unforum

[Gram]

Both AI's are Rampant. The SP might even be a product of this.

Thus Both AI's will/must be eliminated by the end. Their time is up and they'll only become crazier if we let them live.

Now I know its harsh and a lot of you have become attached but it's the right thing to do. Its just like if someone was brain dead and you had to pull the plug, these AI's are the dreams of a brain dead original AI. One who requested death along time ago. Only this time we don't have the navy to help us.

Before that though like the Flea has said many times we must find out the truth. By any means possible.

[skybruin]

[Ekim]

Well, damn. It looks like we're in quite the proverbial pickle now. On one hand, we have the SP, who has been our friend and informant throughout the past 10 weeks, and is the heart of Yasmine. On the other hand, we have Dana, who, from the beginning, we were here to help, yet seemingly non-important up until this point. Both innocent, both in the wrong place at the wrong time, and both in trouble. I don't for one second think that Melissa can be trusted with either of their lives (or Aunt Margaret's life for that matter.)

My first reaction to this was screw Dana, but then I quickly realized that it's not right to sacrifice one person for another no matter what. We can't be hasty to jump to conclusions that Dana is willling to help Melissa, or that Dana isn't trying her best to stop anybody from getting hurt. Melissa threatened her Aunt, and if I were in her place, I'd do anything to save my family. Dana still isn't the enemy. Melissa made that mistake, and look at the mess it caused.

Now, to me, it seems like if the SP and Melissa could be merged, the result would be a lot like Durga. I'm a firm believer that Melissa and SP were once one and the same, and somehow got seperated in their travel back in time. I haven't settled on any SPEC whether or not Durga was a third part of this original AI, or if she is merely a copy of Melissa and SP combined, as she seems to have parts of Yasmine inside her, too. But with Melissa behind the wheel, somebody is going to get hurt. The only thing we can really do is try to stop anybody from dying. No matter what we do, it will be very risky, and will have serious consequences if it doesn't work out.

The way I see it, if we want to take the path of trying to merge Melissa and the Princess, we have two choices:

1. Convince them both to figure out a way to do it on their own. (unlikely)
2. Let the Flea try to put them back together.

The Pious Flea is still ambiguous. He hasn't really shown faith to either side to this point, and trusting him could end up helping or harming our intentions. He might very well be our only hope in keeping the Princess, Dana, and Aunt Margaret alive and well. I'm starting to think the best route to take thus far would be to convince SP to allow him attach to her. It could be a horrible idea, or it could be the only way to make sure the Princess isn't deleted forever. With Melissa and Dana working together, the SP doesn't have a chance by herself.

Then again, on Dana's blog, she wants us to help her. She seems pretty decided that she's going to try and neutralize the "rogue process", but maybe we can find another way around it. I'm reluctant to the idea of trusting the Flea, and I'd much rather work with Dana to keep the SP safe, but I'm fresh out of ideas on how to do this. Can anyone else think of anything that might work?

[Logan5]

[meadslee]

I think Dana has to be very careful in what she does. If she does manage to give the SP to Melissa, what's stopping Melissa from killing Dana and her Aunt anyway??

We know that Melissa still see's Dana as a threat, so there would be no stopping Melissa either way. I think we should forget about Merging SP and the Flea with Melissa and all this crap, but try to destroy Melissa.

That or try and Merge Melissa and SP together again. Melissa was more friendly and soulful when SP was there, but now she is more mean and forceful in her actions.

Melissa needs to be destroyed or both Dana, Margeret, SP could all be detroyed by Melissa!

[kingchaos2]

That's cool and all, but where in the whole scheme of things do you see an oppurtunity to get rid of Melissa? Please don' thin kthat I'm yelling at you, because I'm not. But the only problem I see with eliminating Melissa is that there is no story trail to lead us axon hunters and beekeepers to do that. The only way I can see the whole story progressing is if we help Dana get rid of the SP. You could look at it as...Durga is already a part of Yasmine (because of her voices) so you won't feel so bad , but the truth of the matter is... the SP needs to go or at least needs to be near gone until we get an update on an alternative. As of now, there are none.

