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bellerophontesOOC:
Name: Zoey
Personal DW:zoharial
Email: beloved.tyrant@gmail.com
Timezone: Eastern Standard Time
AIM/Plurk: redandblack394/![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
Zoharial
IC:
Character name: Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard, USAF
Character Journal(s):bellerophontes
Canon: Stargate: Atlantis
Point of Origin: Sometime shortly after season 5 episode 17 ("Infection"), as regular offworld missions seem to have been ongoing from then until Enemy at the Gate.
Appearance: (Image reference) Sheppard stands 5'10" and probably weighs around 165lbs, and he has a ridiculous number of scars. When I have time to do a full canon review, I'll make a list of them, but just off the top of my head there's a Wraith feeding scar in the middle of his chest, and a circular one on his right side just below his kidney from where he caught a piece of rebar in it when a building fell on him.
Background: There's 5 seasons of it, so here is his wiki page. Specific episodes will be cited in the personality section as relevant. Also, while it isn't explicitly stated, there's a lot that points to Sheppard being Spec Ops (specifically, he was most likely a TACP) prior to his assignment to the Stargate Program. Probably foremost among them is the fact that despite being a last-minute addition to the Atlantis expedition and seemingly having been attached to SGC in primarily a support role prior to that (he is not mentioned as having fought in the Battle of Antarctica), when he's thrust into the position of commander of the expedition's military contingent and leader of its point exploration team, he handles it quite capably. As a SpecWarrior, this level of independence and autonomy in carrying out his mission would indeed be something that he was amply prepared for, as operators are trained not only to be unstoppable killing machines, but also in all elements of unconventional warfare, including diplomacy and the capacity for independent thought and action necessary to complete a long-term mission while isolated in enemy territory.
A few other things that point to him being an operator are his training habits, some of the specific ways in which he lacks traditional ethics, potentially the classified nature of his missions in the Middle East (though regular Air Force and SpecWarriors work together all the time), his level of combat skill, and his level of both physical and psychological resilience (which even the Wraith comment on repeatedly).
Personality: On the surface, John is charming, articulate, and ingenuous; he's good at putting people at ease, even across cultural barriers - but then, as a SpecWarrior, respect for other cultures is part of his training, as he would've been expected to be both a top-notch soldier and diplomat behind enemy lines. The facility with which he absorbed the lesson is clear from the beginning of the series, when he immediately establishes amicable relations between the Atlantis mission and the first human civilization they encounter in the Pegasus Galaxy, the Athosians. Even after the Atlantis expedition's cockup results in the Pegasus Galaxy suddenly being full of approximately ten bazillion hungry Wraith (leather-wearing space vampires) - as opposed to the relatively manageable number that weren't in hibernation before they got there - and the Athosians having to evacuate their home world for Atlantis because of it, he and the expedition leader Dr. Weir are able to keep relations with them sunny enough that the leader of the Athosians, Teyla Emmagan, becomes a permanent member of Sheppard's field team even after the rest of the Athosians find a new place to settle.
Generally, Sheppard is able to establish positive (if not always productive) relations with the civilizations the expedition encounters in the Pegasus Galaxy, with only two notable exceptions - the Wraith (who, as people-eating space vampires, regard humans as nothing but chattel, and theirs to do with as they please), and the Genii, who understandably have little regard for the Atlantis expedition after finding out they unleashed all of the Wraith. However, some of them are eventually impressed enough with John's military leadership (which they witness both firsthand, when he's kicking their ass in the field or during their failed attempt to take Atlantis, and secondhand, when the expedition stubbornly continues to survive in the face of the Wraith's best efforts to wipe it out) and appreciative enough of his and Dr. Weir's early attempts at diplomacy that a coup occurs within the government, with the faction hostile to Atlantis being run out.
Eventually, Sheppard's even able to establish an in with the Wraith when, ironically, he and one of their former high commanders (whom he later nicknames "Todd") are imprisoned by the Genii together and forced to cooperate to escape. His relationship with Todd is particularly illustrative of a number of interesting facets of his character, starting with his reaction when Todd educates him on the fact that humans and Wraiths have a surprising amount in common: rather than clinging to his hostility and denying it, he accepts what he learns (and, of course, uses it to improve his tactics against the Wraith; while I don't remember whether this is specifically canon, I play Sheppard as realizing that the similarities between the Wraith and the Tau'ri - i.e. humans from Earth - at least as much as their differences are why attempts at peace between them are doomed to failure).
