The Tournament Season

In recent times, Talinz fighting has become one of the most popular sports on the planet. Channels are devoted to the depiction of the sport, to the point that even college and amateur leagues can be televised and attended by thousands. A thriving amateur fighters market, driven by solid product placement on more famous fighter’s vehicles, and the subtle economics of technical specifications, has made the sport as accessible as it is likely to ever be, with smart tech-heads poring over magazines of new modules whilst sturdy athletes itch for their next match. The perfect pilot would be both, of course, but often support and pit teams build around an ace pilot.

Every now and then, an enterprising soul will consider forming a Talinz baseball, basketball or football league, but for the most part these only catch on as relatively niche sports. For now, it seems like more traditional games have kept their niche safe, even though they have been taken down a peg or two as Talinz has conquered the airwaves.

The Talinz tournament season lasts from June through to the following April. The Baku treaty was signed in May, and in respect and remembrance the season is often put on hold accordingly. This gives the sports channels a chance to diversify into other sports, air highlights reels, speculation programs and the odd rare documentary on the war itself and the growth of Talinz. Over the May hiatus, behind the scenes, new pilots are recruited; team affiliations change and deals are bound and broken. More money changes hands in that 31 day period than at any other point during the season. Once the transfer window closes on the 31^st, teams are locked for the remainder of the season. Some have also suggested that the amount of backroom deals between sponsors and apparent rival companies and pilots during that month leads to an overdose of work for police departments too; sometimes it even reaches the headlines.

The major tournaments that make up the season provide ample business for any globe-trotting major team. The general arrangement of the global sport is fairly hierarchical. Amateur teams are run in unattached local leagues, or affiliated leagues. Local leagues tend to be more casual, and run at any time, but teams in affiliated leagues tend to be vying for the notice of a scout, or the rare grand prize of a promotion and sponsorship deal. Above that, countries tend to run professional leagues, sometimes with multiple tiers within them depending on the popularity of the sport. Here, teams often represent a town or portion of a city, though some unaffiliated or oddly affiliated teams do exist. Promotion between leagues often relies on being in the top two or three teams of the preceding season, and elevation is highly prized. It means more exposure, better sponsorship, more money and a prospect at becoming the best in the country.

The best players in the country might get to represent it in the continentals. The six grand continental cups are the second-highest prizes in the Talinz world, and the finals have an audience of millions in the stadium and at home. The sporting associations of companies will sometimes attempt to make conglomerate teams from the best pilots in the league, but often these ‘supergroups’ don’t do nearly so well as a well-oiled team built on sturdy teamwork that has strived from the bottom together.

Winners of the continental cups from the preceding season are then invited to the Grand Prix. A winner’s circuit. Each team takes part in only one match a month, only 6 teams. Competitors travel across the planet, taking part in odd, custom designed arenas, with increasingly bizarre gimmicks, as countries spend incredible amounts of money in a heady mix of one-upmanship and tourist baiting. These arenas are often used in the following seasons in lesser cups, or so their absurd costs are excused by project managers. Some complain that qualification is easier for some teams than others: indeed, by their very nature some continents have more countries and thereby more competitors in their continental cups. Others claim that this makes the less competitive continents greener, and ripe for the picking by more experienced pilots. Considering the high performance and success rates of African and Asian pilots in the Grand Prix, this theory seems to have a nugget of truth in it.

 At the end of it? The grand prize. An ability to be considered the world champion. Often pilots will work for years, grinding from the bottom to achieve the honour. But a quicker route to success is available. Teams will sometimes bring in new blood, and some of the older teams now contain none of their original line up, without any loss of position. Alternatively, retiring teams in some countries might be given the right to pass their mantle to a team of their choice in a lower league. Sometimes this is done as a practical joke, and teams obviously out of their depth are promoted up three leagues, only to fall back to a position at which they are stable, often to the irate protests of the supporters of the old team, whose name they still carry.

