Post by Garrett Fletcher on Jul 2, 2012 0:00:47 GMT -6
Tell us about yourself, if you please.
Name/alias: Winter
Age: 19
How long have you been RPing?: 5 years
Do you have any other characters on the site?: not yet
Your character: bare bones.
Name: Dr. Garrett Fletcher
Age: 36
Location: Fermilab Fortified Compound
Immune or Carrier: Non-immune Human (see below for details)
Skills: none
Status: single
Face Claim: Edward Norton
Picture:
Brief appearance description:
Garrett is of average height and, while he is very fit physically, his unassuming frame gives him a somewhat unremarkable appearance. His time spent in the wasteland, coupled with his frugal rationing and inexperience with foraging, has left him with little excess body fat and thin, wiry musculature. These details, however, are rarely apparent to observers as he is by necessity covered head to toe with protective gear. Assembled out of whatever the researchers could get their hands on, Garrett’s poor-man’s hazmat suit is an eclectic combination of leftover military gear and modified lab equipment. Most notably, a gas mask conceals his face and a cloak is draped around his shoulders. The mask is a military prototype designed specifically to filter airborne pathogens, one of only a handful distributed before the collapse of civilization. The cloak is of very dark blue color for night camouflage and consists of a simple sheet of water-resistant fabric modified to have a clasp and a hood. The cloak is of sentimental value to Garrett, and he almost always has the hood up while wearing it. Garrett also carries a moderately sized satchel filled with his instruments and gear, usually hidden under his cloak to protect it from the elements. The rest of the suit is matte black, resembling more a slimmed down set of SWAT gear than anything else. However, it has been assembled with the aid of the researchers' cannibalized and restitched containment gear, reinforcing it at joints and other points of exposure and providing Garrett’s with an effective seal against the environment. The suit is stifling, necessitating the installation of an experimental heat sink panel on the back, but after much tinkering imposes no major restrictions on Garrett’s movement. After several terrifying months in the wasteland, Garrett has learned to move in such a way as to minimize noise and has begun to think of the suit as an extremely uncomfortable second skin.
Personality:
Garrett is justifiably paranoid regarding his lack of immunity, and is loathe to compromise any element of his equipment unless he is certain that he’s in a relatively sterile environment. He will only ever perform tasks that involve removing his mask, such as swapping the filters or eating, while in perfect privacy. His invariably concealed features, combined with his muffled voice and somewhat distant personality, can make him rather enigmatic. He is naturally introspective, and the last ten years of solitude have left him unaccustomed to sharing his thoughts with others. Still, he has a love for knowledge and its free exchange that occasionally supersedes his taciturn tendencies, and will converse gladly and readily if prompted.
Garrett’s experiences during the outbreak and in the years since have left him somewhat bitter and acerbic. The fact that his mission has an extremely low probability of success is of little help. Still, he is far too driven and strong willed to consider giving up. He genuinely believes that the knowledge and science of the old world offer humanity’s best hope for salvation, and he is hell bent getting what he came for or dying in the attempt. He is crafty and careful to a fault, and will rarely act unless convinced that he holds all the cards. Still, he has a viciously strong sense of justice, bordering on romantic, which can occasionally inspire him to rash action. Having been sheltered from most of the horrors of the infection while safe inside the research compound, Garrett prefers to think of himself as someone who dislikes violence and who would avoid it if he could. However, whenever cracks in this self perception show through, Garrett tends to strike decisively and with overwhelming force. When Garrett sets out to solve a problem, it tends to stay solved.
Likes:
Solitude
Scientific approaches
Poetic justice
Revenge
Dislikes:
Violence towards the defenseless
Abuse of power
Deliberate misinformation
Willful ignorance
Strengths:
Driven
Intelligent
Agile and stealthy
Adept climber and runner
Meticulous and crafty
Weaknesses:
Vulnerable to infection
Distant and impersonal
Overly cautious
Inexperience with wasteland survival
Inconvenient Old World sensibilities
Extremely poor shot
Fears:
Infection
Failure
Close relationships
Realizing he's not the person he thinks he is
Family:
Garrett’s parents and two younger sisters resided in Colorado and his fiancée was in Massachusetts when communication broke down. He hasn’t heard from any of them in the ten years since, and presumes them all to be deceased.
