X-Message-Number: 21723 Date: Thu, 08 May 2003 08:34:40 -0400 From: Francois <> Subject: Odyssey 5 I have started watching a science fiction television program that has some relevance to the problem of the singularity I evoked a short time ago. In the first episode, a crew of 5 astronauts and one CNN reporter are on a routine satellite deployment mission. The name of their shuttle is Odyssey. After the satellite is deployed, the reporter conducts a live interview session with the crew and just as it is concluded, the Earth is destroyed. The entire planet is simply turned into cosmic rubble and dust with few pieces larger than a basketball. During the disaster, one astronaut is killed, another is badly injured and the shuttle is left with only 9 hours worth of oxygen. Possibilities of survival are nil, and they prepare themselves for the inevitable final outcome. Just as they are about to run out of air, an alien ship comes along and recues them. It is piloted by an entity that calls itself the Seeker. It is the last surviver of its own world, which suffered the same fate as the Earth. In fact, the Seeker informs them that all worlds with sentient life destroy themselves in this way. The seeker locates radio signals and follows them to their source, but he always arrives too late and finds only debris that offer no clue to the cause of the disaster. The crew of the Odyssey are the first survivors he ever found. He offers them an opportunity to find out what happened and possibly save the Earth. He will take the information in their brains and download it back in time into earlier version of themselves. The process has a range limit of about 5 years, so they will have 5 years to figure out what could have destroyed the planet and prevent it from happening again. Its a long shot, but they agree. They ask the Seeker why he didn't do this himself to try and save his own planet. He answers that only organic beings can be sent back in time in this way. It turns out that the Seeker is not organic, but a very sophisticated artificial intelligence instead. The five survivors wake up five years in the past and start looking for clues. They soon stumble on an extraordinary situation. Artificial intelligences already exists on Earth. They are the result of a variety of experiments that have achieved sentience and excaped into our vast computer networks where they follow their own agendas. Their knowledge and capacity for action are increasing by leaps and bounds. Also, some of them are not exactly sane and undertake projects that are very dangerous to themselves and to the world. The crew of the Odyssey realise that these entities will soon have the means to destroy the Earth as they have seen happen. They must figure out which one could want to blow up the whole planet and stop it before it gains to power to do it. Odyssey 5 is a good program. Aside from their efforts to save the Earth, the five survivors also use their leap back in time to correct mistakes they made and try to clean up their lives, not always with the intended results. This gives the program a very human and dramatic feel. The quality of the scenarios is above average for this kind of program and I hope it continues to improve. The series has a natural cut off point, since the catastrophy happens in five years. Therefore, it is probably intended to last five seasons and I hope it does. Francois --------------------------------------------------------------------- No lifespan shorter than eternity is acceptable --------------------------------------------------------------------- Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=21723