(no subject)
CHARACTER INFORMATION
Name: Clive Dove, though throughout most of the game he went by Luke Triton.
Canon: Professor Layton and the Unwound Future
Original or Alternate Universe: OU
Canon Point: Post-game: His plot having failed, Clive was being carted off to jail and ended up somewhere else entirely.
Number: 079, RNG it if it's taken.
Setting:
If you were to try to guess at a real world analogue for the time period the Professor Layton games takes place, it's rather difficult. Layton and Luke dress like they're from the early 1900s and Luke travels by boat overseas opposed to a plane. However, the average level of technology appears to be approximately the same as the 1950s, with the cars, phones, and other devices hailing from that general time period. But there are characters who are into rock music and give puzzles involving cell phones, Unwound Future mentions that humanity had already sent someone into space, and some buildings shown in London weren't built until the 2000s. And that's not even talking about the strange science involved.
It's complicated. In terms of atmosphere, it's basically early England from post-World War I and pre-World War II. Minus the references to the war, comparisons could be drawn between early parts of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe and the Professor Layton games, at least when it comes to atmosphere and aesthetics. Or Agatha Christie novels and the games.
Of course, there's an element of strange science, like mentioned above. The plot of the first game revolved about robots which were utterly indistinguishable from regular humans. The second game? Hallucinogenic gas and a major conspiracy involving train cars and railways. The third? Time travel, an underground London, and a giant robot which was capable of destroying England. For us, this is all impossible. For them? Reasonably feasible. But despite this, hovercars aren't common and robots don't walk across London casually.
Technological levels are really wonky here. I suppose the best way to describe it is that for the most part people are held to a general level, but there are a few rare geniuses across the land who are capable of great leaps of science.
And there are the puzzles. In the games, it's impossible to move five steps without having someone attempt to show Layton a chess set, tell him a riddle, or make him solve a sliding block puzzle. That being said and done, I think it's safe to take a cue from the movie, Eternal Diva, in which Layton and Luke are placed in puzzling situations but aren't forcing each other to explicitly solve sliding block puzzles to move forward. And if you look at the puzzles themselves, many of them are the sort of situations which would be presented in other games as a platforming sequence, a chase, or a mission in which you have to kill a certain number of sewer rats.
Basically, while Layton and company might have a general fondness for killing time with a puzzle or two, the world's puzzle impediment is more of a matter of the game genre, not how the world is supposed to be.
History:
Ten years prior to Unwound Future Clive's parents were killed an accident. There was an explosion that engulfed his apartment building and his family with it. He would have ran into the burning remains and also died if it weren't for the intervention of a stranger, Professor Hershel Layton. Layton stopped the boy and comforted him, and by doing so saved his life.
Having no other family, Clive was taken in by an elderly woman named Constance Dove. He befriended Spring and Cogg, two of her servants, and would find their trust and loyalty useful in his later plans.
Constance Dove died five years later and left her entire fortune to Clive. He graduated from secondary school and started work as a reporter in the hopes of finding out what caused that explosion. He discovered that he had lived next door to the Institute of Polydimensional Physics (which brings up the question of who would build something like that next to housing) and that there was an accident involving a time machine. Not only that, but two scientists were involved: Dimitri Allen and Bill Hawks, who would later become the Prime Minister of England. (Technically three, but at this time Claire was dead.)
He vowed revenge, as a system that allowed a disaster like the one which killed his parents to be silenced despite the severity of it, a system which allowed a man who killed numerous people to obtain wealth and the highest office in the land? It was a corrupt system, and as such Clive would destroy London.
This is where things get...weirder. Also, you can assume that Future [noun] is shorthand for 'the what appears to be a ten-years-in-the-future version of [noun]'. Anyway.
Using his foster-mother's fortune, Clive built an underground city located in a cavern under the real London, a city which for all intents and purposes appeared to be London from ten years in the future. He lured various residents of London over to populate the city. Clive even contacted Dimitri, who relocated there, posed as the 'head' of the Family (a gang of criminals and thugs), and started to kidnap scientists, tell them that they are in the future, and convince them that the only way they could return home was by building a time machine.
