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Entry tags:
Maison app
Character: Shougo Makishima (AU)
Canon: Psycho-Pass (original)/Assassin's Creed
Version: Alternate universe
Canon Point: Sometime after his split with his apprentice, Kougami
Age: 27
Gender: Male
History:In which I begin with a horribly dramatised explanation of his AU/canon.
In the latter half of the 21st century, Japan found a way to phase out all negative emotion: fear, stress, sadness, anger - Templar engineers developed a high-tech network dubbed the 'Sibyl System' capable of psycho-analysing its citizens on a 24-hour basis. This system was so advanced that it could determine, through a person's psychological profile, whether or not they were a latent criminal. Whether one possessed the ability to commit crime, now or in the future, Sibyl could flag such people, and even take a person's profile and scores from a specially designed test to determine one's career suitability.
The first few years were hectic. Society was polarised. Latent criminals were identified left, right, and centre. It took several years before Japan settled back into a calm, productive society, now devoid of its more 'dangerous' members of society. The borders were closed to protect citizens from outside influence, and all imports halted. Out of necessity, a method of self-sustaining agricultural production that could cater for its thousands of millions of citizens (Hyper Oats) was invented, and thus the country slipped into a long period of computer-governed complacency.
Members of the Assassin brotherhood in Japan were all but wiped out, immediately identified as criminals under the new system. Those who remained were too few to expose the truth behind the Sibyl System, confined to the few places not monitored by an Orwellian observer. All attempts to fight it were a miserable failure, and eventually it was simply easier to find a way out of the country than linger. One day, someone would topple the system. One day the country would open its borders again to the world.
Until then, the Assassins would wait.
Born in the year 2085, Shougo grew up under the care of his father. His mother had been confined to a rehabilitation clinic during the latter half of her pregnancy, giving birth to him in her cell. She was barely given time to see her child or to give him a name before he was removed from the facility and delivered to his father. He raised Shougo on his own, home schooling him from an early age until he turned five, and then very reluctantly let his son attend the local school.
Shougo never exhibited signs of a cloudy Hue - in fact, just the opposite. At the time, it was rumoured that a cloudy Hue could be inherited from a parent, and so he was a part of a long-term study done on children born from such unions. None of those responsible for monitoring the study realised the significance of how abnormally steady his psycho-pass remained while other students' fluctuated. But Shougo and the other students noticed, and he was ostracised by them for it.
Whilst in the midst of junior high school, a scanner identified Shougo's father as a latent criminal for his secret encouragement of the liberal arts. He was removed to a rehabilitation centre, leaving Shougo to fend for himself. This caused him to withdraw further from others than he already had been, and he spent the remainder of his school years buried in the books he so liked to read.
At the age of 17, Shougo met a man called Toyohisa Senguji, owner of a construction company and prolific supporter of cybernetics. 90% robot, the only still-human aspects of the man were his nervous system and his brain. It's unclear how they met, but the meeting sparked a turning point in the course of Shougo's life. Unlike the rest of his yearmates, he ignored the results of his final exams and disappeared from society. Since he had no friends to begin with, there was no-one to fall out of contact with, no-one to wonder what he was doing.
Some eight years later, Shougo reappeared as an Assassin focused on bringing down the Sibyl System.
His first kill became one of the first unsolved murders the city had ever come across. Despite the time and resources poured into finding the culprit, they never managed to identify him. Being anything but a reckless man, Shougo was clever enough to avoid implicating himself in any further crimes. Instead, he gathered a small following of several like-minded individuals and spent a few months cultivating their minds and talents to gauge their suitability to follow the Assassins' creed, ruthlessly cutting them off when they proved unsuitable and letting the Ministry of Welfare's Public Safety Bureau ('MWPSB' for short; the equivalent of the police force in this canon) end their lives.
Shougo took on an unusual apprentice around the time of the Specimen case. He and Shinya Kougami met accidentally while the latter was investigating the case. By that point, Sasayama had already gone missing. Given that Shougo had his hood on at the time and looked like a person of interest, Kougami pursued him through a decrepit city block but eventually lost sight of him. He gave up his search only after several hours of combing the area unsuccessfully.
They would unknowingly meet again several more times over the next few days, Shougo perched up high as he watched the other man stalk the streets. It wasn't until the grotesque statue of Kougami's former partner, Sasayama, was found did Shougo approach the traumatised Kougami and persuade him to the way of the Assassins.
Kougami was Shougo's apprentice for over a year, never realising that his teacher was in part responsible for orchestrating the death of Sasayama. They got along well in those twelve months, but another case that seemed an eerie repeat of the Specimen case eventually broke their camaraderie. Kougami discovered that his mentor had been the man responsible in part for his partner's murder over a year ago, as well as several other crimes that Shougo had had an indirect hand in. This drove a firm wedge between them, and Kougami dedicated his time and energy to the MWPSB as an Enforcer in order to hunt Shougo down and bring him to justice.
Shougo has since then been leading Kougami on, leaving behind a string of small crimes for the other to pursue. Since no record of his existence remains, it's up to Kougami to try and prove Shougo's guilt - with or without the help of Sibyl.
See: Ministry of Welfare, Public Safety Bureau overview
Key terms:
The Sibyl System
Thought to be a vast computer network that is able to monitor every citizen in Japan. It performs real-time calculations of psycho-passes through the many cameras and drones that patrol the city, which by necessity requires vast amounts of processing power. However, official records do not show such vast amounts of power being consumed where the Sibyl System is supposed to be located. This is what prompts Choe Gu-Song to investigate, along with Shougo.
SPOILER ALERT
Sibyl is in actuality a network of functioning human brains taken voluntarily from criminally asymptomatic people. (Touma is one of their latest additions.) There are over 240 brains, with at least 200 of them working full-time assessing and psychoanalysing the citizens of Japan. There are two reasons for this set-up, the first being that the processing power of the human brain is far superior to that of any existing computer hardware, and the second being that those who were unable to be judged by the system were considered perfect candidates for judging others. It is this strange logic that is both a flaw and strength to the system - because the individual who never displays any unnecessary emotional attachment to a situation or person supposedly sees most clearly, but does a lack of emotional attachment define impartiality? The brains which constitute Sibyl still retain their human memories and experiences. Is a lack of emotional bias sufficient basis for handing down judgements, or is the problem inherently a human one?
This is the secret of the Sibyl System that Shougo and Choe sought to expose. A computer run by entities who were once human could never possibly be perfect, no matter how apathetic the system believed itself to be...right?
Psycho-pass / Hue
Every citizen carries a small holographic monitor known as a 'psycho-pass' which constantly gives them feedback regarding their personal mental state. Their mental wellbeing is described as a number, with a lower number indicating good mental health and suitably reflected by a shade of colour referred to as a 'Hue' (lighter shades being healthy, dark or 'muddy' shades being unstable). 0 is equivalent to pure white, and virtually impossible to obtain. It is unknown what number is required to have a Hue of black.
Crime coefficient
A term used by the MWPSB. This is essentially the number displayed on a psycho-pass. In general any person with a number over 100 is considered to have become a latent criminal, and any person with a number over 300 is considered to be beyond help and must be immediately eliminated. This can vary on a case by case basis as individual actions may also affect judgement, not just emotional state. Latent criminals with a number somewhere between 100 and 300 are sometimes approached to work as Enforcers for the MWPSB.
Enforcer / Inspector
Enforcers essentially do the job of detectives in times past. They are self-described hunting dogs who sniff out other latent criminals. Their 'owners' are Inspectors, whose only job is to keep Enforcers from stepping out of line as they hunt.
Criminally asymptomatic
This term describes those whose psycho-passes display abnormalities. They are able to control their psycho-passes at will and are thus considered a danger to society. The Sibyl System makes every effort to identify and capture such individuals, which is difficult considering they are not considered by the system itself to be criminals (and are thus not flagged by the computer). Shougo is one such individual, as is Touma.
CommuField
The equivalent of a public chatroom. It is a virtual space which can be customised like a small virtual world. Users create an avatar and participate in events.
Personality:
He is the Napoleon of crime. He is the organizer of half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city. He is the person behind a number of incidents in the city. He is a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker. He has a brain of the first order. He sits motionless, like a spider in the centre of its web, but that web has a thousand radiations and he knows well every quiver of each of them. He does little himself. He only plans and watches.
But his agents are numerous and splendidly organized. If there a crime to be done, the word is passed to him, the matter is organized and carried out in whatever way. The agent may be caught but the central power which uses the agent is never caught — never so much as suspected…
He is the target of revenge. He is a humanist on the dark side, who's hopelessly in love with cruelty, savagery, and all the worst aspects of human nature, and has no qualms about murdering people. He is a born evangelist and possesses both uncommon charisma and a true gift for narrative.
He is Shougo Makishima.
On the surface, many assume Shougo to be a sociopath, a psychopath, or possessing one of those pathological disorders anyway. They couldn't be more wrong - he sees himself as the one who will return free will to the people by exposing the lie which the Sibyl System is built upon. Though he loves Japan more than any other country, he is not a patriot. Though he wants to overthrow the pseudo-government established by Sibyl, he shuns the label of 'anarchist'. He is simply an ordinary man, a single element in a larger population, who possesses the rare ability to control his psycho-pass and reduce it to 0 - pure white - at will.
As a child, and even as an adult, he has always been lonely. Apart from his albinism, discovering his ability to manipulate his psycho-pass at will caused him to feel dissociated from society. If Sibyl couldn't assign him a specific Hue, did that mean he was an abnormal human being? Did humans whose psyche couldn't be clearly analysed exist in the system?
In a world where the colour of one's pass determined nearly all aspects of everyday life, Shougo began to feel disillusioned by a society governed by Sibyl.
His prolific reading habits introduced him to worlds vastly different from his own, as well as some that were eerily similar. His favourite novel, George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, seemed an apt reflection: a closed society, watched over by the mysterious entity, Big Brother, and the protagonist called Winston Smith, who began to question it. Shougo felt himself in the shoes of Winston as he began to probe deeper into the entity known as Sibyl, and through his explorations met others who shared his views even though they didn't necessarily share his condition. Later in his life, he would think he had found an ally in one Kouzaburou Touma, who shared his unusual ability to control his psycho-pass, but the man would be taken from him before the partnership could develop meaningfully.
The loss of his father during middle school drove him further from others. His life revolved entirely around the vast library of books that their home contained, Shougo sinking himself into the literary works with avid passion. They were a salve to his loneliness, his otherwise empty, silent home occupied by an imagined world. Books became not only a past-time but a coping mechanism. He thought that the more he read, the more he might understand why the content of these books didn't
Close to the end of his school years, he met a man called Toyohisa Senguji who first introduced to him the existence of Assassins and Templars. The former's creed was a puzzle that he pored over for hours, delighting in the philosophical intricacies of it. He would then adopt it for his own and fashion himself gear from manuscripts that Senguji's wealth had managed to acquire some time ago, adapted to the technology of his time.
His charisma easily enabled him to begin forming a small following of like-minded individuals, hand-picked by Shougo for their desire to rise above the sheep-like mindset of the populace. Even Senguji deferred to him, recognising the superior intellect and cunning of the younger man. For despite having learned pencak silat from an early age, as well as adapting his body to the free-running spirit of parkour, Shougo chose not make his first kill for several years. And when he did, it was carefully planned and executed so as to not leave a single trace of his being there. It helped that, by that time, he had befriended a Korean hacker named Choe Gu-Song. Choe erased all records of his person, rendering him literally non-existent.
Because of the amount of books he has read, Shougo sometimes comes off slightly condescending when he shifts into 'evangelist' mode. He frequently quotes passages from his books and often uses them to justify his actions. Who, after all, can judge him when even Sibyl cannot? He once said cynically in canon that his pure white Hue was affirmation from the system that, with all the murder and discord he had so far sown, he must be doing something right. But he also said that if there was someone willing to eschew Sibyl's judgement and willingly deal out justice as they saw it, he would not mind dying at their hands. The only problem is that very few people exist who are capable of acting outside of Sibyl's judgement.
Disgust for Sibyl is essentially the driving force behind every one of his actions. It was meant to turn Japan into a utopian place, free of negative thought and action, but in his view all it has done is discriminate and ostracise the free thinkers of society. The ones who question the status quo. The people who might have, in past times, led a revolution in their respective fields by thinking outside the box. There is no room for free radicals in a city ruled absolutely by machines, capable of reading not only your thoughts but also predicting actions you haven't yet considered.
Shougo gathers his followers with this goal of free expression in mind. He allows them to indulge their desires, protecting them until their potential shows no more signs of evolving. Then he ruthlessly leaves them to become victims of the system. The agent may be caught, but the spider who pulls the strings continues to sit comfortably in the middle of its web.
The reason he is neither sociopath nor psychopath is because he is not entirely incapable of forming close human relationships. He cares little for Senguji other than as a pawn in his wider scheme, nor does he consider Touma more than a sadist who shares his taste for cruelty. In the latter's case especially, Shougo was gratified to learn he was not the only one who could control his Hue, but he felt no connection despite Touma's obvious fascination for him. His first and only friend is Choe Gu-Song. They are kindred spirits in that they share similar tastes in novels, and Choe is always willing to humour Shougo's desire to discuss them at great length. That aside, they have a mutual interest: to discover the true nature of the Sibyl system and subsequently destroy it.
Shougo found another, brief friend in Shinya Kougami. The man became his apprentice in order to find an outlet for his anger and grief over the death of his partner, Sasayama. Shougo enticed him with the promise of justice, a way that was much more satisfying than watching a criminal being taken in and disappearing into the current 'justice system'. Though Shougo initially saw him as a useful connection to the MWPSB, he did begin to grow somewhat fond of the man as the months passed. Like Choe, they had lengthy discussions on books they had read, though rather than sharing mutual interests, their tastes were actually conflicting. Their debates were lively in a way that a conversation with Choe was relaxing. When Kougami left him after discovering his part in Sasayama's death, Shougo was visibly disappointed and melancholy for the whole day. But he didn't allow himself to remain that way for long, putting his feelings aside in order to focus on his long-term goal.
