application / in-depth info
Name: Siberia
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Email: electric_batarang@yahoo.com
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Characters already in the game: None
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IC:
Character name: Shin
Fandom: Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon
Timeline: Postgame
Age: Not given. I'd assume early 20s - he's a scientist, but briefly mentions that he's younger than his peers, and also has a relationship with Sai, who I really doubt is older than college-age.
~*Magical*~ abilities and strengths: WELL. For one, he's dead. Shin definitely isn't a normal human anymore, although what he is, exactly, remains vague. He appears to be a ghost, but also seems to be somehow connected to an AI mainframe. Shin mentions that he and Sai were going to leave humanity together, and as she is also a ghost, it may be assumed that both of their deaths were at least partially intended for that purpose. The canon is never explicit about... well, basically anything, but my personal belief is that died during Glass Cage, but became the ghostlike entity he is now with the help of some sort of other Glass Cage-related programming.
His abilities include levitating, glowing, object manipulation, the ability to pass through solid objects, and teleportation - typical ghostly fare. He also possesses some limited electrical powers, such as making shockwaves and thunderbolts, which he uses to defend himself, although he's not terribly skilled in battle. Despite his ghostly nature, he is not entirely ethereal, and can be touched and damaged by people / objects / slingshots.
The ability which has impacted his life most is his empathy. Shin made himself a guinea pig for testing the Glass Cage technology he and his colleagues were working on, which was intended to allow humans to sense one another's feelings and therefore allow them to communicate more honestly and freely. However, when Shin received it, he found he could only sense people's negative emotions. In his current ghostly form, he seems to have mostly lost this partial empathy; however, he probably still has something of this ability in him, as he continues to disdain communication via speech.
How would they use their abilities?: Just to get around from place to place and helping with everyday tasks, most likely. That's all he uses the majority of his abilities for in canon. Being able to go through walls and stuff sure is useful! The electricity powers will only come into play if he's attacked. He's a scientist, not a warrior.
Appearance: In a nutshell: tall, skinny Japanese guy who is really really really reeeeeally pale. Shin's skin is so white, it literally matches his labcoat. His short, messy hair is also stark white. In contrast, his eyes are a pinkish-red color. He very much has the look of a ghost about him.
Shin is always wearing a white tie and pants, coupled with a pale green work shirt and a labcoat. He also wears large white-rimmed glasses. Are you noticing a theme here yet. Possibly one with a certain color. Maybe.
Image: SOCKS AND SANDALS, SHIN?! NOOOOOOOOOO
Background/Personality: In the not-too-distant future, humans are gone.
The planet was wracked with wars. No matter how they tried, the countries of the world couldn't hold peace, and people continued to battle and die.
Then, one day, a scientist discovered the key to human interaction. All the despair and violence in the modern world was due to mistrust and miscommunication. Words could no longer be trusted; it was too easy to lie and to break promises. What if there was a way that everyone could understand each other without using the middlemen of speech and text? A way to truly know what was in the hearts of one's peers? Surely all conflict could be resolved when everyone in the world can empathize with the feelings of everyone else. A long, long time ago, humans had this power. Could there be a way to reawaken it?
Thus began the enormous scientific project in building the machine known as "Glass Cage." Headed mainly by a group of scientists in Japan, Glass Cage was almost instantly agreed upon by war-weary world leaders and was quickly set into motion. Glass Cage claimed to be "the next step in human evolution." All the people of Earth, tired of the destruction that was all around them, eagerly looked forward to its completion and the day when they wouldn't have to fear bombs from the sky.
This point in time, far before the moment where Fragile begins, is where Shin's story starts. He was one of the scientists working on Glass Cage. While how involved he was, exactly, remains unclear, he seems to have been in the higher rungs of the operation despite his young age, and was likely something of a prodigy. Thanks to his high-level position, he was able to meet Sai.
In order for Glass Cage to work and affect all people, it needed a "catalyst." The catalyst's "empathy faculty" would connect to Glass Cage, and then Glass Cage would use that to emit a triggering signal to the rest of the world. There were some unknown requirements for someone to be chosen as the catalyst, and thus, tests were made. Made without the test-taker's permission or desire. Sai, a young woman who had absolutely nothing to do with Glass Cage, happened to match the requirements, and was snatched right out of her everyday life and placed into a hell of white halls and experiments.
None of the scientists at Glass Cage regarded her as anything more than a test subject - an unfortunate victim suffering for the greater good, if they even cared that much - except for one. Shin immediately sympathized with Sai, seeing her as a living person and as a woman rather than just a lab rat, and began to try and make her miserable life a little bit brighter. He began to sneak in presents for her - small things, like candy or chocolate - and to keep her company when he could. Most of all, he thanked her for what she was being made to sacrifice. The two of them became close.
