![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
< CHARACTER INFO >
CHARACTER NAME: Dr. Hermann Gottlieb
CHARACTER AGE: 46
SERIES: Pacific Rim
CHRONOLOGY: Uprising, right after the elevator scene
BACKGROUND:
Pre-Canon
Born as the third child to scientist parents, Hermann displayed early signs of aptitude in mathematics. His family moved from Bavaria to Britain when he was still young to give him access to leading insistutions in order to nurture that aptitude. He was enrolled in a private school where he found that genius to be met with the opposite of his parents' praises. His intelligence outstripped those of even his older peers and he was bullied relentlessly for it. As a result, Hermann withdrew, isolating himself from others, and this behavior carried into much of his later life as well.
When he found himself under pressure from his father to enroll into prestiguous universities as a young adult, he instead chose to attend university in Berling where he graduated with a PhD in Computer Science and Engineering. Shortly after his graduation however, the first kaiju made land in San Francisco.
August 15th, 2013 became known as K-Day, but the Kaiju don't stop once Trespasser has fallen. The Jaeger Program is conceived to combat them, then founded in part by Hermann's father, Dr. Lars Gottlieb.
A correspondence between himself and a Dr. Newton Geiszler starts up soon after, and for three years, the two exchange a flurry of passionate letters full of developing theories and scientific debate.
In 2015, Hermann enrolls in the Jaeger Academy and joins the program as an officer. He writes the code for the first series of Jaegers- the Mark 1s. They start winning.
Hermann and Newton meet at a PPDC conference in 2017, but despite their tight rapport in letters, dislike each other on sight and part ways. Hermann moved onto working with K-Science and alongside Dr. Ysabel Morales, helped to develop equations to pinpoint the Kaiju point of origin and the technology to monitor what later becomes known as the Breach.
As the kaiju grow larger over the years and the Jaegers begin to fall, the UN loses faith in the Jaeger Program and cuts their funding to begin construction on a coastal, anti-kaiju wall. The idea is widely unpopular. Jaeger pilots are valiant heroes to those that live anywhere along the Pacific coastline while the rich move further and further inland. It's also a notoriously stupid idea, and Hermann finds himself at odds with his father to the point of estrangement.
So it's in 2020 while the Shatterdomes are being slowly consolidated that Hermann and Newt meet again as coworkers in Hong Kong. They work in increasingly close quarters as their support staff are laid off or leave until just the two of them remain. Even Dr. Morales drops from the program after the death of her fiance, feeling as though she was responsible for his death. Hermann wouldn't see her again for roughly 10 years.
In the end, it's one laboratory split between two very different scientific fields. And for the entirety of those 5 years with no buffer between them, they argue. They almost never stop arguing in fact. They're under incredible pressure to save the world with very few tools and even less funding to do so.
Pacific Rim Movie
Hermann studies the Breach and develops a model based on data gathered over the years that predicts kaiju attacks with both increased accuracy and frequency. There's an emerging pattern, and by 2025, his numbers predict extinction-level events.
In Sydney, a category IV Kaiju breaks through the coastal wall in less than an hour.
Desperate, he hypothesizes that the increased traffic in the Breach will render it vulnerable to attack. Meanwhile, Newton suggests initiating a neural drift (mindsharing) with a piece of a kaiju's brain. Marshal Pentecost favors Hermann's data and well, he might gloat a bit over that. The base makes preparations for Operation Pitfall, with plans to drop a thermonuclear bomb straight into the Breach and destroy it for good.
He later discovers Newton seizing on the floor of their lab, having gone ahead with his experiment despite the Marshal's objections. Hermann disconnects him from the machine, then fetches the Marshal. Newton struggles to explain what he saw while Hermann stands by. The two are closing in on another one of their screaming matches when Pentecost firmly steps in and redirects them. They need more information, and Newton is tasked to find a black market dealer by the name of Hannibal Chau in order to secure another Kaiju brain to drift with.
Hermann stays behind to support LOCCENT as the double event he predicted rises out of the depths near Hong Kong.