Unbeknownst to Dimitri, Clive used those scientists to work on his own doomsday device, the Mobile Fortress, so that he could enact his own destroy London plans.
Time passed. Deciding that the time was right, Clive contacted Professor Layton. Posing as Luke Triton from the future, he sent a letter which basically read, “Professor, I need your help, there is a problem in the future, go to a certain clock shop and use the time travel machine there.” They did so and entered Future London.
Clive encountered the pair in the Gilded 7 Casino, a casino ran by the Family. There, Clive challenged Layton to a battle of wits to prove his identity, a battle which Layton passed. Introducing himself as Future Luke, Clive explained that Future London was ruled with an iron fist by the head of the Family, Future Layton. The only man capable of countering Future Layton's wit and intellect was, well, himself from the past.
Their talk was interrupted by the Family discovering their presence and shooting them, and after defending themselves with an improvised gun made out of slot machine parts the trio made their getaway.
Layton and Luke returned to past London and returned with a few more people in tow: Inspector Chelmey, his assistant Barton, and Flora. Chelmey and Barton quickly went off by themselves. The remaining four continued onward in their quest to confront Future Layton in his lair, the Pagoda in Future London's Chinatown, with Clive playing the part of the gentleman the entire time.
Things happened. They generally involved walking in a Pagoday direction while solving puzzles.
They eventually confronted Future Layton, who was revealed to be an impostor and actually Dimitri who was mentioned above. It was also revealed that the Layton that had accompanied them was actually an impostor as well: he was Don Paolo, who had been recruited by Layton to act as a double.
Plot happened and the group had to escape the Pagoda. Clive left with Flora, and the others made their own escape. The group, with the addition of a mysterious woman named Celeste who claimed to be Claire's sister (but was actually Claire from the past) and the aforementioned Chelmey and Barton, reconvened at the Thames Arms, a restaurant by the river.
There Layton revealed everything, which basically entailed him describing the first six paragraphs of this history section minus the Mobile Fortress part and 'Clive was the child I stopped and comforted' part. Clive provided his motivations, and, kidnapping Flora, ran off to activate his doomsday device and destroy London.
Of course, the game would be rather depressing if he succeeded, so Layton and company managed to infiltrate the Mobile Fortress, rescue Flora, rescue Bill Hawks, and set off a device which would cause the machine to self destruct in ten minutes.
Clive, of course, had his obligatory “How could my revenge end like this? Nooooo!” moment in which debris hit him on the head and he was knocked unconscious. Luckily, Professor Layton being an ultimately optimistic series, Celeste went to rescue him and Layton with her, and all parties escaped with minimal loss of life and limb.
Somehow. At any rate, Chemley placed Clive under arrest and gave him a few moments to talk with Layton before being carted off to jail. It was then that Clive dropped the last bombshell about being the child Layton saved and how the reason why he called for Layton (as Layton admitted that made no sense: his only contribution was to stop the plot, why would Clive want him around?) was because a part of him wanted to be stopped even though he couldn't stop himself. He also added that once he paid his debt to society he'd work on making amends for the wrong he did, and was carted off to rot in jail for an untold amount of time.
Or...was supposed to, at least, LJ RP being what it is he ended up somewhere else.
Personality:
If I had to sum up Clive in four words, it would be this: Batman gone horribly wrong.
Consider the set-up. A boy is orphaned at a young age. He's incredibly wealthy and rather intelligent, and with the assistance of his servant(s) goes about trying to get dark vengeance. He has an elaborate underground cavern for his operations. He even has a harmless persona masking his true nature and wears what could arguably be called a costume.
Clive Dove is a few things: he's incredibly intelligent, driven, and resourceful. He's also batshit crazy in many respects. He also has very little in the way of a support network, and looked at it in the right light Unwound Future is his overly dramatic and elaborate and generally complicated cry for help.
