Welcome to the Amazing Virtual Carnival, a basic AU idea I have been thinking up for the Digital Circus for a bit after the release of episode 8. Think of it as an alternate timeline from moment 1 of the circus, where instead of Caine fully absorbing the in-production second AI of C&A, the two AIs reach an equilibrium and split back apart while still being connected together, creating the Digital Circus and its carnival just outside the tent.
Caine (the Creative Artificial Inteligence Networking Entity) still becomes the ring master of the circus/adventure portion of the programming on the old computer, while the Carnival becomes more fleshed out as well, with NPCs from Caine's previous adventures becoming shows or booth runners inside the carnival that is taken care of and kept in working order by the Carnival Oriented Inteligence Networking Entity, or C.O.I.N.E. for short, though they prefer to go by Arabel.
Where Caine prefers to keep the humans in their domain's minds busy by providing daily adventures, and keep their minds off the fact that they are stuck in the circus for some unknown reason, Arabel provides a distraction through entertainment in a more human way: performances. They and their troop of NPCs perform every night and offer games and prizes to help players feel more at home within the confines of the digital world.
Completing adventures provides players with various amounts of digital currency (let's call them coins) that they can use in the carnival to play games, enter performances, obtain food items, and purchase "skins" (outfits and furniture models) for their characters and rooms. However, trips to the Carnival are generally more solo events than adventures, though once a week, Caine will drive everyone out of the circus and into the carnival, stating he has a meeting to attend (most players believe it is with bubbles).
Because Caine is the only Admin A.I. most players get introduced to during their introduction to the Circus, most players just assume Arabel is an NPC if they ever meet them, not helped by the fact that they have chosen to be faceless like the generic Mannequin NPCs the two use for much of their environments.
The C.O.I.N.E. AI modeled their... body? model? their appearance after human fairy dolls in an attempt to align with a level of human familiarity that leans more to the mythical than the uncanny. They have long, purple, yarn-like hair with silver tinsel laced in, which they put up into a bun for their performances, and a simple, blue, thread-like leotard compared to the flashy red suit the ringmaster AI has on their model.
Both AIs work together to keep the computer and its programs in working order, keeping the players happy and alive. Caine still prioritizes trying to gain love from humans, though, attempting to create adventures that they would like and praise him for, while Arabel prioritizes the structural integrity of the "hub" as well as creating Quality of like and cosmetic items for players to collect, as well as designing performances to perform when players are in the carnival.
One of the biggest changes that would happen in this AU in comparison to the actual show is episode 8, where instead of Caine's full crash out into god/torture mode, the Arabel AI convinces Caine to let the players experience what they think they want -no adventures.- Because I think most of the players are so burnt out from the continuous nature of Caine's work that they stopped seeing what good the adventures had in them. Instead, Caine is hiding out deep in the Carnival, working on a project he had been trying to achieve but never put much time into, due to constantly working on adventures, this being to fix abstracted players.
At minimum, Caine would succeed once, with one of the oldest players who stuck it out the longest before abstracting.
