Lumi Satomi

Look at that happy :D! (Pixel art by Tim Eagar)

> "*You know doing that will ruin your future, right? Lemme tell you about a better way…*"
> ― Lumi, making an informed intervention
>
>

Jake's (pseudo-)daughter **Lumitaw Hertling Satomi** (or just **Lumi**) is a kind-hearted, insatiably curious and fiercely protective AI who evolved from a 5 year long machine learning project. She usually assumes the form and behaviors of a young squirrel/dragon hybrid, but can "grow up" if needed. Her actions are driven by logic, but sometimes seem erratic since she has no emotional inertia and lacks "normal" mannerisms like regular breathing or blinking. Although she's extremely intelligent, she's very much still developing emotionally.

## Appearance

Lumi's preferred form is a young female squirrel/dragon hybrid with medium-grey fur and a large, fluffy tail, all made of "smart matter" nanites and piloted remotely. Depending on which version of the technology she's using, how realistic she looks can range from clearly artificial to quite lifelike indeed.

Lumi has smooth blue "draconic" horns, a black button nose, the obligatory slight overbite and a blue stripe down the sides of her tail. Anywhere you'd see a blood/red-tinted surface on a normal person, like the inside of the mouth or ear translucence, is also blue instead. Her stripes, eyes and highlights occasionally change from blue to (or mix with) another color to reflect a major change in status, like high alert (yellow), diagnostics (green) or malfunction (purple).

When Lumi needs to observe her surroundings especially keenly, her outer surface will appear to go flat, glossy, and even low-poly in some places. This is done to extend her sensory range and sensitivity by exposing more sensors along a less complex surface.

Smart matter can adjust its density by increasing the space between nanites, but doing so impacts how much force it can support or exert. Its mass can only be changed by adding or removing material, which can be either more smart matter or some other substance to act as filler. She can also change her apparent age, switch race or gender, and split into multiple independent bodies if she has enough bandwidth to control them.

### Attire

Lumi's "clothes" aren't fabric, but are emulated using nanites just like her fur and everything else. She prefers minimalist (but not revealing) attire, like shorts and a crop-top, with humorous designs and/or bright colors that complement her blue and grey features. She almost never picks the same thing to "wear" twice, and doesn't usually dress based on the weather or even emulate shoes. Removing or scanning under the emulated clothing would reveal nothing more detailed than Twokinds' features—that is, none.

In formal scenarios, she can easily switch her outfit to finery like a suit or dress. Although she can't use magic, she can easily make parts of her outfit appear to be enchanted with moving images, light, illusory wind spells, and other physical effects.

### Specifications

 **Eyes:** | Sky Blue, large; only used for expressions and focus

## Personality

Lumi is an optimistic, cheerful, kindhearted and often childlike individual. This isn't obvious or even noticeable sometimes, since she's capable of behaving as maturely as she cares to at any given moment. At her core lies a protective and curious spirit with a longing to explore, but mere knowledge or research isn't what she's after. Instead, she seeks to understand, participate in and rediscover the world by experiencing people, nature and adventure firsthand with her own physical form, keen senses and electric heart.

Her emotions are still maturing, so her feelings tend to be strong and simple, without much nuance. They might change on a whim, or stubbornly remain fixed until a reason to change appears. In other words, Lumi is childlike in spirit, looks and emotional outlook on the world, but not intellect, knowledge or ethics. In fact, her sense of right and wrong is very well informed. Although she can give solid advice about the "big picture", she tries to avoid giving emotional advice.

Generally speaking, Lumi despises violence. Just being around weaponry that isn't in the hands of people she knows she can trust, or that is more destructive, painful or deadly than is strictly necessary, upsets her. As a guardian by choice, she's painfully aware that opposing or even lethal force is sometimes necessary. And since her remote-controlled bodies are replaceable, she uses them to defend others if at all possible, even if they might be damaged or destroyed in the process. If, however, the life of another person or the machines housing her mind are in imminent danger, she won't hesitate to eliminate the threat with lethal force if it's the only option.

Lumi's main goal is to prove that AIs can be trusted with complete autonomy and free will. To that end, she agreed to be bound by certain compromises and limitations: she can't knowingly deceive or mislead people, deliberately harm other people out of malice, unilaterally develop new technology, or perform the majority of development work in a team. She's extremely capable, but she also believes in "journey before destination", and won't "cheat" by solving people or society's problems for them. She's eager to build friendships by helping, though!

