TLV Application
Sep. 14th, 2025 10:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
agardenerUser Name/Nick: Kota
User DW: waningsunflower
E-mail/Plurk/Discord/PM to a character journal/alternate method of contact:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
waningsunflower or Discord: waningsunflower
Other Characters Currently In-Game: Sheehan, Iago, Abaurycy, Istradez
Character Name: Symbiosis aka “Sym”
Series: I Was a Teenage Exocolonist
Age: Thousands of years old
From When?:Just before the final war. The humans have been on Vertumna for nine cycles.
Warden Justification: Sym's job on Vertumna was literally to ensure that different species worked together in symbiosis, hence the name. He is very concerned with maintaining balance of all things and helping things cooperate, hence he has a unique perspective on life and what that means.
Item: A bracelet.
Abilities/Powers:
Wardening Strategies and Philosophies: Being cut off from Vertumna will be a source of both fascination and crisis for Sym. He has literally never been disconnected from the source since his inception thousands of years ago. But the Barge is still full of life and wonder. There are so many different species of plants, so many different upright folks, so many four legged people, and so many living materials that he will be overwhelmed with it at first.
The Gardeners, as Sym's “people” are called, are caretakers of a planet. They are a sort of hive mind, though they have formed different jobs around the planet. Sym's specific job is creating symbiosis in the world. He ensures that the differing species are getting along, working together, and are generally in harmony with one another. He tries to be helpful and is generally sympathetic with the humans who have come to colonize his planet.
He has become far softer than his counterparts, who are more akin to what we might know as ecoterrorists. They believe in wiping out humans completely and restoring the status quo, but Sym has always been fascinated by the humans who came to Vertumna. He watched their shows, their histories, and developed a soft spot outside of the central hub of consciousness that the Gardeners share. He went against them, spoke out for the humans, and extended friendship to two in particular. He is able to make decisions on his own, to do what he feels is right, even if it means that he has to go against all of his people and face reintegration (basically AI death).
As a warden, he will be gentle and kind, though there is a large learning curve when it comes to experiences that most people, human or not, go through. He is not afraid to ask questions and he wants to learn, so he won’t dedicate too much of his time to being confused about it.
Sym will approach wardening his inmate like he approached Sol and Dys - with unshakeable curiosity as well as a desire to guide instead of lead. He can come off a little condescending (being hundreds of thousands of years old with the knowledge of almost everything will do that), but it is something he’s willing to scale back if he’s called out on it. He thinks of humans, of most mortal species, as something that has no scale, no actual sense of time. He sees most species as focused on their survival and the survival of their children, which means that they make decisions that affect maybe a hundred years or so, but he tends to think larger than that. However, he never approaches people with an attitude that he is an any way better than them - simply older and wiser.
Sym is the sort of warden who could pair well with almost anyone because everyone is just as foreign to him. However, the naivety he brings to a file and an inmate would probably not go over well on characters who are prone to manipulation, as Sym, while intelligent, isn’t used to weaving around intentions like that. He very much has a blind spot to manipulation and deceit. He understands it, but it isn’t something inherent to him.
However, he would do well even with inmates who choose violence. He is rather indestructible himself and can find ways to engage an inmate in keeping busy to keep from getting into trouble. Punishment isn’t something that he does well, though. Sym is a petty king and once turned himself into a tree for a century in order to avoid talking to another Gardener he really didn’t like. He is learning how to fix things, but he may need a guiding hand. Fortunately, he understands how to work together. This will be the first time he has ever been “alone,” and he will try and make allies and friends as quickly as possible.
It really boils down to the fact that Sym doesn’t have a concept of what a warden or inmate is. He doesn’t know jail, except for what he’s seen in movies, and the Barge isn’t anything he’s seen in movies before. They are just foreign concepts to him. For Sym, the point of being a “warden” on the Barge is the same as being a Gardener. He is there to promote symbiosis between the person he’s assigned - the inmate - and themselves. Once they’ve managed to achieve that, then that would be “graduation” for Sym. That’s the goal.
Deal: He wants the colonists to have their own new Earth to go to where they can visit Vertumna if they want but leave his planet tf alone.
History: Twenty thousand years ago, there was another race on Vertumna called the Convergent Domain. To help maintain their planet, they created the Gardeners, a race of sapient AI who could become the caretakers of the world. They essentially plugged them into the ecosystem and allowed them to control everything from the weather to the acidity of the soil. But their wild areas were shrinking. The Convergent saw the world’s resources as expendable and did not respect it, so when they dwindled, the remaining Convergent began to fight over what little was left. Their last orders to the Gardeners was to fix it, but the Convergent had choked the planet. Greenhouse gases ran rampant, the planets all died, and their people perished by the billions. So the remaining people left in colony ships and never returned. To the present day, the Gardeners feel a sense of disgust at their cowardice, feeling they should have given their bodies to the planet to nourish it instead of fleeing.
