〈 PLAYER INFO 〉NAME: Zoki
AGE: 21+
JOURNAL: kharamagicIM / EMAIL: keyzooazul [a] g-mail
PLURK: ![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
kharamagicRETURNING: N/A
〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉CHARACTER NAME: Dr. Emmett Lathrop Brown (he tends to go by 'Doc')
CHARACTER AGE: Right around late 60s, early 70s---canon gives two contradicting birth years, so I put him at approximately 71.
SERIES: Back to the Future
CHRONOLOGY: From early September, 1885---he's pulled right before Marty arrives in the Old West at the beginning of Part III.
CLASS: Hero
(reluctantly)HOUSING: Open to being roomed anywhere!
BACKGROUND: Emmett Brown was born in the early 20th century and raised in Hill Valley, a peaceful suburban California town. He had a fairly unremarkable childhood, but as he entered adulthood he briefly struggled to find his one true calling. Law or science? One attempt at the science fair at age 17 and he was set. He dreamed of building something incredible, of making a new discovery to advance the world's body of knowledge and benefit mankind. But it wasn't so easy.
By the early 1940s, America was at war. Emmett had found himself a cushy desk job at CalTech, but he longed to help the war effort. Rumors spread among the faculty: the military was out to recruit the top minds of the nation for a secret project to aid in the war effort. Emmett wanted nothing more than to get involved, and after some persistent interviewing, he made it onto the project. The project? The Manhattan Project, the introduction of the world's first nuclear weapon. As the dust settled he came to regret his involvement, and he vowed that if he were to ever use nuclear power again it would be for the good of humanity.
A string of bad luck with his inventions followed him after that. As failure after failure piled up, he began to fear that he'd never build something he could be truly proud of. But one night in 1955, he saw the light---when hanging a bathroom fixture, he bumped his head. The moment of impact created a vision of a flux capacitor in his mind: an energy-channeling device that would open a portal in space-time and enable time travel. He sketched it out as a curiosity, but was sure it was as doomed to failure as anything else he'd tried.
Emmett's doubts were finally laid to rest that night when a teenaged boy in strange clothes arrived on his doorstep claiming to have traveled from 30 years in the future. Emmett followed the boy to a strange futuristic car equipped with a small nuclear reactor and that very same flux capacitor from the drawing, and indeed it worked just as he'd dreamed.
The boy from 1985, Marty McFly, turned out to be Emmett's future best friend sent back in time through a mishap with the machine. Emmett had to work quickly to help Marty repair some damage to the timeline and save his future from a time paradox he'd inadvertently created, and the mission was a success on both counts. Emmett sent Marty back to 1985 with a smile, knowing then that his future was brighter than he could've dreamed.
From that point forward, Emmett's life had a new purpose. Even when he was forced to burn down his home and face endless public ridicule to avoid being drawn into another government project, he held his head up and continued to work on his time machine. One day, Marty would come into his life again, greeting him with a 'hey Doc' as he always did. And a day soon after that, he'd be the first in the world to successfully time travel.
'Doc' was right on both counts. Marty and Doc met once more in 1982, and their partnership soon grew into a deep friendship. The years went by, and as 1985 went on, Doc knew he would soon see the events that kicked off the whole time loop for himself. He would complete the time machine, Marty would accidentally arrive in 1955, then return to him after a week's adventure. But Marty had been acting oddly around him toward the end of that week in 1955, even passing him a note with information from the future. Doc had promptly shredded it, claiming it was dangerous to know about his own destiny, but his own curiosity and the memory of Marty's distress in the moment eventually pushed him it back together.
The letter from Marty had been a warning: when the time machine was complete, the terrorists that Doc had swindled to obtain his plutonium supply would hunt him down and murder him. In the letter, Marty pleaded for Doc to do anything to stop this terrible disaster, and so he did: he wore a bulletproof vest---and this time around, Doc sat right back up after the shooting.
With that first ordeal behind them, Doc could finally embark on his first trip to the future---and while it was full of technology marvels and strange fashion, he also saw that Marty's current path would lead him to a miserable life. Marty's future happiness was at stake, so Doc wasn't above a little meddling to fix it. They aimed to meddle in the future just a little, but one stolen time machine and another changed past later, Marty and Doc found themselves back in 1955 on a quest to stop a bully from abusing time travel to rule the future with an iron fist. They succeeded in erasing that dystopia, but at the cost of Doc disappearing in a flash of lightning when the time machine was electrocuted in a freak accident.
That blast sent Doc all the way back to the Old West circa 1885. He was initially dismayed to find that the time machine could not be repaired with 1885 technology, meaning he could never jump forward to meet Marty again. But as a fan of classic Westerns, his new life was almost a dream come true. Doc set about preserving the time machine in a safe location, where his future self and Marty could someday find it and send the similarly-stranded Marty back to 1985. Doc also carefully composed and preserved a letter for Marty and his future self, giving the pair repair instructions and a direct order that Marty not come back for him.
Doc was prepared to start his new life as a blacksmith on the wild frontier, but...one port later, and he'd soon find himself in an entirely different wild frontier.
PERSONALITY: Draw a mental picture of 'mad scientist' in your head. Frizzy white hair, incomprehensible techno-babble, flagrant disregard for safety protocols, unprecedented wacky experiments, and all wrapped in a package of bitter isolation in the laboratory. There are grains of truth that apply to Doc in that description, but there's more to his alleged madness than that.
