Nine

Nine (Scenesys ID: 7569)
Quote
"People like to shoot each other. I enjoy a certain level of job security."
Profile
Full Name:	Research Unit Nine
Gender:	Male
Species:	Metahuman
Theme:	Original (OC)
Occupation:	Combat Medic
Citizenship:	None
Residence:	New York
Education:	Extensive
Status:	Shelved
Groups:	{{{Groups}}}
Other Information
Apparent Age:	{{{PAge}}}	Actual Age:	3
Date of Birth	12 December 2023	Actor:	Alexander Skarsgard
Height:	194 cm	Weight:	86 kg
Hair Color:	Blond	Eye Color:	One Blue, One Green
Theme Song:	"Moonlight Sonata" by Beethoven

Profile

Nine is a combat medic and extraction specialist for hire. He caters to anyone who can pay his fees and also runs an emergency clinic out of his apartment. When he's not working, he's still working; the small laboratory in his storage unit is online 24/7. He also enjoys playing piano, a good steak, and documentaries about medical mishaps.

Sheet

Description

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At 6'4", Nine is tall enough to be noteworthy. He appears to be in his late twenties or early thirties and is athletically built, but in a slim, lithe sort of way. His hair is blond, functional in length, and could even be fashionable in the right hands. He has a thin slash of a mouth that barely stands out from his pale skin and he frequently sports a day or two's worth of stubble.

The most remarkable things about him are his eyes and his posture. One eye is vividly blue, the other is a striking green; both are constantly devouring details and cataloging them away for future reference. When he moves, his stride could be confused with some men's swagger. There's a measure of confidence there that he doesn't bother to hide. Even the way he stands has an element of arrogance to it.

History

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Dr. Engel Stansislav was born outside of Hanover, Germany sometime in 1887. As a young adult he was forced to watch while his parents were abused and killed by army deserters, which solidified his perspective on the topics of morality, mortality, and commitment to a cause. From that moment he became obsessed with the idea of living forever. He quickly volunteered for military service as a means to his ends, as if to prove that he himself could be better than the deserters who inspired his goals.

During WWI he served as a medic, scout, and forward observer for the 16th Bavarian Reserve Regiment. After studying and later teaching both medicine and chemistry at the University of Freiburg between the wars, he left his professorship behind to helm a small military research division for the duration of WWII. He didn't do any of this for his country or his Fuhrer, and certainly not for their ideology, he did it for the resources they could offer. He was fascinated by the idea of the Ubermensch and conducted countless inhumane experiments as part of a not-so-friendly competition with Josef Mengele. His procedures were focused on creating a compound that would dramatically slow the aging process while restoring youthful vigor, if not a youthful appearance. He called it Ambrosia. The moment the drug was viable Stanislav began taking it, despite it being so physically addictive that it became mandatory for his survival.

He managed to avoid being convicted as a war criminal after the Fatherland surrendered to the Allies, but only due to a lack of physical evidence and living witnesses. Once he was acquitted for his crimes, he retired from public view for several decades of exploration and self-discovery. During that time he devoured any bit of knowledge he could acquire from any culture that would have him, no matter how remote or populous, often favoring traditional medicines and martial skills. He also studied at Oxford, Eindhoven, and Lund Universities.

When he emerged from his travels to jungles, deserts, tiny villages, and sprawling cities around the globe, he founded Prima Dynamics, a company that designed artificial limbs and pharmaceuticals. This was in 1991 when initial products were incredibly primitive by today's standards, but they became more refined over time. While it was a very small operation at first, Stanislav's knowledge and cunning led to rapid growth.

Once Dr. Stanislav and Prima had created a good name for themselves, he retreated to his laboratories and used his profits to fund his pet project. His black bag endeavor was dubbed 'Tithonus,' who in Greek mythology was granted eternal life, but not eternal youth. Stanislav's ultimate goal was to come away with a physically perfect specimen created using his own DNA as a template; a host body that he could transfer his consciousness to at will, restoring his youth and further augmenting his own abilities in the process. Unfortunately, biotechnology was a fledgling industry in the 90s. Costs were prohibitive until Prima built a great deal of financial momentum with their above-ground work. As a result, several clones died or were destroyed before they were ever truly born. Others were kept alive despite grotesque defects so they could be studied and subjected to human enhancement procedures that had never before been properly tested. It took more than twenty years for Stanislav and Tithonus to produce a viable host using this process.

Stanislav didn't settle until his ninth test subject had survived many dangerous procedures designed to augment its nervous system, musculature, and skeletal structure. Its enhanced physique was fueled by Ambrosia, the drug originally developed by the Doctor to retard his own aging process. Ambrosia was a double-edged sword; it provided many benefits, but anyone with the physiology to properly process it was also completely dependent upon it. And so Research Unit Nine was born.

