#...and sapient spaceship AIs.

[theredoesnotexist]

I am not part of the Tumblr user demographic that's been keeping up with that alien webcomic Runaway to the Stars and the fact I relatively recently learned it's actually a webcomic is indicative and so is the fact I learn about characters and their names and designs only infrequently through my dashboard.

But "Bip" is kinda vibes

[m00nymonster]

Birthday

Prompt: present

What do you give a spaceship?

This was a question Seth was asking himself now because two cycles ago Iris had had her fifth birthday party, and for the first time Perihelion had asked for one too. It hadn't seemed interested before, but lately had become more verbal (literally) about its wants. Apparently after years of seeing Iris get birthday parties it wanted one for itself. This party had to include presents, which was the problem.

The party itself would be simple to organize. Peri wasn't fond of the other AIs in the program--it had trouble getting along with them, especially Holism, who was popular with the other AIs--so the guest list would simply be the crew and Iris. A party with seven adults and one child was easy enough. The present part? That, not so much.

A spaceship didn't need much. Fuel, for the few times its power core needed a boost. A good cleaning every now and then. A happy crew for company. However, one did not usually associate a vehicle with possessions. Spaceships weren't sapient enough to even ask for such things.

For now the crew was plotting in a university faculty room at PUMNT, though Iris had been brought with them and was currently happily playing with dolls at the table.

"I requisitioned party streamers and decorations," Kaede said.

"And cake?" Iris said hopefully.

"Yes, and cake."

"Chocolate?"

Kaede smiled. "Of course."

"Cake! Cake! Cake! Cake!" Iris chanted. "Oh! And starchy foods!"

"Iris, we'll have all your favorites," Seth said patiently. It wasn't like Peri was going to eat them.

"Yaaaaay!" Iris squealed. "I want to give Peri a teddy bear!"

"A teddy bear? Where would we put it?"

"On the bridge! Captain Teddy!"

Martyn laughed. "Okay, we'll find one for you."

"I wanna find it," Iris pouted. "And it has to be pink!"

"All right, starlight. We'll go shopping," Martyn said. "Seth, we'll leave the rest to you."

"Sure," Seth said. The two left, and Seth looked at his crew.

"Peri's expecting a present from us, too," he said. Kaede made a face.

"What the heck do you give a spaceship?" she asked.

"I was wondering the same thing," Seth said dryly. "I don't think we can get away with a teddy bear."

"It enjoys Iris' media," Matteo replied. "Maybe we can give it...a game based on some media?"

"Peri devours those. We need something that'll keep it occupied for more than five seconds. Literally."

Matteo looked stumped. Kaede shook her head.

"We've got to think outside the box. What would a machine get use out of? And 'a good polish' is not the right answer," she said, glaring at Matteo, who closed his mouth.

The crew and their captain sat in thought. Finally Seth said, "it's disembodied, isn't it? I mean, it doesn't have a body like the rest of us."

"I suppose," Kaede said. Seth grinned.

"I know what to get it," he said. "Let's get to work."

Two weeks later the crew had Peri's first birthday party. Peri enjoyed watching its humans play silly games, including pin-the-appendage-on-the-fauna, and eating cake (although Iris wore more cake than she ate). But it was by far the most excited to open the two packages it knew contained its very first birthday presents. Well, Iris would open them, anyway.

Is it present time? it asked eagerly as Seth finished wiping cake off of Iris. Seth nodded. "Iris, would you open the presents, please?"

"Mine first! Mine first!" Iris squealed, and grabbed a hot pink box. She ripped it open and pulled out an equally pink teddy bear. "Look, Peri! I got you a teddy bear!"

Thank you, Peri answered seriously. Can we put it in my engine room?

"Whereever you want," Seth replied. "Iris, if you--"

Iris was already ripping the packaging on Peri's second present to shreds. When she pulled out its contents she looked confused.

"What is it?" It was a machine of some sort, the same size as Iris, with a large dome top and several wiggly metal arms underneath.

"It's a very special drone," Seth said. "Peri, try it."

Curious, Peri downloaded a part of itself into the drone. It floated in the air and the arms wiggled. Iris giggled and grabbed one. "Hello, Peri," she said, and shook it like a handshake.

Hello, Iris, Peri said, and shook back. The drone gently wrapped two arms around her like a hug.

Thank you, Peri said quietly, its feed voice filled with emotion. I love it.

Seth smiled. "Happy birthday, Peri."

[mattapparentlystumbltourneys]

Virtual Character Tourney - Battle for 9th! (and 10th!)

Propaganda below (May contain spoilers!)

Kasane propaganda:

HER DREAM WAS TO ONE DAY BECOME A REAL VOCALOID AMD SHE FINALLY DID IT!!!!!! ITS NOT A VOCALOID VOICE BANK BUT ITS A FULL SYNTH V VOICEBANK!!!!! AND A NEW DESIGN!!!!! SHE DID IT SHE GOT HER DREAMS!!!!!! YOURE NEVER TOO OLD TO ACCOMPLISH YOUR DREAMS!!!!!!!

Kasane Teto is a vocal synth, she started out as an april fools joke to parody VOCALOID, with her voice bank in UTAU. although she did start out as just a joke a lot of vocaloid fans grew to really love her and she became rather popular. Kasane Teto is to UTAU as Hatsune Miku is to VOCALOID. But recently on Kasane Teto's 15th anniversary, April 1st 2023, she got moved from UTAU to SynthV. With her voice bank now in SynthV she also got a new character deign alone with how her voice and her singing sounds much more clear and human like than her UTAU voice bank which sounded a lot more mechanical/robotic.

ART propaganda:

ART (Asshole Research Transport, nicknamed by Murderbot), formally known as the space ship The Perihelion (in italics but this is a Google Form), also known as Peri (nicknamed by it's human family) is a super illegal highly advanced AI that was created by a university. It grew up with two human dads and a human sister. It and its crew go on research trips that are cover for allying with people and communities at the edges (and beyond) of the capitalist hellscape that is the Corporate Rim. It also goes on espionage missions by itself, without its human crew and family, posing as an automated cargo ship. It was during one of these missions that it picked up Murderbot, a super-duper illegal bot-human security unit construct that had hacked the torture device implanted in all bot-human constructs so that it could disobey orders and walk away from its "owners" without dying. Murderbot uses its illegal freedom to watch television, a habit it passes on to ART. Turns out ART doesn't like shows where human crew members get hurt.

ART is the AI that controls/is the research and teaching vessel Perihelion. (Perihelion is usually what people call it, but the protagonist of the series calls it ART so that's the name I put. ART stands for Asshole Research Transport.) It is extremely intelligent and advanced and also extremely sarcastic and condescending. 100% earned the name ART. ART will do absolutely anything for its crew!! It was developed and "raised" alongside the captain's daughter, Iris, and they're like siblings. Its crew calls it Peri. They do corporate espionage on the side to help bring down said corporations. It has a "debris deflection system" which is definitely not a weapon because ART isn't legally allowed to have a weapon. Definitely just for debris, don't worry about it. It's friends with the aforementioned protagonist, Murderbot, and ART is very good at bullying it into actually leaving its comfort zone when it needs to. They care about each other a lot, and they like to binge watch TV shows together. I don't want to write too much but I just love it a lot.

Ene propaganda:

She's blue. Headphone actor and yuukei yesterday are also bangers

Epic gamer cybergirl. Miku adjacent

She's a girl that was forced to become digital but is still a good friend. She may not have a body anymore but she's still important to the plot.

Murder-Bot 2.0 propaganda:

Sapient computer virus made from bits of two other AI characters (the original Murderbot and a spaceship AI). Unlike its not-parents, it is genuinely just code and doesn't have a physical body. Its only physical presence is through its effects on the machinery it infects, and it considers its "body" to be the code rather than any combination of physical objects. Also it was literally made to cause problems on purpose, does so enthusiastically, gives several people including its creators existential crises, and saves one of its creators (and other people from the (literal) fallout of the other creator learning the first one got killed)

Murderbot 2.0 is sentient killware created by Murderbot and ART with the purpose of being sent on a suicide mission. It has some of Murderbot's memories, but not all because it doesn't have any hardware of it's own to store that much information in. It travels by hopping in between other computer systems (mostly bots and bot-human constructs). It named itself Murderbot 2.0. It freed a security construct named Three. It's nicer and more open than both its parents.

EDI propaganda:

EDI is the AI of the Normandy starting with Mass Effect 2. Through dialogue EDI can become more human-like in her way of thinking, developing different kinds of relationships with the crew. In Mass Effect 3 she uploads herself into a body so she can freely move around and can be taken to missions, but she is still part of the ship's system.

Holly propaganda:

Due to a pay dispute with Holly's original actor, Norman Lovett, Holly was instead played by Hattie Hayridge during seasons 3-5. This was explained briefly in the show as them having gone through a "computer sex change". This makes Holly canonically trans do not @ me.

holly is the silliest most specialest ai ever. she has an iq of 6,000 but sometimes it seems like his iq is more like 6. they're possibly transgender (do computers have gender??) (i am panicking over pronouns while writing this propaganda) - holly goes from appearing like a man to appearing like a woman with no real explanation(??) and nobody questions this (the show is from the 90s btw). he's hilarious and sometimes lies to the crew for no reason other than 'its a laugh, innit'. shes everything to me <3

Holly is the computer of Red Dwarf, a Tenth Generation AI hologrammatic computer who appears as a floating head on a screen. Can be downloaded onto various other devices. also literally transgender.. meets a female appearing parallel version of itself in a parallel universe and then goes through a sex change after falling in love with her. transgender computer ftw

Tama propaganda:

Tama is the eyeball of Kuruto Ryuki and investigates dream worlds with him. She's his bi emotional support eye who regularly ties him up to help him with stress relief and loves to affectionately tease him. She laughs at bad jokes and has AE10D1F ("Ryuki" in hexadecimal) in her likes on her profile.

OKAY anyway uhm she's like aiba in that she's a little Ai eyeball that helps you investigate except sadly no animal theme. instead she has a domintrix vibe instead!!!! she is so cool… also ermm she's a lot more. Human than aiba. Not literally/physically like uhh emotionally. I haven't finished aini but like she does look out for your best interest! what a good Ai partner i don't kno

She's voiced by Anairis Quiñones and she's an absolute legend

Lyla propaganda:

she is a humanoid ai programmed to help spider-man gather info. she can simulate human emotions and has a high intellect

[sod4leaf]

(edited because someone pointed out that their original name was an irl ethnic group. I didnt know that im sry)

Anzaians , Mankind's lost cousins.

Millions of years ago, a Alien race ruled all of known space. Its largely unknown who they were, or what they even looked like, all that is known about them is that they were far more advanced than any of the current species.

They are simply referred to as the "Primordials"

The primordials found earth during the time when the first hominids were evolving, specifically Ardipithecus. For unknown reasons they took several hundred with them. Possibly to study them, maybe for an experiment, who knows.

What matters is that they genetically modified these early hominids, and then simply dropped them off on a completely different world. Its possible these genetic modifications were for being able to survive the new alien environment the Ardipithecus were introduced into.

Over the next few million years, these hominids evolved in their new environment and adapted. Their new homeworld of Averis was slightly warmer than earth, and largely covered in savannah and jungles. Anzaians specifically evolved in the jungles of Averis, were they became arboreal pack hunters, evolving for climbings the massive trees of averis´s jungles.

Roughly 1.2 million years ago, Ardiphi sapience, also known as Anzaians , emerged. 

Anzaian society is not that different from humans, possibly due to a shared ancestry. They are naturally polygomous, often having several romantic partners and it being the socaital norm.

Like all sapient species they have Queer individuals. Compared to human history, queer Anzaians never faced the same amount of persecution, and their capital world is seen as a largely save place to live for queer individuals.

Anzai are on the same level of technology as the other species, but have a distrust against robotics and ai, due to a Robot uprising that nearly caused a nuclear war some 200 years ago. Instead,Anzaians use biological machines and technology made from a genetically modified animal from Averis. This animal, called a Brain Squid, is a strangely intelligent molluscoid analogue. They are not sapient, however their brains have the storage and processing abilities rivalling that of computers. Its possible they were also experiments by the primordials, as its unlikely a animal like this would naturally evolve. 

Either way, the Anzai modified these animals to be everything from home computers to spaceships. They do encase these brain-squids in specialised life support capsules that they then build the rest of the machine around. Anzaian Computer`s wouldnt look that much different from any other, however the pc´s core is a processing squid. 

Likewise with their ships, wich are artificial but have possibly hundreds of Brainsquids powering all sorts of systems aboard. 

Anzai also modify themselves with the same technology, creating several offshoot species of themselves for different environments. 

[sapient-locations-bracket]

FINAL MATCH

Descriptions:

ART (it/its, Murderbot diaries): “an AI downloaded onto a research transport! it has very big guns that it excuses as "defense". it is VIOLENTLY protective of those it considers its friends and families, ART accidentally scared the shit out of murderbot on their first meeting with its massive presence in the digital feed. it once threatened to blow up a entire planet if they didn't give murderbot back! ART is very close to becoming a evil ai and we love it for it” and “a sapient spaceship that was, on paper, created for deep space research by the Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland. However, most of its time is spent aiding the university in gathering intelligence about corporate crimes against humanity and running espionage. It loves its human crew and sees them as its family, though it often comes across as a bit of an asshole due to its dry sense of humor. would probably call itself a poor little meow meow”

Hera (she/her, Wolf 359): she's sassy, she's passive aggressive, she's only a little (a lot) glitchy, she's totally not ever tried to get around her programing to see if she could kill her crew! She's very trans-coded, very much disabled-coded, and she canonically has an AI anxiety disorder stemming from repressed parental abuse.” And “Look. Hera is the AI mother program of the USS Hephaestus but like. she is the station, it is her body, her eyes ears and mind, and I love her so much please please please

[philcoulsonismyhero]

9 and 13!

