Alien: Specimen - 40th Anniversary Short

Started by Nightmare Asylum, Apr 02, 2019, 07:11:33 PM

Author
Alien: Specimen - 40th Anniversary Short (Read 46,155 times)

Ronoc

It's not nonsense that they can make them, is nonsense that they bother to. Unless it's a significant improvement over a real dog, there'd be no point. And the one in that story seemed no superior to any old dog.
If you have to grow them as DNA dictates, but can 'program' them later, then for security, or sense of smell, gotta go bear...

Quote from: The Old One on May 18, 2019, 04:34:02 AM
Probably because Synthetics
are grown, much as Replicants are.

And it's far from nonsense, as far as the universe of Alien is concerned.

The Old One

The Old One

#256
Seemed.
Probably has enhanced precision, replaceable parts and an extended lifespan.


Nrmiller

Quote from: TC on May 18, 2019, 12:54:57 PM
Quote from: Nrmiller on May 18, 2019, 01:09:45 AM
If you want to get real Ellison style dark with it, imagine that they're made from the same sort of line as the full human style synths, with the same capacity for thought, but none of the physical bits that allow them to express it. I imagine WY is a pretty cheap place, they'd probably give little thought to popping an off the shelf human-ish mind into a machine built like a dog. Easier cheaper and so what if it suffers so long as it works.

Do you mean Harlan Ellison-style dark?

Then that would be synthetic canine Maggie as Blood, the telepathic dog from Ellison's book A Boy And His Dog, who helps his friend Vic hunt down women to rape and cannibalise as food in a post-apocalyptic world of the future.

I'll pass on that one.

TC

More the existential nihilism of I Have No Mouth. A human level intelligence stuck in a canine form. Unable to understand or express its own limitations.

Not saying that is in this short, or even mildly hinted at, just stringing and extrapolating from the general capitalist driven laziness of corporate greed shoved into overdrive by WY.

The Old One

The Old One

#258
One of my favourite books and videogames.

TC

Quote from: The Old One on May 19, 2019, 05:47:26 AM
One of my favourite books and videogames.

I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream was made into a video game? Sounds crazy as f**k! I suppose I should just Google it, but why don't you just tell us how that one played? (Let me guess: no win scenarios all round. Depressing much?)

TC

The Old One

The Old One

#260
No, you can win and you can lose horrifically.

Still Collating...

Quote from: Ronoc on May 18, 2019, 03:40:50 PM
It's not nonsense that they can make them, is nonsense that they bother to. Unless it's a significant improvement over a real dog, there'd be no point. And the one in that story seemed no superior to any old dog.
If you have to grow them as DNA dictates, but can 'program' them later, then for security, or sense of smell, gotta go bear...

Quote from: The Old One on May 18, 2019, 04:34:02 AM
Probably because Synthetics
are grown, much as Replicants are.

And it's far from nonsense, as far as the universe of Alien is concerned.

The bear idea is a good counterargument actually. And yeah, it does seem like too much work to make a robo dog like that. Just lets not forget one thing. It's the future, so as long as power sources have improved and manufacturing is at an all time high, you can literally make anything you want.

Synthetics can live longer probably, if not indefinitely. They don't get sick, maybe it turns out that it's cheaper to power a robo dog than feed an actual one. Maybe some people just like the company of dogs more than creepy fake humans and synthetic bears.

In a crazy out of control capitalist world, any and all whims will be satisfied eventually if they are profitable.

Quote from: Nrmiller on May 19, 2019, 05:43:13 AM
Quote from: TC on May 18, 2019, 12:54:57 PM
Quote from: Nrmiller on May 18, 2019, 01:09:45 AM
If you want to get real Ellison style dark with it, imagine that they're made from the same sort of line as the full human style synths, with the same capacity for thought, but none of the physical bits that allow them to express it. I imagine WY is a pretty cheap place, they'd probably give little thought to popping an off the shelf human-ish mind into a machine built like a dog. Easier cheaper and so what if it suffers so long as it works.

Do you mean Harlan Ellison-style dark?

Then that would be synthetic canine Maggie as Blood, the telepathic dog from Ellison's book A Boy And His Dog, who helps his friend Vic hunt down women to rape and cannibalise as food in a post-apocalyptic world of the future.

I'll pass on that one.

TC

More the existential nihilism of I Have No Mouth. A human level intelligence stuck in a canine form. Unable to understand or express its own limitations.

Not saying that is in this short, or even mildly hinted at, just stringing and extrapolating from the general capitalist driven laziness of corporate greed shoved into overdrive by WY.

