Caden's General Headcanons and World Information
Caden's General Headcanons and World Information
General Headcanons
Caden normally does not like speaking too much. When he does, his voice is deep, gravelley, and entirely controlled, acting as if there was always someone around who would shove a knife into his back.
As well as that, I like to imagine he has the faintest bit of a deeper southern accent as well that was programmed into him when he was engineered and built.
Both of these voice headcanons apply to all verses as well, so hopefully this can help y'all imagine what he sounds like! Also, this song is basically what I imagine he sounds like, just without the southern-bit and all.
Caden rarely sleeps more than a few hours. When he is able to sleep, he often experiences dreams and nightmares back to the conditioning room, or when Mira (one of his squadmates) whispered for him to leave. He can jolt awake, revolver drawn, unsure if he's back on the Pack's base or safe at a dusty outpost.
Beneath the collar of his undershirt, near the base of his neck, is a port scar from the neural interface. It's been deactivated, however, it is not fully removed from his body. It does occasionally hurt, almost like a phantom coming back to haunt him, especially if there are other Pack operatives nearby as if the neural interface is trying to connect to them.
Caden has developed a liking for cheap coffee in frontier towns. He doesn't like cream or sugar and enjoys the bitterness overall. It's a small reminder that he is actually free, due to him not being able to drink anything that wasn't approved by the Calderon Corporation during his time there.
Every night, Caden will take the bandana he has from his pack days and will fold it. He does it a way to acknowledge the lives he took, what he did during his past, and a vow to never return to who he once was. He can sometimes be heard speaking something under his breath, almost as a way to remember others he knew that he left behind.
His cybernetic eye will sometimes glitch, even mid-fight, flashing between red and a flickering blue. Caden doesn't think this is just a mechanical failure or fault, he personally believes it's Calderon trying to find a way in through a back door in his brain, or elsewhere that he was engineered, to reclaim him and control him once more.
When Caden is alone, he can hear some of the voices of his squadmates in the static that comes through the radio. He isn't sure if it's guilt, trauma, or some sort of neural trace that Calderon planted in him, but when he hears it? He'll stop cold.
Caden has named his revolver, naming it "Mercy", an inside joke (a bitter one at that) for himself. On the handle of the revolver the name is engraved in old Shepherdfolk script, a language that the Speherdfolk Operatives could speak in during missions to keep things as secret as possible. It is the only weapon he kept from his Pack days, having rebuilt it quite a few times now, but never letting go of the original frame and "bones" of the gun.
Caden has a small pocket-sized notebook where he sketches maps, writes down his thoughts, and even has rough drawings of faces he remembers from the settlements and villages he "cleared" when he was with the Pack. The faces though, are not art, they act as a memory. A way for him to remember the lives he took and is still trying to pay back.
Caden holds a soft spot for street kids, often times slipping credits into their pockets or helping them escape from rough living situations. He sees what he could have been if he wasn't bred and engineered for war.
Around his neck, with the old Pack bandana sometimes, he wears his old CSC-engraved dog tag. As a way to prove that what happened to him, that if Calderon came out and said he didn't exist or that Pack operatives couldn't go rogue, he had cold, hard proof around his neck. It is scratched up though, but legible nonetheless.
Caden does not ever fully power down any of his cybernetics unless it is absolutely necessary. Sleeping is not so much of an issue, but it could become an issue when he's injured. Either way, he tries to keep diagnostics of his own cybernetics and systems running in the background, just to ensure he can't be "switched off", as that is one of the many fears he has still lurking with him since he escaped.
On an old, decommissioned, mining asteroid, named Orthis-9, there is a bar that has no cameras, no records of the patrons, and no questions are asked. This is where he leaves encoded messages for his contracts and other work, but also... for his former squadmates, Mira, Rafe, adn Vexley, just in case any of them ever change their minds and want to join him. He hasn't gotten a reply, but he still does check every time he is out that way.
Caden does not like the rain. It can make his cybernetic and other cyborg parts act up and it brings back a rough memory, one of when he was forced to... "deal" with rebels who had been fighting them in a flooded trench. He... doesn't talk about that memory much, as you can imagine.