Starting with the positives. He's intelligent, driven, and resourceful. The timeline speaks for itself, as in four years:
Clive uncovered deep dark government secrets which the Prime Minister had managed to keep away from the equally intelligent, resourceful, and driven Hershel Layton. Not only that, but he did so quickly: he had a maximum of four years to accomplish everything in and it's strongly implied that he had moved on to the second stage of his plan three years prior to the game.
Clive built an underground city under the real London which was reasonably convincing as fake future Londons went.
He also managed to obtain enough helpers and/or unwilling accomplices to staff said Future London and make it convincing as a future metropolis. An empty city would tip people off: a bustling metropolis wouldn't make people think that anything was wrong.
Enlisted the aid of Dimitri and kidnapped a number of scientists.
And got them to design and build a doomsday robot without Dimitri, who was overseeing their work, suspecting a thing.
And he did all of this in four years. Just four years! Maybe five, but even so that's not a lot of time to do all of the above.
Of course, this is also absolutely crazy. Can I understand some of his reasoning? Yeah. He discovered that it was the Prime Minister who killed his family and untold others. Not only that, but because he did so (and not despite) he ended up with wealth, power, and prestige. If my parents were killed and I learned the person who did it was really rewarded I'd probably be pissed off, and I wouldn't be inclined to go trust the system with what I learned, because the system's obviously broken. So it makes sense that Clive simply didn't notify the police or publish an article in the paper or anything along those lines, and instead sought revenge on his own terms.
Which, of course, doesn't excuse the fact that his chain of logic essentially led him to become a comic book villain.
Which leads me to the last point, which is that Unwound Future is very much his cry for help. His excessive, expensive, and over the top cry, but still a cry. Because Clive did all of this. He did all of this secretly, without the authorities suspecting a thing. And then he invited Layton into this mess, and Layton's sole contribution was to stop him. In the end, Layton asked two things: why did Clive pretend to be Future Luke past the point in which there was any point to it, and why did he invite Layton? After all, Clive should've known that he would've stopped his plans. To which Clive admitted that he found that he genuinely enjoyed being with them, and that he believed that, deep down, part of him hoped that Layton would succeed because Clive couldn't stop himself.
Basically, Clive's an intelligent guy. He knows that this plan is crazy and horrible, and that it solves nothing. And yet Clive's parents and untold others are dead, he knows who's responsible for it, he doesn't have anyone to talk to, or any reasonable way of finding normal justice. For the truth of the accident to be that hard to find it meant that Bill Hawks must have had a number of other accomplices on the inside and merely ousting the Prime Minister wouldn't fix the internal corruption. He had to do something, anything, he couldn't merely sit about and allow the man and the system to continue to profit from murder. (Which doesn't excluse the fact his plan was absolutely crazy. There's really no way for me to reiterate this enough. Clive's Batman gone horribly wrong.)
If he had succeeded and destroyed all of London, he'd be equally likely to continue onward to destroy the world as he would to laugh maniacally, start sobbing, and shoot himself in the head.
His Batman villain side has been tempered, though, due to the canon point: at the time I'm taking him, Clive's plot has very much failed, his cry for help very much heard, and Layton stopped him. There's even evidence that Bill Hawks may in the near-future face justice. Clive says that he's prepared to atone for his crimes and pay back his debt to society. Probably seeing someone from his canon would make him feel very guilty and weird, especially if it's Flora given the kidnapping. (How much has been tempered is a good question, but the Professor Layton games tend to be optimistic enough...bittersweet, but optimistic enough that he likely won't backslide and go on a murder spree. But he'll likely always be someone who doesn't quite respect the law.)
