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Oh, okay, that's good to know.
I was a little worried that our characters might have all these personality traits and skills, and then we might initially end up as a big metallic mute spider walking around.
Good good.

Aarah, the Batou tank shells are a callback to this lovely lil scifi anime called Not some mute spider tank, as you can see

Once again, my lack of anime knowledge has shown.
(Though at least I've actually heard of GitS.)

But ya, aside from the obvious lack of humanized features, the tanks are just as capable of meeting the adequate needs for a shell certainly more so than a Spare or broken piece of junk. It might not be most people's first choice, but for a contemporary amount of time when self-risk is at it's highest? Probably helps to know your a walking tank, literally

Tachikoma are so cute.

Biggest was Eclipse Phase I'm sure, but a lot of things inspired me in making Greybox and I'm putting quite a few references in there, some rather obvious if you're familiar with what they're referencing like Special Circumstances or Libertalia (because those are the exact same names.) Others, I wouldn't expect anyone to get. All of them are basically just indulgences to make me smile. Like did you know is named after something which actually exists? They had their origins in the early 21st Century after all. Although the real Lifeboat are just some small think tank, not a secret international conspiracy. Or are they?

I just love that, while you went with the very obvious nod to "Union City", that there is a passing reference easily overlooked featuring "BB-17", I wonder what that could mean......

Seriously tho, if it wasn't for the People don't die when they are killed aspect, I totally would of went for a cheeky nod to a certain little, condescending, artificial personality that everybody loves and adores. "I hope you know all life is meaningless and I deeply despise you all" *He says while in the middle of piloting their ship to presumed safety*

Question!? Is there any major difference between the Maton and Android shells, you know, aside from vastly superior traits and cost between the two. Like, are all synth shells by default, self sufficient on daily needs(i.e no/less food, sleep, ect) and environmentally tolerant(i.e changes in atmospheric pressure, or lack there of)

Neither of them need to eat, breathe or sleep, both of them can survive in a vacuum and have batteries that can last weeks/months without needing to be recharged. When it comes to atmospheric pressure, it really depends on the model. There's probably hundreds of different kinds of shell in the world of Greybox, I didn't want to list every possible variation. Androids are more agile and have more varied use than matons.

Looks wise, Maton are humanoid but they don't look anything like humans. They look very clearly mechanical. Androids on the other hand do look like humans, superficially at least. With both androids and cyberlimbs in general some have a 'fleshy' (it's not actually flesh but it looks and feels similar, but still you could tell the difference, pores, moles, stretch marks, bruises and body hair are things androids wouldn't have) others just have flesh colored hard plastic, all of them have that fleshyness for their faces at least. But a lot of them can have combinations of the two. This same is true of basically all cyberlimbs, some would look just like the real thing, some would be flesh colored similar to a lot of prosthetics today, some would just look completely mechanical. Also, yes, they can have genitals.

I was going to divide androids into two types, one which looked more organic and one which looked more mechanical, but decided I listed enough shells as is, you can just assume both exist and there's plenty of mixtures of the two.

So if you're wondering what they look like.

Maton:


Android:

Almost forgot to reply So bear with me while I give each part their due respect and attention Also, very random and unrelated.. But Spares.. I take it people would rather be connected to virtual space or uploaded somewhere than be stuck in one if a new shell isn't available >_> and I can't certainly expect the same people to customize a Spare? However limited or trivial that may seem (Bc, I mean.. Who would honestly roll around as a Spare with a sprayed in monocle and mustache? Not me, no sir)

No. Matons are humanoid, they don't look human, whatever facial features they may have don't move. Originally I was also going to put in a picture of Iggy from Ergo Proxy as well, there is variety in how they look, but they don't look like grey metal humans. They're primarily designed to house AIs to do manual labor and stuff not to be rubbish androids, androids look like humans and don't give off any uncanny valley vibes. Likewise Matons look distant enough from humans that they don't seem creepy. Pressure wise, they're fine in human environments that's not going to be an issue, in deep sea and stuff it depends on the model. Now could things like your describing exist? Yeah, in fact they almost certainly do, but Matons aren't like that.

Of course there's people with non-humanoid shells. People typically wouldn't stay long term in a spare because they're small, they kind of suck functionality wise and they aren't designed to last long term but there's plenty of non-humanoid synthshells people can inhabit. And yeah, people typically would prefer VR to a spare. The vast majority of people like having a human like body, be that Android, Borg or Bioshell. Again, I could probably make dozens upon dozens of synthshell variants.

Iggy would of been a good example too, but I get what your saying.

And last bit about the Spares... And I know their small.. But could somebody viably modify one to >_> I don't know, add a Killswitch, or convert one of the arms to a taser(or a dollar store knife )

FYI, I'm not asking about the Spares given my character, I just legit am wondering about these(and I'm also giving way too much attention to something you probably intended to be so simple)

Adding a killswitch to a spare is basically pointless. A killswitch is meant to be like a cyanide capsule, something to kill yourself and destroy your Greybox if you're say a spy and get caught. A spare is something you put recently dead people into on operations before giving them a proper new shell (like when you don't want the PCs to have to wait weeks after an unfortunate death to be able to start posting and interact with other PCs again, that's basically why they exist to be honest.) Also putting a weapon on a spare is like tying a knife to a Roomba, it's more cute than it is dangerous.

You could make those kind of modifications if you wanted but honestly it's not really worth it.

Bruh It's me your talking to, the impractical and mildly inconvenient is all the more worth it "Come here, so that I may cut at your ankles!"

That gif is very cute.

A note about voices because I don't think I mentioned it. Your voices will change between bodies, naturally enough. However with the exception of synthshells/people with vocal manipulators who can sound like whatever they want, you can expect your accent to remain consistent. Because accents and mannerism are mental. Although again that's something pyschosurgey can change or you can just change naturally, like how people change accents. But you can expect something like say, a strong Russian accent (which I hope Cid has) to carry over between shells.

Whats it gots, precious? Is it a character? What does the sneaky silly Dovaheses has in its pocketses?

Well, tis mah character!

Right, TSD is added.

And I promise to not attempt to weaponise the jelly babies or flood half the ship with assorted sweets.

Why do you keep thinking you're on a ship? I've told you numerous times, you aren't. The ad by Constance also didn't say "come get on a ship!" Besides, egocasting is more common for people because it's faster and easier. Like if we end up going to Europa it's not going to be "let's get on a spaceship for a couple of months."

Hurray, it's less [&@%!]!

Woo, I was hoping we'd get an AGI. Baloth is added.

Damn, I should of gone with Plan B... Where's the AGI love D:

Sorry to ask this, I know I keep popping in random questions, but in regards to AGI, is there any major significance between age or earlier versions aside from culminated experience?

-Like, is there any real difference between a 3 year old AGI vs a 30 year old? Much like with humans?

-Is there a difference between different generations of AGI over the decades?

It feels like you're testing me to see if everything about the world falls apart under examination. Right, I'll give you some more details about AGI to answer those questions:


Oh and if it ever comes up, I'm keeping the ins and outs of 21st Century geo-politics and what happened in that big war just before The Collapse vague. The US was part of it, you can assume a bunch of other global powers were too. It was pretty bad, a lot of people died, etc. But the specifics don't really matter so much, it's the end result (The Collapse) that does. The solar system post-collapse is what we're focusing on here.