Secondsight
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
| |
| "All are equal before the rule of law." | |
| Secondsight | |
| Player: @Gravewhisper | |
| Origin: | Mutation |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Seer (Dominator) |
| Threat Level: | ' |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Anya Steele |
| Known Aliases: | Seer 4319-074 |
| Species: | Human Mutant |
| Age: | 19 |
| Height: | 5'5" |
| Weight: | ' |
| Eye Color: | Blue |
| Hair Color: | Red |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | Praetorian |
| Occupation: | Seer |
| Place of Birth: | Praetoria |
| Base of Operations: | Praetoria |
| Marital Status: | Single |
| Known Relatives: | Seer 3612 (formerly Russell “Mindscape” Steele) (brother); Seer 3613 (formerly Sharon “Redeemer” Steel) (sister); Marcus “Romulus” Steele (brother, Powers Division); Paige Steele (mother); Franklin Steele (father, DUST agent) |
| Known Powers | |
| Telepathy, Empathy, Psychic Assault, Telekinesis | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Psychic Surgery, Mental Conditioning Techniques | |
| Equipment | |
| Despite the removal of her Seer cybernetics, she still has the remains of where the various control devices were linked into her body. These links are currently dormant, but are capable of being utilized to reintroduce her into the Network. | |
| Seer 4319 has been declared a burn out by the Network and is considered deceased. Within the official records of Praetoria, she was officially executed for her original deeds. | |
Contents |
Appearance
Personality
Secondsight is a creature that sees the world in shades of gray. She holds little interest in arguments or worldviews that require that people act within rigid code that requires a person to act simply because a rulebook requires it. In her eyes, she has come to believe that the true rule of law is those actions that benefit society as a whole. Those that place personal ambition or enjoyment over the common good should face a reaction for their actions. At one time, she had used the Resistance’s war to fuel her own interest in chaos. After two years under the ‘care’ of the Seer Network, she came to understand how others felt when someone uses a system to protect others for their own ends. By her experience, she paid faced a mental death sentence for her violence and has been given a second chance in her new aspect. This view has often placed her in conflict with those that feel exceptions can be made in such cases. As Secondsight, she has become devoted that those who commit a crime or abuse the system should face a price for their actions. She has shown little tolerance for those who state that those who simply reform or have the right connections should escape their just due.
Despite her aggressive view points, she still holds echos of her past conditioning. It has been discovered that her mind is unable to cause her body to process the reactions that would produce emotional responses to anger, resentment, revenge, or similar negative emotions. This loss of personality has come to prove that her world view holds little personal interest in pursuing ambitions or private agendas.
By nature, Secondsight has shown herself to be normally docile in regards to dealing with matters of leadership. While she holds her own views of potential ideas, she rarely makes suggestions unless directly solicited by someone above her. The alterations in her mind still echo the obedient nature of a Seer. The only exception that has been seen is when she feels that a situation warrants a punishment for excessive breeches of what she considers generally accepted human behavior. This trait seems to exist as a throwback to one of the key elements used to in her ‘training’ by the Network.
Background
Life Before the Network
Praetorian Earth is the home to a people that has faced near destruction and lived. Besieged by abusive politicians and the Devouring Earth, it was pulled from the brink by a man that would come to be acclaimed its Emperor. This is a story that every good citizen of Praetoria has been told. Stability and security are ideals prized more than things such as freedom. In the eyes of such a people, little things such as privacy are sacrificed for the good of the whole. One is taught to accept the touch of the Seers who scan for stray thoughts to prevent potential harm to others. Those born to incredible gifts and powers are expected to give back and protect those that are in need of their shield of strength. In this ideal, those that place themselves before the city are contained for the good of the many.
