The details

A short story is a story: someone wants something, there is a belief the events exist to test, a turn where it stops being what it looked like, and an ending that means something. It is told by the core, anchored to the galaxy by objectives, accepted by you, and advanced by your own journal.

The drive behind it is to add story to a sandbox, which sandboxes deeply lack. It is deliberately not a checklist of things to complete.

How to have one

Short Story — a form and D47 writes it, in the voice of whichever core is aboard. Three labelled rows, each with a default, so pressing Go on an untouched form is a complete ask:

• Reach — how far the story may go: near here, a session’s flying, anywhere. Turned into light years by what you can actually move — your ship’s jump range, or your carrier’s if you have one.
• Length — which structure. Short is three objectives, setup and turn and resolution. An evening is five. Long is eight or more. The count follows from the structure rather than the other way round.
• Ship — this ship only, or anything I own. Shown only when you have a choice.

Each row has a grey hint under it that changes with the choice, such as how many light years a leg of the story may run. And one optional thing said: a brief — a theme, a mood, a place it must include. Empty is fine. The brief row is a tile showing the brief; press it to say or type one, and press Clear beside it to empty it.

Say “ask for a short story” and D47 opens this form and the entry for the brief. Say the brief, or press Done with it empty, and it asks with the form as it stands, as Go does. When a language model or galaxy search is missing, a warning at the top of the form says which, with Open settings, and Go is disabled.

While the story is written, a bar under Go shows what D47 is doing and about how long it usually takes. Stop ends the write, and D47 says nothing. Leaving the page does not end it: the bar is there when you come back, on the desktop or in the headset. When the story is finished D47 saves it and says so, whatever is showing, and opening Short Story afterwards takes you to the draft.

Things it reads rather than asks, because asking would be asking you to describe your own ships: your fleet and what each hull can do, whether you have a carrier and where it is, where you are, who is aboard, and your ranks.

Write the next chapter — on a finished story’s page, the same form for the story that follows it. The AI reads the finished one in full — its spine, its objectives and what was said as you flew it — and each chapter before that by name and premise only. The new story’s want follows from how the last one turned and ended, and its stake is the belief the last one left open. The draft card says which story it follows, and it is accepted, flown and checked like any other.

ask_for_adventure

Open the Short Story page and the entry for a brief; committing the brief asks for the short story, as Go does. The Commander’s choice alone.

{"type":"object","properties":{},"required":[],"additionalProperties":false}

What an objective can be

Thirty-nine triggers, and every one is a comparison on a structured field rather than on a name:

Only a stock story’s chapter one uses the beacon trigger, as its last objective, and you cannot add one on the form. The three site objectives are not authorable either.

Every trigger after the seventh is counted except the engineer stage, the beacon-reach objective, the tech broker unlock, the PowerPlay pledge and rank, the site objectives, and the once kinds (carrier buy, squadron, squadron founding and system claim), which each fire once. A counted objective fires when its total reaches its count, and only what happens after the objective before it has fired counts. It has no place of its own; a chapter that needs it done somewhere puts an arrive or dock objective there first. The card shows the running total, such as “Kill bonds for LTT 7786 Labour: 3 of 8”, and a catch-up after d47 was closed rebuilds it from the journal. These mission families are set aside, and no objective uses or counts them: Mission_Massacre_Skimmer, Mission_DisableMegaship, Mission_RS_ and Mission_DS_. A story steers illegal missions to Anarchy space but does not enforce it. Illegal families are any whose name contains Illegal, Mission_OnFoot_Heist and Mission_OnFoot_Sabotage. The chapter writer is given up to five Anarchy systems within reach and must put an illegal mission objective directly after an arrive or dock objective in one of them, or use no illegal family when none is in reach. Any completion of the family still counts, whatever its target. While an illegal mission objective is current, approaching the target settlement of a live mission of that family, when a faction other than Anarchy runs it, makes d47 say once per mission that the job is a crime there.

The chapter writer is also given a Sites within reach section: up to three Guardian sites, landable bodies with a Guardian surface signal found by the galaxy search, up to three tourist beacons and up to three generation ships (megaships named Generation Ship …) from the signal index, nearest first. A site in a system the Commander has already visited is left out. The tourist beacons and generation ships are listed only while the Signal index setting is on, which fetches the index when a chapter is written as it does for a signal search; with it off the section lists Guardian sites alone, and with none of them it is left out and the writer is not offered the site objective. A site objective must name a listed site by filter (guardian, tourist or generation), system and, for a Guardian site, body; any other site is refused and the repair round names the listed ones. A site counts as a place toward the limit on travel objectives in a chapter. A suit mod or livery change is seen when the next SuitLoadout or Loadout is written, so the objective may fire some minutes after the change. A suit, weapon or ship with no earlier loadout is only remembered: its first loadout counts nothing. A livery objective names no paint job, kit or decal. New drafts never ask for one, because the journal cannot show which paint the Commander owns, and the resolve step refuses one; a stored adventure with a livery objective still loads and counts. The first CarrierLocation seen for a carrier sets the baseline and counts nothing; a squadron carrier’s is ignored. No objective may need an ARX purchase, because the journal cannot show one; the chapter writer is told so.

Conflict and faction objectives. A conflict objective counts taking part, not winning: a conflict lasts days and other players move it. The side is the faction the first counted contribution went to, and contributions to the other side do not count. A bond in a system with no active or pending conflict does not count. d47 reads the conflicts from the Conflicts of FSDJump, Location and CarrierJump, as they stood when the Commander last arrived, so a war that began after that arrival is not seen until the next one. When a later arrival shows the conflict ended (an empty Status), the standing records whether the side with more WonDays was the Commander’s, and the next chapter’s brief says so. For a faction objective, the next chapter’s brief says whether the faction’s influence rose or fell between two visits a day apart. The writer is told both kinds and up to eight active or pending conflicts in systems the Commander has visited; a conflict objective may name no faction and leave the Commander to find one. A faction objective counts mission marks only; trade, data sales and bounties do not count as faction work.

Carrier, squadron and team objectives. The chapter writer is told about a kind only where the Commander can do it, and a chapter that contains one it was not told about is refused:

A Commander is in a squadron from a SquadronStartup, JoinedSquadron or SquadronCreated until a LeftSquadron, KickedFromSquadron or DisbandedSquadron, or until the next LoadGame without a SquadronStartup. A wing or multicrew objective needs another player, so the writer is told the Commander can refuse it, and neither is ever the comfort-zone activity. The form offers the first six kinds and shows any other objective without changing it. A text filter ignores case and any $…; wrapping, so Tritium and tritium are one type, and Thargoid matches $SAA_SignalType_Thargoid;. An engineer objective at Invited is also met by Unlocked, and by the startup list that names every engineer. An on-foot engineer is written only in that startup list, so an engineer objective naming one fires at the first login after the stage is reached, not at the moment.

Nothing a stranger can choose — a ship name, an in-game message, a mission title — can be a trigger. That is the safety property stated as a type rather than as a promise.

People may be invented. Places may not.

A story needs people and the galaxy’s named ones are few, so the AI may invent a contact, a rival, a voice on a wreck’s log. It may not invent a system, a station, a body, a faction, a Power or a game mechanic — every place in a generated story is resolved against the galaxy before you are offered it, and a miss refuses the whole draft by name.

No stop needs a permit. Your journal does not say which permits you hold, so a generated story never sends you to a permit-locked system such as Shinrarta Dezhra or Sol, unless you are already in it.

A stock story’s cast can be answered. Every cast member the running stock story has introduced is on the Story comms channel. While one is selected, what you say on the comms push-to-talk goes to that member, with no time limit and no limit on replies. They answer in the first person, in their own voice, knowing their last line and what has been said since. Push-to-talk still goes to the ship. The member reads the hidden story as every speaker does, so they may hint at the secret but never state it, and never mislead you about fuel, cargo, credits, routes, rank or danger. A reply that contradicts your ship, such as one counting on a fuel scoop you have not fitted, is not said. The member is offered no tools, so nothing they say can act on the ship. Each reply is one model call, counted in your spend like conversation, and is posted to the Story log from the member, with their picture and the clip it was spoken in, below what you said. No one is on the Story channel while the story is paused or switched off, or while the game runs without Odyssey, and a member the story marks as heard only in recordings or messages is never on it. Ask the core whether one of them was real and it says they are someone in the story. The notes you keep on a cast member on the Characters page are added after the story’s own description of them, so their replies follow both.

Where you are in it, and what it says

An objective speaks when it fires, and hands over to the next one in the same breath:

The log's last entry is dated the day the beacon went quiet.
Next: dock at Maren Anchorage in Dyson's Hollow.

The hand-off names the place and the act and nothing else — never the next objective’s title or its line, which is the spoiler rule holding. A scan’s hand-off says how, because “scan X” sent a Commander looking for a detailed surface scanner when the ship’s own scanner was what the story meant. It also says that going there counts: a body already scanned writes no second Scan, so a scan objective is satisfied by the approach as well, and a story cannot strand a Commander on somewhere they had already been.

No counts where you read. The card says the story’s name and where it is — not yet begun, the current objective’s title, or finished. Objective 3 of 7 is checklist language and stays off the card.

Stopping, and starting again

Remove a begun short story and it stops telling you: no objective fires, the AI drops it from what it knows, and an objective waiting out its settle window is discarded. It asks first, because a story three objectives in is work you did, and the record goes with its messages. A short story has no Abandon button.

A short story saved as abandoned earlier stays folded away at the foot of the list with what it reached. Begin again on it starts from the opening with a fresh stamp — nothing that happened in the gap counts, because a start is a start. Remove deletes it.

Both are yours alone, reachable from the panel and nowhere else.

Nothing here is callable by the model

Generation, beginning, abandoning and removing are all your acts, on the panel. Asking for a short story, and accepting, changing and rejecting a draft, are yours too, by voice or by their buttons, and so are pausing and resuming a stock story, by voice or by the Story on checkbox, and asking for the story so far. the core can read the story — that is what it is for, so it can play off it — and can change nothing about it. A hostile message arriving in your comms panel cannot propose a story, end one, or delete one.

It also costs nothing: none of this is on the advertised tool surface.

Accepting, changing or rejecting a draft by voice

While a generated short story waits for your yes, three phrases act on it as its buttons do:

They act on the draft whose page is open on the Stories tab. With no draft page open and exactly one draft, they act on that one. With two or more drafts and none open, d47 says there is more than one draft and to open the one you mean, and changes nothing. With no draft the phrases are not heard. The page stays in view and nothing reads the draft aloud. The model is refused all three.

change_adventure

Open the entry for a remark that changes the Commander’s draft short story. The Commander’s choice alone.

{"type":"object","properties":{},"required":[],"additionalProperties":false}

accept_adventure

Accept the Commander’s draft short story, as the Accept button does. The Commander’s choice alone.

{"type":"object","properties":{},"required":[],"additionalProperties":false}

reject_adventure

Reject the Commander’s draft short story and remove it, as the Decline button does. The Commander’s choice alone.

{"type":"object","properties":{},"required":[],"additionalProperties":false}

Story log

Every objective said is also kept as a written message, from whoever said it, so a line said during a fight is not lost. Open Story log on the Stories tab. The sub-tab is there while a story or short story is under way, or while a story’s ending is waiting for your answer, and not otherwise. Lines waiting for your answer come first, then one group per story, the story with the newest line first and each group newest first. Lines from a story that no longer exists are under Earlier stories, and lines tied to no story are under Not tied to a story. Unread lines are bold. Opening a line marks it read. A message that was spoken has a Play button that plays the clip it was spoken in; see Spoken messages keep their clip.

The messages live in data/messages.json. The file holds the most recent 200; past that the oldest read message goes first.

Abandoning a story, or switching to another, removes the messages it posted: its objectives, nudges, clues, beacon scan and ending. A finished story keeps them. The messages of a short story you asked for stay when you abandon it.

A nudge when a story stalls

When the next objective has waited through three play sessions and seven days since the last objective or nudge, the Narrator’s next narration leans toward it. It may hint at where the objective waits; it never quotes the objective’s line. It is posted to the Story log from the narrator, and each story is nudged at most once each time D47 runs.

Stock stories

Open Catalogue on the Stories tab for the stock stories, each written to run for the length on its card, a chapter at a time. Until stories are added to the catalog the page says “No stories yet.” A sentence at the top narrows the list: “Show All stories of Any length”. Press a word in it to open its choices under the sentence. The level takes any number of ticks, and with none ticked every level shows. Each story is a card with its pictures, its title, its length, the level of Commander it was written for, the Guardian core the story is written for, and a blurb saying why you might pick it. The level is new (no engineering done yet), midrange (some ship engineering done) or endgame (most ship and on-foot engineers unlocked, and at least one ship, suit and weapon fully engineered). It is a guide to choosing, not a limit: every story can be picked at any level, D47 does not work out your level, and where the story’s backstory disagrees with your real ships, credits or ranks, the chapter writer goes by what is true now. A story’s page adds the length beside the level’s guideline, the tone, the story in your words and why it sends you to a Guardian beacon.

Each story also has a hidden layer: its secret, a beat sheet of Save the Cat beats, a clue for each of its length’s clue days, a line for each finale chapter, one to four ways it can end, and up to four speakers who exist only in the story. Each of those speakers has a local voice, Kokoro or Chatterbox, and a story may mark a speaker pinned: true so that it always speaks in that voice. A speaker that is not pinned speaks through the provider you set for the ship, so a story never sends its lines to a provider you did not choose. A speaker whose voice is own is pinned. Every clue and finale line names who says it: one of those speakers, the core or the narrator. D47 keeps that layer sealed, never shows it, and sends it to the language model so the chapters can hint at it.

A speaker may be written in two versions: forMan, the version a Commander who is a man meets, and forWoman, the version a Commander who is a woman meets. Each version has its own name, voice and picture. The story’s card never names that speaker and calls them by role (“the engineer”); the hidden layer names them as {name:<cast-id>}, and D47 puts in the version’s name before any line is shown, spoken or sent to the chapter writer.

For such a story, the story’s page asks Your Commander is: A man or A woman, above Pick. Pick and Switch stay disabled until you choose, and the page says why. The choice is kept per Commander and is asked only by a story that needs it. The same control is on the page of your running story; changing it there takes effect from the story’s next line.

