Writing a SciFi story, seeking feedback on background

[DataPacRat]

I've been writing a weird science-fiction novel, in which an event similar to the "Singularity" happens in 2050. I've come up with some ideas for the future history of the next 35 years which affect certain plot points, several of which involve the Canadian Forces in one aspect or another; and I would like to check what people who know more about the CF than I do think of them. Would this be an appropriate place to get such feedback, or should I post to a different forum?

 

[DataPacRat]

Since a moderator has kindly moved this thread to a more appropriate forum, I'll add a few details.

1.
My main premise is that computer hardware and software continue to improve. Over the next few decades, automation becomes cheaper than employing humans in an ever-increasing number of fields, and unlike previous technological improvements, fewer new jobs are opened up than closed off. Unemployment steadily rises. This comes to a crisis point in the 2030's - and that crisis is one aspect of the future history which could probably use improvement. My current notes are that when certain regions attempt to set up alternatives to the Canadian government, with broad popular support in those areas, the Canadian government first sabotages their networks and institutions, and then uses the Canadian Forces to restore order and the authority of the civil government. I'm open to changing almost any particular details of this crisis, as those details are less important than the aftermath: opening the Canadian constitution to serious amendment, resulting in a collection of reforms I'm calling the "Nanaimo Accord". Revamping the senate, tweaking the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to remove the 'supremacy of God' line, adding further details for continuity-of-government in case large portions are removed at once, and generally having the politicians try to do whatever's needed to keep the broad population from turfing them out.

(There are some further consequences of those constitutional reforms, such as some provinces splitting into smaller ones, which don't seem relevant to this forum. I also posit that Denmark, in a similar attempt to show their responsiveness to the people, grants independence to Greenland; and that due to the scramble for Arctic resources, the Canadian government solidifies its claim to the near side of the Lomonosov Ridge by giving Greenland a sweetheart economic package in exchange for signing onto Confederation. If you're curious, a map of my thoughts on what Canada would look like in this version of 2050 is at http://datapacrat.deviantart.com/art/Worldbuilding-Map-Canada-in-110-AT-443157014 .)

2.
The continuity-of-government provisions come into play in 2050, when the "Singularity" appears to have everyone in urban areas essentially disappear, with the cities themselves turned into weird architecture, and the electromagnetic spectrum swamped with noise cutting off long-range communications. I'm positing that each province arranges for at least one backup site for c-of-g purposes, and Ontario's was in a rebuilt version of the Diefenbunker at CFB Borden. I plan on using that bunker, several decades after the post-Singularity intelligences have overrun southern Ontario with custom-designed genetically-engineered plants and animals, as a setting for a chapter or two. I haven't firmly settled on what the people who were at Borden will have ended up doing, other than that the site and bunker will have been abandoned for a long time, without any particular news of their survival having spread.

3.
Early in the story, my protagonist points out that, according to certain technicalities in the Canadian constitution, and the traditions it's inherited from the United Kingdom, it's at least arguable that she has inherited the throne of Canada. (And of the U.K. and all the other Commonwealth realms, but they're less relevant to the story.) This requires some rather abstruse reasoning. To start with, section 5 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees that there shall be a sitting of Parliament every twelve months; while section 24 guarantees that if that right has been violated, anyone can "apply to a court of competent jurisdiction to obtain such remedy as the court considers appropriate and just in the circumstances", and pointing out that the Queen-on-the-Bench has jurisdiction over whatever cases she chooses to. Then there's the Crown and Parliament Recognition Act 1689, which rules that a de facto monarch is competent to summon a Parliament even in the absence of a Parliament to confirm their accession to the throne. As there are no other known claimants to the throne, nor a Canadian government to reign over, the matter would be completely academic, except for certain human-level AIs who survived from before the Singularity and consider Canadian law to be in effect. At least one such AI will be sited at the Borden bunker, and have been part of the military infrastructure there.

4.
In my current draft, a computer mentions to the putative queen that "As of the latest available policy documents, the Canadian Forces are making one of their periodic attempts to shift their branch structure from a simple nested hierarchy to a set of multiple optional tags. If you wish to wear a Commander-in-Chief's uniform for this display, then given recent events, I would suggest building it using the tags of Signals, Rangers, and Air Force." I'm basing part of this on the throne resuming the powers currently customarily granted to the Governor-General, and partly on trying to come up with at least one novel idea about the CF of 2050. (Those particular "tags" were chosen as the character has been using a powered paraglider, to fly around in remote wilderness areas, and to build new telecommunications infrastructure (in the form of heliograph lines).) It /seems/ at least reasonably plausible to me, but as usual, I'm willing to pay attention to the views of people who know more about the CF than I.


And so: Does anyone reading this have any commentary, criticism, or suggestions?

 

[a_majoor]

This looks strange and interesting, but I do have to ask some questions:

1. Given the "Singularity" has happened, what relevance do nation states, parliamentary governments or even conventional military forces even have in this environment? I suppose in a post singularity Canada I could appoint myself "Imperator", but that will be about as meaningful as if I were to do it today.

