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bzarcherThis got in my head and wouldn't let go. Thanks, Har... :D
Can I get some C&C on this from the MUSHing types?
1. What is your name and e-mail address?
Matt Wagner, bzarcher (AT) gmail (DOT) com
2. What are the origins of your character? Where did they come from and how did they obtain their superpowers (if applicable)?
Victor (Vic) Sage began as a relatively humble reporter who wanted to tell people the truth "as he saw it", just like Edward R. Murrow or Walter Cronkite, back when the news was honest and the men on TV weren't lying through their teeth. 2 years of Journalism school lead to an internship at a Star City news radio station, where long hours of carrying the kit bags, listening to how sources and press offices being worked, and more than a few talk radio pundits droning in his ears for hours on end quickly convinced him one one thing: Radio was for crackpots. The real way to get people's attention would be Television.
So, after a bit of searching, he landed in Hub City, Indiana, beginning as a junior field reporter. His on screen presence and a powerful delivery got him noticed both as a good "face" for the viewers, and for his sometimes over the top delivery, and he soon became a member of the news team working in investigative journalism, just as he wanted. Mostly going after illegal work practices at some of the larger shipping companies and some of the local restaurant chains, he proudly told viewers night after night that "It isn't going to be pretty, but I will show you the Truth." He came off as just this side of the crackpots, but at least he did it with good TV in mind. (Think Geraldo, but less talk shows and Chair Tossing.)
Soon, he began to look into some of the poor practices at Sterling Chemicals, a major Hub City employer. His investigations off camera lead him into some disgusting abuses of test animals and that quite a few major products were being sold to the public for use all over the country, even though they had "relatively uncommon" but deadly side effects, especially if combined with other Sterling products!
Unfortunately, when he tried to break the story, it was spiked by the News Manager. Sterling owned a large stake in the station, and they weren't about to burn their owner. Vic's requests for interviews with Sterling management, or even just a camera crew to help him document some of what he'd dug up, were roundly rejected, and he was told that if he kept asking "Those Questions", he'd be shown the door soon after.
Just to bring the point home, a someone broke into his apartment a few days later and ransacked it. Curiously, most of his valuables were fine, but most of his private notes on Sterling Chemicals were gone.
Vic had gotten the message, but fortunately, so had someone else.
A research chemist inside of Sterling had been stockpiling evidence in case he was fired, and found out about Vic's attempts to discover what was going on inside and expose it. He also found out that several boys from the Shipping department were sent to deliver a message for him.
The chemist, Tot Rodor, wasn't having it. One night after work, he took a copy of his own stash to Sage's apartment, along with a box that he left at Sage's door, and ran after ringing his bell.
Inside the box was a note, 2 small gas bottles marked "ON" and "OFF", and a floppy mask of what appeared to be fake skin. On the note was simply "Use these."
At first, Vic just used the notes to reconstruct his own story, and to send the story in a sealed envelope to a few friends from Journalism School. But the box kept nagging at him.
Finally, his curiosity peaked, he went to the bathroom, carefully placed the mask over his face, and opened the "ON" bottle, letting it waft up around him.
Within moments, things became quite clear. Where there had been Vic Sage was now a blank, his hair color changed, and even his skin tinting to a ruddier shade than normal. Nobody would recognize him - how could they? He was nobody. No one. A faceless inquisitor.
...a Question.
The Question!
And he would get quite a few answers from Sterling Chemical.
Dressing in an old suit, coat, and hat, he broke into Sterling that night and managed to break up a deal between a Sterling board member and the operators of several drug labs who were going to start using Sterling products to cut their wares. With a call to the police on one of the dealer's phones after they'd been tied up, the evidence all around them, it wasn't too hard for Vic to convince the news editors that, owners or not, they had to report on Sterling or get roasted in the ratings.
With that, the Question began to work to expose those secrets and lies hidden from daylight, while Vic Sage would come in and show the television audiences the aftermath, and just who the REAL criminals were.
