[ legion: hmd ]
Nov. 8th, 2017 03:47 pmfeel free to leave commentary on how I'm playing Drift here! or you can hit me on plurk at ![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
runawayballista
[ legion app ]
Nov. 4th, 2017 10:20 pmAPPLICATION
Player Name: madi
Plurk Handle:runawayballista
Player Status: new
Other characters: n/a
Character Name: Drift
Fandom: Transformers IDW
Character Journal:![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
auramatic
OU, AU, or OC? OU
If canon, canon point: Post-More Than Meets The Eye #16, after his exile
PB: n/a
Superhero Name: he's just gonna use his name because all Transformers names sound like bad superheroes anyway and he is being True 2 Himself
Setting Background: n/a
History: the TF wiki is terrifyingly thorough
Personality: On the surface, Drift appears pretty chipper and cheerful; at first glance, he's basically a giant sword-toting hippie who's super into his (relatively) newly-discovered spirituality, and that is basically his go-to solution for everything. Drift subscribes to Spectralism, a mystic and highly spiritual Cybertronian religion, and he is like, really into auras.
He's given to the regular snarky quip, but he's pretty friendly in general, and tends to exhibit a positive, never-say-die attitude all the time, to the point where his relentless optimism honestly gets on other people's nerves. He seems about as carefree and going-with-the-flow as a guy who carries no less than three swords at all times can possibly be.
Here's the thing, though: Drift is the biggest goddamn faker in the world. He has a complicated and ugly history; he started out as a homeless junkie on the streets of pre-war Cybertron, where his addiction to circuit boosters nearly killed him. And before he defected and became an Autobot, he was the Decepticon known as Deadlock, one of the most notoriously vicious warriors in their ranks, because it turns out if there's one thing he's SUPER GOOD AT, it's killing people. What a winning talent. He was hand-picked by Megatron himself to join the Decepticon ranks, and Megatron was the one to give him the name Deadlock.
Under the smiling face, Drift is actually hugely insecure -- not just about his own self-worth, but especially how other people perceive him. He's keenly aware that he's not very well-liked or trusted by most Autobots because of his history as a Decepticon (and the fact that if you put him in a room full of Autobots, every one of them probably had a friend who got hella murdered by Deadlock). As much as he acts like he doesn't care, Drift cares so much. He is basically in a massive identity crisis all the time -- when he left the Decepticons, he left his identity as Deadlock the killer behind, and he's been trying on different hats ever since. For a while he played the part of the lone wandering warrior, only out to do good in order to make up for his past sins (read: robot ronin); recently, he's taken up the mantle of spirituality after a near-death experience gave him a vision, in part because he hopes this will help him become more likable -- but way, way more than that, because he thinks that if he plays the part for long enough, it'll become who he really is. So in a way, Drift's spirituality is a sham -- he is not the mindful and enlightened bot he claims to be, but on a much deeper and more private level, he subscribes very much to "fake it till you make it".
That isn't to say Spectralism isn't important to him -- all of these ideas are incredibly important to him, and he's never chosen his identities lightly. His spirituality isn't important to him because it's something he really believes in hisheart spark, but because he wants desperately to be the kind of person who does. He really thinks that if he can make his faith real for himself, it'll redeem him from his past -- but deep down, he also doesn't entirely believe he deserves that absolution.
Would he openly admit any of this? Haha over his dead body
Also he really loves swords. Like, a lot. He thinks they are super cool and that they also make him look super cool.
