Full Name: Mako Mori
Codename: R-01, Flanker
Age: 18
Eyes: Gray
Hair: Black
Build: Average to thin
Height: 5'6"
Sex: Female
Orientation: Pansexual
Occupation: Pilot
Apparel: Her fashion can be best described as edgy school girl with room for goth accessories. Jackets are the centerpiece of all her outfits while her tops and bottoms serve as framing devices.
Other features: She has a
Pilot's Mark on her right palm. As she uses her power it begins growing along her arm, fully manifesting when she synchronizes with a vehicle.
Personality: Mako doesn't pretend that she is an audience to her own life, but instead accepts that much of it is going to be spent doing things that other people want. In many ways, she owns it. Facetious, detached, and observant, she carries herself as though nothing she says has any consequence. Insults roll off of her back while more serious moments are met with real awkward but empty words of support. Some mistake her stoicism as being laid back or even passive but one would be a fool to challenge her willpower. Tragedy doesn't process the same way that other emotions do and she finds herself both fascinated and numb to her emotions.
Drama, advice, sometimes sex, she is sure that she has an addiction to people if only to live through somebody else's emotions. Her free time is spent devouring the lives of her co-workers under the guise of an objective audience. These relationships were never meant to be more than shallow acquaintanceship and nothing brings people together faster than conflict. In her rare moments alone she purges her feelings of loneliness, regret, and fear. When anyone has the audacity to ask her to be vulnerable she phases them out before leaving altogether.
Philosophy: She's a contradictory soul: both an existentialist and a fatalist. She believes that people only truly exist as long as they have coherent thoughts, desires, and needs. If you aren't at least a little confused and angry at the strange and fucked up world you live in, you're either living in a bubble or have achieved a level of nirvana not present on Zearth. At the same time, she has also written off both Zearth and herself as irredeemable, waiting for death.
Likes:
✓ Socializing
✓ Reading philosophy
✓ Board games
✓ Drugs
Dislikes:
✗ Vulnerability
✗ Lying
✗ Easiness
✗ Isolation
Universe
Earth-Z, more affectionately known as Zearth had always been aware of other universes, although for nearly two millennia they had no way to truly express their knowledge. Cave drawings pointed to strange lights in the sky, hieroglyphics showed rifts in the ocean, and the very first photographs showed reflections of an alternate woman beyond a mirror.
Everything changed however, when Komali rose from the Pacific Ocean. Some thought he was a god and others the devil, but everyone agreed that he was not of this world despite what he claimed. His appearance was unlike anything else in the world, a strange amalgamation of flesh and metal. With a stroke of his left hand he brought Earth's mightiest warriors before him and with his right, erected golems that could touch the moon.
"Will you help me reclaim what was stolen from me by the Grand Elders?"
Those who weren't lured by the promise of power and wealth were drawn by the protection these golems provided. All they had to do was fight once in a while right? It was nothing new to them.
For the first few years, Earth's technological advancements skyrocketed. Where other worlds might have only been in the bronze age, these warriors' newfound powers allowed them to create empires of iron and gold. Unfortunately, even the strongest warrior was still a pawn under Komali and once they were summoned they had no choice to obey.
Whether that meant holding off an alternate dimension's army or "liberating" (read: invading) another world they continued to fight, passing their duty to their descendants. Decades passed and the global population plummeted as more armies began invading Zearth, pitting their superior technology to the golems that barely managed to stave off extinction.
So long as Komali's war continued, they would never be free.
Under the consultation of Komali's then right hand, the remaining Pilots (then known as Riders) journeyed into his castle...only to find him ready with his own golem. After a hard fought battle, ten of the twenty Riders stood tall with Komali's fortress in ruins and his severed head in their hands.
Tossing the accursed flesh in a funeral pyre, the ten remaining Riders resolved to retire their golems and speak no more of their plight lest future generations be tempted to recreate their mistakes.
For nearly two millennia technological development staggered, only picking up towards the tail end of the 18th century. Steam, metal, and petrol began dominating cities and humans seemed to be entering a golden age. Towards the 1960s, Parallelism reemerged as a niche within astrophysics. Parallelists theorized the existence of alternate universes linked to their earth by dimensional rifts in the sky and the sea, each leading to a different world. The ideas were entertaining and had some scientific backing, but funding was far and few between due to the lack of practical application. Satoshi Kanada however, pushed for an expedition to the Sahara Desert.