They lose two Jaeger teams to Otachi and Leatherback, and Striker Eureka is disabled after a massive EMP hits Hong Kong. Gipsy Danger is deployed and manages to take down both Kaiju on its own. Hermann is ordered to find Newton, who's gearing up his equipment to drift with a dead newborn Kaiju. Another double event rises up from the Breach, although it's not the triple event Hermann had predicted would follow. He argues with Newton about who's right and wrong until finally, in an effort to prove himself right and maybe save the world, he agrees to drift with Newton and share the neural strain of drifting with the Kaiju hivemind.
In the midst of their shared memories, they glimpse flashes of the Kaiju clones and the nature of the Breach. Realizing Operation Pitfall won't work as he'd hypothesized, they're flown back to the Shatterdome to warn LOCCENT before the bomb is deployed. They're able to tell the pilots exactly how to get through the Breach, and it's then that the third signature Hermann predicted emerges. Faced with two Kaiju converging on Striker Eureka, Pentecost and Chuck Hansen make the decision to detonate the nuclear bomb inside the Jaeger in a sacrificial bid to clear the path for Gipsy Danger.
Hermann and Newton watch as Gipsy falls with the Category V Kaiju into the Breach and self-destruct with the force of a nuclear reactor. The pilots manage to escape, and the Breach collapses.
Uprising Prequel Novel
The next 10 years are objectively peaceful ones. However, having touched the minds of the beings responsible for the creation and emergence of the Kaiju, Hermann remains very certain that they will return.
Having saved the world, the PPDC regains the UN's support and international legitimacy. They become a sort of policing force to discourage the construction and private use of Jaegertech. More Jaegers are constructed, though they are an increasingly hard sell to a population that believes the threat to be over and funds should be instead devoted wholly to recovery efforts. K-Watch monitors the Marianas Trench and a few other deep-sea trenches for potential signs of another Breach. The PPDC trains new recruits.
A sect of Kaiju Worshippers known as the Akumagami Front terrorize the PPDC and target their Jaegers with the ultimate goal of somehow bringing back the Kaiju.
And when Newton moves away from the PPDC and into the private sector, Hermann takes over K-Science. With access to all of his former colleague's data about the kaiju and a basis of understanding and even appreciation for their biological make-up granted by their Drift, he takes on even Newton's side of things without blinking.
Dr. Morales stops by to visit in 2035 and hands off some troubling data she found, showing possible signs of a Breach re-emergence. Before they can chat too long however, there's an emergency in the Jaeger bay and he's pulled away to investigate. The final test for a pair of cadets goes awry with an implanted simulation of a false kaiju attack and one of the pilots die as a result. An investigation into the event occupies several senior officers in the Dome.
Meanwhile, Hermann continues to work on the data given to him by Dr. Morales and he grows increasingly concerned about the likelihood of another Breach opening in only a few months. The cadet training program accelerates and Secretary General Mori calls Command for the allocation of more resources. But as results of the ongoing investigation come in and bits are pieced together, Hermann realizes that the data Morales gave him was fake and only served as an excuse to get into the lab and access Newton's old data. The timing of the information breach lines up too perfectly with the incident in the Jaeger bays. So around the time that two previously suspect cadets come up missing, they have a new one.
Gipsy Avenger is deployed to track down Morales' chopper from where it veered off course, and comes in contact with a vessel full of kaiju worshippers, including Dr. Morales. She ingests kaiju blood in a ritual suicide to avoid questioning, and dies believing that the Kaiju would be the world's salvation.
The cadets tell them about a bomb they overheard the cultists discussing, one that would make the world ready for Kaiju inhabitation. Hermann works with K-Watch to determine its location, and Gipsy is sent in to stop it. The bomb turns out to be a tank full of Kaiju Blue that Hermann discovers has explosive results when in contact with certain rare Earth elements. The cultists had drilled a shaft into an island off the Phillipine Trench with the intention of pouring it into the magma and setting off a large-scale explosion. Ideally, it would pollute the Earth's atmosphere enough to be habitable for the Kaiju and perhaps aid their return into the world.
Gipsy retrieved the bomb and made good on an escape, but not before fifty litres of kaiju blood was injected. The entire island imploded. Understanding the new threat before them, Hermann advised collecting as much of the remaining Blue for the PPDC as possible to keep it out of dangerous hands. This event was also crucial to his new line of research.
Pacific Rim: Uprising
When Shao Liwen arrives at the Moyulan Shatterdome with Newton in toe, Hermann is quick to pull him aside and ask for his input on his newest line of research. Jaeger deployment is incredibly slow, resulting in the potential for widespread damage before they ever meet a Kaiju, and Hermann has a new idea for rocket thrusters instead of relying on helicopter transport. The problem being that there was no force on Earth that could propel 300-foot Jaegers for long. However, with his recent discoveries about the potential explosive properties of Kaiju blood, suddenly there is.
Newton however, is reluctant to help him, and even states that once his boss' Jaeger drones are approved, the deployment time of Jaegers won't matter anymore. He's then called away to Shao's side for her presentation, and Hermann isn't at all impressed with them.
A meeting is set in Sydney to decide whether or not the drones would be approved for use, but its interrupted before it can even start by a rogue Jaeger emerging from the sea and engaging Secretary General Mori's honor guard, Gipsy Danger. Mako's helicopter is shot down, and she dies in the resulting explosion- but not before she tries to send a message. The rogue Jaeger retreats and escapes as soon as the other Jaegers begin arriving.
Back at the Shatterdome, Hermann works on decoding Mako's final message and comes up with an elevation map of an old factory in Siberia used to manufacture old Jaeger power cores, but was later decommissioned. When Gipsy is deployed to investigate, they run into the rogue Jaeger-- dubbed Obsidian Fury-- who destroys the factory and engages Gipsy on the ice. After a hard-fought battle, Gipsy emerges victorious and opens up Fury's Conn-Pod not to reveal a pair of neurally-synched pilots, but a mess of a kaiju brain.
A kaiju brain that Hermann discovers had been engineered from leftover kaiju tissues during the war. A tip from their newest young cadet pointed out a manufacturing match with Shao Industries, Hermann is sent to reach out to Newton for information.
Pull point
Shao has the building on lockdown to prevent interference in readying the deployment of her drones, but with armed with PPDC credentials, Hermann doesn't have trouble getting in. It also helps that around that time, Shao's drones begin to malfunction and warp into kaiju-jaeger hybrids with seeming minds of their own. Hermann recruits Newton's help in stopping them, but before they make it too far, they're caught by Shao's security.
Hermann and Newton end up in an elevator with them, and with a bit of nonverbal prompting, Hermann wields his cane like a weapon and succeeds in surprising and taking down three of the four while Newton works to restrain and disarm the fourth. The two share a brief hug outside the elevator, then rush toward the control room.
PERSONALITY:
Hermann is a mathematician, and the precision with which he works has far-reaching effects into his daily life. He operates on a rationale of logical analysis, working through a problem with a linear sequential strategy in a calculated process of elimination. Observant and detailed, he bases the majority of his decisions on hard factual data, and is skeptical of anything that lacks substantial reasoning. Even moral decisions can fall under cold calculations, where the ends justify the means if presented with enough evidence.
Hermann attempts to maintain a professional appearance around co-workers and higher-ups, making him a reliable, if fairly impersonal sort to work with. He makes every effort to be punctual, but does occasionally get too wrapped up in his work to take notice of the time. He extends formal courtesies and greetings in a constant bid to secure an equal amount of blanket regard in turn.
Because respect is a heavy sticking point, there's a prominent disparity in Hermann's apparent frailty and the aggressive front he projects. He's been subjected to too much disrespect in his childhood and young adult years to take disparaging comments without learning to snap right back. He's incredibly stubborn and will fight for every single centimeter of psychological (and occasionally physical) ground he can stand on, wielding a sharp tongue with a penchant for acerbic remarks with deadly accuracy. He has absolutely no tolerance for the ignorant, and can be quick to take offense to perceived slights against his capability.
It's relatively obvious that Hermann doesn't go out of his way to make friends. That's because social interactions are a battlefield, and where his mind is a weapon, numbers are his shield. He understands social cues well enough- if not always how best to respond to them- but when confronted with a situation he's unfamiliar with, he'll tend to spend too much time thinking about how to respond that silences can stretch to awkward lengths.
He's really accustomed to isolation- first during the years he spent bullied in school, and later it was something he chose for himself, because it was one of the few times he felt safe and comfortable. Mathematics served as an emotional buffer, the complex equations allowed him insight into a world structured on logic without lies or ulterior motives. He lost himself in their easy reliability, able to effortlessly distance himself from more interpersonal problems when there was a framework for a new algorithm running through his mind or calculations that needed to be written.
