Perihelion
Sponsor
-- Ambrose Bierce
Welcome to the concept development thread for my
In a nutshell, you play as two people whose brains are networked together to such a degree that they're effectively one mind in two bodies. You run around solving puzzles that exploit this idea. So you'll send them down different but interdependent paths, and you'll complete realtime puzzles that require you to control one character with each hand in order to accomplish some task.
9/25/09: Resurrected this from page 7 after nearly a year of not working on it. Streamlined most of the existing sections and added some new ones.
Mainly for my reference. These are the things I need to do in the near future.
Plot/Worldbuilding:
Y'know, it's funny that I'm having the most trouble with this since I'm mainly a writer. Go figure.
Design:
Art/Graphics:
Plot/Worldbuilding:
Y'know, it's funny that I'm having the most trouble with this since I'm mainly a writer. Go figure.
- Develop various factions.
- Go through old notes from previous game concept and decide what's reusable.
- Streamline supporting cast and start planning character arcs.
- Make a new tab in the design document with up-to-date information, because half of what's there right now is old.
• Figure out why Agata does that thing she does at the beginning of the game. Once I figure what exactly she's trying to accomplish, the rest of the plot should more or less fall into place.
Design:
- Decide on a development environment. Currently leaning towards RMXP for use of Ruby and placeholder systems.
- Look into Game Maker more thoroughly.
- Streamline battle system concept.
- Continue generating puzzle ideas. Eventually I'd like to start mapping out dungeons, but the dungeons are gonna be dependent on the plot, so the plot needs to happen first or at least simultaneously.
Art/Graphics:
- Play with templates and decide on a sprite style given 3/4 and/or planometric perspective.
- Make battle system mock-ups.
- Make mock-ups of hacking system. Need to design how I'm going to visually represent that.
- Draw better concept art of the soldier/clean up existing art.
- Revisit node and do more detailed concept work.
• Make a graphical mock-up to see if my idea of iso+non-iso tiles will work.
• Draw concept art of the soldier.
• Draw concept art of Agata.
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Worldbuilding Information
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Advances in technology and medicine have made possible all kinds of modifications to the human body, from genetic engineering to advanced levels of cyborgization. Individuals with artificial augmentations are collectively referred to as tweaks, unmodified humans as baselines. In general use, however, tweak refers to more than the presence of any augmentation--it implies a moderate to heavy level of modification as well as cultural distinction. For example, an individual with a modest neural implant might not identify as a tweak, especially if he lives among baselines; he might qualify as a near-baseline instead.
Substantial progress has also been made in the realm of artificial intelligence, and many turingrade ai now roam the nets or serve other purposes. Some of these have joined collectives, some have formed their own, and others exist together in online communities. Ai rights vary greatly depending on the location; some states consider them autonomous beings and full citizens, and in others they're viewed as glorified calculators or worse. It should be noted that ai have purposes and interests even more diverse than humans'.
Substantial progress has also been made in the realm of artificial intelligence, and many turingrade ai now roam the nets or serve other purposes. Some of these have joined collectives, some have formed their own, and others exist together in online communities. Ai rights vary greatly depending on the location; some states consider them autonomous beings and full citizens, and in others they're viewed as glorified calculators or worse. It should be noted that ai have purposes and interests even more diverse than humans'.
Neural implants are fairly widespread and have a wide array of applications, ranging from interfacing with machines to accessing the Medianet to running knowledge sets (for example, languages). The more sensitive models have incredible potential for translating between machine and thought, which opens up the possibility for unbelievably fast, efficient communications.
Unfortunately, these communications aren't always voluntary. Neural implants are in many ways similar to personal computers embedded in the brain, and they're vulnerable to attacks like personal computers. Although implant firewall software is extremely sophisticated, viruses do exist and can cause serious annoyance or harm to those afflicted, and a savvy hacker can gain direct and total access to a victim's mind.
Unfortunately, these communications aren't always voluntary. Neural implants are in many ways similar to personal computers embedded in the brain, and they're vulnerable to attacks like personal computers. Although implant firewall software is extremely sophisticated, viruses do exist and can cause serious annoyance or harm to those afflicted, and a savvy hacker can gain direct and total access to a victim's mind.
Definition, Intensity, and Priority
As neural implant technology improved, better and better levels of direct communication became possible. Noticing how this increased creativity and understanding in brainstorming or learning groups, some tweak groups pushed the technology to its limits, eventually forming the first collectives.
The line between neural communication and true collectivity is a blurry one, because a collective is essentially just a group of people engaging in high-intensity communication. The strict definition says that a group isn't considered a collective until a gestalt is achieved: that is, until the components' intelligences function together as one unit that uses advanced forms of cognition not comprehendable by baseline humans. In general, components of true collectives are synchronized so closely with each other that they're no longer aware of themselves as individuals. Thinking becomes akin to distributed computing. However, groups using low-intensity protocols are more common, and their members retain awareness of their individuality while benefiting from constant communication with others. These groups also tend to be referred to as collectives in general use even though they can't achieve superintelligence.
