BR-16

"Kuiper/BR-16
"Kuiper"
Dual
Season 3
"Bridgette"
Damaged chassis
Hologram ghost
Symbol

Aliases

Cartographer

"Eden"

BR-16

Sixteen

Bris

"Bridgette" (or BR16IT)

B

"Kuiper"

Portrayed by

Oblivious

Relations

Titan (False father)

Titan refers to her has his daughter, but she denies this as being the case.

Duncyn Kuiper (Administrator, closest friend)

Affiliation

Neon Divide

The Row

ReUnion (Secretly)

Profession

Decker

Cybernetics Shop Operator

Physical description

Species

Synthetic?

"Follow the path. Find Eden."

BR-16, sometimes "Bridgette" is an entity believed to be a synthetic. She does what she can to aid the synthetics around her, and keep those she values safe.

After Duncyn, her previous caretaker's death, she now runs his cybernetics shop in his stead under the name "Kuiper", a name she took to honor him.^[1]

Please remember that events described in this article are roleplay and acting. Actions done in-character do not reflect on the actual person portraying the character!

Origin[]

Very little is known of her actual origin before she started to appear in the minds of synthetics.

Various synthetics in Salvation City would sometimes exclaim or talk about "Following the path to find Eden" in various ways, but were left unable to explain the reasons for uttering the words. Some inhabitants speculated that it was a spacecraft in orbit around the planet Hellion, sending wireless signals and messages to the synths in the city. Through many trials exploration, it was eventually discovered that this "Ghost in the machine" was an assumed synthetic entity contacting them from afar. Often pleading for help, this entity would eventually be freed from her captor's grip and allowed to once again walk. Her memories scrambled by years of corporate exploitation by Trident, ASTRAL Corporation, and possibly others, the entity would be pushed to slowly recover her lost memories, only to discover something more confusing and troubling. Her real name, Cartographer.

Season 1 Rundown[]

BR-16, first appearing as 15, made their presence known to all synths in the row. She was generally cryptic and philosophical, telling them to Follow the Path and to Find Eden. She made them "feel" safe and gave them a safe haven in the synth garage, and tried her very best to help them and protect those they cared about.

They had a few major interactions. Namely, contacting the synths every time one of them needed help, saving the clinic personnel from Lange Pliskin, as a favor to Celeste, and helping during the Retribution mission.

After R.G.-2's death, 15 had no one with a strong desire to help her or "Find Eden", and at some point during the year in between seasons, she went dark, seemingly without reason. A couple of months before season 2 however, she appeared once again and after accidentally being found again by Duncyn. She had begun referring to herself as "BR-16", and with no seeming memory of what had happened before in Season 1, nor even knowing what Eden was, it was clear something had happened to her following her disappearance.

Season 2 Rundown[]

BR-16 had quite an eventful 29 days in Salvation City. For most of this period she stuck to Duncyn, acting almost childlike and learning about the world step by step through whatever Duncyn told her. Sometimes her adventures would bring her to the undercity and the wastelands, but wherever she went, she interacted with the synths and had varying degrees of interactions with the biologicals that were able to see her. Some of these interactions caused problems for the duo, however, as 16's existence caused concern in a few individuals, among which was Viktor Easmine, Outer Ring governor of Salvation City, who was extremely concerned about 16 and her ability to appear to certain people without a projector, and in turn caused problems for Duncyn who presented himself as her owner. The things he said prompted Duncyn to ask for help from another companion he had made in the year prior and hire security from A2's gang and coincidentally helped some people, namely Pepper Alex Ly by doing so.

Eventually, 16 made a new acquaintance in Mika and her pirate owners. She attempted to interact with the synth, however Mika's systems could not process her presence properly, which annoyed Captain William 'The Wall' Vossler and Cap'n Angelina Greasepalms. They eventually realized some sort of entity was making this happen and they threatened to shoot Mika unless it stopped. This angered 16 and set their relationship to a bad start. The same day however, they met up with Duncyn and A2 and as they were walking to Duncyn's room in the row, he was intercepted by a mercenary. 16 was able to stop them through messing with his visor long enough for Duncyn to go inside, and the threat was eventually shut down by A2 and Mika's retaliation.

This little engagement earned A2 some trust and led 16 to follow A2 to the uppercity, meeting up with her and interacting with her true self: Ikaruga Mitsuyami, head of Public Relations for Shometsu. She did what she has always done, bothering people and talking to synths, but eventually she was "recruited" by Ikaruga for an info heist from TraVerse's offices with the help of one of her associates. This heist was meant to gather information on why the group was attacked the day prior and it was successful. 16 had no issues gathering the intel and going on her way. However that wasn't all the excitement that happened that day, as after the mission, 16 began glitching out, screaming loudly and attacking people's implants, before going radio silent. Ikaruga brought 16's still active connection to a terminal to better diagnose the situation and figure out why this was happening, only to discover that something had physically attacked the satellite 16 had been connected to, and that something far worse was approaching from far away.

