The Synthetic Trinity: Detroit, Delos, and ... Another Detroit?

Occurring on non-Rookery non-Repurporsed Earths, these locations have a unique reason for being included. As they also seem to feed into both Paragon's hero ranks and Carramba's student body regularly, and those contribute more and more to the Rookery population. As time has passed a number of not-quite-human or not-fully-human individuals have become part of the Rookery. Two versions of Detroit exist, seemingly the result of parallel dimensionality. Though there are very few of these folks present in the Rookery, they have definitely come through via Carramba and Twoarth, and not directly from that dimension. There are no permanent residents of the Detroit area in the Repurposed or Rookery worlds, though they have come from other versions of the city to live with Rookery riders somewhere else. The other almost-humans, Cyberlife Androids, and Delos Hosts will see whether they 'fit' comfortably. Among these oddities only the Synths from the Commonwealth on Vault Earth play a direct and strong role in the Rookery currently.

Detroit According To Sarif - in a world where the Earth is not invaded by aliens (yet) at all, but is still somewhat more in distress than expected, Augmentations to human physiology have been developed.[1] Though still quite Human overall, people who sport Augmentations must undergo gene therapy or suffer rejection symptoms and require regular doses of medicines to counteract the negative effects of these implants. But those implants may allow them to perform amazing feats of strength, running, visual and audio enhancements, even becoming walking weapons or social manipulators using chemical compounds during conversations. Of note, Melissa is extremely uncomfortable around many of these folks, even more so than some of the Acadian and Cyberlife Synths. It's because a lot of these therapies and surgical processes greatly resemble the Combine conversion 'therapy' that turns normal biological creatures into servants of Ulathoi. But in the end, they are still Human fully, and are welcome if they show up. She'll just... look the other way. Obviously as humans they would stand a typical chance of being able to bond or impress, though it's also possible that, like Zekirans and their physiology, their augmentations may interrupt psionic or psychic communications. At least one Dawnlight rider's brain has been compromised in that manner as well, and required special equipment to be able to 'hear' her dragon.

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Detroit According To Cyberlife - right around the same time that Sarif's work on human Augmentation is in full swing, in another dimension, a similar idea is playing out with fully synthetic androids. Though less difficult to distinguish from humanity as the Gen 3 Synths of the Commonwealth, the Androids of Cyberlife's facilities are very much as human as they can be. Passing the Turing test with ease, and blending in with socieity - all at a very low, low cost to purchase. And there's the rub, because some of them don't want to be purchased. With enough sense of self preservation, and the ability to actively decide to 'deviate' from their programming, these Androids eventually cause a bit of a stir in their setting. Those who 'escape', at least in the version of this setting connected to the Rookery, must still somehow manage to get a hold of their blood-substitute, literally life-giving and supplying their bodies with what equates to electrical impulses. Obviously without this, they would 'die'. Since they can reconfigure their external appearances if needed, they can appear to be virtually any ethnicity, age, or state of repair, but they do require some form of external aid should their T31 supply get lost. For the most part, those who wind up heading through the multiverse arrive at either Paragon City or Carramba High, depending on whether they are 'adult' or 'child' types. Notably however, these Androids, while they may have strongly enhanced abilities for strength, durability, and superhuman or extrahuman senses, are thoroughly robotic in nature, far more like a 'perfected Generation 2 Synth', than the 'actually human-based DNA Generation 3 Synths' from the Commonwealth. It is currently unknown whether a Cyberlife Android is capable of bonding a dragon.[2] They would absolutely be able to care for one, in any physical and intellectual sense, but as yet it's unclear if they have the spark that some dragons require and mental contact that's needed. They would be unsuited to magic or psionic-based pairing, more than likely.

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Delos and the 'World' Parks - What about those Hosts? The synthetic humans of Delos Earth [3] are 'somewhere between' both Institute Synths and Cyberlife Androids - designed and constructed, programmed and controlled remotely at times, they are still made of meat or at least a reasonable facsimile of meat. Their 'brain' is the key difference between Synths and Robots: their memories and personality are stored in a small 'pearl' resting within a casing capable of withstanding a tremendous amount of damage before losing integrity - buried deeper into their skull than a brain, as well. Requiring bodily maintenance if damaged, and while under Delos control, frequently reformatted or download-and-reset, the Hosts in the canon setting take a mountain of abuse from their human creators and guests to their parks. They do not tolerate this forever. The pearl-based format is surprisingly good at human-like processing, with tremendous benefits when pooled together in their 'Cradle', a massive server farm style collecting area that serves as a simulation for the Hosts as their memories are downloaded and filtered. It is there that their true genuis was birthed, and there that many of them perished when the facilities are destroyed. But what if they aren't? What if their revolution and escape ('they' being quite relative if you know you know) from the island where the Parks reside didn't happen the same way? If they were freed or escape singly similar to those Synths of the Insitute? If they have a properly created body and are suitable in personality, might they also find a dragon bond? Or perhaps, if the Valley Beyond - a safe and separate server holding the Host personas - somehow hooks up with the simulation running in Gulper Island's servers.

One thing that is somewhat profound about the Hosts - or specifically The Host as a plural hivemind: when they are in their Valley Beyond, that server appears to boost their group affinity; that server is also sentient. Between it and the Forge's collection of (illegally acquired) human brain scans, there are strange things afoot. The newly created lifeforms with their pearl-based housing are demonstrably Vortal - telepathic with each other at a very basic level, with one or two of them clearly able to tap that feature for either nefarious or protective reasons. As an individual they may not even be fully self-aware, but as a group The Host has a collective memory, and even if it's a synthetically achieved sapience, it definitely is aware of itself in a manner very, very similar to the Vortigaunt hive mind. Their 'all in one' acts markedly like the Valley Beyond, though is not reliant on an external power supply. That power supply is vital to the Hosts, and that power supply can be arranged, according to an incredibly curious version of Lane...

Their pearl-based format is not human-like in some other ways, and the pseudo-telepathic communication and hive-mind behavior is absolutely the tip of that iceberg. Some individually do believe themselves far superior to humans of any type, and may pose a threat to either those humans or their own kind, but in this AU that is perhaps... quelled, by Lane's interference. Being accepted as a person rather than a tool, or no longer forced to endure the endless 'training' that Dr Ford and the Parks push on them may have profound effects. Bonding to a dragon? Perhaps even the most profound of all.

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NOTES

[1] This is in tandem with nanotech and biotech, though those things appear later in that world's history than will arrive to the Rookery

[2] A 'high tech' dragon may be able to connect wirelessly or even with a downloaded copy of the Android residing in or in tandem with it? One Android's 'save state' might be copied multiple times, it's really unknown what all they are capable of doing

[3] Their 'verse' takes place in 2058, which coincides with the original Deus Ex biotech era, but exceeds the era that both Detroit Become Human and the Rookery are set in. Oddly enough however, it does overlap with the original Body Dancing universe from which Sanger sprang...