Ivan Vorpatril (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ivanyouidiot) wrote2013-07-01 06:16 pm
ivanyouidiot) wrote2013-07-01 06:16 pm
Exsilium App
» CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character NAME: Ivan Vorpatril
Canon & MEDIUM: Vorkosigan Saga, book
Canon PULL-POINT: Post-Cetaganda
Character AGE: 22
Character ABILITIES: Ivan is 6'1" and the picture model of a Barrayaran aristocrat. As well as being quite attractive, he had no problem with the physical regimen necessary to either qualify for or graduate from the Imperial Academy. He's been instructed in hand-to-hand and weaponized (stunners and nerve disruptors) combat. Despite having been on desk duty since his graduation from the Academy, he keeps himself quite fit. For all that, of course, he is a pretty typical fit man in his early twenties: his physical abilities aren't particularly noteworthy in the society he inhabits. He's also charming, to match his exterior attractiveness.
Character HISTORY: The planet of Barrayar was colonized in the 23rd century, via a wormhole that soon proved to be unstable. In the aftermath, the colonists' descendants created a feudal society over the next six hundred years, until contact with the outside world was reestablished via a new jump route. It's been a little over a hundred years since that contact, and Barrayar is still a world driven by its own, often backwater, instincts and its need to survive amidst the galactic reality.
Ivan Vorpatril was born in an abandoned building in the poor part of the city, less than an hour after his father was killed trying to save his mother, in a political power struggle that led his mother, a wealthy socialite, who'd spent her life living in luxury to face circumstances she'd never imagined. The power struggle was ended soon after, restoring Ivan's mother to her place in society and allowing Ivan to be raised as a Lord in the feudal Barrayaran society.
Ivan grew up very close to his cousin, Miles Vorkosigan, with whom he only has a couple of months' difference in age. He's a little more distant from his other cousin, Gregor Vorbarra, the Emperor of Barrayar, but that's more a matter of the age difference (Ivan is four years younger), maturity, and Gregor's position as Emperor. The bond of blood is still something that's considered important. Miles, however, was injured before birth in an assassination attempt on his parents which lead to his body being greatly damaged. Ivan served as physical support when Miles needed it, as well as following Miles' orders beyond that.
After childhood, Ivan went to the Imperial Academy, graduated from it, and was posted to a desk job on Barrayar itself (and not the ship job that he'd hoped for). He works mostly on paperwork and low-level things, although his social rank did permit him to accompany Miles as representatives of Barrayar to the world of Cetaganda for the dowager Empress's funeral. Relations between Cetaganda and Barrayar have long been quite chilly, and Ivan and Miles get tangled up in an internal Cetagandan plot and survive attempts to embarrass and then kill them.
Character PERSONALITY: The first thing that people (or at least men, women tend to see Ivan's charm and flirtatiousness and sometimes, if Ivan's lucky, not much else by way of personality) tend to notice about Ivan is that he isn't very bright. As a child, his name was more often than not accompanied with an epithet, making it Ivan-you-idiot. To some degree this is a deliberately cultivated impression. Only three people would have to die for Ivan to be Emperor. Ivan doesn't have political ambitions, and the best way to avoid being embroiled in politics anyway is to not be bright enough to keep up with them. The rest of it is that Ivan actually is that much of a fool. He's the picture-perfect version of a Barrayaran officer, so long as he stays out of any situations which would require him to take initiative or think for himself. While he notices the necessary details, he's been surrounded by people who will put together the pieces faster than he will, so he tends to simply sit back and expect someone else. He's technically capable of keeping up mentally, but it would require effort and it wouldn't gain him anything, so he doesn't struggle for it.
Ivan, in general, knows just enough about politics and intrigue and intergalactic struggles to know that he's quite happy being a glorified secretary for someone who makes the real decisions. He likes cities, and while ship duty is the siren call to nearly any Barrayaran soldier with a dream of galactic explorations, Ivan likes being stationed in Barrayar's capital, where both the threats and the women are known quantities. He would be happy to see his mother a little less obsessed with his future (which in her mind includes settling down and getting married) and give him a little more space, but beyond that he's fairly comfortable with a planetary assignment.
One of Ivan's undeniably positive traits is his loyalty. He believes in Barrayar, his emperor, and his cousin, and he will do what is asked of him in regards to those. While he would rather hand things off to a chain of command, rather than the more self-guided approach that his cousin favors, he does so as much out of a wish to see things properly handled and a belief that this is the way for it to happen as he does it out of a desire to cover his own back. He's uncomfortable making important decisions on his own, and is in fact very good at following orders, and he knows it.
Family also means quite a lot to Ivan. He has no siblings, his father died the day he was born, and his mother dotes on him to a degree that he finds uncomfortable, but his cousin, Miles, means a lot to him, even if Ivan doesn't always show it. Miles is everything that Ivan is not -- clever, extremely self-directed, paranoid, and independent -- and vice versa -- Ivan's tall, handsome and successful with women. Despite this, Ivan's loyalty to Miles is steady, and he lets himself get talked into ventures that he'd normally avoid simply because Miles is the one doing the talking. Family comes first, after all, and even if Ivan is sure a plan will fail he will follow Miles into it so he can help as much as he can.
Ivan's very accomplished when it comes to women. Part of it is that this is an arena that he's not particularly afraid to fail in. There are, in his mind, plenty of women out there, and while he'd like to make a positive impression on and hook up with all of them, if some of them don't want to, he'll simply move on to someone who would be more amenable to the idea. It doesn't really phase him, or hurt his ego, since if at the end of the night he manages to hook up with someone then it doesn't matter how many times he was rejected at the beginning of the night. He also doesn't fear playing even more the fool in front of them, if it gets a laugh.
He's also fairly shallow when it comes to women. While he doesn't make most of his sexual decisions based on social status (that would be rather too much like playing into his mother's hands, as far as Ivan is concerned) he does make them based on exterior attractiveness. While he tends towards defensiveness on anyone insulting his cousin's external (and not at all what one would expect of a Barrayaran Lord) experience, he can be viciously judgmental towards women who aren't attractive. This, to some degree, ties into Barrayaran views of gene lines and mutants. Mutants on Barrayar aren't to be tolerated, and the practice of infanticide against those with visible physical defects has only recently been outlawed. A woman who looks obviously unattractive not only has Ivan's own disappointment in the fact working in his interactions with her, but she will also be affected by his ingrained Barrayaran prejudices. On the other hand, Ivan thinks rather nice thoughts about women who are attractive, even if it's not in a conventionally accepted Barrayaran manner (aka there's obvious signs of genetic tinkering in their bloodline).
He can be rather entitled when it comes to women who are. Although he's willing to try and fail, Ivan doesn't always know when he really should just back off. Instead he can be pushy, because that behaviour has sometimes gotten him results in the past, and Barrayar's culture is intensely male-dominated. He doesn't really have the understanding that if he's making someone uncomfortable then he should back off, instead he'll keep pushing in order to, in his mind, help them get over the discomfort. He's not maliciously intended, but he doesn't always know where boundaries are being put down.
Ivan also has a protective side when it comes to women. While he pushes, he doesn't believe in leaving a lady in the lurch and he has a sense of chivalry that's been very deeply engrained in him. He's not looking to get married, but he does believe that both he and the woman he hooks up with should enjoy themselves and that there shouldn't be any regrets come the morning. Should she find herself in any outside danger, he'll happily play the gallant knight and perform a rescue to the best of his abilities. He knows he looks the part, and he's happy to play it as well.
» EXSILIUM INFORMATION
Chosen WEAPON: Nerve Disruptor, from his canon. It's an energy weapon that destroys nerves and brain tissue under the skin. Over time it will increase in precision and efficacy. Barrayaran nerve disruptors tend to be bulky compared to Cetagandan ones, and the evolution will make it easier for Ivan to use it.
Character INVENTORY: He'll have a stunner, in addition to the nerve disruptor and a uniform (Barrayaran military, officer).
» SAMPLES
First PERSON:
Great, nice, cool island. Pretty sure it's not Britain, and this isn't Earth, but that's a minor quibble in the face of everything else I've been told.
