Character planning and intro-ing thread

[jewelfox]

As of right now, we have four players: redsixwing, sablin27, blackswanseer, and kaesa!

EDIT: We also have a provisional fifth player, adad64!

This is the thread where you all can introduce yourselves to each other. >_>b We would like it if you would each say a little about yourselves maybe, along with the following:

• Your preferred pronouns

• Your character concept so far

You are encouraged to comment on each other's concepts, and brainstorm ways that your characters might know each other or that their stories might fit together.

Speaking of stories, here is the plot: A group of people from the past end up in the sci-fi transhumanist future. The ways that someone can do so include, but are not limited to, cryogenic stasis and reconstruction from a thanogram. You can also play as someone from a Korean generation ship isolated society, if you like, one which may be socially and technologically regressive.

Finally, you can play as someone who's from the future and has to help the newcomers adjust ... or who wants them to play a role in their plans!

So yeah, please do the brainstorming thing in this thread. >_>b Don't forget that you can subscribe to individual comment threads, here on Dreamwidth.

More answers to questions will be forthcoming, if we can deal with our IRL stresses enough to do so. ^^;

Comments

[jewelfox]

Is he an experimental AI of a fictional character? ^^ From the story-verse you said he was from, maybe! And created before AIs were widely identified as being people.

(Although Love appears to have had that happen sometime around 1990. IDK, Digital had kind of a contrived ending anyway.)

That was only one idea you mentioned, though. The other was that he started out as *Ascension, I think, an experimental piloting AI?

If we're using SotS-verse technology to fill in some of the holes, the earliest FTL drive system that the dustlings humans created took ships through "subspace," which was basically the lite version of 40k's Warp and is only accessible through "nodes" in certain star systems.

It has some interesting background behind it:

• Human Discovery of Subspace


• Subspace and Node Drives

(I can't find it on that wiki, but there's also a story where a Liir psion taken into subspace on board a human ship flips out, and telekinetically destroys it.)

[redsixwing]

Y'know, the more I think on it, the more I really like the idea of him being an AI of a fictional character, so let's go that route.

And, yeah: in source story, AI definitely wouldn't have been recognized as people.

Now I'm just trying to figure out: someone made an AI to replicate a fictional character as closely as possible. Who and why? Presumably one doesn't spend all the time, effort, and money to create an early, functional AI for no reason... so is this an "it was there" sort of thing? Or, what purpose did they want him to accomplish? Hm.

In either case, I'd prefer his prior name to have been *Ascension. :3

[sablin27]

I can definitely see a particularly extreme fan putting vast effort into making their favourite character real, without considering the issues.

On the other hand, if you want to posit a mysterious mover and shaker doing weird creepy things and then sitting back and watching...

[kaesa]

I do like the crazed fan theory of why they made him (I have fond memories of ridiculous conversations with Snapebot, so it's not without precedent) but other things that occur to me off the top of my head:

* created by the owner of the property; people can pay to have conversations/dinner/whatever with the character, as an interactive spinoff of the franchise. (You've read the books, you've played the game, you've watched all the movies... but have you asked your favorite character what he thought of the ending? NOW YOU CAN TALK TO HIM for only $20 a minute!)

* the original writer/creator died with a manuscript/game/whatever only halfway written, and the heirs want to squeeze as much money as they can out of it, but don't know how the last installment was supposed to end, so they invest in feeding all the available information into a computer to find out what the character(s) would do.

* same as the above, but instead of the heirs, the fans crowdfund the solution.

* unscrupulous L. Ron Hubbard-type creator decides to transition from fiction writer to cult leader and wants to prove that his creations are totally real, so he makes them real and introduces them to his followers.

* if the character is friendly and/or a children's book character, I could see a children's hospital using "visit with beloved character X!" as a theraputic thing, kind of like therapy dogs.

* Disney theme park meet and greet taken to the next terrifying level!

[jewelfox]

What if *Ascension is a video game character?

I'm having trouble articulating the way this might change things, but I'm imagining bringing in tropes particular to whatever media he's from either way. Also there might be a creator somewhere who wants to give people the chance to "play a game," which could be as innocuous or malicious as needed ...

[kaesa]

I see what you're getting at, I think? My first thought when I read this comment, actually, was wondering what kind of potentially embarrassing or traumatic "easter eggs" someone who'd do this would hide in his programming. And how having multiple endings would work for an actual real person.

[blackswanseer]

All really cool ideas; and I particularly like the video game character one!

[jewelfox]

Also I like all these ideas and I think you may have already covered what we were trying to say with ours, whoops. ^^;

[redsixwing]

So I love the idea of him actually being a nav AI who, to survive after the Traveler crashed, borrowed a bunch of memory from someone else's favorite media (be it video game or whatever - I'd like to stick with "corporate espionage serial" as a short description, but video game, recorded drama, or written fiction are all good options and I'm sure there's more I'm not thinking of).

So the next question I have is, what happens if/when he remembers what he used to be?

This is probably where the dysphoria kicks in big time - his current skillset doesn't align at all with what he'd need to be a functional navigator.