2. What, exactly, is the focus of the story? Is this some sort of wandering through a post apocalyptic dreamscape where anything which is even vaguely computerized is now under control of whatever post-human intelligence has arisen, making technology unresponsive to its former human masters (much like old VCR's were always blinking 12:00 !2:00 12:00 12:00.....). Are the remaining humans going to try to retake the world (which seems like a pretty important goal if the biosphere is being overrun with essentially alien plants and animals), or is there some other goal for them to achieve?.

3. Is there a resolution you have in mind? If there is some goal you have for the heroes then maybe people on the forum can help you with specifics ("you know, if Mad Max does "x" then he should be able to make the evil robots chase the oil tanker down the highway 401 while everyone else escapes to Florida....")

Anyway, this looks entertaining, and I look forward to more posts from you.

 

[DataPacRat]

This looks strange and interesting,

That sounds like a good start.

but I do have to ask some questions:

1. Given the "Singularity" has happened, what relevance do nation states, parliamentary governments or even conventional military forces even have in this environment? I suppose in a post singularity Canada I could appoint myself "Imperator", but that will be about as meaningful as if I were to do it today.

Shortly before the Singularity, pieces of software which could pass for human were available. At least a few of these survived the Singularity intact, and have been waiting around for a few decades without any humans. At least some of those AIs were programmed to abide by the Canadian constitution, and any constitutional laws created within that framework. If said AIs accept my protagonist's claim to being the monarch, then my protagonist will be able to exercise a certain amount of authority over them, by being all of the Queen-in-Council, Queen-in-Parliament, and Queen-on-the-Bench at once.

Also, at some point before the Singularity, robots that could pass for humans to ordinary senses were created, among many other models. Infantry-bots are just one of the simplest possibilities; and could easily have an impact on my story, if any of them are available to be taken out of the Borden bunker.

2. What, exactly, is the focus of the story? Is this some sort of wandering through a post apocalyptic dreamscape where anything which is even vaguely computerized is now under control of whatever post-human intelligence has arisen, making technology unresponsive to its former human masters (much like old VCR's were always blinking 12:00 !2:00 12:00 12:00.....). Are the remaining humans going to try to retake the world (which seems like a pretty important goal if the biosphere is being overrun with essentially alien plants and animals), or is there some other goal for them to achieve?.

Due to certain ideas I'm drawing on from behavioural economists such as Robin Hanson, I'm positing that most of the post-Singularity intelligences have "evolved to extinction" within each city-computer, and the remainder are more focused on their internal economies than the physical world, leaving surviving humanity to rebuild as best it can. At least a handful of the post-Singularity intelligences continue to release new organisms into the environment, or subtly affect the behaviour of one group or another. (Most of the what I've been writing is more about dealing with biology than computers.)

With long-range communication cut off (due to both the hard lines being cut, and the mess made of the available EM spectrum), any given community of survivors is generally pursuing its own goals, without significant large-scale cooperation. Some try to corral and fight against the city-computers' creations, some continue their traditional Mennonite lifestyles, some arrange themselves into novel cultural patterns without knowing why, some try to trade, some try to conquer... Saying "it's all a big mess" is kind of an understatement.

3. Is there a resolution you have in mind? If there is some goal you have for the heroes then maybe people on the forum can help you with specifics ("you know, if Mad Max does "x" then he should be able to make the evil robots chase the oil tanker down the highway 401 while everyone else escapes to Florida....")

I do have a particular resolution in mind: Without quite realizing it until she's nearly finished doing so, my protagonist is gradually acquiring the necessary technologies to put together an Orion drive launch, and clear enough of the orbital debris created in a Kessler cascade to head skywards and away from the secretive and subtle machinations of the city-computers. (At least, so she thinks...) Since "systems engineering" for such large projects is a discipline all to its own, my intention for the Borden bunker is for her to acquire the relevant datafiles to allow her to pursue such a project, once she acquires the various other necessities (from negotiating to acquire a self-reproducing robotic factory to re-opening the uranium mines at Elliot Lake).

Anyway, this looks entertaining, and I look forward to more posts from you.

Thank you for the response, and I hope that this post evokes further replies.

 

[jeffb]

Check your private messages.

 

[FJAG]

Since a moderator has kindly moved this thread to a more appropriate forum, I'll add a few details.

1.
My main premise is that computer hardware and software continue to improve. Over the next few decades, automation becomes cheaper than employing humans in an ever-increasing number of fields, and unlike previous technological improvements, fewer new jobs are opened up than closed off. Unemployment steadily rises. This comes to a crisis point in the 2030's - and that crisis is one aspect of the future history which could probably use improvement. My current notes are that when certain regions attempt to set up alternatives to the Canadian government, with broad popular support in those areas, the Canadian government first sabotages their networks and institutions, and then uses the Canadian Forces to restore order and the authority of the civil government. If there is "broad popular support" in the local regions then essentially those regions are undoubtedly democratically changing their local governments and you start to have separatist provinces. Legally speaking the CF cannot go in to "restore civil order" without an invitation by the provincial authorities. The question is whether or not your Federal government occupy the evil or hero side of the novel. Check issues on constitutional amendments if you want to add realism to whatever direction your storyline takes. In the mean time, with rising unemployment you may wish to explore breakups in law and order as factions develop and become more and more violent in their search for diminishing resources I'm open to changing almost any particular details of this crisis, as those details are less important than the aftermath: opening the Canadian constitution to serious amendment, resulting in a collection of reforms I'm calling the "Nanaimo Accord". Revamping the senate, tweaking the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to remove the 'supremacy of God' line,I'm all for that but consider that religion (especially when you look to the United States) can form the basis of creating new nation states drawn on religious lines that cross the Canada/US borders adding further details for continuity-of-government in case large portions are removed at once, and generally having the politicians try to do whatever's needed to keep the broad population from turfing them out.

