BIO

[highfrequency]

Player Information
Player name: Psi
Contact: PM
Are you over 18: Y
Characters in The Box Already: Link (The Legend of Zelda)

Character Information
Character Name: Jack (Goes by “Raiden”)
Canon: Metal Gear
Canon Point: File 003 of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
History: [History]

When asked about his past, Raiden averts his gaze and turns away from you. When he finally does speak, he does not say much but from what little he shares it can be gleaned that his was not a childhood of storybook quality.

Raiden was born on a rainy day in the African nation of Liberia. When he was an infant, his parents were killed by George Sears (aka "Solidus Snake") and George took Raiden as his own, raising him into a child soldier. Raiden carried his first AK at the age of six and was trained to have great prowess with edged weapons. His brutality in combat eventually earned him the title of "Jack the Ripper" and his kill count soared higher than any other child's in the army. By the age of ten he became captain of the Small Boy Unit.

When the war ended he was placed in a relief center and put through intensive therapy to help him rejoin society. At the center he was taken in by a group called the Patriots, who approved of the fact that he was trying to deny his own past. They planted nanomachines in his brain so they could use him as a living backup system for an optic-neuro AI. The combination of the nanomachines and the severity of his own trauma caused him to repress his memories of the Liberian Civil War and suffer from an unrecognized form of dissociative amnesia, though he still had nightmarish flashbacks whenever he tried to sleep.

Later in his life he rejoined the military and became involved with the special forces unit FOXHOUND. His first official job on the field was to investigate the Big Shell and it was while he was on this mission that he first met Solid Snake. This was also the time he met Solidus again, who revealed to Raiden his past and that he was a test subject for a program designed to manipulate society and cultural memes. After the Big Shell Incident, Raiden started to remember his past in detail and became increasingly unstable. He would leave his fiancee Rosemary regularly late at night and stumble home drunk and covered in bruises.

He eventually fell in with Big Mama and Paradise Lost, who offered to help him retrieve a girl named Sunny (daughter of a woman he'd met on the Big Shell) from Area 51 in exchange for information regarding the remains of the super soldier Big Boss. This was information Raiden had acquired from the backup data of GW, still stored in his brain. The rescue of Sunny was successful and he left the girl in the care of Snake and Snake's friend Otacon.

Eventually, he stopped coming home to Rose at all. After leaving her he traveled the world, studying Samurai and ninja philosophies and learning how to track enemies. When he went on the mission to find Big Boss's remains, he was recaptured by the Patriots who performed torturous experiments on him and severed everything from his lower jaw downward. His upper skull and spine were attached to a mechanical body, thus turning him into the third Cyborg Ninja.

He ran into his old hero, Solid Snake, once again during Liquid Ocelot's Insurrection. Solid Snake was suffering from advanced aging due to being a clone and Raiden took it upon himself to protect Snake and help him destroy the Patriot AIs for good.

After the fall of the Patriots he was reunited with his son Little John and with Rosemary and promised never to leave them again. He tried to get non-military work but was turned away by every employer he approached for being a cyborg-something the world knew very little of (at the time, anyway). He eventually had to return to military work by enlisting with an old Paradise Lost acquaintance's private military company. His most recent job with this PMC was protecting Prime Minister N'mani and training his armies. Raiden was cut down in the line of duty, losing one eye and and his left arm. Since his left arm contained a data chip that was wired directly to his brain, this caused Raiden to suffer hallucinations and vivid flashbacks. He now remembers all of his childhood in detail and this is straining what is left of his sanity.

While being operated on, he opted to get upgraded and had his brain and spine re-grafted onto a new, more combat capable chassis.

This is the simplified version of his sordid history. The link above provides all the details.

Personality:

The first word that might spring to someone's mind when meeting Raiden for the first time is "unsettling". He will laugh and make jokes but it is not hard to get the impression that his smile masks a great deal of internal pain. The patina of self-confidence does not run very deep.

He has enough self awareness to acknowledge his own depression and he knows that if he wants to find true happiness again he should seek self-actualization and fight for himself and his own dreams rather than fight as someone's obedient soldier. This is something he desperately wants to achieve but actually accomplishing this is hard for him, and it's something he is constantly struggling with. He's been manipulated his entire life and doesn't know what a world of true freedom actually looks like. Usually he finds it easiest to simply shut the world out, keep his head down, and do as he's told. If he thinks too hard about it he becomes miserable. His body and mind were developed for warfare and he feels like war is all he truly understands. Introspection and analysis are not things that come naturally to him and are actually things that he actively resists taking part in. Thinking too far ahead is not something he tends to do, either. Free will is, to him, a recent concept and he's only been able to fully utilize it within the last several years. This means that, when he does try to act for himself, he has an alarming tendency to make poor decisions. He is not used to this kind of freedom. A lack of wisdom regarding actions and consequences combined with a lack of imagination means that Raiden's usual battlefield instinct is to storm the proverbial castle. He is incredibly intelligent, he is just not likely to ever be the real strategist in the room.

