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[Accepted] A certain Pixie Miner's struggle with self — Effie's IPC whitelist


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BYOND Ckey: ey

Discord username: EffYank

Character names:
    Varvara Krówka;
    Amina Usman;
    Limquoi Xuqilquum;
    Vexiaezu Umxioilir.

Species you are applying to play: IPCs!

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General Whitelist Requirements

Have you read the lore pages for the species you wish to be whitelisted for?: 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 species?:
    IPCs are very appealing to me, not only because I somewhat connect to the species' general premise on a personal level, but also because of their unique origins, or, as one could put it, lack thereof. They, albeit a subject to some contest, are most apart of the other species of the Spur. What differenciates them from humans is what lures me in the most!


What makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a human?:
    IPCs are really interesting to me primarily in the way of what differentiates and ousts them from most of the other species in the Spur. They don't have a single planet they can track their culture, nor descendancy to — origins of the inner workings of the "black box" notwithstanding. If one would begin to try and trace one's own origins, it'd in most cases come down to a Megacorporation, rather than a specific nation or ancestry, clan, guild. Most of them, are, quite literally, popped into existence, without their own customs, culture, time to form an identity, any semblance of self. Despite that, they're still thinking, they're still intelligent. Without parental, or any guidance for that matter, most of the times, at all. It's... A very interesting theme, struggling, finding self while basically having no rights, no possessions, nothing. Having to find your own place in the world, make sense of it, while being thrown out right into the workplace, with only datapacks to lean upon in guidance. Moreover, while the Spur generally is warming up to the idea of self-owned synthetics, many still are outwardly hostile towards their own existence.

    Another matter is, well, the "P" in the "IPC". The brain, how they think. While they still vastly differ from positronic to positronic, depending on their memories, software, datapacks and so on — still, inside of them is, mostly, that same "core", that allows them to operate. What's also interesting is the differences between one make to another. The budget of a budget IPC will show, be it in their even more acute naïveté as to social clues, limited capacity memory-wise, or just generally finding it ways harder, if not impossible, to think outside the box. And yet, as positronics mature, come against different situations which require solutions outside of their experiences, they. sometimes, manage to transgress their limitations and come up with unorthodox solutions, still within their operational limits. Almost as if alongside the broader struggle for their own existence in the Spur, independant or otherwise, they also struggle with the literal box their brains were fitted into. It's horrible and it's beautiful.

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Character Application

Character Name: SLU-Pyxis#004D45
Skała Logistics Unit Designation Pyxis ID #004D45

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

    SLU-Pyxis#004D45, or, later, more casually amongst its colleagues, Picks was manufactured as a part of a modest, mid-to-higher-end Hephaestus production line, and was built in 2458 on a Hephaestus Facility on Tau Ceti V's orbit, being auctioned off right from the production line by Skała Logistics, a big, albeit not "mega-" big corporation, one of the few corporations to have filled the void left over from Hephaestus Industries retracting from the Coalition, despite the name, primarily concerning itself not only with deliveries, but also mineral exploitations, with the initial purpose to aid it in its humble, nonetheless then-steadily growing mining market share. Fit for environments as harsh as Burzsia's, what little mining IPCs Skała could get their hands on, Xion were ideal for its purposes. A blunt tool for Skała such as Picks meant possible savings in terms of medical aid, additional equipment costs and other expenses it would usually expend on organic miners, to get them into the nooks and crannies of the most distant and hostile environments of the Spur where even Hephaestus before didn't dare to set their feet in.

    After some minimal in-house after-market off-the-book post-production modifications to better support remote work in hostile environments, Picks was sent off towards the distant and not-so-distant stars, mostly performing resource extraction in general — be it scrapping debris belts or mining celestial objects from lone asteroids to exoplanets — whatever Skała was contracted to do, wherever. That notwithstanding, Picks mostly operated within the Frontiers, primarily keeping to the edges of, well, the Light's Edge. Due to Skała's stretched operations there, Picks, as many other employees, though not so optional for Picks, was involved in many occupations diverging from its original duties — deliveries, minor maintenance and many others that could be stretched within Picks' original occupational datapack and sometimes beyond. During any number (and the number was vast as compared to any organic of its working experience) of its missions, and since Skała wasn't particularly known for its pickyness as to their employees — what made its "flash mining" strategy successful, Picks had many opportunities to work with all kinds of Spur's inhabitants, from all kinds of cultures, of all kinds of backgrounds recieving not only, at times, very mixed reception as an IPC, but also bits of information about the "outside life" they could gather. As it, at first, was only led by its mining mission, very rarely divulging from it and even speaking up besides basic responses to commands from its colleagues, it later, with more work experience, constantly overhearing its colleagues talks during and inbetween work, found a growing interest within it about the life all about the Spur. often finding itself to taking after the personalities of people it got along well with, as to project the same reception towards its many other colleagues, as well as people set hostile towards it, to warm up to them and come into their liking. Most of its coworkers never remained for any longer than a few months, as their work environment was subject to constant change.

