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takenaliveAPPLICATION
Player Name/Handle: Joysweeper
Plurk Handle:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
Joysweeper
Player Status: New
Other characters: n/a
Invited by: Being on Korel's flist
Character Name: Alloran-Semitur-Corrass
Fandom: Animorphs
Character Journal:takenalive
Canon, AU, CRAU, or OC? Canon universe
Canon point: Mid book 54
SETTING BACKGROUND
Animorphs is a setting where two nearly godlike alien entities, Crayak and the Ellimist, balance in conflict over the fate of life. There are many alien civilizations, several of which have discovered interstellar travel. Among them are the Andalites, an old species, proud and convinced of their own benevolence. An Andalite took pity on the Yeerks, a low-tech species of small sluglike people who infested other species to use their senses and bodies, and the Yeerks promptly took advantage and spread off their homeworld, creating an Empire and embarking on war and conquest. The Andalites fought them, nominally trying to protect their victims but much more intent on avenging their dead and covering their shame. In time the Yeerks reached Earth and started a slow, covert invasion. Only a small contingent of Andalites was nearby and most were killed. A dying Andalite gave five human children some of the situation and the power to morph; they joined up with an Andalite cadet and as the Animorphs ran a covert campaign of terrorism against the Yeerk Empire, gaining allies and eventually gearing up to balk the Andalites from scouring Earth.
HISTORY
* Like his older brother Arbat, Alloran joined the military young and served for years. Married a woman named Jahar, and eventually had two children with her. Assigned to the Yeerk homeworld under Prince Seerow. When the Yeerks rose up and killed Andalites to steal ships and leave, Alloran was hampered by Seerow's well-meaning orders and couldn't stop them. Subsequently he relieved Seerow of duty.
* Alloran spent three years fighting Yeerks and rising in rank. Seerow's daughter Aldrea sent a message that Yeerks were conquering and enslaving the Hork-Bajir. The main Yeerk fleet was thought to be elsewhere. Alloran took a small force and found more than a hundred thousand Hork-Bajir enslaved by Yeerks and the resistance rapidly losing ground. He fought a holding action, lost eighty percent of his force in six months, and ordered the development of a virus that could kill off the Hork-Bajir, denying their bodies to the Yeerks. Aldrea and the Hork-Bajir found out and accidentally released the virus. Alloran and his forces withdrew. Many Hork-Bajir died, but the Yeerks were still able to conserve some to forcibly reproduce and use as shock troops. Alloran was disgraced and stripped of authority but still allowed to serve.
* Five years later he was assigned two cadets, Elfangor and Arbron, and given the grunt work of returning some rescued aliens to Earth, their homeworld. Alloran got word of a semi-mythical weapon being taken to the Yeerk-held Taxxon homeworld and immediately took this motley crew after it. The Andalites morphed Taxxons to infiltrate a spaceport and were split up. Alloran lost focus and obsessed over finding a way to kill ten thousand unhosted Yeerks - essentially, ten thousand helpless people on the enemy side. The Taxxon resistance attacked the spaceport, the cadets charging in with them, and Alloran took a sub-visser hostage to get aboard a ship. Arbron had stayed in Taxxon morph too long and was trapped as one. He stated that he would stay. Alloran respected that choice. Once above the spaceport he fixated on killing those helpless Yeerks, growing furious when Elfangor refused. In the struggle he was knocked out and infested by a Yeerk named Esplin-9466.
* Alloran was little more than a passive observer for nearly twenty-five years, able to think and feel but not to act, with his thoughts and memories read and replayed at Esplin's whim. It was a great blow for the Yeerks, as was their possession of a body equipped with the morphing technology. Esplin used Alloran to murder his way up to the rank of Visser Three, killing and enslaving multitudes and warring against Elfangor in particular. Twenty-one years in Esplin was assigned to Earth and put in charge of overall operations, ordered to manage a covert, subtle infiltration. He killed Elfangor shortly after.
* There were new complications, a small team of morph-capable individuals he believed were Andalites. Early into their war the "Andalite bandits" envenomated Alloran and Esplin fled into a stream, leaving a weak, disoriented Alloran to beg them for death. They refused and Alloran was reinfested and had to watch the invasion play out for another three years. These were eventful but he had no agency beyond unwillingly providing some feedback and ideas to Esplin. Headcanon - Esplin had him morph Yeerk and infest the human woman Aria to better pretend to be her, and their half-controlled communication over a few days was the closest Alloran got to getting to talk to someone in all his time as a host.
* In the end it was open war, the Yeerk Empire fighting humanity, freed Hork-Bajir and rebel Taxxons, traitorous Yeerks, and the humans who Elfangor had given the power to morph. During the climactic struggle Esplin surrendered and left Alloran's head. Alloran assessed the situation and first helped the humans talk their way out of being killed by the Andalites, then into a better bargaining position in general, even supporting their bids to save Yeerks who had surrendered and empower them for a more peaceful life. He was astonished to be free and pledged service to those who had freed him, and looked soberly now on his life.
