BLACKBURNE, Daniel A.

[Daniel Blackburne]

Name, nicknames, anything:

Daniel Alexander Blackburne
Callsign: Ironcrow
Nicknames: Fenian, Ghost, Nightmare, Four Guns

Age, rank, anything that goes along with that (include what branch of the military [ignore if character is not military] the character is in):

32 years old
22nd Special Air Service Regiment, Counter Revolutionary Wing, Revolutionary Warfare Wing
Former Royal Marine Commando
Sniper and Designated Marksman, occasional marksmanship, SERE and combatives instructor trainer
Lieutenant Colonel

Describe your character's appearance. Include eye colour, hair colour, height, build, and anything extra.

Daniel's most commonly-applied descriptor before working with Americans was “huge”, preceded by an expletive. Standing at 6' 4” and tipping the scales at 263lbs, American troops labelled him as “the size of a tackle and built like a running back”. His eyebrows and cheekbones carry enough scar tissue to tell the story of a brawler, and his knuckles bear the marks to match; his nose is the kind of straight you only get from having it badly broken and reset by a doctor suffering from OCD. He keeps his hair (both head and face) to a civilian standard, befitting his work in the Special Air Service, which to him means just on the safe side of looking unkempt.

His hair is dark brown, thick and wiry. His face is hard and angular, with thick skin, and his few lines are deep. His eyes are dark grey, with few other distinguishing features. He generally looks angry when not smiling.

Being built for strength, rather than show, he doesn't have a body builder's bulging, gaudy muscles and popping veins, instead carrying his weight in tough, lean, sinewy and most importantly, functional muscle – this means he is smaller and less-bulky than his weight would suggest. He has one scar that stands out, going from his collarbone right down to his solar plexus, where hot brass from a left-handed rifle was ejected into his shirt. He has several tattoos, including his identification number, on his left triceps in UV ink.

Character Playby:

Gerard Butler

Likes/Dislikes, at least three each.

Likes:

• Martial arts. Daniel is a lifelong martial artist, and an experienced soldier. He enjoys friendly combat, particularly keeping himself sharp with live sparring. His own fighting style is a combination of his military training and several fighting styles learned and practised off-base, including (but not limited to) Brazilian jiu-jitsu (a Rickson Gracie black belt), Combat Sambo, Sanshou kickboxing, Muay Thai, Kyokushin Karate, Greco-Roman wrestling, Eskrima, Krav Maga and Hapkido.
  
• Free climbing and solo free climbing. Climbing with minimal and no aid (respectively), Daniel spends a lot of his down-time in the Colorado Rockies.
  
• “Adventuring”. The hobbyist title for long-haul hiking and camping, Dan usually works his climbing into this to set up his tent in places that even other “adventurers” don't tend to visit
  
  Dislikes:
  
• Being asked about time in combat. Daniel has, in his own words, “had to do some damn distasteful things for another man's flag”. He does not like being asked to relive events over which he still loses sleep.
  
• Being asked if he was on the Bravo Two Zero patrol. He was not and people need to stop asking. Similarly, he hates being asked what he would have done in their position by people who know he was not there.
  
• Bad drivers. This one really doesn't need to be explained. Daniel does, however, admit that in the wake of his military driving training, that sharing the road with him can be a harrowing experience.
  
  

Strengths/Weaknesses, at least three each.

Strengths:

• Physical conditioning. Daniel is extremely strong, quick and athletic, and his speed is usually described without the “for his size” qualifier typically applied to people of his size and weight.
  
• Adept marksman. Daniel is a legendary figure among snipers, and a well-travelled marksmanship instructor trainer – a man considered good-enough to teach people how to teach other people to be snipers is a rare and valuable commodity.
  
• Close quarters combat. Snipers and special operators typically have the unenviable burden of operating away from friendly forces and their support. As such, Daniel is more than capable of devastating hostiles at close ranges, armed or unarmed. While he is not a (usually unofficially) recognised authority like he is in marksmanship and SERE, Daniel has blended his varied martial training into a unified, seamless fighting system, and has honed several classes of SAS hopefuls into deadly weapons.
  
