Post by zenwolf on Dec 9, 2007 15:50:03 GMT -6
Miles Coen -22 years old
For your character, define the following:
3+ Motivations—loves, hates, fears; specific or general; positive or negative
- (positive or negative)
- Wants to find some place where he can truly belong.
- (Positive or Negative)
- ?(Positive or Negative)
3+ Relationships—specific or general; individuals or groups; positive or negative (friends, family, rivals or enemies); may include other PCs, if that is a relationship that "defines" him; does not require a specific Trait, though it may be associated with one (Dependent, Ally, Enemy, etc.)
- (Dependent, Ally, Enemy, etc.)
- (Dependent, Ally, Enemy, etc.)
- ??(Dependent, Ally, Enemy, etc.)
3+ Downtime Activities—places to be found and/or things to be found doing when "off-duty"
- Playing chess.
- Reading books.
- Contemplating
3+ Scenes—positive or negative; specific or general; specific to the character, not the party (though it may involve the party); something the Player wants to see occur
1+ Past Defining Moment—positive or negative; any "distance" (could even pre-date the character, if it still "shapes" the character somehow)
- His time at the school.
- His time with the rebel group.
1+ Present Secret—positive or negative; does not need to be deep or dangerous, nor does it need to have a Disad associated with it; could be simple as "eats other people's lunch out of the fridge when nobody's looking" or "actually, really likes kids"
1+ Future Goal—does not need to be something the Player wants; does not need to actually be feasible, but does need to be something the character will work toward.
- Ultimately wants to overthrow the TFR government.
Fic
Miles David Conrad-14 years old
Psi training school, Granak IV
Miles’ heart was pounding and sweat dripped down into his eyes. They burned but he looked on, not daring to move to wipe his eyes. He had just escaped his cell minutes ago and now was sitting in a ventilation pipe overlooking his older sister’s room. He had hoped he would be able to break her out as well, but it was not going as he had planned. She was sitting at her desk with her back to him. One of the “instructors” was discussing a mission with her and handed her a folder. Miles always felt the term instructor was inapt. Prison warden seemed more appropriate.
“The chancellor is the target. We find his decisions to be more and more out of line with the party’s policies. We feel a simple closing of the aorta to mimic a stroke would be ideal but we will leave the final decision up to you Miss Conrad. Or should I say Agent Conrad.” The man said smiling slightly.
Miles couldn’t see her face, but from the way she sat up suddenly she was certainly surprised. “I made it?”
The instructor held up one finger. “Not yet. But if you do well in this your will have graduated.”
“Oh, thank you sir.”
Miles couldn’t listen to it anymore. Instinctively he started to cry, but he stopped himself. No mustn’t cry. They can sense emotion much easier. Put the betrayal and hurt out of your mind. The burning in his eyes worsened. He closed them tightly to assuage the pain.
“Oh this is wonderful,” he heard his sister say, “ I have to tell my broth—”
Miles opened his eyes and saw the instructor’s eyes looking directly at him. Miles didn’t give it a second though. He scurried through the tunnels faster than he imagined possible. Though the fear he was giving off made him easier to follow he didn’t care. He had to get out of there as soon as possible.
He found an opening in the vent that lead to a hall way. He kicked the grate open and jumped out onto the ground. He could sense a number of people moving towards him. He started running and struggled to wipe his burning eyes with his shirt. The footfalls of his pursuers were closing in on him. Alarms were ringing all around him and bright red lights flashed incessantly. Ahead of him a large blast door was beginning to close.
Miles took a deep breath and dove through it without stopping. He hit the ground on the other side with a loud thud. He stood up and felt a sharp pain explode around his ribs. The pain made him light headed, but he couldn’t stop now. He’d end up like Charlie if he stopped now.
He continued down the corridor. There were two passages ahead. He decided to take the one to the left. The second he decided that, he felt a horrible heave from his stomach and he almost threw up. He had had this type of nausea only a few times in his life and he had begun to trust them. The last time he hadn’t listened to it he had ended up here.
Miles turned right and felt immediately better. But when he turned the corner the door in front of him was closed. He ran over to the computer terminal beside the door holding his ribs tenderly. He hurriedly began punching the buttons on the keypad. He could feel his pursuers getting closer. He had to hurry.
His brain was moving swiftly through multiple calculations and algorithms trying to find the one that would get the door open. His fingers fumbled clumsily across the keypad as they tried, unsuccessfully, to keep up with his mind. The security was set up well. Multiple firewalls stood in the way of the core commands. His pursuers were only a few minutes away.
“Two down.” He said to himself, his voice shaking slightly.
Echoes of footfalls emanated from beyond the curve of the corridor. With the final firewall passed the door slid open. A rain of fire erupted from around the corner. For the briefest second he hoped they were using nonlethal rounds, but it wouldn’t matter, if he got caught it would be like a death anyway. What is life without freedom? A burst of pain from his left hand and the smell of burning flesh told him the rounds were lethal. He ducked into the corridor and attacked the keyboard. Each keystroke from his left hand sent waves of pain up his arm, but he had to get the door closed. Another round of fire burst forth through the doorway. But before they could fire another round, the doors had been closed.
“That should take them a while to open.” He said. He grimaced as he spoke, grateful for even a brief respite.
“Miles,” A voice said from the darkness. “You shouldn’t have tried to escape.”
He recognized the voice. He felt his rising blood pressure pressing against his temples. He turned around and saw his sister staring at him. She held a pistol in hand, though it hung loosely in her grip. For now at least, it appeared she was not intent on using it. “Hello, Eldest one,” he said, “You found me surprisingly well. Your slavers will be proud of you.”
Though her aura flared red in anger her facial features remained calm. “You are making a foolish mistake brother. Return to your room and perhaps they will forgive your transgression.”
Miles took a few steps towards his sister. The solid steel door behind her caught his eye immediately. That exit was his only chance. He must find a way through. Miles displayed his bleeding hand to his sister. “I have serious doubts about their capacity for forgiveness.”
She noticed him eying the door and gripped the pistol tighter. “Don’t come any closer!”
Miles held up his hands. “Listen, they lied to us. We aren’t here for the greater good of the galaxy. For the life of me I can’t even imagine what that would be. We were fools to believe it in the first place.”
“They didn’t lie. I can feel the changes we are making and they are for the greater good. I am disturbed that you can’t see that.”
“I see plenty. And what I see is horrifying. We are in a prison, sister. We must leave.”
She stared at him, still expressionless. “If it is a prison, it is one of your own making. You and I are not bound by walls.”
She was such a fool. No. Not a fool. She had just been broken by this place. “No walls it is true but the mind remains jailed. They force you into preconceived notions about everything. I am merely trying to break free of that.”
His sister flicked her free hand idly at him and exhaled in disgust. “You spout such rhetoric as if it mattered. You are a child. And, oh look;” she said looking at her watch, “it’s past your bedtime.”
He was getting nowhere fast and he was losing precious minutes. It wouldn’t be much longer before his pursuers arrived. He stepped forward even closer. He was just outside arms reach from her. He focused his mind on her emotions and began to shape them. It wouldn’t work without the proper seed. But Miles had just the thing. “What about mom and dad? Don’t you want to see them again?”
Her shoulders sank and tears rolled down her face. He had struck her deep. Her carefully built bravado was crumbling. She was like a paper doll with a gun taped to her hand. “I will see them soon enough. They promised to come see us. Remember?”
He felt a pang in his chest. It was uncomfortable seeing his sister fall apart like this, especially since he was the one who caused it. But she was hardly his sister anymore. This place had warped her. Gone was the sister that had lovingly sung him to sleep on stormy nights. Gone was the sister that had held his hand the day they had entered this place so many years ago. She was gone and her replacement would shoot him down in an instant if he gave her the chance. He concentrated on pushing her emotions even further to the extreme. “I remember, I was eight years old but I remember. They never showed up.”
She was sobbing uncontrollably now. Her aura flailed about wildly. She balled her hand into a fist and began beating the side of her head with it. “No! They are coming! They are coming! They are—”
Miles stepped forward and snatched the pistol from her hand.
She offered no resistance. She curled up in a ball on the floor repeating the same three words over and over again.
