Science-Fantasy McGuffin Hunt - Actively recruiting

[Hazy Sky]

Well the position was sort of my idea, I'm working on a character sheet for that position, but Chrystal has the final say obviously, because it's her game.

[Chrystal]

Originally there wasn't a sniper/scout position. Skyre suggested it, so the position is his unless he relinquishes it voluntarily.

There are several other positions still open, including the possibility of non-clone marine guards, alien technology expert, Linguist and Commander. Or if you can think of any other role I might have forgotten.

Equally, the roles of Engineer and Sergeant are technically open, because I do not yet have approved character sheets for them... The sooner people get me those sheets the more likely you are to not miss out!

[Kythia]

Equally, the roles of Engineer and Sergeant are technically open, because I do not yet have approved character sheets for them... The sooner people get me those sheets the more likely you are to not miss out!

The sooner the Olympics finishes the more likely I am to get on with things that aren't watching the Olympics!

Blame the IOC, not me.

[jeflint]

lol, my spare time is spent playing overwatch. :P Someone's gotta be the medic. ;)

Chyrstal, I also updated Amilya's background a bit. Just the part around the alien attacks to be more in line with the possible decimation of the human race. ;)

[Chrystal]

Yeah... Olympics have never failed to capture my total lack of interest...

Jeflint, that change is good. I think "decimation" is a bit of an overstatement, though! That implies one in ten is killed. With a population in excess of ten billion, that would require a billion deaths. I was careful to say "millions" for a reason!

[jeflint]

Yeah... Olympics have never failed to capture my total lack of interest...

Jeflint, that change is good. I think "decimation" is a bit of an overstatement, though! That implies one in ten is killed. With a population in excess of ten billion, that would require a billion deaths. I was careful to say "millions" for a reason!

To quote Harold Saxon "decimation has such a nice ring to it" 😜

I'll change the word I only put it as a descriptor not for the literal billion deaths that would entail. 😊

[Chrystal]

I don't think you actually used the word in your CS.

[jeflint]

I don't think you actually used the word in your CS.

lol I used the Uber generic "so many" in the history.

I had to go double-check. 😜

[Xerial]

Okay, Jacob has been re-kajiggered and re-submitted.

[Chrystal]

And approved!

[Xerial]

Jacob 2.0

Name: Jacob Marino

Player ID: Xerial

Position: Lead Technologist
Rank: Civilian

Height: 178.8cm
Weight: 90.7kg
Hair Colour: Varies (see modifications)
Eye Colour: Grey
Build: Deceptively thin

Modifications:
• Robotic left hand;
• Neural Nanites;
• Cortex/Computer Interface (CCI);
• Literal heart of a lion;
• Nicitating Membranes;
• Gills; and
• Mood hair
Distinguishing marks: Acid scars on his left wrist.

Age: 25
Gender: Male
Sexuality: Straight (w. Xenosexual tendencies ;) )

Skills:
• Augmented Intellect: Jacob was of above average intelligence growing up, always capable of doing well in anything he cared to pursue, but not necessary excelling. This changed the day he inhaled the nanite swarm. He is now possessed of an eidetic memory, speed reading, and heightened pattern recognition.
• Archeologist: Professionally, when he bothers to seek gainful employment for an extended period of time, Jacob is an archaeologist. He has experience handling sensitive sites and finds with care some might not expect him to display otherwise.
• Polyglot: Languages are something Jacob always had a facility for. Thanks in part to his time travelling the world and in various dig sights, he has picked up a smattering of many languages, though usually he knows how to curse or make sexual advances. He holds actual profiles in German, Russian, and Irish Gaelic, the latter learned to pursue a rather fiery redhead. He also speaks a smattering of Centaurii, learned due to an obsession with the idea of being the first human to shag and alien.
• Charmer: Some might call him pathological, but Jacob does have the Devil's own talent for convincing people of things that are in his better interest. Things like his pristine academic background.

Weaknesses:
• Despite having signed on for a space-going venture, Jacob gets space-sick, and requires medication to keep the symptoms from manifesting. He wears a small patch behind his left ear to provide a constant dose, but if things get extremely rough it is not enough.
• To the detriment of his own body Jacob is an early-adopter of technologies. He might not be the first to the dance, but he will be in line to be. Rumor has it that the acid burns on his wrist are from when he intentionally dunked his hand in acid in order to qualify for the trial run of a more complete cybernetic replacement than was commercially available at the time.
• Jacob often appears absent-minded, though he rarely misses a beat. He simply gets lost in alternative chains of thought and forgets to weigh in on the present. This can infuriate some people who expect an immediate response from him.

Likes:
• Though he will never admit to it, Jacob enjoys being on the receiving end of discipline. His tendency to push boundaries is a manifestation of this.
• Jacob prefers getting his hands dirty to book learning, which has been to his detriment over the years.
• Despite space sickness, Jacob feels at one with the sea, and he is never happier than when lounging on a beach or plying its waves.
• Experiencing anything new, be it a new type of music, a new adrenaline rush, or a new research theory.

Dislikes:
• While not a strict pacifist, he does not enjoy the idea of needless violence.
• Intellectual morass. If he does not have something to keep him busy, he will find something potentially detrimental to occupy himself.
• Humorless people. He will do all he can to push their buttons (see his secret enjoyment of discipline).

Personality:
Jacob is a classic case of a latchkey kid with too many resources at his own disposal. He is used to being given the freedom to simply do as he wants, and to having easy access to anything he might need along the way. Despite this he is not classically arrogant. He is well aware of the fact that he wasted a good deal of his life frittering about in the service of whim and wanderlust. With a deep desire to actually help, he has cultivated a persona that is somewhat detached in order to maintain a personal calm. He is will aware that his credentials are not as shiny as he might have presented them, and he is genuinely surprised he was hired on for the expedition, let alone in such a predominant position.

Now faced with being a department lead when all he really expected was to be a research aid, he walks the line between wanting to laugh at the twist of fate he has been presented and pushing all boundaries he can and having to seem like a professional. He will come off as flighty simply because he is trying to hold in his more boundless nature and keep his cool. When he feels the mission is too far gone to boot him out he may well fall more thoroughly back into his passionate and more whimsical self.

History:
The firstborn son of an old-money investment family, Jacob's parents expected him to become his father's protege and to continue the family line. They had plans for him. An Ivy League education, a law degree, internship in his father's investment bank, and then ultimately an executive position. They even had a list of potential partners picked out for him. As if destined to disappoint them he dropped out of the first two schools his father made generous donations to, dragged the first suitable partner he was introduced to on a whirlwind tour of Europe, and then buggered off for a quick tour with a civilian extra-solar mining outfit. That was just disastrous enough that he returned to Earth and started back into a campus couch surfing tour.

In his second attempt at going back to school he took up with a roommate with a penchant for designing experimental modifications. He already had two mods at that point - the nicitating membranes and gills, which allowed him to surf more gnarly waves, in his own words - but soon became infatuated with the idea of more radical mods, and began to expand his own mod collection. In a perhaps altered state of inebriation, he 'borrowed' a tube of nanites his roommate had been preparing for an animal trial, and he 'snorted' the contents. After waking from a small coma he woke up with more clarity than he had experienced in years. His enthusiasm for the wandering life had not been tempered by the new passengers in his head, but he was changed just enough that he was able to finish a xenoarcheology degree by correspondence. It was not an Ivy League education, but it was something.

Jacob's return home with his new degree was not as triumphant as expected. His parents were furious at his pissing away their money. His father threatened to disown him, though his mother was able to hold him at bay... at least until the skies became lousy with aliens. Though there was a part of him that wanted to help defend the planet from the alien invasions, his father sequestered the family to a remote compound in the hills surrounded by private contractors.

Jacob became fed up with hiding after a little over a year, and began to seek ways to help the war effort. He eventually stumbled upon the recruiters for this expedition. He volunteered for this assignment in part to further escape the specter of his parents' influence upon his life, figuring if there is one place they cannot meddle, it is in the depths of space. As for his credentials, well, those are more than a bit exaggerated. The two Ivy League schools he attended - for less than a semester between them - are the core of his academic claims. He has also enhanced the titles of the jobs he held in the various digs he worked for, with a flair for creatively naming mundane jobs (for example he claims to have extensive artifact handling experience, from dusting off soil from a handful of pottery fragments). This is not to say he is useless. He has a surprising breadth of experience, and a good deal of book learning, both augmented by the nanites he snorted on a dare. Passion also makes up for plenty, at least in his mind.

Face Claim: Ulliel Gaspard

Ons/Offs

[Chrystal]

Just one thing, please could you fix the link to your ons/offs? Thanks

[Chrystal]

Okay, does anyone remember an episode of M*A*S*H where Hawkeye and BJ try to out-do each other with practical jokes?

I can somehow see that happening between Dion and Jacob.

If you two guys want to do that, I would love to see what you come up with. I think the mission commander (whoever that turns out to be) might frown on the matter, but that is an IC thing!

[eiselmann]

Yeap remember that episode :-)

Totally up for a battle of practical jokes on the rest of the crew  >:)

[jeflint]

Yeap remember that episode :-)

Totally up or a battle of practical jokes on the rest of the crew  >:)

Workaholic Amilya is going to be pranked often isn't she?

[Chrystal]

Of course!

[Chrystal]

If anyone is still in the dark as to the sort of technology I am talking about, please read this TV Trope:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SufficientlyAdvancedBambooTechnology

[jeflint]

I can honestly say I've never heard of this trope, thank you Chrystal. :)

[Chrystal]

I love the TV Tropes database. I love following the links from one trope to another, to find more and more ridiculous things. It's actually reassuring for a writer to know that others have gone this way before and my use of a certain plot device is actually an existing trope.

In this instance, the alien tech is a form of unobtainium with Minovsky Physics, and is Sufficiently Advanced Bamboo Technology, clearly from a Crystal Spires and Togas civilization...!

LOL

I have persuaded someone to take the role of Linguist, just waiting on her to come back on-line so she can make some adjustments to the character sheet... (Yes I also reject character sheets submitted by my closest friends!)

So, this means I need to create the character for the commander, and we should be good to go.

[jeflint]

I love the TV Tropes database. I love following the links from one trope to another, to find more and more ridiculous things. It's actually reassuring for a writer to know that others have gone this way before and my use of a certain plot device is actually an existing trope.

Personally I hate TV Tropes website. But that's because during my time of running a webcomic a number of trolls used to mess with our Tropes page and wiki because we had the audacity to try and get fans coming to our fantasy comic with pinup ads and the like. Nevermind that the comic won a few awards for character development and originality.

I almost swore off writing at that point.

[Hazy Sky]

Whilst I remember I'm face claiming Daniel Craig.

[Chrystal]

Whilst I remember I'm face claiming Daniel Craig.

LOL

That is so badly photoshopped!

Hopefully you are going to choose a pic of him in his younger days and not as he is now?

[jeflint]

Whilst I remember I'm face claiming Daniel Craig.

Of all the James Bonds, granted I've only seen 4 movies, I like him the least face wise. Body wise mmmm. But I gained new respect when he just wanted to be a faceless stormtrooper. I thought that was awesome.

[Chrystal]

Indeed. So few stars are willing to forego showing their faces to the camera, even if the role requires it. Sly Stallone is the perfect example, in Judge Dredd. 2000AD fans like myself all boycotted the movie because in the comic you NEVER saw Dredd's face.  But Stallone insisted that his face be shown without the helmet on. As if we didn't know it was him playing the role, ffs!

Another bad example of this is the movie Starship Trooper, where in Heinlein's book the MI wear full body armour with enclosing helmets that have electronic face plates and Rico gets into trouble in Bootcamp for flipping his face-plate up during an exercise so he could see better... But in the movie they all wear open face helmets, because Casper Van Dien wanted his face seen. *eyeroll*

[jeflint]

Indeed. So few stars are willing to forego showing their faces to the camera, even if the role requires it. Sly Stallone is the perfect example, in Judge Dredd. 2000AD fans like myself all boycotted the movie because in the comic you NEVER saw Dredd's face.  But Stallone insisted that his face be shown without the helmet on. As if we didn't know it was him playing the role, ffs!

Another bad example of this is the movie Starship Trooper, where in Heinlein's book the MI wear full body armour with enclosing helmets that have electronic face plates and Rico gets into trouble in Bootcamp for flipping his face-plate up during an exercise so he could see better... But in the movie they all wear open face helmets, because Casper Van Dien wanted his face seen. *eyeroll*

I had other problems with Starship Troopers than Casper Van Dien. And I loved the first dredd film for how horribly cheesy it was, but that said I think the one with Ceresi and McCoy was awesome. That dredd made my skin go hibby jeeby when he said he was the law.