(no subject)

[mithrarin]

UNPLUGGED

OOC

Name: Dragon.
Age: SIGNIFICANTLY over 18.
Contact details: dragonoflife
Characters already in Systemwide: Maria Cyphert (Freeborn OC) in app.

BASIC PROFILE

Name: Dust.
Age: ...Complicated. Physically he's an adult; he's entirely mentally developed; but the mind that is Dust is only a few days old.

In game terms, Dust was created by fusing together two souls and creating a mind whole-cloth that was separate from either of them. In Matrix terms, this might be considered a 'code transplant'. Since programs can overwrite biological minds (e.g. Smith overwriting Bane), the best way to reconcile this is that Dust's Matrix downloaded Jin's mind and implanted into Cassius's body at the moment of their mutual 'death'. The memories of both were suppressed by this procedure, leaving Dust without memories and a personality that drew faintly from both. So in this respect, Dust has full mental and emotional development in much the same way someone with Hollywood-style retrograde amnesia would have possessed, and since both sets of memories have almost completely returned to him as of his canon point, he is basically 'normal' despite the second set of memories. But by his own perception, the mind and personality that is 'Dust' was a complete and new creation at the time of his awakening, hence the 'few days old' comment.

Canon: Dust: An Elysian Tail.
Appearance: Here's a human sample!
Extraction point:Immediately before the battle with General Gaius.

OVERVIEW

Personality: Let's talk canon independent of 'reality' for a bit:

Dust is a fusion of two souls, and those two separate souls tug at him, each of them drawing at him in different ways... but, explicitly, Dust has his own mind, created as part of the magic that created him without any influence from his souls.

The Dust that results is a decent sort -- quiet, but with a wry sense of humor that he probably picked up from Fidget herself. In his interactions with normal townsfolk, Dust rarely emotes very strongly, not really raising his voice or expressing extremes of emotion. Despite this seeming standoffishness, even Dust's quiet conversations carry force behind them; Dust has a very powerful personality, the sort that conveys his feelings without an excess of drama.

Mild though he may be, he doesn't refrain from adding his observations to a conversation, be they amusing, sardonic, or occasionally playful when he's poking fun at Fidget. He also isn't above having a little fun at someone else's expense, as is the case when he spends several conversations putting words in the mouth of a character who only grunts in response. Fidget is the general target of his humor, but he can take her jibes with equally good humor in turn.

Though he has his own mind, his two souls still pull at him. Jin's soul drives him to compassion, to aid and help others, to kindness and courtesy and to empathy. Cassius's soul urges him to seek power, to fight and to grow strong, to ignore the weak and take the expedient path. For the most part when dealing with others, Dust listens to Jin's compassion, and the game features him helping others -- but he uses Cassius's strength and power to do it, and even admits he enjoys the feeling of growing stronger.

For most of the game, Dust is characterized by uncertainty. He has no idea who he is, and that lack and his desire to know eat at him and undercut his confidence when he needs it most. When he finally learns the truth of his existence, even then he can't come to grips with it. Fidget is the one who grounds him, and who steadfastly tells him that no matter what his circumstances or his souls' pasts might be, Dust is Dust. Only at the end of the game, when he faces General Gaius directly, does he come to grips with who and what he is, accepting it. At that moment, his two souls and his mind seem to fuse at last into harmony -- Jin's righteous anger and conviction, Cassius's memory of his old friend and the deeds they did in the search for power, and Dust's choice. When Gaius begs him to remember who he once was, Dust's answer is simple: "I remember everything. And it changes nothing!"

At last, Dust has accepted his role: an implement of vengeance, but also one of protection.

Being unplugged screwed a lot of that up.

Just as he had accepted who and what he was, just as he had come to terms with his identity with the help of his friends, he had those same friends stripped from him and everything revealed to be yet another lie. Everything he had been through was meaningless. All the suffering and death -- the genocide of the Moonbloods, the slaughter of the sympathizers, the murder of each of his souls at the hands of the other -- it was all false. All fake. All just a pointless story playing out.

At this point, Dust reaaally could have used some therapy. But Zion had better things to do than psychology, so he was left to adapt as best he could to the new reality. That adaptation took the form of anger. Dust hates the Machines. Because he believes all that suffering and misery was pointless, he is convinced that the suffering and misery he and everyone else has been through is just a sick game, a torture they put humanity through as revenge for defying them.

At the same time, Dust is still struggling with fierce dysmorphia. His human body is slower, weaker, and less durable than his Warmblood Matrix persona, and worse, it is just close enough without being correct to feel horribly wrong to him. For this reason, he spends as much time in the Matrix or at least plugged in to a sim as possible, and whatever time he has to be offline he devotes to training and exercise.

He continues to believe that he has two souls, since science is in no position to prove him otherwise.

Matrix: The wiki is here and contains information about most of the elements of the setting, Falana.

Falana is a low-magic fantasy world at a basically medieval technology phase, filled with anthropomorphic animals instead of humans. It is a sprawling and wild land, and monsters roam it freely, making travel unsafe and giving most settlements a feeling of being under siege. Civilization seems to be failing in Falana, between the monsters and the actions of General Gaius, whose army is marching in to put to the sword the reptilian-like Moonblood people. The land was once far greater, as evinced by crumbling manors and massive statues.

In a couple of rare occasions, a magitech-sort of power comes from crystals and devices, although this is ancient technology that likely is descended from the "Flameless Light" the Moonblood civilization utilized long ago. General Gaius also has access to some distinctly out of place devices in the form of gunships, which is never really explained.

Powerful beings such as Lady Tethys lurk in the fringes of Falana; she, for example, has control over its waters. Ghosts and phantoms are real things to be dealt with. A race of flying creatures with small magical talent known as Nimbats also exist in Falana, although only one is ever seen.


Real World: Dust has been relatively recently extracted from the Matrix -- long enough to have downloaded enough knowledge into his brain to function and to be considered suitable as an operative, but not long enough to really 'adapt' in any psychological sense of the word. His extraction was a trial by fire -- after undergoing the necessary physical therapy and training onboard the hovership Shangrila, he had to jack in for two more extractions to rescue potential recruits before they would have died in their own Matrices. His phenomenal physical skill while jacked-in earned him a fast-track to full operative status, and his hatred for the Machines resonated with some human factions who hadn't yet forgiven them, truce or no. Dust has spent most of his time on a ship outside of Zion, where he technically lives.

ABILITIES AND SKILLS

Anomalies:

Dust Storm: On the ground, Dust can spin a sword in one hand with such speed that it creates a vortex of wind. This vortex is so strong it can extinguish large fires or haul in heavy items. When jumping, Dust spins the weapon around his body instead, using the wind the attack generates to send him flying around at incredible speed. In either case, the Dust Storm can amplify the power of magic exponentially -- a few magic missiles become a foe-seeking spellstorm of power, a couple of small orbs of fire become massive columns of fire several stories high, and a bolt of lightning becomes a sustained blast of electrical doom, just as canon examples. Dust cannot maintain the Dust Storm for too long, however, or he injures himself.

Sword skills: Dust is a incredibly good swordsman -- probably the best one in Falana, since he defeated General Gaius, who seems to be the only person Cassius was unable to defeat. (Both of them were ultimately so damn tough it took molten lava to take them out.)

Massive strength, speed, coordination: Dust can knock aside almost any attack with proper timing, staggering his foe. This applies even to foes who are much longer and have much heavier weapons than it should be at all possible for him to parry, indicative of far more strength in his frame than should be possible. His attacks are capable of launching foes, and can he can grab them and slam them into the ground with raw upper body strength so violently it creates a shockwave that hurts other enemies.

He is also capable of grabbing airplanes out of the air and slamming them into the ground -- the easiest way to explain this is to relate it to the Dust Storm, which also allows him to generate a great deal of force through wind. This would allow him to generate the massive downward thrust necessary to push himself and an airship towards the ground.

He is incredibly quick, can dodge-roll out of danger with surprising speed, can jump very far, and can even hover in the air briefly from the sheer force of his sword slashes. He can endure extreme amounts of punishment.

To look at his physical powers as a whole on a more generalized way, Dust, baseline, is capable of feats that put him on the level of jacked-in operatives in the canon Matrix.

Twin Souls: Dust has the best of both souls, and having two souls inside him generally tends to produce interesting results as well as registering to supernatural beings.

Immortality: Dust will explicitly keep coming back so long as there is more for him to do. The end of the game is his spirit and the Blade of Ahrah taking off for his next mission, in fact. From a Matrix perspective, the best way to translate this is that the function that downloaded Jin's mind into Cassius's body also capped the feedback from Dust's RSI to his actual body, so that it incapable of reaching lethal levels. If Dust's RSI is lethally damaged, his physical body will remain alive, and the RSI will reform after a short period of time. Being unplugged would still be lethal. At his canon point, Dust is completely unaware of this.

Skillset:

Sword skills/athleticism: Even brought down to human, Dust still retains everything he learned about fighting, which he augments with rigorous training and exercise even in his meatbody. In terms of swordsmanship knowledge and technique, Dust is among the highest percentiles of humans, and he rigorously trains his physical body with the intent of achieving a commiserate level of athleticism in the Real.

Upload Capabilities:

Anomalous Skills: 2
Martial Arts: 6
Projectile Weaponry: 0
Technical Skills: 0
Wild Card: 2

SAMPLES

Test drive.

A thread from a different game.