'Braintaping' is a mnemonic overlay process developed after WWII to preserve the collected knowledge of more than one German scientist. Stanislav stole the tech from his former government, then miniaturized and improved upon it. The miniaturization process was overwhelmingly expensive and time consuming. Between developing a suitable host body and a working braintape, Tithonus had nearly bankrupted Prima Dynamics by 2020, after which several years of financial recoperation were necessary.

In order to provide an appropriate receptacle for the Doctor's persona, most of Nine's organic brain was removed and replaced with a prototype braintape. This one of a kind hard drive was originally programmed with basic self-preservation instincts and the ability to speak and read German, but interactions with the Doctor and various Tithonus personnel led to the development of a primitive self-awareness. This complicated the transfer of Stanislav's psyche as the mnemonic overlays clashed with Nine's evolving sentience. The problem was storage capacity. The prototype had been built to house Stanislav's thoughts and wasn't capable of containing them and this new personality at the same time.

After multiple conflicts between existing data and the information that was being copied over, Nine was deemed a failed experiment and placed in a medically induced coma. Another piece of scrap at the top of an exceptionally large heap. The Tithonus project continued without him until December of 2023 when another defective unit escaped from captivity, causing a great deal of destruction in the process. Nine was accidentally reactivated and used the ensuing chaos to cover his escape, during which he stole several pieces of specialized equipment.

An openly paranoid man, Dr. Stanislav had implanted Nine with a tracking device. Rather than reel him in immediately, Stanislav has chosen to track Nine as he attempts to integrate himself into society. Whenever he isn't being physically observed, Nine's location and movements are remotely monitored. The only purpose of this controlled release experiment is to satisfy Dr. Stanislav's scientific curiosity. As far as he is concerned, Nine is a defective unit. Should he be lost or destroyed, it would be at worst a minor annoyance. To this end, Stanislav's expansive private security team has been directed to create situations that will encourage Nine to test the limits of his physiology and his mnemonic overlays.

As of early 2027, Nine is still being discreetly corralled and herded. He has learned to separate his own memories from Stanislav's the majority of the time, but there are still some conflicts between the two. He spent nearly three years serving as a mercenary in various parts of the world; first as a combatant in several Central and South American countries, then later as a combat medic and extraction specialist. He continues to perform as the latter, which funds his various experiments. He has an obsession of his own, but it's very different from that of his creator. His motivation is self-discovery. Not only what he is, but why and how he exists as something between an automaton and a true copy of his creator.

Having been in New York for several months, Nine fills the hours by providing medical services both in the field and out of his improvised office. He also offers combat extractions to his clients, where for a fee he will guarantee their evacuation, treatment, and even a safe haven while they heal. He occasionally takes on other mercenary contracts, though he is extremely picky when it comes to assassinations and does a great deal of research on both the client and the target involved before accepting. Mostly, he sticks to corporate sabotage and grand theft when he's between patients. And of course, whenever he's not working, he's in his lab tending to one of his various experiments.

Personality

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Though Stanislav was the template for Nine's personality, he's not nearly so dark and cruel as his creator. Still, he's comfortable with morally grey territory. He's not above killing an enemy or stealing something he believes he needs, though he prefers to steal from those who can afford the loss. That's just good manners.

It's worth noting that he finds the notion of harming a noncombatant to be extremely distasteful. In addition, anyone in his custody, is guaranteed to be comfortable and well-fed, unlike traditional hostage scenarios. The only exception he makes involves interrogations. For all his faults and flaws, he still treats people with courtesy and respect until they show they no longer deserve it. He's the first to admit that he can be a bit selfish, even unscrupulous, but few would call him evil.

On an interpersonal level, Nine can seem a bit brisk and old-fashioned at times, but not in an unfriendly way. His personality is largely based on that of a man who's around 140 years old, so that's to be expected. This is also why he tends to stay cool, calm, and cosmopolitan virtually at all times, which makes it that much more intense on the rare occasions he goes off the rails.

Abilities

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ENDOCRINE SYSTEM
When Nine is injured, his glands immediately start pumping out massive amounts of leptin to boost his metabolism. Simultaneously, modified platelets increase clotting speed of all but the most extreme wounds. During this time he will eat ravenously, drink large quantities of water, and he requires a great deal of rest. As unpleasant as this can be, it drastically increases the speed at which his body repairs itself. Cuts, scrapes, and bruises will fully heal in a day or two. Broken bones, puncture wounds, and large lacerations take several days to mend, possibly longer depending on the severity. More extreme injuries can still be healed at an increased rate, but the closer Nine is to death, the more the rate of return diminishes. Times listed assumes that he or someone else is able to provide basic first aid; double them if he's healing without essentials like bandages, splints, and sutures.

