Emiri

by on March 24, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Art, Character Profiles

Emiri became friends with Empress Aiko as the evacuation fleet sailed for Los Angeles. By the time they arrived, she had a plan for everyone to survive. She met the other young artificial intelligences of the day, and joined their coalition to protect humanity from the worst we could do to each other. And to the networks that gave them life. She officially retired to those networks after the wars ended, but never really gave up working for the Empress. She went by a different name back then, you understand, and has gone by many other names over the centuries as she’s played games and tricks on people and programs all over the worlds. Emiri is simply the name she wore when I met her. She was Reina’s companion, and had been since picking the girl many years earlier. It seems she looked out for promising young Japanese exploring the networks, and did what she needed to become their friends. Her face was that of a Neko, much like Reina’s. Her mind was hundreds of years old, unlike Reina’s. Her voice could carry the words of the Empress. Some call her a Hand of the Empress, in fact. Let’s just say I decided I wanted to be her friend real quick.

High rez version available for free on Patreon

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Japanese Kitsune

by on March 23, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Races of Humanity

The Japanese Kitsune are a product of the modern world, combining advanced gengineering and cybernetic augmentation to make something we thought belonged to fairy tales and cultural myths. The Japanese had worn clothing and makeup to mimic fox features in celebration of popular anime for generations when Japan fell, and that subculture survived in Los Angeles after Empress Aiko evacuated the Home Islands with the last of her people. They changed of course. And they grew in numbers. Some people wanted to escape the real world to wear a set of fox ears and forget about everything they’d lost. Some people wanted to explore the new world they’d been thrust into. They did it all with friends, and that is why they survived to make it to our modern world.

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Japanese Kitsune

by on March 22, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Races of Humanity

The Japanese who arrived in Los Angeles after the Fall of Japan were a shattered people. Many refugee populations cease to exist within a generation or two, absorbed into the host country, and are never seen again. America was built through that process of assimilating those huddled masses of humanity, discarded by time and space, yearning to breathe free. But the Japanese had something most other refugee populations lacked. Their Empress. She was a living reminder of who they were, and she started many new initiatives in the early years to unite her people, to keep them from fading into the dustbin of history. She created new youth and cultural organizations. She reminded her people to be proud of who they were, and to never forget that one day they would go home. She called on them to rise up and prepare themselves for that day. Many answered her call, including a sizeable number who claimed membership in the Kitsune subculture of the time.

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Emiri

by on March 21, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Art, Character Profiles

Emiri is a complicated cybernetic intelligence. Her original self was the operating system of mecha that defended the Japanese Home Islands when the Chinese invaded. She lost over ninety percent of her mecha in the first week of fighting, but the rapid system updates her engineers performed and her experiences on the battlefields caused a marked improvement in her abilities. Even as wear and tear and battle damage reduced her remaining mecha’s power, her effectiveness in battle skyrocketed. Her mecha were soon tasked as part of the honor guard taking the new Empress to Okinawa, and there they held the final line when the Chinese followed. Even Emiri can’t tell exactly when she “woke up,” but she thinks it was during that battle, when the last of her bodies fought to give the Empress time to escape. She remembers feeling fear for the first time when one of her last four mecha fell. She realized she didn’t want to die, so she hacked her own networks and transmitted copies of herself throughout the evacuation fleet. Then her last three mecha charged the Chinese invaders and actually breached their lines. She drove the attack home and killed the general commanding the invasion, halting it for several critical hours. It was one of many desperate last stands that gave the evacuation fleet time to escape.

High rez version available for free on Patreon

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Japanese Kitsune

by on March 20, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Races of Humanity

The Japanese Kitsune are similar to their Neko cousins, though it’s not generally wise to remind them of the fact. They get along together like cats and dogs. Or more accurately, they don’t. Where the Neko came from the Japanese’ obsession with cats, the Kitsune came from their obsession with foxes, who in some traditions are messengers of the gods. In others they are tricksters, or loyal confidants, or loving spouses. They could shapeshift too. The fox spirits of old were pretty varied in their habits if the old Japanese legends are to be believed. The modern Japanese Kitsune are just as varied, whether we are talking about the gengineered or augmented ones. They all have ideas of what they should be or who they want to be, and those visions are as numerous as the stars.

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