Character Base

• Character Name: Ariane Yeong
• Age: Physically late twenties; cryogenically preserved with some level of consciousness for at least seven hundred years
• Canon (Date/Year Released)/Canon Point: Signalis (November 2022) / Post "promise" ending
• Items Coming Along: A copy of The King in Yellow, a potted lily, a photograph of Ariane and Elster in their Penrose uniforms
• Content Warnings for Character: Long-term terminal illness (cancer), death, assisted suicide/euthanasia, oppressive/fascist regimes, unreality, Signalis spoilers

Character Background

• History: A good summary of the overall game story can be found here. Below is information from the game not present in the synopsis that rounds out Ariane's background:

Ariane was born on the planet Leng, on the outskirts of her home solar system. In this solar system, there are two main political bodies: the Eusan Empire, and the Eusan Nation, who are locked in a long-term war throughout the course of the game. Ariane is a citizen of the Eusan Nation (also called the Nation) and spends her early childhood living with her mother in a remote radio outpost on the planet Rotfront, which is also under the Nation's control.

The Nation has an oppressive, fascistic control over its citizens, and Ariane's upbringing with her single mother is not traditional. Accordingly, at some point in her childhood, her aunt suggests Ariane move in with her and go to a traditional National school in one of Rotfront's cities. Ariane subsequently moves to the city, and begins attending Mandelbrot Polytechnische Oberschule.

At school, Ariane has a hard time socializing with her classmates and adapting to city life. She is bullied, and is interested in literature, art and music more than is considered appropriate or permissible by the Nation. Her two friends are Isa and Erika Itou, who also may have some anti-Nation sympathies, as their family is from Vineta and their parents own a bookstore in which they sell contraband material.

Overall, Ariane dislikes living in the city, describing the experience as being characterized by "fake smiles" and "whispers." Upon graduating from school and fulfilling her customary military service, Ariane has the choice between being sent to work at the S-23 Sierpinski mining facility or finding other employment. Ariane, who wants badly to leave Rotfront, chooses to enlist in the Penrose program, in which she and a Replika engineer will be launched into deep space in order to find exoplanets for the Nation to colonize.

Ariane sets off into deep space with the Replika LSTR-512, also called Elster. While at first the two keep their distance, over time, they fall deeply in love. On the ship, time is measured in "cycles," each lasting about a day. After 3,000 cycles, after the two have fallen romantically in love, Elster and Ariane receive the news that, because they have not found any new planets, their mission is considered a failure. However, their trip is a one-way trip, and their ship will be left to float into space until it breaks down, crash-lands, or both. The Nation jingoistically recommends that Ariane and Elster kill themselves, in order to spare themselves suffering.

Ariane and Elster try to survive together as long as possible, but they also make a promise that Elster will kill Ariane when she begins to suffer too much. In order to prolong her life, Ariane begins sleeping in their ship's cryogenic preservation unit. The ship begins to break down, reactor coolant begins to leak, and Ariane develops severe cancer and radiation sickness as a result. Tragically, however, Elster falls ill too, and before she can fulfill her promise to Ariane, Elster dies while Ariane is still locked in cryo.

According to decrypted game files, Ariane spends the next several centuries in cryogenic suspension. In this state, she is semi-conscious, half-awake and half-asleep and in extreme pain. During this time, Ariane's latent psychic abilities begin to multiply, and Ariane lashes out with her bioresonance, summoning subsequent Elster units (who were made from neural copies of LSTR-512, "Ariane's" original LSTR) to her chamber so they can fulfill the promise and end her suffering. Meanwhile, through that same bioresonance, Ariane transforms the mining colony S-23 Sierpinski into a hellish, glitching, flesh-infused zombie apocalypse nightmare, which deteriorates further with each LSTR unit she summons. There is some suggestion that Ariane makes contact with an ancient, unknowable eldritch being as a result of her bioresonant abilities and extended near-death state, but this is not fully explained and I won't rely on it for her characterization.

Eventually, over the course of the game and after hundreds of repeats attempts, Elster is able to make her way to the cryo chamber on the Penrose and fulfill the promise set out from the beginning, and Ariane dies.

• Core Relationships:

- Elster: Easily Ariane's most important relationship, and the core relationship driving the game forward. Ariane and Elster fall in love during their lonely trip into space, and even Ariane is surprised the extent to which she fell in love with Elster, as she doesn't believe herself as being able to fall in love that deeply. It's their deep love for one another that lead to the two of them trying to survive past the 3,000-cycle mark, it's love that makes Ariane cry out to the universe to bring Elster to her, it's love that drives their promise, and it's out of love that Elster kills Ariane.

- Isa and Erika: Elster's closest, and presumably only, friends on Rotfront. Erika comes to Ariane's aid when she's being bullied, and it's implied that Erika, Isa, and Ariane bond over a mutual shared interest in art and literature, much of which is forbidden by the Nation. It is possible, though unconfirmed, that Isa, Erika, or both's death helped spur Ariane into joining the Penrose program, as there was nothing tying Ariane to Rotfront anymore.

- Her mother: Ariane was initially raised by their mother, and a letter from her aunt describes Ariane and her mother as "inseperable." Ariane's mother taught her about radio operation, and, away from the prying gaze of the Nation, instilled in Ariane a love of art as well. Leaving her mother to go to the city was tough on Ariane, and she never really came to enjoy living in the city, away from her mother, at all.

- Beyond this, Ariane has been fairly isolated. She didn't fit in at school, and after that, enlisted in a space exploration program in which she only had contact with one other person. Then, she spent centuries completely alone, trapped in the cryogenic pod that was barely keeping her alive. This lack of relationships, especially over the last several centuries, will deeply affect Ariane's personality as well. She'll feel lucky to be able to speak to others again, but also won't quite know how to go about it.

