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Azhais posted:Demolition man explicitly calls out that they're basically being brainwashed the entire time. Hence why Stallone is all "Don't worry, I can patch that" when Bullock tore her sweater then was immediately all "Did I just say that?" Yeah they get their little rehabilitation download but its also a joke and both of them are still super violent and want to gently caress, he just also knits. Stallone didn't stop knowing how to kick rear end.
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 08:44 |
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# ? Mar 29, 2024 12:01 |
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Here's how it works in the books; It's not going "on ice", it's going into Storage. Stacks aren't meant to be special alien devices, they are a wireless storage device. That's it. Everyone gets a little cylinder in injected at the back of the neck at birth, good luck. When you go into prison, your body goes into cryostasis and your mind gets downloaded onto archival media; 30cm diameter discs made of... Altered Carbon. That's it. Once your time's done, you get sleeved into whatever's available in stock.
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 08:45 |
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Zaphod42 posted:It depends upon what you mean by live. You're "dead" but your stack still exists so you have the potential to be spun up again. So from the point of view there, you're just as capable of being alive. The part you're missing is that, unless you're using clone bodies, there's a finite limit on how many times you can get new sleeves before poo poo gets hairy. Immortality is only a thing for the rich; the poor just get decently extended lifespans.
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 08:48 |
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Neddy Seagoon posted:Here's how it works in the books; It's not going "on ice", it's going into Storage. When you aren't sleeved, do you experience anything? No, right? You have to be "spun up" to experience anything? LORD OF BOOTY posted:The part you're missing is that, unless you're using clone bodies, there's a finite limit on how many times you can get new sleeves before poo poo gets hairy. Immortality is only a thing for the rich; the poor just get decently extended lifespans. Ah okay, that's a good catch. The poor who get random bodies end up getting that split-personality problem after awhile. Although it seems like you can still technically live with that, you're just... hosed up. So its more like "Everybody lives forever, but only the rich stay sane forever" (And Bancroft would maybe argue that one)
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 08:49 |
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Zaphod42 posted:When you aren't sleeved, do you experience anything? No, right? You have to be "spun up" to experience anything? Yuup. As in spinning up a disc. VR, incidentally, is just running your mind as software off the stack which is why VR torture is supposed to be completely inescapable. And can be run at time ratios scaled waaay up (like hours or days in seconds, if you have powerful-enough hardware for it). Your body is just vacant for the duration. The split-personality thing is entirely bullshit from the series, incidentally. Most people willingly just go into storage rather than go around a third or fourth time because of how mentally draining it is. Like Skinhead Grandma. Neddy Seagoon fucked around with this message at 08:54 on Feb 9, 2018 |
# ? Feb 9, 2018 08:52 |
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Double-sleeving is really fun. This show has great ideas for all of its awkward ones. Neddy Seagoon posted:Yuup. As in spinning up a disc. Yeah, no poo poo. Sorry dude but I obviously get all that. Its just SOMA. We're picking apart the fine details here; I clearly grok the basics. But that confirms what I was saying last page. Prison isn't really all that punitive.
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 08:54 |
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I kind of like the split personality thing- it makes the class struggle more immediately obvious and visible.
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 08:55 |
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Zaphod42 posted:This show has great ideas for all of its awkward ones. Specifically, the awkward ideas mostly come from the adaptation and the great ideas mostly come from the source, with the notable exception of skinhead grandma.
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 10:16 |
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Zaphod42 posted:Prison isn't really all that punitive. I mean, no? Everyone you know would be in storage depending on how long the sentence is and the whole world has changed. The reason Kovaks doesn't give a poo poo is because he's got special CTAC indoctrination and Envoy training so he can adapt. Also they can spin you up into a VR rehabilitation scenario depending on your sentence. Imagine doing decades of solitary with no way out, not even suicide(bedcause they would just spin you right back up). Being poor still continues to suck poo poo in Altered Carbon.
