Douglas Ramsey, AKA Cypher, was a member of the second generation of X-Men trained at the Xavier Institute, the "New Mutants." During his time as a student, Doug distinguished himself by his heroism and pluck, though he was always dogged by a sense of inadequacy, as his powers weren't as flashy or overtly powerful as those of his friends. Doug was eventually killed by a minion of the anti-Mutant Right, only to be resurrected years later by Eli Bard and the vampire sorceress Selene. Freed from their influence by his friends, Doug returned to their side, and to the cause of the X-Men, where his powers now distinguish him as a powerful strategist.
Personality
Studious, intellectual, brave to the point of being foolhardy, intrepid, an impish and cocky little flirt with a deep vein of self-doubt. Doug is not 'simple'. He falls in love at the drop of a hat but has never met someone who really captured his heart (at least, no one where he felt like he had a chance). He can be ruthless with his enemies but detests their cruelty to others. His powers could propel him to the heights of wealth and power or allow him to forment chaos, but the thought of doing either has never occurred to him, because deep down, he's an adventurous, heroic person. He wants to be a kickass super-hero with his friends and his family.
Background
Douglas Ramsey, AKA Cypher, was a member of the second generation of X-Men trained at the Xavier Institute, the "New Mutants." During his time as a student, Doug distinguished himself by his heroism and pluck, though he was always dogged by a sense of inadequacy, as his powers weren't as flashy or overtly powerful as those of his friends. Doug was eventually killed by a minion of the anti-Mutant Right, only to be resurrected years later by Eli Bard and the vampire sorceress Selene. Freed from their influence by his friends, Doug returned to their side, and to the cause of the X-Men, where his powers now distinguish him as a powerful strategist.
SKILLS
COMBAT - Expert: Doug is a good fighter, trained in Xaviers' School self-defense techniques even before he died. His powers supplement his combat ability, giving him the ability to read and react to an enemy's moves even before they make them.
COMPUTER - Expert: Doug is a seasoned computer hacker, well trained in coding and InfoSec. He is the best hacker the X-Men field, and possibly was even before he died. His powers enhance his skill with computers tremendously; Doug is able to read the most complicated code like a brochure and manipulate it like a crossword puzzle. He can even work computers just by speaking to them given an auditory interface, and has reprogrammed sentinels just by talking to them.
POWERS
OMNILINGUISTICS - Supreme: Doug considers his mutant power to be "Omnilinguistics," the ability to correctly interpret and respond to any form of communicative technique, auditory, physical, or written. This is because when his powers first manifested, that was what developed first. And so, this generally forms the core of his powerset. But Doug's real power is a specialized form of hypercognition, or enhanced intellect, one which may branch into the territory of metapsionics (he hasn't been tested for actual psionic potential). More specifically, his mutant power is pattern hyper-recognition and response.
As he's gotten older and his powers have grown, they have developed in a number of ways:
- He can instantly comprehend and communicate in any language, written, verbal or physical, even ones he has not personally experienced before. Even if there is no linguistic root shared with human speech or no living frame of linguistic reference (such as the Voynich Manuscript or alien script) his ability to cognate and accurately translate information is measured in minutes. This even includes languages like binary.
- Lip Read: Impeccably, as long as he can see the person's mouth.
- Cold Read: Superhuman ability to accurately read nuance from a person's statements and their body language and gain additional information. 'She is unhappy to see that person', 'He is bluffing', and so on. Doug's ability to cold read can put the best (fraudulent) psychic to shame; it would take a liar whose ability to fib is itself actively superhuman (such as Loki, God of Tricksters) to actively bluff his powers.
- Reality Disruption Sense: When the patterns of reality are disrupted, such as by transformative magic, dimensional rifts, or other aberrations, Doug can pick up on the lingering disruption to the "language" of reality.
- Pattern Reading: The ability to read the "language" of physical patterns or, more abstractly, the patterns of movement that makes up the day to day traffic of a large city; this leads to the ability to extrapolate structural weaknesses, the location of secret doors, or even the ability to detect the existence of disruptions in the pattern, such as traffic accidents or crimes underway. He tends to think of this as the "language" of objects or the "language" of the gestalt organism.
- Component Determination: The ability to taste an object and mentally break down components and proportions that went into the creation fo the final item. Example: Tasting a muffin and then working the ingredients and relative proportions that compose the muffin.
- Physical Response: Physically, Doug is only an athletic human. His ability to read/respond, however, gives him the ability to respond to the physical actions of others in a manner that is almost precognitive, dramatically increasing his effectiveness in a fight (enhanced by his self-defense training at the Xavier's School) and making him a superb dancer, especially as part of a matched pair with someone else. He lags behind in that those with superhuman endurance, strength, speed and durability outmatch him.
ADVANTAGES
NEW MUTANTS Doug is a New Mutant, and New Mutants are for life. Through horror, adversity, demon bears, alien gods, Mojoworld, loss, pain, and rebirth, they are a family with tighter bonds than blood (and plenty of that too), and they look out for one another, no matter how far apart they are.
X-MEN Doug is an X-Man, and has friendships with more than a few of them. From his tight relationship with Shadowcat to his unrequited love (it kinda went both ways, weird!) with Psylocke, he's part of a big family of powerful and belligerent Mutants and having lost him once, they're not likely to sit on their hands and do so again.
WEAKNESSES
ONCE-DEAD Doug died, once. It lingers with him, in the form of recurring nightmares, and the mental trauma of his resurrection, where he assaulted his friends. While his saucy personality has resurfaced as time has gone on, he sometimes seems dreamy and disconnected, much less peppy than the person he was before. This makes people unsure how to react to him.
TRANSMODE Doug is Transmode-positive, which means he is infected with the virus spread by the Technarchy. If this infection progresses to its final stage, the afflicted turn into Phalanx, techno-organic horrors who summon a Technarch to devour their life-energy when the infected reach a critical mass. Good news: Warlock-strain Transmode is different from the standard strain, so if the infection were to progress, no one is sure what Doug would become. In point of fact, he was able to send his own infection into remission -- he "asked it nicely." He is in no danger of spreading the infection to others. However, he has felt the sting of one of the deadliest plagues in the galaxy, and who knows who might be able to use that against him someday?
