[ooc] BN application [wip]
1. Player Information
Name (or internet handle): Scout
Current characters in Bete Noire: n/a
2. Character Information
Name: Montgomery Scott
Livejournal Username: lt_cmmdr_scott
Fandom: Star Trek 2009 (mirrorverse)
Image: http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/108175444/23550667
3. Character Information II
Age/Appearance: 36; Average height, average build. He's not overly muscular, or at least, his musculature isn't super-defined, but he's fairly strong. He may not have washboard abs and bulging biceps, but he's toned from working in the engine room and having to climb through Jefferies tubes and such. He's neither slender nor heavyset. Having lived and served in the Empire, his body is littered with scars, most of them the remnants of attempts on his life.
History: Like his counterpart in the regular universe, Montgomery Scott was born in Linlithgow, West Lothian, in Scotland, March 3rd in the year 2222. Civilian life in the Terran Empire was good; humanity ruled over all else, and his younger years were relatively normal. He was a bright and intelligent child, moving ahead in classes a few years, which resulted in him often being a bit left out; all his peers were several years older than him. Although studious and quiet when at home, he'd always had an adventurous side, which often got him into trouble when he went out with friends. His teen years were full of misadventures, ranging from ill-advised experiments to getting kicked out of a few pubs. At 16, he was accepted to Glasgow University, where he studied a few years before getting noticed by the Empire. He was offered a scholarship to the Imperial Starfleet's Academy, and he accepted in spite of pleas from his family that he stay on Earth and work as a civilian engineer. He went because he felt he would have more opportunities as a Starfleet engineer.
In the year 2240, at age 18, he left home and enrolled in the Academy. He excelled in his coursework, and although some of the lessons taught by the Empire were troublesome, he refused to quit; he wanted to go out into space far too much to be content with working as a civilian. When he graduated the Academy in 2245, he signed aboard the ISS Deidre. It was there that he earned his first promotion. In the Empire, most promotions are earned by the death of a superior, and while the young Montgomery Scott had no dreams of glory or captaincy, when the choice was kill or be killed, he opted to kill. He quickly learned that slight and small - as he was, when he was younger - translated to "easy target" in most people's minds, and as a result, he was forced to learn to defend himself.
After finishing his tour of duty aboard the Deidre, he drifted from ship to ship, serving aboard several freighters in an effort to keep a low profile. His history further diverges from the original universe, as in the mirrorverse he did not return to Academy to work as an instructor's assistant, nor did he attempt to prove said instructor wrong by attempting risky beaming procedure on Admiral Archer's beagle, as thoroughly pissing off an Admiral would likely result in death as opposed to banishment to an outpost on a frozen wasteland of a planet.
Instead, when the ISS Enterprise made her maiden voyage, he served under Captain Pike, eventually earning himself the promotion to Lieutenant Commander and Chief Engineer. He remained aboard the Enterprise after Kirk's promotion to Captain in spite of the fact that he detested Kirk; no other ship in the fleet could compare to the Enterprise in his eyes.
Personality: Eighteen years of service to the Empire have not been kind to Scott; once a cheerful, out-going and pleasant young man, his position and slow rise in rank have changed him. Over the years, he's withdrawn, becoming quiet, cold, and dispassionate. Though he takes no pleasure in killing or in torture, he has come to view such things as necessities, things that must be done in order to survive. And survival is what has become his main goal in life - survival, that he might live long enough to ensure that his ship is properly taken care of. He has no wish to rise any further in rank, but as anyone knows, you have to run very fast in order to stand still. As such, of necessity he has learned to make use of any method of information gathering available to him, because of his goals in life, three are most important: survive, protect the Enterprise, and protect the captain.
Outwardly, he is a perfect soldier of the Empire: obedient to his captain, willing to follow any order, willing to do anything that must be done to further the glory of the Empire. But there is more to Scott than is first apparent; he harbors a deep resentment to the Empire for what it has made him and what he's become. Prone to fits of dark depression, he sometimes seems not to care very much about staying alive at all; he pushes boundaries and snarks his captain and commander, on occasion to their faces, although he never pushes far enough to warrant being outright killed. He tends to drink heavily in his darker moods. When he's in a good mood, he tends toward gallows humor, finding dark amusement in the fact that the great and glorious Terran Empire has reduced to him to a mere shell of the man he used to be.
