Roderich Edelstein, Communications Officer.

[Roderich Edelstein]

Name: Roderich Edelstein
Country/Code Name: Austria
Age:23
Gender:Male

Affiliation:Military

Ship Position:Communications Officer, First Lieutenant. (Enlisted)

Likes:

• Music, mostly classical. Besides Chopin’s piano works he enjoys Viennese Waltzes and Symphonique Fantastique. In terms of playing music he is proficient in organ, piano, violin, and sill a novice on a harp.
  
• Snow. His great-aunt had two houses, in Vienna and a vacation house near the mountains. He remembers playing in the snow when his mother wasn’t looking.
  
• Food. He likes his sweets and he likes his food to be well-prepared. He also is a very fine cook, and delights in cooking for others, just to show off his skills. He is fond of new wine and coffee and frequently lectures people on proper coffee etiquette.
  
• Doing things that please others.
  
• Dancing; particularly Viennese waltzes, although his great-aunt once showed him some Volktanzen that he adored.
  
• His meager books on philosophy and psychology, given to him by his teacher.
  
• Saving money
  
• Order among his household at least.
  

Dislikes:

• His job. He doesn’t want to be in the military. He’s obligated because of his family and lack of money.
  
• Frivolous spending. His mother spent every last shilling she had on his education, so Roderich knows the value of money quite well.
  
• Marine Wildlife. Particularly crustaceans, since the chaps at school found it completely lovely to put live lobsters in his bed at night. And then spread the world about how his screams resembled a woman's. But he did get even.
  
• Being called a bastard. This word will completely break away the aristocratic persona and you’ll have an irate and almost murderous Roderich on your hands.
  
• His sense of direction, well he lacks it. He’s the kind of guy you put tracking bracelets on, so you can find them later on.
  
• Overly romantic or sexual situations. Roderich tends to blush around this, not that he isn’t used to it, just that he feels these things are very private.
  

Job Skills:

• A knowledge of psychology. Even though the study of the mind is an infant among other sciences, Roderich's studies into it has made him able to see patterns and reasons for human behavior, making it easier to reason with other humans.
  
• Social Skills. One a good day, in the right circle, Roderich can use his manners and 'personality' to charm most people. And if not charm, at least convince them of how well-brought up he is. He's a pretty eloquent speaker as well, so negotiation is a strong suit.
  
• Music. If behavior is what obscures the true Roderich from the world, music brings him to light. When all things fail, Roderich simply uses his music to get people to be kinder to him.
  
• He can use a gun. He probably won't, but he's shot things before and he's had military training, no matter how much he hated getting it.
  
• He understands morse code and naval signals, due to the military.
  
• Order and cleanliness. A familial trait from his mother, Roderich's fussiness toward having things clean and organized has given him these skills:
  
• Sewing. Roderich may dress nicely and classy, but those clothes are usually in a state of repair if not home-made from scraps. He's got a bow with thread and a needle on him at all times.
  
• Organizing. Basically his job besides a communications officer, Roderich does all paperwork neat and tidy, as well as correctly. However he hates doing this, so you have to bribe him/threaten him to do his work.
  
• Cooking. Whatever those bangs are in the kitchen, they sure amount to some of the best tasting food ever. And don't you forget to thank him either.
  

Personality and short background:

Frau Edelstein was once a very beautiful woman, a true blue-blooded lady with manners and charm to match. They say sorrow may spoil the looks and the lady was proof of that, with by the time her son, Roderich, reached infancy, she had become a mere shadow of her former glory, now homely and pitiful. This was due to slander and stress. Born to a military commander, Fraulein Edelstein was publicly shamed (and caused a scandal) when she turned up pregnant at the tender age of fifteen. She, however, not reveal the father nor did one come forward, adding to her shame. Just a teenager, she was no longer welcomed in most societies, as no one wanted to detract upon their honor by receiving her, so she gave birth unhappily and alone.

After the baby was born, Lady Edelstein fled her father’s house to go to her mother’s sister's mansion in Austria. Roderich grew up there, traveling between Vienna and the Austrian Alps. Once in a while, for appearances he would visit with his mother the family in Londinium. These were uncomfortable gatherings, since not only was his mother openly mocked and laughed at, but he was looked upon as a poor bastard child. His cousins ignored him, and to this day he finds his two cousins disagreeable, whether they return those feelings or not.

It was when he was young that Roderich learned how to be a gentleman, just for his mutter’s sake. His mother spent her money on his studies and to develop his talents. However this did not mean he did not have friends. When he was young he had a friend he held very dear, but a disagreement between them when they were thirteen not only hurt him but also his ability to place his trust into people. What was once a passionate talent and a way of pleasing others, playing music, turned into an obsession and a way to express his emotions. He became more and more reclusive in his studies and this got worse with his mother’s death.

Unfortunately, at the age of fourteen, Roderich’s mother and great-aunt died of consumption while he was in Londinium or school. An orphan, Roderich soon, after trying several other relatives, made contact with a his mother’s father, Germania, who didn’t like admitting he had a daughter who had a child out of wedlock and to god knows who.
And Roderich disappointed Germania in many ways. He isn’t very tall, or very short. Roderich is thin, and has very little muscle and artist’s hands. His physique has always lacked strength, and this annoyed and worried Germania almost as much as the fact that he was pretty. You can call him handsome, but he takes after his mother in many ways, his ‘beauty’ being one of those. His personality wasn’t ideal for a military commander’s grandson.

