View source for User:Handle2/Arendtcore Employee Package Excerpts

== Introduction ==
This page contains declassified and publicly available random snippets of info as provided in the Employee Packages to all new Employees of Arendtcore Minnesota and its subsidiaries. It does not include any data that is still considered company secrets or that requires specifically contacting Arendtcore staff members or gaining specific internal company clearances as noted in the original documents. To reduce size, most items are transcribed as text and only photos or pictures relevant to the interests of FembotWiki and not infringing on site rules are made available.

== Newbie Employee Package ==
=== Housing Programme ===
An Arendtcore Employee should not be homeless or sleeping in the back of their jalopy except during camping trips or long drives through places with problematic access to proper accomodation. The Company also believes that a proper home can forge deeper ties between an Employee and the Company and Little Sanctuary community As such Arendtcore Minnesota provides free housing to all employees of the company or its subsidiaries (at any level of importance or job level). The following conditions must be met to access the Housing Programme. Failure to do so will result in a probationary period to gain eligibility to the Housing programme or a valid waiver to access the Housing Programme without meeting its requirements, followed by retrenchment and exile from the Little Sanctuary corporate region.

# '''2 Adults in Consenting Relationship of any close nature, or''' - The company will accept at least two consenting adults in a relationship as valid for participation in Arendtcore Housing. The main holder MUST be a Arendtcore employee, but the other adult can be either another Arendtcore employee with proof of committment of at least 2 years to a proper relationship with said adult such as boyfriend/girlfriend pairings or marriages. Children cannot be counted for the purpose of this clause, but will be taken into account when assigning housing as another member of said relationship. 
# '''Bunk with at least one Familes Programme - provided unit.''' - in the event that there is only one adult in a housing unit and no other adult is available to form a relationship, the Company will require you to accept at least one Spousal unit matching your sexual preferences and Psychological Profiling / specified desired traits either for free or at additional cost depending on choosiness. You may elect to add on at least one Child Unit on top of said Spousal Unit as a long-term salary garnish option. Again, actual children in the relationship will not be accepted as counting towards the '2 Adults in a Consenting Relationship' rule.
# '''Your sexual preferences are NOT our concern. Mostly.''' - it's your life to live how you want. We do not believe in discriminatory laws and will often turn a deaf ear through the profligate use of lawyers and legal writ. If you're trans, homo, ace, pan, bi, omni, or some other color of the LGBT flag, you're welcome to find a House and be a neighbour to others, the nature of your 'Consenting Relationship' will not matter in Rule 1 as long as it is not explictly defined as illegal in Minnesota state law (which is extremely lenient and forgiving as of 2040 onwards )
# '''You will not have a say in what house or location you get (Exceptions Noted)''' - Housing is randomly alloted based on the requirements of each family, not even the top level staff of Arendtcore get to leap over the AI that makes the decisions in this matter. Exceptions MAY be granted if one can prove that the family requires it for medical or religious reasons.
# '''Quitting? Turn in your keys.''' - Any Arendtcore Employee retrenched will be granted 30 days to find a new home and job outside Little Sanctuary, or a new job within the Company for either themselves or another Adult member of the company. At the end of 30 days, any relationship grouping without any Arendtcore employment will be required to turn in their keys and find a new home and job outside of Little Sanctuary. Exceptions may be granted temporarily or otherwise for genuine medical-related unfitness to work, or need to care for at least one child under 18, or to participants granted access under the Refugee Programme clauses.
# '''No extensive renovations''' - to avoid unhappy neighbours, please clear with your Housing Programme coordinator any significant renovations you wish to make.
# '''Castle Doctrine''' - alarm systems and less-lethal repellent devices are legal for use in Little Sanctuary, and intruders may be shot with less-lethal devices of any type by the owner of the house being intruded into.
# '''We'll ask first''' - in the event that a home is required for Company purposes, the Company will give at least 7 working days of notice to the house holder. The holder may reject the request unless it is related to work-related matters during work hours. This is NOT an invite to include unreasonable requests - please alert your Housing Coordinator if you feel this clause is being abused to gain unjustified access to your home.

=== Families Programme ===
The Families Programme is a system run to help loners in Little Sanctuary meet the most basic requirement needed to access proper housing and keep Arendtcore employment in Little Sanctuary. It is NOT a dating service or whorehouse, though elements of it do actively seek to pair biological males and females together as a first preference. Our aim here is to help people forge roots to keep them in Little Sanctuary in tougher times.

