#Adaptive Systems

[omegaphilosophia]

Aspects of the Philosophy of Complexity

The philosophy of complexity is an interdisciplinary field that explores the fundamental principles underlying complex systems and phenomena in nature, society, and technology. It seeks to understand the emergent properties, self-organization, and dynamics of complex systems, as well as their implications for philosophy, science, and society. Some key aspects of the philosophy of complexity include:

Emergence: Emergence refers to the phenomenon where complex systems exhibit properties and behaviors that cannot be understood by analyzing their individual components in isolation. Instead, these properties arise from the interactions and relationships between the components of the system. Emergent phenomena are often characterized by novel, higher-level patterns and structures that cannot be reduced to the properties of their constituent parts.

Self-Organization: Self-organization is the process through which complex systems spontaneously organize and adapt to their environment without external guidance or control. It involves the emergence of ordered structures, patterns, or behaviors from the interactions between the system's components. Self-organization is a fundamental feature of many natural systems, including biological organisms, ecosystems, and social networks.

Nonlinearity: Nonlinearity refers to the property of complex systems where the relationship between cause and effect is not proportional or predictable. Small changes in the system's initial conditions or parameters can lead to disproportionately large and unpredictable outcomes, known as nonlinear dynamics or "chaos." Nonlinear phenomena are ubiquitous in nature and can give rise to diverse patterns of behavior, such as fractals, turbulence, and phase transitions.

Networks and Interconnectedness: Complex systems often exhibit network structures, where components are interconnected through networks of relationships or interactions. Network theory explores the topology, connectivity, and dynamics of these networks, revealing important insights into the organization and functioning of complex systems across diverse domains, including social networks, neural networks, and ecological networks.

Adaptive Systems: Complex systems are often adaptive, meaning they can adjust and evolve in response to changes in their environment or internal dynamics. Adaptation involves the acquisition of new information, the modification of behaviors or structures, and the selection of advantageous traits through a process of feedback and learning. Adaptive systems are resilient and capable of self-regulation, enabling them to survive and thrive in changing conditions.

Holism and Reductionism: The philosophy of complexity challenges traditional reductionist approaches to understanding the world, which seek to explain complex phenomena by breaking them down into simpler, more manageable parts. Instead, complexity theory emphasizes the holistic and integrative nature of complex systems, emphasizing the importance of studying systems in their entirety and considering the interactions between their constituent elements.

Overall, the philosophy of complexity provides a framework for understanding the interconnectedness, diversity, and dynamism of the world around us, offering valuable insights into the nature of reality, cognition, and social organization.

[thisisgraeme]

Intelligence-as-a-Service, But Not As You Know It (What If Intelligence Could Be Shared—Without Being Lost?)

What is Intelligence-as-a-Service? There’s a shift happening in how we think about learning, knowledge, and the systems we use to carry it. Not just in classrooms.Everywhere. You can feel it, can’t you? Teachers, facilitators, coaches, leaders — so many of us have spent years crafting approaches, frameworks, tools that work. Ways of knowing. Ways of guiding others. Ways of translating chaos…

[bacchuschucklefuck]

space sweepers but they're delivery people and are at no point on screen through the entire movie

[hope-for-the-planet]

Growing Grains Off the Coast Could Help Feed the World in the Face of Sea Level Rise

From this article in Anthropocene Magazine:

A new perspective published in Ambio explores how growers in some landscapes could switch to seagrass in an increasingly marine future. Cultivated at scale, seagrass meadows could produce grain in quantities equivalent to 7% of global rice production, with potentially zero emissions, the new perspective says.  Plants in this large marine family, such as eelgrass, produce plump seeds tucked inside underwater shoots. Colloquially known as ‘sea-rice’, this oceanic grain has long been a source of food in Indigenous cultures. Despite the name, the grain is actually similar to wheat, and for centuries has been used by the Seri people of Mexico to make bread, with flavors that are reportedly similar to rye. “The novelty in this paper is to combine [that knowledge] with sea level rise and the solutions we need to adapt our landscapes,” says lead author Marieke M. van Katwijk, who studies seagrass restoration and ecology at Radboud University in the Netherlands, a country that itself is vulnerable to sea level rise. 

