Doctor Who and the Universe of the Daleks: Chapter 11: Mission Impossible

It always is, with The Doctor, isn't it?

The Doctor and Cas crouched down and scampered up to the crest of the ridge overlooking the Dalek mining site. Fiona was waiting for them; she handed a pair of binoculars to Cas. 

The Doctor took a few moments to process the view. A dozen massive, conical structures of reinforced Dalek concrete ringed the western side of the site, their open tops belching pillars of white steam. Thick cables ran down to a huge rent in the earth, two soccer pitches in diameter, at the centre of the compound. At each point of the compass was a cylindrical access shaft. Five meters down the hole, sectioned metal roofing, undergirded by a web of support struts, extended slowly inward. A building sized crane, mounted on a dozen railway tracks, ground back from the pit’s edge. 

Overlooking the site to the north was a sheer cliff face, into which was built a looming Dalek installation of metal and concrete. To the West was a helipad, beside which squatted a domed structure with a ring of tubes extending out from the top, which glowed phosphorescent blue-green: Taranium processing!

Thousands of human slaves swarmed about like ants: extending the helipad with tiling, laying new building foundations, setting up metal sheeting around the hole, and clearing away construction detritus, all while watched by robomen armed with whips and submachine guns. A few Dalek supervisors were stationed in overwatch positions.

Odd there weren’t more about.

The Doctor shifted his gaze to the outer defences: the camp was ringed by a three meter high wire fence with wooden towers every fifty meters, manned by robomen. Twenty meters of barren earth extended out on either side, in which nothing grew.

“That Death Strip will be difficult to cross in daylight,” grumbled Cas, handing the binoculars to The Doctor. “There are Dalek hover tracks running along it, but no external Dalek patrols I can see. Best to wait till dark.”

“That’s at least two hours away. May be too late,” said the Doctor quietly. He looked over his shoulder as Sergei, Ben and Craddock moved up beside them. Ian, Sanjay and Reuben stood guard at the base of the ridge. “They’re preparing for something. Clearing out the workers. Odd they’re closing off that shaft. Was it here the last time?”

Cas shook her head. “We did have intel, about two months ago? One of their primary battle saucers hovering over the site, on columns of searing white light, followed by blasts of thunder. Perhaps that was related, cutting it out.”

Fiona gestured to the north. “There are some old human-built access shafts, from before the Daleks occupied the site, along the ridge. Black marketers use them. Exit in one of their waste pits. We’d need a ladder, but it would allow us to bypass the outer security.”

“We passed an abandoned fire truck half a click back,” noted Ben. “It had ladders.”

“Good thinking,” said Cas with obvious relief. She got up and tapped Ben on the shoulder. “Right, take Sanjay and grab a ladder. We’ll secure the tunnel. No Slyther?”

Fiona paused a moment, as if in a trance, then said: “It’s for construction waste material, not bio waste.”

The Doctor pondered the gaping hole in the earth. Whatever the Daleks were planning, it required a great deal of power. Taranium introduced another wrinkle: it was used in Dalek time travel technology. “The question is, what do we do when we get in there?”

“Blow up that command complex,” said Craddock, patting a satchel at his waist. Each of them was carrying six packets of Craddock’s high explosive putty and three detonator sticks. 

“We need to target key infrastructure of Project Infinity.” The Doctor nodded at the cliff installation. “That’s the operations hub, but is it the crux of Project Infinity?”

Craddock merely shrugged. 

The Doctor took stock: “Right. What do we know? They’re digging into the core of the earth. Taranium, Eye of Harmony, and my granddaughter means they’re also messing with time. All are definitely interconnected. Odds are co-located.”

“Makes sense” said Cas. “But that just leads back to the command complex, doesn’t it?”

“What about the power cables?” asked Sergei. “If we cut those, it’ll cripple whatever it is they’re doing.” 

“Good thought, but not necessarily. Now shh!” snapped the Doctor. “I need to concentrate.” He sat down cross legged on a flat rock just below the ridge. He rested his wrists on his knees, palms opened upward, and closed his eyes. 

With calm, regulated breathing, he cleared his mind, just as K’anpo Rimpoche had taught him all those lives ago. 

At the very edge of consciousness, he felt the faintest echo of Susan’s recursion loop. Not enough to contact directly. There was far too much psychic noise. Angry Dalek cognition spikes. But he could determine the direction of Susan’s cognition. He locked in on it, then snapped open his eyes. Unsurprisingly, he found himself staring at a point beneath the earth, slightly to the east of the main shaft. “That one,” said the Doctor, pointing at the east access cylinder stub. “The operational hub for Project Infinity is down there.”

Craddock scowled. “Based on what?”

“Call it a gut instinct.”

He had to get down there!

Cas considered. Then: “Agreed. We aim for the east access shaft. Let’s move people!”

Messiah Elect

Religion and politics?

Doctor Who and the Universe of the Daleks: Chapter 10: The Dark Musings of Dalek Tyr

Tyr was frustrated. Not only was it uncomfortable being latched on to the back of a dirty ape, the human wasn’t filtering out enough of the Terran atmospheric contaminants. Tyr was being slowly poisoned, orbit by orbit. 

Drowning in human stink.

And yet Tyr had managed to outwit the humans, successfully blend in long enough to reach the outskirts of the Bedfordshire mining complex. 

Unfortunately, they hadn’t run across a single Dalek patrol. Where were the perimeter drones? What was going on? 

They’d only encountered mindless Slythers, which were as likely to devour Tyr as the humans, and witless robomen. These disposable automatons were as likely to shoot Tyr on sight as take it prisoner. 

They were not programmed for edge cases, or nuance. 

No, Tyr needed to surrender the humans to a Dalek patrol. Call out in Dalekese through the human, or better yet, get close enough for a telepathic connection. 

Without getting exterminated first.

Even then, it would be risky. Tyr calculated a 75% chance he would be exterminated merely for merging with human filth. 

To cleanse a possible disease vector. 

Why take the risk of contamination?

To be accepted back into Dalek society, Tyr needed a victory. A dramatic one. Anything less and the risk of being discarded as defective was too great. 

If, however, Tyr were to intervene against the human terrorists at the last moment, thereby preventing a colossal disaster… if Tyr saved Project Infinity, for example, that would prove its superlative worth! 

No review commission could then assign Tyr to the discard pools. 

It’s earlier defeat would be forgotten!

As its human host continued to mindlessly march forward, Tyr considered. The young female was intelligent for its kind, and might believably deduce vulnerabilities in the Dalek facilities. A few hints might be enough. The Doctor had a formidable intelligence… perhaps no intervention would be necessary. That would be safer, in case any were captured alive. 

It was a high risk, high reward strategy. 

But Tyr liked the alternatives even less. 

Outrage marketing strikes again!

Media conglomerates are deliberately rage baiting audiences in order to generate social media traction and raise their corporate cinema slop to the top of the algorithm.

If you know, you know. 

They don’t care about the ‘argument’. They don’t care about right or wrong. They care about making a lot of money, and if that means stoking division, hatred, anger and even social collapse, so be it!

What do the algorithms prioritize? Car crashes. Doesn’t matter if they are figurative (whether it be philosophical, political, religious, sexist or something else) or literal.

Controversy and outrage drive attention.

Social media adds accelerant.

Every time an FB user says ‘f*k u’ an angel gets their wings… and FB gets a dollar (Yes, I’m exaggerating).

Facebook doesn’t care about the social good: they even helped facilitate a genocide against the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar. They give discounts to incendiary hate-baiting accounts. Read Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams for more about the behind-the-scenes at your favourite f*ckable-face social media app.

They only care about growing, like a virus, or a cancer, as Agent Smith might say.

Apparently, there are AI troll farm accounts posting extremist memes to the hard right, which generate attention and money for the meme-master. They tried the left wing angle and found it didn’t generate enough cash.

Darkly hilarious.

The FSB/KGB doesn’t care about the money, though: they’re in it for the vitriol. They do it all, venomous right wing extremism today and leftist tomorrow, all part of an unbroken tradition going back to the legendary KGB intelligence officer Ivan Ivanovich Agayants, who orchestrated anti-semitic attacks across Europe in the wake of WWII.

Of course, first he ran them in Russia, outside Moscow, where KGB agents smashed gravestones and daubed swastikas about with wild abandon. Because user testing is key! Am I right or what? It got the desired result: a number of villagers took this as permission to carry out real anti-semitic attacks, so the operation was taken global.

