[Vampire AU] Infodump
Wednesday, 20 March 2019 10:28![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
juzo_kunInfodump about Alex in the Vampire AU, after chatting with General-Radix. With added chibi sillyness to lessen the impact of the giant-*** text of wall.
Context: from the idea bygeneral_radix, here, here and here. I just took the ideas and run with it :D
So, Alex. He drives a sidecar he basically put up from scratch (he's good at mechanics, and works as one). After fleeing from Strauss' grasp, he wandered here and there and working the odd jobs -- analog machinery or really old electronics are something still in use on Mars. At the moment he has a job in a bike shop in the same place where Durandal and Vince took cover.
For various reasons he doesn't trust churches nor police nor sanctioned vampire hunters; he's trying to get through it on his own with research in libraries and such. But he's not a bookworm neither knows one -- this makes his research quite difficult.
Not having memories of the whole period he was Strauss' prisoner helps even less. He does not remember who or what made a werebear with blood arts... and he doesn't know that blood arts come from a shard of a vampire's soul, so he doesn't think someone turned him, only has a vague idea of what that blood thing is, neither he knows that his version of the art is botched. He has just a vague memory of being captured and barely anything else, and then the escape with seven werewolves and a wererabbit -- everyone scattered around and nobody of them ever saw the others again after that.
He discovered the blood art nearly casually while hurting himself with the only thing he managed to take away from the place where he was held prisoner: a knife.
Then there's the whole were-bear thing. Every Earth lunar cycle, give or take a few days. And the thing is quite painful to boot, as apparently having to deal with That Knife is not enough.
Adding to that, he has to keep a low profile... just in case whoever captured him wants to try the same thing again. He's not particularly paranoid about this, since the state he and the other werepeople left the place was quite... unusable for the time being. But still, he initially tried to keep the whole thing hidden, except lately the turmoils between humans and vampires are increasing and he found himself as a target of attack from supernatural entities. One day he had to defend himself in front of a lot of passers-by... after that he decided that's better to start to roam around instead and change city as often as he could.
Meeting Durandal&Vince
One night Alex is cooling at a random pub (he has a messed up sleep cycle) when two humans and a bunch of direwolves crash right into it... his protective istinct kicks off and a lot of punches/clawing/swordfight after the attackers are dealt with.
...except they destroyed the pub, all in front of witnesses. The three decide that it's for best to leave the premises as soon as possible.
Vince's motorbike doesn't start and Alex has his chance to show his mastery of percussive maintenance: they manage to flee the scene and take cover on a nearby abandoned building. The three have a lot to ask one another: Alex and Vince noticed the other one's blood art, and Alex also somewhat knows Durandal from the period of his wiped memories.
...fortunately Durandal spills everything before Alex starts to think Durandal was the cause of what happened to him!
Alex end up to join Durandal and Vincent (and John, Laura and Allison). Now he has someone to trust, and also he knows the name of who used him as a guinea pig...
Soul or not soul?
Vampires might have a different kind/level/hue/operating system of soul than humans, because magic, but they indeed have a soul (propaganda notwithstanding). Shards can be generated -- usually when a vampire turns a human and the human Embrace the Art.
Strauss discovered how to artificially acquire soul shards from a vampire... Durandal was the very involuntary guinea pig. Fortunately for a vampire generating soul shards is not too damaging, up to a point. Anyway, he managed to escape just before this point was reached, but he doesn't know what was made with the shard(s) Strauss took from him until he met Alex.
Soul shards are kind of a n-1 dimensional copy of the original. In the sense: the soul is a 3-dimensional cube, the shard the bidimensional projection of the cube, namely a square. The original soul isn't affected (as the cube isn't affected by having a photo taken of it), and can be reabsorbed back.
The werebeing thing might be an aftereffect: something a lot of humans have as a potential, and the shard just activates and express it, without embedding in the human's soul. What kind of animal is decided by the target human's temper or proclivities, with the default being a wolf.
Meanwhile activating Blood Art in a human might need some fine programming (natural and automatic for a vampire turning a human, a potential mess if a human attempts this on their own) and the soul shard does embed in the human soul.
This is why we have at least seven werewolves and a wererabbit, all originally captured and activated by Strauss, but only one artificial Blood Art wielder, Alex. (Don't dismiss wererabbits as weak. They can eat through anything that's not strong metal and run as fast as a motorcycle.)
The main problem is taking the shard away from whom was bound to it... it's like some soul surgery due to the shard being embedded in the host own souls. Maybe someone will be able to help Alex at least to get rid of the botched Blood Arts and "correct" the were-bear thing, making Alex able to transform at will... possibly in a less painful way.