While leaving a low-intensity collective is fairly easy, being cut off from a high-intensity one after a long time in it is psychologically devastating. Not only is there a sudden shift in cognitive capability--it's like going from being a supergenius to having the mind of a dog--but there's also a massive identity shock as the component has to readjust to being one person instead of many. However, it's possible to slowly disengage a unit without driving it insane. Different members may be engaged in the same collective at different intensities, which can have various uses--for example, a superintelligence keeping one of its components human enough to communicate with lesser minds.
Additionally, components can have different levels of priority in a collective's cognitive and decision-making processes. While individuals don't have complete thoughts per se in a true collective, it's possible to set certain components' moral/judgment/personality mechanisms to have more weight than others', making them more prominent in the collective than subcomponents.
Basic Types
These are the main types of collectives, although many variations exist. Some are more stable than others, but almost without fail, the dissolution of any high-intensity collective drives its components insane.
Commune: A commune is a decentralized, unfiltered mass of consciousness. Each component has equal priority and direct communication with all other components. It's the purest form of a collective, and it has the greatest potential for genius and creativity, but it's also the most unstable; even with deep psychological screening of potential components, conflicting moral systems and and desires and whatnot tend to tear communes apart sooner or later, and the instability rises exponentially as more components are added.
Hive: Unlike a commune, one member (or a small group) in a hive has much higher priority than the rest. This component coordinates the collective and makes its decisions and judgments to varying degrees, depending on the priority setting. While this is more stable than a commune, it doesn't have the same potential for creative thinking because the subcomponents have much less input. The added intelligence from additional subcomponents is analogous to a computer getting more RAM--it becomes more effective at what it does, but there are some things it simply doesn't do well. However, because hives can focus the entire collective's attention on one task, it tends to operate much more efficiently for brute-force problem-solving and things of that nature.
Nodal: Nodals are somewhere between communes and hives in organization. Instead of all components being linked to all other components with equal priority, they're organized into subgroups with one key member, a node, acting as a central server for that group's communications and exchanging thoughts/information with other nodes. This organization tends to be more efficient and far more stable than communes in larger collectives, and nodes may have higher or lower priority than their subcomponents. In general, their neural augmentations far surpass that of other components to account for increased data flow.
Filters
In addition to the above structures, a collective may or may not have an artificial intelligence (or a number of them) acting as a filter. Generally, filtered collectives are much more stable than unfiltered collectives, but they usually sacrifice some intelligence potential by communicating through another medium.
Mediator: In a mediated collective, members connect to each other through the mediator instead of directly. The mediator analyzes the opinions and experiences of all of the components and forms a stance that the collective uses in decision-making, thus avoiding internal moral conflicts. Mediators in lower-intensity collectives tend to maintain more individuality, partitioning components instead of simply assimilating their views while still maintaining a decision-making algorithm.
Arbitrator: An arbitrator is essentially a mediator except that it's programmed with specific moral values. Whereas a mediator makes no moral judgments itself, simply forming its opinions around the views of its components, an arbitrator artificially imposes them on the decision-making process.
Stability
Dealing with many other minds linked to your own is no small task, and most collectives are inherently unstable. While there are ways to increase the odds of success, the vast majority of collectives either drop to a lower intensity or collapse shortly after their formation, which is one reason major personalities are so rare. Another reason is that few people are willing to join a collective given that collapse tends to drive the components insane.
As neural implant technology improved, better and better levels of direct communication became possible. Noticing how this increased creativity and understanding in brainstorming or learning groups, some tweak groups pushed the technology to its limits, eventually forming the first collectives.
The line between neural communication and true collectivity is a blurry one, because a collective is essentially just a group of people engaging in high-intensity communication. The strict definition says that a group isn't considered a collective until a gestalt is achieved: that is, until the components' intelligences function together as one unit that uses advanced forms of cognition not comprehendable by baseline humans. In general, components of true collectives are synchronized so closely with each other that they're no longer aware of themselves as individuals. Thinking becomes akin to distributed computing. However, groups using low-intensity protocols are more common, and their members retain awareness of their individuality while benefiting from constant communication with others. These groups also tend to be referred to as collectives in general use even though they can't achieve superintelligence.
While leaving a low-intensity collective is fairly easy, being cut off from a high-intensity one after a long time in it is psychologically devastating. Not only is there a sudden shift in cognitive capability--it's like going from being a supergenius to having the mind of a dog--but there's also a massive identity shock as the component has to readjust to being one person instead of many. However, it's possible to slowly disengage a unit without driving it insane. Different members may be engaged in the same collective at different intensities, which can have various uses--for example, a superintelligence keeping one of its components human enough to communicate with lesser minds.
Additionally, components can have different levels of priority in a collective's cognitive and decision-making processes. While individuals don't have complete thoughts per se in a true collective, it's possible to set certain components' moral/judgment/personality mechanisms to have more weight than others', making them more prominent in the collective than subcomponents.
Basic Types
These are the main types of collectives, although many variations exist. Some are more stable than others, but almost without fail, the dissolution of any high-intensity collective drives its components insane.
Commune: A commune is a decentralized, unfiltered mass of consciousness. Each component has equal priority and direct communication with all other components. It's the purest form of a collective, and it has the greatest potential for genius and creativity, but it's also the most unstable; even with deep psychological screening of potential components, conflicting moral systems and and desires and whatnot tend to tear communes apart sooner or later, and the instability rises exponentially as more components are added.