• Fieldcraft and survival. Owing to the same reason as his close-quarters skills, Daniel has undergone extensive fieldcraft training and is a highly experienced tracker and scout. He was one of five men in his selection group to evade capture during special forces qualification. He has trained both British and American soldiers in the arts of survival, evasion, interrogation resistance and escape tactics.
  
• Highly intuitive. Daniel received advanced reconnaissance, HUMINT and Counter-intelligence training in the SAS, and frequently picks up on things that others miss.
  
• The special operations speciality – Tier One operators have a rare talent. They are experts at becoming experts. Daniel has a remarkable aptitude for absorbing, interpreting and reproducing information including languages, weapons manipulation and statistics.
  
  Weaknesses:
  
• Irregular sleep patterns. Due to the necessity of being a light sleeper in his line of work, and the use of military-issue ephedrine, Daniel can have trouble getting a good night's sleep without the aid of pharmaceuticals (or the soothing effects of spooning a rifle, whichever is immediately available).
  
• Plays his cards close and can be uncommunicative at times – as an IOA representative, he's entirely unsure who he can trust, and is similarly unsure of who really trusts him.
  
• Muscle memory, training and extensive experience tend to combine and provide the wrong reaction to unexpected physical contact (e.g. crippling a pick-pocket in Berlin).
  
• Very much a mountain-man type loner when away from the military. He tends to not socialize well outside of the work place (very rarely left the barracks in Hereford unless he was going out with his patrol members). He tries to be friendly, but it's mostly an act learned from watching people who are genuinely friendly.
  
• Since assignment to the SGC, Daniel has begun second-guessing himself. After several brutal combat assignments, he has become wary of the possibility of suffering from PTSD. Personally, he prefers the term “Burnout” - in his opinion, it has a sense of stubborn nobility.
  
• Considered overbearing by most standards, Daniel is accustomed to SAS operators and will, on occasion, revert to how he would behave around them. The SAS' strange informality and bravado will rise to the surface and he tends to forget that even at the SGC, not everyone around him is capable of feats that are second nature to him and other Tier One operators.
  
  

At least three important events in your character's life and why it matters.

• Joining the Royal Marine Corps
  
• Selection for the Special Air Service
  
• Graduation from Edinburgh University and receiving his Officer's Commission
  
• Receiving his Master's Degree.
  
• The operation in Kashmir that exposed him to alien technology, leading to his assignment to the SGC.
  
  

Main goal:

Protect and survive – Daniel has a strange sense of self-preservation. He will give up his life, but only if there is no other way to achieve his objective.

Greatest fear:

Burning out.

What does your character not like about themselves? At least three things.

• His temper. While not a card-carrying hothead, Daniel's slow-burning fuse is surprisingly short.
  
• He has a certain “venom” when arguing with people. He is more than adept at burying the proverbial “knife” where it hurts most, and when angry, he can be callous with the feelings of others.
  
• His profound lack of any ability to dance. His flailing is actively dangerous and has put many a potential lady friend in a crumpled heap on a night club floor.
  
  

Why was your character chosen for the Stargate program? (Include any skills that would be part of the reason.)

On his most recent deployment, Daniel and his unit were sent as pathfinders for a joint Chinese-Indian operation to crack down on smugglers in Kashmir. The group ran into a particularly brash band of heavily-armed smugglers not long into the proposed months-long crack-down, and were introduced to Goa'uld weaponry the hard way. Under heavy fire, and with the entire unit sustaining heavy casualties (killed) Daniel and his men were forced to call an Indian air strike directly on top of their position.

During his debriefing (he likened it more to an interrogation), Daniel was questioned by a stranger – the man repeated questions asked previously, and then went into greater depth with them, as well as asking several questions that at the time seemed to make no sense. Alone among his peers, Daniel was deemed to have the mentality required for “extremely unconventional operations”, the International Oversight Advisory assigned Daniel as a British delegate to Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, USA.

Initially, Daniel was only provided with the cover story, that he was going to be working as security and oversight for a “deep space telemetry” operation (obviously something extremely shady, given the context of his selection). He could only assume that after being chosen by the spook, in the wake of Kashmir, that if something went horribly wrong and the operation needed to be “burned”, he'd be the one putting bullets in scientists.

Describe your character's personality, at least one hundred words.

“Heroes don't brag” - Daniel avoids talking about his time in combat unless it's relevant, or with a psychoanalyst of some variety. He plays his cards close, and doesn't really let people in. He can put up a good face and usually does, pretending to be open, friendly and jovial. He almost regrets this habit, but is hard-wired to keep things as secretive as possible due to his history in the Regiment (and his effective lack of a superior officer). He won't let it get in the way of an objective (work is work), so this mostly affects his social life. He'll bond more quickly with other operators, but being ingrained with the Regiment's strange form of (in)formality can get in the way of relations with other soldiers. When under pressure, his edges harden – to quote his handler in East Africa, “the Half-Colonel is gonna give you chills through the phone – you'll feel a cold breeze when he walks into a place ready to do murder”.

Your character's history, at least 300 words.

Lieutenant-Colonel Blackburne was born in the Dublin Docklands, away from what anyone might call civilized Dublin. His father was a welder and machinist and his mother was a housewife and music teacher. The Blackburne children were raised with very little money, but enough closeness and family pride to make up for it. Fighting was almost a way of life in the docklands, but was usually good-natured, almost like an informal fight club. The boys would gather after school and beat each other to ragged pulps, shake hands and go home to eat; the Blackburne children were forged in battle from an early age.

After graduating secondary school (with admirable results), Daniel made his attempt at joining the Irish Defence forces. Fate intervened, however, in the form of an embargo on new recruits. Daniel left to England and never looked back after enlisting in the Royal Marine Commandos. During his time wearing a Green Beret, he began studying part-time for a Mechanical Engineering Degree at Edinburgh University, a degree being crucial to claiming an officer's commission. Close to the end of his third year, Blackburne was afforded an opportunity to volunteer for United Kingdom Special Forces Selection; his exam results, mental toughness and natural athleticism (or being a freak of nature, depending on who describes him) made him an ideal candidate (to say nothing of his military record). The gruelling selection process began shortly after his degree being awarded, and Daniel stepped into the new challenge ready for battle.

The process of selection's infamous attrition rate broke most of the candidates mentally and emotionally, and more than a few of them were physically broken. Shortly after completing the long drag and entering training with the 22nd Special Air Service Regiment, Daniel had to return to his studies. He chose his two-of-the-three options, opting to neglect sleep in favour of keeping his academic results and performance in training high. Until his degree was awarded, he was more reliant on caffeine than mental fortitude. Predictably, he enjoyed the challenge and applied to spend another three years studying part-time for a Master's degree in engineering.

During a deployment to a mountainous region in far-eastern Kazakhstan, operating in tandem with Russian Spetsnaz, Daniel's unit was involved in an ambush when adverse weather conditions forced several insurgent bands to converge on a tiny settlement at the head of a valley. This village was known to be a meeting place for militant groups and was under surveillance by Daniel's eight-man patrol. Unfortunately, one of the scattered groups stumbled upon the gulley where the SAS patrol was concealed and opened fire. As misfortunes piled up, this particular group comprised of Chechen mercenaries, whose heavy equipment drew the attention of several other insurgents. The patrol was forced to fight their way out under heavy fire that prevented covert aerial evacuation.

Daniel led the patrol to the closest friendly zone on foot, while periodically turning back to engage their pursuers in attempts to slow them down and dodging the attention of Chinese troops summoned by the action near their border. Between accumulating injuries and hypothermia in the stormy winter conditions, each member of the patrol had lost potentially fatal amounts of body weight and arrived on friendly ground dangerously dehydrated. Two men were sent home immediately, having lost several fingers and toes to frostbite, while the others were “allowed” to recuperate in Russia before being sent back to Hereford for rehabilitation and retraining.

Several deployments later, what is known among intelligence circles as the Kashmir Incident rolled around, and Daniel and his unit (as well as infantry from an Indian-Chinese coalition in the Kashmir region) were exposed to Goa'uld weaponry looted from burial sites in Asia. Dan was debriefed in India and again in London before being shipped out to Colorado to work with the US military's Stargate Deep Space Telemetry Program.

