Oops, it was a cult...

Player Information ;
Your Nickname: Jolta
OOC Journal: joltacat
Under 18? Nope.
Email/IM: ediershaw@hotmail.com/Aircommanderp
Characters Played at Singularity: Skyfire

Character Information ;
Name: Karrie Norton (Codename: Vandal)
Name of Canon: Dead Space iOs
Canon/AU/Other Game CR: N/A
Reference: Dead Space Wiki: Vandal
Canon Point: End of game.

Setting: The Dead Space series takes place in a fairly distant future where resources on earth were depleted to such dire levels that humanity was forced to venture off-world to find what they needed to sustain society. Ships were built to essentially mine other planets for resources. These ships were called 'planet-crackers' and basically did just as their name implied. Scattered throughout the local clusters, one such ship, the Ishimura was set to mine a planet called Aegis VII, which was in a restricted area where they found the Red Marker, a large twisted monument covered in complex markings. Now, the Markers are essentially the center of the Dead Space story. Two-hundred years before, a man named Michael Altman was part of the discovery of the Black Marker buried on Earth. It was left by an alien race of unknown origin; the government studied it and found the writings on the monolith to actually be a genetic code, which turns out to be the code for human DNA. The signal that it sends out however, is flawed and mutates dead flesh, bringing it back to life... in a way. The creatures the Marker creates, 'necromorphs', are nothing of whatever the previous beings used to be.

The government had taken it upon themselves to get rid of Altman and turn him into a martyr for a religion that sprung from the discovery of the Black Marker. They needed funding for researching the project, Altman knew too much, and what better way to fund research than to start a religion? Two birds with one stone. Unitology is essentially a basic parody of Scientology. The belief that human life was placed on earth by aliens, and using the Marker as proof of such claims. The goverment was more interested in weaponizing it, so they had a second one built, hidden on Aegis VII until the Ishimura unearthed it. Unitologists everywhere went a bit batty over this, the "discovery" of a mysterious second Marker drove many of them to it. In fact, most of the Ishimura's crew was comprised of Unitologists. They were to transport it back to Earth with them from the colony on the planet which was already infected, which is when the outbreak aboard the ship happened.

The necromorphs, the mutations that the Markers create, are revered by Unitology as a form of "ascension", a higher plane of existence. They multiply by killing so that the freshly deceased can mutate as well. The change varies in the time it takes, usually it is very fast or instant depending on the method of infection. There are necromorphs directly created by the Marker, and then there are "infectors", bat-like necromorphs that can cause mutation via injecting their victim. Being as they are entirely dead flesh, it's hard to actually kill a necromorph. The only effective method is ton sever its limbs and functionality so that it can no longer move.

Now, as for the Red Marker, it was destroyed by Isaac Clarke, a rotund man in search of his already dead girlfriend who was aboard the Ishimura. He met with decent success if you'd call being the only one to survive a success (at least he lost some weight during the excursion). No need to go too deeply into his unhappy misadventures, though the setting has become rather pivotal to him and a few others who came into contact with the Markers. The objects themselves have the ability to imprint the schematics for replication into the human mind, cause hallucinations and dementia along with many other unpleasant side effects. Long story short, more Markers were created because Isaac was imprinted. Isaac's experiences on Aegis VII and the Ishimura were neatly covered up and attributed to the acts of a terrorist.

That's where we come to Vandal's specific setting. Recently converted to the church of Unitology, Vandal spends the entirety of the game on Titan Station. The Unitologists were becoming bold enough to start an outbreak on the station and Vandal, unknowingly, is a tool in this plan. Titan Station is built on a few scraps of Saturn's moon, Titan. Also called The Sprawl, this is the second really noteworthy outbreak that takes place and begins the events of Dead Space 2. The difference being that Vandal spends her time down in the mines and the maintenance tunnels while Isaac gets to waddle about the main sections. The mines and maintenance passages are very confined and very uniform, most of Vandal's game is spent running down long hallways and wondering if you just came that way. The locator in her RIG (Resource Integration Gear, a system that displays health, has a comm system and various other modifications depending on one's occupation) is a godsend here and pretty much the only way to get anywhere.

Between the intertwining government and religion, and the isolation of space making it easy to clean up messes, even Vandal's final bid to throw the church under the proverbial bus fall of deaf ears.

That is until Isaac picks up her final transmission off her dead body in the outbreak she helped cause.

Personality: Karrie starts off more or less a devout Unitologist (or at least she sounds like she's trying very hard to be one, praising Altman before her mission) and is actually rather hopeful. She takes her given mission pretty seriously for knowing so little about it. This is her main fault; she is ridiculously trusting. She has no idea why she is down in the maintenance tunnels cutting power cells with a plasma saw, but she does it because she trusts in the church. She does show some hesitance, but guided by Tyler, she completely places her faith in him to guide her where she needs to go and takes on her tasks without remorse. She's not made to be a secret operative though, when Tiedmann confronts her over her acts of vandalism, she gets pretty awkward, unsure of what to say other than "Uhh... call me Vandal?", defaulting to what Tyler told her to say at the beginning of the mission.

She obviously has no idea what she's actually doing.