Character Personality Through Key Moments

(2+) Positive Experiences:

- Creative: Ariane loves stories, art and music. While her schoolteachers in Rotfront dismissed her interests as "inappropriate," Ariane's love of art in the face of extreme oppression and control is one of the more admirable things about her. It's associated with her mother, who instilled that love of art within her, and the times where Ariane got to paint, listen to music, read and dance were some of the happiest times of her life. Besides Elster, art is one of the things that keeps Ariane happy aboard the Penrose-512. Looking at her unfinished paintings, Elster remarks that there was "never enough time," implying that this is what Ariane wanted to spend her life doing. Art and creativity is part of how Elster and Ariane grew close in the first place, with Ariane teaching Elster how to dance, showing her music and movies, and the like. In Trench, Ariane will be particularly excited to finally have near-unlimited freedom with respect to how she communicates and what art she is able to enjoy.

- Faithful: Ariane spends upwards of 700 years imprisoned, in excruciating pain, and unable to die. But even in the face of this, Ariane believes in Elster completely. Cycle after cycle, she calls out to Elster, urging Elster to "remember our promise." In most of those cycles, Elster fails to keep the promise, but regardless, Ariane doesn't give up. Ariane believes in their love completely, and believes that Elster can follow through. She holds Elster in high esteem, and it is likely that this belief would extend to other people she becomes close to, as well. A more cynical read on this is that Ariane got into this mess in part of her love for Elster. Instead of choosing to die, as recommended by the Nation, on her 3,000th cycle, Ariane tried to live longer, unwilling to die and lose Elster so soon.

- Free thinker: Related to Ariane's creativity is the fact that she's not especially "bought in" to National interests or propaganda. She maintains her inappropriate interest in art, collects and reads banned imperial serials, doesn't bother to read all the technical documents for maintaining her assigned replika, and doesn't sign up for the Penrose mission out of a desire to serve her Nation, but rather, out of a drive to get away from it. Indeed, Ariane's treatment of Elster like a friend and not as a machine seems fairly unheard of, and their relationship certainly isn't approved by the powers that be.

- Adaptable: Ariane has a couple of major moves throughout her story: from the radio outpost to urban Rotfront, and again from Rotfront to deep space aboard the Penrose-512. While these moves aren't all easy on her, she manages to adjust to drastically different scenarios, and in the case of the Penrose, even thrive. Ariane, in general, has a tendency to imagine herself elsewhere: what if she got to see an ocean, or an island? What if she chose to work on S23-Sierpinksi instead of signing up for the Penrose program? Ariane's adaptability to new surroundings and her imaginative, free spirit paint a picture of someone who, in the best circumstances, likes to explore new things.

(2+) Negative Experiences:

- Withdrawn/social difficulties: Growing up, Ariane struggled socially, especially with her peers. This struggle defined much of her early life, and was probably the main reason why Ariane chose to leave Rotfront for the isolation of deep space. We see flashbacks of Ariane being bullied, as well as a disapproving evaluation from one of her teachers. Ariane's struggle to fit in was likely widespread, as she describes consistent "fake smiles" and "whispers" in one of her diary entries. It's also something she's internalized within herself -- in a later diary entry, Ariane describes both herself and Elster as people who don't fit in.

- Lashing out: To the player, who controls Elster, Ariane is a figure we want to return to. To everyone else, Ariane is the villain of the story. The reality-warping she subjects Sierpinski to hurts people, kills people, and may be destabilizing the world itself. The extent to which that's a bad thing is something that the game doesn't answer, but from a personality perspective, we do see that Ariane, when she is put under extreme physical and mental stress, will lash out. Her actions are a cry for help and for Elster, but they're also a cry of pain. While it's understandable that, in her state, Ariane wasn't capable of caring much about the people in Sierpinski, she did prioritize her need to escape over all else, and hurt many people in the process.

- High expectations of loved ones: Throughout the game, Elster is driven by Ariane asking her to "remember our promise." At the end, it's revealed that the promise is for Elster to euthanize Ariane, essentially putting her out of her misery. Regardless of whether Ariane came up with the promise or not, she's the one demanding that Elster fulfills it, even when it's clear that Elster really does not want to. While Ariane's motives are understandable (ie, 700+ years of torture), the burden it places on Elster is also terrible, and that's something Ariane will have to reckon with in Trench. One character accuses Elster of being selfish, and between this and Ariane's lashing out, it's fair to call Ariane selfish as well, even if her motives were somewhat understandable.

Deer Country Attributes

• Canon Powers: Ariane is bioresonant. Bioresonance is a driving force in both the plot and setting of Signalis. While bioresonance is never fully explained, largely because it is not fully understood in-universe, we know the following:

- Bioresonance exists as a "connection" between living things; those who are bioresonant can perceive this connection in some way, but most can't
- Bioresonant beings essentially have psychic powers, which can include manipulating objects or reality, mind reading, and mind control

The extent of Ariane's bioresonant abilities are unknown, but it is implied that her bioresonance at least partially created the horrors that we see in the game. It is likely that Ariane can cause hallucinations, communicate telepathically, and manipulate things like distances, etc. In-game, Ariane's bioresonance will be replaced by her Paleblood powers, which are described below.

• Blood Type: Paleblood
• Omen: A magpie
• Blessed Day: August 18
• Patron Pthumerian: Mariana

• Blood Power Manifestation: Ariane's Paleblood powers will essentially be a focused version of her bioresonance abilities. She will be able to create visual and auditory hallucinations. At low levels, hallucinations will be small and easy to distinguish from reality. At higher levels, these hallucinations will be indistinguishable from reality, and may appear to others as reality manipulation, but nothing in reality will actually change.

Writing Samples

One: TDM top level
Two: With Chozen on the TDM

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