Player Information Your Nickname: Teal Deer
OOC Journal: http://teal-deer.dreamwidth.orgUnder 18? Nein
Email/IM: ryuutenshi@gmail.com / failscream
Characters Played at Singularity: Nobody currently
Character Information Name: Starscream
Name of Canon: Transformers G1 (Cartoon) / Beast Wars (also cartoon)
Canon/AU/Other Game CR: Other Game CR (Cape and Cowl)
Reference: For canon:
TFWikiAnd for Cape and Cowl:
Network PostsLogsCanon Point: After
this event, where he tries to take over the city, and is murdered by Waspinator.
Setting: ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WERE ROBOTS THAT TURNED INTO CARS. AND PLANES. AND STUFF. THEY FOUGHT A LOT AND CONTINUITY WASN'T A THING.
Wait, that's not enough? Okay. Fine.
Far, far out in space, there was once a planet called Cybertron. On this planet lived a race of sentient machine lifeforms that called themselves Transformers, due to their ability to shapeshift from a bipedal robot mode into a vehicle mode. Millions of years ago, a faction of powerful Transformers with primarily military-based vehicle modes called the Decepticons staged a revolt, saying that as the more powerful design they had the right to rule. The Autobots, the civilian models, took issue with this, and fought back. Eventually, this devolved into an all out civil war that lasted five million years, left the planet devastated, and killed most of the population.
Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots, decided to leave Cybertron in search of new resources. He was followed by Megatron, leader of the Decepticons. Both groups crash-landed on the planet Earth, then stayed in stasis for four million years. During this time, some other shenanigans happened, thanks to time travel, but we'll get to that.
Eventually, both factions woke up, resumed their war, got in ridiculous tangles with humans, fought a dread eldritch god of entropy and chaos named Unicron, then the Autobots finally won after something like three hundred years of fighting, then left Earth for good. Three hundred years after THAT, everybody reformatted themselves into much smaller models, closer to human-size, to save fuel. Some dudes went and crash-landed on Earth and that's Beast Wars, yep.
The main point is: Transformers is a setting with nonsensical science, complete lack of knowledge about how long things actually take and the notion of time, and robots punching each other. MOVING ON...
CAPE AND COWL
ONCE UPON A TIME, THERE WAS EARTH. Then some shenanigans happened and the entire police force of The City (actually New York City, but for some reason just called The City) vanished overnight.
In addition, there was a psychotic AI connected to a rift in the space-time continuum locked in a tower near Times Square. Totally a good idea, honest. Anyway, to solve the missing police force problem, she decided to pull in superheroes from other dimensions, drop them in the City, and expect them to do the job of the police. At least... that's the assumption. No one's really sure what her real motivations were.
Thing is, whatever sorting algorithm she used didn't work right, so she brought in totally normal people (and mutated them to have superpowers, just 'cause) and also crazy supervillains. This all went about as well as expected. Yay!
Personality: Starscream is an asshole.
Starscream is a self-centered, egotistical, narcissistic, slightly insane, power-hungry, arrogant, conniving asshole.
Even from when he was young, Starscream has been driven by one thing: pure ambition. Ever since his induction into the Decepticons, his one desire had been to lead them, to control them and then eventually the universe. To achieve this end, he will do quite literally anything, lying, cheating, and backstabbing his way to power. Though extremely intelligent, Starscream's arrogance and ambition actually get in his way more often than not: he is extremely rash and often plunges ahead without fully considering the consequences. As such, he has a habit of hoisting himself by his own petard more often than not. If he ever did actually bother to slow down and patiently consider all aspects of a scenario, he might be terrifyingly competent... but, well, if nine million years can't teach it to you, you're never really going to learn.
Starscream's time in the City has changed this tendency not one whit; it has merely altered its expression. Starscream's interactions with Arnold Rimmer and Skyfire tempered his more violent tendencies... but only a little. More importantly, only three months after Starscream arrived, the Megatron present in that universe vanished, leaving him with what he'd always desired: leadership of the Decepticons. As it turned out, leading a military force of psychotic war machines from beyond space is not, in fact, a cakewalk. Starscream's ambitions thus shifted from gaining leadership to first of all keeping it, second gaining the genuine respect of his troops (ie, leading in fact, not just in name) and, after he finally accepted that he would not be returning home from this dimension, re-establishing the Decepticon Empire and by extension reviving Cybertron by terraforming Earth. So, to sum up, the primary changes to his personality have been:
More patience, an enhanced ability to compromise with others to further his goals
A change in goals from simply “become leader of the Decepticons” to “re-establish Cybertronian civilization on a new world, with himself as absolute ruler / god figure”
He's not really one to think small.
Abilities, Weaknesses, and Power Limitation Suggestions: Immortal Spark: Starscream's iconic ability from the Beast Wars cartoon and Season 3 of the Transformers TV show. Starscream's spark (his soul/essence) is indestructable and immortal, surviving beyond the death of his body. If his body is killed, his spark simply floats free as a glowing orb. While in this form, he cannot interact physically with anything, but he can project translucent images of himself, and he can posses other bodies. In Cape and Cowl, he gained the ability to posses organic forms as well as machines; Lachesis (the AI running the Porter in CnC) also altered how his spark interacts with the mind of the being he's possessing. While possessing someone for a long period of time (more than a day), both Starscream and the possessee will gain fragments of each other's memories. What fragments these are are unpredictable and involuntary. Someone with a high degree of mental control or psychic powers can actually control what memories are gained and rip specific memories from Starscream, or eject Starscream entirely.
I'd like to request one small change from the way his CnC powers worked for logistical reasons: Starscream should be able to exit a body if he needs to (in CnC, he'd simply get trapped). Even with that, he probably won't use the posession power often, as he finds it uncomfortable for a variety of reasons.
