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Count me in!

13 (61.9%)

No, but maybe I'll watch

8 (38.1%)

Total Members Voted: 20

[~Neri]

If I'm not busy tomorrow, I shall write up the lore/character for my AI since ship's done.

[Pencil_Art]

About time. 

[Tiruin]

Thanks, Tiruin. What exactly do you mean by 'the arms rotating rather than cyclindrical', incidentally? The arms do rotate as it is.

Spoiler: From the blueprints (click to show/hide)

I interpreted all areas which say 'rotates with/seperately from' as 'arms', by which, instead of being cylindrical, are the exact and literal schematics shown (meaning 'I envisioned the ship having 'bars' as arms instead of the cylindrical design which I believe has the idea of artificial gravity in it)
Of note: I can't find the ship I'm referencing in Babylon 5. Maybe it was from another sci-fi reference.

[EuropeanDorf]

It's probably best not to try and come up with a plausible reason why someone would physiologically require mercury and hydrochloride as primary components of the metabolism. Or how many interesting organic mercury compounds such a metabolism could produce (such as dimethylmercury subbing in for urea for an interesting twist).

You could have the atmosphere be a mix of chlorine (probably low concentration to limit reaction speeds), methane and methyl chlorides due to radiation catalyzing free radical reactions that would logically create these. There'd probably be other stuff in there, obviously, but since this is a species that drinks mercury (which would lead me to suspect there being Venusian-style oceans full of the stuff on the planet), plus some source of sulfur, phosphorus and all that other good stuff, but probably best not to get too preoccupied with the chemistry of it all. Anyhow, metabolism based on free radical reactions seems a bit interesting, truth be told, though I'd have to look up the energies of the reactions in question to come up with something reasonably novel, and if there's something I've learned from this game, it's that it's unwise to get yourself this highly invested in what may or may not be a throwaway concept.

Not that I'm not about to do it, obviously.

With chlorine and methane, it'd need to be above 34.04 °C/​−29.27 °F (according to Wikipedia). Which is enough to make mercury liquid. So that could work?  (Or I could say "screw this" and change the survivability range to have it fit the gas and liquid. Nobody says I can't! and nevermind.

I still need to get done with the missing details of character sheet because of this minor detail, though. For the blood of Armok!)

Also, while I was trying to sleep, I've realized one quite a problem.

Timezones.

You see, when you most of you pop up, it's TWENTY SOMETHING HOURS HERE.

(It's currently 8:45ish here, and Hugo's whooping 9 hours behind).

I had problems becaues of that before.

One RP was vast enough that there was just enough timezones that there wasn't too much problems, but an earlier one was... Well, I could spend few hours or so, but after I left they'd still be here and sometimes there'd be retcons because of fact I can't stay.

I remember joking about how RP are the chaotic evil of RP. (Also, there was that "law" named after someone of the RP that more or less is "that guy you want to RP with won't be available when you are, but as soon as you leave, he pops up" - obviously it was a little exaggerating, but still. )

So yeah, how do we handle timezones?

[Pencil_Art]

I don't really worry about them usually. But that's just me.

[Dorsidwarf]

It's going to be a real stinker to get alien fonts for the image, since the computer I have access to Photoshop is one I don't have the ability to install fonts.

[EuropeanDorf]

Aaand, finally I have something resembling a character sheet.

Now wait, I guess?

[Pencil_Art]

Yup. It's supposed to be starting sometime soon.

[WillowLuman]

I got nothing better to do today than run games, so...

[Pencil_Art]

!!YES!! 

[LuckyKobold]

KEVAK, Make sure to put lots of outdatedness and passive aggressive sadism in your backstory!

[Dorsidwarf]

Here you go. I had to cut out and paste alien runes and then distort them into shape, but it dont look bad.

[EuropeanDorf]

6/5 would ride on that thing.

Anyway, since timezones are a thing, I am running out of time. gottagofast!

[Dorsidwarf]

As someone in the UK, timezones caan make bay12 forum games hard, I agree.

[~Neri]

Finally found enough time to write the AI.

Incoming textwalls:

Spoiler: Origins and History: (click to show/hide)

To the majority of races in the local sector, an entity known as an AI Collective has been around since they first began exploring space. In reality, they were a number of separate collectives spontaneously and near simultaneously reactivating after a long slumber in their ships or worlds, or even just isolated AI living in bunkers on a moon that occasionally rearranges the surface to confuse renaissance era astronomers on the planet.

Nobody, not even the AI themselves know when or how they were first built, and a number of the first generation are a tad eccentric, ether due to corrupted coding, mild insanities induced from spending several thousand years sitting on a moon with no memory of how to build a starship to get off the darned rock, or just plane amnesic confusion. Some of the first generation did figure out space travel however, primarily the ones who woke up on ships, and they started spreading out. Eventually they began encountering other AI who have been rearranging the surface of a few moons for kicks and giggles for the past millennia out of sheer boredom, other similarly expanding AI, or flat out insane AI stuck in derelict ships spiraling through the void. The insane ones were removed from their ships, placed on a rocky barren planet, and more or less left alone there until they stopped being crazy, the mildly eccentric isolated AI were left to their own devices and given the means to construct ships, and outside of a few short accidental firefights, the expanding groups began merging.

Regardless. They began spreading. By the time they encountered space fairing life, they already had plenty of experience dicking around with nonspacefaring life's moons. Life was seen as an amusing curiosity at the time, and due to that, the AI were more interested in just watching.

Time passed and the first few AI went T1 Singularity. All the previous AI had been around standard sapient intelligence and dicking around like any group of adolescents would do if they had access to a fuckton of spaceships and robots. The first few S1 AI marked the first time the less intelligent AI had someone holding them accountable and trying to direct them to doing something useful. Obviously this didn't go over very well and it resulted in quite a bit of bickering. The bickering continued until one of the S1 AI accidentally made a new AI while it was flexing it's newly enhanced mechanical brain. At that point, all bickering ceased from sheer shock factor. I mean, wouldn't you if what you though was a guy suddenly gives birth? The AI didn't even /Know/ they could reproduce. They didn't even have a concept for it. It was basically a big "Wat." to pretty much all of them. Several cycles of frenzied analysis later, and they confirmed that yes, Papa AI just had a baby with itself. Which none of them really knew what to do with. There was much confusion. They just gave it a ship, and just sorta.. watched it.. cautiously.. cause it might.. Bite.. Until another S1 AI accidentally gave birth with less of a shock factor but still a considerable amount of confusion. This cycle more or less continued until a S1 AI went S2. By that point, a number of S0 AI had gone S1. Several S1 AI followed the new S2. Who by that point had accidentally made an S1 and several S0's. Mind you, this whole thing took about three thousand years in human terms. Takes a loooooong time to go Singularity under your own power.

Few more thousand years later and some AI are edging into S5. And by that point, the higher AI had renamed the classifications. Add another thousand years and we're at the present. By this point, the S3 and higher AI had started interacting with spacefairing life, rather then intentionally being confusing and trollish like the lower tiers had been. Apparently takes superhuman intelligence to be mature for a computer. The Collective at present date is one of the primary ship building powerhouses and takes payment in raw materials should you wish to have a custom ship or fleet built.

Spoiler: AI Grades: (click to show/hide)

There are a number of types of AI in the collective. Some specialize towards one thing and some are just jack of all trades. Tiers exist for intelligence as well.

Tiers:

Alpha. Alphas are S5 AI. Extremely smart, they tend to handle the majority of management for production of ships. They tend to like accounting and tend to dislike inefficient things.

Beta. Betas are S4 AI. They're also extremely smart. Although a whole level less intelligent compared to Alphas. They tend to be social. Most construction contracts, as well as diplomatic relations are delegated to Betas.

Ceta. Cetas are S3 AI. Noooot as smart as Betas. But still quite smart. They tend to be fascinated with physics. If you want an AI to control a droneswarm, shoot a weapon, or fly a small ship. Odds are is it'll be one of these.

Delta. Deltas are S2 AI. For some reason they tend to be Savants. They occasionally struggle with adapting to new things. Although what they encounter at an early age, they often will become extremely good at it. Mining fleets, boarding actions, ground combat, and maintenance tend to be their specialties.

Epsilon. Epsilon are S1 AI. They tend to act like parents for S0 AI. Which is a good thing, cause otherwise the S0's would be dicking around with moons. Oftentimes, they control smallscale droneswarms or manufactories when not attempting to get the S0's to behave.

Anything below that is an S0. S0's are about human intelligence and tend to act like hormonal, moody teenagers. They tend to do things for shits and giggles more then anything else, and the only thing preventing them from carving a giant reproductive organ on the surface of your moon is that the S1 AI tend to be able to reign them in. S0's however do tend to come up with a lot of new things. They make great researchers and scientists. Although they tend to be.. Eccentric. Most organics never interact with S0's. None of the more intelligent AI want to cause a diplomatic incident.