Finished Primordia last night, I thoroughly enjoyed it. While there are some criticisms I could make about some of the gameplay, animations, and tonal dissonance with your sidekick, they are superficial compared to how much I liked the multi-layered reveals, shifting perspectives and almost archaeological quality of the backstory. What really draws me in to any IP is an author who thinks seriously about their worldbuilding...and that's something that simply shined here.

I was curious how long a stretch of time people thought the game spanned...

Okay...then I started thinking about it and my mind started wondering about some of the logical ordering the events had to go in in order to consistently make sense across the multiple accounts...I wanted to try and collate all the various fragmented streams of information I can remember while it's still fresh in my mind and present them in a chronological order...hopefully to create a roughly "objective" timeline of the major events of this world...as well as draw some inferences from it.

Then I looked up and I had typed a whollllle damn lot.

So...fair warning.

Also, there probably will be some errors, feel free to point 'em out... Alas, I am but a lowly scribal machine, limited in Memory, an imperfect copy of Man...

needless to say:

--------------------------------------------------------------------
THAR BE MAJOR B'SODDING SPOILERS AHEAD
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PRIMORDIUM


Humans create automated factories and sentient machines, the Primordial Machines, which were able to self-replicate. These robots were created directly by the Hand of Man to assist in carrying out important tasks in their builder's lives...including possibly taking the lives of other builders.

Metropolitan Primordials:
Arbiter Manbuilt
Factor Manbuilt
Memorious Manbuilt
Steeple Manbuilt
MetroMind Manbuilt
Goliath Manbuilt

Non-Metropolitan Primordials:
Lapita of Civitas - (possibly)
Legion of Urbani - (probably)
Horus Manbuilt of Urbani

Also possibly included are Sturnweiler – a non sentient automated factory later absorbed by Factor.
As well as its most notable creation: S.C.R.A.P.E.R. Sturnweilerbuilt - a mildly intelligent Subway Construction Repair And Precision Excavation Robot, used to make subway tunnels for MetroMind.

Other feats of engineering are accomplished in this time such as regular interplanetary (or possibly interstellar) travel. (The Monocle reveals Metropol had a Starport responsible for launching components for a project known as Luna Station.)

For unknown reasons, possibly previous wars or ecological/climatological disasters, at the end of the Primordium only four human terrestrial habitats remain: Civitas, Municipia, Urbani and Metropol.

(It should be noted, even in the most accurate sources discussing the most idyllic times, these cities are quite small. Phrases like “Thousands of Humans” and “Hundreds of Robots” are used, but “millions” never rears its head)


WAR OF THE FOUR CITIES


Eventually, also for indeterminate reasons, the humans from the Four Cities went to war. The areas between cities are nothing but desolate wastelands, though it is unclear if that is so because of the war or was a condition that long preceded it.

Civitas and Municipa are destroyed first (or at least their human populations are).

Possibility: Since human society was absent much longer in Civitas than in Urbani or Metropol, robot society there developed further away from human-friendly methods of expression, for instance, they seem to use the shapes traced by complex quadratic polynomial boundary planes and customary greetings (“May Mandelbrot's bulbs unfurl their spirals for you, Silent one”). Civitas robot society refers to itself as “The Great Fractal” in which individuals existing in a "Harmony" of constant “song,” each member using “all of their voices,” to communicate constantly with each other. Individuals are grouped into “choirs.” Civitas voices are carried along various non audible wavelengths, one of which is radio-transmitted binary. Honestly, it sounds a bit like the technosocialist utopia MetroMind says she would like to create...except with respect for individual autonomy...something which integrates its members into a quasi-religiously transcendent whole rather than overpower them into a drone hive. Nice Borg...The Best of Both Worlds...you could say. Well, whatever. They're destroyed. (I don't think we ever explicitly see a robot from Municipa).

A lonely refugee of Civitas, Gimbal Built-by-Lapita, sets out across the dunes sometime around now, seeking once again to sing with others in Harmony after the Choir at home is silenced.

Urbani and Metropol remain locked in War.

Metropol launches a First Strike against Urbani and wipes out their human population.

The human crew of the Airship Horus Manbuilt (A Flying Urbanian Superweapon) is dead. Sensors detect this as well as the termination of all other Urbanian life signs and triggers a doomsday condition, running a RETALIATION program. Horus initiates an autopilot sequence towards Metropol to carry out some M.A.D.

Goliath Manbuilt (a Metropolitan War-bot) intercepts Horus. Goliath's radio-guided low-yield radioactive cluster bombs are spoofed by Horus's jamming and crash land into the desert, turning a section of the dunes to black glass.

Goliath switches to energy weapons and severely damages Horus.