PERSONALITY
What is the character's personality like? Please take care to talk about both their thoughts and motivations and their outward actions.
Alloran has taken the baseline Andalite optimism and turned it into confidence. He's highly pragmatic, can creatively re-interpret rules and regulations, sees the big picture, and is ready to use whatever tools are at hand. Plus he can think very quickly on his feet. Alloran's also arrogant and prideful, prone to anger especially when people challenge him. At one point this extended into fits of rage, but after his infestation and the erosion of his temper a harsh tone of voice and deliberately proper phrasing are more likely. His pragmatism also shades into ruthlessness and obsession. In war you have to kill your enemy, yes, but he thinks of it rather personally and can fixate on causing casualties to the exclusion of other goals.
There's also a lot of bitterness and a sense of betrayal in Alloran. At one time he was known for idealism even by young Andalite standards, but this soured considerably. When the Yeerks turn on the Andalites and escape their homeworld he's incensed at them and at Seerow for encouraging them. When he loses most of his command and commits atrocities on the Hork-Bajir homeworld but still fails to secure victory and is censured he's incredibly bitter - the tactics he used, while they don't align with the benevolent image Andalite civilians have of themselves, are not uncommon in the military, but history is written by the victors, and he knows he was scapegoated. This comes back again when he's scorned over Earth by a War-Prince who'd come to Earth to do the exact same thing he did to the Hork-Bajir. But so does the idealism. He joins with the Animorphs, backing their effort to use Andalite technology to empower Yeerks and Taxxons so they have no reason to fight and can make a better way instead of all being killed.
He has the ability to empathize and see himself in others, when he's not squashing it. Alloran mostly ignored the humans he was transporting until hearing one talk about how her father had come back from war a different person, at which point he defended her from her dismissive companion and spoke with sympathy about how some people never return from war. Seeing how upset Arbron and Elfangor were after their first battle, he quelled his impatience and spoke kindly to them. Alloran cares deeply about people in his in-group and is very loyal to them, and beats himself up when he gets his people killed. When he can't remember his own name, he can still remember his love for his wife and children. He has much less interest in people outside of that category and is far too willing to sacrifice them, even allies, if it means saving his people and/or advancing the big picture. His Andalites worked with Hork-Bajir and Arn during the war for that world, and abandoned both to die or be enslaved after most of his people died themselves. Since infestation he hadn't really had an in-group and throws in with humanity against his own people, idealistically working for a cause he once would have decried and defending the very Yeerks he fought from genocide.
He can also hang on to some degree of sanity and hope in an unfathomably bad situation for literally decades. The long infestation beat an unnerving patience into him, wore out the bulk of his anger, and forced him to examine his prejudices and have some perspective on himself and on others. He was made humbler while maintaining some confidence in himself, and is more inclined to stop and examine his thoughts and choices, more inclined to let go of some things rather than get angry. Just as some of his weaknesses were blunted by long infestation, that confidence above has also been dented - he's had a lot of time to look back at his own actions and decisions and regrets many of them, but doesn't have a clear image of what the 'right' thing would have been either. Consequently he's more reluctant to take charge and his pride is in rags. That patience I mentioned also verges on passivity and can be maladaptive; he can get lost in thought or just zone out and do nothing for hours.
Alloran tends to seem thoughtful and remote, aloof, set apart from the situation. Much of the time he's able to fade into the background and be overlooked. He's steady when things are dire, seeming calm and assertive as he looks for a course of action. He often seems to be enjoying himself at times like that, whether that's grim satisfaction or an odd energetic delight. He also has a sensitive, creative streak he rarely shows. Sometimes he says oddly poetic things, and he designed his elaborately-crafted personal ship himself and named it after his wife, who he loves dearly. He's also got a sense of humor. It's typically a dark, sarcastic humor, but it's there.
After being freed he tends towards a flat affect but can have bouts of enjoyment-to-wild-enthusiasm and greatly enjoys not being a host. It's just that he's been a host for so long he's forgotten how to unconsciously be anything else.
CANON POWERS
* Thought-speech. 'Universal symbols' are broadcast and interpreted as words, mostly understood even without a shared language.
** Can be private, public, or anywhere in between.
** Images and emotions can also be broadcast in a kind of song or aura. Can influence emotional states, but with exposure comes tolerance to this.
* Microscopic translator chip. Takes in a sample of language and starts to auto-translate.
* Morphing!
** Can touch an animal (humans included) and 'acquire' it, or copy its DNA. Usually it goes calm and quiet for up to 30 seconds. DNA can be copied from fresh blood or something that's been dead for less than a minute.
** At will, a morpher can focus on an acquired creature and transform into it over 1-5 minutes. Existing mass is shunted into Z-space and a new body is formed for the duration in real-space, anything from flea-sized to a kaiju. A channel is retained so the brain can control the new body. The process can be reversed at any point. Must demorph first in order to morph into something different. Morphing takes effort and energy; the more often it's done over a short period the more tiring it is.
** A baseline copy of the creature's instincts and tendencies is present in morph and can be overwhelming in its effects, but is also useful for acting as the creature. A creature's senses, abilities, and genetically inbuilt powers are all present, though some practice with them is a good idea. Thought-speak is always available.
** Can't stay in morph for over two hours without being stuck in morph, as whatever creature this is. Undergoing metamorphosis, if that's something the creature does, resets the timer.
** Morphing heals injuries and most illness, in both the morph and the original body. Scars may remain if they're part of the morpher's self-image.
** The morphed version of a creature is based on its genetics, what it could have been if well nourished and uninjured for its whole life, so it's not necessarily a perfect copy - acquire a steer, morph a bull. Fingerprints, irises, and haircut carry over. Clothes don't, though close-fitting clothing can be included as part of a morph.
** Sometimes the morpher is 'allergic' to a certain pattern of DNA. Then there are a few days of morphing uncontrollably in response to emotional turmoil before the morph is 'burped up' - a whole live animal is discharged from the morpher's body and its DNA is off the repetoire.
** Alloran has a huge number of morphs. The list is absolutely much longer than this compilation, we see that Esplin when placed in a strange place full of new animals acquires the ones that seem dangerous and large. I'm going to argue that Yeerk, Siberian tiger, and grizzly bear are also in the repetoire.
POWER SELECTION
Canon superpowers
* Thought-speech (not nerfed)
* Morphing (partially nerfed)
** The longest/tallest any morph can be is 20 feet; if they were larger, they are now miniaturized.
** Can acquire and morph other New Hires (only with ooc permission!) who have DNA but most of their powers (beyond clear physiological ones like 'has claws') don't come with the morph.
** No fire generating, acid/poison spitting, or generating electricity. Morphs may have superheated or poisonous bodies and or/resist their elements but there are no projectiles. The camo-crab's colorshifting ability doesn't work so well in close quarters under fluorescent lighting and isn't the same as true invisibility even in the best conditions.
** Higher-than-normal chance of being allergic to new DNA.
ABILITIES
Please list any abilities independent of any meta-powers or magic here. Martial arts, wilderness survival, diplomacy skills, etc. If opting out of powers and choosing "Gun/No powers," please explain how these abilities would allow the character to keep up with powered individuals in the setting. These needn't all be combat based, so something like "is amazing with children" might be relevant for the mods in thinking up future plots.
* Andalite body: Four-hooved, able to graze through hooves. A pair of extra eyes on stalks that can point in any direction and see a little further into the UV and IR spectrum than human eyes. Weak, slow, delicate arms and hands by human standards, but capable of greater finesse and precision. Long prehensile tail with a sharp curved blade near the end.
** Small and agile enough to have no difficulty with doors or stairs. Could climb a stepladder. Slippery tile or linoleum is more of a problem.
** Other male Andalites with a military background can use their tails to catch small items, trim each others' fur, knock humans out with the flat of the blade, cut them in half with two strokes of the edge, and cut into metal. It can move too fast to track and stop precisely. Think of a blade a foot or so long that can be swung at the end of a good polearm to slice and stab or used with great delicacy and precision. Alloran's skill has suffered but he could redevelop those muscles and speed. Jorgumund probably puts a sheath on it when he's in the presence of exec types.
* Can accurately keep track of time passing. A throwaway line suggests this is through ongoing mathematical calculation but Andalite POV sections never mention it.
* Health and aesthetics of plants, landscaping
* Ship design, piloting, weaponry
* Use of handheld energy weapons
* High tolerance for unpleasantness and bullshit
SETTING/SUITABILITY
Please answer all of the following. Keep in mind that if a character is not suited to a stressful intrigue and action setting, or if a character is aged 11-15, you will have to work extra hard to justify how they can function in the game as an equal (or learn how to quickly).
➤ How do you expect your character to respond to the setting? Even if they plan to rebel in the long term, will they be able to at least obey enough to not get shocked to death? Cynical compliance. He's learned helplessness and has the instinct to move little of his own accord and do what he's told when prodded - it's not that he can't act on his own, but it doesn't come naturally anymore. The rig actually represents a significant degree of freedom and a better cause than the Yeerk Empire.
Alloran understands going to extreme lengths and making compromises for something important. When you have only the one world and no viable way of leaving it, that can justify a lot. Of course they'd use aliens and of course they'd want to control them. He's also used to much worse treatment and will understand if not like what's going on.
...Jorgumund is much more petty about it, needlessly cruel and more reluctant to risk their own necks than he'd be in an equivalent situation, of course, and he'd be less resigned hearing that the Rig was better and then corporate took over.
➤ What do you hope to do with your character long-term? Relearn that he is actually able to act and affect the world. Adjust to not being a host. Make some friends?
➤ Does your character currently have skills that would allow them to adapt, survive, and do the heroic things being asked of them? If your character doesn't, do you think they'd have the capacity to learn quickly? Yes.
➤ If they're not used to cooperating with others, what makes you think they'll be able to adapt to cooperating with the group?
Alloran doesn't quite trust his sense of what's right and wrong. He's also starved for contact with people.
➤ Will your character have long-term plans to rebel against Jorgmund? If so, how? Will they betray the other PCs and cooperate with Jorgmund? If so, how do you plan to handle the negative CR that might arise? It's kinda complicated. He'd start thinking about it especially as it became more clear that the rig was run better before corporate came in, and have vague plans about singling out sufficiently important people to kill, but not be actually inclined on his own. There's what would happen next to consider, there needs to be a transition of power. He would definitely be one to consider what the Rig is trying to do and the stakes for humans.
If enough of the other PCs were basically just short-sightedly pulling villain shit and he couldn't find another way around it, he might tip someone in Jorgmund off, but it'd take a pretty extreme skew. Given anything less than imminent destruction he would inform one of the more sensible Rig types and let them figure out what to do. We're talking explosives with coallateral damage, caustic gas bombs, untargeted carnage and catastrophe. He's not preventing rulebreaking or general sabotage and probably won't lift a hoof to save certain people from being killed.
SAMPLES
Network Sample
[The video shows Alloran morphing. It starts with all his fur turning black and glossy; after that, it's not a pretty sight. Off camera there are several expressions of horror and disgust, especially as his legs contort and buckle and he splashes when he hits the floor, like his flesh is hot wax. The whole process takes a few minutes, during which there's a whole background exchange about 'giving it the juice', but a cooler head prevails. Alloran congeals and settles into the shape of a young woman, very average save for the bombed-out dulled expression, pushing to sit up while the ears finish becoming hairless and round.
Behind the camera, someone swallows loudly enough to hear, but their voice hardens enough to move on. 'Speak audibly'.]
I. I t'hold - told hh you. It's an ahlr... alarming sight, but not dangerous.
[It takes a moment of fumbling and slurring before he can make the words more precise, and at first he talks slowly. He's not using a lot of inflection.
Alloran submits to being bound to a more normal chair and having the wires attached to his skin, apparently not noticing or caring how the techs assigned to do this grimace and flinch. He looks tired and resigned as the interview section begins.
'Is it better for a leader to be feared or liked?']
Both.
[After a pause he's prompted. 'Elaborate.']
I suppose it depends on what the leader is of. But a military leader needs some of both. One who is merely liked is rarely respected. I speak of the classic archetype who wishes to be friends with his men. Inevitably they will disobey or he will give unpopular orders, especially in war, and attitudes will need to be adjusted or discipline breaks down. But a leader who is merely feared is easily hated, and that's where many of them stumble. A hated leader is the next thing to useless. [He smiles thinly, tightly.] Respect has a modicum of both admiration and fear in it, though the fear doesn't need to be anything so obvious as the expectation of punishment.
[All in a dry, listless tone. 'Right,' the interrogator decides. 'Next question. If you were a plant, what kind of plant would you be and why?']
A Guide Tree. I haven't seen mine in some time, and perhaps we will never be united. It would be fitting to become one in some way, even if it wasn't mine.
[His tone is still flat, but there's a wistful cast to his expression. 'Care to explain?']
There aren't the words in this language to do it justice and it would take a long time to work around them. I don't expect you to care about an Andalite's proper-way-of-living.
['The company doesn't, so I don't. If you could get rid of any one of the US states, which one would you get rid of and why?']
Denial. It's not a useful response to difficult events, is it? [There's that faint smile again. The polygraph doesn't go off; Alloran's physiological responses are all pretty muted.]
(200 word minimum)
Prose Sample
TDM thread!
ADDITIONAL INFO
FINAL QUESTIONS
➤ Will your character suspect some kind of guiding intelligence has brought them to the game? Or will they think it was random or done by Jorgmund? He'd assume it's an intelligence of some sort. Crayak did transport him to his realm to fight a champion once.
➤ If they think it was something other than Jorgmund, like God or some other force of fate, what character traits do they think of that intelligence as having? Is it cruel or kind? Capriciously punishing them or doing it for good reason? Not evil, maybe even having good reasons and the big picture in mind, but generally indifferent to the individual.
Player Name/Handle: Joysweeper
Plurk Handle:
Player Status: New
Other characters: n/a
Invited by: Being on Korel's flist
Character Name: Alloran-Semitur-Corrass
Fandom: Animorphs
Character Journal:
takenaliveCanon, AU, CRAU, or OC? Canon universe
Canon point: Mid book 54
SETTING BACKGROUND
Animorphs is a setting where two nearly godlike alien entities, Crayak and the Ellimist, balance in conflict over the fate of life. There are many alien civilizations, several of which have discovered interstellar travel. Among them are the Andalites, an old species, proud and convinced of their own benevolence. An Andalite took pity on the Yeerks, a low-tech species of small sluglike people who infested other species to use their senses and bodies, and the Yeerks promptly took advantage and spread off their homeworld, creating an Empire and embarking on war and conquest. The Andalites fought them, nominally trying to protect their victims but much more intent on avenging their dead and covering their shame. In time the Yeerks reached Earth and started a slow, covert invasion. Only a small contingent of Andalites was nearby and most were killed. A dying Andalite gave five human children some of the situation and the power to morph; they joined up with an Andalite cadet and as the Animorphs ran a covert campaign of terrorism against the Yeerk Empire, gaining allies and eventually gearing up to balk the Andalites from scouring Earth.
HISTORY
* Like his older brother Arbat, Alloran joined the military young and served for years. Married a woman named Jahar, and eventually had two children with her. Assigned to the Yeerk homeworld under Prince Seerow. When the Yeerks rose up and killed Andalites to steal ships and leave, Alloran was hampered by Seerow's well-meaning orders and couldn't stop them. Subsequently he relieved Seerow of duty.
* Alloran spent three years fighting Yeerks and rising in rank. Seerow's daughter Aldrea sent a message that Yeerks were conquering and enslaving the Hork-Bajir. The main Yeerk fleet was thought to be elsewhere. Alloran took a small force and found more than a hundred thousand Hork-Bajir enslaved by Yeerks and the resistance rapidly losing ground. He fought a holding action, lost eighty percent of his force in six months, and ordered the development of a virus that could kill off the Hork-Bajir, denying their bodies to the Yeerks. Aldrea and the Hork-Bajir found out and accidentally released the virus. Alloran and his forces withdrew. Many Hork-Bajir died, but the Yeerks were still able to conserve some to forcibly reproduce and use as shock troops. Alloran was disgraced and stripped of authority but still allowed to serve.
* Five years later he was assigned two cadets, Elfangor and Arbron, and given the grunt work of returning some rescued aliens to Earth, their homeworld. Alloran got word of a semi-mythical weapon being taken to the Yeerk-held Taxxon homeworld and immediately took this motley crew after it. The Andalites morphed Taxxons to infiltrate a spaceport and were split up. Alloran lost focus and obsessed over finding a way to kill ten thousand unhosted Yeerks - essentially, ten thousand helpless people on the enemy side. The Taxxon resistance attacked the spaceport, the cadets charging in with them, and Alloran took a sub-visser hostage to get aboard a ship. Arbron had stayed in Taxxon morph too long and was trapped as one. He stated that he would stay. Alloran respected that choice. Once above the spaceport he fixated on killing those helpless Yeerks, growing furious when Elfangor refused. In the struggle he was knocked out and infested by a Yeerk named Esplin-9466.
* Alloran was little more than a passive observer for nearly twenty-five years, able to think and feel but not to act, with his thoughts and memories read and replayed at Esplin's whim. It was a great blow for the Yeerks, as was their possession of a body equipped with the morphing technology. Esplin used Alloran to murder his way up to the rank of Visser Three, killing and enslaving multitudes and warring against Elfangor in particular. Twenty-one years in Esplin was assigned to Earth and put in charge of overall operations, ordered to manage a covert, subtle infiltration. He killed Elfangor shortly after.
* There were new complications, a small team of morph-capable individuals he believed were Andalites. Early into their war the "Andalite bandits" envenomated Alloran and Esplin fled into a stream, leaving a weak, disoriented Alloran to beg them for death. They refused and Alloran was reinfested and had to watch the invasion play out for another three years. These were eventful but he had no agency beyond unwillingly providing some feedback and ideas to Esplin. Headcanon - Esplin had him morph Yeerk and infest the human woman Aria to better pretend to be her, and their half-controlled communication over a few days was the closest Alloran got to getting to talk to someone in all his time as a host.
* In the end it was open war, the Yeerk Empire fighting humanity, freed Hork-Bajir and rebel Taxxons, traitorous Yeerks, and the humans who Elfangor had given the power to morph. During the climactic struggle Esplin surrendered and left Alloran's head. Alloran assessed the situation and first helped the humans talk their way out of being killed by the Andalites, then into a better bargaining position in general, even supporting their bids to save Yeerks who had surrendered and empower them for a more peaceful life. He was astonished to be free and pledged service to those who had freed him, and looked soberly now on his life.
PERSONALITY
What is the character's personality like? Please take care to talk about both their thoughts and motivations and their outward actions.
Alloran has taken the baseline Andalite optimism and turned it into confidence. He's highly pragmatic, can creatively re-interpret rules and regulations, sees the big picture, and is ready to use whatever tools are at hand. Plus he can think very quickly on his feet. Alloran's also arrogant and prideful, prone to anger especially when people challenge him. At one point this extended into fits of rage, but after his infestation and the erosion of his temper a harsh tone of voice and deliberately proper phrasing are more likely. His pragmatism also shades into ruthlessness and obsession. In war you have to kill your enemy, yes, but he thinks of it rather personally and can fixate on causing casualties to the exclusion of other goals.
There's also a lot of bitterness and a sense of betrayal in Alloran. At one time he was known for idealism even by young Andalite standards, but this soured considerably. When the Yeerks turn on the Andalites and escape their homeworld he's incensed at them and at Seerow for encouraging them. When he loses most of his command and commits atrocities on the Hork-Bajir homeworld but still fails to secure victory and is censured he's incredibly bitter - the tactics he used, while they don't align with the benevolent image Andalite civilians have of themselves, are not uncommon in the military, but history is written by the victors, and he knows he was scapegoated. This comes back again when he's scorned over Earth by a War-Prince who'd come to Earth to do the exact same thing he did to the Hork-Bajir. But so does the idealism. He joins with the Animorphs, backing their effort to use Andalite technology to empower Yeerks and Taxxons so they have no reason to fight and can make a better way instead of all being killed.
He has the ability to empathize and see himself in others, when he's not squashing it. Alloran mostly ignored the humans he was transporting until hearing one talk about how her father had come back from war a different person, at which point he defended her from her dismissive companion and spoke with sympathy about how some people never return from war. Seeing how upset Arbron and Elfangor were after their first battle, he quelled his impatience and spoke kindly to them. Alloran cares deeply about people in his in-group and is very loyal to them, and beats himself up when he gets his people killed. When he can't remember his own name, he can still remember his love for his wife and children. He has much less interest in people outside of that category and is far too willing to sacrifice them, even allies, if it means saving his people and/or advancing the big picture. His Andalites worked with Hork-Bajir and Arn during the war for that world, and abandoned both to die or be enslaved after most of his people died themselves. Since infestation he hadn't really had an in-group and throws in with humanity against his own people, idealistically working for a cause he once would have decried and defending the very Yeerks he fought from genocide.
He can also hang on to some degree of sanity and hope in an unfathomably bad situation for literally decades. The long infestation beat an unnerving patience into him, wore out the bulk of his anger, and forced him to examine his prejudices and have some perspective on himself and on others. He was made humbler while maintaining some confidence in himself, and is more inclined to stop and examine his thoughts and choices, more inclined to let go of some things rather than get angry. Just as some of his weaknesses were blunted by long infestation, that confidence above has also been dented - he's had a lot of time to look back at his own actions and decisions and regrets many of them, but doesn't have a clear image of what the 'right' thing would have been either. Consequently he's more reluctant to take charge and his pride is in rags. That patience I mentioned also verges on passivity and can be maladaptive; he can get lost in thought or just zone out and do nothing for hours.
Alloran tends to seem thoughtful and remote, aloof, set apart from the situation. Much of the time he's able to fade into the background and be overlooked. He's steady when things are dire, seeming calm and assertive as he looks for a course of action. He often seems to be enjoying himself at times like that, whether that's grim satisfaction or an odd energetic delight. He also has a sensitive, creative streak he rarely shows. Sometimes he says oddly poetic things, and he designed his elaborately-crafted personal ship himself and named it after his wife, who he loves dearly. He's also got a sense of humor. It's typically a dark, sarcastic humor, but it's there.
After being freed he tends towards a flat affect but can have bouts of enjoyment-to-wild-enthusiasm and greatly enjoys not being a host. It's just that he's been a host for so long he's forgotten how to unconsciously be anything else.
CANON POWERS
* Thought-speech. 'Universal symbols' are broadcast and interpreted as words, mostly understood even without a shared language.
** Can be private, public, or anywhere in between.
** Images and emotions can also be broadcast in a kind of song or aura. Can influence emotional states, but with exposure comes tolerance to this.
* Microscopic translator chip. Takes in a sample of language and starts to auto-translate.
* Morphing!
** Can touch an animal (humans included) and 'acquire' it, or copy its DNA. Usually it goes calm and quiet for up to 30 seconds. DNA can be copied from fresh blood or something that's been dead for less than a minute.
** At will, a morpher can focus on an acquired creature and transform into it over 1-5 minutes. Existing mass is shunted into Z-space and a new body is formed for the duration in real-space, anything from flea-sized to a kaiju. A channel is retained so the brain can control the new body. The process can be reversed at any point. Must demorph first in order to morph into something different. Morphing takes effort and energy; the more often it's done over a short period the more tiring it is.
** A baseline copy of the creature's instincts and tendencies is present in morph and can be overwhelming in its effects, but is also useful for acting as the creature. A creature's senses, abilities, and genetically inbuilt powers are all present, though some practice with them is a good idea. Thought-speak is always available.
** Can't stay in morph for over two hours without being stuck in morph, as whatever creature this is. Undergoing metamorphosis, if that's something the creature does, resets the timer.
** Morphing heals injuries and most illness, in both the morph and the original body. Scars may remain if they're part of the morpher's self-image.
** The morphed version of a creature is based on its genetics, what it could have been if well nourished and uninjured for its whole life, so it's not necessarily a perfect copy - acquire a steer, morph a bull. Fingerprints, irises, and haircut carry over. Clothes don't, though close-fitting clothing can be included as part of a morph.
** Sometimes the morpher is 'allergic' to a certain pattern of DNA. Then there are a few days of morphing uncontrollably in response to emotional turmoil before the morph is 'burped up' - a whole live animal is discharged from the morpher's body and its DNA is off the repetoire.
** Alloran has a huge number of morphs. The list is absolutely much longer than this compilation, we see that Esplin when placed in a strange place full of new animals acquires the ones that seem dangerous and large. I'm going to argue that Yeerk, Siberian tiger, and grizzly bear are also in the repetoire.
POWER SELECTION
Canon superpowers
* Thought-speech (not nerfed)
* Morphing (partially nerfed)
** The longest/tallest any morph can be is 20 feet; if they were larger, they are now miniaturized.
** Can acquire and morph other New Hires (only with ooc permission!) who have DNA but most of their powers (beyond clear physiological ones like 'has claws') don't come with the morph.
** No fire generating, acid/poison spitting, or generating electricity. Morphs may have superheated or poisonous bodies and or/resist their elements but there are no projectiles. The camo-crab's colorshifting ability doesn't work so well in close quarters under fluorescent lighting and isn't the same as true invisibility even in the best conditions.
** Higher-than-normal chance of being allergic to new DNA.
ABILITIES
Please list any abilities independent of any meta-powers or magic here. Martial arts, wilderness survival, diplomacy skills, etc. If opting out of powers and choosing "Gun/No powers," please explain how these abilities would allow the character to keep up with powered individuals in the setting. These needn't all be combat based, so something like "is amazing with children" might be relevant for the mods in thinking up future plots.
* Andalite body: Four-hooved, able to graze through hooves. A pair of extra eyes on stalks that can point in any direction and see a little further into the UV and IR spectrum than human eyes. Weak, slow, delicate arms and hands by human standards, but capable of greater finesse and precision. Long prehensile tail with a sharp curved blade near the end.
** Small and agile enough to have no difficulty with doors or stairs. Could climb a stepladder. Slippery tile or linoleum is more of a problem.
** Other male Andalites with a military background can use their tails to catch small items, trim each others' fur, knock humans out with the flat of the blade, cut them in half with two strokes of the edge, and cut into metal. It can move too fast to track and stop precisely. Think of a blade a foot or so long that can be swung at the end of a good polearm to slice and stab or used with great delicacy and precision. Alloran's skill has suffered but he could redevelop those muscles and speed. Jorgumund probably puts a sheath on it when he's in the presence of exec types.
* Can accurately keep track of time passing. A throwaway line suggests this is through ongoing mathematical calculation but Andalite POV sections never mention it.
* Health and aesthetics of plants, landscaping
* Ship design, piloting, weaponry
* Use of handheld energy weapons
* High tolerance for unpleasantness and bullshit
SETTING/SUITABILITY
Please answer all of the following. Keep in mind that if a character is not suited to a stressful intrigue and action setting, or if a character is aged 11-15, you will have to work extra hard to justify how they can function in the game as an equal (or learn how to quickly).
➤ How do you expect your character to respond to the setting? Even if they plan to rebel in the long term, will they be able to at least obey enough to not get shocked to death? Cynical compliance. He's learned helplessness and has the instinct to move little of his own accord and do what he's told when prodded - it's not that he can't act on his own, but it doesn't come naturally anymore. The rig actually represents a significant degree of freedom and a better cause than the Yeerk Empire.
Alloran understands going to extreme lengths and making compromises for something important. When you have only the one world and no viable way of leaving it, that can justify a lot. Of course they'd use aliens and of course they'd want to control them. He's also used to much worse treatment and will understand if not like what's going on.
