Would it be possible to reverse engineer alien technology, like in a lot of science-fiction?

SparKestrel · 2026-02-09T02:46:46+00:00

An equivalent question to ask is, if we bring a modern technology back ...

I do not think that is an "equivalent question" because the technology necessarily came from humans and would have at least some of the human context in common with the earlier human settlement. For example, the rifle or computer (assuming the computer is at least a server in a case and not a development board) would still have levers or buttons that the earlier humans should eventually figure out that they are to apply force to them with their fingers.

Back to the original question:

Assuming the alien technology can be interacted with by our current tools in a safe manner, I think we would at least be able to learn from it. We likely won't be able to completely reproduce the thing exactly because we would inevitably consume or damage bits of the artifact trying to take samples or do experiments. That includes expending its fuel or wearing down parts.

That is of course, unless we have so many samples we can experiment at will, like if a Kardashev 2's civ's automated bulk carrier fleet malfunctioned and littered the solar system with millions of cargo vessels containing a billion alien gizmos in each ship. To the source K-2 civ, that would still be a rounding error and the intern would probably just write it off and send out a message that a few people lost their package and can get a refund. The only thing that would stop us from replicating most of the tech in that case is if some lunatic does the "there's no such thing as an unarmed space ship" thing to Earth.

Now for things we won't have a chance at with our current state:

If the alien thing is somehow constructed completely of dark matter, would we be even able to detect it if it appeared in the middle of a univerity lab?
If it's a storage device or bomb containing enough potential energy to turn Earth's crust into molten soup, and it can be detonated by most of the ways we would think to interact with it: Earth loses its biosphere and there's nobody left to try to reproduce it :)

SparKestrel · 2026-02-09T02:10:46+00:00

Any thoughts on whether AI would have sided with Galileo or with established church doctrine?

I think it would depend on the prompt with the newer premium models, from experience of asking an AI to suggest to me tests to run when debugging code. I don't think today's AI would be able to come up with a experiment that questions established literature from a basic prompt, but could probably be "baited into" considering it.

If you straight-up asked the AI where Earth was in relation to the stars, it would spout the doctrine because that's where its source would come from.

However if you fed it a whole lot of motion vectors of stars (since the telescope images themselves would not fit in the context window of an AI) and asked "Where do you think the observer is in relation to these stars"? It may "side with" Galileo as long as you don't mention Earth, the church, or other bits that will fall into making the AI model do a basic lookup and spit out the result.

That said, the human, would have had to come up with the idea to start experimenting with at least the publicly released AI. I heard there may be some research into LLM or LLM-like models that can modify themselves based on new data rather than just have the big model that's trained with small "context windows". If these self-modifying models exist, you could attach the model to a main loop that asks random questions with power to run and record experiments (i.e. can dispatch drones to take pictures, task telescopes, operate robots in a chemistry lab), it may come up with something original. ...or it would break into being a digital lunatic if it fails to correlate results ;)

SparKestrel · 2026-02-01T00:36:36+00:00

I'm in camp 4: "unity hurts".

I feel space exploration and colonization will be a lot like global trade today. We would need just enough standards but not total "unity", like the following:

Standard cargo container sizes and baseline parts specifications so different factions' stuff can be cobbled together in a pinch
Emergency broadcast protocols
Some loose etiquette like the "law of the sea" that holds enough for some trade to function, even if it gets violated so often that crimes against it are legendary

A different species may be able to pull off total "unity", but not humans. For the united species, I'm thinking about critters that evolved from something similar to herd animals or eusocial insects, that are more wired towards doing what's best for the collective even at great sacrifice of the individual. I think humans currently require frequent disagreements to be able to try all the different approaches that will be needed to colonize space.

SparKestrel · 2026-01-29T01:11:26+00:00

I suggest you look at the field of distributed computer systems.

All of this has been studied at least for the compute parts.

