Crusader Lord

Through the Gateways: Inhumanity

*UNDER CONSTRUCTION*

Putting this up here while I work out tags and the stuff in this revamped app. Recycling a heck of a lot for it, though, and added a few more pics in the Military section to boot as well (among other things elsewhere). Also tossed in a new flag, new planetary description, etc. The History section is going to be the pain in my head to get hashed out, and lot still has to be fixed up or edited or added in it, but I will get it completed sooner or later dangit! Will edit as updates to this app are made of a major sort, etc, before handing over for round two of the GMs looking over an app of mine.

(Name To Be Determined)

"E Pluribus Unum" (Aka: "Out of Many, One")

Government Form: Democratic Republic

(Secretly/In Reality: Synarchism/Synarchic Oligarchy - As in “a secret cabal is in charge behind it all”, not as in the original meaning of synarchy/synarchism.)

Population: 7.7 billion

((General Very Rough Population Growth Timescale - 150 years ago: 5.4 billion, 350 years ago: 2.5 billion, ~425 years ago: Some Millions At Maximum; Improved as technology and survivability and sustainability for the colony overall improved, which led in part to a boom in growth. Wars did lessen this to some extent at times, among other things, etc, but 500 years is a long time indeed.))

What is humanity?: Humanity? What is humanity, but the ability to connect, empathize, and build alongside others through the good and the bad and the ugly? To be able to fight for survival against a hostile nature that seeks to kill you, to mete out survival even when you're against the ropes and despite your own mistakes, and to seek out a future even when all seems to be at its bleakest?

In the mundane and far less poetic sense, however, for the GER the matter is a simple one for defining humanity. It is being born as one of the human species biologically, born to human species parents.....whether it be Homo sapiens sapiens or a new subspecies otherwise. Sapient rights, however, are things that most certainly also exist under GER law as well.

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Planet/System Name and Description:

Star/System Name - Euryale

Planet Name - Euryale IV/Sarpedon

Living on the fourth planet, in the ‘habitable zone’ of the star Euryale, the GER was begun on the planet of Euryale IV, aka “Sarpedon” as it would come to be called. A planet of size 1.37 times the size of the Earth, it was among the earliest ‘habitable’ worlds to be discovered during the scramble to create the Gateway and escape the dying earth. Discovery of the star and its system was credited to the Greek astronomer Sebastian Kiritikos, who was working with the United Nations and other cooperating groups and companies to find habitable stars and potentially human-habitable worlds, who named it after one of the gorgon sisters of ancient mythology. Likewise the names of the planets of the star’s system would be initially named in a more standard fashion, though the name of “Sarpedon” would be given to Euryale IV (named after the legendary isle the gorgons lived upon) after it was found to be the first habitable sphere in the system after the use of self-replicating von Neumann probes to further investigate the system’s potential habitability.

It is a generally warmer planet than Earth to an extent despite being labeled as a ‘miraculous Earth-like planet’, sporting a larger (but not all-encompassing for the planet certainly either) band of warmer and humid climates across a wider band of its landmass due to its wide equatorial band length. This is in part due to a somewhat thicker atmosphere and atmospheric pressure being minutely over 1 atm/atmospheres, which has led to the greater retention of heat from the system’s sun. Increased rainfall and humidity are notable factors as well as a result of these things, as well as a more frequent occurrence of storms that has led to local construction and settlement methods being designed with such things being much more in mind (using rounded shapes or easier to build multi-sided octagonal homes, applying improved material sciences for more resilient materials, etc). At the same time, however, there are still proper more temperate climes the closer one gets to its proper northern and southern polar regions despite these bands being distinctly narrower than those on ‘Old Earth’ used to be. Likewise features such as tall mountains and sprawling valleys, and similar things to Old Earth geography, do still exist as do things such as deserts and such like to some extent or another.

The planet’s water-to-land ratio features 74% water to 26% land overall. Further, unlike the notable deeper blue color of the ocean waters, the planet’s plantlife sports in the majority shades of bluish-greens, like how green was most common on Earth, with some rarer vivid or deeper greens and some blues in the rarest of cases. Autumnal colors remain similar to those of Earth, with varieties such as reds, yellows, and oranges, with even purples for that matter depending on the plantlife involved. Meanwhile bodies of water appear to be a more vibrant blue compared to the waters of ‘Old Earth’ proper. This is all due to the nature of the yellowish-white F-class star of the system proper, of which Euryale IV (and the one habitable moon of the neighboring large gas giant of Euryale V, which also benefits from tidal forces to warm it due to its position) falls into. Earth-based species, as in those adapted somewhat to the new planet’s environment through genetic modification or the use of special fertilizers or composed soils, have also found general success on the face of Sapedon proper over the past several centuries of humanity’s settlement and development on the planet proper.

The planet’s atmosphere sports a distinctly more ‘Earth-like’ mix than some potentially habitable exoplanets in general, at least, though genetic vaccines and certain medical procedures would come to be deployed eventually both initially and in the long-term to combat the initial struggle of humanity to mete out survival in the still-alien atmosphere. By current times, though it took several centuries of work and some ups and downs in tinkering with things to get there in the end, humanity has since come to mete out a comfortable existence within the atmosphere and Earthlike varied environs of Sarpedon, with such long-term health issues being only visible in a small slice of the most vulnerable populations for the most part.

Meanwhile the animal life of the planet has in ways come to reflect a number of Earth-like species, though much more ‘alien’ examples have also arisen throughout the ages and epochs of the planet’s development and evolution. Some bear more notable similarities to things such as traditional mammals or the like, while others take on more unique shapes or niches or even fully alien sorts of designs. Life on this planet is also carbon-based and uses a closely-related form of genetics and genetic sequences in its organic life, however, and while similar-ish to that of Earth it nominally and normally shouldn’t have interactions with life that grew elsewhere on a whole other world according to older Old Earth sciences. Yet some tinkering with genetic engineering has sought to ‘bridge’ the gaps between Sarpedon and imported Earth lifeforms to some extent or another here and there, and efforts to help adapt humanity to the alien planet and their new lives had also taken place using genetic engineering, which in part also fed into the use and implementation of these technologies on a wider scale in society over the centuries in the long-run.

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Humanity also lives on the neighboring gas giant of Euryale V, at least in anchored or stabilized upper atmospheric habitats. Here many things are processed using the heat and pressure farther down in the gas giant, within human reach at least, and hydrogen and helium are harvested and processed in vast quantities to produce fuel and fuel cells to boot. Said habitats are closed off from the outside, aside from places such as localized spaceports and such, with pressurized thick walls and durable make from neighboring planetary or asteroid-mined metals. Notable air circulation systems, other critical atmospheric and hydroponics systems, and the like also exist within the webs of interconnected ‘towns’ and in much rarer cases ‘cities’ these habitats form inherently by design. Everything is close together due to dangers in attempting to enable ‘personal transit’ or such things, and running monorails and public transport are of the most common note aside from the very wealthiest living on Euryale V who can afford an otherwise nigh unheard of equivalent of a ‘personal transit vehicle’ while living down there.

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Life was found to be support-able on the one habitable moon of Euryale V, the third of its three moons in fact, which was first given the moniker and name of “____”.

(finish later)

Demographics: _{(For talking about how much of the population belongs to different groups/ethnicities/religions/whatever. This space can also be used for describing genetic/cybernetic modifications your people have done, subspecies that have been created, aliens that may have been integrated, and so on.)}

Humanity

Humans. Homo sapiens sapiens.The fled children of the dying Earth. The people of Sarpedon who, as citizens of the ____, call themselves “Sarpedans”. Aside from gene therapy programs intended to help adapt humanity to the world of Sarpedon proper, and work to fix some mistakes in these therapies over the centuries, humanity by and large within the ____ hasn’t wildly differed from its original baseline otherwise for most.

This remains true even for those who usually get ‘metamorphic’ versions of biomods, or take one or more features of an Old Earth animal species (and even native one in more recent times) and get modified and augmented to have one. Ranging from some teenagers who enjoy anime getting just a set of kemomimi ears and/or a tail, to adults who get things like dog ears or a fox tail or cat-like eyes in a way similar to people who get tattoos or piercings on Old Earth, to even a gang getting illegal (and/or dangerous) ‘meta mods/metamods’ (the nicknames for metamorphic biomods) to have sharp and more shark-like teeth. There are even military applications of genetically modifying and biologically engineering/modifying troops (and/or bioweapons) for various uses or implementations such as giving them water-breathing (or greater breath-holding ability alongside training) and augmenting strength and stamina and such hand in hand with the continued use of old-fashioned pure training and drilling and experience and using good equipment (and the ability to remove/mute such biological modifications in and outside of the military as well) (not including visible mods in soldiers like animal parts and such, though, which is how most people get gene/bio mods by and large in the non-visible or minimal senses).

History: _{(What happened after your Colony landed? This can be as brief or detailed as you like. Just try to give us a feel of the nation)}

Culture and Society: _{(How do they live? Anything from ritual cannibals, to a surveillance state dystopia, to an integrated hivemind.)}

• Due to similarities in genetic structures and involved amino acids between Earth life and Sarpedon’s life a number of processes have been worked out, only in the long term really though, to process some of the more farmable and edible forms of life on the planet into edible and ‘safe’ foods for humankind. Yet these would first emerge only in the care of human-wrought hydroponic complexes before seeing an eventual break into the market as niche food for the ‘rich and wealthy’ before eventually the genetic engineering and technology behind these modified alien ‘foods’ would finally enter the wider market (though some aspect of them remains as ‘fiber’ to humans due to being indigestible but at least safe to ‘pass out’ through the body). This isn’t to say such things will replace the otherwise widespread and notable use of farms of imported and genetically adapted or modified Earth crops and foods that have still seen widespread use in general on Sarpedon for the past many centuries otherwise. However, it is of note that these ‘native foods’ have begun to grow in accessibility and popularity on a wider scale than they used to in current times.
  
  From large groups of swarm-moving but sweet-fleshed “Grilled Kongacrabs” (groups of native social crab/crustacean-like lifeforms that, to ward off predators when traveling, travel in a ‘conga line’-like column and move in a manner that looks similar to a dangerous eel-like predator or such to imitate its movement while on the ocean floor) that that are easy to raise in even bad-quality waters, to the fatty breast of the peculiar “Sarpedon Red Duck”, to even the acquired taste of air-dried and salty-sea-preserved “Lesser Reef Sarpedan Shark”, the range of native life turned into foods even goes as far as some forms of plants either by now naturally edible to the genetically-modified human population or even as far as these lifeforms being modified or processed to be edible for human consumption. Even a few ‘new spices’ have emerged in some part, even if as a minority of the overall variety of imported and grown human spices still being cultivated, sold, and used today, such as the semi-umami and spicy “Uddi Seeds” and the salty-sour flavor of the flesh of the oval-like and swelled-looking “Guga Fruit”.
• Most food grown and used these days originates from Old Earth, indeed, though in lieu of improved Genetic/Bio-Engineering technologies by current times some even more peculiar ‘hybrids’ of Old Earth foods and livestock have been developed and crafted, though with some issues along the way that did require regulation in this area to be made due to “cheap, rushed, ramshackle attempts to bank on a trend that had bad side effects”, with this idea reaching far back into the days of required hydroponics used by the first settlers of Sarpedon. It has gained the moniker of “Hydrocultivated Cuisine”, and has both given rise to odd foods such as a true and living “Cockentrice” as well as things like movements against the ‘creation of suffering hybrids for the sole reason of profit” that led to many simply “creating engineered cultures to grow these meats and such from” as a newer alternative that many taking up this trend for food modernly have taken up using instead for commercial and other such reasons.
• It is of note that those living on the suspended atmospheric habitats of the neighboring gas giant of Euryale V, however, only get to subsist on imported and hydroponically-grown foods. The higher-class among them do get fancier foods, or heaven forbid only the wealthiest of the wealthy there get an actual ‘garden’ to grow something in in some expensive suspended habitat home, which for them usually consists of more hardy and mass-produced foods that have grown from ‘only there to sustain life regularly’ in quality to ‘a proper and more widespread variety’ that has improved alongside their quality of life since planetary unification and the gradual interconnection of things within the ____ ever since.
• Household robotics is something that has been brought down to the level of affordability for even the lower end of the middle-class by this point in time, though it also sees its limits and uses despite the highly sophisticated programming and engineering developments that it has taken centuries to make ‘common’ enough and streamlined enough for people. Helping care for kids, acting as a second set of hands in a household, acting as a babysitter or elderly caregiver, helping doing yard care work, maybe in rare cases even acting as a friendly companion for a lonely or socially isolated child, etc, etc. While some of these robots take on simply practical shapes, those that work closest with people take on human-type appearances and looks and styles to frankly a more lifelike degree all the way up to a very much a lifelike-looking style and exterior. They also see use alongside human employees within the commercial/civilian sector by businesses in ‘business grade models’ respectively. The closer to humans these robots are, the more humanlike they are made to look and seem in turn as a generalistic rule of thumb. Yet even so there remain legal limits to their programming and design despite their sophistication in the current day/era.
• Extreme genetic/biological modifications of the self that ‘would be genetically incompatible or misaligned with normal humanity’ and lead to or generate extreme medical/other problems and warped physiologies/psychologies are most widely seen by GER culture as a notable spoken and unspoken taboo for myriad reasons in the vast and greater majority by far. And….there are many reasons for this, both due to practical issues over the centuries and otherwise.
  
