Rambling

Posted Jan 31, 2025 17:35 UTC (Fri) by anselm (subscriber, #2796)
In reply to: Rambling by khim
Parent article: Resistance to Rust abstractions for DMA mapping

He's not immortal, for one thing.

How would you know? If maintaining the DMA code really requires the god-like powers people seem to ascribe to Christoph Hellwig, then mere immortality sounds like a straightforward side hustle.

Rambling

Posted Jan 31, 2025 19:55 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (2 responses)

> How would you know?

Good point…

> If maintaining the DMA code really requires the god-like powers people seem to ascribe to Christoph Hellwig

That's not me, that's @tesarik's idea that he couldn't be replaced.

> then mere immortality sounds like a straightforward side hustle

So have we accidentally discovered the identity of Emperor of the Mankind… prematurely?

And after some thinking… I think that even in that case it's better to assume that he can die.

I mean… even if he is, technically, immortal… is it actually wise to build the whole civilization around the abilities of one man? Would he still be able to support DMA code while entombed in the… we know where?

That future… is not very pretty. Or stable.

Rambling

Posted Jan 31, 2025 20:05 UTC (Fri) by tesarik (subscriber, #52705) [Link]

> That's not me, that's @tesarik's idea that he couldn't be replaced.

I didn't want to reply to your blatant straw man fallacy, but now I realize there was another commenter with that kind of thinking:

https://lwn.net/Articles/1007136/

So for the record, that's not me.

Rambling

Posted Feb 1, 2025 0:33 UTC (Sat) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]

The Emperor is listed as only one of several Perpetuals, they're all immortal. For whatever that's worth in 40K which is very little since what actually matters is a form of "plot armour". If it's better to keep you around the story will change so that you don't die.

In most cases 40K's silliness just annoys me, but I found that it does fix one game, Talisman. Relic is basically Talisman but with the 40K background as rationale. Talisman is a very silly game, but in the 40K setting of Relic that feels appropriate.