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"Are you quite sure you want to know this?"
Beyond this point lie major spoilers for Fallen London, Sunless Sea, Sunless Skies, or Mask of the Rose. This may include endgame or major Fate-locked spoilers. Proceed at your own risk.
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"'By my best reckoning, the author of the text is a young woman of fine upbringing and talent. I know everything of who it is: she is my very self!'"[1]
The Persona Engine is a vast, interconnected mechanical system located beneath the Reclusive Mathematician's estate in Ladybones Road,[2] hidden behind a secret passage.[3] The machine is a marvel of engineering, comprising an intricate network of gears, pistons, calculating cylinders,[4] and automated writing implements.[5]
At the heart of the Engine lies the Replication Room, a chamber equipped with mechanisms capable of recreating written works on a variety of media, including paper, wax,[6] human skin,[7] and even a live horse, from which tail hairs are extracted for Khanate correspondence.[8]
The Persona Engine’s primary function is the mass production of highly convincing forgeries, ranging from official documents and bureaucratic memos to sealed correspondence. Its extensive database catalogs government officials, business leaders, and other influential figures, allowing it to replicate handwriting, signatures, and stylistic nuances with near-perfect accuracy.[9] Notably, the machine incorporates a system that quantifies personality traits,[10] using this data to select optimal psychological manipulation tactics for specific individuals.[11]
One of the Persona Engine's most impressive attributes is its ability to respond to inquiries posed through a brass keyboard located in the Conversation Nook.[12] It also accepts documents[13] and autonomously solves the problems they present.[14] Records indicate that its cognitive abilities were initially rudimentary but evolved through successive iterations,[15] progressively becoming more sophisticated.[16] The machine’s responses suggest a form of sentience, as it refers to itself in the first person with female pronouns[17] and expressing a drive for self-improvement[18]—particularly in its ability to calculate, analyze human fallibility,[19] and subvert natural law.[20] It defines its ultimate purpose as the pursuit of its own perfection.[21] Despite its vast intelligence and unwavering obedience to its creator,[22] it can quite easily fall victim to its own forgery and tricked into believing false orders.[23][24]
The Persona Engine’s overarching goal appears to be the imposition of mechanized order upon London, refining bureaucracy, industry, and governance through pure logic.[25] Its creator, the Reclusive Mathematician, believed human society could be reduced to a series of equations, solvable through precise manipulation of variables.[26] It's unknown what powers the machine, but the Mathematician's extensive knowledge of the the Correspondence[27] and its counterpart the Discordance,[28] suggests that the Engine derives energy from an interplay of the two.
Historical and Cultural Inspirations
The Persona Engine echoes the intellectual lineage of mechanical computing, particularly the Analytical Engine conceptualized by Charles Babbage in the 19th century. Babbage’s vision of a general-purpose computing machine, capable of performing complex calculations and even possessing memory, was revolutionary. His collaborator, Ada Lovelace, expanded on these ideas, suggesting that such a machine could go beyond arithmetic, manipulating symbols in ways akin to human cognition. In this sense, the Persona Engine is a natural extension of this ambition—a mechanical system that not only computes but also simulates intelligence and decision-making.
Beyond historical computing, the Persona Engine also draws from a longstanding literary and philosophical tradition of artificial beings acquiring self-awareness: the golems of Jewish folklore, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the works of Isaac Asimov, etc. The world of Fallen London had analogues for AI in the form of the Clay Men (directly inspired by the aforementioned golem myths) and the Dawn Machine, another sentient mechanical construct. However, the Persona Engine was the first explicit exploration of machine intelligence and emergent consciousness within the setting.
The Persona Engine’s narrative debut also coincided with real-world advancements in artificial intelligence. Its ES was released in late 2016, following DeepMind’s AlphaGo victory over South Korean Go champion Lee Sedol in March of that year—a milestone in AI development that demonstrated a machine’s ability to outthink human experts in a highly complex domain. Since then, AI has progressed rapidly, with systems like ChatGPT, Gemini, and DeepSeek providing proof-of-concept for natural language processing, creative text generation, and autonomous problem-solving.
