Shiraui Tsumugi

CANON HISTORY: http://sidonia-no-kishi.wikia.com/wiki/Tsumugi_Shiraui
CANON PERSONALITY: Tsumugi is a sweet-natured, polite individual with the personality of a slightly shy and naïve young human woman. She loves cute animals and exploring the Cydonia, though her main body must spend most of its time in a storage hangar so that she does not disturb the residents of the ship. She greatly enjoys reading and seems especially interested in learning about various types of fungi.

Tsumugi openly admits to being afraid in battle (at least during her first engagement), but possesses a powerful sense of duty when it comes to protecting the Cydonia and the people who call it home, referring to the latter as her “family”. To this end, she willingly enters battle after battle with the gauna to protect her home, persisting even when near death.

Tsumugi seems especially taken with the Cydonia’s ace pilot, Tanikaze Nagate, with whom she works with closely during battles (as he and his Tsugumori are the only ones who can rival her in strength and speed). She especially seems to enjoy indulging in space flights with Nagate.

After her initial introduction to the pilots, Tsumugi is quickly invited to live with Nagate and their mutual friend, Shinatose Izana, in a residence near her storage hangar. Though this mostly consists of being present via representative tentacle (see powers), Tsumugi happily accepts, and delights in participating in ordinary household life (baths, sitting under heated blankets, looking at cat pictures).

Tsumugi is well aware of her half-gauna origins, but rarely dwells on them or the implications of killing other gauna, sympathizing entirely with the humans. She is incredibly understanding when the residents of the Cydonia initially treat her with suspicion or even throw things at her, choosing instead to allow others to defend her cause. Her only real regret seems to be that she's too big to really interact with the people of the Cydonia, who live in densely populated urban centers that are not at all built to accommodate someone of her size.

While very intelligent for someone of her age, perceptive about the emotional states of others, and certainly well-meaning, Tsumugi can also be a little clumsy in how she tries to comfort those close to her. For example, when Nagate is upset about killing a gauna that looks like a deceased woman he once had a crush on, Tsumugi attempts to take on the woman’s appearance and urge him not to blame himself for her death. When Nagate shouts at her and tells her to "never do that again", however, she is immediately contrite and bursts into tears, attempting to apologize as soon as she sees him again.

Tsumugi’s main weakness is her own inexperience and stubborn insistence on defending the crew of the Cydonia, even to the point of risking her own life. Her concern for others can interfere with her battle effectiveness, as she is reluctant to leave her friends to face danger alone; moreover, her sheer size makes her difficult to control. She is not unreasonable, however, and can usually be talked down fairly easily by close friends like Nagate and Izana.
SKILLS/ABILITIES:Tsumugi is basically the biological version of a giant mecha, designed for combat against hordes of nasty space aliens. She is immensely strong, capable of lifting and carrying objects many times her size and even drilling her way right through giant battle cruisers. In terms of flight speed, she can outpace and outmaneuver most of the actual giant robots currently fielded by the Cydonia. She also possesses near-indestructable claws, a prehensile tail, an ability to sense the presence of other gauna, and a rifle-like beam weapon for medium to long-range use.

Tsumugi does not need to respire, sleep, or consume food, and can survive perfectly happily out in space. She can generate high-intensity light, which can be modulated to provide optimal conditions for plant photosynthesis.

Because she was created using gauna DNA, Tsumugi shares many guana characteristics. She consists of:

• Her “true body”, an inner core the size of a large stone that can only be destroyed with a mysterious substance called kabi. The humans of the Cydonia eventually learn to manufacture this substance using the bodies of chimeras like Tsumugi, which is the only known source of the material. Destroying Tsumugi’s true body is the only way to permanently kill her.
• A “placenta”, made up of highly mutagenic, regenerative, and resilient material that is biological in appearance. Tsumugi’s placenta acts as a protective shield for her true body, and makes up the vast majority of her total body mass. Unlike her core, it can be damaged by conventional weaponry, but rapidly regenerates – particularly in space, where the particles she uses as a power source are abundant.

Tsumugi often explores the world using one of her tentacles, which she can modifies in shape and size to accommodate pipes and crawlspaces around the Cydonia. Her tentacle can see, speak, eat, and even mimic human form for a period of time.

Though Tsumugi is perfectly capable of acting autonomously, she can also be piloted by human means, much like an actual mecha. The method with which her control system works is not well expounded on, though the man who designed her claims that psychokinesis is involved.

Tsumugi naturally collects and stores Higgs Boson particles (as they exist in her canon, which do not seem to have much in common with real-life Higgs Bosons and are probably best treated as particles that can be found anywhere but are concentrated in space and around stars), which serve as a source of power and a means for regenerating her body.

Because most of her body is made up of mutagenic placenta material, she can also do things like engulf a person in a part of her body and draw them up into her control system cockpit.

Weaknesses: Tsumugi can be killed (mostly) using forceful application of a substance called kabi to her inner core, providing that her core has been exposed to attack. She can also be temporarily incapacitated by stripping away the placenta that makes up the rest of her body, though she will eventually regenerate herself as long as her true body is unharmed.

Theoretically, depriving her of access to Higgs Boson particles would prevent Tsumugi from regenerating her placenta at all, allowing her to be kept in a permanent state of stasis.

Toward the end of the series, Tsumugi is almost entirely incinerated, but leaves behind tiny worm-like fragments of herself. Though presumably she would have died in this state, scientists revive her by implanting these fragments in a new human-shaped body made up of Gauna-generated placental material. She is able to merge with this body with her memories and personality intact, though thereafter she loses the ability to regenerate her old giant space creature body and thus is more ore less human from that point on.