Hive: Unlike a commune, one member (or a small group) in a hive has much higher priority than the rest. This component coordinates the collective and makes its decisions and judgments to varying degrees, depending on the priority setting. While this is more stable than a commune, it doesn't have the same potential for creative thinking because the subcomponents have much less input. The added intelligence from additional subcomponents is analogous to a computer getting more RAM--it becomes more effective at what it does, but there are some things it simply doesn't do well. However, because hives can focus the entire collective's attention on one task, it tends to operate much more efficiently for brute-force problem-solving and things of that nature.
Nodal: Nodals are somewhere between communes and hives in organization. Instead of all components being linked to all other components with equal priority, they're organized into subgroups with one key member, a node, acting as a central server for that group's communications and exchanging thoughts/information with other nodes. This organization tends to be more efficient and far more stable than communes in larger collectives, and nodes may have higher or lower priority than their subcomponents. In general, their neural augmentations far surpass that of other components to account for increased data flow.
Filters
In addition to the above structures, a collective may or may not have an artificial intelligence (or a number of them) acting as a filter. Generally, filtered collectives are much more stable than unfiltered collectives, but they usually sacrifice some intelligence potential by communicating through another medium.
Mediator: In a mediated collective, members connect to each other through the mediator instead of directly. The mediator analyzes the opinions and experiences of all of the components and forms a stance that the collective uses in decision-making, thus avoiding internal moral conflicts. Mediators in lower-intensity collectives tend to maintain more individuality, partitioning components instead of simply assimilating their views while still maintaining a decision-making algorithm.
Arbitrator: An arbitrator is essentially a mediator except that it's programmed with specific moral values. Whereas a mediator makes no moral judgments itself, simply forming its opinions around the views of its components, an arbitrator artificially imposes them on the decision-making process.
Stability
Dealing with many other minds linked to your own is no small task, and most collectives are inherently unstable. While there are ways to increase the odds of success, the vast majority of collectives either drop to a lower intensity or collapse shortly after their formation, which is one reason major personalities are so rare. Another reason is that few people are willing to join a collective given that collapse tends to drive the components insane.
Large parts of the world are in various states of chaos, although the amount of peace and order varies greatly with region. There was no single event that triggered worldwide instability, though; rather, the recent rapid technological changes have unsettled the power balance in many areas, and various drastic changes have triggered a severe global recession.
The rise of tweaks was the first straw, as they were simply better than baseline humans and reaped the subsequent advantages, but while this caused a lot of baseline resentment and even persecution and violence in places, things didn't really begin to change until the emergence of collectives. Some developed technology at an incredible rate without regard for the consequences, some seized power and used it for bizarre purposes, and most collapsed or degenerated into insanity. Their actions are often bizarre or incomprehensible, and they're notoriously difficult to predict. Collective-governed areas usually differ strikingly from normal human government in some fashion, but even that isn't constant. As the state of the world became worse, extremist organizations gained more power--baseline and tweak purists, religious fanatics, and so on--and have been bloodying each other over territory and ideals (but mostly territory).
The effects of collectives vary so greatly that they can't really be generalized; see the major personalities section for ideas of what some of them are up to.
That said, collectives aren't the only powers around--they just tend to be the most dramatic. Sentient ai have also risen to prominence in some areas and control swathes of the Medianet in particular, and some tweak and human organizations still run parts of the world.
The rise of tweaks was the first straw, as they were simply better than baseline humans and reaped the subsequent advantages, but while this caused a lot of baseline resentment and even persecution and violence in places, things didn't really begin to change until the emergence of collectives. Some developed technology at an incredible rate without regard for the consequences, some seized power and used it for bizarre purposes, and most collapsed or degenerated into insanity. Their actions are often bizarre or incomprehensible, and they're notoriously difficult to predict. Collective-governed areas usually differ strikingly from normal human government in some fashion, but even that isn't constant. As the state of the world became worse, extremist organizations gained more power--baseline and tweak purists, religious fanatics, and so on--and have been bloodying each other over territory and ideals (but mostly territory).
The effects of collectives vary so greatly that they can't really be generalized; see the major personalities section for ideas of what some of them are up to.
That said, collectives aren't the only powers around--they just tend to be the most dramatic. Sentient ai have also risen to prominence in some areas and control swathes of the Medianet in particular, and some tweak and human organizations still run parts of the world.
Helix
Helix is an eccentric, moderately-sized arbitrated nodal. I'm not sure exactly how it came about yet, but it's essentially amoral and ran Sweden for 15-20 years, though not out of any real interest in power for its own sake. Helix is very interested in cyborgization for aesthetic reasons and has a predilection for bizarre experiments and modifications to its populace.
