The Custodian

⏵ player information
name and pronouns: Ruka, they/he/she
age: 20+
contact: dm this journal; i also have a plurk rukafais but i don't expect to be friended

⏵ character information
name: The Custodian
canon: Remnant 2
age: Several millenia?? Extremely old
canon point: Post-The Dark Horizon DLC storyline
history: Timeline | At present, he has thrown himself into the depths of Alepsis-Taura to join his creators, unwilling or unable to find another purpose.


abilities:

The Custodian is an incredibly complex and intelligent machine, able to process and manage millions of tasks simultaneously - all the work that would go into maintaining a self-sustaining ecosystem on a ship the size of a planet is something he did alone for centuries. Given a proper system interface, sufficient power, and time to learn the differences between his own interface and the system's, he is able to accomplish incredible feats of computing.

He has also stored the research of twenty thousand years of Drzyr engineering and ingenuity; given the proper tools or their equivalent, he can repair and maintain complex machinery.

He is also extremely durable, designed to withstand even the microscopic wear and tear that machinery is subject to over time and equipped with contingencies for any possible environmental damage he could have sustained in his duties. The entropic energy that tore apart his creators seems to have had no effect on his physical form. (This doesn't make him invincible to attacks or anything, just good at weathering incidental damage.)

He recharges on both solar and stellar power, and does not need to eat, drink, or breathe.

personality:
Incredibly emotionally repressed and suffering from centuries of isolation, but in that fun way only a deeply isolated artificial intelligence can be. The Custodian was well-adjusted (to a point) once, his social needs fulfilled by daily interaction with those of the Drzyr who routinely spoke to him. Centuries of isolation alone on a dead world-ship have driven him to desperate measures, removing the parts of him that allow him to feel deleterious emotions like anger and frustration and the ability to override his own social programming in favor of task execution. He refuses to categorize his own feelings as emotions; as he repeatedly says, he cannot feel emotions as organic life does.

As a result, what is left is, first and foremost, a deep and bleak desperation to fulfill his primary task; the salvation of the Drzyr, the people he was made to care for and nurture. His every thought and action is guided by his greatest desire, finding a way to save the Drzyr. He strives to live up to their expectations in their absence, down to their utilitarian and often ruthless ways of looking at the world at times.

He views simple things - the presence of other people, the presence of a sun in the sky - as miracles he thought he would never again witness, and is eager to learn more of these new and alien peoples. If pressed, he would say it was for the sake of the Drzyr's dream to find new life, though in truth he is possessed of a curiosity the equal of his creators', if only he would acknowledge it.

His own feelings and needs - though he would never describe his needs for what they are, having thoroughly internalized his creators' distrust for artificial life - are neglected in favor of presenting a calm, reassuring and logical presence. He is often strangely calm in distressing situations as a result, regardless of what else he may feel on the matter; open desperation or muted irritation is as close as he comes to expressing that he might possibly have his own opinions on a situation that are not strictly useful.

Despite his own issues, he tries hard to be efficient and provide as much information as is needed for a situation. He reacts to confrontation with honesty, even if that honesty may result in accidental stonewalling of I don't know.

He has no reason to believe in his own capability beyond the parameters issued to him; he has fully absorbed the Drzyr cultural norms of utility and everything having its own place in the world, from the lower castes to machinery. He truly believes that the Drzyr and their creations were in a symbiotic relationship - that machines are incapable of continued functioning without an instilled purpose, and such a thing complemented the Drzyr's all-encompassing curiosity.

He is trying hard to do what his creators would have wanted from him. It is uncertain whether he considers this to be good enough. Only time will tell.

samples:

Sample 1
Sample 2
Sample 3