ooc: gb/mh application

[spacecancer]

OOC:

Name: Nu
Are you over 16?: Significantly 8(
Personal DW: gravemaker
Email: erashure[at]gmail[dot]com
Timezone: EST
Other contact:
AIM: the scaleless
Plurk: scythed (hardly used)
Characters already in the game: None
How did you find us?: Used to play here!


IC:

Character name: Thane Krios
Fandom: Mass Effect
Timeline: Shortly after the end of ME2.
Age: 39
~*Magical*~ abilities and strengths:
”The way he moved... one was dead before they even knew he was there. He snapped another's neck, then shot a third, all in the space of a few heartbeats. It was incredible. He moved like a dancer, grace and power in constant motion.”

Having been trained since he was a child, Thane is an expert even among other drell assassins (more on the drell later) and has all the tools of a great infiltrator (finding security gaps, physical weak spots, strong underground connections, etc). Strength-wise, he’s comparable to a larger, human soldier (drell muscles are denser, hence why he’s tougher than he looks), but in the end he's all about finesse. He moves in complete silence, and is economical in his actions, knowing from experience exactly how to get in, snap necks, and get out. As a sidenote, apparently Thane is really dramatic (‘aesthetic perfection,’ as the game puts it) to watch in action and you get a weird e-mail about how inspiring he is from a salarian fanboy idk.

While he prefers short-range weaponry and hand-to-hand combat, he’s also a sniper and proficient at biotics: the use of mass effect fields to manipulate matter. What mass effect fields really are is left a little vague, but the jist of it is that they increase/decrease mass content of space-time. While not as ridiculous as some other races, he can use these powers to take down barrier defenses and get in on a target, or to shove them around into a more vulnerable position.

All this being said, Thane is no longer in his prime due to having the alien equivalent to cystic fibrosis. While he presently functions without much issue, any injury/sickness can rapidly deteriorate his condition. As months go on in the story, Kepral’s Syndrome basically confines Thane to a hospital for daily medical treatment; within a year he still has all his technique, but his body just can’t keep up with it anymore.

Other random tidbits include being able to see ultraviolet light and photographic memory (more on this later).

Also, if you lick a drell it acts as a hallucinogenic. The more you know!

How would they use their abilities?:
He's currently under contract to help Shepard, soooo probably for that. Thane is also actively trying to do good, so he'll help anyone who needs it. On the other hand, I suspect he may put his services back on the market if he feels that's the only way he can contribute to Shep's cause, but it really, really depends on the circumstances and his emotional state at the time.

Appearance: >:|
Drell are a mix between humans, lizards, fish, and cockatoos. His overall appearance is very obviously reptilian, complete with varying-shades-of-green scales, two sets of eyelids, and partially webbed fingers. His eyes are seemingly pitch black, but in the right lighting he does have visible irises. In terms of attire, he seems to prefer tight-fitting, unobstructing clothes aka a badass trenchcoat-assassin suit hybrid. He also commonly wears a necklace, or 'earrings' (as his face fins are pierced).

Background:
The drell originate from Rakhana, a stunning example of what not to do when you cultivate a planet. Already a dry, rocky place, the drell overindustrialized and caused a huge population boom; over time, this degenerated into war. They died by the thousands over minuscule amounts of food and water (though desperately trying to keep track of available resources is why they now have photographic memory), and would have easily driven themselves into extinction if left alone.

Thankfully, another race with space-travel came upon this massacre. The hanar— which are physically reminiscent of giant pink jellyfish— decided to take as many drell back with them as possible to Kahje, their homeworld. In the end, this amounted to about 375,000; the other 10 billion drell perished in waves.

The two cultures went hand-in-hand. The hanar were a successful spacefaring (if elusive) race, but being sea-based creatures they were physically unwieldy on other planets. The drell were incredibly thankful to their newfound friends, and were much more capable on land. This lead to a tradition known as the Compact, where drell would enter servitude under the hanar, which is still in practice. While many find this to be eerily similar to slave labor, entering the Compact is done by invitation with no repercussions should it be declined. Drell rarely refuse, as it is seen as a great honor to join. Barring some outliers, the drell and hanar still have a respected, symbiotic relationship, and those in the Compact often grow to be close friends.

...But there's one fairly obvious snag. The hanar are ocean-dwellers, and the drell came out of a desert. Though the latter live in climate-controlled cities, the fact that Kahje is 90% water has a few complications. The most unfortunate being Kepral's Syndrome, where the excess humidity causes drell lungs to form lesions and suppress the uptake of oxygen. Eventually this spreads to their other organs while their equivalent of hemoglobin begins to deteriorate. While not contagious, it is fatal, and is still the leading cause of death among drell on Kahje. Regardless, most drell are happy enough to live there, so the rest of the galaxy is fairly unlikely to see them ever.

DEPRESSING BACKSTORY ASIDE: where does that leave us? Thane Krios was born on Kahje, where he was given to the Compact when he was six. He topped the charts for the hanar's proficiency tests, and his reflexes were literally trained to kill from then on— he would end his first life when he was twelve. For years, this was Thane's life, and having started so young it was all he really knew.

The turning point to all this was when, on a routine job, he lines up his spotting laser to take the shot and a bystander steps into the way. A complete stranger to both him and the target, the other drell was fierce in her determination to stop him; and for a moment, he hesitated. In that moment, Thane became completely infatuated with this woman named Irikah. Once he found her later, he threw himself at her feet and begged her forgiveness... which she gave, eventually. The two grew to love each other, later getting married and having a son named Kolyat.

The hanar released him from his compact to raise his family, and that should've been the happy ending to our story right there c:

But of course, it's not.

Thane, in a mix of wanting to provide for his family and only knowing his work, went to freelancing; as it would turn out, he was one of the best assassins in the entire damn galaxy. From this he made a name for himself, becoming an often-sought man of his profession. Having to roam around several different solar systems for his work and trying to keep his family out of it eventually led to him not being around much at all. As Thane puts it, he abandoned his family, but there was no big explosion or fight or drama. It just grew from a quiet distance and good intentions.

While details are limited, Thane was behind the 1-hour Massacre on Omega (a corrupt station built in an asteroid), where he killed the heads of several influential mercenary gangs there. Whether or not this connected to what happened next is blurry, but perhaps related. Anyway, someone somewhere eventually wanted revenge. Disgruntled men connected to one of his jobs went to the Shadow Broker, an infamous information seller/buyer with dirt on basically everyone, and bought Thane's identity. Not wanting to deal with Thane himself, they found and killed Irikah instead while he was out on a job (which was basically always).

Thane returned to Kahje for her funeral, stunned. He left Kolyat (who was furious with him for not protecting them) with aunts and uncles, and vanished again. From there, he went and found every last mercenary behind Irikah's death and killed them; where he was taught mercy and to work without cruelty, he made sure they suffered. It would be the only time Thane killed for the sake of his own emotions. Afterwards, he stayed away from his son, not wanting Kolyat to follow his father's destructive footsteps.

Oh and just to top it all off he's eventually diagnosed with Kepral's Syndrome.

What happens to Thane in the next several years, both pre and post diagnosis, is murky. It's known that he does continue to take contracts, but after his illness he takes them on with decreasing frequency. Burdened by guilt, he begins trying to make the world a better place. But Thane states that his soul was dying all the while, and eventually he just went about life numbly, letting his body do as it wanted while his mind gave up. Eventually, he takes on the job of killing Nassana Dantius; a coldhearted businesswoman who kills all her competitors, protected by flocks of mercenaries. He fully expects to die in the process of getting to her.

But on his way to the top of the tower Nassana had holed herself up in, he notices something is off. There's another group around town, looking for him-- and they're racing to get to Nassana themselves. His professional pride on the line and driven by curiosity, he works to get to the target first and kills her while she's in mid-conversation with the other group.

Of course, this turns out to be Commander Shepard (a goddamn space hero and main character of the series) and her crew. She asks him to join her on a mission to stop a race called the Collectors, who are going from system to system abducting entire human colonies. Concerned for said colonists and similarly unconcerned that it's practically a suicide mission, Thane joins along for the ride.

And then the second half of the game happens!

Character-important moments in the actual course of the game include his 'loyalty mission.' Through his network, Thane discovers his son accepted an assassination contract. Distressed at how many horrible implications this has, he asks Shepard if they can take a detour to the Citadel, the galactic center for politics and commerce. As they track Kolyat down, it's clear he's namedropped Thane to get this job, and has no experience whatsoever at what he's doing. When they finally catch up with the younger drell, Shepard makes sure his target makes it out safely, while Thane attempts to talk to his son, admitting that he should have stayed and taken care of his family and that Kolyat was the only good thing he's put into the universe. Despite Kolyat's shock and anger at seeing his father again, the two slowly begin to patch up their relationship from there on.

After that, Thane noticeably brightens up, trusting and opening up to Shepard as they continue against the Collectors (aforementioned human colony kidnappers); it's clear that she's completely won his loyalty. He devotes himself to the mission in its entirety, later admitting to Shepard that he cares for her a great deal. In his particular telling of the story, the two of them grow close before they take on the Collectors at their base.

Aaaaaand he'll be taken shortly after Shepard blows up said base at the conclusion of Mass Effect 2.

Personality:
Thane was toted around as ‘The Assassin’ for good reason. He’s introduced as a member of a mysterious new race with a gritty voice, clad in entirely black leather, hopping around, taking names and shooting mercs. In Thane’s own words: if killing is an art, he is a master.

But that’s about where we can drop the trope. Thane is far from a sociopath, and he has the hanars’ impeccably civil approach to others, regardless of who he’s speaking to or how they treat him. He’s well aware that assassins don’t have the greatest reputations, and takes it in stride. In fact, he rarely rises to insults, never uses profanity, and hardly ever works to use words for their venom. It’s a jarring contrast to the mercenaries in the rest of the galaxy, who tend to be right in your face and extremely rough around the edges; Thane is distant, rarely showing emotion or letting it influence him, but pleasant and professional.

The next oddity that tends to surprise people is his intense spirituality. Deeply religious, Thane prays before and after nearly ever mission, spending much of his personal time in meditation. Shepard’s conversations with Thane are rife with mentions of the soul, morality, and philosophy. While it seems odd for an assassin, it may be more apt to say that drell philosophies can be a little odd, period.

In this way, Thane's personality is invariably linked to his race and culture. For one, the drell have eidetic memory; they remember every detail of their life with perfect clarity and all sensory input at the time, which is a blessing for obvious reasons. It is also a huge influence on Thane’s success as an assassin, as he relives every hit and every mistake several times over. However, it can be difficult to control, and makes negative emotions practically impossible to relinquish; Thane can be both a little too introspective and broody when he’s upset.

Secondly, most drell are much more literal in the concept of a spirit—to Thane, the body and the soul are two separate entities attempting to work in harmony. In this, he feels no guilt over his contracts, because he views his body as a weapon. The person at fault is his employer, much like blaming a shooter instead of his gun. While Thane is nice enough outside of his job, this lack of remorse is a reminder that he can still be a stone-cold killer when the situation calls for it. However, there's an interesting dichotomy between this and his eidetic memory, as being unable to forget everyone he's ever killed slowly grows to be a heavier burden that his soul-body isolation can't totally solve.

Finally, there’s the drell-specific Kepral’s Syndrome. Thane’s mental current state is in large part due to his disability; he adopted a fatalistic view on his body’s lifespan, but tries to do ‘good’ things before he dies. He’s (usually) very accepting and eerily calm about his own death, to the point that he had taken on a suicide mission before Shepard came along (in which he then agreed to another one...). While the thought of death does eat away at him at some level, he hates himself for it, and tends to downplay it when speaking to others. The self-deprecation angle comes up more than once, as Thane tends to put those people and causes he cares about far, far ahead of his own safety.

In terms of actual interpersonal skills, there’s the aforementioned politeness, which makes him easy to talk to. However, within Shepard’s crew Thane is one of the absolute worst at actually getting out and socializing (which is impressive). This is partly because if he isn’t praying, he’s meditating. And if he’s not meditating, he’s exercising. Or reading. Or some other very solitary activity. The man rarely gives anyone the opportunity to get past that initial phase of cool civility. For example, Shepard is the first friend he’s made in a decade, and even then Thane finds it exceptionally difficult to ask for her help. Thus, while he certainly doesn’t hate the people on the Normandy, Thane is largely a product of his upbringing: he doesn’t even eat with the crew because having his back exposed around that many people makes him uncomfortable. While he’s slowly beginning to accept having others to fight with, the transition from being a lone wolf to a team player is strange (but not unpleasant) to him. Once he's actually friends with someone, Thane does lighten up/is pretty friendly, and just like every other person Shepard recruits, is loyal to the end.

So what’s most tragic about Thane might be that for someone who is so bad at knowing what to do besides kill people, he’s a warm, generous individual at heart. He’s a romantic, intellectual, and philosopher who does what he does is in hopes of leaving the world a better place. Due to his reserved personality, it’s easiest to see his more sensitive side with a female Shepard romancing him. He finally opens up to her, showing that he does feel a great deal of emotion and some degree of distaste towards himself—he just never shows it off. Furthermore, if you break up with him for Kaidan, another primary love interest, when they’re both in the hospital (classy I know) he’ll promise to look after the other man while he's recovering. Rejecting him period will lead to respectful understanding and similar kindness. For Thane, loving someone means making sure they’re safe and happy... even if it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s with him. He used the same logic with his son, where he would rather have Kolyat hate him than be around and be a terrible role model. A classy guy, but he’s pretty horrible at putting his happiness first sometimes; it’s always taking care of others, the mission, whatever.

That being said, Thane’s love for Irikah was overshadowed by his job, and he was a pretty awful father. Why? Well, partly because he's a workaholic, and also because while Thane is level-headed and cool 95% of the time, his anger is that much more terrifying. Unsurprisingly, the game doesn’t actually show him losing his temper (though he punches a table in self-disgust once if you get him to open up to you), but his wife’s death sent him over the edge. He hunted down and murdered all of Irikah’s killers in cold blood, making sure they suffered, before he basically went into hyper-recluse mode for a decade. He had basically given up on life, and his soul shut down while his body went on assassin autopilot. He retreats back to this if you fail his loyalty mission, in which we see an exceptionally bitter man, focused only on the mission at hand. Furthermore, he knows little about life besides his job, so even though he truly did love his family he was just. Not around. It wasn’t a lifestyle they supported, but it was also the only one he really knew how to live.

Also I have made this way too broody, so on a lighter note Thane does have a sense of humor. It's not to the level of spouting out one-liners forever, but however subtle and dry, it's there!

Why should that character be in this game:

Why do you want to continue their history here:

For applicants considering an alternate version of a character already in game, please use this as your chance to explain the key differences between your character and the one already in play:

Have you read up on how the game works?: yis. FlamingFerret communicators, and making money via missions, jobs, freelance, or mooching off the Shepards 8U

1st person sample:

[video]
{The communicator is turned over in deft, webbed hands a few times. When it finally comes to rest, there's a man— definitely humanoid, definitely reptilian. When he speaks, it's deep, and still with an underlying smoothness even if it sounds like it's been filtered through gravel and a few too many cigarettes.}

I'm looking for my— {pause} for another drell. Is a refugee directory available? A map to the clinic would likewise be appreciated.

{He glances furtively off-camera, then looks back and gives a slight bow.}

Thank you. {He's out of vision in a flash of motion. Moments later, a vogon comes into screen, fuming and holding a great deal of neatly forged paperwork. Once he passes, the communicator is gingerly picked back up and turned off.}

[text ; about two hours later ; filtered to normandy crew]
Are these networks secure? Perhaps it would be best to speak in person.

Thane

(Another example here: http://dear-mun.dreamwidth.org/1606270.html)

3rd person sample:
When he moves, it's in shadow and silence.

So making his way up loosely guarded inclines and air-conditioning ducts is preferable in Nassana's tower; Thane took on a suicidal mission because he was tired, not because he was stupid. It's always been about moving fast, staying out of sight. The hanar trained their assassins to have elegance in brutal, brutal efficiency, and that's how they stayed alive. Kill, but be subtle, because drawing attention to yourself is the best way to an early death-- only an amateur would lose themselves in the moment and linger longer than they had to. And yet this time, he finds himself treading off the path of safe experience because the mercs were unforgivably violent, killing Nassana's employees to sate her paranoia.

And while being the source of such paranoia was flattering, the deaths it caused wouldn't rest easy on his conscience. So when he sees a guard shoot down an unarmed worker, Thane's mind and body move as one to right the wrongs he sees: suddenly, he's behind the shooter, forcing a hand into his shoulderblade. His leg flares out, collapsing the man from the back of his knees as Thane's other hand grips his chin.

Snap.

And he's gone again.

Questions?: Thane might put out his feelers for a black market, or generally shady underground system on the ship. Will he find anything, and is there anything I should/can know about, or should I get with you guys on a case-by-case basis?

Did you put your characters name and fandom in the subject: hope...fully...