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Intertoposophic Conflict

Scanning Exercise on Zaris (intertoposophjic relat
Image from Keith Wigdor
Scanning Exercise on Zaris

Occasionally it happens that a lower toposophic being or group will be able to capture or kill or otherwise defeat an entity of one or (very much more rarely) two toposophic levels above it. The difficulty the attackers face increases exponentially in proportion to the degree of toposophic separation. All such instances of lower toposophic victory over a higher toposophic are the result of local circumstances greatly favouring the attackers and drastically disadvantaging the defender. In every verified case the defender was isolated, injured, unprepared, and so on or actually bent on self-destruction. Where the defending higher toposophic being is not quite so totally disadvantaged, but still succumbs, it is at huge and most often suicidal cost for the group of lower S-Level sophonts.

Despite numerous rumours circulated by hu supremacists and ferals or other ordinary sophonts away from the main Sephirotic centers, all of these cases are with regard to attacks on higher toposophic individuals. There have never been any confirmed reports of lower toposophic attackers overwhelming an entire higher toposophic community. Any such effort, by definition, would require high-levels of communication and coordination between large numbers of widely dispersed individuals, as well as extensive planning and preparation, supremely effective strategy and tactics, and the coordination and the efficient and effective and marshalling of vast resources. In all of these any higher toposophic community has by definition an insuperable advantage in over any lower toposophic community.

The following generalities are sometimes made regarding conflicts between beings of different toposophic levels:

  • any population or society of SI: = n will be seriously disadvantaged and unable to compete or defend itself against any population or society of SI: = n + 1 or more
  • any individual, population or society of SI: = n will be seriously disadvantaged and unable to defend itself against any skilled and equipped individual of SI: = n + 1 or more
  • any individual, population or society of SI: = n may or may not (depending on skill and equipment) be able to take out an individual of SI: = n + 1 or more if the latter is weakened, unprepared, or somehow or lacks the knowledge or means to defend itself from the former
  • any individual, population or society of SI: = n who lacks the appropriate skill and equipment will be unable to last for long if dropped in an environment with a support infrastructure designed for SI: = n - 1 or less
  • any individual, population or society of SI: = n who lacks the appropriate skill and equipment will be unable to last for long if dropped in an environment with a support infrastructure of SI: = n + 1 or more, unless that support infrastructure is or includes areas designed for the said SI: = n
  • no population or society of SI: = n can compete or defend itself against a properly skilled or equipped individual of SI: = n + 1 or more.
Although there are many reports and rumours of exceptions to these rules (especially in wildhu and feral regions and polities), there is not one instance in which such exceptions have been confirmed or verified.

At even higher levels of toposophic differential, the difference between the parties becomes such that the higher toposophic being often doesn't even notice an assault, much less succumb to it. Auto-immune systems may take out hostile lower toposophic attackers while the higher level being, undisturbed, contemplates some obscure matter of which its "attackers" are not even cognisant.

The only exceptions to this rule are those instances in which the lower toposophic sophonts have the backing, open or covert, of another transapient of S-level equal to or greater than their target (they are being used as an attack vector), or are manipulated by the transapients who allow them to win (at least at first) for some reason (perhaps memetic) of their own. Almost always, if a group of SI: = n take on an SI: n + 2 or greater and "win" they are being used, either by their "victims" or by something else of level SI n + 2 or greater, for some purpose they will likely never learn of or understand. Not infrequently the whole thing turns out to be part of a pre-determined plan by the being they are supposed to be attacking. An example is the famous "victory" of the Superbright Ryvindoran Neumann-Cyborg Warrior Swarm against the Fajoras Jupiter Node in 10089. The Node's transapientech microbot defenses were stripped away in a heated battle using relativistic bombardment, though three-quarters of the attacking swarm was destroyed or subsumed. In 10182 the Strategic Institute of Inter-Toposophic Conflict Studies on Mykas Orbital Shell, Negentropy Alliance, discovered by analysis that this was simply part of a process for clearing off the encrustation of old bots via destructive analysis so that a new generation of more efficient templates could be enabled.

 
Articles
  • Ascension, Resistance to  - Text by M. Alan Kazlev, John B, and Anders Sandberg
    There are various reasons why sentients do not all choose to ascend to higher toposophic levels.
  • Battle of Hejne, The  - Text by Anders Sandberg
    Battle between separatists in the Solar Dominion fringe world, where a transapient entity was defeated by the Jan-Hejne insurgent modosophonts.
  • Bimodal Toposophy  - Text by Pran Mukherjee
    The condition that results when the augmented or advanced part of a sentient rises to a higher toposophic level, while the original personality remains at or just above baseline, with its own brain thinking at SI:<1 level.
  • Blight  - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
    A malign transapient-level entity that attempts to subvert or seize control of other entities to increase its own power.
  • Excelsior Incident  - Text by Tasp
    Perversity and ensuing atrocity in the Excelsior star system.
  • Hyperutilization Supremacy  - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
    Perversity/Blight that originated in 6513 in the Normidic Machinophyle Supercluster, as the result of a possibly disfunctional ascension of a number of 4th toposophic dyson nodes. However, elements of Hyperdeontologist memetics were popular in the Supercluster as long ago as the 5800s.
  • Kedric Incident, The  - Text by Stephen Inniss
    An atrocity committed by a transapient against ordinary sophonts in an unregulated system on the periphery of the Terragen expansion.
  • KROME1101  - Text by Stephen Inniss
    A militant vec protection organization.
  • Limits of Transapient Power  - Text by Stephen Inniss
    It is apparent that even the Archailects must work within the rules of the universe they live in. Some actions might be impossible, because they contradict those rules. Others are impossible simply because they are logical contradictions.
  • Military Strategy in the Posthuman Era  - Text by Anders Sandberg
    Introductory notes for Virch Course Environment EA3880: History of Interstellar Warfare and Strategy, University of Corona.
  • Monopathic Swarm - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
    Blight-like distributed entities trying to expand, disregarding the wishes and rights of other sentients.
    Although this is sometimes used as a pejorative against expansive empires, it properly refers only to homogeneous swarms. monopathic swarms might be both intelligent and non-intelligent.
  • Neuropsychism, Neurochauvinism  - Text by Terrafamilia
    The belief in the superiority of biological brains (literally, superiority of neurons).
  • Solipsism scams  - Text by Worldtree
    The path to ascending through each singularity can be dangerous enough even with assistance. But when that assistance turns out to have malevolent intent, you stand no chance at all...
  • Subsumption  - Text by Stephen Inniss
    Subsumption is a form of violent assault, carried out by one AI or virtual against another. It has been compared, inadequately, to such perversions as rape, cannibalism, and bodyjacking. Of these, cannibalism is the closest equivalent.
  • Transapient Interpreter Syndrome  - Text by Basu
    A variety of behaviours associated with obsessive attempts to understand and predict transapients.
  • Transapient Pathology  - Text by Khannea Suntzu
    Some simple typologies of pathological mental states in transapient beings.
 
Development Notes
Text by M. Alan Kazlev
further comments by Todd Drashner, Pran Mukherjee, and Mike Parisi , image by Keith Wigdor
Initially published on 30 October 2004.

 
Additional Information
Fiction featuring Intertoposophic Conflict

Infanticide

Vendetta - A Coda to Infanticide

How a Baseline Beat a Transap

OA Glossary of Terms