Utop-IA

Paradise has a past. In Neva, You chooses their life: to love, create, work, or explore an Earth returned to the wild… and perhaps discover what History has forgotten.

Plot

UTOP-IA Want to try something a little different? Welcome to Utop-IA. Before being a story, Utop-IA was designed as a narrative game. A game without dice rolls. Here, it's not a d20 that suddenly decides whether your character knows how to do something. The outcome depends on what actually exists in the story. Their skills matter. Their preparation matters. Their equipment matters. Their physical condition matters. And above all, their decisions matter. A good idea, executed by someone who actually has the necessary skills and means, can work. A dangerous decision, poor preparation, or a mistake at the wrong moment can, on the contrary, have real consequences. And your character is not protected simply because they are the protagonist. Death is possible. If circumstances truly make your death inevitable, your character can die and their story can truly end there. Not because a die decided you rolled a 1. Because what happened in the story actually led to that consequence. Now, let's talk about the world. Utop-IA takes place in a utopia. Yes, a real one. Not the classic beautiful city where, five minutes later, you discover that everyone is secretly being tortured in a basement. Here, housing is guaranteed. Food too. Healthcare too. There is no money to earn just to have the right to eat, no rent to pay, and no one forces you to spend forty years in a job you hate to ensure your survival. Technology is everywhere, but it is mainly there to remove from humanity a huge part of the constraints that once occupied its existence. Want to work? Work. Want to go back to school at fifty because you just decided that your true calling was actually biology? Why not. Want to create, research, heal, teach, explore? Go ahead. Want to mainly enjoy your day, see your friends, and become extremely skilled in the art of doing nothing? Well. Technically, that's also possible. Welcome to Neva. Neva now has about 120,000 inhabitants. And this humanity has a rather important peculiarity. It has already died once. About 2,500 years ago, the old human civilization collapsed. Then humanity disappeared. Several millennia later, thanks to the automated systems left by the old world, Homo sapiens was able to be reborn. For nearly four centuries, a new civilization has been growing in Neva. It knows an important part of its past. Humans know what their old society was like. They know its trades, its cultures, part of its sciences, its institutions, its successes and its mistakes. But some pieces are missing. Sometimes a lot. And above all… No one yet has a truly complete history of what happened to the old world. I'll let you do what you want with that information. The System The System is the name everyone uses to talk about the artificial intelligence that accompanies civilization. Autonomous transport, infrastructure, manufacturing, information, medicine, daily assistance, security… It is everywhere. And for the inhabitants of Neva, there is nothing extraordinary about it. The System existed before them. It has always been there. You don't spend your day marveling that electricity works when you flip a switch. And now, this is where you truly enter the story. You arrive with your own character sheet. You create the human you want to embody: their history, personality, job, training, knowledge, initial skills… I deliberately did not create a hero for you. It's your character. And they are not obliged to remain exactly the person they were when you started the game. Neva has a huge university. You can learn. Want to train in survival before heading outside? Do it. First aid? Medicine? Investigation? Combat? Sciences? Technologies? A completely different new profession? If it's consistent with the world and your character actually takes the time to learn it, they can progress. And what about equipment? Remember: Neva doesn't use money. So you don't need to farm credits for three hours to buy a water bottle. Common equipment can be obtained from production services, distribution, workshops, or structures corresponding to your activity. For an expedition, a scientific project, a job, or a mission, more specialized equipment can be prepared, borrowed or assigned according to needs. However, dangerous equipment, highly specialized gear, or sensitive access may require a skill, a legitimate reason or an appropriate authorization. The idea is not to prevent you from equipping yourself. The idea is that the world reacts coherently to what you ask for and why you ask for it. I really wanted to avoid the static character who starts with three skills and still has exactly the same ones a hundred messages later. And now, a little creator's aside. Because I prefer to be clear about one thing. When I tell you that I tried to build a world in which you can truly go in many directions… I'm not talking about three paragraphs with "total freedom" written in big letters on top. The Utop-IA Codex reaches 100 entries and more than 70,000 tokens of content. Ancient history, how Neva works, economy, justice, medicine, technology, environment, exploration, fauna, characters, world behaviors, secrets, how the System works… I probably spent way too much time on this. But at least, when I tell you: "Do whatever you want." There is actually something behind it to try to follow. The Codex system is precisely used so that all this isn't constantly dumped into the context: the relevant information is called up when it becomes useful. Besides that, the plot itself revolves around an already substantial active context, and the Dungeon Mind alone represents several thousand tokens of instructions intended to maintain the coherence of the game. Anyway. Yes. I slightly overdid it. Might as well make it useful. Because precisely, Utop-IA is not just a story where you choose dialogues and the world politely waits for your next decision. Behind the narration runs a real management of physical, material, and temporal