~With hands tucked into pockets, a bouquet of wallflowers looks just right pinned on Addison Witherspoon’s lapel like a boutonnière of nondescript issue. The tall gentleman waxes his thirties in pressed suits in a slim variety of hue –- monochromatic blacks, grays, or whites. Only a gold pocket watch sparkles from Addison’s person. Even his hair reveals a lackluster view. The buzz cut shortness makes even the color indeterminable: probably a shade of brown like his eyes. Without a smile or a word beyond minimal courtesy, Addison’s blank canvas demeanor yawns like a bottomless chasm. Really, he’s just a turn-off kind of guy. It’s not that Addison Witherspoon isn't an interesting fellow, he just doesn’t seem interested in you.~
OOC: Appearance 2; Cloaking 2; Icy
"If you will not use your brain, I have no choice but to use it for you."
History
Tragedy of Youth
Some argue that the meaning of life is merely to be alive. But Addison Witherspoon –would say mere subsistence was inadequate. Unraveling the great mystery of life would one day become this man’s purpose. Born Clyde Hanson in the early winter of 1969, he began with a normal lifestyle. His family occupied a nice home in the suburbs of Montreal, Canada. His father, Beck, and mother Bethany, were the proud parents of three children. Unfortunately, Clyde’s mother died in an awful accident at a beef processing plant when he was only five.
Clyde’s father moved the family to Milwaukee to try to start over. Beck only found work at another factory and long hours at that. Clyde was obliged to help look after his younger sisters, Annie and Melissa, while his father struggled at the glassware plant. Life’s bizarre misfortunes revisited the Hanson family several years later, when a different yet equally brutal accident claimed Clyde’s father, too.
Nonetheless, Clyde worked hard at and excelled in school while looking after his sisters. Determination and compassion were two lessons his parents passed on. Clyde was not a genius by any measure though, and had to study hard to achieve his good grades. The Hansons had little time for religion and its customs, but Clyde’s mind still wandered with daydreams. At least the family responsibilities with which the boy was saddled so early instilled a greater sense of self-confidence. He was not short of friends in school; he simply lacked time to goof off with them after the bell rang. When Clyde graduated in 1987, his grandparents took on the roles of guardianship of his little sisters over a year after his father died.
Verisimilitude
So, this enabled Clyde to move on with his life and attend university with the merit of scholarships. Despite his life’s tragedies and obligations, he never let hard reality crush his dreams and fancies. Always a thoughtful and curious boy, Clyde reflected once that even when he was young, whenever he took the time to consider a question, his answer was almost always correct. This was true even when he did not possess knowledge of the facts at hand. One could say this was a matter of sheer luck, but such coincidences struck far too often in Clyde’s life to be ignored as such.
Due to his inherent knack for logic and reflection, Clyde appropriately attended the University of Wisconsin for a bachelor’s program in philosophy. Collegiate study greatly expanded his intellect and inspired him to question all the knowledge he took for granted. However, neither mathematics nor hard science made him doubt everything he thought he understood. His moment of veracity arrived in 1989 when he seriously turned his analytical mind toward religion. Religion’s messages seemed to conflict with reality and logical, deductive fact. Clyde became an ardent believer in deism, doubting all of religion’s messages and claims even while accepting that there was, in fact, a Creator.
This epiphany that kept him from full-blown atheism also made Clyde much more sensitive and aware, particularly of other people’s motivations and emotions. Always afraid that his beliefs would step on others’ toes, he turned his amazing insight and inductive talent to classmates, professors, and everyone else he encountered. A couple months after Clyde first began to question the church and formulating his deistic theses, he received a letter from a Dr. Benjamin Julia. Dr. Julia was a tenured professor of philosophy and structured thinking at a prestigious private college known as the Whitehurst School in Michigan. Dr. Julia first contacted Clyde over Prodigy, evaluating the young man with probing questions about his beliefs. Clyde endured -- indeed, he enjoyed -- these queries. They forced him to review and reconsider his worldviews.
