CanadienneBacon
Explorer
This makes me think that a Mutant character would be appealing. Or a Designed character. A la Rachel in "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep."Unsung said:
[What's O.L.D Is N.E.W] Iain M Banks-inspired sci-fi campaign!
- Thread starter Unsung
- Start date
I just saw Ex Machina, which makes me interested in an artificial intelligence...but I've played several iterations of that kind of character recently, and it seems like a lot of the social pressures that make that kind of character interesting (the questions of object vs creature, what is intelligence, etc etc) are already resolved in the setting, at least within the Culture.
It might be interesting to have a character like that from outside the Culture, but then it seems like the character arc is just, 'Joining the Culture because why not?'
I will have to look for an angle that satisfies my obsessive need for oddballs.
It might be interesting to have a character like that from outside the Culture, but then it seems like the character arc is just, 'Joining the Culture because why not?'
I will have to look for an angle that satisfies my obsessive need for oddballs.
CanadienneBacon
Explorer
Do you guys know the series Unwound? It's fiction from the young adult genre. The jist is that your parents can have you "unwound" if they don't care for your direction in life, if they don't like the way you're turning out. Tentatively, I think I might like to blend my fiction and draft some sort of a mutant or designed character who ran away from _______ because she didn't turn out right and they were threatening to junk her.
Don't look at me like that. I dreamt her. I just woke up from a long nap. My brain is firing on half synapse. Whaaat? This is when I get all my best wonky oddball ideas.
Don't look at me like that. I dreamt her. I just woke up from a long nap. My brain is firing on half synapse. Whaaat? This is when I get all my best wonky oddball ideas.
Unsung
First Post
Wonky oddball ideas definitely have a place here. Read the books and you'll see what I mean.
@CanadienneBacon Children being raised for organs and harvested before the age of majority is exactly the right kind of dark for the Culture to intervene in. It's the kind of thing that the technology to grow organs and limbs from scratch can make obsolete, yet a civilization that would engage in that kind of thing obviously has some problems beyond not having enough organs to go around. I like it! Some kind of biopunk horrorshow planet, or more than one planet. Hidden behind a wholesome homespun exterior, maybe. I haven't read Unwound, but that's what the synopsis makes me think of.
I'd encourage you elaborate on the systemic horrors of such a world. Make it as difficult as possible for the Culture to fix. Give yourselves something to do.
@Shayuri The rights of artificial beings are a nonissue in the Culture (obviously), but there are plenty of civilizations where that's not the case. Righting that wrong is doubtless a pet issue for several Minds, and an ongoing mission to some section of Special Circumstances. If you want the best of both worlds (so to speak), you could, as you've mentioned, be a recently emancipated AI given freedom by the Culture-- and, possibly for the first time, a body. The newness of that experience could be another arc for the character.
As you've probably guessed, certain elements within Special Circumstances are big fans of poetic justice and letting refugees strike back against their oppressors, but these are the exceptions rather than the rule. Mainstream Culture citizens couldn't really approve of such activities. It might be satisfying to act out your vengeance, but it might be more dramatic to have to try and live without it. Just a thought.
Thanks for the kind words, @GlassEye. Any tentative thoughts as to the sort of character you'd want to play? Not holding you to anything.
@CanadienneBacon Children being raised for organs and harvested before the age of majority is exactly the right kind of dark for the Culture to intervene in. It's the kind of thing that the technology to grow organs and limbs from scratch can make obsolete, yet a civilization that would engage in that kind of thing obviously has some problems beyond not having enough organs to go around. I like it! Some kind of biopunk horrorshow planet, or more than one planet. Hidden behind a wholesome homespun exterior, maybe. I haven't read Unwound, but that's what the synopsis makes me think of.
I'd encourage you elaborate on the systemic horrors of such a world. Make it as difficult as possible for the Culture to fix. Give yourselves something to do.
@Shayuri The rights of artificial beings are a nonissue in the Culture (obviously), but there are plenty of civilizations where that's not the case. Righting that wrong is doubtless a pet issue for several Minds, and an ongoing mission to some section of Special Circumstances. If you want the best of both worlds (so to speak), you could, as you've mentioned, be a recently emancipated AI given freedom by the Culture-- and, possibly for the first time, a body. The newness of that experience could be another arc for the character.
As you've probably guessed, certain elements within Special Circumstances are big fans of poetic justice and letting refugees strike back against their oppressors, but these are the exceptions rather than the rule. Mainstream Culture citizens couldn't really approve of such activities. It might be satisfying to act out your vengeance, but it might be more dramatic to have to try and live without it. Just a thought.
