Parsing a Text World environment

Subject: Parsing a Text World environment
Author: Anonymouse
Posted on: 2014-07-27 20:21:00 UTC

Well, my reasoning for the parsing errors bit is the way Cheesy.exe would be parsing the environment. While a wetware-based organism would see urple or wilver, Cheesy would get lines of data that basically fall through his RGB color format and show up as no color at all, or a "missing texture" (typical of default textures- what shows up when there's a missing texture- are magenta and a black and white checkerboard pattern), or, say, while his partner sees a (random example) "fat skinny man" as flickering between the two descriptions, Cheesy would see a glitchy mess as his environment parsing subroutine freaks out. This would also be relevant for generic surface, which shows up not as gray, but as magenta or a black and white checkerboard (You know, because even to wetware agents like humans, it's a missing-texture error)

As for Sues equaling viruses and/or glitches, that'd be when he looks at a wraith outside a host (obviously a standard Mary Sue would still look like whatever it looks like to humans, barring conflicting description or Sue colors or whatnot), or tries to understand what the Sues and Sue Wraiths are doing to the canon.

Also related to parsing would be confusion. Unlike humans, computers don't give up when they get confused. Ever. Unless you program them just right, they keep trying to fit Variables A, B, and C into an equation when there's a readily available D that solves everything, or when there is no Variable C. They get stuck in infinite loops, and whatnot. He'll probably not be able to last very long in a mission without a partner to explain to him that "Yes, the door looks 20 feet away when you look straight at it, yes, the door looks 2 feet away in peripheral vision, and yes, that's possible when you deal with Sues, now get a move on!"

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Agent Idea by Anonymouse on 2014-07-27 10:57:00 UTC Reply

I've heard of quite a few Pokemon trainer agents, but no agents that are straight-up Pokemon. Yes, this implies the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon sub-continuum, where Pokemon are shown sapient and even talkative.

The agent I have in mind is a yet-unnamed Porygon-Z, though the name "Cheesy" (Cheesy.exe?) sounds tempting. Porygon-Z and thier preevolved forms are sentient computer programs able to materialize in meatspace AND cyberspace, but Porygon-Z are noteable for being hacked versions of Porygon2, thier evolved forms. Unlike the preevolved forms Porygon and Porygon2, Porygon-Z have emotions and are buggy, prone to glitches.

Unlike most Agents, the Porygon-Z wouldn't take bleeprin or other forms of brain bleach, but instead would edit its own memories like a file, deleting things brain bleach would erase. It would be able to actually go into a partner's CAD, or petrhaps even have a CAD hacked into its software by DoSAT, causing 'headaches' and fainting instead of overheating and explosions, of course.

As for the glitches, it wouldn't be able to process Mary Sues, Sue Wraiths, and sue-related things the same way a non-software-based Agent would, instead seeing (and referring to) them as glitches, viruses, or even MissingNo.s. For instance, where anyone else would see, say, Urple, the Porygon-Z would see, say, regular magenta, or a black and white checkerboard pattern, or a pixelly glitchy mess, or anything else a computer would throw up for a missing or corrupted texture in a 3D video game.

It would also refer to other things the way a computer would- for instance, 'fainting' as 'crashing' or 'freezing' or a 'blue screen of death'.

I haven't really thought much about what/who its partner would
be, other than someone unfamiliar with technology.

Definitely worth using by 7.65x54R on 2014-07-30 13:05:00 UTC Reply

This sounds like a really interesting agent concept. It would also be cool to see him paired up with trainer agent.

We've had one digimon agent, who is kind of similar to this character, though.

What kind of moves would your Porygon-Z use? Zap cannon or Tri-attack for offense, or both conversions to generate a disguise, or perhaps protect to shield from lethal attacks?
Compiled a bios by Anonymouse on 2014-07-28 19:09:00 UTC Reply

You can find it here.

If there's anything in the thread I left out, or if you have some concrit on this, I'd love to hear it.

I Just Realized, Can He Talk? by sjosten on 2014-07-28 23:44:00 UTC Reply

I admit you have me at a loss with the Mystery Dungeon stuff, but generally the pokemon are portrayed as being basically animals. As you said, they are depicted as sentient and talkative in Mystery Dungeon, so I might be incorrect, but even the minis (save Harry Potter's) don't often talk. I'm sure DoSAT has a slew of translators and so forth, but they aren't, as far as I have seen, used/tested on animals. Like I said, this could probably be handwaved thanks to DoSAT, so it shouldn't be much of a problem, but it is something to consider, since it would be ANOTHER piece of foreign tech being implemented into Cheesy, and thus something that could fail at exactly the right/wrong time.

