First Impressions

Mister Kay, the wandering merchant, tinkerer, and mechanic

Mister Kay is a rare sight, but a welcome one. He travels with a heavy laden cart pulled by a pair of stout draft animals. The cart is burdened by a huge amount of junk, a modest amount of useful things, and a very carefully curated selection of important things. He seems to arrive right when one of those very carefully useful things is necessary to keep a settlement running, or protected from the outside. This can be as simple as a coupling to keep an antique generator running, parts to keep a defensive robot operational, or even a shipment of vaccines or antibiotics. With a smile, and his quirky sense of humor, Mister Kay vanishes as quickly as he appears.

Scribe Lada, new recruit

Ostensibly serving with whatever amounts to the technofascist faction (Brotherhood of Steel, ComStar, etc) Scribe Lada is a highly educated and eloquent man, with a humorous smirk and very knowing air, hidden behind a a smiling mask. He is typically found in a support role, integrating into tech, science divisions, or requisitions. He is a man of competence and ability, and all charisma. And as easily as he appears, he equally vanishes with ease.

Master Technician Christopher ah Pike

Where there are giant engines, mecha, robotics, heavy industry, etc, Master Tech Pike can make himself indispensable. He can fix things that people dont know how to make anymore, and rig things together that shouldn't be able to even communicated with each other. As with other incarnations, Master tech Pike shows up when he is the most needed, and then moves on with quiet grace.

Hans the Raider

Clad in cobbled together armor, but armed with an energy weapon, Hans is the most polite, erudite, and considerate raider most people ever have the misfortune of meeting. He is useful, but also capricious and cruel. Where the others appear at needed times, Hans the Raider shows up at the absolute worst time, with the same smile and charm as always. And then demonstrates himself to be completely sociopathic, killing and torturing with ease.

The Man of One Hundred Identities, K

K is an very unlikely person, he is actually a human/synth hybrid, created by the Institute (or similar secretive hypertech organization) to act as a subversive and infiltrator. His appearance is classified as refined western European, and he is charismatic, older, and well traveled. His normal air is that of a wizened, humorous great uncle. As an agent of the Institute, he isn't attached to a specific division, though he does answer to the Synth Retention Bureau and the central leadership. He has influence inside the Robotics division, and Advanced Systems.

What is K?

The extrapolation of this question is what is a human/synth hybrid. The answer is not simple, because it blurs the line between man and machine, engineered organics, and flesh. Technically, K started existence as a Gen III synth with the designation KF-79. Before being put into service, KF-79 ended up being used as a donor body for a former Institute Intelligence operative named Kristoph Lada. Lada was technically dead, but the Institute used KF-79's chassis to serve as a host for the organic remains of Lada. This wasn't so much a organic repository, as it was the mad scientists scanning Lada's brain and updating the kakugrams into KF-79. The transition wasn't without issue, and Lada's self image and identity was contaminated by the programming of KF-79's code.

The end result was K.

The curious thing is that K is almost sorta technically immortal. The original synth has long since been destroyed. K has a way of rubbing people the wrong way, but this is a minor inconvenience. The synth's memories and consciousness is updated to cloud servers on a regular basis so if suffers and untimely destruction, replacement is a matter of how long it takes to produce a new body and download the archived kakugram and data files into the new host.

The Other K's

There are three alternate K models who exist at any given time, often working with or near the synth K.

Sentinel K is a self contained suit of power armor that has been upgraded to host a self awareness program and the ability to act without a pilot. This suit of armor often acts as a bodyguard for K itself when on a mission. Sometimes K can be inside Sentinel K doing mundane communications while the armor is engaged in combat. K can interface with the armor and communicate with it, but otherwise it is mute and unable to communicate in anything other than soldier hand signals.

Assualtron Mk 1000 is a full on combat machine that has had the Lada kakugram loaded into it, and like Sentinel K tends to work closely with the synth version of itself as a bodyguard. Assaultron Mk.1000 is equipped with bleeding edge tech including a stealth field generator, a folding hyperedge blade, head mounted THASER, and the ability to equip most any heavy infantry support weapons. It's preferred weapons are shoulder fired missiles, heavy flamers, and tactical weapons of mass destruction.

LADAbot is the most annoying version of a drone. The machine has a minimalist version of the kakugram installed and basically wanders around the wastelands, looking for things of interest to the Institute. There are often a dozen or more LADAbot drones wandering about, and any of the existing K models can summon one if it is near. They can be used as escape devices, cutting their summoner free, relaying information to another source, or giving their power core to the K model that summoned them to be used as either a power source or a rigged IED. The only way to tell a LADAbot from a normal EyeBot is that sometimes it will emit Kristoph Lada's characteristic laugh.

Usage

Kristoph is a doppleganger and a man who cannot be slain. He can appear anywhere, aligned with almost any faction like he's been there the entire time. Kristoph is SO good at his job, so transcendent and charismatic, that he can do things like infiltrate even the organization that created him, so that it is almost a meta level observation to notice that one of the techs working in the synth lab is actually a Kristoph itself.

wink


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