Application for Reims Academy
ONE IMPORTANT NOTE: Though the reserve is technically for Megatron from Shattered Glass, he is essentially the same character as Galvatron. In SG canon, one of Galvatron's defining character traits is that he is exactly the same in heart and mind as Megatron. He simply went through a near-death experience and was reformatted. Here, the similarity is even closer: there was no rebuilding and no physical change (aside from the reconstructive surgery to his face mentioned in the app): he merely changed his name to Galvatron to hide his identity. If you have any questions about it, I am more than willing to answer them.
( faculty/teacher application )
PLAYER INFORMATION
PLAYER: Krystal
AGE: 20
CONTACT: AIM: crystalclearcase ; email: chronicfangirl@gmail.com
PERSONAL LJ: crystalcleared
CHARACTERS PLAYED none
CHARACTER INFORMATION
NAME: Born James Megatron, name changed to James Galvatron
CANON: Transformers: Shattered Glass
CANON REFERENCE: Shattered Glass, on the TF Wiki
AGE: 36
GENDER Male
TENURE: One year
SUBJECT/POSITION: Upper-level mathematics courses, both practical and theoretical. He also has qualifications in sociology, and can teach those classes as well.
RESIDENCE: At the Academy.
APPEARANCE: In his canon, he’s a giant blue and purple robot with red accents. Obviously, he’s a little different here, and I’m not just talking about a paint job. Standing about six feet in height, Galvatron is tall and broad-shouldered, and carries himself with confidence. His hair is still black and cut short, swept back from his face. His eyes are a bright blue and alert, his face slightly lined from years of care. Though he’s in his thirties, he’s been in top physical condition for years, and isn’t getting old any time soon. He favors dress shirts in grays and blues, almost always with a belt and tie. Though he’s got his share of scarring from old injuries, most of it is hidden under his long sleeves and collared shirts. The worst of it is along the right side of his neck, ugly, bumpy ridges of scar tissue. If you look closely, you might see some between his collar and his right ear - the surgery he had to go through after the attack got rid of most of the damage to the side of his face.
PERSONALITY: Though the name “Galvatron” usually brings to mind evil, insanity and a very literal “loose cannon,” the premise of Shattered Glass is a sort of mirror universe, complete with goatees. Take everything you know about the classic villain and turn it on its head, and you’ll get this bizarro version. Stone cold sane, pacifistic and academically brilliant, Galvatron is a compassionate person, courageous and even heroic if the situation calls for it. Underneath his serious academic exterior lies a battle-hardened warrior and skilled tactician. Though peace and learning are his first loves, he will take up the sword to defend them. This doesn’t mean he’s a rash fighter. Quite the opposite - Galvatron’s about as cool-headed as they come, never letting emotions compromise his judgment. A loss of temper is rare indeed; none who know him have seen him lose control of himself. He’s not the sort to struggle needlessly if trapped; and if there is nothing he can achieve at the moment in a dangerous situation, he will respond stoically, looking for an opportunity to make his move. If escape is impossible, he will not fight life and limb in an attempt to free himself, even to save an innocent; he knows better, that it would only waste energy. But that doesn’t mean he is unaffected. Murder of any kind fills him with a cold rage. Galvatron does not rave impotently; captured and at the enemy’s mercy, he is not the sort to pointlessly demand to be released (he prefers to talk when words mean something). Instead, he sends sharp verbal barbs at his captors and waits until he is free to avenge any victims, if he can.
Much as he dislikes it and does not want to think of it this way, this predisposition to calculation is reflected in his morality. He is very much on the side of good, of peace and justice, having been involved in a resistance movement to the despotic government of Cybertron. However, his sense of right and wrong is more practical than an instinct- and emotion-driven hero. He will act for the greater good, though the ends do not justify the means, and there are definite lines he will not cross, such as sacrificing an ally (preferring to shoulder the danger himself), misleading his troops, or endangering innocents. On top of this, he prefers peaceful, negotiated solutions to manipulated or even forceful ones, and he’s a very good negotiator. His people-skills are top-notch - they had to be-and are augmented with some study of psychology. A natural, charismatic leader, Galvatron inspired belief in those who followed him in the revolution. (Students, however, often prove to be even more problematic in their own ways.)