Also, the running theme in Sheppard's interactions with Todd is that Sheppard will never let a debt of honor go unpaid, and Todd plays on that relentlessly to secure his safety and freedom when his plans inevitably require him to temporarily become a prisoner of the Atlantis expedition. In turn, Sheppard realizes fairly early on that Todd has a strong sense of honor and doesn't tolerate betrayal, but never loses sight of the fact that he is, ultimately, untrustworthy, and he's using the Atlantis expedition to do his dirty work as he maneuvers his way back into power over the rest of the Wraith. However, Sheppard goes along with it because killing more of the Wraith is always in humanity's best interests, and Todd provides opportunities to do it that wouldn't have otherwise arisen - and, more importantly, Todd won't move against the expedition while they're still potentially useful, or if he doesn't think he can take them all out at once, because he knows that any conflict he starts with them will only end when one side has been completely wiped from existence, and he's seen firsthand the kind of damage that Sheppard and his people can inflict even when seemingly completely outmatched. In short, though he knows Todd is playing him, John has made a strategic decision that for now, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks - and by the point in the canon I'm pulling him from, he's learned a lot about manipulating Todd as well.
Despite the ease with which Sheppard establishes diplomatic relations, he isn't nearly as good at making personal connections with others - while he's easy to talk to and good at getting people to trust him, he always maintains his emotional distance and doesn't like letting others really get to know him, no matter how much he cares for them. For example, in one episode (fuck me if I can remember which one), he tells Teyla that he isn't really good at expressing emotions, but he'd die for her, or any of his team members. Yet, the only one of them he ever lets really see what he's capable of, what's really behind the mask, is Rodney McKay - and that was equal parts him not feeling like he had a choice at the time and predicting (correctly) that Rodney was too dependent on their friendship not to just ignore what he'd seen.
John's got a real dark side to him, and only part of that can be ascribed to being a SpecWarrior who's seen a lot of action (more on that in a couple paragraphs, though). However, what keeps that in check is his near absolute commitment to military virtues. Like all SpecWarriors, he understands his own relative expendability, and he truly doesn't place a higher value on his own life than on those of the people around him. He's even undertaken suicide missions on two separate occasions in the face of overwhelming force from the Wraith which threatens to annihilate everything he's sworn to protect (though of course they didn't end as suicide missions, because Joe Flanigan never had any serious contractual issues with the studio).
Above everything else, what's most important to him is being able to protect those around him, and for them to be able to rely on him. The amount of emphasis he places on this is beyond even what his position requires, and in the past, it's brought him into direct conflict with his duty as a soldier - as, for example, on several occasions back in Afghanistan when he mounted rescue expeditions against orders. To say he's got a complex about it probably wouldn't be an exaggeration, and when he fails in his self-appointed duty to save everyone all the time, it tends to haunt him; for example, in the episode Phantoms, when a piece of Wraith technology causes him to relive his ill-fated attempt to rescue a comrade back in Afghanistan, it completely destroys his normally very keen ability to see through illusions and resist invasions into his mind.
Also, not making serious mistakes or needlessly endangering anyone is vital to both his ego and his self-concept, as demonstrated in the episode Be All My Sins Remember'd. He normally doesn't get angry at his teammates under any circumstances (getting annoyed at Rodney and subsequently trolling him is a different matter entirely - McKay is like an obnoxious younger brother to him, and while John loves him dearly, it's impossible not to get fed up with him from time to time), but after Teyla reveals that she let him inadvertently place her unborn baby in danger, Sheppard is absolutely furious, and is implied to have refused to talk to her for the better part of a week afterward. (However, despite his tendency to fault himself more than is strictly reasonable, judging by his behavior at the end of Phantoms, he is indeed capable of viewing some things as completely beyond his control and not blaming himself for them.)
While he is capable of affection for others, and of regretting his mistakes (though there's always an element of wounded pride in that, at not being able to be perfect all the time), he does show distinctly sociopathic behavior on more than one occasion. Some of this is a natural outcome of the kind of action he's seen as a SpecWarrior, and is somewhat common in the profession. For example, in The Siege, Sheppard tortures a captured Wraith to death. This can be seen as not flinching from situational necessity - with the Wraith invasion forces bearing down on Atlantis, he needed to extract as much information from his captive as possible before they got there, and he also needed him to be dead by the time they actually arrived: the extremely strong telepathic abilities the Wraith possess would have allowed him to pass on key information about the city to the rest of the invasion fleet - and besides, this was a member of a species that has been engaged in an ongoing genocide against humans. However, that doesn't negate the fact Sheppard tortured a prisoner to death and visibly enjoyed it.
While it's part of the SpecWarrior mindset not to flinch from the occasional necessity, in order to fight against monsters, of doing monstrous things, what's going on with John is ultimately beyond that. This is demonstrated in the episode Miller's Crossing - while it's rational for him to want Henry Wallace to answer for his mistakes and not cause anyone else to suffer as a result of them, what John actually does isn't just coldly calculating, but excessively cruel, vindictive, and indicative of a fundamental lack of a moral compass. Throughout the episode, Wallace demonstrates that he's a decent person whom fear and desperation and a lack of adequate understanding of the science behind the Replicators have driven to make terrible mistakes; when it becomes apparent that the modified Replicator nanites he injected Jean with are going to kill her, just as they did his daughter the day before, he's as remorseful as he can be in his numb and devastated state, and when Sheppard offers him the chance to atone for what he did and make the pain stop, he accepts it. When the severity of the situation became obvious, Todd was brought in to take over writing the coding patch for the nanites; however, he was too weak from hunger to finish the work in time. McKay wanted to let Todd take part of his life force, and then force him to give it back later; however, Sheppard refused to let him (and stated that he was pretty sure Todd wouldn't go for it either), and solved the issue by talking Wallace into feeding himself to Todd.
In other words, John talked a broken, grieving man into killing himself - in what, Sheppard was aware but Wallace was not at all, was one of the most excruciatingly painful ways in the universe to die. He did this despite knowing there was another option available: while Todd would probably at least try to refuse to return McKay's life force after he fed on him, he probably wouldn't refuse if it was Sheppard instead - after all, Sheppard had won his respect, and perhaps even some degree of his affection, and besides, he'd done it before. Thus, the choice was never one between Wallace's life and Jean's, but between Wallace's life on the one hand, and on the other, fairness to Todd and Sheppard's personal comfort. Sheppard's interest in being fair to Todd is an especially disturbing contrast to his willingness to brutally murder a man who had kidnapped Sheppard's best friend and nearly killed said best friend's sister only out of a desperate desire to save his child's life.
Skills/Powers: (The personality section of his wiki page is more about these than about his actual personality.) John has no superhuman abilities, though his mental defenses might come close; he's shown to be able to fight off mental incursions from powerful and experienced telepaths, and recognize constructed illusions relatively quickly (however, he is shown to be vulnerable to illusory flashbacks, probably due to his subconscious tendency to fixate on his mistakes). In M1A18, this is going to translate into a high resistance to most types of mind horrors, though there are plenty of other ways for the city to fuck with him.
John is also extremely rational and highly intelligent. His intelligence is particularly geared toward military tactics and strategy, but he's also shown to have a good head for numbers; this is no coincidence, as having a solid grasp of mechanical/aerospace engineering (given his age and background, it's plausible that he may even have a master's degree in one of the two, though his education isn't discussed in the canon) is a prerequisite to becoming a test pilot. Additionally, he's seen a lot of shit during his time in the Pegasus Galaxy; not only is he the military commander of an expedition to study the civilizations and wildlife of another galaxy, but he's in charge of what has ended up being a front line base in an all-out war against the Wraith on their own turf.
Additionally, not only has his SpecWarrior training taught him how to survive on his own while completely cut off in hostile territory, but it's canon that he's done it at least once before, on a rescue mission in Afghanistan. Also, due to his training, he's highly skilled in both ranged and close quarters combat and in taking on groups of enemies alone, and he's highly resistant to pain and exhaustion (for example, he leads a mission to rescue Teyla, who was captured by Michael Kenmore, only a couple hours after being pulled out of the collapsed remains of one of Michael's laboratories and with only a pressure dressing over the hole where a piece of rebar was pulled out of the approximate vicinity of his kidney).
