Early ideas for ALR's lore and other characters.

I am asked about the SCYTHE character I acquired.

I haven’t had enough time yet to sit down and plan out characterization. But I do like the image of ALR meeting with him for the first time at a restaurant on the dark-cyberpunk bug planet and the bug just slurping away at sugar water when it gets to the table.

I keep imaginging the tiniest fragments of ALRs story. I should start laying it out more.

A joke is made about sugar water.

But essentially the path right now is:

• meets Diplomat and loses science team members
• rescued and put into ALR body
• wants to find missing friends
• dreams/visions from the Diplomat
• space adventure starts
• make allies including bug
• eventually gets seemingly fatally wounded but… what? his brain isn’t in the robot body? where is it then?
• reveal that he was transformed
• back to the adventure as the Diplomat tries to figure out his anomaly in its plans

I think another ally I’d want is a bigger robot too with the AI that was in the ALR body. Here’s the breakdown:

• the story follows an unnamed human scientist
• he escapes the Diplomat’s conversion
• he is rescued by a patrolling SANDR (search and rescue) unit back at the base, designation ALR
• scientist wakes up in robot body (the ALR SANDR)
• the scientist makes friends with the AI core that has been moved from ALR into a new bigger body

Funny enough Warframe’s lore is way better for what I want than Destiny’s

Asked about ALR.

ALR is just a serial number for the body

The AI core doesn’t have a name yet. It was once in the ALR body, now it’s not.

The human was once in his own body, how he’s in the ALR body.

Maybe he should get a human name, or maybe he finds ALR is fitting for what he is now and doesn’t change it.

(In other words we never find out his original name)

I need to work on making the mind bending more understandable though.

The reveal for the scientist is that:

• he was rescued but still transformed
• his Diplomat-species body is being kept and studied while his mind is remotely linked to the ALR body

Ansible technology in this sci-fi because FTL communication is swag

And probably some FTL travel too

Asked if the scientist has access to his real transformed body as ALR.

My initial thought was to not let him study it… top secret. But maybe… But could be too risky so they don’t let him.

He’s just told his human body was too damaged so they scooped his brain and moved it.

He didn’t know exactly what happened with the encounter with the Diplomat.

Also for fun… the AI that runs this exoplanet research base (and probably others) is called IAN. The Intelligent Advisement Neural-Net. And its claimed to be the one that figured out the human mind-robot interface for ALR.

Near future. Government space research.

Also because I hate other stories for doing it poorly but I imagine the base having:

• SANDR units. Independent AI cores.
• IAN units. All connected to and controlled by IAN. Essentially letting it be many places at once (a lot of sci-fi fails to imagine an AI can exist in ways a human can’t… multiple places at one)
• bigger guys (I like Titanfall, also independent)

I am asked if the people who turned the scientist into ALR want to keep an eye on how he adjusts.

Yeah. That’s how you start a mystery. Force him back to work to keep an eye but he tries to escape with once-ALR-now-bigger-guy friend. And this lack of understanding the Diplomat conversion happened makes for an interested “chosen one” for the Diplomat to wonder why he is different and hasn’t accepted his part yet. I still need to figure out exactly what the Diplomat is doing and why it’s flawed and needs to learn from ALR.

I’ve mentioned the idea of The Song (which I was so excited when I saw The Dark Crystal and it had The Song of Thra and Dreamfasting)

At one point I considered The Song is what binds universes together but… I kind of hate multiverses (and time travel) but it still needs a purpose. The Diplomat and its Converts are functionally immortal. Observing the universe and it beauty. But it needs a conflict. Discord… ha. Maybe something is killing the converts… hadn’t thought of that before.

In the [redacted] there’s also the idea of the punished. Those petrified, would be dissidents or usurpers. until they see their purpose.

A universe is so big that ideally everything storywise happens inside.

[redacted].

It’s mentioned that the real universe is unfathomably big.

Exactly

I thought about Fish and Korvin existing in this one but I think they’re better kept separate entirely.

It’s mentioned that FTL travel might have interesting implications on the cosmic horizon.

The Enders Game series (eww Orson Scott Card) had from what I recall the idea of The Outside. Allowing you to move instantaneously anywhere inside the universe. I need to explain it better. But very limited extra universe stuff.

Still a universe is big

Mass Effect was smart with just the milky way

I like scifi where most is sci and little is fi

Ansible and FTL travel are good limits

Aka Mass Effect

Maybe I’ll sticky to just our galaxy

But I need a reason for the Diplomat to be here… don’t need the all aliens go to NYC and DC trope.

Terrible knowing my best course of action is to read more books.

Again https://darkcrystal.fandom.com/wiki/Uni-Verse

God

“The Uni-Verse, also known as the Single Song, was the location of Thra, the urSkek homeworld, Earth, and countless other worlds, as well as suns, moons and stars.”

verse… song…

So good

Not like [redacted]

“Thra was given life when the Uni-Verse sang it into existence”

Hmm. Maybe The Song is a requisite for life. Aligns with the goals of The Diplomat to keep people alive to witness the universe. And again thinking maybe conversions had stopped for a while but now converts are somehow dying. Better yet maybe they’re not immortal. I’ve thought the Diplomat to be the first ever but maybe its dying too and needs a successor.

More life means more needed

Existing singers burning out, dying