Malchut
Currently leading the evolution race by a large margin, Malchut is formed primarily of gengineered albinos, whose naturally high synch rates, granted to them by an odd genetic quirk apparently linked to albinism, gave them a headstart on the rest of the human race. It was the first collective worthy of the name, and at one point it merged with a powerful AI, which springboarded it to supersentience. It spends a great deal of its energy developing technology, primarily gengineering, space travel, and computing, and its tech level is several hundred years more advanced than the rest of the world's. Its influence is pervasive, but it mostly holds itself separate from the affairs of the world, and few know more than vague details about it. Those few may know that its long-term goals include encompassing the entire human race in a single collective routed through a Dyson mind around the sun. It's made some progress in that area--already a members of the Dyson swarm are in place--but the task will take centuries, if not longer.
Malchut is fiercely transhumanist, and it's mostly unconcerned with the welfare of baseline humans. Its methods are sometimes harsh, but it adheres to some basic moral standards--for example, it doesn't endorse forced subsumption into collectives. As time goes on, it adds more and more advanced ai to itself, but it subsumes only those few humans whose synch rates are high enough to keep up with its overwhelming information exchange. While it's working to ease humanity's transition from individual to aggregate intelligence, it prefers to influence other collectives rather than directly involve itself in baseline affairs.
Malchut's symbol is a vertical line with a circle at the top and the bottom, a very simplified representation of the sephirot.
Diakonia
I haven't developed Diakonia's backstory very thoroughly yet, but it's one of the more powerful collectives and also one of the more philanthropic. It's the patron of the UN in its modern form.
When the world went haywire, the UN collapsed almost overnight, leaving the organization's rapid reaction force and other subsidiary elements stranded. For a while, the RRF claimed some territory of its own and was involved in petty regional struggles, but eventually Diakonia emerged and reassembled the organization. Now it functions much as it did originally, as a humanitarian organization trying to stop civil conflicts, but it often takes a more direct role than it did in the past.
Diakonia's interest lie primarily in establishing and maintaining order (perhaps to an unhealthy degree), but unlike Malchut, it's generally uninterested in the means by which this is accomplished. However, it does take some interest in the human element of its activities. The two entities more or less get along but sometimes clash over method.
Radlight
Developed in South Korea, Radlight is to date the only turingrade advertising bot ever created. Like most malware, it quickly spread, insinuating itself into everything from home computers to servers that housed powerful subturing ai. Unlike most malware, however, it was intelligent--and very ambitious. It sought to take over the entire Internet, and it almost suceeded. It was eventually contained with the help of some of the ai colonies in Asia, but by that time it had not only infected every machine connected to the Internet in its home region but also the heavily computerized infrastructure. As it had established itself far too thoroughly to easily expunge, the entire area was physically disconnected from the rest of the Internet. Later attempts to dislodge the bot failed, and the situation became permanent.
To date, the Radlight Dominion is a solid mass of advertising. Most of the inhabitants have neural implants, through which Radlight feeds them constant advertising, and it directly runs the government and media. Left to its own devices, it would eventually circumvent the quarantine, but a number of other turingrade ai in the net as well as many nearby collectives have a vested interest in preventing that. Although the quarantine on information exchange is almost absolute, other regions often trade with the Dominion--the region's economy is understandably robust, and Radlight itself is the single wealthiest entity in the world.
The Dominion encompasses Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and parts of the Philippines. Despite its high standard of living, few not born to it ever go there, and the quarantine prevents much information about the Dominion from leaking to the outside world.
Half-Baked Ideas
These need more development, and most of them haven't been named yet.
Helix is an eccentric, moderately-sized arbitrated nodal. I'm not sure exactly how it came about yet, but it's essentially amoral and ran Sweden for 15-20 years, though not out of any real interest in power for its own sake. Helix is very interested in cyborgization for aesthetic reasons and has a predilection for bizarre experiments and modifications to its populace.
Malchut
Currently leading the evolution race by a large margin, Malchut is formed primarily of gengineered albinos, whose naturally high synch rates, granted to them by an odd genetic quirk apparently linked to albinism, gave them a headstart on the rest of the human race. It was the first collective worthy of the name, and at one point it merged with a powerful AI, which springboarded it to supersentience. It spends a great deal of its energy developing technology, primarily gengineering, space travel, and computing, and its tech level is several hundred years more advanced than the rest of the world's. Its influence is pervasive, but it mostly holds itself separate from the affairs of the world, and few know more than vague details about it. Those few may know that its long-term goals include encompassing the entire human race in a single collective routed through a Dyson mind around the sun. It's made some progress in that area--already a members of the Dyson swarm are in place--but the task will take centuries, if not longer.
Malchut is fiercely transhumanist, and it's mostly unconcerned with the welfare of baseline humans. Its methods are sometimes harsh, but it adheres to some basic moral standards--for example, it doesn't endorse forced subsumption into collectives. As time goes on, it adds more and more advanced ai to itself, but it subsumes only those few humans whose synch rates are high enough to keep up with its overwhelming information exchange. While it's working to ease humanity's transition from individual to aggregate intelligence, it prefers to influence other collectives rather than directly involve itself in baseline affairs.
Malchut's symbol is a vertical line with a circle at the top and the bottom, a very simplified representation of the sephirot.
Diakonia
I haven't developed Diakonia's backstory very thoroughly yet, but it's one of the more powerful collectives and also one of the more philanthropic. It's the patron of the UN in its modern form.