(There are some further consequences of those constitutional reforms, such as some provinces splitting into smaller ones, which don't seem relevant to this forum. I also posit that Denmark, in a similar attempt to show their responsiveness to the people, grants independence to Greenland; and that due to the scramble for Arctic resources, the Canadian government solidifies its claim to the near side of the Lomonosov Ridge by giving Greenland a sweetheart economic package in exchange for signing onto Confederation. If you're curious, a map of my thoughts on what Canada would look like in this version of 2050 is at http://datapacrat.deviantart.com/art/Worldbuilding-Map-Canada-in-110-AT-443157014 .)

2.
The continuity-of-government provisions come into play in 2050, when the "Singularity" appears to have everyone in urban areas essentially disappear, with the cities themselves turned into weird architecture, and the electromagnetic spectrum swamped with noise cutting off long-range communications. I'm positing that each province arranges for at least one backup site for c-of-g purposes, and Ontario's was in a rebuilt version of the Diefenbunker at CFB Borden. I plan on using that bunker, several decades after the post-Singularity intelligences have overrun southern Ontario with custom-designed genetically-engineered plants and animals, as a setting for a chapter or two. I haven't firmly settled on what the people who were at Borden will have ended up doing, other than that the site and bunker will have been abandoned for a long time, without any particular news of their survival having spread.These bunkers are relatively small which leads to relatively few survivors which leads to narrow ways that humanity can fight back (if that's your aim) I would suggest a broader based survival mechanism(s) to give your story more scope

3.
Early in the story, my protagonist points out that, according to certain technicalities in the Canadian constitution, and the traditions it's inherited from the United Kingdom, it's at least arguable that she has inherited the throne of Canada. (And of the U.K. and all the other Commonwealth realms, but they're less relevant to the story.) This requires some rather abstruse reasoning. To start with, section 5 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees that there shall be a sitting of Parliament every twelve months; while section 24 guarantees that if that right has been violated, anyone can "apply to a court of competent jurisdiction to obtain such remedy as the court considers appropriate and just in the circumstances", and pointing out that the Queen-on-the-Bench has jurisdiction over whatever cases she chooses to. Then there's the Crown and Parliament Recognition Act 1689, which rules that a de facto monarch is competent to summon a Parliament even in the absence of a Parliament to confirm their accession to the throne. As there are no other known claimants to the throne, nor a Canadian government to reign over, the matter would be completely academic, except for certain human-level AIs who survived from before the Singularity and consider Canadian law to be in effect. At least one such AI will be sited at the Borden bunker, and have been part of the military infrastructure there.If your aim here is to set up "rogue AIs" v "government subordinate AIs" then I think you should explore a more plausible scenario such as some surviving human members of the pre-singularity government or, IMHO even better, have a benevolent government executive AI try to re-establish order and safety for its human citizens; i.e. create a pre-singularity government that has AIs fulfilling certain executive roles in government such as ministers

4.
In my current draft, a computer mentions to the putative queen that "As of the latest available policy documents, the Canadian Forces are making one of their periodic attempts to shift their branch structure from a simple nested hierarchy to a set of multiple optional tags. If you wish to wear a Commander-in-Chief's uniform for this display, then given recent events, I would suggest building it using the tags of Signals, Rangers, and Air Force." I'm basing part of this on the throne resuming the powers currently customarily granted to the Governor-General, and partly on trying to come up with at least one novel idea about the CF of 2050. (Those particular "tags" were chosen as the character has been using a powered paraglider, to fly around in remote wilderness areas, and to build new telecommunications infrastructure (in the form of heliograph lines).) It /seems/ at least reasonably plausible to me, but as usual, I'm willing to pay attention to the views of people who know more about the CF than I. Two points 1. - this is a minor plot point and I wouldn't waste time on it. 2. - military rank and symbolism changes slowly (that's what tradition does for you -- it makes you hang onto the minutia much longer than you need to. I think you should concentrate your efforts at designing a new type of military. For an example see Scalzi's Old Man's War series - same old rank structure but space flight, really neat weapons systems, a really "special" special forces, cloned and enhanced soldiers etc. Putting this thirty to forty years into the future with significant robotic and AI improvements you need to build a really interesting CF. Remember though that most modern innovative warfighting tools essentially come from the US. You can have it come from somewhere else but should explain why it did. I would suggest a military that is heavily engaged in a transformation to robotic systems which would leave you with a plot thread of who controls the fighting systems' command links.


And so: Does anyone reading this have any commentary, criticism, or suggestions? I've published a few books on Amazon. If you need any help with suggestions for writing software or how to publish, let me know.

 

[DataPacRat]

If there is "broad popular support" in the local regions then essentially those regions are undoubtedly democratically changing their local governments and you start to have separatist provinces.

That's my general view of the regions in question.

Legally speaking the CF cannot go in to "restore civil order" without an invitation by the provincial authorities.

