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realityshiftedPlayer Name:Binky | Glazed MacGuffin
Player LJ/DW:![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
glazedmacguffin
Email/AIM/Plurk: glazedmacguffin @ glazedmacguffin dot com
Timezone: PST
Other Characters: Agent K
Character: Gaheris Rhade
Series: Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
Deviance: 1
Age: 33
Gender: Male
Species: Nietzschean (Homo Sapiens Invictus)
Canon Used: Series and Books
Appearance: He's 6'1'' (185cm) tall, with Baltic features. He's clean shaven with short black hair and muscular. He weighs about 195 lbs (88,5 kilos). He usually dresses in his Commonwealth uniform or some sort of futuristic leathery clothing. The most distinguishing characteristic is that he has three sharp bones protruding out of each forearm (called boneblades). He has dark brown eyes.
Psychology: As with all Nietzscheans, Rhade's entire philosophy stems out of self-interest, individualism, Social Darwinism, Dawkinite evolution, realism, and some humanism. He values survival, not just his own survival but the survival of his genes above all else. This means that he's able to write off his own self-destructive behaviors as for the greater good (individual altruism in evolutionary biology), as it is very un-Nietzschean to be at all self destructive. On top of that, he can reference the encouragement in Thus Spoke Zarathustra to live life to its fullest by embracing danger and taking risks. He's formed his own morality to greater benefit himself, but it also gives him room to assist his associates when it might be valuable to him to do so. In fact, he seems to go out of his way in some cases to find excuses over why an act is selfishly for him and not just an act of benevolence or altruism, and seemed to enjoy playing dark knight to Dylan's white knight. His Pride and wives and children inevitably come first, however. He faces all obstacles and challenges with the intention of bettering himself so that he might be a suitable husband and father.
He views himself as simply a vessel for a woman's ability to reproduce a superior child. While Nietzscheans have polygamy and Prides, a woman chooses her mate and has the option to reject a child if she finds her mate inferior. It's a very matriarchal society and often the matriarch of the Pride has to approve a coupling before it can come to pass. Because of this, he will always regard women with reverence and tends to be biased toward them and competitive with men, and unlike some later Nietzscheans isn't so committed to the Nietzschean race that he won't consider mating outside of his subspecies. Superior genes are superior genes. If he should find a man that he's comfortable with, he becomes intensely attached to them. He's less likely to betray someone he acknowledges as family (or a love interest).
Rhade personally, while saying that he is a realist as most Nietzscheans are meant to be, was more of a cynic. He often suspected the worst of people and himself, but still saw this as realism rather than pessimism. He is committed and earnest to his duties as an officer as another means to prove himself, even when he betrayed his Captain and best friend. His intentions were good, his means were extremely misguided. He tends more toward the bluntly honest when giving his opinions about things (of course blatantly lying when he had an agenda), so people rarely suspect him when he's being dishonest.
Rhade has a strange habit of presenting Dylan with his plans as a warning, such as telling the Captain to take him to the brig because he couldn't trust him, or during Go games warning him how many moves it would take before he won (and also cheating during the game and telling him that people would do anything to win). It would seem that it wasn't in his best interest to do this, and he wouldn't warn any other person that he came up against before he attacked them. It's almost a bizarre way of showing respect and affection. That he wants someone to remain a challenge in order to keep their relationship interesting and stimulating, so he provides them with tactical advantages. He also wanted to give them a chance to avoid the result and absolve himself of guilt if they fall into a trap.
This is even evident in how earnest he is in maintaining the crew drills. He is very strict and very adamant about them being able to efficiently perform their duties. When they couldn't, he presses them harder until they can make the time he required. He wants them to be competent against the Nietzschean fleet they were going against, and to be efficient game pieces for Dylan to use during the battle even if Gaheris would be his enemy. At the point that I'll be bringing him in from, he has guilt for an act that he hasn't even committed yet.
