Sunday, June 30, 2019

Who are the characters in the short story "The Machine That Won the War"?

"The Machine That Won the War" is a short science fiction story written by Isaac Asimov. It revolves around a computer called Multivac that is credited with winning the war. The story takes place after the war, when the three main characters meet after a successful war against the Denebians.
Lamar Swift, whose official title is "Executive Director of the Solar Federation," is the oldest of the three characters and comes across as being a patient and understanding man. He admits that his decisions were not solely based on the data given by Multivac. Swift's use of an older computer and the flipping of a coin played a more significant role in making decisions, as revealed to Henderson and Jablonsky at the end of the story.
John Henderson is the Chief Programmer of Multivac, the computer that is being credited with winning the war. As time passed, he also became aware of the unreliability of Multivac and created data to feed to the machine.
Max Jablonsky worked intimately with Multivac; his official title was "Chief Interpreter of Science's Oracle." He is a smoker who also does not fully trust Multivac. He admits to altering the data produced by Multivac.

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