The Steele family had been born and raised in this world. Two generations had served in the forces that had been loyal to Emperor Cole. But, that would begin to change in Anya’s generation. By the time she had been born, the ranks of the Resistance had begun to infiltrate and influence society. Rumors had begun to circulate of the harsh and unethical methods that the Praetors had used to create the utopian society. Her parents were sworn to the society they had grown up protecting. However, their children would come to echo the schism of those that still believed and those that refused to be deceived.
Each of the Steele children were entered into testing as required by the test to determine their potential as servants of society. In her eldest brother, Mindscape, and sister, Redeemer, it was discovered both had shown mutations that considerable psychic potential. Before either had fully manifested their talents, it was determined that it would be in the best interest of the state that both be remanded to Mother of Mercy Hospital. Officially, it had been ruled that both had shown several deviations in their personality scans that held the potential to lead both to become dangerous psychics left on their own. Before either had the chance to protest the decision, their parents had already remanded the pair to the care of the Hospital. After their arrest, both were discovered to be agents for the Resistance and were slated to be transformed into units for the Seer Network for their activities.
Anya was born on the same day that her elder siblings’ sentence was carried out by Praetor Tilman. In Anya and her younger brother, Marcus, her parents saw the potential for a second chance after the loss of their older children. To avoid either becoming traitors, Anya and Marcus were brought up in a sheltered environment that held a strong focus on loyalty to the state. In the beginning, she had enjoyed the company of those in Power Division that put time in with the youth of Praetoria. She and her brother grew up underfoot of those legends that used their powers to fight those that threatened innocent civilians.
As she began to reach her teen years, Anya began to become infected with a rebellious streak as she sought to make her own decisions in her life. Those interests began to lead her to seek out areas that were normally forbidden to law-abiding citizens. Initially, she had gotten involved with mild criminal elements just for the excitement. But, that began to change as she came into contact with elements of the Resistance in the Underground. She was drawn in by a friend known as Vagrant, one of those that had joined the movement to become involved for the rush and adventure. Her own fire for the cause grew over the years as she went from simply running supplies to actual raids that aided her local cell of fighters.
By the age of seventeen, Anya had turned her back on her family and become fully embraced by the Resistance. Despite showing no powers or mutations, she had become familiar with the Underground and various weapons used by the ill-equipped freedom fighters. She had become tied up with the more violent faction of the group that sought to bring freedom amid the chaotic fun of their explosive activities.
During this time, her younger brother had been tested and received immediate acceptance into the Powers Division. Marcus took on the name of Romulus and also learned over his family’s history of disappointments. The truth of his elder siblings was revealed to him when he came face to face with both serving as brainwashed Seers assigned to his unit. Where Anya had come to embrace the chaos of the Resistance with a passion, Romulus’ devotion shifted to finding ways to atoning for the disgraces of his family. He came to display little sympathy for anyone sentence to behavioral modification or other punishments. In his eyes, those that would put themselves before the state deserved the fate that was given to them.
Anya and her brother soon became bitter enemies as the two chose sides. When became known that Anya was involved with the Resistance, her brother became personally involved in seeking her out to have her brought to justice. After several clashes, Romulus would find success via a trap set trap set for his sister. When her team took the bait and raided what they thought was a weapons cache, the group soon found themselves subdued by a full team of Powers Division. Anya soon found herself taken into custody and brought in to face justice for her actions.
After her arrest, Anya was subjected to various mental scans and tests to determine the source of her criminal activities. It was discovered that she held latent potential as a powerful psychic. Her genetic mapping revealed that her mutation may have contributed to her mental instabilities. Once she had been subjected to various mental interrogations for information, she was convicted for her Resistance activities. Originally, she was to be referred to the Behavioral Adjustment Facility in order to reorganize her attitude to one more productive to Praetoria. However, before the order could be given, her brother Romulus had approached the various authorities with the history of his family.
Feeling betrayed by his own sister, her brother felt that she should face more than a simple readjustment. He presented the files of his elder siblings. The two had gone from violent Resistance members to noted members of the Seer Network. With the information in hand, the authorities revised Anya’s original sentence. She found herself remanded into the care of Mother of Mercy Hospital, rather than the BAF. As she was being transferred, Anya was informed of her updated sentence by her brother himself...
Steele, Anya F. (4716-B)
17, Female
Conviction Status: Resistance Activities, Sedition, Treason, Assault
Corrective Action Orders: Steele, Anya F. has been discovered to hold several unexplored psychic abilities that remain latent due to her mutations. Initial scans suggest the subject holds the potential for her talents to be weaponized or refined for use in service to the state. Subject’s family history has shown considerable success within the Seer program (see files <Seer 3612> and <Seer 3613>). BAF personnel suggest that subject may not respond to standard modifications due to her violent activities. In consideration of recommendations of BAF staff, medical staff of Mother of Mercy Hospital, and Powers Division Agent Romulus, this panel hereby remands Steele, Anya F. into the custody of the oversight of the Seer Network. It is recommended that Steele, Anya F. immediately be processed for inclusion into the Network.
The Price of Treason
Once she was in the custody of the hospital, Anya was transferred to the Seer division. With her potential latent, it had been understood that her transformation was mainly punitive. She was treated as any other person being converted into a Seer by the staff, granted with more disdain given her Resistance past. As with each new Seer, Praetor Tilman was involved in her processing. Officially, Anya Steele disappeared from the network to become one of the nameless, numbered units that served the state seeking out stray and criminal thoughts. Unofficially, her transition from an independent human into a servile drone took far longer.
Over several months, she underwent extensive psychic surgeries that at the hands of the Praetor and her operatives. Her mind and personality were altered through different techniques to transform her into a docile tool. All sense of self and her original violent nature was painfully altered into a creature focused on sacrificing its entire bearing for the good of society. Conditioning was introduced that had radically transformed her rebellious nature to accept that she required intervention in order to function safely. The program would go on to show its worth once more as former citizen evolved into the unit designated as Seer 4319.
Initially, her the latency of her talents made her of little use to the Network. For a time, her original infamy was employed as she was used as public example of the fate of those that betrayed the city. Deployed at various city functions, Seer 4319 served merely as a symbol of how criminals could be transformed -- even those considered to violent. Her fate began to change, however, when she was transferred to the experimental division of the hospital.
One of the staff had proposed the idea for a new implant that would aid in increasing the efficiency of processing new Seers. The concept was to utilize a new cybernetic and the implant that would be directly set into the brain of a Seer that was unable to control their abilities. The new power governor would allow the Network to instantly map into a subject the memories and skills of a model psychic scanned from others already deployed. Rather than waste time having to tweak and refine a Seer’s skills, it would allow the program to maximize the time that a Seer was viable before they burned out. After reviewing the program, Praetor Tilman had Seer 4319 transferred under the researcher in order to test the new control devices.
Under the program, Seer 4319 was subjected to a regimen of experimental and psychic surgeries. Her mental channels were opened to allow her buried potential to be brought to activity. As her powers came to life, the new implant, known as a power governor, was set into her brain. Scans of several Seers with powers similar to her own were mapped onto the implant in order to allow her to instantly learn to use her new abilities. The program revealed she held considerable talents in telepathy and psychic assault. With the new success the governor allowed, the Praetor began to study the Seer’s new active abilities. Further tweaking was required as it was uncovered that the Seer displayed abilities to alter the reaction time in others. By the time the governor was fully active, the experiment was able to produce a fully ‘trained’ Seer within a few weeks. The implant was further proven a success because it allowed the Network handlers to program exactly what they wanted a Seer to be able to do and shut down access to powers that may be undesirable.
Despite success of the governor, Seer 4319 was never deployed in the field as an active unit. Once the experiment was concluded, she was assigned to other researchers as new experiments were proposed. Her mind became a playground for new ideas of control units and other enhancement tools for the program. These new tests would serve to drastically amplify her natural powers beyond what she could naturally produce. As with many given over to the imaginations of the researchers, her mind and body soon reached the limits of what it could endure. After a year of nightmarish alterations, her body could no longer handle the overload of psychic energies that now pulsed through her modified channels.
Once it was discovered that the experimental Seer could no longer endure the stresses of the research division, she was ruled a burn out. She was removed from the Network by her handlers. In order to ensure her project was terminated, Praetor Tilman performed a final psychic surgery that severed the few strands of sentience the program had left her. Seer 4319 and several other broken units were disposed of in the Underground underneath the hospital. As others with her history, she became a notation in the judicial records as one of many convicted traitors that had shattered the under punishments for their crimes.
Resurrection
The Resistance had begun working with various doctors that had taken an interest in attempting to remove Seers from the Network safely. Many unfortunate units were often left broken shells or violent psychotics once their cybernetics were removed, however. In order to procure test subjects for different procedures, a team of Resistance fighters raided the Underground under the hospital. Amid the moaning, broken psychics, the team procured women that had been flushed out of the Network. One of the recovered shells were the remains of what had once been known as Seer 4319.
The former Seers were left in the care of a doctor that had been driven out of practice by the state. Dr. Nigel Winters had been rescued from arrest and transfer to the BAF by the Resistance. With knowledge of the cybernetics and programs of the Seer Network, he had become ‘enlisted’ into seeking ways to release those enslaved by it. Working with his team, Dr. Winters was successful in removing the cybernetics that worked to control each woman. The process, however, proved that to release such creatures would require more than simply removing the hardware. Over time, their work led them to delve into the minds that had been broken under Praetor Tilman and her people.
The team’s work was successful in a few cases. It would be discovered that each mind had been altered and conditioned in a way suited to mold the original personality. With each requiring a personal touch, it required considerable effort find ways to tease something of the former mind to the surface. In Seer 4319’s own case, it required considerable work to revive anything resembling a trace of sentience. After several random attempts, the psychics involved were able to form new mental pathways to allow her mind to begin to function beyond base motor systems.
For the first time in nearly two years, Anya Steele suddenly found herself able to reason for herself without the influence of her implants. The personality that emerged, however, bore considerable scars from her punishment by the state. After several sessions, the researchers came to discover that several aspects of her mind had been simply cut away. The process had removed her mind’s ability to process and create the sensations of various emotions. Anger, resentment, and other aspects of her former rebellious nature had been purged. In her eyes, it was as if she had served a death sentence for her violent ways as Anya and been resurrected as a new creature. Her former cruelty had been replaced by a far more evolved world-view. Taking advantage of her deceased status with the state, she severed her ties with her past identity.
In her new incarnation, she became an agent for the Resistance under the name of Secondsight. Her mental abilities, regulated by the power governor, would allow her to evolve into an active part of their activities. It was discovered that one of the experiments installed into her duplicated the effects of a technology known as a Limbo Device. This caused her to be unreadable to Seers. Despite her usefulness, however, her new personality often led her into contact with her peers. A member of the Warden faction, she considered it essential to take care to avoid causing unneeded violence. She carried several traitor accusations when she would often allow more violent members of the Resistance to be captured by the authorities to face justice. These confrontations would border violence, only restrained due to her usefulness and knowledge of the movement.
Seer Cybernetics (Power Profile)
As part of her original conversion, Secondsight was subjected to a sequence of surgeries and implantations in order to function as a Seer. Various connections were fitted into her brain, neck, and spinal column that allowed external hardware to be fitted to alter her according to different needs. Initially, she had been equipped with the eye mask and control collar that allowed her actions to be regulated. The internal parts of her alteration have shown to be hardwired into her body prohibiting their full removal without affecting her health. Even with the removal of her cybernetics, these connections are still visible at intervals over her head and back. The connections have been set into a dormant state, but would allow the Network to reintegrate her should it be in their current interests.
