Monolith-Class Holotype Collective KAITOS

so someday there'll be an actual info blob here

but until that day comes...

just check the app out yo

PERMISSIONS

INFO

IC

OOC

NAME kaitos
CANON original
CANON POINT first sortie

INFO app
MOONBLESSING iris

AGE 24, sort of
SPECIES collective
GENDER several
APPEARANCE see above
HEIGHT 186cm
BUILD low muscle, low fat
HAIR seafoam undercut
EYES mako eyes...
VOICE link
FEATURES circuitry. bushy eyebrows. round face.

PLAYER kari
TIMEZONE pst
CONTACT karilotl#2319, karilotl

HUGGING
yes
KISSING
yes
FLIRTING
yes
ROMANCE
yes
SEX
yes
FIGHTING
ask
INJURY
ask
DEATH
ask
MIND-READING
yes
MANIPULATION
yes
OTHER
kaitos can literally merge other people into their collective, so if you want that, just hmu

BACKTAGGING
yes
THREADHOPPING
yes
FOURTHWALLING
n/a
CRAU
n/a
OFF-LIMITS
honestly not much
OTHER
ehhhh??

OPT IN
Please comment to this post if you are okay with threading sexual themes or scenarios with this character. (Mainly from Kaitos' end, probably.)

▶ PLAYER
HANDLE: Kari
CONTACT: karilotl#2319 @ discord, karilotl
OVER 18? Yep.
CHARACTERS IN-GAME: n/a

▶ CHARACTER
NAME: Kaitos
CANON: Original Character
CANON POINT: After their first sortie against the TCCA.
AGE: 24 years since human birth / 7 years since aggregate awakening.
BACKGROUND: The universe Kaitos comes from is, on a superficial level, a lot like the one we live in. The planetary structure is largely the same; the vast majority of humans were born on Earth, lived and died on Earth, and don't have reason to think about the universe around them. There are three primary distinctions that need to be made between this world and ours, and they can be outlined as follows:

1. Space travel and mecha were developed, rushed, and monetized much faster than our native universe. After the discovery of several repeating signals from beyond the stars, humanity sprung forward as a group to find a way to reach out. Aeroplanes became shuttles, shuttles became ships, and ships became mechanical bodies even before the turn of the millennium.

"Aliens" were reached out to - found to be a mirage, a chance repetition of echoes and solar flares in the heavens - and all semblance of human cooperation collapsed into a mad capitalist rush to find a way to profit off this new frontier. By this point, space is largely considered to be the sandbox of the elites, with new prototypes and designs doing nothing to help the common man.

2. "Psionic" individuals were discovered in this process. During the initial galactic gold rush, it was discovered that certain individuals adapted far quicker to the vacuum of space than their equicapable brethren. These psionic individuals, dubbed "psychics" by the media of the time, were capable of influencing and toying with the very laws of physics themselves. Most psychics fall into one of three categories:

i) Electropaths, those capable of manipulating electricity and magnetism;
ii) Gravipaths, those capable of manipulating the force of gravity and its push/pull between objects; and
iii) Telepaths, those capable of manipulating quanta to bypass distance, time, and even thought itself.

Every individual is psionic to at least some degree, with their influence tending towards one of the three forces; however, the constant and consistent forces Earth provides far outweigh most people's latent power. Further, this constant force serves to neutralize any further development from most individuals, with the vacuum of space providing much more room for these individuals to experiment and grow.

3. The pioneers who once worked together to explore space have fragmented into disparate, opposed factions. Where the prospect of intelligent life beyond the stars united us, the realization that space was open for us to fight over divided us a hundred times over. While the number of factions vying for galactic dominance is far beyond the scope of this section, three in particular are relevant for Kaitos:

i) The Terran Colonial Cultural Authority, an "official" extension of Earth's Western hemisphere's trade groups. Dedicated to maintaining peace, order, and democracy in a potentially lawless universe.
ii) The Exiles, a large group of conscientious objectors to the TCCA. While actual views vary wildly within the group, one thing is generally agreed on: space must remain uncolonized, and "uncivilized," if any hope of moving forward as a species is to be maintained.
iii) The Event Horizon, an anarchocapitalist group of philanthropists dedicated to "advancing the human species to our limits." Opposes the TCCA and the Exiles on principle; if the TCCA claims things for Earth, or the Exiles successfully restrict access to potential advancements, they're out of the hands of the people who deserve it.

tl,dr; it's Heaven Will Be Mine but gay AND anti-capitalist. Woohoo!

