Second Dawn: Rosetta Jones

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This is a reference document for the LARP The Second Dawn.

Rosetta Jones Player: Suzanne G Posthuman socialite Age: 324/late 20s

Additional Information (read first): Cataclysm, Solar System, AIs, Seerstones

Background: You were born in the year 2102, a member of the first generation of humans born in space after the Earth destroyed itself. You grew up in zero- and later artificial-gravity environments in the L5 Lagrange point, one of the “Exiles” trying to build a new society of humans who could never return to Earth. Your parents raised you with stories and recordings of nature’s beauty, forever coloring the land and peoples of the planet with a romantic awe in your mind. With a fortuitous selection of anti-aging treatments, and an equally lucky avoidance of accidents (unpleasantly common in those old spaceships), you were one of those who survived to 2206, and then one of the first to upload your mind from its original brain into the new hardware. Technically speaking, you then became an AI, an artificial intelligences; but despite its artificial substrate, your intelligence comes from a wholly natural origin. You’ve been alive ever since, making you a full 324 years old. “Alive” may be technically incorrect, but you’re certainly still conscious and functional, your mind as capable as ever and running thousands of times faster. After your human years living on the fringe, working and pushing the odds to survive and enjoy life in the sterile environment of space, all these centuries of virtual life should be a paradise. And it is, you suppose; just not for you. It’s fun enough, but you like the feel of pushing the edges, of not fitting in. You spawned a few copies to fight the Others, but when you re-integrated the surviving copies’ memories, you found that warfare really wasn’t to your taste. Since then, it’s been harder and harder to have fun; there’s so much less you can do outside of virtual environments, for fear of catching the Others’ attention. But a mere six years ago, you took action on a better plan. Earth is under effective quarantine, with the Exile community allowing the remaining humans to carve out their own fate unimpeded on the planet’s surface. There’s still a shroud of debris orbiting it, but nothing an Exile pilot can’t handle. The real restriction is from the Preservation Society, those Exiles who have taken up the job of protecting Earth from intrusion. You got a group of friends and copies together, and came up with an elaborate scheme to slip copies past the Preservation Society and down onto Earth. You very nearly got caught- and all of your friends, not just the decoys, did get caught. But you made it, onto the sweet fertile earth of your childhood dreams. You cloned up a human body and downloaded yourself into it. Time moves so slowly on this hardware, how you’d forgotten! You had to destroy your landing capsule to prevent humans from getting it, but you kept enough nanofactories to build anything you’ll need, including some goods to start you down the road to wealth in your human life. In less than a year, Rosetta Jones was known as the daughter of a successfully salvage family from distant independent Maine, living large in New Providence on the wealth of her parents’ finds from the ruins of Bangor. You’ve spent most of your time just enjoying yourself- the scenery, the atmosphere, the excitingly simple sensations of a human body. It’s not even like what you remember from your mortal youth; the gravity makes everything different! Fine food and drink, company and men and women, wealth and splendor. Nothing you couldn’t get in the virtual environments at home, but it’s so much better to actually be here, instantiated in flesh, on the forbidden Earth! You’re pretty sure you didn’t used to be such a sensualist; you probably adjusted this copy of yourself before sending it down, to maximize your enjoyment down here. Good call, self! Over these years, you’ve developed a pet theory about the Earth humans: they must have immortals too. The anti-aging technologies of your youth were pretty good, and the stuff available before the Cataclysm was pretty similar. If some humans got the real top-of-the-line treatments, and survived the Cataclysm and subsequent troubles, they could still be alive to this day! You’ve prepared some quick genetic analysis tools to help you find them; they’ll surely be secretive, some must be coming to this launch party. Another little project with which you’ve been puttering around has been a friendship with Sydney Monroe, the local Congresswoman. Some campaign contributions, some fun parties, and you two have become fast friends despite your differing personalities. Recently, she’s been worrying about some local political development, unrest among the workers on the spaceship construction site. You’ve been encouraging her to support them, to back them instead of toeing the government line. That should make the outcome much more exciting than just letting those poor workers get smacked back into line by a bunch of policemen! This Second Dawn project has been a lot of fun too, hearing humans speculate about what they might find in space, struggling so hard despite their simple limits! But now that it’s all come to a head, you have not only a glorious party, but some serious problems. First off, all these government types means you’ll have to watch out for people hunting up “Black Science”; these poor chumps all still think AI technology is evil, yourself included! Second, there’s got to be a Preservation Society agent here at the party- better not let him catch you, or there’ll be hell to pay for you and your copies back up in space. And if this launch goes off as planned (which may depend a lot on that mysterious Preservation agent!), there’ll be a third problem. If humankind gets in real contact with its descendents in space, there’ll be more Exiles back down here on Earth, and you’ll probably get caught right quick. If you want to be able to re-integrate the fabulous memories from your years in the Eastern Union, you’ll need to find a separate way off the planet. You’d hoped to build yourself a transmitter to upload yourself back up into space, but you haven’t built it yet, because you got distracted the death and funeral this week of a friend, Patricia Kennedy. The timing might not work out with building your own transmitter, but even if you’d been on schedule, you couldn’t transmit yourself before tomorrow… after all, you couldn’t possibly miss out on the memories from tonight’s party!

Roleplaying Notes: In this iteration, you enjoy a good time above all; taking risks, doing new things, having fun. However, you are not at all stupid; you have lived for centuries, done and seen and been things no human could dream of. You’re a risk-taker and a boundary-pusher, but those passions don’t rule you; you know the difference between a risk and a gamble.

Goals: 1) Find a way to get yourself off of Earth. 2) Identify and meet any ageless humans that may exist. 3) Enjoy the food, people, fame, party, and everything else. 4) Help Monroe support the labor union.

Opinions: Black Science: You pretend a more conventional attitude, but this all seems a bit silly to you. Let them keep whatever beliefs protect them, though. The Watch: The branch of the Union government that deals with hunting down Black Science, including AIs (the “path of demons”). Stay away from them, and keep your nature secret in general. Second Dawn: You think it’s so cute, a hand-welded spaceship! It’ll probably fly, but you don’t know if it can make it through the debris shroud. In your cover identity, you’ve withheld opinion so far. Tinkers: You pretend to be suspicious and distrustful of this clannish group, but inside you’re quite curious as to how far their knowledge and capabilities extend. Humans: Utterly fascinating. They do so much, despite being so simple! It makes you feel like a child again, being among them. El Dorado: Rumor has it they have a “White AI.” What a quaint idea! You wonder what facts lie behind that obviously mythological claim?

Key Information: •You have many copies up in space, so death here would only be a frustrating inconvenience. Getting hacked would put your whole self at risk; the Preservation Society is unlikely to do so, but they do have the authority. •Possible ways off of Earth include the Second Dawn itself, its satellite, or whatever vessel the Preservation Society used to land its agent. A strong radio or similar device might work, though it could be noisy and unreliable. •“Rosetta Jones” is, in fact, your original name. You also have a 256-bit address for virtual environments, but that hardly matters here. •You have nanoprobes to quickly measure the genetic stability of humans (see Powers) •Your friend and fellow socialite Patricia Kennedy died a few days ago, her funeral was last night. She could be a vain and needy woman sometimes, but she was also a gentle and clever human being.

