Lore:Podperson

SPECIES

Pod Person	Denonyms: Pod Person, Pod People Other Names: Plant Persons, Plantgirls, Podmen, Replica Pods, Plantfolk Related Pages: Guide to Hydroponics (Replica Pods) Related Lore: Lore:Nova, OnlyFronds Languages: Sylvan

Pod Persons

The fruit of the commercial product "Replica Pods," Pod People are the synthesis of humanoid blood and postmodern cabbage. Fully sentient, with the Resonance and memories of the blood donor, these Plant People are well-suited to life in the limelight. While the modern Replica Pod itself comes from

modified cabbage

or are modern cabbage denatured Replica Pods?

, the end result can superficially resemble a hybrid of almost any bipedal humanoid and any photosynthetic plant. Pod People heal physical injuries when exposed to light, and rapidly wilt in the dark, dying in minutes. Modern Pod People come either from existing persons resurrected via cheap seeds from seed vendors, or as descendants from Colonial Seed Vaults, the terrarium structure randomly spawning on most mining planets.

History

Pre-FTL (2100AD - 2150AD)

Originally sold as a body replacement solution, Replica Pod people were one of Humanity's first forays into post-mortality. The simplicity of combining a sample of blood into a conventionally-grown plant, alongside the potential to delay the harvest for numerous years, meant that even without FTL technology, interstellar colonization could be accessible to the masses.

Humanity's Manifest Destiny reflex triggered a brief boom of mass colonization efforts: every corporation or backyard enthusiast who could afford the meager sum to craft a shelter capable of sustaining a plant would rent time on the neighborhood Mass Driver to catapult their personal homestead into the stars. Sloth and Capitalism go hand-in-hand, so the industry turned towards marketing homestead packages: Four Replica Pods of menial workers would be sent in your place inside a standard-issue Seed Vault, stocked with the cheapest finest sampling of Earth plants. With the directive to "Spread Life," these workers would do the hard work of terraforming "your" land into something glorious and habitable. In a century or two, when your family line finally arrives at "your" homestead, deed in hand, they will be settling in the lap of luxury.

As with all human capitalistic ventures, quality is only guaranteed so long as it can be enforced, and quantity is king. Thousands of these Colonial Gardens were launched from Earth during the early 2100s, fired at any moving body astronomers could be bribed to say had gravity and the ability to sustain an atmosphere. As a result, many Seed Vaults actually landed in invalid locations, if they landed at all, and many planets had dozens of competing Seed Vaults land on their surface, Lavaland and Freya included.

As with all commercial booms, as soon as a better product came to market, the original is cast to abscurity. Replica Pod seeds were seen as mostly inferior to later life-extending technologies, including Genemodding, Artificial Engram collection, and the disastrous direct Human-grown Cloning.

Post-FTL (2564AD)

The story of each Colonial Seed Vault is unique, from the body it landed on, to their first contact with the Galactic Community. Some followed the script perfectly: landed on a small planet, turned it into a human paradise, the correct humans landed there and took control over the paradise. Some landed on inhabited worlds and immediately had to contend with locals. Some were tragedies, doomed to a slow death on a planet incompatible with life, and some were comedies, landing next to existing human settlements in Sol. Most stories you want to tell with a Seed Vault can be told.

They don't really do much post-FTL. like their entire existence is waiting for others with FTL to find them. But uh... "Rumors have it of floating fungal pods that have subsumed derelict FTL-capable ships and, through some miracle, fixed them. No galactic presence of Pod People has emerged in any significant capacity, and yet the proliferation of Pod People itself imposes upon the cosmic politicksphere."

