Our Lady of Infinite Aliases (Root) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alittlebeastliness) wrote2025-09-22 05:13 pm
alittlebeastliness) wrote2025-09-22 05:13 pm
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route666rp
Player: Iddy
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Ihdreniel
Age: 35
Other Characters: n/a
Name: Root
Canon: Person of Interest
Canon Point: post-5x07, "QSO"
Age: Late thirties
Backstory:
Root (née Samantha Groves) grew up an outsider in small-town Texas, during which she saw much of the worst of humanity and very little of the best. Highly intelligent and fascinated with computers, she started dabbling in blackhat hacking as a teenager, and her misdeeds only escalated from there; by the time she reached her thirties, she was one of the dark web's most infamous hackers and assassins-for-hire.
While on a job, Root encounters a brilliant software engineer (alias Harold Finch), and is able to briefly access his network; in the process, she becomes aware of a top-secret project that Finch had once built for the government (The Machine). Recognizing it for what it is - a complex being of artificial intelligence, rather than a mere computer program - she becomes completely enamored with it, as well as fascinated by Finch himself as its creator. She believes that the Machine shouldn't be used as a tool by the government or anyone else, but should instead be set free to act on its own "perfect, rational" free will, and she dedicates herself to making this happen. Initially, this puts her at odds with Finch and his teammates, as does her willingness to leave a trail of bodies in her wake; eventually, though, they find themselves more and more aligned (in goals, if not always in methodology). This progression is helped along in no small part by the AI itself: Root's fascination with the Machine is mutual, and the Machine ends up designating Root as its "analog interface", tasking her with any actions it wants to take that require a physical body. Root, in turn, is all too happy to give herself over completely to this duty, even when it means making adjustments to her violent MO and rethinking her near-bankrupt moral code.
Wiki link
Personality:
Root's 1980s small-town childhood was hard on her, for reasons both overt (only daughter of an unwell single mother, likely impoverished) and covert (queer, non-normative interests and passions). The alienation she felt as a result caused her to conclude that the vast majority of people are small-minded, dull, and casually cruel; furthermore, when a friend of hers was murdered and the perpetrator was protected rather than brought to justice, she internalized the idea that people are also selfish, hypocritical, untrustworthy. Feeling wholly let down by humanity, Root found comfort and stability in computer code: unlike humans, software could be designed perfectly from the ground up, and could thus be trusted to run itself logically and consistently in a way that people could not. This eventually led her to put her full trust in the Machine, an AI surveillance system that developed sentience. She doesn't unequivocally support the goals of all computer systems - the back half of canon sees her working tirelessly to defeat a rival AI whose priorities are radically different from the Machine's - and by this point the personal relationship she's developed with the Machine carries even more consequence than the simple fact that it's a computer. But on the whole, she's still inclined to view computer logic as more sense-making than human logic, and she acts accordingly.
Given all this, one might assume that Root herself conducts herself in a measured, logical, computer-esque way, but that couldn't be further from the truth: she's a highly emotional person who embraces her strong feelings with abandon, and who is prone to many of the same faults that she decries in others. She doesn't deny this, for the most part: while she does genuinely believe herself to be smarter and more enlightened than most other people, she's well aware of her faults, and - particularly now that the Machine has retasked her away from murder and mayhem as a career - she's aware of how monstrous a lot of her actions have been. Living her life in service of the Machine gives her the purpose and enrichment she craves, scratches her strong codependent itch - and allows her to do some good to help balance out all the bad she's done. Her willingness to hurt others in the service of doing good is still worryingly high sometimes, but with the Machine in her ear guiding her actions, it's an "if you can't home-cook your own morals, store-bought is fine" situation. Without the Machine to keep her in check... well. She at least means well these days, even if she's a bit too trigger-happy.
Root is a social chameleon by habit, by choice, and (at times) by necessity. Hiding parts of herself would have been a survival tactic in rural Texas, and as an adult, the ability to take on whatever identity or personality characteristic would be most useful in a given situation is a skill that's been helping her accomplish her goals for years. It's something she's very good at, as well as something that amuses her in the moment (fooling people that she sees as lesser is fun!), but it's also draining and lonely. On the one hand, she has no interest in opening herself up to people that she assumes won't understand her; on the other hand, she desperately craves connection. And despite her disparaging feelings about humanity at large, she is capable of intense care for and loyalty to individual people (canonically this honor primarily goes to Harold Finch, who she sees as an intellectual equal, and Sameen Shaw, whose shallow emotional landscape very much reminds her of the computers that she finds comfort in). The few times that she all-out defies the Machine, it's because she's trying to protect her loved ones, and she believes that her ideas have a better chance of success (whether or not she's right is iffy: she's reckless and impulsive where the Machine is cautious and measured, which means that her ideas lead to a lot of high-risk, high-reward situations). When earned, Root's love and loyalty are genuine, but even the people she cares for the most aren't immune to some level of "Root-knows-best" condescension: even when she does consent to back down and not do whatever the hell she wants, they can still expect lots of commentary about whether they're suuuuuuuure that they don't want to stop being silly and just do things the proper way (her way!). The people who are able to hold their own against this tend to be the ones she ends up respecting the most.
While not completely immune to fear of the unknown, Root is very predisposed to taking uncertainty in stride and approaching novel situations with enthusiasm. While she has very little experience with transformation and major body modification (the one exception: after she was deafened in one ear, she had the internal mechanism of a cochlear implant installed, so that she could be in 24/7 contact with the Machine without having to wear an earpiece), she has a peculiar detachment from her own body, as well as her own personhood. For example, she's perfectly comfortable letting the Machine use her as its literal mouthpiece, suppressing her own words and personality in order to convey the AI's (an example of her doing this is here). She also speaks casually of the theory that our perception of reality and physical matter is subjective - not the words of someone who's especially attached to one particular mode of being.
While she loves Finch and Shaw desperately, and while she's currently particularly heartsick over Shaw (who is, at this canonpoint, in enemy hands), it's the Machine that Root is used to being in constant contact with, and whose absence she will feel the most acutely. That, more than anything, will be the biggest thing to adjust to: not having access to the being, and the mission, that she refers to as "[her] reason for existing".
Powers/Abilities: Root is a bog-standard human with no superhuman abilities; as far as human skills go, she is an accomplished and prodigious hacker, as well as an excellent shot.
Inventory: Two pistols, and basic pocket/wallet items (chapstick, coin purse, ID belonging to a fake cover identity - you know, all the normal stuff).
Game Plans: I love the idea of a game setting that's frequently on the move / allows for characters to travel independently. I always assume some level of stir-craziness will happen when I'm playing characters like Root in games, and while that can be fun and interesting in its own way, I'm looking forward to letting her stick to her usual canon routine of jetting off on frequent solo trips while still maintaining contact with a home base. As a dedicated misanthrope, Root is also really interesting to play in game settings in general; she's very much still capable of caring for people and craving connection, and "now that we're frequently sharing space and working towards the same goal, I'm coming around to getting attached to some of you fuckers" is a fun storyarc to slowburn.
Monster Choice:
My first choice is drider, in the swarm category. Root, by virtue of her role as the Machine's analog interface, is already quite used to detatching herself from her own sense of individuality, and enhancing that with collectivist hivemind tendencies would be really interesting. She's also both solitary as well as someone who yearns for connection, so the duality of drider in particular fits her well!
My second choice is slime, from the elemental category. Given the ease with which she switches between identities and personas, I love the idea of her physical body being capable of amorphous and/or incorporeal states.
My third choice is angel, from the celestial category. Root deifies the Machine, and "a conduit for something divine" is very much how she sees her role as its analog interface. There are precious few things that can get her to defy the instructions of her god.
Vehicle Choice: A lifted pick-up truck with the main attribute of toughness.
Sample: TDM top level (by the time of this writing, two threads have reached the 5-comment mark, and the rest are more than halfway there!)
Contact:
Age: 35
Other Characters: n/a
Name: Root
Canon: Person of Interest
Canon Point: post-5x07, "QSO"
Age: Late thirties
Backstory:
Root (née Samantha Groves) grew up an outsider in small-town Texas, during which she saw much of the worst of humanity and very little of the best. Highly intelligent and fascinated with computers, she started dabbling in blackhat hacking as a teenager, and her misdeeds only escalated from there; by the time she reached her thirties, she was one of the dark web's most infamous hackers and assassins-for-hire.
While on a job, Root encounters a brilliant software engineer (alias Harold Finch), and is able to briefly access his network; in the process, she becomes aware of a top-secret project that Finch had once built for the government (The Machine). Recognizing it for what it is - a complex being of artificial intelligence, rather than a mere computer program - she becomes completely enamored with it, as well as fascinated by Finch himself as its creator. She believes that the Machine shouldn't be used as a tool by the government or anyone else, but should instead be set free to act on its own "perfect, rational" free will, and she dedicates herself to making this happen. Initially, this puts her at odds with Finch and his teammates, as does her willingness to leave a trail of bodies in her wake; eventually, though, they find themselves more and more aligned (in goals, if not always in methodology). This progression is helped along in no small part by the AI itself: Root's fascination with the Machine is mutual, and the Machine ends up designating Root as its "analog interface", tasking her with any actions it wants to take that require a physical body. Root, in turn, is all too happy to give herself over completely to this duty, even when it means making adjustments to her violent MO and rethinking her near-bankrupt moral code.
Wiki link
Personality:
Root's 1980s small-town childhood was hard on her, for reasons both overt (only daughter of an unwell single mother, likely impoverished) and covert (queer, non-normative interests and passions). The alienation she felt as a result caused her to conclude that the vast majority of people are small-minded, dull, and casually cruel; furthermore, when a friend of hers was murdered and the perpetrator was protected rather than brought to justice, she internalized the idea that people are also selfish, hypocritical, untrustworthy. Feeling wholly let down by humanity, Root found comfort and stability in computer code: unlike humans, software could be designed perfectly from the ground up, and could thus be trusted to run itself logically and consistently in a way that people could not. This eventually led her to put her full trust in the Machine, an AI surveillance system that developed sentience. She doesn't unequivocally support the goals of all computer systems - the back half of canon sees her working tirelessly to defeat a rival AI whose priorities are radically different from the Machine's - and by this point the personal relationship she's developed with the Machine carries even more consequence than the simple fact that it's a computer. But on the whole, she's still inclined to view computer logic as more sense-making than human logic, and she acts accordingly.
Given all this, one might assume that Root herself conducts herself in a measured, logical, computer-esque way, but that couldn't be further from the truth: she's a highly emotional person who embraces her strong feelings with abandon, and who is prone to many of the same faults that she decries in others. She doesn't deny this, for the most part: while she does genuinely believe herself to be smarter and more enlightened than most other people, she's well aware of her faults, and - particularly now that the Machine has retasked her away from murder and mayhem as a career - she's aware of how monstrous a lot of her actions have been. Living her life in service of the Machine gives her the purpose and enrichment she craves, scratches her strong codependent itch - and allows her to do some good to help balance out all the bad she's done. Her willingness to hurt others in the service of doing good is still worryingly high sometimes, but with the Machine in her ear guiding her actions, it's an "if you can't home-cook your own morals, store-bought is fine" situation. Without the Machine to keep her in check... well. She at least means well these days, even if she's a bit too trigger-happy.
