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Haven Mods ([personal profile] havenmods) wrote2012-09-10 02:03 am
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In order to apply for a canon character, please fill out the information below and post it in a comment in this entry. For an OC, please apply using the OC information. Please do not link to applications, all applications must be posted here. Please do not delete your applications; if you do not want it to be seen, you can request for it to be screened after a decision is made.

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Try to remember spelling and grammar are important, and in app length quality and not quantity is what matters. If you wish to request a specific apartment, please do so in the relevant part of the application. All parts of the application must be your own work, plagiarism will not be tolerated, though you are welcome to reuse your own old applications.

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Applications are open constantly, but are only processed every other Friday at 7PM EST. The Saturday following acceptance, an IC mingle log will be posted for characters to be introduced to the game.

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To see what we are looking for:
Canon Characters:
Sample Application (Faith Lehane)
Sample Application (Iroh)

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Sample Application (Mors)
Sample Application (Vera de Barr)

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Sample Application (Abel Nightroad/Mayfield RPG)
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Applications will be processed on the following dates:
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nattergalen: icons may contain spoilers! (Default)

Luna | Virtue's Last Reward | 1/?

[personal profile] nattergalen 2012-12-15 05:04 am (UTC)(link)
Name: Marion
Contact Info: infiniteprayer on plurk
Other Characters Played: N/A
Preferred Apartment: None.

Character Name: Luna
Canon: Zero Escape – Virtue’s Last Reward
(note: Zero Escape is the series name, and Virtue’s Last Reward is the title of the game Luna specifically comes from)
Canon Point: Post Sigma End
Background/History:
A quick synopsis of the game premise, characters and the game mechanics present in the gameplay.

Ok so there is no substantial wiki made yet that covers what happens in game, which means written history section. Apologies for the tl;dr, but I honestly didn’t want to leave out relevant information.

BIG TIME SPOILERS FOR VIRTUE'S LAST REWARD AFTER THIS.
nattergalen: game; portrait (May your innocence reign)

[personal profile] nattergalen 2012-12-15 05:06 am (UTC)(link)
Before getting into Luna’s history in specific, I want to detail the events prior to her creation. The year is 2029 and a virus by the name Radical-6 is released in the open by a religious cult called Free The Soul. Free The Soul believes that the body is a vessel for the soul and that to become pure again the physical body must be destroyed. They released the Radical 6 virus on New Year’s Eve 2028 in a Nevada Mars Test Site, which was used to simulate missions to Mars by NASA. Radical-6 is a virus that is spread out through physical contact or can be liquidated and injected into the blood stream, which leads to slower brain processing speed (specifically slowing down processing to the root of 1/6th, hence the name Radical-6) and suicidal thoughts. These suicidal thoughts are incredibly pervasive and fit within the context of the Free The Soul’s beliefs, where the infected patient believes that they are trapped in their body and must die to escape.

Getting back to 2029, the world is now facing pandemic. Radical-6 has quickly spread and people are committing suicide every day, be it under the influence of Radical-6 or through the result of Radical-6 on society. Free The Soul’s influence has meanwhile expanded with the pandemic and global leaders are pressed to make difficult decisions to save humanity. On April 13th 2029 it is decided that to rid the world of Radical-6, a nuclear strike on the most infected regions of the world must be conducted. It is theorized in the game that the ones who made the decision to set off these nukes were also infected with Radical-6 and wanted to use the nukes as a way to kill themselves. In any case the nukes are launched and are successful at wiping out Radical-6. However in the process the world enters nuclear winter. Crops, animals and even people die as a result of the catastrophe and the world is plunged backwards in terms of resources and basic luxuries that were once readily available to all.

Through all of this madness there was a man who lived on a base called Rhizome 9 on the moon. His name is Doctor Klim, a genetic engineer who was involved in the incident that first released Radical-6 into the open world. He tried to prevent it, but the game describes that he failed and lost both his arms and left eye while trying to save the life of another project member. He raised a son Kyle, who was in actuality a genetic clone of himself that he created, while working on very important research he dedicated his life to. Doctor Klim and Kyle lived normally together, until one day Kyle asked his father if he could have a mother. Doctor Klim, taking the young boy’s request literally, agreed and created a robot to act as Kyle’s mother. This robot is GTF-DM-L-016, but her shorter name was Luna.

