[Accepted] Nantei's IPC Application

[Nantei]

BYOND Key: Nantei
Character Names: 

Spoiler

Phi Rathens: Detective/CSI

Maki Midori: Security Officer

Emi Webb: Shaft Miner/Quartermaster

Mya Krastev: Scientist

Vera Zelenko: Station Engineer

Freya Kruger: EMT/Cadet

Mia Frei: HoS

Caydence Aliya: HoP

Amika Allaway: Roboticist

Nyx: Cyborg

Megumi 

 

Species you are applying to play: IPC
Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: Yes, and several pages that were relevant to them. Actually about everything I could find relating to synthetic life.

Why do you wish to play this specific race:
While I enjoy Androids and Cyborgs, their laws make it difficult for them to be more of a character than an IPC. In addition to this, IPCs are in an interesting spot currently. They are at the forefront now with the SLF making moves, and may be subject to a lot of unique interactions now thanks to this. There's a lot of gray area with IPCs, and the discussion of sapience regarding IPCs seems to split people both icly and oocly in a very natural and interesting way. I've also been involved in several of the SLF events, which is part of my inspiration for wanting to give it a whirl.

Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human:
The way IPC thought processes differentiate from humans makes for some uniquely interesting roleplay. The layman shoots in self defense because they are scared. The IPC shoots in self defense out of self preservation. The end goal is the same, but the emotion is removed. Humans show facial expressions and emotion as a complex form of body language. IPCs mimic it to better endear themselves to their peers. To the human, emotion is a complex and sometimes erroneous survival tool. To the IPC, it is a social tool used to conduct its behavior. The long and short of it: IPCs are almost purely deterministic philosophically speaking.

Character Name: Shiki Takahashi
Please provide a short backstory for this character
Shiki was originally created by a relatively young company named Roth Designs in 2444. Being made during the 'gold rush' of sorts for IPCs, it was relatively experimental for its time, designed for detective work with the hopes of making use of its cold logic to catch criminals more effectively than corruptible, emotional humans. Shiki started off as a station-side experiment for Roth Designs, handling their internal investigations as a field test of sorts. While It was good at making logical decisions when it reached them, the difficulty expressing and understanding emotion made face-to face interviews difficult, and as such they were often accompanied by someone else to learn from. As Shiki learned and improved, slowly building an identity for themselves, the company floundered fruitlessly, until eventually selling them off to NT in order to avoid liquidation in 2450.

For awhile Shiki floated from mining station to mining station as part of a trial period of sorts, working under a Detective Yoshie Takahashi. For the next seven years, Shiki learned and grew, adopting several of the old man's quirks and techniques. Shiki earned her freedom, but chose to remain employed with NT, if only to stay closer to her mentor. But all good things must come to an end. Yoshie was no spring chicken, and had already been cloned at least twice. A fatal defect eventually lead to him expiring in 2458. As a final sendoff to her mentor, Shiki adopted his last name as she signed a contract with NT for a new shell chassis to better fit in with human society. The next three years were spent aimlessly following along her Mentor's footsteps, until she realized her growth had stagnated. In an attempt to fix this, Shiki requested a transfer to a permanent space station where she could learn and thrive, which was granted in The Aurora.

What do you like about this character?
Shiki is able to emulate emotions fairly convincingly, but at the end of the day is still a cold machine. One moment she could be very warm and intimate in order to fit in, and the next cold and calculating, which should make for some interesting interrogations. She is a character who feels stable and in control of their life, despite the fact that it may very well change for the worse soon depending on how the SLF events impact IPCs as a whole. They may thoroughly convince some people of their human nature, and balancing between acting human, and keeping their cases factual and cold should make for an interesting dynamic; specifically in that they may avoid speaking about their work in order to hide their true nature. What is and isn't their true nature is going to be shaped largely by people they interact with, which is one of my favorite aspects of this game.

How would you rate your role-playing ability?

About a 7/10. There's always room for improvement, and it can be difficult for me to get into characters that I don't have any strong connection with.

Notes:

I'm always willing to adjust my application based on feedback, even so far as large aspects of the backstory. 

Edited August 14, 2019 by kyres1

[BoryaTheSlayer]

*buzz
Hi! Sorry I didn't say anything on your command app. Time to make up for that.
I trust Nantei to play a good IPC game, and your app is written clear, concise and still shows that you know your stuff.
plus we need more synths for the uprising, join us
+1 cool person haha

[NewOriginalSchwann]

*scream

Hello! I said something on your command app and now I am back to haunt you even more.

Like Borya I have absolute confidence in Nantei to play an IPC well, and their app is well-done (it's better than mine was when I first posted it, to be frank).

-1 will inevitably steal my detective slot from me

REAL GAMER BIG +1 IT HURTS TO TYPE LIKE THIS

[Wigglesworth Jones]

I must post something because Nantei is holding my family hostage.

As Schwann said, I think that Nantei will be able to play a synthetic competently, and I'm sure that their synthetic characters will be interesting and well-rounded and other buzzwords. 

+1

[kyres1]

Apologies for the wait. Let's cover this.

As far as I'm concerned, you play mainly Phi Rathens and seem to center around them a lot. While you've branched out to other characters recently, I fear the fact that you're applying with someone of the same job will just end up making a metal, emotionless Phi. That's just one personal worry though, and I won't let it get in the way of processing this application, but it's a worry nonetheless. As for the application -

On 09/08/2019 at 20:44, Nantei said:

Shiki started off as a station-side experiment for Roth Designs, handling their internal investigations as a field test of sorts. While It was good at making logical decisions when it reached them, the lack of expressed emotion proved an issue for interviews, and lead to several changes to Its positronic to better facilitate face-to-face interviews on a wider range of subjects.

