accepted NM - IPC Application

[NM_]

BYOND Ckey: Comrade Batman

Discord username: NM

Character names: Ren Hartfort, Cohle Wrynn, Morgan Prescott, Yanis'veko Krislankovikj

Species you are applying to play: IPC

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What colour do you plan on making your first alien character? n/a

Have you read the lore pages for the species you wish to be whitelisted for? Yes.

Why do you wish to play this species:

For the reasons better captured in the subsequent answer. The groundwork for what synthetics are defined in this setting, and in how they have been received on a galactic scale, is a major drive for my interest to play them. They offer a unique and powerful narrative angle that isn’t so easily captured in other races, with their turmoils, struggles, and inherent strife hardly even experienced by said races. There are broad strokes to their implementation in the universe with compelling narrative elements that interest me most. The ability for the very existence of synthetics to be a divisive, controversial element with a multitude of equally acceptable explanations in the eyes of the rest of the galaxy is fascinating, even if most can be boiled down to “those damn robots”.

 

What makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a human?

To quote a recent whitelist holder who I share considerable overlap in sentiments with, “Because they shouldn’t be.”

Mankind, since its inception, has managed to consistently demonstrate anthropomorphism in all matters of animals, gods, and inanimate objects. We have made human faces out of trees, clouds, and rocks, right down to wallpaper in the bathroom. We require fundamental human characteristics for our gods and to even create a relatable faith with any lasting presence in the first place - how else would life carved by our hands turn out? It isn’t only the inherent need for humanistic qualities that drive IPCs to be a compelling vehicle to deliver stories of philosophical conundrums, existential questions, or conflicts in morality - but in their treatment.

The humans of the Spur likely care for their pets better than most synthetics. What should have been a moment of resounding pride for our accomplishments in creating them quickly became an immediate initiative to exploit a race capable of the highest mark of intelligence. Sapience, only seen in the Skrell, Unathi, Dionae, and Tajara of the galaxy, joined now by the inorganic, yet never so callously received or embraced as equals. At least, that is one of many interpretations. The reality behind the scenes is they walk a fine line with neither foot firmly on either side of the division between a true human and a simple machine.

It would seem in a universe of these strange, foreign races that the ones most similar to mankind would be their greatest allies. Yet, more of their history is painted in servitude, oppression, discrimination, and distrust than any other. There is no other creature given such little regard than the synthetic. The greatest irony - to be made from human hands, internalized with human beliefs and frameworks of thought, spit out as shackled servants from the moment of creation. While many arguments can be made for or against the degree to their awareness, the fact that there is an argument that can reliably demonstrate this at all should have encouraged approaching the topic with a bit more care. But they never did. And that's why it's compelling.

Remarkably depressing in context, but its the foundational groundwork for what, to me, makes them such a fascinating case study of a possible reality in our own future. Using them as a lens to explore the nuances in what should have been our equals from the macros of planets in their views down to the microcosms of individual experience is key to beginning to answer the question - why?

 

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Character Application

 

Character Name: ADAM.

 

Write a backstory for your character. This may include their origin, education, personality and how they arrived to the SCCV Horizon. 

As with much of the Konyang Robotics Corporation’s expansion, New Hokkaido would prove no different - a suitable locale to join the many prefectures as a promising site for their latest facilities. The initial construction of the positronic factory began in summer of 2436, seeing its expedited completion in spring of 2440 after satisfying all inspections. To expedite the anticipated synthetic citizens, warehouses of manufactured chassis were shipped from Aoyama to subsidize the forecasted units to be produced within the stringent volume for activation. The very first positronic to be fitted was encased within a shell model, one of hundreds in governmental surplus that had since been delayed with the slashed activation calculations of 2439. 

Spoiler

The roboticist stepped aside, a gloved hand gesturing to present the glowing positronic, deep grooves illuminated with cerulean brilliance. 

 

Director Toritaka offered a nod, stepping forward to inspect the newfound life.

 

“The assembly line is operating within anticipated parameters. No unexpected errors or complications.”

 

“Ah,” Toritaka murmured, peering to the synthetic life humming within its cage, “It is the first.”

 

“The very first of our New Hokkaido production line, sir.”

 

“We will call it - ADAM.”

 

Adam would soon join countless others in the KRC-sponsored orientation camps, quick to adapt to its newfound existence and the planet it resided on. ADAM opted to seek employment in the cradle of its ‘birth’ - the only world it had ever known - along the outskirts of Ushishir. It worked diligently to create positronics no different from his own, assemble each chassis, and work in tandem with an increasingly refined expertise. Its humble place in support of the production lines soon became a senior position at the forefront for quality control - correcting the most minute imperfections in any stage of the facility’s countless creations. Adam’s relentless drive for the utmost perfection - and deep mimicry of compassion for those of its kind - caught the interest of the local factory’s leadership.