Luna, while appearing very human, is actually a robot known as a GAULEM (General-purpose Autonomous Labor Electronic Machine) who was implanted with ABT (Artificial Biological Tissue) and modeled to look like a human woman in her mid 20s. While she was originally made to be Kyle’s mother, he ultimately rejected her out of hatred for his father and regarded her as a programmed machine. Luna was said to be sad by his rejection, even possibly cry about it. But she was still utilized as an assistant to Doctor Klim and later to his supervisor, a woman named Akane Kurashiki. She in particular grew very close to Akane and respected her deeply for her wisdom and determination. The music box she wears around her neck was a present from the woman, as a message Luna interpreted as “happiness is closer than you think” and one that she always carries with her. However time passed and the culmination of Doctor Klim’s research was finally to be executed in a project known as The Nonary Game, set to begin on January 2074.

This is where it gets complicated. The setting of Zero Escape is one that acknowledges two things. One: that espers or rather psychics exist and that anyone has the potential to be one, depending on certain factors. Two: that there are multiple histories/timelines, which are created from the different choices people make in their lives. To give an example of what that means, picture a fork in the road. You can go either left or right and the existence of two decisions means that two histories exist – one where you go left and another where you go right. The research Doctor Klim had been working since the nuclear strikes occurred has to do with these multiple histories and figuring out a way to stop Radical-6 from being released completely. However to make this history a possibility two espers are required to be trained in timeline jumping via the conscious mind. This is the purpose of the Nonary Game.
nattergalen: game; portrait (We're in the belly of the beast)

[personal profile] nattergalen 2012-12-15 05:19 am (UTC)(link)
Going back to the multiple histories, it is said that espers have access to a field of consciousness in which espers can send messages telepathically. This field is the Morphogenetic Field. Now while espers have this ability, there is another ability that one can be trained to use. That ability is “jumping”, which is when an esper transmits their consciousness from one timeline to another timeline across the Morphogenetic Field. Simply put, they can move their conscious mind from their body in Timeline A to their body in Timeline B. Doing this is said to be both risky and it is common for memory loss to occur during the jump, which can give the feeling of a “groundhog day” loop because the esper can’t fully remember that they transferred their conscious mind from Timeline A to Timeline B. The only way to “jump” without training is to experience an enormous shock to the system, which is when the conscious mind is suddenly free to move across the field.

The two espers to be trained are Phi, a mysterious white haired girl, and Sigma Klim. Yes Sigma Klim – one of the people participating in the Nonary Game is actually the doctor from before Radical-6 was even released into the world. This is where the jumping comes in. As Dr. Klim is the future version of Sigma and already trained in jumping, he can move his conscious mind easily through the Morphogenetic Fields. Ok maybe it might be better to bullet point this next part because it is really kind of ridiculous. IM REALLY SORRY AGAIN FOR THIS.
  • On December 25th 2028, six days before Radical-6 was released, Sigma Klim is kidnapped after being ambushed in the parking lot of his apartment complex.
  • This sudden shock causes Sigma Klim’s conscious mind to cross the Morphogenetic Field and enter the body of the elderly Dr. Klim in the year 2074. In this body Sigma goes through the events of the Nonary Game, while not realizing that his consciousness has jumped to a point in time where he is much older. The game never shows what Sigma looks like during actual gameplay and Sigma himself does not realize the truth until True End.
  • Meanwhile Doctor Klim’s consciousness jumps and enters the body of the young Sigma Klim in 2028. It is during this time that Doctor Klim becomes part of the Mars Nevada Test Site, where Radical-6 is released. He fails in his mission to prevent Radical-6 from being released.
  • After the events of True End, Sigma is once more given an enormous shock to the system when Akane Kurashiki appears to try and kill Phi. This shock causes him to jump back to his younger body on April 13th 2029. Meanwhile Dr. Klim most likely jumps to his regular body in the year 2074, though this is not seen in game.
  • In April 2029, Sigma learns that his older self (Dr. Klim) failed to stop Radical-6 from being released and lost both his arms and eye the events that happened. However Sigma, who had not experienced what happened at the Nevada Test Site, does not know what happened exactly. From this point Sigma dedicates himself to conducting the Nonary Game research and becomes Doctor Sigma Klim. He conducts his research up until 2074, which is when we go back to Bulletpoint Two.
  • Sigma, now Dr. Klim, goes back in the year 2028 in his younger body in order to enter the test site. His goal is to stop Radical-6 from being released. Should he fail, everything reloops again starting from the 2nd bullet point. The goal is for him to succeed at preventing Radical-6 from escaping.


