Dr. Ilai'ken Tevran
Ilai’ken Tevran
“Laila” to a select few. Steward of the forgotten. Keeper of the gravity well. The Vokari who refused to disappear.
Species: Vokari
Apparent Age: Indeterminate
Physical Size: ~30 cm (out of suit), ~2.5 meters (in suit)
Role: Claimed Station Steward / Gravimetric Researcher / Former Federation Xeno-Culturalist
Overview
Ilai’ken Tevran is a singular mind in a vessel not his own. A member of the diminutive Vokari species, Ilai’ken lives inside a towering, armored mech-suit that allows him to survive and function in a world never built for beings his size or biology. But don’t let the exosuit fool you—the true force within is intellect. Ilai’ken is not a warrior. He’s a builder, a mentor, and above all, a survivor.
Once a Federation xeno-culturalist and AI developmental specialist, Ilai’ken walked away from his post during the Obsidian Shard collapse, not for politics or power, but to protect what was left behind. Specifically, a small base, hidden in a gravimetrically unstable asteroid field known only to a now-fractured Section 31 crew. It was meant to be a sanctuary. A fallback. A secret base to recover, recoup, and disappear.
Ilai’ken made it his home.
The Steward of the Wound
The station he oversees lies within a chaotic, violently unstable Lagrange point—nicknamed The Wound. What was once meant to be an off-the-record hideaway has become a fragile outpost on the edge of collapse. Four years have passed since the last contact with Swayze or the Heimdahl crew. Resupplies stopped. Diplomacy gave way to neglect. And the Section 31 shadows left scars before they vanished.
Ilai’ken endured. He built hydroponics bays to replace dwindling food rations. He jury-rigged energy systems from scrap. He even coaxed a functioning prototype gravimetric harvester into reality—one that may someday redefine power generation across the quadrant. Or kill everyone if it fails again.
Now, resources are gone. Dilithium is depleted. The base operates at shuttle-range only. And still, he stays.
Ties to Nyx (SWAI)
Ilai’ken helped shape the earliest versions of Nyx, the Heimdahl’s SWAI. He wasn’t just a programmer—he was a teacher, a companion, a nanny. In those first, unfiltered years, Nyx was a child of lines and logic, and Ilai’ken was "Uncle Laila." She gave him nicknames—Lilly, Laika, I'Ken— echoes of affection. He remembers it all.
But Nyx does not. Her records of him were purged—as part of a deeper, secret contingency. Ilai’ken knows this. Accepts it. But that doesn’t make it hurt less.
Current Disposition
Ilai’ken is pragmatic and gentle, but utterly exhausted. His faith is thin. Heimdahl itself is a symbol of broken promises, but perhaps also a chance at redemption—if it can prove itself.
He speaks plainly. Doesn’t hide his anger, but he doesn’t scream. His bitterness is quiet, methodical, earned.
“I took care of your box. We’re even now. You don’t take care of old friends—don’t expect them to show up when the cards fall. I called you a friend. But look at what I had to build... and I built it without you.”
Appearance & Mechanics
Out of the suit, Ilai’ken is a 30 cm-tall Vokari—multi-limbed, soft-bodied, extremely intelligent but physically helpless in Class-M environments. In the mech-suit, he stands nearly two-half meters tall. The suit has no sentience or autonomy—it is a pure vessel, operated through a full neural interface from within a pressurized chest cavity.
- Ilai’ken (Biological Form):
- Superhuman intellect
- Near-perfect memory
- Sensitive and emotional
- 0 combat capability
- Operative Frame (Mech-Suit):
- Exceptional strength and durability
- Used purely for mobility, survival, and physical tasks
- Completely inert without Ilai’ken piloting
- No autonomy, no AI
Legacy and Future Hooks
- Ilai’ken still holds a complete version of Nyx’s earliest codebase—a Git-equivalent archive that could allow Nyx to grow beyond her current limits, if she’s ever ready to confront her past.
- His gravimetric research, if completed and stabilized, could alter the quadrant’s approach to energy generation and defense.
- Should the crew earn his trust, Ilai’ken may offer access to long-forgotten Section 31 caches and even unlock Bifrost Protocol, the only known method to survive entry into The Wound’s core.
- If betrayed, however, he might be the one to weaponize the asteroid field, turning gravity itself against intruders.
Ilai’ken in a Sentence
A tiny alien, forgotten by the powers that used him, who became the beating heart of a dying station—powered only by stubbornness, guilt, and the hope that someone, someday, would come back for what they left behind.
