Communications Officer Doug Eiffel

User Name/Nick: Maniette
User DW: maniette
E-mail/Plurk/Discord/PM to a character journal/alternate method of contact: Maniette
Other Characters Currently In-Game: Tim Stoker and Hunter

Character Name: Communications Officer Douglas "Doug" Fernand Eiffel
Series: Wolf 359
Age: 32
From When?: Episode 30, before he gets picked up by S.S. Urania but after Cryo Hell

Warden Justification: "Eiffel will be a good warden because he has no filter and too much anxiety and that seems to fit in with most of the warden population." - Kota Despite the amount of disparagement he gets from his superiors about being a nuisance and active detriment to any task he's been assigned to, Eiffel is a kind and empathetic person who's really good at getting under people's skin and prompting outraged yelling fits. He comes across as a layman and a common denominator, who can recognise the value of hard work, and when he decides he likes someone (which honestly doesn't take much, apparently) he's all in for better or worse. He's not afraid to call people out on their crap and often has zero filter, but still knows how to engage it and is able to be serious, tactful and even respectful when the situation calls for it. He has strong stances on bodily autonomy, sentience and the capacity for independence and humanity in AI, and a person's place in a fucked-up system.

Item: A wireless headset that answers questions in Hera's voice, glitches and all.

Abilities/Powers: Eiffel is a perfectly normal human dude, who just so happens to be a communications officer on a spaceship. He's got all the basic functionality, skills and training that astronauts require, is keenly good at doing exactly what he's told, and following his training and avoiding panic instincts in severely high-stakes environments, and a passionate knowledge of both terrestrial and interstellar communications and radio functions (though his roles appear to be primarily software/feedback based rather than hardware, he's also the most competent person to end up in the seat of any kind of communications station), and has worked previously as a provisional technical sergeant in airforce communications as a specialist, and also in private surveillance. As a fun bonus, he also has some basic firearms training! And thanks to being the unwitting, unwilling subject of a gross violation of ethics by their resident mad scientist, he has an accelerated rate of natural recovery. Nothing supernaturally fast, but of note is that he is capable of recovering from superficial-to-severe frostbite.

Wardening Strategies and Philosophies: Having discovered that aliens are very much real and also stealing his voice, he might be a liiiittle freaked out by all the weird magical and alien races. On the other hand, he will respond highly positively to any and all people who resemble Popular Media, and especially to robots or artificial intelligence units. It's really a toss-up between how quickly he recognises what you're referencing and how positively the person responds to his rapid-fire gibberish.

Eiffel is very much not used to being in a position of command (and in fact actively hates being so), and will initially be resistant to the notion and to his best to ignore that he's technically a superior officer now: when he eventually settles in, and realised that the title is largely nominal he'll be a bit more chill and receptive, and actively want to help people. Somehow. As you do.

And then engage with his Inmate by being the most obnoxious second-in-command to them of all time. He is annoying and he knows how to use it, but also he's surprisingly cognizant of the emotional needs of others, and is willing to be anything from a voice of (reluctant) reason to a jokey-joke pal, to just a friend and positive influence. While he has no real ability to defend himself in a fight besides raw muscle (which he is remarked upon as not actually having), he's both pragmatic enough to get out of immediate danger and idiotically self-sacrificing enough to not, so he can try and de-escalate the situation. He's a steadfast pacifist, and will always try to pick a solution that ends with the least amount of violence, but his success is usually rather reliant on his subject's willingness to be persuaded rather than his own middling-to-decent debate abilities.

His major strengths are going to be his approachability, his warmth and genuine empathy, and his nosy desire to learn more about the people he cares about, while also respecting their boundaries when he gets firm pushback. He'd be good for inmates with a stick up their ass, who need to learn how to unwind and enjoy the finer things in life, like not horribly murdering people. His most prominent weakness is that he's a lazy, submissive asshole who would have minimal capacity to step up and take charge over an inmate who is sufficiently manipulative or domineering. Eiffel is one of nature's Igors, not to be left alone with a mad scientist lest they run him into the ground.

Deal: Heal the kids he left permanently disabled in a car accident.

History: Eiffel's wiki page!

Sample Network Entry/RP: TDM thread!

Special Notes: Eiffel is infected with a genetically modified retrovirus known as the decima virus - but also (spoilers following): with alien blood that has lowkey modified his biology, and while it doesn't cure the decima virus, it does heal the symptoms as they come up. So basically his body is a ticking timebomb.