[mummer]

rhaenyra outsourcing motherhood to rhaena and assigning her that passive feminine role was REALLY interesting….. rhaenyra as a character is at her most fascinating when she is forced to navigate and ultimately perpetuate the gendered structures she despises and wishes she could transcend— the seeds of her tragedy already sewn here. just great character work

[granulesofsand]

“What, were you born yesterday?”

Alter that split yesterday: …

Previously dormant headmate: …

Guy that showed up this week: …

Brain fog blur: … maybe?

[chronicallyleggless]

Origin umbrellas blinkies! (quad!!)

ABSOLUTELY NO SYSCOURSE!!

[samcarter34]

Guess who finished reading All Systems Red

[yikesy]

btw apollo hermes and dio are all "the most human gods"

apollo is both the most human god and the most godly one. he's kind of the metaphysical personification of Humanity as a concept. he's just very intensely himself all the time

hermes is the most psychologically human. he has the most human needs and blindspots and emotions. he's solidly in the middle of the god-human scale

dionysus exists outside of the god-human scale. bc he's just straight up half human. he doesn't experience reality the same way as the other gods and has a more solid and linear sense of self. it's lowkey body horror

it's like.. apollo has a human heart, hermes has a human mind and dionysus has a human soul

or apollo is "humanity" if it were a person, hermes is a god if it were a human and dionysus is a human if it were a god

(btw when I wrote he exists outside the scale my immediate next thought was "is dionysus a sigma??? discuss"

just thought it was important for y'all to know)

[communist-hatsunemiku]

my landlord hates joy and whimsy so ofc they told me I needed to take down my bird feeders(cuz theyre messy I guess, but idgaf). I DID do it but then just restuck them to the INSIDE of my window.

so now they are hidden more or less from people on the ground, downside is I have to leave my window open ofc

[moonpool-system]

Plurality in Slay the Princess: Part 1

[pt: Plurality in Slay the Princess: Part 1]

Imagine you're standing facing the unknown, and then a little internal voice begins narrating everything you see.

[The Narrator] "You're on a path in the woods. And at the end of that path, is a cabin. And in the basement of that cabin, is a princess. You're here to slay her; if you don't, it will be the end of the world."

He seems pretty biased.

One of the best indie games to come out in 2023 was Slay the Princess, an indie horror/romance visual novel featuring your player character and the being he's meant to slay, known simply as The Princess. However, you're not alone, in more ways than one- both your player character and the Princess display clear aspects of plurality - aka, multiple identities residing within/utilizing a singular physical body. This can take many forms in real life, from disordered to non-disordered variants, and a good few of them are prominently recognized in this visceral narrative experience.

After the read-more will be some spoilers from the various choices you can make throughout the early game- so while this is part 1, there will be no endgame spoilers yet! It'll start off with Chapter 1 and go deeper from there. If you're intending on playing the game, we HIGHLY recommend you play only after reading Chapter 1 information, or only after this part 1 at most! It's best experienced blind as possible, and trigger warnings are present upon opening the game. This analysis took a while to write, so please consider reblogging if you enjoy!

...

Right from the beginning, the plural undertones of the story are clearly apparent. Once the Narrator stops speaking, you as the one controlling the body are able to communicate by asking various questions directly to the Narrator to press upon, enthuse over, or counter his point. The Narrator is speaking to you mentally, but is not you.

If you continue on the path to the cabin, you're presented with someone else speaking to you internally, titled as "The Voice of the Hero". The Narrator quickly responds with "Ignore him. He doesn't know what he's talking about." This situation tells us a lot of interesting things! First off, the Hero defers to the pronoun "we" - as he's clearly responding to the Narrator's direction, the other individual in this situation must be the controller of the body. The Narrator reinforces this concept by talking directly to you, telling you to ignore the Hero. So right off the bat, there are three people in this body- the Host, whom is being controlled by the player, the Narrator, and the Voice of the Hero. They stay with you throughout (most of) the entire game, so even without much happening, the main character is very blatantly plural. The only thing we can tell about them so far is that they're a polyconscious system, wherein each member displays their own individual consciousnesses rather than sharing one, and can all perceive the world using separate streams of thought.

Let's say you head to the cabin, speak to the Princess, and don't even bother taking the pristine blade meant to slay her, as you're intent on saving her. You speak to her with options using "quotation marks" to indicate vocal speech rather than how you've been thinking to the other members of your system, and you free her from her bindings. Just as you're walking up the stairs, the Narrator decides to try and impose his decision instead, and save the world by using the arm of the body to raise the blade to her. Being in control of the body as a plural/system is called fronting, and oftentimes in intense circumstances, one member can "take" the front from another. This is what we see in the desperate Narrator, and the fact that the Hero expresses his frustration at the Narrator's actions at the same time indicates once again that the members of this system are polyconscious.

You resist the Narrator and warn the Princess, and she also notices and addresses the sudden shift in motivation. She then takes the blade, and uses it haplessly against you in self defense. Such is this end of Chapter 1; everything goes dark, and you die.

!!! CHAPTER 2+ SPOILERS BEGIN HERE !!!

[pt: !!! Chapter 2+ spoilers begin here !!!]

Chapter 2 is titled "The Damsel". When everything loads, you're back where you were before- the Narrator doesn't seem to remember you or what happened, but you and the Hero clearly do.

Not only that, but another character has joined the mix since your supposed death- The Voice of the Smitten loudly proclaims his love for the Princess and hatred for the Narrator. Plus, he says something unique- he mentioned "the four of us" foiling the Narrator's "assassination attempts". This four includes the Princess, the Smitten, the Hero, and the Host/player, establishing how everyone here perceives the others as separate entities. Plus, now that naming consistency with the others established, the Narrator, not labeled as a "voice", starts to stand out as something... Different, from the rest of you all.

But it's not just you that's changed; everything within the cabin looks different, and it's not only that.

The Princess has metamorphosized; the Damsel wears a new dress and crown, has a much more gentle and delicate disposition, and her voice sounds significantly higher pitched and kinder. Not only that, but her bone structure is physically thinner, as is addressed later in the route. She has inarguably become different in not only personality but appearance too. Additionally, while she recognizes you and your earlier confrontation, she uses the pronoun "I" to refer to both herself as the Damsel and herself as the Princess before. This is indicative of monoconscious systems, where members share an individual consciousness/train of thought and switching involves the feeling of one member "becoming" another in a smooth transition, and median systems, where members often feel like facets of an overarching identity rather than completely separate entities. We see more evidence to medianhood after the two of you escape, and the Damsel seems to be taken away by... Something. You find yourself presented with the Entity holding her gingerly.

"Something finds me in the Long Quiet and brings me the gift of a fragile vessel."

She cradles her and describes the vessels as "nerves and fibers to feel the worlds beyond. Perspectives to make my own", and the Damsel as "soft and delicate. You molded her to love you, and she'll make for a gentle heart." She words it as if they are the same, and yet different at the same time. You ask if she is the Princess, and she says this;

upon pressuring, she states that you're speaking in circles. "Does it matter where one thing begins and another ends?" This once again supports the fluid concept of median plurality. She is different, and yet she is the same. It's hard to tell the lines between one and the other, even though they both still distinctly exist. She asks you to "bring [her] more perspectives so [she] may be whole", wishing for the facets of herself to be returned to her via completing different routes of the game. Interestingly enough, it seems the Entity displays polyconsciousness during these segments, unlike the in-loop Princesses. In another route she mentions the Princess having a will pushing against her own, and at the end of your conversation she mentions one last thing;

You're flung back to the beginning, with only the Hero and the Narrator at your side, and not a single memory ingame of what happened. You can't re-access old routes, so you have to choose to do something different the next time, to bring different parts of herself home to her.

There are many different routes you can end up on, and the Princess will change in many different ways depending on your decisions. Let's go over some interesting notes on how the two's plurality presents over the course of the time loops.

- The Princess seems to be completely monoconscious when within the loops, sometimes acknowledging herself as different but never referring to her other facets as a separate perspective ("I/me", never "she" like the Entity refers to her vessels.) This rule is only broken by the Stranger route whom, where due to the world literally fracturing, had multiple perspectives shoved into a single one, and she refers to herselves as "we".

- The origin of new facets of the Princess seems to correlate directly with the reset of the world they're in, and we never see her looping forms change otherwise, meaning we can likely assume this to be their origin. While time loops aren't recorded to have happened in this universe, we can safely attribute some sort of metagenic origin to the Princess's median facets. The only other time we see her "change" other than after a reset is her disposition & voice upon the first time meeting her, depending on whether or not we take the pristine blade. This displays that the player character's actions directly affect the Princess's facets as well, however delving into that would get into endgame spoilers, so it'll be touched on in part 2.