Aside from that, he generally behaves as a normal person would. He's polite, clever, sarcastic at times but with a sense of humor. He's enjoyable to be around. Pleasant, even, at least if he decides that he likes you. He tends to act a bit more stereotypically gentlemanly than Luke does, but doesn't quite reach the high water mark of Layton. Whether or not all of this is an act is a good question, but I believe it's genuine given that he admitted staying longer with the group because he enjoyed it (and generally speaking, if he was acting and the act was something greatly against his nature Clive likely wouldn't have found it fun) and because working as a reporter requires a certain amount of people skills. Also, the game is hardly shy about comparing Luke and Clive (even Spring and Cogg were taken aback for a moment when they met Luke for the first time) so it seems fair to assume that the two have a lot in common beyond their appearances.
Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations: Clive's pretty much an average guy when it comes to physical abilities. He's healthy and active enough that he was able to kidnap Flora and run off before the other people in the area were able to react and/or stop him. He's not strong or skilled enough that he'd be able to act as a sparring partner with, say, Captain America.
Mentally, he's one of those characters with a high intelligence score but a low wisdom score. Clive's smart. He can come up with solutions to problems and execute them with little trouble. He managed to build an entire underground city right below London without anyone noticing that something was wrong. Clive has enough (likely self-taught) apitude with mechanics that he had a deathbot built: one could argue that it was the scientists who did the bulk of the work, and they probably did, but he'd still need basic apitude when it comes to running the thing and even just making sure that the scientists didn't attempt to sabotage it somehow.
Yet his common sense can be lacking, which is mainly evident in the fact that he concocted such an elaborate plan in the first place. He's the sort of guy who would, if Flora were to show up from mid-game (before his big reveal), awkwardly go, “Why...yes, it is me, Luke Triton! I'll make sure you're safe until we see the Professor. You may count on me...?” Except in better, more character-accurate words.
Inventory: A deck of cards and a box of matches, staples of all good puzzles.
Appearance: A picture is worth a thousand words. He's average. Average height for a 23 year old, average weight. Dresses in suits and probably does so voluntarily (posing as a future version of Luke aside), which is likely because he ended up inheriting enough money that he could build an underground replica of London, except a speculative future version of it, so he probably doesn't dress like a slob normally.
Age: 23. He looked a lot like Luke in flashbacks, so I'd guess his age to initially be 12. Five years after that Constance Dove died, and shortly after that he finished secondary school and the average age for that in the UK is 18. Five years after Dove's death he called for Layton.
...which really means that he did all of this in, max, four years, and that's assuming he hit paydirt really quickly on the classified info. Damn. Clive worked fast.
SAMPLES
Log Sample:
The Tranquility was a remarkable feat of engineering (which, given that he saw the results of time travel firsthand, was saying a great deal) but no matter where he went Clive couldn't quite escape the feeling that something was gravely wrong. Perhaps it was only his conscience nagging at him. Or just the puzzle which was set before him.
A few days in, and answers were frustratingly slim. Where were they going? Nobody knew, or at least was willing to divulge that information. The captain knew, of course, but was reluctant to give anything resembling an answer. Those who tried had been told that it was on a need to know basis, with the passengers, of course, not needing to know. (The main upside to the communicators, Clive found, was that at least information traveled quickly.) There were no answers as to what happened to the rest of Tranquility's crew either. A ship of this size should have been filled with people, but instead it was empty. Eerie at times: traveling from room to room alone (he recognized that the smart thing would be to travel with others, but he preferred his own company, being with others made him think of the Professor and...well, it was hardly important here) made the ship feel almost oppressively large.
Still. 'Every puzzle has a solution' and...what was the other one?
“A true gentleman leaves no puzzle unsolved.” It almost made him laugh. Him, a gentleman. But, smirking ever so slightly, emboldened, he entered the next room...
...and found himself facing what appeared to be a jungle.
This was, to say the least, unexpected.
Comms Sample:
[The communicator turns on, like they have a tendency to do.]
I must say that if this is a prank it's very well done. Between these communicators and... [Tapping noise against the wall: yay metal.] ...the environment, it seems that I have no choice but to believe that we have been kidnapped and taken into space for some...mysterious reason.
...very well, I'll play along with this game. If anyone has any information beyond the obvious, do let me know.
