scrape_r_rational/data/cache/2xmn3d.md

Mother of Learning Chapter 33: Gateways

Post:

Link to content

Comments:

• u/Stop_Sign:

  I *loved* the quick description of the necromancer war. Noble families who realized they would never inherit the title? Brilliant. It really built the world and made magic much more of a thing that's always existed, especially since there was just so much history summarized in those few paragraphs
  

• u/FTL_wishes:

  If Zach's initial movements repeat over loops, it would strongly suggest that Zach himself is carrying memory packets for Red Robe, and this is what he's doing at the start of every loop. Probably some sort of compulsion spell.
  
  The Bakora gates are a nice touch. A unique deconstruction of the "ancient artefact" trope so common in fantasy/sci-fi.
  

  • u/PeridexisErrant:

    > Zach himself is carrying memory packets for Red Robe
    
    This was my proposal in the last thread, and there's a nice bit of evidence for it here :)  Even better:  once Zorian can break Zach free, Red Robe won't be a problem!
    

    • u/gamarad:

      I have a feeling that breaking Zach free is going to be a pretty big problem in and of itself.
      

      • u/Stop_Sign:

        And he'd likely only get one shot to do it
        

• u/None:

  [deleted]
  

  • u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer:

    Reddit has long been a hot spot for conversation on the internet. About 57 million people visit the site every day to chat about topics as varied as makeup, video games and pointers for power washing driveways.
    
    In recent years, Reddit’s array of chats also have been a free teaching aid for companies like Google, OpenAI and Microsoft. Those companies are using Reddit’s conversations in the development of giant artificial intelligence systems that many in Silicon Valley think are on their way to becoming the tech industry’s next big thing.
    
    Now Reddit wants to be paid for it. The company said on Tuesday that it planned to begin charging companies for access to its application programming interface, or A.P.I., the method through which outside entities can download and process the social network’s vast selection of person-to-person conversations.
    
    “The Reddit corpus of data is really valuable,” Steve Huffman, founder and chief executive of Reddit, said in an interview. “But we don’t need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free.”
    
    The move is one of the first significant examples of a social network’s charging for access to the conversations it hosts for the purpose of developing A.I. systems like ChatGPT, OpenAI’s popular program. Those new A.I. systems could one day lead to big businesses, but they aren’t likely to help companies like Reddit very much. In fact, they could be used to create competitors — automated duplicates to Reddit’s conversations.
    
    Reddit is also acting as it prepares for a possible initial public offering on Wall Street this year. The company, which was founded in 2005, makes most of its money through advertising and e-commerce transactions on its platform. Reddit said it was still ironing out the details of what it would charge for A.P.I. access and would announce prices in the coming weeks.
    
    Reddit’s conversation forums have become valuable commodities as large language models, or L.L.M.s, have become an essential part of creating new A.I. technology.
    
    L.L.M.s are essentially sophisticated algorithms developed by companies like Google and OpenAI, which is a close partner of Microsoft. To the algorithms, the Reddit conversations are data, and they are among the vast pool of material being fed into the L.L.M.s. to develop them.
    

    • u/None:

      [deleted]
      

      • u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer:

        Reddit has long been a hot spot for conversation on the internet. About 57 million people visit the site every day to chat about topics as varied as makeup, video games and pointers for power washing driveways.
        
        In recent years, Reddit’s array of chats also have been a free teaching aid for companies like Google, OpenAI and Microsoft. Those companies are using Reddit’s conversations in the development of giant artificial intelligence systems that many in Silicon Valley think are on their way to becoming the tech industry’s next big thing.
        
        Now Reddit wants to be paid for it. The company said on Tuesday that it planned to begin charging companies for access to its application programming interface, or A.P.I., the method through which outside entities can download and process the social network’s vast selection of person-to-person conversations.
        
        “The Reddit corpus of data is really valuable,” Steve Huffman, founder and chief executive of Reddit, said in an interview. “But we don’t need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free.”
        
        The move is one of the first significant examples of a social network’s charging for access to the conversations it hosts for the purpose of developing A.I. systems like ChatGPT, OpenAI’s popular program. Those new A.I. systems could one day lead to big businesses, but they aren’t likely to help companies like Reddit very much. In fact, they could be used to create competitors — automated duplicates to Reddit’s conversations.
        
        Reddit is also acting as it prepares for a possible initial public offering on Wall Street this year. The company, which was founded in 2005, makes most of its money through advertising and e-commerce transactions on its platform. Reddit said it was still ironing out the details of what it would charge for A.P.I. access and would announce prices in the coming weeks.
        
        Reddit’s conversation forums have become valuable commodities as large language models, or L.L.M.s, have become an essential part of creating new A.I. technology.
        
