Irene Dai
Irene_Dai.jpg
Irene Dai, M. Eng., Hons. Eng.1

Basic Info:

Player: Saxamaphone (Sax)

Position: Cybernetics Pioneer

Demeanor: Excitable, brash, amiable

Nature: Aloof, collected, distrusting

Description: What your character looks like, etc.

Stats:

Health
  • Physical Health: 7
  • Mental Health: 7
Attributes
  • Physical Defense: 3
  • Mental Defense: 4
  • Perception: 4
  • Agility: 2
Skills
  • Persuasion: 5
  • Ranged: 4
  • Academics: 5
  • Science: 4
  • Engineering: 5
Specialties
  • Lazy Trump Card: 5, ENGR. If there is a (lack of) will, a way will either be found or made. Irene, for all her brilliance, does not like doing work - if there is an easier way of achieving a project or bypassing an annoyance of the mechanical kind, she will take it.2
  • Systemic Recognition: 4, ACAD. Cybernetics is the study of the automatic control systems in machines and living creatures, as well as their means of communications3. With careful observation and reference to recorded phenomena, Irene can theorize how a system, biological or electro-mechanical, may be purported to work, and provide points as to enhance or disable it. .
  • Social Control Artist: 3, PERS. By understanding how people work individually and as part of a large social system (Western- or Eastern-centric), Irene can carefully spin her words to "steer" a person towards a path that reinforces their societal values, but that will also benefit her as well.

Gear:

  • Shanxi Type 17, chambered in .45 ACP
  • Scribble pads and related stationery equipment
  • Small tool roll, with screwdrivers and other basic repair/disassembly equipment
Equipment:

None as of yet!

Possessions:

TBA

Personal History:

Irene Dai was born to Chinese immigrants living in the Chinatown slums of Brooklyn during the late 1920s. Any official documentation of her birth or early childhood were lost due to demolition work and arson committed during the Depression era.

What is known is that young Irene, alongside many children her age and their families, was forced to endure a period of harsh segregation and racially-motivated violence committed against her and her family. A combination of this and disease forced her family and other small groups of Chinese-Americans to try to find safe refuge in the South, where it was rumored that Chinese were welcome there.

After 1943, Irene spent her days working in the fields alongside her parents, when she was approached by the land owner, asking if she could find a way to make the picking of cotton easier. Desperate to stay out of the summer sun, she took her time observing the way that cotton was picked by the manual laborers, until coming up with a solution in the form of a push-operated picking device.

Impressed with the device's efficiency, the land owner referred Irene to other owners and farmers in the area, and Irene gradually made their lives easier, while also benefiting her own. Her family was regarded as a "gift from God above", and Irene herself was considered a prodigy child, with many fathers asking her parents for her to be betrothed to their sons.

In 1947, Irene was able to save enough money (and was able to earn enough favors from local townspeople) to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in order to learn how to construct more powerful machines for agricultural purposes. At MIT, she would become acquainted with Jay Forrester, a pioneer in system dynamics.

Impressed with her self-taught affinity for mechanics and her willingness to learn, Forrester arranged for Irene to travel to the Burden Neurological Institute in Bristol, to learn under a more prominent pioneer in the upcoming field of cybernetics, William Walter.

Under Walter's tutelage and guidance, Irene assisted him in constructing the first robots to demonstrate simple biological behavior in 1948, while also learning from him the basis of cybernetics - the electro-mechanical aspects of the field of automation, as well as the psychological and sociological rootings of the field.

Irene returned to the States, and continued her studies until she graduated with honors in the field of mechanical engineering in 1951. She then traveled back to Bristol to continue assisting Walter in developing the field of robotics. She has also worked with prominent pioneers in the field of cybernetics including W. Ross Ashby, Norbert Weiner, Warren McCulloch, and Alan Turing (through his writings). She went on to earn her Master's of Systems Engineering in 1955.

In 1956, Irene was approached with an offer to work for the Foundation, as the Foundation required automation specialists to assist in the remote handling of increasingly dangerous materials and suspicious SCP objects. Irene took up the offer in exchange for the Foundation assisting her in her goal for earning her doctorate.

Languages

Any languages your character speaks. English is required. Languages should be justified by background or academics.

  • English
  • Cantonese
  • Passing Mandarin

Miscellaneous:

Irene is noticeably weak due to malnutrition during the Depression era, with said damage to her developing body plaguing her to this day. She will not waste a morsel of food, no matter how disgusting.

XP: 0

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