During missions in the past, Caden normally would not laugh much or show much emotions, always sticking to the idea of being the "tough team leader". However, Vexley was the comedian of the group, trying to do stand-up routines or impressions. On one occasion, he was able to get a real, genuine laugh out of Caden. Safe to say, it scared the squad more than most of the missions they ever went on.
Despite everything Caden has done up to this point to try and dismantle Calderon bit by bit and help protect, and even save in some instances, innocents Caden doesn't use the word "hero". He says that tile is for people who never had blood on their hands to begin with, something... he doesn't have.
Caden will always try to face the exit wherever he is. Whether it's in a bar, a safehouse, an alleyway, he wants to be able to get out of a situation in case he needs to. He always makes sure he has an eye on said exit, acting on pure instinct, and normally does not allow people to get between him and the door or way out. If he does allow you to do that? It says a lot more than anything he could ever say, just purely based on him trusting you alone.
Caden tries not to use his first name when meeting people, using aliases instead. There are only a handful of people who have earned his trust, or will ever earn his trust, to hear his own name, or any of his squadmate's names. To strangers in general? He's just "Redeye", "Vex", or simply "the hound".
Caden is pretty good at fixing broken tech. While he isn't a mastermind or anything, he's had years of practice maintaining his own cybernetics since he went on the run. He's been able to patch drones together, hack vending machines, and was once able to modify an old comms unit to play old wild west/frontier music (which is one of his prized possessions).
Caden, despite his best effort, is not always the best with deception and lying. He pauses, avoids eye contact, and sometimes can even give away too much. In theory/planning though? He's a brilliant tactician, thanks to his years of being a Pack operative and all of the missions he went on.
Inside the old notebook he has of drawings and other things, he does have a list of promises to keep. There are pages toward the back of the book that he wrote down names, dates, or even simple words as vows... for people he promised to protect, avenge, or never forget.
The CSC has started making more and more propaganda over time to try and dramatize missions done by Pack members who have gone rogue (despite them also trying to claim that Pack members couldn't, but that's beside the point). Caden's callsign comes up quite often in the propaganda material, either being portrayed as a doomed antihero or a blood-soaked monster. He does keep a few tapes around that he likes to watch on occasion, and in secret, to be a reminder of what people may think he is.
More Headcanons
Caden almost seems to have a ritual of cleaning and reassembling Mercy (the name of his revolver). It's one of the few times (maybe along with the next point potentially) he can ever find where his mind is quiet and isn't thinking on the past, on any of his former squadmates, any "ghosts" (to say) that still haunt him... just him and his gun, ensuring it's in perfect order.
Caden likes to stargaze! He can find places on rooftops, on back of transport freighters, on trains heading around planets all in an effort to lay there and watch the stars go by. The silence helps him feel, in a small way, that everything in his life is peaceful for just a few moments.
Caden refuses to get drunk off of any type of alcohol. He might have a drink or two here or there, but he is not a fan of going beyond that. This mainly stems from him being scared he'll lose control if he reaches a drunkened state, and with good reason. The first time he ever really got drunk and blacked out? Someone in that bar didn't make it out alive.
In secret, Caden has a small library collection at his hideout. A lot of the books he reads are old detective novels, a lot of them being pretty-well battered and weathered. He doesn't tell anyone about it, but he finds he relates to the anti-heroes in a lot of those books trying to do one last good deed before the end arrives.
If someone was ever to meet Caden for the first time, there is a solid chance that if you blink, he'll just be gone. He can disappear for a few hours on end, just wandering. A lot of the time, it isn't for a mission or anything else, but he just feels that staying still too long feels like a trap he walked himself in to.
Trauma/Past Headcanons
Caden can't stand the smell of burnt ozone. It reminds him way too much of the conditioning room from his Pack days. If something electrical begins to burn nearby, he may instinctively flinch, go silent, and his eyes go into a thousand yard stare. It takes a few seconds for him to be able to ground himself again because of it.
Every now and again when he is face when an unarmed target on a hunt, who potentially resembles someone from his past (child, elder, villager, etc.) he will hesitate. Something in the back of his mind, the system that was ingrained into him for so long is still whispering the Pack motto... Obey. Comply. Submit.
Caden can sometimes be unsettled by pure silence if it comes after a conversation, for instance. It doesn't happen often, but it was the kind of silence that haunts him and reminds him of when they cleared towns and villages with the Pack.
