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Graf Shabeel
Shabeel was born as a grey Cambodian tiger, reintroudced in the environment after their extinction in the early 2000s. He was caught in the wild as a sample for the "Beast War" project, a prominent branch of the Schwarzer Blitz experiment led by genetist Oskar Darnek and sponsored by Encorp. The experiment was supposed to create human-beast hybrids with high intellect and feral traits, to use as a shock weapon during war. However, after a spending review and the realization that the prototype hybrids didn't sport physical characteristics superior enough to be considered a success, the "Beast War" project was shut down and the two processed samples (Sambiong and Shabeel) reassigned as test subjects for head scientist Lars "Metallic" von Mayer, despite Darnek's complaints. Shabeel found his death in 2063, due to the failure of one of Mayer's experiments. His body was recycled and augmented with mechanical extensions, as it was his brain, artificially kept alive in order to be reprogrammed and reimplanted in the body. As a result, he was designated as code M-160 "Graf", a best-hybrid combat cyborg. M-160 Graf was one of a kind, equipped with pneumatic extensible arms and extensive scanning devices mounted inside his eyes. He then gained the infamous "red-eye" which became quickly one of his most prominent features. Graf seemingly died in the Black Lightning Disaster, but, as it was later found out, his body survived the explosions unscathed and was dumped together with the ruins of Euterpe in Northern Algol. There, it was repaired and reactivated by the hermit who names himself "Silman Simmerik", and been given a new reason to exist. Graf has little to no memory of his time as Shabeel, despite remembering his former name. He can't recognize Sambiong and seems to have developed an own personality, based on his exposure to old sci-fi movies like "Blade Runner". It is debatable whether Graf is still a biological being or not, but his own sense of self and desire to live could place more than a few doubts in the mind of an external observer.
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