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CAPITAL H APPLICATION
PLAYER STUFF
Name: Madi
Pronoun: she/her
Email address: runawayballista@gmail.com
Preferred contact:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
runawayballista (preferred), AIM: timetravelresetbaby
Other characters: Milly Baelheit
CHARACTER STUFF
Name: Julius Baelheit
Aliases: N/A
Canon: The Baten Kaitos wikia is trash so here is a write-up about Baelheit’s canon character by me.
Baelheit is all but defined by his ambition and determination, as well as his giant, gaping hypocrisy. He started out as a geneticist working for Emperor Olgan of Alfard, trying to artificially create a spiriter -- someone joined with a guardian spirit, a rare phenomenon in their world, but spiriters are, by legend, able to sway the course of history and the fate of the world with their power of their heart and that of the spirit’s. When one of his experiments went terribly wrong, it killed his wife and gravely injured his young daughter, Milly, whom he managed to save by replacing much of her body with machina (mechanical/machine technology). Shortly afterward, by an ironic twist of fate, he was bonded to a spirit himself, known as Daimon. It was presumably through Daimon that he learned of the previous follies of humanity, over a millennia ago, when the power of people’s hearts growing ever stronger led to the catastrophic event now known as the War of the Gods. Convinced that his bonding with Daimon meant that it was his destiny to save the world from themselves, and that the best way to do this was to provide an alternative for the power of the heart in a world where people relied on the magic that was born out of it, Baelheit began a campaign of promachination that attempted to force people to rely on machina, all the while keeping his status as a spiriter a secret. He entered the political sphere to this end, eventually becoming elected the new Emperor, and creating Tarazed, a giant machina island that was to serve as the new home for humanity. Anyone could enter -- provided they would tear their wings of the heart out, a process that severely damaged the link between a person and their heart. The massive hypocrisy of Baelheit using the power of a spirit to accomplish the obliteration of the power of the heart seems to be lost on him.
Baelheit is a methodical, forward-thinking man with revolutionary ideas and a brilliant mind, but he is nonetheless blind to his own hypocrisy -- a hypocrisy that leads to him shooting his own daughter when she dares to defy him. His demeanor is quiet, solemn bordering on grave, and he rarely smiles; however, he is charismatic under the public eye (the man can make a speech), and excellent at maintaining a public face. While he was presumably once a man who knew how to have fun, since his wife’s death, however, he has become emotionally closed off and singlemindedly focused on his work.
Role: Ambiguously villainous scientist-cum-politician
Species: Human
Gender: Male
Age: 47
Appearance:
He still wears the hat.
Origin story: Baelheit has always been a driven man; he was a bright young up-and-coming scientist whose ambition got him and his wife picked up by TRIDENT when his increasingly ethically dubious experiments failed to get any grant money. Along with his wife Madelynn, a talented geneticist, he worked on various projects that attempted to artificially create various kinds of superpowered individuals. Unfortunately owing to the nature of the experiments, the most viable test subjects were children. Luckily, TRIDENT provided them with a steady supply of orphans to experiment on. Baelheit and his wife coped with the moral and ethical issues by telling themselves that what they were doing was for the Greater Good, and was going to Help People, but all the lies they told themselves for peace of mind couldn’t undo what their work eventually led to. One night at the lab, one of their experiments went HORRIBLY WRONG and got loose, destroying much of the lab; out of control, the subject in question killed Madelynn and gravely injured Milly. In order to save his daughter’s life, Baelheit had to replace much of her body with cybernetic parts, turning her into a seven-year-old cyborg rather than let her die, too.
Ravaged with grief for his wife and the emotional tax of having to rebuild his own daughter’s tattered body, Baelheit experienced a significant psychic event that he is still unable to completely explain. Just when he thought he would simply buckle under the heartbreak, he heard a voice call out inside his mind -- a spontaneous mindlink had formed, presumably across dimensions, with a mysterious disembodied spirit Baelheit knows only as Daimon. Despite its enigmatic origins, Baelheit has bonded closely with Daimon, and it has become a source of solace and strength since his tragic loss. Daimon has convinced Baelheit that everything happens for a reason, that this is only part of the destiny he has yet to fulfill, and more importantly, that he must continue his research in one way or another in order to continue to better the world. Lately, he has been moving from scientific research into the political sphere to endorse the importance and convenience of his cybernetic enhancements.