It is this combination of mobility and interchangeability that has allowed the fighting, much like the robots themselves, to become so popular. A team could rise from zero to hero in the space of just a few years, and a soul could really make a name, if they were willing to take part…

Landon Corp

Philip and Charles Landon, media moguls, are fairly new on the Talinz construction scene, but their company has dabbled in the field for years. Originally a media company, running a few more popular news outlets and more than a few entertainment and sports channels, Landon Corp’s first involvement came when they were the first network to ever consider airing a Talinz fight, back in the early days of the sport. The viewing figures were not as amazing as projected, but Landon Corp almost saw this as a challenge. They pushed harder, advertising campaigns, outside funding and sponsorship campaigns were ploughed into the sport in response, and it is the actions of these investors that have made Talinz fighting the juggernaut it is today, not to mention the sponsorship goldmine.

Philip and Charles, however, are somewhat more thoughtful than the pioneers’ generations before. They have consolidated the gains, and made some interesting expansions. They snapped up a few popular social media sites, used them for additional advertising revenue. The corporation ate a few popular matchmaking sites, too. It seemed fairly innocent, typical dabbling in other fields. But using algorithms from matchmaking sites and compiling data from social media posts, Landon Corp’s R&D department were fervently calculating new ways to exploit Talinz for more and more money.

They came up with an algorithm, a very simple thing, really, that could compile an individual’s interactions with social media, and that of their friends, to effectively compile the perfect friend, or theoretically the perfect partner. Same tastes, opinions, beliefs. When they released it on the market, the controversy was almost as high as the sales. A moral panic swept nations. How much information were individuals comfortable with sharing with Landon Corp’s grand servers? The company certainly didn’t want to release the algorithm to a place where another could bootleg it. If they were comfortable, was it right to have a fake friend, constructed in such a way? Highly extreme cases of identity theft and recluses refusing to socialise with ‘real people’ blanketed the headlines. Landon Corp reacted with their wallet. It was all too easy to criticise larger rival news corporations, who were clearly trying to hurt the respectability of the Landon Corp name. Smaller ones that shouted too loudly were silenced with elegantly executed buyouts.

Regardless, the algorithm was massively popular. So popular, in fact, that Landon Corp opened their first factory. Almost fully automated, the Landon model Talinz frames could come with a ready installed disposition to the user, together with thoughts and opinions suggested by the customer and nuanced based on their social media interactions with Landon Corp-affiliated sites. The other technical specifications of the machines were fairly basic, and for the most part, they are not the best looking machines when bought stock. But the real service Landon are offering is cheap and easy access to their algorithm, an important factor for many purchasers, especially considering the wide availability of additional modular parts to customise the Talinz after purchase.

This technology has not been applied in Landon Corp domicile frames only. An experiment with ace Talinz pilot (and all around good clean American boy) Jonas Samson and his new Landon Corp frame – appropriately named Eagle – showed a drastically elevated level of synchronisation between pilot and frame. This is especially notable considering the airborne capabilities of Eagle, which is already a mental tax on the pilot that can often harm response times. Landon Corp press and PR were happy to report this as a triumph of the algorithm, which had created Eagle to be a perfect complement to Jonas in personality, fighting style and priority. Some rival teams have suggested it may just be bluster, and many requests have been filed to look at the hardware specifications of the model, which Landon Corp have been reluctant to release.  Some robopsychologists and Talinz experts have cautioned usage of these algorithms in synchronisation if they can cause such immense boosts, warning of repeats to the Sonia Bah incident.

Charles Landon
High Concept: Ruthless media manipulator
Aspect: It’s Landon Corp, or it can be broken.
Skills: Great (+4) Economics, Good (+3) Resources, Fair (+2) Insightful, Average (+1) Willpower
Stunts: All about green: To Charles, money is everything. Whenever he intimidates another individual using capital, he may use Economics for the roll.

Philip Landon
High Concept:  Silent market observer
Aspect: It’s Landon Corp, or it should be.
Skills: Great (+4) Resources, Good (+3) Contacts, Fair (+2) Zeitgeist, Average (+1) Empathy
Stunts: Watch and wait: Unlike Charles, Philip keeps his head at all times, and uses a network of contacts to keep an eye on the market. He may use Contacts in place of Economics when assessing the health of a business rival or Landon Corp.

