Census Taker
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
| |
| Union Doctrine can be applied to almost any problem! | |
| The Census Taker | |
| Player: Synthozoic | |
| Origin: | Natural |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Scrapper |
| Security Level: | 23 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Dathra Bone-Rank |
| Known Aliases: | "That G-Man from Outer Space" |
| Species: | A hmarfefshen. This is usually shortened informally to "hmar." |
| Age: | Physiologically 19 Earth years. Chronologically, due to time dilation and cell repair machines, closer to 50 Earth years |
| Height: | 1.9m |
| Weight: | 89kg |
| Eye Color: | iridescent, sky blue |
| Hair Color: | None but does has have bright yellow and red protrusions and patterns on glossy, chitinous skin. |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | A merited citizen of the Drey Social Union, with passports on many worlds and habitats. |
| Occupation: | A census taker employed with the All Union Survey Organization |
| Place of Birth: | Fef, a very Earth like planet orbiting a G0 star some 75 thousand light years from Earth. |
| Base of Operations: | Currently Talos Island, RI, |
| Marital Status: | Species is trigendered, A, B and C. Dathra is a B and currently has an impregnated C in cryonic suspension, with plans to restore it on sabbatical. |
| Known Relatives: | As a trigendered species, Census Takers' familial relations are just stupidly baroque! |
| Known Powers | |
| None except training, native talent and advanced alien technology. | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Alien martial arts training, extensive scientific, technical and military training. | |
| Equipment | |
| Lots of weird alien devices, most of which are designed to be biodegradable to prevent cultural and biological contamination | |
| ' | |
Contents |
Biography
Dathra Bone-Rank is an agent of the Drey Social Union. The Drey Union, is a multi-species, interstellar civilization comprised of 10.12 billion billion solar systems. The civilization is held together by fast, reliable, FTL communications and transport and, as such, is mostly economically and technologically uniform. It is not a feudal or imperial government but is a caste oriented democratic meritocracy with a very strong ideological backing. What holds the civilization together is a political, philosophical and economic belief system held with almost religious fervor.
Dathra (Whose honorific "bone-rank" will be explained in a moment.) is an agent of this government on Earth to evaluate its admission to the Union. How this evaluation process works is quite complicated but, Drey ideology requires it's adherents to be very patient. The Drey is quite familiar with Earth culture but they are about 60 or years out of date due to the speed of light. As such Dathra speaks a bit like a hep cat, raving about Lindy Hopping and bop jazz.
But recently it has discovered that through some unexplained fault in the FTL drive of its ship, it has somehow been transported into a new universe! Where Dathra is from magic or any form psychic power don't exist. In this universe, the universe of Paragon City, the Drey Social Union doesn't exist. Dathra is now marooned and has to make due on this primitive planet of apes with its skill and training alone!
Powers and Talents
Dathra doesn't really have superhuman power. It is strong and healthy and well trained in weird unarmed combat techniques. Whatever superhuman abilities Dathra has are in its tools and instrumentality. It has a medical kit that uses nanoscopic cell repair repair machines to repair wounds and rejuvenate tissues and organics. It's uniform is composed of sintered armorgel and self-healing impact plastic surrounded by woven graphene sheets and buckytubes--light, breathable and yet protects like a stack of telephone books when hit by projectiles.
It has a few other sublethal weapons, including a sickness darts, tasers and a shock cannon. Dathra really isn't trying to kill anyone. It just occasionally needs to show them the error of their ways. Lately it has been favoring the use of more Earth technology to extend and protect the limited supply of advanced technology from its ship--currently buried on the far side of the Moon.
Biology
Dathra is one of a quasi-trigendered species from an Earthlike planet some 75,000 light years from Earth. The hmarfefshen are carbon, water and dextro-protein based using a different set of amino acids from the 20 used by Earthly life. This means that hmarfefshen can't metabolize most human foods or drinks and in some cases these food could be deadly poison. After a few tests, Dathra found that a simple cocktail of carrot juice mixed with nail polish remover works very effectively to attain intoxication and euphoria with no lasting damage to tissue--at least not that the cell repair machines can't fix.
The hmarfefshen are called quasi-trigendered because millions of years ago Dathra's species became merged into deep symbiosis with another species on its planet. This symbiosis is so strong that the third party species, gender C, contributes essential genetic information to the mitochondria of either A or B genders. The A and B genders would not be possible without the C gender. The C genders mate among themselves in more typical two gendered reproduction. The C gender is not as fully sapient as the A and B genders, being comparable to Earth dogs, horses, monkeys or cetaceans.
Water and oxygen are vital to hmarfefshen just as with Earthly life but, due to alien amino acid contamination and due to the lack of a symbiotic air-borne bacteria native to Fef. Dathra usually has to breath with a special air filtration and conditioning system. But it can endure short periods say about 10 or 15 minutes without it before allergic mucus buildup make breathing impossible. Its skin is also mildly irritated by alien protein from dust and dirt but usually daily baths and clothing keep this well under control.
It's pharynx is actually very human sounding, with a slightly greater range on the high end.
Personality, Mannerism and Habits
Despite the alien biology, it's surprising how human-like Dathra's personality is, Dathra can even understand a lot of human humor, especially slapstick and puns. Most of the sexual or gender stereotype humor tends to go right over its head though. It has tried to tell a few jokes based around its own mating biology with equally blank expressions. So it goes.
Dathra has been forcing itself to learn English and to stop relying on its translator badge.
Dathra is generally quite easy going and patient. Mostly it finds it hard to be offended due to outright confusion. But it is a well read anthropologist and usually knows when a human is trying to insult it. It has set its translator badge to omit the vulgarities of it's own languages, mostly to keep the satisfaction of its own insults to itself.
Despite being marooned on a primitive world, Dathra seems to be holding up quite well. This is mostly due to its strongly held beliefs in Union Doctrine. Union Doctrine is a very wide ranging, political, economic and psychological ideology whose adherents hold almost like a religion. Perhaps it's nearest analogs might be Confucianism or Chivalry. Union Doctrine is designed to transcend local cultures and to be universally applicable to all creatures, sapient or not.