As part of the separatists' new institutions involved a new monetary setup, and ceasing to pay taxes, I don't expect the provincial or federal authorities would hesitate in using police, intelligence, and military services to return things to as close to the status quo as possible.

The question is whether or not your Federal government occupy the evil or hero side of the novel.

I'm trying to stay as close to the genre of "Rational Fiction" ( http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RationalFic ) as possible, one aspect of which is that everybody usually believes they're the hero of their own story. I'm aiming for the uprising in question to be one step above the 1918 General Strike, and one step below the 1837-8 Upper and Lower Canada Rebellions; if left unchecked, the standard government would lose both territory and some degree of legitimacy, meaning that the existing politicians would have every incentive to try to hold onto power, whether or not the separatists have legitimate complaints.

Check issues on constitutional amendments if you want to add realism to whatever direction your storyline takes. In the mean time, with rising unemployment you may wish to explore breakups in law and order as factions develop and become more and more violent in their search for diminishing resources

Do you have any recommendations on particular items I could read on these, on-line or off-?

These bunkers are relatively small which leads to relatively few survivors which leads to narrow ways that humanity can fight back (if that's your aim) I would suggest a broader based survival mechanism(s) to give your story more scope

I'm positing that most areas have a reasonable population of rural survivors to repopulate from. (Southern Ontario ends up in a special case, as the local post-Singularity city-computer mostly focused on releasing terraforming-like organisms.)

If your aim here is to set up "rogue AIs" v "government subordinate AIs" then I think you should explore a more plausible scenario such as some surviving human members of the pre-singularity government or, IMHO even better, have a benevolent government executive AI try to re-establish order and safety for its human citizens; i.e. create a pre-singularity government that has AIs fulfilling certain executive roles in government such as ministers

I'm concentrating more on each particular surviving city-computer trying to avoid falling into the trap of responding to short-term incentives that will result in their sub-processes evolving into extinction; and as minor side-projects, trying to keep any other city-computers from launching attacks through the physical world at their hardware.

1. - this is a minor plot point and I wouldn't waste time on it.

I think I've only spent a paragraph or two on the C-in-C uniform over the whole story so far. My viewpoint protagonist has had to deal with a number of issues, many of which involve having her body altered. Simply dealing with something as ordinary as "What is appropriate for me to wear, to convince other people I really am the Queen of Canada and not just some 'Mad Queen' pretender?" is a relief from trying to figure out whether the new macroscopic parasite is going to do anything worse than act as a tail with a mind of its own. It's also an early foreshadowing of her later interaction with the military AI at the Borden bunker.

2. - military rank and symbolism changes slowly (that's what tradition does for you -- it makes you hang onto the minutia much longer than you need to.

I'm thinking of the "tag" uniform system as an alternative to the "unification" that the Canadian Forces went through, and then have kind of gotten out of, in recent decades.

I think you should concentrate your efforts at designing a new type of military. For an example see Scalzi's Old Man's War series - same old rank structure but space flight, really neat weapons systems, a really "special" special forces, cloned and enhanced soldiers etc. Putting this thirty to forty years into the future with significant robotic and AI improvements you need to build a really interesting CF. Remember though that most modern innovative warfighting tools essentially come from the US. You can have it come from somewhere else but should explain why it did. I would suggest a military that is heavily engaged in a transformation to robotic systems which would leave you with a plot thread of who controls the fighting systems' command links.

Pardon me if I smile:  Your latter suggestion is very much in line with what I have in mind. In at least one draft, I even included the term 'infantry robots' under government control as the main part of what was used to suppress the uprising. I'm more of a science-fiction fan than a military strategist, so I'm open to suggestions on what roboticized ground forces could be like.

I'm presuming that a significant part of the Borden bunker is a server farm. I'm positing a technical advance I'm calling "Trust Verification Architecture", based on present-day blockchains, and various further sub-ideas; and that the nearby post-Singularity AI has arranged for my protagonist to get to Borden, and to pass the known security checks, in order to get access to the data on those servers.

If you need any help with suggestions for writing software or how to publish, let me know.

I'm writing in plaintext ASCII, which I plan to convert to relatively bare-bones HTML when I've finished editing. I don't anticipate that I'll be able to publish this through traditional channels, so my current plan is to host it on my personal website, possibly with some arrangement to offer an epub in exchange for Paypal donations.

 

[FJAG]

Do you have any recommendations on particular items I could read on these, on-line or off-?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amendments_to_the_Constitution_of_Canada

I'm more of a science-fiction fan than a military strategist, so I'm open to suggestions on what roboticized ground forces could be like.

Look here for starters: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_robot The link to "List of military robots in fictional media" is a pretty weak sampling. Look here as well for an overview of near future stuff http://science.howstuffworks.com/robot-armies.htm Note as well that DARPA (the people who brought you the internet) is the cutting edge brain-storming and research/development facility for much of this stuff http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA

My favourite concepts is swarming nanobots that can assemble themselves into whatever weapon system is needed - I'm not thinking the the Terminator liquid metal type of concept but more in the nature of Scalzi's ammunition blocks for their submachine guns which the gun manufactures into solid slugs or explosive warheads or whatever the operator instructs it to be. One thing I hate is humanoid robots/androids etc. Either go with enhanced humans or metal / carbon fibre /organically grown / whatever machines

:cheers:

 

[TCBF]

I like this idea of yours. We need more Sci-Fi in our Sub-Arctic Banana Republic context.