One of his individual quirks is that he loves Go and games in general. Being competitive like most of his kind, he enjoys tactical games as much as athletics. He tends to cheat at both, but he does it in hopes that the opponent will too and will be doubly impressed if they catch him. Or if he can manage to find loopholes in the rules.
Other Skills/Abilities: Rhade is much stronger and faster than normal humans, and can think more quickly. He's immune to some poisons such as aconite, ammonia, antipyrine, arsenic, atrophine, camphor, hydrocyanic acid, iodine, lead, picrotoxin, and strychnine, and can breathe chlorine gas for longer than a human could. He's resistant to diphtheria, hepatitis, the flu, measles, meningitis, mumps, pertussis, lyme, polio, rabies, rubella, tetanus, and varicella. He's a keen strategist and a competent officer when it suits him. He can survive longer in a slightly harsher environment, he is however not indestructible and can succumb to the same environmental extremes that humans can after prolonged exposure.
He has bone-blades jutting from his forearms like most Homo Sapiens Invictis. Like antlers, the bones can grow back if they're broken (even if it's painful).
Other Weaknesses: He is still basically human, even if a subspecies. He's quicker to temper (though he does a good job at restraint). Prolonged exposure to environmental extremes will still kill him, and other than the boneblades has the same basic organs and organ location.
History: Headcanon: Italics
Canon Point: He'll be brought in prior to his death, but after killing Tyr and Beka and Rev Bem have left the Andromeda. He's acting captain, and won't remember the Plane from before except hazily.
Reality Description: The Systems Commonwealth and the New Systems Commonwealth span the Andromeda, Milky Way, and Triangulum Galaxies. The primary form of travel is slipstream, which requires an organic pilot coupled with a ship with a slipstream drive. Slipsteam drives are also horribly prone to accident. This has information from both before and after the Fall of the Commonwealth and the Long Night that followed.
A Commonwealth ship typically has it's own personality and AI, shown in an avatar made to suit the purpose of the ship. A medical ship will have a kinder avatar, while a warship has a more aggressive AI. The Andromeda Ascendant is a Glorious Heritage class warship (Registry Designation: Shining Path to Truth and Knowledge AI model GRA 112, serial number XMC-10-284) and has a crew of 4,500 (only seven after the Fall). There are three manifestations of this personality. The command personality is the one that controls the ship's functions (including it's gravity with astounding accuracy) and appears on telescreens. The holographic personality communicates with the crew. The "ship made flesh" or the android avatar acts directly among the crew, and if alterations happen in the command or holographic personalities it isn't affected (and likewise). The Andromeda only consists of the hologram and the command personality until after the Fall, and her nickname is Rommie. The Captain is Dylan Hunt, a very idealistic half heavy-gravity worlder. Refractions of Dawn is the Than slipstream pilot and there are new crew members such as Hudson.
After the Fall, the crew consists of Rhade, Harper, Beka Valentine, Rev Bem, Trance Gemini, Tyr Anasazi, and Rommie.
The Commonwealth was formed from the Vedran Empire, and had lasted for about 5,500 years. It consisted of Kalderans, Makra, Perseids, and about 1,022,347 different member planets, drifts, stations, and habitats before the fall. Tarn-Vedra is the capital world. The Vedrans were a quadrupedal race, and might have been the inspiration for mythical centaurs. Humans (all their various subspecies) are members as well. These include the Inari (they can see in the dark), the Castellians (water-breathers), Heavy-Gravity Worlders (made to live in stronger gravity), the Nietzscheans (genetically manipulated breeders), and the Hajira (pass their memories from parent to offspring and weren't discovered until after the Fall). Traditional humans still exist as well, but they're more frail than other varieties.
Earth itself was never a significant part of the Commonwealth. Many of the native species went extinct with human expansion and the introduction of invasive species, and this was before the Fall. After the Fall, the Magog attacked and ravaged Earth. Nietzschean slavers then took over the planet, freeing it from Magog but oppressing the normal humans that lived there and forcing labor and poverty.
