unforum

Samari

sometimes a cigar is just a cigar

**Posted:** Mon Jul 26, 2004 7:32 pm

gheritt · Boot Joined: 25 Jul 2004 Posts: 58

Excellent point. Let's all just wait until the timer runs down.

**Posted:** Mon Jul 26, 2004 7:35 pm

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Gheritt White had been floating six feet off the floor for three weeks.........

Brane · Greenhorn Joined: 26 Jul 2004 Posts: 5

That is something we've definitely kicked around gheritt. The idea that Dana herself could be an aspect of a greater whole, just as the Operator may be an aspect of that whole (be it human, ai, or otherwise). One is whole but wishes to lose herself, the other has lost herself and is trying to become whole again.

**Posted:** Mon Jul 26, 2004 8:16 pm

number8

**Posted:** Mon Jul 26, 2004 8:25 pm

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Drool

problem quite interesting Drool

gheritt · Boot Joined: 25 Jul 2004 Posts: 58

It's not a pipe, it's a painting of a pipe.

Thanks, Brane -- I'm having trouble, as many people seem to be, keeping up with all of these discussions.

Edit: Hold on, it's an image of a painting of a pipe!

**Posted:** Mon Jul 26, 2004 8:34 pm

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Gheritt White had been floating six feet off the floor for three weeks.........

Anton Sirius

**Posted:** Mon Jul 26, 2004 8:36 pm

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Laugh while you can, monkey boy!

Anton Sirius

**Posted:** Mon Jul 26, 2004 8:37 pm

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Laugh while you can, monkey boy!

number8

"lots of noise, hard to follow the signal ..."

Now i know how Dana feels.

**Posted:** Mon Jul 26, 2004 8:46 pm

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Drool

problem quite interesting Drool

TheBiggestSean · Veteran Joined: 26 Jul 2004 Posts: 90

Actually, Dana's trip sounds like a path well traveled. The main character in "The Journey West" follows along a similar path.

Perhaps some mention of her trip is what attracted the SPDR to ilovebees.com in the first place. We know that one of the entities on the site has a fascination with classic literature in some way or another. One of the first Asian novels ever would fall nicely into that category, hm?

I don't know if waiting is the best course of action. I know that patience is the only way we'll be HANDED more clues, but it worries me how much interaction we'll get with Dana and her aunt following the erosion of network throttling. It could mean that anything not having to do with the repair of the Queen (including dialogue with people connected to the website). While we've no indication that SPDR is malevolent as of yet, I wouldn't put it past a... entity... that is so single minded in its goals and processes.

**Posted:** Mon Jul 26, 2004 8:47 pm

gheritt · Boot Joined: 25 Jul 2004 Posts: 58

**Posted:** Mon Jul 26, 2004 8:54 pm

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Gheritt White had been floating six feet off the floor for three weeks.........

TheBiggestSean · Veteran Joined: 26 Jul 2004 Posts: 90

I was expressing my own feeling about hating this countdown. It hangs this annoying "you're running out of time" feeling over your shoulder.

**Posted:** Mon Jul 26, 2004 9:38 pm

Gram · Guest

If you want to look at it that way we all are running out of time. Time will end and start all things. Nothing lasts forever. But then again something's will never be forgotten.

Philosophy Soup for the posters soul.

**Posted:** Tue Jul 27, 2004 2:43 am

skia · Greenhorn Joined: 27 Jul 2004 Posts: 9

Just to tie some of this together and get the thread back on track:

o Dana's name is all over the CSS that is generating the countdown.

o The javascript is called countdowntochina, which is where dana is going at about the same time the counter expires.

o Dana is exhibiting melancholy, which is also the first stage of rampancy.

o in marathon/halo, AIs that are copies of people are known to exist, but out-think themselves (get crowded in their thoughts) in ~7 years.

It's starting seems more and more likely Dana is an AI and that something is going wrong with her. Something maybe she doesn't even quite understand.

Speculation: could Dana be a copy of Aunt M? Do we know much about what M does other than make honey? Could she be Dana's creator?

More speculation: Could Aunt M's sister (dana's "mother") be work with AI in some way? Could she be dana's creator?

More wild speculation: Aunt M talks about how she never got along well with her sister and regrets it. And how much she loves her sister's daughter, dana. Could aunt M have copied her sister into the AI known as DANA as a way to mend old fences?

**Posted:** Tue Jul 27, 2004 10:51 am

Macavity

**Posted:** Thu Jul 29, 2004 3:05 pm

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You are likely to be eaten by a grue. If this predicament seems particularly cruel,
Consider whose fault it could be, with no match or torch in your inventory...
NP: Erase The Truth

krystyn

We're high-class. We trout with Magritte.

**Posted:** Thu Jul 29, 2004 3:37 pm