But what about when he’s not in a chaotic battle situation? What is he like when courage and war tactics aren’t called for? More than anything else, Galvatron is a collected individual. Calm, intelligent and a little aloof, the former leader of the Decepticons has always had a wry sense of humor, one that helped improve his troops’ morale during darker times. That humor has stayed with him, and it helps set people at ease around him. He hasn’t quite lost the leader’s mask he felt he had to keep up years ago. You see, Galvatron was more than just a man giving orders. He was the figurehead of the resistance, a charismatic leader that they rallied behind, and he knew it. He knew how important he was to his troops’ morale, and that was reason #1 not to sacrifice himself blindly. Despite being a leader and looked up to by many, none of it has gone to Galvatron’s head. He has an accurate grasp of his strength and worth, but is not overconfident or egotistical. However, his position as a symbol of and to the resistance also meant that he could show no weakness. He was their fearless leader, able to deal with any problem that might arise. They trusted him to be strong, so he had to be their pillar of strength all the time. Galvatron could not afford to show doubt, hesitation or uncertainty - whatever he felt would be reflected in his Decepticons tenfold. This is one reason why leadership has never made Galvatron complacent; he never wanted it, and it’s an alienating position, a burden. Thanks to this, it is still difficult for Galvatron to open up to others, especially where his own weaknesses or “weak” feelings are concerned. Though he is quite amiable to almost everyone (those he doesn’t consider an enemy, that is), friendly and full of good humor and encouragement in almost any situation, he’s not about to unburden any troubles he might be going through on anyone else. In his head, he knows he doesn’t have to keep his doubts to himself anymore, but habit is a hard thing to break. He keeps his guilt over those of his men that died because of involvement with his faction, and his uncertainty of whether, if he had struck at the warmongering leader of the opposite faction sooner, fewer civilians would have died, to himself. Few at the school even know about his revolutionary past. He prefers to keep it quiet, letting himself slip back into being a teacher and tucking the fighter away until (god forbid) it’s needed again. Galvatron is still getting used to the fact that he doesn’t need to worry about war or feeding his troops or fending off the enemy leader anymore and has the luxury of being a simple academic. As a lifelong learner, it’s a really good feeling--even if he still keeps himself in shape and is thinking of overseeing a fencing club...
What else is there to him in his day to day persona? Dry humor, friendly but aloof about his own emotions, cool-headed, patient...formerly atheistic but after a near-death experience he’s not so sure what he believes anymore... I mentioned early in this section that he was a kind person. This is true. If there is any way Galvatron can help you, all you have to do is ask (or even hint that you might be in a little over your head) and he’ll listen and do what he can. This doesn’t mean he’ll pass a failing student just because they ask, but he will tell them when tutoring sessions are and perhaps assign a comprehensive project where, if they can prove that they have learned what they needed to in the course, he’ll give them a C, or if their work is exceptionally impressive, a B-. Outside of academics, he’s a bit freer to give others a hand, or a nudge in the right direction. He cares deeply about his students - they’re essentially the new group he’s responsible for, now that the Decepticons have disbanded. He treats them with the same fond friendliness but underlying emotional distance as his former freedom fighters.
Weaknesses I Haven’t Covered Already: Like I mentioned, if Galvatron had his way, he’d take the hardest tasks himself rather than delegate them to anyone else. He leads by example, placing himself in the line of fire with everyone else. This, combined with his protectiveness for his subordinates, make him possible to manipulate if he feels those subordinates are in danger. In addition, he’s not too in tune with his own feelings. He’s used to shelving his own wants and needs in favor of what his troops need from him, which leads to an immersion in his public persona that he’s still in the process of breaking free from. He used to be much more trusting than he is now - it was a hard lesson to learn. Remember that near-death experience in the previous paragraph? That’ll get covered in the history section, but its effects (in addition to making him more cautious about who he trusted) involved a hallucination of the country of Cybertron, peaceful and prosperous again. Galvatron doesn’t know what caused the vision, and his skeptic’s mind wants to chalk it up to a dream or an effect of anesthesia, but it’s something he wonders about, sometimes. The attack also left him with some effects similar to PTSD: during battles after the event, he would occasionally freeze up, caught up in memories. Luckily, these episodes were few and far between, but the nightmares occur a bit more often, and he doesn’t like being snuck up on. He goes through periods where he is hyperaware of his surroundings, but does his best to keep all symptoms to a minimum. He is, after all, a person who prides himself on rationality and self-control, so it is far from a debilitating problem.
COMPUTER APTITUDE: Very good, but he’s no hacker. Even if he could, he would not try under ordinary circumstances.
AU HISTORY: BEFORE TIME BEGAN About forty years ago, there was a small, made-up country in southern Europe called Cybertron. Though tiny, it was a prosperous place, peaceful since the end of World War II, and just a little too far west to be part of the Soviet Union. It was rich in energy sources, full of coal and natural gas, and it traded these with the rest of the world. This is what James Megatron was born into: a world full of culture, opportunity and learning. He took to learning like a fish to water, preferring books to athletic pursuits or parties, and pursued his bachelor’s degree in mathematics with a minor in sociology and elective classes in physics and engineering with enthusiasm.
Unfortunately, he didn’t make it through graduate school.
He had finally begun to come out of his shell. In the graduate programs, Megatron had finally begun to socialize people who shared his passion for knowledge and could match him intellectually but didn’t let it take over their entire lives. This, coupled with a newly-discovered natural friendliness and empathy for those around him, not to mention a couple of psychology classes, gave him the social skills that would be so useful later. This wasn’t to say he’d begun to slack on his academic pursuits: quite the opposite. In addition to student-teaching and even giving the occasional lecture to undergraduates, Megatron was pursuing a theory on his own time, a theory that he could quantify sociological trends, find patterns, and, barring unforeseen circumstances such as major disasters, use mathematical formulas to predict the direction society will take in the future. It wasn’t specific and it wasn’t perfect, but Megatron was sure he was onto something big. However, when he put the numbers in, the graduate student was horrified to find that the figures pointed toward imminent civil war. He checked and double-checked his calculations before discussing his findings with an advising member of the faculty, who politely but firmly told him that it was just a theory with no solid proof to back it up, and that civil war at this point in time was highly unlikely. The answer was the same wherever Megatron took his theories: at best, they shook their heads. At worst, they laughed. Cybertron was currently the most peaceful and successful it had ever been, they argued, so why would there be a civil war now?