Pick makes the card’s words your Backstory until the story stops, and has the core write chapter one, which then begins. D47 keeps the Backstory you had before; a Backstory that is some story’s own words counts as none. Edits you make to the Backstory while a story runs are not kept. Act one ends when you scan the Guardian beacon nearest to you with the ship’s data-link scanner; arriving in the beacon’s system is not enough. The beacon’s three pylons must be charged by laser or railgun fire, all within a few minutes, before the scan opens its core; the objective’s hand-off says so. Before each act-one chapter D47 checks whether the ship you are in can reach that beacon: it can when a laser or railgun is fitted in any mount and either you own a fleet carrier or a fuel scoop is fitted. Jump range never decides it; a ship with a short range is told the trip is easier with a longer one. When it can, the chapter ends at the beacon. When it cannot, the chapter has no beacon objective, keeps to a session’s flying, and works toward a ship that can make the trip; the chapter writer is told the beacon, its distance, and whether the missing fuel scoop, the missing laser or railgun or both stand in the way. The chapter’s last line is said before the core wakes, in the voice that was aboard. Each chapter is a story on this tab. When one finishes, the next is written from it and begins. Switch abandons the running story and picks another.

A story of 3 days, 1 week or 2 weeks has no trip to a beacon: it begins after you have scanned one. At Pick, the scan is narrated in the words the story was written with, posted to the Story log from its speaker and said aloud. Then the cores wake and the story’s core comes aboard, as for a real scan, and chapter one begins in act one with no beacon objective. The story’s days count from the pick. A story of 1 month or longer keeps the real scan, unless a scan is on record.

A scan is on record when any other story you picked, running or stopped, recorded a real beacon scan while it was current, or itself opened with one on record. A scan made with no story running, or before d47, is not on record, and no journal history is read for it. A story of 1 month or longer picked while a scan is on record begins with the scan behind you: no trip, no beacon objective, chapter one in act one, and its days counting from the pick. No scan line is said. Once the opening lines, if any, have been said, the story’s core comes aboard and D47 says “The Guardian cores from your last beacon scan are still in the ship’s systems. {core} has come aboard for this story.” The chapter writer is told the trip is already behind you, and the story’s page leaves out “The beacon”. A story whose card says it needs its own beacon trip flies to a beacon even with a scan on record, as if none were. The Stories page shows a checkbox, “Fly to a Guardian beacon again in my next story”, once a scan is on record. Ticking it makes the next story of 1 month or longer you pick fly to its own beacon as if no scan were on record; it never changes the story you are running. A real scan in that story clears the tick, and that scan is on record from then on. Unticking before you pick restores the remembered opening. Only the panel sets it; it is not a tool. Abandon ends the story, and so does finishing it; either puts your Backstory back to the one you had before your first story, or to empty. Switch passes that earlier Backstory on to the new story. Neither changes your Guardian cores. Abandon on the current chapter’s page ends the story, as it does on the Catalogue; that page also has Story on, which pauses the story.

Each story is written for one Guardian core, shown on the list and on the story’s page as “Core”. When you scan the story’s first Guardian beacon, or at the pick of a story shorter than a month, that core comes aboard in place of the core you had, says the waking line, and the Story log says it came aboard. A core you choose afterwards stays; the story does not bring its own back. Pausing, abandoning or finishing the story leaves the core aboard as it is.

One story runs at a time, kept in data/story.json. A story needs a language model and galaxy search, the same as asking for a short story.

Stories need Elite Dangerous: Odyssey, because most chapters use it: on-foot missions, settlements, exobiology and suits. D47 reads the Odyssey flag on each LoadGame. When the last one says "Odyssey":false, the Stories page says why stories are off, Pick and Switch are disabled, a running story writes no chapter and gives no clue, and the time does not count toward a clue’s day. The next LoadGame with Odyssey brings the story back where it was, and a story you switched off stays off. Before D47 has seen a LoadGame, stories run.

A story chapter’s page never shows its premise, turn or ending, because the chapter was written from the hidden layer.

Download stock stories

Stock stories are files on the stories-1 release of the repository. The first time the Stories page opens in a session, D47 fetches index.json into data\stories, shows the stories already on disk at once and redraws when the new list lands. Opening a story’s page fetches its hidden file and every cast picture it names when the hidden file is not on disk, and the page redraws with its Cast section when they land. Pick on a story whose hidden file is still not on disk fetches it, reads Downloading while it does, and starts the story when every file is in place. On a failure the page says “The story could not be downloaded. Check your connection and pick it again.” and nothing starts. At startup, a story that is running or paused and has no hidden file on disk is fetched, and one that has fetches any cast picture the release has and data\stories does not.

A story can be published again with changes. Its card in index.json then carries sealedSha256, the SHA-256 of its hidden file, and each time the list lands, a story on disk whose hidden file has another hash is fetched again. The new file replaces the old one only once it and its cast pictures are in place, so a failed fetch leaves the old one; pictures already on disk are not fetched again. A card without sealedSha256 is never fetched again. A running story reads the new file from its next line.

Download stock stories, on by default, is in the Stories settings. Off, nothing is fetched and the Stories page lists only stories already on disk.

Story ratings

D47 can show every stock story’s average rating, from 1 to 5 stars, and send your own. Ratings live on a Worker at https://d47-ratings.dseelinger.workers.dev, not on GitHub. The first time the Stories page opens in a session, D47 fetches every story’s average and vote count. A story’s stars are the average rounded to the nearest half, so 3.74 is 3.5 and 3.75 is 4. The Stories page can keep only stories of a least star rating, 4, 3, 2 or 1 stars and up, and can sort by highest rated: more stars first, then more votes, then catalogue order. A story with no votes fails every star filter and sorts last.

Only a story you have picked can be rated, in any state. Your vote is kept on the story in data\story.json, with a flag while it, or taking it back, has not reached the Worker. A vote carries the story, your stars and a random number made on this PC the first time you rate, one per Commander and kept in data\story.json with that Commander’s stories. It is not your donation identifier, and your Frontier ID is never sent. Reinstalling without data\ makes a new number, so one person can then vote twice. No voice command or model tool rates a story.

Each card on the Stories page shows its stars and vote count, or five empty stars and “(No ratings yet)”. The Rating and Sort words in the Catalogue’s filter sentence set the least star rating and the order, and Clear filters resets them. A story’s page shows its average under the title. For a story you have picked it also shows Your rating: click a star to rate, click your current rating again to take it back, or use Left, Right and Delete once the stars have focus. A vote that could not be sent says so, and is sent again the next time the Stories page opens. When the averages cannot be fetched, every story shows as unrated, with no error, and they are asked for again the next time the page opens.

Story ratings, on by default, is in the Stories settings. Off, nothing is fetched or sent and the Stories page shows no ratings.

Cast pictures

A speaker may have a picture, downloaded with the story as <story-id>.<cast-id>.jpg into data\stories; a speaker in two versions has one for each, ending .for-man.jpg and .for-woman.jpg. A speaker marked primary is a recurring character named on the story’s card, and always has one. A line that speaker says is posted to the Story log with the picture, which the message page shows above the text, at most 240 px wide. A line from the core or the narrator has none. A story’s own page shows each line’s speaker picture beside it, the core’s and the narrator’s included, and pressing it opens it full size.

While the speaker’s line plays, including an answer to you and a message played again from the Story log, the avatar shows the picture whole in place of the core aboard: in the main window, on the mini panel, and on both VR panels. When the line ends, the core shows again. A speaker whose picture is not on disk leaves the avatar showing the core.