Scratch That by sjosten on 2014-07-29 00:48:00 UTC Reply

I just saw the "universal translator" part of your below post. Still, it malfunctioning might be funny.

Universal Translator by Anonymouse on 2014-07-29 01:36:00 UTC Reply

I just had an image of Cheesy's translator acting like a text-to-speech program with all of the weird mispronounciations.

I'm actually goimg to get a TTS to do this. Specifically the one Moonbase Alpha uses.

Cool! by eatpraylove on 2014-07-27 21:29:00 UTC Reply

I also suggest simply calling it Data, for both literal accuracy and a Star Trek: The Next Generation reference. Would Cheesy be able to search for things on the Internet? I know agents have Googled various things in the past, and it's able to show up in cyberspace, so...

How would it communicate with its partner? Built-in translator device? Silent snarking a la Gromit and Perry?

Name and intro story! by Anonymouse on 2014-07-27 22:03:00 UTC Reply

Wow, first person to realize that Cheesy was a beta name and not the final name when I wrote the OP. I'd originally typed it on a whim and added "(Cheesy.exe?)" as a potential "full name" for the character. However, it's already grown on me. A lot. And I can see how it would fit, my name on here being Anonymouse and computer mice and whatnot...

As for the Internet, that might actually be a good intro story for him. He goes to the Decrepit Lab, finds a computer that through a plothole has an Internet connection, and surfs around until he ends up in the PPC. DoSAT made sure to block him from the Internet so he couldn't run off or something with knowledge of the PPC, got him to join the PPC, installed the CCAD and Universal Translator, and sent him to be trained. And he never got access to the Internet again because it got buried under all the other Cheesy tech problems that pop up, like the 2701 glitches in his system.

My thoughts. by PoorCynic on 2014-07-27 20:15:00 UTC Reply

Your summation gave us a lot about what Cheesy can do in regards to its powers and interactions, but next to nothing about what it's actually like as a character. You tell me nothing about its likes, dislikes, hobbies, habits, or quirks of personality. You have given me no reason to care about Cheesy. That has me concerned.

As I have said before (like here, for instance), characterization must take precedence over powers. Allowing powers to take the lead in making a character will leave you with someone who is essentially a walking gimmick at best. My concern is you approached Cheesy with a mindset of "oh, wouldn't it be cool if this character could do this and this." You should make characters that are interesting. Compelling. People/creatures that you would want to read about even if they had no powers what so ever.

I'm not saying that the concept should be scrapped. It needs a lot of work, though.

Cheesy as a character by Anonymouse on 2014-07-27 21:46:00 UTC Reply

~~Wynaut~~Why not give you that now? I was actually focusing more on the idea of a character being like this and not an actual character, but I'll go ahead and make a character around it.

Cheesy is a tech nut. Anything even remotely related to technology he views as SHINY, and if he has his way, he'll crowd his RC with so much tech that it'd be impossible to get from anywhere to anywhere in it... that is unless you're Cheesy. He, like most Porygon-Z, can switch between meatspace and the cyberspace in some device with ease. Half the time he's in his partner's remote activator or CAD, or even in the console, where he can send himself from room to room via ICEP (and therefore find out that HQ's ICEP network is just as confusing as its halls). Unlike most agents, he'll be able to feel the consoles' pain when they get destroyed, because he almost always sleeps in the things.

He often makes up his own terminology for things he doesn't understand, rather than call them the same things other people do, and often these terms are taken from either his home continuum or cyberspace- the HQ is the "Server", Gods are "Legendaries", Sues are "Viruses", things like that- and he finds it extremely annoying when someone corrects him, firing back that he KNOWS what they're really called and he couldn't give a Rattatta's ass, he's gonna use the term he made.

His body and mind are a glitch filled mess. It's been that way ever since he evolved into a Porygon-Z, and DoSAT messing with his code to install the CCAD and Universal Translator only made it worse. This translates to his body being in almost constant, if blunt, pain, which contributes to a foul mood if he's not distracted, and gives him the equavalent of hallucinations if his environment parsing system skips a beat. Up until his Porygon-Z evolution (which was fairly recent), he hadn't needed to deal with emotions, as he had none. This means he finds it extremely easy to fly off the handle with rage, or break down in virtual tears (or worse, a full-blown temper tantrum), or get far too excited than is healthy, over the tiniest things. He hates every second of it, and relies on almost constant distraction to keep himself from noticing that his meatspace body is completely scrambled, or the other 2700 error messages that translate in his head into pain.

This constant distraction takes many forms, from flying around the RC, to strolling around HQ's ICEP network, to giving in to his computer-precise OCD and sorting his tech collection for the 200 millionth time, to chatting with thier console (Consoles are sentient right?) and attempting to convince the stubborn overgrown alarm clock to play various tunes instead of [BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!], to- of course- missions.

