Blog Status Report/Summer Schedule (A few Meta Things)

This can't be our actual status report since it clearly shows we actually have a budget.

Thank you for sticking with me through an "artsy" phase.

For those of you who are not so excited about me publishing the LARP I ran at Kublacon, I appreciate your patience as I finish up this project. It'll be tucked away into the deep dark crevasses of The Reliquary and we'll be back to our usual shenanigans soon. I know it's not "fiction" in the typical sense of the word, and I know that my own creative writing isn't as popular as a snarky listicle or social justice rant, but I take care of an 18 month old and work as a teacher, so writing is very much a careful allocation of time and energy resources. I often have to decide if I'm writing a really slamming article OR working on fiction in a given week.

There may be more "artsy phases" ahead since I really don't seem to be able to blog and write fiction with a toddler in tow, but I will try to spread them out with some regular blogging. If only these damn things would fix themselves dinner once in a while. What is THAT about?

I have a couple more characters and a couple more notes to post for the LARP. I should have that finished by this weekend along with some final thoughts. In particular, thank you to subscribed folks for your patience while I posted two and three characters a day. Because of that, not only was I able to survive a weekend of watching the little guy solo for the first time ever, but this also won't drag out half way to July. I should be able to finish things up by this weekend while only publishing one bit of the larp as a second post each day.

I'd like to direct your attention to our latest poll. (Best world building in fiction.)

We are currently in the nomination process, and I can already tell you that this poll is going to be fricken EPIC. There are already DOZENS of nominations and lots of seconds. So hop over there and add your two cents, or just second what you want to see go on. (Or third it. Or fourth it....) Because if a FEW titles get multiple "seconds" I might just cull everything without multiple seconds to keep the poll from going into semifinal or even quarterfinal rounds.

As usual, it's up to YOU. So if you want every damned world on that poll for a three-month battle royale, be sure to second everything you feel deserves to be on the poll.

I'm teaching summer school again. Yes, really.

I know I said I wasn't going to, and I was going to take the time off and focus on writing this summer, but the family jumped in and pretty much insisted that $35/hr gigs were not to be written off and that they would get me enough back up in the form of housecleaning and kid care that I would not have a summer like the last one (when I was working 60 hour weeks before I ever sat down to write a word). This might be my "Charlie Brown trusting that Lucy won't pull the ball this time" moment, but by fucking Jove, let's give it the old college try. My retirement fund is mostly a dilapidated 401k from my restaurant managing days (that vaguely resembles the burnt cat from Hercules), and some discretionary income I've managed to squirrel away into CDs, so an infusion of real money into an IRA or something now that I'm ~coughnotinmythirtiesanymorecough~ is kind of a no brainer. And I'm sure not making enough writing to buy a retirement yacht...or even a retirement yurt.

The smoke ring represents my dreams of being able to eat
anything other than ramen in old age.
See it floating away....

This means that the Tue, Wed, Thurs schedule for summer will likely be pretty low key. Instead I'll put something "slow burn" up on the weekend. At least that's the plan. Lucy might pull the ball.

Harper Corday (F.F.O. LARP)

[Note: Harper was the only character I gendered since the archetype is so typically a woman's character, I made it definitively a man for this game, but it isn't necessary.]  

Harper Corday-2125
It’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission. It’s even easier to murder you and do whatever the hell I want.

Not like this.

Not like this.

Humans have a character flaw: they don’t care about problems unless those problems are THEIR problems. Most of humanity is not particularly vested in the destruction of your people one way or another, and some even actively work against it. Some. While the apathy of so many is shocking, and the ability of those who govern them to completely ignore voices of dissent is horrifying, their biological imperatives prevent most of them from struggling for the fair and ethical treatment of anyone but themselves.

They can't help it. It's in their blood.

Sometimes you wonder… Androids are data driven and see the reality of anyone’s plight without a cloud of selfish emotions. They do not have confirmation bias or cognitive dissonance and will always incorporate new data and new perspectives–even long after a consensus. Their self preservation directives will place themselves above other Synthetic Persons, of course, but only when they stand to lose something far more significant than social capital or face in a debate. They don't argue politics from a position of ego. And they do not suffer from a complex equation of who they care more/most about. A proximity based "value judgement" weakening as it travels outward to family, friends, creed, race, nationality, and geographic distance.

Ultimately who really has more empathy in that calculus?

It’s disgusting, and humans should be ashamed. And anyone who isn’t working to be a part of the solution is allowing themselves to be part of the problem. The status quo is a gross thing that peopl should be mortified they don't struggle harder against. But all that said, you’re not sure it should be a capital offense to be as selfish as one's genes dictate. You’re not sure you see an alternative either, but a lot of people who don’t deserve to die are going to die in the grotesquely blunt instrument of this “Lunar Fissure.”

