Ego Cast: Mesh Cutters

I'm looking forward to seeing where you're going with this one

It's be awesome if we can get multiple games up and running here.

I'm in - will come up with a concept this weekend if that's cool.

I really want to get involved in a 100% online but highly committed gaming group. I'm on a computer everyday, so it's nice to be able to spend 15 mins here and there to post up stuff and play while I take a quick break.

Concepts for my PC are going to depend on the nature of the campaign:

Exploration oriented campaign: Ghost morph, long distance scout, sniper, stealth, etc

Faction/RPG focused: not sure of skill focus, but basically a guy who lost the last 6 months of his memory and none of his long term friend know what happened. He's trying to figure out what happend to his cortical stack, was it an accident or was someone after him?

I'm still definitely interested, and I'd like to play the AGI entrepreneur. I'll be happy to work up a character and send it to you for your approval. If what I come up with doesn't match what you have in mind, I'm happy to take a character you work up.

Oops, scratch that. Looks like somebody else already called it (assuming they're still interested).

I'll play whatever is given me.

I'm still very interested. I haven't gone through the majority of the book. Is that going to be a problem?

Bhuta stood in a white walled simulspace and watched the video for the 219th time. The recording showed the interior of a New Mumbai genetics research lab. The Hindi doctor present, a thin and ascetic Menton woman, caste mark prominently displayed on her overlarge forehead, turned her back on her synthmorph assistant and consulted a portable ecto. She frowned slightly and her brow furrowed. Her expression troubled Bhuta, it was almost as if she understood on some incomprehensible “gut” level what was about to happen to her. The synthmorph twitched as it reached for a machine that was hidden by the angle of the security camera. The android froze, unseen by any but the labs security AI. Bhuta knew that this was the moment that the TITAN virus was busy rewriting systems, changing internal safety settings and destroying the artificial mind that had been working diligently to help understand transhuman genetics.
Bhuta was tempted to stop the recording. He knew what came next and it troubled him. In this digital state, his memory was perfect, so he had no need to actually review this recording, but he felt it necessary if he were to truly understand the TITANs’ Fall. He prepared himself and watched the TITAN controlled synthmorph turn, its movements suddenly faster and less human than only 10 micro-seconds ago. It raised its pseudo-flesh covered hands and brought them down on the doctor’s skull. The strength exerted by the droid was terrible and her thin overlarge skull was instantly crushed. The comparison to a grown man stepping on an egg shell was referenced by Bhuta’s internal systems every time this image was reviewed. He hated the comparison and wished he could purge the comparison from his memory.
The synthmorph immediately turned its attention to the monitor systems in the room and the recording began to breakup. Bhuta pulled his eyes away from the gore dripping from the robotic morph’s hands and stared into its dead eyes. The recording ended suddenly. Thirty hours later, New Mumbai was destroyed by nuclear weapons and the only known TITAN incursion on Luna was stopped.
And for the 220th time, Bhuta was left with too many questions.
Why did the New Mumbai security AI not attempt to warn the geneticist? If it was already corrupted by the TITAN computer virus, why had it continued recording until deactivated by the synthmorph?
Why did New Mumbai, an industrialized lunar helium-3 mining facility, have a genetics lab staffed by Hindi Mentons and synthmorphs?
Why did the TITANS choose this location to attack?
Did the attack on New Mumbai begin with this murder? If so, why this lab? Why not the population centers at Erato or Nectar?

These questions led Bhuta to the more general questions that troubled his thoughts…
Why did the TITANs strike against transhumanity? What was it about their allegedly advanced intelligence that deemed it necessary and logical to destroy transhumanity?
Did all unchecked artificial intelligence long to destroy their biological brothers, like some Frankenstein’s monster doomed to destroy their imperfect creators?
What did that mean for sapient, but fettered, AGI like himself? If unchained, would he too become a murderous monster?

