Nils Ahlberg

Nils Ahlberg,

and these lads just wind the coppers up

Overall, Nils is a calm and collected individual-- or at least appears to be. He has a good, level head on his shoulders, and can take quite a bit of abuse without expressing much anger or distress. However, beneath this cool exterior often lies turmoil. Although it has been a while since he gained them, the android still struggles to understand and contain his emotions. Under the right circumstances, he can be consumed by them and act out. While he tries to avoid these incidents at all costs, this aversion often conflicts with the want to be as human as he possibly can. At the moment, he has yet to discover a better solution.

He is an intelligent and thoughtful sort, and is capable of learning quite quickly (thanks in no small part to his processors' capabilities). However, he frequently gets himself lost in daydreams, and can be curious to a fault. He asks a lot of questions in his attempts to learn and understand things, but many might find his persistence in doing so to be rather annoying, despite his best efforts. Given his consistent need to keep as many people pleased as he can, this can cause issues and inner conflicts.

Ever the people-pleaser, Nils will often work to adjust his behavior and choices to better suit getting along with different personalities. Do you like cats? Great! So does he. Unfortunately, this adaptability has its downfalls, especially when it comes to conflicts with his personal values and wants. It's not unheard of for the android to be paralyzed, for lack of knowing what to do about the predicaments he stumbles into in his pursuit of approval. Of course, there are certain roles he wouldn't dare stray into, especially in regards to treat others poorly. That said, a bit of praise will go a long way in earning his friendship and loyalty, though in the case of more manipulative people, this will often come back to bite him when he's not careful. He's trying to be better about it-- really, he is.

On a similar note, he can have trouble making big or important decisions on his own, as he lacks the confidence in his ability to choose the right thing on his own. In such situations, he usually turns to those he respects in search of advice and opinions before he acts. He's not too difficult to sway one way or the other, usually, especially considering the difficulties he has in standing up for himself. As an android, even a capable one, he is often faced with prejudices and lower social standing, and typically relents to being pushed around far too easily.

While he'd never admit it, Nils hates being an android. As a "tool" for humans to use (despite being capable of growth and self-sufficiency), he is constantly looked down on, and his inability to achieve his original purpose only worsens the matter. In private, he agonizes over this frequently. In public, he attempts to act as human as he possibly can without being overtaken by emotion. His uncertainty on how to deal with particularly strong feelings (hate, joy, misery, etc.) can make this difficult, however. As of now, the experience and learning of strong emotion has yet to be anything other than strange and uncomfortable.

He doesn't particularly understand the logic behind looking down on magi and cyborgs, either, and questions it regularly. While it earns him enemies, this is perhaps the one instance in which that doesn't really bother him. He joined his agency for a reason, after all, and he hopes to one day help resolve the issue through his work. At present, Hunters to him are nothing more than empowered fanatics, and if there's anything he can do to assist the innocent magi they target, he will.

Were he a bit more translucent, one might mistake Nils for a ghost for all his pallor-- or perhaps simply a victim of leucism. His hair is a light, white-blond just on the verge of complete lack of hue, feathery in texture, and shaved short along the sides and back. Cut asymmetrically, his long bangs often obscure the right side of his slightly long face. Though his lips are somewhat on the thin side, the rest of his features are sharp and well-defined. Although technically only fifteen years old, in appearance Nils is a man in his late twenties, and will remain so as long as he exists.

Very nearly alabaster in complexion, it doesn't take much to tell that Nils is anything but human. Though perfectly unblemished, he sports the standard synthskin of most androids, which can be easily recognized by those who know what they are looking for. Additionally, his pale blue eyes bear cross-shaped markings in the irises, the likes of which can be found in neither humans nor magi.

His build is lean and athletic, designed to some extent for speed and agility. With a height of about six feet, one inch, Nils is just above the average. Underneath it all, as one might expect, is all hard metal casings and the complex wiring and circuitry that enable him to function. If his synthskin is damaged, it may be possible to see them.


Nils' fashion sense errs on the side of the formal. He tends toward a color palette that is almost entirely grayscale. His shirts are primarily button-downs, and often paired with vests. Pressed slacks typically cover his legs, and dress shoes most often adorn his feet. On occasion, he will also don a bowtie, which usually serves as the only splash of color in an otherwise colorless outfit. At home, he dresses significantly more casually, in t-shirts and sweatpants, though these usually never see the light of day otherwise. 

Parents
"Mother": Cathrine Ahlberg (deceased)
"Father": Henrik Ahlberg (whereabouts unknown)

Siblings
"Sister" (younger): Karolina Ahlberg (whereabouts unknown)



Nils’ first memories are not his own. In fact, they hardly count as memories at all, as they are little more than programmed bits of second-hand information. He remembers a childhood and adolescence, a home and a family, and yet at the same time he does not. They aren’t his, and they never were. Not really.

The original Nils Ahlberg was a native of Fokradiin— Hjall specifically. He was raised in a fairly well-off household, and at ten years old was joined by his sister, Karolina. People he knew would often remark about how remarkably like his father he looked, and that he should be proud as the son of such a highly-decorated military man. Like many of the young and bright in the city, he attended the prestigious Victor's Military Academy from ages fourteen through eighteen, before moving on to seek his own path after graduation. Ultimately, this saw him traveling to Felici, where he enrolled in the Grand Runic University. Though he was no prodigy, he did well there, and studied hard to make up for his lack of natural talents. According to a number of communications with home, his instructors generally thought well of him, and appreciated his dedicated work ethic.

By the time he was twenty-six, he was well-set on a promising career path as a user of Runic Magic. However, he would never live to see its fruition. A few months before he turned twenty-seven, the original Nils Ahlberg was killed in an attack staged by a small group of magi who had somehow managed to evade the relocation camps. His death hit the Ahlberg family hard, but none were so distraught by the loss as his mother, Cathrine.

But Cathrine was a crafty woman, with access to a good number of resources-- including those belonging to an android manufacturing company in Ethea. The organization primarily specialized in creating androids (widely recognized by the cross-shaped markings in their irises) meant to capture or kill magi, and did quite well for itself in the heyday of the relocation camps, as programming a robot was often far faster than training a Hunter or soldier. After calling in several favors, and pulling about as many strings, Cathrine was able to use her connection to the company to procure one such model, and commissioned his synthskin to resemble the appearance of her lost son. Neither her husband nor her daughter were aware of her little project, until she unveiled him in their home several months later.

Neither took the revelation well. Though it pained them to do so, Henrik and Karolina Ahlberg left Cathrine and her false Nils behind soon after the "farce" of their beloved son and sibling was revealed. His "mother" was too far gone in her delusion to be helped, as far as they were concerned. But as long as she had her son, she could be whole, and for the next few years Cathrine worked tirelessly to recreate him, programming and reprogramming over and over. She was determined that her Nils would come back to her, better and stronger so he wouldn't leave again.

In the end, she never succeeded. By the time of her death about five years ago, Nils remained an imperfect copy. He lacked the proper emotional capacity to behave as humanly as she wanted, and the memories Cathrine had installed were often little more than idealized, second-hand information. He was not the Nils of before, nor would he ever be.

For a while after Cathrine's death, Nils was aimless. Without the meager purpose his "mother" gave him as a replacement, he was lost, with few means of finding what to do now other than searching himself. Eventually, finding no answers in Fokradiin, he left the country. Ultimately, this took him to Ethea, where he thought that tracking the original Nils' path might help him determine who and what he was supposed to be now.

He tried the Runic University first, but was not received well-- or really at all. Ultimately, he wasn't even allowed past the front gate, and the route was quickly abandoned. However, with few other leads that proved to be just as fruitless, Nils was quickly left aimless once more.

It was more by chance than anything else that he was able to find his own path. For a while, he took up whatever work would ensure he could remain charged and functional. Then, two years ago, he crossed paths with a government agent in Felici who helped him escape from a small group of drunken humans, who had taken to kicking him around for fun. They got to talking, and eventually reached the subject of the agent's work. As it turned out, they belonged to a small branch of the Government-Hunter Relations and Regulations agency, dedicated to investigating suspicious or illegal Hunter activity, as well as handling various Magi complaints and grievances, known as the Hunters Guild Criminal Investigative Service (HGCIS or HCIS). While the agency had mostly been created to shut the magi up a little, the majority who worked there were dedicated to its cause, including his new friend. Through impossible amounts of red tape, bribes, threats, and a good deal of upset people, they worked to help improve the rights and safety of Ethea's magi population. After several more encounters, and a suggestion by his friend, Nils came to join their ranks.

Training went by relatively quickly, as much of what Nils needed could simply be programmed in, and soon enough he was assigned as a partner to the very same agent who had recruited him. Several months after his initiation, he decided that emotional simulation might help him better get on with his coworkers, along with the various others with whom he interacted, and so sought out this upgrade. While he is still learning to navigate the emotional spectrum, he likes to think he is making progress.

Hollow Alloy: Bullets can cause dents and can eventually be penetrated. However, Nils is capable of reaching speeds that are untouchable through the use of Propulsion.

Melee I: Nils can accomplish fundamental and basic feats with melee weapons. (See Weapon Convenience-y. His fighting style itself is very dynamic, involving lots of movement and some acrobatics, and is more focused on incapacitation than killing.)

Emotional Simulation: Nils can understand emotions that were previously not programmed. He is able to act more human than before.



Propulsion: Nils is capable of using thrusters to shoot himself forward at a much faster rate.

Weapon Convenience-y: Nils has a set of five weighted wires stored in each of his hands/fingers, which shoot out from slots in his fingertips, just beneath the nails. These are used to to grapple with and entangle his opponents' limbs, weapons, etc, and have a range of about 15 feet. Nanomachines within the wires enable him to manipulate their trajectory and sharpness, and help to prevent tangling.



Unarmed Combat I: Nils knows the basics and can hold his own in a street fight. (No focus on a particular style, although he often focuses on attacking pressure points and joints in order to take down his opponents as quickly as he can without killing them.)

Melee II: Nils is now better able to dual wield. He is more likely to best a melee level I.

[b]Death Parade, Decim[/b] as [i]Nils Ahlberg[/i]