PDA

View Full Version : Grade-A-Marvel-OC: Navatias Extraho, Mutant Hacker



Leliel
2010-01-22, 07:45 PM
Anyway, a guy on Myth-Weavers is going to run an X-Men RP using nWoD rules, and I decided I wanted to be the "token Brotherhood recruit" among them (OK, he isn't Magneto's lackey yet, but he has that same condescending and dismissive attitude towards normal humans shared by them).

For something unique, I thought perhaps I could have a computer cracker-turned-electrokinetic. I also wanted to examine the character of the typical villainous hacker found in fiction, and how they would actually act in real life. So here he is:

"With most mutants, the question of wether their abilities are curse or gift is bound to result in some philosophical wrangling-true, they are gifted with powers of the superhuman variety, but it comes with a rather large catch of being forced to abandon their previous life, and they didn't ask for them. A lot of people think a superhuman ability is a curse if they didn't ask for it, even if they like the power it gives them.

One asking Ivan, on the other hand, would get an immediate answer-of course it's a gift. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool or absorbed in self-pity.

Ivan Yeltsin Emmerich was raised to one of the worst orphanages in the country-a destitute, ramshackle, and in the case of the wardens, sometimes abusive institution by the name of Harvey Tenor House for the Paternally Challenged. It was just as much a Victorian nightmare as the name would suggest. Lack of funding, no ability to choose people who actually enjoyed children and weren't just average wife-beaters looking for a job, and general neglect conspired to make a juvenile delinquent factory. One of these delinquents was the young Ivan, who, contrary to the popular stereotype, was a slight, intelligent lad who enjoyed learning-not that there were any good teachers aside from Wikipedia. That said, he took to the Internet with glee, quickly becoming popular in school as the guy to go to if you had problems in the computer department-or needed to buy test results from. He was, after all, a delinquent who was repeatedly cited for creating viruses as a prank and changing the grades of his duller friends via hacking. Not that he cared-by the time he was 16, he had already made arrangements to set out, dropping out of high school.

Once on his own, he quickly made a reputation for himself as a prodigal programmer of illicit software, with his knowledge of virus programming and cyber-espionage, making a pretty penny for himself as a professional cracker-for-hire, selling his knowledge of the botnet and the worm on the black market. So much of a reputation, in fact, that he attracted the interest of the Black Hatters, a group of elite hackers that split off from the Advanced Idea Mechanics organization after a rather...violent...disagreement over the tendency of the Board of Directors to control the flow of free information (the Black Hatters have a simple answer when it comes to censorship of any sort-don't). They made an offer of membership to the genius cyber-criminal, allowing him access to their supply of military grade hardware and lucrative contracts in return for his talents and loyalty. Always in search of more power and wealth, and to prevent the feeling of powerlessness he felt in the orphanage again, he accepted instantly.

As he quickly rocketed to the heights of Internet infamy, Ivan began to discover rumors of the Office of National Emergency designing a process to refine Terrigen Mist into a form palatable by genetically impure humans, in an attempt to create a sort of "Living Sentinel" to combat mutants (the hypocrisy inherent in creating Inhumans to fight mutants apparently never occurred to them). Feeling the need to investigate further out of curiosity, Ivan eventually discovered that they had managed to refine a moderate amount, with some being stored in Washington state-conveniently near his abode in Seattle. Needless to say, his hunger for power and childhood dreams of superpowers were inflamed.

Breaking into the compound was easy-government never seems to understand the concept of "don't outfit your robots with Ethernet so the guards can watch the security cam from home"-and getting the Mist was even simpler, as he was only working for himself. No need for a daring escape plan and need to evade the alarm, just puncture the casing and inhale. It was the disorientation of rapidly activating genes that changed his life when he got lost, and found the _other_ something, or more accurately, someone, stored there.

Rico Sanatoria, a homeless illegal immigrant abducted by the more amoral members of the O.N.E to serve as a test subject for the Mists, it was quite clear from just looking at him that he had been quite horribly treated. Emaciated, sick, and in desperate need of a bath, the biokinetic's predicament screamed to every bit of Ivan's remaining moral fiber, and as a test of his rapidly developing powers over electricity, disengaged his cell door and made his (more harried than he expected, but otherwise flawless) escape. It was also then that Ivan found a new calling-by getting as much scandalous information and muck on anti-mutants as possible, and then blackmailing them to change their policies and practices-along with some percentage of their money.

So ended the story of Ivan Emmerich, the hacker-and so begins the story of Navatias Extraho, the Dragon of Cyberspace.."

So, in general terms, do you think he's a good character?

Leliel
2010-01-23, 01:24 PM
I'm told that I don't specify what I want when I say "review".

So, more specifically:

Do you think that he's a good character in RP?

The Glyphstone
2010-01-23, 02:01 PM
Good the alignment, or good as well-developed?

The latter, I'd say yes. The former, definitely not. Neutral at best.

Athaniar
2010-01-23, 03:50 PM
The concept seems quite decent, but "Extra ho"? Really?

Leliel
2010-01-23, 05:23 PM
Good the alignment, or good as well-developed?

The latter, I'd say yes. The former, definitely not. Neutral at best.

Well-developed.

I don't have any delusions he's more than a selfish anti-villain.

And "Extraho" in Latin means "The Dragon". Literally, his name means The Energy Dragon.

Laugh at it, and prepare to get mind-controlled into streaking. Yes, he has mind control. The brain is simply an immeasurably complex computer, after all.