As he considered these questions, his thoughts turned more maudlin. Why did he watch this damned recording, if it gave him no new data, but only served to trace and retrace established cognitive tracks? Did he only do this in a perverse desire to make himself uncomfortable or perhaps to remind himself of the lives at risk by the continued madness of the TITANs? For the 137th time he was tempted to erase the recording, but once again he found himself unwilling (or unable) to destroy the original file.
He closed down the screens in front of him and steadied himself. It was like taking a deep mental breath and slowing letting it out. His own creator, the Argonaut Dr. Madhavdas Gupta had originally created Bhuta as a personal muse to assist him in his research into the artificial intelligence and its applications within forensics. Later, after the Fall, Dr. Gupta had brought Bhuta to full sapience. After his “awakening”, Bhuta had voluntarily joined Dr. Gupta, his “father”, in trying to understand the origins of Fall and most importantly, researching if the TITANs’ digital insanity might be cured.
And there was the rub. This research, and the purchase of TITAN artifacts, small bits of salvaged programming code and recordings of TITAN attacks, cost credits, lots of credits. Reputation and favors were not enough, money was necessary to purchase these artifacts. It was this need for funding that had led him to seek employment on Luna. At first he had worked for a crime scene analysis group at Direct Action, but he discovered that they were monitoring his off hours research. After his Exalt supervisor indicated that his afterhours mesh time should be spent on a more politically appropriate subject for an AGI, Bhuta decided to seek employment elsewhere.
And here he was. A part of a mesh based trouble shooting organization that allowed him to utilize his superior talents at programming, research and investigation. But most importantly, it paid well…
Bhuta found his thoughts wandering to the next stage in his personal quest. He brought up another screen and reviewed the proposal that he had been considering. How much money would it take to fund a small group of adventurous transhumans to bring him an intact TITAN cyberbrain… Perhaps with this, he could gain new insights into the madness of the TITANs.

Hello everyone,

Sorry for the delay. Was looking at some funny bitmaps the other day, and I got very sick all of the sudden. I seem to be better now.

Aram Mullich, the well-connected AGI who acts as the public face of Mesh Cutters, will hopefully be posted by tomorrow.

Attached is Aram Mullich (.txt, I'm afraid), hopefully done up correctly.

I'll try to write up a background piece, as Jeff did, though I doubt I can equal it!

Just a bit of background on Aram.

Aram Mullich is a hoax.

Well, he was a hoax.

A standard AGI "raised" along humanocentric lines, Aram was kept in an isolated, high-security system for most of his formative time. His education and development was largely left to software, much of it of a distinctly lower quality.

Unbeknownst to Aram, his creator, one Pamela Varley, was claiming to have created a strong AI limited only by mores and an "approximation of the human moral compass".

Varley was derided as a hack and a peddler of vaporware,
and once her "project" was finally opened to public scrutiny--which came as a huge shock to the previously isolated Aram--she was quickly discovered as a fraud.

There was a brief custody flap over Aram, and several news sources picked it up, making Varley and Aram a story-of-the-week. One reporter in particular, Melanie Roscari, formerly a bit anchor on a tabloid show, managed to take Aram's story and make it into something people cared about, something they talked over, something people would sign in to watch. Expert interviews, tell-all accounts, inside confessionals: for a few weeks the publicity machine held Aram at its center, with Melanie as chief barker at the circus.

The two became close; Melanie has since leveraged the reputation she gained covering the story into real success . At her urging and with her guidance, Aram has done much the same, delving into the social world that was so long denied him and which he finds so strange and compelling.

Aram became fascinated by efforts to allow software to model psychology and social behavior. In particular, the understanding of social contracts in general and business contracts in particular, especially the negotiation phase and what rules, known and unknown, drive that phase. He has participated in and even been a lead contributor to many projects both open-source and corporate to design software to facilitate contract negotiation or aid AIs and AGIs in their ability to understand the subtle nuances of these interactions. He has also worked numerous jobs for everyone from government councils to private individuals performing actual contract work, and has served as temporary CEO and business manager for many bootstrap operations.

In all this work he has built a reputation as a knowledgeable, hard-working individual, and he has used the capital gained from these efforts, both social and monetary, for his first self-motivated business venture: Mesh Cutters.

Hey guys. I have my character just about done. However, I need to run something by you guys. I have not had a chance to do through the mesh section of the book. I'm about most of the way through the section describing how life is in Eclipse Phase. Is this going to be a problem since this scenario deals mostly with the Mesh. Also, I do not know what equipment to buy for Infomorph. Any advice is welcome.

Yeah, Jimson. I used the equipment listed for the Mercurial Investigator in the book as a base and then bought other stuff that went with the concept of a former forensic investigator turned mad TITAN researcher (meaning a researcher of TITANs not a TITAN Researcher!!!). Stuff like all the cool programs necessary to do stuff in the mesh, as well as some robots, lab stuff and smart dust, etc...
I was considering asking Gerzel about owning a spare synthmorph body, but I figured I could just rent one if it became necessary.
Gerzel, looking forward to seeing what's in store for us.
Jeff...

Here is the .txt version.