If you asked anyone at Eagle Mountain High School who Shirley Fleach was, that person would probably snicker, unless the person you asked happened to be a teacher, administrator, or member of the “nerd” groups. However, those groups will describe Shirley as an animated, charming, and very active student, if a little goofy.
As she is brand new to the Wards, she has just finished her onboarding process with the government oficials, and as such no press interviews have met with Acoustica yet. Her cape name has been released to the public officially, but even her team hasn't even met her yet.
Character Sheet
Appearance
Shirley is a 5’ tall, thin teenage girl. She wears earth tone sweaters over button up shirts with big round glasses. She keeps her short auburn hair neat and medium length. She would not be considered ugly in an aesthetic way, but her lack of confidence overpowers every other facet of her.
Acoustica wears her techsuit with simple armor over top, fitted with several of her gidgits and gizmos.If you look at it in the right way it looks vaguely similar to what a composer would wear to a performance.Its black and white, and has a bow tie. She carries a baton that contains more gidgits. The mask she wears is reminiscent of the phantom’s in phantom of the opera.
Equipment and Resources
“Lives” with her mother, though she tends to stay in her shop if she can.
Standard tinker budget
Wealth level
4
Tinkertech
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| Creator | |
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| Appearance | A bodysuit that looks similar to a suit. All black and white, with optional silk bowtie. Has some light armor in key areas, but has buttons and wire connections here or there for her suit tech. |
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| Abilities | This suit does very little on its own except connect every other piece of tech she has to wear. Much like a motherboard, it lets her power and interface with her equipment. Attached to her suit is a set of higher quality speakers that, when not on patrol acts as a boombox for the team, and, when on patrol, can act as amplifiers to any broad-range sounds she sends out. |
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| Duration | The powersource allows for up to sixteen hours of light use (recievers, processing, mundane speakers, etc) without any other gadgets using the power. |
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Her suit, now with added armor plating, has received a decent upgrade from the image agents of the PRT, but the core is the same suit she made in her shop at home. Has built in active hearing protection and cpu that processes the data coming in from her receivers. |
Vivace Sandals Mk.1.0 (source) |
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| Appearance | A more sleek version of her old footwear. Several sets of speakers point out of the bottom of the boots, with a clean, shiny exterior on top. They look similar to formal dress shoes, but lace up the ankles for better stability. |
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| Abilities | With upgraded software, new and more efficient speakers, and more practice building with her power these boots now let her run up to lower levels of olympic sprinter speed. She can also fall from a three story building without breaking her bones and can even jump a little higher.
Also within the bottom of her boots are sonic sensors. These microphones are able to pick up the sonic waves traveling through the ground. This allows her, along with her VI, to create a rough seismic sense of the area around her. The harder the material she is standing on, the better she can ‘see’. Fairly low range, but combines with the opening act to have a longer range with more detail collected. |
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| Duration | 12 Hours of Seismic Sense, or 2 Hours of Sonic Projectors |
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The two modes, Seismic sense and seismic projection, are incompatible. |
Canon in Forte Mk. 1.2 (source) |
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| Appearance | Takes the form of what looks lke a modern pistol with a blunderbuss muzzle. Has a large speaker inside the head, wired in to her suit. Slightly less bulky and with a cleaner machined look than her earlier model. |
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| Abilities | Similar to police agencies LRAD weapons around the world, this is a short range sound cannon that sends out a blast of sound energy in a cone shape directly in front of it. This blast is deep and booming and, though not loud enough to permanently damage peoples’ hearing, sends out enough force to stun someone and potentially knock them off their feet. Its operational range is 10 feet or less for the force wave, and the sound is nearly as loud as a flashbang.
This updated version is made with better speakers and more efficient wiring. It also has an added ability to accept an attachment for the modularity she wanted to try out. This gives it a larger shot count and the option of more powerful bursts. |
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| Duration | This upgrade ups the shot count from 25 to 50 when her batteries are at full power. |
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N/A |
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| Appearance | Stands flush with a solid surface, with four feet in the corners. The center housing has a metal tuning fork looking item as well as a very large speaker. About 1 foot in diameter. Everything folds up so while moving it is only as large as the speaker head. |
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| Abilities | This emplaced device pings any solid surface it's attached to, determines its resonant frequency, then blasts that frequency, liquefying/exploding the area around the device. It takes a few minutes for this entire process to occur, and when it finds the right frequency, is not quiet at all. |
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| Duration | The suit can give charge for a good 10 blasts. The ping is less power intensive and can be used for hours without showing much extra drain on the battery. |
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This is primarily used to put holes in walls, but could potentially be used along with the Vivace Sandals to make a sort of ground penetrating sonar that goes for a very long distance (depends on the material, but standard concrete would be fairly detailed at up to 120 feet of range, steel would be very detailed for longer ranges) |
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| Creator | |
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| Appearance | A large tube with a handle on the bottom. The back has an attachments that connects to the front of the Canon. |
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| Abilities | This takes the Canon and makes the effects more long ranged (~50ft), at the cost of double the power draw per shot and a more bulky weapon. Instead of a cone shaped blast like a shotgun, it fires in a more cylindrical (roughly the size of someone’s chest) directed blast of energy. Still very loud and able to knock a mundane human down, but not to the point of bursting eardrums. Makes the Canon less usable at close ranges. |
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| Duration | ½’s the max shot count of the Canon. |
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Takes a few seconds to attach or remove. |
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| Creator | |
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| Appearance | Looks like a small disk, roughly the size of a tennis ball. |
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| Abilities | Can be programmed to produce any sounds that are up to as loud as a yell. When thrown they can stick to surfaces and be triggered with a button on the soundboard. Once triggered the programmed sound will play until the power button is pushed again. |
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| Duration | Lasts for 30 minutes of continuous sound before the internal battery dies. |
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Fairly quick and easy to make, takes a few minutes to program a new sound, can hold up to 5 in Acie’s utility belt. Must be recharged to use after they die. |
Forza con Eroico Mk.0.7 (source) |
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| Appearance | Modification of the speakers already inset into the Soundboard armor system. They look more uniform, cover more of the body, and look more clean than the first iteration. There are also new additions of motion sensors here or there pointing in every direction. |
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| Abilities | This is an armor system designed so that when something is coming within close range of Acoustica and her VI doesn’t identify it as a friend, the speakers blast in the direction of approach, hopefully stopping whatever attack was coming towards her person. This blast is comparable to her Canon’s force as well as possessing its loudness, hopefully blasting attackers away easily. |
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| Duration | Can only work a few times per day before needing to recalibrate and cool down. |
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Gifted Tinkertech
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| Creator | |
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| Appearance | |
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| Abilities | Thermoelectric Power Generation: The pack takes heat from the environment, and which is circled through it through any future cooling systems, and uses it to generate power.
Photovoltaic Power Generation: The pack generates power from ambient light. If extra power is needed, larger panels may be folded out from the back, though doing so will expose them to potential harm and somewhat compromise what defense the pack does provide.
Crystalline Supercapacitor Bank: Stores the power generated by the back, or supplied to it from external sources. Should be able to store enough power to run Acoustica's suit and systems at moderate to high load for up to four hours, and at minimum to light load for 36 hours with absolutely no inputs, longer for moderate to high load, and indefinitely for minimum to light load if power generation systems are active. If breached, capacitors are designed to fail in such a way as to be non-hazardous, decomposing into a gritty sludge which will evaporate over time as opposed to exploding or dumping their charge into the surroundings.
Modular Port System: The pack is designed to accept a large variety of inputs and outputs, and its overall design is meant to be easily modifiable. |
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| Duration | Until lost or destroyed. Takes some maintenance from either Acoustica or Ammonite |
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Provides some protection, though it's not designed specifically to do so. Should be able to take a few hits and get generally knocked around. |
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| Appearance | Goggles fitted into her half mask. |
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| Abilities | The goggles, though useful for interfacing, are not the tech. The VI inside them, provided by Phalanx, is the true gem. This VI is mostly a number cruncher made to take in the information from the seismic sensors in her shoes and create a 3 dimensional map of what her sandals can sense. Also provides a rudimentary IFF. Has personal assistant functions. |
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| Duration | Lasts as long as she has power. |
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The avatar looks like a roman legionary with a wolf tail and ears. She has the ability to communicate with console and othe Phalanx intelligences. |
Tech Gifted to Others
Vibrato con Amore Mk. 1.0 (source) |
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| Creator | |
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| Appearance | A dull golden gladius that was ripped straight from Phalanx’s armory. Upon the hilt is a black metal case that goes around the hand, much like a rapier’s basket. |
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| Abilities | The black case houses a sonic projector attached directly to the tang of the gladius, causing it to vibrate at a frequency. This vibration allows for much easier cutting, to the point that organic materials can be cut through like warm butter. Rings slightly when swung through the air. |
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| Duration | Without a power source it is still a sharp sword, but it will no longer vibrate. |
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Gift to Phalanx for services rendered |
Skills and Specializations
Though it is not a part of her power, she has a knack for electrical engineering and the back end of production such as camerawork, a bit of artistic design (though she is not great at it), and costume work.
She has the technical skill of an average adult when playing either the piano or violin, though she will refuse to play it if she can get out of it.
She took a self-defense class during her Ward onboarding process at her parent’s demand.
Mentality
Shirley is the epitome of adorkable. She is quiet and reserved in “traditional” social functions, but when in her element, and around those she shares a connection with she cannot shut up. She will get hyper-fixated on a topic and will enthusiastically rant about said topic for hours if allowed. She is a little lonely, if she stops to think about it, but unless someone is persecuting her for her nature, she seems to be happy in the background. Musicals hold a special place in her heart, as does the chess club and robotics, but musicals especially. To the point where she would spend her life working on theatre productions if she could.
She is not much different when in costume, but it is very obvious that when not around her team she happily will melt into the background while they take charge. Despite her powers, and being a part of the Wards, she’s still a mostly non-violent individual. When forced to fight she would dislike hurting someone to the absolute highest of her abilities, but if needs must she shall try and knock out whoever she is fighting against.
Power
Acoustica is a tinker focused on wavelengths and frequencies with the specialization leaning heavily into harmonics, resonance, and wave interference. With her tech she can create tools that use,measure, and produce waves that affect the world around her. Because of the way her tech works, she has to combine gadgets carefully as not every wave reacts well with others.
Some gadgets just cannot sync well with each other, like sound dampening and trying to heighten another sound, leading to massively decreased effects or even no effect at all. Some gadgets can work side by side and not interfere or support each other, like the Scootie Booties and SRADer, this is because they affect completely different areas. And finally, in a rare circumstance, two different gadgets work in harmony with each other, magnifying each other’s effects. The Opening Act matches well with the boots’ receivers allowing a much more detailed seismic map of an even larger area since it adds so much extra energy to the system.
In practice this means that she can't use everything all at once and needs to strategize what tools will actually work well with each other in the heat of the moment.
Trigger
Single, Natural
Backstory
Shirley had always loved classical music. Her entire life had her home filled to bursting with the gentle waves of the violin and the great crescendos of the grand piano in her parlor.Shirley’s mother had been a genius in the musical field, A true virtuoso of her craft with the violin and piano. She was set to become world famous with her daughter never wanting for a thing.
Sadly, following a collision between her car and a bus, Shirley's mother lost her hearing of all but the absolute lowest of pitches. Shirley, 10 at the time, had to witness her brilliant shining star of a mother lose every passion left to her aside from Shirley herself. And seeing her mother break like that hurt. It hurt every part of her. She could no longer hear her mother pour her soul out on a stage, or spend long hours discussing the science of sound.
Following a brief depressive period, her mother rose up to a manic high. Her new purpose in life was to live vicariously through her child. Suddenly, instead of playing with her robotic kits and the like, she would spend twelve hours a day studying the pursuit of musical perfection. Violin lessons, piano lessons, special tutors from the local college, and anything else you could imagine. Shirley, eager to see her mother happy again tried, damn did she try, for three and a half years, but violin doesn’t intrigue her, the piano has become the bane of her existence. The sounds that once gave her solace and a pure childlike joy are now hated, and every time Shirley was perceived to be doing worse than absolute perfection her mother would fall back into a depression. Faced with the choice of keeping up a charade for decades or seeing her mother wither away is what finally broke Shirley. TRIGGER
Suddenly, all of the science behind the music she has been hearing made sense, and when asking herself how to get out of going back to violin practice, she had ideas of a violin that plays itself, or a hearing aid that lets her mother hear again so that she never had to touch a instrument again, or…or…
Over the course of a month, she spent her nights building up her suit so that she could just…stop. Seeing the soundboard finished, she finally realizes what’s going on, and walks herself to city hall to apply for the wards.