Tot Rodor managed to prove his innocence of any wrongdoing at Sterling and was promoted. In a mostly silent show of support, he continues to send batches of the ON and OFF gasses to Vic every month. They meet perhaps once every few months, mostly to replace the mask if it's been damaged, though he also treated some of Vic's clothing with a special binary compound that cannot be washed off, and will react to change color when exposed to the "ON" or "OFF" gasses, giving him an extra level of cover.
But, as usual, there is a catch - the ON gas has been slowly building up in Vic's system, and one of the side effects is a mild psychotropia. Mostly expressed in paranoia and a tendency towards conspiracy theory, he's also suffered some personality shifts. Is Victor Sage The Question, or The Question Victor Sage? He probably couldn't tell you for sure anymore. He also tends to go for the more direct solutions rather than a drawn out plan - rather than let a thug play word games for a few hours, sometimes it really is easier to kick him in the kneecap and make him talk then and there.
Fortunately, the OFF gas seems to mitigate it, but unless he's going into work or to eat, he's noticed he doesn't use it as much - spending more and more time as The Question every night, walking the streets, looking for the Truth...
(Note: This is modified off the original Charlton origin - I really don't think we need the S&M Catholic boarding school and LSD addict stuff that DC did for him after Zero Hour...)
3. Please describe the personality of your character. What are their likes and dislikes? What is their motivation in life? How do they use their powers (if applicable)? Do they work mundane jobs? How do they feel about others? Are they guided by any values? What do they fear? What do they wish for? This is the most important part of the application so please use this opportunity to be as in-depth as possible. Explain everything about your character to us! Going beyond these initial set of personality questions is a major plus!
A=A. If A!=A, then all else will fall apart.
However, The Question believes in his heart that A is being hidden from most people. They can't see that A=A because too many of them are brainwashed by pop culture, the corporate media, the food they eat, the water they drink, and sometimes even the air they breathe. ("The United States Government launched 480,000,000 copper needles into space in 1963. Supposedly it was to create an artificial ionosphere for radio transmissions before communications satellites were launched. But they didn't clean them up after satellites were launched, did they? And don't you think it's funny that Kennedy died less than 6 months after the needles were established?")
So, he will get to the truth. He goes through the night looking for answers to The Question. Sometimes leading him into relatively minor confrontations with drug dealers, gangsters, or crooked cops. Sometimes to the Real Enemy - into the den of the Great and the Good to expose the rot within. ("Because the Great and the Good just means they're the Rich and the Powerful.")
Unsurprisingly, he's a fan of puzzles, and often picks up books on Sudoku or Crosswords to solve, looking for meanings beyond a mundane game. ("2 weeks before the Allies invaded Normandy, the Daily Telegraph published a crossword with the words "Overlord, Fortitude, Omaha, Mulberry, Juno, Sword, Gold, and Utah. Maybe it was innocent. Or maybe we should be lucky that Hitler hated the crossword.")
He's a strange mix of Objectivist, Freudian, and all out nutball, but he is genuinely attempting to root out corruption and crime, and show people the world around them so that they can take it back for themselves. He's not afraid to use violence, but he hasn't killed anyone yet, and it's doubtful that he would unless there was no other way out.
Victor Sage, on the other hand, is regarded as a fairly nice, if a bit overly intense guy, who gets a little obnoxious with his story requests. ("Look, I know he's only the city dogcatcher, but how many dogcatchers do you know with their own yacht? Let's go find out why!") He usually comes off as that guy who you wouldn't ask out on a date, but you might ask him to walk you home at night to make sure you got there OK.
He knows he should be troubled by the fact that The Question seems to be taking over his life (or perhaps his life was just waiting to become The Questions...), but he knows he's doing good things, and believes he's "in control" for now. After all, if it becomes too much of a problem, it wouldn't be that hard to stop.