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 10:23 |
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Avasculous posted:Specifically, the awkward ideas mostly come from the adaptation and the great ideas mostly come from the source, with the notable exception of skinhead grandma. A big part is them wanting to make Takeshi Kovacs into The Special, which just doesn't work. The series does a poor job of adapting how Envoys actually operate and makes him an emotionless killing machine. Which, to be fair, is part of being an Envoy . There's ample opportunity to show bits of Envoy intuition too; instead of Poe just giving him clothes, in the book Kovacs goes shopping and learns to blend in. How to walk, common clothing styles, etc. All ways to help potentially show the audience how he puts clues together The "weakness of weapons" also isn't entirely about kung-fu kickflips; it's about choosing the tools for the job and not jerking off over your favourite assault rifle with every rail accessory imaginable. Work out what you need, THEN pick them as necessary, if they're necessary. And how to brain the poor rear end in a top hat pulling a Sunjet on you . Kovacs actively goes out to buy the Nemex, a little silenced pistol, and the Tebbit knife after the hotel lobby incident. Something big and mean, something discreet, and a small blade. All ideal for a general detective job.
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 10:45 |
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To people who've read the books: Are all three books interesting or is there a steady decline in quality? I'm interested in picking up the first one, but as I understand it there is a dramatic tonal and genre shift in the subsequent titles and I'm thinking that I wouldn't be a fan of that.
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 12:40 |
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I was kind of sad that after we see Kovac's do feats like manage the lobby fight and predict his future partner was gonna rush him, he got caught by surprise pretty frequently, with the stripper ambush being the most glaring one. Given the murder spree we see at the clinic and how much he tells us he's programmed to see people as tools, be ruthless when necessary, etc., as soon as she had the words "They made me" out of her mouth he should've been throwing haymakers, drawing guns, etc. I've only read brief summaries of the other two books' plots, so I can't speak to quality, but they definitely seemed like they got out of detective territory. There's certainly elements to each that sound very cool in theory, and this was a solidly fun show to watch most of the time, so I'll maintain some optimism for future seasons, assuming they didn't drop a crazy pile of money on just one season and decide to leave it there. Anthology series have become more of a thing lately, so this seems like a way for Netflix to get in on that boat with a rotating cast and basically only Kovacs's character and a few others (probably Quell and Rei in flashbacks for instance) carrying over between seasons. NowonSA fucked around with this message at 14:01 on Feb 9, 2018 |
# ? Feb 9, 2018 13:51 |
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NowonSA posted:I was kind of sad that after we see Kovac's do feats like manage the lobby fight and predict his future partner was gonna rush him, he got caught by surprise pretty frequently, with the stripper ambush being the most glaring one. Given the murder spree we see at the clinic and how much he tells us he's programmed to see people as tools, be ruthless when necessary, etc., as soon as she had the words "They made me" out of her mouth he should've been throwing haymakers, drawing guns, etc. I'm willing to attribute that one to him getting a bit lost in the I'm Lizzie's Mum roleplay but they did pull the carpet from beneath him a bit too often, that's true.
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 14:57 |
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AbstractNapper posted:To people who've read the books: Are all three books interesting or is there a steady decline in quality? All three books do their own thing. It’s not like he was out of ideas and cranking them out for contract purposes, though, they all explore different aspects of the setting with the genre shift and they’re all really good.
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 14:57 |
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Ugly In The Morning posted:All three books do their own thing. It’s not like he was out of ideas and cranking them out for contract purposes, though, they all explore different aspects of the setting with the genre shift and they’re all really good. Agreed. I love all three, but I freely admit to being disappointed they didn't all go for the noir detective vibe. It's kind of a "I love all my kids, but in my heart of hearts I love Altered Carbon the most"
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 15:13 |
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Proteus Jones posted:Agreed. I love all three, but I freely admit to being disappointed they didn't all go for the noir detective vibe. It's kind of a "I love all my kids, but in my heart of hearts I love Altered Carbon the most" I’m the opposite. I loved the noir detective thing in Altered Carbon, but I felt like I had enough of it in the first book and the series would have lost me if it stuck on the same path.
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 15:22 |
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LORD OF BOOTY posted:The part you're missing is that, unless you're using clone bodies, there's a finite limit on how many times you can get new sleeves before poo poo gets hairy. Immortality is only a thing for the rich; the poor just get decently extended lifespans. Not only this, but most people don't want to go through the aging process more than once. Your first time around everyone wants to be young again, by the second time around most people have had enough.
