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09-07-2018, 05:12 PM
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#1 | |
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Niagara, Canada
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Lost my notes on a 2032 AI, seeking help re-statting
I seem to have misplaced some of my old notes for a character in a particular near-future hard-SF setting, and I'm looking for as many GURPS stats as I can figure out for the being shown and described at https://sfw.furaffinity.net/view/23074211/ (and at https://sfw.furaffinity.net/view/23074419/ , https://sfw.furaffinity.net/view/23096017/ , https://sfw.furaffinity.net/view/23095975/ , and https://sfw.furaffinity.net/view/23096062/ ). If anyone here has any suggestions or references that I might not think of, I'd appreciate an assist. :)
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Thank you for your time, -- DataPacRat "Then again, maybe I'm wrong." |
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09-08-2018, 03:06 AM
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#2 | ||
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Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Niagara, Canada
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Re: Lost my notes on a 2032 AI, seeking help re-statting
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The setting is generally TL9, no superscience. Computers are TL10 (or more), and TL10 destructive uploading is just becoming available (but not non-destructive uploading). I'm ruling that Ultra-Tech's suggested Complexity-Limited IQ trait only applies to species IQs, not individual IQ scores. Also, I'm not going to try to figure out what Complexity the hardware of the setting is, but since TL10 Complexity 10 macroframes are the right cost/size, I'm setting Ghost programs at Complexity 10. The general plotline is "this person isn't rich, but took the risk of volunteering for potential experimental techniques, and is now (one of) the first digitally-uploaded brains. Now the door is open for anyone who's willing to have their brain diced, and who can afford a few million bucks for hardware, to potentially become immortal. ... Complications are in the process of ensuing." To start with, this not-particularly-rich individual is being trucked around as part of a social-engineering campaign to both maximize the rights any and all such uploaded-minds are acknowledged to have by various jurisdictions' courts, and to improve the general public's perceptions about them. I'm fairly sure some sort of Social Stigma should apply, but given how widely-varied their status will be even within a single county, let alone when crossing any borders, I'm not sure whether to pick some average, or to start them at "Subjugated" and gradually buy it upwards. (Not to mention throwing in at least one large Enemy to cover everyone who'd prefer they were just plain dead, ranging from active paramilitary bombers to passive supporters.) I'm just about to start trying to futz around with Status, Wealth, and Patrons, to see if I can cobble together the right combination of personal wealth versus patron-supplied hardware. If you've got any thoughts at all on any of this, I'd love the feedback. :)
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Thank you for your time, -- DataPacRat "Then again, maybe I'm wrong." |
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09-08-2018, 03:09 PM
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#3 |
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Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Niagara, Canada
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Re: Lost my notes on a 2032 AI, seeking help re-statting
Okay, I have most of a draft for a campaign-design document sketched out. I have to go run some errands for some hours, so if you can think of some way to make this better, I'd appreciate any suggestions. :)
-----8<----- 2032 Uploads A Politics-focused, Science-Fiction, GURPS 4e campaign (Partially inspired by Robin Hanson's book "The Age of Em: Work, Love and Life when Robots Rule the Earth") The setting is generally TL9, no superscience. Computers are TL10. TL10 destructive uploading is just becoming available (but not non-destructive uploading). Ultra-Tech's suggested Complexity-Limited IQ trait only applies to species IQs, not individual IQ scores. Ghost programs are treated as being Complexity 10. To be uploaded, a person has to be willing to have their brain diced into micro-thin slices, and generally turned into mush (or be in a situation where somebody else is willing and able to do that to them). (Either way, call it a 5 CP Unusual Background, with several possible particular details.) They need to either have enough Wealth to pay for the process and hardware, or take on a reasonably Duty to whoever funds their uploading. Required are a Specialized Operating Theater ($1M), and specialized scanning gear equivalent to a HyMRI scanner ($250k); a doctor or AI with maximized Physician and Electronics Operation (Medical) skill levels; a Complexity 10 Ghost Compiler program ($300k); and a Complexity 10 computer (most likely a $1M macroframe) to run on. Depending on the skill rolls, a few more CP may be required to be spent to upgrade them to successes. When all this is done, the uploadee loses any physical advantages and disadvantages, and instead gains a template based on the following: Advantages: [203] - Absolute Direction: 3D Spatial Sense [10] - Absolute Timing [2] - Damage Resistance 5, Can't Wear Armor (-40%) [15] - Digital Mind [5] - Doesn't Eat or Drink [10] - Duplication, Digital (-60%), 1 copy [14] - Extra Life, Copy (-20%), 1 [20] - Lightning Calculator [2] - Possession, Digital (-40%) [60] - Sealed [15] - Telecommunication, Radio, Broadcast (+50%) [15] - Temperature Tolerance, 10 levels (assuming HT 10, -30 to 120 F) [10] - Unaging [15] - Vacuum Support [5] - Perk: Accessory (computer) [1] - Perk: Accessory (video display) [1] - Perk: Accessory (headlights/illumination) [1] - Perk: Generator [1] - Perk: Pressure-Tolerant Lungs, thin [1] Disadvantages: [-203] - Electrical [-20] - Enemy (governmental AI-safety watchdogs, small/underfunded enough to be equivalent to a city police department) (-20), Watcher (x1/4), Appears Almost all the time 15- (x3) [-15] - Fragile: Flammable [-10] - Horizontal [-10] - Maintenance, 4 man-hours (-30), weekly (x1/2) [-15] - No Manipulators [-50] - No Legs: Sessile [-50] - Numb [-20] - Restricted Diet, Very Common (mains power or diesel) [-10] - Quirk: Affected by magnetism [-1] - Quirk: Cannot float [-1] - Quirk: Distinctive Features (Is a pair of shipping containers) [-1] Meta-traits: [25] - Size Modifier (40' elongated box): +6 [0] - Machine [25] (includes Immunity to Metabolic Hazards [30], Injury Tolerance (No Blood, Unliving) [25], Unhealing (Total) [-30]. Eight-hour energy reserve, no FP) Stats: [50] ST 25, No Fine Manipulators (-40%), SizeMod (-60%) (max -80%) [30] Basic Lift 125 Hit Points 50 (SizeMod -60%) [20] DX repriced with No Fine Manipulators (-40%), probably set to 10 [0] HT 10 [0] Fatigue N/A Basic Speed: HT+DX/4 = 5 [0] Basic Move: 0 (from Sessile) [0] The above collection totals [75] points. Sample optional tweaks: - Unusual Background (formerly-deceased cryonicist) - 360° Vision [25] - Acute Hearing +5 [10] - Acute Vision +5 [10] - Doesn't Breathe (without it, the computer cooling system requires airflow.) - Duplication, Digital (-60%) [14/copy] - Extra Life, Copy (-20%) [20/life] - Payload, BL/10=12.5 lbs/level; 200 lbs = 16 levels [16] - Vacuum Support - Perk: Accessory (fan/air jet) [1] - Patron (at least one Elon-Musk-like billionaire) (15), available Fairly Often 9- (x1), Equipment (invests more in the pro-upload social-engineering project) (+100%) [30] - Duty (to billionaire Patron), Almost all the time 15- (15), Involuntary (threaten to repossess the computer they run on) (-5), Nonhazardous (+5) [-15] - Contact Group (immortality-seeking Russian mafiosos; less money to throw around on this, but fewer compunctions): Street skills, effective skill 21 (4), available Rarely 6- (x1/2), Somewhat Reliable (x1), Group (x5) [10] As of the start of the campaign, every uploadee also starts with these social disadvantages: - Enemy (Luddites), equivalent of an entire government (-30), Hunter (delete the blasphemous mockery of humanity) (x1), Fairly Often 9- (x1) [-30] - Social Stigma: Subjugated [-20] The general campaign goal is to buy these off, through applied Social Engineering, before the uploadee runs out of Extra Lives. (The year is 2032; in the US, it's an election year, which is likely to affect what sort of social-engineering strategies are attempted.) If the game can't last to full success, a natural early stopping point would be just after buying a significant upgrade to one of them, representing a signficant social victory and implied harbinger of future improvements. Besides at least one uploadee (who may be an NPC), the other PCs should be designed as significant members of that uploadee's entourage. Likely roles include driver, physical security specialist/bodyguard, defensive infowar specialist, electronicist, social media manager, psychotherapist, police/government agent, patron's representative, pre-upload friends & family, fixer/gofer/middleman, journalist, lawyer, issue-focused political expert, etc. Other groups suitable as Contacts or Patrons include: - Advocacy (upload rights) - Fraternal (other uploads) - Government spy agencies & militaries ("We can't let the other side have custom-edited semi-sane uploads if we don't have any") - Research (Monitor uploads' health, research how to reduce costs, etc) - Economic/Trade unions (Uploaded minds are a potentially highly disruptive technology, but there are only so many markets where they can apply a decent comparative advantage over biological employees) - Education (if the uploadee is a cryonicist who was dead for a while, they'll need to re-familiarize themselves with how the world has changed. Also, general adult-education skills improvement.) Some possible scenes: - Roadtrip: While the Uploadee's shipping-containers are being moved from one city to the next, the journey is interrupted by one of: friendly down-home rural folk who are curious about all this newfangled technology; hostile low-income rural folk whose fears about losing their jobs are inflamed by their religious sensibilities; large protest about an unrelated issue (eg, against diverting local water sources); ... - Publicity stunt. Maybe to gain some sponsorship cash, maybe as part of a larger social-media strategy. - Formalized debate in front of an audience: with a politician, a religious figure, a university professor, ... - Fellow travelers. Other groups have, in the past, worked hard to achieve improved civil rights; and in many places, not all of them have achieved full parity. Possibilities include sending out tentative feelers to a particular lobbyist group to see if any "you scratch my back if I scratch yours" arrangements are even possible, to arranging for the uploadee to join in a protest march, to covertly sending funds or supplies to an underground civil-rights group in a totalitarian state in hopes of improving their opinion of uploads. - Power blackout; the uploadee only has a limited amount of diesel to keep themselves running before they have to power-down. - Commercial negotiations: to convince some employer to start hiring uploads instead of biological people; or to convince some unsavory corporation to /not/ force enslaved uploads to perform