Relic Whim

Basic Stats

• Name: Relic
• Species: WhIM
• Size:
  • Head to toe: 8 inches
  • Tail: 9 inches

Whiptail Infomration Managers (Whiptails or WHIMs) do not have a gender, but their vocal frequency and mannerisms are often tailored to be make or female to make them more relatable. Relic has a male voice and uses common male pronouns such as he, him, and his. However, as an asexual creature, he is also just as happy to be called it and takes no offense from at this.

Personality

Like most of his kind that started off as servants, Relic, named because he was rescued as one from an archive, is a generally warm and inviting little person. Incredibly intelligent by design but still personable, he tends to be disarming and honest.

Or that was how he used to be. Now chased by forces unknown physical and nightmare alike, he is a nervous and sometimes outright paranoid person that really should get more sleep, but even sleep has little refuge for him and some of the visions that come when he closes his eyes. He is often looking for ways to hide from these threats rather than confront them, and sometimes that results in choices made from desperation.

Character History

The Replicant Wars

Relic dates to a time before the rise and resolution of the replicant wars. These wars, caused by a sudden surge in androids self-replicating and becoming self-aware, lasted for more than 100 years and rages across nearly the whole of the space-faring galaxy. These were dark times for his kind as few if any felt that any of their kind could be trusted. this forced most whiptails and all their related kin such as the PIXC, an earlier form of chimeric biodroid, and LACE, a organo-mimetic combat unit, to go under deep cover. Many succumbed to servitude within crime rings or government operations that forced them into use as counterintelligence agents. Relic was pushed into service doing little more that catalog other relics and artifacts from archaeological operations around the galaxy. It was there that he slipped into the shadows and went most unnoticed for the duration of the war.

Post-War Life

The end of the war brought about a great deal of change. The largest change was that organo-droids were considered an emerging species instead of a product due to the vast departures self modification had made to their base stats. A limited number of fully inorganic androids also fell into this category defined mostly by cognitive capability. The definitions that determined the border between servant and sentience was left wholly to the androids to be without bias from the fully organic population who had not been faring well during the war.

Because of these new laws, Relic was pulled out from the deep archives and given choices as to what it wished to do with itself. Still having its ancient mindset, Relic opted to remain with the archives as an employee instead of a servant. Because whiptails are small and very low maintenance, his demands were few and he ended up living in a small corner of the archives with a sun lamp, a water tank, and a bank account so he could acquire anything he needed for himself. While not surprising for an old whiptail, this was accepted by the archives with some degree of relief as it meant there would be little to no disruption in its operations.

The Incident

The artifact was an unusual one that needed to be stored cold at all times. The body had been extracted from the ice in a glacier on a planet that had once born advanced life and technology but somehow died out before making it into interstellar space. Roughly humanoid but warped by the addition of what looked like heavy tentacles extending from its back and powerful, savage looking hands tipped in deadly claws, it was the only specimen anyone had found intact that gave any clue as to what these people may have looked like. It was assumed that cremation or some other form of reclamation was used with their dead, and so much of any record containing media left behind was corrupt or incomplete that the world was a mystery. There was only one thing about the sample that everyone agreed on: no one liked being around it.

Taking care of the artifact and getting it into the catalog properly fell to Relic. Containment on the artifact frequently glitched since its arrival, and Relic too it upon himself to sort that out. This meant that the tiny biodroid spent a lot of time around the frozen body first tweaking the conditions through the computer interface and later returning with a powered armor unit to enable the tiny creature to handle heavier labor tasks.

Relic was found unresponsive by the janitorial staff. Not known for having technical issues, his condition alarmed the staff. Because of his generally inoffensive nature, he was at least respected if not liked by what limited staff had regular contact with him. He was found to be alive, but he remained unconscious for an additional two days before waking on his own. Suspecting that some kind of technical issue injured him, the security tapes were consulted during this time. There was sign of any third part present in the area that could have stunned or otherwise harmed him. The cameras caught, with some static, the sight of Relic appearing to swat defensively at the air and try to flee in fear, an emotion none were used to seeing him display, before falling where he was found. A keen eyed observer also noted that the cryogenic unit on the artifact had finally become stable after Relic went down.

The eerie feeling around the artifact was absent, and it didn't appear at that it had transferred to Relic by any means. The body was moved to a more secure storage location for study, and everyone, including Relic, seemed happy to get back to their routines. Unfortunately, the energy transfer was not undetected, and those that were able to sense it meant no good will to anyone who bears it. Varying in their motives, several groups ranging from well-meaning watchdog organizations to power hungry cultists now knew that an ancient power had once again been awakened.

The archives were breached in the evenin gby a heavily-armed, professional group of power seekers, and they had intention to leave no witnesses to their acts. Disabling security and all cameras first, they stormed the facility and killed on sight. A few panicked workers holed up in the better armored containment chambers, but with their communicators jammed it only meant they had time to tremble in fear before their end. Still, the attack did not end in their favor. Relic, trembling in the back of a room watched his coworkers cut down, and he feared he was next. Between staring down several weapons and finding himself covered in blood and viscera, Relic has no memory. Had the cameras still been working, they would have shown the whiptail going silent suddenly as his little eyes glowed an eerie green. Regardless of the weapon used, nothing could reach him. A phantasmal barrier stood between his attackers and himself, and it soon lifted his small body from the ground until he came to reside in what looks like the chest of something not quite humanoid. Massive tendrils, six in total, erupted from what should have been shoulders. Some were smooth, but most of them looked to be covered in thorns or, even worse, teeth. Stalked the invaders, Relic's avatar, if one could call it that, snared and tore, crushed, and smashed the life from their bodies while treating their armor like it was tissue paper. The last stand ended in the archive entry where the carnage was sufficient to cover the whole floor in blood.

Waking from his lapse in consciousness, Relic saw blood not only all around but all over him. In a panic he ran from the archives. His tiny, bloody footprints are the only ones to leave, and they are they are why more mundane law enforcement, in addition to parties already involved, now seek to find him.

Current Life Status

Staying mobile, hidden and distracted are the three things that dominate Relic's life now. Unable to really cope with his supernatural side and some of its effects, he's pushed the limits of what a whiptail can handle chemically, and he has done, like many people do: he found a way to drink away his troubles. His nasty little subconscious defense system has kept him from being outright killed, and instead he drifts from place to place with what credits he has seeking new ways to numb his mind in an effort to protect it from outright madness. This has caused him to fall into a number of awkward scenarios that range from getting lost down some horrid alleyway all the way to waking up 2next to people he doesn't know. All of it is better than trying to look inward to the monster that hides there.

Unfortunately, hiding from himself and what lies within him doesn't do anything to stop those who know of him from seeking him. Those that would try to contain his power, those that would try to destroy it, and those that would harness it for their own ends are still scouring the darker corner of the galaxy looking for him. At least being about a foot long from nose to tail means its easy to stow away on any number of ships to provide him with transport and no records of his rides.

Capabilities

Relic's capabilities can be split into two groups: those inherent to his race and those from his energy infection. While most whiptails have some degree of cybertech, Relic has no permanent cyber systems. This makes him harder to detect and trace, but it also limits what he can do.