Roleplay sample (please use the character you're creating):

The music pounded in his head, his ears ringing as people screamed their orders at the bar tender. He shook his head to clear his vision of the spots that the strobe lights left behind, casting lunatic shadows over the drunk or getting-there revelers. The place reeked of sweat, spit and alcohol, and the floor was coated with a sticky, clinging layer of spilled cocktails. Somewhere out on the dance floor he heard someone vomit and the accompanying screams as he drenched those around him with his last drink. The bouncers wouldn't be far away.

His size didn't stand out here. Two of the bouncers were bigger than him and everyone had their hands in the air anyway - his head was concealed by the flailing, spazzing arms. He ducked slightly as he stepped into the reeking bathrooms not far behind his target. He was one of the men that allowed MI6 to say it had never assassinated anyone, and this bull-necked Serbian assassin was just another name on a long list of war profiteers that had to be exterminated to try and choke off the flow of arms to Gaza.

The OIC had called it pest control.

Dan squared up to a urinal, pretending to unzip his pants as the mark loudly relieved himself two urinals away. Drunk almost beyond belief, this was going to be at one of the extremes when it came to difficult work, depending on what kind of drunk this squat, tree-stump-like beast of a man was. Dan stepped away from his urinal and moved to the sink immediately behind the Serbian, who made a disgusted noise before returning to what had to be the longest bathroom break Dan had ever witnessed.

Watching his prey in the mirror, Dan thought out what he was going to do. The Serb's neck was too thick and short to land a brachial stun with any degree of accuracy, and the club had installed metal detectors thanks to a shooting two months previous. No guns, no knives. And Dan didn't trust this man to be an easy choke.

Wired like a steel trap, Dan twisted around and uncoiled as the Serb zipped himself up (he waited because no one wanted to see that. The heel of his hand connected with the Serb's skull, driving his face forward hard against the pristine white tiles. A mouthful of spit clung to the wall as Dan hauled the Serb backwards and slung his head against the wall again. Believing the prey to be sufficiently stunned, Dan looped his arm under the struggling, flailing man's chin and tightened. The Serb kicked backwards with surprising force and Dan relinquished the choke to throw a few short, sharp uppercuts at the victim's kidneys.

Dan pushed the Serb downwards as he collapsed, cracking his head into the urinal with a near-comical ding. Dan hauled the Serb up once more and drove his knee up into his gut, driving the air from his lungs. The Serb wheezed and collapsed backwards into a cubicle, arms flailing wildly and breaking the toilet roll holder from the flimsy MDF wall. Dan descended on the man with short, rapid kicks and stamps, then grabbed a fistful of hair.

The Serb found himself being rolled face-down into the toilet-bowl and forced under the water as Dan kicked the cubicle door shut and rammed the lock home with his free hand. The Serb flailed for the flush handle to try and drain the bowl to get some breathing space, but found his hand grabbed and twisted , breaking with a low, very un-movie-like crunch. Dan set his weight down on the man and delivered two heavy punches to his kidneys, driving the last precious gasps of air from his lungs as the Serb's reflexive inhaling replaced them with stagnant water. From that point it was over quickly.

To prevent resuscitation ruining the operation, Dan hauled the lifeless body from the bowl and cranked his spine, bending his head backwards to crush the vertebrae - it was as close as he could get to making it look like the Serb had broken his neck falling face-first into the bowl. Dan then let the carcass flop weakly back into the water, where it hung pitifully.

Dan stepped out of the bathroom, taking a quick 180 glance to make sure the rest of his unit were moving as he headed for the door. It wouldn't be long before evac would arrive and to get them out of this sweaty, tourist-infested hellhole of a Mediterranean island.

PLAYER DETAILS. Name (doesn't have to be real, just a moniker for us to use), age, how long you've been RPing, timezone, best way to contact you, anything else you think we should know:

DETAILS GO HERE!

Call me Run4 or Run.
I am 22 years old.
I've been RPing for around 5 or 6 years now.
I live on GMT/UTC time.
Contact me via PM and we can work out IM contact from there.

[Sarah Yadin]

Approved