Singularity Application

[fuknfreelancers]

Player Information ;
Your Nickname: Aki
OOC Journal: ginderpia
Under 18? Nope.
Email/IM: akkiko_tenshi[at]hotmail.com // GinryuKnight [AIM]
Characters Played at Singularity: Yuri Lowell [mrdickery ]

Character Information ;
Name: Leonard L. Church, also known as the Alpha.
Name of Canon: Red vs. Blue
Canon/AU/Other Game CR: Canon
Reference: character wiki + canon wiki
Canon Point: Season 6, right before Washington activates the EMP.

Setting: An AU in its own right, Red vs. Blue is based off of the Halo game and takes some artistic liberties with a (mostly) unexplored possibility of the game's storyline. Therefore, this section will be divided into two parts. First, with a brief explanation of the Halo setting before moving into a more thorough description of RvB's which is where Church comes from.

To begin, the Halo universe is set in the 26th century, our future. As humanity expanded their borders and left Earth behind for the stars, technology grew exponentially to allow artificial intelligences, advanced weaponry, cutting edge equipment, light-speed travel and, eventually, faster-than-light-speed travel (slipstream space.) However, as mankind strayed farther away from Earth, it was inevitable that they would encounter alien life. It was merely unfortunate that most of this life was hostile.

Enter the Covenant, a religious hegemony of advanced aliens who, upon contact with humans, chose war as the more preferable method of interaction. When it became apparent that mankind was losing this battle and badly, humanity became desperate and tried to gain the upper hand through various, less ethical means than those already employed. One of these attempts was the SPARTAN program, which utilized the skills of specially augmented soldiers.

In the setting of Red vs. Blue, another program developed to help win the war was Project Freelancer, which instead focused on combining the skills of high tier operatives with specialized equipment and AIs. The result was 49 special class soldiers merely referred to as "agents" or "freelancers."

In order to test the ability of these soldiers, Command sent them to fake simulation bases manned by the dregs of the regular army to fight. Soldiers who were either a whole new level of incompetent or had simply scored so badly on the tests that they couldn't be trusted on the field in actual combat. These men and women were unflatteringly referred to as "simulation troopers" and never informed of their true purpose. Instead, to cover for the times when a freelancer wasn't present at the base, Command made up a fake war of reds versus blues and assigned each sim. trooper to a side. That way, until a Freelancer arrived, the soldiers would have someone to fight and constantly maintain an alert and battle-ready state.

One of these fake bases was the Blood Gulch outpost, where Church led his ragtag team of blues (and occasionally his ex-girlfriend, Agent Texas) against the red team in a never ending struggle for control of the canyon. Though the environment and players occasionally changed, the fake war never did despite the actual war ending eight years ago. Assumedly, in the following cleanup and restoration of Earth and its colonies, the fake soldiers were either forgotten about or the project was continued for the potential advantage it could provide mankind with in the future.

Project Freelancer, its agents and its fake war would continue for almost another decade until one of its own freelancers exposed the Director of the project for his inhumane crimes against an AI by the name of Alpha. Only then would Project Freelancer be shut down, though, as always, it seemed the reds and blues would be the last ones to get the memo.

Personality: Despite being the de facto leader of the blues in Blood Gulch, Church isn't exactly what you'd call a charismatic leader. He's temperamental, apathetic, sarcastic, foul-mouthed, jaded and just a little bit arrogant. Above everything else, he's extremely angry almost all of the time.

Unsurprisingly, most of that anger comes from having to manage a bunch of idiots into something faintly resembling an army. Though he tries to be somewhat tolerant of their antics, the threshold on that patience is set very low and eventually all their interactions end in arguments or the loss of will to continue. More often than not, he decides he doesn't give a damn about any of them and leaves them to their own shenanigans, for better or for worse. Potentially, if he ever hiked up his big boy pants and cared enough about  winning the war, he could turn the Blues into a real threat. But the odds of that happening are practically nil as that would require an almost saintly amount of patience and restraint.

Beyond that, he's mildly selfish (always hogging the sniper rifle regardless of being a terrible shot) and narrow-minded (refusing to believe he's actually an AI instead of a ghost.)

However, despite his many negative qualities, he does have a few good traits. For example, he's one of the smartest soldiers in the canyon (though given the competition, that isn't saying much.) It's only a shame that his attempts to be logical often end up with him figuratively tearing his head out, as the rest of the people on the canyon tend to sit on the "dumb as road gravel" side of the line. He's also surprisingly kind in spite of his attempts to keep everyone at a distance, as hinted at when he offered to teach one of his peers about pregnancy. (Said peer believed pregnancy was contagious.) And for all that he's impulsive and tries to off his own teammates, he does seem to genuinely care about their well being, even though one of them killed him. (Sort of.)

Overall Church is rather inconsistent with his behavior. At times he tries to do what he feels ethically right or good for the team while at others he doesn't seem to care at all if they blow themselves up. Furthermore, he can't seem to consciously decide if he still has a thing for his ex-girlfriend or if he wants her to rot at the bottom of the ocean. He basically feels like someone who can't get all of his emotions to sit down together and decide who wants to be priority one which, considering his past, is to be expected.

In the long run, the only consistent thing about him is that he'd like it very much if everyone just let him do his own thing and didn't bother him at all.

clarification: The claim that Church is one of the smartest soldiers in the canyon should be accepted with the knowledge that many of the other simulation troopers present in the gulch are not particularly bright. It should also be noted that he isn't smart in the sense of books or being particularly educated, just that he knows how to exercise his common sense, which seems to be a rare quality in his outpost. Proof of this is the general reaction to Tucker's pregnancy (which many seemed to accept casually despite the fact that he's a man) which Church instantly refuted. Other, less admirable, examples would be his tendency to sacrifice his own teammates in order to save his own ass (ordering Sister to get Tex to stop shooting at them, sending Caboose with Tucker on his possibly suicidal quest and making Doc diagnose Sheila when she was acting up and firing randomly.) The fact that they went along with his orders, despite the obvious danger to themselves, is pretty indicative of their less than stellar intellect.

He also realized that Gary was actually one of the AI fragments before anyone else did and tried to get Caboose to assist them when Wyoming cornered his team at red base. The fact that Wyoming, Tex and Tucker never realized what he was doing despite his obviousness (and that Caboose never figured out his plans either) is also a very good testament to how oblivious and stupid they can be. That's not to say Church himself is infallible to moments of plot convenient ignorance, just that it happens to them a lot more frequently.

One of the reasons for Church's inconsistent personality is his origination. Church was originally a smart AI by the name of Alpha and was Project Freelancer's "golden goose," so to speak. During the project's earlier years, when it became apparent that the agents couldn't use their equipment without severe ramifications, the Director attempted to solve the equipments' malfunctions by assigning each agent an AI to help manage it. The problem then was that the program could only procure a single AI.

Rather than have his project crippled with only one fully functional agent at a time, however, the Director decided to split the Alpha into fragments so he could utilize the resultant lesser AIs. In order to do this, he decided to force the AI to fracture itself through torture. Forcing the Alpha through scenario after scenario to increase its stress, horror and pain, the AI eventually began to break parts of itself off in order to survive. It threw away its ability to understand what was being done to it, its anger, creativity... everything it could until it eventually discarded its memories as a whole.

The only saving grace then was that the AI fragment containing his memories, Epsilon, was implanted into Agent Washington and ultimately caused a mental breakdown of both the agent and the fragment. Realizing they were potentially harming their own test subjects then, Command called an immediate end to the experiments until they could determine exactly how much information of their practices had been leaked. The damage, however, had already been done.

With large elements of his personality having been stripped away leaving only residual emotions in their place, (some more than others,) the Alpha was a mess and barely resembled the original mind it had been modeled after. While some emotions remained strongly, possibly having been reformed even after being thrown away (logic and anger), others had been completely removed (such as deceit.) Overall, the Alpha was a wreck, unable to comprehend its own existence as an AI due to the loss of memory and left only with the experiences given to it by the mind it was based on, the Director of Project Freelancer.

It was because of those memories that Church, the Alpha's resultant persona, developed strong feelings for Agent Texas. Tex was a memory the Director passed onto the Alpha of a woman he loved name Allison. Because of his strong feelings, the Alpha developed similar ones in turn for Allison's memory and was the reason why he continued to refer to her as his girlfriend despite her less than ideal behavior. (Cheating on him, stealing his money, kicking his ass...)

One could claim that this experience was also the reason for his consistent selfishness in sacrificing all others before endangering himself, but that is unconfirmed and neither here nor there.

What is certain is that the process left the Alpha broken (literally) and that the only way for it to survive was to shed all memory of everything that was done to it. Even if it meant living with a fake persona and an incomplete array of emotions.

Abilities, Weaknesses, and Power Limitation Suggestions:

Abilities:

✓ can enter the minds of other people
✓ able to possess and take control of others
clarification: Referred to as "possession" as that's how he'll refer to it ICly, Church is only able to take control of a limited number of people as not everyone has the proper "equipment" so to speak to house his AI self. While normal humans are mostly out of the picture, those he can still jump into appear to be simulation troopers, Freelancers and (very tentatively) other Spartans.
(And my thanks to the mod-team for correcting my misunderstanding, as my knowledge of the Halo universe in general is limited ;w;)
✓ capable of handling various firearms
clarification: Church is capable of handling firearms in the way that he at least won't shoot himself. (Yet, anyway.) In his first confrontation with the Meta, he picked up a rocket launcher and fired it with mild accuracy. When he and Agent Washington attempted to infiltrate the Freelancer Command facility, he shot several rounds at a guard using a magnum. This shows that he is at least familiar enough with various firearms to pick them up, turn the safety off and know which way the bad end should point. His aim, however, is an entirely different story discussed below in the weaknesses.
✓ can't actually be killed (unless an EMP is utilized)
✓ is probably one of the saner minds in Blood Gulch
✓ more physically capable than the average person. (harder, better, faster, stronger ~♪)

Weaknesses:

✗ couldn't hit the broad side of a barn if he were standing with his nose pressed against the wood
clarification: Church is a terrible shot, as much as he tries to deny it. He couldn't shoot two stationary targets with a high powered scope mounted on top of a sniper rifle if his life depended on it. (As shown when Agent Washington and Caboose first went to fetch him.) Later examples include his inability to kill Caboose, despite firing several shots, and missing the guard in Freelancer Command at point blank though he emptied his clip in the attempt. In the event that he does hit his intended target, it's mostly through sheer luck and a lot of bullshit, as evidenced by his last shot at the Meta which bounced off a handful of buildings and a revolving steel windmill before grazing his ankle.

✗ physically speaking, he's the lowest threat in Blood Gulch
✗ has a tendency to shut out/reject anything he doesn't consider feasibly plausible
✗ doesn't plan ahead very well
✗ apparently has no skill with tanks

Power Limitation Suggestions:
Although I'm not entirely sure if this is necessary, a limitation on Church's ability to mind jump could be his own personality. He doesn't seem particularly fond of leaving his body in order to go prancing around in someone else's mental space, either because he doesn't like leaving his body unguarded or because he really doesn't care for what he might find. Extenuating circumstances aside, he's more likely to stay put in his mechanical body, if only so he doesn't freak people out with his ghostly form.

In regards to his possession, if that must be limited, it can always be stated that people without an open AI slot in their armor, or people not wearing the MJOLNIR armor period, can't be possessed. For those who are wearing the armor and don't wish to be possessed, I can always claim that the station's electronic wavelengths are preventing him from taking them over and at best he can only piggy back off of them.

Inventory: Not a hell of a lot given his canon point. At some point he'll eventually recover his armor and rifle from the junkyard but other than that all he has are the clothes the system feels fit to give him on top of his replacement body.

Appearance:  His original body had the appearance of a Caucasian male with shaggy black and matching stubble. Though other facts can only be guessed at, in his armor he stands close to 6'0" tall and seems reasonably well built. His armor comes in a light blue shade with a few scratches on it but very little actual use.

When free running without his body on, he appears as a translucent, white armored version of himself and seems to be physically intangible. Since this mode could be considered the equivalent of his AI form, when he's actually piggy-backing off of someone without overshadowing them, he appears in a similar fashion as a much smaller and opalescent blue avatar.

In regards to his PB, Craig Olejnik, he has shortly cropped dark hair with light blue eyes and just a hint of stubble on his face. Without the armor, he's a little taller than average height, broad shouldered and muscular with a hint of what you might call boyish charm to his face. This is due to the fact that his body hasn't been weathered as much as the average body would have due to exposure to the elements. Given time, he'll eventually look his age.

Age: Unknown. Probably thinks he's in his early thirties but is realistically less than twenty. Will be played as 31.

OC/AU Justification ;
If AU, How is Your Version Different From Canon, and How Will That Come Across?
If OC, Did You Run Your Character Through a Mary-Sue Litmus Test?
And What Did You Score?

Samples ;
Log Sample: Steadying himself against the uneven grooves of the wall and carefully shifting the rifle until it was neatly balanced on top of the concrete, Church carefully lowered his head until he could focus through the scope. That complete, he adjusted his body until the butt of the rifle was situated comfortably into the groove between his shoulder and arm and set one of his feet against the wall. Then, and only then, did he begin to scan the ground from the gate out to the water, searching for a single target.

It was a good vantage point, he felt. He'd picked well. (Or so he told himself repeatedly.) At the very least it was infinitely better than his spot yesterday. That one had obscured his vision with too many leafy trees, rocks, reflected sunlight and hills of dirt. Like the entire world was determined to keep him from being the awesome shooter he so clearly was. Feeling the faintest prickles of ire in the back of his mind at the mere memory of yesterday's excursions, he tried to shake those thoughts free and focus on the objective. Today, today for sure he would snipe that nattering rodent that kept creeping in after dark to gnaw on everything. The first time he honestly hadn't cared, and the time after that, or the time after that... or even the time after that...

The point was, he hadn't cared until the damn thing had shit all over the place. Then he'd been pissed. (And bored. But mostly pissed.) He had to deal with enough crap as it was, he didn't want have to deal with the literal meaning of the word too. Besides, he had to keep his skills up, which was his reasoning for being out here today in the shady sniper's nest of his outpost hunting... hell, he didn't even know what he was hunting. Groundhog? Mole-rat? Squirrels? Fuckit, he'd just shoot everything that looked like it wanted to shit in the base. That'd teach them.

Only one problem. Barely a scarce thirty minutes into it, Church started to feel cross. "C'mon," he muttered darkly, his voice echoing in his ears thanks to the helmet. "Show your face so I can shoot it off..." As he did another scan of the open ground, he finally turned his scope back to the hills on each side and- "Got you." He murmured underbreath, feeling just a bit smug about the entire situation as he shifted the rifle until the small dot in his scope was leveled perfectly on the still rodent's head. "Sayonara cockbite." He hissed, somewhat viciously, and curled his finger around the trigger before tightening it, just once.

A crack rang out across the air.

A chunk of rock six feet above the squirrel's head exploded, sending it scrambling away.

"FUCK! WHAT THE FUCK THAT WAS TOTAL BULLSHIT! GET BACK HERE YOU PIECE OF-!" And thirty minutes later, a breathless Church decided he'd try on top of the turret wall tomorrow. Somewhere where there weren't so many flickering shadows to throw off his aim.

And he'd adjust the scope on his rifle. Clearly, the asshole had fucked with that too.

Network Sample: [The image turns on to show the golden visor of someone who's wearing the Mark VI Mjolnir armor of the light blue variety. If you could see past the visor to his face, you'd know he was unhappy. For those of you without x-ray vision, however, fear not for his unhappiness is clearly radiated in his voice.]

Hey, whoever's running this place? Not funny. If I still had a body I'd be bleeding out of my ears right now. Maybe you should work on that, just a thought. [The attitude, it should be noted, is thick.]

Where is this place anyway? Sure as hell isn't anywhere I recognize. ... which is probably a good thing, actually. Still, it'd be kind of nice to know where I've been dropped into. Like if I'm even in the same star system. Shit like that.>