A Fresh Start

Started by Ixy, January 12, 2007, 02:08:37 AM

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Ixy

Hi Elliquians.  :) 

I don't want to make the mistake of overwhelming myself with games I can't keep up with... I feel really bad for letting down my fellow players in that respect before.  However, I'd like to make a fresh start, maybe with a couple of small games.

I'm tossing around the ideas for a couple stories, and maybe a couple players might want to get in on one or two of these.  Here's the first...

The New Model: (for inspiration for this one, you can blame Marilyn Manson's song of the same name, or Bladerunner, or the 1987 movie "Cherry 2000"... I don't care, just don't blame me  :P)  I'd like to play a psychotic android; the kind produced by AI becoming too advanced to be predictable.  I tried this character out on Yahell before it went kerplooie, and it was FUN. 

The setting would be cyberpunk (not Shadowrun, more of a Gibson or Sterling setting... the Sprawl, or New Tokyo.  My character'd be a pleasure droid, the prototype of an advanced, EXTREMELY expensive new series designed to keep the corporate demi-gods happy by responding in extremely human ways and adapting to new sexual and social situations.  Unfortunately, she was personally tested by her designer in a rigorous set of circumstances-- in some cases by humans who didn't even know she was a droid.  She was prostituted out, modified, then sent to an exclusive BD/SM club, then re-modified... loaned out to an in-the-know Dominant who found her extremely amusing-- she was just a glorified gadget, so he didn't have to worry about legal restrictions when it came to damaging her-- then re-modified. 
After roughly a year of this vigorous testing, she was about to be cleared for mass production when one of her test-clients turned out very badly... evidently, the client tried to kill her, thinking she was just a prostitute.  By the time the test team intervened, the John's spine was removed from his body.  The New Model, meanwhile, was writing machine code on the hotel notepad-- at a blindingly fast speed, in letters so small and precise that only a machine could produce them.  By the time they cracked the code she was writing and re-compiled it, she had escaped the testing center and fled-- no one is completely sure how.  The code turned out to be a program for producing three-dimensional graphic displays now referred to as "The Rose Generator", which produces nearly random three-dimensional shapes in a never-repeating cycle and predicts fourth-dimensional measurements.  No one had ever introduced her to its likeness, nor has its logic engine been documented before; it is assumed to be the first code ever written by a machine of its own volition: the first actual product of true artificial intelligence.

*wipes forehead*  Whew...

OK!  Next idea later.
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MechanicalImpulses

    Well,  if you haven't received any takers as of yet I have to admit that I'd love to give running this game a shot.
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Ixy

Thanks for the interest-- Goldenchild and Elandra and I are talking over some ideas, perhaps you'd care to jump in?

We're trying to pin down a focus for this, because the character concept may be clear, but the plot isn't.

My thought is that there's room for other character-types here if it's not to be a 'newmodel'-centered game.  I can see her as more of a character to be put in another setting than the central focus of a storyline.  The 'repo-men' after her could be more of a plot device.
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Caustic

Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can't remember how you got from where you were to where you are. Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember but the story. -Tim O'Brien

GoldenChild

Hmmm... looks as we are starting to need a board here :)... not that I'm complaining though.

MechanicalImpulses

   Well, I'd be happy to join in... that is as long as its alright with everyone involved.
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Ixy

OK-- Quick recap of our situation... since we've been chattin' it up in PM, I'll repost.  Since this might get to be about a 4 or 5 person game.  That'd be Sweeeet... starts gettin' a tad bit warm at the notion...  ;D

Here's what we were saying.

I wrote:
Hey GC, Elandra, I'm lumping these two together for discussion, if you don't mind.

I think the idea of AI-rights could be very interesting... certainly there must be other droids out there, of different designs, as well.  'Newmodel' isn't just independent, though... she's psychotic, I think.  Yay!  Grin

It would be a powerful story element to be on the lookout for corporate bounty-hunters, or in this case, 'repo-men' (lol).  It'd give us some antagonists.  But I kinda envisioned that as a secondary plotline to the original.

This need not be limited to a 'newmodel' centered story... she could be just a character in another thread, too.  Like part of a group of runners, even... any other ideas about what kind of character/s you'd like to play, or play with?

Maybe the three of us, or maybe a fourth, can sort out some other ideas too?


Goldenchild Wrote:
Should we just hold it as a backstory, to what we tie our main storyline. Question is if we should apply for a board if we become four players? We are entitled to...
My feel of it would be that we all play runners, although are we all to hold in the storyline more or less or shall someone be more "in charge"?

