Character idea: Zephyr the anomalous automaton.

'Sup. So I thought of having a robot programmed to have dreams and aspirations and a motto to "reach the stars" but ends up taking it literally. I'm still not certain about anything here however, and I'd like some folks to check it out and tell me what's up. I'd also like to know where this character could possibly go for a roleplay and what I'd need to change for that to occur. I've made the backstory fairly vague in his whereabouts for this reason. This is the character outline I'll be using for all the characters I come up with without a roleplay to spawn them. If there's anything else I need to include that'd be wicked as well.

Name:
Ethnic Group/Race/Species:
Gender:
Age:
Date of Birth:
Height:
Weight:
Hair color:
Eye color:
Skin tone/color:
Appearance quirks/other:
Personality:
Quirks:
Likes/Hobbies:
Dislikes/Nopes:
Significant Other:
Family:
Place of Residence:
Home:
Education:
Life Goal:
Crippling weaknesses/Fears:
Backstory:

Name: Zephyr
Ethnic Group/Race/Species: Pseudo-sentient automaton. Meaning that he fakes what seems to be human sentience.
Gender: Refers to self as male, most likely to match his appearance.
Age: One year-old. Although this is contradicted by Zephyr's rusted appearance and self-referencing himself as an "old robot".
Date of Birth: This one's influx due to differing roleplays as his date of birth will mark his "wake-up" date, however Zephyr will tell anyone that he comes from and was manufactured in the 30th 19th century.
Height: 174.3cm or 5.74 feet.
Weight: 300kg
Hair color: None
Eye color: Light yellow
Skin tone/color: Rusted bronze
Appearance quirks/other: Well he is a robot. He has a heavy steampunk aesthetic, and a latch in his chest that opens a small storage space. This is called by Zephyr his "Chest-chest".
Personality: Eccentric,excited, curious and determined. Zephyr is also very talkative but will generally stay reserved to himself unless he has a reason or is simply bored.
Quirks: Zephyr will frequently mention unheard of subjects (eg green stark particles or hydrocharged rhubarb oil), relating them to normally mundane objects and obsesses with the idea of going to space. Zephyr cannot prove these sciences though, as he lacks a complete understanding of them. He has a special liking for cats and felines, insisting that he employ them as scientists to research such strange topics. This is the same except for cougars, to which Zephyr will treat extreme hostility. None of this is known exactly why, but it is assumed it has something to do with his manufacturer.
Likes/Hobbies: Most of his hobbies are his quirks. Space travel and cats.
Dislikes/Nopes: Cougars and awkward silences. Also anyone attempting to harm Zephyr or any of his friends.
Significant Other: Nada.
Family: No genetic family of course, but was built by a "Captain Darky Diggins" in the 30th 19th century. Zephyr idolizes him.
Place of Residence: Depends on roleplay, but it should be a reasonably well populated planet or area.
Home: Nada. Most likely will never have one.
Education: No proper education, but was taught by Captain Darky about formal social etiquette, basic human morality and all the fantastical sciences that Zephyr knows about. Zephyr also has an English dictionary uploaded in his brain, but will not be able to recite some things until he comes into contact with the idea. EG Zephyr will not know what a spoon is until he either sees a spoon or someone else speaks of a spoon.
Life Goal: To literally "reach for the stars" :P Zephyr wants to be able to fly among stars in space.
Crippling weaknesses/Fears: Zephyr frequents malfunctions from basic voice errors to the rare random shut down where he will need a bump to reactivate him. He also has some ways to learn about complex human emotion and can't properly comprehend the difference between dreams and goals which causes him to be anti-sociable in situations.
Backstory: (this shall be written as a narrative as i believe it better encapsulates the idea)

Captain Darky Diggins stood in a stage wagon with his newest depowered automaton, clearing his throat to prepare the crowd.
"Sirs and ladies! Girls and boys! I present to you the newest of my wondrous automatons! Designed with dreams, programmed with aspirations... As I show this wonderment to all of I implore you to look into your hearts and reach for the stars!"
Darky nudged the currently nameless robot in the right shoulder. Steam escaped from his unmoving mouth.

"TSSST! Reinitiating booting up power couplings-ONE HUNDRED PERCENT!"
The bot immediately started whirring into life, twitching and churning inside.
"TSSST! Recalibrating start-up command engines- METERS ARE IN THE GREEN!"
TSSST! REGENERATING STABILIZING THIS UNIT IS NOW ACTIVE! Greetings and salutations, sirs and ladies."
Yellow spotlights flicked on in his eyes. He looked left. He turned his head right. A crowd of around fifty. After all his work learning from the Captain, it was time for him to show what he was capable of and what made him separate from the other service bots. His voice began to sound less monotonic. Phonetics, lexicon and syntax. He had learnt these three things and planned to use them to sound more comfortable.
"I wonder what most-EHK-all of you have dreamed of-TSSST!" The robot took a pause to make momentary repairs on his interior. "Apologies. I was created with the sole purpose of having aspirations, unlike any electronic automaton ever before. It is indeed an honor to be here today, however my eyes are a set on the stars!" The robot majestically pointed into the sky. The crowd felt heartwarmed. "Correct, captain?"
The captain's approval was second to most important here.
"Yes, correct." He smiled. Mission accomplished.
The bot continued.
"I have dreams like no other robot has. As my Captain says: Reach for the stars!"
The crowd cheered.
"Although, for this occur we need a redlick matter pulsator, six turbo apple compressors, eight tonnes of mechano metal and most importantly a supreme towelink engine!"
The crowd looked confused all of a sudden, and the captain immediately got worried.
The robot then went on to explain, confused himself at the reaction.
"Well, if we have such dreams, we are surely going to need a spaceship, correct?"
The crowd laughed, mocking the robot's misunderstanding. Captain Darky Diggins quickly closed the curtains of the wagon and immediately shut the bemused robot down. The last thing his spotlight-eyes saw was a face of utter disappointment.