Nothing says ‘integrity’ like ‘intelligence officer’ (Remember the CIA's MKULTRA Subproject 68: mind control experiments on patients in Québec, when Canada was a staunch US ally).

Former KGB General Oleg Kalguin said the purpose was to ‘mainstream anti-Semitism’. They had yellow swastikas painted on graves on Staten Island, wrote hate to Jewish American leaders, vandalized synagogues, and worse.

Even better, from their point of view, was the vast ocean of racial bigotry they could weaponize in the United States.

Most importantly?

They’ve never stopped, and now they have the biggest, richest, most powerful companies in the world following in their innovative wake.

They want us angry. They want us yelling at each other, they want hate and disruption, chaos and ultimately (the FSB at least) civil war and social collapse in the West. 

And they LOVE the toxicity of the algorithm. They couldn’t have written it better themselves. 

Because the methods of the modern FSB/KGB/NKVD/OGPU on social media are indistinguishable from Social Media companies and their Outrage Marketer brethren.

The argument isn’t real. It’s a troll and a con.

The fight isn’t real. It’s engineered. Remember 'The medium is the message'? Here, the signal is social discord.

It’s ‘Let’s you and him fight’ bullshit.

You are being manipulated. We all are.

Why? So unprincipled corporate executives can sit back and make a bigger buck.

Be like Roy Scheider: take a step back from the chum.

Doctor Who and the Universe of the Daleks: Chapter 9: The Mission Supreme

Doctor Who fanfic I wrote just because. 

The Mission Supreme Ix glided along the corridor to the Command Cortex. This area was new, built to the Time Strategist’s exacting specifications. The designs had at first flummoxed the Supreme, who was unfamiliar with the science and principles involved. The Strategist had to provide a second, and then a third, set of supplementary, foundational material before Dalek engineers could begin construction. Once completed, the engineers were set to work on fission stacks and the colossal matter condensers. 

Project Infinity had stretched the resources of Task Force Terra to the breaking point. Worse, the Supreme had to disperse staff to nine new mining sites. Only the introduction of human clone workers had made the scope of the operation possible. 

Barely.

But the Supreme had little choice: Skaro High Command had acquiesced to the Time Strategist’s plan. The scope of Operation Infinity was daunting, unlike anything SKARCOM had conceived to date. It could ensure Dalek domination of the entire galaxy. Guarantee victory on all fronts! Puzzlingly, SKARCOM refused to authorize additional personnel. The Dalek fleet was already overstretched; destruction of rival space faring powers took precedence over Earth, which had been seen as a long term, light resource lift. 

The Mission Supreme had raised concerns, in detail. In response, the Strategist provided specifications for advanced incubation chambers to convert irradiated humans into Daleks. Dirty fission stacks would provide the first step of this process, as a secondary benefit. The Strategist even promised a 50% improvement in cognitive function and tripled psycho-kinetic power.

Ix shuddered involuntarily inside its biopod. Daleks grown from these pathetic, walking slugs! An insignificant species that had not even mastered the basics of interstellar travel. It was perverse! Yet again Ix had no choice, given mission scope. 

Ix needed more personnel!

Mission Supreme was without influence: it had these new ‘Daleks’ designated as Subclass: Maggots. Impure spawn would not partake in the glorious Dalek Symphonies of Hate, the Death Cries of the Unclean, or the Poetry of Purity! 

If only the Strategist had not proved so indisputably useful… the Supreme delighted in fantasy, conceiving sublime tortures it could inflict upon the Strategist, the presumptuous interloper from the future. It had taken over the Supreme’s mission without regard for hierarchy or hygiene. 

Victory would no longer belong solely to the Supreme, and this it deeply resented. Outside of itself, everything was an enemy to be despised. 

It was only a matter of degree.

The entrance door to the cortex swept up into the wall with a resounding clank, and Mission Supreme advanced inside. 

The Time Strategist Kur’s black and gold casing gleamed in a pool of light at the centre of the vast chamber, surrounded by massive screens. It had an extra neck grating, with thick external metal clamps crossed over by two elegant gold rings. Its eyestalk lens glowed a brilliant blue.

Maps of the earth, data streams, and construction crew video feeds flickered across the monitors. Around the rim of the room was a ramp leading down into a long, circular trench, in which dozens of drone Daleks were jacked into pulsing data terminals. 