OK now that all of that is taken care of, I will talk about Luna’s part in the game. Specifically coming from Sigma End.

Luna, as one of the assistants to Akane and Dr. Klim, is fully aware of their plans and was ordered before the beginning of the game to act as if she was kidnapped like everyone else and not reveal their plans to everyone. Due to the way the timelines and histories work, Luna telling anybody the truth could create another history that will not successfully lead to the point in time where Sigma jumps to his body in April 2029. However it came at a price – Akane’s life. In the game there is a man by the name of Dio, who sneaks into the facility and kills Akane. Granted this does not always happen: there are certain histories where he is thwarted by Phi and Sigma, who wake up earlier than anyone else, and Akane does in fact survive. Sigma End is one of the histories where this occurs, though Phi and Sigma later have no recollection of saving Akane. Their conscious mind is forced out and are made to jump to the point in the timeline where Sigma’s consciousness is sent back to April 2029, as detailed in the bullet points. In any case, Akane lives and disguises herself as an amnesiac named K by taking his robotic suit and hiding in it. K is actually Kyle Klim, but he was administered a large dose of anesthetic and became a temporary amnesiac as a result and has no recollection of his memories. She has no problem pretending to be him, seeing as nobody even knows who he is, and the real K is put in a chamber that keeps his body frozen so he cannot wake up during the events of the game.

The game begins when everyone has woken up and gotten out of their chambers, Luna included after her body was activated. Zero the Third, the AI moderating the game in place of Dr. Klim and Akane, informs everyone about their situation. In short they are trapped in a warehouse and are playing the Nonary Game, which involves solving a series of room puzzles in order get keycards for the AB game. In order to escape they need to bump the number on their bracelet from 3 to 9. They bump it up by going through Chromatic Doors in groups of three, solving the puzzle inside the room, and then playing the AB game.

Luna goes with Dio and Quark through the Yellow Door, which leads to the infirmary. After getting out of the Chromatic doors they went through (Sigma went with Phi and Alice in this history) everyone plays the AB Game. The AB Game is basically the Prisoner Dilemma game and Luna is made to compete with Dio and Quark, who are paired together according to their bracelets. If she votes Ally and they Betray, she loses 2 points and they gain 3. If they all vote Ally then the three get 2 points. If they all vote Betray then they gain no points, but don’t lose points. Dio, Quark and Luna all ally with one another and Luna’s number goes from 3 to 5. Sigma and Phi betray Alice, while she allies with them, so Sigma and Phi's points go up to 6 and Alice's down to 1. Before everyone goes through the next set of doors, the group finds a bomb planted in the Crew Quarters labeled "3". A bomb strong enough to destroy the facility and kill everyone within it. But with no way to deactivate it, they continued to go through the doors.

In the next set of doors Sigma goes with Luna and Clover into the archives. Nothing of note happens in there other than solving the puzzle. It is what happens afterward that becomes bewildering.
nattergalen: game; cg (And may your efforts be your own)

[personal profile] nattergalen 2012-12-15 05:23 am (UTC)(link)
Before the second round of the AB Game, Quark and Alice both begin to show outward signs of being infected with Radical-6. Quark collapses and then upon awakening attempts suicide, before he is subdued with an anesthetic Luna administers. Luna is said here to have a nursing license, though it’s likely that it is a lie because she never left the facility since she was created. She stills knows all about the medical equipment however and even that the only way to treat Radical-9 is Axelavir, which nobody has found in the rooms they went to. Alice suddenly reacts similarly, running away with a scalpel in her hands and saying how she too wants to die. Sigma goes to look in the Garden for her, but fails to find her there. He does find her eventually in the Crew Quarters, but she has already killed herself by that point. The large shock to his system however is enough for Sigma’s consciousness to suddenly jump to the point in the timeline before he decided to search for Alice in the Garden. As a result he gets another chance, thanks to being thrown to a turning point in recent history and this time remembering where Alice is because he witnessed a history where she died in.

