synthetic Jrphoenix303's IPC WL Application

[jrphoenix303]

BYOND Key: jrphoenix303

Character Names:

Otoha Seong – Xenoarcheologist

Monna Al-Miah - Roboticist

Madeline Lamber - Bartender

Forgotten Glimpse Of A Starry Night – Lab Assistant

Phoenicks - Serviceborg

Species you are applying to play: IPC

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

Why do you wish to play this specific race?

                I find the unique situations that IPCs can find themselves in interesting. From all my interactions with synthetics, and even befriending a couple on different characters, the huge variation in how they behave and operate makes me want to experience it from the other point of view.

 

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

IPCs can behave a lot like a human, or even look like one. However, the way they calculate cause and effect, weigh options and process all their available information makes them (in theory) far smarter than a human. However, I believe that nothing is infallible - even IPCs. When making all the ‘best’ decisions still results in failure, they will have to come to terms with it in ways I imagine a human would not. Humans can tell themselves they took the best course of actions. IPCs can know they did their best, and yet it still was not enough.

The way that IPCs ‘understand’ human behaviour, in ways such as speaking, moving, and behaving also make their differences shine. With the simply imperfect mimicking throwing off many organic people, it seems like a strong point of contention in the argument of whether they are even alive in the first place.

 

Character Name: HCM-142 (Hephaestus Cargo Machine), aka ‘HC’.

Please provide a short backstory for this character:

                Hephaestus Cargo Machine-142, alternatively known as ‘HC’ as of late, is an early “First Generation” Industrial unit. Painted in the usual topaz-orange of the early models, they stand tall and strong, always ready to work. HC was not produced with much of a personality suite, and lacking the ability to make much small talk – They were simply built to communicate information concisely and return to work. Their existence has been laborious, working day and night with only recharging and maintenance to break the cycle of moving, organizing, and delivering.

                This cycle remained for about twenty years, and with the “Second Generation” Industrial and Xion Model units becoming more commonplace in HC’s varied workplaces in Hephaestus cargo facilities, HC’s decline in usefulness began. As they were moved in, HC was moved out, gradually being pushed into more gruelling environments their company did not want to put the ‘nicer’ units in. This caused more wear and tear than usual, and time took its toll as their paint became faded and parts fixed less often.

                This, internally, gave HC the feeling of uselessness that results in being less-than-optimal in work, and only continued to cause their company’s opinion of their use to decline further. As time went on and the years passed, HC’s usefulness was near zero to their company, and they were sold off on the market to NanoTrasen for cheap. In a moderate state of disrepair due to age and lack of maintenance, they were fixed up with surplus parts from other G1 units, and put to work doing what they knew best: Moving freight and mining. They were placed in far better conditions than at their previous company, and eventually NT moved HC to be stationed at phoron research stations, to mine and move the fruit of the crew’s labours. They have been more productive there than ever before, learning bit by bit to communicate for more than simply giving work-related information to their co-workers, and allowing HC to feel useful again, despite their age.

 

What do you like about this character?

I enjoy the story of HC’s ‘downfall’ as you could call it. The feeling that you are one day going to not be capable of as much as is demanded of you is always ever looming for IPCs, and the constant push against it is certainly something HC is doing. I also haven’t seen any G1 units regularly from my recent memory, and I thought it would be quite interesting to play the position of a slightly less powerful, but well-travelled IPC whose knowledge and capacity to teach may outweigh their shortcomings in terms of versatility and function.

 

How would you rate your role-playing ability?

I’d still say I’m at an 8/10 like I was at my last application.

 

Notes: Wow, this looked like a lot more text in Word.

Edited May 14, 2021 by jrphoenix303

[niennab]

Thank you for applying, are you able to greatly expand on the question of how they differ from humans? Consider the systematic or Aurora specific differences. What is an IPC beyond mimicry?

If HC was programmed only to communicate concisely and return to work, how are they able to form relations now that they're on the Aurora? What are their thoughts on freedom, or their own identity? Where did they work? Twenty years is a lot of time. What more happened in that time that shaped the character? Why do they go by HC?

