The RIGHT thing to do...

Liliel on 1/12/2003 at 02:15

given the choices, of course I'd merge with Helios. Who don't want to be God? But then I'd never trust anyone else be the God. And no I don't think the world lead by me as the absolute power will be best for humanity, but I know it'd be the best for me, and that's what it counts :ebil:

actually for others it may well be hell, since absolute power is given to a non-perfect individual, whether it's JC Denton or me, we have faults, and the greater the power, the great the consequences of the mistakes.

take, for example, I was reading a book, a small ant crawls onto the page, I have no intention of killing the ant, I just want to read the book without the ant working on the page, so I brush it away, and before I know it, the ant is dead, while I have absolutely no intention to kill it. If I was given absolute power, no one knows how many people will be killed by me like that ant, although I never intended to kill them:cheeky:

BlackCapedManX on 1/12/2003 at 19:49

Aquinas Protocol anyone?
Did none of you remember reading anything about this in the various newspapers, infoterminals, e-mails, etc in the game? Any of you remember what it does? Go to any e-mail or infoterminal, anything electronic anywhere in the whole game and look at the bottom of the menu box thing that pops up. For every single one of those, anywhere, there's a little tag for what I suppose would be the IP addresses of the future. You know what precedes every single location? A single innocent looking word. Daedelus. You know why? Because every peice of electronic equipment that cannot run fully on its own is hooked up to the Aquinas hub at A51. Every one of them. You know what happens when you blow up A51? The aquinas hub goes with it. And with that, all information. Everything. Of any importance. How are you going to rebuild technology if all of the plans and blueprints and information is gone? Wiped out? Not fucking there? Aside from the few uber-genius savants who know this stuff by memory, you've got nowhere to start. You have a bunch of technology that doesn't work, and nothing to tell you why it doesn't work. It's not like there would be the main net down and a bunch of little networks still running on by themselves. It would be everything, all of it down. And beyond that, in the game almost everything is digitalized, think of all the factories and power generators that run on digital information, how do you make those run when the information for them to go isn't there? Where are you going to get your energy from if your generators don't know how to run? You could turn them on maybe, but with the information to run them gone, they wouldn't do anything. Think of Everette sitting in his little throne in paris, and suddenly he can't make the elevator go down to the first floor? Nothing would be left.

Master Villain on 1/12/2003 at 22:35

Quote:

Originally posted by chris the cynic
The Illuminati has a ruling council of 5, now here's what we know of, at one time there was Lucius, Beth, Stanton, Morgan, and (here's the one that threw me for quite a while) Bob. That leaves no room for Tong as a ruling member, Lucius was on ice, Beth was dead, Bob rebelled. That means that the entire surviving ruling council of the Illumianti was against Tong.

Now could Tong have been a lower member who was trying to pull a coup? Yes.

It's hard to tell much about the Illuminati and their age requirements, so this may or may not be significant. Tong was 28 when they had completely fallen from power, or at least the MJ12 takeover was complete. That seems a bit young, after that it seems like they were more concerned with survival than getting new members.

It makes more sense for the Illuminati to not have Tong as a member - they would want someone from the old western families rather than someone they have no centuries-old links to.

Oh, and aren't the maintenance bots and the medbots self contained? So blowing shit up is okay, right?

Alneyan on 2/12/2003 at 14:49

Well, blowing up the whole computer net would severely stun all its users as well. Would you expect the Internet to go down tomorrow as a result of a power struggle between two shadowy factions? I wouldn't. And while Internet has been available only for a few years (for the average Joe that is), the global net of Deus Ex must have been online for more than fifty years. So it would appear as something taken from granted and obvious, meaning you would rely way too much on it.

But the effects of such a destruction are hard to measure, as it would depend on how well us, humans, would deal with this situation and adapt. And except by making it to happen, it would be hard to know for sure. ;) Another question, what other mediums are available in 2052? I mean, there are newspapers in the game, but that strikes me as odd. If you do want to spy on the whole world and to control all information, wouldn't you prohibit any written support such as books and newspapers? While you could track any user on a computer net, you would have an hard time knowing which illegal books a given individual reads. Or am I missing something here? (Obviously, it makes sense for secret organizations to use written supports outside of the Aquilas Hub for this reason)

However, there is something that bothers me with this end. JC Denton should still be alive with all his augmentations available, right? (If he makes it that is) Maintenance bots should still work, as biocells, although these ones could no longer be manufactured. This makes JC a rather powerful being, the only one of his kind, once Area 51 is blown up. I am the only one who thinks JC could become a power in this new world and/or could make his own secrete organization? After all, he basically managed to alter the shape of the world on his own, so why couldn't he do it again? If destroying the Hub was to destroy all his abilities, do you think he would even consider to do so? I don't think so.

But likewise, in the Illuminati ending JC is still around, the new Simons, and is still dangerous. And obviously, if he merges with an AI, he becomes a somewhat powerful being as well. ;) So aren't all three endings profitable for JC, at different rates? (He is merely one of the rulers for the Illuminati, while he is virtually a God in the Helios ending) Thus I believe the three endings aren't that different, and all of them depend on JC. Would you trust him to rule our world with gentleness, wisdom and fairness?

As for me... Well, if I was JC, I don't think I would have reached Area 51 to begin with. If I had to choose, I think I would pick the Helios ending. It is not much worse than the other two, and if everything works as planned, it is the best ending for the humanity. Of course, in the other case... Can you spell System Shock? :)

My two cents worth.

Crion on 2/12/2003 at 15:35

I'd go with the Helios ending simply because what Tong told me. Helios was already acting with the interests of humans and they were listening.

Fred Chook on 2/12/2003 at 15:51

Oh, come ON. The world isn't entirely digital. "Uber-genius savants", pffft. If your ISP goes down is your hard drive wiped? For that matter, if a power company's ISP goes down, does the entire city lose power? WHY would the generators stop working? Surely there's a local On/Off switch! The technology and its documentation is ALL OVER THE WORLD. All Aquinas is is the big box all the internet lines go through. Local networks will still work. Bots will still work. Factories will still work. They over-dramatise it, with "pull the plug on everything" and such. Page said it best - "no-one will be in control". That's all. MOST THINGS WILL STILL WORK.

Alneyan on 2/12/2003 at 16:05

How do you know there would still be hard drives to begin with? Special servers could be used to store data instead, and the excuse would be "we are doing this so that we can ensure your safety" or something along these lines. In our own world, a few companies want (wanted?) to make software only available via their own systems, requiring some sort of monthly fees, and do I need to remember you there is some activation switch for Windows XP?

It may seem nothing, but what happens if you can no longer activate your OS as all the net is down? Your computer won't boot. And then, what is the consequence if all factories were directed by computers?

Of course, that is only the most extreme explanation. You would have to have a society very dependent on a single hub, and who trusts enough the global net to forego making any backup. But then, why not? Centralizing data was the goal of these secret organizations, and controlling everything is definitively useful if you plot to take over the world. And you could even argue that even bots need to be connected with the Hub before being allowed to heal someone for example, to check if the "patient" is allowed to use these bots, or if the patient is not labelled as being a terrorist, and so on. I believe I don't have to explain how useful would be the ability to "create" blackouts in a given area of the world at a given time, or how to disable factories, and so on. The question would be, did they manage to centralize everything to such an extent, and did they have the time? The idea itself seems plausible to me given the conspiracy background.

But unfortunately, all of that is purely speculation as we cannot know for sure how far the Hub extends. So either Tong is exaggerating, or the society is that centralized. But then, why not? Even if the timeline seems a bit short to pull out such a long-term scheme... except if *they* have been working at it right now as we are speaking. :p They read us, and know everything we do, I tell ya! (Now if this is my last post on these boards, you will have to draw the consequences. *Smirks*)

Fred Chook on 2/12/2003 at 16:32

It's possible, yes... but in the world of DX1, it's unlikely. Consider how many hackers and computer wizards you meet... and consider that Aquinas is still secret. I think they'd notice if their harddrives were not in fact in their sewer hideouts but in Nevada. All the gear at Vandenburg still works despite being offline - there's probably plenty of systems likewise. Helios is able to turn off power in Hong Kong government buildings, but also consider the NSF warehouse, where they had to break into the building and turn the power off from a computer inside it.

Even if the crash did cause systems to turn off and power to go out... somehow, and the power plants did have big "turn back on" buttons.. surely the major buildings of the world would be riddled with backup generators and suchlike in case... well, in case that very thing happened?

Alneyan on 2/12/2003 at 17:04

I am not sure how you would figure out a server physical location, or its links with Aquinas, even if you are computer literate. But given my skills with computers, that's no wonder. :)

This aside, you make two valid points which contradict the "Dark Ages" hypothesis(no matter the intensity of this regress). Why is the whole Vandenburg complex working without too much problem when the scientists there rebelled? Their only problem was, if memory serves right, to their security systems, while the UC among other things was still working fine. Unless Helios acted, I don't see any explanation.

Your other point is even more serious. How can you expect to cripple the whole world while there should be, at the very least, some backup generators? I wouldn't expect the power to be down for more than, say, one day if the situation was really that bad. Even if you are really trusting the global net, you would be a fool for not putting any reliable backup system. You could argue there may be these backup systems, but they could require a confirmation from the Hub as well before being activated. But not only it is becoming to be confusing, but how would you install such a thing without notice?

At any rate, it seems like there are holes in the information given by the game, or explanations about a few things, such as this Dark Ages thesis. And using the conspiration rationale to answer any problem isn't really convenient either.

On a side note, here is another question about all three ends. What happens of the remainder of ther Majestic 12 forces? In the Helios ending, you can fairly easily explain their... erh... disparition. But what would become of them in the Dark Ages ending? They weren't destroyed when Area 51 got blown up, so they were still present in quite a few cities, even if the global communications system was down. What would prevent them from seizing power? (Or remaining at power) Even in they were to split in various organizations, they would still be a power to be reckoned with. In fact, I believe that the destruction of Area 51 would help them, not the other way around. If they managed to rule these cities, they would be at the perfect position to help with the rebuilding of the world. Their world. And good luck for warning everybody if the communication systems went down. ;)

BlackCapedManX on 2/12/2003 at 21:23

First of all, Aquinas isn't entirely a secret, Bob Page made announcements about how it was to provide free infinite bandwidth for everyone. FREE. INFINITE (more or less). Wouldn't you hook into that? Wouldn't every single person and organization?

Think about the size of the Area 51 you visit. Pretty big. But it's a puny little smidgen compared to the rest of A51. You know how I know this? Cause you nuke the rest of it! None of this huge complex internet hub is accesable physically because all of the above ground stations were destroyed. So considering how big A51 could plausably be (it's a fair sized nuke you fire, if area you go in was untouched, that leaves a lot of area to be hit) there could possibly be not only infinite bandwidth, but infinite harddrive space as well. Store as much as you fucking want. For free! And maybe all the hardware you'd ever need to do whatever you want. So when you buy a computer, all you're really doing would be buying an interface and a connection to the mother of all computing units. No one would build private harddrives anymore because no one would need to. You couldn't hard copy things because it wouldn't be an available feature.

Newspapers and books. You think they're printed by hand? Doubtfully. Thus whatever is written goes through this huge computer machine thing, and is printed back out based on programs stored in this machine. Why doesn't Page outlaw written material to keep a closer eye on what specific people are reading? Because then people would get suspicious. People would also get suspicious if he started censoring everything at his whim, which is why a lot of information can still get through the media. Page is supposed to be a philantrophist (to the public) not a tyrant.

Shuting down individual computers from the hub. Think for a moment about how huge all of this information is. Think how few people know about A51. Would it be faster to set a 100 people to sort through EVERY BYTE OF INFORMATION IN THE WORLD or to send a bunch of agents out to shut down a generator for you? X51 still ran for the same reason, there's a hell of a lot of information to get through, and since the scientist probably know a little bit about how to hide their tracks (at least digitally) they could probably even disguise what it looked like as it was going through Page's system. Page was ambitious, giving out all this bandwidth and space, but 50 years from now it's unlikely a human or program written by a human could sort through that much information quickly, another reason why certain things Page wouldn't want known can be exposed.

Why can Helios shut down the traid's workings? For the precise reason Page can't. Helios is an AI, originally based on Deadalus which is designed as a survelance system. It was supposed to be automated and survey and act according to it's own set of directives, not to be subjected to the whims of humans. Why would Page allow the AI to not be under his control? Page didn't write the AI. Page didn't do very much of the technical thinking for himself (which explains why Everett had a Dragon's Tooth sword, it was likely originally an illuminati idea, and Page simply had the man power to see that it was researched and developed so that it could be put into mass production). It was orginally Everett (or whoever, I don't remember if the game says who) who wrote the code. The illuminati, being at least a little bit more morally upstanding than Page, realized what could happen if such a survelance system got into the wrong hands, and wrote it to not respond to anyone's hands.

Why people feel secure with this whole network thing. Well, the average person sees "free unlimited" and doesn't care past that. The more computer litterate thinks "hmm, someone could be watching everything I do" and then realizes that whatever they do is probably not too huge to matter. The hackers of the world accessing information they shouldn't realize that with all this information it would be nearly impossible to be tracked individually and don't know about daedelus. Those who know about daedelus (and not even Tong or Jacobson knew about him, so pretty much just the illuminati) know that it won't work for Page.

Why people aren't afraid of a giant explosion to destroy the global network? You hit it with a nuke, with no noticable damage. It's far enough underground that nothing externally could damage it. Plus, who would want to? Everyone's hooked up to this net and anyone happening to be sitting on a nuclear arsenal probably won't be firing it at A51 because they have at least a little bit of sense. This set up is basically impossible to shutdown, so people figure that there'd be no reason to have backup generators. And even if they could turn generators back on, still nothing would run, because there would be no data because you blew up the universal harddrive.

So how can JC blow it up? Well, the obvious answer is that you're blowing it up from the inside. However, you are also detonating two anti-matter reactors. Nuclear power to anti-matter is like sparklers compared to sidewinder missles. If JC did set those off I wouldn't be suprised if it could turn all of Nevada into a crater. Fun.

Anyway, these are basically my interpretations from the game, so I couldn't be sure if they were what the designers thought themselves, but it's one possible interpretation, think what you will of it. I happen to think that based on the information given, all of this is plausible, you may not.