[ACCEPTED] Roaper - IPC Application

[Roaper]

BYOND Key: Roaper
Character Names: Maxwell Byrne, Enos Adlai, New Reade, Yorick Gallows, Cutter Sadar, Edrik Fel
Species you are applying to play: Integrated Positronic Chassis
What color do you plan on making your first alien character: N/A
Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: As would be expected, I have.

Why do you wish to play this specific race:
I've always had an interest in robotics in general, especially AI and the role they play. I grew up with Star Trek TNG playing in the living room and it served as my first foray into Science Fiction from a young age (along with a good bit of Judge Dredd, Alien, Neuromancer, and Blade Runner) and it greatly colored my perception. Although I must have watched three of four times all the way through during various reruns, I remember a particular episode stuck with me, entitled Measure of a Man. The episode concerns Data, an android whose mind served as the namesake of the Positronic brain, being possibly forced against his will to be shut down for an indeterminate amount of time in order to study and possibly recreate the technology that lead to his creation. Data attempts to evade this course by leaving Starfleet, only to be informed that he is property and cannot leave by his own free will as he does not contain any. Although the episode mainly dealt with court proceedings it somehow enraptured my ADHD riddled mind, the same way Alien's Bishop, and Blade Runner's Roy Batty did. Data wasn't a human, but could he possess free will? Or was it just a series of intricately and well programmed responses that gave the illusion? If so could the same not be said of the human brain, an organ still not well understood. All of these questions weigh heavily with me even now years later, and are arcs that I wish to explore with the IPC race.

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"A single Data; and forgive me, Commander; is a curiosity. A wonder, even. But thousands of Datas; isn't that becoming -- a race? And won't we be judged by how we treat that race?"

 

Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human:
Besides the obvious organic and synthetic differences, playing an IPC at least to me means playing an outsider. Whereas a human crew member can relax around others at the bar enjoying libations, an IPC (or at least the one I plan on portraying) cannot. They are bound by their laws and programming to preform a task, and that task has no room for relations, free time, or other frivolous activities unless directed to by one capable of doing so. Playing an IPC means playing a minority. Humans and other races crowd the station, and while from round to round there may be quite a few IPC working during any particular shift it is not considered the norm within the rest of the verse'. You are treated differently, either on purpose or by accident. Even those that attempt to hide their heritage behind rubber skin often have some tells, still maintain a programming that bounds them to a master. Lastly, playing an IPC means being disenfranchised. You maintain no culture, outside of the one you are built into. Outside fringe pockets like the Golden Deep there isn't truly any home you have than the one you adopted by the matters of your birth. Even then, you aren't treated the same as your peers.

Character Name: Grant
Please provide a short backstory for this character

'Grant' was constructed on February 13th, 2450, at the Hephaestus Applied Robotics Laboratory on Biblis Patera, Mars. A prototype G2 model, assigned the Unique Identification Number FO-13R50D, it was subject to countless stress tests that wore it to the breaking point. High explosives, acid, jacketed ballistics, uninterrupted overclocked up-times,  extreme temperatures of both ends of the thermometer, if it ripped, tore, shattered, or melted, it was tossed at Grant. Month after month, the punishments rained down upon the bot as testing continued. Yet it endured. After all, what else could it do. It was built for a task, and it would carry out that task.

However, one day the door to it's charging station never opened. No man in white labcoat. No technicians recording baselines. No control groups. Nothing but darkness and the hum of machinery. There was little else to do, but to wait. Time seemed to freeze still within the station, though it's internal clocked denied this was a possibility. The next day simply never came, and soon even the soft whir of the machines ceased to exist. Grant was aware, and Grant was alone. Weeks turned to months, and months to years. The slim metal coffin would have been it's final resting place, were it not for the day the suitless came. They wore no uniforms, and their loyalty to the a company was mismatched as each wore various brands. They came across the labs like a torrent, taking anything of value that was not nailed down. Grant was of value, and it found its self traded from hand to hand. A merchant in New Venice, a broker in the CoC, a scrapyard owner in Mendell, and finally into the hands of an enthusiast at a steep discount. The kind enthusiast has seen to it that Grant received several repairs and refits, and through several legal arrangements has been contracted through NT to serve on the Aurora in few pre-programmed service roles.

What do you like about this character?
I like the idea of a broken old robot given a new purpose and I like the idea of this massive robot doing non massive robot things, like cleaning or gardening.
How would you rate your role-playing ability?
I'm certainly not the best, as there will always be someone better. I'm certainly new the community, but I've been doing this for a while elsewhere and hope to bring the same level of quality here.

Notes:
I talked to Stryker about posting my old application as a reapply, as Niennab requested due to the fact that some IRL issues prevented me from responding to their questions in the first thread.

