app for lastvoyages
User Name/Nick: Milbury
User LJ: None
AIM/IM: [AIM] docmilbury
E-mail: docmilbury at gmail dot com
Other Characters: David [sixthanimorph]
Character Name: Achilles de Flandres
Series: Ender's Game
Age: Unspecified but assumed to be early twenties; he is 'a few years older' than the 16-year old Bean. If a specific age is needed, let's go with 22.
From When?: After his death via gunshot to the head at the end of Shadow Puppets.
Inmate/Warden: Inmate. Achilles is a brilliant sociopath with a long and unbroken chain of treachery to his name. He's betrayed multiple nations and engineered world wars for no other purpose than his own advancement. He's methodically killed every person to cross his path that has ever seen him in a position of weakness, even the doctor who repaired his malformed leg but put him under anesthesia in the process. He's never exhibited a shred of remorse or acted in the interests or any person or cause other than himself.
Item: N/A
Abilities/Powers: Achilles is an ordinary human with no powers or abilities. He does, however, have a few unique abilities at his disposal which are anything but ordinary. Chief among them is his charisma, which has been described by his enemies as almost supernatural. Peter Wiggin, the boy who became Hegemon, leader of the world, said himself of Achilles, "This kid has a golden voice." He makes people trust him - even people who are smart enough to know better. He has had training in hand-to-hand combat and has killed heavily-armed soldiers equipped with nothing but a combat knife and the element of surprise. He's a master of psychological warfare, with a single brutally efficient strategy: do whatever his enemy can't believe that he would even think of doing. Just do it.
Personality: First things first: Achilles is a diagnosed sociopath and pathological murderer. He has absolutely no empathy whatsoever, though he can perceive the empathy of others (and desire to feel it himself, more on that later). He feels no remorse for the murders he's committed or the millions of people who have died as a result of his actions. He is a skilled mimic of emotions and is able to project feelings with such skill that even people familiar with his history have been taken in by his deception.
Achilles is divorced from his fellow man socially as well as emotionally. He has no friends, no family, no loved ones. There is no one he has ever known that he wouldn't kill or betray. His idea of 'romance' was to hold Petra Arkanian captive for months, allowing her freedom to move about as she pleased but no contact with the outside world. He openly admired her genius but consistently berated her and treated her as a possession more than a person. When she lashed out at him, he was perfectly ready to kill her and would have if she hadn't executed a brilliant bit of manipulation that made Achilles think he'd wanted her to beat the crap out of him.
His defining character trait is his pathological need to kill any human being that has ever put him in a position of helplessness, or even seen him helpless. This murderous drive is a true compulsion, something Achilles honestly cannot control - he targeted Peter Wiggin for assassination though he was keenly aware that doing so would turn the world's opinion against him and couldn't stop himself from luring Bean into a trap, even after the point where his nemesis had surpassed him in both physical and mental acumen. Achilles doesn't hate those who've seen him brought low - hate would imply he feels an emotional connection with them. As Bean says, "I don't think it's personal. He doesn't have to kill you with his own hands or watch you die or anything like that. He just has to know that you no longer live in the same world with him."
Achilles also exhibits self-destructive tendencies. When flying with Petra to New Delhi, he pulls open the plane's side door and stands on the precipice, risking death for no other reason than to put Petra in a situation where he could hold the power of life and death over her. In the process, he risks his own life, and when questioned about it by Petra he remarks, "Sometimes I get these impulses." Despite his assertion that said impulses are not 'irresistible', his later actions prove they are exactly that - compulsions as driving as his psychological need to murder anyone that's ever seen him helpless.
Petra says of the experience later, "He looked... fascinated. Almost as if he found her amazingly beautiful. But of course it wasn't her. It was his power over her that fascinated him. It was himself that he loved so intensely." This nicely highlights Achilles's narcissism: he sees himself as utterly superior to others, remarking to Bean that "We know what’s best for everybody, but we still don’t get our way until we can persuade the lesser creatures to do our bidding. They just don’t understand how much happier they’d be if they stopped thinking for themselves. They’re so unequipped for it." It's telling that he doesn't even refer to his fellow men as human beings, but as 'creatures'. In his mind every person who is not himself is no more than a thing, a resource to be used and discarded as he sees fit.
Achilles is not utterly without commendable qualities - he has no interest in material goods and little care for his personal comfort. His office is described as spartan, furnished with only standard-issue chairs and a cot even though higher-quality furniture was readily available to him. Petra herself is forced to admit that, whatever else Achilles may be, he is no hedonist. It is not the desire to possess that drives him. It's something much deeper.
At his core, Achilles is deeply aware of the emptiness of his life. What drives his actions is not ambition or greed, but the desire to feel. He has no hope. No dream. He tries everything to find one. He goes through the motions of love and kindness, or anything else that might work, and still nothing means anything to him. Each new conquest only leaves him hungry for another. He’s hungry to find something that really matters in life.
Throughout his life Achilles has demonstrated a remarkable capacity to adapt quickly to changing circumstances and has played the proverbial cat, always landing on his feet no matter how where or far he's fallen from. It will be no different for him on the Barge. He won't waste time questioning the logistics of the situation or engaging in pointless rebellion against the Admiral. He'll simply do as he's always done: screw over everyone he runs into, trash everyone and everything, and play everyone against everyone else until he's the only one left standing.
Or until his warden finds the way to get him to break the cycle.
Path to Redemption:
Redeeming Achilles will be a Herculean task - at times, it may even seem to be a Sisyphean one. Yet the fact that he wants to feel is proof that even he is not a lost cause.
The foremost quality that Achilles will need in a warden is someone who understands he is a sociopath and is not taken in by his lies and manipulations. He'll employ the tried-and-true charm on whoever he's assigned to, attempting to paint himself as a misunderstood visionary, or whatever façade most efficiently serves his purposes. Even after he's realized the jig is up Achilles will be constantly trying to manipulate or outmanuever his warden, looking for any possible advantage he can wield. He'll want every encounter to be a challenge - and he'll always want to win.
