Kaizr's Dumb IPC Whitelist Application

[Kaizr]

BYOND Key: Kaizr

 

Character Names: Malia Deimos (Roboticist), Salitia Mary (EPMC CSI), Diamond (Android).

 

Species you are applying to play: IPC

 

What color do you plan on making your first alien character: Elyran Wasat IPC Shell

 

Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: Yes, I have thoroughly read the lore.

 

Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph format. One paragraph minimum per question.

 

Why do you wish to play this specific race:

Besides the obvious affinity most people have with being able to stand out and be unique I have a myriad of reasons for wanting to play this race. The most outstanding reason is my fascination with the IPC lore which is extremely unique and dynamic in its application in roleplay. There are so many different ways you can look at it and generate fun and engaging stories for characters and roleplay as a whole. And, this interest has grown more and more as I got to further interact with IPC characters and see all of the unique personalities, background and designs that people have masterfully crafted, no two IPCs are the same, whether they be shells, industrial models or baselines. 

 

Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human:

Roleplaying an IPC character comes with a plethora of interesting mechanics which open up the possibility for all sorts of different characters. There are so many ways someone can take the character and the way they interact with the world around them, from playing a cold and calculative frame who only aim is to serve their owner; to a shell doing their best to be as human as possible, or even try to hide their true nature outright all to fit into a world that has undoubtedly wronged them. 

 

Character Name: Valeria

 

Please provide a short backstory for this character:

Valeria, originally commissioned by Nasir Pharmaceuticals, a small pharmaceutical company situated in Ashkhaimi on Perispolis and owned by the late Nasir al-Farid, an Elyran entrepreneur and retired neurosurgeon. She was commissioned from Zadar Robotics on December 9th, 2457 for the modest price of 543,000 credits. The production of the shell that would soon be Valeria began on the 17th in Uthma on a small government subsidized production line. Upon completion, she was serialized as Zadar Integrated Positronic Chassis 0111001437 and shipped out to Ashkhaimi on the 24th. And, finally, after nearly a week of jumping from delivery location to delivery location arrived at the headquarters of Nasir Pharmaceuticals and assigned as one of three general practitioners at a company-owned clinic in Ashkhaimi. She would quickly become respected among the staff and her patients, and to some, their preferred medical care professional for her accuracy and her light-hearted, friendly demeanor which was a subject of her programming and exposure to organic behavior.

 

The next couple months would pass by without conflict or significant events, much of it swamped with unending work for the still rather young shell, a select few of her colleagues realizing how they could discretely push their work onto her shoulders despite her protest. Nonetheless, she held a stable workplace relationship with her colleagues, though considered few actual friends. This, however, all changed when the need for trained medical personnel skyrocketed during the Lii’dra incursion. Nasir al-Farid saw the possible profit and public relations boost if he volunteered a willing portion of his medical staff to aid the relief efforts and operate in backline hospitals, and Valeria was one of them. Within a few days, on August 29th, 2458 she found herself, alongside 27 other doctors, surgeons, and physicians, being shipped off to Bursa aboard the EMV Najjad, a small hospital ship. Upon her arrival, she was assigned as a physician to a moderately sized surgical center situated on the edge of New Cairo. It was in this nearly two-year-long tenure that Valeria was able to bear witness to the horrors of war, seeing hundreds of patients in her tenure, varying from the mortally wounded soldiers to those unfortunate enough to get caught in the crossfire. This is where she developed a deep-seated disliking for most Vaurca; her self-preservation protocols determining that any one of them could pose a significant threat to her existence based on the sheer brutality of Lii’dra forces. And this mindset continues to this day in the form of showing notable discomfort around Vaurca, choosing to avoid them when possible. 

