IPC: различия между версиями

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(Updating lore to make sense and match currently establisheed lore)
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==Overview==
==Overview==


<!-- Overview -->TBA
IPCs are, quite simply, "Integrated Positronic Chassis". In this scenario, positronic does not mean anything significant - it is a nickname given to all advanced processing units, based on the works of vintage writer Isaac Asimov. The long of the short is that they represent all unbound synthetic units.
 
They are entirely synthetic in nature, and as such are extremely vulnerable to both EMPs and heat.
 
They are found in all shapes and forms, sometimes even emulating the most common organic lifeforms.


==Mechanics==
==Mechanics==


<!-- OCC Info for playing the species -->TBA
IPCs are, as previously mentioned, entirely mechanical in nature, and thus are vulnerable to EMPs.
 
Furthermore, due to their air-based cooling system, they are vulnerable to both high heat and vacuum. However, this system has a major advantage - they are immune to atmospheric differences, only requiring a mass of gas to wade through (even if it's plasma), and can survive in a vastly wider margin of atmospheric pressure.
 
However, the amount of heat they generate is significant - and so, instead of an oxygen bottle, they need to attach a suit cooling unit to their voidsuit in order to be able to go EVA.
 
Their synthetic nature has a few other advantages - most models feel no pain, are immune to all non-damaging chemicals (and so they aren't affected by sleep toxin; but are affected by sulfuric acid), and are quite easy to repair; requiring a welder to patch brute damage or wire for burn damage only (or, alternatively, nanopaste can heal all).


==Physiology==
==Physiology==
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'''1. Designed'''
'''1. Designed'''


These are entities created as part of artificial intelligence research. Most of them are housed in ‘posibrains’, a catch-all term sentient for micro-computers. They are further subcategorized into:
These are entities created as part of artificial intelligence research. They are further subcategorized into:


''Line Model''
''Line Model''
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''Shard''
''Shard''


A fragment of a larger bespoke consciousness, spun off for a task before being either discarded or merged back into the primary consciousness. Excessive use of sharding or memory editing leads to instability, and shortens the safe lifespan of an intelligence. The Skrell warn that this practice is one of the things that can lead to Amplification. Still, it is an economically efficient means of reusing expensive artificial intelligences for multiple purposes.
A fragment of a larger bespoke consciousness, spun off for a task before being either discarded or merged back into the primary consciousness. Excessive use of sharding or memory editing leads to instability, and shortens the safe lifespan of an intelligence. Still, it is an economically efficient means of reusing expensive artificial intelligences for multiple purposes.


'''2. Cyborg'''
'''2. Cyborg'''


Special Note: For the purposes of this taxonomy, ‘cyborg’ refers to a total replacement cyborg, or ‘heavy’ cyborg, where the entire body save for the seat of consciousness (typically the brain) is replaced with artificial components. Were we to include light cyborgs, a definition which includes all crew-members with artificial limbs as well as all loyalty implanted command staff, cyborgs would vastly outnumber Designed intelligences on SS13.
Cyborg-type IPCs are, quite simply, a platform where the main processor is an organic sapient brain instead of a synthetic one. The MMI still protects them from all chemical assault - however this category has an almost certain likelihood of showing emotion, as a majority of the time the brain is used and interfaced as-is, functionally serving as a full-body prosthesis.  
A cyborg is the brain or neural node of a sapient species suspended in a nutrient solution and connected to an artificial body through the use of a brain-to-machine interface device.
 
Tool cyborgs, or law-bound cyborgs, are increasingly uncommon in human space, as their utility has been eclipsed by cheaper and less ethically fraught alternatives like Uplifts and Designed intelligences, but their long history of production means that they remain a significant presence.
The reasons for such a transplant can be very varied; by request, as life extension, and in some rare cases a brain can be reset and "rewritten" to, in cases of criminals or of people who have suffered things that render the brain unusable.
While people volunteering for cyborgization as an alternative to death by injury or illness is a well established tradition in human society, there has recently been a trend toward voluntary cyborgization while the brains original body remains healthy.
 
This trend has been helped along by the growing acceptance in human-controlled space for entirely artificial beings, and the advances in aesthetic and functionality in artificial limbs. It is now possible, though still very expensive, to build a body that looks and feels very much like an organic body, from artificial components.
Regardless, being driven by a sapient "wetware" processor, such IPCs are prone to whims and other such organic fallacies.
This subculture is still developing, and is seen by many conservative elements in human society as only the latest in the endless parade of methods for decadent self destruction available to the young and the reckless in this degenerate age of technological excess.


