the art is good!

no longer secret stuff [+]

_Theme

NAME

Unknown

ALIAS

Euphoria
The Invisible Hand
The Prince of Prosperity

COLOR

Dark Orange

ALIGNMENT

Villain

IDENTITY

Secret

PERSONALITY

A great human author once referred to the 'banality of evil', an idea which many other sapient species understood on an essential level, but lacked the vocabulary to put into words. They did not, however, lack for illustrative examples, and in recent cosmic history one name became the most repeated one among radical thinkers.

If evil is banal, then very few beings could embody this axiom better than Euphoria. Here is a being whose response to deep existential angst and alienation in his youth was to embark on an centuries-long pursuit of his own happiness through great material growth. Upon seeing the universe he lived in as an uncaring and purposeless place, he chose to uncaringly exploit the riches of that universe to craft a purpose for himself. A committed egotist and hedonist, his endless accumulation of wealth is not a mere expression of blind greed, but rather a 'rational' pathway to an equally endless consumption. As much an ideologue as he is an entrepeneur, his flaws are not born from some mental defect, but from his wholehearted devotion to a 'rational' philosophy which places each individual as a heroic creature, looking out solely for his own selfish interests and nobody else's. Humans might describe him as a 'libertine' or an 'objectivist', though he would reject any labels that were not his own.

Euphoria is adamantly jovial, friendly, playful and witty. As a public figure, he is attracting, bewitching even. Those lucky enough to be in his good graces might even find him likeable. However, his personal relationships are shaped by his philosophy as much they are by his business interests: the well-being of others is always secondary to the economy and the bliss he derives from it. Thus, he is uncaring or self-exculpatory towards those he exploits, and has betrayed many so-called 'friends' over the centuries for the sake of his individual journey. There are, in fact, few things he would not do to protect the system which helped him become the person he is today and to further expand his riches. To him, the value of life is wholly dependent on its necessity within the structure and his plans, and all life but his own can suddenly become expendable.

The spiritual leader and unofficial CEO of the League for a Bright Future exists in a state of near-perpetual revelry. Music and light follow him wherever he goes, and he dances and sings to its beats constantly. Aesthetics are a major concern of his, sometimes equal in importance to raw practicality. His semi-nomadic economic empire is a neon-colored behemoth of audiovisual entertainment as well as production and trade, bringing his message of cheerful nihilism and eternal capitalism to all worlds it comes across.

Euphoria's ultimate goal is in the name he has chosen for himself: to someday possess so many material riches that he finds a true, transcendental kind of happiness, which he can experience for all eternity. His utopia is a universe without governments, without any social structures or hierarchies other than the many corporations that comprise the League for a Bright Future. For reasons unknown to all but himself, this long path towards paradise recently came to include one small blue world in the Milky Way, a world which had long evaded his ravenous attention...

ORIGIN

Although his birthname and family have been lost in time, some fairly reliable facts about Euphoria's beginnings are either a matter of public knowledge or easily inferred.

We know, for instance, that he was born on a beautiful planet called Lamuella, located in an inner arm of the Triangulum galaxy. Despite his many changes over time, it is undeniable that he was once just like most native inhabitants of Lamuella: a tall, pale-skinned, colorful-haired humanoid. What his childhood was like remains a mystery, but he would later claim that he was a mostly happy, lively boy with a head full of big questions and equally big ambitions. He was also, by his own admission, a cosmic dualist, though he never revealed the nature of his paradox.

When his paradox finally revealed itself, however, its effect was dramatic. Faced with the inner workings of the Universe laid bare before him, Euphoria experienced a terrible existential crisis. Where cosmomancers found a positive, beautiful purpose in their discovery, Euphoria found the opposite: a complete and utter purposelessness, a feeling of emptiness and loneliness. To him, the Universe no longer had any mysteries or meaning, and all he had to look forward to was the end of his cosmically brief life.

