[OOC] No Turning Back - Into the Abyss

[Sep]

@Peaceless then if that needs to be waited for then @Xandrya may need to wait for @The Spectre to post our collab so I can then see him.

[Xandrya]

I'm honestly confused as hell right now.

[Sep]

@Xandrya basically Xaith has put a legal wall around @Peaceless, so you have two options wait and we can do a three-way collab or break through it yourself to do a collab.

[Rawk]

What about the legal wall?

@Peaceless

How is Chizuru being handled anyway? Are we dealing with a humans "legal rights" or a Cyborg who most likely has none?

As much as I love a good Law & Order scenario, I just hope this doesn't impede anyone from the opportunity to collab and move on.

[Mao Mao]

I am at school, so I don't have the link to the collab. If you could provide me with the link, it would help out so much. @Sep

[Subject Zero]

<Snipped quote by Peaceless>

How is Chizuru being handled anyway? Are we dealing with a humans "legal rights" or a Cyborg who most likely has none?

As much as I love a good Law & Order scenario, I just hope this doesn't impede anyone from the opportunity to collab and move on.

@Rawk

Well at what point does a human stop being a human? Many of the Armani crew have extensive modifications which essentially make them cyborgs. Hell, even Gavon is technically a cyborg.

[Rawk]

Hell, even Gavon is technically a cyborg.

@Subject Zero

Shhhh! Don't confuse the matter with facts!

[Sep]

@Rawk All depends on what you think your second in command and guards would do if @Xandrya turned up.

[Rawk]

@Rawk All depends on what you think your second in command and guards would do if @Xandrya turned up.

@Sep

Well Deputy Haas and the Brig guards would be aware of Dr Larson's meeting with the Chizuru, so I imagine they would be fine as long as Chi is not removed from the brig until the full eval has been completed (and no doubt Locke would have to sign off on it)

[Xandrya]

Hm, although a three way collab sounds fun, I can have Mel show up at the brig. @Rawk, let me know if I should be aware of anything.

[Sep]

@Xandrya well you have my thumbs up to go for it.

[Peaceless]

Yyyeeah let's brake dat wall down!

[Rawk]

Nice work with @The Spectre & @Sep collab. Very enjoyable read.

However, with regard to 'Sector 75", since it's part of the Security Centre complex (3rd Floor), then most likely Kevin Ford will have access to other parts of Security-related areas. Having access to the training area only doesn't make much sense. Perhaps (with Security escorts) he can also have access to any floor of Sec Cen.

And, FYI, I am (slowly but surely) getting the Security Centre Complex page of the Wikia up to date so you all will have a reference when writing.

[Peaceless]

@The Spectre how about "Overseer"?

[Sep]

@Peaceless Oh lord....

It begins.

[Draken]

@The Spectre how about "Overseer"?

@Peaceless

I think that's... better. But it has ties to various games and the like, and sounds similar to Overlord. You might want to simply invent a word/title.

[LegionPothIX]

Vital Statistics:

• Player Name: LegionPothIX
• Character Name: Aria Summers
• Character Age: 42
• Character Gender: F
• Nationality: European Confederacy
• Race: Caucasian (Celtic Brythons)
• Position: Civilian, Theologian
• Title: Keeper of Traditions

Reference Description:

image

Source

Background:
What history does your character have in this universe?
Mistress of multiple religions, keeper of lore and mystical traditions, and voice of the people, Aria Summers has had a long-standing involvement in the ever-looming apocalypse. Unlike so many other doomsayers who would give the faith-inclined majority a bad name, Ms. Summers focused not on the coming apocalypse as a sign of judgement, but instead as the end of a cycle. Her life's work came to a head as her message of peace and acceptance was tested against the criticality of mass extinction.

As a result she was quite surprised when she was extended an offer to join the Arks program on the Vitae, as she had quite assumed that preserving active faith was an after thought to the scientific lot involved in its creation. As a local leader with strong ties to the community, and the ability to calm civilians, the offer was a natural one that would also naturally be met with controversy.

Historical Profile:

• Biography

  Born to a pair of atheistic scientists, Aria ironically fell in love with the notion of gods and goddesses, despite her parents eventual disapproval. She spent her formative years investigating all religions for fragments of truth. This research was supported by her parents who believed that, with enough exposure, she would see them for the inconsistent and incoherent mess they believed these religions to be. She began her early years studying witchcraft, druidism and shamanism, before being branching out to others. Taoism introduced her to Confucian practices, and from there her heart and mind traveled the globe.
  
  For many of her age, the events of Citadel Station catalyzed her in a new direction. Her mission turned from understanding, to implementation, and like so many others she sought to bring down the barriers between religions. Practicing one's faith and ideals does not preclude another to practice thier's. Entire nations were founded upon this concept, and now she believed that humanity must become ready for the next step: accepting that there are no enemies of a loving heart.
  