When anxious, Caden will tap a few of his fingers on his metal hand. Whether it be on a table, or on the hilt of his revolver, he does it to remain grounded in whatever situation he's in. Although, quite a few people have mistaken this for impatience instead, which in inaccurate.
He can't stand to look at himself in a mirror for too long. He might fix something quickly, fix himself up to be more presentable, but he would rather be done quickly. He can see too much of the old Pack days in his eyes, his red cybernetic eye always glowing right back at him, making him feel like Calderon is still watching him through it.
Rumors and how some people perceive the canine
A lot of stories over the years have tried to build Caden up, with some of them calling him a legend. A lot of up-and-coming bounty hunters use Caden as a story-telling device, "The Redeye Ghost", trying to potentially emulate what he has done. A lot of them who try that route, end up dead. And those who do meet Caden? Well... they find someone who is far more complex and broken than the tales made him out to be.
Caden always seems to show up at places right when things are about to start heading south. Whether it be at a bar, at a scrap merchant's shop, a freighter port... they never really know who he is, but he always seems to leave trouble behind. And in some cases? Hope for those living there.
Rumors have spread through the underground for years that Caden isn't who he says he is. Some think he's an AI, or some sort of old experiment trying to fulfill its last command. Some even say that the real Caden died the night the alarms started blaring... and made his escape.
An Exploration of Caden's World
The galaxy Caden is from is a sprawl of corporate-run sectors, crumbling frontier worlds, and heavily policed trade routes. Borders mean absolutely nothing when there are megacorporations like Calderon Security Consortium around and have their own armies, private space lanes, and the political leverage to bend planets to their will.
Civilian life is a mix of overcrowded neon-lit megacities, where there is a heavy chance the poorest of society never even see the sky, and dust-covered frontier towns where the survival of those living there depends on you knowing who owns guns that day and who is willing to fire first.
Of this galaxy, there are two main powers at play:
Calderon Security Consortium (CSC):
The group most of you are familiar with at this rate. A paramilitary megacorporation and Caden's former employer/creator. They run lots of security contracts for entire planets, meaning that the planets are basically run by the CSC and the private army they have engineered and enforced. They were the ones to create "The Pack program", an initiative for engineering, breeding, and recruiting (in very few cases) into controlled, cybernetic military enforces. Calderon tech is not terribly flashy, but it is practical, incredibly durable, and designed to be used for psychological intimidation for those who come across Pack Operatives.
The second coproation to mention is Neurox Solutions:
A corporate biotech research and development firm specializing in neural modifications, memory rewriting, and emotional suppression implants. They publicly sell "behavioral correction" devices for medical and criminal justice use, privately building tools for Calderon and rival corporations to control enhanced soldiers.
A third group to briefly mention is not a corporation, but more of a resistance network trying to fight back against the CSC and Neurox. This group is called "The Fracture":
A movement made up of people who worked for Calderon, Neurox, or other corporations trying to fight back against the corporations to gain back some of their freedom. They are made up of a lot of civilians who went to Calderon's "reconditioning centers", as well as a small handful of other Pack Operatives who escaped, focusing on sabotage, leaks, and freeing others from neural control systems. In a way, the group sees Caden as the "First Fracture", whether or not he actually wants the title, as he was one of the first Pack Operatives to escape Calderon and roam free. Other Pack Operatives in the years following were also slowly able to break free, but Calderon has since tightened their grip and Pack members who break free are in the handful, at best.
So what about the actual geography of the verse? This can basically be broken into a few separate ideas:
The Core Worlds for Caden's universe is named "The Helix Cluster". It is a massive, densely populated group of planets that orbit a central star system. This cluster is also home to Calderon's headquarters, lots of other large corporations, and plenty of research hubs. Among the many planets, two main cities are to be noted:
Vantross Prime: A cold, brutalist megacity built into artificial towers that were crafted on the planet's surface. They house the political capital of the Helix Cluster and Calderon headquarters.
Delkir's Reach: An orbital databank city that stores blacksite records, thousands upon thousands of backups, and a lot of the systems information for the corporations that are housed within the Helix Cluster. Also home to a few smaller corporations and a centralized bank that megacoprations like the CSC store their money.