History:
Garrett Fletcher, born and raised in a small town in alpine Colorado, has been hiking, running, and climbing all his life. His passion for the outdoors was surpassed only by his love of science, and in particular physics. He strove desperately all throughout his adolescence so that one day he too might endeavor to better the human condition and leave his mark on history. His drive held out, and saw him through his higher education with flying colors. In the spring 2039 Garrett finally received his doctorate in theoretical physics from MIT and proposed to his girlfriend, just in time for the Mange virus outbreak. Garrett, traveling west to bring his family the good news in February of 2040, found himself trapped in Chicago. In just a few months, Garrett saw his promising future turn to ashes as civilization crumbled around him, leaving his doctorate a pointless scrap of paper and his years of knowledge useless in the struggle for survival. During the final collapse he was ushered along with any other surviving scientists into the now heavily fortified Fermilab compound, a sign of desperation on the part of the government considering Garrett’s negligible background in pathology. The compound was cut off from the rest of the world, and eventually even from military aid, as the few remaining learned men and women toiled silently through the years to search for a cure. Garrett spent the next ten years as an extremely overqualified lab assistant, with no word of what had occurred to his friends and loved ones.
So Garrett trained.
Garrett’s work with the microbiologists and epidemiologists was undemanding, and with little other purpose to his life he spent almost all of his free time training. He did laps around the particle accelerator access tunnel, musing on how in another life he might have been using this same track to push the boundaries of human knowledge. He had always been a laughably terrible shot, and the compound didn’t have much ammunition to spare, but Garrett practiced what he could with a combat knife left over from the long gone military presence. He read anything he could get his hands on if he felt he might glean some useful survival knowledge from it.
It was common knowledge, even in the early years, that the blood and tissue samples the scientists were working with were insufficient, and it was only a matter of time before someone would need to exit the compound and acquire more. No one at the compound had tested positive for immunity. The pathologists held out for ten years, chasing what leads they could, before they finally succumbed to the fact that they had little other option but to send one of their own out on a suicide mission. They needed a live infected specimen with a modern strain of the Mange virus, or they would have no chance of synthesizing a cure. Garrett volunteered.
What do you think of this situation?
It could be worse.
RP sample:
There had been the primal, horrified scream of a woman’s voice, cut short by staccato reports of gunfire. The echo faded, and the oppressive silence of the dead city closed back in around Garrett, who stood frozen in his tracks. It was the first human voice he had heard in months.
Garrett’s pulse quickened as he spent several perfectly still moments listening to the deepening silence. Then, he took his first hesitating steps in the direction the sound had come. The only source for such a cacophony he could imagine was an infected attack, and although the streets seemed deserted in the time since he had left the compound Garrett had come to know the infected were never far. He skirted furtively between the lengthening shadows cast by a sun that was creeping dangerously close to the horizon. Everything Garrett knew told him to turn back, but if there was even a chance he could still help whoever had been screaming he needed to try. It was basic human decency.
Garrett meandering trek had led him through some forgettable Chicago suburb as he slowly worked his way toward the city’s corrupt heart, and the scream had come from what had once been the town’s quaint main street. Garrett entered the back of one of the stores that overlooked the street and climbed to the second floor, hoping to gain a safe vantage point. As he approached the front window, he steeled himself for a bloodbath. He got one.
It took Garrett a moment to take in what he was seeing. There were two men standing outside a store across the street, talking quietly amongst themselves. Garrett watched as a third man emerged from the building and unceremoniously dumped the contents of a dresser drawer onto the sidewalk, which he regarded briefly before discarding the drawer and returning to the building. Garrett’s eyes were drawn toward the street, where there lay the bodies of two or three families: men, women, and children. A stuffed rabbit rested where it had fallen, slowly soaking in the spreading pool of blood, and Garrett transitioned from numb confusion to horrified realization. The two raiders keeping watch continued to smoke and laugh, standing amongst their bloody handiwork, as the third came back out with another drawer full of belongings.
Garrett spent a few more long seconds just staring, perfectly still. Then he rose and walked calmly and slowly down the stairs and out the front of the building. Completely exposed, Garrett stepped into the gathering twilight and toward the massacre across the street. He raised his hand in a friendly greeting and called out to the raiders like they were old neighbors.
“Hey!”
The three raiders snapped to attention, their hands flying immediately to their weapons. Garrett, now halfway across the street, recoiled and raised his hands in a pacifying gesture, as if he hadn’t expected such reaction.
“Woah, there’s no need—“
Garrett, cutting himself off, made a show of just now noticing the row of bodies.
“Oh, shit. Look, be rational fellas, I’m sure we can come to an understanding.” Garrett’s voice was dripping with nervousness. He was very clearly unarmed except for his knife, which was securely in its sheath on his leg. “I’ve got food, a-and medicine.”
