Switch | |
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Name | Su Bai |
Height | 168 cm |
Age | 27 y.o. |
Location | Shanghai |
Vambrace Power | Clone |
“Nothing is ever truly useless; it can always be broken down and rebuilt. That applies to people too.”
– Su “Switch” Bai
Switch, also known by her real name, Su Bai, is a scavenger in the Garden. Her default vambrace power is Clone.
Switch is an artful illusionist that can create clones to throw the hunter off track. While she can use this ability to selfishly save her skin, Switch will willingly stay behind to help exhausted allies escape the hunter.
Scavenging blood gives Switch a surge of adrenaline and heightens her sense of awareness. After depositing blood, she’ll typically rush towards the closest body pile, where she can extract even more blood.
Her recovery skills are enigmatic; when Switch gets up after being knocked down, she gets back to scavenging as if nothing happened—despite having narrowly escaped death.
Description[ | ]
One way to survive in the ruins is as a Recycler - scavenging old tech and breaking it down into NPI. Su Bai takes that to the extreme, getting sent into The Bloodharvest for minor offenses, having her amputated limbs replaced with artificial ones, which she recycles when she returns to the ruins.
It takes a special kind of resourcefulness to be willing to sacrifice body parts to survive.
Vambrace Powers[ | ]
Default[ | ]
Icon | Name | Effect | Description |
---|---|---|---|
Creates a clone which runs in a direction for a time (10-30 seconds, depending on rank) | This is a variant on the tech behind Active Camo. A swarm of nanomachines, equipped with light emitters, creates a three-dimensional image of you. It's not that convincing up close, but it's good enough at a distance. |
Alternate[ | ]
Icon | Name | Cost | Effect | Description |
---|---|---|---|---|
250 | Creates a 12m radius smoke cloud upon impact. Hard to see through. | "Sometimes it's best to use the simplest solution. The bolt explodes, leaving a thick cloud, comprised mainly of printing by-products. All highly toxic, of course. But that's why you wear that mask, right?" |
Perks[ | ]
Icon | Name | Effect | Description |
---|---|---|---|
Collecting Blood reveals all Crates and Blood for 10 seconds within a distance (35-125 meters, depending on rank) | Harvest blood and your HUD will reveal useful objects near you, so you can clean up. Honestly, we're making this so easy for you now. I'm going to get complaints from the Hunters. | ||
Increased Stamina regeneration when within 15 meters of other Scavengers (+20-70%, depending on rank) | You've seen pictures of the past? Huge herds of cattle, keeping each other going through long journeys and despite attacks by hunting predators? You see where I'm going with this? | ||
Blood gathering speed increased for all Scavengers when within 15 meters of them (+10-60%, depending on rank) | The Bloodharvest is a test of your worthiness to society, remember? If you work together, the machinery of the Garden will transfer blood to you more quickly. That kind of thing can make all the difference. | ||
Delivering Blood reveals all Crates and Blood for 10 seconds within a distance (35-125 meters, depending on rank) | Dropping off blood, recycling NPI and earning the praise of the Enclave not enough motivation for you? How about I set your HUD to highlight useful stuff around you? | ||
Increased Stamina regeneration (+5-60%, depending on rank) | I can do a modification to your liver that allows for increased glycogen conversion and storage, aiding in recovery from exertion. | ||
After Delivering Blood, interaction distance is increased by 4 meters for a time (10-40 seconds, depending on rank) | The Garden's systems will recognize your interactions at a longer distance, as a recognition of your Blood deposits. It pays to contribute, so I'm told. |
Unique Bonuses[ | ]
Icon | Name | Effect | Technician's comment |
---|---|---|---|
Revive with full Health instead of 2/3 full | "You're tough, we both know that, but every advantage helps. I can fit your printed leg with a large nanomachine reservoir that will help you bounce back from the worst injuries." | ||
Delivering Blood grants a Speed boost for a time (+50% for 10 seconds) | "The best thing about having all those nanomachines sloshing around in your bloodstream is that they can be programmed to dump adrenaline into your system on demand. Better than an energy bar." |
Background Story[ | ]
All over the world, people try to scratch out a living in the ruins. With resources as scarce as they are, this gets harder every day. Some have turned to farming, relearning the skills of the past and gaining nature's help in feeding their families. That trade requires a lot of space though, space that is hard to defend from the less-industrious. Roving gangs of bandits, and those who have set themselves up as local warlords, are always ready to help themselves to the fruit of others' labors. For the technically-minded, another way to survive is the life of a Recycler, like Su Bai. She lives in the ruins outside the Shanghai Enclave, dismantling old tech that she, or the people around her, scavenge. Once broken down and sorted, this can be recycled into raw Nanoparticle Ink (NPI) and used in jury-rigged printers to make new items. The job is long and tedious, the yields low and the by-products often highly toxic. For those with few options, however, it can be a lifeline.
