Drunkard's Walk Forums

This is a game that may be played by some Fen, in a more or less serious way (the reward money is attractive, though the danger factor is really high).
http://www.fenspace.net/i...?title=Dr._Asmodeus_Grey

One of the early theories was that DAG (as we will call him) had been biomodded into a catgirl; the 'Catgirl Theory'.  There are a number of sub-theories:

• This was a lab accident
• This was intentional, as a way of hiding, and can/can't be reversed
• The resulting catgirl has no memories of being DAG, and this will/wont wear off
• The resulting catgirl knows exactly what happened, and is being a good actor (DAG is not known to have acting skills)

First of all, the catgirl "Grey":
http://www.fenspace.net/index.php5?title=Grey
has got annoyed about people suggesting that she is, knowingly or unknowingly, DAG.  Smart people quickly figure-out that her marine background is not something DAG had.  Conspiracy theorists suggest DAG was known to mess with minds, and might have had ways of copying skills from others, more or less successfully (he might have over-written his, now her, mind with someone else's).  And, there are always stupid people around...

Then there is the 'Shapeshifter Theory' based on the idea that DAG understood the Catgirling Machine so well he created an improved version, the Shapeshifting Machine.  He is using this to wander around completely anonymously in Fenspace, changing his shape when he wants to.  A subsidiary theory has him replacing a BNF, maybe someone obscure or reclusive.  Supposedly there are long-term bets on which BNF might really be DAG.

The 'Wolverine Theory' has DAG having perfected the Catgirling Machine for its original purpose.  He is now wandering around Fenspace, with claws, regen, enhanced senses and an indestructible skeleton calling himself 'Logan', or something like that, with no memory of his past life.  Those holding this theory say it might be best to leave him alone...  A subsidiary theory has him turning himself into (an amnesiac) 'Lady Deathstrike', because the machine only creates females.

The 'Alien Army' theory has DAG having left the Solar System, and found a usable alien planet, maybe a really obscure one in the life zone of a brown dwarf, like Azkaban.
http://www.fenspace.net/index.php5?title=Azkaban
there he is using technologies based on the Catgirling Machine to create an alien army, maybe even an entire alien civilization.  He might then engineer a 'First Contact' situation with Fenspace, and manoeuvre things until he is in a position of power.  After 2014 some claim that DAG is in fact "Queen Diva", and originated the Bugrom:
http://www.fenspace.net/i...?title=Crime_in_Fenspace

The 'Upload Theory' is that DAG has used some variant on the Catgirling technology to turn himself into an AI, and is hiding in the Interweave.  A few members of the Hacker Underspace thought this sufficiently interesting (or they were bored) but they report finding no evidence.  The conspiracy theorists say he is just'really good at hiding'.  Related theories have him controlling hordes of more-or-less unknowing clones or robots, either from the Interweave or while floating in a life support tank.  Or, having one or more BNF as (more-or-less unknowing) puppets.

The 'Hiding On Earth Theory' is pretty obvious from the name.  There are billions of people there, and quite a few governments and other organisations would really like to have use of his skills.  Versions of this theory specify different countries - you can probably guess who are the front runners.

'Tortured By Catgirls Theory' is again pretty obvious.  Some catgirl or group of catgirls already has DAG, and they are trying to wring-out his secrets.  Either he doesn't know how to fix the problems caused by the Catgirling Machine (and they don't believe this) or he has done something to himself to make him (nearly) immune to their questioning.  All groups of catgirls contacted deny this, but the conspiracy theorists already knew they would say that.

The 'Ransom Theory' is just too simple for most people.  This has an individual or an organisation who has DAG 'on ice', and will turn him in for the reward when it gets big enough.

The least popular is the 'He's Dead Jim Theory', for obvious reasons.  Very few people are willing to believe he was vapourised or his body has just not been found or recognised.