Achilles is a classic sociopath, and treating that will be no easy task. He truly lacks the ability to empathize with others, and no drug or technique will create that empathy in him. Without that empathy, he will have to learn to change his behavior, the slow and hard way. He will have to learn that he truly is driven by his compulsions, because only that realization will motivate him to do anything about them. He is divorced from other people, but he does desire some sort of connection that lasts. He chooses to kidnap Petra Arkanian because she alone of the Battle School kids stood up to him. He enjoys spending time with her, even if he cannot help himself from demeaning her and trying to possess her. It's not a healthy relationship by any means, and Petra herself is utterly repulsed by it and him, but it proves that Achilles, in his sad, twisted way, does want to connect with someone on some level. He even manages to 'forgive' her for putting him in a position of weakness, and to date Petra remains the only person besides Bean who has survived that death sentence. Of course, none of that would have stopped him from killing Petra to escape Bean. But he bears her no ill will for escaping him with her life, and in his last letter to Bean Achilles even tells him to 'give Petra a kiss for me.'
Aside from understanding his condition and working to help him learn to live a normal life with it, the most a warden could do for Achilles would be to help him find what he's looking for - something that really matters in life, a reason to live. He felt that once before, on the streets of Rotterdam. He took the kids under Poke's wing into his care and won their hearts. Bean himself has said he 'knew that man, the one whose eyes looked into your soul and judged you and found you worthy." With his charisma, his knowledge, Achilles could do great things... he could even use his gifts to bring true peace to a nation, rather than the false peace he peddled for his own interests. Before he can do that, though, he must learn to connect with people on an individual level.
Achilles's pathological need to kill anyone that has ever seen him helpless will have to be confronted point-blank. There can't be any delicacy in the matter, because left to his own devices, Achilles will kill again. His warden must impress on him that other people have lives as valuable as his own, and snuffing those lives to satisfy that inner urge is wrong, no matter how right it feels. He is not the only one who matters. When he understands that, only then can be learn to connect with another human being in a way that matters.
History: Links for Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon and Shadow Puppets (the three books Achilles himself appears in) as well as the Ender's Game series and Achilles himself.
Achilles de Flandres was born to Belgian parents, gifted in mind but cursed in body - he possessed an intellect on par with the artificially-bred supergenius Julian Delphiki, but was cursed with a deformed leg. At some point in his early childhood he was orphaned, ending up homeless and alone on the rough streets of Rotterdam in the Netherlands. He was forced to learn to fend for himself at a young age, getting by with a gimp leg and facing a city full of orphans like himself. He kept to himself, living from day to day by eating at soup kitchens and stealing food from smaller children until he was laid low by a crew of children led by a girl named Poke. Achilles's humiliation was devised by a fellow orphan named Bean, part of Poke's crew - he wanted to recruit Achilles to help the crew get past the lines of brutal bullies and into the soup kitchens.
Begrudgingly Achilles accepted Poke's offer, and over time he grew into his role as protector of Poke's crew, dubbing himself the group's "papa." As time passed, the orphans began to see Achilles, not Poke, as the crew's true leader. However, despite the adulation of the crew Achilles had never forgotten his humiliation at the hands of Poke and could not forgive her. Nor could he forgive Bean, the architect of the plan who had further sealed his fate by advising Poke to kill their victim. Bean had seen murder in the crippled orphan's eyes, but Poke had chosen to spare Achilles instead. Biding his time, Achilles resolved to wait until he could kill both Poke and Achilles without being identified as their murderer.
Achilles was soon approached by a nun from the Vatican with connections to the Battle School program, Sister Carlotta. She offered to give Achilles and his "family" a basic education and aid - in truth, she had heard of Achilles as one of a few older street children who had begun taking care of groups of younger orphans, and was searching among these lost children for any prodigies with the mental acumen to go to Battle School. Achilles handily impressed Sister Carlotta - unfortunately for Achilles, Carlotta also met Bean and learned of his incredible intellect as well. Frustrated by this turn of events, Achilles seized an opportunity to kill Poke and shift the blame to another street child named Ulysses. What Achilles didn't know was that Bean had witnessed him with Poke shortly before her death and seen her body floating in the river hours later. Terrified, Bean fled to Sister Carlotta for protection. Carlotta did as much as she could in her position, getting Bean sent to Battle School rather than Achilles and quietly removing Achilles from the International Fleet's recruitment program. She did not abandon Achilles entirely, however - instead, she placed him in a more conventional school on Earth where he could be watched.
As a student, Achilles was peerless. His grades and test scores were at the top of the charts and he absorbed information like a sponge. Unfortunately, his pathological compulsion had not diminished with Poke's death and he continued to kill. Even his personal teacher turned up dead for humiliating him in front of the class. He was no less careful than he'd been with his earlier murders, though, and no suspicion ever fell on him from anyone other than Sister Carlotta, who by now had begun to regret helping Achilles at all and sent several memos to the Battle School warning them about the young sociopath. Unfortunately for Carlotta, the administrators of Battle School saw an opportunity in Achilles, an opportunity to test Bean. Battle School officials met with Achilles and sent him to the world's premier orthopedic surgeon to have his crippled leg repaired. After eight surgeries, Achilles could walk as well as any other child. But the surgeon had earned Achilles's ire by putting him under anesthesia when he told her not to. She had to die too. So Achilles killed her by inducing a heart attack with certain drugs. Her case file read "unsolved murder" and Achilles was sent to Battle School. By this time he had committed seven murders.
When Achilles arrived at Battle School he was immediately assigned directly to an Army, becoming the first and only Battle School student in the school's history to do so. He was placed in Rabbit Army, a platoon under the command of his old friend Bean. Almost immediately after arriving Achilles began undermining Bean's authority by telling his soldiers about their shared past in Rotterdam and his status there as Bean's protector, forcing Bean to ban all conversations about home. Undeterred, Achilles continued ingratiating himself with Bean's platoon, unaware that Bean knew he had murdered Poke and was devising his own form of revenge. Cunningly, Bean tricked Achilles into coming with him into the vents of the school. He had his most trusted lieutenants in place waiting for him, and when Achilles came close enough he was hoisted up into a large space, unable to reach any walls. Suspended in midair and with no chance of escape, Achilles was forced to confess to every murder he had committed while Bean stood in front of him with a voice recorder. The recording was promptly presented to Battle School administrators, who sent Achilles back to Earth and placed him in a mental institution. Achilles spent the next several months instiutionalized.