But Megatron wasn’t convinced. He trusted in his calculations, no matter what the others said, and so he began to make preparations. He gathered together as many resources as he could: food, medical supplies, even weapons and body armor. He also trained himself, both physically and mentally, studying battle strategies as well as practical use of weapons and hand-to-hand combat. He needed to know how to fight. Those who knew what he was doing called him crazy, wasting his time, money and future on a fool’s venture. Megatron ignored them. If he was right, there were much more important things to worry about than completing grad school. As luck (or perhaps destiny) would have it, he wouldn’t have finished before the war anyway. The spring of 2001 was when the man who began the war (who may or may not have called himself Optimus Prime but will remain nameless in this application to leave more room to maneuver for potential applicants) made his move. Formerly a librarian, this man had moved into politics, hungry for power. From his platform, this politician began to preach advancement through conflict. Cybertron was so rich in resources, he said, but it was so small it barely had a hand in world events. This needed to be corrected, and the small countries just to the east of Cybertron were prime targets for gaining territory. Still second-world and recovering from their former communist governments, they wouldn’t have a strong central government or army of their own yet. Cybertron would benefit from gaining more territory, and the countries would benefit from Cybertron’s centralized government, resources, and strength. He made a convincing argument, convincing enough to gain followers. Though the main government of Cybertron disagreed with his warlike philosophies, it wasn’t long before the clever rhetorician had enough supporters (a cult movement augmented by mercenaries and those who saw an opportunity) to retreat from politics. Philosophy turned into action, and the militant faction declared itself autonomous from the Cybertronian government. Calling themselves “Autobots,” they began a recruitment campaign across the country, threatening and killing those who would not join them. The government was unable to stop them, too torn against itself in its internal politics. Some of the higher-up government officials began to side with the Autobots in order to save their own lives, further tearing the official legislature apart. The country was thrown into chaos, and though there were many opposed to the violence, they couldn’t form anything more than a loose, underground resistance.
Megatron could only watch. He wasn’t quite ready yet, and if he took on the militant forces alone, with only the resources he had gathered, he would have gotten himself and the few who had joined him once the Autobot campaign began killed. So, he waited until the last possible minute - until the warlord was at his doorstep and his home city of Polyhex was in flames - to reveal himself as someone who would resist the Autobot commander with everything he had. By joining the resistance, Megatron strengthened it - both with the supplies he had to share, and with his strength, charisma and intelligence he was quickly nominated as the leader. In addition, the story of his face-to-face battle with the fearsome man who had started it all spread like wildfire, drawing more people to the resistance.
(At least, that’s the official version. The real story of the battle of Polyhex is a painful one for Megatron. It was far from a courageous mano-a-mano standoff with the chief Autobot. He was surrounded by the destruction of his home, his school, and the deaths of so many people he knew. There was a woman, a brilliant mind who’d disagreed with Megatron's views and theories but had always been up to debate them, a woman he’d had feelings for, who was killed in the fight. (He’d never told her how he felt. Even if he had, she probably wouldn’t have returned them. She hadn’t believed his civil-war theory, either.) It was her death that drove Megatron to confront her killer. For weeks afterward, he was haunted by memories of the attack, and guilt over not stepping forward sooner. It was during these weeks that Megatron learned to put up a front, to shelve his own grief so that he could think clearly and put a brave face on for those who found him inspiring enough to lend him their strength. It’s an honor he still feels he could never deserve.)
Whatever the story behind it, Megatron turned the resistance from a disorganized group of people trying to help each other survive into a skilled guerilla fighting force, stealing weapons and weapon designs from the Autobots. Thanks to their adopted tactics of sniping from a camouflaged position, they became known as the Decepticons. (Cybertron has a very odd naming tradition.) Working together, though at a severe disadvantage, they managed to retake several key locations from the Autobots. Megatron had become a thorn in the leader’s side, preventing the planned takeover of the countries to the east. Robbed of his original intent and trapped in a civil war, the Autobot leader took out his vitriol on Megatron, even to the point of obsession. The war was now personal, and over the next eight years, Cybertron’s once-rich lands became a war zone. Buildings were destroyed, priceless art was lost, farmland ruined all for the sake of war. Technological leaps were made on both sides in both offensive and defensive technology. Many battles were fought, and though it was grueling and even seemed hopeless at times, Megatron made some of the best friends of his life. He developed an especially close relationship with his second-in-command, a scientific genius whose loyalty could put Watson to shame. The tide of war favored first one, then the other, with no clear winner in sight. The rest of the world miraculously stayed out of it, mainly because the Autobot leader had commanded that the country be sealed off, preventing any aid from reaching the Decepticons. International communications were down, and there were border patrols along the edges of the tiny country. The Autobots would not allow anyone in, even if they had seen fit to help out the internal affairs of such a tiny country.
