Just a quick update.
In the section about the Ibrain (disposable future) I mention the possibility of Sourc Code Corruption and this brings up the subjects of memories.
I've mentioned it before but this quote from William Gibson's New Rose Hotel:
“My own past had gone down years before, lost with all hands, no trace. I understood Fox’s late-night habit of emptying his wallet and shuffling through his identification. He’d lay the pieces out in different patterns, rearrange them, wait for a picture to form. I knew what he was looking for. You did the same with your childhoods.
Really speaks to me about one of the core themes of Source Code; what is human?
Add to this one of my favourites quotes from Ghost in the Shell:
So man is an individual only because of his own undefinable memory. But memory cannot be defined, yet it defines mankind
I've been struggeling since this was a fledgeling idea way way back at the Forge on how to bring this into play. There has been countless iterations.
There are many games that have influenced me, but there are three notables, Verge (in development by Adam Dray), Remember Tomorrow (Gregor Hutton) and Beyond the Mirror (in development by Tazio Bettin). And somehow they just fused with the above the last month or so and I was able to move on.
So back to the topic at hand, or rather the topic to come, what is human?
And this boils into who your operator was up until the point of play. And that will be generated through a simple flow sheet like lifepath system. But instead of building a lifepath in the chronological order of ABCDE... it will build a series of distinct memories, linked by little details, or assosciations.
An operators moves will come from these memories, and so will its contracts and liability. But as the operator is pushed into hard situations and exposed to the dangers of the operator lifestyle sie will undergo traumatic events. Events that will lead to Source Code damage. Which will again lead to these associations changing or becoming deleted. Thus changing where the operator comes from. And by questioning these changes in play, or adapting them into the ongoing fiction hopefully one can raise the question, how much of you were really real.
Am I rambling now. Probably. Maybe it will, maybe it wont.
But as I am formalizing my ideas around this, I realize that whatever this does to my hack, it will be for the better.
Oh and it also leads to making the custom theme moves. Whic is really fun, and like Vx says, that is where your hack really becomes different from ApW.
Had to share.