Indeed, it's a fine line between tyranny and order... and a difficult choice to give people what they want when what they want is chaos (or something equally awful, like bigotry, hate, racism or the like)

Forcing people to be 'good' is such a can of worms. When a dictator is right, does that make their actions just?

Heh, yeah. I wonder how are you going to use these words.
This was a worthwhile sub :D

Thanks man ^_^ now I just hope I don't screw it all up :D haha!

Like he says, that's just the way people are!
Got to just roll with what you're given, I guess :P

As for Kate... poor girl deserves a vacation, haha.

Ah, finally got some time to sit down and leap into this properly.

It's an odd statement that some traits should be ignored - but even choosing which traits to follow and which to set aside is subjective to what you view your end goal to be.

We spend so much effort in society to emphasize certain traits and suppress others. Suppress sexual desire, embrace routine, suppress irrational desires, embrace logic... and i've always found it odd. Chiefly because it seems like it's for such an arbitrary goal. Are we simply out to create a perfectly functioning, productive machine of a society that feeds itself and grows at exponential pace numerically?
If so... why? Isn't the point of a group of humans supposed to be about enabling said humans to just do... human stuff?
If we have to STOP doing those human things... aren't we kind of failing in that goal?
Creating a society of machines would be a great society... of machines... but it wouldn't be a human society. And *that's* what we should be aiming for.

My belief is that you can't really - and shouldn't - suppress the core humanity out of us just to survive. If you do that, then we may as well just build a bunch of self-replicating robots to run our society and then kill ourselves off. It would be more efficient that way... but kind of defeats the purpose of us existing.

Fortunately, Kate has that age old A.I. trait that always seems to make such a mess of things: the ability to learn, and evolve her thinking.
So really, is she more human, or less? Assuming she could control things perfectly - achieving the complete control that we've failed in the past - could a perfectly enforced Kate-run society really still be defined as a human society - even if the mind controlling it is humanistic? I guess it depends on how you define what makes us human :P and what our end goals are.

And that's my confusing 2 cents, hahaha

So, is the end goal to utilize humanity as a tool to allow me more luxury in which to enjoy my humanity, screw whether they get to enjoy theirs, or is my goal to see all people enjoy their humanity, even if it means less luxury for me.
I would argue because Kate both has the capacity for human traits and the ability to learn that if she is not "human" yet, she will be. The question of whether this can even happen with a machine was explored in Bicentennial Man, a film I highly recommend it if you haven't seen it.
With that question of Kate being human, as I think she will be, I think a society she runs will be human. Especially after she has time to think on her interaction with the Major.

You surely wouldn't want to meet some of my traits, there's good reasons I keep them in chains generally.

With respect to order, I argue that imposed order is always necessary and actually the more educated a population the more imposition tends to be needed because people question the status quo more. It's easier to control people who are less knowledgeable and focussed on the imperatives of meeting their day to day needs and you see this reflected in modern day wage slavery and a lack of education in key areas (the US is notable).

No order is stable in human systems. The imposition avoids anarchy and yet in itself is continually eroded and challenged until such time as it breaks and a new order arises. Can you give even one example of a civilisation or society in which members have been able to "order themselves"?

To win against Alice, KATE simply needs to wait for - or create - something else to distract the attention of the masses, and quietly dispose of her when she isn't in view. The level of technology on display is sufficient to easily crush each nascent branch of rebellion in much the same way as the widespread monitoring of communications in the US (and other nations) is intended to control the population in the event of substantial civilisational stresses coming down the pipe. You stamp out the organised cells before they grow to become threatening and unfocussed rioting - who cares - you let them burn out or annoy enough people that they beg for the peacekeepers to enforce the laws.

I think Alice is mostly still alive because of the major in any case, whether it's because his arguments swayed her - or because she wanted to be swayed by him - remains to be seen perhaps. She didn't survive on her own.

The her being swayed in the last paragraph being KATE - poorly written in haste.

The idea of democracy is self-ordering of society. No society has maintained true democracy so no society has maintained self-ordering. Compromise is part of that ordering, as people work with each other to find the best way to allow all to grow. When one or more groups within that democracy begin to resist or ignore other groups then the self-ordering breaks down. It would be like saying my feet are expecting my hands to act like feet, or my heart trying to get my liver to pump blood. Sometimes it will work for a little while, sometimes the very attempt will be disastrous. At the most basic level, pure democracy is non-chaotic anarchy. Possible, but only when people are educated enough to understand the necessity of working with those who think differently.
As far as the greater education threatening the status quo, I would argue that trying to force people to maintain the status quo is the source of much of the strife throughout human history. As you say, human nature is not naturally stable. Stability can be mimicked though as long as you let it keep moving and don't try to hold it still. Stability through motion if you will.
As for the chains on your traits, I keep some of mine chained too. I don't ignore them though, I listen to them, and most of the time say "Nope, you're not what is needed, stay where you are". As a result I am not ignorant or blind to these desires, I simply am not controlled by them.

Even a theoretically ideal democracy arguably suffers from the serious flaw that it hinges upon the lowest common denominator as a source of decision making - and there will always be a theoretically better equipped (intellectually and knowledge wise, but substitute other traits dependending on your chosen metrics) subset of the population capable of doing better.

It's entirely possible furthermore that people and societies actually respond best to the status quo being enforced - they need the direction imposed upon them from outside, welcome it even - as it permits them to abdicate personal thought and responsibility. Indeed that basic submission from the masses is a critical factor to the establishment of any coherent system.

I can think of several societies which ordered themselves. Iceland until the 1800s. The Bushmen tribes. The Arawaks (before getting killed and ate by the Caribs). However: none of them were diverse societies with large cities; this galactic empire is. This is a politically-incorrect thing to say, but...

Isn't the saying that democracy is two wolves and a sheep talking about what's for dinner?

Almost by definition letting the interests of the majority rule will squash countless less well represented factions, and that's before you even touch the propensity of the majority to let their views be subverted and marshalled by the socioeconomic top monkeys that human societies apparently require to exist to function cohesively (ie true democracy simply isn't viable given human nature).

Thanks so much!!! ^_^
I'm often just winging it with the writing (having no formal training in the matter) so i'm glad to hear it's not awful :D :D

The writing is anything but awful, especially the dialogue, which is consistently excellent.

So far the Major is my favorite, personality-wise, but Alice has her charms and understandable perspective. KATE is definitely an enigma that is fun to watch as she develops (much like your art, which is noticeably evolving), and the General, well, let's just say I have a healthy respect for him.

Glad I stumbled upon your story. :)

Thanks so much! I always feel so clumsy writing and so on ^_^ it's always awesome to hear such positive feedback!!! ^_^
Glad you're enjoying so far :D i'll try to keep it up ^_^ haha!