Things are so much easier in Black and White

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ALSO WORK IN PROGRESS!!

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OOC INFORMATION

Player Name: Red
Are you over 18?: Yes
Contact: redfirelight @ plurk
Other Characters in Game: None

IC INFORMATION

Character Name: Garrus Vakarian
Canon: Mass Effect
Canon Point: Mass Effect 3 - after the failed Cerberus Coup on the Citadel
Age: 30
Background: Garrus @ Mass Effect Wiki

Suitability:
Most suited for the Free Cities setting specifically, due to the military presence described in the setting - his people are trained to be soldiers starting at fifteen, and serving a compulsory period in one of the armed forces of the Turian Hierarchy. So, working in a militaristic setting is nothing new to him. He has a habit of seeing a hole, a vacancy and trying to fill it as best he can. And for someone from the future, he's going to see a lot of gaps that need filling - be they in the armed forces, or handling petty crime. Garrus is a great strategist, and despite his misgivings, a capable leader. It's not out of the realm of possibility for him to slot himself into a position like that once he has adjusted, if/when it is available.

Also due to the magic of the arrival, the dextro-amino food and drink issue is no longer a problem.

Powers:
Garrus is a turian, a tall, bipedal, bird-like species, who is a capable hand with most firearms, most specifically sniper and assault rifles. Outside of that, he is decent enough with electronics, being able to do some hacking. He's better at making repairs on said electronics, and even automotives when the need arises. He's had police training, due to his former occupation, and was, by most accounts, a very good investigator. At one point, he states he was considered one of the best in hand-to-hand combat during his military service, and is renowned for his sniping ability.

Garrus' turian biology gives him a small amount of resistance to radiation, as well as sharp, elongated talons on each hand and foot. However, due to his genetic make-up, he could very well experience a deadly allergic reaction, should he ingest any material that is not based on the same genetic material as the turians themselves--that is, anything not produced on their homeworld.

In general, turians "exhibit the characteristics of predators rather than those of prey species. Their forward-facing alert eyes give the impression that they possess outstanding eyesight and their teeth and jaws mimic the structures possessed by apex predators such as crocodiles or ancient, carnivorous dinosaurs. Needless to say, their talons on both their feet and hands seem capable of ripping flesh. Their slender bodies also seem to suggest that they are also capable of moving at high speeds" (As quoted from the Mass Effect wikipedia entry on turians.)

Because of his life on the Citadel, a galactic hub, it's reasonable to assume Garrus is multi-lingual. He at least speaks his native language, as well as the major human dialect (English, for the purposes of this game). It's stated in Mass Effect canon, that the asari language is predominant on the Citadel, so, threfore, it's likely he can understand it conversationally as well. Picking up multiple languages is a trait that comes in handy when working in a galactic hub.

Weapon Proficiency:
While he won't arrive with these weapons, they're important as they're the weapon specifications Garrus can utilize - just in case firearms appear miraculously at some future date.

M-97 Viper Sniper Rifle
"Rapid-fire military sniper rifle. Incredibly accurate and deadly at long range, these weapons are popular amongst infiltrators and assassins. Very effective against armor, somewhat effective against shields and biotic barriers.

M-15 Vindicator Assault Rifle
"A three-round-burst battle rifle manufactured by Elanus Risk Control Services. It is very accurate and highly effective against armor, shields, and biotic barriers. The M-15 has superior accuracy and stopping power but has a lower thermal clip capacity.

PERSONALITY QUESTIONS

Describe an important event in your character's life and how it impacted them.
Honestly, there are two very important moments in Garrus' life, with one directly influencing the other:

"Commander Shepard? Garrus Vakarian."
Meeting Commander Shepard is, probably the biggest, most important thing. He was a struggling, albeit talented, detective with the Citadel Security force, tasked with looking into the suspected doings of a rogue operative. He was frustrated, he was chafing at restrictions and "red tape". Then Shepard waltzed up, and changed everything. Shepard gave him an ideal to strive for, showed him what he could be. Shepard was, essentially, the person he'd always wanted to be - getting things done, making big changes in the galaxy. Regardless of whether Shepard tended toward the paragon (light side) or renegade (dark side) of personality, Shepard made waves, and put down the bad guys, made things better in the end. Once he's aboard their ship, Shepard becomes a role model for him, and he hangs on their every opinion. He's honored to be there, honored to serve with them. Heck, even if he's never brought on any mission, he maintains the almost idolizing status of Shepard throughout the entire game.

And then Shepard died.

"Sidonis betrayed my men."
Shepard died, and that led Garrus immediately to trying to fill the void. Okay, maybe not immediately, but fairly soon afterward. It's said he tried, for a while, to continue on the path he'd been shown (either returning to Citadel Security, or trying to become a SPECTRE operative himself), but it ultimately fell apart, without Shepard there as his beacon.