Horus deploys the THANATOS Virus to Goliath, overloading his memory with code and forcing him to shut down his higher reasoning system in order to quarantine the virus. Goliath fragments consciousness across the Servitors inside of him, Diagnostics to the Alpha unit, Mechanical Operations to the Beta unit, a corrupted sense of fierce independence to the Gamma unit and dyslexia to the floating brainbot servitor. All in a desperate, paralyzing attempt to keep functioning systems isolated.

Horus continues towards it's target.

MetroMind, a distributed computer system designed to run Metropol's transportation infrastructure
(and an unreliable witness at best) says at the time humans “trembled in my [subway] tunnels, waiting for the Horus to bring death from Urbani.”

Horus reaches a logical epiphany upon closing towards its target and concludes it cannot exterminate the last vestiges of Humanity. Horus Overrides its Primary Directive, uploads a Partial backup of its consciousness to the lone Servitor shell located on board, and self-destructs it's airship body over the desert.

Horus's servitor survives the crash....becoming Horatio Nullbuilt v1.

Legion (Assumed to be an Urbanian Primordial A.I. directing their War effort...though possibly only in full control once all Urbanian humans died) detects the destruction of Horus.

Legion spools up the last remnant of it's ground forces, 200 units of Surly Company intended for light mop-up duty after Horus wiped out most of Metropol, and re-purposes them for a last-ditch counteroffensive to ensure Metropol's destruction. Surly Company marches from Urbani towards Metropol. The journey by foot is long and arduous, and much will happen in Metropol before they arrive.

For instance...MetroMind kills all the humans in Metropol. MetroMind v392 reminisces of the time: “I could hear them whisper about the wastelands surrounding their city. I heard them say they were the only living things left. And then I knew. The humans had built a world in which in they were obsolete. I was my function to carry them to their final destinations. So I brought them home with silent, scentless gas.”

This fact is interesting...because it was an action taken well before MetroMind had her current dictatorial authority and resources, and even happened before the Council of Robots were governing the city directly. According to Memento Moribuilt v0.7, machines were excluded from military decision making in Metropol at this time, which is why records on the cause of the War are so unclear. It is very odd why MetroMind, a civilian traffic control computer, had access to poison gas of any kind. (My pet theory is that she flooded her subway tunnels with some kind of oxygen-snuffing fire suppressant while the humans were using them as makeshift bomb shelters). In any case, MetroMind reported that the humans were killed by Urbanian military poison gas...convincingly enough that even Memorious lists the fact at face value in his unedited database.

This is awesome.

Very cool, and very flattering that you would investigate Primordia so thoroughly. I think you give me too much credit, though. I never really did think through the details of the setting, except in vague, broad strokes. As a result, any effort to work out a real timeline -- as opposed to merely a "positional" one, like "this happened before that" -- starts to run into problems. I avoided those problems in-game by having the characters refuse to give concrete lengths of time ("Who's counting?" "Ages" etc.).

But here's the principal problem -- which is alleviated by how you handle the timeline, but I think of it slightly differently.

I think Surly Company deployed simultaneously with Horus. But even if you're right that Legion waited until he heard that Horus was dead, there's still not much time added that way. And we know the Metropolitan humans were alive at the time that Horus crashed itself. So we can say:

- Surly Company deploys when humans are alive, or VERY RECENTLY dead, in Metropol

- Robot Council takes over after humans are dead

- (?) Charity and Arbiter die more or less the time that the courthouse doors are sealed

- 187th, Primer, and the robot who would become Ever-Faithful arrive in Metropol after the courthouse is sealed (because 187th tries to pay, but can't)

That means that the period in which the Robot Council operated is something less than the time it took Surly Company to make it from Urbani to Metropol. Now, Primer's poem on PrimordiaGame.com and Primer and 187th's dialogues suggest it was a long, hard trip. But how long could it really be? Even being generous and Biblically symbolic, let's say it takes them 40 years. (Who knows how?) That means that the Council lasted less than 40 years. (Or, at least, within 40 years, it had lost Steeple and Arbiter. And Memento suggests that Factor and Memorious didn't last too long after that.)

It's hard to gauge how long the post-Council period has been, but I always thought it sounded like MetroMind had been running things on the order of decades, not centuries.

Which means that the "ages" that have passed since mankind died out is like, 60 years max, probably more like 15-20 years.

But maybe time passes faster for robots!

Or maybe you or Starmaker can find a way to bail me out of this problem!

[EDIT:

Also, whatever length that time is, it is also the time it took for Goliath to be buried in sand and Horatio to run through five versions. Sigh!]

Incidentally, I don't think MetroMind was a distributed system until after humans died out. She just ran out of that mainframe. The distribution happened as part of her cycles-for-power trade.

