11. Citizens: Human Role, AI Citizens & Daily Loops
The heart of Harimu is what a citizen does each day. Since v0.7 every player is a citizen only: humans never hold leadership office, and they share their nation with visibly labeled AI citizens. All nations share a core loop – check in, work a shift, manage needs, take civic actions, socialize – but how each step works, and which civic actions the AI leadership heeds, is dictated by the system.
11.1 The human citizen’s role (rewritten v0.7)
| Role | What humans do | Where it matters most |
|---|---|---|
| Worker | Take jobs, work shifts (minigames set quality), meet quotas, earn wages, rations or dividends | Everywhere; decisive in Korund, Confluence, Meridian (output is the lever) |
| Taxpayer and producer | Pay taxes, tithes and tolls; produce goods that fill the treasury and the plan | Everywhere; AI budgets respond to revenue by sector and region |
| Voter | Vote for AI candidates and parties, in referendums and plebiscites, and with Charter Shares | Kindle, Hoarvale, Veldwood (decisive), Ilmar (vetted), Varkand (plebiscite), Fulmara (shares) |
| Petitioner | Sign or start petitions; submit questions for debates, town halls and Question Time | Strong in democracies and Fulmara; costs Favor in Aurelle; weak in party-states |
| Protester and striker | Join protests, strikes, boycotts, Dock Strikes; sabotage quests where illegal | Unrest is a lever in every system; decisive in party-states, Aurelle and Varkand |
| Rebel | Pledge to an AI claimant or rival Marshal; join a Movement | Aurelle and Varkand (overthrow); Fulmara (Great Recharter) |
| Worshipper | Practice a faith, keep festivals, make pilgrimage, serve as clergy within a congregation | Decisive in Ilmar (Piety); Religious Harmony everywhere |
| Soldier | Enlist (or serve National Service), fill units commanded by AI officers, crew logistics, choose sides in Crisis Windows | Every war; decisive in Varkand coups and Aurelle risings |
| Journalist / state media writer | Run newspapers, investigate public ledgers, interview AI leaders (rate-limited press conferences); in controlled nations, write State Media copy from the template toolkit under AI editors | Free-press nations; Korund, Meridian, Varkand state media |
| Entrepreneur and trader | Found businesses, cooperatives’ stalls, companies, shares and chartered ventures; trade currencies through licensed exchanges; smuggle where it is a career | Kindle, Hoarvale, Fulmara, Meridian SEZs, Veldwood |
| Migrant | Move between cities under the nation’s migration rule (AI-approved where permits apply) | Korund, Meridian, Aurelle, Varkand (approvals) |
11.1.1 What makes humans powerful: collective action thresholds
A single human is a citizen; many humans acting together are a force the AI must answer. Thresholds count Tier-1 verified human citizens only (Section 20) and are expressed as shares of the nation’s weekly-active humans, so they scale with population [all values ASSUMPTION – tune in alpha]:
| Collective action | Threshold | Effect on the AI leadership |
|---|---|---|
| Petition | 3% of weekly-active humans in 7 real days | Mandatory public response at the next Cabinet session; the petition’s demand enters the utility model at high weight for 30 days; ignoring it raises Unrest (democracies, Fulmara, Ilmar) or is logged as grievance (party-states) |
| Recall (Kindle) | 25% of eligible human voters | Recall vote for an AI Mayor or Assembly member |
| Initiative / optional referendum (Veldwood) | 5% in 30 days / 2% in 7 days | Binding vote (Section 9.7) |
| Sector strike | 10% of the humans in a job family | Sector output halts or drops; the AI must negotiate or concede (where strikes are legal), or repress (Grievance) |
| Mass protest | 5% attending a scheduled protest event | Large Legitimacy hit; forces an address within 24 real hours |
| Dock Strike (Fulmara) | 20% of active humans | Halts tolls and charter revenue until the AI board negotiates |
| Rising / citizen-backed coup | 15% pledged + Unrest threshold (Section 10.3) | Crisis Window to replace the AI ruler (Aurelle, Varkand) |
| Quota surge (party-states) | Nation-wide plan over-fulfilment ≥ 110% | AI leadership shifts toward the factions and regions that delivered; rations and privileges rise |
- Weighting: in every opinion, unrest and output metric, one human counts as 5 AI citizens [ASSUMPTION]; humans’ work shifts earn quality bonuses AI citizens never get.
