You could say that about just about anything, even if you’re just “selling” mental perceptions. Sure you want to go this route?
If you’d like a ranging discussion about media ethics, then perhaps a new thread for that is in order.
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Neverending Wars,
Brought upon us by Demons,
Thoroughly antagonising each Other,
For they want us to plea for their Rule.
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Look, I may be a soldier, but I am damn sure that scientists aren’t people who do things “for their own reasons”. They do things in order to find understanding of the laws by which our universe operates, so the engineers (or applied scientists) could use this knowledge to develop advancements for our civilization.
The duty of a scientist is to work for the needs of Caldari State.
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I’d actually say the duty of a scientist is to serve everyone.
Science doesn’t care which Empire you may or may not live in. If any work I do benefits the caldari then you’re welcome.
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Here I was thinking the duty of a scientist was purely to engage in research for its own sake. That states* and humanity benefit from any applied use of that knowledge is a handy side effect, but applying any kind of qualifier on science automatically puts restrictions on it as anything that doesn’t ‘fit in’ with the most powerful opinion on what ‘serves humanity’ or ‘serves such and such a state*’ would be presumably denounced/defunded/prohibited and potentially leaves discoveries veiled till some other less restrictive polity’s scientists figure it out.
*state here being used as a catch all term to refer to any organised society with a form of government and administration, from singular nations on a planet up to interplanetary stellar empire levels, and not just the Caldari State in particular.
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Research for its own sake as a need of the scientist, but in my opinion a scientist should seek to further knowledge for all. This is either by confirming theories or by challenging them. Both are valuable and necessary study paths.
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There are two kind of science: fundamental and applied. Applied science does indeed have goals of ‘serving humanity’, it’s about creating something new, it is mostly about using scientific knowledge. Some people call people doing this science as scientists, other call them engineers. And they get the most of funding.
Other, or “real” science is fundamendal. And again, it isn’t research for its own sake. It is research in order to understand how exactly things work, every tiny detail. It creates the knowledge itself. They get way less funding, but still - the knowledge is the commodity, and I would say they serve the humanity as well, because they “sell” the knowledge they find for others to use.
As for opinion what serves humanity more… well, it is usually expressed through the funding. It’s all about market, just market of knowledge. Different type of the business, but the business nethertheless. Megacorporations pay for what they need and… don’t pay for what they don’t need. Easy like that. I am not myself though in this business and I don’t know what scientists do with knowledge the Corporations don’t buy. Probably just publish it somewhere just to make their citation count or something?
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You’ve proved my point Commander. Explorations into fundamentals of the universe in the quest of new knowledge, and following the path of that knowledge wherever it leads to new fundamentals, rather then specific goals relating to applied knowledge, is research for research’s sake. This is as opposed to research into fundamentals for the sake of a better shampoo, say.
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It’s a slightly different thing that I wanted to say… But I see your point.
I’d say that very much depends on the scientist, and unfortunately the harsh reality is that science is often driven buy funding from corps for specific profit making ventures. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but does have a tendancy to stovepipe research into certain fields.
I’m lucky in the sense that I earn enough from applying my science skills on tech II/tech III production for instance. This allows me to spend time on pure research into the fields that interest me at any given time.
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I’m going to quote Dr Tukoss on the matter:
Applied science? All science is applied… Eventually
I agree with Mr Farsaidh, that a scientist should further knowledge for all, and that all studies should be challenged , whatever your opinion of a theory is, the best you can do, if your experiment confirm it, and you are a true scientist, you will consider changing your opinion, or it debunk it, and it become up to you to build a new one.
And while I am in the same position of funding than Mr Farsaidh, it is my opinion that even “non directly applied science” is useful. For example, if scientist of past millennia had not studied the gravitational waves and their effect, we wouldn’t have stargates now.
That’s why I think the drifter are capable of differentiating salvaged elements that could led us to new breakthrough in stale field of study (as the templar project did in his time) and salvaged elements that could “only” speed up already researched tech.
Let’s take the Jove observatory, the reason of their aggressiveness around them could well be that they don’t want us to discover truly “advanced” technology. Remember that drifter are “jovian” and their behaviour is coherent with my theory that they are manipulated by an AI trying to “save” the jove empire. And it’s pretty obvious that they monitored the cluster way back before humanity took the stars again. Maybe the reason that drifter are aggressive when we get close to JO and with the SoCT is that the AI apply a “do not interfere” kind of rule.
Last thing abour transparency: while I can understand that ARC can’t be transparent while the operation is ongoing, if science is truly their goal, then after the operation, everything should be made public.
Back on topic of infomophs,
I would like to add that it’s not because your sensor did not detected a thing that there was no intrusion. Backdoors, hidden protocols, accessing informations like who you know, what you know, etc.
They do not need to “replace” someone to be effective.
And given time, you can also alter memories, knowledge and why not biology?
Remember the kyonoke plague? it would have been the deadliest illness even for capsuleers.
yes…
capsuleers.
It was a prion-class virus, that mean it live inside the brain. The same brain that is copied at sub-atomic level of precision at the moment of death. Capsuleers would have been the most effective way to convey the plague all around the cluster.
(Note: I’m not saying that drifters made the kyonoke plague, just to be clear ^^" )
So yes, you need to be EXTREMELY careful around drifter places. Better safe than sorry.
Umbre Fallenstars.
-CEO of Khazad Consortium-
PS: I also re-propose my help on your project (if you want it ofc) .
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As shall I!