Okay, this ended up being a fun combination of folks who I think would get along. You know both of them already, but whatever :D

9 - Charlie Charleston

Charlie (actual first name Nigel, but he never uses it) is from the first group of OCs that I got properly invested in, and a story that I really will go back to one of these days. He's a freighter ship captain/pilot in the space future, and he's fond of bad jokes, luridly brightly coloured woolly jumpers, spaceships, and his cat called Electromagnet. (Maggie for short, Electromargaret for long. She appeared on his ship one day, days out of port, and just stuck around, hence the name.) He's also the life partner of his story's protagonist, one Alastair Hayashi, who's an exploration pilot and thus kind of the space future equivalent of an astronaut. Charlie's part of the spacer culture, which is made up of large and complicated extended families who crew freighter ships, and pretty much spend their whole lives in space without having much to do with planets. He has three parents, a large number of siblings and other relatives, and a deep and abiding interest in other people and new friends.

A lot of my OCs start out as two or more pre-existing characters that I like smashed together, and Charlie started out as a combination of Wash from Firefly and Johnny from Killjoys, and he's just generally a really solid dude who's a lot of fun to be around. And has one heck of a time when his partner gets abducted by aliens that no one knew existed until That happened, and then just as he's coming to terms with that he ends up having to help expose a conspiracy and also help prevent a war. Fun times for Charlie!

This is pretty old art (yikes, like 7 years old at this point? wow), but here he is:

13 - Patch

Patch (they/them) is from Red Shift Blue Shift, which you can find out more about over here: @redshiftblueshiftcomic! (Ignore the lack of blog activity, the story is still very much cooking behind the scenes, we've just not had a lot of time to work on postable stuff for it.)

But in summary, Patch is a robot who was originally built for spaceship repair but ended up having to do a lot of odd jobs over the years and has updated and improved their own systems with all manner of new skills. They're endlessly curious, trying their best to figure out how humans work, and still adjusting to the fact that they were built as one of the last generations of bot before AI people were legally recognised as sapient and have only recently gotten out of a situation where they were still being used and treated as a tool not a person. They've got six arms in total (all telescopic), rocket feet, and have enthusiastically taken to the idea of clothes Exclusively as a means of having a large number of pockets. Their main priority in life in fixing things, and they might not always know how to help but they'll do their best to figure it out. (Although, as of yet, no one has let them try out the organic brain surgery skills they downloaded just in case they came in handy, and they'd have to admit they're a little disappointed about this.)

Patch is based on three different green-themed robot-related nerds with names beginning with P - Penny from RWBY, Peridot from Steven Universe, and Pidge from Voltron: Legendary Defender.

This is a concept art sketch from a while ago and is definitely due a second pass, but here they are:

[lesbianfakir]

webcomics? you want to read webcomics? I super recommend Runaway To The Stars (cast page - minor spoilers) and Foreach (cast page - it has multiple versions so you can keep track of things without getting spoilered for chapters you haven't read yet!).

Runaway To The Stars is scifi, centering on an alien raised by humans, her human coworkers, and the sapient AI they found in a scrapped spaceship. The story's still in the early stages, but it has really cool worldbuilding - I've been following the author since 2014-ish on Tumblr, back when they were working on a (now dropped) magical girl project starring anthropomorphic bugs. There's a lot of backlog development material on Tumblr, if you don't mind being spoiled.

Foreach is... well, it's about a young exorcist who uses debate club skills to resolve ghosts' unfinished business, the tension between his ghost dad's demands and his fraying relationships with his friends... and also the dating sim/jrpg about magic elves he plays to forget about the stress and tension in his life. And some other things. I don't know how much to spoil the end of chapter 1 twist? It's metafiction, with an angle about the relationship between fictional worlds as escapism vs lived reality, and it's also, in my opinion, extremely funny.

yay tysm for the recs these sound super interesting im excited to check them out!!

