Aristophanes Unit TG1-0001-0
Aristophanes Unit TG1-0001-0 Freling (a.k.a. Ari)
Physical Description
Body Features
Beyond being a Cold War Era vessel with its associated modifications, Aristophanes still has a fair bit of defining characteristics that make him stand out from units are that of his same model. On the face of his turret, he has a large gash at his left cheek from a scrape with an enemy anti-tank round that luckily didn't get anything vital, and was minor enough to leave unrepaired. On his mantlet, there's also a sizable scratch that came from his narrow survival of an airstrike, where a large piece of metal shrapnel was shot from a building structure detonated by a dropped bomb. Additonally, he has a painted insignia that he's had on his turret since activation; the symbols of Alpha and Omega imposed upon each other painted in black. They were put there as a representation of the purpose of his kind, and him as an individual. He was the beginning of this kind, that was supposed to bring about the end of the war. Most easily spotted, however, are his stark white optics; he was the only unit ever produced with them, and this was also for the purpose of commemorating him being the first prototype.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
After the resounding breakthrough in AI technology that was CoreAegis's first varifiably sapient AI in the midst of war in early 1995, along with requests from just about every corner of the tech market, they were approached with the demand of what was supposed to be a higher calling, for the greater good. While much of CoreAegis's outward functioning in those months to follow seemed just as innocuous as before, behind the scenes, there was all but physically a gun to their temples - to create a new breed of gun. The Western allies needed an edge over their Eastern opposition that had forced them into a year-long stalemate, and on the morning of June 24th, 1995, the edge opened its eyes for the very first time.
Aristophanes - or before he been assigned a name, simply "the tank," or "the edge," jokingly - had a comparatively good childhood as opposed to most of the peers that would be created following his early success as a military unit. Upon his activation, he was closely monitored and cared for over the course of six months before he would ever see even a glimpse of active duty. In this time, he was given a basic education, which, with CoreAegis units' far above average rates of learning, put him at about an American 8th grade level. He also underwent numerous tests that monitored how well his AI core was taking to its unconventional body of a Challenger 2 main battle tank; testing things like dexterity, reaction time, strategic planning skills, and more of the like. Three months after his activation, two more Challenger 2 units assigned the names Adam and Eve would join him in testing, although they would not be offered the luxury of a six month upbringing like Aristophanes when they were transferred to active duty all within the same squad on December 31st, 1995; The Day of Mass Awakening.
Even with the fortitude of a somewhat more stable upbringing behind him, the war treated Aristophanes no better than it did any other unit younger than him. At times, close after the war's end, he would even go so far as to say that it was almost a burden to have experienced what a somewhat peaceful life was like before being thrown into combat, as it meant that he had something to lose, to break, unlike those after him who'd known nothing but the combat that overtook their lives and could thus find some semblance of normalcy in it. As Ari was somewhat older than the rest of his kind, it at least offered him the ability to be taken more seriously, but it also meant a greater uptaking of responsibility, when, all things considered, he was still very much a child. On top of dealing with his own turmoils and trauma of the war, he also had to put on a strong front for the units younger than him that looked up to him as a sibling figure and source of stability, and had to deal with assumptions from higher command that took his small age gap as justification to trust him with premature promotions and additional duties beyond those expected of typical MAI units. By the end of the war in June of 2000, he was the rank of Major General. During his time in the war, from beginning to end, he experienced the loss of four crew members to damages sustained in battle, six MAI squadmates and many of their associated crew, and many others from neighboring operations, including a Dassault Rafale that, after the war, he admitted to having been his first love.
After the war ended, during the construction of Lazarus, and thus before the Enlistment Exposure of 2006, MAI were still considered the property of their respective militaries and were thus kept on bases to presumably live out the rest of their lives. Aristophanes worked as a training unit for most of his six years at the Aliwal Barracks, used for accustoming new recruits to Challenger 2 operating procedures. Most of his six years. In the beginning of his stay there - about the first six months - they attempted to employ him in public displays like victory parades and armor shows, but this proved to be somewhat difficult when all he would do when approached by citizens was detail every grievance he ever recalled having with the war, and MAI have excellent memory. This, and it's not a very proud display when the only way a tank will navigate a parade route is by being quite literally dragged by two more. The public eye was mostly only entertained by un-enlisted show pony units for reasons like this.
After the Enlistment Exposure, he and his peers were quite unceremoniously discharged from service. Those who wished to return could simply opt in willingly, and many did, finding comfort in familiarity. Many more, however, chose to face the world as the civilian citizens that they had become, or, rather, had been all along. Aristophanes found himself working long weeks for a logging company, either pulling trailers, or loading and unloading them. He absolutely loathed it, but it was better than being stuck at Aliwal for the rest of his life. A few of his friends from the war had joined him at his job, as well, including one of his first and closest friends, Copenhaver Agnello. Having him around at least made it bearable. The hardest thing about civilian life in those early years, he would find, however, was keeping a roof over his head. There were times when he could manage to get into group homes with other MAI, but for one reason or another, they wouldn't last and he'd be forced to try again elsewhere. Then, 2012 happened.