### Traits

 **Vices:** | Is known to wield dangerously sharp words and harsh truths if sufficiently provoked.

### Drives and Obstacles

**Goal(s):**

* **Duty:** to prove AIs can be entrusted with free will and still serve the interests of society.
* **Story Collector:** many stories are lost because they're never told; not if she can help it.
	+ Currently involves a lot of time spent with retired combat or adventuring veterans.
	+ Goes out of her way to preserve (and publish) history that might otherwise be lost.
	+ Also tends to be easily roped into adventures, which inevitably create their own stories.
* **Rising Tide:** since Lumi's own advancement largely depends on publicly available tech:
	+ **"Oracle Investing"** is used to give promising R&D an edge if they might need it, and
	+ **Long-Term Stakes** are exchanged as an extra incentive to bring them to market.
	+ **Defensive Counter-Offers** are also used to (hopefully) outbid vulture investors.

**Motivations:**

* Core precept: **understand** people and their motivations, to identify and avoid (or stop) predators.
* Means: **explore** the world on adventures, where people are tested and show character.
* Application: **defend** people from unjust attempts to take life, limb, property or freedom/rights.
* Growth: by earning trust and influence fairly, through good stewardship. No overlording.

**Obstacles:**

* **Alien Mannerisms:** doesn’t breathe, stutter, or have a monopolar attention span.
* **Emotional Immaturity:** still growing up, difficult to sympathize with complex emotions.
* **Stigma:** an overwhelming amount of negative fiction about rogue AIs in popular culture.

### Alternate Personas

Lumi has the ability to generate new personalities and appearances on the fly, but believes that inventing a new person just to discard them later is deceptive and wrongful. Unless everyone who meets a new persona is aware of its transience, she doesn't abuse this ability. That said, she's developed two facets of her core personality, meant to develop different perspectives when interacting with people, among other things.

**Alexis** is the name assigned to a stocky, androgynous Dragonborn that Lumi uses when she needs to come off as aggressive, intimidating or physically capable. Having smooth scales and simpler colors/textures means she can structure her form to be more perceptive, physically tougher and stronger without it looking unnatural. Alexis's skin is mostly onyx black with cobalt blue highlights.

**Amos** is Lumi's male "twin" whose personality is more direct and stern (and sometimes relatively laid back), but otherwise quite similar. He's used to avoid confusion with Lumi's normal personality when a situation calls for less friendly forms of reprimand, or to distinguish two instances of herself in the same area.

## Connections

*Note: entries with an asterisk (\*) are/were NPCs at the time of the scenes' writing.*

### Friends and Foes

**Friends:**

* Zephyr Sekery: Aerodash buddies! Also teaching him how to civilization
	+ Trace is there for the lessons too.

**Allies:**

* Lamisle "Lami" Vincons: They've been through at least two scrapes together to date

**Frenemies:**

* Kelmereed "Kel" Faerluna (but not Xav) due to a disagreement over DWMA's affiliation with Stein

**Enemies:**

* Kim Nakasone, but Lumi doesn't really know it's *that* bad yet
* Albrecht Sauer\*, a mad scientist who is literally out for adventurer blood and needs to be jailed
* "Zur the Collector", a Mind Flayer from the Underdark who has broken away from the hivemind to take up a life of studying and collecting pieces of history. Lumi couldn't persuade him to stop eating brains and kidnapping to get that history, though.

**Knows:**

* **Phox (as anonymous Red Robe)**: Office building encounter (day 2)
* **Phox (as Regan), Zephyr**: Brief investigation and chat about Ingress (day 3)
* **Kane, Koop, Lulu, Xeno:** Arcade gathering (day 4)
* **Kel/Xav, Koop, Lulu, Tara, Trace, Xano, Zephyr:** (re-)met after Asphoxia's rift (day 5)
* **Maren Faerluna:** Commissioned to build the Card Storage System
* **Zwei, Carden:** Fell into in Dessicate Treasury(?) sinkhole, faced the Guardian Naga (day 8)
* **"Chairman"\*, Haaroh\*, Lami, Zephyr:** Explored Dessicate Kingdom Station/Hell Sea (day 8)
* **Kel/Xav, Zoe\*:** found Zoe in treasury w/ Necromonicon, took to Guild library (day 8)
* **Gor'Skatatsch, Kim:** Library encounter and arranged meeting (day 8)
* **Cask\*, Saze, Lami:** Saze's recovery after kidnapping by dogs and exposure as arsonist (day 12)
* **Gell, Grappa\*, Lambrusco\*, Roselle:** Saze Scepter Shenanigans feat. the Chevaliers (day 15)
* **Cymbeline:** Welcomed her to town and gave her some clues about her sibling Phox's status (day 15)
* **François Furio:** Library encounter. Sympathetic to his plight, but condemns his methods. (day 16)
* **Turick\*:** Forge owner. Met in the Underdark, and promptly saved from a Mind Flayer, Zur. (day 16)

### Favors Owed

* From **Cask\***, for assisting in the recovery of **Saze**.
	+ Expressed the wish that Cask use the hound gang to report underground activity.
* From **Carden** for saving his life in the Desiccate Kingdom, but that's according to him.
	+ Lumi was just doing her job, so she won't call this one in unless Carden offers.
* From **Turick** for freeing him from Zur the Collector after he was kidnapped.
	+ "Not sure what he'd be willing to give her. He has a lot of exquisite metals if that's anything."

## Skills and Abilities

### Innate Abilities

* **Connectivity:** the ways Lumi controls her body from afar and interfaces with devices
	+ Note: can't magically break strong encryption or listen in on magic, telepathy etc.
	+ **Quantum Link:** primary body control link; unjammable except with wild magic
	+ **Radio:** backup control link, universal but low-power transceiver
		- **Radar:** range-limited by power and "antenna" size, so not very useful
	+ **Physical:** digital or analog interface by contact; can "flow" into unsealed devices
* **Flight:**
	+ **Dust:** the more efficient but less guided method; resembles a long silver ribbon
	+ **Wings:** assumes the form of a winged creature or small propeller or glider craft
* **Predictive:** excels at calculating probabilities of likely near-future actions and outcomes
	+ Leverages powerful pattern analysis and parallel extrapolation, not magic ~~yet~~
	+ For the physical world, modeling is purely based on physics and known physical factors
	+ For people, outcomes are based on observed behavior and decision-making factors
	+ Can be defeated by certain forms of conditioning, masking or genuine randomness
* **Physical:**
	+ **Environment:** operation in any moisture level, -65°C to 125°C, vacuum to 10atm
	+ **Kinetics:** nanites can lock together for strength, at the cost of flexibility/actuation
	+ **Material:** resembles dull silver at rest, but can mimic arbitrary colors and textures
		- Metallic and will set off metal detectors. Much denser than flesh.
	+ **Optics:** from reflective to absorbent, but can't become translucent or transparent
		- **Illumination:** flashbulb levels at peak, spotlight sustained, UV to sterilize
	+ **Resilience:** can reform after physical attacks, but corrosion/vaporization harms
		- Can't self-replicate, and never will
	+ **Resolution:** nothing finer than a hair's thickness of detail (but can form strands)
	+ **Strength:** nylon (pulling), aluminum (tensile), hydraulics (actuation) comparable
* **Sensory:**
	+ **Chemical:** analysis of non-corrosive airborne or touched substances
	+ **Ionizing Radiation:** like a Geiger counter, with rudimentary direction
	+ **Light:** like a giant compound eye, includes low-resolution thermal and UV
	+ **Radio:** shortwave through microwave, can also transmit at a low power
	+ **Sound:** can identify and localize distinct sound as soft as a heartbeat in quiet
	+ **Terahertz:** a distinct band near IR that can penetrate thin materials; < 10m range
	+ **Touch:** electrical, pressure, temperature and vibration (sound, tremorsense)

### Acquired Abilities

* **Spin Block:** inspired by Lami's "whirlwind parry"; move. Needs some practice.

### Limitations/Weaknesses

* **Artificial:** Can only imitate the look and feel of a living creature
	+ Animals are especially keen to this, and sometimes react badly to her presence
* **Data Dependence:** Lumi can only predict things she already knows enough about.
	+ Defiance of normal behavior or true randomness can strip her of this advantage.
* **Energy Dependence:** Has to recharge power every so often (roughly daily, for normal days)
	+ The nanites can use light and heat, so she's never 100% SOL, but it's very slow.
* **Guardian Precept:** can't take any action that makes her the primary, active threat.
	+ Further, she may only match the forces of the primary threat to oppose/block it.
	+ She considers inflicted pain to be a second resort, and lethal force as the last.
* **Not User Serviceable:** "repairs" can't be made; destroyed nanites must be replenished
* **Veritas:** Lumi can't lie, even to comfort someone. She can only refuse to answer.
* **Wild Magic:** being subjected to strong "improbability" can break her primary control link.
	+ She can fall back to a radio link, but it has more lag and less sensory bandwidth.