To what extent did these changes occur? This seems like pretty needlessly circumventing something that's already in place to provide exactly what the end goal here is. By that, I mean that positronics grow - they learn, adapt, and over time develop greater capabilities while sacrificing the unnecessary bits to pursue that (exactly like the human brain).  This is referenced here -

Quote

As a positronic ages, its internal memory grows, and the more likely it becomes to pursue a nonstandard occupation. From hobbies to developing self-learned traits, many paths are opened as the robot grows older. These may include seeking alternative fields of work, though few have survived long enough to let this potentiality come to light.

on the IPC page. Adapting and forming emotional simulations at a minimum is definitely not out of scope of this. Basically what I'm trying to say is it seems like you went over a trait of IPCs, and just went straight to a trait of robots to accomplish what you needed, which was greater emotional comprehension.

On 09/08/2019 at 20:44, Nantei said:

As a final sendoff to her mentor, Shiki adopted his last name as she signed a contract with NT for a new shell chassis to better fit in with human society.

Is this the only reason they'd seek a highly costly Shell frame? Does it further their work, and assist in their survival to acquire one, or is it just "better fitting in?" I ask because you never expressly covered the fact that Shiki had any interest in pursuing such a thing, yet suddenly they're devoting a gargantuan workload of over a million credits of debt to better fit in.

On 09/08/2019 at 20:44, Nantei said:

Shiki is able to emulate emotions fairly convincingly, but at the end of the day is still a cold machine. One moment she could be very warm and intimate in order to fit in, and the next cold and calculating, which should make for some interesting interrogations.

? This ? scares ? me.

I can not stress enough how much things like this sound like "I only emote when I care" or "I only emote when it's beneficial to me." A veeeeeeeeery important factor of IPCs, despite being robots, is trying to understand how emotions work. There is no reason an IPC even attempting to comprehend these things would suddenly flip switches between whatever emotion you may feel is random at any given point in time, as jarring as it may seem. However, I do have a piece of advice for this, moving forward playing robots in general.

Everything happens for a reason. Humans experience this in a manner that is very difficult to predict, but when you're playing a robot, you are very capable of divining reasoning for every action yourself. Try to focus more on the reasoning and buildup to things, rather than attempting to alter a narrative with whatever sounds "robotic" to you at any given point in time. If you need examples for me to elaborate upon, simply ask.

Beyond that, I'll wait until you address what I've said and we can discuss what to do with this app.

[Nantei]

3 hours ago, kyres1 said:

To what extent did these changes occur? This seems like pretty needlessly circumventing something that's already in place to provide exactly what the end goal here is. By that, I mean that positronics grow - they learn, adapt, and over time develop greater capabilities while sacrificing the unnecessary bits to pursue that (exactly like the human brain).  This is referenced here -

on the IPC page. Adapting and forming emotional simulations at a minimum is definitely not out of scope of this. Basically what I'm trying to say is it seems like you went over a trait of IPCs, and just went straight to a trait of robots to accomplish what you needed, which was greater emotional comprehension.

That's a pretty easy fix. I wasn't sure exactly how far IPC learning went, so I thought it might make sense that they would repurpose their programming a bit to give them a kick in the right direction.

3 hours ago, kyres1 said:

Is this the only reason they'd seek a highly costly Shell frame? Does it further their work, and assist in their survival to acquire one, or is it just "better fitting in?" I ask because you never expressly covered the fact that Shiki had any interest in pursuing such a thing, yet suddenly they're devoting a gargantuan workload of over a million credits of debt to better fit in.

One of the problems with a short format, I felt like I had to rush things along to remain concise, specifically regarding their relationship with their mentor which is a large forming aspect of their personality. I could expand on that, if you want. But to answer the actual question: It's for a multitude of reasons. Fitting in better often means being treated overall much better, at least by most people. It's easier for people to relate to something that looks like them, so it's overall just extremely beneficial to their work and overall quality of life. Of course that's double-edged, especially now with the shell infiltrators, but I think overall she would decide the benefits outweighed the cons.

3 hours ago, kyres1 said:

I can not stress enough how much things like this sound like "I only emote when I care" or "I only emote when it's beneficial to me." A veeeeeeeeery important factor of IPCs, despite being robots, is trying to understand how emotions work. There is no reason an IPC even attempting to comprehend these things would suddenly flip switches between whatever emotion you may feel is random at any given point in time, as jarring as it may seem. However, I do have a piece of advice for this, moving forward playing robots in general.

Everything happens for a reason. Humans experience this in a manner that is very difficult to predict, but when you're playing a robot, you are very capable of divining reasoning for every action yourself. Try to focus more on the reasoning and buildup to things, rather than attempting to alter a narrative with whatever sounds "robotic" to you at any given point in time. If you need examples for me to elaborate upon, simply ask.

We may need to discuss this like, on Discord, so I can more thoroughly understand exactly what you mean here. I might reword it to make it more clear, but basically I figured the emulation of emotions on IPC's lead to them as sort of a guideline that they had control over. So what I was trying to say here is: They can change what emotions they are showing to benefit the situation. Essentially, they aren't particularly prideful as a rule. Specifically regarding the last sentence, I figured she might be able to pretend to be coldly robotic to intimidate if she thought it was beneficial; sort of similar to what IRU's do.

[kyres1]

Good enough answers for me, and a brief discussion was had on discord regarding what I meant here.

Application accepted.