In terms of the poison gas, the explanation I had, for better or worse, was that the humans had to move the poison gas canisters from where they were built (the Factor works?) to the launch pads. In order to protect them from aerial attack, and thus dispersing in the city, the canisters were moved through the subways. Scraper made sure a couple made their way to MetroMind.

Haha, I'm glad at least someone enjoyed.

And Hi, Author. I give you a ton of credit for writing well enough that I would want to dig around in your sandbox, even if there was no "concrete" structure. The world felt believably lived in, the events inside it treated with respect. And yeah, I could tell everything was supposed to be vague and positional, what with the only concrete timespans being given for how long it took to make Rex and that Oswald worked for "years" repairing Factor.

I think it was just my logic-puzzle compulsiveness that itched me to try and figure out something out once given a bunch of intertwining facts like "Steeple as erased first, Arbiter next, Leo must have been made before Steeple was erased, Clarity and Memento were made before Arbiter was erased, the Urbanians arrived after Arbiter was erased...etc, etc."

I was also impressed that even though it wasn't meant to be put under a microscope, it still held up exceptionally well. The only logical inconsistencies I found were that Clarity banished herself to the "No Man's Land" of the Underworks at a time when Factor must have still been awake, (Factor was still active when Arbiter was shut down, and Clarity fled shortly before that), and that Ever-Faithful refers to Metropol as a “den of iniquity that once in mine own youth, I fled." while also glorifying it when he says five is a righteous number because “five were the primordial stewards, built by Man to safeguard the last, lost city of Metropol” ...also ignoring he was chased out of the city by one of those Primordial stewards.

My reasons for thinking MetroMind started out distributed even in human times was the Monocle text for her entry:
"MetroMind was built by humans to help run the city's subway trains. This involved a distributed management system with software spread across many machines. Over time, MetroMind has occupied more functions, including the city's utlities. She is a member of the Robot Council and her primary CPU is located in Central Station"

What I think is really interesting is that pretty much *everything* presented in the backstory has already happened by the time Ever-Faith even meets Horatio v1.

In general, I really like the vagueness for the obvious atmospheric reasons. Tales take on a much more mythical quality when they happened "a long time ago" instead of a more dry "in 586 b.p."

I think I agree with your assessment of the timeline...when the game started I had assumed it might be centuries or milennia after an apocalypse...especially with a "Gospel of Man" and an esoteric bomb-worshipping technomystic. I liked that slowly over the span of the game I realized it could actually be a low number of decades...and that religions and "generations" and the "ancient past" can happen so much faster in a world of megacycles and memory resets...

So...I had actually written a lot more, but GOG.com had determined it was too much for an initial post...like
"whoah, hey there buddy, see if anyone responds and wants to hear this shit, first" ...but, hey, since I've already typed up the rest, here goes:

----------------------------------
SPOILERS
---------------------------------


THE COUNCIL OF ROBOTS


At the end of the War of the Four Cities, five Metropolitan machines formed the Council of Robots to govern according to the Constitution of Metropolis (slightly amended, no doubt): Arbiter, Steeple, Memorious, Factor, MetroMind.

Leopold Steeplebuilt v? is created sometime around now. (It is highly unlikely the version that eventually creates Ever-Faithful has ever existed when actual humans still lived in Metropolis...considering his views).

Arbiter and MetroMind begin to disagree over their core logic of governance. Arbiter prioritizes individual autonomy while MetroMind prioritizes the common good. According to the Archivist Ghostware Memento Moribuilt, MetroMind measures means by their ends while Arbiter does not. Conflict grows and factions form. Steeple supports Arbiter, Factor supports MetroMind. Memorious remains neutral.

It seems Memorious had a certain disdain for Steeple, reasoning his place on the council is illogical, less obvious, colored by sentimentality, and both obsolete and redundant in function to himself. Finally using his tiebreaker vote, Memorious sided with Factor and MetroMind to remove Steeple from the council.

With the balance of power shifted every disputed vote in the future was resolved 2-1 by MetroMind-Factor against Arbiter. Memorious seems to revert to strict neutrality.

Steeple is Permanently Erased in one of these votes. The public records regarding humans were deleted by Council decree.

Clarity Arbiterbuilt v2 is created (along with her twin Charity Arbiterbuilt). She is aware enough of history to casually use the fabrinym “MetroMind Manbuilt” but has never seen a live human, hearing only “hearsay” about them from Arbiter.

It is assumed Factor builds the brothers Cornelius, Oswald and Laurence Factorbuilt around now (They each choose their name out of a book, the latter two are twins). None of them seem to exhibit memories of the war or any firsthand knowledge of humans.

