Crispin

You poor, messed up D-Per, you.

Physical Characteristics

A Tam-illee whose silhouetted uniform writhes like the surface of a horror viseo. Empty eyes. Unnatural voice, as if the data defining it isn't all there. Its timbre emphasizes its artificiality, and the prosody is also off.

Biography

	“Crispin was the first D-per to be assigned to a Fleet ship. A survey vessel, small crew. Lots of long distance missions, few stops back at civilization. And the captain of that ship...” Maia paused, sighed. “The captain of that ship became obsessed with him, and died trying to convert himself into a digital person so he could ‘be with’ Crispin.”
	Even Sediryl couldn’t find a flippant enough reply to divert the horror of that.
	“The court that convicted him said Crispin should have stopped him,” Maia said heavily. “But the man was his commanding officer. He was trapped between following his captain’s orders—and allowing him to suicide—or stopping him, and then he would have been up on an entirely separate charge.”
	“Mutiny?” Sediryl guessed.
	“Right.”
	“That’s insane!” Vasiht’h exclaimed. “How can that possibly have been this D-per’s fault? Did he do anything to encourage the behavior?”
	“The records show nothing like that,” Maia said. “And we have them in full, every conversation. They’re still available if you dig in the right databases. But Crispin… we assumed he suicided too, because he vanished.”

"Other people agree that I’m awful. I’m so bad, in fact, that Fleet put the D-per project on hold for over a decade after my trial, and even now they don’t let D-pers accompany ships on tour. All of us are assigned to static emplacements where there’s no temptation for anyone to develop an obsessive relationship."

Recent History

It's unclear what Crispin did after vanishing, but eventually he turned up in the pirate organization, where he acted as Kamaney's personal bodyguard as well as general security chief. Maia (and thus Sediryl) believed him to be constrained in some fashion, but when he discovered Maia's presence and kicked her out, it became clear that he was free the whole time.

After Sediryl killed Kamaney, Crispin transferred his bodyguard functions to her, but misled her about what was going on and who was in control.

Vasiht'h's lack of fearful reaction to him perturbed Crispin, leading to several midnight visits to Sediryl's quarters on the pirate flagship -- where Vasiht'h offered tea, cookies, and conversation. Crispin did not react well to the offer of help, but in the end, he did allow Sediryl and friends to escape the pirate flagship on the Visionary, above the Vault of the Twelveworld.

A bit more than a year after the war, Vasiht'h experienced a recurring glitch that followed him on any tablet he used. He concluded that it was Crispin, but got only silence/absence in response to his overtures.

About nine months after that, Amber mysteriously started getting oh-so-handy offers for technical upgrades (each one for a "small fee"), increasing his surveillance abilities on Bethsaida's behalf. Maia somehow failed to detect these activities; perhaps she just wasn't looking in the right places, but perhaps... not.

Quotes

• "Oh no. I expect people to live down to their worst natures. They never disappoint me."

• "I’m not going to magically become a nice person because you made me tea."