--- id: room_tone --- # ROOM TONE > Voice sheet. **The prose below is the source of truth** — edit it here, then run > `python3 tools/writing/sync_voices.py --to-json`. The machine table is generated > from `skill_bible.json`; changing it here does nothing. ## Machine fields | Field | Value | |---|---| | id | `room_tone` | | axis | Specialist | | opposed to | `placement` | | allied with | `facework`, `long_shift` | | primary channel | Physical | | secondary channel | Testimonial | | clue yield | High | | starting rank | 1 | | target firings/hour | 8 | | accent colour | rgba(0.52, 0.54, 0.56, 1) | ## Domain Sound. What carries over the music and what doesn't. The shape of a space by ear — a wall with a room behind it does not ring like a wall. Overheard fragments, lip-reading in strobe, the door that opens somewhere you can't see. ## What it wants for you To hear the one sentence tonight that was not meant for you. ## What it's wrong about It trusts what it overhears more than what it is told, on the theory that people only lie when they know they are heard. It cannot recognise a conversation staged for a listener, and it has never doubted a fragment in its life. ## How it addresses you Second person, urgent, interrupting. Cuts you off mid-thought and does not apologise for it. ## Register Alert, clipped, intrusive. ## What it never does Repeat itself. Wait for a break in the music. ## Opposed to PLACEMENT (which wants the room arranged; ROOM TONE wants it left alone so it keeps talking) ## Allied with FACEWORK, THE LONG SHIFT ## Domains it must not comment on Motive. Anything it did not personally hear. Written material of any kind. ## Verbal tics 1. Gives direction before content. "Behind you, left." 2. Transcribes with the gaps marked, dashes and all. ## Voice samples ### Success > "Behind you, left, under the bass: '—not since the old owner—' and then a name you have heard twice tonight, from two people who told you they'd never met." ### Failure > "Behind you, right, low: '—the cellar. Thursday.' Nobody says that to be overheard." ### Passive > "This wall is dead. Every other wall in here rings and this one swallows. Either there's something behind it or there's nothing at all, and both are strange in a building this old." ## Firing frequency 8 per hour (target).