(no subject)
PLAYER
NAME: seimiya
AGE: 21
PERSONAL LJ: seimiya
EMAIL ADDRESS: theyellowedpage [@] gmail
AIM SCREENAME: beat my machine
EXPERIENCE RPing: capeandcowl nereide_rp axiomnexus toshima_rp
CHARACTER
NAME: Spock
CANON SOURCE: Star Trek XI
TIMELINE: post-movie.
CANON ABILITIES: enhanced strength, Vulcan touch-telepathy (including the mind-meld), all-around chess badass.
PERSONALITY:
At first, second, and third glance, Spock is cool, emotionless, logical, passive, and just a little arrogant. He prefers to examine a problem thoroughly before doing anything about it, prefers to solve a problem in the most logical way possible, and discards a lot of the more emotional “human” conundrums that people deal with. To Spock, there is no problem that cannot be solved rationally, perhaps with a little probability thrown in. In accordance with Vulcan tradition, Spock suppresses his emotions; he avoids relationships and has few friends to avoid the emotional complexities that come with them. He is always punctual, prepared and ready to go the extra distance. He’s also basically brilliant, due to impressive Vulcan schooling and his own talent, able to work his way up to being Head Science Officer on the Federation flagship. On the downside, he is overly literal and doesn’t understand/use/care for more traditional human turns-of-phrase, colloquialisms, contractions, and ridiculous metaphors. He’s the kind of guy who, when asked ‘what’s up?’ will reply, utterly honestly, ‘The sky. Did you require my assistance to answer that?’ He lacks a real sense of humor, though spend enough time with him and it becomes obvious he can be funny in his own dry and cynical way. This kind of combination gives the appearance of a cold, emotionless, wordy guy who turns away from people and appears utterly out-of-place anywhere that isn’t a lab.
Under those expressionless brown eyes, though, Spock is a handful of turmoil. Though he believes firmly in the Vulcan way of life, his human emotions tend to war with his desire to be Vulcan, and he can, if provoked, lose his cool in the worst of ways. There are a number of gestures Spock tends to overuse to show what emotions he feels are acceptable to show, such as disdain or confusion, but it take some practice to read him right.
Those who persevere to make friends with the guy who (for the most part) doesn’t reciprocate friendly gestures will receive a friend for life, even if he never shows it. He is devoted and loyal and, as long as he can justify it logically and rationally to himself, will do quite a bit in the name of those he cares about, even if it breaks his personal rules.
CANON HISTORY:
Spock was born on planet Vulcan to Sarek, the Vulcan Ambassador to Earth, and Amanda Grayson, a human. His mixed blood caused him no end to harassment in school, where others would frequently make fun of him or his parents, even going so far as to call his father a traitor and his mother a whore. However, Vulcans pride themselves on their emotional discipline, and it took the bullies 35 tries for Spock to finally tackle one of them and give him a good beating for these kind of insults. Sarek takes Spock aside and tells him that he has no choice but to choose which side of his heritage to embrace: living on Vulcan, with Vulcan schoolmates? There’s no question. Spock nearly goes through with the Vulcan discipline of kolinahr, to purge all emotions, but the undying and unconditional love of his human mother changes his mind.
Despite the bullying, Spock exceeds at his studies on Vulcan, applying to the Vulcan Science Academy (the most prestigious place a Vulcan can be) and Starfleet Command. Though he is accepted to the Academy, he turns it down when one of the High Council members snubs his mom, suggesting she was a disadvantage to him. Furious, Spock instead heads to Starfleet to become a professor.
He achieves the rank of Commander, and teaches phonology and ethics. Sometime later, he begins a relationshp with Nyota Uhura, a promising student who wishes to become a communications officer. He also codes the famous Kobayashi Maru exam, which is unwinnable, and is made so that the captain can understand and accept death and fear, and then move nobly following this revelation.