Doc expresses his greatest joys and hopes in life through his invention of and plans for the time machine. He earnestly tells Marty time and time again that 'if you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything', and Doc isn't afraid to dream big. His hopes are to tour significant events in human history, learn everything he can, and perhaps answer some of life's greatest mysteries. He'll even do it while rocking a Hawaiian tourist shirt under his lab coat.
Unfortunately, the thirty year process of building the time machine and becoming a town pariah, as well as the fallout from the Manhattan Project and the government's other recruiting efforts have caused him to develop some justified fears and close himself off. He knows damn well that he can never let his time machine fall into the wrong hands---people like Tannen will always use it for selfish ends to create their own dystopia, or worse, he fears that military use of time travel could unravel the space-time continuum. Add to that just how easily the rest of Hill Valley hates him based on rumors, and Doc tends to be wary and cynical when he can't be sure of a person's motives.
Behind the cold shell he throws up when feeling threatened, he is an eager scientist who still loves his work and the wonders of life. He still desperately wants to share his findings about physics and stars and impossibilities with someone, and to believe in the goodness in people. All of this has made Doc an intensely loyal friend to the few he considers worthy. For Marty's sake, he's abused time travel to change the outcome of future events, pulled off desperate shoot-outs and car maneuvers, and even taken bullets to give him time to escape. When his loved ones are on the line, Doc will stop at nothing to protect them.
His general sense of justice is...perhaps slightly skewed. He instinctively distrusts government and has a distaste for war, but he loves the world, its people, and diverse experiences. He actively seeks out the good and wants to protect it, and he will stand up for someone if he sees they're being unfairly outcast as he was. He'll intervene to save a life if he can, and he'll do his best to try to bond with others. And he can be pragmatic about this---if he
must accept government interference to do the most good for the people around him, he will.
POWER:Doc is an ordinary baseline human in canon, so the new power he'll receive is electricity generation and manipulation. He can't quite generate or control 1.21 gigawatts to power any time machines, but he'll be able to throw enough of a shock to stun baseline humans of most sizes. Alternately, he'll eventually master wrapping that electricity around himself for an electromagnetic forcefield that can take a few solid hits.
For the most part, though, he'll be using his powers to charge his traditional mechanical inventions. Vehicles, small appliances, and small arms are familiar if not necessarily safe territory for him, and he'll gladly stick to a repair business to get by.
〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE: textGood evening one and all! I apologize for any errors in formatting. This is some excellent technology, but it's entirely new to me---is this keyboard intended for fingenails sculpted like toothpicks? In that case I'll need to grab a filer tonight.
My name is Emmett Brown, and I'm primarily an inventor. My...ah, physiological enhancement seems geared toward that purpose, so there's no sense in changing my specialty. So I'm happy to announce the opening of my side business, ELB Scientific Services!
I'm happy to consult on matters of scientific interest. I specialize in speculation in matters of physics and vehicular repairs, though I've built and repaired most common household devices as well. I'll happily work with you to fit any budget, and I'm open to non-traditional trades of services as well.
LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE:This was most certainly
not one of the many time travel situations Doc had planned for. None of his models, whether mathematical or made of building blocks, could account for the strange contradiction he faced at this very moment. He'd stepped outside his timeline and universe, and where was he?
The early 21st century once more, vaguely similar to the 2015 he knew. A hovering car whooshed over his head---yes, that was familiar. He hadn't had nearly enough time to experiment with hover technology as he would've liked, so he'd have to see about saving up for one of his own while he was here.
The fashion was far more similar to what he knew from the 80s than that other 2015, he thought with a small smirk. No double-ties were to be found here, and the colors were muted. Would that be a victory for fashion sense? He didn't think so, because the disparity spoke to the reality hanging over them all:
America was at war once more, but in lieu of nuclear power, their weapon of choice was...humanity? Military power was nothing new, a draft was also nothing new, but instead of equipping their soldiers with guns, the new weapon of choice appeared to be technologically enhanced humanity, wielding abilities that would be at home in one of Marty's comic books.
Doc scoffed, pulling his weathered brown coat tighter around himself. Oh, no one was telling him to build a weapon this time---he
was the weapon, apparently capable of generating and wielding electricity. If he concentrated deeply enough, he could feel an alien current thrumming in his bones.
I refuse to be anyone's weapon was the common refrain in his mind. That would mean keeping a low profile, maintaining his employment on his own, and no superheroics. Best that he leave that to the younger crowd, regardless---true, the ordinary humans of this 2016 tended to dress modestly, but the same could not always be said for the heroes. He would most certainly
not be donning color-saturated spandex any time soon.
His irritable train of thought could have carried on for the entire walk across town, but it was soon interrupted with a high-pitched "Help!"
Doc could immediately feel his hair standing on end---moreso than usual. His fingertips crackled with power and he swiveled on his heel, instinctively searching for the source of the distress.
It couldn't hurt to help just this once, could it? Surprising himself with his speed, he briskly walked toward the sound. True, he wasn't the strongest superhero by a long shot, but he had a weapon he'd been sharpening for many years---his mind. It would see him through once more.
FINAL NOTES: Physiologically, Doc's a little...weird. He had some oddball rejuvenation treatments done on his first visit to 2015, and as a result he's at about the peak health of a 40 year old man instead of his real age. Doesn't mean he'll be leaping in as an action hero all the time, but he's not as frail as one might expect.
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