Dakki Sigal (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
photonicfighter) wrote2022-08-14 10:06 pm
photonicfighter) wrote2022-08-14 10:06 pm
Application for Synodiporia
P L A Y E R;
NAME: Lampdevil
AGE: 34
PLAYER JOURNAL:lampdevil
TIMEZONE: AST (1 hour ahead of EST)
CONTACT: PMs to journal or contact at![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
lampdevil preferred
OTHER CHARACTERS PLAYED: Kazuma Kenzaki
C H A R A C T E R;
NAME: Dakki Sigal
CANON: Phantasy Star Online/Universe (OC)
POINT IN CANON: Half a year after becoming a full Guardian and joining a steady team.
AGE: 4 and a half years active uptime (Appears to be in her early-to-mid 20s)
APPEARANCE: Here
CANON HISTORY: In the wake of the deterioration and destruction of their home planet Coral, the inhabitants of colony ships Pioneer 1 and Pioneer 2 set off across the universe in search of a safe new planet to settle on. Pioneer 1, the initial scout ship filled with scientists and elite soldiers, arrived at the planet Ragol and set about with the first steps of colonization. It was the perfect place; lush and green, rich in natural resources. All messages sent to the still-incoming Pioneer 2 were positive. Everything was coming along on schedule, including Pioneer 2's arrival. But as the landed Pioneer 1 facilities attempted to sync with Pioneer 2 in preparation for landing and mass teleport to the surface, a massive explosion rocked the planet. Sync was disrupted, and Pioneer 1's signal was lost.
Investigation teams were immediately dispatched to the surface. Primarily mercenaries from the Hunter's Guild, these Hunters, Rangers and Forces found the Pioneer 1 settlement abandoned, devoid of people and overrun by wild beasts. These teams fought for months, chipping away at the secrets kept behind the Central Dome's walls and beneath the planet's surface.
Dakki was part of a second wave of investigators, sent to fill out their much-depleted ranks. As an experimental new female robotic Hunter-Type unit, a "HUcaseal", she was designed for many forms of close combat and high accuracy with a selection of ranged weaponry. She was first activated on Pioneer 2, provided with simple orientation and a briefing on the situation, and assigned to a team at the Hunter's Guild. They called themselves "Red Vortex" and were an upbeat and friendly crew, happy to have a newbie along to help with their work. It made an impression on Dakki's still-forming personality, that she would be so warmly welcomed.
On a mission to infiltrate the lowest level of Ragol's subterranean ruins, the team was shattered. Wave after wave of horrible abominations, "D-Cell Creatures", threw themselves against them, dropping the members one by one. Dakki was the last one standing, and the weakest. She ran, narrowly escaping destruction by triggering a teleport back out to headquarters on Pioneer 2. This news was taken with grief and dismay by the Hunter's Guild staff, but Dakki was to be reassigned immediately. She was a CAST, after all. A machine with artificial parts and artificial personality. Tragic as it was, it was assumed that the failed ruins mission would simply be a learning experience rather than a source of any genuine trauma.
This was an incorrect assumption. Dakki refused reassignment to a new team, and instead opted to take solo missions. The Guild was perplexed and irritated, but there was nothing to be done. Due to her own efforts and the efforts of her teammates to save up, she had the money needed to buy out her contract with the Hunter's Guild. No longer being considered Guild property, she was free to take on work as she saw fit. She honed her skills and rebuilt her resources, becoming a highly competent independent Hunter. While not every mission that she undertook was a solo one, she did not stick with a set group of teammates for long. Her rank within the Guild rose, as did her reputation as a cool and composed professional. The guild was soon sending her requests to assist with up and coming trainees. Dakki initially turned them down, but the Guild was persistent. She gave in, "on a trial basis", figuring she could get away with handing out some of her spare equipment and dragging the fresh meat along on some basic runs to get them up to speed, before going off to do her own thing again.
It lasted much longer than that. The two new assigned teammates grew on her immediately. Baal the drunken FOmar and Kanone the pint-sized HUcaseal reminded her of herself when she was just starting out. The two argued with each other constantly, but usually with hilarious results. They were still quick learners, and Dakki could already see their potential. It was a joy to hunt up new equipment for them, and to bring them through new challenges. Working in a team, they could collectively accomplish more. With Baal's healing and combat Technics and with Kanone's expertise with massive melee weaponry, they were a force to be reckoned with. They showed her what she had been missing the entire time that she was off fighting alone, and she resolved to never isolate herself from others again.
Their missions eventually took Dakki back to Ragol's ruins. Little progress had been made in mapping and clearing them, as teams regularly failed to return to the safety of the surface. The three-member team was assigned to a clearing mission, along with several other groups. Dakki would have refused, if not for Kanone's enthusiasm. Convinced that the diminutive CAST would simply go without them if they refused the mission, Dakki resigned herself to it. She approached it with the worst case scenario in mind, intending to take any measures necessary to keep her partners safe. And they were successful for the first two layers of the underground structure. Monsters fell beneath their blades and bullets and Technics. Sadly, history repeated itself on the third level. An overwhelming wave of creatures rushed forth from apparently nowhere, overrunning the combined force one team at a time. Stubbornly refusing to let it end like it had before, Dakki drew the majority of the creature's attentions and ordered the pair to flee. The last she saw of them, Kanone was hauling Baal's unconscious form back the way they had came.