A theory only known to very few people (the 'Prisoner Theory') is that DAG might be somehow hiding in the Kandor prison system:
http://www.fenspace.net/index.php5?title=The_Vault
using an assumed identity.  They suspect this because they know he was on the design team and very likely knows all the strengths and weaknesses of the system.  They aren't talking about this because it would tell people too much about the Vaults secrets, might weaken public confidence in the Kandor prison system, and might cost some people their jobs if there was an investigation.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

The "catgirl theory" is absurd. A Mad is alwas a Mad, so even if the Dr. was a catgirl with no memories (s)he would still be fiddling aroung in Things Man (and Cat) Were not Mean to Know, and you do not see Mad catgirls anywere around, don't y... er... ~checks wiki~ where exactly is Jenga and is it far enough from Luna for safety?

Rakhasa Wrote:The "catgirl theory" is absurd. A Mad is alwas a Mad, so even if the Dr. was a catgirl with no memories (s)he would still be fiddling aroung in Things Man (and Cat) Were not Mean to Know, and you do not see Mad catgirls anywere around, don't y... er... ~checks wiki~ where exactly is Jenga and is it far enough from Luna for safety?

*ROTFL*
Oh, Jenga is mobile... so it could be anywhere at the moment, even right behind you!
(and yes, CI has a catgirling machine at Jenga)

It wouldn't surprise me if he put himself through a catgirl machine in a bid to escape by blending in with his 'creations', and in a fit of poetic justice unintentionally permanently erased his own memories.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

Dartz Wrote:It wouldn't surprise me if he put himself through a catgirl machine in a bid to escape by blending in with his 'creations', and in a fit of poetic justice unintentionally permanently erased his own memories.

If that really happened and "he" kept his scientific/mad mindset, he might really be found on Jenga a few years later.

I'm going to hint at one secret for the end of Legend of Galactic Girls:

Dr. Grey understands the Catgirl Machine very well.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

I wonder if it is possible, for someone who knows the Machine, to delete your memories for a set amount of time, and then have they return once that time is over...

It has been hinted at in a few places, but if you look at the "Julian Friez Machine", and the "Catgirling Machine", you can see how things work. The first machine "Slices, Dices, Makes Julian Friez", the second machine makes catgirls. The second machine is supposedly based on the first. This has disturbing implications.

The "Julian Friez Machine" makes a specific human male (with a few minor variations) from non-living matter - the chemical elements that make up a human body. The "Catgirling Machine" makes people into catgirls, and also needs a plastic anatomical model skeleton. How are the two similar?

You might assume the "Catgirling Machine" slices/dices the person put into it, to get the equivalent of the of the raw materials that the "Julian Friez Machine" needs. It kills them, and brings a new person to life using their remains. This is why it evades the "one biomod a lifetime" restriction - it kills people, and reshapes their dead flesh. Necromancy?

All "Julian Friez" have the same memories imprinted when they are created - his experiences before the machine. Catgirls vary more, and get the memories of the person who died to create them. This implies that all of that person's memories flow through the machine - maybe being subject to recording or replacement on the way (on-the-fly editing would be a massively complex task, in only 15mins).

Is this true? It seems to match most of what is known about the two machines. The implication is for a great deal of very useful medical processes, maybe uploading and downloading minds, fast cloning, regeneration, resurrection of the dead, taking a damaged or injured body to pieces and reassembling it as fit and well. Maybe using a 3D CAD system to design a body, then making one, with the choice of any mind on record (or a directly copied one).

Maybe only Dr. Asmodeus Grey fully understands...
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

There's also the theory that Vulpine Fury is the Jekyll to Asmodeus Grey's Hyde. It's utter poppycock, but it does float around.

Another point: VF came very close to being the first catgirling victim due to just what the "El" in "Eljay" stands for...

One of the "He's a catgirl!" theories places him as Tabitha Doe, morale officer of the Pinafore. As she's one of the first recorded "mindwipe" catgirls.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

Ace Dreamer Wrote:All "Julian Friez" have the same memories imprinted when they are created - his experiences before the machine. Catgirls vary more, and get the memories of the person who died to create them. This implies that all of that person's memories flow through the machine - maybe being subject to recording or replacement on the way (on-the-fly editing would be a massively complex task, in only 15mins).