Feelings of joy passed quickly for Miles. His attempts to convince himself he didn’t care for this girl anymore were failing. He bent over her and held her fist from striking her head again.
The alarm suddenly shut off. His sister looked up directly at the door he had originally come through. “They are coming.” she whispered.
The door opened violently. Instructor Boyle stood in the doorway flanked by a number of guards. “Very impressive work, especially for a fourth rank. You may be of use to us after all. And to think we were going to ship you back to your parents.”
Miles sat frozen staring up at the old man. The man responsible for both the horror of the last six years and the corruption of his sister stood not five feet from him. Miles raised the pistol and pointed it at the slouched instructor. “Like you sent Charlie back to his parents?”
Instructor Boyle stepped forward into the chamber. The sound of his boots clanging against the cold metal floor reverberated across the small chamber. He pointed two fingers at Miles menacingly.
Miles head became racked with pain. His mouth tasted of metal and he felt warm liquid trickling from his nostrils. He was being deep scanned. It took all of his will to keep the pistol pointed at Boyle.
Through the haze of his vision he could see Boyle had a smirk on his face. “So you know all about Charlie. Such a wonderful friend wasn’t he. Too bad he was useless as a telepath. We can’t have stragglers at the school, Miles. They start to slow the others down.”
Miles burned with anger. He wanted nothing more than to put a bullet in Boyle’s brain. Yet he felt a force of resistance in his mind that held him back. Miles strained mentally against the attack, trying desperately to push it back. He focused his mind so intensely that the pistol lowered.
Boyle’s eyes widened and he was beginning to show signs of mental effort. “You have been holding back. Too bad, you could have learned so much more if you had let us know just how much you were progressing.”
Miles pushed harder and harder. He felt like his head was going to burst. His whole body sank to the ground. His face pressed hard against the cold metal floor. He yearned for relief from the pain. Death would be a welcome release. Yet suddenly through the pain, a thought emerged. He sent a message to his sister to distract Boyle. He could only pray that she would listen and would succeed. “I’ve learned enough,” Miles said with blood and spittle dripping from his mouth.
Miles couldn’t see what happened, but he heard Boyle say something like, “What in the worlds?” and Miles felt the grip on his mind lessening.
This was his only chance. He lifted his head, raised the pistol and fired twice.
The bullets both struck Boyle, one in the knee and the other in the stomach. He screamed in agony and fell to the ground.
Miles stared at the guards who were about to pull the trigger on their rifles. He stared intensely at them and focused his mind. They resisted at first. They had been trained well. But it required too much focus and they dropped their rifles. Bullets went flying when they hit the ground. Boyle cried out again. Miles concentrated harder and the guards turned around and started to walk away.
He looked at the old man bleeding on the ground. He was suffering. Good, thought Miles, and yet, it is still not enough.
Miles stood over the primary source of his suffering over the past 6 years and likely the man that had had Charlie killed. One little bullet to the brain and it would make everything better. He pointed the pistol at Boyle’s head
“Please,” the Boyle begged, “we were only trying to help you. We tried to teach you lessons that you would need later on.”
Boyle had a point. He had learned a lot here, but was that worth all the pain he and his sister had endured. “You're a good teacher. You've taught me a lot," Miles said and lowered the pistol.
"Thank you, boy. You won't regret it, Boyle said with a smile.
Miles smiled back and winked at Boyle. "But what kind of person would I be if I didn't teach you a lesson?"
He leaned down and pressed the pistol against Boyle's kneecap. Boyle tried to wriggle away but miles held his leg down and pulled the trigger.
Boyle's horrified screams filled the chamber. Boyle "You fool! We'll hunt you! Whereever you go! We will find you! We will kill you!"
Miles helped his sister up and opened the exit door. Without looking back he said, "It was worth it."
Additional Background
After he escapes from the school he and his sister get work on board a trading vessel. Miles makes friends with some of the crew including an old man with whom he would often play chess. On board there was also a young woman with whom Miles had strong feelings.