Also, because I don’t think the sentiment’s complete with out it, I’d also like to quote Lyris Nairn, of Goonswarm:
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Good afternoon, pilots;
ARC has secured access to the warbarge RKS Sword of Salvation for initial technical analysis, care of the contribution of Templar Thal Vadam. Engineers are currently verifying the equipment against known schematics, in consultation with contractors from Zainou and Kirkinen Risk Control. Progress on this front may be expected in the coming weeks. We will be seeking acquisition of additional hardware
Likewise, we’ve received many offers of technical assistance with a variety of alternative or possibly complimentary technology bases, and will be requesting design documents from those parties directly in the coming days. Please note that our standing objective is the development of ARC’s capacity to achieve these missions on a long-running basis, and so we are unlikely to contract the actual boarding itself to a third party without development of a durable working relationship.
Lastly, on the airlock-vs-breaching debate. Our primary targets at present are actually already breached, care of the Drifters. As such, breaching is less of a concern. If anything, this will provide a testbed for verification of sensor techniques that will allow us to establish areas of hull that are safe to breach without endangering objective materials. Likewise, airlocks remain an option, and a suitable boarding lock can ensure maintenance of internal atmosphere where appropriate. Much of this will depend on how standardized Sleeper station infrastructure is, and how any defensive infrastructure was patterned, if any exists.
My apologies for the slowness of the process to date! As you’d imagine, while this is on our current project log, operational needs remain paramount.
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I will be looking forward to seeing the outcome of this…
If you are still looking for helping hands I will gladly put myself and my assets at your disposal.
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Thank you, Ms. Blackfire! Your interest is appreciated. I’ll include you in the mailings to go out shortly.
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A small update, pilots.
This will cover communications with interested parties, technical points currently being addressed by our personnel, and a summary of points of interest in preparation for proof-of-concept testing.
A note has been sent to those pilots who’ve offered services or technical capabilities requesting specifications, etc. Needless to say, the responses we’ve received so far are heartening! Some elements of the technologies are likely to be incorporated in a meaningful way as we identify points of improvement in the primary area of inquiry.
Right now, we’re faced with several matters requiring technical development. Fortunately, due to the resources currently at our disposal, these are unlikely to be major hurdles. Instead, this is as much establishing a more rigorous technical background in systems that, while not proprietary, had not been widely available outside of certain specialist organizations.
The first issue is one of communications technology. As has been verified in continued analysis of Jovian cadavers, Sleepers appear to possess cranial quantum entangled communications implants, and these have been uniformly present in any cadaver we’ve recovered with an intact skull. We’ll be including a segment on this in the white paper to follow. This implant is distinct from the solid-state implant control hub and consciousness processing device used by clone soldiers, as is clearly evidenced by the range-limited nature of clone soldier deployment. Our suspicion is that the Sleeper ability to compress and transmit data via entangled comms may be markedly more advanced than our existing systems, hence the inability to integrate the technology directly with our FTL systems. It may be that initial deployments of the clone soldier technology base employed certain failsafe communications systems used by the Sleeper implant architecture, or that the Sleepers employ a hybridized system.
With the development process for clone soldier implants being a subject of more conjecture than verifiable knowledge, we are currently attempting to identify common patterns for communications technology, as it appears there were at least four parallel development programs underway. Each relied as much as possible on the preferred technology base of the respective Yulai Conventions signatory power. The universal, however, is that the integrated information architecture is high-end, military-grade hardware, sufficiently hardened to be largely proof against electronic warfare. The transmission of incremental mindstate data occurred through proprietary battlespace command and control networks, evidently often supported by surveillance drones or nanite swarms, orbital observation, and all the other tools of the trade deployed in reconnaissance and battlespace control. Loss of command platforms usually appears to lead to a collapse of the tactical network or ‘tacnet,’ though critical assets and infomorph databases remain outside the battlespace.
Second, we are verifying the effectiveness of clone soldier combat suits in probable deployment conditions. As we know, the technologies incorporated into these suits are again military-grade hardware at what we might consider an ‘operator’ level. However, we have been unable to verify employment of the suits off of habitable worlds. While the suits are clearly hardened against NBC threats and are capable of HALO-style deployment using inertial dampeners, the life expectancy of a combat clone and the known environmental profile resulted in a selective development process. To this end, we are conducting tests of clone soldier combat suits in low- and null-gravity situations, and attempting to ensure viability in a range of potentially hazardous atmospheric mixes, or the absence of atmosphere altogether. Development work is currently being undertaken to provide for adequately-armored and -mobile suits able to operate in standard EVA environments.
Likewise, we are proofing against battlespace threats, such as hostile nanite swarms that might not be functional in atmosphere, but may be functional in the absence of one, and so on.
Third, we are working to develop a real-time T-DART deployment to monitor incremental mindstate transfers to verify sanctity of data transfer. Experience with virulent neuromemetic processes has allowed us a measure of capability here, and it is our hope that a combination of preserving pre-operation data, preventative monitoring of incremental mindstate transfers, and careful airgapping of critical systems will minimize risk of infomorph contamination. Our current estimated worst-case in instance of infomorph contamination is what amounts to amnesia covering the period of the boarding itself.
Lastly, we are working to establish a list of test objectives for initial proof-of-concept deployments to verify the effectiveness of salvage techniques, bridgehead deployment, and so on. Much of this hinges on the above development work, of course.
We remain hopeful that despite New Eden’s immediate militarization of the technology base, the progenitors of the technology consider it a non-military technology, simplifying battlespace concerns and rendering infomorph contamination concerns a non-issue.
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You didn’t send one to me.
Woe.
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Liability reason, I’m sure.
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