Of course, perhaps that's what they'd want him to think...
He admires the other Heroes who have taken to the public's eye, though he sometimes questions their motives. ("Does Batman really want to help Gotham? If so, why isn't he using some of his tactics on the Mayor's office when they tried to rezone residents out of their homes to help build Stonegate prison? And if Superman is all about Truth, Justice, and the American Way, why does he speak perfect Russian?") Green Arrow's the only one he doesn't necessarily gel with, mostly because he's so anti-establishment that he's obviously a spoiler for the Other Side.
The Question fears what he sees around him every day - so many people, looped into the machinations of the Secret Masters and their pawns, left as little more than walking, talking robots. The monoculture that keeps swallowing up more and more of what made America the leader of the Free World, replaced with McDonalds, Total Request Live, and no-one really listening to what's happening around them. ("Don't you think it's funny that every time you hear about some defense system or advanced technology for the policy or military going Berserk, it's made by LexCorp? And yet, every time those same police departments and Quartermaster Corps need new weapons or special equipment, they buy it from...LexCorp." Funny. But Sad.")
4. Describe the nature of your character's powers and their extents. Please indicate their limitations and any weaknesses your character may have.
Primarily, The Question is a gifted investigator, with a bit of burglar mixed in. Picking locks, breaking and entering, computer theft - all the tools of a modern reporter, when you get right down to it. He knows how to box and fight a little dirty. He's a good TV reporter, and he knows the tricks of using his presence and his voice to grab your attention, distract you, intimidate you, cut you off, or to help make himself seem less and less important and fade into the background.
Oh, and he has a mask that can only be taken off if you have exactly the right chemical gas, and doesn't seem to have a face when he's wearing it, even though he can talk normally, see you, and breathes.
That's it. Beyond that, he's an ordinary man, with ordinary strength, stamina, and durability. Thanks to his altered brain chemistry, he usually only sleeps 3 or 4 hours a night, if that, but nobody really notices a news reporter running on low sleep and coffee anyhow. Sleeping in is for Anchormen. ("From what I've been able to learn, Tom Brokaw slept over 12 hours a day, waking only to feed, speak, and excrete into a lovingly handcrafted brass vessel that was used to deliver his waste to Peter Jennings each time NBC beat him in the ratings.")
If anything, his disguise is also a weakness, given that for every time he has a brilliant leap of deduction ("Only 3 places in the city could manufacture this...and only one of them is close to the Water Plant!") he jumps to a conclusion or a somewhat insanely short-circuited idea based on his flawed reasoning. ("Steeltoe boots can't cut your feet off in an impact situation...but they can be used as targets for Special Operations microwave weapons.")
5. Using the information from questions 2, 3, and 4, please fill out the following information that will consist of your +finger information:
Full Name: Victor "Vic" Lucas Sage
Alter Ego: The Question
Age: 29
Species: Human
Motivation: Truth!
Occupation: Investigative Journalist
Team:
Secret?: 5
Sex: Male
Profile: An investigative reporter who was given the gift of total anonymity to help him find the truth behind various cover ups and crimes, Vic Sage disguises himself behind a featureless mask to seek the Answers that many do not want to be found. But as he is increasingly wound up into the Secrets he attempts to expose, even he isn't sure where the man ends and the mask begins. An investigator, a bit of a dirty fighter, and a conspiracy theorist, he knows he will never have or be the answers. He is only...The Question.
6. Who is your daddy and what does he do?
My mommy says my daddy is a Sex Machine.
7. What is your favorite kind of potato-chips?
Used to be salt and vinegar, but we found these awesome Charles' habanero chips recently that won my heart.
Can I get some C&C on this from the MUSHing types?
1. What is your name and e-mail address?
Matt Wagner, bzarcher (AT) gmail (DOT) com
2. What are the origins of your character? Where did they come from and how did they obtain their superpowers (if applicable)?
Victor (Vic) Sage began as a relatively humble reporter who wanted to tell people the truth "as he saw it", just like Edward R. Murrow or Walter Cronkite, back when the news was honest and the men on TV weren't lying through their teeth. 2 years of Journalism school lead to an internship at a Star City news radio station, where long hours of carrying the kit bags, listening to how sources and press offices being worked, and more than a few talk radio pundits droning in his ears for hours on end quickly convinced him one one thing: Radio was for crackpots. The real way to get people's attention would be Television.
So, after a bit of searching, he landed in Hub City, Indiana, beginning as a junior field reporter. His on screen presence and a powerful delivery got him noticed both as a good "face" for the viewers, and for his sometimes over the top delivery, and he soon became a member of the news team working in investigative journalism, just as he wanted. Mostly going after illegal work practices at some of the larger shipping companies and some of the local restaurant chains, he proudly told viewers night after night that "It isn't going to be pretty, but I will show you the Truth." He came off as just this side of the crackpots, but at least he did it with good TV in mind. (Think Geraldo, but less talk shows and Chair Tossing.)
Soon, he began to look into some of the poor practices at Sterling Chemicals, a major Hub City employer. His investigations off camera lead him into some disgusting abuses of test animals and that quite a few major products were being sold to the public for use all over the country, even though they had "relatively uncommon" but deadly side effects, especially if combined with other Sterling products!
Unfortunately, when he tried to break the story, it was spiked by the News Manager. Sterling owned a large stake in the station, and they weren't about to burn their owner. Vic's requests for interviews with Sterling management, or even just a camera crew to help him document some of what he'd dug up, were roundly rejected, and he was told that if he kept asking "Those Questions", he'd be shown the door soon after.
Just to bring the point home, a someone broke into his apartment a few days later and ransacked it. Curiously, most of his valuables were fine, but most of his private notes on Sterling Chemicals were gone.
Vic had gotten the message, but fortunately, so had someone else.
A research chemist inside of Sterling had been stockpiling evidence in case he was fired, and found out about Vic's attempts to discover what was going on inside and expose it. He also found out that several boys from the Shipping department were sent to deliver a message for him.
The chemist, Tot Rodor, wasn't having it. One night after work, he took a copy of his own stash to Sage's apartment, along with a box that he left at Sage's door, and ran after ringing his bell.
Inside the box was a note, 2 small gas bottles marked "ON" and "OFF", and a floppy mask of what appeared to be fake skin. On the note was simply "Use these."
At first, Vic just used the notes to reconstruct his own story, and to send the story in a sealed envelope to a few friends from Journalism School. But the box kept nagging at him.
Finally, his curiosity peaked, he went to the bathroom, carefully placed the mask over his face, and opened the "ON" bottle, letting it waft up around him.
Within moments, things became quite clear. Where there had been Vic Sage was now a blank, his hair color changed, and even his skin tinting to a ruddier shade than normal. Nobody would recognize him - how could they? He was nobody. No one. A faceless inquisitor.
...a Question.
The Question!
And he would get quite a few answers from Sterling Chemical.
Dressing in an old suit, coat, and hat, he broke into Sterling that night and managed to break up a deal between a Sterling board member and the operators of several drug labs who were going to start using Sterling products to cut their wares. With a call to the police on one of the dealer's phones after they'd been tied up, the evidence all around them, it wasn't too hard for Vic to convince the news editors that, owners or not, they had to report on Sterling or get roasted in the ratings.
With that, the Question began to work to expose those secrets and lies hidden from daylight, while Vic Sage would come in and show the television audiences the aftermath, and just who the REAL criminals were.
Tot Rodor managed to prove his innocence of any wrongdoing at Sterling and was promoted. In a mostly silent show of support, he continues to send batches of the ON and OFF gasses to Vic every month. They meet perhaps once every few months, mostly to replace the mask if it's been damaged, though he also treated some of Vic's clothing with a special binary compound that cannot be washed off, and will react to change color when exposed to the "ON" or "OFF" gasses, giving him an extra level of cover.