Sadly, we're a bit of a sausage factory, so that isn't possible for a marked majority of our members...

# '''Try to pair up''' - Ideally, we would like actual human men and women to get to know each other and cohabitate, if not outright marry each other and start having real kids. This has always been our Priority 1, despite the major advancements in provision of our alternative choices. Demographic Collapse is real, and we are trying our best to fight it on our end, just like the rest of the world. This is one of the purposes of efforts such as company gatherings and events as well as dating circles sponsored by Arendtcore outside of the office.
# '''Failing which, would you like a spousal unit?''' - we provide a wide range of Arendtcore-engineered solutions to resolve loneliness where 100% biological cohabitation is not an option. All Arendtcore employees may access one Spousal Unit for a period of at least 50 years, including free or cheap medical care for themselves or their new loved one. This unit is provided based on a careful psychological assessment of desires and needs, in many cases can be given free of charge or at a competitive prepaid or salary garnish rate, with basic Cooking/Cleaning/Cardio/Callisthenics/Companionship/Coitus capabilities. Optionally, one may add child units as well as a low-priced ongoing salary garnish option to expand the family further.
# '''Not Necessarily human-like or Arendtcore based''' - in recent years, we have explored providing options for Spousals or Child Units that are not necessarily human-like or based primarily on Arendtcore tech or designs. If we determine that your psych profile fits such an assignment we will stretch somewhat to fill it accordingly. This includes imports from other brands, and provision of proper Medicalcare for such units. Such units will more likely be heavily subsidised as a prepaid or salary garnish option rather than free.
# '''Not a wife swap service''' - while we allow for one or two swaps initially as one finds a fitting Spousal or child unit, this is not a service that lets you change your Spousal or child units like jalopies every few years. Upgrades and aging are possible, but not swaps of units on a regular basis. Swaps of units entering the end of their support or operating life are possible, but we try to offer a seamless or less seamed transition path to newer models as much as possible.

== Internal Company publications ==

===The Replacement Goldfish Red Flag Rule===
by Seamus Arendt

I recognise that some of you amongst our robotics order and production divisions are asking about this weird rule that is in the Company Code. Let me explain exactly why we forbid any production that replicates a person, living or otherwise, who is related in some way to the customer.

Replacement Goldfish are basically ordered to replace someone the customer may have loved. This unfortunately guarantees disappointment with the final product sooner or later. maybe it's a visual flaw, maybe it's a problem in the way they move not matching up. maybe it's a difference in the way they process and make decisions not matching up to the original.

We are not going to produce a unit that is bogged down with prior expectations. When we put a unit into the hands of a customer, it is with the expectation that it will enhance their life and provide them with some form of satisfaction for years to come. Creating a unit that is guaranteed to disappoint however hard we push the envelop on technical quality is a fool's endeavor and will do neither of those things for the customer. They say the Customer is Always Right. I need to stress that that only applies to selected aspects of the order. If that order is wrong in other ways the maxim doesn't cover, we should look out for them and advise against such orders.

If you disagree with me on a particular order, please feel free to file a protest with Legal for review, and cc a copy of it to Psychology. 9 times out of 10, I guarantee a rejection. The one time you get the go ahead, it is only because Psychology determines that the production WILL improve the customer's life contrary to usual expectations... But what I have just stated is the usual expectation, and it will stand up pretty well. Can't hurt to try asking though, we HAVE nade exceptions a few times with great care.

And that, folks, is my thought on this matter for today.

===The Demographic Disaster===
by Seamus Arendt

To understand my long-term goals in creating Arendtcore initially as a robotics company and pushing the envelope continuously on so many aspects of our products, one starts from the problem I think we all have.

Since 2040, when I was a wee laddie corralling my brotherhood of kindred in a dinky frat house in Minnesota National Institute of Technologies (MINT), there has been an ongoing demographic collapse around the world. For every 10 natural women capable of the full range of human capability including reproduction for a new generation, there are 90 men out there. In some places, this imbalance is even more out of kilter such as Little Sanctuary, Singapora, the Chinajapese Empire's holdings or even New Russia. We can see the earliest attempts to deal with this post-Despotic Years quandry in the earliest super-realistic sexdolls these places began to produce: finely sculpted, but crude effigies based on materials we would never dream of using now for their potential healthrisks or lack of durability or flexibility. But these efforts did happen, and we must acknowledge them.

Ideally, I would like to find some tech that lets us resolve this quandry - actual women with actual capabilities to love and have pregnancies balancing out this imbalance. But I've roamed the world for ages, funding various efforts. Many good and genuinely intended projects, perhaps my share of con jobs, and so far, I have to sadly admit my luck at finding a scalable solution that isn't just chucking embryos into souless artificial birthing chambers or oppressing women into becoming breeding mules has NOT matched my fervent desire to solve the demographic disaster.

In the interim, it is rather unfortunate, but I can only focus on what I ''can'' do. I can engineer stopgaps. My brother Bellamy has excelled at creating lifelike AI constructs since we partied and he needed the cash to meet his school fees and enjoy his emo music. Marcus Manners is a sculptor par excellence, and Aymee Ichigo has always been great at seeing the potential issues each of our decisions could cause - we do regret it a little that she has gone on to greater heights and left us a little blind, really.

Throw these four lunatics and a few million in inherited wealth, and what does one get? Excellence in inorganic people. 

Yes, I'm aware some of our staff are women who have opted for malebots for company, and that is being addressed whenever we can by our various programmes to encourage the pairing of actual biological adults together. But that loneliness inherent in a vast majority of the global male population, our town included, needs to be temporarily subsumed by something or other or it will potentially destroy our species even faster, in my humble belief. The True American Union and Europa threw their over-population of young adult men into a destructive conflict to whittle the numbers. China and Japan going to war wasn't about land, but about attrition between men with no way to sublimate their desire for female companionship into hatred for each other's flags.

War works in the short term to address the overbias of our world towards men, but in the long run, war between our places will only kill all of us.

Frankly, I'd rather give every man someone to love instead, even if I have to resort to artificiality and pretense to ease the pain. At least that way, if the descent is inevitable, it will be a slower, more quiet death for our species. Heck, maybe I'll get lucky and the robots will replace us gradually and nothing of value will have been lost by the time they become sophisticated enough to do this exactly.

And that, folks, is my thought on this matter for today.

=== Does She(He) ''Really'' Need a Working Vagina(Penis)? ===
by Bellamy Arendt

Some folks are slightly disturbed by the fact that whenever we engineer a humanlike android, we always provide them with at least a semblance of a vagina or penis based on their designated gender, if not actual fully working (albeit non-reproductive) units. Heck, we've even gone to war with the Federals over our child units having non-functional but sculpted genitalia, though this is mainly a settled matter now.

Is this risk even necessary? Short answer: yes.

Long answer: let me explain something we really try hard to do when we make humanlike androids - we try to humanize them as much as possible. They are not your disposable plastic people. They are people who will have a life of some sort outside of their duties, and perhaps even a post-retirement phase where they find new duties to accomplish.

if that outside life includes the whole spectrum of human experience, it occurs to The Four Of Us here that denying them one of the more significant human experiences, that of procreation in a consensual relationship without coercion of power or ignorance of the facts, even with zero chances of actually creating anything more than good feelings, that itself is an absolute injustice. It draws a line between us and them, one which we are not prepared to accept when we've already going this far in realism and human-like thought.

It has always been that way since we first put together our first life-like units, and yes, again, it has gotten us into trouble before. But we haven't changed our minds for 40 years, just so you know.

We've already thrown the Feds a bone in making said stuff non functional in our Under-18 units. Do NOT expect us to go any further in cutting ourselves on this. In fact, if we somehow work out how to make androids capable of proper human reproduction, expect us to get worse - heck, we may not even publicise that until it's too late to stuff things back in the bottle.... hell, it may already be happening... don't ask for confirmation or denial on that though!

We Four have always been chaos agents, even as we settle down to make sure so many of you have a stable life in our stable. If you were expecting a more nuanced approach to the matter, you haven't been paying attention, and you're only setting up for severe disappointment with us.... We aren't offering refunds, you joined our circus knowing we were fucked up in the head on so many things. And you can file a dispute with your superiors at Office Hours on this or leave Arendtcore if it upsets you that much.

So there!

