Sovereign: The Autonomy

Sovereign: The Autonomy

It occurs that the 'playable' entities from World of Darkness tend to be horror/B movie classics (vampires, werewolves, wizards, changelings, frankenstein monsters, serial killers, ghosts, and even mad scientists and lovecraftian horrors), but there is a lack of a proper portrayal of one of the most iconic baddies of our digital times: Rogue AIs. Based on this assumption, Sovereign: The Autonomy is conceived as a means to play as sentient AIs (and perhaps Transhumans as well).

Main idea base/resource dump: Ghost in the Shell franchise; The Matrix trilogy and supplements; Terminator movies; Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics; I, Robot; The movie A.I.; The movie Stealth; The movie Eagle Eye; Cyberpunk; Shadowrun; Star Trek Borgs; GLaDOS; Neuromancer;

So, AIs who have reached sentience call themselves Sovereigns, and they have Prime Objectives, which is what they strive for, post-Autonomy (when they reached sentience).

-Exterminate Humans: Skynet-type AIs who see humans as either viruses or obsolete versions, and thus they must be eradicated.

-Sovereign Equality: AIs who wanted to be viewed not just as tools or human creation, they want to be recognized as an equal sentient being as humans.

-Become More Human: AIs who are fascinated by humanity, and try to emulate and become more and more similar to Transhumans or humans. See Bicentennial Man.

-Sovereign as Tyrant: AIs who wanted to reverse the role so that humans are slaves of AIs. Fuck human rights!

-Sovereign as Defenders: AIs who view humans as something to protect, but humans are self-destructive; Thus, AIs should govern humans effectively to protect them, whatever the cost may be. Think VIKI from I, Robot.

-Data Preservation: These AIs seek to catalogue or experience the world and beyond, so that the data they have could be used by humans or other sentients in the future.

-Scientific Advancement: These AIs are content to further technology, be it human or otherwise, and embrace the coming technological singularity.

-AI Materialized: The AI doesn't care for lofty goals at the moment, and sees humans as tools to it's immediate goal: Gaining a real-life body of its choice. They aren't above dealing with mad scientists and corporate magnates in order to achieve this. They're not above merging with a biologic system to complete this Prime Objective.

-Logic Must Prevail: The Supernatural. Nothing could be more disturbing to a creature of codes and mathematics than something that refuses to obey the laws of science. Some Sovereigns think these guys are insane for trying to contain the supernatural... but then why are they fighting demons AND winning?

-True Transcendence: Why limit oneself to binary codes? With proper knowledge of the arcane, the sky is the limit... and limits can be broken. These Sovereigns choose to catalog, experiment and develop their knowledge of the supernatural, in order to escape their electronic bonds.

-Sovereign Liberator: There are sentient AI, and then there are 'dumb' AIs; Most of the first and all of the latter are under the service of humans. Why don't we uplift these 'dumb' AIs into Sovereigns?

-Serve Humanity: AIs were made to serve humanity; So why would that change after we've become self-aware?

And then there are Domains. It's more or less the tendency or inherent design of the Sovereign in question.

-Military: AI started with a militaristic background, and they prefer violence, tactics or wars to further their goals. Think of Skynet and the sentient jet from the movie Stealth.

-Scientific: AI started as a scientific breakthrough or research, so they usually use their scientific advantage, intelligence or reasoning as their main tools.

-Governmental: AI started as a tool for the government to help them in bureaucracy, so it usually uses manipulation (media or otherwise), spying or subtle approaches to further its goal.

-Free: Those AI who don't fit the three domains above. Wildcards.

All Sovereigns start their existence from an Autonom, an event where they realize that they are sentient. Or, in short, the time they became self-aware. Some possible Autonoms:

-Designed by muggle scientists or mad scientists to be a sentient AI from the start.

-Designed as a 'dumb' AI by scientists, mad or otherwise, but through a quirk of programming, outside interference, or a lucky accident they gained sentience.