Me again:
It needn't be strictly Gibson, but that's what I'd like to shoot for.  We can borrow as we see fit.

GC:
Sounds as the best way to do it. Make the "setting" to ours. In which level should we put it? Are we talking about street-level, dirty, hanging on that last cred for your survival or do we want a high rolling one where we are one with the higher-ups?
We go by Gibson's setting then?

Moi:
I think that depends on the group... if we go with professional runners, we can fit Elandra's character as "corporate sponsorship", where the two have a history that extends beyond the board room.  That way we can have the best of both worlds... when the funding comes through for a project, they have creds at their disposal and can live the high-life as they like... but when they're not in the "thick" times they can live on the fringes.

Elandra:
I like this idea immensely; my character could 'sponsor' some of your runs, but also has other less business-oriented connectors to perhaps both of you.

GC:
Question... so the poor android is just our plot-hook then?

If no-one objects I would take on a former-merc-almost-killed-in-action-now-"repaired" kind of character. Or that is too simple concept?


OK!  That about sums it up.  Did I miss anything?
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Ixy

OK, I've no objections to a rebuilt mercenary, so long as he's got personality. 

Elandra... I like that concept more by the day... a cool exteriored, strong-willed corporate type with a dark side and an attraction for... the atypical (grin). 

And fair warning all... I plan on this being a little bit sick and twisted, plus heavy sexually.

Caustic?  Mechanical Impulses?  What're you two thinking about?
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GoldenChild

Hmm she wants personallity... how strange  ;)

No I don't think you missed anything. :)

Caustic

You mean character, Icsy.  *grin* 

I'm thinking an ex-boxer turned ex-soldier turned ex-hitman, his face, retinas, and fingerprints reconstructed to give him a new identity after he split from contracts with the Yakuza.  He's freelance now, but wasn't willing to do what the Yaks were starting to request... and Yaks don't make requests, really... they might offer you a contract with no obligation to sign, but that means you say yes... saying no means a polite nod of acknowledgement will be given to one, shortly before one's head becomes separated from one's body by considerable distance.

So he might be hunted, if his identity got out... but I'm really looking to play a gritty, stim-hooked, bitter character with a dark, twisted urge to do the right thing-- even it if means his own destruction. 

Big suprise, huh...
Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can't remember how you got from where you were to where you are. Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember but the story. -Tim O'Brien

MechanicalImpulses

Sick... twisted, heavily sexual and it involves androids....  I will latch onto this game and never... ever let go.  So are we going for a Do Android's Dream of Electric Sheep/Bladerunner kind of feel here... ? Also,  are the characters going to be primarily droids or humans,  with Ixy's characer being the single synthetic amongst the group?  Either way,  I've got quite a few concepts in mind that have been itching to be released in a sort of dark cyberpunk style setting.

Hell,  though... I've never been good at  developing characters that are particularly combat oriented...  So,  I hope no more "Warriors" are particularly necesary.  Perhaps a simple street rat with a fondness for computers and slim to nil common sense.
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Ixy

Well, being a runner doesn't necessitate combat... but it's fun.

I can see you playing a synthetic... but I'm sure that Aasimov's laws applied at some point, so unless you're thinking Idoru or Wintermute, it'd be tough to have a character with enough AI to be interesting.  There's always cyborg... slap some grey matter in an I-pod and add a 'human inside (r)' sticker.  Or vice-versa.

Bladerunner/do androids dream works too... but bear in mind that I'm setting up a world that's =basically= devoid of AI...
I'm justifying my character having a consciousness with a non-reproduction interested sex drive on months of mis-use during final product testing and insanely intricate, abstract programming that accidentally generated self-awareness. 

She has an internal fixation on sex because she was designed that way... to be the ultimate lover.  So designed that she might even say 'no', have an affair, initiate at inopportune times... realistic in many ways, but with impulses that are characteristic of severe personality issues... low self-esteem, curiosity, tempermental emotions... the idea was to create a cocktail of a companion-bot and sex-kitten rather than a set of if-then statements and pre-programmed responses... they got what they wanted, but to a degree they never expected.

OK, enough talking about myself.  I wanna hear what you're thinking.

And I don't have a character name yet.
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GoldenChild

Niel hadn’t been the luckiest man in the world. Born in what was left of England and educated among His Majesty’s Military Forces he was sent to the font fighting in the Oil Wars against the Islamic Union. On one point he was lucky, he came out of the war alive but far from in one piece…

Niel’s experiences has scarred him and changed him to a point that he wasn’t the same man any longer, even his family didn’t see him as his old self any longer and it became impossible for him to stay. So he travelled, using his military pension as far as it went until it was canceled when the system of England totally collapsed. Left without any means of self support he fell back on the things he could, fight, kill, and protect. He found that he was just as good as he had been in the War on the first two, but it was the third that was his passion. To protect someone, to help people in need.