[cobalt-knave]

Why you should listen to Ask Your Father

Ask Your Father is an audio drama set on a spaceship crewed by one human scientist, Lem, and one sapient AI, Mikey. After something goes wrong, the pair are left lightyears away from Earth. Unable to return, the only communications they can have with Earth are short audio clips on tiny drives including questions from Lem's family.

Why you should listen in no particular order:

KEVIN R. FREE IS SUCH A GOOD VOICE ACTOR YOU GUYS EVERYTHING HE VOICES IS GOLD

He voices Mikey, and I love Mikey.

FRIENDSHIP! The main relationship in the show is between Mikey and Lem, and it is important to me.

Musings on the difference between humans and sapient AIs

Excellent choices in terms of preferences and experiences for the AI. He might not have the same experience of listening to a song or eating chocolate as a human, but he does experience it, and the descriptions are so thoughtful.

Very tightly written and produced

Tense and interesting relationships of all stripes (friendship, sibling, spouse, child)

Jewish astronaut!

[wyrmoftheweb]

cyber futuristic society in which a lot of things (spaceships, computers, etc) are run by sapient ai AND we've moved past any kind of ai racism type of deal so they get to do whatever they want. most ships need some kind of maintenance crew to live obviously but that can be carried out by their own drones or a human crew comprised of friends, relations, or if they don't have these, a government appointed crew so abandoned ships don't just die. there are of course still ships that carry humans around as a job, but it's mostly like a space uber or airport type thing where the ship is an employee who can negotiate its own terms of travel. one of the points on the ai rights charter is that of course ai that are young have similar leniencies to human children because while they may be "born" smarter, they still lack life experience.

a 3 year old spaceship can crash into a station and it's ok because she's only 3. sorry the idea of that was the basis of this whole post i just think the idea of a big spaceship crashing into a station and when the smoke clears and there's like, a charging station android running up to ask what's going on and the ai's customized tts voice says "I apologize. I selected the wrong docking protocol. I am only 3." Is really funny to me.

[getranched]

coulddddd we have a rundown of the habitants of the ranch?

Well I'm not sure about every single being who makes this (cosmic nightmare) house a home

But I'm sure we can give you a good rundown!(also PSA this account does deal with unreality so if that kind of thing messes with you be careful)

First up is the Ranch itself! A mimic in its final stage of life! They normally become dungeons or haunted houses but this lovely guy had the (mis)fortune to become a familiar with Moon in around the 1700's I'm pretty sure. And as a fully adult mimic it spawns thousands of baby mimics which end up replacing our furniture and the like.

EREN INTERJECTION i’m eren, OR RIJU, a shapeshifter. i just live here idk. i have a friend who’s a burmese python but he doenst live here. uhmm yeah idk i just eat the food in the fridge and sometimes i’ll throw bits of my fresh kills in there too. idk uhmm yeah im friends w everyone here except for like. FD maybe?? but he doesnt live here i dont think….

tbh i dont really keep up with who comes in and who doesnt HAHA im usually in my room playing with bones or reading when im here at the ranch

Twi interjection! I'm Twilight (or just Marth) i'm just kind of here, and if i'm not, i'm tending to my acnh island Tabantha. (Also this account is being shared between 15 or less people, some are more active than others and their individual accounts are being followed by this one)

Is it really an interjection if everybody’s doing it when nobody else is typing? Who knows! I’m Vivian, local semi-moth humanoid and god/dess of the Lost and the Traveling on occasion. Unlike most local chumps deities, I am a multiversal being, which means I am THE deus ex machina in any given situation, and like to Borrow from other universes. cough cough: ner beskar’gam. Also, I have a sapient AI living in “my” spaceship (which is legally his, don’t tell xem), just for funsies

This is Sky now. I'm not really supposed to be in this galaxy, I crash landed in the front yard on one of my spaceships. I tried apologizing to the landlord but we ended up throwing hands, not my fault. Eventually I stayed at the Ranch tho. Hobbies: leading prison breaks, motorcycle rides, eating lightbulbs for the sake of trolling, antagonizing gods, blasting my friends into space. Ended up adopting a demon cat guy. (Vivian note: this is not the catboy incubus. This is a different demon cat guy) (Sky note: Yeah, my boy is the cat butler, the other catboy is a pain in my ass) (Vivian again: and a pleasure in mine)

This is Luna! I am the goddess of horses and all things related. I spend most of my time as a horse (sometimes a centaur) AND I AM NOT A CHUMP VIVI! anyway I used to run an empire ages ago before it was destroyed, and I got sealed away. I have Twi to thank for breaking my seal! Nowadays I'm restarting my cult (its horse girls mostly rn) and fixing horse races. If you ever see a horse say hello it might be me.