  As such Aria spent the last twenty years breaking down boarders between faiths and facilitating mutual respect between humanity in terms of religious differences.
• Profession: Religions

  The list of religions older than those of Aramaic origins (IE: Christianity Judaism, Islam, etc), and still practiced to this day is long and involved. As are such traditions and practices in celebration of those beliefs. Sufficive to say that mankind is a very spiritual creature and in any reasonable sample size of people there is bound to be at least one devout practitioner of high distinction to lead other religious practitioners.
  
  While some may argue this form of “diversity credit” undermines the very concept of “the best and brightest” nothing could be further from the truth. While once the cornerstone of most societies religious scholars have in recent decades moved toward an advisory role in society. That is until the emergence of the Devastators reignited old superstitions.
  
  This re-ignition--this return to the old ways--massively influenced Aria's future, and made her invitation to the Vitae possible. As smoldering coals turned to raging bonfires the message of unity was tainted with the fact that the people of Earth were united in opposition to an enemy force.
  
  In the scientific community, this undercut many religious leaders, and as a result the pool of acceptable representatives was narrowed away from two fringes: the god loves everyone unificationists, and the god hates everyone but us purists. The result is that the moderates were elevated and chief among them sat Aria Summers representing the "Old Religions".
• Faith & Works

  Two key principles separated Aria Summers from other religious candidates. The first was her teachings which is informed by the second, her involvement in multiple religious communities. Unlike so many other patrons of deific obedience, Summers advocated for the education of mankind as a requirement of its survival. That faith, while as important as it is, is not a substitute for knowledge. That, as many monotheistic religions taught, being created in the image of an all knowing god without being all knowing ourselves, defines learning as the challenge by which people may come to know their creator.
  
  As such she believes enlightenment, and peace of the soul, is at the center of all philosophical study.

Psychological Profile:

• Strengths

  • Gregarious (Social Butterfly)
  • Omni-Mystic
  • Tradecraft

  
  
  Gregarious (Social Butterfly)
  At its most fundamental level all religions are about one thing: people. It brings them together, and teaches them values. It allows them to share their interests, and underwrites their communication skills. Moreover it creates an environment that elevates social affluence, and in this regard Aria Summers shines.
  
  For the most part, Aria truly believes people want to represent themselves to the best of their own abilities, and chooses to treat them as if they had. In this way, and in several others, Aira Summers has honed her given raw charismatic force, and natural beauty into a light of social brilliance.
  
  This strength is paired to the Naive weakness.
  
  Omni-Mystic
  Almost every religion known to man can be clustered by way of the central tenets they observe. While being studied in every religion is blatantly impossible for a single person of her age, being studied in the root sources of most is something that she has not only done, but has done with extreme efficacy.
  
  As a certified practitioner of many religions, and active preacher, Aria Summers seeks to emphasize their commonalities rather than highlighting their differences. Regardless of the religion, Aria is extremely knowledgeable on the organized practices and superstitious beliefs of mankind, as well as how they have evolved throughout the ages.
  
  Tradecraft
  A term most commonly used to refer to the spy business; creating, managing, and living multiple lives, identities, and personalities is a skill Aira has learned as a consequence to overcome the stigma attached to her trade. Both the in-group stigma of practicing multiple religions, and the out-group stigma of practicing any religion at all.
  
  Aria Summers possesses multiple identities—none of which are fake—by which she is known to certain sub-groups of society. Even as a certified practitioner of multiple religions there is little cause for concern that her personas in each may be compromised, strictly because it is rare that worshipers of Innana might rub shoulders with the followers of Christ or Jehovah. These personas are largely known by titles granted to, and held by, Aria Summers rather than by her actual name. In that regard, the persona she carries with her is who she is to those individuals, and the collections of these personas is who she is to herself.
  
  This strength is paired to the Cloistered weakness.
• Weaknesses

  • Cloistered
  • Conflicted
  • Naive

  
  
  Cloistered
  Devotion to one religion is taxing enough but devotion to all of them leaves little time to do anything else. Though few people know who Aria Summers really is she is isn’t one of those people. Having spent so much time devoted to research, practice, and mastery has left her with little time to learn other skills. As a consequence she has a low level of technical understanding; far beneath that of the average plebeian.
  
  While she acknowledges technology is a thing, and is important to every-day life, she just doesn’t have a handle on it. As a consequence, anything more than the most trivial task involving modern technology is a colossal undertaking for this religious savant.
  
  Her level of technological ineptitude can get quite embarrassing from time to time, as at one point she had to have explained to her that NO4H is not just “a switchboard operator”, but an actual artificial intelligence. Just as others rely on her for spiritual support, she tends to rely on others for technological support.
  
  This weakness is paired to the Tradecraft strength.
  