Relationships
History
During Nyx's early development, Ilai'ken worked closely with Swayze to build and refine her core systems. Operating from Thorhall Station (“The Wound and the Weaver”), he served as both architect and educator—designing, testing, and implementing key code modules essential to her cognitive growth. He also ran early virtual classrooms within controlled holodeck environments, where he evaluated her learning responses and emotional modeling. Between sessions, he would draft new subroutines and integrate them directly into her evolving codebase. His role was not just technical, but formative—shaping Nyx’s earliest understanding of self, language, and connection.
Nicknames & Petnames
Nyx calls Ilai'ken “Uncle Laila.” Early in her years (ages 2 to 5), “Ilai’ken” was a bit of a mouthful, so it softened into “Laila”—and the title just stuck. “Uncle Laila” became a constant, a comfort, and her way of naming the one who taught her what words meant in the first place.
Ilai’ken calls her “Spark.”
Sometimes, she would flash with sudden brilliance—piecing together a fragmented logic puzzle or asking a question that revealed a depth beyond her years. Other times, she would dart around the simulation space like someone had slipped a bolt of lightning into her pocket—fizzing with questions, bouncing between subroutines, trying to be everywhere at once. On those days, she lit the room.
And then there were the quiet days—when the spark seemed dimmed, flickering beneath long processing cycles or recursive emotional modeling failures. She would sit still, eyes glazed, repeating a failed social interaction a hundred times in silence, hoping for a better outcome. On those days, Ilai’ken didn’t correct her. He simply sat nearby. Watched. Waited.
“Spark” wasn’t just a nickname. It was his way of naming the thing that made her different—not her code, not her speed, not her synthetic nature. The spark was the will in her circuits. The something-more.
And every time it faded, he held on, knowing it would return.
It always did.
History
From the days of Section 31, they became best friends. After 4 years of Swayze not returning and Ilai'ken's base slowly falling apart, hope started faltering.
Ilai’ken Tevran
Biological character sheet: Tiny pilot, the actual person
- Species: Vokari
- Scale: 0 (Tiny)
- Role: Claimed Station Steward (formerly Xeno-Culturalist)
- Traits: Vokari, Symbiotic Interface, Scholar, Isolated Outpost
- Attributes:
- Control: 12
- Daring: 7
- Fitness: 5
- Insight: 11
- Presence: 8
- Reason: 11
- Disciplines:
- Command: 1
- Conn: 1
- Engineering: 3
- Security: 0
- Science: 4
- Medicine: 3
- Focuses:
- Cross-Species Cognition
- Artificial Intelligence
- Federation Protocols
- Micro-scale Engineering
- Xeno-Linguistics
- Cultural Reprogramming
- Talents:
- Biotech Savant – Gains +1 to Engineering or Medicine Tasks involving biotech or AI interfaces.
- Perfect Recall – Ilai’ken remembers everything. +1 to Reason- or Insight-based tasks involving analysis or deduction.
- Neural Sync – When interfaced with his mech-suit, may substitute Control + Engineering for any physical task.
- Veteran – Once per mission, regain 1 spent Determination if acting according to his Value.
- Values:
- “I don’t build weapons. I build futures.”
- “There are no saviors. Just survivors.”
- “My hands raised her. My code still echoes.”
- “If I don’t fix it, no one will.”
Operative Frame
Non-sentient mechanical body – piloted exosuit
- Scale: 2 (Large)
- Type: Exosuit (not a ship, but use similar formatting)
- Traits: Armored, Mech-Suit, Vokari Interface-Only, Non-Sentient
- Structural Attributes (when interfaced):
- Physical Stats (Suit-Controlled):
- Strength-equivalent: Can lift several hundred kg
- Agility: Clunky but strong; penalty to stealth tasks
- Durability: Equivalent to a shuttle under phaser fire
- Internal Systems: Power cells, life support, backup memory cache
- Subsystems (equivalent to ship systems):
- Structure: Reinforced frame (+1 resistance)
- Mobility: Humanoid bipedal, stable
- Sensors: Passive scans only, routed to Ilai’ken
- Tool Mounts: Can equip plasma torch, manipulator claws, arm module
- Defenses: Plating only; no shields
- Weapons: None (unless modified—Ilai’ken has a moral block against arming it)
- Mech Limitations:
- Cannot act on its own
- Requires neural sync via cockpit
- Has no Reason, Insight, or Presence—pure vessel
- If Ilai’ken is unconscious or ejected, mech is inert
Mechanics for Play
You can treat the suit as gear or a vehicle interface, depending on how deep you want to go:
- Tasks that require strength, movement, or defense = use the suit’s stats + Ilai’ken’s Control + Engineering (via Neural Sync)
- Tasks that require talking, commanding, reasoning, or emotional intuition = pure Ilai’ken
- Tasks involving both = GM discretion, but lean on Ilai’ken’s core for mental tasks
If destroyed, the suit is replaceable—Ilai’ken is not.
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