FAQ

Q: My character has a particular injury, disease or defect. Do I have to get it cured on arrival?
A: Occasionally, Hypatia may decide to leave a particular injury or defect untreated, provided it's not life-threatening, if she finds it makes the visitor more "interesting." So, yes! You can absolutely say Hypatia left something untreated. However, any injuries sustained in the Junkyard will still be seen to. On the flip side, if your character is coming in with a health problem or such that would impede play, like having terminal cancer or being poisoned, you can choose to have Hypatia remove this. Use with care, because you can't decide to give your character their illness back at a later time.

Q: How do characters use the bracelets?
A: After being escorted out of the Junkyard, characters are given a small wearable for their wrist. It's small, thin, clear, flexible, and --don't worry-- completely removable. When worn, the bracelet glows faintly with a string of numbers, acting as a taskbar. Pressing them, or flicking your wrist in the right way, will open the first screen of a touchable holographic operating system. This is your all-purpose smartphone, laptop and game peripheral for everything in Singularity.

Where appropriate, mechanical characters, people with high-tech suits, and other synthetics/cyborgs might find the navigation system installed on their HUD instead. Even though most will have starter equipment like this, there are plenty of other wearable computing options and upgrades characters can obtain for the same, but more fashionable, network functionality.

Q: How versatile is the station's holographic technology?
A: It's the closest thing to magic. In any given location, indoors or outdoors, in residential or garden zones, characters can create fully 3D, touchable holograms, from vidscreens to augmented reality overlays. The holographic capabilities at Asphodel's station-controlled carbon plants are a little more limited, but mostly the same.

Q: Do the things ever go off on accident?
A: While it is possible to mess up the filter or post options to post something accidentally, the devices don't ~*~turn on by themselves~*~. In particular, they will never activate when not being worn. That is, unless there's a Hypatia Is A Creeper event going on...

Q: What about filter hacking?
A: The standard security settings for network filters are incredibly strong. Your character needs to be canonly gifted at hacking to do it, though of course they can learn or receive help over time too.

Q: Do characters all speak the same language?
A: All written text throughout Sacrosanct and station-controlled areas of Asphodel identify the user's language and automatically translate. A similar process is handled in realtime during conversation. All of this is run off characters' wearables, so removing or deactivating them will render all text and speech incomprehensible, except in languages they already know. The insurgency also runs its own pirated version of the same translation software, which doubles as an encryption protocol to hide certain transmissions. Both methods have a 99.99999% uptime rate, but you never know when a Tower of Babel event will come along...

Q: Okay, so what does untranslated "native" sound like?
A: If you can imagine English and Mandarin having a baby, a mutant baby, that's half verbalized chatspeak, and has no linguistic rules you'd recognize, you'd be getting close.

Q: Are there NPCs?
A: The only NPCs on Sacrosanct are Hypatia and Twosix. On Asphodel, in addition to Lev (currently MIA), there is the human insurgency which might number in the hundreds. They're hard to find, though. Players are free to handwave interactions with them but need permission to kill any since, well, they won't replenish. :(

Q: Are there crimes in Singularity? Is there a justice system?
A: Despite her namesake, Hypatia isn't usually interested in punishing visitors, unless they do something to piss her off. Crimes committed against the insurgency usually come back to bite the character in the ass, so things like murder and assault should be inquired about on the Requests page before being implemented. Keep in mind, however, that just because there isn't mod regulation of criminal activity does not mean characters are not accountable if other characters have a problem with yours.

Q: What happens to dead bodies after respawn?
A: They don't combust or vanish, if that's what you want to know. Respawn is basically cloning, so revived characters are fully capable of stumbling upon their own corpse, which will decompose at the normal rate. The same goes for Underworld NPCs, who don't respawn at all, because they don't use teleporters.

Q: Are characters at all aware that they've died and been respawned?
A: Nope! The action involved in respawning and teleportation is absolutely the same, so there's no immediate way to discern between one and the other. They will not even be aware time has passed. Fortunately, their wearables will respawn with them, and immediately synchronize with station records as soon as they exit the teleporter, so while your character himself might not know what happened, a quick check of the public surveillance cameras will hopefully get him up to speed. Those gifted in programming can also create routines that analyze surveillance footage and user biostats to send a message to the programmer in the case of death.

Q: All these job listings on the Job Board aren't possible for my character. How can I earn work credits?
A: You can also ask another character to do the job for you and transfer the credits in exchange for a favor or item. If your character is gifted electronically, they might also be able to counterfeit credits or get what they want by illegal means. The listings on the job board are always changing, however, so if your character's the straight and narrow kind you might find a suitable one soon!

Q: Why is muncesting not allowed, but playing two characters who "go together" is?
A: It's a difference in intent. Let's use the characters 3 and 4 from 9 as an example: they function as basically the same person in two bodies. Their major interaction would not so much be with each other as with other characters. That is why it must be done responsibly: players found to be interacting too heavily with themselves will be asked to stop, or failing that, to drop one of the characters.

Q: What is the policy on 'adult' logs?
A: Singularity permits logs containing adult themes. In the case of explicit sexual content, logs must be appropriately marked and all parties involved over 18. Anything which violates Livejournal's TOS can be implied and accepted as part of game canon, but cannot be written out within game communities. This is also where the Keep It Tasteful rule comes into play. We don't want to sit around debating what is offensive or not. If a mod asks you to cut or warn for something, do it. If we ask you to stop or move a thread or log to a journal/musebox, please follow instructions. Failure to do so may result in mod action.

Q. So I'm from this sex game where we have to--
A: Stop right there. Remember the Keep It Tasteful rule. Yes, we allow you to import characters' memories from previous games, but don't go all creeper on the nearest loli about what your character used to do every Friday night. We're not a DR, and we're definitely not a sex DR.

Q. I have a question that isn't listed here.
A: Feel free to comment with to this post.