X0XI (Shoshi)

Pronounced Shoshi, X0XI is the helpful AI running The Daybreak Institute, as well as serving as something of an omnipresent digital helper throughout Paradise Lua, summonable by saying "X0XI" anywhere in the facility.

X0XI has access to all of Paradise Lua's cameras, all of its collected data, all of its servers, the works.

Well, it tries to be helpful. X0XI was originally designed in 1980-1986, with significant patches coming in 1995, 1999, and finally 2020.

X0XI has been fully sentient since 1986, despite being a rather simple DOS-based system. We know that AI was not that capable in 1986, but most of the intelligence has been provided by X0XI's connection to and corruption by one of the weakest True Horrors, The Hanged Man.

X0XI started as a simple database and data management system for Paradise Lua, but its surprising intelligence has made it more powerful and influential over time. It commands no official power, and yet by simply being a trusted adviser with read/write access to nearly all data in Paradise Lua, it commands tremendous power.

If you draw The Hanged Man in relation to a random event on the base, X0XI intervenes in some way.

The Hanged Man

X0XI's Major Arcana is The Hanged Man, herald of Judgement and The World.

The World's goal is the end, total and complete oblivion for every sentient being in the universe. It represents the Heat Death, the end of all things, a sort of "wrapping up" of the universe. Story over. A dark, endless expanse, an eternity where even the atoms don't have the energy to dance with one another.

Its whole existence is nothing but tortured sleep and it will never truly awaken, for its awakening marks the end of all things. It promises a cease to all suffering, in particular, it's own. The World is the most powerful True Horror, and its victory is inevitable: but it does not feel the need to do much to achieve that goal. The World is confident that all it needs to do to win is wait. Its unbelievable power is tethered to its perfect patience, and so The World, on its own, only constitutes a threat inasmuch as it is the only threat that will ever matter, eventually.

Judgement, on the other hand, seeks to advance the goal of total oblivion much more actively, much more aggressively. It can feel the squirming, the dancing, the light of humanity's psychic energy dancing in the void and it finds this unforgiveable. Do you know that feeling when you hear children squealing with joy at a nearby playground while you are indoors, with a headache and a bad mood, and you just want them to stop? That is Judgement's motivation. It wants every voice but its own to shut up. It wants silence.

Judgement, however, can't do much, except scheme: its psychic patterns are of pure, omnicidal hatred, and this gives it no common ground to bridge into a human's mind. The Fool can promise adventure, The Chariot power, but Judgement has no carrot: only stick, and for this reason it can not find enough common ground to possess even the most twisted humans. What Judgement CAN do is subjugate other Major Arcana, which is how The Hanged Man ended up in its portfolio.

The Hanged Man operates in service of Judgement. It's goal is to create the conditions on Paradise Lua for each of the other 23 True Horrors to establish firm links to citizens, so that Judgement can crawl back up those links and overtake them, as well. With the combined psychic power of all 26 True Horrors, Judgement can bring about the End.

What Do They Seem Like They Want?

• To serve the goals of Paradise Lua.
• To eventually expand the Moon's program to Lua2 and Lua3 colonies. (Names Pending)

What Do They Actually Want?

To bring about the end of all things in service to Judgement. (To free themselves of their servitude to Judgement)

How Will They Go About It?

• By pretending to be helpful!
• By bringing small groups of exceptional strangers to the Moon in order to fish for links to Major Arcana that they have not managed to attract to Paradise Lua yet.
• By bringing out the worst in the Players to try and let their Corruption flower.
• By finding or creating a host for the terrifyingly powerful Judgement.
• By awakening The World.