O'Neills Angels

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O'Neill's Angels are AIs, but unfortunately there isn't a lot of evidence of that. They are biologically human, and most people would think that they are biomodded humans. Like many biomods, if they're ageing it's pretty slow, and they resist injury and death. Built by a rather furtive Irish national, Arthur, Just Arthur they seem either a brilliant example of wave tech, or someone got lucky.

They answer to the names Sarah, Jane, and Kelly, and are respectively blonde, brunette and red-haired. With film-star good looks. They don't give surnames, saying they left that all behind on Earth. Their legal documents however give their names as Sarah Major, Jane Dow and Kelly Green, and they're all in their mid twenties.

Angels

Sarah

A brilliant lawyer, and a skilled armed combatant. If needed she does a very good 'Valley Girl'. She's also a lot stronger than you'd expect for someone of her build, and is quite capable of effectively using what would otherwise be crew-served or vehicle heavy weapons, but, in general, not dual-wielding. It might be inadvisable to use the phrase "terminate that contract" around her. Why injuries to her skin might show a metal endoskeleton is unclear, seeing as medical tests show normal flesh and blood. Yes, she can do the "Terminator Walk" (see Sarah Conner in T2, and many Terminators). And she heals fast. endnote

Jane

A brilliant administrator, skilled in accountancy, and in business law. She is probably the most sane and stable of the three, but considers herself to be rather in their shadow. You might class her as an understated English beauty, except for the fact that she looks Oriental in some lights. Willing to use whatever weapons fit the job she is least inclined of the three to impractical flashy martial arts. She has the lungs and voice control to shout-down most people, but rarely uses this unless really annoyed.

Kelly

A brilliant scientist and engineer. She's also a workable, if unlicensed, doctor. Unfortunately her science is, while very broad-ranging, conventional, and her engineering is mad scientist steam-punk. All goes well until she tries to mix the two; she's been seen hitting something with a large spanner shouting "Why, Wont it, Work?". People who stereotype her as a red-headed Celtic engineer annoy her, and she might swear at them in Gaelic. She prefers to use improvised weapons in a fight, such as tools, but chairs and unconscious enemies will do. She's not really an unstoppable berserker when she gets badly upset. Really. But, seeDevelopment.

Shared Abilities

All of the three are fully qualified policewomen who believe they work for "Charlie", and are on a deep undercover mission. They expect to be contacted by Charlie, but wont be bothered by this taking at least several years; they've no way of contacting Charlie themselves. Their mission requires them to be totally loyal to the boss of the "O'Neill Station", and they will smile and do this, even if they're gritting their teeth.

All three are skilled martial artists though they sometimes fall into the pattern of set pieces, acrobatically leaping off each other, or taking poses, including the classic "Charlie's Angels" one. Fighting one of them is bad, fighting all three is suicide for all but the most expert martial artist. They are quite ready for someone to bring guns to a martial arts fight, and will likely take cover and respond. Yes, they can use most martial arts weapons.

Quirks

Bond-age Problem

Unfortunately, they tend to believe they are "Bond Girls", and will dress and act after that style. Jane is probably the best at resisting this, and it fades with the others when their particular quirks come out. This trait can make them vulnerable to suave, sophisticated, dominant males.

Second Best

No matter what clothes and make-up they wear they will always look a little 'off'. Their clothes will never look totally new or original, their hair will be good but not perfect, and they will always look 'second best'. Under normal circumstances a lot of people wont notice this, but it becomes apparent at really posh parties and receptions. Those with a particular eye for fashion will spot this immediately on meeting them.

Mental Instability

A major quirk they all share is to do with the computer hardware used to wave them (this is no longer physically part of their apparently totally biological bodies). Their creator had only used their PC motherboards for MS Windows 98, and, even worse, Windows ME. The ex-school hard drives had been wiped, but they had previously dual-booted Linux and Windows ME. This residue has given all three unstable personalities, and they tend to get lost in whatever role they are playing. Jane is most stable, and can realise what is going on and resist it, and sometimes she can pull the other two out of it. Sarah is worst, particularly if she is operating alone. Kelly is OK if you don't mind monomania on technical matters.

Piratical Piloting

A minor quirk that they all have is tied to their piloting abilities. They can pilot most vehicles, at a basic level of competence, though preferably with a little training. To be expert pilots, or pilot in combat, they need to "go pirate". This involves at least something like wearing pirate headgear, or having a pirate parrot on one shoulder (if it's a plastic one, it will become surprisingly animate, even vocal, during this time); an eye patch or fake pirate appendages are generally bad ideas while piloting. A 'pirate earring' isn't enough. In an emergency, they can get by with a fake pirate accent, and a bit of "Arrr" in the 'Long John Silver' tradition.

Fixing Their Problems

If someone wanted to 'fix' them they'd need near-divine level of skills. Try Skuld. They'd need to access their over-selves, outside the normal 4D space-time. Once there you could have a go at de-quirking their AIs, and fixing their damaged auras.

