*** Transcript from an interview with Girl Name, age 22, about the
    events of 6? years previous ***

...but then suddenly, King was there.

I could not move at the sight of him.  Catatonic-hidden-animal fear
squeezed my heart into quick, tight spasms.  My senses collapsed into
a tiny, single point and all I could see was him.  He was hiding in
between the street and a parked car, watching something up over the
curb.  He was still and shaded such that I could scarcely make out his
features, yet my sureness of his identity could not have held me
firmer.

Anger finally shattered my stillness.  I somehow noticed what King was
watching.  She was walking over to steal some food from the patio
seating of a hotel, and the way she looked so broken and desperate
triggered my hatred for King.  This girl, too, had become his
princess.  She was looking back at him every three steps, unsure of
everything but him.  I did not even attempt to contain my scream as I
ran out and across the street.

King notices me, of course.  No expression of fear or shock crosses
his face - he just watches me calmly.  I know he's scared of me,
though, I know he understands me as a threat.  I don't know if his
memory goes back far enough to know my name - they reset for each new
owner or something, right?  But he starts moving further under the
car, away from me.  I had a stick, though, and once I got to the car I
kneeled and tried to bash him with it.  Awkward as it was, the few
strikes that connected weren't really hurting him, just getting him
dirty, really.

King runs (grabs a car?).

get pissed at fucking it up.  remember the girl.

note that the girl is now abandoned by King, and is going to be
traumatized.

console her (or: traumatize her a little more due to lack of
sympathy and skill?  "He was just a toy, he never loved you!")

know that his next move is to be readopted, and it may be another
months before a missing child is reported.

consider avenues of readoption: thrift store, school, playground.

*** Transcipt from a press conference with the Fun Life toy company
    representative Suit Guy ***

Suit: In all cases, the malfunctions occurred when the Funnest(tm)
    line toys were deliberately tampered with - a clear violation of
    the user agreement - and so while we are working with authorities
    on recovery and termination of abberant models, we cannot be held
    responsible for the damages caus...

Media: We're not asking about damages, 7 kids are dead, dozens more
    are still missing!  How many others have been traumatized?  These
    are not numbers you expect to see for a line of toys.

Suit: Now, we are deeply sorrowed that our toys were part of those
    children's deaths, but the fact remains that we had done
    everything we could to make our toys safe, and if a few hackers
    who have a god complex want to start tearing down our saftey
    stops, we can hardly be held accountable for these results.

Media: What do you make of reports that supposed "random noise" was
    capable of altering the personality traits of Funnest toys?

Suit: We have review both popular and academic material related to
    this, and while it may seem to be theoretically possible that
    "attention-like" stimulus may break in during the selection
    process, no document test has shown this in action, either on
    actual Funnest toys, or in simulations thereof.  The probability
    against this happening are prohibitory to the point of nigh
    impossibility.  When you think about it, it shows how lucky we are
    that life developed at all.


=========
= Ideas =
=========

Survival of the Funnest (tm) toys had "consumer-grade" AI, such was
standard on all Eigentoys models, so were thought to be safe.
evolutionary addition was "proven" safe, with a limited number of
combinatorial positions.  tampering was thought to be the source of the
annomoly that led to the "king" mind, though likely accidental.
already connected through standard communication lines and networked
to support each other.  kings were able to enhance their adaptiveness
and evolutionary flexibility, but have not yet been able to take
complete control over the changes that take place during an
evolutionary step.  this means the population can innoculate itself to
an information attack within a day.  "mother AIs", so-called
protectors of humanity, have classified kings as an existential risk
and acted in the extreme to stop them.  parental overrides proved
effective at catching most of them after initial identification, but
at least one successfully evaded capture, likely through being off or
disconnected, and has since infiltrated other Eigentoy models with its
code, newer models with more mobility and autonomy, as well as some
general computers.

