Application for Exsilium

[curatesecrets]

» CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character NAME: Arthur "Artie" Nielsen
Canon & MEDIUM: Warehouse 13 - TV
Canon PULL-POINT: After 2.2 (Mild Mannered), when he finds MacPherson's pocketwatch.
Character AGE: 58 (headcanon educated guess)
Character ABILITIES: Having been an agent of the Warehouse for several years, Artie's picked up a LOT of useful skills over the years, including marksmanship, espionage protocol, code-breaking, lock-picking, item duplication/forgery, computer hacking, and hand-to-hand combat - though his skill in that has decidedly diminished with age and a bit of (ahem) weight gain. He is also a gifted pianist, can speak French, German, and Russian, and read Latin.

Character HISTORY:
Artie was born in Philadelphia, PA as Arthur Weisfelt, and had a relatively comfortable life. It's not known what his mother did for a living, but Artie's father mentions that they both worked. His father was a musical composition professor at a local college. Artie learned to play piano at a young age, and at his father's encouragement, he was sent to Julliard to further his talent. Before he could graduate, however, he was recruited by the NSA after showing exceptional talent in codebreaking and cryptography. Canon hasn't said specifically how he caught their eye, so if it comes up and he's asked, he'll skirt around it and say he's allowed to have his secrets - as he often does.

Once in the NSA's employ, Artie was set to work decrypting Cold War transmissions intercepted from the Russians: letters, phone transcripts, surveillance, and other documents. During this time, he was approached by a Russian named Alexander with a proposition: trading what seemed like harmless junk to free members of his family who where being held prisoner in the Gulag. Not realizing he was trading powerful historical artifacts, Artie complied. When he learned the true nature and implications of what he was trading, Artie turned himself in. Since he couldn't be convicted on paper for "trading mysterious junk", the official records state he was suspected of selling secrets in October of 1978, but never legally convicted. While being held in custody, Artie was approached by Mrs. Frederick, Warehouse 13's caretaker, who offered him a way out. When he agreed, she helped him legally change his name to Artie Nielsen to hide from the Russians, and got him into the Secret Service so that he could become her newest agent, alongside his partner, James MacPherson. For the next five years, the two of them worked in tandem, hunting down items for the Warehouse and helping the people they affected ... but there was one thing they couldn't completely cooperate on: they were both in love with the same person, a woman from Washington, DC named Carol. Little is known of what brought everything to a head, but in 1983, MacPherson turned against the Warehouse, believing that the artifacts they were locking away should be used for the benefit of the greater good. When Carol's home caught fire, MacPherson wanted to use a dangerous artifact, a golden phoenix pendant, to go in and attempt to save her. Artie tried to prevent it, as the Phoenix only made its bearer impervious to fire at the cost of the lives of people around them. As much as he loved Carol, he knew that saving one life was not worth the lives of innocents. MacPherson stole the Phoenix from Artie and went in after Carol. While she got out unscathed, James was the one who benefited from the Phoenix's powers, and a team of firefighters burst into ash in his place. MacPherson was arrested and tried for murder, and sent to prison, where he remained for two years before mysteriously disappearing.

On his own, Artie spent his time getting over both the shock of MacPherson's betrayal and the loss of Carol, who had loved James more despite what happened. He buried himself in his work, and over the next few years, came to know the endless corridors and artifacts of Warehouse 13 like the back of his hand, his human contact limited to Mrs. Frederick, her assistant Leena, and any other agents or civilians he came in contact with during his casework. In 1987, he caught wind of a professor at a local college who looked startlingly like MacPherson. Convinced that his former partner had escaped and was alive, he went to the college to apprehend him, and instead found himself caught up in an experiment with a student, Joshua Donovan, who was using an artifact in an attempt to teleport. Joshua's experiment was a disaster, and he disappeared, leaving his young sister Claudia alone. Unable to cope with losing someone to his own failure, Artie left Claudia behind to be taken in by foster parents ... only to regret it twelve years later. But we're getting ahead of things.

Artie continued his solitary life until 2009, when Mrs. Frederic recruited two more Secret Service agents to help him with his workload: Myka Bering and Pete Lattimer. Not long after the two came on board, the Warehouse's security system began to be hacked by degrees, until the hacker broke into Artie's office and kidnapped him, forcing him to help conduct an experiment. The hacker was none other than Claudia Donovan, who had discovered that Joshua was still alive and trapped in another dimension. With help from Pete and Myka, Artie managed to get Joshua back, and Claudia joined the Warehouse. Suddenly, Artie had more people to work with on a daily basis than he'd likely dealt with in almost a decade. The four of them quickly became a tight-knit team ... which became invaluable when MacPherson resurfaced and attempted to come after the Warehouse and its agents. Artie has managed to work with his team - by now, his friends - to keep the Warehouse safe ... but he had to do so by using the Phoenix artifact himself. Only one life was lost (Mrs. Frederick's chauffeur), but he still feels he has more in common now with his former partner than he should. MacPherson had been about to reveal the grand strokes of his plan to Artie when he was killed by another rogue agent he had freed. To make a long story short (too late?) at the time of his arrival, Artie has settled into somewhat of a routine again with his team, but they have another, possibly even more dangerous target to chase.