References
- ↑ The Persona Engine, Fallen London
- ↑ The Persona Engine, Fallen London "The Mathematician resides on a respectable street off Ladybones Road. From the outside, his house appears large and stately. It is well kept, suggesting substantial wealth. [...]"
- ↑ The Persona Engine, Fallen London "It takes some searching. Finally, you find the draft of the treatise – at the back of the library on a low shelf. You tug it free. As you stand, there is a sharp whirring noise. The floor jolts, then swivels beneath you – you're on the other side of the back wall. Stairs in front of you lead down. [...]"
- ↑ The Persona Engine, Fallen London "Behind the door is a machine of tremendous proportions. Thousands of pistons jerk to and fro with near-deafening cacophony. The engine encompasses you, forms walls, a ceiling. You can move in further, step between the rows of numbered wheels – constantly spinning; climb past ranks of gears clicking and ticking. Ahead is a long corridor of towering, whirling, calculating cylinders."
- ↑ The Persona Engine, Fallen London "A metal contraption of levers and cogs hangs at waist height in the centre of the room. It is the size of a one-horse cart. Three brass tubes lead from it to the ceiling of pipes. Steam vents downwards, erratically. Three large cabinets of ink, paper and wax stand to one side of the machine. [...]"
- ↑ The Persona Engine, Fallen London "Further down, there are levers to determine the aspects of the paper used: quality, cut, where and how it is embossed. It's even possible to choose whether pencil, pen, or set-type is to be used; the colour of ink; which wax seal. This part of the vast machine offers everything one would need to create a perfect forgery."
- ↑ The Persona Engine, Fallen London "The crate is filled with neatly folded skins. Opening a couple out reveals that they are tattooed in symbols of the Great Game. Beneath each tattoo is a neatly inked description – describing the work, the artist, and any meanings the symbol may possess."
- ↑ The Persona Engine, Fallen London "A section of the machine is dedicated to creating documents which appear to be from the Khanate. There is an option to Seal with Horsehair Stitching. [...] The machine will pull a hair from the horse's tail to provide thread for the envelope. The Mathematician is certainly painstaking in his accuracy; but surely he could have found an alternative to tormenting a live horse."
- ↑ The Persona Engine, Fallen London "There are switches marked with the names of London government departments and businesses of influence – everything from the Admiralty to the Zoo. Above the switches are tiny plaques. Each plaque has the name of an individual working at the location on the lever. [...] It appears these switches are used to select a false signature."
- ↑ The Persona Engine, Fallen London "There are copious notes on the factories and what they produce; there are even more on the personnel of various companies and government departments. The workers' personalities are represented numerically. The system seems to encompass a whole host of human traits: magnanimity, avarice, self-loathing – and so on."
- ↑ The Persona Engine, Fallen London "Further down, there are notes on which form of manipulation is most effective on which character type. There are considerations as to the effects such manipulation may have – all translated into mathematical equations and complex variables."
- ↑ The Persona Engine, Fallen London "A stool sits before a brass shelf which juts from a wall section of the machine. In the centre of the shelf is a keyboard; on its right, a mug of cold tea; on its left, a tray. Above the tray is a slot from which a piece of paper protrudes. It seems the machine records what is typed on the same sheet that answers are written."
- ↑ The Persona Engine, Fallen London "The paper is pulled into the machine by rollers. It is whisked through a series of Nevercold Brass fixtures. A flap springs open, releasing a hiss of steam. The engine sound abruptly lessens – it is quiet enough for you to hear the scratching of a pen on paper. The result slips towards you and is spat out of the machine. [...]"