[Ivan's from the 31st century, and there's no way things have deteriorated this fast in three hundred years. Even if all the wormholes were somehow cut off again, things can get bad but not this bad.]
Regardless of where we are, if you want someone good at strategy you should really look for someone else. There are lots better options to choose from.
[And Ivan might be good at following orders, but that really applies much more for orders from people who are above him in the chain of command. He recognizes no chain of command here. Just a whole lot of information, and no way to verify it. No one he can ask who he'd trust to know what the situation actually is.]
But maybe that's not your concern, in which case, uh, thanks but no thanks. I'd prefer not to get shot at.
[Miles could talk his way out of this, convince both sides to get along and probably pay him twenty percent of what keeping on with the rebellion would have cost, and end up with medals from both sides. Ivan is no Miles, and he's pretty sure he'll have problems just doing the first part.]
Third PERSON:
Ivan had never heard of a weapon that could evolve before. The technology behind it, certainly, although Barrayaran technology didn't seem to be able to evolve fast enough to catch up with what the Cetagandans had. But evolution could itself be a weighted word, and there was a reason the scientists and engineers tended to prefer to use terms like 'improved' and 'advanced' when talking about technology. After all, people were already where they should be -- Cetaganda'sattractive perversions aside -- but it was the nature of weapons that they kept being improved.
It wasn't the nature of weapons that they had thoughts of their own, and the whole thing sounded too much like an ImpSec method of keeping a closer eye on anyone and everyone. Though not actually Imperial Security, couldn't be, not here. Which meant some other intelligence agency was going to take his weapon and give it the ability to help him through his 'darkest of times'.
Excuse him if that sounded more than a little suspicious.
"It's a very nice gift," Ivan tried. "But really, I think I can do without it." He carefully removed his nerve disruptor from its holster. He was careful not because he needed to be, but because it was generally better not to appear to me making threatening gestures towards people who had kidnapped him. At least, Ivan was fairly certain that that was one of the points covered in the training material regarding kidnappings. "All a weapon needs to do is what it's designed for, and this does that. So I'm pretty happy with it as it is."
In the other hand, if the other option was having his senses or his voice messed with, Ivan would take the part that could be left behind easily, the part that might not kill him as quickly.
Character NAME: Ivan Vorpatril
Canon & MEDIUM: Vorkosigan Saga, book
Canon PULL-POINT: Post-Cetaganda
Character AGE: 22
Character ABILITIES: Ivan is 6'1" and the picture model of a Barrayaran aristocrat. As well as being quite attractive, he had no problem with the physical regimen necessary to either qualify for or graduate from the Imperial Academy. He's been instructed in hand-to-hand and weaponized (stunners and nerve disruptors) combat. Despite having been on desk duty since his graduation from the Academy, he keeps himself quite fit. For all that, of course, he is a pretty typical fit man in his early twenties: his physical abilities aren't particularly noteworthy in the society he inhabits. He's also charming, to match his exterior attractiveness.
Character HISTORY: The planet of Barrayar was colonized in the 23rd century, via a wormhole that soon proved to be unstable. In the aftermath, the colonists' descendants created a feudal society over the next six hundred years, until contact with the outside world was reestablished via a new jump route. It's been a little over a hundred years since that contact, and Barrayar is still a world driven by its own, often backwater, instincts and its need to survive amidst the galactic reality.
Ivan Vorpatril was born in an abandoned building in the poor part of the city, less than an hour after his father was killed trying to save his mother, in a political power struggle that led his mother, a wealthy socialite, who'd spent her life living in luxury to face circumstances she'd never imagined. The power struggle was ended soon after, restoring Ivan's mother to her place in society and allowing Ivan to be raised as a Lord in the feudal Barrayaran society.
Ivan grew up very close to his cousin, Miles Vorkosigan, with whom he only has a couple of months' difference in age. He's a little more distant from his other cousin, Gregor Vorbarra, the Emperor of Barrayar, but that's more a matter of the age difference (Ivan is four years younger), maturity, and Gregor's position as Emperor. The bond of blood is still something that's considered important. Miles, however, was injured before birth in an assassination attempt on his parents which lead to his body being greatly damaged. Ivan served as physical support when Miles needed it, as well as following Miles' orders beyond that.