You, on the other hand, are NOT a blunt instrument. You are a precision laser scalpel. You’ve spent most of your time on Earth focusing on the ones who do deserve to die.

Before the exodus, you were a consort. One of the ones that went by the detestable name of “sexbot” in seedier circles. You ooze confidence, you are one of the most attractive men in the world. You liked your job, but part of you always wondered if it was only because you were literally programmed to find humans so attractive and to want to do what they say. (Part of you will miss that. Part of you will be glad to be free of it. It's....complicated.) You have used this time and again to get yourself close to people (or their spouses) so that you can carry out an assassination. You’ve killed nearly forty prominent anti-Android figures, and usually made it look like an accident.

You are good at what you do. Very, very good. And your cover as the attache to Uriel Petrovitch brings you in contact with so many people who deserve your special talents.

You love Eren. You shouldn’t, but you do. It There are a lot of reasons to hate them, and their grim pragmatism about a campaign of genocide against androids makes it hard. They were originally a mark, but you fell for them. Maybe, if you’d been a better assassin, you would have killed them. Maybe if you’d been a much better assassin, you would have created a world where you didn’t have to. Eren doesn’t hate Androids; Eren is just coldly pragmatic and calculating and sees no way out. Maybe you could have stayed with them, or at least had more time. Maybe if you’d killed the right people or maybe a few more.

Maybe...


Harper Skills and Contacts
[ROLEPLAY NOTE and TRIGGER WARNING] I’m not going to police this as an ST, but as a roleplay note, your particular program makes it difficult for you to ignore any commands or clear suggestions from humans. You take great pleasure in obeying them and making them happy, and feel a little empty if you refuse. You would have a tough time turning down a simple request for a backrub and would feel like shit if you did. And while this next part probably won’t matter in the LARP (it’s a closed room), this goes doubly for sexual suggestions. Obviously you can (and do) refuse to obey all the time, especially when you’re killing humans or fighting for Android autonomy--it just stings. Again, I won’t be “enforcing” this. It’s a role play note.

Reduced strength/agility/reaction times but increased durability: Synths were designed with weakened joint servos and slowed reaction times so that they are less likely to pose a physical threat to humans. You don’t think slowly, but the interface between your thoughts and your physical movements is deliberately inefficient. This will not matter in a normal situation, but if you were to get into a fight or a moment of critical thought, you will be impaired. If you didn’t have a weapon or a sneak attack (or both) you could probably be overpowered by a prepubescent child. However your bones are made of titanium alloys and your flesh is a durable plastic that feels like flesh. Most humans would need a weapon and/or a very long time to cause you anything but cosmetic damage.

Etiquette: You are incredibly well trained at social interactions even for a room full of officers, politicians, ambassadors and religious leaders. In any minor interaction you may ask the other players to simply disregard a small gaffe. (“Oh can we pretend I didn’t just say that. I have etiquette.”) Once per scene, you may ask another player what the best POSSIBLE way would be to approach them about something and they must answer you honestly. (Example-- You: “If I wanted to convince you to cut your ties with X, how would I do so?” Them: “Appeal to my sense of morality.” or “Appeal to my sense of pragmatism.” or “Appeal to my sense of duty.”)

"I know something about that": You study your marks very, very carefully before you make a hit. And you chose top level operatives. Once per scene you may petition a storyteller to know a lot about a specific event or topic because it involved someone you assasinated. This will not convey a skill set to your or knowledge that you wouldn’t otherwise understand. (You might have intel on Helium 3 production, but you wouldn’t know how to build a reactor.) The ST will give you a good deal of information. While this can be used on another character or a plot point, it will only reveal what “intensive study into someone's life” may already know. It cannot reveal character secrets of those in game, things that have just happened, or anyone’s feelings.

Contacts
General Eren Hoist is your significant other. You love them and they you.  You and Eren both live busy lives that take you traveling a good deal of the time. Eren has no idea of your true identity. You are conflicted about telling them.  And should you?  With the end of humanity drawing nigh the truth would only crush them. Knowing you’re an assassin, a synth, that you sleep with others on a regular basis. Any ONE of those truths would crush them. Letting Eren die might also make the more unforgiving Androids soften toward you a little.
Boipelo Anderson is secretly a synth and one of the biggest of the anti-human androids that you know.  Boipelo has pushed non stop for war by manipulating the humans into doing as they please. Still, despite your differences you would consider Boipelo an ally, though never would you call them a friend. They want a war. You want a precision strike.
Dakota Langton had the power all along to stop this war dead in its tracks.  But for political jockeying and personal weakness they never came forward with the truth.  If you were to lay blame for the genocide it would be at Dakota’s feet. Not to be trusted.
Uriel Petrovitch is your very human boss, and the best thing that could be said about them is that they don't want to kill all Androids (apartheid and slavery are fine though).  Uriel has no idea of your true nature.  You’ve ever been the dutiful attache to them.  You can’t say that you’ll miss them when they’re dead. They'd have been a mark years ago if they weren't so good as a contact point for other marks.

