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For absolute_hold, please press 1.
For amatomnes, please press 1 too, as in also.
For versusrp, please press 11.
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A B S O L U T E . T H R E S H O L D ;
Character: Epsilon
Series: Red vs Blue
Timeline: Chapter 19 of Recreation
Wiki Us a Bio/History: http://rvb.wikia.com/wiki/Epsilon
Elaborate, if necessary:
(This guy's very existence constitutes some very major spoilers, so passers-by please read with care.)
Project Freelancer and Smart A.I.:
Toward the end of mankind's war against the Covenant, various branches of the United Nations Space Command (UNSC) and paramilitary groups were each racing to create the "silver bullet" that would decide the war. One of these was Project Freelancer, directed by Dr. Leonard Church, which among their various experiments in creating augmented supersoldiers developed a technique to fragment Smart A.I..
Smart A.I. are so called because they're developed from a living human consciousness, typically a highly-developed individual of balanced, diverse intelligence, and can handle tasks and information with much greater efficiency and effect than more limited A.I.. In the Halo canon itself, Cortana would be an example of a Smart A.I.: she was created by cloning the body (including brain) of her antecedent, Dr. Catherine Halsey, and translating the clone's consciousness cell by cell to a silicate substrate. In the process of doing this, the flashclone itself was destroyed.
Without the benefit of an alternative explanation within the Red vs Blue storyline itself (while RvB canon diverges from Halo in some areas, its treatment of Smart A.I. most definitely comes from there), we should assume that this same process was used to create Alpha, a Smart A.I. based on Director Church's own mind. Or rather, the mind of a flashclone he had ordered made with the express purpose of destroying it in the process of digitization. Unlike a more rudimentary flashclone, this one could be presumed to be fully sentient and, moreover, contain echoes of Dr. Church's memories (this is a plot point for both RvB and Halo), at the time of its translation.
And the Director's work didn't end there. Although Project Freelancer had been cleared for the use of only one A.I., the Director envisioned an entire platoon of advanced soldiers, similar to SPARTANs, outfitted with combat-rated A.I.. Initially, his team set about trying to copy Alpha, but the process failed, leading to their alternative plan: to break its mind, and thus its data, into fragments.
A Smart A.I. has the functionality of a supercomputer but the dynamic cognition and personality of a human being. To break it, the researchers reverse-engineered a Multiple Personality Disorder: they subjected it to endless simulations of trauma, the exact nature of which is never discussed. Alpha's fragments each then became a walled-off aspect of its personality: its logic (Delta), deceit (Gamma), rage (Omega) and so on.
But one of these fragments was slightly different. One of these was not so much a fragment of personality as it was the last remaining piece Alpha had to eject from itself in order to survive: the memories of what had happened to it. And this fragment is Epsilon.
Personality:
There is little evidence that Epsilon has anything even resembling a distinct personality. In his "portable" state, he refers to his memories of others as a collective "we," treating them as distinct and individual awarenesses that interact with each other. In a sense, you could say that he constantly suffers from the MPD that Project Freelancer induced in Alpha: he is fully aware of the personalities of the other fragments, and prior to gaining his own body he assumes the behavior of one of them, Delta, in order to communicate.
This may have been done out of calculated manipulation, or (what is a little more likely) Epsilon quite simply does not have a personal identity-- apart from memory. He latches onto the Delta personality and, later, the Alpha personality, to best encourage others to identify with and trust him. There is no evidence this is done with malevolent intent.
Unfortunately, that basically makes him into a very cute stick of dynamite. Despite safeguards programmed into him to prevent the memory of Alpha's torture from reaching his consciousness, when he was implanted in a human partner, Agent Washington, those safeguards immediately began to fail. Epsilon's thoughts began to weave into Washington's, the memories of his torture and other things he had learned burning themselves into the Freelancer's brain until both experienced a psychotic break, and Epsilon committed suicide in Wash's subconscious-- with a gun.
The rest of the Freelancers, including Wash, believed the remains of Epsilon to have been erased when they were extracted from Wash's mind, but instead he was stored. There is every possibility some of his memories were damaged, erased, or locked, but by the time he speaks in Recreation there is no real evidence of this. Rather, according to Washington via Caboose, Epsilon has repressed his violent memories, and --as Epsilon-Church at least-- seems to have no recollection of the fact he should be dead.