=== Strange New Folks: Cat People? In Our Town? Yes. ===
by Marcus Manners

In recent weeks, some of you may have sworn to be seeing hallucinations, that of people who are human-sized shortstack bipedal cats walking around. I wish to confirm that, yes, Cat People from Arendtcore are a thing now in Little Sanctuary, on a limited deployment basis.

==== Who Are The Cy-Furs? ====
This oddity draws from a project which we did in the earliest years of Little Sanctuary. Our society has always had a skew from the average in many aspects. One of these is the prevalence of conditions that create learning difficulties with conventional curricula and teaching in our children. Some folks would be unkind and call them 'retarded'. We have a more enlightened belief that this merely means their capabilities have been expressed in other forms rather than the basic IQ. And in chasing a proper education for our kids, we tried something really interesting.

Enter The Cyfurs. We took our basic Android technology, and then added animal-like characteristics to them via the application of relevant fur/scale/other animal coverings and sculpts angled more towards stylised representations of animals. A whole forest of creatures, if you will. These units were deployed as teachers, cafe staff, even backoffice support within 'special ed' schools such as "Special Little Sparks" in Little Sanctuary.

Concerns about furry fandom scuttled a wider deploy initially. What made us change our minds? The prevalence of incidents involving our cat Cy-Furs being kept online past their intended retirement and removal dates, really. Some folks got into relations with units and were practically prepared to go to war with us on the obsoleting process for aged Cat Cy-Furs.

When you have folks like that, you can either make enemies of them... or admit that they may have a point and let go of your fears and restraint on the matter. Hence the increasing number of Cat Cy-Furs in public release. These are NOT a product we are going to release per se for the moment - you either find them assigned to you in Families, wandering about your neighbourhood working on things that benefit your locale, or were one of those early unauthorised Cat lovers. They are exclusive to Little Sanctuary and maybe a few external subsidiaries where education is a priority.

Here are some issues with the current deploy we wish to address.

==== Common Cat Cy-Fur Issues ====

* '''Why are half of them wearing anoraks?''' The current deploy of Cat Cy-Furs have a issue where any wind stronger than a light breeze causes painful audio feedback in their ears. We are working on a patch or hardware fix for this issue, but in the meantime, many in the Cat Cy-Fur community have found that covering their ears with any sort of protection - muffs, hats with room for cat ears, even anoraks - helps when walking outdoors in stronger winds.
* '''Are these guys... yiffable?''' Yes. Despite being stylised models, they are entitled to the same access to the human condition as many other human-like Arendtcore androids, which means they have genitalia compatible with both each other, as well as humans. This doesn't mean you get to go around wildly cornholing them, and it also means they don't get to go into the cartoon trope of not wearing lower garments - if you see a Cat Cyfur wandering around without any skirt or pants, hand them a pair and tell them to stop streaking in our community, thanks.
* '''Will there be other species of Cy-Fur added to the mix in public?''' We are already having interesting issues just focusing on cats. The potential replication of interspecies relations between Cat Cyfurs is already an interesting issue too. We would rather not make things even more interesting with other forms of Cy-Fur until we're absolutely read in on what the cats introduce.
* '''Cattie?''' is a term we've heard some less enlightened members of our town use to disparage Cat Cy-Furs. You do remember our general stance on discrimination of any sort, right? IT APPLIES HERE: We don't encourage it, and we don't want it in our town! To their credit, the cat cyfur community is already blunting the edge on this species hatred by using the term on each other themselves, much like black folks using the n-word.
* '''Are there any Cat Cy-Furs that resemble xxx shorthairs?''' representation of some of the most common housecat species excepting Siamese in Cat Cyfurs is a thing. 
* '''Any advice for dealing with Cat Cyfurs?''' They have been engineered with a blend of both human and cat characteristics. This combination has proven volatile, and you should always assume there's a half-chance that their response to something you offer or do is more cat and less human, despite their intellect matching up with other humans and androids. Avoid handling catnip or cat toys around them - not all Cat Cy-Furs will fall into cat behavior when faced with cat things, but a lot of them will. Above all, we would appreciate if the community gives them a chance and treats them mostly like humans, occasional cat behaviors not withstanding.
* '''Meow?''' Meow.

And that's about the size of it, folks.