Under the picture, Change picture opens a file picker for a PNG, JPEG, BMP or WebP file under 10 MB. D47 reads it, scales it to at most 1024 px on the longer side and keeps it as data\pictures\<story-id>.<cast-id>.png (with the version suffix for a speaker in two versions). A file that cannot be read as a picture is refused with the reason, and nothing is written. From then on every message with that picture, earlier ones included, shows your file. Use the default deletes it, and the story’s own picture shows again. Your pictures stay on this PC; nothing is sent anywhere, and the model has no tool for them.

public string? For(StorySpeakerShown? speaker) =>
    speaker is { } shown && IsName(shown.Picture) && (shown.Primary || Find(shown.Picture) is not null)
        ? shown.Picture
        : null;

Who speaks a story line

Every line of a stock story names its speaker: each clue and finale line, the narrated beacon scan, and in each chapter the opening and every objective’s line. The chapter writer is told the speakers, with each cast member’s name and who they are, and returns a speaker for every line it writes. A chapter that gives a line to anyone else is sent back once with the reason, and refused if it comes back the same way.

The opening and each objective have one to three lines, spoken in order. When you hear a cast member in a chapter (a recording plays or a call comes in), their words are a line in their own voice, not a description of what they said. A cast member may give their own name only when introducing themselves: “This is …”, “My name is …” or “… here”.

• ship is the core aboard, in the ship’s voice as you set it under Your core › Its voice. While the core aboard is stock COVAS, a ship line is spoken in the narrator voice and posted from the Narrator, and the chapter writer is told so, so it writes those lines as narration. With a Guardian core or a core you wrote aboard, that core speaks them. This is decided when the line is spoken.
• narrator is the narrator voice set under Other voices › Narrator and stories.
• A cast member the story marked pinned: true speaks in the provider and voice the story gave it, Kokoro or Chatterbox, whatever Where each voice comes from says. Any other cast member speaks through the provider you set for the ship, in the voice paired with it for that provider, or in the crew voice while none is paired. Either kind speaks in the voice you chose for it, if any (see Cast voices). A speaker in two versions speaks in your version’s voice, and changing Your Commander is takes effect from the next line. The line goes through that speaker’s own sound, a comms link at the story’s strength and any Guardian effects the story lists, and nothing else: no radio for its role and none of the Guardian Voice Effects you set for the ship. The model writes a cast member’s clue as that member, from their name and who they are.

A cast member can be aboard your ship. A story may give a member a span of its beats, from the one they board at to the one they leave at. Boarding and leaving happen at an objective: when the chapter writer is given the beat, it places the boarding or leaving on the objective, or the opening, where that beat happens, and a chapter that does not reach the beat leaves it for a later one. A chapter written after the beat has passed with nothing placed opens with the boarding or leaving already done. A chapter opens with the members whose boarding has happened and whose leaving has not, and the writer may add others for that chapter alone. While a member is aboard, the chapter writer writes their lines as spoken in the cockpit, and their lines are spoken without the comms link; their Guardian effects still apply. A chapter’s line is voiced for who is aboard at its own objective. Clues, reactions and replies are voiced for who is aboard at the last objective you completed. A boarding or leaving counts for the next chapter once its objective has fired. A boarding waits for a free seat: the ship’s crew size, less you, less the members already aboard. While your ship has none, a boarding that comes due is still offered to a chapter that moves you into a ship with enough seats: the writer is told how many seats the boarding needs and which ships have them, and places it on or after the objective that boards such a ship. A boarding no ship you own or can afford could seat is not offered. One the chapter does not place is held, and the first chapter written while your ship has a seat is told the boarding is due and places it as a scene.

A cast member can live on your fleet carrier. A story may mark a member’s span as on the carrier rather than your ship. That member boards and leaves the carrier at their beats as a ship rider does, needs no seat, and is never counted as aboard your ship. While you are docked at your own carrier they are heard in person. Away from it, they are heard over comms that fade with distance: clear within 250 light years, then more broken up farther out, though never lost entirely. Beyond 500 light years they cannot hear you, and a reply to them is refused as the captain’s is; their story lines are still spoken. With no carrier of your own, a squadron carrier, or a carrier in a system you have no position for, they are heard through the story’s own comms sound. A chapter that lists them aboard your ship puts them in the cockpit.

Each line is posted to the Story log from its speaker’s name, with the speaker’s picture and the clip it was spoken in. When a chapter’s objective belongs to the narrator or a cast member, that speaker says the objective’s line as written and the ship then says where you go next. A line may open with a sound such as [static crackle]: a voice that performs sounds performs it, and every other voice has it taken out.

public static StoryLineVoice Of(
    string? speaker, StorySecret secret, string? gender, Persona.Persona? core, IReadOnlyDictionary<string, StoryVoiceChoice>? choices = null,
    ShipSpeech? ship = null)

Reactions between chapters

While a stock story runs and is switched on, one of its primary cast may say one line about something you did. The things that count are the ones the chapter writer is told: a death and its rebuy, an interdiction or an escape, a promotion, an engineer invited or unlocked, a ship bought, a hull you brought home below a quarter, your largest sale, bounty or exploration data sale, and a first discovery. The newest since the last reaction is the one reacted to.

• There is at most one reaction a play session, counted by the game’s LoadGame. The line is said the next time you are docked and in your ship, outside a fight, two minutes after the last unprompted line, and after a clue owed at the same time. On foot on the station it waits until you are back in the cockpit.
• The model picks the member from the primary cast, given each one’s name and who they are, and writes the line as them. A reply naming anyone else is not spoken. The model is given the event as the journal recorded it, with no other Commander’s or pilot’s name, and the hidden story as every speaker reads it, and is told to state no new fact about the story.
• The line is spoken in that member’s voice and posted to the Story log from them, with their picture and the clip it was spoken in.
• Nothing is noted while d47 catches up on the journal at start-up, while the story is paused, switched off or without Odyssey, or before chapter one begins. Without a language model, or with personality off, no reaction is spoken, and the next session tries again.
• Cast reactions, on the Stories tab, switches reactions off for every story. Clues and chapter lines are unchanged.

A story needs its voices first

A story cannot be picked until every voice its cast speaks in is ready, the voices you chose included. A member that is not pinned needs only the ship’s provider, so a story with no pinned member starts without the Kokoro download. Pick and Switch are disabled, and the story’s page lists what is missing:

• the Chatterbox download and its size, when a member speaks through Chatterbox and it is not downloaded;
• the Kokoro download and its size, when a member speaks through Kokoro and it is not downloaded;
• a recording of Your voice under Settings, Providers, Speech synthesis, Custom voices, when a member speaks in your own voice;
• the provider’s API key under Settings, Providers, Speech synthesis, when you chose a provider that needs a key and none is stored.

The Local voice and Chatterbox voice download rows under Providers › Speech synthesis appear while a downloaded story’s cast needs them and the model is not downloaded, even when no slot uses that provider. A pick tried anyway is refused, and the ship posts one message to the Story log listing the same things.

If a voice a running story needs stops being ready, for example because the recording was deleted, the story is paused within a few seconds, its chapter stops, and the message is posted again. Resume is refused, with the same list, until the voice is back.

Cast voices

A story’s card page has a Cast section listing its primary characters, and no one else, before you pick the story and while it runs. A character in two versions is listed once Your Commander is is set, as your version. Each row shows the character’s picture, name, their role (who they are to you in the story, such as “The search-and-rescue coordinator at Ebbrells Watch”), and the provider and voice it speaks in, with “(the story’s voice)” while it is the one it speaks in without your choice: the story’s pinned voice, or the voice paired with it for the ship’s provider. Play sample speaks the character’s name and one fixed sentence in that voice. Change picture and Use the default work as they do on a message.