His exile from the Lost Light has altered his attitude a little, though. He deliberately took the fall for a massive fucking disaster that was not entirely his fault so that Rodimus (or anyone else) wouldn't be implicated -- in fact, he insisted on it, because according to his vision, Rodimus was too important to risk losing, and let's be real, he was not super popular on the ship, and with his past, he made an easy scapegoat. So he let his best friend denounce him publicly, strip him of his Autobot brand, and send him packing in a shuttle. Considering said disaster resulted in more than just a little loss of life, Drift is feeling extra shitty about himself; he feels responsible, even though he was just one of several who had a hand in it, and it's making him question how far he's really come since he decided to be a force of good in the universe. He's kind of back to lone warrior status, doing good deeds wherever he can, because if he can't be an Autobot, he has to be something. And with his convictions shaken, he's only clinging harder to his spiritual front -- he might not actually believe in his own unrelenting optimism, but he has to try.
Canon Powers: he is a giant robot that transforms into a sweet sports car and he is remarkably hard to kill
OK BUT TO BE SPECIFIC:
Drift is about average size and build for a Cybertronian, standing at around 20 feet. He's been a warrior for long enough that his frame is pretty much optimized for combat, and while he's formidable in battle, it isn't necessarily due to super strength, but rather speed and precision. He is definitely strong enough to pick up other robots (or cars) around his size and give 'em a good throw, though. Drift is pretty fast, and nimble too. He does so many unnecessary backflips.
Cybertronians are also really fucking hard to kill and live for millions of years. Drift has had limbs ripped off, run a sword through himself, gotten nearly crushed to death, and nearly fried himself from the inside out on robot drugs. He's come close to death a few times, but he can take a pretty rough beating.
The three key parts of Cybertronian anatomy are the spark, the brain module, and the transformation cog. The spark is the heart and the center of energy for a Cybertronian, and if it or a Cybertronian's brain module is irreparably damaged, they'll die, but it takes a lot. The transformation cog is what allows Cybertronians to shift into their vehicle modes -- in Drift's case, a very shiny and fast sports car. Like the rest of him, his alt mode is built for speed.
Game powers: PRETTY MUCH JUST KEEPING HIM AS-IS since Being Cybertronian counts as one big honkin power.
Abilities: Drift is preternaturally good at violence, a thing he kind of hates about himself, but if you give this guy two guns he will clear an entire room and then some. He also received some pretty thorough training in more martial arts and swordplay from hissensei mentor Wing when he first left the Decepticons, and he's an adept swordsman. Dual wielding all the way, bro. As a Cybertronian, he can plug into computer systems and the like, but hacking and such is not his specialty.
Setting: A chance to save not just his world, but countless others, from a massive cataclysm? COUNT DRIFT THE FUCK IN. He's been wandering and lost, and a cause to latch onto is exactly what he needs right now -- the more heroic and just, the better. He wants so badly to be a hero, not because he wants the attention, but because he wants people to believe he's not a shit person, because if other people believe it then maybe it's true!
These days, Drift is pretty good at not killing people indiscriminately. He is fairly used to lethal combat, but in theory he is all about killing fewer people.
SAMPLES
Prose Sample: Drift has learned enough about the Coluans since his arrival to know about their prejudice against inorganics. It's...a familiar enough attitude, sadly enough -- it's not like the Cybertronians are that popular with anyone in their universe, not after that four-million-year-long civil war -- but at least on Earth, the Cybertronians had actually done something (a lot of things) to earn the mistrust of humans. But he's used to mistrust, too, although he's rarely stepped up to defend himself. That kind of defensiveness -- it makes people think guilty so easily, and Drift would rather let his actions speak for themselves.
It's pretty evident that that's not really going to work out in this case.
He steps forward to answer, one hand laid over his chest plate in an earnest gesture. "I know you have no real reason to trust me," he says, carefully sidestepping around the whole robot racist issue. "I'm a stranger to this world, and as far as I'm aware, the first of my kind here. I can tell you that I'm no stranger to war and strife, that I've come face-to-face with what I thought was the impossible time and again, but those might mean nothing to you. Maybe there's no way to determine if I'm really worthy or not. But...my home is under threat, just the same as yours. I have to try. I can't condemn an entire universe by my own inaction, just because I was worried I wasn't good enough."