The last moments of fighting within the ruins are unclear to Dakki. Heavily damaged and with malfunctioning sensors, she staggered to a stop in a small room with an apparently deactivated teleporter. Horrible creatures clattered and gurgled behind her, with only a few inches of collapsed door to keep them away. Her leg servos finally quit, sending her lurching across the surface of the contact pad... and the rest is static and light and bit rot.
Dakki's next fully logged memory was of a fresh startup from cold boot, where she found herself staring out into a clean, well-equipped, completely unfamiliar lab. Her damage had been repaired... in that a large percentage of her original parts had been replaced. Several weeks were spent in that lab, lapsing in and out of sleep mode as additional repairs and upgrades were performed, carrying on disjointed conversations with the staff. They recognized none of the names she referenced in conversation, and knew nothing of "Pioneer 2" or "Central Dome" or "Ragol". They were kind enough to inform her that she was on Parum, one of the planets in the Gurhal system. They were in a facility owned by General Resource Manufacturer, or GRM. She had been retrieved from a RELICS site by an archeological team, and they all found her systems to be quite a mystery. They were similar to those of GRM's own CASTs, but with subtle differences. In adhering with the laws governing sentient life, they were to bring to her basic functioning and re-integrate her to society. As far as the repair team was concerned, she was simply a damaged CAST with custom hardware and corrupted memory banks.
At the very end of the repair process, she was ushered away from the friendly team that had tended to her. In a series of small offices, stone-faced GRM executives and Tripartite Alliance officials quizzed her intently. And once she had divulged all of the information about Coral and Ragol and the Pioneer Project that she could, they clarified her situation. Wherever she had come from, there would be no returning to it. The trip was one-way. Her knowledge would go into classified records, and she would be allowed to peacefully integrate into Gurhalian society. She was ordered to not tell anyone of her origins on the threat of legal action and possible incarceration, as this entire matter was highly sensitive. (The team that had repaired her had been unfamiliar with all but a tiny fraction of it.) They informed her that others like her had also been uncovered and repaired, but due to the classification level of this issue, they could not divulge any names. Aware of her time as a Hunter, they offered her placement within the GUARDIANS, Gurhal's own security organization.
As before, Dakki refused. Or at least asked for time to make a proper decision, before choosing one way or another. And this time, she argued, presenting her reasons why, rather than simply stating her decision and leaving it at that. She had lost everything familiar to her, she had been given a new and unfamiliar body, and she was now apparently hip-deep in a government conspiracy. This was upsetting, and she wished to spend some time processing it all. The simple act of arguing left her in tears. Real tears. They had installed something akin to tear ducts during the repairs, much to her surprise. On Pioneer 2, such an outburst would have been impossible, which somehow made things even worse. She had never been so consciously, deeply, non-functionally distressed. The officials relented to her demands. She was assigned housing in Holtes City's residential district, and given a simple job working in a GUARDIANS supply shop.
She came to love Parum immediately. Her day job in the city was mostly undemanding, and put her in contact with countless numbers of other CASTs. CASTs of a multitude of designs and temperaments, simply going about daily business, no expectations placed upon them to serve humans. Every weekend was spent taking a shuttle to the countryside, where she hiked through the hills and fields. Dakki was certain that this new peaceful life was the right one for her, and that this new world was as ideal as it was beautiful. But the polish began to wear off the apple several months into her stay. The concept of "CAST Supremacy" became clear, the more she interacted with her customers and the others in her neighborhood. CASTs composed the planet's entire ruling body, and non-CAST sentients were codified, in law, as second-class citizens. They could be arrested for spurious reasons and detained for excessive periods of time. Social custom considered it unacceptable for a non-CAST to directly speak with a CAST. It was first uncomfortable and then upsetting to realize that this world had simply reversed the state of affairs on Pioneer 2. Dakki resolved that she would do... something, that she would quit her job and strike out to make some sort of difference... but after the celebrations for the 100th anniversary of the Tripartite Treaty were complete. The shop would be overrun with visiting Guardians coming to enjoy the festivities. She had no ill will against her employer, and inconveniencing them so heavily would be unacceptable.
That day was chaos, but for a different reason. Terror rocked the entire system as the initial SEED Invasion struck. All three planets and the orbiting GUARDIANS Colony were assaulted by wave after wave of bizarre alien creatures. Holtes City was hit by a small portion of this SEED-fall, enough to be a threat to the entire city's safety. Her neighborhood was within the area of the main impact site, but she refused to evacuate. Instead, she lifted a basic line shield and photon saber from her shop's stocks, and set off to take apart as many alien monsters as possible. Dakki hadn't lost her knack for combat, even with so many new parts installed. When the creatures were beaten back and the situation was being mopped up, one of the assigned Guardians approached her and asked, in an Old Coralian drawl, who the heck she was and why the heck hadn't she signed up with them yet. That was Falk Gatt, another "castaway" like herself. It took very little discussion between them both to settle the matter. She'd sign up with the GUARDIANS, and he'd sponsor her registration.