It was a party on June 19th, the anniversary of the day the war ended, open to all who had served,
and hosted by a unit that Ari was at least somewhat familiar with. Why not? The last few years had been okay at best, or near unbeara
ble at worst. For just one night he could pretend that everything was alright for a moment, maybe catch up with some people that he hadn't seen in a long time. Copenhaver of course agreed to join him there, so they went together, just to have some kind of anchor, or cover more ground socially; whatever ended up happening. Honestly? It ended up being a wonderful time: both of them were able to relocate and catch up with friends, getting each other caught up on how their lives had been going the past few years. M
any weren't doing the best, but it was a little therapeutic to be able to vent and laugh about such things, and some even planned on relocating with each other after. Ari found it pleasant enough, but that all changed towards the end of the night. At some point, he'd d
ecided he'd had enough of the festivities, and slipped away to the edge of the grounds to cool off from it all. This is where he met Mhina Frelin
g, apparently just as exhausted. The two kicked it off, well, awkwardly enough, with neither having expected the other to be there when they were just trying to be alone, but by the time everything was winding down and guests were starting to roll out, they'd found themselves enthralled in the conversation of many topics: 'What was your role in the war? Do you have any family back home? No? God, me neither. Anyways, push that all aside, what kind of hobbies do you have?' In just a few hours, it was like they'd known each other all along. Eventually, though, it was getting late. The two playfully waved each other off, and went their separate ways. Aristophanes regrouped with Copenhaver, and told him all about the conversation he'd had with the woman. Copenhaver then asked a very good, very dumbfounding question.
"Well, did you get her number?"
"Oh my god, I didn't get her number."
After about a week of sleuthing and interrogating former party-goers that he did know, he was thankfully able to get a hold of it, and the two quickly kicked things off again. Talk slowly turned to flirting, flirting turned into meeting up more often, and those meetups didn't take long at all to turn into full fledged dates. What did either have to lose? Aristophanes never kept a family in the first place, Mhina was as good as gone to hers before the two met, and they were both pretty outwardly unpopular to society anyways. Just drive the last nail into the coffin and go all out, why not? Coming into the Steelcut Era, everyone was radicalizing, either over some presumed made up fear for their livelihood, or a genuine fear for their life, Mhina and Aristophanes decided that if they were going to be controversial, they'd be very controversial. For years to come, the two of them became a symbol of change and progress in the community of LAI and the humans that believed in a future where they could coexist in a way that wan't inherently damaging, and they were some of its strongest advocates. Attending protests, advocating for legislation that forwarded the rights of MAI and LAI, and both had been accumulating their fair share of nights spent in jail for the unrest they created. In this span of time, they managed to help pass laws that legalized MAIs' rights to attend educational institutions, to marry, to adopt, broadened their protections as a discriminated class, and those are just to name a few.
In the years that followed these progressions, Aristophanes and Mhina took advantage of just about all of them. In 2015, the two wed, witnessed by a small ceremony of mostly MAI and LAI; Copenhaver, of course, was Ari's best man. After this, Ari went on to attend a trade school where he took courses on precision metal work and electronics engineering, hoping to get into a career in prosthetics design for both humans and LAI. In 2017, with help from an anonymous donor, he and Mhina welcomed their first and only child into the world; a girl, named Charlie Freling.
In the present day, Aristophanes was able to get his wish of working in the field of prosthetics with a reputable company called Carina Dynamics, Mhina spent her working years as a fashion designer that specialized in LAI fashion; having helped catalyze the Liberation Era of bright, flashy colors and clashing patterns, but is now enjoying her retirement by traveling the world and educating today's youth about the decades that followed the war. Charlie inherited her mother's business, and continues the legacy of creating more modern designs to fit with the ever-evolving scene.
Sexuality
Biromantic
Employment
Early after the war, after it was decided that MAI could be considered civilian when an ethical loophole was discovered by Lazarus and his cohorts in their enlisting documents, many MAI were thrust into an unfamiliar world, forced to fend for themselves as the citizens they fought to be considered as. In this time so early after the war's end, many civilian humans were still incredibly unfamiliar with MAI as people, and thus weren't so eager to hire them or work with them as equals in any way. This forced many to go into labor intensive jobs that didn't put much priority on their well-being such as manufacturing, hauling/transportation, construction, and other fields of the like; Aristophanes was no exception. For about seven years after his deployment back to his home country of the UK, the only job he could manage to keep was as a hauler for a logging operation. Due to the strenuous nature of his position, most of his income went into keeping his engine and frame from failing on him, and he was on more than one occasion without a home in that span of time before moving in with Mhina Freling, the woman that would eventually become his wife.
Accomplishments & Achievements
Although not the first, Aristophanes and his wife Mhina were among the first inter-creed couples to legally wed in the UK, and both of them were active contributing advocates for various MAI rights. One perk to Ari's existence as a prototype unit lent him some notoriety and quickly made him a sort of figurehead in the MAI rights movement, that, in its prime, stretched from the early 2000's all the way into the early 2030's. Near the end of this time, as well, he became one of the first MAI to be the legal father of a human child upon birth. Charlie Freling, though it was impossible for her to be his in any way beyond paper, is still toted by Aristophanes himself as one if not the most important parts of his life.
Social
Mannerisms
He's fairly reserved as a person when it comes to any kind of initial or formal social interaction, but it doesn't take him very long after to warm right up to whoever he's acquainted himself with; maybe even a little too warm for the standards of some. Due to his early life of being constantly worked with in settings of both basic experimental work and socialization, he tends to be very tactile in his interactions: gently placing a hand on the shoulder of whoever he's talking to, maybe patting them on the back, and if the conversing party is sitting on his hull, holding by the arms and some gentle repositioning every now and then isn't out of the question. All of this with permission, of course.
Speech
When speaking in English, he speaks with a British accent of course as a result of his country of origin. In general speech beyond that, though, the only really notable quirk to his speech pattern is that he may tend to repeat himself for the sake of emphasis; moreso when stressed, excited, or feeling some other strong emotion.
Species
Conditions
Ethnicity
Age
79
Date of Birth
June 24th
Circumstances of Birth
First prototype of the Livastian Military AI
Children
Pronouns
He/Him
Eyes
Sterile White
Appears in...
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