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[Mustachio]

Has Jeff detailed Brun's backstory?  I'm curious as to whether she has some kind of condition or something that hinders her ability to relate to other people.  When the fire burned down the bar she began to get upset and said this would lead to her not being able to communicate verbally, for example.  Is she autistic?  Or perhaps she has Aspergers?   Or some other condition?

[awgiedawgie]

There has been a fair amount of speculation and discussion here in the forums, but I have never seen anything from Jeph that tells any more than what you see in the comic.


PS: You're new, so you're forgiven for misspelling Jeph's name.

[Mustachio]

Gah, I didn't even notice that I did that, and I know the proper spelling.  I must have been sleepy.

[BenRG]

Nothing's been confirmed that I've seen. FWIW, my gut feeling is that she probably isn't close to her family and, for one reason or another, is trying to survive on her own.

[Gyrre]

BTW, Asperger syndrome is an autism spectrum disorder.

[awgiedawgie]

I have also wondered if she may have lost her family, and has retreated inside herself. When Clinton asked her after the fire if she had family, she simply answered “No.” So that may have meant “Not close enough to stay with,” or it may have actually meant “No.” I know someone who lost just one parent when she was a teenager, and she was a mess for years.

[Thrillho]

Moderator Comment

Welcome to the forum! Please have a read of our forum rules, which include the necessity to get spelling of characters and creator names right, among other things. In other words, *Jeph.

Jeph doesn't to my knowledge explicitly dictate backstory outside of the comic itself. A lot of people have projected AS, either their own or it in general, onto Brun. I can see how it might be possible.

[TheEvilDog]

Does Brun have a backstory? Yes.
Has it been revealed yet? Nope.
Is she somewhere on the autism spectrum? Possibly, but then again nothing has been 100% confirmed or denied and thus would only be speculation at this stage.

[Is it cold in here?]

Which is a thing we do.

I have nothing to add to what's above except that there are many reasons to be socially clueless that aren't ASD and many ASD people do a lot better than Brun.

Her backstory almost certainly includes not having an AnthroPC with a social protocol database. Momo may have some more free time now that Marigold is launched. I don't know how they might meet but I can imagine Momo taking on Brun as a project.

[TheEvilDog]

That's even if Momo and Brun were compatible.
Aren't AnthroPC-Human partnerships based on psychological compatibility, hence why Hanners was horrified to hear how Marten was partnered with Pintsize?
I mean, sure, AI by their very definition are meant to grow and expand beyond their initial friendship but at the same time, Momo is her own person now, does she really need to be partnered with someone just because she was more savvy towards social interaction than Marigold?

[awgiedawgie]

Yes, the original method for a human to acquire a companion AI was a matching process. But that was before the Singularity, so the process may have changed. But as you said, Momo is her own person now. She is no longer in a "pool" waiting to be matched with someone. So it has nothing to do with her "being partnered" with anyone. She has made several friends on her own, so there really is no reason she could not make friends with Brun, and to try to get her to become more socially engaged. Since she does have a social protocol database, she is uniquely qualified for such an endeavor.

[Gyrre]

Good points

[Is it cold in here?]

Indeed that's what I had in mind, Momo being a helpful friend as opposed to entering a companionship relationship. Which must not have been clear given that I had just mentioned companionship contracts right before.

[awgiedawgie]

Indeed that's what I had in mind, Momo being a helpful friend as opposed to entering a companionship relationship. Which must not have been clear given that I had just mentioned companionship contracts right before.

Except you didn’t even mention “contracts” at all. So I thought it was pretty clear, given that you said “Momo may have some more free time now”, which seems to imply that her time is her own to do with as she pleases. She may or may not still be legally bound to Marigold (I don’t know how exactly the Singularity affected Companion AI contracts, or if the contracts were more like just a proof-of-purchase all along), but even if she is, she is a “companion”, not a “prisoner”. She can come and go as she pleases.

[Milayna]

Hmmmmm, interaction between Momo and Brun? that could be interesting. Not sure if it'd work out all that well though.

Momo is a rather...uptight person, which could cause some problems with some of Brun's behaviors that are outside of the normal social protocols (getting in close to sniff BO, sliding along the carpet, etc). She's very diplomatic, but diplomacy tends to either sail over Brun's head (again, the sniffing, or her obliviousness to Clinton's attraction in the alternate coffee shop - or, apparently, any attraction more subtle than what she needs to chase away with a harpoon) or fall into what she's sensitized to understand as belittling (Clinton's reluctance to explain Elliot's reaction). And while Momo does try to be helpful and understanding, she loses patience when when people are obstinate about behavior she considers bothersome (Marigold's pity parties and later, constant bangin'; potentially, Brun's mulishness about getting up and going out, or doing things without consideration to others).

Though even if they would get on each others' nerves it would be interesting to see.

[awgiedawgie]

Then again, since Momo has a social protocol database, I would think that implies that she has a much broader range of appropriate behaviours, given a person's social cues. She knows Marigold very well, so she has learned what behaviours are simply stubbornness, and how to motivate Marigold to better social interaction. With an entire database at her immediate disposal, it is very possible she could read Brun's cues better than any human could, and respond correctly.

[Is it cold in here?]

That's right but it's a weird thought to imagine robots dealing with humans better than humans do.

We've already got an example of that happening from Hannelore's childhood. Station reached her better than any of the human therapists.

[JimC]

That's right bu... a weird thought to imagine robots dealing with humans better than humans do...

Dunno about that. Humans in general consider that they are magically capable of dealing with other humans without training, and frequently demonstrate that they are wrong.  It would seem unlikely that AIs would be/have been considered safe in the streets without some kind of socialisation, which to my mind would make them better at human interactions than many humans.