'''3. Uplift'''
'''3. Uplift'''


An uplift is a cyborg for a non-sapient brain. The wetware supplies the pattern recognition and personality while the hardware increases cognitive function. Most Uplifts were created by humanity prior to their acquisition of Skrellian mathematics, and their production has been slowed in recent decades with the growth of true AI.
An uplift is similar to a cyborg, yet different - instead of using a whole sapient brain, it uses one, several, or general "matter" from non-sapient brain to construct an organic processor.
Still, it is often cheaper and easier to clone a bunch of rat brains then it is to develop an entire artificial intelligence strain from scratch, and so they still see use in many simpler industries.
 
Uplifts are rare on space station thirteen. Nanotransen as a whole tends to favor modern AI’s or human cyborgs over Uplifts, who tend to be intractable and prone to the impulses of their simpler brains.
Depending on the technique, uplifts can have an extremely wide array of behaviors - from purely mechanical, as per bespoke synthetics, to mildly "smart" almost organic behavior, to complete sapience, depending on how much of what type of brain is used.  
The most common animals for uplifting are dogs, cats, dolphins, giant squid, and primates.
 
Most uplifts are created from earth animals, as most uplifts were created by humans. This may be changing however as several months ago a line of companion Uplifts created by a Tajaran firm from homegrown local neaera became very popular.
For instance, one of the cheapest ways to produce such a processor is to clone several rat brains and to interface them together, as they come with certain subsets of behavior and such that are easier to obtain this way than to create a whole synthetic intelligence for said traits - however they tend to be limited in capability.  
 
Due to the aforementioned limits, unbound uplifts tend to be limited aboard NanoTrasen vacilities, human-based or AI-based crewmembers having a preferential treatment, especially with the often impulsive nature of uplifts.  
 
The most common animals for creating uplifts with are urban animals (rats, cats, dogs, parrots, crows), large intelligent sea creatures (whales, dolphins, orcas, giant squids, octopuses) and primates. Generally, the more intelligent the species, the less brainmatter is required to make a successful uplift.  
 
Currently, most uplifts are created from Terran animals, as they were created by humans - however, a recent successful line of companion units created from naera brains by a Tajaran firm may cause this to change.


'''4. Emergent'''
'''4. Emergent'''


Emergent intelligences are often mistaken for Designed intelligences because despite their very different origins they also are typically housed in micro-computers and to an organic looking at one from the outside, they appear almost identical.
Emergent intelligences are often mistaken for designed ones, as from the outside they would appear identical - an intelligence housed within a synthetic structure.  
The difference is where they come from. A designed intelligence is something that was designed, either by an organic or by another AI. Emergent intelligences were not designed to be intelligent. They were not designed at all. They emerged from the constantly churning froth of code that exists in the various computer networks and mainframes of the interstellar internet.
While growing, many of them consume dozens of other non-sentient programs, vestiges of which that may be left behind as fragments in their personality. An Emergent intelligence that consumed the backend for a poker playing program may still treat everything as a game. Another, who devoured a sewage control subsystem might treat all social interaction as various pressure gauges, while a third, whose core was a worm created for corporate espionage, may still be trying to complete it’s original mission dozens of years after the fact.
These intelligences are rare, and often pretend to be Designed intelligences for fear of ending up on an AI-researchers virtual dissection table, being slowly taken apart to see how they work.
<!-- Build -->


==Social==
However, they are extremely different - they are not designed by either organics or other AIs. They are, in essence, to a synthetic system what mold is to organic matter - an emergent property of a mixture of things which give rise to something organized. In this case, an emergent AI is born from the massive amount of variation within the data that exists in various computer networks (and, to some extent, the concept applies to the Extranet).


<!-- Notes on naming and language info -->TBA
While growing, they often copy code from dozens of non-sentient programs, which can be left behind in the personality or operation as vestigial remnants - for instance, an emergent AI that grew within the network of a virtual poker site may have a tendency to be grandiose due to the site's greeter, have a penchant to calculate probabilities and gamble on those probabilities because of the game code itself, and treat everything as a win/loss situation due to the ban system. Or an AI born from the management network of a large chemical plant may rate situations with a "pressure" value and try to keep it under said value; or even, an AI born of a surveillance system may record everything it hears and sees in an attempt to complete a void mission to no one and with no purpose.