Despite his race being capable of eating, he for some reason finds the whole process of digestion repulsive, choosing to use the potions supplied to Pokemon Trainer Agents and an internal file-browsing system to heal up and forget memories instead of using the Oran Berries typical of his sub-continuum and the bleeprin used by practically everyone in the PPC.

Re: Cheesy as a character by SkarmorySilver on 2014-07-28 04:34:00 UTC Reply

Y'know, when I read PoorCynic's statement that you should think about Cheesy's character as well as his capabilities, the FIRST thing that came to mind as far as sentient computers are concerned was the sentient computer AIs from Portal. GlaDOS in particular is witty and sarcastic, if increasingly sinister and malicious, so I was intially contemplating that kind of wit for him, maybe with a little touch of Iron Man's JARVIS.

From what you've described for Cheesy.exe, however, I take it that he's surprisingly emotional and... *high-strung* for a sentient computer program. So a more accurate comparison would be to Wheatley, who is similarly neurotic and tends to blubber and go through various tics. One of the more interesting things you could work into Cheesy's story arc is that because he resides in technology and feels pain whenever whatever he's in is damaged, it translates to a constant paranoia and a reluctance to assimilate into hardware that isn't sufficiently protected. Said paranoia makes him very observant and even slight "errors" can be a jump scare to him, so combining this with the knowledge he may gather he could serve as a metaphorical miner's canary in the presence of a Sue/Stu/whatever he calls them.

I can almost hear him talking in Wheatley's voice, in fact, with that "idiosyncratic staccato Bristolian burr" that Edge magazine used to refer to the voice of the latter. Though he may alter his programming to mimic any voice at will, and of course disguises set his voice to that of the alternate form by default.

That said, reading PoorCynic's commentary on your own character concept, I'd say that him being the "Grumpy Bear" as TV Tropes puts it works fine as well, and it would make a convenient excuse for him to be a GlaDOS-style snarker like I stated initially. Maybe you could also combine that with the jumpiness I mentioned above and tie that into his being more irritable than most. I too would scrap the constant pain, as it sounds a lot like a wangst generator to me and it sounds like he could do without it. The best alternative I can come up with is that he has a few odd and occasionally annoying coding tics every once in a while (de-rezzing like Vanellope from Wreck-It Ralph, snarky error messages, rebooting at random intervals, having a subroutine unexpectedly crash, etc.).

All in all, I think you've got a good handle on Cheesy as a whole, and it's good to know that you've padded out his personality (or as much as a sentient AI would allow) for good measure. I need to do the same thing for Falchion as soon as I get some free time...

Cyberspace paranoia, Grumpy Ursaring, & Portal by Anonymouse on 2014-07-28 11:28:00 UTC Reply

I'll admit, I wasn't thinking of Portal at all. I was just thinking about my interpretation of canon for Porygon-Z, and how that might tie in to a character. But I can see how referencing GlaDOS and personality cores would make a WHOLE lot of sense in this case...

I'm not really that fond of the "paranoid" bit. I played it as he lives with his metaphorical feet in both worlds, half in meatspace, half in cyberspace. Sure, he's not likely to shut down (a 'not running' state where he's reduced to an inanimate file on a computer that can be edited and then run to wake him back up) in anything other than a well-protected DoSAT computer, as the storage medium he's on being destroyed while he's in that state would kill him, but he's more than willing to take the risk of being thrown violently and painfully back into meatspace when his partner sends a sledgehammer into the console's screen- because cyberspace just feels right to him. In meatspace he's a sort of fish out of water.

As I said in my reply to PC's comment, I'm definitely scrapping Cheesy being in pain. Besides, the occasional glitches like "hallucinations" and de-rezzing would make for a more comedy/irony-friendly approach (i.e. Cheesy getting comfortable and instead of the console [BEEEEEEEEP!]ing like you'd expect, his Universal Translator subroutine glitches and he starts [BEEEEEEEEEEP!]ing. Or something like that.

Forgot a closing parenthesis at the end. Dammit. (nm) (nm) by Anonymouse on 2014-07-28 11:30:00 UTC Reply

Hrm. by PoorCynic on 2014-07-28 01:26:00 UTC Reply

I have some concerns about his glitching. Having a nigh-constantly grumpy agent is fine; goodness knows we've got quite a few of those. Having a character be in persistent pain (even if its just a translated approximation of pain) seems a tad grim. It almost sounds like he has cybernetic cancer. You can communicate that he has glitches without going down that route: stuttering, blinking in and out, or similar.