Culture

Pod People come from one of three sources, typically:

1. An existing person. Typically, a modern spacer dies and chooses to be reborn via a Replica Pod. They contain both the Resonance and memories of that person, and thus likely retain their existing cultural ties and familial relations. The death might not always be accidental, and the rebirth might not always be immediately afterwards. Cautious persons might keep an imprinted Replica Pod seed as a contingency in case other undeath plans fall through.
2. Random Chance. Sometimes a growing Replica Pod just happens to catch a stray Resonance engram and enough stray DNA to be able harvest itself into a fully-sapient individual, with no biological or mental ties to any person who came before.
3. A Colonial Seed Vault, or descendant thereof. Pod Persons are by default sterile, so the mechanism by which the original four Primal Pod Persons produce additional Pod Persons is left as an exercise for the colonists themselves to resolve. Examples include: the launching company provided a number of blood samples to inject into subsequent harvests of Pod Persons. Mass harvests of Replica Pod plants to "force" random chance. Using the provided Biogenerator to print Monkeys, then mix their blood in ways to capture stray souls. Abnormal insterility, rendering pre-fertilized Replica Pod seeds that require no external blood or soul.
   Strictly speaking, only the original four Primal Pod Persons have the compulsion to "Spread Life." How strongly they impose this directive upon their progeny is up to them.

As Pod People come from an impossibly diverse set of circumstances, their shared culture is based strictly off of innate impulses and shared sensations.

1. The Calling: Plant People feel an innate compulsion to change their name to some sort of plant reference. Often as minor as tweaking their old Human name. Humans with an strong attachment to their human selves have been known to forego this, though it is seen as abhorrent and disrespectful to the renewed gift of life.
2. The Tongue: Sylvan is spoken natively by anyone made of Nature. The origins of the language are unknown, but as the tongue is instinctual, historians speculate as to a grand cosmic origin of all plant life.
3. The Light: Stemming from the strict physiological need for light, plant people like light. Plantfolk who work indoors or in space are known to bring their own sources of light. Lanterns, flashlights, glowshrooms, Etheral boyfriend...

Reaction

Roleplay hooks?

Reasons to Like	Reasons to Hate
Been Podded before	Hate human products
Family member got podded, turned out OK	Family member got podded involuntarily
Shop at Whole Foods unironically	Liked Lavalands the way they were
Transhumanist	Hate all synthetic people
Lust	Goat.
	Hate death-dodging "tricks".

Why would you be a Pod Person?

• Killed on the job, liked the new body
• Transition because of ecological cost-saving collapse
• Descendant from a Primal Pod Person garden
• Grown by a company in-house for cheaper labor
• Tried to attack a Sylvan colony, got gunned down

LANCER-style writing: Your Pod Person

《 An Existing Person 》
Breath. You hadn't expected to be taking another of those, not like this. Light. The cold halogen glare that'd you'd taken for granted for many years now warms your skin, filling you with energy and drive. The cold of the grave still haunts your psyche, but perhaps just a few more moments in the light will warm your soul. Before you can give yourself fully to the instinctual delights of photosynthesis, you're handed a clipboard, a receipt or proof of life. At the top, a name: "your" name. Do you recognize it? Does it feel right in your mouth? Perhaps just a little more floral flair... Stamped across the top of the paper, the logo of a corporation or entity, responsible for your growth. Is it a comforting sight? A date of revival. Has much time passed? You're handed a bag, full of clothes, tools, and an heirloom. Is it still yours? The clothes cover your skin, sealing most of your body in darkness. Do you wear your old ways proudly? Your skin, why is it still green? Do you seek to burn this body and dig your old flesh out of the ashes? Your hand signs a name at the bottom. You are pushed out the door.
Common Backgrounds
An executive, cashing in on their post-mortality contingency. Was a Replica Pod your first choice?
A worker, revived in the cheapest way available. What debts can compel a laborer from beyond the grave?
An ancient human, revived unexpectedly. Why were you so valuable, that digging your body up and reviving you was worth the effort?
Intentionally reborn. Did you end your previous body to get here? What were you trying to escape from your old flesh?
WARRIORS, COME OUT TO PLAY! You rub your eyes again, shaking the hallucinations of sudden revival out of your mind. At your feet, beneath the peeled-back leaves of your pod, is a body. Riddled with bullet holes and overgrown in the very vines that weaved you together. Why were you killed? Was your cause worth dying for? You trace the fingertips of the corpse you once were, following where they strain to reach. A gun, your muscle memory recognizing it before you do. Is your cause worth dying twice for?

《 Random Chance 》
Today, you are. Yesterday, you weren't. A dozen people around you have a dozen questions, each a burden on your psyche, forcing you to have to justify yourself before you even know your own name. From the questions, you gather that you're abnormal and shouldn't be. Yet, here you are. When they ask who you are, what do you say? They ask you how you understand them. Does it matter to you? They tell you you're an adult. You are an adult, in your heart of hearts, but do you feel like you're stepping fresh into the world, or is your soul already world-weary and cynical? They ask what you're good at. You understand some basic skills. Are they standard-issue, or part of who you are? They ask what you will do, who you will become. How will you move forward, with no past to rely on?
Common Backgrounds
Pure random resonance: Like a newborn has a clean soul, so do you. Do you believe in Original Sin? Does it even apply to you?
Resonance hijacked: The labcoats around you try to tell you who you are. Do you let them?
Partial Matching: Allegedly, your resonance is enough of a match to a number of existing people to have blossomed from their DNA. Do you call them your parents? Do they embrace you as their child?
Mad science: The labcoats act triumphant, as if you're their greatest accomplishment. Are you an achievement, or a person?

《 Colonial Seed Vault 》
While space is wholly incompatible with life, even with the greatest of engineering to support life, you still find yourself unaccommodated. Shuttled between metal coffins in the blackness of space, every window full of tiny pinpricks of light, stars far too distant for you to flourish. Which one was yours? Is it still yours? All you can do here is survive. Space is dark and cold, nothing like where you came from. Why did you leave? In addition to exploring the backgrounds below, consider the Lore:Guide to Colonial Seed Vaults for building out your Pod Person's Home Garden. (todo: better name for Home Garden)
Common Backgrounds
Left willingly. As you climbed the ramp onto the transport shuttle, you look back at Pods you left behind. Do they shed tears of sorrow, or joy? You hoist your bags into the overhead compartment and take a seat. Will you be back? Will they take you back? The hum of the engines leaves you nervous. Who are these people, taking you off-world?
Refugee. The smoldering ashes of your ancestral home still taint the atmosphere your people labored to build with aerosolized despair. What caused this tragedy? What little you carry on your back and the memories you hold, those are your peoples' legacy. Is it worth holding onto?
Separated. You stare out again at the vast expanse of stars, looking for home. Would you even recognize it on a map? Your memories of home are tainted by the tragedy of separation. Who did this to you, and are you free of them yet? The apple may not fall far from the tree, but no apple can roll uphill.
Integrated. The directive "spread life" is awfully easy when there's already life here. Were they welcoming to your kind? Were you to theirs?

Making One

1. come up with a plant pun name
2. come up with a plant you want it to vaguely be based off of
3. Open your character's Loadout, go to Misc, and pick Lantern or Flashlight. You can use the button to rename it if you want. Legally, this is optional.
4. Are they from a Colonial Seed Vault? And they remember it? Congrats, either tie yourself to someone else's lore or make your own. Gonna make a separate document guiding you on writing your own. Or a collapsible?

Notable Members

• GreytideSkye (talk) 05:39, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
• The mythical "Mother Nature"
• Poison Ivy, Pamela Isley
• Swamp Thing
• Mushroom, Skate Legend.

Notable Events

• Death Blossom
• a name for the Colonial Seed Vault initiatives
• The Herbellion

Work in Progress: Footer subject to change at a moment's notice. Do not take a red link's presence, struck-through or otherwise, as confirmation (or denial) of their canonicity.

Nova Sector Lore
	Common Species	Humans, Tiziran, Unathi, Moths, Ethereals, Azulae, Slime Hybrids, Teshari, Synthetic Humanoids (and assorted robots), Pod Persons
	Other Species	Genemodders (Felinids, Ice Walkers, Dwarf), Ashwalkers, Hemophages, Snailpersons, Ordoht (Formerly Skrell), Plasmamen, Flypeople, Vox (Primalis et al), Tajaran, Vulpkanin, Xenomorphic Hybrid, Rouges (Abductorkin), Miscellaneous Species
	Nanotrasen	Nanotrasen, Central Command, Emergency Response Corps
	External Groups	The Syndicate, Interdyne Pharmaceutics, DS-2, Cargo, The Spider Clan
	Nova	The Nova Sector, Indecipheres, Freyja
	Concepts	Bluespace, Plasma, Faster Than Light Travel, Resonance ("Souls"), Death
	SolFed	SolFed, Earth in 2565, The SolFed Armed Forces, The SolFed International Capital District