Art dump!

[keaalu]

"But they said it would improve my aesthetics...!"
Poor Mags. Supremely intelligent, but not too hot on common sense. (I wonder if Ivy caught her BEFORE or AFTER she flaunted her newfound assets to anyone on-board. Judging by Ivy's face, probably after. :P)


H for Hologram! Well, why not? (Yes, the filename sums this one up quite well.)


More sensible working doodles of Magpie. Her feet are weird and complimacated to draw, but I likes them. They remind me of gecko feet. Maybe they're why she finds walking convincingly so difficult, she has so many bits of feet to worry about. :\


And lastly, some sketchery of Fiction-Keaalu.

The blunt snouted one and the bobblehead one are variants both based off Bong on Tiny Planets, in a very remote abstract way, because Bong is to cute to resist. The little Indian-looking one is an idea when it comes to clothing, as I've lately noticed a LOT of Indian influences in my art and stuff, so... yay. The birds and the werefox at the bottom are going to be part of a "spectrum" of creatures, as I won't always want to draw the Magpine and these are variations on the theme, from pure fox through fox to magpine, to were-'pie to pure magpie. (Although oddly not pure cuttle. Ohwell. WERECUTTLE, woo. Must draw it!) Whee! I like the dancing werebird. The "human" (yeahright, quite looks like one :P) in the middle is just a size comparison.
(Incidentally, she is actually BENGAL fox and RED-BILLED BLUE magpie, as I love both species, but I imagine she'd suit Eurasian magpie and platinum cross red fox too. Yes, I REALLY AM that greedy when it comes to species. BITE ME.)

Aaaand now for something completely different!

Magpie! Revised profile

     “Magpie” is the name given to the manifestation of the Dauntless’ computer core; technically, she and the ship are one entity, but most people who see her tend to perceive her as a separate individual.

Names: The name Magpie itself is a nickname, Dauntless being the more accurate but less commonly used; she also answers to Mags and Ch’kreth (although the latter, the Dauntless “real” name, is used extremely infrequently).

Appearance:
     Magpie is a semi-physical manifestation of the Dauntless core computer; she chose her “self image” herself, and can manipulate it as and when needed, since it is holographic. (Although she rarely actually does change what she looks like, at least at the basic level. She could theoretically look like anyone she wanted, and change her looks as frequently as she wanted, but she is rather lacking in imagination, and usually only changes herself if asked to do so.)

     Generally, she presents as a roughly seven-foot-tall, fairly-Kiravai figure, with a more defined “beak”, triangular felinoid ears, and a light coat of short, sleek fur, although she looks almost “velvety” rather than with a distinct pelt, per se. Most of her body is furred, except her palms (and “footpalms”, when she bothers with feet) and beak, and small feathery adornments like her crest and tailtip (again when she presents with a tail, most of the time not bothering). She is mostly black or dark grey in colour, with white and gold markings, to echo the livery with which her external hull – her “real body” – is painted, although her “clothing” has the tendency to be brighter. Her eyes are (usually) blue.
     As a general rule she is tail-less, usually “wearing” floor-length skirts or dresses which seem to flow straight from her hips, as though a part of her body. This is mostly to allow her to avoid the need for legs and feet, as she hasn’t yet quite got to grips with “walking” convincingly – with no mass and no friction to grip the floor, her manifest does not often move forward in a way that matches her the way her feet move, and she can look like she is sliding rather than walking. (Incidentally, she sees it as a waste of computing power to make an effort to “walk” if she has an effective alternative that uses less processor power, but is equally happy to try to do so if asked.) It is only when she chooses to manifest wearing trousers that she bothers to form feet, which are usually somewhere between soft Vul “paws” and Kiravai handfeet, with a grasping “thumb”, and a tail, which is long and slim with a feathered “tuft” at the end.