Network Sample:
[ this feels a little weird, somehow. drift doesn't know what kind of person he'll be after all this -- if he survives it -- after all, he seems to change all the time. but maybe this is a good thing. maybe this can serve as a reminder, if things ever get off track...if he ever loses sight of his cause again, the way he did with overlord. ]
Hey, Drift. It's me. Er...you. Same thing. If you're seeing this, it means I survived -- that we won -- but...well, you'll probably remember recording this. But I hope you watch it again if we win, just in case -- in case anything's changed.
The situation here seems like it's really in a bad way, but it kind of reminds me of the Lost Light. I'm glad I have something to do here. Something to fight for. And I'm doing good. That was what I swore I'd do, Autobot or no. And I think fighting against something that threatens all of existence...I don't think you get many better opportunities to do good than that.
[ does he deserve that opportunity? fuck, he doesn't know. probably not a great time to start questioning it. ]
I have to believe that Primus guided me here. I have to believe I'm here for a reason. And if I survive this -- if I am watching this again -- I'd like to send a message back to the Lost Light. To Rodimus. I think maybe…
[ maybe it'd mean he could go back home? no -- it wouldn't change anything. but it would mean something. ]
I think maybe he'd appreciate a good story about all this.
Additional info: Drift will be showing up with his three (3) swords! One of which is the Great Sword. The other two are just regular swords. He wears all of these at once, because he doesn't know how to fuckin tone it down a notch. Like all Cybertronians, he needs to regularly refuel his systems with energon.
Player Name: madi
Plurk Handle:
Player Status: new
Other characters: n/a
Character Name: Drift
Fandom: Transformers IDW
Character Journal:
auramaticOU, AU, or OC? OU
If canon, canon point: Post-More Than Meets The Eye #16, after his exile
PB: n/a
Superhero Name: he's just gonna use his name because all Transformers names sound like bad superheroes anyway and he is being True 2 Himself
Setting Background: n/a
History: the TF wiki is terrifyingly thorough
Personality: On the surface, Drift appears pretty chipper and cheerful; at first glance, he's basically a giant sword-toting hippie who's super into his (relatively) newly-discovered spirituality, and that is basically his go-to solution for everything. Drift subscribes to Spectralism, a mystic and highly spiritual Cybertronian religion, and he is like, really into auras.
He's given to the regular snarky quip, but he's pretty friendly in general, and tends to exhibit a positive, never-say-die attitude all the time, to the point where his relentless optimism honestly gets on other people's nerves. He seems about as carefree and going-with-the-flow as a guy who carries no less than three swords at all times can possibly be.
Here's the thing, though: Drift is the biggest goddamn faker in the world. He has a complicated and ugly history; he started out as a homeless junkie on the streets of pre-war Cybertron, where his addiction to circuit boosters nearly killed him. And before he defected and became an Autobot, he was the Decepticon known as Deadlock, one of the most notoriously vicious warriors in their ranks, because it turns out if there's one thing he's SUPER GOOD AT, it's killing people. What a winning talent. He was hand-picked by Megatron himself to join the Decepticon ranks, and Megatron was the one to give him the name Deadlock.
Under the smiling face, Drift is actually hugely insecure -- not just about his own self-worth, but especially how other people perceive him. He's keenly aware that he's not very well-liked or trusted by most Autobots because of his history as a Decepticon (and the fact that if you put him in a room full of Autobots, every one of them probably had a friend who got hella murdered by Deadlock). As much as he acts like he doesn't care, Drift cares so much. He is basically in a massive identity crisis all the time -- when he left the Decepticons, he left his identity as Deadlock the killer behind, and he's been trying on different hats ever since. For a while he played the part of the lone wandering warrior, only out to do good in order to make up for his past sins (read: robot ronin); recently, he's taken up the mantle of spirituality after a near-death experience gave him a vision, in part because he hopes this will help him become more likable -- but way, way more than that, because he thinks that if he plays the part for long enough, it'll become who he really is. So in a way, Drift's spirituality is a sham -- he is not the mindful and enlightened bot he claims to be, but on a much deeper and more private level, he subscribes very much to "fake it till you make it".
