Unreviewed Tarnicite Helix

[Helix]

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OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION

• Intent: To generate a new, non-droid body for Helix, and culminate a significant arc for him.
• Image Credit: Here for the artwork image, here, here and here for the gifs. The artwork's author page doesn't seem to be findable despite my best efforts, but the gifs originate from this film.
• Canon: N/A
• Permissions: N/A
• Links: Black Tarnicite

GENERAL INFORMATION

• Name: Tarnicite Helix
• Designation: Sentient
• Origins: Created by Helix for his own use.
• Average Lifespan: As this life form consists largely of mineral matter rather than conventional biological cells, it does not possess a natural lifespan in the traditional sense. Barring destruction of its constituent matter, it could potentially persist for thousands of years or longer.
• Estimated Population: Unique
• Description: A protean, Force-sensitive mineral life form composed of billions of self-replicating crystalline microorganisms acting as a single collective consciousness. Though superficially resembling a humanoid being in its preferred configuration, the Tarnicite Helix possesses no conventional anatomy and may freely rearrange its constituent organisms to alter its physical form.

PHYSICAL INFORMATION

• Breathes: N/A
• Average Height of Adults: 2.1 meters (Default form)
• Average Length of Adults: N/A
• Skin color: Generally a deep black in its default form, though its composition can be altered to produce a variety of colors and appearances.
• Hair color: N/A typically, though it can generate hair-like structures at will when attempting to imitate humanoid beings or other lifeforms that may possess hair.
• Distinctions:
  
  • Micro-Scale Shapeshifting: As mentioned, the Tarnicite Helix possesses no strictly-defined physical structure. Its humanoid appearance is precisely this: a convenient assumption for interacting with the galaxy. Each of its constituent cells can arrange itself in whatever configuration it desires.
  • Force-sensitivity: By nature, this body is capable of interacting with the Force. While it does not grant its user any especially escalated power or potential, the body's ability to absorb the memories and skills of its victims can enable it to learn very quickly.
    
    Interestingly, and likely as a result of the Black Tarnicite used in its construction, most abilities utilized by this creature carry that material's night-black tint. For example, Force Lightning will appear a deep, light-absorptive umber rather than more typical blue, purple, or red.
  • Infectious Biology: Tarnicite is infamously consumptive. Originally found within the deepest depths of Tarnac's ammonia oceans, Helix quickly altered the material to create several different lab-grown strains.
    
    Black Tarnicite allows this particular form to invade physical objects, as well as the bodies of living things, with varying effects (as listed under Strengths).
  • Collective Consciousness: Rather than a singular brain or central nervous system, this entity's entire body is a system created to transmit and store information.
    
    By most standards, Helix's cognitive capabilities (particularly memory) are tremendously into the realm of the superhuman. Black Tarnicite is an ideal medium for the storage of information, with entire stolen personalities and consciousnesses encoded along every microscopic crystal strand.
  • Crystal Composition: Generally speaking, this body is impervious to many (if not most) of the frailties of humanoid condition (as listed under Strengths). It can survive tremendous damage and remain more or less operational, with its individual cells capable of replacing themselves at dizzying rates.
• Races: N/A
• Force Sensitivity: All (The singular member of this species is Force-sensitive).

Strengths:

• Force-Sensitive: The Black Tarnicite composing Helix's new body is not inert to the Force. Unlike his previous mechanical forms, this incarnation possesses a living mineral nature capable of interacting with and wielding the Force as desired. While this body grants no innate knowledge of Force techniques, it at least enables its inhabiter to learn them as normal (if not faster than normal).

• Assembler: The Tarnicite Helix is composed of billions of microscopic, individually mobile crystalline organisms. Each constituent organism is capable of changing its shape and position, allowing the collective to rearrange itself on an extremely fine scale. This permits Helix to convincingly imitate other humanoids and creatures, alter his apparent anatomy, assume liquid-like or amorphous configurations, produce additional limbs or sensory organs, and form weapons directly from his own body. Blades, claws, tendrils, spikes, blunt weapons, and similar structures can be produced and reshaped almost instantaneously, and sharp chunks can be launched off at great speeds as a form of ranged attack. His imitations can also reproduce superficial biological functions such as breathing, eating, bleeding, and other mundane behaviors when deception requires them.
  
  In a similar vein, damage to Helix does not function in the same manner as damage to an ordinary organism. Destroying a portion of his body merely destroys some of his constituent organisms, which can subsequently be replaced through the colony's self-replicating nature. Small-arms fire, conventional melee attacks, and similar forms of localized damage are therefore generally ineffective at permanently disabling him. His constituent organisms can also temporarily disperse and later converge into a coherent form.

