APPLICATION ☢ ATARAXION

[anomalies]

PLAYER INFORMATION
Your Name: Sid
OOC Journal: balphesian
Under 18? If yes, what is your age?: Nope.
Email + IM: balphesian[at]gmail[dot]com / balphesian (AIM)
Characters Played at Ataraxion: Resnik [NPC]

CHARACTER INFORMATION
Name: Connor Temple
Canon: Primeval
Original or Alternate Universe: OU
Canon Point: Immediately post series 4 (after he hops into the car with Philip.)
Number: 026

Setting: ( wiki ) + ( Primeval wiki ) + ( Primeval wiki on Connor )
History:

"You detect anomalies and fight dinosaurs, when necessary."       
— Captain Becker

IN A WORLD... WHERE PREHISTORIC BEASTS ROAM FREE AMONG MODERN-DAY LONDONERS...

Le Connor Temple was born in 1983 (or thereabouts) in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. He spent the majority of his childhood cultivating a massive nerdboner for cult classics and stereotypically 'geeky' media. (Sci-Fi enthusiast: check. Love of dinosaurs: check. Crush on Buffy: check.) Since the age of fourteen, he began to compile a database of prehistoric creatures on his own time — and earlier, at the age of 8, stayed back after museum closing hours to see if the animal displays would come to life. No such luck. Although he did get locked in the toilets for three hours. Somewhat traumatizing, but generally a harmless experience, especially considering the stuffed animals didn't actually start moving and try to eat him.

Due to too much Scooby Doo as a kid, Connor often entertained the thought of joining a ragtag crime-fighting team in addition to his love of prehistory. He enrolls in the (fictional) Central Metropolitan University as a student of palaeontology under Professor Nick Cutter; being a wunderkind of sorts, Connor excels at this particular area of study, propelled by his deep and slightly sad love of everything palaeontological. And it's this, combined with his interests in cryptozoology and conspiracy theories, that leads him to Cutter's office in episode one.

A reported monster sighting in the paper has him explaining that it's "Some sort of giant undiscovered predator" and that it's "the real thing!" Cutter is understandably not so impressed, telling Connor that he should "get out more", until Connor mentions the sighting was in the Forest of Dean—which immediately interests Stephen Hart, Cutter's lab technician, and Cutter himself, due to Cutter's wife having gone missing in the same forest 8 years prior. When they arrive, they meet Abby Maitland (a zoologist) and Claudia Brown (a Home Office rep) who were also pinged by the monster spotting, albeit under different circumstances. Instead, they find that the source of all this confusion is an anomaly that had apparently let through a Gorgonopsid from the Late Permian era. Oops? (Quick rundown on anomalies: they are large sparkly portals—think whirling shards of glass, only made of light—in space and time. They don't stay open all the time; generally from an hour to a day, at most, but when they are open, just about anything can come through them.)

This effectively brings Connor onto the team, as it were: formally, a department funded by the Home Office to take care of the problems the creatures and anomalies cause. (In series two, the team HQ is called the Anomaly Research Center, or the ARC). When Cutter is asked to head the team by James Lester, senior management for the Home Office, Connor tags along and is incorporated into the special group due to his intellect, skill with computer technology, and handy-dandy creature database. Apparently, his 'sinus issues' and 'allergies' "prevent him" from heavy physical activity—or dealing with the creatures in general—until it becomes clear the team needs as much help as they can get. The success rates of his endeavors to help, uh... widely vary. He's incredibly clumsy re: aid of a non-technological sort during much of series one, but he means well.

The rest of the series' plot eventually leads Cutter to go through an anomaly, change his past, and return to a canon-AU version of his reality at the beginning of series two. (Brief aside: this is all Helen Cutter's fault, and will continue to be her fault forever, because she is Crazy.) The Connor from that canon-AU reality has apparently not changed at all from his original self (unlike Claudia Brown, who ceased to exist and instead is replaced with an identical woman called Jenny Lewis). He's the same palaeontology student/tech whiz/derp he always was, and continues to grow and develop throughout the course of series two, three, four, and five, remaining an integral part of the ARC operation. More personality-relevant history also located below!

Personality:

"Connor Temple. He looks like a half-wit, but he has a very good brain."       
— Nick Cutter

Connor encapsulates the generic geek stereotype like it's his job. On top of being a gigantic sci-fi aficionado, his greatest wish, for example, is to get abducted by aliens. Probably aliens the government has secret contacts with and are just covering up, you know, like they always do. "Connor never met a conspiracy he didn't like," Cutter notes, and it's essentially true. Especially since the ARC existing has probably validated one or two of his conspiracies. (It's important to mention, at this point, that he wrote his actual dissertation on how all life on Earth evolved from aliens.)

