Scorched Application
Out of Character Information
player name: Kate
player livejournal: perivates
playing here: n/a
where did you find us? Through other players.
are you 16 years of age or older?: Yep.
In Character Information
character name: Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul
Fandom: Animorphs
Timeline: Book 1, just after his death at the hands... er, jaws of Visser Three.
character's age: Due to timeline fuckery, his exact age is unknown. His approximate (comparable human) age is late 20s/early 30s.
powers, skills, pets and equipment:
Elfangor can morph into any creature that he can touch. This is the result of a spying technology that the Andalites developed to combat the Yeerk threat, and the morphing ability is transferred by means of the Escafil Device (aka the morphing cube or blue cube). However, he does not actually have very much experience with morphing, as he only has acquired four different morphs in canon. (Please refer to the morphing guide that I have written for those unfamiliar with the ability.) Presumably he acquired other forms during the war, but there is nothing confirming this in canon. He also has the ability to track the passage of time with extreme accuracy.
For the purpose of this game, I would like for the morphing ability to be tweaked so as to render the two-hour limit on a morph ineffective, but only in regard to his human form. I would also like for him to be able to develop the ability to acquire, and morph directly to newly acquired forms from his human form.
Elfangor is, as all Andalites are, significantly advanced in terms of technological knowledge and abilities. He is actually canonically implied to be responsible for the development of Microsoft and Macintosh. He is also able to understand any language, due to the translator chip that all Andalite military personnel are required to have implanted, although that does not mean that he can speak it, since the technology was devised with thought-speak in mind.
While he is highly skilled in combat, this is primarily known in reference to his ability for tail-fighting. However, an Andalite without a tail would feel at an extreme disadvantage without his natural weapon. At one point when he is confronted with a potential invasion of his home while human, Elfangor says, "Human arms are strong and can be used for fighting. But whenever I sensed danger, I missed my tail." I infer from this that he does know how to fight with human arms, largely on account of Andalite reflexes aiding in this, and that he would not be opposed to using a bladed weapon given the opportunity. As an Andalite, though, it would be very hard for an enemy to sneak up on him. With his stalk eyes, he can see an attack coming from any side. Also, his tail blade can be used with deadly force in a battle situation, although if he merely wishes to knock an opponent out and not cause serious harm, he can use the flat side of his blade in a tail-fighting technique called the torf.
Elfangor is a strategic planner, although when it comes down to it, he's never entirely sure that his plans will work and just tries to wing it when things go to hell. Luckily, things typically seem to work out in his favor. He is fair-minded can be very empathetic, which prevents him from becoming hardened through battle.
canon history:
In the beginning, an idealistic Andalite by the name of Seerow came across a sluglike, sentient race called Yeerks, who could only experience the sensory world through their natural symbiotic hosts, the Gedds. Seerow felt sorry for them, and shared Andalite technology with them so that they could become enlightened and travel the stars.
The Yeerks took advantage and attacked the Andalites, stole a ship, and broke free from the stifling captivity of their home planet. They then went on to enslave many species throughout the galaxy, creating Controllers from them. A Controller is one who has a Yeerk crawl inside their ear, wrap around their brain, and take complete control over their body.
Among the species that the Yeerks infested, there were those like the Taxxons: mostly willing slaves, in exchange for a promise to satiate their endless hunger for blood. And there were also the Hork-Bajir: a peaceful, tree-dwelling race, childlike by nature and never before exposed to the horrors of war.
Seerow was a fool. For this, the Law of Seerow's Kindness was created, so that no other Andalite would ever forget the price they pay for taking pity on less advanced species.
The Andalites took on the responsibility of annihilating the Yeerks due to Seerow's actions, and the Andalite-Yeerk War has raged on for years.
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Elfangor started out as an aristh (equivalent of a cadet) aboard the Dome ship StarSword. He and his fellow aristh Arbron were sent on their first mission with the disgraced War-Prince Alloran.
It was meant to be a rather simple side-quest of sorts--rescuing two humans (Loren and Chapman) from the scavenging Skrit Na who abducted them, and return them home. But they quickly discovered that the Skrit Na had something of terrible value: the Time Matrix. A weapon created by the Ellimists, creatures of legend, equivalent to gods. The Skrit Na were taking the Time Matrix to the Taxxon world, which was under Yeerk control, and so they needed to go after it before it fell into enemy hands.
During this mission, many things went wrong. Arbron was trapped in Taxxon morph, and Esplin 9466 Primary tricked Elfangor, which led to Alloran's infestation, thus becoming the first Andalite Controller. The Abomination. From that point on, Esplin became Elfangor's very personal enemy.
Not much later, Elfangor, Esplin, and the two humans fell into a black hole. In order to escape, they were forced to use the Time Matrix, but it could not be successfully directed by multiple people at once, and so they inadvertently created a splintered universe that drew on the memories of Elfangor, Loren, and the Yeerk for its foundation. After confronting Esplin and his pet Mortrons in this universe, Elfangor and Loren retrieved the Time Matrix and Loren used it to take them to Earth, where Elfangor buried the device--refusing to allow it to fall into Yeerk or Andalite hands, as by this point he was not nearly as naive as he once was; he knew he could not expect his people to hold to a higher code of honor, not with access to a weapon like this. Not when he had learned about the vile things his people had done, such as creating a quantum virus to commit genocide against a sentient species rather than allow the peaceful but frightening-looking Hork-Bajir to be used as weapons against them in battle.
And so he morphed human, intentionally trapping himself in that form, becoming a nothlit. He took the pseudonym Alan Fangor. He chose to run away from the war between Andalites and Yeerks, to become human, to live out the remainder of his life at the side of the human whom he'd fallen in love with.
But only three years passed when the Ellimist called upon Elfangor to return to the war, assuring him that if he didn't, both of his people--human and Andalite--would fall to the Yeerks. And so he agreed to return, only after which he discovered that Loren was pregnant, and he learned that his son will be instrumental in the fight to save Earth from the Yeerks.
The Ellimist restored his body and his timeline, returning him to a critical point in a battle that his people were losing. He managed to rescue them by ramming his own fighter into Esplin's Blade Ship and nearly died for it, but he was retrieved by the Fleet and debriefed.
He spent the next several years engaged in war, earning for himself the moniker Beast among the Yeerks for how fearsome and ruthless he was in battle, driven by his need to protect his people, his family.
Eventually, the war extended to Earth, and it was during a battle above Earth's atmosphere when the tide turned against the Andalites, as they had been unaware of Esplin (by then possessing the high rank of Visser Three) having his Blade Ship hidden in a crater on the dark side of Earth's moon. Out of desperation, Elfangor fled to the place where he had buried the Time Matrix so long ago, willing to use it now, before the last resistance for Earth could fall. But what was once a forest was now an abandoned construction site, and he knew that he did not have time to recover the Time Matrix before the Yeerks could catch up to him, grievously injured as he was.
Before the Yeerks could arrive, he met five young humans--his son among them--who were cutting through the construction site on their way home from the mall. He warned them of the Yeerk threat and gave them the morphing technology, and he told them to flee just before the Yeerks arrived.
Esplin gloated over his seeming victory, morphed into an Antarean Bogg, and murdered Elfangor by devouring him.
And even though he died there, he knew that by breaking the Law of Seerow's Kindness, he had given Earth the fighting chance it had needed to stand strong against the Yeerks.
personality:
Elfangor begins his mission as a serious young Andalite, determined to prove himself and make a name for himself in the Fleet. He says early on, "I didn't like people laughing at me. And I didn't like losing." He was certain that as soon as he joined the fight, he could make a difference and become a hero. By but the end of his mission, he could only look back on his youthful ignorance and call himself a fool.
He is shown to be intelligent and intuitive, although he usually does not think matters through as fully as he should. Arbron tells him that he thinks too much, and his instructor Sofor says that he should have been a scientist, not a warrior. He has moments of great insight throughout his adventure, but the plans that he develops often rely upon extraordinarily good luck and an ability to bluff his way through situations.