After he left TRIDENT, he used his considerable resources to start his own R&D firm, Mintaka Industries, which he has used to continue his work on cybernetics. Mintaka Industries also develops other assorted tech gear (cool ray guns, shield generators, insert generic tech gadgetry here) that is sold to distributors; although he doesn’t maintain any kind of villainous connections, his products may be a popular choice for some villains out there. He is also shortly going to announce his candidacy for political office (probably senator); although his platform covers various issues, his main goals are to control any future legislation about cybernetics and to use his political power to get everyone to become cyborgs, because he believes it is his Destiny.
Personality: He is pretty much identical to his canon counterpart, personality-wise. He has a rather serious demeanor and never makes jokes; he doesn’t tend to laugh at them, either. When he is focused on a goal, he has a tendency to pursue it single-mindedly; it may even consume him. Everything he does on the way to that goal is merely a means to an end, and he has an astonishing capacity for compartmentalization and justifying the awful shit he does in the name of the greater good (such as turning his daughter into a cyborg or experimenting on dozens of orphans). He believes so much in the greater good it’s frankly a little worrisome, and he has massive blind spots when it comes to his own hypocrisy. For example, for all his touting of the importance of cybernetics to save humanity, he has never endowed himself with cybernetic implants, because he is afraid that doing so would jeopardize his connection to Daimon.
His big push for cybernetics is based heavily on his preoccupation with his own destiny, or rather the one he thinks he has; he isn’t a hero, but he believes it is is responsibility to save humanity from its own shortcomings. He sees the ‘natural’ human condition as being weak and defenseless, and he has a driving need to save people, regardless of how he does it. As far as he’s concerned, the death of his wife and Milly’s current state of being dependent on cybernetics to live are all the proof he needs for the failings of humanity as it is. He tries to protect the things he loves and cares about by controlling them -- he has impressed the need for secrecy about her condition on Milly her whole life, and to try to discourage her from illusions of grandeur of the superhero world and to keep her out of trouble, he’s always filled her life up with private schools and tons of extracurricular activities. When that didn’t work and she struck out on her own as an adult, they had a huge fight about it and he only begrudgingly conceded to let her go when he realized he could not actually stop her, and things between them are more strained than ever.
Baelheit might seem like a cold fish, but he does actually have feelings, and before his wife’s death, he was a considerably warmer person (although no less of a giant hypocrite with a savior complex). Since his wife’s death and his mindlinking with Daimon, he has struggled with being emotionally closed off and distant, which in combination with his rigid “do as I say” style of parenting has created a growing rift between him and his daughter. That isn’t to say they aren’t close -- they are, in a way, and although Baelheit has a strange way of showing it, he loves his daughter dearly, and although his work has always consumed his life, he’s always made time for Milly; their bond, born out of solidarity after Madelynn’s death, is what made Milly’s decision to up and leave such a catastrophic big deal. Even when he would spend time with Milly, though, he has had a hard time opening up to her, and he almost never talks about Madelynn. The only person he really opens up to these days is Daimon.
Differences from canon: Rather than building a giant mechanical island and forcing everyone to live on it, Baelheit’s goals are a little less grand in scope, but no less born out of well-intentioned extremism. His scientific exploits are narrowed down to mostly cybernetics, and instead of having a guardian spirit he has what seems to be a permanent mindlink with a strange extradimensional entity known as Daimon (SO BASICALLY SAME THING W/E). His canon trajectory is more or less the same, though.
Power level: C
Powers: Baelheit has some considerable, although not super formidable, psychic powers. He has some minor telekinesis (he cannot easily move/lift anything weighing more than 30lbs or so), and is a telepath. His powers are more in the “write” department than the “read” department, meaning he cannot read minds or emotional states, but he can establish mindlinks with non-telepaths and speak directly to their minds. He can also exert a certain amount of psychic influence over others (although other telepaths are largely immune to this), in a mind control sort of sense, but only in short bursts -- he can’t maintain it for any length of time -- and the effectiveness is dependent on the recipient’s strength of will.
He also has a mindlink to the mysterious extradimensional spirit Daimon, which seems to have been more or less permanently established. Daimon and his link to it are his deepest secret; he has never told anyone, not even his daughter, about his spirit companion.
