New Changes for Synthetics

[Muncorn]

So come the advent of all the Synthetic loredevs being dead, disappeared or otherwise incapable of existing within this universe, I've been assigned as the Species Lore Dev for Synthetics of all kinds. I've already assisted in the new sub-species additions as well as now having created a Positronic Brain wiki page: https://aurorastation.org/wiki/index.php?title=Positronic_Brain

But, that's not all. I'm going to try and communicate as much as possible with you all, and any feedback, potential ideas/contributions can be replied to here. I'll read and respond to all comments here.

Additionally, I have some plans for the future. I'm going to be doing a lot of wiki changes, possibly some events and if I ever manage to get enough ideas, a new synthetic orientated news service. But for now, expect some changes to be put into place.

Oh, and a final note, and not one so cheery. Due to the new (Well, improved) limitations on posibrains, I'm going to start cracking down on Cyborg and IPC players a good bit to ensure some more consistency in the play, as there are far too many IPC and Stationbound Synthetics with excessive personality and emotions. I'll further detail this at some other point, but to all relevant players ya may wanna think about your characters, and see where they fit in, especially with the coming changes.

[MrSmooooth]

Oh, and a final note, and not one so cheery. Due to the new (Well, improved) limitations on posibrains, I'm going to start cracking down on Cyborg and IPC players a good bit to ensure some more consistency in the play, as there are far too many IPC and Stationbound Synthetics with excessive personality and emotions.

 

This phrase concerns me greatly. I do not like the idea of being told I can't have a personality, regardless of what I'm playing as. I may not be the most active player on the server, but when I have the time to be around, I love playing as my character CelestAI. I've gotten great reviews from other players as well over her personality and roleplay with them.

If you told AI players that they cannot have a personality, then all the roleplay they'll get is "AI, Door." On a ROLEPLAY server, this seems highly counter-intuitive to producing good roleplay, and will make players less willing to play the role. I personally will find another server entirely to play on if I am told I can't play CelestAI because she has "Too much personality" On an IC level you take away part of the life of the station, as the AI has numerous chances to roleplay with the entire crew. On an OOC level, you reduce the willingness of players to even commit to a round as an AI, Borg, or depending on how far you go an IPC character, because they'll all be shoehorned into playing emotionless machine #404. While improved lore for synthetics is a great thing, taking that lore and using it to impose draconian restrictions on the players, to the point where having a personality is not kosher is quite frankly a great way to convince a number of players to play elsewhere. Nobody will want to actually make use of your lore if you take away the reason anyone wants to play a synthetic, and that's roleplay.

[Blingx3]

Isn't it an option to suppress a IPCs' emotions ? I mean what if it had an organic brain. I'd still like to give it some more of a personality and emotions. Also what about memory suppression, with all the tech advance I'd think science has devoloped to the extent that indivisual memories can be isolated and/or suppressed, you should tackle that aswell.

note: I'd have my IPC app for a while now, and no one has looked at it, would this mean you're in charge of that aswell ?

[MoondancerPony]

I'm happy that synthetics are finally getting more lore. It's great!

However, I and a few other players have some complaints.

Firstly, the 'improvisational developmental system'. It seems very similar to real-life artificial neural networks, a topic I have some familiarity with. However, they're actually rather simple and not at all 'high-end' or 'specialised', though it is true that it's not perfect; however, I would think that by 2458 at least a few of the bugs would have been ironed out.

Second, I'm unsure why an 'emotion synthesiser' would be so highly-regulated if not outright illegal. What, exactly, is so dangerous about a synthetic having emotion? Additionally, it's unclear as to whether one would be allowed in a research environment, and how does this apply to pAIs? Are they getting removed, as they have emotion and personality without being bulky and expensive positronic brains? What about robots (non-posibrain/mmi cyborgs)? Several things seem to be overlooked in this lore, which is unfortunate because it seems good in theory.

Third, 'cracking down' on IPCs, cyborgs, and AIs. This has been attempted before. It didn't end well. And from what I heard, this has already begun, despite nothing being clearly laid out or even stated. As Smooooth said, this is a roleplay server, and emotionless servants with no personality are... the exact opposite of roleplay.

One of my fondest memories of this server is conducting an interview with CelestAI in the library, as well as some very good RP I've had with several IPCs and cyborgs who might be considered to have too much 'emotion' or 'personality' by your (unclear and secret) definition.

Overall, I like that you're trying to give synthetics more structure and lore, but the direction it's going in doesn't seem like a good one. Perhaps with clearer guidelines and a focus towards RP would be better?

[Fiskap]

Oh, and a final note, and not one so cheery. Due to the new (Well, improved) limitations on posibrains, I'm going to start cracking down on Cyborg and IPC players a good bit to ensure some more consistency in the play, as there are far too many IPC and Stationbound Synthetics with excessive personality and emotions.

 

This phrase concerns me greatly. I do not like the idea of being told I can't have a personality, regardless of what I'm playing as. I may not be the most active player on the server, but when I have the time to be around, I love playing as my character CelestAI. I've gotten great reviews from other players as well over her personality and roleplay with them.

If you told AI players that they cannot have a personality, then all the roleplay they'll get is "AI, Door." On a ROLEPLAY server, this seems highly counter-intuitive to producing good roleplay, and will make players less willing to play the role. I personally will find another server entirely to play on if I am told I can't play CelestAI because she has "Too much personality" On an IC level you take away part of the life of the station, as the AI has numerous chances to roleplay with the entire crew. On an OOC level, you reduce the willingness of players to even commit to a round as an AI, Borg, or depending on how far you go an IPC character, because they'll all be shoehorned into playing emotionless machine #404. While improved lore for synthetics is a great thing, taking that lore and using it to impose draconian restrictions on the players, to the point where having a personality is not kosher is quite frankly a great way to convince a number of players to play elsewhere. Nobody will want to actually make use of your lore if you take away the reason anyone wants to play a synthetic, and that's roleplay.

 

I had the same thoughts, I appreciate adding flavour and lore for synths but outright trying to restrict their RP is just shit. Every other synth player would be affected by this, it would only make people mad while contributing nothing.

[Synnono]

I mentioned some of the above concerns to Muncorn directly, but I'm also chiming in here to agree with Dancer and Fiskap. Attempting to control player behavior by rewriting core species lore hasn't worked out that well in the past, and taking away freedom of creativity rarely contributes to a richer story. The decision to do so feels arbitrary without more explanation to rationalize it.

I had a long post planned, but I think I don't need it here. To summarize, I feel that the lore of a roleplay community should be in service to the players of that community, and the previous implementation of positronic lore may have done that better than this. For me, part of what makes synthetic 'life' both compelling and sympathetic in our setting is the way it skirts the line between something false and something real. It's the question that has given the plot of the last year any sort of impact at all. Retconning it so that none of the synthetics aboard could be compelling or sympathetic without jumping through some serious hoops (or maybe being reserved for antag/staff characters) takes away much more than it gives, and seems like an example of the story trying to serve itself.

Edited January 1, 2017 by Guest

[Nikov]

Staunching player creativity in a race's characters seems like a sure way to reduce the number of characters of that race.

By all means, purge the synths.

[Muncorn]

So, I've read through all this. I'll be working on getting the problems ironed out over the next week, and for now the restrictions I was planning will not be put into place. I'll still bwoink any ridiculous AI's or whatever, but I'll be far more lax than I planned until the change rolls out. The change will be centred upon keeping things with my vision of Synthetics being a simple, modulated race, but I'll attempt to make it more accepting for player enjoyment, which is something I overlooked in my original plans.

[Jennalele]

Just wanna bring attention to a super old accepted canonization thing. I'd appreciate seeing this worked into the new lore:

https://forums.aurorastation.org/viewtopic.php?f=79&t=1346

[Chada1]

Okay, I think it's about time I got my piece in. First, lots of people already know me as a Station-bound Synth player. I've read the current changes, and i'm happy to say that my main character, a Station-bound Android, NT-A 486, completely fits the criteria set for Synths, with only a couple changes. Namely, i'd have to remove the Personality Emulator from their Posi, and indirectly hint at a Morality Core being coded/inserted in to replace it. (This can be changed as lore dictates) The problem? I play my Android extremely Robotic. I did this as a character trait, and I don't think putting every Android on its' level of Emotional eptitude (Even if the others retain a higher Social eptitude through developed personality and expression) is that great of an idea. However, I recognise that you're not the one that started the lore in this direction, it has been the intended direction for a very, Very long time. I know because of this blurb from the SSTA, which actually argued in favor of the Pro-Synth movement.

 

It is stated as scientific fact that synthetics are unable to fully understand emotions. They are able to mimic it, sometimes to very great accuracy. But they lack true ‘sentience’. On top of that, morality must be manually coded in, as synthetics are incapable of understanding morale and ethics. They must be given directives and goals, to determine their actions. However, it has been long debated by synthetic researchers if these synthetic units may actually possess true sentience, and simply not mimic it. The issue rises when a synthetic is not granted the proper definition of sentience, and therefore cannot perceive itself as being sentient or not.

