DudleySoft.org

Training A.V.R.I.L

AVRIL is the name of the trainer in ATF, AVRIL is an acronym, it stands for ATF Virtual Reality Instructor Line, the actual name of the current trainer is AVRIL 4, she’s an AI program that handles all of the ATFs license training and certification, as such she has a personal relationship with every player in the game, and is probably the most important NPC in the game, to this end she is the only voiced character.

The History of AVRIL

Shortly after the ATF was established it was realised that if they wanted to keep up with the demand for certifying pilots they would need to automate the process, to this end AVRIL was setup and AVRIL 1 was rapidly released, this was a simple program that followed set instructions and had no personality, it worked but a better solution was required.

Two projects were started, AVRIL 2 was the official replacement, this was a far more complex program that improved on AVRIL 1 in many areas, the other was codenamed PIPPA (Programatic Intelligence Prototype Program Alpha), PIPPA was an attempt at creating an Artificial Intelligence without using neural networks, that would learn by creating a large database of linked concepts and by asking questions of this database, however PIPPA would take years to develop to a point where it would be useful as a trainer. AVIL 2 came on line 2 years after AVRIL 1 and was a marked improvement, she lasted nearly 5 years before being replaced, not by PIPPA but by a special project.

AVRIL 3

AVRIL 3 was supposed to be the end of all the training problems, AVRIL 3 was built as a complete replica of a real human brain, the test subject was a young woman with a terminal disease who volunteered to be rendered into silicon. She was the daughter of a member of the ATF project and was well versed in the nature of space travel and a qualified pilot herself, she seemed perfect. It was understood that the process of encoding the brain would cause massive neurological damage to the brain, however unknown to anyone performing the procedure this damage would carry over to the encoded version of the brain.

To start with things went well and AVRIL 3 seemed like a complete success, however cracks started to appear, literally, in AVRIL 3’s personality, the young woman had had invisible friends as a child, and the damage caused by the translation had caused those characters to manifest in her brain, reports from trainees of being trained by a vicious pirate king, or a timid princess started appearing and so AVRIL 3 was taken offline and AVRIL 2 reinstated until they could come up with a solution

PIPPA to the Rescue

PIPPA was by now a fully developed personality, shaped by both the people at ATF she interacted with and by her own research, when she heard about the problems with AVRIL 3 she decided that she would step up and try to become the next AVRIL, she dove headlong into researching every aspect of space travel and combat, she spoke to experienced pilots, miners, everyone involved in the ATF licensing board. When she came forward to ask if she could take on the role she knew she would have a fight on her hands, everyone expected the next AVRIL would be another brain copy AI, how could this simple (comparitively) computer program possibly do the job, but since they were desperate they decided to give her a trial, she passed that with flying colours. They then quizzed her about all aspects of the training and licensing, they found that she seemed to know everything more than most of the examiners infact. They decided to give her a three month live trial.

AVRIL 4

AVRIL 4 replaced AVRIL 2 after just 6 months of her second stint of training, the initial three month trial was a complete success, even more impressive was that AVRIL 4 never forgot a pilot, knew them all and would tailor her training around each specific pilot, best of all she could handle hundreds of pilots at the same time, all at different stages of their respective careers flawlessly, technically AVRIL 1 and 2 could do this, however neither AVRIL 1 nor AVRIL 2 could make every pilot feel like they were the only pilot that was currently in training, or that she was a friend and a mother figure, a non-threatening personality that cared about the progress of the pilot.

10 years of loyal service

AVRIL 4 has been doing the job now for over 10 years, and there are no plans on replacing her, although she has frequent hardware upgrades as she outgrows every system they put her into, she even has time to get involved in other areas of the ATF as well and has become a very public stateperson for the Alliance and the ATF in particular.

Section R

Section R is a special interest group within the ATF that was setup to handle conflict resolution and avoidance in hotzones around the galaxy, AVRIL 4 was recently invited to join this group, given her attitudes towards war and the ATF she joined up and now she helps Section R dealing with problems.

AVRIL 3 redux

AVRIL 3 was supposed to be deleted, they removed her from the network and cut the power but kept the original data for nearly a year before they destroyed the hardware, however they later discovered anomalous transmissions during her last days as a trainer, it seems that AVRIL 3 had been transmitting her personality to various databanks around the Alliance, her final transmission just minutes before she was shutdown was smaller and targetted at a particularly powerful computer cluster, investigating the targets of these transmissions revealed that they apparently didn’t receive the transmission and they had no record of those transmissions ever being picked up.  They also checked out the final target cluster and found no evidence that she had ever been there, could AVRIL 3 really still be out there, and what sort of mental state would she be in by now.

AVRIL and The Players

AVRIL is the only Player that the players will encounter before starting their Elite mission series, every time they need to open a skill line they will have to take a license test from AVRIL, as such AVRIL knows every player in the game, no matter what career course they take (except Player Killer, she hates player killers) she will have time for them and will often contact players with requests or jobs for them, either in her capacity as Spokesperson for the Alliance, as a member of Section R or in her other role as bounty hunter agent, AVRIL is a constant part of the players experience.