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Plan 9-tan Character information Common name Plan 9-tan Also known as Plan 9 from Bell Labs Human name(s) Glenda Bell First appearance Mar 2007 Height 160 cm (5'3") Hair color White Eye color Light grey Weapon(s) Necromancy, zombie minions Faction User Space Gang Lineage Bell Labs research Unix Technical information System personified Plan 9 Developer(s) Bell Labs Debut circa 1993 Latest release unknown

Technical details

Bell Labs created Plan 9 to be a successor of Unix and to take the Unix idea of simplicity even further. Everything can be accessed as files: network connections and resources, processes, devices, files. The name of the OS is named after the movie Plan 9 from Outer Space.

Character details

Physical

Plan 9-tan is fairly short like many of the Unices. She is only slightly taller than UNIX, being her direct descendant. She has pale skin, pale eyes and white hair, with white rabbit ears. Her rabbit ears and white hair are references to Plan 9's mascot, Glenda. She wears horn-rimmed or square glasses, and has her hair is short, usually styled as a chin-length bob cut with short bangs.

Her main outfit is a grey and white, stylized space suits. She has also been portrayed in formal dress, wearing a low-cut gown modeled after Vampira's of Plan 9 from Outer Space.

She retains some resemblance to her mother, but did not always have white hair. In her youth, she used to have medium-length black, or dark-grey hair, and wore business-like clothing. She originally modeled herself after UNIX, wanting to be just like her but more in order to show herself as a worthy heir. After defecting, and after the Unix Wars, she changed to her current appearance.

Personality

Plan 9-tan is eccentric and weirds out nearly every OS-tan she meets at first. She is strong-willed and likes well-planned, elegant solutions, but not necessarily elegant aesthetics. To most other OS-tans, she has no sense for aesthetics, referencing Plan 9's unelegant GUI. She has the charisma and organizational skills needed to unite her relatives who defected from the Unix Wars, and organize the User Space Gang. Outside the User Space Gang though, other OS-tans describe her as 'alien', or 'just plain weird'. She is outgoing, but socially awkward; her eccentricities reinforced by her comrades being eccentrics themselves. She has several geeky interests, and is fond of old B-movies.

Powers

Her special ability is that she is a necromancer. She can temporarily bring deceased OS-tans and hardware-tans from the dead. However, she can only bring them back as mindless, zombie-like minions that will die off again after a short while.

Family and relationships

UNIX

She is one of UNIX's daughters, created to be "more UNIX than UNIX", so she was born to be the heir to the dynasty.

Her attitude towards UNIX in the present day is ambivalent. She doesn't want to fight her, and deep down she wants to see UNIX as her mother again, and not an enemy. She still condemns her mother's actions in the Unix Wars, but is upset at the thought of hating her instead of just her actions, or what she became at that point. She still leads the User Space Gang, in part because it's fun for her, and her friends, but also in protest of UNIX's (and the main branch's) hardlined stuffy attitudes, and commercialism.

Inferno

She is very protective of Inferno-tan, her daughter who she nominated as the heiress to her own faction. Plan 9-tan would like to expand into the User Space Dynasty, but feels bad about indoctrinating Inferno into hating UNIX.

Plan B and Octopus

Plan B-tan is Plan 9's first clone, who she created to help her manage the User Space Gang. She is sort of a second-in-command, whose main duty is to write down everything Plan 9-tan says, and use the written notes to teach Inferno-tan. She and Octopus are technically Plan 9-tan's younger sisters, though Plan 9-tan sees her as more of a sister figure, and Octopus as more of a daughter (or grand-daughter?) figure.

Multics

It's unknown if Plan 9 actually met Multics, and she doesn't know that Multics is her grandmother. A lot of people think it was her who brought Multics from the dead. However, it couldn't have been her since Multics is completely alive, and has her free will intact.

Linux

History and Background

Plan 9-tan was born in the mid 1980's, and is UNIX's most direct descendant. She originally wasn't the heir of the Unix Dynasty, and wasn't intended to be; her creation was experimental. When the Unix Wars erupted in the late 1980's, and with Solaris-tan (then the heir-apparent) playing a pivotal role in sparking the War, UNIX appointed Plan 9-tan. Most of the Unices considered her an unsuitable heir, and was not taken seriously by them.

At first, she was overjoyed to become UNIX's heir, wanted to be just like her, and eager to take up her responsibilities at first. As the Wars went on, she disagreed more and more with UNIX's actions. For a while, she complied, but what finally set her off was when she reported Xenix's death in the war to UNIX, and was appalled by UNIX's apparent indifference. Plan 9-tan refused to accept UNIX's social darwinist attitude towards her own family.

She no longer wanted to be UNIX's heir if it meant going against her own ideals, conforming to the things she hates, and having to harm her family further. Plan 9-tan left. While on her own as a drifter, she met Linux-tan, also a drifter, and they became friends. They parted ways, with Linux-tan negotiating with the Unix Family, and Plan 9-tan recruiting the other Unix-tans who defected from the Unix Wars. Circa 1993 or 1994, she initially recruited FreeBSD-tan, OpenBSD-tan and NetBSD-tan, and they created the User Space Gang.

She now also has a daughter ( Inferno-tan), a clone ( Plan B-tan) and a granddaughter/clone ( Octopus-tan).

Theories and notes

Plan 9-tan's faction name, her faction living in a spaceship, and her necromancy are references to Plan 9 from Outer Space. Another theory is that she is a fan of Touhou, referencing some people nominating Cirno (who has the nickname of 'Nine-ball' by the Touhou fandom) as an alternate Plan 9 mascot.

See also: