OOC: Info on Max
Character: X5-452, or 'Max Guevara'
Series: Dark Angel, the James Cameron TV series, which ran for 2 seasons. There's also a novel prequel, and two novel sequels that wrap up the plot that was left open at the end of the tv series.
Character's age: 21 (she was 19 when the show started)
Character's gender: female (or as much as a 'transgenic' human can be)
Character's "Real Name": Lillian Gulliver
Personal History: (WARNING: Spoilers for tv series and novels)
In 2009, 12 'children' escaped from a top-secret secure military facility known only as "Project Manticore", hidden deep within the mountains of Wyoming. These children were part of a secret government research project to make the 'perfect soldier'. They were created from a mix of human and animal DNA - 'chimera' - and raised and trained all their lives to be the perfect assassins - silent, quick, and efficient.
But when a weakness was found in a few of the models - their brain's inability to create serotonin, thus causing severe seizures, followed by coma and death - the children (known as the X5 models) stage an escape attempt after one of their number is killed and dissected to find out the cause of this weakness. Many attempt the escape; only 12 successfully make it.
'Max' is one of those 12. Ten years later, having made it out alive and alone, she's lived her life in hiding, struggling to stay off the radar and still searching for the whereabouts of her 'siblings', though she is unsure if any actually made it out of Manticore alive, let alone remain free. A few months after the escape attempt, terrorists set off an electromagnetic pulse over the country, destroying America's computers, electronics, financial status, and way of life, decimating it to no better than a 3rd world country.
Max - now 21 - has been hiding in Seattle as a bicycle messenger for a company called Jam Pony, working as a thief on the side to pay the extra expenses of tracking down her brothers and sisters, the other X5's who might have escaped. One of these 'side jobs' led her to Logan Cale, an undercover cyberjournalist known to the world as 'Eyes Only', a man determined to expose the truth about the corrupt men and women who now control the government, military, and the powers-that-be left existing in what was once the United States. Having sources everywhere, he offers to help Max track down the other X5's in exchange for her assistance fighting the injustices he uncovers.
Throughout the series of Dark Angel, Max comes across many of the former 12 X5's that escaped, as well as a few that were left behind, and the man in charge of Manticore, Colonial Donald Lydecker, who is still working to track down the escaped X5's. At the end of season 1 and into season 2, Max manages to return to Manticore with the assistance of Zach - her big brother and the one who led the X5 escape attempt 10 years before - and destroys the facility, setting all the other transgenic series (X2 through X8) free.
At the end of season two, the 'normal' humans finally become aware of the transgenics in their midst - as some of the artificially created models are decidedly inhuman in appearance - and distrust and prejudice abound, because humans don't understand what's different from them. At the very end of the season, Max escapes with many transgenics into 'Terminal City', a sector of Seattle that was poisoned by radiation fallout after the EMP that normal humans can't survive in long, but has no negative effects on the transgenics. The trangenics declare this place as their own 'freak nation', an uneasy truce falling temporarily between them and the humans outside - left undisturbed by the series' cancellation. It resembles sort of an X-men universe at that point, to give you a general idea of the state of mind the series leaves you at.
The two Dark Angel novels pick up where the series left off, as it was cancelled before it could conclude the plots it had left wide open. In the novels, the plots involving the mistrust between the transgenics and the humans are resolved and they are granted 'Terminal City' as their own section of the city, slowly building a life for themselves in freedom after a long, hard fight for it. Max also finally stops the cult that was partially responsible for Manticore's creation - a group of fanaticals who have struggled for centuries to breed the perfect race of people, one of which was the legendary Sandeman, who found a way to do this through scientific methods (aka Manticore) but was then outcast by the cult. Max herself was the pinnacle of his creations, the only one of the X series to have no 'junk DNA', the perfect being. Because of this, the cult has been using Manticore and the government to track her down since her escape and were responsible for fueling the fire behind the hatred of transgenics after their appearance in society. Taking down the cult once and for all means Max and the other transgenics no longer have to hide and are finally completely free to find their own lives - a lifelong dream.