Power Governor
In the case of her power governor, it consists of a sequence of neural simulators and a processing chip that has been implanted within her brain. The device required several rounds of surgery in order to fully integrate to allow it to regulate her power usage. Each stimulator is set over areas in her brain mapped out by scans in order to trigger activity where these powers originally were dormant. The processor of the system is designed to be programmed with mental scans from other psychics allowing her to use her powers using the introduced techniques. As a security feature, the processor inhibits any attempts to use her powers outside of those available through its database. While the governor can allow access to new powers, it can also be set to shut down the mental pathways to powers the programmers may find undesirable. The governor serves to create a predictable, controllable unit that can be adjusted with the same efficiency as giving a simple adjustment to a state Clockwork.
Current Programming
- Telepathy The main focus of the stimulator have forced her mind to allow her access to psychic scanning abilities. In her processor, the device has been mapped with standard Seer scanning techniques, mental assault, and behavioral modifications via psychic surgery.
- Empathy At present, she currently has access to two forms of empathic abilities. She is able to receive and scan for emotions in others allowing her insight into mental states. A second addition is a form of projective empathy scanned from one of the Network’s Seers. This enables her to cause a target to become passive and listless, even to the point of causing them into a state of sleep.
- Telekinesis The simulators mapped along her telekinetic have only been able to awaken rudimentary strength in this talent. Despite various programs mapped onto the processor, her control is rough limiting her ability to crude blasts of psychic force. This power has been weaponized to offer an offensive ability. Her natural talent in this ability seems limited to affecting objects that weigh three hundred pounds or less.
- Chronomancy One of the more unexplored aspects of her mutation, she is able to affect the flow of time on a limited scope via mental commands. An uncommon trait, the lack of its study within the Network limited the researcher’s ability to make scans of other subjects to map into the processor. While the mapping of her mind suggested considerable potential in this area, her status as a test subject limited interest in developing it beyond what was needed for research. Her current programming allows her to use adjust time flows in a small area. This has served to enhance reaction time or reduce combat abilities of others.
Disabled Powers
At present, her governor is set to restrict access to certain powers. These have been explained via records as due to security reasons in case she was broken from the network.
- Psionic Shielding Her ability to create basic mind screens or mental shields has been disabled. Originally linked to the Network, there was little need for defensive abilities in her as a test subject. This has proven a weakness now that she has become a free agent against the state she once served. Despite attempts to adjust her governor, this modification seems to be hardwired into the device. No stimulator has been implanted over this area of her mind leaving the talent dormant.
Limbo Network
Various criminal groups have sought ways to hide their unregistered psychics from the Seer program in order to gain an edge over their rivals. The illegal Limbo Device allows one a subject to be cloaked from scans that would normally reveal their presence. During testing, the network was investigating ways to attempt to circumvent such devices. These experiments produced new device that involved implantation into the subject’s brain. With the new Limbo Network, the test subject is rendered invisible to general scans used by Seers to seek out criminal thought and rogues psychics. This allows her to pass undetected in most cases, but it does not screen her from a direct scan or assault by a psychic that has line of sight of her.
Behavioral Reinforcement Implant
The reinforcement implant was developed as part of one of the various experiments in control devices. While it was being tested in the Seer program, the implant was being researched in order to assist in reinforcing BAF modifications. The device, originally working with her Control Collar, is designed with a set program. After various models, the implant carries a program that passively forces the subject to be unable to take action against the state. Even if a subject’s behavioral conditioning fails, the implant short circuits the person’s attempts to take action on rebellious thoughts. It carries out this purpose by allowing the subject to consider, even plan, such options. But, when they attempt to express or take action, the implant will disrupt the brain’s attempts to send signals to the required areas of the body.
In Secondsight, the implant has come to serve as a fail safe in case her cybernetics were removed. She is able to plot full plans, but it inhibits her from communicating these ideas to others. When dealing with Praetorian authorities, the implant will not allow her to resist orders or take hostile action against them.
