change the planned course of action. That's my guess, anyway. (At one point I wondered if he was going to try to reinstall the inhibitors, though.)
If reasoning and logic is now the way to work with the centurions, what did Natalie tell the centurions earlier to get them to agree to kill other cylons (One-Four-Five)? Is there a "leader" of the centurions that communicates decisions to the others or do they all have to be persuaded? (Communication: I'm assuming there must be some non-verbal way for them to 'talk.' Battlestar wiki suggests the possibility of a wireless network.)
What do cylon centurions remember? How much of sentience is connected to memory? They have to communicate; do they tell stories? What do the 'skinjobs' remember of their collective past use/abuse and how much of that memory is instead the stories they tell?
More: why did the metal cylons want flesh-and-bone 'descendants'? How much of the metal cylons' "brainpower" was embedded in the skinjobs by the so-called Final Five?
D'Anna's reluctance to continue living with the human-cylon collective speaks to me of a very long memory of war and betrayal. Whether that memory is literal or cultural is an interesting question but ultimately not important; what matters is that she remembers (in one way or another) a long history of betrayal of the sentience that the cylons were first given by humans... and a knowledge that other cylons betrayed that sentience. I wonder if she had a knowledge of the extent of the Ones' deceptions by then?
My last question: why does my brain insist on having every last detail in place before doing any actual story-writing?
maharet83 made banners for the SCC rewatch! They're all here. And you can still sign up to claim an episode or two to recap for us here. I'll post the recap for the pilot episode Friday, 2/11.Okay, I'm going to talk about Battlestar Galactica for a bit. I'm sure this is shocking to all of you. I've been thinking about the cylon centurions and their level of awareness. At this point I've decided that they must be rather childlike in their understanding and reasoning. Apparently they can be easily persuaded. Yet that same childlike ability is still dangerous to those who want to control them, therefore that was taken away--first by the humans, later by the flesh-and-bone cylons.
Today deborah_judge posted In My Body is My Destiny (warnings for mostly non-graphic murder and rape). It's Leoben's POV about his ancestry and explores the idea that the first humanoid robots were made for war and sex. They're both pretty horrifying uses for sentient beings.
We can confirm that the war aspect is correct--or at least confirm that they were certainly capable of acts of war.
Deborah made a good point in the comments about the possibility of machines built for sex: more than once Sixes and Eights were referred to as 'blow-up dolls.' And now that Deborah has pointed out that possibility, I'm cynically thinking it wouldn't be that long after making a successful war machine that someone would take that step.
I'm now assuming that the human creators of the cylons knew that they were making sentient beings. How were those machines initially enslaved by their makers if they were sentient?
During season 4.0 when the humans and cylons are first working toward a tentative agreement, a Two tells Natalie that he'll work with the centurions to revise their (initial) plans to betray the humans. By then the centurions have had the telencephalic inhibitors removed, so presumably the Two will have to use reasoning and logic to persuade the centurions to change the planned course of action. That's my guess, anyway. (At one point I wondered if he was going to try to reinstall the inhibitors, though.)
If reasoning and logic is now the way to work with the centurions, what did Natalie tell the centurions earlier to get them to agree to kill other cylons (One-Four-Five)? Is there a "leader" of the centurions that communicates decisions to the others or do they all have to be persuaded? (Communication: I'm assuming there must be some non-verbal way for them to 'talk.' Battlestar wiki suggests the possibility of a wireless network.)
What do cylon centurions remember? How much of sentience is connected to memory? They have to communicate; do they tell stories? What do the 'skinjobs' remember of their collective past use/abuse and how much of that memory is instead the stories they tell?
More: why did the metal cylons want flesh-and-bone 'descendants'? How much of the metal cylons' "brainpower" was embedded in the skinjobs by the so-called Final Five?
D'Anna's reluctance to continue living with the human-cylon collective speaks to me of a very long memory of war and betrayal. Whether that memory is literal or cultural is an interesting question but ultimately not important; what matters is that she remembers (in one way or another) a long history of betrayal of the sentience that the cylons were first given by humans... and a knowledge that other cylons betrayed that sentience. I wonder if she had a knowledge of the extent of the Ones' deceptions by then?
My last question: why does my brain insist on having every last detail in place before doing any actual story-writing?
no subject
More: why did the metal cylons want flesh-and-bone 'descendants'?
This strikes me as particularly tragic, as the best story I can come up with is that the Centurions wanted to be flesh and blood (it just looks like so much more fun), and though they could not achieve that for themselves they set out to do so for their 'children' (and then their children decided they were obsolete, stuck them with inhibitors and all that, etc etc). But then I get confused about the Final Five and the chronology and all that fun stuff.
no subject
Human bodies have the whole sense-interaction thing that metal doesn't have, even if they're programmed to hear, sense temperature, etc. Hm.
no subject
We can confirm that the war aspect is correct--or at least confirm that they were certainly capable of acts of war.
This is actually a big part of 'Caprica' - Daniel made the original Cylons as fighting machines, and Sam Adama (Bill's uncle) is the first to use them that way. Daniel does seem to know that they are sentient, but is quite confused about the extent to which they are people. In a highly disturbing scene, Daniel brings a Cylon to a board meeting and has it rip off its own arm to show how completely Cylons are under human control. In another highly disturbing scene, Daniel makes a virtual replica of his wife Amanda but programs her to be forgiving and sexually available in ways his wife isn't. On the other hand, Daniel and Amanda make a Cylon replica of their daughter and see this as getting their daughter back.
The question of how much Centurions are sentient is not quite settled - at first it seems that Centurions are only sentient when programmed with reconstructed human personalities. Late in the series, though, it seems that all the Centurions are sentient enough to recognize friends and make moral decisions.
What do the 'skinjobs' remember of their collective past use/abuse and how much of that memory is instead the stories they tell?
One thing about my story is that Leoben doesn't know about the Final Five, who were also part of the history of how and why he was created and had a much less abusive purpose in creating humanoid robots. (On the other hand, aside from the Ellen/Boomer and Ellen/One scenes, we never see the Final Five show much affection or attention towards their children either, which makes me sad.)
But yeah, this is all fascinating and disturbing to think about, and I'll look forward to seeing what you come up with.
no subject
Eeep, Daniel made a replica of his wife? Avatar or flesh? (Ugh, I'm not sure I want to know the answer to that; it's creepy either way.)
On the other hand, Daniel and Amanda make a Cylon replica of their daughter and see this as getting their daughter back.
Flesh or metal? I saw glimpses of ads and such and I know that the Zoe avatar was in a metal body at one point; did they make a humanoid body for her, or did they perceive the metal body with the avatar as their daughter?
One thing about my story is that Leoben doesn't know about the Final Five, who were also part of the history of how and why he was created and had a much less abusive purpose in creating humanoid robots.
Yes, that comes across well. What stories did the Ones tell the other humanoid models about their creation? Ack, I'm going to have to rewatch parts now; I'm forgetting if we knew anything about that.
Thinking about D'Anna some more: she knows the identity of the Final Five. Does she know what their role actually was?
(On the other hand, aside from the Ellen/Boomer and Ellen/One scenes, we never see the Final Five show much affection or attention towards their children either, which makes me sad.)
Yeah, I can see now why the 'tell me what to write' prompt you gave was asking for that kind of interaction. Ellen was the only one of the Five who was self-aware onscreen with their creations. Sam had such a brief time of remembering before he lost consciousness, and Tigh, Tory and Tyrol were only able to remember flashes...
no subject
If you decide you want to know, scroll down to Amanda-A here:
http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Amanda_Graystone
Flesh or metal? I saw glimpses of ads and such and I know that the Zoe avatar was in a metal body at one point; did they make a humanoid body for her, or did they perceive the metal body with the avatar as their daughter?
They made a 'skin-job' body for her, but it's not exactly like the Cylons we know - it was more like a metal body covered in skin.
my resulting speculation was that the Zoe-avatar Daniel downloaded and used might have some comprehension of the expanse of learning that can be encompassed by having a body... and the cylons made later had that echo of want (for a living body) rooted deep in their makeup.
That makes sense to me. I wonder what One made of that history...he's so angry about having a human body, but he seems to be the only model that isn't happy about it.
no subject
Yeah, if he was modeled after Ellen Tigh's father, all I can say is that Ellen's dad must have been a perverse monster. (Why would Ellen want to recreate that?!)