Servant-XII
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
| |
| "Eyes that look are common. Eyes that see are rare." | |
| Servant-XII | |
| Player: P.R.E.Z. | |
| Origin: | Technology |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Confidential |
| Security Level: | Confidential |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Mykal Tannan |
| Known Aliases: | Servant, Twelve |
| Species: | Human |
| Age: | 40 |
| Height: | 5'11" |
| Weight: | 187 lbs. |
| Eye Color: | Brown |
| Hair Color: | None |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | American |
| Occupation: | Inventor, Corporate CEO |
| Place of Birth: | Boston, Massachusetts |
| Base of Operations: | Galaxy City |
| Marital Status: | Single |
| Known Relatives: | Jonathan and Esther Tannan (mother and father), Bernadine Adams(aunt) |
| Known Powers | |
| Heightened Intuition, Preternatural Accuracy | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Genius-level IQ, Master engineer/inventor | |
| Equipment | |
| Paraclete assault pistols, Boanerges battlesuit, UGD-1 wrist gauntlets | |
| No additional information available. | |
Contents |
Character Overview
"It all started with the nightmares..."
Mykal Tannan, otherwise known as Servant-XII, is a deeply spiritual man who has been chosen by God for a mission of great importance. With few clues and even less direction, Mykal must first locate, and bring together The Twelve, unknown but very special people who have been marked with a symbol of divine fate. No one knows who they are, where they may be, or what might happen should Mykal succeed in finding them...but it almost certainly bodes ill for the rest of mankind. Driven by his faith in God through Jesus Christ and armed with the visions, dreams, and encounters that faith precipitated, Mykal works incessantly against the forces of evil that plague Paragon City, hoping that each new battle will bring him one step closer to finding another one of The Twelve.
Character History
Early Life
Mykal Tannan was born on April 4th, 1973. As a child, he had always been curious. His parents, his mom a teacher and his father an auto mechanic, saw this in him and encouraged it with books. However, they knew something was very different when he'd begun reading and comprehending high school senior material as well as help his father work on cars at the age of five. This precipitated them to get him tested which revealed that he was a genius of an unparallelled order. His test results were astounding which took his parents completely by surprise. However, before they could decide how they were going to pursue with him, they had calls and visits from people all around the world. It was then decided jointly that they would raise him normally and let him move as fast as he wanted.
College Career
Mykal Tannan, simply put, is a genius. School never truly posed a great challenge for him, with mastery of each and every subject coming as easily as the straight 'A's he earned every year. By the time he was in seventh grade, he was already taking college-level courses, and he earned his first masters degree in electrical engineering from Paragon City University at the same time that he earned his high school diploma. He later went on to earn his doctorate. Notice came quickly and eagerly from nearly every top-class college and university in the nation, and Mykal had his pick of schools at which to receive a free ivy-league education. Choosing to attend MIT, Mykal earned his first PhD in physics by the age of seventeen and quickly began working on a second.
While his intellect and drive allowed him to achieve any academic goal he desired, Mykal never really fit in at public school, PCU or MIT. He alienated himself from others, becoming a proverbial know-it-all on the subjects he expounded on which he knew it all better than others. The effortlessness of his academic success, coupled with his devout dedication to his own greatness, provided a source of resentment and ridicule for him at almost every turn. Needless to say, Mykal rarely got along with people during his scholastic days. Mykal tended to look down on most of his classmates at school, especially those who did not take it seriously. He was also possessed of a tendency towards arrogance and pomposity; the young genius had a constant need to prove that he was the best and the smartest, and he wasn't shy about letting people know that they weren't even in his league. People either admired him or despised him; for most, the latter was often the case.
As a result, he poured himself almost exclusively into his studies but more so into his invention designs which provided him an escape and intellectual challenge. Giving his inventions "life" is what drove him and seeing the proliferation of "supers" in Paragon City prompted him to design offensive hardware. This included his Paraclete Assault Pistols, Javelin Assault Rifle, and his UGD-V1 (version one) Wrist Gauntlets. Though the plan was to use them in his own adventurous endeavors to prove he could do it, he never got around to using them while attending school.
His patents are used in some of the most well known technology in Paragon City, med teleporters and healers being the most prominent. He also has patents for other devices in every day living, the most notable being his gas efficiency system which takes down gasoline consumption in cars and trucks by over 54%. He quickly added another for diesel engines and a custom component for airplanes. Though the oil companies tried to block its usage, it eventually was implemented and gradually revolutionized the automotive industry around the world, making him a very, very wealthy man.
Becoming a CEO
Mykal's wealth grew astronomically. In his mid to late 20s, he was living it up. Everything that he wanted he bought and he indulged in whatever his heart desired, women being high on that list. Known as a ladies man, he dated a different woman every day of the week. However, he never indulged in drunkenness or drug use though many in the circles he ran with did. It disgusted him. He never wanted anything to affect the great mind he had for a second and looked down with high disdain at those who did such things.
