Kana is a genetically-engineered human, raised from birth as a machine calibre pilot and soldier by the Galactic Alliance of Humankind, to fight for them in the evolution war. She appeared in a hangar bay in the Blazing Umbra Station in her machine calibre K8352 “Scythe”, having fallen through a rift while engaged in space combat manoeuvres. After a long standoff with station security forces, she surrendered to Sal D’Amico and began the difficult process of adjusting to life in a strange new universe.
Profile
- Name
- Kana
- Race
- Engineered Human
- Occupation
- Mecha pilot
- Origin
- Galactic Alliance of Humankind
- Temporal Origin
- Unknown
- Date of Birth
- Unknown (Age: 19)
Personality
Kana is most politely described as socially ignorant. She was raised to be a soldier, and spent her entire childhood either in machine calibre simulators or in indoctrination sessions for war propaganda. She had limited human interaction before being assigned to her machine calibre at age 8, and after that would spend months or even years at a time in the mecha, her only human contact being via communications with teammates in combat manoeuvres. Her only “friend” for most of her life was her pilot support system, named Scythe. That remains true today.
At Scythe’s urging, she tries to interact with other people and engage with Blazing Umbra Station’s culture. Her efforts are usually awkward, and usually end in frustration, driving her once again to withdraw and avoid interaction. Scythe serves as a security blanket for her during these periods, until she can be once again coaxed to try reaching out to others.
Kana is generally calm to the point that it unnerves others. Even when engaged in combat, she is composed and calculating, almost never getting notably angry or afraid. She is not emotionless, but it takes a lot to get a rise out of her. Ironically, while she is utterly unfazed by things that would make most humans highly emotional – such as combat, or life-or-death situations – she often gets highly emotionally aroused in everyday social situations that most people have no problem with. Such situations often end with her frustrated and upset, due to her inability to properly understand how to handle them.
When she is not being frustrated by her lack of understanding of socialization, she is polite, open, honest, curious, thoughtful, and helpful. She is completely non-judgemental; she does not seem to recognize any differences based on age, gender, or even species – she casually talks to Klingons twice her size the same way she talks to a Bolian child, for better or worse – though she can sometimes ask awkward questions in her naïveté. She has a sense of humour, but has a very difficult time understanding the humour of others. She also has no sense of propriety, modesty, or shame.
She is generally non-aggressive, but she will respond to violence with what appears to be astonishing viciousness. This is because she does not fight emotionally or as a ritual or a means to demonstrate dominance, but only for the express purpose of absolutely destroying enemies.
Appearance
Kana is quite tall – 180 cm – with fair skin, blue-grey eyes, and orange-red hair. Her body type is slim and athletic, with long limbs. Despite her height and long limbs, Kana moves with controlled grace, betraying her lifetime of combat experience.
Kana’s face is heart shaped, with high cheekbones, and an aquiline nose. She has faint freckling on her cheeks, and her fairness means that slight blushes are easily visible. Her eyebrows are thin, and sweep upwards, and her gaze – with its very light, blue-grey eyes, and generally suppressed emotions – is quite intense.
Clothing
Having spent almost her entire life in her mecha, with most of her interactions with other humans done via communicator, Kana has very little understanding of wardrobe. For most of her life, she has worn only a single garment: her highly-sophisticated pilot flight suit. It is made of smart fabric that appears rubbery on the outside, that wicks away moisture and fluids from her skin, and even helps regulate her temperature. She can feed through her skin via chemicals delivered through the suit material, and the suit has a catheter and other facilities to remove waste and clean her. She can wear it for literally years at a time so long as it is connected to the life support systems in her machine calibre, but many functions still work even when not connected. With the helmet attached and sealed, the suit can even keep Kana alive for hours in open space.
She still prefers to stay in her suit – without the helmet – which is form-fitting to her body, and covers her completely from just under her chin down. It is dark grey, almost black, with thin orange trim, and wedge heels, visible ribbing where it is reinforced, and hard points for connection to the life support systems in the machine calibre cockpit.
On the rare occasions she tries other clothing, Kana has difficulty properly choosing what to wear. She has no sense of style or propriety, and does not understand when certain types of clothing are appropriate and when they are not. She also has no sense of modesty, and thinks nothing of walking around with the upper part of her suit pulled down to her waist (and of course, she wears nothing underneath), or even wearing nothing at all.
Abilities
Engineered abilities
K8352 “Scythe”
Kana’s machine calibre K8352 “Scythe” serves as not only her primary weapon and her preferred mode of transport, but also as a safe haven and confidante.
Relationship with Kana
Although a machine calibre pilot support system is not strictly sentient, and its intelligence, comprehension, and motivations are limited to its designed purpose of keeping pilots’ combat potential at maximum for the evolution wars, Scythe is the only “person” who fully makes sense to Kana in the strange new universe she finds herself in.
Kana has, perhaps, an unhealthy attachment to the AI, preferring its company over most everyone else. She spends almost all of her time in the hangar bay Scythe is stored in, and even on the rare occasions that she leaves Scythe’s side, she continues to talk with the AI via her communications link, and rarely talks to anyone else. Had it not been for Sal D’Amico forbidding it, she would probably even sleep in Scythe’s cockpit, and with the machine calibre being able to support its pilot for over a decade without resupply, it is possible that she might have chosen to live in the cockpit full-time, almost never leaving.
Ironically, it is Scythe that most strongly encourages Kana to interact with other people. Kana’s current situation is far outside of a pilot support system’s pre-programmed parameters, forcing Scythe to reinterpret its understanding of what is “best” for Kana. It has come to the conclusion that since there is no way for Kana to return to the evolution war, she has lost her primary purpose for living. Thus, integration into the local culture, and finding a new purpose for herself there, is what would be “best” for Kana. Despite Kana’s reluctance to engage with the strange new universe, she trusts her support system’s guidance so much that she tries to find ways to fit in, often awkwardly.
Practical use
While Kana may appear awkward and out-of-place while wandering around the station outside of her mecha, once she gets into the machine calibre and takes it out for a flight, things change drastically.
Kana’s control of the mecha is superb – far beyond the expectations of people who haven’t literally grown up piloting a vehicle. Even though Scythe’s technology is centuries behind that of her contemporaries on the station, through sheer piloting skill Kana can often evenly match them in combat.
The primary way that Kana contributes to the station and its society is by doing exterior construction, repair, or other work in Scythe, or by using Scythe to do heavy lifting indoors. Despite the machine calibre’s size, under Kana’s skilled control it can do delicate work very rapidly.