Heyo! I'm saria, local milf. I have deer antlers because some grass god decided it'd be cool to mix the local humans with deer. (to be fair, he was right.) I'm mostly human, though. I stream bloodborne because that game reminds me of my found family and my village. I'm still piecing together what happened to my people, but for now I bake, garden, and play my silly little video game. catch me having tea with a succubus and a doll on tuesdays and shopping with a horse on thursdays.

Hi! I'm Wild! I was Moons first kid after my dog and I accidently ended up in this world, escaped jail, and hid in her man eating garden. Most of the time, I sail the seas of my home world and have the best adventures with the greatest pirate crew u could ever imagine. But, I do come visit home from time to time, too, thanks to my crystal that lets me travel through time and space. Somebody's gotta bedazzle FD's tools and give Moon a headache, ya kno?

Yormp here! I’m not totally sure who I am, I’m working on it. Moon says I’m a creature of my own choice, but I’m not too sure about that. Before I was an omen of war, and my friends called themselves pestilence, conquest, and death. Then I died, some time passed, I don’t remember it all, got cursed to be an otter for a bit, and met Moon. Now? I’m just going to college. Learning a little. If I really do get to choose, I think I’ll choose not to be War reborn this time.

Oh… and uhh. Goose.

Hmmm? OH it's my turn! Hey hey hey! I am (the) Sun Sun Sun and when you're with me everything is fun fun fun!. I'm Moon's counter part. We share a body, we share a mind, we are the same person, but not quite! Much like Moon I am also a clown, but instead of resembling a porcelain doll I have the body of a goat (sorta)! You can think of me as Moon's opposite! We may not agree on much, but we do hold our family very dear to us! I'm also referred to as a father and much like Moon, I don't mind what I'm called! Speaking of Moon, she wants her turn to speak now!

Hello, dearest traveler,

It seems you have found our home. I'm (the) Moon. I am the one that eats many gods in this world. But do not worry, it is strictly business. As of this moment, I have taken the form of a porcelain clown. This body was provided to me by a dear friend. I am also referred to as the father of many Ranch residents. Though I am called a father, and might be referred to as Mr. Vilon, I do not care much for what I am referred to as. Most use she/her.

[Psst. Moon. Don't forget to tell them some house rules!]

Ah yes... While you are here traveler, be sure keep some things in mind:

- Mind your teeth and your belongings, else they might be stolen

- Remember to keep your feet off the grass. The plants get hungry after a certain time.

- Not everything is what it seems. I'm sure you will become familiar with our mimics both big and small.

- Do not assume a door, hallway, or stairwell will take you to the same place twice.

- The void will always listen to your troubles.

- Do not pet the cats. Some are... not the kind that you want the attention of. Or maybe they are. That's up to you.

- And most importantly, remember, that sometimes, it is better to stay lost than to be found.

Enjoy your visit,

The Vilons

[heimeldat]

So far we know my 100th fic will involve the Eighth Doctor traveling with Fitz and Leela. That should be quite a fun combination to write! Now they need a villain to face.

[thejesterofmoths]

(POST 1, SPORE)

This is my interpretation of the story of Spore, having never read another person's, ten thousand hours if play-time, and having played the game since before I could read. I did encounter the Wikipedia page a couple of times, but skimmed directly towards the cheat codes, and I only started doing that by 2020-2021. I've played since 2008, I had plenty of time to sit with it alone.

(This part is background information, and not the story I've pieced together)

If I were to start anywhere, I think that I should start, naturally, with the Grox.

Visibly equipped with only the weakest if parts, starting off incredibly aggressive, and being portrayed as the "big bad" of the late-game interactions, the grox were always very intriguing to me.

To a child, finally reaching the space stage and realizing that the game does not end, the first encounter with the grox you will ever have is when you find a ruined colony city. The planet is barren, devoid even of a single geyser, leaving it uninhabitable, even to the player.

The city is dark, and creepy, but you're lead to it, and told to observe it carefully.

This leads in to a short cutscene where a couple of leftover, ai spaceships immediately assume that you are this ominous Grox figure.

As you encounter other alien races, you frequently hear of the unpleasantries involving the grox, and as the game progresses, you'll find that the grox themselves attack you and your allies with increasing frequency.

I've always felt sad for the grox. I reached space stage for the first time around 2012, after four years of game play. I was six at the time, and even then, something always felt off about the grox. An apparently evil race which is hated by every other sapient creature in an entire galaxy. It never sat right with me, and when I first saw the Grox, it felt even worse.

