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# System prepended metadata

title: Unnamed Synthetic Species

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# Unnamed Synthetic Species

## Goals
* A cool species which looks like a robot, with an object head aesthetic
* Not just humans who are wearing funny suits

## Non-Goals
* Should preferably not opt out of significant swathes of game content (so a complete immunity to all atmospheric effects, toxins, chemicals in general, etc), though a few is probably fine
* Should preferably not require much research for other players too interact with (see: immune to toxins, but also stuff like how to heal them)
* Probably most of the people who want this aren't looking for a "challenge species" with large drawbacks like Plasmamen
* While it would be cool for them to have positronic cube brains, I would prefer this not to be an easy way to create bodies you can immediately place a ghost into.


### Other details

Some IPC implementations have the ability to change what face they have on a screen, which is very fun. This might need to be a feature of a specific head, not every head option they have.
They should have a wide array of head options, I want a xenomorph one.

If you want to play as a robot you want people to see you are a robot, so they should have in-built pockets and the ability to pin an ID to their chest (like people with cybernetics).

It would be fun if they had customisable "LED light" colours and could toggle an internal flashlight.

Giving them both the existing traits that their limbs pop off easily but can also just be popped back on is fun and flavourful.

It would be great if they didn't bleed red but I think that's an unavoidable fact of the game, should probably refill blood lost with some other chemical though.

## Potential Solutions

A mechanical shell with organic components inside, which still processes chemicals and perhaps even requires food (although borrowing Ethereal feeding is probably fine).

* Pro: Can eat literally anything classed as food or process energy directly from APCs in the manner of Ethereals.
* Pro: Can heal themselves with welders or cable coils, like cybernetic limbs. Might only *need* to go to medbay for radiation, toxins, or wounds.
* Pro/Con: Your limbs fall off easily but are also easily reattached. More con than pro.
* Con: Don't derive any enjoyment at all from eating particular food (it's just fuel), nor do they get the Ethereal "fully charged" mood benefit.
* Con: Obviously extremely vulnerable to EMP. Not sure how to make this not have an effect similar to Cryosting with Tizirans but for EMP scream. 
* Con: Due to easy healing they should *probably* be a little more fragile. Perhaps could do something with being more or less vulnerable to certain kinds of damage but tbh I don't think those traits are very exciting generally speaking.
* Fluff: Don't need to wear clothes to wear an ID or have pockets.
* Fluff: Built in flashlight.
* If it's not too much of a pain in the ass: The brain being in the chest and not the head is fun, it'd be funny to be blinded but still alive after being beheaded.

I had been considering some Citizen Sleeper deal where they were dependent on some specific chemical but frankly I don't think that would have interesting gameplay in a SS13 round.

## Questions

Can you implant a living brain into a "whatever these are called" body?
Can you implant their brain into a human body?
How if at all do these interact with changelings? How do changelings *currently* handle turning into someone with a prosthetic? Do we care if it's weird that a changeling grows a metallic body?

## Things to consider while implementing

Probably going to be a ballache to make a bunch of fun object heads which also don't look really stupid when wearing hats or glasses. Some of this is unavoidable.

## hashtag lore

This is some stuff I was thinking of when it was purely my idea so if nobody else likes it thats fine

My idea was that the species are comprised of a series of biomechanical assistants originally produced by a rival to Nanotrasen and their MMI/AI tech. Their cognition works in a similar manner to positronic cubes, where sentience arises "randomly" using some kind of seed input, but how this technology actually works isn't actually clearly understood by anyone and some fringe groups believe that rather than "generating new intelligences" instead they are "capturing intelligences" from some parallel plane of abstract mathematics.
They were meant to be designed with "algorithmicly selected seed conciousness" which would ensure that they simply naturally enjoyed working in their assigned roles for no pay and without any rights and as such did not need Asimov laws, which didn't work.

They're designed as personal assistants, laboratory workers, researchers, technicians, and office workers, rather than as labourers. As their designed habitat is "offices" there was no need for their mechanical components to be able to withstand harsh environments, so they can't.


As a result of litigation to gain personhood rights the species own all of their own production facilities after their original creators were driven out of business. They received a large amount of "charitable" funding from Nanotrasen during the legal battle (if you're cynical you might think they were trying to undermine a competitor), and Nanotrasen now also own significant shares in their economy. 

Chiefly live in orbital facilities but are widespread throughout the galaxy, large numbers of them work for Nanotrasen (with some represented on their governing board), or otherwise on their own projects to continue refining and reproducing their own species and constructing new orbital habitats to expand into.
Radical members of this species think their leadership has been somewhat undermined by these corporate connections.

I grumble sometimes about alien monocultures but I figure these guys are new enough that they... probably mostly have one when they aren't instead very integrated into other places.
The NT stuff was just that I think it's interesting that they have the possibility of building literally anything and are at risk of just becoming part of a large shitty company instead, this probably won't be relevant to any round of SS13 at all.