General Information

Name: Marion Celsus, MD, PhD
AKA: Dr. Celsus, Mary
Gender: Female
Age: 53
Place of Birth: Baltimore, MD
Inoculated: No

Personality: Marion is, overall, a sweet woman, easygoing, in the manner of someone just there for the ride. However, for all the friendly attention she gives, people are really held slightly at a distance by her, like an open book, to be observed and experienced, rather than developing any sort of real intimacy. Her social needs are simple - it doesn’t take much to be her friend and remain one despite rare contact. Gentle with patients, though firm on rules. Will be very frank with patients, which can be annoying and good at the same time.

She is endlessly curious and perceptive, and has a strong need to constantly learn new things and push her own limits. In many things, she feels that the hardest route will always earn the beat result - though to her, just the accumulation of knowledge and experience is in itself a prime reward.

This big picture mentality can sometimes overlook the impact of the suffering along the way. For her, it's all about the betterment of humanity, and she does believe in nanny governments who take care of and make decisions for its citizens on certain matters.

History: Born into a family of strong military ties, with both parents working for the US Department of Defense and other relatives active servicemen, Marion was raised in 4 different countries in various DoD facilities. Her mother was a Public Information Officer for the Navy, her father a Foreign Affairs Specialist for the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Both were career-oriented and very busy. They instilled their daughter with discipline, a respect for titles, and intellectual ambition.

Marion spent a great deal of her childhood living on and off with her Aunt Carol at NS Norfolk when her parents were on business trips without her. Carol was a bright and fun woman, who liked fantasy novels and cartoons, and introduced an element of fun into Marion’s childhood. Though Marion's traveling life didn't allow for pets, Aunt Carol had a fat hound dog named Missy Waggybutt, which passed on when Marion was 15, and her second dog was a wolfish husky named Bright Eye Swirlytail. She was a fanciful sort. Marion loved her aunt and still takes her advice on all matters, except those regarding classified projects.

Childhood on military bases can come with a lot of social awkwardness and newcomer hazing. She drifted towards books as a more stable means of entertainment, and preferred the company of adults, who were clearer about their expectations of her. She’d take long bike rides and find private places to fish or read, or just come up with stories in her head as she biked around the base. She was an avid reader, and spent much of her time with books about mythologies, foreign cultures, and military histories. She had several pen pals, but few lasting friends until college.

Marion receive a scholarship to attend Williams College in Williamstown, MA, where she earned her undergraduate degree, majoring in English, Philosophy and History, with All Honors. She was accepted into Harvard's School of Medicine, where she earned her medical doctorate in psychiatry, with a secondary specialty in forensic psychiatry. It was at Harvard that she met Stan (he was studying political science) during a philosophy guest lecture, and their relationship survived med school. They married.

For her residency, she was offered a position with the DoD, a nomination she assumed came from her parents. She declined, and instead spent her first residency at McLean Psychiatric Hospital in Belmont, MA. It felt important to earn her own way into becoming a fully-fledged doctor, and she wanted the serious experience that a 100% psychiatric hospital would provide. Here she acted as a clinical psychiatrist, working directly with patients.

During her residency at McLean, Stan got a job as an associate for a lobbyist for Pfizer Pharmaceuticals. With the distracting intensity of med school internship now passed, their relationship's problems came to light. They were ill-matched. She was not interested in children anytime soon, and expected her career to take center stage; he saw family as priority, and planned his career around that. When she became pregnant, it made this disparity even clearer, and they argued for months before she agreed to take her career a step back, to have time for a child and family, and this left her resentful. 6 months along, she miscarried - the doctor said it was just a genetic abnormality, nothing that could have been done to prevent it. But she felt it was her own fault. No longer feeling obligated to one another, Marion and Stan drifted further apart, and a year later, mutually agreed to a divorce, after 4 years of marriage.

Marion has only had more casual relationships since then.

As her residency came to an end, she received another letter from the DoD offering a position at a research facility, at a classified location. This time, she accepted. It would be yet another residency, the thought of which exhausted her, but it was a unique and rare opportunity that promised to open many doors.

Marion spent ten years within the DoD (the first two as a transitional resident), working on a few research projects, a couple of which were classified. During the last year (2001), which was spend in California, she also worked with Stanford University in teaching medical students how to organize and conduct clinical trials. She remained at Stanford until 2005, as a teaching and research professor, publishing regularly in professional journals. She received an Honorary Doctorate of Psychology from Stanford after an especially well-noted article on the impact of indoctrination on memory.