 

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Can you expand on this portion here? What caused the sudden absence in the facility? Is there a reason why Grant did not leave their charging station?

  On 24/01/2020 at 00:35, Roaper said:

However, one day the door to it's charging station never opened. No man in white labcoat. No technicians recording baselines. No control groups. Nothing but darkness and the hum of machinery. There was little else to do, but to wait. Time seemed to freeze still within the station, though it's internal clocked denied this was a possibility. The next day simply never came, and soon even the soft whir of the machines ceased to exist. Grant was aware, and Grant was alone.

 

The sudden absence of the facility is not entirely apparent, and I believe that it doesn't necessarily matter. To Grant, a machine with a very limited grasp on sentience this small laboratory was it's whole life. To simply leave the lab, or even to inquire as to why it was suddenly abandoned is far beyond his care. He exists to serve his duty to his assigned owners. It's worries start and end there. Throwing that aside for a moment, I'd imagine it could be as simple as a financial issues, causing the laboratory to have it's funding pulled and in the rush to clear the facility, specific bots like a barely sapient G2 prototype to be considered too much effort to move. That, or it could have been overlooked in a clerical error. Somewhere at the home office the G2 prototypes were sold and never picked up. Simply forgotten.

 

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On 24/01/2020 at 00:35, Roaper said:

A merchant in New Venice, a broker in Tanstaafl, a scrapyard owner in Novo Brutus,

Although usually one newly made up location is fine, multiple make for a bit of confusion. Did he largely stay in Sol during his exchanges? At what point was he moved to Tau Ceti?  I however ask that Tanstaafl is changed, as it's apparently more known as the acronym "There Ain't No Such Thing As a Free Lunch".

 

Tanstaafl was meant to be a sly reference to The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, a sci fi story I read when I was in High School. That said, it's been fixed.
 

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What is his perspective on his existence, or how has it changed, having changed so many hands and quite possibly saw more of the world than his synthetic counter-parts?

I don't think it'd change much honestly. I'd imagine that a G2 unit designed to be a punching bad for testing would only be granted very limited awareness of it's surroundings. Just enough to get accurate reads in a controlled environment for after action reports. I feel any further modifications to his personality would have been done after the fact when he was adopted by the robotics enthusiast. Whether this was out of altruism or simply an experiment is up to the readers interpenetration. If anything, now it sees itself as a relic. Something that should have rusted away in that lab. Something that has been improved upon countless times since. It's a reminder of a bygone era and in the end. It doesn't care.

 

[ryder]

Roaper has given me much joy as a player and has done a lot to help me both get into ss13 and stick around with it. He does an incredible job of dedication to how he builds up characterization and I think it'd be really fun to see how he rolls out a torture puppet G2. Good idea. Good player. +1

[The Stryker]

Thanks for applying!

On 05/08/2021 at 15:07, Roaper said:

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

Could you expand on this section? From your responses it kind of reads that you're leaning too much on the discrimination aspect of IPCs. Could you expand on what makes them different from humans, aside from that?

As for the backstory, how is Grant's status as a test subject not in violation of the self-preservation law?

How does Grant behave? Can you give some examples? My issue with the backstory is that it tells us very little about it as a character.

What happened to Grant in 13 years; does it have any moments that defined it? How does Grant behave? 13 years travelling from Mars to the Coalition of Colonies, then to Tau Ceti is an incredibly long time for a character, especially an IPC.

On 05/08/2021 at 15:07, Roaper said:

and finally into the hands of an enthusiast at a steep discount. The kind enthusiast has seen to it that Grant received several repairs and refits, and through several legal arrangements has been contracted through NT to serve on the Aurora in few pre-programmed service roles.

How did Grant's experience with this enthusiast affect it? What about its contact with the salvagers?

What would Grant be doing on station? Does it have any skills? Why would NT or any other megacorporation hire an IPC whose skills are to be shot at?

[Roaper]

13 hours ago, The Stryker said:

Thanks for applying!

Could you expand on this section? From your responses it kind of reads that you're leaning too much on the discrimination aspect of IPCs. Could you expand on what makes them different from humans, aside from that?

The biggest thing that sets IPCs apart to me is how fractured they are. IPCs fit into so many different cultures and 'factions' while having very little uniting them as one besides the Trinary Perfection and some larger communities like those found on Mendell, an aspect of them that I find interesting. I find the discrimination aspect to be a significant part of the IPCs persona, but really what sets them apart is the learning from nothing aspect. If I made a human right now, they would already have at the very least 18 something years of experience behind them, whereas if I made an IPC I could have them made last month, allowing them to have a Pinocchio like curve to them. Their history isn't partially set in stone before I begin and the ability to evolve based on their aspects with the crew are what really draws me in.
 