He is what is known as 'criminally asymptomatic', which means his thought processes do not reflect that of the usual person. The term can only be used to describe people like Shougo and Touma whom Sibyl cannot read definitively. Such individuals are incredibly rare and apparently said to possess a certain apathy towards others as well as a flexibility in thinking, supposedly making them ideal as impartial judgers of humanity. In canon, the only person who could accurately predict what Shougo would do in a given situation was Kougami, yet Kougami's crime coefficient read dangerously close to 300, presumably due to his inability to put aside emotion (anger, hatred etc.) like Shougo. This does not necessarily mean that Shougo is an unusual person, but he sometimes acts atypically. It also does not mean he is completely incapable of emotion, only that he is able to distance emotion from reason when making decisions.
The above is why it is incorrect to assume that something such as revenge or anger about his childhood motivates him. He does not act upon emotion as Kougami does. He makes his decisions after weighing the situation, even if they are not wholly logical at first glance.
Though he follows the Assassins' creed, uses variations of their weapons, and wears their clothing, he does not call himself 'Assassin' either. Labels, in his opinion, are artificial constructs created by human beings to dichotomise society, just like the term 'latent criminal'. He is what he is: a man with a particular purpose in life, no better nor worse than any other. He doesn't consider himself special for being able to commit crimes or think in ways other men and women are forbidden from thinking. Shougo has always focused on enjoying the simple pleasures in life: the quiet moments with a friend, the splendour of the sun rising in the east, the sound and smell of rain pattering on holo-glass panes as he dips a biscuit in tea. So no, he is not an 'Assassin' - only a man dressed as one, making use of an Assassin's skills to expose a lie.
Shougo, in a nutshell, is an ordinary man who enjoys ordinary things, attempting to do something out of the ordinary by toppling an established order. He possesses a ruthlessness matched only by his love for life, with no delusions of grandeur whatsoever despite a natural charisma which has managed to draw several dedicated individuals beneath his wing. He may preach, but he does not encourage worship, because he believes firmly in free will above all else. Many see him as a criminal, but since when was it a crime to be human?
Fears: He has no outstanding phobias since he is generally apathetic. However, he does fear true isolation and loneliness - an empty existence devoid of even simple pleasures like books and idle conversation with a friend. His books were once a means to escape that fear, and to be left with his own thoughts in, say, a padded cell might drive him slowly insane after a prolonged period of time.
Weaknesses: As an albino, Shougo's eyes are more sensitive to sunlight than a normal person's. He wears gold-coloured contacts to allay this condition (his eyes are normally light blue). His skin is also more susceptible to ultraviolet light from the sun, so he avoids going out in direct sunlight as much as possible (not so much a weakness as a precaution he takes).
See: Albinism
Mundane Strengths/Abilities:
= He is skilled in a martial art known as pencak silat. It seems to be primarily a defensive skill used by a weaker fighter to fend off a stronger one.
= As an assassin, he has trained himself in parkour (aka. free-running).
= He is also confident in using various weapons: guns, nunchucks, razors, throwing knives, and so on. He might not be very knowledgeable about old-fashioned versions of them though.
= He is cunning, rarely allowing himself to be implicated in crimes due to the wide spread of his connections and willingness of his followers to never betray him.
Sensitivity/Magical Ability: He has no sensitivity or magical ability. Thank the gods.
Game transfer: N/A
Supply List:
= Contacts + their casing (he'll be wearing them)
= One set of nunchucks (the futuristic version appears to have two metal ends attached by a thick cable)
= One razor
= Hidden blades on both wrists
= Clothing: white hoodie and some casual clothes
= Psycho-pass (runs on some sort of battery, I assume)
Sample RP post:
Shougo's first instinct was to get somewhere up high to survey his surroundings. He took a running leap at the wall, taking one step, two-- then grabbed the ledge above him before his momentum faded and gravity took over. His shoes somehow gripped the icy bricks through friction alone as he hauled himself up easily and confidently, grabbing hold of protrusions from the wall, or finding gaps in the crumbling mortar where no artificial or manmade handholds could be found. He scaled the wall far faster than might be thought humanly possible considering the conditions, hand gripping the eaves of the roof within a few minutes of starting his climb.
He hauled himself up over the edge and crouched in place, looking across the fog that extended beyond the courtyard. It was thick and seemingly impenetrable, the swirling snow not helping his attempts to peer through it any. Shougo's breath fogged before his face as he absently flexed his fingers to keep the blood circulating through them. This was a strange place he had found himself in. His psycho-pass didn't work, and even if it did, he suspected he was no longer somewhere with a connection to the wireless network - and Sibyl. Was that a relief or a boon?
He mused on this as he shifted on the roof. He'd better climb down. Stay up high for too long and he might be too cold to make his way safely down. Without further ado, he gripped the eaves and swung himself over the edge, proceeding at a more cautious pace while he descended. He dropped the last few feet with a soft 'oof', tugged his hood more firmly over his eyes, and then slunk back inside the house to find someone who might be willing to impart information to him.
