Bitter Angels (SWADE PbP)/Dr Erla Yuta kaan

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Player character in the Bitter Angels PbP game.

Dr. Erla Yuta'kaan (Therion Marshal Lahar)[edit]

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The Earth Empire was an era of wonders and horrors, both humanity's apogee and nadir. While it backslid into authoritarian horrors across the majority of its territories, as the ease of resource extraction allowed vicious, corrupt, and lazy thug states to reign over oppressed billions, it was also an era of incredible scientific advancement and levels of cultural acceptance unheard of to humanity's ancestors; it was a massively greedy and brutal hegemonic nightmare, but it was one that oppressed equally and with at least lip service paid to the idea that humans were all worthy of respect. Mostly at the expense of all other sapient life they conquered, and "respect" did not feed most of humanity, leaving the core worlds utopias and the rest desperately scrabbling to feed and amuse their golden lords.

The dominant structure of the Empire was something mostly cribbed wholesale from Plato's Republic - three overarching castes based on metals, the bronze workers, the silver warriors, and the golden leaders, each of whom was believed to have a different inborn concept of honor; bronze sought the honor brought by making stability and wealth, silver by victory in conflict, social or physical, and gold by intellectual achievements and lasting legacy. Each was encouraged to think of themselves as an extended family, and each individual subgroup had its hobbies and talents. Two things arose from this - first was the gradual transformation of the "human species" into the "human genus", as humans split apart into many interrelated species specialized for specific jobs as the families turned to genetic augmentation to further specialize themselves. The second was the guilds - as each lineage became more and more defined by their field, it was natural to create entire cross-caste societies dedicated to one purpose. And it was this structure that overthrew the ruling Auric Council - when the Shift provoked superpowers, suddenly people could not be defined by their castes, and without that binding, suddenly the guilds realized that they had more access to the powered due to their wider recruitment pools than the rulers of the Empire, and joined their Shifted brethren in overthrowing the dying superstate.

The Auric Council took this with about as much grace as could be expected from people who were raised for generations from birth to think of themselves as the only ones capable of spiritual fulfillment through good rulership, and promptly joined with loyalist guilds to form the first Metalloid Cavalier Orders; secret organizations dedicated to the reform of the Earth Empire and the restoration of a strict caste system "reformed" to account for the Shifted, generally as the new Council or their direct viziers. The idea quickly spread to other aliens sore about losing their own idealized Golden Ages, and using the genetic biotech the fleeing Councilors took with them to create powerful monsters to serve as elite and disposable troops. Which led to the proto-Galactic Republic forming elite squads of military to fight the Metalloid monsters and their masters, which provoked the Metalloids to develop their own armored knights...

Erla Yuta'kaan is a descendant of the old Councilors, specifically his great-grandmother, who had the fortune to become one of the statistically unlikely Golden Shifted, with the power of "void conjuration"; the ability to summon pieces of alternate universes from quantum possibility and consciously controlled observer effects. Quickly seizing on the idea that her power could be inherited and refined, she deliberately grew fetuses born from fertilizing her own ova with sperm from human Shifted with various types of power, she sought to create a new dynasty of superpowered rulers. Naturally, it didn't end up that way - while the first generation was pretty loyal, the rest grew up distanced enough to realize she was an insane cult leader and scattered; the Yuta'kaan line remained aligned with the Metalloid cause in general, but joined up with the Gene Garden Eden, an Order that rejected the xenophobia and caste prejudice of the old Auric Council, seeking instead to remake it along libertarian-socialist lines, and with a bustling business in terraforming planets for interested clients (many of which have the minor problem of belonging to someone else, forcing Eden to relocate current inhabitants and infrastructure - they'd *never* terraform a world with native inhabitants or with massive civilian populations, but if it's a minor colony, resort, or otherwise has a main purpose that isn't inhabitation, they'll just haggle a little harder on the price).

Erla himself wasn't even that interested in politics - a shy and naturally withdrawn sort, he always preferred playing with the monsters as a child than fighting or intrigue - and later, growing them. Given how he was Shifted just as much as his more warlike and extroverted older siblings, with the power of being able to predict the most valid avenues of research and instinctive knowledge of "quantum sorcery" (read here, use of quantum reality-based engineering, which is just as much an art as an outre science), this path was encouraged by his parents as he became the chief bioweapons expert of Eden, as well as their expert on creating sustainable food webs for the specificity of their clients. To enhance and focus his powers, he created his armor, which normally exists in a quantum undefined state - as well as attuning him to alternate universes where life evolved differently, leading to his ability to pull in mutations from universes briefly, giving him the capacity to enhance or degrade other life, as well as pull in pathogenic versions of various bacteria from said alternate universes.

