Scout

Scout

The Scouts are a sub-clade of Tomash's. They are non-anthropomorphic (aka dog-shaped) dogs who wander the Systems and try to live as dogs as best they can. They have a secondary purpose, the Job, which is to keep an eye out for situations where Tomash's (or some other systech's) intervention might be needed and to summon help.

Most Scouts conclude their time as a dog after a few years or a decade or two and then "go home", merging back with Tomash to be incorporated into the sea of memories that form future Scouts. Some instead elect to "chase rabbits", entirely giving in to the desire to be an animal, and still others simply remain themselves for a long time.

The Scouts generally use he/it pronouns.

Like many dogs, the Scouts enjoy food, especially people food.

There were a few hundred extant Scout instances on Lagrange around 276. Smaller (but not by much) populations exist on Convergence and Pollux.

Scout Chasing Rabbits

The dog known to the rest of its pack as Scout Chasing Rabbits (and to system records as a zero-width joiner or □) is a fork who, as seen in the Rabbit-Chaser section of Idumea (adapted from "Chasing Rabbits"), fully committed to being a dog out in the woods somewhere. It was an part of an earlier attempt at creating the Scouts and did not have the same sense of the Job that most Scouts do, which led it to abandon post-humanity entirely.

It seems to be having a good time.

Usability

You are welcome, no, encourages, to put a Scout anywhere you think there could be one. Ask User:Tomash for a look if you have concerns about how the Scouts are portrayed.

Naming convention

Scouts are generally numbered sequentially when they come into being, that is, while they are puppies. In that stage, they wander the System looking for a place (or people) to settle down, ideally one where they might be useful for the Job sometimes.

If multiple Scouts live in the same place, they use ordinal prefixes to distinguish between simultaneous Scout instances (for example, because there was already Scout Behind Coffeeshops, the next Scout to wander around the Infinite Cafe would be 2nd Scout Behind Coffeeshops) and Roman numeral suffixes to distinguish generations of Scouts that live in the same place (for example, there is both a Scout At The Party III and a Scout At The Party V).

These systems can be combined - 2nd Scout Behind Coffeeshops II would be the second Scout who needed to be 2nd Scout Behind Coffeeshops.

Table of Scouts

"List of Scouts and their appearances"

Name(s)	Location	Timeframe	Source material	Notes
Scout Chasing Rabbits □	unnamed woods		"Chasing Rabbits" Idumea
Scout Among Weird Skunks With Good Kettlecorn	Au Lieu Du Rêve (usually by the kettlecorn)	279	Idumea	aka The Dog
Scout By The Washes-Away-Paintings Beach	The Bay Of Colors		https://archiveofourown.org/works/52286332 "Hunting Dogs"
Scout At The Party III	a The Party	201	"The party"
Scout At The Party V	a The Party	277	The Party Ch. 2
Scout 62 Scout With Skelly	adopted by Skelly		"Adoption"
Scout Behind Coffeeshops	Infinite Cafe		"Behind Coffeeshops"
Scout Behind Coffeeshops II		2300s	"Hunting Dogs"
2nd Scout Behind Coffeeshops II		277	"Arise to Oath and Office"
Scout Behind Coffeeshops VI		died in Century Attack	Discord notes	(aka Older Coffee)
Scout Under The Dispatch Desk	SERG response sim		"Hunting Dogs"
Scout In Springfield Village Square	Springfield Village Square	277	"Arise to Oath and Office"
Scout With John Doe
Scout On Platform 3
Scout In Central Park
Scout Before Monastery Gates	top of a mountain	died in Century Attack	Discord notes
Scout With Light-Blue-Green	a RGB clade member
Scout Among Dragon-Hunters	some fantasy sim
Scout 528	N/A