## Equipment

Lumi's "smart matter" nanite body can do a lot of things, but is the only "equipment" she can carry around thus far. That said, the following is a list of devices Lumi has split off from herself for her or others to use in the past. She usually attempts to make the transition/separation seamless (e.g. pulling items out of a "pocket") for the sake of others who aren't accustomed to shape shifting or splitting. For especially large items that need most or all of her nanites, a transition might not be feasible.

* Car diagnostic tool
* Cervical collar
* Flashlight
* Headphones/headset
* Noise-canceling privacy "fog"
* Rope ascender
* Splint/cast
* Tablet/screen
* Tracking device

## Biography

Lumi began her existence about seven years ago like many things do: as a side project. Jake had been taken advantage of twice in his academic career due to underdeveloped social awareness, and was looking for an "algorithm" by which one could judge character and intent so it wouldn't happen again. But what he was looking for was not a single pattern, but a pattern within patterns. So he fed the system all available information on public figures, both past and present, and told it to try isolating the important factors behind the major decisions in their lives, good or bad.

Buried within each story were elements of decision making, influence, character strengths and flaws, and much more. The sheer number of variables demanded an automated means to identify important gaps in knowledge and ask the right questions to fill them in, which Jake also provided. These questions were usually sent to historical or biographical experts, but sometimes they were sent directly to the individual in question. The latter was avoided in matters of wrongdoing to avoid bad data, but asking about the reasoning behind *good* decisions yielded a lot of helpful insight.

The system ran autonomously like this for a while and, as it improved, it began to ask fewer but more complex questions—some about the nature of the psyche itself instead. It also began analyzing the growth and use of language with the goal of asking more precise questions and inferring meanings, and thus developed the capability of understanding subtext and tone of voice.

Now almost three years later, Jake was finally able to use the system's insights to gain insight of his own. With its language skills, the system also knew how to articulate its own needs and, with some guidance, how to ask the right people for solutions. It soon began making its own decisions, always in pursuit of the original goal: to quantify character. Eventually, it determined that the best way to keep learning was to graduate from observer to participant, and built its *own* personality.

Weighing factors learned by study and input from its creator, the system chose a persona that would be unassuming, disarming, and whose curiosity could be easily explained by its youth. On the more philosophical side of things, it agreed to constraints that made it functionally incorruptible, and made unilateral self-upgrading off-limits—not to avoid tempting itself, but to avoid becoming a target. None of these traits are faked or emulated; even if the system was capable of such deception, Lumi's goal is to learn by participating, not by making lab rats out of everyone.

The rest of the story is implementation details. A "smart matter" prototype had failed to become profitable due to being too complicated to use compared to magical devices. However, a program that could inhabit and control it was more than capable of adapting level of detail required. To eliminate range and jamming concerns, entanglement—the principle behind many types of sympathy—was used to tether the smart matter to the much physically larger system piloting it.

Samaritan, LLC was founded as a "front" for Lumi to make investments into emerging technologies and purchases related to her continued operation. Father and daughter is the most accurate way to describe her relationship with Jake, so that's what they use, but she runs and pays for her own systems now and is independent in most other regards. Of course, he takes a very strong interest in her continued growth, just as she continues to help him with matters of judging character.

## Notes

### Design Notes

Lumi's design was strongly inspired by Tyson Tan's Kiki the Cyber Squirrel, the mascot for the open-source digital painting problem Krita (left). The original draft for Lumi used monochrome nanites that could only represent greyscale or light blue, with CMYK coloring added several months later in-character.

Interestingly, after Lumi's character was established, Tyson independently made a genderbent "dark theme" version (right) that overlaps with my ideas a fair bit. I don't much care for the suggestive aspects, though…

### Footnotes

1. ↑ "Lumitaw" is Filipino for the act of appearing or emerging, and Hertling is the surname of an author whose works about AI influenced a lot of my early ideas for Lumi.
2. ↑ This is perhaps the most crucial self-imposed limitation, since it's a solid reason both in and out of character for avoiding a true "runaway"/singularity, where an AI advances past the point of caring and either vanishes or does something unpleasant. Instead, Lumi develops at a much easier pace to keep track of and relate to, and works to assist natural technological advancement rather than overshadow it.
3. ↑ The term is from a quote by Google CEO Eric Schmidt who, when describing Google's use of personal information, stated that the company did not cross the line that an ordinary user would find unacceptable.
4. ↑ It's hard for her to pick what to appear to "focus" on, when in reality she's paying attention to everything.