The following year was one of intense training, to bring herself up to speed with Gatt and his team. Dakki was eager to get out into the field and start carving up stray SEED-forms, but there were tests and training to be completed. She was initially impatient, and found many of her instructors to be patronizing and boring. Her original hardware had been built for battle, and she had known nothing but fighting up until her arrival here. It was an insult to be taken back to the basics. But she had to eventually admit that the basics were useful, with so much new hardware in her system. As a HUcaseal, she had been built for the highest level of accuracy and speed that technology could allow, but those paled to what her new body could do. She had incredible flexibility now, allowing for impressive stunts and flips when coupled with Photon Arts training. SEED-forms were strangely similar to D-Cell creatures, but they had different behavior patterns and vulnerabilities. She trained herself diligently, eventually ranking up to Fighgunner and earning the right to use complicated and dangerous double-ended sabers out on the field. Having proven herself to the GUARDIANS administration, she was granted full Guardian status, and immediately went to work with Falk Gatt and his team. Together they fought the SEED, and investigated strange happenings that seemed to be related to other Ragolian refugees like themselves.
CANON PERSONALITY: Dakki is an artificial humanoid designed for combat, and her approach to life has been formed with this in mind. Fighting is what she was made for, fighting is what she's good at, and fighting brings her personal satisfaction and joy. She is most comfortable leading a life with clear structure and goals, and tends to perceive mundane daily tasks as missions to be completed or battles to be won. She has spent the greater part of her time on the job leading others, and will quickly step up to take charge of things if someone with greater skill or experience doesn't do so first. She has spent more time working as part of some sort of team rather than going solo, and much prefers operating in the company of other people.
Being so keen on fighting, Dakki is very proud of her combat prowess. While logically, she understands that there are many others out there that can best her in battle, she's very competitive and does not care for losing. This can result in both a positive drive to improve herself, and a negative impulse to 'show up' the person that beat her so soundly. She's fine with failing in other areas of her life, and can handle that with relative grace and dignity, but not measuring up in a fight hits her hard. In addition, she is very easy to goad into a fight. A large portion of her core programming is combat-oriented, and a large portion of her existence was spent in combat situations. When emotions are running high and hard choices need to be made, she finds it hard not to turn a tense situation into a brawl. Her drive for self-improvement has been regarded as admirable by her instructors at the Guardians academy, but her short fuse has been noted as needing correction.
When meeting new people, Dakki is generally warm and personable. Her time spent working in retail has made it clear that people generally respond well to an initially-positive first impression, and she has found that she generally enjoys the company of most of the beings she meets. Assuming that initial contact goes well, she's quick to start assuming that a friendship of some sort exists. She's generous with her money and quick to give gifts, and quick to be concerned that those she cares for are eating properly or getting enough sleep. She has lost so many friends in the past that she does not wish to lose any more if she can help it, and is both intent on caring for them and defending them from any sort of harm. This can certainly come across as coming on too strongly, but she'll be just as quick to dial it back if explicitly told to. And, in the event of someone responding negatively or with unnecessary cruelty or unkindness, she'll be quick to go cold and disengaged. Positive emotions are much easier to navigate for her than negative ones. Happiness is easy. Anger is much the same, in most circumstances. But sadness is something that she has never been able to handle well, and she's more likely to try and compartmentalize it away and excuse herself from the situation than allow it to be expressed publically. She does not like to be caught crying, and finds both the vulnerability and the physical reactions that it provokes uncomfortable.
Dakki can be almost painfully earnest. She understands sarcasm just fine, and can grasp the subtleties of conversation. It's more that she's very emotionally open, very optimistic, and very confident in stating these things. If she likes something, she'll say so in very plain terms. If she doesn't understand something, she'll express her confusion in much the same straightforward way. If she's learning something new, she'll insist upon learning about it by the book. Its important to her to be using the proper method of going about something, and she dislikes breaking rules or going too strongly against the way things 'should' be, presuming those rules are fair and just ones. This by-the-book approach is in part that she is still young for a CAST, and lacks in many forms of life experience. There is much that she does not know, and she's determined to correct that. However, it might prove easy for someone with less than noble intentions to mislead her, in her naivete.
Dakki seeks novelty and excitement in her life. When offered the chance to visit a new region or attempt a new simulation, she throws herself at it with enthusiasm. Her world was once no bigger than a colony ship and the few restricted areas that she could explore when on mission. Presented with a big, wide world, she wants to explore every inch of it. When her mobility is restricted, she chafes against it. She loves to learn new things, too, whether a new style of combat or a hobby. Her remodeled Gurahlian body is also a source of amusement. Food holds a mild fascination for her, as her Corallian body never needed to consume it. Technically, she doesn't have taste buds. Mass spectrometry of some sort fills the gap. She'll eat nearly anything as a result, and assess it by an entirely different set of standards than most humanoids would. She would be quite content to live off of protein shakes and nutrition bars, but isn't averse to new dining experiences. She is, however, a very poor cook, and it is not recommended that anyone eat her efforts at cookery.
POINT OF DEPARTURE: I'd like to app Dakki as a veteran Traveller. She's been on the Villains and Vigilantes jaunt, and briefly in the liminal space beforehand. She Infiltrated as a barista named Danielle Boyd, who worked at The Coffee Shippe. Though she had a minor Empowered "talent", it simply colored her hair and skin various shades of purple. She served drinks, spelled people's names extremely wrong on cups, and chattered mundanely with the customers about all the exciting goings-on. Sakuya Tachibana was a regular customer, as were Matthew, Jules, and Maria's Infiltrated personas. (Permission has been gotten from Fran, Airdra, Blue, and Bii.)