That isn't to say Spectralism isn't important to him -- all of these ideas are incredibly important to him, and he's never chosen his identities lightly. His spirituality isn't important to him because it's something he really believes in his
Would he openly admit any of this? Haha over his dead body
Also he really loves swords. Like, a lot. He thinks they are super cool and that they also make him look super cool.
His exile from the Lost Light has altered his attitude a little, though. He deliberately took the fall for a massive fucking disaster that was not entirely his fault so that Rodimus (or anyone else) wouldn't be implicated -- in fact, he insisted on it, because according to his vision, Rodimus was too important to risk losing, and let's be real, he was not super popular on the ship, and with his past, he made an easy scapegoat. So he let his best friend denounce him publicly, strip him of his Autobot brand, and send him packing in a shuttle. Considering said disaster resulted in more than just a little loss of life, Drift is feeling extra shitty about himself; he feels responsible, even though he was just one of several who had a hand in it, and it's making him question how far he's really come since he decided to be a force of good in the universe. He's kind of back to lone warrior status, doing good deeds wherever he can, because if he can't be an Autobot, he has to be something. And with his convictions shaken, he's only clinging harder to his spiritual front -- he might not actually believe in his own unrelenting optimism, but he has to try.
Canon Powers: he is a giant robot that transforms into a sweet sports car and he is remarkably hard to kill
OK BUT TO BE SPECIFIC:
Drift is about average size and build for a Cybertronian, standing at around 20 feet. He's been a warrior for long enough that his frame is pretty much optimized for combat, and while he's formidable in battle, it isn't necessarily due to super strength, but rather speed and precision. He is definitely strong enough to pick up other robots (or cars) around his size and give 'em a good throw, though. Drift is pretty fast, and nimble too. He does so many unnecessary backflips.
Cybertronians are also really fucking hard to kill and live for millions of years. Drift has had limbs ripped off, run a sword through himself, gotten nearly crushed to death, and nearly fried himself from the inside out on robot drugs. He's come close to death a few times, but he can take a pretty rough beating.
The three key parts of Cybertronian anatomy are the spark, the brain module, and the transformation cog. The spark is the heart and the center of energy for a Cybertronian, and if it or a Cybertronian's brain module is irreparably damaged, they'll die, but it takes a lot. The transformation cog is what allows Cybertronians to shift into their vehicle modes -- in Drift's case, a very shiny and fast sports car. Like the rest of him, his alt mode is built for speed.
Game powers: PRETTY MUCH JUST KEEPING HIM AS-IS since Being Cybertronian counts as one big honkin power.
Abilities: Drift is preternaturally good at violence, a thing he kind of hates about himself, but if you give this guy two guns he will clear an entire room and then some. He also received some pretty thorough training in more martial arts and swordplay from his
Setting: A chance to save not just his world, but countless others, from a massive cataclysm? COUNT DRIFT THE FUCK IN. He's been wandering and lost, and a cause to latch onto is exactly what he needs right now -- the more heroic and just, the better. He wants so badly to be a hero, not because he wants the attention, but because he wants people to believe he's not a shit person, because if other people believe it then maybe it's true!
These days, Drift is pretty good at not killing people indiscriminately. He is fairly used to lethal combat, but in theory he is all about killing fewer people.
SAMPLES
Prose Sample: Drift has learned enough about the Coluans since his arrival to know about their prejudice against inorganics. It's...a familiar enough attitude, sadly enough -- it's not like the Cybertronians are that popular with anyone in their universe, not after that four-million-year-long civil war -- but at least on Earth, the Cybertronians had actually done something (a lot of things) to earn the mistrust of humans. But he's used to mistrust, too, although he's rarely stepped up to defend himself. That kind of defensiveness -- it makes people think guilty so easily, and Drift would rather let his actions speak for themselves.