This was probably one of the most stable periods of time in her life, where she lived in the same place, had a small but regular social circle, and adopted her two cats in 2004. They are male American Bobtails, one long-haired silvery and white (Gandolf, a blue silver lynx point) and the other black and white (Zeno). They often travel with her between home and office.

Marion left Stanford when, again, the military called. This time, she was recruited by the DoD’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). These years were spent developing exacting techniques for the military’s use in its handling and questioning of prisoners. She believed that by learning the most efficient method by which to keep prisoners under control, healthy, and cooperative, she would be reducing their overall suffering and lessen the need for intensive interrogation.

During this time, her mother died of heart failure. Marion always saw her parents as this single, unbreakable unit - after the loss, her father (who had already retired) seemed to sink into a depression, and Marion arranged for him to move into a retirement home in Arlington, VA.

Through contacts she made at DARPA, she met McFarland. He described a project he was working on that would enhance the human potential exponentially, opening up worlds of possibilities for humanity. His enthusiasm piqued her interest. Being assured that the most recent testing showed Serum 43x was entirely ready for human trials, and hearing that there was a military presence (albeit ex-military), she felt it may be a worthwhile venture.

She knew the ethical dangers that pharmaceutical research groups faced whenever they came to the point of seeking approval for human trials; that rarely was a drug really well-understood, nor really entirely safe. But if the potential for good was there, some risks had to be taken. The people who acted as research subjects were doing so for a cause greater than their own lives.

Her position would be to administer the system by which the patients are kept and treated, to encourage compliance, understanding, and perhaps eventually agreement, and to help sort out the patients with the most potential for recruitment from those for whom more effort might just be a waste.

Quick Timeline:
1960 - Born
1975 - Entered Williams College
1979 - Entered Harvard Medical School
1987 - McLean Psychiatric Hospital (Resident)
1991 - DoD Research (Transitional Resident)
1993 - DoD Research (Associate)
2001 - Stanford University (Professor)
2005 - DoD’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) (Sr. Associate)
2010 - Recruited by McFarland


Physical Information

Physical Appearance: Marion is just over fifty, with diabetes and arthritis of the hands and knees, though these are well-managed, and for her age looks very well. She has a motherly sort of appearance, with a constant soft smile. Her dark brown, nearly black hair is straight, long, with little silver strands starting to become obvious. She wears her hair tied back, or sometimes in a loose bun. Behind small, modern glasses with a thin black rim are round eyes that are a pale, washed out shade of blue. That her irises are not many shades darker than the whites of her eyes makes the pupils that much more pronounced, and she has always felt this made for a disconcerting effect - so she keeps them behind glasses and has never tried contacts.

Clothing and Armor: She wears professional clothes, casually. Nice slacks or skirt and a blouse, with the jacket tossed on whenever needed. The material is natural and seems expensive, but no brand names are ever visible. Practical, comfortable, but pretty. Nothing showy. No jewelry.

Weapons: Per military regulation, Marion has competency in the use of a basic taser and standard issue handgun, for protective use only.


Other

Bad Habits: Reading. Doesn’t exercise regularly like she should. Really likes lemon candy (and she’s diabetic). Buys generic liquor even though she could afford the good stuff. If she’s feeling particularly stressed, she smokes a Davidoff Magnum cigarette, usually somewhere she can hide it.

Good Habits: Keeps her place and office clean. Eats healthy most of the time.
Annoying Habits: To some, the fact that she brings her cats to the office is annoying. She’s direct in correcting inaccuracies. Will be very frank with patients, which can be annoying and good at the same time.

Describe their place of residence: A comfortable apartment with books stacked everywhere, some photos of lakes and ducks she took in college framed on the walls, and a good number of wildly colorful quilts and throw pillows her Aunt Carol has sent her over the years.

Describe their office: Her office is also about comfort, with a soft dark brown couch, a tan and red carpet with random swirling patterns, and one of the less ostentatious of her aunt's floral quilts hanging on the wall.

Favorite Music: A surprisingly wide range. She puts on modern blues when she’s more stressed, jazz when she’s feeling especially pleased about things, but often just lets the radio decide what to play. She likes Pandora Radio when she has internet available.

What are they most ashamed of?: Despite all logic that she knows to the contrary, she feels she was somewhat responsible for her miscarriage - that because she didn’t really want a family, she didn’t get one.

