Seiko
Basic Stats
- Eyes: Brown
- Fur: Blue-gray primary color, off-white belly and chin.
- Height: 1.1 meters (3.6 feet)
- Species: Amphibious Rodent Construct
- Augmentation: Reinforced skeleton, cybernetic legs, tail, right arm, integrated weapons.
- Best known for: High intelligence and ruthless tactics during wartime
Physical Description
Seiko is a very slim female with a very rat-like body with slightly smaller, stouter ears, large brown eyes, and a small pink nose. The sleek shape to her body makes more sense when one notices the subtle slits near the bottom of her rib cage that belong to her gills. As an artificial species, Seiko has been engineered to operate both in air and water environments complete with webbed paws and toes, or at least her left arm still has those webbed fingers. Her legs have been replaced with cybernetics meant to be both high performance and still give her body a slender overall appearance. The entire length of her long, whip-like tail has been replaced with an obvious cybernetic replacement that is a full meter long and made from gunmetal gray segments roughly 1-2 cm long depending on how close to the tail base or tip one looks with the smallest lings near the tip. Like her tail, her legs are gunmetal gray with teal highlights marking the edges of access panels and joints, a pattern that is shared with her tail and her right arm. The junction of her legs to her hips bears a slender ribbon of metal that suggests that the legs are detachable and readily swapped when needed as is the junction of her right arm to her shoulder. Her cybernetic systems also include an obvious augmentation from her tail base to the base of her skull. What isn't cybernetic is covered in short, water-repellent fur with a dark turquoise color and an off-white belly, chest, throat, and chin. Like many aquatic mammals, her breasts are reduced compared to some, but hers are well proportioned for a 1.1 meter rodent.
Despite her need for augmentation, Seiko is very confident not only in her ability to use them but also in her appearance. She tends to appear confident, and her posture almost never suggests a submissive or subordinate view of herself. She may not be the softest creature to hold, but with her carefully crafted augments and her strong personality, she can still turn heads when wearing a two-piece and some shades. However, she is more often seen in coveralls and a t-shirt or loose shorts and t-shirt or a hoodie depending on the temperature.
History
Early Days
Seiko is one of many produced in laboratories with the intent to use such beings as weapons. As a second generation unit, many of the initial kinks were worked out, and carefully crafted lessons ingrained the necessity to seek perfection and remain obedient while subtle inherent tendencies to receive and accept these conditions faithfully ensured that the hordes would listen to their commanders. The fact that biological specimens demonstrate a great deal of variability even under controlled conditions was not lost on the engineers that created her kind, and units were always carefully screened for their optimal place in the armed forces.
Seiko was average in terms of her ability to endure physical training and combat conditioning. A less wise man would have discarded her and those like her, but the overseers were not such people. What Seiko lacked in physical prowess, she more than made up in intellect. Rapidly mastering not only electronic warfare and computer engineering, Seiko possessed a singular affinity for robotics and androids. While she was also pushed into weapon, spacecraft, and even civil engineering, she remained the master of android and weapon development among her peers. Like most of her kin, she was loyal to her creators, and tests of such loyalty often ended violently, just as they were designed to do. Seiko and a number of her siblings were moved from the training units to the sectors of the base where they could be more fully tested with potential investors watching. It did not take long before bids were placed and Seiko was sold.
Wartime Deployment and Injury
Seiko found herself serving a place in a galaxy scale war, but it didn't really matter to her what side she was on. As a product, she wasn't made to care, just to be effective and loyal. Anything that became part of those conditions was secondary. Her position on the ship was as an engineer where she and her team was tasked with maintaining the ship's compliment of war robots and androids. While she was only given the tasks of repair and maintenance, she was always thinking about how to improve their functionality and give them a better edge against other factions. Being an android engineer became particularly hazardous when the cruiser she served on was isolated and boarded. Doing as she was made to do, she tried to defend her station, but she was no match for the seasoned assailants in heavy army. It took only one long sweep of a nanoblade to deprive her of both legs, her tail, and most of her right arm. The cauterized wounds meant she wouldn't bleed to death, but she only survived because her assailant was less skilled than the rest who dispatched all her kin in short order. Considering disabled, they didn't bother to finish her off.
Trapped and in agony, she had only her anti-torture training to fall back on, but it was enough for her to arm herself with a small energy pistol. After an hour of fighting, the boarders were either repelled or slain, and their ship destroyed. Seiko still managed to kill two boarders who thought her dead, and that earned her the momentary attention from her master who was a cyborg.