As soon as he figured out what computers could do, Connor began teaching himself some programming languages and started writing software in his spare time as a way to wind down. That progressed to some tinkering with actual hardware at home, until he became reasonably confident in his ability to both program and fiddle with electronic components until they worked how he wanted, i.e. incredibly well. Later in the series, he becomes the de facto ARC software and electronics developer and inventor, creating both the Anomaly Detection Device (unfortunate acronym, there) and the Anomaly Locking Mechanism, or ADD and ALM.

Despite his smarts and technological skill, Connor is an extremely clumsy and awkward individual. Think Simple Dog, only... human-shaped, with greasier hair, and a trilby hat (sometimes). For someone as gifted as he is, he is remarkably accident prone, socially brainless, and lacking in any kind of common sense. On the one hand, he's enthusiastic about the things he loves, regardless of whether or not other people care. On the other, he seems to get into a fair amount of trouble without even trying. Despite his faults—which aren't so much numerous as they are hilarious—Connor is a very optimistic, happy, and humorous young man, always intentionally or unintentionally provoking smiles from the people around him. He loves easily (too easily, maybe), and is always eager to help where he can, with what he can.

During episode four, one of Connor's university mates, Tom, is killed by a parasite that was living in a dodo bird. He dies in Connor's arms at the conclusion of the episode. This is a major wake-up call for Connor, who had perhaps not been taking his job as seriously as he should have been, despite the constant danger his teammates have faced. He tells Cutter he doesn't think he can do it anymore; if he hadn't been involved, Tom wouldn't have been killed. Cutter tells him in no uncertain terms that he's one of the few people left that can do something about this, and that he can't back out now. Connor reluctantly agrees to continue working with him; however, the deaths don't end there, and it's safe to assume Connor has something of a guilty conscience because of that.

It's obvious he's primarily ruled by his emotions, and will not always think things through before leaping headfirst into a dangerous situation. It's not that he's naive, or that he can't plan, or unaware of the consequences, but rather that he's willing to risk himself for other people's safety at the expense of everything else. He finds it exceptionally easy to grow close to people given the chance. It's basically because of all these new relationships in his life that there's so much pressure to live up to expectations—especially Cutter's. Connor has never been one to particularly care what people think of him, but with his coworkers, it somehow matters more than it ever did before; there's a definite thirst to prove himself, to prove he's useful and that he matters. Despite, you know, his superhuman ability to make a lot of mistakes while doing so.

He looks up to Stephen Hart and Nick Cutter as his role models and idols, both incredibly cool and capable people whom he wants to emulate; he's frequently seen asking Stephen for romantic advice, a la older brother/younger brother dynamic, and views Cutter as his personal and professional mentor. Ever since the beginning on the series, he's had a sort of thing for Abby Maitland, and she's pretty much the only subject of his romantic inquiries. (In series two, episode four, he tell her he loves her in a high-adrenaline circumstance, but utterly fails to do anything about it post-confession. WAY2GO, stud.) Even though his bonds with both Claudia Brown/Jenny Lewis and James Lester aren't as strong in the beginning of the series, they grow to be two of the only anchors he has left—even if Jenny ends up leaving the ARC. At least it was a resignation form, and not an obituary.

When Stephen dies in series two (Helen's fault), and Cutter in series three (again, Helen's fault), Connor is the only one left able to continue with the anomaly research Cutter had begun. The death of his friend and professor is a huge emotional blow and leaves him both more miserable and more dedicated to working at the ARC than before. Without Stephen and Cutter, Connor is forced to grow up and mature abruptly; there's no room for mistakes in the ARC anymore, and the importance of the work he's doing trumps anything else. And despite his previous experiences—experiences that tell him not to get attached—he forms friendships with Becker (the new SAS captain), Sarah Page (an archaeologist), and Danny Quinn, Cutter's replacement as team leader, while also clinging to Abby like a lifeline. Despite this, or maybe even because of it, Connor remains the heart and soul of the ARC, always hopeful and in good spirits when it counts.

