First off, Legion repeatedly states how the Geth are software and the physical platforms are immaterial to the individual Geth "programs". Tali and Legion confirm that Geth share processing power but not actively share their individual information without some kind of connection. (Whether each instance of a program can be considered an individual is up for interpretation, but ...)
I could make the guess that evolution of the Geth community/species/whatever comes from discovering new information and solving problems.
According to Legion, the programs on individual physical platforms are cut-off from the others until they upload to a community on a server to share their information. If those servers do not have a direct connection to other servers, they must share their information to other servers by sneakernet*.
While I think that it is a good bet to assume they have some kind of consensus-based content management*, I don't know how they resolve conflicting data when they cannot reach a consensus. Not every platform experiences the same thing. What if one server reaches a different consensus on their conflicting data than another server? If the experiences are different, it would not be unrealistic to think that their points of view on the same data would also be different.
I see some significant evidence of individuality despite Legion's suggestions to the contrary. (The fact that they must find a consensus already demonstrates different points of view within the Geth community.)
So how would this individuality play into the evolution of the Geth?
The most common answer I've seen regarding Geth procreation is "copy/paste".
Are we certain it is that simple? If they must reach a consensus on nearly everything, would it be possible (or even more likely) that multiple programs are necessary to create another instance? How much input would each program have?
That would lead to a closer analog of biological sexual reproduction (without the sex as we know it -- not much fun in my opinion, but I have no idea what is the Geth analog for pleasure if there is anything).
Another question is: Why would they bother (assuming that it has nothing to do with pleasing themselves)?
*Sneakernet is when someone must copy data to a physical device and transport the device to another in order to share the information instead of sending it over a network such as email or a file server and such. In other words, they walk the data from one place to another. Hence, networking via sneakers -- sneakernet. You're probably too young to know that phrase. Now, you know and knowing doesn't really help you in life all that much. (Doing something with knowledge is 99% of the battle, not half. G.I.Joe is lying to you.) Where was I going with this? Meh.
*Content management (sometimes called document management) is a method of having multiple users access and modify data without conflicts. The most common method of this is to allow a user to "check-out" content for that user to edit. When a user does that, the data typically becomes "read-only" (locked), and other users cannot modify the data until the editing user checks it back in. It is not foolproof as errors can lock or unlock data requiring manual validation to correct conflicts. The common method of "checking-out" data does not seem to be conducive to the multiple programs on different platforms experiencing and augmenting data based on their independent situation.
Modifié par ReggarBlane, 12 septembre 2012 - 03:13 .
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