Cryopulse/Secret Origin of Cryopulse
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
Main Article: Cryopulse
The secret origin of cryopulse is a player-made storyline. The information here should not be used In-Character unless expressly authorized by Cryopulse's player, as it is not known to the character herself ICly. Psychic intrusion or interrogation of the character may reveal hints of the truth, but being as Cryopulse had her memories extensively and thoroughly engineered, these hints will only be fleeting glimpses and not definitive in any sense.
Contents |
The Secret History
Please see the established Character History for further details on Cryopulse's acknowledged origin.
All is not as it seems in Allison’s life. While much of her recent life is a matter of verifiable record, her more distant past evanesces into shadow quickly. Her family address, where she has not visited in some time, is an unoccupied tenement in Empire. Her academic records, while from accredited institutions, appear to be falsified after close scrutiny. When pressed, her roommate admits that while she was friends with Allison in college, they had a spectacular falling-out shortly afterwards and never spoke again until recently. Allison frequently makes calls to her mother and siblings, but never receives calls, mail, or even gifts during the holidays. Allison occasionally exhibits strange gaps her in personality and memory, particularly with reference to popular culture, literature, and other details of society. For example, she may state that she loves Paul Simon, but cannot tell someone the name of his original duo or acts as if she unfamiliar with many of his better-known works.
This is because Allison Gibb is, in fact, a clone. A flawed one, perhaps, or simply unfinished and partially formatted with the personality and memories of her parent iteration, a senior financial auditor for Crey Industries. Diagnosed with a severely aggressive, degenerative gene disorder, Dr. Allison Harland, DBA (nee Gibb) was able to call in enough favors, threaten, coerce, and blackmail a number of the Crey Industries departmental directors into providing her an untainted, genetically-corrected clone of herself. Telepaths and neuro-psychoplasts laid the groundwork for transference of her psyche to the new body, and the body was to be shipped in stasis to a secure Crey facility in the Philippines in order to complete the process. Due to the machinations of her rivals, misinformation was leaked to both Arachnos and the Freedom Corps that the cargo plane was carrying a new “biological superweapon” – ensuring that one or the other would sabotage the transport and leave Dr. Harland doomed without her rejuvenated body.
The ensuing battle above the Rocky Mountains occurred much as the mainstream media reported, the details changed so that what was in fact a hardened cargoship with significant firepower was changed into a simple “airliner” to prevent mass hysteria. With the debris scattered across much of the Rockies, and limited information as to the nature of its cargo, it was easy for the Freedom Corps and Arachnos to miss the containment unit which held Cryopulse’s body in the search for “survivors”. Crey themselves eventually supported the cover-up, manufacturing a passenger list and covertly supplying “casualties” to local investigators. Curiously, Cryopulse’s memory of Ms. Liberty is genuine, albeit colored. Her barely-conscious mind recalling the superhero’s face through a “cabin window” instead of her containment unit’s porthole. Had she not been immediately distracted by a direct assault on herself by an Arachnos flyer, Ms. Liberty’s might have delivered the falling unit from destruction. By the time she could return to any “rescue” operation, Liberty had lost bearing of where the unit was at the time. Upon her arrival in Atlas Park, and meeting Ms. Liberty again, Cryopulse made mention of the incident – which stirred Liberty’s memory, but not enough to recall where she had seen the fledgling hero’s face before.
The fate of the original Dr. Allison Harland, who was also a mutant with cryokinetic abilities, remains unknown at this time. Crey Industries has not made an attempt to recover their lost “property” at this time, perhaps assuming that the clone was destroyed in the battle which annihilated the transport (along with several millions of dollars worth of other equipment and experiments on the same flight). However, should Cryopulse become more active in the public eye, she will undoubtedly draw the attention of her “handlers”.
Dr. Allison Harland, DBA
| |
| Crey Industries ID Photo, HR Archives | |
| Dr. Allison Harland | |
| Senior Audit Specialist III, Crey Industries | |
| Player: @twelfth | |
| Physical Data | |
| Species: | Human-derived Mutant |
|---|---|
| Age: | mid to late 40's. |
| Height: | 5'10" |
| Weight: | Confidential |
| Eye Color: | Cyan |
| Hair Color: | Brown, with Grey |
| Body Type: | Confidential |
| Ethnicity: | Caucasian |
| Other: | NA |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | American, Rogue Isles |
| Occupation: | Corporate Auditor |
| Place of Birth: | Empire, CO |
| Residence: | St. Martial, Rogue Isles |
| Marital Status: | Widowed |
| Known Relatives: | Available upon authorized clearance |
| Status unknown, presumed deceased. | |
"To paraphrase an old maxim, the hand that holds the purse strings rules the world." Dr. Allison Harland, in conversation.
Intimately connected to this history is the figure of Cryopulse's parent iteration, Dr. Allison Harland. A woman with a clear vision for her future, she embarked on a career path which carried her from a timid post-graduate intern through to her influential position as one of the Senior Financial Auditors of Crey Industries and a Doctor of Business Administration. The position brought her significant financial comfort and remarkable clout with her employer, which in turn allowed her a surprising degree of influence over the course of technological development.
Dr. Harland would have no argument with the efficiency of the "Follow the Money" theory of detection, as she had access to enormous amounts of information regarding the obtuse and labryinthine channels to which Crey Industries were and are required to use in order to maintain legitimacy for their expansive research, production, and public relations projects (to say nothing of their business infrastructure). This gave her remarkable "do or die" power over funding for projects within the company's various departments. Project administrators were known to fear the strokes of her pen, as they could (and did) make or break discoveries and new technologies. The Countess Crey, no fainting daisy herself, once expressed some trepidation over whether the indiscretions of her personal pet projects would prove muster over the draconian requirements of Forensic Accounting & Logistics.
Despite this fearsome reputation within the lower eschelons of Crey Industries, Dr. Harland had a passable relationship with the "nobility" within the company which bordered on sycophantism. By the time of her diagnosis with a terminal degenerative genetic disorder, she had long turned a blind eye to the ethical ramifications of the projects for which she approved funding. Her only concern was whether the reports accurately represented the cost analysis and proper budgeting perspectives necessary to protect Crey's investments and fiduciary solvency. Because of this, many project managers have devoted significant pre-project hours to perfecting their project proposals with disproportionate attention to financial details and budgeting.
"If I have said this once, I have said it a thousand times. A full thirty- to forty-percent - or more - of every proposal should be dedicated to security training and staffing as well as equipment integrity. My office does not fund sloppy departments who can't keep their projects restrained and contained. My office does not fund search-and-destroy pursuit-operations or decontamination projects. Your piss-poor preparation for contingency-management is not a justification for emergency funding. I hope that is clear to everyone assembled here..."
- Dr. Allison Harland, during her seminar on Essential Skills: Proper Project Budgeting
As is obvious to those throughout Paragon City and the Rogue Isles, her words often fell on deaf ears.
Biography of Dr. Harland
Early Life and Family
Allison Gibb was born in Empire, Colorado; a moderately-sized city about ninety minutes southwest of Denver. Her father was a probate attorney and her mother remained at home, busying herself in civic and local mainstream religious organizations while remaining active in her daughters' scholastic activities. Rachel, her younger sister of four years, and her paternal grandfather (a rancher in Nebraska) rounded out her closest relatives. Her relationship with her parents and siblings matured and became more complicated as she grew, but remained sincere on a foundation of love and (sometimes strained) friendship.
Allison enjoyed an utterly uneventful childhood and did respectably well in school. Allison showed quite a bit of aptitude in mathematics and oration, with some meager skill in literature and composition. This allowed her to attend accelerated courses, but never caused her to be among the top of her class. She attended undergraduate university and watched as her friends grew up and matured, and learned the lessons that life’s cycle provides. During this time, Allison discovered her calling in a field many of her friends found incomprehensible and boring: economics. Stretching her academic muscles to the limit, she took degrees in business administration, political science, and international finance. Allison took her internship with a major finance think-tank and was plotting the course her life would take.
As she was finishing her graduate work in Business Administration, Allison met the man who would change her life. Corporal Andrew Harland, a Marine recently returned from a tour in the Gulf War, married Allison on Easter Sunday after a sober courtship lasting a few years. Allison put her life plans on hold as she warmed to the idea of starting a family and acclimated to the life of being a military wife. After two years of marriage, Allison gave birth to a healthy son, Jonathan, and was looking forward to the possibility of letting their family grow more in the future.
Tragedy and Rebirth
Allison and Andrew's marriage was mostly happy, but not without some conflict. The two consistently clashed on domestic matters, neither of the two used to giving up control over their affairs. Andrew was diagnosed with the mysterious Gulf War Syndrome, which exacerbated his existing bipolar disorder. Allison was a functional alcoholic, and experiencing regrets about leaving her scholastic career behind. These matters might not have made much of a difference individually, but rather than smoothing over, the conflicts dug deeper into their lives burrowing insidiously into the background of their discussions.
Even these troubles might have resolved themselves had tragedy not struck. During a frightful holiday season, Allison and Andrew were returning from a Christmas party late at night during a treacherous ice storm. Allison drove her family home, despite having drinking a considerable amount of alcohol, as Andrew was legally unable to drive any longer due to his conditions. What had began as a sullen silence between them at the party erupted into a shouting match in the car as they drove home. Debilitated by her intoxication, unfamiliar with the rural roads, and distracted by Andrew's confrontations, Allison missed the warning signs of a breakneck turn and the black ice on the road. Their car blasted through the road barriers, flipping down a steep embankment into a frozen pond. Andrew and Jonathan, strapped into his car seat in the back, drowned in less than two feet of water. Allison was unresponsive to resuscitation for ten minutes before regaining consciousness.
