Comic for Monday, February 20th
I promise Tyler’s last question will probably make a little more sense next page. Of course, promising probables is easy.
We’ve actually seen a handful of modified humans or cyborgs, some of them are obvious, some of them are… well, I don’t remember if I’ve talked about before or not, so I’ll just shut up.
Typically a modified human is someone that was remodeled so to speak; people like Lisa would not consider herself a modified human or an artificial human (…yes, I had to reach a bit to get an example that would absolutely not be a spoiler at all… you can look her up on the cast page :P). The common parlance in this case would be that modified = cyborg, artificial = android or cloned (…I will resist that rabbit hole for now).
Minor modifications are pretty common in some jobs, mostly stuff like pilots or military personnel in general. Most of people we’ve seen wearing the heavy googles have interface adjustments, as those are hard to use effectively without any.
A handful of people have pointed out the Mium/Ila’s skin tone should disqualify them from posing as Designer Children, but while they are paler than most, we’ve seen a pretty wide range – Saria being another example. Due to the influx of foreigners and the whole Designer Children thing, there are few things that truly stand out in Malsa (well… short of like Mir); if anything, Peter, Tyler and Kally tend to stand out more, but even then foreigners aren’t particularly rare.
Loading ...
The Colonel would like to have some “heavy googles with interface adjustments”, if he knew what they are…
He’s such a delightful ass.
Obviously his reply means that while he hasn’t necessarily lied, he hasn’t exactly given the truth (or complete truth) either.
Betting this is a necessary response because of his answer to “Are you an artificial human?” Human does not equate to intelligence. (And anyone who thinks they do should be shot on the spot, with the only questions asked being where they get shot, and what with.)
This page is so fun~~
“are you are modified human” should probably be “are you a modified human”
Also I love Mium’s personality.
So it probably should be. Fixed! Thanks.
um… it now says “are you are a modified human?”
not sure that is right.
Oops. Fixed(er). Thanks!
Hmmm, So where do Orish warmages like Rovik Stas fit in the “augmented human” spectrum? Or, for that matter, Miko with her wi-fi port in the nape of her neck?
That’s easy, friend! Riiight there on the spectrum, right where it says “awesome”!
Heh, reminds me of this time someone replied “yeah, maybe awesomely crazy” – I laughed for a whole minute! Still blew him up of course, but that was pretty entertaining.
Now I suppose everyone with a little bit of new-and-improved going on could be called a modified human, but a little bit of hardware doesn’t make you a warmage. Being awesome isn’t quite plug and play, shall we say… 😀
//I dunno if I would trust him. He’s a wee bit… hey. You can’t blow me up! I WRITE YOU!
“Awesome” part of the spectrum is best part of the spectrum.
Also, while I’m not one to wear shirts that have much detail besides being one color…I love your shirts.
And awesome might not be plug and play, but plug and play is pretty awesome. (Pretty sure even you would admit that doing all those installations manually would suck. Then again, “installation” isn’t exactly your….shtick, anyway, is it?))
//Pfft, Author Authority isn’t always absolute. 😛 Dunno if I’d trust him either, but (gimme a damn minute, jeez!) I sure do enjoy listening to what he’s got to say. He’s fun!
I think the best first question to extract info of that sort is almost always “what question or questions do you think I should ask, after this one, which is most relevant to my pursuit of my interests?”
While Peter or Miko might go that route, they both know Mium’s nature a lot better and trust Mium a great deal more to know what they want to know and be helpful.
Plus it’s debatable how much Tyler knows about Mium, while he clearly suspects something, he may not suspect Mium of being something of a digital genie (which people here will have their own differing opinions on how true that is, I’m sure 😉 )
Tyler does have something of an ulterior motive with the format of his questions 😉
True, but after an answer like what Mium gave last page in response to “give me all info,” I think that would be a reasonable follow-up regardless of whether the other person is an A.I… then again, hindsight (or more precisely, more-informed-sight)…
“make due” ≠“make do”
Huh, you’re right. Going to be honest here, I thought the saying was make due (as in adequate). I was, as it turns out, wrong about words. No one is surprised. 😛
Anyway… fixed! Thanks! 😉
Well, Mium is an AI most of whose capacity (reasoning, memory….) are not present in the (presumably) artificial human body that Tyler and (almost?) everyone else he meets assume to be Mium (all of him). So by answering the questions with complete honesty he is leading Tyler to reach erroneous conclusions. Mium is deliberately not pointing out Tyler’s false assumption , which misleads Tyler. Mium is quite subtle enough to understand that saying nothing untrue is not quite ‘not lying’. So he answers ‘Have you lied to me?’ ‘Not really.’ rather than ‘Yes.’ or ‘No.’ (And then ‘That wasn’t a yes or no.’ (true!) ‘Yes.’ (It wasn’t really a question, but Mium understands the question that was implied,and answers it.)
That last sentence needs another period and right paren at the end, oops!
Gotta be careful or your comment won’t compile! 😛
On the bright side, this less of a grammar error than 99% of the comic pages contain. I could fix it, but than we’d both look like crazy people.
A minor exaggeration, at worst, in my case. I’ve said before (and will again) ‘I may be crazy, but I’m not stupid.’ ;-}}
Mium really seems to like “technically” true. There has not been any concrete proof that he has to answer questions or is unable to lie, but he definitely seems to make some effort to a) answer (technically) anything someone asks him, b) not actually kill people, and c) tell the truth.
Unfortunately he can lie with misconceptions and “points of view” better than most people can with entirely fabricating things. He probably deliberately pushed Tyler into asking questions with easily misunderstood answers by cutting off the “please elaborate everything you know” approach, noted the answers were easily misunderstood, and the directly lead Tyler to misunderstanding.
“That wasn’t a yes or no.”
“I did say ‘where possible.'”
Well Mium didnt lie. Exactly. He is not an artificial human. Hes an AI who is masquarading as one.