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Nossy is a nickname given to it by Zyx, it doesn't actually have a "real" name (and is fine with that). It just goes by the name of what it used to be... NOS, short for "nonlinear operating system", an AI for managing spaceships (or more like a singular spaceship) with focus on navigation since that's one of the biggest parts of the whole spaceship deal. Think like a very fancy autopilot in the way people assume plane autopilots work (when they don't). The "nonlinear" part meaning that it could make dynamic decisions when it was only a program.

It was used as a prototype operating system on a - for its time - fancy prototype ship. Problem is that that ship got fucked and some way or another ended up in the fractures, big deep space junkyards that accumulate anything discarded and that only get visited by people who are desperate enough. Once something ends up there it usually doesn't get back out, so ever since then the ship's been stuck in the fractures, likely for thousands of years.

The fractures are chaotic, full of things of questionable origin and unchecked energy sources and prone to anomalies. So at some point the NOS is no longer the NOS, it becomes something else, slowly gaining a sort of consciousness and even a sort of body in the loosest sense, a wavering fog that's barely visible due to how large it is. The "fog" is white but refracts into all colors of the rainbow. But it can't leave since it can't move and is really just data stored partly in its old circuits, partly in this spectre-like body, barely kept in that semi-conscious state by the unreliable, changing voltage coursing through.

At some point Zyx ends up in the fractures while on the run from people out to get them, passing through the fog that is the NOS' body. It takes this opportunity to escape its boring existence, hijacking their ship. Basically uploading itself into it through electrical currents moving through its body, taking over everything without Zyx noticing. At first it just does what it's told due to being unaccustomed to anything that's not its own "body" but it slips up, which Zyx chalks up to regular fuckups since their ship is a malfunctioning old tincan. It gets a bit hard to ignore though when the ship starts talking in unfamiliar ways, then starts talking back, and the two end up as sort of involuntary roommates. The involuntary part changes pretty soon, not that either of them would admit that.

All this eventually leads to Zyx somehow giving Nos part of its body for Nos to "latch on" to as a malleable base structure. This is why some parts of Nos are black (like the eyes, the stripes maybe being some sort of lateral line organ).

Why does it look the way it does? It's pretty. It can look like whatever it wants to look like. But it IS pretty humanoid in an unconscious effort to look like what it's used to from its programming and memories (more like data logs). Means humans did exist but they're all long dead. That it looks like this actually alienates it (ha) from other alien species that all look very much not humanoid. (Was thinking Zyx could have a similar deal with a different backstory but different topic and am not in position to just decide that lol.) When referring to clothes - those are made for compression, basically to make it easier to hold its body together and in shape. Without those it gets harder to maintain form and it usually gets less...defined. The mask is for regulation, a sort of small computer for connecting with its body (ship) over longer distances. Though all this is only acquired later, in the beginning it's "naked".

Nossy's main motivation from the get-go is always to have peace and quiet, being very driven by easing discomfort. In the beginning it really isn't a fan of being stuck with Zyx, this changes, but it always feels a form of distress being away from its proper body/ship (the Anthelion). It doesn't even consider something like a more "traditional" body because it doesn't seem possible and it has no desire for it, but it proves to be useful. It does get the Anthelion back at some point but under very different circumstances.

Same time obviously makes things more accessible but just don't have energy to do the type of extensive and good articulation alt text that would capture the art correctly. And know that is worth it to do if even just one person gets access to it because am also really happy reading alt text and it helps. But same time posting already so much energy so putting in extra when most people DON'T read it also feels like energy could use for something else...

This would be nice to do but honestly don't have any idea how to draw that since the thought was that the initial thing happens over video chat or the like...