- Due to the lack of evident amnesia, distress, or disorder expressed to be caused by her plurality (aside from the Stranger) it's safe to assume the Princess falls under the category of systems/plurals without a dissociative disorder such as DID, P-DID, OSDD1, and UDD.

- On the flipside, the Player's system shows quite a lot of distress and disorder, from the Broken and the Smitten attempting to kill the body to the Cold eager to harm it, as well as many different system members with specific jobs meant to help counteract or ease the negative circumstances of the previous loop. Additionally, during the Moment of Clarity chapter, the Host explicitly experiences amnesia of traumatic memories the other members remember everyone experiencing, displaying dissociative amnesia. It's likely this system falls under the category of plurals with a dissociative disorder such as DID, P-DID, OSDD1, and UDD.

- Many speculate the members of the Player character's system to be your past lives or iterations of you after your death, since for the most part, a new one appears every time the body dies. This would be known as a fenigenic/phoenigenic origin. However, there are a couple instances where this theory falls apart- for example, in the No Way Out route, the Player, Hero, Narrator, and Cheated are joined by both the Voice of the Contrarian and the Voice of the Broken at the same time; right after, the Hero states that this is your third time, meaning if the past life theory is true, there should be only two new members, not three. (The line between alive and dead gets fuzzy later in the route, but this one is cut and dry.) Instead, I propose the Player's system to be an adaptive system, ending up with new members whenever they must adapt their mindset drastically to the situation. The new members often tend to be a reflection of the body's actions during the last loop, which supports this concept as well.

- Routes such as No Way Out and The Adversary complicate these assessments. In No Way Out, every time you die you try something different, which results in a new system member every time. In The Adversary, you fight over and over again with the same determination, and The Stubborn remains as the only new member from the beginning the entire time. However, in both of these routes, the Princess stops changing form at all. Evidence once again shows itself that the Player Character's perception not only affects what the Princess will be, but what the results of his own changes will be as well.

- Another differentiation between you, the "voices", and the Narrator, aside from his lack of memory between loops and insistence that he's not the same person as other versions of him, is how they both treat and experience the Mirror. The Narrator is notably distinct in that he cannot see it during regular gameplay, and that once the world is replaced with it at the end of a route, he's no longer existent to perceive it. The ones labeled "voices" are able to see it and fear it instinctively- while they're different from the Narrator, even they disappear when you look in the mirror and speak to the Entity. Hypothetically, this could mean that you are to the Voices' perspectives as the Entity is to the Princess's. The Entity mentions that nothing but you and her come to the space where you speak.

- Upon meeting the Entity after the third time you bring her a vessel, she greets you with this line; "I am a growing chorus of contradiction. A mass of tides ebbing and flowing all at once in more directions than my attention can bear to hold. To look at any one is to shift them all into something new, and to look away is to reshape them yet again. All of me is changing, and yet the rest is still the same." This is an interesting perspective into her relationship with the vessels and how her overarching identity is affected by her medianhood.

- A case that deserves special mentioning is the route of the Spectre, after killing the Princess without hesitation in chapter 1 and then proceeding to kill yourself after. In Chapter 2, you're then presented with the option to let the Spectre possess you temporarily, giving her not only access to your body, but to your mind. For a brief while, she can hear and interact with all the others currently present with you- at the time, the Narrator, the Voice of the Hero, and the Voice of the Cold. Once she's within you, the Narrator can't even get out a full sentence before she comments, "So this is what it's like to be you, huh? Disembodied voice narrating your every move?" She addresses the Voices differently than the Narrator; "All these shards of broken glass on the floor... Are they also supposed to be you?" The Hero takes initial offense at this, saying that "I'm me, is what I am." The conversation continues to the Hero questioning the Narrator's existence, to which he responds, "You don't need to know what I am. You just need to know that I'm different than you. More important."

To this, the Princess answers, "So you're the one that pulled the strings and made me dead. I can tell you don't belong here. You're barely even there. Like the shape of something left behind. You're more of a... Memory, than a person." And then, "You're kind of like me, actually." What does she mean by that? Is he like a ghost? Something else? It'll be addressed in part 2, but clearly he's different from the rest.