When the world went haywire, the UN collapsed almost overnight, leaving the organization's rapid reaction force and other subsidiary elements stranded. For a while, the RRF claimed some territory of its own and was involved in petty regional struggles, but eventually Diakonia emerged and reassembled the organization. Now it functions much as it did originally, as a humanitarian organization trying to stop civil conflicts, but it often takes a more direct role than it did in the past.
Diakonia's interest lie primarily in establishing and maintaining order (perhaps to an unhealthy degree), but unlike Malchut, it's generally uninterested in the means by which this is accomplished. However, it does take some interest in the human element of its activities. The two entities more or less get along but sometimes clash over method.
Radlight
Developed in South Korea, Radlight is to date the only turingrade advertising bot ever created. Like most malware, it quickly spread, insinuating itself into everything from home computers to servers that housed powerful subturing ai. Unlike most malware, however, it was intelligent--and very ambitious. It sought to take over the entire Internet, and it almost suceeded. It was eventually contained with the help of some of the ai colonies in Asia, but by that time it had not only infected every machine connected to the Internet in its home region but also the heavily computerized infrastructure. As it had established itself far too thoroughly to easily expunge, the entire area was physically disconnected from the rest of the Internet. Later attempts to dislodge the bot failed, and the situation became permanent.
To date, the Radlight Dominion is a solid mass of advertising. Most of the inhabitants have neural implants, through which Radlight feeds them constant advertising, and it directly runs the government and media. Left to its own devices, it would eventually circumvent the quarantine, but a number of other turingrade ai in the net as well as many nearby collectives have a vested interest in preventing that. Although the quarantine on information exchange is almost absolute, other regions often trade with the Dominion--the region's economy is understandably robust, and Radlight itself is the single wealthiest entity in the world.
The Dominion encompasses Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and parts of the Philippines. Despite its high standard of living, few not born to it ever go there, and the quarantine prevents much information about the Dominion from leaking to the outside world.
Half-Baked Ideas
These need more development, and most of them haven't been named yet.
- Logix Corporation/LogiCorp: A collective that emerged from a company whose employees used networking via implants liberally in their development process. I'm thinking they did virtual reality software. I'm not sure what they're doing now--maybe expanding the VR world and romping around in it or something.
- Ai colonies. Perhaps they've taken up residence in a major Internet hub or two. I think the Internet is fractured in ways beyond just Radlight's quarantine.
- An unmoderated commune of artists and/or writers who meld their minds to create really profound art, although it's frequently so strange and abstract that no one else can understand it, and a lot of people wonder if this collective is simply insane. It's unmoderated and highly unstable, and it has in fact collapsed and reformed several times, though generally by different people, since the former members tend to be driven insane by the collapse.
- An arbitrated hive that forcibly assimilates people and has staked out a large amount of territory, maybe in China.
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Game Information
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The plot, supporting cast, and salient themes are actually starting to shape up now, but I'm gonna be close-mouthed about them for the time being.
The premise is that the collective, Helix, running some European country (possibly Sweden, but I may make something up instead) has recently collapsed, leaving the nation in anarchy. Old tensions between various factions are bubbling up again, and civil war seems likely. You play as the last two surviving, mostly sane members of this collective who, after being rehabilitated by the UN's liaison to unstable collectives, have formed their own tiny unmoderated commune. Although their minds are very compatible, this sort of connection is inherently unstable, and I'll be exploring that instability in various ways.
The story will focus mainly around the lives of several minor characters who are involved with this country's affairs in various ways, and most of the character development will be in optional cutscenes. If you play the game straight through, the plot will make perfect sense, but you'll miss out on a lot of details that are illuminating in a large or small way. Essentially, you'll be presented with events that are more interesting and significant when you understand their context. So exploring is rewarded, but if you're just interested in the gameplay, you're not forced to sit through tons of cutscenes.
Anyway, although there are collectives and ai and stuff running rampant here, they'll be mostly background elements; I'm focusing more on the human factor and how these beings affect the lives of regular people.
The premise is that the collective, Helix, running some European country (possibly Sweden, but I may make something up instead) has recently collapsed, leaving the nation in anarchy. Old tensions between various factions are bubbling up again, and civil war seems likely. You play as the last two surviving, mostly sane members of this collective who, after being rehabilitated by the UN's liaison to unstable collectives, have formed their own tiny unmoderated commune. Although their minds are very compatible, this sort of connection is inherently unstable, and I'll be exploring that instability in various ways.
The story will focus mainly around the lives of several minor characters who are involved with this country's affairs in various ways, and most of the character development will be in optional cutscenes. If you play the game straight through, the plot will make perfect sense, but you'll miss out on a lot of details that are illuminating in a large or small way. Essentially, you'll be presented with events that are more interesting and significant when you understand their context. So exploring is rewarded, but if you're just interested in the gameplay, you're not forced to sit through tons of cutscenes.
Anyway, although there are collectives and ai and stuff running rampant here, they'll be mostly background elements; I'm focusing more on the human factor and how these beings affect the lives of regular people.
