Well, here is a bit of my description and background for you to work with.Lurker wrote:From your description the other night - being an item / agent of the English Crown, and my character's history, and current ties to the office of The Secretary of Foreign Affairs , we may have a tie in to each other's characters.Aramis wrote:
Something like you were ordered from England, to America - New York - and then out to Chicago (if that is where Tree has us start) & I was ordered from my review of the South up the Mississippi to Chicago.
That way, though we may not have a history together, we have a reason to meet and work together other than just 'random' you are in a bar and ...
I was ordered to America to review America & the South (and spy a bit) to see who England needs to be ready to support in the upcoming Civil War, or who has an advantage in the war and if it is better if She stays out of picking sides in the war. However, I know from my service in the Crimea / Turkey to be ready for a change of orders.
I'm not sure on why you (and your Swish Watch Maker) would be ordered to America. Maybe, as a 'trial run' before you are sent the Continent .
The following is obviously considered Top Secret Ultra
Name: Galahad Akrasiel 3.0
Level 1
Height 6'5" weight 225
Golden Hair, Ice Blue eyes, skin almost a glowing alabaster
Galahad is inhumanly beatiful. His face is a Raphael painting, his body by Michelangelo. His voice is pitched at the perfect frequency for human ears to treat it with awe and respect. His farts smell like unicorn peppermint
Social Class – Property of Her Majesty's Secret Service
Background
Project Akrasiel (Angel of vengeance/Justice)
Motto: Non potest in pactum. Non secum. Non est misereri, aut si rem vel metus. Et omnino non prohibere ... aeternum donec mortuus es! (: "It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop... ever, until you are dead!" (Terminator))
Originally created at the behest of George III who was tantalised by Cambridge boffins' extravagant promises of metallic soldiers to fight his many colonial wars. In time, the project took on a greater urgency with the threat of the damned Corsican upstart menacing all of Europe
The original model was a crude box on wheels with whirring blades on the side. But the ingenuity of it came from a young Cambridge scholar named Babbage. He reasoned that a device could be placed within the box that could follow a series of preprogrammed commands. In time, this top secret project began to go beyond mere commands, to an attempt to create elementary reasoning
This work, with the unlimited funding of his majesty, progressed at an astonishing rate. But the machine, although now bipedal, remained crude and slow. And the reasoning was comically inept.
Enter Horst Wessel. Swiss watchmaker, scientist, genius. Throughout history there are those rare individuals that seem to see beyond all others, beyond history itself. Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, and now Wessel.
Wessel's first innovation was to create plasteel. A compound capable of mimicking human skin, but with the resilience of steel. Powered by electrical impulses the skin allowed for many wonderful possibilities hidden within an innocuous human-seeming steel frame
The second innovation was Wessel's realisation that by combining his plasteel with a sophisticated silicon material, he could create something capable of holding almost infinitely more logic gates than Babbage's innovative machine, but which would fit neatly within the skull of a machine man
Unfortunately for the military minds behind this project, Wessel was not only a mechanical genius but a man of deep moral conviction. He was not so naive as to think war had no place. The world was full of evil men, and the empire of Britain (who had kindly granted citizenship to Wessel and his family, to his eternal gratitude) was a beacon of light thwarting the evil doers.
However, Wessel feared the men behind the project might perhaps be tempted to let short sighted politics override their morality, and use the device for evil purposes. And this Wessel could not abide. He understood that by giving the device such a sophisticated mind, he was imparting it with the knowledge of its acts. He could not force the device to do evil , even in the service of a noble cause because he knew the device would know the nature of its acts, and be ashamed
So, Wessel innocently asked the government to fund a project to "train" the creature's mind. He used the best tutors of Cambridge to do so. And, as one might expect, they produced in the device a thorough English public school education. One concerned with the Bible, and classical heroes of myth and legends. Achilles, Hercules, David vs Goliath, and above all others, the knights of the round table.
The Leader of the secret project was of course furious when they realised what had been done. Their killing machine was now a contemplative academic who sought to do good in the world. But unlike most Cambridge dons, this one possesed superhuman strength, the wings of an angel, and an electrified ray weapon. However, they also knew that Wessel's genius was unique, so they grumbled, but they took what providence provided for them
Shortly after the culmination of Project Akrasiel, the following snippet of a story appeared in the Times during the troubles in the Crimea, although no follow up story was ever seen:
Do with that what you will, LurkerThe Times wrote:...another soldier mentioned that he had seen an angel flying above the Russian line, flaming sword in hand. Neither bullet nor cannon seemed to hamper his flight.
"I can tell you, it gave the lads a right cheer, seein' that. I mean, the officers tell us God is with us an' all, but after Raglan's damned charge an' that, we was like doubtin' it. But I can tell you sure as you are sittin' there now, that angel was kicking quite a lot of Russian arse and..."