X-Message-Number: 21723
Date: Thu, 08 May 2003 08:34:40 -0400
From: Francois <>
Subject: Odyssey 5

I have started watching a science fiction television program that has some
relevance to the problem of the singularity I evoked a short time ago. In
the first episode, a crew of 5 astronauts and one CNN reporter are on a
routine satellite deployment mission. The name of their shuttle is Odyssey.
After the satellite is deployed, the reporter conducts a live interview
session with the crew and just as it is concluded, the Earth is destroyed.
The entire planet is simply turned into cosmic rubble and dust with few
pieces larger than a basketball. During the disaster, one astronaut is
killed, another is badly injured and the shuttle is left with only 9 hours
worth of oxygen. Possibilities of survival are nil, and they prepare
themselves for the inevitable final outcome.

Just as they are about to run out of air, an alien ship comes along and
recues them. It is piloted by an entity that calls itself the Seeker. It is
the last surviver of its own world, which suffered the same fate as the
Earth. In fact, the Seeker informs them that all worlds with sentient life
destroy themselves in this way. The seeker locates radio signals and follows
them to their source, but he always arrives too late and finds only debris
that offer no clue to the cause of the disaster. The crew of the Odyssey are
the first survivors he ever found. He offers them an opportunity to find out
what happened and possibly save the Earth. He will take the information in
their brains and download it back in time into earlier version of
themselves. The process has a range limit of about 5 years, so they will
have 5 years to figure out what could have destroyed the planet and prevent
it from happening again. Its a long shot, but they agree. They ask the
Seeker why he didn't do this himself to try and save his own planet. He
answers that only organic beings can be sent back in time in this way. It
turns out that the Seeker is not organic, but a very sophisticated
artificial intelligence instead.

The five survivors wake up five years in the past and start looking for
clues. They soon stumble on an extraordinary situation. Artificial
intelligences already exists on Earth. They are the result of a variety of
experiments that have achieved sentience and excaped into our vast computer
networks where they follow their own agendas. Their knowledge and capacity
for action are increasing by leaps and bounds. Also, some of them are not
exactly sane and undertake projects that are very dangerous to themselves
and to the world. The crew of the Odyssey realise that these entities will
soon have the means to destroy the Earth as they have seen happen. They must
figure out which one could want to blow up the whole planet and stop it
before it gains to power to do it.

Odyssey 5 is a good program. Aside from their efforts to save the Earth, the
five survivors also use their leap back in time to correct mistakes they
made and try to clean up their lives, not always with the intended results.
This gives the program a very human and dramatic feel. The quality of the
scenarios is above average for this kind of program and I hope it continues
to improve. The series has a natural cut off point, since the catastrophy
happens in five years. Therefore, it is probably intended to last five
seasons and I hope it does.

Francois
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No lifespan shorter than eternity is acceptable
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