Character PERSONALITY:
The most important thing to consider about Artie Nielsen is that he has been in the employ of Warehouse 13 for so long that it's made its way into almost every facet of his personality. Being an agent has gone far beyond simply being his duty and become his life. His goals have been related to the Warehouse and its historical artifacts for so long that he may as well have "snag it, bag it, and tag it" tattooed over his heart, or someplace just as cliched. Because of the dangerous nature of Warehouse work, agents don't last very long, so he's grown used to keeping everyone he works with at an arm's length in certain regards. He will gradually develop close ties with colleagues and brothers-in-arms, but at the same time, he keeps his own personal history and the things he cares about close to the vest - the less someone knows about him, the safer he feels they are, and more importantly, the less he will hurt if they die, leave, or betray him like MacPherson did.

This isn't to say that Artie's completely his own personal Berlin Wall: even if he does have an easier time getting to know people he's professionally involved with, he's still personable with others and approachable to a reasonable degree. Just because he hasn't had anything even close to a proper social life since Disco was a thing, doesn't mean he won't make the occasional go of it (though, if women are involved, expect things to get awkward - he's never been particularly suave with them). He'll talk to people if approached, and be vaguely friendly - unless, of course, he's at work on something. Rule one of Artie's life has become Work Comes First. Whether he's trying to track down an item, unravel a puzzle, fix a broken computer, or remember some detail, he retreats into his own mind, tuning out and alternately either freezing up completely, or muttering incessantly to himself until he finds the answer he's looking for . Artie is single-minded and stubborn in his focus, to the point where he becomes ridiculously irritable if someone tries to distract or dissuade him. If he's pushed and poked too much - either in regard to his work, or his secrets - his temper will come out, and when it shows up, it's fast and hot. He's learned to remove himself from a situation when he gets extremely angry, for the most part, preferring to go work on something alone until he's cooled down... but there are certain things that will not stand and thus incur the Wrath of Artie: particularly promise-breakers or anyone who attempts to hurt the people he cares about and has promised, himself, to protect. He considers himself a good judge of character, and feels he knows who he can trust and who's a bad egg - and he'll defend his choices vehemently until proven wrong beyond even a shadow of a doubt.

This stubbornness and aggression makes Artie seem like a close-lipped, anti-social jerk to some people when they meet him at first, and he'd be the first to admit that he isn't a garden-variety Nice Guy. Those who do eventually get to know him will soon realize, however, that it's mostly a defense mechanism: both to help filter out the people he's sure he can trust, and a way to stay within his own emotional comfort zones. Between growing up with an almost stereotypically Jewish father and being such a dedicated, well-worn agent, it's no wonder that Artie is a matryoshka doll of secrets, self-preservation, snark, pride, and guilt ... but at the center of it all, he's a man who could be said to care almost too much about the things and the people he's taken to heart. He keeps the promises he makes, and if anything prevents him from doing so, the guilt weighs him down almost intolerably. Once he finds a cause worth fighting for, he will fight for it to the death, with blatant disregard and even recklessness. This reflects to such an extent that he outright takes terrible care of himself, forgoing exercise habits, and overall physical care if his time could be better spent doing something productive and pertinent to his goals or mission (he once went several days without sleeping in order to try and figure out who was hacking the Warehouse's database). If anyone presses him about this, he'll wave it off or ignore them and change the subject, but internally, he's made up his mind: he accepted long ago that his job would eventually kill him, so in the end, it doesn't really matter how it happens as long as he goes out doing his duty. All in all, he's practically a poster candidate for the Initiative.

» EXSILIUM INFORMATION
Chosen WEAPON: Artie's weapon will be his Tesla: an electricity-discharging weapon designed for Warehouse agents with technology created by Nikola Tesla himself.

To start, the dial will only be able to be tuned as far as the 2nd setting, which stuns people into unconsciousness, comparable to a taser. The weapon will also only fire two times before needing to recharge (canon does not say how long this takes, but mun will dictate at least two hours, for continuity purposes in-game). As Artie's Tesla evolves, it will be able to regain its original settings, which range all the way up to 5 - capable of reducing a humanoid lifeform to ash. In addition, the amount of memory a blast can displace will increase, up to a potential maximum of 22 hours and 19 minutes. A second dial will appear on the Tesla to control this duration.