The way you've set up DoSAT's involvement also makes me a bit ill at ease. Combined with the "constant if blunt pain," you make it sound like they installed a CCAD and Universal Translator against his will, or at the very least that they didn't know what they were doing. DoSAT are neither monsters nor incompetent (despite the running gag about the CADs). They have access to the knowledge of literally every universe you could name. I have to imagine that they've worked with AI before, both canonical and not.

Despite that, the rest of the profile seems all right. I'd be curious to see how you pull off this agent in an actual story -- mission or otherwise.

Glitching and DoSAT by Anonymouse on 2014-07-28 01:56:00 UTC Reply

Well, I guess that makes sense... but the reason I went down the pain route is simple.

Pain is our body parts sending a message that something just went wrong, right?

Well, aren't error messages like that too?

But yeah, you're right. In hindsight, it does seem kinda like cyber-cancer... I'll cut out the pain aspect, but I'll still have him be unfamiliar with his warped-due-to-evolution body to the point of even hating it at points, and I'll still throw in a few scenes where, say, his modeling subroutine (the thing that creates his meatspace body) goes even more out of whack and he ends up in an immobile wad or flashing a rainbow of colors, or where he suddenly sees something that isn't there at all or suddenly goes blind because his environmental parsing subroutine is glitching. You know, the kind of random stuff that the Rules of Funny and Irony can exploit.

As for the CCAD and Universal Translator, no, it's not anywhere near against his will. I'm actually thinking of Cheesy in the DoSAT, freshly recruited but not yet assigned to a department, seeing the various gadgets, and asking if the technicians could add them to his body as subroutines. However, I was going on the thread of "if you add something to a program after the debug controls are gone, it's that much harder to catch a glitch". As a Porygon-Z, he's already glitchy, trying to eliminate glitches all in one go would involve Cheesy on the "surgery table" of an opened text file for months, possibly even a couple years, as DoSAT attempts to eliminate not only the glitches it introduced with the CCAD and Universal Translator (oh, and the file manager subroutine, don't forget that), but also the glitches Team Plasma (or whoever created the Dubious Disk in the Mystery Dungeon games, because >no humans) introduced when he evolved into Porygon-Z. It's unfeasible and I doubt Cheesy would want to take that route anyways, so instead they have a "You find a bug, come to us, we'll fix it" setup. (I'll probably end up with DoSAT being what Cheesy goes to instead of Medical or FicPsych.)

As for seeing Cheesy in a mission... yeeeaaaahhh... I don't exactly have permission yet. (Besides, Cheesy is still partner-less.)

This is a Really Cool Idea by sjosten on 2014-07-27 17:54:00 UTC Reply

The question is though, considering how often a CAD crashes, would it really be responsible of DoSAT to put one in the Agent's mind? It's similar to why they won't put a CAD in the omni-tool from Mass Effect, citing the danger of putting such a dangerous device around an Agent's arm as the main reason.

Safety concerns / effects of CAD subroutine freeze/crash by Anonymouse on 2014-07-27 19:22:00 UTC Reply

Well, the thing is, your omni-tool CAD (or a Pip-Boy CAD for that matter) would be subject to normal overheating and explosions, the typical hardware's reaction to the CAD crashing. If the omni-tool or Pip-Boy CAD crashed and exploded, the agent wouldn't have the time (or even the ability) to let go of the CAD. It'd blow his/her/its arm off.

The thing is, Cheesy.exe's CAD would still freeze up and crash with the same bugs, but they have different effects.

When a normal CAD would freeze up and overheat, Cheesy.exe using his combined CAD subroutine (yes, I'll go all out and make it a combined CAD) would get massive "headaches", freeze up himself (i.e. a paralysis effect), or even take damage. Note that by "damage" I don't mean actual damage, but instead, Pokemon-style HP that leads to fainting, not death- in other words, willpower.

And if the CAD would normally explode or melt, Cheesy.exe would faint.

In the Pokemon videogames (I'm ignoring the anime and/or manga here, kinda like how one would ignore the LotR movies in favor of the books), fainting is not loss of consciousness. Otherwise, if you told a fainted Pokemon to use an HM move outside of battle, it wouldn't be able to. Instead, HP measures willpower, and fainting is losing the will to fight. This would translate to Cheesy.exe not being able to kill a Sue, or not being able to pick himself up and continue the mission, or even right down to not being able to fight against Suefluence, depending on how I would want to take it.

Combined with the fact that once he's 'rebooted' (fully healed) and back to normal, he can use his CAD subroutine again as if nothing had ever happened, and the fact that running the risk of fainting wouldn't be anywhere near new for a Pokemon, and it looks like a great idea to DoSAT.

