Talk:A Fire Upon the Deep

Removed two minor reviews...

Wikipedia is supposed to * NOT * be a collection of links.

The two reviews removed were trivial home-page type reviews... if Wikipedia started including things like that there would be ten thousand links to every passing opinion on each Beatles album, etc!

(Not to mention the thousands of people's-opinion collections on venues like Amazon.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.149.36.207 (talk) 20:12, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Romance?

Of the subjects listed in the opening paragraph, I remember them from the book, with the exception of 'love'. How does love play into any of it? None of the characters fall in love with each other (although Peregrine and Woodcarver have puppies, it seems like more of a business deal than anything else.) --grendel|khan 06:35, 2004 Sep 4 (UTC)

Are you forgetting Ravna and Pham? And what about the relationship between Blueshell and Greenstalk? --Ansible 00:21, 2004 Sep 6 (UTC)

To say nothing of the apparent similarities between Human-Tine and Human-Canine relationships. Man's best friend and all that. --Dyolf Knip 21:39, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)

FTL

"It was made very explicit that FTL was possible only where computers were fast enough; plot points hinged on it." "Lack of FTL in the Slow Zone is not due to a lack of computing power, but is intrinsic to the physics of the zone" --Anon.

It seems to me like the anon is right on this that it is an intrinsic property. Could you point out where it says it depends on computing power? --Omegatron 16:08, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

It is an intrinsic property (FTL communication also fails), but the ability to use it is also dependent on computing power. E.g., we live in an environment where television-style displays function, but the extent to which we can use them is dependent on how good our electronics are. If the former fails, then the latter doesn't matter, as a billion years wouldn't be enough to perform the necessary calculations. - Dyolf Knip 21:34, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)

This is totally incorrect. The facts can be clearly seen, very explicitly, in many parts of the book. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.149.36.207 (talk) 20:15, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually; the book is quite clear on what makes the Slow Zone differ so greatly from the Beyond and the Transcend, namely the existence of something called "Ultralight". The book is very clear on the fact that the Slow Zone completely lacks this property and only exhibits the existence of "regular" light, travelling at a "mere" 299 792 458 m/s. One of the best examples of an explicit mention of this physical property is given when Ravna explains the layout of the Zones to Pham, while they are both still on relay: "[...]The Mindless Depths extending down to the soft glow of the galactic Core. Farther out, the Great Slowness, where humankind had been born, where ultralight could not exist and civilizations lived and died unknowing and unknown." Computing power hence has absolutely nothing to do with not being able to access FTL travel or communication in the Slow Zone; the problems stem from a purely physical quality of the Zone in question. Or, rather, the lack of said quality.

And is FTL communication truly "cheap" (main page description) in the Transcend? They still need their planet-sized transceivers. It's just that such things are trivial for Powers to create, whereas they're very expensive to make and operate, even for the most advanced societies at the top of the Beyond. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.170.129.194 (talk • contribs) 2 July 2007

Russian

Is the -in of Stalin possessive, as stated, or adjectival? — Tamfang 05:29, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Our Stalin articles says: "Сталин (Stalin) is derived from combining the Russian сталь (stal), "steel", with the possessive suffix –ин (–in), a formula used by many other Bolsheviks, including Lenin." --Gwern (contribs) 22:15 9 December 2006 (GMT)

Tines absurdity

The idea that a multi-bodied intelligence could be coordinated by high frequency sound is nonsensical. There just isn't enough bandwidth to support it. David Gerrold discussed a similar idea (and came to the same conclusion) in his War of the Chtorr series. Also, the vast difference between the speed of sound and the speed of thought is another insurmountable barrier. --Clarityfiend 08:58, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, your plain text comment is of too low bandwidth to convey any information into my brain. ;-) —-Omegatron 00:37, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

The speed of thought appears to be at most 100m/s, while in normal atmospheric conditions, the speed of sound is 344m/s, so I doubt speed has that much to do with it.-- grendel|khan 14:48, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

The speed isn't really relevant, I don't think. Problem is aggregate bandwidth and latency: neurons can fire somewhere around several hundred times a second, as best as I can remember, and there are how many millions or billions firing at any given moment? So high-pitched sound must be generated by muscles, which cycle much slower than neurons (that is, you could only generate so many noises per muscle movement, and neurons can generate signals at a much faster rate, which signals are intrinsically faster than sound, anyway). So bandwidth would be lower even over high pitches, and latency would probably be pretty bad: time for one Tine brain to think of something, generate the sounds, for the sound to propagate to the relevant other Tine, be received and processed into neural activity, and then to spark some thoughts in reaction. If any sort of reply is wanted, then the whole thing would have to start over, even for really short messages that require little bandwidth. --Gwern (contribs) 22:15 9 December 2006 (GMT)

You may well be right. The talk page on Wikipedia seems like a particularly bad place to air this kind of problem, however. The author decided to go with it, and so the description of the story must include it. The fact that you find it unlikely seems irrelevant, and adding such a comment would not, in my opinion, improve the article. Find a chat room somewhere where people discuss hard sci-fi and might enjoy debating the technical problems the idea poses and talk about it there. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.2.106.74 (talk) 19:54, 5 February 2007 (UTC).