As the time when Glass Cage would be executed drew near, Shin was working on a few other things of his own. It seems that he had a very thorough understanding of the AI mainframe in Glass Cage. Ever responsible, he decided he would test it on himself in secret to make sure it was safe - after all, it would affect the entire world. And in the end, Shin was able to activate his "empathy faculty." However, the results were entirely different from what he expected. When he began to feel the thoughts and emotions of the world around him, he found no warmth or understanding from his peers. Inside each of them was only hate. Whether envy for the strong or disgust for the weak - each and every person, at their core, was thinking only of themselves, disdaining those around them. Shin watched those he knew act friendly and kind as he saw the ugliness that sat at the core of their emotions. In the end, he couldn't find happiness in any heart around him - even his parents regarded him negatively.
In the end, Glass Cage went horrifically wrong. The world went to sleep, its people awaiting the morning when they could finally understand one another and end conflict. But they never woke up. Virtually the entire human population was wiped out overnight - and most of those who didn't die then straggled on for only a few dark months. There were some who survived - Seto, the protagonist of the game, being one of them, and only a baby at the time - but for the most part, civilization disappeared.
At some point, either just before or a little bit after Glass Cage was activated, Shin and Sai made an agreement. Shin, disgusted by his fellow humans, wanted to end what was left of them - and his own life. He decided to become an AI and separate himself from the humans that had faced him with only hatred and anger, and asked Sai to come with him. She agreed. Then, the both of them died, coming back as the mysterious and vague ghost-computer entities they're implied to be.
Death separated the two of them, and it seems they didn't see each other for quite some time. Shin turned back to the machine that had ruined his life, taking up ghostly residence in the Glass Cage laboratory and setting up the mechanism anew. He managed to find another human still alive to use as the catalyst - a young girl named Ren. When and how he came across her and how he managed to imprison her remain unclear - however, she seemed to listen to his commands somewhat, so it's likely he'd known her for some amount of time beforehand. And so he began to start the Glass Cage project all over again - this time with the plain intent of wiping out whatever human life might be left on the planet.
The young, newly-orphaned boy Seto, however, ends up running across Ren, the only other human he's met in his entire post-apocalyptic life. And Seto is determined to find her again when she runs, not wanting to be alone. On his search, he meets several other "survivors," none of which are human - the most notable of which being Sai's ghost, who is with her body in a decrepit hotel. When the two meet, Sai decides to follow Seto, being bored by her lonely undeath.
Because Ren was Shin's catalyst, she runs back to the facility, leading Seto and Sai there, as well. Shin is alarmed that Sai brought someone else to the factory and assembles an enormous crane to attack Seto at the cost of his own power plant - however, the boy is quick and clever enough to stop the huge robot. Sai herself is somewhat bitterly surprised that Shin is starting up Glass Cage again - apparently, that hadn't been part of the plan she heard.
Eventually, Seto finds Ren locked up in a little tube and ready to be catalyzed. Shin is also there, waiting to stop him from saving her. However, Seto schools his sorry butt, and Shin is only saved by Sai begging Seto to stop before he dies. Taking the AI mainframe out of Glass Cage, he teleports away.
Shin flees to the top of Tokyo Tower with the AI Mainframe, which is still able to initiate Glass Cage. However, he is pursued by Seto, Sai and Ren all the way to the top, where the boy defeats him once again. Seto presses Shin for answers. Why is he doing all of this? Why does he want to activate Glass Cage? Cornered, Shin answers bitterly. Because the world turned its back on him. When he opened his heart, all he found was hatred and envy. Humans were self-centered monsters, harming others for their own gain. He wanted to remove them all - to get away from it all himself. He didn't want to live in a world where no one loved him.
At that, Sai suddenly speaks up, expressing quiet disbelief. Shin, betrayed, is surprised at this, as well - he thought Sai was on his side, coming to become an AI with him to escape this world. But the truth is quite different. She tells him how his visits had spurred her on to continue living in those dark times - how seeing him had always brought a smile to her face, and how the touch of his hand on hers had warmed her heart. She had never wanted to escape from humanity or remove them entirely - she'd only wanted to stay by his side no matter what. "The truth is... I really... love you."
That shocked Shin - surprised, he quietly asks why he'd never been able to sense that emotion. Sai only laughs and tells him that there are some things that just have to be said. And Shin laughs back - he wasn't alone. Humanity could love, and someone loved him. With Sai now by his side, he casts the AI mainframe off the side of Tokyo Tower, destroying Glass Cage forever - as well as the remnants of himself and Sai. The ghostly couple vanishes as the game draws to a close.
While I call Shin the "main villain" of the story - and he is, technically speaking - he's not actually too villainous. There's nothing truly evil about him, and while the plot he cooked up might seem pretty diabolical at first, it becomes painfully obvious by the end of the game that it's merely the last desperate thrashing of a spurned and lonely soul who doesn't know what else he can turn to. He's a human with flaws and feelings, and he was simply overcome by them while in dire straits - worsened, ironically, by a lack of communication.
It's clear that he's a highly sensitive person. The entire latter half of the plot was born from his emotional vulnerability. On the outside, he has every appearance of a cold intellectual - he seems to think in terms of his work, and has a stern, businesslike demeanor. However, this is contrasted by his actions. Out of everyone working on Glass Cage, Shin was the only one to feel anything for suffering Sai, and likely risked his job just to comfort her and ease her pain. Additionally, he risked his job (and his own health) for the sake of others when he tested Glass Cage on himself - he says himself that he was concerned and wanted it to be as safe as possible.
Of course, his sensitivity is most obvious in his reaction to the negative empathy he gained from Glass Cage. When he hears all the negative thoughts around him, and especially those concerning him, he's devastated. Any kind of self-confidence or willingness to stand up against these thoughts is either absent or unmentioned - all the feelings go straight to his heart and crush him utterly. Shin comes off as rather insecure, his feelings able to be hurt and twisted by the words and thoughts of others with relative ease.
After the events of the game, his personality is somewhat changed - he's become much more bitter, very much a broken optimist. The sympathy and responsibility he used to feel for his fellow humans is all but dissolved, and the only emotion he holds for himself is distinct pity for being placed into and hated by this society. He has difficulty trusting others, due to the stubbornly-reinforced fear born from his empathy that none of them mean what they say.
That said, the Shin of the past is not gone. The dying embers of his former self were stoked by Sai's confession - her selfless admission of love for him, going starkly against the beliefs about peoples' feelings that he'd held as facts for so long. His stubborn belief in the uselessness of speech and the ugliness of the human heart has been considerably weakened by her strong feelings toward him - ones that he found mirrored in himself towards her. At that moment, his capacity to trust in others began to regrow, as well as the knowledge that, yes, people can understand one another and connect their hearts, even using only words. That satisfied him enough to destroy Glass Cage and pass on with the girl that he loved.
Overall, Shin is a tattered man who's currently on the mend. His perception of the negative thoughts of others has left his view of the world skewed for the worse, but the earnest love of a single person was able to right it enough to change his feelings for the better. And though he remains sensitive and alienated from society, his ability to give other humans a chance is slowly returning. In Mostly Harmless, he'll be getting another chance he didn't think he'd have, and (hopefully) healing more.
Have you read up on how the game works?: yeahhhhh. FlamingFerret is the guide system, and characters can do missions, mooch off of friends, or steal if they want to be all rebelling against the man yo.
1st person sample:
[ The feed turns on to reveal an unfamiliar face on the Thor - a human male. Well, okay, that might be normal enough, discounting the fact that he was inhumanly pale. And that he appeared to be floating. ]
So in the end, Earth was destroyed regardless. All of it meant nothing.
[ There's a bitter detachment in the ghostly man's words. He doesn't say anything else at first - just staring at the communicator coldly for a few seconds, as if trying to decide what he wants to say. His voice is low and flat, but there's nothing he can do to hide the slight quaver of anger at this situation - or perhaps fear - underlying it. ]
If there's a woman here by the name of Sai - tell me her location. Immediately.
3rd person sample:
Wherever Ren went, cats seemed to follow. Though Shin had kept an eye on her for a long time, and even now made sure she didn't run off too far (after all, the time was drawing near, and no machine could work without all of its parts), he had never understood the mutual fascination between girl and feline. The first wave from Glass Cage had wiped out most humans, but had no effect on cats whatsoever - there enough of them around even in the laboratories that surely each one could find another to play with. And yet they still flocked to people - to Ren - for affection.
In the blackness of the decrepit little lab room where he currently found himself, a pair of slit eyes flashed in the darkness. They usually avoided him (like everything else in the world; nothing surprising to him there) - after all, he was dead. That's why this was strange. While organizing frayed wires and decaying machinery into an order that would work - setting up such an enormous machine by himself was taking a massive amount of time - this cat had approached Shin cautiously. And he paused, staring down at it through his white-rimmed glasses.
After a moment, he knelt down from his place floating in the air, one knee almost touching the ground. He'd never been an animal person, much less a cat person - no, his heart was in technology and data and all the creations of mankind. But there was something compelling about them; innocent, aloof, but still stubbornly relying on those humans he'd learned were so untrustworthy. Humans that no longer existed. Even at this stage, he found that there was still something in these homeless cats that tugged at his heart. Shin reached out a hand in the dark to the animal.
There was a faint tickle of whiskers as it sniffed at his hand, curious, for some time. Then, seemingly satisfied with its quick appraisal of his character, a black furry head pushed against his white palm. And he stared at it, face one of faint mystification, before scratching it behind the ears hesitantly.
Such naïveté, to trust a human. Only those deaf to their words would come close to such a hateful creature.
Questions?: Would Shin stay as a spirit-type being, or would he be nerfed on some level? It's not like I plan on doing anything crazy with him, but I'm just wondering about powers such as moving through walls / teleportation.
Did you put your characters name and fandom in the subject: yea boi