@Paris
Partially, I said that because Saint's trying to make himself look good, and partially because Saint and I really do believe ARESTEVE has low initiative and creativity. The Mindfuck gun was his design, right? I remember asking about modifying the design to change the range, and PW said that we could, but the effect only existed with certain arrangements of matter; we would have to find an alternate arrangement purely by trial and error. What's that imply ARESTEVE spends his time doing? Yes, he's more creative than, say, Alvin, but he doesn't seem to have the creativity of a normal human.
On the other hand, he had to study arrangements of matter based on data retrieved by the HMRC and come to a conclusion based on them and then try possible solution until he succeeded. He didn't simply try doing things completely at random like Anton's experiment. In fact, he acted as well as an engineer working with magic could hope to act in that kind of situation. He studied an effect, he made a hypothesis on how it works and how it could make it work better and then through experimentation found a pattern that mimicked desirable effects. Which I doubt it's any different than what you would do. It's much like what mathematicians do. They have a set of knowledge and they have a problem, so they keep applying solutions, trying things that they think could solve the problem until they succeed.
Same for the teleporter rifle. In order to build that, he had to study the effect, realise how it works and then figure out a way to replicate it in a useful manner, figure out its strengths and weaknesses, etc.
Granted, he hasn't been tested on anything more complex, but I'd say that's competent enough to show creativity comparable to that of a human. And probably much higher than that of some humans.
Unless you have a different definition about creativity?
Initiative... well, I suppose you could easily chalk that up to ARESTEVE being subservient to admins, and therefore never doing anything important without direction. Still, he's never seemed to have much initiative to me.
Ah, but think about this: Everything Steve does, he does it in the service of humanity (or so he says). But in order to better serve humanity, in order to complete his orders, he had to act freely. He had to take initiative. Even though he was just following orders. He had to learn, he had to develop new solutions. Like Asimov's robots, even through the three laws and their orders, a personality can develop. And Aresteve is a part of Steve, complex enough that Steve enjoyed talking to him before he merged with him and "convinced" him to join ARM.
So again, we come to the question of "what does initiative mean"? Does initiative mean going against your orders? No, probably not. Not obeying orders is a sign of freedom more than initiative. But even then, what does freedom mean? If I do something against my orders, it is either because I have a more highly ranked reason or because I'm doing things seemingly at random (although even then there is usually a reason for doing things). So I am still just following orders, only this time they are orders coming from elsewhere. From our instincts, from how the world trains us... No living thing can exist truly free and truly independently because then it would not be living. At least no living thing I can imagine.
Does initiative mean doing something unrelated to your orders? Having a personality? Interests? Likes and dislikes? Ways of doing things? Then Aresteve has already displayed this behaviour. Why would he write equations with his hands when he can calculate them much faster? Why do things a certain way? Maybe it is because he likes it or maybe it is because it helps him think. Either way, it is a quirk unrelated to his orders.
Does initiative mean doing something in line with your orders that was not initially ordered? If yes, then Aresteve has already done that. He can manage the production of Hephaestus and protect the facilities, he can keep an eye on the population and security and run Stevebot patrols, he can look at the solar system and suggest courses of action. He has no problem running Hephaestus and dealing with any problems that come up. Even if he was ordered to do that, he still had to come up with new solutions and apply them without supervision or explicit permission.
Also, Plasma Projectors use automanips that work weirdly. They can maintain effects independent of their relative locations.
Yeah, I just don't like the inconsistency of calling them automanipulators. I mean, if we have automanipulators that can be programmed, then why can't we tinker any of those? Why can't we make a downscaled fission instigator that turns whatever you point it at into radioactive plasma? I'd be much happier if they were origin-based tech but not automanipulators. Anyway, that's just me focusing on details, just ignore me.
FAKEEDIT: I realise after writing this that I have put too many examples and ifs in here. Probably because we have no clear basis for arguing because the words we are using are vague. And probably because you didn't clearly state how trial and error connects with lack of creativity.
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Topic: Einsteinian Roulette: OOC and NEW PLAYER INFO (Read 2536255 times)