Characters/Argent

Argent claim to be a pack of otter-like predators known as the Volk. They also claim to be a video-game simulation, and a bootleg copy of a documentary about the Volk. The individual pack members are brighter than dogs and vocal as parrots, but not as smart as chimps or dolphins. When enough of the pack is awake and together they form a group mind named Argent.

Background

Argent's current members were mostly born in an orbital habitat in the Volk home system, a long time ago in a universe far far away. The youngest members were born on a sublight ramship voyage to the nearest star, a voyage that was never completed. A few years in the ship was boarded by an entity Argent refer to as the Anomaly, who may have been Puzzlebox or an avatar of Puzzlebox. The Anomaly made copies of the Volk it came across, with their permission, and has recreated Argent (at least) in the Mess.

Home

Argent's home is in Downwarp, or maybe it's accessed through Downwarp. From Downwarp, climb the steel staircase to the end of the Ballard Freeway. Among the piles of junked vehicles, ships, and spacecraft is a part of an old pre-FTL ramship. Enter the hatch, and find yourself (apparently) in a still functional slower-than-light starship from the dawn of time, so primitive it doesn't even have artificial gravity or replicators. This is a longshot... a shuttle ramship carrying four habitats from the Volk home system to the Singleton star, several thousand years before Puzzlebox reached this part of the galaxy. Or else it's a simulation Puzzlebox created to make the pack feel at home.

Relationships

• Flyte has been attempting to learn the modern Volk language by creating a subset simulation of a Volk member in one of Flyte's minds, a scheme that disturbed Argent greatly. Nevertheless, the pack find Flyte's own specialised kind of group mind a comforting presence and have forgiven the flyer.

• Materi has been approaching the same problem by running simulations of Volk computers and attempting to communicate with them. Stealing the pattern of a Volk processor module did establish that the Longshot *is* made of normal matter.

• Besax and #PLACEHOLDER# were the first two characters Argent ran into, and from the way they were behaving at the time the pack assumed they were a two-member group mind like the Volk. This lead to a variety of confusing sequences until it was resolved. Argent considers Besax an active threat, and the pack will flee and even scatter rather than remain near "The Besax Entity".

Faction

• One would expect the pack to associate with Plurals, but they consider that to be a bit too much typecasting. They're still pondering whether they should join anything, while they work on breeding more Volk so they won't be a lone pack any more.

Comments

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