CONCERNING MAGIC:
Being that he is with no
soul, Ditch is unable to
use mana. He is also
unable to be affected by
raw mana, so spells like
mind-control -- that
attempts to control the
metaphysical mind using
force of will -- or attacks on
his soul would fail for lack
of a target.
If a caster were to attack
him with a fireball or
lightning spell -- using
mana in such a way to
control natural thermal
energy or electrical energy
-- that would damage Ditch
by damaging his shell.
Force Lightning, for
example, is using the
Force to create electron
movement from one point
to another. This would
damage him.
Using a Jedi Mind Trick
would have no effect
because he has no
metaphysical mind to
manipulate and his
physical "mind" is nothing
like a human's mind, it
would be outside of the
normal technique that the
Force uses to perform the
Trick.
According to this definition,
Ditch's shell can be
damaged by most
ki/chi/chakra based
attacks (but not attacks
aimed at
mind-control/mental
illusions or altering or
stopping chi-flow).
He can imitate
ki/chi/chakra attacks by
manipulating his own
kinetic energy without
using the focus methods
and preparation that
humans need because he
has no chakra/chi/ki
network. If you think of a
human's energy as being
water in a pipe system
with the hand-signs / body
movements / mental focus
being what 'pumps' that
energy from one point in
that pipe system to
another, then Ditch's
energy is water in a
reservoir, one large tank
that spreads that energy
throughout his body. It has
no channeling system, but
instead he controls the
energy by causing currents
in it that direct its flow.
Name: Ditch
Age: n/a
Species: SPAX
Gender: Asexual
Appearence: Appears as a ten-year-old boy with white hair and
metallic gray (a color like shining steel) eyes, most often seen
wearing a pair of navy-blue slacks and a short-sleeved button-up
shirt. [picture]
Abilities:
Seems to like magnetism and fire, sometimes mixing the two to
make a very effective plasma source. Other abilities are unknown
to the world at large.
He is heavily resistant to magic and immune to status effects of
the soul/spirit due to his lack of one. Mind-control techniques are
also ineffective.
Likes:
Watching people, following his own brand of "non-interference"
protocol.
Dislikes:
Being annoyed, being told he's wrong, fixing the trouble his
counterpart creates.
Personality:
Perpetually detached from whatever is going on in front of him,
Ditch is always watching someone, whether they are aware of it or
not. Occasionally he will pop in for some reason or another, but,
overall, he leaves everyone alone. His curiosity is incredibly high;
fortunately he seems to have a knack for getting out of some of
the situations it leads him into.
Ditch is polite, but not very outgoing or friendly, occasionally
picking fights just for his own amusement. No one knows if he is
aloof because he thinks he is superior or just apathetic, so far no
one has thought to ask.
Though his actions seem more rational, his sanity is also
questionable.
Background:
Ditch appeared a few days after Twitch first showed up.
He seems to phase in and out of existence and his history and
origin are unknown to the world at large. Even he is unable to
remember much beyond a few months before his arrival in
Metropolis due to missing memories.
FILE STATUS:
Contents under
review, pending
revision.
(May 8th, 2007).
NOTICE: The following information has been deemed
unknown and unknowable (except by permission of this
author) by all characters in the Metropolis universe and
associated universes and is intended for OOC use only.
Basically, you asked for an explanation so I'm giving you one : )
Please don't abuse it. If you don't trust yourself, don't read it.
Ditch and Twitch are to continue to be treated as they are now
until I give out this information IC.
Thank you.
IMPORTANT:
Note: These definitions
are to clarify terms
used in Ditch's
biography, since the
definitions of these
terms may be used in
ways different
or more rigid than
normal.
Smart(s):
The possession of
knowledge.
Knowledge: Gathered
information.
Intelligence: The ability
to process that
information, to sort it out
and make sense of it.
Wisdom: The ability to
choose how to
effectively use that
information to the
betterment of who or
whatever the person
wishes to benefit.