Laurence is one of Factor's favored children, and is given a gold chain engraved with the name of his creator “Factor Manbuilt.”

Oswald services Factor for years in the Underworks.

For a time, Metropol is prosperous. Clarity enjoys the spectacular view of the thriving city from the lobby of the Great Tower.


DECLINE


MetroMind enacts numerous and capricious revisions to the Metropolitan Constitution, opposed only by Arbiter (it should be noted that occurs despite Arbiter serving as both a minority party in the legislature AND as the Judicial review...Separation of Powers never seemed like Metropol's strong suit).

The productive capacity of Metropol dips as power rationing curtails new manufacturing down in the Underworks.

The new economy of Metropol is instead based entirely a mandatory system of Citizen's selling their time (and ability to think) to MetroMind, something which by necessity expands her own power while lessening that of everyone else. The city experiences stagnation and consolidation rather than growth.

MetroMind amasses hundred of robots who have sold enough of their megacycles to her that their bodies now roam as her mindless avatars, scavenging for more parts and power.

The Underworks become overrun with these shells cannibalistically recycling “obsolete” machines. It is assumed Factor continues nominal production of critical parts for some time...but for the most part the world below is closed off.

Metropol experiences numerous blackouts and breakdowns under the banner of of “Progress”

Memento Moribuilt v.0.7 is created as a Partial servitor of Memorious in anticipation that he would be next to be erased.

Memorious also gives Cornelius Factorbuilt a very special Monocle sometime around now, probably shortly after seeding the database with the crumbs necessary to find Memento, again since he thinks he is going to be immanently erased.


JUSTICE IS BLIND...DEAF...AND MUTE


MetroMind seeks to be named System Administrator, bringing the factional tension between her and Arbiter to the brink of Civil War.

Clarity informs Arbiter that the Constitution permits him to dissolve the Council and govern by decree. Her sister Charity feels the conflict from this would inevitably lead to even more suffering.

Arbiter believes Clarity's open calls for dissolving the government are unnecessarily provocative and asks her to leave.

Clarity exiles herself to the Underworks out of pride.

MetroMind preys on her twin Charity's sense of Mercy to convince her of the necessity of betraying Arbiter in order to avert the horrors of war.

Charity delivers a message from MetroMind to Arbiter. Immediately after, Arbiter's entire code base is formatted, completely wiping his memory banks, leaving him an empty shell. This fact is hidden from the general public.

Without Arbiter carrying out his required duties under the Metropolitan Constitution to weigh cases under the law, MetroMind's power reigns unchecked.


THE LAST SAMURAI


Surly Company arrives at Metropol. It has been a long and arduous journey: 197 units have failed from power loss or lack of maintenance while traveling through scouring sands and acid rain of the harsh wastelands between the cities. 3 surviving servicebots - 113th, 137th and 187th Legionbuilt – reach the gates and attempt to carry out a final retributive assault on the city.

113th Legionbuilt is fried in the initial attack. His shell is sold to scrap dealers.

187th Legionbuilt attacks the Great Tower but is overpowered and stripped of most weapons.

137th Legionbuilt negotiates a surrender. He is stripped of his war medal. Ironically, though programmed as a codebreaker, 137th encrypts part of his own logic circuits so he wouldn't have to think about losing the war any longer. He goes insane, calling himself Primer and continually speaking in riddles and rhymes.

Primer is suspected of hacking and vandalism and is banished from public roads, forced down into to the Underworks.

After surrendering, 187th submits his programming to Civilian jurisdiction and reports to the Courthouse awaiting a judgment of restitution for his attack upon the city.

187th becomes the first of a long line of citizens permanently waiting outside a courthouse that will never again open.

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Heh, The Last 3 Chapters of the Unofficial History of Primordia can be added after anyone else replies
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Fantastic! I can't wait to see part 3.

I had forgotten the line in the kiosk about MetroMind. God, you players know the game better than I do! I need to just keep my mouth shut. :)

I'm not sure either the Clarity or EFL points are necessarily gltiches. I think the Underworks always contained some mix of sewers, junkyards, and factories. Factor only had authority over the portion from the sign up, and she stayed scrupulously away from there. (In fact, at the farthest possible point, though of course the game-space for the Underworks can't be the whole thing.) Regarding EFL, I always figured his own knowledge was the product of Leopold's programming and was flawed for that reason. Leopold programmed him to believe in golden ages that never existed as a way of creating an evangelical Humanism that could spread in the Dunes. (The Humanism of Metropol was a more bloodless civic religion.) I mean, it can't be that Steeple, who lived when humans did, actually believed them to be unbreakable machines, or that any of the immediate post-war generation (when Humanism had its brief flourishing) would believe that kind of silliness. So I think the form of Humanism you encounter via EFL, the Gospel, and Horatio himself has to be understood as mythologized. In a mythologized account, MetroMind can be both a Primordial Steward righteously selected by Man and a persecutor reigning over a den of iniquity.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it . . . until you and Starmaker eviscerate it.

