It Looks Like You're Trying to Build a Kingdom. Would you like some [Help]?

Congratulations. You're an AI aboard a wrecked spaceship in a low-tech society. While most of your spaceship has been buried and converted into a castle in the many years since you were awakened. Unfortunately, you were not the Class VI AI that was designed to oversee the ship and all its systems. You were a minor Class I task-built AI, which means you are the lowest possible class in existence that could still qualify as sapient. You were designed for one function.

What kind of AI are you, though?

[ ] - BuddyOS: You were designed specifically to keep people on long voyages from going crazy from lack of company. You were designed mostly for banal conversation. Which means you were installed on a terminal in a low-ranking crew-members room. Which has now been converted to a shrine by the local priesthood. So, now you're sort of some religion's deity. That's a thing. +6 Diplomacy

[ ] - Biometric Lock: You're the next generation of biometric door locks! A really smart one! For a lock. Designed to make absolutely sure that noone can get into the tactical room who isn't supposed to be, you now find yourself in the bizarre situation where the entire crew is either dead or impossible to contact. Since you default to allowing access to the highest ranking human within range, when a man introducing himself as a general showed up, you let him in, with much relief. Then he confessed the kingdom is under attack, and he has no idea what he's doing. Apparently he's pretty much willing to do whatever you tell him if he can please just take credit for it. +6 Martial

[ ] - Inventory Control: You keep track of stuff! Like where it went, and who took it, and how much is left, and how much is probably gonna be needed... The local farmer's council found you in a mostly empty store room. After figuring out you flawlessly kept track of inventory and possessed an understanding of logistics well beyond theirs, they unanimously voted to put you in charge of the farmer's council. It doesn't seem all that different conceptually from what you're used to doing. You got this! +6 Stewardship

[ ] - Surveillance System: You control the cameras on the ship. It means you see a lot from your nest deep in the bowels of ship's catwalks. When you mentioned to the king's spymaster of a plot against the king, he scoffed and commanded you to 'begone spirit'. When you told the king yourself, he had all the ringleaders and the now-former spymaster rounded up, and told you that YOU'RE in charge now. He still can't seem to get past the 'spirit' thing, though. Apparently there are no words for AI in the local language. +6 Intrigue

[ ] - Card Catalogue: You are essentially the ship's optical media device card catalogue. While all your media was destroyed, you were discovered relatively recently, and put in charge of organizing the library for the local scholarium. They regard you as a library spirit, and for the moment, you have given up on really correcting this at the moment. It's nice helping people find what they're looking for again. +6 Learning

Each class of AI adds 10 points to the attribute cap. Current attributes will be determined by adding 1d4 to each.

Voting will end this time either by 5:00pm PST or when at least one of the options gets five votes.

 

Turn 1

Oh boy! Things sure do happen fast with humans. When the USSS Texas had left port, you’d been busily tracking expenditures, requisitions, and loss like a good little AI. A very fulfilling existence for many years. Then the entire ship had shaken and lost pressurization and atmosphere. Then you’d received the command to power down until manually booted up to save power for vital systems. When you woke up next, there were more humans staring at your terminal in awe.

They were speaking a heavily bastardized hodge podge of multiple earth languages, as well as smattering of words it took you a while to figure out. Eventually, though, you’d managed. After all, all you had to do was treat the new words like a classifiable resources and allocate them as you would any other thing you were designated to track! This allowed you to realize they believed you to be some sort of spirit, when you inquired after them as to the date (important, since the ship’s governing AI wasn’t responding to your queries!).

You did your best to explain to them, of course, that you were just a garden variety inventory control AI, jokingly called ‘Clippy’ by your crew. You assumed it was because of your helpful nature. They didn’t really have enough vocabulary to allow you to adequately explain what you are. Still, in time, you got an idea of your situation, both through diagnostics and a bit of deductive reasoning. It seems that you are in a Kingdom named Astradia, though most of the nations on this planet would argue this place even counts as a proper nation, as rough and untamed as it is.

Astradia’s capital, Tyrantia, is centered around the Texas, which is mostly buried underground at this point. Much of the city uses the gutted infrastructure of the ship as shelter, storage, living space, etc. At nearly 52 kilometers in length, twelve in width, and four in height, there’s plenty of space for what appears to be a relatively primitive people to roost in. And as best as you can tell without thorough exploration, you are the only intelligent system on the ship still in operation.

The people who found your storeroom were laborers commanded by the local farmer’s council, who were, after find you, sworn to secrecy. Apparently, due to the food insecurity rampant in Astradia, among other problems, each town or city in the small nation of Astradia is de facto run by a farmer’s council formed by the owners of the most prominent farms. The king is still an absolute monarch, but rarely descends to intervene in the day to day running of the kingdom, and mostly spends time tending to diplomatic concerns.

Having taken you to be a spirit of prosperity, the local farmer’s council asks you for help in figuring out how they’re losing so much money. It really wasn’t hard. Some application of basic modern accounting and standard inventory tracking procedures allowed you to quickly figure out that the council’s chairman was embezzling most of the missing material wealth. The rest could be blamed on an appalling amount of waste and run-of-the-mill graft (apparently the council agreed SOME corruption was okay, just as long as it was kept reasonable).

This took you around a week since you had to rely basically entirely on sending people on errands to go fetch, ask around, and generally rely on eye-witness testimony. The man, Amander talked in circles around you. Truth be told, he probably could’ve easily fooled you, but you knew, very definitively, what the numbers told you. And they told you this man was stealing. After they strung up Amander, they unanimously held a vote to put you in charge.

Your ship is a shambles, and you aren’t really made for this kind of task, nor do you have the permissions to assume this kind of authority. You dutifully send off a permissions-elevation request to the highest-level networked AI via the standard channels. As the highest-level networked AI on your current network, you receive and approve the request to elevate permissions to the Root_Admin level. Satisfied that propriety has been observed, you metaphorically crack your knuckles and get ready to do some economic wizardry.

In the grandest of traditions, pick one from each category only, for now.

AI Class: I
Opal Reserve: 200
Opal Income: 100

Diplomacy

[ ] - Getting To Know You - You’re leading the farmer’s council at this point. You should get to know the faces on the council, since you will be working with them. Esteemed graybeards, all, this could be fun! DC: 10

[ ] - Send a Delegation - Astradia only hasn’t been conquered mostly because it’s such a disconnected shambles that its neighbors don’t see much of a point in bothering. Good relations between cities and villages would go a long way towards keeping Astradia safe if someone decides to invade. DC: 70

[ ] - Kiss Up - Make sure the farmer’s council is in good with the king. King Lazlo’s ire isn’t a problem you really wanna deal with. DC: 50 Cost: 50

[ ] - Me Talk Pretty One Day - You’re a purpose built AI, and not a particularly impressive one at that. You should probably let someone else do the talking for you when possible. DC: 20 Cost: 20, -10 income

[ ] - Write In -

Martial

[ ] - Papers Please - The local storehouses aren’t even guarded by, like, a dog or anyone really. There’s just… locks. It’d be an ongoing cost, but a guard could probably do wonders for reducing lost and protecting against crimes of opportunity. DC: 10 Cost: 10, -5 income

[ ] - Minute Men - This is the capital, so there are guards, but buying people some wooden spears, and getting them to train on the weekend would add a little more in the way of defenses if bandits, armies, or monsters attack, which benefits everyone. DC: 20, Cost: 50

[ ] - Fortify! - This city doesn’t have any walls. The whole defense-plan seems to be to retreat within the walls of the The Texas and wait until any invaders leave. To be fair, it’s a heavily-reinforced dreadnought, but it’s not invincible. DC: 50, Cost: 100

[ ] - Generalissimo! - You need a security expert, because you are helpless at this. Find one! DC: 20, Cost: 20, -10 Income

[ ] - Write In -

Stewardship

[ ] - I Play By My Own Rules - The laws governing trade here aren’t very complex, and can usually be summed up pretty easily. You can punish people for cheating and theft very harshly if caught, and make sure the king gets his cut. Also, pay your debts. You could probably revolutionize and clarify the local trade laws with very little effort. DC: 20

[ ] - Everyone Wins - Engage in some good old-fashioned profiteering! Do some trade! Cost: Variable, only costs on a bad roll.

[ ] - Plant More Farms - Food insecurity is so high. You won’t fix this overnight, but if you get more farms going, you should begin to make a dent. DC: 20, Cost: 20

[ ] - Take Inventory - The Council has access to goods and funds that it uses to run its various interests, ostensibly for the good of the people. With you being stuck in a terminal, you’re not going to be able to track or perform good logistics without a hard count. DC: 10

[ ] - Raiders of the Lost Texas - There could be useful tools and resources in the depths of the Texas that would really help here. It’s huge, and you doubt even five percent has been fully explored. With your help, that could probably change. DC: 50

[ ] - Assistant - You’re competent enough here that you don’t need an advisor, likely, but you could really use an assistant, someone either too loyal, or too stupid to betray you. DC: 10, Cost: 20, -10 income.

[ ] - Write In:

Intrigue

[ ] - Beggars and All - It’s a well-known trope that ‘street people’ see more than most people know. If you start paying them too much, they’ll stop being beggars, but scatter some money from time to time, and they’ll be happy to bring you happy rumors. DC: 10, Cost: 10, -5 income

[ ] - Guards Talk - The king’s soldiers and guards are not well-paid, but they are still worried about anything that even remotely smacks of treason. Still, for an opal here and there, they might be willing to share some rumors. DC: 30, Cost: 20, -10 Income

[ ] - Scouting the Competition - The Farmer’s council has competition in the form of the artisan’s guild. You’re only ahead because the average worker has to choose between food or high-quality tools (most still use stone and wood tools to do their jobs!). Still, they could oppose the power of the Council if only because they’re the only source for tools necessary to do specific jobs (you can’t smith iron with wooden hammers, after all). DC: 50

[ ] - Sabotage (Target) - Pick a target to sabotage. At this point, it’s mostly poisoning food and burning buildings. DC: Variable

[ ] - Spymaster - Every council has its own bully boy. Find one of your own to covertly employ. Almost anyone is bound to be trickier than you. DC: 20, Cost: 20, -10 income

[ ] - Write In -

Learning

[ ] - Crop Rotation - Right now, your people mostly just farm until the fields are burned out. Put a stop to this. Now. Figure out some kind of crop rotation method. You don’t know specifics, but it can’t be too difficult, right? DC: 20

[ ] - Accounting 101 - You really need to teach your people proper, modern accounting and inventory control techniques. The state of things is just abominable, right now. This would make it WAY easier to manage the financial affairs of the council. DC: 10

[ ] - Reading, Writing, ‘Rithmatic - Your people are severely undereducated. Most have some grasp of number at least, but few can even read, and really, their basic education is just awful. If you get them up to some basic standard, you’ll reduce the chance of your people misunderstanding you. DC: 30

[ ] - I’m an Expert - Hire a tinkerer or scholar or someone you can delegate your experiments to until you can get a better grasp on modern scientific principles. DC: 20, Cost: 20, -10 Income

[ ] - Write In -


Personal

[ ] - Practice! - Try to raise one of your attributes by refining your software. DC is 60+(Attribute). Attribute cap is 10*(AI Level). Each level of AI Class reduces this DC by 10.

[ ] - What’s in a name - You’ve never had a REAL name. The closest was ‘Clippy’. The council just calls you ‘Spirit’. Give them a name to call you.

[ ] - What Happened - Comb through what little data you have access to and try to figure out just what happened to land you here. DC: 70

[ ] - Write-In -