User Name/Nick: Lamar
User LJ: N/A
AIM/IM: nelmorr13
E-mail: nelmorr13@aol.com
Other Characters: Luke Cage, Black Jack
Character Name: Lyle Tiberius Rourke
Series: Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Age: 54
From When?: He’s just died after being turned into a living statue and running into metal propeller blades.
Inmate/Warden: Inmate – Rourke believes that the success of a mission is first and foremost and will do practically anything to achieve it. However, that being said, he also has a particular brand of honor that he adheres to because he is the consummate soldier.
Abilities/Powers: None
Personality: Lyle T. Rourke is both a simple and a complex man on the inside. Most of his principles are simple to grasp and almost Darwinian in their approach. You don’t have to be the strongest to earn his respect, but you have to be capable of pulling your own weight. If you can contribute to the success of the team, then you’re an asset worth keeping. However, the moment that person becomes a liability or a burden, he’s not afraid to “separate the chaff from the wheat” so to speak. When carrying out the parameters of a mission, Rourke can appear uncaring and even cruel, yet at the same time, he holds himself to a certain level of honor, akin to a soldiers rules of engagement. He doesn’t do direct harm to women. When he’s taken Kida hostage, rather than threaten to harm her to get the king to cooperate, he goes after the king directly because he’s a man (an old man, but still a man in Rourke’s eyes). Even on the blimp when he’s fighting Helga, rather than take her out himself, he chooses the indirect route of throwing her off.
Another more complex part of Rourke’s personality is his interaction with people. While he can be an imposing figure standing over six feet tall in his military uniform, he can quickly shed that image and give the impression of a kind of protective father figure…though he can just as easily revert back to his militaristic, no nonsense attitude when confronted with disrespect or insubordination. He’s a man who demands respect. It’s not very often where he has to use physical force to gain it, though there has been the extremely rare occasions where a soldier needs to be made an example of (normally, Helga acts as the enforcer of his will).
As a leader, Rourke is a front-line commander. If his men are in the thick of a battle, you can be certain that he’s right there with them. If a soldier is placed under his command, Rourke will do everything in his power to insure that that soldier makes it out of the mission alive. He doesn’t send his men out to die without cause. But a soldier should be aware that death is never far behind him and should be ready and willing to give his life should it be asked of him or her.
Another aspect to take into consideration is that Rourke is well over fifty years old at the time of his death and has lived according to his ideals for almost all of it. Unlike some others, he doesn’t look back on his death with anger or regret. He died as a soldier in battle, as he would’ve wanted. However, his views of the circumstances leading to his death are much different than how others would describe it. In his view, Milo convinced his team to desert him. He was following orders. Had the Atlanteans not been there, Milo wouldn’t have cared about what they took and Rourke sees that as hypocrisy. He talks about money when trying to convince Milo because that’s what convinced everyone else. For him, personally, the issue is the mission.
Rourke would see the Barge more as a punishment for having failed his mission than for being willing to sacrifice the lives of an entire people to accomplish that mission. Since he can’t really escape, he’ll probably begin gathering together people he sees who might be of use to him, essentially creating a unit under his command, if he can find individuals willing to let him tell them what to do.
Path to Redemption: Because Rourke is a soldier and he thinks like one, the path to his redemption will be a long one no matter who has as a Warden. He has a habit of rationalizing things in a way that’s difficult to argue against from a logical standpoint, though Milo was able to get his team to leave by appealing to their emotions. For that reason, an approach that sounds too much like Milo’s will be disregarded immediately. The Warden will have to be able to convince Rourke that innocent life isn’t an acceptable price at least outside of war.
History: http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Commander_Lyle_Tiberius_Rourke
Sample Journal Entry: Well I gotta hand it to ya, this has got to be the saddest excuse for a vessel of any kind that I have seen. Then again, I suppose that’s to be expected of a crew consisting mostly of civilians. Who do you answer to? I’ve got lots of questions and I’m not about to be run around like a chicken with my head cut off, listening to some poindexter who doesn’t know his rear from a hole in the ground. So, somebody better start talking, and they better make it good.
Sample RP: http://dis-acdmy-log.livejournal.com/46038.html
As he sat at the desk in the replica of his office from Fort Dix, the seasoned officer's mind was working over not only his current situation, but how he could best use it. First thing was clear...he doubted what waited for him if he left the Barge was a sunny little spot on the beach so he'd be sticking around as long as he could. But then, what to do with his time? Rourke was a man of action. If he wasn't doing things, he would feel his body getting restless.
One thing that hadn't avoided his attention was the fact that the "Inmates" here seemed to be a rather eclectic bunch. If the talk he'd heard was right, some were even experts in their respective fields. Thinking back to his old team, and their betrayal, the frown lines on his face deepens. If he was gonna do this, he'd have to be cautious. He'd have to insure that they could be trusted...at least enough to know that they wouldn't jump ship at a better offer or have a sudden case of 'conscience'. Picking up his pencil, he laid out a sheet of paper and began going through old logs on his communicator, writing down prospective candidates.
First and foremost, his team would need to be diverse. There was little point in being redundant and having several people who could perform the same job. It wasn't efficient. He knew that he'd want at least one person who could perform magic, though it looked like one batch would likely not be eligible for certain...prejudices against non-magical beings. Still, there were others so it was no real loss. As he went from one job to another, one task in particular stood out because he was having the hardest time filling it. He would need a second in command. Someone able to lead who would demand respect from the others. Back home, he'd personally groomed Lieutenant Sinclair for that post. He was without that luxury here. The task of putting together a team was looking much more difficult now than it had a moment earlier.
Special Notes: N/A