Eventually, a group of Russian radicals learned about Achilles and orchestrated a riot to allow him to escape. Three security guards were killed, possibly by Achilles himself. Achilles was brought to Russia, where he was given command of extensive Russian military resources and information for no other reason than that he had attended Battle School. Those responsible for freeing Achilles concealed his pathology from their superiors, meaning that most of the Russian government had no idea what they were dealing with. Achilles's first move was to have the nine Battle School kids who had served under Ender Wiggin kidnapped, brought to a secret facility and held in solitary confinement until they agreed to work for him. Once they had, he put them through simulation training, simulating warfare around the world. This was a ruse, however - his real test was to see which of his captives would be intrepid enough to find a way to make contact with the outside world. With cryptographers combing through all of their mail, Achilles was free to make contact with officials in India and promise them his aid in exchange for a place to go after he left Russia. He knew it was only a matter of time before he was exposed, and indeed, shortly afterwards the political columnist Locke revealed his secret to the world.
This could only mean that someone had managed to communicate with the outside world. His cryptographers were shocked - the only item they could not account for was a small .jpg file attached to every message sent by Petra Arkanian. As it so happened, Petra had been the last Battle School student to submit to Achilles and the first to defy him. Seeing something both valuable and desirable in Petra, Achilles made his escape, allowing all his captives to be rescued except for Petra, who he recaptured himself. Telling her they would 'make history together', Achilles brought Petra with him to India.
Shortly after arriving in India Achilles took command of the Indian military strategists, all of whom were Battle School graduates themselves. He made more alliances behind the back of his Indian hosts, forging contacts in China, Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries. With his cadre of Battle School graduates and Petra Achilles planned a massive attack on Burma and Thailand. It was Petra who crafted the strategy that would vault Achilles to victory, believing she was only planning for a hypothetical war. Unknown to his Indian allies, Achilles had greater plans still - he plotted to conquer all of Southeast Asia and create an empire, using China as his blunt instrument. To this end, Achilles crafted his plan so that when India did launch its attack on Thailand through Burma, it would result in only a weakened India, her army malnourished and far from her borders. After finding out that his old nemesis Bean was in Thailand, Achilles planned an assassination attempt, having a bomb planted in the barracks of Bean's ally and fellow Battle School graduate Suriyawong. Thanks to good instincts, Bean was able to save himself and Suriyawong from death, and initially Achilles believed his assassination attempt was successful. A few hours later, he learned the bitter news that Bean had indeed survived, intercepting an email he had sent to his longtime confidante, good old Sister Carlotta. A vengeful Achilles decided to punish Bean by having Carlotta killed, shooting the plane she was on out of the air with a surface-to-air missile.
While his repeated attempts to kill Bean only ended in failure, Achilles's military manuevers were wildly successful. With Burma stripped bare and India caught in a quagmire with Thailand, China was able to enter the conflict and achieve an almost effortless victory, sweeping all the weakened nations under its banner in one fell swoop. Chinese soldiers dutifully swept into India to spirit away their champion. Unfortunately for Achilles, Bean was onto him as well - Petra had been able to tip him off to her position with the help of an Indian Battle School grad named Virlomi, and when the Chinese arrived Achilles found himself trapped in a hostage situation, alone in a room full of Battle School grads, armed only with a gun, while the Chinese and Thai forces surrounded him in a standoff. Overcoming the fact that he was outnumbered by shooting one of the Battle School grads dead to keep the others in line, Achilles attempted to use Petra as a shield to make his escape. The Chinese colonel in charge of bringing him back defused the situation by negotiating with Bean, offering to surrender Petra to him in exchange for being allowed to leave with Achilles. Achilles found the deal unacceptable, however - he was not willing to accept losing Petra. He decided to kill the Chinese colonel instead, but the man was familiar with Achilles's history and ready for his betrayal. Achilles summarily had his arm broken by the colonel and was knocked unconscious from a tranquilizer courtesy of Bean. Despite attempting to kill him, the colonel did not kill Achilles and took him back to China to be given a hero's welcome. The colonel was killed quietly days later, of course.
Despite his long and colorful history of treachery, the Chinese gave Achilles much influence in their new empire, which spanned all of Southeast Asia. Still hungry for conquest, though, Achilles created a byzantine strategy to infiltrate the Hegemony, a rival to the Chinese superpower he created led by Peter Wiggin. To this end, Achilles crafted the ruse that he had been betrayed by his Chinese allies and imprisoned. This was mere bait for Peter to 'rescue' him and bring him to the Hegemony compound, bait which Peter took. Peter was not blind: he knew what Achilles was, but thought himself up to the task of keeping the brilliant sociopath under control. Despite pleas from both Bean and Petra, Peter appointed Achilles to a position in the Hegemony government. Bean and Petra both fled the Hegemony's Ribeirão Preto compound in response.
Of course, Achilles planned to assassinate Peter and usurp his position, but before he could Peter's parents were able to convince him to flee into space, giving Achilles control of the Hegemony by default. Achilles immediately smeared Peter's name and attempted to undermine the Ministry of Colonization's power, but neither attempt was particularly sucessful. Seeking to finish the job, Achilles coerced a MinCol official named Uphanad to arrange Peter's death. Uphanad's boss Colonel Graff caught on, though, and Uphanad was caught before he could pose any real threat to the Hegemon.
Achilles now had control of the Hegemony, but it was a bittersweet victory - the Hegemony's true political clout lay in its defiance of the Chinese, and because of that much of the world still recognized Peter Wiggin as the true Hegemon. Though Achilles had cunningly appointed his trusted ally Suriyawong to that position and tried to portray himself as a mere tool to the throne, no one was fooled. Up in space, Peter and Bean both met with Colonel Graff, who flatly told the boys that Achilles was not unbeatable: his genius had gotten him far, but the real reason why he kept winning was because he continued to place himself in the middle of chaotic situations and seize any opportunity that came his way without hesitation. By doing the unpredictable, Achilles had been able to consistently outwit both the military masterminds of Battle School and Peter, who was no slouch himself. However, Achilles had never faced an enemy who was both determined and prepared to defeat him. Reasoning that Achilles would take the first chance he could get to have Peter killed, Graff proposed sending a decoy shuttle down to Earth and announcing Peter's return, giving Achilles a target he could not resist. Graff was right, and Achilles predictably shot the shuttle down with a Chinese missile.
Graff's ploy cost Achilles dearly - the missile used to blow up the decoy shuttle was found to be a Chinese one, and the Chinese knew that their champion's attack on the Hegemon was a violation of international law. Washing their hands of Achilles, the Chinese announced to the world that Achilles had stolen that missile and he was now a rogue agent, unaffiliated with them. One by one, Achilles's contacts around the world dried up, unable or unwilling to associate themselves with a boy who was now an international fugitive. Before blowing up that shuttle, Achilles was on top of the world - in the aftermath, he was trapped in a prison of his own creation, unable to leave the Hegemony compound as no country would accept him, and forced to wait for the enemies he'd made to close in on him. As his options began to foreclose, Achilles began hatching one last insane plot: if he was going down, he would drag his archnemesis Bean down with him.
Thanks to an alliance with the crooked geneticist Volescu, Achilles was in possession of five embryos belonging to Bean and Petra, embryos which were his last card to play. Of course, he'd already used the real embryos for his own ends - implanting them in surrogate mothers loyal to him to be his future successors - but he still had the pretence of the embryos to manipulate Bean with. He offered Bean a deal - the embryos in exchange for his extraction from the Hegemony compound and safe passage to a country that would accept him. Of course, no country would, and his real plan was to lure Bean into the compound and kill him. However, Bean's accelerated development had by now pushed him beyond Achilles in both mental and physical ability, and he understood what Achilles had done, what he was doing, and what he would do. With this knowledge, Bean accepted Achilles's offer, flying to Ribeirão Preto for the final showdown.
After a ham-handed attempt to blow Bean up with a bomb disguised as the embryo container, Achilles attempted to manipulate Bean's emotions by offering him (fake) embryos himself. Bean was not fooled, though, and even crushed one of the embryos under his foot. Only then did Achilles feel fear, and he demanded that Suriyawong execute Bean immediately. Suriyawong refused, offering Achilles only his knife - as he had done when Achilles was first brought to the Hegemon compound to earn his trust - and revealing to Bean that he had spent months ingratiating himself to Achilles to give him a taste of his own medicine. Suriyawong and his soldiers, the last men standing between Achilles and Bean, turned their backs on him.
Abandoned and alone, his back against the wall and his leg giving out under him, Achilles nervously tried to talk Bean out of killing him, claiming he, Bean, was better than him and not a murderer. His last manipulations failed, though, and Bean shot him neatly through the head.
Sample Journal Entry:
[The video clicks on to reveal a tall young man. He's sitting on a simple chair as though it were a throne, one leg crossed over the other, hands clasped in his lap. He wears a placid smile and never looks away from the camera. His deft, practiced mannerisms are those of a boy who has been on camera multiple times. There is no timidity, no hesitation in his posture.]
Good afternoon to you all.. or is it good evening? As we appear to be in some sort of spacecraft and I have no way of telling time, do forgive me if I've caught you all at a bad time. [He speaks clearly and pleasantly, with an apologetic shrug of his shoulders at that last part.] My name is Achilles. Some of you may already know my name. I'm afraid I've acquired a fair bit of infamy. [He injects a wry, self-deprecating chuckle for good measure.] I assure you, none of you have any reason to fear me.
Can anyone tell me how I came to be here? My last memory is of being shot. Fatally. I'm certainly not going to complain, but I would like to know how I am still alive. Whoever is responsible for saving my life, come forward. I would like to extend my gratitude to you personally.
[His smile flickers for a moment. For a second, something glittery and dangerous can be seen in this affable young man's eyes. The moment passes.]
It would appear that this is some manner of institutional spacecraft. Am I wrong in presuming that? Certainly I welcome the input of those who have been here longer than myself. I have knowledge of my own to offer, if a trade of some sort is needed.
And if I've been brought here to put my experience to work... [He leans forward, tilting his head and offering a conspiratorial smile.] ... do let me know and let's meet, shall we? I imagine we have much to discuss.
Sample RP:
The layout seemed simple enough to Achilles. Eight floors, various anemities on each, and an undetermined number of floors accessible only to the wardens. That would only be a temporary setback. After all, it would only be a matter of finding the right warden and telling them the right story to explore those upper levels. Perhaps he'll need to kill that warden. More's the pity... he's seen precious few places to hide a body. But then, leaving bodies behind has never been his style anyway. He'll just have to find the right materials to make a few serviceable incendiary devices.
So far he's been polite to everyone. More flies were caught with honey than vinegar, after all, and the residents of this 'Barge' certainly seemed a credulous enough lot. They were certainly an interesting bunch, Achilles had to give the mouth-breathers that much credit. Could this ship really be traveling through different times, even different dimensions? Achilles saw no reason why not. One look over the deck was enough to convince him of that. No view like this was available anywhere in the Earthsphere.
He would need a weapon. A knife at the very least. His own was gone, and weapons seemed to be in short supply here. At least, free ones. More than one warden he observed was armed, though, usually with pistols but at least one had a knife too. He would probably have to kill one of them too. How counterproductive.
Who was in charge here? That was the key question. No way to climb the ladder if one didn't know where it was. So far the Barge seemed frustratingly free from hierachy, save for the obvious division of wardens and inmates. No group of wardens were in charge of any other group, no group of inmates wielded influence over any other group. An egalitarian prison? What a ridiculous concept.
Well, someone was in charge. It was only a matter of finding who. Leaders could be authoritatative or secretive, but there were always leaders. Leaders to seduce, leaders to supplant. Stepping stones in his lifelong rise to power. He would find who was in charge here. Who had brought him here, and why. They'd grow to trust him. They always did.
And then they would die. They always did that, too.
Special Notes: Achilles has a sixth finger on his right hand.
