Singularity Application
Player Information ;
Your Nickname: Anne
OOC Journal: suodatinpussi
Under 18? Nope. I'm 21.
Email/IM: gentlesweetsong (at) hotmail (dot) com. busshelterwindow on AIM.
Characters Played at Singularity: None.
Character Information ;
Name: Capt. Bonny Serge.
Name of Canon: Tricia Sullivan's Double Vision.
Canon/AU/Other Game CR: Canon.
Reference: The novel's Amazon page, an Infinity Plus review, a Strange Horizons review with a bit of plot description, and an Emerald City review- this one actually mentions Bonny.
Canon Point: Right before Bonny first sees the Cassidies, but after Dante has mentioned them to her.
Setting: Double Vision is a novel that embodies its title, in that it features two very different plotlines. There's Cookie, an unwilling psychic trying to get by in the 1980s, and then there is the Grid, an alien planet that humans have attempted to colonise for years, without much success. Cookie is the link between her world and the Grid, because when she watches television, she finds herself on the planet itself as somewhat of a scout. It is through Cookie that we get to know Captain Serge's squad, who are currently on a recovery mission: Major Gonzalez has gone missing, and it is up to Serge and her crew to retrieve her.
This recovery mission is the last mission the team will be on. They are the Second Wave of soldiers, and soon they will be replaced by the Third Wave. The Second Wave consists almost exclusively of women, as the First Wave was almost entirely comprised of men who are now dead or (worse) Golems. It has become obvious that humans themselves will never beat the Grid into submission, as the planet/lifeform simply assimilates those soldiers unlucky enough to fall into her Well. The Third Wave is supposed to solve this problem by being entirely artificial in nature.
While it is made abundantly clear that Cookie's story takes place in the 1980s and on Earth, there are not much details as to the time in which Serge's story takes place. The technology is advanced, but the brands and geographical references are very familiar. Marlboro, Cup-a-Soup, Kleenex, MTV, Pepsi... it is not likely that all of these would still be in existence in the far future. It is heavily implied that the Grid is not at all a future planet but simply a hallucination on Cookie's part, or even a metaphor. Other incongruencies seem to point towards this, too: for example, at some point a character explains that Serge et al get to the Grid by being "launched via a gravity-torsion generator in New Hampshire", although at the very end of the novel the soldiers attempt to head back to Earth in an aircraft.
The power balance in Double Vision is a fragile one, with the tug-o-war between Earth and the Grid becoming increasingly violent without a clear winner. Bonny is one of the few soldiers who remains entirely faithful to the cause (up until a point that lies beyond her canon point) even though there has hardly been a victory for the humans since they first began this battle. For her, the Grid almost seems to be a sort of retreat away from Earth, and it is referenced multiple times that although vacations are possible, Captain Serge has never taken one. Only when she herself is assimilated by the Grid does she change her views, and it can be argued that at this point Serge is hardly the person she used to be.
In a practical sense, what this means for Bonny is that she grew up on an Earth of Spam, Pepsi and trailer parks, has spent at least the last four years on an alien planet without ever taking a break, has spent said four years with little to no contact with men (except for her AI companion) and has just now found out she is essentially going to be replaced by robots.
Personality: Bonny is a hands-on kind of gal. Her no-nonsense attitude is what got her out of the trailer park, and she'll be damned if she doesn't stick to it 'til the day she dies. She's got a particular disdain for intellectuals (as evidenced by her complete disgust for Klaski) and theoreticians: shoot first, ask questions in the lecture hall. Authority is both her fuel and her Kryptonite: she needs people to boss around, but finds herself submitting to those in power more readily than she'd like. After all, she's proud, but she also is (first and foremost) a soldier, and respect for hierarchy has been drilled into her from the very first day she set foot in boot camp.
This doesn't mean she's stupid; she didn't become Captain Serge because of her good looks (ahem). Her tactical prowess on the battlefield is a force to be reckoned with. Her tactical prowess in interpersonal relationships, however, is not. She'll make the most of the troops assigned to her, but they will never like her for it. After all, she is persevering to the extreme: she will never abandon a set goal, no matter what price she (or, just as often, others) will have to pay to reach it. This eyes-on-the-prize policy often makes her unlikable, as she's quick to dismiss contrary opinions and ambitions as "bullshit". Oh, she can be persuaded to see things from another's point of view. All it takes is a near-death experience (such as being assimilated into a planet-wide life form).
Her sense of responsibility is almost certainly as well-developed as her obstinacy. It should be noted that even though she felt her team would in fact be much better off without Joanne Klaski bogging them down with her endless stream of self-doubt and general navel-gazing, Bonny still effectually sacrificed herself in order to save her subordinate's life. And even though her nine aborted daughters creeped her out (and reminded her of a moment of weakness she would much rather forget), she attempted to bond with them, feeling guilty for giving them this life (which might have more than a little to do with her "shit life when [she] was little"). She's got maternal instincts, in a sense - she just needs to be able to tie her responsibility towards a person to a responsibility towards a certain goal. No matter how much she preaches about Acting Over Yapping and how it's the days of hard work you'll be judged on, not the books you've read... Bonny is, in the core of her being, a very idealistic person. She just wants something to work for. Take that away from her, and she's got nothing.
In short: she's abrasive and condescending, hot-headed and obstinate. Being on friendly terms with her is nigh-impossible. But if she's on your side, you'd best thank your lucky stars because Bonny Serge will make damn sure her side prevails.
Abilities and Weaknesses: Bonny herself is a non-enhanced human; it is her armor and weaponry that make her stand a chance against the powerful Grid. Still she is definitely one of the more apt members of her squad; in her pre-Well fight scenes she seems to be quite a match for a Well-infected Gonzalez, and she presumably didn't come by her Captain rank for sleeping with the right people. She's proficient with her spider whip, thinks on her feet, and is able to separate her emotions from her objectives which makes her an efficient soldier (if immensely annoying to be around).
Her weaknesses lie in her unquestioning loyalty towards authority (even when that authority is questionable at best), her need to do everything by herself (and thus her tendency to run off and try to solve everyone's problems on her own, which is hardly a clever tactic on an alien planet) and her complete stubbornness regarding pretty much everything. She's not a team player, which is exactly why her platoon is so screwed up - but Bonny is far too proud and/or dense to realize exactly why this is. She tends to overwork herself, too (and her platoon presumes this is why she's gone just a bit bonkers).
Inventory: Bonny will be wearing her protective armor and her helmet, and she will be carrying her lasergun, as well as some of her rations (that is to say Cup-a-Soup and crackers.)
Appearance: Contrasting oddly with her "geisha features" (direct quote from the source material), her body is more reminiscent of a "stork" (once again, source material). She's got long legs in combination with a short, slightly stocky torso. All in all she looks strange, but she carries herself with the confidence of someone who knows she can beat up most everyone she meets: she's strong, favoring strength of body over strength of mind nine out of ten times.
While her looks (especially her facial features) might lead one to believe she is Japanese, she is in fact part Inuit (this is only referred to once and all but glossed over, so the mechanics of her heritage remain unknown). Referring to her conjectured Japanese origins will often earn one a beating. Her armor is hardly described, but apparently features "air hoses and filters" and is "segmented". In order to shut out the Grid's scent (which is corrupting), the armor's wearer is likely to be hermetically sealed in it.
I'll be using Zhang Ziyi as her PB. Here she is in an alarming state of undress (SFW!)
Age: Probably late twenties, early thirties. It's not mentioned, but we learn that Bonny has been on the planet for at least four years: her abortion happened four years ago.
Samples ;
Log Sample:
The Grid was humming serenely, but the white noise it always produced seemed to have increased in volume, or perhaps just in offensiveness. Serge had long since been driven away from the quiet, pleasant chatter of her squad. She had little patience for girl talk on her best days, and today was not one of her best days.
She peered at the Grid's arms, stretching up towards an alien sky. It was hardly a day in any sense of the word, really. Four years without darkness. Four years without a moon. She could remember exactly what had happened since her last sleep cycle, but she'd be damned before she could tell anyone how much time had passed since then. Her eyes burned, and she felt jittery. Perhaps something was coming. Perhaps it was a lack of sleep.
Perhaps something was coming.
Nimbly she climbed the nearest branch, inky black and yet almost transparent, too. The Grid was almost like a real tree in that it barely supported her weight the higher she climbed, but Serge always felt that with trees it was gravity getting in your way. With the Grid it felt more like reticence.
She was careful not to snag her air filter tubes on any of the branches; if Dante had been right (and Dante was always right) the area was highly contaminated with Grid pollen, and Serge had quite enough braindead dopeheads on her hands without turning into one herself. She quietly shuffled along the branch until she lay on it on her stomach, lasergun poised as if she was hunting for coyotes.
A little ways over, the Grid parted. Serge tensed, but couldn't resist a smirk. She'd known something was up. She aimed at the Golem's head - and it was a Golem, she could see it now, all strangely unhuman colours and jerky movements and sniffing at the air like a dog - but didn't pull the trigger, not yet.
Only when the Golem turned around, its face positioned right within her crosshair, did she recognize it. Serge froze.
Jen. They'd enlisted at the same time. She'd been a bitch and all, but-
Before she could finish that thought she fired, Jen staring sluggishly in her direction with a hole the size of a ritz cracker in her forehead. The Golem lifted its arm in what may have been a wave, but Serge had clambered down before she'd had the chance to blow its hand off, too, and by the time Jen-or-what-used-to-be-Jen had reached their camp they were long gone, not a single empty packet of Cup-a-Soup left behind.
Network Sample:
[Heavy breathing. The feed is audio only, and every now and then there's a loud banging noise, as if someone's tapping the bracelet angrily. There are some indistinct murmurs that sound like curses, and for a few moments it doesn't seem like whoever is using the device is quite aware of how it works, or that it's even turned on. Finally though, in a loud, barking voice, as if the person using it is holding the bracelet right against her mouth:]
Dante! Dante, do you read. Do you read.
They took my communicator and gave me this, but maybe...
[She trails off, and there's silence for a few moments.]
This ain't the place I set up camp, Dante. This ain't any of the bases.
Dante, do you read-
[A muffled curse as she covers her device with her hand, and some barely audible snatches of sentences - this the Well...Klas...it yourself... - until she finally presses the bracelet against her lips again. She sounds tense.]
Captain Serge with the US Army. Consider this my request for information.
Just what the hell is goin' on here?
Your Nickname: Anne
OOC Journal: suodatinpussi
Under 18? Nope. I'm 21.
Email/IM: gentlesweetsong (at) hotmail (dot) com. busshelterwindow on AIM.
Characters Played at Singularity: None.
Character Information ;
Name: Capt. Bonny Serge.
Name of Canon: Tricia Sullivan's Double Vision.
Canon/AU/Other Game CR: Canon.
Reference: The novel's Amazon page, an Infinity Plus review, a Strange Horizons review with a bit of plot description, and an Emerald City review- this one actually mentions Bonny.
Canon Point: Right before Bonny first sees the Cassidies, but after Dante has mentioned them to her.
Setting: Double Vision is a novel that embodies its title, in that it features two very different plotlines. There's Cookie, an unwilling psychic trying to get by in the 1980s, and then there is the Grid, an alien planet that humans have attempted to colonise for years, without much success. Cookie is the link between her world and the Grid, because when she watches television, she finds herself on the planet itself as somewhat of a scout. It is through Cookie that we get to know Captain Serge's squad, who are currently on a recovery mission: Major Gonzalez has gone missing, and it is up to Serge and her crew to retrieve her.
This recovery mission is the last mission the team will be on. They are the Second Wave of soldiers, and soon they will be replaced by the Third Wave. The Second Wave consists almost exclusively of women, as the First Wave was almost entirely comprised of men who are now dead or (worse) Golems. It has become obvious that humans themselves will never beat the Grid into submission, as the planet/lifeform simply assimilates those soldiers unlucky enough to fall into her Well. The Third Wave is supposed to solve this problem by being entirely artificial in nature.
While it is made abundantly clear that Cookie's story takes place in the 1980s and on Earth, there are not much details as to the time in which Serge's story takes place. The technology is advanced, but the brands and geographical references are very familiar. Marlboro, Cup-a-Soup, Kleenex, MTV, Pepsi... it is not likely that all of these would still be in existence in the far future. It is heavily implied that the Grid is not at all a future planet but simply a hallucination on Cookie's part, or even a metaphor. Other incongruencies seem to point towards this, too: for example, at some point a character explains that Serge et al get to the Grid by being "launched via a gravity-torsion generator in New Hampshire", although at the very end of the novel the soldiers attempt to head back to Earth in an aircraft.
The power balance in Double Vision is a fragile one, with the tug-o-war between Earth and the Grid becoming increasingly violent without a clear winner. Bonny is one of the few soldiers who remains entirely faithful to the cause (up until a point that lies beyond her canon point) even though there has hardly been a victory for the humans since they first began this battle. For her, the Grid almost seems to be a sort of retreat away from Earth, and it is referenced multiple times that although vacations are possible, Captain Serge has never taken one. Only when she herself is assimilated by the Grid does she change her views, and it can be argued that at this point Serge is hardly the person she used to be.
In a practical sense, what this means for Bonny is that she grew up on an Earth of Spam, Pepsi and trailer parks, has spent at least the last four years on an alien planet without ever taking a break, has spent said four years with little to no contact with men (except for her AI companion) and has just now found out she is essentially going to be replaced by robots.
Personality: Bonny is a hands-on kind of gal. Her no-nonsense attitude is what got her out of the trailer park, and she'll be damned if she doesn't stick to it 'til the day she dies. She's got a particular disdain for intellectuals (as evidenced by her complete disgust for Klaski) and theoreticians: shoot first, ask questions in the lecture hall. Authority is both her fuel and her Kryptonite: she needs people to boss around, but finds herself submitting to those in power more readily than she'd like. After all, she's proud, but she also is (first and foremost) a soldier, and respect for hierarchy has been drilled into her from the very first day she set foot in boot camp.
This doesn't mean she's stupid; she didn't become Captain Serge because of her good looks (ahem). Her tactical prowess on the battlefield is a force to be reckoned with. Her tactical prowess in interpersonal relationships, however, is not. She'll make the most of the troops assigned to her, but they will never like her for it. After all, she is persevering to the extreme: she will never abandon a set goal, no matter what price she (or, just as often, others) will have to pay to reach it. This eyes-on-the-prize policy often makes her unlikable, as she's quick to dismiss contrary opinions and ambitions as "bullshit". Oh, she can be persuaded to see things from another's point of view. All it takes is a near-death experience (such as being assimilated into a planet-wide life form).
Her sense of responsibility is almost certainly as well-developed as her obstinacy. It should be noted that even though she felt her team would in fact be much better off without Joanne Klaski bogging them down with her endless stream of self-doubt and general navel-gazing, Bonny still effectually sacrificed herself in order to save her subordinate's life. And even though her nine aborted daughters creeped her out (and reminded her of a moment of weakness she would much rather forget), she attempted to bond with them, feeling guilty for giving them this life (which might have more than a little to do with her "shit life when [she] was little"). She's got maternal instincts, in a sense - she just needs to be able to tie her responsibility towards a person to a responsibility towards a certain goal. No matter how much she preaches about Acting Over Yapping and how it's the days of hard work you'll be judged on, not the books you've read... Bonny is, in the core of her being, a very idealistic person. She just wants something to work for. Take that away from her, and she's got nothing.
In short: she's abrasive and condescending, hot-headed and obstinate. Being on friendly terms with her is nigh-impossible. But if she's on your side, you'd best thank your lucky stars because Bonny Serge will make damn sure her side prevails.
Abilities and Weaknesses: Bonny herself is a non-enhanced human; it is her armor and weaponry that make her stand a chance against the powerful Grid. Still she is definitely one of the more apt members of her squad; in her pre-Well fight scenes she seems to be quite a match for a Well-infected Gonzalez, and she presumably didn't come by her Captain rank for sleeping with the right people. She's proficient with her spider whip, thinks on her feet, and is able to separate her emotions from her objectives which makes her an efficient soldier (if immensely annoying to be around).
Her weaknesses lie in her unquestioning loyalty towards authority (even when that authority is questionable at best), her need to do everything by herself (and thus her tendency to run off and try to solve everyone's problems on her own, which is hardly a clever tactic on an alien planet) and her complete stubbornness regarding pretty much everything. She's not a team player, which is exactly why her platoon is so screwed up - but Bonny is far too proud and/or dense to realize exactly why this is. She tends to overwork herself, too (and her platoon presumes this is why she's gone just a bit bonkers).
Inventory: Bonny will be wearing her protective armor and her helmet, and she will be carrying her lasergun, as well as some of her rations (that is to say Cup-a-Soup and crackers.)
Appearance: Contrasting oddly with her "geisha features" (direct quote from the source material), her body is more reminiscent of a "stork" (once again, source material). She's got long legs in combination with a short, slightly stocky torso. All in all she looks strange, but she carries herself with the confidence of someone who knows she can beat up most everyone she meets: she's strong, favoring strength of body over strength of mind nine out of ten times.
While her looks (especially her facial features) might lead one to believe she is Japanese, she is in fact part Inuit (this is only referred to once and all but glossed over, so the mechanics of her heritage remain unknown). Referring to her conjectured Japanese origins will often earn one a beating. Her armor is hardly described, but apparently features "air hoses and filters" and is "segmented". In order to shut out the Grid's scent (which is corrupting), the armor's wearer is likely to be hermetically sealed in it.
I'll be using Zhang Ziyi as her PB. Here she is in an alarming state of undress (SFW!)
Age: Probably late twenties, early thirties. It's not mentioned, but we learn that Bonny has been on the planet for at least four years: her abortion happened four years ago.
Samples ;
Log Sample:
The Grid was humming serenely, but the white noise it always produced seemed to have increased in volume, or perhaps just in offensiveness. Serge had long since been driven away from the quiet, pleasant chatter of her squad. She had little patience for girl talk on her best days, and today was not one of her best days.
She peered at the Grid's arms, stretching up towards an alien sky. It was hardly a day in any sense of the word, really. Four years without darkness. Four years without a moon. She could remember exactly what had happened since her last sleep cycle, but she'd be damned before she could tell anyone how much time had passed since then. Her eyes burned, and she felt jittery. Perhaps something was coming. Perhaps it was a lack of sleep.
Perhaps something was coming.
Nimbly she climbed the nearest branch, inky black and yet almost transparent, too. The Grid was almost like a real tree in that it barely supported her weight the higher she climbed, but Serge always felt that with trees it was gravity getting in your way. With the Grid it felt more like reticence.
She was careful not to snag her air filter tubes on any of the branches; if Dante had been right (and Dante was always right) the area was highly contaminated with Grid pollen, and Serge had quite enough braindead dopeheads on her hands without turning into one herself. She quietly shuffled along the branch until she lay on it on her stomach, lasergun poised as if she was hunting for coyotes.
A little ways over, the Grid parted. Serge tensed, but couldn't resist a smirk. She'd known something was up. She aimed at the Golem's head - and it was a Golem, she could see it now, all strangely unhuman colours and jerky movements and sniffing at the air like a dog - but didn't pull the trigger, not yet.
Only when the Golem turned around, its face positioned right within her crosshair, did she recognize it. Serge froze.
Jen. They'd enlisted at the same time. She'd been a bitch and all, but-
Before she could finish that thought she fired, Jen staring sluggishly in her direction with a hole the size of a ritz cracker in her forehead. The Golem lifted its arm in what may have been a wave, but Serge had clambered down before she'd had the chance to blow its hand off, too, and by the time Jen-or-what-used-to-be-Jen had reached their camp they were long gone, not a single empty packet of Cup-a-Soup left behind.
Network Sample:
[Heavy breathing. The feed is audio only, and every now and then there's a loud banging noise, as if someone's tapping the bracelet angrily. There are some indistinct murmurs that sound like curses, and for a few moments it doesn't seem like whoever is using the device is quite aware of how it works, or that it's even turned on. Finally though, in a loud, barking voice, as if the person using it is holding the bracelet right against her mouth:]
Dante! Dante, do you read. Do you read.
They took my communicator and gave me this, but maybe...
[She trails off, and there's silence for a few moments.]
This ain't the place I set up camp, Dante. This ain't any of the bases.
Dante, do you read-
[A muffled curse as she covers her device with her hand, and some barely audible snatches of sentences - this the Well...Klas...it yourself... - until she finally presses the bracelet against her lips again. She sounds tense.]
Captain Serge with the US Army. Consider this my request for information.
Just what the hell is goin' on here?