---
Infiltrating will be a particularly unusual thing for Dakki, as there is a high chance that she'll be put into an organic form, possibly even a human one. And aside from the matter of form, it's even more likely that she'll be slotted into a life that's very alien from her own. Even mundane things like having parents or siblings, or having had the chance to exist as a child and then grow up, will seem incredibly strange upon returning to herself after a Jaunt. For all that she firmly claims that 'CAST Supremacy' is wrong-headed nonsense, she carries a some anti-organic biases that she has had little chance to step back and question. Being made to be human (or some human-like species) will force her to reevaluate her position on the ways she considers CASTs to be better... or might possibly reinforce her biases.
Her initial Infiltrations will probably be somewhat upsetting. But once she has a few under her belt and has had the chance to work through the experiences that they've brought, she'll begin to approach each new Jaunt as an exciting new mission rather than something unpleasant to be avoided. Her desire to explore and see novel things greatly outweighs her need to remain comfortable and correct.
ABILITIES:
Dakki is a CAST, an artificial humanoid composed of synthetics and pseudo-organic substances. CASTs can grow stronger over time and can be healed by methods that would work on living creatures. They are capable of eating food and breathing air, and can go for extended periods of time without sleep. Due to their pseudo-organic components and the photon reactor that powers them, CASTs have been scientifically shown to have a "soul" in the same way as other Ghuralian beings. Most have various forms of onboard networking and processing, and some are more visually robotic than others. In Dakki's case, her head has several antenna/microphone protrusions, and her eyes are glassy and obviously artificial. Her skin is also seamed in several places, and her skin tone is a pale lavender. CASTs are more difficult to 'kill' than most organic humanoids, for while sufficient damage can render them inactive, that can usually be repaired. It takes destroying the photon reactor in their chest cavity or the techno-organic brain in their head to truly end a CAST's life.
As a CAST that has been purposely training and working as a sort of security guard/mercenary for hire, Dakki has strength and reflexes that are somewhat greater than those of a regular humanoid. She has very weak "photonic sensitivity", something between magical talent and psionic aptitude. Without equipment to amplify it, it's functionally useless, however.
Dakki has training in unarmed combat, melee weapon usage, firearms usage, and general team combat tactics for the purpose of mercenary-type work.
INVENTORY:
Nano Transformer - Powered by a miniaturized A-Photon reactor, a Nano Transformer is a form of "hammerspace" or "warped space" where a Guardian's equipment is held and managed. Military-grade Nano Transformers can hold much more than civilian units, and Dakki's contains (or did contain, at one point) six separate photon weapon sets, a full compliment of medicines for use out in the field, a small stock of ice and burn traps, an S-Rank line shield with corresponding units, and several changes of clothes. This technology allows for weapons to be switched out on-the-fly while in combat. High-grade Nano Transformers can also automatically deploy medicines in critical situations (I.E. Scape Dolls). (NOTE: This seems likely to be deactivated and converted into the first rank of Hammerspace?)
Photonic Weapons - Coralian and Gurhalian physics are a little off from regular ones, in that "photons" can be used for a variety of useful effects. One of these is the creation of photonic weaponry, where a small photon reactor charges or forms a weapon's surface. These glowing particles react to and amplify the power of the user's soul, and can be quite dangerous when swung around carelessly. Essentially? LASER SWORDS! And laser guns and laser daggers and laser rifles and laser whips and laser wands and...
Dakki's weapons are as follows:
"Masamunera" A-Rank Photon Saber - A one-handed sword with a green energy blade. Neutral element.
"Double Saber" A-Rank Photon double saber - A double-ended weapon, held in the middle, with energy blades at either end. Ice element.
"Deathmaker" A-Rank twin handguns - Balance-linked twin handguns that fire bullets of photonic energy. Light element.
Line Shield - Similar to photonic weapons, line shields are transparent armor composed of photonic energy. They are weightless, and manifest as glowing lines along a person's body or clothes. Dakki's is yellow, which signifies lightning elemental, giving her resistance to lightning and electric attacks but a vulnerability to ground and earth elemental damage. Hers was custom-crafted by a friend, and it is S-Rank in quality. Line shields provide a buffer against aggressive contact, and can occasionally entirely deflect a hit.
Goggles - Standard-issue to all Guardians, these orange-tinted goggles interface with Dakki's onboard networking and communications and allow for a thorough analysis of her surroundings. They are by default configured to recognize heat signatures, SEED-energy signatures, and humanoid life signs, but can be reprogrammed by someone sufficiently knowledgeable to detect many other things within the scope of their sensors.
Healing Items - Gurhalian healing items are portable hand-sized devices that administer compressed medicine via a photon-enhanced aerosol effect. Dakki would have the following on-hand:
5 x Dimate (Heals moderate wounds)
3 x Trimate (Heals major wounds)
5 x Antimate (Purges toxins)
1 x Moon Atomizer (Revives "incapacitated" people)
1 x Star Atomizer (Same effect as a Trimate, over a larger area, can effect multiple targets)
Miscellaneous Stuff - Bikini swimwear, tablet-style computer, several "Perori-Mate" brand protein bars, stuffed rappy toy.
ANYTHING ELSE WE SHOULD KNOW?