Finally, you can read about the wide variety of aircraft he's trained to operate in the link I provided at the beginning of this section; however, this probably won't do him much good in the game, at least not for a very long time.
Gear: John's mission load is either directly shown or extremely likely to contain the following: black BDUs, combat boots, tactical vest, and field jacket; FN P90 rifle with 5 extra 50-round magazines (300 rounds total); Colt M1911A1 .45 pistol with 4 extra 8-round magazines (40 rounds total - probably hollowpoint, because the fact that they're illegal in international warfare has no real bearing when you're in another galaxy); pistol belt, suspenders, and first aid pouch; two one-quart canteens; two small arms maintenance/repair kits (one in the butt of the P90 and one in his pack); bayonet with scabbard; MOPP gear with decontamination kit; 4 fragmentation grenades; 2 flashbangs; all-purpose lightweight individual carrying equipment with frame; 2 MRE rations; toilet articles; towel; waterproof bag; nylon poncho and liner; AN/PRC-148 handheld radio with a teeny little earpiece.
Why do you want to play this character in this particular setting? I consider John a good choice for a mod character in this setting because, for as long as he remains stable, he should be able to provide a measure of structure, discipline, and reassurance to the other characters, and his leadership will make it easier to nudge them in the right direction for plot if necessary. However, the key phrase is "as long as he remains stable." Even his legendary self-discipline has to run out at some point, and if there's any setting that could push him beyond it, it's this one. Especially since I might kill him.
Canonically, he's always the Big Damn Hero, always the one who keeps it together and saves the day for everyone else's sake. It'd be interesting to me to play him in a setting where he's confronted regularly with the fact that he can't protect everyone (which, as he demonstrates repeatedly in the series, is something vital to his ego), where there's no opportunity for him to be a hero, and where he and everyone around him are pushed so close to the edge that just keeping body and soul together is an unexpected triumph. Also, as I mentioned in his personality section, he's also capable of clannish and Machiavellian behavior, and of doing truly monstrous things in retribution for harm coming to the few people he cares about, so that tendency is something that might well come into play here, and it'd be interesting to work with.
Writing Samples: John sits on the metal grate steps, staring out into the darkness where an orange light he can't keep himself from likening to the eye of some cartoon monster burns, blinking at irregular intervals. As he watches, a second one comes into view. Both of them, he's fairly certain now, are moving slowly, though at least they aren't getting any closer. Another gust of heated air washes over him, bringing with it the scent of metal and animal grease and a faint hint of carrion and chlorine, and the last wisps of smoke from Kincaid's cigarette.
"What are we going to tell the others about the seventh floor?" Normally, it's all but impossible to get Specialist Kincaid to shut up, but this is the first time in almost an hour he's said anything. Not that Sheppard cares - he's been too busy trying to repress what he saw up there to care.
The building is six stories tall. The outer stairwells - the ones that open onto metal steps above an oily, black sea, where orange lights shine against a perpetually void-black sky and the air is cold but the wind is hot - don't have basement or roof access, but they do have an extra four landings beyond where the building stops. Today, Sheppard had taken a team to explore what was beyond the door on the seventh one; there had been a great deal of discussion about it, to say the least, but ultimately they'd decided that any threat the extra floors might pose needed to be assessed.
Fortunately, none of what was behind that door shows any inclination of being able to escape through it. "To stay the hell away from it, obviously." John's voice is still hoarse, but he doesn't sound as bad as he'd expected, given how long he'd spent throwing up - which, in retrospect, is the only part of this he's actually angry about, because with supplies in short stock, every calorie has to count.
Kincaid looks like he's about to protest, but then he takes a moment to look at the shape they're all in, and apparently decides that should make the point well enough. "...Yeah."
Finally, Sheppard gets to his feet. "We're not checking any of the other floors today. Let's go empty the rain collectors and get back to the apartments."
Kincaid pinches the cherry off his cigarette, rolls out what's left of the tobacco, and tucks the filter into his pocket. "Sounds like a plan. If we hurry, maybe we can get back in time to catch the evening news from the Bugfuck Crazyverse."
No one laughs, but one or two of the others hazard a brief smile.
Name: Zoey
Personal DW:
zoharialEmail: beloved.tyrant@gmail.com
Timezone: Eastern Standard Time
AIM/Plurk: redandblack394/
IC:
Character name: Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard, USAF
Character Journal(s):
bellerophontesCanon: Stargate: Atlantis
Point of Origin: Sometime shortly after season 5 episode 17 ("Infection"), as regular offworld missions seem to have been ongoing from then until Enemy at the Gate.
Appearance: (Image reference) Sheppard stands 5'10" and probably weighs around 165lbs, and he has a ridiculous number of scars. When I have time to do a full canon review, I'll make a list of them, but just off the top of my head there's a Wraith feeding scar in the middle of his chest, and a circular one on his right side just below his kidney from where he caught a piece of rebar in it when a building fell on him.
Background: There's 5 seasons of it, so here is his wiki page. Specific episodes will be cited in the personality section as relevant. Also, while it isn't explicitly stated, there's a lot that points to Sheppard being Spec Ops (specifically, he was most likely a TACP) prior to his assignment to the Stargate Program. Probably foremost among them is the fact that despite being a last-minute addition to the Atlantis expedition and seemingly having been attached to SGC in primarily a support role prior to that (he is not mentioned as having fought in the Battle of Antarctica), when he's thrust into the position of commander of the expedition's military contingent and leader of its point exploration team, he handles it quite capably. As a SpecWarrior, this level of independence and autonomy in carrying out his mission would indeed be something that he was amply prepared for, as operators are trained not only to be unstoppable killing machines, but also in all elements of unconventional warfare, including diplomacy and the capacity for independent thought and action necessary to complete a long-term mission while isolated in enemy territory.
A few other things that point to him being an operator are his training habits, some of the specific ways in which he lacks traditional ethics, potentially the classified nature of his missions in the Middle East (though regular Air Force and SpecWarriors work together all the time), his level of combat skill, and his level of both physical and psychological resilience (which even the Wraith comment on repeatedly).
Personality: On the surface, John is charming, articulate, and ingenuous; he's good at putting people at ease, even across cultural barriers - but then, as a SpecWarrior, respect for other cultures is part of his training, as he would've been expected to be both a top-notch soldier and diplomat behind enemy lines. The facility with which he absorbed the lesson is clear from the beginning of the series, when he immediately establishes amicable relations between the Atlantis mission and the first human civilization they encounter in the Pegasus Galaxy, the Athosians. Even after the Atlantis expedition's cockup results in the Pegasus Galaxy suddenly being full of approximately ten bazillion hungry Wraith (leather-wearing space vampires) - as opposed to the relatively manageable number that weren't in hibernation before they got there - and the Athosians having to evacuate their home world for Atlantis because of it, he and the expedition leader Dr. Weir are able to keep relations with them sunny enough that the leader of the Athosians, Teyla Emmagan, becomes a permanent member of Sheppard's field team even after the rest of the Athosians find a new place to settle.
Generally, Sheppard is able to establish positive (if not always productive) relations with the civilizations the expedition encounters in the Pegasus Galaxy, with only two notable exceptions - the Wraith (who, as people-eating space vampires, regard humans as nothing but chattel, and theirs to do with as they please), and the Genii, who understandably have little regard for the Atlantis expedition after finding out they unleashed all of the Wraith. However, some of them are eventually impressed enough with John's military leadership (which they witness both firsthand, when he's kicking their ass in the field or during their failed attempt to take Atlantis, and secondhand, when the expedition stubbornly continues to survive in the face of the Wraith's best efforts to wipe it out) and appreciative enough of his and Dr. Weir's early attempts at diplomacy that a coup occurs within the government, with the faction hostile to Atlantis being run out.
Eventually, Sheppard's even able to establish an in with the Wraith when, ironically, he and one of their former high commanders (whom he later nicknames "Todd") are imprisoned by the Genii together and forced to cooperate to escape. His relationship with Todd is particularly illustrative of a number of interesting facets of his character, starting with his reaction when Todd educates him on the fact that humans and Wraiths have a surprising amount in common: rather than clinging to his hostility and denying it, he accepts what he learns (and, of course, uses it to improve his tactics against the Wraith; while I don't remember whether this is specifically canon, I play Sheppard as realizing that the similarities between the Wraith and the Tau'ri - i.e. humans from Earth - at least as much as their differences are why attempts at peace between them are doomed to failure).