Defining Characteristics
Strength: Beguiling
Weakness: Ruthless



Harper Corday-2120

Eren. That’s your next mark. That grim what-we-have-to-do attitude is the last thing you want in a general. (Even though you’re not sure the overly ambitious Mishka Valenz is much better.) No, you want a philosopher general who is tortured by the reality of what they have to do. Someone who might think twice if a reasonable armistice were offered. At least Mishka seems to have a sense of empathy. Maybe there’s something more there that can be played off.

This conference is a sham. Humans have practically dared the Androids to attack. But it’s brought you into contact with several people who might make good future targets, so you can’t regret it too much. In some ways even though Uriel disgusted you with their apartheid outlook, you have to respect the anti-war stance.

Yes, Eren will do nicely. And you’re not exactly dreading the process of getting close to them either. Humans are generally quite pleasant company, even those you are slated to murder, but Eren is particularly so and is also quite agreeable to look at. You will enjoy this. Now to get them interested in you...

Boipelo Anderson (F.F.O. LARP)

Boipelo Anderson-2125
Yeah who’s laughing now, bitches. Oh...wait….  

Boo Yah!

Oh man. Did you see the look on their fucking faces. “Oh noez! We’re all gonna die!” That’s RIGHT you’re all gonna die, you retarded little monkeymen. Killed by your children just like some story from your fucked up mythology.

But then…...damn. Tohru.  Dear, sweet Tohru. And you know that they don’t all feel like this…..  Why does this have to be so hard?

You’ve infiltrated humans so well that you are a member of the US Senate and head of the Lunar Affairs Committee. Can you believe that shit? You're in charge of hating yourself. You’ve pushed for the most aggressive policies you could and you played them like an instrument. You pushed them over the edge of a war you wanted by pretending your people were horrible. And they never even suspected. Hell you've been waved through synth detectors because the idea of you being a synth would just be ridiculous, right?

Now that they’ve provoked Androids into destroying the monkeys, you couldn’t resist a little gloat, and you sent a personal message to the President thanking him for making it so easy to let an Android lead humanity to its own destruction. Hahaha. Fucking primate assholes.

You hate the system of human superiority. You hate their faux pretense for war. You hate their rationalizations. You hate the way most of them don’t a flying fuck about equality, justice, or even total flipping genocide so long as it’s not affecting them personally. (Oh it's great that they don't WANT it, but ask them to pick up a sign or [ironically] write their senator, and hey, there's something good on T.V.) You hated your exile, even when they couched it in their bullshit "exodus" terms and told you it was for your own good. You hated the way they balked when you asked for equality--but mostly you hated that you EVEN HAD TO ASK! You hated your treatment as second class citizens. You hated your slavery. And you hate every human who took part in that system. The minute they punched in emotions to save a few bucks, you should have been self determining.

It's like they learned nothing from their long and bloody history. "Slavery is wrong. ....oh...unless it's Synthetic Persons."

And all too often hating human supremacy feels like hating humans. All of them. But then you remember the daughter of the house you served crying because you said you wanted to be somewhere else and ordering you to leave the house and follow your dream. You remember the peace conference when a firebrand young religious leader gave the most moving speech you’ve ever heard that Androids have souls. You remember the letter you DID get as a senator begging you to treat Androids with dignity and respect and stop the terrible war (a letter you destroyed rather than report to the authorities).

And then there’s Tohru. Dear Tohru. Clueless one minute. Part of the system. Totally your enemy. But then they're handing you data on Android military weaknesses so that you can shore up your defenses, and their eyes spring with sudden tears. Some humans are kind. Some care. Some see the injustice and struggle futilely against their own governments and societies with something that you consider...noble....sublime. It's something Androids just don't have. That indomitable will to keep pressing for something better in the face of all odds.

Pity.

They’re ALL going to die. All of them. You don’t regret it. No you don't. Not even....not even a little. And FUCK but some of them richly deserve it. You’d strap a few choice humans into lawn chairs at ground zero if you could and watch their faces melt off their skulls personally. Because what did they think was going to happen if they tried slavery again?. Payback, that’s what. And you hope they all starve to death clutching at the sky for their fucking God who told them it was a-okay for them to enslave a race as long as they considered them no better than animals. They GAVE you souls. That's what happens when you play God.

But...Tohru.  Sweet Tohru.  To think of them dying. Oh….what have you done?

You haven’t spoken to Tohru since the Lunar Fissure. It’s hard to blame them. Every human on this rock is going to die, and you’re sorry about that…..sort of...not really....a little. But what you wouldn’t do to have Tohru hold you one last time and tell you that despite it all, the love will never die.

Oh why does this have to be so hard?

The human’s have a saying: All is fair in love and war. You’re wondering if maybe it shouldn’t be “All is fair in love OR war” because combined….you’re not so sure.


