From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe

Are you ready to be liberated?
Selene Dioscura
Player: @twelfth
Origin:	Mutant
Archetype:	Scrapper
Security Level:	Peacekeeper (20 - Feb 2008)
Personal Data
Real Name:	Selene Damhnait Foyle
Known Aliases:	Celine Dioscura, Celine Foyle, Selena Foyle
Species:	Human-derived Mutant
Age:	Mid to Late Twenties
Height:	5'6"
Weight:	Junior to Athletic.
Eye Color:	Brown
Hair Color:	Pink (Dyed)
Biographical Data
Nationality:	Dual Citizenship, Republic of Ireland and U.S.A.
Occupation:	Social Worker, Revolutionary
Place of Birth:	Donegal, Ireland
Base of Operations:	Paragon City, RI, USA
Marital Status:	Single, Widowed, or Divorced
Known Relatives:	Available upon Clearance.
Known Powers
Teleportation, Morphological Resequencing
Known Abilities
Skilled to excellent hand-to-hand combatant, high degrees of intuitive knowledge of space and environmental threats.
Equipment
Tactical belt, prescription medication, tools and weapons as required.
Accreditations: BA (psychology) 2003, BSW 2006.

Selene Dioscura is the registered codename for an Irish-American female revolutionary soldier and martial artist of the mutant origin, whose abilities conform to the “Scrapper” archetype. While her medical history suggests a life-long history of mental illness and borderline dementia, the unfortunate truth may be far more sinister. Dioscura is a derivative of the title dioscuri, which refers to the mythological heroes Castor and Polydeuces (Pollux); twin sons of the Ancient Greek god Zeus. Despite the origin of the term, Selene does not descend from royalty, divine or otherwise.

Contents 1 Appearance 2 Personality 3 Powers 3.1 Teleportation & Spatial Hypersense 3.2 Morphological Resequencing 4 Abilities 4.1 Martial Arts and Unarmed Combat 4.2 The Caul 4.3 Other Abilities 5 Weaknesses and Limitations 6 Equipment 7 Character History 8 Trivia 9 Character Origins 10 Footnotes

Appearance

Selene is a caucasian female of average height, with a slender, unremarkable frame. She does not appear, upon cursory inspection, to be distinct or otherwise remarkable from a crowd of otherwise commonplace humans. The most outstanding physical characteristic she possesses is rose-pink hair, an affection from her favorite television character.^[1] She has eleven ear piercings: five on the right, six on the left.

Upon closer inspection, Selene is in good physical health and exercises regularly. She does not have a hard-defined body and her skin is soft and unused to hard labor. Her complexion is a little discolored and sallow due to a lack of sunlight and benign side-effects to her medications. Selene has several light scars across her arms, legs, torso, and limited parts of her back.^[2] These are fairly old, but occasionally new wounds will appear.

Selene prefers to wear light, but close-fitting clothing. These are usually second-hand clothes, and occasionally feature unexplained tears, holes, or other blemishes. Most of the time, however, Selene takes careful steps to maintain a collected and neat appearance. Such damaged clothing is usually disposed of or otherwise recycled as soon as they become unsightly. Her clothing style is sometimes uncertain and mismatched, and almost never conforms to high-class or expensive labels, brands, or fashions.

Personality

Selene's personality is difficult to categorize precisely. She has been diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder and traditional elements of schizophrenia, along with aspects of bipolar disorder, depression, and a small list of other, less extreme mental-health conditions. As such, Selene's personality varies wildly depending on her environment and stressors both within and outside of her control.

Typically, Selene is a very meek, soft-spoken individual who typically does her best to remain unnoticed and unobtrusive in conversations and social settings. She has the capacity to act in a competently professional manner, and project a sparkling kind of amiability - but these moments are vastly overshadowed by her more commonplace emotional outbursts. When suffering an episode of mental instability Selene can vascilate from a calmly inquistive demeanor to a starkly homicidal rage in only a few moments. Selene often expresses confusion about her surroundings, extending even to events in the immediate past in which she has participated, alleging little to no memory of such events.

Selene has a few distinct personality habits. She dislikes people touching her, and shies away from physical contact. Selene usually reacts very negatively to those who express doubts about her sanity, preferring to point out that she has a "medical condition". Selene dislikes leaving her home for long periods of time and commonly complains of needing to return home if stressed or otherwise uncomfortable. Lastly, she talks to herself almost constantly, although this is mostly limited to sub-audible muttering and mumbling.

Her psychiatric examiners have also noted that Selene has a common propensity for deception, unreliable reporting, and falsehood. This borders on the pathological, but does not exactly meet the standards for such a diagnosis. Those interacting with her are warned to take her statements with some skepticism.

Powers

Teleportation & Spatial Hypersense

The power deriving from Selene’s mutation is commonly seen among many heroes: teleportation. However, it is innately tied to her co-habitating ego, allowing Selene to operate in more than once place at a time. She has been able to teleport single individuals as well, although this process is frequently disorienting both to the passenger and Selene herself. Theories of what might happen to the passenger should Selene lose control of her ability in mid-teleport have not been speculated upon.

Additionally, Selene has the capacity to apport items from a remote location onto her person. She is best able to do this with items she is familiar with or have some personal connection to her. Her power-therapists have been attempting to train her to obtain unfamiliar items in the same manner, although she is still inexperienced in doing this. Celine uses this ability to obtain her preferred weapons if she is unarmed, or even change clothes as desired.

Selene has discovered that she can displace her body weight while allowing her physical body to appear to be unfettered by gravity. This is a taxing effort, however, and Selene cannot do much else when performing this feat of levitation. Additionally, her spatial sense has increased significantly, allowing her to detect objects and obstacles in her vicinity with nearly unerring accuracy. This, combined with her practiced ability to microport (nearly instantaneous micro-range teleportation) makes Selene extremely difficult to successfully engage in direct melee combat.

Morphological Resequencing

Selene’s ability to adapt her physical form and characteristics according to her own psychology and ego. This is far from a conscious ability and relies far more on manifestations of unconscious and subconscious desires and impulses, making it distinct from traditional metamorphic “shape shifting” powers. Most commonly, Selene and her alter-ego, Celine, alternate control of the physical body they inhabit, tailoring its appearance to their individual residual self-image. For example, Selene has dyed her hair a very vivid pink color and has a softer, less athletic form. By comparison, Celine has darker, purple-black hair (which is also styled differently) and a much more athletic physique than her sister-ego. It has been established that the two forms have exclusively individual ontological inertia between the two psyches: wounds which appear on one individual do not necessarily carry over to the other. It remains to be seen if Selene will be able to further develop her powers to transform her body to more significant, drastic degrees.

As noted above, changes in attire are usually the result of Selene apporting her clothes from storage. They should not be considered an element of the resequencing ability.

Abilities

Martial Arts and Unarmed Combat

Selene is an accomplished martial artist and has a high degree of skill in hand-to-hand combat. She is far from an expert in the field and struggles to continue her training. She is uncertain where she learned these skills, particularly as her style resembles that taught to Arachnos Blood Widows (although it is not identical to it). When interviewed about this, Selene could only offer that “she just tried it one day and it started to work”. Indeed, ELITE’s analysis of her combat prowess posited that her skills were developing not along traditional training models, but rather on a more difficult intuitive, organic progression scale.

The Caul

As with many individuals who have been diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, Selene often demonstrates a loss of subjective time. Mingled with this symptomology is a pheonomenon whereby Selene retains a partial, vague memory of the event which transpire while her "Selene" personality is not dominant. This liminal consciousness, which Selene has dubbed "the Caul", acts as a partial buffer between the conscious personality of "Selene" and the conscious personality of her alter-ego, "Celine". As such, the Caul separates and individualizes the memories and knowledge of each alter.

However, as Selene has determined, the Caul also allows the submissive personality access to the knowledge and memories of the dominant personality. Presently, Selene can only access this subconscious "back-door" when she has lost control of the physical body to her alter-ego. It is through the Caul that Selene has learned (or, perhaps been shown) as much as she knows about "Celine" and her purported background. For her part, "Celine" appears to be much more adept in manipulating the Caul for her own purposes.

Accessing the Caul and its potential is a voluntary act of will on the participant ego's part. Otherwise, the submissive ego will be subsumed into the sub-conscious of the mind, allowing the dominant personality to operate without observation or interference. This allegedly explains why Selene is only occasionally aware of her actions while her personality is submissive. Celine has mordantly commented that her sister "doesn't have the stomach" for the deeds and interactions she participates in, and chooses not to watch through the lens of the Caul. Once the submissive personality achieves dominance, the retained knowledge obtained or gleaned from the Caul becomes vague, impefect, and difficult to quantify. It is possible that the knowledge is retained in more detail in the dominant personality's subconscious, but no conclusive evidence has been discovered.

Other Abilities

Selene has a bachelor degree in Psychology and Social Work, and is gradually pursuing a study plan in order to obtain a graduate degree in Social Work as well as becoming a licensed professional counselor. This makes her qualified to make routine psychological evaluations of individuals, although she is rarely heeded due to her own overwhelming personality problems.

Selene is also a competent computer programmer and marksman, although she has little need for these skills. Her early years in delinquency have provided her a number of unusual skills at the amateur level. She has amateur skill with electronics and electrical engineering, some familiarity with escapology, and enjoys puzzles.

Selene has an untapped talent as a pianist. She is completely untrained, but has an exceptional ear for music and has occasionally replicated short pieces of music she hears abroad. If someone were to teach her the rudiments of playing the instrument, they would find her to be something of a savant.

Weaknesses and Limitations

Although her mutant abilities allow her to reshape her physical morphology, she does not have the capacity to provide her physical body with more resiliency than a normal human being. This requires her to rely on external protection (armor, protective gear) in order to prevent harm. Additionally, Selene has no known defenses or training against psionic intrusion or attacks. In fact, she seems abnormally susceptible to them.

Curiously, Selene appears to suffer from physical pain when exposed to unusual, extraterrestrial/extraplanar, or magical speech. These sounds typically strain or transcend the boundary of normal human hearing, but Selene's exposure to such noises elicit a panicked, hysterical state of mind. As the symptoms have only recently been discovered, no origin for this weakness has been determined.

Because of the large number of prescription medication Selene actively takes, she cannot drink alcohol in any quantity and has never really learned to do so. She also must wear sunscreen whenever she is going to be outside for extended periods of time, pay rigorous attention to her caloric intake, eat regularly, and cannot give blood. As a side effect of her medications, delicate manual tasks requiring fine motor skills (such as writing and typing) are difficult for Selene. Selene’s bloodwork, outside of demonstrating the exceptional amounts of psychoactive medications she takes, records that her body chemistry shows nearly super-saturated levels of stress hormones.

Her most prevalent flaw is her own unstable mental condition. Danger, trauma, or other stressors can cause Selene to lose control of her conscious actions, commonly allowing her co-habitating ego to obtain dominance and act independent of her desires. The relationship between the two egos is commonly adversarial and mutually contrarian. For more information on Selene’s alter-ego (sensu stricto), see Celine Dioscura

Equipment

Because of the athleticism required of her skills, Selene prefers to carry little to no equipment or armor. She is mostly unskilled with armed combat; and all but the most basic and rudimentary armor restricts her movement too much to perform the delicate maneuvers of her martial arts. Selene does carry a miniaturized tactical belt which can be of use while in the field. The compartments include reinforced handcuffs, mutagen accelerant, her cellphone (with GPS capability), and a debit card. For any further equipment or accessories, Selene either carries around a large canvas purse, or simply apports the item from storage using her teleportation abilities.

Selene possesses a disused revolver, obtained through the black market for self-defense purposes. Her physician and other mental health caregivers are not aware of its existence. It is loaded with silver bullets, "Just in case".^[3]

Character History

Selene Foyle was born in Donegal, Ireland into a lower middle class Catholic family with little to offer their daughter other than hard work and the political instability which had plagued the region for nearly a century. While it was certain that she possessed a precocious intelligence, a sparkling curiosity for the world, and a heartfelt compassion for her fellows, it was also clear that she was deeply troubled.

From as early as age six, Selene demonstrated behavioral problems considered extreme in comparison to her “normal” personality and behavior patterns. A disregard for parents, teachers, and authority figures often led to numerous serious injuries, along with several strikingly vicious acts of vandalism and mayhem which seemed inconsistent with a child her age. Despite the frenzied nature of these episodes, Selene would usually revert to her more placid personality and express genuine remorse for her actions and frequently made unsolicited efforts to repair what damage had been done. Often, when questioned about these episodes, Selene would blame a third party, “the bad girl”, for her actions. At age eleven, Selene viciously attacked a mirror in her family’s home, grievously injuring herself in the process. As before, she tried to explain that the episode was due to “the bad girl in the mirror”. Her physicians and careworkers quickly agreed: Selene had a serious, possibly irreparable, mental illness and needed full-time professional care. Her parents, buckling under the normal strain of their finances, had no ability to care for their daughter in the manner the physicians deemed necessary ^[4].

Fortunately for Selene, her aunt offered to take the child as a guardian, provided that her parents could emigrate her to the United States. Once in America, her aunt (a professional counselor and lecturer on mental illness) took the child into her care, personally and professionally. Despite constant attention and pro-bono care from several of her aunt’s colleagues, Selene remained a troublesome case to handle. Over the course of her adolescence, she was plagued by numerous episodes of violent outbursts, confrontations with authority figures, promiscuity, drug use ^[5], and self-harming (this last one usually explained as “trying to get the bad girl out” of her body). After nearly a decade of careful experimentation, her mental-health care providers were able to develop a regimen of techniques, therapies, and prescription medications which allowed Selene to interact with society in a tolerable fashion. Selene took her newfound tranquility and was able to complete a double major in psychology and social work, as an honorarium for the professionals who had helped her unceasingly in her struggle.

Unfortunately, things would not work out quite so completely for Selene. While returning from a somewhat ill-advised St. Patrick’s pub crawl in King’s Row, Selene stumbled into a chase between a rampaging pack of Council Warwolves and the Longbow agents and heroes sent to apprehend them. Selene found herself trapped with the pack surrounding her, eager to feast on the young woman before the heroes captured them once more. What happened then is best described by Longbow Eagle Shannon Burns, a member of the pursuing task force.

"I remember that one of the wolves had punctured the fuel line on my pack, so I was running on limited thrust so as not to explode in midair. I had just crested over the tenement when I sighted them surrounding this young woman in the courtyard.

"The girl was just cowered in the middle of them: curled up, terrified. The only thing I could do was take aim on one of them - the one I figured was the Alpha - hoping that if I could distract one, maybe - maybe - she could get away. I didn’t think she had much of a chance even if I managed to get the shot off before they pounced. I didn’t seriously believe she could get away fast enough and I didn’t have the thrust to get her airborne before they killed us both. It was a desperation move; I think I knew I was going to have to watch as they...do what they do.

"I fired and missed, I only managed to clip the alpha’s ear. Even over the the roar of the wolves, I could hear the girl screaming. But, then she disappeared...and reappeared across the courtyard, then again along the alley way, then on the tenement’s fire escape, then next to me, and finally out of sight. Thank god, she was a 'Porter. Turns out she didn’t even know it.

"I’ve been with Longbow for eight years; I’ve done a tour out on Primeva. I’ve seen what those monsters could do to an unprotected human. I swear, if she hadn’t done what she did that night…I never would have forgiven myself for missing that shot.”

Selene finally teleported near the office where she was employed and called her therapist and an ambulance, fearing she had a blackout episode. Selene had never been tested for a mutant genotype, but the description of the episode given by Longbow caused GIFT to seek out Selene. After a few tests, they confirmed that Selene was in fact a mutant, a teleporter. Her long history of psychopharmacological treatment had likely suppressed her ability to manifest her powers. The revelation came as a shock to Selene, but she had little understanding of what to do with such an ability, and so returned to her position as a social worker in Paragon.

As the months progressed, Selene’s stability deteriorated noticeably. Her blackout episodes, once controlled from their peak in adolescence, increased in frequency and duration. The voice which had plagued her for years, once quieted, now returned spitting vitriol and condemnations on her. Worse than that, the voice had taken on a defined personality, styling itself as Selene’s unacknowledged twin sister Celine. Selene reported to her doctors the phantom memories of a life which could not possibly have occurred, while her “sister” personality tortured her with insistencies of their veracity. The young social worker would sometimes go to bed and literally awaken while battering some hapless citizen or criminal. Worse still was horror she felt the day she found the high-speed steel forearm blades hidden in her apartment, along with the bloody rags used to have cleaned them.

“Celine” goaded her sister with insane demands: they she was a “chosen one”, or that she had been given “the ultimate mission”, or at the very least would have to “learn to be a soldier”. Selene pleaded with herself and her doctors to silence the turmoil within her – but their efforts became increasingly fruitless. Celine was getting stronger and it seemed that the only thing Selene could do to placate the madness was to succumb to it in the least troublesome outlets she could find. So, with her body hardening and senses sharpening with each of her sister’s relentless “training routines” – Selene took to the streets of Paragon, living the double life of a vigilante in order to curb the worst of her impulses.

Selene and Celine have almost approached a balance point, with the social worker patrolling the nights and neighborhoods of Paragon – gaining the combat knowledge and prowess her militant sister believes is necessary. Yet her blackouts and sense of displacement continues despite the minute control she has regained. If this is what is happening when Selene can consciously control herself…can she really trust what is happening when she cannot?

Trivia

• Although Selene is Irish, her accent has been mostly blunted by her time in America. There is a slight lilt to her voice, but most people would not be able to verify it as being Irish in origin.
• Selene’s name derives from the lunar goddess, while Foyle is a river in Ireland. It is also a homophone with “foil”, which is a literary device used to highlight characteristics of a main character with contrary or correspondingly-accentuated characteristics of a supporting character. Selene’s foil, of course, is Celine.
• Selene’s psychopharmological prescriptions are cocktail of anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, anti-anxiety, and anti-convulsive medications. This does not count the sedatives, hypnotics, and other organic and holistic supplements she also takes. Frankly, there are SupaTrolls who are on fewer drugs than her. Her prescribing physician, Dr. Samuel Perrin, has been questioned about this – but peer reviews of his treatment plan have determined that available alternatives are equally flawed.
• On occasion, Selene’s handwriting is identical to Celine’s (who has awful penmanship), due to her difficulty with manual tasks. Other times, Selene has a very strong and fluid handwriting which belies her inner turmoil.
• No seriously, have I mentioned how much Selene loves Jem?

Character Origins

Selene’s story is one that I was playing with in connection with some possible Matrix fanfic. The origin elements are roughly the same, a social worker who becomes mired in a conspiracy and revolution whose scope is mostly out of her understanding. Using the idea presented off-the-cuff in the film of “talents” and “hopefuls” among the redpills, Selene would demonstrate the ability to teleport within the matrix due to her co-habitating personality (who could jump across the grid). Most of that story, like Selene’s, deals with mental illness as a tribulation which cannot necessarily be “cured” but becomes its own quest for tranquility and equilibrium (along with questioning some of the so-called “facts” and fallacies in the settings’ metaphysics). Because it was pretty unlikely that I was going to get around to that, Selene seemed like a fun idea to try to roleplay with on CoX. Praetorian Earth was a reasonable analog for the Matrix setting which had originally spawned the character, so it was quickly adapted as part of her background.

Footnotes

1. ↑ She is naturally blonde.
2. ↑ Selene’s skin is littered with these tiny scars as evidence of a lifetime of self-harming. Anyone with a shared history or significant psychological training will easily recognize this. Oddly, her counterpart lacks these superficial scars (although she has her own).
3. ↑ See below History for a potential reason why Selene obtained such an exotic variety of ammunition.
4. ↑ Selene's medical history suggests, but does not conclude, that she was also subjected to physical abuse during her childhood. Given a documented history of violence and self-harm, it is difficulty to determine whether her injuries were self-inflicted or were the results of more traditional abuse.
5. ↑ Selene's juvenile criminal record was sealed after acheiving the age of majority.