        L.L.M.s are essentially sophisticated algorithms developed by companies like Google and OpenAI, which is a close partner of Microsoft. To the algorithms, the Reddit conversations are data, and they are among the vast pool of material being fed into the L.L.M.s. to develop them.
        

        • u/Kodix:

          I don't know, I think what you're saying explains Zorian's relative lack of interest sufficiently. He *did* follow up on it enough to research more when he has the opportunity.
          
          To be perfectly honest, personally I didn't mark the teleport gates as ridiculously important except in the same way as the sad cat sitting around on the bridge when Zorian didn't fish out the bicycle in early chapters - it will certainly be important later, and it merits research, but that's mostly meta-knowledge. 
          
          Zorian's in the middle of something, and I don't expect him to drop everything to chase a small clue. Hell - his combat training will directly contribute to being able to visit the gate under Cyoria.
          
          Although personally my attention was more on the Sovereign gate and how it sounds *precisely* how the time-loop situation could be described to other people (as opposed to loopers).
          

          • u/Nepene:

            Yeah. Zorian is rightfully very cautious. Makes a lot of sense for him to focus on becoming good at combat rather than trying to solve the big mysteries and find the source of an invading army. I mean, he could try the good old scry and die techniques, he might succeed, but it'd be very risky.
            
            Plus, psychologically, it's all very scary for him. Red Robes could murder him and his family at any time if he found him. It's a lot of mental effort to go confront all of that, especially when he rationally knows it could be a very bad idea.
            

            • u/Kodix:

              Here's the author's take from a PM on fictionpress (quoted with permission):
              
              >Yeah, from Zorian's perspective the gates are a neat little mystery that he has no reason focus on at the moment. They're far from the only mystery scattered through the world, and he is still heavily under impression of the evens of 'Soulkill' and focused on making sure it can never happen again. The gates do not help with that, they have no obvious link to the time loop, and they appear to be objects that have stumped more capable mages for centuries so what the hell could *he* do about it?
              
              He's also leery of engaging in debates as an author, which seems very reasonable to me.
              

              • u/Nepene:

                Thanks for that, and thanks to /u/nobody103 for being awesome.
                
                That is something I hadn't really considered- he is just one wizard. The Sovereign Gates and the other ones are centuries old, all the obvious low hanging fruit of how to activate them or find them has likely been tried, he had no reason to believe he would perform better than hundreds of other mages.
                
                It's the sort of rationality that Eliezer mentioned- if your main is doing something else no one else has done they better have a damn good reason for no one else trying it. And I guess he knows lots of others have tried to do stuff with the gates.
                
                While I understand his leeriness of engaging in debates, I do appreciate when he talks to us. Engagement and learning more about the story is very fun.
                

        • u/DaystarEld:

          Very well put. There's got to be a trope name for this...
          

  • u/literal-hitler:

    Frankly, it's probably where the invasion is attacking Cyoria from.
    

    • u/Igigigif:

      The mechanic behind it might even be responsible for red robe's perma-kill spell.
      

      • u/xamueljones:

        [Important Chekhov's Gun](#s " Don't forget that the mortal plane is separated from the spiritual planes severing contact with the demons and angels. Think that sounds like dimension magic?")
        

    • u/Nepene:

      It's probably also what the Aranea map is pointing to.
      

• u/DaystarEld:

  Finally got around to reading this story, so I can post in updates! \o/!
  
  Does anyone else find it suspicious that the person Zorian happened to get asked to steal "trade secrets" from is likely heavily involved in the invasion?  If Gurey doesn't end up being some undercover intelligence agent or something, I'm going to cry shenanigans unless there's a merchant in practically every town and city that's connected to the secret plot.
  
  Also, this was probably mentioned in earlier posts, but if we're getting pseudo-confirmation that souls can't be killed, then that confirms my hypothesis that what happened to the spiders is probably what happened to Zach, and they'll all come back in one of the restarts, feeling disoriented and sick at first.
  

• u/stringless:

  How often does this update? I read from the beginning after seeing this post and now I'm hooked.
  

  • u/nobody103:

    About once a month. I'm aiming to increase that, but I'm making no promises.
    

    • u/stringless:

      I'm okay with waiting a bit for a better result. Which is incredibly appropriate.
      

• u/Nepene:

  I did love the history lesson. Beautifully written, amusing, made the world much more real.
  
  The priest's no selling of his teleport wards also amused me much.
  
  It also explains even further the earlier Zoltan vampire/ Quatach Ichl debate where the vampire was a prominent member of society. Many houses converted their leadership to undead for immortality and as such those houses have likely continued to claim to be the true houes in Ulquaan Ibasa.
  

• u/Sgeo:

  Typo:
  
  > I took her a full minute to realize he had slipped out of the room
  

• u/aeschenkarnos:

  > "And you think our attackers belong that group?" surmised Alanic.
  
  ^ belong *to* that
  

---