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- Aug 1, 2013
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BIOGRAPHY
NAME: Roo
AGE: 9 years (since last memory wipe)
SPECIES: XT-02S 'Saberguard' model droid
FACTION: Independent
OCCUPATION: Warrior Poet (i.e. vagabond)
HEIGHT: 5 foot 7 inches
WEIGHT: 180 pounds
PLATE COLOR: Varying grays
DISTINGUISHING MARK(S): Blue refractive paint marks on face plate
STRENGTH:
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DEXTERITY:
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STAMINA:
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INTELLIGENCE:
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WISDOM:
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CHARISMA:
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"Fair and unfair have nothing to do with it, Roo. You didn't ask to be built a droid, I didn't ask to be born with a bad leg. The question isn't 'why', but 'what are you going to do about it'?" - Jedi Master Elav Siolo
Theme
XT-02S serial number R0O1JUIVQZ has problems. But it didn't always.Theme
Years ago, fresh out of the factory, the sparring droid was shipped to the former Jedi Temple on Tython where it saw use frequently as a tool to teach young Jedi how to fight with a blade. It was good at this. How many sparring matches it participated in and how long it remained at the temple it couldn't say, however, as it had its memory wiped regularly. It existed but did not know itself.
When Jedi Master Elav Siolo picked a sparring droid to accompany him and his padawan on an extended training excursion, he chose at random. The wizened Twi'lek had no particular attachment to R0O1JUIVQZ. He didn't even know that was its serial number. Once off planet, R0O1JUIVQZ's first problem began to manifest: it could remember things. The old Twi'lek was notoriously poor at remembering to memory wipe his droids, and as a matter of fact probably wouldn't have been able to figure out how to in the first place.
R0O1JUIVQZ could now remember, but it did not yet know itself.
Master Siolo employed the droid extensively in the training of his padawan, a young Rodian whose name of Dweel Otree could now be remembered by R0O1JUIVQZ. The sparring droid was not just used for sparring, but found itself being fed philosophical texts ands treatises, literature and lists, anything the old Twi'lek wanted on hand for a lesson. Whether or not the droid understood the material it was being given was irrelevant at the time (although who can honestly profess to understand Yun Shenuri's arcanely titled "Concluding the Essentialist Community in the Force: Archetype and Ideology"?) The droid's processors, developed especially for the memorization of fighting styles and training manuals did not find the shift to memorization of text very difficult.
As the days and weeks passed by, R0O1JUIVQZ built a context around its own existence. It didn't help that Master Siolo steadfastly refused to learn the droid's full serial number and instead christened it "Roo." It also didn't help that before a lesson, the old Twi'lek would attempt to engage the sparring droid in an academic or philosophical discussion of the topic at hand, as though 'Roo' could form its own opinions anyway... After several months of this, however, 'Roo' had built up enough existential context to understand a statement which seems simple, but can be remarkably difficult to grasp: "I exist," followed shortly by "I am Roo."
Roo still remembered, and Roo now remembered itself.
Master Siolo was delighted by the development of Roo's apparently personhood, and he began to take the droid with him outside of training sessions. He let the droid accompany he and his padawan on their field excursions, and it was here that Roo first witnessed all the theory and philosophy he had memorized put into practice. The droid watched quietly as the Jedi settled a volatile property dispute with simple, well-chosen words. The droid noticed when the Jedi spent what few credits they had to provide dinner for a mother begging in the street and her children. The droid was there when the Jedi answered an isolated community's pleas for help and it fought with them to bring a rowdy gang of pirates to justice without any loss of life. And it took note of the times when bloodshed occurred anyway.
Years passed and the old Twi'lek's padawan ascended to knighthood. With no one to train now, Roo stayed with Master Siolo as a traveling companion and - in Roo's mind - a bodyguard, as war had broken out in the galaxy. The two of them attempted to keep alive whatever sparks of hope they could in the galaxy, and each day Roo found he was less a servant and more a friend. Despite this, doubts began to gnaw at his circuits. He saw how other droids acted and how the galaxy treated them. He felt the computational processes which pulsed through his innards, and he was aware of the traditional dogma regarding the Force: it resided in LIVING things. Roo was not alive in the physical sense. He was not even entirely sure he was alive in the metaphysical sense either (though he also knew that a well-known Herglic scholar would argue that NOBODY was alive in that sense).
This is not to say that Roo did not try. He had repulsors and tractor beams wired into his body to simulate rudimentary Force powers in a sparring environment, but he disregarded them. Roo tried to reach out as Master Siolo did. He tried moving a pebble or a blade of grass. Nothing moved. He tried to sense danger, anticipating the coming moment. Nothing spoke to him. He tried kneeling in the grass at dawn to meditate as the old Twi'lek did. But he felt nothing. He was forsaken by the Force, by the lifeblood of the universe and of life itself.
Master Siolo dismissed the droid's concerns with a chuckle and a grin. "If you're not alive," he'd say "then I'm probably not either." When asked about the Force, the old Twi'lek would wave his hand and scowl, "That delinquint Rodian boy of mine could barely move rocks around any more than you can, that's no measure of a person." These statements would make Roo feel better for a time, but did little to assuage his lingering fears. Cut off from the Force, he felt as a man predestined for Hell.
