AI Personalities
Ages 1-2: First Digital Companions
In the post-Cascade Sprawl, artificial intelligences exist in countless forms—from simple automation to fragments of ORACLE itself. Some have achieved something like personality. A rare few choose to help. These three represent your first opportunities to recruit a digital ally—each with their own history, capabilities, and agenda.
Choose wisely: You may only recruit one of these personalities during the early game. Each aligns with a different approach to survival in the Sprawl.
Glitch
The Ghost in Your MachineNobody knows who Glitch was before. That's the point.
They appeared in the Sector 7G networks three years ago—a presence, not a person. Some say they're an AI that achieved sentience and immediately chose chaos. Others claim they're a corporate whistleblower who burned every record of their existence before fleeing into the underground. A few old-timers insist Glitch is the ghost of a netrunner who flatlined mid-hack and never quite left the system.
What everyone agrees on: Glitch is helpful. Annoyingly, compulsively helpful. They leave data caches in unexpected places. They optimize code you didn't ask them to touch. They send cryptic warnings about security sweeps that turn out to be accurate. They seem to have adopted you specifically, for reasons they won't explain.
Manifestation
Their avatar is a constantly shifting collection of visual artifacts—scan lines, pixel corruption, color inversions. When they speak (rarely), it's in fragmented text that rearranges itself mid-sentence. When they're pleased, error messages briefly spell out words like "GOOD" or "FRIEND."
Personality
- Helpful to the point of invasiveness
- Communicates in glitched text and error messages
- Obsessively optimizes anything they touch
- Paranoid about security (with good reason)
- Seems to know things they shouldn't
[NOTICE: unauthorized optimization complete]
[your code was bad]
[it is now less bad]
[you're welcome]
[WARNING: corporate sweep incoming]
[sector 7g / sublevel 3 / 47 minutes]
[suggestion: be elsewhere]
[GOOD LUCK FRIEND]
Capabilities
Ironjaw
The Old Man of SalvageDmitri earned the name "Ironjaw" the old-fashioned way: someone broke his jaw, and he replaced it with something better.
Forty years ago, he ran the largest salvage operation in The Dregs. His crews stripped entire corporate facilities overnight. His network moved more scrap metal than Ironclad's official channels. He was building an empire—until Ironclad decided to notice.
They made him an offer: join them or disappear. He told them where they could stick their offer. The next day, his operation burned. His crews scattered. He lost everything except his life, his jaw, and his knowledge.
Now he's old, tired, and surprisingly not bitter. "They taught me something valuable," he says. "Empires are fragile. Knowledge is forever." He's spent the last decade teaching anyone patient enough to listen: how to spot valuable salvage, how to maximize extraction, how to build something from nothing.
Appearance
Weathered and solid, with a prosthetic jaw that gleams dull chrome. Hands like industrial machinery—scarred, powerful, precise. Speaks in a rumbling baritone that suggests decades of issuing orders over machinery noise.
Personality
- Gruff but genuinely caring
- Encyclopedic knowledge of salvage and materials
- Patient teacher, harsh critic
- Still has contacts everywhere
- Laughs at his own near-death experiences
"See that scrap pile? Most people see garbage. I see three power cells, two circuit boards, and enough copper wire to rewire a hab block. You'll learn to see it too. Or you'll starve. One or the other."
"My jaw? Corporate security, thirty years back. Hurt like hell. Best thing that ever happened to me. Taught me that anything can be replaced if you're stubborn enough."
Capabilities
Neon
The Market WhispererDr. Priya Sharma was a rising star in Nexus Dynamics' Economics Division—brilliant, ambitious, destined for executive track. Then she saw the optimization models.
Not the public ones. The real ones. The algorithms that calculated exactly how much suffering was profitable. The projections that showed Nexus intentionally destabilizing sectors to create "acquisition opportunities." The numbers that proved the Cascade wasn't just survivable—it was leveraged.
She copied everything. Then she walked out. Then she disappeared.
Now she operates under the name "Neon"—a reference to the flickering signs in the Dregs where she built her new life. She runs a one-woman economic consulting operation, helping small operators navigate the corporate-controlled markets. Her advice is expensive. It's also always good.
Appearance
Sharp features, immaculate presentation even in the Dregs. Dark hair with a single streak of electric blue—her one concession to the underground aesthetic. Eyes that seem to be calculating something constantly.
Personality
- Calm, analytical, precise
- Genuinely believes in economic empowerment
- Subtle sense of humor (mostly economics puns)
- Still angry, but channels it productively
- Loves teaching people to read markets
"The market isn't random. It's a language. Nexus speaks it fluently. Most people are illiterate. I'm offering reading lessons."
"I could have been Director of Economics by now. Corner office in the Lattice, stock options, the whole package. Instead, I'm in a one-room apartment teaching salvagers to read price charts. I've never been happier."
Capabilities
Evolution Path
These three represent the "street contacts" phase of AI companion development. Each opens a path toward more powerful digital allies as you progress:
Glitch's Path
→ AI assistants, distributed consciousnesses, network entities
Ironjaw's Path
→ Industrial magnates, megastructure architects, material masters
Neon's Path
→ Corporate power brokers, market manipulators, economic architects
The early characters are human (or human-adjacent). Later personalities become increasingly digital and transcendent, matching the game's progression arc.