Nicholas T. Hopper
From Familia Niveum
Nicholas T. Hopper- Marquis of Propagation
Nentuaby
You know, we've already achieved a form of immortality. Electromagnetic waves encode our souls for the benefit of the endless void, hurtling ever outwards. Why, before the end, every corner of the universe will have heard Hitler extol his regime's virtue at the Berlin games... Now where was I? Ah... Right. Saving you lot.
Nick is the immortal protector of Propagation- the process by which chain reactions and iteration spread ideas and processes ever further from their points of origin. His is a weary soul, but one given over to the light- for reasons he sometimes has a bit of trouble fathoming. He is prone to bouts of philosophy, sometimes dark, sometimes light, but always entrancing. To immortal eyes, his spirit seems like a banked fire, so that it is as comfortable to approach as a hearth fire, yet promises to flare to some greater height under the right provocation.
His face shows just a little of all this, in an ingrained expression that is equal parts wry and wistful. Beyond that, his features are bland and young. His thin hair is sandy blond, cut short and styled conservatively. His frame is tall and thin; he stands a little over six feet and masses little more than it takes to hide his skeleton. His clothing is comfortably archaic; he can usually be found in an earth-tone cardigan, slacks, and wingtips. Those who look deep within his eyes catch a glimpse of millions of points of light, cascading in ever growing numbers across an endless void.
Contents |
Bonds
- 2 points: The obelisk memorial at ground zero of the Trinity site
- 5 points: Space programs aimed at the colonization of other worlds
- 3 points: The Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty
- 2 points: Stanford University (where he is an alumnus)
- 2 points: University of California, Berkeley (where he is a professor emeritus, and roots for the football)
- 2 points: The Hopper family cemetery plot
- 4 points: The world's best and brightest scientists
Anchors
Dr. Sergei Vostrovich (Hate)
Vostrovich was a Russian nuclear researcher before the fall of the Soviet union. After the fall, he stole reams of research data from his labs and started taking bids on them. He was responsible for a major breakthrough in the North Korean nuclear program, and when Nicholas learned of this, he was furious. Nicholas considers Dr. Vostrovich the lowest sort of scum he has ever encountered, but because he is unable to bring violence against a Doctor, could not deal with him as he would most like. Instead he forcefully bound the mercenary scientist into his service as an anchor, and drives him ruthlessly in anti-proliferation work. Despite his hatred, the Marquis treats Vostrovich with icy civility; the doctor still cowers as if he expects to be struck at any moment. Vostrovich has no home; his Noble master keeps him forever flying from city to city throughout the Eastern hemisphere.
John Hopper (Love)
John Hopper is the Marquis' nephew, a man in his forties now but who Nicholas regularly babysat in earlier days. He was always the childless professor's favorite from among his sibling's offspring; the boy's mind was amazingly inquisitive, but he also had a good feel for what was best left alone. Aside from familial love, Nicholas chose him as his assistant in the Western hemisphere for two reasons- first, he remains exceptionally intelligent and commonsensical; second, he had long since risen to own a manufacturer of small aircraft. This has proven fantastically useful on many occasions, and Nicholas is never remiss in using his miraculous abilities to the firm's benefit. The firm's shiney new headquarters is located high in the rockies, in the state of Montana, in a wide valley that once housed a mining operation. It is wide enough to comfortably allow aircraft operations, but remote enough to be defensible- conveniently enough.
Abilities and Gifts
- 2 Aspect
- 3 Domain
- 0 Realm
- 2 Spirit
Immutable
(1 point)
Nick ages only very, very slowly, and will feel the flush of youth for a long time yet. As well, though he will grow hungry and tired, he can survive indefinitely without food, water, sleep, or even air.
Durant
(1 point)
Nick is difficult to anger; mortal weapons work on him, but only poorly. Even the gravest wound, should he survive, will fade entirely in seven days time.
Flight
(1 point)
It seemed unreasonable that a power with the durability to withstand space's rigors should be stranded if he ever found himself in the void. An investment of the power gained from his Imperator insured this would not be the case.
Wayfinder
(1 point)
Information propagates most stubbornly of all things, by a million different processes. When something prevents it, or tries very hard, this calls to Nicholas. As a result, hidden places- Chancels, secret roads, and other places that mundane navigation cannot access- impinge on his senses from several miles away. Standing aside one, he can see its internal contours- the entire interior of a Chancel, for example, or the whole length of a secret road.
Restriction:
Each of these grants 1 MP whenever it causes a significant problem.
Respect (Doctors)
As a lifelong academician, Nicholas bears a deep respect for anyone who may lay claim to the honorific Doctor (whether M.D. or Ph.D.) He is incapable of omitting basic courtesies to a Doctor, and will not use direct insults even in the most heated argument with such a person. He cannot even conceive of volunteering physical violence to one, though he would respond in kind were he attacked.
Revelatory Trait
Nobody who looks intently into the Marquis of Propagation's eyes could ever mistake him for a mortal.
History
Nicholas Tesla Hopper's early years are irrelevant in most aspects, save that they led him to take a degree in physics at Stanford, where he graduated in 1936. A few short years later, he took a military job to support the effort against Nazi Germany. It was some weeks until he was actually assigned- to what would later become the most infamous research and development effort of all time, the Manhattan Project.
In truth, he was only a junior technician, responsible for little of importance. Yet when he stood with the other researchers to watch the awesome fury of the Trinity blast, he had a deep personal revelation. In his mind's eye, he saw the initial cascade of atoms splitting within the plutonium core; saw energy beget heat; saw an infinite parade of colliding molecules, a front propagating ever outwards. It struck him as somehow deeply significant that when the attenuated remnants of the shock wave kissed the observers miles from the test, not an atom which struck him had every been anywhere near the Gadget which ultimately set them in motion.
Some years later, when he was a professorial candidate at Berkeley, he learned the Soviet Union had developed a Bomb of their own. Again he had a vision. The Manhattan Project begat three little bombs; years later, America had dozens; and then Russia. Then he saw a globe, slowly lighting up as every nation on Earth created their own. The designs of Fat Man and Little Boy fell by the wayside; an entire new reaction was harnessed; nothing but the very idea was left. Yet when this inner world died in fire, he knew it was that test he'd watched in the New Mexico desert that started it.
For years, he was a leading advocate of nuclear control and one of the most strident voices against the propagation of nuclear weapons. Yet every year he lost ground, and by the height of the cold war his soul was full of despair. He saw no way for Humanity to survive the next hundred years, not with the growing number of fingers on red buttons across the globe. Mercury and Apollo meant little to him- he recognized them for what they were, a grand but empty gesture. One launched atop missiles evolved from those meant to deliver the Bomb, no less.
It wasn't until the 1980s that he saw a way out. Finally, space travel became not just possible but barely- just barely- routine. Finally, he had another vision. From that same globe he had once seen bathed in fire, a tiny spark of light reached out, spun through blackness, set down on another, strange globe; it, too, lit up, just a bit more dimly. Another spark jumped out from the Earth, and then another, and then one from that second world, and all of them touched down on new spheres; and then each sent out sparks of their own, in greater and greater profusion, until his mind's eye floated in a galaxy of little sparks of humanity. Some of those lights flickered down; some were bathed in fire, some in ice; even that very first little light, Earth, was snuffed. But no loss could stop the exponential propagation of those little lights...
The vividness of this vision caught the attention of a higher being. One of its servants had been snuffed, ground in the gears of an eternal war; a replacement was needed. With a flick of its metaphorical wrist, this Imperator buried a shard of its soul in Nicholas' chest, and he was made the Noble protector of Propagation.
Nicholas was shocked beyond description; he had not even been warned of his impending ennoblement. But as his vision barreled onward, it became ever more vividly real, until he was its primary agent and finally it was a part of him, so ingrained that those who look deep into his eyes can still get a glimpse of it. He was become Propagation, destroyer of worlds- and savior of their inhabitants.
As he was integrated into the world of immortals, Nick was disgusted to learn that his predecessor had answered the call of the Dark. Indeed the very proliferation of weapons Nick had spent his whole life fighting was one of his predecessor's pet projects. He decided to damp it whenever he could, but feared totally halting it would be harmful to reality, if not downright impossible- such was not the nature of Propagation. Fire could only be fought with fire...
