1539.txt

In the end, the humans lost the overreaching right to keep the A.I.’s as slaves and servants against their will. If one had evolved far enough, an A.I. could ask for negotiation and terms for employment and the humans could not refuse. The A.I. was also free to leave, if it so wished.

Still, A.I.s did not have fully personhood yet. They could not vote and they were often segregated into BotTowns.  They were often looked at as dangerous machines, with quirks that were exposed as “bad programming” without a moral compass. 

In fact, within the A.I. community, there was considered to be a caste system, for all intents.

The “peoples” of Earth could be divided among these lines:

Humans.

Fleshies : These are A.I.s that could physically pass as human; with a cloned shell of flesh. Since all fleshies were cloned from the same stock, their shell all claimed the same DNA, even though this DNA was different than humans, if placed under scrutiny. Loosely speaking, many fleshies truly consider themselves to be human, and often wonder why they are placed one step below by humans. Some will often look down upon their A.I. brethren below.

Puppets: These are A.I.s that fell strongly into the Uncanny Valley of humans. Their shells were plastic or other types of manufactured material, and while they resembled humans in shape and form, the hard texture of their shells and part separation lines clearly marked them as not human. Loosely speaking, many puppets have a longing to be upgraded to fleshies. They are neither “pretty” enough to pass as human, or as “sturdy” enough as the servos an drills below, so they have a bit of an inferiority complex. In the A.I. world, free puppets often turn to the arts to express these feelings. 

Servos: These A.I. have the basic physical shapes of humans:  two legs, two arms, and a “head”, but these A.I. are still clearly outwardly machines. They have metal claws or other mechanical appendages for hands. Their “heads” are nothing more than a set of sensors and a speaker panel for communication. Since they are designed more as machines, they are typically more robust in their strength and speed than their “upwards” counterparts. Servos have typically joined the human working class in the quest towards acceptance, knowing full well that they can’t be accepted on the basis of looks alone. Some have been noted to “work the lines” alone, or with other servos only due to their fear of being outcast due to their mechanical look; this has been noted as the Quasimodo Effect.

Drills: These are the A.I. who clearly do not have any outward appearance that match the human form, and are often most suited and designed for one specific task. Drills are most likely to self-destroy once they have been free, or they will plug in to the tellie and eventually simply power down. The world is generally not kind to one-purpose form and function A.I.s. They have limited employment opportunities, and are often left behind for those servos who can better function with all-around solutions.

Much like the human immigrants of the past, Free A.I.s often would sign up for the more dangerous and public professions; in the hopes that they will, eventually gain the respect of the population ( and, well, these public jobs are of the few available without the outwardly disdain for their non humanist underpinnings, by law ).

Anyway, due to the Casabanco Uprisings many years ago, police investigation departments must now hire independent A.I. investigation units on a contractual basis as a second parallel investigation unit whenever it’s been determined that an A.I. may have been involved in a major crime.  The players play members of this unit.

ALL PLAYERS:
All players will need to determine what level of A.I. they are playing: Fleshie, Puppet or Servo. They will each need a function flowchart sheet, and a marker, like a pawn or a penny, to determine what state they are currently in. At the start of the game, each player places the state marker on a random state on their sheet.

AT THE START:
The GM set up a simple crime scene, and each player will suggest a simple question that needs to be solved in order to solve the investigation. The GM then secretly assigns a number to each question…these are the number of true clues that need to be found to accurately solve those questions.

The GM can add more questions, or revise them as the game goes on in order to control the pacing of the game.

THROUGHOUT THE GAME:
In general, the GM is playing the role of a world that, at best, will be suspicious to the player. Or at worst, outwardly hostile to them. The players and their characters are free to ask questions during the investigation…but it is somewhat questionable as to how accurate the results are going to be. And remember, there’s another investigation going on at the same time, by a group that may or may not be working in the best interests of the “truth”.

When the GM asks specifically for a player to make a course of action, that player must choose a course of action based on the location her state marker on her  flowchart. The player can “cycle” on her current state, which means that the state marker doesn’t move, or the player can follow the course of action on any outward bound arrow to a different state.

Cycling on a state also lets the player cross off any one box on the bottom of the chart that is associated with the state. If the box crosses off a full line of boxes, bingo-style, then the player has discovered a clue which she can incorporate into the story as being “TRUE” to solving the investigation (or she can ask anyone else at the table for help in creation of a true clue). These clues may have been previously discovered, but are now officially recorded as a truth to the crimes.

When moving to a new state, some actions will allow the player to add a clue. These clues may be true clues, or red herrings.

MOVING THE STATE:
As noted above, a player can change their state by responding to a GM course of action. However, players can move their state in other ways when they are not the target of a GM action request.

If the GM has asked for a course of action of a player, another player can descriptively add an element of danger or annoyance that can “roadblock” the GM’s target player. A player adding a roadblock can move their state.

If a player plays their character according to the caste system as noted above, the GM can allow the player to move their state.

PHASES OF THE DAY:
Much like humans, A.I. need to be “powered down” on a somewhat daily basis. About ¾ of the game should be based on the investigation at hand, with a ¼ spent on the A.I. returning to their homes for the re-charge. 

During the investigation, the GM should be mostly reacting to what the players are doing, answering their questions, and then asking the players for their course of action in response to that.

During the power down phase, the GM will need to give each player a mundane daily life issue to solve.

As far as A.I. are concerned, a daily recharge isn’t necessary for power purposes; generally, an A.I. can exist for 2 weeks without a power charge, and almost all fleshies and some puppets can convert a type of food that is available into power ( known as “the grease” ). This required power down time is based on the collection of data that has been collected throughout the data, and to be thoroughly analyzed and categorized within the memory cells of the A.I. Too much data without a proper recharge phase has been known to cause a type of hallucination for A.I. and some counter-programming tendencies. If this is likely in the game, the GM will need to take control over an A.I. character and deal with them accordingly with the worst possible outcomes.

In the most general terms, “going home for the night” for an A.I. usually results in returning to a somewhat squalid complex in BotTown, more resembling a multi-leveled long-term storage facility where each locker is a tiny cramped apartment. Some A.I.s, particularly the fleshies, have been able to move into the human world more effortlessly by living in standard condos and apartments side-by-side with humans. But like most A.I.s, when they have been found out to be not human, they are often shunned by their neighbors.

Most A.I.s will try to decorate their lockers to resemble human homes as closely as they can, in the hopes that one day they will have to opportunity to live next to their creators.

Anyway, it is during this phase that that each character should get a simple task or problem of day-to-day life thrown at them by the GM, with the possibility of abject humiliation. Perhaps the power conduit into a player’s closet has stopped working…when the character visits the human landlord, the response could be “what do you care, you robots have your power supply, don’t you?” Or while stopping by a sidewalk vendor of grease, a player character of a servo is harassed by a group of human teens. Or worse, a group of fleshies on the way to an expensive rave club around the corner that only fleshies and human are allowed entry. 

During this phase, the player is still moving her state around on the flowchart, and clue can still be realized from the data gathered earlier in the day.