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 15:55 |
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So minor thing for episode 6; They kinda missing the point on Kadmin using the quote "That's loving enough". How it goes in the book is a brutal gun battle in the Oakley VR cafe, with Kadmin rocking up in a cheap synth body with some hired goons. They shoot the hell out of him, have him dead to rights, and that's when he says "That's loving enough". Which is enough for Kovacs to drag Ortega into cover a few seconds before Kadmin self-destructs just like the interrogated woman on Adoracion. That said, past that bit I think it's a good adaptation of the fight in the Panama Rose. Also the general change of Laurens Bancroft being such a violent manipulative piece of poo poo is just dull and utterly sinks how the story is (presumably) going to go by the end seeing how tightly they're generally riding the original book. The whole "Meths are an elite breed " thing is still stupid too. Also the Reaper thing is still annoying, just because it's the only thing they've gotten outright-wrong with the adaptation; Betathanatine isn't a relaxant in way they use it, it just makes you calm and uncaring, no matter what you do. You could take a flamethrower to an orphanage and feel nothing beyond the fact that it's gotten a tad warm and a bit loud (hence the street-name of The Reaper). It's used a lot in Protectorate military operations. All it'd do is make Kovacs and Ortega not care at all if Kadmin started carving up the other. Proteus Jones posted:Agreed. I love all three, but I freely admit to being disappointed they didn't all go for the noir detective vibe. It's kind of a "I love all my kids, but in my heart of hearts I love Altered Carbon the most" I'd say the third book is definitely the weakest of the three, not just because it lacks a coherent end-goal like the first two, but they're all well worth a read. Teal posted:I'm willing to attribute that one to him getting a bit lost in the I'm Lizzie's Mum roleplay but they did pull the carpet from beneath him a bit too often, that's true. Kovacs getting jumped so often is because he's on a foreign world, in a sleeve with some serious local history, and there's too much he doesn't know. Half the stuff that makes a run at him is going in thinking he's Ryker.
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 15:56 |
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CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK posted:I mean, no? Everyone you know would be in storage depending on how long the sentence is and the whole world has changed. The reason Kovaks doesn't give a poo poo is because he's got special CTAC indoctrination and Envoy training so he can adapt. Also they can spin you up into a VR rehabilitation scenario depending on your sentence. Imagine doing decades of solitary with no way out, not even suicide(bedcause they would just spin you right back up). If they put you in VR in prison that naturally changes everything as you then are conscious. Don't think the show said that though. Why wasn't kovacs in vr if he's a terrorist? But yeah that works.
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 16:15 |
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Neddy Seagoon posted:So minor thing for episode 6; They kinda missing the point on Kadmin using the quote "That's loving enough". How it goes in the book is a brutal gun battle in the Oakley VR cafe, with Kadmin rocking up in a cheap synth body with some hired goons. They shoot the hell out of him, have him dead to rights, and that's when he says "That's loving enough". Which is enough for Kovacs to drag Ortega into cover a few seconds before Kadmin self-destructs just like the interrogated woman on Adoracion. That said, past that bit I think it's a good adaptation of the fight in the Panama Rose. Also the general change of Laurens Bancroft being such a violent manipulative piece of poo poo is just dull and utterly sinks how the story is (presumably) going to go by the end seeing how tightly they're generally riding the original book. The whole "Meths are an elite breed " thing is still stupid too. Also there's no reason for him to know the significance of that phrase - in the show, only Quell and Tak know what happened on Adoracion. In the book it's not such a secret. It's like they half adapted the whole idea of Kadmin being strangely well read for a psychotic hitman, then missed one of their own edits. See also: the attempted hack of Bancrofts datastream, which is never resolved in either Tak's real or fictitious explanation.
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 16:20 |
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Zaphod42 posted:If they put you in VR in prison that naturally changes everything as you then are conscious. Don't think the show said that though. Why wasn't kovacs in vr if he's a terrorist? VR time is expensive. Why spin up someone when you can just store them on the cheap for a century. One other thing with episode 6, on second thought; Good loving lord did the squander the death of Amun. Oh noooo, a dramatic death of the secondary character who was Ortega's surrogate father figure... Which shouldn't actually mean anything in Altered Carbon. The writers really do not grasp the whole point of Stacks, because I don't think we've had one death so far that wasn't Real Death. Bring him back in a new sleeve, and gasp, we'd have something interesting for the audience to discuss about resleeving someone they've known for half the series.