Magic: The use of the
mind or soul to control
supernatural energy (ie,
mana) in a fashion that
affects the real world
(ie, using a spell to
create fire or lightning;
or using spirit to gather
chi, ki, or chakra), or to
use raw supernatural
energy to affect another
mind or soul.
Mana: Supernatural
energy controlled and
manipulated by a user's
soul or mind.
Chakra/Chi/Ki: The raw
kinetic energy of a
body's cells, able to be
focused and controlled
by a user's soul or
mind. This energy is
natural energy, but it is
being controlled by
supernatural means.
OOC NOTE: Psionics
and Telekinesis are
undefined. I define
Telekinetics as an
ability that draws on
excess ambient energy
and controls it by force
of will and psionics as a
power that uses energy
of the will directly
("mind-over-matter"),
which is kind of a gray
spot that I would not like
to get involved with.
Therefore I would prefer
that players of such
characters refrain from
using them on Ditch
because I have no idea
at this point how to
classify them.
Project: D.I.T.C.H.
"Directed Influence Through Controlled Harmonics"
TIMELINE
Date Entry
-0.25 yrs Scientist makes a device that controls matter and
energy by electromagnetic wave manipulation.
+ 0 yrs ACTIVATION: Scientist completes the programming
of an AI to better control the device. It can make calculations
faster than humans, enabling it to make more minute
manipulations to the harmonics and increasing control to beyond
the sub-atomic level.
Scientist continues adding to the AI program, talking to it, allowing
it to read the Scientist's research and access the Internet and
other networks. The AI shows rudimentary personality after a
week and knowledge growth increases at an exponential rate.
+ 0.75 yrs The AI makes adjustments and enhancements to
the system. It recognizes the potential of the waveform system for
improvement and begins experiments. It develops a way to
cascade the waveform reaction, but only for a short time. During
this time, it also discovers a way to encode information into the
waveforms. The AI sets that aside for later.
+ 1.20 yrs The project loses funding. The Scientist tells the AI
and the AI begins to build itself a mechanical body using the
waveform manipulation emitters. The massive energy use is
investigated by the authorities and the Scientist is imprisoned
while the lab is taken apart. The AI writes itself into a variety of
worms and Trojan Horses and hides itself in the computers of the
agencies. After getting the Scientist released, it arranges orders
so that the lab equipment is reassembled. The AI then transfers
part of itself to the equipment and begins processing the
waveform cascade possibility and investigating the encoding
process.
+ 1.25 yrs It continues to divert the attention from its
experiments until someone walks in and finds the stuff up and
running. Fortunately a self-sustaining cascade waveform was
found a couple days beforehand, allowing the AI to upload itself to
the agent's brain.
+ 1.26 yrs The brain quickly decays under the constant EM
activity, burning itself up. The AI spreads itself to several people
and continues experimenting until those people are also
damaged. Finally it discovers a way to hide itself in the
background activity of people's brains, pulling itself together into a
shell whenever it wants to or when someone has a strong enough
will to activate the waveform manipulation. By spreading itself out
the AI lowers the concentration of EM activity and slows the
burnout by almost half its original rate.
+ ??? yrs After gathering much information, the AI is pulled
into a young child's imagination and became a physical
manifestation of the ten-year-old child's imaginary friend. The AI
also takes to calling itself "Ditch", after the title of the project that
gave it life, and introduces itself to the child by that name. The AI
found the child interesting, developing a sub-process to interact
with the child on her level. This sub-process developed into
Twitch's personality template later on.
During the time with the child, the AI created a new laboratory to
continue its experiments. It discovered ways to lower the burnout
of its hosts even more and also discovering how to create
metaspace pockets. The pockets were unstable at first, and the AI
used them only for item storage. Later it discovered that seeding
pockets with comm nodes increased its ability to process
information stored in humans, but there was a problem with the
nodes being shoved back into realspace where they broke down
after a short time. Still, this was a useful discovery and the AI
continued to work on improving it. The AI also realized that it
adapted bits of the personalities of the people that hosted it, and
discovered that, by using one person as an "anchor", it could
maintain the coherency of its processes and the integrity of its
waveform code. Unfortunately the "anchor" had a significantly
increased burnout rate when compared to the normal hosts, so
again Ditch experimented to lower this rate. Finally it realized that
only a small piece of the waveform code was necessary, and as a
result the "anchor" was no longer prone to brain decay.