Name: Clive Dove, though throughout most of the game he went by Luke Triton.
Canon: Professor Layton and the Unwound Future
Original or Alternate Universe: OU
Canon Point: Post-game: His plot having failed, Clive was being carted off to jail and ended up somewhere else entirely.
Number: 079, RNG it if it's taken.
Setting:
If you were to try to guess at a real world analogue for the time period the Professor Layton games takes place, it's rather difficult. Layton and Luke dress like they're from the early 1900s and Luke travels by boat overseas opposed to a plane. However, the average level of technology appears to be approximately the same as the 1950s, with the cars, phones, and other devices hailing from that general time period. But there are characters who are into rock music and give puzzles involving cell phones, Unwound Future mentions that humanity had already sent someone into space, and some buildings shown in London weren't built until the 2000s. And that's not even talking about the strange science involved.
It's complicated. In terms of atmosphere, it's basically early England from post-World War I and pre-World War II. Minus the references to the war, comparisons could be drawn between early parts of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe and the Professor Layton games, at least when it comes to atmosphere and aesthetics. Or Agatha Christie novels and the games.
Of course, there's an element of strange science, like mentioned above. The plot of the first game revolved about robots which were utterly indistinguishable from regular humans. The second game? Hallucinogenic gas and a major conspiracy involving train cars and railways. The third? Time travel, an underground London, and a giant robot which was capable of destroying England. For us, this is all impossible. For them? Reasonably feasible. But despite this, hovercars aren't common and robots don't walk across London casually.
Technological levels are really wonky here. I suppose the best way to describe it is that for the most part people are held to a general level, but there are a few rare geniuses across the land who are capable of great leaps of science.
And there are the puzzles. In the games, it's impossible to move five steps without having someone attempt to show Layton a chess set, tell him a riddle, or make him solve a sliding block puzzle. That being said and done, I think it's safe to take a cue from the movie, Eternal Diva, in which Layton and Luke are placed in puzzling situations but aren't forcing each other to explicitly solve sliding block puzzles to move forward. And if you look at the puzzles themselves, many of them are the sort of situations which would be presented in other games as a platforming sequence, a chase, or a mission in which you have to kill a certain number of sewer rats.
Basically, while Layton and company might have a general fondness for killing time with a puzzle or two, the world's puzzle impediment is more of a matter of the game genre, not how the world is supposed to be.
History:
Ten years prior to Unwound Future Clive's parents were killed an accident. There was an explosion that engulfed his apartment building and his family with it. He would have ran into the burning remains and also died if it weren't for the intervention of a stranger, Professor Hershel Layton. Layton stopped the boy and comforted him, and by doing so saved his life.
Having no other family, Clive was taken in by an elderly woman named Constance Dove. He befriended Spring and Cogg, two of her servants, and would find their trust and loyalty useful in his later plans.
Constance Dove died five years later and left her entire fortune to Clive. He graduated from secondary school and started work as a reporter in the hopes of finding out what caused that explosion. He discovered that he had lived next door to the Institute of Polydimensional Physics (which brings up the question of who would build something like that next to housing) and that there was an accident involving a time machine. Not only that, but two scientists were involved: Dimitri Allen and Bill Hawks, who would later become the Prime Minister of England. (Technically three, but at this time Claire was dead.)
He vowed revenge, as a system that allowed a disaster like the one which killed his parents to be silenced despite the severity of it, a system which allowed a man who killed numerous people to obtain wealth and the highest office in the land? It was a corrupt system, and as such Clive would destroy London.
This is where things get...weirder. Also, you can assume that Future [noun] is shorthand for 'the what appears to be a ten-years-in-the-future version of [noun]'. Anyway.
Using his foster-mother's fortune, Clive built an underground city located in a cavern under the real London, a city which for all intents and purposes appeared to be London from ten years in the future. He lured various residents of London over to populate the city. Clive even contacted Dimitri, who relocated there, posed as the 'head' of the Family (a gang of criminals and thugs), and started to kidnap scientists, tell them that they are in the future, and convince them that the only way they could return home was by building a time machine.
Unbeknownst to Dimitri, Clive used those scientists to work on his own doomsday device, the Mobile Fortress, so that he could enact his own destroy London plans.
Time passed. Deciding that the time was right, Clive contacted Professor Layton. Posing as Luke Triton from the future, he sent a letter which basically read, “Professor, I need your help, there is a problem in the future, go to a certain clock shop and use the time travel machine there.” They did so and entered Future London.
Clive encountered the pair in the Gilded 7 Casino, a casino ran by the Family. There, Clive challenged Layton to a battle of wits to prove his identity, a battle which Layton passed. Introducing himself as Future Luke, Clive explained that Future London was ruled with an iron fist by the head of the Family, Future Layton. The only man capable of countering Future Layton's wit and intellect was, well, himself from the past.
Their talk was interrupted by the Family discovering their presence and shooting them, and after defending themselves with an improvised gun made out of slot machine parts the trio made their getaway.
Layton and Luke returned to past London and returned with a few more people in tow: Inspector Chelmey, his assistant Barton, and Flora. Chelmey and Barton quickly went off by themselves. The remaining four continued onward in their quest to confront Future Layton in his lair, the Pagoda in Future London's Chinatown, with Clive playing the part of the gentleman the entire time.
Things happened. They generally involved walking in a Pagoday direction while solving puzzles.
They eventually confronted Future Layton, who was revealed to be an impostor and actually Dimitri who was mentioned above. It was also revealed that the Layton that had accompanied them was actually an impostor as well: he was Don Paolo, who had been recruited by Layton to act as a double.
Plot happened and the group had to escape the Pagoda. Clive left with Flora, and the others made their own escape. The group, with the addition of a mysterious woman named Celeste who claimed to be Claire's sister (but was actually Claire from the past) and the aforementioned Chelmey and Barton, reconvened at the Thames Arms, a restaurant by the river.
There Layton revealed everything, which basically entailed him describing the first six paragraphs of this history section minus the Mobile Fortress part and 'Clive was the child I stopped and comforted' part. Clive provided his motivations, and, kidnapping Flora, ran off to activate his doomsday device and destroy London.
Of course, the game would be rather depressing if he succeeded, so Layton and company managed to infiltrate the Mobile Fortress, rescue Flora, rescue Bill Hawks, and set off a device which would cause the machine to self destruct in ten minutes.
Clive, of course, had his obligatory “How could my revenge end like this? Nooooo!” moment in which debris hit him on the head and he was knocked unconscious. Luckily, Professor Layton being an ultimately optimistic series, Celeste went to rescue him and Layton with her, and all parties escaped with minimal loss of life and limb.
Somehow. At any rate, Chemley placed Clive under arrest and gave him a few moments to talk with Layton before being carted off to jail. It was then that Clive dropped the last bombshell about being the child Layton saved and how the reason why he called for Layton (as Layton admitted that made no sense: his only contribution was to stop the plot, why would Clive want him around?) was because a part of him wanted to be stopped even though he couldn't stop himself. He also added that once he paid his debt to society he'd work on making amends for the wrong he did, and was carted off to rot in jail for an untold amount of time.
Or...was supposed to, at least, LJ RP being what it is he ended up somewhere else.
Personality:
If I had to sum up Clive in four words, it would be this: Batman gone horribly wrong.
Consider the set-up. A boy is orphaned at a young age. He's incredibly wealthy and rather intelligent, and with the assistance of his servant(s) goes about trying to get dark vengeance. He has an elaborate underground cavern for his operations. He even has a harmless persona masking his true nature and wears what could arguably be called a costume.
Clive Dove is a few things: he's incredibly intelligent, driven, and resourceful. He's also batshit crazy in many respects. He also has very little in the way of a support network, and looked at it in the right light Unwound Future is his overly dramatic and elaborate and generally complicated cry for help.
