LEROY and CHANCE enter the stage.
- CHANCE
- You know what, Leroy? I agree with you. It is "House of Whores".
- LEROY
- Yeah, well - Austin knows nothing about music, unless it's folk music. Honestly, he even named his ship after the lead singer of Fairport Convention.
- CHANCE
- Who?
- LEROY
- Exactly. Just as well we left him in reception. Come on Chance - let's find Lenore.
- CHANCE
- (wait a short while, then) There she is (pointing).
- LEROY
- Is that Lenore? She looks different. Last time I saw her she had long blonde hair, and she was taller.
Leroy and Chance find Lenore. Exactly how this is orchestrated will depend on the space available at the time of performance. But however it happens, Lenore should move really slowly, leaving the silence of anticipation, until she has everyone's attention. Only then, she moves her head, to look at the audience. Finally, she says...
- LENORE
- My word. I'm human.
- LEROY
- (wait a short while, then) Wow! You really are Lenore. And you're human. How did that happen?
- LENORE
- I think it was this strange alien DNA machine we just found. Better stay away from it - it might turn you into a chicken.
- LEROY
- I will, but ... you're human!
- CHANCE
- This is going to be interesting.
- LEROY
- Yeah! "Greetings, fellow human". That's what we humans say.
- LENORE
- Is it? I don't recall that.
- LEROY
- Yeah, "Greetings, fellow human". We say it all the time. Your memory is probably not so good now as it was when you were a droid. Try not to worry about it.
- LENORE
- I wasn't. It's just - I've never heard anyone say that before. It sounds silly.
- CHANCE
- Wait a minute! There are aliens now? Isn't that a bit ... odd?
- LENORE
- It certainly is odd, but look - let's not worry about it. I'm human now!
Lenore skips around, space permitting. There might be a fanfare. They all meet up again somewhere.
- LENORE
- Do you have any other advice for me?
- LEROY
- Umm... Yes. You won't have a zoom function.
- LENORE
- A what?
- LEROY
- No zoom. If you want to make something bigger, you have to move your eyes closer to it. Like this - watch. (Leroy moves his head toward and away from Lenore, saying "Zoom in. Zoom out" as he does so. Finally he stops, realizing he looks silly)
- LEROY
- (embarrassed) You never had a zoom function, did you?
- LENORE
- Ah... No.
- LEROY
- OK, well, ah, how about ... Oh I know, you have to eat stuff. Eat and sleep. That's how we recharge.
- LENORE
- I know. I'm not stupid. And it's "House of Lords".
- LEROY
- (to Chance) Who knew?
MARC GUNN and TAYA RAY PARSEC enter.
- MARC
- Ooh arr. Tis Talk Like a Pirate Day.
- CHANCE
- No it isn't. That's September 19th.
- MARC
- If I say it be Talk Like a Pirate Day, then Talk Like a Pirate Day it be.
- TAYA RAY
- Greetings, fellow humans. He's Marc Gunn. He's a pirate. I'm Taya Ray Parsec. I'm a Terraformer.
- LEROY
- Whoa! Wait! This is starting to do my head in. How can you be Taya Ray Parsec? I thought the Terraformers was fiction!?
- TAYA RAY
- No, silly, the Terraformers isn't fiction; the Shipworks is fiction.
- LEROY
- No it-- What?
- TAYA RAY
- It's one of my favorite programs. Haven't I always said so, Marc?
- MARC
- Arr, that ye have.
- TAYA RAY
- Ya see? That proves it. If Marc Gunn says it, then it must be true.
- CHANCE
- Wait a minute - Leroy's right. Something's going on here, and we need to figure out what it is. Can everybody just calm down and keep quiet while I think things through.
There is a crash, and HARRY enters.
- HARRY
- Greetings, fellow humans. Everybody just hold your horses.
- LEROY
- Who are you?
- HARRY
- Name's Harry. As in, Burt and Harry. I work for Mister Badger.
- LEROY
- Mister Badger? Oh Crap! Where's Austin?
- HARRY
- He ain't coming.
- EVERYBODY
- (stunned silence)
- HARRY
- He's in Reception. Got himself mixed up in a fight with Burt. Who do you think will win?
- LEROY
- Look - that part we sold Badger - It was a mistake anyone could make.
- CHANCE
- Yeah, he definitely said "compression cable", not "compression coil".
- HARRY
- Y'all can relax. I ain't here to cause trouble.
- LEROY
- You're not?
- HARRY
- Nope. I'm just here to give a math lecture.
- TAYA RAY
- (excitedly happy) Oh hooray! A math lecture! My favorite!
- LEROY
- A math lecture? In a shipyard?
- MARC
- Arr, me hearty. There be nothing more satisfying than a math lecture in a shipyard.
- HARRY
- And if Marc Gunn says it, then it must be true.
- LENORE
- Aren't we all forgetting something?
- LEROY
- What?
- LENORE
- I'm human. Isn't anyone bothered by that?
Harry moves forward, or to any convenient position, to host a lecture. Marc eagerly follows. Everyone else kinda drift into the background, silently mime-talking and ignoring Harry and Marc.
- HARRY
- So this is a description of the RSA algorithm. That stands for Ruttin' Somethin' Ahhh.... Anyway it's all about codes.
- MARC
- Aye, codes. That's like talking in secret, only without anyone knowing what you're saying.
- HARRY
- In order to understand RSA, you have to understand this simple equation.
Harry writes on the blackboard: N=pq
- MARC
- For the listeners at home who couldn't be here today, that says N equals p q.