If one were to describe Roderich it would be aloof. Despite being high-strung around particular people, Roderich still has an ‘I’m too good for you’ air. People who take the time to know him, really know him, know how double-sided he really is, being quite simple, yet striving for elegance and how he has a detached gentleman persona, yet he’s really weak and clingy to those who give him the chance. There is a;lso the problem of him saying the However, in small ways, his talents can be used to express his emotions so he doesn’t completely come off as apathetic. He’s also a bit of a moocher. While Roderich is capable of doing things like cleaning and cooking (especially the latter), he prefers to mooch off others and bribe them into doing menial tasks for him. Insecurity. Roderich exhibits this quite often, with his need for order and decadence as well as his excessive styling of his hair and the fact he wears fake glasses show his unhappiness with his physical appearance.

Germania soon sent his grandson to the HetaMilitary Academy so he could "toughen up." After Roderich pulled a tantrum, Germania calmed him down enough to explain to him that it was for his own good or else Germania couldn't understand how he could survive on his own. Despite coming to the conclusion that his Grandfather might have his best interests at heart, Roderich detested the academy. Not only was he utterly atrocious at most of the lessons, but as many of the Londinium’s Elite went there, Roderich was also in a vulnerable position as a child with no father, not to mention as a orphan. Roderich didn’t make some of the students any friendlier towards him as well, since their teasing caused him to be more prissy and cold to them than he usually was to people. Not that he was a social pariah, since he made a few friends. His sole delight was the time he spent playing in the band room and conversing with his professor of strategy and philosophy, an eccentric man who would make theories about the philosophy of the mind. Roderich would come up with new theories often and together they would theorize for hours on psychology.

Soon Roderich turned eighteen and left the academy, having no desire to have a career in the military. The next few years were both glorious and hard on Roderich. He made his living playing music enough to buy him his next meal and a bed to sleep in. At the age of twenty one, he found himself in Britannia once more, at a city named Manchester, where he met, by chance, his old professor from the Hetamilitary academy. The man, who retired from the school, took Roderich in for few months as he taught him about the advances in the science the two used to theorize on. However, as the two tried to establish a psychological practice, the professor ran into financial troubles and Roderich left, now poorer than ever, for Londinium, where he applied for the military. The reason he did so was to get money to actually open a clinic like he wanted to, but Roderich still hates his job. As he isn't particularly good at it as well, so they stuck him with a contract ship, USS Enterprise. Fortunately, despite his captain being himself, Roderich is pretty happy to not be on a military ship. He also started repairing his relationship with his Grandfather, no longer resenting him like he did as a teenager. Unfortunately for the crew, he's Roderich, so they get stuck with a fussy, neat, almost wifely officer who stuffs spare underwear into air-vents and cupboards. At least he makes good cake.
Other:

RP sample:
Months of preparation had not gone to waste. Every fiber of his mind at work, while flipping those trivial switches and speaking in pleasant tones to the drudges that requested landing permission or some other stupid thing, had been working over then thought of this day.

Perhaps even Roderich’s subconscious stewed upon the expo. Subconscious being the key word here. The mind, how it worked, had always been an interest to the young Austrian man. Of course his teachers (He only had schooling until his Great Aunt died, since the woman had nothing left to give him. ) insisted on him learning the Socratic Philosophy, knowledge and it’s study, epistemology, but his interest was why people behaved the way they did. In his mind, other minds were carefully constructed symphonies, each one different, with different components and rhythms.

This interest did not die on the streets of Londinium, where he worked as a street player. No Roderich kept himself at an Aristocratic distance from most things and if he wasn’t constructing notes in his head, he was pondering Kant and lately, the Russian Escapee, Boris Sidris. The man had an amazing idea of suggestion being split into two parts, Normality and Abnormality. Roderich had the man’s The Psychology of Suggestion: A Research into the Subconscious Nature of Man and Society avidly, fixated on what his mind was suggesting.

Sleepless nights, in which he even ignored his precious piano, found Edelstein sketching maps on papers. ‘Imagine!’ his mind supplied, ‘A map of such a thing.’ But it was an old school friend (who obviously didn’t know the state of Roderich’s life since school) who wrote to him of an interesting idea he himself had heard as hearsay.

Dreams. The subconscious could be viewed in dreams. The idea of it was completely radical and yet, so right. “In the Bible, even,” Roderich would muse, “Dreams foretold events and catastrophes. So why not show our deepest desires?” So he made a graph, asked his coworkers many questions, and made a whole essay on his findings. Not willing to simply publish his work in some stuffed periodical, Roderich wanted to present to the people it would help. The populace was who he wanted to help. Sure there was music, but this could mend minds.

So he spent the whole night getting ready for the Crystal Palace Technological Exposition, completely excited. After bathing thoroughly in buttermilk, quite expensive actually, he set off and made his stall. He did want to go explore around for a bit but the expo had just started and his first viewer would come any moment now.

Speak of the devil. A man with an eager face was currently looking over his (over simplified,truthfully, Roderich needed a dictionary to decipher all those scientific journals he managed to pawn.) notes and research. Roderich steadied himself and walked over to him. “Hello, would you like me to explain what this is?”
OOC Information
Name: Rina/Irene/Irka
Timezone: EST
Aim/msn/skype/email: PM or use the email I have.