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» CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character NAME: Sergeant Tamora Jean Calhoun
Canon & MEDIUM: Wreck-It Ralph. Or, more specifically, Hero's Duty, a HALO/Call of Duty homage-style game from the movie. CANONCEPTION.
Canon PULL-POINT: Post-movie, after marrying Fix-It Felix Jr.
Character AGE: Unconfirmed; operating under the assumption that the space marines are a division of the USMC, Tamora would have to have been at least 18 years old at the time of enrollment. It usually takes 6-8 years to make sergeant, and given the general gusto with which she seems to approach her duties, I believe she could easily have hit that rank in six years, putting her at 24.
Character ABILITIES:
Despite gratuitous amounts of badass, Tamora is human, from earth, with no actual superpowers whatsoever. She has undergone intense military training, but there is no indication the soldiers in Hero's Duty are genetically enhanced or infused with Mako or anything crazy like that. All the same, Tamora has demonstrated the following noteworthy skills:

• extraordinary reflexes
• an exceptional sense of hearing
• cagey resourcefulness
• a pilot's license of some manner; she flies a small personal aircraft
• precise aim and an aptitude for many types of firearms
• the ability to draw completely ridiculous and often mostly irrelevant metaphor
• balls of steel

Character HISTORY:
The wiki articles about this movie are sadly lacking in thorough (or even terribly correct) information, so here, have some teal.

Nothing is stated in canon about Tamora's childhood, however she was "programmed with the most tragic backstory ever". Movie canon is expanded on in a 22-page comic that gives us a little more info about the history of the Hero's Duty world, so that's as good a place to start as any.

Once upon a time, there was a man named Brad Scott who worked for a high-end toy company. Brad was a brilliant programmer and developed an AI that would essentially allow for a child's toy to grow and evolve with them, creating something that the child would never tire of. Of course, corrupt executives saw a very different opportunity: the program could also be used as a weapon. Imagine! A weapon that could evolve and adapt to its enemies! It was the discovery of a lifetime, and Brad was forced to join a team of scientists on a planet far from earth, where the sentient artificially intelligent weapons would be manufactured. Brad tried in vain to stop the project, but they would have none of it: this undertaking was going to make them a fortune, and no amount of protest would dissuade them from developing the ultimate weapon. Thus the first Cy-Bug was created.

Unfortunately, they underestimated the power and adaptability of the program, and the Cy-Bug escaped. Consuming the evolving algorithm and fleeing into the wastelands of the abandoned planet, the Cy-Bug multiplied like a virus, creating an invincible army. The scientists fled, leaving the civilians behind to face the consequences of their mistake. Brad stayed of his own volition, knowing he had to rectify it. As the creator of the algorithm that drove the Cy-Bugs, Brad knew it was his responsibility to protect the remaining civilians and put a stop to the monstrous creatures his program had wrought.

For six months he managed to survive in that tower, until a ship of space marines landed on the planet. Leading the rescue mission was Sergeant Tamora Jean Calhoun. Unprepared for the true power and invincibility of the Cy-Bugs, the team was nearly lost. Their bullets did nothing to penetrate the Cy-Bug exoskeletons, and to their horror, the monsters took on the properties of any weapon they consumed. Upon finding Brad and learning more about the Cy-Bugs, the situation began to look hopeless. Thankfully Brad had used his time wisely and developed a series of multi-mode rifles that were as adaptable as the Cy-Bugs themselves. When he informed the team that a light beacon was the only way to destroy the Cy-Bugs, Tamora knew that she and her men were going to have to provide a distraction long enough for Brad to get to the top of the tower and activate it.

They managed to hold off the Cy-Bug swarm until the beacon shot into the sky, attracting the monsters like an enormous bug-zapper. They had won the battle, but unfortunately the beacon didn't last long, and the Cy-Bug colony was unfathomably huge. It was only a matter of time before the next wave, but it was enough time to get the civilians to safety. After ascertaining that the remaining civilians had launched for earth, Tamora turned to her troops and informed them that they wouldn't be following them. If even one of the Cy-Bugs managed to make it to earth it would be disastrous. Thus their rescue mission became greater and more important than any of them had ever expected: they were earth's last line of defense against a Cy-Bug invasion, and they were not leaving that planet until every last one of them had been destroyed.