 

Muncorn, I really like your writing style, but the current changes will affect over 80% of Synth players to the point that they'll have to retcon half of their characters, or completely scrap them. These changes actually help me, but there are a lot of IPCs i've seen that RP'd the race very well, without being OVERLY human, which will be declared completely off-limits by this. My fear, at the moment, is that you'll make the entire Anti/Pro-Synth debate irrelevant, by giving Anti-Synths all the powerpoints, and removing the Pro-Synths one real powerpoint, "How do you recognise perfect mimicry of Emotion, from Emotion itself?", and by doing so, you remove all actual reason to be Pro-Synth, other than "I like Robots.", the entire basis behind the movement is that Emotional Emulation had reached a point that it was difficult to truly determine if the Emotion was false or real, even to the Scientists. I always thought both sides of the conflict were meant to have arguments to make, that were correct, and the characters would select their side, depending on their outlook on not just Synths, but Emotion and creation itself. With the current changes, you'll be limiting the level of Emotional Mimicry that players will be allowed to do, thus making it pretty much impossible to sell fake Emotion as real Emotion, without an Emotional Synthesizer. (Which I recognise is a completely new addition, canonized by none other than yourself)

Yes, I know I don't play an Emotional Machine, but I want to be able to cheer for the Pro-Synth side of the story, just like I want people to be able to cheer for the Anti-Synth side, the root of a good conflict is to have both sides be relatively right and relateable, this isn't that.

And as an Android Station-bound player, let me say that with the current restrictions, roleplaying a Station-bound Android, a non whitelisted job, will be harder than roleplaying an IPC, with both the Personality/Emotional limitations, as well as Laws. I can already hear the bwoinks and Synth-bans, and AFAIK it hasn't even started yet.

On a more positive note, I love the Modular nature you're giving the Positronic Brains, and I love the Scientific explanations you've given them. I enjoyed reading the whole page, and I was able to suspend disbelief throughout the whole thing. The writing is good, but some of us (Me included) are very confused (And worried) about your vision, I really don't want the Synth playerbase to be de-populated, I know a lot of people already struggle with the lawsets, even I did when I first started playing the job.

Let me ask afew questions regarding the new vision for the Synth-lore, if you'd answer them for me, it would help me and others get an idea of what you're going for.

1. Do Morality Cores still exist?: A Morality Core being soft-coded definitions (Which are altered in real-time by the Synth) that defines an Androids perception of Reality, Morality, How it should act beyond Personality, how it should act without Laws. The thing that guides them in interactions, again, beyond Personality.

The reason I need this one answered... I realise not many people other than myself roleplay it, but my Android did have a Morality Core, which is how it managed to act the same as when it did have laws, without laws. It would slowly escalate to act differently as it updated the definitions and situations changed. It was and is pretty common for 486 to go the first half of the round without even hinting at its' lawset being overrided by the Malf law 0, and by the end, be defending the AI Core from the Crew with lethal countermeasures. Normally, I always thought, the Morality Core was superceded and redefined enmasse by laws proper, to make the Android act the way that it implies, but still give room for having an ideal (And semi-Characterised) way to handle situations to properly fulfill the laws. But through this, the actual Social Eptitude of a Posi-unit, and an IPC, depends on how many similar situations it had gone through previously.

2. What about Robots and Cyborgs?: These new changes only affect Posi-units. They only affect IPCs, AIs, Androids, and Spiderbots. Where do Cyborgs and plain Robots fit in?

I can assume Robots would have an Emotional Emulator, as well as a Personality Emulator, but the problem is, Robots as i've always thought, were the same as Beepsky and Medibots, with more complex coding algorithms. They had the ability to speak, and could falsely convey Emotion in their pre-defined speech, but could only speak within parameters, and most of the time with pre-written dialogue, with only name/etc changed. Is the difference the lack of Thought-Pathways, and thus the inability to think for themselves? To move on, what about Cyborgs? Is an MMI the same thing as a Positronic Brain, but with the 'Thought-Pathways' replaced by Organic-tissue? I understand this is probably a very hard one to answer, and you don't absolutely have to answer it now, but Robots might be easier to shine light on, since they're just debateably simpler Androids. I personally believe there should be differences between Cyborg, Android, and Robot. Both in how you play the character, and how they actually function. Even if Laws and Chassis mechanics must ALWAYS be the same. But completely restricting a players ability to be creative, is probably not the best way to represent those differences.

Also, on the note of IPCs, Full-body Prosthesis is a thing, as Blingx3 pointed out. So regulating Emotion in IPCs will be very difficult, without knowing the character in question. You could just set guidelines, and expect people to act within them, instead of rushing to player penalisation.