  Conflicted
  Almost all of religious history has been built up around conflict. From resolving inner conflict, to extending imperial control over entire continents, and waging holy wars for personal power. Everything about the idea of religion is mired in its failing in practice and this weighs heavily on Aria. More so than other practitioners of faith as she has studied faith in its entirety, and in its native context this existential conflict has found its way into her very soul.
  
  This weakness is paired to the Omni-Mystic strength.
  
  Naive
  While an optimist wouldn’t consider their optimism as a drawback there is a certain naïveté that comes with seeing only the silver lining and not any part of the cloud that it is in. Because she is filled to bursting with a positive message, hope, and other theologically significant buzzwords; Aria often overlooks the more negative aspects of life that those words are counter to.
  
  As a Wiccan witch she knows the importance of balance, but finding that balance is something she often struggles to do.
  
  This weakness is paired with the Gregarious strength.

Psychographic Profile:

• Totems/Personal Effects

  With so much spiritual influence in her life there isn’t any object in her possession that couldn’t be considered a totem, or vessel of spirituality, the real question is what they all mean.
• Motivations

  Knowledge and understanding bring about the inner light she seeks to not only shine from herself, but also encourage others to shine so to spread human radiance throughout the universe.
• Aspirations

  "Leave everything better than when you found it." That basic concept is sewn into the very fabric of human faith, in every religion, and tradition she has found to be practiced by human kind. Though, there is some debate on what "better" means, there is little debate that this is her principle goal.
• Doubts

  Having one's self identity so intrinsically tied to one's faith often results in feeling mitigated, or dismissed by other's dismissal of those superstitions. Deep inside, hidden in a dark place, lies the fear that she was chosen for her skills that her faith has led her to acquire, and not for any appreciation of her self-identity as a person of faith. Furthermore, being seen as something different by all begs the question if there is anything uniquely her.

Code Word: Bananas. J/K it's Pineapples.

[Sep]

Compulsory Locke catch up post. He is aware of what's going on, he just has other things on his plate.

[Dblade26]

Lance Lawrence

Player Name: Dblade26

Character Name: Lance Lawrence

Character Age: 28

Character Gender: Male

Appearance: his general appearance

Profession: Ark Security Patrol Captain and Hand-to-Hand Combat instructor

Nationality: Martian

Strengths:

Highly Skilled Hand-to-Hand Combatant-Above and beyond his training as an MIA Operative and Ark Security Agent, armed and unarmed martial arts of various types are a central passion of his life, partly due to the notion instilled in him from an early age that his body is the weapon that it's hardest to take away from him. He's skilled enough to qualify for the position of Ark Security's primary Hand-to-Hand Instructor.

Trained M.I.A. Operative- Lance Lawrence was groomed from a young age for intelligence work and given the best training available to the Martian Intelligence Agency. This gives him a repertoire of combat skills beyond his personal close quarters abilities with a variety of weapons from pistols to sniper rifles to improvised explosives but it also gives him a different focus in terms of fieldcraft and his general mindset and approach to work than what's typically taught to Ark Security or many branches of the military.

Analytical Mind- A combination of natural aptitude, childhood training by his mother and further refining by the M.I.A. has given Lance a rare degree of skill when it comes to observing, retaining and interpreting information from the world around him.

Weaknesses:

Hands-On Leader- While he's willing to defer things to his subordinates when it comes to tasks they're better equipped or trained for than himself (or doing paperwork) Lance hates the idea of just sitting at a desk when he might be of use out in the field. This is especially true if he thinks he's the best person for a job or that those under his command might need his help even if it technically goes against his duties as a Patrol Captain at times or even unecessarily strains or endangers him. This may also frustrate those under his command even as it inspires loyalty, because although Lance would never ask them to do something he wouldn't do himself, the list of things he's willing to do himself is extensive and occasionally worrying.

In His Mother's Shadow- Lance Lawrence's mother being the Director of Mars' Military Intelligence was a massive influence on his life, especially since she both hand-reared him for intelligence work and never gave him a single milimeter of slack once he entered the service.. Their relationship was complicated to say the least and had left him with more than his share of hangups and emotional baggage even before she stayed behind in order to protect Mars from the oncoming invasion.

Prejudice-Lance is generally more than willing to make his assessments based on merit and personal experience and is of the firm belief that once you're under his command and accepted by him you're a trusted subordinate above anything else you may be. That said his main exception is that he's mistrustful of cyborgs, augmented humans and artificial intelligences of all types unless they've already proven their worth and trustworthiness, which is hardly an easy task given his high standards.

Analytical weaknesses- Lance's analysis ability is hardly perfect and he can still miss important details or not grasp the significance of events or clues if not enough context is present. Because of his intensive training and an allegedly 'healthy' sense of low-grade paranoia instilled in him by his mother, he also has an unfortunate habit of planning out how to fight his way through every person in a room when he enters it or begins conversations.