In addition to his psychic abilities, he is also a man of considerable education and intelligence. He is an accomplished scientist and has made great strides in the development of cybernetic enhancements. He has the usual assortment of Scientist Gadgets you might expect of a man of his dubiously moral character.
Team affiliation: Baelheit used to work with TRIDENT in the years leading up to his wife’s death, but any rumors of his ties to the organization, however prevalent, are unsubstantiated and no one has ever been able to definitely prove that he ever worked for them. As far as anyone knows, he no longer maintains any connections to them today, and he’s done a pretty good job of covering his tracks and (re)building his public image to be a rather clean one. That is not to say it won’t come out eventually, though...
First person sample: [ LETTER TO MILLY. or an email I guess? W/E ]
To my beloved daughter,,
I hope this message finds you well, and that you will do me the courtesy of responding. I know you have received all of my previous messages, even when you neglect to reply. As you seem to be able to find plenty of time for all your other endeavors, I can only imagine that your silence is an adolescent attempt to ignore me. I had hoped you would have grown out of that particular habit by now. While I have accepted that you can and will do as you please, regardless of what I have to say about it, it does not change the fact that I am your father, and that we will always have a relationship. The kind of relationship, however, is up to you, Milliarde. We are always going to see each other out of necessity, at the very least. I would prefer if our time together was at least a little more cordial. We are still a family, after all.
The parts I ordered for you came in this morning. The sooner I can implement them, the better, so why don’t you come to the lab this afternoon? Provided you have time, of course. I know you’ve been busy lately. I’ve seen the news. At any rate, you should make an effort to come to the lab in the next few days. If we don’t replace those power couplings before they give out, the entire arm might short out, and I’m sure you wouldn’t want that.
I was hoping that when you come to that lab we could talk, too. I know you’d rather we conduct these maintenance sessions in silence, but there are some things I want to tell you. I’m going to be taking some big steps soon, Milliarde. Soon I will be starting a new chapter in my life, and I hope to do some good with it. What I have planned for the world...well, I think that you more than anyone else should be able to appreciate what I’m trying to do. And I’d rather do it with you at my side. I hope to see you soon, Milliarde.
Your father,
Julius Baelheit
Prose sample: Baelheit is extremely unimpressed with Starscream
Name: Madi
Pronoun: she/her
Email address: runawayballista@gmail.com
Preferred contact:
Other characters: Milly Baelheit
CHARACTER STUFF
Name: Julius Baelheit
Aliases: N/A
Canon: The Baten Kaitos wikia is trash so here is a write-up about Baelheit’s canon character by me.
Baelheit is all but defined by his ambition and determination, as well as his giant, gaping hypocrisy. He started out as a geneticist working for Emperor Olgan of Alfard, trying to artificially create a spiriter -- someone joined with a guardian spirit, a rare phenomenon in their world, but spiriters are, by legend, able to sway the course of history and the fate of the world with their power of their heart and that of the spirit’s. When one of his experiments went terribly wrong, it killed his wife and gravely injured his young daughter, Milly, whom he managed to save by replacing much of her body with machina (mechanical/machine technology). Shortly afterward, by an ironic twist of fate, he was bonded to a spirit himself, known as Daimon. It was presumably through Daimon that he learned of the previous follies of humanity, over a millennia ago, when the power of people’s hearts growing ever stronger led to the catastrophic event now known as the War of the Gods. Convinced that his bonding with Daimon meant that it was his destiny to save the world from themselves, and that the best way to do this was to provide an alternative for the power of the heart in a world where people relied on the magic that was born out of it, Baelheit began a campaign of promachination that attempted to force people to rely on machina, all the while keeping his status as a spiriter a secret. He entered the political sphere to this end, eventually becoming elected the new Emperor, and creating Tarazed, a giant machina island that was to serve as the new home for humanity. Anyone could enter -- provided they would tear their wings of the heart out, a process that severely damaged the link between a person and their heart. The massive hypocrisy of Baelheit using the power of a spirit to accomplish the obliteration of the power of the heart seems to be lost on him.
Baelheit is a methodical, forward-thinking man with revolutionary ideas and a brilliant mind, but he is nonetheless blind to his own hypocrisy -- a hypocrisy that leads to him shooting his own daughter when she dares to defy him. His demeanor is quiet, solemn bordering on grave, and he rarely smiles; however, he is charismatic under the public eye (the man can make a speech), and excellent at maintaining a public face. While he was presumably once a man who knew how to have fun, since his wife’s death, however, he has become emotionally closed off and singlemindedly focused on his work.
Role: Ambiguously villainous scientist-cum-politician
Species: Human
Gender: Male
Age: 47
Appearance:
He still wears the hat.
Origin story: Baelheit has always been a driven man; he was a bright young up-and-coming scientist whose ambition got him and his wife picked up by TRIDENT when his increasingly ethically dubious experiments failed to get any grant money. Along with his wife Madelynn, a talented geneticist, he worked on various projects that attempted to artificially create various kinds of superpowered individuals. Unfortunately owing to the nature of the experiments, the most viable test subjects were children. Luckily, TRIDENT provided them with a steady supply of orphans to experiment on. Baelheit and his wife coped with the moral and ethical issues by telling themselves that what they were doing was for the Greater Good, and was going to Help People, but all the lies they told themselves for peace of mind couldn’t undo what their work eventually led to. One night at the lab, one of their experiments went HORRIBLY WRONG and got loose, destroying much of the lab; out of control, the subject in question killed Madelynn and gravely injured Milly. In order to save his daughter’s life, Baelheit had to replace much of her body with cybernetic parts, turning her into a seven-year-old cyborg rather than let her die, too.
Ravaged with grief for his wife and the emotional tax of having to rebuild his own daughter’s tattered body, Baelheit experienced a significant psychic event that he is still unable to completely explain. Just when he thought he would simply buckle under the heartbreak, he heard a voice call out inside his mind -- a spontaneous mindlink had formed, presumably across dimensions, with a mysterious disembodied spirit Baelheit knows only as Daimon. Despite its enigmatic origins, Baelheit has bonded closely with Daimon, and it has become a source of solace and strength since his tragic loss. Daimon has convinced Baelheit that everything happens for a reason, that this is only part of the destiny he has yet to fulfill, and more importantly, that he must continue his research in one way or another in order to continue to better the world. Lately, he has been moving from scientific research into the political sphere to endorse the importance and convenience of his cybernetic enhancements.
After he left TRIDENT, he used his considerable resources to start his own R&D firm, Mintaka Industries, which he has used to continue his work on cybernetics. Mintaka Industries also develops other assorted tech gear (cool ray guns, shield generators, insert generic tech gadgetry here) that is sold to distributors; although he doesn’t maintain any kind of villainous connections, his products may be a popular choice for some villains out there. He is also shortly going to announce his candidacy for political office (probably senator); although his platform covers various issues, his main goals are to control any future legislation about cybernetics and to use his political power to get everyone to become cyborgs, because he believes it is his Destiny.
Personality: He is pretty much identical to his canon counterpart, personality-wise. He has a rather serious demeanor and never makes jokes; he doesn’t tend to laugh at them, either. When he is focused on a goal, he has a tendency to pursue it single-mindedly; it may even consume him. Everything he does on the way to that goal is merely a means to an end, and he has an astonishing capacity for compartmentalization and justifying the awful shit he does in the name of the greater good (such as turning his daughter into a cyborg or experimenting on dozens of orphans). He believes so much in the greater good it’s frankly a little worrisome, and he has massive blind spots when it comes to his own hypocrisy. For example, for all his touting of the importance of cybernetics to save humanity, he has never endowed himself with cybernetic implants, because he is afraid that doing so would jeopardize his connection to Daimon.
His big push for cybernetics is based heavily on his preoccupation with his own destiny, or rather the one he thinks he has; he isn’t a hero, but he believes it is is responsibility to save humanity from its own shortcomings. He sees the ‘natural’ human condition as being weak and defenseless, and he has a driving need to save people, regardless of how he does it. As far as he’s concerned, the death of his wife and Milly’s current state of being dependent on cybernetics to live are all the proof he needs for the failings of humanity as it is. He tries to protect the things he loves and cares about by controlling them -- he has impressed the need for secrecy about her condition on Milly her whole life, and to try to discourage her from illusions of grandeur of the superhero world and to keep her out of trouble, he’s always filled her life up with private schools and tons of extracurricular activities. When that didn’t work and she struck out on her own as an adult, they had a huge fight about it and he only begrudgingly conceded to let her go when he realized he could not actually stop her, and things between them are more strained than ever.