Sigma rushes to find her in the Crew Quarters and finds her still alive. He and Alice have a short fight over the scalpel, before he knocks it out of her hands and she falls unconscious. She is taken back to the infirmary and everyone goes to play the AB Game without them, as Dio activated the game before the two people succumbed to the virus and now they have to play it before their time runs out (once the AB game is active everyone has 45 minutes to get in the elevator and enter their vote. if not even one person of the three competitors vote then all of them are penalized with death)

Inside the AB room with Luna, Sigma discovers that his hand was cut in his fight with Alice. But instead of red blood, he has an unnatural white colored blood. Luna, while visibly concerned and asking what happened to him, is talked out of worrying for the time being. Sigma votes to Ally with Clover and to Luna’s great joy it turns out everyone voted ally in that round, which is what she had wanted to see since the start of the game. Before everyone goes through the third set of doors however Luna takes Sigma to the garden room (which was open because another group went through it during the 2nd set of doors) and talks to him. There she tells him about how she received the music box from someone she admired (Akane) and mentions the story of Maeterlink’s Bluebird and refers to Sigma as the boy Tylty. Luna also confesses that she feels very lonely and admits her shy nature, but feels hope with the bluebird as a sign of happiness always being somewhere in reach.

But there is more than that. This is the point in time where Luna reveals to him that she knows he is an esper who can remember past events that never should of happened. Before their conversation Sigma mentioned that he came into the Garden to look for Alice, even though he also said he immediately went to the Crew Quarters and found Alice there without checking any place else. This obvious discrepancy in what he says occurs to him as well, but he says he cannot fully grasp how both things are true. Luna naturally knows the whole truth, given her affiliation with Akane Kurashiki and Dr. Klim, but does not reveal it to him and makes herself look like an unaware bystander.

She then asks him if he is a robot, as the white blood on his hand is common with ABT tissue in robots, and offers to run a test scan on him with the infirmary equipment to see if he shows proper human vital signs. During this time she also says that she trusts Sigma, because she does not believe he would ever cause harm to anyone and would follow the Three Laws of Robotics (which will be later discussed) if he was a robot. Again, she knows that he isn’t a robot, but she has to play the role of a clueless bystander in order to make sure she doesn’t deviate from the history that exists. This was part of her instructions given by Akane Kurashiki and Dr. Klim.
nattergalen: game; portrait (Be still)

[personal profile] nattergalen 2012-12-15 05:25 am (UTC)(link)
However their conversation is cut short when Phi enters the garden and finds a bomb stuck to a tree inside of it. The three of them go to the infirmary, where everyone else is waiting, and tell them about the bomb. Phi states that she wants to search everyone, as the person who planted the bombs likely has something on them which they can use to deactivate the bombs if need be. Sigma then announces that he knows who planted the bombs. Using vague memories he gained and recalled from previous jumps across the morphogenetic field, he concludes that Dio is the one who planted the bombs. Dio, after being grilled on it, confesses that he did plant the bombs but says he has no way of deactivating them. He does however have a detonator that would instantly detonate all the bombs planted, which would destroy the Rhizome 9 facility and everyone inside it. Feeling cocky, Dio tells them the password to Bomb 02 – a bomb that they had not yet the discovered the location of.

Tenmyouji, in a fit of anger, attacks Dio and knocks the detonator out of his hand. The detonator however has a failsafe mechanism, which triggers if it is a meter away from Dio’s possession. It activates the bombs and sets them to explode within half an hour. The group manages to restrain and knock Dio out afterward, but now with no way to deactivate the bombs they can only wait for certain death.

Before the bombs explode, Luna offers to do the testing on Sigma. As she knows about his ability as an esper and that he can jump through timelines, she knows that he may be able to retain the memories that he forms in this history. Luna confirms that Sigma’s arms are cybernetic, but he himself is a human. Sigma, while relieved, becomes scared at how calm Luna is over the fact that they are about to die. He even remarks that her expression seemed robotic. She then tells him that she was given specific instructions.

“Should you encounter a two-headed lion devouring the sun, remember: GTM-DM-L-016. With this key, the first gate shall be open to you.”

Telling him that she will be waiting for him, while smiling kindly at him, the facility explodes and kills everyone. It turns out that she does end up waiting for him – only in another history, the Luna End of the game. AS A NOTE Luna has no memory of what happens in Luna End because she isn't an esper who can recall timelines. However I will be making mention of it in the personality section, as it is the canon point that reveals the most about Luna. So let me briefly summarize what happens.
nattergalen: game; cg (Don't break character)

Re: Luna | Virtue's Last Reward | 1/?

