Jason Write
| Jason Write | |
|---|---|
| Spouse | Lanna |
| Died | End of the First Human War[1] |
| Abilities | Cytonics |
| Aliases | Elton Flippenday, John Smith |
| Groups | Phone Company |
| Homeworld | Earth (Skyward) |
| Universe | Cytoverse |
| First Appeared | Defending Elysium |
Jason Write is the head operative of the Phone Company.[2]
Appearance & PersonalityEdit
Jason is a tall, thin man, with a triangular face and short-cropped black hair. His work attire includes a simple black suit of an outdated style, and a pair of dark glasses. There is a Phone Company pin on his lapel, shaped like a small silver bell. Jason wears the glasses to cover up the fact that he is blind, since it tends to unnerve people when they realize that he can still see despite his blindness. Due to this disability, Jason's eyes are unfocused.
Jason has a phobia of darkness and being unable to see, stemming from his childhood experience with vision loss, which rendered him legally blind at sixteen. This has a tendency to make him panic when he is unable to Sense his surroundings.
He used to think that the other alien species had achieved a paradise, and worked to prevent mankind from achieving FTL travel, believing that his species was uncivilized and would bring ruin to the paradise. After learning of the fact that the aliens imprison their dissidents, he comes to realize that they are not as perfect as he thought.
Attributes and AbilitiesEdit
From a young age, Jason has been developing his cytonic abilities.
- Sense: Though it requires some conscious effort, Jason can use his cytonic abilities to Sense the world around him. When using his Sense, he perceives black as calm or cool and white as a quiet buzz.[2]
- FTL Communication: While all of the Phone Company's FTL communications are handled by an operative in their Central Operations building, it seems likely that Jason is independently capable of FTL communication.[2]
- Mindblades: Jason can use his cytonic abilities to form blades of pure force that can cut through anything, including advanced materials like telanium. His reactions are incredibly fast, allowing him to summon mindblades to slice bullets out of the air. He can also sense when another cytonic is manifesting mindblades and summon his own to block theirs. The varvax consider this ability to be very advanced.[2]
- FTL Travel: By Sensing inward on himself, Jason can travel to the nowhere and then reemerge elsewhere, resulting in faster-than-light travel. When doing so, he can take others with him. He keeps this ability a secret so as to maintain an edge over those he encounters and keep humanity from realizing that FTL is possible. The delvers do not appear to exist during his time and Jason did not know about them.[2][3]
HistoryEdit
Early LifeEdit
As a child, Jason began experiencing vision loss. This first began to manifest as night blindness. The next symptom he experienced was loss of peripheral vision leading to tunnel vision. Doctors were unable to stop the progression of vision loss. At sixteen, Jason officially became legally blind. Jason, ashamed of his condition, attempted to live his life normally without telling other children what was wrong. They, unknowing that his stumbling was caused by vision loss, laughed at him and called him a fool. Jason experienced total vision loss later in life.
Jason ended up working for the Phone Company. There he became a powerful cytonic, developing Sense, mind blades, and eventually FTL travel. Due to his importance and mystique, he was tailed by multiple UIB agents, though none succeeded. He also met and married Lanna Write.
Denise Investigation (2211)Edit
Jason takes a shuttle to Evensong, investigating the case of a missing PC scientist named Denise Carlson, and watches a holovid of her en route. Jason uses his control disk to contact Earth, finding out that Lanna was assigned as his Base Support Operative, and complains about it a bit. Lanna talks for a while as Jason disembarks the shuttle. Suddenly, they realize that their line has been tapped, and Lanna tells him through coded language that it is from his end. He tries to memorize the faces of the other shuttle passengers, since it is probably one of them doing the tapping, but doesn't tell Lanna to block the tap. As Jason goes through security at the arrival station, he hears a news broadcast about a murdered varvax ambassador. He decides to investigate this, running off in a hurry.
Jason's arrival at the ambassador's murder scene causes a stir among the police, due to his status as a Phone Company operative. After looking around for a while, he decides that he made a mistake by attracting too much attention and leaves. As he exits the building and pushes through the reporters outside, he recognizes one of the passengers from earlier, who is trying to follow him without being noticed. Jason signals for Lanna to block the tap, changing it to a fabricated conversation, which the man following him seems to still believe is the real one. He makes his way to an underground cafe, discussing with Lanna on how the man appears young and inexperienced, but well-equipped and trained. After a while, he lets the young man, Coln Abrams, an agent of the United Intelligence Bureau know that he has been caught, but offers to let him follow him around on Evensong, since he is tired of constantly being spied on by the UIB. As he discusses this decision with Lanna and Coln, Jason suddenly realizes Coln is being shot at, and deflects the bullets using mindblades.
Jason talks with Foreign Minister Sonn through holovid about the murder, with the Minister apologizing in a manner typical of the varvax, claiming that it is not the humans' fault since they are uncivilized barbarians who cannot help being violent. Jason reflects on how this is actually true, and talks to Lanna about his worries on humanity discovering FTL travel before becoming civilized. She then tells him that Coln is actually a runaway and doesn't officially do work for the UIB.
