Agent South Dakota

Backtagging: Within reason! If a thread is unfinished I'm generally happy to keep going, unless its been an extremely long time. Never hurts to ask.

Threadhopping: Network, go ahead (unless it's indicated as private, obviously). Action/logs, ask first.

Forthwalling: No thanks.

Off-Limits: No specific triggers, but prefer warnings for any graphic descriptions of violence etc.

Physical Affection: Only if you already know her well or she's initiated. She can be a very casually affectionate person, but only in certain conditions.

Kissing: With appropriate build-up.

Flirting: Go ahead. Responses will vary, but she's not inherently opposed. Expect guys to be shut down immediately, though.

Relationships: South's not exactly looking for romance, but if something happens naturally then it can be explored.

Physical Violence: Generally, ask first if something looks like it's heading in the direction of actual injury and be aware that South is an experienced fighter.

Fighting this character: South's an extremely skilled hand-to-hand fighter and good with a variety of weapons. It's not advised unless you know you can go toe-to-toe with someone with years of experience and the physique to match. However she's not superhuman, so...

Injuring this character: Minor is fine, anything more please discuss beforehand.

Killing this character: Please discuss beforehand.

Using telepathy/mind reading abilities on this character: Yes. You'll probably find a very hostile reception but she's got no reason to be prepared to resist.

CRAU Recognition: Ask first.

South feels and expresses most of her emotions with a notable intensity that is no clearer than it is in her expressions of anger. South has been known to physically lash out at her environment when something has driven her to rage, striking things such as lockers or electronic panels, and kicking over a bench during different outbursts—but never at people, or at least, not at friendlies. Though her temper can be short in general, South is never angrier than she is when she feels as if she’s been wronged; she is aware of when she is being treated unfairly and does not let it slide easily.

She’s not afraid to mouth off or tell you what she thinks, but she’s also capable of holding a great deal of resentment internally. For example, the resentment she feels towards her twin brother, North, as a result of a long history of feeling as if she exists only as one part of a pair in people’s eyes. This is a perception not helped by deliberate manipulation at the hands of PFL, in which they treated her differently to her brother to assess the effects of such disparate treatment on the twins and their relationship. In South’s eyes, North never recognised what was happening between them as he was too busy playing dad to a computer to see that he was pushing her away.

This, in itself, is a large part of South’s personality: she wants nothing more than to be seen as her own person, rather than as nothing more than her brother’s sister. She laments, after his death, how she had always wanted to just be able to have her own life—but that she still found that, now he was gone, she wasn’t sure how to move on with her life without him. Her relationship with her brother and her own individual identity is thus deeply complicated and something she’s still processing, especially due to the now-prevalent guilt over the events that lead to his death.

Perhaps partially as a result of these experiences, South can also be a very selfish person. At this canonpoint in particular, her own survival ranks above all else—even her own twin brother’s life and the life of her old friends/teammates. After spending months trying to convince her brother to abandon his AI, Theta, so that they could cut and run, she finally found herself in a position where it was his life or hers. She chose her own. Later, she would shoot Washington in the back to enable her escape, choosing her own life and freedom over potentially defeating the Meta, which would have secured the safety of other agents in the long-term.

This act was the conclusion of a two-sided lie that South had successfully kept up for months, revealing her to be an adept liar and a much more calculating person than her impulsive side may lead people to believe. During her time as Recovery Two, she not only lied to her own brother about her continued cooperation with Command, but also to Command itself, acting as if she was working in their interests whilst never turning her brother in and instead simply biding her time. She similarly used Command’s resources to lure Washington into a trap and claim the Delta AI for herself, all the while presenting herself to Washington as an ally.

Despite all of this, South has the capacity to be a deeply caring person—if she thinks you’re worth it. Prior to things beginning to fall apart at the Project, she showed concern for her teammates on multiple occasions (e.g. her brother when he was injured, York after the training match, and reassuring CT when she and she alone noticed her acting strangely before her defection). If South considers you one of her people, and you are not actively standing between her and her survival, she’s the sort of person who would set the world on fire to keep you both warm.

South is, overall, perhaps best known for her attitude and snark; loud, brash and energetic, she’s unashamed to speak her mind, whether with friends or her superiors. She jokes with and ribs her teammates and though sometimes these jabs can edge over the line from ‘teasing’ to ‘actually hurtful’, she’s rarely out to actually insult you. She’s used to being surrounded by people who can give as good as they get and bounce back, and she won’t take offence to most retorts; she just may struggle to identify those who do not take as well to her specific brand of humour, at first.

• South and her twin brother North grow up in poverty on an Inner Colony planet, with well-meaning but largely absent parents that, as South remembers keenly, used to dress the two of them alike when they were young enough for their parents to make such choices for them.
• The twins spent a lot of time entertaining themselves. South was the more boisterous and irresponsible of the two, getting into fights both because she couldn’t keep her mouth shut in general, and any time someone so much as looked at her brother funny.
• As soon as she leaves school, South enlists and North follows her, which pisses her off for multiple reasons, including that she was, in part, trying to get away from being seen as nothing but a twin. For the same reason, them being assigned to the same company pissed her off too, but she did come to appreciate having him around (most of the time).
• South and North are recruited by PFL after an incident where they emerged as the only survivors from their unit, having chosen to get themselves out alive rather than risk their lives helping the rest of their unit. This lead them toward a court-martial from which PFL saved them.

• South (and North) climb the ranks of Project Freelancer to sit in the top 10. For a while, South is ranked above her brother by one place—4th, whilst he’s 5th—until a mission at Bjorndal Cryogenics. Working together, North’s attempts at guidance throw South off her game and she’s discovered. In the aftermath, South’s rank is dropped and she never regains it.
• South is shafted by the Project at every turn. She’s denied a place on an important mission, has her rank repeatedly dropped, and is eventually denied an AI whilst her brother is set to be granted one. This is a part of an ‘experiment’ by the Project’s leadership, designed to observe the effects of giving one twin an AI and the other nothing.
• Agent Connecticut defects from the Project. Relationships in the top ranks grow tenser than ever.
• North is assigned his AI, Theta, a childlike fragment who seeks reassurance from North and quickly takes up much of his attention. South grows to resent Theta quickly, both because she is becoming sure she herself will never get an AI and because she sees North as playing happy families with him whilst ignoring their deteriorating relationship.
• Information Connecticut left behind eventually makes its way to Agent Texas, who recruits Agent York and North to help her break-in to rescue the Alpha AI.
• During the break-in, South confronts Agent Texas with a Missile Pod and could have stood a chance at beating her, if not for North intervening. After this, the odds turn against South. With an AI, his unit and two sniper rifles, North handily defeats South by shooting her in the leg.
• The twins defect.
• Sometime soon after their defection, South receives and accepts an offer from Command to ‘find, monitor and retrieve’ North and his AI; in exchange, she gets them to promise her an AI of her own. As Recovery Two, South lies to both her brother and Command. She never turns North in, but she continues to try and get him to give Theta up, especially once they realise that it’s possible they’re being tracked by something else—an ex-teammate now being controlled by his rogue AI fragment and hunting down other agents with AI, known as the Meta.
• The Meta attacks. North is gravely injured whilst attempting to fight it off and protect Theta. South hesitates for a moment too long and makes the choice to survive when she realises that she can’t win this fight. She watches her brother die and then the Meta knocks her out.
• She wakes up a while later, receives orders from Command, and then fakes unconsciousness until Wash arrives. She lets him fake her death, follows through on her orders, acting the part of an unaware ally, and then ‘kills’ Wash to give herself an opportunity to escape.
• South spends time on the run from the Project and the Meta with Delta.

She has to consciously decide to turn this on, it’s not a passive, always-on effect. She has to be within a 10ft radius of the specific person she’s using to trigger the effect and once she leaves that radius, the effect only lingers for maybe 30-60 seconds at most. However, these limitations decrease by 50% (15ft, 45-90 seconds) when the person used to trigger the effect is her brother. It cannot be immediately reactivated.

Voice Change: Based on both similar fears related to her own personhood and a unit/tactic South has been known to use in the past, South can change her voice to mimic that of someone else. To be able to do so, she has to have heard the person in question talk for at least a full minute.

➤How do you expect your character to respond to the setting? Even if they plan to rebel in the long term, will they be able to at least obey enough to not get shocked to death?

South has a bit of an attitude and an anger problem, she’s never been afraid to speak her mind when she’s not pleased with a situation, but at the same time she’s nothing if not determined to survive. She’s certainly not going to like being under Jorgmund’s thumb, and she’s likely to get a few shocks early on for mouthing off, but in the end South values her life. She’ll definitely rebel in the long-term, but she’ll be able to keep up appearances when push comes to shove.

➤ What do you hope to do with your character long-term?

I’d like for her to start opening up a bit again and bond with the group, get over her whole ‘I’m in this for me and me alone’ schtick and start to really do her part.

➤ If they're not used to cooperating with others, what makes you think they'll be able to adapt to cooperating with the group?

South has been working largely in her own interests for a while now, but she has experience working as part of a team and will be capable of working alongside the others as she’ll be able to tell that doing so will be in her best interests long-term.

➤ Will your character have long-term plans to rebel against Jorgmund? If so, how? Will they betray the other PCs and cooperate with Jorgmund? If so, how do you plan to handle the negative CR that might arise?

South isn’t going to trust Jorgmund as far as she could throw them and she will hate being under their control, so she’ll definitely want to rebel. She’ll likely cooperate with other people’s plans, so long as she doesn’t think they’re completely stupid or going to get her killed. Depending on how things play out she may also contribute in a couple of ways: either by pretending to be compliant and cooperative to get information, as she did as Recovery Two for herself, or by acting as a distraction of sorts by occasionally attracting negative attention when it may keep Jorgmund’s eye off others. It’ll largely depend on how things happen.

South would have been found wearing a set of power armour, which is equipped with an identical Dome Shield mod to her brother who is already on the rig. South’s shield only lasts 10 seconds, or 5 under heavy fire, and has a recharge period of half an hour.

She also arrived with Delta, an AI. Delta is a highly intelligent, analytical and logical—to a fault, sometimes. As a fragment he represents the Alpha AI’s logic. He was originally assigned to Agent York, likely with the intention of balancing out York’s contrasting traits. This went both ways, as whilst with York he learned more ‘human’ behaviours, such as humour. At this canonpoint he has recently witnessed Agent York die, after choosing to stay with him after he was gravely wounded, and is with South somewhat against his will after initially allowing himself to be implanted to help in a combat scenario.

On the rig, Delta will be held in a small puck-shaped storage unit. The unit blocks him from accessing any networks or computers on the rig. However, he can see and hear and project a small hologram to interact with others over the comms if his current bearer holds their comm up to him. This storage device can be carried on a chain around his current carrier's neck.

Outside the rig, he can be carried in her armor's storage unit or implant (if she has one) and he'll have his full capabilities (e.g. controlling her bubble shield, entering enemy computer systems, running live combat analysis, etc.)