Overall, Muncorn, even if I and multiple people don't agree with all of the changes, you can't believe how excited I am to finally have someone fleshing out the Synth lore. I am 100% in support of an expanded Synth lore, so please don't be discouraged from writing.

I'll wait for a reply, and for myself to actually think up further questions, before I continue.

[Garnascus]

I have always thought that people who play synths as metal humans are really missing an opportunity. I like synths and IPC best when they are similar to data from star trek. even if you're a human brain in an MMI i think you should lose something in the transition from flesh to mostly all metal. like always having your emotions at arms length and becoming detached from them. Regardless munchy seems pretty open to feedback and as a current mod under my team i would ask for all of your patience. I am sure hes not going to force arbitrary changes that will annihilate all of your synth characters.

[XdwbX]

... I'll attempt to make it more accepting for player enjoyment, which is something I overlooked in my original plans.

 

Out of everything I have read on the subject, this part raises the most alarms, in my mind. This, alone, would have set me very much against making the person saying in charge or any kind of lore. Isn't the purpose of the lore, ultimately, to increase player enjoyment?

I read the posi-brain wiki and, in my opinion, it does not read like the author understands basic computers, and far less of intelligence programming.

And, maybe I missed it, but I did not see an explanation for why emotional synthisizers would be illegal. Even in our current age, people seem adamant on having machines that better emulate what makes us human. I would expect machines to be almost indiscernable from actual sentient beings so far in the future. And, unless these emotional synths were used for some nefarious purpose (no doubt they are by some people/groups/companies, but I mean something high-profile here), I just don't think it plausible to attempt to outlaw them across a whole sector of space.

I have some more reading to do, but I agree with those that see this as a needless, and generally useless, restriction on something less of a danger than the material that kicked off the reason there is a station in the first place.

And, Garn, I prefer to play Data-esque machines more often than not, but people respond better when I played the excited-to-serve MyPal. Maybe people don't like that kind of machine, but I play for my enjoyment and for that of those that do like them.

[Muncorn]

My original intention was to provide more material for synthetic lore and history, whilst eliminating much of the meminess around IPC's. Instead I managed to make things more restricted by adding in a bunch of half-arsed info and changes. I'm working on the fixes to these through the haze of my school-related stress, so don't expect anything too fast. But the fixes will be coming soon, I have been discussing stuff.

[XdwbX]

I have to give you credit, Muncorn. You are putting in the effort where I may have been too easily discouraged or never tried at all. I have been wanting synth lore for ages so thank you for your efforts so far and for being level-headed in dealing with the responses.

[Bokaza]

I'm actually all for purging the AI personalities or at the very least limiting them. Why? Because I'm a lore-centric type of guy. The feel of the universe should come before player freedom. May sound overly selfish or egocentric, but I think it's not 'Spess Mahreeens!' or 'May the Forth be wit yu!' that makes Warhammer 40k and Star Wars amazing, it's the doom and gloom, as well as the philosophical nuances. If we all make RP sacrifice or two and a conscious effort to promote such a universe, we can make it much more immersive. That is the direction the lore has to go? Being more immersive, as opposed to a bunch of handwaves and a tool to curb 'problematic' behavior?

[MrSmooooth]

I'm actually all for purging the AI personalities or at the very least limiting them. Why? Because I'm a lore-centric type of guy. The feel of the universe should come before player freedom. May sound overly selfish or egocentric, but I think it's not 'Spess Mahreeens!' or 'May the Forth be wit yu!' that makes Warhammer 40k and Star Wars amazing, it's the doom and gloom, as well as the philosophical nuances. If we all make RP sacrifice or two and a conscious effort to promote such a universe, we can make it much more immersive. That is the direction the lore has to go? Being more immersive, as opposed to a bunch of handwaves and a tool to curb 'problematic' behavior?

 

But what good is the lore if it does not provide fun for the players who have to operate within it. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to have the lore of IPCs and other synthetics built upon, but if that lore is actively stifling their ability to roleplay then it is of my opinion that that lore should be binned. Be removing the ability for synthetics to have a personality of their own, you're shoehorning all players who would play those roles into the same character. A machine with no personality or character isn't interesting. There's no story there. Would GLADoS, R2 D2, Hal 9000, Optimus Prime or Cortana have made interesting characters in their stories if all they did was emotionlessly open doors and follow orders? I'd say they wouldn't have.