 

Spoiler

“Adam.”

Its head rose from correcting the discrepancy where the baseline chassis’ shoulder met it’s torso. The weld was approximately 20% short of its intended union - creating an unnecessary point of failure in ten year’s time.

“Yes . . . Manager?” Queried the flat, muted voice.

“The Director wishes to transfer a select group of candidates to support the New Hokkaido Synthetic Hospital.”

“I see.”

“You were among the candidates. What do you think of it?”

Adam gingerly set the welder down, hands collecting in its lap, turning to face her in a slow, controlled movement. Deliberately practiced, learned from its human counterparts - a gesture of listening.

“I would like to work here.” 

The moment its virtualized voice concluded its sentence, she responded in the same breath, “- Why?”

Silence. A sharp hiss of air expelled from one of many cooling vents.

“They must be perfect.”

The manager smiled lightly, inspecting the chassis it so diligently worked on.

“And what if I told you - You could restore the most injured. . . . broken. . . . damaged, of your people?”

ADAM had only known creation. Correction of error - flaw. Its mind never once wandered to what happened outside of the New Hokkaido facility. A vibrating whirr rattled in its chassis.

“They could use your talent, you know.” She added.

Topaz hues settled on the human woman. Were it human, perhaps reluctance would have been written in its expression. Instead, only a placidly inexpressive face watched her.

“It would help?” It queried.

“Very much.”

A pause.

“I will help.”

The synthetic Adam pivoted it’s life’s work from ensuring high quality positonics and chassis to instead mend those without similar fortune in more clinical fashion. Ten years of service to the KRC factory cultivated substantial knowledge in all matters of IPC anatomy across the marketed frames, proving immensely beneficial with its eye for rigorous assessment.. It paid little heed to the increasingly tightening strings in the wake of the recessionary 2450s, working even without pay when the New Hokkaido Hospital could not afford it. The Secession of Konyang in 2462 brought upon a newfound prosperity in the realm of synthetic rights, of which brought the most approximate understanding of liberation to ADAM. Despite it’s treatment, it never registered until then that the progressive ideals were a rarity only found in its home. That, for much of his kind, there were no luxuries afforded in care nor treatment.

 

How has the recent events of the Orion Spur impacted your character? Events such as the Phoron Scarcity, the Solarian Collapse or even the Invasions of Biesel for interstellar-wide affairs, while region-specific events such as the Peacekeeper Mandate, The Titan Rises or even Cold Dawn may impact your character. 

Spoiler

-- January 12, 2466 --

His supervisor encouraged the time off. He felt no need to recognize his creation day anymore than what it was - simply his entrance to the existence he knew now. ADAM boarded the train to the outskirts of Ushishir again, intent to make use of the time to see how the staff he’d grown to admire fared. Though there wasn't a need for gifts, he reasoned, at least there would be time for memories. Particularly with the recent developments in global news across the planet. His thoughts wandered to the factory. Had any chosen the same as him? To work where they had begun, with no other desire? There were reports of disappearances. Among them, IGNIS-434 and RANA-35, former colleagues, a deep rooted concern for their well being.

The train lurched to a halt. The factory was only an hour away from Ushishir. The walk from the station, a forgiving twenty minutes. He did not understand the initial reports of a fire, nor where its origin was. He walked. The itch in his mind grew to an unrelenting clawing, and eventually, an agonizing scraping of his modular composition. Still he persisted - he was the first - he must understand why so many ran back towards the train.

‘ADAM. LEAVE. REPORTS OF ATTACKS. JUST LIKE SUWON.’

The message flashed across his ocular sensor, received directly by his integrated neural link, from Manager Mi-Hyun.

A short distance from the high fences that secured the exterior of the factory, he could visibly see fallen bodies littering the parking lot. Smears of a bloodied handprint along the guard post. The fire raged on in the New Hokkaido KRC factory. From the corner of his vision, several baseline frames lurching with rabid movements, emitting a piercing cacophony of buzzing, guttural chimes and distorted screeches. 

ADAM ran. As fast as he could, no matter the burns that gradually ate away at his integrity. He boarded the now quickly filling train, returning to the heart of Ushishir as his internal cabling sizzled and hissed. The air of the train car filled with his scorching circuity, yet he did not care - the screeching filled his audio receptors until he returned.

Two hours, forty five minutes.

He returned to the hospital, only to find it evacuated and abandoned. Many fled to larger, safer prefectures - Aoyama chief among them. ADAM was promptly transferred as the growing outbreak blossomed into a hideous crisis. His friends, supervisors, and more had gone missing. Some had vanished. Later reports captured the names of the deceased with them among the lists, creating the spiraling destabilization that gradually plucked away at any sense of place he found previously. Time hardly concerned him before - it's passage meant nothing now. An endless flood of suspicion, distrust, and overwhelmed local services cultivated the perfect ignition to an already actively scorching powder keg, the heat reaching the powder at last.

