“What if you’d spent your entire life with a computer program telling you what to do, huh? Then one day, bam, the computer program’s gone and you’re stuck with all these weird feelings. You’d be a basket case.”

When I read this, I get the feeling that the Knights and various other CGI's actually DO have emotions (or at least programs which simulate emotions – who are we to say whether they’re real emotions and not just their entire system and every tiny action working based on a program?) it’s just that these emotions are controlled by some kind of… well, message that’s superimposed over them. The emotions are there, but the program is there to enforce a stronger message. Then the program is suddenly gone and the CGI has nothing to help him/her deal with the emotions that were repressed by their coding. Hence, as Chuck says, they turn into a basket case.

To put it technically:
Bad guy comes + normal human reaction = fear = fight or flight response.
Bad guy comes + Knight normal reaction = fear = coded instruction activated = knight attacks bad guy.

…have I said that before? And does it make sense? :unsure:

Third attempt to reply...

I get what you're saying Scarab, and yes, it's entirely possible that the CGs have some form of 'emotions' that are suppressed by the program.

I suppose it's a lot like the abnormal emotional patterns in psychopathy, even though they have certain emotions they can not act upon them in a 'normal' (or socially acceptable) way due to their illness, or in this case, their program. Their feelings would be shallow, as their programs probably lack the complexity to deal with what see see as emotion (well, except Ace, who had them forced upon him, and his program altered) and they would also probably lack any 'true' empathy (they may say 'I know how you feel', and they may think they do, but it's entirely probable that they wouldn't, and that they would forget the whole issue quite fast).

Anyway, their program would basically inhibit their free choice and therefore make it impossible for they to form a 'normal' personality and/or relationships (normal in the psychological/socoilogical sense).

xx
Feef

I'd go with them having some sort of base emotions. I mean, you play a video game and the good guy gets blasted, he's going to get a bit cranky. :P But like Fe said the programs wouldn't be designed to deal with the full spectrum, just the very basics.

However, I suspect even the others aside from Ace are developing something closer to human emotion, as a result of being exposed to the real world. Ace just got the thing that kept then under control snatched out from under him, plus an extra dose of emotions. :wacko: Ouch.

indeed his is, H. I expect the base emotions were actually there to start off with but repressed and yes, Ace is developing them further than most others. In a psychopathic personality, I suppose this would be called recuperation.

As I also suggested, there's the possibility than everything they do, no matter how much they appear like emotions, they are in fact just a program. I came up wit5h this theory after reading the following extract in chobits concerning a personcom - a living, walking computer, supposedly emotionless and insentient, but progammed to behave in a highly sentient manner -

Quote from Chobits: 8

“Chi [a persocom] has emotions?”

“No. we do not have emotions. That legend must have stemmed from someone’s wish. If something not human has emotions, then they would be considered sentient –alive – just like a human. If it’s the same as a human it wouldn’t be wrong to love that thing. It wouldn’t be a sin. The Chobits legend is a lie that stemmed from peoples desire… and their guilt. Wishful thinking.’

Yes, I know, the suggestion here is that it’s “wrong” to love something non-human or without emotions or sentience, but of course, that is WELL open to debate, not least depending on the type of love. This manga itself also states that it is possible – and right, or at least not wrong – to love something which cannot love you back – we all had teddies as kids, right? :P

But anyway, the whole idea here is that perhaps, in contradiction to my earlier suggestion that they always had emotions, the CGI’s don’t have them at all – they’re just programmed to act as if –and believe– that they do.

I prefer to think of the CGI’s as having emotions – after all, who says OUR emotions are real and not just programmed too? Only biologically? (I’m sure somebody can explain that better and more scientifically than me :unsure: )

Oooh there’s more info for that Fanfic brewing here, isn’t there? :D

Obviously there were a set of programmed responses for the CGIs, that gave them at least limited emotions, or a pretty good imitation thereof. Ace and Sparx were programmed to be friends, and he was able to develop similar emotion for his other 'sidekick' Mark. And Fear really hates Ace, and so on. It's not the same thing as human emotions, which are far less predictable and less limited, but they gradually developed something a little more than that, some of them more than others (see also: LI). I'm not sure I buy a normal human response simply suppressed by coding, because they're simply not human; I see their character development as a 'broadening' array of responses to non-game situation rather than blocks disappearing. Note that the "human emotions" were represented as giving Ace extra responses rather than taking some block away.