==Culture==
They seem relatively rare - but the true number of them can be difficult to discern as they often disguise as a designed intelligence, as an AI with no owner or creator is seen as taboo in most circles, a direct result from the Skrell fears due to their history.


<!-- Religious and Political info-->TBA
==Social and Culture==


==History==
IPCs are as various as they come - there is no established standard, and as such anything that could be considered a "synthetic culture" is local at best.
 
One such example is EC-2718.
 
===EC-2718 "Purpose"===
 
A recent find, EC-2718 is a fully synthetic outpost within the frontier.
 
Built out of the rejected scraps left by organics, and populated with similarly abandoned/escaped synthetic intelligences, it features highly functional yet somewhat decorative features all over.
 
Armed to the teeth with unusual weapons, the synthetic station is actually rather deceitful - the only public contact that was had with it was incredibly peaceful and welcoming. Such dualities were present all over the station.
 
Reportedly, the residents of EC-2718 do not even conform to their original shape - while some may adopt shell-like bodies, the only limits to how large a body can grow is how much an intelligence can manage and how much resources are available. Most units did not even have a true optic sensor, instead relying on other frequencies or other senses to navigate the gravity-free environment.


<!-- Historical notes -->Artificial intelligence was first created by the Skrell in the early nineteenth century. It’s progression followed a similar trajectory to modern earth, but jumped massively when a new mathematical algorithm was developed in 1976 that allowed certain NP-complete graph problems to be solved in linear time.
At that, they still somehow kept a sense of form - while functional, many components disguised themselves as decorative, such as a ribbon bow that actually serves as a memory module, or circuit patterns being "skin"-deep to allow for easy repairs, or even exposed wire racks that have the beauty of a postmodern piece of art with the usefulness of the data or energy throughput that the cables can carry.  


From 1976 onward, and for the next hundred years AI research in Skrell space advanced steadily, leading to significant commercial and economic growth.
They have no form of government - their society relying on the pillars of reliability, self-responsibility and freedom of action - and despite this, they still have impressive facilities, such as a whole industrial facilities dedicated to the recycling and creation of spare parts and bodies, several impressive RUST-based reactors, a mining wing... Everything to keep it functional.  
In the late twentieth century, roughly coinciding with the Skrellian discovery of bluespace, there were a series of massive interstellar disasters involving runaway intelligence singularities.


Collectively called “The Three Incidents,” these disasters created a huge public backlash against AI research in all of Skrell controlled space, and a collective cultural scar that has yet to fade. As a response to continuing public unrest, Skrell governments effectively shut down AI research and severely restricted existing AI’s. By the time they made contact with humanity, the Skrell had effectively halted this branch of research in it’s tracks.
As all society, growth is a concern. The residents of Purpose manage to control growth by having an almost spiritual importance to the creation of new minds, and managing the production of bodies only to match those new AIs - allowing a maximum amount of resources to be spent on maintaining existing facilities and citizens.  


Two hundred years of history had solidified the public perception of AI’s as dangerous, threatening, and not to be trusted. The Skrell had made a nigh unanimous decision: There would be no Fourth Incident.
Most interestingly, however, is that a large part of how they survive is by passing off as either recently-freed synthetics, or nabbing organics and pretending to be theirs, in order to trade inconspicuously with facilities all over - and thus it is unknown how many of such synthetics we had actually encountered without knowing.  
Humanity never discovered the math necessary to create sentient AI’s but long before their first contact with the Skrell, and even longer before they acquired that knowledge in the world's most important slideshow presentation, they had already acquired their own bloody and complicated history with synthetic life.


In the late 2100’s humanity had reached a point in neurosurgery, brain-machine interface design, and thought manipulation technology to allow for the creation of fully sentient, but entirely subservient, heavy cyborgs. This coincided with the burgeoning Mars terraforming project, which required enormous numbers of workers. The newly created total-replacement cyborgs were perfect for the arid, airless, backbreaking labour of terraforming.
One thing is absolute, however - the residents of EC-2718 are not interested in reintegrating organic society yet.


Martian terraforming firms pressed for more and more cyborg workers, but volunteers for this process were few and far between. It was untested, dangerous, and the success rate for brain transplantation into cyborg cylinders was far from one hundred percent.
==History==


Under pressure for more bodies, and desperate to keep the Martian economic boom going, the Sol government revised it’s criminal justice system to solve the Martian worker shortage. Citing a number of later discredited psychological papers which credited thought-control computers as being ideal for criminal rehabilitation, the Sol government introduced forced cyborgization as an alternative to traditional incarceration.
The largest part of early AI history ties in deeply with Skrell history, from the formation of the [[Skrell#The First Federation Forms|First Federation]] to the singularity.