User LJ: None
AIM/IM: [AIM] docmilbury
E-mail: docmilbury at gmail dot com
Other Characters: David [sixthanimorph]
Character Name: Achilles de Flandres
Series: Ender's Game
Age: Unspecified but assumed to be early twenties; he is 'a few years older' than the 16-year old Bean. If a specific age is needed, let's go with 22.
From When?: After his death via gunshot to the head at the end of Shadow Puppets.
Inmate/Warden: Inmate. Achilles is a brilliant sociopath with a long and unbroken chain of treachery to his name. He's betrayed multiple nations and engineered world wars for no other purpose than his own advancement. He's methodically killed every person to cross his path that has ever seen him in a position of weakness, even the doctor who repaired his malformed leg but put him under anesthesia in the process. He's never exhibited a shred of remorse or acted in the interests or any person or cause other than himself.
Item: N/A
Abilities/Powers: Achilles is an ordinary human with no powers or abilities. He does, however, have a few unique abilities at his disposal which are anything but ordinary. Chief among them is his charisma, which has been described by his enemies as almost supernatural. Peter Wiggin, the boy who became Hegemon, leader of the world, said himself of Achilles, "This kid has a golden voice." He makes people trust him - even people who are smart enough to know better. He has had training in hand-to-hand combat and has killed heavily-armed soldiers equipped with nothing but a combat knife and the element of surprise. He's a master of psychological warfare, with a single brutally efficient strategy: do whatever his enemy can't believe that he would even think of doing. Just do it.
Personality: First things first: Achilles is a diagnosed sociopath and pathological murderer. He has absolutely no empathy whatsoever, though he can perceive the empathy of others (and desire to feel it himself, more on that later). He feels no remorse for the murders he's committed or the millions of people who have died as a result of his actions. He is a skilled mimic of emotions and is able to project feelings with such skill that even people familiar with his history have been taken in by his deception.
Achilles is divorced from his fellow man socially as well as emotionally. He has no friends, no family, no loved ones. There is no one he has ever known that he wouldn't kill or betray. His idea of 'romance' was to hold Petra Arkanian captive for months, allowing her freedom to move about as she pleased but no contact with the outside world. He openly admired her genius but consistently berated her and treated her as a possession more than a person. When she lashed out at him, he was perfectly ready to kill her and would have if she hadn't executed a brilliant bit of manipulation that made Achilles think he'd wanted her to beat the crap out of him.
His defining character trait is his pathological need to kill any human being that has ever put him in a position of helplessness, or even seen him helpless. This murderous drive is a true compulsion, something Achilles honestly cannot control - he targeted Peter Wiggin for assassination though he was keenly aware that doing so would turn the world's opinion against him and couldn't stop himself from luring Bean into a trap, even after the point where his nemesis had surpassed him in both physical and mental acumen. Achilles doesn't hate those who've seen him brought low - hate would imply he feels an emotional connection with them. As Bean says, "I don't think it's personal. He doesn't have to kill you with his own hands or watch you die or anything like that. He just has to know that you no longer live in the same world with him."
Achilles also exhibits self-destructive tendencies. When flying with Petra to New Delhi, he pulls open the plane's side door and stands on the precipice, risking death for no other reason than to put Petra in a situation where he could hold the power of life and death over her. In the process, he risks his own life, and when questioned about it by Petra he remarks, "Sometimes I get these impulses." Despite his assertion that said impulses are not 'irresistible', his later actions prove they are exactly that - compulsions as driving as his psychological need to murder anyone that's ever seen him helpless.
Petra says of the experience later, "He looked... fascinated. Almost as if he found her amazingly beautiful. But of course it wasn't her. It was his power over her that fascinated him. It was himself that he loved so intensely." This nicely highlights Achilles's narcissism: he sees himself as utterly superior to others, remarking to Bean that "We know what’s best for everybody, but we still don’t get our way until we can persuade the lesser creatures to do our bidding. They just don’t understand how much happier they’d be if they stopped thinking for themselves. They’re so unequipped for it." It's telling that he doesn't even refer to his fellow men as human beings, but as 'creatures'. In his mind every person who is not himself is no more than a thing, a resource to be used and discarded as he sees fit.
Achilles is not utterly without commendable qualities - he has no interest in material goods and little care for his personal comfort. His office is described as spartan, furnished with only standard-issue chairs and a cot even though higher-quality furniture was readily available to him. Petra herself is forced to admit that, whatever else Achilles may be, he is no hedonist. It is not the desire to possess that drives him. It's something much deeper.
At his core, Achilles is deeply aware of the emptiness of his life. What drives his actions is not ambition or greed, but the desire to feel. He has no hope. No dream. He tries everything to find one. He goes through the motions of love and kindness, or anything else that might work, and still nothing means anything to him. Each new conquest only leaves him hungry for another. He’s hungry to find something that really matters in life.
Throughout his life Achilles has demonstrated a remarkable capacity to adapt quickly to changing circumstances and has played the proverbial cat, always landing on his feet no matter how where or far he's fallen from. It will be no different for him on the Barge. He won't waste time questioning the logistics of the situation or engaging in pointless rebellion against the Admiral. He'll simply do as he's always done: screw over everyone he runs into, trash everyone and everything, and play everyone against everyone else until he's the only one left standing.
Or until his warden finds the way to get him to break the cycle.
Path to Redemption:
Redeeming Achilles will be a Herculean task - at times, it may even seem to be a Sisyphean one. Yet the fact that he wants to feel is proof that even he is not a lost cause.
The foremost quality that Achilles will need in a warden is someone who understands he is a sociopath and is not taken in by his lies and manipulations. He'll employ the tried-and-true charm on whoever he's assigned to, attempting to paint himself as a misunderstood visionary, or whatever façade most efficiently serves his purposes. Even after he's realized the jig is up Achilles will be constantly trying to manipulate or outmanuever his warden, looking for any possible advantage he can wield. He'll want every encounter to be a challenge - and he'll always want to win.
Achilles is a classic sociopath, and treating that will be no easy task. He truly lacks the ability to empathize with others, and no drug or technique will create that empathy in him. Without that empathy, he will have to learn to change his behavior, the slow and hard way. He will have to learn that he truly is driven by his compulsions, because only that realization will motivate him to do anything about them. He is divorced from other people, but he does desire some sort of connection that lasts. He chooses to kidnap Petra Arkanian because she alone of the Battle School kids stood up to him. He enjoys spending time with her, even if he cannot help himself from demeaning her and trying to possess her. It's not a healthy relationship by any means, and Petra herself is utterly repulsed by it and him, but it proves that Achilles, in his sad, twisted way, does want to connect with someone on some level. He even manages to 'forgive' her for putting him in a position of weakness, and to date Petra remains the only person besides Bean who has survived that death sentence. Of course, none of that would have stopped him from killing Petra to escape Bean. But he bears her no ill will for escaping him with her life, and in his last letter to Bean Achilles even tells him to 'give Petra a kiss for me.'
Aside from understanding his condition and working to help him learn to live a normal life with it, the most a warden could do for Achilles would be to help him find what he's looking for - something that really matters in life, a reason to live. He felt that once before, on the streets of Rotterdam. He took the kids under Poke's wing into his care and won their hearts. Bean himself has said he 'knew that man, the one whose eyes looked into your soul and judged you and found you worthy." With his charisma, his knowledge, Achilles could do great things... he could even use his gifts to bring true peace to a nation, rather than the false peace he peddled for his own interests. Before he can do that, though, he must learn to connect with people on an individual level.
Achilles's pathological need to kill anyone that has ever seen him helpless will have to be confronted point-blank. There can't be any delicacy in the matter, because left to his own devices, Achilles will kill again. His warden must impress on him that other people have lives as valuable as his own, and snuffing those lives to satisfy that inner urge is wrong, no matter how right it feels. He is not the only one who matters. When he understands that, only then can be learn to connect with another human being in a way that matters.
History: Links for Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon and Shadow Puppets (the three books Achilles himself appears in) as well as the Ender's Game series and Achilles himself.
Achilles de Flandres was born to Belgian parents, gifted in mind but cursed in body - he possessed an intellect on par with the artificially-bred supergenius Julian Delphiki, but was cursed with a deformed leg. At some point in his early childhood he was orphaned, ending up homeless and alone on the rough streets of Rotterdam in the Netherlands. He was forced to learn to fend for himself at a young age, getting by with a gimp leg and facing a city full of orphans like himself. He kept to himself, living from day to day by eating at soup kitchens and stealing food from smaller children until he was laid low by a crew of children led by a girl named Poke. Achilles's humiliation was devised by a fellow orphan named Bean, part of Poke's crew - he wanted to recruit Achilles to help the crew get past the lines of brutal bullies and into the soup kitchens.
Begrudgingly Achilles accepted Poke's offer, and over time he grew into his role as protector of Poke's crew, dubbing himself the group's "papa." As time passed, the orphans began to see Achilles, not Poke, as the crew's true leader. However, despite the adulation of the crew Achilles had never forgotten his humiliation at the hands of Poke and could not forgive her. Nor could he forgive Bean, the architect of the plan who had further sealed his fate by advising Poke to kill their victim. Bean had seen murder in the crippled orphan's eyes, but Poke had chosen to spare Achilles instead. Biding his time, Achilles resolved to wait until he could kill both Poke and Achilles without being identified as their murderer.
Achilles was soon approached by a nun from the Vatican with connections to the Battle School program, Sister Carlotta. She offered to give Achilles and his "family" a basic education and aid - in truth, she had heard of Achilles as one of a few older street children who had begun taking care of groups of younger orphans, and was searching among these lost children for any prodigies with the mental acumen to go to Battle School. Achilles handily impressed Sister Carlotta - unfortunately for Achilles, Carlotta also met Bean and learned of his incredible intellect as well. Frustrated by this turn of events, Achilles seized an opportunity to kill Poke and shift the blame to another street child named Ulysses. What Achilles didn't know was that Bean had witnessed him with Poke shortly before her death and seen her body floating in the river hours later. Terrified, Bean fled to Sister Carlotta for protection. Carlotta did as much as she could in her position, getting Bean sent to Battle School rather than Achilles and quietly removing Achilles from the International Fleet's recruitment program. She did not abandon Achilles entirely, however - instead, she placed him in a more conventional school on Earth where he could be watched.
As a student, Achilles was peerless. His grades and test scores were at the top of the charts and he absorbed information like a sponge. Unfortunately, his pathological compulsion had not diminished with Poke's death and he continued to kill. Even his personal teacher turned up dead for humiliating him in front of the class. He was no less careful than he'd been with his earlier murders, though, and no suspicion ever fell on him from anyone other than Sister Carlotta, who by now had begun to regret helping Achilles at all and sent several memos to the Battle School warning them about the young sociopath. Unfortunately for Carlotta, the administrators of Battle School saw an opportunity in Achilles, an opportunity to test Bean. Battle School officials met with Achilles and sent him to the world's premier orthopedic surgeon to have his crippled leg repaired. After eight surgeries, Achilles could walk as well as any other child. But the surgeon had earned Achilles's ire by putting him under anesthesia when he told her not to. She had to die too. So Achilles killed her by inducing a heart attack with certain drugs. Her case file read "unsolved murder" and Achilles was sent to Battle School. By this time he had committed seven murders.
When Achilles arrived at Battle School he was immediately assigned directly to an Army, becoming the first and only Battle School student in the school's history to do so. He was placed in Rabbit Army, a platoon under the command of his old friend Bean. Almost immediately after arriving Achilles began undermining Bean's authority by telling his soldiers about their shared past in Rotterdam and his status there as Bean's protector, forcing Bean to ban all conversations about home. Undeterred, Achilles continued ingratiating himself with Bean's platoon, unaware that Bean knew he had murdered Poke and was devising his own form of revenge. Cunningly, Bean tricked Achilles into coming with him into the vents of the school. He had his most trusted lieutenants in place waiting for him, and when Achilles came close enough he was hoisted up into a large space, unable to reach any walls. Suspended in midair and with no chance of escape, Achilles was forced to confess to every murder he had committed while Bean stood in front of him with a voice recorder. The recording was promptly presented to Battle School administrators, who sent Achilles back to Earth and placed him in a mental institution. Achilles spent the next several months instiutionalized.