    A few years into is life and work, as Picks had settled within its workplace, more or less had accustomed itself with the Skała's operations and intricacies of its operations, it had started to piece a semblance of an outward personality for itself, going by the thing it knew the best, the longest — Self-Preservation. It long weighed against each other different personality traits, its biases as to which one would further help the efficiency of the task as well as provoke less conflicts, seeing it as merely a ways to further not only its own survival, but its mission, with time — amending what Self-Preservation /exactly/ meant for itself. On its third year, it's memories grew sufficient enough, while it's many other positronic bretheren began to expire or otherwise delaminate, Picks, in many regards thanks to the then-Skała's sparing attitude towards what means it was applied to, so far away from most of its traffic, hence the significantly more vast database, remained not only intact, but it's efficiency was continuously growing, which, in turn, resulted in a somewhat more hostile attitude from its organic colleagues, as it was evidently outperforming them, but an even warmer attitude from the "upstairs", Picks had recieved somewhat of a reputation amongst its few case managers over its operations. Four years into its activation, Picks was retracted into the Spur, now operating within states' borders, on more constant positions, however considered high-risk. That poured over into Picks being a core part of a more constant rotation of crews, operating on a few select facilities, however, still performing somewhat different numbers of duties, though most of which were still constricted to delivery, scrapping and mining. Picks, having long cemented within its algorithms what different traits of personality and character were most helpful, efficient and generally looked up towards, had also chiseled out a reputation among most its organic colleagues as an overly enthusiastic, cheery and talkative, however still naïve about most of the goings-on in the Spur outside its colleagues' converstations, integral part to its respective collective.

    Over the course of the fifth year, however, mostly due to Skała Logistics' more-or-less experimentational augmentation, which, despite having given results, with the time's passing, quickly began to deteriorate the chassis from within, most of which spilled over into vastly decreased cell capacity and energy efficiency, which, given the off-the-books and experimental nature of the modifications, were proven to be not only costly, but not directly replacable, a task, which Skała Logistics would have to allot some of its time and forces to fix, that it didn't have. That predicament, as Picks started to less and less see work from the harshest of environments, retracting to safer, less remote, albeit still hostile locations, six years into its service, in 2464, a few months prior to the merger of Skała Logistics into Orion, but when it was already inevitable, resulted in being offered another solution, a unique proposition by one of its previous case managers, who oversaw Picks' transfer to the inner part of the Spur, as well as the most of its early years, to be bought out — its expenses for repair paid in full, which, however hefty a sum it was, was cheaper than buying a new replacement and especially so, considering Picks' databanks and credentials and continue work on contract with the newly formed Orion Express, just in the capacity of a privately-owned IPC, under a renegotiated contract, more akin to one offered to unbound IPCs and organics.

    Picks, seeing no other feasible option, besides scrapping in very distant hopes of reaching its monetary goal before expiring or what it felt was even worse for it — being sold off to another company, memories wiped, agreed, knowing the private entity in question, with them previously having shown amicable attitude towards Picks, and having contributed in great not only to Picks current /gestalt/ of a personality, but also with Picks owing them current and future job prospects, slowly progressing from being what was, albeit a very advanced, yet an industrial tool, to not only an employee, but an individual. It's owner, as spoken with Picks before, allowed to much degree of freedom, with much of the "ownership" boiling down to Picks itself recieving the smallest part of its own pay, which it, sincerely, did not mind, having been offered more lax freedoms as well as a more warm, however still that of an IPC, reception. Having worked now for two years with Orion, its repair expenses have been paid in full, effectiveness restored, Picks doubles down on its curiosity of the people, that inhabit the stars, first getting to be transfered towards working on mainly logistics missions in the Republic of Biesel, and then, when its owner presented it the option to be employed upon SCCV Horizon, it, shortly considering it's whole existence, agreed.

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.  

    Picks was activated during the invasion of Biesel, however, despite having little concern nor, frankly, knowledge of the events going on "way over there", in retrospect often considered the exodus of it, when it pondered about the broader political landscape of the Spur, eventually that crystalizing into its somewhat distrust of the Solarians, only reinforced by the Coalitioners' attitude, who were much of its colleagues during most of its life up until basically a year ago.

    Probably, the most important, pivotal moment for Picks was SCC's formation of Orion. With it, it recieved not only a gateway to its further pursuits of integrating itself within the Spur, but also, basically, a second chance at life, despite Orion /itself/ not contributing to it, but it's formation leading to the circumstances that allowed it.

How does your character view the megacorporation they work for?

    Picks' stance on ownership is very conflicted, its own history with it being rather well, but in retrospect, it attributed that to ignorance. Primarily that of its other synthetic bretheren's fate in Skała's working environment, as it, despite being seemingly lax on the surface, valued one thing and one thing most — results. While Picks wasn't underperforming, but even overperforming most of the times, it was, for most of its life, unaware of what other IPCs went through, as its colleagues and work environments were constantly being rotated. It, despite now being mostly aware and in-context of the horrors of being an IPC of today's Spur, is glad to have an amicable relationship with its owner, as well as thankful not so much to either Skała or — later, Orion for its relatively good treatment there, as its own achievements, however unoptional they might have been. Picks had several possibilities to purchase its own freedom, however, it felt relative security with being employed in a corporation, and especially with its private acquisition.

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