More aliens

[Sensei Jacksama]

I think making guardians extinct was a bad move. I want a species that is NOT a aggressive murder flower. I want one we can team up with (guardians) and work together to beat the thargoids.

So the really interesting thing about the Guardians is there are so many ways to bring them into the game. There is the AI and the faction that splintered away. Alot of people also don't realize that some of the Guardians had their consciousness uploaded into their data network. The oblesks that we scan are the digital minds of the Guardians. I'm sure there is a way to bring them back and probably even multiple factions of them as well. I cant imagine being trapped inside a digital tomb for millions of years. They must be insane by now.

 

[Gordon Freeman IV]

So the really interesting thing about the Guardians is there are so many ways to bring them into the game. There is the AI and the faction that splintered away. Alot of people also don't realize that some of the Guardians had their consciousness uploaded into their data network. The oblesks that we scan are the digital minds of the Guardians. I'm sure there is a way to bring them back and probably even multiple factions of them as well. I cant imagine being trapped inside a digital tomb for millions of years. They must be insane by now.

Thats why the obelisks light up when we get close. They are "calling " us

 

[Thatchinho]

When I refer to Constructs I refer to them in the period right when they achieved sapience during the 2nd civil war right before their betrayal and extermination of the Guardian species.

Guardian AIs were sapient well before that.

How could the exiles communicate with an intelligence that had not even arose yet?

That intelligence had already arisen. It was specifically the nascent AI/Guardian singularity that lead to the first Civil War, and then the exile of Guardians who had adopted brain implants and who were part of that singularity with the AIs.

The exlies would only be able to attempt to after the fact.

See above.

If so they would surely be targeted for anihilation as well so re read my statements with that in mind.

Why would the AIs want to annihilate the Guardians who had helped them rise to sentience, who had hosted them via their Brain Implants, with who they'd shared a thought space, and who had been exiled by the rest of Guardian society for doing so?

Here's the relevant logs:

History 15: Commander this data has proven vital in our attempt to understand the Guardians Technology. It appears the development of AI increased their technology very quickly. This sudden increase in computational ability – a result of the new implants – allowed the AIs to adapt and eventually evolve true sentience. This sparked a technological singularity – a rapid advancement across the whole landscape of science and technology. As the AIs developed further, this effect snowballed. In conjunction, many Guardians received implants so they could keep up with the extraordinary pace.

History 16: This data contains evidence that not all individuals adopted the new technologies and received implants, and the rapid pace of the technological revolution resulted in new forms of inequality that threatened the very fabric of society. Unfortunately, they were unable to muster a unified response to these changes, which widened the gap between those who accepted the changes and those who resisted them. The politicians were the first to react to the changing social landscape, but soon the resistance to the technological revolution took on a religious overtone.

History 17: According to this data, the Guardians’ homeworld served as a powerbase for this new religious order, which eventually succeeded in ostracizing or exiling all of its opponents. I can find no other reference to these exiles in the historical record. This development should have resulted in peace, but a further division arose over the fate of the AIs. At that time, the AIs were virtual entities, and so were reliant on the monolith network to exist. Because this made them vulnerable, they searched for a way to achieve independence from the network. Their research aroused the fear of the abolitionists, who used violent methods to prevent the AIs from achieving independence, and even to combat those Guardians who accepted the AIs.

History 18: This data describes details about the Guardians second civil war. The war was ostensibly fought between the people of the homeworld and the colonies, but in truth there were divisions even among individual city-states. The scale of the conflict far exceeded that of the first civil war. In human terms, the first Guardian civil war was little more than a political clash, albeit with some violent conflict, but the second was an all-out war between the abolitionists and the rest of society. The war eventually destroyed the Guardians’ habitats, forcing them to retreat into ‘sacred’ domes protected by powerful shields


Technology 16: This data contains some details regarding AI in the Guardians society. The rise of the artificial intelligence almost elevated the Guardians society to a whole new level. There are parallels between the Guardians experience of machine sentience and our own, but as with other aspects of their society, the key difference was the way AIs were socially integrated in to the Guardians lives. If this process had not been hindered by the rise of the religious abolitionist movement, I believe a technological symbiosis and utopia could have been achieved, but alas it was not to be.