Eventually, a group of Russian radicals learned about Achilles and orchestrated a riot to allow him to escape. Three security guards were killed, possibly by Achilles himself. Achilles was brought to Russia, where he was given command of extensive Russian military resources and information for no other reason than that he had attended Battle School. Those responsible for freeing Achilles concealed his pathology from their superiors, meaning that most of the Russian government had no idea what they were dealing with. Achilles's first move was to have the nine Battle School kids who had served under Ender Wiggin kidnapped, brought to a secret facility and held in solitary confinement until they agreed to work for him. Once they had, he put them through simulation training, simulating warfare around the world. This was a ruse, however - his real test was to see which of his captives would be intrepid enough to find a way to make contact with the outside world. With cryptographers combing through all of their mail, Achilles was free to make contact with officials in India and promise them his aid in exchange for a place to go after he left Russia. He knew it was only a matter of time before he was exposed, and indeed, shortly afterwards the political columnist Locke revealed his secret to the world.
This could only mean that someone had managed to communicate with the outside world. His cryptographers were shocked - the only item they could not account for was a small .jpg file attached to every message sent by Petra Arkanian. As it so happened, Petra had been the last Battle School student to submit to Achilles and the first to defy him. Seeing something both valuable and desirable in Petra, Achilles made his escape, allowing all his captives to be rescued except for Petra, who he recaptured himself. Telling her they would 'make history together', Achilles brought Petra with him to India.
Shortly after arriving in India Achilles took command of the Indian military strategists, all of whom were Battle School graduates themselves. He made more alliances behind the back of his Indian hosts, forging contacts in China, Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries. With his cadre of Battle School graduates and Petra Achilles planned a massive attack on Burma and Thailand. It was Petra who crafted the strategy that would vault Achilles to victory, believing she was only planning for a hypothetical war. Unknown to his Indian allies, Achilles had greater plans still - he plotted to conquer all of Southeast Asia and create an empire, using China as his blunt instrument. To this end, Achilles crafted his plan so that when India did launch its attack on Thailand through Burma, it would result in only a weakened India, her army malnourished and far from her borders. After finding out that his old nemesis Bean was in Thailand, Achilles planned an assassination attempt, having a bomb planted in the barracks of Bean's ally and fellow Battle School graduate Suriyawong. Thanks to good instincts, Bean was able to save himself and Suriyawong from death, and initially Achilles believed his assassination attempt was successful. A few hours later, he learned the bitter news that Bean had indeed survived, intercepting an email he had sent to his longtime confidante, good old Sister Carlotta. A vengeful Achilles decided to punish Bean by having Carlotta killed, shooting the plane she was on out of the air with a surface-to-air missile.
While his repeated attempts to kill Bean only ended in failure, Achilles's military manuevers were wildly successful. With Burma stripped bare and India caught in a quagmire with Thailand, China was able to enter the conflict and achieve an almost effortless victory, sweeping all the weakened nations under its banner in one fell swoop. Chinese soldiers dutifully swept into India to spirit away their champion. Unfortunately for Achilles, Bean was onto him as well - Petra had been able to tip him off to her position with the help of an Indian Battle School grad named Virlomi, and when the Chinese arrived Achilles found himself trapped in a hostage situation, alone in a room full of Battle School grads, armed only with a gun, while the Chinese and Thai forces surrounded him in a standoff. Overcoming the fact that he was outnumbered by shooting one of the Battle School grads dead to keep the others in line, Achilles attempted to use Petra as a shield to make his escape. The Chinese colonel in charge of bringing him back defused the situation by negotiating with Bean, offering to surrender Petra to him in exchange for being allowed to leave with Achilles. Achilles found the deal unacceptable, however - he was not willing to accept losing Petra. He decided to kill the Chinese colonel instead, but the man was familiar with Achilles's history and ready for his betrayal. Achilles summarily had his arm broken by the colonel and was knocked unconscious from a tranquilizer courtesy of Bean. Despite attempting to kill him, the colonel did not kill Achilles and took him back to China to be given a hero's welcome. The colonel was killed quietly days later, of course.
Despite his long and colorful history of treachery, the Chinese gave Achilles much influence in their new empire, which spanned all of Southeast Asia. Still hungry for conquest, though, Achilles created a byzantine strategy to infiltrate the Hegemony, a rival to the Chinese superpower he created led by Peter Wiggin. To this end, Achilles crafted the ruse that he had been betrayed by his Chinese allies and imprisoned. This was mere bait for Peter to 'rescue' him and bring him to the Hegemony compound, bait which Peter took. Peter was not blind: he knew what Achilles was, but thought himself up to the task of keeping the brilliant sociopath under control. Despite pleas from both Bean and Petra, Peter appointed Achilles to a position in the Hegemony government. Bean and Petra both fled the Hegemony's Ribeirão Preto compound in response.
Of course, Achilles planned to assassinate Peter and usurp his position, but before he could Peter's parents were able to convince him to flee into space, giving Achilles control of the Hegemony by default. Achilles immediately smeared Peter's name and attempted to undermine the Ministry of Colonization's power, but neither attempt was particularly sucessful. Seeking to finish the job, Achilles coerced a MinCol official named Uphanad to arrange Peter's death. Uphanad's boss Colonel Graff caught on, though, and Uphanad was caught before he could pose any real threat to the Hegemon.
Achilles now had control of the Hegemony, but it was a bittersweet victory - the Hegemony's true political clout lay in its defiance of the Chinese, and because of that much of the world still recognized Peter Wiggin as the true Hegemon. Though Achilles had cunningly appointed his trusted ally Suriyawong to that position and tried to portray himself as a mere tool to the throne, no one was fooled. Up in space, Peter and Bean both met with Colonel Graff, who flatly told the boys that Achilles was not unbeatable: his genius had gotten him far, but the real reason why he kept winning was because he continued to place himself in the middle of chaotic situations and seize any opportunity that came his way without hesitation. By doing the unpredictable, Achilles had been able to consistently outwit both the military masterminds of Battle School and Peter, who was no slouch himself. However, Achilles had never faced an enemy who was both determined and prepared to defeat him. Reasoning that Achilles would take the first chance he could get to have Peter killed, Graff proposed sending a decoy shuttle down to Earth and announcing Peter's return, giving Achilles a target he could not resist. Graff was right, and Achilles predictably shot the shuttle down with a Chinese missile.
