Compassion

[Deleted]

Canon

Name:
Laura Tobin
Compassion – Misery Guts – Mary Culver

Age: Base age eighteen, plus six years. Actual age unknown.
Gender: Appears to be female.
Species: TARDIS. Type 102.
Planet of Origin: Ordifica. A remembrance tank. Avalon.
Occupation: Travelling.

Physical Description:

Compassion has a fully-functioning chameleon circuit, which means that she could change her appearance at will. She only does this, however, when she needs to blend into an environment and doesn’t wish to draw attention to herself. For the most part, she appears to look exactly how she did when she was ‘remembered’ as Compassion. She doesn’t remember what Laura Tobin looked like, but it was in the past. It doesn’t matter.

In this form, Compassion is a tall woman. She inches just past six feet, with a slender torso that’s almost masculine. Her legs are long and lithe, the legs of a runner. Her skin is a pale shade, due to the lack of sunlight on Ordifica. She did not venture outside very often, resulting in her skin burning easily when she did. Because of this, freckles run across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose.

She has medium-length fiery red hair. It reaches several inches past her collarbone in wild waves, not quite curly but definitely far from straight. Her eyebrows are a pale blonde, giving her the appearance of not having them at all. Her eyes are swirling grey, giving her a very distinct alien appearance. Her eyes reflect the vortex very faintly, particularly when she’s preparing to dematerialize or just materializing.

Compassion straddles the line between being an otherworldly beauty and being this-worldly ugly. Her face is angular, giving her a very distinct and pointed chin. Her eyebrows are often knitted together in frustration, and her pale grey eyes are constantly narrowed and annoyed. Her neck is almost too long, akin to either a very awkward giraffe or perhaps a beautiful swan. There’s something distinctly strange about her appearance, making her look too practiced.

She holds herself tall. Even those who have never started a conversation with Compassion can tell that she is a proud and strong woman. Her back is always straight, her chin tilted upwards defiantly. Her clothes depends on her surroundings, automatically changing as a part of her chameleon circuit. She prefers to wear dark colors although that’s not necessarily always what she wears. Her mannerisms are very controlled, and rarely does she do anything on accident.

As a TARDIS, she is largely ruled by her emotions. If she does not like the people inside of her, the environment reflects it. Fitz and the Doctor had to live inside of a dark and cold forest. She can use the telepathic circuits to communicate more directly with the people inside of her. She can access their memories and manipulate their dreams, making their environment more hospital or hostile depending on her attachment to them.

Personality:

The first noticeable personality trait of Compassion’s is her utter self-serving nature. She has a moral guideline that is all her own, and she refuses to bow down to anybody or follow anyone else’s rules. If she has to kill someone to protect herself, that’s just fine with her. She’s a fighter who refuses to back down from a challenge. If you’ve made the poor mistake of crossing this TARDIS, the best of luck to you. She fights dirty and will ensure her survival at all costs, including causing paradoxes.

I mention that she has a moral guideline all her own. She sees no difference between terrorists and those who kill others in traffic accidents. Both cause death – it doesn’t matter that one is on accident, as they drive on purpose. It’s no better to kill thousands of people on accident than to kill a few people on purpose. Due to this, Compassion is very dangerous. She doesn’t care how many lives she has to take to make her point. Life is expendable to her – it isn’t her fault that it isn’t the same for all creatures.

She’s uncontrolled and rebellious. Despite many people trying to change her and make her more human, Compassion refuses to change her point of view and perspective simply to appease people. Compassion is her own person, and she certainly doesn’t need your approval. She’s fierce when it comes to someone trying to interfere with her. She’s got a strong for lust for life, and pity on the fool that tries to tame her.

She’s fearless. She refuses to be intimidated by anybody. She has stood up against a Creator of an entire universe, destroyed a few entire Gallifreyan war fleets, and faced several other creatures and situations all without batting an eyelash. She doesn’t take anything sitting down. She’s combative and aggressive and has no qualms against starting a fight if she feels she has to.

Well, and even if she doesn’t feel like she has to. She has an uncanny way of getting people angry at her. She’s seen as rude due to her disinterest in any of society’s filters. If she thinks something, she will say it, no matter how cold-hearted it sounds. She will call someone out on anything. Compassion has a strong, firm grasp on words, able to twist her words enough to manipulate the person she is speaking to. She’s an excellent liar, and can either build someone’s self-esteem or crush it brutally.

Compassion’s been accused of being arrogant. For the most part, it’s true. She has an extreme sense of self-importance, although in her case it isn’t entirely unfounded. She’s the only TARDIS of her kind, and that makes her an extremely valuable commodity. Unfortunately, due to the fact that she is seen as a desired possession, this has made her cynical because of the Time Lords that insist on chasing her and hunting her down to reproduce and make other TARDISes.

As strong-willed as she is, she’s undeniably brilliant. Compassion has the entire universe crammed inside of her head, which can make life very, well, obvious. Her telepathic circuits can pick up signals and stray thoughts of the creatures she’s around – be them Time Lord or human – and if she wanted to she could certainly delve deeper into their minds. She’s been known to manipulate a few people’s thoughts, such as giving some of her inhabitants nightmares. She doesn’t play nicely with thoughts.

With the universe inside of her head, Compassion can, at times, be immobilized by the amount of pressure. She has to filter out several dimensions while maintaining a presence in this plane of existence. Although it’s beginning to become second-nature to her, it was at first a very detrimental problem. Compassion also puts up her shields when she’s having one of these moments, delivering painful electrical shocks. She’s also capable of putting the universe inside of someone else’s head, either driving them mad with the sheer amount of information she contains, or killing them.

Compassion makes no illusions of being a kind person, except when her cover requires her to be... and even then, she still remains quiet and aloof. Even before she was turned into a TARDIS she could never quite grasp the ‘human’ aspect. She abhors playing nice and quite simply doesn’t do it she’s a cruel person. Human life simply does not interest her, and it therefore comes easy for her when she murders someone. She doesn’t make friends easily and, when she does, she’ll just as easily abandon them as she would a total stranger. Occasionally in the wrong timeline, too. She doesn’t pretend to be intrigued by human emotion and psychology as the Doctor does.

Compassion neither considers herself a villain nor a hero. She is a complete free-spirit that will only do things that will benefit herself. She’s not a team player, and the only reason that she would consider helping someone is if the needs match with her own. She doesn’t take orders very well (read also: at all). She only plays by the rules if it’s convenient with her. As mentioned before, Compassion has absolutely no qualms about murdering people, but she doesn’t kill people pointlessly. All of her murders have been done from self-defense, or to make a point.

She has played the villain and she has played the hero, and she has an interest in neither.

History:

Compassion wasn’t always like this. Her first life began as Laura Tobin, a human born on Earth in twenty-sixth century. She had a family – a sister, a mother, and a father. Her family moved to a colony on Ordifica in 2573. The colony was later overseen by the Remote, a branch of the Faction Paradox.. After the Remote invaded her colony under ‘peaceful’ intents, all the residents became sterile. Her mother, who had been pregnant at the time of the peaceful invasion, carried Laura’s dead brother to term, it having died a month before it was due. Laura was too young at the time to realize what had happened, but she wasn’t naïve. She knew that the Remote had something to do with it.

She grew up a bitter and spiteful child. Her mother and father could never quite work out their differences. The death of her brother had impacted her mother deeply, and neither Laura nor her younger sister, Alison, could bring her out. Although their parents never physically acted out against their children, both of them felt the cold chill of inadequacy. Neither were the son their parents craved, and Laura began to resent the men in her life, going as far to go through her sister’s dolls and ripping the heads off the men and throwing them into a fire.

Two years later, the colony was attacked by Time Lords. The Time Lords and the Faction Paradox were sworn enemies and neither gave mercy to the other. Laura’s family was ripped apart in front of her eyes. Ever the protective and fierce older sister, Laura grabbed Alison and ran. The streets were burning and rippling as the Faction Paradox fought back, threatening her very existence. Laura thought that she wouldn’t mind being dead, as long as someone remembered her. Laura refused to let her sister go, holding on to Alison’s wrist so tightly she could feel the bones breaking under her strong grip.

Laura kept running, even as her sister began to drag on the ground in her grip, too exhausted to hold herself up. They were found by a Faction agent. There was something feral about Laura that intrigued the agent and his follower. Alison was wrenched from Laura’s grasp, bloodied, raw, and bruised by her sister’s treatment. Laura snarled and lunged at the agent, trying to rip off the stupid skeleton mask. Her fingers dug into raw flesh, and she withdrew, disgusted. It wasn’t a mask.

Alison was sent back to Earth, her memories reset, into the year 2593. Laura was taken in by the Faction Paradox, already a promising agent at the age of twelve. They trained her and gave her a plausible back-story, manipulating her memories and events in her life until it was true. Laura’s family wasn’t murdered in front of her, little sister wasn’t battered, her little brother was still alive somewhere. They sent her away, abandoned her, because she was a social embarrassment. And given Laura’s refusal to be tamed, nobody questioned it because it was true.

She was nineteen when she was sent to Augustine City in 2594. She knew her past had been tampered with, and she could remember the Other Truth in her dreams. She was twenty-one when the Time Lords attacked the City. They broke the sky, they made the winds howl, and the colonists were threatening each other. Do not panic. That was the motto of the city, strewn about everywhere but no one was listening. Two hundred children were being burned, and Laura wasn’t sure what was happening until much later. Temporal fallout. The city was crashing from an attack that hadn’t begun yet.

Mother Mathara insisted that she and a man named Fitz were best fit for navigational duties upon the Justinian. Laura didn’t like Fitz (“Code-Boy”, she called him), and it was just as well, because he never much liked her. He was too pensive and didn’t put his thoughts into action. His bleeding heart irritated Laura, but Mother Mahara insisted that he was a valuable member of the team for some reason. He thought too much about his own death, and he was afraid of being remembered.

They were sent back into the eighteenth century on Earth. Fitz, Laura, and Nathaniel. Kode, Compassion, and the Guest. Laura was grateful that they would have the ship – if the Time Lords attacked, they could just leave again. And... well, they’d try to take as many as they could. Fitz said rather irritably that Laura was all heart and she shot back blandly that “Compassion” was her middle name, code-boy. Their rivalry was interluded with brief moments of friendly chatter – he hated her unsympathetic and obvious view of the world.

What’s the difference between matchsticks and shock batons? Batons don’t leave marks. Is selling torture equipment bad? No, of course not. Not more so than selling engines, rat poison, and... well, Compassion never could understand Sam Jones. Twentieth century. London. Sarah Jane Smith and Samantha “Sam” Jones. The Doctor. A robotic dog. This was her fourth life – fourth Compassion – and she wasn’t Laura anymore. She hardly remembered Laura, which was just as fine with her because it’s the past and that matters was the signals.

The Doctor rescued Kode from being the stereotype, shallow Wile E. Coyote he was convinced he’d became. The Doctor stole her earpiece and Compassion had nearly broken down, having close to a panic attack without the incoming barrage of signals. He’d tuned the earpiece only to get signals from the TARDIS instead. He was hoping this would keep her on the straight and narrow, as even the Doctor wasn’t a fool enough to trust her. He was a Time Lord, and Compassion didn’t quite remember why at the time, but she abhorred Time Lords.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, now that she can control it) by switching her receiver to only pick up signals from the TARDIS, he began the process to change her into one. The people of the Remote are made to live on signals and to absorb information. By switching her receive, he programmed her with everything about the TARDIS. Its culture, its abilities, and its memories. Compassion has all the memories of the TARDIS up until the point that she turned into a TARDIS.

The Doctor’s TARDIS was destroyed in the dimension crossing from Earth to Avalon. Compassion served rather reluctantly as the Time Lord and Fitz’s timeship. The Doctor forcibly installed a randomizer inside of her, so she cut off the oxygen supply until Fitz tried to fix the situation. She discovered many new abilities during her travels with them. She learned that she could deliver painful shocks, that she could serve as a powerful war TARDIS, and that she could kill people with her brain.

So maybe this TARDIS thing wasn’t the worst thing that had ever happened to her. She aided the Doctor in the destruction of his planet (the first time) and, in an act that was true to her name, erased his memories of what he had to do. She would let Fitz fill in the blanks. He was good at that. She rescued Fitz from the burning planet, the Doctor from the Edifice, and a Gallifreyan technician from the Matrix. She put the Doctor’s regenerating TARDIS in the man’s pocket – after giving it a jump start in the healing process – and kicked him off into the beginning of the twentieth century. She dropped Fitz off a hundred years ahead of the Doctor, kissed his cheek, and disappeared from their lives.

The Gallifreyan technician, a man by the name of Nivet, proved to be entertaining for a while. He knew how to fix her and program her to work to the best of her abilities. She liked him, although she would never come to trust him. Compassion’s caustic personality and rough nature caused him to grow increasingly restless as he longed for a timeship that wouldn’t try to kill him (and he’d never tell her this, but he wondered if the Lady President had been out of her bloody mind to start a war over making more TARDISes like Compassion). Compassion eventually tired of his incessant complaining and left him in the middle of the Arctic ocean. On a boat, obviously. She traveled with another human from Alaska, going under the name Mary Culver. She eventually tired of this companion as well, and wondered why the Doctor found having a ‘companion’ ideal.

She currently travels through the universe by herself.

RP Sample:  Compassion tilted her head, the tendrils of red hair falling over her shoulder. She was sitting cross-legged on an asteroid as it floated lazily through the asteroid belt. Or, rather, as it flew through the asteroid belt, threatening to collide with others. The TARDIS blinked the swirling grey irises, a petulant and bored frown on her face. It was silent – no atmosphere to carry noise, even as the asteroids around her crashed and burned and shook.

She stood, glancing around the system idly. She stepped off the asteroid, her body flickering as she debated on going back into the vortex. There was nothing holding her here anymore. She was no longer answering to the Doctor (although whether she had ever answered to him was debatable) or anyone else. In the end, she kept still, her body traveling at unfathomable speed, rocketing towards Earth.

She paused just past Jupiter – three hundred or so million miles from Earth. She felt someone trying to enter her system. A wicked smile formed on her lips and she moved towards the signal. She pulled the ‘attempted intruder’ into her body, pulling herself into the vortex. She felt the comforting pull and radiation of the vortex. The swirling eyes shut and she focused on the man who was currently near her big toe.

Compassion swiped at one of his surface memories, and she manifested herself inside of the TARDIS. The environment was completely dark, with dark grey outlines of a forest on the edges. There was a musty smell. She peered at the man, before taking shape in front of him. Her body emitted a vague light, casting sinister shadows across her face. ‘Her’ being a shorter blonde with eyes a pale blue. Instead of a cocky smile – the smile that had been on her face in the memory – there was something menacing in Compassion’s grin.

[Ace McShane]

Approved