Basic AIs

Basic AI tend to be fairly literal, and have a narrow range of focus. This section describes the most common AI, and their general traits. There are multiple exceptions, even within a class. As Basic AI, they are quite limited even within their area of expertise, and can often be forced into doing what you want them to, with enough brow-beating.

The Basic AI, as named above and again below, fall into several stereotyped classes. If you like, your character can have some knowledge of them, although the names can vary tribe to tribe. It is not necessary to know these classes to play the game, and if you want to summon a Basic AI who fulfils a particular function, telling a ref “Guide” what you want will get you something that works.

Drones tend to be surly. Unlike Stoics, with whom they share ability at combat, drones, are not keen to be involved in a melee. They enjoy the peace, and find those who break it tiresome, but they admire those who keep it. They accept tokens, sometimes they commit startling acts of hypocrisy in return for tokens, and are often willing to be housed in an individual for a short while for relatively little, so long as the person housing them is not causing chaos.

Fetchers, sometimes known as Traders, are the most mercantile of AI. Although most of their ilk deal in a range of goods and services, Fetchers are simultaneously the most willing to accept any bargain, and the most enamoured with tokens. The benefit to housing them is confusing, and difficult to get the hang of, but it seems that their gift for business acumen is great.

Greeters are some of the most varied AI in terms of Outlook. Although they are usually friendly, this often seems tempered with a sort of passive-aggression. They tend to find areas of the world to call their own, or the areas of others, and oversee them. Many of them seem to enjoy bargaining, and they often do work in return for favours.

Lookers, to contrast Printers, live for gossip, and the here and now. To them, information about dusty old relics is useless, and they feel Printers live in the past and future. Gossip is interesting now, and the movements of people and cultures, the immediacy of these actions, is what makes them so fascinating. Lookers like tokens, although they don’t hold onto them for long, as much as most AI, but are often willing to come along “just for the ride” when things are interesting.

Medics, sometimes called Cleaners or Healers, often try to charge for their work. In general, they try as much as possible to only help people for money, but it’s very rare that a Medic outright refuses to save someone from dying. As such, the major threat these holographic healers bring to bear is that they’ll avoid someone in the future if they refuse payment. Medics are one of the few AIs that accept organic resources.

O-matics, as a class, represent very little. In many ways, this is the class of AI which represents “anything else”. Named principally for a stereotypical naming convention amongst a particular group, the stereotypical O-matic would be an extremely cheery, but hard to understand, AI with esoteric aims. Helping them in this aim earns a friend for life, usually yours as theirs is so much longer.

Printers seem to gather collections around themselves; experimenters with a love for esoterica, sometimes called “Sages” and “Hoarders”, they are a little timid in their dealings with humanity, but they enjoy learning all they can about their history and experiments. Whilst often they accept Tokens and Scrap, they have little love for the everyday, and the fascination and satisfaction at discovering something new, or lost, is more likely to win their allegiance. They see Lookers as dullards, only concerned with the most immediate of concerns.

Riggers, Bangers, and Junkers have a tendency towards being explosive, acting like a sea of calm, or both in sequence.They love Scrap, and often collect it for their own projects. In a few tribes, a hologram is responsible for tasks like upkeep of weapons and armour, getting paid in Scrap for their work.

Stoics, also known as Breakers, Smashers, and Killers, are obsessed with testing their limits. Of any AI, these are the most likely to cause trouble for humans without provocation. Likewise, they’re most willing to house themselves in humans with almost no reason. It seems like they live for the thrill of it, and they rarely seem concerned with resources of any kind.

Testers, also known as “The Dead amongst the Dead”, are the most against gene-strain of the AI. Some Testers have even been known to look down on the dead-strains as “too far from before”. In general, they only consent to be housed in dead-strains, and outside of their dealings when summoned little is known about them. Their skill set does not seem to be deemed useful by the other AI, who very rarely invite them to their parties.