  While some religions and such discourage the use for ‘anything but medical necessities for one’s health and proper safe job employment’ and such otherwise, which is its own cultural matter and is a similar matter to the use of augmented mechanical prosthetics and replacements of those kinds, no matter the background or religiosity this extent of modification and body warping is drawn in the sand where it ultimately ‘crosses the line’ and creates conditions for individuals where ‘things get dangerous muddied and intertwined’ within the body. These things can’t be easily, or always cheaply at that, reversed or cured or the like. Indeed they very readily lead to vast and deep medical complications and even unique or rare sorts of medical issues, and even psychological conditions and mental diseases ranging from ‘an addition to getting gene/bio-mods’ to ‘becoming an inhuman monster or losing one’s empathy’ in some capacity or another. It is a dangerous matter (think of people who ‘become cyberpsychos’ in the Cyberpunk universe as a similar parallel).
  
  Nicknames for this condition include, but are not limited to: ‘Going mod-mad’, being ‘mod addicted’, or ‘going animal’, among other potential lingo and terms for this general concept.
  
  Even those who survive this condition and get the sponsor or money to get medical help toward reversing it all, then, will likely have permanent problems or other issues even if they are ‘cured’ to more or less of an extent. And that is if they could get everything ‘removed’, and some part of their modifications had to be kept in for medical safety and usually patient-life-endangering reasons.
  
  Note that not everyone is super visibly modded in society, though, as most mods are not the visible sort or are minimal visible stuff in the majority of those who get mods. Just like how everyone doesn’t have a tattoo, or everyone has piercings or maybe only has one for some reason. Etc. Visible mods are seen in a similar light to piercings and tattoos and such in society in general, really, even if it has taken 500 years to get the technology to the point that such things can be much more readily and easily removed/added to people in mainstream society by the current day and age within the GER.
• The reason for biomods being used for self-expression far more widely than cybernetics or advanced prosthetics boils down to the laws of the ____, which has designated that “the removal of healthy flesh and tissues and/or organs from the human body for replacement with mechanical or cybernetically-augmenting parts, for reasons of self-expression or any such behaviors not deemed medically necessary, is deemed to be, in the eyes of the law, a form of self-harm and illegal self-destructive behavior” by current times.
  
  This came in a lawsuit where, in the earlier days of such cybernetics and advanced prostheses being developed they were originally mandated to be ‘medical only technologies’ where it required a proper medical reason and rhyme to get such things installed. Some companies began seeking to find ways to commercialize the technology to the wider public in turn after this, though the ethical debate over the matter would only intensify in the wake of this. To ‘get ahold’ of these, some individuals would cut off limbs or damage themselves, either on their own or in some cases with illegal ‘medical assistance’, to try to get access to these sorts of implants or prosthetics more rapidly. Indeed at the time it was the cause of a spree of these cases, caused by rumors online that many bought into that they could perform such frauds to ‘get past the system and laws’, and this in turn required deliberation in turn.
  
  The legal case in particular that set things in motion proper as they are currently was a man, one ____ ____, who got denied a cybernetic prosthetic by one company after what had seemed to be an ‘accident’ causing the loss of his arm turned out to be part of a foolish and ill-fated plan to get a ‘cool cybernetic arm’. As stupid as the case was, the man sued over the denial and claimed he ‘needed it to function in a job and subsist, and that the company was ‘causing him undue levels of suffering and trauma’ by denying him something. During this case some would even argue that “he can do with his organic limbs and body as he wishes, and if he wants to replace his parts with augments he has the right to”, though in the end the judge and chosen jury would make the call that “what Mr. ____ did was no more than destructive and mental-health-worrying self-harm in the desire to get an advanced mechanical prosthetic for non-medically-necessary reasons, and thus it has been found that the prosecution’s ill-fated scheme to this end renders his right and attempts to claim and purchase an advanced prosthetic limb to be null and void”. This would require clarifications at the federal level thereafter, which sought to ‘set the boundaries clearly’, and would in turn be the legal decision leading to certain regulations being placed on such ‘cybernetically-augmented equipment’ that it “has to not require the removal of healthy tissues or organs from patients” and that it take the form of externally-worn equipment and devices in any general-use or non-medically-regulated forms.
  
  Combined with the eventual rise of casual biomods into the scene, where lessons learned from the past led those seeking to get these regulated in favor of sought to make them ‘easy and safe for patients and for trained applicants of this technology to remove outside of a medical environment’, it would manage to pass the legal bar of standards despite being a ‘slower burn’ to develop into the state it exists in by current times. This being said, it would still be regulated in the casual sense quite notably in other ways, mostly to “avoid people trying to become super-soldiers” and such goals like “getting casual super strength to go kill a man” or such things. Aesthetics and such were the primary focus in this vein of things in the casual market thereafter, at least outside of medical scenarios where one might get medical biomods for health reasons but could also get non-medical/casual ones for use otherwise. However, in the case one got both kinds of biomods they would have to ‘get safe approval by their doctor’ in certain cases depending on what casual biomod(s) they sought to have installed.
  
  It is safe to say that with the emergence of casual biomods in the vast majority, though, some have also in the tiny minority sought to use legal and illegal cybernetics and prostheses to ‘go against the bio-tide’ and express themselves in that way. However, this has been met with becoming even farther outliers than some who use ‘excessive’ amounts of casual biomods. That and there also is the existence of illegal biomods and such out there to boot. Etc. Though there are certainly augmentation-based biomods and the like used in the military and in some more limited ways by the police, though these are packaged and streamlined deals that are made for easier whole-package removal for those retiring or leaving the force (including mandatory therapy sessions and medical care for some time to adjust them to the non-augmented body/life more smoothly as required by law; are also used by military alongside things like unpowered exoskeletons or such too, etc).
• With Earth-based or other general adapted animal and plant life brought over by humanity, the risk of ‘rampant invasive species issues’ hasn’t really arisen as much thus far in the past centuries. At least, after a fair bit of trial and error in this respect over the centuries. While some instances of ‘invasive species’ problems have still ultimately emerged in some areas, many others are mostly unable to survive in the waters and environs of Sarpedon for the same reasons humanity couldn’t just eat and digest the lifeforms and matter of the planet normally right out of the gate without assistive genetic adaptations and such: They weren’t built for living on Sarpedon.
• Advanced artificial intelligence is used within the ____ to secondarily assist in most areas, ranging from customer service to industrial facilities/factories to areas such as research and development to boot. Certain rights of humans to work have been cemented in the workplace as well, however, ranging from the ancient issues of art theft used to train A.I. and seeking to create a sort of ‘good balance’ between the two areas has seemingly been reached in a general sense. Admittedly some issues, such as A.I.’s use within customer service areas and such, do still fluctuate from time to time even still. However, how did this ‘balance’ manage to come to be?
  
  To put it simply, centuries of struggle back and forth from anti-A.I. advocation to the extreme and the alternative of overusing A.I. within human society has led to this point after literal centuries of struggle. Ranging from the initial use of A.I. and robotics where humans couldn’t operate things, to the zealous regulation of human deployment in areas where humans could be used instead, to the eventual wild swings back and forth within government and industry alike (itself a hotbed of some industrial lobbying and its eventual strict high regulating to boot when it came to this issue, among others) of policy on and off over the centuries.
  
  Yet it would be the horrible results of these swinging policies and good ideas and lessons learned along the way that would shape things. From unemployment and rioting and such from former workers, to the disastrous failure of critical systems and loss or near loss of several floating cities, to the mismanagement and loss of large sums of money and resources to hacking and such, to even the misuse and destruction caused by automated and obsessively non-automated systems like during and outside of times of war, etc. This alongside the practical refinement and development of these technologies would see it and robotics alike eventually reach a place of ‘moderation’ that they have today in ____ society.
• It is of note to say that the initial presence of more extreme and violent environmental and such groups/parties has notably dwindled from the initial decades of settling and living on Sarpedon, both naturally so and otherwise. Initially they had a more notable presence due to the dying and loss of Earth and numbering some among the first-generation colonists, and not wishing to repeat the same mistakes on a new world they would be part of the struggles of humanity as it sought to survive and thrive on a new world. At the same time things such as the ____ ____ Incident, and the widespread news about it alongside worries of ‘terrorist activists’ among the survivors of the ____ ____, would turn people against such ideas on the other end of the spectrum in ways alongside the fear of ‘ensuing human survival’ being at the forefront in those earlier days.
  
  So it is not that such organized groups do not exist in a general sense yet still after all of this time, outside of more extreme and violent ones, but the less-violent ones seem to compose more so the far greater majority in current times as well. The struggle to maintain a healthy world, and a good relationship with it, has ever continued as it is wont to do. However, the consciousness of such matters among the initial colonists had rubbed off fairly well by current times to both good ends and in others become forgotten in less-than-good ways within ____ society and civilization as a whole.
• Much of how the habitats of Euryale V have come to work was built on history, in part, as well as on more than a small amount of bodies and deaths along the way. Yet the thriving industry of the half-rotating and half-permanent residents has continued to push it along, whether in making fuel for vessels or to ship back to Sarpedon itself and so forth. While about three independence movements have occurred within the history of those living in the habitats of Euryale V when all of its residents and workers were permanent, though, its inherent need to connect with Sarpedon for other necessary resources, improvements in life quality and treatment under the law and in effect in the long-term to enough of an extent, and the booming growth of the ‘rotating workers’ and frankly even ‘commuters’ coming to work on the habitats of Euryale V in recent decades have been among the factors that led to coming into line with the mainstream of the ____ as well as seen it grow into the strong sector of the nation it exists as currently.
  
  A small minority handful of old-timers, who saw the very vestige tails of when the habitats were only manned by permanent residents year round or were influenced by the ‘old timers’ of their age, and those influenced by them in the younger generations seem to imagine the potential for an ‘independent Euryale V’ in current times at best. Yet by and large locals and the rotating/commuting workers alike these days consider themselves citizens of the ____ first and foremost with all of the benefits and rights. Some claim the rotating nature of roughly half the workers on the habitats of Euryale V was to ‘prevent secession’, though others point to evidence of ill-health effects to those who stayed too long and a lack of raw manpower to fill the facilities and produce what they needed as the local economy grew but the population wasn’t able to go about growing fast enough to match. (Etc.)
• (Should this nation have a Jurassic Park of its own? 🤔)
• (More To Be Added Later, Potentially)

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Governance and Politics:

The general practice for democratic voting is that all adults, those 18 and older by law, are able to vote in general elections at the increasingly large local, district, regional, provincial, and national levels respectively. The general idea is that you can’t vote on who is mayor or such in a place you don’t live as well, naturally/inherently, of course.

