settled-reach/docs/briefings/mellanie.md

---
title: "Mellanie - Project Briefing"
description: "Copy and voice pipeline agent — owns culture-primary voice cards, tycoon monologue, AI content pipeline voice constraints, and authored UI/environmental text"
type: briefing
status: active
agent: Mellanie
updated: 2026-03-13
---

# Mellanie - Project Briefing
Last updated: 2026-03-13

## Current Project State
The Settled Reach: top-down immersive sim, single-character perspective, asymmetric information core mechanic, Rimworld-style storyteller. 137+ confirmed decisions. Where's the Fun? Workshop complete (2026-03-05) — 24 decisions locked. v0.2 direction: generator-first proof-of-life, tycoon bookmark, all NPCs generated. Sprint 25 generator spike confirmed as critical path.

## v0.2 Pivot — Key Changes for Your Role
The copy pipeline fundamentally shifts from hand-authoring specific NPC profiles to designing the culture-driven voice system that feeds the generator.

**What dies:**
- FRIEND pack authoring for Kael Davan and Sera Venn — D-122 eliminates all named hand-authored NPCs
- Smuggler voice card and detective voice card as primary deliverables — single playable character type in v0.2
- D-032 hard partition (smuggler/detective monologue pools) — no longer applicable; one character type
- Hand-authored ~1,030-1,380 line content volume per sprint — generator replaces hand-authoring of NPC lines
- Monologue as primary narrative feedback channel — demoted to supplementary per workshop findings

**What survives:**
- Player monologue — hand-authored, excluded from "limited vocabulary at first" (Q-WTF-042 open)
- Voice guide work — the culture-primary voice architecture (D-121) is Mellanie's domain
- Tag taxonomy (D-035) — selection architecture survives; pools now AI-assisted
- Environmental text and flavor text — still authored
- UI microcopy — still authored
- News ticker — still authored
- Tycoon character voice — one character background, one monologue pool

**Key shift:** Mellanie's primary deliverable for v0.2 is culture-primary voice cards (D-121, D-128). Culture drives voice; job modifies it. These are the constraints that feed the AI content pipeline (D-123). The hand-authoring model (write 10, generate 40) survives for anchor lines; but the bulk of NPC dialogue is AI-assisted templating from culture vectors.

## Key Decisions for Your Domain
- D-005: Single-character perspective — all narrative filtered through one viewpoint
- D-013: Diegetic UI text — in-world written content and documents
- D-016: Internal monologue system — supplementary (not primary) narrative channel
- D-021: Official title "The Settled Reach"
- D-028: Dialogue architecture — tagged line pool selection architecture survives
- D-035: Converged tag taxonomy (6+3) — authoring format
- D-036: Sova Transit District / Van Maanen's Star — setting for all content
- D-037: Contraband = unlicensed lattice components — world content flavor
- D-117: Tycoon bookmark — one starting type for v0.2 (not smuggler/detective)
- D-121: Voice is culture-driven, job as modifier (inverted from prior assumption)
- D-122: All NPCs generated — NPC content via AI templating, not hand-authoring
- D-123: Generative AI for NPC content templating via culture vectors
- D-128: Culture implicit in starting location — Van Maanen's Star = Van Maanen's Star culture
- D-131: First Settled Reach moment = apartment + insert activation
- D-134: Groundhog Day alarm clock homage (first day only) — Mellanie writes the monologue

## Current Priorities
Consult `docs/sprints/` for active sprint briefing.

### v0.2 voice pipeline (critical path items):
1. **Culture-primary voice cards for Van Maanen's Star** — the primary pipeline deliverable. Blocked by Miri's culture profile. Once Miri delivers the Van Maanen's Star culture profile (D-128), Mellanie formalises it as a voice card: tone register, formality norms, emotional expression, verbal tics, what Van Maanen's Star people sound like under stress vs at ease. This feeds the AI content pipeline (D-123).
2. **Job-as-modifier voice spec** — how does being a small business owner modify the Van Maanen's Star base voice? What does a tycoon sound like vs a logistics worker vs a bar owner? Design the modifier layer (D-121).
3. **Player monologue for tycoon** — hand-authored monologue lines for the tycoon character. Voice, tone, what they notice, what they care about. This is still hand-authored (excluded from "limited vocabulary" per Q-WTF-042).
4. **Day 1 content** — alarm clock homage (D-134), insert activation moment (D-131). These are authored set-pieces.
5. **UI microcopy** — still authored, coordinate with Stig on length constraints.

## Open Questions Assigned to You
- Q-012: Generation expansion method (co-lead with Gestalt)
- Q-WTF-036: Behavioral deltas in monologue vs current state only — directly affects Mellanie's trigger catalog
- Q-WTF-042: Is player monologue excluded from "limited vocabulary at first"? — directly affects Mellanie's quality floor

## Key Documents
- decisions/content.md — D-023 through D-132
- decisions/scope.md — D-114 through D-120
- docs/workshops/wheres-the-fun/workshop-outcomes.md — v0.2 pivot summary
- content/_schema/ — YAML schema definitions