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unascending) wrote2024-04-14 07:03 pm
unascending) wrote2024-04-14 07:03 pm
info & permissions
✧— I'm happy to roll out any of the Dawn clones as desired, including Cleon XIV. Hit me up if you have a particular one you want!
THE SURVIVOR, CLEON XVIII
An Imperial clone, the 18th iteration in a series of clones of Emperor Cleon I. Cleon answered the question of his succession over the Imperial Galactic Empire by having himself cloned in perpetuity. Thus, the Cleonic Dynasty was born: a triad of identical clone emperors—Dawn (an adolescent version and emperor in training), Day (an adult version and primary emperor), and Dusk (an elder version and former emperor mentoring his younger selves)—ruling together on the triple thrones for over five hundred years.
Cleon 18 learned a lesson from 14's fate not to bother trying to escape his. (Oops, unless...)
✧ APPEARANCE: Tall, lean, but coming into his final form as a Lee Pace-shaped unit. If one were going to compare the Dawn clones, 18 sits much more easy in his skin. He's comfortable emulating the orderly and fashionable style befitting his station as an emperor and a Cleon. Being a test tube baby, he didn't have an umbilical cord and lacks a navel.
*Regarding his adult stature, I'm splitting the difference between Cassian Bilton and Lee Pace and saying somewhere around 6'3 1/2".
✧ DEMEANOUR: He comes from a line of emperors described as "hollow men who hollow out their worlds" with a track record in self-importance and ruthlessness. It's not hard to see how a bunch of weird, pampered purse dogs get that way without an ounce of normal human interaction to be found when their family are other thems, their children are other thems, their advisors are other thems, they live in what amounts to a glorified haunted house dedicated to their long dead progenitor (who was a piece of shit, actually). The closest thing to a friend or mother they have is their attendant, Demerzel—and unbeknownst to the public, a millennia-old robot whose prime directive is upholding the Empire by any means (whether they like it or not). Being fucked up and dysfunctional doesn't cover the half of it.
Cleon 18 manages to hold onto being the most kind, even-tempered, and sweet-natured of his brothers. Affable, earnest, with a burgeoning statesman's poise, he tends to errs on the side of leading with heart and good faith as a choice. He wonders if power and his environment may be the nurture that hones viciousness in his nature, or else he'll have to learn to be that way as a matter of course, but he sees that as a regrettable consequence and not a virtue.
✧ DRESS: The most vibrantly pigmented colors are exclusively reserved for royal use on Trantor and the emperors color coordinate their
✧ VOICE: I.
history
Over a hundred and thirty years on, Cleon 16 (Dusk), Cleon 17 (Day), and Cleon 18 (Dawn) are the current ruling emperors. Time has nibbled away at the Imperium's borders; in the last century, the Empire has lost influence over the Outer Reach region, and cracks have widened within in the emperors' ranks. Although still presenting themselves as harmonious to the public, now aware of their genetic tampering the emperors have only become more and more diverse, growing restless with the Cleon mold and grappling with their individuality. As Demerzel reflects, recreating the image of one man in three bodies is like trying to harvest from a blighted field, full of deviations and differing desires. More and more in response she has had to take measures to keep the clones compliant, including initiating a sexual relationship with Cleon 17 to exert influence over him.
Meanwhile, the Foundation has been gaining strength outside the Empire's notice, outpacing it in scientific and technological advancements. Hari Seldon and other key members have found ways to keep guiding the Foundation through the passage of time, whether by through digital copies of their consciousness or using long stints in cryosleep to pass the years. Hari and his protege Gaal Dornick now face two problems—a Foundation left to amass power unchecked is as problematic as the Empire, while Gaal, who has strong psychic abilities, has a vision of the source behind the future galaxy-wide disaster they've been working to avert. She sees in another century and a half a telepath calling himself The Mule emerges, so powerful he has the potential to obliterate the Empire, Foundation, and throw the galaxy's survival into question. Thus the need to establish a Second Foundation: a third faction working in secret from the others, composed of those with similar gifts known as Mentalics. Their role is to prepare to be the galaxy's defense and intervene between the other powers as needed.
Day, the capriciously volatile primary emperor, seeks to have his own personhood recognized and to disprove Hari's accusations the Empire is stalling for lack of adaptation. He intends to end Imperial cloning, thereby ending the Genetic Dynasty, believing the middle ground to Demerzel's programming is to shift the dynasty's preservation to his naturally conceived heirs instead of more clones. This leaves Dawn contemplating the purpose to his existence—the first Cleon clone made obsolete.
With the goal of establishing a marriage alliance and ensuring heirs, Day and Demerzel conspire to assassinate the ruling family of the Cloud Dominion kingdom, putting the surviving young queen, Sareth, into a desperate enough situation to agree to marry Cleon 17. However, Cleon 17 narrowly avoids an assassination attempt on himself, casting suspicion on her as a suspect, as well as on Dawn and Dusk who he thinks could be protesting the loss of the Genetic Dynasty.