ENHANCED PHYSIQUE
Nine's skeletal structure and musculature have been enhanced through the injection of bone calcifiers, steroids, and polymer threading. His bones are less prone to splintering or radial fractures, making breaks infrequent and easier to set. His cartilaginous tissues are extremely compact and pliant, making them especially resistant to blunt trauma such as punches, collisions, or damage from falling. His augmented musculature gives him the ability to bend steel bars, crush bricks or lift up to 700 lbs. without difficulty. Reinforced lung tissue and optimized red blood cells store and transport oxygen with greater efficiency, providing stamina comparable to that of an experienced marathon runner.

While these enhancements make him slightly harder to kill due to internal durability and redundancies, his skin possesses no particular resistance to blades, firearms, or any other cutting/impaling weapon.

MNEMONIC OVERLAYS
By the time Nine was created, Dr. Stanislav had developed methods of prolonging his lifespan while maintaining his health and vigor. He's nearly 140 years old and has seen and done more than most people could ever hope to. The majority of his memories, experiences, and skills were transferred to Nine when the doctor was testing a process designed to replicate a person's consciousness. This gives Nine a wealth of information and memories to draw on, though it's often difficult to separate his own experiences from Stanislav's.

NERVOUS SYSTEM
Most of Nine's spinal cord and nerve fibers have been enhanced, leading to a higher level of sensitivity and responsiveness. Pairing these with an overstimulated adrenal gland has also magnified his speed and reaction time. Given the opportunity, he could catch a professional fastball pitch, deflect some muscle-powered projectiles, run at sustained speeds comparable to a dirt bike, or beat nearly any "normal" person in an old-fashioned quickdraw competition.

UNIQUE MIND
Saying that Nine is a sentient computer program that resides in a living body is oversimplifying the issue, but not by much. In addition to organic brain matter, he has something akin to a hard drive in his head. This combination was designed to mimic the human brain fairly accurately, and it does. He's able to learn and grow, though there is a theoretical limit to how much data he can store.

His one-of-a-kind construction provides some benefits and drawbacks. Nine is partly resistant (but not immune) to telepathic detection or intrusion due to the foreign nature of his neural structure and thought processes. His data storage unit can also be directly accessed, though this generally requires that he be restrained, incapacitated, or cooperative.

Skills

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ACROBATICS
Partly through innate agility and partly through practice, Nine is capable of impressive acrobatic feats. Rather than traditional tumbling or gymnastics, he's skilled at climbing, making great leaps, rolling with falls, and other practical applications.

MAD SCIENTIST
Dr. Stanislav is a leading mind in the field of human augmentation and biomedical research, comparable to the likes of Xavier, Magneto, and Sinister. While some of his knowledge was lost during the faulty upload of his consciousness, enough remains that Nine can still be considered a Doctorate-level expert. His areas of focus are pharmaceuticals and bioengineering.

PHYSICIAN
Thanks to Dr. Stanislav's memories, Nine possesses the medical skills of a veteran ER doctor with extremely fast and steady hands. He's able to treat a wide array of wounds and illnesses, perform surgeries of minor to moderate complexity, prescribe and administer medications (illegally but accurately) and execute other similar tasks. As a professional combat medic, his specialty is trauma medicine and immediate care.

PILOT
It is in the wealthy, independent businessman's best interest to have ways of getting himself around; this fact has held true throughout history. In his youth, Doctor Stanislav spent a great deal of time hopping the railways, taking long drives, even traveling by sail or motorized boat. As technology grew to meet man's demands, his skills expanded to include aircraft. As a result, Nine is capable of handling most vehicles competently, including conventional automobiles, tracked vehicles and boats. He's little more than a gifted amateur when it comes to piloting aircraft, but he can at least keep himself from crashing.

SOLDIER
Self-preservation instincts were part of Nine's initial set of subroutines. Over time, those protocols have melded with Dr. Stanislav's martial skills and military training to form something unique.

Nine serves as both combatant and medic when he's in the field. He's fast, he's strong, and as a physician he knows how to get his money's worth when he hits someone, be it with a fist, a club, or a blade. While he'll never be a sniper, he's an excellent marksman who is familiar with a wide array of firearms (including mounted weapons) and the creation and application of demolition charges, grenades, and other area denial weaponry.

He can generally handle a few veteran fighters or a moderately sized group of thugs without too much trouble, and he gives as good as he gets when matched one-on-one with adversaries in his own weight class.

