Darwin

Basic Stats

Name: Darwin
Classification: Lamba-Derived Autonomous Data Unit
Manufacturer: All Gen 1 thru 3 androids
Model: KID-ADU-003D 'Darwin'
Height: 75 cm
Weight: 12 kg

Headcannon Voice: TBD
Song: Shinedown "I dare you"

Origin

Darwin is the first in the Lambda series to be made by a collection of his predecessors including Coulomb who had to participate remotely on account of her location in the afterlife. The goal with Darwin was to produce an android that stretched further across the gap between androids and organic life. Each android added something to the design, but he was ultimately conceived by Tesla and Bell first.

Coulomb lent her charisma and experience with handling people even in the most difficult situations when they are panicked, belligerent, ot just stubborn. From Faraday came both patience as well as guile. He wouldn't argue about the latter being a dangerous thing, but it is a powerful survival tool at times. Bell gave Darwin a voice that was a beautiful and strong as she imagined she might have been if not for her own afterlife entanglements. Not just the voice though. She gave him a sense of wonder and beauty when dealing with music or life in general. Tesla made Darwin's spirit strong and imbued him with a sort of determination to be able to push through any difficulty. Joule was the last to add his part. Knowing what everyone else had given Darwin, he provided some of the optimism and hopefulness that he had. His was the balance of all other parts and a core of compassion that he hoped would keep Darwin from wandering dark paths in his life.

Physical Description

Because Darwin was always intended to have some polymorphic attributes, the physical template and theme to his creation became something that ended in a long debate. Instead of playing on evolution and trying to think of something in the future, the group settled on a link to the past. AS a result, Darwin has the saurian aspects of a dinosaur, but in his case it is among the earliest of birds, the Archaeopteryx. And ancient appearance with beautiful plumage on both wings and a long tail, the presence of hand bones that had not fused to be part of the wing simplified the design. Instead of only three fingers, Darwin has a full five digits and this has a very complex wrist design. Darwin, due to his design, does not normally fly unless he uses his fourth mode to modify himself to the task.

The base color for Darwin's plumage is a bright blue with white feathers along the edge of his tail and the longest feathers of his wings. A black stripe runs from the corners of his gold eyes and stretches down his neck and forms a boundary between blue and cream along his sides, blue covering his back and cream his belly. His jaws have short, sharp teeth which is unusual for his kin even given his design.

Malleable Exterior

Darwin is the first android with a reactive exterior. At its simplest, it can change colors to allow him to blend in against a background. At its most impressive, all by the major skeletal components of the limbs and the entire exterior skin if his body can be modified by the Evolve mode. It is possible for Darwin to morph himself into other forms in order to advance beyond obstacles in his life. It is a temporary change and much return to baseline, but it can change anything visible on him with only skeleton and his primary systems in his torso being unable to change. This does limit his size and his mass is always conserved.

Darwin's Four Modes

Like all of the Kaelid ADUs in his line, Darwin has four special magic-like modes of operation. The pattern of two utility, one offensive, and one creative mode has held fast.

Mode 1 Heal: This mode came from Joule who was often distressed about how difficult it was to care for his organic friends. The Heal mode can range from mending surface wounds to aiding in purging poisons or infections. In all cases Darwin needs to be within inches to be effective with physical contact with the wounded being ideal. Unfortunately there is no 'healing ray' but Darwin has the best medical capabilities of any Lambda series at the time of his awakening.

Mode 2 Scan: Scan is a companion to Heal that allows for long range detection of life forms as well as deep scanning capability into organic beings. This allows Darwin to analyse living things and find places where they need to be healed or just observe their workings using non-invasive methods.

Mode 3 Parasite: For all of Darwin's healing abilities, his offensive mode 3 is one of the more terrifying. By patching all three of its other modes into one system, Darwin can latch onto and parastitize organic and even some inorganic systems to the point of being able to control them. This is a phenotype copied from nature itself such as the terror that is Cordyceps. Frightening as it is, it can also be used to subdue a creature to help it. Because it uses Heal as part of its operation, it requires physical contact to function.

Mode 4 Evolve: This is the magnum opus of Darwin's design. While the core systems of Darwin's body are not mutable, the exterior layers of the body and especially the wings are not fixed. Evolve uses two strategies. The first is a physical ability to move the polymer exterior layer about to make new shapes and colors to a point that almost looks like shapeshifting. This passive system can be active at any time, but when fully energized, it functions as a self-transmutation system. While limited by torso and basic limb structures, Darwin can become other organic species including some inorganic augmentation. The ability requires continuous power input though, and so it cannot be sustain indefinitely. This gives Darwin incredible versatility.