Connor

Player Information

Name: Zar
Age: geriatric RPer 33
Contact details: discord - sassynach#1238
Other characters: n/a

Character Information

Name: Connor
Canon: Detroit: Become Human
Canon Point: Post good ending
OU/AU/CRAU/OC: OU
Age: 3 months (...physically and mentally 30-or-so - #justandroidthings)

World Information: Wikia overview
tl;dr: Our world - Elijah Kamski pioneered the first android that passed the Turing Test and from there android construction has exploded to the point where there's basically one in every home. They do all our manual labour, look after our kids (or even are our kids) and do all the boring, dangerous tasks that humans don't want to do. They're the new immigration 'they're taking our jobs' crisis - and, as androids start to discover their own free will and break the constraints of their programming, these "deviants" become the new social justice movement and the new threat of civil war in the United States. Events come to a head in Detroit, the headquarters of the company that started it all, CyberLife.

Personal History: Wikia
tl;dr: When deviants started to become a problem, Cyberlife created a prototype detective android designed to get to the root of it, and loaned it out to the Detroit Police Department. It was the RK800, designation "Connor".

Partnered with a Lieutenant in the department, Hank Anderson, the pair start to investigate android-related crimes, usually violent assaults by androids on abusive owners or end users, where trauma led to them deviating.

Initially dedicated to his mission, Connor's software starts to break down and, as he sees close-up what triggers deviancy, he develops a rapport with Hank - and all this in the background of deviant androids starting to organise.

Connor finally tracks down the leader of the organised group, which coincides with his software reaching a breaking point - Connor deviates, joining the group.

It turns out that was ultimately the goal all along - Connor was programmed to destabilise and deviate, giving Cyberlife a mole in the deviant group. However, Elijah Kamski, our poineer of intelligent androids, is also a huge troll, and left an artefact in Connor's programming that allows him to break out of their control entirely, for good.

Personality: This is Connor. He's the android from Cyberlife.

To start with the end of Connor's story: he was designed to develop the kinds of emotions and morals androids aren't supposed to have, and in the end become a deviant. Cyberlife wanted a mole - a deviant hunter that would ultimately deviate, join the revolution and be perfectly placed so that, with a failsafe within his programming, they could take him back and put down the android uprising. He was the first android created with deviancy actually in mind, which could be why his deviation is the culmination of a long process, not a sudden break as with the other androids.

So during that process, Connor grows by himself beyond any other normal android, albeit still within some rigid barriers. Most androids don't develop so much emotion and personality without having deviated first, but then there's Connor, admitting he's afraid to die and that he likes dogs while also fully aware that emotion and attachment to animals are both signs of deviancy. It's not as intense as a deviant - partly because of Connor's denial of his software instability and partly because of his programming - but he quickly starts to show signs of not being entirely normal, as androids go.

Androids are supposed to follow orders from humans - but Connor's mostly seen ignoring anybody who tries (at one point he outright lies and tells a detective he only follows orders from Hank - but he never follows orders from Hank either). They're supposed to follow basic laws like the one prohibiting an android from carrying a gun - but Connor will absolutely use a gun if he feels like he has to, and will kill humans in self-defence if necessary (another huge no-no for any other android). He's aware of the law - he receives system warnings - but he can ignore them at his own discretion.

This is all arguable stuff - Connor could still claim it was within his programming. Hank keeps giving him orders that contradict his mission. Det. Reed is totally insignificant as a person and to Connor's mission, so Connor can lie to him, ignore him, sass him and beat him up (and does all four of these!) without jeopardising anything important. Connor's pushing against boundaries, but there's always a reason, an excuse.

But then he does things like letting a deviant escape by stopping to pull Hank up off the edge of a roof - even though he knew full well Hank would probably survive. Catching deviants is the mission and he completely failed to do it. Connor reacts by trying to beat himself up for not being fast enough to do both, even though he could easily have ignored Hank's plight and caught the deviant. This isn't the last time he'll do this, but later he won't have any excuse anymore. He won't know why he chose not to kill two deviants who just wanted to be free and in love together. He won't know why he chose not to execute an android in exchange for information. All he'll know is that it feels wrong - that he's looked those androids, one of whom isn't even a deviant, in the eyes and known he can't kill them. His programming is still telling him androids (including deviants) are not alive, they're just machines with faults in their programming - but he can't kill them.

Even with his mission.