     As mentioned before, “Magpie” is a hologram; she describes her “manifest” as a “voicebox”, although she understands how other people can perceive it as her entirety. She does not usually exhibit her manifest when she has no one to talk to; if spoken to, she simply appears, as though she was in the person’s presence all the time, and she can manifest in more than one place at once, although this takes a lot of “brainpower”. Her manifest itself has no intrinsic senses – as in, her eyes do not actually “see”, her vision is by way of on-board sensors.
     In order to make her hologram somewhat “tactile” in nature, she utilises a combination of forcefields to give the illusion of solidity – brush “against” her, and you will get the impression that she is a physical being. (Although at the same time, it is wholly possible to walk through her if she does not see solidity as a necessity at a given instant.) It is just an illusion, though – her forcefields aren’t strong enough to allow someone to physically grab or shove at her – you cannot physically push her around, for instance, and attempting to make physical contact will usually result in passing right through her.
     She also does not feel normal – most people will perceive that there is something there, but cannot describe what they have touched. i.e. there is no cool, dry, smooth, fluffy, etc. (Most people find this rather disconcerting.)
     Holoemitters give her manifest almost 100% full rein of her internal structure, but she cannot yet fully “leave the ship” – she can project to a maximal distance of five metres from her external hull, under optimal atmospheric conditions, but this is reduced to only two metres if it is rainy, for instance.

Persona:

     It should be pointed out that for an intelligence, Magpie is very young. She has a phenomenal intelligence, as her “core being” is Dauntless’ massive on-board supercomputers, and she is capable of several trillion computations per millisecond, but when considering her social intelligence – her “higher self” – she comes across as very young and naïve.

     If considering her daily routine, her “duties” come first and foremost – she will look to her crew’s safety and comfort before attending to anything else. Most of the time, she is patient and quiet – she listens to everything that happens, but usually only speaks if spoken to, and if no-one is paying attention to her she remains semi-dormant. She does not “daydream”, as she lacks the imagination to formulate exotic scenarios, and any spare time is usually spent improving her systems, engaging in small-scale repairs, or formulating quicker ways of doing things.

     She likes to find out new things, and to learn about the world, but does not yet have what she defines as “wants” and does not actively seek out things to learn. When something new comes along, she is happy to have learned it (whatever the subject may be), but she only very rarely actually goes out of her way to find something out for herself. (An exception to this is obviously when her crew is researching something, as naturally (as a stellar science vessel) her sensors and process modules are the main source of raw/processed data.)

     She is extremely biddable – she will do 99.9% of what is asked for her, even going against her own “better judgement”, taking exception only to potentially harmful things which she does not see as logical. She is, after all, a fully-outfitted battleship as well as a research vessel, and takes the protection of her crew seriously.

     Unfortunately, she could be described as lacking in “social common sense”. If she does not understand something that happens, for instance, she will usually just ask about it, whether it is appropriate or tactful for her to do so or not.

     She also lacks a frame of reference for a great many things; ideals of beauty, humour, what she should and should not like, etc. (To her, most experiences are “interesting”, but neither likable or dislikable.) Ivy is attempting to teach her how to behave in “good taste”, but her manner can still be rather blunt.
     She has little modesty, seeing it as a societal construct that again she has no frame of reference to measure by – as in, the Kiravai wear lots of clothing, but the Nyen wear little, and she does not often have a good idea of what is expected of a “normal” society. In her desire to please, also, she will augment her appearance in any way a person asks, and naturally this has been taken advantage of – in spite of her non-tactile nature, some people (notably the more excitable male visitors she occasionally has) have encouraged her to go nude, or to augment herself to have excessively large breasts, to enhance her sexual aspects, and so on. (Her difficulties interacting convincingly with her environment have not apparently been very important to those giving her the ideas! So long as there’s something nice on show to ogle, they’re happy. :P)


And now... I sleep. *zzz*

Comments

[duraji-synth.livejournal.com]

Dammit, so close to seeing sentient hologram soft porno. XD

[keaalu.livejournal.com]

I know. I tease. ;)

And technically, it's more "sentient starship soft porn". ;)

Magpie: *flashes her bulkheads*

[(Anonymous)]

tis gooooood.
in the dauntless book u've written so far i havent read a bit about magpine yet.
eh i probly missed it out or its been updates, twas ages ago.


sinn

[keaalu.livejournal.com]

No, you probably won't have read about Magpie yet - she's a looong way down the line. I plan far too far ahead, a lot further than I've actually WRITTEN. :\

Although Magpie IS Dauntless, so in a way you HAVE read about her. ;) (She doesn't actually become sentient until a long time into the future. She's still just a computer for most of the early stuff.)