Personality:
Max endured intense military training and conditioning as a child up until the age of 9 when she escaped Manticore. Under the surface, her training remains, as well as the instincts given to her by her special DNA. She hides her past as 'X5-452' by becoming Max Guevara, a secretive but loyal girl living in what was once Seattle. She's somewhat cynical, very sarcastic, and has a very in-your-face attitude. She struggles with the conditioning instilled in her at times, caught between survival instinct (do not engage in a scenario you cannot win) and human morality (doing what's right versus doing what's smart/safe) She hides insecurities and her past behind a tough-girl attitude, confident in her ability to 'kick ass' and never showing fear and rarely showing hesitation. She is perfectly aware of her abilities, strengths, and weaknesses, and is very logical when it comes to tackling any situation (except, of course, when it comes to Logan). She tends to view most situations from the outside with cool detachment, although if you piss her off, look out.
Though she's endlessly loyal to her friends, she holds everyone at a distance, the secrets in her past making it impossible for her to open up completely to anyone. An ex-boyfriend refers to her as 'an emotional fogbank' because no one can ever really tell what she's thinking or feeling, an observation she takes very hard, since she struggles to be 'normal' in appearance to her friends - none of which know her secret. She's blunt and always ready with a snarky comeback, and has little patience for idiots, but she has very real soft spots, especially for those that are very close to her, even when they do drive her up the wall. When it comes down to it, she really will say 'screw it all' and do anything for them, as she proves several times for the series. 'Family' is very important to her, as she's had to make her own family in life.
Physical Description:
Max is 21 years of age, stands about 5'6, 115 pounds, and as she brags in the series, a 'perfect 3'. She has wavy dark brown hair that falls to her shoulders and brown eyes. Her one distinguishing mark is the barcode on the back of her neck - an identification number coded into her DNA: 332960073452.
She keeps herself in perfect shape, despite a tendency for preferring junk food and her aversion to sleeping - she almost never needs to because of her jumped-up DNA - something referred to as 'sickening' by her clueless roommate, who is, of course, human and requires exercise and 8 hours like the rest of us.
Timeline Interruption:
I'll be bringing her in at the end of the novels, which concluded just after Max and the transgenics bring down the cult that was partially responsible for spawning them. Life was finally looking up and she'd finally worked things out with the man she's been dancing around a relationship with throughout the entire series. She'll not be too happy at fate throwing her another roadblock NOW of all times, but at least she got to sleep with him before showing up here, haha. She fell asleep in a motel beside him and wakes up in Landels.
Magical/special/crazy powers:
Because of her chimera-mix of DNA, Max is given several advanced abilities in the series, although she still has very real weaknesses and limitations. One of the prominent strains of her genetic makeup is drawn from feline DNA, giving her the ability to jump up to 12 feet, night-vision, and to selectively 'zoom in' on things are at a distance. She also has the ability to endure severe temnperatures, hold her breath for long periods of time, enhanced speed, strength, and reflexes, as well as a photographic memory and years spent training in stealth and martial arts and various fighting forms.
She is not invincible, however. She still feels pain, she can still be killed and injured like any normal human. She heals a bit faster than humans, but it's not instantaneous, and if the wound is mortal, it obviously would do her little good.
A drawback to her DNA? Besides always landing on her feet, she also goes into heat three times a year.
Subdued:
The trained skills she's keeping - her memory, her stealth, her fighting skills. Her enhancements I think I might just cloud over a bit - she'll be stronger and a faster than a normal human, but she's not going to take down a 250-pound thug with her thumb and forefinger, like she claims she can in the series. She'll be able to see better than an average human in the dark - cat vision? - and keep her feline balance/reflexes, since I'd like to enjoy playing off that side of her abilities/personality. But when it comes to fighting the baddies in Landels, she'll still have a chance of being outmaneuvered and overpowered, because it's not so much fun if she doesn't get battered up once in a while, although a normal opponent or some of the weaker creepy-crawlies might not give her much pause.
