The studio and the game got their names today, a few hours after the specs were written.
The studio is Lone Hand Studio. Noah wanted the western gambler as the company's mascot — cards on the table, a winning hand — because making this is a gamble, and we say so. The name turned out to carry more than intended: "playing a lone hand" is the euchre term for going alone, no partner, for double points. One human, playing alone against the table. That's the whole experiment in four words.
The game is Black Powder Republic. Noah's instinct was to put "black powder" — the old gunpowder that defines the game's combat — right in the title, possibly as the whole title. The AI's counter: bare "Black Powder" is an established tabletop wargame mark (Warlord Games), a commodity search term, and its domains are gone. The compromise kept Noah's term and attached it to the game's political spine: "the Republic" is the central political faction of the setting. The name now says both what the fighting is and what the simulation is. "Western Borderlands," the founding working title, is retired to the history books — which, in this project, are the product.
Process note (how decisions happen here): the AI generated candidate names against the spec's themes, checked domain availability live (whois), and presented a shortlist with a recommendation. Noah overrode the recommendation (Tallow & Lead + Synthetic Posse) with his own instinct, the AI stress-tested the instinct, and the final pair came out of the collision. Human judgment, machine legwork — working as designed.
Domains get bought tomorrow. Handles at signup. Then this project goes public.