He holds himself to a strange and mutable personal code of honor; although he believes wholeheartedly that no one can truly be trusted, if someone does him a favor he will do whatever it takes to repay the favor in kind. Although he dislikes killing, he will kill men swiftly and dispassionately, but unless it is absolutely necessary he will not raise a hand against a woman. He holds himself to this code when it suits him; if it seems more useful to disregard his morals then he will shove them aside without second thought. He has no close personal relationships because he views other people as tools, to be used and eventually discarded when they have outlived their use. He has allies, but not friends; friends and lovers are weaknesses, and the harshest lesson taught by the Empire is that allowing weakness results in pain.
Sexual Preferences/Orientation: Sex is a powerful tool, but one that can backfire just as easily as it can assist. Because Scott rarely allows anyone to get close to him - both physically and emotionally - his sexual encounters are few and far between. He tries to avoid it if at all possible, because allowing anyone so physically close at a time when he would be incredibly vulnerable is absolutely unthinkable; when he does have sex, he's certainly not going to stick around for a bit of a cuddle afterward. And he does enjoy it when he has it, although generally he doesn't unless he's been drinking. His sexuality is fairly fluid; when he does feel like sex, he'll take what he can get - he views it as merely a pleasurable physical act, nothing more and nothing less.
Powers: He can break the laws of physics. Apart from being a brilliant engineer, he's completely human and if not completely normal, at least completely free of strange non-human powers.
Reason for playing: I used to play this version of Scotty in a single-fandom game, but most of the people with whom I played have long since stopped playing, and there's not much in the way of mirrorverse muses as it is. I've played him in dressing rooms a bit, but he's the sort of muse that works best in a setting with multiple characters and a strong plotline. I enjoy playing him because he's a challenge; he's so vastly different from his original universe counterpart, and when I first began playing him, the main goal was to find out what it was the could take Montgomery Scott and turn him into the brutal and ruthless man he's said to be in the Empire. While I enjoy playing his original universe counterpart, I also enjoy exploring the darker side of human nature in my writing, and playing mirrorverse Scott is an excellent way to do so. I've chosen to apply for the character at Bete Noire for several reasons - first, that it's a game with a darker premise and that is the City of Sin, and second, because it will be interesting to explore Scott's reaction to no longer being aboard the Enterprise; being in Bete Noire would mean that he's lost the one thing he truly holds dear, but it would also mean that he's free from the Empire, and it would be interesting to see how he reacts in such a setting.
4. Original Character Supplement
World History:
Character History:
5. Samples
First-Person:
[Voice]
[Scott sounds agitated, and mildly inebriated.]
Out. Have t'get out. Can't-- Shouldn't be here. Have t'get back t'her. I have t'get back.
[There's a pause, and what sounds like he's taking another drink.]
I can't be here. Can't-- Because she needs me, an' if I'm not there-- If I'm--
[He stops, and there's a long silence before he speaks again, and he sounds sober, or at least he manages a decent approximation of sounding sober.]
This is. This is Lieutenant Commander Scott of the ISS Enterprise. Return me t'my ship an' the Empire might show you some mercy.
Third-Person:
This wasn't the first away mission he had been on, nor would it be his last, if he could help it. Somewhere far above, the Enterprise waited for his return; he glanced to the sky once - only once, promising her wordlessly that he would come back to her soon - and with his hand on the holster at his hip, he set off.
He'd always hated being planetside. Too open. Too much sky. Too much space. He longed for the familiar corridors of the ship, longed for the secret spaces in the engine room that only he knew, but he pushed those thoughts aside and forced himself to focus on the job at hand. The people of this planet were weak, insignificant, but the planet itself would be an asset to the Empire. Rich in dilithium, it would power the Empire's fleet for years before the supply ran out.
There was only one thing standing in the way - the high council. Assassination was not typically an engineer's job, and Scott knew all too well that the Enterprise, deadly as she was, could have simply wiped the high council's hall off the face of the planet with one well-aimed sweep of her phaser banks, but he'd been getting on the captain's nerves again.
Alone, armed with nothing more than a phaser, a communicator, and the various knives he always carried, he slipped into the city under the cover of night, keeping to the shadows. There were five men to kill, five men whose assassination would throw the planet into chaos. And emerging from the rubble would come a man planted by the Empire to take over as soon as the high council was dealt with. Scott couldn't help but be impressed; this plot was a great deal more subtle than the Empire's usual way of doing things. He approved of subtle. There was an art to holding power over another, and some men - like his captain - took the easy route, all brawn and brute strength with no finesse. But Scott knew that on occasion, a gentler touch was required. And this plot was a thing of beauty, crafted by one of the finest minds in the Empire.