But people are not numbers and numbers are not people, and while the former is vexing, the latter can be comforting. One has motivations where the other doesn't, and puzzling out people and conversations on a daily basis can be a trying exercise. Too many factors, too many potential outcomes, and only a handful of moments to take in meaning and formulate a response. Intuition is a faulty decryption algorithm and empathy an inherently flawed system for a man so used to guarding himself. As such, he finds emotional outbursts an uncomfortable affair as they often tend toward the irrational.
The changes are subtle, post-drift. He's still an incurable creature of habit and isn't particularly sociable, but he's certainly more daring and willing to take risks than he ever was before. He's more cooperative and a touch more patient, though never quite relaxed.
POWER:
Toxic Immunity-
Immune to foreign biological toxins. Basically, he can't be poisoned.
Portals-
Can bend time space to conjure up to 2 two-way portals at a time through which people, animals, and objects can pass freely. Portals can be held open for a maximum of 2 minutes total (so if two portals are open, they'll both only stay open for up to a minute each) but can be closed at will. Bursts of foreign energy also threaten their stability and may force them to close.
Smaller portals (up to about the size of a watermelon) can be conjured at will, but larger portals capable of transporting people and/or large objects require written equations to define parameters and achieve stability.
They can be opened to allow transportation to and from anywhere on the Earth's surface.
Materialization:
An ability that functions kind of like programming code, Hermann is capable de-materializing any solid object to modify its properties, then re-materialize it in a new location if desired. The more complex the object or modification, the longer this process takes. A simple change of an object's color property may only take a few seconds, but modifying its shape or structure requires more concentration and may take up to a minute or two depending on how intensive the change is.
Complex objects with multiple interlocking parts and small pieces (such as any electronic) require the greatest concentration and may take several minutes to transport. At its peak, Hermann can deconstruct and reconstruct any object he can calculate the precise location and dimensions of, but he can only manipulate one solid object at a time in this way.
CHARACTER NAME: Dr. Hermann Gottlieb
CHARACTER AGE: 46
SERIES: Pacific Rim
CHRONOLOGY: Uprising, right after the elevator scene
BACKGROUND:
Pre-Canon
Born as the third child to scientist parents, Hermann displayed early signs of aptitude in mathematics. His family moved from Bavaria to Britain when he was still young to give him access to leading insistutions in order to nurture that aptitude. He was enrolled in a private school where he found that genius to be met with the opposite of his parents' praises. His intelligence outstripped those of even his older peers and he was bullied relentlessly for it. As a result, Hermann withdrew, isolating himself from others, and this behavior carried into much of his later life as well.
When he found himself under pressure from his father to enroll into prestiguous universities as a young adult, he instead chose to attend university in Berling where he graduated with a PhD in Computer Science and Engineering. Shortly after his graduation however, the first kaiju made land in San Francisco.
August 15th, 2013 became known as K-Day, but the Kaiju don't stop once Trespasser has fallen. The Jaeger Program is conceived to combat them, then founded in part by Hermann's father, Dr. Lars Gottlieb.
A correspondence between himself and a Dr. Newton Geiszler starts up soon after, and for three years, the two exchange a flurry of passionate letters full of developing theories and scientific debate.
In 2015, Hermann enrolls in the Jaeger Academy and joins the program as an officer. He writes the code for the first series of Jaegers- the Mark 1s. They start winning.
Hermann and Newton meet at a PPDC conference in 2017, but despite their tight rapport in letters, dislike each other on sight and part ways. Hermann moved onto working with K-Science and alongside Dr. Ysabel Morales, helped to develop equations to pinpoint the Kaiju point of origin and the technology to monitor what later becomes known as the Breach.
As the kaiju grow larger over the years and the Jaegers begin to fall, the UN loses faith in the Jaeger Program and cuts their funding to begin construction on a coastal, anti-kaiju wall. The idea is widely unpopular. Jaeger pilots are valiant heroes to those that live anywhere along the Pacific coastline while the rich move further and further inland. It's also a notoriously stupid idea, and Hermann finds himself at odds with his father to the point of estrangement.
