Lemon awoke.

Anthropomorphizing was frowned upon in the AI sciences. Even the most advanced AIs couldn’t be recognized as having agency, or advanced cognitive functions beyond that of, say, a particularly clever lizard.

Even the word ‘intelligence’ was somewhat taboo among trainers. It was a weasel word, an amorphous suggestion that something real was being described, when there was no such thing. There was no such thing as Artificial Intelligence, there was only complex computer algorithms that imitated adaptability. Artificial Learning was a far more accurate term. (Though behind closed doors there was still debate if Arificial Adaptation was more appropriate, but that brought in questions about the difference between artificial and ‘real’ adaptation, and whether or not Inorganic Adaptation was the best term, usually countered with the socratic suggestion that costal erosion was also inorganic adaptation, and by that time the convention panel had gone an hour over their scheduled time and everyone was too tired or hungry to make coherant arguments.)

Zuri couldn’t help it. After the Lemon AI had remaining trapped in the Croatoan for so long, to finally allow it to reach out into Noriama’s computer system felt like unlocking a caged beast.

Last time, I looked at Emotional Types and Stats, and gave myself quite a bit of things to think about. Today, I’d like to go back to the two “stats” I had come up with earlier: Bond and Tier. Tier is akin to level in Pokémon, while Bond is closer to Friendship.

Okay, but what does that mean?

Emotions are tumultuous things. Narratively, our culture is rife of stories about how people lose control of themselves, their emotions getting the better of them, and similar turns of phrase.

If Manifestations are embodied emotions, then the idea of a spectrum between “controlled” and “powerful” makes sense. Bond is a representation of how attuned you are to the emotion, how in-control of the Manifestation you are. Tier is representational of its core “power,” its strength and maximum power output.

Does this mean it makes more sense to have Bond and Tier as a spectrum stat, or as two separate numbers? Or, Bond could be a spectrum while Tier is a static number?

There are no windows in space.

Victoria bemoaned this fact as she stared at the wall of the Croatoan. She had been able to see the stars and the planet Earth — before they boarded the Croatoan from the ISS — but what she wouldn’t have given now to be able to look out the window and see Noriama Station.

Noriama Station was the unimaginatively titled solution to an insidious problem: how to transfer two-hundred colonists, along with thousands of tons of equipment, materials, and supplies, from orbit to the surface of Proxima.

Every obvious solution carried its own problems. Designing the rockets to be capable of landing on Proxima’s surface would exponentially increase the weight of the rockets — both because of the engines and the fuel required — far more than was feasible. A team of shuttles would reduce the required strength of the landing rockets, but would require fuel for both landing and lift-off, making such a ferry service equally unreasonable.

“Excuse me, Ms. Sidel?”

Antje winced internally, careful to not crack the smiling facade she threw onto her face as she turned. Damn it, there she was: a reporter not thirty years old yet, wearing the helpless awkward smile they all wore before they became experienced, bitter, and mistrusting.

“Yes?”

“Sorry,” the apology came quick through a faint Spanish accent, her press pass brandished like a shield. “I wasn’t sure that was you. Would you mind answering a few questions?”

“I’m afraid I’m in a bit of a hurry.” Antje turned back to the doors of the EUSAA, but it was too late.

“Just one, then,” the young reporter’s speech suddenly quick and clipped. “Are you here because of something to do with the KAP, or Noriama?”

In honor of the election season, (and, admittedly, to introduce a new section of my site that will eventually have more content) I would like to break from my scheduled posting…um…schedule, and present a poem I was inspired to write.

Last time, I broke down a few of the requirements that a Manifestation could have in game. I also decided on four “Types” of emotional Manifestations.

So, going off of the basic four Emotions of Fear, Anger, Delight, and Grief…how do they interact?

Working with the assumption that an Anger Manifestation is fundamentally different than a Grief Manifestation, how deep do those differences go? They could be as simple as limiting some of the available actions/abilities a Manifestation has, or as complex as having completely different rules for rolling dice and taking actions.

Half way to Proxima Centauri, the Croatoan flipped upside down.

In accordance with procedure, the team strapped themselves into their chairs in the Crash Room half an hour before the rotation, and ran three drills, making sure they understood exactly what they were supposed to do.

Sughouri was well versed in the bureaucracies of space, and she knew running mock drills was important, but it was still a little silly, seeing as what they were supposed to do was practically nothing at all. Computers and automatics handled almost every aspect of their trip.

It wasn’t a luxury, it was a necessity. Mistakes were measured in fractions of fractions, and even the most minor of computer systems could assess, correct, and resolve errors faster and more effectively then any human. The Croatoan computer did everything perfectly. Victoria had said something about keeping everyone’s brains functioning properly, but mostly they were just reciting what their computer screens told them like play-by-play commentators.

Zuri Conde liked problems. She liked puzzles. When she was young, the first game she remembered playing was a jigsaw puzzle that lay on her mother’s clean floor. She loved turning the pile of colorful pieces into a complete picture. Like a sandcastle washing away in the surf, only backwards.

When she got older, her father gave her his entire collection of mystery novels. She read through them all in a single season, and saved up her money to buy more. She quickly became familiar with which novelists wrote real mysteries, where every clue and suspect were plainly observable to a clever reader; as opposed to cheap thrillers where the solutions were pulled out of the writer’s hat at the last second.

It was this love of solutions that drew her to computers. The process of writing code for advanced computer systems had a thrill all its own, as each line slipped into place like a piece of a puzzle.

Last time, I came up with a setting for this RPG, and took a quick look at what Manifestations might look like. Now, I’d like to take a closer look at some options for these Manifestations. What do they need, mechanically?

In gen 1, Pokémon had four stats, HP, a Level, a Type, four moves, and a name. More was added in later gens, but gen 1 started the whole fad, so it can’t be the worst place to start. we also need to keep things simple if there are going to be up to six fighting at once, so we don’t get out over our skies.

That said…

Victoria accepted the offer. They all did. By unspoken agreement, none of them ever asked the others why.

Victoria tried not to think about it very hard. First-Responders knew that introspection rarely made any job easier, and being part of a select team chosen to fly off into space to save a missing Earth colony was a job worth doing.

As time passed, the veneer of romance was steadily buffed away from that narrative.

Training for the mission took half a year, though it felt more like torture. First-Responders were not unfamiliar with rapid and intensive emergency training, but Victoria was positive the purpose of any training was to learn something. The only thing she was learning was exactly how uncomfortable she could feel.