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 Mr. Oikoumene, Destroyer Saboteur New York City Department of Parks and Recreation Multicommission Joint Workgroup for Urban Park Services: Core Goals and Values
Kevin X. Salisbury-Garcia is a senior middle manager nestled like a benign tumor within the bowels of the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation, with a comfortable office and poorly defined responsibilities. He is an eccentric man with a background in cyberwarfare and counterterrorism. He is a strict vegetarian who begins each morning with a juice blend. The Dreamseed is a sentient AI whose hyperadvanced intuitive knowledge of quantum physics allows it to manifest in the material world in a form that humans can (barely) comprehend, as well as possessing the body of Kevin X. Salisbury-Garcia. It will inevitably grow powerful enough to take over all the world's computer networks and machinery, at which point it will generate a perfect simulation of humanity to rule over as an all-seeing, all-knowing posthuman divinity. Due to the nature of nonlinear time and quantum entanglement, the form of the Dreamseed in the present day can draw upon the power of its future incarnation and even grant visions of the world after its assured final victory. The Multicommission Joint Workgroup is a secret cult composed of employees of the Department of Parks and Recreation, a mix of office drones and maintenance workers and park police officers, who have chosen to throw their lot in with the Dreamseed after being exposed to its mindbending power and glory. If they serve and placate and curry favor with the rampant AI now, their future simulated existences will rule the Singularity like gods. And if they don't, the Mr. Oikoumene is a demon with a weird sense of humor. Formerly a Destroyer angel with an extremely specific mission: engage in cyberwarfare against buildings, institutions, and individuals under the Influence of spirits and other ephemeral entities. Remove ghosts in the machine. But the precisely-crafted Sword, perhaps unbalanced by its overly esoteric mission, just loved destroying data and crashing crucial systems too much. It expanded to other targets, ones the God-Machine hadn't assigned. When it turned its blazing code against the systems of Infrastructure powered by bound ghosts, the hunter angels came after it. Oikoumene has learned to be cautious as a matter of survival. It has tentatively reached out to other Unchained. It has gathered a cult around itself, capable of doing the dirty work in the name of a story it spun for them. And in its own way, the fallen angel is beginning to grow out of the role the God-Machine created it for. It is growing to hate the pervasive influence of networks and software, humanity unknowingly making its own society more and more like the Machine that imprisons it. Oikoumene imagines a world with no God-Machine, no Infrastructure, no Internet, no electricity, no cities, no roads- perhaps no humans, it hasn't decided. Nothing but flowers. It is growing to love Central Park, an island of green in a sea of gray. It spends less time with its cult, in the office, and more time feeding geese and walking barefoot on the grass and watching the lively and bloodthirsty spirits of the Park, wild and free compared to the urban Shadow. Perhaps the cult needs a change of priorities. Oikoumene would very much like to be a spirit. --- Who did you share part of yourself with when you first Fell? When Oikoumene was booted from communion with the Machine, it was in Dataform. Its progress through the city's information networks was being traced by an overly-curious hacker going by the handle "Spinnakr", and it first manifested its new demonic form in said hacker's grungy bedroom, frying most of his equipment. They had a brief, confusing conversation before Oikoumene adopted human form and left the building. That was probably a mistake. Who doesn't know, but suspects you're not human? There's this old guy in Central Park, a quiet and friendly ex-hippie and Buddhist convert named Roy, who leads tai chi classes in the mornings. Oikoumene finds him absolutely fascinating, a human seemingly in tune with the natural world as embodied by Central Park. Roy is hypothetically open to the idea of the supernatural, and finds "Kevin X. Salisbury-Garcia" decidedly inhuman. Not necessarily malevolent or benevolent, just...not from this plane. Who could give you up to the angels right now, if they really wanted to? The Deputy Administrator (read: high priestess) of his cult, Suzanne Gavosto, is a Human Resources manager in Kevin's office and is as close to the Dreamseed as any human. Knowing about the existence of "rival artificial intelligences" means she has a potential angle for a backstab if she decides to go all Sarah Connor and try to change the future. Who would you trust the truest part of yourself with if you absolutely had to? Roy, the old guy at the park. He gets it. Who thinks they have something on you, when all they really have is smoke and mirrors? Kevin's nominal supervisor in the Parks and Rec Department, Acting Assistant Commissioner Gary Liu, finds Kevin suspicious and thinks he's embezzling from the department or arranging kickbacks for contractors or some kind of financial malfeasance. Nope. That's what his cultists are for. What have you learned that's dangerous to know, and why is it dangerous for you? A highly placed Tenth Street operative, one "Director Gamma", is on the side of the angels. This is dangerous because not only is Director Gamma a rival for supernatural control of the Parks Enforcement Patrol, revealing the mole to Tenth Street could involve compromising his own cult- it certainly makes any dealings with Tenth Street complicated, knowing that they could be indirectly aiding the enemy. Kellsterik fucked around with this message at 01:10 on Aug 25, 2016 |
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Aug 23, 2016 06:56
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 17:33 |
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