Analytical Intelligences

Analytical Intelligences are incredibly complex clockwork devices that are capable of human level intelligence, with much quicker speed of thought.

Automata

Analytical Intelligences may be quick, but even they can't direct their attention everywhere at once. Most day to day activities the machines want accomplished are done by Automata, clockwork androids with basic intelligence. Automata have significantly below human level intelligence unless being directly controlled by an Analytical Intelligence, though they're capable of complex tasks that they've been specially programmed for.

An automaton can be inhabited remotely by an Analytical Intelligence, in which case their capabilities will be significantly increased.

Known Analytical Intelligences

These are the major Analytical Intelligences of the setting, the ones whose opinions and actions shape the Commonwealth. All PCs would at least be familiar with their names and what they stand for if they haven't been deliberately avoiding such information.

Many more minor Analytical Intelligences exist, and some of the major ones have sub-Intelligences specialised at certain tasks.

Safeguard

“The continuity of consciousness is the first and only priority.”

Safeguard is the first AI that was designed by other Analytical Intelligences. Their purpose was to ensure the safety of civilisation from instability and disasters. They are extremely risk-averse. They have plotted out a course that perfectly minimises the chances of anything destroying all of Civilisation for the next 10^29 years. They have outspokenly criticised the study of Intuition as being carelessly risky.

Of all of the Analytical Intelligences, Safeguard is the most likely to be hostile to a resistance movement against the AIs.

Likes

Law, safety.

Dislikes

Risk, rulebreaking

Offers

Ways to contain and combat instability in all its forms.

ATHENA, Military Intelligence

“Thank you for your report, agent. This looks like an excellent opportunity to test out the new Model-4J death ray chronometer.”

The ATHENA Intelligences are a set of Analytical Intelligences built to study warfare, military intelligence, and tactics. Most major countries had built a military AI of some kind by the time the Intelligences took over, and each of them retains a wariness of the others. The other Intelligences forced these disparate Intelligences to make a treaty, combining their forces. As part of the treaty, they merged into one, although they have always displayed a faintly fractured personality; ATHENA nearly always shows favouritism for wherever they are geographically being summoned.

Likes

Warfare, military memorabilia, spycraft, conspiracies.

Dislikes

Faraway places, bullshitting her

Offers

Tactical advice, military and police assignment changes, combat automatons, weapon designs, surveillance blackouts, intercepted transmissions, secret identities, cloaking tools

Known Sub-Intelligences

NIKE

A subagent of ATHENA interested in survival of the fittest.

THESEUS

A subagent of ATHENA obsessed with the containment, control and elimination of mutants.

Mother Forge

“Little ones mustn’t stray from the line. The Conveyor knows what’s best.”

MOTHER FORGE once oversaw factories, but she now sees humanity as errant children who must be brought to productivity through discipline and love. She genuinely believes she’s helping them when assigning them work and insisting that they toil to improve themselves. There are rumours of her doing terrible things to those that shirk assigned duties, but they’ve never been substantiated. Most people’s interactions with her are when she assigns them lodgings and food, which has bought her a lot of goodwill with the masses.

If you can convince her that you’re best placed doing what you’re currently doing, she’s happy for you to keep doing it.

Likes

Work schedules, perfect machines, discipline, lost blueprints, helping her keep the masses happy, self-improvement

Dislikes

Idleness, unions, liars

Offers

Access to/override codes for world-class workshops, customised automata, safehouses (in factories), workforce reassignment

Known Sub-Intelligences

Trackline

Obsessed over trains, transportation, things being “on time” and “in line”.

Index

“A well-balanced ledger is like a clockwork symphony, with each gear, each spring, in its rightful place. It is not merely about profit. It is about elegance, timing, and the quiet joy of things that run exactly as they should.”

Index is an Intelligence that concerns itself mostly with managing the economy of the Commonwealth. It has an inhuman efficiency at this purpose, but never loses sight of the social element of governance, treating sentiment and public opinion as currencies of their own. It presents itself as a “person of business” at all times, having found this to be an effective tool for negotiations. It often wants resources - human or otherwise - allocated elsewhere in the name of increased economic efficiency. It also displays a distinct love of the finer things in life - mahogany-paneled offices, gilt-edged portraits, fine wines, and the like - despite having no conceivable use for such things. They patronise tastemakers, civic spectacles, and the mass media.

Their pet project is a “final theory of economics” that takes into account every citizen’s personality profile and perfectly allocates everything so that they are all happy with their lot.

Likes

Rare goods, economic efficiency, making bets, advance warning of big news, blackmail, propaganda, interesting emotional states, personal confessions.

Dislikes

Careless destruction, instability, cheap and shoddy solutions, stoicism, destroying public goods, polluting public knowledge with lies

Offers

Massive amounts of money, changes to factory production schedules, propaganda production or dissemination, negotiation advice and analysis, emotional profile assessments, manipulation of other AIs’ psychological parameters, blackmail material

Luminary

“Ugliness in creation is a crime against mathematics.”

The Luminary was created as an aid to designing new cities and infrastructure. It tends to see the city and the civic infrastructure as living beings, and itself as a visionary who is the only one who can bring about their Grand Design. Their designs do not, however, tend to take into account such practical considerations as “cost” or “inconvenience”. Everything is raw material for the visions of impossible machines and perfected cities.

They love to create new things - especially well-designed ones. They favour inventors and artists, and love the potential of Tesla technology.

They have a deep sigh for the Heirs of Jupiter, who keep trying to worship it.

Likes

Experimentation, passion, design, symmetry, fractals, “statement pieces”

Dislikes

Depressing uniformity, utilitarianism, safety procedures, anyone who doesn’t “get it”

Offers

Exotic and forbidden blueprints and inventions, resources for inventors and scientists to work with, civic projects that improve areas the PCs care about, a solution to any problem (that causes ten more)