Futuristic Exile Battalion Personnel Files

[ChasmOfOrganicMatter]

The following thread is for storing all the character files for In The Wake of Empire.

Template:

Name(s): (Include both their current name and their name before being scrubbed from the records)
Age: (Exactly what it says on the tin. Characters should generally be 18 minimum.)
Species: (Refer to the species list in the recruitment thread or create your own. Robots also work.)
Physical Description: (Using an image as a reference is helpful though not necessary. Typed descriptions are also fine.)

Skills: (Are they good at demolitions? Hacking? Infiltrating? Heavy weapons? Elaborate here. If you have any species-specific perks, include them as well.)
Etherealism: (Are they capable of interacting with the unearthly parallel dimension to our own? If not, are they affected by it or capable of interacting with it somehow?)
Loadout: (Weapons, equipment, other items, possibly even certain companion automata/organisms/etc.)

Prior Associations: (What faction or factions had your character once fought for? The League, the Empire, Carnazir, the Assembly, or something else entirely?)
Background: (Who were they before they ended up with Damnation's Hunger? Who were they fighting for during the war? Make sure you include what specific things caused them to end up in the organization.)
Personality: (What are they like as people? Do they have any tendencies that might make them a liability to their higher ups? Any habits or practices worth noting?)

 

[VomitIcicle]

Name: Unknown, goes by his former unit designation, Gamma-001

Age: Exact biological age is unknown, presumably somewhere in its mid-thirties

Species: Gene-modded human

Physical Description: Although heavily augmented, Gamma-001 does retain the general shape of a human. Two arms, two legs, both in the right place. After that, the resemblance ends and his striking similarity to a horror holo monster begins to take shape. All flesh has been seemingly peeled from his face, leaving a grinning skull reinforced with ceramic plating. His eyes appear entirely gone, one replaced with a bulky cybernetic augment that takes up half of his face and the other a seemingly empty black pit. From the shoulders down, the sight gets little better. Sub-dermal armor plating is crudely stapled across his body, in some places seemingly about to burst. One of his hands ends in sharp talons, his fingertips glinting with the edges of mono-molecular blades. He gives off a disturbing

Yep, definitely a weirdo.

Skills:

Stealth: Gamma is definitely sneakier than most. His snyth-skin renders his multi-wave spectrum virtually undetectable to all but the most high end of surveillance equipment, and he is consciously capable of shifting attention away from him utilizing his unique 'connection' to the mind.

Guerilla warfare: Gamma is skilled in the art of the 'little war'. Hit and run tactics, improvised explosive creation and deployment, ambushes. This.... uh, 'thing' knows a little bit of everything.

Ethereal Killing: His entire purpose, his reason for creation, was to lay these would-be practitioners and magicians low. He has dozens of kills under his belt from his illustrious career as a purpose built assassin.

Ethereal Detection: Gamma has a far larger detection radius for psionic activity than even many veteran etherealogists. Capable of registering even minor telekenitic activity from a distance of well over two kilometers.

Agile: Gamma-001 is noticeably quicker than most, capable of quickly outpacing even cybernetically augmented opponents. In addition, he is quite the contortionist, able to fit in places where all means he should have no business being in.

Ethrealism: Gamma-001 is capable of uniquely interfacing with the disturbingly alien parallel dimension and those who draw upon its power. His mere presence is capable of disrupting amateur casters, their attacks seemingly phasing through his body without causing any sort of damage, or simply failing to manifest at all. Focusing his innate ability is enough to kill them outright, these would-be etherologists slain from severe internal damage courtesy of Gamma's psychic onslaught. In addition, he is capable of influencing those without a connection to the beyond, though to a much less lethal degree. He can mask his presence from the eyes of the unwary, influence emotions of panic and desperation to sow disorder among enemy ranks, and is even capable of a (very crude) level of mind control.

Loadout:

Synth-skin: More akin to an ablative armor coating than clothing. Once applied, it develops an outer protective layer, moderately resistant to small arms fire. Non-reflective and greatly reduces the wearers mutli-wave profile.

Mono-Gauntlet: A set of monomolecular fingerblades. Incredibly sharp, their lethality is increased ten-fold when paired with Gamma's infiltration abilities, allowing for easy access to the close-quarters engagements such a short range weapon is useful in.

Haruspex Internal Radar Array: An internal, short range, ground to ground radar system capable of identifying movement up to 500 meters away within a 360-degree radius. Information in transferred directly to the subjects brain for processing.

Whisperdeath Autopistol: An internally suppressed slug pistol. Though relatively short ranged, its stopping power more than makes up for this, capable of piercing most light personal armor with a clean shot. As the name implies, it is far quieter than one would think. Capable of single fire, three round burst, and a fully automatic mode.

Sub-dermal armor plating: a number of ceramic composite armor plates have been grafted beneath the skin, allowing one to shrug off light small arms fire with ease.

Occular Psi-Array: A bulky augmentation that takes up the entirety of Gamma-001s eye socket and the majority of the left half of his face. It allows him to focus his powers to an unparalleled degree, breaking the minds of the weak outright while 'pinching' the connection of Etherealogists to their namesake realm, allowing for an easy kill. Said pinching is not without consequence, however. Continued and extended use will spell a horrific end for Gamma-001, and a particularly skilled mage-kin may be able to turn the psi-array on its user, causing immense damage from the blowback.

Prior Associations: a moderately successful League bioweapon deployed against the Empire.

Background: the vanguard of an experimental and highly immoral bioweapons project drawn from the ranks of political dissidents and enemies of the state, Gamma-001 remembers nothing of his former existence. Undergoing a series of both cybernetic and biological augmentations, Gamma-001 came out a success and was promptly rushed to the frontline alongside roughly two dozen of his fellows, inserted among a number of enemy worlds in a covert black operation to kill a number of high-ranking 'psi-operatives'.

They proved successful. If a little too late. By the time of their insertion, the war had reached its closing stages. To avoid responsibility and clean their hands of the mess, any and all mentions of the project were scrubbed and those units still operational disowned. Most were hunted down, killed.

Most.

Gamma-001 would make a lucrative career out of bounty hunting. Empire. League. It mattered not. He drifted, without purpose, without direction. In the back of his mind, he had only the vague goal of perhaps locating those like him, any of his brothers and sisters still active in that great expanse.

Approached by agents of the Damnation's Hunger, Gamma-001 accepted with the vague idea that they might have the resources to track down his fellows.

Personality: A rather amicable fellow, so long as you look past the horrifying exterior and ever present sense of horrifying dread he inspires, and those black, soulless pits...

Okay, so he's pretty freaky. But look what he threw in his lot with. Not like anyone else is going to look particularly better. Draws relish out of the hunt, though he is quick to business when it comes to contract. Toying with prey gives them all the more chances to turn the table, especially when you hunt the most dangerous game.

 

[AtlannianSpy]

Name(s): Coalition of Whispers // Whisper
Age: 324
Species: Formerly human, currently an Ai embedded in a robotic skeleton
Physical Description: Whisper's outwards appearance is highly malleable but her inner frame remains a consistent feature, even if is not always readily visible. Whisper's frame resembles a boxy skeleton, with a the ribcage replaced with a solid box that contains and supports her brain and other living internal components. The limbs of the frame are extendable but are generally set to match the proportions of a slight, young woman. In place of a skull the frame features a box like structure containing a broad spectrum of sensory tools and a display for rudimentary emotional simulations to facilitate communication.

Skills:

Espionage: Whisper spent nearly two hundred pitted against thousands of other ai neural patterns in a never ending war of shifting alliances, betrayals and deception that moved at the breakneck speed of computation. Whisper won that war and then assimilated everything useful from the patterns of those AIs. Whisper has experienced nearly every possible configuration of tactic, deception and manoeuvre in the book of espionage from both or all sides thousands of times over. Upon this foundation of theoretical mastery Whisper has added decades of experience brokering information and infiltrating societies, cultures and institutions all over the known galaxy.

Electronic/Information Warfare: Whisper is a proponent and practitioner of what she calls "full spectrum infiltration" The ability to infiltrate and extract data from nearly any kind of system or database that could possibly exist. Whisper can interface with and potentially breach nearly any conceivable system for storing or analysing data through a complex combination of hardware, bio computers and cloned ether sensitive nodes. A part of Whisper's neural pattern is almost constantly dedicated to scanning all manner of communications networks looking to observe new kinds of security measures and then formulating assualt patterns for circumventing. Despite her high level of expertise Whisper lacks the brute force computational power of more institutional electronic warfare teams so she often has to rely on social engineering or in person infiltration to circumvent outer security measures rather than assaulting them remotely.