...Jorgumund is much more petty about it, needlessly cruel and more reluctant to risk their own necks than he'd be in an equivalent situation, of course, and he'd be less resigned hearing that the Rig was better and then corporate took over.
➤ What do you hope to do with your character long-term? Relearn that he is actually able to act and affect the world. Adjust to not being a host. Make some friends?
➤ Does your character currently have skills that would allow them to adapt, survive, and do the heroic things being asked of them? If your character doesn't, do you think they'd have the capacity to learn quickly? Yes.
➤ If they're not used to cooperating with others, what makes you think they'll be able to adapt to cooperating with the group?
Alloran doesn't quite trust his sense of what's right and wrong. He's also starved for contact with people.
➤ Will your character have long-term plans to rebel against Jorgmund? If so, how? Will they betray the other PCs and cooperate with Jorgmund? If so, how do you plan to handle the negative CR that might arise? It's kinda complicated. He'd start thinking about it especially as it became more clear that the rig was run better before corporate came in, and have vague plans about singling out sufficiently important people to kill, but not be actually inclined on his own. There's what would happen next to consider, there needs to be a transition of power. He would definitely be one to consider what the Rig is trying to do and the stakes for humans.
If enough of the other PCs were basically just short-sightedly pulling villain shit and he couldn't find another way around it, he might tip someone in Jorgmund off, but it'd take a pretty extreme skew. Given anything less than imminent destruction he would inform one of the more sensible Rig types and let them figure out what to do. We're talking explosives with coallateral damage, caustic gas bombs, untargeted carnage and catastrophe. He's not preventing rulebreaking or general sabotage and probably won't lift a hoof to save certain people from being killed.
SAMPLES
Network Sample
[The video shows Alloran morphing. It starts with all his fur turning black and glossy; after that, it's not a pretty sight. Off camera there are several expressions of horror and disgust, especially as his legs contort and buckle and he splashes when he hits the floor, like his flesh is hot wax. The whole process takes a few minutes, during which there's a whole background exchange about 'giving it the juice', but a cooler head prevails. Alloran congeals and settles into the shape of a young woman, very average save for the bombed-out dulled expression, pushing to sit up while the ears finish becoming hairless and round.
Behind the camera, someone swallows loudly enough to hear, but their voice hardens enough to move on. 'Speak audibly'.]
I. I t'hold - told hh you. It's an ahlr... alarming sight, but not dangerous.
[It takes a moment of fumbling and slurring before he can make the words more precise, and at first he talks slowly. He's not using a lot of inflection.
Alloran submits to being bound to a more normal chair and having the wires attached to his skin, apparently not noticing or caring how the techs assigned to do this grimace and flinch. He looks tired and resigned as the interview section begins.
'Is it better for a leader to be feared or liked?']
Both.
[After a pause he's prompted. 'Elaborate.']
I suppose it depends on what the leader is of. But a military leader needs some of both. One who is merely liked is rarely respected. I speak of the classic archetype who wishes to be friends with his men. Inevitably they will disobey or he will give unpopular orders, especially in war, and attitudes will need to be adjusted or discipline breaks down. But a leader who is merely feared is easily hated, and that's where many of them stumble. A hated leader is the next thing to useless. [He smiles thinly, tightly.] Respect has a modicum of both admiration and fear in it, though the fear doesn't need to be anything so obvious as the expectation of punishment.
[All in a dry, listless tone. 'Right,' the interrogator decides. 'Next question. If you were a plant, what kind of plant would you be and why?']
A Guide Tree. I haven't seen mine in some time, and perhaps we will never be united. It would be fitting to become one in some way, even if it wasn't mine.
[His tone is still flat, but there's a wistful cast to his expression. 'Care to explain?']
There aren't the words in this language to do it justice and it would take a long time to work around them. I don't expect you to care about an Andalite's proper-way-of-living.
['The company doesn't, so I don't. If you could get rid of any one of the US states, which one would you get rid of and why?']
Denial. It's not a useful response to difficult events, is it? [There's that faint smile again. The polygraph doesn't go off; Alloran's physiological responses are all pretty muted.]
(200 word minimum)
Prose Sample
TDM thread!
ADDITIONAL INFO
FINAL QUESTIONS
➤ Will your character suspect some kind of guiding intelligence has brought them to the game? Or will they think it was random or done by Jorgmund? He'd assume it's an intelligence of some sort. Crayak did transport him to his realm to fight a champion once.
➤ If they think it was something other than Jorgmund, like God or some other force of fate, what character traits do they think of that intelligence as having? Is it cruel or kind? Capriciously punishing them or doing it for good reason? Not evil, maybe even having good reasons and the big picture in mind, but generally indifferent to the individual.
