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Approved Character [188604] Trendsetter Three-Nine 6597-6818

Navian

Navian

Inactive Member
For @Zack, a character I might enjoy playing and other members of USO might enjoy interacting with, hopefully at the same time. Standard form is below.

Trendsetter Three-Nine 6597-6818 is a player character played by Navian.

Species & Gender: Type III Freespacer Automata, Female
Year of Birth: YE 33
Organization: USO and the Shravana Hive
Occupation/Rank: Liaison Officer Candidate
Preferred Plot: 188604

Physical Description
T-39 is a svelte 167 cm, 50 kg anthropoid fashioned from stainless steel with photonic circuitry, equipped with an impressive knee-length wig of fiber optic cables that covers the rough silvery finish of her simple mannequin-like form, on the rare occasions it's not worn styled on top whatever haute couture she has on display that day. Her face has no mouth or nose, though wherever face veils and bandanas are in fashion--which she takes to mean wherever she is--this is seldom readily apparent. Understated black rubber covers conceal her joints, which are not only stylish, but essential for protecting them from the dust of the desert world.

Taking a page from the I'ee playbook, T-39's eyebrows are displayed electronically, and her stylized eyes--which are largely cosmetic in any case, as her vision is mostly provided by a small optic sensor embedded in her forehead--nearly always emit patterns of coloured light, which she uses in part to express her many emotions. Her anatomy is elsewise quite simple, with six fingers, two thumbs, and six toes found on the usual appendages, and evenly divided between left and right. She lacks other prominent fiddly bits, having an internal power supply, no wired connection, and well-concealed maintenance panels.

Personality
T-39 is exuberant, imaginative, excitable, and filled with joie de vivre. Indeed, she's the sort of person who would use phrases like 'joie de vivre' in normal conversation. There is nothing more important to her than making the world a more beautiful place, and her flexible sense of taste makes this a very versatile ambition.

Young even for a Freespacer, she greatly values the aesthetics of natural phenomena that became popular during her formative years, is equally enthralled by the potential in low-tech crafts such as pottery, and is driven by a strong undercurrent of liberal guilt. These combine to make her a dynamo of enthusiastic support for the people of USO, whose class system she seems almost incapable of noticing, let alone understanding.

T-39 is a socialite, through and through, though not necessarily extroverted. Although the life she's led has been physically sheltered, her presence and activity on the Hivemind has exposed her to some of the worst that the Shravana Hive has to offer, so her naivete has its limits. Still, an essential quality of T-39 is that she has difficulty distinguishing the various entities that she interacts with. This has about the effect of her assuming that everyone else she speaks to is also a creative type, like her, though perhaps one who is not so good with words, or at using their hands, in the case of, for example, dogs and horses.

History
Trendsetter Three-Nine 6597-6818 was created in YE 33 in the Shravana Hive's Type III Automaton production facilities, tutored nearby for five years. Although her Freethinking apprenticeship ended in failure, with allegations of 'overimagination', her Trendsetting apprenticeship aborted after three months when her bewildered mentor informed her that she could only learn from her charge, not teach her anything.

Though not explicitly given a pass by this, or any other remarks forthcoming from her mentor, she was accepted by the others in the fashion industry of her generation who completed their educations ahead of her, and continued to produce new clothing designs monthly until she was voted most likely to replace Groundbreaker Eight-Four 4242-4286 as the Shravana Hive's envoy to Uso's Star Organization in the first days of YE 39.

It didn't take long for her to go for the informal 'most likely' vote to churn into an official vote on the matter in fact, and by the end of the month she'd arrived in Osman City by Traveller shuttle, with high hopes of filling her predecessor's blue pseudo-suede shoes.

Social Connections
Trendsetter Three-Nine 6597-6818 is connected to:
  • Trendsetter 'Oilyrag' Seventy 0550-8949 (Former mentor)
  • Landscaper Four-Five 9645-5224 (Friend and coworker)
  • Potspinner 'Glass-eyes' Three-Seven 7364-8221 (Friend)
  • Paperpusher 'Deep Six' Six-Six 1490-7893 (Overseer)

Inventory
Trendsetter Three-Nine 6597-6818 has the following:
  • Wardrobe of fashionable clothes, in both Hive and Osman styles
  • Set of four (4) chakrams, for excessively stylish self-defense
  • Microbot hive, with bots optimized for electronics repair
  • Sample kit of decorative glassware and pottery
  • Maintenance kit for her own robotics

Character Will
In the case I become inactive (gone for more than a month):
  • Can this character be used as an NPC by a GM or FM? YES
  • Can this character be adopted after I'm gone for a year or more? YES
 
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If they wanted their own completely separate faction, I'm assuming they would need to go through the effort of getting approved by the actual site admins, same as every other faction. I'm not qualified to say yes or no, so it's best just to assume this is still a spacer matter.

So, yeah, right, here we go...

By 'anthropoid' I'm guessing they mean arthropod, as in bug or insect-like? 'Mountain' is also a confusing choice of words, since they are only 5"4ft tall. Other than that, it's fair enough. Some detail on what colour the eyes are, and if the body is actually silver in colouration, e.t.c. might help.

What exactly the occupation of "Trendsetting" entails would also go a long way to explaining what the deal with this character is. Their background doesn't really cover that much, either.

This submission needs a lot more clarity, really.
 
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'Trendsetter' translates to 'fashionista', more or less. Someone who's involved in clothing design, arranging outfits and displays, with some side business in interior decor and so on. 'Anthropoid' means resembling a human, nothing so interesting as arthropods, despite the similar spelling.

The word 'mountain' was mostly a joke, which might have been clearer if I'd gone with 4'11" for height. Oops. If you'd ever read the GURPS Dungeon Fantasy description of nymphs, that's the sort of look she's going for, albeit with no hope of achieving it. I should probably just use less colourful language.

Her eyes are designed to change colour to show mood, since she doesn't have any facial muscles to make expressions with. I suppose they'd be silver and black when turned off.
 
I can probably fit this in somewhere, but this is one way to answer the question.

What is a Trendsetter?
According to T-39: "A Trendsetter helps you actualize your sense of self-expression to its fullest extent! We help you effortlessly and gloriously tell the world who you are, what you believe, and how you feel all with the power of clothing, decor, and style, and create tools you can use to do the same when one of us isn't around. If you don't know where you fit in, a Trendsetter can set you straight!"

According to T-70: "A Trendsetter literally does just that. We establish new fashion trends by creating and promoting goods that individuals can use to express their affiliations, occupations, and partisanship, encourage the populace to positively identify with their given roles, and associate with the most progressive elements of our society. In other words, we ensure that everyone finds their groove."
 
The character's definitely not meant to be skilled, but if I included a skills section, it would look something like this:
  • Art & Vocations: While T-39 can design fashions, decorate interiors, etc. it's not clear this is a skill so much as a lack of inhibition. She does at least have the basic skills needed by a tailor or metalcrafter to do their work, and a knowledge of painting techniques (though this, too, is not the same as being a skilled painter.)
  • Biology: T-39 studied life sciences before entering her current profession and has a great deal of relevant knowledge, only some of which is horribly wrong. Biomechanics is about the only field that is relevant to her work as something other than a dubious source of inspiration for her designs; she's competent there.
  • Engineering: T-39 mostly designs clothing and decorative items which do not require engineering skill, but she dabbles in engineering so that she can also fulfill demands for armour clothing, computer clothing, and simple objects that are mostly but not entirely decorative, like clocks, table lamps, and eyewear.
  • Maintenance & Repair: T-39 can maintain and repair herself and most clothing or household items, though she has no special ability with other robotics, optronics, or anything else.
  • Mathematics: T-39 has the math background required to generate optical effects, understand orbital mechanics, make estimates and understand gravity. Since her brain is a computer, she can solve any equation she understands very quickly, and come to the wrong conclusions just as fast, otherwise.
  • Starship Operations: T-39 has basic training in how to operate a shuttle in case of emergencies.
  • Technology Operation: As a Freespacer, T-39 lives and breathes computers. Like anyone else in her field, she has a particular interest in design software and physics simulations.
 
Mostly I like a good skill section as it means we don't have to worry about a character spontaneously having secret combat training, hacker skills, science knowledge or what have you the second it becomes relevant or needed. By the skill list rules at least one of those should be communications since it covers the ability to read, write, and speak.

I'll discuss a couple of finer points with Primi on a sideboard since it has one or two minor implications, but otherwise it's looking fine to me.
 
Seems pretty doofy if characters don't have a native language by default. I just assume that a character with no skills section only has the skills their background implies, which certainly doesn't include any secret skills. I guess she doesn't need the emergency shuttle training if having that would require her to use charades and infographics all the time, not that there's anything wrong with that.
 
Well, again, clarity is what the skills section is there for. Even defining that a character is bad at something is more constructive than not saying anything. I even went back and added skill sections to a few of my own NPCs that became characters in 188604 by necessity, so yeah, I don't think the request was being unfair. There is also the question of having hobbies or being generally interesting for other characters to hang around with. As for communication, it is at least useful to know which languages the character speaks, at the very least. So yeah, a native language makes sense, but it won't do you any good speaking traditional Deoradh when a Neplesilian speaks trade to you. Yamataigo when speaking to Nekovalkyrja, e.t.c.

I have no objections as long as @Zack is fine with this. They might get ridiculed by other Freespacers for having a job that's pretty materialistic and superfluous to their normally survivalist nature, but as long as you understand that, it's no problem.
 
Pretty sure there's enough for T-39 to be ridiculed about, just due to being from an immobile planetoid colony with no proper space fleet. That's also the reason she can afford to do silly things like make novelty clocks and decorative floating light orbs (which I assume are their equivalent of table lamps), though. Anyway, she wasn't very popular at the Hive outside of her own social circle, anyway, and that's why she got shipped off to another planet. I think she's used to being a bit of a pariah.

I don't think the character would speak any languages other than Trade, same as the others.
 
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