Dr. Dwight Cornell

Primary Investigator of FACADE
Progenitor General of HQ #WV3200
Senior Medical Officer of the Q.T. Department

Description


~Erudite, upright, and purposeful, Dr. Dwight Cornell has little time to dally with small minds and lesser ambitions. The mature Caucasian gentleman appears to be waxing his fifties. Wrinkled flesh and sunken brown eyes that crow's feet frame lend credit to this age bracket. He sweeps a Timex-adorned hand through short and simple dark-brown hair. Dr. Cornell stands as tall as six feet, though lacks the perfect physique of a younger fellow, and teeter-totters around 180 pounds. All the same, he must be a scholarly man of affluence, because Dwight wears custom-fitted business suits in dark-blues and browns. He often favors a red tie of some design and his black dress shoe leather is always polished. The good doctor seems to be too serious and intense to be bothered and too busy to pay much attention to others either. He's a man on a mission and shan't be uncloistered from his research laboratory for long.~

OOC: Appearance 2; Cloaking 1

"Humanity is imperfect. That's what philosophers say. But I'm a scientist and I can prove that theory wrong."

History


Imperfect

Nobody was born perfect. But some people were born to make people perfect. Dwight Cornell didn't know that this would be his life. He enjoyed a relatively nondescript upbringing at first. In the middle class suburbs of Chicago, the Cornells dwelled and worked through the crush of the Great Depression. Dwight's mother, Meredith, labored as a housecleaner. His father was a medical research physician for the U.S. Government. Dwight was a product of his parents' enduring love, and he was born in 1931. His older sister, Sidney, helped look after him. There wasn't much worry though, since they lived in a decent neighborhood.

Taught to believe in reason and logic, Dwight excelled in his school studies. While the Cornells attended church, religion never really caught on in the youth's life. Perhaps that was because when he was only four, a robber broke into their home and kidnapped sweet Sidney. Her surprised screams haunted his sleep. Why would an omnibenevolent God allow his sister to be taken from her family? It didn't make sense to Dwight.

And those nightmares pervaded his youth. At least they didn't affect his studies. Dwight proved to have a good head for science of all sorts, especially biology. He also expressed interest and talent in the medical field, following his father's footsteps it seemed. Dwight always seemed to know what ailed people, as if he could diagnose with just a glance. Still, what friends Dwight kept were the only ones who could tolerate his often bossy attitude. Ever since his sister's disappearance, Dwight was driven to seek consistency and security.

Science Baby

Dwight managed to get through high school without further serious incident to his family. His excellent grades accorded him a scholarship to Stanford University in California. His favorite and most vital (to his intended major of general medicine) professor was Dr. Clyde Reiner. To say Dr. Reiner was unorthodox would have been inadequate. The professor led Dwight's 1950 freshman class through an unusual experiment: dissection of human infants! Most students were horrified, but Dr. Reiner seemed to have enough tenure that their complaints did nothing. He could run even an ethically questionable curriculum.

But it wasn't as if the babies were murdered for this lab. They all died naturally and were preserved for the school. Dwight felt as if this class course was really the only way to excel and understand. He was the only student who participated. Face to face with no clearer example of human frailty, the young man felt Empowered to pursue his medical career beyond the limits of common expectation. And maybe that was what Dr. Reiner was searching and hoping for. Maybe he hoped to inspire even just a single young mind to push past the artificial barriers in the way of one's career and excel. If so, Dwight Cornell knew he now fit the bill.

Right Hand Man

Although Empowered, Dwight continued to attend normal university. On the side, he attached himself to Dr. Reiner, studying the tenets and theories of advanced hyper-biology. By combining mundane and hyper-scientific studies, all of Dwight's time was dominated and his progress came slowly if steadily.

By the end of his foundational academia in 1954, the Cornells suffered another blow. Dwight's father died abruptly from acute cancer. Dwight realized the purpose of life was to self-perpetuate, and his role was to assist it. He wanted to perfect the human form, to live without sickness and death. Well aware that this was a lofty goal, Dwight worked harder and harder. He had no time at all for himself. He impressed Dr. Reiner with his devotion and intellect. Dwight pushed through medical school all the while.

