TaintedMushroom — Roleplayer Guild

Birth name \\ Plako Delsin
Chosen name \\ Jesse James
Callsign \\ Current // Jackal \\ Prior // Wildcat, Rattlesnake, Huntsman, Eagle, Chameleon 

Age \\ 87

Species \\ 30% Human \\ 70% Machine

Appearance

Background

Born in the year 4150, Plako Delsin was only alive for five minutes. According to the official records of the Dolsilvec Foundation there was a birth certificate and a death certificate registered for Plako Delsin approximately five minutes apart. Assuming one could find Delsin’s real name and establish the existence of these records one would be led to believe that Plako Delsin had died shortly after birth. The birth certificate would feature only the name’s Jane and John Doe as mother and father. And that was only if one could find any hint of a trail to that which Delsin himself had buried years ago.

The circumstances of Delsin’s birth were immoral at best and certainly unsanctioned. A pet project of a high ranking military official and a disgraced researcher searching for a chance to turn their career around resulted in an artificially inseminated baby which had been genetically modified to increase tolerance and enhance potential in regards to ether with a preference for Oneiric Chasm energy. For the first five years Delsin lived in a solitary room attended only by researchers and armed guards in a facility where no one would treat him like anything other than an object. Military tutors were brought in to at least ensure the boy was socialized and intelligent enough to serve should the project succeed. 

Unfortunately, after five years of extensive testing through various means it was becoming obvious that Delsin’s body exhibited no signs of ethereal connection to the Oneiric Chasm. The project was considered a failure and Delsin was to be disposed of and the lead researcher terminated to tie up any connection to the ranking officer who had instigated the program.

Not one to give up, the man responsible for Delsin’s creation orchestrated a break out of himself and the child before either command could be carried out. With no allies at hand and no one to turn to there was no other choice but for the two to flee into OSLF territory. A risky escape and an unsanctioned landing resulted in only Delsin’s survival upon his arrival to one of the many black cities forming the backbone of the OSLF. Five years old, barely aware of the world and what it held, hardly having met more than twenty people and having actually spoken with far fewer, the odds that Delsin would survive were astoundingly low.

Pressure forms diamonds, and Delsin was a diamond in the rough. The hard life he found himself in created a man who went to any length for his own survival and was above nothing to ensure he’d breathe a little longer. For the first few years Delsin lived little better than an animal, feasting on scraps and fighting to survive. He shunned any authority and refused to abide by any command. Until one day Delsin was pummeled into the dirt and left within an inch of death by a shop owner who he’d been attempting to steal some food from. 

Bleeding and broken in an alleyway was where he was found by a local group of gun runners. At first they planned to move on after checking his pockets and finding nothing of value but a sympathetic member who one would easily identify as the runt of the group pleaded the boy's case. Perhaps it  was actual sympathy or perhaps just opportunism. Either way from the point on Delsin was shown a different side of authority. They may have saved his life that day but it certainly wasn’t out of kindness. As a small boy Delsin could fit into places that others could not and quickly became of use to the group for a variety of reasons big and small. 

For years the gun runners dragged Delsin along as an unwilling member of their outfit. For the first couple Delsin resisted when possible but eventually the abuse and punishment for disobedience taught him how to keep his head down and do as he was told. As Delsin grew older and neared his teen years he quickly began to bulk up making it harder or downright impossible to do the same jobs he’d done for the crew before. It was quickly becoming obvious as time went on that his usefulness to the gunrunners was drying up as quickly as it’d come and the winds were starting to change. Before long it was clear Delsin was seen as more of a burden but given his knowledge of the crew members and their operations they couldn’t merely cut him loose. This left him in a tenuous situation in which the crew seemed to view him with silent contempt but tolerated his existence.

Then, when he was at the age of thirteen, they tried to kill him. An incident resulting in the loss of supplies was pinned on Delsin, although it was clear he’d actually had nothing to do with it. It was also clear that they didn’t care, it was likely that maybe there’d never been an incident. Delsin never cared to verify if there was. They had decided they no longer needed the dead weight around and found a convenient excuse to shed it. And so it was there that things changed, in a tiny back room surrounded by the men and women Delsin had worked alongside as boot after boot rained down upon his body and his vision and hearing faded and dulled and the pain grew into a distant dull throb.

A sudden shockwave of ether as Delsin’s latent abilities finally manifested. The blows quickly lost any real force and drew to a stop as the assailants found themselves harmlessly floating in the air as gravity around Delsin’s body was distorted. In a bloody haze Delsin could barely tell what was going on, only that he was no longer under attack and as such used the opportunity to retaliate as he roared in anger and seemed to will into existence a miasma of ethereal energy that permeated the room. To this day Delsin can’t remember the full extent of what happened in that room, only that when he was found to be the only survivor on scene it was reported that a massive outbreak of ethereal energy related to the Abyssic plane had warped the surrounding matter and killed or consumed countless people in the area.

Delsin died that day, at least as far as he was concerned. Swallowed up in that accident or never having existed at all, didn’t really matter to him. He’d gotten a few good things from running with the gun runners, one of those was a collection of old earth westerns that one of the crew members had scored when tossing a rival compound. They’d been digitized and stored on a data stick that he’d let Delsin borrow and it was one of the few things Delsin had managed to keep when it all fell apart. One of the more prominent names featured throughout the media was Jesse James, an ole western outlaw who’d been legendary as far as Delsin was concerned. He decided from that day on he would call himself Jesse James as well, to embody the outlaw spirit of answering to no one and taking care of himself. 

Over the next decade Delsin slowly became Jesse, his newfound skills from his time with the gunrunners as well as his newfound ethereal abilities allowed him to stabilize his life underground a little more. From common thief to well known local trigger man by the age of twenty. Jesse’s life still wasn’t by any means nice but he’d certainly started carving out some semblance of a routine and a place to call his own. With time, age, and experience the jobs only grew bigger and more serious as well. Jesse never really cared to take allegiance to any one contractor or faction or organization, preferring his role as a freelance operative who answered to only himself. Throughout his early twenties he took advantage of the unstable nature of OSFL space to play whichever side of the field suited his fancy at the time. As a young naive operator at what he thought was the height of the game he didn’t really care why he did what he did, he merely cared about money and the job.

But as time passed and the stakes grew it began to get harder and harder for Jesse to ignore the reality of the political instability of the OSFL. Jesse never considered himself a political person and was quite lacking in the subject of galactic history and politics but at the urging of a trusted associate he took a side. At the age of twenty-five Jesse started operating under a different alias for a group specifically aligned with the OSFL carrying out operations against the growing threat of the larger political players in the game. 

For the next twenty-five years Jesse fought enemies of the OSFL on various fronts through a variety of means under a menagerie of aliases. The only constants in his life were conflict of some sort, cramped cruddy living conditions, and his trusted friend. For twenty-five years Jesse and his associate fought together to uphold the ideals of the OSFL, for twenty-five years Jesse trusted the man to watch his back. After twenty-five years of doing just that, he shot Jesse in the back, quite literally.

It was in the year forty-two hundred when Jesse found himself back on familiar turf attempting to assist in the defense of the black city he’d started it all on. It was grueling fighting that seemed to finally be taking a turn for the better when chaos erupted at the arrival of actual NATO units and allies. Jesse was never the one that really understood who was who and why they did what they did, that was his partner’s job. And so Jesse never did understand exactly what it was that made him pull the trigger in that moment. It was a shot that changed everything, destroying the lower vertebrae in Jesse’s spine and leaving him paralyzed on the ground as his position was overrun. Over the following days of chaos Jesse remembers only hazy patches. No explanation was given by his betrayer and his whereabouts were a mystery. 

It’s likely Jesse would have laid there amongst the rubble unable to move until death came for him. But someone had other plans, someone who’d kept tabs on Jesse since the day he’d escaped. Jesse remained buried and broken for a few days at least as the local situation required time to simmer off and calm down but a covert rescue mission was soon carried out by none other than the high ranking Dolsilvec from before. Jesse was rescued and subsequently returned to captivity, referred to as Delsin which he vehemently refused to acknowledge, and stuck once more into a room to be studied. 

For years after Jesse was kept as a lab rat, confined and kept top secret, cut off from the world he had no idea of what happened to his home or any part of his life prior. They kept him as informationally devoid as possible until finally after 10 years of imprisonment an unknown official with the Yrrkradians sat him down and explained the situation and gave him a choice.

Jesse was never supposed to exist for that matter the official stance of the government was that he should be disposed of. The Dolsilvec who had been responsible for the whole ordeal had already been tried and executed since the Dolsilvec Foundation had become a protectorate under the Yrrkradian Empire. As such Jesse was now the responsibility of the Yrrkradian Empire and their official stance was to dispose of him. Fortunately opportunity found its way to knock once more as Jesse was offered the chance to further assist in Yrrkradian military operations and strategic research due to his extensive history of combat and the origins of his abilities, Yrrkradia officially didn’t want to acknowledge his existence but unofficially saw no point in wasting his potential.

Undergoing a string of experimental surgeries that resulted in Jesse’s first augmentations resulted in the curing of Jesse’s paralysis but also in the replacement of his spine, hips, and everything from their down. Part of Jesse was horrified but it was either paralysis and death or this. For the next nineteen years Jesse participated in the Veiled Wars as an agent of the Yrrkradian Empire with various degrees of success. Between operations Jesse was treated like a lab rat, constantly experimenting and testing the limits of his abyssic ethereal abilities and attempting to find ways to enhance and coordinate his augmentations with those abilities. 

When the Veiled Wars sparked into open conflict Jesse was forced to the forefront time and time again due to his effectiveness and efficiency. With each success came another mission and even his failures just resulted in augmentation to repair or replace whatever was damaged before throwing him back into the field. By the time a ceasefire was finally drafted Jesse was more machine than man and had fought in nearly every possible major conflict that Yrrkradia could shove him into. Jesse was eighty-three, but looking at him you’d think he looked only forty-five, at least looking at the parts of him that were still human. Although he looked young, and although his augmentations and experimental enhancements kept his vitality strong and his mind young, he still mentally felt old. Eighty something years of nonstop conflict took a toll on a man’s mind regardless of how much technology tried to offset that.

And so after The Reckoning of Empires Jesse attempted to scuttle off into some hidden corner of space where no one knew of him and disappear. He was relatively successful, the Yrrkradian Empire having no idea where he’d gone or how he’d done so, but they weren’t the only one that had been perhaps keeping an eye on him and on a man like Jesse retirement just doesn’t seem to fit well.

Character Evaluation

Jesse was once a ruthless man, fully willing to kill in order to ensure his own survival. A rough upbringing and a chaotic younger life resulted in an aggressive and brash man with no respect for authority or care for those around him. Recklessness and a lust for bloodshed would also describe him well in his younger years. Some might call him passionate and righteous depending on their point of view, and when fighting alongside Jesse one would easily agree that regardless of whose side he fought for he had a passion for the struggle itself and always put all of himself into a fight. Trusting wasn’t something that ever came easy for him, and cooperation was a learned skill and nothing more.

When he grew up a bit and learned some sense one might say he became more focused, finding a cause and learning how to play with others a little better. But the anger and aggression always and the love for conflict always remained. The thrill of the kill, the hunt, whatever you wanted to call it. Jesse just didn’t have much value for human life other than his own and that made him damn good at what he did. For a number of years he tried being somewhat honest and attempted to defend something bigger than himself. All it ever earned him was a bullet in the spine from the first person he’d ever dared to trust. 