It is clear that he eventually found an answer to this anguish, in the form of adopting a philosophy of egotism and hedonism, with his goals being a vast material wealth, absolute pleasure and, ultimately, immortality. With this aim in mind, he claimed the Lamuellan word for 'euphoria' as his name and departed his homeworld, determined to become a great interplanetary magnate. He enjoyed a precocious but massive success in his endeavor, founding his own megacorporation while he was still a young man and then becoming one of the leading members of the League for a Bright Future.

A millennia-old coalition of merchants, industrialists and media moguls, the League had long been one of the dominant economic forces in its own region of Triangulum, its influence transcending mere supply and demand, and often surpassing the power of planetary and interplanetary governments. Yet with Euphoria's arrival the League found its true calling, unshackling itself from its ancient restraints as a mere corporate alliance to become an almighty nomadic empire, one which held in its hands the destiny of billions upon billions of workers and consumers. In its new form, the League took it upon itself to not only create wealth for its own members, but to also reshape the ideals of all peoples it encountered, to purposefully create and cultivate its very own cultural hegemony on a galactic or even intergalactic scale.

Euphoria became the League's de facto leader, due to his rising media popularity as the living embodiment of the League's 'dream' for all sapient consumers. His everyday life of fun and glamour glossed over the everyday actions of the League as a whole. While billions watched enraptured his many wild adventures and even wilder parties, the League participated in the galactic slave trade, genocided entire native populations to claim their planets' natural resources, and undermined the various interplanetary workers' syndicates. When a few member corporations of the League rebelled against his leadership, the public themselves boycotted them unprompted, out of loyalty to Euphoria and the League's brand. Legendary and powerful objects were recovered, only to be immediately bought and hoarded by the League, before any governments could get a hold of them. During this time, Euphoria enjoyed the company of countless highly publicized lovers, involved himself in great heroic exploits (or what League-owned media depicted as great heroic exploits), and allegedly engaged in philantropy while advocating for his own individualistic philosophy.

By the end of his first century in the League, Euphoria had already achieved immortality through his technological enhancements and become one of the wealthiest beings in Triangulum. But he was not even close to satisfied yet, and so he pushed to take the League across dark space, to new galaxies, at a great expense and with varying success.

Today, over five hundred years after his birth, Euphoria remains an inspiring (and intimidating) figure in Triangulum. And with the League's newfound footholds in the outer reaches of Andromeda and the Milky Way, his fame has began to spread into new worlds. He continues his journey to reach ever greater joy through growth and consumption, all the while maintaining a deceptively gentle control on the League.

Euphoria's recent, sudden interest in the Milky Way (and, more specifically, to an inhabited planet in the Orion-Cygnus Arm of the galaxy) has gone largely unexplained, even to his peers in the League. Only vague words about great opportunities and success have come from the generally talkative man when asked about the matter. All that is known for sure is that the League's ship have begun to land on various planets closer to the galactic center, bringing with them the League's many material wonders and offers of investment and trade.

HERO TYPE

Mystic / Other
Much like other cosmic dualists, he is a very unique sort of magician, whose powers derive not from supernatural forces per se, but from the rare but natural paradoxes and singularities that take places in the Cosmos.

POWER LEVEL

Cosmic

POWERS

MATERIAL MAGIC
As far as anybody knows, Euphoria was never a cosmomancer, yet he somehow wields the same sort of power that cosmomancers do. Matter itself bends to his will, albeit in a limited form compared to other cosmic dualists. He can force matter to rearrange or disintegrate itself, though not create it from nothing, and at a moderate scale for now. Rather than rely on the crude tools of the cosmomancers, their anchors and beacons, Euphoria has commissioned his own refined and durable tools for the job, now integrated into his physiology. This means that his power, though relatively diminished, is more stable and reliable than it is for cosmomancers.
BIONIC PHYSIOLOGY
Robotic prosthetics, neural implants, and genetically engineered organs are all a part of Euphoria now, added and replaced over the decades as he leg go of his innate biological limitations and amassed an ever larger fortune with which he could finance it all. The end result is a body that's faster, stronger, more resilient and smarter than that of many organic beings. Thanks to his most recent additions, he is now able to transfer at least parts of his consciousness to new vessels, should the need arise, and communicate with the artificial intelligence in his service with ease. He can even survive, if only for short periods of time, in the vacuum of space.