The war reached its turning point when one of Megatron’s own men shot him in the face with no warning. It was part of a more complicated story with one of the Autobot commander’s former allies returning from the dead to create his own faction, but the end result was a near-death experience for the Decepticon leader. It was only through the combined efforts of a group of surgeons the Decepticons were sheltering at the time that Megatron survived, but while he was on the brink of death, he had a vision. He saw Cybertron at peace again, restored to its former glory, the scars of war healing with time. Megatron had never been a religious man (quite the opposite, in fact), but when he regained consciousness, he couldn’t forget what he had seen. It had filled him with new resolve, and when he recovered, he was stronger, more focused, more determined than ever. To cut a long story down to under 2000 words, the Decepticons won the war, and begun to repair its shattered government. The Autobot leader was tried and imprisoned for his war crimes.
Since Megatron had no interest in leading the country, someone else was appointed to take over the reconstruction of the country. However, Megatron himself wasn’t completely innocent in the eyes of the law. Though the fight against the Autobots was just in the eyes of most, the fact remained that his actions of theft and even murder were punishable under Cybertronian law. An agreement was reached: as the government did not truly wish to prosecute him, Megatron would change his name and leave the country, officially exiled from the land he’d given so much to save. In return, they would not pursue him, nor attempt to press charges. Unable to teach college at his level of completed education, Megatron (now James Galvatron) chose the international school known as Reims Academy as his new home, taking up teaching like he’d wanted to do before the war.
TIMELINE:
1976: James Megatron born
1998: Graduates college (22)
2001: Cybertronian Civil War begins (25)
2007: Assassination attempt (31)
2009: Eight-year Cybertronian Civil War ends (33)
2010: James Galvatron leaves the country and is hired by Reims Academy (35)
JUSTIFICATION: Galvatron is more than qualified to teach, education-wise. He was well on his way to a PhD in mathematics, as well as contributing valuable independent research to the study as a whole. If it weren’t for the technical lack of qualification, Galvatron would be able to teach at a much higher level. On top of this, he is used to leadership positions, and after leading the Decepticons during wartime, he’s certainly able to handle a class of students. Intelligent and personable, Galvatron also cares about his students, and would do what he could to help them. Far from abusing his authority, he wants to see them succeed very much, and anyone seeking to complete a senior project in mathematics would be well advised to seek his help. If you want justification for why Galvatron would make a good teacher and handle his responsibility well, his personality section is one long essay on how Galvatron is a good leader, a smart cookie, and an all-around decent person. If more high schoolers had teachers like him, maybe there would be less widespread hatred of mathematics.
That’s the IC justification. OOC, aging Galvatron down would change him a great deal. Though he is still the same well-meaning, omnivorous learner he was when he was young, his experiences have shaped him into what he is in his canon. He would be naïve, much more trusting, less battle-hardened, and much more open about his feelings. He would not have had to make the decision to prepare for war despite those around him telling him how foolish it was, and he would not have dealt with the heavy responsibility (and guilt that goes with such a burden) of having others rely on his life-or-death decisions. Though there’s nothing wrong with young Megatron, he isn’t the matured character I intend to play in this game, and just as there is no way to bring him up to his canon level of education while keeping him young enough to be in high school, there is also no way to substitute experiences that would develop his character to the point he is in his canon. Though it is the same person, he would think differently and act differently.
SAMPLES
INTRANET/1ST PERSON SAMPLE
First-person log in a musebox. A note: this was threaded before I’d decided to have him go by Galvatron in this AU. His characterization is the same.
LOG/3RD PERSON SAMPLE
The scene was peaceful. Galvatron sat in an armchair in his home, one window open to let in the sea breeze, slowly turning the pages of the thick volume of Adam Smith in his hands. His legs were stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles, and his head was resting on one arm, propped up on one of the arms. The curtains fluttered lightly, catching his peripheral attention, but not quite enough to distract him from his reading.
Before the war, his bookshelves had consisted almost exclusively of scientific and historical nonfiction. Not that he had anything against fiction, of course - he understood that it played an important role in gauging a society’s culture, and reflected valuable insights into cultural values. He respected fiction. He just wasn’t as interested in reading it. Poetry was lost on him - he could analyze it, pick apart the exact devices a poet had used to get his point across, but he found it difficult to sit back and simply appreciate the beauty of the strung-together words. He couldn’t tell you a thing about abstract art. He had focused his studies on the sciences: mathematics, physics, engineering, and even sociology and history had a firm basis in fact. During the war, there was no time for pleasure-reading: there were plans to be made, defenses to be built, reports to analyze, and battles to be fought.
But now?
Now, Galvatron found himself interested in philosophy. Perhaps some would have reacted to a brush with death by developing a morbid turn of mind. Galvatron, however, was far more interested in life. Now that he had the chance to read on his own time, he’d picked up books on various philosophical disciplines, searching for answers. He’d quickly discovered that philosophy was quite different from the hard sciences he was used to: rather than providing answers, the authors seemed far better at presenting questions. It was more than a little frustrating, but Galvatron was a patient man. The questions raised were fascinating, of course, and provided a great deal of food for thought. It kept him from dwelling on Cybertron, at least, its ruined cities and depleted population and how he couldn’t be there to help rebuild it.
No, he had no choice but to pursue his own interests instead, seeking answers to the questions that had plagued him since the assassination attempt. The vision he had seen…mere hallucination, he told himself, nothing more than a vivid dream, but all the skepticism in the world couldn’t keep him from pondering bigger questions. Maybe on the next page, he’d be able to reconcile his skepticism with the feelings the vision had stirred up in him - and the fact that it was well on its way to coming true. Or maybe he’d find his answers on the page after that. Or the next one, or the next.