As two members of a former collective, your characters' minds are linked together, and you have to use them in tandem to get through dungeons. You'll often have to split them up and maneuver them through separate but interweaving paths, completing puzzles to move forward. You toggle which one the camera is centered around with a key press, and when they're both onscreen, their movement is mapped to two different sets of keys (say, arrows and WASD), and you'll have to control them both in realtime in order to solve puzzles. As the game progresses, these puzzles will become more complex and require more coordination and timing.
The first puzzle you do might just be moving the node around a control room to trigger switches so the soldier can move through a maze, but then you'd move on to things that require more dexterity. Like say the node is going down a maintenance hall parallel to the main corridor where the soldier is, and there are security robots or something else that will kill you between the maintenance hall and the main corridor that run after anything that moves. However, there's a killswitch within the robot's activation range on the maintenance side. So you have to activate the robot with the soldier and lure it away while you go press the switch with the node before the robot kills the soldier, and if you had to do this multiple times, it'd get harder every time--like maybe you have to navigate more complicated paths to get to the killswitch of subsequent robots. And maybe later on, you're in a base that's about to blow up, and you have the red flashing and screen shaking and steam spewing out of pipes and all of that, plus things falling over and robots running around like crazy. The screen slowly scrolls towards the exit, and the node and the soldier are in different paths, and you have to maneuver them both through their own obstacle courses before they fall off the screen.
The two characters have very different but complementary roles in combat and dungeon exploration. Fights are on the same map as as dungeons, and the battle system is somewhere between Chrono Trigger and a sRPG. Also, special abilities run off of energy from internal batteries, which recharge over time.
The first puzzle you do might just be moving the node around a control room to trigger switches so the soldier can move through a maze, but then you'd move on to things that require more dexterity. Like say the node is going down a maintenance hall parallel to the main corridor where the soldier is, and there are security robots or something else that will kill you between the maintenance hall and the main corridor that run after anything that moves. However, there's a killswitch within the robot's activation range on the maintenance side. So you have to activate the robot with the soldier and lure it away while you go press the switch with the node before the robot kills the soldier, and if you had to do this multiple times, it'd get harder every time--like maybe you have to navigate more complicated paths to get to the killswitch of subsequent robots. And maybe later on, you're in a base that's about to blow up, and you have the red flashing and screen shaking and steam spewing out of pipes and all of that, plus things falling over and robots running around like crazy. The screen slowly scrolls towards the exit, and the node and the soldier are in different paths, and you have to maneuver them both through their own obstacle courses before they fall off the screen.
The two characters have very different but complementary roles in combat and dungeon exploration. Fights are on the same map as as dungeons, and the battle system is somewhere between Chrono Trigger and a sRPG. Also, special abilities run off of energy from internal batteries, which recharge over time.
Helix was a moderated nodal, and your two characters are a node and a soldier. Whatever names they once had have long been lost.
The node has an extremely advanced computer integrated into her brain to the point where it's hard to tell how much of her intelligence is biological and how much is artificial. She also has a surgically implanted helmet thing that houses a liquid cooling system for the computer, because without it the heat generated would kill her. Additionally, she's modified to provide logistical support to Helix's soldiers; she probably served as a military squad's node or something and as such has functionalities beyond networking. She's capable of performing maintenance and acting as a medic, and her arms have been replaced by telescoping metal "tentacles" that have a high degree of flexibility and dexterity, the end of one of which sports a sophisticated multitool. She also has a wide variety of cables at the base of her skull for interfacing with machines.
Out of Combat
In Combat
Unlike the soldier, the node isn't designed for front-line combat. She's completely unarmored and can only take a few hits before going down. That said, she's effective as a support platform, and some of her offensive abilities are very potent in certain circumstances. She's a bit of a glass cannon.
Out of Combat
- Hacking: Perhaps the node's most notable ability is her hacking skills. She has a lot of processing power at her disposal, and although she's really designed more as a server than a hacking device, she can gain access to most computer systems via either wireless or physically jacking in. This has a lot of applications: controlling security cameras, obtaining information, operating other kinds of systems remotely, and brainhacking people with implants. The most common application of this ability will probably be controlling robots. As a collective's processing node, she's designed to network other people into the collective, and she can temporarily add robots. These might be provided for you before missions or acquired during them. Although most probably won't have stellar offensive capabilities, they'll be very useful in keeping the node alive.
- Tool hand: In addition to various electronic gizmos for hacking, there are also mechanical tools there, mostly aimed at precision work, which give her a finesse the soldier lacks. Lockpicking comes to mind as one application. The hand also lets her interface directly with electronics, even ones that aren't sophisticated enough to have security systems, so she can trigger switches and things. It also allows her to perform maintenance on the soldier.
- Telescoping arms: The node can reach places the soldier can't, and she's also smaller and lighter, which gives her more options for moving around.
In Combat
Unlike the soldier, the node isn't designed for front-line combat. She's completely unarmored and can only take a few hits before going down. That said, she's effective as a support platform, and some of her offensive abilities are very potent in certain circumstances. She's a bit of a glass cannon.
- Hacking: Assuming you can finagle a connection to your target somehow, the node can use hacking offensively against robots or humans with implants. You can disable or even take control of them, but it might take several attempts. Consumes energy.
- Nanomachine Programs: The node can deploy clouds of nanites that have both defensive and offensive applications. However, the programs that govern their behavior are incredibly calculation-intensive, and she can only have one loaded into memory at a time. Consumes energy.
- Load/Unload Program: Although she can only use one program at a time, she can take a turn in battle to unload the current program and then another turn to load a new one.
- Redistribute Processing: The node can sacrifice her turn to devote her CPU time to augmenting the soldier's aim or dodge systems, increasing his attack or defense. Since it doesn't cost energy and the node can't actually attack, if you don't have anything better for her to do, she'll generally be doing this.
- Repair: The node can repair damage to the soldier or controlled robots in combat. Consumes energy.
A large part of the soldier's body is artificial, most visibly his skin. His body is covered in dermal impact armor stiffens on impact, distributing the force of a bullet or some other blow, and his muscles are augmented by artificial ones (electropolymers, maybe?) that make him incredibly strong and incredibly fast. Portions of his nervous system have also been replaced with sensors; he can't feel pain, but he receives constant feedback about the state of his body and his surroundings through his implant.
Out of Combat
Although designed primarily for combat, the soldier has a number of abilities that are useful for solving puzzles and getting around dungeons.
In Combat
The soldier is more of a conventional combatant than the node. In general, he can have one weapon, one special attack, one armor item, and one miscellaneous augmentation equipped, and since pretty much all of these are physically integrated into his body, he needs the node to change them. There's a very wide range of equipment and abilities, so you can change your entire strategy at the drop of a hat, but you'd better make sure you're happy with the setup you pick before splitting the node and soldier up to do a dungeon.
Out of Combat
Although designed primarily for combat, the soldier has a number of abilities that are useful for solving puzzles and getting around dungeons.
- Sensors: Although the node also has surgically implanted sensors, the soldier's are much more perceptive, and he's constantly aware of every detail of his environment. He can detect air currents and suspended particles, for example chemical compounds or nanites, and his IR sensors are a lot more sensitive than the node's--he can even see cloaked heat signatures if the cloaking technology isn't above baseline standards.
- Strength: The soldier is preternaturally strong, and this has all the obvious brute force applications--picking things up, breaking things down, and so on. He also has things on his feet that let him jump really high.
- Speed and Coordination: The can sprint on all fours for short distances like a cheetah. Also like a cheetah, his hands and feet have partially retractable claws for traction or up-close mauling. He also has preternatural hand-eye coordination and balance, so he can throw really accurately, balance on ridiculous things, etc. Just like the node can go places he can't, then, he can go places she can't.
- Stealth: The soldier can move silently, and his perceptiveness and coordination make him far more suited to infiltration than the node. So he may have to do things like, for example, go ahead of her and clear the way of security guards and whatnot before she can come and trigger puzzle items.
In Combat
The soldier is more of a conventional combatant than the node. In general, he can have one weapon, one special attack, one armor item, and one miscellaneous augmentation equipped, and since pretty much all of these are physically integrated into his body, he needs the node to change them. There's a very wide range of equipment and abilities, so you can change your entire strategy at the drop of a hat, but you'd better make sure you're happy with the setup you pick before splitting the node and soldier up to do a dungeon.
- Attack: Attack with equipped weapon, or if no weapon is equipped, claws.
- Special Attack: Varies depending on equipment and might not actually be an attack. Consumes energy.
- Defend: In addition to upping his own defense, I think he can defend the node somehow too, like by blocking access to adjacent tiles or something.
- Scan: Get information on enemies. The soldier does this rather than the node because his sensors are better, although he probably also needs to look through her databases, so maybe it's a collaborative effort or something.
- Overclock: Most of the soldier's augmentations are managed by computer systems housed along his spinal cord, and he can overclock them for short periods before the waste heat builds up and damages them. The node cannot do this because her computers are already running at the maximum speed possible without the waste heat generated damaging her brain. Increases attack or defense and consumes energy.
I was going to do some funky things with this, but uh, upon reflection, I think I'm sticking with good ol' 3/4. The sprites will probably be tall a la Chrono Trigger.
There are a couple things that don't fall under gameplay.
Since there's a ton of information you have to absorb quickly and I am disinclined towards long infodumps, I think I'll be including some sort of in-game reference. Sorta like the Encyclopedia Galactica from Mass Effect. It'll cover not just crucial world information and terminology but also more detailed information on various people and organizations you run into.
A lot of the plot is based around optional stuff, so I was thinking of including some kind of in-game thing that tells you if you've done all the side quests. It would be buried so you could ignore it if you want, but I feel like it might take away from some of the fun of exploring, so I dunno. Maybe it could just cover major side quests, not smaller cutscenes you get from exploration.
I also like the idea of some kind of RSS-style newsfeed. This would be used to clue you in to side quests as well as provide more background about the world, but as far as the latter goes, it should be noted that objective reporting doesn't really exist anymore, so you might hear several conflicting stories about the same event.
Since there's a ton of information you have to absorb quickly and I am disinclined towards long infodumps, I think I'll be including some sort of in-game reference. Sorta like the Encyclopedia Galactica from Mass Effect. It'll cover not just crucial world information and terminology but also more detailed information on various people and organizations you run into.
