[i]This character has been retired.[/i] [hider=ℝoot] [b]Vital Statistics:[/b] [list] [*] [b]Player Name:[/b] LegionPothIX [*] [b]Character Name:[/b] ℝoot [*] [b]Character Age:[/b] 23 [*] [b]Character Gender:[/b] F [*] [b]Nationality[/b]: [*] [b]Race:[/b] Caucasian [*] [b]Position:[/b] Civilian, Hacker [*] [b]Title:[/b] The Shadow [/list] [hider=Vital Statistics:Campaign Specific ] Character you have created: --- Alias: ℝoot Speech Color: TBD. Probably some aggressive basic (the language) programming color like [color=5DFC0A]#5DFC0A[/color] or [color=49E20E]#49E20E.[/color] Character Alignment: Walking the Line (toward Evil) Identity: The Shadow / ℝoot (See below for details) Character Personality: [url=https://www.16personalities.com/intj-personality]INTJ[/url] (See below for details) Uniform/costume: Hoodie (with a tank-top under), Cargo Pants, and a Backpack (See [i]Super Suit[/i]) Origin Info/Details: Accident (See [i]Origins[/i]) Hero Type (Select one): Psychic with a splash of Teech and Gray Matter Power Level (Select one below): City Level (IRL) / World Level (Digital) Powers (Be Specific): Attributes (Select one at each category): [list] [*] Strength Level: Normal Human [*] Speed/Reaction Timing Level: 50x [*] Endurance at MAXIMUM Effort: Normal Human [*] Agility: Normal Human [*] Intelligence: Super-Genius (Digital), Genius (all other) [*] Fighting Skill: Untrained [/list] Resources: Extreme (See Strength: Air-quotes "Independently Wealthy") Height: 165 cm / ~65 in Weight 60 kg / ~135 lb [/hider] [b]Reference Description:[/b] [hider=image] [img]http://orig11.deviantart.net/7eee/f/2011/081/e/2/e2e2a37f3e4879cb791ac034dc9145c2-d3c7gax.jpg[/img] [url=http://karincoma.deviantart.com/art/g1-201901641]Source[/url] [/hider] [b]Background:[/b] An intellectual styled super, with an ambiguous alignment, ℝoot--or [i]The Shadow[/i] as she goes by in the real world--is a hacker with a pension for tackling problems in non-linear ways. She lacks the raw physical powers of some other heroes and villains and makes up for it in spades with devious plans and contingencies. Her abilities as a psychic help but she rarely puts herself in a position to rely on them. [b]Historical Profile:[/b] [list] [*] [hider=Origins: Mind Break] ℝoot was deep core hacking through government servers looking for something interesting to dump onto the darknet, or potentially wikileaks, when she happened across a read-only file labeled 'Dec 31, 1999' that would change her life forever. It was the singularity. That's a bit of an exaggeration, as it was not the event per se, but the beginnings of an Earth borne artificial intelligence trapped in a write-protected unevolving state. The magnitude of the discovery, in addition to the complexity of the data contained therein, overloaded both her mind and the circuitry of her personal EEGARD (see 'Notable Tech' below). When she attempted to steal the file she triggered a security precaution that shorted out every RFID transmitter on her scalp, and sent electroshocks into the nerve-clusters of her brain they were positioned to read. As she lie helplessly comatose on the ground of her single bedroom apartment a battle began in her stead between her own security system versus the government systems. A battle that came to a draw with the total mutual annihilation of the two networks engaged, and the resulting electrical fire consumed her home. ℝoot nearly died that night, and remained comatose for months as a Jane Doe in a local hospital. New information creates new pathways in the brain, however, and so too does temporary damage that needs to be bypassed. When she awoke in the hospital after several months of being in a coma she found her mind had been totally rewired. She now possessed the ability to send and receive mental information: a mind-to-mind telepath. In terms that she understood--that of her trade--it was as if other minds were broadcasting on mental wifi over unsecured channels. She knew these broadcasts were not the same as her mechanical counterparts but in essence humans are basically biological machines that as a species we have a meager and infantile understanding of. [/hider] [*] [hider=Background: Anon] Much of ℝoot's life has been spent confined to a small room well lit with LED monitors and the fiber optic vanity lights that filled many of her computers. Since she was old enough to hold an electronic device ℝoot has, like many of her generation, thrown herself into them entirely. Also like many of her generation she's been disillusioned by the blatant corruption in the social system. Debt driven economics enslaving the every-man, blatant corruption on every level of government, and the tyrannical militarization of the police are just a few of the things that drove to a life of crime. The zero-sum was simple, the whole world and its law, was designed to oppress the masses and she would have nothing more to do with it. ℝoot joined the hacktivist group Anonymous in an effort to collaborate in taking down as much of the corrupt system she could, before realizing that systemic corruption was all that existed in the world outside. Though she made a few like-minded friends in the group, it wasn't until after she gave up on salvaging the system that she really came into her own. [/hider] [*] [hider=Profession: Hacker] ℝoot is self employed in that she makes money from her skills, but those skills aren't particularly put to service anyone in general. For most of her finances, she simply pilfers government black-budget programs, or shell company bank accounts. However, with the world's currencies all digitized, most of the things she might need money for, are things she can simply spoof the existence of money to acquire. That's not to say she doesn't put her skills to work in the traditional