Lancer: Iphigenia at Midnight CASKET:Scrapbook

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The Poem

 A weapon that dreams.
 
 One more augment. One more surgery.
 One more surrender to the subroutine.
 
 A weapon that pretends to be human.
 
 Live, laugh, love – because you've forgotten the atrocity.
 Live, laugh, love – because you forget how in the cockpit.
 
 Scream, lancer. There is blood in the haze.
 
 The haze is in the cockpit.
 The haze is half of who you are.
 
 Dream, lancer. There is no blood in dreams.
 
 The world outside is a dream. Go through the motions. Enjoy.
 The haze can wait. The cockpit will wait. The inside will wait until it can no longer.

The Vibe

On CASKET, I have figured out the vibe. She's the LANCER version of Warhammer 40k's Eldar Aspect Warrior. She puts on the mech frame, becomes death incarnate, and then takes off the mech frame - returning to civilian life. What this actually entails is an invasive and imperfect memory partition augment that leaves her feeling somewhat empty and adrift in civilian life (there's a disconnect with her profession and purpose, but she has money and resources and a life so it's pretty ok)...but is then suddenly confronted with the trauma and atrocity and experience of an ace mech pilot the minute she turns things on. Sure, she gets (sanitised?) after action reports, works with her manager to line up jobs, gets told of all the great things she's doing and the lives she's saved but...the memories just aren't really there. But there is a niggling sense that it's a very good thing they aren't.

CASKET is a civilian pressganged into militia service. And then pressganged into military service. And then pressganged into specops service. And then pressganged into elite lancer service. A civilian. A civilian who gets in the robot. Because she's been pressganged into saving the Solar System.

The haze is half of who she is. Scream, lancer. Because after screaming you can go back to enjoying the dream.

The Backstory

Nothing ever went wrong. Except the first thing.

How long ago now did that first thing happen…

In memory, an age ago. Like so many other memories.
In truth, it could have been yesterday. Like so many other memories.

That first thing was choosing to volunteer.

Charlemagne was a grand name for a bumpkis colony, but it needed a militia like any other. Just like any other…

And after that very first mistake, nothing ever went wrong again. Everything afterwards was predictable. Every decision played just as imagined. Every deal kept the candle burning one wick longer. Everything sold paid perfectly for everything that was bought. Every plan survived contact with the enemy. Every retreat worked out. Every bit of strength grasped for held the line. Every surgery was a success. Not even taking bullets stopped things going just as they said.

I live/laugh/loved with all of them.
And then I had to climb back into the frame...

And everything always worked out.
They always worked out until I saw everything.
Then I got out, and everything always worked out.

Faction rationale; character quirks

Weirdly, I think Casket is actually with MSMC? They're exactly the sort of scumbags who'd be operating in the precise sort of clusterfuck that gave birth to Casket in the first place, and are exactly the sort of scumbags who'd sell 'escape' as a means to gain a fabulous pilot and not actually as an escape for real.

HA is way too prim and controlling for Casket's dichotomy. And an idealised Union would simply look aghast at her.

So yeah...MSMC. They've definitely stuck her with their best 'problem children' handler - imagine just the hunkiest K-pop manager - and have learnt to keep a strict whitelist for the sorts of mission they're willing to send her on (lest they get another 'bite the hand that feeds her' outburst): you know, pirate suppression, protecting VIPs who aren't turbo bastards, Union contracts...all hands to battle stations against genocidal fascists. The good sorts of contract!

There is that...nausious...feeling the thing she's fighting this time around is the same kind of thing made her in the muddy past. But that could just be the electric tension in the air as the people of an entire solar system draw and hold their collective breath.

Casket is heavily augmented at this point, and her skills triggers reflect that. They also reflect the fact that she's otherwise pretty ordinary outside the cockpit. She doesn't carry a gun. Their...texture(?) is deeply unpleasant.