Margulis (AU)

Player Information

Name: Jess
Personal Journal: N/A
Age: 21
Contact Info: On record
Other Characters Played: Allen Ridgeley [AU1] (Note: While both are from Xenosaga, neither has any personal interest in the other and it would be perfectly reasonable for them to ignore each other.)

Character Information

Character Name: Margulis
Character Series: Xenosaga
Character Age: 45
Character Gender: Male
Alternate Universe
Canon Point: After Pellegri's suicide.
Background Link: Have a link.
AU Background: Margulis' history deviates from canon more than fifteen years ago, when Jin Uzuki joined himself and Pellegri within the ranks of U-TIC, but the real difference starts during the Conflict. There, he discovered encrypted data suggesting that both U-TIC and Ormus were pawns for some greater purpose, separate from their stated goal. Outraged and betrayed, he took this information to Jin and Pellegri, but was unable to convince them of its signifcance with details of this greater purpose still encoded. Refusing to give up, he decided to take advantage of the confusion of the Conflict to search for more details.

On his way to the building containing the main database of U-TIC, he encountered an unusual mecha under assault by berserked pilots. Recognizing it as being neither Federation nor U-TIC, he aided them in destroying their opponents and learned that they were there to rescue the URTV force. Since the URTVs' target was in the same building as Margulis', he agreed to allow the pilots, chaos and Canaan, to accompany him.

On reaching the building, he discovered that Jin had been waiting for him. Jin attempted to persuade him to give up on his wild goose hunt, claiming that he was endangering his position in both U-TIC and the Federation with his search. When Margulis refused to stop and Jin refused to allow him to pass, the two were forced to cross blades. Jin scarred Margulis' face and, while Margulis had managed to come out of the fight in better shape than his opponent, he realized that staying on the planet any longer would be too dangerous and hid the data he'd already discovered within Canaan's memory banks before escaping.

Fourteen years later, he'd left both U-TIC and the Federation military and was living on Second Miltia, acting as a special operative for the autonomous government in alliance with the Kukai Foundation. When he encountered Gaignun Kukai Jr. and chaos on Second Miltia, he wasn't particularly surprised and only showed interest in details of recent events in Miltian space with the appearance of the Proto Merkabah. Later, however, Helmer approached him and informed him that Jr. and his group were headed for the recently re-appeared Old Miltia. Realizing that this might provide a chance to finish what he started during the Conflict, he agreed to accompany them.

On the ship used by the Foundation for small scale missions, the Elsa, he met Jr.'s small group of allies: the wayward soldier Louis Virgil and the UMN hacker known as Voyager, in addition to chaos and Canaan. During the trip, they also picked up two more allies when they encountered the engineers Kevin Winnicot and Allen Ridgeley, in addition to their creation, a male anti-Gnosis android named CUS-TOS, after they had barely fended off an enemy mecha. While Margulis and Kevin seemed to recognize each other, neither seemed inclined to talk about how they had met. Their path was briefly blocked by an Ormus stronghold, but the group easily infiltrated in their own mech and destroyed it from the inside, briefly encountering Pellegri in her own personal mecha, the Issachar, during their escape. Though Margulis recognized Pellegri's voice over the communications system, the exploding base left them with no time to talk.

On the planet itself, Margulis finally decoded the rest of the data he'd hidden within Canaan, learning that Ormus had existed in some form even since the Lost Jerusalem era, although mysteriously missing was information on the true purpose for its existence. Afterwards, he finally came face to face with Jin Uzuki after fourteen years. After another failed attempt at reason, the two fought, Jin eventually conceding that Margulis hadn't lost his touch before fleeing with a note that there wasn't anything Margulis' group could do anyway.

The group continued and found the Original Zohar, but was unable to prevent the Ormus patriarch from taking control of it. The patriarch used it to activate a weapon system called Omega that had been sleeping inside Old Miltia, destroying the planet in the process. While Margulis and company managed to escape, there was little they could do from outside the weapon.

In order to destroy Omega, the group went out in the Elsa one more time and infiltrated the system. While they easily reached the center and found the patriarch, the confrontation was interrupted by Albedo Piazzolla, who wanted the Zohar's power for himself. He attacked Omega, but the weapon easily destroyed his body. Enraged, Jr. attacked the patriarch himself, but even with his allies was unable to defeat him as long as he had Omega at his beck and call. As a result, three cloaked figures the patriarch named as Testaments interfered and finished him themselves before restoring Albedo.

With access to the Zohar, Albedo transformed the area of the Omega system into a space-time anomaly. After they escaped and the anomaly stopped expanding, the crew of the Durandal-the Foundation's flagship-noted that Jr.'s craft had forced its way out into space, heading for Albedo. He never returned. Instead, chaos brought a broken Albedo who was nonetheless cured of the wafeform affliction that had destroyed his fragile sanity fourteen years ago.

