[Poll] Storytellers, Personal Characters, Moral Integrity

[The_Godslayer]

The job of a Storyteller, from my PoV, is to give the general populace something to do. Something to catch their attention, something to enjoy, something to get rewarded by, etc. A lot of this is done via throwaway characters, prospects that start somewhere and end somewhere else that don't really have the legs to live on their own. People who are made to die, ships that are made to explode, so on and so forth. Recently, though, I've been looking at something where I've said to myself "This could be something that people could engage in. It's detached from canonicity, it's impactful enough for investment but not enough for obligation. This is right up Storyteller's job description." But, as usual with Godslayer Big Brain Ideas, there is a problem.

In the Beginning:
Magnus (now Helena again) is a wife/mom-bot built by Big Magnus™, the father of Mr. Ling the Hacker and Ghods the Wendigo. There is a full story with this family. Go here, read "Ling-Demichase Family" section for a basic outline. There is a whole "is she, isn't she" with her being just a robot or being an actual AI. Anyway, Magnus dies, and Ling and Ghods gtfo of Pittsburgh. Robowife was never really finished. Helenabot wakes up as a failsafe and is very sad to find that her husband is dead as hell, and her sons are gone with the wind.

Nonetheless, because Magnus and Helena met when Helena was a Bunter, Robowife here goes back into bounty hunting when she has nothing to do. She eventually works her way up the guild into Core and gets caught on the Battleship Mars during Hesione's takeover. Things happen, and she's stranded on Planet Gammu. There's a whole thing about "humanity" and "machine" and "AI" between her and Hound. Whole ongoing story, but we've ended at a point where she got plugged into one of the artifacts from Fischer (the event ones) and became a real AI. However, being originally Core-aligned and not being connected to Gammu's hivemind means she feels no loyalty or even really positivity to Gammu. She infests the little Core research site she was hiding in and becomes this sort of metal-Nomad-Tyranid-bug-type thing.

Godslayer's Unfortunate Draw Towards Idealism:
Personally? I see an epic space opera-type thing here. Hound has already lost his mind trying to cope with his unfortunate attachment and even more unfortunate disconnection from Helena, and despite being one of the non-copy Gammu minds that Core snatched, has decided that one of his end goals is total Gammu genocide because if he can't have what he wants, no one can. He's so hell-bent on this that he has separated himself from the Core's AI-controlling mechanism, collected his own network of Core AIs, and hacked and taken AIX on a field trip to kill Gammus in Pi.

Helena Hive has the ability to infest Gammus like how Nomads can infest humans. Except instead of covert stuff, they usually just convert them into acid bombs and send them running into fortified positions because they are not like a real faction, they're just an enemy on the surface right now. They're something for footsoldiers to fight against, and that's something that Disco very rarely addresses: ground wars. Ground wars and the harrowing personal views can be excellent storywriting. War movies sell well. Gammus and Technocrats putting boots on the ground because the Helena Hive is dug deep underground and you can't reasonably shell them to oblivion.

For in-game things, Hound hearing Gammu traumas and hacking AIX to take them on a field trip to Kappa, Core catching on and going to snatch back their AIs or maybe helping them go fight Gammus idk, their choice, and Gammus going to stop Hound and friends from making planetfall on Gammu. Hell, maybe Helena breaks the surface and goes to take to space. I did this thing where I said "wow, this is an idea in my head!!! cool!!!" and I tried to make something in a field I have negative skill in. I have a very bad attempted model at an A.I. Carrier (dreadnought class). Additional AI ships could never go wrong.

Bad Godslayer Modeling

The Problem™:
No matter how I look at it, no matter how cool it looks, and whether or not it ends up being fun, it's 100% powergaming via staff position. Setting up events like that would be a case of using Storyteller position to push personal roleplay, which is a very bad idea, and it would be very bad to even do something that could be mistaken as such. Hence the throwaway characters like these infected Royal Navy and Tom the Pirate. I can imagine people wouldn't even interact with it off of the basic principle of "boycott stupid things". But also, it has the potential to be one of those really cool things that everyone's glad they participated in. So I'm stuck.

The Links:
Helena (then Magnus) and Hound.
Helena Hive.
Hound haxing AIX Corp.
What went down after Hound got the AIX.
Garmr Network Information

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I'll do something about my superiority complex when I cease to be superior.

"Whatever happened to catchin' a good old-fashioned passionate ass-whoopin and gettin' your shoes, coat, and your hat tooken?"