sense. While the system is corrupted to the core, she still believes there are users whom really do mean well, and often takes on charges by way of legitimate charities and NPOs. Particularly high on her list of crusades is public education foundations who legitimately seek to better the world for the many millions of civilians just like her. [/hider] [*] [hider=Super Persona: The Shadow] This self-appointed title based off of the titular character of an [url=http://www.oldradioworld.com/shows/The_Shadow.php]Old Time Radio Show[/url] of the same name. The main character of which had similar abilities to ℝoot, and provided her a sense of comfort in the maddening analog world that is real life while she remained bed-ridden due to her origins event. She adopted the title, at first, as a joke at how quaint the 1940's sci-fi serial seemed by modern standards, and in irony regarding the picture-perfect black-and-white way the world was viewed in the time, but the moniker simply stuck as her super persona. She was introduced to the character when [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvmxSPl2oOQ]The Secret Whistle's Shadow Act V[/url] came on Pandora, and then looked up the quoted title ([i]The House That Death Built[/i]) from her phone. After hearing the full context she began to incorporate the telepathic abilities she gained into herself as a real extension of who she was. Then, inasmuch as she used her human skills for hacktivist vigilantism, her super powered natural extension of her ability to network resulted in a similar natural extension of her sense of purpose. Now, she simply had the power to hack the people's minds the way she hacked computers. [/hider] [*] [hider=True Name: none] When ℝoot was eventually released from the hospital she set about gaining the real life anonymity that was so integrated into her internet persona. She hunted down the many friends, family, and acquaintances that knew her from real life and tested her powers on them; erasing herself from the real world. Though she technically has a true name, and a social security number of her very own, neither of these things have any social context or weight due to them being completely unfettered from reality. ℝoot's secret identity—[i]the manner in which she self identifies[/i]—[b]is[/b] ℝoot, and having that step removed from modern society is what facilitated the adoption of 'The Shadow' for her IRL super-persona. [/hider] [/list] [b]Psychological Profile:[/b] [list] [*] [hider=Strengths] [list] [*] Air-quotes "Independently Wealthy" [*] Dual Nature [*] Master Code-Smith [/list] Air-quotes "Independently Wealthy" The United States was the last first world country to abandon the gold standard and did so in the 1970s. Since then the very concept of money has simply been an agreement between people. When monetization was digitized it fell immediately into the domain of the digital elite. Being one such digital elite the question of 'cost' or 'availability' never becomes a concern for ℝoot. Apart from the value people place on it, money has no intrinsic value, and ℝoot always has exactly as much as she wants because it is a trivial exercise for her to procure more. [i]This strength is paired to the Easy Enmity weakness.[/i] Dual Nature While most supers have a gimmick, some thing they rely on nearly exclusively, ℝoot's is that the world operates in both digital and real space and she has 'evolved' to handle both while in either. She's adaptive and flexible in crossing over the lessons and skills in one environment to another. Living out on the bleeding edge of technology has given her considerable insight into how they work in modern society and context. As such real world problems are given digital solutions, and vice versa. ℝoot can use technology as an intermediary for her abilities, and her abilities as an intermediary for technology. [i]This strength is paired to the Underdeveloped Powers weakness.[/i] Master Code-Smith Hacking is as much about revising, forging, reforging, and editing code as it is about writing new code. As much of her life before her awakening as a super revolved around these skills ℝoot has pushed them to the pinnacle of human potential. She routinely breaches government and private sector security alike with little effort. She hasn't met a system yet that can keep her out if she were to really set her mind to entering. [i]This strength is paired to the Digital Addiction weakness.[/i] [/hider] [*] [hider=Weaknesses] [list] [*] Digital Addiction [*] Easy Enmity [*] Underdeveloped Powers [/list] Digital Addiction In the age of information, when the answer to all of the questions of the world are at one's fingertips, its easy to become over-reliant. While the average human being always carries with them at least one of three digital devices (phone, computer, music player) they can usually function reasonably well without them if need be. This is untrue of ℝoot who has become completely reliant on them from an early age. While they don't sustain her physical life, they do sustain her digital one--her connection to the digital world is how ℝoot defines herself. Modern technology has become her crutch and without it she is prone to severe and constant anxiety. [i]This weakness is paired to the Master Hacker strength.[/i] Easy Enmity You don't become an elite without letting other people know, and you don't climb the ladder of success without stepping on a lot of rungs along the way. Be it governments or corporations with whom ℝoot left her calling card, or the competition in the hack-o'-sphere, ℝoot has made her fair share of bad impressions. She's hot shit, and she knows it, and never has any problem letting others know. With this flaw ℝoot finds it difficult to forge positive bonds with people, preferring instead to manipulate, and it shows. When it comes down to times of cooperative action she frequently leaves a bad taste in other's mouths after the fact, resulting in several burned bridges. As a result people only come to root when they need her expertise and she knows it. [i]This weakness is paired to the Air-quotes "Independently Wealthy" strength.