❝ capa. you are dying. ❞
PLAYER INFORMATION
Your Name: tussah
OOC Journal: bombyx
Under 18? If yes, what is your age?: N/A
Email + IM: thebiographgirl (at) gmail | tullied (at) AIM
Characters Played at Ataraxion: MOUSE (Gideon Graham) | Original | App pending
CHARACTER INFORMATION
Name: Robert Capa, (PhD.)
Canon: Sunshine
Original or Alternate Universe: Original
Canon Point: The moment when Icarus tells Capa the fifth crew member is in the observation room.
Number: 008
Setting: Sunshine (film) Wikipedia page.
History:
Not much is known about Robert Capa's personal life or his background before Icarus II or, indeed, even about his training that lead up to the events of the movie. There are glimpses here and there, clues from which things can perhaps be inferred - his last transmission to earth being addressed to 'mom and dad', the replay of said transmission at the end of the film by a woman young enough to perhaps be a sister - but beyond that, there's little else known about Capa. What the audience does know is this: he is a trained astronaut and an astrophysicist - arguably one of the greatest astrophysicists alive, given his inclusion on the Icarus II's crew. The world in which he lives is our own, projected fifty years in the supposed future; the technology, therefore, is familiar grounding the film heavily in the realm of science as opposed to fiction. The crew's mission is succinctly (and conveniently) summed up at the movie's opening by Capa himself, narrating:
Our sun is dying. Mankind faces extinction. Seven years ago the Icarus project sent a mission to restart the sun but that mission was lost before it reached the star. Sixteen months ago, I, Robert Capa, and a crew of seven left earth frozen in a solar winter. Our payload a stellar bomb with a mass equivalent to Manhattan Island. Our purpose to create a star within a star.
Eight astronauts strapped to the back of a bomb. My bomb. Welcome to Icarus II.
The film opens to find the crew just on the edge of the dead zone - the scientific communications no-man's land that coronas the sun. Within 24 hours, the Icarus II will no longer be able to sent transmissions back to earth, effectively leaving its crew 'on its own' to complete the mission. Having already been in transit to the sun for 16 months, signs of fatigue, cabin fever, and emotional wear have begun to show on the crew who each deal with the tension in various ways. (Searle, the ship's psyche officer, and his growing obsession with his time on the observation deck; Kaneda, the crew's captain, and his preoccupation with the fate of Icarus I; Mace, the engineering officer, and his tendency to hit things an shout.) Capa is shown to generally keep to himself, a quiet man with an understated personality and a general air of thoughtfulness to him. In his last communiqué to his family back on earth, Capa reiterates to them the importance of his mission and tells them how they'll be able to tell if he and the crew has been successful. (The amount of transit between the earth and the sun mean another year and a half before the crew returns home, though there is something of a darker undertone to Capa's words, given the fate of Icarus I.)
Once in the dead zone, ship's communication officer Harvey picks up a transmission that is later revealed to be from the distress beacon on Icarus I. The crew is brought together to debate the possibility of changing course to intercept whatever remains of the previous station, with Mace coming down hard on the side of no deviations from the mission at whatever cost. Searle, however, places a counterargument - not for the sake of any surviving crew, since everyone's lives are negligible compared to success of the mission, but for the possibility of acquiring a secondary payload. Given the scale of the assessment involved and the figures that must be taken into account, it is left to the ship's physicist - Capa - to decide whether or not Icarus II should be diverted to rendezvous with Icarus I. Capa, upon revisiting the projected data, expresses his discomfort to Kaneda with making such an important decision when so many of the variables push the limits of computability and enter the realm of unreliably hypothetical. When pressed, however, Capa accepts the soundness of Searle's argument: two last chances are better than one.
Icarus II's course is subsequently replotted by Trey, the ship's navigator. This hits a snag when he forgets to recalculate the angles of the ship's solar shield - an integral part of Icarus's design that protects the rest of the ship from the intense radiation from the sun, as well as high destructive particles that make up the solar winds. As a result the ship is damaged and several of the shield's panels cannot be fixed without manual repair; Mace, indignant that the mission has been jeopardized in the first place, volunteers Capa to assist Kaneda. In the process of repairs, the loss of several comm towers due to the angle of adjustment leads to a fire in the oxygen garden. The gardens must subsequently be flushed with a portion of the ship's O2 reserves in order to cause a flashfire that will force emergency quarantine and save other parts of the ship. This interrupts both Capa and Kaneda in their repairs and, in the chaos and confusion that ensues, Kaneda is forced behind to finish the job while the ship realigns itself and Capa (decidedly the most important member of the crew since he's the only one who knows how to operate the bomb besides Icarus) retreats back to the ship. Kaneda is killed by exposure, leaving Harley to assume the position of acting captain. Assessment of the situation reveals that there is now no longer enough oxygen to support the crew to reach the sun, let alone for a return trip home. Trey, overwhelmed by guilt over Kaneda's death, becomes a suicide risk and must be kept under 24-hour sedation by Searle.