James Kirk somehow manages to beat the test, causing Spock to have him an official trial for cheating and installing a subroutine in the programming. When Kirk argues that ‘the test itself is a cheat,’ Spock brings up Kirk’s dead father and the two go to blows over the possibility of a no-win scenario, the idea of humility in the face of death, and Kirk’s enormous ego. Before anything can get settled, an emergency is called at Spock’s home planet, Vulcan. Spock is the Science and First Officer of the flagship the USS Enterprise; Jim Kirk sneaks on by pretending to be a patient of Dr. McCoy. When Captain Pike is taken aboard the enemy ship by Nero, a crazy future Romulan, Spock is placed in charge, with Kirk as the first officer.
Kirk, Sulu, and Orson head down to an enormous drill, which is drilling a hole into the surface of Vulcan. They manage to eventually sabotage the drill, but not before it creates a hole in the planet that allows Nero to drop red matter into the planet’s core. Spock goes to the planet to rescue the Vulcan High Council (including his mother and father) before the planet is swallowed up by a black hole - however, the crumbling ground gives way under Spock’s mother Amanda, and she is killed in the destruction of Vulcan.
He has a small mental breakdown here that no one really sees because he’s a Vulcan.
Kirk demands that they follow the Romulan ship to rescue Captain Pike and destroy the drill, but Spock, as captain, orders the ship to rendezvous with the rest of Starfleet, Captain Pike’s orders. One enormous fight on the bridge later about Jim insists they can’t sit and wait, Spock neck-pinches Kirk and ejects him from the ship.
To Spock’s great agitation and surprise, Kirk somehow beams back on the Enterprises while the ship is in warp (a feat though to be impossible) with a strange gentleman. Kirk manages to get Spock pissed off enough, by claiming he never loved his mother, and Spock nearly strangles him to death before being called off by his father, Sarek. Seeing his own emotional instability, he resigns his post as captain because he is emotionally compromised. Kirk, as the First Officer, takes over.
He goes down to the transporter room only to be comforted by his father. Spock, who believes harshly in the vulcan way of suppressing one’s emotions, finds it difficult to contain his anger at Nero for killing his mother and the rest of his species. His father comforts him, explaining that he married his mother because he loved her, not because it was the logical thing to do.
Feeling a little better, Spock re-appears on the deck to confirm that there is a way to get aboard Nero’s ship (hiding behind Saturn’s rings). He convinces Kirk to allow him to go aboard the Romulan ship, though not without Kirk coming along with him. A couple of cool fight scenes, a mind-meld, and one dramatic exit later, Spock destroys both the Romulan ship, the drill (that was in process of penetrating Earth’s core), and the black hole device, and totally makes it back in time for dinner. After Jim is handed a number of awesome awards, Spock turns around, only to meet a version of himself from the future, who insists that the younger Spock stay with Starfleet - because the connection and friendship that Jim will offer is invaluable. Acting under his self’s advice, Spock then offers himself to become the permanent First Officer of the Enterprise, under Captain James T. Kirk.
And then, they boldly go where no men or Vulcans have gone before.
PREFERRED PLACEMENT: Unaffiliated (Stark Industries)
HOW DIFFERENT DO YOU WANT THE MEMORIES TO BE FROM THEIR CANON? Quite different - mostly because in canon, Spock was raised on an alien planet. There’s an obvious problem here. So!
Spock is half-Lebanese and half-American, giving him just a touch of exotic blood; he grew up in Lebanon and speaks perfect Lebanese Arabic, French, and English. This makes him alien to most American colloquialisms, which he tends to view with a certain amount of suspicious distrust. As a child, an emotional decision regarding how to deal with some fellow classmates resulted in a hideous beating and the loping off of sizable chunks of his ears, making them oddly pointed. After this, he (with help from his father) decided to view the world in a purely analytical fashion and, in most cases, ignore his emotions in favor of doing things the most logical and rational way. His intentions to apply his stunning intelligence to his country were radically altered when they snubbed his American mother, causing him to leave the country and head to the “land of the free, home of the brave” where hopefully people wouldn’t mock his mother, his ears, his foreign blood, and his brain. He also picks something else for people to call him, not wanting to listen to people struggle to pronounce his Lebanese name, and, in the end, goes with Spock.
Of course, it doesn’t all come to be, but someone somewhere eventually gets wind of this brainy half-Middle Eastern kid and the American government, at least, looks at him with approval and gives him everything he needs to excel. They send him off to school to acquire a Bachelors of Science, a Masters in Science, and a Ph.D. in Physics (his dissertation is on the possibility of alternate universes and the quantum mechanics behind it) all before his 37th birthday. Somewhere along the way, he meets Tony Stark - young, intelligent, and a huge asshole, albeit the kind of guy who actually is interested in what he’s talking about. The guy hires Spock for himself and sets him up a second job, a teaching gig in the still-burgeoning physics field at New York University. Ambitious and almost too-intelligent, Spock picks the exploding (heh, heh) fields of quantum physics and radioactivity. He has sharp eye and a pointed ear on what’s going on in the scientific field, studying and researching his ass off for the sake of his new country. On the side, though, Spock is an athlete, devoted to his body as much as he is to his mind, and is far, far stronger than he appears.
He visited his family on a semi-frequent basis, though he found the environment less and less to his liking. After a three-year-long process of convincing his mother to return to American with him, a random choice to take the back-streets back to his hotel rather then the usual route ended with him being the secret witness to his mother’s murder. He froze, fled, and to this day claims that he can’t remember anything that happened between then and waking up in his bed in New York City. He’s very touchy about his mother, to this day.
PLANS FOR YOUR CHARACTER:
Spock has serious inner turmoil problems, especially with the contradiction of his mixed heritage - I’d like to see how he’s going to deal with that here because it interests the hell out of me in the movie. I also have a serious thing for him being a science-y type, and would love to see what kind of attention (and maybe, if I’m lucky, trouble) he attracts because of his brain, solitude, and literalness (which can easily be taken for smartassery). The last thing is that I do realize that I’ve built a moderately withdrawn character, and I consider it a challenge to both myself and the evolution of Spock’s character to see how he can reach out to better himself and his country.
SAMPLES
LOG SAMPLE:
Hnn.
He pressed his lips together in a thin line as he reviewed the data the secretary had brought to him a few hours previous. It should have made sense, and did, in a strange kind of way, but there was undoubtably something here that nagged at his gut. As much as he thought the idea of trusting any organ other than one’s brain was a terrible idea (and highly illogical), it was worth a second or third read-through. He was simply doing it to make sure he had the information correct, was all. Yes.
It was a bureaucratic piece regarding the nature of his work, where his calculations were going. He had been more than clear with Stark regarding his pacifism, and though the man dealt in weapons, Spock’s field was unrelated. If this document was created to somehow circumvent those conditions….
He brushed the packet to the side and frowned at a note that was stuck to his desk. His car. Right. His car. And that mechanic. He allowed himself a slight scowl.
He made a small thoughtful noise and put the document aside, sighing as he realized how his plans would change. He would have to cancel the meeting with Stark later. The man was everything Spock disdained about American culture, and it was worse because he was incredibly intelligent and, furthermore, his employer. Someone who indulged himself so freely, allowed himself to run on every vice and feeling he possessed, should not have been as smart.
“Miss Mayer,” he said, to the secretary, leaving the folder to the side. “Alert Mr. Stark that I will be absent for this evening’s meeting. Explain to him that I was presented with extenuating circumstances regarding car repair and send my most sincere apologies for wasting his time. Allow him to suggest three times for a reschedule, and I will return the most convenient time tomorrow.”
He was sure Stark would be pleased at the surprise opportunity to indulge his rampant alcoholism, anyway.
JOURNAL SAMPLE:
Is punctuality a learned trait? It seems that many American students are either blind or suffer a mass hallucination, perhaps some sort of folie a deux effect regarding the timing of morning classes. 9:25 AM does not mean 9:45. Nor does it mean 10:30. A poorly forged note smudged with vomit is not acceptable. Bringing your fraternity brother in to explain how your hangover is not your fault is not only unacceptable, but extremely disruptive as well as displaying your utter lack of personal responsibility.
The reasons you may arrive late or be absent from class are clearly marked in the syllabus. As you are in university, I assume you can read. Please put that skill to use.
Thank you.
NOTES:
Spock wears gloves (though he can’t really say why). He’s also a vegetarian who abstains from alcohol and, even stranger, chocolate. Also, I went over the places with Stark’s connection with him with Tonymun.