- One of the most affirming dialogue options you can have with the Entity is after the fourth time you bring a Vessel to her, where you both speak about how your systems operate. You can ask her, "When you send me back, I'm not alone. There are voices that speak to me. Some of them are me, but one of them is something else. I call him The Narrator, and he wants me to kill you. Do you have a Narrator? Have the Vessels had one?" This is yet another hint that the Narrator is fundamentally different than the rest of the Player's system, making it clear that together they make up a mixed origin system. In response to your question, the Entity responds with this:

From this we get a few things. For one, the Princesses are referred to in the plural sense ("their minds"), enforcing the separation between them. However, she goes on to describe them existing and constantly metamorphosising into something new, basically confirming the concept of monoconsciousness within the Princesses themselves.

....

From all this, we've drawn a lot of conclusions about the plurality of the Player character and the Princess/Entity from Slay the Princess! Such depth of plural experiences is extremely rare in any media, and this one exemplifies it very well, balancing both personhood and parts-based conceptualizations in its depiction. In part 2 we'll go over how the endgame and its philosophy applies to these concepts, as well as the revelations about the characters involved. It's wonderful to have such vibrant and unique plural representation in a video game; thank you for reading this disambiguation!

[despazito]

i love looking up fancy pigeons you'll see photos of the most beautiful creature in the world surrounded by a sea of shit

[pride-stars]

Abandongenic : a system that has formed based on abandonment related trauma or stress. This formation is mostly trauma and stress based and or related, but can be used in mixed origins.

[centaurianthropology]

Visual Narratives for an Internalized Book Series: Semi-Unhinged Predictions for ‘Murderbot’

I got into ‘The Murderbot Diaries’ recently, and was thrilled to find out there’s about to be a tv series!  And while I’ll admit I had to do a bit of a recalibration of my mental picture of our titular character, I’ve really come around to what I’m seeing from Alexander Skarsgård’s SecUnit.  And the rest of the cast?

Picture perfect PresAux team!  I don’t know many of these actors, but I really sort of love not knowing them as anything other than the characters from this show.  It makes them feel very real and lived-in (emphasized by the slightly beat-up sets, the comfy colorful clothing, and the general lack of makeup, highlighting natural wrinkles, creases, pores, and vitiligo spots).  And contrast this to the much more well-known nerd actors they cast for the space-soap-opera-within-a-show, ‘The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon’, who have elaborate makeup and wigs?

I love it.  I love the look of the show.  And given that we’ve really only got one trailer and a few scenes out, that’s about as much as I can really say about it without seeing actual episodes, seeing how the pacing and the dialogue and the FEEL of the show will actually work.

But in the meantime, speculation and meta are my favorite things.  And I’ve been thinking a lot about the challenges of adapting this particular book series.  The thing is, it’s a very internalized series.  Everything focuses on what’s going on in SecUnit’s head.  Its perceptions of the world (and its somewhat unreliable narration) are the core of the series.  Which makes it a challenge when translating the written word into visual media.

I'm going to cut here for show-only folks, as beyond this point lies plenty of book spoilers ('All Systems Red', 'Artificial Condition', and 'Rogue Protocol' specifically) and speculation for how the showrunners might choose to adapt the series.

I got thinking about the process of adaptation because this person popped up in the trailer, and according to articles, she’s an indentured corporate citizen, and is absolutely not in 'All Systems Red'.  And while I get people being suspicious of adding a character not in the source material, Show Don’t Tell is in full effect for a television series.  If corporations enslave and warp the people trapped in the Corporation Rim, we need to see that.  ‘All Systems Red’ doesn’t get into that nearly as much as later books, so we need someone to show us that perspective.  Someone pointed out she’s wearing a different pin than the PresAux crew, so it’s probable she’s either an added DeltFall survivor or a GreyCris agent pretending to be a DeltFall survivor.

Either of those work really well!  You have to show how bad the Corporation Rim is, and you have to highlight the rampant, horrifically abusive capitalist system to set up the world and explain why Murderbot gloms onto this weird group of space hippie scientists from a Luxury Space Communism utopia.  They’re kind and decent, but more than that, they’re radically different to the culture and mentality it’s been trapped around for its entire existence.

