The Digital Frontier.

[powersthatbe]

THE DIGITAL FRONTIER
April 5th-May 17th

Welcome to the Grid. Many cycles ago, the Grid was inhabited by Cryptos, a set of programs which lived in isolation, developing their own strange system architecture, rumors of which were the wonder of the Network. But something the Cryptos built took on a life of its own: a digital cancer, a virus which purged the Grid of all recognizable digital life-forms, leaving only ruins and terrifying monsters called Automata. For the good of the Network, the Grid was sealed off, locked away behind many firewalls.

But time went on, and other programs developed more advanced protocols. Curious about the knowledge of the Cryptos, they sent two groups of programs to try and recover any data they could from the Grid. The first group formed The Partition - a secure area, reformatted and isolated from the rest of the Grid by the finest security the Network can offer. The Partition guards all port access to the rest of the Network. If there’s a security risk, the programs there - Defenders - won’t hesitate to purge the whole Grid, no matter what data would be lost.

Outside the Partition, on the edge of the corrupted Waste Lands, are the recovery programs - Miners. They sift the code of the old Grid, looking for valuable data artifacts and reconstructing them, fighting Automata, risking the corrupting of their own data, or even de-resolution, in order to restore what the Cryptos lost.

Every program on the Grid has both Purpose and Priority - a function it’s meant to execute, and the authority to do it. But as the Miners working the Frontier recover more and more code, their Purpose - discovery - and the Defenders’ - protection - come into conflict. And the Defenders have the Priority - their root administrator has Priority 0, where the leader of the Miners has only Priority 1. A program of lower station is unable to deny or resist direct orders from a superior, and that’s where the trouble starts.

The paranoid Defenders have begun to refuse access to the network, except to those programs willing to risk the integrity of their code and show their ability to defend themselves in the ancient Games - lethal gladiatorial combat which tests the parameters of a program to destruction. The Defenders reason that any Miner who can defeat their security could stand firm against Automata intrusions as well… but although this keeps things secure, it also leaves the Miners trapped on the edge of the Waste Lands, and lately, a rebellion has been brewing, low-Priority programs willing to defy authority and take over the Partition themselves. Some say that attitude itself is proof of Automata corruption…

But then, at last, there’s a breakthrough. The Miners have found an intact data structure, unmistakably the system architecture of the Cryptos, hidden beneath loads of random junk data. And when they restored it, they found Cryptos waiting within, waiting in stasis for the chance to reclaim their system for themselves… and another group of programs, mysterious Variables without Purpose or Priority, totally unrecognized by the system. Even the Cryptos aren’t sure what they are…

The Partition claims they’re disguised Automata, and the rebel programs believe the Variables are free algorithms who might be the best hope to liberate the Miners from the Defenders’ restrictions. The future of everything the Miners have worked for hangs in the balance…

Exploration Mechanics | Glossary | Casting Call | Skills | Map | Calendar | Player Resources | Questions | Plotting

Comments

Questions

[powersthatbe]

Ask 'em here! This is one of our more complex plots and settings, if nobody has any questions or feels any confusion, we are confused and would like to ask why.

Seriously. Any and every little question. Someone else wants to know, too. Throw 'em at us!

[combattente_auditore]

Can Investigators get into the Factions or do they have to stay Variables for the Jaunt? If yes on the Factions, what about determining their priority figures?

[powersthatbe]

An Investigator could join the Miners or the Cryptos with little difficulty, as long as they could find a Miner or Crypto to interface with them and accept them in. They would not, in advance, have any idea of whether or not this would give them a Priority figure or if they would be obliged to obey it.

Generally, when a Program is inducted into a new system, it begins at Priority 21, although the Program bringing it in may assign a higher Priority that does not equal or exceed its own. Also generally, any Program with a Priority bigger than 3 or 4 is going to be a little bit leery about inducting a strange program, for fear they might get in trouble - but Miners are free-spirited and Cryptos are weird.

Joining the Defenders is not totally inconceivable, but they would be a lot harder to convince.

[shiroganeheir]

A plotting question. Are the Programs connected to each other in any way? For example, I know it is a different canon-base, but in Reboot, the characters have family units of a sort. Is there anything similar to that here?

[powersthatbe]

Not families per se, unless they shared a User, but they do have interpersonal relationships and home lives, so to speak.

[leftbehindagain]

Not sure if this will be a thing, but: For Investigators who have them, do Personas work and if so how much?