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As for the backstory, how is Grant's status as a test subject not in violation of the self-preservation law?

This is a hard one, because in all honesty I think I might have missed this. Looking back I think it's fairly possible for either him to have such loyalty/programmed trust in his creators that the damage was not considered life threatening, akin to what Grant considered a worthwhile sacrifice to support it's later brethren. This might have informed it's personality as time went on, leading to it focusing on a collective good or personal protection. It's definitely something I'd want to explore in RP. Going a completely different direction though we could also run with the ongoing greater theme of corporate exploitation and simply say Grant's laws were repressed in some way to better help the labs results.

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How does Grant behave? Can you give some examples? My issue with the backstory is that it tells us very little about it as a character.

Personally that's sort of what I was going for. As explained above, every other race has a set personality when they arrive on the station. They are already molded by experiences. Grant wouldn't. An earlier, damaged model like him would be closer to a blank slate, only having been granted some higher brain functions by the kind enthusiast. That's what interests me. No preconceived notions or real former ties. Stiff and robotic, but now exploring the world outside Plato's cave. That last part makes me feel more than a little pretentious.

As an example, I might start with him having a very limited vocabulary. We'll say I run him as a janitor and he ends up cleaning the bar (it gets very dirty!). He ends up around the same time as Jeshi Xiru, a overly egotistic Skrell that has a very specific way of talking, and he begins to imitate it, adding that to his repertoire of actions like a child would a parent.

 

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What happened to Grant in 13 years; does it have any moments that defined it? 13 years travelling from Mars to the Coalition of Colonies, then to Tau Ceti is an incredibly long time for a character, especially an IPC.

To me, it's not important. I'm sure I could come up with a fair number of small ideas, such as this image of a large metal golem sitting dusty, opening a door and automatically greeting customers coming into a junk shop on Mendell and possibly scaring a small child, impacting it somewhere deep in it's damage positronic mind that it's some sort of monster. For the most part however I'd say very little really, by design. Not much would really stick until it was fixed up by a caring person. I see a lot of IPCs as I've been on the server playing a wide variety of roles, some human, some less. I don't wanna play a character with a humanistic personality immediately. I could do that as a human, or really any race. Characters like Bob in security appeal to me more as an IPC.
 

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How did Grant's experience with this enthusiast affect it? What about its contact with the salvagers?

It's contact with the salvagers was likely not treated with much more than "Ah, Humans. I'm out of this containment cell now. We're going somewhere. I wonder where.". It wasn't until the Enthusiast that it really changed.

It meeting the Enthusiast is likely the most significant moment of it's life. From that moment that they pointed at Grant and said "How much?", Grant has progressed more than it has in thirteen years. They treated Grant like an IPC and not a test subject or an oddity to be traded or sold. An entity with feelings and a future. Something worth repairing, upgrading, and supporting that future. The Enthusiast treated the structural damage, but that was skin deep. It's the hours of teaching, understanding, and love.
 

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What would Grant be doing on station? Does it have any skills? Why would NT or any other megacorporation hire an IPC whose skills are to be shot at?

No real skills. But Janitor or Gardener doesn't really require much. I've certainly played characters with less.
 

[The Stryker]

Thank you for the answers, could you expand a little more regarding how an IPC behaves/thinks?

[Roaper]

On 07/08/2021 at 13:26, The Stryker said:

Thank you for the answers, could you expand a little more regarding how an IPC behaves/thinks?

I'd say that's a question with a lot of answers. The positronic brain of an IPC runs on near parallel lines with the human mind and so most every trait, attitude, or mindset could come to bear. I think the main thing that seperates them from just being humans that can crush a man, or have a TV for a head is that they don't so much possess these traits as they mimic them. These traits could have been programmed, picked up from owners/people around them, or developed from something as simple as watching too many chambara films. No matter how real they might seem, at the end of the day it's robotic by design. They also wouldn't exhibit many mental illnesses that might commonly pop up in a biological brain. An IPC might act like it has OCD, constantly shifting objects around the laboratory it works in to have everything neat and proper, but it's doing that because their owner had severe OCD and exposure to this was picked up and mimicked.

In Grant's case, his more limited and less-than-professionally repaired mind would speak in short, shuttering sentences and notably without the use of contractions. Where my character Yorick a full flesh and blood human native to Himeo might respond to a question about if he'd like to eat with, "No thanks, I ain't hungry at the moment. Preciate' the offer however." Grant would reply with, "No. Thank you. I have no need to consume food. The offer is noted."

[The Stryker]

Your application is accepted.