Galvatron turned the page.
HAVE YOU READ THE FAQ? DON’T UNLEASH THE WOMBAT PLEASE I’LL BE GOOD I PROMISE
( faculty/teacher application )
PLAYER INFORMATION
PLAYER: Krystal
AGE: 20
CONTACT: AIM: crystalclearcase ; email: chronicfangirl@gmail.com
PERSONAL LJ: crystalcleared
CHARACTERS PLAYED none
CHARACTER INFORMATION
NAME: Born James Megatron, name changed to James Galvatron
CANON: Transformers: Shattered Glass
CANON REFERENCE: Shattered Glass, on the TF Wiki
AGE: 36
GENDER Male
TENURE: One year
SUBJECT/POSITION: Upper-level mathematics courses, both practical and theoretical. He also has qualifications in sociology, and can teach those classes as well.
RESIDENCE: At the Academy.
APPEARANCE: In his canon, he’s a giant blue and purple robot with red accents. Obviously, he’s a little different here, and I’m not just talking about a paint job. Standing about six feet in height, Galvatron is tall and broad-shouldered, and carries himself with confidence. His hair is still black and cut short, swept back from his face. His eyes are a bright blue and alert, his face slightly lined from years of care. Though he’s in his thirties, he’s been in top physical condition for years, and isn’t getting old any time soon. He favors dress shirts in grays and blues, almost always with a belt and tie. Though he’s got his share of scarring from old injuries, most of it is hidden under his long sleeves and collared shirts. The worst of it is along the right side of his neck, ugly, bumpy ridges of scar tissue. If you look closely, you might see some between his collar and his right ear - the surgery he had to go through after the attack got rid of most of the damage to the side of his face.
PERSONALITY: Though the name “Galvatron” usually brings to mind evil, insanity and a very literal “loose cannon,” the premise of Shattered Glass is a sort of mirror universe, complete with goatees. Take everything you know about the classic villain and turn it on its head, and you’ll get this bizarro version. Stone cold sane, pacifistic and academically brilliant, Galvatron is a compassionate person, courageous and even heroic if the situation calls for it. Underneath his serious academic exterior lies a battle-hardened warrior and skilled tactician. Though peace and learning are his first loves, he will take up the sword to defend them. This doesn’t mean he’s a rash fighter. Quite the opposite - Galvatron’s about as cool-headed as they come, never letting emotions compromise his judgment. A loss of temper is rare indeed; none who know him have seen him lose control of himself. He’s not the sort to struggle needlessly if trapped; and if there is nothing he can achieve at the moment in a dangerous situation, he will respond stoically, looking for an opportunity to make his move. If escape is impossible, he will not fight life and limb in an attempt to free himself, even to save an innocent; he knows better, that it would only waste energy. But that doesn’t mean he is unaffected. Murder of any kind fills him with a cold rage. Galvatron does not rave impotently; captured and at the enemy’s mercy, he is not the sort to pointlessly demand to be released (he prefers to talk when words mean something). Instead, he sends sharp verbal barbs at his captors and waits until he is free to avenge any victims, if he can.
Much as he dislikes it and does not want to think of it this way, this predisposition to calculation is reflected in his morality. He is very much on the side of good, of peace and justice, having been involved in a resistance movement to the despotic government of Cybertron. However, his sense of right and wrong is more practical than an instinct- and emotion-driven hero. He will act for the greater good, though the ends do not justify the means, and there are definite lines he will not cross, such as sacrificing an ally (preferring to shoulder the danger himself), misleading his troops, or endangering innocents. On top of this, he prefers peaceful, negotiated solutions to manipulated or even forceful ones, and he’s a very good negotiator. His people-skills are top-notch - they had to be-and are augmented with some study of psychology. A natural, charismatic leader, Galvatron inspired belief in those who followed him in the revolution. (Students, however, often prove to be even more problematic in their own ways.)
But what about when he’s not in a chaotic battle situation? What is he like when courage and war tactics aren’t called for? More than anything else, Galvatron is a collected individual. Calm, intelligent and a little aloof, the former leader of the Decepticons has always had a wry sense of humor, one that helped improve his troops’ morale during darker times. That humor has stayed with him, and it helps set people at ease around him. He hasn’t quite lost the leader’s mask he felt he had to keep up years ago. You see, Galvatron was more than just a man giving orders. He was the figurehead of the resistance, a charismatic leader that they rallied behind, and he knew it. He knew how important he was to his troops’ morale, and that was reason #1 not to sacrifice himself blindly. Despite being a leader and looked up to by many, none of it has gone to Galvatron’s head. He has an accurate grasp of his strength and worth, but is not overconfident or egotistical. However, his position as a symbol of and to the resistance also meant that he could show no weakness. He was their fearless leader, able to deal with any problem that might arise. They trusted him to be strong, so he had to be their pillar of strength all the time. Galvatron could not afford to show doubt, hesitation or uncertainty - whatever he felt would be reflected in his Decepticons tenfold. This is one reason why leadership has never made Galvatron complacent; he never wanted it, and it’s an alienating position, a burden. Thanks to this, it is still difficult for Galvatron to open up to others, especially where his own weaknesses or “weak” feelings are concerned. Though he is quite amiable to almost everyone (those he doesn’t consider an enemy, that is), friendly and full of good humor and encouragement in almost any situation, he’s not about to unburden any troubles he might be going through on anyone else. In his head, he knows he doesn’t have to keep his doubts to himself anymore, but habit is a hard thing to break. He keeps his guilt over those of his men that died because of involvement with his faction, and his uncertainty of whether, if he had struck at the warmongering leader of the opposite faction sooner, fewer civilians would have died, to himself. Few at the school even know about his revolutionary past. He prefers to keep it quiet, letting himself slip back into being a teacher and tucking the fighter away until (god forbid) it’s needed again. Galvatron is still getting used to the fact that he doesn’t need to worry about war or feeding his troops or fending off the enemy leader anymore and has the luxury of being a simple academic. As a lifelong learner, it’s a really good feeling--even if he still keeps himself in shape and is thinking of overseeing a fencing club...