Ooh! I hadn't thought about that, but it does explain why **WHITENOISE** **WHITENOISE** **WHITENOISE** **WHITENOISE** **WHITENOISE** rather elegantly.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

robkelk Wrote:Ooh! I hadn't thought about that, but it does explain why **WHITENOISE** **WHITENOISE** **WHITENOISE** **WHITENOISE** **WHITENOISE** rather elegantly.

If the catgirling machine contains some memory manipulation tech (in addition to the typical Boskone memory wike), it might be discovered in Season 2... CI had spent a lot of time (like many other Fen) with the catgirling machine... and they also accumulate experience with memory manipulation during their work with Quattros tech.

HRogge Wrote:

robkelk Wrote:Ooh! I hadn't thought about that, but it does explain why **WHITENOISE** **WHITENOISE** **WHITENOISE** **WHITENOISE** **WHITENOISE** rather elegantly.

If the catgirling machine contains some memory manipulation tech (in addition to the typical Boskone memory wike), it might be discovered in Season 2... CI had spent a lot of time (like many other Fen) with the catgirling machine... and they also accumulate experience with memory manipulation during their work with Quattros tech.

The odds are that the basic Catgirling Machine doesn't do memory manipulation.  But, if you can record the entire memory as it flows through the machine you can probably substitute a recorded set of memories for the ones of the person being cat-girled, and if you want to then record their memories as well.  I suspect the original Boskone researchers put at least one catgirl through the Machine more than once, if nothing else to see what happened.  Then, maybe tried it again, with a time delay for 'recovery', if the first one died.

You might wonder if Boskone ever shoved more or less fresh corpses through the Catgirling Machine, just to see what happened...

Wiping someone's memories is... messy.  If you just wipe everything then you've got an adult catgirl with the skills and experiences of an infant.  And, they may not be able to relearn any useful skills without a great deal of work.
There is some evidence that the human mind handles memories of skills and of personal history differently, so you might be able to keep the skills (including such things as toilet training, walking, and speaking) while blocking the catgirl from knowing their history.  If you can insert a filter that does this then the personal history is lost permanently, unless you bother to record it (or, unless you believe this is somehow recorded in the soul).
If a cache of personal memories of mind wiped catgirls is discovered, maybe "kept for research", then it might be possible to restore lost memories using a very slightly modified Catgirling Machine.  If the Boskone were generous it might even be reasonably easy to match-up catgirls with their recordings (they might have bothered to do this as it might help their later research), maybe with a DNA tag or something.

You might be able to induce the sort of effect that causes IRL traumatic amnesia, but that is likely more tricky, and memory might return later.  This might involve drugs; some sort of cannabinoid in the modding mix?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabinoid
Boskone likely don't do this if they have a more sophisticated mind wipe.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

Ace Dreamer Wrote:Wiping someone's memories is... messy.  If you just wipe everything then you've got an adult catgirl with the skills and experiences of an infant.  And, they may not be able to relearn any useful skills without a great deal of work.

The Boskones had a device that removed most of the "memory", most likely a lot of the more complicated skills and the personality... leaving the victim without an idea who they are. But not all catgirls were "wiped".

Quote:Boskone likely don't do this if they have a more sophisticated mind wipe.

Yes.

I am not even sure Quattros memory manipulation tech is based on the basic Boskonian devices, but I think so. CI acquired the tech after the raid on Nehallenia and began researching how to detect the effects of the tech... and a little bit more.

HRogge Wrote:

Ace Dreamer Wrote:Wiping someone's memories is... messy.  If you just wipe everything then you've got an adult catgirl with the skills and experiences of an infant.  And, they may not be able to relearn any useful skills without a great deal of work.

The Boskones had a device that removed most of the "memory", most likely a lot of the more complicated skills and the personality... leaving the victim without an idea who they are. But not all catgirls were "wiped".

Sounds something like induced Multiple Personality Disorder (whatever it is fashionable to call it at the moment), or some other major fragmentation of the personality.  Fiction has some remarkably precise devices which mess with people's memories, but I'm not sure how much you could get handwavium to cooperate in this sort of thing.  I suppose you could claim that hard-tech is used to do the damage, and handwavium is working as hard as it can to minimise the bad effects.
One possibility is that the memories are all still there, they just can't be accessed, due to damage to either the retrieval system, or the indexing/associative system that lets people get at their memories.  Changing someone's sense of personal identity by changing their body to a catgirl would be quite traumatic, and it is possible Boskone had a way of directing the effects of that trauma.  Maybe something like high tech conditioning?
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

Ace Dreamer Wrote:Sounds something like induced Multiple Personality Disorder (whatever it is fashionable to call it at the moment), or some other major fragmentation of the personality. Fiction has some remarkably precise devices which mess with people's memories, but I'm not sure how much you could get handwavium to cooperate in this sort of thing.

I think they developed it from some "quick-learning" device some other Fen invented.

Fenspace is not limited to building stuff from Scifi... (and it cannot build all stuff described in Scifi)

Quote:I suppose you could claim that hard-tech is used to do the damage, and handwavium is working as hard as it can to minimise the bad effects. One possibility is that the memories are all still there, they just can't be accessed, due to damage to either the retrieval system, or the indexing/associative system that lets people get at their memories. Changing someone's sense of personal identity by changing their body to a catgirl would be quite traumatic, and it is possible Boskone had a way of directing the effects of that trauma. Maybe something like high tech conditioning?

If my (as a writer) knowledge is right, the memories are not there anymore.

CI will have proven this in 2016 during their research.

HRogge Wrote:

Ace Dreamer Wrote:Sounds something like induced Multiple Personality Disorder (whatever it is fashionable to call it at the moment), or some other major fragmentation of the personality. Fiction has some remarkably precise devices which mess with people's memories, but I'm not sure how much you could get handwavium to cooperate in this sort of thing.

I think they developed it from some "quick-learning" device some other Fen invented.

That sounds... unfortunate.  Sounds like a conditioning effect, unless the "quick-learning" device had an erase capability, for when you needed to un-learn old stuff before learning new stuff.

Quote:Fenspace is not limited to building stuff from Scifi... (and it cannot build all stuff described in Scifi)

Yes, there are all sorts of sources for stuff.  And, a lot of stuff either isn't possible, or isn't appropriate for Fenspace.

Quote:

Quote:I suppose you could claim that hard-tech is used to do the
damage, and handwavium is working as hard as it can to minimise the bad
effects. One possibility is that the memories are all still there, they
just can't be accessed, due to damage to either the retrieval system, or
the indexing/associative system that lets people get at their memories.
Changing someone's sense of personal identity by changing their body to
a catgirl would be quite traumatic, and it is possible Boskone had a
way of directing the effects of that trauma. Maybe something like high
tech conditioning?

If my (as a writer) knowledge is right, the memories are not there anymore.

CI will have proven this in 2016 during their research.

Wow!  That is impressive.  If the mind wipe will work at any other time than while they're in the Catgirling Machine, doubly impressive.  IRL we don't know how memories are stored.  But long-term memories will survive really massive trauma.  Sounds like something which messes with the basic neural wiring, or memory RNA, or methylation:
http://epigenie.com/memor...aved-by-dna-methylation/
A real "erase head".
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

Crap, I just realized something. Dr. Grey was a Super, so probably lived in Kandor in the early years, and Oscar is a Mad biologist who also lived in Kandor in the early years. It is very, very likely that they were (more or less) friendly acquaintances, and maybe even brainstormed together in several projects. Oscar may have personal reasons to hate the not-so-good Doctor.
Mmmm... It can be taken for granted that the Space Patrol is well aware of this, but how widespread should Grey's backstory be among Luna's civilians?

Ace Dreamer Wrote:Fiction has some remarkably precise devices which mess with people's memories, but I'm not sure how much you could get handwavium to cooperate in this sort of thing.