Starting with the positives. He's intelligent, driven, and resourceful. The timeline speaks for itself, as in four years:
Clive uncovered deep dark government secrets which the Prime Minister had managed to keep away from the equally intelligent, resourceful, and driven Hershel Layton. Not only that, but he did so quickly: he had a maximum of four years to accomplish everything in and it's strongly implied that he had moved on to the second stage of his plan three years prior to the game.
Clive built an underground city under the real London which was reasonably convincing as fake future Londons went.
He also managed to obtain enough helpers and/or unwilling accomplices to staff said Future London and make it convincing as a future metropolis. An empty city would tip people off: a bustling metropolis wouldn't make people think that anything was wrong.
Enlisted the aid of Dimitri and kidnapped a number of scientists.
And got them to design and build a doomsday robot without Dimitri, who was overseeing their work, suspecting a thing.
And he did all of this in four years. Just four years! Maybe five, but even so that's not a lot of time to do all of the above.
Of course, this is also absolutely crazy. Can I understand some of his reasoning? Yeah. He discovered that it was the Prime Minister who killed his family and untold others. Not only that, but because he did so (and not despite) he ended up with wealth, power, and prestige. If my parents were killed and I learned the person who did it was really rewarded I'd probably be pissed off, and I wouldn't be inclined to go trust the system with what I learned, because the system's obviously broken. So it makes sense that Clive simply didn't notify the police or publish an article in the paper or anything along those lines, and instead sought revenge on his own terms.
Which, of course, doesn't excuse the fact that his chain of logic essentially led him to become a comic book villain.
Which leads me to the last point, which is that Unwound Future is very much his cry for help. His excessive, expensive, and over the top cry, but still a cry. Because Clive did all of this. He did all of this secretly, without the authorities suspecting a thing. And then he invited Layton into this mess, and Layton's sole contribution was to stop him. In the end, Layton asked two things: why did Clive pretend to be Future Luke past the point in which there was any point to it, and why did he invite Layton? After all, Clive should've known that he would've stopped his plans. To which Clive admitted that he found that he genuinely enjoyed being with them, and that he believed that, deep down, part of him hoped that Layton would succeed because Clive couldn't stop himself.
Basically, Clive's an intelligent guy. He knows that this plan is crazy and horrible, and that it solves nothing. And yet Clive's parents and untold others are dead, he knows who's responsible for it, he doesn't have anyone to talk to, or any reasonable way of finding normal justice. For the truth of the accident to be that hard to find it meant that Bill Hawks must have had a number of other accomplices on the inside and merely ousting the Prime Minister wouldn't fix the internal corruption. He had to do something, anything, he couldn't merely sit about and allow the man and the system to continue to profit from murder. (Which doesn't excluse the fact his plan was absolutely crazy. There's really no way for me to reiterate this enough. Clive's Batman gone horribly wrong.)
If he had succeeded and destroyed all of London, he'd be equally likely to continue onward to destroy the world as he would to laugh maniacally, start sobbing, and shoot himself in the head.
His Batman villain side has been tempered, though, due to the canon point: at the time I'm taking him, Clive's plot has very much failed, his cry for help very much heard, and Layton stopped him. There's even evidence that Bill Hawks may in the near-future face justice. Clive says that he's prepared to atone for his crimes and pay back his debt to society. Probably seeing someone from his canon would make him feel very guilty and weird, especially if it's Flora given the kidnapping. (How much has been tempered is a good question, but the Professor Layton games tend to be optimistic enough...bittersweet, but optimistic enough that he likely won't backslide and go on a murder spree. But he'll likely always be someone who doesn't quite respect the law.)
