Not a story, but a Character concept, feedback appreciated.

[SimonRaele]

So I do like to create ideas on lore heavy universes.  I had this idea rolling in my head.    So most concepts of OCs or even self inserts in fantasy, grim dark or otherwise, settings requires in my opinion suspension of disbelief and a bit of convenience for things to happen.  Some of the issues with  the entire "came from the past style narratives"  is how would they survive  the diseases, the warp, the toxins  or and most important language barriers and the sheer fanaticism of the setting.  Each element by itself is lethal if we are being honest.  So here is my oc first draft (willing to share) idea, not a story just a concept that id like some good feed back with.  And any questions on what i'm going for on certain areas I could explain.     Key Concept: out of time, Not a warrior or gunner, cowardly according to the ideals of the universe,  not the hero.

 

Character origin for Warhammer 40k.

 

 

Starting origin era: mid 23rd century to early 24th century Age of Terra. Name: Martin Downs

Roll: scientist researcher, testings new corporate made gravity drive system on a single maned small vessel. Testing a new drive system, Martin Downs travels at extreme speeds to the nearest black hole for study. expectations is to investigate a collapsed star or theoretical gravity well. Successful Sub light travel, ships drive was able to reach near FTL speeds over time. While it still takes years for him to arrive. Durring the trip he looses all communications with Earth, when he does arrive he begins to traverse as close as he can to the black-hole. However the ship is simply to primitive to pierce the lips of the event horizon. The vessel became trapped in an impossible gravitational equilibrium along the edge of the event horizon. Back on earth, radio and satellite information was lost long before his arrival. The Corporation deduced the drive must have failed and exploded on transit causing them to abandon this drive tech, corpos declaring resources are a lost asset. Time moves forward for the galaxy.

 

Golden Age of Humanity. A passing Vessel of humanity discovers the now archaic ships signal after routine travel. To the eye an orange flat streak in the event horizon, a mere blip on the electronics. The ship is plucked from the event horizon and now stands before the Golden Age humanity. Martin Downs is a historical bauble, a caveman with a toy ship, comparable to the child of this era. After constructing a translator that allows him to speak to, and hear, the Humans of this era. He answers questions about his era, a horrid description of scarcity and aggression. Eventually once all questions are exhausted they look to his body. His genome reflected the limitations of prehistoric humanity and was extensively repaired using advanced genecraft. Gene perfecting isn’t the same as being genetically perfect, but he's far more advanced then any human that has existed in the 2rd or 24th century. His skin, teeth, bones, muscles and brain are perfected, his blood had dormant medical nanites injected into it, but his instincts still remained even after all of this human. He lived now with stronger muscles, faster reflexes, while he wasn't suddenly smarter his ability to memorize was extreme Eidetic memory. After a couple hundred years of living among this golden age, an age Martin viewed with awe and pity, the AI rebellion begins. He no longer sits around like a historical bauble – he now is forced to assist Humanity working on a cargo transporter, moving containers and crates with replicator materials to the front line, due to AI robots no longer being used. During one of his many transports the cargo ship he's in gets smashed by a powerful energy surge of warp storm chaos. This sends his ship hurling through the immaterium like a rock through a glass window. the ships shielding holding but failing hard over time. What horrors the ship went through was but the start as the ship leaves the immaterium it smashes against the surface of planetoid. The vessel, despite its splendor, splinters into pieces upon the surface. Anyone in the main part of the ship are sent skidding like flesh bags across the planet surface, the ship systems, weapons and defenses are obliterated. Martin Downs is trapped in the cargo bay, smashed up by containers, a regular human would have died instantly. He is left in coma for sometime due to their injuries. as they awaken, they are surrounded by imperial doctors. a few days after awakening, an old man, with a plain perfectly kept robe, leaning slightly on a staff with an eagle at the top, stands before him and introduces himself as Malcador.

 

Imperium the Great Crusade. Malcador stood over the recovering survivor, his gaze carrying the unmistakable weight of a man for whom few secrets remained hidden. He was already aware that the man before him had survived the Dark Age of Technology. What had drawn the Sigillite here personally, however, beneath centuries of DAoT genecraft lay an unmistakable Age of Terra genome. A living man born before the Dark Age itself was a historical impossibility made flesh-one that even Malcador had trouble believing. Martin Downs and Malcador speak at length. Malcador had already confiscated the Tech that Martin had, due to its origin – using his psychic abilities to communicate to Him. Malcador spoke pointed questions, controlled and methodical, after he's satisfied with the answers given, he gets up to leave. Martin requests to be useful for humanity, offering what limited skills he had, Malcador offers a chance to prove himself an asset. While in the golden age he was a child by comparison to others, here his an educated man that Malcador could use – a fact that gave an unsettled feeling of unease. Something that felt unearned in his eyes after so much time among those far beyond himself. Malcador brings him into the fold as an Archaeologist under his direct supervision a test to see where his loyalty and usefulness will stand, even granting him a new name to fit the new era of humanity. The name Martin chose, was Leopold Vel’Constantine, a name Malcador actually found slightly pretentious. Even though He lived for a couple hundred years in the Golden age, now a Dark age as far as the galaxy is concerned, he still doesn't know how to use most DAoT tech. he can, however, identify it. After years of working under Malcadors authority, granting him the installation of lexicon-implant to assist him in speaking the new Gothic lanaguage he has been learning, a creation of the 31rst millennium Tech priest of Mars and Malcador’s designs – large but functional brass looking devices. As he continued to work under Malcador, and given more tasks of importance. Malcador would eventually bring Leopold into the fold fully and branded him with the Sigilite sigil – a way to prove loyalty and should Leopold ever turn his back on the Imperium easily deal with him.