What else is there to him in his day to day persona? Dry humor, friendly but aloof about his own emotions, cool-headed, patient...formerly atheistic but after a near-death experience he’s not so sure what he believes anymore... I mentioned early in this section that he was a kind person. This is true. If there is any way Galvatron can help you, all you have to do is ask (or even hint that you might be in a little over your head) and he’ll listen and do what he can. This doesn’t mean he’ll pass a failing student just because they ask, but he will tell them when tutoring sessions are and perhaps assign a comprehensive project where, if they can prove that they have learned what they needed to in the course, he’ll give them a C, or if their work is exceptionally impressive, a B-. Outside of academics, he’s a bit freer to give others a hand, or a nudge in the right direction. He cares deeply about his students - they’re essentially the new group he’s responsible for, now that the Decepticons have disbanded. He treats them with the same fond friendliness but underlying emotional distance as his former freedom fighters.
Weaknesses I Haven’t Covered Already: Like I mentioned, if Galvatron had his way, he’d take the hardest tasks himself rather than delegate them to anyone else. He leads by example, placing himself in the line of fire with everyone else. This, combined with his protectiveness for his subordinates, make him possible to manipulate if he feels those subordinates are in danger. In addition, he’s not too in tune with his own feelings. He’s used to shelving his own wants and needs in favor of what his troops need from him, which leads to an immersion in his public persona that he’s still in the process of breaking free from. He used to be much more trusting than he is now - it was a hard lesson to learn. Remember that near-death experience in the previous paragraph? That’ll get covered in the history section, but its effects (in addition to making him more cautious about who he trusted) involved a hallucination of the country of Cybertron, peaceful and prosperous again. Galvatron doesn’t know what caused the vision, and his skeptic’s mind wants to chalk it up to a dream or an effect of anesthesia, but it’s something he wonders about, sometimes. The attack also left him with some effects similar to PTSD: during battles after the event, he would occasionally freeze up, caught up in memories. Luckily, these episodes were few and far between, but the nightmares occur a bit more often, and he doesn’t like being snuck up on. He goes through periods where he is hyperaware of his surroundings, but does his best to keep all symptoms to a minimum. He is, after all, a person who prides himself on rationality and self-control, so it is far from a debilitating problem.
COMPUTER APTITUDE: Very good, but he’s no hacker. Even if he could, he would not try under ordinary circumstances.
AU HISTORY: BEFORE TIME BEGAN About forty years ago, there was a small, made-up country in southern Europe called Cybertron. Though tiny, it was a prosperous place, peaceful since the end of World War II, and just a little too far west to be part of the Soviet Union. It was rich in energy sources, full of coal and natural gas, and it traded these with the rest of the world. This is what James Megatron was born into: a world full of culture, opportunity and learning. He took to learning like a fish to water, preferring books to athletic pursuits or parties, and pursued his bachelor’s degree in mathematics with a minor in sociology and elective classes in physics and engineering with enthusiasm.
Unfortunately, he didn’t make it through graduate school.
He had finally begun to come out of his shell. In the graduate programs, Megatron had finally begun to socialize people who shared his passion for knowledge and could match him intellectually but didn’t let it take over their entire lives. This, coupled with a newly-discovered natural friendliness and empathy for those around him, not to mention a couple of psychology classes, gave him the social skills that would be so useful later. This wasn’t to say he’d begun to slack on his academic pursuits: quite the opposite. In addition to student-teaching and even giving the occasional lecture to undergraduates, Megatron was pursuing a theory on his own time, a theory that he could quantify sociological trends, find patterns, and, barring unforeseen circumstances such as major disasters, use mathematical formulas to predict the direction society will take in the future. It wasn’t specific and it wasn’t perfect, but Megatron was sure he was onto something big. However, when he put the numbers in, the graduate student was horrified to find that the figures pointed toward imminent civil war. He checked and double-checked his calculations before discussing his findings with an advising member of the faculty, who politely but firmly told him that it was just a theory with no solid proof to back it up, and that civil war at this point in time was highly unlikely. The answer was the same wherever Megatron took his theories: at best, they shook their heads. At worst, they laughed. Cybertron was currently the most peaceful and successful it had ever been, they argued, so why would there be a civil war now?
But Megatron wasn’t convinced. He trusted in his calculations, no matter what the others said, and so he began to make preparations. He gathered together as many resources as he could: food, medical supplies, even weapons and body armor. He also trained himself, both physically and mentally, studying battle strategies as well as practical use of weapons and hand-to-hand combat. He needed to know how to fight. Those who knew what he was doing called him crazy, wasting his time, money and future on a fool’s venture. Megatron ignored them. If he was right, there were much more important things to worry about than completing grad school. As luck (or perhaps destiny) would have it, he wouldn’t have finished before the war anyway. The spring of 2001 was when the man who began the war (who may or may not have called himself Optimus Prime but will remain nameless in this application to leave more room to maneuver for potential applicants) made his move. Formerly a librarian, this man had moved into politics, hungry for power. From his platform, this politician began to preach advancement through conflict. Cybertron was so rich in resources, he said, but it was so small it barely had a hand in world events. This needed to be corrected, and the small countries just to the east of Cybertron were prime targets for gaining territory. Still second-world and recovering from their former communist governments, they wouldn’t have a strong central government or army of their own yet. Cybertron would benefit from gaining more territory, and the countries would benefit from Cybertron’s centralized government, resources, and strength. He made a convincing argument, convincing enough to gain followers. Though the main government of Cybertron disagreed with his warlike philosophies, it wasn’t long before the clever rhetorician had enough supporters (a cult movement augmented by mercenaries and those who saw an opportunity) to retreat from politics. Philosophy turned into action, and the militant faction declared itself autonomous from the Cybertronian government. Calling themselves “Autobots,” they began a recruitment campaign across the country, threatening and killing those who would not join them. The government was unable to stop them, too torn against itself in its internal politics. Some of the higher-up government officials began to side with the Autobots in order to save their own lives, further tearing the official legislature apart. The country was thrown into chaos, and though there were many opposed to the violence, they couldn’t form anything more than a loose, underground resistance.
Megatron could only watch. He wasn’t quite ready yet, and if he took on the militant forces alone, with only the resources he had gathered, he would have gotten himself and the few who had joined him once the Autobot campaign began killed. So, he waited until the last possible minute - until the warlord was at his doorstep and his home city of Polyhex was in flames - to reveal himself as someone who would resist the Autobot commander with everything he had. By joining the resistance, Megatron strengthened it - both with the supplies he had to share, and with his strength, charisma and intelligence he was quickly nominated as the leader. In addition, the story of his face-to-face battle with the fearsome man who had started it all spread like wildfire, drawing more people to the resistance.
(At least, that’s the official version. The real story of the battle of Polyhex is a painful one for Megatron. It was far from a courageous mano-a-mano standoff with the chief Autobot. He was surrounded by the destruction of his home, his school, and the deaths of so many people he knew. There was a woman, a brilliant mind who’d disagreed with Megatron's views and theories but had always been up to debate them, a woman he’d had feelings for, who was killed in the fight. (He’d never told her how he felt. Even if he had, she probably wouldn’t have returned them. She hadn’t believed his civil-war theory, either.) It was her death that drove Megatron to confront her killer. For weeks afterward, he was haunted by memories of the attack, and guilt over not stepping forward sooner. It was during these weeks that Megatron learned to put up a front, to shelve his own grief so that he could think clearly and put a brave face on for those who found him inspiring enough to lend him their strength. It’s an honor he still feels he could never deserve.)
Whatever the story behind it, Megatron turned the resistance from a disorganized group of people trying to help each other survive into a skilled guerilla fighting force, stealing weapons and weapon designs from the Autobots. Thanks to their adopted tactics of sniping from a camouflaged position, they became known as the Decepticons. (Cybertron has a very odd naming tradition.) Working together, though at a severe disadvantage, they managed to retake several key locations from the Autobots. Megatron had become a thorn in the leader’s side, preventing the planned takeover of the countries to the east. Robbed of his original intent and trapped in a civil war, the Autobot leader took out his vitriol on Megatron, even to the point of obsession. The war was now personal, and over the next eight years, Cybertron’s once-rich lands became a war zone. Buildings were destroyed, priceless art was lost, farmland ruined all for the sake of war. Technological leaps were made on both sides in both offensive and defensive technology. Many battles were fought, and though it was grueling and even seemed hopeless at times, Megatron made some of the best friends of his life. He developed an especially close relationship with his second-in-command, a scientific genius whose loyalty could put Watson to shame. The tide of war favored first one, then the other, with no clear winner in sight. The rest of the world miraculously stayed out of it, mainly because the Autobot leader had commanded that the country be sealed off, preventing any aid from reaching the Decepticons. International communications were down, and there were border patrols along the edges of the tiny country. The Autobots would not allow anyone in, even if they had seen fit to help out the internal affairs of such a tiny country.
The war reached its turning point when one of Megatron’s own men shot him in the face with no warning. It was part of a more complicated story with one of the Autobot commander’s former allies returning from the dead to create his own faction, but the end result was a near-death experience for the Decepticon leader. It was only through the combined efforts of a group of surgeons the Decepticons were sheltering at the time that Megatron survived, but while he was on the brink of death, he had a vision. He saw Cybertron at peace again, restored to its former glory, the scars of war healing with time. Megatron had never been a religious man (quite the opposite, in fact), but when he regained consciousness, he couldn’t forget what he had seen. It had filled him with new resolve, and when he recovered, he was stronger, more focused, more determined than ever. To cut a long story down to under 2000 words, the Decepticons won the war, and begun to repair its shattered government. The Autobot leader was tried and imprisoned for his war crimes.
