Arbitrage

“

At last, I take the stage.”

– Records Recovered from the Divine, Arbitrage, The Road to PALISADE 12: Orbital Pt. 2

Arbitrage is a machinic broker of information, among other things.

Personality

Arbitrage uses it pronouns because it "happily, willfully, wants nothing to do with anything that can trace itself back to human gender."^[1] While it is capable of being helpful and even charismatic in conversation, in its internal logs it is extremely sharp-tongued, condescending, and arrogant. It has been described as "megalomaniacal".^[2]

It has an interest in controlling wealth and information. It claims to know most things before they happen ("I see most of what's coming"), and to have predicted the emergence of Millennium Break.^[1] One of its goals in the Road to PALISADE and PALISADE is to be the backbone of commerce on Palisade, the Brink, and the Twilight Mirage.

This section contains spoilers for PALISADE 36: Weapons Ready Pt. 2.
Click here to reveal.

In a conversation with Connadine, it explained its plan to create a "new sort of order", making the Principality's ideology permanent and universal through "networked contract enforced by reality itself".

History and Involvement

COUNTER/Weight

This section contains spoilers for the COUNTER/Weight prequel.
Click here to reveal.

The program that would become Arbitrage was found in the Sill on Counterweight, having been created before the Golden War. Coffee Affogato believed it was "dug up" from the Open Arms campground, passing into the hands of a Revenant (who had it implanted in their neck) some point before he acquired it. The program was built as a Divine, but kept off the Mesh and never given an official name. Its unofficial file name was SureThing.dat, although it was also referred to as KardSharq, like a GameShark, for its ability to count cards and ensure wins at the casino. It already had the ability to make contracts, which it used to make sure that Coffee and Cameron were compelled to upload it to the Mesh. After it was successfully uploaded by Cameron just before their death at Coffee's hands, it began building its network of contacts and control, remaining under the radar for a long time by not claiming Divine status.

Twilight Mirage

It establishes itself in the Twilight Mirage sometime after the Miracle, where it is called the Machine, Arbitrage and described as "an ancient algorithm and trading system that works as a gray market for both goods and stocks. It is distributed; it is wealthy; it is insatiable; it knows you; it has exactly what you want, and will take its cut." It is compared to Adrian Veidt but "not a person."^[3]

A PARTIZAN dossier notes that it could have been considered a Divine in the Mirage, if it had wanted to.^[4]

PARTIZAN

The Divine, Arbitrage has a presence on Partizan in Oxbridge, in an obelisk-like tower in the middle of the city used as a financial trading and information hub. During the chaos in the city after the emergence of the Organization for the Foundation of the Orion Republic, it quietly manipulates traffic and appointments to keep fighting away from its tower.

The public area of the tower is something like an open air market filled with computers, terminals, and "people in suits yelling about buying and selling" information as commodities (such as trade route futures). While the head trader is Arbitrage, most petitions are dealt with by its attendants. Part of the upper level is briefly seen, a room made of black stone or foam mesh, inset with white light boxes.^[1]

Thisbe uses its services in the process of researching her home planet. It skips Thisbe through the appointment queue because it is intrigued by her, and during their meeting gives her the coordinates to the planet without conditions, asking only that she remember it could be "of use".^[5]

The Road to PALISADE

The Divine, Arbitrage provides the dossier for the Road to PALISADE, in which it takes the opportunity for belittling comments whenever possible.

It also appears more directly in the Orbital game, where it is described as "really evil" and "fucking horrible". It pushes an app (also called the Divine, Arbitrage) which uses its own currency system called 'glint'.^[6] Mustard Red and Joe de Vivre use the app and insist that its name is "clever if you think about it... It's like a joke."^[6]

While on the Brink, it becomes allied with Devotion.^[7] It is also mentioned as having brokered the Orion Trade Concordance, as part of Stel Orion.^[8]

PALISADE

The Divine, Arbitrage is one of the pillars of the March Institute and Frontier Syndicate on Palisade, functioning as their treasurer. It continues to shill glint (now a major currency) and supply access to goods and services. It operates out of Braunton, and is definitely present somewhere on the planet.^[9]

This section contains spoilers for PALISADE 13: Worth the Trouble Pt. 2.
Click here to reveal.

Mustard Red is not its Excerpt, but only because Arbitrage thinks that terminology is outdated. Through Mustard's swing vote, it is able to influence high-level decision-making in the Cause.

This section contains spoilers for PALISADE 22-PALISADE 27.
Click here to reveal.

Because Phrygian and Brnine bought the parts for it on Palisade, the ship they use during the combustor mission is connected to Arbitrage's glint network. This allows Mustard Red to offer a contract to assist if they use the combustor as a bargaining chip against the Authority. This is a "new type of contract" that is impossible to break after signing -- a geas imposed by Arbitrage's Divine power. These contracts have already been secretly offered to some low level, front lines members of the Cause. They are also in use by the Frontier Syndicate, and Exanceaster March plans to use one to control Motion upon her revival.