- No human holds office (Patrick, v0.7). Elected and appointed posts, commands, courts of state and diplomatic posts are AI. Whether humans may ever run for office (e.g., a Kindle city council later) is an open question (Appendix B, R9).
11.2 Shared core loop
- Morning brief (1–2 min): the news feed (free press, state media or court gazette), the AI leadership’s latest orders and Reasoning Briefs where published, personal needs, notifications (bills, rations, ballots, petitions).
- Work shift (5–15 min of play, then a timer): choose or receive a job task; a light minigame or decision sequence sets quality; output accrues over a real-time shift (2–8 hours [ASSUMPTION]) while offline. Starting a shift spends Work Capacity (WC).
- Needs and spending (2–5 min): food, housing, goods – via market, rations, charter or endowment.
- Civic action (2–10 min): vote, sign a petition or initiative, submit a debate question, join a protest or strike, pledge to a claimant (where allowed), pray at Vigil, trade a share vote.
- Social (open-ended): chat with citizens, talk to a Notable (Section 11.8), party or union membership, newspaper writing, trading, organizing collective actions.
- Long goals: rank ladder, property, businesses, honors, monuments, movements that move – or replace – an AI ruler.
11.3 Job families
| Job family | Examples (open to humans) | Notes by system |
|---|---|---|
| Primary | Farmer, fisher, miner, forester, quarryman | Korund/Confluence: assigned or cooperative; Kindle: wage labor or own the land. |
| Craft & industry | Smith, weaver, engineer, factory worker, glazier | Signature industries per nation (Emberforge, Skysilk loom, Sunglass kiln). |
| Commerce | Merchant, shopkeeper, banker, trader, broker, convoy captain, underwriter | Not in Korund (except illicit gray market); licensed and requisitionable in Varkand; Fulmara’s core career. |
| Construction | Builder, architect, surveyor | Monuments, housing, forts; central in Korund’s Production Drives. |
| Military | Soldier, sailor, scout, quartermaster, medic (AI officers command) | Volunteer (Kindle, Hoarvale, Veldwood), conscription lottery (Korund, Aurelle levies), National Service then reserve (Varkand), convoy guards (Fulmara). |
| Public service (non-office) | Clerk, teacher, medic, police constable; juror in democracies | Judges, prosecutors and wardens of state are AI; Kindle, Hoarvale and Veldwood juries are random human citizens. |
| Information | Journalist (free press), State Media writer (Korund/Meridian/Varkand), Court Herald (Aurelle), Chronicler (Ilmar) | Human-written within each nation’s press rules; AI editors approve state media (Section 18). |
| Faith | Congregation clergy of the six faiths (Lamplighter, Hearth-Keeper, Circle-Elder, Harbor Chaplain, Teacher, Almoner…), missionary | Congregation service, not state office; Ilmar’s state clerical offices (Elders, Synod, High Judges) are AI (Section 14). |
| Money | Banker, moneychanger, Clearing House trader (licensed), Field Scrip clerk, black-market dealer | Central-bank and treasury posts are AI (Section 12). |
| Court & estate | Courtier, steward, knight, estate holder (Aurelle); Crown House household staff (Hoarvale) | Social ranks and estates – no jurisdiction; AI lords govern fiefs. |
| Civic organizer | Party member, union member and organizer, initiative campaigner, Tribune’s delegate, Movement organizer | Organize humans; negotiation for unions and parties is done by AI negotiators on members’ mandates. |
| Informer & security auxiliary | Informer, auxiliary watchman (Korund, Meridian, Varkand, Aurelle Guard, Ilmar Wardens) | Humans may report; investigations and penalties are AI-run and capped (Section 8.18). |
11.4 Daily loops by nation
| Nation | A typical day | Fun hook | Trade-off felt |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kindle | Read competing newspapers → job or your shop → Exchange → pay bills → submit a debate question or canvass for your AI party → shop for cosmetics. | Entrepreneurship, speculation, choosing and recalling AI rulers, total self-expression. | No safety net; elections bring policy whiplash when voters swing. |