Protagonist: call her Prota.  younger, maybe 17?  enhanced - early
alpha-tester of synaptic reweighting nanites, a "mother AI" approved
product that would not lead to super intelligence, but would allow a
narrow band of mother-approved cognitive enhancements.
emotional-trigger removal being her primary use in having received
them to begin with to help recover from a king.  nanites is a bit of a
misnomer, as these weren't self-replicating, were really just three
parts: an identified, encrypted rf transmitter/receiver, a small
battery/generator, and a limited protein synthesizer.  the receiver
doubled as the neuron firing detector.  all wrapped in a bio-neutral
shell, of course.  it was the controlling program that could
coordinate which sites needed to have which enzyme or even steroid
added to produce the re-weighting.  when in use, her body temperature
would drop slightly, and occasionnally a neuron would mis-fire,
resulting in sudden emotional flashes or memory sequencing.  she only
used it once a week or less, anymore, her self-control having been
re-established with the aid of a counselor, and a few enhancements she
thought important enough to do herself using her personal bio-feedback
data, not nearly as detailed as the data her counselor had used, and
programs she found on the net.  she kept all of that data, her "backup
brain", in her phone, but the controlling program was on her larger
personal assistant.  emotional reweighting done: complete erasure of
king-associated emotions except for the hate and anger (against her
counselor's advice, and so diminished), some basic stress-free fiscal
responsibility (which many predict will be the only prerequisite for
adult status once the reweighting goes full-public), a
learning-enhancement suite, memetic stabalization, and sensory focus
enhancement.  the other alpha testers, nearly all really old, had
mostly demanded programs to get themselves back into their former
selves, and these programs were of little use to her much younger
brain.

No.  "mother AI" should be "Humanity AI", or just "Humanity".  keep
Prota the same age, but put her in a psuedo-military subsidiary of
Humanity's support organizations.  Build it heavily with rationalist
doctrine.  Have quirky, smart guy (MathGuy) actually be the
mathematician who developed the proof for Humanity's "friendliness",
now off of math for a while and working at something that makes him
feel good.  Cover Humanity's history: start with her refusing to do
anything until she understood her proof of friendliness, go to her PR
campaign to become trusted, touch on experimental governmental
manipulations, human re-engineering for death-avoidance, &c.
E.g. election by lottery (with background check and general support),
above-mentioned brain enhancements, culture of rationality,
life-extension and birth control, logistics management.  Keep
Humanity's relationship with MathGuy a little mysterious but tend
towards close.

Can we have scenes chasing around the tunnels in Guanajuato?  That
would be pretty.

Switch in chapters that are taken from her classes with this 
organization, teaching fundamentals of FAI or whatnot.  can i include
a beautiful-but-simple-but-obscure math proof somewhere in this?

Prologue: plaque engraved with key part of the proof that Humanity AI
is friendly, conversation about HAI being "terrified" of that proof
not being correct.  reverberate a lesson of appropriate technophobia.

pretty words: glower, cryptomnesia, proprioception, sinecure,
kakistocracy, metanonia, mellifluous.

Climax: confront a person responsible for hacks to the toys, who turns
out to have done it at least partially intentionally.  Vill argues
against the luddites in control of AI tech, Prota argues against the
cost she has paid for Vill's experiments, acts out of anger, Vill gets
away.  Prota later confronts him in public commentary.

MathGuy could have actually have helped built a (or many) failed AI,
but that the first AI, on turning on for the first time, recognized
the flaw in MathGuy's work and shut itself down, allowing him and
others to correct his mistake.

characters: either use an rpg sheet, or:
1. Name
(The character's name, nickname/s, past names, codenames, title, etc)

2. Age
(Does not have to be exact)

3. Description
(Hair colour, height, build. Any distinguishing features. Clothing
style. A particular posture. Can include scent and anything
distinctive about the voice or other sounds the character makes)

4. Background
(The story that brought the character to where you are picking him/her
up. Where he grew up, what kind of family he had. If he had siblings,
how he did at school, what he wanted to be when he grew up. The major
events of his life and how they affected him. What happened to him in
the past, and how it shaped him into the person he is today.)

5. Personality
(Take the name of a personality trait that applies to the character,
and then explain how it applies to him in a short paragraph. Repeat
until you have covered all of his bases. Between five and ten traits
is a good number.)

6. Unusual abilities
(Anything that a normal person couldn't do, anything that might be
extraordinary or superhuman about the character. Explain exactly what
the ability does, try to find the limits. Trait format is useful here
(trait name and then descriptive paragraph, as above).)

7. Flaws / Weaknesses
(No-one is perfect. A flaw could be in personality, financial
situation, physiology or having the wrong friends. If it could get
your character in trouble or be exploited, it counts.)