There are also races such as the Nightsiders, which require lakes to spawn in and their spawn will obliterate an aquatic ecosystem. The Magog are relatively mysterious in that no one knows where they originated at this point in time. They can only digest food after making a killing, so eating prepared food is unthinkable. They also require a sentient host to carry their offspring. They are capable of independent thought. The Wayist movement was started by a Magog who had infected a monk, and as the monk incubated the young he preached to the Magog, and when the offspring were born he spread the faith to his children. Wayism is the primary monotheistic religion, a combination of other peaceful Earth religions that follows joint teachings and has a firm belief in the creator of all things, or "The Divine".
There are other mysterious beings that aren't well-known. The Paradine are Vedrans that have taken on human form and lived in secret in the human districts of Tarn Vedra. Also, there may be stories from various planets about peculiar looking childish troublemakers that show up from time to time and cause disasters. These are actually physical manifestations of celestial bodies. A solar avatar can have a form for every phase their star goes through, and they have a unique perception of time and the universe, aware of all streams of possibility and alternate scenarios. They usually don't involve themselves in the petty affairs of the biological universe, seeing it as inconsequential, but occasionally they appear and cause war and disaster for their entertainment. Though no one outside of the post-Fall crew of the Andromeda is truly aware of what they are.
After the Fall, the only original Commonwealth world remaining is Tarazed, also supporting the only population of loyalist Nietzscheans (including Gaheris Rhade's genetic reincarnation). Admiral Telemachus Rhade was an isolationist who moved to keep Tarazed independent of the New Systems Commonwealth so that they wouldn't draw enemies to their world. Besides that, there are very few members under Gaheris's lead outside of the Perseids and the Castellians.
First Person Speaking Sample:
[Gaheris doesn't remember the plane when he steps onto it, either thanks to the machine or the events that have passed. The murder of his captain. The passing of a whole 300 years in an instant. The Plane, if it was this version of Gaheris that was ever on it, feels like a distant memory.
So he gets this confusion all over again.] Every time I think I'm getting used to the universe it finds at least one other way to be utterly perplexing. [He stares down at the lack-of-floor, before walking over to the kiosk and collecting his information with an aggrieved, long-suffering sigh.]
Now, all I need to find are the size-altering consumables with appropriate directions, wherever they've been left. [He folds the pamphlet after a quick perusal and tucks it into his leather vest.] Is there anyone here?
Third Person Writing Sample:
Another fight with Kalderans, and he'd cheat where he needed to. He came rolling onto the Plane, dropping the weapon he held with a clatter. Within a moment he was back on his feet, grabbing at it and disassembling it and snapping pieces back together again. A piece held between his teeth, removed, then another replacing it. It seemed like he didn't have enough hands or could get it done quick enough. Maybe he didn't want to lose the inertia.
Either way, there were only two crew members left aboard the Andromeda now and he had to get back as quickly as he could, or they would lose another world.
Did you read the rules? I have.
Player LJ/DW:
glazedmacguffinEmail/AIM/Plurk: glazedmacguffin @ glazedmacguffin dot com
Timezone: PST
Other Characters: Agent K
Character: Gaheris Rhade
Series: Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
Deviance: 1
Age: 33
Gender: Male
Species: Nietzschean (Homo Sapiens Invictus)
Canon Used: Series and Books
Appearance: He's 6'1'' (185cm) tall, with Baltic features. He's clean shaven with short black hair and muscular. He weighs about 195 lbs (88,5 kilos). He usually dresses in his Commonwealth uniform or some sort of futuristic leathery clothing. The most distinguishing characteristic is that he has three sharp bones protruding out of each forearm (called boneblades). He has dark brown eyes.
