So, this is a character idea I had floating around in my head, and I wanted to get out the muse, and I also get some critique on the writing / on the character itself. So, yeah. Enjoy.
The story will -- hopefully -- get more complex as time goes on. I have a few ideas, so I'm going to see if they pan out. The character I'm "roleplaying" is Henry, the socially-awkward android. In the context of the CDBZ world, he has Ki Sense, and Elemental Ki - Lightning. He's played by the Tallhat Gentleman.
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Thread Title: "To Protect and Serve"
“I’m not sure I follow.”
The young boy sipped his foamy liquid, subsequently placing the mug back in its former location, on the table. Henry endeavored to decipher this human expression, but did not allow his gaze to falter. His staring contest — another remarkable colloquialism he had picked up from this boy — lingered, despite the myriad of information his mechanized brain shifted its focus to.
“You are the chosen one,” the android retorted, acknowledging the boy’s lack of comprehension. Having provided what he judged to be a sufficient reply, Henry mimicked the boy’s stance; he leaned back in the chair, crossing his arms.
Altogether the body language seemed confrontational, but that idea was a foreign one to Henry. The boy had no reason to act in a hostile manner, for Henry had said nothing to provoke him. He hypothesized that a human’s method of defining whether or not a statement offended, might not have been effectively interchangeable with an android’s. Unfortunately, that hypothesis disagreed with previous assertions he’d gathered regarding human conflict. Based solely on his own observation of the species — which was limited — he had gathered that the grand majority of them thrived on adversity.
Human competition, during his short stay on Earth, had been a topic of particular interest to Henry. It had sparked controversy amongst the participants, controversy which, while no doubt entertaining, impeded the amiability which Earth’s leaders so often advocated. To the android, this ‘competitive animal’ so often spoken of that lived within the organic species of the galaxy lived in direct contradiction to their leaders’ wishes. Had he been their leader, it might have seemed a logical course of action to publicly execute any and all who participated in this ‘sport.’
“… chosen one? Seriously, what the fuck are you on?” the young boy broke his silence, leaning forward and placing his elbows on the table. This, too, set off a red flag inside Henry’s artificial intelligence; somewhere in his records, it described the placing of elbows on the table during a meal as a violation of human moral code.
“Elbows off the table,” Henry automatically scolded the child.
“And who the hell do you think you are, my mom?” the youth replied.
“No,” Henry shook his head — an externalization of his negative response, he had gathered — and reintroduced himself, “I am Henry, and I am your protector.”
“Yeah, no, I remember, I was just — ah, whatever,” the boy stammered. With this, he retracted his elbows from the table, and Henry felt what could only be described as satisfaction; he had sufficiently kept the boy from tarnishing his public image, which he calculated was an application of the term ‘protection.’ The youth exhaled deeply, signaling what Henry knew to be frustration.
“Is there a problem?” Henry inquired, “I was created to help you with problems, sir; or, at least, that is what I have gathered my purpose was.”
“You are the problem, bub,” the child informed the android in what the latter inferred as an irritated tone. Henry still failed to derive where the young boy’s irritation stemmed from; the would-be bodyguard had done nothing repugnant, as far as he could recall. “I don’t know … what you want from me, I guess.”
Henry processed this last statement for a moment; he had not, in recent memory, asked anything of the subject. Quite the contrary, in fact, he had offered service to him. Why, then, did the subject insist on painting him as a ‘bad guy’? Perhaps it correlated with the idea of blame, in human context. Through his observations, the android had concluded that, in a situation involving organic life, one of the participants had to be at fault. There had to be someone to blame. Holding the blame in a certain situation could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on the nature of the aforementioned situation.
In this particular circumstance, the child seemed to want to place the fault on Henry, and in this example, holding said fault would be considered a ‘bad thing,’ therefore making Henry a ‘bad guy.’ This did not seem, to Henry, like an accurate portrayal of events at all, and the android noted that had he been a human, he might’ve spoken up about the injustice.
As the case may be, he was not a human. He was a mechanized being, with a singular purpose: to protect this child. After analyzing the situation, he determined that notifying the subject of the unfairness of his actions would have only further deterred him from reaching success; therefore, using his best judgment, he, as humans would say, held his tongue (though this seemed like an odd and potentially inaccurate expression, too, for the record).
“I mean, listen, bud,” the child piped up, interrupting Henry’s analysis of the situation. Henry followed the subject’s command and listened. “I’m a kid, alright? I’m not … a ‘chosen one.’”
“Acceptable, Akid,” Henry replied, satisfied to have finally garnered the subject’s name, “I shall no longer refer to you as the ‘chosen one.’ It did seem a bit melodramatic for my tastes in the first place.”
Upon hearing this, Akid’s immediate reaction was to place his palm to his forehead in a rather violent manner. Henry became confused almost instantaneously. The display of self-violence had not been called for, and it did not portray amiability or satisfaction, the emotions which the android had been attempting to elicit from the subject. He could only suppose that his effort had failed.
Self-violence — the memory that Henry traditionally associated with the term was a horrific one, in the loosest definition of the term.
Henry’s mission had not always been so solely purposed. Previously, a doctor had employed him; a doctor whom he could only refer to as Creator. Creator had been young, especially for human years; Henry’s analysis of his maker had left him with a hypothesis that measured the doctor’s age as no older than thirty years of age, in Earth-years. Accordingly, the android had always held a high respect for Creator; perhaps because, in traditional human science, to have reached a breakthrough at such a young age was considered an astounding accomplishment. The breakthrough in question, of course, being the creation of himself.
Some may argue; androids had been made before, it was true. But of his type? Henry had not encountered one, and therefore was left to believe that this was not the case — that he was, to put it simply, one of a kind.
Special — that’s what Creator had called him.
You’re a special droid, you.
Henry was a Mark IV Protocol Bot, upgraded with protective instincts. His purpose was to observe the customs of organic life and, as much as possible, mimic them, while at the same time protecting the subject to which he was currently assigned. At the moment, this subject was Akid, though the details of why this particular child had been the focus of his mission were kept classified, even to Henry. The android had tried, in vain, to access the database on his way to this station.
The doctor had installed various programs inside him that allowed him to maximize his protection potential, the most important of which being his Sensory Radar, which was tuned to locate and track ki signatures of potential hostiles. This would allow him to ensure the subject’s safety by being able to keep records of any and all threats to the aforementioned subject’s existence.
The second upgrade that the doctor had installed was much more potent in combat situations. He had the ability to use the electrical currents flowing through his mechanized body to his will. Mostly, this addendum to his core programming made itself useful in offensive circumstances, but Creator had spoken of the ability to use it defensively, as well, which Henry surmised was much more helpful to his particular occupation than using it in what he called the ‘Zeus’ method, which harkened back to the Greek god’s ability to conjure and subsequently hurdle an actual bolt of lightning at his foes. An admirable talent, but one which Henry didn’t feel should be overused.
The Creator had also imbued him with the desire to learn and adapt to the way of life practiced by organisms he came into contact with; unfortunately, this did more harm to Henry than it had good. The amount of information he was able to garner from a single conversation often overloaded his system, which resulted in him being cripplingly socially awkward. Henry was not experienced enough with human conversation to understand this; though even if he had been, it is not likely he was experienced enough with shame to feel that, either.
Alas, Creator was no more; he had been lost, in the wheel of time. Unfortunate circumstances, as it were — the stress of the scientist’s work seemed to have gotten to him, and he had taken a gun to himself one night. Henry had stumbled upon a rather gruesome scene, inside the lab.
He had been blamed by the authorities; a rogue robot, turned against its master, they’d said. But Henry wouldn’t have. He couldn’t have. He’d loved Creator — at least, he had inferred that what he felt toward the man was love, of the type a son shares for his father — and he couldn’t even bear the thought of hurting him. It was, after all, against his very core programming.
The humans had not listened. They had been desperate for a culprit, and they had made Henry their scapegoat; so he had left. He had left Earth, and found his way here — to this ‘space station.’ And it was here that he had been repurposed.
The droid’s silence seemed to be unnerving Akid. Henry didn’t see why; in the traditional form of conversation, the talking proceeded in a back and forth manner, and Henry had been the last one to speak, which meant that, in polite conversation, Akid would be obligated to say something. As it was, he had merely physicalized the emotion he felt at the current instant, and left the moment open — presumably for Henry to speak. Unfortunately, the android was dreadfully uncomfortable with the conversation departing from form, and was experiencing one of the most dreadful human social stigmas.
He did not know what to say.
The story will -- hopefully -- get more complex as time goes on. I have a few ideas, so I'm going to see if they pan out. The character I'm "roleplaying" is Henry, the socially-awkward android. In the context of the CDBZ world, he has Ki Sense, and Elemental Ki - Lightning. He's played by the Tallhat Gentleman.
---
Thread Title: "To Protect and Serve"
“I’m not sure I follow.”
The young boy sipped his foamy liquid, subsequently placing the mug back in its former location, on the table. Henry endeavored to decipher this human expression, but did not allow his gaze to falter. His staring contest — another remarkable colloquialism he had picked up from this boy — lingered, despite the myriad of information his mechanized brain shifted its focus to.
“You are the chosen one,” the android retorted, acknowledging the boy’s lack of comprehension. Having provided what he judged to be a sufficient reply, Henry mimicked the boy’s stance; he leaned back in the chair, crossing his arms.
Altogether the body language seemed confrontational, but that idea was a foreign one to Henry. The boy had no reason to act in a hostile manner, for Henry had said nothing to provoke him. He hypothesized that a human’s method of defining whether or not a statement offended, might not have been effectively interchangeable with an android’s. Unfortunately, that hypothesis disagreed with previous assertions he’d gathered regarding human conflict. Based solely on his own observation of the species — which was limited — he had gathered that the grand majority of them thrived on adversity.
Human competition, during his short stay on Earth, had been a topic of particular interest to Henry. It had sparked controversy amongst the participants, controversy which, while no doubt entertaining, impeded the amiability which Earth’s leaders so often advocated. To the android, this ‘competitive animal’ so often spoken of that lived within the organic species of the galaxy lived in direct contradiction to their leaders’ wishes. Had he been their leader, it might have seemed a logical course of action to publicly execute any and all who participated in this ‘sport.’
“… chosen one? Seriously, what the fuck are you on?” the young boy broke his silence, leaning forward and placing his elbows on the table. This, too, set off a red flag inside Henry’s artificial intelligence; somewhere in his records, it described the placing of elbows on the table during a meal as a violation of human moral code.
“Elbows off the table,” Henry automatically scolded the child.
“And who the hell do you think you are, my mom?” the youth replied.
“No,” Henry shook his head — an externalization of his negative response, he had gathered — and reintroduced himself, “I am Henry, and I am your protector.”
“Yeah, no, I remember, I was just — ah, whatever,” the boy stammered. With this, he retracted his elbows from the table, and Henry felt what could only be described as satisfaction; he had sufficiently kept the boy from tarnishing his public image, which he calculated was an application of the term ‘protection.’ The youth exhaled deeply, signaling what Henry knew to be frustration.
“Is there a problem?” Henry inquired, “I was created to help you with problems, sir; or, at least, that is what I have gathered my purpose was.”
“You are the problem, bub,” the child informed the android in what the latter inferred as an irritated tone. Henry still failed to derive where the young boy’s irritation stemmed from; the would-be bodyguard had done nothing repugnant, as far as he could recall. “I don’t know … what you want from me, I guess.”
Henry processed this last statement for a moment; he had not, in recent memory, asked anything of the subject. Quite the contrary, in fact, he had offered service to him. Why, then, did the subject insist on painting him as a ‘bad guy’? Perhaps it correlated with the idea of blame, in human context. Through his observations, the android had concluded that, in a situation involving organic life, one of the participants had to be at fault. There had to be someone to blame. Holding the blame in a certain situation could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on the nature of the aforementioned situation.
In this particular circumstance, the child seemed to want to place the fault on Henry, and in this example, holding said fault would be considered a ‘bad thing,’ therefore making Henry a ‘bad guy.’ This did not seem, to Henry, like an accurate portrayal of events at all, and the android noted that had he been a human, he might’ve spoken up about the injustice.
As the case may be, he was not a human. He was a mechanized being, with a singular purpose: to protect this child. After analyzing the situation, he determined that notifying the subject of the unfairness of his actions would have only further deterred him from reaching success; therefore, using his best judgment, he, as humans would say, held his tongue (though this seemed like an odd and potentially inaccurate expression, too, for the record).
“I mean, listen, bud,” the child piped up, interrupting Henry’s analysis of the situation. Henry followed the subject’s command and listened. “I’m a kid, alright? I’m not … a ‘chosen one.’”
“Acceptable, Akid,” Henry replied, satisfied to have finally garnered the subject’s name, “I shall no longer refer to you as the ‘chosen one.’ It did seem a bit melodramatic for my tastes in the first place.”
Upon hearing this, Akid’s immediate reaction was to place his palm to his forehead in a rather violent manner. Henry became confused almost instantaneously. The display of self-violence had not been called for, and it did not portray amiability or satisfaction, the emotions which the android had been attempting to elicit from the subject. He could only suppose that his effort had failed.
Self-violence — the memory that Henry traditionally associated with the term was a horrific one, in the loosest definition of the term.
Henry’s mission had not always been so solely purposed. Previously, a doctor had employed him; a doctor whom he could only refer to as Creator. Creator had been young, especially for human years; Henry’s analysis of his maker had left him with a hypothesis that measured the doctor’s age as no older than thirty years of age, in Earth-years. Accordingly, the android had always held a high respect for Creator; perhaps because, in traditional human science, to have reached a breakthrough at such a young age was considered an astounding accomplishment. The breakthrough in question, of course, being the creation of himself.
Some may argue; androids had been made before, it was true. But of his type? Henry had not encountered one, and therefore was left to believe that this was not the case — that he was, to put it simply, one of a kind.
Special — that’s what Creator had called him.
You’re a special droid, you.
Henry was a Mark IV Protocol Bot, upgraded with protective instincts. His purpose was to observe the customs of organic life and, as much as possible, mimic them, while at the same time protecting the subject to which he was currently assigned. At the moment, this subject was Akid, though the details of why this particular child had been the focus of his mission were kept classified, even to Henry. The android had tried, in vain, to access the database on his way to this station.
The doctor had installed various programs inside him that allowed him to maximize his protection potential, the most important of which being his Sensory Radar, which was tuned to locate and track ki signatures of potential hostiles. This would allow him to ensure the subject’s safety by being able to keep records of any and all threats to the aforementioned subject’s existence.
The second upgrade that the doctor had installed was much more potent in combat situations. He had the ability to use the electrical currents flowing through his mechanized body to his will. Mostly, this addendum to his core programming made itself useful in offensive circumstances, but Creator had spoken of the ability to use it defensively, as well, which Henry surmised was much more helpful to his particular occupation than using it in what he called the ‘Zeus’ method, which harkened back to the Greek god’s ability to conjure and subsequently hurdle an actual bolt of lightning at his foes. An admirable talent, but one which Henry didn’t feel should be overused.
The Creator had also imbued him with the desire to learn and adapt to the way of life practiced by organisms he came into contact with; unfortunately, this did more harm to Henry than it had good. The amount of information he was able to garner from a single conversation often overloaded his system, which resulted in him being cripplingly socially awkward. Henry was not experienced enough with human conversation to understand this; though even if he had been, it is not likely he was experienced enough with shame to feel that, either.
Alas, Creator was no more; he had been lost, in the wheel of time. Unfortunate circumstances, as it were — the stress of the scientist’s work seemed to have gotten to him, and he had taken a gun to himself one night. Henry had stumbled upon a rather gruesome scene, inside the lab.
He had been blamed by the authorities; a rogue robot, turned against its master, they’d said. But Henry wouldn’t have. He couldn’t have. He’d loved Creator — at least, he had inferred that what he felt toward the man was love, of the type a son shares for his father — and he couldn’t even bear the thought of hurting him. It was, after all, against his very core programming.
The humans had not listened. They had been desperate for a culprit, and they had made Henry their scapegoat; so he had left. He had left Earth, and found his way here — to this ‘space station.’ And it was here that he had been repurposed.
The droid’s silence seemed to be unnerving Akid. Henry didn’t see why; in the traditional form of conversation, the talking proceeded in a back and forth manner, and Henry had been the last one to speak, which meant that, in polite conversation, Akid would be obligated to say something. As it was, he had merely physicalized the emotion he felt at the current instant, and left the moment open — presumably for Henry to speak. Unfortunately, the android was dreadfully uncomfortable with the conversation departing from form, and was experiencing one of the most dreadful human social stigmas.
He did not know what to say.