They're small, stubby creatures, without natural defenses. No weapons, no spikes, no health increasing parts. Default hands and feet, on top of the cheapest arms and legs, and one, small, stubby torso holding up a large, wide-eyed head. They're cute, they're almost cuddleable.

This is, except for the prosthetic parts. One eye is replaced with a large, lifeless red orb, surrounded by steel prosthetics which presumably take up a notably large part of the creature's head, and as I always interpreted it, part of their brain.

The right side, (left to an individual facing them), is mostly metal.

If you do form an alliance with the grox, which is notably incredibly difficult, there are a few consequences.

One, you get a hidden achievement, called Dancing with the Devil.

Two, you get an intermission from every other space-capable race in the entire galaxy, one by one, that you are now at war. You now have one ally, and an entire galaxy against you.

However, the Grox don't behave like a regular ally, either. They'll still become hostile towards you, they still do not trade well, and they price-gouge everything. They're hardly friendly, coming off largely as *tolerant*.

It also becomes apparent that they surround the center of the galaxy, and do not want for you to reach it.

[mattapparentlystumbltourneys]

Virtual Character Tourney - Round 4 - Bracket B - 2

Propaganda below (May contain spoilers!)

Ultraman X propaganda:

X canonically lost his physical form and lives in Daiichi's phone. His presence caused Daiichi's phone to turn gold, instead of the standard-issue silver the rest of XIO's employees have. It's possible for XIO's scientists to send powerups to X because he lives on Daiichi's phone. There's also a couple episodes where X gets trapped in cyberspace and Dr. Gourman and friends have to design something for Daiichi to help him escape. (Dr. Gourman is the first to notice Daiichi is secretly Ultraman X. Also in the crossover movie, Daiichi and X got separated and X couldn't live on Daiichi's phone so he jumped to the nearest computer (which belonged to Naomi from Ultraman Orb, air date 2016) and began pulling up photos of Daiichi in a "Have You Seen This Nerd?" sort of way. The enemy goons saw Naomi and her cryptid hunting gang putting up missing posters for Daiichi and tore them down bc they had him captured at their crystal witch's base, a creepy haunted house. Eventually when Daiichi and X reunited as man and lil alien on his phone, they were so happy they ignored everyone else in the room. They were grateful enough to fight alongside Naomi's sad space cowboy, Kurenai Gai, in battle.

He's used the phone's vibration function a few times to try and get people's attention, and he doesn't like being turned face-down because he can't see. In order to take on a physical form he has to essentially fuse with his human partner Daichi. (also they get a power up form after Daichi nearly Dies to save him and it's rainbow themed.) While X is very chatty and enjoys talking with his partner, he's often a formless voice while they're fused.The exception being one occasion where he looks like an entire network. tldr this alien is gay he is very polite and deserves your vote.

Murder-Bot 2.0 propaganda:

Sapient computer virus made from bits of two other AI characters (the original Murderbot and a spaceship AI). Unlike its not-parents, it is genuinely just code and doesn't have a physical body. Its only physical presence is through its effects on the machinery it infects, and it considers its "body" to be the code rather than any combination of physical objects. Also it was literally made to cause problems on purpose, does so enthusiastically, gives several people including its creators existential crises, and saves one of its creators (and other people from the (literal) fallout of the other creator learning the first one got killed)

Murderbot 2.0 is sentient killware created by Murderbot and ART with the purpose of being sent on a suicide mission. It has some of Murderbot's memories, but not all because it doesn't have any hardware of it's own to store that much information in. It travels by hopping in between other computer systems (mostly bots and bot-human constructs). It named itself Murderbot 2.0. It freed a security construct named Three. It's nicer and more open than both its parents.

[random-thought-depository]