Prior to Ace being given human emotions, there aren't many moments when he's even mildly peeved about something, and even then it seems to be Action-Oriented Natural Misery (eg. worried about Mark-->saves him) or Heroically Oriented Tragedy (Sparx getting blasted). Afterwards, he's victim to a lot more negative emotions, particularly rage, and envy.

Exactly, but even computers can "learn" and "develop" - and you're right. They're not human. My suggestion in my last comment was that the Knights could possibly be nothing BIT programmed responses and behaviour. As if all their "emotions" were simply part of their programmed responses - they act and responde in a way which gives the illusion of emotions where none really exist - a programming which is constantly changing and developing, but a program nonetheless.

And I believe my simple response to that theory is: why the hell would they bother? The programmers I mean. To program the CGI's to act like they have emotions, and I mean proper emotions. The only reason they were made was for a game, and they don't need the full range of emotions they display in there. So, why would they have been programmed that way? They wouldn't have. Even with Rick's program, I understand that to have simply been to bring them out into the real world. It wouldn't have increased the actual characters programming (and I doubt a simple game disk would be able to carry the information for beefed up character personalities on top of the programming to bring them out. And of course you wouldn't need great character personalities for Lord Fear to take over the world.)

And of course, computers can only 'learn and develop' if that's what they're programmed to do. Once again, this isn't needed in a game.

Yes, true, good points there Hness. Hm... I need to think about this *ponders hard*

Okay, so the question is, would the Knight's be programmed with emotions or would they simply appear as they do in humans, when they enter the real world. if the former is true, wouldn't that be very difficult to do? But if the latter is true, why would they have any kind of overriding control keeping their emotions in check (which was obviously broken in Ace's case), if the emotions weren't EXPECTED to be there -I.e. Put there deliberately?

It's probably no good thinking about this, because it's really impossible to tell if they have real emotions or just programmed repsonses. it's impossible to know that in REAL people, never mind theoretical CGI's.

They are programmed to have certain reactions to certain crcumstances, that doesn't mean they have 'emotions' as such, just a program which tells them to respond in a 'human' way to certain stimuli.

Take the differnces between the 'evils' and the LKs. The evils do not seem to understand 'friendship', which could just be pointing out that their program has no way to comprehend that kind of relationship as they never needed it in the game. THe LKs on the other hand have 'bonds' between them, even if they are just programmed, so after a while they are able to understand what friendship is and therefore formulate an appropriate responce based upon their programmed responces.

Take Lady Illusion too. I expect there is some facet of her programming that tells her to go for the strongest male around (hense her relationship with LF, and quickly losing interest when he is defeated by Ace) and to be on the winning side. The world is a sexist place, but I don't expect she went for LF based on his personality. :P

As for 'learning and developing' it may not be programmed into the game, but for them to be able to take over the world as Rick intended they would need to be able to! It's rather silly to assume he would send them out with no way to reason in a world that is so differnt to theirs.

Character personalities? Hun, I doubt you'd fit the amount of data needed to bring one of them to life on a disk, let alone all of them. I expect the data was stored on the net or another computer to be transferred when the game user (in this case Mark) was online. I've seen viruses that act in much the same way, a worm finds it's way to your PC and then broadcasts your location while multiplying itself slowly so the PC gets used to it's presence, then all it's little buddies with the really nastly programming enter the PC and start re-writing your files.

Ace's lack of any 'subtle' emotions is rather disturbing. It seems to suggest that whatever KB did has left a bit of a 'gap' inbetween what he was programmed with and the negative emotions that have manifested themselves. Or maybe it's just that not having experienced them before he is plainly more likely to concentrate on the bad ones (heros aren't meant to have them after all, and it's not part of his base programming to have feelings that in his eyes would be more suited to the evils).

Anyway. I wouldn't attribute any of the CGs with 'real' emotions at this time, and I ought to have explained the emotional traits of psychopathy more fully.

An emotional responce is a learned responce, not a 'natural' responce. We learn that certain things make us sad, certain things make us happy etc. We are not born with that kind of information. Over the course of a childhood when a person deals with their forming emotions, their ID, Ego and SuperEgo (as Freud put it) and all the things they will need in adult life, something goes wrong with psychopaths. Sometimes it's abuse, sometimes it's neglect, sometimes it's just seeing something so horrible that you stop being able to associate people as the same 'species' as you. Sometimes it's entirely biological, and of course some base biological factores are essential to the creation of a psychopath (such as low levels of chemical in the brain that would usually result in depression).