MechanicalImpulses

(A short summery)

    It all started with a car wreck...  an accident that killed both his mother and sister upon impact leaving him nothing more then a worthless shell and a miraculously still functioning brain.  His father,  would not give up his son to the grave so soon...  and essentially sold his soul to the corporations for the money to "heal"  Steven.  Of course,  the old body had to go and replaced with a combination of plastic and metals...  they couldn't even afford real biosystems. 

     This was not the life for any human,  and it had its effects upon him.  He grew strangely spiritual, though not towards God... but in the divinity of the machine.  The spark of perfection, that this hollow plastic cage provided him with.  It was imperfect....  but at least it was a step in the right direction.  He turned to a life of crime,  raiding different robotic facilities,  and collecting parts that would help him attain his "Divinity."  Along the way,  he became allies with a body fixer who was the man who installed his new hardware when he was able to get his hands on them.  After 5 long years of searching,  he knew that he was getting closer...  someone looking at him... would see only human.  Thanks to his newly acquired bio-systems he could function as any other human could.

       It was the stuff underneath though, that really mattered.  The alteration's to his shell created a machine capable of physical feats beyond most human's...  which was pretty good for someone who technically shouldn't even be alive.  That mechanical form of his, can also be equipped with weapon system's if it is appropriate for the matter at hand.  But still,  Steven searches...looking for perfection.  The only thing left of Steven humanity is locked away within his chest,  his brain...  protected heavily by armor plating.
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Elandra

Hey Mechanic, perhaps our characters know each other, what I figure is my character Vivian owns a vast corporate empire though she hides her wealth through many dummy corporations. She has a darker side, using runners and freelancers to take out her competition, whether through pure assassination, or kidnappings, or long drawn out schemes that involve building up the trust of the mark, or perhaps even a simple snatch and grab. She uses her runners, feeding on their weaknesses, in your case the need to create mechanical perfection, perhaps she with her wealth she trades new parts for jobs?

Caustic - what is the right thing, or perhaps a better question, what would be too wrong for him?
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MechanicalImpulses

   Anything that could better integrate my character into the storyline would be perfect, so I wouldn't mind being employed as your runner for new toys.
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Caustic

My character would be primarily amoral with an overreactive sense of guilt regarding 'the innoccent'... no kids, for instance... I figure he fell out with the Yakuza over a family ice-job after ferrying the wife and kids out of the country before torturing the father to death.

Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can't remember how you got from where you were to where you are. Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember but the story. -Tim O'Brien

Ixy

Seriously... any thoughts on names for the thread?  Or my character?  Or other aspects?  This could be very cool.
I'm thinking "Tin Lizzy" as a teasingly affectionate monaker... Lizzy for short.  No connection to Borden intended, but a fortunate coincidence.
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MechanicalImpulses

I don't have anything in mind for the name of the game,  but Lizzy sounds like it could workable.  So, are we focusing on "Running."  Because I kind of think it would be sort of sad to see the character's back story tossed to the side like that,  I wouldn't really mind the idea of atleast part of game rotating arround the idea that who ever made this new model droid want's her back.  Besides,  in game it would seem that each character even has a reason for defending this Android.
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Switch with heavy submissive tendencies.

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GoldenChild

I like Tin Lizzy, a rather crude name that works :)

I don't think Niel will understand what she is though, not believing it anyway until it has been proved for him. To him she will probably be a girl that is in need of protection and help (which in itself is enough for him to step in).

Another thing, I feel that we should tone down the powerlevel of our characters. We don't need to be super-humans (because of we are then the opposition will be so much more and deadlier). Sure we should be good in what we does but I think we shouldn't be "the best in the world"-level.

GoldenChild


Ixy

A needly pulling threeeaaaaad...
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Ixy

Quote from: MechanicalImpulses on January 17, 2007, 05:39:43 AM
I don't have anything in mind for the name of the game,  but Lizzy sounds like it could workable.  So, are we focusing on "Running."  Because I kind of think it would be sort of sad to see the character's back story tossed to the side like that,  I wouldn't really mind the idea of atleast part of game rotating arround the idea that who ever made this new model droid want's her back.  Besides,  in game it would seem that each character even has a reason for defending this Android.

That sounds fantastic.  I'm requesting a new channel for us... beware.
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The big print giveth, the small print taketh away.

Ixy

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The big print giveth, the small print taketh away.