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Character Sheet
[Image: IYCJdHn.png]
Malta, circa 824 A.S
Name: Bassam Hussaini
Known Aliases: Michael Henderson,
Azhi-Dahaka,
The Overseer
Origin: Planet Samarra
Occupation: Overseer of the Silver Sun
Height: 1.95m
Affiliation: The Commune
Rank: Overseer
Status: Infested
Born: February 21st, 789 A.S.

||Background

Bassam Hussaini was born in Samarra's sprawling Assyria megalopolis, to Barak Hussaini, a prominent member of the Warrior Caste and an unknown mother, presumably of low birth. As a mere toddler at no more than three years of age, he was sold into slavery by his own father, who peddled him off to Slavers in order to settle a gambling debt. He then spent most of his later years in indentured servitude, slaving off in inhumane conditions under the scorching Samarran sun.

During the prelude to the Samarran civil war, Hussaini was conscripted by the Zealot Order and brought to their Temple deep in the Eastern Wastes, where he was surgically implanted with an ancient nomad incubus, and set loose into the wastes, becoming a puppet operative of the Temple's interests. He subsequently met and joined a marauding band of desert Raiders, consisting of notably Jared Nomak, Adrian Thrax and Jaden Wexler, followed by about a three dozen of men.

He then spent several years raiding and pillaging among them, enriching himself and gaining trust with the men and their leaders. At the dawn of the first year of the civil war, Hussaini manipulated Nomak and his band of Raiders into infiltrating the Black Gold Fortress, Samarra's only proper spaceport, in an effort to secure a strong Temple loyalist stronghold, as was ordained by the psionic mindshare that controlled his every move. After the takeover of the Fortress, Hussaini spent the next few years ruling the same as part of a triumvirate consisting of himself, Nomak and Thrax. This continued until the unquenchable flames of rebellion engulfed the entire planet, the revolutionary forces destroying Temple holdings and killing off most if not all infested figures that until recently controlled Samarran society in the process.

Finally, a large force amassed before and besieged the Fortress, forcing Hussaini, Nomak and Thrax, as well as a few others to board several ships and launch into space in a state of panic. Relying on old astronomical data, they found the legendary jumphole that brought their people to the system in the first place, and with an extreme leap of faith, jumped through, finding themselves in the Edge Nebula on the other side, close to the Outcast homeworld...Malta.

The Raiders quickly aligned themselves with the Outcasts, and took upon themselves to distribute the Maltese orange deep into Sirius. Hussaini found himself again in a high position, part of the renewed triumvirate reminiscent of their lordly days on Samarra, but now at the helm of a growing pirate clan with an ever-expanding influence of interstellar proportions. Thus the Samarran Raiders were born and Hussaini found himself a niche as a proselytizer and supporter of the "spirit worship" both on Malta and in the Raider ranks, and further enabled for more efficient interpretation of the Spirits', or Annunaki's, as the Raiders called them - will. Business was growing, and the Raiders were becoming more politically involved within the sector, and for a time, it was good.

Though their fortune quickly changed. Due to their frequent and quite open support of the Slomon K'hara, the Raiders found themselves in the crosshairs of the Order. In a lighting-fast strike, the Order obliterated their base of operations in Texas, with most personnel onboard during the strike. Hussaini himself was away during the time, chasing a lead on a powerful artifact in the Omega worlds, and when he heard the grim news, he opted to go under and stay hidden, out of fear for his own life. Eventually though, he was identified as an infectee and captured by an independent research group, who held him captive in a hidden facility on Planet Deidus for a full year. However, in time he managed to break himself loose and find his way back to civilization. Shortly thereafter he reunited with a patrol of the Commune, who brought him up to speed with the developments and pointed him in the right direction. After some time he finally tracked Jared Nomak who welcomed him with open arms and formally reinitiated him into the Commune, where he currently serves as his right hand.


||Personality and Goals

Hussaini is a creature of paradoxes and great extremes, with a generally alien outlook, even by infectee standards. After consciously surrendering to the control of the incubus back on Samarra, the two creatures have merged and evolved in unison, ultimately becoming one indivisible organism. The personality that was born out of this symbiotic relationship, though, was one that by human standards could only be described as sociopathy, possibly driven to this direction by the trauma of being cut off from the mindshare on Samarra and as a necessity to adapt to the cutthroat niche he occupied.

Hussaini has a highly developed form of cognitive empathy, capable of observing and 'surgically' dissecting the words, body language, and emotions of people he interacts with, but at the same time, he isn't quite capable of feeling any of it himself, making him an expert manipulator and liar, through his complete lack of other types of empathy. He even appears to derive some pleasure from inciting emotional conflict and plotting at the detriment of others, as this is the only way he can have a glimpse into the minds of regular people and partake in the human experience in the smallest of ways. Though prone to brief obsessive fascinations towards select humans, he is generally disinterested and unable to develop anything resembling a meaningful relationship, except in the rarest of cases.

On the other hand, he is also similarly disconnected from the Sirian Nomad mindshare, possibly due to previous trauma, though he himself has theorized that the unstable wormhole he and his companions used to reached Sirius had somehow influenced or damaged his brain. He can make himself seem normal to other nomadic entities by voluntarily faking a connection, but if he were ever caught unawares, and observed by a nomad or another infectee, all that would be seen and felt would be an emptiness - the lights are on, but there's simply no one home.

People who've known him for longer periods of time undoubtedly notice his misanthropic outlook on the human race in general, and indeed he regards most of humans as lesser beings, unevolved and self-destructive. On the other hand, he regards himself as perfectly evolved and incapable of erring, and through this grandiose delusion he's ordained himself a goal - his Magnum Opus - a Great Work, to bring the rest of humanity to his own level, to reshape them in his own image - and ultimately recreate the perfect community he lost on Samarra. And in following the ideology of "The End Justifies the Means" in the truest sense, he doesn't care who or what he destroys on the way to his goals.

Recently, he's also developed a paranoid and emotionally unstable bend, which contrasts with his earlier callous cold and calculating true self, and though he still manages to keep his cool most of the time, unpredictable mood swings tend to get the better of him more and more often.


||Notable Links Involving the Character


Communique between Nomak and Hussaini, Notice of Reappearance
Communique with President Martelli of the National Council
Communique with Estefania Casta of the Ghosts of Razgriz
Following the Sky-Wolf
Ash-Born's Ascension(Incomplete)
The Beginning and the End
Of Beasts and Men(Incomplete)
The Memory Shard - Personal Logs

||Mind To Power - Adaptations and Abilities - Part I

Prior to his infestation, Hussaini lacked any real useful skills, his expertise extending to simple manual labor he performed for most of his life in indentured servitude. Post infestation, however, simple skills were gradually 'downloaded' into his mind via simple proximity to the elder infectee mindnodes on Samarra. This process sped up as the physical subversion of his brain progressed, the incubus maturing and expanding its tissue towards select brain regions. By the end of his time on Samarra, the incubus had reached an almost mature stage, the evolution of which was guided by strict instructions from the all-pervasive mindshare. Only a limited psionic ability was developed, limited to telepathic communication and violent assault on minds of lesser creatures and more susceptible humans.

After the violent destruction of the Samarran mindshare and the forced flight to Sirus via an unstable wormhole, the incubus and by extent Hussaini went into a state of traumatic shock, unable to fully process the sudden lack of all mindshare feedback, leading to genetic damage in the incubus. Confined to itself, the incubus' self-preservation instincts kicked into overdrive, bringing its mutable nature to the forefront in a panicked attempt to further integrate with its host and protect what its sub-sentient mind perceived as a last chance for survival. This chaotic process of hybridization continues to this day and results in an inconsistent array of adaptations and abilities.

||Telepathy

Part living organism and part technology, the sillicate biology of the incubus can read, store and transmit information to and from the K'hara mindshare, as long as it remains in sufficient proximity of a mindnode. Due to previous damage to his incubus' genetic code, Hussaini finds this ability to be sorely lacking in his case, capable of meaningful communication only through great expenditure of conscious effort.

The ability to transmit information directly into the minds of humans remained unaffected, however, and was even further enhanced as the incubus violently morphed and subsumed his cerebellum, then worked its way up to the rest of his brain. Though rarely utilized, he has the ability to 'speak' to a human in this way, who would perceive his 'speech' as something alike to his or her inner voice. In the same way, he can hear them if they speak back, and in rare cases, pick up on their simple thoughts and basic intents event if they weren't directed at him.

He can weave 'visions', that are perceived through the human's 'mind's eye' and can easily be distinguished from reality. He can also create illusions, that manifest in the actual field of vision and are rarely identified as simple hallucinations by the sufferer. And finally, he can issue 'commands', creating compulsions that sufficiently susceptible humans feel obliged to carry out. These abilities don't come without a price, however, as intense and reckless use can quickly deplete him and cause damage, leading to nosebleeds, migraines and in extreme cases even life-threatening symptoms.


||Psychokinesis

The ability to exert force on objects through manipulation of electromagnetism and gravity on a quantum level. Pyschokinesis - mind to power. This entails an impressive list of abilities, displayed most prominently by K'hara morphs, but also to a lesser extent by more mature infectees and hybrids. Hussaini's psychokinetic abilities started developing after his arrival in Sirius, first manifesting as a panicked fight-or-flight response in life threatening situations. Though he's gained a modicum of control over them in recent times, they still primarily manifest when his subconscious and animal-like incubus brain assumes all control of his actions.

Though theoretically everything is possible, realistically and practically he can at most manage to lift or push an object of with a mass roughly equal to his. Levitating and hurling objects as weapons, diverting incoming small projectiles and even more insidious feats such as exerting a crushing force on bodies of living foes, are all within the realm of possibility. The use of these abilities also contains drawbacks, similar to overuse of telepathic abilities but with even more severe symptoms. Aside from general wear and tear of the body, the energy requirements for sustained use of these activities are far beyond the scope of the average human body. Overuse of psychokinesis can cause starvation and quickly drain the fat reserves in the body, and even cause muscular dystrophy as the body struggles to power the mind.

||Mind To Power - Adaptations and Abilities - Part II

Outwardly, Hussaini seems entirely normal, his blemishless, rosy skin, meticulously arranged hair and fit physique painting him a prime example of the human race. However, all of that is merely a skin deep mask, a thin veil concealing the inner workings of his being. On the inside, the chaotic and unchecked progression of the incubus' tissue has completely transformed Hussaini's physiology, up to a point where he can barely be considered human anymore. A myriad of physical adaptations born through trial and error, continue to develop at a constant pace, turning him into a chrysalis of sorts, heralding the emergence of a creature whose end form is unknown and unknowable, yet a definite certainty. The most notable changes are as follow.

||The Eyes

The eyes are the windows to the soul, and the main windows through which most humans perceive the world around them. Hussaini is no different, his eyes are still the main tool of perception of the outside world, now having reinforced optic nerve connections, transparent nictating membranes for added protection of the eyeball, and muscular structures that afford the ability to voluntarily dilate and constrict pupils. Further down the optic nerve, the chiasma is replaced by the mind's eye, a new knotlike organ that filters visual information, and has the ability to convert different types of sensory input from other organs into visual information, before forwarding it to the brain down the optic tract. Eyes are likewise the main avenue for the manifestation of the incubus' energy discharge in times of high cerebral activity, leading to the well-known, stereotyped phenomenon of "glowing purple eyes" by which infectees are known. Hussaini also displays this phenomenon occasionally, though the manifestation is much less intense as compared to regular infectees, appearing as a simple color change in the iris in well-lit conditions, and as a glow in poorly lit conditions only.

||Subdermal and Skeletal

Hussaini's entire body is encased in a subdermal layer of webbed muscular tissue and nerve endings, affording increased resistance to cuts, though at price of a higher level of perceived pain as a result of injury. This subdermal tissue and its nerve endings also act as a form of conduit for Hussaini's telekinetic and telepathic abilities, and as a tertiary sensory apparatus used to detect the presence of more exotic phenomena, such as electromagnetism, radiation and even radio waves. The bones are similarly encased in, and filled with exotic tissue that displaced and replaced the bone marrow, reinforcing the skeletal system to such an extent where fracture from trauma seems an unlikely prospect at best. In the case of fracture, however, the enhanced circulatory system quickly transports the necessary building blocks to the site of injury, and a regeneration process, assuming optimal dietary practices, is complete within a week, as opposed to several months. Finally, the chest plate and ribs are completely fused and further reinforced to provide increased protection to the organs below.

||Circulatory System

The Lymphatic system, and by extent the immune system, is one of the first things that are subverted and neutralized during the infestation process, to disarm the body's natural defense system and afford the invader's xenobiotic components an unopposed reign over the body. The interference usually stops there, but in Hussaini's case, this continued to the complete replacement of the lymph vessels, the lymph nodes and even the liquid itself, now consisting of an entirely new, xenobiotic compound that circulates through the system. This lymph system produces a host of xeno bacterium and propagates them all over the body via the nodes and new lymph hearts that pump the bacterium bearing liquid. The bacterium pass to the bloodstream, and from there to the rest of the body, where they regulate a myriad of functions and act as the main vector of human cell mutation through a retroviral delivery system.

||Major Internal Organs

Barring circulatory rearrangement and nerve endings, most of Hussaini's major organs are left untouched by the infestation, notable exceptions to this being the lungs and the digestive tract, both being enhanced in numerous ways to support the cumbersome new physiology of the ever changing organism. However, in other regions, new organs have been grown, starting first as cancerous growths then slowly taking shape and form. The first of these was the second heart, an atrophied and mostly inactive organ that stays dormant under normal circumstances, but quickly activates when stimulated by a surge of adrenaline in fight-or-flight situations, providing that extra kick when its needed.

Quote:[[WORK IN PROGRESS]]