Vladimir Nikolaevich Kalashnikov

**Dr. Vladimir Nikolaevich Kalashnikov** serves as the medical and systems maintenance officer aboard the free merchant Arcadia.

## History

Dr. Vladimir Nikolaevich Kalashnikov (Russian: Д. Владимир Николаевич Калашников) spent most of his early years in the Rafarian Military Educational System (Russian: Руфкий Военная Cистема Oбразования (РВCO), pronounced: Rufkiy Voyennaya Sistema Obrazovaniya). He was born to shipyard working parents who had little spare time for raising children. Luckily he showed early proficiency in science and technology and was quickly shuffled away to the Federov Elementary Military Academy (Russian: Федоров Разговорный Военная Aкадемия (ФPВA), pronounced: Fedorov Razgovornyy Voyennaya Akademiya). The FRVA is a boarding school; part of the larger Rafarian Military Educational System. Vladmir had very little contact with his biological parents from this point forward. For all intents and purposes, he was raised by the boarding school; he has very little memory of his former family and the only physical documentation he has of their existence is a single grainy picture with them the day he left for boarding school. The FRVA was a large site with students from early elementary age all the way to high school age. Students are tested on and allowed to expand on their proficiencies, but their future employment is determined by military command based on how their skills will best benefit what the near-term military needs are. Vladimir was always more interested in his research and studies than socializing, but he did understand the necessity of some personal relations required for connections to the things he wanted and needed; so he wasn't a total recluse. However, most of his limited number of friends in school were all like-minded science enthusiasts.

### Higher Education

Vladimir graduated with honors from FRVA and was directed to attend Komorov Naval Institute (Russian: Комаров Bоенно-Mорской Институт (КBMИ), pronounced: Komarov voyenno-morskoy institut). At KVMI, He earned dual BS degrees in Computer Science and Biology and followed with an MD-PhD degree. He then subsequently took his medical residency in the cyber-biological implant center at the joint military medical center. This center was the main facility for cyber implants and prosthetics for injured military personnel. Upon completion of his residency, he received orders to report to a relatively remote location named Site 13 (Russian: Сайт 13, pronounced Sayt 13). To the public and even most of the general staff of the building, Site 13 looks like a small naval administrative facility. However, behind a few biometrically and implant-chip scanned doors, past a couple pairs of armed guards, and a several hundred meter elevator ride down lies a classified research facility labeled Project Shield (Russian: Проект Щит, pronounced: Proyekt Shchit).

### Project Shield

Project Shield is named as such as a deliberate piece of misinformation should its classified name get intercepted by any enemies. In no way is the research a "shield" or defensive in nature. The goal of Project Shield is to make a potent and dangerously effective offensive weapon; merging AI, cybernetics, and human biology into one. To members of Project Shield, the technology singularity was not limited to advanced AI whose intelligence exceeded that of humans (similar to pretech AI), but instead further to the merging of human and AI capabilities and intelligence into one conglomerate biological, electrical, and mechanical consciousness and physical presence. The end result was to be a being (or in the long-term, hundreds to thousands of beings) capable of logic and decision making far superior to that of any normal human, but also outwardly appearing human and able to appear as human to most biometric scanners. Results thus far were.. mixed. The cybernetics were the most mature technology created in the lab. Many of the researchers even tested the cybernetics on themselves to prove their design. Vladimir had the cybereye design he worked on implanted into his left eye and it worked flawlessly. The neural connections between the AI and the biological host were prone to failure. Usually it was just one or two bodily systems that failed, but when a part of the respiratory or circulatory systems failed, the rest of the host body would fail soon thereafter. The most common failure was complete loss of muscular control; the resulting quadriplegic hosts were easy to deal with, out of control muscle spasms of some of the larger hosts were much harder to handle. Lastly, the AI was the most immature technology of Project Shield. The researchers were working diligently to create advanced AI with postech knowledge, but these AI were prone to sudden rejection of their hosts or cybernetic connections. Debugging the memory core dumps that happened after a complete rejection of a host and the subsequent core crash found that these AI were unable to comprehend their coupled perceptions of reality and self; essentially they were crashing with sensory overload.

The members of Project Shield were given cover backgrounds and stories for their continued presence in the area of Site 13. While on the project, their true identities were disavowed and discarded, hidden deep in the special project archives... none of researchers really knew. Several of the researchers working closely together were paired together to act as married or dating couples to better cover their close personal contact that inevitably would occur while living near the site. Vladimir was one of these people - married to Dr. Ekaterina Ivanova Smirnova (Russian: Екатерина Ивановна Смирнова). His marriage to Katya (Russian: Катя) was fake, but they were expected to keep up pretenses in public as well as for their neighbors... Vladimir enjoyed the latter part of the arrangement, but he never truly loved Katya.