(this part is like the segway into the roleplay)

A rock fell from the sky and hit the rusted robot in the right shoulder. Steam escaped from his unmoving mouth.
"TSSST! Reinitiating booting up power couplings-ONE HUNDRED PERCENT!"
The bot immediately started whirring into life, however this time he was chugging more than churning.
"TSSST! Recalibrating start-up command engines- METERS ARE IN THE GREEN!"
TSSST! REGENERATING STABILIZING THIS UNIT IS NOW ACTIVE! Gree-Gree-Greetings and saluta-tations, sirs and ladies."
Yellow spotlights flickered on in his eyes. He looked left. He turned his head right. There were no sirs or ladies to receive his greetings and salutations. Where was he? Where was the captain? He must adapt. The robot had been sitting down, so he began to stand up with an awkward churning noise. "Assessing self-damage to-..." The robot went silent, it was not like speaking out loud would accomplish anything in this state. Still, he felt a duty to fill the silence. "Complete. Interior errors fixed, exterior chassis extensively damaged. Unable to repair. Hm. Almost unnecessary to, rust fails to impede-"
A heavy wind from the west pushed through the robot, catching him by surprise.
"TSSST! Designating subject as "Zephyr". Greetings Zephyr! This unit does not have a name!"
The wind did not stop to speak, however, and hurried past to the east. The robot ran after it.
"Zephyr, wait! I wish to engage in a conversation about the uses of opossum ink!"
The robot eventually slowed to an easterly walk. He thought extensively about the zephyr. It could fly, it could reach the stars that the bot longed to touch. What was it searching for? Passing through towns, the robot decided he would also take the name Zephyr to remind himself of his plight.
Zephyr, the west wind, the anomalous automaton, felt certain he would one day reach the stars.
END
welp. dats the robot.
Waddaya think? What did I do horribly wrong? XD Is this posted in the wrong place? Is it formatted well?
And most important where shall I direct my creation in terms of roleplay-ces.

Let me give you my thoughts, Captain.

I like the way you worded, "a robot programmed to have dreams and aspirations and a motto to reach the stars but ends up taking it literally."

Reminds me of a certain Pixar movie, or it makes me think that it could be a Pixar movie idea.

Anyway, when it comes to the character skeleton, if you're going to use this character in a roleplay, you'll have to adapt to whatever skeleton sheet that the GM has in place. A GM will almost always have a sheet that you can fill out.

When it comes to formatting, everybody is different, you just gotta find a way that works for you. In my case, I usually leave spaces between dialogue and anything else such as other dialogue lines or descriptive paragraphs.

VindicatedPurpose wrote:Let me give you my thoughts, Captain.

I like the way you worded, "a robot programmed to have dreams and aspirations and a motto to reach the stars but ends up taking it literally."

Thanks! :D

VindicatedPurpose wrote:Reminds me of a certain Pixar movie, or it makes me think that it could be a Pixar movie idea.

Heh, it kinda does. The idea came from me listening to a song called Reach For The Stars and then a song by a group who present themselves as steampunk robots.

VindicatedPurpose wrote:Anyway, when it comes to the character skeleton, if you're going to use this character in a roleplay, you'll have to adapt to whatever skeleton sheet that the GM has in place. A GM will almost always have a sheet that you can fill out.

Yeah, I pretty much get all this. Just trying to get the feel of this place as opposed to other, gotta make sure there isn't some secret handshake I'm missing out on or anything.

VindicatedPurpose wrote:When it comes to formatting, everybody is different, you just gotta find a way that works for you. In my case, I usually leave spaces between dialogue and anything else such as other dialogue lines or descriptive paragraphs.

And yeah, I get all this as well. Nice to know that robots aren't frowned upon here. Speaking of which, I read your intro to your strange desert world and was wondering about whether or not automatons could be introduced. I feel I wouldn't even need the segway, he could've just been built by some strange nutter who lost his airship or something and resorted to building bots :P I'd love to get him into operation asap.

No problem.

Unfortunately, I don't know if we have room for a bot at the moment. The story has sort of reached max capacity in terms of writers. It's a possible direction, and I might give you a call if or when the story expands to accommodate one or two more player characters.