With Albedo left in the care of his remaining brother, the group went their separate ways. Margulis returned to Second Miltia, although he doubted things were really over. Six months later, he was proven correct when Gnosis seemed to organize and specifically target major cities. Margulis joined the effort to find out why, and they eventually discovered that a man named Grimoire Verum, who had originally lived during the Lost Jerusalem era and was responsible for the disaster that forced mankind to flee the planet, had survived as a consciousness within the UMN and was able to lure the Gnosis where he wanted them.

The group stopped Grimoire and thus the attacks that had been dubbed the Gnosis Terrorism, but Kevin could no longer trust his company, which managed the UMN, and quit. Once again, the group split up, although their peace would once again be short lived.

After another six months had passed, a strange landmass appeared floating in space. Margulis, along with Albedo, chaos, Virgil and Voyager went to investigate with the Elsa and their own mecha, and Margulis recognized the object as Rennes-le-Chateau, a holy land of Ormus that was said to have once been a portion of Lost Jerusalem. Before they could investigate to confirm Margulis' suspicions, however, they were intercepted by a black and gold mecha wielding two swords. Margulis engaged it in his own craft, the Levi, and quickly recognized the swordsmanship as Jin's. Jin claimed that the object was important to his organization's goals and refused to allow them to pass, leading the fight to escalate until a strange light emanated from the landmass. The crafts' sensors identified it as a potentially dangerous space-time anomaly, but Margulis refused to retreat from his fight. The Elsa attempted to intervene to cut it short, but its engine was damaged as a result, allowing it to be drawn in by the land mass' gravity just as the entire area was surrounded by a spherical distortion dubbed a hypersphere, locking the Elsa inside and everyone else out. Following this, Jin retreated without warning, leaving Margulis and company to the problem of the Elsa.

With CUS-TOS' weapons system as the only thing they could think of that would penetrate the hypersphere, the group appealed to Kevin and Allen for help. As the new chief engineer of the division that had developed CUS-TOS, Allen agreed. The android's weapon was easily enough to allow them to reach Rennes-le-Chateau, but they were beset by difficulties with their crafts. Eventually, they encountered the pink robed Testament, who revealed herself as MOMO Mizrahi, who had been onfirmed dead, and informed them that their problems were because the specific type of craft they were piloting, known as ESes, were resonating with their wills and this place. At first, she seemed intent that they not continue as well, but after a short battle, a new Testament appeared, garbed in red. He told MOMO that she didn't have to stick around any longer, and Albedo instantly recognized the voice as Jr.'s. But despite Albedo's angry attempts to contact him, the Red Testament left, along with his ally.

With the path cleared, the group continued, shifting to on foot when their ESes locked up and refused to start again, until they met a third Testament. She refused to identify herself, but her presence caused a pendant worn by Kevin to glow. Without so much as a word, she left as all of them blacked out.

When they woke up, they were in a forest Virgil and Kevin recognized as being from Old Miltia. Even stranger, they encountered a younger duplicate of Virgil injured on the pathway. After some discussion, the present Virgil hid and the rest of the group took the past version to a nearby church, where a Realian woman offered to donate some of her organs to replace Virgil's damaged ones, on the grounds that she could recover them with proper care. Kevin remembered these events from his youth, but performed the operation himself, as the younger him wasn't anywhere to be seen yet.

After that, events progressed as Margulis, Virgil and Kevin remembered them, leading the group to encounter a young girl named Shion Uzuki, who seemed important to both Allen and Kevin, on the way to finding the Elsa. On reaching the ship, they learned that the Vessels of Anima, unusual objects that powered their ESes, had vanished from their craft. In order to get their hands on the versions that existed in this time, the group snuck into U-TIC's central building, Labyrinthos. During their escape, Kevin lingered too long behind and was captured, forcing a return to rescue him.

As the disastrous events that had led to the loss of the planet drew closer, Virgil began to take interest in the idea of changing the past in order to save Febronia, who he had begun to love in that time period, while Margulis and Kevin's own roles in the conflict came to light, also revealing that they had met on Miltia, during Margulis' time in the fledgeling U-TIC and Kevin's time as the assistant to Joachim Mizrahi. Ultimately, however, events proceeded largely as they had originally happened and Shion and the younger Virgil were forced to watch Febronia's brutal death at the hands of out of control Realians.

After being dragged back to a part of Labyrinthos by Shion, they saw her comatose mother mauled by a unique type of Realian that Kevin had released before they were fully ready against Margulis' advisement. The scene horrified Shion, prompting her latent powers to flare and call the Gnosis to the planet. At the same time, the Testament who had brought them there appeared without her mask, allowing Allen and Kevin to identify her as an older Shion, and activated her powers intentionally to summon a gigantic Gnosis-like object.

