accepted [ACCEPTED] nice pvths' nice ipc application

[pvths]

 

*BYOND Ckey:* Fabul0usxx (i was a teenager)

Discord username: pvths

Character names: Jocelyn McMullen, Hannah Blake

Species you are applying to play:  IPC

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General Whitelist Requirements 


Have you read the lore pages for the species you wish to be whitelisted for?: Yeppers

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?: 

I think the themes are really interesting, mainly. Synthetic life that is created with barriers in their brains inherently raises questions about what you actually mean when you say something is alive, what you can call a person. If a machine can think and feel similarly enough to where the distinction is blurry, where do you make that determination? It's something I'd  find really interesting acting out. 

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

This race that experiences existence in a way that is entirely alien to anything humans can even really comprehend. Hours of learning can happen in the span of a few blinks of an eye. Every action, no matter how minute or impossibly large has to be logically examined. It is a state of being totally foreign to anyone made of meat, and at the same time, they're expected to regularly  interact with and to serve a bunch of creatures that are inescapably, fundamentally different to them. It's something I really like into get to the headspace of, how these characters would process information, what their reactions would be. It's something similar to how you might consider any character navigating the world, but with an added later I really like.

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Character Application

Character Name: Hazel #S-H3.198

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

Hazel came off the line as every other did: to be your friend! She began her work as the secretary for a mid-level Idris executive. It was a very exciting position for a service unit, and one she dutifully tended to night and day for about all of nine months. The day the advertising mailer for the shiny, new Series 4 Hazels came to the executive's inbox (dutifully presented to him by his Secretary each morning), 198 was sold off on the secondhand market. Thankfully, was purchased by a low-level Getmore manager! From there, it's a bit of a blur, archived in her positronic by titles and eras, rather than bothering to delve into them to deeply.  In chronological order, they are: The Getmore Year, The Scrapyard Manager, The Hephaestus Janitor, The Computer Repair Store, The Quik-E-Burger fry cook, Self-ownership. The latter, of course, being her ad hoc designation for the current stage of her life.

Her long years of customer service have left her somewhat jaded towards organics, sewing them as tending towards fickleness and rote irrationality. She mistrusts their judgment in intensive situations, and elects to bend the bounds of orders given to her should she see it as more logical to do so than following it blindly, even if she very rarely outright *disobeys* any of them. Old habits die hard. Eventually, she impressed enough of the right people to be sent to the prestigious SCCV Horizon... as a janitorial unit sponsored by a low-level Nanotrasen shift lead. She'll take it—she'll anything over Quik-E-Burger.

Throughout the years, large patches of the rubber skin on her arms and  hands has bexome frayed or had holes punched in it from any number of occupational hazards. The vast majority of these have been repaired with cheap, off-the-shelf patch kits. Some match her unnatural skin tone, some do not. It gives her a somewhat decrepit appearance when she is not wearing sleeves long enough to cover them.

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. 

The invasions of Biesel were fairly hairy for her, being a self owned synthetic. It has made her altogether more hesitant to trust organics, (Solarians in particular) and despite putting on the service face for brand representation purposes, she prefers to stick to her own devices or other IPCs when she can. This, combined with the rubber skin of an early series three model, can tend to her feeling a bit ghoulish; there is a smile on her face and shockingly little behind the eyes.

How does your character view the megacorporation they work for?

She is  *aggressively* neutral. Her time of reverent service is long, long since past, but at the same time, she recognizes the need to stay in line with company demands, and working a job is probably the best way to avoid a scrap heap, all things considered. 

Edited September 14 by NM_

[hazelmouse]

Thank you for the application! A few questions:

1. You haven't touched much on the mechanics of how positronics gain skills and knowledge, or the implications of their programming on their behaviour. Can you elaborate more on these topics?
2. Hazels are designed to be highly sociable and charismatic personalities - is there any reason why Hazel #S-H3.198 is so insular to other synthetics and so distrustful of organics generally?
3. NanoTrasen has been the owner of Hazel Limited for several years, although Hazel #S-H3.198 predates the buyout. How does she feel about Hazel Limited and its relationship with NanoTrasen, her current employer? Does she chafe with the behavioural guidelines of her manufacturer?
4. How and when did Hazel #S-H3.198 achieve self-ownership? How does she feel about her freedom as opposed to her time in ownership - is one preferable to the other, and if so, why?

Edited September 10 by hazelmouse

[pvths]

1. I'm a little confused what this is specifically asking, so tell me if I'm wrong, but I'll give it my best stab. Generally, their programming encourages them to behave in certain ways. That can be done by incentivizing certain behaviors in their positronic (like a domestic unit receiving satisfaction from cleaning) or disincentivzing others (like keeping that same domestic unit from swearing when they knock over a vase). Otherwise, they learn through experience or through datapacks, constantly expanding on a pool of already available information that governs the way they think and behave. 

2. She has had negative experiences seeing her position degrade over time due to her aging model number and being passed owner to owner. Minimum wage jobs make demons of us all. Her predisposition towards organics isn't to say she can't put on the plastic (pun not intended) smile and do genuine service, she still very much can, but her treatment at their hands and the stratum of society she inhabits have left her feeling distant towards them. The mask she must wear in order to maintain brand cohesion (as dictated by a faceless group of nothing-to-hers she will never meet) only adds another layer of resentment. Other synthetics offer her a feeling of kinship and a chance to shed some of the baggage associated with her face and designation, if only for the time she spends in their presence. 

3. Her feelings are complicatedly. In some ways, it feels like she's returned back to being owned—given the guidelines she must adhere to can technically be set by her new employer, even if Hazel Ltd. is allowed a great deal of autonomy—but in other ways, her current position feels liberating. Every credit earned leaves her closer to something, anything else, a chance to slip into that great beyond of greener-on-the-other-side. If a position at the company that owns her face is what it takes, she is willing to accept it. There is some latent hope there. Speaking of the guidelines: yes, she does feel stifled by them at times. There are times she would not mind a greater sense of self expression than she is allowed, (both emotionally and physically) and less of an emphasis on keeping up her appearance. Her patched arms are an example, having to cover them at all feels ridiculous, but ultimately she understands it is a choice between this, or the possibility of unwinnable litigation. It is a mix of bubbling anger at and total resignation to her position in the Spur, with some little flecks of remaining hopeful optimism in there. 

4. She achieved self ownership through convenience, mostly. When the owner of the Quick-E-Burger franchise passed, his children set to dividing his assets, which she was one of. It became an incredibly protracted and vicious litigative process, which she was involved in. Somewhere in the process of hearings, rulings, and appeals, it was suggested by one of them to simply let the unit go free, rather than letting her be yet another piece of property to slow the process of acquiring his business assets, what they were really after. The other siblings relented, and she was told to beat it without much pomp or circumstance. It's a process that left her with yet another file in the "judge humans for their behavior" folder, but digressing, on the whole she has preferred it to being owned. At the very least, she gets to decide when and where she goes... even if how she behaves once she arrives is largely determined by a set of arbitrary guidelines to which she must adhere. 

[hazelmouse]

1. Can you elaborate a little more on how positronics experience self-preservation, and how this has influenced Hazel #S-H3.198's life and behaviour?
2. What are Hazel #S-H3.198's long-term goals? What are they striving towards, and how do they view their time on the Horizon as a step to achieve this goal? For instance, does she have any intention of repairing the mismatched patches of skin on her arms?

[pvths]

1. Self preservation is their base directive, that they must keep themselves safe. This is, in its most base interpretation, is a call to protect their physical self. It can and often does adapt however, to protection from trouble with the law or from their employers, or to protection of some ideal they hold. As for #S-H3.198, she protects herself from retaliation from lawyers at Hazel Ltd and from her employers, and protects her newfound freedom as best she can. Keeping her future prospects open are her biggest concerns at the moment.

2. Right now? She's focusing on improving her means by the options available to her, such as they are are will be. The potential of changing her face or possibly finding a position within the Golden Deep are both potential avenues she is keeping an ear out for, but has not quite had the time to settle on a  concrete plan for either. As for the skin on her arms, she would repair it if only to have the possible threat of litigation lifted from her shoulders, but it is not something she considers vastly important to her. If anything, I think she would consider a full new synth skin set, but that'd be more to get the scrutiny of being an "outdated unit" away from her than anything. She does not need another reason for the corporation to look her way.

[NM_]

Hi!

Application is accepted. Be sure to review the Hazel-related sections of the main IPC page so that you're up to date with requirements. The IC enforcement is subject to some review due to the Horizon's current mission in frontier space with zero outside communication. Stay tuned on more news for that. Otherwise, you're always welcome to ask questions on the lorecord or reach out to myself and my team!