Sure. But then you get people who do what Veekie was thinking of doing, and choosing one Plan because it has one specific option that they want and try to make it win, not because they agree with the overall plan. That's why you usually only end up with only 2-3 plans with that format, because it's more likely for a plan to win if you jump on a pre-existing one that only has some of the options you want, then to create a new plan and risk none of them happening.
So the same thing happens anyway. At least this way, people can choose the options they actually want instead of compromising and voting for a plan they don't really agree with just so one particular option can win.
Granted, this really only works in character creation and not anywhere else.
Sure. But then you get people who do what Veekie was thinking of doing, and choosing one Plan because it has one specific option that they want and try to make it win, not because they agree with the overall plan. That's why you usually only end up with only 2-3 plans with that format, because it's more likely for a plan to win if you jump on a pre-existing one that only has some of the options you want, then to create a new plan and risk none of them happening.
So the same thing happens anyway. At least this way, people can choose the options they actually want instead of compromising and voting for a plan they don't really agree with just so one particular option can win.
Granted, this really only works in character creation and not anywhere else.
I mean yeah, tactical voting on plans to get what you care about at the expense of what you don't don't is a thing, and it's been a thing since before I started lurking. It's just the voter's decision that they have something they really want above all else, and AFAIK it's legal unless you're messing around with sock puppets for extra votes or something.
With your plan too it's possible for a group of voters to come together with a character idea they are all interested in, compromise until it's something they all like and would vote to play as, and attract enough other voters to become a plurality and the largest block in the running. Only to have the core of their character ripped out and replaced with something else because while everybody else couldn't agree on what to pick enough people voted for that specific option they outnumbered the plurality. Something that would be entirely legal, they do have more voters after all, but still tears up and throws away a lot the effort your largest group of players put into your quest right in front of their eyes.
It's a messy issue, and as I said I don't think there is an easy way to combine plan and individual votes without stepping on someone's toes. It's why I say the simplest solution would be to just cut the Gordian knot and ask for a QM ruling on whether votes must be in plan format (so that everyone can focus on building a character the rest of the thread will vote for), or must not be in plan format (so everyone votes for their individual favorites without tactical voting, and we build the character out of what we get at the end).
[X][ORIGIN] ...a kidnapping victim. As sad, absurd and improbably hilarious as it sounds, the Second Honkai War most likely saved your life. Very, very few people can put a claim to that.
[X][MOTIVE] ...signed up immediately. Gave any excuse you could: glory, duty, justice. You just didn't want to feel that powerless ever again; join the rest of the nameless dead as just another damn statistic. You'll take absolutely anything you can get.
[X][BASE] ...Schicksal Headquarters. Seat of the Schicksal Overseer, Otto Apocalypse, training here granted you the best trainers and equipment possible, honing you to the finest edge. You are a member of the Main Branch of Schicksal.
[X][STR] ...weapon skill. Obviously, a Valkyrie's weapon is their life on the battlefield. Prioritizing mastery was the obvious path. You're an accomplished Fighter.
[X][WEAK] Unfortunately, it's with your Stigmata. It hasn't quite… integrated correctly. For all the will in the world, your body just isn't that compatible, and now your days are numbered.
[X][WEAPON] The Lance. You still remember those gentle white flowers.
Will we get a consolidation round before closing then?
Its kind of hard to tell whats in the lead right now, and I think I'd value going to St Freya over getting Cannon as weapon or Kidnapping as origin(and the rest I'm mostly iffy about.)
Sure, not having to build the main storyline around someone generic enough to be an audience insert helps, but that doesn't stop them from making hard-hitting storylines that do include the Captain either in the events.
When talking 'previous era relics(?)' I was referring to natural stigmata as a whole, broad concept.
Though @Baughn, your lore-fu is stronger than mine, are all stigmatas derived from the PE 4th Herrscher (ie Seele) or are they a broad spread from all the Herrschers like the Divine Keys? (Odd cases like Rin or the Keys of Domination aside). I haven't gotten to a point where the game goes properly into detail on what the Stigmata actually are (I'm near the end of the Theatre of Domination arc / middle of E.R chapter 2 currently).
I know the stigs let Valkyries do their thing, and the PE used MOTHs/MANTIS soldiers, with Project STIGMA being something conceived only at the very end and apparently enough to make Su banish Kevin to the Quantum Sea. If I'm recalling correctly, stigmatas were something they introduced to the CE humans very early on that then got muddied up by genetics.
Either way, for the Quest itself, the point is that you're one of the 'average Valkyries' / disposable grunts. A Red Shirt. You're not going to be someone too special, at least from the get-go. Like, I'm planning on a 'Otto's Attention Meter' mechanic that gets you Wendy'd when it goes too high.
Being an escaped/rescued Babylon Labs test subject is on the cards though; we know Theresa rescued a good few. Character Creation Part 2 will let us nail down specifics like that better; here the vote options have to be pretty fuzzy and broad to allow all possible combinations.
Though @Baughn, your lore-fu is stronger than mine, are all stigmatas derived from the PE 4th Herrscher (ie Seele) or are they a broad spread from all the Herrschers like the Divine Keys? (Odd cases like Rin or the Keys of Domination aside). I haven't gotten to a point where the game goes properly into detail on what the Stigmata actually are (I'm near the end of the Theatre of Domination arc / middle of E.R chapter 2 currently).
The origin of the stigmata isn't properly explained. From the Doylian perspective, they're something that got imported from previous game(s) (Houkai Gakuen 2), which didn't operate on nearly as hard-SF set of tropes. Judging by the story so far, there's going to be a proper explanation for their near-magic behaviour... someday. There certainly has been for all their other imports.
What we know so far is...
- They were created by DR. MEI, obviously.
- They're germline biotech. Apocalypse-proofing. If you have a fully functioning stigmata, you're resistant to Honkai Energy up to the point of functional immunity, even inside the quantum sea, where normal physics doesn't work. Which tells me the biotech part is more of a bootstrap mechanism, but doesn't tell me how they work. Some level of regeneration is definitely included, however. Anyone bearing a fully stable stigmata is probably biologically immortal.
- Practically no-one has a fully functioning stigmata. Bronya does, and Mei, but in Mei's case it's muddled by being the Herrscher of Thunder. Bronya is... not really the Herrscher of Reason, at least not this time around; that Core just seems to be highly agnostic about who uses it. Probably Joyce's fault somehow.
- If it doesn't properly activate, it kills you instead. This happens 99.9% of the time. This is why Su's group went against Kevin and tried to stop him from forcing their activation; he has nothing against the technology as such, just trying to use it when it doesn't work.
- It doesn't activate unless you're in a situation where you'd otherwise die, specifically due to honkai radiation. DR. MEI wasn't enough of an asshole for that. So the net effect, although it's never been put this way, is that if you shine intense enough radiation at enough people then most will die, but some get superpowers.
(Aside: "Honkai radiation" is a misnomer, and it only acts like radiation until you start digging a little. Honkai energy appears to be alive, at some level; it causes radiation-like damage because it grows, and the way in which it grows undermines regular physics. Yes, this is still by and large hard SF; it's a plausible implication of mangled worlds, which got explicitly invoked in Durandal's visual novel. I don't recall if this was ever stated explicitly, in those words, but it's not exactly speculative.)
- If it doesn't kill you, then the activation may still be botched. Sora, and Raven's other children, are an example. In Sora's case, she has total retrograde amnesia of the things that happened before it activated. She has no trouble forming new memories, but she can't remember who she used to be, and her personality apparently changed as well. She keeps reading her diary to remind herself of how she's supposed to act. Sora is one of the reasons why Mei won't be leaving Jormungandr anytime soon, incidentally, she latched on hard.
(Raven is objectively a great mother. Sora is in good hands, as are the others. The contrast between Bronya and 'Bronie' is sharp.)
What this suggests is that, as part of the activation process, it lifts your mind out of the biological substrate (aka, brain) and onto something else. It's not the only possible explanation, but it makes sense of everything we see, including the regeneration -- regeneration is much easier if you don't need to exclude certain parts of the body.
Or allow for growth. But, um, I'm not sure we've seen anyone with an activated stigmata ... grow, as such? I feel 'regeneration' may be a misnomer, potentially.
Getting back on track.
- Veliona, which is what I'll call the red Seele when I can't be bothered to set text color, made an interesting statement the first time she spoke with Seele. Which is that she's the stigmata's "AI".
She isn't, obviously. Veliona is the previous era's version of Seele. This is not in question; we know she existed, and frankly there's nothing AI-like about her at all. In more recent chapters Seele and Seele simply treat each other like siblings, which they essentially are. Veliona appears to have forgotten she said that.
It's still informative that she did. We have a few cases of "AIs" in the previous era...
* Ai-chan, who was originally a combat gynoid that Theresa defeated. Never mind her; we don't know her backstory. It's worth noting that she acts mostly human.
* "Prometheus", MEI's lab assistant, who is... Bronya. Literally Bronya. I don't know what happened here but I don't like it.
* Veliona, who clearly isn't an AI. We've seen her as the 6th Herrscher, and Abyss Flower -- the divine key created from her corpse -- is still around. In case anyone thought that was a coincidence, the most recent chapter had Seele touch it. They found it works much better for her than it ever did for anyone else, including its current owner, "Durandal".
I don't think they know how to create artificial intelligence. I think they know how to upload and resection human minds, chopping them down into something you can pretend is an artifical intelligence if you're utterly morally bankrupt, or impossibly desperate. What this says about Ai-chan, I'm not sure I want to know.
It's quite plausible that Prometheus is why Seele went herrscher in the first place...
In an echo of that, it's why she picked up her Core this time around. I don't think we've seen all the fallout from that yet.
Getting back to stigmata-in-general, the reason Veliona called herself its "AI" is... probably, that it needs an AI to work, and she got tapped for the role. HI3 is the sort of hard-SF universe where copying minds is possible, though not common; there's no reason why she shouldn't be in all of them. But Seele can be spiteful, and Mei likely had to knock out enough of her mind, to stop her resisting, that she wasn't able to do the job she's meant for.
I wish I could say that this might mean others, such as Sora or our MC, might potentially have a Veliona in the back of their heads, but... that's unlikely. She's so damaged she can't even do the job she's meant for; the chance she's sapient, or even sentient, is low. Veliona 'woke up' inside Seele, but that was Seele, and I've already suggested the stigmata itself repeats that same "AI-creation" process with its host -- with less mental resection -- which would be a prime opportunity for Veliona to crib her notes and heal a little. She still had to grow up all over again.
For that matter, it's a prime opportunity in general. I don't think it's a coincidence that almost every stigmata bearer is female. It's not like they don't activate on males; their odds of survival just appear to be (much) worse. Or that their personalities all seem... at least vaguely reminiscent of Seele's, at the time. Don't get me wrong, Seele and Mei and Sora and Bronya are all quite different people, but they were all fairly introverted and quiet at the time their stigma activated.
("Mei, quiet?" I hear you ask. Yeah. She's changed a lot.)
(Seele, in her backstory, got vaporized. Her apparent physical body doesn't, um, exist. Or possibly it does, recreated by an echo of Veliona's power over biology as the 6th herrscher -- but she's effectively a ghost, who cheats at hide and seek by fading out of reality entirely to hide. Yes, that's canon, and yes, Rozaliya still wins those games somehow.)
I think the lack of proper artificial intelligence is the main reason the stigmata don't work.
I know the stigs let Valkyries do their thing, and the PE used MOTHs/MANTIS soldiers, with Project STIGMA being something conceived only at the very end and apparently enough to make Su banish Kevin to the Quantum Sea. If I'm recalling correctly, stigmatas were something they introduced to the CE humans very early on that then got muddied up by genetics.
Stigmata are essentially the 'civilian models'. They're intended to let people survive otherwise unlivable conditions such as "Oh dear, our entire timeline went poof", without also needing to be capable soldiers or whatever. Yes, all the survivors who made it to the CE, way back, had stigmata. In germline form, at least. The genetics may have been breaking down ever since, since it's not exactly conducive to survival.
MANTISes are honkai hybdridization experiments, very similar to Rozaliya and Liliya. They're all different, and yes, it also had a high death rate -- but for totally different reasons.
Either way, for the Quest itself, the point is that you're one of the 'average Valkyries' / disposable grunts. A Red Shirt. You're not going to be someone too special, at least from the get-go. Like, I'm planning on a 'Otto's Attention Meter' mechanic that gets you Wendy'd when it goes too high.
Should be added that they are separated into three groups, all in all.
- True Stigmata (someone's connection to the Honkai/Imaginary Tree). Grants abilities even without a core. We have next to zero information regarding it, aside from it being super rare and every Herrscher having it.
- "Natural" stigmata created by Dr. MEI that was the result of studying Herrschers and their cores. These are bonkers. Kevin, Fu Hua and so on are their carriers.
- "Modern" stigmata that is, basically, incomplete/weak attempts at recreating the PE Stigmata with their owners having a shortened lifespan more often than not. Compared to the previous two, they are a joke.
[X] Plan In Honkai Bind Them
-[X][ORIGIN] ...a local. Your home wasn't even left in ruins; completely wiped out, the region left so scarred and barren there's no trace of any habitation. You were on a school trip at the time. Your parents, unfortunately, were not.
-[X][MOTIVE] ...signed up once you recovered. A Valkyrie took you in during the cleanup, and you desperately want to follow in her footsteps. She took some convincing… some slightly loud convincing, but you made your case in the end! Sure your artificial stigmata's a bit… wonky at times, but with family and friends behind you, you're sure to succeed!
-[X][BASE] ...St. Freya High. Founded by Theresa Apocalypse for the training of prospective Valkyries in response to… well, you've heard some rumours, but it's generally understood to be the humane option. You are a member of the Far East Branch of Schicksal.
-[X][STR] ...teamwork with your fellow cadets. You might not look like it, but something about Valkyrie squad tactics just clicked for you. You're a natural Leader.
-[X][WEAK] After Siberia… it almost feels like your life isn't quite real. Your survival a cosmic joke. The simulators aren't that realistic but even they sometimes make you… freeze up.
-[X][WEAPON] The Greatsword. The size of most Honkai Beasts requites nothing less, and you will crush them.
Edit: Is appearance going to be a separate vote or do you already have one in mind?
As you may notice, the total amalgamated vote (ie most popular by category) is actually the same as Plan: Worst Day Ever outside of the Leader/Survivor tie, so I'm kind of inclined to drop that idea.
We've had a lot of discussion re: lore and stigmata though...
Folks want me to call it now for Worst Day Ever and move to pt2, or should I leave the vote open for another 24 hours?
We forgot the pink elf in the dining room: the Elysium Realm is very evidently clear they can copy minds to machines.
It's interesting how they can apparently copy minds cannot copy souls. Otto's varied attempts to clone Kallen and Kiana only succeeded once he hybridised in a Honkai beast (Theresa) or used Sirin's core respectively (like, I've just played this segment, K423 is literally Sirin 2.0 rather than Bianka). Without that, even if the body is physically correct they won't achieve sentience. Meanwhile, making humans the traditional way, you have repeats from the Previous Era cropping up all over the place: MEI/Mei, HIMEKO/Himeko, SAKURA/Sakura, the two Seeles as established and so on. It's like there's a finite pool of them getting recycled.
yes there are also the Joyce clones in the manga but we don't talk about them
I haven't gotten to a point where the game goes properly into detail on what the Stigmata actually are (I'm near the end of the Theatre of Domination arc / middle of E.R chapter 2 currently).
The game itself is quite horrible at explaining all the setting details, it actually off loads a bunch of that to basically obligatory side stories if you're interested in learning the setting.
The problem being that as an English speaking fanbase we're still missing key elements of the background unless you want to dig through fan translations of the Anti Entropy and Durandal VNs, and the million different Fu Hua side material. It's abit of a mess wrt to Honkai's lore and material.
That disconnect is also why the foreshadowing for Durandal in the Kolosten arc just kinda fell flat beyond an offhand mention in Arc City, it was all basically in Durandal's VN.
Meanwhile, making humans the traditional way, you have repeats from the Previous Era cropping up all over the place: MEI/Mei, HIMEKO/Himeko, SAKURA/Sakura, the two Seeles as established and so on. It's like there's a finite pool of them getting recycled.
Other than the very obvious reason of Mihoyo just liking their characters so much as to use them again and again, I believe that's just a quirk of the extended Hoyoverse, you tend to find similiar enough people that fit into certain roles which I'm sure is due to the whole parallel world thing they have going on.
Other than the very obvious reason of Mihoyo just liking their characters so much as to use them again and again, I believe that's just a quirk of the extended Hoyoverse, you tend to find similiar enough people that fit into certain roles which I'm sure is due to the whole parallel world thing they have going on.
Lasers don't explode, they pierce through things. We'd essentially be hitting our enemies with a large heavy and metal object before sticking it in their face and pulling the trigger.
Lasers don't explode, they pierce through things. We'd essentially be hitting our enemies with a large heavy and metal object before sticking it in their face and pulling the trigger.
We are using a Laser cannon which is an oversized laser cutter at baseline. If @Guessmyname wants we could easily turn it into essentially a giant lightsaber for our ultimate.
We forgot the pink elf in the dining room: the Elysium Realm is very evidently clear they can copy minds to machines.
It's interesting how they can apparently copy minds cannot copy souls. Otto's varied attempts to clone Kallen and Kiana only succeeded once he hybridised in a Honkai beast (Theresa) or used Sirin's core respectively (like, I've just played this segment, K423 is literally Sirin 2.0 rather than Bianka). Without that, even if the body is physically correct they won't achieve sentience.
I was always under the impression - and Chapter 28 seems to corroborate c.f. "this universe allows a mind to find a matching vessel, but does not allow a vessel to gather the scattered pieces of a mind"- that that was mostly a matter of ...
Like, you can't copy what you don't have.
Kallen is straight-up dead and has been for 500 years. Her mind dissipated a long time ago.
It's apparently doable to move a mind around, or copy it to a new substrate, if you have the mind there to reference. It's not trivial, it's not easy - but then again, maybe the reason stigmata fail so often is that, well, they weren't actually as apocalypse-hardened as they needed to be. 50,000 years is a lot of time for an untested technology made in the last days of a losing war for humanity's survival.
But in the case of Kallen, like -
She's dead.
What is there to copy? What is there to move into a new vessel?
Nothing.
There's no working instance of her mind to reference.
If you want to transcribe a rare 16th-century manuscript to preserve it, that's great! But you're gonna have a real hard time without the manuscript in question.
Meanwhile, making humans the traditional way, you have repeats from the Previous Era cropping up all over the place: MEI/Mei, HIMEKO/Himeko, SAKURA/Sakura, the two Seeles as established and so on. It's like there's a finite pool of them getting recycled.
This is a fair point, to which the only rebuttal I can offer is "what if, um, something something SEA OF QUANTA something something IMAGINARY TREE something something maybe a herrscherin did it????"
I actually have zero good theories for why this is the case and it is frustrating.
[X] Plan Worst Day Ever
- [X][ORIGIN] ...a kidnapping victim. As sad, absurd and improbably hilarious as it sounds, the Second Honkai War most likely saved your life. Very, very few people can put a claim to that.
- [X][MOTIVE] ...signed up immediately. Gave any excuse you could: glory, duty, justice. You just didn't want to feel that powerless ever again; join the rest of the nameless dead as just another damn statistic. You'll take absolutely anything you can get.
- [X][BASE] ...Schicksal Headquarters. Seat of the Schicksal Overseer, Otto Apocalypse, training here granted you the best trainers and equipment possible, honing you to the finest edge. You are a member of the Main Branch of Schicksal.
- [X][STR] ...tenacity and perseverance. No matter damn what, you've pulled through. Surviving Valkyrie training is pittance compared to the Second Honkai War. You're a born Survivor.
- [X][WEAK] Maybe it's you, maybe it's the other cadets, but there's a divide there. You've never been able to connect with any of them.
- [X][WEAPON] A Laser Cannon. Because you've met subtle people, and they're all cowards.
Initial starting stats:
Survival: A- How proficient you are at the noble art of not getting killed. This is one part sheer stubbornness, one part smarts and knowledge. At A-, you're abnormally difficult to keep down. Wounds heal quicker, bones are harder to break. You're an annoyingly tough little cookie for a cadet, almost on par with the Schicksal regulars.
Combat: B-- A general statement on your capability in combat, and the stat determining your official Valkyrie Rank. Schicksal's main forces largely A-Rank Valkyries, with the number of S-Rankers typically in single digits and with the Overseer's personal attention. At B--, you are completely typical of freshly graduated cadets.
Social: C How to am other people? Not like this, at C Rank. You're not... rude, exactly, but you struggle to connect or empathise with other human beings. Orders are far less ambiguous. You're unlikely to offend anyone, but you're easily mislead.
Intrigue: D How good are you at poking around at secrets? How good are you at knowing when not to poke around at secrets? At D-Rank, you're only as well informed as an average Valkyrie graduate, which is to say you at least know the Honkai exist and that you should stab them. Congratulations. Schicksal's darker corners or the intrigues of serpents and Anti-Entropy are not well known to you.
Honkai Resistance: B Bluntly put, people exposed to high levels of Honkai contamination go insane or die. Honkai Resistance dictates how bad it can get before it will start seriously corrupting your mind and health. Obviously, this is a requirement to even fight the Honkai in any capacity. You're fit to handle an Outbreak or the outskirts of an Eruption, but facing a Herrscher directly is definitely beyond you. Walking up to and prodding a Honkai Reactor is also less than advised.
Honkai Output: C The maximum output you can manage with your Stigmata, needed to power battlesuits and certain weaponry. Keep this below your level of Honkai Resistance if you want to maintain your sanity and health! 6 out of 10 Schicksal doctors all agree!
Stats run E -> SSS as you might imagine, with +/- modifiers in-between.
Attention Levels: There are some very big fish in the world, and when something as small as you get their attention, things happen. Step carefully.
Otto Interest: 5/20 (Unknown)
Anti-Entropy Interest: ??/25 (Unknown)
World Serpent Interest: ??/?? (Probably Unknown)
Honkai Interest: ??/?? (Hopefully Unknown)
You still remember that day.
"Don't worry, we're here to rescue you!"
"Don't worry, it's just a check up-"
"You've got very high Honkai resilience! Such a lucky kid, don't need to worry about a thing-"
You suppose, in a sense, they were entirely correct. There was no need to 'worry'. The dangers you faced were entirely non-theoretical.
[ ][KIDNAP] You were rescued by Theresa Apocalypse from the belly of Babylon Labs. A "test subject" without a name. They'd had you for weeks, and you know very well the only reason the Overseer's granddaughter even found you was Sirin wiping the facility clean. Given you're training at Schicksal Headquarters now rather than at the school she took you to originally... well, you've clearly had your disagreements.
- Saw Sirin pre-Eruption, though you've never technically met (all her actual cell-mates died)
- Something happened between you and Theresa to make you pick Schicksal HQ over St. Freya.
- Intrigue to B Rank. You are perfectly aware of Schicksal's darker corners, thank you very much.
- Unfortunately, the above is reciprocated. Otto Interest +15: you will start at Known.
[ ][KIDNAP] You had been kidnapped from a hospital after developing strange, angular rashes. You don't know where they were taking you, or why, but the Second Honkai War put a rather rapid end to their transport attempt. You've... investigated the matter very discreetly since, but between the route and the location you honestly can't say whether you were being taken to Babylon Labs or not. The Herrscher of the Void's emergence on the same day was a genuine coincidence.
- One of the faction's interest starts at +15.
- Intrigue to C Rank from self investigation.
In the end, after much poking and prodding and more faceless doctors than you care to count, there was an eventual conclusion:
[ ][STIGMATA] You had a weak, minor, natural Stigmata, with minimal side-effects beyond a raised Honkai resistance. Almost enough to get attention, but too ineffectual to entirely matter. You still needed an artificial Stigmata to do anything useful, but at least there's no interference.
- Run-of-the-mill Valkyrie. Potential risk of complications from artificial Stigmata.
- Honkai Output to C+
- Otto Interest +2.
[ ][STIGMATA] You had a weak, natural Stigmata that the Second Honkai War partially activated. It took some work to stabilise it properly, but since it meant you could become a Valkyrie without relying on a purely artificial one meant you had no complaints.
- Run-of-the-mill Valkyrie. No artificial stigmata needed.
- Honkai Resist to B+
- Otto Interest +3.
[ ][STIGMATA] You had a weak, minor, natural Stigmata that only granted Honkai Resistance... and worse, the bloody thing keeps interfering with your artificial one in unpredictably frustrating ways. Quite frankly, you're barely a Valkyrie.
- Below average Valkyrie. More or less continual risk of complications from artificial Stigmata.
- Honkai Resist to B-, Output to B+. Careful now.
- Misbehaving Natural Stigmata.
- Otto Interest +0. For now.
Those training at the Schicksal Headquarters were there for only one thing. To be the best, skilled, most powerful Valkyries they could be. Socialisation was never as necessary. To you, it wasn't the point.
[ ][ASOCIAL] You blame your peers. Starry-eyed idiots who looked at a pretty girl on a recruitment poster and thought 'I want'. They haven't seen the things you've seen; never saw Siberia burning. They just don't get it.
- Congratulations, you're a teenager.
- Improved relations with other Second War survivors.
[ ][ASOCIAL] It's nothing personal, it's just how you were trained. The Schicksal Headquarters are like that. You're nothing new. For humanity to survive, the Honkai must be fought; you'll follow your orders. Much like your choice of weapon, you prefer to think directly in straight lines.
- Basically the 'Durandal Option'.
- Social to C+, Intrigue-
[ ][ASOCIAL] It's a side-effect, apparently, from your Stigmata's activation. Memory muddled, emotions muted. The only thing distinctly remembered is that burning desire to live. You struggle with emotional cues and body language, favouring the most direct interpretations. Put politely, you're blunt as heck.
- Social to D+
[ ][ASOCIAL] It's you, it's definitely you. Other people are exhausting: so many possible things they might want, so many ways a conversation can go, so many ways you could be hurt or accidentally offend. It makes your head spin. Small doses are fine but you're just... not good with people.
- Congratulations, you're a shy, teenaged introvert with crippling self esteem. Get in the giant laser, Shinji.
Basing out from Schicksal HQ has other benefits, of course:
[ ][BONUS] Your battlesuit is distinctly above the norm. In recognition of your preference towards long-ranged fire, you have a somewhat primitive jetpack to give you the best angles.
- Limited flight allows for various options.
- Standard laser otherwise.
- Otto Interest +3 (battlesuit development)
[ ][BONUS] Most B-Rank graduates don't get to play with the more advanced weaponry, but cannoneers are rare in the Valkyrie forces. You have an in with the Mikoyan Design Bureau. Most lasers are a 'maintained contact' design requiring a target to be continuously painted. Yours is more of a violent pulse. More immediately and reliably destructive, but it puts a strain on your Output.
- Combat raised to B
- Otto Interest +5 (weapons development)
- Firing the thing involves a big spike of Honkai Output. Keep an eye on your rate of fire.
In general, you'd say your role in combat is:
[ ][ROLE] Long-ranged support. You're a sniper, first and foremost, picking off threats at range.
[ ][ROLE] Armour breaker. You burn down and cripple the more dangerous ones so that others can land the killing blows.
[ ][ROLE] You have a giant laser cannon. You can fight through walls. If they can see you before you fire you're doing it wrong. Collateral damage? You fight in irradiated hellholes anyway.
[ ][ROLE] Area denial. Things that stand in front of you die. Force masses of Honkai beasts to split up and your teammates can divide and conquer.
[ ][ROLE] Punching high. There are many things a B-Rank Valkyrie will struggle to fight in melee. When that happens, you're there to, at the very least, provide a thermal discouragement.
[ ][ROLE] Melee. Yes, it's a giant laser cannon. Yes, you fight in melee with it. Your point, kind sir?
[ ][ROLE] (write-in, if there's a potential strategy for giant laser cannons not covered here)
A/N: I was going to put elemental types in this part, but given it's a giant laser cannon, your pretty much shoe-horned for fire/lightning damages. Insofar as the 'mechanics' actually care, at any rate. To be honest, I couldn't come up with an interesting vote for it.
On further reflection, appearance is getting pushed to the first actual story update, once we have a properly established character.
I was always under the impression - and Chapter 28 seems to corroborate c.f. "this universe allows a mind to find a matching vessel, but does not allow a vessel to gather the scattered pieces of a mind"- that that was mostly a matter of ...
Like, you can't copy what you don't have.
Kallen is straight-up dead and has been for 500 years. Her mind dissipated a long time ago.
It's apparently doable to move a mind around, or copy it to a new substrate, if you have the mind there to reference. It's not trivial, it's not easy - but then again, maybe the reason stigmata fail so often is that, well, they weren't actually as apocalypse-hardened as they needed to be. 50,000 years is a lot of time for an untested technology made in the last days of a losing war for humanity's survival.
But in the case of Kallen, like -
She's dead.
What is there to copy? What is there to move into a new vessel?
Nothing.
There's no working instance of her mind to reference.
If you want to transcribe a rare 16th-century manuscript to preserve it, that's great! But you're gonna have a real hard time without the manuscript in question.
This is a fair point, to which the only rebuttal I can offer is "what if, um, something something SEA OF QUANTA something something IMAGINARY TREE something something maybe a herrscherin did it????"
I actually have zero good theories for why this is the case and it is frustrating.
I see your point re: Kallen, but he had literal physical access to the original Kiana and the Kallen clones still had a greater success rate, in the 1970s. I can't help feeling that if cloning was a viable option, the Previous Era would absolutely have mass-produced... I dunno, Kalpas or someone to fling at their enemies. Mobius would definitely have been down for that if it was a viable approach to take.
Or at the very least, using clones as backups in event of mass death events, which were pretty consistent in that era.
There's something up with cloning that makes it a non-viable option for some reason. Stack the 'repeating souls' thing on top of each other and it's pretty suspicious.