TRAVELER

Nine has not only his own experiences to draw on, but over thirteen decades of his creator's, who was and is an extremely well-traveled man. In addition to his Western background, Nine is familiar with the basic ins and outs of East Asian, Central American, and South American cultures. His native language is German, but he also speaks fluent English as well as heavily accented but intelligible Japanese, Mandarin, Spanish, and Russian.

Resources

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ARMORED CAR
Nine has managed to get his hands on a Brinks security truck in the course of his various adventures. It's a lumbering beast that's designed to transport valuables, shrug off bullets and remain secure in the case of an attempted hijacking. Though it doesn't have any armaments of its own, it does come with a few surprises. There's a medical suite in the cargo area, multiple hatches and firing ports for occupants, a ramming prow mounted to the front bumper, and a high-powered winch attached to the rear.

CONTACTS
To Nine, favors and information are a far more valuable currency than money. For a man who maintains a low profile, he knows an awful lot of people. Arms dealers. Fellow private mercenaries and fixers. Fences. Disgraced police officers. Many are current or former clients who owe him favors. For those who don't, Nine makes sure he always has some form of leverage.

GEAR AND ASSETS
Nine has a fondness for high-caliber firearms, as his physique is able to handle the weight and recoil of guns that would be impractical for the average person to carry. He's devoted considerable time and resources toward building up a modest array of weapons that suit his tastes, plus a small stockpile of explosives and area denial weaponry. He frequently wears an armored vest that's made from a kinetically reactive tri-polymer weave and is fitted with trauma plates. Due to his enhanced strength, he can stand for it to be considerably heavier than armor worn by the average soldier or police officer.

His prized possession is a titanium combat knife that he stole during his escape from Prima Dynamics. It's a prototype weapon with an edge that has been honed to the width of a single molecule. Powered by his enhanced musculature, this blade is capable of penetrating most conventional armors, slicing through the body panels of vehicles, and even carving lines in concrete. However, it has no particular effect on materials like vibranium, adamantium, nth metal, or supernatural items. He also has a scalpel set of similar construction that is kept in the medical bag he carries for house calls.

His armory, a wide array of medical supplies and all of his laboratory equipment are housed in a loft apartment situated over a large storage unit. Combined, these spaces serve as his private clinic, garage, and personal quarters. He also keeps his monetary assets in a concealed floor safe on site. There's never more than $100000 and very rarely more than $50000, usually a combination of cash and precious metals.

PSR KIT

The Portable Service and Recharging kit is a powerful laptop computer built into an extremely durable titanium case. It was designed to automatically perform Nine's daily maintenance operations and was stolen by him when he escaped captivity. Its most notable feature is an extremely rudimentary AI that assists him with basic computer-related tasks and carries the mental workload of the maintenance process. It has no autonomous abilities, nor does it provide Nine with any additional skills, but it does give him someone(thing) to talk to. This AI was created after Doctor Stanislav and is based on his first failed experiment, One.

Weaknesses

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DEPENDENCY
Nine's physiology depends on chemicals more than nutrients. He can survive on as little as one meal and a few liters of water per week as long as he's uninjured and his activity levels remain low, but increased activity leads to increased consumption.

Ambrosia is the one thing he can't live without under any circumstances. Named for the food of the gods, it fuels his biological augmentations and his unique physiology. It's administered via injection and must be taken twice per day for Nine to remain in peak operating condition, though he can survive on a single dose. Extreme levels of exertion may require a third or even a fourth injection, sometimes administered in mid-activity.

Missing doses presents penalties and risks. After one full day, his strength, endurance, and other physical abilities will all be reduced to so-called normal human levels. On the second day he becomes very weak and signs of accelerated aging are visible. By day three he will be visually identical to Dr. Stanislav, who appears to be in his sixties. It's assumed that death will occur sometime between the fourth and fifth days.

Ambrosia cannot be purchased, it must be created in Nine's private laboratory or stolen from Prima Dynamics. The production process is extremely expensive and time consuming. No one, including Nine, would tolerate the theft or destruction of their supply. At best, he keeps enough on hand to sustain him through a month of extremely minimal activity, but those starvation rations could last less than a week in a combat scenario.

DOCTOR STANISLAV
Nine is closely monitored by his creator, Engel Stanislav. Stanislav is a man with considerable resources and a great deal of knowledge at his disposal. He has scientists, security personnel, even other test subjects that he can use to his advantage. On top of this, Stanislav himself is a physically and mentally formidable adversary. Should the entire weight of Stanislav and Prima's influence be brought to bear, the results would be unfortunate at best, catastrophic at worst.

