Post by Aidan Veridan - Insight on Jun 24, 2009 23:44:24 GMT -5
Character Information
Real Name: Aidan James Veridan
Mutant/Hero/Villain name: Insight
Nick Name: 'A'
Canon or custom: Custom
Age:27
Place of Birth: Antioch, CA, USA
Nationality: American
Affiliation: X-Men
Rank/Occupation: Instructor (mathematics and science classes), Scientist
Gender: Male
Height: 5'10"
Weight: 170
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Green, often glowing
Build: Lean and athletic
Markings: A few scars from knife wounds and burns scattered across his body, signs of fighting without a healing factor or armored skin
Known Relatives: James Veridan (father), Anna Veridan (Mother), Alexandra Veridan (sister, 17)
Powers: Insight is currently classified as a Delta Level mutant - he may, in fact, be an Omega level mutant when his powers fully manifest.
Quantum Extrapolation - Aidan is able, by subconsciously analyzing patterns in events from the visible to subatomic and even quantum levels, to predict nearly every possible future event stemming from any instant, and to select with almost perfect accuracy the one that is most likely to take place in his current reality. This effectively grants him the ability to foresee with complete accuracy all events several seconds into the future, stemming from any particular choice he might make - events beyond this range (approximately ten seconds) become less and less accurate, depending on the complexity of the decision (determining the outcome of a combat situation, for instance, is much harder for him to predict, whereas determining the outcome of a particular decision in a poker game is extremely easy).
This power works nearly 24/7, and cannot be shut off - and because it predicts not only the events themselves, but every sensation he might experience during them, he literally experiences a multitude of possibile futures at any given moment, pain, pleasure, and all. He refers to the possible futures that do not come to pass as 'echoes', since they are less intense - his ability ranks the likelihood of any possible future by the intensity of the experience it shows him. Likely futures he experiences almost fully, unlikely ones are dreamlike and barely tangible.
In his dreams, however, this safeguard is removed, as is the short-term limit, and he experiences every possible reality as though it were truly happening - it is possible as well, during these times, that his power is able to 'backtrack' to other divergence points, as he often experiences actual alternate realities, often the ones most similar to Universe-617, but in some nights, he experiences realities much more different, and often far more terrible.
(Developing) Quantum Reality Alteration - Based on a principle similar to the 'observer effect' (defined as the change to any given phenomenon caused by the observation of same, most common in electrical engineering or quantum physics, where the act of measuring any given object necessitates, for instance, bouncing a photon off of it, which changes its position and velocity), Insight is capable of making alterations to the stream of cause and effect that his primary power allows him to see. This power seems to operate on a similar principle to telepathy, though it does not register as such to those with mental abilities, such as Emma Frost, and usually operates on an entirely subconscious level. In its most basic form, this has the same general effect as the probability manipulation abilities of mutants like Domino and Longshot - events tend to go the way that is best for him, ricochets bounce away from him and his allies instead of towards, a stray shot might destroy a support beneath an enemy, causing the ground beneath them to collapse, etc.
This small-scale manipulation, however, is not the extent of what his ability is capable. If placed under enough strain (or, perhaps at some point when he learns to use it with an application of willpower) Insight is also capable of altering reality in less subtle ways, usually manifesting as some form of energy projection, or an enhancement of his apparent speed or strength due to the way reality is bent around him. Such manifestations are, at this point, fairly rare, and have thus far been either rapid or brief enough to escape even his notice. It's largest current limitation, of course, is the fact that Insight does not yet know he is capable of this – and one can rarely accomplish something they are sure they cannot.
The true extent to which he is able to alter his surroundings with this power has never been tested. It is possible that, with time, or when placed under great enough strain, he might be able to affect reality on a much larger scale, thus classifying him as an Omega-level mutant. Whether or not this is the case, however, remains to be seen.
Abilities: Aidan is an exceptional scientist and engineer, and has built a whole array of weaponry and other tricks to help his less-than-superhuman body keep up or at least survive in fights with his more powerful teammates - and foes. He has an extremely analytical personality, and when faced with a foe he cannot defeat, he is usually more than capable of helping one of the other X-Men - one with more firepower, usually - to exploit a weakness he cannot himself take advantage of, making him an excellent strategic asset to the team, even if his combat ability is more limited.
He is far from helpless, however - he is extremely skilled with firearms, especially the special weapons he himself designed, and he is an extremely quick learner, to the point where he has learned several different forms of martial arts in the few years since his powers truly began to work, and is very skilled with them. Coupled with his literally negative reaction time, he is a match for any normal human in combat, and many of the less indestructible mutants and other 'supers'.
Weakness: Aidan's body is no stronger than any other well-trained human, and he heals no faster, meaning the only way for him to survive what should be a lethal blow is to wear armor or somehow shield himself, or not to take it. Perhaps more importantly, his power does not operate under his conscious control, and often, for reasons he does not understand, causes him to have crushing migraine headaches, especially after any kind of long-distance 'echo', or even low-power manifestations of his reality-alteration power. This is one factor that has made him very mistrustful of his power, and he actually spends much of his time trying to suppress it to avoid the debilitating headaches it causes him.
In actuality, the headaches serve as part of a mental block which prevents him from accessing the full, universe-altering potential of his powers, though, since this power has yet to manifest in any but the most subtle of ways, it is unclear where the block came from, who created it, or how.