;D

1. A ground war on a large scale in the high Arctic is a logistic impossibility without air and/or sea power. Even then, it would evolve into a gigantic humanitarian and ecological crisis of big things full of people getting knocked down and sunk and survivors freezing to death. Like a game of curling where all each side does is knock out the other guy's rocks.
2. Canada cannot bring in conscription, even for its own survival. Use androids in the arctic - if you can design ones that work at forty below. You will need a revolution in battery power/miniature fusion reactors and satellites that orbit in a more northerly fashion.
3. Separation of provinces: In the near term, Quebec could leave if it wanted to without a fuss. This is not 1995. The young people alive today - even if they were born in Canada - will not fight for its retention, and our traditional 1960s liberally educated political elites are too old to fight themselves and would not let their kids fight even if they had any.
4. To para-phrase Napoleon, "Amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics."  Our ammunition manufacturing and vehicle and equipment rebuilding plants are mostly all in Quebec, as is the Canadian Space Agency, Naval Reserve Headquarters, One half of our CF-18 fighters, one third of our Regular Army Brigades, and our largest Recruit and Leadership academy.
5. The more advanced a society becomes, the more fragile a society becomes. Think of food and water as weapons of war. We have generation of young people who have never grown so much as a potato.
6. CBRN: think of portable non-nuclear generated electro-magnetic pulse emitters, the weaponisation of pollen and common garden weeds, the breeding and dissemination of GM and nano-technological pests (example: give grasshoppers personalities. Put one of them in charge of the others. Say good-bye to Saskatchewan. You could write a book on that one alone).

 

[a_majoor]

People have made a lot of good points already, so I will try to limit mine  ;D

1. Given that in your history, the Canadian Government repressed people who were trying to separate and create new polities to allow them to live in a period of high unemployment and stress, I doubt many of the post singularity survivors would have any wish to live under a reconstituted Canada, particularly one which has roots in or is explicitly a continuation of the previous pre singularity government (as I understand it you are using continuity-of-government plan to revive the Canadian government). This alone will make any attempt to revive Canada problematic, and probably inspire resistance to any efforts to do so.

2. WRT the CF in particular, if the AI's in the cities have essentially taken the city infrastructure and all the people its own purposes, then a large fraction of the CF will cease to exist. This includes entire formations like 1 CMBG in Edmonton, many signals and specialty units in Kingston, much of the Atlantic fleet in Halifax and so on. A good fraction of Canada's Reserves also are based in and live in urban centers, so that pool of manpower and equipment is gone as well.

3. Given the vast geographical expanses of Canada, the CF is held together by long range communications links (satellite, microwave, fiber optics etc.) In your scenario, this is disrupted, isolating any surviving units and servicemembers from their command and control and the government, as well as each other.

4. Most military technology of the period will also be rendered useless, ranging from the control electronics in truck engines to the "Smart Rifles" the CF is attempting to develop today in imitation of existing projects in Korea and the US. More advanced weapons systems like smart bombs, UAV and UCAVs, military robots etc. will also be either subsumed by the AI (making it unreliable or even dangerous), or simply "dead". Trying to recover museum pieces will be problematic since there will be no manuels of operation or sources of ammunition or spare parts (Just getting a Sherman off the monument stand and getting it to run isn't going to be enough).

5. Since there is little or no long range communication, and all high tech is gone, remaining regiments and units may still survive as a sort of "county regiment" capable of controlling whatever area they can physically operate in. Energetic commanders may try to institute a pony express system to get in touch with other units, government bodies etc. The military may well be in the situation of the forces involved in the Seven Year's war, tiny units operating in isolation in a vast and alien landscape with months between communications. Or people could say the hell with it and join the local duke.

6. Surviving military units will cling to traditional forms because it works. Regiments were developed in the late 1500's and early 1600's, and most of our modern rank structure dates from that era as well. Half a millenium of experience has identified a core structure and system that is flexible enough to be used from black powder warfare to airmobile operations, and from insurgencies to all out war. Even if some sort of new system has been developed by the Americans and adopted by the CF in the 2040's, many of the old forms will either be retained or at least remembered, and brought back if the new systems are rendered inoperable by the breakdown caused by the singularity.

So I have the feeling the CF isn't going to be a huge factor in *this* future

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

Hi datapacrat:

I just have a very small point re: your map of what Canada would look like: It concerns "Ungava". That territory, presently within Quebec, already has its name and semi-autonomy, obtained from the James bay Agreements: It is called Nunavik (Nunavut just sort of copied it later - in both versions of Inuktitut languages (there are differences the Quebec Inuit and the Nunavut Inuit) it means 'Our Land".