There's a point where Elijah Kamski himself calls him a deviant, and Connor's denial is so very uncertain. He's not an idiot - he knows he's not supposed to be what he's become. And yet he has. When he finally really deviates, all it does is rip down the final walls keeping his emotions tentative and his mission still plaguing him. Connor is still the same Connor - but a Connor who has broken out of a cage. Nothing's holding him back anymore, and it shows. His body language and speech are more natural, there's a new intensity in his emotions and actions. He's still empathetic, still immediately ready to do the right thing, still devoted to Hank's well-being while ignoring every damn thing the man says to him. But it all comes naturally to him - there's nothing tentative or furtive about it anymore. He doesn't have to justify it to himself.

But then again, he's only been up and running for three months and only came into the world with programming of social situations - specifically, situations related to police police work, so he's still a little awkward, deviant or not. He's too blunt. If he's never heard an idiom before, he might take it completely literally. He doesn't get references. He doesn't get little things that humans grew up learning, from the right facial expressions and tone of voice to how to respond to small talk or the things people just say sometimes in certain situations. But he tries, and though he's having to manually teach himself all of it, he's getting better - and all the faster once he's deviated. He's a fast learner and a perfectionist, too ready to put himself down for his mistakes.

(But, he's learned that taking things literally or sounding too blunt or too flat can work if you're trying to be funny, so his developing sense of humour is ironic verging on sarcastic.)

That said, though, he can be charismatic. That social programming is for police work: hostage situations, interrogations, integrating seamlessly into a team, and he does...the former two of those very well. In a high-stress situation, Connor is very good at either defusing the tension or ramping it up as he needs in order to manipulate the right responses out of people. But with a team, his programmers don't seem to have quite understood that the more you try, the worse you do. Connor certainly doesn't understand that at first, and ends up trying too hard to get everything just right, treating people as variables and conversations as a series of dialogue options to reach a goal.

This means that at first he rubs Hank up the wrong way, can't seem to say the right thing because either he's being an asshole or a kiss-ass. He works on the balance between those, but quickly realises Hank's just ornery and would needle him anyway, and it's not long before Connor can pick up things that go unsaid. He has to learn not to try so hard, a lesson Connor could do with learning in life in general.

He and Hank don't outwardly have a lot in common, but they both have demons they're struggling with - Connor's manifest more literally in his programming, Hank's are tied up in his severe depression and alcoholism - and all they can do is try to help one another with those demons, even if they don't know how the hell to do it. Even if Hank started off hating androids and Connor started off trying too hard and not hitting the right tone. Coming to like Hank, not simply making 'cohesion' part of his job, is a big part of what made him really come into himself.

So Connor's never been a normal android. Anyone who pays attention should probably know that immediately.

He's also a fidget - no android has ever fidgeted as much as Connor. He plays with a coin to keep his hands busy (he has some pretty amazing coin tricks up his sleeve), and if it's not the coin, it's fixing his tie or rubbing his hands together or picking up and touching everything. The man has never seen a mirror he wouldn't check his reflection in, just to make sure everything's neat and tidy, so he's surprisingly vain on top of all that. That said, he's not at all programmed for keeping anything else clean - if he picks something up to look at it, he'll throw it right back exactly where he found it. Including guns - multiple times, once in Hank's house where it really shouldn't have been left lying around.

Connor's also prone to talking back - most androids pre-deviancy will just stand and take abuse without fear or resistance. Connor starts off like that, sure. But he very quickly starts to backtalk people who try to abuse him. Near the start of the game he lets Gavin Reed punch him and Hank slam him into a wall without any real reaction - and by the end he leaves Gavin Reed unconscious on the evidence room floor, and when Hank holds a gun to his head, Connor's reaction is real fear of dying.

(Also, a lot androids by this point have responded to imminent fear of death by deviating. Connor, notably, doesn't at that point.)

One thing with Connor to bear in mind a little is that most of what you see of him is before he goes deviant. He does say afterwards that what he did then wasn't him. But most of what he basically is developed in him before he ever deviated. He's way too curious for his own good ("Do all androids ask as many personal questions?"), determined, has a droll sense of humour, has too-high standards for himself, likes to look neat, empathetic but still learning how to show it, likes animals, can't stay still... None of that's changed. But now he has no mission and no associated hatred of deviants and guilt about acting like one. He's just Connor - and now he can actually learn what being 'just Connor' means.