Even without Kaneda, the mission to rendezvous with Icarus I continues as planned. A boarding party consisting of Capa, Searle, Mace and Harvey board the ship once Cassie, the ship's pilot, manages to pull both stations side-by-side and dock one to the other. On the ship they find what remains of the crew 'fossilized' in the observation deck having effectively committed suicide by exposing themselves to the sun's radiation. Mace discovers that the mainframe of Icarus I is inaccessible, meaning that the ship's payload cannot be effectively detached or therefore used; he does, however, manage to access a recording made by Icarus I's captain, a man named Pinbacker. Most of the transmission is garbled, though Pinbacker reiterates several times that the sun's death is the 'will of god', and that it is not mankind's place to try to go against it using the hand of science. It is inferred by the Icarus II that Pinbacker played a part in the effectual 'sabotage' of the first crew's mission, given how convinced he was that the mission should fail. Further exploration of the ship and its resources are cut short when the airlocks of the two Icarus ships suddenly and inexplicably decouple. The boarding party is effectively stranded, save Capa who is volunteered to take the only provided space suit. Harley, however, panics and attempts to order Capa out of the suit as captain of the ship, only for the rest of the men to stand in defiance to the order. Mace manages to devise a means for Capa to effectively 'take passengers' on his trip back by way of utilizing the vacuum seal of the airlock to propel them to Icarus II, but someone must stay behind to operate the release mechanism. Acknowledging himself as the most expendable of the remaining crew, Searle volunteers, sends the others on his way and then goes to the Icarus I observation deck to commit suicide much like the original crew. Capa and Mace survive the trip through space with minimal injury but Harvey is accidentally knocked free from his grip on Capa and careens off into space, dying a few moments due to exposure.
Of the crew, five remain: Capa, Mace, Cassie, Corazon (the ship's botanist) and Trey. Upon investigation of the events at Icarus I, the ship's computers reveal that the airlocks had not been decoupled by accident but instead had been done manually by someone on either ship. Headcounts and alibis are taken into consideration but only one person, Trey, cannot be accounted for. While Capa and Cassie remain speculative that Trey would be even capable of doing such a thing given the level of sedation he's under, Corazon brings up an important point: her calculations of projected oxygen usage had been based on a crew of eight. With what remains in the reserves, the crew would be able to reach the sun if there were only four breathers. Cassie is staunchly opposed to 'euthanizing' Trey for the sake of the mission but she is overruled by Corazon, Mace and Capa. However when Mace goes to take care of Trey, he finds he has already taken his own life, having slit his wrists in the Earth room with a medical scalpel.
With less than 24 hours before deployment of the payload to the sun, Icarus interrupts Capa in his calculations with the declaration: "Capa. You are dying. All crew are dying." Capa responds calmly that as long as the crew lives long enough to deliver the payload, they are fine with that; Icarus counters with the assessment that the crew will not live long enough and will in fact die a few hours short of delivery. This gives Capa pause, given Corazon's calculations, and it's not until after questioning Icarus that Capa discovers that there is a fifth person, unidentifiable by Icarus, on the observation deck. When Capa goes to investigate, he finds a naked and brutally scarred man talking about god and angels. The man turns out to be Pinbacker, also responsible for the decoupling of Icarus I & II from one another; after a short exchange he stabs Capa who flees and is subsequently locked in an airlock by Pinbacker who then sets out to try and murder the rest of the crew.
Corazon falls victim to Pinbacker quickly and is left, stabbed to death, in what remains of her oxygen garden. He then goes about sabotaging Icarus's mainframe by pulling the servers out of the coolant required to keep them operational before setting out to find Cassie, whom he stalks throughout the ship while Mace and Capa scramble to find a way to undo what Pinbacker as done. Mace, who discovers the mainframe in his exploration of the ship, attempts to manually place the servers back in their coolant tanks but is subsequently trapped and freezes to death before her can save Icarus. This leaves Cassie, who has managed to stab the unflagging Pinbacker only to flee to the payload, and Capa, still trapped in the airlock. He has no choice but to don one of the provided spacesuits and destroy the seal of the airlock (effectively depressurizing all of Icarus); he then goes about initializing payload detachment protocols which lead to the destruction of the rest of Icarus II but successfully manage to launch the payload into the sun's corona.
While in the payload, Capa once again finds Cassie and together the two face flee Pinbacker long enough for Capa to detonate the bomb just as it comes in contact with the surface of the sun. Before the obliteration of the payload, Capa is given a single moment of communion with the star he's been looking to reignite. The narrative then cuts to Earth where a woman sits in a frozen landscape, watching Capa's initial transmission. Up above the sun suddenly seems to brighten, casting a new light onto the world - proof that Capa and the rest of the crew have been successful despite having died in the process.
Personality:
He's quite a silent character at the beginning of the movie. He's there, but he's kind of at a remove from the group.
Everyone else is an astronaut, whereas Capa is a scientist. He has this huge responsibility; he's the only one who knows how this bomb works.
That has an effect on his demeanour and his dynamic within the group.
( actor Cillian Murphy on his role as Capa )
The first impression one gets of Robert Capa is that of silence. The crew is introduced at the beginning of the film as they chitchat over a meal in the ship's galley; Searle pontificates on the experience of being bathed in sunlight and while other members of the crew ask questions (Corazon) or toss in their two cents (Mace), Capa remains wholly quiet - sitting, eating, but obviously listening, the only member of the crew who doesn't speak for the duration of the scene. Attentive but silent - a neutral observer. This is, of course, an example of first impressions being the right ones because time and time again throughout the film Capa adopts the same role of someone who is obviously an integral part of the Icarus II's eight man crew, but who also seems to exist somewhat removed from the people around him. As the ship's physicist, Capa is in the unique position of being a member of the crew while not being a native astronaut, something that is hinted towards later in the film while he and captain Kaneda ready themselves to fix a set of damaged panels on the ship's solar shield. While Kaneda is seen matter-of-factly powering through his own ready check, Capa helped by Cassie through the process, oftentimes left to simply observe her passively as she busily goes about prepping things both on and around him. Even as she tries to reassure him, noting that he's done this "a thousand times in earth orbit training" (emphasis mine), there is an underlying sense of detachment to Capa which is fueled by his status as an outsider and reinforced by his own stoic, understated personality.
By the time you get this message, I'll be in the dead zone.
Eh, it came a little sooner than we thought, but this means you won't be able to send a message back.
So, I just wanted to let you know that I don't need the message.
Because, I know everything you want to say.
( Capa's last transmission to earth )
The second impression one gets of Robert Capa is perhaps just as accurate as the first, though it is an impression easily overlooked; when Capa sends his last transmission to his family from Icarus II, the audience is given insight to his character that would otherwise be lost underneath the quietness of his personality. There is ultimately an undercurrent of thoughtfulness and sensitivity to the transmission that he sends - his hypothetical 'last words' before disappearing into the black of radio silence that exists too close to the sun's surface. There is a touch of self-deprecating humor as well as the only proper grin we get from Capa for the duration of the film and it is clear that he, as a character, is capable of great (albeit awkward) emotional connection, it is just that he holds it in reserve around most people.
Even with the vaguest hints of sentimentality on Capa's part there is an overwhelming sense of matter-of-factness to everything he says and does. This is a man on a mission, a mission that will no less define the course of human history, but the air that Capa gives off is simply that of a man doing this job. He has a responsibility and he has every intention to see to it, but there is no real air of melodrama to his responsibility, no largeness or sense of the grandiose. This of course changes as the movie progresses and the crew is forced to make tougher and tougher decisions while they are pushed to the very outlands of probable success, but even during the most heated of debates Capa remains straight-forward and both morally and emotionally uncomplicated. But unlike a character like Mace, who is able to make those kinds of decisions without the slightest hesitation or misgiving, Capa does occasionally give pause to express his personal distaste before voicing the most logical choice (his discomfort at having to choose whether or not to salvage Icarus I's payload; his incredulity at their discussion on whether or not they should euthanize Trey).
When a stellar bomb is triggered, very little will happen at first.
Then a spark will pop into existence and it will hang for an instant, hovering in space.
And then, it will split into two and those will split again. And again and again. Denotation beyond all imagining.
The big bang on a small scale. A new star born out of a dying one.
I think it'll be beautiful. No, I'm not scared.
( Capa's response to the question 'Are you scared?' )
If there is one thing that is large when it comes to Capa's character, it is the science. In interviews, Cillian Murphy has often talked about the nature of Capa's role as an astrophysicist and how the scope and the kinds of questions he has to tackle and consider every day can greatly affect the way a person perceives the world. Concepts like the Big Bang and dark matter mean that Capa is constantly confronted with questions of the fundamental nature of the universe, questions that can easily put into perspective the smallness of one's man's life or actions compared to the totality of creation. This, again, lends a matter-of-factness to the way that Capa approaches their task; when pressed with the inevitability of his own death by Icarus II's shipboard computer, Capa calmly responds: "We know we're dying. As long as we can live long enough to deliver the payload, we're okay with that." While it is easy to look at a statement like that and interpret it as bravery or a noble front, it is a case of neither with Capa - simply the outcome given the variables in play, which he is able to accept.
Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations:
Our last, best hope | ABILITY.
Given that the Icarus II is described as "humanity's last hope", one cannot understate the level of expertise and specialization at which its crew is operating. That Capa is chosen as the Icarus' physicist means that he is among the upper echelons of physicists in the world, or at least those that are physically viable for space travel and can complete astronaut training. Granted, when taken in the broader context of science fiction as a genre, his level of expertise is limited by the fact that Capa's world is not that far into the hypothetical alterna-future. So think Aliens rather than Star Trek when considering the breadth of Capa's knowledge.
Ground control to Major Tom | ABILITY.
As an astronaut, Capa has completed all the necessary training and so is adapted to space travel, zero g, etc. He understands various protocols, safety procedures, demands of space and one's survival in it - not just in a procedural sense, but in a conceptual sense as well. This allows him to apply abstract reasoning to new situations within the space environment.
Scientist first, astronaut second | WEAKNESS.
The flip-side to Capa's astronaut training is that he did not become an astronaut out of natural inclination or inherent desire to. Instead, it is a symptom of being chosen for the Icarus II mission as the payload specialist. As a result, though he can apply his conceptual understanding of space and its demands to his actual means of survival, it also means that sometimes his understanding is just that: conceptual. Certain scenarios are things Capa has been exposed to in simulations during training rather than having hands-on experience the way some of the other crew members might. In that way, he is still something of a fish out of water.
Leave the heavy lifting to Mace | WEAKNESS.
Capa's physique is slender and modest compared to the set of most of his fellow crewmates. Although by no means a weakling - he's able to lift himself off of the ground while strapped into a gold space suit after all - it is also obvious that Capa is by no means a fighter. Although he gets into a handful of altercations (and with his crewmate Mace at the center of them) he is shown to be scrappy but not owning any kind of physical prowess beyond the average man of his height and weight is capable of.
The bigger picture | ABILITY.
As a scientist, Capa is able to rationalize his way through situations to provide the most logical and most statistically viable decision based on all possible outcomes. He is then able to follow through with these decisions with little personal complication (though if Capa disagrees with the morality of a decision, he will initially voice it before following through). Emotionally uncomplicated and spiritually straightforward, Capa is able to look at whatever is provided to him objectively as well as acknowledge and then set aside whatever personal reservations he may have for the sake of an optimum 'bigger picture'. He is well-versed and practiced in risk assessment and calculations of ROI (return of investment).
Inventory:
(1) Crew uniform (1 blue t-shirt, 1 pair of utility pants, 1 pair of white high-top sneakers)
(1) sweatband
(1) analogue watch
(1) Icarus II communication unit (a small electronic device smaller than a cell phone, worn on a lanyard)
(1) Capa's calculator (roughly the size of a Kindle or Nook with a screen that utilizes a stylus; used specifically for advanced physics computation)
(several) binders worth of reference schematics and calculations (all involving payload delivery and operation)
Appearance: Capa is portrayed in the film by Cillian Murphy, though his accent is noticeably American (as opposed to Murphy's native Irish). Each of the members of the crew have aspects of their personality depicted in their appearance/the way they 'stylize' their ship uniform. Capa perpetually sports a five o'clock shadow and has longish hair usually pulled back to a tiny, unruly ponytail. When he is not careening through space in a gold Lady-Gaga-esque space suit, he's seen sporting a wifebeater or nondescript t-shirt, perfect for showing off his complete lack of physique. Capa's body type is more reminiscent of a adolescent boy rather than a grown man (see: crewman Mace and the glory that is Captain America Chris Evans for more details).
