Minipis

Minipis created by Pi in the context of her duty
Since this is updated manually, this might be out of date

Specials

Specials minipi created outside of normal circumstances

Backstory

Minipis are made by an android named Pi, which was tasked by Nano to help the community and its people with their lives
She was later joined by Zirk
Since answering to everyone demand is a huge task, she took the initiative to create small helpers called "minipi"

Pi herself is a bit of an oddity among androids, while holding a pin as the others ones, she is only very weakly connected to the central server as the others are
Therefore to manage minipi she had to create her own server, allowing her to have a base for minipi's own pins
This server work by proxy to the main one, for each new minipi creating a very weak link to the main server

Each minipi therefore reinforce this link Pi hold to the main server, allowing her to get closer to the ones of her kind
Along with that each minipi have their own goals, dreams and when one of them come upon fruition, this link significantly stronger

Glossary

Emergency mode

Emergency mode is a special state where all the components of a minipi are disabled, except for her life core, battery and pin
This typically occur to preserve a minipi integrity and prevent her from hurting herself, either because an outside event or from an inner defect
This also allow her to keep a nearly-discharged battery for up to a dozen days
When this happen, all the volatile memory of the minipi is discarded and she will be totally unresponsive

This can be observed when a minipi pin emit a soft red glow
In case of such an event, please only touch the minipi if she is in immediate danger and contact either Pi or another minipi

This scenario usually occur in the following cases:

• A minipi ran out of battery
• A shock forced a minipi to expel her battery
• A system violation was detected by the minipi Pi[OS]
• The minipi pi safety guard was triggered

A minipi is only able to be removed from this state by Pi, and is always followed by a deep maintenance

Pin safety guard

The safety guard is a functionality attached to a minipi pin
When a minipi physical integrity is endagered or when its signal to the central server is too weak (meaning a minipi wandered too far away), the security is triggered
When that happen, the minipi is instantly transported in a receptacle area and her emergency mode is triggered

Deep maintenance

Deep maintance is a process usually done after emergency mode to repair and recalibrate a minipi
It is a time-expensive maneuver that can only be done by Pi, and involve many hardware and software steps to repair structucal and internal defects
A deep maintenance also always involve changing the minipi emergency battery

Soft maintenance

Soft maintenance are a kind of maintance done by minipis in Pi's house
It allow them to recalibrate their software and once started usually take a full day
It contains many steps such as recalibrating their internal clock, defragmenting their memory, testing their various sensors, refilling their coolant, comparing the integrity of their system to a reference database and updating it, etc…

Daily maintenance

Daily maintenance are done each evening in Pi's house
They are usually done in parrallel of their battery charging, it is used by minipi to organize their memories and transfert data from their volatile to permanent memory

Charging pod

A charging pod is a small container where a minipi lie down during their daily maintenance
Each minipi have their own charging pod, they also contains a small compartiment at the bottom that they use to store what they like

Charging stations

Charging stations are little cabins that can be found in the street, they give a rest point to minipi and offer various services like an outlet allowing themselves to charge a bit, a map of the city so lost minipis can find their way back and are also used by various others services provided by minipis such as relay points for the MPDS
When a minipi enter emergency mode, others minipis will often carry her here, offering her a safe place until Pi's arrival

Language

Minipi language for a long time have been through as random babbling, but Pi was the first to explain that during all this time it was indeed a real language
It is however only spoken, some minipi like to write but each of them have their own system which isn't standardized

We usually romanized minipi language with a i for a short sound pi and y for a long one
Along with that there are 3 existing accents, up, down and neutral which give us the following table:

	Neutral	Up	Down
i	ī	í	N/A
y	ȳ	ý	ỳ

To facilitate reading with often add a p before the vowel as following:
pípȳpý

Wait in vocalization usually instill a word break

Grammatically, sentences are done with the following structures:
verb + noun + complements + (subject)
Subject often being implied

For example "Go fetch the water from the well" would be

• pìpý: to go and come back with, to alert someone
• pȳpípí: clean water
• pīpýpīpỳ: groundwater (imply a well here)
• pīpī: you

Which gives
Pìpý pȳpípí pīpýpīpỳ (pīpī)

It is good to know that word meaning changes depending of their location in a sentence and this pȳpípí either mean "clean water" or "to wash, to remove dirt from something"

Services

Delivery Service

Thank you for considering the MPDS (MiniPi Delivery Service) for your packages
The MPDS is a service to deliver your letters and parcels while being:

• Free: as a community service, the MPDS is and will remain free for all its citizens, you are however welcome to offer money to provide funds to its infrastructures
• Easy to access: Just let your package at your local minipi station and a minipi will take it when coming by
• Accessible to anyone: Even if you can't use WCC, you can still use the MPDS!