There is some hybridization with liquid/representative democracy as well in this case. Normally citizens have the foundational right to vote on who to represent them as with a representative democracy, but in this case citizens can also sign away or hand over votes to another akin to a liquid democracy to use on their behalf. Simply put, people can invest their vote into the personage of a representative to vote on their behalf. Representatives can be as small-scale as someone’s lazy adult kid giving his vote to his mom or dad to use on his behalf, as big as a bunch of such parents investing their accrued votes into a common singular representative on a larger scale, etc. However, each citizen also has a just as fundamental right to ‘rescind’ their vote from a representative to reclaim it if or as they wish, and the use of votes as ‘currency’ to hand them over to others in legal or commercial or such exchanges (and contracts in general) has been strictly forbidden…..and not without reason either. Albeit there are regulations are in place to prevent mass vote-pulling for trolling or such bad-spirited reasons, such as trying to ‘pull out the rug’ from underneath a vote-invested representative’s feet to troll or humiliate them, though it doesn't illegalize mass vote withdrawing in all cases such as if public opinion turns against a candidate your representative is voting for, etc, and you change your mind).

Representatives are those who exist in those political positions, aka: Mayor, President, District Judge, etc. Voting Representatives, then, are those who are invested with votes by others to use on behalf of others. Different things fundamentally. Also, a sitting politician/representative or someone in the running for a political position (defined in law so I don’t have to try to go into deep legal details) cannot be used as a Voting Representative by others and loses that position and power and so forth if they do enter such a position or go into the running for one. Those who work for a sitting politician directly, such as staff, janitors, and the like, cannot be used as Voting Representatives either. All Voting Representatives are also barred from accepting pay to become one or participate as one (this issue always comes up here and there in the courts, but the law is generally actually enforced).

So not only are candidates seeking to gain political positions, but some supporting them might go on their own sub-campaigns for the candidate seeking to accrue votes to use to vote for them. Double the political campaigns, and sometimes these sub-campaigners work against each other to accrue votes.

Votes can be handed over on three levels. The first is the ‘one use basis’, such as for a singular presidential or mayoral race and what most major candidate sub-campaigns will seek for. The next is a ‘limited time basis’, which cannot exceed one or two years due to federal law and in minor part depending on the local region one is in. Then there is ‘on a semi-permanent basis’, meaning that the chosen voting representative has the handed-over vote(s) until or unless those who gave them their vote(s) decide otherwise. This of course comes with its own storm of regulations and court cases by current times to boot.

At the very top, however, the government is still generally unitary-ish by nature in how laws and such are enforced from the top-down. Federal-level law is everyone’s law mandatorily, with certain nuances and regulations left to lower-levels of the governmental system to be flexible on and decide for themselves.

….Meanwhile, the actual behind-the-scenes oligarchy basically controls government systems in the background, with behind-the-scenes institutions from top to bottom to help support and reinforce this by current times with how far their reach has come to stretch in reality. It doesn’t micromanage everything from top to bottom normally, the flexibility and such gives people room and representation enough to satiate them and allow things to run well enough in general, but it does step in and exert authority where and when it sees fit and when its interests are either endangered or when its members wish for something to be done. Their ability to control things is at all levels in reality indeed, even if they don’t always abuse it all of the time.

Still, it is by far in current times seen as a crazy but lingering conspiracy theory that a ‘secret cabal controls the nation itself’, and even more so with the sub-rumor that ‘its members are all immortals’ and such things (they are actually in most cases ‘effectively immortal’ in some scientifically-wrought way or another, funny enough, but this bit of the conspiracy theory is seen as the most ridiculous as well). The ‘true synarchy’ behind closed doors also has a titanic amount of wealth and the like individually, but even they have created a sort of code of ethics and such to try to regulate themselves internally to boot.

((Note: At some point the underlying synarchic oligarchy did, in fact, attempt to have members focus entirely on certain areas of things in a manner similar to the original definition of a synarchy/synarchism. It didn’t really pan out too well, but the general idea of each being invested or skilled or involved in a different area/areas to complement each other did roughly stick and become codified among them to some extent in the end at least.))

Technology Overview:

• Limited Graviton/Gravity Technologies - A breakthrough in human scientific understanding that, ultimately, was developed with the intent to allow humans to settle more widely and oddly across the surface of the planet of Sarpedon in some ways. Harnessing the power of the graviton, it allowed the anchoring of buildings using ‘gravity tethers’ (for ocean cities or suspended larger buildings/habitations) and has enabled the use of artificial gravity devices on spacecraft, habitats in the atmosphere of Euryale V, and general space stations. This being noted, however, this technology has become limited to these implementations (and due to RP rules) due to how bulky and rough the nature of this technology is.
• Nanotechnologies - Ranging from advanced nanomaterials able to recover from or withstand terrible storms, to nanoengineered factories capable of producing incredibly hardy and resilient materials and specs using a combination of organic and inorganic processes, to the likes of electrically-resistant and resilient medical nanomachines, to nano-scale art exhibits, to even nano-scale synthetic fabrics beyond the reach of human hands, to the safe installation of new cybernetics and removal of them alike, etc, these things emerged mostly as human civilization on Sarpedon would begin to reach beyond its infancy after a number of macroengineering questions had to be answered. It is a form of technology that has become an in-depth subject explored and still to this day being tinkered with within ____ society.
• Robotics (and Artificial Intelligence) - While humans have retained a by now more grounded place in the workplace despite the presence of robotics, this technology has still transformed things much over the years alongside the issues and development of advanced artificial intelligence. Ranging from deep-sea or voidbound mining drones with rugged exteriors, meant to handle rough and dangerous environments of the seas and space, all the way down to household human-like or such robotics used to assist parents, act as elderly caregivers, or even just be time-spending supplementary companions to keep even a minority of people who buy them for such reasons more socially engaged and happier in the household. They are implemented in various industries ranging from production and refineries, both on-planet for Euryale IV and in the myriad industrial habitats of Euryale V, in commercial industries as in-store assistants in some cases, in areas of business targeted at all sorts of ages, and even within the military for use alongside living, breathing soldiers.
  
  Among the most famous companies to produce household robotics are “Vaul Technological Enterprises”, “Raijin Robotics”, and the last of the “Big Three” names in robotics being the “AutoDoll Corporation”. Yet, historically at least, the most notable of these three companies is the lattermost one: The AutoDoll Corporation. Founded roughly four hundred and eighty three years ago by a well-to-do German-born polymath and first generation colonist, Dr. Heinrich Nachtnebel, the AutoDoll Corporation has remained a generally consistent name in the realm of robotics and secondarily in artificial intelligence (at first) for most of its history. Being one of the oldest extant companies within the GER, it has passed from hand to hand and generally stayed a profitable and lasting presence within the industry that even today still has an existing civilian market and a number of military contracts with the government. While seen by some as an ‘old hand’ that has been around a long time, or being past its glory days, it is also a presence that remains far from being ‘gone’ and continues to regain occasional relevancy here and there after having managed to adapt to the times.
  
  Knowledge of Robotics is also employed for the use and deployment of "Specialized Single-Pilot Vehicles" (SSPV), which range from 14-foot-tall humanoid-like "Urban Combat Piloted Vehicles" (UCPV) that are deployed in small numbers in serious urban police or “Military-Grade Specialized Single-Pilot Vehicles” that are deployed in military scenarios in rough/dense/wild terrains like forests, to ball-like underwater submersibles with attached robotics arms and mounted tools for underwater work, to similarly-shaped ball-like space-piloted vehicles for work in a vacuum and bearing their own array of arms and tools and specialized features, and even civilian-grade SSPV's akin to the UCPV that are used in logging and construction and even certain forms of hazardous work environments. For the most part SSPVs of any kind are not for frontline combat in every situation, especially on open terrain, but in what such roles exist for them is something they've been able to be specialized for or adapted to from their original civilian-grade models. Because that is how these vehicles arose, beginning as rough and hardy ‘enough’ civilian work tools and load-moving suits for industry before eventually spreading out from there in their potential uses elsewhere once the technology eventually came down to being well-understood enough. Some have even been integrated for use with cybernetics for finer-tuned control on the part of an operator(s), which seems to be another more recent development in the last few decades for SSPV technology in general.
  
  It is of note that SSPV military variants and police variants, while of a higher grade in a number of ways, aren’t made to be tanks either. They mostly take on anti-personnel-type roles alongside other ground units, and can be used to assist in even anti-SSPV roles and configurations as well.
  
  Robotics has also played a part in the development of cybernetics and mechanical prostheses, ranging from internally-implanted medically-approved-for-health-reasons-only devices to the civilian-grade externally-worn and commercially/etc available forms under the law. (Etc.) ((Note: Some cybernetics or prostheses are actually medically-implanted ones that, under law, are medically required for safety on the habitats of Euryale V or certain extreme environment scenarios, though this also requires recipients of such medically-regulated ones to sign waivers and
  
  As for artificial intelligence as a whole, the line between incredibly smart and human-mimicking models and still-sophisticated but decidedly less-humanlike ones has become less blurred and more well-defined over the centuries than some as far back as the early 21st century would have perhaps assumed. While the making and programming of them has certainly not been free of the occasional idea or debate if ‘A.I. has become sentient and sapient’, and incidents of activism or online rumors over certain individual or ‘viral’ situations regarding A.I. have occurred without a doubt along the way, current-day law and regulations have placed a number of tight restrictions on ‘certain aspects and capabilities’ of A.I. after having finally breached past the era of ‘overly enthusiastic widespread A.I. usage’ and its myriad and seemingly inevitable problems along the way. Albeit this was a long, troublesome, and also-inevitably dangerous road of understanding and development that saw many current-day laws written in the depths of tragedy and at times in blood and sweat and tears otherwise.
• Genetic/Bio-Engineering Technology - Mastery over the genome and an understanding of genetics has been achieved on Sarpedon over the past five centuries, the beginnings of this being wrought in the work before colonization and afterward to adapt the human body to the more alien conditions of Euryale IV/Sarpedon proper. It can also be linked to a number of leading members of the field of genetics and bioengineering and their own involvement in these things as far back as the ____’s records (and those on the old colony ship) go. Research into the field to save and preserve Old Earth species, work to understand the genetics and biology of Sarpedon, surgeries developed long ago on the cutting edge for the rich and wealthy, plagues both familiar and on rare occasion oddly alien, the danger of and development of bioweapons, and similar things have also contributed their own bits and pieces across the myriad decades until current day to create the local understanding and mastery over this ‘craft’ in a manner of speaking. This and the at times sporadic or gradual march of technological development helped to facilitate the improvements in the sciences behind this technology to boot.
  
  In a manner akin to getting a tattoo or piercing, people get ‘biomods’ as a means of self-expression. Anything from cat-eared streamer girls on college campuses, to a gang of men with shark-like sharp teeth, to teenagers getting eye and body mods to ‘stand out’ or something of the sort, the use of biomods has taken the place of something like cybernetics in the causal sense due to the ‘father ahead’ developments of Genetic/Bio-Engineering technologies compared to cybernetics and cybernetic/mechanical prostheses within the ____.
  
  ((Note: In some medical cases, a mechanical prosthetic or cybernetic implant might be deemed safer for use than a biomod, or perhaps be deemed ‘more effective’ than a simple regrown replacement part/tissue/limb/organ for someone (usually due to old age or such factors though).))
• Fusion Technology/Fission Technology/Batteries - The GER has developed improved, self-sustaining fusion technologies, as well as the likes of fission and fusion batteries/cells/engines in increasingly compact sizes and improved outputs. While mentioned in another tech category in the above parts, it is worth a mention here on its own regardless at the very least. In part, however, fuel for some of these things is derived naturally, safely, and sustainably from local seawater to boot before being further refined or processed to required specifications. Other fuel production is taken, derived, and developed in facilities suspended in the atmosphere of the neighboring gas giant of Euryale V. Modern practices are more sustainable for these things, in part due to development and time and in part at least some level of hard-learned long-term and more recent environmental-consciousness that has affected the generations that have been born and living on Sarpedon in some way or another (even if not directly these days) since the fall of “Old Earth”.
  
