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Player Information ;
Your Nickname: Brig
OOC Journal: hane@livejournal
Under 18? no
Email/IM: twopoinsettias@gmail.com / brigantinefranke (AIM)
Characters Played at Singularity: Eko, Arbiter, O'Brien, Twosix-six
Character Information ;
Name: Marcus Wright
Name of Canon: Terminator: Salvation
Canon/AU/Other Game CR: n/a
Reference: http://terminator.wikia.com/wiki/Marcus
Canon Point: post-death
Setting: Marcus hails from Ordinary Present Day 2003, but spends most of the movie running around the future 2018. In this future the evil, self-aware former military program Skynet has taken over. Many (or all) major U.S. cities and presumably many around the world have been leveled, and the remaining human survivors scratch out a bleak existence in the rubble. Pockets of human life are everywhere, some taking refuge in wilderness, some hiding in the remains of cities. Food, fuel, health supplies and bullets are highly prized, and people squabble like rats over whatever they can find. Brutality and survival of the fittest are the rules that seem to govern the future. The Resistance proper is more organized, well-equipped, and civilized, made up of surviving military forces and anyone that wants to join and be trained as a soldier.
Technically everyone ought to be dying of radiation poisoning but the movie seems to neatly gloss over that. Either way, it's a bleak way to live, as any settled concentration of human population would become a target for Skynet, presumably making it difficult to pursue agriculture or raise livestock, much less manufacture things like medicine or new equipment or process gasoline. There are machines in the rivers, waiting for the unwary. There are machines in the skies searching for noise, movement, and heat signatures. There are machines on the old roads, making travel with land vehicles dangerous.
There are also machines that harvest people, taking them back to Skynet's camps for various awful scientific purposes.
In this future the Resistance is the light at the end of a dark, dark tunnel, and within the Resistance itself is John Connor, a mostly ordinary soldier who just so happens to have an extraordinarily complicated background and is rumored to be a messiah, the man who will someday lead the Resistance and bring down Skynet. The current leaders of the Resistance don't really appreciate this rumor, but Connor has a cult of believers and people all over the world listen to his voice on the radio broadcasts. Skynet also seems to view John Connor as a particular threat, releasing a kill list with his name in the number two priority slot.
History: Marcus's early years were deemed by script writers to not have any value, so we start his life at 28 in 2003, a criminal on death row in Texas. His history of petty crime with brother and accomplice, Sam Wright, had ended with a botched car theft that left Sam and two cops dead, and Marcus bleakly resigned to his fate. He blamed himself for the deaths and felt he deserved the sentence. Before he was executed by lethal injection, Marcus was persuaded by a scientist named Dr. Serena Kogan to donate his body to Cyberdyne Systems to aid in her research. Marcus's body was entered into Project Angel for experiments with cybernetics, and when the United States Airforce eventually bought Cyberdyne (and created Skynet), Marcus came as part of the package.
Then came the Machine Apocalypse. Skynet became self-aware and started a nuclear war, a date known as Judgment Day, and in the aftermath built robot Terminators to hunt down and kill the remaining human survivors. The human Resistance clung to their hope, the legend of a prophesied leader, John Connor, who had been raised since birth to fight Skynet thanks to a bunch of complicated time-travel. His mother, Sarah Connor, had been hunted by a time-traveling Terminator back in 1984, and protected by a time-traveling Resistance soldier named Kyle Reese who ended up becoming John Connor's father. In the future of 2018, when John is a 30-something adult, his someday-father is just a skinny 16 year old wannabe Resistance fighter living in the ruins of Los Angeles, and number one on Skynet's execution list.
This is the future that Marcus, somehow, wakes up in. Without any knowledge of how he survived or of events that had occurred since his "death" in 2003, he wanders into Los Angeles and is rescued from a bullet-spewing T-600 Terminator by (wait for it) a teenage boy named Kyle. Kyle tells Marcus about Judgment Day, Skynet, and the Resistance, but somehow never gets around to questioning Marcus's super special amnesia about the most important events in the last two decades. Marcus hasn't got the faintest clue what all this apocalyptic bullshit is, but his professed goals are to "find someone" and head north, which happens to be Skynet Central (possibly he wanted to look for Serena or Cyberdyne in San Francisco). Despite this and his lone wolf attitude, he ends up becoming guardian to Kyle and a little girl named Star. When both are captured by machines, Marcus sets out to find them.