Project Shield was a high priority for the Rafarian military and the lagging AI maturity was a very large problem for the project. Towards the latter part of the project, the researchers were given a very generous amount of travel freedom along with various cover stories for their travel in order to find/steal/etc. cybernetic and AI technologies to alleviate their current problems. Packages delivered by unnamed government agents would also be delivered to the lab from time to time. These packages never had any label nor instructions. Their contents were almost always computer cores and various processing and memory units. Some were most definitely bits of pretech - impossibly miniaturized components compared to current production technology coupled with exotic power and data interfaces (if any). Some group in the government was searching the sector for pretech as well as stolen AI postech and funneling much of it (as far as Vladimir could tell) to Project Shield. These powerful and unknown pretech components combined with important researchers being gone for many weeks at a time leading to a loss of oversight on critical project systems are what ultimately led to what Vladimir calls "The Incident".

### "The Incident"

Vladimir was recruited to Project Shield for two reasons that he is aware of. First because of his PhD dissertation on Intelligent Computational Enhancements for Cybernetic Prosthetics and Implants and second because of the dedication he shows to his work; he truly makes everything that he works on his own. The third reason, not shared with him, is that his psychological profile shows a severe lack of empathy towards living research subjects; this includes animals, humans, and aliens. Lacking empathy allowed him to see research subjects objectively and focus purely on the scientific advancements. This third reason is a major factor for being brought into the project - a lot of the research done pushes much further than what one could call ethical and in many cases is purely illegal from a human-rights standpoint, but down in the secure bunker under the practically negligible moral oversight of government black programs, just about anything is allowed to happen. Vladimir excelled in this environment and was heavily dedicated to the cause. Although he did lack empathy for the sentient bodies he was merging with cybernetic hardware, he did tend very well to the viable subjects whose hosts accepted the technology additions to their neural pathways. This last fact is probably what saved his life during The Incident. The ends always justified his means. His true bonds of friendship were with the computers, not the people.

During episode 209, Loyalty and Duty, Almirante showed Vladimir video of the incident where he lost his eye from the point of view of his former wife, Katya, who was one of the clones whose creation appears to be directed by Alimrante. "The Incident" is an event that took place when Vladimir was working in a Rafan military lab on classified cybernetics and artificial intelligence projects.

> The Incident began when several canine hosts began to violently reject their cybernetics at the same time. The unaffected cyber-canines, confused, began to attack both the flailing canines and the researchers scrambling to restrain them all.
>
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> Subject R32 (Russian: Р32) is a female human host with unminiaturized neural links connected to the back of her head that looked like long metal tentacles. These "tentacles" connected to various computer cores and battery banks contained in a metal casing worn on her back like a backpack. These cores were mostly postech with recently added pretech AI hardware; the unit as whole hadn't been reached the development point of being miniaturized to fit inside torso cavities of the host. R32, or Anya (Russian: Аня) as the researchers called her, took this distraction as her time to escape the laboratory. As the single guard in the room passed by her to advance towards the canine chaos while she stood still and seemingly in hibernation in her pod, she pounced on him from behind, incapacitating him and stealing the only available weapon in the room from his grasp.
>
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> Only after the first or second fizzle and whiff of ozone created by the blast of the laser pistol took out a canine and researcher did the rest of the scientists begin to realize what was happening. Totally unprepared for a chaotic situation such as this, the scientists counterattack was basically futile. 10 more humans were dead by the time one managed to reach melee range of Anya. He subsequently had his head torn off his body. The second and third scientists, who came withing arms reach of Anya, had their lives end in a similar manner. The remaining two humans managed to push a cabinet on top of Anya, knocking her down. One was shot between the eyes before the cabinet knocked the gun gun of Anya's hand. The other jumped on Anya to try to restrain the limbs not pinned underneath the cabinet. This last human was Katya. She yelled at Vladimir to go get the gun which had slid across the floor over to where he had been knocked underneath a desk and hidden from view until now. He felt a searing pain in his left eye. His cyber-eye had been ripped out by one of the canines. All that was left were several optical neural wires, an otherwise empty eye cavity, and cuts from teeth across his face. Katya screamed at him to "shoot her, just fucking shoot her!"
>
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> Vladimir was conflicted, try to save his own life, or let the cyborg go. The purpose of the project was to foster cyborg life, not to end it. This was the lab's most successful creation thus far, he couldn't just destroy it. He aimed the laser pistol and fired... hitting his "wife" just under her right eye.
>
>

R32 shoved the cabinet off herself and stood up to face Vladimir. He turned the gun around to present the grip to Anya. She hesitated, processing the situation, then slowly she nodded, grabbed the gun from Vladimir, and sauntered out of the lab. The only thing Vladimir heard after that was the two laser pistol shots that took out the armed guards outside the door. They never heard her coming; none of the scientists had made to an alarm and the laboratory door was soundproof. What followed was eerie silence - only the hum of air conditioning and the automated lab equipment remained.

After 15 minutes, Vladimir had found a patch for his eye, gathered his belongings, as many research storage chips as he could, changed to his street clothes, and took the lift up to the ground floor to leave the building. He peeked his head in the open security office, but Anya had already destroyed the surveillance recording equipment. "Smart", he thought. "Very smart." Vladimir boarded the first off-world flight he could and began his journey towards adventuring through the sector. He can pursue his own research now.

## Events During *Arcadia Bound*

During episode 104, Tangled Helix, Vladimir was involved in the interrogation of a captured prisoner on Nada wanted for her involvement in the theft of the Helix Database. The prisoner named Mubara Tibet had the appearance of Vladimir's former wife, Katya. However, Vladimir admitted that he had shot his wife in the face at close range with a laser pistol so it was very unlikely that Mubara is actually Katya. Vladimir remembered some pre-scream research he had come across about a group named Perimeter that had put in multiple individual orders for cloning vats.

## Personality

Vladimir tends to be a no nonsense workaholic with little tolerance for those he deems less intelligent than him. He is more impressed by advanced technology and proficiency with it than an individual's words and actions. The minimal acceptable level is TL4, although he prefers TL4+ and has much more respect for TL5. TL3 is laughable and Vladimir sees people from TL3 backgrounds as primitive and like children. TL0-2 is worthless and people from those backgrounds are basically subhuman and expendable. His main interests are his research and gets irritated when he is not able to work on it.

Technology - mathematics, physics, mechanisms, fluids, electrons, bits and bytes; these are all things Vladimir understands and respects. He gets the subtle nuances and importance of the seemingly trivial pendulum. He gets the terrifying destruction of nuclear weapons and unbraked AI. He can use and exploit these concepts. What he is not able to measure, manipulate, and mold are psioncs. Vladimir is initially untrusting of all psychics because he cannot control them. The psychics that he does trust have their trust earned by personal and working relationships and not because their powers.

## Appearance

Vladimir is in his mid-30s and is showing some age lines, but is by no means weathered since he has spent most of his life indoors and not doing manual labor. He has dark hair that hasn't yet but is likely to gray soon and his right eye is green. His left eye was cybernetic but is now missing and appears to have been torn out. He covers the socket with an eye patch to cover the exposed fiber optics and microcircuitry. His skin is pale akin to his Rafan/Russian/Caucasian ancestry. His is around 1.8m (6 ft.) tall.

Vladimir tends to keep a military style appearance after having grown up in and around the military. However, he tends to keep it just brushing on the edge of unacceptable by Rafan officer standards, especially for a Major. He spends too much time researching to think much about his outward appearance, so his hair ends up being a slightly scraggly and too long crew cut and his facial hair ends up being grizzled and not clean shaven. One item he does keep close attention to is cleanliness which is a necessity as a surgeon. Vladimir has multiple sets of sterilized medical lab, workshop, and field uniforms in his wardrobe.

## Relationships

### Player Characters

#### Aaron "Tempest" Singh

If Vladimir had to pick one crew member that he trusts the most, it would be Tempest. Although he doesn't have the technical expertise Vladimir does, Tempest does take the most interest in helping Vladimir run the ship and work on other computational and mechanical systems. The trust statement still holds true even after Vladimir found out that Tempest is a psychic; he seems different than the others Vladimir has met and almost immediately used his powers in a way that helped Vladimir.

#### Chel F. Savreux

Vladimir and Chel have clashing personalities; she always speaks before she thinks and he does the opposite. She spends a lot of effort trying to get a rise out of Vladimir and it does work from time to time. The little bits of humor that come out of him generally come from giving Chel a taste of her own medicine usually by showing off his intelligence compared to hers. Her personality quirks aside, he is actually impressed with her abilities behind spacecraft controls although he'd never tell her that directly.

#### Eleanora Raleigh

Eleanora is the first person of the Arcadia's crew that Vladmir met. On one hand, she and Vladimir see the most eye-to-eye on the operations and order of the ship due to their mutual military discipline and on that matter he respects her. On the other, she is a psychic and Vladmir doesn't know how to fully trust her. However, her intentions towards Vladmir seem cordial enough and not nefarious so he trusts her for now.

#### Sadaf al-Behr

Vladimir would have been vehemently opposed to Sadaf's integration to the crew if she hadn't been an efficient killing machine. Her TL1 background is something Vladimir normally compares to organic garbage, but her abilities on the reaper battery and defending the Arcadia and her crew may make him rethink his stance on primitive technology cultures.