As Epsilon-Church:
Just as Epsilon previously adopted the personality of Delta to speak to Caboose, when Caboose transfers him into his Forerunner relic body, he takes on the personality of Alpha-- or rather, Alpha as Caboose knew him, as Caboose's foul-mouthed, hot-tempered, narcissistic Blue team leader Pvt. Leonard L. Church.
In this form, Epsilon seems, if not unaware of his existence as the Epsilon A.I., then completely dismissive of it. He doesn't explicitly answer to either "Epsilon" or "Church," but when addressed as a "thing," he demands to be called Church (and... gets angry enough to kill the guy who insulted him). He also appears "locked" in this personality for the time being, perceiving and handling things as Church would-- roughly. Caboose's perception of reality is not terribly accurate; he believes, for instance, that Church is his best friend, and while the real Church does care for his teammates in a brotherly way, he does so with loud contempt at every opportunity. None of which prevents Caboose from thinking fondly of him, of course.
In Caboose's mind, Church is childish, swears like a South Park character, is fiercely defensive of Caboose, and proudly calls himself his best friend. In relating his stories to Epsilon (which Epsilon took as absolute hard truth) he created something that was similar to, albeit not identical to his mental perception of his best friend. Epsilon-Church can be vicious, childlike, blustering, and only slightly more attentive than a goldfish. While he's roughly as acerbic toward Caboose as the real Alpha, he does (in a bonus scene) willingly profess to being Caboose's friend. In the same 'breath,' he adds that Caboose told him not to trust anyone else, which seems to be advice he's more inclined to dismiss, if only because other people seem so neat and (especially) nonthreatening compared to his mighty superhero self. Having a physical body is so new that he's in constant amazement of it. And hideously open to suggestion as he is, he's latched on to the idea that he's a superhero or god in this body, and that this is right and natural because, after all, isn't his laser face awesome?
It's unfair to say there are no wheels turning inside there at all, however. He coaxes Caboose into finding him the powerful Forerunner Monitor relic to install himself into, and is even the voice --via Delta's memory-- that nudges Caboose into going on a dangerous mission in the first place, saying it is being done to "punish" those who hurt Alpha. This can be taken two ways: either he is completely manipulating Caboose, or (what is more likely given his childlike manner) he is arrogantly seeking to exact vengeance on his own terms, and prove himself as capable. This would tie in not only with his elation with having a powerful body of his own, but claiming that Wash would not "trust" him to do this, in light of his history. So, while it so far seems that Epsilon does not explicitly recall Alpha's trauma or his own breakdown, he has specific motives behind the actions he's taken up to this point. Childish, yes, but not a child; there's every chance he's waiting for the right "lead" to take his next action.
Right after he finishes smiting aliens with crates.
What are they bringing to Nuadoria?: Well, his current body is basically all the equipment he wants or would expect. As a Forerunner Monitor, Epsilon has a variety of advanced technological functions. The ones we know about for certain:
-Floating. He floats.
-Laser pulse, emitted from his central eye.
-Telekinesis, ability to lift and move heavy objects at slow or high velocity.
-Record, playback and project video.
-Freefall sensor and pulse weapon absorbers. Or, well, something analogous to that, which would explain how he was shot, offlined and thrown to the ground without suffering damage.
Additional functions he should have, based on Halo canon:
-Autotranslation.
-Integration with local networks and databases (security, records, point to point teleportation, etc). Includes advanced decryption protocols.
-Lower-level laser (meant for opening locks, but can harm/stun humans).
-Self-repair.
-Variable brightness. c:
Third-Person Sample:
Solid state wasn't very fun, Epsilon decided. When the body went dark, it went fucking dark.
His last image as he went offline was a screen full of garbage pixels, hot bursts of static in his central audio receptor as things strobed green and then black and then cold. He did not feel the temple floor, although he might've imagined making a sound like a bell when he hit.
Well this is fucking great--
Except he didn't get all of that out, before his cognition cortex destabilized.
His consciousness tossed in a blank space, hit invisible walls and rebounded. Trace static told him gloved hands were touching his surface, hot desert wind blasting sand against his primary optic, and then he was falling, landing, rolling. Flat surface rocked beneath him, hopped and lurched, until even his drives felt carsick.
A hard roll against the car door knocked enough of a spark into his gyros to bring standby processes online. Nauseously, Epsilon started sorting out his proverbial limbs, checking some of his recognized functions, and what the fuck was that loud guy saying about an 'emp'?
Thunder. Epsilon flicked his primary optic on in time for a streaming fisheye look of hot blue light arcing overhead, and then he was rolled optics-down on the floor of the Jeep again. No amount of flanged swearing helped matters.
Okay, fuck this, he was flipping switches in his brain till he found the one that gave him hands.
(Date and time? No. Current temperature? No. System update? Oh, what, can't connect to fucking server?)
He found a big sucker that looked promising and flicked it on. Maybe it was the big projectile hammer function. He had one of those, right?
klunk
Oh, well, fuck.
First-Person Sample:
001 - VOICE
Guys?
A T I A . A M A T . O M N E S ;
CHARACTER
» Name: Epsilon
» Fandom: Red vs Blue
» Reference: http://rvb.wikia.com/wiki/Epsilon
» Canon Point: Chapter 19 of Recreation
» Gender: mentally male, basically sexless since he hasn't had a human body before this, but he'll be given a male body in Amat
» Age: Chronologically, about 4. Mentally, all over the map, but mostly seems to alternate between adolescent and adult.
» Orientation: None, realistically. Being a combat AI, he would have had no need for or real exposure to either mental or physiological sexual stimuli, so he's effectively asexual.
However, in constructing his current personality, Epsilon would most likely have been informed about the real Church's romance with a woman, and so would assume himself to be heterosexual, whether or not he has the brain chemistry to match. He'll be figuring out a lot of things once in Amat.
» Personality: Mutable.
I need to explain Epsilon's nature for this to truly make sense. Epsilon is a fragment of a larger AI, known as Alpha, which was copied from the mind of his creator, Dr. Leonard Church. The Alpha was subjected to a series of trauma simulations to engineer a Multiple Personality Disorder. Each of these fragmented personalities were then harvested to become combat AI: Delta was Alpha's logic, Sigma was his creative ingenuity, Omega was his rage, and so on.
Ultimately, there were two parts to the Alpha remaining: the Alpha core, which still identified as Leonard Church, and his memories of everything that had happened to him to induce the fragmentation. In order to save his sanity, Alpha was forced to eject these memories, and thus formed Epsilon.
As a result, Epsilon is, as himself, not a person: he's the memory of other people. He has no "default" personality that we've witnessed canonly. Rather, when taking on the image and personality of Delta, he refers to his memories of the other AI as a collective "we," suggesting he still treats them as multiple personalities inside his mind.
The Epsilon that we see through the latter half of Recreation is a reconstruction of the Alpha-Church personality, supplemented by stories told to him by Caboose. Caboose is... not a very accurate storyteller, but his affection for his team leader has informed an image of Church that is heroic (in an ineffectual way), inquisitive (in a very stupid way), and capable (in a very roundabout and unpredictable way). He thinks of himself completely as Leonard Church, to the point of killing someone who refers to him as a "thing". He has the essence of Church's personality --perpetually angry, impatient, foul-mouthed, sarcastic-- but lacks a true understanding of who Church is, how he focuses, or what he's been through. (It doesn't help that Caboose intentionally omitted parts of Church's history he found inconvenient, such as the fact Caboose killed him-- repeatedly. According to Caboose, Church is his best friend, and Epsilon truly believes that).
What's more, as "Epsilon-Church", Epsilon has no apparent recollection of his trauma or that he's supposed to be dead (having "committed suicide" in his former host's head). According to Caboose, Epsilon is simply suppressing his traumatic memories, in much the same way as the Alpha did in order to survive. The difference is, the Alpha electronically ejected those entries, while Epsilon has simply locked them away. The right trigger could potentially bring some or all of it to the surface again, leading to a possibly devastating meltdown.
» Appearance: As an AI, Epsilon has only an assumed appearance, not a real one. In the past he's appeared as a SPARTAN-II soldier in MJOLNIR Mk V armor, initially in blue-and-violet (in Washington's mind) and later as a faint green outline (when simulating Delta). Later on, he is downloaded into the body of a Forerunner monitor, a floating alien artifact with a single center optic.
...Obviously, he's not appearing that way in Amat at all. As a human, he'll appear as a teenage male of scrawny-to-average build, with dark hair, no facial hair, and rich blue eyes. (My usual PB for him is young James McAvoy, especially circa his Children of Dune appearance: http://lordvalek.com/pics/leto.jpg . I'm aware another player uses this PB in Amat [for Artemis Fowl] and I will be sure to gain her approval before using him; otherwise I'll choose a different actor or draw his icons.)
His collar I'm still working on, but it's going to be an interlocking metal design with a center indigo gemstone engraved with the Marathon symbol, strongly echoing his Forerunner Monitor form: http://rvb.wikia.com/wiki/File:Epsilon-church.PNG
» Suitability: ...Ah, the question of Epsilon's suitability. First, it does have to be acknowledged that Epsilon, as Church, is not entirely limited to the information communicated to him by Caboose (who famously professed that pregnancy is something you catch). There's evidence enough to suggest that Epsilon has more wheels turning than he lets on: as Epsilon-Delta, he seems to assess the situation developing in Sandtrap and pushes Caboose to take him there for very specific reasons, indicating that at least part of him is operating on a level of awareness in advance of his companion's.
However, we can only take that speculation so far, especially when he's "locked" in the Church personality, where he apparently lacks most of Delta's logical ability. Given that Epsilon-Church has elsewhere accepted Caboose's ridiculously self-contradictory stories as the god-given truth, it seems unfair to make an exception. So I'm going to go with Epsilon being ignorant at best, misinformed at worst when it comes to sex.
That all said, he's not his chronological age. He knows that he should be Alpha-Church's self-identified age (which is 20-something at least) and occasionally he does act somewhere close to that, although he generally falls closer to "foul-mouthed middle-schooler" to "derpy late teenager." But he can silence arguments, give a stirring speech, express concern for the lives of others, and know when he's being tricked (...sometimes). So on the level of the interpersonal demands Amat's premise would place on him, he'll be okay. He's not a child. He's just an idiot.
On top of that, within a few minutes of his "life" as a Forerunner monitor he watched the "2girls1cup" video, which... is about the harshest and most destabilizing sex education experience a baby AI can have. And he came away from that seemingly only mildly perturbed. So I'm going to say that regardless of what the setting throws at him, he's demonstrated canonly that he can adjust quickly.
(As far as his "triggers"-- that's currently only inference. Strongly reasonable inference, hinted at canonly when Caboose warns others not to push Epsilon into recalling too much, but nevertheless we are never told just what kind of trauma the Alpha AI was subjected to or what might trigger their recollection in Epsilon. So it doesn't factor into his current, canonly expressed suitability.)
SAMPLES
lolnaw. I didn't end up using either of them, because he got in when an event was happening.
V E R | S U S ;
Character Name: Epsilon-Church
Character Journal: revenantly
Fandom: Red vs Blue
Where in canon you're taking them from: Revelation Chapter 4
History: Wikilikiliki
Description: Epsilon is, as a unit, no one and nothing, and yet everything at once. He's Alpha's memory, and thus in technological terms can be treated as a backup or save state of everything he's come in contact with, to the best of his understanding. He isn't perfect in how he remembers people, but the imitation is usually good enough to fool the casual ear, especially if he's tapping into what you want to hear.
He's also, despite what canon and RT would have you believe, NOT CHURCH. He sounds like Church. As a human he'll look and walk like Church (and where he got that body is probably the same question you'd have to ask Alpha). But he's expressly not him in any number of fundamental ways, from his incomplete and self-contradicting personal history by way of Caboose, to his casual and almost nonexistent grasp on his own anger. He's more like a gleeful, bratty half-pint with a familiar voice than the presumed-departed leader of Blue team. He's got a range of interests more suited to a comic book junkie with a god complex than an acerbic veteran, and he's got Church's ego and narcissism dialed up to 11.
See also: The Scrappy.
He won't go out on a limb for anyone, except maybe his BFF Caboose. And even then he might just stick with pointing and laughing. You could play to his ego and have him do good just for the chance to be a hero, but not anything that would involve Wash. Unless it's about loopkilling Wash into eternity. Then he'll be your hero, baby.
Skill Level: Idiot-savant sums the boy up pretty well. If he thinks about it too hard, he can't do it; if he doesn't think about it, he's amazing. And then promptly passes out or becomes useless the rest of the battle. He's also so very :D? that he's quite frequently just a danger to himself.
Powers, Weapons and Special Skills: I'll go off his hologram form and say he comes with standard MJOLNIR Mk V armor and a M6D pistol. Unlike Alpha, he apparently can't go around bodyjacking, so he's stuck in his fleshbag body until canon proves otherwise.
Other: Epsilon demands mangos as part of your pious sacrifice to him. Bonus virgins optional.
For amatomnes, please press 1 too, as in also.
For versusrp, please press 11.
(There is no eleven you fucking whore!)
A B S O L U T E . T H R E S H O L D ;
Character: Epsilon
Series: Red vs Blue
Timeline: Chapter 19 of Recreation
Wiki Us a Bio/History: http://rvb.wikia.com/wiki/Epsilon
Elaborate, if necessary:
(This guy's very existence constitutes some very major spoilers, so passers-by please read with care.)
Project Freelancer and Smart A.I.:
Toward the end of mankind's war against the Covenant, various branches of the United Nations Space Command (UNSC) and paramilitary groups were each racing to create the "silver bullet" that would decide the war. One of these was Project Freelancer, directed by Dr. Leonard Church, which among their various experiments in creating augmented supersoldiers developed a technique to fragment Smart A.I..
Smart A.I. are so called because they're developed from a living human consciousness, typically a highly-developed individual of balanced, diverse intelligence, and can handle tasks and information with much greater efficiency and effect than more limited A.I.. In the Halo canon itself, Cortana would be an example of a Smart A.I.: she was created by cloning the body (including brain) of her antecedent, Dr. Catherine Halsey, and translating the clone's consciousness cell by cell to a silicate substrate. In the process of doing this, the flashclone itself was destroyed.
Without the benefit of an alternative explanation within the Red vs Blue storyline itself (while RvB canon diverges from Halo in some areas, its treatment of Smart A.I. most definitely comes from there), we should assume that this same process was used to create Alpha, a Smart A.I. based on Director Church's own mind. Or rather, the mind of a flashclone he had ordered made with the express purpose of destroying it in the process of digitization. Unlike a more rudimentary flashclone, this one could be presumed to be fully sentient and, moreover, contain echoes of Dr. Church's memories (this is a plot point for both RvB and Halo), at the time of its translation.
And the Director's work didn't end there. Although Project Freelancer had been cleared for the use of only one A.I., the Director envisioned an entire platoon of advanced soldiers, similar to SPARTANs, outfitted with combat-rated A.I.. Initially, his team set about trying to copy Alpha, but the process failed, leading to their alternative plan: to break its mind, and thus its data, into fragments.
A Smart A.I. has the functionality of a supercomputer but the dynamic cognition and personality of a human being. To break it, the researchers reverse-engineered a Multiple Personality Disorder: they subjected it to endless simulations of trauma, the exact nature of which is never discussed. Alpha's fragments each then became a walled-off aspect of its personality: its logic (Delta), deceit (Gamma), rage (Omega) and so on.
But one of these fragments was slightly different. One of these was not so much a fragment of personality as it was the last remaining piece Alpha had to eject from itself in order to survive: the memories of what had happened to it. And this fragment is Epsilon.
Personality:
There is little evidence that Epsilon has anything even resembling a distinct personality. In his "portable" state, he refers to his memories of others as a collective "we," treating them as distinct and individual awarenesses that interact with each other. In a sense, you could say that he constantly suffers from the MPD that Project Freelancer induced in Alpha: he is fully aware of the personalities of the other fragments, and prior to gaining his own body he assumes the behavior of one of them, Delta, in order to communicate.
This may have been done out of calculated manipulation, or (what is a little more likely) Epsilon quite simply does not have a personal identity-- apart from memory. He latches onto the Delta personality and, later, the Alpha personality, to best encourage others to identify with and trust him. There is no evidence this is done with malevolent intent.
Unfortunately, that basically makes him into a very cute stick of dynamite. Despite safeguards programmed into him to prevent the memory of Alpha's torture from reaching his consciousness, when he was implanted in a human partner, Agent Washington, those safeguards immediately began to fail. Epsilon's thoughts began to weave into Washington's, the memories of his torture and other things he had learned burning themselves into the Freelancer's brain until both experienced a psychotic break, and Epsilon committed suicide in Wash's subconscious-- with a gun.
The rest of the Freelancers, including Wash, believed the remains of Epsilon to have been erased when they were extracted from Wash's mind, but instead he was stored. There is every possibility some of his memories were damaged, erased, or locked, but by the time he speaks in Recreation there is no real evidence of this. Rather, according to Washington via Caboose, Epsilon has repressed his violent memories, and --as Epsilon-Church at least-- seems to have no recollection of the fact he should be dead.
As Epsilon-Church:
Just as Epsilon previously adopted the personality of Delta to speak to Caboose, when Caboose transfers him into his Forerunner relic body, he takes on the personality of Alpha-- or rather, Alpha as Caboose knew him, as Caboose's foul-mouthed, hot-tempered, narcissistic Blue team leader Pvt. Leonard L. Church.
In this form, Epsilon seems, if not unaware of his existence as the Epsilon A.I., then completely dismissive of it. He doesn't explicitly answer to either "Epsilon" or "Church," but when addressed as a "thing," he demands to be called Church (and... gets angry enough to kill the guy who insulted him). He also appears "locked" in this personality for the time being, perceiving and handling things as Church would-- roughly. Caboose's perception of reality is not terribly accurate; he believes, for instance, that Church is his best friend, and while the real Church does care for his teammates in a brotherly way, he does so with loud contempt at every opportunity. None of which prevents Caboose from thinking fondly of him, of course.
In Caboose's mind, Church is childish, swears like a South Park character, is fiercely defensive of Caboose, and proudly calls himself his best friend. In relating his stories to Epsilon (which Epsilon took as absolute hard truth) he created something that was similar to, albeit not identical to his mental perception of his best friend. Epsilon-Church can be vicious, childlike, blustering, and only slightly more attentive than a goldfish. While he's roughly as acerbic toward Caboose as the real Alpha, he does (in a bonus scene) willingly profess to being Caboose's friend. In the same 'breath,' he adds that Caboose told him not to trust anyone else, which seems to be advice he's more inclined to dismiss, if only because other people seem so neat and (especially) nonthreatening compared to his mighty superhero self. Having a physical body is so new that he's in constant amazement of it. And hideously open to suggestion as he is, he's latched on to the idea that he's a superhero or god in this body, and that this is right and natural because, after all, isn't his laser face awesome?
It's unfair to say there are no wheels turning inside there at all, however. He coaxes Caboose into finding him the powerful Forerunner Monitor relic to install himself into, and is even the voice --via Delta's memory-- that nudges Caboose into going on a dangerous mission in the first place, saying it is being done to "punish" those who hurt Alpha. This can be taken two ways: either he is completely manipulating Caboose, or (what is more likely given his childlike manner) he is arrogantly seeking to exact vengeance on his own terms, and prove himself as capable. This would tie in not only with his elation with having a powerful body of his own, but claiming that Wash would not "trust" him to do this, in light of his history. So, while it so far seems that Epsilon does not explicitly recall Alpha's trauma or his own breakdown, he has specific motives behind the actions he's taken up to this point. Childish, yes, but not a child; there's every chance he's waiting for the right "lead" to take his next action.
Right after he finishes smiting aliens with crates.
What are they bringing to Nuadoria?: Well, his current body is basically all the equipment he wants or would expect. As a Forerunner Monitor, Epsilon has a variety of advanced technological functions. The ones we know about for certain:
-Floating. He floats.
-Laser pulse, emitted from his central eye.
-Telekinesis, ability to lift and move heavy objects at slow or high velocity.
-Record, playback and project video.
-Freefall sensor and pulse weapon absorbers. Or, well, something analogous to that, which would explain how he was shot, offlined and thrown to the ground without suffering damage.
Additional functions he should have, based on Halo canon:
-Autotranslation.
-Integration with local networks and databases (security, records, point to point teleportation, etc). Includes advanced decryption protocols.
-Lower-level laser (meant for opening locks, but can harm/stun humans).
-Self-repair.
-Variable brightness. c:
Third-Person Sample:
Solid state wasn't very fun, Epsilon decided. When the body went dark, it went fucking dark.
His last image as he went offline was a screen full of garbage pixels, hot bursts of static in his central audio receptor as things strobed green and then black and then cold. He did not feel the temple floor, although he might've imagined making a sound like a bell when he hit.
Well this is fucking great--
Except he didn't get all of that out, before his cognition cortex destabilized.
His consciousness tossed in a blank space, hit invisible walls and rebounded. Trace static told him gloved hands were touching his surface, hot desert wind blasting sand against his primary optic, and then he was falling, landing, rolling. Flat surface rocked beneath him, hopped and lurched, until even his drives felt carsick.
A hard roll against the car door knocked enough of a spark into his gyros to bring standby processes online. Nauseously, Epsilon started sorting out his proverbial limbs, checking some of his recognized functions, and what the fuck was that loud guy saying about an 'emp'?
Thunder. Epsilon flicked his primary optic on in time for a streaming fisheye look of hot blue light arcing overhead, and then he was rolled optics-down on the floor of the Jeep again. No amount of flanged swearing helped matters.
Okay, fuck this, he was flipping switches in his brain till he found the one that gave him hands.
(Date and time? No. Current temperature? No. System update? Oh, what, can't connect to fucking server?)
He found a big sucker that looked promising and flicked it on. Maybe it was the big projectile hammer function. He had one of those, right?
klunk
Oh, well, fuck.
First-Person Sample:
001 - VOICE
Guys?
A T I A . A M A T . O M N E S ;
CHARACTER
» Name: Epsilon
» Fandom: Red vs Blue
» Reference: http://rvb.wikia.com/wiki/Epsilon
» Canon Point: Chapter 19 of Recreation
» Gender: mentally male, basically sexless since he hasn't had a human body before this, but he'll be given a male body in Amat
» Age: Chronologically, about 4. Mentally, all over the map, but mostly seems to alternate between adolescent and adult.
» Orientation: None, realistically. Being a combat AI, he would have had no need for or real exposure to either mental or physiological sexual stimuli, so he's effectively asexual.
However, in constructing his current personality, Epsilon would most likely have been informed about the real Church's romance with a woman, and so would assume himself to be heterosexual, whether or not he has the brain chemistry to match. He'll be figuring out a lot of things once in Amat.
» Personality: Mutable.
I need to explain Epsilon's nature for this to truly make sense. Epsilon is a fragment of a larger AI, known as Alpha, which was copied from the mind of his creator, Dr. Leonard Church. The Alpha was subjected to a series of trauma simulations to engineer a Multiple Personality Disorder. Each of these fragmented personalities were then harvested to become combat AI: Delta was Alpha's logic, Sigma was his creative ingenuity, Omega was his rage, and so on.
Ultimately, there were two parts to the Alpha remaining: the Alpha core, which still identified as Leonard Church, and his memories of everything that had happened to him to induce the fragmentation. In order to save his sanity, Alpha was forced to eject these memories, and thus formed Epsilon.
As a result, Epsilon is, as himself, not a person: he's the memory of other people. He has no "default" personality that we've witnessed canonly. Rather, when taking on the image and personality of Delta, he refers to his memories of the other AI as a collective "we," suggesting he still treats them as multiple personalities inside his mind.
The Epsilon that we see through the latter half of Recreation is a reconstruction of the Alpha-Church personality, supplemented by stories told to him by Caboose. Caboose is... not a very accurate storyteller, but his affection for his team leader has informed an image of Church that is heroic (in an ineffectual way), inquisitive (in a very stupid way), and capable (in a very roundabout and unpredictable way). He thinks of himself completely as Leonard Church, to the point of killing someone who refers to him as a "thing". He has the essence of Church's personality --perpetually angry, impatient, foul-mouthed, sarcastic-- but lacks a true understanding of who Church is, how he focuses, or what he's been through. (It doesn't help that Caboose intentionally omitted parts of Church's history he found inconvenient, such as the fact Caboose killed him-- repeatedly. According to Caboose, Church is his best friend, and Epsilon truly believes that).
What's more, as "Epsilon-Church", Epsilon has no apparent recollection of his trauma or that he's supposed to be dead (having "committed suicide" in his former host's head). According to Caboose, Epsilon is simply suppressing his traumatic memories, in much the same way as the Alpha did in order to survive. The difference is, the Alpha electronically ejected those entries, while Epsilon has simply locked them away. The right trigger could potentially bring some or all of it to the surface again, leading to a possibly devastating meltdown.
» Appearance: As an AI, Epsilon has only an assumed appearance, not a real one. In the past he's appeared as a SPARTAN-II soldier in MJOLNIR Mk V armor, initially in blue-and-violet (in Washington's mind) and later as a faint green outline (when simulating Delta). Later on, he is downloaded into the body of a Forerunner monitor, a floating alien artifact with a single center optic.
...Obviously, he's not appearing that way in Amat at all. As a human, he'll appear as a teenage male of scrawny-to-average build, with dark hair, no facial hair, and rich blue eyes. (My usual PB for him is young James McAvoy, especially circa his Children of Dune appearance: http://lordvalek.com/pics/leto.jpg . I'm aware another player uses this PB in Amat [for Artemis Fowl] and I will be sure to gain her approval before using him; otherwise I'll choose a different actor or draw his icons.)
His collar I'm still working on, but it's going to be an interlocking metal design with a center indigo gemstone engraved with the Marathon symbol, strongly echoing his Forerunner Monitor form: http://rvb.wikia.com/wiki/File:Epsilon-church.PNG
» Suitability: ...Ah, the question of Epsilon's suitability. First, it does have to be acknowledged that Epsilon, as Church, is not entirely limited to the information communicated to him by Caboose (who famously professed that pregnancy is something you catch). There's evidence enough to suggest that Epsilon has more wheels turning than he lets on: as Epsilon-Delta, he seems to assess the situation developing in Sandtrap and pushes Caboose to take him there for very specific reasons, indicating that at least part of him is operating on a level of awareness in advance of his companion's.
However, we can only take that speculation so far, especially when he's "locked" in the Church personality, where he apparently lacks most of Delta's logical ability. Given that Epsilon-Church has elsewhere accepted Caboose's ridiculously self-contradictory stories as the god-given truth, it seems unfair to make an exception. So I'm going to go with Epsilon being ignorant at best, misinformed at worst when it comes to sex.
That all said, he's not his chronological age. He knows that he should be Alpha-Church's self-identified age (which is 20-something at least) and occasionally he does act somewhere close to that, although he generally falls closer to "foul-mouthed middle-schooler" to "derpy late teenager." But he can silence arguments, give a stirring speech, express concern for the lives of others, and know when he's being tricked (...sometimes). So on the level of the interpersonal demands Amat's premise would place on him, he'll be okay. He's not a child. He's just an idiot.
On top of that, within a few minutes of his "life" as a Forerunner monitor he watched the "2girls1cup" video, which... is about the harshest and most destabilizing sex education experience a baby AI can have. And he came away from that seemingly only mildly perturbed. So I'm going to say that regardless of what the setting throws at him, he's demonstrated canonly that he can adjust quickly.
(As far as his "triggers"-- that's currently only inference. Strongly reasonable inference, hinted at canonly when Caboose warns others not to push Epsilon into recalling too much, but nevertheless we are never told just what kind of trauma the Alpha AI was subjected to or what might trigger their recollection in Epsilon. So it doesn't factor into his current, canonly expressed suitability.)
SAMPLES
lolnaw. I didn't end up using either of them, because he got in when an event was happening.
V E R | S U S ;
Character Name: Epsilon-Church
Character Journal: revenantly
Fandom: Red vs Blue
Where in canon you're taking them from: Revelation Chapter 4
History: Wikilikiliki
Description: Epsilon is, as a unit, no one and nothing, and yet everything at once. He's Alpha's memory, and thus in technological terms can be treated as a backup or save state of everything he's come in contact with, to the best of his understanding. He isn't perfect in how he remembers people, but the imitation is usually good enough to fool the casual ear, especially if he's tapping into what you want to hear.
He's also, despite what canon and RT would have you believe, NOT CHURCH. He sounds like Church. As a human he'll look and walk like Church (and where he got that body is probably the same question you'd have to ask Alpha). But he's expressly not him in any number of fundamental ways, from his incomplete and self-contradicting personal history by way of Caboose, to his casual and almost nonexistent grasp on his own anger. He's more like a gleeful, bratty half-pint with a familiar voice than the presumed-departed leader of Blue team. He's got a range of interests more suited to a comic book junkie with a god complex than an acerbic veteran, and he's got Church's ego and narcissism dialed up to 11.
See also: The Scrappy.
He won't go out on a limb for anyone, except maybe his BFF Caboose. And even then he might just stick with pointing and laughing. You could play to his ego and have him do good just for the chance to be a hero, but not anything that would involve Wash. Unless it's about loopkilling Wash into eternity. Then he'll be your hero, baby.
Skill Level: Idiot-savant sums the boy up pretty well. If he thinks about it too hard, he can't do it; if he doesn't think about it, he's amazing. And then promptly passes out or becomes useless the rest of the battle. He's also so very :D? that he's quite frequently just a danger to himself.
Powers, Weapons and Special Skills: I'll go off his hologram form and say he comes with standard MJOLNIR Mk V armor and a M6D pistol. Unlike Alpha, he apparently can't go around bodyjacking, so he's stuck in his fleshbag body until canon proves otherwise.
Other: Epsilon demands mangos as part of your pious sacrifice to him. Bonus virgins optional.