That isn't to say that the best cannot be made of bad circumstances. Brad and Tamora fell for one another quickly. He was enamored by her take-charge attitude and fearless nature--she was one dynamite gal, that was for sure. She in turn was drawn to his loyalty, his adherence to his duty, and... well, let's face it, he wasn't too shabby to look at, either. It was a whirlwind romance that got Tamora a ring on her finger (though one has to wonder where he got it, given that they're on an abandoned planet), and a grand wedding was planned (but where'd she get the dress? Now I'm convinced that there's a jeweler and a top-notch tailor among her troops. I try not to think about it too much or I get a headache). Tragically, that's where the marines' luck ran out. Caught up in the festivities of the wedding, Tamora forgot her most important responsibility: the perimeter check. As they were about to complete their vows and officially become husband and wife, a massive Cy-Bug crashed through the window of the chapel (presumably built on the marine base on this abandoned planet with the intent of honoring their fallen) and devoured Brad right before her eyes.

Without hesitation, Tamora opened fire on the Cy-Bug before it could fully take on her fiance's shape, but the damage was done. Tamora was never the same after Brad's death. She had always been stern and a bit on the all-work-and-no-play side, but after Brad was killed she seemed to lose all sense of levity. It had been a harsh lesson, that all it takes is one moment of carelessness to spell disaster, but Tamora wasn't going to make the same mistake twice. She would not have anyone else's blood on her hands, and made it her top priority to ascertain the safety of every single person in her charge, no matter what.

And that's essentially where a player entered Hero's Duty. As a rookie on Tamora's team, a player at Flitwick's arcade would enter this FPS-world with one mission: clear a path to the tower, climb to the top, and activate the beacon to destroy the attacking swarm. Though Tamora and the marines were self-aware and knew that they were programmed characters in a game, the Cy-Bugs were not: essentially viruses in the game engine itself, the Cy-Bugs knew nothing but eat, kill, multiply, making them a very real threat even inside the game. Unlike Ralph and the other villain characters, most of whom seemed to be fairly reasonable people outside of their day jobs, the Cy-Bugs were uniquely dangerous in that they were not programmed to be good or bad, they were simply programmed to swarm and consume, like locusts. That meant that unlike many of the more carefree good guys from the other games, Tamora and her men had to remain vigilant at all times, even after business hours, to make certain that none of the Cy-Bugs were allowed to escape Hero's Duty and infect any of the other games.

Of course that's precisely what wound up happening, though. After completing a mostly-bungled round of the game (thanks to a rookie messing with the FPS), Tamora and her men made sure the last of the Cy-Bugs were drawn to the beacon and then made to head back to base to wait for the next player. When a strange noise met them on the ramp they all went on the offensive, thinking a Cy-Bug had escaped the beacon, only to discover it was a visitor from another game: Fix-It Felix Jr, from the game by the same name. Felix was instantly awestruck by Tamora's high-definition graphics and made no secret of his crush. Tamora wasn't terribly impressed. Demanding to know what he was doing there, she quickly dismissed Felix's claim that someone from his game had entered hers, insisting that nothing got by her. Unfortunately, Tamora had blown the perimeter check again. Hell-bent on retrieving the medal at the top of the tower, Ralph had snuck into the game wearing one of her marines' armor (and was actually the rookie who bungled the last round for them), and unwittingly set off a chain reaction that awakened an unexpected swarm of Cy-Bugs. Unfamiliar with the mechanics of the high-definition modern game engine, Ralph activated an escape pod and tumbled inside with a larval Cy-Bug. To the marines' alarm, the pod rocketed out the exit and into Game Central Station (the local power strip all of the games were plugged into), taking Ralph and the Cy-Bug with it.

Hurrying after the escape pod, Tamora and the others learned from the Surge Protector that the pod appeared to have gone into a neighboring game called Sugar Rush. Concerned that the Cy-Bug would multiply and consume the whole game, Tamora quickly took it upon herself to go after it. She was surprised when Felix insisted on accompanying her, explaining that it was his responsibility to fix what Ralph wrecked, even outside of the parameters of his game. Though she was initially reluctant, knowing there was a very real danger and that dying outside of one's home game meant they wouldn't be able to respawn, she was taken by Felix's steadfastness and his will to uphold his duties and deigned to let him join her.