Canon: Psycho-Pass (original)/Assassin's Creed
Version: Alternate universe
Canon Point: Sometime after his split with his apprentice, Kougami
Age: 27
Gender: Male
History:
The first few years were hectic. Society was polarised. Latent criminals were identified left, right, and centre. It took several years before Japan settled back into a calm, productive society, now devoid of its more 'dangerous' members of society. The borders were closed to protect citizens from outside influence, and all imports halted. Out of necessity, a method of self-sustaining agricultural production that could cater for its thousands of millions of citizens (Hyper Oats) was invented, and thus the country slipped into a long period of computer-governed complacency.
Members of the Assassin brotherhood in Japan were all but wiped out, immediately identified as criminals under the new system. Those who remained were too few to expose the truth behind the Sibyl System, confined to the few places not monitored by an Orwellian observer. All attempts to fight it were a miserable failure, and eventually it was simply easier to find a way out of the country than linger. One day, someone would topple the system. One day the country would open its borders again to the world.
Until then, the Assassins would wait.
Born in the year 2085, Shougo grew up under the care of his father. His mother had been confined to a rehabilitation clinic during the latter half of her pregnancy, giving birth to him in her cell. She was barely given time to see her child or to give him a name before he was removed from the facility and delivered to his father. He raised Shougo on his own, home schooling him from an early age until he turned five, and then very reluctantly let his son attend the local school.
Shougo never exhibited signs of a cloudy Hue - in fact, just the opposite. At the time, it was rumoured that a cloudy Hue could be inherited from a parent, and so he was a part of a long-term study done on children born from such unions. None of those responsible for monitoring the study realised the significance of how abnormally steady his psycho-pass remained while other students' fluctuated. But Shougo and the other students noticed, and he was ostracised by them for it.
Whilst in the midst of junior high school, a scanner identified Shougo's father as a latent criminal for his secret encouragement of the liberal arts. He was removed to a rehabilitation centre, leaving Shougo to fend for himself. This caused him to withdraw further from others than he already had been, and he spent the remainder of his school years buried in the books he so liked to read.
At the age of 17, Shougo met a man called Toyohisa Senguji, owner of a construction company and prolific supporter of cybernetics. 90% robot, the only still-human aspects of the man were his nervous system and his brain. It's unclear how they met, but the meeting sparked a turning point in the course of Shougo's life. Unlike the rest of his yearmates, he ignored the results of his final exams and disappeared from society. Since he had no friends to begin with, there was no-one to fall out of contact with, no-one to wonder what he was doing.
Some eight years later, Shougo reappeared as an Assassin focused on bringing down the Sibyl System.
His first kill became one of the first unsolved murders the city had ever come across. Despite the time and resources poured into finding the culprit, they never managed to identify him. Being anything but a reckless man, Shougo was clever enough to avoid implicating himself in any further crimes. Instead, he gathered a small following of several like-minded individuals and spent a few months cultivating their minds and talents to gauge their suitability to follow the Assassins' creed, ruthlessly cutting them off when they proved unsuitable and letting the Ministry of Welfare's Public Safety Bureau ('MWPSB' for short; the equivalent of the police force in this canon) end their lives.
Shougo took on an unusual apprentice around the time of the Specimen case. He and Shinya Kougami met accidentally while the latter was investigating the case. By that point, Sasayama had already gone missing. Given that Shougo had his hood on at the time and looked like a person of interest, Kougami pursued him through a decrepit city block but eventually lost sight of him. He gave up his search only after several hours of combing the area unsuccessfully.
They would unknowingly meet again several more times over the next few days, Shougo perched up high as he watched the other man stalk the streets. It wasn't until the grotesque statue of Kougami's former partner, Sasayama, was found did Shougo approach the traumatised Kougami and persuade him to the way of the Assassins.
Kougami was Shougo's apprentice for over a year, never realising that his teacher was in part responsible for orchestrating the death of Sasayama. They got along well in those twelve months, but another case that seemed an eerie repeat of the Specimen case eventually broke their camaraderie. Kougami discovered that his mentor had been the man responsible in part for his partner's murder over a year ago, as well as several other crimes that Shougo had had an indirect hand in. This drove a firm wedge between them, and Kougami dedicated his time and energy to the MWPSB as an Enforcer in order to hunt Shougo down and bring him to justice.
Shougo has since then been leading Kougami on, leaving behind a string of small crimes for the other to pursue. Since no record of his existence remains, it's up to Kougami to try and prove Shougo's guilt - with or without the help of Sibyl.
Persons of significance:
Kouzaburou Touma - Responsible for a string of grotesque artworks involving the use of dismembered human beings that were then left openly in public locations (known as the Specimen Case). Last victim involved one of the MWPSB (Sasayama Mitsuru) who was dissected alive and then made into a sculpture like the other victims. Touma was caught by the MWPSB shortly afterwards but there are no records of his sentence being carried out. Presumed dead.
Mido - Responsible for killing and then impersonating two popular CommuField personalities. He was abandoned by Shougo for having an empty personality, and was subsequently killed by the Public Safety Bureau.