With all of that established, we can give a wildly abbreviated summary of Kaitos' life:

• Kaitos is born as "Zeta Ceti," the sixth engineered child of Event Horizon's Cetus experiment.
• Kaitos displays immense levels of electromagnetic control, proving to be the first true success of the project and its 60% mortality rate.
• Kaitos is raised in the vacuum of space to the strictest of standards, with the intent of creating the perfect pilot for the experimental chassis Andromeda.
• At 15, Kaitos' base is drawn into the middle of a skirmish between the TCCA and the Exiles. In the chaos of the battle, Kaitos vanishes - alongside experimental unit Andromeda - and defects to the Exiles.
• The Exiles are sympathetic, and work to hide Kaitos from both the TCCA and Event Horizon forces. For two years, Kaitos lives as an Exile, gradually experimenting with things like her appearance, her gender, and even her name, substituting the Terran/Latin "Zeta Ceti" for its original greek - "Baten Kaitos."
• Event Horizon tracks her location, and after two years strikes. During this battle, Kaitos pushes her unit's electroreactor to near capacity, tearing open a wormhole and vanishing completely in the process.
• Kaitos travels through the border between dimensions. In here, the laws of physics cease to apply; the distinction between "Kaitos" and the world around her stop existing completely. During this time, Kaitos and the experimental unit Andromeda merge into a single collective consciousness.
• After what seems like an eternity, and is more precisely seven months, the wormhole closes. Kaitos are abruptly thrust back into a sensible world, where things exist that aren't them, and is forced to reorganize themselves into something capable of sapient thought once again.
• For five years, Kaitos drift through the outer reaches of space, far beyond any charted territory. Their latent electropathic powers bring any detritus they come across to them, to merge with their new collective existence like some sci-fi katamari, and slowly the ship-person conglomerate expands into a nearly planetoid-class object - the size of a tiny moon rather than a ship.
• One and a half years pass before Event Horizon locates the original distress beacon of the Andromeda, and four more years pass before they are able to develop the technology to reach its new location. When they come to retrieve them, Kaitos is a willing captive, and after several attempts to explore "the ship" or to separate its pilot fail, they refocus their efforts on teaching Kaitos how to crush potential enemies.
• One year later, Monolith-Class Holotype Collective KAITOS is officially sent into its first mission against the TCCA. The mission is a crushing success, with three fighters escaping and the remaining batallion succumbing under the massive weight of Kaitos' magnetic pull.
• On the way back, the pilot signal abruptly cuts, and all of Kaitos wake without warning in a crystalline world with only their once-human body.

PERSONALITY: Above all else, Kaitos is - Kaitos are - not human. To think about Kaitos in human terms does them a dramatic disservice. A part of them was once human, to be sure, but in the years since they've taken on so many new parts that they've become something entirely different. A collective conscious. A hivemind. An entirely new being.

Not that you'd know from just talking with them. For the most part, Kaitos seem to be a gregarious, slightly spaced out, but regular old human. They laugh when people tell them jokes. They display happiness when people give them things they like. They smile and cry and fuck in all the same ways that human beings generally do.

So maybe they're not so great with personal boundaries. They overshare, they pry a bit too much, they don't really have a sense of modesty to work with. So what? Plenty of people have issues with all that. Sure, usually there's some degree of separation between them and other people. And usually, even sexually liberated people aren't quite as... you know, free with their love. But that's still human, right?

And okay, sure, maybe they're more than a little awkward. Maybe they laugh at things that weren't fully intended as jokes. Or maybe they react a bit too casually to things - asking if a funeral went well, or calling a friend's death "sort of a bummer." But that's still within human variation, right?

So, then, what is it that makes them so different?

To start, Kaitos is a plural being. If Kaitos decides to do something, it's because the person that once was Kaitos, and the AI of the Andromeda, and all the other bits and pieces of sentience they've drawn into themselves have come to a consensus. Every moment inside Kaitos is a conversation; every decision is an agreement between hundreds, thousands of different parts. Weirdly enough, this doesn't really get in the way for the most part. Turns out when all of you is part of the same whole, it's pretty easy to get onto the same page!

And speaking of being part of the whole, Kaitos are definitely all about that assimilation life. See, with each new consciousness they bring in, they become that much more aware of the world around them - and just how much better things are as a part of them. They don't suffer when they don't eat; they don't deal with hormones they don't want. Inside their mind is the accumulated knowledge of a hundred AI systems, translator units and medical routines and so much more than any one human could possibly have. And they never have to worry about being alone again - not when they're all together like this. Why wouldn't people want to be one with them?

Of course, not all people think this way. And- listen, they get it? They're not human, but they were once, long ago. So they ask people, and AI, and random floating detritus if they want to join them. And if they don't, well - it's their loss, right? Not their fault if sacks of flesh can't outlast the universe.

And maybe that's the biggest difference between Kaitos and the humanity they came from. When it comes down to it, Kaitos knows all of the terrible things going around them. They know that they could stop it if they really set their mind to it. But the thing is, that would require a selfless investment in the world they left behind. And that's one thing Kaitos doesn't have. Kaitos laughs at jokes because smiling feels good. Kaitos has sex because the endocrinal rush feels incredible. Kaitos listens to the orders of their superiors because it'd be a major pain to actually break away from them. But in the end... it's all just play to them. They're playing at the humanity they once had to pass the time.

Because eventually, they'll return to the world of the wormhole. Eventually, everything will be Kaitos. And when that time comes, they'll finally be truly content once again.

POWERS/ABILITIES: At its core, Kaitos's power comes down to the control of electromagnetism - to repel or attract an object at an atomic level, to control the magnetic fields of the world around them, and even to tear things apart from the very building blocks of their matter. And they are no laughing matter when it comes to this - they were one of the most powerful electropaths in the world before they became a cosmic horror, after all!

But without the electroreactor of the long-since-renamed Andromeda, and bound by the rules of a functioning planet, Kaitos can't do things on a cosmic level anymore. Their magnetism is at least partially intact, and they can bring things towards them as desired (if at a severely nerfed level). And sure, they can probably zap people, if they really want to - but why would they want to? There's something much more important that she has available, after all.

See, Kaitos' true power comes from their conglomerate nature. Even in a mostly human body in Prismatica, Kaitos is still a fully-functional collective. Their mind houses AI with all sorts of knowledge; they are effectively fluent in almost every human language, and they are capable of adapting to things beyond human comprehension due to their autopilot and flight-charting routines. Unfortunately, none of this really covers combat on a humanoid scale. So they might be able to process an attack, and chart it, and do all sorts of interesting things - but in the end, they're bound by their once-human reflexes.

Finally, and most importantly, Kaitos are capable of merging others into their collective. This is an entirely willing process, can be reversed, and if allowed by the mod team would be contingent on fully acknowledged consent from all involved players. This would mainly serve as a way to give other characters a few fun perks - electromagnetic powers at the level listed above, fully telepathic communication within the collective, and access to AI archives/routines beyond human capacity. It would also give players a fun way to deal with the mental crash of separation, if that's something they wanted to play with.

INVENTORY: The things on their human body extension at the time of vanishing - a condom, some breath mints, and a fancy space pen for writing in zero grav!

MOONBLESSING: In keeping with their electromagnetic powers, I've opted to give them Iris!

▶ SAMPLES

"Yo, hey."

The shopkeeper appears startled (subroutine 6A23, concern detected) by their sudden call. Is it out of place? Have they done something weird? Well, whatever it is, it doesn't seem to matter too much. He apologizes, shakes his head, says that his stall is closed for the day. Which is kind of funny, since it's closing for the night. Right? They laugh. He looks even less comfortable with the situation.

"Sorry, sorry." They comb their hand through their hair; the circuitry running through them is even more visible like this. They kind of like it that way? A reminder for what people were having. "It's, uh- Kaitos. Remember? I put up a flier for- what was it, what was it, 'throw your troubles away?' Something like that." They remember the flier perfectly, of course - it's displaying for them as they speak - but this sort of speech tends to put people at ease.

And sure enough, there's that flash of recognition in his eyes, that sudden smile spreading across his face. He knows what they're here for now. And judging from his eager expression, he's still interested after all.

They don't even make it to his house before they fuck. It'd be easy enough to let him get home, of course, but it's so much more fun this way - quick stolen glances, a surprise flash in an alleyway shortcut, a lick of their lips is all it takes to steal restraint. Like this, connected to a local, they're almost back in that quiet safety again.

(Hormonal influx due to intercourse, one of the less cultured AI informs them. Duh? They know it's hormones. Still fun.)

He comes with a shudder and a gasp, and for a moment he goes still. They stroke his hair, and breath heavily and uneven against him, and whisper in a moment's passion-
"Do you want to be like this forever?"
He nods. They smile. And as the circuitry reaches out, as his polarity begins to reset to match theirs, they can't help but keep smiling.

They'll be so much happier like this, after all.