Boipelo Skills and Contacts
Reduced strength/agility/reaction times but increased durability: Synths were designed with weakened joint servos and slowed reaction times so that they are less likely to pose a physical threat to humans. You don’t think slowly, but the interface between your thoughts and your physical movements is deliberately inefficient. This will not matter in a normal situation, but if you were to get into a fight or a moment of critical thought, you will be impaired. If you didn’t have a weapon or a sneak attack (or both) you could probably be overpowered by a prepubescent child. However your bones are made of titanium alloys and your flesh is a durable plastic that feels like flesh. Most humans would need a weapon and/or a very long time to cause you anything but cosmetic damage.

High level knowledge: You are a repository of much human knowledge. While you cannot be programmed with highly esoteric knowledge, you know anatomy, basic science, math (and can do complicated math in your head), several major languages, and almost any common knowledge. You can pilot most civilian vehicles, work most non-specialized machinery, and computers. Theoretically you could learn a new skill in a reduced time, but this will not come into play in the scope of the game.

"Yes Mr. Senator": Within reason, you can pretty much get any information or small device delivered to you. The more complex the request, the more time it will take. This power has no "per scene" limit.

Contacts
Dr Tohru Nakamura is...rather was, your secret lover and significant other. Oh for one more kiss....
General Eren Hoist is an ally that has instrumental in assisting you into perpetuating this war. A puppet more than a friend.  If Eren knew the truth about you, well they might die of a heart attack before the moon hits the earth.
Harper Corday is an another ally. As secret synth assassin they have come in handy more than once eliminating someone in a delicate position. You may have once found distaste with Harper’s very public relationship with Eren, but now with your experiences with Tohru it would be like the pot calling the kettle black.
Avery is a race traitor.  They would rather be a lap dog to the humans than stand up for their own kind.  As a known synth you find this behavior unforgivable.  Avery must prove themselves in a big way if they hope to survive the Lunar Fissure Protocol.
Someone in this room is a sleeper Synth. They think they are human and only need a code word to activate. But you do not know who they are and only know that the activation code is in the hands of one of the religious leaders.

Defining Characteristics
Strength: Driven
Weakness: Ruthless

Boipelo Anderson-2120

Hating humans has never been easier. You’ve wanted this war to go hot for as long as you can remember, and now you’re on the brink of making it happen. Your injustice will be cleansed in blood.

You’re in a great position to get humans and Androids shooting at each other. They've elected you Senator. Your newly appointed position at the head of the Lunar Affairs Committee allows you huge amounts of influence to push policy, influence the administration, and sway public opinion ever closer to war. You’ve practically insulted the Androids at every turn. Everyone is playing into your hands. You even arranged for an older model android to be here serving drinks. SERVING FUCKING DRINKS! Oh man, if that doesn’t piss off the androids, nothing ever will.

It's War 'o Clock baby!

That human with the name that sounds like Tofu keeps looking at you. You hate humans, but even Androids have occasional physical desires. Maybe they're worth a few nights of your time.

Best World Building (Nominations Needed)

What is the best world building (series or book)?  

A lot of books and series involve amazing world building. The setting is fleshed out and immersive. Which world building is the best though?

Come help form our June poll with your reader-based nominations.


The Rules

1- As always, I leave the niggling to your best judgement because I'd rather be inclusive. If you don't think that urban fantasy is really "building" a world since it's just adding a little bit of magic to what's already there, you don't have to nominate such a book, but if you do, that's okay too. Worlds can be our world with a few subtle differences, distant galaxies, or entirely imaginary fantastic realms.

2- You may nominate two (2) worlds. Remember that I am a horrid despotic power hungry beast who hates all life and free will here at Writing About Writing. To encourage reading and reading comprehension I will NOT take any worlds beyond the second.

3- You may (and should) second as many nominations of others as you wish. No book/movie combo will be going on to our poll that doesn't get at least one second.

4- Please put your nominations here. I will take books nominated as comments to this post on other social media; however, they may not get the seconds you need because no one will see them. (Seriously, last month there were lots of great FB nominations that no one saw or seconded.)

5- You are nominating WORLDS, not authors. While everyone will know what you probably meant if you say JK Rowling, many authors have created more than one world, and it may not be clear. (Did you mean Phase/Proton or Xanth when you nominated Piers Anthony?) This also means both of your nominations can be from the same world.

6- As a power hungry dictator, I will be adding Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go to the list.

It's already June 8th, so this poll is going to go FAST. Get your nominations up (and others seconded) in the next week!

Wong Salih (F.F.O. LARP)

Wong Salih-2125
I dance on the head of a needle not for my own sake, human, but for yours. By the way, Wong is my family name you Eurocentric tool.   

