OOC: Application
Series: Mobile Suit Gundam 00
Series' Medium: Anime
Character you're applying for: Soma Peries
Character's role in their canon: Prominent antagonist; stands in direct opposition to Allelujah Haptism for half of the series before becoming a minor protagonist.
Character's age: 19
Character's gender: Female
Character’s “Real Name”: Mariya Smirnova
Please give us a detailed personal history of your character:
(Most of this background is taken from the anime, which is the main vehicle for the series; minor details have been lifted from the companion novels, which were partially written by the show's writer and director and, according to the writer, can be taken as canon.)
Soma Peries was born in 2289 - although that, technically, couldn't be further from the truth. She was actually born with the name Marie Perfacy, though where and how she received the name is anyone's guess. At some point within the first eight years of her life, she came under the control of the Human Enhancement Agency, a secret scientific program funded by the Human Reform League, one of the three major power blocs on Earth. The scientists at the HEA enhanced her glial cells through experimentation, giving her reflexes and speed far above that of the average human. Further experimentation gave her increased strength and endurance, boosted partially by the nanomachines implanted into her body, as well as enhanced quantum brainwaves, which enabled her to predict enemy movements and sense the emotions and thoughts of others.
Unfortunately, the treatment robbed her of all five senses, and she spent an extended period of time separate from the other experimental children. For this reason, not much is known about Marie's childhood, mainly because she never really had one. Her home was, for all intents and purposes, L'Internationale, the space station where the Human Enhancement Agency's headquarters were located. During this time, she formed a close attachment to another child in the program, an orphan who was the only other one who could hear her brainwaves calling out, and whom she named Allelujah. But one day, she called out mentally and there was no response - he had stolen a transport with a few other children and escaped L'Internationale.
Shortly afterward, the HEA scientists at last returned her senses to her - at a price. She was wiped of her memories and a new personality was implanted into her, as well as a name: Soma Peries. From day one of her new existence, Soma was surrounded by scientists of questionable ethical character, less interested in her emotional maturation than in her growth as a potential weapon of war. Ten years after she was created, she was released from the program as a cool, almost emotionless, "complete supersoldier" - an embodiment of the HEA's vision of a perfect mobile suit pilot.
At about the same time, the paramilitary organization, Celestial Being, revealed itself to the world with the intent of ending all conflict on Earth. The Human Reform League was the first power bloc to declare war on them, and Soma was immediately sent to the front lines. She was promoted to the rank of second lieutenant and assigned to the command of Lieutenant Colonel Sergei "Wild Bear" Smirnov, an experienced soldier who had fought extensively and earned his well-deserved nickname in the previous Solar Wars. She was also given a mobile suit of her very own - the MSJ-06II-SP Tieren Taozi.
However, Soma's first test run in the Taozi proved disastrous, as the course brought her within the vicinity of Allelujah Haptism, Gundam Meister of Celestial Being and failed specimen of the supersoldier program, otherwise known as E-0057. Their brainwaves reacted negatively with one another, and the sudden pain and shock caused Soma to go berserk; she fired wildly at nothing in particular and caused a section of the nearby orbital elevator to break off before passing out. The orbital elevator section was only saved through the combined efforts of Sergei and Allelujah, and Soma had to be given a modified helmet that would prevent such occurrences from interfering with her piloting again.
Soma next took to the skies in a massive, resource-intensive HRL effort to capture a Gundam, headed by Sergei, who was also a skilled strategist. While it seemed at first that HRL victory was imminent, the Gundam Meisters revealed several devastating secret weapons and managed to break free, causing immense damage to the HRL force. First Lieutenant Ming, one of Sergei's trusted officers, was tortured and killed by Hallelujah, Allelujah's sadistic alter ego, while trying to cover Sergei's and Soma's retreat; the incident gave Soma a personal reason to hate Allelujah - whom she no longer recognized - and solidified her belief in her purpose - to destroy Celestial Being.
A short time after the HRL operation, Allelujah managed to sneak into L'Internationale with the help of Tieria Erde, another Gundam Meister, and successfully destroy the HEA facility, scientists, child experiments, and all, leaking the data about the organization to the general public. Soma, incapable of understanding why a failed supersoldier would kill his own kind, again vowed revenge on Experiment E-0057 and Celestial Being. After all, she only had one purpose, and she would fulfill that purpose to the best of her ability by fighting in the name of those whom Celestial Being had killed.
Meanwhile, Celestial Being's armed interventions elsewhere attracted the attention of the Union and the AEU, and the leaders of all three power blocs met to discuss plans for a unified attack against Celestial Being. The stage was set in the Taklamakan Desert, and the aces of all three blocs, Soma and Sergei included, were included in the combined force. Nearly a thousand mobile suits managed to pin Celestial Being's Gundams down, but they were suddenly rescued by three new Gundams from another faction of Celestial Being and successfully escaped once more.
The three new Throne Gundams, piloted by the Trinity siblings, caused utter havoc and numerous civilian deaths in the days after their arrival. However, Alejandro Corner, an observer in Celestial Being who desired to manipulate the organization to his own ends, sent ten GN-Xs - mobile suits with the same GN Drives as the Throne Gundams - to each of the power blocs. Naturally, Soma was assigned to one of the HRL's GN-Xs, as was Sergei, and the two, with the help of the other eight HRL pilots, easily defeated the Trinity siblings when they attacked an HRL base in Guangzhou, China. According to the third companion novel, this was the first time Soma had ever experienced happiness.
The Throne Gundams were forced to retreat to their base of operations in Africa, and the HRL GN-X force quickly pursued. They engaged again, and again the HRL emerged victorious. Though Soma was all for destroying the Trinity siblings once and for all, she was stopped by Sergei, and the HRL force returned to their own territory.
Shortly after the HRL victory, the United Nations, unifying all of the power blocs' GN-X mobile suits into one army, launched Operation Fallen Angel - a final, massive strike against Celestial Being. During the fight, Soma and Sergei clashed multiple times with Allelujah, who had learned to block Soma's brainwaves with the help of Hallelujah. Supported by reinforcements provided by Alejandro Corner, the UN Army successfully destroyed the Ptolemaios, Celestial Being's mothership, and caused severe damage to all four of Celestial Being's Gundams.