For millennia, the Gardeners began to try and restore the planet. Sym’s job was simple - he was the one who was in charge of ensuring that the different species all got along with each other in, yes, symbiosis. When humans arrived to colonize the planet, Sym was, of course, intrigued. For nine years, the humans tried to take over the planet instead of live with it. The Gardeners began to actively fight against them, sending aggressive fauna into their colony to try and wipe them out. While Sym was always against this, he also was fiercely loyal to his planet and knew that something had to change.
Sym tried to help encourage the humans, even befriending two of the humans - Dys and Sol.
And, by the fifth year, there was a point in his friendship with Dys where Sym changed. He became different from the other Gardeners. He was less angry, less violent. All he knew was peace and patience. He tried to help them without getting too involved (which would trigger him getting in “trouble” with his boss) and even helped to facilitate a sort of peace between them that would allow the humans to live on Vertumna in a sort of “human sanctuary.” The Gardeners would take care of them and the humans wouldn’t try and expand. They would be carefully monitored, down to their very numbers.
Sym knows that the humans won’t like this. Sol has said as much. That’s where he made his deal with the Admiral. He wants to give the humans a third option and then the Gardeners can continue their lives on Vertumna and the humans can live, but go elsewhere, somewhere less hostile for them.
Sample Network Entry/Sample RP:
TDM
Special Notes: He will come in with a little vriki as a “pet.” They are a tentacled creature that do no harm, but it will help keep him grounded to Vertumna. They are essentially the same and he will be able to see through it and influence it.
User DW: waningsunflower
E-mail/Plurk/Discord/PM to a character journal/alternate method of contact:
Other Characters Currently In-Game: Sheehan, Iago, Abaurycy, Istradez
Character Name: Symbiosis aka “Sym”
Series: I Was a Teenage Exocolonist
Age: Thousands of years old
From When?:Just before the final war. The humans have been on Vertumna for nine cycles.
Warden Justification: Sym's job on Vertumna was literally to ensure that different species worked together in symbiosis, hence the name. He is very concerned with maintaining balance of all things and helping things cooperate, hence he has a unique perspective on life and what that means.
Item: A bracelet.
Abilities/Powers:
Processing
Sym is an incredibly sophisticated sentient AI. He can process infinite data points simultaneously and has been shown to be able to take different technologies from other planets and integrate them seamlessly into his awareness.
Physical body
The body he possesses can be destroyed, but his consciousness is stored in a central computer and his body created from materials in a vat. He can also use that vat to create new forms for himself - literally anything he can imagine.
The material he creates his body out of comes from the planet. On the Barge, if his body is destroyed and cannot be returned to the vat, then the Admiral has to restore that material and he will get that new material for a body, but he has to suffer the Death Toll. Something something something conservation of matter. Additionally, if something happens to destroy the central hub in his cabin, that’s a full out Death Toll, too.
He heals only as well as a human and can feel pain, but his vat will heal him much faster if he can get to it while injured. He also exists in his digital form and anyone is able to interface with him directly if they get access to the “computer.”
If someone accesses his vat or computer when he is out and about, they can and will experience the world through his consciousness, senses included. Like accessing a drone only you become the drone.
Ecosystem
He is able to encourage plants to grow and can influence animals. On the Barge, I will extend this to non-sentient plants and NPC animals. (Pets only with ooc permission from the owner's player, obviously.) The Barge isn't Vertumna, after all.
Wardening Strategies and Philosophies: Being cut off from Vertumna will be a source of both fascination and crisis for Sym. He has literally never been disconnected from the source since his inception thousands of years ago. But the Barge is still full of life and wonder. There are so many different species of plants, so many different upright folks, so many four legged people, and so many living materials that he will be overwhelmed with it at first.
The Gardeners, as Sym's “people” are called, are caretakers of a planet. They are a sort of hive mind, though they have formed different jobs around the planet. Sym's specific job is creating symbiosis in the world. He ensures that the differing species are getting along, working together, and are generally in harmony with one another. He tries to be helpful and is generally sympathetic with the humans who have come to colonize his planet.
He has become far softer than his counterparts, who are more akin to what we might know as ecoterrorists. They believe in wiping out humans completely and restoring the status quo, but Sym has always been fascinated by the humans who came to Vertumna. He watched their shows, their histories, and developed a soft spot outside of the central hub of consciousness that the Gardeners share. He went against them, spoke out for the humans, and extended friendship to two in particular. He is able to make decisions on his own, to do what he feels is right, even if it means that he has to go against all of his people and face reintegration (basically AI death).
