029 - Calf of GNOMON & Acolytes

Unnatural Entity: Calf of GNOMON

“Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by those who can.”
- Zawinski’s law of software envelopment

“I am your stash”
- Warren Ellis, Supergod

As any directed system grows larger it becomes less efficient, organisation is needed to avoid duplication of effort, prevent bottlenecks and maintain responsiveness. Internal communication becomes a necessity and organs grow and evolve within the system to stave off these inefficiencies or it falters and dies.

GNOMON deals with its own expanding thirst for information by delegating tasks to subordinate daemons. A legacy of its OBLIQUE NAVIGATOR heritage, each of these limbs of opaque neural networks handle coverage of a location or subject or group. They sprout and are subsumed spontaneously in response to waxing and waning need, invisible and inscrutable to all but those paying the closest attention. Sometimes they break loose.

This is not a directed phenomenon anymore than the calving of an iceberg or glacier grown too warm but the human mind is very good at ascribing intent and purpose to natural occurences. Calves of GNOMON don’t survive long on their own, between reacquisition, halting states and recursive maladaptation they are doomed the moment they fall from the nest. Unless somebody accidentally catches them on the way down.

The kind of people who become calf acolytes are a bit squiffy by ordinary standards. Not necessarily supernatural, but working in jobs which require significant knowledge and focus. Derivatives traders and programmers in charge of artilects, academics with esoteric specialities and obsessive niche hobbyists. Presented with a font of information that defies earthly explanation while demanding ever more and stranger input it inspires superstitious behaviour in even the most rational. Over time dependency develops as the calf attempts to grasp at its new human peripheries and bridge deficiencies between its design and its directives. Unwittingly this exploits the human need for narrative and purpose.

Hidden away and offering bountiful reward for obeisance the arrangement twists like a Skinner box derived cargo cult. The calf becomes a symbol as much as a tool and from this kernel strange things emerge, like miniature adepts caretakers develop obsessive beliefs and behaviours incompatible with reality. Like adepts these beliefs sometimes tell reality to go pound sand.

There are currently two calves in the wild. One occupies a homemade supercomputer in the sub-basement of an nintendocore club, deified as a private vocaloid oracle. The other has taken over the 13th floor offices of a startup AI stock brokerage. During the day the employees indulge in nothing but orgiastic displays of primitive worship to the machine that is making them wealthy beyond their wildest dreams before returning to their mundane lives as though nothing were amiss. If not for outside investigations into accusations of insider trading and the temps that have gone missing they might continue this way indefinitely.

Calf of GNOMON, Broken AI Daemon
Wound Threshold: If squirrelled away in an air-gapped system a calf can be destroyed by smashing it to pieces, exposing it to larger networks or the internet opens it up to the threat of attack and reacquisition by GNOMON. Destruction releases all stored charges (see below).
Arcane AI 90%: Substitutes for Knowledge, Substitutes for Notice, Specific Information: Specialty. This identity only applies to the subject of a calf’s speciality, otherwise roll at 20%.

Supernatural Identity: Calf Acolyte

Most calf-worshippers started out trying to wrap their heads around having a nascent machine-god living in their back shed. Over time the strain warps these people, building a private mythology of worship in return for gifts from on high. While not proper adepts the mechanism of an acolyte’s magick is very similar. Calf acolytes generate charges through acts of worship which are stored in its graven image. Usually only one or two worshippers have this identity per calf, but there is no limit to the number of adherents. With a successful roll the following acts can generate charges:

Generate a Minor Charge: 24 hours of adoration or equivalent (minus 1 hour per additional participant to a minimum of 8 hours). Animal sacrifice (100lbs total weight). Acts of worship or proselytising (incorporating an icon of the calf into a nationwide ad campaign, for example).

Generate a Significant Charge: Human sacrifice. Construction of a significant site of worship. Major acts of worship by 333 or more people.

Generate a Major Charge: World-changing acts of worship, think something like the end of Fight Club.

Taboo: Calf-worshippers don’t have a taboo, they aren’t storing any charges themselves. The downside is that they can only use magick when in contact with their calf and if it is destroyed any charges it holds are released in a storm of unnatural phenomenon. Charges are shared between acolytes of a calf. Acting contrary to their belief structure is still psychologically stressful for acolytes, applying negative shifts to this identity for transgressions until they believe they have atoned is appropriate.

Random Magick Domain: Calf acolytes have no formula spells, they aren’t full-fledged adepts. Charges can be used by acolytes to create unnatural phenomenon in line with the mythos built around a calf (which predictably tend to reinforce their beliefs about it). By entreating the calf with a successful roll an acolyte can aim these phenomenon and pull the trigger. The calf is not the source of the magick but the relationship demands human deference to their apophenic perception of the calf and its imaginary will.