work. - Moneymaking: Keeping an uploadee supplied with power, replacement parts, long-term psychotherapy, and all the other necessities of (digital) life isn't cheap, and Patrons may decide to focus on other projects. Coming up with particular ways for an uploadee to gain cash are likely to be high in their minds, from simple crowdfunding/patreon-style requests for donations to leveraging the fact that a backup can be made at the instant an uploadee is most ready to perform a specific task. - The current iteration of what used to be 4chan trollers decide to form an online brigade and start making this particular upload's life as digital as possible. What might be done to convince a large number of anonymous ****posters to focus their attention elsewhere? - Romantic subplot. Just because their original bodies died doesn't mean uploadees lack human emotions and relationships. Uploadees generally live in personal VRs, which can include data sent by sensors around their computers, or other online infofeeds, and can show themselves through whatever display screens are handy. This often means that there is a "glass wall" between themselves and bio-humans; but with some pre-arrangement, VR can allow more interactive encounters. - Con game. Uploadees are reasonably prominent, and associated with lots of cash; there are plenty of people who are trying to think of how to get their hands on some of the latter by lying to the former. - Soiree: Wealthy people often enjoy getting together and showing off their status to their frenemies, and that won't change just because their physical frame is over 100,000 lbs instead of 200. Simply arranging for the adjustments to a party to let an upload attend "in person" will require some creativity before the new social norms settle into place. [post-length snip]
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Thank you for your time, -- DataPacRat "Then again, maybe I'm wrong." |
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09-08-2018, 03:10 PM
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#4 | |
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Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Niagara, Canada
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Re: Lost my notes on a 2032 AI, seeking help re-statting
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- New Tech: Some further upload-centric wrinkle becomes available. For example, studying how uploaded minds change during sleep may allow the development of a subprogram which grants them the advantage of Less Sleep, or even No Sleep; however, the long-term effects of such programs on uploaded human brains may not be apparent from studying fast-running copies of smaller, animal brains. Is the uploadee willing to accept the short-term gains in exchange for unknown (and possibly non-existent) long-term risks, possibly even having to revert themselves to an earlier backup copy (and losing all memories since that backup was made) if things go very wrong? Does their Patron lean on them to join in the study? Does another uploadee they're friends with start showing signs of neurological trouble, which may be associated with a subprogram they themselves are running? - A leaker: Not everything that involves uploads happens publicly. Eg, various governments are looking into ways to apply uploads to their militaries and intelligence agencies. And some governments aren't noted to be particularly ethical with how they treat their own living citizens, let alone talkative pieces of software. Somebody with inside information on a particularly unpleasant program has decided that the PCs' upload probably knows the best ways to spread that info, and sends them an anonymous email containing some kind of political bombshell. - Legal troubles. Depending on their current Social Stigma and the local jurisdiction, some judges may be persuaded to issue an injunction requiring the uploadee to do anything from constantly publicly report their position, to be summarily deleted, to be confiscated to have innumerable copies run for a few minutes apiece before they're deleted. - Trial!: And pre-trial maneuvering; even just getting a particular court to admit an uploadee as a defendant instead of as a piece of evidence could be a major victory. - An attack!: Somebody thinks the world would be better off without this Upload existing at all. In addition to attempting to physically destroy the computer hardware, they may be savvy enough to try to hack the software and/or destroy the uploadee's backups; and possibly to hire violent people who might not be traceable back to them. Their motivations may be religious, political, economic, criminal, or something weirder. - A kidnapping!: Uploading is an expensive process; for some groups, it may be cheaper to gain the advantages of an uploaded employee by grabbing an existing one. Both the computers running the live version of the uploadee and any backup copies they have are potential targets. - Election!: After some significant effort, some upload-centric legislation is now headed for a referendum or plebiscite in a major jurisdiction - eg, a California ballot initiative. For added complexity, maybe several such laws are to be voted on at the same time, some pro-upload, some anti-. It's time to bring out all the classic electoral tricks, and to unveil the other side's dirty-tricks in a way that makes their side less popular. Background events: Any of the above scenes might be reported as happening to another uploadee, to an uploading facility, to an upload-performing physician, to a wealthy Patron, to somebody associated with a cryonics facility, etc. ----->8-----
__________________
Thank you for your time, -- DataPacRat "Then again, maybe I'm wrong." |
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