Psychology: As with all Nietzscheans, Rhade's entire philosophy stems out of self-interest, individualism, Social Darwinism, Dawkinite evolution, realism, and some humanism. He values survival, not just his own survival but the survival of his genes above all else. This means that he's able to write off his own self-destructive behaviors as for the greater good (individual altruism in evolutionary biology), as it is very un-Nietzschean to be at all self destructive. On top of that, he can reference the encouragement in Thus Spoke Zarathustra to live life to its fullest by embracing danger and taking risks. He's formed his own morality to greater benefit himself, but it also gives him room to assist his associates when it might be valuable to him to do so. In fact, he seems to go out of his way in some cases to find excuses over why an act is selfishly for him and not just an act of benevolence or altruism, and seemed to enjoy playing dark knight to Dylan's white knight. His Pride and wives and children inevitably come first, however. He faces all obstacles and challenges with the intention of bettering himself so that he might be a suitable husband and father.
He views himself as simply a vessel for a woman's ability to reproduce a superior child. While Nietzscheans have polygamy and Prides, a woman chooses her mate and has the option to reject a child if she finds her mate inferior. It's a very matriarchal society and often the matriarch of the Pride has to approve a coupling before it can come to pass. Because of this, he will always regard women with reverence and tends to be biased toward them and competitive with men, and unlike some later Nietzscheans isn't so committed to the Nietzschean race that he won't consider mating outside of his subspecies. Superior genes are superior genes. If he should find a man that he's comfortable with, he becomes intensely attached to them. He's less likely to betray someone he acknowledges as family (or a love interest).
Rhade personally, while saying that he is a realist as most Nietzscheans are meant to be, was more of a cynic. He often suspected the worst of people and himself, but still saw this as realism rather than pessimism. He is committed and earnest to his duties as an officer as another means to prove himself, even when he betrayed his Captain and best friend. His intentions were good, his means were extremely misguided. He tends more toward the bluntly honest when giving his opinions about things (of course blatantly lying when he had an agenda), so people rarely suspect him when he's being dishonest.
Rhade has a strange habit of presenting Dylan with his plans as a warning, such as telling the Captain to take him to the brig because he couldn't trust him, or during Go games warning him how many moves it would take before he won (and also cheating during the game and telling him that people would do anything to win). It would seem that it wasn't in his best interest to do this, and he wouldn't warn any other person that he came up against before he attacked them. It's almost a bizarre way of showing respect and affection. That he wants someone to remain a challenge in order to keep their relationship interesting and stimulating, so he provides them with tactical advantages. He also wanted to give them a chance to avoid the result and absolve himself of guilt if they fall into a trap.
This is even evident in how earnest he is in maintaining the crew drills. He is very strict and very adamant about them being able to efficiently perform their duties. When they couldn't, he presses them harder until they can make the time he required. He wants them to be competent against the Nietzschean fleet they were going against, and to be efficient game pieces for Dylan to use during the battle even if Gaheris would be his enemy. At the point that I'll be bringing him in from, he has guilt for an act that he hasn't even committed yet.
One of his individual quirks is that he loves Go and games in general. Being competitive like most of his kind, he enjoys tactical games as much as athletics. He tends to cheat at both, but he does it in hopes that the opponent will too and will be doubly impressed if they catch him. Or if he can manage to find loopholes in the rules.
Other Skills/Abilities: Rhade is much stronger and faster than normal humans, and can think more quickly. He's immune to some poisons such as aconite, ammonia, antipyrine, arsenic, atrophine, camphor, hydrocyanic acid, iodine, lead, picrotoxin, and strychnine, and can breathe chlorine gas for longer than a human could. He's resistant to diphtheria, hepatitis, the flu, measles, meningitis, mumps, pertussis, lyme, polio, rabies, rubella, tetanus, and varicella. He's a keen strategist and a competent officer when it suits him. He can survive longer in a slightly harsher environment, he is however not indestructible and can succumb to the same environmental extremes that humans can after prolonged exposure.
He has bone-blades jutting from his forearms like most Homo Sapiens Invictis. Like antlers, the bones can grow back if they're broken (even if it's painful).
Other Weaknesses: He is still basically human, even if a subspecies. He's quicker to temper (though he does a good job at restraint). Prolonged exposure to environmental extremes will still kill him, and other than the boneblades has the same basic organs and organ location.