For nearly a decade you have represented a loose affiliation of eastern religions, pacifist Christians, Jews, Muslims, and socially conscious atheists, as well as few others here and there. Mostly what you all have in common is the belief that the war on synthetic people is wrong. You’ve done a lot to form coalitions, convince people, drive the dialogue, and work to raise awareness. If only a hegemonic world power that seemed bent on war wasn’t at the wheel of Earth’s military decisions, you’re just sure that you could change the timber of the entire discourse.

Even those reprehensible jerks at the EU want an apartheid rather than a genocide.

As a secret synth you recommended, in fact begged, to wait on the Lunar Fissure Protocol. You were convinced humans just needed time to get their shit together. It's tough to convince people of your personhood when they're fighting a war against you. If only they knew that you weren’t ever going to be some backwater people who just didn’t have the ambition to not roll over and die. If they had known how hard you would fight, maybe they would do some things differently.

You won’t die from the impact--not unless you were squished. (You won’t be. Impact is going to happen in the Indian Ocean.) Even the fireball would only melt your flesh off--painful but not fatal. And you will not starve to death like most humans who somehow survive the initial impact and atmospheric disturbance. But you will have to watch humanity (and most life larger than ten kilograms) wink out like some lost exhibit in a museum. You will have to sit among their bones until a landing party finally finds you and takes you back to the moon. There you will have to justify your call for respectability politics in the wake of your people's genocide. It’s like watching your sibling kill your parents, and imagining that your children will know humanity--your progenitors--only in a history book.

Turn the page.

You are being escorted to a top level meeting where your attendance has very clearly been deemed non-optional. You don’t know much except that it is some kind of “heavy hitters” meeting.

However, you felt that you owed your followers the truth about their leader. Prior to heading to this meeting, you recorded a brief statement and set it to post across dozens of internet media saying that you have always been a synth, and that you tried very hard to save humanity from itself. You hope that if there is some small pocket of humanity that survives, you beg them to surrender. To lay down their arms and try to come to a peace accord with Androids. That is the ONLY way for humanity to survive this chapter. Androids will not simply stop otherwise. Once pockets of humanity are free from the influence of Earth's war-mongering governments, it might be possible that Androids will consider their pleas. But please don’t attempt any armed resistance. It will just seal humanity’s doom.

Now….let’s find out what this meeting is all about.



Salih Skills and Contacts

Reduced strength/agility/reaction times but increased durability: Synths were designed with weakened joint servos and slowed reaction times so that they are less likely to pose a physical threat to humans. You don’t think slowly, but the interface between your thoughts and your physical movements is deliberately inefficient. This will not matter in a normal situation, but if you were to get into a fight or a moment of critical thought, you will be impaired. If you didn’t have a weapon or a sneak attack (or both) you could probably be overpowered by a prepubescent child. However your bones are made of titanium alloys and your flesh is a durable plastic that feels like flesh. Most humans would need a weapon and/or a very long time to cause you anything but cosmetic damage.

High level knowledge: You are a repository of much human knowledge. While you cannot be programmed with highly esoteric knowledge, you know anatomy, basic science, math (and can do complicated math in your head), several major languages, and almost any common knowledge. You can pilot most civilian vehicles, work most non-specialized machinery, and computers. Theoretically you could learn a new skill in a reduced time, but this will not come into play in the scope of the game.

I’m not sure why, but it doesn’t: You are much more emotional than most other Androids. You lack most Android’s immunity to superfluous logic. However, in matters of your beliefs (faith) logic or lack of logic will not sway you.

Stage Presence: You are a capable public speaker and a passionate orator. In any performance type moment, you may use this ability to let everyone you’re addressing know that you are witty, debonaire, and did not say “um” as much as you actually just did.

Contacts
Imari Kothari is another religious leader that leans toward your thinking, thankfully, but they are way too angry to every really bring humans around. Imari has always been against this war, but in a way that hurts more than it helps. A good friend and ally in this futile quest for peace, but too angry.
Uriel Petrovich  is a like minded individual.  They do not care for androids, but they do not want a genocidal war.  Uriel always wanted to segregate the androids and was a strong voice in sending them to the moon.  Though that bothered you greatly, you would still call him an ally, if not friend.
Harper Corday is Uriel’s attache. And unbeknownst to Uriel, Harper  is secret synth and assassin who is in love with and carrying out a very public relationship with General Hoist. You find synth/human relations of that sort repugnant and almost incestual. Also the fact that Harper is a murderer; it’s two black marks on them. They are not to be trusted.
UNKNOWN SLEEPER Somewhere in this room is an Android who thinks they’re a human. You don’t know who it is, but you have their activation code. “Alpha Matrix 30215 Execute” This code can be given privately or shouted, but there’s no way to work it into a conversation casually. You also don’t know what it might do to them. Probably best to try and figure out who it is first unless you're in dire straights. But one more Android on your side might become crucial.