Spurred by papyrus images of otherworldly golems, his team dug through the desert sands for nearly ten years before finally hitting rock, or rather golem. One by one, Satoshi excavated each golem, sketching their immeasurable beauty and marking down their gargantuan proportions. By all historical accounts nothing of those dimensions should have been built let alone powered, yet here they were, each glowing a unique color.
Engineers, archeologists, and Parallelists all gathered to study these strange machines, poking and prodding to find some sort of opening. The only hint was a strange symbol on each machine's breastplate, more akin to an abstract painting than anything else. One of the team members, Kazuki Morimoto, approached the golem, drawn by its green hues.
After placing his right hand against the symbol, the entire golem jumped up, breaking free of its restraints. All the sand and rust seemed to fall away in favor of gazing at its new Rider. Though they had made a great break through, they also ended a two thousand year slumber.
From the Atlantic Ocean rose a five thousand foot monster, her speech warbled from inactivity.
"I have returned to reclaim what is mine."
As she leaped into the air, the golem began whispering in Kazuki's ear just like it did to his ancestors before him.
He needed to protect this world no matter the cost.
Though Kazuki fought valiantly, he eventually fell to the monster's overwhelming strength and left nothing but a destroyed golem behind. Satoshi's team managed to salvage the golem's core which, in addition to energy, held recordings of every moment from when it rose to its final flight. Using that core they learned the true purpose and identity of the monster than attacked North America as well as the locations of the other golems.
With the help of the United Nations, he gathered the other golems and spearheaded the MEHCA program in order to fight back against Komara. It turned out that before Komali's death he had planted an egg at the bottom of the Atlantic so that once his daughter was born, Komara could continue ruling Earth-Z while he colonized other universes. Satoshi theorized that due to the connection between Komali and the golems, Kazuki awakening the green unit must have triggered her awakening as well.
Despite all the bad news however, there was one good sign: if Kazuki could awaken a golem, there was a chance that others could too.
The MEHCA Program
Using the destroyed golem's core, Satoshi tracked down the remaining nine golems and moved them to a facility in the heart of Mongolia where the world's best scientists worked tirelessly to upgrade these old relics into mechanical powerhouses that could stand up to not only Komara, but any extraterrestrial that dare enter Zearth's atmosphere.
Tracing the lineage of the last Riders to pilot their golems, Satoshi rounded up all the descendants who bore what he called the "Pilot's Mark", and convinced them to fly out to Mongolia under the guise that they need not commit to battling. That, of course, was a huge lie. As soon as the pilots arrived in the facility they were strapped into their suits and shuttled to their respective MEHCAs. Regardless of their experience, they all resonated with their units, even if most of them barely exercised control.
The Pilot's Mark, Marked Pilots, Sometimes just the Marked
Nowadays, families with the Pilot's Mark are taken care of (read: monitored) by the UN and those born with the mark are conscripted once they finish their country's mandatory schooling (e.g. in the United States, a Pilot Marked would not be conscripted until after they finish high school but a Pilot Marked in Japan would be conscripted once they finish middle school). Though their families are more than taken care of, pilots must live on facility grounds and cease contact with anyone who isn't a government official. Between physical education and piloting expertise, the Marked are required to learn the history behind the First Komali War (as well as the second) and how to combat each the enemies of each universe they encounter.
Terminology
Golems: These were the creatures that Komali granted Earth's mightiest warriors (Riders). Though nobody can figure out whether they are organic, machine, magic, or some mixture of the three they have had a great impact on Zearth's development. It appears that they are nigh indestructible so long as their core remains intact. Golems can only be used by Riders.
Riders: They were the warriors chosen by Komali to ride the golems and serve as his army. Each had a mark not unlike the Pilot's Mark in modern day MECHA pilots.
Earth-[letter]: Nomenclature used to defer to Earths (human-occupied planets) that are involved in Komara and Komali's plans for interdimensional domination. Depending on the age at which they were colonized they are lettered from A to Z and then numbered based on time of discovery by Zearth's Parallelism Department.
MEHCA: Mobile Electrical Human Controlled Automaton. This is the term used to describe the units created from the cores of salvaged Golems.
Marked Pilot: They are descendants of the original Riders who bear the Pilot's Mark. Typically a descendant family will have one or two Marked; however, there have been cases where there are multiple (particularly if they are twins). They can control robots, computers, hardware, and anything else under the umbrella of technology. it is said that each Mark has a different, extra ability but that has yet to be unlocked by any Marked Pilot.