It was around this time that the computer industry was picking up steam. He was intrigued by computers and decided to invest in companies like Microsoft, IBM, and Apple while pursuing a third degree in the computer sciences, receiving his PhD in computer engineering and software. The success of the big two software companies made him much more money and he decided to invest in the then growing Internet during the big tech boom of the late 90s. However, when the bubble burst, he lost millions. He decided that having more knowledge of finance and business was in order and he received a masters degree in Business. During this time he, began his own company, Tannan Innovations, a business to business company that solved technological problems for companies by custom designing and building inventions made to order. His company was profitable every year, so much so that he took it public just three years after its formation. Never wanting to be under anyone's heel, he made sure that he controlled 57% of the company at all times.
Life was good he thought.
Conversion to Faith in Christ
The existence of God was a notion that Mykal thought to be ludicrous. Like many scientists, he believed in evolution. However, it was during his reading of an article by a biochemist named Michael Behe that he began to question what he believed. Initially, he wanted to instantly write it off and write a rebuttal but his area in the bio-sciences was not as developed. He knew he'd have to study on his own. So he did.
While studying he also read some of Bee's other works including Darwin's Black Box that was hailed as one of the most important books of the 20th century. In an interview, Behe made an astounding statement that didn't defy logic but supported it so strongly that real scientists could not deny it. He said:
"You see, a system or device is irreducibly complex if it has a number of different components that all work together to accomplish the task of the system, and if you were to remove one of the components, the system would no longer function. An irreducibly complex system is highly unlikely to be built piece-by-piece through Darwinian processes, because the system has to be fully present in order for it to function....Evolution can't produce an irreducibly complex biological machine suddenly, all at once, because it's much too complicated. The odds against that would be prohibitive. And you can't produce it directly by numerous, successive, slight modifications of a precursor system, because any precursor system would be missing a part and consequently couldn't function. There would be no reason for it to exist. And natural selection chooses systems that are already working."
Mykal understood the implications which were staggering. It meant there had to be intelligence behind creating the irreducibly complex systems. For days the reality of those statements stuck with him. He researched rebuttals but most affirmed the truth of the statement while presenting no scientific evidence for alternatives. Most grasped at straws based on a slavish adherence to evolution and not hard science. This troubled him, so much that he took two years off from academic pursuits to research the world's religions. This was impossible and yet so were many of the so called miracles He was supposed to have done. He was going to follow nothing blindly.
Traveling the world, he began to observe and study intensely. Something in him pressed him on. Intuitively he knew it was the most important pursuit in his life. Many he wrote off early or immediately because of the doctrine was unsound or the leader was, in his eyes, lacking. That is, until he came to Jesus Christ.
The claims of Christianity, which were the claims of Christ Himself, were staggering. In all of Mykal's research, no leader even compared in purity, wisdom, power, and authority. Of course, the main hurdle for him was the resurrection. He wanted the truth and he believed that it would be plain to him once he found it. He studied history, culture, archaeology, and biblical geography by traveling to many of the locations firsthand. For seven months, every day was spent pouring over books and texts, visiting museums, and interviewing experts (some he who he realized needed more study themselves). The more Mykal pressed in, the more overwhelming the evidence became, so much so that it culminated in him being on his knees in the very tomb that Jesus had risen from the dead and handing his life and allegiance over to Christ.
When he arose, he knew something had happened to him. It wasn't scientific. It wasn't psychological. It wasn't purely emotional though his emotions were reeling from the experience. He had the same eyes but not the same sight. The world and everything in it was different. And so was he.
Nightmares, Visions, and Visitations
Five years into his walk of faith, Mykal began to be plagued by disturbing dreams of darkness, destruction, and death. Some were so intense that he wouldn't sleep all night. He would stay up, praying, reading, or working on a new invention. But they kept coming and many were recurring. It all came to a head when they became waking visions, glimpses, living flashbacks while awake something that had never happened to him in his life.
He decided to fast and pray while pursuing spiritual counsel on the matter. On day 21 of his fast, he received a visit from a man who wouldn't identify himself. The visitor made Mykal aware that his night visions were a prophecy of things to come. A world changing event, dubbed The Unknown Certainty, was on the horizon. Mykal had been chosen by the Lord God Almighty to find the others foretold in the lost Eleazar Prophecy, eleven others who were to be instruments of His divine hand. He would know them by a special star shaped mark on their body which would glow when another with the same mark was near. These Twelve would have a key role in The Unknown Certainty which would last 1000 days and change the world forever. Only after the Twelve were gathered would they begin retrieving the Eleazar Prophecy. In it was their mission for The Unknown Certainty.
Upon hearing this, Mykal fell to his knees. He knew he was not worthy to do such a thing. In his own foolish pride, he pleaded, asserting that God must have the wrong man. However, when he lifted his face from the ground, the man was gone.