But, as usual, there is a catch - the ON gas has been slowly building up in Vic's system, and one of the side effects is a mild psychotropia. Mostly expressed in paranoia and a tendency towards conspiracy theory, he's also suffered some personality shifts. Is Victor Sage The Question, or The Question Victor Sage? He probably couldn't tell you for sure anymore. He also tends to go for the more direct solutions rather than a drawn out plan - rather than let a thug play word games for a few hours, sometimes it really is easier to kick him in the kneecap and make him talk then and there.
Fortunately, the OFF gas seems to mitigate it, but unless he's going into work or to eat, he's noticed he doesn't use it as much - spending more and more time as The Question every night, walking the streets, looking for the Truth...
(Note: This is modified off the original Charlton origin - I really don't think we need the S&M Catholic boarding school and LSD addict stuff that DC did for him after Zero Hour...)
3. Please describe the personality of your character. What are their likes and dislikes? What is their motivation in life? How do they use their powers (if applicable)? Do they work mundane jobs? How do they feel about others? Are they guided by any values? What do they fear? What do they wish for? This is the most important part of the application so please use this opportunity to be as in-depth as possible. Explain everything about your character to us! Going beyond these initial set of personality questions is a major plus!
A=A. If A!=A, then all else will fall apart.
However, The Question believes in his heart that A is being hidden from most people. They can't see that A=A because too many of them are brainwashed by pop culture, the corporate media, the food they eat, the water they drink, and sometimes even the air they breathe. ("The United States Government launched 480,000,000 copper needles into space in 1963. Supposedly it was to create an artificial ionosphere for radio transmissions before communications satellites were launched. But they didn't clean them up after satellites were launched, did they? And don't you think it's funny that Kennedy died less than 6 months after the needles were established?")
So, he will get to the truth. He goes through the night looking for answers to The Question. Sometimes leading him into relatively minor confrontations with drug dealers, gangsters, or crooked cops. Sometimes to the Real Enemy - into the den of the Great and the Good to expose the rot within. ("Because the Great and the Good just means they're the Rich and the Powerful.")
Unsurprisingly, he's a fan of puzzles, and often picks up books on Sudoku or Crosswords to solve, looking for meanings beyond a mundane game. ("2 weeks before the Allies invaded Normandy, the Daily Telegraph published a crossword with the words "Overlord, Fortitude, Omaha, Mulberry, Juno, Sword, Gold, and Utah. Maybe it was innocent. Or maybe we should be lucky that Hitler hated the crossword.")
He's a strange mix of Objectivist, Freudian, and all out nutball, but he is genuinely attempting to root out corruption and crime, and show people the world around them so that they can take it back for themselves. He's not afraid to use violence, but he hasn't killed anyone yet, and it's doubtful that he would unless there was no other way out.
Victor Sage, on the other hand, is regarded as a fairly nice, if a bit overly intense guy, who gets a little obnoxious with his story requests. ("Look, I know he's only the city dogcatcher, but how many dogcatchers do you know with their own yacht? Let's go find out why!") He usually comes off as that guy who you wouldn't ask out on a date, but you might ask him to walk you home at night to make sure you got there OK.
He knows he should be troubled by the fact that The Question seems to be taking over his life (or perhaps his life was just waiting to become The Questions...), but he knows he's doing good things, and believes he's "in control" for now. After all, if it becomes too much of a problem, it wouldn't be that hard to stop.
Of course, perhaps that's what they'd want him to think...
He admires the other Heroes who have taken to the public's eye, though he sometimes questions their motives. ("Does Batman really want to help Gotham? If so, why isn't he using some of his tactics on the Mayor's office when they tried to rezone residents out of their homes to help build Stonegate prison? And if Superman is all about Truth, Justice, and the American Way, why does he speak perfect Russian?") Green Arrow's the only one he doesn't necessarily gel with, mostly because he's so anti-establishment that he's obviously a spoiler for the Other Side.