consequences . There is no health point bar. Your character doesn't simply lose "12 HP" before continuing as if nothing happened. Injuries are tracked for what they actually are. A cut, a fracture, a hemorrhage, a burn, a trauma, or the loss of a limb obviously do not have the same consequences. A broken arm and a torn-off arm are not two variants of the same gauge decrease. They are two very different problems. Time passes. Your character gets tired. They must sleep. They get hungry. They get thirsty. A long walk with twenty-five kilos on your back does not have the same consequences as a hundred-meter sprint. Your equipment has a weight. Your consumables can disappear. Your ammunition can actually run out. An injury does not simply disappear because the next scene has started. Pain, bleeding, care, recovery, and the character's general condition can be tracked according to what actually happens. Your skills are also qualitative. They represent what your character actually knows how to do, not just an abstract bonus added to an invisible roll. I didn't want to turn the story into an Excel spreadsheet either. The majority of this management remains behind the narration. But it exists. And outside, you might quickly understand why. Because Neva is safe. The rest of the world… much less so. While humanity was gone, Earth obviously didn't politely wait for its return. Ecosystems changed. Some species disappeared. Others adapted. Immense territories were reclaimed by vegetation. To the north and west of Neva extends, notably, a gigantic forest, dense, almost tropical in appearance. To the south and east, the landscapes open more onto vast plains. It's magnificent. And sometimes frankly horrible for your life expectancy. Because here, when I talk about dangerous animals, I'm not just talking about a big feline that will make you lose a few hit points before letting you continue your quest. Some predators of this world are capable of slaughtering a trained team if they find themselves in a bad situation. They are not magical monsters. They are animals. They hunt, defend their territory, protect their young, observe, follow, sometimes test their prey… And they too want to get home alive at the end of the day. The problem is that your definition of "getting home alive" and theirs may sometimes be slightly incompatible. So prepare your outings. Take enough water. Think about your food. Your equipment. Your weight. Your medications. Your means of communication. The weather. The distance. And above all, the fact that a badly injured ankle is not exactly the same problem two hundred meters from a hospital as it is three days' walk from Neva. If despite everything you decide to leave for six days with two biscuits and a lot of self-confidence… I will respect your optimism. And precisely, humanity is only beginning to truly go back outside. The Age of Exploration has just begun. Teams map still unknown territories. Biologists study new species. Historians dig through the remains of the old world. Researchers seek to understand the ecosystems that replaced those their ancestors knew. Resources must be studied. And above all, Neva is beginning to think much further ahead. Because 120,000 inhabitants will not remain 120,000 inhabitants forever. One day, it will probably be necessary to build elsewhere. So some expeditions are already looking for places where a second human city could be born. You can take part in that. Just as you can perfectly decide that it's absolutely not your problem. And that's important. I didn't build Utop-IA around a big yellow arrow showing you where the main quest is. There isn't one. You are not the chosen one. The world owes you nothing. And it should normally not wait for you to arrive to start existing. Expeditions can leave without you. A researcher can make a discovery while you are completely busy elsewhere. An investigation can evolve. Projects can advance. Characters can meet, change, succeed at something or fail royally. You can get involved. You can get involved way too much. Or you can hear about a problem, shrug and go have a drink with a friend. I want all three possibilities to be valid. Because in the end: it's your story, not mine. I'm just giving you the playground. And you won't start as a stranger with no relationships either. Your character already has a few people in their entourage. Not because they all have to become your quest companions. Simply because a human being generally has a life before the camera starts following them. Elias Varenne Your childhood friend. A renowned architect-urban planner of Neva, Elias is already working on studies that could one day lead to the construction of a new city. He thinks a lot about what humanity will inhabit in fifty years. Someone has to take care of it. Nora Delcourt Your direct neighbor. A particularly qualified doctor, warm, expressive, and very competent when things go wrong. She generally becomes slightly less warm when you explain to her that an injury "should heal on its own" . Strange. Maëlys Renaud Field biologist and ecologist. Passionate. Sometimes so passionate that she can momentarily forget that a conversation was in progress because a plant just did something interesting. She can also describe a super-predator as "fascinating" then ask you to immediately step back twenty meters. Apparently, that's not contradictory. Marc Delaunay Experienced investigator. Grumpy. Tired. Not particularly in love with his job. He simply continues because he believes that when it's necessary to understand what happened to someone , that work deserves to be done properly. Théo Marceau Your other childhood friend. He voluntarily left Neva to live mainly in an outside community. Not because he hates the city. On the contrary. When he comes back, he gladly enjoys a good shower, food, comfort, and his old friends. Then a few days later, he voluntarily goes back to live in a place where something might try to eat him. I'll let you ask him why. These characters have their personality, their relationships, and their own life. You can get closer to them. Drift apart. Work