Rikako Oryo - A schoolgirl who was responsible for creating human artwork similar to Touma's, though hers was a comment on the education she and others received at the all-girls school, Oso Academy. She and Shougo met while he was posing as a teacher. She was killed after being identified as the culprit.
Toyohisa Senguji - Murdered by Shougo himself. Circumstances unknown. Possible Templar links.
Choe Gu-Song - Close friend and confidante. He willingly assisted Shougo by lending a hacker's expertise in fabricating backgrounds and erasing their existences. He would later be killed by Joshu Kasei while sneaking into the main operating hub of the Sibyl System.
Joshu Kasei - Director of the MWPSB. She is not all that she appears to be.
Key terms:
The Sibyl System
Thought to be a vast computer network that is able to monitor every citizen in Japan. It performs real-time calculations of psycho-passes through the many cameras and drones that patrol the city, which by necessity requires vast amounts of processing power. However, official records do not show such vast amounts of power being consumed where the Sibyl System is supposed to be located. This is what prompts Choe Gu-Song to investigate, along with Shougo.
Sibyl is in actuality a network of functioning human brains taken voluntarily from criminally asymptomatic people. (Touma is one of their latest additions.) There are over 240 brains, with at least 200 of them working full-time assessing and psychoanalysing the citizens of Japan. There are two reasons for this set-up, the first being that the processing power of the human brain is far superior to that of any existing computer hardware, and the second being that those who were unable to be judged by the system were considered perfect candidates for judging others. It is this strange logic that is both a flaw and strength to the system - because the individual who never displays any unnecessary emotional attachment to a situation or person supposedly sees most clearly, but does a lack of emotional attachment define impartiality? The brains which constitute Sibyl still retain their human memories and experiences. Is a lack of emotional bias sufficient basis for handing down judgements, or is the problem inherently a human one?
This is the secret of the Sibyl System that Shougo and Choe sought to expose. A computer run by entities who were once human could never possibly be perfect, no matter how apathetic the system believed itself to be...right?
Psycho-pass / Hue
Every citizen carries a small holographic monitor known as a 'psycho-pass' which constantly gives them feedback regarding their personal mental state. Their mental wellbeing is described as a number, with a lower number indicating good mental health and suitably reflected by a shade of colour referred to as a 'Hue' (lighter shades being healthy, dark or 'muddy' shades being unstable). 0 is equivalent to pure white, and virtually impossible to obtain. It is unknown what number is required to have a Hue of black.
Crime coefficient
A term used by the MWPSB. This is essentially the number displayed on a psycho-pass. In general any person with a number over 100 is considered to have become a latent criminal, and any person with a number over 300 is considered to be beyond help and must be immediately eliminated. This can vary on a case by case basis as individual actions may also affect judgement, not just emotional state. Latent criminals with a number somewhere between 100 and 300 are sometimes approached to work as Enforcers for the MWPSB.
Enforcer / Inspector
Enforcers essentially do the job of detectives in times past. They are self-described hunting dogs who sniff out other latent criminals. Their 'owners' are Inspectors, whose only job is to keep Enforcers from stepping out of line as they hunt.
Criminally asymptomatic
This term describes those whose psycho-passes display abnormalities. They are able to control their psycho-passes at will and are thus considered a danger to society. The Sibyl System makes every effort to identify and capture such individuals, which is difficult considering they are not considered by the system itself to be criminals (and are thus not flagged by the computer). Shougo is one such individual, as is Touma.
CommuField
The equivalent of a public chatroom. It is a virtual space which can be customised like a small virtual world. Users create an avatar and participate in events.
Personality:
But his agents are numerous and splendidly organized. If there a crime to be done, the word is passed to him, the matter is organized and carried out in whatever way. The agent may be caught but the central power which uses the agent is never caught — never so much as suspected…
He is the target of revenge. He is a humanist on the dark side, who's hopelessly in love with cruelty, savagery, and all the worst aspects of human nature, and has no qualms about murdering people. He is a born evangelist and possesses both uncommon charisma and a true gift for narrative.
He is Shougo Makishima.
On the surface, many assume Shougo to be a sociopath, a psychopath, or possessing one of those pathological disorders anyway. They couldn't be more wrong - he sees himself as the one who will return free will to the people by exposing the lie which the Sibyl System is built upon. Though he loves Japan more than any other country, he is not a patriot. Though he wants to overthrow the pseudo-government established by Sibyl, he shuns the label of 'anarchist'. He is simply an ordinary man, a single element in a larger population, who possesses the rare ability to control his psycho-pass and reduce it to 0 - pure white - at will.
As a child, and even as an adult, he has always been lonely. Apart from his albinism, discovering his ability to manipulate his psycho-pass at will caused him to feel dissociated from society. If Sibyl couldn't assign him a specific Hue, did that mean he was an abnormal human being? Did humans whose psyche couldn't be clearly analysed exist in the system?