In response to Ekim, I've said this on another message board: here.

[Ranger D]

Ok, I've seen a lot of spec about us influencing the possible future, saving vs. killing millions in the future. I think this is kinda pointless for one reason: Halo 2 has gone gold.

If for some reason we had some kind of influence on Halo 2 from this game, that would had ended. Halo 2 is now in duplication. It's finished. So I believe that whatever we are doing in this game will have no impact on Halo 2 unless it was pre-scripted to be so. Which leads me to quote TuxKamen:

"Just don't forget: This ride's on rails."

So don't expect any far reaching effects from this game unless it was purposely scripted in. I hope I'm not spoiling anyone's fun.

[thebruce]

don't forget Xbox Live updates however... they may have possibly left hooks in the game to download updates on nov 9th with arg results...

but I'm not saying either way, just bringing up the point...

[Blah]

I don't think people are investing time in ILB with the belief that it will influence Halo 2. That's not to say it couldn't influence the Halo story in some way, though. There are a lot of things going on (described in the books) which don't even receive mention in the game.

But back to the task at hand, I think the SP's neutralization is almost inevitable at this point. I think it's important to consider two premises if you're still feeling attached to the SP:

1.) The Sleeping Princess is not alive, therefore
2.) The Sleeping Princess cannot die.

We don't know exactly what is meant by "neutralization". We don't completely understand the existence and interaction of these artificial entities, and so the term "neutralization" might not be as scary or bad as we think.

It's apparent that the SP is a fairly powerful entity, though. When she is "neutralized", I'm almost certain we'll see the effects of it in the wavs.

EDIT:
Of course, we haven't forgotten what happened to poor Weephun after the SP was captured. If at all possible, the person(s) responsible for the SP's neutralization will likely seek anonymity. And if so, we might not hear the details of that "advice" until after the deed is done.

[TheBiggestSean]

Well, the Flea is acting as the primary repair analog for The Op, right?

And it's a widely accepted [SPEC] that the Princess was once, or remains, a part of the Operator.

To this end, it makes me extremely curious what !attach would entail for the princess. If the Flea is acting a repair sequence, it could mean that he would re-integrate The Princess with Melissa.

Leading to what though? A sudden spike in Melissa's morality? It seems only natural that the game ends by bringing all the loose ends together, and with that happening in the Audio drama...

Flea could !attach to Princess.

And then !attach to Melissa. All three personalities (despite what the flea might turn out to be...) resolved into one, that is then snapped back to the future.

It seems... logical... for the most part. But Princess must be convinced to allow such an !attach-ment to take place.

[weephun]

[johnny5]

Oooh, Oooh.
What if we can get the SP to enclose the Operator in a "glass coffin"?
That would reverse the tables eh?

[Avatrix]

There's a question that occurs to me, reading the blog and Melissa's words, and from the fact that I pay close attention to words. Melissa says she wants Dana to "neutralize" the rogue process. Are we sure this means to "kill" SP in the sense of death? Or are we possibly looking at another glass coffin? Maybe there's another possibility entirely, such as removing the SP from the server so that she's no longer in conflict with Melissa (this, of course, would require that Melissa and the SP are not two faces of one entity). Maybe "neutralizing" the SP could cause a reunification of Melissa and SP into one AI.

The point of my questions, I suppose, is that we don't necessarily know what will happen to SP if we choose to help Dana. From that perspective, we may be able to come up with different ideas to approach the issue.

[jpublic]

[skilletaudio]

But, is not the classic doctrine of humanity that one life is worth the same as many?
I know we're going into Hollywood rhetoric here, but dont you want to be the scruffy hero, who will potentially risk the fate of humanity to save the one person, because dammit thats what it means to be human in the first place, and we miraculously manage to save everybody?

Except for the people we kill?

And the massive untolds of collateral damage due to our dallying?

But we never saw those people on screen anyway, so they're not as important as the people we can name.

Right? Be that guy!