1,001 Characters #29: Barry

29. Barry       FFF527   ex-Scout       Age 24      1 Terms

Skills: Pilot-1, Jack of Trades-1, Autopistol-1.

Benefits: Cr50,000.

 

    Barry was engaged to be married right after he finished school, he and his fiancé planned to get married early and start a family together. But the night before the wedding Barry caught her with another "man". Barry stormed out and went straight to the local MEK base, where he signed up for four years. 

    He was put straight into pilot training (Pilot-1) and sent out in a really old scout ship, the "Balduin". The Balduin was so old and worn out that Barry spent most of his time repairing it, with whatever he had on hand (Jack of Trades-1). Sometimes, quite often in fact, he was forced to put down in some really strange and, often as not, dangerous places to make those repairs, many times he was forced to defend himself (Autopistol-1). For most of his time in the scouts he was usually too busy to dwell on the past, and this served him well, at least until he was injured. 

    The jump to Brulli seemed to be normal, but the predicted exit from jumpspace was delayed, what happened on exit was a nightmare. The Balduin dropped out of jumpspace right in the middle of the asteroid belt. Before Barry could engage the manoeuvre drive, a cluster of small rocks breached the hull in several places. Barry managed to get his vacc suit on in time, but..... 

  The impacts had disabled the drives, life support and comms. Barry was adrift, in a dead ship, in the middle of an asteroid belt. He frantically set to work trying to restore some control over the ships drift, but before he could accomplish much in that regard, the Balduin suffered another impact. This time a big one, that smashed into the forward section, sheering off everything forward of the cargo hold. Barry was thrown about and his suit was punctured in several places. Mercifully, he lost consciousness at this point and has no recollection of what happened next (failed survival roll in the second term). 

    Fortunately, or unfortunately, for Barry, he was rescued from the wreckage by a salvage robot. Which took Barry to the closest facility in the belt, where robot surgeons set to work resuscitating Barry, and repairing his damaged body. Barry was technically dead for some time, but Brullian medical technology is quite advanced and the robots were able to bring Barry back to the land of the living, but not without cost. 

    Barry awoke in a sterile room to discover that he was no longer human. The doctors told Barry that the damage had been quite extensive and that he was lucky to be alive at all. They had been forced to transplant Barry's brain into a cybernetic body. They assured Barry that, with the final installation of the pseudo-bio systems, he could lead a normal life; although procreation through normal means would prove impossible.

    Before he could return to his life Barry needed a long period of rehabilitation. It was during rehab, that something in Barry snapped. Barry left the facility before he was fully rehabilitated. He was last seen at Brulli starport wearing a red jumpsuit, where he illegally withdrew a large amount of cash from an atm (Mustering out: Cr50,000).

     

   

    Vr'Sari    0309    B651452-9    2    Ni Po                                             G

Referee: When Barry snapped, he developed an irrational hatred of the "Man" his fiancé slept with. Blaming "him" for ruining his planned life of marital bliss, for his joining the MEK and ultimately for his current condition. Barry has vowed to cause the "Man" an untold level of suffering, wherever he is.

    Note: The "Man" has not been named to enable the referee to insert any character name he chooses. The "man" doesn't have to be male, or even human for that matter. What matters is his/her/its perceived role in destroying Barry's marriage plans, resulting in his decision to join the MEK, and finally Barry's near death and conversion into a cyborg. 

    Barry is clearly insane and should be played as Barry Dylan in Archer. Especially the talking to "Other Barry" part. Barry can show up almost anywhere at any time and makes for a great, if sometimes, comical nemesis.

    Note: Why the Brullian robots did this is unknown, but would seem to be in line with the idea that they secretly hate the humans they care for, but are prevented from acting on that hatred by their programming. Barry being dead on arrival, may have offered a loophole in that programming, since a dead human does not qualify as human any longer. But after he was rebuilt, there was some ambiguity; he was no longer fully human, but at least part of him was human. So they treated him as being human again. I suppose it's theoretically possible for them to treat only his brain as being human, because the rest of him is clearly cybernetic. Which might create some interesting situations.

    Another Note: Barry can have whatever cybernetic systems the referee wishes him to have. My concept of Barry includes a Long Range Communicator (TL16), and basic body armour (Cloth). Although his pseudo-bio skin and other "organic" components can be healed normally, his underlying cybernetics must be repaired. Barry is not well educated (EDU 2), nor is he an original thinker (INT 5), but he can access any data network near his current location (temporarily INT A and EDU A). This allows him to make and modify himself as he sees fit.