Approved Character [ISS Dig-It] Naffie

Naffie, a character by Navian, for the ISS Dig-It.

Freespacer (Type Two?), neuter female. Born circa YE 30. Independent. Full name and trade not disclosed. Appears to be a starship technician. 142 cm, 40 kg. Compact, with pale, silvery skin, violet eyes, and mostly straight, neck-length, blue, hair. Physically appears 12 years old, with a voice to match. Unscented.

Naffie is highly enthusiastic about her work, though she does not seem to focus on any one profession. Starships, robots, weapons, and armour are all among her interests, although she is more competent working with software and electronics, or other abstract systems. She is aversive toward work on organics and softer sciences, despite being well over 98% organic (or at least biogenic), herself. She is personable and a pragmatist, with a tendency toward overconfidence. She has virtually no experience interacting with other races and cultures, though she lacks preconceptions as well.

Naffie was born between YE 29 and 32 as a second-generation colonist at a beehive-style planetoid settlement. The system remains independent of any interstellar polity, but is an interplanetary state with control of its home system. Since their star has no worlds around it considered 'habitable' by any known race, and tends to flare with radiation lethal to most others at random intervals, their independence goes uncontested, despite meagre defenses.

Naffie gives inconsistent explanations of when, why, and how she left home, in the past year or two. It can be surmised that her primary motivation was to seek freedom of employment, and an identity crisis is also involved. She has no connections, but often speaks in praise of a chief engineer from back home she refers to as 'The Queen'.

Naffie has served aboard mining vessels before, though they ranged from one to two orders of magnitude smaller than the Dig-It, and were not nearly as capable. On most missions, she was third crewman, or occasionally second, often with a Type Five commander. She has never been in command, except when those outranking her were incapacitated. She can navigate, stay on course, and interact with space traffic control, though it would be unwise to trust her with docking or landing maneauvers. Using sensors to detect and prospect asteroids is something she's done frequently.

Naffie's main task while aboard ship is more usually taking care of the engines, including maintenance, performance enhancements, and repairs. She is surprisingly adept at overclocking without causing disasters, as she needs to be, given her tendency to flounder with major field repairs. She has experience designing and building new smallcraft.

Naffie's skill with computers and networks is such that she takes it for granted, does not recognize it as a skill, and would not think of suggesting to use them professionally; they come as naturally to her as walking and talking do to most others. She practices and tinkers with these at all times while off-duty, effortlessly and obliviously.

Naffie can wield a monofilament blade without hurting herself, which is a more impressive claim for these than for most other weapons. She can also handle lightweight firearms, so long as they have zero recoil. Hiding and operating drones is a better strategy for her to use if fighting erupts, though it'll take her some encouragement.

Naffie has no other skills of note, though she has a strong academic background in all the natural sciences.

Naffie comes equipped with a implant computer system, Origin armoured pilot suit, Standard Energy Pistol (Mk. II), 'Mobile Spanner' drone, and a basic tool kit.

@Wes - This tag is for Navian, who confirmed they were 18+ in a talk. Gonna need them to get access to the boards if they're interested in the Dig-It.

Anyway, onto the character. It seems fairly solid, but there are some problems and things I'd like verified that will help me as a GM and help translate this better for when it gets turned into a wiki-page.

• I need to know Naffie's full Freespacer name for the wiki. It's fine if they're not disclosed to people in the RP, but the wiki and character pages are meant to display all the info on a character.
• Being born in YE 30, you need to make sure you just say YE 30. Later on it mentions between 29 and 32, which doesn't really fit. Keep it simple.
• If you want to be work-oriented, you would be a Type Two. If you want to be more social/"fun", then you'd be a Type Three. The fact she seems enthusiastic about work implies she might be just a diligent Type Three, but it's purely up to you.
• You mention she's over 98% organic. Does she have any cybernetic bits? If so, list them.
• Not sure on the mention of Type Fives being sent out due to how exceptionally rare those are. Type Two and Type Three Freespacers are far more expendable, but sending someone like that out will be an oddity I imagine. Going to get the opinion of @Primitive Polygon on this.
• Freespacers age differently, but based on her age she shouldn't appear 12. That'd make her 4-5 chronologically. She should appear 18 or 19-ish. See here.
• Your skills are presented rather oddly. We have "categories" that we normally limit up to an amount. Organizing your skills into these categories would be useful (though you could keep them in paragraph format for some probably) and needs to happen so I can make sure she's following the traditional ruling on skills that characters have. See here.
• Haven't gone through and calculated the costs of all the gear you have, but it seems initially fine. If it ends up costing more than the traditional costs, I'll allow you to work something into your history to make this load-out happen since it's relatively tame.

Long list, but TLDR: work on all this and @ me or link me it once you've amended it. The character seems to fit the Dig-It well and could be a good combat-engineer for the potential support mecha ideas I had/just generally constructing things in hostile environments. Looking forward to seeing where Naffie goes.

Right, uh... point-by-point, then.

• It's a pain to include her 'full name', since besides having no practical relevance, there are spoilers involved, and it's not official by Freespacer standards since she's from a breakaway faction, but if necessary, it's Scratchjob Naffie Eight-Four 84-4242-4286. As far as the polysentience is concerned, she doesn't exist, except maybe as someone they've met... in which case they'd not have the full name.
• The word 'circa' means 'approximately'. Not pinning it down is meant to keep things simple; having wiggle room means less contortion is necessary to build a consistent chronology later, when filling in more background information. There's no immediate effect on the character if I choose any number within this range, so I can just roll a d4 and say it's YE 30, after all.
• There's a reason for ambiguity regarding her Type. I know it probably looked like I was wondering when I wrote that, but the question mark is descriptive. Calling her 'Type 2' is an approximation; she's from a breakaway faction, so she's not in the system in such a way that her type is absolutely determined in an objective way. The network she is connected lacks consistent data, and will not answer the question.
• Aside from an implant computer, I have no specific ideas for what cybernetics Naffie might have. She might have an RTG, she might have some implants I'm not even aware of. If I'm absolutely required to give a complete inventory in advance, I might as well say there is nothing else, but that's not much fun. I have no intention of unilaterally revealing new powers, but I don't have any interesting ideas right now.
• I think the 'Type Five commanders' bit was another case of different descriptions on different pages. What I meant was, these pilots were synthetic intelligences directly installed in the ships, without organic brains or robot bodies. Since these ships were quite small, they'd have no need for huge supercomputers, which is what Type Fives seem to be according to the description I just read. It also seems to imply that everything but Type Fives does have a physical form, though, so it might be that this reference doesn't apply to anything, anyway. Another idea is, because it seems possible that a Type Five Freespacer could remotely control ships within the same star system, one might have been simultaneously commanding hundreds of mining vessels, in which case, even if the colony only had one Type Five in the population, it would still have justification for serving in this role, despite its rarity.
• Being physically 18 and physically appearing 18 aren't the same thing. Naffie is an adult, by Freespacer standards, in terms of chronological age. Still, she's only 4'8", has never gone through puberty (and never will, without specific intervention), has a generally youthful appearance, and a castrato voice. The only immediately visible sign she's an adult is that her teeth are all in, otherwise it'd stump Sherlock.
• By paragraph, the categories for the skills listed are Spaceship Operations, Maintenance and Repair (and some Engineering), Technology Operation, and maybe Biology. As described, she's not good enough at fighting to properly list it as one of her 'skill areas'. Since she has no special ability to perform the tasks listed as examples for Chemistry, it seems a stretch to include that, as well. The other major branches of natural science don't seem to warrant their own listings. As described, she's hyper-focused on Technology Operation, and does not have a broader skill set. If necessary, I can include all five in the list above and throw in Communication and Knowledge, which I might have been taking for granted.
• I think the gear adds up to 2875, 1300 for the computer/interface, 500 for the suit, 375 for the weapon with basic accessories (and 50 for the holster), 350 for the toolkit, and 300 for the drone, leaving 125.

So, the tl;dr for this is, I'm a little worried about rigid requirements being detrimental to the RP, here. @Legix Can we work with this, and... how much more work is required?

If there's any spoiler sensitive stuff, then handing that to me privately is fine (such as the name). I apologize if this is viewed as rigid, but most of the things I asked to know didn't seem like they'd be spoiler material. Ass-pulling stuff is a real hazard that I'd rather avoid in my RP, hence why I'd prefer KNOWING what parts of her are (at least visually) cybernetic and so on. As for age, the main reason I'd rather the actual birth year marked is simply because it gives me a tool that DOES matter (and can change your character's knowledge/experience in the world, accounting for the years that may/may not have been had).

Her not being in a system wouldn't stop someone from classifying her Type as well. Nor is everyone within X type EXACTLY the same. The physical appearance thing is fine, I suppose, but understand that she's going to be expected to not run around nude or something outrageous like that.

Most of the reason for specifications is that having moments in your history added/exposed is fine, but when you suddenly find out your character (for example) has special legs that allow them to suddenly land and not suffer from some 40-foot fall, that's the issue that stems from it. This is why I'm trying to have you iron things out and give some set-in-stone answers. You can make changes if you want, but tag me once you're sure that you got htings down. I look forward to getting a PM at least (so I know there's not going to be anything ridiculous) and will be responding for sure once I have the Type Five stuff cleared up by Polygon or one of the others more in-tune with how the Freespacers work.

I'd say the difference between an ass-pull and a proper reveal, in these terms, is whether or not it was approved in advance. Using something that hasn't been vetted would be just as bad as insisting your character can fly through a star when you were already told that no, they couldn't. I'm not going to introduce anything without asking first, but if there's something vital I forgot that would have been perfectly logical for my character to have, I'd hope to be given an offer to include it, rather than just told 'too bad, you should have studied more'. The character's cybernetics are internal-only, I suppose I can add that there's nothing to see.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'wouldn't stop someone from classifying her type'. I guess if a main faction Freespacer encountered her, they could tell everyone else what type she was, but it wouldn't become truth unless she joined them and was assigned that type. I'll explain what went on in her own faction in PM.

This character is going to be rated PG-13, or maybe R on a really, really bad day. I'm amazed that people trying to pull what you're describing is common enough to be worth so much vigilance. I do remember an RP once where a character suddenly revealed they were wearing an extremely massive lead vest under their clothes so they could take it off to justify being able to run down a jeep at highway speeds, but... I've only seen that once, in hundreds of RPs, and in that case it was because the community tolerated it. Hmm.

FYI: For access to adult-only forums, send me a conversation with a request to be added to the 18+ content usergroup. I need an actual request for my records.

Navian has a point here, let's try to be a little less uptight about this character application if possible, Legix. Remember that that purpose of a character review is to determine whether or not a character is acceptable, not to satisfy the reviewer's personal curiosity about the character's details. We can stick to the essentials for now and ask more questions later.

As someone who generally wasn't very uptight (all the others passed relatively without much change to theirs), I guess I'll tone it back. Getting the PM has cleared up a lot of things at the very least and helped relieve some of my concerns enough so that I'm fine going ahead and approving Naffie. As stuff is revealed, obviously, it will be up to you Navian to make edits/seek help to make the edits. Your Wiki page should be up soon (once I get around to getting it thrown together into an editable/fillable state for you).

Consider Naffie APPROVED for digging! I'll be getting in-touch with you to make an intro JP so we can get you into the main thread as soon as possible!

Sorry I'm late guys. This was posted pretty much as I went to sleep last night. Guess it's a good a time as any to clear a few things up, through.

First off, thanks for being so in-depth Legix, but yeah, pretty much every Freespacer character has been from 'some offshoot faction' since the schism. That's okay. Absorbing all of the really weird and creative character ideas is fine by me, and this is well written enough to warrant it I think.

Type Fives have become relatively more common since the IWL came about, so Navian's depiction is correct. Almost every Phantasm Gunship is piloted by one.

Her being super young-looking is also fine if it was intentional on part of the fleet, I guess. There is an argument that could be made about conserving time and resources, probably. The Type Two and Three argument is something that has always stayed a bit of a hodge-podge, no matter how much I try and make the Twos as more distinctly cyborg-equipped, so eh... It doesn't matter too much as long as they don't pull anything too advanced out of nowhere, since that would basically make them a Yammie cyborg instead. Weird is good, remember? Establishing their relationship with other characters in the universe is the main bit that is important, otherwise they just end up RPing alone forever.

Anyhow. Yeah. I already said it's well written enough. So they have my approval too.