Viggo Engström

[personalmoniker]

Player
Player name: PersonalMoniker
English language proficiency: Native
Character number: 2
Faction: Serpent Tail
Requested faction membership: Yes

General

Full name: Born Erik Tjader, now goes by Viggo Engström
Nickname: The Marquis
Age: 27
Gender: Male
Race: 1st Generation Coordinator
Occupation: Mercenary, Thief, Gentleman-at-Large, Self-Styled Noble-In-Exile
Birthplace: Stockholm
Citizenship: KoS
Personality:
Cavalier, gentlemanly, jocular, and charismatic, with a flair for the dramatic and theatrical, Viggo does not generally come off as the mercenary type at first glance. In his fine clothes, with his polite manner and charming words, he seems better suited as a socialite, mingling with the elites and the ruling parties. He smiles readily, laughs easily, and dances lightly, moving through the crowds with a practiced, yet natural, grace. Insults and slights slide off him easily, turned into jokes or accepted as the truth with open chagrin. Those who are particularly adept at reading others will at times catch glimpses of an incredible pain he hides away, glossed over with the fabrications of a life well lived.

Behind closed doors the facade drops away in an instant to reveal a cold, calculating individual who measures lives in the blood they've spilled and the money they're worth. Devoid of compassion to those in his way, relentless in the pursuit of his goals, and ferociously efficient when circumstances force him to take a life, he has embraced his vision of the mercenary spirit wholeheartedly. He holds his teammates in high regard, less because he cares for them and more because respecting them means he lives longer. Viggo's sense of humor is morbid, and often seems forced, as though some part of him has forgotten how to laugh. Nevertheless, he is a consummate gentleman by nature, and it is this behavior that he defaults to.

He is meticulous in the maintenance of his equipment and the care of his body, viewing the latter as a tool as much as the former. He disdains those with less regard for their upkeep, knowing well that in space the slightest mistakes can be exceptionally costly. He expects his comrades to do the same, but at the same time concedes that many will not. He simply won't expect their equipment, or themselves, to hold up as well. Viggo is easily baited into challenges, eager to test the limits of his skills and abilities. However, he isn't prideful and will readily concede the victory once the winner is clear, finding no sense in causing more damage than is necessary.

Already a loner by nature, his wife's death pushed him further into seclusion. As skilled as he is at social maneuvering, if given the option he's just as likely to sit at home reading security journals, or be found in the bay working endlessly on furthering his mechanical and piloting skills. The focus of his life now is the furthering of the skills most useful to his chosen profession; all else is secondary to this, and importance is rated by how much something will further his goals.

Appearance

Height: 5' 9"
Weight: 156
Hair Colour and Style: Naturally blond, Viggo now dyes his hair deep black. Wavy and clean if somewhat straggly, he wears it unstyled to just below his ears.
Eye Colour: Blue, made green with contacts
Identifying Marks: None
Skin Tone: Ivory
Build: Lean, lithe, gymnastic
Clothing: Viggo prefers his garments dark, stylish, and formal. He tends to rotate his wardrobe fairly regularly, but it mostly consists of suits for both business and casual purposes, along with a selection of tuxedos for truly formal affairs. The closest he comes to casual clothes are comfortable slacks and turtlenecks, but these are rarely worn out of the house. Blacks, reds, and dark blues are the predominant colors.
Handiness: Ambidextrous


Image is Telicyra Herfi from Gundam OOi, and is mostly spot-on, although Viggo would never be caught dead wearing that...loopy bowtie thing.

Background

Mother: Karina Tjader(Disowned)
Father: Frans Tjader(Disowned)
Siblings: None
Spouse: Sofie Engström-Tjader(Deceased)

Personal History:
The man calling himself The Marquis was born Erik Tjader in the spring of CE 58 to wealthy businessman Frans Tjader, and at least ostensibly, his wife Karina. At no small expense, Frans had his heir altered into a Coordinator in violation of the Torino Protocol. The child was raised in an isolated manner for quite some time, until he was old enough to understand that he was not to allow himself to excel in anything publicly, lest his secret be discovered. In private, discrete tutors instructed him in advanced subjects, and no slack was given. He developed early on a slightly split personality, boisterous and cheerful (if a bit daft) in public; while cold, cunning, and calculative within the confines of home. Frans looked upon this with pride - his son would make a fine businessman with that mix.