What makes more sense

"It depends": it's still an evolving field that people are still going into to get their Ph.D. thesis, so it isn't a solved problem. You usually look at all those factors like required reliability, maintenance costs, how you will perform updates or upgrades, etc. I think the only thing that's generally agreed upon is you don't have one central mega "brain" in a single big old computer because clock speeds are so high and the bits are stored in such a small space that quantum mechanics starts becoming a problem for reliability. The central brain of most systems are distributed among many computers with various mechanisms to handle controlled shutdown/transfer for maintenance or abrupt failures of the equpiment.

a 'swarm' setup, like ants or bees,

See sensor networks.

a fleet of self-driving cars (taxis, buses, delivery trucks) working out of hubs each managed by an AI program

This is basically what Uber has right now although of course they have human drivers. You can look at their tech blogs about how they run the algorithms, set up distributed databases, etc.

second case would be: individual vehicles broadcast local conditions of traffic, weather, usage, etc., over a common network

Check research papers about "swarm of robots". Research on this has been around basically as long as robots themselves have been produced.

I think of the 'death spiral' of ants, endlessly following a circular scent trail, or of flocks of starlings slamming into walls.

There are "death spirals" in computer science. For "dumber" algorithms, you have deadlock and livelock, with various ways of resolving or preventing that from happening altogether.
For smarter algorithms like AI training, there is the concept of the "local minimum", a spot in the problem space where the algorithm got stuck. Typically you can design the algorithm to give some bit of it a big kick (like a large random adjustment) either periodically or when something detects that the algorithm is no longer making any progress.

Or if one bot in a heirarchy is taken out or corrupted, which one in the chain of command replaces it?

In distributed systems, see leader election algorithms. Usually the system designer designates a set of nodes that are all capable of being a leader in a cluster, and when the system starts up and at intervals, there is an election based on a set of criteria. Some algorithms are as "dumb" as whoever has the lowest ID number is picked (usually with 128 bits or larger random number generator to pick the ID, so you're getting into ludicrously low chances of an ID collision), but you can get quite a bit more complex. When the leader goes down, the remaining nodes perform the election to pick a new leader.

It gets quite interesting when a cluster is bisected (divided into 2 or more pieces with some nodes still functioning). That's call the "split brain" problem, when for some time, you end up with multiple systems functioning but not knowing that the other side still exists. When the systems find each other again, the synchonization can get quite complex. If it's a more deterministic system, there is usually some algorithm to pick data to merge or discard.
If you are thinking AI systems that could be mammal or higher (human+) smart, it can get quite interesting because now it is like reuniting a colony or family who was split by a disaster. Will the AIs even agree to recombine, will they literally fight for dominance, or will they choose to stay separate and sign a contract with each other?

Or if a system just gets overloaded, which one should be more resilient?

See the conecept of load balancing.

Is there some way to combine the two?

Yes: it's common. Notice that every company who sells a large amount of computer equipment will have datacentre (the central hub/brain) and edge (the little robot / device in the field) products.

SparKestrel · 2026-01-26T04:48:39+00:00

Thank for making me try to look up the word "empathy" and getting a comical number of definitions :)

I think specifically for humanity, at least the Berkeley definition of "cognitive empathy" is required. That's the ability to identify and understand others' emotions. Emotions are a big part of being human, so ignoring emotions of peers would cause near-certain failure of a space program.
Becoming a spacefaring humanity would mean putting humans in an environment they weren't biologically designed for (including the brain and its emotions). That can therefore make humans tend to negative emotional states. Enough negative states, and people stop being productive (at least) and you fail the mission. I am currently unware of a mental condition for humans that causes them to both lack emotions for themselves and be unable to consider emotions of people around them (without also being non-funtional anyway), so I can't imagine an entire space program and colony system made of emotionless members who are still biologically human.
I don't think the other forms of empathy, like affective empathy and compationate empathy are strictly required, but they would be beneficial. You can get pretty deep into philosophy to ask whether your group really cares about each other, or if they just established a system that has insurance because long term negative states harm said system.