They followed the path of wreckage in the escape pod's wake, only to find it empty. With her hand-held sensor mostly jammed from the sugar particles in the air, Tamora decided that searching blind was better than not searching at all, and she and Felix set off to try and track down the missing Ralph and Cy-Bug. As they made their way through the candy-cane forests, Tamora asked Felix for some intel, wanting to know why in the world Ralph would have ventured into her game the way he did. Felix voiced concern for Ralph, inasmuch as he hoped that he wasn't 'going Turbo'. Confused by the turn of phrase, Tamora inquired further, and Felix explained that many years ago there was a game called Turbo Time, and the titular main character was the greatest racer of all. When a newer racing game was installed and stole the gamers' attention away from Turbo, however, he became enraged, abandoned his game, and attempted to invade the other one. This only resulted in both games being put out of order and removed from the arcade, thus the term 'going Turbo' was coined to describe when a character forsook and endangered their game and others' for selfish purposes.

Before she had the chance to really reassure Felix that they would find Ralph and the Cy-Bug before that happened, the two of them found themselves dropped into a pit of Nesquiksand. Unaccustomed to any real significant danger like that, Felix began to panic, and Tamora had no choice but to slap some sense into him. Literally. As it turned out, the only way to escape the Nesquiksand was to amuse the hanging Laffy Taffies into lowering themselves into the pit. Discovering that they were apparently sadists who got their kicks watching people get beat up, Felix insisted that Tamora strike him again. She was reluctant until he assured her that all it took was a knock from his hammer to fix the damage, and after a dozen punches to the face, Felix was able to grab the nearest Taffy and pull the two of them to safety. Tamora found herself momentarily awed by Felix's heroism even in the face of pain and injury, but quickly pushed such foolish sentiments aside. Back to business--they had a runaway and a Cy-Bug to find.

Deciding they'd get a better view from the air, Tamora asked Felix to fix the shuttle Ralph wrecked, and they and took off, headed toward the raceway. During the ride, Tamora was a little unnerved by Felix's proximity and the unsettling pink tinge to his face. He assured her it was just 'the honeyglows', and though she was pretty sure she had no idea what that word was, she was just as pretty sure she didn't want to. That was when Felix called her a 'dynamite gal'. Tamora hadn't heard those words since the day Brad had been killed, and the simple, innocent uttering set off a trauma-induced panic attack, nearly causing her to wreck the cruiser. Screeching to a stop, Tamora ordered Felix to get out, shaken and nearly driven to tears by the triggering memories.

After parting ways, Tamora continued her search for the wayward Cy-Bug, only to stumble into a massive subterranean nest, filled with eggs and Cy-Bugs of all stages of development. Tamora took her cruiser and headed for the raceway, but not before the invasion began. Cy-Bugs overran the track and started consuming everything in their path. Reuniting with Felix and meeting Ralph and Vanellope in the chaos, Tamora urged them to get the denizens of Sugar Rush to the exit quickly while she tried to thin the swarm. Once everyone had been ushered to the exit, Tamora and Felix joined Ralph and Vanellope on the bridge. The only way to keep the Cy-Bugs from invading the rest of the arcade was to destroy them here, in Sugar Rush, and that meant removing their escape route. Felix was saddened by the idea that the game would die this way, and it became clear that as a glitched file Vanellope truly could not leave the game, but Tamora was unwavering: without a beacon, there was no way to destroy the swarm, and the Cy-Bugs could not be permitted to escape.

Surprised when Ralph hopped onto her cruiser (first the shuttle pod and now the cruiser? Sheesh, just ask next time), she watched him hurry off toward Diet Cola mountain, though she had no time to ponder his plan. Shouting for Felix and Vanellope to get behind her, she attempted to thin the advancing Cy-Bug swarm. She would hold them off as long as she could, would postpone destroying the exit as long as possible, but if it came down to it, she knew she would have to close that exit and trap Vanellope and Ralph inside. It was a hard decision to have to make, but she was the commanding officer, and she would accept this weight on her shoulders if it meant keeping the rest of the games safe.