After childhood, Ivan went to the Imperial Academy, graduated from it, and was posted to a desk job on Barrayar itself (and not the ship job that he'd hoped for). He works mostly on paperwork and low-level things, although his social rank did permit him to accompany Miles as representatives of Barrayar to the world of Cetaganda for the dowager Empress's funeral. Relations between Cetaganda and Barrayar have long been quite chilly, and Ivan and Miles get tangled up in an internal Cetagandan plot and survive attempts to embarrass and then kill them.
Character PERSONALITY: The first thing that people (or at least men, women tend to see Ivan's charm and flirtatiousness and sometimes, if Ivan's lucky, not much else by way of personality) tend to notice about Ivan is that he isn't very bright. As a child, his name was more often than not accompanied with an epithet, making it Ivan-you-idiot. To some degree this is a deliberately cultivated impression. Only three people would have to die for Ivan to be Emperor. Ivan doesn't have political ambitions, and the best way to avoid being embroiled in politics anyway is to not be bright enough to keep up with them. The rest of it is that Ivan actually is that much of a fool. He's the picture-perfect version of a Barrayaran officer, so long as he stays out of any situations which would require him to take initiative or think for himself. While he notices the necessary details, he's been surrounded by people who will put together the pieces faster than he will, so he tends to simply sit back and expect someone else. He's technically capable of keeping up mentally, but it would require effort and it wouldn't gain him anything, so he doesn't struggle for it.
Ivan, in general, knows just enough about politics and intrigue and intergalactic struggles to know that he's quite happy being a glorified secretary for someone who makes the real decisions. He likes cities, and while ship duty is the siren call to nearly any Barrayaran soldier with a dream of galactic explorations, Ivan likes being stationed in Barrayar's capital, where both the threats and the women are known quantities. He would be happy to see his mother a little less obsessed with his future (which in her mind includes settling down and getting married) and give him a little more space, but beyond that he's fairly comfortable with a planetary assignment.
One of Ivan's undeniably positive traits is his loyalty. He believes in Barrayar, his emperor, and his cousin, and he will do what is asked of him in regards to those. While he would rather hand things off to a chain of command, rather than the more self-guided approach that his cousin favors, he does so as much out of a wish to see things properly handled and a belief that this is the way for it to happen as he does it out of a desire to cover his own back. He's uncomfortable making important decisions on his own, and is in fact very good at following orders, and he knows it.
Family also means quite a lot to Ivan. He has no siblings, his father died the day he was born, and his mother dotes on him to a degree that he finds uncomfortable, but his cousin, Miles, means a lot to him, even if Ivan doesn't always show it. Miles is everything that Ivan is not -- clever, extremely self-directed, paranoid, and independent -- and vice versa -- Ivan's tall, handsome and successful with women. Despite this, Ivan's loyalty to Miles is steady, and he lets himself get talked into ventures that he'd normally avoid simply because Miles is the one doing the talking. Family comes first, after all, and even if Ivan is sure a plan will fail he will follow Miles into it so he can help as much as he can.
Ivan's very accomplished when it comes to women. Part of it is that this is an arena that he's not particularly afraid to fail in. There are, in his mind, plenty of women out there, and while he'd like to make a positive impression on and hook up with all of them, if some of them don't want to, he'll simply move on to someone who would be more amenable to the idea. It doesn't really phase him, or hurt his ego, since if at the end of the night he manages to hook up with someone then it doesn't matter how many times he was rejected at the beginning of the night. He also doesn't fear playing even more the fool in front of them, if it gets a laugh.
He's also fairly shallow when it comes to women. While he doesn't make most of his sexual decisions based on social status (that would be rather too much like playing into his mother's hands, as far as Ivan is concerned) he does make them based on exterior attractiveness. While he tends towards defensiveness on anyone insulting his cousin's external (and not at all what one would expect of a Barrayaran Lord) experience, he can be viciously judgmental towards women who aren't attractive. This, to some degree, ties into Barrayaran views of gene lines and mutants. Mutants on Barrayar aren't to be tolerated, and the practice of infanticide against those with visible physical defects has only recently been outlawed. A woman who looks obviously unattractive not only has Ivan's own disappointment in the fact working in his interactions with her, but she will also be affected by his ingrained Barrayaran prejudices. On the other hand, Ivan thinks rather nice thoughts about women who are attractive, even if it's not in a conventionally accepted Barrayaran manner (aka there's obvious signs of genetic tinkering in their bloodline).
