Ethan Philips, VAdept

Ethan was everything the world ever expected out of a hacker in his adolescent years. Quiet, withdrawn and sickly. But when he discovered computers, he knew that something had changed for him, that now he could do things without fear of embarassment. He took to the internet with unparalleled zeal. He got to know systems in and out almost by instinct. It was as if he was possessed. His parents never expected a thing until his seventeenth birthday and the agents showed up at the door. They introduced themselves with plain sounding names and said they had a warrant for the arrest of their son.

Of course, none of this made sense to Ethan's parents. As far as they were concerned their son had done nothing but sit in front of his computer for hours playing games and chatting with friends over the internet. But when they finally had Ethan in the back of a black cadillac and confiscated all of his computer equipment the agents ran off a list of crimes Ethan's parents didn't even understand. But they did understand at least one: hacking into the FBI database. With that said, they burst into tears as their son was carried away. They never saw him again.

He was led off to an office where he waited for hours and hours before anyone would so much as speak to him. There he met his first enlightened agents. They were members of a secret group that called itself the Iterators. They explained that he had two choices. Either he could stand trial for his crimes against the state, be placed in a federal prison and killed while inside, or he could join them and work as an adjustable resource (read: shadowrunner). The choice was simple; cool toys, access priviliges he had only dreamed of and the government paid him to do it. He began his hacking in earnest.

He fit in easily into the Technocracy at first. He had everything he had ever wanted. The agency had transformed him into a new Ethan, save for his asthma which still plagues him to this day. They taught him about the proper dress of field agents. They cleaned him up, made him presentable on those rare occasions he needed to physically show to Iterator conventions. He learned all different manners of accelerated mathematics used to break complex algorythyms down All was well. Until he discovered that hacking wasn't just for computers.

The dreams began as Elisa came into his life. She was tall and mousy, ephemerically beautiful and wholly a creation of his mind. She would whisper to him in dreams, tell him about what was to be done. About a new place where he could put his talents to use. Reality 2.0. He would fantasize about it while he worked and it was then that he began to see the truth behind everything. He could see the code.

It was beautiful. Every man, woman and child, every object, every room and every minute of every day began to appear to him in flashes of complex binary strings. But they weren't binary. There were 'twos' thrown in as well. He memorized their patterns and began to experiment on the what little time the Iterators gave him. It wasn't long before his superiors found out about his new experiments as he used his newfound abilities to hack into a lower level Control server.

He had heard from other newly initiated Iterators about a place called Room 101. It was a disciplinary place. Ethan had known of one Iterator who went in. He had never seen the man again. He feared it. And when the strange email came through his mail client, he knew what was about to happen. It bore no more than a the simple message: "They know where you were and saw what you did. Time to go to Room 101 or come with me. Spryte." Ethan knew that if he went to Room 101 something BAD would happen. He didn't intend to find out what it was. He packed up his stuff and left that night. Fortunately, Spryte found him before the Iterators did. That night, Ethan discovered the dark side of the Technocracy. The HIT Marks sent after him were all that he needed to know about his former masters. He was through with the Iterators. They had all been faceless, unemotional tightasses who didn't know how to have fun. Or at least that's what Spryte told him. Spryte told him it was time for fun.

In the years that followed, Ethan discovered what was really behind his talents. Magick. Ethan dove headfirst into the world of Prime and Quintessence and the Virtual Adepts, honing his already remarkable abilities with Correspondance to a razor sharp edge that allowed him to access all but the most secretly guarded data. He discovered that the mousy woman in his dreams with the notepad and strange new ideas was his avatar. The strange code he saw in everything was what Spryte had called Prime Code and if you could manipulate it the right way, you could do anything. As he trained though, Spryte warned him of leaking out his past. If others of the spiritual traditions ever discovered that he had been working for Greymen, he could be expelled from the traditions or worse. After several months of waiting to see that Ethan could become one of the Traditions under the guise of being a discovered Orphan, Ethan was accepted and taught deeper mysteries. One of them turned out to be his fellow human beings. He blossomed socially, mo longer under the slaving pace of his technocratic masters. He discovered partying, women and booze, just like the other students at the University. But after a few months had gone by and spring led to summer he realized that he was coming to an end of his fascination with computers.

Hacking had become passe. It was easy. In and out with hot paydata or the newest naked pictures of his favorite actresses and models. Nothing seemed to stop him and eventually the thrill of doing obviously illegal things wore off. That was when Spryte taught him the thing that would change his life forever: Paraphysics. It was like rediscovering his childhood.

Paraphysics allowed Ethan to not just hack computer systems, but to hack reality itself. To get him started, Spryte and Ethan built a wonder of technology that could bring about Elisa's promises. The VR Glove was his finest moment although Spryte had done most of the work. He was in heaven. He could hack reality with the power of the glove and his knowledge of matter's Prime Code. He's been preaching the virtues of Reality 2.0 ever since.

Recently, his mentor, Spryte has sent him out into the world to spread the good word and to develop his talents on his own. He wanders from place to place with a little assistance from Elisa and Elisa 2.0, his familiar within his blossoming Trinary laptop computer.It's a tale of a man, his VR Glove and his desire to change the world. IT's your reality. What do you want to hack today?

Character Attributes

Name: Ethan Philips
Player: Burt Hopkins
Chronicle: Newark Nightmares/Necropolis Chat

Nature: Visionary
Essence: Dynamic
Demeanor: Heirophant

Concept: Reality Hacker
Mentor: Spryte
Cabal: None

Physical Traits

Strength: •
Dexterity: ••
Stamina: •••

Social Traits

Charisma (Charming): ••••
Manipulation: •
Appearance: •••

Mental Traits

Perception: ••
Intelligence (Well Read): ••••
Wits (Intuitive): ••••

Talents

Alertness: ••
Awareness: •
Dodge: •
Blatancy: ••

Skills

Technology: •••
Hypertech: ••
Crafts: ••

Knowledges

Computer (Hacking): ••••
Investigation: •••
Science (Engineering): •••
Science (Paraphysics): ••
Science (Hypermath): •

Spheres

Correspondance: •••
Matter: •••
Prime: •

Backgrounds

Wonder (VR Glove, Prime 2): ••
Wonder (Trinary Deck, Entropy 1): •
Sanctum (Digilab, accessible by Portal): ••
Mentor (Spryte): ••
Dream: ••
Avatar (Elisa):•
Node (Haqer Heaven): •
Familiar (Elisa 2.0): •

Fetishes &
Computer Gear

VR Glove, Laptop Computer,
Disks, Email, Computer Systems,
Modems, Palm Computer,
Palm Projector, Laser Pointer,
Hypertech Gadgets, Glasses

Resonance

Static: •
Dynamic: None
Entropic: None

Arete
•••

Quintessence
•

Paradox Effect

Merits & Flaws

Parlor Trick (1 pt. Merit)
Asthma (2 pt. Flaw)
Dark Secret (1 pt. Flaw)
Defective Sense (Sight,
Correctable, 1 pt. Flaw)
Soft Hearted (1 pt. Flaw)
Addiction (Caffeine, 1 pt. Flaw)