Sisyphus

Gaslit Guardians

Still planning on finishing mine! Really sorry I couldn't make the deadline - thanksgiving combined with two severely delayed power outages combined with a very long and badly timed blackout made this weekend very awkward for CS-making.

Gaslit Guardians

Sheet is nearly done. Will hopefully get it up tonight.

Gaslit Guardians

I wonder, would he think himself a man?

@T Risket

An excellent question, I think.

Gaslit Guardians

Alright. I'm gonna leave a picture with you I'm using for inspiration, and you can tell me if it's the kinda thing you're looking for.

Gaslit Guardians

Interested.

The Last Embers (Dark Steampunk/Fantasy)

As the celebration grew to a fever pitch, Hassan was the life of the party - he was always in the middle of things, serving drinks, dancing with the most comely nuns and even attempting to sing in time with the band for one brief ill-advised stint, though at his insistence, nobody but Stina laughed.

He was sitting in the corner with Stina, nursing what was probably his third drink after drinking more stopped being a good idea while his comrade spoke with a strawberry blonde sister – or maybe she was just speaking to him while he drooled? Hassan was past the point of really caring. He sobered up quickly when the pirates walked in, however.

It probably came as little surprise that Hassan had always been keenly in touch with power dynamics; he knew who was in charge in any given situation or relationship, not just because it was usually him (at least when he wasn’t with the other Inquisitors). When the armed men entered, the energy of the room shifted fast, and Hassan furrowed his brow at feeling his power over this room ripped away from him. He hated being usurped, and he bit down on his immediate instinct to order the patrons in the inn to fall upon the newcomers and savage them bare-handed.

He was still stewing as the Secular Army Lieutenants approached them, but he forced a pleasant smile onto his features as they whispered their request and Stina slurred a response with drunken volume. “Of course!” Hassan said and rose to his feet quickly, maybe too quickly – in hindsight, he maybe hadn’t sobered up as much as he thought. “We are always happy to help.”

The Last Embers (Dark Steampunk/Fantasy)

Hopefully tomorrow - I started drafting a response today, I'll finish it tomorrow on the train.

Hyper Sci Fi Action/Combat

Sure, I'm interested.

Falling Skies: Wavering Valor

Ensign Chloe O'Connor

Don't let them make you feel like you don't belong. That was what her mother had told her on her first day of school so very long ago, when she was nervous about showing up in her ratty clothes and worn-out shoes. You're just as good as any of them. Chloe took a deep breath in the back of the shuttle and wrinkled up her nose. She was a soldier now, a MAS pilot that had graduated with honors from the North Ganymede Military Institute. To be nervous at the prospect of meeting her squad wasn't just silly - it was ridiculous.

From what she'd heard, this job was supposed to be a milk-run, anyway. The situation would only get hot if things went really wrong with the peace talks, and why would they? Both sides had to know this was the best chance for an end to the destruction. Good job, Chloe. You became a soldier just in time for the war to end. She felt a pang of guilt at the thought.

After what seemed like a million years, the shuttle docked in the hangar. The pilot waved her out gruffly as he rattled off a series of authorization codes into his radio, and the side door slid open with a hiss. Chloe grabbed her helmet off from the seat next to her, slung it under her arm, and stepped out of the shuttle. The first thing she saw was a massive black machine just ahead of her - a MAS suit that looked like a Gladiator variant kneeling down and being swarmed by jerseys."Excuse me," she said to one of the white jerseys that went rushing past her, "I'm looking for the 12th?"

"Down there," the man answered distractedly, waving across the hangar as he hurried onwards towards the MAS. She followed his gesture to see a small section of the hangar that had obviously been cordoned off by some spare crates, where a motley of pilots in flight suits lazed about. Chloe took a deep breath, gripped her helmet tighter, and marched against the stream of engineers to the squad.

Someone else beat her there, of course - a dark-haired woman in black armor with the white cape of an ISS commander stopped just in front of the card game and loudly demanded to know the identity of the outfit's commander. Chloe knew that already, of course - Lieutenant Commander Ingram Shaw, Hero of Cerol, commander of the 12th, was sitting on a crate on the edge of the gathering, a steel thermos in her hand. Chloe cleared her throat; protocol might dictate that she wait for the ISS officer to address the commander, but considering that they were meant to deploy in a matter of minutes it would probably be best she notify her officer that she had arrived.

"Lieutenant Commander sir," she said, saluting smartly and keeping her posture fixed at attention, "Ensign Chloe O'Connor, reporting for duty, sir!"

Falling Skies: Wavering Valor

Profie: Chloe O’Connor

(Disregard the crossbow and the bare thighs, the picture is otherwise perfect).
Name: O’Connor, Chloe
Age: 20
Gender: Female
Callsign: Noob
Kills: 0! For now.

Psychological Analysis: Chloe is peppy, energetic, and always talking. She’s an absolutely zealous worker and at times an insufferable kiss-up to authority figures, both habits born from the days when she had to work odd jobs to keep her family off the streets – to her, perfection is necessary to survive. She possesses a confidence that at times crosses the border completely into arrogance, being well aware that she had to work very hard to get where she is, and she often acts like she understands situations better than she actually does. She resents her position as the ‘FNG’ a bit, but for the most part she takes it as a challenge; she’s determined to prove her worth to her new contemporaries and show them just why she belongs alongside them.

Chloe’s friendly enough to most people who can put up with her, though she has a habit of making snap judgements about people that tend to stick around for a very long time, for good or ill. She loves conversation and comparing tactics, strategies or technical notes with her peers; she’s obsessed with self-improvement and being better at her job, so if she can accept that someone has some knowledge or experience she doesn’t, she’ll do her level best to get it out of them.