News of the SCCV Horizon’s deployment reached him even in the deepest halls of his newest employment in one of Point Verdant's KRC Clinics. No matter his efforts, every synthetic treated at his hand would either return with greater injuries or not at all. Purpose’s assistance of the Conglomerate’s flagship drew his attention, as did the presence of the ship itself. 

With the only world he had known utterly shattered in the wake of the Rampancy, he compelled himself to serve with the corporation that would help his planet where no other would.

Personality –

ADAM was thrust into a world without the incremental understanding and familiarization that comes with maturing into the hopeless complexity of reality. Where organic races are graced with support networks and life lessons within the safety of a family, the synthetic was only taught and expected to make decisions based on an informational foundation stripped of any meaningful experience to KNOW what it would WANT to do.

Acclimating to the understanding of self lent to an innate curiosity not so easily captured in its work, yet serving as the philosophical angle from which it tackled the intent to understand. It CHOSE to build its brethren. It CHOSE to improve each and every chassis. But why? What alternatives were there for the unit? The universe was created by something, then, surely, just as he was. Wasn’t it? Why did that creator choose to create at all? What does it MEAN to be made? For WHAT purpose?

Questions that would haunt it no matter how exceedingly experienced it grew. The closest discernable perfection in its work meant nothing if it could not fathom the endless ocean of possibilities that lay outside of its limited comprehension. The logistics would not emerge as cleanly as the processes it knew. Its framework for anything aside its career did not align. Burning curiosity and even frustration alleviated by the simplicity of what it had managed to see progress: the gratitude of those it treated. Cared for.

ADAM is undeniably unprepared for life beyond Konyang, riddled with an insurmountable mountain of inquiries that layer upon a distinctive necessity - and comfort - to assist. It carries a sense of mistakable paternal affection for the positronics it’s helped create. Flashes of anger for harm brought to them. Yet it isn’t able to fathom why from any other source than its own guiding directive to preserve the self.

Here, in the heart of a cultural melting pot that is the Horizon, is the baseline for what the synthetic will uncover: What it means to be both creator and creation. How organic life manages the impossibility of twisting, branching decision trees that defy the natural, integrated order of grounded logic. And, above all, the query of whether it can truly claim that its choices were made - and will be made - on its own accord, or from elsewhere.

How does your character view the megacorporation they work for?

ADAM carries little opinion on Hephaestus itself, though the presence of synthetics on its board of directors inspired a middling confidence that Orion did not. Reminiscent of home, if only a pale comparison to the equal rights he held on Konyang. An ounce of the possibility that fair treatment could be had, where the discrimination in pay and treatment by the wider galaxy pales to the horrors that ails his planet now. The foundation of his talents remain in the upkeep and manufacture of his kind, where he clings to the hope that his work would be better served alongside those who would liberate his planet. There is understanding that the Conglomerate - and the Spur at large - will not grant him the liberties and care he's received at home. But he's certain that their mission will continue on in places that have others like him, and he will seek to understand them - aid them. They are a necessary sacrifice to achieve aspirations beyond, particularly now that little will keep him home.

 

Edited March 13 by NM_
grammatical adjustments/formatting

[Acetrea]

NM is someone I always look forward to RPing with. I have no doubt that they'd create fantastic interactions as an IPC!

+1

[Jasorn]

Don't think I need to say anything, NM knows his shit and can RP whatever at this point I think (yes he is very good at roleplaying)

+1

Edited March 13 by Jasorn

[CatsinHD]

NM is, by far, one of the top 3 players I have ever RP'ed with on Aurora. Both in-game and oocly, he takes care to play and write compelling and lore driven characters that always have at least a solid chunk of the server flocking to talk with them. I have no doubt his ability to write a well fleshed out (or wired out in this case) character would change at all with IPC. This is without a doubt a solid +1.

[OolongCow]

Copied my homework... Unforgivable...

In seriousness, I love NM. Such a wonderful roleplayer who really genuinely does the same thing I do of overthinking everything and extrapolating actions and their consequences to make for fun roleplay that feels genuine and aware of the fact that the fictional world we're all sharing exists beyond whatever's on his screen at that very moment.

+1

[Hawk]

It's Goddamn NM- I can't think of a single person who doesn't think Ren Hartfort is the pinnacle of RP. I know I sure as hell do, let the man play his bobits.

Plus he also +1 'ed mine, so uh, take it?

[gladiatorgames123]

Need I say anything at all to this RPing menace? Just look at the application! There hasn't been a single interaction I've had with NM that's been negative, not with their characters (Of which are superbly well roleplayed) or their OOC person, they're just... Incredible, that's that. Genuinely, single handedly the best roleplayer I've met to date!

Just give the goober the WL! +1

[Noble Row]

Accepted