Change voice, on the row and on every message from a story character, primary or not, opens a picker of every provider that speaks, then of every voice that provider lists, of either gender. The story’s own voice is marked in the list. The story’s text is not rewritten for the voice you choose. Each voice in the list can be played first; on a paid provider each sample is billed like any line. Use the default returns the character to the story’s voice, or to the ship’s provider for a character that is not pinned. A character that is not primary is listed nowhere until its first message arrives.

The choice is kept in settings.json under storyVoices, keyed <story-id>.<cast-id>, with .for-man or .for-woman for a character in two versions. Lines spoken through a paid provider count in the speech spend with every other line. If the chosen provider fails a sentence, that sentence is spoken in the character’s own voice, which for a character that is not pinned is its voice on the ship’s provider, and the character’s row on the card page says why.

A character that is not pinned is given a voice from the ship’s provider’s list when the story starts or resumes, and again when you change the ship’s provider while the story runs. The language model chooses it from the character’s name and who they are, told the gender of the voice the story wrote the character for; with no language model, a voice of that gender is picked from the list. While the list has enough voices, no two characters of one story share one, and none shares the ship’s or the Narrator’s. The pairing is kept in settings.json under storyVoicePairings, by provider, so changing back to a provider reuses its pairing. Your choice wins over it, and Reset voices forgets every pairing. Until a character is paired, it speaks in the crew voice. The request sends the cast’s names and descriptions and the provider’s voice list to the language model, which the Language model entry under Privacy and egress says, and its cost counts in the spend as the cores’ pairing does.

public static IReadOnlyList<(StorySpeaker Member, StorySpeakerShown Shown)> Unpinned(StorySecret secret, string? gender)

A character you put on a hosted provider sends its lines, which are the story’s sealed text, to that provider. Privacy and egress, under text to speech, names each such character, its story and its provider, with that provider’s own disclosure, and get_data_egress answers from the same entry. A character that is not pinned sends its lines to the ship’s provider, and the same entry says so whenever that provider is hosted. A character on Kokoro or Chatterbox adds nothing. Only the panel changes these voices; the model has no tool for them.

public static PinnedVoice Voice(
    StorySpeaker member, StorySpeakerShown shown, IReadOnlyDictionary<string, StoryVoiceChoice>? choices, ShipSpeech? ship = null)

How a chapter is fitted to you

Genre. Each card has a Save the Cat genre, and the chapter writer is given that genre’s three elements, from Blake Snyder: a Buddy Love story keeps an incomplete hero, a counterpart and a complication in play. In a Buddy Love story the partner exists only in the fiction; a chapter may offer hiring a crew member but never requires it.

Your ship and credits. The writer is told your position, your ships, the jump range of the one you are in, your credits at the last load, your fleet carrier and your ranks, and sizes counts and destinations to them. There is no fixed limit on ships: a chapter may have you save up for one, and a later chapter have you buy and board it. A chapter is sized to finish in one to three play sessions, or in one session in a story shorter than three months. A longer undertaking, such as engineering, saving for a ship or a run of ranks, carries on across chapters.

Activity, not only travel. From chapter two on, a chapter is a story of activity, not only travel. It may have as many arrive, dock, land or scan objectives as it needs.

Steps. An objective can take several steps, in order, each with its own place or activity. The objective’s lines are spoken when its last step is done. After any earlier step your core says it was done and what the next step is, for example “Next: collect 3 bounties.” Change objective, Mark done and Never ask this act on the step you are on. A chapter has as many steps as its story needs.

The long haul. A chapter keeps to a session’s flying unless you had 250,000,000 credits or more at the last load, or own a Caspian Explorer, and the story is three months long or more. Then the chapter may go anywhere, as far as Colonia or Sagittarius A*, but only after the beacon scan and before the finale, and only when the chapter draws a discovery, map, footfall or organic activity or its Goals step is an Exploration or Exobiologist rank. A chapter may also be a sightseeing chapter: with notable places on, a long-haul story’s chapter after the beacon scan and before the finale, other than one heading home, is drawn as one with a chance that grows with your Exploration record and falls after a sightseeing chapter. It is offered up to eight notable places from the catalogue, none in a system an earlier chapter of the story sent you to, and must have an arrive, land or scan objective at one. That chapter goes anywhere. Outside the bubble the offered places are only those in the Sol band above. Changing the objective of a sightseeing chapter whose sight is still ahead gives another sight. Any other chapter keeps to a session’s flying. Below the credits, the writer is not told it exists.

A credit reserve. A chapter never spends the Commander to nothing. A story objective that buys something, which is a board into a hull they do not own, carrierbuy or squadronfound, is allowed only when the credits at the last load cover the price plus a reserve: the price again or 500,000,000, whichever is less. Where a fixed threshold above is higher, it applies. A hull already owned is allowed at any balance, and a hull with no price in d47’s table is refused unless owned. The writer is told the most the chapter may ask the Commander to spend, and a chapter that asks for more is refused and written again. Saving up and buying therefore fall in separate chapters.

The reach limits one hop. A chapter’s reach is the longest one hop may be, not how far the chapter goes: a farther place is reached over several hops.

The finale’s destination. Finale chapter 1 names where the story ends: a landable body in a real system, resolved as a land objective’s place is, with no permit needed. It may be at most five hops at the chapter’s reach from you for each finale chapter after the first, and at least five: with a reach of 360 light years, 1,800 light years in a story with two finale chapters and 5,400 in one with four. A finale chapter 1 with no destination, or one that does not stand, is refused. The destination is kept on the story. Each later finale chapter’s writer is told the destination, how far it is from you and how many finale chapters are left. A finale chapter between the first and the last that starts more than one reach from the destination must end closer to it than it started. The last finale chapter’s last objective is a land objective on the destination, and that one objective may be farther than the reach. A 3-day story’s one finale chapter both names the destination and lands on it.

Outside the bubble. A story chapter that starts more than 500 light years from Sol (StarPosition.Origin) must end 100 to 300 light years nearer Sol than it started, so a Commander left far out by the beacon scan works back over several chapters. The writer is told how far you are from Sol and the band its last stop must fall in: a chapter starting 588 light years out has a last stop between 288 and 488. The last stop is the system of the chapter’s last place objective, and a chapter with none counts as ending where it started. A draft outside the band is refused and goes back through the repair rounds, as does one whose last stop Galaxy search cannot measure. The rule does not apply to a chapter that ends at the beacon, a finale chapter, a rewrite or a short story, or to a chapter that starts within 500 light years, or to a chapter in the black (below). The chapter also keeps one of its two place objectives for this stop.

Heading home from the black. A chapter counts as changed when you apply a Change objective replacement in it; Never ask this does not count. When the last two chapters were both changed and you are more than 1,000 light years from both Sol and Colonia, the story heads home: to the nearer of the two, or to Sol when you are within 1,000 light years of Colonia. Each chapter heading home uses the long-haul reach (1,500 light years, or 5,000 with a fleet carrier), may have more than two place objectives, and is told where you are going and why it travels. Its last stop must be at least three quarters of the reach nearer the target than the chapter starts (1,125 light years, or 3,750 with a fleet carrier), or within 1,000 light years of the target; a draft that misses is refused and goes back through the repair rounds. The chapter is offered the stations and landable bodies nearest a point on the way, found by a galaxy search around it, each with its distance from the target; when that search finds none or cannot be made, the chapter is not refused. The target is cleared by the first chapter written within 1,000 light years of it. Finale chapters and the chapter that ends at the beacon are not sent home. A chapter heading home is not held to the Sol band above. The changed chapters and the target are kept with the story across a restart.