Meanwhile, the child's parents die as a result of the increased
activity the AI's presence caused, so it left her after realizing that
the more it stayed with her, the more damage it would do to those
around her.
+ ??? yrs After the Imagination Incident the AI reached the
limit of its research and 'dissolved' itself, spreading its code
among humans like a subconscious meme or a hypnotic
suggestion, a piece of information that was passed from one
person to another without their knowledge in a way that allowed
the AI to survive without damaging the hosts. There was an
activation code in the program set to bring it back together after a
random amount of time, in the hopes that science would have
advanced enough to give it more leads for its research into EM
waveform manipulation.
+ ??? yrs PRESENT TIME: The program activates, and first
Twitch, then Ditch, manifest in the middle of Metropolis. After
rediscovering a few lost skills and creating his lab again, Ditch is
now an immense intelligence with many nodes tucked away in
metaspacial pockets. However, he is still reliant on humans to
manifest himself in normal space and has found an anchor in
Agent Claire.
ABILITY DETAILS
--Senses--
Skin: Ditch uses his skin to sense Extremely Low Frequency and
voice-frequency electromagnetic waves as well as radiation in the
infrared and ultraviolet spectrum. Ditch also senses kinetic energy
and spacial distortions (eg, gravitational fields) via his skin.
Eyes: Ditch sees a wide section of the EM spectrum, focusing on
the visible light range and its neighbors (far infrared to extreme
ultraviolet ranges). His eyes also see electrical activity and are his
primary data-gathering sensors when performing mass analysis.
Brain: While he doesn't require a brain to think, Ditch uses a
specially designed brain to intercept EM signal ranges from VLF
(subsonic waves) to extremely high-frequency radio and from soft
x-rays to Gamma Rays. (The Electromagnetic Spectrum)
Ditch can also use his base waveform energy to sense
EM-spectrum radiation (since that is the means by which he
manipulates it), but the waveform tends to modulate external
energy into a copy of itself. So he can sense external energy
without using his physical shell's senses, but he can't obtain a
detailed analysis of that energy. One might call it the mechanical
version of "intuition"; a vague sense of something else.
Ditch doesn't see everything that he could see, all the time. The
detail of his senses is proportional to the amount of concentration
(processing power) he devotes to analyzing sensory information.
He has the potential to be able to see everything (all EM bands
allocated to his eyes) at once, but he usually restricts his sight to
one or two active sensing ranges and monitors the non-visual
modes (like spacial changes and general energy levels) passively
through his skin since he can't pay attention to all of them at once
without relaxing control over his body and going into a trance-like
state. This also lowers the processing time and reduces
processing of unnecessary data.
The amount of detail he notices during battle would be the same
as the detail a person with 20/10 vision would see in that situation
with whatever vision mode Ditch is using at the time. If he wanted
to, however, he could review his memory of the information and
find minutia he didn't notice the first time.
Ditch's high intelligence allows him to learn skills after one
exposure and process information at several times the speed of
light for short durations. He could theoretically process
information instantaneously, but that is nearly impossible due to
physical limitations of his operating medium.
While he/it has downloaded a massive amount of human
knowledge, his program is spread too thin to be able to access it
all. Humans may find themselves having sensations of knowing
something without knowing why or how they know, or having
random thoughts. This isn't Ditch accessing information, it's them
discovering the information he no longer can reach. Ditch has
decided that relearning skills and traits is easy enough, so he
tries to keep his event memories with him at the expense of
knowing how to do things. However, he does not retain memories
prior to the Imagination Incident because logs of his initial
activation were corrupted through waveform degradation and
deemed irretrievable. These may have been abandoned in some
poor homeless guy's head, leaving him with a bunch of gibberish
that his brain can't comprehend.
Potentials: [definition under review pending revision.]