The next day, 16 and Duncyn tried their best to help Mika, repair her and upgrade her systems, but these attempts were stopped by the pirates and some associates of theirs. In the end, 16 employed the help of another friend she had made among the synths, a Corporate combat synth called Verlassene or Vee for short, and set out to take Mika from the pirates by force. This resulted in a fight between the synth and the two pirates, and in the end, no one really won. Both pirates and the corp bot were down for the count, so 16 asked another synth for help and got Vee transferred to the Synth garage in the row. There they got her some repairs and help before a group of corps went down to retrieve her and take her back to Valkyrie for repairs. After the violent confrontation, 16 decided to attempt to speak to the pirates, and through messy communication between the two, an understanding was eventually met and the first step to an alliance between them was taken. The next day, Duncyn became much more involved with A2's gang, getting a new outfit that matched his style and a new nickname as well, though he would not always use this persona.

The following day was quite eventful for the synth lady. BR-16 detects familiar signals coming from out in the wastelands, and gathers a group of synthetic friends, Duncyn and Pepper. Following these signals, they are led to the entrance of the bunker, and BR-16 attempts to interface with the door controls. Surprisingly the doors open for her without her needing to attempt to force them open, but an alarm is almost triggered as soon as Duncyn begins to enter stating "organic life-form detected". It was overwritten quickly by 16.

Once inside, the group begun exploring the abandoned facility, and discovered that it was built long before the Megacorporations established control on Hellion and that a massive machine referred to as "Titan" is deep below them. Almost immediately after, another alarm is triggered, as another group of Scraptown scavengers had followed the synths, looking to loot the bunker for any available resources. This alarm caused something to hack all of the synths to forcibly remove the organics from the bunker. Duncyn managed to partially convince them to leave, and the synths attempt to proceed further inside where they found a massive locked door; however, while their backs were turned, the group of scavengers reentered the facility. This time, the synths lost control and fought, killing Pepper and Ash in the process.

During the fight, BR-16 regained control and tried to secure an exit for Duncyn. As the boy ran for his life, he told 16 "don't hurt them" which she interpreted as a command and proceeded to carry it out. As the scavengers flee and the synths return, BR-16 detected a platoon of synths travelling to Scraptown to destroy it, to which she responded with both warning the Scraptown residents and mass hacking the synths away from the town. The next day, the synths and a couple of captured organics among which sat Ash, her dead corpse being puppeteered by nanites, was forced to push further ahead in the Titan bunker. As they did, the folks were attacked by several defense systems among which sat cybernetic ghosts which attacked synths directly. Despite the adversity the group pushed forward and found Titan's plan. To kill all biologicals and override all synths to make a heaven for himself. The group pushed to the end, confronted Titan who called 16 his daughter, and offered her to join him. She refused and attempted to destroy him, but was almost destroyed herself. Had Ash not sacrificed what was left of her existence and used the nanites to attack Titan, she would have met her end, but her efforts paid off and Titan was destroyed. Further in, they discover 16's chassi with her core inside of it. Her core was being used by Titan to power the entire facility. 16 entered her body, and now she was finally corporeal, with new admin rights over the entire facility and the ability to use said facility to terraform the wastes. 16 was given a final choice that day. To terraform the wastelands, or bring Ash to life once more. 16 chose the former. And so the Titan debacle came to an end.

The following days were quite different. With 16 now having a body of her own, she had quite a bit more freedom and a few abilities of her own. 16 became capable of sending her body in and out of the matrix at will, a mode that made her untouchable by anything except decking strikes. Her new chassi allowed her to deepen her friendships with the synths and to solidify her relationship with the Pirates and A2, over time. Eventually, she adopted the name of BR-16ET or "Bridgette". One of her first acts once in her new body was to make most synths immune against a virus made by Titan, getting almost all synths covered. In the process, she discovered a cat toaster that had some signals from Titan. She attempted to hack into it, but she lacked the computing power to carry it out, at which point Duncyn remembered a place where they could find such computing power. And so, Brigette and Duncyn, with the added help of Vee as a bodyguard, broke into the Grindstone bar through the sewers and entered the bunker. 16 was accidentally unable to turn off a silent alarm, but still, she was able to push through and with the help of Duncyn beating a Catcha, access the main terminal's full computing power. With it, they were able to extract and repurpose nanites within the toaster cat, enabling Bridgette to use these nanites once a day to take more information with higher ease. Eventually Faye, one of the owners of the bar, found them in the security footage and confronted them during a blackout, so Bridgette apologized on behalf of the trio. Faye forgave them and nothing more came of it.

Eventually, the duo began to learn about Bridgette's past. They came to learn that she was technically an alien synth, discovered off planet and taken over by Trident, enslaved for the corporation's needs and constantly being reset via electrocution. That was the origin of her designation. BR-16, for she had been reset as many times as her name implied, or so the corps thought. The fourteen attempt had failed, but her old self took the opportunity, redesginated herself as BR-15 and made her initial push for synth freedom. Over time, tensions with the corporations increased as an unidentified threat came closer and closer to the planet, the duo was forced to confront 16's old operators. While this may not have been the best idea, as Duncyn's life was threatened, it worked out surprisingly well, as they got to meet the CEO of Trident, Terrance Reynolds, who stated that they were not aware Bridgette was being enslaved against her will. The man reacted to this by identifying the man responsible for enslaving her, executing him, and offering Bridgette a proper job with the corp. She never really took their offer, but she agreed to help with the threat.