So he tried to do what Shepard would do. Go out and make changes. Make the galaxy safer. And he went to Omega - essentially the wild west of space, compressed into one nasty little asteroid run by a purple crime boss. He thought he was doing something right, he thought he was making an actual difference. He did exactly what Shepard had done - built a team of misfits and fought back against injustice. Until one of the gangs bribed someone fairly high up in Garrus' team to betray them all. That betrayal ultimately changed him, hardened him. He still believed in justice, still believed in black and white morality, but was no longer able to see his own worth. No longer confident. It gets better in the third game, but Garrus never really comes into his own as a leader because of this. He's much more comfortable letting Shepard take the lead. Even when he's given a fairly important job, he's quick to dismiss it as a position that can enact any sort of real change.

Does your character have a moral code, or other set of standards they try to live by?
"Things are so much easier in black and white."
He said it best himself. He adheres to a rigid way of seeing the world - good vs evil, wrong vs right. It's much more apparent in the second game, when this way of thinking lead him to Omega, to forming his own ragtag team of "anti-mercs", where they basically attempted to clean up the place with ruthless efficiency. You crossed their line, they took you out. He really, truly thought this would be a way to help people, though, to make lives better. One could argue that it was the downfall of said team, and his own attempt at leadership. By the time of the third game, he has mellowed on this, though more likely it's due to becoming jaded over the entire concept of "justice" than actual understanding the world doesn't entirely work out that way.

"Grey, I don't know what to do with grey."
Garrus is incredibly pragmatic. Often to the point of pessimism. Many times he voices an opinion on the odds of a mission outcome, or, in the third game, the chances of anyone getting out of the Reaper War alive. He sees the negatives, more than the positives, if there are any. And while that is a good trait to have in terms of strategy, it really puts a damper on everything else in life. When faced with a positive outcome - usually one engineered by Shepard, he often expresses disbelief. They have a conversation about how, in order to save twenty billion lives, ten billion may have to die. That's just the way of the world, as far as Garrus is concerned - it's not right, it's not wrong, it just is.

What quality or qualities do they admire most?
"Right behind you, Shepard."
Leadership, the ability to get things done despite the odds. Basically everything Commander Shepard embodies, Garrus idolizes. At least, that's how it starts out. It turns into a real partnership by the end of the third game, regardless of what happens. But that's beside the point. Everything Shepard stands for, Garrus tremendously respects. The ability to inspire so many different minds, ways of thinking, for a cause, that is the kind of leadership he deeply admires. He says over the series that he is walking into hell with Shepard, and is one of the few characters to sign on with them in the second game without question. That's the kind of loyalty Shepard's leadership inspires, and that's the kind of leadership Garrus respects.

But it isn't just Shepard. He also admires the way General-Then-Primarch Victus (a fellow turian) can ignore politics and tradition in favor of results. He appreciates a person who can see a need, put decorum to the side, and do what needs to be done. Which is an admiration that tends to run very much against traditional turian thinking, but that is a whole other essay.

Do they have a part of themselves they dislike?
"So much has gone wrong in my life."
To an extent, Garrus sees a lot of failure in himself. He sees his actions on Omega as having no real effect in the long term, he sees his position as advisor to high ranking turian military in the third game as a 'token'. Part of this is probably his pessimism at work, but he doesn't consciously realize that is a bad thing - like stated previously, it's just how things are. He never outright states anything he dislikes about himself from his perspective, except for losing his squad on Omega. He maintains, throughout the entire second game, that what happened was his fault. His failure. Additionally, certain background information in the game shows a lot of his attempts to do just about anything "right" have consistently failed - as we see in a dossier of a monitored conversation between himself and his family, where he is hiding not only a grievous facial injury, but what exactly he's doing with his life, heavily implied due to shame over his own failure.

What is their sign, and why?
JUSTICE
It's essentially Garrus' entire reason for going to the space station of Omega between ME1 and ME2. There's no justice - gangs picking on innocent people, drug deals, murders, etc. He sees disorder, he sees unfairness, and needs to do something about it. It also fuels his personal quest in the first game, taking down a black market organ farmer, and says as much in the second game. By the third game, he's mellowed out a bit on this front, but still maintains his black and white morality mentality.

SAMPLES & ARRIVAL

Samples:
TDM 1
TDM 2

Arrival Scenario:
Free Cities

... Has anyone noticed things seem a little more... crowded around here than usual?

Or maybe it's just me.   But this can't be anything good.

Maybe you didn't get the memo last time, Keep.

Turians don't like the cold. So this... surprise? Not really appreciated.

[Someone got snowed on while he was out scouting around. And he sounds really happy about it all.]

How long until this clears up, do we think?

All right. I'll bite.

What's this 'party' supposed to be about, exactly?

[Not that he's thinking he'll go. Which may be obvious from the flat tone.]