Murdoch's Taj App 2: Electric Boogaloo

[CatsinHD]

BYOND Key: William Murdoch

Character Names: Ka’leozhe Kaliahsurzi, Surgeon

Lena Loefgren, Bartender

Species you are applying to play: Tajara

What color do you plan on making your first alien character: Kochiba #6b4423

Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: Yes

 

Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph format. One paragraph minimum per question.

 

Why do you wish to play this specific race:

Tajaran lore has always been a fascinating part of Aurora to me. I have always enjoyed the aesthetic of Adhomai and Tajaran lore as a whole. Alongside this, I adore how developed and complex the lore itself is. As dark as it is, the two-sidedness of many aspects of Tajara and their lore, alongside the nuggets of brightness make Tajara a fascinating and enjoyable species to write about. It offers plenty of fluff to dig into and add to make a character just that much more immersive, as well as plenty of niches and backstories to make your character unique. I like Tajaran lore, and I want to play it, because it is the size of a solar system with the depth of the Adhomian Sea.

 

Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human:

Tajara are, by nature, different to role-play than humans. For all intents and purposes, they are grappling with issues that Humanity once had to face, only they are doing so while actively handling issues on the intergalactic stage. Humanity has, by this point, largely been freed from racial and sexual prejudice, whereas these issues still plague Tajaran society at all levels. Humans are the dominant species across the spur whereas Tajara are having to make do with little resources and bad stereotypes. Even beyond this, unlike other species, Tajara are still struggling with a divided home planet without one unified government. While humanity has many different nations all at odds with each other to varying degrees, it is not quite to the scale of the ferocity and tension of the three nations occupying Adhomai. Essentially, Tajara are trying to make do with a fragmented homeworld in a fragmented universe that has never truly looked at them kindly. That is what makes them different.

 

Character Name:Akilina Tarasova

Please provide a short backstory for this character

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In 2436 a baby girl was born to a large family in the city of Orul. The family, who were Hadiist patriots from the first revolution, were a part of one of the many farming communes across the vast plains of the Ras’nrr Heartland. Everyone, from the youngest girl to the oldest parent helped in the fields. So when a young Akilina Tarasova reached an old enough age, she was sent off to help the field hands whenever she wasn’t in school. Early on, her parents had taught Akilina to keep her dreams small and “reasonable”. She was taught that she may be good, but she’ll never be the best, and that she should always stick with what she knows. Without much reason to think otherwise, the young Tajara internalized this philosophy given to her by her parents, alongside a love and loyalty of the PRA and her belief in S’rendarr and Messa. It was because of this that she spent much of her childhood simply doing what was required. She never attempted to excel except when it was encouraged, and she never tried to imagine much outside of her lot in life. Her childhood was almost unremarkable, except the few times she got hurt working on the farm.

Things would change as the ugly face of war reared its head once again. Akilina was only 15 when war broke out. The deep-seeded patriotism that had been built up her whole childhood began to light a flaming desire to go to war. It pained her that she had to wait, though, for an entire year. She had to sit and tend the fields until she finally turned 16. So, when her birthday had arrived, the only gift she wanted was a trip to the recruitment office to officially enlist. Despite the apprehension of her mother, the parent could not help but allow her daughter to serve the nation she loved. The Army would accept eagerly, and sent her to replace a lost crew within one of the famed Republican Tank Brigades. Akilina, having been familiar with the tractors on the farms, was seen as suitable enough for driving within her tank crew. It was not long before her fresh training would be put to the test in the meat grinder of war. The new faces of her tank, all m’sai, soon became quick friends.

Her tank crew became her second family. They were thrown right into combat faster than Akilina thought possible. One day traveling, the next fighting. The cycle repeated, week after week. Rest was far and few between but enough to keep the morale just above dismal. Her new family had managed to dodge death more than enough times to not feel blessed. It was a chilling experience every time she saw a threat come their way. Her nerves were worn down, mission by mission, until she slowly learned to steel up. War Is a cruel beast, though. Just when she gets comfortable in her new beast of a machine, one round pierces and ruins it. Twice had her tank been pierced. Twice she and her crew managed to escape alive, if not hurt. Everyone in the brigade called them lucky. Lucky 13, they joked. The broken lighter. The years had grinded on. In the fourth year after her enlistment, her luck had run out. Out on the battlefield, assaulting an ALA position with her tank platoon, something had been fired at them. Being in the driver’s position, she had little eyesight at the threat around her. All she knew is that something had pierced, and her crewmates, her family, were not responding. Dread built up. After a second call over the intercom was unanswered, she assumed the worst. Akilina bailed her tank. It was the first chance she had to see the outside damage of her metal beast. It looked safe and calm. She missed the whole on the other side of the turret, the entry point of the weapon that had killed her family. There was nothing she could do now. She could only run. So she did, right to the infantry approaching behind their tank spearhead. Soon after finding her safety, relative safety that is, she was sent to the backline. The medic saw her, then the commander, then the Commissar. All interrogated her in their own rights. Her health, her experience, and her resolve to the party. She nearly snapped, nearly lost her mind in the chaos. It was by the grace of the commander, who knew that one crewman alone could not run a tank, that she was kept back and given time to think. This, however, would be toxic to her. Why did she survive? What hit her tank? What will she do now? Survivor’s guilt, as it’s called, is a toxic mindset. It can ruin people. War is a breeding ground for this. So was Akilina.

Akilina was quickly found a new tank crew, and a new tank. She hated it. She wanted her old crew and was deathly frightened of getting attached to this new crew. What if they died as well?  Life for Akilina seemed grim for the next year. She fought hard for the Republic, but the demons of her former crew bit away at her attempts to recover and grow. They kept her small, disconnected. She remained distant, yet talked often. It was an odd mix of a person, one who remains distant yet talkative and outgoing. War has forged weirder realties, however, and this one lived for the next year. A door opened, however. The announcement of the Kosmostrelki’s formation across the PRA caught the interest of Akilina. A drive to run away from the battlefields that she had roamed for the last five years pushed her to request a transfer. The process seemed quick to her; she had lost touch with time. Before she knew it, she was aboard the People’s Space Station for training, the tanks of the past abandoned. The coming challenge would be unlike everything else Akilina had experienced before. The battlefields on the planet were cruel monsters that swallowed souls whole, but the tasks were simple, the training relatively easy. It was the sheer amount of skills and knowledge that was required, demanded really, from the Kosmostrelki that would prove to be a catalyst for Akilina. It was up to this point that the Tajara had been held back mentally. Her parents had planted the seed in her mind that she should stick with what she knew, that she shouldn’t try to push too far. Up until now, she had lived by the words of her parents. She had stuck to what she knew. Yet, the Kosmostrelki in all of its form would shatter this mindset.

The Kosmostrelki shifted Akilina immediately into pilot training. It had been decided that she would be a pilot, a prospect that the Tajara, who by now was only 21, never really considered. Regardless, she was set through the training course, and eventually found an assignment as an Icelance pilot. It was in this posting that she would stay for the rest of her time in the Kosmosrelki. It is also here that she began to reflect. Her whole life she had thought she could never achieve anything much beyond the farms around Orul. Yet, she finds herself at the helm of a spaceship serving her nation in one of the most prestigious units. Her world from before started to crack. The trust she had given her parents, the trust that every kid does, started to erode. They had lied to her her entire life. They had kept her down with their mindset. They had lied to her. Akilina by this point had grown to hesitate getting close with others. The fears of losing them, or having them lie to her and keep her down were parasitic to her social life. It left a wide hole, though, that she had to fill. There were few things that she had not lost trust in, and one such thing was the Party. The coming years following her reassignment to the Kosmostrelki would find her resolve in belief in the Party and Hadiism grow. It began to creep into the gap of trust left in her. It could not fill in all of it, though. There were limits to such things, and the remaining gaps were filled by the comrades she faced in the fleet. She was cautious with letting people close, but she could not help it at times. For the four years she served in the Orbital Fleet, she was whole. She had purpose, comrades, and stability. What she had not considered, though, is that she gained another part of herself. She gained her dreams. Her thoughts began to wander to the cosmos beyond. She had tasted a fraction of what was beyond Adhomai, and she wanted more. So a dream formed, one of exploration. She wanted to go far beyond and seek out new things. Part of her didn’t want to leave, of course. It would mean saying good bye to her comrades again and leaving the Republic’s lands, but by now she knew that she could do more. She knew she could push for more than just her lot in life. So she did.

In 2461, Akilina left the Kosmostrelki. The armistice had been signed, Adhomai was at peace. The 25 year old looked for new work beyond Adhomai. It wasn’t hard, shockingly, as Nanotrasen searched for Tajaran labor. Much to her luck, she found a job as a shuttle pilot for the corporation off in the distant land of Tau Ceti. She couldn’t help but jump for it. Without much delay, Nanotrasen sent for her to travel to Tau Ceti. It felt as though it took forever to arrive at the bright jewel of the galaxy, but she made it eventually. She didn’t have time to think about how far she had come with all of the new sights and cultures to see. Her Tau Ceti Basic courses in the Kosmostrelki paid dividends when faced with the bustling planet of Biesel. Like many before her, she found a simple apartment in the President Hadii Living Complex to call home. Her daily routine was formed quickly. It was a simple routine marked mostly by the meetings and classes of the Social Harmony Committee, her job, and her commute. To some, it seemed monotonous and regimented, but for the freshly freed veteran, it was a breath of fresh air that deviated away from the regimented life in the military, even if the Kosmostrelki had afforded her a little more wiggle room. Life was fine for her. She found friends to hang out with, coworkers to talk to. None got very close, however. She kept everyone distant from getting too close, but this was fine for her. She was enjoying life.

Opportunity would soon blow open the front door again. By 2464, Akilina had been a proven pilot for 7 years, both in military craft and shuttle craft. It was with great excitement, then, that NT approached her with an opportunity of a life-time: Ship out to fly the SCCV Horizon as a bridge crewman. It would come with a new employer as well, the SCC. In some ways, it was a shock to Akilina. She left for Tau Ceti to feed her adventurous side, the side of her she had repressed since childhood, yet she never thought she’d have the opportunity to explore the stars. She eagerly, almost too eagerly, accepted. The extra month or two of training to prepare her for the new position seemed to drag on for too long. Time moved on, and she finally made it. Training had been finished, and she had been transferred. Her new life was now amongst the stars, aboard the Horizon. A new slate, a new job, and a new experience.

Throughout Akilina’s life, she had been a strong Hadiist patriot. Within Hadiism, though, her ideology drifted as she was exposed to various opinions. For the longest time, until she joined the orbital fleet, Akilina was an Orthodox Hadiist, a holdover from her parents. However, the fleet introduces new ideas and concepts. She found herself with a mix of Young Hadiist, and Visionary Hadiist ideals being handed to her. The two ideologies began to mix, with Visionary Hadiist being the dominant ideology by the time she had left the fleet. Things began to change once again when Akilina arrived in Tau Ceti. For the next three years, she was bombarded with more and more Hadiist ideologies, which slowly began to shape and change her belief once again. While she is still what many would call a Visionary Hadiist, Biesellite Hadiism has begun to take shape in her beliefs more and more, especially as she spends more time away from Adhomai.

Things take a turn when Akilina’s opinions on other ideologies are looked at. Akilina is first and foremost a Republican. Despite this, however, she has always reserved hatred to those she feels deserves it. Ever since the war, one nation alone has been the target of her absolute hatred, the ALA. It was the sole enemy she fought during the war, and the reports she had followed on the ALA’s fighting had disgusted her. Their methods and how they had ruined a fraction of her life threw fuel into the fire of hate she carries for the ALA. While a part of her recognizes that their government could potentially work, given time and effort and sacrifice, she fails to see how the suffering and pain would be worth it when the better system, the working system of Hadiism is already present. Beyond this, she fails to see how it justified their actions throughout the war. She sees them as foolish murderers who fail to see how they are only harming themselves by fighting the PRA. The NKA, on the other hand, is different in her eyes. She does not hate the NKA in the same way as she hates the ALA, with most of her dislike stemming from their rebellion. She does believe, however, that their ideology is fundamentally flawed. Some level of respect exists for their attempt to fix the monarchist system, but it does not outway the flaws that Akilina finds inherent to monarchy. She treats royalists with more friendliness than the Al’mariists, but can at times seem condescending with how she interacts with them, seeing them as too dumb at times to see the flaws in their system.

Beyond the snowy fields of Adhomai, Akilina’s mindset and opinions remain relatively neutral. She understands how other systems and ideologies could work, she just believes that Hadiism can do better, if not already does better. Unless they threaten her, or have done Tajara wrong, she sees no reason to get hostile or angry. Of course, part of her duty as a good Republican is to spread the truth of Hadiism. While she is not proactive in this role, she does not hesitate to offer the benefits and advice that Hadiism brings. Of course, not everything is politics. While the megacorps of the Spur may be involved in politics to some degree, Akilina has preferred to view them separately. She doesn’t inherently see any of them as evil, per se, although she disagrees with the acts of some as she’s exposed to more human news media. For most of the human corporations, she’s neutral if not faintly supportive. Her belief on the role they play in the Spur is slowly changing as the ideals of Biesellite Hadiism take a stronger place, warping her opinion that the state should steadily replace them to the state should use them. Her opinion of Nanotrasen is an outlier, however. Her time working for the company, among some of the benefits the Party has outlined, led her to have a positive opinion overall of the company and most of its efforts.

 

What do you like about this character?

I like Akilina because of how she grew up and how much she has left to develop as a person. I like how she started as a simple “farm girl” and grew up, ever pushing herself forward, into the position she would have on Horizon. Yet despite all of this she still has areas to develop, since most of her life was either regimented or held back. She has her colorful past, and has plenty more to fill in.

 

How would you rate your role-playing ability?

I would rate myself an 8 or 9 out of 10. I’ve certainly improved with how I emote certain actions and giving each of my characters a distinct personality and speech pattern. 

[Hawk]

Alright, I don't do this often. But reading over this. It was just a genuine joy, to me, I see passion for the species and a deep understanding of the lore. I understand that +1'ing apps like this isn't often done. But nonetheless, I just wanted to say that I have RP'ed with quite a few of Murdoch's chars, they are well built and engaging. And I believe that they are worthy of the WL.

[Alberyk]

Application accepted.