 

Nonetheless, she continued her work in the surgical center up until the advent of the Lii’dra deployment of biological weaponry on New Cairo, forcing a majority of the staff to hastily evacuate. This left Valeria alongside four other doctors stranded in the exclusion zone due to the sheer chaos of the evacuation and subsequent lockdown, and where for the next 2 months she and the staff remained hidden away in a small cafeteria storeroom in the basement. It was in this time that Valeria began to really take in the concept of ‘friendship’ as those trapped within the storeroom developed a strong comradery, which Valeria took great interest in observing. After around two weeks of remaining in the storeroom, she began to ease into the group they had developed whilst in captivity, becoming particularly fond of a female surgeon by the name of Mayke Bayat. Mayke would have a notably large impact on Valeria’s overall view of life, introducing many concepts and oddities that no amount of programming could teach an IPC to properly understand. Two weeks turned to three, and then four, five, and six before the word had spread that those trapped in New Cairo would be freed, with the cardox bombing occurring not long after the word had reached them. And, after nearly two months of living in a humid, dirty storeroom the group of five emerged and were evacuated shortly afterward.

 

Valeria, Mayke, and the remaining personnel remained planetside for three more days before finally boarding a shuttle to return to Perispolis and to the clinic where it had all began. Much to the shock of the group they had long since been replaced, presumed dead by Nasir Pharmaceuticals. While for Valeria this simply meant reassignment, for the Mayke and the three other doctors she had grown close to, their employment had since been terminated with little chance of reemployment. Despite protest among some of the staff present the choice had already been made. And, with a heavy heart and final goodbyes, four left. For the first time in Valeria’s relatively short life, she had experienced a feeling she couldn’t quite comprehend fully. Was it an issue with her software? Or possibly a hardware malfunction? After a short moment, the realization dawned upon the unit, they were sad. To be unhappy, or in this case sad, was not something most would think of when it comes to an IPC. Why would someone create an AI that can feel sorrow when their ultimate goal was to serve their creators? These sorts of thoughts raced through her processing unit. In all of her time, through all of her experiences, she had never felt sadness. Why do they have to leave? They aren’t considered nearly as expendable as she is, right? This plagued the shell for the remainder of her employment with Nasir Pharmaceuticals as a standard physician, which extended far past January 1st, 2461, the date she officially was granted Elyran citizenship and was considered a free IPC. Finally, after four more months of employment with the company as a free IPC, she ended her employment with them, closing the first chapter of her life and opening the next.

Valeria sought out alternative employment later on, now residing in a reasonably sized condo in Ashkhaimi, leading what most would consider a decent life. The loss of one of the few people who seemingly understood and considered her a friend still remained deeply engrained in her memory database, the ‘emotion’ she experienced was something that greatly interested the unit, something she wished to learn more about. Though her programming opened up a notable amount of job opportunities she willingly avoided the majority of them, seeking something that would allow her to further indulge herself in organic culture from all across the galaxy. Something that would allow her to better understand what other ‘emotions’ were. And, after weeks of searching and a slowly dwindling bank account, she found a position that met all the parameters she found adequate, employment on a Nanotrasen station by the name of the Aurora. Assessing the risk of her citizenship not applying within Biesel she deemed it negligible and with that, she began her employment with Nanotrasen as a physician on the NSS Aurora.

 

What do you like about this character?

Being a relatively young IPC, originally programmed to be an efficient, hardworking unit that’s personality resembled that of a young, upbeat lady and still has much to learn about organic culture and society opens up a lot of interesting paths for RP. And of course one could say I am just praising my own creation, which is true, everyone does it, but that doesn’t mean my point is devoid of meaning. I think it will be a unique and interesting experience that will help me develop my own roleplaying abilities and hopefully provide a fun and interesting character for others to interact with.

 

How would you rate your role-playing ability?

Overall I’d rate my roleplaying abilities a 6.5-7/10, I do my best to convey emotion through speech and emotes but I could definitely improve in both fields. Hopefully, with the opportunity to play a more unique character in an HRP environment I’ll be able to further develop the quality of my roleplay.

Notes: Please note that this is the first whitelist application I’ve ever written for an SS13 server so there are probably a lot of glaring issues! I’ll do my utmost best to answer as many questions as possible and change every aspect of the story to fit the requirements if need be, but I do ask that you bear with me on some fronts. (I apologize if the story is edgy or Mary Sue-ish, I tried my best to make it interesting and unique without doing that!)

Edited January 30, 2021 by Kaizr

[Kaizr]

Just a little addition to the origin story, I couldn't get a hold of any Elyran lore writers at the time and the lore around who exactly produces Elyran synthetics, whether that be Elyran companies or megacorps (or both) was a bit fuzzy.

[niennab]

Thank you for applying! I enjoyed reading Valeria's backstory and it's nice seeing the Elyran IPC lore used.

Are you able to expand on this portion here? You detail how varied IPCs can be, but not so much how they differ from roleplaying a human.

21 hours ago, Kaizr said:

Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human:

 

[Kaizr]

1 hour ago, niennab said:

Thank you for applying! I enjoyed reading Valeria's backstory and it's nice seeing the Elyran IPC lore used.

Are you able to expand on this portion here? You detail how varied IPCs can be, but not so much how they differ from roleplaying a human.

 

Of course! Aside from having various mechanical differences (hardware and various capabilities that humans would not have) you are also expected to represent an AI that is built to emulate organic interaction and culture to the best of it's ability. A lot of IPCs will often speak in a very polite, and straightforward manner, often not utilizing contractions such as "I'm" and "Doesn't". This of course does not apply to all IPCs as depending on the backstory of the character or the age of the brain itself they may act more or less organic. And, no matter how much data and time the positronic has at it's disposal it will of course, never perfectly emulate organic social behavior. Alongside this, self preservation takes the highest priority for an IPC and the player should always take that into account while pairing this with the analytical and binary thought process of an AI. 

 

Hopefully this is enough! I could try to go into more detail but I might be repeating myself at this point. (Really sorry how long it took to get back to you on this by the way.)

Edited January 30, 2021 by Kaizr

[The Stryker]

I like the detail put into the backstory but I have to raise a few points,

Quote

The next couple months would pass by without conflict or significant events, much of it swamped with unending work for the still rather young shell, a select few of her colleagues realizing how they could discretely push their work onto her shoulders despite her protest.

My first question is where Valeria got the impulse to protest? Was it innate in the programming? This seems like a fairly free action to take for an owned IPC.

Quote

Nonetheless, she held a stable workplace relationship with her colleagues, though considered few actual friends.

Can you expand on this? How did Valeria form these friendships? How did it affect them (and their perception of the world), especially since much later on you go back to the idea of Valeria discovering friendship?

More over, how did Valeria move from simply focusing on work to deciding friendships were something to cultivate?

Quote

This is where she developed a deep-seated disliking for most Vaurca; her self-preservation protocols determining that any one of them could pose a significant threat to her existence based on the sheer brutality of Lii’dra forces. And this mindset continues to this day in the form of showing notable discomfort around Vaurca, choosing to avoid them when possible.

As a side note, I enjoyed the usage of self-preservation here.

Quote

After around two weeks of remaining in the storeroom, she began to ease into the group they had developed whilst in captivity, becoming particularly fond of a female surgeon by the name of Mayke Bayat.

What made Valeria feel or think to feel a particular fondness for Mayke, or more accurately, how did they think to convert friendship to fondness?

Quote

While for Valeria this simply meant reassignment, for the Mayke and the three other doctors she had grown close to, their employment had since been terminated with little chance of reemployment. Despite protest among some of the staff present the choice had already been made. And, with a heavy heart and final goodbyes, four left.

Not quite as important, but what other effects did Mayke and the rest have on Valeria? Do they still keep in contact? Does this still affect the IPC?

Quote

Something that would allow her to better understand what other ‘emotions’ were.

In all, with the references to emotion and the fairly human reactions, it seems that Valeria already knows about emotions. What changes if this character is a human?

[Kaizr]

31 minutes ago, The Stryker said:

My first question is where Valeria got the impulse to protest? Was it innate in the programming? This seems like a fairly free action to take for an owned IPC.

The majority of their protest came from the fact that it was not their original tasking to handle the work and operations of other staff members (general practitioners, physicians, specialists). And, in doing so it ran the risk of inhibiting their ability to carry out said original tasking as a general practitioner, which was mostly notably working as a diagnostician and providing referrals (to hospitals, specialist, and treatment types).

 

33 minutes ago, The Stryker said:

Can you expand on this? How did Valeria form these friendships? How did it affect them (and their perception of the world), especially since much later on you go back to the idea of Valeria discovering friendship?