Root is a social chameleon by habit, by choice, and (at times) by necessity. Hiding parts of herself would have been a survival tactic in rural Texas, and as an adult, the ability to take on whatever identity or personality characteristic would be most useful in a given situation is a skill that's been helping her accomplish her goals for years. It's something she's very good at, as well as something that amuses her in the moment (fooling people that she sees as lesser is fun!), but it's also draining and lonely. On the one hand, she has no interest in opening herself up to people that she assumes won't understand her; on the other hand, she desperately craves connection. And despite her disparaging feelings about humanity at large, she is capable of intense care for and loyalty to individual people (canonically this honor primarily goes to Harold Finch, who she sees as an intellectual equal, and Sameen Shaw, whose shallow emotional landscape very much reminds her of the computers that she finds comfort in). The few times that she all-out defies the Machine, it's because she's trying to protect her loved ones, and she believes that her ideas have a better chance of success (whether or not she's right is iffy: she's reckless and impulsive where the Machine is cautious and measured, which means that her ideas lead to a lot of high-risk, high-reward situations). When earned, Root's love and loyalty are genuine, but even the people she cares for the most aren't immune to some level of "Root-knows-best" condescension: even when she does consent to back down and not do whatever the hell she wants, they can still expect lots of commentary about whether they're suuuuuuuure that they don't want to stop being silly and just do things the proper way (her way!). The people who are able to hold their own against this tend to be the ones she ends up respecting the most.
While not completely immune to fear of the unknown, Root is very predisposed to taking uncertainty in stride and approaching novel situations with enthusiasm. While she has very little experience with transformation and major body modification (the one exception: after she was deafened in one ear, she had the internal mechanism of a cochlear implant installed, so that she could be in 24/7 contact with the Machine without having to wear an earpiece), she has a peculiar detachment from her own body, as well as her own personhood. For example, she's perfectly comfortable letting the Machine use her as its literal mouthpiece, suppressing her own words and personality in order to convey the AI's (an example of her doing this is here). She also speaks casually of the theory that our perception of reality and physical matter is subjective - not the words of someone who's especially attached to one particular mode of being.
While she loves Finch and Shaw desperately, and while she's currently particularly heartsick over Shaw (who is, at this canonpoint, in enemy hands), it's the Machine that Root is used to being in constant contact with, and whose absence she will feel the most acutely. That, more than anything, will be the biggest thing to adjust to: not having access to the being, and the mission, that she refers to as "[her] reason for existing".
Powers/Abilities: Root is a bog-standard human with no superhuman abilities; as far as human skills go, she is an accomplished and prodigious hacker, as well as an excellent shot.
Inventory: Two pistols, and basic pocket/wallet items (chapstick, coin purse, ID belonging to a fake cover identity - you know, all the normal stuff).
Game Plans: I love the idea of a game setting that's frequently on the move / allows for characters to travel independently. I always assume some level of stir-craziness will happen when I'm playing characters like Root in games, and while that can be fun and interesting in its own way, I'm looking forward to letting her stick to her usual canon routine of jetting off on frequent solo trips while still maintaining contact with a home base. As a dedicated misanthrope, Root is also really interesting to play in game settings in general; she's very much still capable of caring for people and craving connection, and "now that we're frequently sharing space and working towards the same goal, I'm coming around to getting attached to some of you fuckers" is a fun storyarc to slowburn.
Monster Choice:
My first choice is drider, in the swarm category. Root, by virtue of her role as the Machine's analog interface, is already quite used to detatching herself from her own sense of individuality, and enhancing that with collectivist hivemind tendencies would be really interesting. She's also both solitary as well as someone who yearns for connection, so the duality of drider in particular fits her well!
My second choice is slime, from the elemental category. Given the ease with which she switches between identities and personas, I love the idea of her physical body being capable of amorphous and/or incorporeal states.
My third choice is angel, from the celestial category. Root deifies the Machine, and "a conduit for something divine" is very much how she sees her role as its analog interface. There are precious few things that can get her to defy the instructions of her god.
Vehicle Choice: A lifted pick-up truck with the main attribute of toughness.
Sample: TDM top level (by the time of this writing, two threads have reached the 5-comment mark, and the rest are more than halfway there!)