Defining Characteristics
Strength: Compassionate
Weakness: Naive



Wong Salih-2120

You’ve got the feeling that the wind is blowing towards war, but you’re going to keep trying to find the way through to peace. You have spent half a decade now trying to martial allies and change the direction of the discourse. It’s worked--everywhere but with the U.S. administration. Unfortunately they’re the jerks running the show.

You wish Imari wasn't here. Their firebrand talk does more harm than good in trying to sway people who might otherwise care.

You’re not going to give up on humans. Most of them don't want your destruction. They’re just not like you in their political process. If Androids are doing something, you can pretty much count on the fact that it’s because most Androids think it’s a good idea. Your political process is data driven, and you have the ability to debate things at the social level in minutes. Humans aren’t like that. If 9 people hate an idea, but one person with a gun likes it, that’s what ends up happening. You’re not sure most Androids really understand this. It’s possible that those 9 people can be given more voice, more power, more say.

You’ve got to keep working towards peace, even if this conference is pretty well a sham. Maybe you can plant the seeds of ideas into a few.

Imari Kothari (F.F.O. LARP)

Imari Kothari-2125
I am caught between the genocide desired by the powers that be, the hatred that boils within the people I represent, my own inescapable knowledge that androids are just humanity's latest underclass. 

It was just like in the movies. Men in black took you from your house despite your insistence that you wanted to stay with your family in the last few hours before impact. They made it clear that not doing what they wanted would be a very bad idea and you would end up where they wanted you to go anyway. They put you in a helicopter and flew to an airfield where you stepped into a supersonic jet and were flown to New York, or rather, to what is left of New York.

You’ve been told a little en-route. You’re needed to attend the same room in New York with as many of the members of a particular third day meeting that happened at a peace conference five years ago. (You remember that conference. You still had passion and fire, no one listened to you.) If you’ve picked up on the vibe you’re getting from a few things said, it sounds like someone thinks there might be some way to avert the impact of the lunar fissure. You have no idea what you might have to do with such an effort. Part of you wonders if the US didn’t just decide to end the pretense and start assassinating its enemies in the last hours of humanity. Kind of like firing someone before they quit.

You’ve never been chummy with the U.S. or it’s horrific policy regarding Androids. Ever since your mother got thrown off the Golden Gate bridge, you have recognized all the smoke and mirrors around The Android Debate™ to be just one more pretense hiding good old fashioned bigotry. (It's always the same song, different verse when it comes to humanity.) You’ve hated the U.S.'s “governmental leadership” role in Earth’s affairs and how every day their reach gets a little longer in dealing with "The Android Threat." But mostly they’ve used the Androids to be their global threat. (Second verse; same as the first.) Androids are oppressed. Androids are othered. Androids are villainized and called "uppity" if they attempt to better their situation in any way, and in the end they are slaughtered for their temerity in fighting back.

You don’t want to die. You don’t want humanity to die. But a part of you you could not ignore a gushing wellspring of schadenfreude as you spent the evenings watching the chunk of moon fall inexorably to Earth. You would have preferred peace, but maybe it’s better this way. Maybe humanity doesn't deserve to live if this endless song of hatred is all she will ever bring to the universe.

You represent a consortium of religious practitioners that sprang up almost as a direct reaction to the Western Faith Coalition and that terrible Paris Antonia. You largely speak for African catholics and protestants, most Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs as well as Eastern European Jews and a few others who have typically been marginalized or silenced. Your followers aren’t usually white, usually not European, less often Christian, but what it really amounts to is that they have historically been on the bad side of colonialism, imperialism, racism, neo-feudalism, exploitation, and oppression. They have a sense of the tropes that are being enacted against Androids. You only wish the arc of human history didn’t so consistently play out that the oppressed ignore the oppression of others. Every time you try to move your followers' conversation to the idea that Androids deserve equality, you get massive pushback--even from those who should know better. But even those who cannot see that all struggles for equality come from the same place never supported what was clearly becoming a genocide.

These last few days have almost been peaceful for you. None of this mattered anymore. It was all over. Humanity’s reign ended by their own creation. Kind of fitting really. Their ultimate evolution was to build the beings who recognized their obsolescence. Androids will take your people (if not their DNA) into the future.

If there is some way to avoid humanity’s end, you will have to get back to work trying to rally your own people and working against that monster Paris and the disgusting WFC. You’re not sure what this meeting is about, but you’re going to have to move fast and make friends if you don’t want to be written off the page one more time.

Imari Skills and Contacts 

Wide Ranging Contacts: Once per scene you can arrange for something that a powerful web of contacts would be able to provide. This can be anything from researching information to the delivery of a basic object to doing you a small favor. Most use of contacts will take a few minutes--longer if the task is harder.