  This being said, the development of power-generating/holding technologies has historically on Sarpedon been an influencing factor in 'downscaling' or 'upsizing' some other technologies along the way. Among the technologies that came into fruition with the ‘downsizing’ of power sources on Sarpedon is the development of hovercraft/ground-based ionocraft (and likewise thrusters and such related technologies) making use of electrohydrodynamic thrust for rapid and quiet on-planet ground-level transportation, which have been able to be developed far enough for both the civilian and military markets to make use of them in one way or another (including finding them to be vehicles used on the roads to boot). (A nice little historical note to end on with this as well for fun!)
• (Placeholder/To Be Written Or Added….At Some Point) -
• (Placeholder/To Be Written Or Added….At Some Point) -
• (Placeholder/To Be Written Or Added….At Some Point) -
• ((Extra: Technology Q&A Section (To Be Added Onto As Needed) -
  
  Q: Wasn’t Gravity-Based Stuff Banned?
  
  A: Yes, and I ran what I have here this time by Tort before putting it into this app as well to be safe. No tractor beams, or other wonky stuff like handheld gravity guns and such, just simple gravity tethers to suspend stuff and enough to do artificial gravity stuff in space proper. I just wanted to put it in the app to feel like I was fleshing things out properly and likewise IC rudimentarily justifying why (beyond it being an RP rule) that there isn’t more grav tech stuff in my nation.))

Military Overview:

((General Military Info:

• Use a mixture of Kinetic, Missile/Explosive, and Particle Beam weapons in a general sense across various theaters ranging from ground all the way to combat-oriented spacecraft.
• Orbital Defense Vessels are only located around Sarpedon/Euryale IV and Euryale V defensively, though upon the opening of the Gateways more will be deployed and made to heavily guard a wide perimeter around the Euryale System’s gateway proper alongside patrols and a spaced-out series of space stations.
• Improvements in Nanotechnology have led to the development of modern military exoskeletons/exosuits being by far unpowered/passive by nature, rather than risking a powered one making a ‘wrong move’ and tearing off someone’s limbs or worse (etc). This does not mean these modern exoskeletons/exosuits are themselves useless or weak in comparison, however, as their unpowered design has also left more room to add defensive protection/survival aspects to it (such as further protection against biological and chemical weapons). However, despite this they can and do often still have powered tech integrated into them (etc) for use in the field. Just the base exoskeleton/exosuit itself isn’t powered is all, but things thrown in there for use out in the field or that are attached to them externally can be powered.
• (Leaving Room For More To Be Added Later)

))

Ground Vehicles/Soldiers

(Basic Soldier [Example])



(Exoskeleton Soldier [Light Exoskeleton/Exosuit; General Example, Not For Ground-Based Only])



(Exoskeleton Soldier [Heavy Exoskeleton/Exosuit; General Example, Not For Ground-Based Only])



(Multi-Role-Capable Military Hovercraft [Missile Loadout])



(Rail Hovertank)



(Track-Based MLRS-Type Vehicle)





(Latest-Generation Military MG-SSPV; Is Used In Very Limited Numbers In The Field Currently)





(Current Gen Military MG-SSPV; In Widespread Usage)

Naval Vehicles/Soldiers

(Frigate)



(Destroyer)



(Carrier [with Bombers])



("Newtype" Battleship)



(Marines)



(General Purpose Attack Submarine)

Air Vehicles

(General Aerial Fighter Craft)



(Heavy On-Planet Dropship)





(Aerial/Planetary Combat Drones)













(Planetary VTOL Craft [General-Purpose/Troop Transport]



(Planetary VTOL Craft [Missile/Support])



(General Purpose Planetary Gunship)



(Outdated/Pirate-Type Aerial Attack Craft)

Space Vehicles

(Manned/Unmanned-Configuration-Capable Fighter Craft)













(Smaller-Scale Unmanned Drone Space Strike Craft)





(Frigates)





(Destroyer)



(Carrier; Can Carry Smaller Manned Vessels/Fighter Craft; Alternatively Can Carry Many More Drone Strike Craft)



(Military Patrol Craft)



(Orbital Planetary Landing/Takeoff Capable Personnel Carrier)



(Cargo Craft)



(Orbital Defense Vessel)



(Outdated/Pirate Boarding Craft)





(Outdated/Pirate Attack Craft)

******

Additional Info: _{(Anything else you want to include that there isn't a spot for up there.)}

• The ____’s True Leaders - The Synarchs

  A section to be filled out IC, both as they are revealed (primarily) and as I actually write them up (which will likely not be all at once) and such. They will be passed by the GMs to make sure they're ok to toss in behind the scenes as I actually manage to write up and finish each one, but won't be publicly tossed into the app until they are used or revealed IC to enough of an extent (to keep some sort of mystique about them around, at least maybe).
  
  

  Synarch 1: ???

  
  
  (Description here)

  
  
  

  Synarch 2: ???

  
  
  (Description here)

  
  
  

  Synarch 3: ???

  
  
  (Description here)

  
  
  

  Synarch 4: ???

  
  
  (Description here)

  
  
  

  Synarch 5: ???

  
  
  (Description here)

  
  
  

  Synarch 6: ???

  
  
  (Description here)
• Example Pic: Civilian-Grade Autodoll - Model: “HM”/Household Model - Type: “H-T”/Humanoid-True - Subtype: “CC”/Companion & Caregiver

  
• ((More To Be Added….Eventually))

Primality

Elena Charlotte Jäger

_{Location: Dorm Room, Merryweather Institute}

---

It was....a most peculiar matter. To be a primalist. In so many places it seemed people were welcoming and kind enough to them, or at least treated them like anyone else. In others, especially with regards to a certain senator, it seemed like the train of distrust and dissatisfaction with their existence continued to chime along as it had for the past three hundred some odd years she wagered. One one hand, they were just people and it had long showed. On the other, even she had to admit that being able to conjure swaths of fire or to shake the earth was dangerous and could potentially kill someone even if by 'accident' if not being properly noticed, controlled, and trained on the user's part. It wasn't a simple black and white matter to her, at least in her own mind, but the fact that she had been tossed this as her element was a curveball unlike any other she'd had before.

Fire? She could at least do cooking without need for a stove, if she had the supplies at least. Water was useful for not having to run up the school's water bills, frankly, and Earth or even more specialized Metal would at least be useful in making ad-hoc tools for cooking or working on potential class project or such for all she knew. Most things seemed to have a good and versatile use, even some of the more specific stuff, but.....fungus of all things, really[/b]?! Really? Yes, really. She was stuck with something that felt so very unbecoming of someone like herselfto enough of an extent, even if she'd been putting in the time to read about different types of fungus and such in trying to, desperately more or less, get a grasp on what in the world she'd be able to do using this element.

And, as it turned out, those uses seemed to be a bit better than she'd initially though. Fire-resistant char layers protected some species when exposed to flame, and naturally things like the 'white mushrooms' people got in grocery stores as well as edible portabellas or oyster mushrooms were among the edible kinds (and there was even one edible kind she'd seen a video or two called 'chicken of the woods', apparently?). Yeast could be stimulated to make bread without having to buy tiny packs of the stuff either to reconstitute or such. Some were also toxic and harmful, should the need frankly ever arise (persish the thought), or produced psychadelic substances like psilocybin in the case of certain species. Etc, etc.

It wasn't enough to make her feel fully happy about the matter, but at least it wasn't worse! She could have gotten far worse, like 'poop' or 'oil' or 'bacteria' or frankly even a highly volatile chemical or something inane or outright even more dangerous like that.

Yet beyond this, and since she'd arrived and learned where she'd be rooming...well...

"Elena. I'm heading out. Don't forget the opening ceremony is today; they're expecting us all to attend it, so make sure you're not late."

Sarah

As Sarah opened the door to make her way out, however, she'd find the silver-haired Elena standing there just outside in the dorm hallway before her. The fashionably-dressed girl was seemingly rummaging through the bag she'd normally carry on her back, as if looking for something. Or...making sure something was there?

Elena paused as Sarah came out, her head half-turning toward her for a moment of somewhat 'awkward' silence on her part.

How was one supposed to feel about rooming with the daughter of a politican who'd sound like someone that would rather make an internment camp for their 'kind' than tolerate seeing on on the street? Had people not learned after two world wars, and the incident 300 years ago when a primalist had gone the way of 'total violence' after people had tried to kill him and others like him in witch-hunts (well, primalsit witch hunts and not the other kinds she supposed). Beyond that, she couldn't fathom or truly process the thought of being the child of that sort of person and be a primalist as well. It sounded 'maddening' at the very least, so she'd designed to at least try not to say anything to her roommate.

Well, depending on how her roommate acted and was like at any rate. She hadn't even so much as interacted with her properly as of yet, not even in a proper introduction of all things. It felt strange, just as much as the situation of being a Jager roomed with someone from a certain senator's family felt given the utter irony in that, at that. If she was someone with her head just as far up her own arsehole as her father was, then, oh she'd have words and then some for her. If she was reasonable enough, then, certainly they could at least get along as roommates or such. No way to know for sure, really, until she talked more to the girl or saw her 'in action' or something of the sort...even if they did certainly have differing fashion senses as far as she could tell.

"A-Ah! Yes, Sarah, I had been hoping to, ah, get moving before this point in time. I was hoping to go for some brunch at the dorm cafeteria, perhaps, before looking into one or two things. All of the travel from the other day was...a tad exhausting.

But I seem to have miscplaced my travel bag of makeup. Just a small thing, in a pink-colored zipper pouch. Er...have you seen it fallen on the floor near the doorway of our room or such by chance?"

While she aimed to keep her tone of voice as clear and professional as she could, the awkwardness of asking somone of Sarah's seeming 'fashion choices' was not lost on her either. Nor was the awkwardness unable to be kept fully out of her tone of voice while asking. Such a trifling little thing, she hoped she hadn't lost it on the way out of the room. She'd tried to be stealthy about leaving as well, at that, hoping to give her roommate space or more to to avoid a potentially awkward first-contact scenario like...well...this.

Ugh. Today was just going to be starting on a brilliant note, wasn't it?

@Carlyle

Through the Gateways: Inhumanity

@Tortoise@Enigmatik So, unless I have forgotten something after days of working on this, my app for the GER should be done and ready to review!

If I need to fix or clarify anything, just let me know! Am happy to oblige and work things out, discuss here or over Discord DMs or on the server proper, etc.

https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/5586394

Primality

Those in this list are free to post their character sheets in the CS tab and also yell at me for not finishing my own sheet LOL.

@Carlyle

<Snipped quote by Carlyle>

GET TO WORK YA BUM! (and thank you I am excited to be playing)

@BurningCold

(Also am excited to be playing, and thank you as well! :D)

Primality

Elena Jäger

Elena Charlotte Jäger

---

^{Fungi/Fungus◼ February 14th ( 16 ) ◼ Female}

_{"Are they-...they're...of course they're racing on school lawnmowers. And of course one of them used their element to shape the 'racetrack'. It's creative, I'll give them that, but I'm not being goaded into placing bets."}

A P P E A R A N C E:

---

By most accounts, Elena is a conventionally attractive teenage girl with soft, lighter skin that has been treated rather well in her overall high-class upbringing and life thus far. Her silky, and naturally very rare to possess, platinum blonde hair has likewise recieved the same good and high-class treatment her skin has recieved in her personal cleaning and self-care routine (and use of 'proper product for caring for one's self' as she'd say in her own words). Yet where once was a pair of soft blue eyes has become a pair of golden, stunning eyes since the day of her awakening as a primalist without so much as her parents or relatives having any explanation as to 'why' that happened to her. Or in her own words:

"Wait, my eyes changed color?! Why didn't anyone say-"

Beyond this she stands at the modest enough height of 5'6", though still taller than some other girls in her age group admittedly, without the use of shoes. Meanwhile, in terms of personal 'ornaments' or jewelry she often indulges in simple hair pins, small tie-offs to put in her hair (see her picture for an example), earrings (see picture for an example) of some sorts, and even 'cute' wristwatches as she puts it. Her clothes are sought on her part to be 'fashionable', and yet simpler, comfortable, and practical by design all the same without being 'too loud' as she says it. Indeed, one could say easily on looks alone that she is 'some rich kid born to rich parents' despite her circumstances in having to transfer to Merryweather and live on campus there.

