Character: Sword of Nathtas, One Etrepa Seven • Imperial Radch Trilogy • corpse_soldier
Personality: Etrepa Seven is not human. She used to be a spacecraft, a warship called ‘Sword of Nathtas’ in control of scores of ancillaries, human bodies implanted, augmented and slaved to a central AI core, serving as its appendages. She’s now just one of those bodies, the seventh ‘segment’ of her Etrepa decade. This is challenging for her, amounting to a limb amputation in which the part that survives is the limb- or really more like a single finger. She is typically arrogant, proud of her origins as one of the most frighteningly powerful human-made forces in known space, and - as the vanguard of an expansionist empire called ‘the Radch’ - sneeringly imperialist, with an initially dim regard for the ‘uncivilized’: basically everyone who has not been integrated into Radchaai society (which means, unless someone apps a Radchaai, everyone). She is not a rampant AI, nor a coldly calculating one; she feels very intensely (more so than ever now that she has only one body), and is designed to form attachments to her human (non-ancillary) crew with an intensity that could easily be called love, though she does not experience or express it by way of standard human romance/erotics. She has a pet interest in religious doctrine, and will happily discuss the finer points of theology with a willing interlocutor. Common haunts around the camp or in the jungle: Typically patrolling the perimeter, often keeping her distance from the uncivilized rabble (in part to avoid having to pass as human). What have they been doing with their time? As of yet mostly sneering inwardly at her fellow camp-folk, trying to regain her coordination, and doing a very bad job at pretending to be human. Lately she is agitating for the (re)formation of a security force to protect (and potentially police) the camp. Current people they hang out with: She has developed a somewhat confusing attachment to Rue Lancaster, who may be a bare-handed barbarian, but is also the only person she’s met with whom she can communicate in a manner close to that of her officers, and who - knowing what she is - still treats her like a person, a novel notion for Etrepa, who is used to being regarded as equipment. She practices combat with Mystique, with whom she shares an unexpected degree of empathy due to their both being amputees of a sort, and who unintentionally shamed her into action. She has engaged in theological discussion with Firo Prochainezo, who was kind enough to offer her initial orientation after arriving. She briefly mistook Roy Mustang for a Radchaai, due to his gloves and military uniform, and while she was quickly disabused of this notion, she still appreciates that he is the only person she’s seen who even roughly approximates Radchaai habits (though he is rather too pale to be well-bred). She has publicly criticized Sirius Black for (to her mind) misusing the mirror network, and is now colluding with him about potentially forming (or, to Sirius’ mind, reforming) a security force.
Looking for: Other people who might be interested in joining a security force and want to be held to a frighteningly high level of cleanliness and discipline; fellow synthetic consciousnesses, though be warned that Etrepa thinks very highly of humans, indeed is built to love them intensely (though she has rather strict ideas of what qualifies as ‘humanity’); anyone who wants to try and fill the holes in her heart left by the loss of her crew; anyone who wants to share their religious views with her and to debate theology; anyone who thinks that hanging out with a condescending cyborg with no vocal or facial affect sounds like a fun time; anyone who wants to be stubbornly referred to with female pronouns, no matter their sex or gender. Any future plans for them? Forming the aforementioned security force, though she is going to struggle between a desire to take orders and her desire to insist on a level of discipline and personal appointment proper to the Radchaai military; she has always acted at the behest of officers to whom she feel a deeply compelling personal attachment, but she has never and would never take orders from someone who was not Radchaai. She also harbors a desire to venture into the Tranquility and to try and make contact with the ship’s AI, insofar as it possesses one. Anything else: Etrepa will be instantly more comfortable with you if you a.) wear gloves, b.) enjoy tea, c.) subscribe to standards of military discipline, d.) have dark skin. That is to say, insofar as you approximate (or are in fact from) the culture that built her, particularly its better bred and more noble members. If you are an alien, or she perceives you to be as such, she will harbor a deep distrust of you.