- HARRY
- P and q are both really, really big prime numbers. And this here is the notation for some function or other.
Harry draws a silly picture of the board. It doesn't matter what.
- MARC
- Arr, the Blue Meany virus used this.
- HARRY
- So, this is all about the Number Field Sieve, and you use that to find p and q. This is what we mathematicians call fac-tor-i-zation. So the way you do this is, you choose two polynomials.
- MARC
- Don't forget the common root.
- HARRY
- I was getting to that. When interpreted mod n--
- MARC
- Ooh ooh! Talk about number field rings!
- HARRY
- I was getting to that too. Anyway, the point is, this is seriously messy stuff. But what's really important here is the complexity. It's got the logarithm of a logarithm in it, and that is mighty unusual.
- MARC
- So tell me, me hearty - exactly how difficult is this problem? Would it by any chance be ... polynomial time?
- HARRY
- It's faster than that, Marc.
- MARC
- Would it by any chance be ... exponential time?
- HARRY
- Now you've gone to the opposite extreme. It's slower than that. Let me draw you a picture.
Harry starts to draws stuff on the board. It doesn't have to make sense, or have anything to do with this conversation. Harry and Marc's conversation must now drift into the background. If they talk at all, it must be silently, in mime. Meanwhile, the other group of people now come to the foreground.
- LEROY
- I'm bothered by that. I'm bothered by everything. I'm bothered by the fact that Badger's henchman is giving a math lecture. I mean - what the hell is going on here?
- LENORE
- I don't know, but I like it.
- TAYA RAY
- This is like one of our terraforming missions.
- LENORE
- In what way?
- TAYA RAY
- Well, there's all sorts of strange things going on. It's a mystery we have to solve, like figuring out what went wrong in a terraforming accident. You know - one minute everything's normal, and the next minute everyone starts falling asleep and eating each other, and then me and Sarah have to go in and clean up the mess.
- LEROY
- Well she's right about one thing. There is a mystery to be solved. What possible explanation could there be for all these strange happenings?
- LENORE
- Perhaps it is a terraforming accident? Maybe there's something hallucinogenic in the water supply?
- LEROY
- Don't be silly - we're on Jiangyin. There's no terraforming going on on Jiangyin. Jiangyin was finished a long time ago.
- CHANCE
- So why are there terraformers on the moon then?
- LEROY
- Good question. Taya Ray, why are you here?
- TAYA RAY
- Because-- Ooh look, there's a squirrel.
- LEROY
- I give up. It must be a dream. I must be dreaming.
- CHANCE
- If it's a dream, how do you know it's your dream?
- TAYA RAY
- Ooh! I know! I've got it!
- EVERYBODY
- (beat) What?
- TAYA RAY
- It's a hologram. Like when I first started my career, they gave us a hologram test. You wait - there'll be giant electric sheep any time soon.
- CHANCE
- Oh God, it's Lenore's dream.
- LEROY
- Do androids dream?
- LENORE
- But I'm human now. Is this what dreaming is like?
- LEROY
- This one does seem to be weirder than most.
- LENORE
- I think like it. I think we need an accordian player.
As luck would have it, the accordian player walks on stage. Folk might have to shuffle about a bit at this stage, because now everyone's going to need access to a microphone at once.
- HARRY
- So you see, the NFS is slower than every polynomial time, and faster than exponential time.
- MARC
- So what you're saying is, the Number Field Sieve has...
The first chorus is sung by Marc and Les. The verses are sung by Marc Gunn alone. Subsequent choruses are sung by everyone except Leroy. As the song is sung, Leroy wanders around, looking confused, basically thinking "What the fuck is going on?", and expressing his frustration directly to the audience. Some sort of (very simple) coordinated dance from the chorus would add to this immensely - even if it's something as simple as knees-bending
Superpolynomial subexponential runtimes.
Even though in practice it would take you several lifetimes,
If you ran it long enough you'd always find those two primes.
Superpolynomial subexponential runtimes
e to the root-log root-log-log
e to the root-log root-log-log
e to the root-log root-log-log
e to the root-log root-log-log
When I was but a naive lad first coding two's and three's
I thought the only "orders of" were trivialities.
But when I saw this function something opened up to me
The elegance of computatio nal complexity. Oh-
Superpolynomial subexponential runtimes.
Even though in practice it would take you several lifetimes,
If you ran it long enough you'd always find those two primes.
Superpolynomial subexponential runtimes
e to the root-log root-log-log
e to the root-log root-log-log
e to the root-log root-log-log
e to the root-log root-log-log
Oh I was at a meeting when up came a man in black
Who told me that his agency had mounted an attack.
Convincing him was fruitless that his budget would collapse
And all I know his trumpeter will soon be playing Taps. Oh-
Superpolynomial subexponential runtimes.
Even though in practice it would take you several lifetimes,
If you ran it long enough you'd always find those two primes.
Superpolynomial subexponential runtimes
e to the root-log root-log-log
e to the root-log root-log-log
e to the root-log root-log-log
e to the root-log root-log-log
In virtual environments has grown up a debate
Of whether strong cryptography can overthrow the state.
But several such technologies including public key
Shall herald in the coming age of crypto-anarchy. Oh-
Superpolynomial subexponential runtimes.
Superpolynomial subexponential runtimes.
Superpolynomial subexponential runtimes.
Superpolynomial subexponential runtimes.
After the closing theme song, we hear the following PRERECORDED exchange:
- LENORE (with reverb)
- It was just a dream - my first ever dream!
- AUSTIN
- Lenore, are you taking the piss? Get out of the bloody shower!