And his mentor didn't seem to want to make it easy on him. He was always assisting Dr. Reiner in his labs, but his duties involved only menial, uncreative, and banal work. Despite impressing the man, Dwight felt like he was being beat down all the time. It took every ounce of his patience to stay with Dr. Reiner.

Terminus

During his residency as a medical doctor in training, Dwight received another burst of inspiration despite Dr. Reiner's treatment. Most people, he realized, lived poorly and needed his help: his skills and brilliance. But to do so, Dwight knew he needed more guidance and information from his mentor. Dwight graduated medical school with his doctorate in 1959, delighting the staff with his philosophical thesis regarding ethics in medical research.

Until 1965, Dwight labored still under Dr. Reiner's yoke. Apparently, the young doctor was too useful to give up. He was just too handy of an assistant. Dwight grew tired of his senior's line of work. Working for FACADE (Forced Adaptation and Clone Alteration Developmental Eugenicists), a secretive research Methodology the Progenitor Convention within the Technocratic Union, Dr. Reiner worked on improving the creation of artificial human flesh for cyborgs. That was right: cyborgs. Dwight was learning more and more about the scientific organization to which he and his mentor belonged. The Progenitors, and the Technocracy, was bent on bringing peace and prosperity to Earth and all mankind. And that floated just right with Dwight. Thus, even scary hyper-sciences like cybernetics did not quail this rising star.

While that all sounded fantastic, Dwight did not feel particularly interested in Dr. Reiner's field. The older Progenitor was developing artificial tissue specifically for a line of baby-like HIT Marks, those soulless Terminator-like cyborg killers. On the side and usually in secret, Dwight formed his own goals and theses. Dwight wanted to perfect the human body for people, not armies of cyborgs. "Flesh is the perfect machine" was a maxim to which Dwight adhered. Flesh was adaptable, strong, beautiful, and natural. Dwight experimented with adaptability and resilience over the years, mainly with mice and other small animals. At last, Dr. Reiner was obligated to, and the Progenitors were quite willing to, accept Dwight's doctrine. The Convention reviewed and recognized how Dwight's ideas would help to keep FACADE stay on track and not become a slave to the wants and needs of Iteration X, the Convention of machinists that designed the cyborgs.

ER-OR

At last released from his apprenticeship to Dr. Reiner, Dwight looked forward to this next phase of his career. He was assigned to the Chicago Metro Hospital. There Dwight helped the Masses as a surgeon in the ER (emergency room). It was a stipulation of the job, and while he lost time being on call, and endured long work hours, Dwight knew it was good experience. To deal first hand with the people he wanted to help in his labs, this role was vital.

Furthermore, Dwight did have his own laboratory to continue his experiments in hyper-biology. But he had little autonomy over his schedule. He paid second tit to better-established Progenitors in the city. Their projects garnered greater regard from Chicago's Technocratic Symposium. This was due to the fact that his colleagues were his seniors. Grants from the Symposium were highly competitive.

On top of only being recently promoted to Research Associate, the Symposium felt that Dwight's project concept was too broad. Older researchers treated him like a redheaded stepchild because of his lofty and almost naive goals. One senior at least offered a somewhat friendly warning. This kind of treatment was what all neonates must endure, he said. Dwight took that advice to heart and buckled in for a long ride.

Thunderclap Brigade

As his service in the ER deepened his compassion and honed his medical skills, Dwight was aptly prepared for his next assignment that began in 1973. He was removed fully from the main hospital circuit (and away from his labs, dammit!). Dwight was placed as a field medic for a "Contingency 5" death squad called the Thunderclap Brigade. This amalgam was made up of by mostly Armatures -- cyborgs of Iteration X. They had no known names, and were instead assigned numerical monikers, such as RF-4238. There was only one other academic: Jerome Cagnet, a computer technology engineer and also an Iterator (of the Statistician Methodology).

While Jerome was too cold to really befriend, Dwight still adapted some of the Statistician's theories, especially determinism and the chaos theory. While he figured most of the cyborgs were boneheaded soldiers, that Jerome was the only agent with whom he could level, Dwight still found himself drawn closer to the Armatures. Through the years of shared danger, camaraderie was born. The Thunderclap Brigade was reserved for handling some of the most brutal offenses in Chicago. The Technocracy's Pogrom against supernatural "Reality Deviants" was in full swing at this time, especially against so-called "mages": wizards and similar superstitionists.

