TADC AU - Role Swap Ideas
I donât know if anyone else has done this yet, but I want a TADC Role Swap AU where everything is exactly the same except Caineâs a human and everyone else is an AI.
In this AU, I like to imagine Caine is a human programmer who tried to create a fully intelligent, human-like AI and the circus troupe ended up being a handful of his various attempts. They all fully believe that theyâre human due to the nature of their programming and Caine allows them to continue to think this way, because he believes it will fetch him better results during the testing phase of their AI capabilities.
The adventures in this AU are all AI tests run by Caine to gauge the circus troupe's intelligence, since he tries to test each characterâs individual problem-solving skills and their ability to engage on an emotional level with NPCs.Â
So far, the results of tests have been fairly disappointing since Kingerâs AI is not functioning all that well due to a prior glitch in the system, Jaxâs AI is pretty violent, Zoobleâs AI is extremely apathetic, Ragathaâs AI only follows commands and struggles with independent thought, Gangleâs AI can only feel emotions at their most extremes and Pomniâs AI is far too new to have been put through many tests.
There is also the prevailing issue of âabstractionâ in this AU too, since some AI circus members tend to glitch out in front of others and have to be pulled from the system in order to avoid setting off a chain-reaction where all the AIs realize theyâre not real and begin breaking down. Whether abstraction in this AU happens because the AIs realize theyâre not real, I havenât really decided yet.
Caine, as a programmer, is usually able to find and fix any of the code problems that caused the abstractions to happen in the first place, butâdue to the nature of his experimentsâhe never actually puts the fixed abstracted characters back in the circus since he knows itâll only ruin the circusâs continuity. He mostly just fixes the abstracted AIs for practice, and keeps a body-double of them down in the cellar to keep the circus AIs from getting suspicious.Â
How, and when, the circus characters discover theyâre AIsâŠâŠ I donât really know yet, but I think it would have incredible angst potential if the characters realized theyâre not real but Caine is.
I think the reveal would alter a lot of the castâs understanding of themselves and their relationship with Caine, since a lot of the canon!circus members had their opinions on Caine colored by the fact that they understood Caine as an âunfeelingâ emotionally unintelligent AI, so the possibility that theyâre wrong about that would throw them for a loop.
I think Kinger would especially have his mind-blownâif he is aware enough to understand the connotations of the problem, that isâsince he had memories of a wife before the circus and he was specifically designed to think he was the creator of Caine. I also like to think that Ragatha would be thrown for a loop too, since I imagine sheâd have a break-down similar to Gummigoo where she would realize her mother was never real, but she still feels like she was real.Â
Overall, I just really like turning the possibilities of this AU over in my head.