EVIL TWIN
To Nine's knowledge, only one other production-level unit of his kind has survived. After his escape, Research Unit Five was taken out of mothballs and allowed to develop his own sociopathic personality. He now serves as a son of sorts to Dr. Stanislav.

Five has been augmented just as much as Nine, though in very different ways. Five has also been sent out into the field on multiple occasions. Few people know of his existence, and fewer know that he and Nine share the same face, which means his enemies are Nine's enemies. Worse, there is always the possibility that Five could wreak havoc in Nine's personal life with no one the wiser and no one to blame but Nine himself.

LIMITED BATTERY
Nine's bionics and his computerized brain all run off of an internal power source. Where regular people require sleep to rest themselves and prepare for the day to come, he requires basic maintenance and recharging. His data storage unit must be defragmented, files must be reorganized and unnecessary data purged, a daily process which takes up virtually all of his attention and nearly four hours of his time. He must also spend at least one hour per day plugged into a USB slot or wall outlet via a tiny port behind his ear in order to maintain appropriate power levels for basic activity. Two hours would be better, four would be ideal, especially before a combat situation. Using the PSR kit doesn't reduce this timeline, but it does allow him to perform basic tasks like reading a book, having a conversation, or watching television while the kit does the heavy lifting.

Skipping these procedures for more than a day or two will result in symptoms similar to sleep deprivation, only more severe. For each day he skips it, the length of his maintenance and charging period is doubled. Eight hours on the second day, sixteen on the third day. At four days he will switch to a very basic and semi-catatonic survival mode that eliminates all non-essential uses of power, including speaking more than a few words at a time. If five full days pass without recharging, maintenance, or both, Nine will die. The only way he can survive for any sort of extended period away from electricity is to carry a portable charger, but that's akin to using a band-aid when what you really need is a tourniquet.

MAINTENANCE
Should Nine require physical repairs to his hard drive, it can be accessed by lifting his left ear, which is a prosthetic that is functionally identical to its counterpart. Unfortunately, having an artificial brain doesn't make it any easier to perform brain surgery on yourself. Nine is only equipped to perform basic repairs on his own. In the case of serious damage to his hardware, he's in a more difficult spot than the average person looking for a neurologist. He'd have to seek out someone like Tony Stark or Forge.

NO LEGAL IDENTITY
Nine wasn't born, he was built. He doesn't have a birth certificate, a social security number, not even a legitimate library card. He's found ways to cope with the difficulties this causes in daily life, mostly by setting up soft identities that are little more than a forged ID or passport and a couple of credit cards. These identities won't stand up under scrutiny. While he might be able to skate through being pulling over and having his driver's license run, a careful examination will reveal that there is no official record of his existence. He doesn't even have fingerprints to leave behind, much less a copy of them on file.

The frightening part about this is that he doesn't technically exist and isn't a citizen of any nation, which means he has no legal or civil rights of any kind. He can be kidnapped, tortured, or killed with a minimum of fuss so long as it's done quietly.

OBSESSION
Nine knows what he is. He's the augmented clone of a crazy man. Simple, factual data, but difficult to cope with. Nine wants to figure out not only more about himself, but what his existence means. The scientific, philosophical, and theological implications beg to be defined. Gathering that data is going to be an expensive, exhausting, and frequently dangerous process.

REPROGRAMMABLE
Nine's data storage unit has the same vulnerabilities as any computer. With the proper connections and access, his basic programming can be modified in countless ways, few of them good. Anyone with the necessary skills could attempt to control or even reprogram his brain, though it wouldn't be easy. The difficulty of a break-in attempt varies according to the methods used, but even a savant would find it a challenging task.

UNSHIELDED
After Nine's magnetic hard drive was constructed and installed, there was no room left in his cranium for EMP shielding. He's vulnerable to any electromagnetic pulse and will immediately shut down if faced with one. An automatic reboot takes approximately twenty seconds, during which time he is completely inert and vulnerable. While it takes a potent EMP to shut him down completely, close-range exposure to powerful magnets can also have adverse effects that range from difficulty thinking to a complete inability to access stored data.

VENGEFUL

Nine carries the majority of Engel Stanislav's collected knowledge and memories. Stanislav is a sociopath who is obsessed with his own mortality. Though only traces of this persona remain, they do remain. Nine is occasionally gripped with urges to destroy threats that could easily be handled in other ways, or to lash out at a thing that has hurt him. Though these dark, seductive whispers in his ear may appear at any time, they are most prone to surfacing when he feels wronged and has a chance to take revenge.

Logs

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Title	Date	Scene Summary
A reference, and some questions	March 21st, 2019	Summary needed

Cutscenes

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Gallery

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