B I O G R A P H Y:

---

A wealthy girl born with a silver spoon in her mouth to well-off American parents, ones on both sides steeped in generations of investments and involvement in companies that made them rather upper-class by nature in the long-term. On top of her mother being an American actress of French descent and a family involved in US politics, and her Swiss-descended father’s involvement higher up in one of the largest international pharmaceutical companies in the world, she has two older siblings and one younger sibling to boot. Family dinners, public events, luxurious vacations, fancy parties, servants and maids being dotted about, and the like colored her life from the ground up as well, with any sort of need she might have seemingly at arm’s reach to enough of an extent. On the other hand, her parents are also ardent philanthropists who donated to many charitable organizations and are at least generally moderate pro-primalist in their views despite being regular mundane humans.

For the most part, Elena wasn’t very focused on the matter of primalists. She went through her history classes like others did, lived life like many other kids around her seemed to, and in her own words: “Can’t think of too much outside of that.” For the most part she seemed just happy to chill out and do what she wanted, though it was when chafing with her parents over her grades at school and just ‘not wanting to put in the effort’ alongside struggles in ‘learning a work ethic’ that they threw her a notable curveball at the ripe age of 9. Elena would have to learn a proper work ethic the ‘hard way’ by learning a practical life skill, and improve her grades in school, or else she was being cut off from quite a bit of the things she had enjoyed thus far in life and forced into catch-up tutoring (which she was already on the path toward really needing at this point in time). To this end, she was given one day to look over potential options from a list her parents gave her, and then to choose one of those things. Then, thinking it would be a simple enough idea she could do minimal work with, she chose ‘cooking’ as a practical skill believing at the time it would be the easiest thing to do….

….And she was soon proven very, VERY, wrong in her youthful and naive initial assumptions.

Her parents went about hiring a strict and disciplined professional chef they knew personally, of all people, to drill her, in their own words to the man: “Like she’s a nobody learning to be a short-order cook at a restaurant for her life.” Withheld from servants, withheld from most luxuries, and withheld from anything but school and other ‘important things’ by her parents, Elena was put into what her younger self would feel was a ‘personal hell on steroids’. At first she tried to refuse to do anything, but found sooner than later that she’d be going hungry more often than not if she couldn’t even so much as prepare something basic to eat for herself. No fancy vacations. No getting what she wanted at arm’s reach anymore. No amount of not accepting ‘no’ would do anything. Her parents, who would self-admittedly confess later on about having ‘coddled her more than her siblings’, would even seek out medical advice for how to handle her in their distress. Elena tried to protest back along the way to be sure, and her teacher and parents gradually pushed back firmly but surprisingly patiently back as they tried to steer her in a better direction.

Yet it would take one day, in late September, that young Elena would hit her ‘breaking point’ only just over seven months after turning nine and six months after beginning her cooking training and new life regimen. Arguing with her parents after school, things had become heated and her father had eventually erupted in the heat of the moment with something horrible. Something ultimately which was enough to send the young girl running from the room in tears. She would then abruptly deem herself a ‘true failure’ and just outright drop things and run off later that day, all after trying to cook a sauce her cooking teacher was trying to get her to learn that week. It was enough to get her teacher to go talk to her (both still mortified and fearful after earlier) parents about things, concerned about her not very ok and odd behavior, where he learned what had occurred earlier. Then, later, he would approach a stomach-growing, hungry, and red-eyed Elena in her room, walking in with something on a plate and sitting down next to her as she tried to ignore him.

After gently rubbing her back and humming a soft tune, enough to get her to calm down somewhat more, her teacher would encourage her to take a bite of something to eat at least. Broken and tired enough, young Elena would take the offering silently after sitting back up and would take a few bites. He would ask her how the food tasted, only for her to respond that ‘she liked how it tasted, and that the sauce on it was good’. With a smile, he would reveal it was the same sauce she’d been making earlier during their lesson put on some chicken he’d made. Her sauce. Something she had made, successfully, herself. All that despite running off earlier and deeming her efforts and self a failure without even tasting her own creation. It was, ultimately, a humble spark that emerged within her mind that evening, even that night after she went to bed and tried to get sleep.

She had made something good. She…..she’d made something to eat that was actually ‘good’ for once. Successfully. Despite everything. With her own two hands.

The next day, she seemed to listen more to her cooking teacher than she had before. Even if just a little bit. The next day, one of her teachers at school noted that she seemed to listen a bit better than she had before, if nothing else, than she had before. The next week, after some days of practice, her teacher would invite her to her family home’s kitchen to help prepare a practiced dinner for her parents and siblings. It was something she felt unsteady about, even a bit scared of to be sure, and yet in the end she would accept the invitation to assist her cooking teacher. Her teacher would, after hearing how the meal was, bring her out, still in her little chef uniform made for her, after revealing to her family that she’d made their humble dinner herself that evening with him assisting on the side. Her father, for his part, would beckon her closer before pulling her into a hug….before beginning to cry. Then she began to cry too. Through half-sobbed apologies, through a bit more listening, and a warm, hot meal, parent(s) and child began to fix things. It was just one step, not some overnight sudden transformation that came at the drop of a hat, but it was one step of many that began to go in the right direction for once.

Paying more attention to cooking turned into paying more attention in classes. Listening more to her teachers led to a greater understanding of herself and what she was doing. Gaining more understanding of herself came alongside a greater sense of self-discipline, if nothing else, that seemed to be reflected in her growing and changing mindset about the world to some extent. Day by day. Week by week. Month by month. Year by year. A young, struggling child would turn into a blooming, beautiful flower in the eyes of her parents. An aspiring chef who found a passion in her former punishment. A young woman who began to branch out more than she might have done otherwise in life without some form of intervention.

The proud girl never truly went away, in the end, but something else began to bubble up near the end of high school. Odd dreams outside of the normal, even by her standards. Mushrooms growing on dead logs, as if footage was being fast-forwarded. Zooming in on the nectar in a flow, down to the microscopic level, and seeing myriad yeast wiggling about and growing on it. Bad food in a garbage can, zoomed in to see black and white fuzz of different sorts growing all over it. The wall of a dilapidated building’s inside, with black mold peeping from around the corner as it grew and spread. The way each dream came and went over those many nights was….surreal, as if she was watching nature documentaries or seeing it all for herself personally with her own two eyes. She began to look up some of these things she was seeing, looking into them with a peculiar and sudden curiosity, which for the most part was put off as just a harmless curiosity or a desire to learn of some sort by those about her at first.

The dreams became more and more frequent, then, and an odd sensation began to build within her. Like something was ready to….explode! Or…blossom? Bear fruit? It was hard to tell, but phrases such as those felt fitting about it all. Then, one day as she was leaving school, she felt a sudden urge to run to the bathroom as a lurch came up into her stomach. From here she would dip aside in a hurry, worried about if she ate something bad, and would zoom into the nearest bathroom and stall before-

*BWOOMF*

....Well, that was one bathroom the school was going to need to clean from head to toe for at least a few days.

Fortunately she’d been the only one inside of said bathroom at the time, but by the time firefighters and ambulances arrived the bathroom Elena had run into was overrun utterly with myriad forms of fungal growth….and the air was thick with spores to the point of needing gas masks. From here she was ultimately fished out, ironically enough, by a fire primalist firefighter who worked on the local force. She was then scrubbed from head to toe and disinfected at the hospital, as were several others who had been near to the bathroom, and then sent back into the arms of her frankly more than a bit worried parents at the hospital. Safe to say, from here it was apparent where she’d need to be going next. Arrangements were made, talks between her and her parents and teacher were held behind closed doors, money exchanged hands to help her now-former school clean up and such, a primalist relative on her mother’s side of the family came to talk to her, and she was prepared to go to her ‘new school’ in good enough time.

What would the future bring? Well, Elena had no clue. Sure she had an older first cousin on her father’s side she knew well enough who’d become a fire primalist, one Thomas William Jäger, who was two or three years ahead of her and already there at Merryweather at least. But….but….of all the things she could have had as an ‘element’, why was fungus hers, hmm?! It was so very inelegant! Really?! Someone of her upbringing, and after everything, getting stuck with that as her element as a primalist?! Even metall would have been preferable if nothing else! Wind! Lighting! Water! Fire! Something! It was absurd!!! She’d still read more about fungi, sure, she did want to try to get more of an idea of what she could maybe do or something….but it didn’t make her any more happy about the results though.

P E R S O N A L I T Y:

---

Someone whose sense of the world inclines her to boldly, proudly, and certianly "state what she thinks, without reservation, if she feels like it" without any sort of hesitation or holding back. It isn't that she can't hold her tongue or even hold back, but that she will simply speak her mind as she sees fit in various places and situations. This being said, she is also someone whose at least more self-disciplined than not nature leads to quite a tenacity when dedicating herself to a task or situation or course of action before her. Naturally this at times can lead to a bit of stubbornness though, especially if she's riled up or her hot head peeks out in earnest, and the more she's riled up or worked up over something the harder it becomes to bite her own tongue and stop. Yet, without a doubt, she is one who will without a word seek to earnestly learn from failures, both big and small, and will try more than a little bit to grit her teeth and 'get back up again' with is one getting up as many times as she feels nessecary to 'keep moving forward' or the like. Giving up something half-heartedly is not her peronsal 'mantra' as she'd describe it, though sometimes knowing when to quit can be a struggle.

Despite these things, in a 'professional' situation or setting she can hold a rather 'profesional' expression and demeanor about her. This even if she was bickering with someone a mere few minutes ago! That 'mode' she can put herself in is something in part related to her ability to focus on things, and even focusing on multi-tasking several things at once for that matter, that she has both had ground into her in life so far and has seemingly sought to foster as a 'skill' both as one who has lived among the upper class and personally for herself as well. Things such as posture, having a 'stuff upper lip', and her shoulders up straight and back properly aligned are other aspects of how she seeks to carry herself on the average at the very least to boot.

In terms of passion, one might think that clothing and fashion are her 'things' in the sterotypical sense. Yet in truth her passion for cooking and learning have become rather fierce within her, and are matters she takes seriously enough mentally even if outwardly she might be mouthing off with a classmate she's chafing with at the time or isn't in the best of moods. She considers food a 'fine art' as much as 'something practical', and her former cooking teacher's way of teaching and drilling fine cooking and professional methods into her has certeainly come to shape her in the kitchen rather much so. She doesn't look down on 'simpler food' either, however, nor is she someone to call a nessecary meal 'peasant food' simply because it isn't gilded in gold or something absurdly high-class and fancy either. Indeed, she also isn't a stranger to the idea and concepts of 'hard work' and 'proper work ethic', nor in getting her hands dirty to get something done, something that might be found among the most surprising bits of her by those who make assumptions about her personally.

At the end of the day, however, she is also still a teenager just like the rest of her peers.

A B I L I T I E S / S K I L L S:

---

• Cooking - Despite her youth, her dedication to cooking as a pasttime and personal hobby is something she has put more than a small amount of work into in the last seven years and some odd months before coming to Merryweather. She was drilled by a professional high-class chef of some renown and good repute, though usually refrains of using his name as a 'means to brag or anything' in her own words. However, from making the 'four mother sauces' to improvising recipies on the fly, she has a surprisingly high level of skill in this area for a mere teenager of all things. You ask her to replicate a general recipe by taste, she can generally do it right back. You ask her to cook a steak to a specific level of 'done-ness', and she can do it. You ask her to roll up her sleeves to go pick ingredients from a field to find good ones to use for a meal, and then to prep and cook them? She can frankly do just that.
  