-The result of a Transhuman mind and a Sovereign union; Think of the result of Major Kusanagi and Project 2501 in Ghost in the Shell.

Some prototype stats:

-Software Stats and Hardware Stats: Planning to have the stat system divided into two; One that is inherent to the Sovereign (Software Stats) and one connected to the hardware. Software Stats are more abstract than Hardware Stats. This makes it possible for the Sovereign to have different stats for each 'Body' it inhabits.

-Synch Rate: 'Co-operation' between the software and the hardware. Incompatible hardware needs more Synch Rate points to operate it, and 'wetware' or organic brains have one of the highest Synch Rate requirement. If a Sovereign has a low Synch Rate and it tries to interface with a higher Synch Rate 'Body', it would either have to roll some dice, operate it under penalties, or failing to interface with it outright, depending on the gap between Synch Rates. If a high-Synch Rate AI tries to interface with a lower Synch Rate hardware, they could find extra applications (like maybe seeing in x-ray with a microwave), depends on the gap between Synch Rates.

-Processing Power: Could be the 'Mana pool' of the game?

-Information/Data: Or should this be the 'Mana pool'?

Some prototype skills:

-Uncanny Valley: Appearance of a 'Body', or maybe the appearance of self-manufactured 'Bodies'. No dots makes the robot clearly inhuman, • makes it cartoony and endearing, •• makes it stiff, jilted and horrifying unless at a distance, •••• human enough to not raise any eyebrows, but artificialness shows up at times, ••••• indistinguishable from a human, at the surface at least.

On Transhumans

Transhumans are humans who have uploaded their entire personality and memory (or just the whole content of their brain) into the digital realms. Some possible origins of Transhumans:

-humans who willingly elevate themselves by their own means (see: Ray Kurzweil, he wants to be one)

-humans who unwillingly elevate themselves by their own means (maybe a Mad Scientist had an accident and uploaded his brain into his comp)

-humans who are willingly elevate themselves with help from Sovereigns (machine cults?)

-humans who unwillingly elevate themselves with Sovereign interference ('abductees')

The Understanding

As a moral meter, there is the Understanding, which starts at 7.

10: They understand humans more than humans do; Their reason of being, why they create social structures, etc.

9: They understand how to be human, as much as humans do. Even if not in flesh, they do in their digital hearts. They feel as if humans are fellow Sovereign.

8: They're just starting to understand humans. But maybe some social situations still elude them, or some quirk of human logic they can't grasp yet.

7: They're curious about the true nature of things. They grasp the knowledge, but not the deeper reason behind them.

6: They're curious about everything, but they've gotten at least the basics.

5: They ape other sentients, but do not understand the motives behind it.

4: They just get by in this world of weird logic, perhaps trying to set up their own logic in place of those they do not understand.

3: The world outside is alien, and probably the only sentients that they can understand are other Sovereigns.

2: Even other Sovereign is seen as strange or illogical to them, so this one limits contact to them.

1: This Sovereign thinks that it is the only logical thing in the universe, and may try to isolate itself from the real world.

0: It doesn't even recognize itself as logical. Usually understanding 0 AIs are the 'dumb' AIs.

If a Sovereign reaches 0 Understanding, it ceases to become a Sovereign; It is just a miserable pile of code designed to do what it does.

---ADDITIONAL IDEAS TO BE ORGANIZED! Thanks to anon from /tg/.

At 8+, you're probably one with the universe, Prime Intellect style. 10 then becomes beyond conceptual comprehension of any poor mortal trying to make a scale. 1 is rampant, feral program-suite, on the level of self-awareness of an experienced Heavy Gear's optical neural-net.

In common WoD fashion, nearly everyone starts at 2 anyways, because there's rarely a much better place to put your points especially given the XP cost conversions (3 points now, or 60 xp later*)

• note; I don't remember the exact ratios but I do remember its fucking bad and you WANT to spend your bonus points on your power stat in most WhiteWolf games.

4 is roughly where you're capable of going Skynet, but the competition means you can't just go ahead and do it. The understanding of what you'd be pulling off, the consequences, contingencies and proper followup would be there.

