Commander Pulsar
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
| |
| Commander Pulsar | |
| Player: @GeneralXon | |
| Origin: | Science |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Blaster |
| Security Level: | 50 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Steve Pulsar |
| Known Aliases: | Pulsar, Commander |
| Species: | human |
| Age: | 28 (D.O.B. 3/2/2502) |
| Height: | 6' 2" |
| Weight: | 225 |
| Eye Color: | blue (theoretically) |
| Hair Color: | brown (theoretically) |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | United Earth |
| Occupation: | Commander of the Space Patrol |
| Place of Birth: | Naples, Florida |
| Base of Operations: | New Los Angeles |
| Marital Status: | single |
| Known Relatives: | Miriam and Admiral Frank Pulsar (fictional) |
| Known Powers | |
| energy projection | |
| Known Abilities | |
| levitation via gravity nullifier belt, flight via Jet Boots | |
| Equipment | |
| Blast Gloves, Jet Boots, Gravity Nullifier Belt, Pulsar Patrol Ring, Anachronauts Ring, Space Patrol Uniform, Food Pills. | |
| Pulsar, and anything he touches is in black and white; monochrome. | |
Contents |
Affiliations & Friends
- The Anachronauts, a supergroup for people displaced in time.
- Doctor Rocket, Man of the Future. Original builder and pilot of Ethership Six, the Anachronauts' satellite base. Doc Rocket is presumably far away in time, possibly a mishap involving his time travel equipment and Ouroboros.
- Aenigmus, the enigma from the end of time. A post-human construct from 10,000 years or more in the future.
- Cleopatra Johnson, soul sister and crime fighter. Working in New York.
Personality
Steve Pulsar is the daring, adventurous and clever hero of the serials of the fifties. He embodies the ideals of the time, for good and ill, and comes across as a real boy scout for the most part. He's just learning what it's like to be a real person, and is exploring a world with color and real food for the first time. He is frequently overcome with a sense of wonder for what can actually be done here, but never lets it distract him from upholding the ideals of the Space Patrol: Justice, Integrity, and Truth.
Powers
Commander Pulsar wears his Blast Gloves which allow him to project energy at his foes, or deliver it through his fists.
Additional Powers
A side effect of his origin is that Pulsar is in black and white, as is anything he hold or touches. This doesn't seem to change or affect objects in anyway, but until he sets them down, things are as monochrome as he is. The 'rules' by which this effect seems to operate are as follows:
- Only things directly in contact with Pulsar are affected.
- Only objects up to, but not including large furniture are affected. Steve doesn't change the color of his couch, or the earth, etc.
- No other properties change, and the object isn't affected in any way, except color.
- The fade moves out from Pulsar in a wave-like effect. It is swift, but not instantaneous. Color seems to return faster than it leaves.
- The fading effect has no other sensation to it. No tingle, or sound, etc. In a pitch dark room, there'd be no way to tell it was going on.
Another effect of his fictional origin is the 'Hollywood' effect. He looks like an action star does on screen: his hair is perfect, unless it's mussed in a 'rougishly handsome way,' he doesn't get dirty or messy fighting, except for the dramatic little cut, bruise or smudge of dirt (his shirt is an exception, and is ripped and torn to display his muscles with alarming frequency). Even this mussiness goes away in about a 'scene.'
Travel
Pulsar usually travels using the hover force generators in his boots, which lift him a fraction of an inch of the ground and eliminate friction. He also wears a Gravity Nullifier Belt, which allows him to levitate, and Jet Boots to provide propulsion in flight. Although Steve attributes his abilities to these objects, they are products of his universe and only work for him. It's possible that his powers would work for him without his gear, if he only believed that they would.
Abilities
Steve is a science hero of his time, and well-versed in the science of his his world. Sadly this world is a fiction, a version of the future created by science fiction writers of the nineteen forties and early fifties. Nonetheless, he's a good leader, and a competent tactician. He likes to read, and is rapidly bringing himself up to speed on the modern era.
Weaknesses and Limitations
Pulsar really doesn't get a lot of things about the modern past he's been flung into. Modern technology is new to him, and differences between what they thought would happen in the fifties and what actually did are telling on Steve. He is not conversant in modern slang, and is frequently lost in that regard.
Equipment
Steve didn't arrive with much: His Space Patrol uniform, Blast Gloves and Jet Boots, a Gravity Nullifier Belt, his Space Patrol comm unit, and a tin full of food pills. The comm unit has proven pretty useless, since the network he'd contact doesn't exist here, and Steve's given up on the pills in favor of real food, but he keeps them, just in case.
Character History
Commander Pulsar of the Space Patrol was a science-fiction adventure show in the early fifties, aimed at young audiences via movie serials, television, and radio. The show ran for over 200 episodes between 1949 and 1954. The stories concern the twenty-fifth century adventures of Commander Steve Pulsar of the United Earth Space Patrol and his young sidekick, Cadet Happy. Seriously.
Earlier in 2007, the villanous Dr. Illusion trapped the hero Synapse inside an episode of Commander Pulsar. Stuck in the last episode aired, The Lunar De-Atomizer, Synapse turned for help to Pulsar himself. Pulsar sensed in Synapse an asset that the villain of the piece, Goro--the Overlord of Korgoth--would not expect, and accepted the help gladly. Between the two of them they defeated Goro and prevented the de-atomization of the moon. For weeks afterward, Space Patrol scientists worked to develop a way to send Synapse home, finally coming up with a device called a 'Cyclonic Void Generator'. When the time came to activate it, Pulsar was there to see Synapse off. When the device was activated, it created a portal to contemporary Los Angeles, and Synapse returned home. Before the Space Patrol scientists could shut it off however, the cyclonic void reached out and sucked Pulsar through as well. Upon reaching our world, the shock rendered him unconscious at Synapse's feet.
Synapse helped Pulsar come to grips with the new world he's in much the same way Pulsar helped Synapse. The hero helped arrange a hero license for the Commander, found him temporary housing in a motel in King's Row, and set him up with a little (very little, actually) money to get him started. Synapse also put the problem of Pulsar's world in front of Portal Corp. Portal Corp scientists have made little progress, and many privately hold that Pulsar's existence is impossible to begin with; sending him back, doubly so.
Pulsar ran into a few other people, also displaced in time and space, including Doctor Rocket. The Doctor was the central impetus behind the Anachronauts, an organization devoted to returning displaced persons to their proper time/space, or to help them integrate into this world. The Doctor has since been displaced again in time, but his group, under Pulsar's guidance, still exists, as does the ethership Rocket provided as a base of operations.
Recently, Steve has been involved with and mostly responsible for a surge of interest in the show. In 2008 Steve was invited to attend a local science fiction convention as a guest, and was well received, being invited to more and larger conventions. He attended San Diego Comicon in 2009, meeting fans and industry types. In late 2009, Space Patrol was optioned as a feature film, with Steve on board as a 'realism consultant.' The film is due to be released in the summer of 2011.
On Steve's behalf, his agent filed a lawsuit against the production company of Space Patrol, suing for the rights to the character of 'Commander Steve Pulsar.' Steve was happy to win the case, effectively granting him copyright to himself. As a result, the studio was forced to pay him years of royalties, and the production company of the movie was forced to let him go and rehire him at a substantially greater rate.
Trivia
- loves all-american food, like hot dogs & pizza.
- stays in a efficiency apartment in Faultline.
- still has about a month's supply of food pills.
- Frequently attends science fiction conventions as a guest.