Graff's ploy cost Achilles dearly - the missile used to blow up the decoy shuttle was found to be a Chinese one, and the Chinese knew that their champion's attack on the Hegemon was a violation of international law. Washing their hands of Achilles, the Chinese announced to the world that Achilles had stolen that missile and he was now a rogue agent, unaffiliated with them. One by one, Achilles's contacts around the world dried up, unable or unwilling to associate themselves with a boy who was now an international fugitive. Before blowing up that shuttle, Achilles was on top of the world - in the aftermath, he was trapped in a prison of his own creation, unable to leave the Hegemony compound as no country would accept him, and forced to wait for the enemies he'd made to close in on him. As his options began to foreclose, Achilles began hatching one last insane plot: if he was going down, he would drag his archnemesis Bean down with him.
Thanks to an alliance with the crooked geneticist Volescu, Achilles was in possession of five embryos belonging to Bean and Petra, embryos which were his last card to play. Of course, he'd already used the real embryos for his own ends - implanting them in surrogate mothers loyal to him to be his future successors - but he still had the pretence of the embryos to manipulate Bean with. He offered Bean a deal - the embryos in exchange for his extraction from the Hegemony compound and safe passage to a country that would accept him. Of course, no country would, and his real plan was to lure Bean into the compound and kill him. However, Bean's accelerated development had by now pushed him beyond Achilles in both mental and physical ability, and he understood what Achilles had done, what he was doing, and what he would do. With this knowledge, Bean accepted Achilles's offer, flying to Ribeirão Preto for the final showdown.
After a ham-handed attempt to blow Bean up with a bomb disguised as the embryo container, Achilles attempted to manipulate Bean's emotions by offering him (fake) embryos himself. Bean was not fooled, though, and even crushed one of the embryos under his foot. Only then did Achilles feel fear, and he demanded that Suriyawong execute Bean immediately. Suriyawong refused, offering Achilles only his knife - as he had done when Achilles was first brought to the Hegemon compound to earn his trust - and revealing to Bean that he had spent months ingratiating himself to Achilles to give him a taste of his own medicine. Suriyawong and his soldiers, the last men standing between Achilles and Bean, turned their backs on him.
Abandoned and alone, his back against the wall and his leg giving out under him, Achilles nervously tried to talk Bean out of killing him, claiming he, Bean, was better than him and not a murderer. His last manipulations failed, though, and Bean shot him neatly through the head.
Sample Journal Entry:
[The video clicks on to reveal a tall young man. He's sitting on a simple chair as though it were a throne, one leg crossed over the other, hands clasped in his lap. He wears a placid smile and never looks away from the camera. His deft, practiced mannerisms are those of a boy who has been on camera multiple times. There is no timidity, no hesitation in his posture.]
Good afternoon to you all.. or is it good evening? As we appear to be in some sort of spacecraft and I have no way of telling time, do forgive me if I've caught you all at a bad time. [He speaks clearly and pleasantly, with an apologetic shrug of his shoulders at that last part.] My name is Achilles. Some of you may already know my name. I'm afraid I've acquired a fair bit of infamy. [He injects a wry, self-deprecating chuckle for good measure.] I assure you, none of you have any reason to fear me.
Can anyone tell me how I came to be here? My last memory is of being shot. Fatally. I'm certainly not going to complain, but I would like to know how I am still alive. Whoever is responsible for saving my life, come forward. I would like to extend my gratitude to you personally.
[His smile flickers for a moment. For a second, something glittery and dangerous can be seen in this affable young man's eyes. The moment passes.]
It would appear that this is some manner of institutional spacecraft. Am I wrong in presuming that? Certainly I welcome the input of those who have been here longer than myself. I have knowledge of my own to offer, if a trade of some sort is needed.
And if I've been brought here to put my experience to work... [He leans forward, tilting his head and offering a conspiratorial smile.] ... do let me know and let's meet, shall we? I imagine we have much to discuss.
Sample RP:
The layout seemed simple enough to Achilles. Eight floors, various anemities on each, and an undetermined number of floors accessible only to the wardens. That would only be a temporary setback. After all, it would only be a matter of finding the right warden and telling them the right story to explore those upper levels. Perhaps he'll need to kill that warden. More's the pity... he's seen precious few places to hide a body. But then, leaving bodies behind has never been his style anyway. He'll just have to find the right materials to make a few serviceable incendiary devices.
So far he's been polite to everyone. More flies were caught with honey than vinegar, after all, and the residents of this 'Barge' certainly seemed a credulous enough lot. They were certainly an interesting bunch, Achilles had to give the mouth-breathers that much credit. Could this ship really be traveling through different times, even different dimensions? Achilles saw no reason why not. One look over the deck was enough to convince him of that. No view like this was available anywhere in the Earthsphere.
He would need a weapon. A knife at the very least. His own was gone, and weapons seemed to be in short supply here. At least, free ones. More than one warden he observed was armed, though, usually with pistols but at least one had a knife too. He would probably have to kill one of them too. How counterproductive.
Who was in charge here? That was the key question. No way to climb the ladder if one didn't know where it was. So far the Barge seemed frustratingly free from hierachy, save for the obvious division of wardens and inmates. No group of wardens were in charge of any other group, no group of inmates wielded influence over any other group. An egalitarian prison? What a ridiculous concept.
Well, someone was in charge. It was only a matter of finding who. Leaders could be authoritatative or secretive, but there were always leaders. Leaders to seduce, leaders to supplant. Stepping stones in his lifelong rise to power. He would find who was in charge here. Who had brought him here, and why. They'd grow to trust him. They always did.
And then they would die. They always did that, too.
Special Notes: Achilles has a sixth finger on his right hand.