Name: Gabriel Lorca Canon: Star Trek: Discovery Canon Point: S1E09 Through the Forest I Go Age: 55 Appearance: gifHistory: Memory Alpha (Star Trek wiki) ( content warnings: violence, animal abuse, war, mass murder, manipulation, dubcon/noncon, genocide, imprisonment, torture, enslavement, quasi-cannibalism, grooming, xenophobia.) Personality:
(content warnings: war, mass murder, dubcon/noncon, PTSD)
- ➕ Positive Trait: Adaptable. Lorca's proficiency with long-term planning would amount to nothing without his capacity to adjust course as necessary, maintaining the viability of his schemes. Lorca finds himself in the Prime universe by sheer happenstance, thrown into the middle of a losing battle with the Klingons. Immediately, he detonates the ship's warp core -- ostensibly to spare the crew weeks of Klingon torture upon capture; truthfully, to tie up any loose ends that might recognize a sudden difference in him and to secure his own escape from the encounter. From that point on, he familiarizes himself with the Prime universe's history and customs, studying Starfleet regulation well enough to quote its codes.
He positions himself to "accept command" of the Discovery, one of only two ships in the fleet, and potentially the universe, capable of returning him to his home dimension. Pushing the ship too hard in order to gather the necessary data to do so, he ends up endangering the war effort and incurs a confrontation by Admiral Cornwell. A retired psychiatrist and an old friend of Prime Lorca's, Lorca nonetheless successfully seduces her to try and throw her off the scent. That's undone when he accidentally pulls a phaser on her, triggered by being touched in his sleep. Within hours, he's arranged to have her take his place on a mission he's confident will result in her capture or murder.
(content warnings: grooming, gaslighting, imprisonment, torture, animal abuse )
- ➖ Negative Trait: Manipulative. Lorca is very skilled at turning people to his cause. As Emperor Georgiou's right hand, he was trusted to help raise her adopted daughter Michael Burnham. Lorca used this opportunity to groom Michael and poison her against her mother, transforming their relationship from father-daughter to lovers and co-conspirators. His crew aboard the ISS Buran supported him in his coup attempt and remained loyal to him after he went missing. Despite months of ceaseless torture, they eagerly resume following him upon his return. One tells him that he still has supporters on several worlds.
In the Prime universe, he uses his Starfleet officers' own optimism and idealism against them, compelling the Discovery crew to perform dubious actions they otherwise wouldn't. Posing as a "warrior for peace," he makes promises about horrible means justifying harmonious ends, including self-endangerment and animal abuse. His most staunch detractor, Stamets, goes from threatening to leave the ship to thanking Lorca for having pushed him to accomplish great things. Prime Lorca's oldest friend, Katrina Cornwell, is successfully convinced that the changes in his personality are a result of PTSD. When Lorca tells the crew that they've transformed from polite scientists to "fierce warriors, all," they react with pride.
- ➖ Negative Trait: Ambitious. Lorca spent his life rising to prominence in the Terran Empire, eventually plateauing in the position of the Emperor's right hand. Despite the immense prestige and power this afforded him, he wanted more. He saw flaws in Emperor Georgiou's reign and envisioned himself as her replacement. To that end, he swayed her daughter to his side, supporting and securing his eventual rule. Over a period of decades, he secretly amassed an enormous following of like-minded Terrans across several planets. The culmination of this years-spanning plan was sabotaged before it could be enacted when he was sold out by Stamets. He and his treasonous crew went on the run, and just as he was about to be captured, a perfect ion storm of sci-fi technobabble flung him coincidentally into another universe.
In the Prime universe, his slate is wiped clean. He has every opportunity to leave behind his old life and all of its burned bridges. He doesn't even have to start from scratch: switching places with his Prime counterpart leaves him with the rank of captain in Starfleet, a prestigious position in its own right. But the thought of accepting his place in the Federation, settling into the life he's inadvertently stolen, never seems to cross his mind. He pursues power once again, with his goal unchanged: Return to his universe and become emperor. Nothing less will do.
(content warnings: murder, mass murder, animal abuse)
- ➖ Negative Trait: Ruthless. In his own words, he will "use you, or anything else I can, to complete my mission." No one, no matter how loyal they've proven, is safe if they get in the way of Lorca's goal: Rule the Terran Empire with Michael Burnham at his side. When his Terran first officer, Landry, who suffered more than five hundred days of torture for her dedication to him, assaults Burnham, he slashes her across the (armored) back. Once Mirror!Stamets has exhausted his usefulness, he has him immediately, and gleefully, killed.
In the Prime universe, he is willing to risk anyone's life besides Burnham's. His first act upon arriving is to destroy the USS Buran, murdering all but a handful of its crew. On the Discovery, he demands over one hundred successive spore drive jumps from Stamets, despite the deleterious effect it has on his body. The initial component to enable these jumps was a living tardigrade, which Lorca had no qualms about brutally plugging directly into the ship's navigation systems and exploiting mercilessly. He tells his security officer Tyler, who is escorting Burnham on a perilous away mission, to "bring her back in one piece, or don't come back at all."
Powers and Abilities: Baseline human. He's a skilled tactician, and trained in close quarters combat (hand-to-hand and bladed weapons) and marksmanship. He comes from a universe where any display of weakness is detrimental, ingraining in him a very high pain tolerance. Inventory: - phaser pistol
- Terran dagger
- photophobia treatment device
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cryptofascist) wrote2023-08-05 12:36 pm