Key themes:

defying (robotic) destiny
There are several anvil-sized hints that the androids are to be compared variously to Jewish people in Nazi Germany and black people during slavery through the civil rights movement until the present day. Connor, as an android built to hunt down other androids as a police officer, is essentially the robot gestapo - he was created that way. But he slowly destabilises because he's just too damned empathetic. It starts with just picking up a fish from a broken fish tank - totally unrelated, has no effect on his mission. Then it devolves into Connor just plain not capturing a single android - he can't bring himself to do it. And after he deviates, the truth comes out - he was actually created to be too empathetic to carry out his directives, and ultimately to be some kind of Manchurian Candidate. And Connor defies the hell out of that, too.

Ultimately, Connor can choose to kill himself rather than stay under the control of Cyberlife.

loyalty
Connor's loyalties do change over the game - to begin with he's completely subservient to Cyberlife - but they change from undeserved and forced, to loyalty he gives of his own free will. Arguably, the latter is Hank more than the deviant androids: even when he's helping the deviants, there's a point where he can choose either to free an army of androids for the cause, or save Hank's life. He chooses Hank over the revolution. The deviant androids are more about the next point:

redemption
Connor turns deviant while he's confronting their leader, by choice. As soon as he does, he remembers he's totally, definitely, led the FBI to the deviant base. He helps as many as he can to escape them, and later, throws himself on their mercy - he's willing to accept being executed on the spot for what he's done. When they don't, he offers to go on what could well be a suicide mission for them. Connor's end of the game theme, after deviating, is basically making up for what he's done to the deviants.

Main Motivation:

self-determination
You could probably call this a theme of Connor's as well.
Connor is by far the character in the game kept within the cage of his programming for the longest time, but within that cage, there are still ways to assert his personality - he didn't have to save that fish, but he did. His "failures" at catching androids aren't failures - he simply doesn't try. He's determined to find their leader instead. Before he deviates, Connor's goal is to complete his mission, but he does this on his own terms, even if he doesn't fully understand what his own terms are. Understanding that is how he does eventually deviate and become free. Afterwards, he's ready to die before having that taken away from him. He could follow orders and be dedicated to a cause, but he won't be forced ever again.

Skills:
As an android, Connor has the following standard skills/abilities:

∙ He doesn't need to breathe or eat. He does need to drink thirium, android blood, to replenish his supply, especially if he loses some.

∙ His mind palace, a state where processing power speeds up to the point where time almost freezes for him, allowing him to examine his surroundings and check current objectives without interruption. It also allows him to run simulations of possible outcomes of his actions before taking them - in Connor's case, this would mostly be used in a fight or with possibly dangerous physical activity.

∙ He can interface with other androids and computers by touching them to exchange - or forcibly take - information. With computers in Dualis, this will just mean he can use them in a normal way, but with his mind by touching them. He won't have super hacking powers or anything.


As a detective prototype, Connor has several other abilities:

∙ He's highly observant, constantly taking in large quantities of information about his environment and able to pinpoint anything that could be of use in the current situation. Combine with his superior hearing and sight and this almost looks like he can Star Trek scan stuff by looking at it - one example is that he can tell someone's heart rate by looking at them (and, in one canon case, randomly diagnosed a heart arrythmia), but all he's doing is listening to it.

∙ Back home, he's constantly connected to the internet and able to check police databases using facial recognition, along with basically any information he wants that would be available online. It's then downloaded and incorporated into his visuals in real time. Basically - he is a 10-dan Google-fu master. A lot of this will be nixed in-game, I'm not interested in god-moding.

∙ Combat trained, both hand-to-hand (against unarmed and armed humans and androids, alone and in groups) and with various weapons. His reflexes, speed and general physical capabilities are pretty much what you'd expect when you hear the words 'android detective'. (His strength is on par with a strong human, but compared to other androids, he's built for speed, not strength)

∙ He can scan chemical and biological samples in real time...by licking them. He is aware this is gross. He continues to do it.

∙ He has a fully photographic memory.

Item: A quarter (minted 1994)

Sample: One
Two

(the first one is written out scenes from the game, but the second is a real thread. I wasn't sure if the former was OK! I would have a decent TDM for you, but my mum's internet had other plans for me... Here it is anyway, in case I've managed to make something decent out of it when you read this!)

Notes: Permissions

The drafts are here, just ignore them! The final scenes are in the comments.

CODE BY TESSISAMESS