As it turns out, she's pretty quick to abandon her faith in the church when shit hits the fan and it comes to light that she was sent down there to start an outbreak of necromorphs onto Titan Station. She reacts very quickly and negatively, for good reason. As soon as she finds out the church is going to involve innocent, unknowing people in their plans, she's done. She has absolutely no interest in seeing people get hurt, unlike many Unitologists who don't really seem to care and believe it's the 'right' thing. From that point on in the game she plans to out the church of Unitology for their plans and ruin them, needless to say she gives up on her recent conversion into their ranks and sets about on a very confusing path trying to undo what she broke. Again though, she hasn't seemed to learn to use discretion with her trust. Tyler simply claims he had no idea what the church was doing and she believes him and continues to let him guide her, opposite of Tiedmann's directives which he regularly contradicts. She just desperately wants to fix her mistakes, but being so gullible, she only lets Tyler direct her to make things worse. As the game goes on her guilt over the situation becomes more apparent as she makes personal audio logs into her RIG, expressing her desire to bury the church and apologies over what happened. She consistently conveys her desire to make things right, though at some points she is reluctant to accept responsibility when confronted, saying she was tricked. Which she was, but by that point in the game, she could have known better than to trust a voice over the radio who gets her yelled at by Tiedmann every time she obeys. Honestly, Karrie is just so desperate to please everyone. She does everything that she is told without question. Most likely a deep-seated desire to be accepted or belong which is how she ended up in the church to begin with. Needing to belong somewhere and gain approval of others is a large driving force behind her actions. Most likely, she did not actually believe in Untitology's teachings, but went to the church because of family or friends or simply the need for acceptance or guidance.

The Marker begins to show its impact on her psyche midway through the game, though interestingly she does not hallucinate about loved ones. She tends to see herself as a necromorph, or sees herself turning into one. This could indicate more on her guilt over the situation, viewing herself as a monster, though it is really left up to interpretation of the viewer. Other hallucinations are fairly standard Marker-driven afflictions, sudden attacks that are not there, frightening images in her peripheral vision, voices (laughter, crying) and long, unending hallways. Another unique experience is a hallucination in which she ends up in a desert facing the Marker being buffeted by a sandstorm. She has to walk up and activate a console before turning around to see a mirror image of herself which she attacks and kills with her plasma saw. The action seems to hurt her, because she makes a choked sound of pain when the saw cuts through the doppelganger's throat. It wakes her where she ends up in a room where she just defeated a large brute, rendering the previous fifteen minutes of travel through hallways completely moot. The hallucination of killing herself again seems to be focused on the fact that she views herself as the issue/the bad guy in the situation, maybe even deeper previous self-loathing or self esteem issues that are rearing up in a stressful situation.

The hallucinations seem to be actually the most taxing on her, at one point she breaks down crying after one before calming and collecting herself, saying that she can't be weak.

Her original up-beat attitude becomes continually more and more sarcastic and annoyed. She has no issue with swearing like a sailor about her situation, expressing her annoyance when Tyler makes jokes (though she does also note that she enjoys his snark at one point). When Tyler finally betrays her, she seems to just give up on people. At the end of the game, she does attempt to contact Tiedmann, but to no avail. She reports her success in destroying the final, saying that she is hurt badly and needs help. She does seem to be under the impression that she's going to be rescued still, perhaps not completely having let go of her odd faith in people, despite the betrayal of the church and Tyler. Even by the end, she's still trying to please someone.

Abilities, Weaknesses, and Power Limitation Suggestions: Vandal has no superhuman or supernatural powers, just her tools, which can count as powers given she has stasis and kinesis modules which allow her to slow time and move/launch large objects.

Inventory: Plasma saw, plasma cutter, core extractor, ripper, line gun, as well as the engineer class RIG she wears which contains her kinesis and stasis modules. The game does not proceed until you obtain all of these items, as they are not optional, I am counting them toward her holographic inventory.

Appearance: Vandal looks like any other engineer with her RIG on, uniformly glowy and armored. helmet off, she is equally regular looking (if not a bit lacking for sleep). She had red-brown hair that reaches down to her ears and green (or gray) eyes if the one screenshot in which she shows her face is any indication. Other than that she's or normal height and weight, no real features that set her apart from a normal human being.

Age: It is canonly unknown, but she looks to be in her mid-to-late twenties or early thirties.

Samples ;
Log Sample: The voice filter rakes the sound of her breathing into an inhuman crackle as she walks, dazed through the junkyard. She can feel the cut on her cheek sticking to the side of her helmet, the insulation padding rubbing painfully against it. It's the wound she's actually the most aware of right now. The chunk that the reactor monster had gouged out of her side is so deep she has settled into a nice numb, level haze of pain.

Is she still on the station? Nothing looks familiar.

"Tiedmann?" She tries her comlink hesitantly. No answer, just static, "Shit."

This place is too open to be Titan Station.

Too quiet.

There's no monsters bearing down on her, but she's still tense, still clutching a plasma cutter, fingers wrapped so tightly around the handle it feels like they're glued there.

The final transmission and then vertigo. Maybe she's dead. Vandal laughs bitterly inside her helmet, slumping down to sit on one of the heaps of scrap metal, supporting her head in one hand. Wouldn't that be just a kick in the ass? Renounce her new-found "religion" only to find out there is an afterlife. What the hell was she thinking? She'd been so damn weak, they'd manipulated her far too easily. It was this kind of perpetual disappointment in herself that had lead her to that fucking cult to begin with.

Taking off her helmet to rub a gloved hand over her face, smearing blood across the bridge of her nose (she's not sure who or what it belonged to at this point, she's too tired and shaken to really give a single fuck) clawing the hair out of her face.

Karrie allows herself about two minutes to break down and sob into her hand before holding her breath long enough to stop the tears and putting her helmet back on.

Alright. Enough of that. Time to find out what the fuck is going on.

Network Sample:

Can you hear me? Is this working?

This is RIG number 438642. My name is-

My name is Vandal. I don't really trust some hologram to give me the cutting edge news here, so...

Anyone know where the fuck this place is? Anybody? I need to get back to The Sprawl.

Really. Really badly.