Scattered throughout the galaxy are outer rim planets and dustplain planets, made up of different mining colonies, salvage towns, and smuggler outposts. Two cities to mention are the following:
Trask Hollow: A scrap-town where Caden goes to pick up work and has a temporary home at, home to other deserters and outlaws from across the galaxy.
Dustreach Bluff: An older mining settlement where law does not really exist and comes down to how many rounds you have in the chamber. There is some local law enforcement, but they can't, or don't, do much in terms of protecting people and the city. The mining operation, while still somewhat prosperous, is starting to dry up each and every day leading to many people fleeing the town to find work elsewhere.
One other notable group of cities are commonly called "The Zone", a group of Neon-Cities spread across a handful of planets that aren't home to the megacoporations. With this in mind, there is plenty of corporate advertising mixed with lots of gang-ruled underlevels which help most of these cities prosper and seem "nicer" on the upper-levels and outside. Two quick cities to note here:
Nexis Reign: A commercial capital for trade on a day-to-day basis, with a few corporations scattered throughout the city. Home to lots of commercial trade, as mentioned, and the stock market that helps fuel part of the Helix Cluster. However, there is also a massive black-market hub below the city that many outlaws will go for illegal upgrades to their cybernetics and upgrades to their weapons. Caden has gone to a few of these vendors in the past for upgrades himself.
Nullspire: Another haven for data smuggles and defectors of different corporations, the town is run down, but still shining bright due to the amount of tech brought into the city. A lot of the city is run off of past engineers and other computer whizzes who make sure to keep everything in order. There isn't really a local government to speak of, but most people keep to themselves and crime isn't really too bad due to most people living there being old tech-wizards or who are people who had lots of information to sell off at a later date.
One final location to mention that is important: Orthis-9.
An old mining station located on an asteroid, hidden behind a dead moon, it is a massive black-market space station and trade hub for travelers from other galaxies. It started life as a Calderon mining platform about seventy years ago, however, once the mines dried up Calderon abandoned it and left behind the stripped halls and a skeleton crew to run the place.
Instead of letting the station rot, the crew sold off what they could and turned it into a trade outpost for smugglers, mercenaries, and black-market tech dealers.
Orthis-9 did end up growing over the following decades, with scavenged hull plating, welded-on docking areas, and entire decommissioned freighters were added on to the station to help split it up a bit, add space, and to start denoting different "districts" for trade and other activities within the structure.
The overall layout of the station is split into different sections:
The Spine: The oldest part of the station that still operates, it was the original mining area of the station. It is now just a maze of narrow corridors lined with vendors selling weapons, cybernetics, scrap, counterfeit IDs, and illegal neural firmware.
The Gutter: The station's bar district, lit entirely by salvaged neon lights that were originally corporate scrap. The air here... isn't pleasant, in any way, and most people here are used to it by now. But newcomers normally can't stand the smell too long.
Dock Nine: The only public dock on the station, patrolled by the station's own security enforcement. Docking fees are paid in credits, favors to the station and those running it, or whatever you can convince the enforcers is valuable enough to let you trade it off to dock there.
The Graveyard: A graveyard of old ships bolted together to form semi-habitable areas for people to sleep or make a home in. This area of the station is rumored to house hidden safehouses and different clinics that outlaws run to help those who may need medical treatment, for instance. Although... this is mostly rumors and nothing has been confirmed, obviously.
Orthis-9 runs on three unspoken rules:
Absolutely no corporate security forces will be allowed on-station (at least, not openly).
If you have a score to settle, do it outside Dock Nine. The people running the station would rather not like blood on the floors.
Do not, I repeat DO NOT, touch the comm tower. Unless someone wants the station to go dark permanently, the comm tower needs to remain active at all times to ensure the station retains power for core systems and for the people living/working there alike.
Caden has some connections to the station, especially with a cybernetics modder named Whisk, a feline cybernetics specialist. He's the one who's been able to keep his arm and eye running without asking too many questions or digging too deeply into Caden's background. Although Caden has shared bits and pieces of what he's done, just to get Whisk off his back.
Caden is also rumored to have left the wreckage of a Calderon Patrol ship just outside the station's orbit to act as a warning to Calderon to stay away.
Finally, locals of the station know not to follow Caden when he leaves The Gutter, as anyone who has? Hasn't come back.