[powersthatbe]

Yes, and perfectly well!

[shantiprayer]

Can a program's Priority change? Like for example if a rank-and-file Miner proved themselves repeatedly, could they be "promoted" to middle-management status? Mostly asking this as a character-background-building thing but I suppose it could apply to in-Jaunt too?

[powersthatbe]

Change naturally, no. But promotions and demotions can happen. Any higher-ranking program can do so, to a maximum of one priority worse than their own; but traditionally only priority 0-4 programs handle promotion & demotion.

[wholeheaded]

So promotions and demotions are a thing: would demotions resulting from damage to a Program's data be a thing? And how much, if any, "benign" curruption would be tolerated? I'm thinking of making Ambrose a bit Glitch-ier, repeating himself and being a little forgetful but still being functional and able to perform his purpose.

...also can he have an LED strip in his head or should I go with the usual weird-metallic-scar?

[notinthecards]

OOOH COOL

weird metallic scars are a thing, but I am cool with an LED strip too? Your call!

A demotion would not be automatic in the case of damage, but a Program in authority would be quite likely to demote a damaged program who could not perform as well as it used to.

Defenders would not tolerate much corruptions; Miners would be extremely tolerant of it.

[amadine]

Would a Variable being inducted into a Faction confer the ability to use Faction skills, or is that something characters would have to ask to be taught after becoming a Faction member?

[menschlich]

if a defender decides to leave/is demoted and becomes a miner, would their color be blue or red?

also, can someone be demoted from a level one defender to a lower level miner if they decide they would rather explore/help the rebels? or if they interface and accept in a variable?

[knightceties]

1) What would injuries look like for programs?

2) How lethal are the Games? Both the clips in the Player Resources make it look like death is a given whenever the Games are played. Will that be in the case in the Jaunt?

3) How is the patterning on someone's suit determined? Is it assigned, like a uniform, or is the pattern individually determined?

4) Since one of my characters has powers that revolve around plant summoning and manipulation, would those powers work in this setting?

Re: Questions

[wholeheaded]

ONE MORE since I didn't see it brought up anywhere: when a program is repurposed, how much of it's previous life does it remember? Personal details, skills or knowledge from before, that kind of thing.

Re: Questions

[creativefool]

Given the above questions about plant summoning, it just occurred to me: how would other 'elemental' powers work here? How about healing powers on Programs?

[foreveralawn]

Are Priorities open knowledge? Or would it be possible for a program to disguise their Priority by pretending to be of a lower Priority than they really are? (i.e. a Priority 12 obeys a Priority 14 in order to pretend they are Priority 14+).

[betrayedblade]

1.) Can stealthy programs "turn off" their circuits to hide for a short amount of time? (example: Tron in the opening sequence Evolution)

2.) Along similar lines, can stealthy programs temporarily force a change of color upon their circuity? (example: Flynn in the original TRON film [though he's a User so...you know, idk]; Tron in Betrayal preforms a similar action that hides his appearance to be that of a red guard program though)

3.) And most importantly (for Giovanni anyway), can the Assassin hidden blade be present in the form of a gauntlet that creates a lightblade when activated? :'D

[morbirdinterest]

What would happen if programs of the same Priority tried to give each other commands?

And on a related note, what would happen if programs of the same Priority both gave a lower-Priority program commands at the same time? Or conflicting commands?

[morbirdinterest]

What would the act of coding look like to programs?

[seestheworld]

Would Evokers be changed at all here, or would they work the same way?

[loyalrebel]

A couple questions:

Does the grid 'loop' or just end at the end of the map? IE; Can you go from say A10 to A1 by travelling down or do you fall off the edge of the universe?

Are the directionals still north/south/east/west or are they something different?

[morbirdinterest]

Vocab query: What's the equivalent of life, lifetime, and living?

Re: Questions

[amadine]

Is there any gambling surrounding the outcome of the Games?

For that matter, is there any currency on the Grid?

[wholeheaded]

How common are the Persona-like functions among the general program population?

Are the Defenders aware of their offensive capabilities and see them as a threat, or do they also have access to similar-powered functions?

And on an organizational note: I think a post where people can OOCly share what they've made up/discovered about the world and it's resources and limitations would maybe be beneficial. Not everyone follows everyone else on plurk, and not everyone reads every thread, so it feels like there's a lot of info available that's not filtering out as widely as it could.