He is also extraordinarily sensitive and compassionate, for an Andalite. When Arbron says that he finds the humans to be annoying, Elfangor instead sympathizes with Loren for being so far from home in a situation she surely couldn't have expected to find herself in. Even when he morphs Taxxon and is struck by the horror of the species' all-consuming hunger, he shows a profound understanding of the motivation behind the decision of many Taxxons to ally themselves with the Yeerks.
Overall, he appears to be a very emotional being, even though Andalites as a species are portrayed as striving for the ideal of the stoic warrior. But Elfangor shows a range of intense emotional reactions. He breaks down and cries in Loren's arms after his first kill, and later breaks down into tears again when he is emotionally exhausted from all the horrors he'd seen. He experiences acute pity when Arbron is trapped as a Taxxon yet finds renewed purpose in what is sure to be a suicide mission, when most Andalite warriors would simply feel pride at such devotion to battling the Yeerks. He seeks out comfort in the midst of a terrible situation by daydreaming about what life must be like on Earth, and beautiful places he's seen in photographs where he would like to visit with Loren when the madness is over.
He in fact shows an almost immediate affinity for humans through his connection with Loren (meanwhile believing Chapman to be a detestable, negligible example of human behavior). While he initially sees them as strange creatures, crippled by only two legs with no tail and the need for shoes, he quickly comes to appreciate what unexpected strengths they do possess. This culminates in the battle against Esplin's Mortrons when Loren dispatches the creatures with an impressive surety that cements Elfangor's fondness for humans.
As important as Elfangor's personal reactions to the events of his adventure are in displaying his personality, the questions of responsibility and morality are perhaps the most prominent issues that plague Elfangor throughout his journey, and they reveal critical facets of his values. As much as he'd been looking forward to proving himself a capable warrior, when he is faced with the reality of killing in battle, Elfangor endures an intensely negative reaction that is only the beginning of his troubles. He begins to develop a pattern of avoidance, simply shoving away thoughts and problems that he does not wish to deal with, but that he ultimately must face. When his prince orders him to kill thousands of defenseless enemies, Elfangor realizes that what is right is not always in accordance with orders given by his superiors. And when he is separated from his comrades, he finds himself in a position of needing to make decisions on his own without relying upon an authority figure for guidance. But in trying to act in accordance with his morals, he effectively hands Alloran over to Esplin, thus creating the Abomination: an Andalite-Controller. He learned too late that there was no decency in war, and now Alloran's capture was his responsibility. Distraught, Elfangor admits that he does not know what it right or wrong anymore--but the one thing he knows is that he must destroy Esplin at all costs. When he returns to the war, he goes so far as to pit himself against Esplin's ship in a suicide attack, and that same need to atone for his mistakes drives him to accept the weight of duty, to be the warrior that his people need him to be.
But vengeance is not all that drives him. His primary motivating factor in returning to the war is love--the need to protect his people, both human and Andalite, and his family above all else--and hope for the future. He is, at the heart of it all, a seeker of peace. But his idealism is tempered by the realism gained through experiencing the horrors of war, and he will fight viciously when it becomes necessary.
why do you feel this character would be appropriate to the setting?
Elfangor has, frankly, endured an incredible amount of bullshit within the span of one week (i.e. the events of his first mission leading up to his going AWOL for three years), let alone an entire lifetime. He is a seasoned warrior, who has made his way up through the ranks to attain the status of War-Prince, which is the equivalent of a General. He has both seen and done terrible things, and he has made a name for himself among his enemies: the name Elfangor alone is enough to cause some Yeerks to piss themselves. He is more than capable of meshing well with a horror/survivalist setting.
Writing Samples
Network Post Sample:
Elfangor's arrival network post at Kannagara.
Accidental network post during Nightmare Week event, during which Elfangor is attacked by Taxxons.
Third Person Sample:
Log thread between Elfangor and his brother Aximili.