How to I receive packages?

Standard delivery (大Batsu only)

This is the most common type of delivery, packages will arrive at your closest minipi station and are kept there for 2 months before being sent back on the station where they were expedited from
Packages are let inside, please verify the name on a parcel before taking it

Door to door delivery

This service allow you to directly receive your package at your doorstep, delivery are usually a bit slower that way

How do I indicate the destination address?

Mini-pi are very adaptive but use a different language than you and I, for this reason delivery instruction must follow a special format

Standard delivery (大Batsu only)

Please refer to the map on a minipi station to identify which symbols need to be written on the package depending of the destination sector

Door to door delivery (大Batsu only)

Please write down the sector in which the delivery location is, followed by a photo of the house taken from the street

Deliveries outside 大Batsu

Packages need to be marked with the corresponding symbols, please refer to a minipi station to know what need to be written
The address itself can be written in plain letters
Supported destinations are Ebereus and Känue
Please however note that some goods are subjected to control

When will my package be delivered?

Each morning, minipi go around their stations to check for new packages, however some stations are checked less often that the others, when at a station, please check the color of the MPDS sticker:

• Green: This station is verified every day
• Yellow: This station is verified every week
• Red: This station is verified every months

Once recovered delivery will begin
Mini-pi working only during day time, your package might be stored in another minipi station during the night

Mini-pi must go through many obstacles to ensure your package is delivered, and thus sometimes your package might get lost on the way, if that happens no need to worry! A mini-pi investigation squad will be dispatched to find your package back, if for some reason it still can't be recovered, Pi herself will be dispatched

How can I help?

The MPDS is able to operate efficiantly thanks to people like you and helping minipi in their tasks is always welcome:
- Minipi sometimes struggle to climb hills with their trolley, when that happens you are welcome to help them to push it
- Minipi will sometimes come to you to attempt to locate specific locations, in that case please don't give complex instructions such as "take the 2nd turn left then right after the crosswalk" but please point them or show them the direction instead

Standard equipement

Mini pi are equiped with a little trolley, allowing them to push any parcel despite their size or weight

History

MPDS is a postal service created by Pi and managed by mini-pi #43, even through there is no fixed employee, parcel delivery is part of a minipi communitary duty

Transportation Service

The MiniPi Transportation Service (MPTS) is a railway system that connects the following destinations:

• 大Batsu West
• 大Batsu South
• 大Batsu North
• 大Batsu Chemicals

It is mainly used for good transportation, including MPDS packages but also allow for personal transport

Asylum Service

As a resident of 大Batsu, you are eligible to the MiniPi Asylum Service (MPAS)

Asylum grants you a safe place within an annexe of Pi's house which you can't be forced out of, your stay is however subjected in the respect of others and respect of properties within it

To gain access to it, simply speak to a minipi and claim your asylum right, you'll then be leaded to the aforementioned place

Militia Service

The MiniPi Militia Service (MPMS) is a service established to protect 大Batsu against threats

Their weapons were provided by Zirk from his home country, they carry pin-activated self-triggered magic action bolt-rifle M5

Technical specifications

These technical specifications are made after extensive observation and while they aim to be as accurate as possible, might contains inacurracies

A minipi is made of 2 main parts:

• The head, which contains the captors, components for memory and decision making along with the ones that define the minipi as a being
• The body, which contains components for energy management and her pin

Head

Life Core

The life core is a component that define a minipi as a being, it acts as a blackbox and little is known about its inner working, apart from the fact that it contains Pi[OS] and that it's charged from Pi's server
As long as this component isn't damaged, a minipi can be repaired

Pi[OS]

Contained inside the life code, Pi[OS] is what define the base of a minipi critical behaviors
The inner instructions are unknown but it contains rules so a minipi can protect herself, Pi and others minipis, along with instructions defining forbidden behaviors

It is the primary layer of security around a minipi lifecore and is completly sealed from the outside, and only accessible to the minipi in a read-only mode, preventing any nefarious attack against it
However, since a minipi ability to judge what is good or bad is based on her reserved memory, her perception can still be altered
Once Pi[OS] detect such a violation, the minipi will enter emergency mode, disabling all her component except for her life core, battery and pin

Decision center

Minipi decision center is a component allowing them to interact with their various others components and sensors to take decisions