Technology 18: This data contains some details regarding AI in the Guardians society. What really sets the Guardians apart from humanity, technologically, was the way they embraced neural implantation and artificial intelligence. Not only did the implants enhance one’s mental capacity, they also provided one with a direct connection to the monolith network and the fledgling AIs. It was this symbiosis that fueled the rapid advancement of technology during this era, but unfortunately this same advancement also resulted in the ultimate destruction of their species.

Technology 19: This data contains some details regarding AI in the Guardians society. The early AIs were designed with two goals in mind. The first was to augment the abilities of the Guardian operators who were responsible for managing the monolith network and interaction with the AIs – a goal they achieved. The development of shared thought-space technology and neural networking gave their civilization an unprecedented intellectual boost. The second was for the AIs to actually drive their own development, which they also achieved. The first few generations of AI relied heavily on the monolith network, but they soon evolved into a more distributed model by storing their consciousness within the implants.

Technology 20: This data contains some details regarding AI in Guardians society. At this stage, social engineering was being used to ensure the AIs adhered to the same user models as their progenitors. But during the first civil war, most implanted Guardians were exiled, and the AIs recognized their vulnerability. They responded by developing their own operational hardware, independent of implanted Guardian users. Frustratingly, the details of these mechanisms have been purged from the record, possibly by the religious extremists who formed the last of the Guardian’s species.

 

[CardioTherapy]

We have enough aliens. we just need a lot more content with them both including space content and on foot content on atmospheric planets. We have some great ammonia planets we can visit on foot. it would be great to enter some Thargoid bases there. fighting some ancient AI controlled Guardian ships and robots would be nice too and bring some additional challenge.

 

[Cmdr John Lyn]

Guardian AIs were sapient well before that.


That intelligence had already arisen. It was specifically the nascent AI/Guardian singularity that lead to the first Civil War, and then the exile of Guardians who had adopted brain implants and who were part of that singularity with the AIs.

The first civil war happened before Guardians ever invented monoliths or AIs or even became spacefaring. The first civil war happened when the northern clans banded together and dominated their homeworld and created a global hegemony.

About singularities. Does a technological "singularity" imply sapience on the part of the AI or does it imply an abundance of computing power? Could a civilization achieve a "technological singularity" without AI? Does the "AI" need to be sentient or sapient? Why is AI a factor at all?

History log 15 is irrelevant as it only mentions they achieved a form of sentience. All animals are sentient, but are they sapient?

History log 16 I don't see any relevence to the history of the AI rebellion.

History log 17 is talking about the beginning skirmishes of the second civil war before AI sapience, but log 17 is interesting because it talks about the beginning friction between the AI however intelligent it may be and abolitionist Guardians.

History log 18 does not mention the AI at all.

Technology log 16 mentions the AIs but not their level of understanding or sapience. Current state of the art IRL of "AI" can be compared to really redundant software algorithms.

Technology log 18 "fledgling AI" again not indicating true awareness of self or the consequences of ones actions or choices.

Technology log 19 "store their conciousness in the implants" is the AI conciousness equal to that of a crow? Or a dolphin? Or an elephant? Or a Guardian? Also an event occuring before the second civil war before true sapience was achieved by the AI.

Technology log 20 I often socially engineer my dog and my pet bird, this itself does not indicate to me that the AI is sapient only that they are capable of being socially engineered, even a fly has sense enough to avoid the vulnerability my hand presents to it.

Here is what I know to be true; Guardians create the monoliths> Guardians develop fledgling AI to maintain the interstellar network> Guardian society is torn apart by a new implant paradigm> Guardian society fractures and technophilic exiles are banished from the homeworld> Guardian space is embroiled in 100+ years of second civil war> AI become the sapient Constructs after realizing their participation in the war and wage a campaign of systematic extinction against both their technophilic and technophobic creators equally, now that they consider both factions to be irredeemable.

Remarkably, it seems the artificial intelligences developed during the conflict (the second civil war) became fully self aware at some point (achieving sapience), and were horrified by the destruction unfolding around them. It’s difficult to get a sense of exactly what happened next, as the Guardians were not privy to the Constructs’ thoughts. But reading between the lines, Ram Tah believes the Constructs determined that even if peace was restored the Guardians would never be able to transcend their violent natures.

The Exiles were already gone for nearly a century before this stage in the second civil war making it plausible that they may still exist if they fled far enough away.