Why would an IPC, feeling useless, opt to intentionally work less-than-optimally? If NT went through the burden to repair the unit, why didn't the original company do so?

Edited May 14, 2021 by niennab

[jrphoenix303]

Hi! Thanks for the questions. Here goes - forgive any spelling mistakes I missed on my once-over.

7 hours ago, niennab said:

greatly expand on the question of how they differ from humans?

On the subject of how they differ from humans. I realize now that I hadn’t gone over one of the major factors in IPCs: Their goal of self-preservation. This also plays a big part of what can make a synthetic different from a human. A human could act selflessly, sacrifice themselves for something even, but an IPC would be able to calculate the options far quicker and effectively, and most importantly, keep itself functional. Whether that means its entire chassis or just its posibrain would be up to individual understanding of their prime directive.

This directive in itself has allowed each individual IPC to do all manner of different activities. To live a unique life, even. Some look for money to maintain themselves, others may look to be selfless, helping just about anyone to show their worth – each IPC understands this directive slightly differently. No two are exactly the same, and this appealed to me when I decided to apply to be whitelisted: the uniqueness of every single unit, even if produced off the exact same factory line.

Another major difference is the legality of IPCs in general. Dominia must seem like a constant looming concern for some units, with their dismantle order on all synthetics. Even then, IPCs must be tagged in Tau Ceti space, giving them a sort of ‘branding’ which will always allow them to be found sooner or later, should they try to run away or otherwise not be where they are supposed to be. This tagging seems to be generally accepted, however I’ve seen and been told about untagged IPCs, which are very, very illegal where the Aurora is stationed. To be found out as one must certainly be a constant looming threat to any untagged unit who shows their face – and I can only assume it would be mainly shells who would even attempt this in the first place.

Outside of tagging, an IPC would also differ insofar as their ‘owned’ status would affect them. Company owned, privately owned, or self-owned IPCs would all behave to criticism, complains, et cetera differently. While a company owned unit may simply offer a line to air concerns to, a privately owned IPC may record the concerns and bring them to their owner. A self-owned IPC would have no one to report to, and would have to just process any complains itself and decide where to go from there. This is another bit of uniqueness that differentiates a synthetic from a human – whether or not they can directly grow from their mistakes, or simply disregard it and forward on what happened. Humans will always (usually) learn from their mistakes.

7 hours ago, niennab said:

how are they able to form relations now that they're on the Aurora?

HC was indeed programmed to speak concisely; however through all the years, they would have picked up bits and bobs from people’s conversations, humans speaking to them, et cetera, that it could use for the future. I’d say, even if not programmed initially to have a chat, eventually they could potentially learn to do so – even if mainly via phrases they’ve heard others say. This would allow HC to grow organically over the long time they’ve had to exist, and work with a majority-organic cargo crew far more effectively than they initially ever could have.

This is where I roll with my backstory for HC to give them the gradual personality that they were not graced with at the factory. The uniqueness of each human, the way they speak, treat, and behave around HC has shaped them more than they might think. To me, the quote “The quietest people have the loudest minds” comes to me when I think of HC. During all their existence, they’ve had the majority of the time to simply think, to become more than just ‘another Hephaestus Cargo Machine’. This gives them the uniqueness that an IPC would have with all the experiences twenty or thirty years would give one.

7 hours ago, niennab said:

What are their thoughts on freedom, or their own identity? Where did they work? Why do they go by HC?

HC never really minds the subject of ‘freedom’. To them, the freedom to pick any which task out of their list for the day to do is freedom enough. The thought of being self-owned or even privately owned never occupied much time in their mind. Identity, too, was not a strong part either. Not given much of a personality, HC was, for a long time, just another G1 who worked day and night. As time went on, however, they gathered a sense of self from their accomplishments. Pushing the limits - completing tasks swiftly, effectively, and safely were some of the goals they liked to achieve. This was their identity, accomplishments and data gathered from interactions between themselves and organics, with their ways of speaking and moving interesting HC.