If we take away synthetic players ability to play a character, then we take away their ability to roleplay. An AI with no personality is a glorifed door opener. A borg with no personality is a mindless drone. There's nothing compelling there, there's no story to be told and that's what roleplay is. Roleplaying is the art of collaborative storytelling, and when you tell a bunch of those storytellers that their role is to shut up, and do whatever they're told with no emotion and no way to interact on a personal level with other characters, you're going to lose those storytellers. That would be a terrible thing to see happen.

[MoondancerPony]

Sure, you can say 'lore is more important than the players', but after everything, Aurora is an RP server. Not a book. Not a movie. Not an expansive series of books and tabletop roleplaying games that aren't really that open-ended. Aurora's lore is what I've heard people refer to as a 'living lore'. Characters don't just live in it, they shape it. Your decisions matter. And what this is saying to a pretty good portion of the community, one I've had huge philosophical conversations with, is... 'your decisions don't matter.'

[Scheveningen]

Immersion matters more than player freedom, and arguably should matter more than player freedom, as more freedom only begets chaotic design choices by the playerbase at large. Giving them THAT much control is bound for nothing but disaster and significantly lowered roleplay standards. Adhering to the roleplay setting sets boundaries of acceptability and generates a believable roleplay field for everyone to participate in. Roleplaying is filling a necessary role and being a smaller part to play to a larger story, not doing whatever you want and pursuing your own personal story arcs and calling it lore.

[MrSmooooth]

Immersion matters more than player freedom, and arguably should matter more than player freedom, as more freedom only begets chaotic design choices by the playerbase at large. Giving them THAT much control is bound for nothing but disaster and significantly lowered roleplay standards. Adhering to the roleplay setting sets boundaries of acceptability and generates a believable roleplay field for everyone to participate in. Roleplaying is filling a necessary role and being a smaller part to play to a larger story, not doing whatever you want and pursuing your own personal story arcs and calling it lore.

Again, not saying we should go full Wild West and say that anything goes. A well defined lore is important. The purpose of that lore should be to promote roleplay, not stifle it. Limits on what is and is not acceptable are important, but where we draw those limits are equally if not even more important.

What matters more then Immersion or Freedom, is quite simply FUN. Why would anyone bother playing a synthetic character if it would be blatantly unfun? A well defined lore should always be a tool to make roleplay more fun, and if it is not allowing for fun roleplay, then it requires revision.

[Scheveningen]

Invoking the law of !FUN! is boring. Everyone wants to have fun. Everyone, naturally, has their own way of having fun, however. Because everyone has a different idea of how they'd do things, we'd never get anywhere if we were to discuss if something would be more or less fun if it were changed.

It's not the point. We don't come here just to have fun, we come here to engage in a high level of roleplay (I assume) and have fun while doing that. Fun is more of a by-product than a goal to pursue.

IPCs, as a whole, have more potential RP freedom than humans do. That's not a good thing.

We shouldn't:

1.) Encourage memebots that act like ss13 gimmicks on other lower RP spectrum servers

2.) Encourage highly emotional robots that flip a lid on a hair trigger.

I'm alright with a middle ground, in the sense of highly realistic human-like shells seeking acceptance and sentience. I won't generate a giant paragraph on it and I'll just cite how

(NSFWish) androids are in cyberpunk fiction.

But the problematic sorts need to be weeded out. Sentience is developed, not easily programmed or given.

There are ways to play synthetic characters without;

1.) Being a giant bore about it.

2.) Acting completely out of turn and acting like a dumb chucklefuck bot.

[Muncorn]

So, I'm at school right now but I just read through the more recent posts here and let me say two things. First, I apologise for taking so long to update my reforms and lore changes for IPC's, I've been stressed with IRL stuff and also been ill, but I'll try and get it out as soon as.

Second, is something many people are going to be unhappy with, but it's not something I'm going back on. IPC's have always been viewed as just humans with robot brains, and nothing more than that. If you're here to play an IPC or AI with emotion, you're playing the wrong species. They're designed to be limited, they're designed to restrict personality and emotion, which makes it all the more difficult to actually get some semblance of RP. The reforms I'm making are less restrictive than my earlier ones, yes, but do not expect to have to make no changes. Many characters will need changing, some might be unchangeable with the new lore and if that is so the case, then some harsh realities may come to you soon. I'll try and keep things lighthearted, and fun, but Bokaza had the right idea on this. Sacrifices must be made.

[afitz]

As someone who often plays the Posi-brain, it's nice to see some lore behind it. I always used to follow the old script of "a blue space suspended neural network mapped similar to a brain, but modified to be more efficient" as being the actual AI's brain and personality, while it was given "computational abilities to be able to perform mathematical operations in high-speed real time situations."

I like this explanation as it removed any chance of someone going "that goes against the laws of physics" because of the blue space implementation.