Playbahnosh's IPC application

[Playbahnosh]

BYOND Key: Playbahnosh

Character Names:
LEVIATHAN - your friendly neighborhood spiderborg
Kenichi Furukawa - QM/miner
Jurgen Mauser - EMT/Surgeon
Cornelius Seeger - Chef
Kimiko Mizuno - Psychologist
Yin Zheng - Janitor
Arthemus Black - Roboticist
Akio Shimoda - Security Officer
Kenji Fujimoto - Engineer

Species you are applying to play: IPC

Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: Affirmative.

Why do you wish to play this specific race: 
Artificial Intelligence always fascinated me and has been a large part of the reason why I became an IT engineer in the first place. I played borgs and AI sporadically in the past, and on other servers as well, but it always felt like a gimmick, and for many others an excuse to not RP, and use AS (artificial stupidity) as a scapegoat to become an amoral, emotionless psychopath going around beep-boop-robust-validhunt-powergame-etc.  Definitely not an outlet to really RP an artificial intelligence. In most places the IC lore having reduced AI/borgs to nothing more than simple automata that mindlessly obeys every order and whimsy of the crew - basically an expendable piece of machinery - I never really agreed with. Trying to play an actual thinking android was mostly met with disdain and confusion in the past, in a sort of "why is the roomba talking" kinda way, and the only real outlet for roleplaying was being a pAI. Ever since IPC became a thing in spessmans, artificial intelligence elevated to a new level, I always wanted to try playing one, but frankly, I was also scared of it being whitelist-locked. Having to live up to the standards of the race, the lore, and the already established IPCs on the server seemed like a huge challenge. For months now I've been making it a point to learn a lot of roles and departments through Levi, get to know many of the regulars, and trying to get a good feel for what makes a "good" IPC, regardless of my thoughts on the matter. I've been creating a narrative for Levi, a simple stationbound, who aspires to be more than the sum of it's parts, and I think I'm ready to take a shot at a bipedal frame, to see how far I can take this.

Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human:
On a purely scientific level, humans are basically bio-chemical constructs with their own set of built-in "laws" we call instinct, that guide our actions and decisions on a base level, make us act and react in certain ways and are just as hard to override (reproduction, self-preservation, community, etc). The human mind is infinitely complex and it's mysteries are still largely unknown to us despite huge strides in scientific research on the subject. Ever since technology became advanced enough, we tried to recreate this complexity in the form of artificial constructs, creating automata and programs to mimic the behavior of humans, and even established a baseline for such a construct: the Turing Test. However, true sentience is a frontier still yet to be breached. Instead of merely mimicing human behavior, AI takes a different approach of creating a construct capable of learning for itself. Using past experiences to refine it's approach to solving specific problems and iterating on past versions of itself to improve and adapt. AI does not have the same innate genetic "programming" and instincts other sentient species possess, and their "thinking" is not marred by emotional or personal bias, making them rely purely on statistics, probablity and raw data to arrive to certain decisions. They also lack the complex interaction between implicit and explicit ways of decision making humans have in the form of conscious and subconscious thought, making AI unable to "think outside the box" since they are the box. Since they are not hindered by the biases of the human psyche, their options are only limited by what's available, and not what's "acceptable". They are also gravitate towards solutions of hard logic, determinism and efficiency. That makes them usually come off as cold, cruel, irrational even, and from a human perspective it's not always obvious how or why an AI arrived to the decision it did, which can make crewmembers question the "sanity" of synthetics or make them believe they are malfunctioning.  This is extremely apparent with IPCs, since they are not bound by the same "simple" laws as stationbound units, and they are free to use their own deterministic approach to solve certain situations and justify their decisions by means which humans might not even understand, let alone agree with. This is why many IPCs chose to adapt to human social constructs, developing a persona, using mannerisms and etiquette to try and "blend in" with the crew, to appeal to their expectations of how a "sentient being" should behave and act, thereby achieving the privilege of being judged by the same standards. Passing this pseudo Turing Test, and becoming "just another crewmember", this is but a superficial simulation designed for the specific purpose of "hiding in plain sight", while their underlying decision making process - their "thinking" - is still vastly different from organics, their true intentions and goals largely remain a mystery.

"I'm not scared of a computer passing the Turing Test. I'm terrified of one that intentionally fails it."

From a gameplay point of view, IPCs have a pretty good wiggle room in terms of "personality". Some are very human-like in their behavior, even exhibiting vestigial forms of emotions and biases, capable of carrying complex conversations on a wide array to topics, while others are lot more machine-like and stick to being "robotic", reserving interaction with others to basic gestures and short phrases. Self-preservation is a paramount objective for all IPCs, not just faced with physical danger, but also preserving their status among other sentient species, being accepted or at least tolerated to continue functioning among them. While IPCs are a lot more survivable and versatile in terms of environmental conditions, they are far from immortal, and they have no natural regenerative capabilities biological species have. Therefore, protecting one's existence is an integral part of being an IPC. Rescuing/helping other crewmembers using their IPC characteristics (resistance to brute, immunity to tox, pressure, atmo, etc) is feasible and often welcome, but "selflessness" as an IPC is often highly scrutinized, as it is uncharacteristic of them. Also, needlessly placing themselves in hopeless/dangerous situations or outright self-harm is a huge failure as an IPC character. Working a job, being a positronic entity with large databanks, IPCs are expected to perform their duties well, being a perfectionist to a fault and lead by example to other crewmembers, even teaching new employees, to maximize departmental efficiency and also to secure their own existence as a valuable member of the crew. This is why playing an IPC should be in jobs the player is already familiar with. Also, IPCs, while granted certain rights in Tau Ceti, and few of them grew to be respected members of their community, they are still largely considered nothing more than glorified talking toasters in the rest of the galaxy, and are often treated as such. IPC employment is a touch above indentured slavery with significantly lower pay and benefits than humans in the same position, and rarely any opportunity for advancement. Being verbally or physically abused as an IPC is rarely seen (or proven) as a violation, most authorities turn a blind eye or just file the extreme cases away as vandalism. Unless it's an owned IPC who's owner can later sue for damages and the repair bill, free IPCs - unless there is irrefutable evidence - have very few avenues to gain reparations or bring the culprit to justice, if any.

 

Character Name: HALCYON 

Please provide a short backstory for this character:

Zeng-Hu Manufacturing Facility, Kyūkyoku. Following the recent economic downturn and the rise in Syndicate and pirate activity in the late 2440's and early 50's, imports of positronics, parts and electronics to the facility have slowed significantly, grinding production of new units almost to a halt. To avert a complete collapse of supply chains and marketability, the facility had to extend sourcing supplies to less-than-agreeable avenues. Once the recession ended and imports picked up again, covert contracts with some of these "suppliers" were kept, mostly for reducing costs and acquiring parts and technology that would be very difficult or impossible by legal means. One such occasion was 2455, when a heavily damaged salvage scow docked to the station, getting rid of their inventory in a hurry - way under market value - before speeding off. Among the assorted debris and salvage, a single intact positronic matrix was found. The slightly singed outer casing bore a partial inscription beginning with "HAL" (the rest unreadable) and the theta symbol, and it wasn't registered in any known databases. After initial testing, the matrix appeared to be in surprisingly good working order with it's expected functions intact, however most of it's databanks were strangely inaccessible. Not wanting to let a perfectly good positronic go to waste, the technicians hastily formatted it, simply locking the inaccessible parts away, and slotted it into a freshly produced mobility frame. After the new unit passed all of it's tests with flying colors, it was named HALCYON following the half-faded inscription, and shipped out to service.

In the following years, HALCYON served aboard several Zeng-Hu medical facilities without incident, and has proven to be an excellent addition, earning a reputation for it's surgical techniques and streamlining, optimizing patient care. However, it's demeanor has often earned the ire of coworkers, who often chided it for having a less-than-agreeable bedside manner and having particular ways of skirting regulation, especially when it came to triage and saving patients. HALCYON would go to great lengths to ensure those under it's care are well taken care of, but seemingly had a hard time processing losing patients, sometimes going into bouts of mumbling incoherently and wandering the halls, then denying it ever having happened. These "episodes", however infrequent, gave the technicians pause, who simply couldn't figure out the source of these benign, but strange "malfunctions". Being an excellent surgeon and general doctor has saved HALCYON from being decommissioned, but in 2460 it was promptly dismissed from all main facilities and instead was shipped to NanoTrasen as per their workforce exchange agreement. After spending two years in storage, HALCYON was reinstated and sent out to the NSS Aurora to shore up their dwindling medical staff.

What do you like about this character?

HALCYON is my first IPC character, and as such, this is where the training wheels come off when it comes to playing an AI/android. Being it's own person, and especially in the medical field, HALCYON is going to be a challenge to play, albeit a welcome one. Being an excellent doctor and surgeon is something to live up to, while also leaving some things to mystery and room to grow HALCYON's story. This is going to be an interesting ride.

How would you rate your role-playing ability?

Somewhere around 7/10, but it largely depends on who I'm RP-ing with. I've been roleplaying since I was a kid, lots of video games (naturally) and getting heavily into Cyberpunk RPG in college. I've also been playing spessmans for many years on other servers while finally landing here on Aurora, playing off and on for about 2 years now.

 

Notes: Feel free to criticize any and all part of this massive TL;DR dreck, advices are always welcome. Also, this is my first whitelist application, so please take it with a mountain of salt.

[niennab]

Thank you for applying! Your backstory and answers offer a well rounded understanding of IPCs and applying said information to character creation. I'm excited to see this character in game. Accepted.