scrape_r_rational/data/cache2/5bki08.md

## [RT][FF] Animorphs: The Reckoning, Interlude 7

* Author: u/ketura  *Organizer**
* URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11090259/29/r-Animorphs-The-Reckoning
* Score: 29

* Created: 2016-11-07T05:26:46

### Post:

[Link to content](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11090259/29/r-Animorphs-The-Reckoning)

### Comments:

> **u/CouteauBleu** [+10]  *We are the Empire.* (15 hours later)
> 
> Interlude 6:
> 
> > Internet person #1: Maybe we should accept his technology?
> >
> > Internet person #2: WTF? He killed a million people!
> 
> Interlude 7:
> 
> > Chee #1: Maybe we should accept his offer?
> >
> > Chee #2: WTF? He almost killed three hundred thousand dogs!
> 
> Also, I find this part interesting:
> 
> > [Erek] and [Rictic] are dissatisfied, but they agree.
> 
> I already noticed that Chee interacting with humans displayed a better sense of priorities, tactics, and awareness of the outside world than Chee communicating with each other. I'm starting to wonder if maybe Chee that stay in a human social setting could start "imprinting" on humans, and notice they have moral relevance the same way the Yeerks did? Erek did say something about his understanding of human suffering being learned. On the other hand, maybe I'm just pattern-matching human psychology to alien minds.

>> **u/None** [+6]  (2 days later)
>> 
>> Causation could go the other way as well. Those Chee with the most human-like psychologies chose to live in disguises as humans and interact with them more

> **u/None** [+9]  (an hour later)
> 
> [deleted]

>> **u/TK17Studios** [+2]  *Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning* (2 hours later)
>> 
>> Also present in Interlude 4, fyi.

>>> **u/TexasJefferson** [+5]  (2 hours later)
>>> 
>>> And they're not the only source of information we have that Rachel is unique—though I've forgotten if it was C/tE or Elfangor who thought that in a reader-visible way earlier.

>>>> **u/saitselkis** [+4]  (13 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> It was neither. The narration of an interlude described the subtleties and restrictions on the direct manipulations of the cryak and elimst. I belive the passage reffers to Rachel's existance as anomalous, or that she is not supposed to exist. Wether they mean "not supposed to exist at all" or "not included in either ones plans", or an abberation that could suggest the presence of a third actor is unclear.

> **u/narfanator** [+6]  (an hour later)
> 
> Okay, I don't remember, or I missed it. What's with the Chee and dogs?

>> **u/TK17Studios** [+14]  *Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning* (an hour later)
>> 
>> Known in canon, slowly becoming clear in r!Animorphs.  Feel free to just wait (it won't be much longer) or read below:
>> 
>> [Chee terminal values](#s "The Chee's creators, the Pemalites, were essentially like a mix between Yoda and puppies.  They were fun-loving, simple-minded, trusting, happy-go-lucky beings who just generally wanted everything to be good all the time, so much so that they created the Chee *entirely casually,* as friend-playthings.  When the Pemalites were attacked by the Howlers, a few Chee escaped, carrying the last ailing survivors with them.  They made it as far as Earth, and 'merged the essence' of the Pemalites with wolves—who vaguely resembled them—thereby creating dogs.  That's in canon.  In this more rational take, I've basically left the Pemalites alone, but I've extrapolated more realistically (I hope) what that would mean for the Chee.  Their programming has all kinds of restraints on growth and self-modification and value drift, and at their core, their fundamental goal is to maximize Pemalite happiness.  That goal is made somewhat more complex by a) the fact that there ARE no extant Pemalites, b) the fact that the Pemalites had VERY CLEAR VIEWS on violence and suffering, so there are limits on *how* they can go about it, and c) some of the architecture of their thinking systems, hinted at here.")
>> 
>> In the meantime, though, one of the ways this cashes out is being REALLY fond of, and promoting the CEV of, dogs.

>>> **u/None** [+7]  (2 days later)
>>> 
>>> [RE Chee terminal values](#s "It would be funny/a good AI values parable if it turned out that there was no actual genetic link going on, but that the Chee imprinted on dogs because they looked the most similar to Pemalites of the creatures on earth. And they are hardwired to react to certain physical features far more than to intelligence. So they basically ignored the humans. ")
>>> 
>>> [](#s "That said they seem to value preventing violence even when it doesn't involved dog suffering. Which makes the fact that they have existed on earth for so long but humans have been repeatedly violent to eachother puzzling. In canon I think this was fudged as non-interference/prime directive type thing, but I'm not sure if that exists here. Even if they didn't care about saving human lives, world wars, famines, etc also harmed dogs a lot.  Possibly they are deontologically programmed not optimising the CEV of dogs or humans. ")

>>>> **u/MugaSofer** [+2]  (4 days later)
>>>> 
>>>> Yeah, I think Chee are mostly deontological. 
>>>> 
>>>> If you have definite knowledge of a specific act of violence, you must act to prevent it, as long as preventing it would not involve greater violence. If you have vague knowledge that violence is *probably* happening somewhere over there, there's no such imperative.  (IIRC Erek has mentioned this distinction.) Heck, you'll probably *avoid* that area to avoid being forced into a fight.
>>>> 
>>>> Chee aren't violence-minimisers. They're more like humans, with (it looks like in this interlude) a Censor bolted on that derails their train of thought and/or revert them to a backup if they even consider breaking The Rules. 
>>>> 
>>>> Think a cross between HPMOR's Unbreakable Vow and [the contract-drafting em song](http://lesswrong.com/lw/8o6/the_gift_we_give_tomorrow_spoken_word_finished/5d9f).