It's pretty evident that that's not really going to work out in this case.
He steps forward to answer, one hand laid over his chest plate in an earnest gesture. "I know you have no real reason to trust me," he says, carefully sidestepping around the whole robot racist issue. "I'm a stranger to this world, and as far as I'm aware, the first of my kind here. I can tell you that I'm no stranger to war and strife, that I've come face-to-face with what I thought was the impossible time and again, but those might mean nothing to you. Maybe there's no way to determine if I'm really worthy or not. But...my home is under threat, just the same as yours. I have to try. I can't condemn an entire universe by my own inaction, just because I was worried I wasn't good enough."
Network Sample:
[ this feels a little weird, somehow. drift doesn't know what kind of person he'll be after all this -- if he survives it -- after all, he seems to change all the time. but maybe this is a good thing. maybe this can serve as a reminder, if things ever get off track...if he ever loses sight of his cause again, the way he did with overlord. ]
Hey, Drift. It's me. Er...you. Same thing. If you're seeing this, it means I survived -- that we won -- but...well, you'll probably remember recording this. But I hope you watch it again if we win, just in case -- in case anything's changed.
The situation here seems like it's really in a bad way, but it kind of reminds me of the Lost Light. I'm glad I have something to do here. Something to fight for. And I'm doing good. That was what I swore I'd do, Autobot or no. And I think fighting against something that threatens all of existence...I don't think you get many better opportunities to do good than that.
[ does he deserve that opportunity? fuck, he doesn't know. probably not a great time to start questioning it. ]
I have to believe that Primus guided me here. I have to believe I'm here for a reason. And if I survive this -- if I am watching this again -- I'd like to send a message back to the Lost Light. To Rodimus. I think maybe…
[ maybe it'd mean he could go back home? no -- it wouldn't change anything. but it would mean something. ]
I think maybe he'd appreciate a good story about all this.
Additional info: Drift will be showing up with his three (3) swords! One of which is the Great Sword. The other two are just regular swords. He wears all of these at once, because he doesn't know how to fuckin tone it down a notch. Like all Cybertronians, he needs to regularly refuel his systems with energon.
ROBOT HELL APP (FOR TORI) (BC SHE IS LAZY)
Jan. 3rd, 2015 10:39 amOOC INFO
Name: Read
Contact:abetterdaughter
AIM: Readimus Prime
Other characters: N/A
IC INFO
Name: Ratchet
Canon/Continuity: IDW
Reference: http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Ratchet_%28G1%29/IDW_Generation_1_continuity
Canon Point: Before Empire of Stone (whenever that is)
Personality: Ratchet is a medic, first and foremost, and a talented one. Even before the war on Cybertron, it was both his job and his passion--he was a doctor for some of the most influential and powerful members of the government while simultaneously running secret clinics in the slums to treat patients who couldn't afford medical care, a practice the government would have actively frowned upon. It's partly because of the talent he has but he has a very deep sense of duty, almost an obligation to help those in need of his skills, in any capacity. It drives him to work almost constantly, but it's also a large part of what makes him such a good medic. Even before the war, he went out of his way and put himself in danger to help foil an assassination plot by breaking into a building and being suspended upside-down from the ceiling while he used his exceptionally steady hands to disarm a bomb--not exactly on the list of standard duties for a physician. But that determination to avoid bloodshed and the knowledge that his skills were necessary to do so help him keep a clear head regardless of the pressure put on him by the situation he's in, whether it's defusing a bomb, getting shot at on the battlefield, or keeping someone from dying on his operating table. It was that steadiness and that desire to reduce suffering as much as possible that drove him to join the Autobots as a field medic.
Millions of years of war have ground a lot of that idealism out of Ratchet, but no matter how much his bedside manner leaves to be desired, he still cares intensely about each of his patients, still feels personally responsible for each life he can't save. That gruffness is a defense mechanism he uses to struggle to distance himself from each individual patient, and from each individual person, because he knows at any time anyone he knows could end up on his operating table, become his responsibility to keep alive. It's a guilt he carries with him almost constantly--he knows intellectually that he can't fix every person who comes across his operating table, but he feels like he should be able to, like there's always more he could have done. Or not done--this guilt and frustration sometimes extends to people he has saved, one in particular. One of the individuals Ratchet saved when he was operating a clinic out of the slums, Drift, went on to be renamed Deadlock and become a Decepticon, one who was infamous for his bodycount. Ratchet feels responsible for each of those deaths--the ones injured by Deadlock that made it to his medibay in particular, but for all of them, because he knows if he hadn't saved Drift from dying, all of those people might still be alive today. Ratchet's relationship with Drift is similar to his relationship with the war itself--he does what he believes is right, but is guilty and almost resentful of the moral ambiguity of war. His instinct is to help people who are injured, and it makes him upset and frustrated and almost angry when it turns out that doing so may not always be the clearest and best course of action. Ratchet's feelings about the war and the things it has driven him and other Cybertronians to do are complex, but he still believes in saving people. This extends to the lives of members of other species as well, and he still has as much of a disregard for authority when it gets in the way of his work as he ever did--he goes out of his way on several occasions to save or assist humans he's befriended, even if it means disobeying direct orders. Ratchet's interest, despite how long he's been at war, is to save individual lives; one at a time if necessary.
In More Than Meets The Eye, Ratchet is keenly aware of the length of his tenure as Chief Medical Officer, his failing ability, and the fact that he may no longer be able to do the work that is so important to him. His hands, after millions of years of constant use doing delicate work, are starting to degrade and shake when he does things as simple as picking up a glass, let alone doing surgery. He calls traveling with the crew of The Lost Light his 'swan song'--his one last chance to maybe do some real good as he looks for a new CMO. Now, at the end of the war, Ratchet is left out-of-sorts in the same way as many of the other old veterans; when you've been at war for millions of years, peacetime can be difficult to adjust to, as well as being anticlimactic. Ratchet has difficulty handling how little satisfaction this much-sought-after peace has afforded him and how many problems (and how much violence) is left over in the war's wake. However, he's still tireless in his desire to do as much good as he can and he's still a workaholic--which is good, because the crew on The Lost Light is more than a bit of a mess. The struggles they go through as a crew force Ratchet to grow, however--he acquires a new set of hands to continue his work, but ends up coming to terms with the idea that it is time to pass on the mantle of CMO to another medic. He even goes so far as to accept Drift (who is also on the Lost Light) as one of his friends, refusing to abandon Drift to lock himself safely in the medibay and instead staying to fight in a battle they'll almost certainly lose. However, Ratchet hasn't changed at the very core of who he is. His response to the question 'are you happy?' is "I'm happy when I'm working, yes," and it's true. He's still just as dedicated to healing people and preserving life as he ever was, despite everything.
Sample: http://capitalh.dreamwidth.org/47850.html?thread=2076394#cmt2076394
Name: Read
Contact:
AIM: Readimus Prime
Other characters: N/A
IC INFO
Name: Ratchet
Canon/Continuity: IDW
Reference: http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Ratchet_%28G1%29/IDW_Generation_1_continuity
Canon Point: Before Empire of Stone (whenever that is)
Personality: Ratchet is a medic, first and foremost, and a talented one. Even before the war on Cybertron, it was both his job and his passion--he was a doctor for some of the most influential and powerful members of the government while simultaneously running secret clinics in the slums to treat patients who couldn't afford medical care, a practice the government would have actively frowned upon. It's partly because of the talent he has but he has a very deep sense of duty, almost an obligation to help those in need of his skills, in any capacity. It drives him to work almost constantly, but it's also a large part of what makes him such a good medic. Even before the war, he went out of his way and put himself in danger to help foil an assassination plot by breaking into a building and being suspended upside-down from the ceiling while he used his exceptionally steady hands to disarm a bomb--not exactly on the list of standard duties for a physician. But that determination to avoid bloodshed and the knowledge that his skills were necessary to do so help him keep a clear head regardless of the pressure put on him by the situation he's in, whether it's defusing a bomb, getting shot at on the battlefield, or keeping someone from dying on his operating table. It was that steadiness and that desire to reduce suffering as much as possible that drove him to join the Autobots as a field medic.