So it's in 2020 while the Shatterdomes are being slowly consolidated that Hermann and Newt meet again as coworkers in Hong Kong. They work in increasingly close quarters as their support staff are laid off or leave until just the two of them remain. Even Dr. Morales drops from the program after the death of her fiance, feeling as though she was responsible for his death. Hermann wouldn't see her again for roughly 10 years.
In the end, it's one laboratory split between two very different scientific fields. And for the entirety of those 5 years with no buffer between them, they argue. They almost never stop arguing in fact. They're under incredible pressure to save the world with very few tools and even less funding to do so.
Pacific Rim Movie
Hermann studies the Breach and develops a model based on data gathered over the years that predicts kaiju attacks with both increased accuracy and frequency. There's an emerging pattern, and by 2025, his numbers predict extinction-level events.
In Sydney, a category IV Kaiju breaks through the coastal wall in less than an hour.
Desperate, he hypothesizes that the increased traffic in the Breach will render it vulnerable to attack. Meanwhile, Newton suggests initiating a neural drift (mindsharing) with a piece of a kaiju's brain. Marshal Pentecost favors Hermann's data and well, he might gloat a bit over that. The base makes preparations for Operation Pitfall, with plans to drop a thermonuclear bomb straight into the Breach and destroy it for good.
He later discovers Newton seizing on the floor of their lab, having gone ahead with his experiment despite the Marshal's objections. Hermann disconnects him from the machine, then fetches the Marshal. Newton struggles to explain what he saw while Hermann stands by. The two are closing in on another one of their screaming matches when Pentecost firmly steps in and redirects them. They need more information, and Newton is tasked to find a black market dealer by the name of Hannibal Chau in order to secure another Kaiju brain to drift with.
Hermann stays behind to support LOCCENT as the double event he predicted rises out of the depths near Hong Kong.
They lose two Jaeger teams to Otachi and Leatherback, and Striker Eureka is disabled after a massive EMP hits Hong Kong. Gipsy Danger is deployed and manages to take down both Kaiju on its own. Hermann is ordered to find Newton, who's gearing up his equipment to drift with a dead newborn Kaiju. Another double event rises up from the Breach, although it's not the triple event Hermann had predicted would follow. He argues with Newton about who's right and wrong until finally, in an effort to prove himself right and maybe save the world, he agrees to drift with Newton and share the neural strain of drifting with the Kaiju hivemind.
In the midst of their shared memories, they glimpse flashes of the Kaiju clones and the nature of the Breach. Realizing Operation Pitfall won't work as he'd hypothesized, they're flown back to the Shatterdome to warn LOCCENT before the bomb is deployed. They're able to tell the pilots exactly how to get through the Breach, and it's then that the third signature Hermann predicted emerges. Faced with two Kaiju converging on Striker Eureka, Pentecost and Chuck Hansen make the decision to detonate the nuclear bomb inside the Jaeger in a sacrificial bid to clear the path for Gipsy Danger.
Hermann and Newton watch as Gipsy falls with the Category V Kaiju into the Breach and self-destruct with the force of a nuclear reactor. The pilots manage to escape, and the Breach collapses.
Uprising Prequel Novel
The next 10 years are objectively peaceful ones. However, having touched the minds of the beings responsible for the creation and emergence of the Kaiju, Hermann remains very certain that they will return.
Having saved the world, the PPDC regains the UN's support and international legitimacy. They become a sort of policing force to discourage the construction and private use of Jaegertech. More Jaegers are constructed, though they are an increasingly hard sell to a population that believes the threat to be over and funds should be instead devoted wholly to recovery efforts. K-Watch monitors the Marianas Trench and a few other deep-sea trenches for potential signs of another Breach. The PPDC trains new recruits.
A sect of Kaiju Worshippers known as the Akumagami Front terrorize the PPDC and target their Jaegers with the ultimate goal of somehow bringing back the Kaiju.
And when Newton moves away from the PPDC and into the private sector, Hermann takes over K-Science. With access to all of his former colleague's data about the kaiju and a basis of understanding and even appreciation for their biological make-up granted by their Drift, he takes on even Newton's side of things without blinking.
Dr. Morales stops by to visit in 2035 and hands off some troubling data she found, showing possible signs of a Breach re-emergence. Before they can chat too long however, there's an emergency in the Jaeger bay and he's pulled away to investigate. The final test for a pair of cadets goes awry with an implanted simulation of a false kaiju attack and one of the pilots die as a result. An investigation into the event occupies several senior officers in the Dome.
Meanwhile, Hermann continues to work on the data given to him by Dr. Morales and he grows increasingly concerned about the likelihood of another Breach opening in only a few months. The cadet training program accelerates and Secretary General Mori calls Command for the allocation of more resources. But as results of the ongoing investigation come in and bits are pieced together, Hermann realizes that the data Morales gave him was fake and only served as an excuse to get into the lab and access Newton's old data. The timing of the information breach lines up too perfectly with the incident in the Jaeger bays. So around the time that two previously suspect cadets come up missing, they have a new one.
Gipsy Avenger is deployed to track down Morales' chopper from where it veered off course, and comes in contact with a vessel full of kaiju worshippers, including Dr. Morales. She ingests kaiju blood in a ritual suicide to avoid questioning, and dies believing that the Kaiju would be the world's salvation.
The cadets tell them about a bomb they overheard the cultists discussing, one that would make the world ready for Kaiju inhabitation. Hermann works with K-Watch to determine its location, and Gipsy is sent in to stop it. The bomb turns out to be a tank full of Kaiju Blue that Hermann discovers has explosive results when in contact with certain rare Earth elements. The cultists had drilled a shaft into an island off the Phillipine Trench with the intention of pouring it into the magma and setting off a large-scale explosion. Ideally, it would pollute the Earth's atmosphere enough to be habitable for the Kaiju and perhaps aid their return into the world.
Gipsy retrieved the bomb and made good on an escape, but not before fifty litres of kaiju blood was injected. The entire island imploded. Understanding the new threat before them, Hermann advised collecting as much of the remaining Blue for the PPDC as possible to keep it out of dangerous hands. This event was also crucial to his new line of research.
Pacific Rim: Uprising
When Shao Liwen arrives at the Moyulan Shatterdome with Newton in toe, Hermann is quick to pull him aside and ask for his input on his newest line of research. Jaeger deployment is incredibly slow, resulting in the potential for widespread damage before they ever meet a Kaiju, and Hermann has a new idea for rocket thrusters instead of relying on helicopter transport. The problem being that there was no force on Earth that could propel 300-foot Jaegers for long. However, with his recent discoveries about the potential explosive properties of Kaiju blood, suddenly there is.
Newton however, is reluctant to help him, and even states that once his boss' Jaeger drones are approved, the deployment time of Jaegers won't matter anymore. He's then called away to Shao's side for her presentation, and Hermann isn't at all impressed with them.
A meeting is set in Sydney to decide whether or not the drones would be approved for use, but its interrupted before it can even start by a rogue Jaeger emerging from the sea and engaging Secretary General Mori's honor guard, Gipsy Danger. Mako's helicopter is shot down, and she dies in the resulting explosion- but not before she tries to send a message. The rogue Jaeger retreats and escapes as soon as the other Jaegers begin arriving.
Back at the Shatterdome, Hermann works on decoding Mako's final message and comes up with an elevation map of an old factory in Siberia used to manufacture old Jaeger power cores, but was later decommissioned. When Gipsy is deployed to investigate, they run into the rogue Jaeger-- dubbed Obsidian Fury-- who destroys the factory and engages Gipsy on the ice. After a hard-fought battle, Gipsy emerges victorious and opens up Fury's Conn-Pod not to reveal a pair of neurally-synched pilots, but a mess of a kaiju brain.
A kaiju brain that Hermann discovers had been engineered from leftover kaiju tissues during the war. A tip from their newest young cadet pointed out a manufacturing match with Shao Industries, Hermann is sent to reach out to Newton for information.
Pull point
Shao has the building on lockdown to prevent interference in readying the deployment of her drones, but with armed with PPDC credentials, Hermann doesn't have trouble getting in. It also helps that around that time, Shao's drones begin to malfunction and warp into kaiju-jaeger hybrids with seeming minds of their own. Hermann recruits Newton's help in stopping them, but before they make it too far, they're caught by Shao's security.
