Sophic, Human Tech and Slicer

[Starhawk]

Sophic Tech

Technician 1st Class Raxis Prime 2nd Militia Batallion.

Segment 1

Backstory

I've been in this fight since I was tall enough to look a Jawa in their little twin lanterns. Jawas, salt of the earth they are. Of course it wasn't the big fight, but look anywhere in the damned Republic and there's shit going down. One of those little fights is Raxis Prime, the infamous waste dump planet, where I'm from. My fight was against the Corps, the Corporate Alliance and the Commerce Guild, we just call them CommCorp or C n' C for short, might as well since they're closer than an old married couple, a couple that bury folk under the floorboards. They got a strangle hold on our world and every time we try to catch a breath, they just dump more of their poison in. Time was Raxis Prime was such a shining gem of a world it was called Nikato's Shining Gem and the Circlet of the Tion. Anyway, some of us want that world back and we're willing to fight, and die if need be, to get it.

On Raxis Prime, you're either a Poisoner, living in C n' C habitats, following their rules, or you're an Outer, scrabbling out survival in pressurised compartments of dumped starships buried in the foul skin of the Galaxy's foremost garbage dump. Not all Outers are fighters, but all fighters are Outers. I'm a fighter. I started cleaning tech when I was small, graduating to assembly when I was a tad taller. Don't know who my parents were, there were lots of kids just like me. When I was twelve, I could disassemble a blaster in minutes, taking a little longer to put a bomb together... but mostly they had me programming and doing droid work, with the Jawas mostly. I left the Jawas when I came of age, Jawas don't fight, they collect, build, make wondrous booby traps. The tall folk are the fighters, tall folk like me. Anyway, I got a blaster pistol and a toolkit. And, since I was a slicer, I got a computer as well.

So, we blew up their rigs, crashed their lifters, backchanneled gas and watched processing plants explode. Then we left breadcrumbs for them to follow. When they followed, well we left none alive. Then of course, it escalated like it always did. Like Sabac, they could just keep raising the ante, until we couldn't.

They called in the Mandos. The Mandos are warriors, living for war, not like us. We're fighters in that we fight 'for' something. We have a code as part of the system to meet a goal, which is the establishment of a democratic planetary government. For us it's a tool. For them, it's what they are. Mandos got no higher goal than to be a better Mando, soulless they are. You'd think they'd know better, what with a greater power doing the same to their world, but no. So, it was the militia, fighting out of love for something only their descendants would see realized, against the mercs, fighting for cash and notches on their blaster rifles. I've killed three.. they came into a chamber I'd set up with a hot running maneuvering thruster on fast start up behind a false wall. Melted their Beskar with them still inside it. As for the Mandos, well they wiped out all my friends.

We killed a lot of them. They killed pretty much of all us. Unstoppable force meets an 'initially' immovable obstacle whose only purpose was to take as many of them with us as we could. You'll kill us, but we'll leave you bloody.

And so we lost.

Funny thing, the more I fought the Mandos the more I became like a Mando. Sometimes when you look into the Abyss, the Abyss looks back. So, we scattered, got off world, there being no hiding on Raxis Prime any more. Time comes, when they drop their guard, I'll go back and take up where I left off. One of the last four of a batallion that numbered 400.

Even funnier, everywhere I went I found C n' C and Mandos, different names, different faces, different races.. but underneath the facade just more soul-less carbon copy scum.

So, why go back? Fighting where I am just saves on travel time. So many enemies, not enough time. Might as well fight a tidal wave, but what choice you got? You go out with a whimper or a snarl.

Appearance

Nothing remarkable about how I look. Dusky complexion, blue eyes, long curly dark brown hair, curled up and pinned to immobility. On my world, short hair is for the married women. Long hair is for maidens, and for those women who are married to mayhem. I've walked right past Stormtroopers and the like, looking like I'm heading to tech college.. they see their little sister, just tall enough that the top of my head touches their helmet chin strap. They've said as much.. 'You look my sister back on Coruscant'. I'm human, so in the new Empire, I can get a free pass, even though in my head, I'm at least a quarter Jawa.

Abilities

I can shoot, if need be. Can't say I'm that good at it. I've worn light armor. The joke is it since it looks too heavy for me to carry my big brother's armor in my arms, I wore it instead. Still, drop me into the navigator's seat and I'll cut days off the jump. Give me droid scrap, I'll give you something that walks up like a protocol droid and blows up in your face like a thermal detonator. Put me in front of an access panel and I'll cause all kinds of merry hell. I sneak like an assassin droid. I'm no Face, no Sniper, no Heavy Weapon Specialist, no Pilot.

Personality and Mannerisms

I've taught myself to speak like I was born and bred on Coruscant. I sound Core to the core. I collect badges of Coruscant bands, and so look Core to the core. Troopers just give me the once over, thinking I'm one of them, the ones that give them orders, the ones they recruit from, the ones they're not supposed to harass.

I make jokes a lot. If you're enmeshed in a cosmic sick joke, well it helps if you've got a ready come back up your sleeve. My laugh is something of a dirty snigger, not full throated. My voice is a bordello full house, being a breathy, husky, purring contralto. The husky is from when my rebreather cut out when I was sneaking past an acid pit on Raxis Prime, it's scarring but I like how it sounds. My face makes me look like a teenager, my voice makes them look twice. I've seen older men debate with themselves as to what my apparent age means to them.

I dream of a day that I know will never come. In my dreams I am diving, the battle scars on my skin on full display in the blue oceans of Mon Calamari, with a parcel of kids I'll never have and a mate I'll never cleave to. Raxis Prime was a lagoon world.. once. Now, you dive into any blue water, you'll dissolve without protective gear.

If I wasn't a fighter I'd be a builder, but destruction takes moments and building takes time. So, first things first. Go after the destroyers, beat them down. Like my commander said.. There's two flames in the heart. The flame of anger against injustice and the flame of hope that you can build a better world.

Around my neck I have a necklace of keepsakes. There's Fel's earring. My BFF, she died in the Second Battle of Acid Lake. There's 'Batteries Not Included''s dodgy finger servo mount. A mando hit my favorite droid with a grenade during the Sluice Ravine skirmish. There's Zinn's lucky rings. He got killed at Zephyr Ruin. He was going to ask me to marry him, give one of them rings to me, though I never knew. Anyway, he dragged the Mando that was going to kill me off of me, died doing it. Anyway, I keep them, just in case I find that special someone.. but like I said the fight comes first.

 

Likes

Jawas.

Verpine Droids.

The Kazelli Light Freighter.

Droids that fly.

Water Worlds.

Boys.

Scoundrelish Smugglers.

Opportunities to sneak around and cause havoc.

Blowing shit up.

Neutral Towards

Jedi.. Yeah, they're good allies, but they never helped us.

Dislikes

Corporations.. though not the Verpine Roche Hive for some reason.

Mandalorians.. though she likes their technology and technology combinations.

The Empire. They backstabbed us.

The Empire's 'quantity over quality' ethos.

Hand to hand combat.

Pretty girls her age.

The Jungle.

The Desert.

Ice Planets.

 

Segment 2

My own private war, on Raxis Prime, is over for the moment. C n' C is gone. All their holdings absorbed into the Empire. Apparently, CnC's upper management up and disappeared when the war ended. I like to think their bodies were dissolved in one of their own acid pits. The Empire, that was the Republic that supplied us with weapons to fight the CIS, runs the factories now. Our former arms supplier is now more of an oppressor than even C n' C were, and they knew where to hit us, when the time came. We scattered to survive, keep the dream on life support, come out of the coma when it's quieter. What few were left of us scattered to the four corners of the Galaxy. Only reason I'm alive is I got dragged out by Kelso, whose a prodigy with guns and ships. Only reason he got to drag me to a ship is I decrypted an Imperial code and tipped off all my comrades in arms. "Run now.. Empire's bringing the hammer down on us".

Anyway, I send a message to Kelso, my old Lt, now owner of a bar on Tattooine, about once a month. Yeah, I helped him rob some folk. Someone from a different command, whom he doesn't know, keeps an eye on him, incognito like, so if he's gotten to, we'll know. If a particular news item show up on an obscure server then we'll know to get deep and run silent. Compartmentalization is the key.

Good people have wars still ongoing against folk who have no idea I exist, who ain't looking for me. So. I help out where I can. Trust me, you can find out a lot more than you should if you're a good slicer and I'm a really good slicer. With C n' C gone, it's me against the Empire. So, what's the plan? Compile a list of all the heads the Empire want to put on spikes, the Jedi rank number one on that list, though they never aided us, too few they said.

Anyway, run interference, make forged manifests, forged IDs, whole new identities. I'm not in the fighting business per se, though I consider myself a fighter. I'm an information gatherer, a procurer, a forger, a revealer of dirty little secrets, a lockbreaker, a thief. The Galaxy runs on code and metal.. that's my speciality.

Sophic is a collector of gear and tech. She looks to expand the company's capabilities with regards information gathering, gear acquisition and other non face-face facilitator functions. She provides dossiers, blackmail material, to the Face.. doing her due diligence. She works well with the Face. She finds out where they need to go, who they need to talk to, provides him with information to bargain with. He then talks the pants off them.

She provides installation plans to combat leaders, opens their locked doors, on occasion explosively decompresses a compartment that still have people in them, slices the system to slow countermeasures. She sets the charges.

She gets supplies to medics, fake military IDs for the seriously wounded so they can be treated in hospitals.

She keeps the ship running, though can't fly it herself, or pilot anything else for that matter. Her combat specialty was such that she got to do a lot of climbing and walking. Vehicles can be tracked, so she's generally been in an economy seat on forged documentation on a ticket bought with cash she's stolen. On a starship, she's only found in the engine room when it's on the ground and undergoing maintenance. In flight, she's on sensors and navigation, thus on the flight deck.

She hopes to have the wherewithal one day to have a small, silent and but invisible scouting droid, knowing 'all to well' the advantage to be had from knowing the other side is there, and knowing it first.

She's all support. If she gets caught in melee combat, she dies. If she has to pilot a ship, or talk someone down herself.. everyone's dead.

 

Character Arcs

Sophic has little regard for Jedi and Force Users. She's not going to say this in a nasty way, but more in a "You're a Jedi, so what?". That's sourced mostly on her Theoden's 'Where was Gondor (the Jedi) when the Westfold fell (we were getting slaughtered)?' way. So, there's a lot of space for her to become a fan.

Sophic is beaten down and broken. She's got survivor guilt. She's a dried out sponge waiting for the water of hope.

Theme

A blasted ruined metal strewn plain, smoking here and there with toxic fumes. This stretches as far as the eye can see. In the midst of this is the hovertrain track, upon which runs a hovertrain pulling a long, long line of cargo cars towards a vast processing plant, a toxic plume rising from which is visible even over the horizon. Around the plant, the dots of Mando patrol craft and drones flit back and forth.

From a rent in a ruined abandoned starship hulk, two figures, one clearly a jawa, the other a human from the pressure suit configuration, stealthily watch from a distance of five or so klicks, electronic binoculars in hand.

"Sophic promised me a show.." it squeaks, clearly invited along for some kind of surprise.

Sophic points, but says nothing.

"There's no way to board that train, it's guarded." says the Jawa.

Sophic turns and through the faceplate of her gas screening mask, respirator and rebreathing equipment, just grins... then turns back with binoculars. She flicks a switch and Sass, her friend, gets to see what she's looking at.

In the distance something seems to emerge from under the tracks as the train passes over it, there to maintain position beneath the train without any visible means of anchorage.

"You're using flotation and magnetic anchoring to keep it there.. contactless."

Sophic simply nods, as two more devices similarly rise from the ground, from the same patch of ground further and further back under the train.

"Clever, but the configuration will be flagged by the sensor array and the explosives.. you can't hide explosives."

Sophic presses another button and the floating object is overlain with a digital framework..

"Ah so it's separated into different sections, that combine at the last minute, innocuous configuration until it's too late. Clever, but what about the explosives?"

Sophic presses the button again.. can be heard to snigger.

"Ah.. binary explosive.." Sophic holds up three fingers. ".. only registers as explosives when combined, which suns!, won't be until it's too...." murmurs Sass, a note of wonder and grudging admiration evident in his rising voice. "A curse on their line, come on.. come on!", he starts to shout, lineage being a thing with Jawas, urging the train on.

Sass returns his attention to the train, in time to see the train cross the processing plant's boundary. The foremost flotation device seems to air brake, combining with another section further back, which then air brakes too, combining with the third section, all of which then clamps onto the underside of the still fast moving train.

Klaxons instantly blare from the Processing Plant as sensors put two and two together... much too late. Mando perimeter gunships veer away, punching it, but it's a done deal now, the 'sleight of hand' bomb is driven right inside the processing plant.

In utter silence, like a breath before a dive, the blinding light from the explosion reaches them first... as the entire complex disappears inside a massive supersonic shock dome that extends for kilometres. Gunships, drones, everything.. disappears... annihilated.

In their nook, both their visors black in the glare, the two bosom buddies scream in utter joy and delight which echo inside muffler earpieces.

Then they are both on their feet, hugging, bouncing up and down, frantically delirious.

Sophic, in her mind's eyes, recalls seeing her uncle's body, beaten to a pulp, suit rent and torn, the word 'terrorist' daubed on him, set high on a spike by CommCorp for display. His corpse, over a gate into a Hab, was meant to keep the locals cowed and compliant. However, it did not have the effect they'd intended. She thinks her uncle would be yelling too, right about now, as would her friends the fight had already taken.

Sass is in the throws of something similar. Then the sound reaches them, a massive concussion. They both disappear entirely into blown dust, akin to a dust storm picking up massive sand dunes and just tossing them.

In CommCore habitat dome Parasesis, some forty klicks away, everyone stops in shock as falling dusk turns momentarily to blinding sunlight. There is much screaming and shouts of alarm.

Sophic and Sass rapelle deep into a sink hole making their getaway through a labyrinth of garbage tunnels, cable bridges, walls with hidden hand holds. Their precious recordings safe in shielded pouches.

Edited October 25, 2023 by Starhawk (see edit history)

[AdellRazh]

Excellent.

[Starhawk]

Sophic as an information gatherer, forger, black market supplier would probably fit inside most PC stories at some point, since she helps people who don't want to be found get lost. She also provides things the Empire doesn't want people to have to precisely those people the Empire wouldn't want to have them. For smuggler types she can put together a very nice 'end user' certificate, a very nice 'bill of sale', a very nice ship registration.

 

Sophic would fit into an Andor-like game well, being the back room counterpart to someone like Luthen. She's a survivor of a desperate fight that turned into a lost war, in which her side was betrayed by their former allies, The anti CIS Republic. Given this she's a good match for Aelyx's post..

Aelyx

She'd fit best in a story of desperation punctuated with grand (even if ultimately futile) acts of defiance, in the vein of Andor.

---

Sophic would also fit well into a Firefly style group, being pretty much hopeless in several areas and so would match the sentiment expressed in Renlo's post.

Renlo

Renlo isn't the Main Character, and while he could be a supporting character, he's really designed as a character for a story where all the characters have their moment to shine. His best fit would likely be in a Firefly-type story - a story focused on the crew of a single ship, taking on what work they can so they can keep flying.

Though there's nothing stopping Aelyx's game and Renlo's game being one and the same, since Aelyx's post is about mood, while Renlo's is more about the situation and the group dynamic.

---

Jor'dan

Personality wise, there's a lot of overlap between Sophic and Jor'dan. They're both soldiers (though he might consider her an armed civilian), both war weary, both carrying around a fair bit of inverted snobbery, both pretty much orphaned by the war and looking for new people.

---

Bambi

Bambi, skills wise, is clearly everything Sophic is not, in practically a 'you complete me' fashion. They share a criminal underhanded 'they'll come at you sideways' vibe. Someone has to build Luthen's toys.

---

Eksy

Well Sophic and Eksy constitute a droid and a droid builder/repairer, both hardware and software, so there's that. They're not really on the same wavelength personality wise, since Sophic's not into revenge, just into fighting, winning and hopefully not dying. On the other hand, differently motivated individuals often see the same opportunities to do some damage.

---

Darion

Darion's a smuggler who helps out planetary communities in trouble. Lots of overlap there. Sophic's a criminal. Darion's a criminal.

---

Not seeing overlap or there's not enough current detail to say whether she'd group up with...

Mathias

Kishatriya

Zaffo

Zin'dak

Trrihuunchyyywl.. can't think of a reason why she would associate with someone who dislikes everyone. :(

 

 

 

 

Edited October 23, 2023 by Starhawk (see edit history)