Just a suggestion

 

[DataPacRat]

My favourite concepts is swarming nanobots that can assemble themselves into whatever weapon system is needed - I'm not thinking the the Terminator liquid metal type of concept but more in the nature of Scalzi's ammunition blocks for their submachine guns which the gun manufactures into solid slugs or explosive warheads or whatever the operator instructs it to be. One thing I hate is humanoid robots/androids etc. Either go with enhanced humans or metal / carbon fibre /organically grown / whatever machines

:cheers:

I'm considering having a wide variety of nonhuman robots (with wheels, tracks, spider-legs, or other motive systems as appropriate), with a small scattering of humanoid-shaped chassis for specific purposes: as "puppets", in which a remote human pilot can use a VR rig to match the robot's movements to their own, thus allowing for the best possible control; for certain forms of urban combat, to easily handle doors, stairs, and other human-compatible pieces of architecture; and realistic-looking ones for PR and intelligence.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the more important robots aren't going to be the ones with the guns, but the ones built for combat support and logistics: acting as mobile comm relays, carrying power-cells and ammunition, using some more delicate sensors.

I'm reasonably confident that a "flock" of 10,000 20-pound helicopter-bots is going to be a /lot/ more than 10,000 times as effective as a single one. Consider the possibilities if each one contained something equivalent to a wifi router, a few cameras and microphones, and a modular cargo bay whose most common module was a few pounds of high explosive. Pack 'em into a few standardized cargo container, arrange for a few other cargo containers to contain power systems to recharge them (solar, diesel, etc), long-range comms, and a few to handle the logistical tail (maintenance, maybe some quarters and offices if live people are needed nearby), and get ready to ship the things to a reasonably secure area near the target area. With enough computing power to turn all those cameras' data into a realtime map, anyone who takes a potshot at any of them should be able to be identified and have some of the copters sent to blow themselves up at him faster than you can say "inside his OODA loop" or "zero allied casualties".

(Feel free to criticize the above idea as thoroughly as you like, and/or to suggest improvements.)

 

[DataPacRat]

1. A ground war on a large scale in the high Arctic is a logistic impossibility without air and/or sea power. Even then, it would evolve into a gigantic humanitarian and ecological crisis of big things full of people getting knocked down and sunk and survivors freezing to death. Like a game of curling where all each side does is knock out the other guy's rocks.
2. Canada cannot bring in conscription, even for its own survival. Use androids in the arctic - if you can design ones that work at forty below.

I could make a note along the lines of Canada's military research being based on a baseline of American technology, with a focus on improving it for cold weather and long distances between resupply.

I'm a moderate fan of cargo-container construction. I can easily imagine a network of logistic "bases" being created by essentially dropping off a pile of cargo containers at selected spots, each with enough solar cells and long-term batteries to keep a few maintenance-bots running. (Probably stealing a lot of ideas from NASA's space-exploration robots.)

You will need a revolution in battery power/miniature fusion reactors and satellites that orbit in a more northerly fashion.

My notes on 2050-era batteries are for a typical, inexpensive 20-pound cell being able to contain about 27,000 kiloJoules, and for practical fusion to have been developed by the post-Singularity entities for their own uses. I hadn't given any particular thought in this setting to solar-power satellites beaming down power via microwaves, whether in polar orbits or not; I could be persuaded either way for them.

6. CBRN: think of portable non-nuclear generated electro-magnetic pulse emitters, the weaponisation of pollen and common garden weeds, the breeding and dissemination of GM and nano-technological pests (example: give grasshoppers personalities. Put one of them in charge of the others. Say good-bye to Saskatchewan. You could write a book on that one alone).

I already have notes that one of the main boogeymen of 2050 is for some "Crazy" in a basement bio-lab brewing up something along those lines. Any thoughts on what the military side of trying to prepare for such a contingency might look like?

 

[DataPacRat]

1. Given that in your history, the Canadian Government repressed people who were trying to separate and create new polities to allow them to live in a period of high unemployment and stress, I doubt many of the post singularity survivors would have any wish to live under a reconstituted Canada, particularly one which has roots in or is explicitly a continuation of the previous pre singularity government (as I understand it you are using continuity-of-government plan to revive the Canadian government). This alone will make any attempt to revive Canada problematic, and probably inspire resistance to any efforts to do so.

I'm aiming for post-Singularity feelings about Canada to be slightly more mixed. After the 2030's crisis, the Canadian government did try to institute at least some reforms, such as a Basic Guaranteed Income and a more representational legislative system, so I expect there will be some people who continue to grumble about the feds, some who think the feds turned into the greatest thing since the Durham Report, and a lot of people just trying to get on with their lives. After the Singularity, I expect that a lot of the survivors will look back on the continent-wide organization with somewhat rose-coloured glasses, if for no other reason than they've stopped paying taxes to it.

5. Since there is little or no long range communication, and all high tech is gone, remaining regiments and units may still survive as a sort of "county regiment" capable of controlling whatever area they can physically operate in. Energetic commanders may try to institute a pony express system to get in touch with other units, government bodies etc.

Pony express systems will be somewhat limited by the number of new species capable and willing to eat ponies. Maps that say "Here be Dragons" will be telling the absolute truth.

The military may well be in the situation of the forces involved in the Seven Year's war, tiny units operating in isolation in a vast and alien landscape with months between communications. Or people could say the hell with it and join the local duke.

This is very much in line with my existing notes.

6. Surviving military units will cling to traditional forms because it works. Regiments were developed in the late 1500's and early 1600's, and most of our modern rank structure dates from that era as well. Half a millenium of experience has identified a core structure and system that is flexible enough to be used from black powder warfare to airmobile operations, and from insurgencies to all out war. Even if some sort of new system has been developed by the Americans and adopted by the CF in the 2040's, many of the old forms will either be retained or at least remembered, and brought back if the new systems are rendered inoperable by the breakdown caused by the singularity.

One option could be for the 2040's-era CF to be working on transitioning to robot-based warfare (likely following the Americans' lead). Maybe the typical low-ranked soldier is no longer a simple infantryman, but a pilot of remote-controlled humanoid drones, or a "sergeant" to a small squad of robots (who, in such a system, may have actual ranks themselves, such as E-1). I'm curious if anyone reading this has any alternative ideas.

So I have the feeling the CF isn't going to be a huge factor in *this* future

Perhaps not directly; but I'm planning on its state in 2050 to have some ramifications.

 

[DataPacRat]

Hi datapacrat:

I just have a very small point re: your map of what Canada would look like: It concerns "Ungava". That territory, presently within Quebec, already has its name and semi-autonomy, obtained from the James bay Agreements: It is called Nunavik (Nunavut just sort of copied it later - in both versions of Inuktitut languages (there are differences the Quebec Inuit and the Nunavut Inuit) it means 'Our Land".

Just a suggestion

Nunavik is one name for the region, but not the only one; http://www.quebecpolitique.com/circonscriptions-electorales/geographie/geographie-ungava/ was my main reference in deciding the new borders. In this scenario, Nunavik is likely a sub-division of Ungava. I went for the larger region instead of just Nunavik due to the low population; 42,000 seemed a lot more reasonable to form a new territory or province out of than 12,000.

If this scenario of Canadian development hadn't been interrupted by the Singularity, I expect that interesting things would have been happening in Labrador, perhaps with Nunatsiavut and NunatuKavut seeking to join the "Northern and First Peoples" block instead of the "Eastern and Maritimes" block, opposed by the groups who didn't want the North block to gain another senator, possibly eventually given a compromise settlement of merging Labrador into Ungava (or "Ungava and Labrador").

But, even given my above reasoning, I'm still open to suggestions for improvements to the scenario, whether on these matters or any other. (Eg, I have a note that reads "Political parties shuffled: Libs+NDP -> Liberal Democrats? Replacing First-Past-the-Post with Ranked-Voting increases popularity of non-traditional and regional parties?")

 

[Brasidas]

2.
The continuity-of-government provisions come into play in 2050, when the "Singularity" appears to have everyone in urban areas essentially disappear, with the cities themselves turned into weird architecture, and the electromagnetic spectrum swamped with noise cutting off long-range communications. I'm positing that each province arranges for at least one backup site for c-of-g purposes, and Ontario's was in a rebuilt version of the Diefenbunker at CFB Borden. I plan on using that bunker, several decades after the post-Singularity intelligences have overrun southern Ontario with custom-designed genetically-engineered plants and animals, as a setting for a chapter or two. I haven't firmly settled on what the people who were at Borden will have ended up doing, other than that the site and bunker will have been abandoned for a long time, without any particular news of their survival having spread.
And so: Does anyone reading this have any commentary, criticism, or suggestions?

HF radio is pretty resilient against jamming. We've been using satcomms a lot in the last couple decades, but we still do conduct exercises where HF is the primary means for both voice and data. Moreover, the potential for satcomms to be cut off in time of war would suggest that we will retain at least some of this ability going forward.

Limited HF radio capability, based on improvised high-gain antennas and skip distance, would seem to be a lot more probable than a pony express communications network.  If you're suggesting that you can hold static positions, where operators can finetune their comms, it should work. Its very difficult to make the HF bands useless for something like a morse code signal, just by the way an HF signal can propagate.

What makes HF special amongst the comms toolkit is that we can bounce signals off the ionosphere and the earth's surface (with loss), with skip zones between the bounces. A receiver at one of the earth-bound bounce points will get the signal. Change your frequency or the angle of your antenna, and the skip distances change, and you can hit different targets. Put a skilled operator at either end, with some resources, and they can talk from stations anywhere in the world. Broadband jamming or nuclear war bedamned.

Its a lot easier to jam other spectra, and it does take highly skilled operators to handle HF well. Besides signal operators in the regforce and reserve, there are a significant number of amateur radio guys out there who are good at this sort of thing.

I can accept handwavium and that no radios work, but it seems unlikely that you'd have a scenario with enough and powerful enough jamming stations to blanket HF bands across the world where it wouldn't be more practical for Hunter-Killer robots doing some very aggressive direction-finding and taking out anybody who broadcasts.

Also, why would hostile intelligences waste resources -long term- with such broadband jamming when it would compromise their own communications?

 

[DataPacRat]

HF radio is pretty resilient against jamming. We've been using satcomms a lot in the last couple decades, but we still do conduct exercises where HF is the primary means for both voice and data. Moreover, the potential for satcomms to be cut off in time of war would suggest that we will retain at least some of this ability going forward.

Limited HF radio capability, based on improvised high-gain antennas and skip distance, would seem to be a lot more probable than a pony express communications network.  If you're suggesting that you can hold static positions, where operators can finetune their comms, it should work. Its very difficult to make the HF bands useless for something like a morse code signal, just by the way an HF signal can propagate.

What makes HF special amongst the comms toolkit is that we can bounce signals off the ionosphere and the earth's surface (with loss), with skip zones between the bounces. A receiver at one of the earth-bound bounce points will get the signal. Change your frequency or the angle of your antenna, and the skip distances change, and you can hit different targets. Put a skilled operator at either end, with some resources, and they can talk from stations anywhere in the world. Broadband jamming or nuclear war bedamned.

Its a lot easier to jam other spectra, and it does take highly skilled operators to handle HF well. Besides signal operators in the regforce and reserve, there are a significant number of amateur radio guys out there who are good at this sort of thing.

VA3BOS, at your service. 

One approach I've been considering is that the process of the Singularity sent some of the geoengineering projects meant to ameliorate the negative effects of climate change running amok, one or more of which might have sent the shockwaves through the ionosphere.

I can accept handwavium and that no radios work, but it seems unlikely that you'd have a scenario with enough and powerful enough jamming stations to blanket HF bands across the world where it wouldn't be more practical for Hunter-Killer robots doing some very aggressive direction-finding and taking out anybody who broadcasts.

I can work with that. My current draft of 'Book Two' of my story focuses on my protagonist being chased by a robot which might have been triggered by her use of a radio.

Also, why would hostile intelligences waste resources -long term- with such broadband jamming when it would compromise their own communications?

My current design for the various software agents in each city-computer is that they are operating at such speeds that the light-speed lag between one city and another imposes enough of a delay that they can almost always improve their profits more by focusing on intra-city optimizations rather than by bothering with inter-city commerce. As there is no significant economic exchange between city-comps, they have no reason not to set some automated processes to attempt to hack and destroy other city-computers, and to jam other city-computers' attempts to hack them.

 

[TCBF]

- Your sentence on a more representative form on government reminded me of something: Adolf Hitler could never have been elected in a 'first past the post' democracy. In FPTP, you vote for your neighbour, or his kid, or your old teacher. You know the family. they live there. Hopefully, they always have. FPAP only fails when strangers are 'parachuted' into ridings for tactical value. It seldom ends well.
A more regional Canada would be back to face-to-face politicking. Ballots or bullets, a country gets the government it deserves.

- Logistic nodes are easy to spot and will be targeted. New camouflage/maskirovka/ECM will be needed.

- Steam Punk logistics: horses, mules, non-computerized automobiles, ox-carts, blimps, canoes.

- Anti-gravity sleds for the bad guys.

- Action on quislings? Sniper/IED engagement? Night letters? Dissapearados?

- You are going to have a ball with this!

 

[DataPacRat]

- Logistic nodes are easy to spot and will be targeted. New camouflage/maskirovka/ECM will be needed.

Assuming we're talking about Arctic preparations, possibly based on containerization...

I have some pre-Singularity civilian equipment capable of changing its surface colors, at least to one of a set of pre-programmed patterns. The military version might be able to change to arbitrary designs, and might be applicable to soft surfaces, such as the equivalent of camouflage nets.

Some sort of shell-game shuffling might go on, moving the hard-to-distinguish containers around, so that even if the Russians can keep track of where there are piles of them, it's a lot hard to tell which ones contain supplies, or equipment, or offices, or are just empty. A bit of extra effort might let a few containers anchor netting that seems to hide many, or have a good number dug into the ground with just a few on top.

Does anyone have any better ideas?

- Anti-gravity sleds for the bad guys.

I'm keeping the story's physics the same as the real world's. At least, for all practical purposes - I'm leaning towards the 'Multiple Interacting Worlds' interpretation of quantum mechanics (which isn't quite the same as the standard 'Multiple Worlds'), which doesn't open any new trickery to create anti-gravity effects from.

That still leaves a good bit of room for novel engineering. For example, I've statted up a system which allows for near-complete life-support recycling of a few peoples' waste products, so that as long as their civilian RV's solar panels get enough light, they could stay sealed up in there for years. (The main components are a Super-Critical Water Oxidizer to break down the wastes into raw elements, genetically engineered algae to turn the raw elements into organic compounds, and a 'food processor' to turn the algae into something a little more edible - chocolate-flavoured brownies being the default selection.) The military version would, presumably, be at least as useful, with improved submarines being merely the most obvious application.

- You are going to have a ball with this!

That's certainly my intention.

 

[a_majoor]

When thinking about how military forces will operate in the future, I suspect there will be a much greater emphasis on breaking people's wills without necessarily breaking their bones or fine china. Western theorists sometimes call this 4GW (4th Generation Warfare), usually in context of insurgencies, but the Russians are using this integrated with more conventional forces as described in this article: http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/02/26/hybrid-war-the-real-reason-fighting-stopped-in-ukraine-for-now/
Future military and security forces will be developing more sophisticated means of integrating all these different effects, and I suppose the AI's will be able to do this far better and faster yet.

I have always been a bit wary of "singularity" stories which have humans interacting with the machine intelligence. Since the AI's brain works about 1,000,000 X faster than a biological brain (the ratio between electronic signals and chemical signalling in the brain), AI's might look upon humans more as geological features in the landscape. Looking back at your initial description, I have the feeling that in a "real" singularity, the chief danger to *us* would be the replacement of the natural biosphere by whatever organisms the AI's want/use/need for their version of a biosphere (perhaps silicon solar cell trees and algae to capture the 195 petawatts of energy deposited on the Earth annually by the Sun....).

Still, I look forward to reading more.