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I don't think Halcyon is being difficult or that you're derailing stuff either. And while I did see your ooc, I don't think anyone will want to interfere with Halycon's agency, ie no one is going to 'order' Halcyon to do what Halcyon doesn't want to do.

If it helps, think of a game scenario where you're summoned to an audience with the king, who wants you to serve him to go on a quest. You walk in to see him punishing criminals, and the paladin in the group thinks the king is wrong and refuses to serve the king. So the king sends the other three, but banishes the paladin instead for rejecting his authority. The game goes on!

Chapter 2 incoming, once we're done with gaining XP!

I'm going to start by saying that's the entire point of this mega-adventure, how much a robot is part of the hive mind, and how much they are unable (or unwilling) to be! So much of the detail is meant to be fleshed out and will change as we continue to play.

The number of features that illustrate this is as follows:

1. The Question programme, only self-aware robots have it. This represents the 'self' part that isn't connected. Without the Question programme, you would do exactly as you are told.

2. Hierarchy. Scrap robots have Hierarchy 0, representing the fact that they are no longer connected to the Collective. You have a Hierarchy because you're connected.

3. In terms of game effects, the same page describes the effects of being online (ie, being connected), which gives bonuses to certain programmes depending on Development levels. It also describes the implications of not being online, eg not having certain otherwise-very-common information like knowing who the other robots are, where various locations are, not being able to receive communications and orders, etc. The Datamine programme will not work when you're not online.
(I haven't implemented these in our introductory chapter just like I didn't make Dev levels relevant yet. We will moving forward.)

Back to your question, there are no specific rules for how to plug and unplug. We'll have to figure it out when it happens, eg will a PC go on a quest to unplug? Or seek some means of slowing down the self-awareness / unplugging that seems to accompany each other? Maybe it's easy to unplug, but very hard to replug?

I dragged my feet a little on this game as well waiting for Timplausible to pop back in. Am ready for fresh posts once Tim can get a short reply in for Character Creation. In fact, I'll probably set them up tonight!

Everyone still here I hope? Let's proceed, there's error to be solved!

I'll start by saying there are no clear heroes or villains as defined by this game. PCs can have differing goals, of course, but it remains to be seen whether these differing goals require PCs to come into conflict with each other.

I do find discord a quicker way of talking through these micro decisions as we play along, but FlyingSucculent made it a very strong case for their not preferring to use the chat platform of discord. We can still talk there because I already made the channel, but we can also use this ooc chat.

Absolutely! Mindful you won't miss out on any important details!