Those are Some Interesting Side Effects by sjosten on 2014-07-28 17:23:00 UTC Reply

Honestly, the only thing to do then would be to make sure you did use those side effects, especially since watching an Agent submit to the suefluence could be really interesting.

That's the idea. (nm) (nm) by Anonymouse on 2014-07-28 21:07:00 UTC Reply

Re: Agent Idea by zdimensia on 2014-07-27 16:53:00 UTC Reply

http://ppc.wikia.com/wiki/Corolla

As far as an agent pairing, having someone from the Dresden universe might be too problematic. Someone from Final Fantasy X might treat him as something demonic unless they're Al Bed or from after the ending. Try Xyber 9. It's post-apocalyptic, but they don't understand advanced technology well.

I agree with the lack of Avatar agents. Even if you go forward into Legend of Korra and the steampunk setting, they're still not likely to understand artificial intelligence.
Not bad at all! by SkarmorySilver on 2014-07-27 16:19:00 UTC Reply

I guess this means I can safely spell it as "Pokemon" without having to worry about getting swarmed by minis, right? XD

Anyway, "Cheesy.exe" sounds like a really fun character, and we definitely need more Pokemon agents (Falchion, my Skarmory agent, was adapted from one of my old Internet personas for precisely this reason). In particular, I really like how it handles certain courses of action (e.g. bleeprin) differently from other agents, as well as the way it perceives the world around it as well as Sues/Stus like a computer program. It would be interesting if, at least on early missions, it had a really hard time trying to figure out the age-old question of "what's wrong with this picture" - as someone with a bachelor's degree in computer science, I can sadly attest from experience that computer bugs take for-freaking-EVER to hunt down and correct.

The idea of a CAD being programmed into Cheesy.exe's software would also make for some pretty fun times as well - it would save DoSAT a few extra headaches, no doubt. I also have a humorous picture of it detecting a super-OOC canon and just spazzing out and sparking before going limp a la Death-Note-style heart failure, after which the other agent would have to revive it with either a Max Potion or some jumper cables hooked up to a car battery. It would make for some interesting black comedy, if nothing else.

The Mystery Dungeon sub-continuum would be pretty interesting to derive characters from, but Pokemon-speak would still be a notable barrier to work around. The programming of a Universal Translator may also have to be installed as well, so that Cheesy.exe can communicate in English or the language of choice. One must also consider the prospect of disguising it as well, which may allow it to speak the language of the form it's in.

As for a partner, I'd recommend someone from a magic- and fantasy-based world, like Harry Potter or D&D, maybe even Avatar (the cartoon) because we need more agents from that continuum too. The science and magic dichotomy would make for some very interesting interactions, and I can totally see Cheesy.exe trying to figure out this magic thing and failing as much as its partner tries to figure out the coding and glitches that it keeps talking about.

Overall, your agent concept is a solid one, and I'm sure it'll make for some fantastic and hilarious writing. Please make Cheesy.exe a thing, pretty please! :)

More like a single mini that's been everywhere by now. by Outhra on 2014-07-31 23:53:00 UTC Reply

One misspelling, no matter how many times it's repeated, always creates the same mini. Otherwise we'd have dozens of minis with the same name for common misspellings, and that would just be a mess for the adoption agencies.

This all reminded me of something. There was a thread a while back, I think a few months before I vanished, that proposed that minis would increase in mental power if they were invoked enough times or in a significant enough capacity. In that context, it was about "canonical" minis (misspellings that pass by the editors somehow and wind up in a finished work, i.e. the mini-Gohma "Knox" or the mini-Luggage "Sibyl"), but by that same principle, since the mini-Missingno "Pokemon" has been spawned hundreds of thousands of times, across the Internet and elsewhere, it must have accrued a massive amount of intelligence by this point. Even though I doubt it's been used in a canonical capacity, it's had a monumental amount of exposure to the readers of the world at this point.
To give that its logical extension, somewhere in the Pokémon multiverse, constantly being ripped from fic to post to list to blog, there is a single glitched mini, now made not only sapient but super-intelligent by its constant invokation. I'd imagine that said intellect combined with the fact that it's constantly being ripped across Word Worlds rapidly and incessantly has by this point given it at least some level of meta-cognizance, which would be extra-fun. If BBC-Sherlock can figure out he's a fictional character within minutes of being trapped in a plot hole, think of how much easier it would be for a being not only detached from reality by virtue of its species, but because of the many worlds of varying quality it's constantly being pulled into.

Okay, that probably isn't nearly as interesting an idea as I'm currently thinking it is, but I'd bet someone could make a plot device out of that at some point.
Looked it up. Looks like we've got a job on our hands. by Anonymouse on 2014-07-28 00:19:00 UTC Reply

Said job being to wrangle up all the Mini-Missingno. this thread alone has created.

Because according to the PPC wiki, the Pocket Monsters (using translation of Japanese name to avoid minis) continuum is "particularly susceptible to Minis" due to all the names with the accented E, like- no, I'm not gonna give examples, we already have too many mini-Missingno. floating about.

I say that we place one spelling aside- say, no accent, or apostrophe-E, or E-apostrophe- as an acceptable, won't-generate-minis solution to this problem, as practically nobody in good old America (except for those who type in Spanish or something) has a keyboard capable of placing down an accented anything (unless you use an Android or Apple device with onscreen keyboard, but nobody's gonna type a fanfic on a phone or tablet.)

I propose the no-accent whatsoever version, as a good look around the Net shows that it's what most people that don't have accents use. Besides, a search for the no-accent version in Google (or the Wiki, for that matter) also turns up the accented version, and vice versa. Don't think you can say the same for the apostrophe versions.
mini-Rayquazas, parsing the world, CCAD, PMD, and partner by Anonymouse on 2014-07-27 19:52:00 UTC Reply

Okay, that's it, "Cheesy" is a nickname.

Well, without the accented E anywhere on an American keyboard, I'm forced to spell it as "Pokemon". Besides, half the Internet uses "Pokemon" for that exact same reason. But I can see where you're coming from.

On the subject of finding computer bugs, you're right, it does take FOREVER to find a bug in a computer program you're debugging. I have firsthand experience- a 0 instead of an O and you'll be sitting there forever trying to figure out where in the name of Arceus the problem is. However, why are you trying to find the bug in the first place? Because the computer threw up an error or something freaky happened. While Cheesy might not be able to pinpoint exactly what's wrong with the picture at first, he'll know almost instinctively that something is wrong.

On the subject of the CCAD subroutine (yes, it'll be a CCAD), that was the plan in and of itself, although I was thinking more Cheezy trying to read to his partner the results, going faster and faster as the subroutine freaks out, maybe even twitching a little, and the partner having to physically slap him to snap him out of it- or, if he happened to aim the subroutine at a wraith, having a BSOD-style stop error (read, fainting). So yeah, the partner would carry a bottle of Max Revives or something.

As for the Mystery Dungeon sub-continuum, I was actually thinking his being from there for language compatibility reasons. Then again, Pokemon from said sub-continuum are substantially more, ah, sapient than thier main-continuum counterparts, so I'll still go with PMD. As for actually breaching the language barrier, we're already going with Cheesy having a CCAD, might as well have a Universal Translator installed as well.

And finally, partner. I'm not as familiar with the canons you brought up (except Harry Potter, but I'm not much of a Potter nut), so I wouldn't be able to do them justice. However, the prospect of Cheesy and the partner confusing each other with science and magic is admittedly a fun one... perhaps a unicorn from MLP?

I always try to use "Poke'mon". by AdmiralSakai on 2014-07-27 20:30:00 UTC Reply

I'd nominate a partner from the Myst universe. That universe uses a pseudomagical system where books written in a formalized, descriptive language similar to a high-level programming language can be used to travel to the places they describe. Such a partner would have a good understanding of Cheesy as a being defined by executing instructions, even with little comprehension of modern technology.

Partner by Anonymouse on 2014-07-27 21:24:00 UTC Reply

Ehh, "Poke'mon" is a bit of a stretch for me. And the concept was to have them not understand how each other worked, or what one was talking about. Myst wouldn't really be a good choice in that regard...

Besides, I know literally nothing about Myst's canon...

How many of us are CS, anyways?! by AdmiralSakai on 2014-07-27 16:36:00 UTC Reply

Lest this thread dissolve into an impenetrable technical dissertation, I'll keep questions of things like what level of hardware support is required for a CAD program* to a minimum, and instead just say how fond I am of the idea of Cheesy.exe actually perceiving Sues as fundamentally foreign to our reality, literally impossible to parse.

*As I understand the Porygon line, their "bodies" are themselves somehow determined by software, so in theory Cheesy.exe could manifest any physical object so long as (s?)he had the appropriate software.