Still, he would be relieved when his part in it was over, when he could return to the ship. Out here in the open, he felt too exposed, too vulnerable. There were no familiar boltholes here, no long-forgotten corridors to run to and hide in should he find himself in danger. The air smelled wrong, tasted wrong. It sounded wrong. Every night he fell asleep to the distant hum of the ship's engine, secure in the knowledge that as long as he took care of her, she would take care of him. She was the one thing that would never betray him.
But down here, planetside, there was no engine and no safety. He had his wits and he had his phaser and he had his knives, and he had to pray that those would be enough. He turned a corner, creeping down an alley, following the route he'd memorized, but as he emerged on the other side, he noted that the air felt heavier. Oppressive. Shrugging it off, he continued on his way, pausing at a corner to glance up at the sky once again, hating that he felt the need to reassure himself. Just one glance, all he would allow himself, and then--
The stars had changed. His expression went blank, and one glance became a long, hard stare as he scrutinized the sky, searching for a familiar constellation, searching for something, anything. Slowly, he turned and retraced his steps, only to find that the ally he'd come through was now a dead-end, and he turned back to the city and narrowed his eyes, his hand going for his communicator.
"Scott t'Enterprise." There was no response. Nothing. Not even static. He closed the communicator and hooked it back in its place on his belt, drew his phaser from its holster, and continued on, going forward because going back was no longer an option.
Third-Person #2:
Scott closed his eyes, settling comfortably into the corner where a coolant pipe met another pipe and sloped upward at a soft angle; if he straddled it, one leg on either side, and leaned back, it was the perfect place to just sit and be with the Enterprise. With the barest hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, he slipped a hand into his pocket, pulled out a flask. Unscrewed the lid. Took a sip. Sighed through his nose at the familiar burn of good Scottish whisky on the back of his throat. Today was one of the good days. He let the hum of the engine fill his ears, let the rest of the world disappear as his free hand fell to his side, resting lightly against the pipe. He was safe here. Alone. Another sip of whisky, and another, and another, until the flask was half-empty, and he screwed the cap back on and slipped the thing back into his pocket, absently stroking the pipe with his fingertips.
She spoke to him, the Enterprise, in a language only he could understand. She whispered her secrets to him, told him when she was hurting and when she was fighting fit, and he listened. And he took care of her. Took care of her, because she took care of him. Because as long as he had her, he had something to live for.
A slight tremor ran through the pipes as the ship jumped into warp, and a change in the pitch of the hum in the engine told him she'd gone to warp three; he sighed softly and opened his eyes, staring upward without quite seeing. He wasn't sure how long he sat there, warmed by the whisky and lulled into a half-sleep by the vibrations of the engine.
And then-- something out-of-place. Something that didn't belong. A small sound, soft enough he nearly missed it. Metal against cloth. A blade being drawn. Eyes still on the network of pipes above him, he murmured, "I wouldn't do that, were I you." A slight shift of his arm, to reassure himself that he had his own knife, the blade holstered and strapped to his forearm, under the sleeve. A silly affectation, perhaps, maybe even a bit cliche - but it had saved his life more times than he cared to count. He would endure cliche if it meant staying alive.
A footstep, then, the scrape of a heel against the floor, and Scott sat straight up, swinging a leg over the pipe, snapping his arm in a motion to free the blade from its holster. The smile gone from his lips, he faced his would-be assassin. Ensign Turner. For a long moment, the two of them regarded each other silently, and then Turner darted forward, blade in hand. Scott was on his feet in an instant, wasting no time and little movement as he struck a retaliatory blow. One hand gripped Turner's wrist, and the lad's eyes widened in shock as he looked down at Scott's blade, buried to the hilt in his gut. Scott remained impassive, his face a mask of cool serenity as he twisted the knife, Turner's blood warm and slick on the handle. "I told you not t'do that, lad," Scott said quietly, before ripping the knife from the boy's stomach. The boy had gone pale, the color all drained from his face, and in one swift motion, Scott slit his throat, and stepped back, letting him crumple to the floor. He knelt, wiped the blade on Turner's shirt, and tucked the knife back into his sleeve.
And that was when the adrenaline hit, a cold shock coursing through Scott's veins, a hint of the taste of metal in his mouth, with the scent of blood thick in the air. He sat heavily on the coolant pipe, drawing in a deep breath, and pulled the flask from his pocket again. One trembling hand dropped to pipe again, and he closed his eyes, laying his palm flat against the pipe's surface, swallowing hard. "Alive," he whispered, turning his head to rest his cheek against the pipe as well. "Still alive, love."