Profile
Player Information
Name: Birdy
Age: 23
AIM SN: Kaltmaus
Character Information
General
Canon Source: Ergo Proxy
Canon Format: Anime
Character's Name: Vincent Law [Ergo Proxy - Proxy One]
Character's Age: At the end of the series Vincent mentions it's been thousands of years since the creators (original mankind) has returned to earth. So he may be thousands of years old depending on when you believe the proxies were created. He's old at least, but he appears to be in his early 20's in his human form.
Conditional: If your character is 13 years of age or under, please clarify how they will be played. N/A
What form will your character's NV take? One of those holo-notebooks the rest of the cast has. Also his voicemail will have Pino's voice on it as it will be his personal one from his world.
Abilities
Character's Canon Abilities:
Vincent is a proxy, and perhaps not just any proxy, but the first proxy. Proxies are gods of creation and death, but they are manmade gods. Thus while they may not have the omnipotence of other gods (though when Ergo Proxy had his memories he was aware of what the end would be like; this was either inherently programmed into him or he learned it in some way, but either way all the proxies seemed to know their ultimate fate was to annihilate and be annihilated) they still have a wide range of inhuman capabilities.
→ Their main god-like characteristic is that they posses what are called "Amrita" cells. This is what apparently makes a proxy a proxy. The cells are more or less immortal but can be destroyed by sunlight (mainly due to the fact proxies were not supposed to exist after the sky had cleared on Earth again). While a proxy can still become sick they can never die from an illness as their Amrita cells would eventually destroy it. (Vincent even survives a virus that kills a high rate of humans outside the dome without a vaccine due to his Amrita cells.) Their bodies are thus far more invulnerable than a human's. Vincent can survive falls from great heights, and wounds that be fatal for a human.
Proxies can kill one another, however. Either Vincent alone, or they all, posses an innate power to destroy Amrita cells. In Vincent at least it manifests as something like electrical energy from the eyes and mouth. He used this ability to kill Monad Proxy and Sennex Proxy. Though proxies were originally meant to be the only ones who could slay one another, Daedalus Yumeno developed what are called "FP" bullets. These bullets can destroy a proxy's Amrita cells if fired into a proxy's body.
Possibly the Amrita cells also give the following abilities, but Vincent has displayed them none the less as well:
☇Inhuman speed: Proxies can apparently move faster than the human eyes can see, and apparently for sustained periods of time.
☇Inhuman strength: It be hard to say exactly what their limit is, but proxies have been shown to leave dents in cement with their bare hands alone. They can also bend steel at least also with bare hands.
☇And together these mean inhuman agility. Proxies are ridiculously coordinated even at high speeds, able to dodge and flip in mid air.
☇Force field: They seem to be able to throw out a burst of energy from themselves that can at least shatter glass. This seems to flow like a shockwave from their body in one direction. It’s like a blast and not refined.
☇Limb regeneration: To prevent himself from being killed by a FP bullet Proxy One literally tore his arm off. The arm instantly regenerated within a matter of seconds. I would say this is limited to limbs however and not perhaps something like organs as a proxy that was shot in a chest with a FP bullet died quite quickly.
→Proxies are also given two forms: that of the god and that of a human. The change between the two forms seems to be intrinsically tied to the proxy's mental state. If Vincent is resistant to transforming the process is painful and slower, if he does not resist the change it's faster and easier for him. He's been shown to at least be able to move like a proxy while still a human, so he appears to only be partially "powered down" while human.
→Proxies also seem possess an ability to sense one another, even if they are in human form. Kazkis knew Vincent was a proxy, and in some way Vincent seems to have been drawn to the Monad inside of Re-l. (I don’t think even he knows how much this drew him however.)
→As a human, Vincent is apparently also a skilled mechanic.
∟ Though Amrita cells are the source of a proxy's god-like physiology they are also it's Achilles heel. As mentioned sunlight destroys the cells, or to be more exact it's likely the UV radiation is what kills the cells given that's what seems to be in the FP bullets. Monad's second clone literally burns up when exposed to unfiltered sunlight in the Earth's atmosphere.
In a setting like Siren's Port with an unobstructed sky Vincent is going to inevitably experience weakening of his Amrita cells. Exposure to a clear sky in his proxy form would result in weakness, illness, and even burning. In his human he would be able to better withstand the sunlight as his physiology would be closer to a human's, but he would still feel what be tantamount to heat stroke if exposed to it for too long. These effects can be lessened by avoiding going out on clear days (filtration by cloud cover should be enough to lessen the effect to a safe level), and of course staying in the shade.
Still inevitably he would be weakened if he spent many years in Siren's Port with the sunlight acting almost like a cancer on his Amrita cells.
Conditional: If your character has no superhuman canon abilities, what dormant ability will you give them? N/A
Weapons: He's pretty damn powerful in proxy form as one can see, but as a human he may carry a firearm as necessary. (Not that he's exceptionally skilled with it, but he does well enough at close range.)
History/Personality/Plans/etc.
Character History:If we wish to start at the very beginning, thousands of years ago humans fled into space from an Earth they had destroyed. They left behind them cradles and an ark, domed cities whose purpose was to eventually make human life on Earth sustainable again. Men made creatures called “Proxies” were given dominion over this new race. There were three hundred such creatures, and the first became known as “Ergo Proxy” as a god, and “Vincent Law” as a man. He was always originally "Proxy One" however; the man-made god who was known as the "shadow of the creator". His city was called Romdeau, and to them he gave life. (Or to be more direct he gave them the WombSys, the artificial wombs that create fellow citizens as the people of Romdeau are sterile, or he was at least given credit for it. He also created the first humans of the city using it, along with the dome itself.)
The cradle and ark were eventually meant to become the tomb and reliquary however.
Proxy One had been given a soul, so he would love the creatures he had domain over. This became known as the “malice of the creator” however as with a soul he also knew rejection and bitterness. The creatures he loved and protected began to fear him and turned away from him, seeing him as a demon than a god. He turned to the thirteenth proxy, the proxy of Mosque, called “Monad”, for comfort. He eventually left Romdeau to be with his love, and Romdeau in resentment invaded Mosque.
And here is where perhaps the story really begins, for before Mosque fell, Monad took Proxy One’s painful memories into herself, and shared the burden with a trusted autoreiv. Vincent Law forgot he had ever been Ergo Proxy, or the first proxy of the three hundred. Monad was captured by Romdeau’s invading forces, and made a prisoner in the city of her lover. Vincent Law eventually returned to Romdeau, seeking to become a “fellow citizen”, only to be hit by the “pulse” of the “Awakening”. The pulse meant the Proxy Project was coming to an end, and Vincent’s struggle against the call for destruction defines the rest of the story.
At first when he returns, Vincent tries to be a model immigrant to become a fellow citizen. In the employment line after coming to Romdeau however he first sees Re-l Mayer. Unknown to him, she is a clone of his beloved Monad and he seems to be instantly attracted to her. He keeps his head down however and does his best to fit-in despite his on-going feelings of rejection. He gets a staff job at the autoreiv disposal unit for Romdeau, and to all appearances is just another face in the crowd.
The Pulse hits Romdeau however, and Monad breaks free of her restraints. For the first time in perhaps many years, Proxy One awakes in Vincent. Monad escapes to find Ergo Proxy, and apparently the cogito virus begins to infect autoreivs in Romdeau. After Vincent takes down an infected autoreiv he meets Re-l Mayer again. As she continues to investigate the virus outbreak, Monad apparently finds Vincent and confronts him. Proxy One surfaces in Vincent yet he still attempts to flee from Monad. During this Proxy One breaks into the home of Re-l Mayer. He apparently gives her Monad's pendant, of which he has a matching one. After a tense encounter, Monad finds Proxy One again and they begin to battle.
Proxy One still seems to manage to elude Monad however, as the next day Vincent flees in terror from her again in human form. One part of their chase is through a mall. Monad kills several innocent by-standers as she runs after Vincent, including the wife and child of Raul Creed.
Monad at last corners Vincent however, and he finally becomes Proxy One once again. He and Monad have the climax of their fated final battle. Proxy One at last kills Monad by destroying her Amrita cells, and he awakes as Vincent Law on a moving train as Re-l calls him on his cell phone. He apparently has no memory of what he just did (though he will eventually recall Monad's death), though his right hand is covered in blood that is apparently not his own.
Dorothy (his personal entourage autoreiv) calls him back to the Autoreiv Disposal Unit, or so Vincent thinks. He's ambushed by the Security Bureau there and after barely escaping tries to flee the city. As he tries to escape he comes across the companion autoreiv Pino. It's Pino that picks up his phone as Re-l calls Vincent. Reluctantly Vincent speaks to her, but in the end gives up in utter desperation. He comes to eventually be cornered by the Security Bureau, but is saved by Pino opening the plug vent. From the plug vent he apparently falls into the lake below, and Pino follows him.
He is rescued by a man named "Hoodi", and nursed through the virus that kills 80% or so of all humans outside the dome. Hoodi more or less heads a commune of those banished or disaffected from Romdeau. When a regular patrol detects Vincent's presence in the commune, Re-l choses to attempt to capture Vincent for further questioning. She confronts him and Hoodi,and Vincent at first seems to agree to leave with her, but hesitates when she mentions the commune will be "sterilized" by Romdeau security forces. (Basically systematically wiped out.)
After a patrol attacks Re-l Vincent apparently shifts into his Ergo Proxy form and saves her. However as her anti-contamination suit is damaged she's forced to expose herself to the pathogens in the air in order to move freely. She falls ill to the virus, and while she is being nursed by Hoodi Vincent is presented with a gambit by the other commune members. If he helps them escape, he will be given a vaccine for Re-l. Hoodi and Vincent come up with another plan however, pretending to be Vincent Hoodi takes Re-l back to Romdeau. He is executed there as Vincent and the other commune members escape on the ship Hoodi had hidden called the "400 Rabbits".
As Re-l recovers in Romdeau all the members of the 400 Rabbits die save Pino and Vincent. They alone continue to travel towards the Mosque Dome, which Vincent believes to be his birth-place. Along the way he gets swept into the war between Halos and Asura. The entire incident would be too long to summarize here but it must be noted that Vincent as Proxy One kills Sennex, the proxy of Halos. After the battle he's found by the proxy of Asura, Kazkis.
Kazkis seems to fully accept his impending death, until Vincent turns coward and refuses to kill him. Kazkis doesn't react well to Vincent's amnesia and forces him to become Ergo Proxy. For the first time, Vincent becomes aware he is a proxy as he keeps his consciousness after transforming. Kazkis appears to commit suicide in front of Ergo as he weeps. After this dramatic encounter there seems to be a period of self introspection for Vincent where he at last accepts he is a proxy. At the end of it, Re-l finds him once again.
Vincent tells Re-l he believes he is a proxy named "Ergo", and though at first she does not believe it she and her entourage autoreiv Iggy agree to accompany him to Mosque. Iggy is unknowingly infected with the cogito virus however that gives him a soul and thus free-will. When the crew encounters a proxy in the wilderness Re-l kills it with a FP bullet but not until after Vincent reveals his proxy form to her. For the first time as well, Proxy One is shown to be a separate and even conflicting personality as Vincent openly argues with him after Re-l threatens to kill him as well.
The entire incident leads Iggy to attempt to force Re-l back to Romdeau by imprisoning her in the cargo hold of their ship. He then confronts Vincent. When the dead proxy's companion autoreiv attempts to kill Re-l in revenge however Iggy commits suicide to save her. The crew is thus down to three; Vincent, Pino, and Re-l. It will remain at this number for the rest of the journey to Mosque and back to Romdeau.
Again every incident would be too much to summarize here but during the journey the crew encounters many different proxies and their cities. Vincent kills each as he must (save Will B. Good, the proxy of "Smileland", after Pino's interference on the journey back to Romdeau) and continues to regain his memories and sense of identity as Ergo Proxy the closer they come to Mosque. Nevertheless, after becoming aware of Vincent's location, Raul Creed chooses to destroy Mosque before the 400 Rabbits can reach it. He launches an obsolete weapon called "Rapture" to completely raze Mosque to the ground.
There are still some remains at Mosque however when the crew finally reaches it. The the throne room and a power plant that supported it. Within the power plant there is a room that contains all of Ergo's lost memories, guarded by an autoreiv called "Amnesia". Perhaps in a true ode to the psychoticness of this series; Proxy One destroys Amnesia before Vincent can find him and the room. Thus he never regains all of the memories of Proxy One. It ultimately forces the three back to Romdeau for the conclusion of the world.
When they return to Romdeau they find absolute chaos. Romdeau is falling the way all of the other domed cities already have. All of the autoreivs are infected with the cogito virus, and the WombSys has completely shut down. Vincent disappears as soon as he reaches Romdeau, wandering the streets to watch the destruction. Re-l is taken by Daedalus to see the Regent. As she does, Ergo finds the deceased but preserved Monad. He also encounters her second clone, another girl called "Re-l Mayer" (We'll call her Re-l2 to keep things straight.) for the first time.
Re-l2 is not frightened of Ergo at all even when he lunges at her in proxy form, and though he ultimately turns away from her, she becomes as infatuated with him as he is with Re-l. (To the point where she gives Raul Creed a possibly fatal wound - though he did not die directly from it - when he threatens to kill Vincent.) At some point Proxy One resurfaces and it is he who enters the Regent's quarters and slays the man in front of Re-l. Raul Creed shows up long enough to shoot Proxy One in the arm with a FP bullet (and have a good laugh) then retreat. Proxy One rips off the arm and spares Re-l's life.
Re-l addresses the autoreivs that have long been the assistants of her grandfather and begins to learn the whole truth about proxies. When Ergo returns after disappearing for a time, he recalls that he put the regent in charge before he left for Mosque. He apparently has no memory of killing the man however. Re-l tells him he must confront Proxy One, and in the throne room of Romdeau he does.
Proxy One tells Re-l Daedalus is on his way to dropping the dome as he has "embraced the destructive urge within himself". Re-l runs to stop him even if the attempt is pointless, but asks Vincent to find her after wards. Then Vincent and Proxy One are left alone.
This battle can be described as a war within the self. During it Ergo chooses to never reconcile himself to Proxy One, and slays the persona, even if Proxy One is the original personality of Ergo. Re-l2 interrupts after this. The girl has evolved wings and looks far more like a proxy then the first Re-l. She has taken it upon herself to be the stand-in of the deceased Monad at the end of the world. She takes Ergo into the sky and explains to him that the time for proxies is over. He can let go of his burden as creator.
Ergo turns away from her once more. He explains that he now identifies with the people he cherishes. His Vincent persona is the one he now identifies with, not the dying Proxy One. He thanks her, and falls back to Earth. Re-l2 sacrifices herself to the clearing skies of Earth.
Back in Romdeau Proxy One and Ergo have one last conversation as the dome falls. Before he completely fades away Proxy One says, "It will be a suitable punishment for the Creator if you still exist." The term gives some insight into what Vincent's new role will be. Oustide of Romdeau after the dome completely collapses he watches the first space ships retuning to Earth. Re-l, Pino, and Kristeva (Raul's entourage whose new reason for existence is to look after Pino as Raul asked her to) find him in the 400 Rabbits.
The series ends with a true consolidation of the Ergo persona and Vincent persona in the former god of Romdeau: "I am Ergo Proxy; the agent of death".
Point in Canon: Post-series
Conditional: Brief summary of previous RP history: N/A
Character Personality: Vincent Law is the so called the after-image of Proxy's One despair. It's a correct summarization of the personality's origin, but not the full concept of it. Vincent Law is the man created when a god wished to forget he ever was one, and perhaps even wished to become a man himself. Vincent Law proves to ultimately be the path to Ergo Proxy however, as it is the desires of Vincent Law that created the final crystallization of Ergo Proxy after Proxy One had outlived his purpose. Vincent Law can live in the new world as Ergo Proxy, Proxy One could not.
Proxy One was what was awakened at the Pulse, and when the Pulse subsided, he was no longer required. Even if he was the original personality, he was not the surviving one. Proxy One embodied the destructive urge in Vincent and the bitterness at the ones who created him with a soul. He would have perished with Monad, but it is Vincent who survived in the end.
At the end of the series Ergo Proxy and Vincent Law are the two halves made whole after the death of Proxy One. They are one in the same, however as Proxy One did not survive his memories are forever lost to Vincent. Perhaps that is the way both Ergo and Proxy One wished it to be. If we are the sum of our memories, Vincent cannot have the memories of Proxy One and still be Vincent. Vincent can however guess at and at times even understand the motivations and desires of Proxy One as he did communicate with the personality when he was still alive. Proxy One has still left something of a residue in Vincent's mind even if he is now gone.
So we must turn to the man himself: Vincent Law. And good lord if you did not know otherwise you never think there was anything extraordinary about him.
Re-l has described his face as a boring one, and she is correct. Vincent is the probably just about the most unassuming person you will ever meet. He's soft spoken, shy, introverted, and seems to be constantly out of the loop. More graciously he's been described as industrious and capable, but that was at his job. He's an every man: he does good work but not enough to be noticed. He stays out of trouble, and tries to avoid conflict. He makes mistakes and is capable of being petty; but there is no true threat of malice within him.
He's an absolute push-over for the most part and especially with people he cares about. He's not good at asserting himself at all and in general does not seem to be very socially apt. He's awkward for the most part, the cog that never quite fits. This does let him gain a little bit of individuality even if it's an unwitting one; namely it's all made up of habits people can find endearing or absolutely irritating. He'll wear one pair of socks with a hole in it despite having new ones for example. He does also have a sort of unflappable optimism even if it's grounded in ignorance. If Vincent does not allow himself to plan out a situation and see how bad it really is, he can feel somewhat secure and good about it. This is probably why he tends to run from the truth when he doesn't like it.
This at the surface however, more deeply, he's even more human. In one episode we are shown a fantasy of what his ideal life be like. In this fantasy he wishes to be engaged to Re-l, Head of the Security Bureau, and have Daedalus for a younger brother-in-law. Even though he's a god, and aware that he is at this point, he longs for only human comforts. He longs to be respected, admired, to have a wife that loves him, many friends, to be well liked, and have a family of his own. He wants to be accepted by the very creatures who would fear and reject him most of all. In the series he comes a long way with self acceptance. He finds himself being accepted by Pino and Re-l, and for them he changes his own destiny. Vincent would quite literally do anything for people who love him as he loves them. Perhaps ironically this is what Proxy One originally felt for the humans he had created.
In that vein Vincent also at last stopped running away from his problems at the end of the series. He was able to accept his role as the "agent of death". That is not to say he won't be inclined to attempt his old stand-by if pinched but he will at least be able to eventually realize that such a thing is no longer acceptable.
Ergo Proxy is an agent of death, but this also means he must know love and all the suffering that can be associated with it. Vincent still desires to be accepted, but now at least he will be better able to accept rejection as he has accepted that "I am who I am, and that is enough." He can still be himself, and acknowledge that not everyone will like that self. (He'll still try to gain acceptance however.)
So Vincent Law is an after-image of one proxy's despair at the "malice of the creator" but Ergo Proxy knows that malice was a gift as well.
Conditional: Personality development in previous game: N/A
Character Plans: He's...probably going to be a janitor or mechanic and work the night shift, for srs. Also Ergo Proxy must also come to terms with what Proxy One has done even if he had no conscious control over his other half's actions. In Siren's Port he is going to be confronted by people his other half harmed inevitably and this does include Re-l herself. So I really like to see what effect this has on his burgeoning sense of responsibility. Along with seeing what being exposed to humans he did not help create will do to his desire and ability to fit in with the community.
Appearance/PB: Vincent has two forms; his proxy and his human. Arguably, his proxy form is his true one and his human is his facade, but all proxies seem to have the two forms. His human is how he'll appear most of the time. It should also be noted that in proxy form, besides the other more obvious physical differences, he is much taller, about eight feet over the 5'9" of his human (and much heavier than the 150lbs of the human form).
Writing Samples
First Person Sample
Video // Filtered from Re-l
[The feed shows a pair of shoes at first, but it eventually focuses on a young man with unruly hair and green eyes. It’s clear from the background and the ding of announcement of: fresh bread available at the bakery! the location is a supermarket.]
Uh…[As Vincent is always a great conversationalist he spends about fifteen seconds just staring awkwardly at his NV before speaking.]
We don’t have cats back where I come from…or any sort of pets at all really. [That’s what companion autoreivs are for. :|] But Re-l has a cat that she keeps for a pet. [He blushes a little to recall that she named it after him. D’aaawww. He then frowns a little however.] The cat doesn’t like me very much however.
She wanted me to get it some food, but….there’s so much. [He flips the NV (upside down) to show the vast variety of catfood available at this market. He continues off-screen:] Is there anything in particular cats like? I mean, they have to have favorite kinds of food right?
[Or maybe not, maybe his endeavor is pointless. He sighs a little before shutting off the feed. Maybe no one even cares about his attempts to win the affection of an animal. He still wants to try however.]
Third Person Sample
Am I…asleep…?
Vincent made a low noise in the back of his throat. The sky looked like the one he had stood beneath as the dome collapsed to rest beneath his feet. A dark, dim sky which the sun only weakly shown through. A hazy sky punctured by the dark shapes of approaching space ships. Their absence was rapidly noted; how long have I been out for? In that moment of noise and poignancy, how could he have fallen asleep? Had he hit his head when he jumped onto the 400 Rabbits?
“Re-l…” he gently wheezed as a blurry shape approached him. Why was he suddenly so dizzy? Maybe he had a concussion. She would be mad about that. He smiled a little as he expected the young woman to greet him, or more likely kick him in the ribs. He was sorely disappointed when the shape gained a masculine quality.
“Eh? Oh no, come on young man, up a daisy!” Vincent was suddenly pulled up and the world violently rushed at him. He tipped forward onto the body next to him, and promptly vomited all contents of his stomach onto the man.
“…Sorry,” he muttered as he took a shaking step back when he realized what he had done. He held a hand over his nose as he pondered why there was a human next to him for him to vomit on. A human that was thankfully not Re-l at least.
“It happens more often than you think,” the man said weakly. The proxy nodded and then staggered about as he took in his surroundings. He became aware he was in an open structure, what looked like an amphitheater with many seats. Yet, since when did Romdeau have something like this? He groaned and clenched his stomach as his head spun. What in the hell is going on?
“It’s all right, come now, the siren’s are about to go off and we need to get to the dug-outs,” the man said hurriedly, tugging on Vincent’s arm. In a daze, the proxy followed the stranger at first, staring in silent horror as he realized Re-l and Pino were not with him. Re-l… Why were they not with him? He had just seen them! Pino!
He stopped dead, find me Vincent. He gasped and gave a low cry, covering his face with his hands. Re-l! She was here, he could feel it…but where…? Why had they been separated?
“Hey, are you okay? Are you going to be sick again?” the man asked in concern. Vincent didn’t uncover his face, but he shook his head.
“I…I have to go. Excuse me.” He said softly as his hands dropped from his face.
“What? No, you can’t-!” the man began to argue but Vincent was far out of his reach within the next second. A few more leaps and he was atop this strange amphitheater’s eastern covering. Sitting and becoming very aware this was not Romdeau at all with it’s complete skyline.
What? No fallen dome, and the topography was completely different. This was not a city precariously situated over a lake. This city...didn't have a dome at all. He craned his neck upwards, surely such an active and ugly sky, no dome would replicate such a thing. That was a natural sky, a sky of a real world.
Yet…Re-l is here… her presence was like a beacon in this hazy encroaching night. A true night of heavenly bodies and not torpid blackness. Where Re-l was surely Pino would be too, and if not they find her again even in this strange city. He still had to find one to find the other however and the promise still stood no matter the location. Even if he felt sick and weak he had to-
Ergo Proxy leapt to the ground outside of the baseball diamond as a siren wailed in the distance.