Though there were a few close calls at the amalgam's base when Reality Deviants mounted counter-offenses, Dwight and Jerome both avoided most combat. Dwight witnessed the fragility of the human body. He patched up some grisly wounds. When one cyborg actually died in 1980 under Dwight's care, it was due to complications with the Armature's cybernetic implants. It was nothing Dwight did or could have done, and the Progenitor felt guiltless. He was no Biomechanic. While he cared about his teammates, he never did feel well placed. Dwight knew he just had to hack out some time in the field.

Predictable Life

So Dwight was transferred out of the Thunderclap Brigade. The transfer accompanied a shift in management of the Symposium. Iteration X spent its nickels, apparently. The Progenitors were gaining influence. Dwight returned to the hospital and was given much more autonomy over his own schedule: he earned it. With those bloody years under his belt, Dwight ranked more respect within his Convention. He focused more on his life project while also working some in the ER again.

Dwight applied the chaos theory he adapted from Cagnet into his eugenics work, too. The experiments were still just run for animals, of course. But by as early as 1982, Dwight was able to predict amazing trends in his test subjects. He was able to determine how and when life would break down on a precise level. Because such a thing could now be measured in his work, advancements could come swifter.

That was why Dwight just kept his nose to the grindstone for the next few years. He had no real social life to speak and wisely eluded the politics of his field and Convention. True, he had little power, but Dwight was content with what he had. It enabled him to work, after all. His recognition just rode the coattails of his scientific success. Dwight masterfully blended perfection of the human body with genetic development. He skirted the dividing line between FACADE and the so-called Genegineers, researchers of hyper-genetics. By 1985, the positive feedback his work accrued scored him almost complete self-autonomy.

Delilah

Of course, even this gain was not without stipulation. Dwight was obliged to move to Kansas City, Missouri, and operate out of the GenLabs. There he set up his own laboratory, though it was subject to approval from the local Symposium for the first year. The change in setting provoked a more unsettling problem for Dwight though: flashbacks from his childhood, particularly hallucinations of his sister's screams. Dwight worked through this rocky start in due time. Then he focused on his projects, nearly to the exclusion of all else. Dwight did teach biology at Kansas City University part-time. He acquired tenure quickly just by asserting his impressive credentials.

In 1989, Dwight's project made such a good impact on his superiors that he gained a new option. He could take on an assistant and student. Dwight mulled it over and decided he would, but vowed that he wouldn't be as hard-ass to his student as his seniors once were to him. Her name was Delilah Stanz. Together they worked on correcting, connecting, and perfecting living things, mostly simpler animals (and primates by this stage). Dwight created some real "freaks" by accident in the course of his work. Despite his Convention's insistent request that the "freaks" be salvaged, Dwight euthanized the pitifully suffering creatures. Though euthanasia was a violation of his Hippocratic oath, so was much of his hyper-scientific research anyway.

And Delilah supported all of his decisions, all of his efforts. He grew closer to his young and attractive assistant, and the feelings were mutual. Perhaps those emotions were leading contributors to the terrible accident that wracked his labs in 1992. Lethal chemicals were released into his lab's atmosphere from a Paradox backlash! Delilah was killed in the explosion and the poison and blast so injured Dwight that he was rendered comatose for a week.

When Dwight awoke, he was lost in a haunted Quiet. Hallucinations of his screaming sister and ailing, cancer-ridden father taunted the Progenitor. Now the broken body of Delilah, his one great love, could also crack his conscience. The infamous "Room 101" of the Technocracy failed to shock the good doctor out of his Quiet. Dwight was instead committed to an asylum. There he remained until 1996. He proved to be a serene patient, focused on working through his issues. Of course, Dwight's thoughts often wandered back to his science. All of it helped Dwight to will himself back to reality, to block out the hallucinations. The flashbacks still bothered him sometimes, but he could take an anti-psychotic drug to contend with that problem, and he was released with an otherwise clean bill of health.

GenLab-WV2

Dwight's sealed lab at GenLab-WV2 was retaken and reopened so that he could jump right back into his work. He refused taking any new assistants or students and virtually holed himself up in his lab. Too separate from the rank-and-file Technocrats, he scarcely noticed how they called him names like "loony" behind his back. All those years spent in the asylum fed Dwight's vision, driving him to create and push for his ultimate goals.