The raiders visibly relaxed and began laughing and trading incredulous grins. This masked idiot was just too good to be true. The leader, identifiable by the scavenged police body armor he wore, jammed his handgun back into his pants and began to step forward imposingly. Now that he was closer to them, Garrett could see just how filthy the raiders were. He tried his best to shrink where he was standing, rooted to the ground in fear. Garrett unslung his bag and held it out as if it would shield him.
“Look, just have it. Take whatever you want, and I’ll just leave, alright?”
“Sure, buddy,” the raider grated, “whatever—“
Several things happened at once. The bag was gently lobbed forward, arcing gracefully as the raider’s eyes began to track it. Garrett, however, surged forward, moving like lightning and roaring with barely controlled rage. Garrett’s knife flashed from its sheath and in a single fluid stroke buried itself to the hilt in the raider’s neck. The man’s eyes widened, but Garrett didn’t stop to watch him die. With his other hand he pulled out the raider’s firearm and began shooting wildly at the two others, using their erstwhile leader as cover. Garrett felt the man’s body jerk once or twice as the raiders returned fire, but he was safe behind the dead man’s armor.
When the dust settled, it took Garrett several seconds to realize that he was squeezing an empty gun. One of the raiders was clearly dead, lying perfectly still in a growing pool of blood. The other raider was slumped against the building, whimpering and clutching his stomach. Garrett discarded his shield contemptuously, wrenching his knife free and stalking toward the wounded raider. The man looked up at the faceless, cloaked specter bearing down on him and his eyes widened in existential fear, his legs scrabbling weakly to press himself further against the wall.
“Oh God, no, please no—“
“You want mercy?” Garrett snarled, his voice so distorted with rage as to be unrecognizable. “They were children you son of a bitch.”
The raider let out one final sobbing, inarticulate howl, and Garrett cut it short.
Garrett let go of the hilt and staggered slowly backward, breathing heavily and standing in the last rays of the sun. He could feel the warmth of the man’s blood begin to seep slowly through his gloves. There was a moment where the only sound was the whistling of the wind through the ruined buildings of a dead city. Then, standing amongst his bloody handiwork, Garrett peeled back his mask and vomited onto the sidewalk.
Name/alias: Winter
Age: 19
How long have you been RPing?: 5 years
Do you have any other characters on the site?: not yet
Your character: bare bones.
Name: Dr. Garrett Fletcher
Age: 36
Location: Fermilab Fortified Compound
Immune or Carrier: Non-immune Human (see below for details)
Skills: none
Status: single
Face Claim: Edward Norton
Picture:
Brief appearance description:
Garrett is of average height and, while he is very fit physically, his unassuming frame gives him a somewhat unremarkable appearance. His time spent in the wasteland, coupled with his frugal rationing and inexperience with foraging, has left him with little excess body fat and thin, wiry musculature. These details, however, are rarely apparent to observers as he is by necessity covered head to toe with protective gear. Assembled out of whatever the researchers could get their hands on, Garrett’s poor-man’s hazmat suit is an eclectic combination of leftover military gear and modified lab equipment. Most notably, a gas mask conceals his face and a cloak is draped around his shoulders. The mask is a military prototype designed specifically to filter airborne pathogens, one of only a handful distributed before the collapse of civilization. The cloak is of very dark blue color for night camouflage and consists of a simple sheet of water-resistant fabric modified to have a clasp and a hood. The cloak is of sentimental value to Garrett, and he almost always has the hood up while wearing it. Garrett also carries a moderately sized satchel filled with his instruments and gear, usually hidden under his cloak to protect it from the elements. The rest of the suit is matte black, resembling more a slimmed down set of SWAT gear than anything else. However, it has been assembled with the aid of the researchers' cannibalized and restitched containment gear, reinforcing it at joints and other points of exposure and providing Garrett’s with an effective seal against the environment. The suit is stifling, necessitating the installation of an experimental heat sink panel on the back, but after much tinkering imposes no major restrictions on Garrett’s movement. After several terrifying months in the wasteland, Garrett has learned to move in such a way as to minimize noise and has begun to think of the suit as an extremely uncomfortable second skin.
Personality:
Garrett is justifiably paranoid regarding his lack of immunity, and is loathe to compromise any element of his equipment unless he is certain that he’s in a relatively sterile environment. He will only ever perform tasks that involve removing his mask, such as swapping the filters or eating, while in perfect privacy. His invariably concealed features, combined with his muffled voice and somewhat distant personality, can make him rather enigmatic. He is naturally introspective, and the last ten years of solitude have left him unaccustomed to sharing his thoughts with others. Still, he has a love for knowledge and its free exchange that occasionally supersedes his taciturn tendencies, and will converse gladly and readily if prompted.
Garrett’s experiences during the outbreak and in the years since have left him somewhat bitter and acerbic. The fact that his mission has an extremely low probability of success is of little help. Still, he is far too driven and strong willed to consider giving up. He genuinely believes that the knowledge and science of the old world offer humanity’s best hope for salvation, and he is hell bent getting what he came for or dying in the attempt. He is crafty and careful to a fault, and will rarely act unless convinced that he holds all the cards. Still, he has a viciously strong sense of justice, bordering on romantic, which can occasionally inspire him to rash action. Having been sheltered from most of the horrors of the infection while safe inside the research compound, Garrett prefers to think of himself as someone who dislikes violence and who would avoid it if he could. However, whenever cracks in this self perception show through, Garrett tends to strike decisively and with overwhelming force. When Garrett sets out to solve a problem, it tends to stay solved.
Likes:
Solitude
Scientific approaches
Poetic justice
Revenge
Dislikes:
Violence towards the defenseless
Abuse of power
Deliberate misinformation
Willful ignorance
Strengths:
Driven
Intelligent
Agile and stealthy
Adept climber and runner
Meticulous and crafty
Weaknesses:
Vulnerable to infection
Distant and impersonal
Overly cautious
Inexperience with wasteland survival
Inconvenient Old World sensibilities
Extremely poor shot
Fears:
Infection
Failure
Close relationships
Realizing he's not the person he thinks he is
Family:
Garrett’s parents and two younger sisters resided in Colorado and his fiancée was in Massachusetts when communication broke down. He hasn’t heard from any of them in the ten years since, and presumes them all to be deceased.
History:
Garrett Fletcher, born and raised in a small town in alpine Colorado, has been hiking, running, and climbing all his life. His passion for the outdoors was surpassed only by his love of science, and in particular physics. He strove desperately all throughout his adolescence so that one day he too might endeavor to better the human condition and leave his mark on history. His drive held out, and saw him through his higher education with flying colors. In the spring 2039 Garrett finally received his doctorate in theoretical physics from MIT and proposed to his girlfriend, just in time for the Mange virus outbreak. Garrett, traveling west to bring his family the good news in February of 2040, found himself trapped in Chicago. In just a few months, Garrett saw his promising future turn to ashes as civilization crumbled around him, leaving his doctorate a pointless scrap of paper and his years of knowledge useless in the struggle for survival. During the final collapse he was ushered along with any other surviving scientists into the now heavily fortified Fermilab compound, a sign of desperation on the part of the government considering Garrett’s negligible background in pathology. The compound was cut off from the rest of the world, and eventually even from military aid, as the few remaining learned men and women toiled silently through the years to search for a cure. Garrett spent the next ten years as an extremely overqualified lab assistant, with no word of what had occurred to his friends and loved ones.
So Garrett trained.
Garrett’s work with the microbiologists and epidemiologists was undemanding, and with little other purpose to his life he spent almost all of his free time training. He did laps around the particle accelerator access tunnel, musing on how in another life he might have been using this same track to push the boundaries of human knowledge. He had always been a laughably terrible shot, and the compound didn’t have much ammunition to spare, but Garrett practiced what he could with a combat knife left over from the long gone military presence. He read anything he could get his hands on if he felt he might glean some useful survival knowledge from it.
It was common knowledge, even in the early years, that the blood and tissue samples the scientists were working with were insufficient, and it was only a matter of time before someone would need to exit the compound and acquire more. No one at the compound had tested positive for immunity. The pathologists held out for ten years, chasing what leads they could, before they finally succumbed to the fact that they had little other option but to send one of their own out on a suicide mission. They needed a live infected specimen with a modern strain of the Mange virus, or they would have no chance of synthesizing a cure. Garrett volunteered.
What do you think of this situation?
It could be worse.
RP sample:
There had been the primal, horrified scream of a woman’s voice, cut short by staccato reports of gunfire. The echo faded, and the oppressive silence of the dead city closed back in around Garrett, who stood frozen in his tracks. It was the first human voice he had heard in months.