Millions of years of war have ground a lot of that idealism out of Ratchet, but no matter how much his bedside manner leaves to be desired, he still cares intensely about each of his patients, still feels personally responsible for each life he can't save. That gruffness is a defense mechanism he uses to struggle to distance himself from each individual patient, and from each individual person, because he knows at any time anyone he knows could end up on his operating table, become his responsibility to keep alive. It's a guilt he carries with him almost constantly--he knows intellectually that he can't fix every person who comes across his operating table, but he feels like he should be able to, like there's always more he could have done. Or not done--this guilt and frustration sometimes extends to people he has saved, one in particular. One of the individuals Ratchet saved when he was operating a clinic out of the slums, Drift, went on to be renamed Deadlock and become a Decepticon, one who was infamous for his bodycount. Ratchet feels responsible for each of those deaths--the ones injured by Deadlock that made it to his medibay in particular, but for all of them, because he knows if he hadn't saved Drift from dying, all of those people might still be alive today. Ratchet's relationship with Drift is similar to his relationship with the war itself--he does what he believes is right, but is guilty and almost resentful of the moral ambiguity of war. His instinct is to help people who are injured, and it makes him upset and frustrated and almost angry when it turns out that doing so may not always be the clearest and best course of action. Ratchet's feelings about the war and the things it has driven him and other Cybertronians to do are complex, but he still believes in saving people. This extends to the lives of members of other species as well, and he still has as much of a disregard for authority when it gets in the way of his work as he ever did--he goes out of his way on several occasions to save or assist humans he's befriended, even if it means disobeying direct orders. Ratchet's interest, despite how long he's been at war, is to save individual lives; one at a time if necessary.
In More Than Meets The Eye, Ratchet is keenly aware of the length of his tenure as Chief Medical Officer, his failing ability, and the fact that he may no longer be able to do the work that is so important to him. His hands, after millions of years of constant use doing delicate work, are starting to degrade and shake when he does things as simple as picking up a glass, let alone doing surgery. He calls traveling with the crew of The Lost Light his 'swan song'--his one last chance to maybe do some real good as he looks for a new CMO. Now, at the end of the war, Ratchet is left out-of-sorts in the same way as many of the other old veterans; when you've been at war for millions of years, peacetime can be difficult to adjust to, as well as being anticlimactic. Ratchet has difficulty handling how little satisfaction this much-sought-after peace has afforded him and how many problems (and how much violence) is left over in the war's wake. However, he's still tireless in his desire to do as much good as he can and he's still a workaholic--which is good, because the crew on The Lost Light is more than a bit of a mess. The struggles they go through as a crew force Ratchet to grow, however--he acquires a new set of hands to continue his work, but ends up coming to terms with the idea that it is time to pass on the mantle of CMO to another medic. He even goes so far as to accept Drift (who is also on the Lost Light) as one of his friends, refusing to abandon Drift to lock himself safely in the medibay and instead staying to fight in a battle they'll almost certainly lose. However, Ratchet hasn't changed at the very core of who he is. His response to the question 'are you happy?' is "I'm happy when I'm working, yes," and it's true. He's still just as dedicated to healing people and preserving life as he ever was, despite everything.
Sample: http://capitalh.dreamwidth.org/47850.html?thread=2076394#cmt2076394