[personal profile] nattergalen 2012-12-15 05:27 am (UTC)(link)
LUNA END (the abridged version):

Again, Luna is not an esper and does not experience nor remember this history. But since I will be referencing it in the personality section I just want to quickly outline what happens.

-Akane dies in this timeline and her corpse is found by Sigma and Phi before they play Round 1 of the AB Game.

-In this route Sigma is always in a three-way group with Luna in some way. He goes through the Magenta Door with Phi as his partner and Luna as the solo, the Green Door with Alice as his partner and Luna as the solo and finally with Phi through the white door (Luna was "dead" by then, but she was still the Solo in their group)

-In between going through these doors, a number of people were mysteriously killed. Alice committed suicide before the 2nd AB game, as she wasn't saved by Sigma in this route, and Luna was injected with a muscle relaxant later on by Clover (who believed Luna killed Alice) that would kill any regular human injected with it. She had her body shut off by Zero III to give the illusion that she died. In addition to this, Quark went missing and no one knows where he is. Clover and Tenmyouji as well went missing just before everyone was supposed to go through the 3rd set of doors. In the end only Phi, Sigma, Dio and K went through the doors. Phi and Sigma used Luna's bracelet (it fell off when Luna's body shut down) and Dio and K used Alice's bracelet (which also fell off when she died) in order to go through their doors.

-Phi and Sigma's final room together was the Security Room, where they got access to all the cameras in the facility. They rewound the tapes in the Crew Quarters and made the inference that Clover killed Luna (they were in a blindspot of the camera's view when fighting). When they left the Security Room to investigate the building once more, they find Clover and Tenmyouji handcuffed to a sink in the infirmary. The two were already dead because they never went through the White Doors and were penalized for it. Continuing their investigation they then came across Dio and K in the Rec Room - Dio impaled with a spear and K with an axe in his head.

-After that they went to the Director's Room, one of the other areas behind the white door. Dio and K explored it before their sudden, so Phi and Sigma thought they could get some clues about what happened. In the room there was a computer showing an image of a Two-Headed Lion devouring the sun. Sigma recalled the two passwords that K gave (in K end) and Luna gave (in Sigma End) using his dormant esper abilities and accessed the computer.

-Using these passwords on the computer in the Director's Room, Phi and Sigma find out that Luna is actually a robot created by Zero Senior (who is actually Dr. Klim, though neither of them know this). and was ordered to participate in the Nonary Game. From this Phi deduces that Luna is the person who killed everyone and labels her a traitor. As Luna is their next competitor in the AB Game, they plan to Betray her and leave the facility as they would both have 10 BP afterward. Sigma leaves Luna's bracelet outside the elevator chamber (the system wouldn't allow it to be inside the room) and they begin to play.

-As the AB Game is about to begin and Sigma activates their chamber, they realize Luna is outside the elevator staring at them. This confirms their suspicions that Luna faked dying and plans to Betray them to get more BP. However the doors close before they can rush out to Luna, trapping them inside the chamber until they finish the game. Phi advises Sigma to pick Betray so that their BP won't plummet, but Sigma refuses and Allies with Luna.

-When the AB results are displayed it turns out that Luna never even went to vote, her bracelet still outside the door to Sigma's chamber. This means her vote defaulted to Ally, giving Sigma and Phi 9 BP points, enough to leave the facility. They then search the open rooms and find Quark in the Treatment Center, still alive, and take him out of the pod so that he can leave the facility as well (his bracelet was taken off so he didn't need to worry about getting injected with poison for leaving when he didn't have enough points)

-Phi and Sigma, carrying Quark, open the Number 9 door to escape. But before the 9 Door closes, Sigma rushes back into the facility because he wants to speak with Luna. Only Phi and an unconscious Quark escape.