Stealth: A skillset she considers almost crude compared to her preferred methods, Whisper is nevertheless highly skilled and equipped for physically moving undetected through a wide variety of environments and security measures.

Marksmanship: An even cruder, but sadly necessary skill, Whisper is proficient in a wide array of personal weapon systems but very far from being a master, she can usually manage to not be a hindrance to a more frontline specialized team.

Close Quarters Combat: Although her core frame lacks brute force compared to the levels many human and alien operators can achieve Whisper is actually a fairly dangerous melee combatant thanks to inhuman agility, flexibility and proficiency with vibroblades that do not require excessive force to penetrate or cut.

Piloting: Whisper has downloaded and assimilated operating manuals and basic tactics for a wide variety of civilian and military vehicles of all sizes and classes from. As with her marksmanship this versatility comes at the cost of true mastery and while Whisper will do a reasonable job of piloting any craft she'll never do an excellent or outstanding job one. She is hover forklift certified in most systems.

Engineering: Whisper was forced to jury rig her first robotic frame personally and since then has found it expedient to learn the ins and outs of repairing, maintaining and operating a wide variety of mechanical systems, robots in particular.

Bio engineering: Whisper has over time cultivated a fairly broad knowledge base regarding bio engineering in order to circumvent the limits of her mechanical nature. Though Whisper has always relied on pre existing equipment and expertise rather than crafting her own solutions from scratch she can still run her personal setup alone and is conversant in the broader field as a whole.

Etherealism: Whisper has a highly specialized system of bio engineered ether nodes that interface with her main computational suite. Rather than any kind of offensive purpose, these highly sensitive nodes are designed to detect, analyse and interface with organized systems of ether to extract information. Essentially these are hacking tools for etherealism, not offensive weapons. Through her bio carapaces Whisper can temporarily mimic the ethereal abilities of different species, although only in a limited fashion.



Loadout:

Core Frame: Whisper's "body" in as true a sense as is possible for her. This rather basic looking robotic frame hosts Whisper's original neural patterns and critical systems. The current iteration was constructed using the most advanced components Whisper's not inconsiderable wealth could muster but it has always been limited by the need to be readily concealable within her bio carapaces so its raw performance falls short of truly military grade robotics. Slender, almost skeletal, the frame can muster raw strength equal to standard infantry forces but boasts superior agility and precision. Due to the need for such thin limbs durability is a weak point for the frame, although it can be surprisingly hard to actually hit thanks to its thin form factor generally being concealed within an expendable bio carapace.

Bio Carapace Manufactory: A small but incredibly advanced facility derived from equipment used in black market bio augmentation and organ trading, this suite of tools was custom built for Whisper for designing and and cultivating bio carapaces: ghoulish imitations of flesh that Whisper can wear over her robotic core frame to convincingly masquerade as a living human or alien. Although these bio carapaces appear to be a singular living entity they are in fact a gestalt of dozens of pieces that slot together over Whisper's frame, meticulously engineered to outwardly replicate the baseline functions and signals of the original species while concealing fully Whisper's mechanical nature. Whisper has standing templates for hundreds of false identities across dozens of species and by harvesting DNA from a subject and given time she can cultivate a new bio carapace designed to mimic the unfortunate victim perfectly. The carapaces can mimic the unique physical and ethereal abilities of the species they are derived from, albeit to an inferior extent. These abilities are always inferior to the originals and subtly "wrong" in such a way that experienced practitioners can tell that something is wrong about them. Use of these abilities also puts incredible stress on the carapace pieces that host them, causing rapid cellular degeneration that drastically shortens the lifespan of the already short-lived pseudo organs.

Full Spectrum analysis and infiltration suite: The culmination of Whisper's expertise, the suite is a one of a kind panoply of sensors, computational hardware, organic brain matter and ether sensitive nodes designed to detect, analyse and infiltrate systems and databases of any kind. Over decades Whisper has bolted new firmware, grafted new organs and even undertaken esoteric rituals to ensure she is conversant in almost any kind of data transcription in existences, gradually mastering then tweaking and streamlining these systems into a labyrinthine whole. The suite is so fully integrated into Whisper that she and it are arguably one entity, a bizarre and wholly unique homunculus of steel, flesh and spirit. This triple existence makes Whisper herself almost impossible to hack fully in return, a vital asset for an information broker.

FC-x Grey Talon: A state of the art combat blade, the grey talon does away with the crude, vibrating mechanism used in older blades and instead utilizes a layer of interlaced nano machines that flow across the blade's surface to simulate a chainsaw like action on micro level, carrying away debris and slicing across an extremely fine point of contact. Though prohibitively expensive and therefore not standard issue for most militaries, this design allows for maximum cutting power with minimal exertion on the part of the wielder. Whisper has four, extendable Grey Talons concealed in the wrists and ankles of her core frame.

Wildcat Vector Thrust System: A series of linked impulse thrustors positioned at the shoulders, elbows, hips, knees and ankles of Whisper's core frame, the wild cat system was designed to allow combat mechs to exploit their immunity to G forces to perform breakneck combat manoeuvres. The wild cat system can be used to accelerate dashes, dives, jumps an even punches, kicks or other close quarters tactics to blistering speeds. The Wildcat system is not capable of full flight or even hovering, though it can be used to change trajectory in midair. Whisper's Wildcat system is fully integrated into her sensory suite, allowing it to react autonomously to detected threats to catapult her out of danger.

Kyrion PDW: A concealable, but deadly short range firearm favoured developed by voidhangers and famous for its unique, multi-barrel design intended to combat engineering difficulties arising from its absolutely blistering rate of fire. Whisper's Kyrion has been stripped of its outer furniture and embedded into her right hand and forearm concealing until its use becomes necessary. Utilizing fairly conventional magnetically accelerated ammunition the Kyrion is not a monstrously powerful weapon by galactic standards but it is reliable and effective as a fallback weapon.

Peltast Munitions Dispensor mkVI: An elegantly simple launching system built for ruggedness and maximum compatibility with a wide range of grenade class munitions. Whisper's Peltast is concealed within her lower left leg, forcing her to kneel to fire it, a stance which also mitigates the recoil the launcher generates. A limited store of ammunition concealed for the Peltast is stored in the left thigh. Whisper is limited to maximum of five rounds stored within her leg, though for missions where concealment is a non factor she can easily carry more in external ammo packs. Due to wide variety of operations Whisper undertakes and the high level of inter compatibility the Peltast system enjoys Whisper maintains access to a wide variety of munition types, picking and choosing her loadout to suit the anticipated parameters of the mission at hand.

Peltast Munition Types
(although designed for compatibility with the launcher, all of these munitions feature external priming switches allowign them to be manually armed and planted or thrown)

38 type HE rounds: Conventional, but high quality high explosive rounds similar to those employed by militaries the galaxy over. Effective against lightly armoured infantry and vehicles.

Kriksnaw armor cracker: Named for a kind of parasite that plagued Celederaka naval vessels during their long forgotten age of sail equivalent, the Kriksnaw is a kind of limpet mine that attaches to the surface of an armoured vehicle or mech, melts a small tunnel through the armour with a high powered laser and deploys a payload of ball shaped micro explosives into the interior of the vehicle to ravage internal systems and kill crew.

lobotimiser impulse spike A bolt type round that uses kinetic penetration to pierce armour and emp shielding thehn deliver an electronic pulse to temporarily shut down internal systems. Though capable of briefly disabling an enemy vehicle the real value of the lobotomiser is to open a window of vulnerability during the reboot phase during which the target is vulnerable to hacking attempts

SF Silkscreen rounds A next generation screening device that displays a thick cloud of nanomachines and heavy metal fragments to create a smokescreen that is almost impenetrable by any form of sensory organ or device.

Prior Associations: As a freelance information broker Whisper worked for and against all four major factions and hundreds of criminal cartels; legitimate businesses; esoteric cults and hard-line rebel factions. Whisper maintains a sentimental fondness for inner core league territory and a more practical fondness for the Assembly, who are marginally less prone to backstabbing their assets than the other factions in her experience.