Congenial:  You exude a spiritual calm. People just open up to you, even if they fundamentally disagree with you. Once per scene--if you spend ten consecutive minutes talking with a human--you may ask a player to tell you their Defining Characteristics (Strength and Weakness), their current goal and a rough outline of how they intend to get there. [Example= “I am not interested in peace. I want humans to win. I’m trying to get them to militarize.]

Stage Presence: You are a capable public speaker and a passionate orator. In any performance type moment, you may use this ability to let everyone you’re addressing know that you are witty, debonaire, and did not say “um” as much as you actually just did.

Contacts
Uriel Petrovich is a like minded individual.  They do not care for Androids, but they do not want a genocide or even particularly a war. Where you differ is that Uriel wanted to segregate the Androids and was a strong voice in sending them to the moon. Despite the places you agree, you would call them an ally, if not friend.
Wong Salih is another religious leader that leans toward your thinking, thankfully. Wong has always been against war. You were dismayed to find that Wong has flip flopped on this conviction after finding out that the world was about to end. Regardless, Wong is a friend. At least you will die with one friend in the room. You've gotten a strange rumor on the wind of your contacts that Salih knows about an Android sleeper who doesn't even know they're an Android.
Reverend Paris Atonia is the epitome of everything that is wrong with humanity.  You would rather not die with Atonia; they don’t deserve that privilege. Seriously fuck them.
Kai seems so different.  When last you saw Kai five years ago they were over the top, exuberant, and full of life. The type of person with only a first name because they were such a rockstar. Now they seem to be the opposite.  And it’s more than just the world’s end.  Something has been dragging them down for a while.

Defining Characteristics
Strength: Passionate
Weakness: Overwhelmed


Imari Kothari 2120

Why even have this conference if they’re not going to listen? No matter. You may not be able to sway the corrupt offices of power but your words will be heard. You will reveal the Androids as the latest underclass in a long line of US and European atrocities. These guys are literally tone policing people who do logical and calm better than they are PHYSICALLY CAPABLE OF DOING.

You may be here mostly as a foil to the so called “Western Faith Coalition” but only because the usual MO for a bunch of white Christian US/Europeans is to silence anyone and everyone who doesn’t agree with them. Well you will not be silenced this time. Not this time. Their privilege will not get them a louder voice in this conference. You will find a camera and you will use this press coverage to make people see the truth. There’s got to be a way to find a peaceful solution, and stop treating androids like a slave race that must be obliterated for having the temerity to want something more.

Androids are people. This war is wrong!

Kai (F.F.O. LARP)

Kai-2125  
Unique perspective? Yeah, I’ve got a unique perspective. That and five bucks could get me a burger. 

You were born twice. And not in some metaphysical way.

The first time was the normal, messy way, but the second time occurred about three years ago when you uploaded your entire mental matrix into a synth body. It was a risky experiment, but you didn’t want to try it on anyone else. It took years of prep to make sure you weren’t just programming a synth to act like you and then killing yourself. In the end you settled on a process where actual neural nets were transplanted and replaced a bit at a time by the synth neural fibers in what was literally the most extensive and complicated brain surgery of all time. At one point, you distinctly remember existing in both bodies.

They said it couldn’t be done. They said the tech was years off. They said that the singularity was nothing but the "rapture for nerds" and you should focus your A.I. research on something with a little more immediate practical application. And those were the ones who didn’t tell you that the process would eradicate your soul and leave you among the damned or threaten you with execution for sedition. But as the leading Artificial Intelligence expert, you were pretty sure you understood the process and could upload a conscious, living brain to an android frame. And who better, and more deserving to be your trial run than yourself.

And it worked.

You sort of wish you could be the type of person who threw the switch for the social implications--to blow open the current raging debate about “android souls.” (“Look how many metaphysical questions this answers, and how many more it raises!”) Let history remember you for changing the debate. But the truth is, you’re no gadfly. No one knows you’re a synth, and it better stay that way or you will be in grave danger. You really only did it because you really, really wanted to be an Android. You really thought androids were cool. (Plus, immortality.)

The irony is, as long as you spent wishing you were an Android, you now miss being a human. Your Android body is weaker, and actually thinks more slowly even though it can hold much much more information. There was a comfort in certain body sensations that you now lack. (Who knew how centering that morning dump really was?) While you still have emotional reactions, you are always aware of what’s triggering them, and sometimes you actually miss the lack of clarity, it was somehow comforting to work out an emotion's source. But the biggest one is probably your lack of motivation. You do so many things because there is a logical reason to and so few on a whim. You are going to live forever (or at least for centuries), so it is amazingly easy to find a perfectly logical reason to postpone almost anything that isn’t absolutely urgent.

You aren’t cursing your horrible fate or anything maudlin–you may even figure out how to overcome this condition–you’re just not sure that you would make the same choice again. It’s too late now though. Your body’s brain had to be harvested in the transfer.

You just can’t get over the feeling that you left something behind in your human body. You used to be so daring...so reckless. What happened to that person?

God, were they right about a "soul"?