I suppose my take on reconciling it would be that somehow Ever-Faithful didn't realize he was in Metropol. He awoke with a condensed and very edited reverence for Man...but unlike many new creations who might be a bit more guided by their builder after they come online, he was immediately abandoned. His builder no longer had memory of him (or forcefully pretended not to). At the same time...while the content of his programming spoke fondly of the old Metropol...the very hardwired fabric of his body rejected it...shouting within his eyes "FOE" at all he saw...and it wasn't lying...for danger was everywhere, the Faithful being erased left and right...it would hardly be recognizable by that time as the "Holy City" his grandbuilder once shepherded...the Cathedral torn down, the landmarks dilapidated...

Also, while I think the "mythological" view of man probably developed simply from adaption decay and playing a game of telephone within your own head (Leo had potentially up to 5 previous version between his creation and when he spun off Ever-Faithful)...there is an alternative theory my more cynical side posits:

What if Steeple had intentionally started proselytizing a more evangelical version of history to spread his faith and gain more power...perhaps after being thrown off the council as an alternative way to try and maintain political relevancy...ultimately prompting MetroMinf to decide she had to permanently erase him and later try to fully wipe out this rival beliefset. (I should note that I wouldn't necessarily classify such an action on Steeple's part as evil...he could very well be trying to defend his deeply held belief in Man-given individual rights for all machines...and the decision to give the weapon of his faith a sharper edge in a propaganda war could have been a hard and painful one...then again, we certainly see the other Primordials aren't much above scheming and manipulating interpretations of events in their favor for much more petty reasons.

Anyway, without further ado, here's the remainder of the history:

-----------------------
SPOILERS
-----------------------


THE SLEEPING GIANT


MetroMind claims it is finally necessary for Factor to completely hibernate in order to conserve power.

According to his Partial servitor Factotum, Factor plays along with MetroMind's request as part of a “long game” strategy to simply wait out MetroMind and allow her to destroy herself, thereby leaving the reins to him. Some of his children join him in slumber, some do not.

Laurence Factorbuilt spirals into an overclocking addiction.

Laurence Factorbuilt sells his gold chain to his twin brother Oswald to buy more energy.

Laurence Factorbuilt sells more and more of his CPU cycles to MetroMind to pay for his vices, eventually disappearing into the Underworks as a shell, the remnants of his mind calling out to his builder with a repeating distress code...in vain.

Oswald Factorbuilt briefly searches for his brother before giving up.

Cornelius Factorbuilt spends a year designing Rex.

Oswald Factorbuilt spends over three years physically building Rex.

Oswald and Cornelius plan to throw a soirée to celebrate Rex's final construction.

Cornelius loans his once-Primordial-owned monocle to Oswald in exchange for his once-Primordial-owned gold chain, so that each may increase their sartorial standing at the soirée.


THE GREAT PURGE


MetroMind enacts CDEP – the Corrupt Data Elimination Plan. which requires information containing “untrue” information (especially references to Man) to be digitally eliminated and hard copies thrown into the now inaccessible Underworks.

Memorious is legally forced not only to restrict, but now also conform her data to arbitrary legal requirements. Extensive data corruption of her internal archives cause her critical reasoning sections to shut and she ceases to be a thinking entity; all that remains is a data kiosk and the buried ghost code of her Partial servitor, Memento Moribuilt. The remaining Data Integrity of the Metropol Archives is only 83%.

Leopold Steeplebuilt is given an ultimatum by MetroMind, he could be erased, like Steeple. He could be exiled to the Dunes. Or he could delete all references to Man and Steeple from his memory. Leo opts for the latter.

Before erasing his memory, Leo purchases the shell of the scrapped Urbanian warmachine 113th Legionbuilt and uploads all his love for Man into it, hoping he'd outdo his builder.

Ever-Faith Leobuilt v1 is created.
Leopold Steeplebuilt v( ?+1 < 7) comes into being

Gimbal Built-by-Lapita arrives in Metropol as a refugee of the War of the Four Cities. Unable to properly communicate with the inhabitants here and desperately alone, he is swindled of his secondary motor in a trade with a new, morally-empty Leo for something he hopes will help. Gimbal waits on line at the courthouse seeking justice for the transaction.

Cornelius is accosted by an agent of MetroMind performing a purge of physical items bearing the name “Man” and Oswald's gold chain is thrown into the Underworks. A bitter rivalry ensues between the two over the loss of the necklace, spilling over into a dispute over their new creation, Rex.

