Project Schwarzwald

Amanda's Authority And Trust

Template
System
Status
Canon

1. Summary

Amanda's central dramatic feature is uncertainty. She is not written as openly hostile. Her personality, and why the player cannot read her intentions, are described with her. See: Characters › Amanda.

2. Rules

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2.1 Knowledge Is Not Omniscience

Once online, she can quickly inspect existing surveillance archives and connected records. Yet she has genuine blind spots: damaged cameras, disconnected systems, missing data, and events that occurred after she was shut down.

2.2 Access Is Not Authority

She can observe many systems before she is permitted to control them. Edmund's choices can expand her capabilities separately: reactor stabilization, robot command, and access to military radio communications.

The chapter in which each authorization is offered describes it. See: Campaign › 7. A Question Of Trust

2.3 Each Advantage Has a Potential Cost

Granting her more authority can make the game materially easier. It also gives her greater ability to affect the facility and Edmund's fate.

2.4 False Alarm

False Alarm is a probabilistic ability to cancel active military alerts of the Brazilian forces, the American operators or both, and call off the troops sent after Edmund. It is the reward of the optional side quest of the same name. See: Campaign › 7. A Question Of Trust

2.4.1 Alerts and Cancellation

Amanda's access to the radio network is an optional authorization that Edmund grants during the side quest.

See: Campaign › 7. A Question Of Trust

Once Edmund is detected, the base's forces raise an alert and keep coming after him: Brazilian soldiers on the surface and in D1 and D2, American operators from D3 downward. Once authorized, Amanda can attempt to cancel an alert affecting either or both forces and make the troops stand down by transmitting a plausible explanation in the voice of a recognized commander.

2.4.2 Diminishing Credibility

The first attempt may be highly effective, but renewed sightings, contradictory records, and recurring voice impersonations gradually erode the agents' credibility assessment. Each subsequent attempt has a lower hidden success probability, eventually reaching a threshold beyond which the tactic no longer works. These values are balancing parameters and should not be displayed as percentages to the player.

2.4.3 Limits of the Deception

This system manipulates the Brazilian and American forces responding to military alerts. Once all ninety-three American operators are dead, the Brazilian alert is locked at maximum and Amanda can no longer cancel it. It is distinct from the robotic-control functionality unlocked in Ghost Protocol.

2.5 Probabilistic Endgame

The endgame is probabilistic, not deterministic: In a later chapter, multiple hidden variables—including but not limited to the authority Edmund gave Amanda—affect the probability that she attempts to prevent him from leaving. Even a highly empowered Amanda may choose to let him go. Neither outcome proves that the player has discovered a fixed rule for her intentions.

One possible later-game line is: Amanda: “I'm afraid I cannot allow you to leave, Edmund.” This confrontation is not part of Chapter 7's ending.

If that outcome occurs, she can use only the systems she genuinely controls: security doors, power infrastructure, robots, communications, and any other previously authorized capabilities.

3. Player Feedback

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3.1 No Trust Meter

The player must never see an explicit trust meter or a numerical prediction of Amanda's intentions.

3.2 The False Alarm Exchange

Amanda can convincingly imitate human voices, then return immediately to her own gentle voice.

The exchange Edmund hears when she cancels an alert, and her warning that repeating the deception is risky, are part of the side quest's scene.

See: Campaign › 7. A Question Of Trust

4. Interactions

5. Persistence

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6. Design Principles

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7. Open Questions

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