History: Headcanon: Italics
Gaheris Rhade was born on the Enkidu colony to Morgause of the Majorum Pride by Lot. He was raised well and received a formal education, and like most Nietzscheans was considered an adult by the time he hit puberty. He took his first wife soon after and went to the All-Systems University. He became a member of Argosy Special Operations soon afterward, and during the time between joining and his final Ops mission collected his other two wives.
Rhade (code-named Mr. March) first met Dylan Hunt (Mr. April) on a mission from Admiral Stark as a part of Argosy Special Operations to bring the dictator President Ferrin to stand trial for his crimes against personal freedom and to allow democratic elections. Rhade wanted to kill Ferrin, insisting throughout the mission that the efficient way to go about it was assassination. Dylan said that he wanted Ferrin to live and came up with every excuse to avoid killing him. In the end, President Ferrin attempted to shoot them the moment they entered his office, and Rhade killed him defensively. He helped an injured Dylan escape the facility and planet, received commendation and became the first officer aboard the warship Andromeda.
Rhade served under Dylan Hunt and the two began to regularly play go together, and became fast friends. It was during his service that Rhade bore firsthand witness to the devastation of the Magog. During this time caught wind of the first signs of revolt among the Nietzscheans, but Rhade at first refused to help the insurrection as he felt the Nietzscheans stood a better chance with Commonwealth resources. The first speech given by the Than Triumvir Spring Rivers Flowing insinuated that there would be countermeasures by the Commonwealth.
But then the Treaty of Antares was signed. The Nietzscheans felt the treaty was an insufficiently aggressive response to the Magog invasion, as many frontier dwelling Nietzscheans lost their worlds during the invasion and the agreement would allow the Magog to keep these Nietzschean settled worlds (even though the Magog had long since ruined them). Rhade decided to help with the revolt though his role would probably mean his death. He believed he would be helping his people continue on, that his children would be safe and the Nietzscheans would see a glorious victory. He found the Magog reprehensible and a scourge upon the face of they universe and hated that they lived off sentient beings and reproduced through rape (like wasps, using a host sentient to inject their larvae into and they would later erupt and devour the host completely). He began to conspire against his friend for the good of the Nietzschean people and as he thought the good of all the unified worlds. He saw the Commonwealth as weak and coddling, that the Magog should die and the Commonwealth should be destroyed before they would consider collaborating with them. Still, He didn't inform his wives of the treachery, wanting them to remain unaccountable.
He sabotaged the Andromeda, and during an emergency with a black hole the Commonwealth ordered an evacuation of a nearby planet in the Hephaistos System. The Nietzscheans set up an ambush, and he directed Dylan to send him to the brig because he couldn't trust him. Once the ship-wide evacuation began and he knew that his family had escaped, he resisted the officers escorting him and he returned to the bridge and shot Refractions of Dawn, the Than pilot and old friend, and then Dylan.
Then there was an alternate timeline.
The Hephaestos System was chosen for the first Nietzschean battle because of the rogue black hole that was nearing it making a good excuse for an emergency beacon. The Andromeda neared it, and her artificial gravity caused a time dilation aboard the ship as it approached the event horizon. The ship became trapped at the edge, and Rhade was delivering Dylan's body to the Captain's quarters to lay in temporary rest when the final time dilation occurred, keeping him in stasis for 300 years.
The crew of the Eureka Maru claimed the Andromeda for salvage. Guilty over Dylan's death, he made an agreement with Andromeda that he would turn himself in if the ship that was rescuing them was from the Commonwealth, even though he knew the penalty for treason was death. When it wasn't, he killed the invaders that he found hostile or useless and used the others as crew to help him rebuild the Commonwealth. He had a hologram made of Dylan Hunt to play go with, but it ended up being his personal adviser.
Through a slipstream accident he became the Nietzschean Angel of Death, a mysterious force at the Battle of Witchhead that killed off much of the Nietzschean fleet sent to intercept the Commonwealth ships that were on their way to obliterate the Nietzschean homeworld. After discovering that he was the greatest single butcher of the Nietzschean people ever known, his attitude toward his own kind hardened considerably as he felt that his people had betrayed his confidence in them. He refused to allow Nietzscheans into his re-envisioned Commonwealth, and the Nietzscheans began to blackmail potential member worlds into not joining, or harass current ones into leaving.
He struck up a relationship with Beka Valentine, but after a particular stand-off with an infertile Nietzschean pilot that reminded her of herself, she decided that she couldn't be a part of the crew anymore and she left both him and the ship. Rhade also caught Tyr Anasazi with the remains of the progenitor on board. Knowing he was scheming to betray the ship and was using it as his own personal protection, he murdered Tyr.
After Harper was infested with Magog during their encounter with the Magog World Ship, he began work on a tesseract machine to remove the larvae without surgery by phasing them into a different portion of space. Beka returned to the ship to see Harper, but told Rhade she couldn't stay with him. When he activated the machine, it caused temporal rifts throughout the ship. Trance Gemini switched places with her future self and informed Rhade he needed to use the incident to transport himself back to the past because there was no way they were going to be able to stop the Magog. He tried to insist that he could do it, but she said there was no option. He kissed Beka good-by and returned to the past. There, he killed his alternate self and put on his uniform. History progressed as it was supposed to, Hunt beat him in the fight, and he still said "I'm proud of you," before dying.
Rhade (code-named Mr. March) first met Dylan Hunt (Mr. April) on a mission from Admiral Stark as a part of Argosy Special Operations to bring the dictator President Ferrin to stand trial for his crimes against personal freedom and to allow democratic elections. Rhade wanted to kill Ferrin, insisting throughout the mission that the efficient way to go about it was assassination. Dylan said that he wanted Ferrin to live and came up with every excuse to avoid killing him. In the end, President Ferrin attempted to shoot them the moment they entered his office, and Rhade killed him defensively. He helped an injured Dylan escape the facility and planet, received commendation and became the first officer aboard the warship Andromeda.
Rhade served under Dylan Hunt and the two began to regularly play go together, and became fast friends. It was during his service that Rhade bore firsthand witness to the devastation of the Magog. During this time caught wind of the first signs of revolt among the Nietzscheans, but Rhade at first refused to help the insurrection as he felt the Nietzscheans stood a better chance with Commonwealth resources. The first speech given by the Than Triumvir Spring Rivers Flowing insinuated that there would be countermeasures by the Commonwealth.
But then the Treaty of Antares was signed. The Nietzscheans felt the treaty was an insufficiently aggressive response to the Magog invasion, as many frontier dwelling Nietzscheans lost their worlds during the invasion and the agreement would allow the Magog to keep these Nietzschean settled worlds (even though the Magog had long since ruined them). Rhade decided to help with the revolt though his role would probably mean his death. He believed he would be helping his people continue on, that his children would be safe and the Nietzscheans would see a glorious victory. He found the Magog reprehensible and a scourge upon the face of they universe and hated that they lived off sentient beings and reproduced through rape (like wasps, using a host sentient to inject their larvae into and they would later erupt and devour the host completely). He began to conspire against his friend for the good of the Nietzschean people and as he thought the good of all the unified worlds. He saw the Commonwealth as weak and coddling, that the Magog should die and the Commonwealth should be destroyed before they would consider collaborating with them. Still, He didn't inform his wives of the treachery, wanting them to remain unaccountable.
He sabotaged the Andromeda, and during an emergency with a black hole the Commonwealth ordered an evacuation of a nearby planet in the Hephaistos System. The Nietzscheans set up an ambush, and he directed Dylan to send him to the brig because he couldn't trust him. Once the ship-wide evacuation began and he knew that his family had escaped, he resisted the officers escorting him and he returned to the bridge and shot Refractions of Dawn, the Than pilot and old friend, and then Dylan.
Then there was an alternate timeline.