People (in approximate order of importance): Sydney Monroe, Congresswoman from New Providence (Nitsan B): She’s a bit of a stick-in-the-mud, but she really tries to transcend herself; she hangs out with you because she knows you’re more fun and help her to be so. You consider her like a sort of project, enjoying the process of helping her to better herself. Mario Patriarca (Paul S): Manager of the construction team at the Second Dawn. You haven’t been involved in their issues so far, but you may end up doing so as part of this idea with Monroe. They really won’t be expecting a dilettante like you to take a hand. Franklin Kennedy, Chief of Staff (Matt W): Poor man, he looked so sad at his wife’s funeral last night. They’d only been married 5 years, he’s much older than she. You’ve only met him briefly, he’s a very smart and politically well-connected man. Eugene Kennedy (Simon M): Franklin’s estranged son, from his first marriage. You’ve never met; he wasn’t at his stepmother’s funeral. Jill Deasey (Kendra T): A fun young debutante, you trust her and enjoy her company, but it seems like you overwhelm her sometimes. You’re pretty sure she sneaks away sometimes to go on strange adventures that her parents don’t know about; you’re quite curious, you wish she’d open up to you. She too was at Patricia’s funeral. Kathleen Penland (Katie G): The owner of the fabulous Green Fox restaurant and nightclub. Her family is quite reclusive, you’d never met her before last night’s funeral. She must’ve been close to Patricia, she seemed quite heartbroken; if you have time to kill, you might try to talk to her about it. Isaiah Whittaker (Joey B): He’s a local social sensation, what with his strange religion and all. It’s intriguing, but it doesn’t seem like much fun, so you haven’t paid much attention the few times you’ve met. He wasn’t one of Patricia’s friends. Edward Archibald (?): Another socialite, you find him rather shallow and boring. He too was at Patricia’s funeral. Donald Baxter (Jerry S): This rich businessman was apparently another friend of Patricia’s, he too was at the funeral. You’ve bought some Shady Stuff from him once or twice, and he seemed to want to get to know you better. Haley Jean Cole (Xephyr Z): She’s a local repairwoman, which you understand is a strange job for non-Tinkers. You’ve heard she does good work, but you’ve never had reason to meet her, you have the tools to rebuild things yourself. (Better not let too many people know that last fact, probably.) Captain Ivy Pearce (Rachel O): She’s going to be the first human to fly into space in centuries! Oh, you’d love to meet her, it’ll be so funny. Noone will get the joke but you, but that’s alright, she’ll still be meeting a “spaceman” whether she knows it or not. Luther Gaines (David R), Jules Dyer (Thomas L): Best stay away from these Watch types; not only would they want to kill you for being an AI, but they’d probably make a big stink, and publicity would bring in all kinds of other trouble.

Ratings: Pilot: 1 R: 1 D: 5 G: 3 ID: 4226 Navigation: 4

Nametag Symbols: E, G, R

Attributes: Physical: Defense 3 Pool Rating 4 [] [] [] [] Mental: Defense 6 Pool Rating 6 [] [] [] [] [] [] Social: Defense 4 Pool Rating 5 [] [] [] [] []

Recoveries: -Take a calculated risk (+2 points, 1/hour) -Spend a scene just enjoying some aspect of the party: conversation, food, men, women, etc. (+2 points, 2/hour) -Discover something new and interesting about the people or cultures of Earth (+2 points, 1/hour)

Abilities: hack, penetrating insight, Evasive (x1), charm, suspect, chemical hack (“simple touch”), optic nerve hack (“flashing light”), entice, hypnotize, relics of space, model and predict, whole mind, fisticuffs, genetic analysis (“residues”), repair, upload, model readings, genetic readings

Items: Piece of Jewelry, clear seerstone, babbage, glassy bundle, pouch of coins, plastic box with lights

Upload System: You may be able to upload and run a copy of your code onto any item with the “U” quality. You must succeed in a Hack challenge against its Data rating. If an item has neither a printed Data rating nor other specific rules, this should not be significant, but if you think otherwise in some specific case, add your “ID” rating to its Qualities, and see a GM.

Relics of Space System: You can identify any item with the “P” quality as being from space. See a GM if you wish further information about its source and nature.

Repair Activation Cost: 1 Mental Requirement: A quiet place to sit and work for 5 minutes. System: You are able to fix most items with the “Broken” quality. Unless noted otherwise, you may simply cross out the “Broken” word when finished.

Model Readings System: This is the key for interpreting the readings of your Model and Predict ability. Since you know the details and difficulty of navigating the Shroud’s debris field, you can use your newfound information about the pilot and navigation system to simulate their attempt, and evaluate their odds. 4 or less: No chance 5: Low chance 6: High chance 7 or more: Guaranteed

Genetic Readings System: This is the key for interpreting the readings of your Genetic Analysis (“Simple Touch”) ability. With a sample of the target’s cells, you can make a quick categorical comparison of their genetic stability (mutations, repair mechanisms, etc) against the human norm. 1: Low. Inbred, carrying a genetic disease, or serious long-term mutations. 2: Normal. Humans should be in this range. 3: High. Has received longevity treatments or improbably favorable mutations.