Paraphernalia and Equipment: Insight commonly wears a close-fitting black combat suit made of a matte-black fiber material, and a long coat of the same substance. Apart from being specially fitted with webbing and places to store his myriad tricks, weapons, and gadgets, this outfit is made of a special material of his own invention known as MKBC - Myoreatcive Kinetic Buffering Composite, a material that can be made into very flexible strands, enough to be made into fabric, yet is capable of hardening instantly to many times the strength of steel, allowing the light fabric suit and coat to stop bullets with ease, and protect him from a great many other potentially lethal threats all the same. He also carries a set of tools and instruments with him at all times for whatever he might need to fix (or dismantle), and many of these are multitools of his own design. Beyond these things, he has a whole series of other, smaller 'toys', such as tiny zero-point field grenades that leech energy from the air around them for various purposes, and many more...
Weapons: Aside from his smaller trinkets and armor, Insight often carries with him a set of pistols or something similar, always of his own design. Recently, however, he created a weapon called the VWS - Variable Weapon System. The VWS in its full form resembles a sleek, silver and black shield, about half the size of Captain's America and vaguely arrow shaped, though it has other features that make it look almost like part of an odd aircraft as much as a shield. It is thin enough to keep on his back under his coat, and stealthed from most detection systems.
When deployed, however, it lives up to its name - the VWS can separate into twin pistols, each of which fire powerful, variable strength pulse blasts, or other ordnance depending on need, drawing from a supercompressed ammunition storage system inside each section. The shield can also project a force field around Aidan and a relatively small radius around him, and can be reconfigured to produce force fields in a variety of shapes for varying purposes, such as a blade. The internal components of the system are also able to reconfigure into a great many other shapes, providing a veritable arsenal of weapons at any time.
The VWS is powered by an experimental zero-point power cell, and as such is limited not by fuel or battery life, but by the stability of the field from which it draws its power. The VWS will not run out of power under any circumstance, but continuous use will eventually destabilize the power cell, forcing the system to shut down - or risk an explosion that would certainly kill anyone using the system, and most of those nearby.
Uniform: See Paraphernalia
Personality: Insight is a generally friendly and outgoing person, though somewhat awkward in social situations involving too many people, since every human involved in a situation makes for a whole labyrinth of additional possibilities, some of them uncomfortable, added to the fact that he was never one for social events while in school, having gone to a school where far too much time had to be spent locked in a room with your thesis paper, proving that it IS possible to make a fabric that can stand up to tank rounds. Once he gets over that, however, he is usually quite pleasant, if slightly quiet, and has an easy time getting along with most people, at least the sort who are willing to at least try and meet him halfway - he has little patience for people he has to coax into being civil, and isn't the sort to even try.
When at work or in combat, he relies heavily on his analytical mind more than anything else, thinking things through several moves in advance, and treating the operation like a chess match - something he is generally very good at. When he has free time he often spends it working on the next technological advantage for the X-Men, either in the form of a new device entirely, or working on upgrading the team's vehicles and protection. He also spends a good amount of time training in the Danger room to improve his close combat and marksmanship skills, hating to be a burden more than almost anything else.
In private, however, Aidan is often tormented by the visions shown to him by his own power, especially at night with his defenses lowered, and he has a serious case of insomnia that he tries hard to hide from others - the things he often sees, the worst possible outcome of the days to come, often wake him in a cold sweat, and so going to bed at the end of the day is not the release for him that it is for others, and he tends to fall asleep out of pure exhaustion, often at his workbench in the labs.
History: Aidan was born to normal parents and a fairly normal life - his mother was a nurse, his father a mathematician, and he grew up like any other American teenager, admittedly a very intelligent one, recognized for his acumen in math and science at an early age, and put on the fast track as soon as it was available. He graduated high school at 16, two years early, and went to CalTech on a full ride - only for his uncanny ability with his chosen fields to keep getting easier. Things began to fly by for him at school, to the point where he knew the answers to test questions before even reading them, and the telltale green glow in his eyes began to surface. Unlike most mutants, his power, while it did begin to manifest at puberty, took a very long time to begin doing anything overt.
Using this new advantage that he hardly understood, Aidan graduated Caltech with two PhDs in just under five years, one in electrical engineering and another in theoretical physics, and turned down a position as faculty at CalTech to go into the field for a time, to get some real world experience. He wound up working for Stark International in the research sections, where he worked happily for several years, while his power continued to grow in his subconscious, largely ignored by Aidan himself. Into his third year at SI, Norman Osborn took over the company, and it was then that the visions began in earnest, and began to grow worse. He started seeing the things the weapons they produced were going to do, the terrible ways people could die with such tech... and it wasn't the only thing he saw. He saw accidents, disaster just before they happened, and found himself unable to ignore them, not to do something about it...
Eventually, his forays into the hero and vigilante business made him late to work again and again, and he was fired, with a scathing letter from management. Even so, professors at Caltech who remembered him offered him work, but another offer he got caught his eye more... an offer from the Xavier Institute to come and work for them. He accepted, and has been at the Institute for some time now, trying to get settled in with the students and as a member of the X-Men. He's invented a few new toys, as well as finally completing his VWS unit, and continues to try and make a few friends. If he can...
Code word: ~Admin Edited~
Player Information
First Name: Kenneth
Country/State: United States/Michigan (Eastern Standard, GMT-5)
Age: 21
Have you ever RP’ed on a Forum before?: Oh hells yes
Do you play any other characters?:[/center] Iron Man, Deadpool