In Singularity, I'd like to request that if Starscream dies, the teleporters will eject a fresh copy... but that his spark stays wherever he was when his body died. Also, the teleporters will eject the new body whenever they damn well please, so he'll have some fun trying to get to his body.
The only thing known to be able to damage an immortal spark is a blade of pure crystaline energon. If Starscream's spark is pierced with this, he'll explode, dying permanently (and probably killing anyone in a 50 foot radius)
Pretender Body: Near the end of his stay at Cape and Cowl, Starscream had constructed for himself a Pretender shell, that is, a body that appeared human, but could transform into a machine based combat mode at will. At the time of his death in CnC, this body had only two modes: his stealth human mode, and combat mode, which was an armored version. He can still fly and use his weapons in both modes.
Basically, it's like a Terminator body that can retract its skin and gain armored plates.
Flight: Starscream can fly, with a top speed of Mach 2.8
Lasers!!!!!!: He's got lasers. Their power in the show is kinda arbitrary, but one can assume that they've got about the same stopping power as the guns on an F-15.
Null Ray: This is an electromagnetic pulse ray capable of shutting down all but the most well-shielded electronics for approximately one hour. On sentient robots, this amounts to instant unconsciousness.
The world's most annoying voice That's totally a power
Scientific expertise: in the show, Starscream is explicitly stated to be a scientist, and shows proficiency in physics, engineering, and chemistry.
Weaknesses: His arrogance is his greatest weakness; he's also got the usual robot weaknesses and so on.
Inventory: An extremely ostentatious but now tattered and ruined purple cape, gold pauldrons, and a garish crown.
Appearance: In human mode, he looks suspiciously like Christian Slater cira Heathers with black hair and slightly disturbing glowing red eyes. In robot mode, he looks
pretty much like this, only with a facemask over his face. Note that he can extend the wings and guns while in human mode, and can choose to transform only parts of his body; also, he can fire his lasers both from the guns and from his fingertips.
Age: Somewhere around 9,016,325. Young, for a Transformer.
OC/AU JustificationIf AU, How is Your Version Different From Canon, and How Will That Come Across? See the Personality section: mostly, Starscream's time as an actual leader has mellowed him somewhat, and taught him the value of compromise, of stepping back from your goals and reconsidering, and of alliances. Given his humiliating defeat and failure in Cape and Cowl, he'll... okay, probably NOT be disillusioned about recreating Cybertron, but he'll probably consider trying to do it in a city populated by superpowered crazy people a bad plan. But hey, “It's not like any of you idiots really CARE about Asphodel, right?”
If OC, Did You Run Your Character Through a Mary-Sue Litmus Test? STARSCRAM IS TOTEZ MAI ORIGINAL CHARACTUR DONUT STEEL :V
And What Did You Score? 23974837784
SamplesLog Sample: Starscream paced back and forth in the entry hall of one of the many eerily empty buildings of Sacrosanct. This one, he assumed, had once been some sort of administrative office building, some place where whatever race had built this place (he had gathered that they hadn't been human after all, and that indeed, this 'verse had never known an Earth). If he could figure out the damned rules that insufferable AI had, perhaps it would make a suitable base of operations.
Second verse ('verse?), same as the first, really. One psychotic, megalomaniac AI with inscrutable goals, a populace of refugees from myriad worlds brought for some unknowable purpose, cranky natives half of whom were interested in exploiting said refugees and the other half seemed to want them all dead... and, finally, no Megatron.
He supposed it was better than being
home again. An eternity left floating in the depths of space whilst waiting for the heat death of the universe wasn't a pleasant prospect. And here, well... here was better than Earth. He was back among the stars, where he belonged; even if his body was a hybrid it was still closer to its proper shape, and with the exception of the few Cybertronians, most of this place had no pre-existing prejudices against him. That, in turn, meant that perhaps he could begin again.
Slag, there were even a few he suspected would be interested in his goals. A
perfect universe. A perfect rebirth of Cybertron, free of organics, free of factions, bound under
his rule, poised to roll through this galaxy and spread from planet to planet... well, the "his rule" they might object to, but, well, that information was on a need to know basis and at the moment, no one needed to know. Indeed, on Earth he'd had only his own tools and the pathetic technology of the early 21st century; here, he'd heard tell that the station might even have a semi-functional FTL drive.
He slid behind the empty reception desk and posed himself on the chair, drumming his fingers. Was it dramatic enough? No, just a little shift there, a slight adjustment of his facial plating to make himself look more intimidatingly hybrid... yes. Yes! Starscream, the conquering hero, Starscream, creator of new Cybertron, emperor of Destruction, so forth and so on...
Yes.
He could begin again.
Network Sample: [
oh god it's this douchebag again no why
maybe he wont start talking]
Riiiiiiight.[
no such luck nooo]
So, how many of you have actually bothered to investigate the history of this station? Or attempted charting the stars, or tried to determine the place's functions, or done a more thorough look at the people on the planet below, their weapon defenses, their reasons for hating you know who, and so on?
No, truly, I'm
genuinely curious. Curious as to how blindingly ignorant and complacent you are, mostly, but also curious as to your findings. Because here's a little thing I learned from the last time I encountered one of these idiot AI: there really isn't any going home, and mucking around with the rift will just be a blueprint for disaster. No, better to make the
most of our situation, hmm? Which you all obviously haven't been doing because in the two years (or so?) since you've been stuck on this station you've managed...
Nothing. Exactly nothing. Tch, at least back in the City they were semi-competent! They managed to get rid of the
first psychotic AI, managed to put some proper systems in place for caring for refugees, managed to even find out some truths! You lot? Nothing that's obvious, anyway.
Well done.So there's the question, then! What
have you managed?
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