As a warden, he will be gentle and kind, though there is a large learning curve when it comes to experiences that most people, human or not, go through. He is not afraid to ask questions and he wants to learn, so he won’t dedicate too much of his time to being confused about it.
Sym will approach wardening his inmate like he approached Sol and Dys - with unshakeable curiosity as well as a desire to guide instead of lead. He can come off a little condescending (being hundreds of thousands of years old with the knowledge of almost everything will do that), but it is something he’s willing to scale back if he’s called out on it. He thinks of humans, of most mortal species, as something that has no scale, no actual sense of time. He sees most species as focused on their survival and the survival of their children, which means that they make decisions that affect maybe a hundred years or so, but he tends to think larger than that. However, he never approaches people with an attitude that he is an any way better than them - simply older and wiser.
Sym is the sort of warden who could pair well with almost anyone because everyone is just as foreign to him. However, the naivety he brings to a file and an inmate would probably not go over well on characters who are prone to manipulation, as Sym, while intelligent, isn’t used to weaving around intentions like that. He very much has a blind spot to manipulation and deceit. He understands it, but it isn’t something inherent to him.
However, he would do well even with inmates who choose violence. He is rather indestructible himself and can find ways to engage an inmate in keeping busy to keep from getting into trouble. Punishment isn’t something that he does well, though. Sym is a petty king and once turned himself into a tree for a century in order to avoid talking to another Gardener he really didn’t like. He is learning how to fix things, but he may need a guiding hand. Fortunately, he understands how to work together. This will be the first time he has ever been “alone,” and he will try and make allies and friends as quickly as possible.
It really boils down to the fact that Sym doesn’t have a concept of what a warden or inmate is. He doesn’t know jail, except for what he’s seen in movies, and the Barge isn’t anything he’s seen in movies before. They are just foreign concepts to him. For Sym, the point of being a “warden” on the Barge is the same as being a Gardener. He is there to promote symbiosis between the person he’s assigned - the inmate - and themselves. Once they’ve managed to achieve that, then that would be “graduation” for Sym. That’s the goal.
Deal: He wants the colonists to have their own new Earth to go to where they can visit Vertumna if they want but leave his planet tf alone.
History: Twenty thousand years ago, there was another race on Vertumna called the Convergent Domain. To help maintain their planet, they created the Gardeners, a race of sapient AI who could become the caretakers of the world. They essentially plugged them into the ecosystem and allowed them to control everything from the weather to the acidity of the soil. But their wild areas were shrinking. The Convergent saw the world’s resources as expendable and did not respect it, so when they dwindled, the remaining Convergent began to fight over what little was left. Their last orders to the Gardeners was to fix it, but the Convergent had choked the planet. Greenhouse gases ran rampant, the planets all died, and their people perished by the billions. So the remaining people left in colony ships and never returned. To the present day, the Gardeners feel a sense of disgust at their cowardice, feeling they should have given their bodies to the planet to nourish it instead of fleeing.
For millennia, the Gardeners began to try and restore the planet. Sym’s job was simple - he was the one who was in charge of ensuring that the different species all got along with each other in, yes, symbiosis. When humans arrived to colonize the planet, Sym was, of course, intrigued. For nine years, the humans tried to take over the planet instead of live with it. The Gardeners began to actively fight against them, sending aggressive fauna into their colony to try and wipe them out. While Sym was always against this, he also was fiercely loyal to his planet and knew that something had to change.
Sym tried to help encourage the humans, even befriending two of the humans - Dys and Sol.
And, by the fifth year, there was a point in his friendship with Dys where Sym changed. He became different from the other Gardeners. He was less angry, less violent. All he knew was peace and patience. He tried to help them without getting too involved (which would trigger him getting in “trouble” with his boss) and even helped to facilitate a sort of peace between them that would allow the humans to live on Vertumna in a sort of “human sanctuary.” The Gardeners would take care of them and the humans wouldn’t try and expand. They would be carefully monitored, down to their very numbers.
Sym knows that the humans won’t like this. Sol has said as much. That’s where he made his deal with the Admiral. He wants to give the humans a third option and then the Gardeners can continue their lives on Vertumna and the humans can live, but go elsewhere, somewhere less hostile for them.
Sample Network Entry/Sample RP:
TDM
Special Notes: He will come in with a little vriki as a “pet.” They are a tentacled creature that do no harm, but it will help keep him grounded to Vertumna. They are essentially the same and he will be able to see through it and influence it.
