Amanda-A

The Amanda Graystone avatar in the virtual world

Estranged from his wife, Daniel struggles with life without Amanda, refusing to sleep in their bed and drinking heavily. As Daniel works to regain control of his company, he seeks the aid of the Ha'la'tha crime syndicate, promising them substantial profits from the creation of the resurrection program, a product that would bring loved ones back from the dead in the virtual world ^{(CAP: "Unvanquished", "Retribution" and "False Labor")}.

To this end, Daniel creates a holographic avatar of Amanda as a test case. Basing it off of an existing holoband character template, the Amanda avatar is augmented with the personal journal entries of the Graystone Family, including Zoe's. Still, the avatar is unable to surpass her base programming which heavily emphasizes a desire to please and sexuality. Instead of truly remembering the events of Amanda Graystone's life, the Amanda avatar simply repeats passages from the journal entries ^{(CAP: "False Labor")}.

Though she is not the "perfect copy" that the Zoe avatar had been, the Amanda avatar displays some signs of true self awareness and appears frustrated that she is not what Daniel had hopes. Testing her responses, Daniel reveals to the avatar that he was responsible for the deaths of Vergis' men. Though it is a heated exchange, the avatar fails to react as the true Amanda Graystone would and, in a moment of defeat, Daniel attacks her, causing her to derez ^{(CAP: "False Labor")}.

Following the "awful derezzing incident," as the Amanda avatar puts it, Daniel makes one final attempt to perfect the program. With the project predicted to take three months to complete, the head of the Ha'la'tha gives Daniel only two weeks to show him promising results. Under enormous pressure, he visits the Amanda avatar in V-world where she again makes an effort to act like the real Amanda. Still, despite showing sarcasm, neuroses, and even anger, the avatar is unconvincing and Daniel deletes both it and the backup copy ^{(CAP: "Blowback")}.

Notes

• According to Tom Lieber, the flawed nature of the Amanda-A avatar was intentional, meant to show Daniel Graystone's inability to truly replicate his wife. He notes that the real Amanda's unique insight into Daniel's own anxieties is what makes her impossible to copy, a quality the avatar could never possess.