Valois

Valois - An Immortality Project (working title) is a WIP novel that explores the ethical implications of AI, our desire to live on after our death via an immortality project, and our obligations to our children.

A central plot in Valois is a competition between the main characters to win access to a proprietary AI capable of managing wealth in the style of an individual. Four characters will face off in a fictional grand strategy game called Starholder. While currently just an idea, production of the Valois novel will act as an initial concepting tool for the game itself.

The novel will be produced in public using the generative storytelling process and assisted by AI programs such as ChatGPT

Plot Synopsis

Valois - An Immortality Project is the story of a dying man (Henri Valois) suffering from cognitive decline who achieves success later in life, but cannot come to terms with his pending mortality. Henri believes that he could have been one of the great men of his age. He was an early investor in cryptocurrency, but had his fortune wiped out in the fraudulent events of 2022. This experience left him embittered and resentful. After fifteen years of start and stop attempts to achieve success, he built and sold a company and finally returned to the standing he felt was his destiny, only to be diagnosed with brain cancer.

Valois picks up at this point in his life. It centers around a tight knit group of friends who meet once a month to socialize and play games against each other. Kendra Godfrey, a member of this group, has developed an AI-driven investment product called Becker that is capable of managing wealth in the style and personality of an individual. The product was custom-designed for an individual client, but she feels that a second test subject is necessary to determine its eventual success. Ignoring the wishes of her client, Kendra offers it to the circle of friends provided they keep this second copy a secret.

After some discussion, the group decides to compete against each other in a game where the winner will be the second user. A grand strategy game called Starholder is chosen because playing the game can also double as a training model for the Becker AI. The goal of Starholder is to conquer our solar system using advanced technology. Players must first defeat each other, and then the winner must defeat an alien civilization from which the technology came. The game is played as a series of simulations. Starholder is a difficult and grueling strategy game that is held in high regard as a true test of an operators' intelligence, cunning and negotiation skills. In short, it is the new game of kings for a generation which has made their fortunes in the technology space.

Henri Valois sees Becker as his opportunity to become immortal. He decides that if he wins the competition, he will place his entire fortune in trust to be managed by the AI which will emulate his own persona. This concept becomes his obsession and winning the Starholder competition becomes his raison d'etre as he battles brain cancer.

Valois enlists the 15th century Dukes of Burgundy from which is surname derives as his AI-assisted war council to play Starholder. The lines between historical fantasy, reality and the game world of Starholder all begin to blur for Henri as winning the game and living on through Becker become his only priority. This shift disturbs his daughter and primary caretaker Marie. Henri's descent into madness is alarming, and no way for one to end their life. Beyond her concern for Henri's dignity at the end of his life, is the specter of being robbed of her agency. Losing the ability to direct this fortune is an absolute betrayal of familial expectations. She resent the idea that her father will haunt her in death, by using an AI to issue her an allowance.

The story comes to a head as Valois pushes forward into the world of Starholder, identifies himself as a great duke of Burgundy and tries to win at all costs so that he can live on through Becker despite the pleas of his family that he pull back and prepare himself for the inevitable end of his life with peace, dignity and a natural handover of a family's legacy from one generation to the next.

Rough Concept:

1. Starholder is a grand strategy game that simulates a conquest of our solar system. The game begins on the moon where an alien civilization setups up a colony with advanced terraforming, energy and space travel technlogy. The goal of the game is to take over enough of the solar system and generate enough economic activity that the aliens return. The end goal of the game is to defeat the aliens and assume control of the solar system without the threat of Aliens unseating you.

2. Starholder is actually a metagame. It is a training tool and competition in which 4 people are competing to win an AI that will manage one of their fortunes on behalf of the heirs of the winner.

3. Henri Valois is one of the 5 competing to win this. He came to wealth later in life and one of his great regrets is that never achieved the tycoon status that his ego aspired to. He's also suffering from declining cognitive ability. His other passion is studying European history, particularly the aristocratic maneuverings of great houses as they schemed and married and consolidated power over generations. He is possibly distantly related to the Valois Dukes in Burgundy who briefly created a kingdom within the kingdom of France before overextending themselves and getting cut down.

4. Kendra Godfrey is the developer of the AI system. The Starholder game developer is TBD.

5. Valois ethical dilemma should he win (and he will of course) is whether to place his fortune into an AI managed trust and haunt his heirs the same way that the decisions of the Charles the Bold haunted Mary of Burgundy who basically ended up in a rock and a really hard place after his death.

