L4-14, Lana Connor, Courser's Humanity

Character: Lana Connor. Institute designation: L1-14, she never uses it to refer to herself. Gender: Female. Age: 25. Race: synthetic human. Sexuality: Bisexual.

Appearance: Lana is 5'9" (174cm) tall. She has light skin and white back length hair. Lana has dark brown eyes. Nothing about her body suggests she's a synth. She has an athletic build due to her training. Her body is scarless due to it healing better thanks to the Institute's technology.

Clothing: Lana is usually seen wearing darker colors. Her usual outfit consists of a leather jacket, a shirt under it and black pants. She often has a gun holstered on her belt.

Combat style: Lana went through the rigorous training of a courser and as a result is very proficient in both combat and infiltration tacticts. She knows how to move unseen and use weapons, both ranged and melele, she is also proficient in hand to hand combat.

Background: Lana, then known only as L1-14, her Institute designation, was created in the Institute's Robotics division like many other synths created by the Institute. During her first medical exam, some of her traits were noticed by the examiners, like her agility and she also passed the psychological requirments to be sent to be trained as a courser.

Lana was sent to undergo the courser training, only a few synths were deemed worthy of attempting it, but most end up failing and having their memory of ever participating in it wiped and are sent back to do their previous duties. Lana was trained in: investigation, psychology, combat, espionage and mechanics. After passing the required tests, the Institute scientists deemed her approved to have implants installed, they enchanced Lana's reflexes, regeneration abilities so that she healed faster than an ordinary and without scarring. She was also equipped with advanced targetting systems and implants that slowed her aging, prolonging her life. Most importantly she was equipped with a courser's chip, which allowed her to teleport back to the Institute from the surface as long as she could aquire Institute's signal. Another thing Lana went through was also convinced to believe that she is just a machine and a tool for the Institute during the training and that her main goal is the retrieval of escaped synths.

Lana spent her next two years doing her courser duties, going into the Commonwealth to capture and bring back escaped synths, she was fulfilling her duties without fault. Back at the Institute she started training with another courser, believing that it will help both of them increase their capabilities as hunters. The other courser's designation was X7-23. One day X7-23 disappeared on a mission and was deemed rogue by the Institute. Lana was confused why her training partner would desert, but at the same time started having feelings resembling grief. Not wanting to be deemed a faulty courser and having her memory wiped. X7-23's escape caused Lana to have doubts about the Institute, if the synths are machines, why do they want to escape, why is she grieving a machine, and more importantly, if she is a machine then why does she feel grief.

Lana was later reassigned to Doctor Sarah Case from the Institute's Bio-Science division, who wanted someone to guard her while she was doing research on the surface. Case was deemed strange by most of the Institute's scientists, she didn't fear going to the surface to perform research and also talked to synths as if they were people, not machines like most scientists treated them. Considering the designation L4-14 to be a mouthful she decided to call the courser "Lana" instead, becoming the first person to call her by that name and basically was the one to give the name to the synth.

Lana started to feel less like a machine around Doctor Case and more like her bodyguard. She was unafraid to speak her mind, but still remained guarded about her thoughts on synths. After two years of working under Case, she was glad she no longer had to catch synths and instead could work with someone who doesn't treat her just as a machine without emotions. One fateful day everything changed. Doctor Case wanted to get inside a pre-war laboratory containing DNA samples of pre-war flora and fauna, which could prove invalueable to the Bio-Science division wanting to bring back the species. The mission went wrong, the defence systems of the facility were activated and the scientists, including Doctor Case, died, their escort was destroyed too, Lana remained the only survivor. Lana, surrounded by robot security, decided to detonate a pulse charge close to her position, it shouldn't do harm to humans only machines. Lana still unsure what she really is decided to take the risk. Lana survived the blast, but due to the implants and cybernetics installed in her, she was damaged, only her synth component survived.

After Lana left the facility, unable to return to the Institute as her courser chip broke in the blast, she was able to walk in the direction of Cambridge, but fell unconscious due to damage the destruction of her cybernetics left. She woke up days later in the house of a wasteland medic, an older woman named Cassie Connor, who had no idea who she stumbled upon, but decided to save Lana's life anyways. She removed most of the destroyed cybernetics and implants, saving Lana's life. Lana was confuesed why Cassie saved her, wanting to repay her debt, Lana started helping Cassie around the clinic, feeling more like a human that ever before, not wanting to return to the Institute, who deemed her as destroyed in action, together with Doctor Case as her courser chip stopped working at the facility.

Lana spent over a year with Cassie Connor who started treating Lana as a daughter she never had, Cassie later let Lana use her last name and didn't treat the former courser differently because of her being a synth. After some time she didn't want the Institute to track her and Cassie and decided to start roaming the wasteland, occasionally visiting her adoptive mother.

Personality Traits: Lana wants to be an ordinary human, after years spent treated like a machine and being sent to hunt those who decided to choose their own path, Lana decided to atone for that by helping people of the wasteland, she still has extensive combat experience even without Institute's technology. Lana wants to experience more emotions that were denied to her in the Institute, such as love and compassion.

Lana is worried that if people she gets close to find out she is a synth they would turn on her. She knows about the anti-synth paranoia in the Commonwealth and is worried that she may be lying to people if she doesn't tell them who she really is. She wants to be seen as a human, not a synth.

Lana tries to help the people of the Commonwealth whenever she can, she often finds work as a hired gun, using her skills for good, helping to protect people instead of capturing them like when she was a courser.

Lana is terrified of the Institute finding her and bringing her back. She knows that it would only lead to her memory being wiped. She believes that it's as if she was killed and whoever she becomes next would be another person, not really herself. She is paranoid and wants to avoid that fate at all cost.

Lana dislikes the Railroad. While she appreciates that some humans care about the fate of synths and bring the fight to the Institute, she hates their methods. While the synth may escape thanks to them, they undergo the same memory wipe they would have if the Institute caught them. She thinks what they do is saving a person by erasing another. She also doesn't want to be researched as a former courser by the organization.

Lana hates herself for her past as a courser, especially brining back the escaped synths back to the Institute, something which now became her biggest nightmare, to share that fate. She is sometimes getting nightmares from those missions.

Lana enjoys reading pre-war books, her favorite ones are about love and found families, she usually collects them in holotape form to save space in her backpack. Lana wishes her life could have a good ending like the books she reads.

Lana enjoys tinkering with pre-war technology, as a courser she got training when it comes to mechanics and often repairs things like radios and one time succeeded at making a TV and a casette player work again. She sold the setup to someone for some caps as she didn't want to stay in one place for too long.

Lana became protective of the people she cares about after rebelling from the Institute, she intends to keep both herself and the people she cares about safe.

Lana knows psychology, but sometimes struggles to act fully like a human, she doesn't get local sayings or sarcasm, jokes also go over her head sometimes. She also struggles with getting social cues, sometimes leading to awkward interactions. Lana is direct in her speech.

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