At the Heart of It All
Finally, that summer between Clyde’s sophomore and junior semesters, Dr. Julia paid him a visit in Wisconsin. The older philosopher broke the news – Clyde’s inductive talents and newfound perceptions were no coincidence and never were. He was now considered an Empowered member of society, and destined to help guide and lead humanity out of the darkness of ignorance and barbarism. Fascinated that he was somehow now on an upper stratum of society, Clyde took to Dr. Julia’s offered tutorials vigorously. Such side studies were initiated for the duration of his time at the university. Quite often, they included “pop quizzes” relevant to various social sciences and psychological acumen. Whether he scored highly or not, Clyde could tell the constant tests honed his comprehension. They helped to produce a more analytical and objective mind, and yet he remained a self-observant sage most of all.
And this continued until his graduation in 1990. Clyde opted to continue his studies at Dr. Julia’s behest, attending Whitehurst for his master’s program. Clyde did not yet know much about the Union or the New World Order, to which this college was especially attuned. He took to the advanced studies with earnest anyway. Some of the other students were Empowered like him, but most were normal if brilliant thinkers and analysts. For the next few years, Clyde practiced his scientific mind on his classmates and other people. Almost every interaction became part of a "controlled experiment".
Unsurprisingly, Clyde chose to stay at Whitehurst for a full doctoral program. He quickly outgrew his mentor’s influential tendrils. He acquired his doctorate with his thesis that proved to be a biting attack on the ill effects of individualism on the political process of states and people at whole. Even in the Technocracy, such a criticism of individualism struck raw nerves. They were all Americans, after all, and were born and bred to believe in liberty. So, when Clyde’s thesis concluded that individualism proved only beneficial when it was benevolent, it was common sense nobody wanted to hear and yet were impressed that he said it. More importantly, Clyde laid out multiple steps on how to attack selfishness and self-interest on a cultural level rather than mere academic finger wagging.
A Real Ivory Tower
A Technocratic mind like Clyde’s served the Union best in the halls of academia. He was given very basic Union information –- aware now that the entity he served was an Empowered organization bent on Ascension of the Masses. He was swept off the public records in 1998, and with this new life he changed his name to Addison Witherspoon. The new agent of the Ivory Tower Methodology was given a cubby office in a moderate think-tank firm known as ThinkFast.org, based out of Chicago, Illinois. The firm was a New World Order front, of course, manned entirely by agents of the Union for the dual purposes of strategic analysis and political influence.
Addison Witherspoon was now a paid operative of the New World Order and a convicted adherent to the Technocratic Union’s vision for the future of humanity and the world. He was instructed to think, contemplate, and run experiments on Sleepers –- the uninitiated, unEmpowered members of society. Social sciences and philosophical ideology remained Addison’s specialty, and to that end his experiments were subtle and harmless. Many of the Procedures he designed and improved upon were likewise low-impact. He helped devise means to disseminate deeper adherence and belief among the Masses in the hopeful light of technology and science. By restoring mankind’s faith in the Union, they could better lead the way.
And the man was further responsible for helping to test, analyze, and philosophically prove the soundless of Technocratic theory and policy. With his personal drive and profound intellect, Addison gradually climbed the ranks not only within the think-tank firm, but the Convention itself. Addison’s unique, fresh, and sometimes contrary perspectives on Technocratic ideologies made him stand out in positive fashion.
Eventually, Addison was challenged with policy-making analysis. He was obliged to confront ethical dilemmas, some theoretical and some that were not, that faced field operatives and combat agents. These were problems with serious potential consequences – often with the balance of lives on the line. Addison’s decisions regarding these problems would give the “green light” to Ops, or have them back off entirely.
Why We’re Fighting
To his credit, Addison never backed away from a single moral challenge, no matter how labyrinthe and “gray”. Other analysts like Addison shied away from the more questionable dilemmas, but that very difficulty is what made them conundrums. No matter how his decision was received and how the Union regarded him afterward, Addison always related the truth how he saw it. As a member of the Ivory Tower, his thoughts were undiluted truths – the purposes for what the Union was fighting for. When agents lost sight of those purposes, they perpetuated tyranny and turned the Masses away. Agents like Addison helped keep the Union on the right road.