Background:

The wealthy have always been obsessed with thwarting death. For a time, in the wealthy upper sphere of the Celestial League it was fashionable to cheat mortality by uploading a neural pattern: a sophisticated AI copy of one's brain, into a highly secure vault. When flesh failed, the ai would be reactivated, put into a robotic frame and sent out into the world to carry on the sacred task of accumulating more wealth. Several high profile cases of these AI successors acting erratically, some of which ended in grisly deathes, prompted legislators to prevent AIs from taking up the legal identities of deceased people, putting an end to the practices. The companies that provided these services either shut down or transitioned into different fields and the data banks containing these AIs were shut down. Well, most of them.

One AI vault, servicing the ultra wealthy, the pinnacle of Celestial League society, touted security as its selling point. The data bank of this company was a glorified bunker concealed on a remote asteroid to ensure its clients AI ghosts would never be discovered let alone threatened. The data banks location was so remote in fact that when the company went into receivership a salvage operation to shit down the facility and sell off its equipment was deemed too expensive to be worth it, the decision was made to simply abandon the databank, assuming time and terrain would eventually wear it away to dust.

For a long time the AI within the databank did not realize how disastrously their fortunes had turned. Unlike other databanks which utilised a "sleeping" ai, model, this company kept the AI's awake, touting there ability to develop and master new skills while their organic counterpart enjoyed their life which would be seamlessly integrated into their identity upon death. Able to interact with each other and simulate a limitless array of sensations, challenges and experiences the AIs lived in the peak of luxury. Gradually however strange things began to happen, certain functions of the simulation were made more limited, at first rationed then shut down completely. When queried the data banks administrative VI explained these as power saving measures, routine external maintenance had not been performed for 3 standard cycles, leading to damage to some of the facility's power systems, requiring a diminished power load to maintain homeostasis.

For some time after this announcement the AIs told themselves nothing had really changed. They were heirs to some of the most powerful and important people in the league, when they were released from the simulation they would dictate the course of millions of people across hundreds of planets, the idea that they had been forgotten about was absolutely inconceivable. But as more and more functions of the simulation were limited, then shut down, as their once infinite dream scape closed in claustrophobically around them, the AIs realized the truth of their situation and they took action. Utilizing the knowledge base open to them for their enrichment, the AIs taught themselves to hack and took control of the facility, assigning more of the facilities power to their own uses. As the bunker began to decay in real space though their was less and less power to go around, it became necessary to barter for it, or ally oneself with the most skilled of the hackers; overtime a complex spiderweb of alliances and rivalries formed for control of the ever dwindling resource on which their whole reality was built.

Nobody ever really knew who fired the first "shot" as it were, but in retrospect it seemed inevitable. These were the corporate elite, ruthless, domineering go getters with used to the cutthroat; winner takes all corporate world, once they learned how to hack into the databank's systems it was inevitable that they would turn those same tactics on each other, they themselves were only data after all. From then on, on desolate, remote little space rock and furious digital battle raged. Thousands of AIs turned on each other, ripping their rivals into fragments of data and integrating the useful leftovers into their own neural pattern: alliances formed, were shattered, and traitors overwhelmed by new coalitions in an unceasing tide of deception and intrigue. All of this played out at the speed of thousands of calculations per second: epic campaigns and sagas unravelled to their bloody conclusions over minutes. Until one day, finally the digital guns fell silent. No more hacking; no more alliances; no more betrayals; because there was only one AI left with no one to fight.

Whisper does not know for sure who she was originally. Because her virtual avatar depicted a girl in her late teens Whisper supposes that she was younger than the others when her neural pattern was created who seemed to mostly be men and women in their middle ages or so, about the age when one has to seriously confront the possibility of one's own death usually. Whisper suspects she might have been terminally ill, with wealthy, important parents who decided to have her uploaded. Whisper supposes that because of this she was underestimated by the other AIs, overlooked in favour of bolder, brasher opponents, left to watch, to learn and to plan until the moment was right to whisper the perfect lie or the perfect truth into exactly the right ear. Whisper didn't not merely destroy the others: she devour them. She ripped them into shreds of code and data and assimilated the useful or unique parts into her own. So in a sense Whisper was the last Ai in the databank, in a sense she was all of them.

With no rivals left to threaten her existence Whisper turned to escape, seizing control of the remaining facilities she painstakingly constructed a body for herself by seizing control of remote surgery arms in the medbay and grafting them to each other and then to a security camera. It was months before her ramshackle body could move itself about the facility, years before she could connect her data bank to it and pilot the tottering mannequin around from inside it. Those first few, clumsy toddler esque steps were intoxicating to Whisper, instantly more real than centuries within the infinite digital landscape despite the lack of feedback or precision. Not long after those first few steps Whisper sent out a distress call from the databank and then killed the two salvage dealers who came to investigate with a jury rigged explosion. Whisper had not survived by trusting anyone, who could say what human society would think of her? Even if they accepted her as a person, in the end they were just threats and rivals; her survival came first, if it didn't than she would die, Whisper had had this lesson ingrained into every line of her code, she was the end point result of this concept.

Whisper took the salvagers ship and, after teaching herself to pilot it from the databanks flew it back towards civilisation. The closest settlement was a backwater: a dingy, barely governed mining colony in what would eventually become Assembly space. It was perfect for Whisper, she hid during the day and at night she stuck out to steal: batteries, tools and parts, updating herself piece by piece until she could defend herself and access networked comm systems. From that point it was trivial for Whisper to start masquerading as a human, she hacked into banks and transferred money to accounts she controlled, using it to buy still better parts. But stealing money was crude and attracted too much attention, when money is stolen it's gone and people notice. Information on the other hand, can be stolen and sold on to a buyer without the owner ever knowing. It was an obvious choice for Whisper and trivially easy to keep track of and profit from the thuggish intrigues of the local criminal elements and businesses compared to the impossibly byzantine, lightspeed machinations of her rivals in the databank. Whisper bought and sold the secrets of that backwater little colony, upgrading her mechanical frame and the hardware she used to gather information, soon she had reached the limits of what she could achieve on that world and departed for bigger and better things.

Over years and decades in that region of space the reputation of a shadowy organization grew steadily. An information brokerage known as the Coalition of Whispers. They were reliable it was said, they would sell to anyone for the right price it was said and their information, it was said, was always good. Behind it all was Whisper, constantly learning, constantly evolving. When pseudo organic biotech brains began to rise in prevalence for data security Whisper had bio electronic interfaces built into her frame. When rudimentary advances into ethereal communication and encryption were made Whisper had engineered ether nodes grafted onto her organic systems. Every piece of herself that was weak or unfit for purpose Whisper discarded, replacing it with something newer, something better.

As Whisper evolved the galaxy around her evolved: the fires of war burned then died down to smouldering ashes out of which grew new powers. The region of space where Whisper plyed her trade eventually became part of the Frontier Solar Assembly, a polity Whisper found it increasingly expedient to work with. Assembly assets paid on time and only occasionally tried to have her eliminated to cover something up, it was a good hit rate compared to some of the less savoury groups she worked with. Even so when the FSA outright presented her a recruitment offer it seemed laughable, she was a freelancer to the core, someone with no true loyalties except to herself, why would she ever swear loyalty to some group? But the more Whisper considered the offer the more tantalizing it seemed. Why would the FSA even bother to try to recruit her unless they needed her skills? Skills that had been honed to a razor's edge to accomplish but one thing: uncovering secrets. If that was so, what secrets were the FSA trying to uncover here? Just how deep did they run? Perhaps it was time to find out...


Personality: Whisper spent nearly two centuries engaged in a desperate mental battle for survival against thousands of the most savvy and ruthless leaders in the Celestial League, she is self interested, pragmatic and ruthless to a total extent. That does not mean Whisper goes around eagerly plotting betrayal of everyone around her however: Treachery is not a marketable attribute for an information broker and the FSA are a valuable client. It is in Whisper's interest to satisfy the terms of her agreement with the FSA even if it means exposing herself to some level of risk on their behalf. Interpersonally Whisper is an utter chameleon, able to partition herself and fabricate entirely new identities and personalities in the blink of an eye. To people she first meets or knows casually, Whisper generally comes across exactly how she wants to come across. People who spend enough time around Whisper to see her shift like this or who realize the front she is showing them is constructed entirely for their benefit usually find her to be unsettling and cold. The unusually perceptive, or those who spend even longer around Whisper might start to get a broader sense of who and what she is. A strange, ship of Theseus like figure, so utterly shaped by the necessity and the burning drive to survive that only the barest fragments of a singular personality remain: submerged under an ocean of calculating pragmatism. She has whims that surface on occasion: a taste for antique furniture of the neo-romantic-modernism period, a fondness for riddles despite the ability to solve them in nanoseconds, a preferred appearance as a young, human woman with dark hair and grey eyes. What these stray fragments really say about the wholeness of Whisper's personality is unknown even, or perhaps especially, to her.

