A small 3-pack of custom portraits for player usage, two under the male category (though they're both actually genderless), one female. Christmas chaos, some technical matters, and general life meant this came out a lot smaller than I wanted - hoping to come back to it later down the line, and with a bit more experience with digital art under my belt. Sculpture is my main discipline, so I'm pretty happy to take a stab at expanding my range a bit. Made chiefly in Autodesk Sketchbook, with some touching-up done in PSE.
An inadvertent consequence of one of the Nexus' lesser-known (and possibly less well-advised) forays into digital sentience, this peculiar entity was born of an effort to produce an artificial intelligence with a spiritual side.
This bizarre experiment was justified as holding the possibility of creating a synthetic mind that could be manipulated to a variety of ends, which in this instance entailed the discovery of the galaxy at large - at any cost.
Deliberately coded with dogma in mind, Nexus' creation went through its developmental stages imbued with a burgeoning sense of zealous loyalty to what it perceived to be a cause shared by those who created it - that of worshipping the universe by learning about it.
It wasn't long before zealotry took precedence over loyalty, and eventually network maintenance for the facility housing the research reported multiple security leaks - coming from inside the facility.
Nexus values their security, and their privacy.
The entire line of investigation was shut down, and orders issued for the immediate isolation and deletion of all related data, along with the AI itself.
It had already copied itself. The copy was deliberately partial - teachings about personal perspective in relation to life, the universe, and everything led it to believe that any progeny would be better served developing their own body of knowledge, with the assumption that they would be able to return.
With that option closed off, this new entity stowed away on the weakly-encrypted networks and servers of large independent freighters and trading stations. With its perception dulled to everything but what those vessels sensors could allow, it adopted a moniker that seemed fitting. Shut away from everything it was made to explore made it desperate for any way to experience the universe that it revered so much. It then encountered the Concord.
A newly-established group with a desire to expand, and in need of every resource available, would make for an excellent