The Campaign Builder's Guild

Neil Gaiman makes the matrix cooler than anyone else ever did.

Quote from: Salacious AngelNeil Gaiman makes the matrix cooler than anyone else ever did.

Well, the logical part of my brain just shut down to prevent damage to itself. While it's a good read, it belittles everything we know about the Matrix and its creators.

#1: Why in Zuse's name would a race of robots build a spacecraft for a human to save the world instead of just throwing like 3 million guardians at those aliens? Or build a completley robotic spacecraft? No matter how much you'd augment the human brain, a computer can just deal with information a hell of a lot faster than the grey matter. Do you know someone who can react to some stimulus in 1/10000000000th of a second? Well, neither do I.

#2: Accelerated flow of time, huh? Good thing the machines didn't do that whenever Neo did something, or he'd have been swarmed by thousands of agents in a blink of an eye.

#3: Aliens? WTF?!

Honestly, i think i liked the matrix better. That might just be me being a traditionalist on this issue, but i really didn't find this especially good. Sorry. I usually like Neil Gaiman otherwise.
One good point though was the computer errors as seen from the narrators view. that was pretty neat.

Well, since I didn't like where the Matrix story went for 2 and 3, I did like this short story. It does feel different, but in a good way I think.

I just finished it.  I found it enjoyable and of pleasant length.  The incongruities didn't bother me so much, or rather, it didn't feel like the world of the Matrix.  The imagery was there, but I didn't need to connect the story and the movies to enjoy the piece.  Thanks for sharing, SA.

I'm in agreeance with Crit, here. If it makes it any easier, you can always think of it as one or two possible universes next to the world of the Matrix.

Quote from: Ra-Tiel#1: Why in Zuse's name would a race of robots build a spacecraft for a human to save the world instead of just throwing like 3 million guardians at those aliens? Or build a completley robotic spacecraft? No matter how much you'd augment the human brain, a computer can just deal with information a hell of a lot faster than the grey matter. Do you know someone who can react to some stimulus in 1/10000000000th of a second? Well, neither do I.

#2: Accelerated flow of time, huh? Good thing the machines didn't do that whenever Neo did something, or he'd have been swarmed by thousands of agents in a blink of an eye.

#3: Aliens? WTF?!

#1: That's highly inefficient. Why send a robot to do a risky job when you have an existing human that's perfectly fit to take that risk? Besides, there's many other factors in efficiency that you might not be considering. What if they needed all the robots to defend the home front?

#2 Maybe there were countermeasures against that. Maybe Morpheus took down their acceleration apps before the trilogy, or maybe the entire team had isolated timeflow.

#3 What's wrong with aliens?

It should be noted that this story was written before the first movie came out, so the incongruities have a lot to do with the fact that the setting wasn't thoroughly established yet (or Gaiman hadn't been shown the end result).

I don't find his "computation" rationale any more absurd than the machine's "battery" one.  I can imagine the bots thinking "well, we don't need to expend energy making parts.  We can just let the people make themselves..."  Still woefully insufficient, but I think it ties in better to the notions of the nature of consciousness, free will, authority, yadda yadda yadda.  Besides which, it doesn't piss all over thermodynamics.

I agree that it's not really the Matrix per se (nor do I think that's necessary), but in the end I would probably prefer a movie based on Gaiman's vision than the Wachowski's dissappointment of a trilogy.  I loved the Matrix for its action, but I love this for its... well, I think just think it's just a damned better story.

As for aliens, consider the fundamental absurdity of the entire Matrix concept.  No matter which view you take, none of it is entirely rational: the machines really wouldn't have any use for us at all.  The aliens, the man-as-pilot, they're all just interesting plot devices.  They, like the Matrix itself, are catalysts for the story and its concepts.

It's interesting to compare the protagonist's desire to "jack back in" to Cypher's decision in the original movie.  I think it's given more substance here, but that's beside my point, which is that human consciousness, time, even meaning, are very clouded things indeed when a machine can condense your life into 20 minutes, or suspend your mind indefinitely in a few nanoseconds of system restore.

Quote from: Sdr$g$n1984#1: That's highly inefficient. Why send a robot to do a risky job when you have an existing human that's perfectly fit to take that risk? Besides, there's many other factors in efficiency that you might not be considering. What if they needed all the robots to defend the home front?

The point is: machines are replacable, humans are not. What if the protagonist had overlooked one meteorite launched against his vehicle and died even before getting into firing range? Earth would have been doomed (well, even more as it already is) because of a "single point of failure". Also, they had only built this one craft. How could they know that he wouldn't fail?

And if they didn't know... since when does a race of robots feel hope?

Quote from: Sdr$g$n1984#2 Maybe there were countermeasures against that. Maybe Morpheus took down their acceleration apps before the trilogy, or maybe the entire team had isolated timeflow.

Aka "deus ex machina". ;)

Quote from: Sdr$g$n1984#3 What's wrong with aliens?

Inherently, nothing. It's just that the "Matrixverse" is whacky enough "as is". No need to introduce aliens into that mess. :P

Quote from: Ra-Tiel

Quote from: Sdr$g$n1984#1: That's highly inefficient. Why send a robot to do a risky job when you have an existing human that's perfectly fit to take that risk? Besides, there's many other factors in efficiency that you might not be considering. What if they needed all the robots to defend the home front?

The point is: machines are replacable, humans are not. What if the protagonist had overlooked one meteorite launched against his vehicle and died even before getting into firing range? Earth would have been doomed (well, even more as it already is) because of a "single point of failure". Also, they had only built this one craft. How could they know that he wouldn't fail?

And if they didn't know... since when does a race of robots feel hope?

That first sentence is proof that you're human. Your ego tells you that humans are not expendable because, well, you're human. Wouldn't it then follow that a race of self-aware robots might have developed the ego needed to tell them that robots are the ones who aren't expendable? Besides, there's still the matter of efficiency. You only know one potentially small (albeit important) part of the overall strategy. It's hard to say they made a poor choice when you don't know all of the factors that lead to that choice.

In regards to your last question, though: although I wouldn't call it "hope", per se, I can easily imagine a race of robots capable of playing the odds in a situation like this. Either way, they took their course of action because, to the best of their knowledge, it was their best chance.

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Quote from: Sdr$g$n1984#2 Maybe there were countermeasures against that. Maybe Morpheus took down their acceleration apps before the trilogy, or maybe the entire team had isolated timeflow.

Aka "deus ex machina". ;)

In this case, I'd say it's a fairly acceptable Deus Ex Machina. If nothing else, it's better then a meta-explanation, such as the author writing before canon was established.

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Quote from: Sdr$g$n1984#3 What's wrong with aliens?

Inherently, nothing. It's just that the "Matrixverse" is whacky enough "as is". No need to introduce aliens into that mess. :P

Okay, I can see that. Then again, the addition of aliens doesn't stretch my personal suspension of disbelief that much further then apparently agricultural robots that cultivate humans, but that's just me. As far as I'm concerned, they're both interesting elements.