Raiden is a romantic creature who tries to live a life based on instinct and pragmatism. He sometimes tries to portray himself as a rough stoic but any extended interaction with him will reveal that this is just a mask. Emotions, over reason, often dictate his actions. Whenever he does anything he throws his entire being into it-body, mind and soul. When Raiden loves he loves deeply, when he's happy he practically bounces and when he's angry he's almost monstrous. His approach to work, especially on the battlefield, can sometimes come across as so business-like that he seems cold and uncaring and he always gets a job done one way or another.

While not a coward by any means, Raiden is a man constantly on the run from his own past. Once he started to remember his life in Liberia, it became increasingly difficult for him to relate to anyone. When he spoke to a civilian he felt like he was on the other side of a wall of plated glass, looking in on a world that was not his own. He felt his bloody history weigh down on his shoulders until he thought it would crush him. Eventually, he left his fiancee Rose and became a wandering warrior, training in remote parts of the world to increase his combat prowess and martial skills. Combat, after all, was all he knew. During his personal training he adopted the Samurai code of issatsu tasho-"killing one (aggressor) in order that many (innocents) may live". After reuniting with his family, he swore by this philosophy of the Life-Giving Sword. With this as a guiding principle, he's developed his own moral system for combat. If the person he is killing is truly a threat or truly wicked he can accept the fact that he is able to kill them without hesitation or remorse. As long as he is protecting someone, he can kill for their sake. As long as he feels like the person he is killing deserves death, he can accept the fact that some twisted part of him is actually smiling at the carnage. Being so overly simplistic, this personal code of conduct is easily threatened which becomes the basis for his character arc in Metal Gear Rising. "They deserved it" is not a very easy mindset to defend as it does not hold up well under philosophical scrutiny.

That twisted part of him is the tattered remnants of his childhood as Jack the Ripper. Whether this part of him is a result of something inherently wrong with his mental wiring or whether it is the result of his abuse at the hands of George Sears, Raiden is not sure. Whatever it is, it is deeply programmed. Throughout his adulthood, he's tried his best to keep this part of him in check and he suppresses it as much as he can, but it is still a part of him. High amounts of emotional strain might eventually cause him to snap and switch over to this mindset. Where Raiden has a moral code, the Ripper does not. The Ripper has no problems with the fact that he kills and he will carve into enemies not for justice or for honor but for the sheer thrill of it. As the Ripper, Raiden experiences something akin to sexual arousal from slaughter. The Ripper is not an alternate personality even if Raiden himself sometimes treats it as such. Raiden is still fully cognizant of his actions and thoughts while in this mode and is even able to control himself. He refers to this aspect of his personality as "Jack" and uses it as an alternate persona with which he can dissociate himself from the violence he unleashes. Really, Jack the Ripper is Raiden with a bloodlust. The ruthlessness he had as a youth combined with the power in his cyborg body means that, while berserking, Raiden cannot be reasoned with, cannot feel remorse and cannot be stopped. Aspects of this part of him bubble to the surface when he fights. When he impaled himself to hurt Vamp in Guns of the Patriots he grinned and chuckled darkly at the situation. More recently, he cut a scientist cleanly in half right after another such chuckle. Raiden's attacks when berserking are something of a sudden explosion of violence and (on his end) eroticism. Learning to control and focus these violent urges for what he feels to be the greater good will be part of his character arc (as it is in his canon). It won't be easy. Jack the Ripper is not something Raiden feels at all proud of and he has a very real concern that if he gives in to his old ways the Ripper will shatter his mind completely, turning him into the same kind of monster he's spent his entire adult life fighting.

Beneath the despair and steadily mounting dementia is a young man with a big heart who sticks to his beliefs, enjoys cheesy action flicks and old movies, and is always there for the people who need him. Raiden is quick to forgive those close to him and once someone has made a friend in him, they've made a friend for life. Love, family, childhood, and other things he's always felt he's lacked in his own life are principles that he feels are worth protecting and he will fight tooth-and-nail to do so. He can be playful and sarcastic in his good moods, and his humor is sometimes dark enough to come across as hostile, even when he's not intending to use it as a taunt. His jokes are hit or miss as he was born blessed with no real sense of imagination. This lack of imagination can make him seem ridiculous at times. Since he was raised with American action movies when he was a child and movies of all kinds as an adult he is prone to falling back on cheesy one liners when he's trying to sound intimidating.