And, quite frankly, nobody knows yet how the subjective perceptual experience (the "greenness of green", etc.) arises out of real-world physics. While the brain's processing probably would overwhelm even an efficient sound data pipe, we don't know that massive transfer of data has anything to do with actual consciousness arising (as opposed to complex problem solving, which could be completely unconscious.) Maybe consciousness is a low-bandwidth "trick" of the universe. Furthermore, the human brain is two brain lobes, each relatively independent. People with hemispherectomies live relatively normal, fully conscious lives. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.170.129.194 (talk • contribs) 2 July 2007

As an aside, Cohen/Stewart's book What Does a Martian Look Like briefly discusses the Tines and the biological plausibility or otherwise of their creation - it's been a good three or four years since I read it, though, so I can't tell you what conclusions they reached! Shimgray | talk | 00:51, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

This comment "There just isn't enough bandwidth to support it." is totally incorrect. Very simply, we have utterly no (zero) idea how much bandwidth is needed for "intelligence". (That woukd be because ........ we have utterly no idea, whatsoever, of what "intelligence" is or how it works!) You may be thinking of things like communication between an eyeball and ... some other piece of the brain. ie, say 5 million pixels at N "frames" per second, and sure that may be too much bandwidth for some certain audio "modem" system. However that has zero, nothing, to do with "real" " ' intelligence ' " ... about which we know nothing, nada. For example, regarding the idea of "communications" between different parts of one brain - again we know zero, nothing, about what is communicated or what format in that situation (it may be an extremely high level, language like communication - with very low bandwidth. We simply have utterly no idea, at this stage, 2009). It's worth noting that humans do indeed communicate - perfectly - to perform team actions using the trivial bandwidth of language; consider how much better "teamwork" would be if we "merely" had the 1000s x extra bandwidth available with some sort of audio-modem commnuication. It's perfectly feasible (in the "what is sensible in sci-fi" context!) that such communication could be relevant to a group-mind type situation.

Much of the technology depicted in the book is "nonsensical" -- FTL travel, FTL communication, antigravity, etc. But then again, it's an explicit premise of the book that the laws of physics operate differently in the region of space where the book's action is set. FTL and antigravity are workable in "the Beyond", and artificial intelligence is also feasible there. It's not all that much of a stretch to assume that the obstacles to this sort of group mind also don't exist in that part of space. 67.83.202.42 01:16, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Name that planet

Argh, I've mislaid my copy. What's the name of the first human world in the Beyond, ancestral to most if not all humans in the Beyond? One mention of the name, I think, occurs where Ravna meets Pham, who is visibly not of the same ethnicity. — Tamfang 05:01, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Nyjora. Ravna refers to Pham as "A glimpse of non-Nyjoran humanity." --Clarityfiend 00:21, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

The Nyjoran branch of humanity, whatever that was, was the only branch to make it to and/or establish a significant foothold in the Beyond. They spawned Straumli, among other colonies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.170.129.194 (talk) 21:32, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Cover image

The cover image I added is the Boris Vallejo cover that I've seen on nearly every edition. I have yet to see what the first edition hardcover looks like; if anyone does have it, please feel free to replace the first-edition paperback cover. --grendel|khan 14:48, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

:: I will try to get a photo of my first edition..

Names and meanings

When I read the book, I suspected that 'Flenser' was intended as a reference to B. F. Skinner. it's a rare word, but I checked the OED meaning and it fits.

It's been a while since I've read the book, but I believe that at one point, the Flenser character is darkly amused at the coincidence while reviewing Earth history. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.2.223.70 (talk) 19:05, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

The book does call Flenser "Skinner" towards the end, but I don't recall if that is a dual translation to the humans, or if that was a (partially) new entity name for him. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.170.129.194 (talk • contribs) 2 July 2007

"Skinner" is used because a more precise translation of "Flenser" is not in the vocabulary that the Packs share with Jefri. —Tamfang 06:35, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd guess also that 'Woodcarver' is meant to refer to someone, perhaps a teacher of Skinner, which Woodcarver is to Flenser. But I don't know the field well enoguh to make a match. --GwydionM 18:35, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd already linked Flenser to the Wiktionary entry for Flense; it's not all that odd a word, although 'flenser' certainly is. But I don't know who Woodcarver would correspond to. Skinner's mentor was John B. Watson, but such a link strikes me as totally wrong. Personally, I think Woodcarver is more akin to Abraham Maslow, but the relation to Skinner seems to be wrong. Maybe we're just reading too much into it - who opposed/nurtured Lenin and Stalin? --Gwern (contribs) 19:16 18 December 2006 (GMT)

What's happening is 'behaviour modification', not class warfare or anything recogisable as Marxism or a critique of Marxism. You do get that in some of his other books, but this is about creating controlled individuals via punishment and reward. --GwydionM 19:26, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

And also building up of new individuals - the tactics are very Leninist, and Steel? Come on. The name is an obvious reference to Stalin, especially given his place as second in the succession - just like Stalin was after Lenin. --Gwern (contribs) 00:21 19 December 2006 (GMT)

What about the Steel General in Zelazny's Creatures of Light and Darkness? Steel is a very widespread and ambiguous image. --GwydionM 19:44, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but if he were picking images, why not continue the trend with an even more vicious name? Woodcarver made Flenser, who made...? Steel doesn't fit, unless it's a determined reference to Stalin. I wouldn't necessarily try to work backwards too hard, though, trying to align Stalin's history atop the doggies'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.170.129.194 (talk • contribs) 2 July 2007

I modified the Scandinavian reference to make it more accurate. "Lynsnar" is an actual word in Danish and Norwegian, not an invention of Vinge's. --dllu 14:22, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Usenet influence

The Beyond public net seems to be influenced by the late 1980's or early 1990's Usenet in various ways... AnonMoos 04:31, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

For "influenced by" read "a somewhat satirical portrayal of". —Tamfang 06:15, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

No kidding. The "hexapodia" Beyond poster certainly made that quite hilariously clear. --Gwern (contribs) 18:01 8 September 2007 (GMT)

It was the inclusion of Sandor at the Zoo that gave it away, I felt :-) Shimgray | talk | 00:56, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Care to expand on that? —Tamfang (talk) 06:53, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Henry Spencer used to work for the zoology department at the University of Toronto ("utzoo", as the machine was), and has been active on Usenet since... well, records began, since he was the one keeping them ;-) Spencer at Zoo, y'see... there are apparently stylistic resemblances in the writing, though I haven't checked, but Henry is apocryphally wise and infallibable, a voice of reason and sanity who always seems to know the correct answer, and the tiems when someone manages to correct him are an Event. ("A good rule of thumb is: If Henry Spencer says something you disagree with, then you're wrong." - Tom Fitzgerald, 1993)

his comment... Shimgray | talk | 21:07, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I say we stick that in the article - it's as solid as anything dealing with Usenet usually gets. --Gwern (contribs) 22:26 24 December 2007 (GMT)

pack gender

[sexual identity amongst mixed-gender packs being determined by majority]

Is that supported by canon? I seem to remember that Tyrathect was "she" at first and "he" later when the Flenser persona took over. —Tamfang (talk) 19:47, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Powers and Transcendence

Changed the age when powers usually die/disappear to 10-15 years. "Old One" was called "Old One" because he was 13, and by that age, almost all Powers have moved on to whatever, or died.

Q: Would we want to strip the word "quasi" from "quasi-power", describing the Blight? Two reasons: 1. It kind of gives a spoiler (one doesn't want it called "quasi" because the very end of the book suggests Powers move on to an even greater Power level) and 2. It suggests The Blight is some kind of inferior near-Power, when in fact it becomes solidly established that this thing is far more powerful than a "standard" Power, both by actions (relentless deicide) and by statements from Old One. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.170.129.194 (talk) 21:37, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't know that it is "far more powerful". It's repeatedly underestimated, but it's something very different from the typical Power: living in the Beyond (albeit at the very top) and evidently much longer-lived.

—WWoods (talk) 23:40, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

It hardly matters whether you put "quasi-" in front of it or not, given that the term "Power" is used in the article when it hasn't been defined. The opening para (at least) needs to be rewritten to describe things in terms that do not presuppose that the reader has already read the book.

— P.T.isfirst (talk) 07:34, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

User:Kalaong recently added: The Powers ... routinely ... employ technologies that warp the very nature of reality.... What does that mean? (It reminds me of some of the weirder space-drives mentioned in Startide Rising.) —Tamfang (talk) 08:27, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I was referring to zone-altering tech like the Countermeasure. And my numbers on the size of the Zones come from diagrams in the book - I found the pic I used for the estimations at [1] Kalaong (talk) 19:49, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Ah – next time make it more specific than "the nature of reality", okay? — The second chart on that SJG page reflects a misunderstanding. The "20 Kly" scale belongs to both; in the book, the "2 Kly" scale belongs to a chart of a small part of the Beyond showing various relevant sites. Unfortunately each scale is placed on a boundary between diagrams. —Tamfang (talk) 05:34, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Pham says: I'm ... focusing Countermeasure. I see now, Countermeasure, what it is.... It was designed by something beyond the Powers. [...] Oh, the ghost of Old One is amused. Seeing beyond the Powers was almost worth dying for. — Even if the Powers made it – "routinely"?! —Tamfang (talk) 08:53, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Trivia section

The 'Trivia' section is tagged as needing work: I'm not volunteering. But the content of this section is unusually useful and interesting to the reader of the article (except that most factoids have no cited source). But note the use of the word "currently", never a good idea - does that mean in 2008, or when? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.34.218.209 (talk) 12:43, 10 November 2008 (UTC)