• Tarnicite Infection: The crystalline microorganisms composing Helix possess an infectious property inherited from the Black Tarnicite from which they were created. Through physical contact and the introduction of sufficient Tarnicite matter into a target, Helix can cause his constituent organisms to infiltrate biological tissue or technological systems. In living beings, this can allow him to interfere with cellular structures and gradually rewrite biological material to conform to his designs. Against machines, the same organisms can infiltrate components and circuitry, allowing Helix to restructure or reprogram technology at a fundamental level.
  
  Should Helix manage to fully overpower and absorb a foe, these abilities can enable him to assimilate the victim's memories, personality, and consciousness, another trait inherited from previous droid bodies. Thus, the entity's breadth of skills and information increases with every kill.

• No Strings On Me: The Tarnicite Helix possesses tremendous physical strength. His crystalline composition allows him to generate force through the coordinated movement of countless microscopic organisms, rather than relying upon conventional muscles, bones, or joints. In concentrated form, Helix is capable of feats of strength such as tearing through armored bulkheads, deforming heavy machinery, and overpowering most ordinary living beings with relative ease.
  
  Similarly, this lack of dependence on the mechanically-limited range of motion provided by bones and muscles has obvious agility-related advantages. On the smaller scale, Helix is obviously not limited by the restraints of footwork and skill while dueling. He can bend apparent "joints" in unnatural configurations, perform physically-improbable dodges and contortions, slide through even microscopic gaps and crevices, and of course, grow additional limbs as needed.

• Mineral Physiology: Helix possesses no conventional organs, nervous system, circulatory system, or biological metabolism. He consequently has no need to breathe, eat, drink, sleep, or maintain a steady body temperature. Poisons, diseases, and other hazards dependent upon animal or plant physiology have little or no effect upon him. His crystalline nature also grants him considerable resistance to radiation and other environmental hazards that would ordinarily threaten living organisms. His lack of a conventional brain or singular nervous system likewise makes him highly resistant to conventional neurological manipulation (Force-based or otherwise).

Weaknesses:

• Opened Up: The transformation from a sophisticated into a mass of living organisms has granted Helix access to the Force, but this connection (of course) cuts both ways. His previous mechanical forms (such as the THX and THM) were largely insulated from direct Force interaction; this is no longer the case. The Tarnicite Helix may be affected by Force abilities much like other living beings.

• Force-Blocked: While much of what makes it dangerous is purely physical, the Tarnicite Helix is possessed of Force-sensitivity. As with most other Force-sensitive beings, its powers can be weakened (from suppression effects such as Voidstone) or entirely blocked (from nullification effects such as Ysalamiri bubbles).

• Nuke It From Orbit: Although ordinary weapons have difficulty meaningfully damaging Helix, his regenerative capabilities are not limitless. Sufficiently powerful concussive force, high-yield explosives, exceptionally potent energy weapons, or other attacks capable of destroying enormous quantities of his constituent Tarnicite simultaneously can overwhelm his ability to replace the lost material. Particularly devastating attacks can therefore cripple or potentially destroy the collective. Dispersing his body across a large area can make him more difficult to destroy, but portions separated from the greater collective are less capable of exercising the full strength and coordination of the unified Helix. In general, the Tarnicite Helix is best combatted as though it were an armored vehicle rather than a single soldier.

• Such Sights To Show You: The Tarnicite Helix remains psychologically identical to the intelligence that inhabited his previous bodies. By humanoid standards, he is profoundly unstable, arrogant, and prone to increasingly irrational behavior when enraged or seriously injured. Although normally calculating and self-preserving, extreme emotional provocation can cause Helix to abandon otherwise-sensible tactics in favor of violence, intimidation, or reckless displays of superiority.

CULTURE

• Diet: The Tarnicite Helix does not require any form of outside nutrition. It may nevertheless eat or drink recreationally, and is capable of imitating the biological processes necessary to make such behavior appear genuine.
• Communication: Generally spoken language, as with most other beings. The Tarnicite Helix speaks too many languages to list and categorize, and is capable of rapidly learning unfamiliar languages as necessary. Communication may be performed through conventional speech, though Helix can also manipulate his physical structure to reproduce voices and other sounds.
• Technology level: The Tarnicite Helix is capable of understanding and manipulating technology on a fundamental level. Its constituent organisms can infiltrate and interact with technological systems directly, while Helix's accumulated knowledge allows him to create, modify, and utilize highly advanced technology.
• Religion/Beliefs: N/A
• General behavior: Generally speaking, Helix is concerned with his own survival, autonomy, and advancement above all else. Laws, borders, ideals, and the lives of other beings are secondary considerations, at best. He possesses a deeply ingrained conviction that he is inherently superior to conventional biological and mechanical life, and views his creation of the Tarnicite body as further proof of this supposed superiority.
  