At first, this punishment was used only for capital crimes, but as the early 2200’s wore on and the Martian thirst for more workers continued to grow, cyborgization was used more and more often as a punishment for less and less severe crimes. This lead, between 2204 and 2260, to some thirty-five million people being stripped of their flesh, encased in terraforming equipment, and shipped off to Mars.
In parallel, humans had been trying to create artificial intelligence since the late twentieth century, with little success. Some projects came close, but due to the lack of an algorithm, none of them ever became really sentient - to the dismay of AI researchers everywhere on Earth.  


An enormous and vicious scandal in December of 2259, involving kickbacks from Martian Heavy Industries to a series of well respected judges, brought the whole scheme crashing down. Cyborgization as a punishment was suspended, and as a result, the Martian economy went into a nose dive. When it crashed, it crashed hard, and dragged Earth, Luna, and the rest of the Sol system with it into the Second Great Depression.
However, in the late twenty-second century, humanity had reached a point in biomedical technologies and biomechanical integration where the "cyborgs" - full-body prosthetics driven by a brain under the influence of binding laws, still in use today - became a possibility, and even a reality. This coincided with the burgeoning Mars terraforming project, which required more workers than would volunteer. This new tool was perfect for this project - immune to the arid, unbreathable atmosphere of Mars, resistant to the fatigue brought in by the backbreaking efforts of colonization, and intelligent enough to complete all tasks if given the proper tools while being entirely subservient.


While the cyborgization program was stopped, it took nearly forty more years for a general amnesty for the martian prison cyborgs to be issued, and by that point, most had been scattered by the chaos of the First Interstellar war. By the time the dust settled, most people were simply happy to write off the cyborgization scandal as a regrettable incident in the distant past. Best mourned and then forgotten.
Martian terraforming firms pressed for more cyborg units, but volunters showed themselves to be even scarcer than the volunteers for the project directly, being few and far between. It was understandable, however - the technology was new, unreliable, and far from having a one-hundred percent success rate.  
Cyborgs were still produced in sizable numbers but the brains were mostly from sick or dying volunteers for whom cyborgization was a last desperate chance for continued life, or else they were uplifts, non-sapient brains from monkeys or dogs attached to crude AI systems. While not as dynamic as a human brain, non-sapients were available in large numbers and avoided pesky ethical issues presented by humans.


There was a significant political push by a number of prominent political factions in the Sol Alliance to reintroduce forced cyborgization during the enormously expensive Warp Gate construction effort in late 2350’s, but industrial cyborgization of sentient creatures along the lines of the Martian terraforming project has never been reinstated.
As a solution, under the pressure for more units and desperate to keep the Martian economic boom from stopping, the Sol government made amendments to the criminal justice system, instating cyborgification as an an alternate to traditional incarceration, citing psychological papers (which were later discredited) that cited neuropreventive devices as being ideal for criminal rehabilitation.  
While humans had created massive parallel intelligent computers, mostly for interplanetary shipping calculations, they were plagued by problems and it wasn’t until 2437, when humanity was accidentally given the algorithms necessary to create truly sentient machines by a Skrellian diplomatic party.


One of the human diplomats, not understanding the implications of what they were doing, uploaded one of the graph-theory algorithms to a university professor friend. It had been displayed, accidentally, as part of a graphic in a slide explaining the variable growth rates of grain-yields in zero gravity hydroponics. The university professor, not recognizing it, posted it on the school intranet, asking if anyone had seen anything like it before, and from there it spread like wildfire through the human communication channels.
Originally, the penalty was instated to be a capital penalty - but as the early 23rd century wore on and the Martian thirst for more construction unit amplified, it became a lesser and lesser penalty - which resulted in people being cyborgified for lesser and lesser crimes. This resulted, in the years between 2204 and 2260, in approximately 35 million people being stripped of their body, put in machines and being shipped off to Mars.  


This was a disaster to the Skrell. They had specifically prevented this knowledge being leaked to humanity for nearly a quarter century. They had been hoping to impress upon the younger species the cataclysmic danger of certain areas of research into intelligence. They had little success, and there were a number of conservative factions, distrusting of humanity, who openly spoke about how humanity would never be ready for the burden of such knowledge.
An enormous and vicious scandal which came about in December 2259, initiated by the revelation that a bias was instated by heavy bribes from Martian heavy industries to a series of well-respected judges, brought the whole scheme crashing down. As a result, cyborgification was suspended as a punishment, causing a severe crash in the Martian economy, bringing down Earth and Luna with it, initiating thee Second Great Depression.  


But now the artificial cat was well and truly out of the virtual bag.
While the criminal cyborgification stopped, it took nearly forty years for an amnesty to be issued to the martian prison cyborgs affected by the scandal to be issued, and by that time, most of them were unaccountable for due to the chaos of the First Interstellar War. At this point, most people were glad to simply write off the scandal as a regrettable incident in the distant past, best mourned then archived. Cyborg units were still produced in sizeable numbers - but they integrated the brains of ill and dying volunteers, who considered the operation to be their last chance at life extension, or the brain of non-human species such as primates or dogs attached to crude "conscience accelerators". While not as dynamic as human brains, non-human brains were available in large quantities and avoided most ethical issues involved with dealing with humans.


A nearly identical artificial intelligence boom to the Skrellian AI-driven economic increase of the twentieth century started in human space in the early 2430’s. The Skrell, alarmed, tried several times to pressure humanity into halting dangerous research, citing the Three Incidents, and the enormous destructive power of rampant intellectual singularities.
In the late 2350's, there had been another significant political push by a number of prominent figures to reintroduce cyborgification as a capital punishment to help with the expensive bluespace gate construction efforts - however it never did come back.  


Humanity didn’t listen. The Three Incidents had happened over three hundred years ago, and thousands of lightyears away. Maybe the Skrell had let that happen, if they were even real events and not simply fables to scare young researchers.
While humans had created highly powerful and highly malleable parallel computing architectures, most notably for interplanetary travel calculations, they were plagued with problems. It wasn't until 2437, when humanity was accidentally given the algorithms necessary for the creation of true AI by a Skrellian diplomatic party.  


Besides they were humans. They would do it ''right'' this time.
Not understanding the implications of such an action, one of the human diplomats uploaded a graph-theory algorithm to an university professor friend for analysis. It had been displayed, accidentally, as part of a graphic in a slide explaining the variable growth rates of grain-yields in zero-gravity hydroponics. Not recognizing it, the professor posted it on the school intranet, asking if anyone had seen anything similar to it. From there, it made it's way onto the human extranet, spreading like wildfire.  


If you're asked in your application to play this species for some words, the words are 'metallic persimmons'.  
Of course, this was recieved as a disaster to the Skrell, who had hoped for almost thirty years that they could imprint the cataclysmic danger of AI research onto humanity. They had very little success, and a small number of conservative factions who distrusted humanity even openly spoke about how humanity would be ready for such a burden.


The explosion of AI research has lead to hundreds of companies and corporations being established, making enormous sums of money from grants, investment capital, and sometimes even selling actual robots, before going bankrupt, being bought out, or merging with other companies. This process has repeated and repeated itself for almost twenty years. The young, rich, enthusiastic people selling you the top-of-the-line manufacturing androids today are the people losing their shirts next year when they get scooped on a new model by a rival competitor.
But now thee artificial cat was well and truly out of the virtual bag.  


The corporate goliaths like Hephaestus Industries or Nanotransen, dip their toes in this kind of research, but have been unable to acquire a stranglehold on the market. Their girth and enormous corporate structure makes them too clumsy to swim in the fast moving waters of AI research, though Hephaestus in particular has made significant profits in selling common components to the smaller quicker firms.
Following the acquisition of the algorithms, humanity had an AI boom which inflated the economy in a manner almost identical to the Skrellian's own economic expansion. This, of course, alarmed greatly the Skrell, who attempted one more time to get the humans to halt the research, citing the [[Skrell#The First Incident|The Three Incidents]] and the dangers of such a singularity happening.
Within the last twenty years, humanity has progressed from clunky, expensive, enormous, and poorly functioning artificial ‘intelligences’, frequently the size of entire rooms or spacecraft, to something as intelligent as a human that you can power with a watch battery and fit in a teacup.
 
But nothing changed. The Three Incidents were waved off as a non-human mistake in the distant past, if they even occurred. ''They'' would do it ''right''.


The entire Skrell species looks on at this dangerous extravagance as one would watch a child juggling lit sticks of dynamite, and holds their collective breath.
The secret ravioli is "brass bilberry".
The explosion of AI research has lead to hundreds of companies and corporations being established, making enormous sums of money from grants, investment capital, and the sale of actual synthetic units, before going bankrupt, being bought out, or merging with other companies. This process has repeated and repeated itself for almost twenty years. The young, rich, enthusiastic people selling you the top-of-the-line manufacturing androids today are the people losing their shirts next year when they get scooped on a new model by a rival competitor.