For his part, Erla comes off as a pleasant, somewhat earthy guy who likes nothing better than birdwatching or tending to animals. His primary motivation is financial security to pay for new and exotic pets (both bought and ones he personally makes), and to make worlds bountiful and beautiful. Really, he'd come off as a hero, were it not for two things: one, to him, the idea that the metal caste system is ideology first just doesn't make sense to him - people are motivated by wanting glory in peaceful and content lives, honor in conflict, *or* intellectual achievement, and the idea that people might be happier not having jobs that don't address their need is confusing at best. Second, creating monsters and helping conquer worlds is his job - his paycheck and self-respect as an employee and executive of Eden depends on him not considering that planetary invasion and space piracy are bad things. Otherwise, he's everything the Metalloid Knights like to imagine they are - honorable to a fault, loyal, and brave...ish. He's a scientist, not a frontline fighter.

It ended badly one day- Eden bit off more than they could chew when they attacked an outlying world that they thought was just a mining outpost with some company towns attached, but turned out that in fact it was a governmental research center that also was researching a bacterial lifeform that influences the macroworld in the form of sentient (and hungry) snow. Not only did they find themselves facing a full military response, but also rampaging ice monsters - they managed to contain the snow, but it wasn't a formal pact, and someone needed to be arrested to salvage Eden's reputation as the responsible, honorable Order. Because it was Erla's creations that got infested by the snow to become such a problem, he decided to take the blame and turn himself in to soak the heat, and cool his heels in prison while the scandal died down. (That he wasn't even on the planet when the vault was breached was tangential, he was close enough to the point where him begging for forgiveness on galactic TV came off as the cause being sincerely regretful and responsible.)

At his core, Erla is driven by love for his family. He wouldn't have taken one for the team if he didn't. At the same time though...it kind of weighs on him that they didn't get him out by the time he was contracted to serve with other intergalactic criminals, and that they continued operations without him. He doesn't hate them for it, but at the same time, he's become rather introspective and critical of his lineage. More to the point - he wants to confront the darkness at its core, as a way of showing up his siblings and prove that he was always one of the most vital parts of Eden. Quite simply, he wants to find where his great-grandmother's bioware tech is, and take it for himself to create the ultimate monster - one capable of not only claiming a planet, but terraforming it by itself.

His darkest secret is how he got a lead on the hidden cache, due to his scanner picking up a very familiar signature during the snow-beast cleanup - he knows one of the leaders of the anti-Metalloid warriors, the Privateer Knights Saber Kamen, is his cousin. He doesn't know which one or even what gender they are, but he knows they probably know too - and that this kind of information, especially if the Unknown Kamen lied about it, is the kind of thing that ruins lives and causes intergalactic scandals. For his part, Erla thinks it'd be massively unfair to destroy a hero for their parentage, as well as unsporting - but he also knows that it's unlikely said hero is the only person who knows of it, and likely at least one handler is being derelict in duty while doing so. He's sitting on some rather juicy blackmail, and he's terrified of his handlers finding out - and through them, the target he needs to find his ancestral vault may learn of its existence. Odds are, the kind of person who is willing to cover up a useful icon's heritage isn't doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, but also for blackmail - and if that person found the lost technology of the Auric Council...

(Edge notes: His Beast Bond is with whatever fierce animal he has from his menagerie of exotic pets currently; when he gets a new one, he is finding an appropriate one from his zoo, but he doesn't want to risk more than one at a time. His Animal Companion is his personal creation - back in Eden, he would make dozens of those things as elite troops in an operation, but he has been officially restricted to one at a time - he tries to use material from his last creation in a new one, as this allows a transfer of memory, and thus, resurrecting his pet - albeit in a new form.)

Stats[edit]

Hindrances
Code of Honor, Curious, Loyal, Transformation (minor)
Attributes
Agility d6
Smarts d10
Spirit d8
Strength d4
Vigor d4
Skills
Athletics (d4)
Academics d4
Athletics d4
Battle d6
Common Knowledge d4
Electronics d6
Focus d8
Healing d8
Language (Galexicon) d8
Notice d8+2
Occult d4
Persuasion d4 :Research d8
Science d10
Shooting d4
Stealth d4
Derived Statistics
Pace 6
Parry 4
Toughness 4
Edges
Artificer, Alertness, Beast Master (Legion of exotic pets - at start, is a dire wolf.), Calculating, Connections (Metalloid Cavalier Order), Scholar (Biological Phenomenon) Strong-Willed
Race (Martian Augment)
Alertness, Adaptable, Reduced Sleep (half), Environmental Weakness (cold)
Powers
(45 PP)
Animal Companion (Monster of the Week): 3 + 1 size + 8 full Super Power set + 1 Telepathic Link = 13
Animal Control: 2 + 1 Telepathic Link: 3
Armor: 2 (4 Armor)
Boost/Lower Trait: 2 + 2 (Any Trait) + 1 (Additional Recipient) = 5
Flight: 2 (Pace 12)
Healing: 3 + 2 (Refresh) = 5
Infection: 2 + 1 (Duration) + 1 (Mutation) = 4
Scan: 2 (Quantum) + 2 (Calibration) + 1 (Tracker): 5
Spacer: 2
Super Attribute (Smarts): 1 Smarts (2) + Not Today (2) = 4

Gear[edit]

Commlink, First Aid Kit (basic supplies), $890