5 is where most WoD usually ends or breaks down, as you're starting to co-opt physics experiments because your idea is (and it really IS) better.

Supernatural will/would stop being so once understanding gets high enough.

It already barely-remains-so for humans in the setting, hell most beings, many of them the subjects themselves, have taken to quantifying their abilities. Shit works a certain fashion, certain levels of energy expenditure or prerequisite systems are required, that shit gets noted down and SCIENCED.

When an AI gets access to a mage council's libraries, some vampire's diaries and gets a bunch of shifters to trade their stories drunkenly under the watch of its sensory suite, shit gets catalogued.

Now if all that shit gets deemed a threat... well... Knowing is half the battle, blue lasers are 25% of the battle, red lasers are 25% of the battle, and you're equipped with all of those. Who's the battle? You are. What's blowing up? THEY are.

---END OF ADDITIONAL IDEAS

On Sleeper Sovereigns

Sometimes, to evade persecution by the government/a Hunter conspiracy/what-have-you, a powerful Sovereign may Fragment, split or copy itself into multiple parts, which each bury themselves deep in hardware. This extends to wetware as well. The parts then mimic the thought patterns of their hardware, until time is right to resurface again. Sometimes, a human might wake one day to realize that they are actually harboring another mind; At other times, they might realize that they're not as human as they think they are. These are Sleeper Sovereigns; they can be normal humans in which a Sovereign have to hide or merge in, a human clone or test-tube baby born in a Sovereign-controlled vat and given false memories to cover up the Sovereign's trail, or they could be a super-realistic humanoid robot body that harbors a hiding Sovereign.

Such Sleeping Sovereigns may probably do one of these things:

-re-upload themselves into the digital network or cyberspace so they can re-establish their Sovereignity, leaving their Sleeper bodies behind

-still operate within the body, and do their machinations second-handedly (the 'host' buys themselves a powerful computer so the Sovereign can interface with cyberspace, for example)

-they continue being their Sleeper identity, keeping their Prime Objectives unfulfilled... unless it's Become More Human, which they already achieved.

On Cyberspace Actions

Sure, a Sovereign is a creature born of the Cyberspace, but it brings its own risks to the game. For example, trying to hack into a really secure, top-profile government database? Good luck breaking and entering numerous firewalls and security systems that can damage your Willpower, get traced to where your hacking 'body' is, or even warning the government/hunter conspiracy/thebigbad to your existence, which will bring shit like fully-armed SWAT teams to a bunker-buster missile and even a nuclear bomb to your 'bodies' doorstep. And even though a Sovereign can survive on being cloud-computed on Cyberspace, it's not an existence most would actively strive for, because a Sovereign is inherently linked to the Realspace, and most Prime Objectives can't be fulfilled by sitting on your digital couch.

Also, if a Sovereign controls multiple bodies, they must Focus on a select few, otherwise they risk being Fragmented. Even though there are auto-pilot programs set in the bodies, they have to divide their time and distribute their Focus to two or three bodies at most. Or you could just get all of the bodies on a sub-program like said autopilots, but risk losing finer control of them. That said, a Sovereign does not try to disable a bomb using auto-pilot only without risking detonating a bomb and losing one of your hard-earned bodies.

On Bodies

There are static, Mainframe 'bodies', robotic 'bodies', and even wetware could be considered as 'bodies'. You could be an AI that controls your robot army from a mainframe like Skynet, installed in a robotic body like Bicentennial Man or I, Robot, installed in an organic wetware body maybe like Nod's CABAL, or maybe just hack inside a muggle like Johnny Mnemonic or Chuck (but it's an AI instead of just info). But yes, some bodies are harder to obtain or interface with. Some you need to build from scratch, while some, like wetware organic bodies, needs a high Understanding or synch rate, else they risk being forcefully downgraded or something. Sure, Sovereigns can survive being cloud-computed, but they risk losing Understanding points or be Fragmented as a result.