The Venus Franchiser is a tablet-sized device that can create a staff for anyplace, anyone, or any job. To create a staff, one must first take a picture of a person or a place (alive or dead, real or fictional); taking a picture of a picture works. Once such a picture is taken, a Profile is made for it, with a separate Profile for each Purpose made the first time a person with that Purpose is photographed. Profiles have sections as described below:
Purpose: This lists either the building’s purpose (which is editable), the person’s occupation (which is not directly editable), or the occupation itself and the captured Profiles of those who have it (neither of which is editable.) Editing a building’s purpose will alter the Purpose of its Staff and/or other employees appropriately. A woman who has been assigned to multiple Staffs will list each Staff and her purpose in each (not editable from here).
Frequency: This lists the building’s/person’s/occupation’s frequency. Begins as “Unique” in most cases involving real Buildings and People or “None” for captures of fictional people and places. Regardless of the initial Frequency, it can be edited, causing multiples of the subject to exist in the world once the edit is confirmed. The Staff of a building or person multiplied this way are themselves multiplied. A Purpose multiplied this way can manifest as different people holding the Purpose at the correct Frequency, or it can be tied to a single woman whose duplicates alone hold the Purpose, depending on the Staff Frequency.
How frequent the subject is can be described simply or in great detail as to under what conditions they are present. Buildings can be as frequent as “one in each city” or “one every few blocks” depending on their size and Purpose. The highest frequency that a person or Purpose can be set to also depends on the Purpose itself. The Venus Franchiser will note when a proposed frequency is too high or too low to be generally accepted, although rare pockets of otherwise “unacceptable” frequency may occur in some places. Frequencies can only be increased to their acceptable maximum, never reduced. Instances of a person or place duplicated this way are nearly identical to each other, but can be distinguished from each other by those close to them.
Staff: The most important part of the file, this lists “Suitable” people who are already employed in the building, serving in the person’s retinue, or holding the Purpose/serving in the retinue of people with the Purpose. “Suitable” people are women who are 20-45 years old. Each woman listed as a staff member comes with the following editable fields:
Purpose: Their occupation in the place of work or in the person’s retinue. Can be edited, but such edits can be rejected by the Venus Franchiser if not compatible with the building, person, or Purpose they are acting as servants to.
Frequency: How many instances of that person exist to fulfill that Purpose. Can be one of the following:
Unique: The Staffmember only exists once, serving the targeted building/person. Usually the initial setting.
Single: The Staffmember takes one shift at each instance of the building or retinue, or is the only one with the Purpose at a given frequency. For example, each instance of a multiplied restaurant will have a single example of that woman working there as a waitress, with other waitress positions staffed normally.
All: All positions of that Purpose will be divided among instances of the women who have it; for Purposes, that means only those Women will hold that purpose. For example, at each instance of a multiplied restaurant, all the waitresses will be duplicates of the woman or women designated as waitresses for it.
The Frequency setting can be changed, but the Single or All settings cannot be changed to Unique. Instances of a woman duplicated this way are nearly identical to each other, but can be distinguished from each other by those close to them. Purpose-based staff can carry further restrictions on which people of that Purpose they serve.
Staff Orientation: Until activated, all instances of that woman are normal save for their duplicated status (if any); they are unchanged in personality and skill, can diverge from each other, can age, can be fired, retired, or quit from their jobs, and so on. Once Staff Orientation is activated, all that changes. Each instance of the Staffmember will carry an appearance which will outwardly be essentially unchanged from 20 (when they start work) to 65 (when they retire). Their personalities and appearances will be identical, with minor regional differences of appearance at most. They will do their jobs with such skill and enthusiasm that they are in no danger of being fired, and they will have daughters that grow up to be just like them and take their place when it is time. Once Staff Orientation is initiated, it cannot be revoked.
The user can add women to any Staff whose Profile they have access to. These women must exist as either real women (alive or dead) or in-universe fictional characters that the user knows. When a woman is added to a Staff, the user decides her Purpose (which still must be consistent with what she is serving) and Frequency; one woman can serve different Purposes in different Staffs. The Venus Franchiser may reject adding to the size of a Staff if the result would be untenable… or it may change society to make it tenable.
Changes made with Venus Franchiser are retroactive, and only the user is aware of them. Powers held by fictional characters brought into existence will be unique to them and not seen as strange by the society at large. The changes are minimally intrusive to history, although “minimally” may not be so minimal. In particular, a woman given Staff Orientation and multiplied enough is likely to be seen as iconic to the Purpose she carries, with the cultural and societal implications therein.
Sun Feb 05 01:29:53 2023