Unfortunately, the end of series three marks the dreaded return of Helen Cutter, and, subsequently, another attempt on the fate of the human race. While Danny, Abby, and Connor go into the past to try and prevent her from infecting the world with more of her special brand of crazypants, Becker and Sarah stay back to guard the anomaly—and eventually close it. Though Helen is killed by a raptor in the Pleistocene (FINALLY), and Danny there to witness the event, all three of them are stuck in the past when the anomalies close. Connor and Abby are forced to live a year in the Cretaceous, while Danny, who had gone on ahead to follow Helen, is lost in the late Pleistocene. Series four takes place a year after these events, and begins when Connor finds Helen's lost anomaly device, and subsequently uses it to reopen the anomaly that had stranded them there in the first place.

During their stay in the Cretaceous, Connor is forced to acclimate himself to the harsh environment both mentally and physically. Somehow, even with the dinosaur-chasing and hunting and gathering and all the bullshit the Cretaceous manages to fling at him and Abby, he still remains optimistic (foolishly so, by Abby's reckoning)—knowing that if he loses hope, he loses himself. Hope has always been a defining factor for Connor; without his hope, without his eternal good cheer, he would have given up a long time ago. Heavy odds might phase him, but they don't stop him. So all you dinosaurs can just put that in your gullet and choke on it. Oh, and he gets with Abby. Finally. Good on you, mate! Living the dream only not really because bloody Cretaceous.

Anyway, it's cool in the end, as they make it through the anomaly and back to the present with an angry Spinosaurus on their tail little to no fuss. Upon their arrival, Abby and Connor are reinstated on the team; they learn that Sarah has died, that Lester has put the ARC in military hands, and has joined forces with prominent scientist Philip Burton in order to keep the operation alive. Now, you'd think such an extended time in the wilderness would have taught Connor to be wary; you'd think he'd be a little more cautious in his dealings with dangerous science and the men behind the science. But in true Connor fashion, he refuses to believe the people he surrounds himself with would ever lie to him. This, of course, is not realistic; he's been lied to quite a lot, and yet still prefers to remain unguarded and naive for much of series 4, and indeed, well into series 5.

Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations:

+YOU'RE A GENIUS, CONNOR ➞ More like idiot savant, but he is, in fact, extremely intelligent and resourceful. From computer programming to temporal physics, Connor is essentially a whiz kid in lots of areas, including:

COMPUTER SCIENCE ➞ He writes computer programs in his spare time. Database-compiler, amateur software engineer, and hacker.

MECHANICAL ENGINEERING ➞ Builds stuff. Constantly. Generally for the ARC; he's invented both the ADD and the ALM using a thorough knowledge of compsci with several hardware components supplied by the ARC. Give him time and a screwdriver and he can probably MacGyver something useful out of it.

PHYSICS ➞ He's got a solid grasp on physics if his current work is any indication—figuring out how the anomalies work, how to close/lock them, and how to create them.

PALEONTOLOGY ➞ Dinosaurs. Or anything Cambrian/Pre-Cambrian, really, which is... a lot. Point is, he's got an entire database on these things and has essentially dedicated his life to the study of dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures; you got a question on dromaeosaurids? He's got an answer. Possibly more than one.

+ENTHUSIASM ➞ And how.
+GENRE SAVVINESS ➞ Connor's seen so many films and television shows that he knows a plot trope when he sees one, especially when it applies to "real life". He's been known to hang lampshades and cast asides, but he's only moderately successful when physically dealing with the trope in question.
+SURVIVALISM ➞ Boy Scout training on steroids. If, by some chance, he's in the wilderness, he can likely survive the crap out of that wilderness. Roots and bulbs, baby.
+SELF DEFENSE ➞ During Connor and Abby's year-long stint in the Cretaceous, she taught him how to defend himself using a mixture of Karate and kickboxing. He's gotten quite good. In addition, he's had firearm training with multiple types of guns, from shotguns to sniper rifles, including the EMDs, or Electrical Muscular Disruption weapons (invented by Connor's coworker, Matt Anderson).

—CIVILIAN STATUS ➞ Connor's only human. He doesn't have any superpowers and he's not military, even if he's had gun training. Meat and bones and not much else.
—SENTIMENTALITY ➞ While this is generally a good thing, Connor's emotions tend to get in the way and will, without fail, influence a lot of his decision-making. He'll take risks without thinking out the logistics, despite it being what he's good at.
—DERP ➞ Though this mostly applies to S1 & 2 Connor, he can still do incredibly stupid things on accident.

POWER LIMITATIONS ➞ None. Aside from his mental and (sometimes) physical prowess, he is not peak physical fitness, and he doesn't have a solution to every problem. Human, through and through!

