In Archive-Message-Number 7023, [email removed] (James Dening)
writes:
>In reply to Brent Woods:
>>> current Imperial technology should be utterly immune to any
>>> invasion of that type. In other words, the Virus should be
>>> impossible...
>
>I disagree.
>
>You cannot say that simply because the Cymbeline chips are old, that
>what is *in* them (i.e. software) will be limited to current tech
>capabilities of the time.
Well, actually, I can say that. However, that's not what I said.
I wasn't addressing the software at all. I was talking about the actual
_hardware_. The confusion is my fault, though--I should have been more
explicit.
What I meant was that the hardware (the computer itself) should
have developed in directions and to degrees that would leave doped
semiconductors far enough behind that they would be curiosities on the
order of Babbage's Analytical Engine.
You see, the Virus was so insidious because it could _alter the
actual hardware that it ran on_. In effect, it hardcoded itself into
the machine itself. In this way, it emulated the effects of some actual
biological viri: it invaded its host and immediately started altering
"DNA" (okay, processors and ROM analogs; the analogy still holds, I
think).
Now, the Deyo series of adaptive transponders were, according to
published sources, based on semiconductor intelligences (lifeforms, if
your definition is flexible enough) discovered on the planet Cymbeline.
These intelligences were in turn based on chips from a crashed Solomani
starship. (I believe this was in _Survival Margin_--unfortunately, I'm
right in the middle of moving, so my books are boxed and in transit.)
These chips, in the unique environment of the surface of Cymbeline,
evolved into analogs of biological lifeforms.
In the ensuing time (approximately 3000 years, if memory serves),
however, progress should have marched on and doped semiconductors should
have passed into obsolescence, replaced by newer and more capable
technologies (optical? Josephson junction? Nanomechanisms? I see no
way of predicting).
Now, am I asking too much of the development engineers? I don't
think so. Look at the development of technology over the past 70 years
(why 70? Well, my mother is 70 years old--I can ask someone *who is
still alive* about the development of technology over that period). 70
years ago (1924), commercial radio was still a novelty. 18 years later,
my mother was working for RCA installing radios in jeeps. How about
computer technology? I have *very* clear memories of hollerith cards.
While useful, I personally believe that the Deyo series was really
too dangerous to be practical. Implementing the transponders using an
obsolete technology *no longer used anywhere else* strikes me as an
excellent safety measure.
Irony: Too bad it didn't work. ;-) I seem to have broken a
spring in my disbelief suspension. ;-)
- --
Brent Woods
INTERNET: [email removed] (preferred) and
[email removed]
USNAIL: [address removed]
MABELL: +1 [phone removed]