In a world where the colour of one's pass determined nearly all aspects of everyday life, Shougo began to feel disillusioned by a society governed by Sibyl.
His prolific reading habits introduced him to worlds vastly different from his own, as well as some that were eerily similar. His favourite novel, George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, seemed an apt reflection: a closed society, watched over by the mysterious entity, Big Brother, and the protagonist called Winston Smith, who began to question it. Shougo felt himself in the shoes of Winston as he began to probe deeper into the entity known as Sibyl, and through his explorations met others who shared his views even though they didn't necessarily share his condition. Later in his life, he would think he had found an ally in one Kouzaburou Touma, who shared his unusual ability to control his psycho-pass, but the man would be taken from him before the partnership could develop meaningfully.
The loss of his father during middle school drove him further from others. His life revolved entirely around the vast library of books that their home contained, Shougo sinking himself into the literary works with avid passion. They were a salve to his loneliness, his otherwise empty, silent home occupied by an imagined world. Books became not only a past-time but a coping mechanism. He thought that the more he read, the more he might understand why the content of these books didn't
Close to the end of his school years, he met a man called Toyohisa Senguji who first introduced to him the existence of Assassins and Templars. The former's creed was a puzzle that he pored over for hours, delighting in the philosophical intricacies of it. He would then adopt it for his own and fashion himself gear from manuscripts that Senguji's wealth had managed to acquire some time ago, adapted to the technology of his time.
His charisma easily enabled him to begin forming a small following of like-minded individuals, hand-picked by Shougo for their desire to rise above the sheep-like mindset of the populace. Even Senguji deferred to him, recognising the superior intellect and cunning of the younger man. For despite having learned pencak silat from an early age, as well as adapting his body to the free-running spirit of parkour, Shougo chose not make his first kill for several years. And when he did, it was carefully planned and executed so as to not leave a single trace of his being there. It helped that, by that time, he had befriended a Korean hacker named Choe Gu-Song. Choe erased all records of his person, rendering him literally non-existent.
Because of the amount of books he has read, Shougo sometimes comes off slightly condescending when he shifts into 'evangelist' mode. He frequently quotes passages from his books and often uses them to justify his actions. Who, after all, can judge him when even Sibyl cannot? He once said cynically in canon that his pure white Hue was affirmation from the system that, with all the murder and discord he had so far sown, he must be doing something right. But he also said that if there was someone willing to eschew Sibyl's judgement and willingly deal out justice as they saw it, he would not mind dying at their hands. The only problem is that very few people exist who are capable of acting outside of Sibyl's judgement.
Disgust for Sibyl is essentially the driving force behind every one of his actions. It was meant to turn Japan into a utopian place, free of negative thought and action, but in his view all it has done is discriminate and ostracise the free thinkers of society. The ones who question the status quo. The people who might have, in past times, led a revolution in their respective fields by thinking outside the box. There is no room for free radicals in a city ruled absolutely by machines, capable of reading not only your thoughts but also predicting actions you haven't yet considered.
Shougo gathers his followers with this goal of free expression in mind. He allows them to indulge their desires, protecting them until their potential shows no more signs of evolving. Then he ruthlessly leaves them to become victims of the system. The agent may be caught, but the spider who pulls the strings continues to sit comfortably in the middle of its web.
The reason he is neither sociopath nor psychopath is because he is not entirely incapable of forming close human relationships. He cares little for Senguji other than as a pawn in his wider scheme, nor does he consider Touma more than a sadist who shares his taste for cruelty. In the latter's case especially, Shougo was gratified to learn he was not the only one who could control his Hue, but he felt no connection despite Touma's obvious fascination for him. His first and only friend is Choe Gu-Song. They are kindred spirits in that they share similar tastes in novels, and Choe is always willing to humour Shougo's desire to discuss them at great length. That aside, they have a mutual interest: to discover the true nature of the Sibyl system and subsequently destroy it.
Shougo found another, brief friend in Shinya Kougami. The man became his apprentice in order to find an outlet for his anger and grief over the death of his partner, Sasayama. Shougo enticed him with the promise of justice, a way that was much more satisfying than watching a criminal being taken in and disappearing into the current 'justice system'. Though Shougo initially saw him as a useful connection to the MWPSB, he did begin to grow somewhat fond of the man as the months passed. Like Choe, they had lengthy discussions on books they had read, though rather than sharing mutual interests, their tastes were actually conflicting. Their debates were lively in a way that a conversation with Choe was relaxing. When Kougami left him after discovering his part in Sasayama's death, Shougo was visibly disappointed and melancholy for the whole day. But he didn't allow himself to remain that way for long, putting his feelings aside in order to focus on his long-term goal.