Since Megatron had no interest in leading the country, someone else was appointed to take over the reconstruction of the country. However, Megatron himself wasn’t completely innocent in the eyes of the law. Though the fight against the Autobots was just in the eyes of most, the fact remained that his actions of theft and even murder were punishable under Cybertronian law. An agreement was reached: as the government did not truly wish to prosecute him, Megatron would change his name and leave the country, officially exiled from the land he’d given so much to save. In return, they would not pursue him, nor attempt to press charges. Unable to teach college at his level of completed education, Megatron (now James Galvatron) chose the international school known as Reims Academy as his new home, taking up teaching like he’d wanted to do before the war.
TIMELINE:
1976: James Megatron born
1998: Graduates college (22)
2001: Cybertronian Civil War begins (25)
2007: Assassination attempt (31)
2009: Eight-year Cybertronian Civil War ends (33)
2010: James Galvatron leaves the country and is hired by Reims Academy (35)
JUSTIFICATION: Galvatron is more than qualified to teach, education-wise. He was well on his way to a PhD in mathematics, as well as contributing valuable independent research to the study as a whole. If it weren’t for the technical lack of qualification, Galvatron would be able to teach at a much higher level. On top of this, he is used to leadership positions, and after leading the Decepticons during wartime, he’s certainly able to handle a class of students. Intelligent and personable, Galvatron also cares about his students, and would do what he could to help them. Far from abusing his authority, he wants to see them succeed very much, and anyone seeking to complete a senior project in mathematics would be well advised to seek his help. If you want justification for why Galvatron would make a good teacher and handle his responsibility well, his personality section is one long essay on how Galvatron is a good leader, a smart cookie, and an all-around decent person. If more high schoolers had teachers like him, maybe there would be less widespread hatred of mathematics.
That’s the IC justification. OOC, aging Galvatron down would change him a great deal. Though he is still the same well-meaning, omnivorous learner he was when he was young, his experiences have shaped him into what he is in his canon. He would be naïve, much more trusting, less battle-hardened, and much more open about his feelings. He would not have had to make the decision to prepare for war despite those around him telling him how foolish it was, and he would not have dealt with the heavy responsibility (and guilt that goes with such a burden) of having others rely on his life-or-death decisions. Though there’s nothing wrong with young Megatron, he isn’t the matured character I intend to play in this game, and just as there is no way to bring him up to his canon level of education while keeping him young enough to be in high school, there is also no way to substitute experiences that would develop his character to the point he is in his canon. Though it is the same person, he would think differently and act differently.
SAMPLES
INTRANET/1ST PERSON SAMPLE
First-person log in a musebox. A note: this was threaded before I’d decided to have him go by Galvatron in this AU. His characterization is the same.
LOG/3RD PERSON SAMPLE
The scene was peaceful. Galvatron sat in an armchair in his home, one window open to let in the sea breeze, slowly turning the pages of the thick volume of Adam Smith in his hands. His legs were stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles, and his head was resting on one arm, propped up on one of the arms. The curtains fluttered lightly, catching his peripheral attention, but not quite enough to distract him from his reading.
Before the war, his bookshelves had consisted almost exclusively of scientific and historical nonfiction. Not that he had anything against fiction, of course - he understood that it played an important role in gauging a society’s culture, and reflected valuable insights into cultural values. He respected fiction. He just wasn’t as interested in reading it. Poetry was lost on him - he could analyze it, pick apart the exact devices a poet had used to get his point across, but he found it difficult to sit back and simply appreciate the beauty of the strung-together words. He couldn’t tell you a thing about abstract art. He had focused his studies on the sciences: mathematics, physics, engineering, and even sociology and history had a firm basis in fact. During the war, there was no time for pleasure-reading: there were plans to be made, defenses to be built, reports to analyze, and battles to be fought.
But now?
Now, Galvatron found himself interested in philosophy. Perhaps some would have reacted to a brush with death by developing a morbid turn of mind. Galvatron, however, was far more interested in life. Now that he had the chance to read on his own time, he’d picked up books on various philosophical disciplines, searching for answers. He’d quickly discovered that philosophy was quite different from the hard sciences he was used to: rather than providing answers, the authors seemed far better at presenting questions. It was more than a little frustrating, but Galvatron was a patient man. The questions raised were fascinating, of course, and provided a great deal of food for thought. It kept him from dwelling on Cybertron, at least, its ruined cities and depleted population and how he couldn’t be there to help rebuild it.
No, he had no choice but to pursue his own interests instead, seeking answers to the questions that had plagued him since the assassination attempt. The vision he had seen…mere hallucination, he told himself, nothing more than a vivid dream, but all the skepticism in the world couldn’t keep him from pondering bigger questions. Maybe on the next page, he’d be able to reconcile his skepticism with the feelings the vision had stirred up in him - and the fact that it was well on its way to coming true. Or maybe he’d find his answers on the page after that. Or the next one, or the next.
Galvatron turned the page.
HAVE YOU READ THE FAQ? DON’T UNLEASH THE WOMBAT PLEASE I’LL BE GOOD I PROMISE