Jason and Coln then continue on his mission, which Jason explains. He is retrieving Denise Carlson, a low-ranking researcher, who disappeared two months ago and was later rediscovered, found to be suffering from severe mental problems, and sent to a local treatment facility, where Jason is picking her up. He also tells Coln that the ambassador's murder was an unexpected coincidence that he only investigated due to it happening at the same time. They arrive, and Jason tells Coln to help a confused-looking Denise out. As they leave, Jason spots a man from the cafe from earlier watching them. They go to a cafe, where Jason interviews Denise, who cannot seem to understand a lot of concepts, such as failing to grasp why a nearby patron is angry, and being unable to describe salt, which she says she does not like and tastes strange.
Later, he and Lanna discuss his concerns over humanity's relationship with the alien races, and then Lanna starts talking about Coln's reasons for following him. Jason gets distracted and pieces together the reasons behind Denise's strange mannerisms, and tests the theory by turning the lights in her room to uncomfortably bright levels, which she claims feels right. Lanna is worried, and Jason tells her that the actual woman is dead while "Denise" is actually Vahnn, the varvax ambassador. Just then, Coln runs in to check on "Denise", and Jason realizes he isn't wearing his sunglasses. Afraid of being mocked, he rushes out of the room in shame.
Jason and Lanna have a conversation, during which he questions why Denise would want to switch bodies with a varvax and theorizes that maybe she wanted to steal information on their cytonics. Lanna is not very convinced. Jason goes back to the hospital, where he attacks the orderly from the cafe, pretending that he can read the man's mind by voicing his theory while acting confident that he knows what is going on. Jason goes back to the hotel and tells Coln to take Denise to a PC office and leave for Jupiter Fourteen, his original intended destination. Coln asks about FTL drives and Jason tells him that he's looking in the wrong direction, further convincing Coln that the Phone Company is hiding things. Before any of them can act, the room is gassed and they fall unconscious.
Jason wakes up and realizes that his Sense somehow is turned off, and begins to panic. He hears a voice with a strange accent asking him how he read the man's mind earlier. Jason tries to contact Lanna, only to be told that the link has been cut. The voice warns him that if he doesn't have an answer in three minutes, he will kill Denise, then leaves. Jason tries to suppress his growing fear, and thinks back to a time when Sonn told him of cytonic suppression devices, then realizing that many cytonic devices have mechanical components. Jason then uses his earpiece to contact Coln, whose presence was not planned for, telling him to knock out the power, however temporarily. Coln complies, and Jason uses the momentary return of his Sense to create mindblades and destroy some of his surroundings, before telling Coln to take Denise and run.
The voice comes back on some nearby speakers, before coming over in person and introducing himself as Edmund, one of Jason's old recruits. Edmund tells him that the cafe shooting from earlier was a test of his abilities. They start fighting with mindblades, and Jason soon finds himself outmatched. Jason bluffs and guesses that Edmund learned from the varvax, which is revealed as false. As Edmund prepares to deliver a series of blows he cannot block, Jason turns his Sense inward and teleports with his hand inside Edmund's chest. He kills the man by stopping his heart, and as Edmund dies, he tells Jason that the reason for the invention of cytonic suppression devices is to keep dissenters among the aliens imprisoned. Jason tries to declare that he is lying, but finds his faith shaken.
Jason tells Coln to bring Denise over, and he takes them back to Phone Company headquarters on Earth. He explains to Coln that FTL capabilities are powered by cytonics rather than technology. Lanna comes in, and Jason introduces her as his wife, to Coln's surprise. As medics start attending to him, Jason contacts Sonn through holovid, asking if the varvax lock their discontents away. Sonn confirms this, and says other races do this as well. Jason is shocked by the revelation, now realizing that the ambassador, a discontent, was the one who initiated the swap with Denise to infiltrate human society, rather than the other way around, in hopes of getting their hands on human technology, which is superior to the aliens'. He cuts the link and tells Lanna to prepare a press release announcing that the Phone Company has finally developed FTL travel.
Later Years & DeathEdit
After Jason's wife died he created an AI based on her memories and personality. Learning that AIs could develop emotions in the Nowhere, he brought her orb in, in hope to bring sapience to the Lanna-AI. After Jason's death, the recently turned sapient AI returned to the Nowhere, where - unable to cope with Jason's death - she replicated herself thousands of times to create the hive-mind of Delvers; beings opposed to change and greatly despising anything outside of the Nowhere.[4][1]
LegacyEdit
The Writellum section of the brain appears to be named after him.[5]
RelationshipsEdit
Lanna WriteEdit
At some point before 2211, Jason met and fell in love with Lanna Write; eventually, the two married. He almost always assigns her to be his support operative when he goes on missions, but then complains about the assignment to mislead the UIB about their relationship. She often affectionately calls him "old man" and creates "exciting" aliases like "Elton Flippenday" for him to use on missions. Lanna believes Jason is too idealistic about the supposed perfect world other species have created in space, but wants to believe he is right anyway. When Coln Abrams first sees the two of them together, he immediately recognizes their fondness for each other.[2]
NotesEdit
- ↑ a b Cytonic chapter 41#
- ↑ a b c d e f Defending Elysium#
- ↑ Starsight Release Party
— Arcanum - 2019-11-26# - ↑ Cytonic chapter 39#
- ↑ Skyward interlude I-2#