Continuing 28 days of Savage Worlds in space! Today: a villain, a collector of relics on dead worlds...
Allistair Marceine
Allistair was, at one time, the premier xenoarchaeologist and foremost expert on dead cultures in the Federated Commonwealth. Allegedly gifted with a talent for psychometry Allistair was able to "read" objects in his mind, see their histories, and record them using a special implant. Some of his critics suggested he was a charlatan and a hack, but the researchers who did the grunt work, the hard crunching of data and facts, always found that his psychometric readings checked out. It was at once a fascinating gift and a curiosity that made him a superstar in the study of dead alien civilizations for decades.
Allistair eventually fell from grace. In 2782 it was revealed by his rival, the fadelik Dr. Muisser Samsan that Allistair's startling psychometry was not in fact some sort of exotic gift, but rather that Allistair had in fact stumbled across a relic AI in the ruins on Ferunzi IV, and that this relic AI had cybernetically pair-bonded with him. The good doctor Marceine was actually using the vast library of knowledge the AI provided to fill in the gaps on known worlds. The only thing more curious than his crime of selective dissemination of knowledge under the pretense of psychometry is the even stranger hoarding of the relic AI that bonded with his own brain and nervous system.
A panel from the Academy determined that Allistair needed to submit himself to the Concord Institute for study, to determine what exactly had happened to his nervous system, but Allistair fled, using hired guns to facilitate a messy escape, which in turn led to a bloody shootout at the Ventari Starport during this event, and new criminal charges against the doctor on top of fraud and withholding archaeological evidence on the Coreward Expanse dead cultures.
Allistair has since spent the last two decades working as a rogue agent with unusual interests. He continues to travel to the many dead worlds of the extinct Coreward Expanse civilizations, looking for something....but no one is sure what. Eleven years ago a former merc in his employ named Jasid Vester broke his contract and fled, eventually to approach agents of Aegis with a wild tale. What Jasid told them led to Allistair making the ten most wanted list in the Federated Commonwealth.
Jasid's tale was simple: whatever was "in" Doctor Allistair Marceine, it was more than just a rogue AI; it may have been an exotic sapience...a species which self-uplifted into a digital media, leaving paltry flesh behind. The AI/exotic called itself Serost, and appeared to be mostly in control of Allistair. It was looking for something, but in the course of searching was uncovering lost technology from the Coreward Expanse: specifically, weapons of mass destruction.
Jasid got nervous when he and his buddies realized that they weren't searching for just any weapon, but some sort of super weapon, one which Allistair's possessor suggested was the "weapon that would end all wars." It was clear this AI/exotic knew what it wanted...and was probably a contruct or replica of a powerful mind from the era of these extinct cultures. Jasid's buddies also got nervous, but they didn't make it; only he escaped.
Jasid indicated that much had happened since last anyone saw Allistair, too. He'd transgenically and cybernetically modified his body to the point where he wasn't really....human....anymore. Some of his hired mercs weren't even sure there was a scrap of real flesh left.
Allistair Marceine (Heroic Wild Card)
Agility D8, Smarts D8 (Marceine) or D12+1 (Ai/Exotic), Spirit D6 (Marceine) or D12 (AI/exotic), Strength D8, Vigor D10
Pace: 6, Parry 6, Toughness 15(7)
Skills: Fighting D8, Investigation D12, Notice D10+2, Persuasion D8, Shooting D8, Survival D8
Abilities:
Electromagnetic Touch (2D8 damage to electronics/machines/cyberpunks; ignores uninsulated armor)
Disintegrator Pistol (3D10 damage, RoF 1, Shots 5)
Duraplast Cyberweave Armor (+8 armor, reinforced stops up to 2 AP from attacks)
Cybernetic Vision Enhancement (+2 Notice, all around vision...no surprise)
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