Hermann and Newton end up in an elevator with them, and with a bit of nonverbal prompting, Hermann wields his cane like a weapon and succeeds in surprising and taking down three of the four while Newton works to restrain and disarm the fourth. The two share a brief hug outside the elevator, then rush toward the control room.
PERSONALITY:
Hermann is a mathematician, and the precision with which he works has far-reaching effects into his daily life. He operates on a rationale of logical analysis, working through a problem with a linear sequential strategy in a calculated process of elimination. Observant and detailed, he bases the majority of his decisions on hard factual data, and is skeptical of anything that lacks substantial reasoning. Even moral decisions can fall under cold calculations, where the ends justify the means if presented with enough evidence.
Hermann attempts to maintain a professional appearance around co-workers and higher-ups, making him a reliable, if fairly impersonal sort to work with. He makes every effort to be punctual, but does occasionally get too wrapped up in his work to take notice of the time. He extends formal courtesies and greetings in a constant bid to secure an equal amount of blanket regard in turn.
Because respect is a heavy sticking point, there's a prominent disparity in Hermann's apparent frailty and the aggressive front he projects. He's been subjected to too much disrespect in his childhood and young adult years to take disparaging comments without learning to snap right back. He's incredibly stubborn and will fight for every single centimeter of psychological (and occasionally physical) ground he can stand on, wielding a sharp tongue with a penchant for acerbic remarks with deadly accuracy. He has absolutely no tolerance for the ignorant, and can be quick to take offense to perceived slights against his capability.
It's relatively obvious that Hermann doesn't go out of his way to make friends. That's because social interactions are a battlefield, and where his mind is a weapon, numbers are his shield. He understands social cues well enough- if not always how best to respond to them- but when confronted with a situation he's unfamiliar with, he'll tend to spend too much time thinking about how to respond that silences can stretch to awkward lengths.
He's really accustomed to isolation- first during the years he spent bullied in school, and later it was something he chose for himself, because it was one of the few times he felt safe and comfortable. Mathematics served as an emotional buffer, the complex equations allowed him insight into a world structured on logic without lies or ulterior motives. He lost himself in their easy reliability, able to effortlessly distance himself from more interpersonal problems when there was a framework for a new algorithm running through his mind or calculations that needed to be written.
But people are not numbers and numbers are not people, and while the former is vexing, the latter can be comforting. One has motivations where the other doesn't, and puzzling out people and conversations on a daily basis can be a trying exercise. Too many factors, too many potential outcomes, and only a handful of moments to take in meaning and formulate a response. Intuition is a faulty decryption algorithm and empathy an inherently flawed system for a man so used to guarding himself. As such, he finds emotional outbursts an uncomfortable affair as they often tend toward the irrational.
The changes are subtle, post-drift. He's still an incurable creature of habit and isn't particularly sociable, but he's certainly more daring and willing to take risks than he ever was before. He's more cooperative and a touch more patient, though never quite relaxed.
POWER:
Toxic Immunity-
Immune to foreign biological toxins. Basically, he can't be poisoned.
Portals-
Can bend time space to conjure up to 2 two-way portals at a time through which people, animals, and objects can pass freely. Portals can be held open for a maximum of 2 minutes total (so if two portals are open, they'll both only stay open for up to a minute each) but can be closed at will. Bursts of foreign energy also threaten their stability and may force them to close.
Smaller portals (up to about the size of a watermelon) can be conjured at will, but larger portals capable of transporting people and/or large objects require written equations to define parameters and achieve stability.
They can be opened to allow transportation to and from anywhere on the Earth's surface.
Materialization:
An ability that functions kind of like programming code, Hermann is capable de-materializing any solid object to modify its properties, then re-materialize it in a new location if desired. The more complex the object or modification, the longer this process takes. A simple change of an object's color property may only take a few seconds, but modifying its shape or structure requires more concentration and may take up to a minute or two depending on how intensive the change is.
Complex objects with multiple interlocking parts and small pieces (such as any electronic) require the greatest concentration and may take several minutes to transport. At its peak, Hermann can deconstruct and reconstruct any object he can calculate the precise location and dimensions of, but he can only manipulate one solid object at a time in this way.
◾ Tags:
