Monday, April 14, 2008

Civil War: I'm with Caprica Six

In Neon Genesis Evangelion, the NERV HQ is run by 3 networked MAGI supercomputers: Melchior, Balthasar and Casper. A decision is made by a majority vote between the 3. Each computer is designed to analyze based on a personality trait of the designer, representing her as a scientist, a mother and a woman respectively. In this manner they were able to incorporate humanism into the decision making process*.

The Cylons take this idea further, with each of the 7 basestar human models representing a specific facet of human behaviour. When they vote, together they simulate how a human would make a decision. This is why One is able to predict how others are going to vote and why it becomes such a shock that Boomer votes contrary to the other Eight models. What this means is that the Cylons are becoming more human, against their original programming. Of course, the elegance of the system goes entirely to hell when Three is taken offline (meaning there's no tie-breaking vote) and Six decides to rebel. With guns.

See? I'm making connections. Mr. Panwar would be proud.

*In the end, when they attempted to self-destruct the HQ, it required a unanimous decision from the MAGI. Casper voted against the proposal out of spite. From this we can conclude...women are spiteful?

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