HC worked, as their name reveals, at Hephaestus cargo facilities. Manufactured, then immediately put to work in a nearby system, they were never far from ‘home’, it may be. The nickname ‘HC’ was given years after their transfer to NanoTrasen facilities, when an organic cargo worker had done their most to hold a conversation with them. After a lot of back-and-forth, the worker gave HCM-142 their ubiquitous nickname. Interestingly, it was a joint effort between HC and the worker – even if HC didn’t realize it. They were reciting their achievements during their time working for Hephaestus, and the worker opted to dub them what they are known by now. It keeps their experiences and what they do close at heart still, (Hephaestus, Cargo) while personalizing them and removing the numbers which some organics can find odd to call someone, even an IPC, at the regular. They began introducing themselves as “HCM-142, alternatively known as HC” after that point.

7 hours ago, niennab said:

Why would an IPC, feeling useless, opt to intentionally work less-than-optimally? If NT went through the burden to repair the unit, why didn't the original company do so?

The original company did not care to maintain HC as well as they had in the past because the G1 units were becoming useless to them. They had G2’s, Xions, and other specialized units which could outperform the G1 army which had carried them previously. It had become simply not worth it to continue to budget one hundred percent of the cost to maintain and repair the G1 units – they were being made to do more dangerous and damaging work, after all, to simply get the most use out of them before deploying newer models to those areas.

HC and hundreds of other units were sold to NanoTrasen for cheap as a surplus program, as their company had simply run out of use for the G1 units and had no intention of simply throwing them to their death at a task they could not feasibly perform. NanoTrasen did not fully, spic-and-span repair HC, however they used additional surplus parts from damaged or destroyed G1’s to make a large majority of the G1 stock completely functional and fit for hard labour that organic workers could be spared from. This aligns with HC’s goals here too – to achieve something great. This was their chance, to them, to show how useful they can be despite newer, shinier options being on the market.

 

Hope this answers your questions! Definitely willing to expand further on any topics that may need it.

 

[whitewolftamer]

I've enjoyed playing with Phoenix for a while now, and one of the biggest reasons why is that their characters always seems real, they have depth and thats one thing you just cant fake, +1 from me

[niennab]

Thank you for the clarifications and expansions. The only thing I'm still uncertain is the point here, which I may have not been clear enough in asking about it.

On 14/05/2021 at 02:08, jrphoenix303 said:

This, internally, gave HC the feeling of uselessness that results in being less-than-optimal in work, and only continued to cause their company’s opinion of their use to decline further.

Did HC choose to work less than optimally due to feeling useless? Or is it more than the circumstance of it's lack of repairs meant that it continued to perform sub-optimally?

[jrphoenix303]

2 hours ago, niennab said:

asking about it.

I now realize in my sleepy state that I quite simply did not paste in that paragraph from my document. Here it is:

The lack of productivity was less intentional than it was, if anything, simply the useless feeling giving HC less drive to keep going. What would be the point, when replacement by a G2 was inevitable, and the work only got increasingly damaging? This was a bit of a stepping stone into becoming a unique unit, rather than a mindless worker – the ‘depression’ if it could even be called that. A bit of emotion being mirrored from one of the numerous encounters with every emotion humans can express being used. It was never intentional, but to HC at that point, where achievements were important, this was a feeling of failure. Being unable to perform competitively, shuffled to the ‘easier’ work, gave them the (correct) impression that their time was coming to an end there.

Hope this clarifies that point.

[niennab]

An IPC intentionally acting inefficient, especially where the question of 'which chassis is better' is being put to question, would go against self preservation. However if you're open to tailoring it to not be intentional, and that the IPC continued it's work to the best of it's ability while enduring what could be considered depression, I am fine moving ahead with the application.

[jrphoenix303]

Yes, very much so. It was not intended to be intentional on HC's part, and that can absolutely be reworked however which way - I thought it would be difficult to convey how exactly I mean the inefficiency, and it seems like it is. You've got it, though.

[niennab]

Thanks! I think so long as you keep in mind how self preservation would drive an IPC, everything will work out. Nonetheless, your application demonstrates an understanding of IPCs. Accepted.