"Master, don't leave me here on the floor!"
"What use do I have for a crippled rodent?"
"This body failed, so I will improve it. Lift me from this floor and I will uplift your androids such that even one of them will have your enemies soiling themselves."
The bold words and ferocity of Seiko's works reminded him of his younger days. Hefting her from the floor and leaving her to hold on to him with her left arm. "So be it. Let's see what you manage in a month's time, and if I am pleased, we will see about mending what is left of you.
Seiko spend the next month bringing all the terrifying ideas she had to light. Her tactics were sound: sacrifice some set number of units and use them to delivery blows that would make their enemies forever uncertain if they could risk engaging the androids at close range. She was at the point of doing extensive upgrades to the fleet's AI as well as overall physical performance when her master came for her.
"It is time for you to grow." He spoke to her in a tone reserved for a young equal and not just a serial number. This time, he carried her in his arms, and it was that night that he discussed her augmentation.
Augmentation
Seiko's stumps were removed and mounting bases added to her body. She refused anesthetic as often as she could so that she could harden herself even further against pain. For the sake of her taking properly to her systems, her master commanded her otherwise. He admired her desire to prove herself, but she had already done so. Most of her skeletal system was reinforced with extra care taken with her spine which was given parallel processing systems to allow the main computer between her shoulder blades to better improve her reflexes. A right arm that could pack a wallop and conceal a ranged weapon was the first thing she was trained on. Next came her legs, and once she was mobile, every day after became a test of how far she could push the system.
With her augments, she could not only control the research division of the ship, she was becoming a formidable fighter. Her tail was replaced with a detachable energy whip to give her one more additional weapon hidden in plain sight. Able to conduct R&D and be on the move, she was often kept at her master's side where she would oversee the war effort and learn from him. She was given the nickname of "The Droid Queen" by her master, and she felt quite proud to have earned it. His abilities still far outstripped hers, but she was the closest thing he had to an equal in his whole fleet. That bond made her loyal beyond anything her makers could have programmed into her, and it would be the basis of something terrible later.
Death of Her Mentor and Repurposing
Because of her technical prowess, Seiko was relied on to continue the evolution of the war machines, and this meant that she was placed at a greater distance from the front. While her machines caused wide-scale terror and resulted in many gains for her master, they also made them the greater foe in the conflict. Even worse, Seiko had been seek with her master on several occasions, and that meant that they were seeking to cut the technical genius from his fleet. Aside from Seiko's fleet consisting of her research vessel, two carriers, and massive warship, the rest of the fleet was finally caught and destroyed, and her master fell with them.
Seiko was furious, but she bit back the need for immediate vengeance. With him gone, she would be the next target, and she could not let them stop her. The Droid Queen vanished into the darker parts of space for the better part of a year, but she was not idle. The cyber rat was creating something new to remind them all that she could do far worse than she had. She created a single large missile easily a kilometer long containing a whole new generation of horrible machines and one even worse device: a manufacturing core capable of minding deep into a planet and spewing out waves of new machines.
The missile, called Citadel, dropped out of space over the seat of the galactic government she and her master fought against. The device was too large to stop when it dropped out of warp. and it slammed down right in the middle of the senate and burrowed deep into the ground, destroying the safe rooms as it did. Thousands of flying bombs filled the sky and kept the crash site clear of interlopers while the core activated. Creating waves of tiny rat-sized and shaped machines, these little horrors chased down anything with a heartbeat and would tear them asunder. If it thought it might be destroyed by melee attacks, it would explode. Everyone was certain that the Droid Queen still lived, but none knew how to find her. Her machines slowly ate through the planet and turned it into an inhospitable hell made up of flesh eating machines.
With no master and no other orders, Seiko become independent. The idea was terrifying at first, but she knew what she needed to do to survive. She left her scar on the galaxy and a reminder that she could deliver more of these machines. It took only a year for it to devastate a planet and decades for them to disable the core. The hunt for her would only intensify, so she chose to do what they would not expect: she planned to leave the galaxy. Her augments and her android crew meant she could withstand the long voyages between galaxies.
Before she left, she made three facilities and three more Citadel weapons. She labeled them 1, 2, and 4 and left them and their launch points to be found complete with preset launch targets to trigger as soon as they were found. She left the galaxy to chase her ghost while she sought a new life elsewhere.
