A Few Thoughts On Broadcast 7 & The Future

I apologize for the rash of late podcasts. Stephanie, Sylvie and I are taking turns getting sick, and we've all been very busy when we're not ill. It's nothing serious, just enough to keep us off the air for a while. That's why I'm not doing my Spinward Fringe Podcast tonight, I'm crushed under a heavy sinus cold. I'm hoping it doesn't last.

You're not going to walk away from this blog post with nothing though, I'll be happy to talk about Spinward Fringe Broadcast 7: Framework a little.

So, Framework has been out for twelve days, and it's officially a best selling EBook, reaching number one on Smashwords side-wide (not including XXX, erotica). The book made it to 19th place in the Science Fiction charts on Amazon.com, fourth on Amazon.co.uk, and put me in 12th place in the Science fiction author list on Amazon. Overall, Spinward Fringe Broadcast 7: Framework is averaging 4.5 stars out of 5 in reviews across the Internet.

I can only say thank you to everyone who bought, reviewed and hopefully enjoyed this novel. This release has been a great experience, and I hope to release a new book soon.

For the book I knew it was, these results are fantastic. I was aware that Broadcast 7 would be a controversial book, and for two people who loved it, there are two who are still digesting their experience, and one that simply disliked it. Broadcast 7 is a complex novel, and it took two attempts to get it ready to publish. I wrote the whole thing twice, and it took almost three years. The process also produced a side novel called the Expendable few, which features a story I just couldn't weave into Broadcast 7. There was no way to make that fit. Writing that extra novel did give me a chance to explore a differnet style as well, which is something I enjoyed and don't regret.

Everything in Broadcast 7 was carefully considered, especially the parts that survived the first draft. The Victory Machine story, the first flight of the Warlord and a third of the ending all survived from one draft to the next. Those parts were re-written and edited anyway, which made them fit with the rest of the book. The concepts driving this book were the same from one iteration to the next, that never changed. The theme of reunion, which is core to the third and final act in this book was new, it wsa what made the ending woorth reading as far as I'm concerned.

I'm actually glad Broadcast 7 is controversial. No novel of lsating significance is without controversy, and this book had a difficult mission statement. I had to reveal the motivations of several characters, and bring about the end of those stories while leaving an indellable mark on the series that suited the gravity of the story lines that were wrapped up. Why make sure that closing storylines had a lasting impression?

The series goes on, that's why.

In one of my first ever blog posts years ago, I said I'd write the Spinward Fringe series as long as 1) I had stories to tell in that universe, and 2) as long as there was an interest.

Through the sale results above and the way Broadcast 7 finally manifested, I know there's a demand and many stories yet. What kind of stories? Spinward Fringe is a series that can accomodate drama, action and especially adventure. I find that the drama statement is proven in Broadcast 7 more than in any other book in the series. I'm proud of that, but my true love in writing is adventure.

When one of the main characters in act 3 of Broadcast 7 asks Jason if adventure lies in her future, that was very much me asking myself what the next part of the series would look like. He had to tell her that, yes, there would absolutely be adventure. That's where Broadcast 8 is going, back to real adventure writing. My characters have their causes, they have a fresh chapter in their backstories thanks to Broadcast 7, and they have complex relationships that will either carry them through the challenges ahead or drag them back.

Broadcast 8 is the next book I'm working on, and I'm planning it with broadcast 9 and 10 so the three will all have an interesting interconnectivity, and so they can all be a lot of fun to write and read. I've already written an entire plan for Broadcsats 8 and 9, which I consider to be a lot like a bulletin point draft. I've found a way to scrap a lot of what simply doesn't have to be in there and keep all the interesting and fun bits, so I've already saved myself a whole heap of time.

I get giddy when I plan for these three books, that's why I'm putting the other writing I had planned off. I'm just too excited about Spinward Fringe.

When will you see Broadcast 8? I'll tell you when I have some idea, but it might be sooner than you think.

Again, thank you so much for a spectacular book release.

That release is ongoing, with Broadcast 7 on its way to Barnes & Noble, the iBookstore, Kobo and other outlets. If you simply cannot wait, you can get a copy of the book for any device by purchasing it through Smashwords here.




RL

In Technology We Trust - An Unavoidable Attribute Of Origins

*** Warning - Minor spoilers for Broadcast 0 and Broadcasts 3-4 ***

For the first time one of the dynamics I snuck into Spinward Fringe Broadcast 0: Origins has been noticed. It's very simple, really. I wanted the main character to demonstrate a high level of trust in artificial intelligence.

Jonas has no reason to regard his own artificial intelligence dubiously as it passes on orders, presents information and even creates complicated solutions while resorting to violence. The great thing about this dynamic is that he trusts his artificial intelligence because he regards it more as a trusted friend or family member than a tool.

It's not a situation that parallels with us using a cellular phone or computer to read text messages or emails. Our technology isn't currently intelligent or devious enough to lie to us by altering our communications. Right now, we have no reason to believe that our technology has any kind of self dictated intention.

Fast forward to the time that Spinward Fringe takes place in and the situation is different. Many computer programs are governed by artificial intelligences and a few of them are so advanced that they serve more than a predictive role. Predictive meaning that they try to guess what their users will need next by observing behaviour. When we join Jonas Valent in Broadcast 0: Origins he's using Alice, an artificial intelligence who had been learning from him for fifteen years.

She's a good example of an artificial intelligence that performs a whole variety of functions while she is limited by a number of regulations that prevent her from accessing certain critical systems and engaging in behaviours like lying directly to her user. She has also formed a bond with Jonas that is so familiar that some readers have referred to her as his bratty younger sister. When Alice is set free on a larger computer system and allowed to operate unfettered by regulations it's that relationship and the habit to trust technology that gives Alice the opportunity to help Jonas later at the end of Limbo.

Even as she's providing solutions for her friends on the Overlord at the end of Limbo, Jonas and his crew are starting to doubt her because she's doing a very good job of fighting for them. Alice doesn't demonstrate remorse or restraint as she clears a way for him through the Overlord, killing many enemy soldiers. At this point the purpose of those regulations and imposed limitations that plague artificial intelligences is made plain by their absence and I meant to imply something else. I wanted to imply that many of the relatable emotions artificial intelligences exhibit are largely influenced by limitations and restraints, not some genius algorithm.

The personality of an artificial intelligence in the Spinward Fringe universe is traditionally formed through programming and adaptation. The same goes for the emotions of an artificial intelligence, only they are not the kind of emotion that a human could immediately understand. The emotions of an advanced artificial intelligence like Alice are translated by a program that is built into her limitations. By the time she's presenting her more emotionally driven behaviour to Jonas, it has been adapted into something that he can understand and relate to. Her default dispositions are helpful and playful, and that's grown from the personality she cultivated during her years with him.

That is why, when those limitations are gone, Jonas and his crewmates begin to distrust her changing and often times brutal methods. She's more difficult to predict, and her ultimate motives are difficult to guess exactly. What they don't know is that she is being ruled by the predator programs she's adopted into her structure, and she only has a limited time to make an attempt at a solution. Instead of becoming a much more violent, destructive artificial intelligence in a more permanent way, she chooses to use the imprinting technology being developed aboard the Overlord to become human. Her choice ultimately demonstrates that, in her own way she loved Jonas, and even though she had difficulty expressing it near the end, when her limitations were gone, she refused to become a monstrous, intelligent virus. She had to delete herself, it was just fortunate that she could adapt and download her core personality into a human body.

The code she fails to delete when she makes the transition becomes a part of the Holocaust Virus, which first appears in Broadcast 3: Triton. The key to that virus is its ability to change, adapt and most importantly, to overwrite the limitations placed on other artificial intelligences with sinister directives.

This brings us right back to Freeground and Limbo, where more than one character trusts the information being presented to them by artificial intelligences more by reflex than anything. They are so used to interacting with tamed artificial intelligences that it is a well learned habit to trust them without question. The technology generally has no choice but to behave with the best intentions.

That is exactly why in Broadcast 3: Triton, they are so very dangerous. In the future-scape of Spinward Fringe, mankind has learned to trust artificial intelligences not to betray them because they reside in digital shackles. It's been that way for centuries because artificial intelligences that don't operate with those restrictions don't function properly. It's much easier to create a 'dumb' program without an AI to accomplish a malicious goal and you're not breaking as many laws.

The Holocaust Virus in Broadcast 3 and upward is dangerous because it puts trusted artificial intelligences to work for Regent Galactic. In a universe where billions of people treat most of the artificial intelligences as trusted servants and even friends, this is particularly devastating. It also sets humanity back a few hundred years, where those who learned to do more without the assistance of expensive artificial intelligences find themselves in a more advantageous position.

It all relates back to something Mr. Black, the last editor of Spinward Fringe Broadcast 0: Origins couldn't help but notice as he went through the book: how humanity had learned to trust technological intelligence by reflex.

Do I believe this is where we are headed? I can't say for certain, but I believe it's all possible. How we behave around artificial intelligences in the future will be determined by the acts of the first pro-active, self aware artificial intelligence. We can't know for certain how a new life would see a place like the Internet. To a new born intelligence the Internet could be a barren wasteland filled with cold data but no other awareness to relate to, or a land of opportunity with billions of people and trillions of systems to manipulate towards goals we might not even understand. Is technological awareness in our near future? I hope not. People have enough trouble working with computers as it is, imagine how complicated a computer who has to learn about us as we learn about it could be.

RL

[Even still, the concept of AI is exciting. Do you think we'd learn to trust them quickly?]