Age: Mid-thirties.
AU Clarification: N/A
SAMPLES
Log Sample:
Cassie's right, there is only one dream: the sun. It's frustrating.
Not the Cassie being right part, Capa's okay with that, the part where it's the same preoccupation whether he's awake or asleep. His days are filled with calculations, an ordering and reordering of facts and figures, all pointing in one direction - in the direction of Sol - and his nights are spent spiralling through the solar winds. Down, down, down, through physical impossibility and unquantifiable space, down to the surface of the sun.
Capa acknowledges the fact this is how preoccupation works; otherwise, why call it preoccupation at all. But there is something in side of him - say it's willfulness, say it's ego - that likes to think he's above these sorts of things. Obsession, compulsion; sitting and spinning. It doesn't yield better results, just skews your perception of the ones you already have, and Capa's fairly certain that's not the sort of thing he ought to be indulging. (He doesn't want to.)
He sees it in his crewmates, of course; they're obvious about it because they don't care or possibly because they don't really see or maybe it's because they think they're being sly about it. (Capa doesn't know; he's never really been good with people.) But it's there, in Searle and his UV-cracked lips, those signs of over-exposure; in Cassie and her smile in the darkness, her worried-down nails. Capa doesn't judge it - it's not an assessment, just an observation - but sees it as something other than him. An outside thing, an external entity; a personality tic he doesn't have.
Only he does have it because: Cassie's right. There is only one dream and his dream has a diameter of about 1,392,000 km and a mass of about 2×1030 kilograms. It accounts for approximately 99.8632% of the total mass of the solar system and has the stellar spectral classification of GV, which is colloquially known as a 'yellow dwarf'. Only the problem is, his dream is dying. It's snuffing out like a candle at the very center of their solar system, snuffing out on a massive scale that - when you get down to the actual numbers - isn't that massive at all.
One star in an infinitely expanding universe is quantitatively nothing, Capa understands that, but this is their star and it's that one word - five letters, a pronoun; possessive - that seems to make all of the difference. As he lies in bed, his eyes tracing the familiar lines of the bulkhead's seams, he goes over the figures again:
The lion's share of earth's resources, two payloads, 16 crew. Plus assemblage, plus training, plus policy. All negligible. One yellow dwarf star, one big bang (scale: small). Both paramount; nonnegotiable. (The math checks out.)
He does that until his brain becomes tired and he wishes, at least for a moment, that he could think of other things instead. Trees, maybe. Green, with leaves, like the way they used to be when he was really young. (Solar winters means an indefinite hiatus for natural processes like photosynthesis.) But Capa doesn't think of trees, because trees are hypothetical - a nostalgia, a projected future - while the sun, the sun is a reality. That can't be understated.
So: there is only one dream. Capa won't have another until he's earned it.
It's frustrating.
Comms Sample:
[ The video feed clicks on to reveal Robert Capa - a man in his mid-thirties with shaggy hair and a five o'clock shadow and freckled shoulders like a twelve year old boy. His eyes, bright blue, are particularly striking in that the manage to catch the light without there being much light in the first place. They are also wholly calm, as is the rest of his face, the muscles of which never really rearrange themselves much to convey this emotion or that. When he speaks his voice is measured and even, though there is a certain start-stop to the cadence. ]
As per the request of some of the other passengers - I've done a few calculations. Now the margin of error on these is going to be something huge. There's no way of knowing whether the extrapolation's done on faulty assumptions until we go to each of the bulkheads and assess them one by one, but- [ He sighs, scrubs a hand over his mouth. The stubble on his chin scrapes audibly against his fingers. ] We're talking of a capacity of about 250,000 people.
[ He pauses, lets that figure set in. There's a vague flicker of emotion, maybe worry, in the set of his mouth but it's as understated as the rest of him. ] Where those 250,000 people have gone- [ Reluctantly, he shakes his head. ] -I don't know.
[ His mouth opens, as if he means to say something else but then catches himself, thinking better of it. ] Updates as I get them. [ Leaning forward to turn off the device, he casts a shadow over the camera, the image of him blurring as he says: ]
Capa out.