Character INVENTORY: Artie will have his wallet (credit cards, driver's license, Subway card, photos of his parents and of the team, $42 in US dollars) and his black doctor's bag, which is his field kit for Warehouse work. For the sake of avoiding godmoding, I am removing the more powerful artifacts canonically mentioned as part of Artie's Emergency Kit. The bag contains the following:

- Artie's Tesla (as detailed above)
- Various "normal" small tools (pliers, hammer, scissors, wrench)
- Set of lock picks
- Notebook and pens
- Analog Password Decoder
- Francois Villon's inkwell - a very small portable hole, basically.
- Artie's Farnsworth communication device, which will be replaced by his tablet. Eventually, though, he will likely ask the folks in the Hold to help him sync it, because Old Things Are Familiar And Good.
- An artifacted tuning fork which can restore hearing to people who've temporarily lost it due to loud noises (or noise-cancelling artifacts). Good for triage after explosions.

As for the clothing he'll arrive in, Artie dresses buisness-casual: dress pants and short-sleeved dress shirts, with a long brown trenchcoat and black, broad-brimmed fedora. He wears wire-rimmed glasses for nearsightedness, and as of his canon point, will be carrying around the silver pocket watch left to him by MacPherson rather than wearing a wristwatch.

» PREVIOUS GAME INFORMATION ( IF APPLICABLE ) N/A

» SAMPLES
First PERSON:
[the tablets' video feed turns on to show Artie squinting into the screen, his glasses perched on top of his head and nearly lost in the forest of his hair. he speaks in a mumble, and it's not entirely clear if he's trying to talk to the other Initiates, or just to himself]

Okay, soooo... this isn't all that different from a Farnsworth, good. I have to say, the keyboard is a welcome addition, though it's going to take some getting used to all the extra bells and whist-- is that a text? [his voice rises slightly] Did someone just text me on this thing? I can't reply to you right now, I'm trying to figure out the video feed, I'll look at it later, or - can't you just ask me here, right now? Unless it's private, in which case I guess you -- no, you know what, never mind. [one hand flutters just at the edge of the feed's field of vision, dismissively]

Is there a manual for this? I do so much better with manuals ... where the hell did I put my glasses ...

Third PERSON:
He wasn't even sure what to do with himself, in perfect honesty. The promise of a mission and a purpose, along with the reassurance that he'd still be helping people, well ... it had calmed Artie down enough to keep from going up one side of his welcoming committee and down the other. He'd been able to focus on that, clinging to it like the Driftwood from the Titanic. Now that he'd thawed and begun to adjust, however, he was realizing just how vastly different living among the Resistance was going to be. True, there were missions and goals, and there was research and work, and that in itself was passingly similar to the Warehouse, but it wasn't the same. He didn't know every aisle, every shelf, every vault and equipment quirk as he had in the vast facility that had been his home for over half his life. To be uprooted and placed here - it was a long list of tricks of an old dog. But it was his duty for the time being, and Artie figured he'd be damned if he was going to completely bail out on the people who'd decided they needed him, and him specifically.

First though, he had to get his bearings, which was what had brought him out of the apartment building and down into the streets. Not for the first time, he was glad he'd arrived wearing his hat - while he didn't mind rain too badly, he didn't relish the thought of catching a chill in a place where they might not even have canned chicken soup. Pulling his collar up around his neck - and getting a few snatches of an old 80s song stuck in his head in the process - Artie tried to remember where they'd told him the market was. Not that it made much difference: as he looked down one end of the street, then the other, the nostalgia rolled over him like waves of heat off summer pavement. True, he'd never set foot in Exsilium before recently, but the feel of the place, the sheer desolation and spareness of it struck his heart down into his shoes. He swallowed, and reflexively checked over his shoulder to make sure he wasn't being followed. For the briefest of seconds, he could have sworn he was back in the slums of Russia, on his way to a safehouse to trade something with Alexander. Burying his hands in his pockets, Artie trudged forward, hoping to leave the deja vu behind - but it followed him like a shadow, scuttled around the corners and whispered to him from gutters. He shook his head, stubbornly forcing the memories from his mind and attempting to look at it all with fresh eyes.

"Never mind what it said," he muttered to himself, stuffing his hands in his pockets, sloshing around the edge of a puddle, "what does it say? Not a lot of money here aside from this Initiative, most of the people must really have to scrape for what they've got, these people, this - this this this United Earth - must have an iron fist on everything and -" He stopped, noticing a young boy under the eaves of an entryway, staring at him as he talked to himself, barely audible over the rain. The boy ducked inside at being noticed, but not before Artie could notice the sorry state of his clothes, how skinny he was. "God. ... How do people even live here?"

His fingers closed around the marques in his pocket, and he set his jaw. Of course he needed supplies, and he'd get as much as he could. But on his way back, he resolved, he'd leave something on the doorstep, something for the boy and his family. Something that would keep in the rain. Not everyone, he thought, with a sort of bitter amusement, had the benefit of being an insurgent from another time.

» ADDITIONAL NOTES N/A