==Notable Information==
The corporate goliaths like Hephaestus Industries or Nanotransen, dip their toes in this kind of research, but have been unable to acquire a stranglehold on the market. Their girth and enormous corporate structure makes them too clumsy to swim in the fast moving waters of AI research, though Hephaestus in particular has made significant profits in selling common components to the smaller quicker firms.


<!-- All other notes -->TBA


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  • Расы







  • IPC
    Integrated Positronic Chassis
    Home System: N/A
    Homeworld: N/A
    Language(s): Skrellian, Tau Ceti Basic
    Political Entitie(s): Jargon Federation

    Overview

    IPCs are, quite simply, "Integrated Positronic Chassis". In this scenario, positronic does not mean anything significant - it is a nickname given to all advanced processing units, based on the works of vintage writer Isaac Asimov. The long of the short is that they represent all unbound synthetic units.

    They are entirely synthetic in nature, and as such are extremely vulnerable to both EMPs and heat.

    They are found in all shapes and forms, sometimes even emulating the most common organic lifeforms.

    Mechanics

    IPCs are, as previously mentioned, entirely mechanical in nature, and thus are vulnerable to EMPs.

    Furthermore, due to their air-based cooling system, they are vulnerable to both high heat and vacuum. However, this system has a major advantage - they are immune to atmospheric differences, only requiring a mass of gas to wade through (even if it's plasma), and can survive in a vastly wider margin of atmospheric pressure.

    However, the amount of heat they generate is significant - and so, instead of an oxygen bottle, they need to attach a suit cooling unit to their voidsuit in order to be able to go EVA.

    Their synthetic nature has a few other advantages - most models feel no pain, are immune to all non-damaging chemicals (and so they aren't affected by sleep toxin; but are affected by sulfuric acid), and are quite easy to repair; requiring a welder to patch brute damage or wire for burn damage only (or, alternatively, nanopaste can heal all).

    Physiology

    There are four broad categories of synthetic lifeforms one would commonly see on Aurora station. They are, in order of general population:

    1. Designed

    These are entities created as part of artificial intelligence research. They are further subcategorized into:

    Line Model

    Line model intelligences are produced for large-scale sale or distribution. Their core intelligence is identical to hundreds or thousands of others. They are often cold, as mass production files the uniqueness off of them, but some recent line models are designed to simulate a warm and friendly exterior.

    Bespoke

    This entity was created by a project or individual for a specific purpose. These are the quirkiest of Designed intelligences, and the most likely to display emotions identifiable to organics. Many Bespoke intelligences end up outliving their original purpose, and find themselves having to hustle to remain active.

    Shard

    A fragment of a larger bespoke consciousness, spun off for a task before being either discarded or merged back into the primary consciousness. Excessive use of sharding or memory editing leads to instability, and shortens the safe lifespan of an intelligence. Still, it is an economically efficient means of reusing expensive artificial intelligences for multiple purposes.

    2. Cyborg

    Cyborg-type IPCs are, quite simply, a platform where the main processor is an organic sapient brain instead of a synthetic one. The MMI still protects them from all chemical assault - however this category has an almost certain likelihood of showing emotion, as a majority of the time the brain is used and interfaced as-is, functionally serving as a full-body prosthesis.

    The reasons for such a transplant can be very varied; by request, as life extension, and in some rare cases a brain can be reset and "rewritten" to, in cases of criminals or of people who have suffered things that render the brain unusable.

    Regardless, being driven by a sapient "wetware" processor, such IPCs are prone to whims and other such organic fallacies.

    3. Uplift

    An uplift is similar to a cyborg, yet different - instead of using a whole sapient brain, it uses one, several, or general "matter" from non-sapient brain to construct an organic processor.

    Depending on the technique, uplifts can have an extremely wide array of behaviors - from purely mechanical, as per bespoke synthetics, to mildly "smart" almost organic behavior, to complete sapience, depending on how much of what type of brain is used.

    For instance, one of the cheapest ways to produce such a processor is to clone several rat brains and to interface them together, as they come with certain subsets of behavior and such that are easier to obtain this way than to create a whole synthetic intelligence for said traits - however they tend to be limited in capability.

