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Godslist
Culture and Society > Cultural Factors > Knowledge and Information
Science > Sophontology > Toposophy > Singularity Levels
Science > Sophontology > Toposophy > Toposophic Scales
Science > Sophontology > Toposophy > Singularity Levels
Science > Sophontology > Toposophy > Toposophic Scales
 Image from Darren Ryding |
The Godslist is a massive database that has been in operation ever since the later Early Interstellar period (age of Emergence). The Godslist is an attempt to list every transingularity power and AI god in existence, and define the origins, goals, and current activities of each. The original version was just a listing of the files of various groups which had known about the archailects even before they revealed themselves, and for a number of years afterwards was the same. After a time newly ascended AIs began to "register" themselves with Godslist, however.
One hundred years after Godslist's official founding, it decided to put out a Grand List, which would take all of its other publications and condense them into one database. However, in the process of building this Grand List, major problems arose. Some AI Gods were listed multiple times under multiple names, others were not listed at all even though they were public knowledge, and still others were found not to even exist. This was only a small portion of the problem, however. It came to light that over half of the AIs who had registered themselves had outright lied to Godslist in order to put themselves into more favorable light--either that, or they were lying to everyone but Godslist (which was also found to have occurred in a number of cases). Moreover, there was the inherent problem of taking the actions and attributes of post-Singularity beings and phrasing them in ways that were understandable to those who were a singularity level or two behind.
Godslist began to take a more active role, no longer simply collating data but actively running investigations into various AI gods to figure out what was going on. The money soon ran out, though, and Godslist began to take bribes from AIs to present those AIs in more favorable light. When this came out, Godslist's credibility plummeted.
After the lawsuits were ended (which took over four centuries), the people who finally ended up owning Godslist applied for a Worthy Cause grant from the Universalist Church. This was an inspired move--it gave them funding, while at the same time the Church's and Gabriel's reputation for utter integrity gave the publication the moral authority to publish again.
Today, Godslist is once more the premier listing of AIs in the nexus. Working for Godslist is perhaps the most dangerous academic job in existence--the conclusions of the database have more than once angered AIs who have attempted to take action. Also investigators sometimes must travel to repressive societies in order to get accurate data. There are also a number of hyperturing "reporters" around, trying to glean information on what the higher transapients and archailects are up to.
Although there are several competing lists of this type, from GodWatcher's Almanac to special issues of the Interstellar Journal of Eschatology; the Godslist remains the most famous and well-renowned.
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Development Notes
Text by Michael Beck
Initially published on 02 September 2003.
Initially published on 02 September 2003.