He can be rather entitled when it comes to women who are. Although he's willing to try and fail, Ivan doesn't always know when he really should just back off. Instead he can be pushy, because that behaviour has sometimes gotten him results in the past, and Barrayar's culture is intensely male-dominated. He doesn't really have the understanding that if he's making someone uncomfortable then he should back off, instead he'll keep pushing in order to, in his mind, help them get over the discomfort. He's not maliciously intended, but he doesn't always know where boundaries are being put down.
Ivan also has a protective side when it comes to women. While he pushes, he doesn't believe in leaving a lady in the lurch and he has a sense of chivalry that's been very deeply engrained in him. He's not looking to get married, but he does believe that both he and the woman he hooks up with should enjoy themselves and that there shouldn't be any regrets come the morning. Should she find herself in any outside danger, he'll happily play the gallant knight and perform a rescue to the best of his abilities. He knows he looks the part, and he's happy to play it as well.
» EXSILIUM INFORMATION
Chosen WEAPON: Nerve Disruptor, from his canon. It's an energy weapon that destroys nerves and brain tissue under the skin. Over time it will increase in precision and efficacy. Barrayaran nerve disruptors tend to be bulky compared to Cetagandan ones, and the evolution will make it easier for Ivan to use it.
Character INVENTORY: He'll have a stunner, in addition to the nerve disruptor and a uniform (Barrayaran military, officer).
» SAMPLES
First PERSON:
Great, nice, cool island. Pretty sure it's not Britain, and this isn't Earth, but that's a minor quibble in the face of everything else I've been told.
[Ivan's from the 31st century, and there's no way things have deteriorated this fast in three hundred years. Even if all the wormholes were somehow cut off again, things can get bad but not this bad.]
Regardless of where we are, if you want someone good at strategy you should really look for someone else. There are lots better options to choose from.
[And Ivan might be good at following orders, but that really applies much more for orders from people who are above him in the chain of command. He recognizes no chain of command here. Just a whole lot of information, and no way to verify it. No one he can ask who he'd trust to know what the situation actually is.]
But maybe that's not your concern, in which case, uh, thanks but no thanks. I'd prefer not to get shot at.
[Miles could talk his way out of this, convince both sides to get along and probably pay him twenty percent of what keeping on with the rebellion would have cost, and end up with medals from both sides. Ivan is no Miles, and he's pretty sure he'll have problems just doing the first part.]
Third PERSON:
Ivan had never heard of a weapon that could evolve before. The technology behind it, certainly, although Barrayaran technology didn't seem to be able to evolve fast enough to catch up with what the Cetagandans had. But evolution could itself be a weighted word, and there was a reason the scientists and engineers tended to prefer to use terms like 'improved' and 'advanced' when talking about technology. After all, people were already where they should be -- Cetaganda's
It wasn't the nature of weapons that they had thoughts of their own, and the whole thing sounded too much like an ImpSec method of keeping a closer eye on anyone and everyone. Though not actually Imperial Security, couldn't be, not here. Which meant some other intelligence agency was going to take his weapon and give it the ability to help him through his 'darkest of times'.
Excuse him if that sounded more than a little suspicious.
"It's a very nice gift," Ivan tried. "But really, I think I can do without it." He carefully removed his nerve disruptor from its holster. He was careful not because he needed to be, but because it was generally better not to appear to me making threatening gestures towards people who had kidnapped him. At least, Ivan was fairly certain that that was one of the points covered in the training material regarding kidnappings. "All a weapon needs to do is what it's designed for, and this does that. So I'm pretty happy with it as it is."
In the other hand, if the other option was having his senses or his voice messed with, Ivan would take the part that could be left behind easily, the part that might not kill him as quickly.