[D O M I N I Q U E]
[35] | [MALE] | [6'3"] | [A-]General Information
NAME:Dominique Marce
ALIASES // TITLES:Bastard
Evil Bastard
Devious Bastard
Black Beard
<-This one is what he uses in businessSEX:Male
AGE:36
APPEARANCE: Dominique is one who embodies the saying of "the clothes make the man". It doesn't matter the job, you can always find him sporting the same three-piece black high-class suit he so proudly calls his own and that he treats as the most prized of his possessions. This, however, is as far as his care for presentation goes. Being unkempt at the best of times and downright squalid at worst, you can always smell some kind of alcohol in his breath. The right side of his head is shaved cleanly and the remaining dark-brown hair on his head is brushed towards the left in a wave and kept in place by copious amounts of hair gel, a bottle of which he keeps in his pocket for use on the go. His natural pale frame stands at a quite tall 6'3", and coupled with his usual getup, it is of particular help in intimidating people around him when it is convenient. His eyes, when not covered by dark glasses, are of a dark green color, and his scruffy beard covers most of his face adding on to his disheveled look. A cybernetic metallic arm can be seen adorned in place of his former blood and flesh limb, being very ordinary in appearance as far as cyberware goes, spending most of the time being hidden beneath his sleeves.
OCCUPATION:Dominique has spent most of his life working as a mercenary. Cutting deals between underground businesses, offering protection, smuggling goods, or whatever kind of business his quick wits and steady aim could be useful in. There was very little he hasn't dabbled his hands on in this city, even in its darkest corners and crevices. As such he has an intimate knowledge of the workings in the territory and the powers that control it, building a rather extensive network of connections and a reputation for being a reliable person to get things done, but also getting along with it a good amount of enemies that would very much enjoy to see his head on a plate.
CAMPAIGN TEAM POSITION:Dominique works as a proper mercenary for Campbell, thus his job is just doing what the man may require of him. This, in turn, involves doing a multitude of things, such as muscle work, protection, on-site security, and whatever else comes in with the craft. The darker dealings of his business are not included in the job description, but as far as he is concerned, they are always available to his boss should he need it, and Dominique is not one to shy away from doing whatever it requires if it will be of benefit to him and his cause.
Psychological Profile
Cruel | Resourceful | Cunning | Fearless | Greedy | Charismatic
PERSONAL GOAL: Dominique was never a person of sure goals. To him being able to live a life of riches and power was his aim in some way or the other, even buying a space of his own in one of the Orbital Stations been a faint desire of his. His job and abilities were mostly able to afford him just that to a degree. For a time. As it so happens, being a mercenary is not a secure line of work and sooner or later it may come back to bite you in the ass. Enemies and debts made along the way are now looking to get their payment back from him, in more ways than one, and in the meanwhile, his previous job became one that he simply was unable to take part in anymore.
This, in turn, meant that Dominique was now beholden to the wills of others. His life became less of a matter of earning money, and more of a matter of doing what he needs to survive, for those that needed him. And that was not the only thing worrying him either. The Cyber Plague that haunted him at every step of his journey chose the worst time to come back at full force, and the cybernetics that had many times saved his life now seemed intent on taking it from him. He, however, was not resigned to return to mediocrity once again. Beset by danger at all sides and with a bleak future in sight, a beast forced into a corner, there was nothing Dominique wouldn't do if it meant he could take grasp of his destiny once again.
CAMPAIGN GOAL:Dominique lived most of his life in the Reclaim Zone. He saw the downtrodden and hopeless, lived amongst them. He saw what they suffered. He saw the people that took advantage of them, the ones who wielded the real power in their hands, that dictated the lives of everyone around them. And he saw people like Campbell too. Those that hoped to rise above all the dirt around them and bring true fairness and justice into the world around them. All fools, he called them. Except it was now in one of those fools that he found his only chance.
It didn't matter how he tried to spin it, the truth is that as much as many people were skeptic about his campaign, many others saw hope in Campbell, and that hope was capable of wielding an impressive power and spread like wildfire as it started to become reality. In the candidate, he saw the opportunity to rise to something greater, if only he could ride on his coattails. Perhaps in different times, he would have placed a safer bet, but now he didn't have that luxury anymore. Now he needed to make sure that Campbell made a name for himself, to rise to a position of power where he would have influence in the ongoings of this district. For his own sake.
And he was not the only one counting on that. Influences from the shadows were the ones that pointed Dominique towards this path, out of their own selfish interest too. It only made it all the clearer how many people potentially saw the candidate as their own lifeboat, threatening to capsize him in the meantime and drag him back down into the sea. Dominique needed to make sure the boat stayed afloat, and that in the end, he was still on top of it. Perhaps, even directing it to some effect.
PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY:Dominique believed that only one thing dictated how the world worked. Power. Not only the kind that manifested itself in pure strength but also the ones that were present in day-to-day life. Influence, money, weapons, information, those were all different faces of the same thing, power. Only someone who confidently wielded those things could say they had control over not only their own destiny but also that of the world around him. This was how those corporate titans were able to dominate the world and have such pull over the government. No manner of planning or plotting was useful in front of absolute power. It was a simple concept, but many people refused to accept it. Not him though. This was a belief that commanded his life.
Since he had been a child, this thought had been growing in his mind in some way or the other. Dominique and those around him suffered under those stronger than them for most of their life, but the feelings of self-pity for their own situation and hate for their torturers gradually transformed into disdain for their own mediocrity and admiration for a power that was out of his reach. He saw those around him resigned to their own fates, accepting that this was how they would live until their deaths, letting the desire in their hearts die. This gradually formed a conviction in his own mind, that he would never let himself fall into this mentality again. He would never allow himself to be ordinary. Dominique would become powerful in this life no matter the cost, or he would die in the middle of that road.
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY: Dominique, perhaps not surprisingly, has never been one to care much about political ideologies. The situation of the Reclaim Zone had been the same for most of his life since the riots in 2035, a continuous deterioration no matter who was in command, and his job had never been too heavily affected by it. This, however, didn't mean that the man did not have knowledge of the overall situation or someone whom he supported for the office, which mostly involved whoever would be best for his business.
Contrary to what one might believe, he didn't support the Neo-Transhumanist party too much, since their agenda to deregulate human enhancement legislation would mean his underground business of smuggling those kinds of illegal cyberware goods would take a massive hit, though he could see where the opportunity lay if he were able to take part of more legitimate dealings. In the bottom of his list, were definitely the Neo-Luddite and the Central Party, the former which is entirely against cybernetics in the first place and the latter which receives the support from large corporations and would definitely not look kindly on the underground dealings of the Reclaim Zone. The Hyperhuman party is one that Dominique couldn't find any fault with, but whose prospects didn't look very good in the region. Thusly, the one whom he supported the most was definitely the Pirate Party.
This decision was not for any other reason than their stigma of revolutionaries and radical platform, which, his own beliefs put aside, would definitely cause no minor amount of chaos and political strife in the region where they tried to be elected in. And it was exactly in that kind of chaos that someone like Dominique could thrive.
SECRETS:Dominique has no small amount of secrets, but there are some in particular which could certainly cost his reputation and job, if not downright his life, were they to be discovered. The first, of course, was in regards to his job. He never made much of an attempt to hide that he was involved in the underground world of the Reclaim Zone. Even without having mentioned it to Campbell, with the way he carries himself it's not a difficult supposition to make, but what people don't know is how deep the rabbit hole goes. The things Dominique has done in the name of profit would definitely not sit well with the majority of people. From capturing living human subjects from the slums for Ripper Docs to experiment with, to killing and torturing those that provoked the wrong people, many are the terrible things that he has done in his line of work. Although most of those acts were properly hidden from prying eyes in the slums of Reclaim Zone, were they to be brought to the light of the public, prison would be the least of Dominique's concerns.
His other major secret is related to his cybernetics. Much of his success in the underworld was due to a cybernetic augmentation that he had received by offering himself up as experimentation to a notorious Ripper Doc called Phantom Chrome. This beneath-the-skin augmentation greatly improved the response time of his nervous system and granted Dominique inhuman reflexes and hand-eye coordination. The man certainly didn't expect this gift to come without its consequences, but when they started to appear they were much more severe than even he had expected. As something that touched directly upon the functioning of the brain, the SPECS originated from it was much more severe than any normal case of Cyber Plague, and its symptoms developed far earlier than expected. He started suffering from cases of psychosis and hallucinations, only alleviated by the constant use of Neurosynth and avoiding the repeated use of his cybernetics.
With the worsening case of SPECS, Dominique started to frantically search for a solution. It wasn't until later when he was approached by a cult of Ripper Docs that he was offered a way out. They would improve upon the prototype augmentation to alleviate the effect of the SPECS in exchange for his service. He was to approach Campbell, make sure he was elected, and to lobby the interest of the Ripper Docs in his campaign, possibly even in the pursuit of eventually making their business legal in the Reclaim Zone. It was no minor task, in fact probably even an entire impossibility, but Dominique, left with no choice, could only agree to the matter.