ATTRIBUTES

HEIGHT 2,32 m
WEIGHT 107 kg
STRENGTH 70 tons
SPEED 30 MPH
ENDURANCE 5 hours
AGILITY 15X Human level
INTELLIGENCE Super-Genius
FIGHTING SKILL Untrained
RESOURCES Extreme

WEAKNESSES

Powerful though he may be, Euphoria is not a warrior. He has never faced off against a foe in single combat, mostly relying instead on his allies and employees when necessary. He has some experience in using his powers for destruction, but lacks proper training and technique.

His body is not invulnerable to damage either, despite its enhancements. Electricity and radiation specially pose a threat to him.

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS

THE ASSEMBLY OF TOMORROW, The totality of the League's members meet regularly, in person or remotely, in the form of this assembly. As of these days, the assembly has over one hundred and thirteen member corporations, each with its own representative. Technically speaking, Euphoria's opinion only weighs as much as that of the other members.
THE BRIGHT ENVOYS, Euphoria's explorers, ambassadors and occasional vanguard. Kidnapped from their home planets and bionically enhanced, they number in the hundreds, although he has several favorites who he dotes on.

NAME

Unknown

ALIAS

Euphoria
The Invisible Hand
The Prince of Prosperity

COLOR

Dark Orange

ALIGNMENT

Villain

IDENTITY

Secret

Character you have created: Arista Joy

Alias: Altair

Speech Color: Apricot

Character Alignment: Walking the Line

"I suppose I kind of deserved it when you pushed me into that rift. I had almost killed innocent people."

"I don't think you're a bad person, Claudia..." Said Gabriel. "But you think, say and do terrible things a bit too often."

"Maybe you should consider the possibility that we're looking at things through different lenses?" She said, grabbing the 'gift' from Gabriel's hand. "You spend your time either doing the smallest things or protecting the galaxies alongside the others in far away worlds. I'm the only one of the two who actually picks the big battles taking place right on Earth."

"The moment you pick a side in those battles, though, you're making a political decision."

"Of course I'm making a political decision," she said. "But so are you, you dumbfuck. The only difference is that your political decisions when it comes to Earth boil down to doing the bare minimum because you're scared of your own convictions."

"Claudia, I'm a bisexual Christian socialist who joined a libertarian commune of space wizards. If I start making major decisions on Earth, I'm definitely going to alienate a lot of people."

He sighed.

"You don't have that problem, because you're always on the 'right' side. You're on the side of the people who just want things to be 'normal' and comfortable. But what if what's 'normal' is actually awful in its own right?"

She said nothing.

He said nothing.

They let a couple minutes pass, gazed at the auroras some more, then simultaneously decided that it was time to do what they had come here to do.

Thank you! You guys all seem really nice already! I'll join the Discord once I'm on my laptop ^^. Just as a warning though, I'm not much of a talker on there (I'm actually really shy and nervous to, sorry \(>///<)/ ) so if I'm really quiet on there, that's why.

Also, where would be a good place to jump in, or should I just make an introductory post and go from there?

Thank you! You guys all seem really nice already! I'll join the Discord once I'm on my laptop ^^. Just as a warning though, I'm not much of a talker on there (I'm actually really shy and nervous to, sorry \(>///<)/ ) so if I'm really quiet on there, that's why.

Also, where would be a good place to jump in, or should I just make an introductory post and go from there?

Yo, I'm back but the Wi-Fi is out right now so I can't upload pics of my trip. posts will resume in about a week when school starts. pheonix's character sheet is coming Tuesday since school doesn't start till Wednesday, so I may have some free time.

Note:(not in purple because it's important)be aware I have ap English, so in stereo is gonna have a lot of hiatuses. Because of this, the posts are gonna come out a bit longer as the year goes on, meaning right now shorter posts, but later on like probably in November, expect longer posts that will come out two weeks at a time. If I need to take break I will let you guys know, and by break I mean spending the next update time doing research papers and shit. But other than that, everything else is kind of planned out story wise, so don't worry about that lol.

Literature. Time to read the great Gatsby. Again. Yay...