Personal Effects: A pair of gloves designed to rapidly harden in response to incoming impacts, A rather nice silent knife taken off of the leader of the pirate fleet he brought down, a data storage mostly containing kung fu films and a journal/PDA/tablet secured with the most top-of-the-line methods at the M.I.A.'s disposal.

Bio:
At times seems to Lance Lawrence that his mother Vanessa had shaped the entire course of his life without his input and that may very well be true. It was her will alone that brought him into the world, a product of in-vitro fertilization and incredibly careful screening for a genetic donor. Not only that, from the very start she was determined that her son would follow in her footsteps and work for Military Intelligence, of which she was a rising star at the time of his birth. Vanessa's assignments often meant she had to be away working on covert actions for extended periods and even when she wasn't her increasingly high position in Mars intelligence services over the years made it difficult for him to make friends. Even with all of that aside they were mostly isolated from the rest of Vanessa's family as they'd become largely estranged some years back.

The main exception to this loneliness was the family of one William Locke, a rising star in the Martian Navy's Special Forces. He and Vanessa first met when they were working on the issue of the infamous pirate Tiberius Wallace, originally from seperate angles. It wasn't until later that the bond between their families deepened when Vanessa was attached to the prototype stealth ship Nightfury as the official liason from the M.I.A., then under William Locke's command. Lance only being a toddler at this point, it was to Vanessa's mind reasonable enough to suggest that Locke's wife Doctor Amanda Locke look after her son while her assignment forced her to spend long stretches in space, even- allegedly though it was never confirmed- using her pull with the M.I.A to temporarily lighten the doctor's workload during the initial adjustment period. This was how Lance spent his early years, in the care of an occasionally absent doctor married to the commanding officer of the spy ship his mother oversaw when she wasn't doing even more secretive things to keep the interplanetary cold war interesting. All things considered it was a surprisingly decent early childhood.

Of course all of that changed with the Three Day War and not too long thereafter, Amanda Locke's death. Still reeling from the terminal illness and subsequent passage of the woman who had handled many of the day-to-day tasks of raising him, Lance was reclaimed full-time by his mother, now working a desk job having been promoted to a fairly high position within the M.I.A. following the chaos within the intelligence community that was alien invasion. To say it was an adjustment was an understatement. From that point on, she began grooming him for intelligence work. From the age of eight she made him undertake physical and mental exercises meant to teach him to excel as a field agent that she disguised as 'games' for them to play. In terms of a bright spot, she also introduced him to martial arts, something that became both his most well-trained area and a lifelong passion, but for the most part their relationship often seemed to him to be distant and complicated. Though they stayed in close contact with the Lockes, something made easier by Vanessa convincing William to take a job in intelligence himself, Lance had few other sources of support that weren't on his mother's payroll. Lance always assumed that their relationship would change when he turned 18 and was formally able to join the M.I.A.

Unfortunately for him the only way that was true was that she was even harder on him than before. In fact at least as far as he could tell there was no one else in the entire agency she came down on quite as hard as him. This pushed him to excel, to achieve things so momentous she would have to acknowledge him if only on a professional level. Well, it would have, if the alien invasion hadn't more or less invalidated all of the cold war tensions and international difficulties that would have given his career substance. As things actually happened, he was mostly limited to occasional handshake-with-one-hand dagger-in-the-back with the other style sub-surface probing operations and back and forth metaphorical sniping between Earth and Mars and dealing with issues brought up by the remains of the Armani. Still, he did his best to serve and actually gained a reputation for effectiveness after taking down a minor pirate fleet that had sprung up in the wake of the Three Day War.

His career continued in mostly distinguished but low-key service, until the day he learned that he'd been selected as a Patrol Captain aboard the Vitae as well as the hand-to-hand and martial arts instructor for its Security Corps. It was only a few weeks before the return of the Devestators, but it left Lance incredibly conflicted. He wasn't sure how to be a cop, let alone captain a whole section of a ship full of them, and more than that it'd mean leaving everything he'd ever known behind. Still, he resolved to do his best for the sake of humanity. A real Martian and a Lawrence could do nothing less, after all. He started spending large amounts of time aboard the Vitae, learning its quirks and the layout of the area under his command, memorizing it and learning what he could about what it meant to be Ark Security.

It was only on the day they were actually to set off that he learned his mother hadn't secured a place for herself aboard. He had assumed without asking that she would be on the journey with him, not sacrificing her life for the remains of humanity. Since then he's distracted himself by throwing himself into his work with singleminded intensity, personally overseeing as much of it as he could.

Code Word: Spaghetti

[Rawk]

@Dblade26 Your CS looks good, so go ahead and add it to the respective tab when you have a chance.