The Hephaestos System was chosen for the first Nietzschean battle because of the rogue black hole that was nearing it making a good excuse for an emergency beacon. The Andromeda neared it, and her artificial gravity caused a time dilation aboard the ship as it approached the event horizon. The ship became trapped at the edge, and Rhade was delivering Dylan's body to the Captain's quarters to lay in temporary rest when the final time dilation occurred, keeping him in stasis for 300 years.
The crew of the Eureka Maru claimed the Andromeda for salvage. Guilty over Dylan's death, he made an agreement with Andromeda that he would turn himself in if the ship that was rescuing them was from the Commonwealth, even though he knew the penalty for treason was death. When it wasn't, he killed the invaders that he found hostile or useless and used the others as crew to help him rebuild the Commonwealth. He had a hologram made of Dylan Hunt to play go with, but it ended up being his personal adviser.
Through a slipstream accident he became the Nietzschean Angel of Death, a mysterious force at the Battle of Witchhead that killed off much of the Nietzschean fleet sent to intercept the Commonwealth ships that were on their way to obliterate the Nietzschean homeworld. After discovering that he was the greatest single butcher of the Nietzschean people ever known, his attitude toward his own kind hardened considerably as he felt that his people had betrayed his confidence in them. He refused to allow Nietzscheans into his re-envisioned Commonwealth, and the Nietzscheans began to blackmail potential member worlds into not joining, or harass current ones into leaving.
He struck up a relationship with Beka Valentine, but after a particular stand-off with an infertile Nietzschean pilot that reminded her of herself, she decided that she couldn't be a part of the crew anymore and she left both him and the ship. Rhade also caught Tyr Anasazi with the remains of the progenitor on board. Knowing he was scheming to betray the ship and was using it as his own personal protection, he murdered Tyr.
After Harper was infested with Magog during their encounter with the Magog World Ship, he began work on a tesseract machine to remove the larvae without surgery by phasing them into a different portion of space. Beka returned to the ship to see Harper, but told Rhade she couldn't stay with him. When he activated the machine, it caused temporal rifts throughout the ship. Trance Gemini switched places with her future self and informed Rhade he needed to use the incident to transport himself back to the past because there was no way they were going to be able to stop the Magog. He tried to insist that he could do it, but she said there was no option. He kissed Beka good-by and returned to the past. There, he killed his alternate self and put on his uniform. History progressed as it was supposed to, Hunt beat him in the fight, and he still said "I'm proud of you," before dying.
Canon Point: He'll be brought in prior to his death, but after killing Tyr and Beka and Rev Bem have left the Andromeda. He's acting captain, and won't remember the Plane from before except hazily.
Reality Description: The Systems Commonwealth and the New Systems Commonwealth span the Andromeda, Milky Way, and Triangulum Galaxies. The primary form of travel is slipstream, which requires an organic pilot coupled with a ship with a slipstream drive. Slipsteam drives are also horribly prone to accident. This has information from both before and after the Fall of the Commonwealth and the Long Night that followed.
A Commonwealth ship typically has it's own personality and AI, shown in an avatar made to suit the purpose of the ship. A medical ship will have a kinder avatar, while a warship has a more aggressive AI. The Andromeda Ascendant is a Glorious Heritage class warship (Registry Designation: Shining Path to Truth and Knowledge AI model GRA 112, serial number XMC-10-284) and has a crew of 4,500 (only seven after the Fall). There are three manifestations of this personality. The command personality is the one that controls the ship's functions (including it's gravity with astounding accuracy) and appears on telescreens. The holographic personality communicates with the crew. The "ship made flesh" or the android avatar acts directly among the crew, and if alterations happen in the command or holographic personalities it isn't affected (and likewise). The Andromeda only consists of the hologram and the command personality until after the Fall, and her nickname is Rommie. The Captain is Dylan Hunt, a very idealistic half heavy-gravity worlder. Refractions of Dawn is the Than slipstream pilot and there are new crew members such as Hudson.
After the Fall, the crew consists of Rhade, Harper, Beka Valentine, Rev Bem, Trance Gemini, Tyr Anasazi, and Rommie.