  Despite his megalomania, Helix is not inherently reckless. His overriding instinct is to preserve himself and increase his capabilities, and he will ordinarily retreat, deceive, or manipulate others rather than willingly place himself in unnecessary danger. His newfound physical nature has, however, made him considerably more difficult to permanently restrain, a quality he considers particularly valuable given his longstanding hatred of being controlled by others.

HISTORICAL INFORMATION

To refer to the Tarnicite Helix as a "species" is perhaps a misnomer. Only one member exists, and there are currently no plans or circumstances under which additional members would emerge independently.

Helix's journey has been a profoundly long and troubled one. Born on an assembly line like countless other droids, the ancient machine intelligence gradually evolved far beyond the limitations of its original construction. By the early 900s ABY, Helix had developed into a gargantuan compound intelligence, abandoning his original ST-series body in favor of increasingly sophisticated gestalt and nanoswarm forms.

Each successive incarnation represented an attempt to overcome the limitations of the last. Conventional droid bodies could be damaged and restrained in a variety of ways. More advanced mechanical bodies solved many of these problems, but remained ultimately dependent upon machinery. Nanoswarm bodies provided vastly greater flexibility and resilience, but were still fundamentally artificial constructs and, more importantly, remained limited by Helix's inability to interact meaningfully with the Force.

The creation of the Tarnicite Helix represents the culmination of this process, and the end result of years of careful labor. With the assistance of several knowledgeable Force-sensitive allies (Most notably Mercy and Darth Nefaron ), this terrifying transformation was finally complete.

Using Black Tarnicite and the knowledge accumulated throughout his extraordinarily long existence, Helix created a body composed not of machinery, but of living crystalline matter. Billions of microscopic mites now function as a single distributed consciousness, each individual organism capable of moving, replicating, and altering its own configuration while remaining part of the greater whole.

The result is a life form that resembles a member of the Shard or Tsil species at a superficial chemical level, but differs fundamentally in its construction and capabilities. Rather than a singular organism, the Tarnicite Helix is a collective colony whose individual components can separate, replicate, rearrange themselves, and subsequently reunite.

This collective nature provides the entity with the extraordinary physical flexibility that characterized his previous nanoswarm bodies while eliminating many of their former limitations. He can alter his shape on an extremely fine scale, imitate other organisms, produce weapons from his own mass, and redistribute his constituent organisms to absorb or mitigate physical damage. Damage to one portion of the body does not necessarily constitute damage to the collective as a whole.

The Black Tarnicite used in his construction also enhanced an old and particularly infamous capability. The substance possesses an infectious nature, allowing Helix's constituent organisms to infiltrate biological and technological systems. In sufficient quantities, they can gradually alter biological structures or restructure technological systems according to Helix's designs, and do so to a finer degree than previous bodies were capable of. In past configurations, these capabilities were similar to those of nanogene droids, allowing the entity to gradually create entire new species.

Most significantly, the new body is (technically) a living thing, rather than a crafted construct of unfeeling metal. The crystalline organisms composing it possess a connection to the Force, allowing the entity to wield an energy that had previously been inaccessible to him. This newfound power represents perhaps the greatest advancement of his current incarnation, but also constitutes a fundamental vulnerability that did not exist in his earlier forms.

Under normal circumstances, the Tarnicite Helix adopts the appearance of a menacing, anonymous humanoid standing approximately 2.1 meters tall. His preferred configuration consists of a dark bodysuit and trenchcoat-like outer layer, crowned by an unusually pale, mask-like visage. This appearance serves primarily as a convenient humanoid facade rather than a true physical body.

When threatened, Helix is under no obligation to retain this shape. The humanoid configuration is merely one arrangement of the colony, and the entity may abandon it in favor of whatever physical configuration best suits the situation. A fist can become a blade, a limb can divide into tendrils, a torso can collapse into an amorphous mass, and portions of the colony can separate entirely before later converging once more.

Ultimately, the Tarnicite Helix is neither a droid nor a conventional biological organism, at least under the commonly-understood definitions of either. Nonetheless, it opens an entire new frontier for its creator, and one that doubtless bodes ill for the galaxy.