[OOC] Battletech: Forlorn Hope

[Lennon79]

Any chance of a minor noble expat/political refugee from the Draconis Combine?

[HeySeuss]

Depends on why they left the Combine, I suppose.

[Lennon79]

Common sense was the plan; better pay and less likely to die for someone else's 'honour' in the FedSuns.

[Lennon79]

Todoroki Touru

Name: Todoroki Touru
Age: 24
Gender: Male
Branch of Service: Armed Forces of the Federated Suns
Physical Description:

Despite his somewhat meagre height, Touru is quite heavily muscled from a lifetime's living on a high gravity world, giving him a short and stocky form. His features are typically Japanese, with sparse black hair cropped short and brown eyes that move with a rapid, calculating air. He maintains a stylish goatee, thick but cut close to the face and wears eyeglasses when off duty.

Character History:

Explain how your character got there -- no 'the story will come out in RP' lines, please -- I want a feel for where your character is coming from. Social class, entrance into NAIS/Nagelring and so forth is useful information. Most Mechwarriors come from feudal families with a long association with warfare, but newcomers are not unknown, especially as these days, Great Houses own more and more of the mechs and grant them to the best pilot candidates.

Psychological Profile:

Unlike most of his fellow students, Touru has neither good connections nor innate talent and has therefore learnt to rely on all sorts of tricks and shortcuts to give himself an edge. Wily, underhanded and thoroughly dishonourable, he is not a natural fit with his peers. He is however a well practised liar and throws up a front of humble servitude toward his so-called betters while working his damnedest to outdo them through sheer bulldog determination.

While he is not naturally skilled in anything bar dishonesty, Touru wa perfected the art of hard work and self-improvement; what the talented achieve without effort, he will eventually replicate and perhaps improve on.

To his few friends, Touru is a very relaxed and easygoing young man who speaks his mind without reservation and completely unlike the personality he shows to most people. Dark sarcasm and a certain fatalistic humour are his forte, worsening when in stressful situations, perhaps as a way to calm his nerves.

Skills:

An average student in most classes, Touru has developed something of an affinity for stealth and scouting methods. His teachers have tried to build on this, training him almost exclusively on light 'mechs with advanced sensor suites.
While his skill with sensors, ECM and ECCM are developing well, he is not a great shot with direct fire weapons and much prefers to hang back with LRMs and other indirect fire weapons.
Touru's piloting skills are somewhat average, but he is still very much able to keep up with his peers. Jumpjets are one of his few outstanding areas of expertise.

Equipment:

List here; neurohelmet and cooling vest (mechwarriors strip down to shorts in the cockpit, most of the time) are assumed. Other equipment as you see fit. This is not a limiting list -- I will be happy to allow amendments as it carries on.

Battlemech

The most important item of equipment is separate; please list the type (such as TDR-9SE). Inner Sphere mechs that exist in 3050 only. Information on modifications is also appreciated. We will go into greater detail on the applications of helmet-mounted modules, networking capabilities and drones, etc, etc as well. (I have to update that from the old BT stuff.)
Mechs must be 45 tons or under for the start of the RP>

Inner Sphere Battlemechs
Light Battlemechs
Medium Battlemechs

It's very much a WIP, so I'll keep adding to it til it's finished. Any comments so far?

[HeySeuss]

Might make more sense that the world was taken by the Lyrans in the Fourth Succession war and handed off to the Free Rasalhague Republic in 3034.

Ronin War

His family perhaps was caught up in that -- maybe the idea was to leave when a number of Kuritan regiments revolted.

I mostly say this because being Asian in the FedSuns is really, really rough. There's a history of bias. It's less prevalent in the Lyran Commonwealth and some worlds exchanged hands in the past, especially in the Lyon's Thumb. By contrast, there's been a blood feud between the Combine and the Suns since the Kentares Massacre. In backlash to Jinjiro Kurita going bugfuck and killing civilians indiscriminately, the FedSuns got very militant and bigots had their day. It also rallied the AFFS.

Suggested world in the Thumb: Ko -- Could be descended from Japanese types there but in the Lyran Commonwealth.

[Lennon79]

Fair play, I can roll with that. I'll add it to the CS and will probably have it finished sometime tomorrow evening.

[HeySeuss]

Also, the worlds of the so-called Chaos March is useful for planets that often fluctuate between ownership among the various houses. I just think an AFFS officer of Japanese descent is highly unlikely to happen; Hanse Davion used Justin Xiang Allard's Chinese ancestry to justify his cover story of being court martialed out of the AFFS in order to have him infiltrate the Capellan Confederation. His father was from the Fedsuns, but his mother was Liao noble.

So it's sensitive territory. I would have said, "Do Caph" for your character as there's more wiggle room on heritage, but I did Caph for some very specific reasons that become clear later in the RP. You might want to consider a Chaos Marcher anyway.

[HeySeuss]

Perhaps Touru's father or mother was a LOKI agent, and was outed a bit when Rasalhague seceded from the Draconis Combine. Either that or ROM and similarly involved, though that might make it less likely that he'd be accepted into the Nagelring. I think going with an intelligence agent parent and the other parent becoming a willing accomplice and the both of them taking their kid into exile is a good fit for his 'fight dirty' mentality anyway.

[HeySeuss]

Due to lack of interest, closing this down. If anyone cares to do the reboot, that's great. Otherwise, I'm just gonna rewrite the interest check to immediately include additions I added in to help people pick mechs and backgrounds and then work from there.

[ArenaSnow]

Yeah, sorry :(

I would have helped keep this up, but in all honesty, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I didn't get some of the key elements and that there was too much conflicting lore I would need to dispel from my mind just to fit in.

[HeySeuss]

It's totally okay, but I would like people to actually come to me with Lore issues and let me help y'all out. I've been doing the BT thing for a long, long time, so I really know my shit here.