Inventory:

one (1) red short-sleeved shirt, over
one (1) blue Henley
one (1) black jacket
one (1) white belt
one (1) pair of dark blue trousers
one pair (2) brown boots
one (1) cell phone
one (1) watch
one (1) ARC-issue communications earpiece
one (1) necklace: an (unmarked) gold band on a loop of leather.
one (1) duct tape wallet, containing:
—a driving licence, issued to Temple, Connor
—an ARC ID and clearance pass, issued to Temple, Connor
—an old CMU student ID, issued to Temple, Connor
—a group photo of Abby Maitland, Nick Cutter, and Stephen Hart
—another group photo of Abby Maitland, Jenny Lewis, Captain Becker, Sarah Page, James Lester and Danny Quinn
—a photo of him, Tom and Duncan from university
—£4.32 in notes/change

Appearance: The words "dopey-eyed human chipmunk" come to mind. Connor is of average height, slim, with dark hair, pale skin, and perpetual stubble with slightly prominent front teeth and droopy eyes. His style, as mentioned by his actor, is one of most interesting things about him. During much of the first two series, he wears a lot of scarves, fingerless gloves, an iconic trilby hat, and several waistcoats (usually over t-shirts or hoodies). In series three, his clothing becomes slightly less eccentric and slightly more hipster; in series four, he really starts to tone it down, and tends towards jackets, Henleys, and jeans.
Age: 28.

AU Clarification: He is technically a canon AU, but the AU becomes actual canon for most of the series, so I figured I'd leave it OU and explain a bit more down here. As mentioned in his history, Nick Cutter, the main series protag, goes through an anomaly that leads millions of years back in time during series one. By doing this, and moving things around in the past, he changes his future, thereby creating an alternate universe—which is the universe he ends up going back to when he returns through the anomaly. We assume that Cutter's new universe actually replaces the old one, but it could be that the other universe continues on in a different timeline, only sans Cutter. Anyway, the "new" version of Connor is apparently no different than the previous version. However, almost everyone else shows extremely minute personality changes (that later lead to Bad Decisions, such as Stephen, who basically holds the Idiot Ball for much of series two). Primeval Science in action, ladies and gentlemen.

SAMPLES
Log Sample:

A twig snaps.

Connor jerks awake, eyes snapping open, his muscles tensing like steel coils. He doesn't move—there is no reassuring crackle of the fire, no light save the ambient darkness, which his eyes adjust to, slowly—and the only noises to be heard are Abby's quiet breathing, and the rustle of her clothes as she turns to look at him.

"Sorry," she whispers, low and concerned. Must've broke the twig, heard him wake up; heard his sharp intake of breath, the way the dirt scraped under his fingers at the sharp wooden snap. They'd both trained themselves to hyperawareness. Abby knows him better than anyone, better than his own family, and knows they both wake at noise—no matter how loud.

"S'right," he says, sitting up carefully, forcing himself out of grogginess. "It's nothing, was gonna get up anyway. Want me to take over?"

Abby nods, after a pause, rubbing a dirty hand across her eyes. "Sure, yeah."

They don't need to talk more than that. Abby crawls over to him, lies down, half-curled, and draws the foil over herself. Connor looks fondly down at her and presses a dry, scratchy kiss to her temple before moving off, closer to their nonexistent fire. He thinks about kindling one—just for warmth, for something to do—but they can't risk it, not now, not at night.

He takes the twig Abby broke and prods it sharply into his thigh to stay awake.

Comms Sample:

VIDEO ☢ 01

[ Right, okay, this isn't much different from Earth phones (or even ARC tech), so Connor doesn't have any trouble flipping the thing on or immediately setting the feed to A/V. He's broadcasted enough Temple TV in his, er, somewhat recent youth to know exactly when to start rambling.

Because despite all the weird crap that's happened to him in the past four years, this? Sort of takes the cake. Maybe more than one cake, actually. Like fifty cakes. And a few pies. ]

Says it's broadcasting, so I'll just—start—look, does anyone want to tell me why I've suddenly been dumped into a really creepy horror film?

[ he holds up his forearm, pulls up the sleeve of his jacket, and points to the number stamped there; crisp and black against his pale and slightly damp skin. 001 - 026. He shivers a bit, panicked and sarcastic. ]

Or why I've been [ branded like a sheep in one of those nasty psychological experiments ] tattooed against my will? It's not every day you wake up in a tank with a number on your arm, so, y'know, some answers might be nice.