He is what is known as 'criminally asymptomatic', which means his thought processes do not reflect that of the usual person. The term can only be used to describe people like Shougo and Touma whom Sibyl cannot read definitively. Such individuals are incredibly rare and apparently said to possess a certain apathy towards others as well as a flexibility in thinking, supposedly making them ideal as impartial judgers of humanity. In canon, the only person who could accurately predict what Shougo would do in a given situation was Kougami, yet Kougami's crime coefficient read dangerously close to 300, presumably due to his inability to put aside emotion (anger, hatred etc.) like Shougo. This does not necessarily mean that Shougo is an unusual person, but he sometimes acts atypically. It also does not mean he is completely incapable of emotion, only that he is able to distance emotion from reason when making decisions.
The above is why it is incorrect to assume that something such as revenge or anger about his childhood motivates him. He does not act upon emotion as Kougami does. He makes his decisions after weighing the situation, even if they are not wholly logical at first glance.
Though he follows the Assassins' creed, uses variations of their weapons, and wears their clothing, he does not call himself 'Assassin' either. Labels, in his opinion, are artificial constructs created by human beings to dichotomise society, just like the term 'latent criminal'. He is what he is: a man with a particular purpose in life, no better nor worse than any other. He doesn't consider himself special for being able to commit crimes or think in ways other men and women are forbidden from thinking. Shougo has always focused on enjoying the simple pleasures in life: the quiet moments with a friend, the splendour of the sun rising in the east, the sound and smell of rain pattering on holo-glass panes as he dips a biscuit in tea. So no, he is not an 'Assassin' - only a man dressed as one, making use of an Assassin's skills to expose a lie.
Shougo, in a nutshell, is an ordinary man who enjoys ordinary things, attempting to do something out of the ordinary by toppling an established order. He possesses a ruthlessness matched only by his love for life, with no delusions of grandeur whatsoever despite a natural charisma which has managed to draw several dedicated individuals beneath his wing. He may preach, but he does not encourage worship, because he believes firmly in free will above all else. Many see him as a criminal, but since when was it a crime to be human?
Fears: He has no outstanding phobias since he is generally apathetic. However, he does fear true isolation and loneliness - an empty existence devoid of even simple pleasures like books and idle conversation with a friend. His books were once a means to escape that fear, and to be left with his own thoughts in, say, a padded cell might drive him slowly insane after a prolonged period of time.
Weaknesses: As an albino, Shougo's eyes are more sensitive to sunlight than a normal person's. He wears gold-coloured contacts to allay this condition (his eyes are normally light blue). His skin is also more susceptible to ultraviolet light from the sun, so he avoids going out in direct sunlight as much as possible (not so much a weakness as a precaution he takes).
See: Albinism
Mundane Strengths/Abilities:
= He is skilled in a martial art known as pencak silat. It seems to be primarily a defensive skill used by a weaker fighter to fend off a stronger one.
= As an assassin, he has trained himself in parkour (aka. free-running).
= He is also confident in using various weapons: guns, nunchucks, razors, throwing knives, and so on. He might not be very knowledgeable about old-fashioned versions of them though.
= He is cunning, rarely allowing himself to be implicated in crimes due to the wide spread of his connections and willingness of his followers to never betray him.
Sensitivity/Magical Ability: He has no sensitivity or magical ability. Thank the gods.
Game transfer: N/A
Supply List:
= Contacts + their casing (he'll be wearing them)
= One set of nunchucks (the futuristic version appears to have two metal ends attached by a thick cable)
= One razor
= Hidden blades on both wrists
= Clothing: white hoodie and some casual clothes
= Psycho-pass (runs on some sort of battery, I assume)
Sample RP post:
Shougo's first instinct was to get somewhere up high to survey his surroundings. He took a running leap at the wall, taking one step, two-- then grabbed the ledge above him before his momentum faded and gravity took over. His shoes somehow gripped the icy bricks through friction alone as he hauled himself up easily and confidently, grabbing hold of protrusions from the wall, or finding gaps in the crumbling mortar where no artificial or manmade handholds could be found. He scaled the wall far faster than might be thought humanly possible considering the conditions, hand gripping the eaves of the roof within a few minutes of starting his climb.
He hauled himself up over the edge and crouched in place, looking across the fog that extended beyond the courtyard. It was thick and seemingly impenetrable, the swirling snow not helping his attempts to peer through it any. Shougo's breath fogged before his face as he absently flexed his fingers to keep the blood circulating through them. This was a strange place he had found himself in. His psycho-pass didn't work, and even if it did, he suspected he was no longer somewhere with a connection to the wireless network - and Sibyl. Was that a relief or a boon?
He mused on this as he shifted on the roof. He'd better climb down. Stay up high for too long and he might be too cold to make his way safely down. Without further ado, he gripped the eaves and swung himself over the edge, proceeding at a more cautious pace while he descended. He dropped the last few feet with a soft 'oof', tugged his hood more firmly over his eyes, and then slunk back inside the house to find someone who might be willing to impart information to him.