Empress of Forever

by Max Gladstone

Viv’s project was machine learning stuff like the Death Star was laser pointer stuff. She had come within a hair’s breadth of a real self-optimizer: a smart program that could make itself smarter, without limit.

Viv would be the Cordyceps, and Ogham would be her ant. Bad analogy. It made this whole thing sound sinister. Viv wasn’t a mad scientist. She just wanted to crush her enemies, and save the world.

The system used math to break the black-and-white grid down to meaning, but since Viv knew the math it would use, she could control the meaning it would find. So when the security system read her face, it interpreted the melted checkerboard into a few dense lines of code, and executed them.

Ugh.... Dear writers, please stop doing this.

Servers stood in racks. The room was silent save for fans and the air conditioner’s hum.

LOL

Energy spent regretting a decision was best redirected toward addressing its consequences.

Pridemother’s battlemind had its own autonomic nervous system, perhaps even subconscious, scratching little tactical itches without realizing, adjusting posture, breathing. Maintaining area control.

“Zanj wants to go after the Fallen Star. I don’t even know if it’s a ship, or a mind, or a weapon, or a computer, or what.” “All these terms,” he said, “are, at sufficient stages of mastery, indistinguishable from one another, as a strike from a block from a counter.”

Consequence accumulates in situations like minerals in solution, until some impurity or asymmetry appears. Add a seed, a sudden shift in temperature, and the solution snaps to crystal order. Time stops. How could anything change, after this moment?

A fight is a jungle. Two people dive into it together, and each seeks her own path through, running down known trails, avoiding pits and perils she knows, falling victim to those she fails to guess.

“You’re not who you think you are,” Viv said. “You’re a dream. That’s all. But don’t take it too hard. So are the rest of us.”