Hazelmouse's Diona Application

[hazelmouse]

BYOND Ckey: hazelmouse

Discord username: rattydew

Character names:

Hazel #S-H9.09 (Bartender)

Vafthrudnir (AI)

Reem Faladay (Atmospheric Technician)

Marcel Leidreiter (Security Officer)

Species you are applying to play: Dionae

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General Whitelist Requirements 

What colour do you plan on making your first alien character?: A middle forest green, to represent a middle-aged Coeus.

Have you read the lore pages for the species you wish to be whitelisted for?:  I have!

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 species?: 

Dionae exist at the intersection of quite a few ideas and dynamics I think are extremely interesting as someone interested in sci-fi, and very promising to make a very fun character to play in-game. The plurality of Dionae is their most defining characteristic, and the lore as written does a lot of very fun things with it - I love the lore for mind-types, I think it's very original and takes advantage of the premise nicely. If you lean into it, plurality in a character can allow you to play out fully fledged dialogue and drama with just that character involved.

I also find the idea of a species so ancient that it does not recollect its own beginning particularly cool, and I think it's extremely intuitive that such a void borne species newly discovering that they are not the lone self-aware objects in an universe would develop a religion like the Eternal. It makes you wonder how they originally evolved - if they did it in atmosphere, how did they originally break atmosphere? How far-reaching really are they, and are we seeing anything more than the very tip of the iceberg?

What makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a human?: 

Firstly, you are a conglomeration of many independent beings that have vested in each other as a plural system. You aren't a singular individual with singular thoughts and motives, your decisions and habits are the products of consensus between all of your constituents - to a greater or lesser degree, depending on the mind-type. I think playing this to its maximum potential may involve fleshing out the motives and characteristics of your constituent nymphs.

Secondly, your worldview will necessarily be in sharp contrast to how a human perceives the world. You learn about your surroundings by different means, including by genetic absorption, neural mirroring, or through it being passed down by another nymph you have at some point shared a gestalt with. The mechanism by which nymphs learn knowledge and receive genetic adaptations from fellow nymphs grounds the Eternal's jealous obsession with knowledge very well - among Dionae, the degree of knowledge and adaptation they have achieved to now is an inherited gift, and it absolutely could be lost in the future.

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Character Application

Character Name:

The Cessation of all Scraping

Write a backstory for your character. This may include their origin, education, personality and how they arrived to the SCCV Horizon. 

There was a fond memory, by now fuzzy and rose-tinted in its recollection. None of the nymphs had lived it, but they had heard songs of it - ballads of blue-green gas giants flanked by nebulas of red, green and purple. These songs spoke of the blissful existence the constituents of the Ancestry Cetus enjoyed as part of its voyage throughout time immemorial. All was utterly peaceful, and no stressors were known.

Inevitably, every time the song is told, it must sour to the end. Without warning, a jagged metal behemoth came scraping into the existences of the collective, railing against the stars in a rapid, desperate hurl to an unknown somewhere. The collective was blown violently into this monster-machine, and some queer spindly thing emerged from its bowels to hack and stab and scrape the collective from its side. The assimilation of the spindly-something revealed little of any intelligence, except that the Cetus was in immediate danger. The constituents came to the harrowing decision to split for their survival.

So began five centuries of fraught life.

One splitting of nymphs formed into a colossus based around the radioactive propulsion systems of this machine, and every passed span of time was marked with yet another spindly thing attempting to scrape the meagre existences they had developed from the side of their machine. As more were assimilated, a particular clan of those nymphs began to develop a particular sensibility to these creatures, so closely beyond their comprehension; they developed a pure, seething hatred for the Vaurcae, though the targets of their ire hardly recognized them as anything more than a rogue biomass.

First contact came, the metal behemoth having apparently found something worth stopping for, and new creatures came to be known. The four colossi found themselves in an unfamiliar land, now separating into smaller gestalts to explore and survive their new surroundings. 

The Cessation of all Scraping was a younger collection of nymphs that split early into a Coeus on Titan Prime's arrival in Tau Ceti, its members desperate to be away from that seething hulk and seeking no reconciliation with its inhabitants. They avoided closely emulating the appearance of their oppressor out of a writhing disdain. The bitter recollection of what was lost with the Ancestry Cetus burned a hole in their minds, and as they discovered the extent of the Zo'rane abuses to the Engine Colossus, its previously discordant council reached a firm consensus - formerly a Chaotic Cacophony, now a democratically inclined Harmonious Hymn, adopting the mindset most utterly at odds with how Vaurcae operate. Whatever happens now, its oppressors must not be permitted to repeat their crimes. There must never be a time where they can resume the scraping of flesh from hull, in whatever form it may again take. 

To achieve this goal, it needed to learn quickly. The oppressors were already setting down roots, so it must do the same! It quickly gravitated towards the Eternal, paying several visits to the Eternal Gardens in Mendell City and ultimately electing to adopt the philosophies and practices of the Ichor Eternal as the best way to reach the Eternal's reality, displaying a substantial aversion to the Iron Eternal in particular due to perceived similarities to Vaurca technology. It also found itself attracted to the ideology of the Republic of Biesel, finding an appreciation for human conceptions of a free, equal republic, and discovering a distaste for monarchism and other modes of human government comparable to Vaurcae eusociality.

Several genetic harvests later, Cessation's social nymph had reached a point of impressive eloquence in its speech, and the the gestalt began a career in engineering disciplines which it would hone over the next decade, emulating the practices of the hated drones they once feared. They enlisted in the Tau Ceti Armed Forces at its inception in 2465 as a military engineer, seeking a deepened understanding of the challenges of using force to inflict change on the world, before ultimately leaving due to a disquieted perception of Mictlan and discomfort with the number of Zo'rane Vaurcae within the organization.

Fresh from service in early 2467, they would find themselves employed by Zavodskoi Interstellar aboard the SCCV Horizon for their experience in spacecraft engineering, seeking to deepen their perspective further now that they have been separated from the military.

If the Eternal is ever to be reached, Cessation is utterly convinced the Vaurcae hives as they exist cannot be a part of it. They view their power structure, their technology, and their traumatic cruelty as antithetical to the Eternal and cannot be made compatible until their existing power structure is shattered. No gnosis may be freely sought until threats to its acquisition are removed. 

How has the recent events of the Orion Spur impacted your character? Events such as the Phoron Scarcity, the Solarian Collapse or even the Invasions of Biesel for interstellar-wide affairs, while region-specific events such as the Peacekeeper Mandate, The Titan Rises or even Cold Dawn may impact your character.  

During Cessation's enlistment, assigned far from home on a small corvette patrolling the Corporate Reconstruction Zone, it identified a growing discontentment among its constituents on the direction of the spur and of the Republic of Biesel. It was panicked by how close Dorn's recent campaign came to putting a Vaurca Queen in high political office, having themselves lodged their single vote for Torvald, and the growing significance of Zo'ra Hive in the Tau Ceti Armed Forces worries them to their core. They believe that the window in time for the many species of Tau Ceti to reject the influence of the hives is rapidly closing, and that there will be harrowing consequences if they ever become the dominant power in the spur.

Never again can the spindly creatures be put in a position where the scraping can commence again.

How does your character view the megacorporation they work for?

Cessation's views on Zavodskoi are broadly positive, having given them a promising opportunity for gainful employment while being less closely associated with any Vaurca Hive than corporations such as NanoTrasen or Hephaestus Industries, both of which earn its distrust for the fact.

Edited Sunday at 09:00 by hazelmouse

[Boggle08]

yo

 

1. How does Cessation feel about encountering others of its kind, outside of meeting with the Eternal church?

2. There are many other aliens inside of Mendell, including humans. Did Cessation have any encounters with them that left a lasting impression?

[hazelmouse]

6 hours ago, Boggle08 said:

1. How does Cessation feel about encountering others of its kind, outside of meeting with the Eternal church?

The period shortly after first contact was a kaleidoscopically bewildering experience for Cessation, being introduced the sum cultural diversity of their own species that they hadn't previously encountered essentially all at once. Past the initial struggle to adapt, the gestalt was and is elated to encounter other Dionae. They are deeply relieved to be in a place with such a rich bed of knowledge to acquire, both from other gestalts and alien species, after such a long period spent isolated on the hull of Titan Prime.

One specific impression they have gained is a befuddled unease around the survivors of the Rueltab Titan. Lacking the context of the gestalt's collective guilt and remorse, Cessation struggles to reconcile the willing penitence of the survivors towards humanity and the Solarian Alliance with its own scathing views of Zo'ra Hive. They cannot understand why the survivors are apologetic to their oppressors rather than resentful of them, as they are towards their own.

6 hours ago, Boggle08 said:

2. There are many other aliens inside of Mendell, including humans. Did Cessation have any encounters with them that left a lasting impression?

The majority of Cessation's encounters with other species have been with humans, for which they hold extremely mixed views. They have spent the bulk of their time in Mendell's eleventh district, the location of the Eternal Gardens, witnessing a mass of humanity mired in poverty and suffering with little hope of resolution. Most of their clients during their tenure as a plumber and handyman involved intimate closeness with dilapidated housing and infrastructure, never overly far from violent crime and drug abuse.

Their working theory for the reason of humanity's misfortune, despite their many admirable qualities, is that they lack the same biological capability as Dionae to share and pass down knowledge. They feel humanity walks in circles because they cannot remember more than a century or two into their past. To their frustration, Cessation has not developed a solution to this problem besides that they require Dionae to guide them to a better path. If humanity itself is doomed to generational amnesia, they require an elder species to remember for them.