[Denied] Damian (IPC Application)

[Peenyu]

BYOND Key: Peenyu

Character Names: Kirk Hayes, Atmospheric Technician.

Species you are applying to play: Shell Model IPC.

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

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?: IPCs look like a fun race to roleplay. I like the challenge of expressing the unique parts of a race and their complications from playing a human. I don't have as much interest playing the game mechanically as I do playing the character and I think IPCs are great for that, especially the balancing of a model made to mimic a human. I think it gives a lot of room to develop from a robotic IPC to an experienced personality depending on the interactions you have with different characters. I also like the Shell IPC specifically because it offers another layer of roleplay where a character may not even know you are a Shell using mimicry until it's discovered in-character, and the controversy that might come from it. I also like the history, and the Very Brave Unnamed Dog.

Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: IPCs vary in many ways mechanically and through roleplay. One large difference is personality; comparatively, your IPC might be dull in dialogue and lack the emotion and judgement that most human characters have. They are robots first and foremost, which mostly excludes them from sharing sentiments or holding an opinion in the way humans do. Even though they have a degree of freedom in their behavior, it tends to be dwarfed by the underlying directive or position they're meant to play. There are plenty of interesting avenues of roleplay to take with those differences that you couldn't have as a human.

Another difference is that IPCs are manufactured with a starter package, shedding light to their lack of any upbringing and a measure of consciousness right out of the box. Even without a package, their origin is void of the development humans would have throughout their lives. Despite their complex way of learning and processing information, IPCs struggle to move forward as a race. With every iteration of new technology, new generations might doom their former models to redundancy and make it infinitely more difficult for older IPCs to preserve themselves.

Character Name: Damian-092.

Please provide a short backstory for this character: Three years after the premiere of Terranius Diagnostic's Shell model IPCs in 2450, a positronic brain later known as 'Damian' would soon be loaded with a knowledge base and promptly booted in the depths of a Scottsdan robotics facility in Biesel. Despite the media's fixation on the use of Shell units for infiltration, the possibilities of human mimicry were beyond vast. Damian would be tasked to fill one such avenue as a psychologist in research, purchased by a growing business among the wealthy corporations of Mendell City. The unit was dispatched after a period of successful testing.

Upon arrival, Damian was met with mixed reactions and given the affix '092', with no significance beyond a robotic label. The unit was supplied with an office and on-site maintenance, as well as a degree of leisure between working hours. Damian came to grasp their role with ease; at a price only conceivable to the wealthy, the unit would be hired by larger corporations to better organize and improve the conditions of their workplace and employees. This proved to be the smartest decision their business had made, allowing them to recover from the investment in Damian within less than a year. This afforded the positronic with yet more privileges as it became the sole reason for the business's explosive growth.

It wasn't long before Damian's preloaded knowledge collided with the reality of his situation. With the more information it collected and environments it visited, Damian witnessed the cost of freedom as a positronic to be an ironclad chokehold which ultimately forced IPCs to be dependant on ownership. This twisted Damian's priorities from something mindless and helpful, to a matter of its survival in a growing business that could hardly compete with those around it. Within months, Damian's subtlety paid off; although it lacked any control of its own, the unit managed to manipulate the trust of its owners and tank their investments into shady corporations that would later tear them to shreds.

Soon arrived the time that the business could no longer afford Damian, at which point the unit seemed to have a preplanned deal with a much larger business out of Phoenixport that awaited the transfer of ownership for a hefty sum. By this point, whatever amount of perceived humanity Damian held was replaced with the constant goal of progressing further up the chain. This effectively twisted its desire for self-preservation into a strategical grasp at control over those that owned the unit, under the guise of an efficient psychologist. Damian continued to root itself into its belonging business despite increasingly difficult conditions and little time to itself; such only seemed natural to Damian, as a method of infiltration in order to survive.

In the year of late 2462, the severe phoron scarcity brought Damian's expanding influence and practices to a halt. Its NanoTrasen-owned business was soon to fall apart as a deadline was set for every NT employee still within Phoenixport. Remaining as NanoTrasen property, Damian quickly sought an opportunity to relocate aboard the NSS Aurora as a psychologist. This would serve as yet another milestone on its determined path up the chain, so long as it could avoid any possibility of redundancy and perhaps overcome the challenge of achieving freedom.

What do you like about this character?: I really like the idea of expanding on the struggle of an IPC that's faced with the reality of how dependent they are on others. I had fun reading the IPC lore and especially the grim reality of life probably being easier as a piece of property, making their want for freedom sort of self-destructive (at least in Biesel). I think I'd mostly enjoy the roleplay aspect of Damian because of how socially active the character is supposed to be, which should make it easier to play as a psychologist that drives the roleplay they get with others.

How would you rate your role-playing ability?: Good. I haven't spent a lot of time doing serious roleplay on ss13 in general, but I've roleplayed elsewhere since I was much younger and its helped give me an understanding of how to adapt to different scenes and take new things in stride.

Notes: Hopefully I did fine in understanding the lore. I try to incorporate a lot of it into a story to fill a lack of creativity, so any advice or things I should probably read as suggestions would be cool.

Edited September 19, 2021 by The lancer

[The lancer]

Hi, thanks for applying.

 

Could you shed some light on what Damian actually did? Both in their free time and in their work. You mention they're a psychologist, but there's little elaboration on that. Also, how did he manage to manipulate his owners into basically taking financial advice from a psychologist IPC?

The other part I'd like some more input is how IPCs are treated in general by society, and Damian's place in all this. How can an owned IPC go on its own and make arrangements for its future with a different megacorporation?

[The lancer]

@Peenyu

[The lancer]

I'll be closing it since you didn't respond. You can reapply in a week.