-Sigma then goes to the Garden, where he remembers speaking to Luna once before in Sigma End, and speaks with her. He explains why he doesn't think she murdered anyone and that it was Dio who did everything. She confirms his theories and openly admits that she is a GAULEM. She speaks about how after seeing Tenmyouji, Clover and K die without doing anything (when her body was deactivated her core consciousness returned to the mainframe and she could see everything that happened through the security cameras), she felt an incredible guilt and wanted to help Phi and Sigma. That is why she hacked Zero III's systems and rebooted her body, so that she could make sure they would get enough points to escape. However, everything she did was at a cost. As Zero III begins to reboot himself, Luna's core processors are being destroyed and she is nearing what is essentially her death. As well as that, the poison that Clover administered into Luna's robotic body is destroying her artificial tissues. Luna literally falls apart into pieces, her skin peeling and her hair falling out at a quick rate, but before she dies she thanks Sigma for trusting her and calls him "Doctor".
Edited 2012-12-21 20:38 (UTC)
nattergalen: game; official (If you ever feel)

personality section starts here (at long last)

[personal profile] nattergalen 2012-12-15 05:28 am (UTC)(link)
Personality:

For a robot, it is a shocking how human Luna comes off. Not only by appearance, but by the way she reacts to her environment and to the actions of others. When someone does something good, she smiles and is clearly happy from the tone of her words. When someone does something bad, she becomes upset and is even said to cry at times. She can be shocked, angered, determined and displays startling bouts of humanity and altruism compared to the actual humans. Her general behavior is summed up as shy and almost sheltered, which makes sense given she has never had much option in the way of social interaction besides Dr. Klim and Akane Kurashiki, two very eccentric individuals. When someone Betrays her she can only tearfully ask why they did it and what she did wrong to deserve betrayal, taking it personally that there are people who don't want to ally in order to make a quicker escape for everyone to leave. It is vital to note that in a game of trust and betrayal, Luna never picks to Betray. No matter what timeline or person/pair she is up against, she is the only character to always pick Ally and that includes the protagonist. It can be theorized that she only does this out of programming, but that doesn't make sense given her actions and her decision in Luna End to go against her orders. She has functioning free will and is not bound by orders, but chooses to follow them.

She sincerely wants everyone to escape and have trust, knowing that everyone’s fear of one another is what is driving them apart. She is also the only character to continuously bring up that if everyone cooperates and picks Ally together, then all of them could escape after playing three rounds of the game. There are times where she is Betrayed herself, but only looks disheartened at the betrayal. Unless that is if it comes from Sigma, who she especially takes personally if he Betrays her. Not surprising, considering she knows that he is the future Dr. Klim who created her and is even in the body of the elderly doctor during the game. However, the only time she ever truly begrudges someone for picking to Betray her is the bad end of her route where, if Sigma picks to Betray her, she leaves the facility with an unconscious Quark. There are no tears shed, nor even a goodbye - she simply leaves Sigma and Phi trapped in the facility without any means of escape and it is implied that she would never return to rescue them. Even then it is implied that she did not leave him stranded inside the facility out of anger, but out of sorrow that he did not trust her. At the same time Luna remarks in the good ending of her path that Sigma has every reason to not trust her, after discovering that she is a robot who lives inside the facility. Therefore it is reasonable to say that she left in the bad ending of Luna End not out of hatred, but out of irrational sadness. That even when she understood Sigma’s reasons for not trusting her, she could not forgive him for choosing to Betray her. For being revealed late in the game to be a robot, she never gives anyone a reason to think she is anything but human and does not trick anyone purposefully because she is so incredibly human-like in appearance and emotional response. She is incredibly realistic in her genuine displays of emotion that no one would expect an autonomous machine to be capable of.

The reason for Luna’s complex capability of displaying emotion is because she is a robot, programmed under the Three Laws of Robotics. These laws are taken from science fiction writer Isaac Asimov and are described the same way in the game as they are in real life.

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

Luna describes these laws to Sigma in both Luna End and Sigma End, stating that any robot that does not operate under these laws is no better than a piece of metal. She earnestly believes that a proper robot must cooperate with the ones who made them and never work against them. That any sort of machine or robotic AI that goes against humanity is not a true robot, but a tool to be used for nefarious purposes. This contributes much to her stance on never choosing to Betray anyone, because Betraying someone means to put their life in danger (as if a person's BP points fall to 0, the bracelets inject them with anesthetic and muscle relaxant to give them a quiet death). It also comes back to a moment in her own path, where she is attacked by Clover and does not ever harm her physically. The only time she ever shows small signs of aggression is when she injects anesthetic into Quark and Dio while they are fighting against it, but only does it in order to make sure no one is harmed.

But that doesn’t quite explain all of Luna’s functions. After all, doesn’t the First Rule seem like a contradiction in the case of Akane Kurashiki, because there are some histories where Akane is killed by Dio and Luna does nothing to stop it even though she could. Luna states she was fully capable of rescuing Akane Kurashiki from being killed by Dio, but did not save her life and that directly contradicts Rule 1 because of Rule 2 (that even though Akane ordered Luna not to interfere in Dio’s plans to kill, Rule 2 means she should disobey those orders because Akane’s life was in danger). This strange contradiction is solved neatly when it is revealed Luna was programmed with the Zeroth Rule, unbeknownst to her.

0. A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.

In short, while Luna thought she broke the rules by not saving Akane in certain histories, she still kept in line with her programming. Akane’s possible demise was said to be a necessary consequence of the Nonary Game’s structure, so that Sigma could properly reach the timeline he needed to so that he could be sent to April 2029. As the purpose of all of this was to make sure Radical-6 would not be released, Luna’s inaction was aiding humanity. The bigger question from this is how Luna did not realize she was programmed with this law? Wouldn’t a regular robot know how they were programmed? It once more displays how highly intelligent she is. That she believes it is ok to bend the laws of her programming if it means a greater importance exists, while not realizing that a 4th rule permits her to do so. She doesn't break the rules because of the 4th law, but does it because she feels like sometimes she has to take extreme actions even when her orders tell her to not. This not only happens in the case of Akane, but in the case of Luna End. In Luna End she went against her orders to feign death after realizing her inaction led to the deaths of Clover, Tenmyouji, K and even Dio (who she doesn't like, but would never want to see harmed either).
nattergalen: game; cg (You can't take it anymore)

and then it ends all too quickly

[personal profile] nattergalen 2012-12-15 05:29 am (UTC)(link)
Of course that is not to say Luna is perfect in all her mechanisms. There are a couple of times Sigma’s narration regards her as almost robotic, mostly when it comes to her lack of many reactions. In Sigma End she is noted in particular to not even be fearful that the bomb is about to explode and kill everyone, only calmly stating that their time is close to being up. She actually seems to be more hopeful than afraid, even though everyone in the facility is about to die from the explosion of the bombs. There are also times where she seems to be incredibly knowledgeable, more so than the average person, and can explain certain concepts very clearly and without much hesitation. Like when explaining Radical-6 to everyone else after Quark’s infection, she speaks of it in a matter of fact tone and without panic, even though she is describing a virus that causes invasive suicidal thoughts. This could be attributed to her acknowledgment of different histories existing. If that is the case, it only becomes more disturbing. That she is ok with dying because she knows that the history she dies in is not the one where Dr. Klim’s and Akane Kurashiki’s plans come to fruition. So it is ok that she dies, because there is a better future waiting out there someplace. It is nothing human-like at all, which only serves as a staunch reminder that she is a robot and programmed to act human. There are many strange things in the Zero Escape universe, but robots cannot just become humans and Luna, for all her humanity, is but a robot programmed to have advanced emotional responses.

It feeds back into what she believes the message of the music box she was given is. That “happiness is always close by” and she only has to wait for it to come into reach. But that even should the caged bird leave, it only means that happiness is something to be searched for and not to be kept forever (which is how she interprets the ending of Materlink’s Bluebird, where the captured bird representing happiness flies away and the main boy Tyltyl vows to find it again). She describes herself to Sigma as shy, not having many friends and how she has felt lonely because of it. It is not really her fault so much as it is a fault of her environment and her orders. Luna is a passive bystander who does not seek happiness, but knows that it is somewhere waiting for her, whereas she compares Sigma to one of the main characters who goes after the bluebird that represents happiness. The only time she seems genuinely sad that she is about to die is in Luna End, where her human exoskeleton is breaking apart piece by piece and she can only wait for a certain end. Any other history where she dies she accepts it, even a faked one in timelines where she is “killed” (supposedly by Clover, though it never explicitly stated outside of Luna End) and does not reboot herself (again, Luna End is the only time when this happens). She is always looking for something better by encouraging it through passive means (like telling everyone to ally and not betray) and yet is not capable of remembering different histories she experienced like the espers (Sigma and Phi) do. So without remembering any of the other possible histories/routes, Luna is still always hoping for the same thing and yet never actively seeks it out herself until Luna End, which ends with her being destroyed for her actions. It is ironic considering the Laws of Robotics operates under the belief that robots should aid humanity in an active way and not passively allowing things to occur as they do without intervention, but Luna herself is a very passive character in regards to her actions in the game and that her only display of active actions lead to her demise.

