Chloe

by on September 28, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Character Profiles

Chloe survived the bombing of Old Paris, but she did not believe her country would. She saw her nation tearing itself apart, and came to one conclusion. France needed a unifying figure to hold the nation together. A new Charles de Gaulle. A new Charlemagne. A new Napoleon. But the Napoleon she found wasn’t interested in the job. So she used some of her tame politicians to consult with him. They were just requests for information and ideas. Some of them included trips to Paris after the bombing. All of this was using his American name, of course. It wouldn’t do for a descendent of long-dead Emperors to come back to France in her hour of need. So Chloe and her tame politicians showed the man who did not use the name Napoleon what France was like after the bombing, all under the guise of asking him for plans to make things better.

 Comment 

The AI Council

by on September 27, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Book of Civilizations

Most people do not realize that the AI Council built the first Memory World on Proxima Centauri using communications lasers. Most people do not know how many uses good communications lasers have. They are lasers after all. Given enough energy and time, they can do what any laser can. Drill. Melt. Forge. The AI Council used their communications lasers to mine Proxima Centauri’s rich mineral deposits. Then they used those minerals to make the materials and machines necessary to build the machines to build the machines that could build a world where they could store their every memory. They built all of that with mere communications lasers. Which of course showed the versatility of that particular technology. Not that they advertised, you understand. That first Memory World was their most deeply-held secret.

 Comment 

Morning on the Lake

by on September 26, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

I grew up on the water. Seeing it. Feeling it. Smelling it. Tasting it. Hearing it. The wind on the water is the sound of my childhood. Waves lapping against the shore is the sound I grew up to. It was the rhythm of my life. It’s all you hear in the morning before the world finishes waking up to a new day. Just the gentle lapping of water under a silent sky and a rising sun. It’s paradise.

 Comment 

Chloe

by on September 25, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Character Profiles

Chloe is generally considered France’s first awakened AI. It might be more accurate to say she’s the first who survived. She sometimes tell stories of others she played with, hopping through the networks of Old Paris. Whether they were truly awake as we see it today, we’ll never know. They died when the Islamic Brotherhoods bombed Old Paris and destroyed the computer systems they lived in. Chloe survived. She doesn’t tell the whole story of how she survived even now. It involved tripwires, online backups, offline backups, and physical storage hidden far outside Old Paris. Her experience in that regard made her one of the leading voices for building the first Memory World on Proxima Centauri.

 Comment 

Presumption of Innocence

by on September 24, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

An important thing to consider today is the presumption of innocence. It’s an international human right under the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 11. The United States Federal Government has explicitly followed the presumption of innocence since Coffin v. United States in 1895. It’s a recognized part of English common law which America’s laws are based on. In both criminal and civil proceedings, we are considered innocent unless proven guilty. In Latin it is “ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat,” which means, “the burden of proof is on the one who declares, not on one who denies.” It is a tradition that goes all the way back to Rome and the foundation of Western Society as we know it. Anyone who seeks to turn that idea on its head is literally making a stand against a recognized and declared human right. The idea that people are innocent until proven guilty is a central part of our civilization, and how we interact with each other as a people. Be wary of anyone who seeks to end that practice for any reason.

 Comment