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It would only take a nudge. |
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— Himself |
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Not quite as young and vapid as he may look, Slathan is a GEAS scientific officer and well-known researcher who works hard to blur the boundaries between technology and the mystical for the betterment and enhancement of humanity and ultimately all life, possibly by Thursday. He also has a life, but it can wait for Friday.
Personality
Slathan usually keeps a quiet, ironic demeanor as both mask and shield against a restless identity. While normally a pleasant company, his single-mindedness in the pursuit of his objectives and a strong manipulative streak often come in the way of developing lasting personal bonds, at least with people he personally interacts with on a regular basis. In truth, he's a better long-distance friend. He's however loyal and discreet, having learned young not only to keep a secret, but also to not react to them. This makes him very accepting, and easy to open up to. His secretly proud of the results he's accomplished so far, but his inability to feel satisfaction about them make him an insecure at heart. Thus, while he has little use for fame and admiration, he is adamant in the defense of his vision and accomplishment, thus he easily comes off as arrogant.
Background
Upbringing
Born on some backwater world at the edges of star charts, the fourth orbiting the dying red star called Cottman, Slathan Drake Winters was the youngest of seven siblings, born in a family that could afford less mouths than that. It's no surprise then that when Slathan started showing telepathic abilities his parents were only too happy to palm him off to the Psi-Corps and make him their problem. Just as unsurprising, Slathan was just as happy to leave the icy pebble he was born on, even if he hadn't actually envisioned a career in GEAS. While he struggled with discipline at first, he proved himself to be intelligent, capable and curious, and after the Academy he made a quick career.
Becoming
Seeking to expand his skills, he arranged for training and work with the Flowers of the Moon. He ended up spending much longer than anticipated in the Gardens, as he demonstrated an unexpected talent in the healing arts and the ability to connect to the Force in his own body. Anticipating a smooth career in Medical, Slathan was brusquely faced with reality when The Planet X Event unfolded, during which he was still training on the Moon. Memories of the hundreds of shattered bodies and minds he'd personally treated and the countless more he's just seen or sensed still drive him to tears, sometimes, when he's alone and exhausted.
Questing
This however proved to be the trigger for that moment of inspiration that merged his knowledge, intellect and need into a dream, a possible one. He organized his new healing skills into a style he dubbed 'pattern-shifting', as to be more pleasing to the modern, scientific sensitivities, and in the next years he worked to find more applications for these powers, to put them at everyone's disposal. His breeding of the Caducei trees was the breakthrough he was expecting, although it still took months of testing and boot-licking to secure funding. In fairness, funding increased considerably the more results Slathan brought to the table, and he worked tirelessly to do so. He was reassigned to the Science Division, where he did make that career he'd envisioned years ago and had forgotten since, although it wasn't quite as smooth as he'd predicted. As an officer, he's now ready to truly go all-in to make his dream of making the Force, or the Psionics, or however they may be named a commodity naturally available to all.
SIGNATURE ABILITY
Force Drain
Slathan can take lifeforce from another living organism and store it in his cells as his own, increasing the amount of force at his disposal and making him capable of greater feats, or to use his powers for extended periods. To do so, he must be in direct contact with the subject, more specifically with a break in the skin deep enough to draw blood. It takes several seconds to drain the average person, and the energy-taking has a dizzying effect that makes it difficult to resist. Slathan needs not take all the energy, and there's no long-term effect on the subject, who will only need a night's rest or equivalent to replenish his own energy.
However, this technique has been described as utterly terrifying and most unpleasant to go through, which makes Slathan extremely reluctant to ever employ it. Unable to sense the upper storing limit of his body, and fearing a devastating effect should all the energy escape his control at once, Slathan would generally only use this skill to quickly replenish his own lifeforce, or to grant himself a small boost, provided he found a willing donor.
SKILLS
Athletics - Competent Level
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Quite agile and obviously fit, Slathan is a good runner and climber, is flexible and is trained to move in Zero-G environments. He also has some skill in hand to hand combat coming from his martial training with the Flowers, but he uses these skills mostly to keep mind and body in shape, as he's no fighter.
Glassblowing - Novice Level
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More of a hobby, Slathan is nevertheless quite good at modeling small figures out of molten glass which are indeed worthy of a little praise.
Leadership - Competent Level
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During his career in GEAS Slathan has fine-tuned his natural willpower and charisma to leadership. He's more effective on the long-run, requiring time to gain the loyalty of the people he's responsible for, which in turn tends to become quite strong.
Slathan knows his way around spaceships and can pilot smaller ones on his own with a reasonable degree of competence. He has some related technical skill, and can use his telepathy to supplant his poor grasp of Astrogation.
Psychology - Competent Level
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Slathan first field was Psychology, specifically to aid cultural mediation. He has a good understanding of human psychology and can generally guess someone's motivations, and can exploit them for good or ill. His knowledge also aid him navigate minds he may be scanning.
Well-versed in the vagaries of applied (xeno)biology, Slathan is also a capable botanist, having bred his own tree strain to further his experiments. Joint with his powers, his understanding of human physiology in particular has reached exceptional heights, and he's well-known and respected in the scientific communities.
Natural willfulness combined with psi training, consistently frustrating research and constant reliance on his mental acuity have strengthened Slathan's mind against manipulation, distraction, pain and overall unwarranted influence, extending to telepathic or mental powers used against him.