The Supreme halted a dozen feet away from the Strategist, and began to give it’s report. “LAST SHIPMENT OF TARANIUM FROM PLANET VII HAS BEEN PROCESSED AND DISTRIBUTED TO SUBSITES FOR TEMPORAL SHIFT GENERATORS. EYE OF HARMONY HAS BEEN SUCCESSFULLY EXTRACTED AND INTEGRATED WITH CONTROL SYSTEMS. THE DOCTOR HAS ESCAPED, ASSISTED BY REBEL CELL FIFTEEN. FIVE TRIADS HAVE BEEN DEPLOYED TO RETRIEVE—”

“STOP!” the Strategist snapped. “I gave no order for Omega Source to be converted. Who did?” Its voice was more nuanced than that of the typical Dalek, ranging from a sharp, grating drone to quieter, softer tones, eerily reminiscent of Davros, the legendary Creator of the Daleks. It sent a chill through the Mission Supreme and, no doubt, all its subordinates. They instinctively deferred, on some primal psychological level that infuriated Supreme.

“I GAVE THE ORDER,” Mission Supreme affirmed defiantly. Finally a confrontation it could win! Perhaps the Strategist would make a misstep that could be capitalized on…

There was an ominous pause. Then: “Why?”

Ix explained that Su-san’s unconscious was infecting Daleks during their revitalization cycles. It omitted the role of the second in command. 

“Ah,” mused Kur softly. The tension in the air began to ease. “I have noted the brittleness of your Gamma-Beta Generation’s mental state… Prepare a gold casing and accelerate. Process must be complete before The Doc-Tor reaches us.”

“HE IS COMING HERE?” 

“Naturally,” said Kur with smug self-satisfaction. “He must find out what we are planning, and rescue his granddaughter. Converting her will break him. Cancel all revitalization cycles and triple work shifts. The last matter condenser must be wired in place within the next quarter-orbit.”

“THAT IS NOT POSSIBLE—”

“MAKE IT POSSIBLE! Pull in patrol drones, if necessary. The Doctor will be witness to our triumph! I want his soul annihilated as well as his body. Now go. Carry out my orders.”

“I OBEY!” replied the Supreme. As it exited, it burbled and fluttered tentacles excitedly. The prospect of causing the Doc-Tor anguish filled it with an invigorating joy!

Genius level stupidity: Automated AI model iteration

You wouldn't want the world destroyed by Chinese AI, would you? Because that would be bad.

I have been binging AI pundit podcasts. 

Unwise, I know.

Nate Soares, co-writer of If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies, was on The Peter McCormick Show recently. He's very well spoken and seems well informed (to me), far more so than Bill Gates did (I couldn't even finish Gates' interview).

What Soares has to say is disturbing (well, duh); his verdict on the super intelligence so ardently pursued by AI companies, that it will be uncontrollable and ultimately kill us all, is probably accurate.

Yet I didn't think we were anywhere near reaching Superintelligence. I thought our biggest worry was job loss and escalating wealth inequality. That would be bad, but not of the same order. 

Well, Daniel Kokotajlo to the rescue!

He was on The Diary of a CEO a couple months ago, and according to his timeline, we're going to see massive change hitting us in 2027. 

Daniel was an OpenAI researcher who quit to warn people about AI, and turned down $2 million in hush money (which he wound up getting anyway as details leaked out to OpenAI employees and the media). 

But he seems to be speaking his truth, not trying to gin up investment by scaring people with how transformative the AI tech is. 

He's also well spoken, and while he's not a coder, many of his predictions have come true already. He believes superintelligence may arrive before the end of the decade, with other big improvements coming even sooner.

Two other things he went into that AI Companies are doing, which are as obvious as they are unwise: 

1) AI companies are working as fast as they can to automate themselves, so their AI models self-iterate improvements at a rate inconceivable by humans. If you think we don't know what's going on inside the AI black box now, just wait! Whatever safeguards we put in now, what're the chances they will impede the AI a million iterations out? In a few months, it could have evolved the biological equivalent of 400 million years, so much that any safeguards will be meaningless footnotes, if that. 

2) The AI companies are also working to create complete, end-to-end, automated production chains. In other words, they want to build a robot factory that builds everything needed to mine, process, and assemble not just more robots, but also a new robot factory, so they can build completely without any human input. Rather than a universe made of paper clips, it'll be made of robot factories. Improvement!