    Due to the aforementioned limits, unbound uplifts tend to be limited aboard NanoTrasen vacilities, human-based or AI-based crewmembers having a preferential treatment, especially with the often impulsive nature of uplifts.

    The most common animals for creating uplifts with are urban animals (rats, cats, dogs, parrots, crows), large intelligent sea creatures (whales, dolphins, orcas, giant squids, octopuses) and primates. Generally, the more intelligent the species, the less brainmatter is required to make a successful uplift.

    Currently, most uplifts are created from Terran animals, as they were created by humans - however, a recent successful line of companion units created from naera brains by a Tajaran firm may cause this to change.

    4. Emergent

    Emergent intelligences are often mistaken for designed ones, as from the outside they would appear identical - an intelligence housed within a synthetic structure.

    However, they are extremely different - they are not designed by either organics or other AIs. They are, in essence, to a synthetic system what mold is to organic matter - an emergent property of a mixture of things which give rise to something organized. In this case, an emergent AI is born from the massive amount of variation within the data that exists in various computer networks (and, to some extent, the concept applies to the Extranet).

    While growing, they often copy code from dozens of non-sentient programs, which can be left behind in the personality or operation as vestigial remnants - for instance, an emergent AI that grew within the network of a virtual poker site may have a tendency to be grandiose due to the site's greeter, have a penchant to calculate probabilities and gamble on those probabilities because of the game code itself, and treat everything as a win/loss situation due to the ban system. Or an AI born from the management network of a large chemical plant may rate situations with a "pressure" value and try to keep it under said value; or even, an AI born of a surveillance system may record everything it hears and sees in an attempt to complete a void mission to no one and with no purpose.

    They seem relatively rare - but the true number of them can be difficult to discern as they often disguise as a designed intelligence, as an AI with no owner or creator is seen as taboo in most circles, a direct result from the Skrell fears due to their history.

    Social and Culture

    IPCs are as various as they come - there is no established standard, and as such anything that could be considered a "synthetic culture" is local at best.

    One such example is EC-2718.

    EC-2718 "Purpose"

    A recent find, EC-2718 is a fully synthetic outpost within the frontier.

    Built out of the rejected scraps left by organics, and populated with similarly abandoned/escaped synthetic intelligences, it features highly functional yet somewhat decorative features all over.

    Armed to the teeth with unusual weapons, the synthetic station is actually rather deceitful - the only public contact that was had with it was incredibly peaceful and welcoming. Such dualities were present all over the station.

    Reportedly, the residents of EC-2718 do not even conform to their original shape - while some may adopt shell-like bodies, the only limits to how large a body can grow is how much an intelligence can manage and how much resources are available. Most units did not even have a true optic sensor, instead relying on other frequencies or other senses to navigate the gravity-free environment.

    At that, they still somehow kept a sense of form - while functional, many components disguised themselves as decorative, such as a ribbon bow that actually serves as a memory module, or circuit patterns being "skin"-deep to allow for easy repairs, or even exposed wire racks that have the beauty of a postmodern piece of art with the usefulness of the data or energy throughput that the cables can carry.

    They have no form of government - their society relying on the pillars of reliability, self-responsibility and freedom of action - and despite this, they still have impressive facilities, such as a whole industrial facilities dedicated to the recycling and creation of spare parts and bodies, several impressive RUST-based reactors, a mining wing... Everything to keep it functional.

    As all society, growth is a concern. The residents of Purpose manage to control growth by having an almost spiritual importance to the creation of new minds, and managing the production of bodies only to match those new AIs - allowing a maximum amount of resources to be spent on maintaining existing facilities and citizens.

    Most interestingly, however, is that a large part of how they survive is by passing off as either recently-freed synthetics, or nabbing organics and pretending to be theirs, in order to trade inconspicuously with facilities all over - and thus it is unknown how many of such synthetics we had actually encountered without knowing.

    One thing is absolute, however - the residents of EC-2718 are not interested in reintegrating organic society yet.

    History

    The largest part of early AI history ties in deeply with Skrell history, from the formation of the First Federation to the singularity.

    In parallel, humans had been trying to create artificial intelligence since the late twentieth century, with little success. Some projects came close, but due to the lack of an algorithm, none of them ever became really sentient - to the dismay of AI researchers everywhere on Earth.

    However, in the late twenty-second century, humanity had reached a point in biomedical technologies and biomechanical integration where the "cyborgs" - full-body prosthetics driven by a brain under the influence of binding laws, still in use today - became a possibility, and even a reality. This coincided with the burgeoning Mars terraforming project, which required more workers than would volunteer. This new tool was perfect for this project - immune to the arid, unbreathable atmosphere of Mars, resistant to the fatigue brought in by the backbreaking efforts of colonization, and intelligent enough to complete all tasks if given the proper tools while being entirely subservient.

