World, meet the Taraketh.

The Taraketh is a genetically designed being.

From his neck down he has biomechanoid blue and silver scales/body armour – part machine, part flesh. These are powerful enough to protect him from most ailments though pliable enough to twist and contort at his need.

He was created on Inquest – a massive research facility on a small, otherwise inhabitable, planet. Taraketh, though he doesn’t remember his past, was a prototype. He was engineered by the most powerful scientists in the Universe, to be used as an indestructible weapon of war. An infiltration saw the facility razed in a vicious battle, Taraketh escaped and found his way out onto the planet where no one else could survive. He wandered seemingly aimless for weeks until he discovered his Prowler.

Like him, the Prowler was designed to perfection. The small ‘living’ ship was engineered from the same biomechanoid material as Taraketh. They are two halves of the same being. It is controlled by Taraketh’s will, and when he is in the Prowler, their link is unbreakable; they are one.

Taraketh doesn’t have an understanding of traditional human values like pleasure, achievement, conformity, tradition, or benevolence. He values life over death, freedom over capture, and survival at all costs. He doesn’t understand human emotion. All Taraketh lives for is freedom from the Sentinels (government), and Shade (leader of the Skintraders: the bad guys), who have been tracking him. The destruction of the Skintraders motivates his life.

Taraketh’s mannerisms are animalistic. Though very intelligent, he is awkward in conversation, and often naïve to basic human interaction. His foibles include his inability to think things through before rushing into dangerous situations. He doesn’t consider the risk in a situation – it is life or death, fight or flight. He has never thought about anyone but himself, and he’s never had to think about protecting others, or the consequences of his actions.

He has spent his life in crisis; he knows no other way. He is always on the run, or in the midst of battle. Unwillingly, he finds solace in a rogue pair of human outlaws. Taraketh finds himself in situations he’s never been in before, struggling with the human emotion component. He sees emotion as weakness, dismissing them as childish, and often shuns his human allies because of it. His character development comes with one of these allies, Rain, who is weaker, and often reacts with strong emotions. He sees the consequences of his actions and behaviour through Rain’s reactions/emotions, and through this exchange, he learns to become more ‘human’.

Taraketh hates talking. His voice is androgynous, almost electronic and he struggles to speak as if language is hard for him, though this is mostly due to his animalistic intuition where words mean much less than behaviours. He finds human language infuriating, time consuming and wasteful. He prefers using his behaviour, body language and actions to communicate.

He loves being with his Prowler. He loves the connection and peace of being in sync with another being, and he can’t understand how others fly ships without this. Taraketh treats his Prowler like a lover, sharing a language only the two understand, and others look upon in confusion. It’s where he feels most at peace. He loves his life and freedom.