After that Jesse became a tool, an operative of an apparatus far larger than himself. A surgical knife meant to knick and cut where directed, or sometimes an inferno meant to burn and destroy where pointed. Jesse has witnessed and been responsible for death and destruction on massive scales under a variety of flags. He’s never cared about those he’s had to kill and he’s never struggled to sleep over it. But getting close to people, giving anyone a chance to stab him in the back again, never. 

These days though Jesse finds himself feeling tired. Having attempted to retire but finding no sense of purpose or fulfillment he found himself once more as a gun for hire just to bring some sort of excitement to his life but time and time again he just can’t shake a sense of exhaustion looming overhead.

Skills

Gunsmith \\ Jesse is a triggerman at heart and, although he has a preference for the massive hand cannon he packs, he has extensive knowledge of any conventional firearm as well as most well known non-conventional and experimental. Jesse can deconstruct, clean, adjust, and maintain most weaponry with the proper tools.

Sabotage/Assassination \\ Jesse wouldn’t generally be considered discreet but he has been known to be excellent at getting behind enemy lines and creating chaos as well as neutering high profile targets.

Sharpshooter \\ Jesse has years of experience utilizing any sort of weaponry necessary to achieve the job and is highly efficient at hitting his target with whatever weapon in his hands.

Etherealism

 Experimental modification and enhanced augmentations have crafted a delicate type of ethereal power that Jesse wields. Harnessing the energy from the abyssic plane allows Jesse to fade in and out of existence at will. Utilizing this aspect Jesse is able to blink short distances without risking exhaustion as well as briefly fade into the abyssic plane as a means of concealment. 

Jesse can also use his abilities to assist with FTL travel.

Utilizing the proper augmentations in his arm and with a considerable amount of charge Jesse can fire off an ethereally enhanced rail-cannon shot using the micro rail carried upon his back. This devastating attack requires at least a few minutes of preparation thus making it more of a pre-planned effort but results in a devastating amount of destruction.

As a last ditch move Jesse can also quickly enhance his trusty hand cannon in a similar manner to fire one devastating close range shot typically held for desperate situations as the resulting ethereal toll leaves Jesse exhausted and vulnerable. 

Loadout

Legacy \\ Jesse’s trusty hand cannon has been his lifelong companion. Modified and tuned to be compatible only with the augmented arms he possesses as well as a few other nifty additions. The rounds are massive, capable of boring holes through multiple assailants with nothing but their mass, and enhanced by an onboard nano-enhancement system that allows the wielder to fire one of three types of special rounds as well as ordinary slugs.

Nitro rounds \\ Slugs modified to increase velocity and accelerate towards their target with rocket assisted propulsion after leaving the barrel of the gun.

Explosive rounds \\ Packed with explosive chemicals, creates small pinpoint explosions at point of contact.

Acid rounds \\ Loaded with an acidic compound that shatters and spreads upon the struck target.

Micro Rail \\ A bare bones rail cannon system that lacks any sort of power or ammunition on its own. Utilizes augmented technology in Jesse’s arms as well as the nano-enhancement system already utilized by Legacy in combination to form a devastating charged rail cannon. The micro rail requires at least a few minutes of setup to properly utilize.

Augmented Arms & Legs \\ As a result of his extensive military service as an experimental soldier Jesse has lost many parts of his original body. Multiple surgeries have resulted in the replacement of most of his vital organs as well as all four of his limbs and the entirety of his spinal column. These augmentations not only enhance his natural strength and resilience but have also increased his resistance to diseases and his natural vitality has also benefited. Although he is technically eighty-seven he looks more like he’s in his forties and moves as if he were in his twenties.

Actions Of Interest

For most of his life Jesse has been actively involved in some combat engagement or another, until his time with the OSFL he was considered more of a mercenary in it strictly for the money. Afterwards although he operated under various allegiances in the years to follow he was never the type that had any qualms with killing anyone that was required of him. Numerous souls owe the snuffing of their life to Jesse, both guilty and innocent.
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