All in all, he is a good person at his core, but a deeply troubled one.

Items on your character at canon point:

The high-frequency blade and its scabbard, which hangs on a rotating arm attached to his back. He'll also have a Tanto, sheathed in the underside of the same scabbard, and the exotic weapon L'Étranger which is a flexible polearm that can be used in whip-like ways.

Abilities, Strengths and Weaknesses:

Raiden spent time honing his body to peak physical condition even before his conversion into a cyborg. He was incredibly agile and used acrobatics in melee combat. Because of this, when he did become a cyborg, he was able to use his new body to the full extent of its abilities.

Increased Combat Prowess: Raiden's cyborg exoskeleton was created entirely for use in combat. With it, he has superhuman levels of strength and dexterity. He can leap to the top of a building from a standing start, deflect bullets with his sword and can perform staggering feats of physical might. For example, he has the strength to lift and throw a Metal Gear RAY and to stop an Arsenal Gear (essentially a giant warship) in its tracks literally single-handed, though an Arsenal is able to power its way straight through him after several seconds.

Claws: Raiden's fingernails serve as claws when grappling. They are strong and sharp enough to gouge solid stone. He has claws on his toes as well.

Speed: Raiden can sprint faster than a car (speeds greater than 80 mph). His sustained running speed is a bit lower, however, so he still requires a vehicle for long distance travel. Sprinting, his speed combines with his ability to generate Van der Waals force with pads in his feet which allows him to scale sheer surfaces as long as he's in constant motion.

Mechanical Defenses: Being mostly a machine means not having the standard weaknesses of a normal human body. Armoring on his exoskeleton allows him to take minimal damage when hit by melee attacks or bullets. He also has synthetic blood, which has a higher oxygen carrying capacity than human blood and gives him more energy. He can, however, still bleed out.

Hijacking: Raiden can use his communication outlay to overwrite weak AIs and control machinery. This does require him to physically connect to the machine either by running his sword through the AI core or by wiring it into his spine. To have fine control over a complex machine he actually needs a support team to use him as a relay point, otherwise he cannot do more than basic movements.

Pain Suppression: Raiden has pain inhibitors. While he still has a sense of touch, he finds that even devastating blows tend to not really hurt. This means he can fight even after receiving crushing blows, getting limbs torn off, or being impaled. It is possible for a skilled cyberneticist to override this feature and turn his pain receptors back on.

Swordsmanship: Raiden is highly skilled with all kinds of edged weapons and he had this ability even before his transformation. After becoming a cyborg, his strength and agility, in combination with his high frequency blade and trained skill, allows him to slice through almost anything. The "high heels" on his feet are actually grips that he can use to catch and wield weapons when he can't do so with his hands. The high-frequency blade itself is a katana reinforced by a powerful alternating current that causes it to resonate at high frequencies. It has tremendous cutting power.

Blade Mode: "Blade Mode" is a function of his exoskeleton that allows him to enter a hyper focused state and cut something into ribbons within nanoseconds.

Augmented Reality Vision: AR allows Raiden to scan enemies and see details normally outside the visible spectrum. He can see implants, vital stats, body heat, weight, height, etc. That means AR can allow him to see through illusions and observe someone's true form. Note that "illusions" means spells or abilities designed to trick the senses. If a character shapeshifts AR will scan whatever their current physical form is. (There will be permissions for this)

There are also drawbacks to being a cyborg. Pain is something that plays a pivotal role in survival. Raiden's pain threshold is far, far above his actual damage threshold meaning it is easy for him to push himself far enough that he cannot recover. He lacks the ability to repair himself without essentially cannibalizing other cyborgs of a similar build and his wounds cannot mend naturally. If he loses too much blood his body cannot make more so he needs synthetic blood transfusions. He also relies on his molten carbonate fuel cells to perform his particularly massive feats of strength. Once his fuel cells are depleted he is more limited and cannot use the Blade Mode function. Recharging requires him to cut into an electrolyte source with his high-frequency blade. It is also worth mentioning that, while he is able to use firearms, he is much more comfortable with his sword and his body was built to take advantage of this. His fighting style relies on him being able to lock enemies into melee range. Enemies that can outpace him or use abilities foreign to his world (like magic) can kite him to death if he has no firearm with him.

His personality gives him weaknesses beyond his cybernetic drawbacks as well. He is quick to anger and is not much of a thinker. Outsmarting him is not particularly hard.