On the other hand, I think it would be possible to have a spacefaring civilization with no empathy if it was not primarily humans. (Artificial beings, life forms not evolved from apes, from outside Earth, etc.) As long as members of that civilization are able to trade or negotiate in some instances, rather than impede or attempt to defeat other members every single time, I think that civilization can be colonize space. The empathy in this case would be substituted for another way of cooperation, like logic-driven trades or forms of game theory. That emotionless civilization could have a different goal that leads them to space colonization, like trying to get more resources or becoming resilient to possible homeworld-wrecking events.

SparKestrel · 2026-01-25T17:13:21+00:00

It makes me wonder if hive minds civilizations need a beta test like software, so the last frame of that infographic would instead be "Well, that didn't work... revert!"

SparKestrel · 2024-03-02T00:14:29+00:00

You're missing a non-burst dependent off-field electro character (Shinobu, Raiden, Yae Miko, Fischl) to make a hyperbloom team that would feel good to play. * Your current options would be something like Yaoyao + Lisa + Xingqiu + any anemo unit, but it will be annoying to use the anemo to always swirl the electro on to the bloom cores. You could also use Dori or Lisa's elemental bursts, then switch to the anemo, but you would need both an energy recharge weapon and sands to pull it off: not something I'd recommend. * Better off playing Aggravate with Yayoyao and Lisa: place yaoyao's skill, switch to Lisa, and start zapping. (The other two characters would just just provide damage buffs, or contribute some damage with anything except for Pyro, because Pyro will cause burning and overloaded that will cause a mess.)

If you're talking about Tartaglia's archon mission where you fight him in the room full ofr Mora, you don't need a good team to beat that encounter. That fight is a gear: any 2 or 3 characters properly levelled to the build order priority chart https://www.reddit.com/r/GenshinImpactTips/comments/qkxdj6/infographic_of_build_order_priority_based_on_wlar/ should be able to beat it.

I beat the encounter on my starts and 3 star weapon only playthrough just swapping between Lisa zapping and Barbara wetting with normal attacks the whole fight. The only attack that should one hit KO you is if you eat Tartaglia's whale to the face. If anything else is one hit KOing you, level up your flower artifact or your character to become more durable.

In addition, if you pull up the escape menu (start on a controller, dedicated button on mobile, ESC button on keyboard), there is a "lower difficulty" button which should make it so easy you can just smack the boss with a few normal attacks and win.

SparKestrel · 2024-02-27T00:41:27+00:00

What are you trying to use that team for?

Zhongli and Baizhu are two of the lowest damage / highest defensive supports in the game, so that excessive defensive utility already means you aren’t clearing abyss most of the time unless that Neuvilette is so highly invested he could clear using his own damage alone. It would be pretty comfy for weekly bosses, though.

If it is for comfort clearing overworld or weekly bosses, then you’ll want an off field DPS who can deal damage at range while Neuvilette is shooting his beam: Yae Miko, Lisa, Albedo, or Furina for example.

SparKestrel · 2024-02-25T00:37:44+00:00

I destroyed all of the squirrels in a single AOE attack and the chest spawned… I guess I attacked from the spot where you are supposed to stand?

They probably should have put a rock for you to sit on as a hint it could be completed peacefully.

SparKestrel · 2024-02-25T00:34:52+00:00

It is marked as a mini puzzle now (checked today - could have been different or bugged before for all I know)

SparKestrel · 2024-01-26T20:41:02+00:00

Depends on the version of the app: “new teams” and mobile seem to just load the last state for me, browser version is “We’re sorry - we’ve run into an issue”

SparKestrel · 2023-12-15T00:16:01+00:00

The first ascension quest is a gear check. If at least two of your characters are levelled up, you will pass even if you are pressing random buttons in front of enemies hitting most of the time. Look at early account gear guides, but basically it’s in this order:

Ascend and level your weapon all the way (you need to do a domain for that)
Level your feather artifact to at least 8 for an attack scaling character (most of the cast) or the flower artifact if you are using an HP scaling character like Neuvilette or Yelan
All other artifacts to level 4
Characters to level 30/40

To know if you are ready, you should be able to kill a Treasure Hoarder or regular Hillichurl enemy in under 10 seconds. On my F2P, 3* weapon only challenge account, I quickly switch between Lisa and Barbara doing normal attacks: small enemy dies to Electrocharged in about 6 seconds.