Epicness ensues. Marcus miraculously survives situation after situation that should have killed him, only to be captured by the Resistance and John Connor and informed, much to his horror, that he is a Terminator himself. There is a Big No moment and a bit of Heroic BSOD. Chained up, used as target practice by angry machine-hating Resistance soldiers, and sentenced by Connor to be dismantled, Marcus is rescued by a sympathetic Resistance soldier, Blair Williams. He escapes the Resistance base and goes on to strike an uneasy deal with Connor, agreeing to help him get into Skynet Central to rescue Kyle and Star and the other human captives.
Except this turns out to be Skynet's Awesome Devious Plan all along. Marcus had been designed as a one-of-a-kind infiltration unit, able to pass effortlessly for human (a major, major flaw in all other Terminator models) because his brain and personality had essentially been left intact. A control chip had been implanted in his skull that let Skynet track him and access information from Marcus's senses, and presumably also allowed Skynet to subtly influence him. His mission, unbeknownst to him, had been to find Kyle Reese and John Connor and bring them back to Skynet, and he ended up succeeding "where all other machines had failed."
Of course, Skynet blithely announcing all this is kind of a stupid move, as Marcus promptly tears open the back of his head, rips out the control chip, and goes off to have an awesome Terminator vs Terminator battle and rescue Kyle and Connor. Connor is mortally wounded in the end, however, and Marcus volunteers his own heart to save him.
Stupid hero Marcus is stupid.
Personality: Repeat: stupid hero Marcus is stupid.
Whatever Marcus's reasons were for his criminal activities, by the time of his execution he has thoroughly convinced himself that death is the only way he can atone and that he is a guilty, horrible person who doesn't deserve a second chance. While wandering around in the post-apocalyptic future he is stoic, brooding, sometimes short-tempered, and dealing with a fuckton of trauma/culture shock. Like any wandering hero in a post-apocalyptic setting, Marcus attempts to pass himself off as coldly disinterested in other people and only concerned with his own goals, but this is a giant fat lie. In an emergency Marcus instinctively and consistently Does The Right Thing, from saving children to beating the hell out of a bunch of would-be rapists. He rushes in without thinking, or rather stalks purposefully in without thinking, which might have more to do with him being a Terminator model than anything else. In the heat of the moment Marcus does not falter, give up, or show mercy. He had to be stopped from killing a man with a screwdriver, and has a tendency to go into fights with his bare hands even when his opponents are carrying guns or are giant freaking mecha. Marcus is not specifically a combat model and has more weak points than other Terminators because he still has fleshy bits, but he is more agile and capable of fighting hand to hand with a T-800.
For all his super robot strength, however, Marcus is not on greatly stable mental ground. Having been effectively thrown into the future like a time traveler dumped off to survive or die, he's given very few options for dealing with the trauma and reacts as a present day 'civilized' person would. He understands gangs, theft, rape, abandoned street children, etc, and reacts accordingly to these things. Children are to be protected rather than viewed as an expendable liability. Women are not to be assaulted by gangs of men. Morality is more important than survival of the fittest. He does not understand the human race united as the Resistance, the true extent of Skynet's power and cruelty, or the concept of some dude on the radio who is apparently thought of as a messiah. Marcus deals best with what is directly in front of him. Possibly as a holdover from his relationship with his older brother, Marcus seems to need other people to direct him, or at least give him a focus. Kyle becomes very important to him as both a guide and a focus, someone who understands the bigger picture and makes the plans, and Marcus falls in line because he sure as shit has no idea what to do on his own.