ABILITIES
Power: Ageless - Enhanced Level
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By changing his brain a bit, Slathan has made his mind capable of subconsciously using a trickle of energy to restore his cells and keep his body in a state of unchanging health and youth without his conscious effort. This makes him ageless, more resistant to fatigue and food deprivation, and capable of healing from most diseases and physical wounds in a week or so at the most, short of amputation. Severe trauma (especially to the brain) or toxins and radiation that overwhelm his body's ability to mend itself will still prove fatal. So far he hasn't figured how to teach or replicate this effect on others.
Power: Breathing Force - Enhanced Level
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During his training with the Flowers of the Moon Slathan learned to establish a mental connection with his own lifeforce, shape it into force, heat and light and project it outwards to perform telekinesis, generate warmth or even fire, and conjure light and simple illusions. He can also shape his force into planes or simple geometric forms capable of shielding from sound, heat, force, matter or any combination of these, or to support his weight in brief bouts of levitation. All these applications require sustained focus and energy relative to their complexity, with overuse resulting in severe exhaustion, mental damage or death.
Power: Pattern-Imprinting - Enhanced Level
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Some trees seem capable of storing life energy and releasing it according to a specific pattern. By focusing at least one hour a day for a week on a knot of his Caducei trees, Slathan may teach it a determinate, subtle effect which will be transmitted to anyone carrying the trinket. Slathan has successfully created trinkets to promote faster healing, resist or fight specific diseases, interrupt the course of chronic conditions and aging, shield thoughts and linked rings that allow mental communication among the wearers. These rings boost and direct the body's natural abilities, and each may contain only one effect, or two closely related ones. While useful, they are subtle and not necessarily on par with direct applications of powers or technology, and they will eventually die out and become ineffective.
Power: Pattern-Shifting - Enhanced Level
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The culmination of years of relentless study and experimentation, pattern-shifting potentially grants Slathan an enormous amount of control over an individual's biological makeup. It requires skin-to-skin contact, enormous concentration, and up to several hours in a quiet environment. The primary application is healing without scarring, and the ability to revert and cure virtually any disease. Damage from infections, toxins, radiation and even aging can be reversed, freshly-severed limbs reattached and even regrown, although this requires several sessions and medical supplements to provide the body with the necessary proteins. Despite his best efforts, Slathan has not found a way yet to edit someone's DNA, especially in a safe way. Therefore, any variation from the basic pattern (be it a change of eye color or curing a genetic disorder) will eventually revert themselves.
Power: Telepathy - Enhanced Level
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Slathan is a Psi Corps-trained telepath with an official rating of P10. He can scan the thoughts and emotions of people in his line of sight and briefly cloud minds to subtly influence them to take non-damaging actions. With time, concentration and physical contact he can perform a deep scan of a subjects memory. He may also alter or hide memories and personality traits, but this requires significantly greater time and effort, and is illegal under most circumstances. He can also shield himself from telepathic scrutiny and influence, project his own thoughts and explore his environment through a mental 'touch'.
ADVANTAGES
The results of years of plant breeding, these twisted, ugly trees require cold temperatures and constant painstaking care. The knots growing all over their branches, however, have a strong affinity with the Force, and can be taught how to use it and a body's life energy in a specific way to the benefit of whoever carries the knot, which Slathan harvests once ready and shapes in easily-carried rings.
As an officer of GEAS, Slathan's responsibilities are balanced by a series of perks and privileges. Even better, it is universally acknowledged that he definitely deserves his rank. He of course has access to basic GEAS equipment and some of the best labs in the Milky Way.
Born gifted, Slathan has great sheer intellect and memory. He wouldn't exactly call himself a genius, but some people suggested he might.
Slathan has many friends in the Psi Corps. Common services like transportation, accommodation and even small loans are really just a matter of asking.
Slathan has a small starship he uses for personal trips, although those too tend to be research-related. It's equipped with a small lab and a single Caduceus tree in the greenhouse.
WEAKNESSES
He's got a rather big ego, which as it often is the case is also quite fragile. Beyond his vanity, he has a need for constant affirmation and validation from others, the lack of which he will immediately interpret as a failure. Intimately fearing to be just a fraud, he often overcompensates by being boastful and dismissive to the point of being hurtful or hampering his role as an officer.
Slathan is constantly tempted to go past the next boundary when it comes to healing and medicine. Having the power to edit mind and body alike is tempting. Conditions and diseases could be eradicated, infection transmitters neutralized, perfect vaccines developed, blindness removed from humanity's gene pool, various defects, mental ones, undesirable personality traits...Slathan has heard too many stories of well-meaning monsters, and spends too many nights up wondering if he's crossed that line already, and is slipping without even noticing.
Moved by an unshakable confidence in his vision for the future, Slathan can and has bent rules, manipulated people or events or outright broken laws and regulations in order to reach his goals. He is careful not to be caught, but a sufficiently strong motivation might push him to throw all care away.
Torn between GEAS needs, the Corps expectations and his own fears and ethical dilemmas, Slathan has a fraction of the autonomy he needs, and his actions need to be carefully considered.
Beyond his accomplishments, Slathan is quite vain, easy to distract or even hurt when attacking his ego.