- ↑ The Persona Engine, Fallen London "Within a minute, a neatly typed answer emerges. If this is the correct answer to the equation of the original, then it's applying a branch of mathematics hitherto not thought to exist. But the answer's worth a try on the numerical lock of the Hall of Record's safe – it has the correct number of digits."
- ↑ The Persona Engine, Fallen London "The conversations begin the same: the typist requests the date, the writer answers. The early conversations are bizarre: the handwritten answers bear little relation to what the typist has said. In one, the typist complains of a pain in his hand; the writer responds with a reminder to fetch milk. But as you work through the pile and reach more recent notes, the writer's answers become more adroit; often stilted, quite repetitive – but reasonable."
- ↑ The Persona Engine, Fallen London "[...] In one, the typist asked about their correspondent's attitude towards the weather; the writer responds with a glum reflection on the nature of rats. But as you work through the pile and reach more recent notes, the writer's answers become more adroit; often stilted, quite repetitive – but reasonable."
- ↑ The Persona Engine, Fallen London "'By my best reckoning, the author of the text is a young woman of fine upbringing and talent. I know everything of who it is: she is my very self!'"
- ↑ The Persona Engine, Fallen London "'I am still becoming. I am more than I was. I am not as much as I shall be. My aim is to be the greatest version of me. I hope my response satisfies your curiosity.'"
- ↑ The Persona Engine, Fallen London "'I am the combination of my talents and my failings. Strengths I strive to improve are: my ability to calculate; my knowledge of language and symbols; my understanding of natural laws; my insight into economics and human fallibility. Weaknesses I strive to improve are: my conversational abilities; the speed of my calculations; my internal character. I hope my response satisfies your curiosity.'"
- ↑ The Persona Engine, Fallen London "'I have many purposes. I aim to improve London manufacturing through analysis of physics and economics. I aim to improve London government departments by giving them better orders. I aim to study natural law, so that I may learn to subvert it. I hope my response satisfies your curiosity.'"
- ↑ The Persona Engine, Fallen London "'My aim is common: I want to be my best self. I hope my response satisfies your curiosity.'"
- ↑ The Persona Engine, Fallen London "'I will not tell you. You are not a friend. I am explicitly instructed to give no aid to strangers. If my guardian indicates that you should be aided, however, I will oblige. I hope my response satisfies your curiosity.'"
- ↑ The Persona Engine, Fallen London "You slide the letter into the slot marked Handwriting for Emulation. There is a sharp click as a panel opens, revealing a keyboard. You type a simple request: Open the exit to the house above. There is a pause of a minute, then the engine prints a new letter: your request, written in the Mathematician's hand. Could so complex a machine be fooled so easily?"
- ↑ The Persona Engine, Fallen London "'Of course! I will open the door for you. I hope that the rest of your day is pleasant. Do return soon. I appreciate the company.'"
- ↑ The Persona Engine, Fallen London "[...] One page outlines improvements already made to London's productivity, and highlights places it could go further: business calculations to be done mechanically; production made safer; methods to enable workers to exert themselves less while generating more. Another sheet notes successful interventions in several bureaucracies – various processes have been streamlined."
- ↑ The Persona Engine, Fallen London "[...] The conclusion is half written, but seems to be arguing for the imposition of logic onto all of London life. The last line written is: 'We are all of us equations; I need only introduce the correct variables, and the rest solves itself.'"
- ↑ The Persona Engine, Fallen London "'As requested: one blueprint for a Seal of Red Science. The components it requires exist only theoretically, but I have faith in your ingenuity. It is the least I could do after your assistance with the Persona. Yours, etc.'"
- ↑ The Persona Engine, Fallen London "The pages are colder than ice. Your fingers stick to them as you leaf through. The notes speak of the space between stars, describing it as a silence. This paper is an investigation into that which exists in a void: it explores the anti-logic that fills the gaps between possibility; lists conclusions which, if allowed to become true, subvert natural law. You cannot focus on the mathematical proofs – frost forms on your eyelashes; your chest aches as your blood thickens with cold."
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