Three years ago, Su was sentenced to a short period in The Bloodharvest for talking back to a Hunter patrol. While inside, she lost an arm, which was replaced with a printed one, so that she could continue to participate. When her sentence was over, she was was returned to the ruins and was surprised that the arm was not reclaimed. The Enclaves have such a surfeit of resources that they often don't bother to remove printed limbs from criminals.
Sensing an opportunity, Su Bai had the arm removed, recycled it and traded the materials away for food-capable NPI. The medical-grade NPI in the arm, coming directly from the Complex, was highly valuable in the ruins, so Su decided this was a valid new form of income. She settled into a routine of being arrested for minor infractions, entering The Bloodharvest, where her arm is replaced, serving her time, returning to the ruins, removing the arm and breaking it down for NPI. This has been so successful for her that, during her last cycle, she ensured that one of her legs was damaged enough that it had to be replaced as well, more than doubling her yield. It's only a matter of time until she has another limb removed.
Customisation[ | ]
Default[ | ]
Prestige[ | ]
Cosmetic Vendor[ | ]
Full Sets | |||
---|---|---|---|
Icon | Name | Rarity | Description |
Nature or Nurture | Standard | Or a bit of both?
Can be purchased for 4,000 from the Cosmetic Vendor | |
On the Inside | Standard | Make no mistake, you're a prisoner here.
Can be purchased for 8,000 from the Cosmetic Vendor | |
Life in the Ruins | Standard | There are many ways to get by.
Can be purchased for 4,000 from the Cosmetic Vendor | |
Adaptable | Standard | In harsh times, it pays to be flexible.
Can be purchased for 4,000 from the Cosmetic Vendor | |
Trials and Tribulations | Standard | Depending on your outlook, the Bloodharvest can just be another job.
Can be purchased for 6,000 from the Cosmetic Vendor |
Head | |||
---|---|---|---|
Icon | Name | Rarity | Description |
A Chip Off | Standard | "I grew up with tech, as my Mom was on a team that developed large scale printers, like those that create the Gardens. She loved the work and taught me everything she could."
Can be purchased for 1,100 from the Cosmetic Vendor | |
Temporary Situation | Standard | "It's okay in the Complex. I don't bother mixing with the other Scavengers too much, as I don't intend on being in here long. They come and stay until they're 'worthy'; I just do my time and get back to the ruins."
Can be purchased for 2,200 from the Cosmetic Vendor | |
It's A Living | Standard | "Being a recycler's not a bad profession, although it can be dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. First you have to find good stuff, things that will break down into valuable raw materials."
Can be purchased for 1,100 from the Cosmetic Vendor | |
Talking Back | Standard | "I fell into my new line of work by accident", says Su Bai. "I got snippy with a Hunter patrol, who were bothering me while I was working. Got sentenced to a few trials in the Bloodharvest."
Can be purchased for 1,100 from the Cosmetic Vendor | |
9 to 5 | Standard | "Yes, I've been in the Bloodharvest a lot, that's true," Su laughed, "I'm pretty calm about it. It's like jobs used to be: you put your time in and then you go home."
Can be purchased for 1,650 from the Cosmetic Vendor |
Torso | |||
---|---|---|---|
Icon | Name | Rarity | Description |
Birth of a Recycler | Standard | "I was dismantling and re-purposing tech as a hobby all the time, used to drive my parents nuts. They'd sit down to watch something and I'd have taken the screen apart."
Can be purchased for 1,800 from the Cosmetic Vendor | |
Minimum Sentence | Standard | "I've got it down to a fine art now. Hunters are sticklers for rules; you break them, you get sent here. They don't escalate though, there's a set time for a set crime. I don't need to worry about being here longer than I need."
Can be purchased for 3,600 from the Cosmetic Vendor | |
Handiwork | Standard | "Breaking the things down is a hard job too. These have all been created by good printers, with fine detail. If we could use the deprinting tech they have in the Enclaves, it would be a different story."
Can be purchased for 1,800 from the Cosmetic Vendor | |
Unlucky Shot | Standard | "It was just unlucky. I had just filled up with blood, was turning to head to the nearest blood bank and the Hunter was right there. He fired off a couple of lucky shots and that was the end of my second-favorite arm."
Can be purchased for 1,800 from the Cosmetic Vendor | |
Observant | Standard | "I have learned a lot here; there's a lot of tech and it's interesting to observe. I'm sure there are things that I can apply to my time outside."
Can be purchased for 2,700 from the Cosmetic Vendor |
Legs | |||
---|---|---|---|
Icon | Name | Rarity | Description |
Useful Knowledge | Standard | "Of course, when the Hunters took over, I had to use my tech knowledge to survive. If I'd known, I'd have spent more time making printers, rather than fighting robots!"
Can be purchased for 600 from the Cosmetic Vendor | |
Arm's Length | Standard | "It's best not to get too involved with people in here. They all have terrible stories of their times outside and their hopes for the future. I say the future is what you make of it. Put your fate in someone else's hands and you'll be disappointed."
Can be purchased for 1,200 from the Cosmetic Vendor | |
By-Products | Standard | "Once everything is separated out, there;s a number of processes that will result in the raw materials you need to make new NPI; all of them leave some nasty by-products."
Can be purchased for 600 from the Cosmetic Vendor | |
High-End | Standard | "They patched me up with a new arm, which was so well crafted that it was impossible to tell from the original. It's easy to forget what's possible, when you're used to jury-rigged prostheses in the ruins."
Can be purchased for 600 from the Cosmetic Vendor | |
Man\Machine | Standard | "Even the trials themselves can be treated as a technical exercise. We're all just machines that take inputs and translate them into behavior. The Hunters can be very predictable."
Can be purchased for 900 from the Cosmetic Vendor |
Vambrace | |||
---|---|---|---|
Icon | Name | Rarity | Description |
Selfless Choice | Standard | "My Mom got exposed to a lot of toxic nanoparticles over the years and that came back to haunt her. If we'd been in The Enclaves, it would have been treatable. But the ruins were where she could help people."
Can be purchased for 500 from the Cosmetic Vendor | |
Corrupted Ideals | Standard | "Then you have the idealists, trying to convince you to join their faction, who will take over the Enclaves, or wipe them out entirely. Give them ten years and they'll be as bad as the Hunters."
Can be purchased for 1,000 from the Cosmetic Vendor | |
Waste Not... | Standard | Su Bai leans across to the next table, where another Scavenger has left an empty food wrapper. She grabs it and puts it in her pocket. "That can be recycled", she says with a smile.
Can be purchased for 500 from the Cosmetic Vendor | |
New Career | Standard | "I guess I thought they'd want it back when I left the Complex, but they didn't. So I sold that arm and its prime NPI as soon as I could, and decided this would be a great way to earn."
Can be purchased for 500 from the Cosmetic Vendor | |
Learning Opportunity | Standard | "I'd love to get a Vambrace outside and break it down. The printer inside is very advanced and I could re-purpose it easily. They keep close tabs on them; maybe one day."
Can be purchased for 750 from the Cosmetic Vendor |
Special[ | ]
See also[ | ]
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