The deaths shattered her life. Allison's own "near death" experience (which she described as only "dark, cold, and alone" - eschewing any notion a higher power or afterlife) rotted her belief in anything but the most immediate, material goals. The physicians who nurtured her back to health made a most unexpected discovery: Allison was a mutant. Her advanced body chemistry had saved her life, an instinctual reflex which had allowed her to cheat death. Over the next few months, Allison struggled to control her newfound abilities - all the while bitterly cursing those powers from allowing her to share the fate her family had suffered due to her negligence.
Allison eventually returned to school, pushing herself as hard as possible to obtain her doctorate, and took the highest paying job she could obtain. A position as financial oversight technician with Crey Industries required her to expatriate to the Rogue Isles, but having cut off contact with the remainder of her family, she had no ties in the United States any more. Once ensconced in the corporate culture of Crey Industries, Allison was initially appalled at the experiments and projects she was obliged to review and audit. However, seeing that her protests were met with indifference and occasional retributive setbacks, Allison quickly became numb to the injustice she perpetuated through her financial reviews and approvals. Within a few years, Dr. Harland had learned much of what was necessary to pursue her career in Crey Industries, the subtle intrigues which were essential to survival in a coldly cutthroat conglomerate. She played her hand well and eventually attained a position as a Senior Auditing specialist for the company, a position which made her both invisible to the majority of outside watchdogs and potently influential upon company business prospects.
Transformation and Destiny
Dr. Harland was never very vocal or obtrusive about her mutant physiology, although the company was well aware of it. Dr. Harland rarely found the opportunity exercise her powers, which were of little concern to her. However, shortly after her rise to Forensic Accounting, a routine, comprehensive medical exam detected that Allison's genome was becoming erratic and developing malignant manifestations in her physiology. Her cellular integrity was breaking down slowly but surely. Gene therapy was ineffectual, diverting the disease but not slowing it. Dr. Harland, having come to grips with her survivor guilt some time before, found herself suddenly terrified of her own mortality. Every moment which was not impossibly dedicated to her duties at Crey Industries, were bent toward finding a cure or an escape from her degenerating condition. Re-discovering the prospectus for the Revenant Hero Project, Dr. Harland approached the project leaders and negotiated to have her body corrected and cloned. Though initially rebuffed by the project leaders, Dr. Harland squeezed every last bit of her influence until they relented.
Although it took nearly two years to perfect the process, Dr. Harland was notified that her clone was ready for transfer. Allison's condition had degraded considerably, and she was nearing the point of no return. Hopeful for the future, she tidied up her affairs and boarded a plane for the secure surgical facility buried in the Philippines.
Dr. Harland was not seen alive again.
Effects on Cryopulse
Allison "Cryopulse" Gibb is unaware that her memories are not repressed but in fact completely artificial. As a clone, she has no true memories of her own childhood or life until her escape from “the crash”. These were implanted by Crey Industries as a “baseline template” for her psychology before it was to be re-written by Crey Psychoplasts. However, on a deeply subconscious level, Cryopulse does retain memories of her gestation and experimentation with Crey Laboratories – memories which are considerably traumatic and have been deeply buried by both Allison’s own psyche and the physician/engineers who designed her. Should these memories ever been dredged up, Cryopulse would likely have a difficult emotional and psychological breakdown as the two competing histories clashed for resolution in her mind. This has expressed itself subtly as a phobia of paternal figures (her engineers), a distrust of maternal figures (her biological template-mother), and some claustrophobia as result.
Of late, these memories have begun to seep out into her dreams, vague "deja vu" feelings, and unexplained panic attacks. At least one psychic believes that her neuropsychology is deteriorating as the baseline template degrades.
Specific effects:
- Allison Gibb has no recollection of her son, Jonathan.
- Timelines for major events in Allison's life have been confabulated to allow consistency to her apparent physical age
- Allison's magical or metaphysical signature is consistent with a human being only a few years old, rather than a full adult.
Trivia
- Gibb is Allison's maiden name. Dr. Harland kept her married surname following her widowing.
- Dr. Harland also possesses her wedding ring. Because she had this item with her at the time of her independent transfer to the Philippines surgical facility, Cryopulse does not have the ring. Cryopulse assumes that the ring was lost in her airliner crash. She does have her deceased husband's dogtags, which she keeps around her neck at most times.
- Dr. Harland is several years older than her cloned counterpart. This was done at her request, retrogressing her to a "prime age". While her genetic disorder was corrected, along the addition of with other efficiencies in the clone's physiology, Cryopulse remains hyperopic (i.e. far-sighted) as Dr. Harland is herself.
- The Praetorian version of Cryopulse would be one in which Dr. Allison Harland was successful in transferring her consciousness to the new body and continued to rule ruthlessly over the auditing and funding departments of Crey Industries. The version would earn the emnity of both Allisons of Primal Earth – one for her startlingly amoral and antipathic personality, the other due to the loathing inspired by such a cruel, mocking reflection of What Might Have Been.
