Deucalion OOC
+9
Sunal Wolfsbane
Ikitt
quakernuts
The Ghost Rider
Sheah
Wadjet
Safton
Knifey Keith
Kate Orchix
13 posters
FOG: Footsteps of Ghosts :: In Character :: Advanced Role-Playing :: Advanced Out of Character Discussion :: Archived Advanced OoC Topics
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Re: Deucalion OOC
by Kate Orchix Thu Jul 12, 2012 6:40 pm
Accepted. =)
The RP is still open for plenty more people. I'm gonna be trying to write up an intro post sometime after the weekend, hopefully.
The RP is still open for plenty more people. I'm gonna be trying to write up an intro post sometime after the weekend, hopefully.
Kate Orchix- Shadow
- Join date : 2012-06-04
Posts : 177
Age : 28
Location : New Zealand
Sunal Wolfsbane- Mist
- Join date : 2012-07-06
Posts : 6
Age : 31
Re: Deucalion OOC
by Kate Orchix Wed Jul 25, 2012 10:36 pm
Yes! Sorry for not saying anything on the OOC recently...
Internet ate my first IC post I was writing up, and I've been raging at it, so I need to get over that and hurry up and post. Hopefully sometime this coming week, I'll be able to do so.
Sheah's currently gone for two weeks due to internet problems. I'll need some help from her regarding the first two IC posts I make as GM (she's one of the security officers), so this may be a little slow for a bit.
Internet ate my first IC post I was writing up, and I've been raging at it, so I need to get over that and hurry up and post. Hopefully sometime this coming week, I'll be able to do so.
Sheah's currently gone for two weeks due to internet problems. I'll need some help from her regarding the first two IC posts I make as GM (she's one of the security officers), so this may be a little slow for a bit.
Last edited by Kate Orchix on Sat Oct 06, 2012 3:19 am; edited 1 time in total
Kate Orchix- Shadow
- Join date : 2012-06-04
Posts : 177
Age : 28
Location : New Zealand
Re: Deucalion OOC
by Sheah Tue Jul 31, 2012 6:22 pm
Okay, folks.
The internet is back up again, and hopefully such a problem won't pop up this time around, or the next, etc. We should be getting a new plan by the end of August, with double the download speed, and we're back at school anyway so we shouldn't chew it up so fast until then.
Now that's been noted, I'm ready to post when you are, KC.
The internet is back up again, and hopefully such a problem won't pop up this time around, or the next, etc. We should be getting a new plan by the end of August, with double the download speed, and we're back at school anyway so we shouldn't chew it up so fast until then.
Now that's been noted, I'm ready to post when you are, KC.
Sheah- Mist
- Join date : 2012-07-01
Posts : 19
Age : 28
Location : Australia, NSW
Re: Deucalion OOC
by Kate Orchix Fri Aug 03, 2012 9:01 pm
So, I might have just done my first GM post... *innocent whistling*
IC - http://www.footstepsofghosts.com/t4478-deucalion-ic#105639
I will write as Danni a little after all the 'crew' have posted.
IC - http://www.footstepsofghosts.com/t4478-deucalion-ic#105639
I will write as Danni a little after all the 'crew' have posted.
Kate Orchix- Shadow
- Join date : 2012-06-04
Posts : 177
Age : 28
Location : New Zealand
Re: Deucalion OOC
by Kate Orchix Wed Aug 22, 2012 6:10 am
First person to post gets a badly-drawn something. Am I resorting to bribery?
... maybe.
... maybe.
Kate Orchix- Shadow
- Join date : 2012-06-04
Posts : 177
Age : 28
Location : New Zealand
Re: Deucalion OOC
by jokintoker Mon Aug 27, 2012 7:32 am
Name: Joey Hawkes
Age: 27
Gender: Male
Occupation: Convict
Personality: Gruff, but comical. Joey is the sort to tell jokes at a funeral... and probably offer you a sip of his flask. He's experienced the best, and worst of what his part of the world has to offer, and his mental state reflects it. Always one to enjoy the here and now, he makes fast friends with those who aren't immediately put off by his nature. Trusting those individuals is an an entirely different matter however, at the end of the day Joey keeps his own council.
Not to say that he is a man beyond emotional attachment... Joey is quite capable of love, and connecting to his fellow man, though his environment has taught him to remain guarded,and form meaningful relationships slowly.
Background:
Joey came up hard and fast in his childhood on Earth. Living in the decaying remains of what used to be a city of some artistic repute, he learned early in life that things just weren't going to go his way. His mother wasn't the sort of human being to properly raise her child, and his father was by all accounts a "no good jumper". He fended for himself, as best he could, abandoning any pretense of a formal education early into his high school career.
The streets of a town haunted by its former glory are no place for a child, and those who run them become little adults in short order. Academic pursuits be damned, he knew what really mattered in life. Money, women, power... success wasn't obtained via stuffy classrooms and essays. A man had to take what he wanted in this town. Dreams were a commodity the clever sold the gullible, and He'd have none of it. He had a plan of his own, and if he stuck to it, nothing could stop him.
He was young, ambitious, and thought himself entirely too clever for his own good. Had he kept his dealings small, Joey could've probably eeked out an existence for himself without becoming a blip on anyone's radar, but the lifestyle corrupts, and the inexperienced are inevitably greedy. His thefts became more brazen, his bits of drug trafficking became more than bits... It wasn't too long before the local powers that be took notice. Incapable of resisting them, Joey did the only thing he could do... he began to work under "Hank", a local boss who was working to expand his reach.
Several years, and several jail sentences later, Joey grew tired of working for another man's profit, Hank had grown old, rich,and quite fat on the backs of his younger henchmen. He enforced his authority with fear, resorting to whatever brutality required to keep his men under his thumb. Joey did his best, but he never seemed to get anywhere. Not one to quit, he booked a flight for Castor. He'd take his show on the road and make his own money his own way.
But of course, men like Hank aren't where they are because they allow things to escape them. Joey wasn't gone for a full month before he was contacted by a representative of his old boss, telling him that if he returned quietly, nothing would be said about his little vacation.
Even criminals have a loved one or two...Unfortunately, Joey hadn't kept his secret getaways with Bree, a server a one of Hank's taverns quiet enough. The old man knew, and had sent his lackey with a picture of her in tow. No threats had to be uttered, Joey knew good and well what was liable to happen to that girl if he refused. Begrudgingly, he booked his flight on the Orbitus 815, cursing under his breath the entire way.
Like it or not, he was headed home.
Appearance:
Joey looks like any other guy who would offer you a drink at your local hole in the wall... and relieve you of your wallet as you stumble home drunk.
He stands a respectable 5'10, and is of an unremarkable build. Square jawed, with several faint scars on his face, most of which look like the could've came from sloppy shaving. He has no problem blending right into a crowd of working-class men anywhere. His dingy white T-shirt, faded jeans,and battered hoodie do little to draw attention to him, though his shoulder-length brown hair is a bit of an eye-catcher in some areas.
His only absolutely distinguishing feature is a small tattoo, a bluish-black acoustic guitar, tattooed on the webbing between the thumb and first finger on his right hand.
Other:
Joey's a real badass... if you define "badass" as the sort of man who wins a fight by taking a lead pipe to his opponent's skull before the poor bastard knows he's in a fight. While he knows his way around a bar-room brawl, Joey isn't one for open confrontation. Too much is left to chance when you have to count on actually being tougher, or stronger than the other guy. He'll fight man-to-man if he has to, but honor will always take a back seat to victory.
His weapons training is minimal. It doesn't take a genius to use a club, or slice someone, and he's gotten along pretty well keep things simple. Joey knows which end of a gun is the dangerous one, but he's not an incredible shot
His life outside of the law has taught him a few skills, other than his ability to fast-talk the average person into buying their own shoes back from him. He has little difficulty with most locks, and can move through an urban environment without drawing attention to himself. Simple pick-pocketing and slight of hand come with the territory, as does being a card cheat.
Homeworld: Earth
Homeworld Details: Same place its always been, Joey hails from the United States, specifically a withered metropolis once dubbed the "music city".
Age: 27
Gender: Male
Occupation: Convict
Personality: Gruff, but comical. Joey is the sort to tell jokes at a funeral... and probably offer you a sip of his flask. He's experienced the best, and worst of what his part of the world has to offer, and his mental state reflects it. Always one to enjoy the here and now, he makes fast friends with those who aren't immediately put off by his nature. Trusting those individuals is an an entirely different matter however, at the end of the day Joey keeps his own council.
Not to say that he is a man beyond emotional attachment... Joey is quite capable of love, and connecting to his fellow man, though his environment has taught him to remain guarded,and form meaningful relationships slowly.
Background:
Joey came up hard and fast in his childhood on Earth. Living in the decaying remains of what used to be a city of some artistic repute, he learned early in life that things just weren't going to go his way. His mother wasn't the sort of human being to properly raise her child, and his father was by all accounts a "no good jumper". He fended for himself, as best he could, abandoning any pretense of a formal education early into his high school career.
The streets of a town haunted by its former glory are no place for a child, and those who run them become little adults in short order. Academic pursuits be damned, he knew what really mattered in life. Money, women, power... success wasn't obtained via stuffy classrooms and essays. A man had to take what he wanted in this town. Dreams were a commodity the clever sold the gullible, and He'd have none of it. He had a plan of his own, and if he stuck to it, nothing could stop him.
He was young, ambitious, and thought himself entirely too clever for his own good. Had he kept his dealings small, Joey could've probably eeked out an existence for himself without becoming a blip on anyone's radar, but the lifestyle corrupts, and the inexperienced are inevitably greedy. His thefts became more brazen, his bits of drug trafficking became more than bits... It wasn't too long before the local powers that be took notice. Incapable of resisting them, Joey did the only thing he could do... he began to work under "Hank", a local boss who was working to expand his reach.
Several years, and several jail sentences later, Joey grew tired of working for another man's profit, Hank had grown old, rich,and quite fat on the backs of his younger henchmen. He enforced his authority with fear, resorting to whatever brutality required to keep his men under his thumb. Joey did his best, but he never seemed to get anywhere. Not one to quit, he booked a flight for Castor. He'd take his show on the road and make his own money his own way.
But of course, men like Hank aren't where they are because they allow things to escape them. Joey wasn't gone for a full month before he was contacted by a representative of his old boss, telling him that if he returned quietly, nothing would be said about his little vacation.
Even criminals have a loved one or two...Unfortunately, Joey hadn't kept his secret getaways with Bree, a server a one of Hank's taverns quiet enough. The old man knew, and had sent his lackey with a picture of her in tow. No threats had to be uttered, Joey knew good and well what was liable to happen to that girl if he refused. Begrudgingly, he booked his flight on the Orbitus 815, cursing under his breath the entire way.
Like it or not, he was headed home.
Appearance:
Joey looks like any other guy who would offer you a drink at your local hole in the wall... and relieve you of your wallet as you stumble home drunk.
He stands a respectable 5'10, and is of an unremarkable build. Square jawed, with several faint scars on his face, most of which look like the could've came from sloppy shaving. He has no problem blending right into a crowd of working-class men anywhere. His dingy white T-shirt, faded jeans,and battered hoodie do little to draw attention to him, though his shoulder-length brown hair is a bit of an eye-catcher in some areas.
His only absolutely distinguishing feature is a small tattoo, a bluish-black acoustic guitar, tattooed on the webbing between the thumb and first finger on his right hand.
Other:
Joey's a real badass... if you define "badass" as the sort of man who wins a fight by taking a lead pipe to his opponent's skull before the poor bastard knows he's in a fight. While he knows his way around a bar-room brawl, Joey isn't one for open confrontation. Too much is left to chance when you have to count on actually being tougher, or stronger than the other guy. He'll fight man-to-man if he has to, but honor will always take a back seat to victory.
His weapons training is minimal. It doesn't take a genius to use a club, or slice someone, and he's gotten along pretty well keep things simple. Joey knows which end of a gun is the dangerous one, but he's not an incredible shot
His life outside of the law has taught him a few skills, other than his ability to fast-talk the average person into buying their own shoes back from him. He has little difficulty with most locks, and can move through an urban environment without drawing attention to himself. Simple pick-pocketing and slight of hand come with the territory, as does being a card cheat.
Homeworld: Earth
Homeworld Details: Same place its always been, Joey hails from the United States, specifically a withered metropolis once dubbed the "music city".
jokintoker- Mist
- Join date : 2012-08-25
Posts : 2
Re: Deucalion OOC
by Undisputed Tue Aug 28, 2012 1:52 pm
Name:
John Murphy
Age:
30
Gender:
Male
Occupation:
Doctor
Personality:
A friendly man, but with a quick irish temper. He is the first one to throw a punch in an argument, but then buy the guy a drink afterwords. Able to keep calm under pressure due to his carrer and experience, his downfall is his impatience, and his habit of bluntly speaking his mind has made him many enemies. Also, growing up in an all male family has made him a bit awkward around women.
Background:
Born on earth, he grew up on the outskirts of Dublin, in one of the many poor communities surrounded the huge, over-populated city. His mother died young of a heart failure, so he grew up with his dad and two brothers. Like most poor Irish lads of his time, he immediatly joined the army because it provided a stable job and income. Seeing how bright John was, he was put into Army Medical School, and did a five year term as a medic mainly attached to companies who were combating pirates. After those five years, he used military funding to get his true medical degree at the age of 28. He boarded the Orbitus flight on his way to a transfer to a medical facility.
Appearance:
6'0", with light brown hair that has a light hint of red, cut short. Thin build, and a couple small scars on his back from an injury while in the military. No facial hair.
Other:
Homeworld:
Earth
Homeworld Details:
Just need to add little details to this, but gotta run for now. This RP looks pretty interesting, and I'd love to join if there is room! I will also have some questions later, when I'm able to get back on.
John Murphy
Age:
30
Gender:
Male
Occupation:
Doctor
Personality:
A friendly man, but with a quick irish temper. He is the first one to throw a punch in an argument, but then buy the guy a drink afterwords. Able to keep calm under pressure due to his carrer and experience, his downfall is his impatience, and his habit of bluntly speaking his mind has made him many enemies. Also, growing up in an all male family has made him a bit awkward around women.
Background:
Born on earth, he grew up on the outskirts of Dublin, in one of the many poor communities surrounded the huge, over-populated city. His mother died young of a heart failure, so he grew up with his dad and two brothers. Like most poor Irish lads of his time, he immediatly joined the army because it provided a stable job and income. Seeing how bright John was, he was put into Army Medical School, and did a five year term as a medic mainly attached to companies who were combating pirates. After those five years, he used military funding to get his true medical degree at the age of 28. He boarded the Orbitus flight on his way to a transfer to a medical facility.
Appearance:
6'0", with light brown hair that has a light hint of red, cut short. Thin build, and a couple small scars on his back from an injury while in the military. No facial hair.
Other:
Homeworld:
Earth
Homeworld Details:
Just need to add little details to this, but gotta run for now. This RP looks pretty interesting, and I'd love to join if there is room! I will also have some questions later, when I'm able to get back on.
Last edited by Undisputed on Thu Aug 30, 2012 12:44 pm; edited 1 time in total
Undisputed- Mist
- Join date : 2011-05-10
Posts : 70
Age : 36
Location : Constantly changing
Re: Deucalion OOC
by Kate Orchix Thu Aug 30, 2012 6:45 am
Accepted, Toker! Your character sheet is now on the front page. 
Sure thing, Undisputed! I like your CS thus far, so I'm looking forward to the rest of it.
Sure thing, Undisputed! I like your CS thus far, so I'm looking forward to the rest of it.
Kate Orchix- Shadow
- Join date : 2012-06-04
Posts : 177
Age : 28
Location : New Zealand
Re: Deucalion OOC
by Sunal Wolfsbane Sat Sep 08, 2012 8:40 pm
Just letting everyone know I'm still around I've been peaking in to check posts every now and again. I'm looking forward to this starting to take off a little more hopefully.
I've been peaking in to check posts every now and again. I'm looking forward to this starting to take off a little more hopefully.
Sunal Wolfsbane- Mist
- Join date : 2012-07-06
Posts : 6
Age : 31
Re: Deucalion OOC
by Kate Orchix Sat Sep 08, 2012 8:46 pm
As am I! And glad to know people are still peeking in. Ghost won't be playing with us due to time constraints, so I'll be briefly taking over his character in the next post I make.
Kate Orchix- Shadow
- Join date : 2012-06-04
Posts : 177
Age : 28
Location : New Zealand
Re: Deucalion OOC
by Jag Tue Oct 02, 2012 3:24 am
- Jack Jackson:
- Name: As far as anyone knows, her name is Jack Jackson. Is that her real name? Probably not, but pressing her on it tends to prove more than a little unhealthy for one's physical integrity, so it's a matter best left alone. After all, it's not that complicated. Either Jack Jackson isn't her real name and she adopted the alias at some point before she threw in with the military...or her parents were real assholes. Or both.
In some corners of space, she's known as Jack the Ripper, or the Butcher of Barracus, both for the same reason.
Age: Official records state Jack Jackson is forty five years old. For once, there's not much reason to doubt the official records, 'cause she pretty much looks that age, what with the lines creasing her face and the speckles of grey emerging in her hair. Then again, this is Jack we're talking about, so her age is just as likely as anything else about her to be completely false.
Gender: At this point, despite being physically female, Jack has grown almost entirely detached from any semblance of gender identity or sexuality. She tends not to think of things in terms of gender...well, at all, really. To her, all gender means is that women have tits and guys have balls...and to her, neither of those really means anything more than a weak point to be targetted.
Occupation: Ex-soldier turned war criminal and convict.
Personality: Jack is...well, she's not all there. If at all. A thorough, proper psychological analysis on her has never been done prior to her conviction, and it's probably for that reason that someone made the gravely unwise mistake of handing her a gun, putting her in a position of power, and then throwing her into a situation in which her psychoses would flourish and overtake any semblance of rationale and humanity she'd had in her--chalk it up to drastic inefficiency on the part of the bloated galactic military forces, chalk it up to mental problems that would have driven her to bloodshed anyway, but she's just never been all there. With no definite window as to the workings of her mind and the frenetic chaos of thoughts that lay within, estimates range from paranoid disorders to schizophrenia to outright psychosis. We're talking about someone who thinks saying "I take the 'the' out of psychotherapist" and then bursting into manic laughter is a pretty good ice-breaker. That kind of 'not all there'.
But she's not psychotic. Jack is very much capable of rational thought and surprisingly intelligent insights, holding a conversation or even of feigning a degree of normalcy, briefly though the façade will persist. However, just because she isn't entirely insane by no means should be taken to indicate that she is in any way sane. She isn't. She sees things, hears things, perceives ill intent and danger in nearly everybody she encounters, and has no control of her impulses and instincts whatsoever. Needless to say, inability to control impulses is not an attribute you want in someone for whom the first impulse is violence and destruction--someone who feels that through the infliction of violence and pain on others and the annihilation of other lives, her own existence is validated and her own continued survival is ensured. In other words, she honestly believes that violence is her only way of interacting with the world around her, and she honestly believes that every time someone in the galaxy dies, her chances of further survival increase.
Not altogether conducive to alleviating these urges to violence is Jack's rampant misanthropy. Because more powerful than her psychoses, than her destructive survivalist instinct, more powerful even than her instincts to violence, is hate--directionless, intense, burning hate. With nothing at which to aim her innate, all-consuming malevolence, it turns inwards, twisting Jack into a vicious, hateful misanthrope. She truly believes that all people, regardless of where they come from, what they have done in their lives, how they portray themselves outwardly, are little more than insects—hateful, vile, disgusting things, and that includes herself. She feels that deep down all people are, in fact, just like herself—antipathic, violent, despicable, and willing to do whatever they want to get what they want, regardless of who has to be harmed or killed in the process. They may act like they're better than that, they might pretend to have some sort of moral high ground, some have even fooled themselves into believing humans are actually good at their base nature. They're fucking blind is all they are. You need only to look around you to see what humanity is--torture, rape, murder, this galaxy is used to it all. Selfish con men cheating strangers of all their money and belongings, condemning them to die alone and in poverty--innocents being massacred by the flock in the streets like pigs--genocide waged on a global scale, planets painted over with soot and ash, blood and gore, children beaten, raped, left to die, and yet there are fools who dare to try and tell Jack that humanity is worth living? She should know better than anyone how easy it is for humanity to commit genocide, torture, infanticide, and the slaughter of children. She's seen it all. More importantly, she's done it all.
She's no ideological crusader, however. Never has been. She's never claimed to be any better than the rest of humanity--only more honest about what she is, more honest for giving in to the base nature of humanity, and more powerful for it too. She's not interested in 'cleansing humanity' or proving anything to anybody; all she's interested in is survival, and the only method she knows of is war, and bloodshed.
Background:
But how does someone end up that completely dehumanised, so totally numbed to death and destruction, so mentally fucked? Good question, and good luck, because there's no telling. Everything about her up to the age of seventeen is a blank slate--no government and military records exist for that period of her life, as military command discovered when they arrested her for war crimes. What is known is that one day in 2836, thirty long, long years ago, a seventeen year old thug whose identification named her only as 'Jack Jackson' showed up at a military outpost to enlist in the overarching human military.
At that time--and even now--the human military was, in a word, bloated. Policing such a vast galaxy is none too simple a task, and with so many people loyal to planets rather than to the authority of Earth, there wasn't a huge pool of human resources to depend on. As such, the military relied on the kind of people they assumed Jack was--destitute, hopeless, no prospects in life, delinquents and fuck ups who enlisted in the military to flee poverty and crime, to satisfy sadistic urges, or simply for lack of anything better to do. People who could be handed a gun, pointed at a target, and told to go and kill it, and they'd do it without question and without complaint because either these derelicts had nothing better to live for, or this was what they lived for.
Perhaps the former had once been the case for Jack--but the latter rapidly became reality for her. It wasn't long before she was shifted into boot camp--where, even at the tender age of seventeen, Jack realised she was bigger and stronger than nearly everyone else here, and thus proceeded, in a definite sign of what was to come, to bully, intimidate, and tyrannise everyone around her. She wasn't stopped because...well, it's boot camp. The military had no way of knowing that this was much more than just the effects of their ruthless training regimes--they had no idea that the domineering, violent attitude of this recruit had its roots in something far deeper, far more malevolent and uncontrollable, and so she was not stopped. Jack took it as just further evidence that she was right--people were just like her. See, they weren't sayin' nothin', were they? Weren't doin' a thing to stop her, were they? It was because she was only doing what was natural of humans and of all living things: dominating the weak.
At the time, her psychoses were not so severe as they would rapidly become in the future--in fact, Jack publicly reflects upon the years following boot camp fondly, as the best years of her life. She was sent off to be stationed at a distant colony called Chacon III, an artificial satellite orbiting quietly and contently, taken up largely by man-made forestry. Well, Earth wasn't happy with that. Fearing that the people of Chacon III were beginning to consider themselves an entity separate from the authority of Earth (gee, that's a new phenomenon), the military deigned to deploy the Fifty Second Company Marines, and along with them Corporal Jack Jackson, to Chacon III, to hang in the background, monitor things, make sure nothing got out of hand, and in general, keep their presence to a minimum.
Big mistake. The Fifty Second's arrival at Chacon III initiated a spree of alcoholism, street brawls, debauchery, and occasional casual tyrannising of the local populace, in which Jack gleefully participated. They never really did anything too horrible--wasn't like they were going into the streets of the colony, chucking grenades through windows and making a game of seeing how many people could be killed with a single grenade (that came way later, and Jack still prides herself on having the highest score of her unit). Worst thing they ever did was beat the ever loving shit out of a bartender who wouldn't give the lot of them free drinks, or start brawls in the middle of the street for absolutely no reason other than fuck it, who doesn't love a good down n dirty street fight every now and then? And despite helpless protest from the locals, the authorities up in the military never did a thing. Shit, they had a whole goddamn galaxy to manage, with entire planetary systems declaring independence every other damn day and civil wars breaking out from one colony to the next. What did they care if their troops engaged in a bit of....er, 'harmless mayhem' out on the fringes?
During that interval, Jack was...almost normal. Okay, not normal, almost sane. She certainly had at the time a significant violent streak, she was abnormally aggressive, impulsive and temperamental in the extreme, but that sure as hell wasn't the time she gained the name Jack the Ripper. Hell, she was almost happy at that time. The marines could get their hands on any and all the alcohol they really wanted (which, y'know, that was like a godsend as far as Jack was concerned), and they drank every last drop, such that getting drunk was practically a daily ritual (at least for Jack). At any time, she could go out and satisfy her urge for violence with a fistfight, either with one of her own squadmates during a bout of drinking (no hard feelings afterwards, of course), or by picking one with a local; at the same time, the sinister, more malevolent psychoses that lurked in the back of her mind were not tempted to emerge by this point, and they never overtook Jack to compel her down a darker path she would find herself walking along later in life. In the Fifty Second Company, she found the first friends she'd had perhaps in her entire life--they were a rough bunch, to be sure, but the sense of camaraderie that quickly became the norm was something alien and unfamiliar to Jack, who had long since come to feel that she was 'above' human attachment and even feared it. She felt that to grow attached to others would make her all the more susceptible to loss of control, to regression and corruption, all of which--at least at this point, she sought to avoid. And yet, as she began to feel herself growing more and more attached to her squadmates, Jack felt more in control of herself and her impulses than she ever had in her life--she remembered those years as perhaps the best of her life.
Apparently the people of Chacon III did not concur with this assessment. For years they suffered through the excesses and debauchery of the Fifty Second, before at last the barrel blew its top--violently. One morning, as Jack went about the drudgery of her morning work out, the barracks was stormed. Local residents, armed with stockpiles of very old but undoubtedly effective weapons, surged into the military outpost even as the marines stumbled out into the hallways in their underwear with no idea of what the fuck was going on. Shots were fired. Two marines fell dead on the spot. The rest took what they could and fell back in a chaotic rush; Jack herself killed two attackers with her combat knife before she too was forced to accept retreat. Her first two kills--at least, in the past nine or so years.
It was, simply put, a total fiasco. The marines, with none of their armour and very little in the way of armaments, were driven out into the forest from the barracks, which was promptly ransacked. All their munitions, their armour and their supplies, all were seized by the 'rebels', who then went on a manhunt for the fleeing marines. The tables were turned--now, it was the people of Chacon III terrorising the Fifty Second Company Marines, using psychological warfare and punishing any soldier unlucky enough to stumble into their hands with the most brutal of agonising demises.
For the first time in her life, Jack knew fear...
Ha! Like hell. She fuckin' loved it. Even as she was devastated by the deaths of soldiers she'd spent nine years in a state of reckless debauchery with, she loved it. Stalkin' through the woods with naught but her combat knife, stained to the hilt with the dried blood of victims it had claimed thus far, listening like a predator on the hunt for signs of her prey--prey that had the gall to think they were the hunters and not the hunted. Fools--she'd show 'em. She still owed each and every one of them for every one of her comrades they'd dragged broken and bloody out into the streets for execution--vengeance was the name of the game now. The players? Every single rebel, regardless of whether or not they specifically'd had a hand in the death of a comrade. The price of losing? Death, whether quick and sudden or slow and brutal. And the rate of loss? 100%, every single one that Jack came across. She stopped just short of indiscriminate killing of Chacon III's population (and not only because stepping outside the forests was a death sentence to any foolhardy marine), but in turn, anybody who stepped into the forests was a rebel on the hunt. To Jack, that meant they were a walking target. It got to a point where it wasn't even remotely about survival to her anymore--now it was only a matter of revenge, a matter of hunting...no, they all three became the same thing. For every rebel Jack killed, that was one less rebel liable to kill her. It was a simple matter, it seemed only logical to her--she didn't even realise it when, as the years passed, she began to see everyone that way. A potential threat--whose elimination signified Jack's continued survival.
For about a month, on Chacon III, Jack tasted that darker, more malevolent side. A side of her she'd never let run rampant, a side of her that, growing up, had tried so often to break free, to ruin her and wreck her forever. Until now, she'd succeeded in preventing herself from succumbing to the ominous depths that she knew she could sink to if she let herself: that month, in the outburst of the Chacon III Revolution, she let herself dip a toe into those depths. For the first time, killing was for anything but self-defence and desperation. For the first time, killing was in the naming of revenge. For the first time, in the woods of Chacon III, Jack realised how much easier it was to simply let herself be taken, if only a little bit, by the void that she had always feared and never explored.
Needless to say, it was that entire month before Earth a) realised the troops stationed at Chacon III were no longer responding, and b) sent out reinforcements to quell the revolution. Well, if you could call it a revolution. See, the people of Chacon III weren't really much of a fighting force. Hell, the only reason they'd managed to get where they were now in the first place was because...well, honestly speaking, the Fifty Second Company was incompetent as all hell. They were nowhere near the fighting force they'd be forged into by war and combat in the coming years--shit, we're talking about a unit of 'soldiers' that managed to go nine years of debauchery and reckless disregard for the locals and then were taken by surprise when said locals politely expressed their dissatisfaction in the form of armed revolution. Running them out of their barracks and then engaging in a month-long war of attrition with them really wasn't that big of an achievement, which kinda hit home once the bulk of military reinforcements arrived and the would-be 'revolutionaries' dropped their weapons then and there--much to Jack's disappointment. Just when things had been getting good.
Her first taste of combat made her want more. Made her need more. She'd stumbled upon something vastly more addictive than smokes and booze, something far more effective at granting her respite from the psychoses that haunted her--in other words, war became a way of subduing her psychoses...by indulging them. Which made no sense, but Jack couldn't tell the difference. All she knew was that killing out in the woods had made her feel...good. Powerful. Alive. Nothing else made her feel quite that alive and real, and nothing else made her feel so certain that she was going to survive than the understanding that someone else wasn't. She wanted more. Needed more.
Her urge was soon to be satisfied. Soon after the short-lived Chacon III Revolution, the remainder of the Fifty Second Marine Company, the two thirds or so who had survived the month, were merged with the Fifty Third Company and shipped off to where, of course, such a competent and deadly fighting force was needed: in a warzone. Jack woulda laughed her ass right off at the sheer stupidity of it, but then again, when have the Earth authorities been particularly efficient at anything? Also, hell if Jack ever realised the incompetence of her own unit. She never saw the fiasco back on Chacon III as a failure--hell, she saw it as a success, just because it was her first glorious taste of combat.
It was nothing compared to what followed, however. Real, unmitigated open warfare--she first experienced the joys of it out on the arid plains of Kassur, where Earth intervened in a civil war that broke out amidst rival religious factions. Only reason Earth could be arsed to get off its ass and intervene, of course, was that Kassur was an important source of hard resources for Earth, and the civil war disrupted the flow of supplies. Then again, though, Jack had fallen into something of a practice of not giving a damn about the reason as long as somewhere, somehow, she was fighting. Ideals meant nothing to her--to her they were the conceptions of dreamers with their heads shoved up in the clouds unable to see reality for what it was: nothing ideal. Idealistic causes are nothing more than a justification for violence and a reason to fight, and Jack wasn't saying that was a bad thing--she was just saying that anyone who tried to convince themselves otherwise was lying. The beginnings of her misanthropy were there--not quite the burning hatred it would evolve into, but an earnest, honest belief that most people were wicked by nature.
Of course, none of that was going through her head on the plains of Kassur. What was going through her head was a mixture of elation, adrenaline, and the euphoria of the battlefield. Bullets whizzing and bringing ruination unto their quarries, blood anointing the snow-patched flatlands sanguine, the cries of the unfortunate collapsing into the mass graves by the dozen, flesh ripped from the bones in a hail of ammunition discharge, bodies blown to pieces by wayward explosives and rockets, brains blown from skulls and entrails gutted out like fish, and Death reigning supreme all around her, within her...it was just the opposite of stalking rebels at Chacon III. But it was no less fun.
At Kassur the Fifty Third was battle-hardened, forged in the relentless flames of war and solidified in the ice cold fury of the battlefield, and they proved their mettle to an unexpectedly deadly degree. They suffered not a single death at the penultimate conflict at Kassur, and endured a mere three soldiers injured in the course of war--a farcry from the carnage they, and Jack herself, inflicted unto the enemy. At Chacon III the Fifty Third gleaned their first real taste of battle--but it was at Kassur, amidst the bloodbath across the frozen plains, that they became a force to be reckoned with.
By the end of the Kassurian Civil War, which resulted in the capitulation of both warring factions with minimal losses to Earth forces, Jack had been promoted to lieutenant and was now the company's second in command--the previous lieutenant having been one of very few deaths the Fifty Third had suffered during the operation. A large portion of the forces deployed to Kassur were then to be slated as relief units, designated to keep the peace and distribute aid, cooperate with the locals, institute peaceful regional governments, act as forces of good and peace...fuck that. Jack would have none of it. She made the ardent case that the Fifty Third, as one of the most prolific producers of enemy bodies in the Civil War, were to be better used elsewhere--after all, it was a big galaxy out there. A tormented, violent, dark galaxy with wars simmering on the edges of Earth-controlled space and entire systems declaring independence from central human authority. There had to be who-the-fuck-knows-how-many places the Fifty Third could be used in lieu of sitting with their thumbs up their asses on Kassur acting as 'forces of peace'. Forces of peace? Shit, now Jack knew they were just tryin' to make her laugh.
Wait, where was I...oh yeah! Fuck that. Jack couldn't stand the thought of being stranded on some fuckin' backwater chunk of prairie when there was so much glorious war and violence raging just within arm's reach. She wasn't even sure how she could remain sane and in control, how she could feel alive again outside of the warzone. She had fought at Kassur no more than three years, but by the time peace was declared, thirty three year old Lieutenant Jackson could not live without war. She depended on it to satisfy her psychoses and indulge the urge to violence--without war, in her current state, Jack was even less capable of functioning in normal society than ever.
So she opposed the stationing of the Fifty Third at Kassur at every turn, eventually convincing the Company's CO to convince the Captain in charge of the effort at Kassur to convince his own military superiors to convince themselves to deploy the Fifty Third into active duty once again, citing their (still shockingly) successful combat record on Kassur. Military command was at once reluctant and eager to agree--after all, on one hand, this was the company that, for all their recent successes, had managed to piss off an entire colony and then be driven off by locals toting ancient hunting implements. On the other hand...this was the company that, for all their recent successes, had managed to piss off an entire colony and then be driven off by locals toting ancient hunting implements. It was pretty clear the Fifty Third were not the guys to station at a distant world only recently pulled from the depths of war and still rather antagonistic towards Earth authority; Earth didn't want a repeat of Chacon III, even though they also didn't want to 'reward' the deviant unit with active duty. Ultimately, Earth made (for once) a wise choice, and the Fifty Third packed their shit. Jack was elated. Seriously, she couldn't count how many times towards the end there she had been on the verge of tearing her combat knife outta its sheath and stabbing a motherfucker between the eyes for no real reason except that she really wanted to. Fortunately, the Fifty Third didn't stick around Kassur long enough for her to give in to that particular fantasy.
For a number of years, the Fifty Third was a 'raider regiment'--rather than deploying fully to a warzone for the duration of the conflict, they were used for tactical strikes, for rapid-fire raids and strategic strikes on specific targets or objectives. And they were damn good at it. Turned out, so long as you didn't leave 'em in a distant, vaguely anti-Earth system and tell them to 'keep the peace or something', the Fifty Third was one of the finest fighting forces in the service. Mostly 'cause their modus operandi (which boiled down to "kill everything, and then kill everything again for good measure, and then imbibe unhealthily copious quantities of alcohol"), despite its indiscriminate brutality and take-no-prisoners mentality, was never restricted on the battlefield--abuse of human rights and horrific acts of violence were, it seemed to Jack, slightly more acceptable in the midst of war. Wasn't very effective when it came to 'keeping the peace', but when it came to putting down rebellions and establishing dominance, you couldn't ask for much better.
After a while, the 'raider regiment' gig got a bit tiresome--which was to say, military command finally decided it was time for the Fifty Third to 'settle down' somewhere. This just so happened to coincide with the loss of the Sinanju System, wherein dwelt another artificial colony by the name of Barracus. For years the homely little colony orbiting the sun of Sinanju had harboured deep anti-Earth sentiments--they'd seen Earth's dominion in space swell too far, become bloated and overgrown, until Earth could no longer effectively administer its territories and entire systems went neglected and fell into global poverty and strife. The leaders of Barracus felt that humanity could no longer exist under a single, unified government--the time had come for sovereign nations of humanity to declare their independence and create their own economy, their own systems, their own militaries--create their own prosperity.
But unlike most systems with a penchant for declaring 'QUE VIVA LA REVOLUCION' and then getting curb-stomped, Barracus went about it in a rather more methodical manner. A residential colony amidst a system full of private mining facilities, Barracus' leadership spent years currying favour with the miners and instilling in them loyalty to an anti-Earth cause, one which they succeeded in propagating throughout the Sinanju system. For years Barracus conserved resources and materiels, using them to produce modern, almost military-grade munitions in anticipation for potential conflict with Earth--quietly built up and reinforced the infrastructure necessary to exist independently, preparing to hopefully become the first truly successful faction to declare independence from Earth.
In 2859, they did just that, declaring independence from Earth and stating no interest in hostilities with the central human authority as long as they themselves were free to do as they wished. Needless to say, this wasn't going to happen. Shortly after declaring independence, the newly declared 'Barracus Republic' began to advocate a similar approach for other systems, began even to advocate actively aiding nascent independence movements in other systems, and when Earth, with its own ears on the ground in Barracus, received this information, the responce was swift. War was never formally declared, for it was considered by military authorities a matter of putting down just another futile rebellion, but you could tell that, as Jack so sensibly put it, shit just got real. She shipped out to Sinanju not long after with the Fifty Third and other Marine units, not entirely certain of what to expect--Jack figured, shit, they might have more weapons than most rebellions, but war is always the same: whoever has the most cannon fodder to throw at the enemy wins. Earth had the most cannon fodder to throw at Barracus. It was just a matter of how many Barracus could kill off before eventually succumbing to the numbers.
Needless to say, underestimating your enemy has never been a good idea, and that applied to Earth in general, not just Lieutenant Jackson's preliminary analysis of the situation. They went expecting nigh-instantaneous victory--sure, maybe a few soldiers would have to come home in body bags, but the clash would be as short-lived as any other would-be sovereign nation Earth had re-established dominance over.
It would take five years and one of the most horrific war crimes of the century to accomplish that task.
But that's getting ahead of the point. What the Fifty Third encountered upon arrival at Sinanju was anything but a pushover. Their first attack at a significant mining facility at a nearby asteroid resulted in wholesale retreat when the marines encountered not a group of loosely-organised, badly armed, untrained minutemen, but a strong, tight, and ferocious fighting force with intimate knowledge of every twist and turn in the mining facility's deep, dark tunnels. Once it became clear they were outnumbered and outgunned, the Fifty Third's CO issued the order to retreat. For the first time in years, the Fifty Third Marine Company fled the enemy.
To say this pissed Jack off woulda been the understatement of the ages. The Fifty Third didn't run away. They just didn't. If God-fuckin'-Zilla himself tore his way through the fabric of space and time from an alternate dimension into this one to wreak havoc unto the galaxy and incinerate humanity in a blaze of chaos and saurian fury, you could bet the Fifty Third would be the first to rush in there, locked and loaded and with a haphazard, slipshod plan on how to get a saddle on 'Zilla for some epic-level saurian joyridin'. ...okay, so that metaphor kinda got derailed, but the point stood: Fifty Third don't run from nobody. Sure as hell not from a bunch'a backwater fuckin' recruits who fancied themselves an actual army. Motherfuckers would have to be taught a goddamn lesson.
Much to Jack's fury, however, the next few months failed to see that lesson taught, even as other things had changed drastically for her. By the fifth month of the war Jack had become the CO of Fifty Third Company, and one of the second in commands to Captain Ian Anderson, commander of the entire Barracus theatre. And at first glance, that wasn't supposed to change much--not to her, anyway. Anderson hardly listened to a damn thing she said anyway, probably because half the shit that came outta Jack's mouth coulda gotten them charged for war crimes, but hey, who's counting? But that wasn't what really mattered. What really mattered was that when she became commanding officer of the Fifty Third Company, Jack changed.
She'd served alongside some of these guys right from day one--she'd been drinkin' some of these fuckers under the table in drinking competitions twenty years ago back on Chacon III (good times), dragged their wounded, bleedin' asses across the plains of Kassur to the nearest medic, kicked their collective asses at poker during idle periods awaiting raid assignments--these were people Jack, whether or not she liked it, was close to...people she cared about. Shit, twenty years ago Jack woulda never thought she'd ever care about anyone but herself, and yet here she was, realising that in the past she'd without a thought placed herself in direct danger for some of these jackasses...and then realising that even knowing that she'd've done it again and again. She'd never been supposed to care. She hadn't enlisted in the military, a seventeen year old thug with no shits given about anybody but herself, to care. And yet she did. Inexplicably, in the process of seeking to subdue her psychoses by indulging them, she'd found what she had always feared would be her downfall: friends.
But now she was their commanding officer, and that meant their lives depended on her, more than they ever had before. Which meant for once, when Jack acted, she had to think about more than just herself. There was a whole company of men and women, new and old, friends and people who pissed her the fuck off, who depended on her. She spent many a night wide awake mulling over this thought, forcing herself, much though she hated to, to reflect on the life that had led her to this point, to a place that, thirty years ago, as a mere seven year old girl unimaginably far away from Barracus and Sinanju, she never thought she'd be. And she realised she was truly, deeply, terribly afraid of the possibility that she would fuck up and the lives of her men would be the price.
But the war itself? Hardly changed. The Republic had galvanised itself, and the Sinanju system had practically become a goddamn war camp--Barracus itself, the space station colony in which the bulk of the Republic's citizens, its Senate and military leadership lived, became a fortress, one of the most heavily guarded points in space. A massive fleet of ships constantly patrolled the station, ensuring that Earth forces stayed away from the fortress of a colony and instead focused its efforts on attacking mining systems and outlying colonies--to little avail. Earth forces remained in a decisive stalemate with Barracus--continued attacks failed to take any of the objectives set before the military, but Barracus sustained more casualties time and time again. It became clear very quickly that conventional warfare was not gonna do it--that pitting men against men and guns against guns and measuring victory bullet for bullet simply was not going to turn the tide of the conflict. Alternative means of warfare needed to be utilised.
Barracus figured this out before the military did, because whereas Earth divided its attention between this system and that conflict and this situation and that planet declaring independence and this planet's people complaining about getting no resources and that colony becoming a festering place of anti-Earth anger, the Barracus Republic could focus on one thing and one thing alone: its war with Earth and how to win it. It was the hope of Barracus leadership that if they could decisively annihilate those forces Earth had already sent, the human authorities would realise that the costs of maintaining a front at Sinanju would far outweigh the benefits of a prolonged conflict with the newly established Republic--if they could eliminate the soldiers Earth had deployed already, maybe they could put an end to this war. Desperate measures would have to be taken.
Five months after the initial attack on Sinanju, military command received heavily encrypted, very obscure intel indicating that Barracus had transferred its primary assets to the medium-sized colony turned materiels facility Argus A, and as a result of the move, there was a narrow window in which Argus A was relatively undefended by ships. The hazy message, a communique it seemed from the Republic commander at Argus to another, urged Barracus to send forces quickly to Argus A, whilst other Barracus forces would engage Earth fleets to provide a diversion. The intel was run again and again though various encryption devices and examined closely. It was determined to be good.
To say military command flipped shit was an understatement. Jack was pretty sure crabby ol' general what's-his-face sittin' back in his office on Earth musta thrown his back or something in a mad dash to get orders to the fleets at Sinanju: attack Argus A. Annihilate all Barracus fleets, slaughter all Republic troops, and seize all assets. Now.
It was the first real opportunity Earth had had to even the playing field throughout the entire conflict, and there was no way they weren't going to immediately capitalise on the chance. The fleets were massed in a great hurry, the troops called to duty, and Jack boarded along with her Fifty Third Company in preparation for the invasion of Argus A. It was supposed to be a curbstomp. What forces were already at Argus A would be crushed, and the assets seized before Barracus could direct reinforcements to the scene of the battle--by that time it would be too late, and the conflict would be in Earth's hands.
And it was true--the first part, at least. The resistance the fleets encountered over Argus A was so minimal as to be laughable--the Earth ships coulda sailed on right past 'em and hardly been any worse for wear, and the battle in orbit of Argus A was about as much a battle as a midget with a potato gun attacking a fully armoured and armed Jack would be a battle. In other words, Argus A might as well have been undefended when Earth Forces ships began to deploy troops to the colony facility.
The situation station-side wasn't very different--Jack got bored, and you know something's wrong when Lieutenant Jack Jackson gets bored of killing things. Hell, she could see why they'd transfer all their shit here--Argus A was built like a fortress, and could very easily have fortified it and then it would be just like Main Barracus, there was no getting in there without substantial losses. But they didn't. And because of that, earth forces were striking into Argus A like a hot knife through butter--the meagre forces stationed at the colony were cut down like pathetic weeds to a ruthless lawn mower, and Jack led the Fifty Third further into the massive facility, whilst the other companies penetrated into the complex themselves.
What happened soon after becomes a haze to Jack--and only the worst parts stand out clearly in her mind. The first soldier coughing, murmuring that something wasn't right, that he was feeling sick to the stomach, and then he was collapsing to the ground in hacking coughs, and so were the others. Then the blood came. Splatted across shuddering, quivering hands, hacked out with each torturous cough, dripping from the mouth, the nose, the eyes...
Gas, someone choked out in horror.
They were being gassed.
Jack fled.
She didn't know why. She should have died there along with her comrades, with the only friends she'd had in her life. She'd thought all along that she'd have died for any one of them, that she would have laid down her life alongside them, that this was what it meant to have friends--but at that moment, she realised in the end, her survival instincts, the instincts of a lone wolf, instincts that left no room for anybody else, took over. As her comrades suffocated violently, as they screamed out in terror and agony and wretched despair for help, from anyone, from the person they had entrusted their lives to, as the blood streaked their faces and they collapsed to the ground in violent convulsions, Jack lived. She didn't know how. She didn't know why. All she knew was she was running, and a universe away, a million years away, everyone she had ever cared about was dying.
Nearly ninety per cent of the Earth forces deployed to Argus A, the bulk of their manpower, was gassed to death. Jack lived to see extraction and rescue. Few others did. Among those who suffocated to death in the bowels of the colony was CO Ian Anderson, who had stayed right there and died with his soldiers like Jack knew she should have instead of running like some worthless piece of shit.
But military command would have none of it. She was practically a goddamn hero, some kind of fuckin' Rambo for surviving what should have killed her as it had her company and so many others. She was in shock, in a state of catatonic horror, unable to wipe away the overwhelming guilt and remorse of a kind nobody thought Jack Jackson was even capable of, unable to unsee and unhear that which she wished so desperately would stop playing out before her eyes and in her head. But military command simply slapped a medal onto her uniform, slapped another stripe to her shoulder, and called her Captain Jack Jackson. In the midst of overwhelming grief and agony, Jack became commanding officer of the operation against the Barracus Republic.
It must have been some time around that moment that Jack was possessed of an emotion stronger than any she'd ever felt--stronger than any rage that had ever overtaken her, stronger than any euphoria she'd felt amidst the carnage of the battlefield, stronger even than the agonising remorse she felt now: hatred. Hatred for Barracus, hatred for military command, hatred for herself, a furious, burning, unimaginably intense hatred for everything that existed. She had no idea how she could possibly deal with the loss, the guilt and the torture of what now tormented her, no idea what to direct it at, and instead she lashed out at everything in the world, until her hatred engulfed every fibre of her being and twisted her into a misanthrope of the lowest, basest, most inhuman kind. What a mistake it was to value anybody's life over her own--to value anything over herself! To welcome suffering and agony by allowing herself to care about anything other than herself, to be so foolish as to honestly believe the universe had changed somehow, that she could possibly let herself feel anything for anyone or anything without welcoming such torment! To think she had ever thought of humanity as anything more than vile insects, slaughtering each other endlessly, whether it was poison gas or nuclear annihilation or flesh-shredding bullets or gut-excavating tools of death and carnage! How could she let herself lose sight of that fact? How could she forget that in the end everyone died, and everyone was better off dead, and this world was better off the more people stopped tormenting it with their endless violence and hate? Jack knew she too was guilty, but she had learnt long ago to stop fighting it. She was violence. She was war. She was death, and blood, and gore, and carnage, and poison gas, and hatred. She was humanity. And humanity demanded blood be spilt.
Barracus was bolstered by the devastating efficiency of their gas attacks--but in the long run, they doomed themselves. Because for one, Earth was not discouraged by the deaths suffered--much to the contrary. Immediately upon news of the gassing at Argus A, a vast legion of reinforcements set sail for Sinanju, far outnumbering Barracus' fighting forces. And for another, that vast legion of soldiers was going to the command of a bloodthirsty, savage, misanthropic psychopath who very, very, very much wanted to see every last man, woman, and child in Barracus die horrifically.
The years that followed are often referred to by Sinanjuans who survived them as the Reign of Terror, and a reign of terror it was. Captain Jackson knew no scruples, she took no prisoners, and far from discouraging violence against noncombatants, she directly commanded her troops to massacre civilians where they stood, or sat, or slept, whatever they were doing, wherever they were. Terror tactics became a huge instrument for Earth forces at Barracus--wherever Earth forces overran Barracus military installations and conquered civilian centres, it became a living hell for those unfortunate souls trapped there as Jack instituted a reign of terror over all captured territories. Torture for the sake of torture, summary executions, arson, mass thievery, genocide--men, women, and children were not men, women, and children, they were all equally the enemy, and were to be treated as such. Earth turned a blind eye to Jack's rampage. Their bloated bureaucracy made any protest against the horrors she inflicted inconsequential by the time it reached high command, and this galaxy was simply too vast to pay much mind to a psychotic committing mass murder on the fringes of Earth space.
By 2864, nearly all of Sinanju was under Earth forces control except for Barracus itself. The tide of the war had shifted completely. Barracus casualties were staggering--bodies were practically piled in the streets, the air filled with the stench of burning carcasses because there was hardly any room for mass graves anymore, and not a single life in Sinanju was left whole and untorn by the brutal regime of Jack the Ripper. Everyone knew someone who had been dragged out into the streets and shot, or set fire to, or thrown into a mass grave to suffocate alive--everyone knew someone who had been tortured to death, someone who had been blasted to smithereens during one of the routine 'grenade throwing' games the soldiers played, someone who had simply disappeared. But Barracus remained untouched. In Barracus, despite heavy rationing and taxes for the desperate war effort, life went on largely as it always had--quietly, despite the warships that orbited up in the skies, ever vigilant for an attack that would end Barracus for good.
That year, Jack could wait no more. The past four years of death and ruthless slaughter had not quenched her hate. Not until the name Barracus was brutally, mercilessly, and permanently dashed from the annals of history would her bloodthirst be fulfilled at last. And she didn't care how many of her soldiers she had to sacrifice to make it happen. That time was long over. The fall of Barracus was at hand.
In 2864, Captain Jackson issued the order. All fleets, mass on Barracus--but don't prepare for ground deployment. Everyone knew it was a foolhardy attack--even if the Earth forces won, the losses sustained on both sides would be catastrophic--but who were they fooling? Everybody knew Captain Jack the Ripper wasn't concerned with losses. She wasn't concerned with morale and the happiness and wellbeing of her troops--her forces were held together by fear and intimidation just as much as Jack terrorised the Sinanjuans with. They knew only her command, and that it was to be fulfilled, lest drastic consequences be suffered--and so it was with great uncertainty that the fleets of Earth set sail for Barracus, with Jack in her command ship, the Retribution at the helm.
The subsequent battle was brutal. The sheer density of warships surrounding Barracus would have daunted any sane commander, but if Jack felt any fear as she ordered her fleets to engage the enemy knowing how many thousands of Earth-serving men and women would never return home to their families, she showed none of it. Her orders were issued without the batting of an eyelash, and war broiled over the surface of Barracus. As the populace prepared for evacuation procedures, the Barracus fleet held Earth ships at bay, lest they seek to commit an orbital bombing on Barracus to decimate the population and destroy the Republic once and for all.
They were wrong. Jack had no interest in orbital bombing, but she was very much interested in decimating Barracus' population forever. To that end, as the war over the skies of Barracus was fought tooth and nail, as the casualties mounted and the ships erupted into great columns of flame and slowly disintegrated under fire, a special ops team quietly stole away from the bulk of the battle, armed with massive steel canisters of contents unknown, and headed for the surface.
They were not detected until it was too late. They slaughtered their way to their objective: Barracus Climate Control. In other words, the system that monitored the colony's air supply. And then they shut it down. And then they plugged the canisters into the colony air supply, and began to pump nerve gas into the colony.
Jack's revenge was complete. As millions of civilians began to suffocate, men and women and children all the same in death, Jack watched from the deck of the Retribution, and laughed. Laughed with a maniacal culmination of all the rage, guilt, and joy she'd ever felt amidst war and violence, echoing throughout the halls of the Retribution as thousands of innocent lives were smothered every second, as poison gas strangled each and every innocent person on that accursed station just like she'd watched her own comrades die on that day she had buried somewhere deep beneath the new layers of hate and malevolence. She laughed, and laughed, and couldn't stop.
The next day, the survivors surrendered. Barracus' Senate had been almost entirely eliminated, their military command decimated, their population exterminated like insects to pesticide. Earth had won.
But the human authorities could no longer turn a blind eye to the genocidal acts of Captain Jackson. When they received news of what she had done to secure victory at Barracus, military command felt only horror and revulsion. They had been able to turn aside the word of unspeakable horrors occurring in Sinanju under the iron fist of Captain Jackson, had been able to turn a blind eye to what she had been doing then, but this was an act of genocide beyond any they had ever predicted she would commit. This could not go unaddressed.
When she returned to Earth space, Jack was arrested almost immediately, transported to the military command post at Castor, and placed before a tribunal of the highest military leadership in human authority--present in holographic from the High Council of Earth itself. The charges were placed before her in short order: she was convicted of crimes against humanity, for genocide and for terror, for infanticide, for torture, for arson, for reckless endangerment of the lives of loyal Earth-serving soldiers. The sentence was execution. What did she plead?
Jack was silent for several seconds, seconds in which she was absolutely empty--more devoid of any substance and emotion than she had ever been in her life. And then she said, she plead to nothing. She'd done it. By her order was it that millions were massacred, that countless lives were tortured to death, that bodies were stacked in the streets and burned like the carcasses of dogs. By her orders was it that ten million souls were extinguished in a haze of nerve gas. The real question was, who gave a shit?
The tribunal stared at her in silent shock.
She didn't care. Who gave a shit if millions died? There were trillions of people in this fucked up, worthless galaxy, what was a few million taken outta that number? Was this world really any different for that loss? Did those millions of lives change a damn thing? Hell, her sole regret was that she hadn't killed more. It would have felt so much better, so much more satisfying, and it wasn't like they didn't deserve it simply for being human.
The verdict was clear. Jack Jackson was guilty, and sentenced to death by hanging; she would not be granted the dignity of a soldier's execution by firing squad. She was branded a psychopath, a twisted, subhuman butcher--the media ran stories of a 'Butcher of Barracus', but, just as Jack had figured, there wasn't much said on the subject. Hell, some of 'em didn't even get the name of the system right, which was just further proof to her that ten million lives in this fucked up shithole? Didn't mean jack shit. Nobody cared. Nobody ever cared. People were sick and fucked up like that. Because really, what was the big difference between the butcher and the person who simply watched it happen and didn't feel a thing? What was the big difference between hate and apathy? What did ten million lives matter if nobody had given a damn about those ten million lives in the first place? What did one life matter if nobody gave a damn about it?
Shit, it wasn't like she was about to wax philosophical or some shit. She was about to die, that was all. At least the assholes were takin' her back to Earth for her execution. Ha. What a fuckin' joke. What the hell did it matter? Put a bullet between her eyes and then cremate her, hang her and then chuck her in a mass grave, Jack couldn't give a shit if she tried. Either way she was fuckin' dying.
Not that she wasn't gonna take any chance she could to get out of it. Hell fuckin' no. Jack Jackson wasn't goin' down without a fight. She'd been fighting her whole goddamn life--her entire existence was one long struggle. And fuck if she was gonna accept the end of it without a fight. Even at her lowest point, with nothing to live for but guilt and remorse and hatred, survival came instinctively to Jack. She would not die. Not even when life was torment and simply existing was painful would she allow herself to be killed. Some things simply never changed about a person.
At least the bastards didn't chuck her in on a prison ship. Nope, just threw her into the bottom levels of a friggin' public shuttle with a single guard. What kinda joke was this shit? They brought her in escorted by a goddamn army legion, and then left her with some fuckin' runt (well, relatively speaking to Jack)? Even secured as she was, Jack figured she could probably kill the dipshit by glaring at him too hard (which she spent the whole trip doing, along with questioning the legitimacy of his parentage and disparaging his masculinity). Irritatingly enough, this positively Einsteinian plan somehow failed, and Jack fell back to plan B, which involved several choice obscenities and profanities, most of them directed at the guard, some directed at the Earth Council, a number directed at whatever dickbeard had designed this shuttle, and a couple aimed at squirrels because fuck those little shits annoyed the ever loving bejeezus out of Jack, she wished bloody, gore-ridden death on each and every one of them.
Apparently, that worked. Really. Because soon as Jack declared her personal crusade of murder against squirrels and each and every one of their allies, shit hit the fan in a big way. Which was to say, pirates attacked the ship. Now, for any sane person, this is bad news. For anybody who happens to be a psychotic mass murderer named Jack Jackson on their way to execution on Earth, this is very, very good news, because Jack had a hell of a better chance of surviving, funnily enough, with a gang of space-marauding murderers than she did trapped on a slow trip to her death.
The shuttle went into a blind jump that ended up fucking shit up even more, because...okay, honestly, Jack has no idea what the fuck happened. They made the jump, and the ship just started shaking like a motherfucker. And then some dude on the intercom said some shit about 'GET TO THE ESCAPE PODS' before a particularly violent patch of turbulence shut the intercom down, sent the guards flying across the room, and, in a curious little series of events, resulted in one free convicted war criminal.
When the guards began to pull themselves to their feet, they found themselves looking up at Jack--who was very clearly not a prisoner anymore. The only thing that now bound her was the chains at her wrists--but they quickly became an advantage as she viciously bashed one of the guards across the face, knocking him flat out cold to the ground, and then she rapidly reached down, wrapped the chains around the other guard's neck, and squeezed them down. The cold metal chains dug into the skin of his throat, strangling the life from him as he choked helplessly, but Jack was ruthless--she didn't stop until at last, after what felt like hours of torment and agony, the guard was dead at her feet. And then she used his access key to remove the shackles at her hands, grabbed his shirt and boots (both of which were...a bit tight, but they'd do, better at least than the fuckin' prison get up they'd stuffed her into. Grabbed his gun, grabbed his security key, and then took off for the escape shuttles, fully intent on becoming a fugitive. Maybe she'd hit up the outer fringes, maybe head out into unknown space--explore the unknown reaches and all that bullshit. Naw, that was no fun--fuck that. She'd stay on the fringes of Earth-controlled space, start some more shit, kill off all the bastards that came after her, it'd be a shit-ton'a fun. Livin' the life of a fugitive, baby. Just like the ol' wild west holovids you sometimes saw. Poppin' one in some amateur bounty hunter's head in the middle of a bar and then lightin' a smoke off the heat off the barrel, slammin' a hand down on the bar demanding the strongest beer they had and then downin' bottle after bottle like it weren't nothin', stealin' ships and piratin' the high skies, makin' a livin' off'a takin' lives--hell, if she weren't so utterly disinterested in sex, even of the no-attachments variant, she coulda added seducin' dames and takin' names to that list, just to stay true to the cowboy spirit. She had this shit all figured out son. Jack Jackson was back in the ass kickin' business, baby...
And then the shuttle crashed.
Appearance:
Jack resembles in appearance exactly what she is--predator, with a body acutely crafted for a lifestyle of wanton violence, and a 'freak of nature' in appearance as much as in mind. Scots (as her accent and general features would suggest her to be), and certainly Scottish women, are not renowned for being particularly tall, and indeed it would be seen as an anomaly for a Scottish woman to achieve even six feet in height. Then again, it seems just not giving a fuck was built right into Jack's genes, 'cause she's fuckin' huge. Not just for a woman, not just for a Scot, by any regard, when you clock in at seven feet five inches, you're considered abnormally tall. But tall doesn't fully cover the term 'fucking huge'--that's covered by the nearly three feet she measures from shoulder to shoulder, by biceps larger around than most people's legs, by the solid eight-pack wall of her abdomen that looks like you could attack it with a slab of concrete and all you'd accomplish is the shattering of a perfectly good slab of concrete.
Her skin is fairly pale in tone, except in certain spots of darker discolouration on her throat, back, and arms, with the lightest smattering of freckles dashed across her nose and under her eyes. The freckles aren't particularly conspicuous, however--not compared to the scar that runs from beneath her right eye, across the bridge of her nose, and terminating just beside the left corner of her lips. And you're liable to find many like it across her body--jagged blade wounds, grotesque, vaguely round bullet scars, contractures that indicate burns--a gruesome menagerie of physical memories of her life in war, interspersed amongst a motley assortment of tattoos covering her from head (literally, she has some etched into her head from when she was rockin' the shaved head) to toe (not literally, Jack thinks toe tattoos are just the dumbest fuckin' thing ever devised since...well fuck it, they're just the dumbest fuckin' thing ever devised). It's clear from a single glance just how much her body has suffered in her forty seven years of life--but it's also just as clear that Jack just straight up doesn't give a fuck. The state of her body means nothing to her as long as she can continue to use it effectively.
Obviously, she's not a pretty sight (not unless you're into 7'5, musclebound psychopaths with a penchant for wanton massacre and death)--you're more likely to find her repulsive for her evident lack of concern for hygiene and the motley canvas of scars that is her body, or terrifying for her overwhelming size and skeletal, deathly features. Indeed, one sees death in her angular, sharp-edged features--with her high, pronounced cheekbones and thin, pale lips often pulled into various expressions of anger and deranged relish, she'd look gaunt and grim, almost like a corpse were it not for her size and an ever-present, slightly manic gleam in her feverishly red-brown eyes that is very much alive. She generally keeps her hair cut to a short, slightly uneven shave (because she cuts it herself and obviously she ain't no hairdresser...hell, used to just shave her head altogether. Good times.), with a wiry texture and a tendency to spring up entirely untamed; it's sort of a faded black, not quite faded to brown but also definitely not actually black, with speckles of grey clear in their midst as well. Sometimes she forgets to keep cutting it and it grows into a long, tangled, disgusting mess until Jack remembers (by which point she practically needs a lawn mower to hack off the brambles. I'm not joking. She once used a machete.), which applies to more than just her hair. In general, Jack is very....er, loose, when it comes to hygiene. Which is to say, Jack evidently is unaware of the existence of the toothbrush, and the amount of time that's passed since she last washed her face can probably be measured in generations. She just doesn't give a shit.
With regards to attire, Jack varies very little, in that she owns exactly one outfit, and it consists mostly of her old uniform (shit, how else could she possibly find shit that fits her?); she ditched her little convict get up long, long ago, because it turns out it's a lot easier to be a fugitive when you're not wearing flagrant orange shit emblazoned all over the goddamn place with 'ALTAI MILITARY PRISON'. She doesn't have the coat, or the medals, or all the other dumb showy shit, though on second thought, she never really was one for any of that stuff anyway. She generally wears the button up shirt with the sleeves shoved up to her elbows; it was once a straight up dark green, though age and wear has since faded it some, splotched from place to place with various substances from her violent escape from the prison freighter--under it, she wears a smudged up white tank top, which she sometimes wears on its own. Her lower body is attired in thick, durable combat pants in camo of a similarly dark green shade, tucked over dirty, worn out boots, and that's about it. Being....well, the way she is, as detailed above, Jack has absolutely no qualms with wearing the exact same thing for who knows how long.
Other: As a former marine of nearly thirty years, to say Jack has extensive military training is an understatement. She's a killing machine, bred solely for the destruction of other killing machines, and she was and is damn good at it. She's very experienced with a wide range of weapons, including most handguns and assault rifles, and she's rather proficient as a marksman and gunfighter. However, Jack's greatest talent is in melee combat, where she is nigh untouchable; combining her considerable brute strength with extensive thorough training in combat styles such as boxing, kick-boxing, and jiu-jitsu; she knows exactly where to hit, and believe me, when Jack hits, she hits hard. Primarily, her speciality lies in knife fighting--has been since she was a teenager. Take away all her professional marine armour, all her guns, all her special equipment, stick her in a compound full of armoured, armed, professionally trained enemy soldiers, and hand Jack nothing but a single combat knife, and she'll have the time of her fuckin' life hunting down each and every one of those soldiers. And, when she's in control and rational, Jack can be surprisingly quick-minded and extremely intelligent--it's just the problem of...well, 'when she's in control and rational'. I'll let you figure out how often that statement becomes a reality.
Homeworld: Again, who knows? She enlisted at a military outpost moon called Schuldiner II, but she obviously wasn't from the Schuldiner system--considering Schuldiner II is a military complex and the rest of the system is dedicated to military mining operations, she obviously came in from elsewhere. The question is...where? Official military records state only that she arrived in a shuttle, but the name of the shuttle she arrived on, where it came from, or where it went after it stopped at Schuldiner II...none of that is known. There's a case to be made in saying she hails, perhaps, from Scotland back on Earth, given her accent and features, or perhaps a planet with a high Scottish population, but again, who can say for sure? Well, Jack can, but she won't. From time to time she indirectly references her youth ("Just like the old days", for example, or "I could take worse than that when I was even more of a runt than you are"), but nothing concrete is ever given.
Homeworld Details: See above.
I also found a song I felt was...strangely befitting of Jack. Almost a sort of theme song. Here it is.
Last edited by Jag on Wed Oct 10, 2012 2:55 am; edited 12 times in total
Jag- Mist
- Join date : 2012-10-01
Posts : 45
Location : None
Re: Deucalion OOC
by That's Great Bob Tue Oct 02, 2012 6:24 pm
Struggling through it.
Name: Lola “La-la”(as in “La-la land.”) Cruz
Age: 16
Gender: Female
Occupation: Unemployed. (Gets by in life using her hacking skills to transfer small amounts of cash from multiple, random bank accounts, to her own. So, I suppose you could say she’s a Hacker. Good with encrypting/decrypting data, deciphering code, bypassing security protocols, etc.)
Personality: ‘Slightly off’ is definitely the most common phrasing used by strangers to describe Lola. Odd, strange, quirky, whimsical, unstable, spontaneous, maybe even gay, all words that would work quite well one their own, but go together much better in conjunction to describe her.
Background: There’s not a lot of note to say about Lola. Her life was fairly normal into her teens, at least it seemed that way for her. She was home schooled and raised by mostly her mother. Her father was a bit of an absentee parent and connected with his daughter the only way he really could: the internet. They would chat over the internet via webcams and when that was not possible it was via instant messengers and Emails. Through this relationship Lola found her love of computers, and slowly but surely she slipped into the same path her father had taken. Countless hours browsing the internet had led her to sites talking about hacking various other websites, and instantly she was intrigued. Perhaps it was her age at the time partnered with the rebellious act of doing something so clearly forbidden, but she started it anyway and soon became addicted. Her father only made this worse, because he saw the potential she had, working for a major government facility doing exactly the same, just on a grander scale. He was to hack into the government systems of other nations in an attempt to learn of any plans that could threaten their homeland and bust them behind the scenes before they could come to fruition. He spurred his daughter on and her skills soon matched his own, and she was moving onto dangerous and at times deadly levels. Her addiction pushed her without regard to fear, and one day she would come to regret it. Having hacked into a system she really should not have, led her to being hunted by a very angry group of people that wanted nothing more to end her life and anyone affiliated with her. Fearing for her family, she decided to go on the run, knowing that if she kept her hacking activity on the low she could stay off their radar. Addictions, how they are however, made that a nearly impossible task, and soon enough they were catching up to her again. With no place to hide on Castor, she came across a solution that was as insane as it was impossible, and yet it was really her only choice aside from death. Using the best of her abilities, she secured a ride aboard the Orbitus 815, a freighter ship soon to depart for Earth, a place she would be able to escape to and live out her life, hopefully.
Appearance: Skinny. The girl is only around 5’5” and weighs less than 100lbs. She is a thin little rail.
Other:
Homeworld: Castor.
Homeworld Details: It’s all… Castorly.
That's Great Bob- Mist
- Join date : 2012-10-01
Posts : 18
Age : 33
Location : The Asylum
Re: Deucalion OOC
by Kate Orchix Sat Oct 06, 2012 9:04 pm
Okay, from this point on, let's just focus on having normal-ish characters. Nothing too flashy, no military backgrounds, no more criminals, nothing like that. We have enough of them now.
Kate Orchix- Shadow
- Join date : 2012-06-04
Posts : 177
Age : 28
Location : New Zealand
Re: Deucalion OOC
by That's Great Bob Wed Oct 17, 2012 5:04 pm
My muse for this has (as if it ever really were all that alive) died and I can no longer commit to joining this role play.
Good luck.
Bob.
Good luck.
Bob.
That's Great Bob- Mist
- Join date : 2012-10-01
Posts : 18
Age : 33
Location : The Asylum
Re: Deucalion OOC
by Kate Orchix Wed Oct 24, 2012 3:55 am
I'm starting to think that maybe this should die a graceful death for now... Any objections?
Kate Orchix- Shadow
- Join date : 2012-06-04
Posts : 177
Age : 28
Location : New Zealand
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FOG: Footsteps of Ghosts :: In Character :: Advanced Role-Playing :: Advanced Out of Character Discussion :: Archived Advanced OoC Topics
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