But only a few of his decisions were well received. Indeed, his first major moral dilemma came in 2000. He induced the hazards of killing a particular band of captured Reality Deviants. These superstitionists would lead to a disastrous chain of events for whoever stood in their path, Addison predicted. If the Men in Black who had custody of the mysticks executed them, there would be hell to pay from which the city would never recover. Sure enough, not long after reluctantly releasing the mages, they were slain by a Nephandi hit squad. Three chantries in the metropolitan area went on the warpath, slaughtering anyone who even looked like a Nephandus.
The Operatives’ Supervisor had the team thank Addison personally. That was the first time the Ivory Tower laid eyes on Kim Lafferty. She was the first Woman in Black he ever met, and Addison fell head over heels for the tough lady. She stayed on his mind for years more even though he never caught more than brief glimpses of her down at headquarters. His crush remained a quiet corner like his personal life of solitude and self-examination.
The Truth Hurts
However, in 2004 Addison brought his personal deism beliefs to bear. The dilemma of cloning came to bear, and whether Sleepers were ready to take up the full technology that the Progenitors already mastered. He debated a "case for God" against atheists within that Convention. He was derided as a Creationist and a religious nut, but his eloquent defense revealed he was anything but. He defended mankind’s need and dependence on religion. Yes, it was a crutch, he conceded, but no…the Masses were not ready to have the crutch yanked away. It was a weakness to be purged when humankind was ready, not when Progenitors wanted to cram their paradigm over night by rolling out a form of science en masse that would shatter cultural worldviews of millions of people. It would do far more harm than good, if the lessons of the early 20th century were any evidence.
Four years later, Addison made more friends within the Syndicate Convention. He published across the Union a doctrinal thesis that utterly debunked any use Ayn Rand’s philosophy may have for the Empowered. Such self-interest had no place within the Technocracy, his paper concluded, and that rewards were pleasant bonuses, not the ends in themselves. The incentive to serve humanity should be good enough for the Empowered, and to believe otherwise was the Path of Descent –- the way of the Nephandi, devil-worshipers, and madmen. With dozens of correlative cases, Addison revealed how self-interested agents were generally less enlightened than selfless devotees of the cause. Wealthier and politically influential? Usually. More powerful, intellectual, and morally sound? Generally not. Indeed, their grasp on Enlightened Science tended to be less as they squandered precious hours counting assets instead of studying advanced theories. Self-interested agents were necessary evils, he conceded, but should hardly be celebrated, and philosophical and ethical ideology certainly did not favor their way of life.
Ultimately, Addison made some enemies in other Conventions. His uncompromisingly fearless and honest ideology impressed the brass. He was considered a bit naive even in the best light, and yet his assertions were dead-on true and morally sound. "What’s right is right", as people would say. And Addison had the intellectual acumen to prove it. No amount of sophistry or mudslinging caused him to withhold judgment. Safe in his academic cubbyhole, Addison was a valued ideological asset.
Out of the Cubby...
Still, his supervisors' assessment encouraged the analyst to transfer to field operations. He knew he needed experience in the field to broaden his horizons and become a better student of human nature. Secretly, Addison also hoped to work with and woo Agent Lafferty. Reluctantly, his superiors transferred him to Operations, knocking him down the ladder to the rank of common Man in Black. In 2008, he was assigned to a team, FOC2, with two other Empowered agents, but neither of them was his dream girl.
But at least he was in the same department with the Woman in Black. Addison honed his field training and disciplined his mind. He focused on the moment instead of letting his mind wander to outer space. In truth, his team saw little action. They were largely a containment unit, designed to clean up the aftermath of the Union’s occasional battle or scientific mishap. He would help alter witnesses' minds and memories of the events. A few brief engagements (usually when enemies returned to the scene of the crime, as it were) was the only action he ever saw, and the conflicts ended unresolved.
The only trophy he ever boasted was pure chance. Addison stumbled across a drug deal that happened to involve a renegade Hollow One superstitionist. He sought to arrest the criminals and when they resisted, he defended himself and shot the Sleepers dead. The Hollow One tried to escape by tossing an unidentifiable hallucinogenic compound in his face. Fortunately, Addison had honed his field training in advanced biology and physiology, and while he had no means to counter such strange chemicals, he could control and briefly immunize his own body. The Hollower was shot in the knees and his back up arrived to haul the RD off for "re-processing".
...And into Containment
Meanwhile, back at base Addison regularly interacted with his teammates and fellow Operatives. At first, he was treated with the disdain most bookworms receive in the figurative locker room. But his steady and implacable personality won him friends. This soon turned into the most social activity in which he willingly engaged in his whole life. After several months of sharing coffee and water cooler chitchat with Agent Lafferty, Addison finally worked up the nerve to ask Kim out on a date. After years of harboring a secret crush and paying his dues to stand side by side with the girl of his dreams, he was shot down. She was not interested in a man she, to quote, was "obviously pretending to enjoy conversation, with true motives indiscernible and probably licentious".
Well, she was right about one thing. Addison acknowledged that he was only pretending to enjoy conversation. But he wasn’t just trying to get into her panties. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t her type. Despite the heartbreak, Addison soldiered on and did his duty. With little combat experience forthcoming to FOC2, Addison accepted a promotion within the Operatives branch. The Men in Gray infiltrators was not an option -– he was not nearly savvy enough for such deception. Instead, Addison was given a white suit in 2009. FOC2 was given another agent while Addison returned behind a desk.
Now a supervisor, he set up shop and got right to work. The new Man in White supervised all containment operations in the city. Clearly, his understanding of humanity’s nature in the here and now made him a better candidate than most for this role. For his part, Addison grimly saluted the irony of the situation. As a philosopher and moralist, he yearned to bring mankind into the bright light of the future. Instead, he was charged to keep them all mired in the darkness of ignorance. Until the time was right for the Union to reveal itself, Addison served humanity. He wasn’t a rich man or a gorgeous movie star. But he reaped the rewards such service provided for the enlightenment of his own soul. People viewed the Technocracy as a monolith of impenetrable brick and stone. If that was so, then people like Addison Witherspoon was part of the mortar.
Significant Other
In 2010, Addison Witherspoon transferred to WV#3200 and took on a role within society as a professor of philosophy at KCU. Although a MiW Operative now, he always stayed close to his academic roots. So, it came as no surprise that he eventually encountered another academic agent of the New World Order. However, Katie Foster was nothing like he ever expected. The young Ivory Tower was an expert in motivation and morale. And as a beautiful cheerleader, she was eye candy to boot. Addy had sincere doubts that he would interest a girl half his age, even if they shared intellectual interests. But he was wrong: they soon hit it off despite his clammy aloofness. Katie proved that a man’s mind intrigued her far more than dinnertime charm or bulging biceps. Sharing more than their thoughts on the meaning of life, Addy has reinvigorated hope in the joy of human relationships through his newfound darling.
Abruptly, in 2011, Katie was Room 101ed and re-conditioned, her very memory stripped of her time with her senior. Addison retreated back into his cold analysis and reflected on how, even as a Man in White, he was still relatively small fry in the Great Union. Fortunately, though they altered her mind and body, they did not re-locate her. Her name changed to Charity Boyd and despite the NWO's efforts, her memories of her beloved mentor came sweeping back.
Charity
Weakness "Academic Inexperience"
Addison is accustomed mainly to the safety of the halls of academia. He is attempting the role of a field agent (at least a supervisor of such) with little real-world experience. Fortunately, he is no fool and will learn fast. "What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger" -- this remains a truism, with a vital emphasis on "what doesn’t kill".
Likelihood of Corruption
Low.
Though inexperienced in the field, his understanding of fundamentals exceeds most grunts’ capacity to learn altogether. He may have never met a Nephandus before, but he’s far more capable of discerning one from the ranks of norms before many field agents simply by merit of his intuitive grasp of human nature.