Psychopathy is essentially an anti-social personality disorder, which manifests in agression and criminal acts. Not all psychopaths are serial killers, but the more 'pure' form of psychopathy, the more likely it is that the person will be capable of multiple homocides for little or no reason.

((I will mention that Sociopathy, what offten attribute with LF with, is not the same a psychopathy. Sociopaths are controlers, and usually not agressive unless provoked.))

In a way the CGs are suffering from what we would call anti-social personality disorders. They are not, however much we discuss, human, and therefore lacking in all the information we got through development and childhood. The would be unable to understand 'emotion' on the most basic level as they, as far as we know, are not subject to anything more to programmed moods. Psychopaths suffer the same, something goes wrong in their development and leaves them unable to 'connect' with society and form what we would see as normal emotions.

Phew. I think I may have missed something there... but you sohuld be able to understand what i was saying better....

xx
Feef

Hmm... perhaps this is why Ace reacts so violently when he initially gets those emotions. Technically, he's only, what? A year and a bit old (time spent in real world) and when he gets them he practically starts throwing temper tantrums. Until, of course, he blasts Chuck, at which point some piece of programming or something kicks in and goes 'you ain't supposed to be doing that!'

So, perhaps now they're in the real world, they're learning emotions and other things like children would. Only, thier not children. Thier programmed as adults. (Except possibly for Sparx. :P ) Ace for one seems to 'mature' markedly in how he handles his emotions from the first ep he got them, ie. he's not mad and blasting all the time, just occasionally. Yeah, he's still handelling them pretty immaturely though.

And about what Fe said on the program possibly being stored someplace else until the game got zapped and activated. Yeah, I can see that working. Perhaps there was also some stuff there that would assist Fear in taking over the world. But of course, soon as Fear and the other Evils arrive, they do seem to act like they're still in a game. I would assume Rick's plan was something along the lines of: Fear defeats Ace, minions and other nasties overrun world, Rick pops in to take over with evil minion army plus perhaps some override codes to make Fear listen to him (and not try and destroy him). So, Fear would only have to defeat Ace essentially - just like he was programmed to do in the game.

I have no idea if any of that made sense, its all just coming out of my head... :(

Going OT for a moment, I'd disagree here: it seemed she didn't lose interest due to Ace winning, but left the carnival due to the human world's influence (I'm inclined to believe she was being entirely honest at the beginning of 6). And Ace seemed to take the "loves me/loves me not" taunt a lot more seriously than her; she actually seems somewhat shocked at just how forcefully he responds, and then she seems confused as to why he saved her. (And you already know the rest of the story.)

I think the idea of some game influence on Ace/LI could be interesting, but Mark's words "Nothing in the rulebook says they could fall in love" implies it's not canon, and I rather like the defying-programming theme as it seems to stand. It'd certainly make for reasonable enough fanfic. :)

And as to LI liking power, if she'd destroyed Ace in 6, 10, 19 and so on, she'd probably have had (almost) all the power she could want, and I seriously doubt she's looking to Ace to fight for her or help her take over the world--the only time she even asks for his help is when she doesn't really have a choice.

Going back to the emotions, I agree with what's been presented here--they were all programmed with limited emotions (Knights = friendship, evils = hatred), which changed and developed as they were further exposedto the real world.

Feardantane's point about Ace lacking subtler emotions is an interesting one, I think, but the argument can be made that his friendship-feelings for Mark, Sparx and Random can be interpreted as quite subtle (bar the "saving people" complex :P). I think his problem, though, is restraint: as was actually pointed out in canon, they've always had the program telling them what to do and controlling them, and Ace starts to lose control thanks to the human emotions. Real people have had the time to learn that if they throw temper tantrums people won't like it and they probably won't get their way, and learned to control themselves over time; as Feef pointed out, the CGIs simply haven't had that opporunity.

However, I do think it's fair enough to regard the CGIs as adult protagonists with special disabilities/issues, considering the humanoids' apparent level of intelligence, physical maturity, and at least basic programmed memories of having some origin story.

Yes, I think that’s basically what I meant in my last statement. I just don’t put it as well as you do. Thank you for clarifying, and good description there.


Take Lady Illusion too. I expect there is some facet of her programming that tells her to go for the strongest male around (hense her relationship with LF, and quickly losing interest when he is defeated by Ace) and to be on the winning side. The world is a sexist place, but I don't expect she went for LF based on his personality.

