reunified

mechaphilia

Post-novel. (Immediately after being killed by the Krax.)

When the ghosts of your dead loved ones come back and tell you not to touch something, don't fucking touch it.

Dead Space: Martyr takes roughly 200 years into the future, in 2214, nearly 300 years before the events of the main series. Humanity has continued to grow and expand, putting great strain on the planet for natural resources—food is either grown specifically for the government (too expensive for the poor to afford), or is poisoned by the pollution devastating the planet.

Technology is advanced, with a large focus being on plasma everything, but retains recognizable analogs to modern day tech. A vast majority of the wealth and power seems to be held by large private companies and the government. Space travel is present, but as of Altman's time does not yet seem to be as advanced as it is by Isaac's time (ie space colonies and planet-cracker class ships).

In 2214 a strange pulse is detected at the bottom of an impact crater in Yucatan peninsula in Mexico, setting off a chain of events which result in the discovery and raising of the Black Marker. The Black Marker is an artifact of potentially alien origin which acts as the catalyst to the events surrounding an outbreak.

The Markers have a psychological effect on the vast majority of those who come into contact with it, triggering two forms of hallucination. The first form of hallucination urges individuals to kill themselves and others, and the second urges them to leave the Marker alone—it appears to be some sort of defense mechanism to either encourage or prevent Convergence and a necromorph breakout, depending on which type of hallucination being suffered. this page explains it in more detail—basically the Marker makes people go crazy in weird and wonderful ways and... it seems to be rather vague on what is actually triggering the hallucinations (whether it's the Marker itself or the individuals brain/mind trying to defend itself against/react to the Marker pulse).

Necromorphs are reanimated dead, mutated and reshaped by the necromorph infection. The necromorphs originated from the DNA patterns encoded into the Markers. The infection requires dead tissue in order to spread, and the vast majority of necromorphs exist to create more inhabitable material—almost all forms are extremely aggressive and attack all non-infected life with the goal of creating more bodies. The relationship between necromorphs and the Markers is uncertain; at this time it is not clear if the Marker exists to spread the infection, or to contain/warn of it.

Unitology is a religion born from the discovery of the Black Marker, spreading rapidly through those who were first in contact with the Marker. From Altman's canon point Unitology is still quite new, only beginning to form. Altman's ability to interact routinely with the Marker and not go insane/kill himself has lead to the Unitologists viewing him as a prophet of the Marker, and the nature of his death was lied about in order to portray him as a martyr of the religion. Altman's true role and views of the Marker have been thoroughly obscured by those in charge of the religion, which, by the time the main games take place, has grown into an immense cult. It's pretty much Scientology only weirder.

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.

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.

• (1x) civilian rig (damaged)
• (1x) spoon (sharpened)

Altman is described as being tall, with dark hair in the first stages of graying and blue-green eyes. Due to his canon point, upon arrival he will also be underweight and... well, not in the best condition.

For the purposes of pbing, I've chosen Ben Foster, specifically in his role as Bower in the movie Pandorum. He's a little young but he makes the faces I need and has the right look, sob. /BLAMES IT ON THE FUTURE

Mid-40's.

“The creature lifted him up in the air, gave again its bellowing call. It shook him violently before bringing his head into its maw.

A moment later it tore his body in half. A moment after that he was dead.”

Altman was not a religious man, had no real expectations of a heaven or hell waiting for him, but he had at least a vague idea that whatever came after death would be painless. So why did everything hurt? Even breathing set off sharp, burning pain through the haze of what he could only imagine was some sort of painkiller clouding his system. It was hard to pull his thoughts together, beyond the recognition that everything hurt, he seemed to be doped up, and somehow he wasn't dead.

Pressure on his shoulders, holding him still while the thing of a hypodermic pricked his arm and then nothing but blackness and nightmares. It came once, twice, three times? He couldn't be sure anymore. In the brief moments of almost-lucidity between visits from the needle he tried to take stock of his situation, figure out where he was—back in the hospital, maybe? The distant beep of monitoring equipment, the vague smell of heavy duty disinfectant. Between whatever they (who were they? Markoff's men?) were injecting him with and a sense of overwhelming, bone-deep exhaustion, Altman could barely open his eyes to see the nurse when they came in.

Had he survived, then? Dragged out of the pit at the last second and pieced back together on some surgical table? He had felt something snap, tear, sudden cold air on parts of his insides he hadn't known he could feel. How could they--why--was this just Markoff fucking with him again? Put him back together then... then what? Chuck him back into the pit for round two?

The thought made bile rise in his throat, and somewhere the beeping became more frantic. On cue he heard a door(?) slide open, and he managed to open his eyes and focus long enough to see something looming over him. Was that a person? Something wasn't quite right about the blurry silhouette, but he couldn't pull his thoughts together enough to figure out what. He tried to struggle, tried to push them away, but his limbs wouldn't respond and the sting of the needle returned, followed by darkness.

The next time Altman came to he found himself able to open his eyes, to actually focus. How much time had passed? Hours? Days? Was there someone stationed outside the door, waiting for him to rise up so they could drag him back down to that... that fucking thing that used to be Krax? It would have been easy to close his eyes again, keep still, hope they'd leave him be if he just played dead (ahah). As soon as that line of thinking occurred to him he cut it off, forcing himself fully awake. There might be something in the room he could use as a weapon, fight his way out, escape and warn everyone. As he tried to sit up (his limbs actually responding this time, even if the movement made his muscles scream) he was distracted by a sudden flicker of blue to the side and a soft, feminine voice.

“Welcome to Sacrosanct.”

Where-- [ He cuts himself off, and there's the quiet sound of someone clearing their throat. He's a little louder when he starts speaking again, but still raspy and unsure. ]

Where am I? What-- What the hell is 'Sacrosanct?' I...

[ There's a moment of almost-quiet then, broken only by a very faint whispering—it sounds almost like the man is muttering something to himself under his breath. ]

This can't—I've lost my goddamn mind. This can't be real.

[ There's a soft, completely humorless laugh, then a vague noise and a pause--as though he's just realized the feed is still running. Now when he speaks he just sounds flat, totally exhausted. ]

Is there anyone out there? Please, I need. [ Pause. Breathe. ] I need help.