 

Imperium the great crusade 2: Leopold has worked with many of Malcadors agents by now. including the Anathema Psykana, While he was never a commander of any investigation his job was to assist in confirming origins of tech and potential dangers. Malcador had him undergo years of training to tolerate and steel his will being around Blanks. To master the Thought-mark, and while he was able to learn the signs, the speed of thought-mark in combative situations he never truly grasped. This was done to ensure proper working synergy between agents. Despite the gut revulsion of the Sisterhood, of which he did begin an unprofessional fraternization with one, much to the rage of Malcador who reassigned her to a different sector. While it stung Leopold accepted this outcome, but it left a hole in his heart and swore his heart was for only one. In truth Leopold had indeed found being with her physically and mentally agonizing, however it allowed him to take his mind off the torture of his Eidetic memory, a trait that had begun to cause a heavy toll on a mind not born naturally to have it.

Malcador’s last assigned mission of the Crusade: investigate a possible tech vault. Leopold with a team of agents, including a sister of silence as the commander land on a planetoid and enter a tech vault. Huge sections of the “Vault” had fallen into the surface of the planet, a state of extreme dissrepair. After some time walking the dark corridors he declares that this darkness is not due to a lack of lights but the metal itself is dark, and sleek, it’s not DAoT. Before long, the sickly growing, oppressive, green hue of the Necron technology begins to illuminate and the defense programs activate. From the pillars come Scarabs. The team begins a defiant withdrawal from the vault. one by one dying. Leopold grabs a Lascarbine off a dead agent to defend himself. In his hands the Lascarbine proved almost useless against the Scarabs' armored carapaces, and he is no dead eye for hitting the vulnerable spots. As he retreated, the Sister of Silence leading the withdrawal fell in battle, as he runs past, he grabs the power sword. With a lack of skill, only remembering basics swings the blade like a swatter – a mimicry at best. His enhanced strength and reflexes meant that every blow he managed to land smashed a Scarab aside, though his wild swings lacked any true technique. Yet he keeps running, to him standing and fighting is absurd – the instincts of his 23rd century brain to run rather than fight. After making some distance, he doesn't hear the scarabs anymore, to his shame he doesn’t hear his comrades fighting anymore. This matters little in the direct moment, he’s running, running, must escape. The vault door is open, but then a sudden green flash, and suddenly time comes to a standstill, no noise, not even his heartbeat. By what reasoning he was not dissected or torn apart cell by cell is unknown. One would begin to believe in divine providence, and they'd be forgiven to think this. During the events within the vault, which proved to be neither of DAoT origin, nor a Tomb World, nor even a Cryptek's laboratory, but merely an unfinished Necron outpost, the Horus Heresy had begun. A single team of missing agents is not on the top of Malcador’s list of worries now that the Imperium is burning from one edge of the Galaxy to the other. For now here he will sit in his forgotten silence.

 

Imperium the 42nd, the Indomitus Crusade: A sudden massive explosive energy surge in real space slams over the Galaxy, the outpost is destroyed, and after a few decades – the power in the vault fails and the stasis field drops. Leopold steps out of the ruined vault, and sees to his horror a great rift in the sky, a bleeding wound that oppresses the galaxy itself. The very planetoid hes on having shifted to an even more alien look. His landing vessel long gone into a chasm that never existed before. His teeth itch, his skin crawls. His Vox picks up chatter from several Vox casters. slowly trying to piece the language together a collection of gibberish and the occasional Gothic he actually could understand. He hears, chanting, words that sound like religious fervor. This is the first time his stoic pragmatism fails him, and he falls in shock to his knees. He understands religious fanaticism from the 23rd century but hearing it again after two eras of Secular logic is still a shock. His mind races, coming to a dread felt conclusion Terra has fallen. As his fingers dig into the dirt beneath him, he contemplates what his next move could even begin to be…. Could he even survive this nightmare.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited Saturday at 04:14 AM by SimonRaele

[Kommisar_K]

A most interesting concept brother! Indeed, "time dilation" seems to be a common, if vaguely defined, feature of the WH40K universe. Admittedly, for something like this , 2 seperate multi-millenial jumps, to occur to one person would be extremely rare, even incredible, in the official setting. But we are not there, for this is the realm of fanfic, the "sandbox" in its current form. 