[/i] Underdeveloped Powers Unlike many other supers ℝoot's powers only developed recently once she became an adult, and only as a consequence of tragic action, and as of yet has not had either the time nor the desire to master them. Many of the things she could want to know about a person are readily available online on self-publishing social media sites, and so diving into the sick-unfiltered septic system that is the human mind for kicks is not something that regularly appeals to her. Because of this, and in part due to how her powers came into being, ℝoot can never develop abilities that extend beyond the base of mind-to-mind telepathy. While other psychics regularly develop "kinesis" style powers through whatever process opened their mind to telepathy, and anything of the sort remains completely out of ℝoot's grasp. [i]This weakness is paired to the Dual Nature strength.[/i] [/hider] [*] [hider=Powers] [i]Author's Note: As ℝoot experiences the world, and thereby understands her powers, relies heavily on digital analogs (a pun) I can only explain them as such.[/i] Rather than listing specific powers it'd be simpler to explain exactly how the powers function. ℝoot's powers are an extension of basic communication the brain establishes with other parts of the body, and rational thought. As is the trope for newly developed telepathy ℝoot views others as constantly broadcasting their thoughts whether they know it or not. She easily receives these thoughts while within range of visually distinguishing the thinker; in the same vein that wi-fi routers have a fixed signal radius. [i]Author's Note: The word wi-fi gets abused a lot in modern culture to be synonymous with 'wireless internet' which it certainly is not. Wi-fi is a local area network type that does not naively connect to satellites.[/i] As a telepath, ℝoot possesses the basic powers one might expect that are consequences of two or more brains communicating directly, and typically refers to them in their computer jargon equivalents: sending, receiving, broadcasting, reading, writing, packet editing, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. [/hider] [/list] [b]Psychographic Profile:[/b] [list] [*] [hider=Totems/Personal Effects] Always in possession of the latest hand-held gadget, or device, and such things are often accompanied with the latest fads. Be it toys from [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gashapon]gashapon machines[/url] or beanie babies strapped to her backpack, ℝoot always has enough flair in her style to not stand out of a crowd of people her age. [/hider] [*] [hider=Super Suit] The Shadow doesn't require a specific outfit to be effective. This is because The Shadow is a machination of the mind, and often an revisionist edit of the memory. As such, ℝoot simply wears what is comfortable, conveniently, and inconspicuous. Typically that's a hoodie with some sort of nerd culture logo on the front, a backpack with sparse flair, and cargo pants for her gadgets. Her outfits usually consist of earth tones, or sky tones in color, and she never mixes the two. [/hider] [*] [hider=Motivations] Heavily motivated by imbalance in powers and systematic oppression, when ℝoot engages to correct one of these two things it is in a manner that up-heaves the entirety and swings the pendulum hard in the opposite direction; rather than attempting to establish any form of balance. [/hider] [*] [hider=Aspirations] Drain the swamp is a phrase that gets bandied about quite a lot when dealing with the type of things that ℝoot engages in. Wile that was her goal initially, it has devolved into 'don't drown'. [/hider] [*] [hider=Doubts] Being thoroughly defeated by the enormity of the problems with the world, and turning her interest to local bite-sized symptoms often has her wondering if she's actually making a difference. Her impulsive involvement in a discouraging situation often has her wondering if she backed the right side. [/hider] [*] [hider=Notable Technology] The [url=http://kidshealth.org/en/parents/eeg.html]Electro-Encephalo-Graphic[/url] (EEG) [url=http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/augmented-reality-smart-glasses/]Augmented Reality Display[/url] (ARD) is the chief of all of ℝoot's digital devices. As noted earlier, it utilizes RFID tags affixed to her scalp to monitor and transmit the EEG data wirelessly to a drive that translates the data and responds with digital commands. The versions of this hardware have been greatly improved since the alpha version that fried her brain in the first place. Based on the following real-life tech: [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs2GDSYYCoA[/youtube] While the real life version is being billed as a digital panacea for all the worlds woes, it was not until incorporating the Augmented Reality Display that the EEGARD reached its fullest potential. The version that ℝoot possession is ridiculously modified far beyond the wildest dreams of the software's inventor. Aside from the ARD aspect, and wireless connection, it also sports security that would make the NSA, CIA, and Homeland Security blush. That is because the device is trained to read the user's mind and interpret, as well as transmit, the information. It is a one-sided technological equivalent of ℝoot's super power. After acquiring the tech, ℝoot aquired the developers, and killed the research; making her EEGARD one of a kind. [/hider] [/list] [/hider]