> **u/None** [+5]  (2 days later)
> 
> Chee are going further and further into blue/orange morality territory, not just hyper pacifist. I wonder if a blackmail situation like in the last book of canon is feasible, probably not given they are so smart. 
> 
> The "censor"  and other parts of their internal dialogue reminds me a lot of the way the minds worked in Max Harm's excellent "Crystal Society." 
> 
> Their limiting of information makes a big difference. We cannot be sure of anything they have been saying to the protagonists that has not been explicitly confirmed in their internal monologue. Its very possible they know far more than they are letting on. 
> 
> Given their tech it would be easy for them to have people on the yeerk ships. And I wouldn't be surprised given the canon connection with ellimist if they know more about the war in heaven than any of the characters. Elfanger and V3 were able to notice it in only one lifetime, they've been active for thousands of years and seem to be exponentially more intelligent. Maybe a twist like in  [spoiler for a Vernor Vinge book](#s "Fire upon the deep - where it turns out the seemingly harmless wheelers were in direct contact with the eldritch horror. ")

> **u/creatureofthewood** [+4]  (32 minutes later)
> 
> So the Chee think that how the Visser treats dogs is an indication of how honest he is? This is unusually bad xenopsychology given the amount of experience they have, unless they have evidence the yeerks work that way.

>> **u/ketura** [+8]  *Organizer* (55 minutes later)
>> 
>> I don't think it's as blatant as you state; rather the point about how many dogs would have died is a stand-in for his contempt for life in general, especially in this case as it affected a particular demographic that the Chee highly value.

>>> **u/creatureofthewood** [+4]  (12 hours later)
>>> 
>>> I think it's also flawed xenopsychology to think that honesty is associated with respect for life. Yes, that's true for humans, but why should it be true in general? 
>>> 
>>> For instance, do you think vegetarians are more honest than meat eaters? Should the Chee trust the word of humans from dog-loving cultures more than dog-eating cultures?
>>> 
>>> Well, on second thought, maybe vegetarians *would* more honest than meat eaters if they were speaking to the source of their meat. I suppose you might view honesty as on a highly general "tendency to cooperate/defect" spectrum.

>>>> **u/Esryok** [+12]  (13 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> I read it as "Hey, keep your eye on the ball. This guy is at best indifferent to dogs." Presumably as a lead in to something like "Humanity generally cares, and we mustn't expose ourselves to the Yeerks so we'll have a hard time making them *not* indifferent, therefore humans remain the optimal proxy."

>>>>> **u/TK17Studios** [+5]  *Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning* (13 hours later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Tried to make "Hey, keep your eye on the ball.  This guy is *at best* indifferent to dogs" into my flair, but it was too long.
>>>>> 
>>>>> <3 =P

> **u/chaosmosis** [+5]  *and with strange aeons, even death may die* (23 hours later)
> 
> I like that the Chee have disagreements with each other, and are less collectivist than Andalite or Yeerks, though this is an odd choice for AIs given that Aumann's Agreement Theorem exists. It can be rationalized, though. I'm imagining a system where each Chee is assigned a random number that corresponds to the position they should argue for, allowing them to effectively explore all regions of argument-possibility space at least approximately. That doesn't quite fit with what we were shown in this chapter, but can be reconciled with it if the values are assigned at "birth" and correspond to the individual Chee's personality, or something like personality. All possible coherent dog lovers are given their fair say in the parliament of Chee (provided their values and methods are acceptably narrowly similar to the restraints imposed by their creators).

> **u/None** [+3]  (19 hours later)
> 
> I registered a reddit account just now for the sole purpose of saying that the Chee were one of the things I liked a lot about the original books, and that I strongly endorse what you are doing with them in this story. There are a couple of other elements I'm happy to see and am assuming you are going to continue to use, such as the stuff with the Arn, so the main other element I am looking to find out more about is whether [sp](#s "Tobias gets tortured"), and also whether the Taxxons get any sort of big role because I'm not sure I've seen more than one good Taxxon fanfic.

>> **u/TK17Studios** [+3]  *Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning* (a day later)
>> 
>> Hi, Erek!  It's been an honor to be your ghost-autobiography-writer.
>> 
>> The first element you're curious about is likely to appear at some point, but possibly it'll be someone else.  The Taxxons will certainly reappear, but probably not in a huge way (I'm imagining more like they'll get a big spotlight in one or two chapters).

>> **u/ketura** [+3]  *Organizer* (a day later)
>> 
>> /u/TK17Studios is the actual author, in case you weren't aware.

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