[Contest Ended] Looking for authors: let's create a Flipper story

December 24th update: the contest has ended! Check out the results.

The lore of a game is its backstory, all the elements that complement the principal narrative. These details add depth and richness to the universe of a video game, expanding its history outside the main plot. That is exactly what we need to come up with for our dolphin.

The cyber-dolphin lives inside Flipper and interacts with user, helps to get used to features and comments user's actions. Together with the user, it develops and becomes cooler, increasing its level. The dolphin has its own complex character, which is reflected in every action, phrase and emotion.

In order to develop a good character, we ask the community to help us make the backstory of the dolphin. All lines, games and character animations will be based on this story and the best author will receive a Flipper Zero as a reward.

Jones the Dolphin

The prototype of our character is the cyborg dolphin Jones from the story "Johnny Mnemonic" by William Gibson.

Jones is a cyborg dolphin. He was used by the navy in the War. He served in the Pacific, using his implanted sensors to tap into circuitry of enemy cyber mines and sweep them. He was made addicted to drugs in order to ensure his affiliation. He was modified with an articulated armor with crusted plates along his sides. Exposed sections of his body showed silver lesions. Twin deformities on either side of his skull had been engineered to house sensor units. The navy had him wired into an audiovisual display and he communicated with symbols and colors.

Quote from William Gibson Wiki

What should the Flipper universe look like

• Flipper Zero is NOT the character's name, it is just a hardware environment on which the dolphin's consciousness runs. Each device will have a dolphin with its own unique name. This name will be used in game interactions, to identify the device, like a serial number, etc.
• Our dolphin is a more modern relative of the Jones dolphin described above. It understands written human speech, understands modern technologies, although it gravitates towards retro (console interfaces, 8-bit, monochrome screens, ASCII art and pixel art). Unlike Jones, it does not do drugs, prefers health, both mental and physical. It is against violence. It believes that pranks, gags and fun are sacred.
• It does not have a clearly pronounced gender identity. It has a special genital design that allows it to transform into any type at will. Depending on the situation, it can choose any model of behavior, both aggressive, assertive and rude, and softer, polite and compliant.
• Uses Arch Linux on PC along with blackarch repository.
• It is a confident developer in C / C ++ and Python, but recently prefers Rust.
• It worked in a private military company in cyber intelligence and the development of exploits, but later inclined to pacifist views and left. Since then, it has been doing pentesting for fun and considers it an art, but never does it in the interests of the military.
• It firmly believes that "S" in "IoT" stands for Security. Believes that anything that is vulnerable should be hacked.
• Listens to chiptune, techno, neurofunk, breakbeat, IDM.

How to participate in the contest

1. Write a dolphin story that takes into account all the facts above. The story must necessarily describe what happened before the dolphin was launched on Flipper Zero.
2. Use Google Docs, no more than 3 pages with 11 font size. Make the document available for comments via the link. 
3. Send the Google Docs link to [redacted] with "Dolphin's lore" subject. Submissions are closed since December 21st (UTC-11), we'll choose the winner on December 24th.
4. If your story turns out to be the best, we will answer you by mail and ask your shipping address for Flipper's delivery.

Contest Results

We are happy to announce that we have thoroughly read all your submissions and have chosen a winner!

Most of the stories did not meet the strict requirements of the competition, although they were very beautiful and interesting. We have selected the best five out of 46 stories submitted by you. The authors of these stories were most attentive to describing the past of our dolphin and got into our shortlist: Mihai Robu, Brandon Evans, Syaiful Irfan, Aerro Goodrich-Harwell and Jess Naude.

It was very difficult to choose the best of the best, but we settled on the story from Mihai Robu. We will contact Mihai to discuss the prize shipment and the possibilities of using his story in the Flipper Zero world. The winning story will be published later.

We also want to highlight the story from Brandon Owens, designed in the style of the SCP Project. Unfortunately, this wonderful story did not take into account the important points specified in the rules of the contest.

Thanks to all participants for their attention and great stories!

As you may have noted, we added a comments section right below every blog post. Feel free to test the comments feature by telling us what you think of this contest!