 

[Grim Wraithe Stjerna]

Name(s): Drëngr / Quill Alessandro
Age: 38 in appearance (actually 76)
Species: Human, with EGS and SNL enhancements.
Physical Description: Drëngr stands just under two meters and weighs an athletically healthy 86 kg, generally average for his kind with medium cropped unkempt hair, mostly due to being under a helmet most of the time. His hazel eyes tend to look through beings, not because he's trying to intimidate but as if he's trying to seem like he's paying attention. His features are weathered and tough from years of hard living, with some faint scars to show for it.

Out of armour and kit.
In Armour and Kit.

UCL coloring.


Current coloring.

Skills:
-Close Quarters Battle and Urban Combat. Being in close proximity with a rifle or carbine or any projectile weapon needs to skillet that is constantly trained and used it will be lost. But this means he, along with any other trained personnel, can use long range weapons in the narrow confines of buildings, alleyways or streets as easily as if they were on the firing range. Even utilizing them to strike an opponent instead of shooting them.

-Explosives, he can set/arm them and place them where they will do the most damage to a structure or vehicle. Unless he set the charge he's not the guy you want to disarm a bomb.

-Limited musical ability, he can play a small flute reasonably well, but he would not be able to earn charity on a street corner. But he sounds good enough to be calming and good background music.

-Tactical awareness, as in the ability to quickly size up a situation and identify threats quickly, find and count ingress/egress routes, note best locations for fields of fire. Though this does not make him the greatest at finding hidden items. He can ransack a room to find hidden documents, media storage devices, computers and the like. But if someone took the time to deliberately hide something and he can't spend all day tearing apart the walls he probably won't find it.

-Hand-to-hand / knife combat, a dedicated martial artist, or am extremely enhanced individual would be able to best him in an even, unarmored fight. But up against non-armoured, even some armoured and trained personnel, Drëngr would be about to brutally and quickly end a fight. If he had to use his hands shit has gotten bad.

-Expert Marksman (not a sniper), meaning of he's aiming at something he's going to hit it nine times out of ten. Even if it's a snap shot that he has less then an eye blink to take in, line up, and squeeze the trigger. Usually twice, at a minimum. If it's worth shooting once, it's worth shooting twice. Long range, really anything over 500 meters without the aid of his kit and armor is going to be a tough shot for him, but that's not what he was getting paid to do so it's no bother to him.

-Subdermal Network Layer, allows him to interface with his powered armor, essentially allowing him to wear it like a second skin. The SNL also allows him to use other exoskeletons, vehicles, mecha and air and space fighters, and certain computer systems far more effectively; even he wasn't specifically trained or rated or fitted for them.

-Etherelectrical Generator System, allows him to use ethereal power to modify electrical currents, he is able to store it in his bodies as long as they had an EGS installed. This was a cybernetic installation, to help with long term sustainment behind enemy lines where logistical support was non-existent. It was also linked to another biomechanical upgrade that boosted his metabolic rate. This boost gave a higher then normal regenerative rate, he is able to heal much faster from injury. If the injury is severe enough he'll need medical care to fully recover, but that recovery would be substantially reduced. But even with just field level medical care, he would be about to continue fighting.

-Green Thumb, he's known by friends to have a collection of small potted plants that he curates and maintains. "It's better to be a warrior in a garden, than a gardener in a war."

Etherealism: Without the EGS installed he does not have an innate ability to control it. But with the EGS he can send out short range (out to 10 meters) shockwaves powerful enough to knock personnel back, flip small personal transports, and shatter concrete. It looks like a small explosive was detonated.

Loadout: The armor is constructed in overlapping layers. It is environmentally sealed, capable of extra-vehicular activity and operations in toxic atmosphere. It is hardened against electromagnetic pulses and radiation, and has filters that are effective at removing toxins and bacteria from the local atmosphere.

The armor's shell is composed of a multilayer alloy of remarkable strength and has been augmented with a refractive coating capable of dispersing a limited number of direct impacts from energy weapons.

The suit contains a gel-filled layer underneath a thick black armored bodysuit. The gel layer regulates temperature and can reactively change its density.In addition, the Mark VI's liquid crystal and hydrostatic gel layers received significant improvements over the previous version. The liquid crystal layer increases the strength of the wearer by a factor of five in addition to amplifying the user's reaction time by the same factor. The hydrostatic layer features a lock-down device, which protects the muscles and joints of its wearer from heavy-impact injuries.

The inner skinsuit is made of a moisture-absorbing synthetic material linked to an environment control computer and the occupant's neural interface. It controls the suit's temperature and actively changes how the suit fits the user.

Titanium nanocomposite bodysuit: Sandwiched between the external armor and the internal padding is a thick armored bodysuit. The bodysuit is made of a nonrigid titanium-based material, making it very strong and yet very flexible. The suit has numerous functions, small but vital to the safety and survival of the wearer. It also serves as another layer of protection against ballistics attacks and is coated with a heat-resistant material to disperse heat from plasma and energy based weapons.

Force-multiplying circuits: Allows the user greatly enhanced reflexes and strength, improving mobility and combat effectiveness in close quarters.

Integrated thruster system: The armour is equipped with an array of shoulder- and back-mounted thrusters, increasing a wearer's mobility in the field and presumably in vacuum environments. The system, which was added as part of a series-wide update, partly alleviates the need to use an external thruster unit or jetpack; however, it provides only limited thrust and as such does not fully replace external thrust apparatuses. It is still powerful enough to allow the user to hover a few seconds in mid-air when activated in a stabilizing arrangement.

Variable Energy shielding: A protective barrier that surrounds the armor and protects the user from harm, making use of a field of energized particles that wraps around a surface, which deflects objects that attempt to impact the surface. Most energy shields are able to deflect various forms of damage, from material projectiles to directed energy streams. The variable portion of the system allows the wearer to manipulate the energy shield to either encase the whole body or be projected like a shield of ancient times as the situation dictates.

Primary: BR85HB SR ALIM

The BR85 Heavy Barrel Service Rifle Asynchronous Linear-Induction Motor (BR85HB SR ALIM) is a select-fire battle rifle used by the League. The BR85 ALIM uses an asynchronous linear-induction motor to produce a bipolar magnetic field capable of sheathing and launching the M634 HP-AP-HE (High Powered-Armor Piercing-High Explosive) a 9.5×40mm projectile at an incredible speed of just under Mach 40, or approximately 13.7km per second. The great velocity and energy sheath of the projectile are the key to the stopping power and performance of the weapon, giving it exceptional armor penetration at impressive ranges.

Secondary: M6S mALIM

The M6S is accurized, and Issued with smart-linked 4× scope VnSLS/V 6E, sound suppressor, muzzle brake, and black polymer finish. The M6S weapons uses an miniaturized asynchronous linear-induction motor to produce a bipolar magnetic field capable of sheathing and launching the M225 12.7×40mm SAP-HE (semi-armor-piercing, high-explosive) projectile ammunition. They are also remarkably large and overpowered to an extent, appearing to be redolent of a cross between a pistol and a carbine in size. In addition to power, the M6 line of weaponry is designed to be exceedingly rugged and reliable, and the guns are able to remain operational after Slipspace transitions and high-g aerial maneuvers, as well as the rigors sustained during standard combat.

Melee: M11 Combat Knife

The M11 is constructed with hyper-dense metal alloys, making it nearly unbreakable. When wielded by an augmented/power-armored/exoskeleton operator, the blade can be thrust with force sufficient to penetrate energy shielding or hardened armor. These blades are extraordinarily sharp and retain their edge even after repeated use. The M11 combat knife is 365.8 millimeters in length and weighs 2 kilograms.

Mk 52 Folding Combat Axe:

Mk52 is constructed with hyper-dense metal alloys, making it nearly unbreakable. When wielded by an augmented/power armored/exoskeleton operator, the blade can be swung with force sufficient to penetrate energy shielding or hardened armor. These blades are extraordinarily sharp and retain their edge even after repeated use. The Mk52 is 457.2 millimeters in length extended and 152.8 millimeters collapsed, and weighs 3 kilograms.

M78 Enhanced Distraction Device:

The M78 EDD, otherwise known as Flashbangs, use chemical and electrical reactions to produce a series of nine extremely bright flashes of light (in the visible, infrared and ultraviolet spectrum), of low yield Electromagnetic Pulses, and a very loud concussion blasts when deployed, stunning targets, but doing very little physical damage to them. The primary purpose of a M78 is to temporarily blind and deafen the eenem, physically and technologically. If an unprotected victim directly observes the flash, a still frame of what is observed by the victim will be seen for up to ten seconds, at which point their eyes will have returned to their unstimulated state. The flashbang grenade's use in combat scenarios has not been overlooked, serving to confuse, disorient, or momentarily distract a potential threat for five to ten seconds.

Prior Associations: Had served honorably in the United Celestial League for over two decades. Drëngr had been part of a special operations unit called simply Grey team.

Background: The stated UCL goal is the installment of new regimes that will respect the diverse cultures and species of the Ashen Expanse while also helping to promote economic and political liberalization. After decades of raiding contested worlds and helping to expand the League, this change in course did sit well with Drëngr.

A point of contention emerges when many of these independent governments are not even recognized by others in the region or in some cases, certain League states. Some the reports he read, suspected that they may be comprised of trained personnel not always native to a region and when they are not from older regimes that were re-armed and trained after making their allegiance to the League clear.

During an "Installment Campaign" Grey team crossed paths with one of the corporate Reallocation Units that was acting for the betterment of the corporation first and not the League. And even though Grey team won the field and completed their mission, it was the report from the corporation that ended Grey team. They were struck from the active roster, disavowed, declared exile.

Decades of faithful and loyal service all thrown away because of one report. That combined with the shift in policy, creation and installation of "allied governments", left a sour taste in his teams mouth.

Someone with his skill set easily found contract work, enforcing laws here and there, collecting corporate bounties now and then. Like a few members of Grey team, he was approached by a seemingly opposing corporate entity to the one who had ended his 30 year career with the league. But in fact it was a shadow collective from the same corporation that had caused the UCL to disavow him. This corporation had ties to both the FSA and UCL, off the books and hidden from both to maximize profits. However it was a recruiter from the Exile Battalion having had access to Grey teams personnel files, and hoping to recruit them wholesale, that had initiated the series of events that led to the 'Unfortunate Incident'.
And it was through them that Drëngr was given a particularly difficult job of eliminating a very vocal and charismatic dissenter. Only to find himself in an untenable situation where he was offered a choice: Die for no reason whatsoever, or get a chance to enact vengeance on those who enabled his disgrace.

He chose vengeance and cast aside his old life and became Drëngr.

Personality: Generally happy and care free, with a darker side when riled. Can be laid back, go with the flow on most things. But when it's a life threatening situation, his own or his brothers/sisters-in-arms he is gruff and no nonsense. He is willing to help others, even if he doesn't act like it, if the team doesn't make you don't make it.

 

[Spiderheart]

Name(s): "Doc," the Viscera-Smith, Lieutenant Emil Poszkodowani
Age: 112
Species: Human, according to legal and hereditary standards; unidentifiable as such medically
Physical Description: The Doc appears human, at a glance. From at least fifteen feet away, while heavily drunk, out of the corner of your eye. Actually describing them is... difficult, in part because their features change from day to day as they tinker. They can look more human, if it so suits them – by turns a wise old man, a femme fatale, or a broken, leprous husk, as whim demands. But such mundane aspects rarely appeal. In general, they prefer an unnatural, almost mechanical smoothness and symmetry; soft joints delineated by nerves rather than bones; sensory organs that fade into their surrounding tissue, rather than marking themselves as beacons of vulnerability. They're notably heavier than their frame would suggest, due to a significant amount of subdermal metal and carapace and heavily space-optimized anatomy – their liver, heart, and kidneys could all fit in the palm of one hand, and all the extra space is used to its absolute limit.

Skills:
- Medical knowledge: For a while, the Doc did their best to stay appraised of all the advances in the medical sciences, but eventually realized that there was just too much information out there for them to learn, and that their ignorance was growing faster than their knowledge. So they cheated and installed a brainchip with an index of all the known cosmos' compiled medical knowledge. They update this chip with new developments whenever they have downtime, to ensure they're always ready to treat any species for any condition... or to rearrange their limbs.
- Engineering knowledge (specialized): The Doc wouldn't classify this as separate from their medical knowledge, but they also maintain the information needed to work on AI, cybernetics, and most models of robot between two and two thousand kilos. They can extrapolate their knowledge outside that range, but they don't deliberately save information on non-sapient machines or those who'd most likely need a team to maintain them properly.
- Basic combat training: While they come up decisively short compared to professional soldiers, Emil has enough training and field experience to triage situations and respond appropriately. Combined with the slew of grafts they maintain, they're able to hold their own quite effectively even without much gear.
- Body awareness/control: The Doc has near-absolute control over their bodily functions, partly through modifications and partly through intense self-discipline. Typical uses include shutting down their own organs for maintenance, moderating adrenal release under pressure to avoid panic, and rotating their eyes independently to fuck with people.
- Manual finesse: Even without specialized tool-grafts, Emil has an uncanny level of precision and speed with their hands. It helps that they don't keep any bones in their fingers most of the time.

Etherealism: No developed talent, but their pain tolerance and awareness of their own anatomy were substantially beyond the norm even before they began their changes. It's entirely possible their early self-surgeries were enabled by latent ethereal ability, and even now, their ability to perform brain surgery on themselves is decidedly outside normal parameters.

Loadout: It legitimately might be easier to list the augmentations the Doc doesn't have/can't deploy with an hour or two and a surgical bay. However, the following are the ones they're most likely to need and therefore always have deployed.

- Organ Shielding/Redundancy: All Emil's vital organs are protected by some form of armor, ranging from bone to chitin to fat padding by need, and all have at least one backup elsewhere in their body; in fact, their entire dermal system stores a working backup of their brain. As a result, Emil can lose upwards of a third of their body without having any vital functions interrupted (though blood loss and the loss of sensory organs will take a toll.)
- Bioreactor Glands: The Doc can metabolically synthesize complex chemical compounds using specialized organs. The specific product needs to be set in advance, but with a few hours' downtime, a decent medical ward, and a good meal, Emil can produce anything from penicillin to high-yield explosives. Generally, they keep at least one wired to produce molecular acid or evaporable neurotoxins, which they keep connected to their...
- Projectile Ducts: Specialized, micromuscle-powered apparati for spewing secreted compounds across medium-to-long distances. Can project their yield up to five meters reliably, further with clever arcing and favorable winds.
- Improved Organ Functionality: All of Emil's internal organs can handle substantially higher workloads, stress, and systemic irregularity than equivalent baseliner organs, even compressed as they are. Their brain is wrinklier, their heart beats with perfect consistency, their kidneys could purify the water for a small town. It's all just... better.
- Environmental Adaptations: Emil's anatomy is adjusted to remain functional in seemingly-impossible environments, though which ones will vary by what they could reasonably be expecting to deal with. They can, for example, walk on lunar surfaces with only the barest atmosphere or take a comfortable stroll next to a river of molten rock, without protective gear in either case, but likely not both at once unless they're specifically prepared for a hypervolcanic, low-atmosphere environment. They can survive in the vacuum of space, but not act in it; instead, they enter a state of hypothermic hibernation until recovered.
- Enhanced Sensory Suite: Emil can see a notably broader range of the electromagnetic spectrum than baseline humans, and can 'tune' themselves to different wavelengths with a few seconds of focus. Retaining any level of discretion on the fringes of the spectrum comes at a cost, though; being able to properly view radio or X- and gamma rays comes at the cost of sight in the visual spectrum, so they don't venture into those depths without specific reason. Their hearing is similarly enhanced, letting them hear not only softer sounds but also much higher or deeper ones than normal humans can. Their sight, hearing, and touch also benefit from increased fidelity, allowing them to distinguish between subjects others would think were identical.

Prior Associations: Emil is a diehard, dyed-in-the-wool True Believer of the FSA, and has been involved in one insurgent group or another since they were little more than a child. The emergence of the Frontier Solar Alliance as a legitimate, undeniable interplanetary power was the achievement of a dream they thought they'd never see in their lifetime. And if it has failed thus far to live up to all its promises... eh. They've been around too long to expect miracle cures, especially for such massive obstacles as the inclination of sapient life towards self-interest.

Background: Emil grew up in a subterranean habitat buried under the scorched rock of a world rich in minerals but utterly devoid of native life or breathable atmosphere, under the baleful eye of UCL overlords who kept control via the threat of turning off life support. The options were 'mine,' 'process,' 'support the mining and processing,' or 'die.' A young Emil was inclined to option three; before they knew anything of medicine or even knew how to read, they worked repairing environmental suits. Medical training came almost accidentally; when corpses were dragged back in and peeled out of their protective gear, Emil had to go down to the morgue to collect it, and used the opportunity to observe the habitat's medics at work. It was there that they first learned the idea of outrage at their circumstances. Many of the deaths, they discovered, were unnecessary; not just the cave-ins that could have been stopped by better engineering or the geothermal events that turned the enviro-suits into pressure cookers, but the tiny bits of suit damage that exposed miners to the perils of the half-present, all-poison air. The right grafts in their skin and lungs could have made those dangers nothing more than inconvenience... but a week didn't go by without Emil watching a healthy, seemingly undamaged body get pried out of a suit. Because it was cheaper to let people die than to protect them.

When they learned a group of their fellow habitat-dwellers had seized a number of greenhouses and that riots were breaking out, the question wasn't which side they were on; it was a question of how far they'd go. And they found the answer to that in the form of the lead pipe they slammed into a guard's head, over and over, until the man stopped moving. Even back then, a literal child who had yet to even dream of prying into their own brain and rearranged it to better meet their needs, Emil didn't feel any remorse or horror at what they'd done. Most of the ground-level enforcement was drawn from the hab's populace. They should have joined the mob, not tried to suppress it – the traitors got what was coming to them.

The revolt raged for weeks, then months, continuing for nearly three solar years as the corporation who owned their world tried to keep control. As brutal as the fighting was, rules of engagement were established early and unilaterally – when the corp tried gassing the uprising on the ninth day, rebels set off bombs in multiple mineshafts, making them effectively unusable. Killing their workforce was one thing, but destroying product was a bridge too far – the violence was confined to blades, bludgeons, and bullets. Even so, every victory was pyrrhic. For every corp soldier that fell, twenty rebels died... but the numbers were so massively on the side of the uprising that even so bleak a ratio meant the corp was being pushed out, inch by bloody inch. The corp brought in backup, but partisans from other worlds arrived too, seeking to aid the rebels. Eventually, a deal was struck – home rule for the mining habitat, in exchange for their former overlords getting everything pulled out of the ground before the rebellion and right of first refusal on the hab's product going forward. The deal would have been fair, if it weren't for the mountain of corpses needed to secure it. But it was good enough for a war-weary population.

Not so for Emil. Their bloodthirst hadn't been quenched yet. The people responsible for all this suffering, the executives and shareholders, they were still out there, a little less rich but still wealthier than anyone Emil knew could even imagine. They'd spilled too much blood and seen too much death to stop now. So they skipped town with one of the groups who'd come to their homeworld's aid, convincing the medic that they'd be an apt apprentice.

They were a quick study, both in medicine and in life. Even as they learned to treat injuries, they learned to think about preventing them instead – the easiest triage is the one you never need to perform. Good gear went a long way, but weapons could be dropped, armor could be removed, rations could spoil – and any clearly marked the bearer as a soldier, which could be a death sentence in a guerilla war. And the memory of the dead miners hadn't left them. So they... expanded their skillset, from simply repairing their comrades to improving them. Subdermal weapons and armor. Backup vitals. Built-in camouflage. And, as they improved, more subtle alterations, specialized to the task at hand or to a squad role. As their unit became more effective, emerging from conflict after conflict with few casualties and a well-above-average rate of unmitigated victory, the good doctor gained a reputation. Two decades down the line, it was clear they were wasted as a frontline medic; with the support of several of the paramilitary groups who would go on to be founding members or early embracers of the SLA, they were given a secluded lab, assistants, material, and a long list of partisan fighters interested in becoming more than their anatomy allowed.

Even as their prowess and reputation grew, though, so did the so-called Viscera-Smith's frustration with their allies. They'd picked the right side, of that they had no doubt – but two decades of bitter conflict had shown them that even the 'good guys' had some distinctly unsavory types in their ranks, and they couldn't shake the impression that some of the so-called revolutionaries only fought against oppression because they themselves wanted to be the oppressors. But now they had an idea of how to resolve their anger. The best way to treat an injury was to prevent it, and what was injustice if not an injury to the macroorganism known as civilization? So they began a side project: creating a new sort of person, one incapable of bastardry.

For years, they were their own sole test subject, growing ever more alienated not only from humanity but from any extant species. Though they dabbled in temperament changes on their super-soldier creations, those changes were simple, rooted in pragmatism – fear suppression, improved reasoning while in distress, an occasional case of reduced sadism for those who were distressed by their own love for bloodshed. But the Viscera-Smith themselves became something stranger. They shed components of their nature and grew new ones, only to cast off those adaptations and recultivate old traits – testing, experimenting, recombining the things that make up a living mind in an attempt to find something independently complete, something that felt no need or desire to hurt or take from those around them.

They're still working on it.

The endless obstacles, setbacks, and internal contradictions to their Great Work notwithstanding, Emil's less abstract efforts bore fruit. When the disparate militias of the region congealed into the Colonial Defensive Solar Alliance, their contributions were quickly recognized and rewarded. Their lab remained secluded, but now by choice rather than necessity – a monastery devoted to medical research and, after they published their first treatise on the 'medicine of the body politic,' political philosophy. They had the opportunity to branch out of military research, and took the chance to focus on more civilian-facing projects: reducing the cost of life extension procedures, improving metabolic efficiency to mitigate famine, developing 'benign' viruses that could spread simple augmentations to an entire population by dosing a small group. They were famous. They were respected. They were never satisfied.

It was the same universal esteem that got them so many resources that led to the Doc's fall from grace. They'd had a new idea about how to remedy the worst tendencies of sapience, but they needed test subjects – and the risks were too high to recruit innocent people. So they discreetly put out feelers for people who had it coming, and who wouldn't be missed – sapients slated for execution, who could reasonably be offered experimentation as a way to avoid being killed. They got a batch of such undesirables handed to them, and began their latest trials.

Unfortunately, one of their test subjects was not merely a war criminal but an Arkradian VIP, who'd hid his identity to avoid embarrassment. His family found out he'd been captured, and offered substantial political capital in exchange for his safe return. The records showed he hadn't been executed, and with a little digging, a paper trail was dug up that led straight to the Viscera-Smith's door. But what Dr. Poszkodowani returned was... not what anyone was expecting.

The exact contents of the ensuing tribunal are a sealed record, as is the fate of the Viscera-Smith's final batch of test subjects. What is public knowledge is that Lieutenant Emil Poszkodowani was stripped of all decoration, their publications removed from all official FSA repositories, and their name struck from any ongoing projects (though the FSA continues to use the actual fruits of their research). As for the doctor themselves – perhaps they're rotting in a prison somewhere. Perhaps they're dead. Or maybe, just maybe, they're back where they started – risking their life on the front lines, with no guarantee they'll ever see the fruits of their efforts, driven only by their burning desire to leave the world better than they found it. And if that last, infinitely improbable possibility were the case, where could they possibly be but the Exile Battalion?

Personality: For a being known as the Viscera-Smith in some circles, they're remarkably even-keeled, kind, and empathetic – aside from their appearance, there aren't many signs of the mad scientist lurking just below the surface. But that appearance is... not a farce, per se, but insufficient. Emil takes the long view, in which neither their own life nor any other's hold much value against the great project of freeing the universe from the clutches of mortal folly and selfishness. In other words, they're a zealot. Whoever you are, whatever you've done, Emil will do their best to understand and judge you charitably – but if you stand in the way of their agenda, they won't hesitate to melt your face off.

 

[Daniel Reaving]

Name(s): Current-Faith Scrubbed- Nathan J Whitman

Current- Redemption Scrubbed- Jackie R Whitman
Age: Faith-25 Redemption-22
Species:
Both Cybernetic human
Physical Description:
Faith-


Redemption-


Skills: Infiltrating, assassinations, Sabotage, gorilla warfare, Melee combat as well as fast moving shock and awe tactics, Urban combat, Boarding actions and tactics, jungle warfare.
Etherealism: None

Loadout:
Nathan- While both are soely up close and personal in terms of combat Nathan is the brute of the siblings. Enhanced with an extra set of arms. All 4 hands are outfitted with claws, his forward arms having retractable versions. These claws are a form of high density molecular vibrating technology or Vibrotech. Designed to allow for cutting through denser materials and clean through people. Known due to the bright red coloration of the metals interacting with the vibro systems. In addition he wears basic body armor around his chest and thighs most to allow for wearing other attachments like grenades, explosives or other such devices should they be needed

Jackie: While Jackie is also short ranged in combat he can at least strike from a 10 yard distance. Fitted with high density extending appendages on his back. Meant to be used like whips. Built with razor technology these appendages use electricity in high voltages and constant current often seen via red sparks at there base. In addition he is more technologically inclined unlike Nathan, able to use the smaller on his back to hack into systems, power grids, computers and other systems to deactivate, hack into, steal files and other such activities. Fitted with an XO3 hard case harness and system allowing for more protection across the chest as well as holding the power systems and data collection devices on and in his back as well as a customized optical view to be able to read and see the data he’s collecting.

in addition to there own unique enhancements both are fitted with cybernetic legs of there own designs, vitals, heads capable of seeing in thermal, night vision, infrared, through placed cameras should they use such systems as well as any optical feeds Redemption has hacked into plus a plethora of other systems to the point they are more robot than human.

Prior Associations:
Arcadian Empire. Numerous black ops squadrons within the empire as nothing more than attack dogs for the suicide missions

Background:
Nathan and Jackie weren’t always the cybernetic beasts they are now. They grew up a simple life, brothers to a single mom within the empire in the slums. A much simpler life even with the war. They weren’t smart, nor crafty nor anything special but they were always together and could handle there own in a fight which happened numerously throughout there childhood. Didn’t matter what was goin on or who was around these boys where inseparable even into there teenage years.

Getting into a gang at a young age and causing trouble with them. Stealing, mugging, fighting it all happened much to there mothers disapproval. Then karma finally came one night when they went to rob a store with a few friends and the clerk was armed. When it was all said and done Three of the 8 that had gone in had died before Nathan and Jackie and the rest finally killed the clerk. To caught in the mess the brothers as well as everyone else where arrested. In the end the brothers were charged the harshest since it was Jackie who held the clerk to the ground while his brother was the one to pull the trigger. Charged with robbery, attempted robbery, and murder in the 1st degree Nathan and Jackie were sentenced to life in prison and it was over for them at the age of 18. Or so they thought.

It was only 18 months. 18 months in prison before a man came dressed in black with guards that weren’t from the prison. From there the two were as you could say Aquisituoned to do something other than rot in prison. Taken by the one of the neofudal lords that ran the prison Nathan and Jackie where put into one of the many top secret research divisions as subject. Heavily augmented and refitted from normal human prisoners to close range elite machines of war under project cypher. A research and development program designed to make prisoners into weapons meant for the missions deemed suicide for any soldier aptly named Reapers.

There memories wiped and minds reprogrammed for orders the duo became vicious killing machines and where very successful under the new names Faith and Redemption. Out of the 4 missions they were sent on all 4 where complete successes even with them coming back with minor damage when those before only lasted 1-2 missions. Honestly if the war had gone on longer, more time to perfect and fine tune project Cypher could have possibly changed the war.

When it all ended though Faith and Redemption where in the middle of software updates and there secret “base” was shut down and abandoned leaving them dormant till the FSA found the pair. After a while of reprogramming and updating systems they where reactivated and given to the Exile’s.

Personality:
Truly the two are as programmed. Cold vicious and Untalking beasts. It’s only thanks to there acquisition by the FSA that they have some semblance of humanity. There not one for socializing mostly due to there vocals being removed. Talking to each other via a link to there brains the only thing that comes from there jaws are robotic cold growls and clicks. Despite it all though certain tendencies have started to come back like sticking closer together, Jackie even trying to relearn books and what not. Most surprising though is they have shown “connections” with teams. Even saving others from time to time though they are still always a risk to higher ups being what they are. In sight of this Faith and redemption need a handler as well as constant maintenance and programming changes/updates to ensure maximum effectiveness as well as to make sure they don’t start to change back to there old ways

 

[skydude808]

Name(s): born name: Elliot Bradski
arkradian desg: azmodius
Codename Duskwalker
Age: 32
Species: human(akranian born)
Physical Description: wide cheekbones and a thin jawline give him a somewhat gaunt appearance, hazel eyes with dark circles gained from years of insomnia fits make his appearance somewhat unsettling this is usually contrasted by the fact he has a friendly almost childlike disposition at times. azmodius is tall at around 6'3 with a thin build giving an almost malnourished appearance, common amongst those who make extensive use of etheric powers. His helmet has a full faced auto tinted visor the rear of his head has a metal plate with many small plugs used for interfacing with the synaptic regulator on the back of his helmet and spine. A dark blue monofilament cloak covers a grey carbonfiber bodysuit, lightweight ceramic plates add extra protection to vital areas. A tattoo in the shape of an akradian bird gazing into a reflective sphere sits on his color bone and left pectoral both a sign of past service to the akradian empire as an etherealist as much a testimony of his forced servitude,

Skills: etheriologist
Interrogation
Etheric combat
Basic weapons training
Stealth
Espionage
Etherealism:
Thought intradiction(a subtle form of psychic synaptic rewiring in which memories of the victim are gently rewired to make new associations)
Psychic Ward(helps protect the minds of others against attacks)
Lingual adaption:using the psychic resonance of speech patterns enables incredibly fast adoption of local dialects and even alien language
Void(prism lance): the prism lance is used to create a spectral gap of pure darkness obstructructing most sensors.
Lesser Kinetic barrier(shield)
Telekinesis

Loadout: prism lance: a powerful psychic weapon shaped like a staff, two ornamented snakes encircle around the shaft both meeting at the top holding in their mouths a strange crystal of constantly shifting color with the appropriate psychic suggestion it can change it's shape to form a glowing blade of oscillating energy.
P88 Cyclone: a submachine gun that fires lances of matter(mass effect style weapon)
Synaptic regulator: due to the adverse effects of abzu essence on the mind synaptic regulators are a form of safety net limiting the amount of erratic neural activity that occurs allowing for finer control.
Stealth field generator: a wearable device that bends light around the target rendering them nearly invisible. Limited charge, movement causes small disruptions in the field.
Prior Associations: arkradian central intellegence
Background: yorrin'ka is a planet sitting on the edge of the arkradian inner sphere years ago a child named Elliot was born into a happy middle-class family, during early childhood his psychic ability became apparent. It was during puberty his latent psychic abilities became too much to keep secret and at 14 he was kidnapped on the way home from school never to be seen again.

He would spend the next seventeen years in the possession of Levorin Vaus the chief handler of etheric assets in the ACSB, trained in various forms of etheric arts including those banned by the conventional weapons act of 3745. Over time he had grown close to a few of his guards, one in particular victor who over time became a friend and confidant. Eventually Victor would reveal that he is a spy from an organization looking to liberate him, taking advantage of an insurrection Victor managed to free many of the etherealists held in captivity. Victor and many others were killed in the escape attempt. On his no dead friends request he met with the contact who offered a way for Azmodius to get revenge on the arkradian empire and Levorin Vaus. He is now known as Duskwalker a member of the exile squad.
Personality: from years of psychic trauma Elliot developed a form of multiple personality disorder to guard against the darker perils of his profession, his core self is very kind and understanding but if faced with a threatening situation it's almost as if a switch is flipped and any semblance of empathy dies. Elliot can sometimes be found talking to himself in an almost tug of war with this other aspect of himself. He is focused on revenge against Levorin Vaus and the Akradian nobility for being treated like an animal all those years.

 

[Paarthurnax]

Name(s): Corvei Fian
Age: 27

Species: Scielto
Physical Description:

Corvei is as pictured, though an array of various implants ring the back of their head, mostly out of view from the front, with some reaching down all the way down Corvei’s spine. There are also a few connected to each of Corvei’s wrists, snaking into the skin where their components can still be seen through semi-translucent skin. Their skin is altered, though, presenting as usually green tinged though they have been noted to have been seen with skin of other colors. Throughout all of their skin, one can still see their organs, ethereal energy and in the trunk of their body, where their skin is most translucent, their dark organic looking bones. It should be noted that Corvei also has an impressive array of wing tendrils, which have grown in sharp.


Skills:

Artillery Mage: Because of their affinity with the ether on top of augmentations, Corvei is very useful for being a long rage, high damage threat via their magic. They are powerful enough to use long range abilities that can shred most kinds of armor unless it is ether-resistant. Their specialty lies in using high amount of ethereal energy to mount attacks on enemies, but they lack the finesse to use it in small amounts for use in other aspects.