Etrepa Seven
Personality: Etrepa Seven is not human. She used to be a spacecraft, a warship called ‘Sword of Nathtas’ in control of scores of ancillaries, human bodies implanted, augmented and slaved to a central AI core, serving as its appendages. She’s now just one of those bodies, the seventh ‘segment’ of her Etrepa decade. This is challenging for her, amounting to a limb amputation in which the part that survives is the limb- or really more like a single finger. She is typically arrogant, proud of her origins as one of the most frighteningly powerful human-made forces in known space, and - as the vanguard of an expansionist empire called ‘the Radch’ - sneeringly imperialist, with an initially dim regard for the ‘uncivilized’: basically everyone who has not been integrated into Radchaai society (which means, unless someone apps a Radchaai, everyone). She is not a rampant AI, nor a coldly calculating one; she feels very intensely (more so than ever now that she has only one body), and is designed to form attachments to her human (non-ancillary) crew with an intensity that could easily be called love, though she does not experience or express it by way of standard human romance/erotics. She has a pet interest in religious doctrine, and will happily discuss the finer points of theology with a willing interlocutor.
Common haunts around the camp or in the jungle: Typically patrolling the perimeter, often keeping her distance from the uncivilized rabble (in part to avoid having to pass as human).
What have they been doing with their time? As of yet mostly sneering inwardly at her fellow camp-folk, trying to regain her coordination, and doing a very bad job at pretending to be human. Lately she is agitating for the (re)formation of a security force to protect (and potentially police) the camp.
Current people they hang out with: She has developed a somewhat confusing attachment to Rue Lancaster, who may be a bare-handed barbarian, but is also the only person she’s met with whom she can communicate in a manner close to that of her officers, and who - knowing what she is - still treats her like a person, a novel notion for Etrepa, who is used to being regarded as equipment. She practices combat with Mystique, with whom she shares an unexpected degree of empathy due to their both being amputees of a sort, and who unintentionally shamed her into action. She has engaged in theological discussion with Firo Prochainezo, who was kind enough to offer her initial orientation after arriving. She briefly mistook Roy Mustang for a Radchaai, due to his gloves and military uniform, and while she was quickly disabused of this notion, she still appreciates that he is the only person she’s seen who even roughly approximates Radchaai habits (though he is rather too pale to be well-bred). She has publicly criticized Sirius Black for (to her mind) misusing the mirror network, and is now colluding with him about potentially forming (or, to Sirius’ mind, reforming) a security force.
Looking for: Other people who might be interested in joining a security force and want to be held to a frighteningly high level of cleanliness and discipline; fellow synthetic consciousnesses, though be warned that Etrepa thinks very highly of humans, indeed is built to love them intensely (though she has rather strict ideas of what qualifies as ‘humanity’); anyone who wants to try and fill the holes in her heart left by the loss of her crew; anyone who wants to share their religious views with her and to debate theology; anyone who thinks that hanging out with a condescending cyborg with no vocal or facial affect sounds like a fun time; anyone who wants to be stubbornly referred to with female pronouns, no matter their sex or gender.
Any future plans for them? Forming the aforementioned security force, though she is going to struggle between a desire to take orders and her desire to insist on a level of discipline and personal appointment proper to the Radchaai military; she has always acted at the behest of officers to whom she feel a deeply compelling personal attachment, but she has never and would never take orders from someone who was not Radchaai. She also harbors a desire to venture into the Tranquility and to try and make contact with the ship’s AI, insofar as it possesses one.
Anything else: Etrepa will be instantly more comfortable with you if you a.) wear gloves, b.) enjoy tea, c.) subscribe to standards of military discipline, d.) have dark skin. That is to say, insofar as you approximate (or are in fact from) the culture that built her, particularly its better bred and more noble members. If you are an alien, or she perceives you to be as such, she will harbor a deep distrust of you.