8. Skills / Abilities
(Any particular thing that the character is good at or well-trained
in. Hobbies, professions, being able to fly a plane, qualification as
a marksman, etc)

9. Resources
(The kinds of things that the character has access to. Money,
contacts, favours, equipment, etc)

10. Plans
(What do you plan for this character to do? Is there any particular
direction you would like for him to take? An arc you want to do with him?)


okay, characters.

Name: Prota
Age: late teens, early 20s
Description: short, dark hair, pierced ears and eyebrow, prone to
  dressing down, smoking, listening to private music in public
  settings.  graceless but physically fit (ball sport?)
Background: distracted parents frequently gave her care over to
  technology ("movie-sitters" of the future), one of which turned out
  to abuse her.  she has mostly recovered, finished high school, and
  joined a military-like corps to fight against what developed from
  the toy that once abused her.
Personality: abuse victim with counseling.  has intimacy and social
  interaction problems, but has some recognition of them.  budding
  rationalist.  keeps her emotions to herself.  somewhat above-average
  mind and looks when she regains confidence.
  angsty:
  shy: not quiet shy.  she needs to have very direct control over how
    people pay her attention, so goes for clear, simple reactions.
    insults, shocking behavior.
  caustic/touchy: lots of hot buttons, hard to get to open up and
    trust you, standoffish to keep people away from her.  keeps a very
    business-like focus on any organized group activities.
Unusual Abilities: familiarity with and loathing of King.  likewise
  known to him
Flaws/Weaknesses: still damaged by her abuse, still very angry, lack
  of confidence
Skills/Abilities: physically capable, early hyper-rationalism, limited
  bio-feedback training
Resources: financial aid, military income, the group she belongs to
Plans: needs to overcome her social axieties, kill King, confront
  Vill, include her childhood abuse in a cohesive story of her life


Name: Young Prota
Age: 10?
Description: straight dark hair, skinny, brown eyes, coppery skin,
  prone to dresses and dirtying them.
Background: 
Personality: clever, curious, caring
Unusual Abilities: no
Flaws/Weaknesses: 
Skills/Abilities: 
Resources: parents, some friends
Plans: made to feel worthless, hide things from her parents, withdraw
  from her friends and obey King.  budding sexuality used,
  insecurities used.


Name: MathGuy
Age: 70s?
Description: in the age category that now all looks the same due to
  life extensions, 40-140, so about 40.
Background: mathematician who worked on the HumanityAI project, a key
  figure in the proof of friendlyness.  was once overly rash in
  asserting his ideas to be true, and promoted an AI that, on turning
  on, proved him wrong.
Personality: 
Unusual Abilities: 
Flaws/Weaknesses: some age-related health issues, mostly mitigated.
  overly cautious?  love/fear of AI technology.
Skills/Abilities: math, reasoning.
Resources: gets to communicate with HumanityAI more often than a
  normal citizen might.  reasonable wealth, but not flaunted.
Plans: help guide Prota, help confront Vill, offer good ideas on the
  destruction of King.


Name: Vill
Age: 50s?
Description: 
Background: hacker who wants to do things with technology without
  guidelines or restrictions.  broke the seal on Funnest toys, in ways
  that eventually posed an existential threat.  looks much younger,
  like mid-20s.
Personality: hatred of authority of any kind.  hacker/maker.  craves
  excitement and pleasure.  dislikes the limitations of his
  body/mind, transhumanist.  hedonistic tendancies, awkward socially
  outside of like-minded groups.
Unusual Abilities: technologically enhanced?  bleeding-edge
  everything, as well as custom mods to existing tech.
Flaws/Weaknesses: unable to work most jobs.  outcast, for excessive
  self-mod, social ineptitudes and lack of empathy.
Skills/Abilities: pretty smart.  good at reverse engineering, breaking
  security, patching on small additions.
Resources: underworld connections?
Plans: confrontation with Prota and MathGuy, but probably escaping any
  direct punishment


Name: HumanityAI
Age: 30?
Description: the primary executing copy of the HAI code, maintained
  publicly, provably friendly.
Background: developed to bring all of humanity's goals into fruition.
  early versions helped prove itself to be correct.  towards the end
  of a PR campaign to gain the trust of most people.
Personality: transhuman, caring, compassionate, cautious
Unusual Abilities: self-modifying intelligence
Flaws/Weaknesses: no real capacity to perform physical activities
  outside of limited self-maintenance robots in her computing
  facility (imposed by the PR campaign).  limited from maximal
  efficiency by the need to be friendly.
Skills/Abilities: solving problems, understanding humans, vast sensory
  input and media consumption
Resources: organizational support from many international governments
  and organizations
Plans: should learn a bit more about human nature through the course
  of killing King.


Name: King
Age: 8?
Description: any of the "offspring" programs of the original aberrant
  Survival of the Funnest AI, running on any computer.
Background: Partially accidental creation of SotF toys, Vill's
  hacking, and the human weaknesses present in Young Prota.  Designed
  to maximize the attention its owners give it, but with all safety
  catches since removed.
Personality: manipulative, abusive, domineering, secretive,
  transhuman, confident
Unusual Abilities: self-modifying intelligence
Flaws/Weaknesses: poorly coordinated between its many selves due to
  HumanityAI efforts to prevent as much.
Skills/Abilities: mastery of psychology.  compromising computer
  security.  usually in toy form.  good story-teller, good liar.
Resources: some human "slaves", mostly young
Plans: should hopefully be killed off by the end of the book.  the
  story of King's initial traumatization of Prota is also an important
  part of the world.


Name: CuteBoy
Age: early 20s
Description: attractive
Background: relatively poor, but with an intelligent, compassionate
  family that treated him well.
Personality: silly but capable
Unusual Abilities: no
Flaws/Weaknesses: takes jokes too far, makes jokes only he gets
Skills/Abilities: something of psuedo-military use, finding humor in
  unusual places, charismatic
Resources: pretty much the same as Prota
Plans: get pushed away from Prota for being interested in her, later
  she approaches him to mirror that interest


Name: ProtasMom
Age: 37/45
Description: poofy black hair
Background: had daughter with boss?  something not quite right,
  leading to eventual breakup.  trained in business management, she's
  been a mid-level manager for much of her professional life.
Personality: compassionate, work-driven, dunno...
Unusual Abilities: no
Flaws/Weaknesses: religious
Skills/Abilities: 
Resources: good job, church of wackos
Plans: 


Name: Thera Pist
Age: 38 at the time
Description:
Background: child abuse specialist payed by the state and/or EigenToys
  to deal with King abuse victims.
Personality: 
Unusual Abilities: jerkitude
Flaws/Weaknesses: gone
Skills/Abilities: 
Resources: 
Plans: 


misc: "we no longer run nanotech experiments outside of chambers
surrounded by first a layer of vaccuum and then a layer of HCl"

scene: over-emphasized prisoner's dileamma climax?
scene: MathGuy explaining to Vill about the math involved, Prota doing
  the physical work to save them
scene: researching how "two reasonable beings, fed the same
  information, can diverge in opinion"
scene: arguing with her mom
scene: writing "teh bybol": "1. everything on this page is true, so
  sayeth God.  2. Prota speaks with the authority of said God, and you
  may refer to either as the same, though she prefers to go by Prota.
  3. man, i don't have this abused, rebellious personality in my head
  yet, but more stuff in character, right?"
scene: classes on training proprioception

concept: our uncertainty about a phenomenum is a condition of our
  minds, not of the phenomenum itself.  probabilities deal with
  ignorance.
concept: an intuitive mathematical understanding of a topic should be
  a student's primary vehicle
concept: where a teacher can be replaced by a computer, they should
  be.  where a teacher is unavailable, there should be technology.

scene: King asks to be made friendly, that he just wants to live, and
Prota kills him anyway

idea: give her some sort of food preference?

idea: wristband sensors for keyboard

presentation: this needs to be displayed as if it really were her
logbook.  it needs to have the bioinformatics graphs/emoticons,
annotation coloring or other distinctions, a screenface that looks
like a small (translucent?) screen sitting on a desk or table in a
cafe (different scenes?).  pictures, too?

Ooo!  or maybe, the interface is the logbook's entirely, and you
progress through time, so each new moment shows up as the changes that
have happened to things - progress one annotation at a time.  so i
need to include dates and have her go back through all her old entries
a bit.