  It is also her main hobby for stress-relief when getting notably stressed, so if one sees her in the kitchen after a bad day....yeah. It can certianly be a sign of things. ((Note: She isn't sudenly the 'best chef on the planet' or something, though she can produce some form of five-star-quality food, but is just really good at this hobby and passion of hers.))
• Exersize/Fitness - From swimming to running, she has learned a 'healthy regimen' that takes up the early mornings for her or alternatively takes up the evenings after classes and such are done. A generally healthy regimen of fitness is something she believes in, and is something that has given her some solid stamina and a general advantage over othher potentially unathletic peers at the very least. Naturally in practice this isn't allowing her to sucdenly do parkour or such athletic feats she hasn't trained in, though, which is also something to take note of.
• Learning - Taking notes. Listening to instructions. Asking questions when they pop up into her mind. Etc. And given her acquisition of 'straight A's' in her prior schooling that started since around the ages of 10-11 years old, she's become tgenerally quite the dedicated student as well.
• Learner's Permit - Requires and adult in the car for her to do anything legally, sure, but she can at least do some basic driving correctly 'enough' to function in a basic manner. Just don't ever think to make her a getaway driver for...well, anyone. Ever. Please. The car's durability will not hold up to her lack of overall driving skills. Just see what happened before in her Driver's Ed class prior to coming to Merryweather.

C H A R A C T E R N O T E S:

---

• Her mother’s maiden name is Merryweather, and her mother’s family is known to have been involved in US politics on and off for some time. ((Note: Will remove if the GM wishes, thought it’d be some fun flavor to toss into the mix if nothing else.))
• Her now-former cooking teacher is a father to three, and is better with handling kids than some might think despite his strictness and disciplined approach to cooking and such. He also told Elena that whenever she graduates from Merryweather, eventually, he promised to continue teaching her cooking if she so desired. His kids even wrote Elena a letter to read before heading off to her new school…..she now refuses to comment on what she did after she read it (aka: she cried, and will get angry if you ever try to prod her about it for sure).
• Starting partway into middle school and going into high school, at least as far as she got into middle school before all of 'this' happend, her cooking teacher took her a fair few times to work hands-on at a soup kitchen of all places. It was something he and her parents thought 'would help ground her in reality' a bit more,and something he'd done when he was younger and training to become a chef many years ago as well. Since then, Elena has donated part of her allotted 'personal allowance' money to those one or two local soup kitchens she was taken to help keep them running.
• A Secret Hobby Of Hers: Enjoys gaming with a headset on occasion on console, even using a voice changer to avoid being outed online. Would be the one to have a nickname like "HereticPurger69" in a WH40k type game and talking smack over the headset at times in general, though, which is a side she doesn't like to show to other real people. Also got into some games due to her older brother, Mark, and highly competitive in them due to him nor her other siblings just letting her win a game.
• Enjoys long, soaking, hot baths. She finds them relaxing at the end of the day/night.

Through the Gateways: Inhumanity

Most definitely is WIP for now, but here's what I have so far:

((Edit 1/11/25: Everything but a few name bits I need to eventually think up for stuff in the history section, and basically need to get everything for the Military Overview section to boot. But the rest of it is "Done" by this point (I think, unless I missed something).))

((Edit 1/21/25: The app should be done! I'll let the GMs know over Discord. Will fix anything I need to, as this has been a long work to finish yet. XD))

((Edit 1/24/25: App has been achieved away in a private archived DM for myself here on the guild and withdrawn from submission for the time being.))

Primality

@Carlyle Well, here is my finished submission! Been a while since I wrote and submitted up a cahracter like this, and had to get the rust out of my mental gears to get this all going to boot, lol. But hopefully she'd a good candidate for acceptance and adding to the cast! Just let me know if anything needs fixing or clarification for her app and such too!

((If she doesn't make the cut in the end, though, then hey all is still chill. ))

Elena Jäger

Elena Charlotte Jäger

---

^{Fungi/Fungus◼ February 14th ( 16 ) ◼ Female}

_{"Are they-...they're...of course they're racing on school lawnmowers. And of course one of them used their element to shape the 'racetrack'. It's creative, I'll give them that, but I'm not being goaded into placing bets."}

A P P E A R A N C E:

---

By most accounts, Elena is a conventionally attractive teenage girl with soft, lighter skin that has been treated rather well in her overall high-class upbringing and life thus far. Her silky, and naturally very rare to possess, platinum blonde hair has likewise recieved the same good and high-class treatment her skin has recieved in her personal cleaning and self-care routine (and use of 'proper product for caring for one's self' as she'd say in her own words). Yet where once was a pair of soft blue eyes has become a pair of golden, stunning eyes since the day of her awakening as a primalist without so much as her parents or relatives having any explanation as to 'why' that happened to her. Or in her own words:

"Wait, my eyes changed color?! Why didn't anyone say-"

Beyond this she stands at the modest enough height of 5'6", though still taller than some other girls in her age group admittedly, without the use of shoes. Meanwhile, in terms of personal 'ornaments' or jewelry she often indulges in simple hair pins, small tie-offs to put in her hair (see her picture for an example), earrings (see picture for an example) of some sorts, and even 'cute' wristwatches as she puts it. Her clothes are sought on her part to be 'fashionable', and yet simpler, comfortable, and practical by design all the same without being 'too loud' as she says it. Indeed, one could say easily on looks alone that she is 'some rich kid born to rich parents' despite her circumstances in having to transfer to Merryweather and live on campus there.

B I O G R A P H Y:

---

A wealthy girl born with a silver spoon in her mouth to well-off American parents, ones on both sides steeped in generations of investments and involvement in companies that made them rather upper-class by nature in the long-term. On top of her mother being an American actress of French descent and a family involved in US politics, and her Swiss-descended father’s involvement higher up in one of the largest international pharmaceutical companies in the world, she has two older siblings and one younger sibling to boot. Family dinners, public events, luxurious vacations, fancy parties, servants and maids being dotted about, and the like colored her life from the ground up as well, with any sort of need she might have seemingly at arm’s reach to enough of an extent. On the other hand, her parents are also ardent philanthropists who donated to many charitable organizations and are at least generally moderate pro-primalist in their views despite being regular mundane humans.

For the most part, Elena wasn’t very focused on the matter of primalists. She went through her history classes like others did, lived life like many other kids around her seemed to, and in her own words: “Can’t think of too much outside of that.” For the most part she seemed just happy to chill out and do what she wanted, though it was when chafing with her parents over her grades at school and just ‘not wanting to put in the effort’ alongside struggles in ‘learning a work ethic’ that they threw her a notable curveball at the ripe age of 9. Elena would have to learn a proper work ethic the ‘hard way’ by learning a practical life skill, and improve her grades in school, or else she was being cut off from quite a bit of the things she had enjoyed thus far in life and forced into catch-up tutoring (which she was already on the path toward really needing at this point in time). To this end, she was given one day to look over potential options from a list her parents gave her, and then to choose one of those things. Then, thinking it would be a simple enough idea she could do minimal work with, she chose ‘cooking’ as a practical skill believing at the time it would be the easiest thing to do….

….And she was soon proven very, VERY, wrong in her youthful and naive initial assumptions.

Her parents went about hiring a strict and disciplined professional chef they knew personally, of all people, to drill her, in their own words to the man: “Like she’s a nobody learning to be a short-order cook at a restaurant for her life.” Withheld from servants, withheld from most luxuries, and withheld from anything but school and other ‘important things’ by her parents, Elena was put into what her younger self would feel was a ‘personal hell on steroids’. At first she tried to refuse to do anything, but found sooner than later that she’d be going hungry more often than not if she couldn’t even so much as prepare something basic to eat for herself. No fancy vacations. No getting what she wanted at arm’s reach anymore. No amount of not accepting ‘no’ would do anything. Her parents, who would self-admittedly confess later on about having ‘coddled her more than her siblings’, would even seek out medical advice for how to handle her in their distress. Elena tried to protest back along the way to be sure, and her teacher and parents gradually pushed back firmly but surprisingly patiently back as they tried to steer her in a better direction.

Yet it would take one day, in late September, that young Elena would hit her ‘breaking point’ only just over seven months after turning nine and six months after beginning her cooking training and new life regimen. Arguing with her parents after school, things had become heated and her father had eventually erupted in the heat of the moment with something horrible. Something ultimately which was enough to send the young girl running from the room in tears. She would then abruptly deem herself a ‘true failure’ and just outright drop things and run off later that day, all after trying to cook a sauce her cooking teacher was trying to get her to learn that week. It was enough to get her teacher to go talk to her (both still mortified and fearful after earlier) parents about things, concerned about her not very ok and odd behavior, where he learned what had occurred earlier. Then, later, he would approach a stomach-growing, hungry, and red-eyed Elena in her room, walking in with something on a plate and sitting down next to her as she tried to ignore him.

After gently rubbing her back and humming a soft tune, enough to get her to calm down somewhat more, her teacher would encourage her to take a bite of something to eat at least. Broken and tired enough, young Elena would take the offering silently after sitting back up and would take a few bites. He would ask her how the food tasted, only for her to respond that ‘she liked how it tasted, and that the sauce on it was good’. With a smile, he would reveal it was the same sauce she’d been making earlier during their lesson put on some chicken he’d made. Her sauce. Something she had made, successfully, herself. All that despite running off earlier and deeming her efforts and self a failure without even tasting her own creation. It was, ultimately, a humble spark that emerged within her mind that evening, even that night after she went to bed and tried to get sleep.

She had made something good. She…..she’d made something to eat that was actually ‘good’ for once. Successfully. Despite everything. With her own two hands.

The next day, she seemed to listen more to her cooking teacher than she had before. Even if just a little bit. The next day, one of her teachers at school noted that she seemed to listen a bit better than she had before, if nothing else, than she had before. The next week, after some days of practice, her teacher would invite her to her family home’s kitchen to help prepare a practiced dinner for her parents and siblings. It was something she felt unsteady about, even a bit scared of to be sure, and yet in the end she would accept the invitation to assist her cooking teacher. Her teacher would, after hearing how the meal was, bring her out, still in her little chef uniform made for her, after revealing to her family that she’d made their humble dinner herself that evening with him assisting on the side. Her father, for his part, would beckon her closer before pulling her into a hug….before beginning to cry. Then she began to cry too. Through half-sobbed apologies, through a bit more listening, and a warm, hot meal, parent(s) and child began to fix things. It was just one step, not some overnight sudden transformation that came at the drop of a hat, but it was one step of many that began to go in the right direction for once.

Paying more attention to cooking turned into paying more attention in classes. Listening more to her teachers led to a greater understanding of herself and what she was doing. Gaining more understanding of herself came alongside a greater sense of self-discipline, if nothing else, that seemed to be reflected in her growing and changing mindset about the world to some extent. Day by day. Week by week. Month by month. Year by year. A young, struggling child would turn into a blooming, beautiful flower in the eyes of her parents. An aspiring chef who found a passion in her former punishment. A young woman who began to branch out more than she might have done otherwise in life without some form of intervention.

The proud girl never truly went away, in the end, but something else began to bubble up near the end of high school. Odd dreams outside of the normal, even by her standards. Mushrooms growing on dead logs, as if footage was being fast-forwarded. Zooming in on the nectar in a flow, down to the microscopic level, and seeing myriad yeast wiggling about and growing on it. Bad food in a garbage can, zoomed in to see black and white fuzz of different sorts growing all over it. The wall of a dilapidated building’s inside, with black mold peeping from around the corner as it grew and spread. The way each dream came and went over those many nights was….surreal, as if she was watching nature documentaries or seeing it all for herself personally with her own two eyes. She began to look up some of these things she was seeing, looking into them with a peculiar and sudden curiosity, which for the most part was put off as just a harmless curiosity or a desire to learn of some sort by those about her at first.

The dreams became more and more frequent, then, and an odd sensation began to build within her. Like something was ready to….explode! Or…blossom? Bear fruit? It was hard to tell, but phrases such as those felt fitting about it all. Then, one day as she was leaving school, she felt a sudden urge to run to the bathroom as a lurch came up into her stomach. From here she would dip aside in a hurry, worried about if she ate something bad, and would zoom into the nearest bathroom and stall before-

*BWOOMF*

....Well, that was one bathroom the school was going to need to clean from head to toe for at least a few days.

Fortunately she’d been the only one inside of said bathroom at the time, but by the time firefighters and ambulances arrived the bathroom Elena had run into was overrun utterly with myriad forms of fungal growth….and the air was thick with spores to the point of needing gas masks. From here she was ultimately fished out, ironically enough, by a fire primalist firefighter who worked on the local force. She was then scrubbed from head to toe and disinfected at the hospital, as were several others who had been near to the bathroom, and then sent back into the arms of her frankly more than a bit worried parents at the hospital. Safe to say, from here it was apparent where she’d need to be going next. Arrangements were made, talks between her and her parents and teacher were held behind closed doors, money exchanged hands to help her now-former school clean up and such, a primalist relative on her mother’s side of the family came to talk to her, and she was prepared to go to her ‘new school’ in good enough time.

What would the future bring? Well, Elena had no clue. Sure she had an older first cousin on her father’s side she knew well enough who’d become a fire primalist, one Thomas William Jäger, who was two or three years ahead of her and already there at Merryweather at least. But….but….of all the things she could have had as an ‘element’, why was fungus hers, hmm?! It was so very inelegant! Really?! Someone of her upbringing, and after everything, getting stuck with that as her element as a primalist?! Even metall would have been preferable if nothing else! Wind! Lighting! Water! Fire! Something! It was absurd!!! She’d still read more about fungi, sure, she did want to try to get more of an idea of what she could maybe do or something….but it didn’t make her any more happy about the results though.

P E R S O N A L I T Y:

---

Someone whose sense of the world inclines her to boldly, proudly, and certianly "state what she thinks, without reservation, if she feels like it" without any sort of hesitation or holding back. It isn't that she can't hold her tongue or even hold back, but that she will simply speak her mind as she sees fit in various places and situations. This being said, she is also someone whose at least more self-disciplined than not nature leads to quite a tenacity when dedicating herself to a task or situation or course of action before her. Naturally this at times can lead to a bit of stubbornness though, especially if she's riled up or her hot head peeks out in earnest, and the more she's riled up or worked up over something the harder it becomes to bite her own tongue and stop. Yet, without a doubt, she is one who will without a word seek to earnestly learn from failures, both big and small, and will try more than a little bit to grit her teeth and 'get back up again' with is one getting up as many times as she feels nessecary to 'keep moving forward' or the like. Giving up something half-heartedly is not her peronsal 'mantra' as she'd describe it, though sometimes knowing when to quit can be a struggle.

Despite these things, in a 'professional' situation or setting she can hold a rather 'profesional' expression and demeanor about her. This even if she was bickering with someone a mere few minutes ago! That 'mode' she can put herself in is something in part related to her ability to focus on things, and even focusing on multi-tasking several things at once for that matter, that she has both had ground into her in life so far and has seemingly sought to foster as a 'skill' both as one who has lived among the upper class and personally for herself as well. Things such as posture, having a 'stuff upper lip', and her shoulders up straight and back properly aligned are other aspects of how she seeks to carry herself on the average at the very least to boot.

In terms of passion, one might think that clothing and fashion are her 'things' in the sterotypical sense. Yet in truth her passion for cooking and learning have become rather fierce within her, and are matters she takes seriously enough mentally even if outwardly she might be mouthing off with a classmate she's chafing with at the time or isn't in the best of moods. She considers food a 'fine art' as much as 'something practical', and her former cooking teacher's way of teaching and drilling fine cooking and professional methods into her has certeainly come to shape her in the kitchen rather much so. She doesn't look down on 'simpler food' either, however, nor is she someone to call a nessecary meal 'peasant food' simply because it isn't gilded in gold or something absurdly high-class and fancy either. Indeed, she also isn't a stranger to the idea and concepts of 'hard work' and 'proper work ethic', nor in getting her hands dirty to get something done, something that might be found among the most surprising bits of her by those who make assumptions about her personally.

At the end of the day, however, she is also still a teenager just like the rest of her peers.

A B I L I T I E S / S K I L L S:

---

• Cooking - Despite her youth, her dedication to cooking as a pasttime and personal hobby is something she has put more than a small amount of work into in the last seven years and some odd months before coming to Merryweather. She was drilled by a professional high-class chef of some renown and good repute, though usually refrains of using his name as a 'means to brag or anything' in her own words. However, from making the 'four mother sauces' to improvising recipies on the fly, she has a surprisingly high level of skill in this area for a mere teenager of all things. You ask her to replicate a general recipe by taste, she can generally do it right back. You ask her to cook a steak to a specific level of 'done-ness', and she can do it. You ask her to roll up her sleeves to go pick ingredients from a field to find good ones to use for a meal, and then to prep and cook them? She can frankly do just that.
  
  It is also her main hobby for stress-relief when getting notably stressed, so if one sees her in the kitchen after a bad day....yeah. It can certianly be a sign of things. ((Note: She isn't sudenly the 'best chef on the planet' or something, though she can produce some form of five-star-quality food, but is just really good at this hobby and passion of hers.))
• Exersize/Fitness - From swimming to running, she has learned a 'healthy regimen' that takes up the early mornings for her or alternatively takes up the evenings after classes and such are done. A generally healthy regimen of fitness is something she believes in, and is something that has given her some solid stamina and a general advantage over othher potentially unathletic peers at the very least. Naturally in practice this isn't allowing her to sucdenly do parkour or such athletic feats she hasn't trained in, though, which is also something to take note of.
• Learning - Taking notes. Listening to instructions. Asking questions when they pop up into her mind. Etc. And given her acquisition of 'straight A's' in her prior schooling that started since around the ages of 10-11 years old, she's become tgenerally quite the dedicated student as well.
• Learner's Permit - Requires and adult in the car for her to do anything legally, sure, but she can at least do some basic driving correctly 'enough' to function in a basic manner. Just don't ever think to make her a getaway driver for...well, anyone. Ever. Please. The car's durability will not hold up to her lack of overall driving skills. Just see what happened before in her Driver's Ed class prior to coming to Merryweather.

C H A R A C T E R N O T E S:

---

• Her mother’s maiden name is Merryweather, and her mother’s family is known to have been involved in US politics on and off for some time. ((Note: Will remove if the GM wishes, thought it’d be some fun flavor to toss into the mix if nothing else.))
• Her now-former cooking teacher is a father to three, and is better with handling kids than some might think despite his strictness and disciplined approach to cooking and such. He also told Elena that whenever she graduates from Merryweather, eventually, he promised to continue teaching her cooking if she so desired. His kids even wrote Elena a letter to read before heading off to her new school…..she now refuses to comment on what she did after she read it (aka: she cried, and will get angry if you ever try to prod her about it for sure).
• Starting partway into middle school and going into high school, at least as far as she got into middle school before all of 'this' happend, her cooking teacher took her a fair few times to work hands-on at a soup kitchen of all places. It was something he and her parents thought 'would help ground her in reality' a bit more,and something he'd done when he was younger and training to become a chef many years ago as well. Since then, Elena has donated part of her allotted 'personal allowance' money to those one or two local soup kitchens she was taken to help keep them running.
• A Secret Hobby Of Hers: Enjoys gaming with a headset on occasion on console, even using a voice changer to avoid being outed online. Would be the one to have a nickname like "HereticPurger69" in a WH40k type game and talking smack over the headset at times in general, though, which is a side she doesn't like to show to other real people. Also got into some games due to her older brother, Mark, and highly competitive in them due to him nor her other siblings just letting her win a game.
• Enjoys long, soaking, hot baths. She finds them relaxing at the end of the day/night.

Primality

@Carlyle Just out of curiosity, and to double checck, I have a few questions (potentially of a dumb or more obvious nature on my part, but I like to check to be super sure on things sometimes overthinking powers, activate!) about potential elements:

1 ) How specific and how general can an element be? It seems something like 'Storm' is a bit too composite, but what about something peculiar like 'mud' (would it fall under Earth? Water? Neither) for example?

2 ) Likewise, could someone get stuck with a hyper-niche element under a more general category, such as some poor soul getting revealed with something obtuse like a "Cesium" or "Mercury" element instead of just more general Metal or Earth? Or is it more limited to general sub-categories of an element like a 'stone' element or 'ice/snow' and such?

3 ) And what about something also peculiar like "Plasma", as another example of a potential element idea, would that be a bit too finicky or non-natural for purposes of being an element or such? Would it just be lumped in with Lightning or Fire or such?

Primality

I have a vague character forming in my head but I don't know which 'element' to give them. She was a rich spoiled girl brought up in a very religious household. When her magic manifested, they didn't take it well.

Let's see, we have lightning, plants, water, snow, fire, wind, and maybe light

Stone wouldn't be a bad power to have, even if there's no thematic link. Shadow would tie in even better with the character I have in my head but that might be stretching it.

@Silver Carrot

Yes; I mentioned in the interest check that I'm not limiting it to the big four. Just as long as it is something "natural" related since in some magic systems they start to include things like "light and darkness" as elements, and that's not something I'd consider an element in this setting.

@Carlyle

Tempted to join this RP myself, and been looking around in my head for a good idea, though I saw the GM say this on the first OOC page after reading back a bit (even if not everything yet). (Also hi!)

Age of Broken Shackles(Soft Sci NRP)

The U.I.D.

_{Director's Office, DAIB HQ, ???, Tar Idkar}

Two people sat in the room, each on opposite sides of the desk, in simple but comfortable padded chairs of a sort. All the while silence hung about the room like a great and draping curtain, the tension somewhat palpable as one stared back at the other without a word. In the background, a bladeless fan pushed air along to cool the warm room....warm? Wait, was it normally warm in here, or was it just herse-

"Agent Malone, I'm waiting for your explanation. Have all the time in the world, even, to do this."

The director's words cut through the air like a chilly breeze, sending a mild tremor down the back of one rather tensed up Agent Malone and snapping her out of her thoughts. Spacing out wasn't going to save her here, but she-.....well, it was-.....drat. For her part, though, it was apparent that Agent Malone was now trying to think of what to say, but part of her didn't want to let some of those words escape her mouth. What could she say to the person in front of her that would even hope to remedy the matter or such? Hmm? What did she want her to say about the whole matter? Some part of her didn't regret a thing, and yet after the whole affair and 'that' being returned to its place in Containment Level B all the way back at Site Alpha it was more than a bit mortifying all the same.

"I-...u-u-umm..."

Her voice felt shaky, like a child caught where they ought not to have been looking. Her muscles felt tenser than they ever had before, more than her first mission had ever made her feel for that matter. A cold sweat was beginning to form on her upper back as well, as if she'd just jumped out of a lake before coming here. Maybe it was just her who felt rather warm in this room, as across from her the visibly dissapointed visage of Director Clark was looking her down without seemingly batting an eye. Golden blonde hair, that pair of stern green eyes, the rather light-hued human skintone, the business uniform, everything about her felt hard to look at right now despite the human-like appearance she wore. The woman was....she'd seen she was human, heard she was before joining up yes, but right now she felt less like a human and more like a terrifying wall of force. Truly it was more scary to be in front of and looked at by her, really, than the monster that accompanied her as an assistant than anything else. Like that gaze pierced into her very soul.

At the same time, though, she knew that the longer she said nothing coherent the longer this would be drawn out. Ok...well, she could do this. It was all so very stupid, in hindsight, but here went something!

"....Marina...she was pretty shaken up by it, b-but she was holding it all in. Being on 'that' duty and all, but she was afraid she'd be fired for sticking to it and holding on with that assignment. It was only two weeks, right? But she wasn't doing well, and Kael's prodding at her wasn't doing anything to help it. I-I-I got angry, of course, but and when Kael dared me to do something about it I....we....well....we....we began to come up with a plan.