In CE 68, with anti-coordinator sentiment rapidly rising on Earth, the special tutoring stopped. Frans was no longer willing to risk a leak of his child's abilities, curtailing his activities even further and punishing any act of rising above average. Without the outlet of his private lessons, Erik became increasingly frustrated and more than anything, bored. He started sneaking out from under his parent's watchful eyes, escaping to secluded areas of the estate to study in secret. This became much more difficult as the war broke out and escalated, with his father's business put in an increasingly delicate position. By the middle of CE 71, much of the estate had been sold off, and Erik was finding it harder and harder to find places to hide and be himself. An argument with his father on the subject ended with Erik being allowed to start showing a head for numbers, in exchange for transforming his 'class clown' attitude into a more respectable, genteel manner.

Entering High School and the world of High Society under the shadow of the second Bloody Valentine war made for a bad combination. The callousness of teenagers mixed with the tendency of the aristocracy to look down on those beneath them mean that most of Erik's peers found the war to be more a source of entertainment and a chance for glory than the tragedy it was. His family's business had recovered enough in the brief respite between the wars that he was not one of those 'less fortunate', but his unexceptional academic performance put him towards the bottom of the social ladder. When the war came to an end, the students found new ways to entertain themselves, and the lavish parties began. Erik too found a new way of entertaining himself, and put his previously-learned skills at skulking about to use by ensuring that certain select possessions of his peers and their families found their way into his control. It was a grand game, and one that he excelled at, particularly since his status as a presumed natural made him less of a suspect in some of the more spectacular capers. Ever-conscious of his parent's concern for propriety, he spent as much time and effort to keep his reputation clean as anything else. He learned the fine art of bargaining in his interactions with a high-stakes fence, and laundered his ill-gotten gains through a shadow-company, a trick he had gleaned from his father during the wars. His antics continued through business college and beyond, acting the part of a young playboy by day as he studied how to defeat ever-more-complicated security systems by night. Though he was satisfied, his parents were not - he was no longer making any real progress towards inheriting the family business, and showed no interest in correcting this matter.

Although Erik was rather old for such a tactic, Frans found his answer during business negotiations in early CE 81. As a symbolic portion of the merger between his firm and an old rival's, their children would be wed. While Erik initially protested - vehemently - the threat of being cut off from the family fortune put a sharp crimp in his intended lifestyle. The beauty of the young woman he was to wed helped matters considerably. Vibrant, active, and sharp as a tack, Sofie did what no other had: challenged him. She attacked his complacency, questioned his odd hours, and noticed quickly that he didn't seem to put his all into anything. Revealing his genetic secret to her only made matters worse; it was bad enough that he made himself average for a natural, his wasted potential as a coordinator was a crime of the highest order, or so she would have him believe. Erik, who had for so long been desperate to find an outlet, an excuse to excel, came alive. In Sofie, he found reason and meaning for his life; in Erik she found a man who could match her ambitions.

He hung up his thieves' hat, married the woman of his dreams, and put his mind towards building their parent's combined business into something that could complete on a global scale. He used his experience in defeating security systems to develop better ones, expanding the company into the lucrative field. In the middle of CE 83, he and his wife were visiting the PLANTs for a combination vacation and business trip when the unthinkable happened.

With a long day of financial maneuvering behind them, Sofie and Erik had returned to their lakeside hotel for a romantic dinner kicking off the vacation portion of their trip. Already fatigued, Erik retired early when dinner began to make him queasy, trusting Sofie to join him later that night. He would forever remain uncertain whether it was the breeze blowing in through the open balcony door or the continued absence of his wife that awoke him late in the night. Dizzily, he made his way towards the slim form reclining on a chaise, thinking Sofie had perhaps fallen asleep watching the lights of the colony, a habit she had developed of late. What greeted him was a still, cold form, her lips a perfect match to the hue of the lake.