The Commonwealth was formed from the Vedran Empire, and had lasted for about 5,500 years. It consisted of Kalderans, Makra, Perseids, and about 1,022,347 different member planets, drifts, stations, and habitats before the fall. Tarn-Vedra is the capital world. The Vedrans were a quadrupedal race, and might have been the inspiration for mythical centaurs. Humans (all their various subspecies) are members as well. These include the Inari (they can see in the dark), the Castellians (water-breathers), Heavy-Gravity Worlders (made to live in stronger gravity), the Nietzscheans (genetically manipulated breeders), and the Hajira (pass their memories from parent to offspring and weren't discovered until after the Fall). Traditional humans still exist as well, but they're more frail than other varieties.
Earth itself was never a significant part of the Commonwealth. Many of the native species went extinct with human expansion and the introduction of invasive species, and this was before the Fall. After the Fall, the Magog attacked and ravaged Earth. Nietzschean slavers then took over the planet, freeing it from Magog but oppressing the normal humans that lived there and forcing labor and poverty.
There are also races such as the Nightsiders, which require lakes to spawn in and their spawn will obliterate an aquatic ecosystem. The Magog are relatively mysterious in that no one knows where they originated at this point in time. They can only digest food after making a killing, so eating prepared food is unthinkable. They also require a sentient host to carry their offspring. They are capable of independent thought. The Wayist movement was started by a Magog who had infected a monk, and as the monk incubated the young he preached to the Magog, and when the offspring were born he spread the faith to his children. Wayism is the primary monotheistic religion, a combination of other peaceful Earth religions that follows joint teachings and has a firm belief in the creator of all things, or "The Divine".
There are other mysterious beings that aren't well-known. The Paradine are Vedrans that have taken on human form and lived in secret in the human districts of Tarn Vedra. Also, there may be stories from various planets about peculiar looking childish troublemakers that show up from time to time and cause disasters. These are actually physical manifestations of celestial bodies. A solar avatar can have a form for every phase their star goes through, and they have a unique perception of time and the universe, aware of all streams of possibility and alternate scenarios. They usually don't involve themselves in the petty affairs of the biological universe, seeing it as inconsequential, but occasionally they appear and cause war and disaster for their entertainment. Though no one outside of the post-Fall crew of the Andromeda is truly aware of what they are.
After the Fall, the only original Commonwealth world remaining is Tarazed, also supporting the only population of loyalist Nietzscheans (including Gaheris Rhade's genetic reincarnation). Admiral Telemachus Rhade was an isolationist who moved to keep Tarazed independent of the New Systems Commonwealth so that they wouldn't draw enemies to their world. Besides that, there are very few members under Gaheris's lead outside of the Perseids and the Castellians.
First Person Speaking Sample:
[Gaheris doesn't remember the plane when he steps onto it, either thanks to the machine or the events that have passed. The murder of his captain. The passing of a whole 300 years in an instant. The Plane, if it was this version of Gaheris that was ever on it, feels like a distant memory.
So he gets this confusion all over again.] Every time I think I'm getting used to the universe it finds at least one other way to be utterly perplexing. [He stares down at the lack-of-floor, before walking over to the kiosk and collecting his information with an aggrieved, long-suffering sigh.]
Now, all I need to find are the size-altering consumables with appropriate directions, wherever they've been left. [He folds the pamphlet after a quick perusal and tucks it into his leather vest.] Is there anyone here?
Third Person Writing Sample:
Another fight with Kalderans, and he'd cheat where he needed to. He came rolling onto the Plane, dropping the weapon he held with a clatter. Within a moment he was back on his feet, grabbing at it and disassembling it and snapping pieces back together again. A piece held between his teeth, removed, then another replacing it. It seemed like he didn't have enough hands or could get it done quick enough. Maybe he didn't want to lose the inertia.
Either way, there were only two crew members left aboard the Andromeda now and he had to get back as quickly as he could, or they would lose another world.
Did you read the rules? I have.
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