This is a really good representation of one of the reasons I prefer to write sci fi that's on the harder side! If I wanted to argue against somebody who thinks commitment to scientific realism is some stick in the mud no fun allowed creativity-limiting thing, my argument might involve showing them this. It really is my impression that, ironically, the greater freedom from realism constraints enabled by a "softer" approach tends to result in more convergence. I think it's (at least partly) because paying attention to realism tends to interrupt a process related to "AI inbreeding" (disclaimer: I base this on some descriptions of the phenomenon I've read on Tumblr) and the thing Leviathan-Supersystem calls "fictionbrain." Speculative fiction writers tend to also be appreciators of other people's speculative fiction, and that means often one of the main inputs to their imagination is other people's fiction. As a result, if you remove other constraints, the result tends to be strong convergence on a model mostly made of genre conventions and tropes and stuff people have seen other people do before. Your fantasy has Orcs because fantasy usually has Orcs. Your sci fi has space fighters and something kinda-sorta like WWII mixed battleship/aircraft carrier naval warfare but IN SPACE cause Star Wars and Wing Commander and Battlestar Galactica and so on did that. Your spacecraft have their decks parallel to their long axis which is parallel to their direction of movement like a boat cause that's how it works in Star Trek and Star Wars and a bunch of other sci fi. Your dinosaurs look kinda like dragons cause that's how they look in old movies from the middle twentieth century and those dinosaur toys you played with as a kid and the Jurassic Park movies. It's hard to not do that cause of course your imagination is fundamentally downstream from your direct sensory experiences and the ideas you've been exposed to.

Caring about scientific realism and sociological realism gets you paying attention to new, different sets of ideas. It gets you learning about how motion in free fall and vacuum works instead of just rolling with assumption that spacecraft will move like boats or airplanes. It gets you learning about how acceleration gravity and centrifugal gravity works instead of just rolling with the idea that spaceships have arbitrary "artificial gravity." It gets you thinking about how multiple sapient species living in close proximity to each other might have shaped each other's evolution instead of just going "Well, there's Orcs, and there's Elves, and there's Dwarves..." And so on.

stolen from that social media site gay millennials and grumpy boomers use

[sapient-locations-bracket]

Round 4 Poll #2

Descriptions:

The Tardis (she/it, Doctor Who): time-travelling spaceship with basically infinite rooms stolen from a museum by the Doctor, an immortal time-travelling alien! (TARDIS is an acronym meaning 'Time and Relative Dimension in Space') Canonically TARDISes are grown and alive. The Doctor's TARDIS in particular will sometimes actively make decisions and shows preferences on her shape, locations, companions, etc. It also inhabited the body of a human woman one time, which was wild

ART (it/its, Murderbot diaries): “an AI downloaded onto a research transport! it has very big guns that it excuses as "defense". it is VIOLENTLY protective of those it considers its friends and families, ART accidentally scared the shit out of murderbot on their first meeting with its massive presence in the digital feed. it once threatened to blow up a entire planet if they didn't give murderbot back! ART is very close to becoming a evil ai and we love it for it” and “a sapient spaceship that was, on paper, created for deep space research by the Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland. However, most of its time is spent aiding the university in gathering intelligence about corporate crimes against humanity and running espionage. It loves its human crew and sees them as its family, though it often comes across as a bit of an asshole due to its dry sense of humor. would probably call itself a poor little meow meow”

[bounceartwork]

Fenrir, Battle Fortress [c]

Another giant robot critter for the ever-wonderful Patashu, who has graciously provided a writeup about the machine - --- Fenrir is a wolf Command Battle Fortress built by Patashu Industries on the continental disc spaceship (and muck) Spindizzy. Battle Fortresses are towering animalistic war machines that can cover the entire roles of an adventurer party or army. They can be crewed or piloted, but also have a sapient AI and can work autonomously. They're constructed by PI to answer distress signals, aid oppressed civilizations and to do rescue missions in unsafe areas. They can bring onboard local specialists who know the area better than PI does, use their strength for terraforming/disaster relief and be a mobile base of operations and can adapt to a variety of metaphysics (militaristic, adventurer fantasy, pokemon, science fantasy, etc). Fenrir is built heavy and weaponized, a walking tank, but without compromising mobility. As a Command Battle Fortress, Fenrir is often tasked with leading other units, from a small operational group up to an entire army or fleet, and spends much time practicing in Virtuality to be highly experienced in any military or peacetime maneuver and always able to be relied upon. He considers himself a warrior philosophy, a proud noble beast, yet friendly calm and stoic, only baring fangs and expressing anger when the situation turns dire. He has a monotone and blunt manner about things, but can be approached and chatted to and even invited for play when off-duty. He feels that in order to fulfill PI's mission of protecting and uplifting everyone and every civilization you must be strong, but you also must be wise and gentle with how you apply it. Fenrir is currently en route to a remote alpine location where a frontier adventurer town has rendered a distress signal. Apparently a nearby dungeon has proven too difficult to deal with and has several parties stranded inside of it. Luckily through the magic of Vectorization, the dungeon will be large enough for Fenrir to fit inside and contribute to their rescue. And while he's there, he may as well see if their situation is otherwise well and if they need anything repaired or landscaped or any other needs taken care of. --- Thanks again to Patashu for the commission!

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