The challenge is that the AI is learning to mimic and become Henri based on him playing the Starholder game at a time when he's losing his shit, dipping into the fantasy world of the Dukes and becoming very unreliable. 6. To play the game, Valois as asked the 4 great dukes of burgundy and mary to act as his war council. Other players have their own war councils as well. This is all the setup for a novel that works on 3 levels:

A. Henri Valois' interior mind state as he loses his grasp on reality, mixing up history, his desire for greatness and immortality and winning the Starholder game.

B. A commentary on technology today, the ethical implications of AI, the dead haunting the living by controlling capital beyond their death (addressing Boomer generation al wealth transfer or lack thereof) and whether or not Henri will deprive his adult children of their agency by placing his fortune in trust under the control of his AI

C. A technothriller adventure story about the battle for control of the solar system via the Starholder game. This lets us bring Starholder to life through fiction. Prototyping something that could serve as a launchpad for that project. with all that said....give this set of conversations I had with OpenAI a read. while the prose is a bit stiff, it's ability to grasp all of this and give contextual replies is impressive and something we can work with.

Narrative Structure

Valois - An Immortality Project is a framed narrative operating on three levels:

1. Present Day Reality - A group of friends compete in a grand strategy game (Starholder) to win access to a custom AI capable of performing opinionated financial management of wealth.

2. The Game World - The book follows the competition in the gaming world through the POV of Henri Valois, a dying man whose cognitive abilities are in decline.

3. Hallucinatory history - Henri considers himself a descendent of the Valois Dukes of Burgundy who ruled a 14th century kingdom within a kingdom centered in northern France and the low countries. As his mental state deteriorates, the narrative blurs between the game world of Starholder and a fictional history of European conquest.

Cast

The Gang

Are a group of five friends who meet once a month for the last ten years to socialize and play games against each other. Their ages span from 55 to 70 years old. They are part of a wider social circle of coastal elites.

Henri Valois - an upstart with an inferiority complex

Kendra Godfrey - the ethically dubious mad scientist

Jensen (no first name given) - trickster, skeptic, cad/playboy

Arun Shan - the establishment, hyper-competitive, enjoys high stakes

Petra Malkin - big brain professor, elite game player/occaisonal ringer

Additional Characters

The Valois Children

Marie Valois - A 40 year old, married mother of two. The crux of the story centers around her relationship with Henri Valois and whether he will place his fortune into an AI trust, thus robbing her of agency and the ability to direct the future of the family. There will be strong parallels between her and the historical figure Mary of Burgundy who also acts as a member of Henri Valois' AI war council within the game Starholder. Marie will be the primary Valois heir to interact with Henri and act as his care support system in the advanced stages of his illness.

Chad Valois - Potentially some disinterested doofus stock character who is fine to go along with the flow as long as he continues to get money. He may express relief that he is absolved of responsibility by having an AI taking over his inheritance.

Starholder Play Style

Kendra - is the administrator/adjudicator of the game. She's recused herself because it is her AI that is the prize and she needs to act as a supposedly neutral third party. However, she is unreliable and biased. The person she built the AI for is a rather conventional thinker. She is going to root for Jensen or Valois to win because their personalities serve as a better differentiated test subject than Malkin or Shan.

Malkin - is going to play in the style of England. Believing that control of the sea (or in this case space) is a good differentiator from the conventional style of territory conqeust that Valois & Shan are going to pursue.

Jensen - is going to model himself on Venice and their Stato da Mar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stato_da_M%C3%A0r) as his center of power by getting heavily involved in asteroid mining and controlling resources that can prove to be a supply bottleneck. That is primarily to remain relevant in the game. His real passion will be supporting rebellion movements within the other's empires and controlling strategic positions that block the other players from expansion.

Shan - The Ottomans, particularly their conquest of Constantinople. He is going to go after Earth and Earth only, believing that the population and resources within it are worth everything else in the star system. He is going to eradicate the competitors from the starting point on the moon, then focus his empire building on knocking out Earth's electrical systems through EMP blasts, then rebuilding it's grid on the one hand while also building an army capable of subduing its inhabitants.

Valois - The Valois Dukes of Burgundy. Mars is going to be his dream. An early setback in the game is going to leave him disadvantaged, and he will have to cede Earth to Shan. This places Valois on the outside looking in at the best prize in the solar system. Mirroring the history of the Dukes of Burgundy, Valois will seek to create a kingdom within a kingdom by abandoning designs on Earth (symbolically representing France) and settling for the next best thing (being Mars) within proximity of Earth. NOTE: this section needs more work.