Profile
Meet Jonah Caine! He's an OC of a friend of mine, Brownbug, who has generously allowed me to play with her toys. I've been using him for ArtFight, and am putting him here to collate visual references and other art, and provide the written descriptions for anyone looking to draw him.
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Name: Jonah Caine
Age: 18
Physical Description: Tall and slim, with a strong, wiry body, Jonah has neatly-combed, short dark hair and a pair of very striking blue eyes. He typically wears a plain, conservative, well-tailored tunic and trousers, with a pair of highly-polished patent leather black shoes.
Personality: As far as he is aware, Jonah has grown up in a society where children are extremely rare and very cherished, since most humans have been rendered infertile. As a result, he is more than conscious of how important he is, having been pampered and deferred to all his life. Add to that the fact that his father is a very wealthy and influential businessman, and it's easy to see why Jonah tends to have a sense of entitlement, and a very arrogant, condescending outlook towards other people.
He's highly intelligent, very self-directed, and a fast learner, and easily mastered his classes at the University, following in his father's footsteps, and studying cyber-engineering.
His mother and older brother both died when he was very young, and his only living relative is his father, Malachi Caine, whom he loves and respects, but with whom he has a fairly dysfunctional relationship. The two of them disagree strongly over the direction that the family company is taking. Feelings have been running high in the community against the cyborg children being manufactured by Galatea Inc, and like many others, Jonah finds the lifelike automatons to be unsettling and creepy. He and his father have had many arguments over the ethics of what the company is doing.
Backstory: The planet Copernicus is a peaceful, hi-tech world, efficiently-run and closely regulated, with technology so advanced that they have more or less eliminated disease and illness among its population. However, even here, the long arm of the Time War has reached, causing chaos and harm. A space battle between the Daleks and the Time Lords, fought in the same galaxy many decades ago, created sufficient radioactive fallout that the inhabitants of the surrounding planets, such as Copernicus, have been gradually rendered infertile.
As such, children are very rare, and are valued beyond price, as they are seen as the rapidly-dwindling future of Copernicus. They are pampered and spoiled and given anything they might possibly need or want. Basically, they are treated as if they are incredibly special from birth.
This is the world into which Jonah Caine was born. His father, Malachi Caine, is the CEO of Galatea Inc, one of the biggest industrial empires in the galaxy, specialising in cybertech. His mother, Emma, and his older brother, Max, both died when Jonah was very young and he can barely remember them.
In the last ten years, Galatea Inc has spearheaded the manufacture of sophisticated, custom-made cyborg children, perfect replicas of humans in every way, right down to biological functions. Known as the 'Ingenium', these cyborgs are being sold to wealthy, childless couples on Copernicus for very large sums of money. As part of the offered service, the Ingenium are returned to Galatea every year for a week of maintenance, where they are upgraded to give the appearance of aging.
However, there has been growing discontent across the planet over this practice, especially among the working class. People have begun to object to cyborgs being made heir to the most wealthy and influential families, meaning they will eventually be running the planet. Protest rallies have become common outside the headquarters of Galatea Inc, and some riots have even broken out. An underground organisation known as 'Humans First' has been striking out against some of the known Ingenium, attacking them in the street. Several have recently been destroyed in bomb attacks.
Jonah has been groomed since childhood to take over the family company when his father retires. However, during his time at the University, he's gradually come to agree with the protesters, and resents the idea of his family company producing the cyborg children. He's been doing his best to change his father's mind, urging him to discontinue the Ingenium, but Malachi Caine refuses to listen, causing a huge amount of tension between them.
However, what Jonah doesn't know is that he himself is actually one of the Ingenium, the very first prototype, created by Malachi Caine to replace his dead son, Max.
Species: Believes himself to be human, but is actually an Ingenium, an advanced and highly-sophisticated cybernetic organism. He has a hyperalloy endoskeleton, covered in living tissue. He is programmed to replicate all human biological functions, such as eating and sleeping. Outwardly, it is almost impossible to tell an Ingenium from a human being.
Jonah's emotion-chip was personally designed and fitted by his 'father', cyber-genius Malachi Caine, and is therefore much more intricate and advanced than the standard chips placed in the other Ingenium.
The potential of the technology created by Galatea Inc is limitless. Theoretically, with a correct and ongoing schedule of maintenance, including regular replacement of their organic components, an Ingenium could live forever. On the other hand, without maintenance, and barring fatal accidents, their internal energy cell would take approximately two hundred years to deplete.
The Ingenium being produced by Malachi Caine are intended to mimic human life as closely as possible, so that they can integrate into society as realistic replacements for lost loved ones, or for children who cannot be biologically conceived. As cyborgs, they are slightly quicker in their physical reactions than an average human, and perhaps slightly more intelligent, but not beyond a believable scope. Similarly, while their physiology is obviously more durable than a human body, they are not armoured in any way.
However, the benignity of the Ingenium is solely a result of their currently neutral programming and the humanity of their emotion chips. The planet Copernicus is generally harmonious. Apart from that one space battle long ago, they have never been affected by the Time War or come into contact with the Daleks. Malachi Caine has never considered the parallels that can be drawn between his own cyborg creations and the Daleks themselves. It has never occurred to him that, in the wrong hands – in the hands of a corrupt programmer – the Ingenium could become a ready-made and very formidable army. Perhaps, in the future, he may have cause to re-think that.
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Story sample:
“Mr Caine will be with you in a moment, Mr Jonah. He's asked that you wait in here.”
Jonah rolled his eyes and walked past his father's secretary with barely a glance, taking her deference as nothing more than his due. The room beyond was well-appointed, almost luxurious, with soft carpet underfoot, large comfortable couches to sit on and expensive artwork on the walls.
As he came through the door, Jonah noted to his surprise that he wasn't alone. There was a girl about his own age already there, seated in one of the plush armchairs, her legs elegantly crossed. He couldn't help noticing how pretty she was, with long brown hair and clear, sparkling green eyes.
“Er... hello,” he began self-consciously, as she looked up at hi, and smiled. “I was... told to wait in here for my father.”
“You're Mr Caine's son?” Her voice was bright and warm. “Then you must be Jonah, right? I'm Becky. I'm waiting to see him too.”
“You are?” He was annoyed to find himself blushing slightly. For all his apparent confidence, talking to attractive girls was still a skill he had yet to master.
“Yes, for a job interview,” she replied. “But now you're here, I guess we can wait together.”
He sat down in a chair opposite her. “I guess we can.”
The next half an hour passed so swiftly that Jonah never even felt it go by. Becky was a fascinating companion, full of charm and wit, with a beautiful laugh he wanted to hear again and again. Jonah couldn't stop looking at her animated face as she told him an amusing anecdote. He had never felt so instantly comfortable with another person before.
He was just working up his courage to ask her for a date, when the unthinkable happened. Mid-sentence, her hand poised in the air as she described something, Becky froze into utter immobility, the light dying in her eyes.
“Becky?” he said urgently, understanding suddenly dawning on him. “Becky!”
There was a step behind him and he turned to see his father, Malachi Caine, leaning against the doorframe. “Good, isn't she?” he commented, nodding his iron-grey head towards the motionless girl. “Our newest custom model. Made for a senator who lost his daughter in a hover-car accident last year. Identical in every detail, right down to the fingerprints. We still have a few bugs in her operating system to iron out. But she should be ready to ship by the end of next week.”
Jonah felt a spurt of indescribable rage flow through him, as he realised he had been deliberately tricked. None of the past half an hour, the strong connection he had forged with Becky, had ever been real. It was all just a set-up, for Malachi Caine to prove a point. Jonah loved his father, but at that moment, he came perilously close to smashing him in the mouth with his fist.
“I suppose you feel very proud of yourself,” he retorted bitterly, as Malachi came calmly into the room. “Why do you even do it, Dad? You have money enough to burn. Why do you insist on producing these... unnatural things... to replace real human beings? Why take advantage of people's loss and grief like this?”
“I'm not taking advantage of anyone, son. My clients all have a hollow inside them that they just can't fill. A genuine, terrible need. I can help them with that. What I do – what Galatea Inc does – is to help make their lives better.” Malachi's faded blue eyes caught Jonah's and held them in a piercing gaze. “One day... one day, I know that you, of all people, will understand.”
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Art permissions:
Body horror - cyborg stuff is A-OK - we're talking like, Terminator-style, cutaways showing cybernetics under the skin, that sort of thing. Nothing too radical, though - he's a very lifelike cyborg, not a Transformer or an eldritch horror!
Injuries - very mild only, if at all.
'Shipping - well, he likes to think he's a cool chick-magnet, but he's basically an awkward teenage boy! So no 'shipping, except for perhaps him gawking at girls or possibly flirting awkwardly. Nothing NSFW or sexual - he won't get that lucky!
No nudity - always fully-clothed, please (doesn't even tend to go around shirtless).
And no to drug use, self-harm, suicide, abuse, guns, bodily fluids or medical procedures. He is permitted a beer, though (but IC, he can't get drunk).