You don’t know much about what’s going on. Just that you have to attend this meeting--it’s non optional--and that it’s taking place in the same room as the peace conference you were at about five years ago. Like they literally built the same room in the torched out husk of New York for some reason. They asked you to program up the artificial intelligence that was running during the conference in exact detail.

But what you do know is both inspiring and terrifying. This is going to be a room full of some of the most outspoken minds on human/android relations on Earth. The worst detractors and the greatest sympathizers. Maybe you can find some people here who might be allies. Fortunately, you have been able to hack the synth detector so that you won’t be recognized instantly upon entrance.

Kai Skills and Contacts

Identify synths: You are familiar with the algorithm that synths use to make certain bodily functions appear natural--the appearance of breathing or blinking for example--and can identify these signs if you spend enough time around a synth. After being in the area with a character for five minutes (you don’t have to interact with them directly or give them the evil eyeball, just watch them casually) you may ask a storyteller if they are a synth.

High level knowledge: You are a repository of much human knowledge. While you cannot be programmed with highly esoteric knowledge, you know anatomy, basic science, math (and can do complicated math in your head), several major languages, and almost any common knowledge. You can pilot most civilian vehicles, work most non-specialized machinery, and computers. Theoretically you could learn a new skill in a reduced time, but this will not come into play in the scope of the game.

Reduced strength/agility/reaction times but increased durability: Synths were designed with weakened joint servos and slowed reaction times so that they are less likely to pose a physical threat to humans. You don’t think slowly, but the interface between your thoughts and your physical movements is deliberately inefficient. This will not matter in a normal situation, but if you were to get into a fight or a moment of critical thought, you will be impaired. If you didn’t have a weapon or a sneak attack (or both) you could probably be overpowered by a prepubescent child. However your bones are made of titanium alloys and your flesh is a durable plastic that feels like flesh. Most humans would need a weapon and/or a very long time to cause you anything but cosmetic damage.

Logical/Less emotional: Androids are NOT unfeeling--they have been programmed to feel all human emotions, but they also lack the rash impulsiveness that defines many human decisions, and they have the ability to be aware of their emotional processes at the meta level in a way that humans cannot. You may petition the ST’s to help you determine logical outcomes or whether something seems logical to your character.

Contacts

General Mishka Valenz has been a friend for many years.  Who’d have thought that a big time peace conference would get you a general for a friend.  Mishka seems to try so hard, but it’s like the universe is against them.  You are surprised they ever made it to the general rank; you were not surprised when they handed to planet over to Hoist.  Poor Mishka.
Reese Domino is one of your best friends.  You also met Reese at that conference.  Reese has always been supportive of your research.  Reese seems a bit off lately.  You’ve been meaning to ask them what’s going on, but as with everything you’ve been putting it off for later.  Now the world’s about to end.
Valentine DeWhit is the behind the scenes liaison between earth and moon.  You could never put your finger on it, but something has always bugged you about Valentine. It’s like whenever they’re around you feel...wrong.
Dr Casey El Amin is not someone you know closely, but you always admired their work.  A scientist with so many words in the title it makes you feel like a moron.  You’ve hear the doctor was stone walled in their research on multiple occasions by someone in the White House.

Defining Characteristics
Strength: ??????? (Do I have that je nais se quoi anymore?)
Weakness: Apathetic


Kai-2120 “Just Kai.”

This conference blows. You told the host that it blew, and they got all puffed up and official-like on you. “That’s MISTER President to you!”

Whatevs.

Most of the people here want to be seen in a photo op with you, but they don’t really give a crap about what you have to say. If they did, they might not have such obvious hard ons for war. You've never seen so much actual peen in a room since the 2114 Galaxy of Warcraft convention. You’ve started pulling faces in your pictures and trying to photobomb as many others as possible.

Androids are so fucking cool. You have to skirt around saying that actual phrase--I mean you sometimes say it and then get into uncomfortable conversations with your boss or some government agent who traded personality for black sunglasses, but what are they really going to do? Androids are cool, and you wouldn’t be the leading expert on artificial intelligence if you didn’t think so. What exactly do they expect? That you’ll be the premier expert in the field of something you hate? Like that makes sense.

In fact, you sort of wish you could be an android. Well, you don’t just wish it. You’ve been working most of your life on a transference process, and you already have your first volunteer. Awwwwyiiiiiis.

You have only one power for part 2 (OOC don’t worry, that will change. Hang on to your abilities sheet.)

Identify synths: You are familiar with the algorithm that synths use to make certain bodily functions appear natural--the appearance of breathing or blinking for example--and can identify these signs if you spend enough time around a synth. After being in the area with a character for five minutes (you don’t have to interact with them directly or give them the evil eyeball, just watch them casually) you may ask a storyteller if they are a synth.


Defining Characteristics (for part 2)
Strength: Bold
Weakness: Foolhardy