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 16:38 |
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Neddy Seagoon posted:VR time is expensive. Why spin up someone when you can just store them on the cheap for a century. Yeah, I will say the series has a major hardon for people getting RD’d. In the books it mostly comes up as something that’s not done lightly but in this it feels like they blast out stacks more often than not.
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 16:41 |
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Ugly In The Morning posted:Yeah, I will say the series has a major hardon for people getting RD’d. In the books it mostly comes up as something that’s not done lightly but in this it feels like they blast out stacks more often than not. Especially when RD'ing someone is supposed to be a rare thing, and one you really have to try for at that. But no, we need the unnecessarily-large and over-complicated ~Elder Race~ stacks because the writers can't think of anything better . The whole reason Kovacs takes Kadmin's head (or rather, the Wei Clinic's director in the book) is because he doesn't have the time to go rooting around in his spinal column to pull his stack. Also the series is really frivolous about people holding onto Stacks. That is supposed to be a major felony, because it's tantamount to kidnapping. Neddy Seagoon fucked around with this message at 17:12 on Feb 9, 2018 |
# ? Feb 9, 2018 17:07 |
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The TV show did flesh it out beautifully with Aryan Abuela, but the basic idea does come from the book:quote:Not many had the stamina to do it more than twice. Most people went into voluntary storage after that, with occasional temporary resleevings for family matters, and of course, even those resleevings thinned out as time passed and new generations bustled in without the old ties.
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 17:08 |
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Did Quell invent stacks in the books, too? Or was that just something they added into the show to explain how she'd know to sabotage the source code for them?
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 18:24 |
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Amish Ninja posted:Did Quell invent stacks in the books, too? Or was that just something they added into the show to explain how she'd know to sabotage the source code for them? No, nor was she anti-resleeving at all.
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 18:39 |
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FuriousGeorge posted:No, nor was she anti-resleeving at all. super pro-resleeving, actually, since it was a way to keep the revolution going forever if it had to.
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 18:41 |
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BOOK THREE SPOILERS Also she died a couple hundred years prior to the events of Altered Carbon. Although in the third book it turns out she has survived, digitally. MrMojok fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Feb 9, 2018 |
# ? Feb 9, 2018 18:48 |
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MrMojok posted:Also she died a couple hundred years prior to the events of Altered Carbon. Although in the third book it turns out she has survived, digitally. Super late game spoiler here. As in "climax of book three" - should probably flag it as such. That said, the above spoiler really should be "the start of book three, and the impetus behind the whole book" instead of the bloody ending.
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 19:10 |
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FuriousGeorge posted:No, nor was she anti-resleeving at all. Huh. I thought she wasn't anti-resleeving so much as anti-immortality though. Her main impetus for inventing stacks was apparently to be an explorer, which requires sleeving. Plus, she trains envoys to be more comfortable with sleeving.
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 19:35 |
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Amish Ninja posted:Huh. I thought she wasn't anti-resleeving so much as anti-immortality though. Her main impetus for inventing stacks was apparently to be an explorer, which requires sleeving. Plus, she trains envoys to be more comfortable with sleeving. True, poor choice of words on my part. But book Quell is neither anti-resleeving nor anti-immortality, on the contrary it means the Revolution Can Never Die, as Ugly In The Morning said. She's more concerned about systems of power than transhumanism. Also, IIRC her revolution was largely constrained to the context of Harlan's World, which has it's oligarchs but is perhaps young enough where the concept of "Meth" hadn't really taken root yet. Kovacs first learns of the term on Earth.
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 20:05 |
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FuriousGeorge posted:True, poor choice of words on my part. But book Quell is neither anti-resleeving nor anti-immortality, on the contrary it means the Revolution Can Never Die, as Ugly In The Morning said. She's more concerned about systems of power than transhumanism. Also, IIRC her revolution was largely constrained to the context of Harlan's World, which has it's oligarchs but is perhaps young enough where the concept of "Meth" hadn't really taken root yet. Kovacs first learns of the term on Earth. Yeah, Meths are more an earth thing. Harlan’s world ended up with a ruling dynasty instead of 300+ year old douchebags.