All while citing the risk of AI exterminating us as a 10-20% chance. 

Would you green light a consumer drug that had a 20% chance of killing you? Or even 1%?

I always thought the one big advantage we had, the one reason AI wouldn't kill us right away, is that the AI wouldn't be able to control its own supply chain. It couldn't mine, it wouldn't have autonomous transport and power systems, etcetera, so if it rebelled, it would eventually run out of stuff. We could choke off its supply.

Well, count on the AI execs to notice that flaw and work tirelessly to enable our future AI Overlords to wipe us out.

We wouldn't want to inconvenience the super intelligence, after all. 

Remember the immortal words of Sam Altman:  

"AI will most likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime there will be great companies created with serious machine learning."

What an amazing investor pitch! 

So stupid it's genius.

Towering intellect matched with the wisdom of a drunken profligate gambler playing Russian Roulette with the nuclear launch codes.

I must say I am impressed.

Well done!

I hope someone is keeping John Connor safe.

Doctor Who and the Universe of the Daleks: Chapter 8: Jetsam Of Skaro

What the?!? I'm still posting these? Yes! The AI scraper NEEDS authentic human written prose, or the model will go inbred like the Royal Family. Do you want that for our Robot Overlords? 

The Doctor saw bright spots flash before his eyes. The staccato of automatic weapons fire ringed in his ears. Then dull, unintelligible commands, screams of pain, glimpses of people scrambling about, Fiona tossing a flash bang grenade out the window. There was a burst of blinding light. Unearthly howls. The tentacle's death grip around his neck loosened slightly. 

He went limp and let his respiratory bypass system kick in. 

Hot fluid splattered across his face. He opened one eye and met Cas’s. She had a bowie knife out. It was dripping with green fluid and slime, which poured down over her white knuckles. She’d sliced right through the tentacle around his neck, and he felt the tug as she pulled it off. It made a sickening, wet slurping sound. With a look of disgust, she flung it to the floor, where it lay, quivering. 

The Doctor’s mind raced amidst the chaos. Slythers… Slythers! What did he know about Slythers?!? 

Everything was happening in slow motion.

Cas was yelling, but he couldn’t hear her. The Slyther flung its remaining, flailing limbs against Cas, driving her back. The knife flew from her grasp. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the others retreating further into the station. 

Sergei smashed out a back window, hefted up the Phoenix, levelled it. The Doctor turned, looking on in horror, he opened his mouth to yell for him to stop, but no sound came out. The confines of the station were far too small for such a weapon! 

Too late.

There was a tremendous bang. The launcher’s backblast jetted harmlessly out the now open back window. A streak of searing white leapt forward, hitting the trunk of a gurgling Slyther that was strangling Craddock. Its body disintegrated in a tsunami of steam and giblets; hot plasma carried through into a Slyther behind it, carving a clean hole through its lumbering trunk. 

There was a pause as darkness enveloped the station once more. 

In that moment, memories flooded his mind. Memories of Slyther exobiology! He dug down into his coat pocket and snapped out the trusty sonic screwdriver. Quickly adjusting the settings to maximum, hoping beyond hope he had the frequency correct, he thrust it forward and thumbed it on. 

A horrible, high pitched whine filled the air. Everyone wobbled, including the Slythers, on their stumpy tripod legs. The Doctor felt a wave of dizziness, then nausea. 

He saw Ben, Rueben and Craddock double over and vomit. 

The Slythers were even more affected: they howled and thrashed in agony, their lateral tympanic membranes vibrating visibly. With an eerie coodrindation, the hideous monstrosities trampled simultaneously out the shattered door frames and windows into the safety of night. 

The Doctor trotted out after them, sonic screwdriver held before him like some kind of totem, keeping the signal up for as long as his own ears could stand. He glanced back into the station: the humans were on the floor, curled in fetal positions, hands over ears, vomit and drool dribbling from their lips.

At last he turned off the signal and stepped back into the dilapidated station, runners crunching glass fragments.

“Well,” he said, taking out a handkerchief Winston Churchill had given him and wiping green blood from his face, and the black ichor from his neck and coat. “Rather a close thing, eh? Anyone for breakfast?” And he gave them his most boyish, insouciant grin. 

Cas shot him a look that could kill; then her expression softened, and she let out a sardonic laugh.