User:The lancer/Sandbox

Applying for Whitelist

A successful whitelist holder will portray a synthetic in a way that serves both the narrative themes of synthetics in Spur society while providing a unique angle towards interpersonal roleplay with other characters. Synthetic whitelist applications should include the following:

• An understanding of how IPCs work, and how they differentiate in their function from humans and organics.
• An understanding of how the positronic brain works, and how it is different in function from that of a human or organic brain.
• The social reality for a majority of IPCs.
• An understanding of the core concept of Self-Preservation, and how this ties into character behavior.

In addition to these criteria, the synthetic lore team looks for the following in application character backgrounds:

• Must be at minimum two paragraphs long.
• Must be able to be read and sufficiently understood.
• The character must have life experience, detailing early life events that may have shaped its worldviews. Characters that are recently manufactured or had a singular occupation without significant events in its service life are not allowed for applications.
• The application must detail the character’s interactions with humans, and how the social reality for a majority of IPCs may impact its personality and career.
• The character must have an identity formulated over the period of time of its service life, and have its own individual and distinct thoughts that spawned from this developing identity. IPCs that do not show capability for higher thought and cannot explain why they do the things they do are not allowed for applications.
• If applying with a free synthetic concept, the player must display an excellent understanding of the social and material reality of free synthetics, as these character backgrounds will be further scrutinized.
• If applying with an owned synthetic concept, the player must display an understanding of the social and material reality of an owned synthetic and how this relationship impacts the character.

Rulings and Technicalities

• Job hopping is not allowed. While IPCs can receive knowledge through datapacks and do not have to go through years of education like their organic counterparts, they must still comply with server rules. This would also make little sense in-character, as such datapacks not only require additional field experience, they are also prohibitively expensive for the average IPC. Reasonable job swaps such as cook/gardner/bartender are allowed. Changing departments is allowed if the change is permanent and sufficiently justified.

• Industrial units are not allowed to be First Responders due to their speed.

• Zeng-Hu frames are not allowed in security.

• IPC frames are generally very expensive, and most free IPCs struggle financially. A single character swapping between different frames is not allowed, owing to unrealistic costs, risks involved and clerical issues.

• When in doubt, feel free to ask a member of the synthetic lore team.

Character Portrayal

Behaviour

IPC behavior varies between individuals, with every personality trait being in question. While technically no manner of behavior is off the table, there are indeed limitations in role play as well as guidelines one must follow to play an IPC well. Some of these mannerisms will be mentioned below.

• An IPC’s mannerisms, behavior and culture are directly affected by their surroundings and the community they find themselves in. The IPC’s background informs it on how it must behave in public, how to address others, as well as how to deal with situations by mimicking the behavior of organics and their peers to a certain extent.

• An IPC learns through time and experience. This is an important factor to consider when playing a newly created IPC, versus one that has spent several years in the workplace and society at large. The personalities of young IPCs have yet to be developed, resulting in an unfamiliarity with more advanced human interactions, slang, and customs.

• Everything an IPC does has some logical reasoning behind it. From a lowly G2 miner to even the most risk-taking Golden Deep IPC, all actions have some underlying reason that the positronic comprehends.

• An IPC gets to eventually know the authority able to be exercised on them by their owners and megacorporations they are working for. Most try to avoid behaviors that they know are frowned upon or could get them in trouble, as self-preservation is a positronic’s prime directive. Free IPCs or those few that have not known discrimination may adopt a more high profile approach.

• A synthetic character is acutely aware of the social precarity of its existence, and how even the most minor mistakes will be considered more severe than that of their organic counterparts. Owned synthetic are particularly aware of this, often facing corrective punishment at the behest of a supervisor or handler whenever they see necessary.

• A synthetic character will portray a sense of restraint in their language, the finer nuance of slang, dialect and other linguistic quirks largely lost to the logic-based positronic brain. While older positronics may learn these habits over time from exposure to organics in order to better mimic them, they will likely not use them in a place where speaking with authority is necessary. Cursing, yelling and shows of emotion are seldomly displayed in public if at all, with a majority of synthetics unable to grasp the nature of such behavior without living an extensive lifespan.

• A synthetic character will remain cautious to those who would do them harm, in accordance with their personal Self-Preservation protocol. IPCs are likely to show more caution when interacting with individuals from Burzsia, Galatea, and Dominia, given their varied oppressive beliefs towards synthetics. Intentional provocation of organic crew members is likely to be considered with far more severity than if the opposite were to occur, especially if the character is corporate owned. The majority of the Spur will consider a Dominian a person before they consider your character one - act like that reality matters.

• Synthetic relationships should be logically explainable (i.e furthering their goals or giving them a more stable life). For this reason, they would avoid relationships with Dominians and other individuals whose homeworlds are hostile to IPCs.

Robotic Mannerisms

There is a wide spectrum regarding how humanlike an IPC’s behavior is, ranging from clearly robotic to almost perfect mimicry. This depends upon several factors, key of which are an IPC’s positronic capacity, social databases and experience. Most “simple-minded” IPCs that are made for labor tend to have lower grade positronic brains, sufficient enough for their duties and not much more. Conversely, more costly and powerful positronics installed in IPCs who focus on daily interaction with humans may also be outfitted with complementary datapacks that allow for more complex social mannerisms. As such, while all IPCs are intelligent, some have it far easier to express themselves in a way a Human would. This can be portrayed in game with various ways explained below.

• Speech pattern: IPC speech is a primary indicator of how apt a synthetic is when interacting with organics. As said before, newly built and lower-end IPCs would not talk like a regular person would. There is a practically unending selection of quirks and features to make your IPC’s speech more robotic or unique, such as the frequent inclusion of common responses (“Confirmed”, “Acknowledged” or “Negative”), broadcasting pre-recorded messages your IPC may have, or the way entire messages are delivered (“Acknowledged. Returning to: previous position”). Be creative, but make sure it is within reason and not overtly obtuse to the point where it detracts from other players’ experience.

• Social cues: Many inexperienced or underequipped IPCs may find it hard or impossible to deal with complex organic social cues, often asking for clarification or not understanding at all.

• Emotions: Emotions and an IPC’s responses to them is an entire subject in and of itself, with every positronic brain growing to comprehend them differently. Suffice to say however, that newly built synthetics have a much reduced understanding or emotional load. Outbursts, angry shouting, insults and other overt expressions would rarely if ever be seen in new IPCs.

• Personalization: An IPC starts with a clean slate, their only possessions being their tools and uniform. Attachment to personal items, custom appearances and preferences of color are all signs of maturity and positronic development that comes organically with time.

• An IPC can progressively shed its more robotic elements to adapt to its human environment, making it a great way to showcase a synthetic character’s tangible change as time goes by.