 

Some thoughts then. All merely for discussion. Martin/Leopold does offer a way to look at the broad changes that sweep the galaxy from the perspective of one man, which is pretty cool. To begin in the past and periodically be forced to adjust to a completely different way of life creates a deep character arc of breaking and remaking, if you catch my meaning. And aside from that you get to take a look at each era of mankind in a little detail before moving on to the next. A slideshow of the timeline. An exploration. One character, one story, many worlds. 

 

Now to me personally the idea of a single guy getting effectively time-warped millenia into the future not once, but twice, is going to be one of the outlying story concepts. The thing about WH40K is that by the 42nd millennium, most of humanity's history has been lost. Putting someone who literally experienced pre-Imperial history as it was made challenges the current setting, where ignorance is practically the defining trait of 99% of the human population. Not that this is a bad thing, it sets up some potential character conflicts*

 

Second speed bump. How is Martin/Leopold... relatable? As in is he a sympathetic character? If you even want him to be. That part seems easy enough, but does anything motivate him? It may be difficult to fit him into any cause when everyone he knows or cares for is dead and forgotten each time he gets back in real-time. This I think is where you've got both the biggest problem and the biggest potential. He's either a nobody, a tourist in time, or he's carrying something in/with him that keeps him going from era to era. Something that makes him matter.

 

It's a much more ambitious character concept than, say, a one-time experience spanning a few decades, but it certainly holds potential. If you do plan on taking this beyond an idea, I look forward to seeing where it takes you! 

 

Hope that very long ramble is helpful (or at least amusing )

 

Emperor bless!

 

 

*"Yeah right, Leo. I'm sure there was a Horus Heresy. Now eat your corpse starch and get back to shoveling fuel. Those furnaces won't feed themselves!" (Example )

[SimonRaele]

ID say the most relatable thing about him, is that he's terrified.  He puts on a stoic brave face, and hides behind pragmatic cynicism. Nothing thats happened to him is truly a positive. 

He went from a nameless cog in a corpo  to a living more or less zoological object that then was experimented on.  Lets be honest, that isn't a oh yah, i'm about to become strong,  that's a horrid thing to go through.   Id say the second jump so to say was where he was in a spot where he could feel validated even if uneasy about it,  He does not ever wish to be a thing or an object.  and he does not wish to be useless.  While he became nothing more then a glorified librarian/archeologist  its possibly where he felt the most appreciated, which is ironic.  Hes not built for this new universe is traumatizing for him. 

 

Each jump takes away anything and everything he began building for himself.  

 

In the end he's in a horrible spot to be honest.    Hes got knowledge of many things,  and to even speak of 99% of them openly would see him branded a heretic.  His survival is based on trying to even remotely find a way to make sense and find like minded people. 

 

He also has a reversed man from the future effect.   the idea of a person from the future telling people in medieval Europe about electricity, computers, disease control,  yet not knowing how to make or do any of it. only this time he's from the "past"  and what he knows he cant fully replicate or fully explain it.  

 

ultimately hes not a hero, not a super soldier. He wants in earnest to be useful,  but obviously he has ideas of how he could be useful.  

Edited Wednesday at 12:49 PM by SimonRaele

[SimonRaele]

   I guess, I have this idea that he has specific gear as well.   

Like a grey slate colored  robe  with  a hood made to help block warp effects.   A collection of scribe equipment, ledgers.   The equipment he took off the fallen during the events of the expedition, and  a necklace with a small reliquary for holding something special to him.  

 

Gear:  

Lazcarbine: Circa 31st Millennium

Powersword/Sisters of Silence sword. 

 Light combat armor

Robes common amongst Librarians/archeologists of Terra

Warp hood to protect his mind

various scribe equipment/ledgers

 

Thoughts on this?   I mean having any of this could be more dangerous then advantageous for him.

[Kommisar_K]

19 hours ago, SimonRaele said:

Warp hood to protect his mind

 

What do you mean by this? Sanctioned psykers often are equipped with a psychic hood to protect their minds and channel their powers. Is he a psykers or is he otherwise protected?

[Lathe Biosas]

He could have clothing covered in hexagramic wards. Some Inquisitors have had those in the past as a partial defense against psychic influence.

 

 

[SimonRaele]

Nonot a psyker,  hes not one of those at all.    closer to what Lathe was talking about,  i just thought that would have been  a bit much.  

[Kommisar_K]

Ok cool! Yeah it makes sense that he'd have some extra 'wards', as Lathe says. Especially as a servant of Malcador.