The next days were a blur for the young executive. His strangled cry had brought his father from the next room, and his panic had accelerated the poison through his veins. He drifted in and out of consciousness, while snatches of overheard conversation told him that he had only survived because their assailant had not know him to be a coordinator, and the dosing was insufficient. When he recovered, he found out that Frans had swept the incident under the rug - a growing security company could not have the wife of one of its executives killed so easily. Her body was transported back to Earth so that a more...suitable...demise could be arranged, and Erik grew obsessed with learning the identity of her killer. When Frans insisted he drop the investigation as both unprofitable and too likely to reveal her death ahead of schedule, Erik snapped, vanishing from the grid and taking a large amount of cash with him. Publicly, with the young couple was listed as taking an extended vacation, Erik rekindled contacts from his more questionable years in an effort to trace the assassin. When he did, their confrontation was brief, brutal, and informative. A business rival had hired the man to blunt the competition, but with the way he had gathered the information, there was no way for Erik to take it to the police. A visit to Sofie's body, with his father's bucolic tirade about letting it go for the good of the company ringing in his ears, cemented Erik's decision. She had become his life. If hers was ended, so too would be his.

With the liquid resources at his disposal, making the arrangements was a simple matter. The scene was set, a robbery gone wrong. He collected a few mementos from the house he had shared with Sofie for the past few years and set the fire off himself. Less than a week later, the private shuttle supposedly carrying the grieving man back to earth exploded in the upper atmosphere. In truth, Erik was on a shuttle heading to the PLANTs, where a discrete surgeon awaited to transform him. It pained him to miss her funeral, and amused him to miss his own, but the emotion most felt through a haze of pain and anesthetics as his face and body healed was a simmering rage. His fingerprints gone, along with the scars of youthful indiscretions, his face replaced by one drastically different from the one nature had given him, and his genetic records deleted by a bribed technician during the processing of his death certificate, he was ready. Calling himself "The Marquis" and presenting himself as the disowned son of a minor Scandinavian noble family, he hired Serpent Tail to assist him in enacting his revenge. Getting aboard the shuttle of the man who paid for his death was child's play with the mercenary assistance, and there was no theatricality or posturing. Simply a bullet to the temple, fired from close range. The man never would have recognized his killer anyways.

With nothing left for him on Earth, and no desire to live on the PLANTs, Erik moved to the Shesha Colony as Viggo Engström. With what money he had left, he purchased a modest home on the colony, and training from the Junk Guild and Serpent Tail on the maintenance and operation of Mobile Suits respectively. He'd spent most of his life living the way his father proscribed; now it was time to take matters into his own hands. At least in this business, your rivals and opponents were blatant in their desire to kill you. There was an odd sort of honesty to it, an unspoken honor he could respect...even if no one else did. If nothing else, by CE 85 he was a competent pilot, an adequate mechanic, an accomplished thief, and a master of business and the social elite. Not the best resume, but maybe just enough for a fresh start in a mercenary company.

[Lunamaria]

Okay, I'm going to be accepting this but I leave it up for some other people to check through as well for a few days.

The only thing is,

She was dead

Some melodrama and a touching scene of him clucthing her corpse are needed.



Really it just jars a bit so its worth padding into it a little bit, that is my only problem with an otherwise good profile.

[personalmoniker]

Yeah.....

I don't like that spot either. Just need to figure out how to fix it.

[liubei013]

I agree. The rest of the profile flowed beautifully...except for that part. Perhaps a lead up to the discovery of her death could help. (e.g. "Later that night..." or "Next morning, he found Sofie laying still..." etc.)

Other than that, great profile. After this post, I'll edit the title to remove the WIP. It really isn't necessary, as it inherently indicates that it's still 'not ready.' ^^

[personalmoniker]

Thanks for fixing that. I tried to change it, but all it did was change the individual post title. >.>; Is there a trick to it, or is that a mod-power?

I've expanded the "she was dead" into a fuller scene; hopefully it flows better now. ^_^

Thoughts?

[liubei013]

Mod-power.

@revision: Seems to flow a lot better, though I'll leave it to second opinions.

[Lunamaria]

I'm happy with it, I'll leave it up for another day so for anyone else to take a gander at.

[Lunamaria]

Alright then,

Accepted,