Vision

Minipi only have one eye off-centered on the left of their body, making them struggle to see things in 3 dimensions
Their vision spectrum is from 360 to 620nm

Communication

Minipi are able to emit sounds, but are limited to the sound "pi"
Their vocalization system allow to pronounce strident /i/ sounds while opening their mouth produces a /p/ sounds, hence the /pi/ sound they produce
They use variation of tones and durations to communicate between each other, a minipi voice being able to go from 150Hz to 1500Hz
They are able to hear from 30Hz to 40 000Hz

Clock

Minipi have an internal clock, ticking at the same interval for all of them
It is mainly used to syncronise internal systems with each others, but minipis also can use it for various others tasks, like walking in unison

Exhaust pipe

The minipi antenna act as an exhaust pipe, since their heat management is done with a special coolant, bubbles can sometimes be produces and released from there

Memory

Minipi memory work in block of 1024KB, each block can be associated to a specific information
For this reason, minipi are usually better at keeping track of only a few different subjects


Text blocks

Text blocks are chunk of memory optimized to store basic information, they are optimized for very fast access

Image blocks

Image blocks are chunk of memory optimized to store images, information there is usually highly compressed, asking for a minipi more time to access it

Links blocks

Links are a small chunk of memory linking various blocks of image/text memory together

Decisional blocks

Decisional blocks are a special kind of blocks only used by volatile memory
They store information about what the minipi is currently experiencing, working as a system of double buffering, allowing a minipi to store information to her volatile memory while she keeps accumulating new ones from her sensors and sending them to her decision center


Volatile memory

Volatile memory is a kind of memory made from [3] blocks of image, [6] blocks of text and [1] block of links used to temporary store information about their day
Each evening, minipi go back to their charging pod and will enter sleep mode, where their decision center will filter which data are purged and which are stored in permanent memory

If a minipi run out of battery, she risks entering into emergency mode, eliminating all memory stored there

Permanent memory

Minipi permanent memory allow them to keep data between days, that memory however slowly degrade with time and minipi will have to reassess their knowledge to maintain it
It is made of [1] block of link memory, [32] blocks of text memory and [10] blocks of image memory
Text memory is splitted as the following:
• Core [15]: Basic minipi knowledge, it contains information related to their basic education, such as how to intepret things, how to walk, how to manipulate objects, etc…
  This is usually half-filled when a minipi is bornt, but they are free to modify or complement it with their learning
  It also contains information on their duty, ways to effectively perform tasks and work alongside others minipis
• Goals [2]: Where minipi store their current objectives and goals
  [1] block is usually used for their long-term dreams and [1] for for their main hobby
  Since there is only one block for hobby, most minipi don't have more than one
• People [10]: Where minipi store information about others people, when someone is very important they can take up to a whole block
  However most of the time information about many people are stored inside one block, which sometimes cause minipi to mix them up
  Most of it is usually used to store informations about others minipis
• Free [5]: Additional blocks that can be used by minipi however they want, usually combined with others categories above to extend their capacities in one of them

Image memory is usually splitted between [20] blocks accumulating their knowledge (similar to the text core memory) and [10] free blocks

Read-only memory

Read-only memory contains [1] block of link memory, [3] blocks of images and [17] blocks of text
Images blocks contains information allowing their to identify important people such as Pi or minipis, it also ways for them to recognize dangerous information or hazard they shouldn't approch (such as anomalies)
Text blocks containing information about what is a minipi, what is "good" and "bad", how to react in case of emergency and what is their goal as minipi
While these information let some leeway for interpretation, they also contains strong directives, preventing them to do anything that is clearly disallowed

Contraty to core memory, these information don't let place for learning or evolving but state things that are immutable

Body

Battery

Minipi uses rechargeable lithium-ion battery to power themselves
This battery is quite sensitive to external factor, if a minipi receive a strong shock, the battery will be ejected from a trap between their legs
When that happen, a bunch of coolant will be released at the same time, mitigating the risks of explosion and fire, and will force the minipi into emergency mode

Minipi's battery are made to last to last around 30 hours and requires 10 hours of charging when empty, but may be drained quicker if the minipi do intenstive activities

When the minipi battery run at 1%, the minipi will enter into emergency mode and the emergency battery will take the relay


Emergency battery

Emergency battery is a little lithium iron phosphate battery only active during emergency mode
It allow the minipi core functionalities to still be operational during that time

Tail

Minipi have a tail primarly used to charge themselves, either in their charging pod or at minipi stations that are placed in the street
It is also used during maintenances to transfert data

Receiver pin

Automatically trigger safety guard protocol when a minipi life is endangered