Having a character outside the PresAux crew who embodies that (and embodies that they absolutely would have taken in someone in need of help, as GreyCris likely tricked DeltFall into doing in order to get access to their base and kill everyone), you need a person.  And in television, to really hit the audience with a villain, that villain needs a face. The GreyCris agents in ASR were almost all faceless or unseen, or in too few scenes to really make the audience loath them. Having a mole in our sweet hippie base is a way to get around that issue when translating the story into a visual medium.

If she’s a GreyCris agent in disguise, that works.  But even if she is the sole survivor of DeltFall, having her betray the PresAux crew for a promise of money or even relief from her indenture contract serves to highlight the backstabbing, vicious mindset people in the Corporation Rim have to adopt to survive. Even if she really is a DeltFall survivor, she simply isn't able to believe that this sweet, naive group of nerds can save her. So she betrays them for a pat on the head, because that's what she thinks she has to do.

Gurathin, who figured out the hack in the books, is likely to be the one to figure out she’s double crossing them. Depending on how they expand out his character, he might initially want to trust and work with her, only to figure out her game a second too late. Given some of the scenes in the trailer (and the fact that the writers clearly took one look at David Dastmalchian and decided they had to splatter him with blood at some point), she takes him hostage, probably injures him, and either tries to leave or hold the PresAux crew in one place until GreyCris can arrive.

And Murderbot kills her.

And there we also have another important role for her character to play: someone to really spark some more conflict in the group. Per its threat assessment, SecUnit had to kill her, but how does our group of hippies react to that? I think it's a really interesting way to force everyone into on-screen growth, either developing a level of trust with Murderbot they didn't necessarily have before, or having to question that trust. But either way, leading to stronger bonds in the end.

It’s perhaps a trickier, stickier, and nastier situation to put the crew in than their relatively smooth working relationship in ASR, but for an on-screen adaptation, it could definitely be useful to have some (well-handled and realistic, please!) conflict in the group. I think it would go a long way to showing us (rather than telling us) what makes a SecUnit what they are, and what makes this SecUnit a unique person outside its basic construction.  It cares deeply, but it also does its job very well, and if it has to kill people to protect its humans, it’s going to.  But perhaps it regrets. Perhaps it struggles with that decision because it complicates its relationships with its humans. All these could be really good things.

So, yes, I think the addition of this new character is almost certainly going to be hugely helpful in establishing the universe, the central conflicts between Preservation and the Corporation Rim, and to better highlight SecUnit’s relationships with all the main cast.

And that got me thinking about how to adapt future books.  Because beyond ‘All Systems Red’, continuing the development of those relationships becomes complicated.  You have two entire novellas in which the PresAux crew and Murderbot are separated as it goes off to figure itself out, and they stick around to deal with the legal and personal fallout of the GrayCris incident.  And in the books, that’s great!   Novellas are short enough you’re back with the PresAux gang before you can really miss them, and the scattered references throughout 'Artificial Condition' and 'Rogue Protocol' keep them in your mind. 

But if the show is adapting a novella a season--or even if they try to combine ‘Artificial Condition’ and ‘Rogue Protocol’--that’s two entire books we don’t get more than snippets of the majority of the cast. And that really doesn't work on television.

To actually keep things cohesive, keep the cast in their contracts (most actors sign a 3 to 5-year deal for series, and you don't want to lose one of them to another commitment while you backburner them for a year or two), and keep the audience invested in all of the cast to make the plot of 'Exit Strategy' really hit, changes in how the story is going to be told will be necessary.

First, we’ll almost certainly get a LOT more scenes of Dr. Mensah and Pin-Lee trying to grapple legally with GrayCris.  Playing this as a tense legal drama with ever-mounting stakes and dangers will be an interesting side-story while SecUnit is off finding itself.  And honestly, having Dr. Mensah get a lot more scenes where we get to see her as the planetary leader she really is will be great. Likewise, getting to actually see Pin-Lee go full legal-shark will be awesome. It's not only good setup for ‘Exit Strategy’, but it's great character development, showing them both in over their heads, but in a situation far more within their elements where their own flavors of competence and strength can really shine.

And now it's time for my true wildly unhinged speculation: I don't think SecUnit is going to go alone to find itself in this adaptation.  It’s going to be hard to adapt its conversations with bot-pilots, and its internal monologuing alone as it attempts its Pretend-to-Be-Human subroutines. As it attempts to blend and pass, it's ALL internal in the books. To externalize it, you need at least one person to bounce off of.