The crew got in a bad scrape with some thugs. They were about to be hurt badly when Miles used his telepathy to stop the thugs. This frightens some of the crew. But the captain allows them to stay on. Their next delivery is on a largely populated planet. Miles is uneasy because most of the runs have been to remote areas. They arrive and he is told by the old man to go get something for him while the main crew members make the trade. He goes off and when he comes back after getting what he was sent for he is attacked by a man with a knife. He tries to fight the guy off and succeeds but not before getting a nasty cut across his face from the middle of his nose to the end of his right cheek which eventually becomes a scar. He comes back and finds the ship blown up. Though he doesn't know for sure he is fairly sure one of the crew betrayed him for money and they are still at large.
He goes off again drifting from place to place. He will be 22 when h e meets the other PC's.
Adriana and Miles did have a long relationship though he never proposed. Miles met her briefly while travelling after Miles left AJ's employ. She was in the leadership for the resistance group. When everybody split, the leadership agreed to completely drop off the map. They could not have contact with each other. Miles has no way of getting in touch with her after the government clampdown. Miles does not know if she is dead or alive. Since Miles is not in the leadership of the resistance group(he was only an advisor) others can reach him. However to this point he has received no word from Adriana.
Miles is a very angry young man. He is extremely intelligent and some may consider him haughty at times. He is a very caring individual, though he won’t admit it, and will help out those in need, even to a fault. He often feels powerless to change things as a result of his failed attempts at making a difference politically.
Generally, he doesn’t trust others at face value. Though, given a little time, he is capable of trusting the PCs.
He has a very noticeable accent. Tends to be cynical. He usually lives day to day. Doesn’t usually give thought to things beyond the present and near-future. Has a strong sense of justice and mercy.
The aims of the Black Omega with regard to Miles (and others like him) are to artificially create psis. They feel that psis are superior to flatscans, and are the natural next step in the evolution of man, and are attempting to speed up the process, with mixed results. Miles probably never demonstrated any actual psi ability, but was rather identified as a "potential" (due to intelligence, memory and other factors). Miles psi abilities were therefore "manufactured," as opposed to natural; the experimentation that created them didn't work as expected, so the resulting abilities are less powerful and the surgeries have left behind certain side-effects (pain & wackiness). The side effects are mitigated by a medicine he takes regularly.
"Real" timeline
2182: March 3rd, Miles born on Athens
2187: Exceptionally bright with an excellent memory, He begins to attract the attention of various institutions. Many corporations begin offering his parents compensation(both monetary and paid schooling) in exchange for signing away exclusive rights for my services as an employee.
2188: Parents decide to be patriotic and sign a contract with what they believed to be a legitimate military organization. It was in fact Black Omega. I received an outstanding education(including training in ships comm/nav sensors hacking) but was subjected to horrible experiments that scarred my psyche.
2190:
2197: Escape
2198: Sister(allison) and crew. He doesn’t know who did what.
Late 2198 or Early 2199: I’m fresh off the incident ( with my sister and crew). It has only been a few months and I’m looking over my shoulder all the time. I start to get the feeling someone is following me. They are closing in. A short chase ensues. I manage to lose the pursuer but I know I have to get off the planet in a hurry.(whether the pursuer was real or imagined, from lack of meds, is up to you) I see a crew loading and I ask for passage offering my services at comm and sensors. I meet AJ and over the course of my stay I overhear, both in his mind and spoken aloud, his distaste for the TFR several times. This makes me inclined to trust him. I do a good job with what I was signed on for. I even gave them a little something extra(can’t think of exactly what it would be off the top of my head) with my hacking abilities since they were good enough to take me on short notice. I was asked to stay on but I was uncomfortable with AJ’s wife. Their relationship just made me uneasy. Also one of the other members of the crew rubbed me the wrong way and I almost swung at them, just barely restraining myself.
2199: Aimless drifting meets a new group of people but never reveals my psi ability.
2201: Met up with “freedom fighter” group. Miles acts as a tactical advisor and does some field work. Works occasional smuggling operations on the side
2203: The heat is turned up and I have to leave the group I was working with. However I do give them instructions with a code or signal of some sort that they can use to reach me if there is an emergency or something. (I think this hook could work as a gamefic thing unless you had other plans.)
2204:Head to Tamborro station to find a new gig and a place to hide out.