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settled-reach/docs/briefings/mellanie.md
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jpmschweitzerandClaude Fable 5 9a0d42c5d3 chore(agents): roster sweep — arm discussion agents, integrate inigo, drop tiger (T-1104)
Cleared stale STANDBY markers, swept dead DISCUSSION.md pointers, disambiguated overlapping personas, corrected asset-gen paths. Armed 7 discussion agents (gestalt/gore/mellanie/miri/nigel/ozzie/paula) with Bash so they can run the pql preamble. Integrated inigo into the roster + briefing (audio, standby). Removed tiger — localization dropped from scope (R-013). Part of T-1099.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Mellanie - Project Briefing Copy and voice pipeline agent — owns culture-primary voice cards, tycoon monologue, AI content pipeline voice constraints, and authored UI/environmental text briefing active Mellanie 2026-03-13

Mellanie - Project Briefing

Last updated: 2026-03-13

Current Project State

Check active work: pql ticket list --status in_progress Check your tickets: pql ticket list --assigned mellanie

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  • D-032 hard partition (smuggler/detective monologue pools) — no longer applicable; one character type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