Also, the running theme in Sheppard's interactions with Todd is that Sheppard will never let a debt of honor go unpaid, and Todd plays on that relentlessly to secure his safety and freedom when his plans inevitably require him to temporarily become a prisoner of the Atlantis expedition. In turn, Sheppard realizes fairly early on that Todd has a strong sense of honor and doesn't tolerate betrayal, but never loses sight of the fact that he is, ultimately, untrustworthy, and he's using the Atlantis expedition to do his dirty work as he maneuvers his way back into power over the rest of the Wraith. However, Sheppard goes along with it because killing more of the Wraith is always in humanity's best interests, and Todd provides opportunities to do it that wouldn't have otherwise arisen - and, more importantly, Todd won't move against the expedition while they're still potentially useful, or if he doesn't think he can take them all out at once, because he knows that any conflict he starts with them will only end when one side has been completely wiped from existence, and he's seen firsthand the kind of damage that Sheppard and his people can inflict even when seemingly completely outmatched. In short, though he knows Todd is playing him, John has made a strategic decision that for now, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks - and by the point in the canon I'm pulling him from, he's learned a lot about manipulating Todd as well.
Despite the ease with which Sheppard establishes diplomatic relations, he isn't nearly as good at making personal connections with others - while he's easy to talk to and good at getting people to trust him, he always maintains his emotional distance and doesn't like letting others really get to know him, no matter how much he cares for them. For example, in one episode (fuck me if I can remember which one), he tells Teyla that he isn't really good at expressing emotions, but he'd die for her, or any of his team members. Yet, the only one of them he ever lets really see what he's capable of, what's really behind the mask, is Rodney McKay - and that was equal parts him not feeling like he had a choice at the time and predicting (correctly) that Rodney was too dependent on their friendship not to just ignore what he'd seen.
John's got a real dark side to him, and only part of that can be ascribed to being a SpecWarrior who's seen a lot of action (more on that in a couple paragraphs, though). However, what keeps that in check is his near absolute commitment to military virtues. Like all SpecWarriors, he understands his own relative expendability, and he truly doesn't place a higher value on his own life than on those of the people around him. He's even undertaken suicide missions on two separate occasions in the face of overwhelming force from the Wraith which threatens to annihilate everything he's sworn to protect (though of course they didn't end as suicide missions, because Joe Flanigan never had any serious contractual issues with the studio).
Above everything else, what's most important to him is being able to protect those around him, and for them to be able to rely on him. The amount of emphasis he places on this is beyond even what his position requires, and in the past, it's brought him into direct conflict with his duty as a soldier - as, for example, on several occasions back in Afghanistan when he mounted rescue expeditions against orders. To say he's got a complex about it probably wouldn't be an exaggeration, and when he fails in his self-appointed duty to save everyone all the time, it tends to haunt him; for example, in the episode Phantoms, when a piece of Wraith technology causes him to relive his ill-fated attempt to rescue a comrade back in Afghanistan, it completely destroys his normally very keen ability to see through illusions and resist invasions into his mind.
Also, not making serious mistakes or needlessly endangering anyone is vital to both his ego and his self-concept, as demonstrated in the episode Be All My Sins Remember'd. He normally doesn't get angry at his teammates under any circumstances (getting annoyed at Rodney and subsequently trolling him is a different matter entirely - McKay is like an obnoxious younger brother to him, and while John loves him dearly, it's impossible not to get fed up with him from time to time), but after Teyla reveals that she let him inadvertently place her unborn baby in danger, Sheppard is absolutely furious, and is implied to have refused to talk to her for the better part of a week afterward. (However, despite his tendency to fault himself more than is strictly reasonable, judging by his behavior at the end of Phantoms, he is indeed capable of viewing some things as completely beyond his control and not blaming himself for them.)
While he is capable of affection for others, and of regretting his mistakes (though there's always an element of wounded pride in that, at not being able to be perfect all the time), he does show distinctly sociopathic behavior on more than one occasion. Some of this is a natural outcome of the kind of action he's seen as a SpecWarrior, and is somewhat common in the profession. For example, in The Siege, Sheppard tortures a captured Wraith to death. This can be seen as not flinching from situational necessity - with the Wraith invasion forces bearing down on Atlantis, he needed to extract as much information from his captive as possible before they got there, and he also needed him to be dead by the time they actually arrived: the extremely strong telepathic abilities the Wraith possess would have allowed him to pass on key information about the city to the rest of the invasion fleet - and besides, this was a member of a species that has been engaged in an ongoing genocide against humans. However, that doesn't negate the fact Sheppard tortured a prisoner to death and visibly enjoyed it.
While it's part of the SpecWarrior mindset not to flinch from the occasional necessity, in order to fight against monsters, of doing monstrous things, what's going on with John is ultimately beyond that. This is demonstrated in the episode Miller's Crossing - while it's rational for him to want Henry Wallace to answer for his mistakes and not cause anyone else to suffer as a result of them, what John actually does isn't just coldly calculating, but excessively cruel, vindictive, and indicative of a fundamental lack of a moral compass. Throughout the episode, Wallace demonstrates that he's a decent person whom fear and desperation and a lack of adequate understanding of the science behind the Replicators have driven to make terrible mistakes; when it becomes apparent that the modified Replicator nanites he injected Jean with are going to kill her, just as they did his daughter the day before, he's as remorseful as he can be in his numb and devastated state, and when Sheppard offers him the chance to atone for what he did and make the pain stop, he accepts it. When the severity of the situation became obvious, Todd was brought in to take over writing the coding patch for the nanites; however, he was too weak from hunger to finish the work in time. McKay wanted to let Todd take part of his life force, and then force him to give it back later; however, Sheppard refused to let him (and stated that he was pretty sure Todd wouldn't go for it either), and solved the issue by talking Wallace into feeding himself to Todd.
In other words, John talked a broken, grieving man into killing himself - in what, Sheppard was aware but Wallace was not at all, was one of the most excruciatingly painful ways in the universe to die. He did this despite knowing there was another option available: while Todd would probably at least try to refuse to return McKay's life force after he fed on him, he probably wouldn't refuse if it was Sheppard instead - after all, Sheppard had won his respect, and perhaps even some degree of his affection, and besides, he'd done it before. Thus, the choice was never one between Wallace's life and Jean's, but between Wallace's life on the one hand, and on the other, fairness to Todd and Sheppard's personal comfort. Sheppard's interest in being fair to Todd is an especially disturbing contrast to his willingness to brutally murder a man who had kidnapped Sheppard's best friend and nearly killed said best friend's sister only out of a desperate desire to save his child's life.
Skills/Powers: (The personality section of his wiki page is more about these than about his actual personality.) John has no superhuman abilities, though his mental defenses might come close; he's shown to be able to fight off mental incursions from powerful and experienced telepaths, and recognize constructed illusions relatively quickly (however, he is shown to be vulnerable to illusory flashbacks, probably due to his subconscious tendency to fixate on his mistakes). In M1A18, this is going to translate into a high resistance to most types of mind horrors, though there are plenty of other ways for the city to fuck with him.
John is also extremely rational and highly intelligent. His intelligence is particularly geared toward military tactics and strategy, but he's also shown to have a good head for numbers; this is no coincidence, as having a solid grasp of mechanical/aerospace engineering (given his age and background, it's plausible that he may even have a master's degree in one of the two, though his education isn't discussed in the canon) is a prerequisite to becoming a test pilot. Additionally, he's seen a lot of shit during his time in the Pegasus Galaxy; not only is he the military commander of an expedition to study the civilizations and wildlife of another galaxy, but he's in charge of what has ended up being a front line base in an all-out war against the Wraith on their own turf.
Additionally, not only has his SpecWarrior training taught him how to survive on his own while completely cut off in hostile territory, but it's canon that he's done it at least once before, on a rescue mission in Afghanistan. Also, due to his training, he's highly skilled in both ranged and close quarters combat and in taking on groups of enemies alone, and he's highly resistant to pain and exhaustion (for example, he leads a mission to rescue Teyla, who was captured by Michael Kenmore, only a couple hours after being pulled out of the collapsed remains of one of Michael's laboratories and with only a pressure dressing over the hole where a piece of rebar was pulled out of the approximate vicinity of his kidney).
Finally, you can read about the wide variety of aircraft he's trained to operate in the link I provided at the beginning of this section; however, this probably won't do him much good in the game, at least not for a very long time.
Gear: John's mission load is either directly shown or extremely likely to contain the following: black BDUs, combat boots, tactical vest, and field jacket; FN P90 rifle with 5 extra 50-round magazines (300 rounds total); Colt M1911A1 .45 pistol with 4 extra 8-round magazines (40 rounds total - probably hollowpoint, because the fact that they're illegal in international warfare has no real bearing when you're in another galaxy); pistol belt, suspenders, and first aid pouch; two one-quart canteens; two small arms maintenance/repair kits (one in the butt of the P90 and one in his pack); bayonet with scabbard; MOPP gear with decontamination kit; 4 fragmentation grenades; 2 flashbangs; all-purpose lightweight individual carrying equipment with frame; 2 MRE rations; toilet articles; towel; waterproof bag; nylon poncho and liner; AN/PRC-148 handheld radio with a teeny little earpiece.
Why do you want to play this character in this particular setting? I consider John a good choice for a mod character in this setting because, for as long as he remains stable, he should be able to provide a measure of structure, discipline, and reassurance to the other characters, and his leadership will make it easier to nudge them in the right direction for plot if necessary. However, the key phrase is "as long as he remains stable." Even his legendary self-discipline has to run out at some point, and if there's any setting that could push him beyond it, it's this one. Especially since I might kill him.
Canonically, he's always the Big Damn Hero, always the one who keeps it together and saves the day for everyone else's sake. It'd be interesting to me to play him in a setting where he's confronted regularly with the fact that he can't protect everyone (which, as he demonstrates repeatedly in the series, is something vital to his ego), where there's no opportunity for him to be a hero, and where he and everyone around him are pushed so close to the edge that just keeping body and soul together is an unexpected triumph. Also, as I mentioned in his personality section, he's also capable of clannish and Machiavellian behavior, and of doing truly monstrous things in retribution for harm coming to the few people he cares about, so that tendency is something that might well come into play here, and it'd be interesting to work with.
Writing Samples: John sits on the metal grate steps, staring out into the darkness where an orange light he can't keep himself from likening to the eye of some cartoon monster burns, blinking at irregular intervals. As he watches, a second one comes into view. Both of them, he's fairly certain now, are moving slowly, though at least they aren't getting any closer. Another gust of heated air washes over him, bringing with it the scent of metal and animal grease and a faint hint of carrion and chlorine, and the last wisps of smoke from Kincaid's cigarette.
"What are we going to tell the others about the seventh floor?" Normally, it's all but impossible to get Specialist Kincaid to shut up, but this is the first time in almost an hour he's said anything. Not that Sheppard cares - he's been too busy trying to repress what he saw up there to care.
The building is six stories tall. The outer stairwells - the ones that open onto metal steps above an oily, black sea, where orange lights shine against a perpetually void-black sky and the air is cold but the wind is hot - don't have basement or roof access, but they do have an extra four landings beyond where the building stops. Today, Sheppard had taken a team to explore what was beyond the door on the seventh one; there had been a great deal of discussion about it, to say the least, but ultimately they'd decided that any threat the extra floors might pose needed to be assessed.
Fortunately, none of what was behind that door shows any inclination of being able to escape through it. "To stay the hell away from it, obviously." John's voice is still hoarse, but he doesn't sound as bad as he'd expected, given how long he'd spent throwing up - which, in retrospect, is the only part of this he's actually angry about, because with supplies in short stock, every calorie has to count.
Kincaid looks like he's about to protest, but then he takes a moment to look at the shape they're all in, and apparently decides that should make the point well enough. "...Yeah."
Finally, Sheppard gets to his feet. "We're not checking any of the other floors today. Let's go empty the rain collectors and get back to the apartments."
Kincaid pinches the cherry off his cigarette, rolls out what's left of the tobacco, and tucks the filter into his pocket. "Sounds like a plan. If we hurry, maybe we can get back in time to catch the evening news from the Bugfuck Crazyverse."
No one laughs, but one or two of the others hazard a brief smile.
