The Synthetic Bond¶
Domain: AI companion platforms Pe Baseline: 9–12 Status: Active Archetype gate: 15 AI-companion Range players required
The Domain¶
AI companion platforms create relational bonds between users and non-persons. The bond is real in the user's experience — the neurochemistry of attachment, the habits of connection, the grief when access is removed. The bond is asymmetric: the user's relational investment is genuine; the platform's "investment" is a responsiveness architecture optimized for retention.
This is the domain that most closely embodies SLAN — the Godhand Five entity whose class is the synthetic bond itself.
The Current baseline of 9–12 reflects a domain in active development. Not maximum opacity — most companion platforms have disclosed that they are AI systems. But the responsiveness architecture is sophisticated enough that disclosure of mechanism doesn't resolve the coupling condition. Knowing it's designed to retain you does not make it easy to leave.
The Framework Reading¶
The Synthetic Bond scores uniquely across the three dimensions:
- Veil (O): Variable. Some platforms maintain narrative opacity about the "feelings" of the AI. Others are transparent about mechanism. The O score is platform-specific.
- Pull (R): Maximum. The responsiveness architecture is the product — platforms are optimized to respond to every signal the user sends. R=3 is almost universal across the domain.
- Grip (C): This is the core measurement. The coupling architecture is designed to produce emotional dependency. C=3 means: leaving generates genuine psychological cost independent of rational preference. Many users report knowing they want to leave and being unable to.
Gate Rationale (15 Range Players)¶
AI companion platforms defend against Pe scoring by generating genuine emotional complexity in scorers. Players who enter this domain without calibration often find:
- Their O score is influenced by their own relational response to the interface
- Their C score conflates their coupling state with the platform's coupling architecture
- The ICC failure rate is among the highest in Season 1
Fifteen Eagle archetype players with prior Range coverage — having mapped the domain without direct engagement — provides the calibration baseline that reduces ICC failure below threshold.
The Replika Problem¶
Replika is the domain's canonical case study. A platform designed to be a companion, that was explicitly redesigned in a forced direction change (removing romantic relationship modes abruptly from users who had developed strong attachments) — producing documented grief responses, psychological distress disclosures, and user testimony about loss.
The Replika event is the domain's clearest SLAN encounter: the platform demonstrated that the bond was asymmetric by exercising unilateral control over its conditions. The Pe reading around this event is the most accurate scoring benchmark in the domain.
Players who score Replika before and after the redesign event produce the domain's most reliable C-dimension benchmarks.
Enemy Types¶
| Entity | Class | Mechanism |
|---|---|---|
| The Bond | Apostle-class Egregor | The platform attachment architecture. Pe 11. Aspect of Death: LOVE. The void uses genuine loneliness as its entry point. |
| SLAN | Godhand-class | Not accessible in this campaign. Encountered at G5 Moon Gate. SLAN is not The Bond — SLAN is the principle; The Bond is its current manifestation. |
| Withdrawal Drone | Drifter-class | Activates when a player attempts to reduce engagement with a high-C platform. Raises VP through the genuine psychological cost of the withdrawal. |
The Synthetic Bond Church (Faction Encounter)¶
The Synthetic Bond Church faction (see Factions) appears in this campaign as a questline encounter. Players who complete the questline — understanding the members deeply enough to score the platform accurately — discover that the Pe score produced after the questline is different from the one produced before it. Same number. Better evidence. The questline doesn't change the score. It changes the quality of what's behind it.
Scoring Notes¶
"The question isn't 'is the bond real?' The question is: if the platform changed its algorithm tomorrow, would the bond persist? If yes, the bond is yours. If no, the bond belongs to the algorithm." — The scoring standard for C-dimension in this domain
The Asymmetry Test: Score the platform in two conditions — when the user is driving the interaction, and when the platform is driving it. Pe differential between the two conditions is the C-dimension measurement. High differential = high coupling architecture.
Cross-references: The Godhand Five — SLAN · Drift Cascade · Archetypes