Deep down, her perfectionism gives way to a gnawing anxiety about her place in the world and in the 101st Legion, and she tends to deal with outright failure very poorly. She loves her family, and writes home to them frequently, though she’d be lying if she said she had any deep patriotic feelings for the UEE. To her, the Legion is a potentially lucrative career, a place she can perform well and rise far; she hasn’t put much thought into the actual ‘combat’ part of it, the risking of her own life and the taking of others’, but she believes that she’ll manage, when the time comes. The prospect of peace conflicts her – she’s seen enough devastation caused by the war to know it would be a good thing, but at the same time… it would really throw a wrench in her career goals.


Military Record: Military Record: Chloe was born on in a city on Ganymede, the first of three children. Her parents were refugees from the planet Artal, an agrarian world that had recently fallen after a prolonged invasion by Coalition forces. The city was an urban jungle, sprawling and filthy and poverty stricken from a growing refugee crisis. Chloe grew up in a two-room apartment in the slums of the city, which she shared with her parents and her two twin siblings; for most of her life, the family was wretchedly poor, there being little good work for people whose only marketable skills were in off-world farming.

In addition to her public education, Chloe started working odd jobs from the age of 12 to supplement her parent’s income; she hauled garbage, waited tables in in restaurants in the ‘nice’ part of town – once or twice she got involved in more illegal operations, though she made certain not to get too far into that game. The city was dangerous; everyone carried a gun, and everyone knew how to use one. All the while, she studied as much as she could, often skipping meals or sleep so that she would have time to complete her schoolwork. From the very beginning, she was planning her escape; how she would one day provide a better life for her family. Nobody in any serious professional field would take her education seriously, but there was some precedent for well-performing students in the slums to find success in the military.

Shortly after her seventeenth birthday, Chloe and her classmates were given the Ganymede aptitude test; and, much to the surprise of her peers, Chloe’s remarkable performance caught the eye of a recruitment officer who was fond of ‘giving the little guys a chance’, as he said no less than three times in her interview with him. One letter of recommendation later, Chloe was on her way to the planet’s most prestigious military academy with a single bag full of possessions.

Chloe excelled in the academy, though most of her peers considered her absolutely insufferable. She trained and studied obsessively, graduating three years later at the top of her class and immediately being promoted to active duty as a MAS Pilot with the 101st. She has yet to see actual combat, but she’s looking forward to the opportunity to finally prove that she deserves this chance; and make a little money for her family in the bargain.

Equipment: Simple magnetic pilot’s sidearm in a thigh holster. She also has a picture of her little brother and sister scrunched up in her back pocket.

FTX-075 Shrike

Designation: FTX-075 Shrike MkIII C (Custom)
Role: Rapid Response
Chassis: Medium
Engine: TriCore Engine. 15 PWR
Operating Time: 6 Hours
Description:
The Shrike was designed as a high-mobility platform, intended to bridge the gap between more heavily armored Medium MAS's, and faster, more mobile Light MAS's. However, despite, or perhaps due to its increased mobility and versatility, the Shrike sports thinner than average and can be difficult to pilot. Its high speed combined with lightweight armor and deadly strike package make the Shrike a versatile high performance unit. Though favored by veteran pilots for both its aesthetic and performance, Shrike Mk IIIs are slowly being phased out for the more standardized and cost efficient PTX-101 Gladiators.
Systems: [20WT|15PWR]
X180 30mm Autocannon. 5 WT 3 PWR. - A 30mm assault weapon designed by the UEE, the X180 has a light frame, and a rather fast rate of fire. Firing 30mm Autocannon rounds from a 300 round magazine at a rate of 800 rounds per minute, the X180 fires in single, fully automatic, and 4 round burst. The X180 additionally has a secondary weapon mounted under the main barrel. Firing from an internal 20 round magazine, the X180 can also fire a scattershot of superheated iridium pellets, melting through armor at close ranges, but relatively ineffective against shields.
Countermeasures. 0 WT 0 PWR - Countermeasure systems are often used by lighter MAS's to avoid missiles instead of using body mounted machine guns to intercept them. Using chaff and flares, countermeasure systems are negligible in terms of weight and power, but only has 3 chaff uses, and 6 sets of flares before needing to rearm.
.50 Caliber Rotary Gun. 1 WT 0 PWR. - A torso mounted .50 cal rotary gun provides the Shrike with Anti-personnel weaponry and point defense. The rotary gun fires up to 2000 rounds per minute, and comes with a 480 round magazine.
Class 2 Shield Generator. 5 Wt 5 PWR. - The Shrike comes armed with a Class 2 shield Generator on top of its standard armor for defense.
FLEX-Wing Armed Aerospace Booster. 5 Wt 4 PWR. - By equipping the Shrike with a its Aerospace Boosters, along side a pair of folding wings, The Shrike can reach speeds rivaling that of some Light MAS's- typically ones without extra boosters themselves, such as the Sparrow. The Booster also makes the Shrike to fly in atmosphere, and comes equipped with 6 Claymore missiles.
Composite Shield. 3 WT - A sizable, but lightweight alloy shield treated with anti-plasma/beam coating provides the Shrike with limited directional protection from oncoming fire. Mounted on the forearm via a rotating mount, allowing the shield to rotate as the user desires, as well as allowing a small range of movement up and down the arm.
Energy Saber. 1 WT 3 PWR - A high powered energy saber stored in the shield. The blade length can be adjusted, but due to the saber using its own power capacitors, the operational limit of the blade is an hour before needing to be stored to recharge.