21 November 2014 @ 12:19 pm
Application for [community profile] ten_fwd  
Your name or online alias: Bianca
Your email: macguffinrp at gmail
Another preferred means of contact: AIM: glazedmacguffin | Plurk: [profile] macguffinplurk
Character's Full Name: Gaheris Rhade
Character's Canon: Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
Character's Journal Name: [personal profile] truth_is_cold
What would you like your character's tag to be?: gaheris rhade

Answer the following questions in no less than 300 words but no greater than 1000 words put together...
Character's background (their past and present):
Rhade (code-named Mr. March) first met Dylan Hunt (Mr. April) on a mission from Admiral Stark as a part of Argosy Special Operations to bring the dictator President Ferrin to stand trial for his crimes against personal freedom and to allow democratic elections. Rhade wanted to kill Ferrin, insisting throughout the mission that the efficient way to go about it was assassination. Dylan said that he wanted Ferrin to live and came up with every excuse to avoid killing him. In the end, President Ferrin attempted to shoot them the moment they entered his office, and Rhade killed him defensively. He helped an injured Dylan escape the facility and planet, received commendation and became the first officer aboard the warship Andromeda.

Rhade served under Dylan Hunt and the two began to regularly play Go together, and became fast friends. It was during his service that Rhade bore firsthand witness to the devastation of the Magog. During this time he caught wind of the first signs of revolt among the Nietzscheans, but Rhade at first refused to help the insurrection as he felt the Nietzscheans stood a better chance with Commonwealth resources. The first speech given by the Than Triumvir Spring Rivers Flowing insinuated that there would be countermeasures by the Commonwealth.

But then the Treaty of Antares was signed. The Nietzscheans felt the treaty was an insufficiently aggressive response to the Magog invasion, as many frontier dwelling Nietzscheans lost their worlds during the invasion and the agreement would allow the Magog to keep these Nietzschean settled worlds (even though the Magog had long since ruined them). Rhade decided to help with the revolt though his role would probably mean his death. He believed he would be helping his people continue on, that his children would be safe and the Nietzscheans would see a glorious victory. He found the Magog reprehensible and a scourge upon the face of they universe and hated that they lived off sentient beings and reproduced through rape (like wasps, using a host sentient to inject their larvae into and they would later erupt and devour the host completely). He began to conspire against his friend for the good of the Nietzschean people and as he thought the good of all the unified worlds. He saw the Commonwealth as weak and coddling, that the Magog should die and the Commonwealth should be destroyed before they would consider collaborating with them. Still, he didn't inform his wives of the treachery, wanting them to remain unaccountable. He did try to warn Dylan, however, not feeling entirely comfortable with his role.

Canon update will start here.

In the end, he did sabotage the Andromeda, after the Andromeda neared a black hole during a Nietzschean ambush in the Hephaestos System. When he returned to the bridge where he shot Refractions of Dawn, the Than Pilot, and then killed Dylan Hunt. The Andromeda's artificial gravity caused a time dilation aboard the ship as it approached the event horizon. The ship became trapped at the edge, and Rhade was delivering Dylan's body to the Captain's quarters to lay in temporary rest when the final time dilation occurred, keeping him in stasis for 300 years.

The crew of the Eureka Maru claimed the Andromeda for salvage. Guilty over Dylan's death, he made an agreement with Andromeda that he would turn himself in if the ship that was rescuing them was from the Commonwealth, even though he knew the penalty for treason was death. When it wasn't, he killed the invaders that he found hostile or useless and used the others as crew to help him rebuild the Commonwealth. He had a hologram made of Dylan Hunt to play go with, but it ended up being his personal adviser.

Through a slipstream accident he became the Nietzschean Angel of Death, a mysterious force at the Battle of Witchhead that killed off much of the Nietzschean fleet sent to intercept the Commonwealth ships that were on their way to obliterate the Nietzschean homeworld. After discovering that he was the greatest single butcher of the Nietzschean people ever known, his attitude toward his own kind hardened considerably as he felt that his people had betrayed his confidence in them. He refused to allow Nietzscheans into his re-envisioned Commonwealth, and the Nietzscheans began to blackmail potential member worlds into not joining, or harass current ones into leaving.

He struck up a relationship with Beka Valentine, but after a particular stand-off with an infertile Nietzschean pilot that reminded her of herself, she decided that she couldn't be a part of the crew anymore and she left both him and the ship. Rhade also caught Tyr Anasazi with the remains of the progenitor on board. Knowing he was scheming to betray the ship and was using it as his own personal protection, he murdered Tyr.