That is very possible in this theory. And then it’d be logical to suggest that in order to make them appear more “human” these programming methods were disguised by their emotions i.e. LI’s by love.

The only thing is, all that would take a LOT or time and programming and I’m not sure Rick and the team would bother.

Hm… you think it might’ve been a viral type of coding that brought the game characters to life, then? A virus is the closest thing to life we’ve made, I would assume… (perhaps wrongly.) IITS-wise, all on one disc would probably be used. And the whole thing DOES seem to revolve around Mark’s copy of the game – he once believed by pressing delete he’d wipe them all out (sounds like genocide to me) but that never actually happened, so who knows if it would’ve worked.

I think H is right here: it’s Ace’s inexperience with emotions that’s the problem – he’s basically like a little kid learning about feelings. And we always express their emotions more extremely as kids. Ace has always had something childlike about him. The lack of emotional control is yet another facet. Ace gets mad, throws a tatruym, but when a little kid makes another little kid cry or hurts them, they stop throwing a tantrum and start to feel guilty because they’ve done something wrong and/or are about to get told off for it. From that, I would figure that any coding they had keeping their programmed emotions in-check would be put there in order for them to be able to bypass their childhoods and go straight to adulthood. Sort of… Ace’s coding however, as been destroyed so, as Chuck says, he’s a basket case. Like Sarah said, he’s had no time to learn to control himself.

Oh, heck *tries to remember her psychology classes*

That all makes sense, I think. Though what I think you’re suggesting here is that emotional development is a cognitive process. But there are other theories about emotions and why and how they work. Some theories suggest that our personalities are denoted from the moment we born. As Freud said “anatomy is destiny” Freud’s theory in particular is a psychosexual theory which denotes EVERYTHING (mostly) we do to sex and sexual needs –and towards subconscious yearnings, not learned ones (to everyone who hasn’t studied psychology - try asking a Freudian-follower why you suck your thumb as a habit :P). I THINK (might be wrong) you might be mixing up the two theories, Feef. Not that that isn’t plausible and that they wouldn’t work together. And not that I was ever entirely good at psychology, so you may want to correct me on that last bit.

Overall you’re right – they’re not human, and it would, perhaps, be dangerous to assume they could be. Though that doesn’t mean our two species couldn’t handle each other.

Freud aside, the thing is, even if their emotions aren’t real and they ARE just acting on a program, does it really matter? Obviously their lack of human ability and complexity would (and has) caused some trouble, but would it make a MAJOR difference to our ability to connect, taking into consideration the idea that they have the ability to “learn?” If a CGI didn’t REALLY have emotions and was just acting on a program would it be alright to care about them? I’m addressing that in my Ace/Mark, I believe… when I get round to it. and have just had it reconfirmed by Chobits:

“Even though I’ve accepted my feelings –because I’Ve accepted them– I love her too much. I can’t erase all of Chi’s memories.

“Even though Chi isn’t alive?”

“Yes,”

“Even though Chi’s heart (I’m assuming “heart” here refers to her emotional psyche. “is only a program?”

“That’s not true. Chi’s heart is real. It beats inside of me. If Chi looks sad, I’m sad. If she looks happy, I’m happy. Even if her expressions are all just a program, I don’t care.”

…Bleuch…. Ac-hem. Sappy :blink: but all the same, it’s a good (if rather romanticized) point.

No, btw I’m not going to go that sappy in my fic :P well… not quite. Comfortably cute with some undertones will do me.

Not having emotions never did, say, Data any bother in Star Trek (well it DID – but getting them in the end cause more :P) in fact, he was often considered to be more “human” than the species he was trying to emulate. Is if possible for a CGI to feel emotions towards a human, or is it all just programmed behaviour. If the latter is true, does it really matter if the human can feel the emotions for both of them? There’s a lovely cute little moment at the end of “Lahl” in ST: TNG, when the “daughter”, Lahl (a name meaning “beloved”, in Hindu) whom Data made for himself, develops emotions as part of a programming fault, shuts down and “dies.” When she says “I love you, father,” he can’t return the sentiment, (he doesn’t have the emotions to do so, but Lahl accepts this, just saying “I will feel it for both of us.”

On another note.

Our world? Yes. Ther 6D world, not so much so. I’ve noticed reasonably little conflict caused by – there are FEW females in the show, yes, but they’re able to hold their own.