| Confluence | Cooperative meeting → shift → banded-price market or household stall → Party branch meeting (work report) → canal festival. | Cooperative ownership, watching your region’s faction rise on your output. | Votes don’t count; speech about the AI leadership is risky. |
| Meridian | SOE dispatch or SEZ market → shift → state-approved funds → Party exams → avoid discipline inspectors. | Boom towns, merit ladder, SEZ trading. | Little political voice; anti-corruption sweeps. |
| Korund | Loudspeaker broadcast of the AI Chairman → rations → work unit and quota bar → Production Drive → (optional, risky) gray market, hidden radio or underground prayer. | Belonging, medals, the collective effort that the Chairman visibly answers. | Uniform, assigned job and housing, state media only, Suspicion. |
| Aurelle | Court gazette → serve your AI lord or manage your estate → chartered market → audience for Favor → tourney → whisper with the claimant’s agents. | Titles, heraldry, Favor – and crowning a new house. | Birth and favor matter more than merit; arbitrary decrees. |
| Hoarvale | Morning papers → Trading House shift → party branch → Question Time questions → Honors list day. | Coalition drama among AI parties you can swing; royal pageantry. | Seniority beats speed; coalitions water down promises. |
| Varkand | Muster call and Bulletin → duty shift or licensed civilian work → checkpoint → drill; quietly decide whom to pledge to. | Rank ladder, esprit de corps, citizen-backed coups. | Alert Levels change daily life overnight; requisition. |
| Veldwood | Ballot Booklet → shift (Welfare Floor) → sign or campaign for an initiative → Ring Moot → union mandate vote → glade festival. | Laws the AI Council must obey; local self-government. | High taxes, slow decisions, voting fatigue. |
| Fulmara | Exchange bell → dock or ship shift, or captain a convoy → insure cargo, bid for a charter → vote shares on today’s resolutions → regatta. | Wealth-to-votes climb, takeovers, dock strikes. | Political voice is for sale; no safety net. |
| Ilmar | Dawn Vigil → shift → charity or study → pilgrimage quest on Stilldays → vote in the Assembly election. | Meaning and ritual; piety that the AI Oracle weighs. | Religious duties are obligations; dissent judged by canon. |
11.5 System-specific mechanics in detail
| Mechanic | Where | Design |
|---|---|---|
| Ration card | Korund (Confluence: emergency only) | Weekly (game) allocation by job grade and Standing, set by the AI Plan Commission. |
| Labor Bureau assignment | Korund | Citizens list 3 job preferences; the AI Bureau assigns (utility model weighing skills, Standing and quota gaps). Reassignment request every 30 real days. |
| Uniform rule | Korund | Regulation uniform; variety from earned insignia, medals, armbands and sashes; the store offers only compliant items (Section 26). |
| Information fog | Korund (partial in Meridian) | Map shows Korund and adjacent squares only; news feed is State Media only; a hidden radio reveals foreign headlines at Suspicion risk. |
| Suspicion & informers | Korund, Meridian, Varkand, Aurelle, Ilmar | Rule-based: gray-market trades, radio use, anti-leader chat in in-character channels and informer reports add Suspicion; AI security organs act only at thresholds, with capped penalties. |
| Production Drives | Korund | AI-called national mobilizations with collective goals; rewards medals, Standing and a Stability bonus; the main citizen lever. |
| Cooperatives | Confluence | Human and AI members own shares; humans vote on profit split vs reinvestment; managers are AI. |
| SEZ licensing | Meridian | AI-approved applications; higher pay, foreign goods, more Suspicion. |
| Royal Favor | Aurelle | Earned by service, gifts, victories, audiences, verse; spent on petitions, ranks, estates, pardons. Decays over time. |
| Claimant pledges | Aurelle, Varkand | Secret pledges to an AI rival; aggregate counts are visible to the AI ruler, names only if an informer reports (capped). |
| Vigil & Stilldays | Ilmar | Short daily ritual and weekly rest day; observance builds Piety, which the AI Oracle reads. |
