Rajiv Vaz

Player: Håkan Andersson
Nature: Explorer/Optimist

Nationality: Swedish (formerly Indian)

Strength 2

Dexterity 3, drive 1

Stamina 3, endurance 3, resistance 3

Perception (patient) 5, awareness 1, investigation 2

Intelligence /bookish) 4, academics 3, bureaucracy 1, computer 4, engineering 2, linguistics (xenolinguistics) 5, politics 3, comparative philology 3

Wits (creative) 4, biz 1, rapport 2

Appearance (Nordic) 4, style 3

Manipulation (witty) 4, streetwise 1, subterfuge 1

Charisma 2, etiquette 1

Backgrounds: resources 4, node 2, network (students) 3, dormancy 5, invisibility 4

Willpower: 6

Taint: 0

Quantum 3

Mega-perception 2 (bloodhound, quantum attunement), megaintelligence 2 (linguistic genius)

Warp 3, ESP 1 (long range, all senses)

Rajiv was a 22 year old Indian exchange student in Germany when he erupted in the spring 2005. He found himself able to open portals everywhere in the world, including to other planets as well as having his linguistic abilities burgeon. He quickly made the most of the situation, shopping around for a useful European citizenship rather than having to support the Indian government, selling his services for space development and as help for ENA and generally enjoying becoming a media personality.

Later development: Rajiv was essential for the European Mars program, enabling ESA to simply drive truckloads of equipment to Mars through a portal in a Frankfurt warehouse. When encountering the “sunspiders” he became interested in xenolinguistics and managed to participate in some communication. The shock left him slightly manic for several months. Rajiv involved himself in the Kashmir war by trying to secretly provide stolen intelligence information to both sides in the hope of ending it, but likely just worsening the situation and playing in the hands of the Indian BSA; after the incident he was hunted by Indian intelligence worldwide and relocated largely to Mars (still within easy commuter distance for him). After a deal with Dr Klein he modified his dormant appearance to look like a Nordic boy around 12 years old. Since he spends most of the time in “powered up” form almost nobody recognizes the little boy “Niklas Vasström”.

Powers: Rajiv is most well known for his “gates”, wormholes that open as two-dimensional surfaces in the air enabling rapid transport from both sides. His range is interplanetary, and he is quite able to open gates even to places he does not know about. However, his ESP enables him to move a point of view across huge distances, taking in what is seen or heard there, so in many cases he can scout ahead. He is a linguistic genius and often spends time watching people elsewhere in the world and taking in their language; he can speak with 95% of all of humanity from the start.

Age: 22 (born in Mumbai private clinic, 3^rd of May, 1983)

Family:

Mother Chandrika Vaz, 41, local political activist
Father Major Ranjeet Prasab (deceased in 1987, 32 at time of death)

Background:

Born in the mid-80s in metropolitan Mumbai, Rajiv was the son of a career military officer and a freelance journalist. Having married slightly below his caste, Rajivs father was nonetheless well connected within the Indian military hierarchy. The early years of Rajivs life was led in modest luxury, with loving parents. This took an abrupt turn in 1987, when hostilities in Kashmir claimed the life of his father. Having broken with her family when marrying Ranjeet, Chandrika found herself out in the cold, with only a meager widows pension where previously her husband had had all kinds of supplemental incomes. This changed her outlook on life, something that would also affect Rajiv greatly.

    They moved from their stately flat in downtown Mumbai, to a lower-middle class neighborhood south of the city center. There Rajiv started school, and excelled. His mother finally scraped together money from journalism and a growing interest in activism for the downtrodden to send Rajiv, then age 9, to a private boarding school in England. How she actually got the money, Rajiv never asked, content with the above party line.

    Once in Europe, Rajiv was firmly educated as to the differences and intolerances of the world. Refusing to let this get him down, he nevertheless managed to graduate with top marks from the boarding school. His future looked bright, and several European universities were ready to extend scholarships to the young Indian genius.

    Meanwhile, his mother’s political activism had taken a radical bent. Campaigning virulently for the rights of the poor and peace in Kashmir, she had made a lot of enemies. Eventually, she fled to South Africa, where she started working for a human rights group. Through all this, she kept only sporadic contact with her son. Rajiv has some slight resentment for her over this, but still loves her in his own way.

    Being accepted to a university in Frankfurt on a full scholarship in 2000, Rajiv immediately set about getting himself the strangest and most multi-facetted degree known to man. Heavily involved in student affairs, he sharpened his political and language skills. After a romance with an engineering student, he found himself with a minor in electronics engineering. No one was more surprised than himself at this. His main fields of study, however, were computers. What especially interested him was translation-software. Designing several translation and voice recognition engines made him well seen at the linguistics department. He had just returned to his studies after a year as student-body president when he suddenly found himself warped to the North Pole, and possessing nova powers to beat.

Personality:

Rajiv is a social and outgoing person, to a point. The friendly and easygoing genius is a very real part of his personality, but behind all that is a very privacy-prone side of him. This probably stems from having a very turbulent and mobile upbringing. While he does not need to control his surroundings, his own time is his own, and woe to the person that rummages around there without due cause or invitation.

Invisibility:

Perhaps the secretive side to Rajiv’s personality is mostly displayed in his habit of covering his tracks. A basic check-up of Rajiv’s life would show nothing surprising. His casual association with radical leftist student groups in Frankfurt is probably the most dirt a determined investigator could get on him. As for the links to his family, he keeps his communications with his mother fairly discrete and clandestine. Previously, he had no real need to do so. Now that he is a nova, he just keeps a good thing going. Any attempt to link Rajiv and his mother’s current, strategically misspelled identity, would be very difficult.

Network:

Mainly leftist-liberal in his political leanings, Rajiv has built an extensive network of aquaintances and friends throughout the student world. He always has a place to crash in any major city in Europe and quite a few others too.

    Politically, he speaks to radicals and moderates with equal ease. His own position is quite moderate, but he can’t deny that the radical methodology gets occasional results.