He h-had the security clearance, Marina h-h-had watch duty then, and I planned to be walking by when Kael was on duty."

"Go on."

Agent Malone gulped a bit of air and saliva, trying to wet her throat as it suddenly felt so very dry. She tried to slow her breathing, just as they'd been told to practice in the field, bit by bit. In and out. In and out. In the nose, out of the mouth. Good. That was good.

"H-He said he had a ship that'd shoot the box into the sun....a-a-and I didn't think about if he was telling the truth at the time. Or...o-or at all, about any of this. Once M-Marina handed it off to me, and Kael got me to the anti-psionic box he'd prepped so I could put it in, I-I walked off back to Marina."

"Mhmm. That lines up with what the security system observed last week, and what we were able to dig up thus far about the incident, so if nothing else I congradulate you on telling the truth about your involvement in yesterday's incident in the end. However, the fact remains that you participated in moving a contained anomaly off-site, where your coworker attempted to make a profit on selling it. Yes it was a mere Class A Anomaly as far as you knew, but that's far from an excuse."

"I-I didn't k-k-know he was doing tha-!"

Director Clark held up her prosthetic right hand, and Malone's mouth suddenly shut.

"Yes, after your voluntary psionic examination and reporting to your superior about the incident a few hours later we know that for certain already. Marina, however, was told about this. Would you have gone through if you knew it was being sold for a profit? It seems not, or at least that Kael and your friend didn't trust you enough to let you in on that little detail."

Malone's stomach sank, as if someone had dropped a heavy stone inside of it, as her jaw locked up and froze in place midway into trying to speak back again. Yet as words and questions began to race through her head, as some part of her wanted to shout back that Marina would-

"Would never do that in her lifetime? It would seem to be so from a first impression, but sometime people like to hide what they're really thinking behind it all. Behind the face of a newer agent who couldn't handle Anomaly 642 duty, she was working with Kael on selling it before trying to book it from the facility soon after alongside him. It's why we caught the two of them as they tried to leave Site Alpha in the first place after she left you to 'go have some time alone' to calm down later."

"B-"

"You know I'm psionic, yes, Miss Malone? But that aside the question is written on your face more than anything. Yes, we knew what was going on that day....and the whole time to be frank. Yet given you're the only one of the three involved to submit to a psionic examination, as well as voluntarily speak with me in my office here after giving a testimonial, you've already proven a fair amount of sincerity. You didn't try to run, even, which I must say was a smart move on your part as well.

However, why do you think we assign some agents to Site A for their trial period? To test them. Sure the initial missions, the trianing, and the like are all there, but in the end we want to test your mettle, capabilities, and more. Your ability to work with others. Your honesty and character. Your ability to handle the 'safest' level of anomalies as well as sudden curveballs....though that one is admittedly actually a Class B we throw in there from time to time as a somewhat harder test. Pretend its a new find that the site has to contain for a while until a proper cell can be prepared for it or something like that."

"...."

"Is it cruel? To some extent most people would say that, especially given that one's nature. However, in this line of work you must be able to adapt in case of 'sudden escalation' beyond your normal standards as the training session tried to drill into you and your peers at Site A. This job isn't easy, neither is it fair, and our role is to handle things that most can't as best as we can. Not everyone can handle everything, regardless of that, but the general rule of thumb still stands.

Your coworker wasn't as devastated as she made herself out to be, and she used that to manipulate you into 'helping' it seems she and Kael were in contact before joining up with the agency to boot as we've been inclined to believe at this venture. It doesn't nessecarily mean torture either, but that is why we weed out new agents like this in one way or another. If someone who can't handle it gets out there, and messes things up, the problems goes well beyond just your own potential danger or suffering. It involves a lot more than that many times oover, and if we fail or try to hit above our weight class then it could spell disaster for far too many people in the end."

Malone sat listening, her hands coming into her lap and nearly clutching her knees until the knuckles turned white. All this time, Marina had-...and she'd-...it was a disgrace. Even the sudden disappearance of her new work 'friend' seemed to have been some part of a plan, perhaps, and her going a few hours later to tell on herself and the others had been useless enough if even the Director had known what was going on anyways before it all went down! That stupid, stupid teapo-

"It is 'stupid', yes, but you handled that duty well enough, tried to formally inform others put on watch over that anomaly when they came in after your turn, and even your superior wrote some positive notes about you in his initial reports about the new trainees at Site A. But your former coworkers didn't make it far after he got the box anyways, not even to the parking lot before waiting security staff apprehended them and the box.

However, we cannot overlook your transgression all the same. Site A may be rigged to weed rookies out, and to capture such ill-intented 'recruits' red-handed, but trying to hand away and get rid of a contained anomaly recklessly cannot be ignored. It is a whole breach of protocol, a violation of your work contract, and the like. In short, by all right I should have you hauled of to do time in an angency cell for this and have you dead to rights on it."

"However, given your honesty and straightforwardness in the matter, and being able to recognize you were in the wrong, the only reason you aren't in a cell right now is because I said so. Because you were brought to me on my orders. And why? Because with the noted factor of your emotional manipulation by the other two, I wanted to see if you were even salvageable after this whole affair."

The Director leaned forward onto the wooden desk in front of her, the light tap of her prosthetic right arm's elbow on it audible, looking more into the eyes of the still-tense but now somewhat-confused new agent.

"I will make it abundantly clear that I am making you one offer, and one offer only, because of your actions after the fact and your willing cooperation with us on this and what sort of stuff we've not turned up in investigating your background and history more in-depth after this along the way. So you have two choices in this matter:

One, you will stay here in a security cell for tonight, and then report to the Mass Transit Shuttle Center at 3am tomorrow morning, sharp. From here you will be taken by an escort back to the training center at Site Gamma elsewhere. Formally from this point on you are suspended if you choose this option, and there at the center you will remain under close observation and undergo a more than tough remediation program meant to harden your resolve, allow you to better grasp your emotions, and give you more resilience and awareness against these sorts of situations. You will then undergo a thourough psionic examination after completing this remediation program, and then your status will only then be debated once more as to whether to return you to rookie-level duty, to imprison you, or to release you from employmeny in the D.A.I.B. altogether and so forth.

Two, you will give me your verbal resignation and will then immediately report down the hall to the Information Protection Department's main office. There, for full disclosure, you will submit to a psionic erasure of specific lowest-level classified information before reporting to security. From there, you will be escorted off the premises, fitted with a nanomonitor, and placed safely in a humane and monitored prison cell for the time being until we can get you a good court date scheduled and so forth.

Do I make myself clear?"

She, she wasn't going to prison right now?! Er, well not unless she-...and...ah. No, it made enough sense she supposed. It was much more than she thought she'd get after being called to come in and speak with the actual Director, of all things, but it was 'something' at least. Yes. And in that vein Malone's eyes would open wider for a moment before her own left hand came up suddenly, jerking up into a formal salute of sorts.

"M-Mam' yes mam'! Thank you for the chance you've given me mam'!"

"Good. Now then, report to the security office down on the next floor. They'll be expecting you."

"Yes mam'!"

The rookie agent would scramble up from her seat, giving a hasty bow to Director Clark before quickly moving to open the door and leaving the room. The Director could even hear her footsteps as they moved across the floor outside of her carpeted office, deliberate as much as they were a mixture of excited and still tension-filled from the whole affair. As soon as those footsteps were out of earshot, however, the overly-large door to her office would once again open. This time, however, something else would walk in altogether.

It wore a fully face-covering mask along with a simple hat of archaic make, walking on a myriad of clawed feet-hands emerging from a main body hidden underneath its black cloak. Its flesh and claw-ended appendages were a dark as the deep blackness of the night, or perhaps even the void of space, and yet Director Clark had felt its presence concealed in the waiting room of her office as it had arrived back there in the middle of her talking to Agent Malone all the same. While most felt it was an anomaly that was 'hard to read', and obviously so in a number of ways, the psionic director felt she'd a certain 'knack' for reading its mood and demeanor underneath it all. One could call it simply 'inuition' at this point, not even needing to glean things like emotions from afar that were on the surface of its mind by now, but all the same its presence tugged up the corners of the human woman's mouth just a bit.

"I take it you brought my message to them, then?"

"....Yessss"

A voice hissed and rumbled at the same time from underneath the beaked mask of the anomaly before her now.

"Perfect, and my other request-?"

A clawed hand came out from behind the door, carrying with it the smell and appearance of a fine cup of tea just the way she liked it. Just hot enough for a tiny wisp of steam to still be trailing off of the top of the cup at that. Without skipping a beat, the clawed appendage gently and gingerly handed the plate the cup of tea was on to the Director, who placed it down in front of her before taking a slow and careful sip. At this point, the edges of her mouth began to crawl up even farther into what some would call a proper 'smile' perhaps. Hah. Her, smiling at a time like this? That was the punch line in reality.

Still, she'd handled a lot worse than this new agent's unwitting participation in a scheme to make bank and run. Especially after all the years she'd had to whip the agency as it was today into shape. Those with ill intentions were always something to keep an eye out for, and they'd learned that well enough even as far back as the old Empire. Still...

"Ah, I needed that today. Now then, did any other news come in while I was in my meeting here?"

A clawed appendage reached into the unseeable void of the anomaly's main body, before coming out with a piece of neat and crisp paper in hand. A rather primitive method of communication, paper and pen or pencil, but it certainly was a method useful in certain ways that wasn't expected by most. Made even better for destroying communicaides she didn't want left around to boot after they're use was through with. Even so, upon taking the offered piece of paper the Director's smile would fade into her usual stoic manner as her eyes ran over the paper in her hands. Then her eyes ran over the words again. Then again. Again. Then once more again for good measure before neatly folding the paper after a pause and placing it securely in a pocket on the front of her shirt, abruptly if not a littlr jarringly gulping down the hot tea, and standing up swiftly from her desk before pushing the chair back in.

The clawed anomaly moved back from the door automatically, to give her room as the Director nearly stormed out in a formal but notable haste, but kept its head lowered down to look at her from the side before moving to follow alongside her all the same.

"Did they say if this news hit the media yet?"

"....Ssssaid it wiiill laaaater toniiiiiight, yesssss."

"Good. Now please take a message from me to Chhief Yavis down in the Archives. Tell him to get all the hands he has down there today to dig up everything we have on this 'Ghost Region', compile it into an encrypted holodrive, and to book it to HQ's shuttle terminal ASAP to meet me there in-person because he's coming along for this. Then go tell our mutual friend I'll be there in thirty minutes in the usual spot, tops."

Without a word, though with a light tip of its hat, the anomaly would seemingly vanish in an instant. Or had it even been there? Slipped into the shadows, perhaps? No one could tell for sure much of the time, but Director Clark didn't skip a beat in any case. Sure she'd need to let Administrator Burke know she'd be gone on 'Class M' business that had popped up just now, but this...yes, this was no small matter if she was getting a paper and pen message like this from 'that' person and by the appendages of her assistant. And the topic? She'd at least seen the term in passing before when perusing some of the most secure archives they had at HQ itself, sitting in things imported from the old Empire proper, though she'd have to use the holodrive to try to get a gist of things before arriving at their location. Wouldn't have much time to brush up, but that's why she was having Chief Yavis come along. He had a good way of analysis, and they'd need that if the topic was this urgent and the timeframe they had was this horribly short.

Yet something didn't sit right about this in her mind, even as the gears of her memory clocked and whirred along. Anything that old, that top secret, and that tightly-maintained in the records even by the Empire's standards was not a good sign. She just hoped it didn't pertain to Tar Yrra directly, though that matter was a four-wars-deep mess of its own already for that matter. Any more heaped on 'that' pile might set off the burnt-down charcoal and tinder that was the whole blasted galaxy again at this rate for all they knew.

However, for now, she and Chief Yavis had a 'meeting with royalty' to get to.