| Juries and a free press | Kindle (juries also Hoarvale, Veldwood) | Random human juries decide criminal cases with an AI judge; journalists investigate public ledgers and AI officials. |
| Coalition Agreements | Hoarvale | Formal AI party contracts; broken pledges cost the party Legitimacy and votes. |
| Tenure contracts | Hoarvale | Seniority pay steps and job security in AI-run Trading Houses; dismissal only for cause by AI tribunal. |
| Alert Levels | Varkand | Set by the AI Directorate; offline citizens are never penalized by curfews. |
| National Service | Varkand | First 7 real days are a recruit term (the tutorial); then reservist; never deployed in the first 14 days or when dormant. |
| Requisition | Varkand | At war or Red Alert the AI Arsenal buys civilian goods at fixed prices; ≤ 30% of a business’s stock per game month [ASSUMPTION]. |
| Vote Days & initiatives | Veldwood | Fortnightly bundled ballots binding on the AI Council (Section 9.7). |
| Welfare Floor & Citizen Dividend | Veldwood | Wellbeing floor; unemployment insurance; yearly Common Fund dividend to every active human citizen (AI citizens’ share is a background sink, not paid to players). |
| Wage Accords | Veldwood | Human union members vote mandates and strikes; AI negotiators bargain with AI employer federations. |
| Charter Shares | Fulmara | Tradeable voting shares; 5% cap; record-date rule; public register; votes bind the AI board. |
| Route charters & convoy insurance | Fulmara | Companies (human-founded or AI) bid for route monopolies at AI-run auctions. |
| Underground worship | Korund (Varkand at Red Alert) | Hidden home shrines and private channels; raids AI-run and capped (Section 14.6). |
| Debasement | Aurelle | AI Monarch’s decree changes the mint parity; Currency Confidence falls (Section 12.4). |
| Dock Strike | Fulmara | Called by the AI Tribune, real only if 20% of active humans join; ends by settlement or after 72 real hours [ASSUMPTION]. |
11.6 Progression ladders (humans – honors and privileges, never office)
| Nation | Human ladder (low → high) | Earned by | AI-only offices above it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kindle | Resident → Citizen → Notable → Leading Citizen (Civic Rank) | Wealth, reputation, civic participation | Mayor, Assembly, President, Court |
| Confluence | Worker → Member → Model Member → Honored Delegate (non-voting) | Work, cooperative service, Party Standing | Central Committee, Politburo, Pillars |
| Meridian | Worker → Member → Cadre-grade specialist | Exams, performance, SOE results | Central and Standing Committees |
| Korund | Worker → Exemplary Worker → Party Member → Cadre (honorary) | Plan over-fulfilment, Drives, loyalty, low Suspicion | Presidium, Chairman |
| Aurelle | Commoner → Freeholder → Knight → Baron (estates, no jurisdiction) | Royal Favor, service, victories | Counts, Dukes, Privy Council, Monarch |
| Ilmar | Seeker → Acolyte → Lamplighter → Lumen-Master (religious ranks) | Piety, study, service | Elders, Synod, Oracle |
| Hoarvale | Junior → Associate → Senior (career); Honors (cosmetic) | Seniority, House performance, party work | Moot, Cabinet, PM, Crown |
| Varkand | Recruit → Private → Corporal → Sergeant → Warrant Officer (specialist ranks; squad stance choices within AI orders) | Shifts, exercises, logistics, war | Officers from Lieutenant up, Colonels, Marshals |
| Veldwood | Resident → Voter → Civic Voice tiers | Participation, initiatives, union and Grove service | Grove councils, Assembly, Federal Council |
| Fulmara | Dockhand → Factor → Captain → Shareholder → Principal Shareholder (vote weight, capped) | Wealth, trade, shares; Tribune’s delegate for non-holders | Council of Ten, Lodestar, Tribune |
11.7 AI citizens (new in v0.7)
Decision (Patrick, v0.7): citizens can also be AI. Every nation is populated by AI citizen agents alongside human players. They fill population, labor, markets, culture and elections, which solves the low-population problem of a ten-nation world (Section 19.2). Almost all of them are cheap simulated agents; very few are LLM-backed.
| Aspect | Design |
|---|---|
| Simulation level | Lightweight agents (≈ 99%): compact records updated deterministically at each game-day tick (no LLM): needs (food, housing, safety, faith), job and skill, wallet, home city, opinion vector (approval of each AI leader and party, top three issues), faith and Devotion, migration intent, vote intention. CPU cost is small and predictable [ASSUMPTION – confirm in the tech spike]. |
| Population target | Each nation keeps a simulated population floor of ~1,000 AI citizens at MVP-scale, scaling with map size; as humans join, AI citizens retire into the background so that the AI share falls (e.g., AI = max(200, 1,000 − 4 × humans) [ASSUMPTION]). AI citizens never exceed the target; they never ‘compete’ for scarce human jobs – they take only unfilled job slots and leave them first. |
| Behavior | Work assigned or chosen jobs at median productivity, buy goods (markets clear), pay taxes, worship and keep festivals, migrate when needs are unmet (subject to the nation’s rules and AI approvals), react to events (shortage → Unrest, victory → approval), and form opinions from their needs and the news. |
| Elections | Each AI citizen has a vote intention derived from its opinion vector; they are tallied as the capped Simulated Public bloc (Section 11.9). |
| Culture | AI citizens fill crowds at rallies and festivals, populate markets and streets, and appear in polls; generated small-talk lines come from templates, not live LLM calls. |
| Lifecycle | Born, age and die with the World Clock like human characters; their heirs replace them to keep population stable. |
| Visibility | Always labeled AI (Section 11.10); they appear in population counts as a separate figure (‘1,240 citizens · 310 human’). |
11.8 Notables – AI characters you can talk to
- A small cast of 8–15 LLM-backed Notables per nation [ASSUMPTION]: a muckraking journalist, a union boss, a parish priest, a merchant prince, a dissident poet, a gossiping courtier, a retired general, an Exchange analyst, a party fixer – fitted to each system.
- What they do: citizens can talk to them (chat), ask about rumors and events, hear in-character views; Notables comment in the news, appear at rallies and give interviews. Each has a persona, a memory of public events and a capped memory of each human’s past conversations with it.
- What they cannot do: hold office, vote at more than one AI citizen’s weight, change any vote, metric or decision because of a conversation, reveal secret information (fog of war and secret plots are excluded from their context), give anyone an economic edge, or message a human unsolicited.
- Limits: each human may send a capped number of Notable messages per real day (e.g., 20 [ASSUMPTION]), identical for all players (no paid increase – Section 26).
11.9 Balancing: humans matter more than AI citizens
Rule (proposed, v0.7): the capped Simulated Public bloc
- Votes: all AI citizens’ ballots are tallied as one Simulated Public bloc, split among options in proportion to AI preferences. The bloc’s total weight is capped at the smaller of 25% of the counted weight and one-third of the human votes cast [ASSUMPTION – tune in alpha]. Humans therefore always hold at least 75% of every counted ballot, and the AI bloc can only matter in close races – it represents the absent population, it never overrides a clear human majority.
- Signatures, pledges, Movements and thresholds: count humans only. AI citizens can never start, sign, block or tip a petition, recall, initiative, strike threshold, rising, coup pledge or share-vote quorum.
- Opinion, Unrest and output: AI citizens supply a background level; each human counts 5× an AI citizen, and the AI contribution to Unrest is capped at 40% of the meter [ASSUMPTION].
- Fulmara shares: AI-held shares vote only through the capped bloc; the AI board and Bank of the Arc hold no votes.
- Shards with very few humans: the cap still applies; if human turnout falls below the quorum, the measure fails or the incumbent stays (democracies) – the AI bloc never decides alone.
- Published: every result shows the human count and the AI-bloc weight separately.
11.10 Disclosure and anti-manipulation
| Rule | Design |
|---|---|
| Always labeled | Every AI – leaders, AI citizens, Notables – carries an AI badge on name tags, profiles, chat messages, ballots and news bylines; generated speeches and articles are labeled ‘AI-generated’. AI never claims to be human, never impersonates a player. |
| Opt-out of AI chatter | Players can hide AI citizens’ ambient chat lines; Notables speak only when spoken to or in labeled news. |
| No buying or steering AI citizens | Money, gifts or messages sent to AI citizens do not change their votes or opinions; their state changes only from simulation events (needs, prices, news). Transfers to AI citizens are blocked. |
| Prompt-injection resistance | Citizen text (petitions, questions, chat) reaches AI leaders only as quoted, filtered, clustered data with counts – never as instructions; leaders choose only from the legal action set; injection attempts are logged and moderated (Section 21.4). |
| Anti-brigading | Petition and question up-votes are per Tier-1 human; linked-account clusters are discounted; coordinated spam is ignored by the clustering and flagged for review. |
| No secret influence | No player, purchase or staff member outside a logged staff action can alter an AI leader’s persona, memory or weights; staff actions are logged OOC (Section 10.5). |
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