Zinnius Dern's page

166 posts. Alias of Celestial Healer.


Full Name

Zinnius Dern

Race

Salarian

Classes/Levels

Engineer

Gender

Male

About Zinnius Dern

Zinnius Dern
Salarian tech specialist

Refresh 3
Stress: 1 2 3 4 5
Fate points remaining: 2

Armor 1
Shields 6 [1]

Skills:
Systems +4 (+5 with Speed of Thought)
Engineering +4
Artillery +3
Contacts +3
Academics +2
Guns +2
Security +2
Empathy +1
Endurance +1
Investigation +1
Pilot +1
Resolve +1

Racial abilities: Speed of Thought, Non-Linear

Skill stunts: Precision targeting, well-known

Powers: Incinerate, Sentry Turret, Tech Armor

Gear:
M-4 Shuriken (autofire), dmg 2, range 0-3, pen -1, bulk 0
M-96 Mattock, dmg 4, range 2-5, pen 1, bulk 1
M-5 Phalanx, dmg 3, range 0-3, pen 0, bulk 0
Light Armor with a Medium Kinetic Shield Generator +6
Chameleon tool
Grenade launcher (fragmentation grenade 5 dmg, concussion grenade 4 dmg non lethal, inferno grenade 4 dmg on fire)

Aspects:
High concept: Kicked out of STG
Invoke: demonstrate experience with espionage and the workings of STG; may win favor with those who don't like STG.
Compel: may complicate relations with loyal Salarians.

Trouble: Unlikely hero for the common man
Invoke: when trying to win the sympathy of ordinary people or humans in particular.
Compel: may make it hard for him to ignore suffering or collateral damage.

Background: Fish out of Water, always in motion
Invoke: Salarian high metabolism can be an advantage, particularly since they only sleep 1 hour per day,. Also can breath in water.
Compel: some may be prejudiced against the race or perceive them as weak or fickle.

Adventure: I've rarely regretted blowing something up
Invoke: may see opportunities or weaknesses that a well-placed explosive charge could exploit.
Compel: may overlook more subtle solutions to problems.

Adventure: I still know people
Invoke: when it may be helpful to know somebody in strange places or reach out to an old STG contact.
Compel: may be recognized when he does not wish to be.

Adventure: At home among aliens
Invoke: he is comfortable traveling or spending time away from his people, and has a good deal of familiarity with the ways of other species.
Compel: his comfort with other species may cause him to overlook negative characteristics, fail to see potential dangers, or fail to take others' xenophobia into account when he makes plans.

Background:

They call me Zinnius Dern, although my proper name is far longer than that and challenging for aliens to pronounce. Most non-Salarians call me Zinnius, although that is my family name; I have accepted this foible as a matter of social expediency.
While I was hatched and educated on Sur'Kesh, my engineering program involved time spent abroad on the Citadel to study mass relay technology. I believe this contributes to my particularly non-parochial view of alien races. There are many who I met there that I would call "friend."

At the age of 14, my post-graduate education was cut short by the Reaper War, and my engineering skills were called to service designing and fitting munitions for Salarian dreadnoughts meant to repel the Reaper invasion which never came.

After the war ended, Salarian engineers were in greater demand than ever, and I accepted a lucrative post lending expertise for the rebuilding of the human colony on New Canton. Of course, this boom in demand for Salarian engineers was an opportunity the Special Tasks Group (STG) could not waste. Like so many others, I was doing double duty building for the aliens and reporting intelligence back to Sur'Kesh.

Most of what the STG was looking for was relatively mundane. As the most expansive intelligence agency in the galaxy, STG requires information about all sorts of activity, including industrial enterprises and colonization patterns. Given the role of Cerberus in the Reaper Wars, their interest in human colonies is certainly understandable.

What should have been a dull post took a turn for the intriguing when I intercepted a transmission revealing that a Cerberus team was arriving on New Canton, hoping to destroy damning evidence left on the planet during the Reaper invasion. They planned to detonate an explosive charge in one of the main research facilities.

During the STG inquest regarding my subsequent actions, I was asked why I felt so strongly compelled to intervene, at the expense of blowing the cover of the whole STG operation on New Canton. I suppose it stems from my early exposure to other races on the Citadel. Some of those humans in that facility were my friends.

I called for an evacuation of the facility, and defused the device. The full nature of my intelligence role came to light almost immediately, including the nature of the intercepted transmissions. To the STG, I had become a reckless rogue operative. To the humans, I was some sort of hero. My name was even mentioned in the human news broadcasts.

The publicity was short-lived (humans have remarkably short attention spans), but it was enough to put STG in a delicate position. Surely, they could not imprison the hero of New Canton for betraying his post, but nor could they allow such a reckless operative to keep his security clearances. They announced that I was being promoted to "leadership duties" but every Salarian understood that I was being quietly released from service.

Since that event, there has been no shortage of work opportunities for one with my skills - both in engineering and espionage. And while many in the STG regard me as a pariah, others, including a few old friends, secretly approved of my decisions on New Canton. It pays to have friends all over.