Pilot: Though usually this is as person who rides a MEHCA unit, the term "pilot" can also be used to refer to soldiers who ride similar, smaller robotic units.
Pilot's Mark: This is the symbol of Riders and Marked Pilots. It reacts whenever near their unit or when their bearer exercises their powers. Without the Mark Pilots cannot access their MEHCA.
Biography: Mako Mori gets jealous when she thinks about other worlds, the numbered ones. She thinks about how Earth-646 schoolchildren have superheroes to save the day, how Earth" teenagers only worry about getting into college, and how Earth-67 had the pleasure of never dealing with any of it again.
When she was old enough for school they shoved her into a military academy and once middle school finished it was off to the MEHCA program. She was still allowed online courses in her free time (a soldier had to be well rounded after all), but she knows in another life she could have been more than a means to an end (at least to the government).
She could have explored toy making, architectural engineering, or even philosophy. Instead she was the only one of two born with the Pilot's Mark in her family. Some suggested that the "bloodline" was diluting while others cited the curse of the Mori women, dying too young to bear children. She considers it a blessing to never worry about bearing a Pilot.
It makes it easier to blame your world's failings on other people.
Mako tries not to be one of those people though, the ones who absolve themselves of blame (she just self-medicates) because she knows each of her wrongdoings falls on just as much on her shoulders as Zearth's. On her sixteenth birthday she took her first steps into another dimension, usurping Earth-Z14 from a monarchy Komali installed. Not two months later she was slugging a reptilian beast with a skyscraper because fuck waiting for evacuation protocol as long as these invaders were defeated. The rest of her piloting experience began blurring in a haze of forced naps, illegal drugs, and escapist friendships. If she could stop herself from being alone, she could stop herself from remembering.
After a recent crash landing however, she's found herself in the midst of a dystopia (well, a bigger one).
Main Ability: Pilot's Mark - Like other Pilots, Mako can control robots, computers, hardware, and anything else under the umbrella of technology. Whether it's debugging someone's software or deconstructing a motor vehicle, she can understand the ins and outs of any device that she gets her hands on. Most importantly, this mark allows her to pilot her Mobile Electrical Human Controlled Automaton ("MEHCA" for short) known as R-01.
Limitations - She needs to touch the technology that she wants to manipulate and while she can reconfigure objects to upgrade them, she is limited by the age (and materials) of the object. If all she has is an analog clock, she won't be able to do much other than perhaps turn it into an alarm clock.
Area of Expertise:
Crafting - Outside of her mark, she has a natural affinity for design, which she uses to make small devices such as toys, peripherals, and even sculptures! She loves translating designs into actual products and gifting them.
Debating - A certified critical thinker (aka Philosophy fan and devil's advocate), she knows her way around words and how to make them into her weapon.
Napping - She can sleep anywhere for any amount of time as long as she has her headphones in. They don't even need to be playing on so much as they just need to wrap around her ears.
Equipment:
R-01 is a high mobility unit with a light frame and mid range weaponry. Modeled after an Amazonian woman, it combines light steps with swift strikes and mild defense for tight situations. In her mind, the best defense is not a good offense, but a balanced approach to fighting. Like all units, R-01 can record footage, communicate over radio waves, store solar energy for power, and has a barrier against long range projectiles. Unfortunately for her, the unit remains on Zearth so she must make due with the rest of her equipment.
Weldon: A robotic companion that floats by her head, known as "Weldon." Taking on the voice of an older male, he can translate any living language and process information faster than even the most expensive supercomputer. Though she mostly uses him for information, she isn't embarrassed to carry conversations with him if she finds present company a tad too
basic. Like the R-01, it can only be activated with her Pilot's Mark or a Pilot Mark of a family member.
Red Devil: Her signature blaster. A prototype of the gun that was eventually added to the R-01 unit, this gun fires short bursts of red energy, but holding down the trigger can produce a larger blast.
Star Platinum: A collapsible spear similar to the one R-01 holds. Though not quite as durable as her MEHCA, the materials are strong enough to withstand tough fights and light enough for her to stay nimble.
Theme Song: Outrunning Karma by Alec Benjamin
Tip Toes by half.alive
Blue Light by XYLØ
Color: Maroon, #800A0A
FC: Sanzu, Bad Apple Wars
Amazoness from Danball Senki
