Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2013 3:50:46 GMT -6
Theme
"When my journey began, I wanted only bloodshed, but along the way, when people saw me, they assumed I was a Hunter. And they needed my help. And... I gave it. I gave myself. It was right. It felt good. It was the only good thing I'd felt in so long."
Name: Xerath.
Species: Bio-roid.
Affiliation/Occupation:
Hunter Rank: C
Physical Description: Tall and athletic, Xerath's imposing form is humanoid but far from humanlike - it is as much an idealized tribute to the strengths of the human body as it is to the relentless evolution of those concepts, a chassis designed around the endless power of the one-of-a-kind experimental bioplasma reactor that gives Xerath life. As with many Bio-roids, absolute durability has been sacrificed in order to follow the lure of increased power; his body is lightly armored in Titanium X in order to protect the generator and critical assemblies.
Equipment:
2x directed antipersonnel flechette mines (chest mounted; requires concentration and significant downtime (30+ min uninterrupted) to reload)
Plasma Blade (variable output; can be overcharged to produce various effects, though Xerath does not know how)
Skills/Techniques:
- +Horrifying strength - the only real limit is how much of his true nature Xerath is willing to reveal. Using too much invites strong suspicion of being a Bioroid; after a point, that much is blatantly obvious.
- +Reflexes - While his chassis is not built for sustained speed, it is finely tuned to match the absurd response time of his central processing core.
- +Swordsmanship - Xerath is a superb swordsman, though more by dint of reflexes and rapid calculations than a trained style. Combined with his reflexes, he can block individual projectiles with his blade, though more than one at a time is unrealistic and rapid-fire weapons of any variety are completely impossible to block.
- +Endurance - Having an unlimited power source built in means that he does not run out of power. Ever. Xerath can continue on indefinitely until damage takes its toll.
- -Speed - while he isn't exactly slow, Xerath does not have the speed to safely close in on ranged opponents, especially those who combine both range and high speed.
- -Durability - more of a general Bioroid weakness than specific to Xerath himself, but extreme strength coupled with below-average durability means that actually using his strength with reckless abandon is unwise at best.
- -Range - Outside of two mid-to-short range, one-off attacks, he has zero ranged attacks and no effective gap closer. Coupled with his lack of durability, this does not translate to being particularly effective in larger-scale combat.
Hyper Mode: Will work this out with Magnus later.
Backstory:
War is all I have ever known. Born amidst the winds of chaos in a world consumed by Armageddon, my first introduction to this green planet was upon a cratered field scathed by flensing winds and the anguish of the dying. I knew my task before I awoke; to gather field data on my performance. As a living weapon built around an experimental bioplasma generator, there was little ambiguity as to how I was intended to do so. My brethren and I - we all knew. I saw them cut down and felt little. I cut down Hunters and felt less. They were the enemy; I was built to terminate them. My brethren were each built for their own tasks. Some succeeded. Some did not. I did not care.
I was the eye of a hurricane that razed land and metal alike. Reploids, Bioroids, Mechaniloids; my task was to gather data of the generator's capabilities, not to consider the flow of battle. My processors were focused almost entirely on that goal, but I was loosely aware of my surroundings; even now I retain ghostly visions of that battle and those following it, myself in equal parts a dispassionate observer and implacable executioner. It became obviously quickly that I was not destined to be a leader of my kind nor to be a mindless drone - I had been given thought, reason, but expected to leave both behind when they became inconvenient. Speech, but only to comment on the data I collected. Life, but not to live.
I was the eye of a hurricane that razed land and metal alike. Reploids, Bioroids, Mechaniloids; my task was to gather data of the generator's capabilities, not to consider the flow of battle. My processors were focused almost entirely on that goal, but I was loosely aware of my surroundings; even now I retain ghostly visions of that battle and those following it, myself in equal parts a dispassionate observer and implacable executioner. It became obviously quickly that I was not destined to be a leader of my kind nor to be a mindless drone - I had been given thought, reason, but expected to leave both behind when they became inconvenient. Speech, but only to comment on the data I collected. Life, but not to live.
I am not certain how long I existed in that state. A stable perception of time is difficult to establish when one spends significant periods deactivated for maintenance, upgrades, or simply general downtime. Much of it blurred together anyways; there is little of interest to tell. I fought. I killed. I held to a life I could not live because I was ordered to. I wondered what the world might be outside of war, but all I had to draw upon were memories wind-swept wastelands and the seething chaos of endless battles.
Later, I found that I had made somewhat of a name for myself, a merciless berserker that destroyed friend and foe with wild abandon. It is likely for the best I did not know of those rumors at the time; I would not have understood the concept of mercy. Both past and present selves would have recoiled at the insulting insinuation of mindless savagery - I was in complete control of my own body, simply bereft of IFF protocols.
Later, I found that I had made somewhat of a name for myself, a merciless berserker that destroyed friend and foe with wild abandon. It is likely for the best I did not know of those rumors at the time; I would not have understood the concept of mercy. Both past and present selves would have recoiled at the insulting insinuation of mindless savagery - I was in complete control of my own body, simply bereft of IFF protocols.
It was less than a year before the end of the war that I first tasted choice. Another field test - fragmented intel suggested a force of Reploids were moving through an area of the wasteland dangerously close to one of our many underground bases, though there had been no military communications intercepted to explain their presence. Where others saw a threat, my creators saw opportunity; another test to run the generator at my core through. Apparently they negotiated for my insertion, with the caveat that if I did not finish quickly, proper army regulars would be sent in to clean up. There were reploids at the target site. I destroyed them. None attempted to run.
I found out why in short order, when I continued on and met up with the refugee caravan they had given their lives to protect. They mistook me for a Reploid, for a "hunter" like the ones I had butchered moments ago. I did not correct them. It was strange enough to be asked, rather than ordered, that I was uncertain how to respond. It did not aid my assessment to realize that they were neither Reploid, Bioroid, nor Mechanoloid in nature, and that none of them posed a threat. Beaten, unarmed, desperate - my memory did not hold an answer. I know now that by all rights I should have cut them down as I did their protectors, if I had been following the wishes of the army I served, but my creators had never been interested in genocide so much as united by an obsessed devotion to perfecting their craft, to unlocking the potential of bioplasma, that the actual context of the war had been irrelevant to them.
I cannot help but wonder now if they were not perhaps more pure than many of the humans and Reploids I have met since, but at the time I had no context to act off of, no orders to fulfill, no real testing to be done; I had fulfilled my original orders more quickly than expected, but the raging sandstorm was interfering with communications.
When other Bioroids came, I - fought. Them. I did not understand the logic in it, but I knew from combat that to make no choice at all was to make the worst choice possible; to hesitate, fatal. The difference between a tactical decision and a choice was an incalculable divide, but I made the connection nonetheless by rationalizing it as an opportunity to test my strength against the oncoming Bioroids. Whether it was simply a snake biting the hand that fed him or a selfless act of daring and heroism, I do not ponder; I know it for what it was, the arbitrary decision of a confused mind. That is - truth. As much truth as I feel able to declare in a world that is so lacking in that quality.
The cacophony when I finished my grim work was loud enough to nearly convince me that combat had come once more, but it was simply the people of the caravan. Cheering, I discovered. Celebrating my victory, and their continued existence. The sandstorm cut celebration short; organics are more fragile than those of us born in steel and fire, and they took cover in an alcove in the hills along the side of the road, clinging desperately to lives that were once more theirs to... live.
I left as soon as I could slip away, a simple task amidst the torrents of dust and sand that obscured earth and sky alike. So long as they continued onwards, it was unlikely that the already depleted base would waste any more troops on a mysterious group of "Reploids" already retreating from the area.
The Bioroids were not the only entity with a vested interest in the affairs of the caravan, however; I came upon a Reploid not long after, a Hunter who recognized me for what - for who - I was where the organics had not. We fought, as our kinds generally do. He feared me, that much was obvious, but fought with the desperate fury I did not understand; where I had nothing to lose, he drew his power from something else, something I did not understand. Where once I might have cut him down, I found myself plagued by hesitation, uncertain how to react to the choice I had made. Had it been the right one? Was it incorrect?
In my own failure he found success, cutting me down when a logic loop deadened my reaction to an unexpected angle of a quick swing. So - the wrong decision. I felt as though I should be more perturbed at that knowledge, and yet I could not find it in me; I only regretted that the reactor, and that set of data, would cease to exist alongside my mind. I would not betray the truth of my choice by doubting it, nor rob it of meaning in order to excuse my own failure. At least the organics would be safe with him.
I found out why in short order, when I continued on and met up with the refugee caravan they had given their lives to protect. They mistook me for a Reploid, for a "hunter" like the ones I had butchered moments ago. I did not correct them. It was strange enough to be asked, rather than ordered, that I was uncertain how to respond. It did not aid my assessment to realize that they were neither Reploid, Bioroid, nor Mechanoloid in nature, and that none of them posed a threat. Beaten, unarmed, desperate - my memory did not hold an answer. I know now that by all rights I should have cut them down as I did their protectors, if I had been following the wishes of the army I served, but my creators had never been interested in genocide so much as united by an obsessed devotion to perfecting their craft, to unlocking the potential of bioplasma, that the actual context of the war had been irrelevant to them.
I cannot help but wonder now if they were not perhaps more pure than many of the humans and Reploids I have met since, but at the time I had no context to act off of, no orders to fulfill, no real testing to be done; I had fulfilled my original orders more quickly than expected, but the raging sandstorm was interfering with communications.
When other Bioroids came, I - fought. Them. I did not understand the logic in it, but I knew from combat that to make no choice at all was to make the worst choice possible; to hesitate, fatal. The difference between a tactical decision and a choice was an incalculable divide, but I made the connection nonetheless by rationalizing it as an opportunity to test my strength against the oncoming Bioroids. Whether it was simply a snake biting the hand that fed him or a selfless act of daring and heroism, I do not ponder; I know it for what it was, the arbitrary decision of a confused mind. That is - truth. As much truth as I feel able to declare in a world that is so lacking in that quality.
The cacophony when I finished my grim work was loud enough to nearly convince me that combat had come once more, but it was simply the people of the caravan. Cheering, I discovered. Celebrating my victory, and their continued existence. The sandstorm cut celebration short; organics are more fragile than those of us born in steel and fire, and they took cover in an alcove in the hills along the side of the road, clinging desperately to lives that were once more theirs to... live.
I left as soon as I could slip away, a simple task amidst the torrents of dust and sand that obscured earth and sky alike. So long as they continued onwards, it was unlikely that the already depleted base would waste any more troops on a mysterious group of "Reploids" already retreating from the area.
The Bioroids were not the only entity with a vested interest in the affairs of the caravan, however; I came upon a Reploid not long after, a Hunter who recognized me for what - for who - I was where the organics had not. We fought, as our kinds generally do. He feared me, that much was obvious, but fought with the desperate fury I did not understand; where I had nothing to lose, he drew his power from something else, something I did not understand. Where once I might have cut him down, I found myself plagued by hesitation, uncertain how to react to the choice I had made. Had it been the right one? Was it incorrect?
In my own failure he found success, cutting me down when a logic loop deadened my reaction to an unexpected angle of a quick swing. So - the wrong decision. I felt as though I should be more perturbed at that knowledge, and yet I could not find it in me; I only regretted that the reactor, and that set of data, would cease to exist alongside my mind. I would not betray the truth of my choice by doubting it, nor rob it of meaning in order to excuse my own failure. At least the organics would be safe with him.
"It's all right now. You're safe."
The voice was - strained, slightly, likely due to my hand constricting around the white-clad organic's throat, but it held a curiously warm quality that was equal parts calming and enticing. Even in the face of death she smiled, not struggling so much as simply waiting. "What-""Please, calm down, and I will explain everything." She continued as if the icy threat in my voice had been idle curiosity, genial and friendly despite being held aloft by someone who had returned from the dead mere seconds earlier.
Confused and disoriented, I mutely complied with his request, dropping heavily back onto the workbench I had awoken upon moments earlier, as the organic - a Reploid scientist, she revealed - explained why I was not nearly as permanently decomissioned as I had assumed dying meant, and why my body had changed somewhat in the interim. Friendly, bubbling with barely muted excitement, she introduced herself and began a long and meandering tale that essentially boiled down to the Hunter who had terminated me recovering my control chip after finding the caravan and hearing their side of the story. He wandered in less than a minute after my awakening, worried for her well-being, but settled for glaring at me as if daring me to lay a finger on her while in his presence as the woman continued blithely on, completely oblivious to the visual showdown.
She seemed as excited about the bioplasma generator as my creators, but unexpectedly showed equal interest in my own well-being, explaining that she had removed a number of thoughtlocks from my control chip while repairing my chassis. I settled for mute confusion amidst the torrent of chatter she unleashed, exploring the empty void in which primary directives had always rested. It was - almost frightening to not have a simple objective clearly laid out for me, but as she waxed eloquent about the power of choice I decided it was almost pleasant. Her voice was not odious, but the... choice to listen to her or not was a novel concept indeed.
So too was the garden she showed me, a self-contained world of lush greenery and life that seemed as alien to me at the time as another planet would seem to a human. I had known only the rusted wastelands and savaged ruins of destroyed installations, never once suspecting that anything could be that full of life, nor that the world had once been covered in it. She spoke of second chances, for myself and the world alike - belittling her own rhetoric, admitting the latter was unlikely at best, yet pressing on anyways. Wisdom or insanity or both entwined, though I suspected the latter when she revealed that I was not required to repay her - their - kindness, that I could leave at will.
I left, hearing but not comprehending her words, but I understood two things with as much certainty as I had ever known - that I had been given a second chance, and that perhaps even more, I had been given a life of my own to live. Neither truly registered with me at the time, but I have had plenty of time since then to consider what each means, though I have yet to come up with an answer.
The voice was - strained, slightly, likely due to my hand constricting around the white-clad organic's throat, but it held a curiously warm quality that was equal parts calming and enticing. Even in the face of death she smiled, not struggling so much as simply waiting. "What-""Please, calm down, and I will explain everything." She continued as if the icy threat in my voice had been idle curiosity, genial and friendly despite being held aloft by someone who had returned from the dead mere seconds earlier.
Confused and disoriented, I mutely complied with his request, dropping heavily back onto the workbench I had awoken upon moments earlier, as the organic - a Reploid scientist, she revealed - explained why I was not nearly as permanently decomissioned as I had assumed dying meant, and why my body had changed somewhat in the interim. Friendly, bubbling with barely muted excitement, she introduced herself and began a long and meandering tale that essentially boiled down to the Hunter who had terminated me recovering my control chip after finding the caravan and hearing their side of the story. He wandered in less than a minute after my awakening, worried for her well-being, but settled for glaring at me as if daring me to lay a finger on her while in his presence as the woman continued blithely on, completely oblivious to the visual showdown.
She seemed as excited about the bioplasma generator as my creators, but unexpectedly showed equal interest in my own well-being, explaining that she had removed a number of thoughtlocks from my control chip while repairing my chassis. I settled for mute confusion amidst the torrent of chatter she unleashed, exploring the empty void in which primary directives had always rested. It was - almost frightening to not have a simple objective clearly laid out for me, but as she waxed eloquent about the power of choice I decided it was almost pleasant. Her voice was not odious, but the... choice to listen to her or not was a novel concept indeed.
So too was the garden she showed me, a self-contained world of lush greenery and life that seemed as alien to me at the time as another planet would seem to a human. I had known only the rusted wastelands and savaged ruins of destroyed installations, never once suspecting that anything could be that full of life, nor that the world had once been covered in it. She spoke of second chances, for myself and the world alike - belittling her own rhetoric, admitting the latter was unlikely at best, yet pressing on anyways. Wisdom or insanity or both entwined, though I suspected the latter when she revealed that I was not required to repay her - their - kindness, that I could leave at will.
I left, hearing but not comprehending her words, but I understood two things with as much certainty as I had ever known - that I had been given a second chance, and that perhaps even more, I had been given a life of my own to live. Neither truly registered with me at the time, but I have had plenty of time since then to consider what each means, though I have yet to come up with an answer.
Personality: Xerath is quiet and reserved, preferring to fit as much meaning into as few words as possible; he thinks much and says little. While generally laconic, his odd viewpoints tend to lead to thought-inspiring questions or spark philosophical debates, which he enjoys hurling himself into with abandon, though whether Xerath plays devil's advocate or actually espouses certain of the more extreme positions he casually mentions can be a somewhat worrisome thought for debate opponents.
While intelligent enough to not go around mentioning the fact, Xerath does not regret his past actions; he views them as learning experiences and proof of the sovereignty of strength, much as he holds nothing against the hunter that destroyed him - it was his own weakness that led to the loss of that fight and his life, and Xerath had already accepted as much when he shut down, not expecting to return. Strength is necessary to make anything truth; the greatest idealogue or the purest desire alike are worthless and meaningless if they cannot invoke change, though "strength" is a vague concept whose definition varies based on desired goals.
He's not sure why he was granted a second chance, but is determined to not waste it; this affects many of his actions and thoughts, a driving desire to figure out what exactly to do with it. Without guidance, Xerath is partially just enjoying being able to follow his own desires and partially trying as many new things as he can. He enjoys helping people and is curious about the strength he sees as inherent to defending others, so he serves as a Hunter, honing his skills and his beliefs as he blindly gropes his way through life in search of answers.
A sense of humor as caustic as the bioplasma he generates helps lend a certain consistency to the otherwise-laconic Bioroid; he enjoys irony and sarcasm, making constant use of each in both thoughts and quiet words, though generally aimed more at events and objects than people. This is probably for the best, as his acidic sense of humor could be significantly more detrimental were it aimed at those around him more often.
Additional Information: SABER TIEM