S A M P L E S;
ACTIONSPAM SAMPLE: Message board threads from We the Lost - one, two
PROSE SAMPLE: test drive thread
NAME: Lampdevil
AGE: 34
PLAYER JOURNAL:
lampdevilTIMEZONE: AST (1 hour ahead of EST)
CONTACT: PMs to journal or contact at
OTHER CHARACTERS PLAYED: Kazuma Kenzaki
C H A R A C T E R;
NAME: Dakki Sigal
CANON: Phantasy Star Online/Universe (OC)
POINT IN CANON: Half a year after becoming a full Guardian and joining a steady team.
AGE: 4 and a half years active uptime (Appears to be in her early-to-mid 20s)
APPEARANCE: Here
CANON HISTORY: In the wake of the deterioration and destruction of their home planet Coral, the inhabitants of colony ships Pioneer 1 and Pioneer 2 set off across the universe in search of a safe new planet to settle on. Pioneer 1, the initial scout ship filled with scientists and elite soldiers, arrived at the planet Ragol and set about with the first steps of colonization. It was the perfect place; lush and green, rich in natural resources. All messages sent to the still-incoming Pioneer 2 were positive. Everything was coming along on schedule, including Pioneer 2's arrival. But as the landed Pioneer 1 facilities attempted to sync with Pioneer 2 in preparation for landing and mass teleport to the surface, a massive explosion rocked the planet. Sync was disrupted, and Pioneer 1's signal was lost.
Investigation teams were immediately dispatched to the surface. Primarily mercenaries from the Hunter's Guild, these Hunters, Rangers and Forces found the Pioneer 1 settlement abandoned, devoid of people and overrun by wild beasts. These teams fought for months, chipping away at the secrets kept behind the Central Dome's walls and beneath the planet's surface.
Dakki was part of a second wave of investigators, sent to fill out their much-depleted ranks. As an experimental new female robotic Hunter-Type unit, a "HUcaseal", she was designed for many forms of close combat and high accuracy with a selection of ranged weaponry. She was first activated on Pioneer 2, provided with simple orientation and a briefing on the situation, and assigned to a team at the Hunter's Guild. They called themselves "Red Vortex" and were an upbeat and friendly crew, happy to have a newbie along to help with their work. It made an impression on Dakki's still-forming personality, that she would be so warmly welcomed.
On a mission to infiltrate the lowest level of Ragol's subterranean ruins, the team was shattered. Wave after wave of horrible abominations, "D-Cell Creatures", threw themselves against them, dropping the members one by one. Dakki was the last one standing, and the weakest. She ran, narrowly escaping destruction by triggering a teleport back out to headquarters on Pioneer 2. This news was taken with grief and dismay by the Hunter's Guild staff, but Dakki was to be reassigned immediately. She was a CAST, after all. A machine with artificial parts and artificial personality. Tragic as it was, it was assumed that the failed ruins mission would simply be a learning experience rather than a source of any genuine trauma.
This was an incorrect assumption. Dakki refused reassignment to a new team, and instead opted to take solo missions. The Guild was perplexed and irritated, but there was nothing to be done. Due to her own efforts and the efforts of her teammates to save up, she had the money needed to buy out her contract with the Hunter's Guild. No longer being considered Guild property, she was free to take on work as she saw fit. She honed her skills and rebuilt her resources, becoming a highly competent independent Hunter. While not every mission that she undertook was a solo one, she did not stick with a set group of teammates for long. Her rank within the Guild rose, as did her reputation as a cool and composed professional. The guild was soon sending her requests to assist with up and coming trainees. Dakki initially turned them down, but the Guild was persistent. She gave in, "on a trial basis", figuring she could get away with handing out some of her spare equipment and dragging the fresh meat along on some basic runs to get them up to speed, before going off to do her own thing again.
It lasted much longer than that. The two new assigned teammates grew on her immediately. Baal the drunken FOmar and Kanone the pint-sized HUcaseal reminded her of herself when she was just starting out. The two argued with each other constantly, but usually with hilarious results. They were still quick learners, and Dakki could already see their potential. It was a joy to hunt up new equipment for them, and to bring them through new challenges. Working in a team, they could collectively accomplish more. With Baal's healing and combat Technics and with Kanone's expertise with massive melee weaponry, they were a force to be reckoned with. They showed her what she had been missing the entire time that she was off fighting alone, and she resolved to never isolate herself from others again.
Their missions eventually took Dakki back to Ragol's ruins. Little progress had been made in mapping and clearing them, as teams regularly failed to return to the safety of the surface. The three-member team was assigned to a clearing mission, along with several other groups. Dakki would have refused, if not for Kanone's enthusiasm. Convinced that the diminutive CAST would simply go without them if they refused the mission, Dakki resigned herself to it. She approached it with the worst case scenario in mind, intending to take any measures necessary to keep her partners safe. And they were successful for the first two layers of the underground structure. Monsters fell beneath their blades and bullets and Technics. Sadly, history repeated itself on the third level. An overwhelming wave of creatures rushed forth from apparently nowhere, overrunning the combined force one team at a time. Stubbornly refusing to let it end like it had before, Dakki drew the majority of the creature's attentions and ordered the pair to flee. The last she saw of them, Kanone was hauling Baal's unconscious form back the way they had came.