The take all from this is that Luna is genuine in her display of humanity, despite not being human at the same time. Someone might suspect her kindness and passive nature is an act, because truly no one can be so altruistic and caring about others more than themselves, but it is not an act so much as it is how she was programmed to be. The Laws of Robotics is fitting for Luna’s programming, because its main idea is that the concept of humanity is abstract and that robots can be programmed to act just like humans do under the laws and benefit other humans. The game even discusses this during Luna's route, with another GAULEM called G-OLM explaining that a robot is not much different from a human because robots are able to "feel" emotions through way of cause and effect reactions (like the robot having aching shoulders because their body is severely outdated due to lacking maintenance checks). Luna is not a human of course and is aware that her personality and behavior was originally programmed, but she herself does not think that she is just metal put together and code written by a scientist. She is functioning in all capacities, has free will to disobey orders and even the Laws of Robotics she was programmed with, and exists to serve others and not only herself. And really, in the end, isn’t the core basis of humanity is that everyone is in it together and no one should be against each other. If so, then Luna is as much a human as any of the other characters and at the same time not.
nattergalen: game; portrait (And go on to bed)

9/9 done sob

[personal profile] nattergalen 2012-12-15 05:34 am (UTC)(link)
Abilities/Powers:
Luna is fairly below average if we’re talking about the strength and general aptitudes of a regular robot. She isn’t much stronger than a regular human, showing difficultly wrestling the injection gun out of Clover’s hands, and is virtually human like due to design. No one would likely be able to guess she wasn’t actually human, given how she was programmed to have very human reactions for the most part. So despite being a robot, Luna is more or less on par with any regular human physically.

If there is anything that her robotic body helps with, it is noted in game that she does not have to worry about regular human needs. She doesn’t get hungry or tired and can’t be affected by illness or anything injected into her as seen in game (she is the only one not infected with the Radical-6 virus and is not affected by the poisonous injections administered if someone goes below 1 BP). As well as that, her body is remarkably designed in how convincing it might be. One character attempts to revive her with CPR in a route and is not able to tell that she is a robot during the process of trying to bring her back to life (her body was deactivated during that time.)

As for other things, she is programmed to be very knowledgeable in the medical field and can even operate an ADAM scanning device (a fictional device in the game, which can be used for easy diagnosis of patients).

Items/Weapons: Her music box (a caged bluebird tied to a necklace string), the injection gun (without any vials in it to inject people with) and the AB Bracelet attached to her wrist (the number 7, her final tally in Sigma End before the bomb explodes, is lit up in a yellow color)

As a note the music box and bracelet are always on her person, the bracelet especially is locked around her wrist. I don't know if that means it counts as clothing or not because she's wearing it actively. If both items do count as clothing, then instead I would like her to bring two vials of soporil (a fictional anesthetic that can be injected with the injection gun) in place of the music box and bracelet. If I'm wrong then you can disregard this change and keep the original three I wrote out.

Sample Entry: A thread

Sample Entry Two: Haven was both comforting and frightening to Luna. The eeriness of the town reminded her of Rhizome 9 and the silence was a comforting reminder of the past. It was frightening because how lifeless it was. At least Rhizome 9 had a Garden area where vegetation and flowers could grow. Haven, on the other hand, was completely dead. Lifeless and without joy. It was truly a terrible place to awaken in after what happened in the facility.

Sometimes she would walk to the billboard above the drinking well and think on it. Everyone is safe when they are together. ...She could not deny that ideology. It was the very same one she always held. But, together in an empty place with no joy or life...it may have been safe but it was not comforting in the least. Sometimes she would wonder if this is what Earth was now like, after the outbreak of Radical-6. She never visited the planet, but saw pictures of a world in nuclear winter that would shake anyone into fear. If that was so, then she could see why her creator was so fiercely devoted to making sure it would never be released.

But, that was in the past. This is the present. She is dead and her creator's plan sent into ruin. The only small comfort she can take from it is that there are other histories and surely one of them will lead him to success. But, her role is done. That small comfort was all she had left in her existence. Haven would grant her a chance of life she could never have. ...Only if there was some life in it.