The Crusade Begins
The effect of the whole ordeal effected Mykal profoundly. There had to be some kind of mistake. He had scoffed at God more times than he could remember, living in sensuality, arrogant of his own self-worth. Though He knew that Christ was a God of forgiveness, he could not wrap his mind around the idea that the Lord would choose him for such a thing. The closer he got to God, the more apparent it became just how sinful he really was.
For a week he cried and prayed, thinking maybe the whole experience was a delusion. But he knew it wasn't.
That morning, standing at his bedroom window looking out over the horizon, his resolve had been set. He knew what he had to do. That day, the search began for The Twelve.
And on that day, the Rikti came.
The Invasion
Storylines
Personal Mission Logs
Architect Missions
Personality & Philosophy
Leadership Style
For the first couple of months after taking command of the Millennium Paladins, Servant 12 had a very 'hands-on' management approach. Determined to succeed in his God-given mission and being more than a little perfectionist, Servant became very heavily involved in the day to day running of the group. Shortly thereafter, the Paladins went through their first of many 'reduction periods', suffering inactivity and a falling away of the majority of their members. Viewing this as a failure on his part, Servant determined to alter his approach. With typical faith, he gave up on worrying about every single detail, instead deciding to rely on God for guidance. In the following years, as he continually recruited new members into the Paladins, Twelve was able to handpick certain individuals to act as officers. Although he has often still been forced to shoulder most of the leadership responsibilities for the MPs, in recent years he has not been reluctant to delegate certain tasks to such individuals as Kuragari Umbra, and the mysterious Aegirian Templar who had joined them for a while but eventually went on to pursue his personal endeavors. In spite of this, there is no doubt that Twelve remains the heart, soul, and mind of the group - whenever he is absent for any period of time, the drive and activity level of the entire group drops off noticeably.
Romantic Relationships
Philanthropic Efforts
Work At PCU
Mykal Tannan has a position at Paragon City University as a part-time faculty member in the Applied Religion Department. He regularly gives lectures to students in either the Workman Room or the nearby Tannan Room, so named due to the fact that it was constructed with funds that he himself donated to the cause. Mykal was one of the influential individuals responsible for the revival of the dwindling Humanities Department at PCU, which had atrophied considerably as a result of the school's focus on establishing a top-notch Sciences Department. The Humanities Department had not enjoyed the same support and aggressive fundraising engine that the Science Department had, leaving it up to generous and passionate donors like Mykal and influential groups like the Midnight Squad to bring it back up to specs in the last few decades.
Equipment
Despite having no superpowers of his own, Mykal Tannan's engineering genius has provided his alter ego, Servant 12, with an impressive arsenal of technological devices. These powerful tools have allowed Servant 12 to go head-to-head with every known villain group in Paragon City on numerous occasions, and emerge victorious every time.
UGD-1 Gauntlets
The most commonly-used item in Servant 12's arsenal, the UGD-1 wrist gauntlets are an integral piece of his equipment in every one of his numerous combat configurations. Whether he is armed for close combat, ranged combat, or defensive actions, the intricate UGD-1s are capable of controlling any and all of Servant 12's various personal battle systems. The UGD-1s feature an adaptive electronic interlink system that can automatically reconfigure the operating software to accommodate whichever gear combination Servant is wearing at the time, and provide universal control for his emergency medical and tactical teleportation systems. When worn with any of Mykal's personal battlesuits, the gauntlets are capable of drawing upon the suit's batteries and generating an electrical charge, allowing Servant 12 to channel high-voltage electrical current into his hand-to-hand attacks.
Paraclete Assault Pistols
Despite the fact that Servant 12 has only recently begun utilizing these deadly weapons, they are actually an invention that he has been working on for years. It has only been in recent weeks, however, that he has managed to complete the final field tests needed to verify their combat effectiveness. Servant designed his pair of Paraclete Assault Pistols to be lightweight - easy to wield and carry - with an expanded magazine capacity and high-tech smart targeting systems. Like all of his gear and gadgets, the Paracletes are linked to the computer systems in his UGD-1 gauntlets, giving him comprehensive weapons diagnostics at all times, including a round for round ammo count and weapon heat levels.
Boanerges Battlesuit
Servant 12 has spent years developing, assembling, modifying, and endlessly tinkering with the most advanced piece of gear he has ever devised - what he calls the Boanerges. Built from scratch from the ground up, this advanced battlesuit was custom-designed solely for Mykal's personal use. Over the years, he has designed different configurations for the suit, allowing him to perform a wide range of combat roles depending on the situation at hand. The central chassis of the suit is highly modular, allowing Twelve to attach extra armor plating, weapons systems, cyber-augmentation boosters, support systems, and medical trauma kits. Each one of these configurations ties in directly to his wrist gauntlets, giving him total computer control regardless of which battle systems he currently has access to.
Affiliations
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