The last moments of fighting within the ruins are unclear to Dakki. Heavily damaged and with malfunctioning sensors, she staggered to a stop in a small room with an apparently deactivated teleporter. Horrible creatures clattered and gurgled behind her, with only a few inches of collapsed door to keep them away. Her leg servos finally quit, sending her lurching across the surface of the contact pad... and the rest is static and light and bit rot.
Dakki's next fully logged memory was of a fresh startup from cold boot, where she found herself staring out into a clean, well-equipped, completely unfamiliar lab. Her damage had been repaired... in that a large percentage of her original parts had been replaced. Several weeks were spent in that lab, lapsing in and out of sleep mode as additional repairs and upgrades were performed, carrying on disjointed conversations with the staff. They recognized none of the names she referenced in conversation, and knew nothing of "Pioneer 2" or "Central Dome" or "Ragol". They were kind enough to inform her that she was on Parum, one of the planets in the Gurhal system. They were in a facility owned by General Resource Manufacturer, or GRM. She had been retrieved from a RELICS site by an archeological team, and they all found her systems to be quite a mystery. They were similar to those of GRM's own CASTs, but with subtle differences. In adhering with the laws governing sentient life, they were to bring to her basic functioning and re-integrate her to society. As far as the repair team was concerned, she was simply a damaged CAST with custom hardware and corrupted memory banks.
At the very end of the repair process, she was ushered away from the friendly team that had tended to her. In a series of small offices, stone-faced GRM executives and Tripartite Alliance officials quizzed her intently. And once she had divulged all of the information about Coral and Ragol and the Pioneer Project that she could, they clarified her situation. Wherever she had come from, there would be no returning to it. The trip was one-way. Her knowledge would go into classified records, and she would be allowed to peacefully integrate into Gurhalian society. She was ordered to not tell anyone of her origins on the threat of legal action and possible incarceration, as this entire matter was highly sensitive. (The team that had repaired her had been unfamiliar with all but a tiny fraction of it.) They informed her that others like her had also been uncovered and repaired, but due to the classification level of this issue, they could not divulge any names. Aware of her time as a Hunter, they offered her placement within the GUARDIANS, Gurhal's own security organization.
As before, Dakki refused. Or at least asked for time to make a proper decision, before choosing one way or another. And this time, she argued, presenting her reasons why, rather than simply stating her decision and leaving it at that. She had lost everything familiar to her, she had been given a new and unfamiliar body, and she was now apparently hip-deep in a government conspiracy. This was upsetting, and she wished to spend some time processing it all. The simple act of arguing left her in tears. Real tears. They had installed something akin to tear ducts during the repairs, much to her surprise. On Pioneer 2, such an outburst would have been impossible, which somehow made things even worse. She had never been so consciously, deeply, non-functionally distressed. The officials relented to her demands. She was assigned housing in Holtes City's residential district, and given a simple job working in a GUARDIANS supply shop.
She came to love Parum immediately. Her day job in the city was mostly undemanding, and put her in contact with countless numbers of other CASTs. CASTs of a multitude of designs and temperaments, simply going about daily business, no expectations placed upon them to serve humans. Every weekend was spent taking a shuttle to the countryside, where she hiked through the hills and fields. Dakki was certain that this new peaceful life was the right one for her, and that this new world was as ideal as it was beautiful. But the polish began to wear off the apple several months into her stay. The concept of "CAST Supremacy" became clear, the more she interacted with her customers and the others in her neighborhood. CASTs composed the planet's entire ruling body, and non-CAST sentients were codified, in law, as second-class citizens. They could be arrested for spurious reasons and detained for excessive periods of time. Social custom considered it unacceptable for a non-CAST to directly speak with a CAST. It was first uncomfortable and then upsetting to realize that this world had simply reversed the state of affairs on Pioneer 2. Dakki resolved that she would do... something, that she would quit her job and strike out to make some sort of difference... but after the celebrations for the 100th anniversary of the Tripartite Treaty were complete. The shop would be overrun with visiting Guardians coming to enjoy the festivities. She had no ill will against her employer, and inconveniencing them so heavily would be unacceptable.
That day was chaos, but for a different reason. Terror rocked the entire system as the initial SEED Invasion struck. All three planets and the orbiting GUARDIANS Colony were assaulted by wave after wave of bizarre alien creatures. Holtes City was hit by a small portion of this SEED-fall, enough to be a threat to the entire city's safety. Her neighborhood was within the area of the main impact site, but she refused to evacuate. Instead, she lifted a basic line shield and photon saber from her shop's stocks, and set off to take apart as many alien monsters as possible. Dakki hadn't lost her knack for combat, even with so many new parts installed. When the creatures were beaten back and the situation was being mopped up, one of the assigned Guardians approached her and asked, in an Old Coralian drawl, who the heck she was and why the heck hadn't she signed up with them yet. That was Falk Gatt, another "castaway" like herself. It took very little discussion between them both to settle the matter. She'd sign up with the GUARDIANS, and he'd sponsor her registration.
The following year was one of intense training, to bring herself up to speed with Gatt and his team. Dakki was eager to get out into the field and start carving up stray SEED-forms, but there were tests and training to be completed. She was initially impatient, and found many of her instructors to be patronizing and boring. Her original hardware had been built for battle, and she had known nothing but fighting up until her arrival here. It was an insult to be taken back to the basics. But she had to eventually admit that the basics were useful, with so much new hardware in her system. As a HUcaseal, she had been built for the highest level of accuracy and speed that technology could allow, but those paled to what her new body could do. She had incredible flexibility now, allowing for impressive stunts and flips when coupled with Photon Arts training. SEED-forms were strangely similar to D-Cell creatures, but they had different behavior patterns and vulnerabilities. She trained herself diligently, eventually ranking up to Fighgunner and earning the right to use complicated and dangerous double-ended sabers out on the field. Having proven herself to the GUARDIANS administration, she was granted full Guardian status, and immediately went to work with Falk Gatt and his team. Together they fought the SEED, and investigated strange happenings that seemed to be related to other Ragolian refugees like themselves.
CANON PERSONALITY: Dakki is an artificial humanoid designed for combat, and her approach to life has been formed with this in mind. Fighting is what she was made for, fighting is what she's good at, and fighting brings her personal satisfaction and joy. She is most comfortable leading a life with clear structure and goals, and tends to perceive mundane daily tasks as missions to be completed or battles to be won. She has spent the greater part of her time on the job leading others, and will quickly step up to take charge of things if someone with greater skill or experience doesn't do so first. She has spent more time working as part of some sort of team rather than going solo, and much prefers operating in the company of other people.
Being so keen on fighting, Dakki is very proud of her combat prowess. While logically, she understands that there are many others out there that can best her in battle, she's very competitive and does not care for losing. This can result in both a positive drive to improve herself, and a negative impulse to 'show up' the person that beat her so soundly. She's fine with failing in other areas of her life, and can handle that with relative grace and dignity, but not measuring up in a fight hits her hard. In addition, she is very easy to goad into a fight. A large portion of her core programming is combat-oriented, and a large portion of her existence was spent in combat situations. When emotions are running high and hard choices need to be made, she finds it hard not to turn a tense situation into a brawl. Her drive for self-improvement has been regarded as admirable by her instructors at the Guardians academy, but her short fuse has been noted as needing correction.
When meeting new people, Dakki is generally warm and personable. Her time spent working in retail has made it clear that people generally respond well to an initially-positive first impression, and she has found that she generally enjoys the company of most of the beings she meets. Assuming that initial contact goes well, she's quick to start assuming that a friendship of some sort exists. She's generous with her money and quick to give gifts, and quick to be concerned that those she cares for are eating properly or getting enough sleep. She has lost so many friends in the past that she does not wish to lose any more if she can help it, and is both intent on caring for them and defending them from any sort of harm. This can certainly come across as coming on too strongly, but she'll be just as quick to dial it back if explicitly told to. And, in the event of someone responding negatively or with unnecessary cruelty or unkindness, she'll be quick to go cold and disengaged. Positive emotions are much easier to navigate for her than negative ones. Happiness is easy. Anger is much the same, in most circumstances. But sadness is something that she has never been able to handle well, and she's more likely to try and compartmentalize it away and excuse herself from the situation than allow it to be expressed publically. She does not like to be caught crying, and finds both the vulnerability and the physical reactions that it provokes uncomfortable.
Dakki can be almost painfully earnest. She understands sarcasm just fine, and can grasp the subtleties of conversation. It's more that she's very emotionally open, very optimistic, and very confident in stating these things. If she likes something, she'll say so in very plain terms. If she doesn't understand something, she'll express her confusion in much the same straightforward way. If she's learning something new, she'll insist upon learning about it by the book. Its important to her to be using the proper method of going about something, and she dislikes breaking rules or going too strongly against the way things 'should' be, presuming those rules are fair and just ones. This by-the-book approach is in part that she is still young for a CAST, and lacks in many forms of life experience. There is much that she does not know, and she's determined to correct that. However, it might prove easy for someone with less than noble intentions to mislead her, in her naivete.
Dakki seeks novelty and excitement in her life. When offered the chance to visit a new region or attempt a new simulation, she throws herself at it with enthusiasm. Her world was once no bigger than a colony ship and the few restricted areas that she could explore when on mission. Presented with a big, wide world, she wants to explore every inch of it. When her mobility is restricted, she chafes against it. She loves to learn new things, too, whether a new style of combat or a hobby. Her remodeled Gurahlian body is also a source of amusement. Food holds a mild fascination for her, as her Corallian body never needed to consume it. Technically, she doesn't have taste buds. Mass spectrometry of some sort fills the gap. She'll eat nearly anything as a result, and assess it by an entirely different set of standards than most humanoids would. She would be quite content to live off of protein shakes and nutrition bars, but isn't averse to new dining experiences. She is, however, a very poor cook, and it is not recommended that anyone eat her efforts at cookery.
POINT OF DEPARTURE: I'd like to app Dakki as a veteran Traveller. She's been on the Villains and Vigilantes jaunt, and briefly in the liminal space beforehand. She Infiltrated as a barista named Danielle Boyd, who worked at The Coffee Shippe. Though she had a minor Empowered "talent", it simply colored her hair and skin various shades of purple. She served drinks, spelled people's names extremely wrong on cups, and chattered mundanely with the customers about all the exciting goings-on. Sakuya Tachibana was a regular customer, as were Matthew, Jules, and Maria's Infiltrated personas. (Permission has been gotten from Fran, Airdra, Blue, and Bii.)
---
Infiltrating will be a particularly unusual thing for Dakki, as there is a high chance that she'll be put into an organic form, possibly even a human one. And aside from the matter of form, it's even more likely that she'll be slotted into a life that's very alien from her own. Even mundane things like having parents or siblings, or having had the chance to exist as a child and then grow up, will seem incredibly strange upon returning to herself after a Jaunt. For all that she firmly claims that 'CAST Supremacy' is wrong-headed nonsense, she carries a some anti-organic biases that she has had little chance to step back and question. Being made to be human (or some human-like species) will force her to reevaluate her position on the ways she considers CASTs to be better... or might possibly reinforce her biases.
Her initial Infiltrations will probably be somewhat upsetting. But once she has a few under her belt and has had the chance to work through the experiences that they've brought, she'll begin to approach each new Jaunt as an exciting new mission rather than something unpleasant to be avoided. Her desire to explore and see novel things greatly outweighs her need to remain comfortable and correct.
ABILITIES:
Dakki is a CAST, an artificial humanoid composed of synthetics and pseudo-organic substances. CASTs can grow stronger over time and can be healed by methods that would work on living creatures. They are capable of eating food and breathing air, and can go for extended periods of time without sleep. Due to their pseudo-organic components and the photon reactor that powers them, CASTs have been scientifically shown to have a "soul" in the same way as other Ghuralian beings. Most have various forms of onboard networking and processing, and some are more visually robotic than others. In Dakki's case, her head has several antenna/microphone protrusions, and her eyes are glassy and obviously artificial. Her skin is also seamed in several places, and her skin tone is a pale lavender. CASTs are more difficult to 'kill' than most organic humanoids, for while sufficient damage can render them inactive, that can usually be repaired. It takes destroying the photon reactor in their chest cavity or the techno-organic brain in their head to truly end a CAST's life.
As a CAST that has been purposely training and working as a sort of security guard/mercenary for hire, Dakki has strength and reflexes that are somewhat greater than those of a regular humanoid. She has very weak "photonic sensitivity", something between magical talent and psionic aptitude. Without equipment to amplify it, it's functionally useless, however.
Dakki has training in unarmed combat, melee weapon usage, firearms usage, and general team combat tactics for the purpose of mercenary-type work.
INVENTORY:
Nano Transformer - Powered by a miniaturized A-Photon reactor, a Nano Transformer is a form of "hammerspace" or "warped space" where a Guardian's equipment is held and managed. Military-grade Nano Transformers can hold much more than civilian units, and Dakki's contains (or did contain, at one point) six separate photon weapon sets, a full compliment of medicines for use out in the field, a small stock of ice and burn traps, an S-Rank line shield with corresponding units, and several changes of clothes. This technology allows for weapons to be switched out on-the-fly while in combat. High-grade Nano Transformers can also automatically deploy medicines in critical situations (I.E. Scape Dolls). (NOTE: This seems likely to be deactivated and converted into the first rank of Hammerspace?)
Photonic Weapons - Coralian and Gurhalian physics are a little off from regular ones, in that "photons" can be used for a variety of useful effects. One of these is the creation of photonic weaponry, where a small photon reactor charges or forms a weapon's surface. These glowing particles react to and amplify the power of the user's soul, and can be quite dangerous when swung around carelessly. Essentially? LASER SWORDS! And laser guns and laser daggers and laser rifles and laser whips and laser wands and...
Dakki's weapons are as follows:
"Masamunera" A-Rank Photon Saber - A one-handed sword with a green energy blade. Neutral element.
"Double Saber" A-Rank Photon double saber - A double-ended weapon, held in the middle, with energy blades at either end. Ice element.
"Deathmaker" A-Rank twin handguns - Balance-linked twin handguns that fire bullets of photonic energy. Light element.
Line Shield - Similar to photonic weapons, line shields are transparent armor composed of photonic energy. They are weightless, and manifest as glowing lines along a person's body or clothes. Dakki's is yellow, which signifies lightning elemental, giving her resistance to lightning and electric attacks but a vulnerability to ground and earth elemental damage. Hers was custom-crafted by a friend, and it is S-Rank in quality. Line shields provide a buffer against aggressive contact, and can occasionally entirely deflect a hit.
Goggles - Standard-issue to all Guardians, these orange-tinted goggles interface with Dakki's onboard networking and communications and allow for a thorough analysis of her surroundings. They are by default configured to recognize heat signatures, SEED-energy signatures, and humanoid life signs, but can be reprogrammed by someone sufficiently knowledgeable to detect many other things within the scope of their sensors.
Healing Items - Gurhalian healing items are portable hand-sized devices that administer compressed medicine via a photon-enhanced aerosol effect. Dakki would have the following on-hand:
5 x Dimate (Heals moderate wounds)
3 x Trimate (Heals major wounds)
5 x Antimate (Purges toxins)
1 x Moon Atomizer (Revives "incapacitated" people)
1 x Star Atomizer (Same effect as a Trimate, over a larger area, can effect multiple targets)
Miscellaneous Stuff - Bikini swimwear, tablet-style computer, several "Perori-Mate" brand protein bars, stuffed rappy toy.
ANYTHING ELSE WE SHOULD KNOW?
S A M P L E S;
ACTIONSPAM SAMPLE: Message board threads from We the Lost - one, two
PROSE SAMPLE: test drive thread