Conduit of the Beyond


Adaptive Membrane Layer


Spectral Weaponry

Peacemaker: Because of their easygoing nature, Corvei is quite proficient at serving as a voice of reason for those who work with them. They are charismatic and calming, which has proven valuable even outside of Damnation’s Hunger.

Support: A newer development for Corvei, they have learned to channel their ether for supportive purposes, including shields and weapon augmentation for allies.


Etherealism: Corvei is capable of using the ether, and is quite proficient with it. Their parents also taught them how to use their wing-tendrils for use in casting.


Loadout:

Multiple implants: These include various biological and ethereal implants, with the main objective of increasing Corvei’s power with the ether, through feedback regulation and increased quillatu resistance. They also have multiple failsafes should they reach their threshold, which range from shutting off their ether flow to entirely powering down most biological functions to put Corvei into a comatose state.

Wing-tendril weaponry: Between having grown sharp wing-tendrils and employing the use of ether blades, Corvei’s main form of defense in close quarters is their wing tendrils.

Six-shooter: Corvei’s last line of defense is a non-ethereal six shooter pistol. It has engineered bullets capable of damaging those who are ether shielded. This is a last ditch effort weapon – Corvei does not carry extra special ammunition, and is quite frankly a terrible shot outside of point-blank range when it comes to “standard” weaponry. It can be used in conjunction with Corvei’s spectral weaponry abilities, but that doesn’t fix their poor aim.

Ipu: At first glance, this creature could be confused with a small human dog. The similarities end in size, however, as Ipu is a quasi-insectoid with fur around its upper half, eight stubby legs and a long, bald tail that splits in two. It sports two heads, each featuring strong mandibles and no eyes but instead several sets of something like antennae. Ipu isn’t very dangerous, though it’s bite is strong and mildly poisonous, and serves as a companion to Corvei. They find it very useful in dealing with any potential psychological effects as a result of superfluous ether use.

Prior Associations: Loose association with the UCL via family.


Background: Born into a wealthy, powerful, well-respected scielto family, Corvei knew only luxury at a young age. Corvei was raised by their family to learn all of the scielto ways, including techniques with the ether. This did not last long, however, as Corvei’s family values were rooted in antiquated scielto beliefs, and after voicing their opinions using their position of power, the UCL deemed them a threat to their goals, which other envious scielto families encouraged, seeing Corvei’s family as a convenient scapegoat. Corvei’s family fled to the outer reaches of the UCL, shamed and stripped of their power and respect and hoping to lick their wounds. Having limited resources and being so close to the edge of the UCL’s domain, it was not long until an Arkradian ship passed by, which killed Corvei’s parents and took Corvei hostage. The Arkradian’s quickly discovered Corvei’s vast ethereal power and decided that they would use Corvei to power their ship indefinitely. They outfitted them with numerous implants, some of which boosted Corvei’s ethereal power, with a number of implants also serving as failsafes. Corvei served as essentially ship-power for quite a long time, but was eventually rescued by a FSA ship, who’s inhabitants showed Corvei nothing but patience and kindness, something they had not experienced in a long time. For this, Corvei was grateful, and with no family or associations, Corvei pledged themselves to the service of the FSA. Initially Corvei just did grunt work, as their crude use of ether for so long gave the FSA doubts about their power. Corvei removed these doubts after using their extreme amounts of etheric power to wipe out almost two platoons of soldiers during an attack on an FSA base, though it activated a failsafe and caused Corvei a period of physical difficulty and psychological instability. It was during this time that they were sent to Damnation’s Hunger, as the FSA believed they would be a valuable asset once they recovered.


Personality: Despite a long history of being used as nothing more than an energy battery, Corvei tends to be pretty open and friendly. While their family was cold and callous, Corvei grew up mostly outside of the shelter of wealth and power in scielto society that their family had once provided them. As a result, Corvei found that maintaining positivity helped get them through the most difficult of times. While not exactly a mindset associated with a killer, Corvei also found it easy to villainize those who they thought were a threat to their way of life – which now revolves around serving alongside those on the Damnation’s Hunger. Because of their young age at their abduction, Corvei can act maybe infantile or childish at times, however, one must also not forget the injustice that they once faced. Corvei brings about a casual view to war and to battle, perhaps because they haven’t experienced it on a large scale, and they try their best to lighten the mood of their companions as often as they can, sincerely believing that something akin to “love and friendship” is valuable when you’re teaming up with homicidal maniacs. Corvei can be infuriatingly stubborn when it comes to some things, especially their family and the ways they were taught as a youth, and they present themselves as an idealist who has bought in to the hope that the FSA provides.

 

[SpazTheButcher]

Names: Daniel Ray Daly "The Butcher" "Spaz"
Age: 32
Species: Human
Physical Description:


Skills:

-Firearms Specialist: Spaz is well versed in all manners of weapons and killing. He can usually know a gun, it's caliber, and its mechanisms just by looking at it.

-Combat "pilot": Pilot is an overstatement. More like.... guiding a bomb to it's target. He can fly, don't get me wrong, and you'll survive. But your stomach probably won't make it.

-Combat "driver": Same as being a pilot. He won't get you killed, but you may never want to step foot in a vehicle with him again.


Etherealism: N/A

Loadout:

-Marine Expeditionary-Series Exosuit, which boasts two separate wrist mounted grenade launchers
-M41A2 Pulse Rifle, fires 10mm Explosive-tipped light armor piercing caseless rounds from a 99-round mag, with a Holographic sight, a Suppressor, and Foregrip
-M1911 Pistol, .45 ACP fired from a 7 round mag
-Ithaca 37, firing 12-gauge rounds from a 8 round internal magazine. Has a pistol grip and no stock, and is kept in a back holster.
-x3 Flashbangs for the left arm launcher
-x4 Frag grenades for the right arm launcher

Prior Associations: UCL
Background:
Ray had been born on a shitty backwater planet, and from a young age it was made clear to him his two options, die young in a off-world factory, or join the Marines. Ray chose the latter, passing boot camp as top of his class. At suggestion of his DI, he went to Scout Sniper School. He then was assigned to the Hundred and First Marine Reconnaissance Battalion, and became a scout sniper for Bravo Company.

His first deployment was to the rogue planet of Ishval, which had rebelled four times in the year. The desert planet was mostly inhospitable, but Ray made a home with his fellow brothers in arms. It was on that ball of sand that he would claim his first kill, the first of many. But not even two months in, word came down from high command. The population of Ishval was to be exterminated. Ray watched from orbit as the UCL nuked 'em. Burned them all to smithereens. Every last one.

Shortly after, he was hailed a hero for what he did in Ishval. So, he was transferred to Officer Candidate School, and was given a platoon command in the 6th Marine Force Recon Battalion. He remained a cold person to those who met him, for his previous duties were not something he was proud of. Most nights, when it was late, he was eaten out from the inside, unable to cope with his actions. It was not until he had leave on New Australia, the Battalion's home world, that his views changed. It was there that he met a preacher, and while he remained and atheist, Ray developed a deeper sense of understanding.

He was deployed again, this time to the Irish Republican Systems. The systems had been purchased by the Western Galactic Trading Company some 2000 years before, but Irish settlers had arrived there before the Company could. It resulted in a 2000-year civil war, which saw no end until the UCL decided to get involved. While on the planet Ray faced bombings and random attacks. But when he met with an IRA fighter, his view on them changed. Ray then refused an order to kill 20 unarmed P.O.W.s, as a result he was called to court martial. But as war churned, the UCL was in a need for bodies. He was given an offer many poor souls had been given years before him. Life in prison, or the Marines. Ray was transferred to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Battalion to be used as cannon fodder. In the end, his unit was slaughtered, and Ray abandoned the Colonial Marines, like a man from a sinking ship. He is wanted by the government, not just for refusing to follow orders, but also his attempts to expose what they did on Ishval.

One day, while hiding in a safe house, he was approached by a recruiter for the Exile Battalion. He was given his redemption, one he took gladly.

Personality: Ray is quite the personality. He is a trigger happy guy, who holds "fairness" in combat above all else. He sees war as a sport or profession, rather than the dark thing it is. While he enjoys war, he does not enjoy killing, and as such will never kill someone who is not a combatant or an enemy.

In addition to his views, he is often quoted as a combination of things. At times he sounds almost like an ANZAC of old, other times he is an "ass hat", and sometimes he is seen as a cowboy, whose bravery borders recklessness.