FEARS:Dominique doesn't fear death. Perhaps at some point in his life that was the case, but not anymore. What he fears is not being in control of his own life, and the SPECS that threatens to scramble his own mind is something that makes the prospect all the more likely. It haunts him in his every waking moment, causing a vicious cycle where his own worry just worsens the symptoms of the plague. One of the ways he finds to alleviate that is by drinking and doing drugs, in particular, Neurosynth.
This, however, is not the only fear that Dominique finds himself possessed with. In truth, there was something more deeply seated in his consciousness, a more primal fear. It all stemmed from his childhood, from those people around him. The weak, the desperate, the hopeless, those that resigned themselves to their fates, those that simply accept their lot in life. Whenever he thinks about the prospect of not being in control of himself anymore, his thoughts would always wander back to those images. Anger, and hate, and fear would take him over. Above all, he is afraid of mediocrity. He fears being ordinary, and that is perhaps the origin of all his difficulties.
REPUTATION:Dominique, or Black Beard as he so likes being called in the business, is a moderately reputable person in the Reclaim Zone. On the surface, most people know him to be a tough mercenary that works in protecting establishments against thieves and recuperating stolen merchandise, having the reputation of a reliable worker and a good network of people to help him. On the underground, however, the truth was not as simple. There he was known for acting with an iron fist and no small amount of violence. Business owners knew to hire him when they needed to have goods smuggled or people dealt with, and between his client, there were quite a lot of Ripper Docs. Despite that, he knew on whose toes he could and could not step in, and at least on the surface, he avoided provoking enemies too big for him. That kind of reputation, though, was common for someone in his line of work in the Reclaim Zone. His darker dealings and acts, however, were only known by a very few and a select amount of people, and if they were to come to the public eye in the Reclaim Zone it was hard to say what might happen.
LIKES:
-Power of all kinds
-Violence
-Drugs and alcohol (not his choice)
-Being in control of the situation
-His gun
-His suitDISLIKES:
-Not being in control of the situation
-Self-righteous people
-Weakness, and all signs of it
-Too much regulationQUIRKS:-He always stops whatever he is doing to adjust and clean his suit.
-He walks with a hair gel bottle and a brush in his pockets.
-He talks by himself a lot.
Background Information
βI will live up there one day. You'll see...β
Dominique Marce was born and raised in the Reclaim Zone, to his own bad luck and of those around him. He grew up during the very decline of the district into the hell that it is today. He saw through the windows of his own slum of a house as the Enforcers clashed against the droves of people. His mom had told him through tears the very next day his father had gone to a better place and wouldn't be coming back, something that would take quite a while for him to process. He walked through the streets when the riots were over, saw the dried blood in the sidewalks, people fighting and screaming at each, Enforcers beating down offenders and guarding every corner. He lived through the hell that was the riots, where his own father died and the world around him started going down a path there was no return from. It shaped him, made him who he was today, and he couldn't have been any more thankful for the suffering he went through.
After the riots had died down, everyone who lived in the Reclaim Zone could vividly feel that the place had started to change. Perhaps it wasn't until the Enforcers started moving out from the region that Dominique and his mother realized how difficult their lives would be moving forward. The boy was barely 6 years old at the time, and it was only with the help of his extended family and neighbors that they could barely have enough to scrape by. The following years he had grown up during most of his infancy playing in the street, much to his mother's dissatisfaction. In there, even the kids organized in gangs, following the example of their superiors, and Dominique suffered no small amount of beatings from boys double his size. During that time, he was finally was able to see properly how cruel the world could be, with barely enough to eat, and no small amount of times where their house was robbed of their valuables, he had a difficult time growing up and was forced to work for scraps as soon as he was old enough.
By that time, 6 years after his father's death, his mother had remarried. His and his mother's lives had become more sustainable after the fact, but a few months of living together, Dominique started to become a nuisance in his stepfather's eyes, and much to his dismay his mother did very little to defend him. Their relationship deteriorated even further with time when his mother became pregnant, and the boy, as young as he was, was forced to spend most of his time out of the house lest he was beaten to death by the man, only coming back to sleep. At that point, he had become a street rat through and through, stealing and fighting for money and food, as well as doing the occasional odd job for a business owner who was feeling generous enough. He saw many kids like him too, most of which didn't manage to survive. The brutality of the world was presented in full display for Dominique to see, and perhaps due to his ability and a touch of luck, he managed to live through it without dying.