That's some Black Mirror level of wrong. Like it. I can get behind it. Could make sense if written carefully. It would have to be either a secret from the public, or somehow the public must be convinced that there is no suffering happening here. Still, eventually like in Black Mirror, people will find out about that, rights activists will pop up and things will be resolved. And then the Autons...  :laugh:

There's a good story hidden in this proposal IMO

HuDaFuK

HuDaFuK

#262
Quote from: Ronoc on May 18, 2019, 03:40:50 PMIt's not nonsense that they can make them, is nonsense that they bother to. Unless it's a significant improvement over a real dog, there'd be no point.

No point, except you don't need to feed it or walk it, it can work 24/7 without sleep, it isn't susceptible to disease or, to a degree, ageing, and is presumably stronger and more durable than a real dog, all of which would make it a better guard dog. Case in point - experience suggests a real dog wouldn't have been able to fight off the Facehugger, but Maggie could.

They'd also be far easier to ship out to a distant colony, as it wouldn't need hypersleep or supplies for the trip.

So it seems to me like there are plenty of good reasons to make them.

The Old One

The Old One

#263
All of this ^

It's practical.

Ronoc

Maybe, but I still think if you have the science to improve something out of all sight, you'd aim higher than a dog.
What you've said is all good and well for a recreational dog. For a working animal, being a dog looks like a purely aesthetic choice. You'd at least have to have some place on him to plug in a voice box. And give him some degree of that human-level AI that WY have developed...
The girl in this story might have appreciated that

Quote from: HuDaFuK on May 19, 2019, 05:12:16 PM
Quote from: Ronoc on May 18, 2019, 03:40:50 PMIt's not nonsense that they can make them, is nonsense that they bother to. Unless it's a significant improvement over a real dog, there'd be no point.

No point, except you don't need to feed it or walk it, it can work 24/7 without sleep, it isn't susceptible to disease or, to a degree, ageing, and is presumably stronger and more durable than a real dog, all of which would make it a better guard dog. Case in point - experience suggests a real dog wouldn't have been able to fight off the Facehugger, but Maggie could.

They'd also be far easier to ship out to a distant colony, as it wouldn't need hypersleep or supplies for the trip.

So it seems to me like there are plenty of good reasons to make them.

HuDaFuK

Quote from: Ronoc on May 21, 2019, 09:20:32 AMWhat you've said is all good and well for a recreational dog. For a working animal, being a dog looks like a purely aesthetic choice. You'd at least have to have some place on him to plug in a voice box. And give him some degree of that human-level AI that WY have developed...

Dogs have a longstanding, close-knit social relationship with humans. "Dogs are a man's best friend" etc. There's a perfectly valid argument that W-Y or whoever makes them would prefer to imitate the real thing as closely as possible rather than create a super robo-mutt. If it can speak, for example, is even a dog any more?

If androids like Bishop are seemingly designed to imitate humans as accurately as possible, why not Maggie a real dog?

Regardless, the long-distance transport argument alone makes synthetic dogs perfectly valid if you ask me. How much would it cost to ship five real dogs to LV-426 as opposed to putting five synthetics in the cargo hold?

The1PerfectOrganism

The1PerfectOrganism

#266
Yeah, I agree.

Maggie rules.

Ronoc

She's a working dog it seems, and in that case she's a tool, but seems to be suboptimal for the task.
So what if she's not "even a dog anymore". That's not why she's there I'd imagine.
A tractor beats a team of horses, and a snowmobile beats huskies at what they do, no matter how much people like horses and dogs.


Quote from: HuDaFuK on May 21, 2019, 09:36:39 AM
Quote from: Ronoc on May 21, 2019, 09:20:32 AMWhat you've said is all good and well for a recreational dog. For a working animal, being a dog looks like a purely aesthetic choice. You'd at least have to have some place on him to plug in a voice box. And give him some degree of that human-level AI that WY have developed...

Dogs have a longstanding, close-knit social relationship with humans. "Dogs are a man's best friend" etc. There's a perfectly valid argument that W-Y or whoever makes them would prefer to imitate the real thing as closely as possible rather than create a super robo-mutt. If it can speak, for example, is even a dog any more?

If androids like Bishop are seemingly designed to imitate humans as accurately as possible, why not Maggie a real dog?

Regardless, the long-distance transport argument alone makes synthetic dogs perfectly valid if you ask me. How much would it cost to ship five real dogs to LV-426 as opposed to putting five synthetics in the cargo hold?

The1PerfectOrganism

The1PerfectOrganism

#268
Doesn't appear ineffectual.

Maggie wins, and is apparently good at the job.

Ronoc

Not ineffectual, suboptimal.
Unless they are dirt cheap to produce

Quote from: Erik Lehnsherr on May 22, 2019, 12:47:42 PM
Doesn't appear ineffectual.

Maggie wins, and is apparently good at the job.

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