words and stuff ( ataraxion )

[aguidingstar]

❶ PLAYAH INFORMATION

YOUR NAME: Shaz
OOC JOURNAL: scissorbite
UNDER 18?: No (23).
EMAIL & IM: aim - shiny effin curls & plurk
CHARACTERS PLAYED: -- (currently holding a reserve for Jerome Eugene Morrow from Gattaca)

❷ CHARACTER INFORMATION

NAME:

Max 'Hotspur' Southey.

Despite being named Maximilian after his grandfather it is a rare event if Max ever uses his whole first name. Although not bothering to hide his name on official ID cards or passports, Max always sheds the extraneous syllables and introduces himself to strangers quite simply as Max.

His pilot callsign is Hotspur, merely a Shakespearean reference to some but to others a reference to the heated boldness that had characterised Max's earliest days in pilot training.

CANON:

Original.

ORIGINAL OR ALT. UNIVERSE:

Not applicable.

CANON POINT:

Not applicable.

NUMBER:

060

SETTING:

SPAAAACE!
note: Hotspur's home setting is that of a future where humanity as we know it has been forced to venture in to space unknown and colonise a second planet. As written by candlejack & bamboozle, the premise is that Earth's destruction is brought about by the death of an ancient alien discovered in one of the Egyptian pyramids. Humanity voyages out in to the stars in a nomadic fleet of starships before obtaining permission from the intergalactic parliament of already-established aliens to find a new home planet:

The prelude to Earth's destruction began when Dr. Leandro Silveira, a Brazilian historian, discovered a dying creature in the Egyptian pyramids; its body was that of a tall man but its face was a goat's - just like the god Pan was described. As it died in the arms of Dr. Leandro, it spoke its last words with its dying breath.

" Meus irmãos irão trazer a justiça para aqueles que nos esqueceram. "

When death took the creature, Earth began to die as well. The tectonic plates began to move, shifting alike they had an agenda, a mind of their own, a will. Earth grew unstable and humanity was forced to focus all of its efforts to building spaceships that could harbour human life. By then, technology was already advanced enough but never such project had been made and though their first try was a disaster, the second time around they were helped by beings of another world, the Ghedans. While the barrier of language was not simple to overcome, soon it was discovered that they had a similar language to the Hadza tribe and the first successful spaceship was built, the Apollo SC-1. As the Ghedans led humanity through the Milky Way and into another galaxy, a mostly deserted Earth was left behind. It took them twenty years to find the Azure Plane, the galaxy known as the Galactic Dock. As they reached the InterGalactic Parliament, humanity began to take a political and diplomatic role, slowly earning a steady place in the United Worlds Federation. It was there that they learned that the goat-headed man that had brought Earth's extinction was part of an ancient race that planned to take over the galaxies.

Receiving authorization of the InterGalactic Parliament, humans began to search for a world they could colonize and ended up finding one that suited their needs, a Mars-sized planet that was named Earthrise by its discoverer, Grand Admiral Naveed Kassis of the UWF Colonial Apollo IV. As they settled in and began to make Earthrise their homeworld, humans also continued to struggle to earn the respect and acknowledgement of their fellow species in the UWF and the Parliament. With Earthrise now listed as their official homeworld, humans were no longer considered nomads and began to be able to enlist in the Space Force, the intergalactic army sponsored by the UWF.

After years in service of the SF-UWF, humans were recognized as a valuable asset to the army and were authorized in creating their own space army. Founded by the then Earthrise Madame-Ambassador Lorenza Galluzzi, the Space Navy was officially recognized, but it would only be after the non-governmental human corporation, Midgard Corps., sent the Asgardreid iGSB-2 in a reconnaissance mission that they would be considered as equals, but only because humans were able to apreehend one of those ancient beings.

Nevertheless, the imprisoned Sobek has not spoken a word ever since, it has become clear that these creatures seem to hold many secrets - the cure for the sumu kuua, a deadly disease that can affect all species; where its brothers are; the solution to some of the fuels shortage, especially a different source of fuel; among many others. That is, if in the meantime Sobek does not escape...
[ source ]

HISTORY:

Nineteen years after humanity established itself on Earthrise, Maximilian Southey was born to Moira and Noah Southey, two junior officers in the Earthrise military forces. Moira was a strong woman but certainly not the maternal type; committed to returning to active military service as soon as physically possible, she disconnected herself from the upbringing of her young son and would often take posts that involved long stints away from the colony with little or no shore leave. By contrast Noah took a great interest in his young son, hoping to one day shape him in to the kind of man that would follow in his footsteps and enlist with the marines. However, Noah ultimately made the same decision as his wife to put his career before his family and young Max was sent off to a military boarding school in one of the more obscure corners of the Earthrise colonies.

Whilst there Max began to surround himself with a substitute family for the one that was so largely absent in his life. At school he learned to value honesty, hard work and - above all - his friends; to this day he remains very close to a core group of three friends that saw him through the trials and tribulations of the military strictures of the boarding school. At school these friends meant the whole world to Max - they were his coping mechanisms: a shoulder to cry on, an ear to vent to and, most importantly of all, people he knew he could die for.

When it came to Max’s eighteenth year it was time to graduate from the military school to the Earthrise war college, an institution that would eventually train promising new recruits in to becoming prime officer material for the Earthrise military forces. Each of the group of four friends went their separate ways in to separate schools that lead on to various specialist regiments and battalions throughout the fleets. Rather than follow his father’s footsteps in to joining the marines Max chose to make his own way in life and opted to try out for the flight school of the war academy, and surprised even himself with how much he found he enjoyed the freedom that flight brought him.

It was in these early days of flight school that Max - and the rest of his rookie squadron - were expected to decide upon codenames for each other that would go on to become their official call signs. Known to be rash and scolded with ever increasing frequency for his propensity to throw himself in to situations headlong with very little thought, Max was bestowed with the name Hotspur. Even in years to come when Max would grow to distance himself from his impulsive younger self the callsign would stick, more out of a fondness for his flight school days than any accuracy of the name itself.

Hotspur's first few years as a junior flight officer were not particularly remarkable; there weren't very many enemy encounters in which to distinguish himself, and Hotspur bounced from spaceport to spaceport on planetary defence line duty. Planetary defence was one of the more boring postings that a young headstrong pilot could be awarded and the long, dull months led to Hotspur and his fellow junior pilots to become increasingly adventurous with their interpretations of the patrol course.

Hotspur was in his twenty-sixth year when the accident happened. Whilst skylarking around on what should have been a routine patrol with his usual wingman Hotspur's starboard wing clipped the undercarriage of his wingman's craft, sending Hotspur's ship in to a wild spin and eventually leading to an explosive collision with a satellite. Hotspur ejected at the last moment prior to collision, saving himself but smashing his leg against the aircraft chassis and shattering his femur in the process.

Hotspur was left floating in space with only eight minutes of oxygen in the emergency canister of his helmet. Being spaced was a bizarre experience: Hotspur was completely aware of how close he had been to not only killing himself but his wing man as well and now there was nothing to do but float helplessly, unable to do anything but await rescue and quietly watch the wreckage of his ship spiral away in to space whilst dealing with the pain of his broken leg.

After being rescued and returned to Earthrise Hotspur was thrown in to a dizzying regime of rehabilitation and recuperation. Being spaced was considered a psychological trauma and the femoral break he’d suffered during ejection wasn’t exactly the easiest to repair. Over the long months of convalescence it became increasingly obvious that Hotspur’s mental recovery was taking much longer than his physical one: suffering paralysing attacks of nightly flashbacks, Hotspur was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress and given an honourable discharge from the Earthrise military.

Now aged twenty seven, Hotspur knew that the recovery process would be slow. This was Hotspur’s lowest point in his life: struggling with issues of his own mortality, he latched on to the idea of luck and predestination as being what brought him through his ordeal. Putting his hopes and fears in the distant hands of some fatalistic pre-described future was easier than wrestling with how - or why - he had been spared. It took two longs years before Hotspur was able to consider himself fit enough to attempt to rejoin the one life he knew - that of the military, and all that it entailed.

Shortly after his twenty-ninth birthday Hotspur was approached by a recruiting officer for Midgard Corps military service. Having heard of his exploits they offered him a position as a teaching officer; as they had pointed out, what hadn’t killed Hotspur would only have made him stronger, and wouldn’t he be doing humanity a service if he shared his worldly expertise with young recruits? Knowing that he had a chance to avert military flight trainees from making the same youthful mistakes as he had made, Hotspur agreed to enlist with Midgard Corps and was promptly whisked away to an off-world military base. Hotspur served as a training officer for six months until the new Asgardreid iGSB-3 came in to service. Heeding the enlistment drive that followed its arrival, Hotspur put in for a transfer to pilot the new phalanx of Fenrir heavy combat fighters.

Hotspur soon realised that piloting the heavy two-man craft was everything that he had been missing when piloting the one-man craft he had been stuck with before when he had his accident; being able to work in a team with a co-pilot and a gunner was so much more fulfilling. Hotspur surrounded himself with his co-pilots as he would a small family; he became so much closer to his colleagues in Midgard Corps than he had ever been before in the Earthrise military. It was a real home that he had been lacking - and he flourished in the ranks of his fellow pilots to the point where he began to really think them all as his real family.

PERSONALITY:

On first meeting Hotspur you get exactly what you see: a decent man of morals, both diplomatic and honest. He likes to put himself across well - he is a great believer in a good first impression - and likes to put people at their ease when they first meet him. Although his height, uniform and battle scars may seem a little off-putting there is nothing to be intimidated by here; Hotspur likes to think of himself as approachable and easy to talk to, with a kind word for all newcomers and an open mind free from prejudice and presuppositions. Bigotry and prejudice has been met with increasing intolerance in post-exodus human race since their journey in to the stars and Hotspur is a true child of Earthrise, free of the old shackles of intolerance that had weighed the Earth-bound human race down for so long.

The spirit of camaraderie and mutually shared trials and tribulations of military life have led Hotspur to approach new people in turn much in the same way: with an open mind and a friendly word for everyone. Regardless of how shy or distant the other person may be Hotspur will shower them with an infinite amount of patience and warmth. In a cold, empty universe of limitless space and a thousand nightmarish things that could kill you, Hotspur has come to the conclusion that humanity’s greatest asset is its huge wealth of emotion - and any accusations of corniness (however well drawn) are often met on Hotspur’s part with good-humoured shoves and exaggerated rolls of his eyes. When it comes down to it, Hotspur is a military man who has committed himself to continually risking his life at every turn in the name of the human race - but Hotspur will never allow this admittedly tough life to compromise his good humour or his morals. He is a big man with a lot of love to give and as far as he’s concerned a military life is one of the best ways to show his love for his species, especially when there seems to be as little of it in the universe as there is.

Whilst Hotspur will undoubtedly make firmer friends with those who share his mental predisposition, it is part of his infamously laidback personality that leads him to make friends with everyone - regardless of whether they like it or not. The things he looks for in friends are the values and ideals he strives to embody in himself: compassion, honesty and the emotional strength to stand up for their morals and beliefs. That said, Hotspur is keen to think of everyone as his friend in some way or another and although it takes a great deal to lose Hotspur’s trust and friendship it doesn’t take all that much to win it back again.

Those that do earn Hotspur’s wrath are often either his military-assigned adversary (a criminal, an invading force, another pilot in an enemy squadron) or just simply on the opposite end of the moral scale to him. Hotspur is more intuitive than he is rational but even then it takes a considerably strong ‘bad vibe’ to push him away entirely. Despite wanting to extend everyone a second chance no matter what terrible things they do Hotspur isn’t completely naïve: he knows that there are some people in the universe with whom he will never be morally compatible. Rather than distance himself from these people - people that others in any other scenario might consider rude, prejudiced, arrogant or offensive - Hotspur will still hope for the best for them. Let it be other people’s places to judge them; Hotspur will always be the voice of lawful good that wishes they could all just get along.

Some might consider Hotspur’s disposition a little at odds with his military responsibilities; after all, there can be no room for compassion or forgiveness when one is given an irrefutable order from a superior officer to engage the enemy at all costs and without mercy. But beneath all of Hotspur’s outwards desires to extend the best of humanity’s love and kindness to other people there is a deep-set respect and idealisation of the structure of military life and the security it provides. As a child of two military officer parents sent away to a military boarding school Hotspur has grown up with the constant stability of military life supporting his entire emotional framework, to the point where he really doesn’t know any other way of living. Even from a young age Hotspur’s primary desire has been for stability and structure, both in terms of his every day routine of hour-to-hour life on board a starship and the stabilising presence of those who have a shared military way of life. This had led him to be a little complacent when it comes to following orders that conflict with his finely-tuned moral codes: although he knows that some of the decisions that his superior officers have made in the past have been wrong in some way or another, he is slow to blame and a little too quick to put his morals aside and follow them because they ‘must be right’. This is a flaw that Hotspur has become increasingly aware of over the past few years and has led to an acute - yet unspoken - reluctance to take any kind of promotion to a rank higher than his current commission as a lieutenant.

Hotspur is a very superstitious man, as will be obvious if you ask him about any of his tattoos; he half-jokingly attributes his superstitious nature to the fact that pilots such as himself rely a great deal on luck as well as skill, and that for a pilot of his age to have survived so long there has to be something going for his various superstitions. His most deeply-held belief is that in treating his ships right; Hotspur has always maintained that if he looks after his birds then they in turn will look after him. Ships have personalities and souls, he thinks, and that even so much as thinking negatively about a ship will produce adverse effects on all those who fly in it. He's the type of pilot who will name their craft; there's a bond of trust between a pilot and their ship, according to Hotspur, and naming it will be the first step in establishing that bond.

Hotspur has other superstitions, all tied in with various military traditions. Whistling on board ship, for example, is considered to bring bad luck (as in, whistling for the devil) and clinking glasses together heralds the death of a crew member (as are all bell-like noises, as the sounds are too close to the funereal toll of an old-fashioned ship's bell, or so he will explain). Of course, people have called him out on his superstitions but Hotspur bears all criticism with a weary smile and a shrug. He neither requires nor expects everyone to agree with him, and their mocking means very little to him.

Hotspur does consider himself a very lucky individual. Although the accident that drove him away from the Earthrise space force could be seen as a very unlucky event Hotspur thinks that the very fact that he survived that time in space at all was a testament to his luck. Although he had technically only been spaced for less than eight minutes (the length of the emergency oxygen in a pilot's helmet) it had felt like hours, and Hotspur frequently dwells on how close his accident had been to becoming a fatal one. After recuperating from his injury and enlisting in Midgard Corps Hotspur's was more superstitious than ever, and often passed on his superstitions to the younger recruits in his squadrons. It also was in Midgard Corps that he began adorning himself with various 'lucky' tattoos; birds were considered to carry the souls of dead pilots, and after the death of one pilot in particular - one of his beloved friends from military school - Hotspur started tattooing himself with small birds to commemorate the passing of friends after every death. Other tattoos - a guiding eye to help see the way ahead, a protective lion to ward away bad luck, an albatross to combat the ill-effects of a Jonah - soon followed and Hotspur considers them gravely important, in the same way one might revere any other precious good luck charm.

ABILITIES, WEAKNESSES & POWER LIMITS:

ABILITIES
• As a naturally talented pilot, Max was already blessed with talents that got him through the flight officer selection process in war college. Despite seeming outwardly a rather slow individual when it comes to dealing with other people in conversation Hotspur has a remarkably quick and agile mind when it comes to assessing physical situations and scenarios - a very important trait for someone expected to be able to throw themselves in to dogfights in space where the enemy has a full 360 degrees to attack you from and still come out alive.
• His hand-eye co-ordination is second-to-none, making him an excellent sportsman. A fair but committed fighter, Max knows when to indulge in a little healthy competition and when to acquiesce to a worthy opponent. With little room for sporting facilities onboard a fully operational warcraft such as the Asgardreid, Hotspur and his fellow pilots often resort to sports that can fit around the demands of the ship; although Hotspur misses his basketball he has developed a passion for boxing, the sport of choice for many a frustrated officer suffering from acute cabin fever.
• As part of his pilot training Hotspur has a wealth of technological understanding that he can generally apply to all sorts of ships and craft. Despite past knocks to his confidence he's a damn good pilot and although he favours larger craft where his expertise is reinforced with that of others in the frame of a pilot/navigator/gunner team he is more than capable of flying solo. Flight tactics and warfare strategy has been drummed in to him over years of training - but Hotspur has always been a very diplomatic man and can read people as accurately as he can read situations.

WEAKNESSES
• Hotspur is your everyday human and there are no special or supernatural qualities about him. As such, he has no strong defences against the supernatural and is as susceptible as any other human to superpowers such as telepathy or mind control.
• What with being a rather trusting individual Hotspur can be a little gullible. It's not hard to take advantage of his good nature and Hotspur can be quite slow to realise when he is being taken advantage of.
• When given an order by his superiors Hotspur will often follow it - unless it is clearly against every single one of his principles of good will. He likes structured environments with rigid social structures and doesn't cope very well without a clear figurehead to fall behind. He's a follower, not a leader, and shies away from taking decisions that will go against those of his superiors.

