I wanted to update the character intro, as NOV-Λ's holiday side-story got such a warm welcome
spoiler alert: the intro currently includes facts that have not appeared in stories yet, especially the description of her personality and the last two parts of her background
Basic info:
Callsign: NOV-Λ, Neural Operative Vanguard Lambda
Alias: Nova
Name: Ada Vance (she doesn't know it herself yet)
Age: While her biological age is 23, her mental age is likely somewhere around 17 as her personality and behaviour have been suppressed for the past 6 years
Role: Rogue Netrunner, potential Fixer
Affiliation: Formerly Nexaris (Prototype Operative), Currently Independent
Threat Level: Extreme (Highly Augmented Cyber Warfare Specialist)
Time Active: 6 years as a Nexaris Operative, 4 months as Independent
Visual identification:
NOV-Λ is easily recognisable by her black cybernetic limbs, which are decorated with golden highlights and circuit board patterns. Her gear includes a full torso exoshell and a cranial shell covering the front of her head, dubbed "mask", both sharing the same black and gold look as her limbs. Her hair used to be bright red, but turned mostly white from stress during her surgery.
She is expected to wear normal clothing to hide her cybernetic looks, with or without the exoshell under, and she has a normal human face without the mask, making identification on the field more difficult. She might try to hide her hair with headwear, and use makeup to cover her pale skin.
Personality:
Fractured Identity:
Trauma and Nexaris indoctrination has convinced NOV-Λ that she is an android rather than an augmented human. She was unaware of her biological components until her escape, when damage to her faceplate revealed living tissue beneath. This discovery has shattered her worldview. She no longer knows if she is a machine with organic defects or a human imprisoned in a shell. She oscillates between the cold comfort of her programming and the terrifying, messy reality of her humanity.
The Obsession:
She is driven by a singular, burning question: Classification. She is obsessed with discovering her origins to define her nature. She isn't just looking for a name; she is looking for her "schematics" to understand her purpose. She views her own existence as a problem to be solved, and she will dismantle any firewall or physical archive to find the answer.
Tactical Literalism:
Despite the awakening, her mind still processes the world through a tactical lens, especially as she is constantly fed information through the code of multiple subroutines. She struggles with the ambiguity of human interaction, viewing emotions as data inputs that need to be categorized. She takes language dangerously literally and is often baffled by metaphors or sarcasm, treating them as syntax errors in communication.
Social Stasis (The 6-Year Gap):
Mentally, she is a ghost in the machine. Having been isolated and suppressed for six years, she is completely disconnected from the culture, slang, and events of the city. She acts with the sullen, guarded temperament of a 17-year-old, hidden behind the vocabulary of a military supercomputer.
Digital Preference:
After years of relying on high-speed wireless data transfer, she finds vocal speech inefficient and exposing. She often pauses before speaking, preferring to stare in silence as she tries to send encrypted text messages to people standing right in front of her.
Background Outline:
I. Origin: (Pre-Conversion)
Born Ada Vance (identity currently unknown to her).
Daughter of Dr. Silas Vance, a renowned cybernetics scientist working for Nexaris, whose work focused on neural integration to cure paralysis. His motto was "We must always advance.", which together with his respect for Ada Lovelace led to his daughter's name.
When she was 17, a rival megacorporation attempted to abduct Dr. Vance and his family. The extraction turned violent; Dr. Vance was killed, and Ada was critically injured, left near death in the crossfire.
II. Project Vanguard (Year 0)
Nexaris Corp recovered Ada’s body, not to save her, but to salvage her father’s genetic and neural compatibility for Project Vanguard.
To ensure total obedience, Nexaris erased her memories and buried her humanity under a constructed reality: she was told she was a proprietary android, a synthetic asset with no human rights.
Her limbs were replaced with military-grade cybernetics, and her torso and head were augmented in multiple ways. Finally, her torso and head were encased in an exoshell. She was designated NOV-Λ (Neural Operative Vanguard Lambda).
III. The Operative (Years 1–6)
Served as Nexaris’s premier "Ghost Operative" for six years.
Specialized in deep-dive cyber warfare, infiltration, and surgical elimination of corporate rivals.
Kept in a state of emotional and memory suppression. Her mind went so deep into the lie she even stopped speaking, relying entirely on wireless data transfer for communication. To her, she was simply a machine fulfilling its design.
IV. The Glitch & Escape (4 Months Ago)
During a high-level intrusion to a rival corporation, a defensive Black ICE damaged her behavioral inhibitor.
She physically severed her interface cables and escaped the lab, jumping seven stories to the city below.
Her faceplate was damaged in the escape. When she stopped to investigate the damage later, she accidentally saw her human face reflected in a puddle. Seeing those "biological components" shattered her android delusion, leaving her terrified and confused about her true nature.
V. Current Status: "The Ghost"
Operates under the street alias "Nova." She believes she is a malfunctioning android, and is trying to understand why she has human parts.
A rogue Netrunner and high-tier Fixer. She is a legend in the subnet, known for bypassing firewalls as if they don't exist.
stories:
main stories:
side stories: