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Jannafette & Qua'Jurein (Introduction and character/setting advice desired!)

LittleWasp

Well-Known Member
Hello, everybody!

While I've been engaging in textual roleplay for a few years now, I have yet to try my hand at forum roleplay, much less in a pre-existing setting. Considering that Star Army from its beginning was geared more towards militaristic, humanoid characters, I wanted a bit of advice on whether a completely non-humanoid character would work or be welcome in the setting.

The character I have in mind is one of my first roleplaying characters: a young girl named Jannafette whose mind was transplanted into the equivalent of a giant, space cockroach in her mid-teens. She's long been a heart string-pulling character of mine, primarily involving themes of personal identity and social anxiety. Having been forced into her current body against her will, she suffers from social anxiety and struggles to build bonds with strangers; after all, who wants to hug a giant bug? Jannafette, with a thought-translating voice collar installed into her head, manages to scrape a living as a freak show of sorts: An eccentric inventor 'friend' of hers builds an elaborate set of woodwind-style instruments for her to use simultaneously through each of her breathing spiracles.

Jannafette's character comes hand in hand with my miniature, sci-fi setting: an artificial planetoid named Qua'Jurein. Split into four distinct segments going from the outer Margin, the slums of the Xylem Sprawl, the merchants and middle-class in Tepellei and finally the mysterious Sepalla in the very core of the planetoid, where its mysterious, cephalopod proprietors reside. Qua'Jurein is very much an illegal operation, whose malicious owners frequently dip into inhabited systems to abduct people for experimentation in the depths of Sepalla, or to be dumped into the massive social experiment of the Xylem Sprawl. Tepellei is the bridge that crosses the gap between most civilised races and the alien owners in Sepalla; smugglers, mercenaries, rich criminals and other powerful, unscrupulous types make it their home, and it is the primary trade and communications link to the outside world.
The Xylem Sprawl, by comparison, is a mess of lonely, rusted maintenance corridors, mazes of twisting pipes, and cavernous rooms filled with scrap, since converted into make-shift cities for the inhabitants. The people in the Xylem Sprawl are impoverished and struggle to find food, often earning pitiful pay from the businessmen taking advantage of them from Tepellei.
While primarily a sickly social experiment by the creatures of Sepalla, it is also Qua'Jurein's primary defence against law-abiding aggressors. Besides its powerful drive systems and weaponry, the people of the Xylem Sprawl, at a moment's notice, can be repurposed as hostages by the government in Sepalla. Stretching from the core to the outer Margin are massive waste funnels which at a moment's notice can be repurposed from their usual task of removing garbage to mass removal of atmosphere. In addition, the many defensive mechanoids stalking the maintenance corridors can be tasked to eliminate those in hiding, and if the situation is dire enough, the entire outer shell of Qua'Jurein can be ejected into space in segments, leaving a decompressing boatload of innocents for the authorities to deal with while the planetoid escapes.

Considering the heavily lawless of Star Army's world, I at least hope that Qua'Jurein can fit in well there, and that people might be interested to ply its depths.

As for how Janna fits into it, she was one of the many people abducted from a planet when she was a teenager. After a few months of social experimentation, she was subjected to a mind transfer into a Qua'Jurein pest insect: A roughly cat-sized ant-like creature that infests the Xylem Sprawl like rats.
After being tagged with a microchip, a kill-switch and a voice collar, she was unleashed into the Sprawl to partake in the sad life of its inhabitants. Considering her current body, finding friends is hard, and avoiding abuse is harder.

To finish up, I'll post a link to my original profile of Jannafette that I wrote up on F-list (the place where I first started roleplaying, but am gradually tiring of). https://www.f-list.net/c/jannafette/

I hope to get into playing here soon, and hope even more that my character/setting is of interest!
 
Welcome to Star Army! I hope this will be a great RP home for you. It's good to meet you!

Wow, this is way more than unusual than I'm used to! But I'm actually okay with this bio. We allow unique species and characters with vague origins. It's actually quite cool to have a little more weird and "out there" stuff coming into the Star Army setting, so I'm excited.

If you want to permanently make your ideas part of the (canonical) setting here, here's what I'll need:
  • A character biography article for Jannafette (you can RP her in Open RP forum without this, but you'll probably want this at some point anyway).
  • An encyclopedia-style article on the planetoid (doesn't have to be huge). You can make this on our wiki or post it here and I'll make the wiki page for you. Your F-list version of this already covers a lot of ground on this.
  • (Optional) species articles for the species on the planetoid - don't worry about these much for now, but I would love to have these insectoid pests in our setting.
Is she able to communicate with humans? Also I want to state upfront: certain factions in Star Army's setting (Yamatai mainly) may have the technology to transfer her mind back into a human-like body if, in the RP, she requests for them to do that.
 
Thank you for the reply!

I was in the process of making an article for Janna, but the humanoid-geared nature of the form made me want to first ask about it here. I was also getting pretty tired, so there was that too!
I'd certainly love to write up some articles relating to Qua'Jurein, though; there's a lot of ideas rebounding in my head.

And yes, Janna can communicate. She has a 'voice collar'; a crude, thought translator wired directly into her brain which lets her speak her mind, literally. I was also aware of Yamatai's abilities when it came to mind transplantation. I've tried exploring Jannafette with a return to her original, humanoid body, but it left a lot of what made her interesting behind in the process. The microchip in her brain is capable of exploding at a moment's notice, if commanded to by Qua'Jurein's authorities, but I worry that using that as an excuse seems a bit contrived. I could also go for a 'self-acceptance' character-arc with her, particularly if she makes some friends who enjoy her for what she is, but I also concern myself that it would seem too shoe-horned in.
 
I think she'll work fine. If guess not a lot of people even think to make non-humanoid characters, which was why I was intrigued and surprised.

I'm reminded of this character, Crash McKill, who is one of Star Army's handful of non-humanoids. He's an AI in the robot body below:
fetch.php
 
I'm a bit predisposed towards making insectoid characters; I have a great love and passion for insects irl (particularly wasps, as one might guess from my name), so I'm always trying to find a way to make a relatable insect character.

With a name like Crash McKill, I assume he's not quite as cuddly as Janna, correct?
 
I'm pretty sure he killed at least 2-3 dudes.

Oh, hey, in my RP (the plot for the YSS Eucharis) we're about to board a ship full of bug dudes. Maybe that might be a place we could insert your character at some point.
 
Possibly, provided there would be an adequate connection between said bug dudes and Qua'Jurein for Janna to be there.

Edit: Got around to adding a page for Jannafette on the wiki. https://wiki.stararmy.com/doku.php?id=characters:yamatai:jannafette
If I understand things correctly, I should only submit her for approval once I have found a plot I would like to take part in, yes? In that case, I'll happily keep writing up lore on her and Qua'Jurein, since I greatly enjoy doing that.
 
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Just noticed your edit. You can submit a character page at any time. If it's not for a specific plot, I or another character approver can approve it.
 
As the player of Crash I would have to say Crash is pretty cuddly, but has only killed to protect people, past that he has very strong believes in non-violence.
 
I'll have to try and get Crash and Janna to cuddle some time. It can be one of my roleplay goals.

In other news, I've been working on a wiki page for Qua'Jurein: https://wiki.stararmy.com/doku.php?id=places:quajurein
It's been interesting expanding on an idea I've left kind of dormant for a long while, particularly Tepellei, which I'm not sure I'm happy with. In any case, it's fun writing this stuff, and I'd love to see what you all make of it. Feedback!
 
Welcome! If you're looking for active plots to join, might I suggest checking out the new plot I am starting called Orochi Squadron? I'm aiming to make it a great place for newbies to quickly jump into the action side of SARP, and get a feel for PA combat and adventure fighting the NMX menace. Hope to see you there. :)
 
Welcome! If you're looking for active plots to join, might I suggest checking out the new plot I am starting called Orochi Squadron? I'm aiming to make it a great place for newbies to quickly jump into the action side of SARP, and get a feel for PA combat and adventure fighting the NMX menace. Hope to see you there. :)

Thank you for the invitation! Jannafette would be rather out of place in space battles against space squids, unfortunately (except to sit in the pilot's lap and offer encouraging squeaks), but if it were of interest I wouldn't mind having Qua'Jurein involved in something like that. Even if it were a brief cameo of sorts. Being a mobile planetoid, they could easily cross paths with the enemy by accident or some such.

I'll have to think of writing up a more humanoid character soon, to fill the gaps Janna can't. Hmm...
 
Greetings and Salutations! I just had to post that I really like the whole concept that you have going for your character and can't wait to see what happens with her! Maybe she could meet up with one of my characters, most likely Analiese..since she IS my first one! Even if it's just on a small aside of RP that doesn't really take place within any of the main settings.
 
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