...and where did That Knife come from, and how it will come into play in all this?
Context: from the idea by
general_radix, here, here and here. I just took the ideas and run with it :DSo, Alex. He drives a sidecar he basically put up from scratch (he's good at mechanics, and works as one). After fleeing from Strauss' grasp, he wandered here and there and working the odd jobs -- analog machinery or really old electronics are something still in use on Mars. At the moment he has a job in a bike shop in the same place where Durandal and Vince took cover.
For various reasons he doesn't trust churches nor police nor sanctioned vampire hunters; he's trying to get through it on his own with research in libraries and such. But he's not a bookworm neither knows one -- this makes his research quite difficult.
Not having memories of the whole period he was Strauss' prisoner helps even less. He does not remember who or what made a werebear with blood arts... and he doesn't know that blood arts come from a shard of a vampire's soul, so he doesn't think someone turned him, only has a vague idea of what that blood thing is, neither he knows that his version of the art is botched. He has just a vague memory of being captured and barely anything else, and then the escape with seven werewolves and a wererabbit -- everyone scattered around and nobody of them ever saw the others again after that.
He discovered the blood art nearly casually while hurting himself with the only thing he managed to take away from the place where he was held prisoner: a knife.
Then there's the whole were-bear thing. Every Earth lunar cycle, give or take a few days. And the thing is quite painful to boot, as apparently having to deal with That Knife is not enough.
Adding to that, he has to keep a low profile... just in case whoever captured him wants to try the same thing again. He's not particularly paranoid about this, since the state he and the other werepeople left the place was quite... unusable for the time being. But still, he initially tried to keep the whole thing hidden, except lately the turmoils between humans and vampires are increasing and he found himself as a target of attack from supernatural entities. One day he had to defend himself in front of a lot of passers-by... after that he decided that's better to start to roam around instead and change city as often as he could.
Meeting Durandal&Vince
One night Alex is cooling at a random pub (he has a messed up sleep cycle) when two humans and a bunch of direwolves crash right into it... his protective istinct kicks off and a lot of punches/clawing/swordfight after the attackers are dealt with.
...except they destroyed the pub, all in front of witnesses. The three decide that it's for best to leave the premises as soon as possible.
Vince's motorbike doesn't start and Alex has his chance to show his mastery of percussive maintenance: they manage to flee the scene and take cover on a nearby abandoned building. The three have a lot to ask one another: Alex and Vince noticed the other one's blood art, and Alex also somewhat knows Durandal from the period of his wiped memories.
...fortunately Durandal spills everything before Alex starts to think Durandal was the cause of what happened to him!
Alex end up to join Durandal and Vincent (and John, Laura and Allison). Now he has someone to trust, and also he knows the name of who used him as a guinea pig...
Soul or not soul?
Vampires might have a different kind/level/hue/operating system of soul than humans, because magic, but they indeed have a soul (propaganda notwithstanding). Shards can be generated -- usually when a vampire turns a human and the human Embrace the Art.
Strauss discovered how to artificially acquire soul shards from a vampire... Durandal was the very involuntary guinea pig. Fortunately for a vampire generating soul shards is not too damaging, up to a point. Anyway, he managed to escape just before this point was reached, but he doesn't know what was made with the shard(s) Strauss took from him until he met Alex.
Soul shards are kind of a n-1 dimensional copy of the original. In the sense: the soul is a 3-dimensional cube, the shard the bidimensional projection of the cube, namely a square. The original soul isn't affected (as the cube isn't affected by having a photo taken of it), and can be reabsorbed back.
The werebeing thing might be an aftereffect: something a lot of humans have as a potential, and the shard just activates and express it, without embedding in the human's soul. What kind of animal is decided by the target human's temper or proclivities, with the default being a wolf.
Meanwhile activating Blood Art in a human might need some fine programming (natural and automatic for a vampire turning a human, a potential mess if a human attempts this on their own) and the soul shard does embed in the human soul.
This is why we have at least seven werewolves and a wererabbit, all originally captured and activated by Strauss, but only one artificial Blood Art wielder, Alex. (Don't dismiss wererabbits as weak. They can eat through anything that's not strong metal and run as fast as a motorcycle.)
The main problem is taking the shard away from whom was bound to it... it's like some soul surgery due to the shard being embedded in the host own souls. Maybe someone will be able to help Alex at least to get rid of the botched Blood Arts and "correct" the were-bear thing, making Alex able to transform at will... possibly in a less painful way.
...and where did That Knife come from, and how it will come into play in all this?