After Harper was infested with Magog during their encounter with the Magog World Ship, he began work on a tesseract machine to remove the larvae without surgery by phasing them into a different portion of space. Beka returned to the ship to see Harper, but told Rhade she couldn't stay with him. When he activated the machine, it caused temporal rifts throughout the ship. Trance Gemini switched places with her future self and informed Rhade he needed to use the incident to transport himself back to the past because there was no way they were going to be able to stop the Magog. He insisted that he could do it, but she said there was no option. He kissed Beka farewell and returned to the past. There he killed his former self and put on his uniform. He allowed Dylan to beat him in the fight, and said "I'm proud of you," before dying.

Character's personality:
As with all Nietzscheans, Rhade's entire philosophy stems out of self-interest, individualism, realism, and some humanism. He values survival, not just his own survival but the survival of his genes above all else. This means that he's able to write off his own self-destructive behaviors as for the greater good, as it is very un-Nietzschean to be at all self-destructive. He's formed his own morality to greater benefit himself, but it also gives him room to assist his associates when it might be valuable to him to do so. In fact, he seems to go out of his way in some cases to find excuses over why an act is for him and not just an act of benevolence and seemed to enjoy playing dark knight to Dylan's white knight. His Pride and wives and children inevitably come first, however. He faces all obstacles and challenges with the intention of bettering himself so that he might be a suitable husband and father.

He views himself as simply a vessel for a woman's ability to reproduce a superior child. While Nietzscheans have polygamy and Prides, a woman chooses her mate and has the option to reject a child if she finds her mate inferior. It's a very matriarchal society and often the matriarch of the Pride has to approve a coupling before it can come to pass. Because of this, he will always regard women with reverence and tends to be biased toward female authority and competitive with men. Unlike some later Nietzscheans he isn't so committed to the Nietzschean race that he won't consider mating outside of his subspecies. Superior genes are superior genes. If he should find a man that he's comfortable with, he becomes intensely attached to them. He's less likely to betray someone he acknowledges as family (or a love interest). Less likely. Not completely out of the question.

Rhade is more of a cynic but claims to be a realist as most Nietzscheans are meant to be. He often suspects the worst of people and himself, but still sees this as realism rather than pessimism. He is committed and earnest to his duties as an officer as another means to prove himself, even when he betrayed his Captain and best friend. His intentions were good, his means were extremely misguided. He tends more toward the bluntly honest when giving his opinions about things (of course blatantly lying when he had an agenda), so people rarely suspect him when he's being dishonest. One of his individual quirks is that he loves Go and games in general. Being competitive like most of his kind, he enjoyed tactical games as much as athletics. He tends to cheat at both, but he does it in hopes that the opponent will too and will be doubly impressed if they catch him, or if he can manage to find loopholes in the rules.

Rhade has a strange habit of presenting Dylan with his plans as a warning, such as telling the Captain to take him to the brig because he couldn't trust him, or during Go games warning him how many moves it would take before he won (and also cheating during the game and telling him that people would do anything to win). It would seem that it wasn't in his best interest to do this, and he wouldn't warn any other person that he came up against before he attacked them. It's almost a bizarre way of showing respect and affection. That he wants someone to remain a challenge in order to keep their relationship interesting and stimulating, so he provides them with tactical advantages. He also wanted to give them a chance to avoid the result and absolve himself of guilt if they fall into a trap. This is even evident in how earnest he is in maintaining the crew drills. He is very strict and very adamant about them being able to efficiently perform their duties. When they couldn't, he presses them harder until they can make the time he required. He wants them to be competent against the Nietzschean fleet they were going against, and to be efficient game pieces for Dylan to use during the battle even if Gaheris would be his enemy. At the point that I'll be bringing him in from, he has guilt for an act that he hasn't even committed yet.

Character's skills/abilities/powers:
  • Enhanced hearing.

  • Enhanced sense of smell.

  • Strength and speed proportionate to a Trekverse augment.

  • Lethally sharp bone blades.

  • A very dry wit.

Any special equipment your character is bringing along? This includes weaponry, magic items, etc.:
  • Force Lance

Are you bringing your character to [community profile] ten_fwd from another game? If you are, which game?: n/a
Why do you want to play this character in Ten Forward, and what do you plan to do with them? I have never had an actual cast contribute to a redemption arc before, and I would like to try it. And there are other schemy schemers to play off of.

Writing Sample #1: Test Drive