Baelheit might seem like a cold fish, but he does actually have feelings, and before his wife’s death, he was a considerably warmer person (although no less of a giant hypocrite with a savior complex). Since his wife’s death and his mindlinking with Daimon, he has struggled with being emotionally closed off and distant, which in combination with his rigid “do as I say” style of parenting has created a growing rift between him and his daughter. That isn’t to say they aren’t close -- they are, in a way, and although Baelheit has a strange way of showing it, he loves his daughter dearly, and although his work has always consumed his life, he’s always made time for Milly; their bond, born out of solidarity after Madelynn’s death, is what made Milly’s decision to up and leave such a catastrophic big deal. Even when he would spend time with Milly, though, he has had a hard time opening up to her, and he almost never talks about Madelynn. The only person he really opens up to these days is Daimon.
Differences from canon: Rather than building a giant mechanical island and forcing everyone to live on it, Baelheit’s goals are a little less grand in scope, but no less born out of well-intentioned extremism. His scientific exploits are narrowed down to mostly cybernetics, and instead of having a guardian spirit he has what seems to be a permanent mindlink with a strange extradimensional entity known as Daimon (SO BASICALLY SAME THING W/E). His canon trajectory is more or less the same, though.
Power level: C
Powers: Baelheit has some considerable, although not super formidable, psychic powers. He has some minor telekinesis (he cannot easily move/lift anything weighing more than 30lbs or so), and is a telepath. His powers are more in the “write” department than the “read” department, meaning he cannot read minds or emotional states, but he can establish mindlinks with non-telepaths and speak directly to their minds. He can also exert a certain amount of psychic influence over others (although other telepaths are largely immune to this), in a mind control sort of sense, but only in short bursts -- he can’t maintain it for any length of time -- and the effectiveness is dependent on the recipient’s strength of will.
He also has a mindlink to the mysterious extradimensional spirit Daimon, which seems to have been more or less permanently established. Daimon and his link to it are his deepest secret; he has never told anyone, not even his daughter, about his spirit companion.
In addition to his psychic abilities, he is also a man of considerable education and intelligence. He is an accomplished scientist and has made great strides in the development of cybernetic enhancements. He has the usual assortment of Scientist Gadgets you might expect of a man of his dubiously moral character.
Team affiliation: Baelheit used to work with TRIDENT in the years leading up to his wife’s death, but any rumors of his ties to the organization, however prevalent, are unsubstantiated and no one has ever been able to definitely prove that he ever worked for them. As far as anyone knows, he no longer maintains any connections to them today, and he’s done a pretty good job of covering his tracks and (re)building his public image to be a rather clean one. That is not to say it won’t come out eventually, though...
First person sample: [ LETTER TO MILLY. or an email I guess? W/E ]
To my beloved daughter,,
I hope this message finds you well, and that you will do me the courtesy of responding. I know you have received all of my previous messages, even when you neglect to reply. As you seem to be able to find plenty of time for all your other endeavors, I can only imagine that your silence is an adolescent attempt to ignore me. I had hoped you would have grown out of that particular habit by now. While I have accepted that you can and will do as you please, regardless of what I have to say about it, it does not change the fact that I am your father, and that we will always have a relationship. The kind of relationship, however, is up to you, Milliarde. We are always going to see each other out of necessity, at the very least. I would prefer if our time together was at least a little more cordial. We are still a family, after all.
The parts I ordered for you came in this morning. The sooner I can implement them, the better, so why don’t you come to the lab this afternoon? Provided you have time, of course. I know you’ve been busy lately. I’ve seen the news. At any rate, you should make an effort to come to the lab in the next few days. If we don’t replace those power couplings before they give out, the entire arm might short out, and I’m sure you wouldn’t want that.
I was hoping that when you come to that lab we could talk, too. I know you’d rather we conduct these maintenance sessions in silence, but there are some things I want to tell you. I’m going to be taking some big steps soon, Milliarde. Soon I will be starting a new chapter in my life, and I hope to do some good with it. What I have planned for the world...well, I think that you more than anyone else should be able to appreciate what I’m trying to do. And I’d rather do it with you at my side. I hope to see you soon, Milliarde.
Your father,
Julius Baelheit
Prose sample: Baelheit is extremely unimpressed with Starscream