When the boy was 15 years old he had already stopped living with his mother and stepfather. He felt bitter and angry at the time about the fact his mother had never come looking for him after that, but later in his life, those feelings simply transformed into contempt and indifference. By then Dominique could be said to be a gang member to some degree, even at his age. He was taller than most of the kids around him and had a knack for fighting. While most other recruits were simply being used as scapegoats for their gang's operations, the boy with his quick wits and glib tongue had managed to gain sympathy from his superiors and was relegated to more important things that didn't involve getting shot in a dark alley, at least not as much. It was during that time too that he killed someone for the first time. Some idiot kid who thought they could get the upper hand over their gang by screwing them out of money. Dominique's thoughts at the time were pretty chaotic and fearful of being caught. Thinking back at it now, he only wished that he had done the job a bit more cleanly.
Such was his life until he was over 20 years old. Going from gang to gang doing small jobs, many of which ended up dismantling in the end, sometimes even by his own hand, making connections, and finally opening up his future path. It was only when he was 24 that the man decided to partake in a business with a better outlook but with a similar set of skills he used in streets. That is, of course, that of a mercenary. He had started by joining a mercenary band, some so-called called Red Wolves, or whatever other stupid names they used, and by then he was doing very modest jobs with little payment, many of which didn't even involve handling a weapon. Surely, the time necessary to work up the ranks was far longer in this line of work than in gangs, but still, he persevered and continued doing one of the things he was best in. Building connections. It wasn't until he was 26 that he started working on more important jobs, as well as the underground ones, such as cutting illegal business deals or extorting people for money. When he was 28 and the mercenary company seemed to be down in its luck, Dominique decided to quit and pursue a career on his own.
Having built a good network of connections during that time, he took like a fish to the water in the Reclaim Zone, exploring business opportunities many before him didn't see, and finally starting to build upon the reputation of Black Beard that he is known for today. When he was 34, however, he was involved in a brutal fight against a corporate thug that ended up with him losing his left arm. With very little time to look for options before he could potentially be killed by opportunists, Dominique approached a Ripper Doc recommended to him trying to install a cybernetic arm, one by the name of Phantom Chrome. This doc, in turn, made him a proposal to install a new neural system cybernetic he had been developing, one that had extreme amounts of potential in its abilities, but that hadn't been tested extensively before. After no small amount of convincing and negotiating, Dominique agreed to the proposal, seeing as how this might give him a considerable edge in the business, and had it installed alongside his cybernetic arm in a painful and long procedure which was one of the worst experiences the man had ever had in his life.
But, oh, the rewards, they all paid off in the end. With the two new cybernetics in hand, Dominique's threat to his opponents increased many a fold, and he became known too for his incredible abilities with a gun in hand and usefulness in a fight. A true legendary western shooter, some called him. And best of all, the business boomed. After all, what more someone could ask of a mercenary in the business other than being smart and good with a gun. Truly, nothing could go wrong for Dominique at that point in his life. Until, not surprisingly, things went wrong.
It had started with a few strange visions. Outbursts of inexplicable rage, Those around him thought him only to be in an angry mood, but who knew him better than himself? If the episodes happened so often in the public when he controlled his temper, what about in private when no one was with him? And then the headaches came, threatening to split his head apart. It didn't take long for the answer to come into Dominique's mind. It was SPECS. Much early than commonly seen, but the symptoms were all there. And they were developing much faster than they should. Desperation slowly set in, as Dominique did all he could to stop the development. Alcohol and drugs, more importantly, Neurosynth, became increasingly consumed goods in his life, until he could barely control himself. By extension too, his business suffered greatly, and he had not too much of a mind to give it attention. He set to search for the so-called Phantom Chrome, only to find much to his dismay that the man had seemingly disappeared. When everything seemed set on stone and he could only wait for his slow demise, he was approached by a cult of Ripper Docs who presented him with an offer. Work for us and we will save you, don't and you will die. With such persuasive arguments, Dominique made a very hard choice, and set himself in course to work for the up and coming candidate Campbell. Perhaps in the middle of it, other than saving himself, he could also find a way to achieve true greatness.
Operative Information
AUGMENTATIONS:=Custom FuryTech Silvershade Cybernetic Arm=This cyberware was made with Dominique's style of combat in mind. Installed by the same Ripper Doc, this is a very light but powerful limb that is specifically design for fast movement and combat, being covered by a series of silver-shaded plates in the outer parts of both upper arm and forearm, while being filled within by carbon-fiber designed around fast explosive movements, the black muscle-like material being faintly observable from outside between the cracks in the plates. The model is not an original one and was adapted as necessary to replace the original missing parts, but even so, the augmentation proves itself a huge help in combat for Dominique.