More over, how did Valeria move from simply focusing on work to deciding friendships were something to cultivate?

 Much of their social interactions were derivatives from an attempt to emulate human societal norms to better fit into the workplace, which in turn held the chance of increasing productivity and overall allow the staff to feel more comfortable while working with an IPC. However, as they continued to develop these 'friendships', which originally held little actual value to the shell other than their possible benefits and opportunities they opened to further passively intake data about organic behavior.

 

46 minutes ago, The Stryker said:

What made Valeria feel or think to feel a particular fondness for Mayke, or more accurately, how did they think to convert friendship to fondness?

Maybe fondness wasn't the best word but I'll keep it nonetheless. Valeria grew close to Mayke for a variety of reasons. Not only had they been stuck in an insolated location with them for a prolonged period of time but they were also Valeria's best bet for self-preservation. And the last thing Valeria would want to do is isolate themselves further and greaten the risk destruction. So, this fondness developed further as this was one of the few times in Valeria's lifetime where the only thing there was to do was observe organic behavior and learn from it. Which, when first invited by Mayke to engage with the group, whether it be basic conversation, or storytelling, Valeria saw this as a friendly gesture from Mayke that should be returned. These offered a form of stimuli for the positronic brain that had not yet been thoroughly discovered or experience. Though unable to decipher exactly what it was but it provided the IPC a form of 'peace of mind', an assurance that the group and herself would survive the conflict. Which, all in all is something Valeria wanted to experience more of.

 

1 hour ago, The Stryker said:

Not quite as important, but what other effects did Mayke and the rest have on Valeria? Do they still keep in contact? Does this still affect the IPC?

As I touched on above, they introduced Valeria to various social bonds that organics develop when around one another often, and introduced her to what they didn't quite understand was the closest thing to real friendship they had ever experienced. This is something that Valeria would be left to consider and build on when not working after their departure. Despite doing their absolute best to stay connected with the group as an attempt to stay close, the months of separation causing one after another to slowly fade away. And eventually, no longer responding to the rather flat, straightforward emails that Valeria wrote, asking simple questions such as how they were, what they've been up to and similar things. With each person they fell out of touch with, the IPC would experience a renewed sense of confusion and 'sadness', something that they would grow to understand in a basic context. "Something bad has happened, I do not like this thing, this thing causes me some form of distress."

 

1 hour ago, The Stryker said:

In all, with the references to emotion and the fairly human reactions, it seems that Valeria already knows about emotions. What changes if this character is a human?

I see where you're coming from, a lot of their reactions are admittedly too human for what is expected and I understand how that is very problematic. If I were to chalk this up to two things it would be her original programming, they were made to emulate a friendly out-going individual that patients feel they could trust, even if they didn't understand the meaning of anything they were saying in their first few months of work. Alongside this I believe the majority of their understanding came from witnessing it first hand in an insolated environment. Much similar to how a toddler picks up on meaning and emotions by watching their parents. And, when humans are cooped up with no where else to go for weeks on end they tend to become very close, which opened the path for Valeria to directly interact with it in a somewhat meaningful manner. (Being able to influence these, and maybe unintentionally develop their own.)

This of course would drastically change had they been a human because a human would understand the meaning behind all of this. A human knows when they are sad, angry, overjoyed, worried from a very young age, and often have a deep understanding of why they feel this way. But, this does not excuse my poor wording and story writing abilities. I admit that the final portions of this story were somewhat rushed as I had been working for an extended period of time and was doing my best to find a somewhat swift conclusion to the story.

All in all, I hope I answered these questions well enough, but I understand if these infractions are grounds for denial as they are quite serious due to the nature of IPCs and the limit of how human they can be. I'd also like to apologize if any of these answers are difficult to understand or outright wrong, I did my best to make a logical, well orchestrated answer but I am notoriously bad at things such as that.

[niennab]

Thank you for addressing Stryker’s questions. Emulating emotions as an IPC can be difficult in finding the right balance however I am certain you will succeed. Your application demonstrates an understanding of IPCs and the ability to apply said concepts to character creation. Accepted.