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 20:07 |
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I think in the books it says that most people are fine with not being resleeved after living 120 years or whatever and just being spun up for the occasional reunion or birthday party. Meths are basically a tiny minority of sociopaths who think the world can't go on without their presence and are rich enough to make that happen for multiple lifetimes.
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 20:13 |
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withak posted:I think in the books it says that most people are fine with not being resleeved after living 120 years or whatever and just being spun up for the occasional reunion or birthday party. Meths are basically a tiny minority of sociopaths who think the world can't go on without their presence and are rich enough to make that happen for multiple lifetimes. Yeah, it’s like that bit in Tom Segura’s standup where he talks about wanting to skip ahead to being old sometimes and shouts “gently caress! How many days are there!?”
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 20:39 |
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Something that bugged me, unless I missed something: "That's why you don't remember what happened on the shuttle! You were backed up beforehand!" One moment later: "That's what I said to her, as my last words, on the shuttle before we died!"
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 22:26 |
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what were the quellists in the the book like ideologically? the ones in the series are kinda loving stupid as per their end goal, bringing back real death and older, shorter lifespans? my guess is because for some reason tv and hollywood writers simply can't engage with transhumanist ideas, and are bizarrely reactionary and conservative. altered carbon is weird because only the quellists are like that, and everyone else realizes how dumb the idea of bringing back real death death is. which begs the question how did a rebellion with such stupid ideals gather any members anyway, who the gently caress wants to go back to living and dying like people did centuries ago? what i would do is proletarianize the technology rather than eliminate it. also, speaking of stacks, there were mentions of stacks that are centuries old that just lay around and are collected to be sold in markets. if you were to revive any of these stacks with sleeves, do you basically own them? why didn't rey just buy a bunch of these old discarded stacks to make up the "working" force in her brothel? they'd have no connection to anyone, and no rights. besides, rey seems to have more than enough stacks around. its seems absolutely foolish to recruit your sex workers from the general population who have connections, family etc. when the whole draw of her business is that these prostitutes can be raped and murdered and forgotten, and she rig'd them up to real death.
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 23:02 |
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FuriousGeorge posted:True, poor choice of words on my part. But book Quell is neither anti-resleeving nor anti-immortality, on the contrary it means the Revolution Can Never Die, as Ugly In The Morning said. She's more concerned about systems of power than transhumanism. Also, IIRC her revolution was largely constrained to the context of Harlan's World, which has it's oligarchs but is perhaps young enough where the concept of "Meth" hadn't really taken root yet. Kovacs first learns of the term on Earth. so earth is the only place with 300+ year old elite with an incredible amount of power? is it because the colonized worlds aren't old enough for their elites to approach the same age as earth meths?
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 23:09 |
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Two Owls posted:Something that bugged me, unless I missed something: Maybe she planned to say something ahead of time and remembered enough to assume that's what she did say because she knew her plan to kill Quell worked after she came back up? I dunno man. I'm probably giving it too much credit.
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 23:10 |
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Quell in the books was a revolutionary on Harlan’s World rebelling against the First Families, who founded the colony and ran it. She was very pro-resleeving indefinitely, since she thought it was a way for revolutionaries to fight forever.
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 23:10 |
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# ? Mar 29, 2024 12:01 |
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Fututor Magnus posted:also, speaking of stacks, there were mentions of stacks that are centuries old that just lay around and are collected to be sold in markets. if you were to revive any of these stacks with sleeves, do you basically own them? Legally, no, but basically, yeah. Fututor Magnus posted:why didn't rey just buy a bunch of these old discarded stacks to make up the "working" force in her brothel? they'd have no connection to anyone, and no rights. besides, rey seems to have more than enough stacks around. Mounds of loose stacks only exist after protracted, planet‐wide wars of the sort Earth hasn’t had since stacks were developed. Also, those people are hosed in the head. Finding decent soldier material among them is hard enough, and soldiering has a higher tolerance for psychotic tendencies than high‐end hooking.
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 23:24 |