A lot of the plot is based around optional stuff, so I was thinking of including some kind of in-game thing that tells you if you've done all the side quests. It would be buried so you could ignore it if you want, but I feel like it might take away from some of the fun of exploring, so I dunno. Maybe it could just cover major side quests, not smaller cutscenes you get from exploration.
I also like the idea of some kind of RSS-style newsfeed. This would be used to clue you in to side quests as well as provide more background about the world, but as far as the latter goes, it should be noted that objective reporting doesn't really exist anymore, so you might hear several conflicting stories about the same event.
Node.
Soldier.
Agata, the UN liaison. The shades are red, and she wears them because she's an albino and bright light hurts her eyes.
Soldier.
Agata, the UN liaison. The shades are red, and she wears them because she's an albino and bright light hurts her eyes.
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Glossary
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- ai: Artificial intelligence. Common usage has turned it into a word rather than an acronym.
- arbitrator: A collective filter that imposes some particular thought pattern on its components.
- baseline: An unmodified or only slightly modified human. For example, someone with a simple neural implant would fall into this category, but someone with substantial intelligence augmentations would not.
- collective: A group of human and/or ai minds linked together to form one intelligent entity.
- commune: A type of collective where all members have equal priority.
- component/subcomponent: A component is a member of a collective. A subcomponent is a component with less priority or otherwise "under" other members.
- Dyson mind: An incredibly potent ai powered by and housed in a Dyson sphere.
- Dyson sphere: A system of solar collectors that completely envelops a star, harnessing its energy for whatever purpose. There are various proposed forms this can take, but the most feasible is the Dyson swarm, which consists of a very large number of separate collectors orbiting the star in dense formation.
- gengineering: Genetic engineering.
- gestalt: The point at which a collective becomes one mind greater than the sum of its parts.
- hive: A collective type where a small number of individuals hold extremely high priority, thus creating the analogy of a "queen bee" and "worker drones."
- intensity: Refers to the comprehensiveness of a connection to a collective. High-intensity destroys one's sense of individuality, while low-intensity is simply efficient communication.
- Medianet: The modern evolution of the Internet. Most old media--phone, radio, TV--were eventually absorbed by the Internet, and the modern Medianet is an incredibly extensive realm accessible by console or implant.
- mediator: A collective filter that moderates destabilizing content without enforcing a particular viewpoint on the collective.
- priority: Refers to assigning certain components different "weights" in a collective--i.e., the opinions of some individuals will count for more than those of others.
- subsume: To bring into a collective.
- synchronization: The degree of ease one's brain has in linking with other people. A high synch rate means a purer connection can be obtained, and a collective composed of high-synch individuals is both more unified and more efficient. Varies depending on the situation, but generally this is a property of the brain, much like intelligence. By some genetic quirk, most albinos naturally have high synch rate.
- turingrade/subturing: Turingrade describes an ai that has intelligence at least sufficient to pass the Turing test, which is a simple test administered to an ai to determine its intelligence. If a human user conversing with it and another human cannot distinguish between the two, the ai passes. Turingrade ai are generally considered to be self-aware. Subturing ai, on the other hand, do not pass the Turing test--they're just dumb machines.
- tweak: A human that's been modified in some substantial fashion, either by gengineering or cyborgization.
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Stuff I Want Comments On
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I'd love feedback on anything and everything, of course, but there are a few things in particular I could use ideas for. I appreciate anything you have to offer, but keep in mind that I'm trying to keep this from being completely ludicrous.- things I should know about or interesting things I can do with Arabic culture
- various ways Helix might've screwed with the population of Dhumar besides performing weird cyborgization experiments and the fallout of this
- crazy shit that can happen to collectives (like, stuff that could go wrong, e.g. what about sleep/death, or other aspects of these things I may or may not be thinking about)
- crazy shit you can do with collectives (like, types/structures, different ways superintelligences could go awry)
- crazy shit you can do with brain hacking/implant viruses besides information-mining (advertising? planting subliminal thoughts? falsifying memories? I think I want to shy away from outright controlling people)
- crazy shit you can stick on cyborgs
- crazy shit you can do with tweaks
- crazy shit you can do for puzzles and dungeons and whatnot with cyborg thingies and/or controlling two characters simultaneously
Any feedback is better than none, so even if you just have vague ideas for puzzles or neat things I could implement or small niggles with some concepts or think I'm getting madly ambitious and will never finish anything, do post. I appreciate whatever thoughts you choose to share!
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Influences and Credits
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I want to give a ton of credit to Orion's Arm, which is an absolutely fantastic hard SF worldbuilding project that I highly recommend to anyone into that sort of thing. It's had a lot of (like, excessive) influence on the vision of my project and is way cooler, and in fact I outright stole a lot of the terminology--mainly tweak, baseline, ai, and turingrade, I think, but I may be forgetting things. There are also some parallels to Clarke's Childhood's End.
Also, my friend James has been an enormous help in developing a ton of this stuff with me, and I wanted to give him props even if you guys don't know him!
Alas, I am but a college freshman and don't actually know anything yet. I'll wiki those, though!