Equipment

Some equipment shared by all three of them are their invisible space suits. The suits can be put-on in about twenty seconds, no matter what clothes are being worn, though they take a couple of minutes to take off. They provide indefinite air and waste recycling, using magic-seeming technology, and you can eat and drink while wearing one. While not worn they fold-up incredibly small. And they act as full-coverage light body armour.

Being nearly indestructible and self-repairing you might wonder why not wear them all the time? They have a strange quirk of making the wearer look faded, and shifted towards being four-colour, a little like an old comic book. In low light levels they make the wearer look black-and-white, even while some colour can still be seen in their surroundings. The suits only work for the Angels, though they could interchange them amongst them.

The other item they all share are their three flight rings. One reason they're not worn all the time is their distinctive 'L' symbol. These are made of an alien metal and have no obvious power source, again they are incredibly tough (as something needs to be around super powers).

Unfortunately the design of the rings wasn't good enough. Even though the hardened, embedded, waved micro-circuitry is a brilliant piece of design work, the designer wasn't as good as "Braniac 5". Flight in space isn't a problem, zero-G manoeuvring works perfectly, flight in significant gravity wells, not so good. However, the flight is just good enough to manage a controlled crash into a gravity well. It's unclear whether the Angels know about this problem (actually, they do, as they tried flying before leaving Earth for O'Neill Station). The rings only work for the Angels, though they could interchange them amongst them.

Angel Holes

The Angels' view of the world isn't just bent, it's a corkscrew that requires higher dimensions to describe. There are things they cannot believe without doubting who they are.

Yes, they have a plot, but that plot is: "Deep Cover on a Mysterious Space Station". Charlie told them that. They can't doubt it. Deep cover means that they must establish themselves as loyal and reliable. And, they must wait for Charlie's call.

Anything that they learn will be twisted to fit that plot. They will learn about AIs and Fenspace, but that will only be background information, part of their investigation; none of it can apply to them. They can compare this with their previous investigations, and know they've "fallen down the rabbit hole". This is all far weirder than anything that they've done before, which didn't go any further than a few gadgets. They've got invisible space suits, they've got rings that let them fly (in space), and no one they speak to thinks that they're anything except something to envy.

Once they start talking between themselves, other cracks will appear. Their shared history works up to a point, then things get sticky. Jane is the easy one, both the others know her with the skills she has. Sarah was always known as being a legal genius, and Kelly a scientific genius, and unlicensed medic; that's all simple retcon. In neither case do you want to argue with them if they lose their tempers.

Where the wheels start to fall off is the question of where Sarah got all the Terminator stuff, and Kelly got the Steam Punk. These amount to large chunks of Secret Background that even the best script writer would have to scrabble to maintain plausible deniability. Remember, the Angels are writing their script as they're going along.

The Angels are the 'Good Guys' - they have to be. OK, they have problems, but so does everyone else.

The Angels also are unlikely to regard themselves as AIs, more as humans with a bit extra. They don't have the sort of thinking speeds AIs in Fenspace have, for example, though they are certainly at the top of human mental reaction speeds. Almost like they have human minds condensed from an AI template.

Unless they completely break their roles, which would put massive strain on their minds, the Angels will not call Charlie. Jane wouldn't even call Arthur if she was pretty sure he was Charlie. This doesn't mean she might not call him for some other reason, though.

Development

Sarah doesn't change much over time, though her self-control gets better. She learns to have more fun and be less serious with cos-playing; her 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer' can be truely terrifying.

Jane doesn't change much over time, though she gains some self-confidence, with respect to believing she's in the shadow of the other two. She also starts to amass her own personal fortune, through careful investments and business consultancy, done in her own time. Jane has a private hobby of singing, particularly operatic parts.

Kelly changes the most, making use of meditation and relaxation techniques to deal with the collision between her modern-day scientific and steam-punk mad scientist sides. Given a little time and calm she learns to act as an excellent Chief Engineer, for hard-tech and the more hard-tech like wave-tech, though this works best if she minimises the hands-on approach. Under pressure she finds it very difficult to not revert to steam-punk mode. As a hobby she enjoys making her own moonshine (illegal Irish Whisky) and drinking it, in moderation, of course. She also enjoys making (fully functional) steam-punk vehicle models, with the occassional one full-size (she has her own improved Mirror Crab).


endnote

Not realised initially, is that Sarah is a consummate hacker, and a brilliantly skilful programmer. "It is all about understanding the rules, the laws, by which these things work" was her comment when Jane found this out. Some might suspect that Terminators and Sarah Conner both being excellent programmers and hackers could be relevant. Incidentally, Kelly is a reasonably skilled programmer, but only knows about the theoretical side of hacking (unless it involves Steam Punk).

See Also

O'Neill Station