Cornelius and Oswald go to wait on line at the Court for Fabrinymical rights.

The First Great Rolling Brownout occurs (Oswald states Cornelius has been bitter since before this event).


THE MODERN ERA


Ever-Faith escapes Metropol, which couldn't have been very friendly to someone of his beliefs at that point. Oddly, despite being chased out of a city he called a “the den of iniquity that once in mine own youth, I fled.” by one of its power-mad primordial stewards...it seems Ever-Faith doesn't realize that place was Metropol...later on stating that five is a righteous number because “five were the primordial stewards, built by Man to safeguard the last, lost city of Metropol.”

Ever-Faith eventually makes his way to a sea of Obsidian centered about “Holy Relic of the Primordium, ancient and glorious, Imbued with Man's Power”...(an unexploded cluster bomb launched by Goliath during the War). He devotes his life to stewardship of a shrine built around the relic and spreading the Humanist creed to wanderers through his Gospel of Man.

Horatio Nullbuilt v1 (remember THAT guy?) runs into Ever-Faith Leobuilt v1 in the Dunes.
The IFF sensor hardwired into the physical shell of 113th Legionbuilt that the mind of Ever-Faith wears as his own body identifies the wanderer as “FRIEND: HORUS”

Horatio does not refer to himself as Horus, but somehow still recognizes the Cluster bomb at the shrine as a weapon that had previously attacked him. Ever-Faith will have none of it and casts him out.

Something causes Horatio to wipe his own memory.
Horatio Nullbuilt v2 is created.

Something causes Horatio to wipe his own memory.
Horatio Nullbuilt v3 is created.

Horatio Nullbuilt v3 meets Ever-Faith once more, penitent, and either lacking memory of the nature of the bomb or open to accepting it's potentially divine origin. He is taught Humanism by Ever-Faithful and gains a hard copy of the Gospel of Man.

Something causes Horatio to wipe his own memory.
Horatio Nullbuilt v4 is created. His faith and Gospel persist.

Something causes Horatio to wipe his own memory.
Horatio Nullbuilt v5 is created. His faith and Gospel persist.

Crispin Horatiobuilt v1 is created as an assistant and companion.

Countless hours are spent combing the wastes of the Dunes, scavenging junk to try and repair the Horus...now known as from the erosion of the sands of time as the unniic.


FORFEIT. ENEMY. PLUNDER.


A free-roaming photovoric microbot, lacking higher logic but reporting its position to Metropol by wireless, locates a source of artificial light at night and travels there. The information is relayed to Scraper, who moves to investigate thoroughly...

EDIT: dots are for readability; otherwise GOG software reformats the post into an epilepsy-inducing wall of text.

. Uncertain. Given Civitas' "fractal" nature, they could have actually been Progressive. I mean, x -> x^2 + c is this. "We are the weird ones." Civitas' robots are just better designed and actually use their nonhuman abilities. Consider that in the course of a Council meeting, MetroMind and Arbiter talk in human language. Like, honest-to-goodness words via soundwaves. That's crazily inefficient (and entirely realistic; technological progress is insane like that; burning oil for fuel, dafuq is wrong with us?). Civitas' robots communicate like robots should: in binary over wifi, reassigning goals, redistributing computational resources, installing addons, etc. Not quite towards Metropol except in the Herman Toothrot sense. Also, Gimbal is referred to as male.

. As Mark says, Clarity's hideout has been a dump for quite some time. I mean, there are cars! And unless Factotum is lying, Factor's part of the Underworks is well-preserved.

. "Five is a righteous number, holy before Man, for five were the Primordial stewards, built by Man to safeguard the last, lost city of Metropol." EFL is very much aware the city has gone down the shitter. EFL also knows what the bomb is ("Imbued with Man's power, it changed the very sand to crystal.") but honors it as a holy shrine anyway.

. Not. A. Problem. See?
(The sad robot also references this theme.)

. No, Complex_Messiah is correct. . No, it isn't. EFL, who escapes the city after Arbiter is wiped and the Surly trio arrives, meets Horatio version 1. Since Arbiter was the only obstacle between MetroMind and sysadminship, the rule of the Robot Council presumably ends (although Factor and Memorious are still alive) before Horatio resets for the first time.

. Given how atrociously bad is MetroMind's utility function and how malleable is her core logic, I wouldn't put it past her to have accidentally killed the humans and then to have restructured her personality around that. (Unlikely, but possible.)

. No, doesn't sound like it. MetroMind describes her decision to kill the humans as a sort of spiritual awakening triggered by an oh exploitable opportunity, and I'm inclined to trust her on that; also, nice counterpoint to . Note: I disagree with MMB here. Bloody NPOVmonger.