=Prototype Phantom Chrome Neural Network Mk.??=The cybernetic can not be seen from a simple glance at the user, its presence only being made evident when one looks directly at the man's back. A blue, faintly glowing hexagonal shape can be seen right on the back of his neck, and from it dozens of smaller vein like connection glowing with the same color extend themselves all around his body from that point, further separating and resulting in hundreds of such lines that eventually fade off into the color of the man's skin. What can't be seen, however, is that those lines also extend further into his head, even behind his own eyes, something that gives it a faint blue hue if one pays enough attention. It is a truly bizarre sight, one that Dominique doesn't like people looking at. The strength of the cybernetic, however, lies in its capability of transmitting information to and fro along the body and brain in far superior speeds than the normal human body is capable of. This, in turn, improves Dominique's reflexes and even hand-to-eye coordination, making him a truly dangerous force in combat. Continuous use of the cybernetic is not recommended.
EQUIPMENT:=FuryTech Phoenix Handgun V.3=This gun was specifically chosen by Dominique with his own cybernetic capabilities in mind. It has a rather large hilt, being completely smooth in its design and with a medium sized barrel for a pistol. It is completely black with the exception of a long red horizontal line that decorates both of it's with the name of the gun in golden letter engraved in the middle. As far as capabilities go, this weapon is not very strong in terms of firepower compared to some other handguns, but what it does well is having minimal ricochet when fired, being top of the market in this aspect, thus providing one with a steady aim that allows for multiple shots with very small deviation, the perfect weapon for someone like Dominique who has good reflexes and coordination and can quickfire very adeptly.
=Military Grade Bayonet Knife=A simple knife made of the highest quality carbon steel that can be attached to the barrel of a gun. This was something that the man managed to acquire from his time working in a mercenary band. The blade and the handle are completely black, and he keeps it on the opposite side of his belt to the gun. Dominique uses this knife in hand-to-hand combat, and signs of wear and tear can be seen on the weapon from its constant use.
SKILLS:=Combat Expert=When you pretty much fight and beat people up for a living, turns out you become pretty good at it. This is the case with Dominique too. Even though he never received any kind of special training, he fought since he was a kid with his fists, and when he was older and stakes started to be higher, he started fighting dirty too. In his mind, everything is valid as long as he comes out on top in the end. As for the kind of weapons he specializes in, they are mostly knives and pistols, the lighter kinds that can be carried in public without bringing much attention to it and that can be taken out and used in a pinch whenever he may need it.
=Street Smarts=Having grown up in the streets of Reclaim Zone, Dominique knows its every corner like the back of his hand. Whether it may be who dominates what part of the city, who to watch out for, and even where you can find Ripper Docs who are looking for eager clients. Whatever one may need, as long as it exists in the district, he almost certainly knows where you can find it or who can do it. He built a huge network of connections with lots of peoples in this place, and for better or for worse, his destiny is most certainly deeply connected with what happens in there.
=Glib Tongue=Besides his combat skills, another thing that helped Dominique live and thrive in the underground of the Reclaim Zone was most certainly his persuasive talents. Were it not for knowing how to please and convince other people either through lies or simple flattery, he wouldn't still be alive to this day, much less find as much success as he did in his line of work. This, in turn, proves itself perhaps an even more important strength than his own combat skills, since, at the end of the day, it's also what he will need to rely on if he wants to achieve his goals in Campbell's campaign while keeping his head on his shoulders.
FLAWS:=Violent Psychosis=Dominique had always been a man that favored violence as a method of achieving his goals above everything else, and as the symptoms of SPECS started to develop, that same mentality started to seep into his entire reality. It is not uncommon for the man to have sudden outbursts of violence in the middle of the day, whether it be in public or in private, and luckily those most come through sudden screaming in the middle of conversations that generally are easy to see, but as time goes on, one can only imagine that they may begin to escalate into something more physical as his mind continues to suffer from the consequences of SPECS.
=Substance Abuse=As befitting of someone suffering from the effects of the Cyber Plague, Dominique has found one sure way of dealing with it. That being substance abuse. Alcohol is a frequent consumption in his life but nothing works for him quite like Neurosynth. As much as he would not like to admit it, he has since become in no little ways addicted to the drug, and he can't go more than a few days without it and not have serious symptoms of withdrawal, another problem he will have to deal with in the future, but one he has no mind to think about right now.
=Sociopathic Behavior=There was no easy way to put it, but Dominique simply didn't care much about other people, and any semblance of doing so was merely for his own benefits and for the sake of fitting in with others. Other might simply call him a sociopath for it, but the truth is that he thought caring for a world that never cared for him was stupid in the first place. Whichever way you put it, though, it was a simple truth that trying to look for sympathy in the man is a doomed task from the start, and as such he didn't care much for the plights of the fellow man.
NOTES:
Creative Chaos,
NoriWasHere,
Atrophy