Thanks for the kind words, @GlassEye. Any tentative thoughts as to the sort of character you'd want to play? Not holding you to anything.
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GlassEye
Adventurer
My first thoughts were a non-Culture academic from a conservative society who studies the psychology of post-death and/or disembodied personalities. His studies make him qualified to serve as sort of a cultural ambassador but he steps beyond the bounds of his society's tolerance when he experiments with neural lace and distributed intelligence arrays running fragments of his own personality in some sort of group mind/drone type of thing.
Also, I found the wikipedia entry on the Culture very informative and useful.
Also, I found the wikipedia entry on the Culture very informative and useful.
CanadienneBacon
Explorer
Just popping in to say that my interlibrary loan books haven't arrived yet. I'll check back with the library on Friday. We get interlibrary loan deliveries on Tuesdays and Fridays each week.
Unsung
First Post
No big rush.
[MENTION=40413]GlassEye[/MENTION] Look To Windward (and then Surface Detail) would probably be the books I'd recommend for you after Player of Games. Those issues and how they figure into the Culture's universe are the main subject of the story-- but don't make that into a homework assignment or anything. Most of the books deal with death and war in some capacity, by the nature of the Culture's particular stance against them and its paradoxical way of dealing with them. I'd love to hear more about any non-Culture civilization you've got in mind. How do they stack up in terms of technology? You say they're conservative, but in what ways? If he's pushed beyond the limits of what his home civ will accept, what is his current status with his own people?
[MENTION=40413]GlassEye[/MENTION] Look To Windward (and then Surface Detail) would probably be the books I'd recommend for you after Player of Games. Those issues and how they figure into the Culture's universe are the main subject of the story-- but don't make that into a homework assignment or anything. Most of the books deal with death and war in some capacity, by the nature of the Culture's particular stance against them and its paradoxical way of dealing with them. I'd love to hear more about any non-Culture civilization you've got in mind. How do they stack up in terms of technology? You say they're conservative, but in what ways? If he's pushed beyond the limits of what his home civ will accept, what is his current status with his own people?
GlassEye
Adventurer
The idea was rough and not fully thought out but I would guess that the civilization doesn't stack up well to the Culture. A lower technological skill might mean that they hadn't developed neural mesh or the ability to transfer personality from a meat body to another body (of whatever sort). Their conservative nature might manifest as a reluctance to accept technology they haven't developed or hashed out the philosophical quandries for themselves and may result in a ban on their world until they do work out social implications. They may even consider AI to be nothing more than a fancy trick of programming. Not sure how the Culture would deal with a backwards world like this, though.
The character would be a free-thinker, a radical for his world, whose contact with Culture resulted in whole-hearted acceptance of their strange ways to the extent that he is fringe even for a citizen of the Culture. His use of neural mesh would mean a loss of trust in his objectivity and maybe ostracism and/or exile from his homeworld if the proscription against tech were strong enough.
Again, this is just me spitting out whatever ideas surface first. I'm not sure how well this fits in the Culture or your campaign idea.
Unsung
First Post
[MENTION=40413]GlassEye[/MENTION] Are they fairly humanoid? Pan-humanity and convergent evolution seems to be fairly common across this universe, for reasons that are not generally discussed in the books. There are definite exceptions, however.
So far they don't sound too awful, at least as far as the Culture is concerned. Their mandate is more active when it comes to preventing atrocities, rather than going out of their way to uplift younger civs. Bootstrapping a people with technology they're not ready for generally all ends in tears. A civilization shows its maturity by achieving these technologies on their own. Being suspicious of AIs would probably be a sticking point, however, especially if they have any shackled AIs of their own.
If you do, in fact, maybe you and [MENTION=4936]Shayuri[/MENTION] should talk. Could be you're from the same (or anyways related) civs. Maybe you all are, though I'm not pressing that particular point.
So far they don't sound too awful, at least as far as the Culture is concerned. Their mandate is more active when it comes to preventing atrocities, rather than going out of their way to uplift younger civs. Bootstrapping a people with technology they're not ready for generally all ends in tears. A civilization shows its maturity by achieving these technologies on their own. Being suspicious of AIs would probably be a sticking point, however, especially if they have any shackled AIs of their own.
If you do, in fact, maybe you and [MENTION=4936]Shayuri[/MENTION] should talk. Could be you're from the same (or anyways related) civs. Maybe you all are, though I'm not pressing that particular point.
Rubberneck
First Post
I wouldn't mind sinking my teeth into another game. Although to be fair I have no idea how to play haha. Is this something where I can find the rules online somewhere or would I need to purchase them?
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