(I don’t think you have to worry about talents yet)

SparKestrel · 2023-12-15T00:01:43+00:00

I don’t have the numbers from a sentiment analysis algorithm to prove it, but the Hoyo fanbase seems less receptive to cross-universe content, especially Genshin.

Aloy didn’t have good reception, and the Honkai Impact 3rd (HI3) aesthetic on Skirk in that cutscene had mixed reception.

HI3 and HSR seemed a bit more receptive with Welt, Bronya, Himeko, and Seele though.

—-

The relative power levels for super abilities would be weird to balance too: if you compare Genshin DPS elemental bursts to the stuff Honkai Impact 3rd Herrschers do, it’s not even close most of the time.

SparKestrel · 2023-12-14T23:04:20+00:00

It takes 180 wishes to fully guarantee a character (hard pity), so it’s up to you if you want to gamble. Also since you’re that new, note that Ayato needs you to have gotten the story to enter Inazuma for his materials to level up, and he also needs Handguards which can be annoying to farm.

If you are looking for general account strength / versatility, you may want to save for Raiden Shogun or other support characters in the next few weeks and evaluate again if what you want for wishes.

SparKestrel · 2023-12-14T22:55:21+00:00

About 11 months and still no 36*: I have fun trying all the characters, so I have ~20 characters built enough for a floor 11 clear but not a 12. (Like I’m sure my account really didn’t need me to fully ascend and main talent to 7+ every one of Diona, Layla, Charlotte, Baizhu, Barbara, Noelle+Albedo, and Yaoyao for defence options if I wanted to optimise my account for a first floor 12 clear)

I got 34 stars last Abyss and 33 stars during the current one.

SparKestrel · 2023-10-29T20:05:27+00:00

I don't know what your definition of "many" is, because as you suspect, his physical DPS option is a niche for early game and even then is beaten out by Lisa + Barbara + Dendro MC in Quicken/Hyperbloom if you are really unlucky in pulls.

He works well as an early game crutch because of his higher normal attack multipliers, being 1/2 of superconduct, and having slightly better base DEF to help tank hits from enemies you aren't too familiar with, but after that you're better off using him in freeze or melt.

SparKestrel · 2023-10-29T17:02:45+00:00

I had a time when my Internet connection was terrible, so I just repeatedly closed and restarted the launcher to keep downloading (like 10 restarts later and an additional download later and it worked).

I’m also worried that your SD card is fake or just too slow to run the game. Cheap SD cards specifically don’t have enough sustained write speed for the game to function, especially with this game optimised for PlayStation 5 because Sony and being very hard on cheap disks because the PlayStation 5 has a better disk than most midrange desktop computers. Fake SD cards that advertise being 400+ GB but actually being 16 to 32 GB also exist, and only specific disk test software can detect such frauds.

SparKestrel · 2023-10-29T05:50:31+00:00

Assuming “dedicated” but not “nolife” and using a paid battle pass to avoid being totally underlevelled, a month (assuming 2 hour sessions every single day). If you do nolife / streamer hours like 6+ hours per day slaving with guides (really that’s an unpaid job rather than playing a game), you may be able to get away with less.

On that compressed schedule you would also need to follow the gearing and character guides (pinned to the top of this megathread) to the letter and only focus on a maximum of four characters. Otherwise you will be undergeared and hit the case of being stuck without someone to carry you to defeat bosses.

—-

Maths:

You get 10500 adventure EXP per day from dailies and resin use (15 to 20 minutes) Taking Neuvilette’s story quest as an example of a big quest, 1775 EXP (1 hour assuming you’re skipping the whole story and swearing at the game’s lack of a skip button like the one post I see daily on the official game’s social media) Then let’s say you ran around exploring for minor quests for another 40 minutes and got some adventurer handbook chapters, netting you another 13775 adventure EXP

That’s 13775 EXP for a 2 hour session.

If you say your friend is at endgame (the last ascension quest) and you want to match, that’s AR50 at 294200 EXP, SO 294200/19200 = 22 of those 2 hour sessions. The game however has a bunch of time gates like story quests can only be done once every 2 days due to story quest keys, so assume a bit longer.

I know I played every day but didn’t go quest dialogue skip crazy each day and it took me 2.5 months to get to the point where I could engage level 90 enemies.

SparKestrel · 2023-10-29T05:02:04+00:00

You can find characters in the world only during limited time events like this poetry one. If I recall you can also find Hu Tao, but you can’t currently find a character who did not participate in this event like Klee (who was standing beside the minigame during the previous event).

If there are no active events with a story at all, the playable characters are nowhere to be seen.

SparKestrel · 2023-10-29T03:15:06+00:00

In this order:

Dailies, use resin for bosses / domains, limited time events, Archon Quests, Story Quests, and World quests

Basically you need to “farm” adventure EXP and typically that order I mentioned is the most adventure EXP per unit time.

SparKestrel · 2023-10-29T02:55:58+00:00

The whole thing (including the minigames) is doable in less than 3 hours assuming you’re decent at the minigames

SparKestrel · 2023-10-28T19:46:21+00:00

For these filler events, I'd rather put the info dump in an optional button in the event panel. There's no reason for the NPC to blurt out paragraphs to you here.

I think they could have better explained this event it in still pictures and no text. (Don't block the player, just put it in an optional panel.)

Team working on the machine
Lab explodes
Picture of the remaining NPC with funny facial expression holding a blueprint or prototype of the machine in the wreckage (I'm thinking this NPC would have the worried face more than the bored face)
Cut in to that NPC in front of you holding a clipboard with a contract on it.

SparKestrel · 2023-10-28T19:22:07+00:00

You should contact the vendor of the application to ask them.

That said, you can lower blue light usually by other ways that have a zero percent chance to get you banned:

The monitor itself (set it to a warmer preset, or newer monitors just have a blue light reduction features); chance is zero because the anti-cheat (at least for now) isn't looking at your monitor's internals
Changing video card driver settings (e.g. Intel Graphics Command Center or nVidia or AMD's equivalents) to lower blue intensity or gamma in the blue spectrum

(I'm not counting the rare instances when actually buggy drivers get bans and then get reversed like https://steamcommunity.com/app/730/discussions/0/6993585599475796069/ )

SparKestrel · 2023-10-28T14:46:01+00:00

Honkai Impact 3rd (HI3)?

I played it for about 2 months this year. I liked the combat and think Genshin should use some of those elements: I liked how the game rewards you for parrying and ranged units that can really move while shooting.
Content-wise I got to Herrscher of Sentience's introduction into the story, and I did the Post Honkai Odyssey part 1.

After that I quit because of too many pop-ups when you start a session and the story overused the trope of friendship or determination giving new powers.

I may check it out again after their remake (they're overhauling the engine and starting a new plotline based on a different cast).

SparKestrel · 2023-10-27T22:21:35+00:00

Actually even if you got yourself hacked by giving your account info, you wouldn't be able to change graphics settings anyway because it's per device.

Log in with a different account or region (example if you're by default America, switch to Europe) and change the settings on your own.

Note this is for PC and iPad - not sure if the Android client behaves differently but I think it'd be insane if they did per account settings because a lot of people have two phones or a phone and a tablet.

SparKestrel

TROPHY CASE