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Tom Harriman
From TheHolo.Net Forums Wiki
Name
Thomas James Harriman, PhD
Marital Status
{{{Relationship}}}
Siblings
Louise Harriman (35)
Katrina Harriman (22)
Abilities
{{{Abilities}}}
Tom Harriman is a British citizen born in Cornwall, but who spent most of his formative years living in Scotland. He studied Astrophysics at University, who went into education as a secondary school teacher in that field, serving at the same time as a Paratrooper in the Territorial Army: the volunteer reserve of the British Army. When his mutant status was discovered five years ago, he was quietly discharged from the military to avoid a scandal; he chose to leave his teaching job and further pursue academia. He studied for a doctorate at Columbia University (remaining as a research assistant after its completion) and, using the university's facilities to study his mutant abilities, took to protecting the city as the vigilante Captain Untouchable.
Recently, he was involved in a case of mutant-on-mutant violence while attempting to thwart a robbery. The pyrokinetic mutant that the tabloids referred to as Hotshot set Harriman alight; rather than leave him alive to suffer he attempted a mercy killing via 9mm, but Harriman was able to deflect the bullet and survive. His story plastered across the papers, Harriman chose to leave New York and attempt to start another new life: this time in Los Angeles.
| England & Scotland
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| Though born in Truro - a city in Cornwall, England - Tom Harriman spent a sizeable portion of his childhood living in Scotland and, though the family moved back to England when he was in his early teens, he still considers the Highlands to be his true home; after High School he returned to study at the University of Glasgow, and though softened by his years in England and the United States, his Scottish accent has never quite subsided.
For most of his life, Harriman was a keen scientist and astronomer, and ultimately chose to study Astrophysics at university. Far from an academic bookworm however, Harriman was also an enthusiastic athlete; a fan of cycling, swimming and running, he competed at junior level in a number of local triathlon events, though chose not to pursue the sport any further. He was also an enthusiastic martial artist, spending several years studying kung fu at a local club before university.
During the second year of his Astrophysics course - having spent the first year indulging in the cliché student lifestyle - Harriman chose to join the local University Officer Training Corps unit for Glasgow and Strathclyde. Over the course of the remaining two years of his Bachelors degree - and a year of teacher training that followed - he completed the requisite training that qualified him to serve as an officer in the Territorial Army. Completing his PGCE and moving into a teaching post, he continued his part-time voluntary service to the military, training as a Paratrooper and becoming a member of 15 Company the 4th Battalion, Parachute Regiment (4 PARA).
As an officer - eventually achieving the rank of Captain - Harriman served with distinction. However, with terrorist activity on the rise, and growing concerns over the threat posed by mutants, Harriman found himself identified by genetic screening as posessing the mutant X gene. Citing the mutation as a genetic defect, the Army quietly discharged him on medical grounds.
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| New York
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| Opting to leave the country in search of a fresh start, and deciding to further his academic studies, Harriman managed to secure himself a postgraduate placement in the Physics department at Columbia University. Though aware he was a mutant, it wasn't until several weeks into his time at Columbia that he discovered the nature of his ability. Subtly managing to mix research into his ability with his work at the university, he investigated the extent of his power, attempting to better understand how it functioned.
Harriman also threw himself into the extra-curricular side of university life. Among other things, he enrolled at a local martial arts academy, where he studied Ninjitsu; mainly because - despite his military service - he still percieved ninjas as the epitomy of cool, along with motorcycles, leather jackets, and objects that transform into robots for various plot-related reasons. With experience of kung fu from back in England as well, his military training, and with his understanding of his mutant abilities beginning to unfold, he realised that he could combine his background in order to model himself as one of the costumed vigilantes that had become common in New York City.
Adopting the guise of a ninja, Harriman began his career as a crime fighter. He quickly discovered that he was able to use his abilities not only to help deflect and reduce the force behind blows aimed at him, but he could also add extra force to his own blows by - according to his current scientific theory - accellerating the air molecules around his hand to blast his target with "wind", and also by transferring momentum into his opponents on contact. Drawing on his experiences, he managed to pull together a unique fighting style that made him nigh untouchable to his opponents - hence his original alias, Captain Untouchable.
Harriman continued his new extra-vocational activities for two years, augmenting his arsenal with all manner of scientifically-inspired weaponry to accent his powers. He routinely spent most of his nights patrolling the city; fortunately, the reputation he had managed to cultivate at the university allowed him to conveniently pass off his sleep deprevation as the result of excessive partying. He managed to keep his identities and activities a secret, up until his encounter with the mutant thief Hotshot. Harriman encountered him while fleeing from the scene of a heist, and attempted to stop him. Unfortunately, Hotshot had little in the way of control over his abilities, and managed to use his pyrokinesis to set Harriman alight. He managed to subdue the flames, but not before Harriman had suffered extensive injuries. Doubting he would recover - and that his life would be worth living even if he did - Hotshot decided to shoot Harriman with his 9mm, as a mercy killing. However, Harriman managed to summon enough focus to enact his abilities, deflecting the bullet enough to prevent it from doing fatal damage.
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| Los Angeles
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| Though his injuries were severe, the intervention of a mysterious benefactor - who apparently posessed healing abilities; no doubt doing their samaritan duty for a fellow mutant - managed to erase most of the superficial wounds from his ordeal; Harriman does however still feel phantom responses from his gunshot wounds, and faint scarring is still visible at those locations. While he had been hospitalised however, his story had been flooded across the tabloids, with his true identity attatched. Fortunately, it was a fairly local phenomenon rather than a national interest; even so, with notions of mutant registration in the state of New York being thrown about, and with a new specialist branch of the NYPD keeping tabs on known mutants, Harriman felt that he would be better off starting a new life for himself yet again.
Crossing the continent to Los Angeles, Harriman managed to secure himself a position as a substitute teacher at a local High School, ironically covering for a staff member who was taking somewhat longer to recover from his injuries than Harriman had. Disillusioned with the vigilante lifestyle that he had wasted his time in New York on, he attempted to live a normal life. However, exposure to the imagination and enthusiasm of his teenage students managed to recindle his optimism for the lifestyle, and he eventually chose to reinvent himself as a new hero.
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| Powers / Abilities
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| Propulsive Telekinesis - a term coined by Harriman himself; he also describes it as "a cross between Force Push and Neo". Harriman is able to psychically apply a one-dimensional force to matter that is in close proximity to his body, causing it to accelerate in a direction away from him. For slow-moving and stationary objects, he can actually push them away; with faster objects like bullets he can only slow them down however or, if he applies the force at an angle, deflect them. The force is strongest in close proximity to his body, but is able to act over distances of a few meters or so: Harriman speculates that in these instances he is accelerating the air molecules around his body and propelling them in said direction, effectively striking targets with a "gust of wind". He uses this ability in combination with his martial arts training to strike at targets without touching them; the route of his original Captain Untouchable alias.
Repulsor - as an extension of the air molecule theory, Harriman has been working on a device to further concentrate and amplify his ability, by constructing something akin to a particle accelerator. He hopes to create a generator that will emit charged particles, already with momentum in the correct direction, that he can then accelerate with his abilities. Several possibilities have been predicted in his research: a device capable of emitting a high-intensity shockwave of force at close range for example, or a concentrated pulse of ionised particles - something like a science fiction "plasma rifle".
Other Abilities - Harriman is currently experimenting to see what other applications his abilities might have, such attempting to determine if his ability is limited to other objects or if it can be applied to himself, to allow him to run faster, jump higher / further, and so forth.
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| Out of Character
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Jace has been around on the site since January 2007. He knows all the things, including board lore, random trivia, and really really terrible jokes and puns.
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