On 19Jul2023 0228, Richard Aiken - raikenclw at gmail.com (via tml list)
wrote:
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 18, 2023, 8:58 AM Rupert Boleyn - rupert.boleyn at gmail.com
> <http://gmail.com> (via tml list) <xxxxxx@simplelists.com
> <mailto:xxxxxx@simplelists.com>> wrote:
>
>
>     Looking through /Signal GK/, I see nothing indicating that Rushorin was
>     the first person to discover the chips. Later TNS articles show he's
>     the
>     first person to publish anything on them, but that's years later, and
>     doesn't mean that there wasn't prior, never declassified research.
>
> (snip)
>
> Yep. I'm thinking there was probably a lot of suddenly-fouled underwear
> - and (possibly literal) rolling heads - involved when Rushorin published.

Canon says the paper was heavily censored by Imperial intelligence
agencies and intentional errors were added.

>
>     It also tells us that the resulting chips were intentionally not
>     fully sapient (so the Imperium intentionally took sapient beings and
>     force-breed their offspring to be sub-sapient).
>
>
> They may have intended sub-sapience. But ISTR a vignette (in Survival
> Margin?) in which a tech describes holding a conversation with a
> spookily sophont chip.

The baseline chips from Cymbeline were sapient. The ones used in the
transponders were intentionally bred to be sub-sapient.

>
> As to the questionable morality of the breeding program, I can see those
> involved regarding it as no more unethical than cloning a new body for
> some wealthy dudes mind to get uploaded into....not that that wouldn't
> also be rather on the sketchy side. 😇

Yes, well there are good reasons for the Reformation Coalition's view
that the 3I was immoral.

--
Rupert Boleyn <xxxxxx@gmail.com>