What really annoys them?: Unnecessary gadgets. Marketing. Society being dumb enough to buy bottled water (particularly ‘artisan’ varieties). People not willing to sacrifice a little for humanity as a whole.

On a quick read, I don't really feel we know much about her. You tell us a lot, but the majority of it is about work, and the fact she is clever . She has two cats, but thats about all we know about her besides work. Of course it might be there is nothing else to know, but yeah.
I get a slight 'perfect' vibe, but it's not bad, only because like I said we only really know about her sucesses.

Also you said she met McFarland, but little more about how she came to accept a role at the facility, or even if she did. What kind of scientist is she? If she is. Does she work wih the caged? Or elsewhere?

This is a good but I Dusk is right. I imagine if she was role-played well then there wouldn't be a problem, but it could be difficult at times make information up on the fly and either no depth could be shown of details (tiny non-important ones) could keep changing. I say it's unimportant, and what I mean is for this rp, like her relationship history. But as a human being every aspect of life will say something about her. Here you just gotta choose the bits that will show what she's like the best. Her relationship history (or lack of it) may not show much but maybe more about how she feels about her parents could?

Maybe answer Dusk's 'RP Character Chart' it's long but it might give you ideas on what you can add. It certainly gave me a chance to think about somne parts of Kat I hadn't. Like her politcal party.

I was waiting to discuss this more with admins, and figured I would add more when I knew what they felt would be most useful to the story.



Her educational history is based on a few real-life, noted modern psychiatrists whose careers are as close to this kind of work as I could find - there were majors as out there as renaissance poetry and agriculture. The undergrad degree's majors aren't important for entering grad school, even medical school. They care that you prove academic excellence, and want to see diversity. Someone with only scientific majors might actually find themselves having a harder time being accepted than someone with a more varied educational career. You do not have to go through a pre-med program, but she probably did have to make up a few credits at Stanford.

I will totally do so. I spent a lot of time researching what she'd need on an educational and career standpoint, so I'll spend more time now on her personal life.

I just made a error, I meant Harvard.

Good catch on the US Naval Academy programs... I thought I checked. I had liked the idea of her starting out there, given her family's military ties. After some looking around, I think I'm moving her undergrad work several hours away to Williams College in Williamstown, MA. I'll work on this...

Many humanities programs really only have a difference of a few extra classes between them in terms of their graduation reqs, so having multiple majors in that field isn't very hard for someone who's entire world is their academics.

I had a friend with three degrees, all in humanities--history, religious studies, English with a focus on literature. Since there were actually a lot of classes (especially between history and english lit) that she was able to convince her university to let her overlap between majors, she had time and credit space to get fairly far on a fourth course of study (business) before hitting her credit cap and losing financial aid. I don't know how, or if, it was resolved, as we lost touch about two years ago... but it seems possible to me that someone who only focuses on school and classes could have their majors and have enough wiggle room left to take care of a chunk of pre-reqs for Harvard med. Of course, my friend might have just had a freakin' amazing group of academic advisors who were able to help her pull strings.

Not that my opinion particularly matters, I know But there's a little anecdotal support for that type of thing.

EDIT: Thinking about it more, Gretchen was in her late 20s... it's possible that she had her rels bachelors, left school, and was finishing a double major as a non-trad/returning student. I honestly don't remember now. o_o; I've never had fin aid or grants, so I don't know how all that works, either, in regards to credit limits.

Okay, edited. A lot added and altered.

The one key that I feel is missing or simply unaddressed - what will keep Marion from being a whistle blower when she realize exactly how unethical the human tests really are? Is her thirst for knowledge so overpowering that she can ignore the plight of these kidnapped victims? Is she being blackmailed? Is she somehow being prevented from leaving?

I got the feeling that the first answer is probably most likely given the character bio, but it's something to think about.

Welcome to the game, lady!

Yup.. It's the knowledge, and what benefits that will entail for humanity. Her parents really tailor-made her for this job, lol.

In this case, she believes that the decision as to whether the sacrifice made here is worth the benefit has already been made by someone in authority, who would know what's best. She trusts the establishment. She believes in this cause - as one being for the greater good.

With the critical question squared away, Marion sees her job as working with the patients to take care of their mental health, so that their stress or lack of sleep doesn't affect the results of the study. Adjusting medications, mostly, at least at the beginning, until she learns more about each patient and which might be more inclined to join up.