HRogge Wrote:I think they developed it from some "quick-learning" device some other Fen invented.

Correct. Specifically, it's a development of the sleep-learning device that was invented by the unfortunate cab-driver who became Tabitha Doe.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

robkelk Wrote:

HRogge Wrote:I think they developed it from some "quick-learning" device some other Fen invented.

Correct. Specifically, it's a development of the sleep-learning device that was invented by the unfortunate cab-driver who became Tabitha Doe.

So, given that Tabitha is the first and best known of the victems, it would be safe to say that now only Dr Gray know how it works?
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children

I'm not sure about that. Grey had to have expanded upon "Tabitha's" machine - it didn't do memory erasures without repeated applications - and there's nothing saying he did or didn't leave the new schematics somewhere.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

*nods* but since who Tabitha was has been lost forever, the start point for whatever work Grey did over and above that is now only known to the DR, making it that much harder to reverse enginer the process; possibly making it impossible even?
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children

I think people might be trying too hard to make the Catgirling Machine difficult to understand.

First: The original Catgirling Machine was taken care of by the crew of the Pinafore, yet Catgirling Machines still exist. That indicates they can't be very difficult to duplicate.

Second: Dr. Grey may be a Mad, but that doesn't make him any less a scientist. Nobody has ever hinted that he doesn't follow proper lab procedure, and that includes keeping detailed notes so that people can replicate his research.

Third: The Catgirling Machines were at least inspired by The Professor's Julien Friez machine, and the plans for that are in the public domain in Fenspace. The Professor publishes everything he creates or learns, after all.

Fourth: Just because somebody can do something does not mean that he or anybody else can undo that thing. (I say this for the people who want to tell stories about researching the CMs after the Boskone War... or for the folks who think Dr. Grey has put himself through the process.)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

Originally, way back when, I'd intended for the "mind wipe" catgirls to mainly be some of the poor souls who were still awake when they got dumped in and couldn't take the body horror as they were disassembled.

Shades of "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream."

By and large, a number of Boskone took to KO'ing or drugging their victims because the screams got to them, and/or the blanks were too unpredictable when they reformed a personality.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

robkelk Wrote:Third: The Catgirling Machines were at least inspired by The Professor's Julien Friez machine, and the plans for that are in the public domain in Fenspace. The Professor publishes everything he creates or learns, after all.

Does this mean that the Professor published the process he put Julian Friez through to record his personality, all his skills and personal history?
The reason I ask this is because Julian Friez is still alive afterwards.  So the Professor devised a way to either do a non-destructive read of his memory, or a destructive read but he put him back together again afterwards (maybe in the process seamlessly inserting the tracking tag into his leg bone).
If this is the case then you only have to look at the problem a bit sideways to realise this means that a solution (if not the solution) to the big problem of uploading minds has already been published in the public domain...
The Professor, in the form of the Julian Friez Machine, has also solved the problem of how to take a recording of a mind and put this into a new body.
Not (yet) solved then is how to:

• take that recording to pieces
• rearrange or omit some of the pieces
• add pieces from other sources
• make-up new pieces out of whole cloth, say by some sort of CAD mind designer system
• assemble pieces together to make a viable new mind
• read and display memories from a recording
• put a recording into something like a robot brain
• load a recording into a computer so it can be run something like an AI
• merge together the experience from multiple originally identical minds to create a mind that has use of all of those experiences

and I'm sure others can come up with things I've missed to add to that list.
The transhumanists, if no one else, will be sending the Professor proposals of marriage and offering to bear children for him after that...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism
that is, of course, independent of their original gender. [grin]

I think we need to think very carefully about the usability of the Professor's published plans, because they have very major implications for what happens in Fenspace.  I'm assuming that Boskone couldn't make full use of them because, otherwise, why would they have bothered kidnapping the Professor?  (Yes, I can see the argument that they wanted whatever else they could get him to make, and with no one else having access to it.)
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind