Player Name: Raxacoricofallapatorius

Character Name: Masamune Isogai

Character Age: 31

Character Gender: Male

Appearance: 5'9" and 152 lbs. Masamune's usual appearance is one of someone who has just been rudely awakened from a nap. The dark circles under his eyes accompanied by the fact that he often forgets to shave gives his face a fairly mean look. In spite of this he's in good physical condition, if a bit thin, and his haggardness seems to have no lasting effects on his ability to carry out his duties. He keeps his hair short and dresses simply when out of uniform, although such an occasion is quite rare.

Profession: Robotics Technician

Nationality: Nagasaki Conglomerate

Strengths:
- Intensely analytical, he is able to strip a situation down to its bare bones in much the same way he disassembles machines to find the issue.
- Doesn't waste time or words, and his abruptness of speech often comes across as blunt and abrasive, but not necessarily wrong.
- Innate problem-solver, he always looks for the most straightforward answer to the question and is an expert at finding needles in haystacks.
- Strong work ethic, he'll stick to a project until it's complete even if it means skipping breaks, meals, and sometimes sleep altogether. Whatever it takes, he'll get the job done, and his reliability is one of the biggest contributors to his success.

Weaknesses:
- Poor people-skills, being blunt doesn't make you very many friends.
- Jumps to conclusions, he's so accustomed to being right that he often relies on his assumptions--which are usually right, but everyone is prone to error occasionally.
- Tends to ignore people he doesn't agree with, on a similar note as above he doesn't take constructive criticism very well and tends to turn a deaf ear to those who try to offer unsolicited advice.
- Workaholic, someone who skips meals and goes without sleep because he's so focused on work tends to become worn out.

Personal Effects: Aside from a change of clothes, the majority of Masamune's personal possessions are his own experimental robotic creations. His room is very untidy and littered with bits of mechanical equipment, odd tools, and broken parts from unfinished projects.

Bio: Masamune and his twin brother Katsuyuki were born into the thriving city of Osaka in the year 2185. Their mother was a very influential ambassador for the Conglomerate, and their father was president of Osaka New™ (or O.N. as it is commonly referred to), one of the leading companies in the production and distribution of AI technology to the common people. As middle sons between an older brother who was estranged from the family, and a younger sister who was born some years after, the twins were shouldered with a certain measure of responsibility in regard to their father's company. Masamune, being the elder twin, was especially pressured from a young age to eventually fill his father's shoes. When they were children the boys were almost inseparable, the best of friends, but as they grew older Masamune was forced to grow up much faster than his brother and their identical tendencies faded as the gap between them grew ever wider. He was fascinated by the man-made world around him and quickly developed the same passion for machines and automatons that had driven his father to the level of success he had in that day. There was nothing he enjoyed more than taking things apart to see how they worked. Radios, televisions, computers, and robots when he could get his hands on them. He started to think that being the company's successor might not be so bad if it meant he got to do these kinds of things.

Everything changed when the Devasators made themselves known to mankind. The attack happened just two months short of the boys' 11th birthday, and the Three Day War turned theirs and everyone else's world upside-down. Suddenly things like family succession lost priority, when it was doubtful whether or not the human race would still be around for another generation. Their progressive parents, however, refused to let the family sink into despair and it probably saved their children's lives. Having already been provided with the best education money can buy, and being naturally talented in his own right, Masamune was thrown headlong into his studies. He excelled in applied mathematics and majored in robots once he was old enough to be let into university, graduating early and immediately going to work for O.N. where his dedication and aptitude for the field soon won him the respect of his peers and supervisors. He quickly gained a reputation for being the fastest and most efficient mechanic in the company, and once he was familiar with the newest prototypes there was no one who could construct and deconstruct the models as quickly as Masamune.

As time wore on he began to hear whispers, careless murmurs behind closed doors, of something called Genesis. He never thought much of it until the year of his and Kastuyuki's 20th birthday, when the O.N. headquarters became the target of a terrorist attack. Masamune, Katsuyuki, and their sister were visiting friends in Tokyo at the time and watched the tragic event unfold on the television before their eyes. Their father, mother, and 27 others were killed with another 54 people injured. All civilian casualties. Something broke inside of Masamune at the time, and he never seemed to recover from their parents' death. However, instead of grieving he threw himself into his work, perhaps as a last-ditch effort to preserve his father's legacy. One year later, when the Genesis Protocol was made public, Masamune couldn't help but suspect that its existence played some role in the attack that caused his parents' death, but he had no way of knowing for certain, and that uncertainty would keep him up at night for years to come.

Post-announcement, it was not long before he was sought out for his skill and expertise in robotics. When the fate of humanity heavily depended on such machines, apparently it made you an invaluable asset. He eventually accepted the offer on the grounds that he would be allowed to work with Katsuyuki. Following the terrorist attack, the brothers had grown close once again, relying on each other more than ever before, and Masamune refused to lose any more of his family. Even it came to this, leaving the only planet they'd ever called home, Masamune thought he could bear it so long as his brother was at his side.

Code Word: All the pineapples

---

Player Name: Raxacoricofallapatorius

Character Name: Katsuyuki Isogai

Character Age: 31

Character Gender: Male

Appearance: 5'9" and 157 lbs. Katsuyuki is comparably healthier-looking than his twin brother. In contrast, his face always bears a pleasant expression and his demeanor is far more gentle and patient. He seems to put some effort into his appearance when he's not working, and maintains a professional air about himself at all times.

Profession: Programming Technician

Nationality: Nagasaki Conglomerate

Strengths:
- Extremely intelligent with an uncanny ability to memorize things, he also recently acquired a cybernetic implant for the purpose of expanding the capacity of his mind. The thing was relatively simple compared to other implants, and was designed solely to store specific text, code, and algorithms which might be useful to him while working on the Vitae. So far, however, he hasn't had to use it.
- Patient and persistent when solving difficult problems, Katsu approaches everything with the attitude of "There is always an answer, I just need to discover it." He's been known to be quite creative in his solutions.
- Good people-skills, he's always been a likeable person.
- Honest, but not to the same degree as Masamune's complete tactlessness. He will speak his mind when necessary, but also knows that being too honest will rub some people the wrong way.

Weaknesses:
- Too quick to forgive/too trusting, always giving others the benefit of the doubt has let him down more than once in the past.
- Too dependent on Masamune, who he thinks of as the stronger version of himself.
- Not good at making decisions, especially in critical situations he is very reluctant to make judgement calls, especially when those calls may affect others in some way.
- Overly-optimistic, it can be a good and bad thing depending on the situation.

Personal Effects: Katsu has always been sentimental, and keeps a few old family photo albums among other personal keepsakes. He has a small bookshelf filled with old textbooks and a few novels. Other than this he's quite the minimalist.

Bio: If you've read Masamune's story then you already know a good portion of Katsu's. Being the younger twin (only by three minutes!) Katsu had only experienced the weight of the expectations placed on his brother second-hand. Since the cradle he had been quite attached to Masamune, and nothing broke his heart more than watching his brother slowly move on without him. It was especially difficult in their teenage years, which was the time Masamune most hated how much they looked alike. Katsu wanted nothing more than to simply make his brother happy, and so while Masamune kept his hair cut short Katsu let his grow long. He hoped that maybe if they looked different enough then Masamune wouldn't hate him so much.

While Masamune was the natural heir, Katsu was a literal genius. He took to textbooks like a fish takes to water and everything he read, he remembered. He did not share Masamune's curiosity about the way the world worked, and instead became fascinated by how he himself worked and related to everything around him. This trait complimented his extroverted personality quite well; he had many friends and everyone who met him took an instant liking to him. He, too, graduated early but spent twice as many years studying in university as Masamune, changing his major more than 12 times and ending up with three degrees in the end: Computer Science, Advanced Programming, and Artificial Intelligence. He might have stayed in school indefinitely if not for the Genesis Protocol.

In regard to their parents' death, Katsu mourned for an appropriate amount of time. For a while it seemed as if he would drown in his grief, and if it weren't for Masamune reaching out to him once again he may not have had the will to live through the end of the year. Within that same year he eventually returned to his usual optimistic self, though there was still a sadness behind his smile that would linger for a long time.

What Masamune doesn't know is that Katsu was actually recruited by the Genesis Protocol first and accepted on the condition that his brother would also be offered a position, ignorant of Katsu's role in the selection. He attempted to make the same negotiation for his sister, but it was too much to ask for. She would fill one of the cryo chambers allotted to family members. Katsu also made an attempt to contact their long lost older brother, but it was in vain. With no other immediate family, it seemed the remaining chambers would go unfilled.

Code Word: Not pineapples

Player Name: CanisMajoris2
Character Name: Dr. Nikita Ilyushin
Character Age: 37
Character Gender: Male
Appearance:

Profession: Medical Doctor, Psychiatry
Nationality: Born in the ashes of what was once the European Confederacy, Nikita is a human with little to no knowledge of what his nation once was, though he speaks Russian, a language all but vanished from the annals of history.
Strengths:

• Indefatigable: Hours and hours spent in exposure to those in need has led Nikita to require sleep less than a normal human would. His endurance during stressful situations is remarkable, though this has led him to experiment with various drug mixtures to help further augment this ability.
• Caring: A genuine desire to help has led this psychiatrist to be extraordinarily empathetic.
• Intelligent: Extensive education as a medical doctor has made him the reference for any psycho-analytic quandary.
• Good diplomat: His tongue is his greatest weapon, possessing the ability to defuse a situation with his words alone, and settle disputes with unbiased reason and calm, patient rationality.
• Experienced: His experience in the field, primarily to deal with those fatally afflicted by the nuclear fallout, has led him to develop a flexible response towards problems, and it has proven to be quite effective.