Parsing a Text World environment by Anonymouse on 2014-07-27 20:21:00 UTC Reply

Well, my reasoning for the parsing errors bit is the way Cheesy.exe would be parsing the environment. While a wetware-based organism would see urple or wilver, Cheesy would get lines of data that basically fall through his RGB color format and show up as no color at all, or a "missing texture" (typical of default textures- what shows up when there's a missing texture- are magenta and a black and white checkerboard pattern), or, say, while his partner sees a (random example) "fat skinny man" as flickering between the two descriptions, Cheesy would see a glitchy mess as his environment parsing subroutine freaks out. This would also be relevant for generic surface, which shows up not as gray, but as magenta or a black and white checkerboard (You know, because even to wetware agents like humans, it's a missing-texture error)

As for Sues equaling viruses and/or glitches, that'd be when he looks at a wraith outside a host (obviously a standard Mary Sue would still look like whatever it looks like to humans, barring conflicting description or Sue colors or whatnot), or tries to understand what the Sues and Sue Wraiths are doing to the canon.

Also related to parsing would be confusion. Unlike humans, computers don't give up when they get confused. Ever. Unless you program them just right, they keep trying to fit Variables A, B, and C into an equation when there's a readily available D that solves everything, or when there is no Variable C. They get stuck in infinite loops, and whatnot. He'll probably not be able to last very long in a mission without a partner to explain to him that "Yes, the door looks 20 feet away when you look straight at it, yes, the door looks 2 feet away in peripheral vision, and yes, that's possible when you deal with Sues, now get a move on!"

Re: Parsing a Text World environment by zdimensia on 2014-07-27 20:44:00 UTC Reply

I don't know much about computers, but I did encounter a bunch of scifi in the 90's where they could program AI's to recognize loops and throw them out.

Did you ever read the story about the AI that was asked to design a faster-than-light ship? It was a three-rules computer, and a different one completely fried because it determined that FTL travel would kill the humans inside the ship. The second computer was somewhat child-like, and they coaxed it one formula at a time and kept reminding it that they would accept failure. The second AI grew a sense of humor when it realized that the people would only die temporarily. The test ship was stocked with nothing but baked beans and milk in unlabeled cans, though the cans were all different shapes.

Let me expand on that point. by Anonymouse on 2014-07-27 23:10:00 UTC Reply

You do have a point, and one I'll end up using- Cheesy's sapience and handle over his emotions and stuff like that can (and now will) evolve over time as DoSAT fixes various bugs in his programming (Question, do we already have a character in DoSAT that specializes in software or would I have to make one?), he learns more about this expanded multiverse, things like that.

Also, the sense of humor thing gave me an idea for Cheesy not knowing about humor at first, but eventually developing a sense of humor, like your second AI did.

Re: Let me expand on that point. by zdimensia on 2014-07-27 23:15:00 UTC Reply

I noticed that Corella is going to become a FFU Dosat soon. Perhaps you could read up on her and see if she could mentor him.

Grab that mini-Agent! by Anonymouse on 2014-07-27 23:45:00 UTC Reply

I was wondering why it wouldn't pop up in the Wiki search, but then I remembered that you mentioned her before and sure enough, that's a Mini.

Anyways, Corolla would be a good for a coder that Cheesy could go to for various bugs, and could even be blamed for the CCAD and Universal Translator subroutines in the first place, but a mentor...?

I was more thinking that Cheesy would be in the Department of Floaters, not DoSAT. You'd need an agent mentor for that wouldn't you?

...

What are we supposed to do with mini-Agents, anyways?

Re: Grab that mini-Agent! by zdimensia on 2014-07-28 00:08:00 UTC Reply

Yeah, I don't spell good. I think minis from the board are a joke.

When I suggest Corolla as a mentor for Cheesy, I'm suggesting something akin to a therapist/patient relationship. Though this might be more akin to physical therapy than mental.

Basically, they wouldn't be a team... Cheesy would go to Corolla while a normal agent would go to Psychfic, Medical, or down Bleep Products.

Cheesy would still have an annoying meatsack with analog thinking bothering him during missions.

Minis and Dr. Corolla by Anonymouse on 2014-07-28 00:34:00 UTC Reply

Well, it's supposed to be a joke. You're not referring to the person or place you attempted to name, you're referring to something else- the Mini. So unless it's the Mini-Missingno. that fly out of the English name for the "Pocket Monsters" franchise (That's a post on another part on this thread)...

Anyway, back to Cheesy and Corolla. First off, it wouldn't be just physical therapy or just mental therapy, it would be more ahh... both of those combined with surgery, since she's dinking about with Cheesy's innards (i.e. the code)? Yeah, sounds about right.

Second, I already mentioned him deleting the worst of his memories with a filesystem subroutine (from now on it will be referred to as "bleeprin.sub")... perhaps I could add that bit in after a few missions?

Like, he reluctantly tries Bleeprin, only to discover that it doesn't work because his "brain" is structured so differently from a normal brain- and instead it actually corrupts a few lines of code. The code happens to be his modeling subroutine (the one that defines his meatspace body) and he ends up in wrapped in an excruciatingly-painful ball. He's sent to DoSAT, where Dr. Corolla fixes him up and after he tells her what happened, she writes bleeprin.sub and installs it... causing a few more glitches a few missions afterwards.

Other than that, I'm agreeing with pretty much everything you said. (Other than "mentor" meaning "doctor". In my book that still means "teacher"...)

...

I just realized that "Dr. Corolla" sounds like a strange mix between a Dr. Pepper knockoff and a brand of beer...

Re: Minis and Dr. Corolla by zdimensia on 2014-07-28 01:01:00 UTC Reply

I would suggest Suebuprofen because he's birdlike.

Then again, given his negative reaction, regular bleep products might drive that scenario anyway.

Sorry if this is weird or funny, but I'm starting to think of Corolla as Cheesy's acupuncturist. She's good, but it's not completely in the realm of mind or body.

Suebuprofen and... acupuncturist? by Anonymouse on 2014-07-28 01:34:00 UTC Reply

Well, the thing is, I kinda already established a secondary reason why he wouldn't use an oral medication like Suebuprofen or Bleeprin...

Also, according to the Wiki, Suebuprofen is made because of the adverse effects aspirin (a component of Bleeprin) has on Time Lords, as well as Bleeprin wreaking havoc on avian... respiratory systems.

Doesn't really cover adverse effects brain bleach products in general have on code-based lifeforms. And besides, the filesystem thing cuts down on costs.

And as for the acupuncturist thing... ehh, I'm really seeing it as her being some fusion of a surgeon, a chiropractor, and a psychiatrist/psychologist/psychwhateverist.

Re: Suebuprofen and... acupuncturist? by zdimensia on 2014-07-28 01:49:00 UTC Reply

The fusion is what I was trying to get at with acupuncture. Basically mind/body/energy. It's mildly related how a dentist could strongly suggest getting checked out for other problems like heart disease and diabetes.

I'm not really seeing it... sorry. (nm) (nm) by Anonymouse on 2014-07-28 01:59:00 UTC Reply

Just go back to Corolla can fix his ills. (nm) by zdimensia on 2014-07-28 02:07:00 UTC Reply

Ehh. by Anonymouse on 2014-07-28 02:16:00 UTC Reply

Want to go to a different part of the thread, like to the backstory or personality bits? This lane of conversation feels a bit milked...

My two cents about Corolla (Being her creator and all) by Sergio Turbo on 2014-07-28 20:03:00 UTC Reply

I'm not sure Corolla would be a good "medic" - in fact, I always saw her more fit with handling magitek stuff and regular maintenance/repair.

(The consoles gaining sentience after repairs done by Corolla are NOT caused by her on purpose. Maybe. You never really know with her.)

Sorry to scare you, Sergio. (nm) by zdimensia on 2014-07-29 17:10:00 UTC Reply

Hrm by Desdendelle on 2014-07-30 13:32:00 UTC Reply

I don't think Sarge is scared. I think he's a bit worried you've got Corolla's character all wrong.
Have you read his missions?

Re: Hrm by zdimensia on 2014-07-30 14:18:00 UTC Reply

I remember reading one, but the rest are on my list. I've got some badfic to sort through because all my projects are in fermentation right now.

There you have it. by Desdendelle on 2014-07-30 16:43:00 UTC Reply

Vaguely remembering one mission is not enough to get the hang of a character. You shouldn't have suggested Corolla without knowing more about her (and then you'd have not suggested her anyway because she doesn't fit what you/Anonymouse had in mind, anyway).

Re: There you have it. by zdimensia on 2014-07-30 16:59:00 UTC Reply

I'll keep that in mind. If my brain hadn't fried I probably wouldn't have gone past "I noticed that Corella is going to become a FFU Dosat soon. Perhaps you could read up on her and see if she could mentor him."

Re: My two cents about Corolla (Being her creator and all) by Anonymouse on 2014-07-28 21:13:00 UTC Reply

Well, there went scenes with Cheesy and "Dr. Corolla". (Not to say I don't appreciate the original creator of Corolla making sure she's in-character.) I guess I could just offscreen such things until a good character for that pops up.

Besides, I have a bigger problem at the moment- finding a partner for Cheesy.

Interesting story, and you have a point. (nm) (nm) by Anonymouse on 2014-07-27 21:38:00 UTC Reply

Worth exploring. by AdmiralSakai on 2014-07-27 14:50:00 UTC Reply

I don't think we've ever had a software-based Agent before, and there are very few mechanoids. As a computer scientist active in AI, I'd like to see more of both, and a Porygon-Z seems a good way to make that happen.