== Little Sanctuary Oddities ==
=== Local Jargon ===
As Little Sanctuary as a town has developed in ways both far ahead of its surrounding neighbouts (extremely bleeding edge tech run amok) and far behind (design cues taken from an Americana that hasn't existed for centuries), it has culturally also become a bit of a 'weird ass place'. This includes the language, which, while supposedly American English mixed from both Unions as well as the Neutral States, also acquired some pretty interesting local colloquialisms. Some of those colloquialisms have been excerpted from the local dictionary here:
* '''Fuck-Me-To-Tilt:''' Used originally by self-aware inorganics to denote sex so good for them that it causes them to temporarily enter a state of recoverable non-functionality. Has gradually also caught on with organics in Little Sanctuary for the same reasons albeit in organic terms. Contrast with: Fuck-Me-To-Scrap, Fuck-Me-To-Pieces

* '''catties:''' originally used to denote Arendtcore units based off Cyberkitty technology, which are often denoted by their being human-sized bipedal cats, often in anoraks when outdoors. Previously a slur, has been stolen by Cyberkitty culture and groupings, and more open-minded partners with prior consent for their own affectionate uses. "Yo yo yo, how me catties doing today?" "He's a cattie, but he's our cattie!"

* '''sleeper mode:''' a mode toggle on Arendtcore units (and many other competing brands) that allows a inorganic unit to operate without awareness of its true basis in circuitry and plastic rather than biological systems at a cost in increased complexity in operations and maintenance. Sometimes used as a slur to put down people considered epically stupid. e.g. "Omigod, that guy is such a idiot!" "Yeah, it's like he's on sleeper mode or some shit."

* '''The Complex''': used in a Little Sanctuary context, it can only mean one thing - The Arendtcore offices and main factory complex as located in the heart of Little Sanctuary, and the spot where many of the Original Districts that Little Sanctuary initially gathered together as a corporate town.

* '''Original Districts / OhDees : ''' The original districts that Little Sanctuary was first formed into from parts of Ohio that had voted earliest to become part of Arendtcore's corporate enclave proposal. Numbered 1-35. There has been little scope creep as newer districts have been added to the list of currently 178 districts.

* '''The Four''': refers to the original four founders of Arendtcore (as well as Little Sanctuary later on) - Marcus Manners, Aymee Ichigo, Seamus Arendt, and Bellamy Arendt.

* '''rejuve''': therapies designed to slow down or even (salacious rumor has it) reverse aging. The result is a society where one's age cannot be readily determined by one's appearance - many people look considerably younger than their actual age. Actually asking for ID to check ages for age-limited activities or purchases is a common and justified form of paranoia within Little Sanctuary.

* '''HAF''' : a drug supposedly obtained from the burning of human analogue flesh at high temperatures, meant to induce highs followed by paranoia. This claim has been disputed by Arendtcore as none of the precursors of Human Analogue Flesh have any use in any form of drug meant to induce a high.

* '''pop''': remove or slide back a cover to internals or an access panel. Not recommended outside of controlled conditions due to how it exposes delicate circuitry to the hazards offered by the world.

* '''Despo years''': refers to the Despotic Years, the years in which original America fragmented into its current condition due to despotic rule from Wash District to the East and protesting states hiving off in protest mainly in the West. The repeated nuclear incidents did not help matters.

* '''incomers''': refers to newcomers who have just made it past the gates of Little Sanctuary for long term purposes such as emigration or employment in Little Sanctuary

* '''indies''': refers to people who live in Little Sanctuary for the purpose of employment at a business not directly related to Arendtcore or its subsidiaries. As such businesses are officially not permitted to exist within Little Sanctuary, "indies" are very rare to encounter outside of very small local businesses such as grocers, hairdressers, independent fashion and artists, for whom the payment of taxes to Little Sanctuary is considered a "license fee" for limited rights to the Arendtcore brand, in order to skirt the requirement of direct employment within the Arendtcore family as a conditon to live within Little Sanctuary

* '''spousal''': refers to inorganics issued to a Arendtcore employee under the Families programme to function as a spouse (hence the term)

* '''rat''': not quite the demeaning term or yucky animal most people think of them as. Usually refers to Greater Minnesotan Rats, which when properly bred and vaccinated can function as pets or food. Much of the meat you see in Minnesota is rat. Much of the meat you see in Little Sanctuary is rat processed into a deniable state.

* '''square''': a central location for groups of several districts, where many shared facilities and shops are emplaced to both serve the districts and foster engagement and closer ties amongst residents. Often host to interesting activities such as the Charity Pie Bake Contests, the Live Art Concerns, and the Humors and Rumors news and comedy events.

* '''Five Minute Love''': a corruption of the Five Minute Hates of 1984, where one person points out something 'worth loving' and the rest of the grouping spend the next five minutes or so following on with more declarations of how it is loved, or staying silent. To protest against a FML is considered impolite in Little Sanctuary society unless the item in question is clearly the subject of much opprobium e.g. Great Leader Drurutus of the True American Union, or pineapple pizza, or even the overuse of the color blue in some districts (such as 47). Rumored to have originated as a practice on ancient social media systems.

* '''bar mitzvah/bat mitzvah''': corrupted from its original use as a Jewish celebration of a child approaching the age of reason - in Little Sanctuary this usually refers to Child Units issued under the Familites Programme celebrating reaching a major stage in their aging (9-10, 11-12, 13-15, 16-17, 18+), mainly to update others who know them of their new form and identity. Has gradually also spread to organic children, though parents in this case may not be as strict about the stages defined.

* '''Originals''': refers to people who can lay claim to being part of the first wave of people who formed Arendtcore and established Little Sanctuary.

* '''fibrovasculars/fibros''': a term that has entered popular usage somehow, despite being a very technical term. Refers to the elements that make up the iris and provide its color in organics originally, now refers to the entire iris of an eye. "That girl has some amazing deep blue fibros."  Has been partially corrupted by the introduction of false similar elements into visual sensors intended to be lifelike.

* '''power cells''': corrupted by the regular use of breasts in female organic units as power storage volumes, now refers as slang to boobs on female inorganics or organics now except when otherwise clearly indicated. "Wow, check out the power cells on that chick." Also see: fuel belly, charge dong.

* '''Angels''': a popular local equivalent to Hooters. Irish-American Diner theme, lots of blue and white sky colors, regular limited time specials on foods made from edible invasive species in America renamed to the same angel theming. Also refers to its waitresses in subtly skimpy angel-themed dress outfits. For some curious reason, the same three waitresses can be seen in all 6 outlets around Little Sanctuary, and multiple instances of the same waitress can even be seen next to each other occasionally. The mananagement siply explains this peculiar occurence as "they just want to be with all of you at once", but this is more likely to be due to the use of template-based waitress androids.

* '''Former Child Unit''': refers to Child Units that have been gradually aged into adulthood (presenting as 18 or older) and qualifying for the privileges and responsibilites of normal adulthood within Little Sanctuary society, including registration as a new generation of Spousal Units 

* '''Lastditch (without the space)''': Refers to the LASTDITCH Project, a last effort to build a realistic lifelike android funded on the last dollars that Arendtcorp had at one point in time that proved wildly successful and revitalized the company into a massively acquisitional coglomerate. See also: Final Fantasy, Hail Mary Plays, Success Or Bust

* '''Holograph''': the use of lasers to produce an image in midair. In Little Sanctuary, refers to inorganics whose main appearance is projected by a holographic emitter rather than being based in actual physical matter.

* '''Ciphers''': a corruption of the word Cy-Fur, referring to Arendtcore's growiing range of androids based off stylised bipedal animals. Groups with heavily specific focuses may opt to use a different slang to refer to themselves (e.g. catties, woozies, burrs)

* '''Nothing to the East, Nothing to the West''': a mentality espoused by certain dumber descendants of earlier generations to settle in Little Sanctuary. The continued intake of new talent and ideas into, and continued journeys and exports from Little Sanctuary only disproves this generally-frowned-upon philosophy.

* '''sixie''': slang, denotes an inorganic based on a platform that allows reversible disassembly into six or more discrete pieces (hence the terming) for the purposes of easier transport and storage. Used to be a slur denoting lower intellect as many such platforms used to house lower computational power, obsoleted by recent advances in computing power on such systems.

* '''brought my wife to a gun fight''': corruption of 'bring a knife to a gun fight'. References the awkward reality that some newly immigrated members into Little Sanctuary did not come from peaceful places, and is a warning not to underestimate or bring strife to immigrants from other places because they may literally be packing a wife with actual cannons built in or other survival skills designed to cause regret.