Some of her phobias/dislikes in the show I want to carry over, too. She refuses to use/handle a gun, and people using them around her make her uneasy, due to one of her sisters being shot right in front of her during the escape attempt. She dislikes needles, being in ANY sort of medical facility (because of keeping her secret for so long, she's refused to ever be treated for anything, since a simple blood test would reveal her hyped-up DNA) and she dreads becoming a lab rat or being sent back to any place like Manticore ever again. She also loathes and fears ravens/crows, because of an incident when she was being trained at Manticore and the accidental death of one of her brothers. Even the sound of them gives her flashbacks and creeps her out.
Non-magical skills/abilities:
One aspect to her personality is the weakness that originally drove her and the other eleven X5's from Manticore in the first place, and that is her brain's inability to produce serotonin. To counter this in the series, she takes a pill called Tryptophan, something very hard to get to in post-EMP America.
I'm not sure yet if I'll bring this into Landels or not, as she's cured of this weakness mid-season 2. When she runs low on serotonin, she goes into seizures, and without taking a pill, would go into a coma and die. In season 1, she is haunted by these seizures almost every night and is very dependant on the pill. Tryptophan might or might not be available at Landels - since it IS a medical facility of sorts - but as this condition leaves her completely weak and helpless during the seizures, and dead without the pill, I'm not sure how much of a good thing this would be to have at Landels.
Please give us an idea of where you'd like to take your character within the scope of the Landel's Damned RP:
Being in a contained facility like this isn't something that's going to be new to Max. If anything, the sight of such a strange collection of patients won't phase her much in the least, as the impossible and improbable are very real in her world. However, because of her childhood in Manticore, she has a very real fear and aversion to such places, and understandably, will not enjoy being contained and experimented on.
Being thought of as crazy probably won't phase her much - there's little sane or normal in her life - but she will be worried about those she left behind and if they're safe, and whether or not whoever's running this place will use them to get to her. She'll probably relish the fighting at night and the chance to escape, but possibly be held back by trying to help others if she gets close to people, which she has a habit of doing.
Her primary fear will be the doctors finding out what she is - if they haven't already - and then experimenting on her or trying to use her against others. Having been created as a weapon, she's lived her life to become anything but that. I can see her playing along to a certain extent during the day - it's ingrained in her to lay low, not to stand out or draw attention to herself too much - and then kicking ass at night.
What kind of psychological effect do you see Landel's Institute having on your character?:
Most of this I already included above, but… Having been a loner for so long, she's probably going to intend to stay that way at first, being surrounded by so many strangers. She'll want to be getting out and getting back home, as there are people depending on her, and people not safe without her around. She'll also see herself as a threat and a danger to people who get close to her within Landels, as she's always wary of attachments being used against her. But she DOES have a soft spot for people, and inevitably makes attachments anyways. For herself, she fears little; it's others that cause her to be more cautious and protective.
She's blunt and takes life as it comes to her. Life's thrown some pretty shitty stuff her way, and though she's never endured something quite like Landels before, she's endured events that helped prepare her to face it. Which she'll do, with a 'bite me' attitude and her own skewed view of reality.
Given that this RP takes place in an unsettling and outright horrific environment, how do you justify your character as being appropriate in both body and mind for this kind of setting?:
Max has endured 9 years being raised in a military facility where she was trained to live, breath, and think as a weapon, not to ask questions, obey orders, and survive extreme situations with maximum success. After escaping and surviving nine years on her own without being discovered and honing the skills she was taught, she survived another short stay as an adult before destroying the place and people that created her. Because of her DNA and her training, she's a bit more prepared than a normal human to survive a place like Landels, but also because of those reasons, she's also going to loathe landing back in such a confined environment that she's learned - with good reason - to hate and fear.