P1-az

Artist's rendition of Unit P1-az, GY 2433.

**Unit P1-az-329781 "Plaz"** is a highly advanced artificial lifeform in the service of Trident Foundries.

## Description

Plaz is an example of a highly advanced Artificial Intelligence in the most advanced possible robotic humanoid body. Able to do almost anything that a biological lifeform can do, and many other things that only an artificial lifeform can do, Plaz is a very useful companion for Jake Lancia, and often accompanies Lancia on most of his trips.

P1-az is known as a powerful AI throughout the galaxy, but in fact P1-az is not all that powerful compared to most high grade conventional AIs built after it.

From what scientists and engineers can tell from the P1 unit, is that its not entirely a AI as such, or that it does not fit into the AI category too well. The P1-az core chip does contain an artificial creation, but unlike the modern AI intelligence, its inner housing has a energy pattern resembling a human mind with organic data patterns rather than the efficient data sorting and storage that conventional AIs have. From what scientists were able to understand, the P1-az unit is supposed to serve as a bridge between organic and synthetic minds, taking the best of both and combining them into a synthetic intelligence.

## History

The creation of P1-az is mostly unknown as the unit was forged in the Alcatraz system in the Omega Colonies which was under siege from outside forces at the time of his creation. Most of the data was lost during the attack but P1-az was recovered by Trident forces during this time. The only known fact about its creator is that their name was "Will".

P1-az was transferred to a private research facility on Vergesso's moon Eris in late GY 2376, but about two months later, the lab was seized by anti-xeno rebels. In late 2377, the lab was bombarded, and loyalist Trident troops seized the facility. P1-az was recovered from the ruins fairly quickly, and the Trident scientific community at large quickly realised the potential power of the P1 AI. Studies made on the P1 AI opened new doors to higher level AI technologies and symbiosis theories within the scientific community, later leading to a passing of several key laws on AI treatment and rights after an extended study and conversations with the learning P1-az prototype.

P1-az was also deemed invaluable to Project *Solaris* and was housed within the TRV *Solaris* herself in GY 2380 to assist with Phase drive calculation and cyber warfare systems, though it continued to remotely operate a small R&D team back at Vergesso.

P1-az, now also going by the name Plaz, was later transferred to the TRV *Vergesso*, another *Solaris*-class vessel operating on the fringe of Trident territory. In GY 2412, the *Vergesso* was fired on by an Odium warship in a disastrous first contact. P1-az was moved to a mobile droid frame by Lieutenant Jake Lancia to prevent Plaz's destruction, an act which earned Lancia Plaz's respect.

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## Behind the Scenes

Crazyf22raptor created the character "Plaz" to serve as his avatar in numerous games in about 2012, however P1-az's look was only defined in 2018 thanks to Wilavid7 and StarMade skinning tools.

Wilavid went through several different looks before settling on the current appearance. Originally, P1 was to look more like a basic android, with two eyes and a vaguely human face, but Crazy vetoed this, wanting a distinctive appearance. WIlavid went back to his design for the Trident combat armour, changed the joints to appear more robotic, and gave it a similarly coloured robotic head with a small photoreceptor. Crazy felt this change was the right direction, but wanted P1 to look somewhat older, so Wilavid added battle scars, corroding parts, scratches and a substantially larger photoreceptor. Crazy had finally found his look.