POWER LIMITATIONS
• None, on account of having no powers. :')

INVENTORY:

1. One flight helmet emblazoned with Hotspur's rank and callsign complete with eight minutes worth of emergency oxygen.
2. One set of standard issue military dogtags engraved with Hotspur's name, service number and blood type (AB+).
3. One Midgard Corps military issue flight officer pistol with six rounds remaining.
4. One small personal datapad (similar to a miniature e-reader) loaded with a few pictures of his friends and family.

APPEARANCE:

A tall man, Hotspur tends to stand - even when relaxed - with his shoulders back and chest forward with military pride and bearing. From an early age Hotspur has been schooled in to holding himself and moving with purpose and intent but despite his rather intimidating stature Hotspur is quick to smile and has a comparatively easygoing temperment and expression. When not in his various military uniforms Hotspur favours sweatpants and sports clothes. He's well built and years of boxing and other sporting endeavours have given him a decent covering of thick muscles over an otherwise lean body.

Over the years in the military Hotspur has amassed quite a few tattoos, each representational of some deeply held superstitious belief or the other (see personality for details).



PLAYED BY: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Black Hawk Down.

❸ SAMPLES

LOGS SAMPLE:

The disorientation had really knocked Hotspur sideways. Donning the black flightsuit had been a monumental task of Herculean effort and skill; each limb had been a chore in itself and the clasps had almost gotten the best of the lieutenant. But, fully suited and booted and clutching at the metal military dog tags of his that he’d found in his locker as if they were the last key to his earthly identity, he had gamely struggled onwards and upwards.

The heavy pistol tucked away in his left boot was a comfort, at least. He’d never much been one for waving firearms around in people’s faces to get their attention, but it was heartening to know that it was there even as a last resort.

As the disorientation began to slacken its grip on Hotspur it was as if the soldier in him began to piece itself back together. He stumbled towards a wall, pressing his back against it thankfully (for support as much for cover) and began edging towards the nearest porthole. The air - the air tasted filtered; this was no planetary base, hell no, Hotspur could tell. Years and years of shipping in and out of various starports and starbases had given him a tongue for what was real, god-blessed air and what wasn’t - and this had that mechanical tang of air that had been processed and reprocessed to gleam as much oxygen and as little human stench out of it as possible. It was stale and lacking life, and as Hotspur creeped towards the porthole his suspicions were confirmed; yes, this was a ship.

‘Thank god.’

Rather than instilling fear or panic, the sight of all those stars and the edges of the mottled hide of the ship that bordered the porthole was oddly comforting. Those stars - ’those blessed stars’ - they didn’t change much. Space he could handle, space he knew; he’d rather be on some unknown starship hurtling towards the great unknown regions of darkspace than on some godforsaken barren planet with no hopes of ever getting out. At least on a starship he was moving, and moving was good. He raised a quivering hand and reverently placed it over the lucky eye tattoo on his chest; someone was looking out for him, and for that he was thankful. A ship he could handle, a ship was familiar territory. A ship was like home.

COMMS SAMPLE:

[ Hotspur pauses only to take the slightest of hesitant breaths before leaping straight in to what he's here to say: ]

Look, we're all on board regardless of what we were doing before and none of us were really planning on it, right? We are literally all in the same boat here, more of less. Moaning and griping isn't going to get us anywhere and anyone who fancies taking their chances walking home - well, good luck.

Seems to me like the only way we're going to get of the Tranquility is if we help out a bit and give her a crew to get her where she needs to go. There's no need to bitch about the ship - it's not her fault, and she's looks like she's a pretty decent flyer...

[ He trails off awkwardly, suddenly very aware that he was never very good at this public speaking thing. Hotspur shrugs half-heartedly and summons a rueful smile as he adds: ]

Just... let's not get bogged down with complaining; let's get involved instead. There's all sorts of stuff we can be doing to help out by the sounds of it and this is probably gonna be our new home for a while... so let's get stuck in, yeah? I'll be the first to say that I'm ready to help out wherever, however, with whatever. I'm probably most use in a cockpit - I can cast a weather eye over starcharts and steer my way around a hanger deck - but I'll help out with just about anything.

[ He pauses with the slightest of frowns. ]

Just don't ask me to cook, yeah?