Garrett’s pulse quickened as he spent several perfectly still moments listening to the deepening silence. Then, he took his first hesitating steps in the direction the sound had come. The only source for such a cacophony he could imagine was an infected attack, and although the streets seemed deserted in the time since he had left the compound Garrett had come to know the infected were never far. He skirted furtively between the lengthening shadows cast by a sun that was creeping dangerously close to the horizon. Everything Garrett knew told him to turn back, but if there was even a chance he could still help whoever had been screaming he needed to try. It was basic human decency.
Garrett meandering trek had led him through some forgettable Chicago suburb as he slowly worked his way toward the city’s corrupt heart, and the scream had come from what had once been the town’s quaint main street. Garrett entered the back of one of the stores that overlooked the street and climbed to the second floor, hoping to gain a safe vantage point. As he approached the front window, he steeled himself for a bloodbath. He got one.
It took Garrett a moment to take in what he was seeing. There were two men standing outside a store across the street, talking quietly amongst themselves. Garrett watched as a third man emerged from the building and unceremoniously dumped the contents of a dresser drawer onto the sidewalk, which he regarded briefly before discarding the drawer and returning to the building. Garrett’s eyes were drawn toward the street, where there lay the bodies of two or three families: men, women, and children. A stuffed rabbit rested where it had fallen, slowly soaking in the spreading pool of blood, and Garrett transitioned from numb confusion to horrified realization. The two raiders keeping watch continued to smoke and laugh, standing amongst their bloody handiwork, as the third came back out with another drawer full of belongings.
Garrett spent a few more long seconds just staring, perfectly still. Then he rose and walked calmly and slowly down the stairs and out the front of the building. Completely exposed, Garrett stepped into the gathering twilight and toward the massacre across the street. He raised his hand in a friendly greeting and called out to the raiders like they were old neighbors.
“Hey!”
The three raiders snapped to attention, their hands flying immediately to their weapons. Garrett, now halfway across the street, recoiled and raised his hands in a pacifying gesture, as if he hadn’t expected such reaction.
“Woah, there’s no need—“
Garrett, cutting himself off, made a show of just now noticing the row of bodies.
“Oh, shit. Look, be rational fellas, I’m sure we can come to an understanding.” Garrett’s voice was dripping with nervousness. He was very clearly unarmed except for his knife, which was securely in its sheath on his leg. “I’ve got food, a-and medicine.”
The raiders visibly relaxed and began laughing and trading incredulous grins. This masked idiot was just too good to be true. The leader, identifiable by the scavenged police body armor he wore, jammed his handgun back into his pants and began to step forward imposingly. Now that he was closer to them, Garrett could see just how filthy the raiders were. He tried his best to shrink where he was standing, rooted to the ground in fear. Garrett unslung his bag and held it out as if it would shield him.
“Look, just have it. Take whatever you want, and I’ll just leave, alright?”
“Sure, buddy,” the raider grated, “whatever—“
Several things happened at once. The bag was gently lobbed forward, arcing gracefully as the raider’s eyes began to track it. Garrett, however, surged forward, moving like lightning and roaring with barely controlled rage. Garrett’s knife flashed from its sheath and in a single fluid stroke buried itself to the hilt in the raider’s neck. The man’s eyes widened, but Garrett didn’t stop to watch him die. With his other hand he pulled out the raider’s firearm and began shooting wildly at the two others, using their erstwhile leader as cover. Garrett felt the man’s body jerk once or twice as the raiders returned fire, but he was safe behind the dead man’s armor.
When the dust settled, it took Garrett several seconds to realize that he was squeezing an empty gun. One of the raiders was clearly dead, lying perfectly still in a growing pool of blood. The other raider was slumped against the building, whimpering and clutching his stomach. Garrett discarded his shield contemptuously, wrenching his knife free and stalking toward the wounded raider. The man looked up at the faceless, cloaked specter bearing down on him and his eyes widened in existential fear, his legs scrabbling weakly to press himself further against the wall.
“Oh God, no, please no—“
“You want mercy?” Garrett snarled, his voice so distorted with rage as to be unrecognizable. “They were children you son of a bitch.”
The raider let out one final sobbing, inarticulate howl, and Garrett cut it short.
Garrett let go of the hilt and staggered slowly backward, breathing heavily and standing in the last rays of the sun. He could feel the warmth of the man’s blood begin to seep slowly through his gloves. There was a moment where the only sound was the whistling of the wind through the ruined buildings of a dead city. Then, standing amongst his bloody handiwork, Garrett peeled back his mask and vomited onto the sidewalk.