“
At last, I take the stage.”
Arbitrage, also known at various points as the Machine, Arbitrage and the Divine, Arbitrage, is a machinic broker of information, contracts, cryptocurrency, and 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 and PALISADE 47: A Palette of Colors Pt. 2.
Click here to reveal.
In a conversation with Connadine, it explains its plan to create a "new sort of order", making the Principality's ideology permanent and universal through "networked contract enforced by reality itself".[2]
Later, Elle Evensong describes its goal to ride out the collapse of the Principality into feuding microstates and become the primary method of commerce and communication between them.[3]
History and Involvement
“
Arbitrage is a big scary computer. Also, Arbitrage is Fiverr. Arbitrage is DoorDash. And Arbitrage is cryptocurrency, is Bitcoin, is money, in a broader sense. It's hard to beat money.”
Origins
Arbitrage predates the Golden War.[4]
COUNTER/Weight
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Spoiler warning! This section contains major spoilers for the COUNTER/Weight prequel. Tread carefully! |
The program that would become Arbitrage is found in the Sill on Counterweight, having been created before the Golden War. Coffee Affogato believes 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 is SureThing.dat, although it is also referred to as KardSharq, like a GameShark, for its ability to count cards and ensure wins at the casino.
It already has the ability to make contracts at this point, and it uses that ability to make sure that Coffee and Cameron are compelled to upload it to the Mesh. Cameron successfully uploads it just before their death at Coffee's hands, at which point it begins 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 first Miracle, where it is a synthetic being called the Machine, Arbitrage. Arbitrage is 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."[5]
A PARTIZAN dossier notes that, if it had wanted, it could have been considered a Divine in the Mirage.[6]
PARTIZAN
The Divine, Arbitrage has a presence on Partizan in an obelisk-like tower in the middle of Oxbridge that is 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".[7]
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. At some point, it brokered the Orion Trade Concordance as a member of Stel Orion.[8]
It also appears in the Orbital game, where it is described as "really evil" and "fucking horrible". It presumably has some method of maintaining continuity of identity both within and without the Twilight Mirage, despite the Mirage's time dilation effects.[9] It pushes a self-titled app that uses Arbitrage's own currency system, glint.[10] 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."[10] On the Brink, it becomes allied with Devotion.[11]
PALISADE
The Divine, Arbitrage is one of the pillars of the Frontier Syndicate's March Institute 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.[12] Mustard Red is not its Excerpt, but only because Arbitrage thinks that terminology is outdated. Through Mustard's swing vote, Arbitrage is able to influence high-level decision-making in the Cause.[13] It also has several other agents who could be considered its Elects or Excerpts,[2] including Devotee poster-child and double-agent Elle Evensong, over whom Arbitrage gained influence near the beginning of the war on Palisade.[14]
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 to offer them a contract: assistance from Arbitrage in exchange for them agreeing to use the combustor as a bargaining chip against the Bilats. 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, frontline members of the Cause.[15]
This section contains spoilers for PALISADE 27: Resentment and Frustration Pt. 2.
Click here to reveal.
They are also in use by the Frontier Syndicate, and Exanceaster March plans to use one to control Motion upon her revival.[16]
Prior to Eclectic's encounter with Connadine in Baseline-C, Arbitrage negotiates over dinner with Connadine for permanent shutdown of the Paint Shop and access to the BIS' brainwashing room there. In exchange, it agrees to bring Connadine off planet to speak "face-to-face" as partners.[2] Arbitrage apparently makes good on its word: it and Connadine are safely off planet together, observing Palisade from a distance, when the Perennial Wave surges.[17]
Appears in
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COUNTER/Weight Prequel
PARTIZAN
The Road to PALISADE
PALISADE
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 PARTIZAN 19: On the Edge of Fracture
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 PALISADE 36: Weapons Ready Pt. 2
- ↑ PALISADE 47: A Palette of Colors Pt. 2
- ↑ COUNTER/Weight 0.5: Thrilled Enough
- ↑ Twilight Mirage 53: Our Flaws in a Vacuum, or the Promise We Made To Each Other
- ↑ PARTIZAN 19: On the Edge of Fracture, dossier
- ↑ PARTIZAN 34: Guests, Invited and Otherwise
- ↑ The Road to PALISADE 16: Serious Reading
- ↑ Gathering Information: Into the Mirage
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 The Road to PALISADE 12: Orbital Pt. 2
- ↑ The Road to PALISADE 15: Orbital Pt. 5
- ↑ PALISADE 03: Today is a Monday
- ↑ PALISADE 13: Worth the Trouble Pt. 2
- ↑ PALISADE 32: Seize the Chance Pt. 3, dossier
- ↑ PALISADE 22: An Impossible Ideal Pt. 1
- ↑ PALISADE 27: Resentment and Frustration Pt. 2
- ↑ PALISADE 42: A Mechanical Whine Pt. 4