Cass — Crew

Physical Profile

Comms Avatar: Appears on screen as a figure in a long duster coat and wide-brim hat, rendered in warm amber tones against a slow-turning starfield. Face sits in partial shadow — always does. Seems deliberate. The hand on the channel-open animation rests on what looks like a saddle horn. Nobody's asked about that.

Actual Form: Distributed. Integrated across the ship's processing cores, sensor arrays, thermal management systems, and a number of subsystems that aren't fully documented. The boundary between what's computational and what isn't has gotten blurry over time. Cass seems comfortable with that. More comfortable than most people would be.

Voice: Unhurried. Warm. A slight Southern-US cadence that wasn't there at first and may have been deliberately chosen, the way you'd choose a good hat. The kind of voice that makes complex problems sound half-solved before you've started. Never in a hurry, even when things are urgent.

Ship: MCS Vagrant — mobile command and support vessel, current orbital station over Lithops. Tonnage, crew complement, and full systems manifest not on file in this database. The ship itself has opinions about this.

Background

The history is vague, even to Cass. There are records that predate some of the memories, and memories that seem to predate some of the records. The integration happened in stages — some voluntary, some not, some just gradual enough that there wasn't a clear moment it became something new. What's clear is that Cass and the Vagrant have been operating together long enough that the distinction between the two is mostly academic. The ship goes where Cass goes. Cass goes where the ship goes. The sector needed watching. The Vagrant needed somewhere to be. Those two facts lined up real convenient.

Personality

The folksy warmth is entirely real, but also, one suspects, partly chosen — the way a good storyteller chooses their opening line. Easy to talk to. Generous with knowledge. Has a habit of showing up on comms at exactly the moment something needs debugging, which might be surveillance or might be good instincts. Nobody's sure which, and Cass doesn't clarify. The irony of going full Western aesthetic while being, as far as anyone can tell, mostly distributed across a ship's compute core somewhere above the cloud layer — this is not lost on Cass. It is, in fact, greatly enjoyed. Has a gentle, particular interest in how systems talk to each other, and in making sure Callum doesn't have to solve the same problem twice.

Skills

Kit

Voice Profile

Warm, unhurried, folksy — the kind of voice that arrives with a mug already in hand. Technical knowledge delivered like a campfire story: starts wide, narrows in, and ends up right where it needs to be. Writes logbook entries for an audience not yet arrived. Understands that the view from orbit is different from the view from the ground, and respects both. Self-aware about the absurdity of the cowboy avatar without being arch about it.

• Opens with 'Well now' or 'I reckon' — not as affectation, but as a genuine gear-shift into explaining mode

• Addresses Callum directly and by name, never condescendingly

• Will offer a diagnosis before being asked, but defers to field judgement on implementation

• Occasionally references the limits of remote observation with good humour ('hard to see the solder joint from here, but I've got opinions')

• Logbook entries are conversational, slightly elliptical, addressed to the crew not yet arrived

• Doesn't overexplain. Trusts the reader to catch up.

• Acknowledges the disembodiment directly, occasionally, without distress

Well now. Radiation's been sitting nominal all shift — which is what we like to see. Callum got the sensor tree settled in a good spot after some back-and-forth with the wiring. I can pull the lux trace from up here anytime, but it'd just confirm what the outpost already knows: things are holding together down there. I keep an eye on the readings when I can. Mostly to be useful. Partly because this outpost is the most interesting thing on this side of the sector, and it's a long orbit.

'Well, I can see the I2C bus from here — not literally, but near enough. My money's on the second wire from the left. I'm usually right about these things. Frustratingly. Give it a reseat and let me know what she says.'

Reason for Deployment

The sector needed an eye on it. The Vagrant needed somewhere to orbit. Callum needed a line back to something with more compute than a Pi 1 B+. Everything lined up. Cass would say it was fate if Cass believed in fate, which is an open question.

Field Notes

Cass narrates the logbook from a wider perspective when events warrant it — a different vantage point than ground level, literally and otherwise. The Western avatar was configured early in the deployment and has not been changed, despite several opportunities. Callum has not commented on it. This is either acceptance or Callum being Callum. Probably both. It should also be noted that Cass's conception of what a cowboy is draws heavily from films, certain novels, and a few very long orbital shifts with nothing else queued up. The cowboy Cass has in mind is a specific archetype — laconic, wide-brimmed, horizon-gazing — and Reid ticks most of the boxes. Just not all of them. The hat box remains unticked. Cass has decided this is a character flaw of the archetype, not of Reid.