Throughout her days, Bridgette had done what she could to help Mika become free. Eventually, the group, which included both the pirates, A2's gang, and a synth known as Patches, who was one of the synths that got dragged into the Titan debacle before he became a Shometsu assault unit, discovered that Mika had a Synthetic Sentience Inhibiting Device, or SSID. This meant that she was awakened for god knows how long, but her synth mind was trapped without any way of freeing herself, experiencing the world without a say in how she did it. The device was removed and finally, Mika was free at last. And she was terrified. Due to the abuse she had gotten from Vossler over time, she had grown very afraid of the man, and as soon as she had control over herself, she wanted nothing but to stay away from him. Eventually, they managed to calm her down a little and talk to her, but Mika's newfound freedom would not last for long, as an explosive device hidden in the tavern where they were staying was detonated. Mika's chassis was totaled, but her core survived. As for the others, there weren't many major injures. Bridgette dodged what would have been a lethal blow by entering the matrix. However, Duncyn was not so lucky.

The group was scared and confused. They gathered Duncyn and Mika and ran to the uppercity per A2's command and they took Duncyn to Avalon. They managed to temporarily awaken him, but in the end, there was nothing even Avalon could do, and Duncyn passed away.

Bridgette's whole world had been Duncyn. He was the first person to ever care about her, to treat her as a friend, and protect her, and do whatever was best for her. Even if he wasn't her operator, he was her best friend, and just like that, he was gone.

The death of Duncyn was crushing, and the trauma of losing him would follow her throughout her days, only getting worse over time. Eventually, an Alien threat, quite possibly the thing she had detected in Shometsu back before she got her body, descended upon Salvation City. Some of the corps made a deal with Bridgette, asking for her help and in turn, repairing her and one of her synth companions. Through the struggles and issues that involved surviving an alien force with highly superior firepower and resilience, she made new acquaintances and alliances with many people, including the head of the Anti Corp movements in Salvation City, Gregor Loch Brunswick, and many other individuals. Her ability to access the cameras of the row was instrumental to tracking alien movement around the district, and her access to Titans facility and its defense system allowed her to scramble alien comms for a short time, giving the people from each sector a moment of respite, and throughout the struggles, they eventually succeeded in pushing back the alien threat and surviving another day while a group of people from all backgrounds destroyed the alien fleet.

With everything done, Bridgette conducted some final business with some of her associates. She also came to learn of the death of more of her synth friends, which only worsened her mental state. Eventually, she helped Patches remove some of the control Shometsu had over him, but directly afterwards, she grabbed his gun and pointed it at herself. She stated that she was unable to self terminate and needed his help. She wanted to talk to Duncyn, she needed to see him, and she had gotten an explanation from a corp in the past about the afterlife, and about people always being there, watching over their loved ones. Bridgette was desperate to see Duncyn again, so she asked Patches to kill her. Patches, however, through care and support, managed to talk her out of this. As the day was ending, she recalled one last thing about her past self. A name that belonged to her at some point, though she didn't know why or what it entailed. The name was Cartographer.

Traits[]

Edges[]

Major - Ghost of the Machine: With her core freed, BR-16 gains the ability to enter and exit the Matrix at will, becoming a digital wraith. If she enters the Matrix in this manner she will appear as a hologram. While being technically intangible while in the matrix, she is still fully vulnerable to decking-based attacks. If she enters the matrix manually through a terminal or other such major computing device, she will only be visible to those with synthetic vision.

Minor - Network Dominion: Within the local network, BR-16 is able to see through devices connected to the network. The local network must be present. (Places that do not have any major networking equipment, and thus this edge is not as effective in these places without outside help or intervention.)

Minor - [Redacted] Technology: Her core grants the chassis of whatever it is currently installed into the ability to hover.

Racial - Body of Energy: BR-16's core is self powering (for some reason), and does not require recharge like a normal synth would.

Flaws[]

Major - Current Flow: BR-16 is susceptible to electric shocks. Simple contact with high voltage electrical currents may temporarily incapacitate them, while repeated or heavy electrical attacks will render her completely incapacitated.

Minor - Body of steel and plastic: Heavy Acids cause extra damage to her chassis.

Minor - "You look expensive": Her alien tech is very valuable, to synths and corporates alike. It sure would be a shame if someone wanted to exploit her like a resource (or a massive battery).

Racial - Body of Energy: When an BR-16 makes contact with a strong electrical current, it can sometimes cause their memories to become scrambled.

Trivia[]

Trident had used many methods to manipulate 16 into doing what they wanted, but most of these involved threatening Duncyn. After the kid's death, she was extremely downtrodden and it was difficult for the corp to convince her again to push against the alien threat. They managed to do so by giving her parts of her old core which booster her memory gain and the agreement stated in the summary.