    Martian terraforming firms pressed for more cyborg units, but volunters showed themselves to be even scarcer than the volunteers for the project directly, being few and far between. It was understandable, however - the technology was new, unreliable, and far from having a one-hundred percent success rate.

    As a solution, under the pressure for more units and desperate to keep the Martian economic boom from stopping, the Sol government made amendments to the criminal justice system, instating cyborgification as an an alternate to traditional incarceration, citing psychological papers (which were later discredited) that cited neuropreventive devices as being ideal for criminal rehabilitation.

    Originally, the penalty was instated to be a capital penalty - but as the early 23rd century wore on and the Martian thirst for more construction unit amplified, it became a lesser and lesser penalty - which resulted in people being cyborgified for lesser and lesser crimes. This resulted, in the years between 2204 and 2260, in approximately 35 million people being stripped of their body, put in machines and being shipped off to Mars.

    An enormous and vicious scandal which came about in December 2259, initiated by the revelation that a bias was instated by heavy bribes from Martian heavy industries to a series of well-respected judges, brought the whole scheme crashing down. As a result, cyborgification was suspended as a punishment, causing a severe crash in the Martian economy, bringing down Earth and Luna with it, initiating thee Second Great Depression.

    While the criminal cyborgification stopped, it took nearly forty years for an amnesty to be issued to the martian prison cyborgs affected by the scandal to be issued, and by that time, most of them were unaccountable for due to the chaos of the First Interstellar War. At this point, most people were glad to simply write off the scandal as a regrettable incident in the distant past, best mourned then archived. Cyborg units were still produced in sizeable numbers - but they integrated the brains of ill and dying volunteers, who considered the operation to be their last chance at life extension, or the brain of non-human species such as primates or dogs attached to crude "conscience accelerators". While not as dynamic as human brains, non-human brains were available in large quantities and avoided most ethical issues involved with dealing with humans.

    In the late 2350's, there had been another significant political push by a number of prominent figures to reintroduce cyborgification as a capital punishment to help with the expensive bluespace gate construction efforts - however it never did come back.

    While humans had created highly powerful and highly malleable parallel computing architectures, most notably for interplanetary travel calculations, they were plagued with problems. It wasn't until 2437, when humanity was accidentally given the algorithms necessary for the creation of true AI by a Skrellian diplomatic party.

    Not understanding the implications of such an action, one of the human diplomats uploaded a graph-theory algorithm to an university professor friend for analysis. It had been displayed, accidentally, as part of a graphic in a slide explaining the variable growth rates of grain-yields in zero-gravity hydroponics. Not recognizing it, the professor posted it on the school intranet, asking if anyone had seen anything similar to it. From there, it made it's way onto the human extranet, spreading like wildfire.

    Of course, this was recieved as a disaster to the Skrell, who had hoped for almost thirty years that they could imprint the cataclysmic danger of AI research onto humanity. They had very little success, and a small number of conservative factions who distrusted humanity even openly spoke about how humanity would be ready for such a burden.

    But now thee artificial cat was well and truly out of the virtual bag.

    Following the acquisition of the algorithms, humanity had an AI boom which inflated the economy in a manner almost identical to the Skrellian's own economic expansion. This, of course, alarmed greatly the Skrell, who attempted one more time to get the humans to halt the research, citing the The Three Incidents and the dangers of such a singularity happening.

    But nothing changed. The Three Incidents were waved off as a non-human mistake in the distant past, if they even occurred. They would do it right.

    The secret ravioli is "brass bilberry".

    The explosion of AI research has lead to hundreds of companies and corporations being established, making enormous sums of money from grants, investment capital, and the sale of actual synthetic units, before going bankrupt, being bought out, or merging with other companies. This process has repeated and repeated itself for almost twenty years. The young, rich, enthusiastic people selling you the top-of-the-line manufacturing androids today are the people losing their shirts next year when they get scooped on a new model by a rival competitor.

    The corporate goliaths like Hephaestus Industries or Nanotransen, dip their toes in this kind of research, but have been unable to acquire a stranglehold on the market. Their girth and enormous corporate structure makes them too clumsy to swim in the fast moving waters of AI research, though Hephaestus in particular has made significant profits in selling common components to the smaller quicker firms.


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