Soma and Sergei encountered Allelujah one last time during the battle. Allelujah, who had finally united with his alter ego to become the ultimate super soldier - a superior combination of intellect and reflexes - easily defeated both Soma and Sergei. However, just before he was about to deal the final blow to Soma, Sergei knocked her aside, sacrificing his own mobile suit in order to save her. The action served a dual purpose - not only did it save Soma, it also rendered Allelujah's weapon useless, and Soma took the opportunity to fire back at Allelujah, injuring him and damaging Kyrios, his Gundam.
At this point, Soma could have easily destroyed Kyrios and put Allelujah, her sworn enemy, permanently out of commission. But for the first time in her life, she abandoned the purpose in which she had believed so strongly and gave up pursuit, choosing instead to stay behind and rescue the severely injured Sergei, who had become something of a father figure to her.
After the battle, what few pilots were left were relieved of duty and the unified force was mostly disbanded. Soma went back to live with Sergei at his house in Russia, and it seems they spent four peaceful years there. During those four years, Sergei suggested the idea of adoption to Soma, but she was somewhat hesitant about the idea, not wishing to lose her own name - and her own identity - entirely. Shortly afterward, United Nations formed the Earth Sphere Federation, uniting most of the world's countries into one global power. Naturally, there was some resistance to the plan of global unification, and the largest resistance force, Kataron, conducted numerous attacks in order to make their point known. In response, the United Nations formed a special task force known as the A-LAWS to wipe out the opposing factions.
Most of the pilots who had taken place in Operation Fallen Angel joined the A-LAWS, some of them because they felt it was their duty, and others because they wanted to keep an eye on the A-LAWS as a whole. It's assumed that Sergei was offered a position but declined; Soma, however, being a product of the military herself, had no choice but to accept her own offer and was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant upon her arrival. At about the same time, A-LAWS was carrying out experimental tests of their new automaton units on high-gravity blocks where prisoners were being kept, and with the ensuing slaughter came the return of Celestial Being.
Soma had been stationed at a high-security prison where political and military prisoners, including Allelujah, who had been captured at the end of the battle against Celestial Being four years ago, were being kept. Within days of Celestial Being reestablishing themselves as a force to be reckoned with on the global scale, they staged a prison break, during which almost all of the Kataron prisoners kept there, as well as Allelujah, successfully escaped. He and Soma encountered each other again during the escape, and he attempted to reason with the girl he once knew as Marie, to no avail. Soma no longer recognized him, nor did she remember her own name until he mentioned it in full. Hearing her full name again triggered flashbacks in Soma, and she was rendered helpless by the ensuing headache as Allelujah took off, vowing to rescue her someday.
Shortly afterward, Soma contacted Sergei, who was by then serving in the regular forces, and told him that she wished to become his daughter by adoption. However, that plan was never realized; she immediately sortied with her squad in an attack against a Kataron base, the location of which had been inadvertently revealed by a member of Sergei's squad. During that attack, she witnessed the devastating power of the A-LAWS' automatons firsthand. Deeply affected by the sight of the automatons mowing down the helpless Kataron members, she told herself that she, too, was a weapon for war who was not entitled to simple pleasures like having a family, and that her attempts at gaining those pleasures were wrong.
It was with this mindset that she took off the next time Celestial Being appeared, and when she encountered Allelujah in combat again, she wasted no time in going for the kill. Allelujah held back due to his fear of hurting Marie; Soma had no such inclinations and succeeded in severely damaging his Gundam. However, as Allelujah fell out of the sky, he latched onto Soma's mobile suit, and together they crash-landed onto an island below.
The first thing Soma saw when her cockpit hatch opened was Allelujah, calling her Marie again. Still incapable of understanding why he addressed her by an unknown name, she threw herself at him, fully intending to kill him again. However, her close proximity to him, combined with Allelujah again calling out her full name, triggered her quantum brainwaves, and this time all of her memories came flooding back. She barely had enough time to call Allelujah by his own name - the one she had given him - before she fell unconscious.
When she woke again, she was a completely different person - one who remembered the young man in front of her. As Marie and Allelujah came to an understanding about what had transpired over the last ten years, they were discovered by Sergei, who had sortied alone to search for Soma. He was skeptical of the explanation offered him when he found the two of them alone together, and he was loath to leave his surrogate daughter in the hands of a terrorist, but his increasing dislike of A-LAWS and his remembering Allelujah from the orbital elevator incident eventually convinced him to let Marie go. After declaring that he would report Soma Peries as KIA, he embraced Marie one last time and left, broadcasting their coordinates to Celestial Being's Lockon Stratos as their mobile suits passed one another. Lockon followed the coordinates to the location indicated before shaking his head and smiling - below him, he could already see Allelujah and Marie kissing.
Marie's life aboard Ptolemaois II, Celestial Being's mothership, was relatively peaceful compared to her previous existence in the A-LAWS. When not spending time with Allelujah, she helped out with various tasks; aside from some initial dislike on the part of Feldt Grace, which quickly passed, she got along with the other crewmembers quite well. When the Ptolemaios once again went into battle, she volunteered to man the support units. For the most part, Marie has largely been relegated to a side character for season two, but things may be changing soon...
Please give us a detailed description of your character's personality:
Being raised by Space Commies in a sterile research facility doesn’t exactly do wonders for one’s social life, especially when their idea of bringing one up involves the implementation of a brand new personality. It’s implied that Soma’s ability to feel emotions has been dulled as a result of her genetic enhancements, and it certainly seems that way to anyone who meets her at first. She’s very polite, but cool and professional to those she doesn’t know, preferring to stick to the facts and finding little use for small talk. Anyone attempting to converse with her is likely to run out of things to say fairly quickly - it’s not too much of a stretch to assume that while she has likely been taught the basics - reading and writing and math and the like - the scientists in charge of her education probably didn’t see much use in cultural enrichment aside from the standard propaganda. She has little grasp of social norms, having never had the opportunity to live like a normal human; while she appears able to converse with Sergei quite easily regarding the politics of her world, this is more likely due to his own efforts to involve her in current events than due to the efforts of anyone back at the Institute.
Despite her rather reserved personality, the time Soma has spent under Sergei’s command has allowed her to develop her emotions somewhat; the Lieutenant Colonel is quite possibly the first person in Soma’s life to treat her as an actual human being rather than as the HRL’s trump card against Celestial Being, Allelujah aside, and it shows. Over the course of the series, she begins to demonstrate a faint curiosity in the world around her. While she remains unfailingly loyal to the HRL, she finds herself occasionally asking questions and expressing a desire to understand things that goes beyond the unassuming obedience she first possesses. She is, in her own way, rather naïve about the world; having been sheltered and fed propaganda all her life, she’s utterly bewildered and enraged when Allelujah destroys the Human Enhancement Agency facility, and can’t imagine why he would do such a thing.
But it’s when she’s in combat that Soma is most herself, and it’s also during combat that she displays the most emotion. There, she’s performing the duty for which she feels she was created, and in her opinion, there’s nothing better. She jumps at every opportunity to participate in battle with an eagerness that belies her usual calm, and she’s surprisingly passionate about carrying out her tasks to the best of her considerable ability. However, she tends to get carried away in the heat of combat, throwing herself at enemies without regard for strategy. In the season finale, Allelujah and Hallelujah taunt her by calling her a “lowly animal,” and in some respects, they’re absolutely correct. While Soma is almost always composed when not in combat, she tends to ignore reason and act purely by instinct when fighting, choosing to go about her tasks in the most direct way possible rather than think of a more logical way. In fact, Sergei has had to physically restrain her from chasing down her enemies by herself on more than one occasion.
Off the battlefield, Soma’s normally dulled emotions prevent her from becoming depressed when she’s defeated. When her attempts at capturing Allelujah are thwarted (as they usually are), she feels frustrated, but she doesn’t let that affect her determination or her performance. Instead, she tends to turn her anger into cold logic, often replaying the battle over again in her mind afterward and analyzing what went wrong. Soma also works well in a team, despite her ‘ace’ status; she demonstrates concern for her fellow pilots on and off the battlefield, and they seem to respect her in return.
As the years pass, the time Soma spends with Sergei continues to have a positive effect on her, and by the time we see her again after the timeskip, she's unconsciously become more and more like the Marie she once was - a little more human, as it were. She's a little more demure, a little more ladylike, and she demonstrates a certain kindness in the way she interacts with her squadmates, most notably Louise Halevy.
Should Soma run into Allelujah at Landel's, however, their quantum brainwaves are likely to react, and if Allelujah mentions her original full name - Marie Perfacy - around her, she'll fully regain the personality and memories she lost as a child and once again become Marie. Marie possesses the same quiet nature as Soma, but she's far more kind and much more friendly - more socially competent, if you will, and much less likely to go rampaging off into the distance. She isn't afraid to fight, but where Soma would vastly prefer to be in a fair fight on the battlefield, Marie is just as happy to do support work and help out where she can.
Please give us a detailed physical description of your character: Soma was designed to be the perfect mobile suit pilot, though she doesn't really look the part. Her build is petite; the harsh training imposed on her by the HEA appears to have restricted her growth, and she looks rather younger than she really is. Despite this, she's still in top condition, and she's much stronger than she looks - not only does she engage in intense physical activity on a regular basis, the nanomachines in her body keep her in shape as well. Her hair is unusually long for someone in the military; it reaches to her lower back and is unnaturally white, with an odd, braidlike parting on her forehead. However, the real indication that she is different from other humans is her eye color - both of her eyes are a curious gold color, and they mark her as a successful product of the Human Enhancement Agency's supersoldier program.
The expression most commonly found on her face is - well, none; her default emotion is generally blankness, and her eyes are usually rather flat; usually, it's only when she's worked up about something that her expression changes at all. A few months of civilian life will have softened her slightly, and perhaps she might show a trace of human emotion now and then, but she'll still be fairly reserved about most things.
What point in time are you taking your character from when he/she appears at Landel's?: I’m taking Soma from Episode 25, a few months into the four-year timeskip. She'll just have gotten used to living with Sergei when she appears here.
What kinds of magical/special/crazy powers does your character have, if any?: Soma possesses enhanced glial cells as a result of being genetically engineered. As a result, her reflexes have been honed to a surprising degree (more on that below). Her powers also manifest themselves in the form of crushing migraines that show up whenever someone who's been similarly mucked with (e.g. Allelujah) comes within a certain distance of her and increase in intensity as that person comes closer, so they’re not especially useful. Along with the migraines, Soma can communicate mentally with Allelujah, but naturally they haven't done so often, and it's uncertain whether she can do so with similarly treated people. Allelujah (or, more appropriately, Hallelujah) also seems to be the only one who can trigger the aforementioned migraines, as Soma grew up in an Institute full of potential super-soldiers with no apparent side effects. She can also sense when someone is using quantum brainwaves to communicate; this also gives her a headache, but of considerably lesser intensity.
It's also stated in the third companion novel that Soma is capable of predicting an enemy's movements before they actually carry them out; the only person capable of circumventing this ability is Allelujah when he unites with Hallelujah, at which point they act too quickly for her to correctly predict their movements. In the second season, Soma is also revealed to be an empath due to her quantum brainwaves; she can sense others' emotions, as well as a little of what they're thinking about. In the presence of an unusually high concentration of GN Particles, she appears to be capable of sensing whether or not her loved ones are in danger, regardless of how far away they are, as evidenced by the 00 Raiser's test run in episode 11 of the second season, but as the chances of GN Particles turning up at Landel's are next to none, that can be disregarded.
If present, how do you plan to tweak those powers to make him/her appropriately hindered in the setting of Landel's?: Soma hasn't appeared capable of initiating mental contact with any other supersoldiers at the moment (mostly because she and Allelujah are the only ones left), so unless things are changed in season two, she won't be affected by any of the other telepathic patients, and she won't be able to sense them telepathically either, unless they specifically use quantum brainwaves to communicate. If Soma happens to meet Allelujah, her migraines will only start if they're in the same thread together and they’ll be significantly toned down, or both of them would probably be rendered unconscious within minutes of their arrival.
Her ability to predict enemy movements will be dulled considerably, to the point where her being able to do so will only give her a slight advantage over the average human. Similarly, her empathic abilities will also be dulled; she'll be able to sense faint emotions from those patients who don't have the ability to block that sort of thing, but she won't be able to gain any further details from her brainwaves.
Does your character have any other non-magical skills or abilities that we should know about?: As a self-described 'designer baby,' Soma has been genetically engineered to be the perfect soldier. As a result, her speed, strength, endurance, and reflexes are all considerably greater than that of the average human. In addition, her body contains nanomachines that improve her performance in space and prevent her body from atrophying; whether or not the nanomachines do anything on Earth has yet to be determined, so for the moment they won’t have any effect.
All of Soma’s abilities will be somewhat toned down at Landel’s so she isn’t capable of dodging and outrunning most things she encounters, but she’ll still be noticeably faster and stronger than the average human - though probably not all of the other patients.
How about improbable appendages?: None!
Please give us an idea of where you'd like to take your character within the scope of the Landel's Damned RP: Soma is, at first, probably going to think of Landel’s as yet another HRL program. She’s no stranger to creepy hospital facilities; after all, from her point of view, doctors performing horrific experiments on people is perfectly acceptable. However, the nurses' comments about her identity not being what it is will definitely start to clue her in on the real nature of the place. Soma's name is incredibly important to her, as she believes it defines who she is, and the fact that the nurses are telling her that she's someone she isn't will be both a source of confusion and a source of anger.
Another thing that could change her mind is the arrival of someone she trusts, or someone she knows she can trust. In this case, that’s limited to any other member of the HRL or, possibly, well-known people from the AEU or Union with whom she’s worked (say, Graham Aker or Kati Mannequin). If they’re trying to escape, she’ll probably (finally) be convinced that Landel’s isn’t what it seems. At this point, she will be absolutely and totally focused on escape, whether by herself, or with the help of others if necessary - not necessarily because the institute is performing twisted experiments on people, but because she wants to get back to Sergei.
What kind of psychological effect do you see Landel's Institute having on your character?: Soma will initially take the news about Landel’s fairly well; as stated before, she’s used to this sort of thing. She will, of course, be incredibly confused as to why nobody seems to have heard about the HRL, but she’ll probably dismiss it as “part of the training” or something similar. The Nightshift monsters will probably throw her off a bit, as she’s not used to animal experimentation, but she’ll adjust quickly enough. She is, after all, trained to adjust to strange environments.
When she actually finds out what everything is about, though, she may be a good deal more shocked, and possibly even scared. Being kept away from the only man she considers family and having to deal with the aforementioned monsters will almost certainly take its toll on her, but she'll definitely make it her goal to become stronger and try to fight off that panic.
Given that this RP takes place in an unsettling and outright horrific environment, how do you justify your character as being appropriate in both body and mind for this kind of setting?:
Soma's entire childhood basically consisted of one continuous M-U session; that sort of thing is commonplace to her, and compared to that, Dayshift is pretty much sunshine and daisies, if infuriatingly boring. Nightshift, with all of its monstrous horrors, will be more of a problem, but she's a literally a soldier born and bred, trained to follow orders and to fight regardless of what's facing her, and her combat experience will be more than handy here. She's also stubborn as hell and if she were aware of the phrase, “what does not kill me can only make me stronger,” she'd pretty much make it her motto. In short, her life has pretty much prepared her for most situations she'll encounter at Landel's, and she'll make it a personal goal to fight through and overcome any situations she isn't prepared for.
Third-Person Sample:
She woke up as she always did, at exactly six o'clock in the morning. It was hardly necessary, now that she was, for all intents and purposes, a civilian, but old habits died hard and there was always the thought, lurking at the back of her mind, that someday she would be recalled to duty. If that were the case, it wouldn't do to start slipping.
But today was different. Soma Peries' eyes opened slightly, then snapped open wider in shock.
Her room at home was comfortable, if spartan - she had liked it that way. But the only thing it had in common with where she was now was the bare walls. This - this was not her room, and the stark white sheets and glaring lights and the smell of antiseptic in the air were drawing her back, reminding her of her childhood...
But the illusion vanished abruptly as she sat up and looked around. This was more of a hospital than a laboratory, she decided; the desk and drawers clearly within view were amenities that would have had no use in a place like L'Internationale. Her clothes had been changed, too, she observed, staring blankly at the yellow smiley face smiling up at her - certainly not a military institution, from the looks of it. There was an empty bed across the room that mirrored the one she was in, and it was made quite neatly, but it would only barely have passed muster in her personal opinion.
It was highly unlikely she was in a military transport, and her feelings were confirmed when she got out of bed. She was either still on Earth or in an environment with gravity simulation - which didn't rule out the colony option. But why? And where was Colonel Smirnov?
She made the bed quickly out of habit, her mind racing, and froze as her hand touched something underneath the pillow. A flashlight. What was it doing here? And such an old model - why was it under her pillow? Things weren't making sense. Through her confusion, she barely heard the footsteps outside and only just shoved the flashlight back under her pillow in time as the door opened.
“Oh, Mariya, you're certainly up early! And you've made your bed, too! What a nice surprise!”
The woman who had entered was surprisingly nondescript; she was wearing what was unmistakably a nurse's uniform. Undoubtedly a hospital, then. But Soma wasn't injured or ill and the nurse had called her by the wrong name - though surely that was the name of whatever woman was occupying the bed across from her.
“I'm not Mariya,” she said. “My name is Soma Peries. I believe you have the wrong patient.”
The nurse laughed. There was a patronizing tone to it that Soma decided she disliked. “Oh, dear! You must stop calling yourself that, Mariya. It simply won't do. Now, it's a little early, but would you like to go down to breakfast anyway? I'm sure a few other patients have also woken up, and you can make some new friends. It's your first day here, after all!”
It was frustrating how the woman's mindless chatter told her absolutely nothing new, except that she thought Soma was someone she clearly wasn't. But it was a simple case of mistaken identity, that was all, and it was straightforward enough to resolve. As soon as the colonel found out what had happened, she could go home.
“Where am I? Is Colonel Smirnov here?”
The nurse laughed again, and this time Soma felt real annoyance at the sound. “What a thing to say! You're at Landel's Institute, dear! Your father left last night, and you know perfectly well he isn't in the military. You could always write him a letter - I'm sure he's very worried about you, that was a very nasty car accident you and your boyfriend were in...”
Soma didn't hear the rest. She put on the slippers the nurse gave her without another word, and she followed the woman out of the door and down the hall in a daze. It was a case of mistaken identity. It had to be. There was no other explanation. And yet...
My father?
First-Person Sample:
Name: Soma Peries
Rank: Second Lieutenant, Super Soldier #1
Affiliation: Human Reform League
Age: 19
[Below this, Soma has neatly written the names and room numbers of people she's met and has also begun to draw a simple map of the Institute. Aside from that, the journal is mostly blank.]
Series' Medium: Anime
Character you're applying for: Soma Peries
Character's role in their canon: Prominent antagonist; stands in direct opposition to Allelujah Haptism for half of the series before becoming a minor protagonist.
Character's age: 19
Character's gender: Female
Character’s “Real Name”: Mariya Smirnova
Please give us a detailed personal history of your character:
(Most of this background is taken from the anime, which is the main vehicle for the series; minor details have been lifted from the companion novels, which were partially written by the show's writer and director and, according to the writer, can be taken as canon.)
Soma Peries was born in 2289 - although that, technically, couldn't be further from the truth. She was actually born with the name Marie Perfacy, though where and how she received the name is anyone's guess. At some point within the first eight years of her life, she came under the control of the Human Enhancement Agency, a secret scientific program funded by the Human Reform League, one of the three major power blocs on Earth. The scientists at the HEA enhanced her glial cells through experimentation, giving her reflexes and speed far above that of the average human. Further experimentation gave her increased strength and endurance, boosted partially by the nanomachines implanted into her body, as well as enhanced quantum brainwaves, which enabled her to predict enemy movements and sense the emotions and thoughts of others.
Unfortunately, the treatment robbed her of all five senses, and she spent an extended period of time separate from the other experimental children. For this reason, not much is known about Marie's childhood, mainly because she never really had one. Her home was, for all intents and purposes, L'Internationale, the space station where the Human Enhancement Agency's headquarters were located. During this time, she formed a close attachment to another child in the program, an orphan who was the only other one who could hear her brainwaves calling out, and whom she named Allelujah. But one day, she called out mentally and there was no response - he had stolen a transport with a few other children and escaped L'Internationale.
Shortly afterward, the HEA scientists at last returned her senses to her - at a price. She was wiped of her memories and a new personality was implanted into her, as well as a name: Soma Peries. From day one of her new existence, Soma was surrounded by scientists of questionable ethical character, less interested in her emotional maturation than in her growth as a potential weapon of war. Ten years after she was created, she was released from the program as a cool, almost emotionless, "complete supersoldier" - an embodiment of the HEA's vision of a perfect mobile suit pilot.
At about the same time, the paramilitary organization, Celestial Being, revealed itself to the world with the intent of ending all conflict on Earth. The Human Reform League was the first power bloc to declare war on them, and Soma was immediately sent to the front lines. She was promoted to the rank of second lieutenant and assigned to the command of Lieutenant Colonel Sergei "Wild Bear" Smirnov, an experienced soldier who had fought extensively and earned his well-deserved nickname in the previous Solar Wars. She was also given a mobile suit of her very own - the MSJ-06II-SP Tieren Taozi.
However, Soma's first test run in the Taozi proved disastrous, as the course brought her within the vicinity of Allelujah Haptism, Gundam Meister of Celestial Being and failed specimen of the supersoldier program, otherwise known as E-0057. Their brainwaves reacted negatively with one another, and the sudden pain and shock caused Soma to go berserk; she fired wildly at nothing in particular and caused a section of the nearby orbital elevator to break off before passing out. The orbital elevator section was only saved through the combined efforts of Sergei and Allelujah, and Soma had to be given a modified helmet that would prevent such occurrences from interfering with her piloting again.
Soma next took to the skies in a massive, resource-intensive HRL effort to capture a Gundam, headed by Sergei, who was also a skilled strategist. While it seemed at first that HRL victory was imminent, the Gundam Meisters revealed several devastating secret weapons and managed to break free, causing immense damage to the HRL force. First Lieutenant Ming, one of Sergei's trusted officers, was tortured and killed by Hallelujah, Allelujah's sadistic alter ego, while trying to cover Sergei's and Soma's retreat; the incident gave Soma a personal reason to hate Allelujah - whom she no longer recognized - and solidified her belief in her purpose - to destroy Celestial Being.
A short time after the HRL operation, Allelujah managed to sneak into L'Internationale with the help of Tieria Erde, another Gundam Meister, and successfully destroy the HEA facility, scientists, child experiments, and all, leaking the data about the organization to the general public. Soma, incapable of understanding why a failed supersoldier would kill his own kind, again vowed revenge on Experiment E-0057 and Celestial Being. After all, she only had one purpose, and she would fulfill that purpose to the best of her ability by fighting in the name of those whom Celestial Being had killed.
Meanwhile, Celestial Being's armed interventions elsewhere attracted the attention of the Union and the AEU, and the leaders of all three power blocs met to discuss plans for a unified attack against Celestial Being. The stage was set in the Taklamakan Desert, and the aces of all three blocs, Soma and Sergei included, were included in the combined force. Nearly a thousand mobile suits managed to pin Celestial Being's Gundams down, but they were suddenly rescued by three new Gundams from another faction of Celestial Being and successfully escaped once more.
The three new Throne Gundams, piloted by the Trinity siblings, caused utter havoc and numerous civilian deaths in the days after their arrival. However, Alejandro Corner, an observer in Celestial Being who desired to manipulate the organization to his own ends, sent ten GN-Xs - mobile suits with the same GN Drives as the Throne Gundams - to each of the power blocs. Naturally, Soma was assigned to one of the HRL's GN-Xs, as was Sergei, and the two, with the help of the other eight HRL pilots, easily defeated the Trinity siblings when they attacked an HRL base in Guangzhou, China. According to the third companion novel, this was the first time Soma had ever experienced happiness.
The Throne Gundams were forced to retreat to their base of operations in Africa, and the HRL GN-X force quickly pursued. They engaged again, and again the HRL emerged victorious. Though Soma was all for destroying the Trinity siblings once and for all, she was stopped by Sergei, and the HRL force returned to their own territory.
Shortly after the HRL victory, the United Nations, unifying all of the power blocs' GN-X mobile suits into one army, launched Operation Fallen Angel - a final, massive strike against Celestial Being. During the fight, Soma and Sergei clashed multiple times with Allelujah, who had learned to block Soma's brainwaves with the help of Hallelujah. Supported by reinforcements provided by Alejandro Corner, the UN Army successfully destroyed the Ptolemaios, Celestial Being's mothership, and caused severe damage to all four of Celestial Being's Gundams.
Soma and Sergei encountered Allelujah one last time during the battle. Allelujah, who had finally united with his alter ego to become the ultimate super soldier - a superior combination of intellect and reflexes - easily defeated both Soma and Sergei. However, just before he was about to deal the final blow to Soma, Sergei knocked her aside, sacrificing his own mobile suit in order to save her. The action served a dual purpose - not only did it save Soma, it also rendered Allelujah's weapon useless, and Soma took the opportunity to fire back at Allelujah, injuring him and damaging Kyrios, his Gundam.
At this point, Soma could have easily destroyed Kyrios and put Allelujah, her sworn enemy, permanently out of commission. But for the first time in her life, she abandoned the purpose in which she had believed so strongly and gave up pursuit, choosing instead to stay behind and rescue the severely injured Sergei, who had become something of a father figure to her.
After the battle, what few pilots were left were relieved of duty and the unified force was mostly disbanded. Soma went back to live with Sergei at his house in Russia, and it seems they spent four peaceful years there. During those four years, Sergei suggested the idea of adoption to Soma, but she was somewhat hesitant about the idea, not wishing to lose her own name - and her own identity - entirely. Shortly afterward, United Nations formed the Earth Sphere Federation, uniting most of the world's countries into one global power. Naturally, there was some resistance to the plan of global unification, and the largest resistance force, Kataron, conducted numerous attacks in order to make their point known. In response, the United Nations formed a special task force known as the A-LAWS to wipe out the opposing factions.
Most of the pilots who had taken place in Operation Fallen Angel joined the A-LAWS, some of them because they felt it was their duty, and others because they wanted to keep an eye on the A-LAWS as a whole. It's assumed that Sergei was offered a position but declined; Soma, however, being a product of the military herself, had no choice but to accept her own offer and was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant upon her arrival. At about the same time, A-LAWS was carrying out experimental tests of their new automaton units on high-gravity blocks where prisoners were being kept, and with the ensuing slaughter came the return of Celestial Being.
Soma had been stationed at a high-security prison where political and military prisoners, including Allelujah, who had been captured at the end of the battle against Celestial Being four years ago, were being kept. Within days of Celestial Being reestablishing themselves as a force to be reckoned with on the global scale, they staged a prison break, during which almost all of the Kataron prisoners kept there, as well as Allelujah, successfully escaped. He and Soma encountered each other again during the escape, and he attempted to reason with the girl he once knew as Marie, to no avail. Soma no longer recognized him, nor did she remember her own name until he mentioned it in full. Hearing her full name again triggered flashbacks in Soma, and she was rendered helpless by the ensuing headache as Allelujah took off, vowing to rescue her someday.
Shortly afterward, Soma contacted Sergei, who was by then serving in the regular forces, and told him that she wished to become his daughter by adoption. However, that plan was never realized; she immediately sortied with her squad in an attack against a Kataron base, the location of which had been inadvertently revealed by a member of Sergei's squad. During that attack, she witnessed the devastating power of the A-LAWS' automatons firsthand. Deeply affected by the sight of the automatons mowing down the helpless Kataron members, she told herself that she, too, was a weapon for war who was not entitled to simple pleasures like having a family, and that her attempts at gaining those pleasures were wrong.
It was with this mindset that she took off the next time Celestial Being appeared, and when she encountered Allelujah in combat again, she wasted no time in going for the kill. Allelujah held back due to his fear of hurting Marie; Soma had no such inclinations and succeeded in severely damaging his Gundam. However, as Allelujah fell out of the sky, he latched onto Soma's mobile suit, and together they crash-landed onto an island below.
The first thing Soma saw when her cockpit hatch opened was Allelujah, calling her Marie again. Still incapable of understanding why he addressed her by an unknown name, she threw herself at him, fully intending to kill him again. However, her close proximity to him, combined with Allelujah again calling out her full name, triggered her quantum brainwaves, and this time all of her memories came flooding back. She barely had enough time to call Allelujah by his own name - the one she had given him - before she fell unconscious.
When she woke again, she was a completely different person - one who remembered the young man in front of her. As Marie and Allelujah came to an understanding about what had transpired over the last ten years, they were discovered by Sergei, who had sortied alone to search for Soma. He was skeptical of the explanation offered him when he found the two of them alone together, and he was loath to leave his surrogate daughter in the hands of a terrorist, but his increasing dislike of A-LAWS and his remembering Allelujah from the orbital elevator incident eventually convinced him to let Marie go. After declaring that he would report Soma Peries as KIA, he embraced Marie one last time and left, broadcasting their coordinates to Celestial Being's Lockon Stratos as their mobile suits passed one another. Lockon followed the coordinates to the location indicated before shaking his head and smiling - below him, he could already see Allelujah and Marie kissing.
Marie's life aboard Ptolemaois II, Celestial Being's mothership, was relatively peaceful compared to her previous existence in the A-LAWS. When not spending time with Allelujah, she helped out with various tasks; aside from some initial dislike on the part of Feldt Grace, which quickly passed, she got along with the other crewmembers quite well. When the Ptolemaios once again went into battle, she volunteered to man the support units. For the most part, Marie has largely been relegated to a side character for season two, but things may be changing soon...
Please give us a detailed description of your character's personality:
Being raised by Space Commies in a sterile research facility doesn’t exactly do wonders for one’s social life, especially when their idea of bringing one up involves the implementation of a brand new personality. It’s implied that Soma’s ability to feel emotions has been dulled as a result of her genetic enhancements, and it certainly seems that way to anyone who meets her at first. She’s very polite, but cool and professional to those she doesn’t know, preferring to stick to the facts and finding little use for small talk. Anyone attempting to converse with her is likely to run out of things to say fairly quickly - it’s not too much of a stretch to assume that while she has likely been taught the basics - reading and writing and math and the like - the scientists in charge of her education probably didn’t see much use in cultural enrichment aside from the standard propaganda. She has little grasp of social norms, having never had the opportunity to live like a normal human; while she appears able to converse with Sergei quite easily regarding the politics of her world, this is more likely due to his own efforts to involve her in current events than due to the efforts of anyone back at the Institute.
Despite her rather reserved personality, the time Soma has spent under Sergei’s command has allowed her to develop her emotions somewhat; the Lieutenant Colonel is quite possibly the first person in Soma’s life to treat her as an actual human being rather than as the HRL’s trump card against Celestial Being, Allelujah aside, and it shows. Over the course of the series, she begins to demonstrate a faint curiosity in the world around her. While she remains unfailingly loyal to the HRL, she finds herself occasionally asking questions and expressing a desire to understand things that goes beyond the unassuming obedience she first possesses. She is, in her own way, rather naïve about the world; having been sheltered and fed propaganda all her life, she’s utterly bewildered and enraged when Allelujah destroys the Human Enhancement Agency facility, and can’t imagine why he would do such a thing.
But it’s when she’s in combat that Soma is most herself, and it’s also during combat that she displays the most emotion. There, she’s performing the duty for which she feels she was created, and in her opinion, there’s nothing better. She jumps at every opportunity to participate in battle with an eagerness that belies her usual calm, and she’s surprisingly passionate about carrying out her tasks to the best of her considerable ability. However, she tends to get carried away in the heat of combat, throwing herself at enemies without regard for strategy. In the season finale, Allelujah and Hallelujah taunt her by calling her a “lowly animal,” and in some respects, they’re absolutely correct. While Soma is almost always composed when not in combat, she tends to ignore reason and act purely by instinct when fighting, choosing to go about her tasks in the most direct way possible rather than think of a more logical way. In fact, Sergei has had to physically restrain her from chasing down her enemies by herself on more than one occasion.
Off the battlefield, Soma’s normally dulled emotions prevent her from becoming depressed when she’s defeated. When her attempts at capturing Allelujah are thwarted (as they usually are), she feels frustrated, but she doesn’t let that affect her determination or her performance. Instead, she tends to turn her anger into cold logic, often replaying the battle over again in her mind afterward and analyzing what went wrong. Soma also works well in a team, despite her ‘ace’ status; she demonstrates concern for her fellow pilots on and off the battlefield, and they seem to respect her in return.
As the years pass, the time Soma spends with Sergei continues to have a positive effect on her, and by the time we see her again after the timeskip, she's unconsciously become more and more like the Marie she once was - a little more human, as it were. She's a little more demure, a little more ladylike, and she demonstrates a certain kindness in the way she interacts with her squadmates, most notably Louise Halevy.
Should Soma run into Allelujah at Landel's, however, their quantum brainwaves are likely to react, and if Allelujah mentions her original full name - Marie Perfacy - around her, she'll fully regain the personality and memories she lost as a child and once again become Marie. Marie possesses the same quiet nature as Soma, but she's far more kind and much more friendly - more socially competent, if you will, and much less likely to go rampaging off into the distance. She isn't afraid to fight, but where Soma would vastly prefer to be in a fair fight on the battlefield, Marie is just as happy to do support work and help out where she can.
Please give us a detailed physical description of your character: Soma was designed to be the perfect mobile suit pilot, though she doesn't really look the part. Her build is petite; the harsh training imposed on her by the HEA appears to have restricted her growth, and she looks rather younger than she really is. Despite this, she's still in top condition, and she's much stronger than she looks - not only does she engage in intense physical activity on a regular basis, the nanomachines in her body keep her in shape as well. Her hair is unusually long for someone in the military; it reaches to her lower back and is unnaturally white, with an odd, braidlike parting on her forehead. However, the real indication that she is different from other humans is her eye color - both of her eyes are a curious gold color, and they mark her as a successful product of the Human Enhancement Agency's supersoldier program.
The expression most commonly found on her face is - well, none; her default emotion is generally blankness, and her eyes are usually rather flat; usually, it's only when she's worked up about something that her expression changes at all. A few months of civilian life will have softened her slightly, and perhaps she might show a trace of human emotion now and then, but she'll still be fairly reserved about most things.
What point in time are you taking your character from when he/she appears at Landel's?: I’m taking Soma from Episode 25, a few months into the four-year timeskip. She'll just have gotten used to living with Sergei when she appears here.
What kinds of magical/special/crazy powers does your character have, if any?: Soma possesses enhanced glial cells as a result of being genetically engineered. As a result, her reflexes have been honed to a surprising degree (more on that below). Her powers also manifest themselves in the form of crushing migraines that show up whenever someone who's been similarly mucked with (e.g. Allelujah) comes within a certain distance of her and increase in intensity as that person comes closer, so they’re not especially useful. Along with the migraines, Soma can communicate mentally with Allelujah, but naturally they haven't done so often, and it's uncertain whether she can do so with similarly treated people. Allelujah (or, more appropriately, Hallelujah) also seems to be the only one who can trigger the aforementioned migraines, as Soma grew up in an Institute full of potential super-soldiers with no apparent side effects. She can also sense when someone is using quantum brainwaves to communicate; this also gives her a headache, but of considerably lesser intensity.
It's also stated in the third companion novel that Soma is capable of predicting an enemy's movements before they actually carry them out; the only person capable of circumventing this ability is Allelujah when he unites with Hallelujah, at which point they act too quickly for her to correctly predict their movements. In the second season, Soma is also revealed to be an empath due to her quantum brainwaves; she can sense others' emotions, as well as a little of what they're thinking about. In the presence of an unusually high concentration of GN Particles, she appears to be capable of sensing whether or not her loved ones are in danger, regardless of how far away they are, as evidenced by the 00 Raiser's test run in episode 11 of the second season, but as the chances of GN Particles turning up at Landel's are next to none, that can be disregarded.
If present, how do you plan to tweak those powers to make him/her appropriately hindered in the setting of Landel's?: Soma hasn't appeared capable of initiating mental contact with any other supersoldiers at the moment (mostly because she and Allelujah are the only ones left), so unless things are changed in season two, she won't be affected by any of the other telepathic patients, and she won't be able to sense them telepathically either, unless they specifically use quantum brainwaves to communicate. If Soma happens to meet Allelujah, her migraines will only start if they're in the same thread together and they’ll be significantly toned down, or both of them would probably be rendered unconscious within minutes of their arrival.
Her ability to predict enemy movements will be dulled considerably, to the point where her being able to do so will only give her a slight advantage over the average human. Similarly, her empathic abilities will also be dulled; she'll be able to sense faint emotions from those patients who don't have the ability to block that sort of thing, but she won't be able to gain any further details from her brainwaves.
Does your character have any other non-magical skills or abilities that we should know about?: As a self-described 'designer baby,' Soma has been genetically engineered to be the perfect soldier. As a result, her speed, strength, endurance, and reflexes are all considerably greater than that of the average human. In addition, her body contains nanomachines that improve her performance in space and prevent her body from atrophying; whether or not the nanomachines do anything on Earth has yet to be determined, so for the moment they won’t have any effect.
All of Soma’s abilities will be somewhat toned down at Landel’s so she isn’t capable of dodging and outrunning most things she encounters, but she’ll still be noticeably faster and stronger than the average human - though probably not all of the other patients.
How about improbable appendages?: None!
Please give us an idea of where you'd like to take your character within the scope of the Landel's Damned RP: Soma is, at first, probably going to think of Landel’s as yet another HRL program. She’s no stranger to creepy hospital facilities; after all, from her point of view, doctors performing horrific experiments on people is perfectly acceptable. However, the nurses' comments about her identity not being what it is will definitely start to clue her in on the real nature of the place. Soma's name is incredibly important to her, as she believes it defines who she is, and the fact that the nurses are telling her that she's someone she isn't will be both a source of confusion and a source of anger.
Another thing that could change her mind is the arrival of someone she trusts, or someone she knows she can trust. In this case, that’s limited to any other member of the HRL or, possibly, well-known people from the AEU or Union with whom she’s worked (say, Graham Aker or Kati Mannequin). If they’re trying to escape, she’ll probably (finally) be convinced that Landel’s isn’t what it seems. At this point, she will be absolutely and totally focused on escape, whether by herself, or with the help of others if necessary - not necessarily because the institute is performing twisted experiments on people, but because she wants to get back to Sergei.
What kind of psychological effect do you see Landel's Institute having on your character?: Soma will initially take the news about Landel’s fairly well; as stated before, she’s used to this sort of thing. She will, of course, be incredibly confused as to why nobody seems to have heard about the HRL, but she’ll probably dismiss it as “part of the training” or something similar. The Nightshift monsters will probably throw her off a bit, as she’s not used to animal experimentation, but she’ll adjust quickly enough. She is, after all, trained to adjust to strange environments.
When she actually finds out what everything is about, though, she may be a good deal more shocked, and possibly even scared. Being kept away from the only man she considers family and having to deal with the aforementioned monsters will almost certainly take its toll on her, but she'll definitely make it her goal to become stronger and try to fight off that panic.
Given that this RP takes place in an unsettling and outright horrific environment, how do you justify your character as being appropriate in both body and mind for this kind of setting?:
Soma's entire childhood basically consisted of one continuous M-U session; that sort of thing is commonplace to her, and compared to that, Dayshift is pretty much sunshine and daisies, if infuriatingly boring. Nightshift, with all of its monstrous horrors, will be more of a problem, but she's a literally a soldier born and bred, trained to follow orders and to fight regardless of what's facing her, and her combat experience will be more than handy here. She's also stubborn as hell and if she were aware of the phrase, “what does not kill me can only make me stronger,” she'd pretty much make it her motto. In short, her life has pretty much prepared her for most situations she'll encounter at Landel's, and she'll make it a personal goal to fight through and overcome any situations she isn't prepared for.
Third-Person Sample:
She woke up as she always did, at exactly six o'clock in the morning. It was hardly necessary, now that she was, for all intents and purposes, a civilian, but old habits died hard and there was always the thought, lurking at the back of her mind, that someday she would be recalled to duty. If that were the case, it wouldn't do to start slipping.
But today was different. Soma Peries' eyes opened slightly, then snapped open wider in shock.
Her room at home was comfortable, if spartan - she had liked it that way. But the only thing it had in common with where she was now was the bare walls. This - this was not her room, and the stark white sheets and glaring lights and the smell of antiseptic in the air were drawing her back, reminding her of her childhood...
But the illusion vanished abruptly as she sat up and looked around. This was more of a hospital than a laboratory, she decided; the desk and drawers clearly within view were amenities that would have had no use in a place like L'Internationale. Her clothes had been changed, too, she observed, staring blankly at the yellow smiley face smiling up at her - certainly not a military institution, from the looks of it. There was an empty bed across the room that mirrored the one she was in, and it was made quite neatly, but it would only barely have passed muster in her personal opinion.
It was highly unlikely she was in a military transport, and her feelings were confirmed when she got out of bed. She was either still on Earth or in an environment with gravity simulation - which didn't rule out the colony option. But why? And where was Colonel Smirnov?
She made the bed quickly out of habit, her mind racing, and froze as her hand touched something underneath the pillow. A flashlight. What was it doing here? And such an old model - why was it under her pillow? Things weren't making sense. Through her confusion, she barely heard the footsteps outside and only just shoved the flashlight back under her pillow in time as the door opened.
“Oh, Mariya, you're certainly up early! And you've made your bed, too! What a nice surprise!”
The woman who had entered was surprisingly nondescript; she was wearing what was unmistakably a nurse's uniform. Undoubtedly a hospital, then. But Soma wasn't injured or ill and the nurse had called her by the wrong name - though surely that was the name of whatever woman was occupying the bed across from her.
“I'm not Mariya,” she said. “My name is Soma Peries. I believe you have the wrong patient.”
The nurse laughed. There was a patronizing tone to it that Soma decided she disliked. “Oh, dear! You must stop calling yourself that, Mariya. It simply won't do. Now, it's a little early, but would you like to go down to breakfast anyway? I'm sure a few other patients have also woken up, and you can make some new friends. It's your first day here, after all!”
It was frustrating how the woman's mindless chatter told her absolutely nothing new, except that she thought Soma was someone she clearly wasn't. But it was a simple case of mistaken identity, that was all, and it was straightforward enough to resolve. As soon as the colonel found out what had happened, she could go home.
“Where am I? Is Colonel Smirnov here?”
The nurse laughed again, and this time Soma felt real annoyance at the sound. “What a thing to say! You're at Landel's Institute, dear! Your father left last night, and you know perfectly well he isn't in the military. You could always write him a letter - I'm sure he's very worried about you, that was a very nasty car accident you and your boyfriend were in...”
Soma didn't hear the rest. She put on the slippers the nurse gave her without another word, and she followed the woman out of the door and down the hall in a daze. It was a case of mistaken identity. It had to be. There was no other explanation. And yet...
My father?
First-Person Sample:
Name: Soma Peries
Rank: Second Lieutenant, Super Soldier #1
Affiliation: Human Reform League
Age: 19
[Below this, Soma has neatly written the names and room numbers of people she's met and has also begun to draw a simple map of the Institute. Aside from that, the journal is mostly blank.]