Yet Dwight was met with one frustrating failure after another. He tried to craft a perfect human life from scratch. The bodies were marvelous but they couldn't hold onto sentience. The memories he genetically programmed slipped away. And without functioning psyches, the bodies soon fell apart, too.

Naturally, Dwight froze the useful anatomy from the failed bodies for later harvest. When time permitted, Dwight helped the Symposium as well. He provided new limbs or organs to agents who were so injured that they needed such a remedy. He also identified tissue samples and analyzed other biological bits, especially for infectious disease research. Always did Dwight return to his own project though. He drove himself ever to the breaking point, even if he risked Quiet again. Will persevered through the stress. No matter how many formulae he plugged in or theories he contemplated, success seemed a long way off. But Dwight knew by 2001 that will alone was what counted. Science was fundamental, of course, but it was made up of powerless concepts without the scientist's will to succeed.

Sydney

At last, Dwight stumbled across success! It was in 2003 that all of his dedication and hard work paid off. Dwight astounded himself really. The perfect woman was his iteration: this blonde bombshell ended up as intelligent and urbane as he planned. Her sentience didn't slip away like the others did. He named her after his sister, calling her Sydney Getty. Immediately, Dwight helped Sydney adapt to her automatic adult life, and was pleased to find her quite adaptable and sharp.

Oh, the fame within the Convention Dwight received was quite amazing. A huge grant was also heaped on his project. But it was short-lived. He couldn't duplicate the results. Sydney was his only masterpiece! And Dwight was understandably frustrated by the inability to succeed again. At least Sydney was willing to assist him in his work however he needed. Dwight studied her while studying his science, but it was ultimately back to the proverbial drawing board.

Then came the distractions. Irritated by Dwight's pseudo-success, the Symposium loaded the Progenitor up with many minor projects, such as more Reality Deviant tissue analysis and infectious disease research. Sydney proved to be an invaluable asset in all his work; she was always very serious and there were no mistakes in the lab, no goofing off. Even so, Dwight found himself distracted by her, too. She was everything he wanted in a woman. Feeling lost and useless, Dwight grew determined to enjoy this inexplicable success. With Sydney as his flawless aide, Dwight turned back his personal project to life preservation and longevity work. If he couldn't create new perfect life, he would insure both he and Sydney could live as long as they wanted...together. But when she was taken away from him in 2010, despite furious complaints and appeals that went ignored, Dwight began in earnest to try and replicate that perfection. Hmph, fat chance! But he would never give up.

Significant Other


Dr. Cornell created Sydney Getty "accidentally" in 2003. She was his most successful bid yet to clone a fully-grown and functional human being. In fact, she was too successful. He's not sure what variables he isolated to have created such a masterpiece! So unique is Sydney that he cannot duplicate her, but she remains an inspiration to his work. Indeed, Dwight's quite proud of and pleased with Sydney. He didn't really expect his "dream girl" clone to come to life, but here she is. She's a sharp and invaluable aide as well, able to "keep up" with Dwight's off-kilter leaps of logic and innovation. Sydney's curiosity with her existence encourages her to attend to all of her creator's needs, even social. Even sexual. Dwight knows he might be called a "sheep-fucker", but it's a label he's willing to bear should word ever get out that he's sleeping with his cloned Companion as he has been since early in 2006. Why not? She's utter perfection. Dwight wonders if she can even procreate. Perhaps their offspring may even yield more clues to how he managed to craft a wonder like her in the first place.

In 2010, Dwight was outraged when the Convention tried to "commandeer" Sydney for thorough examination. They felt his objectivity had been compromised; how dare they?! She was his! He made her! He filed appeals and complaints and pulled in favors. Only through monumental effort did he keep Sydney in his possession, albeit under watchful eyes.

Sydney

Weakness
"Father Nature"


Hasn't Dwight read The Island of Dr. Moreau? Doesn't he realize the inherent danger that exists when one tinkers with eugenics? Hopefully, he will not suffer Dr. Moreau's fate in his quest for innovation, knowledge, and meddling with nature.

Likelihood of Corruption


Low.

Dwight is a decent human being, even if he struggles with his conscience versus the demands of science. Externally, he faces little danger. He's too immersed in his work and holed up in protected laboratories to be threatened by corrupting aliens and RDs.

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