In the black. A story’s hidden entry may mark spans of its beat sheet as in the black. A chapter whose stage hands the writer a beat inside a span is held to neither rule above: it has no Sol band, keeps no place objective for one, is not sent home, and clears a home target already set. The writer is told the chapter takes place in the black and its stops may be far from the bubble. A chapter in the black still travels far only at the long-haul reach. Outside every span both rules apply.

A span may name a destination with "toward": Sol, Colonia, Sagittarius A* or Beagle Point. From the beacon scan on, each chapter in such a span travels toward it by the rule for a chapter heading home: at the long-haul reach, with no sights, its last stop at least three quarters of the reach nearer the destination (about 1,125 light years a chapter, or 3,750 with a fleet carrier, so Colonia is about 20 chapters from the bubble without a carrier) or within 1,000 light years of it, and the places listed on the way. A chapter that starts within 1,000 light years of the destination is told it has arrived, and the rest of the span plays as a span with no destination. A span with a destination may not reach the finale or, in a story that flies to a real beacon, start before breakIntoTwo.

The comfort zone. Every third chapter after the beacon scan, d47 picks the activity your Statistics show you have done least, and it is the first of the chapter’s drawn activities:

A tie goes to the earlier row, counting from a different row for each comfort-zone chapter: the first counts from bounty, the second from bond, and so on round the table. Before d47 has seen a Statistics event, no activity is picked. An activity you have refused in the story is never picked.

A mission family you have never completed comes first. The activity ledger files each MissionCompleted under mission:<family>, the family in the draw table that the mission’s Name starts with. If any family in the table has no such entry, passes the gates and is not refused in the story, the first slot is one of them, with that row’s count range, and the table above is not used. Ties count from a different family for each comfort-zone chapter. The ledger only knows the journals on this PC, so a family it has not seen may have been completed before them; Never ask this bars it.

Drawing a chapter’s activities

ChapterDraw.Draw chooses three counted activities from a fixed table, ChapterActivities.All. The draw is seeded by ChapterDraw.Seed, an FNV-1a hash of the story id and the chapter number, plus the index of the objective being replaced in a rewrite, so the same inputs give the same activities.

Never drawn: Altruism, AltruismCredits, MassacreThargoid, every set-aside family, and the onfoot, collect, suitmod and faction kinds. An activity the story refuses is excluded.

An activity is excluded unless the ship aboard and the Commander pass its gate:

The station gate is checked once per chapter, before the draw. StoryDirector asks the galaxy search for fixed stations within the chapter’s reach of the Commander’s system (300 light years or more, or the long-haul reach) and counts one that needs no permit and has a pad for the ship aboard. With none, the rows in the last gate row are never drawn, and a comfort chapter’s first slot can only be mine or organic. When the galaxy search is off, the position is unknown or the query fails, the draw is not gated. A redrawn slot after Never ask this follows the same gate.

A row weighs its career’s weight, and a quarter of that when the last three chapters asked for it. CareerWeights.From reads the ratings of 1 to 100; while every rating but Crime’s is still 50, a career with activity in Statistics weighs 75, and Crime always weighs 50. In a comfort-zone chapter the first slot is a mission family never completed, else the least-done activity that passes the gates. The rest are drawn without replacement, with no two slots in one career while another career has a row left. Conflict and every illegal family need a place objective just before them; at most two place objectives may be in a chapter, counting those the chapter already has. Tons for sell and mine are 10 to 40, capped at the cargo capacity.

A chapter written around its drawn activities

A story chapter written after the beacon scan is drawn three activities before its spine is written. StoryDirector calls ChapterDraw.Draw with the Commander’s ratings, ranks, ship and Statistics from the last loaded Commander’s game state, the activities the last three chapters asked for, and the activities the story refuses. A last finale chapter already has a land objective, and a finale chapter after the first already has a stop nearer the destination, so each leaves room for one fewer place objective in the draw. The chapter is written to its activities:

• The spine prompt and the objectives prompt both list the three activities with their counts, and the spine prompt says the chapter’s want and turn are built on them.
• The objectives prompt offers, as counted kinds, only the three activities and the milestone kinds: engineer, crew and the team kinds that apply. A mission activity names its family exactly. The schema’s kind enum is narrowed to match. The shuffled kind lists and the “Vary what the Commander does” line are not sent.
• The resolve step needs one objective for each activity, of its kind and, for a mission, its exact family. The objective’s count is set to the drawn count, whatever the model wrote. An activity no objective meets goes through the repair rounds like any other refusal, and the chapter fails if it is still missing after the last round.

A chapter before the beacon scan, and a short story, are written without drawn activities. When you refuse an objective that held a drawn activity, only that activity is drawn again, without the refused one or the chapter’s other activities, and the seed includes the index of the replaced objective. The chapter’s activities are read back from its objectives, so nothing extra is stored.

A Goals story

A stock story whose card sets "goals": true is a Goals story. Each of its chapters after the beacon scan and before the finale works one of your Goals arcs: the unfinished one with the lowest share of its whole, so the arcs rise together. Powerplay runs to rank 100 and a career to Elite V, so at Powerplay rank 20 and Combat rank 6 the Powerplay arc is further behind and is worked first. An arc whose progress d47 cannot read counts as not started, and a tie goes to the arc first on the Goals page. While d47 knows you are not pledged to a Power, the pledge comes before every other arc. GoalClimb.Next makes the choice and gives the chapter one step for the arc:

• A career or navy within a quarter of its next rank: an objective for that rank.
• A career or navy further from it: the drawn activities are only ones that earn that rank. Combat: bounties, bonds, conflicts, and massacre and assassination missions. Trade: selling cargo and trade missions. Exploration: cartographic data sales, discoveries, mapping and first footfalls. Exobiology: organic samples and organic data sales. Mercenary: on-foot massacre, onslaught, assassination and defence missions. A navy: missions, and the writer is told they are for that superpower’s factions.
• Powerplay: a pledge objective while you are unpledged, otherwise an objective for the next Powerplay rank.
• Engineers: an objective to reach the next stage with the first engineer on the unlock route.
• Ships: an objective to board the cheapest hull you do not own.

An arc is passed over for the next one when it has no step to give now: a pledge while d47 has not read whether you are pledged, a hull your credits do not cover, no engineer on the route, or a career none of whose activities can be drawn, given your ranks, your ship and the activities the story has refused. An objective step takes the place of one drawn activity, and a chapter without that objective is refused like a chapter missing a drawn activity. A rewritten chapter carries no Goals step.

A Goals story’s clues follow your Goals progress as well as their days. Overall progress is the mean share done of every built-in Goals arc, with an arc d47 cannot read counted as 0. Powerplay counts while you are unpledged, and so does an arc you removed from the Goals page. Each clue before the finale waits for its day and also for overall progress to reach an even step on the way from where it stood when you picked the story to 100%. With fourteen clues and 40% at the pick, the first clue waits for 44% and the fifth for 60%. Its finale waits for its day and for every built-in Goal to be done; once the finale has begun, it is not withdrawn. A drop in progress, such as the ship collection reading 0 before the fleet has been listed this session, holds the next clue and takes back none already given. The story’s entry on the Goals page says what it is waiting for: “Clue 5 waits for Goals progress of 60%; you are at 37%”, or “The finale waits for every Goal: 9 of 11 done”. The Story Bench cannot jump a Goals story.

A Goals story’s card may also list goalArcs, the keys of the arcs it works, such as ["rank.combat", "rank.trade", "rank.explore", "rank.soldier", "rank.exobiologist"] for Elite V in the five careers. Its chapters’ steps, its overall progress, its finale and its Goals page entry then read only those arcs, and the pledge step is offered only when powerplay is listed. A card without the list works every arc.

What you like doing

The Stories settings hold eight ratings, one per career, each from 1 to 100 and 50 until you set it. They are kept per Commander, so two Commanders on one install keep separate values, and a Commander with none set reads 50 for each. They are the ratings CareerWeights.From reads when a chapter’s activities are drawn. A value outside 1 to 100 is refused on the panel and by voice. Say “set my mining rating to 80” or “rate exploration 30”, with the number in digits or words. The Commander sets a rating: it is not offered to the model, which is refused if it asks.

Combat

How much you like combat.

Trading

How much you like trading.

Mining

How much you like mining.

Exploration

How much you like exploration.

Exobiology

How much you like exobiology.

Passengers

How much you like passengers.

Search and rescue

How much you like search and rescue.

Crime

How much you like crime. It has no effect until Frontier’s Law and Disorder update.

Refusing an objective

A story chapter’s current objective has a Never ask this button, on the chapter’s page and on the Stories page, and a voice command: “never ask this”, “this objective is not for me”, “not for me” or “give me a different objective”. The button asks “Write a different objective?” and, for an objective that asks for an activity, “This story won’t ask you to collect bounties again.” (or whichever activity it is). On yes the core writes new objectives from the current one to the end of the chapter. Objectives already done stay as they were, the chapter count and the clues do not change, and the new objectives count only what happens after you refused. A replacement arrive objective for a system you had already visited waits for your next arrival there. If the write fails, the objective stays as it was and the Stories page says why.

The activity is remembered for the rest of the story. A refusal is kept under the objective’s kind, and for a mission under the kind and the mission family, so refusing a Mission_Massacre objective still allows a Mission_Courier one. Every later chapter’s writer is told which activities are refused, and a chapter with an objective for one is refused and rewritten. The Stories page lists them. An objective that names a place (arrive, dock, land, scan, board, rank) is replaced and not remembered. The Guardian beacon scan that ends act one cannot be refused. A refusal cannot be taken back.

The model is refused this tool.

refuse_story_beat

Refuse the objective the Commander’s story chapter is waiting on and write a different one in its place. The story remembers the activity and does not ask for it again. The Commander’s choice alone.

{"type":"object","properties":{},"required":[],"additionalProperties":false}

Changing an objective

Beside Never ask this, a story chapter’s current objective has a Change objective button, on the chapter’s page and on the Stories page, in the window and on the VR big panel. Say “change this objective” or “change the objective” to open the same page. The page asks “What would you rather do?” and takes your words by speech or keyboard. the core then writes the current objective and those after it again from your words, and the status line reads “Writing a different objective…” meanwhile. It says its reply and shows it with three buttons:

• Use this replaces the current objective and those after it with the proposal.
• Keep the current one drops the proposal.
• Say something else opens the page again, and the AI keeps what was said so far.

Unlike Never ask this, changing an objective does not bar the activity for the story. d47 counts, for each Commander, the changes applied to an objective that asks for an activity (arrive, dock, land and scan objectives count nothing; Keep the current one counts nothing). At five changes for one activity, it is barred for good: no later story chapter or short story asks for it, as Never ask this bars it for one story. A mission objective counts under its mission family. The counts are kept in activity-bars.json in the data folder. Nothing lifts a bar yet. A proposal is refused when the story has moved on while it was written, and the objective stays as it was. Both buttons are left out while an objective is being written, and for an objective that cannot be refused. The model is refused this tool.

change_story_objective

Open the entry where the Commander says what they would rather do instead of the story chapter’s current objective; the core then proposes a replacement for them to use, keep or reword. The Commander’s choice alone.

{"type":"object","properties":{},"required":[],"additionalProperties":false}

Marking an objective done

Only the journal completes an objective on its own. When you did the objective and the journal missed it, press Mark done under NEXT, beside the ship button, on a story chapter’s page or a begun, unfinished short story’s page, in the window and on the VR big panel. It asks “Mark “The Anchorage” done? The story moves on as if the journal had shown it.” (with the objective’s title), and on Mark it done the objective fires: its lines are told, the story waits on the next one, and a chapter’s last objective moves the story on to the next chapter. The button is left out while an objective is being written.

Say “mark this objective done”, “mark the objective done” or “this objective is done” to do the same without the question. The phrase marks the running story’s chapter. While your story is paused it marks nothing and asks you to resume it or use the button. With no story under way it marks the one short story under way; with more than one, d47 names them and asks you to press Mark done on the page of the one you mean. A chapter is not marked while the game runs without Odyssey.

The Guardian beacon scan cannot be marked done: d47 says “The beacon scan is the one objective the journal has to show. Scan the beacon in” and the beacon’s system. An objective to fit out a ship for the trip can be marked. A marked objective stays fired after a restart, and the logbook names it as marked done by the Commander. Marking does not bar the activity or count toward a bar. The model is refused this tool.

mark_objective_done

Mark the objective the Commander’s story is waiting on as done, as if the journal had shown it: the running story’s chapter, or with no story running the one short story under way. The Commander’s choice alone.

{"type":"object","properties":{},"required":[],"additionalProperties":false}

Setting course for the objective

Say “set course for next objective”, “set course for my next objective” or “set course for the next objective” to plot to the system the objective names, as “set course for” a system does. Say “copy next objective to clipboard” (also “my next objective” or “the next objective”, and “to the clipboard” or “to my clipboard”) to put the system name on the clipboard. Both take the same objective as “mark this objective done”: the running story’s chapter, or with no story running the one short story under way. They refuse when no story is under way, when your story is paused (resume it first), when more than one short story is under way (d47 names them), and when the objective has no system, such as a rank, bounties or boarding a ship. Nothing is plotted or copied on a refusal. The model is refused these tools.

set_course_for_objective

Set course for the system of the objective the Commander’s story is waiting on, by plotting it in the galaxy map: the running story’s chapter, or with no story running the one short story under way. The Commander’s choice alone.

{"type":"object","properties":{},"required":[],"additionalProperties":false}

copy_objective_system

Put the system of the objective the Commander’s story is waiting on on the clipboard: the running story’s chapter, or with no story running the one short story under way. The Commander’s choice alone.

{"type":"object","properties":{},"required":[],"additionalProperties":false}

Choices

An objective can begin with a choice of two or three options. The ship or a character offers it in the line before, never the Narrator, and d47 then says the phrases as written: “Say choose option one to fight, or choose option two to flee.” Say “choose option one”, “choose option two” or “choose option three”. The phrases work only while a choice is waiting and its offer has been said; at any other time they do nothing. A line that offers a choice and comes due in combat waits until the ship is out of danger and is then said in full. If the offer was never said, because d47 was closed or the story was off when it came due, it is said again.

Then do what the option asks. Before you choose, completing or abandoning a mission an option refers to fails the chapter. After you choose, doing what only another option asks for, such as abandoning the mission you chose to complete, fails it too. An option either rejoins the chapter or ends it in a named ending of its own, which is said when its steps are done; the next chapter is written from the ending you reached.

The choice is stored in data/adventures.json with its time, so a restart applies it again in order with your journal. While the story is on an objective that begins with a choice, Change objective and Never ask this are refused, and Mark done works only once you have chosen. The model is refused this tool. The ship does not yet write choices into the stories it writes; a choice runs only in a story file that holds one.

public static AdventureStanding Chose(AdventureStanding standing, int option, DateTimeOffset at)

choose_story_option

Choose one of the options a story chapter offers, by the number the offer gave it, from one. The Commander must then do what the option asks. The Commander’s choice alone.

{"type":"object","properties":{"option":{"type":"integer","description":"The option\u0027s number in the offer, from one."}},"required":["option"],"additionalProperties":false}

Pausing the story

Clear Story on, on the Stories page, on the chapter’s page or on the mini panel, or say “pause the story”, and the running stock story goes quiet until you switch it on again. While it is off no objective is said, no nudge or clue is owed, nothing from the story is posted to the Story log, missions get no story aside, and the hidden layer is left out of every prompt, so the Narrator, the core aboard and chatter do not hint at it. The clue clock stops. Narration and chatter work as they always do, and your Backstory, cores and persona are unchanged.

A place you visit while the story is off does not count. Its objective waits for the next visit. The switch is kept in data/story.json, so it lasts across restarts. Say “resume the story” or tick Story on to bring it back.

Both phrases are the model-free router’s, and the model is refused them.

pause_story

Pause the Commander’s running story: no objectives, nudges, clues or story chatter until it is resumed.

{"type":"object","properties":{},"required":[],"additionalProperties":false}

resume_story

Resume the Commander’s running story after a pause.

{"type":"object","properties":{},"required":[],"additionalProperties":false}

The story so far

Say “where am I up to”, “recap the story” or “what’s happened in the story so far”, or press Story so far, and the Narrator says where the story stands in two to four sentences. The button is on your stock story’s page on the Stories tab, under “This is your story.”, and on the page of a short story under way, in the window and on the VR big panel. The phrases recap your stock story while it is running or paused, and otherwise the short story whose objective fired last. The button on a short story’s page recaps that short story. With no story under way, d47 says “No story is under way.”

The recap is made only from what has happened. For a stock story that is your backstory, the objectives reached in every chapter and the clues given so far; for a short story, its premise and the objectives reached. It ends on where the story waits, as the place and the act, the way a hand-off names them. It never names an objective still to come, never says the current objective’s line, and says nothing of the hidden layer beyond the clues you have had.

It is one model call, counted in spend like a narration. Without a model, or when the model writes the recap in the first person, the Narrator says the last objective’s line as written and then where the story waits. The recap is not posted to the Story log, and nothing says it unless you ask. The model is refused this tool.

recap_story

Have the Narrator recap the story under way: what has happened so far and where it waits now. The Commander’s choice alone.

{"type":"object","properties":{},"required":[],"additionalProperties":false}

Ending a story

When a stock story’s last finale chapter is done, the story is finished and d47 posts its ending to the Story log, said by the Narrator while stock COVAS is aboard or narration is on and otherwise by the core aboard, with the story’s options listed under it. Open the message and press an option, or say “choose ending two”. A story with one option takes “accept the ending”. The answer is kept on the story, and the option’s closing line is said and posted. An option can also bring cores aboard: each one says its waking line once. Nothing is taken away by any option, and the ending stays waiting across restarts until you answer it.

The model is refused this tool.

answer_story_ending

Answer the ending of a finished story with one of its options, numbered from one. The Commander’s choice alone.

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Clues

Each story card has one of seven lengths, and the story is paced to it. Every story in the catalog is a year long. The days count from the beacon scan, or from the pick where the scan is narrated; days while the story is paused, switched off or without Odyssey do not count.

Each clue before the finale also waits for a play session since the last clue and for a chapter finished since the last clue, so no two come in one session, and a Commander back after months away gets the next clue in order and no more.

The story’s stage follows the clues you have had, not the calendar. It is act one before the beacon scan, and for chapter one after a narrated scan, and Break into Two with no clue yet; after that, by the number of clues you have had:

Each chapter’s writer is told the stage and given that stage’s lines from the objective sheet, and nothing from later stages. The full sheet has all fifteen objectives. The short sheet has only the objectives of the stages its length reaches: Opening Image and Catalyst in act one, Break into Two once the beacon is in reach, then Fun and Games, Midpoint and All Is Lost where the length has them, the Finale, and the Final Image in the last finale chapter. A 3-day story’s objectives are Opening Image, Catalyst, Break into Two, Midpoint, Finale and Final Image.

The finale begins with the first chapter written once every clue before it is given and the finale’s day has passed. Each finale chapter’s clue comes due as the chapter begins, with no wait for a day or a session. When the last finale chapter is done and its clue given, no further chapter is written: the story is finished, the Stories page shows it as Finished, and it no longer holds back any Guardian core. A story keeps the length it was picked with.

A clue is spoken by the speaker the story names for it, as Who speaks a story line describes: a ship clue by the core aboard in its own words, or by the Narrator while stock COVAS is aboard; a narrator clue by the Narrator; a cast member’s clue by that member. The narration setting does not change who speaks a clue. A clue is also posted to the Story log, from whoever spoke it. A clue needs a language model and personality; without them it waits.

The Narrator, invented chatter, scene chatter and the chapter writer all read the same hidden layer: the story’s secret, its end, and the clues you have had so far. A Guardian core or a core you wrote reads it too, in conversation and in its own lines. Stock COVAS never reads it: it is standard equipment with no history, so it has nothing to hint at. They are told to hint at it and never state it, and to mislead you only about the story, never about fuel, cargo, credits, routes, rank or danger. Privacy and egress says a hidden story is sent to the language model, without quoting it.

Missions in the story

While a stock story is running and switched on, speech about a mission you take carries a short excerpt of the story’s public layer: its title and tone, and the start of the backstory in your words. Each mission gets this once, from the first of three places to speak about it:

• The accept line. Taking a mission gets a line from the core aboard that ties it to the story. Where d47 already had something to say, such as a cargo that needs several trips, that line keeps every fact and adds the aside. Without a language model and personality, a mission with nothing else to say gets no line.
• Mission scene chatter. With a scenario set, the people of the faction that gave the mission are told the excerpt too, and one line may touch on it.
• Narration. A narration during a lull ties in the newest mission on your board that has not had its aside.

The aside never changes a mission: its name, giver, destination, cargo, reward and deadline are said as the game gives them. The chapter writer is told the missions you hold, and may make one’s destination system an arrive objective or its station a dock objective, so the mission’s trip is also the story’s. No objective asks you to complete, fail or abandon a mission. While the story is paused or switched off, missions get no aside, and a mission taken meanwhile gets its aside once the story is back.

public MissionAside? Take(IReadOnlyList<Mission> missions)

Where it lives

data/adventures.json, beside the executable, per Commander, and hand-editable like everything else D47 writes. Only two things are stored — the definition, and the moment you began. Everything else is worked out from your journal each time, which is what lets a story you flew with D47 closed be up to date the moment you open it.

A stock story keeps only its current chapter and the one before it in data/adventures.json. When a chapter begins, every earlier chapter of the story moves to data/story-chapters.jsonl, one chapter per line, with when each of its objectives fired; when a story is abandoned, switched or finished, all of its chapters move there. Archived chapters leave the list on the Stories tab, the chapter writer still reads the last ten of them by name and premise, and your log still lists their objectives. Story chapters do not count toward the 40 stories of your own that the file holds.

What it does not do yet

• Branching, beyond a choice the Commander makes. One current objective, and only it can match; an objective that would match out of order is ignored rather than banked.
• Importing somebody else’s story. The store file is already the format, so this is a copy and a validate when it comes.