After the object appeared, the group escaped what had been explained as a simulation of Old Miltia, only to discover that Albedo's father, Dmitri Yuriev, had taken control of Gaignun Kukai's body and occupied the Durandal. Though they attempted to stop him, they were unable to prevent him from gaining control over the twelve Zohar emulators on the ship and crashing it into the object Shion had summoned. As a result, they were forced to enter the object itself, where they confronted Yuriev again. Drawing power from the Zohar, he proved resistant to their attacks, until the Red Testament appeared once again and took the Zohar from his control. At the same time, he confirmed his identity as the late Gaignun Kukai Jr. and he and his brother managed to draw Gaignun to the surface long enough for them to cooperate to kill their father for good, at the cost of Jr.'s body. But rather than allow Jr. to die again, Gaignun forced him into Albedo's body so that only himself and Yuriev would die.

In the aftermath, Albedo informed his allies that his twin had sent the Zohar to Michtam. Unwilling to leave it unsecured, they headed for the dead planet. There they met Pellegri one last time. The ensuing fight ended with the destruction of the Issachar and Pellgri refusing to eject to save herself. Margulis witnessed the death of one of his oldest friends, but urged the party to continue rather than stop to dwell on what had happened.
Personality: Margulis is and always has been a man devoted to his ideals. While discovering the deception of Ormus destroyed his belief in the organization and opened his eyes to the dangers of blind faith, he remained loyal to his goals. At first glance, in fact, it can seem that his goals and ideals are all he cares about. He can seem detached and callous, even toward his own allies. This, however, is mostly a result of his pride, a general difficulty in expressing softer emotions, and an attempt to priorities effectiveness over likeability.

At heart, he is a man motivated by a desire to see the best for humanity. Sickened by the greed and selfish attitude of the Federation, as well as enraged by Ormus' manipulation of the Immigrant Fleet, he is thoroughly determined to show both groups their errors. But while his canon counterpart would sacrifice billions of lives out of hand and believe it justified, this version is all too aware that he's capable of misjudging a situation. Though not a pacifist by any means, he takes steps to limit loss of civilian life where possible.

In fact, not a pacifist is putting it lightly. Margulis is a soldier at heart, and makes no secret of the fact that he enjoys his place on the battlefield. While he avoids unnecessary sacrifices out of battle, he is merciless in combat and ruthless when put in command. Even outside of battle, he can seem demanding of his allies, insisting they give their entire focus to the task at hand.

On the other side of things, he is a genuinely caring individual beneath his harsh attitude and aware of other people's needs and limitations. While he will look down on someone who struggles because of an unwillingness to give their all, he will help someone who is genuinely at the end of their abilities without much thought, albeit with a certain amount of unpleasantness depending on the person and the situation. And if you can earn his respect as an ally, he can seem almost friendly, despite a fondness for teasing and taunting those he considers close.

At least part of his stiff, rigid attitude is the fact that he is naturally very temperamental. Since he's easily angered, it takes a good deal of self-control not to lash out and he is frequently containing some form of irritation. Though this isn't to say he represses it, instead he channels it into sheer determination and motivation. His control isn't perfect, however, and he is prone to bursts of loud or even violent anger when something hits one of his more sensitive topics.

One last thing to note is that he carries no bias as to whether you're human, mutant or Realian. While a large number of people in his world, particularly people of his heritage, dislike people who aren't natural humans, Margulis himself judges people purely on their worth as individuals, especially prizing individual thought and willpower. Though a person's relatives are capable of swaying his initial opinion about someone, he's capable of getting over even that if they prove themselves to be different from what he expected.
Abilities:
Swordsmanship: Margulis is, quite frankly, almost impossibly good with a sword. In an era of common beam weapons, he fights so effectively with a blade that he's capable of holding his own against enemies with even the most modern equipment.

Physical Enhancements: Part of the reason he's so absurdly dangerous with a sword is the fact that he is stronger and faster than any normal human by far. He can easily tear through concrete with his sword and can most likely slice through armored metal as well, as his rival who leans less toward physical strength than him can do the same. In terms of speed, he can step to the side quickly enough to leave an after image without even seeming to move, almost giving the illusion that he can teleport short distances. On top of that, he's shown to be able to jump to the top of a city building in a single leap from a standing position with little to no real difficulty.

Ethers: Ethers are his most versatile ability, functioning like typical video game magic. His specialty is fire and lightning, focused heavily on offense. His main use of this is to engulf his blade in flames or attack from a distance, but he's also capable of rendering himself briefly immune to either fire or lightning and using the energy from any such attack to heal existing wounds. They're also most likely the source of his physical enhancements.

Connection to the Zohar: While it's incredibly unlikely that it will come up in the setting, Margulis nevertheless has a mental connection to a powerful relic in his universe called the Zohar, giving him the ability to activate or deactivate it through pure will.

Though it's not explicitly stated, it is heavily implied that he can sense the waves of the Zohar, which people with this connection give off in small amounts.
Sample Entry: Test-run link.