Michael Altman

Michael Altman is a geophysicist from future Earth. He arrived in-game on 02/16/11 and currently lives in Banks.

age: Mid-40's

origins: Dead Space: Martyr, canon

app link: app here

hmd: hmd

played by: Vic

contact: vicioushallway @ aim

Setting
Use this space to write about your character's homeworld! This is very similar to what we ask on the application. In fact, you can even C&P the material from your app.

This section should provide an easy breakdown of your character's canon for those unfamiliar with your series. Outside links are encouraged!

Personality
Prior to his exposure to the Black Marker, Altman was a normal man. Good at his job, fairly amiable with his coworkers, and a loving boyfriend who carefully selected his job to be with his girlfriend, he was a generally good man. He had a good life, enjoying relative stability and a loving companion and things looked like they were going his way. Then everything went wrong with his life.

The Michael Altman of today is a man defined by his mistakes.

His curiosity is likely his most damning trait, considering it's what got him into his current mess. Altman's curiosity often gets the best of him, urging him on when it would really be better to leave well enough alone. There were several points where he had the opportunity to step away and separate himself from the drama surrounding the Marker, and at several points he was encouraged to by his girlfriend, but Altman's desire to follow things through to the end for better or for worse has always won out.

Altman is smart, the sort of man who can look at a situation and see what others miss, capable of thinking quickly and decisively when he needs to. The problem is there are times when he simply doesn't think, letting his desire to know more take over where he should be relying on commonsense. Altman is stubborn as hell, curiosity aside, and hates to back down or drop something for conveniences sake (or safety, for that matter). He likes to see things through to the end, and isn't one to half-ass things or give up. Even when things are at their worst his stubbornness wins out--facing off against the Krax he could have given up immediately, or tried to kill himself, but even against such a vastly superior opponent he at least tries to fight back and is killed horribly for his efforts.

The fact that everything could have been avoided if he had just listened to his girlfriend and kept his promise hasn't escaped him, and he now feels responsible for her death. Not only did he fail to keep her safe, but she spent the last chunk of her life obsessed with the Marker and convinced her boyfriend was some sort of prophet. Many of the issues that fucked over his life were a result of Altman not knowing when to run away and stop, making... well, pretty much everything his fault. Not exactly the kind of thing that you get over easily.

Altman was never a religious individual, but his encounter with the Marker and its followers has left him less than enthralled with religion as a whole. He'll now be far more uneasy with those who are very vocal about any sort of religious belief, having seen what happens with the particularly devout go wrong. His experience with the Marker did not leave him unscathed, but compared to the rest of those exposed to the Marker his hallucinations were relatively simple (limited to Ada and her mother) and he suffered fairly mild symptoms (such as intense headaches). Most of Altman's trauma came from those being severely affected by the Marker, between those who were suicidal, homicidal, or simply obsessed with the idea that Altman was their prophet. Even with the necromorphs running around, it was human hands that hurt him the most.

It's also worth noting that between weeks of stress, torture, monsters, forceful confinement, immense stretches of isolation, and just general abuse, Altman's mental state is extremely unsteady as of his introduction to Sacrosanct. He's coming fresh from his death, just after learning the full story behind Ada's death, being handed a spoon, and forced to fight the monster known as the Krax. He's still a nice guy, he's just also horribly broken and messed up now. While he'll initially be quite disturbed from the events of the novel, he should eventually settle down and level out in an environment sans necromorphs/unitologists/hallucinations of dead loved ones.

Abilities & Weaknesses
Altman is intelligent and a quick thinker, able to make the most of what he has on hand, but aside from that he's just an average, squishy human being. Do you want to talk about rocks and seismologic events? He's totally your man. He's even picked up a few anthropological tidbits from his girlfriend! But seriously, don't expect him to do well in a fight beyond doing the best he can with what resources he has.

He's outfitted with a civilian rig, which includes a glowing spinal display which gives visual feedback on the wearers vital stats in the form of glowing bars (full bar = full health, diminishing down through yellow to red to offline for dead). It also contains a holographic communications system built in, capable of sending and receiving video, audio, and text. With mod permission, I would like to have his wearable partially integrated into his rig systems so that, while wearing his rig, he can access the network through his more familiar interface.

Character Relationships
Isaac Clarke; Alejandro Borges; Anon; Shockwave; Zaeed Massani;

Free Space
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