Jonas Samson
High Concept: All American Talinz Pilot
Aspect: Local lad done good
Skills: Great (+4) Talinz piloting, Good (+3) Physique, Fair (+2) Rapport, Average (+1) Firearms
Stunts: Sure of himself: Jonas has been brought up from a very early age to know that any mental conflict, no matter how complicated, can often be solved by escalating to physical conflict. The world has, unfortunately, yet to prove him wrong on this fact. He may use his Physique to defend against attempts to intimidate or provoke him, in place of Willpower.

Talinz in everyday life: domestic servants

Much more than just sport, Talinz permeate everyday life, and affect the way people interact with each other and with society. These frames tend to be offered in two general formats: those for domestic use, and those for industrial use. Their jobs vary widely within these two very broad clades, and they are present in every economic sector, for better or worse.

Domestics

People will always clamour for the next new gadget, especially if it is billed as something that makes life easier. And just like the washing machines and the televisions of a post-war world before, the Talinz fell into the newfound prosperity gap of the post-Baku treaty era. For a one-off fee, small maintenance costs and a slight addition to the electrical bill, a family could have a machine to take the kids to school, take care of them if they were too young, or if parents had to stay late, manage the family finances, and wash, cook and clean to boot. It was too good to resist.

In the present, Talinz are extremely common. With a few exceptions – mainly from those who are opposed to their existence altogether, or those who have a political interest in ‘liberating’ the frames – every family has one. One might see a few hundred whilst out walking through a busy shopping centre, many likely out doing weekly groceries for their families, or perhaps picking up more specific items. If a family has a fancy new model, you might find it indistinguishable from a human walking down the street.

Such robot-human similarities has led to a number of campaigners attempting to enforce some kind of identification protocol, or stop production of these human-likes completely, under the grounds that mistaking a human for a Talinz unit could lead to any number of awkward or dangerous social encounters. Opposition to these groups have been strong, however. Many want more human-like figures. The common people have begun to empathise with Talinz in a heretofore unseen way, and having a housemaid that looks less robotic enough and so doesn’t scare the children is always a bonus. With Hana Electrics’ use of common fictional characters or the social media interfaces offered by the American Landon Corp, many people want their Talinz to look as authentic as possible. Some, it could be said, might even desire some of the social awkwardness that comes with that.

Outside of domicile servants, cafes and restaurants staffed entirely by Talinz units, or staffed with a mix of human and human-like Talinz, have become quite popular. Some more upmarket outlets might even purchase ‘skin models’ – skin-like polymer coverings constructed from images of an individual to create a perfect likeness – and challenge customers to guess whether they are being served by a human, or a robot.

Such an industry has created a hotbed for crime, however. Police can often be taxed by bodies that look lifelike until they sit under autopsy. Life insurance companies have been pressuring to shore up regulations after a number of seemingly cut and dry deaths resulted in huge payouts, only for it to turn out that a remarkably lifelike decoy had been placed in the individual’s stead.

Two years ago, workers at the Metropolitan Police department found a body so badly disfigured that any attempts to identify it were notably hindered. Police scrambled to find the killer, but couldn’t seem to find an appropriate dead or missing individual by any of the records they had. When the killer was found, it was more by luck and chance than anything else. When a few inopportune statements were made at a dinner party, a swift smack to a seemingly-human jaw revealed a Talinz frame beneath a low quality, thin skin-model. Tobias Moore, the killer, it occurred, had murdered his partner in a fit of rage after an argument that resulted in the other attempting to end the relationship. In the following week, Tobias, a Talinz technician by trade, used the body to construct his own frame from scratch, with his partner as the model, before dumping what remained in the Thames to attempt to clear away the evidence. He had rebuilt his partner’s memory using their social media profiles, recent internet purchases and search histories, supplemented by a few recordings of calls they had made. It was capable of interpolating from recent events to give the illusion of memory, and easily gathered from records of school friends and connected media a number of useful recollections of the victim’s life before they met Tobias.

It took 18 months to find him. None of their closest friends had noticed.