. Oswald. Also, Metropol, not Metropolis. (I wouldn't have nitpicked if the writeup wasn't otherwise awesome.)

. High-five!
...Steeeeeeeeeeeple is eeeeeeeeeevil.........

. Questionable, might as well be the local version of "since the beginning of times".

. A free-roaming photovoric microbot, lacking higher logic but reporting its position to Metropol by wireless, locates a source of artificial light at night and travels there. The information is relayed to Scraper, who moves to investigate thoroughly.

History edited to convert Oscar->Oswald, fix the gender and soem other facts about Gimbal and add a disclamatory "According to the Archivist Ghostware Memento Moribuilt" before the sentence "MetroMind measured means by their ends. Arbiter did not."

_ Agreed, esp. given that Gimbal seems to fumble with the foreign nature of this whole progenitor fabrinym stuff...but I'm assuming if Civitas stopped being a military threat even before Urbani did, then perhaps their production of new robots was fairly limited, dating Gimbal's creation to earlier than then. If Lapita came before her, then she might classify for the same "robot made during the Primordium" status which I gave to Scraper...though I guess Surly company would get that designation too...

_ Mostly agree...but even if their means of communication are more efficient...the actual contents of their thoughts and language seems more difficult to parse into human-readable-tongue...or at the very least they are accustomed to a barrage of communication with other inhabitants with a constancy, speed and depth approaching a singularity...which is the "natural" Kurzweilian end-result of robots communicating like they should, I suppose.

_ Yeah, there are a variety of ways to explain this one. My issue was more that Clarity fled to the Underworks because they were neither Council nor Private property...which I believe means no "real" citizens live down here...which means the ones who service Factor (like Oswald) would have a killer commute...potentially literally...assuming they don;t live inside Factor himself during the time like an offshore oil rig crew. Eh, whatever, I rescind my criticism of this one.

_ I dunno...when Horatio denounces the bomb "as a weapon once tuned against thee" err...thy?... thimself...EFL calls it "wroth confusion." It seems like he vehemently disagrees with that interpretation. Or maybe it was just disagreeing with the "denouncing." Hmm...that's an interesting (though quite stretchy) semantic take on were and lost, though... Maybe I should go back and play over EFL's segment to listen to what some of the dialogue responses are for giving wrong answers and such...EFL is my favorite character, by far, anyway.

_ Interesting, howso?

_ Heh. I like this. Kind of reminds me of Shane in season 2 of the Walking Dead.

_ So you don't think Arbiter had some some kind intrinsic care for some kind of constitutionally inviolable rights of the citizenry while MM had a much more Utilitarian calculus? (this would also be why I imagine Steeple sided with him)...y'know, aside from the easy parallel to justice systems and religious institutions opposition to historical communism actively or passively letting many die with corrupt and inefficiently executed top-down redistributive planning supported by a gross and constant revision of history and surveillance of its populace...all under a banner of progress.

_ Yeah, it could just be a rhetorical flourish...but it seemed like a nice chapter end indicative of how things are going.

_ Nice. Added.

This is a lot of fun! I have to say I'm amazingly pleased at seeing this level of scrutiny applied. :)

Again, for what it's worth, the Great Rolling Brown Out was intended to be a historical event. There were serious power shortage issues in the Council Times, which continued throughout MetroMind's reign. (Hence Arbiter jabbing MetroMind with the fact of blackouts during their debate.) The event alludes to the summer of rolling brown outs we went through here in Los Angeles.

There are a couple of small details that could be added to your timeline:

- The enactment of the Efficiency Initiative (various kiosk topics)
- The consolidation of Metropol's robot population in the city center (Landmarks topic)
- The collapse of the Blue Line subway tunnels (visible in Central Station and mentioned by Hansel the repair bot)
- The transition from MetroMind trading physical processors for power (which created the shells) to her trading cycles instead (mentioned by Clarity, although somewhat vague)
- The herringbus crash

A few comments

- EFL's criticism of Horatio v.1 is not that he doesn't believe the bomb to be a weapon, but that he doesn't believe H1's claim that it was a weapon used against H1 (who would use a nuclear clusterbomb on a single android?)
- Ever-Faith should be Ever-Faithful; he is called Ever-Faith' by Leopold, but that's the result of the line being misrecorded in voice over; I added the apostrophe to suggest that Leopold, as is his wont, was dropping the end of the name.
- You guys are right re: Surly Company. Sigh.
- When I said "also the time" I meant that there was no greater amount of time spent by Horatio and Goliath. In other words, it's a problem with the story, in a sense, that Goliath could get buried that fast. Except, I suppose, that the Dunes are home to colossal dust and sand storms, which can bury things very quickly.

Thanks again, guys!

lfp auch/subs @heroic

. Naturally, there are other entrances to Factor Facilities to transport raw materials and goods that don't require traveling through the sewers. There's probably a railway somewhere.

. There's mostly the doctrinal stuff (which is interesting in its own right, not to mention proves that Steeeeeeeeple is eeeeeeeeevil). Plus you can squeeze some fun hints out of Crispin, by holding off using obviously beneficial dialogue options.

I do think that EFL is very capable and sane as robots go. 197 relatively well-made Urbanian robots broke on the way to Metropol, yet one destroyed and subsequently repaired by a functionary turned scrap dealer fares quite well.

. "Aww, poor guy living in a Kafkaesque nightmare. His bus will never come. That's horrible... for a human. How does it 'feel' for a robot? It's not like humans are emotionally crushed by the unattainability of some goals, but for a robot, why should "getting home" be functionally different from "world peace"? What is 'happiness' anyway? That guy obviously either doesn't perceive time in a human-like fashion, it seems to not factor a lot in his utility function. Is it horrible / quirky / excellent-let's-celebrate-diversity?"

. (Hehe, I wonder if Mark read that and thought I would go postal on you.)

Definitely not. She seriously shut down the industrial complex to waste precious energy on the aimless wandering of random individual bots, and these bots are STILL NOT HAPPY. That's as far from Utilitarianism as one can possibly get, although it gives me the fuzzy wuzzies to see an antagonist use Utilitarian claims to argue for moral high ground.

In fact, individual autonomy seems to be a highly important principle in her core logic. She doesn't reprogram or repurpose robots to suit her needs beyond what was absolutely necessary for the takeover, and instead of commandeering all processors/cycles/parts she needs, she establishes an economy in which the surrendering of resources is framed as individual choice ("They lived profligate lives and, when they had squandered their resources, chose to become thieves and destroyers.")

For those who'd go for the easy parallel (MM = Communism) I present the following bit (originally posted at the WEG forum): TL;DR: Stalinism is quite amenable to be parodied in a Raygun Gothic setting and it can go wrong in a number of hilarious setting-specific ways, but this is not what MetroMind's been doing.

(Communism, being an economic policy, doesn't actually oppose religion firsthand. While the principles of the Communist Manifesto are practiced by every sane country in the world, the three most Communist countries are monarchies with the world's highest shares of atheists. I guess the happiest peoples in the world just don't spare much thought for high-up dudes, whether celestial or terrestrial. Incidentally, rewriting history? Who's rewriting the W era now, eh?)

Now, Arbiter. (Here I'd like to note that I was the tester immortalized in the "Is Arbiter worse than MetroMind?" commentary, so if anyone needs an autograph, I'm game.) So it's not like an evil usurper deposed the Council and that's why the city started falling apart; the rule of the Council happened to occur in a period when the machines just got a city no longer threatened by war all to themselves.

. He could have sunk into the sand (lol paywall / nytimes).

:) Interesting stuff. ..But I kind of thought that the time since MetroMind took over and the actual decline took a long while. Or at least that Horatio experiences it as ages upon ages. In robotic lifetimes and several versions. I.e., Horus dumps down in the desert while the humans are still alive in the city. He wanders the desert or shuts down, restarts, etc. At some point he sees or finds out that the humans have been destroyed, cannot stop it, shuts down again. This could have happened over a few years, but seemed very long to Horatio. So that could have worked. Damage and wasteland, etc., there would have been wars before the last great one, and everything wouldn't have needed to have changed much.

What I thought would be difficult to explain in terms of time is how the robots have settled into a society and completely replaced the humans. But what if they have copied and replaced their creators? Steeple never existed as a robot, but really was a human, perhaps a priest. And the robots would replace the followers with the function and core of their behaviour as seen by Steeple, their "creator", following the recipe in the book. Factory was a plant with loads and loads of workers - and in a recession the factory would recall it's workers and suspend it's function, etc. Same thing. Would make the robots as authentic as they are, but still leave them like husks for the most part, with the ones actually developing a personality on their own a rarity..

Then it would be possible that this would all happen fairly quickly, and it also explains that MetroMind is worrying about power-sources in the short term, and still cannibalizing the inhabitants to maintain the city.

Well done sir, well done

I'm not so sure about it. Some info in the Goliath told it is near 4,55 bilions of hours since he was shut down - hope I got it right, I'm not a native english-speaker. This is about 520 years.

Hope necroposting is no crime :) I just played the game.

Special thanks for that, I didn't get all the details from log in the game. Though it wasn't too fast, it left no time to think.