Weaknesses:

• Fatalist: He’s not too hopeful that humanity will survive, and while he’d like to call this “realism,” it’s a thin shroud over top of thinner hope.
• Scared?: Nikita’s strength lies more with his ability to talk himself out of a situation rather than shoot himself out, and he can come across as anti-conflict, conciliatory, and even cowardly.
• Distant: Like many of his compatriots, he lacks any real bonds with others, and he seems unwilling to remedy that.
• Self-diagnosing: He experiments with drugs in order to fix the rather extensive issues with his mind, to combat the crippling fatalism that often leaves him bedridden and depressive.
• Stubborn: Unwilling to give in to other opinions, it can be difficult to convince Nikita that perhaps he is wrong after all.

Personal Effects: Nikita has very few personal possessions aside from a large collection of medical works--many of which were written by him--kept in a small locked bookcase. He has a satchel filled with medical equipment that he keeps as a memento from his time as a field paramedic. He keeps a stash of cigarettes infused with sedatives hidden within a locked safe, only sharing with those he feels desperately needs their opiate-like qualities.

Bio: Nikita was, from a very young age, forced to deal with the realities of war. His father was killed fighting the various militias that had sprung up in Europe after The War, his mother was shot by a sniper when walking through his home town, and his two sisters were forcibly taken as prisoner-wives by a local militia. Unable to survive as a dependent, Nikita--at an age as early as ten--learned to fight with his fists and with knives and broken bottles, depriving others of their essential liberties so that he might survive. Only when he attempted to rob the richest family in town did his reign of terror come to an end.

He was taken in by this relatively well-off couple--he wouldn’t have survived otherwise--who cared for him as their own son. This elderly couple had no children of their own, and Nikita very quickly became attached to them. They became the parents that he more or less never had in his childhood. It was only when the Devastators came that he realized that normalcy could never come to him.

He was seventeen when news of the Three-Day War came to Earth. He heard of the great battle, the bravery and sacrifice of those involved, of "them damn red-bellies," a slur in reference to the Martian refusal to assist the Spacer Navy. He heard of the great Roland Constantine, a hero revered by the common man to such a degree that he was almost deified.

But what Nikita remembers most acutely is the strange reaction his "parents" had to the war. They didn't respond so much out of fear or even hatred, but out of sullen acceptance. He remembered "Father" in the sitting room sipping the last of his precious vodka, musing to himself that it was about damn time he died. Horrified by the fatalism of his parents and wishing to escape the prejudice of his town, he expressed interest in a medical career to his parents.

His foster parents, with their substantial influence, were able to put him in one of the top medical schools in the Roslin Confederacy. The school was brutal, with a penchant for killing off the precious life that remains all for the higher purpose of creating strength where there is none. The accommodations were spartan, the rules confining, and the discipline all but fatal. Nikita learned very early on to keep his head down and wait as those foolish enough to create themselves were inevitably shot down and eviscerated by the Professors.

Studying medicine, specifically psychology, Nikita quickly proved himself to be the brightest of the cadets in that field, scoring almost a perfect score on the final examination. Branded as a special case, he was sent to the New Minnesota Medical School to further his studies, eventually graduating at or near the top of his class in almost every subject. Nikita the whole time knew that the real reason for joining the Cadet Corps was to help his dying people, and upon his graduation he began work in the wastelands of Russia, encountering terrible maladies and horrifying mutations, seeing the true effects of fallout firsthand. Rather than practice psycho-analytics, he was relegated to the relatively plum assignment of paramedic, bolting from place to place assisting in temporary life-saving measures that would, by and by, only slow the pace of death.

Rather than continue with work that he knew would not help, Nikita began a hospice care system that eventually spread across the entire European continent, dealing with those fatally afflicted, and even those whose psychological problems were so great that they could do nothing but wait for the inevitable bell toll of death. It was a dark job, and one that paid strange dividends. Productivity went up in those burgeoning farms, unhindered by having to support a dying population. Nicknamed “Pre-Morgues,” Nikita’s hospice houses began to be seen in a far more negative light than he had wished.

With little to keep him on a dying continent that no longer accepted him, Nikita began to look for other places that required his extensive knowledge and medical background. Upon learning that a program was in the works designed as a last-ditch effort for humanity’s survival, Nikita knew that the final climactic act had begun for his life. If he failed here, (well, first off… it wouldn’t matter anyhow; they’d all be dead anyhow…) he knew he did all he could to save a race that was on the brink of collapse.

In order to prove himself, he launched into an almost maniacal explosion of psychological experimentation and investigation, discovering new maladies every morning and then finding cures for those maladies every night. He published papers describing the extensive damage nuclear war has on the psyche, of the unique instances he found where psychological warfare had actually taken place. Nikita became one of the most well-known psychiatrists on the planet, highly regarded as both a scholar and a doctor, able to cure any psychological problem imaginable.

It was the problem of deep space travel that bothered him next. He knew nothing--no one knew anything--about how a mind would react to deep space travel for years on end. Applying for the Genesis Project as soon as it became public knowledge, he planned to see if prolonged deep space travel was feasible, and if the psychological effects it had on someone were irreversibly detrimental.

Saying good-bye to a family he was not related to, and leaving a family he never knew, Nikita was all but certain in this mission's failure, but he would stay with it until the end, fighting for some glimmer of hope in the distance. That one glimmer: survival.

Code Word: Pineapples (are great)