Reddit mentions of The Ship Who Sang: A Novel (Brainship Book 1)

>1.You awaken in your bed to a loud disturbance. A young boy struggles to catch his shadow, he soars around your room as he attempts to do so. Once he has captured this pesky part of his personage, he reattaches it to himself then turns to you. He claims he can take you to a far away place where you would never grow old, instead you would stay young forever. Do you go with him? Where does he take you?

No. Never would I ever. I know this story and it does not go well for the ladies. Wendy gets shot with an arrow and is basically an unpaid au pair. The mermaids are a surly crowd and Tink nearly dies of disbelief. I already know enough lost boys, I don’t need to meet any more.

>2.Describe your perfect reality in as much detail as you can produce.

The real world is partly objective events - let’s call that the deck of cards - and partly subjective - how I play the hand I am dealt.
In a perfect world, I would first do no harm and second have more genuine gratitude and less greed. It would be more about what I could contribute and less about getting what I think I am entitled to.


>3.For a single day you have no restrictions. You do not have to obey any laws, not the law of gravity, nor the rule of law. You may create and destroy matter at will. This is only for 24 hours. Everything you do remains the following day once all the restrictions of the universe are placed back on you. What do you do? Why?

Set my alarm so I can get up on time? JK! Unqualified for this task. Seriously, this is not an amateur gig. Paging The Creator Of the Universe. Call on line one.


>4.You may remove a single emotion from all of human consciousness, once removed it can never be felt again. Which emotion do you remove and why?

Selfishness. Self-centered fear accounts for many of mankind’s troubles.


>5.You may remove a single emotion from yourself, which do you remove? Why?

Self-pity. Get down off the cross, we need the wood. Why? Because we need the wood.

>6.You no longer see time from a fixed perspective. Instead you see every action you have taken and every action you will take from now until your death. You cannot change the actions you see ahead of you, they will happen despite your knowledge. (ex. DR MANHATTAN from WATCHMEN.) Is this new perspective a blessing or a curse? Why? And how do you cope with this new perspective?

Curse. Just ask Cassandra
How I handle it. I was raised Presbyterian and I can tell you we just ignore the doctrine of predestination. Willful ignorance FTW!

>7.You can be gifted true immortality. Nothing can hurt your physical form, you will endure for all time. Do you take this gift? Why or why not?

No. Make that fuck no. If there is no exit plan, I am not signing up. Exhibit A. Death Becomes Her.

>8.In your immortality, you are granted a single other partner to be given immortality with you. If you said no to the immortality before does this change your answer? Who would this person be? Why?

Still No. See #8

>9.You are dying but it doesn’t have to be so. We can transport all that you are into a machine. This is not a copy, it will be you inside this machine. Your physical form will be destroyed in this process. Do you accept this offer? Why or why not?

Sure. If I have control over the off switch.

Why. Very curious and I read The Ship Who Sang at an impressionable age.
Wait, who is Siri, really.

>10.Death has come for you. It is the reaper in his black cloak, face obscured by shadow. Before he takes you away from the mortal plane you may ask him 3 questions. What do you ask the reaper?

1.Where's Binky?

2.Did I keep you waiting long?

3.Got time for a quick game of cards? *


DEATH has indicated that he will oblige dying humans by playing a game with them for their lives... the games including chess (though he consistently has trouble remembering how the knights move), and another game - which the challenger lost despite having "three streets and all the utilities". In one case, Granny Weatherwax was able to play cards against Death in a successful bid to save a child's life (Granny's hand had four queens, while he only had four'ones' - it is suggested that Death knew the true value of the hand but was prepared to pretend otherwise for the child's sake)*

Since CGI has advanced so much, if Data ever appeared again, I'd rather see Spiner doing voice/motion-capture, with Data himself as simply CGI.

I agree that Data as a ship AI doesn't really fit him.

I also second the thought that if you want to explore the idea of Ship AIs, you can turn to science fiction novels.

Ann Leckie's Ancillary series follows the ship Justice of Toren. First book is Ancillary Justice.

Martha Wells has her Murderbot Diaries, and in a few of the stories, a ship-based AI shows up. The first book of that series is All Systems Red.

If you want to go retro, Anne McCaffrey has her Ship Who Sang series, although those aren't true AI but human brains encased in "shells" that can be installed into spaceships or cities to help run them. First book is, predictably, The Ship Who Sang, but take note it was first published decades ago in the 70s or 80s, so some of the ideas are outdated by now.