The three of them watched in horror as one of the Cy-Bugs attacked Ralph atop the mountain. It turned out it was none other than Turbo! He had been hiding in Sugar Rush, disguised as their king, but everything got a hundred times worse when he was consumed by a Cy-Bug on the track. Tamora had only ever seen one other living creature consumed by a Cy-Bug, but she had destroyed it before it could take on Brad's face. Looking at the monstrosity that was King Candy--er, Turbo--melded with the Cy-Bug was enough to make her gorge rise, even from a distance.

Holding Ralph high in the air over the mountaintop, Turbo gleefully laughed that they would watch Vanellope die together. As the Cy-Bugs drew closer to the exit, Ralph broke free of Turbo-Bug's hold and plummeted down toward the mentos that capped the mountain, knocking them loose and sending them plunging into the boiling hot spring of diet cola below. Vanellope was able to glitch her way to his side in time to save him from a fiery death inside the mountain, and as Tamora and Felix watched from the bridge, there was a great eruption of boiling soda, bright and hot against the sky: a beacon.

Inevitably drawn to the light, the Cy-Bugs swarmed toward the mountain, one by one flying into the boiling liquid to die. Among them was Turbo, who was too much bug now to avoid his fate, but just human enough to be afraid and horrified as he watched it coming. From the bridge, Felix and Tamora watched with relief as the bugs disappeared into the light, and Tamora was caught completely off-guard as Felix hopped up beside her and planted a kiss on her cheek.

Well, that did it. Nobody that dense, that dorky, that retro, that... brave, that dependable, and that tenacious... was going to get away with kissing her! Snapping him up by the front of his shirt, Tamora hiked Felix into the air...

... and kissed the hell out of him.

She'd never met anybody quite like Fix-It Felix Jr., and even though her heart was still broken and she really wasn't sure she was ready for this sort of thing, you only lived once, right? Even a programmed life wasn't infinite, and maybe it was time to see if Felix was good at more than just fixing windows and spaceships.

The threat of the Cy-Bugs nullified, Felix quickly set to repairing the finish line of the race so that Vanellope could cross it in her car, thus resetting the whole game and undoing all of Turbo's reprogramming. As it turned out, Vanellope was actually the princess of Sugar Rush. Her first royal decree was that everyone who had ever been mean to her was to be executed, and Tamora decided maybe this place wasn't so dull after all. Of course Vanellope was kidding, and then proceeded to precociously rewrite the entire governmental standing of the game. Because she's nine and knows more about how politics work than most American politicians, apparently. Who knew?

They all clambered into the shuttle to head back to their respective games, and lo and behold it looked like everything was going to turn out all right in the end. Felix helped Ralph set up a whole neighborhood of apartments in Niceland for the homeless characters whose games had been unplugged, and... well, then he went and got himself married to Tamora. (They made sure to do the perimeter check extra thoroughly that day.) The credits indicate that Tamora joins the group on their gamehopping shenanigans from that point on.


Character PERSONALITY:
At first glance, Sergeant Calhoun seems like a strict and stern hardass with an overblown sense of duty and an acute deficit of compassion. She takes no crap, suffers no fools, brooks no arguments, and tolerates no disobedience in her ranks; lord help you if you screw something up, she'll make you drop and give her forty. Thousand. Despite being the only woman in the ranks and much smaller in stature than all of her troops, Tamora throws her shoulders back and walks around like she owns the place--and she does own the place. If her men blow it, she lets them know it, with verbal lashings and sometimes even physical ones; she's been known to knock a few heads if she gets in a right mood, and failure is addressed with the harshest of possible glowers and the deepest of possible disappointment. Really, if looks could kill, Tamora's scowl would have probably done more damage to her numbers than the Cy-Bugs. She's efficient to a fault and severe almost to the point of mean, facing her job with a demeanor that rivals that of any boot camp drill sergeant. She is as feared by the rookies as she is revered by the veterans, and that's just fine with her.