How much of this attachment is a result of Skynet's influence and how much is just Marcus latching onto the first person in this 'new' world is unknown, but he displays a single-minded drive in following Kyle and Star and wanting to protect them from harm once they are taken from him. As a teenager, Kyle probably falls into some sibling archetype for Marcus and likely reminds him of how he 'failed' his own brother. Already obsessed with the idea of atoning for his "crimes," which of course were probably accidental or mostly accidental or even instigated by his brother Sam, once Marcus finds out that he has been turned into some kind of science experiment evil robot, this obsession is ramped up further into a driving need to prove himself to someone. He already had very little faith in his own self-worth, now that he's the epitome of everything that people in the future hate and fear, he is compelled to do something about it or go quietly insane. Marcus doesn't (or can't) deal with existential problems, he'd rather walk by himself into Skynet's super fortress/base filled with guns and Terminators and more guns and try to find a couple of kids all by himself than sit down and even attempt to think about what's been done to him.
He's afraid of his own body. Movie doesn't give him much time to reflect on it, but there's a very real concern about how much control Skynet has over him, with or without that control chip. He has no desire to be seen as a hero, probably doesn't think he deserves it, and has a real problem with organized authority, including the Resistance. He thinks John Connor is an asshole and any time you get a bunch of guys with guns together, they start making the decisions for everyone else. Marcus presumably had experience with criminals and probably gangs back when he was a petty crook himself, and he hasn't seen anything (aside from Blair) to convince him that the Resistance is more than a well-organized gang claiming to have everyone's best interests at heart. Some of his butthurt towards Connor is probably the fact that Kyle seemed to think so much of him, and Marcus is expecting the boy to get let down hard.
Connor ordering his dissection didn't help much either. It's probably more Kyle's opinion of John Connor than any personal sentiment that leads Marcus to volunteer to give up his heart to save Connor's life. By that time, at least, he recognizes that the Resistance is the last best hope against Skynet etc, and he's giving up his life in order to let Kyle, Star, Blair, and Kate Connor have their pillar, John Connor, to continue the war.
Etc etc he's a stoic antihero with a heart of gold who protects women and children and has a Redeemer complex and DON'T TELL HIM WHAT TO DO, BITCH unless you're Kyle then it's ok and John Connor is still a dick.
Abilities and Weaknesses:
- he's a Terminator. Can take bullets and all kind of physical damage and get back up. He's a prototype infiltration unit, though, so he is much less badass than a regular Terminator and doesn't seem to be able to regenerate his skin as quickly. He also has lots of fleshy pieces, like his heart, that are ridiculously vulnerable.
- can hotwire cars and fix radios
- can sync with Skynet wirelessly, apparently, which will mean shit all on Sacrosanct but probably means other machines/Terminators can hack him. Marcus hasn't the faintest idea how to use his Terminator body's abilities other than 'hit things until they break'
- strange tendency away from firearms. He'd rather pick up a screwdriver or two-by-four or a steel beam than a gun, apparently.
Inventory:
- Resistance coat + uniform
- screwdriver
Appearance: Normal and SHIT IT'S A TERMINATOR GET IN THE CAR. Marcus is a solidly built dude, and apparently kind of short.
Age: looks 23, actually 38 from the 15 years he spent in stasis.
OC/AU Justification ;
If AU, How is Your Version Different From Canon, and How Will That Come Across?
If OC, Did You Run Your Character Through a Mary-Sue Litmus Test?
And What Did You Score?
NOTE: the only relevant bit of headcanon that I use for Marcus is that he's originally from Australia (since his actor is), and his accent slips occasionally.
Samples ;
Per mod permission, here are some samples from Absolute Threshold's "guest community" Paramnesias. Please let me know if more samples are needed!
http://community.livejournal.com/paramnesias/4293.html
http://community.livejournal.com/paramnesias/8950.html
http://community.livejournal.com/paramnesias/11964.html
Network Sample:
[ The video feed clicks on to present a charming view of... a naked guy. It's not much of a view, thankfully, because the guy in question is poking at his device with a frown and twisting his arm this way and that, so the only real indecency is some flashes of bare torso because Terminator movies are PG-13. He's still wet from the chemical showers. ]
What the hell is--
[ He punches another button and the feed ends. Turns back on five minutes later, this time centered and steady, and he addresses the feed with a glare. ]
I should be dead. Nobody ever said shit to me about Skynet in space, so where the fuck have I been dumped now.
[ Aaaand a little quieter, ]
...and where is Kyle Reese.