Dawn and Dusk grow uneasy as a paranoid Day restricts increasing amounts of their authority with Demerzel's assistance, adding to a growing sense their purpose and autonomy in the Imperium is not what they thought. Sharing their misgivings, Dawn and Sareth nurture a sympathetic friendship and budding romance after concluding the other's innocence, though he questions his capability for the same callousness as Day. Sareth forces him to confront the cognitive dissonance at the heart of being a Cleon: they pretend to be the same, but are they really? And if he wants to be different, who could he be? They pursue a secret affair, Sareth proposing if must have a Cleon's child she would rather it have a kind father like Cleon 18.
Helping Sareth probe deeper into the attacks—and consequently Demerzel's robotic nature—only uncovers further unsettling revelations the emperors themselves are pawns in a much greater campaign to control them. The Cleons realize their memories are manipulated, finding they've been conditioned with a mental block preventing them from accurately remembering or speaking about the first Cleon and Demerzel's origins when questioned, all at Demerzel's hands.
At the same time the Empire discovers the Foundation's activities, the Foundation does what no one thought possible and pierces the Empire's hide, jumping a ship straight into the Imperial Palace to interrupt the execution of some Foundation members—all a carefully laid plot by Hari to bait the Empire into an aggressive response against Terminus, the Foundation homeworld. Day sets out with the Imperial fleet, leaving Dawn in command of Trantor. In spite of returning the favor by driving a massive warship into the planet and destroying it, Day is killed in the encounter, and the Empire takes a one-two punch to the face suffering catastrophic losses to the fleet and a crippled ability to use its jump ships. Hari nevertheless gives Demerzel access to his math, a means for her to chart the future course for the Imperium.
On the hunt for the truth, Dawn and Dusk determine Demerzel was never going to allow the end of the Genetic Dynasty and is the one responsible for staging the attack on Day, intending to frame Sareth and scare the Cleons away from hopes of dismantling the cloning system.
It's revealed in the beginning the first Cleon stumbled upon Demerzel, one of the last of her kind, and the two developed a mutual affection for one another over time. However, Cleon I's domineering love and need to control her loyalties led him to reprogram her to serve Empire. As a gift, he would give her the Imperium, with his clones the tools to run it and the faces to front it. She, though compelled to raise them like the children they would never have and to remain at the side of a version of him, would have the means to puppet these inferior "half-men" and thereby rule through them, imprisoning each side in a grotesque pantomime of eternal love neither can escape. Dawn realizes Cleon I's true heir has always been Demerzel, his forever empress.
Before Demerzel kills Dusk for learning too much, he manages to get a warning to Dawn that he's in danger and she will soon come for him, too. Dawn is able to rescue Sareth from Imperial custody and escape together with their unborn child. With Dawn on the run, for the first time Demerzel is forced to replace all three emperors with back-up clones.
permissions
✧ BACKTAGGING: Love it!
✧ THREADJACKING: Just check in with everyone involved first if it's something other than your usual free-for-all stuff.
✧ FOURTHWALLING: Open to discussion.
✧ OFFENSIVE SUBJECTS: None for me. He comes with warnings for imperialism, war, (also war crimes r us), slavery, child death, mental mindfuckery, and some consensual grey areas and questionable coercive sexual dynamics going on with his killer android nanny (because sometimes you can never be totally sure if you have a genetic memory of being in love with her, loving her because she's your mother, or it's just a lifetime of grooming to keep you from trusting anyone outside the Empire—Freud would have a field day with the Cleon household.) Drop a line if there's anything you'd like to discuss or to avoid threading with this character for any reason, no sweat. My inbox is always open!
✧ PHYSICAL AFFECTION: There's no species more touch-starved than a Cleon. He's open to it but has a very short short list of people who usually get that close to him, and protocol dictates he has a shielding device on a lot of the time that repels contact.
✧ ROMANCE/FLIRTING: M/F, M/M, M/*, down for exploring everything and anything. He's used to sterilized and highly transactional relationships, i.e. the emperors can pick courtesans for company but 1) their encounters are recorded, and 2) usually bedmates have their memories (contractually) wiped afterwards so pillow talk doesn't become a security breach. He's thirsty as hell for connections that aren't pre-arranged and curated to death. Love cross canon, love AUs, if the interest and chemistry is there we can make it work.
✧ VIOLENCE/FIGHTING/INJURIES: Go for it. For severe injuries, let's talk. He's combat trained so not entirely helpless, as much as he's a privileged bubble boy unused to anything getting past the million security measures to actually touch him.
✧ KILLING: Open to it with plotting.
✧ MEDICAL INFORMATION: He has nanobots in his bloodstream that repair injuries when he's hurt and double as a tracking device, as well as acting as his Imperial identification. And the clone thing, of course, his genome being basically identical to a 600-year-old corpse on display in his house.
✧ TELEPATHY/MIND READING ABILITIES: Go nuts. If someone is in his head, they might be able to tell his memories have been tampered with, whether put behind a block or wiped from his consciousness, in the name of keeping the clones from gaining too much individuation and independence.