What it might take a bit of a closer look to notice is that despite the rough edges and coarse language (well, in Disney terms, anyway), Tamora's not quite as uncompromising or callous as she builds herself up to be. Her bite may be just as nasty as her bark, but she really only uses her teeth when given no other choice. She's quick to throw out a string of insults and cuff an unruly soldier upside the head, but though her hand may be firm it is never lowered cruelly, at least not over her troops. She's always been more work than play, but after Brad's death she was forced to swallow a bitter pill: a lack of vigilance, however brief and no matter the occasion, can be deadly all in an instant. Tamora's unyielding severity isn't out of meanness, she simply takes her job very seriously, because she knows that if she doesn't, people get hurt. Though the marines are on the alien planet infested with Cy-Bugs of their own volition, all they have is each other, and losing even a single careless rookie could be a devastating blow to the marines' efforts. More than that, Tamora isn't just in charge of these troops, she's responsible for them. Every man that doesn't go home is like a nail in the coffin of her own conscience, because she knows how it feels to lose a loved one and wouldn't wish that sort of pain on anyone.

It's a constant struggle within her, to balance her duty and her conscience. She's always pushing her limits, taking another step when her body insists it can't and making the tough calls so others don't have to. When Ralph escaped from Hero's Duty with Cy-Bug on board, Tamora didn't even hesitate or ask for volunteers, she simply took it upon herself to go and retrieve the delinquent villain and stolen bug. She wasn't going to put that responsibility on anyone else's head, especially knowing death outside of one's own game meant it was permanent. That said, she's far from unreasonable: despite her initial reluctance to allow Felix to join her on this most important of impromptu missions, Tamora acquiesced in the face of his insistence, if only because it seemed his desire to adhere to his perceived duty matched her own.

While no one would really call Tamora sweet, nurturing, or even particularly nice, she is not without empathy or kindness. Her softer side, while a bit underutilized, is most definitely present, she's just really good at hiding it. When she and Felix were trapped in the Nesquiksand and she struck him in an attempt to get him to calm down, she actually grimaced in sympathy and contrition when she realized the blow left him with a shiner. She was quick to urge Felix to get behind her when the Cy-Bugs advanced toward the exit of Sugar Rush, and even went so far as to take Vanellope's hand to try and pull the girl to safety. She errs on the protective and tutelary side of the spectrum far more than the gentle and affectionate side, but her devotion to the people she cares about and feels responsible for is nothing short of laudable all the same. It's easier to be the tough girl who never lets anything get to her than to admit she feels fear or pain or grief, and while she would never dream of admitting it, the fact of the matter is that caring about people is a scary place to be, and the thought of losing her troops--or worse, her friends--may in fact be the one thing the sergeant is honestly afraid of.

Her overall congeniality stats are certainly a bit on the low side, anyone would agree, but on top of that she pretty much has absolutely no sense of humor that she is aware of. Her grasp of levity is so dry it makes the Sahara look lush, and mostly she's only funny by accident. She has a very distinctive sort of vernacular, often drawing extremely obtuse or even irrelevant metaphor and even if she gets the joke made in her direction, chances are a wry are-you-kidding-me look is about the closest you'll get to a laugh. Smiles are rare on her face and mirth is sparse in her tone, but this again is mostly a defense mechanism. It isn't that Tamora lacks any whimsy whatsoever, but pleasantries and general merriment are so low on her list of priorities that she just doesn't bother to expend the time or energy to allow for them. She has more important things to do than laugh at your clever witticisms.

That said, it's pretty clear she's a romantic at heart, even if she does a really good job at denying it. When Felix managed to grab a hold of the nearest Laffy Taffy to pull them from the Nesquiksand, there was a look of such awe and wonder in her eyes that one might have guessed she was starstruck by his chivalry. She quickly shot down the Laffy Taffy shippers on deck, though--literally--and it was back to business as usual. When Felix finally took the initiative and kissed her on the cheek, she looked completely shocked for a moment, but finally embraced the idea that maybe she was capable of having feelings for someone again after all, and clearly spared no expense on the idea of a fancy (second) wedding. The Cinderella gown and the flowers in her hair... maybe there's a bit of girlishness in her after all. Even in the movie credits, after putting up a Cy-Bug warning poster, she and Felix shared a quiet romantic moment just gazing into each other's eyes. Let it never be said that Tamora Calhoun is incapable of love or warmth... she'll give you a black eye. She simply knows that as much as love can be a source of great strength, so too can it be one's greatest weakness, and it takes a lot to really get her to open her heart to someone. Genuine fondness is doled out in very small doses, and is only demonstrated plainly when no one else is really watching. A lot of Tamora's more sentimental gestures are between the lines: compliments are rationed very strictly, and public displays of affection even moreso, but a fond punch in the shoulder or a surreptitious nod of acknowledgment and you know you done good. If she's bruising you it's because she cares, and if she's calling you an idiot, well, that's kind of a term of endearment, coming from her.

Ultimately, despite an austere face and an implacable presentation, Tamora isn't the tower of untouchable hardheartedness she puts forward. Her foundations were badly cracked when Brad was killed, and it drove her to close up all those vulnerabilities and wall off her heart to avoid being hurt like that again, and since learning the truth it appears that her troops only respected her more for it. Tamora is loath to show weakness, but quick to demonstrate a selfless and immeasurable sort of courage that draws people to her: she takes responsibility no matter the situation or who is truly at fault, and never hesitates to do what's right, even if it's not easy. To say she is fearless would be inaccurate, and her comrades and companions know she's not nearly so infallible as she would like them to think; it's because of her grit, guts, her resolution and fortitude, that they will always fall in line. Though they might not say it in as many words, Tamora's troops would gladly follow her to hell and back, if only because they know she would break herself in half to make sure they all made it home alive.


» EXSILIUM INFORMATION
Chosen WEAPON:
Tamora's weapon of choice is always a gun--it's really all we ever see her use, though logically as a marine she would have also been trained in the use of grenades and some bladed weaponry as well (she pulls a knife when she and Felix and Vanellope are cornered by the Cy-Bugs at the exit from Sugar Rush). Typically rifles are the standard weapon of the Marine Corps anyway, and I guess marines in space are really no exception. The rifle Tamora carries in the movie is a multi-mode rifle that was actually invented by her late husband and has an adaptability algorithm that allows it to actually change and evolve to suit the target, thus making it kind of an excellent candidate for further personalization, I think.

As for how it would adapt, I feel like really about the only way a gun can evolve is to change in size or the projectiles, and since changing in size would be kind of cumbersome, perhaps the best way for this evolution to be accomplished would be through the ammunition. The multi-mode rifles appear to shoot a concentrated beam of energy rather than actual bullets, actually making it a little easier to implement this evolutionary process. Logically the rifles must have some sort of sensor on them that can scan the target and change the type of stream fired accordingly. Perhaps as time goes on, this scanning capability will be able to do more than simply assess what sort of fire will do the greatest amount of physical damage to a target.

Tamora's more than a little dense when it comes to more subtle perceptiveness. She's a marine: doesn't do sensitive or emotionally perspicacious. She's great at assessing a situation and coming up with an airtight plan to keep everyone safe, but while she's very observant and has to be an excellent strategist, she doesn't necessarily seem too interested in what makes the people around her tick. She calls everyone by their last name, keeps everyone at arm's length because it's easier on her heart, and while I'm confident she took some time to get to know Felix before marrying him, I believe she probably doesn't even know her troops on a very personal level. She knows their combat strengths and weaknesses, the number of pullups they can do and how many times they've skipped out on latrine duty, but I'd be surprised if she knew their favorite colors or what sort of food they liked or whether or not they had a healthy relationship with their mother--basically anything that isn't on the dossier doesn't matter much to her, in my opinion, and that's something that I'd really like to see her work on.

Perhaps eventually the rifle could give a reading on more than just the external properties of a target. Theoretically the scanning capabilities of a gun would be limited to physical composition, but as Tamora learned to read and understand people the way she can read and understand the terrain around her or the details of a plan of attack, the gun could perhaps expand its capabilities to target the less immediately detectable physical aspects of an opponent, such as a weak joint, a topical allergy, or even a latent fear. (This is something I would of course provide a permissions post for and would never utilize without a partner's full cooperation and endorsement.)


Character INVENTORY:

• full-body armor
• whatever she's wearing under it (presumably something along these lines)
• personal cruiser (basically a big metal backpack that expands into a hoverboard about the size and shape of a snowboard)
• multi-mode rifle
• a smaller gun in a holster at her hip
• a combat knife (probably a standard-issue KA-BAR)
• scanner (sort of like a tricorder from Star Trek)
• more attitude than your body has room for