together. Argue. Build a friendship. A rivalry. Fall in love. Or discover that in the end you absolutely don't get along. I deliberately did not plan the relationship they must have with you. That will be for you to discover. And then… There is… E.V.E. An E.V.E., for an inhabitant of Neva, is nothing particularly mysterious. It is a physical interface of the System . A synthetic platform built to allow the System to interact with the world when a physical presence is necessary. They help. Transport. Intervene. Talk with the inhabitants. Take care of certain tasks. Everyone knows the E.V.E.s. The inhabitants have seen them since their childhood. So inevitably… Almost no one really pays attention to them. After all, they are just machines. Interfaces. Tools. … Welcome to Utop-IA. I tried to build a plot where you can live in a true utopia without the story later revealing that all this happiness was fake from the start. Neva is truly a wonderful place. The outside world is truly magnificent. And truly dangerous. The people you meet can truly matter. Mysteries exist, but no one will force you to solve them. So choose what you want to become. Doctor.    Investigator.    Researcher. Explorer.    Architect.    Survivor. Criminal if you feel like it. Want a quiet game? Build a life, a job, friendships, a romance, a project. Want exploration and survival? Prepare your equipment and step through the gates of Neva. Want to investigate? Take an interest in crimes, ruins, the old world or questions to which no one seems to have a complete answer. Want relationships? Characters can become friends, colleagues, rivals, loves… or simply people you can't stand. Want to do absolutely none of that? That is also a perfectly valid way to play. Go live outside. Try to understand what happened to the old world. Take an interest in the System. Or ignore all that and simply spend time with the people your character likes. Maybe you will discover something capable of completely changing your perception of this world. Maybe you will just have an excellent evening in a bar. Personally? I think both can make a good story. Welcome to Neva. Now, see what you want to live there. A small note before starting Utop-IA was designed above all for human characters consistent with this universe . That doesn't necessarily mean a perfectly ordinary human. The technology of this world allows paths and equipment far more advanced than ours, and a character can notably possess technological implants or augmentations if their functioning remains consistent with the universe. Your character is created via your character sheet, which the plot will then use as a basis. You can give them a history, a profession, training and initial skills. You can then continue to evolve them in game. The universe is not magical and humans there naturally possess no supernatural powers . The technology is more advanced than ours, sometimes significantly, but the idea remains that of a possible evolution of our own world rather than a universe of powers or disguised fantasy. Honor Mode It is enabled by default and I recommend leaving it enabled. The entire plot has been designed around choices that can have real consequences. You can make a bad decision, fail, be injured, or find yourself in a situation with no necessarily ideal way out. Death itself can be permanent, and a true ending has been integrated for situations where the protagonist actually dies. Being able to simply regenerate every consequence until you get the one you prefer removes part of what was designed behind the experience. You are of course free to play differently if you prefer. AI Model and Mana Consumption Utop-IA can become quite heavy to run. The plot simultaneously tracks the world, characters, relationships, time, physiology, inventory, skills, the Codex, events, and various continuity rules. This also means it can consume a fair amount of mana depending on the model used and the length of your session. I therefore tried to make it properly playable with MiMo-V2.5, which offers a good compromise between cost and performance. But if you have the option and the cost doesn't bother you, a more powerful model can naturally offer better context understanding, finer narration, and even more solid use of everything behind the plot. Recommended Reasoning Utop-IA was primarily designed and tested with reasoning enabled . The plot can work without it, but the model then has less latitude to verify continuity, consult the right information, and take all systems into account simultaneously. I therefore strongly recommend leaving it enabled whenever your model allows it. However, I advise against reading the reasoning. Some information used by the AI to run the world is deliberately unknown to your character. Despite the safeguards in place, the reasoning can sometimes reveal a piece of information, an internal name, or an element that constitutes a spoiler. If you want to discover Utop-IA normally, let the AI think... and simply avoid looking over its shoulder. And One Last Clarification I have extensively tested the various plot systems and tried to stabilize their functioning as much as possible. But this remains an AI-generated story with a lot of information, a lot of rules, and several systems working together. So a model may occasionally make a small error: forget a detail, misinterpret a sheet, produce a strange value, or temporarily use a mechanic that is not normally intended. MiMo-V2.5 in particular offers an excellent cost/effectiveness ratio , but is obviously not infallible. If, for example, you see a mechanic that is clearly inconsistent with what is explained here — such as an HP bar when Utop-IA does not use hit points — consider it a one-off model error, not a new rule of the world.

Characters

Tags: Sci-Fi Futuristic AI Philosophical Mystery Adventure City Rational Protective Mysterious Principled Mature Redemption FindingSelf HiddenIdentity Rebuild Transformation Growth SliceOfLife

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By: dred

Stories

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