Aside from that, he generally behaves as a normal person would. He's polite, clever, sarcastic at times but with a sense of humor. He's enjoyable to be around. Pleasant, even, at least if he decides that he likes you. He tends to act a bit more stereotypically gentlemanly than Luke does, but doesn't quite reach the high water mark of Layton. Whether or not all of this is an act is a good question, but I believe it's genuine given that he admitted staying longer with the group because he enjoyed it (and generally speaking, if he was acting and the act was something greatly against his nature Clive likely wouldn't have found it fun) and because working as a reporter requires a certain amount of people skills. Also, the game is hardly shy about comparing Luke and Clive (even Spring and Cogg were taken aback for a moment when they met Luke for the first time) so it seems fair to assume that the two have a lot in common beyond their appearances.
Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations: Clive's pretty much an average guy when it comes to physical abilities. He's healthy and active enough that he was able to kidnap Flora and run off before the other people in the area were able to react and/or stop him. He's not strong or skilled enough that he'd be able to act as a sparring partner with, say, Captain America.
Mentally, he's one of those characters with a high intelligence score but a low wisdom score. Clive's smart. He can come up with solutions to problems and execute them with little trouble. He managed to build an entire underground city right below London without anyone noticing that something was wrong. Clive has enough (likely self-taught) apitude with mechanics that he had a deathbot built: one could argue that it was the scientists who did the bulk of the work, and they probably did, but he'd still need basic apitude when it comes to running the thing and even just making sure that the scientists didn't attempt to sabotage it somehow.
Yet his common sense can be lacking, which is mainly evident in the fact that he concocted such an elaborate plan in the first place. He's the sort of guy who would, if Flora were to show up from mid-game (before his big reveal), awkwardly go, “Why...yes, it is me, Luke Triton! I'll make sure you're safe until we see the Professor. You may count on me...?” Except in better, more character-accurate words.
Inventory: A deck of cards and a box of matches, staples of all good puzzles.
Appearance: A picture is worth a thousand words. He's average. Average height for a 23 year old, average weight. Dresses in suits and probably does so voluntarily (posing as a future version of Luke aside), which is likely because he ended up inheriting enough money that he could build an underground replica of London, except a speculative future version of it, so he probably doesn't dress like a slob normally.
Age: 23. He looked a lot like Luke in flashbacks, so I'd guess his age to initially be 12. Five years after that Constance Dove died, and shortly after that he finished secondary school and the average age for that in the UK is 18. Five years after Dove's death he called for Layton.
...which really means that he did all of this in, max, four years, and that's assuming he hit paydirt really quickly on the classified info. Damn. Clive worked fast.
SAMPLES
Log Sample:
The Tranquility was a remarkable feat of engineering (which, given that he saw the results of time travel firsthand, was saying a great deal) but no matter where he went Clive couldn't quite escape the feeling that something was gravely wrong. Perhaps it was only his conscience nagging at him. Or just the puzzle which was set before him.
A few days in, and answers were frustratingly slim. Where were they going? Nobody knew, or at least was willing to divulge that information. The captain knew, of course, but was reluctant to give anything resembling an answer. Those who tried had been told that it was on a need to know basis, with the passengers, of course, not needing to know. (The main upside to the communicators, Clive found, was that at least information traveled quickly.) There were no answers as to what happened to the rest of Tranquility's crew either. A ship of this size should have been filled with people, but instead it was empty. Eerie at times: traveling from room to room alone (he recognized that the smart thing would be to travel with others, but he preferred his own company, being with others made him think of the Professor and...well, it was hardly important here) made the ship feel almost oppressively large.
Still. 'Every puzzle has a solution' and...what was the other one?
“A true gentleman leaves no puzzle unsolved.” It almost made him laugh. Him, a gentleman. But, smirking ever so slightly, emboldened, he entered the next room...
...and found himself facing what appeared to be a jungle.
This was, to say the least, unexpected.
Comms Sample:
[The communicator turns on, like they have a tendency to do.]
I must say that if this is a prank it's very well done. Between these communicators and... [Tapping noise against the wall: yay metal.] ...the environment, it seems that I have no choice but to believe that we have been kidnapped and taken into space for some...mysterious reason.
...very well, I'll play along with this game. If anyone has any information beyond the obvious, do let me know.