But what kind of life can a tool of war that known only war hope to find elsewhere?
Cybernetic and Combat Capabilities
Mobility
While her right arm can help with climbing, something she is fairly good at, her legs are the greatest contributor to her speed and agility. Capable of running at roughly 30-40 mph, she is often too fast for most pursuers. She is also known to ricochet off walls and wall jump upwards when necessary. She should be considered a masterful parkour practitioner.
Without floats, Seiko cannot swim because of the density of her augments. However, she an breath underwater indefinitely, so she can just walk somewhere once she sinks. However, she usually has some form of aqua jet system in most versions of her legs to make her capable of travel nearly as fast as she can attain on land.
Communications
Seiko contains a wide range of radio transmitters and receivers as well as much longer range subspace communicators that she uses to stay connected to her ships. Combined with her integrated computer, she should be considered a threat to most otherwise secure communications.
Advanced Life Support
Seiko's computer and augmented nervous system mean she can survive a complete disconnect of her brain to the rest of her body both at organic and inorganic levels. Her autonomic functions will continue with only the computer to run them, and if one is not careful, she will wait to make a wireless link through her spine to regain control of her voluntary functions. However, her augmented skeleton makes damaging her spine very difficult, and other portions of her body are far more vulnerable.
Close Combat Adaptations
While she was ill suited to combat initially, her master began training her personally following her augmentation. Her right arm should always be considered a hazard, but she is even more damaging when using her legs to delivery blows with their reinforced leading edges.
In addition to her synthetic strength and hardness, her tail can serve as a three foot long whip which would be bad enough as it is all metal, but it also carries with it taser like energy discharges.
Beyond her augments, Seiko is also trained in the used of powered armor, and she will usually use such systems when she anticipates conflict. These stronger, more durable systems are dangerous and often capable of operating in harsh conditions including space.
Ranged Combat
Seiko's right arm usually conceals a compact energy weapon accurate up to about 75 yards. For longer range, she is well trained with a number of weapons including rifles both ballistic and energy based. Like her close combat skills, her ranged attack methods expand when she is in her powered armor including the ability to use harder hitting and longer range weapons.
At the extreme, Seiko is an accomplished spacefighter pilot, although she rarely engages in combat under these conditions and will more often use space based android fighters instead.
Seiko's Mimics
Seiko maintains at least four androids made to look exactly like her, mimic her vocal patterns, and, when possible, act as extensions of herself. They are her most formidable androids, but they are also still disposable. Unlike Seiko, they have no organic components, and they are, in the end, just highly advanced AI units.
However, perhaps out of loneliness or just a need for a challenge, she has produced one unique android that looks very much like the other mimics until one notices the changes made to the spinal column and the main CPU case. This special unit is known as S.Echo or more often just Echo.
Unique Units
- S.Echo One of Seiko's body double androids with unique programming
- Zelael Cheetah like android. Used as a scout, but has high level art and personal interaction capabilities. Enjoys grafitti.
Fleet
While the fleet contains a large number of smaller craft suitable for carrying ground troops and starfighters, there are only two primary command vessels, and both of these are rarely if ever brought out to act on the front lines. Both vessels are massive structures measuring over a kilometer on their longest dimension.
Primary Research Vessel: Seeker Seven
Seeker Seven is a very large diamond shaped vessel with a wingspan of 1.3 km and a length of 1.1 km. A massive central engineering section splits the ship in two down the length of the ship. Seeker Seven never makes appearances but instead remains a hidden and mobile operations platform. It is the only command ship with a significant region meant for biological entities to live in.
Seeker Seven develops new weapons, spacecraft, and droids for the army. This is what Seiko considers to be her home. The ship itself is well armed and prone to carrying prototype weapons. However, any weapon deployed in the ship's defense is at least tested to be safe for the person firing it and much less so for those on the other end.
No one aside from the droids in her army have seen Seeker Seven. The vessel was built when Daybreak was the only ship that Seiko had, and it was constructed entirely by her droids.
Primary Combat Vessel: Daybreak
Daybreak is over 1.5 km long and is the primary command ship of the fleet. It is home to over two million androids but no organic units, and as such it has no life support systems. Its weapons are focused on three different aspects: anti-fighter, anti-capital ship, and orbital bombardment.
The android compliment usually has most units on standby to save power, and they may only have their processors on so that they can contribute to distributive processing that makes the ship's weapons exceptionally accurate.