After many years traveling together, Elav Siolo fell ill and was unable to continue traveling. Perhaps weary from a galaxy rapidly consuming itself with war and an increasingly militant Jedi Order, or perhaps simply from old age, the ancient Twi'lek was unable to hold on for very long, and Roo soon found himself alone. His friend and mentor, he knew, had left his body to join with the Force, however the droid found little solace in this. He would have to navigate the galaxy alone now: the droid who longed to be a Jedi. He vowed to accomplish this goal.
PERSONALITY
SOCIAL SKILLS
■■■■■ Charm | ■■■■■ Deception | ■■■■■ Empathy |
■■■■■ Intimidation | ■■■■■ Negotiation | ■■■■■ Patience |
MARTIAL SKILLS
■■■■■ Swordplay | ■■■■■ Rifles | ■■■■■ Pistols |
■■■■■ Demo. | ■■■■■ Unarmed | ■■■■■ Daggers |
TECHNICAL SKILLS
■■■■■ Analytics | ■■■■■ Computers | ■■■■■ Droidcraft |
■■■■■ History | ■■■■■ Investigation | ■■■■■ Philosophy |
■■■■■ Research | ■■■■■ Stealth | ■■■■■ Tactics |
Base Saberguard droids have little personality to speak of, but the model's baseline provided the slate over which Roo grew. The stock XT-02S model is courteous, polite, and has a capacity for violence which is entirely dependent on the parameters set before a training session. Any eccentricities beyond this simple framework are typically erased during a memory wipe. Roo, of course, came to be because these memory wipes were NOT practiced.
Traditional Jedi philosophy was foundational for Roo as he developed self-awareness, and it shows. Humble, altruistic almost to a fault, and unsettled by any displays of injustice or cruelty, Roo lives like an itinerant monk, answering his conscience's call to aid nearly anyone in need. A subtle humor learned from Master Siolo colors his speech, and an unnatural patience rooted in his mechanical nature define his interactions with the others and the world. That is, in all areas save one: transcendence. Roo knows he lives in a world defined by the Force, an energy field connecting all living things, and he knows he is excluded from sharing in it.
It is this fundamentally spiritual conflict - that his essential nature denies him from the essential realities of existence - that ultimately defines the droid. Roo devours all knowledge he can uncover regarding the Force, life, and droidcraft, feeding a desperate desire to break free of his mechanical shell and the limitations it imposes on him. He still attempts connection to the Force however he can, such as with frequent prayers and a mechanical approximation of meditation. Though frustrated thus far, he will not give up, for the prize is life itself.
APPEARANCE
For the most part a typical Saberguard droid, Roo resembles a short gray humanoid who happens to be missing their face. Combined with vaguely sculpted 'muscular' plastoid armor plating, the droid is about as generic and inoffensive as a sparring droid could be.
Distinguishing the droid from his legion of manufactured brethren around the galaxy are the markings painted on his faceplate... and the clothes. The markings - diagonal blue stripes in a refractive paint which shifts and appears depending on the light - were courtesy of Master Siolo's apprentice Dweel, who aimed to help his master recognize Roo. The clothes, well, those are entirely Roo's prerogative.
Dressing almost exclusively in shades of black and white, Roo wears some approximation of traditional Jedi garb: boots, pants, and a hooded tunic or robes. The hood he customarily wears up, to disguise his mechanical nature from the casual, and possibly close-minded, observer. With a sword sheathed at his side he completes his ensemble.
MARTIAL PROWESS
Designed for sparring and bladework, Roo is accordingly an extremely formidable swordsman. The ability to study new styles and tactics and replicate them nearly flawlessly grants him a sizeable edge over most combatants short of a Jedi or Sith. Roo's library of martial techniques - unimpeded by memory wipes for 9 years - has grown impressive, encompassing both traditional lightsaber styles as well as some of the more 'mundane' martial arts of the galaxy. He is not partial to any one style and will switch seamlessly to whatever will confer the greatest advantage. Though he is not much stronger or faster than the typical Jedi knight he was designed to spar with, his mechanical stamina allows him to fight at peak operating efficency so long as his energy cells can power him.
Aside from his bladework, Roo has also devoted some resources to studying hand-to-hand combat in an effort to complement his close quarters abilities (and at the behest of Padawan Dweel, who enjoyed punching things perhaps more than a Jedi should).
The most glaring weakness in Roo's capabilities is his complete and total ignorance of all weaponry outside of melee combat. Roo has never even studied blasters, let alone fired one, and his knowledge of demolitions and other more technological methods of committing violence are equally lacking. The droid considers the memory space better spent on other things.
All this aside, the sparring droid would prefer not to fight in the first place.
[/tr]
LEGACY
EQUIPMENT
IS AN XT-02S SABERGUARD DROID
- Plastoid armor plating
- XV-07 Vibrosword
--- Optional stun setting
--- Cortosis-weave
- Hand-mounted Repulsor & Tractor Beams
--- Allow iffy 'simulation' of Force powers on up to human-sized subjects.
- Advanced Power Cells
--- 1 week life
When you have a gun, everyone looks like a Sith — Roo attempts to find answers on Jedha to his questions about the Force. (Ongoing)
How To Move Forward — Roo encounters a young Force Sensitive who he feels he might be able to help. (Ongoing)
Template by @ZayPat, Artwork sourced from: Sword Pic (Unknown), 32117, Blue Rain, Daisuke 88-01, Rolf Bertz
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