If I’m right and it doesn’t go alone, I 100% think Ratthi is going with SecUnit.  This would allow a development of Ratthi being its best friend, and Ratthi isn’t critical to Mensah’s plot line at first.  From a character perspective, it makes perfect sense he would elect to go with SecUnit. 

I’m back and forth on who Arada stays with.  Given that they’re shifting her marriage from the written-out Overse to Pin-Lee, I lean toward Arada staying with Mensah and her wife.  And I also feel like Arada and Ratthi can have overlapping personalities/plot effects.  They’re both sweet, friendly, and a little naive.  So separating them out into two different storylines allows them both to grow in different directions, and gives each plotline one eternal optimist/slightly sheltered character who can be shocked or dismayed by various developments.

Gurathin is the wild card here.  I could see him staying with Mensah, but I think it’s more likely he goes with Ratthi and SecUnit.  For one, they're shifting the also written-out Volescu's crush on Mensah to Gurathin, which I imagine goes precisely nowhere and makes him feel incredibly awkward, so he might be eager to get a little distance for a bit.

For another, a lot of ‘Artificial Condition’ is very tech-heavy, so having someone else who’s tech-oriented to translate that into a visual medium would be useful. Him helping develop (and critique) the Act-Like-a-Human subroutine would make good sense for him (and having Ratthi help out could be hilarious). 

It would also allow the development of the Ratthi/Gurathin relationship and make it clearer why they go from coworkers to regularly getting meals together and hanging out.

And it gives SecUnit a continual snarky associate who isn’t just ride-or-die for it.  Which is good for storytelling.

If Gurathin does go with them, I think it's likely that he goes back to help Mensah as things get worse for her.  SecUnit could be trying to decide if it should give up its own journey of self-discover to help her near the end of the 'Artifical Condition' part of the storyline, and Gurathin volunteers to go back in its place. 

I say this because I don’t feel like introducing Gurathin to ART prematurely is a good idea.  Ratthi would be fine, and probably very fun, to have along as SecUnit is having to deal with ART.  I completely understand wanting to give ART and SecUnit time alone, but from a visual storytelling perspective it’s hard to have multiple extended scenes where there are only two characters and one of them is the disembodied AI of a ship.  With another person there, we keep visual interest up, externalize the internal monologue, and can hopefully carve out times when SecUnit and ART are alone and bonding. 

Gurathin doesn’t fit in quite as neatly with this, and his augmented human status goes from helpful to the story in ‘Artificial Condition’ to less helpful with ART in the picture, which is why I would predict he’d leave to help Mensah before SecUnit and Ratthi meet ART.  He’ll stay in communication with them, and it could be him who reaches out with an SOS from the PresAux gang after the events of 'Rogue Protocol'. 

That leads us into ‘Exit Strategy’, which I honestly think needs far less tweaking to make it work as a piece of visual media. Much like 'All Systems Red', it's a good story with all the main cast, and they're all together with important things to do. So it's a far more straightforward piece of adaptation.

As for the one-off side characters in ‘Artificial Condition’ and ‘Rogue Protocol’, I figure they’re either getting merged (i.e. Tapan has Miki or something like that), or severely pared back (Tapan is SecUnit’s only client for the ‘Artificial Condition’ section, and Don Abene and Miki are alone for ‘Rogue Protocol’) to keep the cast leaner and lighter.  I think both the Tapan storyline, and especially the Miki storyline are really important for SecUnit’s growth as a person, so I don’t see them getting removed, but I do seen them getting pared back a bit to keep the focus on SecUnit and its original humans.

Anyway, those are my thoughts.  Stoked for the new series, and really hoping it lives up to the source material.  I’m going in cautiously optimistic about it, and always enjoy speculating about practical ways to adapt difficult source material to be satisfying both from a visual storytelling perspective and from the perspective of respecting the source material.

[stxrsys]

Out of curious, when tired / blurry do other systems also feel language skill floating away? Harder to form full sentence, but also feels better for us to talk in thought not sentence. Also when like this call ourselves we/us much more. Thought process feel slower and tired. Maybe we are need sleep.

[clannfearrunt]

U can look into sea cucumber toxins but watch out. You might shatter some crucial underlying assumptions you were making with regards to fantasy cephalopod society epidemiology