The Question fears what he sees around him every day - so many people, looped into the machinations of the Secret Masters and their pawns, left as little more than walking, talking robots. The monoculture that keeps swallowing up more and more of what made America the leader of the Free World, replaced with McDonalds, Total Request Live, and no-one really listening to what's happening around them. ("Don't you think it's funny that every time you hear about some defense system or advanced technology for the policy or military going Berserk, it's made by LexCorp? And yet, every time those same police departments and Quartermaster Corps need new weapons or special equipment, they buy it from...LexCorp." Funny. But Sad.")
4. Describe the nature of your character's powers and their extents. Please indicate their limitations and any weaknesses your character may have.
Primarily, The Question is a gifted investigator, with a bit of burglar mixed in. Picking locks, breaking and entering, computer theft - all the tools of a modern reporter, when you get right down to it. He knows how to box and fight a little dirty. He's a good TV reporter, and he knows the tricks of using his presence and his voice to grab your attention, distract you, intimidate you, cut you off, or to help make himself seem less and less important and fade into the background.
Oh, and he has a mask that can only be taken off if you have exactly the right chemical gas, and doesn't seem to have a face when he's wearing it, even though he can talk normally, see you, and breathes.
That's it. Beyond that, he's an ordinary man, with ordinary strength, stamina, and durability. Thanks to his altered brain chemistry, he usually only sleeps 3 or 4 hours a night, if that, but nobody really notices a news reporter running on low sleep and coffee anyhow. Sleeping in is for Anchormen. ("From what I've been able to learn, Tom Brokaw slept over 12 hours a day, waking only to feed, speak, and excrete into a lovingly handcrafted brass vessel that was used to deliver his waste to Peter Jennings each time NBC beat him in the ratings.")
If anything, his disguise is also a weakness, given that for every time he has a brilliant leap of deduction ("Only 3 places in the city could manufacture this...and only one of them is close to the Water Plant!") he jumps to a conclusion or a somewhat insanely short-circuited idea based on his flawed reasoning. ("Steeltoe boots can't cut your feet off in an impact situation...but they can be used as targets for Special Operations microwave weapons.")
5. Using the information from questions 2, 3, and 4, please fill out the following information that will consist of your +finger information:
Full Name: Victor "Vic" Lucas Sage
Alter Ego: The Question
Age: 29
Species: Human
Motivation: Truth!
Occupation: Investigative Journalist
Team:
Secret?: 5
Sex: Male
Profile: An investigative reporter who was given the gift of total anonymity to help him find the truth behind various cover ups and crimes, Vic Sage disguises himself behind a featureless mask to seek the Answers that many do not want to be found. But as he is increasingly wound up into the Secrets he attempts to expose, even he isn't sure where the man ends and the mask begins. An investigator, a bit of a dirty fighter, and a conspiracy theorist, he knows he will never have or be the answers. He is only...The Question.
6. Who is your daddy and what does he do?
My mommy says my daddy is a Sex Machine.
7. What is your favorite kind of potato-chips?
Used to be salt and vinegar, but we found these awesome Charles' habanero chips recently that won my heart.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-06-15 04:09 am (UTC)Now you just need to make sure you have a large enough pool of conspiracy theories to randomly spout.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-15 04:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-15 04:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-15 04:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-15 05:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-15 11:06 am (UTC)(Oddly enough, I was also going to suggest Green Arrow, if he isn't taken yet...)
no subject
Date: 2006-06-15 04:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-15 04:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-15 04:50 am (UTC)Man, I should set up some kind of potato-chip shipping racket. Get an FC in exchange for sending me a big bag of local potato-chips!
-H
no subject
Date: 2006-06-15 11:06 am (UTC)